Cold Shoulder (15 page)

Lorraine was taken aback when Nula, sitting close, slipped an arm around her shoulders. She was wearing a heavy scent and, close to, it was overpowering.

‘Listen, I got contacts who could put some work your way, straight decent johns, all you gotta do is ask.’

Lorraine did a neat sidestep, saying that she had some work lined up, thanked them again, and they insisted she take a cab home. She hadn’t meant to sound so cool, be so distant, but they were touching on that hazy part of her life that remained unreal, which she hadn’t yet faced up to. At the same time, she couldn’t help but feel angry that they seemed to know she’d been a hooker. Somehow she had felt that no one could or would suspect that.

Nula kissed her cheeks. ‘You come by any time and, keep it in mind, if you need cash to tide you over, we can always get you a few clients.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Lorraine was relieved to get away from them, from the cloying perfume. Yet they had, unknowingly, helped her over a hurdle she had dreaded. Seeing Bill Rooney again had been like a punch in the stomach, so totally unexpected that she had been unable to speak, or even acknowledge him. The humiliation of the meeting made her feel physically sick. The cab fare took the last of her earnings from the gallery but she didn’t care. One thing she knew for certain, she couldn’t turn tricks again.

Each step up to Rosie’s apartment was an effort, and the last person she wanted to be confronted by was Rosie sitting like a Buddha watching a mind-numbing game show. Lorraine shut the door and headed for the bathroom. The television was clicked off, ominously.

‘We got to talk.’

Lorraine hesitated. ‘Yes, I know, but I need a shower first.’ The television clicked back on. When she returned to the sitting room, wrapped in just a towel, off went the television. ‘Just let me get a drink.’ Lorraine slammed the fridge shut. It was empty. ‘Thanks! Thanks a fuckin’ bundle!’

Rosie smirked. ‘Now you know what it feels like!’

‘So you did it on purpose? You great fat pig, I bought enough to last days—’

‘Oh, yeah!’ Rosie sniggered. ‘Well, who the hell do you think has been filling up that fucking fridge since you arrived?’

Lorraine turned on her. ‘Jesus Christ, I’ve
given
you money!’

Rosie pulled herself up. ‘An’ I gave you a roof over your head, and my bed when you were sick. I fed you, washed you — and not once did you have the decency to say thank you!’

‘So now you want me out of here, is that it?’ Lorraine sighed.

‘Why don’t you get off your high horse and be real?’ Rosie retaliated. ‘I’m honest with you, when are you going to level with me?’

‘Level with you about what?’

‘Who you are for starters!’ Rosie shouted.

Lorraine lifted her arms in exasperation. ‘You know who I am! I’ve fucking told you who I am! I
am Lorraine Page!’

‘That’s not enough. I knew your name at the hospital. It’s like I live with somebody I don’t know and I can’t take it.’

Lorraine lit a cigarette and closed her eyes. She sat on the edge of the easy chair. ‘Rosie, I can’t tell you much because I don’t
know
who I am. I am trying to find out who the fuck I am so if
I
don’t know, how am I supposed to tell you?’ She got up and paced the room, taking long drags on her cigarette. ‘I look in the mirror and I don’t know if this is the way I always looked. I see scars all over my body, and I don’t know who inflicted them. I don’t even know how I got
this?
She pulled her hair away from the jagged scar on her face. ‘I got marks all over my body. I can see them, you can see them — but what about the ones inside my brain? There are whole years of my life missing, and sometimes I just don’t know if I
want
to find out everything.’

Rosie nodded, suddenly concerned. ‘How about tonight? You seemed pretty shook up.’ Rosie waited but there was no reply. ‘That man this evening, the fat guy, he said your name three times. Do you know who he was?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So why don’t you start telling me? No? Okay, I’ll make it easier. He’s a cop, Jake knew him. Now if you’ve been in prison, it doesn’t worry me — just tell me, ’cos I’d like to know.’

Lorraine gave a soft, humourless laugh. ‘You see, you didn’t believe me. I told you back at the hospital, Rosie. I told you what I was.’

Rosie stared as Lorraine sat down, rested her head against the chair and closed her eyes. ‘I was a cop, Rosie. In fact, I was a lieutenant, and that fat man you saw tonight used to be my sergeant. His name is William — Bill — Rooney. He looked surprised, huh? Seeing me? Maybe because he thought I was dead, probably hoped I was…’

‘Why did you leave?’ Rosie asked.

‘I was kicked out, Rosie. Because I was a drunk.’ In a low, expressionless voice she began to tell Rosie about her husband, her two daughters, Sally and Julia, the divorce, her husband’s remarriage, his custody of the girls whom she had not seen for almost six years. ‘After the divorce I went on a binge. It kind of lasted until you found me, Rosie. I sold everything — apartment, furniture. The car was taken because I was caught drunk-driving. I got off with a fine. I got away with a lot of things, I guess, for the next few years. I don’t remember much of it, just that eventually all the money ran out and when I had nothing left to sell…’ She coughed, a heavy smoker’s cough that made her body shake and her eyes run.

Rosie waited, watching as Lorraine lit another cigarette from the stub. ‘So, go on, when you had nothing else to sell, then what?’

Lorraine gave her that odd, tilted, squint look. ‘I sold myself, Rosie — to anyone, anything, any place, just so long as I got a drink. I worked for the pimps I’d arrested, and got drunk with the whores I’d booked. I ended up in shit-holes, bars, and flop houses. And I don’t remember hardly a day of it. I got arrested for whoring, I got picked up for vagrancy. Sometimes the craving for drink drove me into a kind of deranged madness. By the time I was hit by the truck — when I was taken to the hospital — I think I had reached a sort of dead end hell. That’s it. That’s who I am, Rosie. Now you’re as up-to-date as I am.’

Rosie began to make Lorraine’s bed. It was a sickening story, but not one that she hadn’t heard before: everyone she knew at the meetings, including herself, had a similar story of loss and desperation. What was different about Lorraine, however, was her complete lack of emotion when relating it.

Lorraine slipped into the freshly made bed and sighed contentedly, laying her head on her arm. ‘I’m thinking…’ she said softly.

‘What about?’ asked Rosie.

‘Well, I’m not sure about bothering to get myself back together. Who am I doing it for? Be okay if I felt good, or if I felt I was doing it for a reason. But there’s no reason.’

Rosie stood, elephantine, in the bedroom doorway. ‘Maybe because it’s your life. Or perhaps it’s those two little girls.’ Lorraine said nothing, so Rosie continued: ‘My mother died when I was ten and there’s a hell of a lot I would have liked to ask her — like who the fuck in my family did I inherit this fat from? My dad was skin and bone. And I’d like to know if she loved me. She took an overdose, you see, killed herself.’

Lorraine propped herself up on her elbow. ‘You know, Rosie, sometimes I sort of loathe you, especially in the mornings, but if I forget to say thank you, then I’m sorry. I’ve no one else who gives a shit about me, no other place to go. So thank you for being my friend.’

Rosie flushed. ‘Goodnight, Lorraine.’

Lorraine heard her move heavily into the bedroom, and then lay back staring up at the ceiling. Her daughters had had a new mother for five years, and they probably weren’t even little any more. They probably wouldn’t want to see her. She didn’t even know where they lived.

It hurt to remember, physically hurt, as if each memory was so tightly stored away she had to squeeze it out. It was strange, because instead of being able to conjure up her own daughters’ faces, she saw only the little girl she had been assigned to trace. Laura Bradley, six years old, who had last been seen waiting outside school for her mother. Lorraine, the officer in charge of searching the school outbuildings and cellars, had found Laura’s naked body stuffed into one of the big air-conditioning pipes. Like a rag doll, so tiny, so helpless, yet her body had felt warm and Lorraine had tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But nothing brought her back to life; even when she had felt the small ribcage lifting, it was not Laura breathing, it was Lorraine’s own breath.

Lorraine got out of bed and began to pace the room. Why? Why was she suddenly remembering this child? Laura had been brutally sexually abused, her internal organs ripped by a blunt instrument. Not content with having sexual intercourse, the rapist had continued to torture the defenceless child. Laura Bradley’s injuries were so horrific that all the officers on the case were sickened; Lorraine recalled seeing even the big, blustering Bill Rooney weeping. Obsessed with catching the killer, she worked day and night and had no time to spare for her own daughters. She had shouted at her husband that the girls were never to be left alone for an instant, and even hired a baby-sitter to collect them from school.

She poured herself a glass of water. She remembered yelling in fury at Mike, ‘I’m trying to find Laura Bradley’s killer. You may not think that is important, but you didn’t hold her dead body in your arms. I did. And I will not sleep until I have that bastard locked away so my daughters and every kid in this neighbourhood can be safe.’

Mike had tried to make her rest but Lorraine had kept up one hell of an investigation and she wouldn’t let it go. She visited Laura’s parents and swore to them that no matter how long it took, she would bring in their daughter’s killer. Her dedication paid off. From day one she had been suspicious of the school janitor and, as this was before the time they had DNA testing to assist them, she kept up the pressure. Intuition told her she had the right man.

Even her chief hinted that perhaps she should back off, but she refused, returning time and again to the scene of the crime and to the janitor’s home, until, in yet another confrontation when she had shown him Laura Bradley’s clothes, all her photographs, when she had interrogated him for more than six hours, she finally broke him. He admitted his guilt. She had been so proud, and she had been promoted. Laura Bradley could at last rest in peace.

Lorraine felt chilled now, remembering the visit of the young uniformed officer to Rosie’s apartment, asking about the night she had returned after the attack in the parking lot, how she had substituted the dead child’s name, Laura Bradley, for her own. She had uttered it without a moment’s thought. Now she realized just how often in that long distant past she had placed her work above the needs of her own children and husband. Mike had been right. She had become obsessive. She had also become addicted to the adrenalin, the excitement, the tension and the pressure — until she had found it impossible to relax.

She returned to bed and sat for a moment staring at the wall. Maybe Rosie was right, she should try to contact them again. She would like to explain to Sally and Julia, perhaps even ask for their forgiveness. Yes, her life
was
worth bothering about, even if it was just to make peace with her children and Mike. Feeling calmer, she turned off the lamp, snuggled down and was asleep within moments.

This was the first time she had dealt with a section of her past without getting the shakes. She had talked it over in her mind and remained calm. Forced herself to hold on, remain distant from it. She reckoned it was another step forward in rehabilitation.

But she had spoken to Rosie about her past as if she was talking about another person, another Lorraine. She hadn’t cried or, to Rosie, appeared to feel remorse or guilt. Instead there was a cold confidence, a control, that seemed to be getting stronger around her, as if she was divorcing herself from the past. What she was not doing, Rosie had surmised, was facing the full reality.

Rosie knew how harsh that reality was. Unlike Lorraine, she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she was mulling over what she had been told. At some stage in her own recovery Rosie, like Lorraine, had asked herself if remaining sober, facing what she was and what she had lost, was worth all the trouble and the pain. Sober, she felt, she had nothing to live for. It had been Jake who had said her life was worth fighting for, for the sake of her son. She had tried to contact Joey, and she had felt really positive — but it had been a disaster. Rosie had been, and was still, unable to cope with the emotional strain of seeing Joey, of knowing there was another woman her son called Mother. She could not cope with talking to her ex-husband, or seeing the new home he had made for himself and their boy. As it all swept over her once more, she began to feel guilty about opening up the same terrible emotional road for Lorraine.

She crept out of bed. If Lorraine was awake she would tell her that she should take more time before she tried to confront her lost family. She was wrong to push her, she wasn’t experienced enough, and maybe this wall of control Lorraine was building around herself was good, and safer for her than allowing anybody like Rosie or Jake to break it down. But Lorraine was sleeping, one hand tucked under her chin, only the strange, jagged scar running from her eye to her cheek marring her look of innocence. She seemed peaceful, a half-smile on her lips.

Rosie made a vow. She would not ask Lorraine to leave the apartment: it was important for her to have a sense of security. Lorraine was her friend. That
settled, Rosie went back to bed, swiped at her pillow and, within seconds, passed into a deep sleep.

T
HE FOLLOWING week Lorraine got a job in a florist’s shop. It was only short term, replacing an assistant who was on holiday. She also did four nights at Art’s gallery, as he remained open until ten in the evening. He was rarely there, and she was often alone waiting for the odd customer. A number of paintings had been sold, but business was not flourishing. Art was out looking for new pictures, but whenever he saw her, he greeted Lorraine with affection.