Crocodiles & Good Intentions

by Liza Cody

  35

  Paranoia In Trafalgar Square

  I woke up with an urgent need to pee. Sometimes I wish I were a dog. In that respect, Electra can look after herself so much more easily than I can. Decency laws apply only to human beings.

  I packed up quickly and we raced to Charing Cross Station to use the loos and have a quick wash. Hoards of commuters were pouring into London, like shoals of fish into a net. Commuters don’t have the time or energy for me. It’s easier by far, and more lucrative, to ask for spare change from the people waiting to leave. Even so it took us nearly an hour to raise enough bunce for a cup of tea and a burger. Electra ate the patty. I ate the bun.

  It took even longer for me to feel my toes. The night had been so cold that my feet had almost frozen solid. I looked at Electra and she looked at me. I noticed the flecks of grey around her muzzle. Her golden eyes were full of hope and expectation but she was stiff and still limping. The night before last we’d slept side by side in a cocoon. We couldn’t breathe, but we were warm. We weren’t welcome, but there was cereal and hot tea for me, a can of dogfood for her.

  I looked at my own swollen hands – I had already lost the gloves Lorelei gave me. My hands were splotched blue with cold and my fingertips looked bloodless. They were the hands of an old woman. And yet, what with chokey and Juliet House, in the past months I had spent hardly any time sleeping rough.

  ‘I can’t even keep track of a pair of gloves,’ I told Electra mournfully. ‘Can I cope with chaos any more? Can you?’ She didn’t answer. I pulled her ears gently and saw that the tips, which a few years ago had been chocolate brown, were now quite white.

  Someone said, ‘You’re been sitting here long enough. These benches are for station customers only.’ I looked up and saw a middle-aged man in steel-rimmed spectacles looming over me. His expression said, ‘I don’t want to be the bad guy, but you’re forcing me and I resent you for it.’

  I laid my hand on Electra’s head. ‘My dog’s getting too old to move on all the time. And so am I.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t you find another way of life?’

  ‘Someone I once knew hid all the other ways of life in his sock drawer,’ I said sadly. Because it was true.

  ‘Why don’t you leave the poor old bag alone?’ said an aging Goth with died black hair who had been earwigging.

  ‘Just doing my job.’ The station worker looked even more embarrassed and resentful.

  ‘Then shouldn’t you find another way of life?’ The Goth couldn’t help sounding smug.

  ‘I was unemployed for three and a half years before I found this one,’ the station worker said. ‘I don’t want to lose it. I got kids.’

  I got slowly to my feet. My back had locked up from sitting still, and both men heard my knees crack. Wordlessly they reached in their pockets and gave me their change.

  I thanked them politely before Electra and I moved on. I’d be back, of course. As I looked around I saw at least three other people on the scrounge, including a girl who seemed no older than eleven. Which is both dangerous and illegal. I wondered if she was working for someone else. ‘What do you think?’ I asked Electra. ‘It’s hard to compete for a few coins with eleven-year-olds.’ She didn’t answer.

  I counted the money. There wasn’t enough even for a small bottle of wine – which was a pity because I needed Electra’s advice.

  ‘Die young and come to me – that’s my advice.’ Damian Death had woken up early as well.

  ‘That’s my advice too – although it’s too late for you to die young.’ My mother had to stick her nose in. ‘Go to the Devil. You won’t find me down there for I led a blameless life. I was a truth-teller, I never sinned and I did no harm. Besides, I hate dogs – they shed hair all over the soft furnishings. There are no dogs up here, thank god.’

  ‘Sounds like Hell to me,’ I said. ‘And know what? You sound just like Cherry Righteous.’

  ‘She’s the daughter I would’ve been proud of.’ My mother sighed. ‘She wouldn’t have broken up my marriage like the dirty child I gave birth to.’

  ‘She broke up someone’s marriage. Remember poor Steve? His son was buried under the shed she imprisoned Electra in. That’s the daughter you’d be proud of?’

  ‘She’s respectable.’

  ‘She’s a bourgeois murderer.’

  ‘Her hands are clean.’ My mother’s words were ambiguous, but her tone did not allow any argument. ‘And she didn’t break up my marriage. You did that.’

  I pulled my collar up around my ears and let the passing busses drown out her harping, carping voice. The first pinpricks of sleet touched my face. It was far too early for the National Galley to open, so I could shelter under the portico and look out over Trafalgar Square. I think of Nelson’s Column as the very centre of London. All of life revolves around it.

  ‘All of life revolves around the phallus,’ said Gogmagog, assuming the form of a double-headed giant. ‘You know that, my girl. It’s why you’re here.’

  I took Pierre’s phone out of Billy’s pocket. Pierre wouldn’t want to talk to me. Li’l Missy didn’t wake up till after ten. But Lorelei was an old woman. Old women don’t sleep. I turned on the phone, squinted at Lorelei’s card and slowly, carefully, jabbed in her number with my blue thumbs. She answered on the third ring.

  I said, ‘Rex threw me out last night. Electra’s too old to sleep rough any more. I need to find another way of life but I don’t know how.’

  ‘I’m going to the loo,’ she said. ‘Hang up, but don’t switch off. I’ll ring you back.’ Which was easier said than done for a woman with blue thumbs and an unfamiliar piece of kit in her shaking hands.

  But she did ring me back. She said, ‘You probably have messages from everyone you know. Someone posted a video of you, Electra and a lawnmower on YouTube. Now its all over Twitter and Facebook. Why didn’t you tell me you were connected to the Baby C case? The police are looking for you. It might be a blessing in disguise that Rex evicted you, because they came to Juliet House for you at dawn this morning. How did they know you were staying with us? Juliet House is in an uproar.’

  ‘Oh crap!’ I said, when she paused for breath. ‘I’ll end up back in Her Majesty’s slammer. See, that’s why poor Electra found herself chained to the lawnmower. I can’t leave her again. I trusted someone else to look after her while I was away and it nearly killed her. Kerrilla trusted someone else to look after Connor while she was away, and look what happened to him.’

  ‘You’re gabbling,’ she protested. ‘Slow down. Is Connor Baby C?’

  ‘Yes. I was banged up with his mum. She was worried about him. That’s how I got involved.’

  ‘And you’re not some rogue paedophilic nun?’

  ‘No. But… ’ I stopped. I couldn’t begin to explain the tangled minds of cross-dressers to a woman like Lorelei – although she would probably understand and accept it more readily then I did.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But there are a lot of conflicting opinions and reactions to you out there on social media. Which may be problematic. But I did want to tell you that you seem to be finding a lot of support from animal rights activists. In fact you would appear to have become a bit of an instant heroine. So, if you’re thinking of changing your life, finding support and becoming less isolated – that might be a way to go. It could get you out of London too. London might be too much of a hot spot for you just now.’

  ‘I was thinking of going… ’

  ‘Stop! Don’t tell me where you’re going. The police haven’t talked to me yet but they will.’ She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, ‘I’m too old to understand social media. I’m on Facebook and Twitter because of my grandchildren, but I have absolutely no idea how to make them work for me. But there must be a way to make use of all this sudden popularity and sympathy.’

  ‘I’m popular?’ I was stunned. ‘I’ve never
been popular in my whole life.’

  ‘Well, there’s a little film of you carrying Electra, who is chained to a lawnmower. Your back is breaking. You sit and lie down in the pouring rain to support her, and you shelter her under your coat. You are pleading with a smartly dressed blonde woman to release her. It looks as if everyone is passing the film on to their friends, and thousands of people are saying “Like”. That counts as popular in this spectral world we have swirling around us. It’s all like ectoplasm to me.’

  ‘It’s Electra they like.’

  ‘Of course. This is England.’ She paused again.

  I didn’t know what to say. I sat with my back to the National Gallery, one arm around Electra’s shoulders, and thought about my private world becoming public. In spite of all the ‘Likes’ it wasn’t good news. I’d been counting on my usual invisibility and anonymity to keep me out of the cops’ sightline. I thought I should hang up and not hear any more, but Lorelei, although old and feeling out of touch, was a thinker. Thinkers were pretty scarce in my world.

  Eventually she said, ‘Have you spoken to the police about Baby C?’

  ‘They have my detailed statement,’ I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t actually answered the question.

  ‘Well then, I think you might be justified in leaving town for a few days.’

  ‘Nobody told me not to.’

  ‘Which they would have if they seriously thought you were guilty of… What is it you’re accused of?’

  ‘I haven’t actually been accused of anything yet. Not by the cops.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Probably abduction of Connor, I suppose. I thought it was rescue. But the Devil keeps reminding me that the road to his house is paved with good intentions.’

  ‘Hah!’ she said. ‘All right, I’ll talk to a tech-savvy grandchild and have a think. A lot of this depends on what the police say to me and what they want to know. You understand? But don’t worry too much – I do know how they work. I was an Appropriate Adult for years. I don’t automatically think they’re fair to, or honest about, the poor and dispossessed.’

  It was the most comforting remark she’d made, and I had to be satisfied with knowing she was on my side, up to a point, and thinking creatively about me. Which was more than I could do for myself without a little red wine to help. What I felt most was fear. The cops don’t raid homeless shelters at dawn just for the fun of it. Who told them where I was? Someone I knew dobbed me in.

  I took a deep breath and rang Pierre.

  ‘I’m in the car,’ he said. ‘Hang on while I find somewhere safe to pull over.’

  I waited. At least he was talking to me.

  ‘Tantie just rang,’ he said eventually. ‘Five-O went to Billy’s looking for us last night. Alicia agrees with you – I should take a hike for a while.’

  ‘They raided the shelter too,’ I told him. ‘But I was gone by then. They don’t know about Alicia?’

  ‘Nah. But, know it, I got a feeling they’re closing in. And I don’t trust Billy not to rat us out. I’m going to Bristol with Li’l Missy tonight. Alicia, she’s got friends there too. I’m just on my way to pick up my wages now.’

  ‘Can I come?’ I asked. ‘There’s a big hoo-ha about me and Electra on the Ectoplasm. And I can’t duck under the CCTV cameras any more.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Ziggy’s mum – she put video stuff about us on… ’

  ‘Oh, I get it. This just gets better and better. I rang Kaylee last night. She says she’ll work on the immigration shit. She still thinks we’ll be copacetic in the end. But… ’ His natural optimism was sounding shakier than usual. ‘She says we’ve given the cops our statements so, if we ain’t been told they want to talk to us again, we’re justified in “taking a break in the country” for a few days. That’s how she put it. And we ain’t been told.’

  ‘Can I come too?’ I asked again.

  He sighed. ‘I guess so. But you got to keep your head down. You go on a rant and start yellin’ about Satan and shit, you’ll pull us all down with you. Hear me?’

  ‘I hear you,’ I said, shocked. I was close to weeping. They had been planning to leave without me.

  ‘Where are you now?’ He was oblivious.

  ‘Trafalgar Square.’ I stood up suddenly, making Electra jump to her feet as well. Should I have told him where I was? Suppose I was such a liability to my so-called friends that they were the ones who’d sent the cops to Juliet House at dawn?

  ‘Better get a move on,’ said the Prince of Paranoia. ‘You can’t go to Bristol with them. They’ll abandon you. Remember who chained Electra up – no, don’t say it was my daughter. Who actually put the chain around her neck and locked it with two padlocks?’

  ‘Li’l Missy,’ I admitted. ‘People do horrible things when they need to save their own arses.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the Devil.

  ‘What?’ said Pierre.

  ‘You can never trust anyone ever again,’ the Suspicious One told me. ‘Trust equals stupidity.’

  ‘I’ve got to trust someone.’

  ‘Why?’ my mother asked. ‘Men are treacherous creatures even if they wear dresses.’

  ‘You’re bibbling again,’ Pierre said. ‘Stop it. Look, I gotta go now. Stay where you are. I’ll talk to Li’l Missy and call you back. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, but I was already walking West, out of Trafalgar Square.

  I didn’t stop till we reached the big bookshop on Piccadilly. By then we’d both warmed up a bit and were moving more feely. The shop wasn’t open yet, so we sat down and I put my beanie in a conspicuous position on the ground in front of us. It may be an illusion, but I often feel I do better in bookshop doorways than anywhere else. Maybe books remind people of kindlier times. Maybe those who browse around bookshop windows are thoughtful folk who notice beautiful old dogs.

  Trust is for fools. I had been a fool for the last time, I thought. But I sat, like a fool, with Electra waiting for proof of the generosity of strangers. At the same time, contrarily, I was wondering if there was anyone on earth who had never betrayed me. Given a choice between me and their own security, would anyone choose me? Given the same choice, I realised, I was just as bad. But someone like me, a rough sleeper, with nothing I couldn’t carry on my back, couldn’t even afford to have principles. Then I thought of Connor and I knew I couldn’t blame anyone for betraying me – I couldn’t even trust myself.

  ‘I am an oxymoronic moron,’ I told Electra. She was asleep with her head on my thigh and didn’t even open one eye. In spite of all my recent failures she trusted me to watch over her while she slept. And in spite of all their recent failures, I realised that if I wanted to escape from London and give her the chance of a decent old age, I would have to trust that Pierre and Li’l Missy wouldn’t dob me in to the cops.

  After an hour on so, I’d collected enough to feed her a proper breakfast and for me to have a proper conversation with her.

  ‘Know what?’ she said, licking her chops happily. ‘Why worry about Pierre and Li’l Missy laying traps for you? You might have a tumour killing you right now, and that would take care of all your problems. Or I might. We live, hour by hour, on the wonderful fact that people are often very kind. But not always. Kind and reliable aren’t always things. Just be happy for now. It might be all we’ve got. Let’s just walk down to the park. It’s ages since I had a good ramble in Hyde Park.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, licking my lips, almost optimistic. ‘If you think our twin tumours will let us get that far.’ We walked quite slowly on account of her hips, and I hummed, ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.’ Every time I met her eyes she seemed to be laughing at me.

  It was bitterly cold and the wind still gnawed through layers of clothing to my cringing flesh, but the anticipation of tumours had cheered me up no end.

&nbs
p; ‘Will there be parks like this in Bristol?’ Electra asked. ‘Is there dogfood in cans? Does wine come in screw top bottles?’ She picked up the scent of something which took her away from my side and I watched her, snug in her two coats, completely absorbed by whatever invisible information she took from the frosty grass and the bare trees.

  We watched Roma women washing in the Serpentine and I knew they must have a pitch and a nest nearby. They are indentured to moneylenders in Romania, and live lives of slavery. I never want to tangle with them – they are very sad but very tough.

  Electra waited politely for them to finish before drinking. She was having a good time talking to other dogs. That reminded me of the corgis, who in turn reminded me of Gamma Dora, Mama Misha, Lance and Tony. Strangers, they had done their best for Connor. While I…

  ‘You did your best too,’ Electra said coming back to nuzzle my hand, asking for a pat. ‘You aren’t much good at anything, but that’s a different matter.’

  ‘They’ll see all that stuff on the Instatube or whatever it is everyone “likes”, and they’ll see that I saved you, but I let Miss Icy McNasty chuck Connor out of her house and back to his abusers while I watched from Billy’s window and said nothing. They’ll kill me if they ever find me. Gamma Dora said so, and I believe her.’

  ‘Blame yourself for everything, if it makes you happy,’ Electra said lightly. ‘But you’re good with dogs. A lot of people abuse and kill us too. You’re hopeless with kids, and Connor was a nightmare by anyone’s standards.’

  ‘Yeah, but that wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘Of course not. But instead of beating yourself up about it why not redeem yourself by sticking to what you’re good at?’

  ‘You think I need redemption?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ She kissed me on my frozen nose and jumped down from the bench. Pierre’s phone rang.

  36

  Going West

  I was early. I checked the street. It was hectic with shoppers and travellers, but I couldn’t see a cop anywhere. Traffic snarled and crept past. I crossed the road and looked back at the entrance to Kensington High Street Tube station. Two men were sitting on either side of it. One had a cap in front of him, the other a used styrene coffee cup. I’d already had a word with both of them. One came from Croatia, the other from Syria. We couldn’t make ourselves understood but we recognised one another. I could see that they resented each other’s choice of pitch and were hoping I wouldn’t hang around. Further down an Irish junkie was playing something miserable on a recorder. There never used to be so many of us in such a small space.