by Liza Cody
Mine wasn’t. There was still a pair of cops carrying out house-to-house enquiries, it was still sleeting and I was still in perilous Troll territory. But Alicia knew none of this. She stopped me from hurrying away with a hand on my sleeve, looking at me without flinching. I felt that she actually saw me and yet her gaze remained kindly. She said, ‘Can I trust him?’
‘He’s not an average guy,’ I said. ‘But he is a guy.’
‘Cynical,’ she said, smiling. She was still waiting, but she held her umbrella over Electra and me, protecting us. So I said, ‘Can you trust yourself? Can you be kind and almost honest? He’s had a crocodile in his head. He needs to replace her with something better.’
‘A what?’
‘A crocodile.’ I was backing away, ‘Ice in his hot soup,’ I said by way of explanation. ‘A tapeworm in his tummy.’ I was walking away, muttering, sorry for the kind lady’s confusion. But I stopped. The right word had just occurred to me. ‘A parasite!’ I shouted.
Alicia, almost at Billy’s door, turned. ‘What?’
‘No man’s at his best when he’s being eaten from the inside. Tapeworms aren’t like mistletoe, you know – they kill their host in the end.’
But by the time I’d finished expressing that thought I was halfway to the shops and not even in the same street as Alicia.
‘What now?’ Electra asked.
We were walking through Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery steps. To the right was the National Portrait Gallery. That was where I ran into the Devil last year. It is, after all, a cultural hotspot.
‘You didn’t come for the culture,’ she murmured.
‘I came for the life,’ I said.
‘Well, where is it?’ Not an unreasonable question. Sleet had turned to snow. It was melting the moment it touched down, but it really was snow and what with it being Sunday evening Trafalgar Square was nearly deserted – a very uncommon sight. But I wasn’t unhappy. I sat on a bench close to a sheltering wall. Electra hopped up beside me and I opened Billy’s billowing coat to cover us both so that we could cuddle.
Up to now I didn’t feel I’d been alone with Electra at all. I felt as if I’d spent my freedom so far in a jostling crowd of huge people. I’d been squashed in the scrum. There were too many voices in my head.
‘I need a little peace and quiet in a familiar place,’ I said.
‘That’s all very well,’ Electra said, ‘but shouldn’t we be looking for somewhere to sleep?’
‘You know where you are in chokey,’ I said. ‘You know who your enemies are, and you know where they are. There aren’t many surprises and there’s always a bed.’
‘Nostalgic for prison?’ she said, tucking her head under my chin. ‘For a place where there are no dogs or red wine?’
‘There’s been too much going on in the real world. Too many feelings. I can’t cope with it all.’
‘You numbed out while you were inside.’
‘Don’t knock it. A little numbness cuts down on confusion. It gives you space to think.’
‘Okay, genius,’ she said, yawning, ‘have a think and then tell me where we’re going to sleep. But don’t take too long.’
I looked at Trafalgar Square which seemed to be floating upwards behind a gauzy curtain of motionless snow. What would I have done before I’d had friends and an Ambo to sleep in, before I’d conned my way into a disabled guy’s house?
‘Juliet House,’ I said. ‘They keep a couple of places for women.’
‘And they don’t bar dogs there.’ Electra gave me an approving nuzzle.
I took the half bottle of Algerian red out of Billy’s pocket. There was an inch left at the bottom. I felt so proud of myself. I’d only bought a half bottle, I’d taken it slow and I hadn’t drunk it all at once. I was proving to myself that I could drink sensibly.
‘Mmm,’ my friend murmured. ‘We’ll see.’ And off we went, walking North, to try our luck at Juliet House.
Ocean Freedom checked my prison release papers. They’d tightened up procedure while I was away. These days you have to be able to prove that you have nowhere to sleep before a shelter will let you in.
‘But you know me,’ I said. ‘We’ve been here before.’
‘Yeah,’ Ocean said with a clear lack of enthusiasm. ‘Well, as it happens you’re in luck. There was a cancellation. So come in and we’ll process you in time for supper.’
There had been changes. Instead of a small room with two bunks, Electra and I had a tiny room to ourselves. It was not so much a room as a pod. And, wonder of wonders, I was given an electronic key. I could leave my bag in the pod and no one could come in and steal it. Instead of the dormitory that used to sleep thirty men there were now thirty pods off a bright white central corridor that led to a day room. It reminded me of prison except that the pods were much smaller than cells, and I had a key.
Juliet House isn’t a house at all. It’s a shelter built underneath a church. One half is in the crypt and the other is in the basement of the church hall next door. I don’t know why it’s called Juliet House.
In spite of the location, the people who run the shelter aren’t particularly churchy. Some volunteers are but you can avoid them. What you can’t avoid is the weight of grey stone blocks that were employed to build an enormous, cavernous house where believers could talk to a nonexistent deity. This house of pointless worship was built at about the same time and with the same materials as Her Majesty’s Prison which had lately been my home.
It was a snowy Sunday night so more than forty men were crammed into the day room, waiting for supper. There were probably more of us in the basement than there were celebrating Evensong in the huge church above.
Dogs, if they were admitted, had to be kept on a leash. Electra was attached to me by one of Li’l Missy’s silk scarves and I kept my hand on her slender head, overwhelmed by so many ragged men. I was utterly disconnected – claustrophobic yet alone. There was nobody in the whole world who knew me and, in turn, I recognised no one. The big TV high up on the wall was showing a football match with the sound turned off: twenty-two more unknown men in conflict, with only three referees to keep order.
There were no refs in the day room and the overcrowding made the atmosphere edgy. My skin prickled with it.
‘It’s okay,’ Electra whispered, although I could feel the tremor in her body as clearly as she could feel mine.
‘It isn’t okay,’ said the Trespasser into churches. ‘Church, prison, what’s the dif, eh? Rules and regs. Behaviour modification. Keep your nose clean. Watch your step. No one here wishes you well, and everyone means you harm.’
I hate and fear that place in my head where he finds a hole he can slither into and shove Electra’s voice aside. But I couldn’t reply – Electra and I seemed to be the only females in the room. Hostile eyes hammered into us like nails. I was just one more snout in the too small trough.
A few moments later, when panic had smoothed its ruffled feathers to manageable levels, I saw Scots Gary by himself at the furthest corner of the room, staring blankly up at the screen. I was relieved. If he was here, Sick Hazel would be too, and I’d have someone to talk to. Climbing over legs, manoeuvring between tables and chairs, I went to join him. There was nowhere to sit so I hunkered down with my back to the wall.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said when he noticed me. His eyes had a flinty squinty look and his mouth was pinched and dry-looking.
Crap, I thought, that’s not from slurping cider – that’s rocks. I said, ‘Where’s Hazel?’
‘Bitch left me,’ he snarled, looking back at the screen.
I was stunned. Gary and Hazel were like conjoined twins – I’ve never known why. Who the hell can fathom what other people want and find in each other? I can’t.
I put my arms around Electra and squatted silently. There was nowhere else to sit, and I couldn’t think
of a single thing to say to Gary that might penetrate the wall of rage he’d built around himself. Soon the grille between the kitchen and the day room would go up and we’d all queue for food. Then I’d find a place as far away from him as possible.
Sunday supper was chicken nuggets and fries. On a Sunday when there are few volunteers they bung whatever’s easiest in the oven and serve it with great dollops of ketchup and brown sauce instead of a vegetable. It made a change from chicken noodle soup and rice pudding.
At another table, Gary gobbled with angry speed. In three minutes he’d finished half his food. Then he stood up abruptly, raised his plate above his head and hurled it onto the floor. The plastic plate bounced harmlessly. Infuriated, Gary said, ‘And the rest of you diseased wankers can fuck off to hell too.’ With that message delivered into an uncaring crowd he stamped out of the day room, pushing aside anyone in his way.
Nobody except me watched him go. Everyone else was suddenly fascinated by the dogs. Electra had got up from her place at my knee and wandered over to examine the fallen food, her silk scarf trailing on the sticky floor. She was joined by an unleashed lurcher and a Staffordshire bull terrier. All three, meeting at the mess on the floor, hesitated and eyed each other warily.
Tension in the crowded room built. Some of the men stood up so they could get a better view. With a sense of unease, I realised that they were gagging for a dog fight. A dog fight would relieve the tension. Time comes in a man’s life when he needs to see blood and carnage. If the dogs fought maybe the men wouldn’t have to. Or maybe it would be the permission they needed to have a go at each other too. Some of them were boiling for it. I could smell it on their breath.
Electra acted first. She broke eye contact with the other two dogs, lowered her head and began to eat the chicken nuggets and fries closest to her. My heart almost jumped into my throat. Did she know how close she was to a mauling?
I called her softly, not wanting my fear to show in my voice. But all I could hear was nervous breathing, and Ashmodai whispering in my ear, ‘Place of safety, eh? There’s no safe place for you, my girl. You or your scrawny bitch.’
‘All I wanted,’ I told him, ‘was somewhere to go where Pang and Gregory wouldn’t do my head in with questions I couldn’t answer – where I could shelter from the snow.’
‘Guys, guys, guys,’ Ocean Freedom called from behind the kitchen counter. ‘Chill. Dogs must be restrained or I’ll have to put them and their owners out.’
‘You and whose army?’ said my neighbour at table. He sounded so much like the Devil that I turned to look at him. He was thin and his hair was thinner. All his bulk came from layers of dirty combat fatigues.
He was right. How could a guy who’d changed his name to Ocean Freedom by deed poll cope effectively with forty blokes spoiling for action?
I got up and went over to Electra. I picked up the scarf and pulled her away from the chicken nuggets. The lurcher and the Staffie were beginning to circle each other and I wanted us to be as far away as possible. I wanted to go back to my food, but when I turned to look I saw that the thin guy was eating it. He met my eyes with a sneery wink and I could almost hear him saying, ‘What’re you going to do about it? Eh? Eh?’
Whatever you do in a shelter, don’t leave your plate unattended. If you have the choice, sit next to a junkie. Junkies don’t eat much. It isn’t food they’re hungry for so probably they won’t steal yours.
The Staffie moved first, lunging forward, heavy-shouldered, razor-toothed. Speed was the lurcher’s defence and attack. He whipped away and whirled around, nipping the Staffie’s thigh before backing off and squaring up again. Head hunched between his shoulders, lip and nose wrinkled up – daggers drawn. A thin trickle of blood appeared on the Staffie’s chestnut coat. A shout went up in the dayroom. Some celebrated, the others were surprised.
‘Enough!’ roared a new voice. It was a tall thin woman wearing oven gloves on both hands – one of which gripped a long-handled wooden spoon while the other wielded a metal spatula. She burst out of the kitchen.
‘Who are the owners?’ she yelled. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’
I didn’t think she stood a chance. She was wearing a blue butcher’s apron and looked like one of those middle class volunteers who seek redemption among the unwashed plates and undead homeless.
Coins and tobacco were changing hands. Bets which had been laid on the lurcher and the Staffie were now being laid on the woman with the wooden spoon as well.
‘Lorelei! Don’t!’ begged Ocean Freedom from behind the counter.
Electra gazed up at me imploringly. ‘Don’t cry,’ I said. ‘It’s not their fault. There are only bad owners – never bad dogs.’
If she could have spoken she would’ve said, ‘But it’s snowing outside. The bad owners will make the good dogs sleep in the snow.’
‘She’s right,’ said the Hammer of the Homeless reflectively. ‘I always win. Let chaos reign.’
‘It’s snowing,’ I shouted feebly. ‘Don’t make the dogs go out in the snow.’ But it wasn’t just that. Both Electra and I were worried about the lurcher. He wore his greyhound heritage well – he was very fast. But he was too playful. He didn’t have the broad muscular jaw of a bull terrier, or the single-mindedness. His idea of a scrap was nip and run, nip and run. But, in the crowded day room, there wasn’t enough space to run far and he’d never do enough damage to stop the Staffie. If he was trapped and the Staffie got his teeth in it would be curtains for him.
In spite of being jostled and blocked, volunteer Lorelei waded into the action. I watched anxiously. Oven gloves wouldn’t be much protection from a Staffie. Not that she cared – everything within range got walloped by her wooden spoon.
Ocean Freedom overcame his reluctance and went to join her. He must have hit the panic button because I heard the sound of running feet in the corridor between the front office and the day room.
‘Someone will have called the police,’ Satan informed me casually.
That fixed it. I picked up a pepper pot from the table nearest me and unscrewed the top as I barged my way into the middle of the man-crowd. Ignoring the lurcher, I threw the pepper straight into the Staffie’s face just as he was charging at his opponent’s soft underbelly.
Talk about single-minded – the Staffie hardly flinched. He was coming on like a van with no brakes. All I could do to save the lurcher was kick him aside.
Blinded by pepper, unable to stop, the Staffie missed the lurcher and ran full tilt into a table leg. Ocean Freedom, inspired, started throwing pepper in all directions.
Lorelei thrust the wooden spoon between the stunned Staffie’s teeth and hung on like a bad cold, effectively stopping him from biting anything else.
A man with a beard and streaming eyes gut-barged me backwards into an overturned chair, shouting, ‘You kicked my dog. I’ll do you – see if I don’t.’
By this time I was on the floor, my legs tangled like a lover’s with the legs of the chair. There was nothing I could do so I said, ‘Go on then. I’ve been already been kicked by kids and knocked over by a bus. If you can find anywhere that isn’t already covered in bruises, get your licks in now. Don’t hang about. I can’t stand waiting.’
The Staffie’s owner took over from volunteer Lorelei but couldn’t persuade his dog to give up the wooden spoon. Lorelei got up and whacked my bearded assailant with the spatula. ‘See to your dog, Chris,’ she commanded. ‘You don’t want to be out in the cold looking for another place to sleep at this time of night.’
‘I could do you for assault an’ all,’ Chris threatened weakly. ‘You’re not supposed to touch the customers.’
‘Customers be damned!’ There was something so brisk and matter-of-fact about Lorelei that Chris backed away grumbling and sucking chicken nugget crumbs out of his beard. But Ocean Freedom looked alarmed and disapproving as he followed him – presumab
ly to make sure he wouldn’t sue the shelter. Don’t laugh. It has happened.
Lorelei held out a hand and hauled me to my feet with surprising strength for someone so thin. Now that I could see her up close she looked as if she was in her seventies.
‘I’ll fix you another plate,’ she said. ‘Did someone feed your dog?’
‘Yes. But she’s always hungry, and when Scot’s Gary threw his plate… ’
‘I know, I saw. But you’ll have to forgive him – Hazel died this afternoon. You got her room.’
‘But he said… ’
‘I know – “Bitch left me” – that’s what he said to me. He’s furious with her for dying.’
‘Okay,’ I said, although I was shocked. Because death is desertion of a sort. And if that’s how it takes you, that’s how it is.
‘You knew her,’ Lorelei said. ‘How are you doing?’
‘It’s weird. Sometimes I thought, you know, everybody has a thing, and sometimes I thought being sick was hers.’ I was remembering her familiar creaky cough. ‘I thought, you know, she’d be Sick Hazel forever. But now she’s Dead Hazel.’
‘And that changes everything.’ Lorelei let herself into the kitchen with her electronic key and then locked herself in. We ‘customers’ aren’t allowed in or we’ll steal whatever isn’t glued down. And not one of us can be trusted with sharp knives.
She appeared at the hatch with a plate of food for me and another bowlful of dogfood. I was pleased to see Electra’s appetite had returned. ‘What a couple of days you’ve had,’ I murmured to her, gently pulling her velvet ears. She raised her head momentarily, giving me a beautiful topaz glance. ‘Will you ever forgive Ms Spiteful for the lawnmower?’
‘She’ll forget,’ sneered Lord Snooty. ‘If you forget, you don’t have to forgive.’