Fishnet (14 page)

‘They didnay say there wis somewan from the council here,' mutters the troublemaker in front of me.

‘They've cracked down on everything, the fines have gone up again as much as they can manage, and the women are getting heavy treatment again. We're nothing. Skeleton op these days, surviving mostly on volunteer help for the last few months. And I think we're going to have to concede defeat.'

A few hisses through the room. The girl beside me is picking at her nail polish.

‘They're going to finally move us out of Sanctuary Base on Thursday next week. Obviously, we're going to resist that right till the end, and it would be great to see as many of you as possible helping us out there, but I understand about other commitments. The police are already aware that we're planning a peaceful protest. There may well be photographers there, too.'

The woman sitting in front of me pipes up again, turning her head around to bring us all on side with her. Late forties, a creased, grizzled face.

‘Suzy, you know I'm all for it, doll, but I'm just not goingty run the risk of ma weans or thur teachers seeing me in the
papers. Aye?'

‘Thanks Helen. I appreciate that. I know it's going to be difficult for most of you, and I also appreciate that we're asking a lot. Anyway, anyone who is interested please have a quick word to me after the meeting. That's all. For now. Thanks for listening.'

The applause is well-behaved, downhearted. The older woman, Paulette, stands up again.

‘So. We've got a bit of a surprise guest here today. We've spoken a lot about the campaign to close down the Sanctuary Base recently, and so we were delighted when the council proposed that a representative from the service they're intending will replace it come down here and speak to you. That representative has, of course, promised that anything she hears today in this room will be kept absolutely confidential. Now, I would like you all to join me in welcoming Claire Buchanan from the Ways Out scheme, and I can trust that she will be allowed to speak her piece. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end.'

‘Ooooh. Got awffy formal in here aw of a sudden,' says Helen in the row in front of me, to no-one in particular.

The woman sitting beside Sonja – stubby, unstyled brown furze, navy blue suited shoulders – is standing up, turning round.

Claire. Heather's now sister-in-law Claire. Claire of the cycling and the time management. Claire who I'd last seen just over a week ago leaving the wedding, tutting at me.

This country is so small. So small. So crazily small.

She's gripping a set of cue cards in both hands, presumably to curb the shaking. Her neck hooks over them, and she reads word for word, in what's almost a monotone, phlegmy with nerves.

‘I – Hem. Hem. I am here today on behalf of, and as one of the leading figures behind, the council's new Ways Out scheme. We believe that no woman should have to suffer the degradation of prostitution for a minute longer.'

More muttering.

‘Oh, you and me are going to get on just fine, honeypie,' Helen hisses, her whisper deliberately audible.

Claire goes on, staring down at her speech as though nothing had happened.

‘The Ways Out scheme will replace the current and soon to be demolished Sanctuary Base with a mobile unit, staffed and maintained exclusively by council employees, operating in the city centre. The mobile unit will have a greater degree of flexibility and be able to cover a wider area than the Sanctuary Base was limited to, and will offer exactly the same sort of refuge to any women forced into prostitution in the area. Women coming on board the mobile unit will become part of an active monitoring scheme to make sure their, eh,
way out
of prostitution is clear and accessible.'

Sonja stands up. She raises a hand out of courtesy, and talks gently, but there's no sign that Claire has acknowledged her, or that she was waiting for acknowledgement.

‘So, street workers have now got to demonstrate that they want to leave the industry, before you'll offer them basic shelter, free condoms or allow them access to the Ugly Mug sheet? They must be monitored? Like tagging animals or criminals -sex offenders, no?'

‘Sounds like the fuckin Joab Centre tae me!' Helen says, barking out a laugh, looking around again to share it.

The girl beside me calls out.

‘Look, no offence, right, but is this all going to be about wee junkie street walkers? I just do not see how this stuff affects those of us who work for agencies. Or even like youse independents. If the punters canny get it in a red light zone, they're going to have to come and find us, aren't they? More work! Good. Business. Sense.'

She taps these three words into the side of her head like Morse code.

‘I just do not see why I should put myself out for a few wee smackhead part-timers who – and let's no mince words – wouldny give a flying fuck if the shoe were on the other foot.'

Claire tries a smile, for the first time.

‘That is a very good question, and I'm very pleased you asked that.'

It's the first spontaneous thing she's said.

‘I am here to say to you today that the Ways Out scheme is not just open to those women forced to engage in street prostitution. We're here for all of you. We want to get every woman in this city who is exploited out of the sex industry and into proper, dignified work. We're offering genuine, practical solutions. I'm going to leave some business cards here today, and anyone who wants to contact me about registering with the Ways Out scheme is more than welcome to do so.'

An explosion of voices.

‘You sayin ma work's no dignified, eh?'

‘How does any of this make it actually safer for the girls on the street?'

‘What about the men in this industry, Ms Buchanan? What about the men who used Sanctuary Base as a shelter? Sex workers aren't just women!'

‘You sayin ma work's no
dignified
?'

Wide, flat, boring Claire. It's been so easy and amusing to dismiss her in my mean little head that I'm surprised to find myself actually feeling sorry for her now. Because I can see that she genuinely believes she's helping, however spectacularly she's misjudged her crowd, however bad a plan it is. The last time I saw her, she was tutting not at me, but because she'd heard me using the word
hooker
. She must have thought it was derogatory.

She wants to make a difference in the world, Claire, must go to her work every day feeling that she's actually doing something. And it's not like I can say that.

Right now, though, she's just battling to be heard.

‘At present, in its first, trial, form, the Ways Out scheme is just open to women –'

‘Oh! So you're just going to give up on those teenage boys round the riverside, then?'

The woman called Helen is on her feet, suddenly, drowning
out everyone else, twisting like a snake unleashed, going in for the kill.

‘Aw, I know you, darlin. I know you. What ye've no realised is that
we're
ontae
you
. You dinnay think of us as real people, do ye? Oh, aye, ye'll say you do. But what you're meaning is, we're aw poor wee victims. Intit? You dinnay think we're capable of living our lives properly. Too damaged. You canny admit that whit we do is
work
, or that mibbe, actually somewan might
choose
to do whit we do! So fuck off –‘

‘Helen, I'm going to ask you to sit down,' Paulette, from the front row.

‘ – with aw yer victim shite, yer sexual abuse survivor statistics –'

‘Helen! SIT DOWN.'

‘Helen, nobody's said anything about sexual abuse.'

‘Aye, but they will. That's how they justify it, eh. They make oot like wur aw fuckin, damaged, eh? No sane. Cos we couldnay be. Cos nobody sane wid be doin whit we do. No respectable wummin. No
dignified
wummin.'

She's marched up the aisle and is pointing at Claire, now, chipped pink nail polish in her face.

‘Now. You wanty talk tae me about workin the streets? Cos uh've worked the fuckin streets. I've been there. Huv you? Huv you got any experience of that,
Mizz
Buchanan? Or huv ye actually fuckin spoken to anyone who's actually fuckin done that joab? Cos mibbe we could tell you somethin about it, eh no? Mibbe you should give wan of us a nice fat consultant fee fer actually tellin you something useful, eh? I'll tell you this wan for free, sunshine. I might no be zactly sane, eh, but I'm a human fuckin bein daein ma best with whit I've goat. An see these lassies here? They fuckin know zactly whit thur daein.'

She breaks off, relaxes her arm, turns a beautiful smile on the chairwoman.‘Sorry, Paulette. Awfully sorrah abaht that, old fruit!' Her vowels stretched into caricatured Queen's English. ‘One hud noat realised the sort of, scuse-ma-french, scum, one would be associatahn with at this here meeting today! One
prefers only to associate with ladies who do what one would call
dignified
joabs! Ta-ta, now!'

She saunters out, head high, one wrist limp, and the door crashes shut behind her. The room breathes. The girl beside me gets up.

‘If that's everything for today, yeah? I just don't think this affects me, and I've got a lot on my –'

Sonja stands, finally, turns round, a sharp half-smile on her face, no mirth in it.

‘Okay. Right. It
affects
you, Sabrina, because this is the first stage of a two-pronged attack. I am right, yes, Ms Buchanan? Ms Buchanan looks surprised that I know this,' she says, smoothly, playing the crowd for that small ripple of laughter, and it seems true; the back of Claire's bushy head has jerked, suddenly.

‘The Ways Out scheme is only the start. I have it on very good authority that the council are about to start lobbying Parliament to criminalise the purchasing of sex. That means your clients and my clients. Because they think this will stop that nasty-wicked unspeakable thing they are calling the Sex Industry. Any woman –'

A cough from the audience.

‘I'm sorry, Douglas. Any
sex worker
who wants to report a crime will have to first grass up their client list. They're basically going to war against us, whilst saying out loud that we are the victims in all this. Helen was on the right track, there.'

Claire has gathered up her things.

‘I'm so sorry but I'm going to have to cut this session short. I'm not at liberty to discuss anything other than the trial stage of the Ways Out scheme today. For follow-up enquiries you'll need to go through my office. Thank you.'

The scuttle of an outraged, virtuous member of society.

I'm still riding all that pity for her, so I try and smile as she passes, realising only too late that she's staring, shocked, at me. Her face does goldfish mouth for what seems like a laughably long period. I wonder, almost idly, what sort of repercussions this is going to have.

Sonja is shouting after her.

‘You are not going to stop the girls going out there on the street! It's just going to mean they will not be so able to select their partners! Surely, you should look at complete decriminalisation and–'

Claire snaps back to life, turns, and flees.

The door slams, again. The girl beside me whispers to her friend.

‘Well, that was a productive one, yeah?'

Anya, Sonja – whatever she is – is still in her seat, heaving with anger as they begin to file out. I hang around as the room empties, limp pockets of small talk not managing to cover the atmosphere. She looks up and smiles at me, still tense.

‘So. Interesting meeting, huh?'

‘A headfuck.'

‘Ha! You should try it being on the inside. Let's introduce you to Suzanne. Suzanne! Suzy! Come here.'

Suzanne comes back into the room, stops short when she sees me.

‘This is the one I told you of, yes? Do you remember her?'

That nice smile again. I can imagine it being very easy to relax around Suzanne.

‘The girl who made us tea. Hello. Yes, I remember.'

Anya waits until the room is completely empty, until the older man, Douglas, picks up his clipboard. They make swift eye contact and he nods, seemed to understand she needs the privacy, leaves us to it.

‘So, Suzy. This is Fiona, and she thinks she can be of some use to us.'

‘Maybe. Possibly. I'm not sure that there is anything. But I could try.'

Suzanne nods, looked me up and down.

‘You're working in admin at RDJ Construction, is that right? So you're just in the office the whole time. Have you ever actually
been to Sanctuary Base?'

I hadn't.

‘Got time for a visit this evening?'

Public

Even though we're both traumatised people who you couldn't possibly call normal at this point in time; maybe because of that, Ally McKay and I run out of the wedding reception hand in hand, stifling what cascades into full-blown nervous cackles when we're out in the street. Saturday night screeches and flails around us, its sense of money let loose.

The bar we choose is quiet, though, smell of frying, ketchup still on the table, music turned so far down that it skips atmospheric and goes straight for insubstantial. The lights, we realise only after we have brought our first round to the table, are too invasively bright for us to pretend anything in.

Whisky, gin. Drinks strong enough to shoulder you through bad news and sad stories, but not likely to leave you with hope. And yet we pick them, and sit there, the closeness vanished. Ross's cousin: suit, baseball cap, eyebags, wrinkles. Probably, though I hadn't realised it under Heather and Ross's disco ball and heart-shaped spotlights, at least my age, maybe older. Rona's sister: playing-it-safe dress, pearls, hair frizzing back out, makeup melting. A failed first draft of the final product. That must be what he's thinking. Oh, what do I care what he's thinking.

‘So.'