by Liza Cody
‘You don’t know how to have a little drink,’ Smister shouted.
‘How do you know?’ I shouted back. `You’ve never seen me under normal circumstances.’
‘There are no normal circumstances when you’re around.’
‘Who’s dying?’ Pierre asked. ‘How did you stuff up?’
So I ignored Smister and told Pierre about Connor Cropper. I don’t know why I think of a nineteen-stone drag-diva motor-mechanic as ‘the sensible one.’ He hadn’t done very well by me, after all.
But Electra was sleeping peacefully under the coffee table. Her belly was full and she’d drunk clean water and some of my tea from a bowl marked ‘K9’. She’d greeted Smister and Pierre with affection and searched the little house for Cherry. But Cherry was absent. She’d gone straight from work to Pilates. ‘If you’re dating a giant,’ Smister explained crudely, ‘you better stay supple.’
Electra has crap taste in humans. She even loves me, and I made her walk all night and hurt her poor old legs. I owe her, even if she won’t talk to me.
‘While you were in prison,’ Smister said, returning to the subject of Connor, ‘did you suddenly become an expert in child care? Cos last time I looked you didn’t know piddle about kids.’
‘I know bruises when I see them. And the poor kid couldn’t even cry properly.’
‘You’re an expert on bruises – I’ll give you that.’ He eyed me critically. ‘You really do know how to get kicked around. If it was a specialist subject you’d have a degree… ’
‘But you did manage to call 999,’ Pierre put in, ‘and you gave the kid’s name and address?’
‘Yes but I gave a false name for myself and the call was interrupted. I didn’t know the girl with blue legs was Connor’s auntie. Not that she cared – she seemed really spiteful against him.’
Smister sighed, ‘Modern family life’s a thing of beauty, so it is.’
‘You did your best,’ Pierre said.
‘But no one listens. Doing my best is like doing nothing at all.’
Pierre stared at me. ‘It’s the price you pay for stepping outside of the mainstream. Or, in this case, it’s the price the little kid pays.’
‘Yeah,’ Smister said, ‘poor wee article. His saviour is a toothless, barmy vagrant.’
‘You’re hardly an advertisement for middle class values yourself.’
‘Hush, girls,’ Pierre warned. ‘We ain’t none of us operating in the normal zone.’
‘But she’s the worst. She can’t even put on an act.’
‘She could,’ Pierre said, ‘on the phone where no one can see her. She’s articulate enough and she’s got quite a classy accent. We could Google Shoreditch Social Services, ring ’em, and find someone she can be articulate with.’
‘Or we could all dress up as nuns,’ Smister said. ‘Everyone’s scared of nuns.’
I was horrified to see that Pierre was responding enthusiastically to this insane suggestion. But of course it would give their master, the Devil, a hard-on to see his minions dressed for holy orders.
‘Yeah, nuns delivering tracts,’ Pierre said. ‘We could hide our phones in our habits and take pictures of the kid through the letter box.’
‘And tell the Social Services we’ll post them on the Internet unless they do something.’
‘Do what?’ Cherry asked, coming through the door smelling of deodorant and girl-sweat. Her expression, when she saw me, was censorious. Smister kicked my already kicked ankle. I got to my feet.
‘Don’t you dare wake Electra,’ Cherry said. ‘She’s staying here till you learn how to treat her right.’
I was going to protest but I saw Smister aiming another shot at my poor ankle. So I lowered my head humbly and limped away to the ambulance.
I was too footsore and weary to do anything more than flop onto the bunk – a proper bunk with a mattress that dragged all the spare anxiety out of me. I was wondering if technology could really save Connor. If you had the right gismos and know-how it could provide many ways to blackmail or embarrass people or institutions into action.
But would the Lord of Lost Souls allow it?
‘Wait and see,’ he hissed gleefully. ‘Don’t try to out-guess me. You always get it wrong. Just try to please me.’
It’s true. Back when I thought he was an angel I did try to please him with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. I bought him a classic Austin Healey Sprite. I showed him how to rob a bank. I took the blame for him. But he left me to swing in the breeze where flies and biting insects could gnaw on my living flesh.
I turned over and stuck my fingers in my ears.
Listen to me. This is why I need a drink. I need red wine – communion wine, so that I can commune with my dog. My dog is wise and kind. She doesn’t lie to me She doesn’t just pretend to love me. If you had to choose between dog and Devil, who would you choose?
‘These are the rules,’ Cherry said without a ‘hello, did you sleep well?’ ‘You take your pills every morning and every evening at the kitchen door. You don’t just bugger off with that poor old dog for days on end. I took her to the vet and she says the arthritis is particularly bad in her left hind leg… ’
‘It’s the way they run them round the track,’ I said. ‘It puts extra stress on the inside legs.’
‘… and arthritis doesn’t get better. It only goes one way – bad to worse. In the end all you can do is manage the pain. Dragging her all over London is not the way to do it. I thought you loved Electra. How can you be so cruel?’
‘It was the Antabuse.’
‘It was the selfishness. How can you look after her properly if you’re drunk and out of control?’
‘How can I look after her properly if I’m spewing up and… ’
‘If you don’t drink you won’t spew.’
‘If I don’t drink the Devil… ’
‘Oh right, the Devil made you do it. Get over yourself. That crap won’t wash with me.’
I hadn’t noticed before, but her pretty blue eyes were steely and she stared at me with the expression of someone who knows she’s right.
I said, ‘I do love Electra. We’ve even been through fire together.’ I lowered my eyes humbly. ‘So I really want to thank you for taking her in and looking after her for me… ’
‘I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Pierre.’
‘Yes. You can see how lovely and loving she is. They were going to put her down, you know.’
‘Till you saved her – but that doesn’t give you the right to mistreat her.’ Faultless logic and as responsive as a brick.
‘I didn’t mean to go all the way to Shoreditch. But I was sick so I couldn’t stay still – I had to keep moving to stop the cravings and the voices, and I made a promise to a friend while I was away.’
‘And that’s another thing… ’ Cherry’s eyes were flooded with the light of righteousness. Satan, the seducer, loves eyes like that. ‘You’re such a grab bag of barmyness I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. You’ve got my Pierre and Little Miss talking about Sisters of Mercy rescuing some kid. I had to talk sense into them. So listen, take your pills, look after Electra and leave my Pierre alone.’
Away she went, cute and carefully groomed, smelling sweet and righteous. She was scary. I gave her half an hour to leave for work and then I went, meek and mild, to the kitchen door.
‘Hurry up,’ Smister said. ‘We’re going to the Bull and Bush Costumiers. I love it there.’
‘But Cherry said… ’
‘I’m giving you a break,’ Pierre said, handing me some pills and a glass of water. ‘You gotta take the anti-nutso pills, but I’m letting you off the Antabuse. You looked like a sick ghost last night. But I’m warning you… ’
‘I know. I swear… ’
‘You better.’
‘Can we go now?’ Smi
ster was wearing his red fur coat and jiggling his handbag.
‘Where’s Electra?’
Pierre and Smister exchanged a meaningful glance. Pierre said, ‘Yeah, well, Cherry took her to work this morning.’
‘Pierre,’ I said, ‘she’s my dog.’
‘Cherry said if you aren’t going to look after Electra properly you don’t deserve her.’ Smister sniffed impatiently.
‘Shut it,’ Pierre said. ‘Momster, she’s still your dog. Cherry just wants to give her what she needs.’
‘I can give her what she needs.’
‘You haven’t got what she needs,’ Smister jeered.
I knew he was right. But it hurt like a hole in the heart to hear it.
‘Leave it,’ Pierre said. ‘Think about something else. We’re on an errand of mercy.’
‘I’m going to look like Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story.’ Smister assumed a look of innocence and holiness.
‘And I’m going as Whoopi Goldberg.’
‘Isn’t it ironic? The only one who’ll look like she’s in drag will be Lady B.’
‘Can it,’ said Whoopi Goldberg.
6
Half Woman, Half Penguin
The first time I met Smister he was dressed as a nun. He was doing a doorstep scam and very convincing he was too. The only problem was that then his fingers were yellow with nicotine and he smelled like a spittoon. Now, after Cherry made him give up smoking as a condition of residency in her house, his hands were clean and his breath was fragrant. Nothing spoiled the illusion of purity.
Pierre was a triumph and I don’t know how he did it. He was still huge and muscular but he’d added the mysterious elements of sincerity, sweetness and devotional calm. He wasn’t just a nun; he was a nun you could trust.
As predicted, the one who didn’t look like a religious woman was me. The white wimple and black robes didn’t feminise me in the least. They made me look like an old man at a bad Halloween party.
‘We’ll have to leave her in the car,’ Smister said. ‘Remember to crack a window.’
‘She isn’t so bad.’
‘I feel like an idiot.’
‘You should be feeling like a nun,’ Smister said, ‘even an idiot nun.’
‘She doesn’t know how to inhabit a costume. It’s a skill.’
They stared at me critically while I tried to inhabit the habit.
‘Maybe she doesn’t remember how to feel like a woman,’ Pierre said.
‘She had a boyfriend once. But he… ’
‘I told you that in confidence,’ I yelled. ‘I loved the Devil and he made sport of me. He tore my heart out. He froze the woman inside me and left her to shrivel and die. He… ’
‘Peace,’ said Pierre. ‘Live in peace. We will protect you. You don’t have to be a woman to live in god’s love.’
I swear he believed himself. And I nearly believed him too except I knew the Lord of the Lies was speaking out of his mouth.
Wholly ignorant of the Lord of Lies, Smister said, ‘I’ll be banjaxxed to buggry and back if we can even make a half-woman-half-penguin out of her.’
They descended on me, tweaking, twitching and powdering until, after twenty minutes, Smister said, ‘Well, I suppose we’ve managed the half penguin side of the equation. But she’ll still have to stay in the car, so she will.’
I don’t know why I let any of this happen. Maybe I was glad of the chance to be passive for a change, or maybe I was tired of my own stupidity and wanted to find out if the consequences of someone else’s stupidity were any better. Maybe riding on another idiot’s energy relieved me of responsibility. Maybe prison had battered me into a state of suggestibility. Maybe I’d lost my one true friend to a younger more fitting woman and I needed distraction. So many maybes, so little certainty.
Pierre parked his Vauxhall People Carrier in the delivery area of Fortress Cropper. The block loomed above us, a monument to deprivation. Gang-tagging and garbage were the only signs of humanity.
I said, ‘I don’t want to be left alone. What if those kids come and recognise me?’
‘They won’t,’ Smister said. ‘But someone has to stay with the car or there’ll be no engine or wheels when we get back.’
‘I’ll leave you the keys,’ Pierre said. ‘We’ll pray for you but lock yourself in if you’re worried.’
They sailed away holding up the hems of their robes to avoid the puddles of last night’s rain. They wore plain black shoes and thick black stockings. Dressing up was nourishment to their twisted souls. They flourished in costume. I didn’t. Maybe I am unflourishable – a dry stick that can only break into smaller and smaller splinters. The Devil pretended to love me and now I am a nun with no soul, a lover with no heart and I’ve lost Electra to Miss Righteous Cherry Pie.
I sat in Pierre’s car and waited. The clock on the dashboard told me I’d waited from 11.05 to 11.27. My breath misted the windows and shrank my world to the size of a metal lockup, a tiny submarine. I was trapped and running out of oxygen. I started to shake and pant. Sweat dribbled down my ribs.
I flung the door open and tumbled out into the cold damp air. I was thinking about Electra with Cherry’s hand stroking her, of Electra’s eyes looking at Cherry with devotion, gratitude and dependence. I crumpled up with failure and jealousy.
Without my cure-all wine, the only thing I could do was move – walk away from the shame of being me, lose myself in the rhythm of footsteps.
I walked in a circle around the Vauxhall. Then I walked in a circle around Castle Cropper with my nun’s habit flapping round my legs like a sheet. But this only brought me back to the car – and to myself.
‘Don’t leave the car,’ I told myself as I locked the doors. And, ‘You absolutely must not leave the car,’ I said as I hid the keys in the tail pipe.
‘Walk,’ whispered the Devil. ‘It’ll make you feel better and that’s all that matters. You know the way. Your moral compass should always point towards yourself.’
So I walked.
‘You don’t owe them anything,’ continued the Prince of Personal Justification. ‘It’s their fault that Cherry appropriated your dog.’
‘I’ve got to get her back,’ I said, ‘with or without your help.’
‘What’s that?’ said an old woman in a coat twice her size. She was standing at a bus stop. ‘You want some help?’
‘For the poor,’ I said. ‘They say the Lord will provide but I’ve been waiting a long time.’
‘Me too,’ she said, handing me a pound coin, ‘That vow of poverty must be a bleedin’ trial.’
‘It was the vow of chastity that put me off,’ said a big, busty woman in a coat half her size. ‘My mum wanted me to go to the Sisters, but I loved the boys too much. I got five kids now, so maybe she did know best after all. You don’t think when you’re fifteen, do you?’
‘It’s a hard life,’ I said, accepting the coin she handed me, ‘and it’s not for everyone.’
‘It’s a hard life for all of us,’ said a middle-aged baldie in a coat that fit him perfectly. He gave me a five pound note. ‘I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo myself. But good luck to you anyway.’
‘Bless you all.’ I didn’t know how to cross myself correctly so I just held up my hand like the Virgin Mary does in paintings. I was amazed – maybe there was a point to the costume lark after all. It was much easier bumbling around talking to myself if people thought I was praying rather than pissed or potty. And people gave me money without even being asked. Well, not to me – they gave money to the costume. They didn’t see me. When I was with Electra they didn’t really see me either. They gave money to her. It’s easier to like a dog than a woman. I understand that. I’m exactly the same.
Electra must know that. She must know she’s my only true friend and that I love her. Okay so I don’t have a car to drive her
in and I don’t have enough money to take her to an expensive vet. It’s true that sometimes, just occasionally, I haven’t been able to buy her proper dogfood. And she might possibly argue that those very few occasions were because I spent the money on red wine. But she can’t deny that I’m devoted to her and she used to be devoted to me. Before Cherry came along.
‘Maybe Cherry had you locked up,’ murmured the Worm in my brain, ‘so that she could steal Electra.’
‘Cherry didn’t even know us before I got locked up.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ The Worm slithered into its warm burrow under my skull, behind my ear. ‘Electra’s the most valuable of all your possessions. Even Smister stole her once. Remember? He’s no friend of yours, but he’s a friend of Cherry’s. She’s predatory. First she takes your friends. Then she takes your best friend.’
‘My possessions?’ I asked. ‘I have no possessions.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ said a woman in a smart green raincoat. ‘You’re a nun. Now please give this to the poor children.’ She pushed a tenner into my hand as if I were a charity box.
I bowed my head with what I hoped was grace and dignity. The woman looked at me with a strange expression so I moved on double-quick. I was tired and I didn’t know where I was anymore. Also I had seventeen quid in my hand and no pocket to put it in. Maybe real nuns have pockets but pretend runs don’t. I couldn’t exactly buy a handbag because I don’t suppose real nuns have those either.
Finding myself outside a pet shop with seventeen pounds in my hand made me realise that I hadn’t bought Electra a present for ages. Maybe that was why she’d gone off with Cherry. Cherry could give her stuff. I couldn’t.
Well, not any more. I went in and bought a squeaky chew chicken, a proper chew bone, and a couple of cans of Bow-Chow. The shop assistant gave me the bone for free and too much change, as well as a plastic bag to put everything in. She also directed me to the bus stop and the bus which would take me to the North Circular Road. I was going back to Cherry’s house to find Electra. My life had no starting blocks without her. I was drifting like a dead bird on a pond.