by Liza Cody
‘Welcome to Albion,’ said Mr Nimby. ‘There’ll always be a place of safety behind our White Cliffs of Dover.’
‘Don’t even joke,’ my mother replied. ‘They’ll think you mean it.’
‘Actually, I do. Wonderfully destabilising – mass migration. Oh, the hatred I can spread.’
‘Well, everyone hates Johnny Foreigner.’ My mother always ended up agreeing with the One who misuses the most miserable.
On our way to the Odeon we stopped at the supermarket and then we ducked into Holland Park where Electra ate her tea and I had a few sips of the bottle I bought after breakfast. Yes, there is still some left. Of course the one I bought in the supermarket is hidden is my backpack. It’s my emergency stash. I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping tonight.
We stood, half-hidden by the Holland Park gates. I could see up and down the High Street, I could see the entrance to Earls Court Road and I could keep an eye on the road in front of the Odeon Cinema. The park was at our backs. Taking Electra’s advice, I’d decided to trust my friends far enough to make an arrangement with them. Pierre said he’d be in front of the Odeon at half past three. If we were there, ready, he’d take us to Bristol. More cynical counsel told me I’d be a fool not to get there early and check for police presence.
‘Paranoia,’ murmured Electra. ‘I can’t believe they’ve learned nothing. They’d never let us down again. Perhaps they’ll come in good faith.’
‘If they turn up at all,’ I grumbled. There was something so unsettling about realising that Pierre was only as ethical as the woman he was seeing. I understood Li’l Missy better. He was a changling, weak and clinging, like bindweed – he tried as far as he could to associate with people powerful or rich enough to support him. He’d been like that for as long as I’d known him so I wasn’t disappointed. But Pierre… he’d asked a couple of times why I was so angry with him. And I still didn’t know.
‘Yes, you do,’ Electra said. ‘He failed to protect us from Cherry.’
‘I know.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the Devil. ‘That’s the easy answer.’
‘Why should anyone protect you?’ asked Mommy Dearest. ‘Who do you protect?’
‘You protect me,’ Electra said, ‘as far as you’re able. And you tried to do something about Connor.’
‘Too bad you were more interested in trying to protect yourself. You were doing exactly what you’ve blamed your friends for.’ The Devil rubbed his scaly hands in satisfaction.
Just then I saw the Vauxhall People Carrier stuck in the jam about fifty yards from the traffic lights.
‘See?’ Electra said. ‘He’s come back for you. He hasn’t abandoned you. And if he hasn’t abandoned you he won’t have betrayed you.’
‘Come on,’ I said, and we crossed the road between blobs of stationary traffic and waited by the kerbside in front of the Odeon Cinema.
‘Maybe we’ll spend Christmas in Bristol,’ I said. ‘Maybe we can start again.’
‘Fat chance,’ said Mr D.
‘Crude but accurate,’ said my mother.
Electra looked up at me smiling but puzzled. She’s right – it isn’t like me to be hopeful. But, in spite of the cold, I had slept better, without Snoozeezys, at the Duke of York’s last night. While I was packing up in the morning I’d noticed two empty bottles, three cans, a pair of black man-briefs and a burst red balloon which certainly hadn’t been there when we’d settled down for the night.
Since then, random generosity had provided us with burgers, sandwiches, dogfood and wine, plus only a few insults. We’d walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Electra was limping, but she’d had a free, grassy, doggy day and her lovely golden eyes were bright. And, although it was beginning to snow again in a half-hearted way, we’d be able to spend the next few hours in a warm car.
Alicia was in the front seat with Pierre. That was the first surprise. The back of the people carrier was rammed with boxes, and Li’l Missy was complaining of car sickness because she couldn’t ride up front. That was no surprise at all. Pierre ignored her. He didn’t even seem to mind his splinted left hand. Frightened Dave might have broken two of his fingers, but Pierre was feeling no pain.
He was happy. Alicia had taken a few days off to help him move. Her hand was on his thigh, Motown was on the stereo – what could possibly be better? They kept turning towards each other and smiling.
‘Makes you sick, so it does,’ Li’l Missy muttered. ‘He was never this way with bloody Cherry.’
‘I should hope not,’ I said. The warmth was making me sleepy. Electra was already curled up by my side. I ran my hand along her brindle flank, touching the muscled and bony landscape of her body. There were a few scabs on her throat and on her neck close to her ears where the chain had rubbed her raw. I’d bathed them at Juliet House and smeared them with antiseptic cream the nurse gave me. She was healing but she was more frail and tired than usual. The trauma had aged her. My heart thumped double-time and my eyelids bounced open.
Trauma had aged me too. My hide was almost as mottled as hers but with bruises. My dislocated shoulder had ached in the cold and it was painful to raise my arm above my head. Recent injuries. But it was the oldest injury that hurt the most. It was the wound Cherry had opened and poured acid into by… How? By just being Cherry. By being my mother. By being righteous. By blaming me for something I didn’t know I’d done.
She forced everyone around her to adopt her rules. Everyone had to accommodate her. There was no room in her heart for anyone but herself, no place in her head for any opinion but her own. Even her lover had to conform to her idea of a boyfriend, of what a proper couple should look like. We were satellites, while Cherry was the sun around whom everything else orbited. And when anything went wrong, out came the pointy finger. ‘You’re to blame. You did wrong. This is your fault. You’ll have to pay. Me? I’m innocent, sinned against and never sinning.’
How could she fail to be the winner, the righteous one when the rules were her rules?
‘That’s right,’ my mother said. ‘Because my rules are righteous rules. They are righteous because I made them, and I am always righteous. I loved my family. I kept everyone neat and tidy. We had an unsullied reputation in our street. We behaved as a decent family ought. Until you wrecked it, and we became a broken home. Then people looked at us differently. They talked behind our backs. It wasn’t my fault. It was your doing. The shame was yours, but I kept your secret. You must keep it too. So now I’ll thank you never to speak of it again.’
‘For fuck’s sake – I was only seven.’
‘And where did you learn to use language like that? Not in my house. No. You’re just an ugly, dirty girl. Dirty, do you hear? And mud always sinks to the bottom. You’ve sunk to your proper level in life.’
‘Mother is always right,’ the Devil sneered. ‘Listen to her.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Dogs and children can’t be blamed.’
Alicia turned in her seat. ‘Pierre,’ she said, ‘let’s pull into the next service station. Lady B needs a cup of tea.’
‘What she needs is to be tipped out onto the hard shoulder.’ Li’l Missy took my hand and squeezed it hard but not unkindly.
We pulled off the motorway at Chieveley. My brain was jitterbugging to old, old music.
‘Whassup?’ Pierre asked. ‘What’s going on under that woolly cap you’re wearing?’
‘No one ever knows,’ Li’l Missy said. ‘Something sets her off, and off she goes.’ We hurried through gliding sliding doors, away from the North wind into the retail village that was a comfort break for travellers.
The Undertaker was singing, ‘Dance for your daddy, my little lady. Be my baby, baby tonight.’
‘What happened to my father?’ I asked.
‘That’d be telling,’ said the Lord of Dirty Secrets.
‘We don’t
know,’ Pierre said.
‘Give me the car keys,’ said Alicia, holding out her hand.
‘Sit down and belt up,’ said Li’l Missy. ‘If you’re quiet, Pierre will buy you a doughnut. Won’t you, Pierre?’
Everyone went away and left me rocking to the diabolical music. A family of four seated nearby got up and moved to a table further off. A security guard came over and looked hard at Electra, but he didn’t approach us.
‘Yeah,’ Cherry said in her bland emotionless voice. ‘What about your darling daddy? Your mother blames you. You blame your mother. But who started it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I cried. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘And you blame me,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘Seems to me you’ve given the men a very easy ride – if you’ll forgive the pun.’
‘I love it when women blame themselves,’ said Misogyny Man. ‘Stir the pot thrice, widdershins, and you women start tearing each other apart.’
‘I’m not blaming myself,’ Mother-Cherry said in stereo. ‘None of it was my fault. She started it.’
‘But I can’t remember.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ asked the Devil.
‘You never tried hard enough,’ my mother said.
Cherry just pointed her sharp silver-clawed finger.
Pierre set a mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of me. Li’l Missy brought a doughnut and a napkin.
‘Where’s Alicia?’ Pierre asked.
‘I can’t remember.’
Electra whined and leaned close to my knee.
‘I’m here,’ Alicia said. ‘I went back to the car.’ She sat down next to me and showed me the bottle of wine I’d bought at Morrison’s on Kensington High Street. She poured a little into a styrene cup. I took it in both hands.
‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘Really, really slowly.’
My phone rang. Li’l Missy groped in my pocket for it. I wasn’t interested. My hands gripped the cup of wine like a perching bird grips a branch.
‘Slowly,’ Alicia advised calmly.
‘Hello,’ Li’l Missy said into the phone. ‘No, I’m not Lady B. Who… ?’
Gradually, sip by sip, drip by drop, the voices in my head faded.
‘Take it easy,’ Alicia went on. ‘Are you trying to dry out?’
‘That’ll be the day,’ Li’l Missy said, putting the phone down in front of me.
‘Hush up.’ Pierre drank from his coffee mug. ‘She told me she was trying to cut down. But that was a few days ago.’
‘It’s very hard to do, flying solo,’ Alicia told me.
‘I guess you must see this sorta thing all the time in your job.’
‘Sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘But if you really want to know, dearest, I was an alcoholic aged thirteen. So I do understand first-hand how much support you need even to cut back.’
That hushed him up. He gazed at her.
‘You really do know how to pick ’em,’ Li’l Missy muttered.
‘Yes, I do,’ Pierre said, not taking his eyes off Alicia.
‘Yes, he does,’ I said. ‘Now.’
‘Yes, he does,’ Electra agreed, leaning even closer to me.
‘Yeah, okay, you’re right.’ Li’l Missy blushed and buried her nose in my hot chocolate. Then he added, ‘Momster may be trying to cut down on the booze, but it doesn’t alter the fact that she’s a card-carrying loony.’
‘Sometimes she ain’t.’ Pierre wasn’t looking at anyone but his new love.
‘But most of the time I am,’ I said, feeling almost peaceful.
‘Who was that on the phone?’ Alicia asked, lightening the mood.
‘Laura Something,’ Li’l Missy told her. ‘She wanted to know where Momster was going. So I told her, and she said she’d ring again later.’
‘Lorelei,’ I said.
‘Not with the cops?’ Pierre looked anxious.
‘She’s a shelter volunteer,’ I said. ‘She gave me her gloves, but I lost them.’
‘Don’t cry,’ Pierre said.
It was dusk when we left Chieveley. This time Alicia drove. What with crosswinds, intermittent sleet and Li’l Missy feeling carsick, we made slow progress. Electra and I slept and only woke when a phone rang. I sat up slowly and heard Pierre say, ‘It’s Cherry.’
‘Ping her off,’ Li’l Missy said grumpily.
Alicia said nothing. She kept her eyes on the road even though Pierre was gazing questions at her profile. The phone kept ringing. In the end she started to laugh. ‘Don’t look at me. It’s your phone, your ex, your choice.’
Pierre refused the call. Twenty minutes later Cherry texted, and twenty minutes after that she called again. Alicia made no comment and Pierre switched his phone off.
‘That’s the way to treat the cow,’ Li’l Missy said. He gave me a mouthful of wine as Alicia had told him to.
Electra said, ‘Is Alicia our pack leader now? Like Cherry was?’
‘Oh buggeration.’ I leaned forward, tapped Pierre on the shoulder and said, ‘When she says calling Cherry back is your choice, she means it. I don’t think she wants you to second-guess her.’
Alicia laughed again. ‘Didn’t you say, way back, that he’d had a crocodile in his head?’
‘Yes.’
‘She said what?’
‘You’d be a fool not to placate a crocodile,’ I told him. ‘But I don’t think you need to placate Alicia. If she says it’s your call, it isn’t a test. Honestly, I don’t think she’ll drag you under water and feed off your rotting carcass.’
I lay down and went to sleep again.
The next time I woke up, another phone was ringing. This time it was mine and Li’l Missy answered it.
‘It’s Lauren Thing again.’ He tried to pass the phone to me but all I wanted was another mouthful of wine so Pierre took the call.
I sipped as slowly as I could, trying to make the small amount of peace and warmth last. Li’l Missy gave me a diazepam tab to wash down with the last drops.
Pierre said, ‘Wow. No kidding.’ And, ‘Yeah, that could solve a problem.’ And, ‘Hang on, I gotta write that down.’ And, ‘Right. Thanks. I’ll get her to ring in the morning.’
He rang off, and just as he was about to pass on the message Li’l Missy’s phone rang.
‘It’s Kaylee Yost, for you,’ she said, passing her phone forward to Pierre.
I was weary from neck to knickers and my head felt like it belonged to someone who’d been buried for six months. I drifted off again for a few minutes. When I woke up Pierre was saying, ‘She said, foreign nationals are all bricking it right now so an immigration lawyer would cost – shit, I can’t even count that high. She said, maybe go to Dublin, and come back as a tourist. Or… ’ And then he snapped his mouth shut like he was switching off the TV.
‘What?’ Li’l Missy sat forward.
‘Or what?’ Alicia asked. They both knew something was up.
Pierre sighed. He twisted in his seat to look at me. ‘She asked me to marry her.’
‘Told you so.’ I couldn’t be bothered even to look smug.
‘It’s just a practical, immigration problem she’s trying to solve,’ he said, mainly for Alicia’s benefit.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ I said, hating him for making me sit up. ‘Better yet, don’t kid Kaylee. She doesn’t deserve it. Women like you, Pierre – don’t punish them for it. Don’t you become the crocodile.’
‘Not gonna,’ Pierre said.
‘I don’t get it,’ Li’l Missy said. ‘You’re in his car and he’s driving you to Bristol when he doesn’t have to. He’s helping you out of kindness. Why are you still on his arse?’
‘Because it’d be a waste of time to be on yours. I’ve got a shot with him.’
‘You’re trying to make a better man of him, so you are.’ Li�
�l Missy went pink with disbelief.
‘I’m trying to protect my baby lawyer, numpty. She’s about the only Legal Aid solicitor left in London.’
‘Talking about shots,’ Pierre said, ‘you and Electra might have your last one coming up.’
‘What’re you going to tell Kaylee?’ Alicia asked.
‘What are you talking about – my last shot?’
‘I’m gonna tell Kaylee I want to marry you,’ Pierre said to Alicia. The car swerved. And in the stunned silence that followed he said to me, ‘You’ve had a job offer.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Li’l Missy said to Pierre, rather huffily. ‘But just in case you do, can I be chief bridesmaid?’
37
How It Ends
Kaylee Yost was warmly and affectionately invited to Pierre and Alicia’s wedding. She wore a lavender hat and cried at the ceremony.
Against tradition, all the bridesmaids were friends of Pierre’s and Li’l Missy’s, while the two best men were Alicia’s brothers.
Pierre did not wear a suit. He and Alicia walked on air in funky African robes. But he put a wig on and performed ‘Can’t Hurry Love’ especially for her. I cried.
Li’l Missy organised everything like a Las Vegas show and for once her sense of theatre was almost totally satisfied. I watched her, gorgeous in cream and primrose, scattering rose petals, and realised that her adoration for shallow surface details couldn’t disguise her genuine love for Pierre.