Lady Bag (17 page)

Chapter
29

I Drive Back To Where I Started

W
hy couldn’t he have allowed me one little drink before throwing me into London traffic? I was a nervous wreck, driving an ambulance in the pouring rain after not driving at all for nearly five years. He has no pity. He’s too young to feel pity.

The traffic was horrible so no one was going faster than 27mph, and that gave me time to get to know the cumbersome beast I was driving. The ambo groaned in first gear, squealed in second and wallowed round corners like a drunken camel. It smelled of weed and patchouli oil. Cute little rainbows, moons and stars were sticking to the dashboard. Smister tried to pick them off with lacquered fingernails.

But the windscreen wipers worked and we were warm and dry. Electra curled up between us and slept contentedly.

I said, ‘I want to go back to South Dock High Rise.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to find out what happened to Too-Tall.’

‘Well,
I
don’t,’ Smister said. ‘Why can’t you forget about her? You got the contrariest damn memory in the whole world. Why can’t you remember useful stuff like what happened the day Natalie died instead of something glum and useless?’ He turned the radio on. It seemed to be stuck on KissFM and he could hardly hear it because of the squealing engine. ‘We’re running
away
, remember?’

Stuck on North End Road I switched off the engine because I couldn’t stand the noise anymore. I said, ‘I followed Natalie to a posh hotel. You could’ve gone in after her but you weren’t there.’

‘Stop blaming me. I don’t understand—if she’s still alive how come I was nicked for using a dead woman’s plastic?’

‘Because Gram battered Natalie’s
friend
to death so that she’d be unrecognisable. They convinced everyone that the friend is Natalie and Natalie’s the friend. The classic switch. Natalie took out loads of insurance on her own life which she and the Devil want to collect. Or maybe Natalie made the friend the beneficiary of the policy.’

‘Or maybe your old mate Gram was
married
to Natalie so he’d benefit automatically.’

‘What?’

‘What did I say?
Don’t go!
You can’t leave me in the middle of a traffic jam!’

‘You have no pity,’ I yelled. ‘You’re too young and you want to torture me as well as yourself.’

‘Shut up.’ He grabbed my arm like he was drowning in a rough sea. ‘Please stay. I’ve got a little red wine in my handbag.’

‘How little?’

‘Enough for a pick-me-up.’

So I stayed and had a mouthful of red which settled my nerves and steadied my hands on the wheel.

When he saw I was alright again, he said, ‘One day you’re going to tell me why you call this guy the Devil and what he did to you.’

‘No I’m not,’ I said and I meant it. I didn’t want to reveal my shame and humiliation to someone so young and pretty—so without pity. Besides, he wouldn’t be interested in a story that didn’t revolve around beatings and mutilation of body parts.

‘Okay,’ he said, without the grace to hide his relief. ‘But we have to find Natalie or the Devil—what’s his name when he’s off duty?’

‘Gram Attwood. You can’t find him—he finds you.’

‘Short for Graham? I’ll start with the phone book.’

I snorted. ‘You can’t just look up Satan in the phone book. He manifests himself when he has plans for you, but not otherwise.’

‘You never actually tried to find him, did you?’

‘I don’t have to—evil is all around, all the time. You should know—you’re the one who was tortured with a screwdriver.’ I stopped talking to him till we found ourselves facing west on Western Avenue near Wormwood Scrubs Prison.

Then I realised we were on our way to East Acton where I used to live with my mother.

I panicked.

I wanted to turn round but there was too much traffic.

I wanted to stop because I couldn’t breathe.

The ambulance smelled of hot metal and battery acid. How many people had died in it and been dragged away to hell?

Electra stroked my hand with the top of her head.

‘Breathe,’ Smister said. ‘What the fuck was
that
about?’

The ambo was in a pub car park and I had no idea how it got there. We raced through the pelting rain. I could only move because we were running towards red wine.

Smister left us at a table in a dark corner at the back. I tried to dry Electra with my scarf and the sleeves of my leisure suit. She sat close to me with her head on my thigh, protecting me from the waiting waking nightmares.

Smister came back with two glasses of wine but he wouldn’t give it to me till I’d drunk some water and had a wash in the cloakroom.

‘It’s the last you’re drinking till we’ve stopped driving.’

‘Then
you
drive,’ I said. But he ignored me and read a phone book instead.

After a minute he looked at me curiously. ‘What made you come here?’

I didn’t know. ‘Maybe it’s because I’ve forgotten how to turn right—across the traffic.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘You don’t know how intimidating it is. You can’t drive.’ But after a mouthful of wine I admitted, ‘I used to live near here with my mum. She’s dead now.’

‘Is that right?’ he said, ‘because there’s a Mr G S Attwood living at 17 Milton Way. Does that ring a bell?’

I died from the pain. Graham Stephen Attwood was still living in my house.

My mother died and has no grave. I died and have no home. But Gram Satan Ashmodai de Ville is living in my house.

This is the house that he ‘sold’ to pay my legal fees and bury my mother. Except my lawyer is still unpaid, and my mother was kept in the morgue until there were enough other unclaimed bodies to make it worth while for the council to dig a big hole somewhere.

This happened because, stupid shameful old bag that I am, I appointed the Lord of Vermin as my legal representative here on earth with unlimited power of attorney.

Smister was crushing my hand and pinching my arm at the same time. ‘You’re making a scene. Shut
up
.’

‘Smister,’ I said as clearly as I knew how, ‘I need a drink.’ I leaned across the table and took his glass which was half full. Before he could protest I tipped it down my throat and felt the warmth surge from my guts to my poor cracked heart that let the icy wind blow in and freeze me to death. Smister got up, walked away and left me.

I poured water into the palm of my hand and gave Electra a drink.

‘You should’ve known you’d end up back in East Acton,’ she whispered. ‘It’s Karma.’

‘You know I don’t believe in predestination.’

‘Well I do,’ she said simply. ‘My life was written in my blood. I was bred to be fast. But every career ends in failure.’

‘But your failure shouldn’t mean your death.’

‘It didn’t. You were my second chance.’

‘And you were mine.’

‘Don’t be stupid. I’m a dog.’

‘You’re still my salvation.’

‘You can’t find salvation in a dog or a bottle. It’s in your own hands.’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Scares you, doesn’t it?’ She raised her muzzle to the ceiling and gave an imperious sniff. ‘You might have to think properly and start taking responsibility instead of going, “Oh it’s not my fault—I was weak and feeble and I loved too much.” And then finding a bottle of red and getting twatted again.’

‘That’s just vulgar.’

Smister said, ‘Why are you telling your dog off in public, making scenes? You’re lucky I’ve got an honours degree in charm and diplomacy.’

‘Who’s to charm?’

‘The landlady, sponge brain. She’s allowing us to park up here till tomorrow. I told her my “mum” had a nasty turn and needs a good sleep.’

‘Why do I always have to be your mother?’

‘If you were anything less than a mother everyone would wonder why I didn’t dump you. But if you’re my mum I get points for loyalty even when you’re trollied off your tits.’

‘Why
don’t
you dump me?’

‘I already told you.’ Sinister sighed loudly and turned his pretty eyes up to the ceiling.

I wouldn’t miss him telling me something crucial like that, would I? Half the time he complains cos I remember things. Now he’s taunting me cos I don’t.

‘You’re going for a lie-down,’ he said, with his evil charm. ‘I’ll find you one of your sleepers. But I don’t want another squawk out of you till you’re sober.’

I lay down on one of the bunks in the ambo. It was a lot softer than the pavement and better for my skeleton than the broke-back beds. Smister fed me sleep from the palm of his hand.

When I woke up it was because I heard the Devil calling. Smister and Electra were gone.

Chapter
30

Called By The Devil

S
mister left me with only a bottle of water. What am I supposed to do with that? Water’s no good for anything but washing.

Rain drilled holes through the ambo roof and into my skull. My poor brain winced and shuddered but the bastard hadn’t left me so much as one mouldy aspirin. I put on my coat and hat and snuck out into the dark wet night.

There were no lights on in the pub so it must’ve been well after closing time. But I knew where to go—the Devil was calling me home.

The High Street was grim, shuttered and half familiar. At one end Sherrie’s Nail Bar had been turned into a Halal butcher and at the other a fancy French patisserie had replaced Ron’s Electrical, but it too was up for sale or rent. Claire’s Hair, where my mother went for her wash and set and her bi-weekly top-up of bilious gossip, was still there.

At the Pizza Place you turn right and walk to the end of a residential street. Turn right again and the first turning you’ll see is Milton Way. My mother’s house, my house, Casa Ashmodai, is a hundred yards up on the left. It is semi-detached and a low wall divides its front garden from the garden of its conjoined twin on the other side. Its face is ruddy with Edwardian bricks. A concrete path runs round the detached side to a gate which protects the tiny back garden and kitchen door.

My mother and I kept the gate locked except once a week when it was opened for the purpose of expelling rubbish bins. When Gram moved in I became less concerned with security. Evil no longer lurked outside, trying to get in. It now had a key of its own and was sitting with its feet up on the coffee table waiting for dinner. I called it Darling. My mother took to her bed. I took to crime. Gram took everything.

The Devil doesn’t fear attack; the gate was unlocked. I opened it and slithered my scaly way to the kitchen door. The neighbour’s security light went on and skewered me, hand already grasping the doorknob. A grey cat stood, petrified, on the fence. We stared at each other in a rictus of alarm. The garden was bathed in white light and the rain shone like crystal rods. The door wouldn’t open.

I bent and felt for the spare key under the tub that once held a bay bush and scarlet geraniums. My back was hard as steel, my joints clanked like unoiled cogs but my robot self remembered. The key was still there but it was too crusted with lime-scale and the corpse of the dead earth to turn in the lock. I should have known—nothing living thrives where the Devil walks, nothing but his creatures, the rats, bats and cats. Green turns brown, nature withers and women rot in chokey, undead, with freeze-dried hearts.

I looked at my mother’s garden—at the bare fence where the dog rose used to ramble. The cat hissed and jumped down to defecate in the bed where once pure white lily of the valley rang its tiny bells and nodded to the grape hyacinths. If ever I needed proof that Ashmodai, Master of Corruption, lodged here, this was it.

Fear made me dither, and while I stood trembling the kitchen door swung open of its own accord.

Horned and hoofed, red eyed and yellow fanged, the Devil raised his tyre-iron to strike me dead…

Electra licked the rain off my face.

‘Get up and shut up,’ Smister whispered. ‘You’ll wake the neighbours.’

‘I knew it was you,’ I said. ‘The Devil doesn’t use a tyre-iron.’

‘Yeah-yeah, that’s why you shrieked and fainted.’

‘I slipped. What’re you doing here with a tyre-iron?’

‘I thought you were Graham Attwood coming home.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘Unlatched kitchen window.’ He pointed to the one above the sink. ‘I stepped in the washing-up bowl. I think I broke a plate.’

My mother, standing at that sink, used to boast that she had never in her life broken a plate, cup or glass. She said I was always in too much of a hurry. I could see my mother now—mid-height, mid-weight, hair washed and set every two weeks—as she complained, ‘Rush, rush, you’re sloppy about everything, and I’ll never know where you got those great clod-hopping feet. It wasn’t from my side of the family, that’s for sure.’ She’d look down at her own neat shoes. ‘No wonder you’re so clumsy.’

I couldn’t get to the office early enough or leave late enough to escape her harsh tongue. So I did well at work. Banks love busy, industrious little bees. Or they do until the bees help themselves to some of the honey. A bank will only tolerate thieves if they’re on the board of directors. Yes, if you want to steal, steal big. Gobble up entire insurance companies and pension funds.

‘Momster!’

‘What?’

‘I asked you where he would keep his papers, his laptop, personal stuff?’

Of course, I was in Satan’s stronghold with an unbeliever.

We followed the signs of decay and neglect up to my mother’s bedroom where the sight of her white sheets stained with carnal ichor and tumbled in disorder made me retch. He killed her and stole her bed. Of course he did: it was the biggest bed in 17 Milton Way. Mine had been the smallest. It was gone. Like me it had been used, abused and discarded. In its place were a computer table and a Posturistic office chair. There was a desk under the window. It supported the latest tech toys, monitors, mice and keyboards, games, three phones plus chargers. He hadn’t lost his taste for gadgetry.

At the top of the house, my brother’s room was now a well-appointed home gym. My whole family had been wiped out to meet the corporeal needs of Ashmodai.

Electra whimpered. Her ears were pinned flat against her narrow skull. She knew she was cowering in the shadow of true evil and she’d heard something…

Just before Smister switched off the light I saw the three of us reflected in a floor-to-ceiling mirror—Electra, pressing against my legs, me, in coat and hat looking like a deformed man, and Smister, sassy in slim denims, boots and a frock-top, head cocked, listening to the sound of a front door slamming. He flicked the switch. We disappeared into the dark.

A woman’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Darling, is that you?’

I clutched Smister’s hand and we backed away from the door into an exercise bike.

Footsteps on the stairs. I heard the creak of the fourth step from the landing. I tried to disentangle my coat from the bike pedals. Smister and Electra melted away.

The voice came from my mother’s bedroom door directly below us: ‘Are you asleep, sweetheart?’ A hideous breathy coo. She said, ‘Gram, baby?’ And I heard her open the bathroom door.

Then the smell of
Rive Gauche
and truffle oil—the scent of a spectre—wafted up the stairs. My wet coat caught around my legs, tying me to the exercise bike. How did the ghost know I was here? How did she know
anyone
was here?

The light blinded me. I threw up my arm to shield my eyes. The exercise bike suddenly released my coat and I stumbled forward.

The ghost of Natalie Munrow shrieked like a dying seagull. It staggered back and tumbled in slow motion down to the lower landing, bouncing off every other step, somersaulting and showing lacy knickers the colour of ashes of roses.

I just had time to think that I never knew ghosts were allowed to have elegant undies when Smister yelled, ‘You didn’t have to threaten her,’ and pushed past me.

Electra joined us and looked down on the heap of arms and legs that lay at the bend of the stairs.

‘Are you insane?’ Smister said. ‘You rushed at her. You were going to hit her.’

‘No, no,’ I protested. ‘I stumbled.’

We crept down the stairs to the pile of parts. I was thinking, a ghost can’t die—it’s already dead.

Then the ghost sighed. Which is what ghosts are supposed to do.

‘Thank fuck,’ Smister said. He bent over Natalie, straightening her arms and legs, supporting her head. ‘Ring for an ambulance, doofus. Don’t just stand there muttering.’

So I stepped over the two-time corpse and went to the bedroom. A space age remote handset stood on the cabinet by the Devil’s bed. I rang for an ambulance.

‘17 Milton Way,’ I said. ‘There’s been an accident. A woman fell down the stairs.’

‘Is she breathing?’

‘She shouldn’t be, but she is.’

‘Slow down, Madam. I know you’re upset but please speak slowly and clearly.’

‘She’s breathing,’ I said, and at last I started breathing too. ‘She isn’t properly conscious. It was a very hard fall.’

‘On no account try to move her,’ the expert on the telephone told me.

At that moment I saw Smister, supporting Natalie Munrow, coming across the hall.

‘Right you are,’ I said, feeling light-headed.

‘Get out the way,’ Smister said, and let Natalie down onto Satan’s bed of corruption. Her head rolled back like a cabbage on a kitchen floor. Her eyes were unfocussed. The impeccable grey-green eye shadow was smudged. I liked her better that way.

‘Ma’am?’ the expert on the phone said, ‘Ma’am, are you there? Did you hear me? It’s vital that you don’t move the victim till the ambulance crew gets there.’

‘Don’t move her,’ I said. ‘Right.’

‘Oops,’ said Smister.

‘Make sure she’s covered and doesn’t get cold.’

‘Covered,’ I said. ‘Right.’

‘You’re doing fine. The ambulance will be with you in about five minutes. Not long to wait now.’

‘Five minutes,’ I said. ‘Right.’

‘Fucking hang up!’ Smister hissed. He snatched the phone out of my hands, rubbed it all over with the Devil’s dirty sheet and dropped it on the bed. I grabbed a blanket and covered Natalie up to her chin. Her skin was spectral grey.

We rushed downstairs. I shut the back door and put the key in my pocket. We escaped by the front door which Smister left ajar for the ambulance crew. On his way out he picked up a black umbrella.

‘It was
you
, bird turd,’ I said. ‘I knew it was you.’ I led us at a cracking pace up Milton Way in the opposite direction from the High Street which was where the ambulance would come from.

‘It was me what?’ he panted.

‘You left your sodding wet umbrella in plain sight. That’s how Natalie knew someone was in the house. She thought it was Ashmodai and came looking.’

‘Ash who?’

‘If she hadn’t thought Gram was there she’d have gone away.’ I turned the corner at the end of the street and dropped down in a crouch. I needed to catch my breath. I opened the bottle of gin I’d swiped from the kitchen and took three enormous gulps.

‘Gimme that.’

We had a short undignified tussle which Smister won.

‘Oh lord,’ Electra sighed. ‘Not
both
of you!’

‘We had a shock,’ I told her. ‘We’re stressed out.’

‘No shit,’ Smister said. ‘Why the sodding hell did you push her downstairs?’

‘I did not!’

‘Shut up! You’ll wake the neighbours. You
always
go for maximum fuck-up and you
always
succeed.’

‘Now who’s shouting?’ I whispered. ‘I did not push, threaten or harm her in any way. If anyone’s to blame it’s you for leaving your umbrella where she could see it.
And
moving her when any fool knows you’re not supposed to.’

‘Both of you be quiet,’ Electra warned. ‘The sirens—listen.’

I peeked round the corner as the ambulance sped up Milton Way and stopped outside number 17. Lights went on all up and down the street as the neighbours woke up with their nosey noses twitching. That was the Milton Way I knew—everyone watching everyone else from behind the curtains.

A few minutes passed and then the ambulance crew came out carrying Natalie. I think she was wearing a neck brace but it was hard to see from the distance and through the rain.

‘They haven’t covered her face,’ I said.

‘She isn’t Too-Tall,’ Electra said, leaning against me sympathetically.

‘I’m telling you, she was alright when we left,’ Smister said. ‘If anything happens to her it’ll be medical malpractice.’

The ambulance U-turned and roared away.

‘I’m cold and wet,’ Electra said. ‘What’re we waiting for?’

‘We should go,’ Smister said. ‘She’s bound to tell the cops there were strangers in her house.’

‘It isn’t her house!’

Electra slid away and hid under a low hedge.

‘Go away, both of you,’ I said.

‘You’re never thinking about going back in?’ Smister said. ‘Listen, you sad old souse, the cops are coming. It’s suicide.’

‘I’m not going back inside.’

‘Then what’re we waiting for?’

‘Ashmodai.’

‘Who the freaking hell is Ashmo-whosit?’

‘He’s a member of the fiery circle,’ I said, ‘the Lord of Lust and Rage.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake—where do you get all this shite from?’

‘Same place as you get your stupidity and carelessness,’ Electra said from under her bush. ‘Take a long look at yourselves—you’re both catastrophes waiting to happen. And I use the word cat advisedly.’

‘Cats are minions of the Devil.’

‘Oh, give it a rest,’ said Smister and Electra together.

‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘You’ve got to promise not to go back in,’ Smister said, and Electra crawled out from under the bush and nodded.