Lady Bag (3 page)

Chapter
4

Plagued By Joss, Beer
And Jealousy

B
ut sometimes I too sleep like a dog. And sometimes I sleep better outdoors than in. Instead of putting the legs of your bed inside your shoes and lying on top of your money so that no one can steal anything, you just curl up in a doorway. You think you’ll take the weight off your feet for twenty minutes and the next thing you know it’s daylight and someone’s tapping you on the shoulder offering you a paper cup full of hot sweet coffee. An ordinary guy on his way to work gave me his coffee and walked off before I could say thank you. Sometimes people are so lovely I could cry.

We walked west to Hyde Park where I could use the public facilities and Electra could feel the grass under her toes. She likes that. She drank from the lake and wandered between the trees reading the messages left by other dogs. A walk in the park for her is like a fresh newspaper for me.

I found a packet of nearly unopened cheese sandwiches in a bin and shared them with Electra. It was a brilliant morning—free coffee, free sarnies and hardly any headache. I’d expected worse. I deserved worse.

I had twenty-six pounds and forty-seven pence in various pockets about my person. Alone in the park I was able to count it and conceal most of it next to my skin, keeping only enough to get by for the next few hours. I promised myself and Electra that I wouldn’t buy any Algerian red till after lunch.

I was going to South Kensington and South Kensington is not in my territory. My patch is the West End where all the tourists go. It’s messy and there are loads of all-night burger bars—it’s a land of opportunity. To get to South Kensington you have to bypass Belgravia and Knightsbridge because that’s where all the toffs live, and toffs don’t want to see me and Electra outside their billion pound pads. And they don’t go in for the amenities that make life liveable like twenty-four-hour convenience stores and public lavs.

It was a good grey day for those of us who live outdoors—no sun, no wind, no rain. People who look forward to a hot sunny day should remember that it’s nearly as stressful to us as snow—we can’t escape either.

Now, the problem was Harrison Mews. I couldn’t loiter there. It was a tiny dead-end cobbled stage-set of twee little cottages covered with wisteria and clematis.

‘We’re buggerised,’ I told Electra. ‘They don’t even have dustbins to hide behind. These people are so precious—I bet you it won’t be five minutes before someone sends the maid to find out what we’re doing.’

Electra stared in amazement at a little stone lion that Mr and Mrs Precious of Harrison Mews had placed on the edge of a horse trough outside a house with a yellow door. There’s nothing so rustic as a mews in central London.

Gram Attwood came here last night, I thought. He might be asleep in one of these houses right now. He might be lying flat on his back hogging the bed the way he used to when he lay under my duvet in Acton. He lay with his throat, his chest, his stomach, his groin, unprotected. Obviously he never feared attack from me. The Devil doesn’t fear attack.

I never sleep on my back anymore and I don’t know anyone who does. Everyone I know curls like armadillos around their soft parts and possessions.

The song says, ‘When you got nothin’ you got nothin’ to lose.’ But that was written by a guy who didn’t understand the concept. There’s always something to defend even if it’s only your soft parts or your right to feel no pain.

But Gram Attwood can sleep without fear. Think about
that
when you talk to me of justice. He stole from rich and poor alike and then persuaded me to take the blame. Why? Because, he assured me, as I had no prior convictions, I would not be sent to prison. I was a respectable forty-year-old woman, previously of good character, with a house and an ailing mother to look after. Yes, I was a home-owner and I worked in a building society. I was in a position of trust, and that was what finally did for me—I betrayed so many expectations: I was worse than a thief—I was a bad woman. You can’t be more wicked than that. So of
course
I was sent to prison—as he must’ve known I would be.

But Gram Attwood can sleep on his back without protecting his soft parts.

Even his story about a previous conviction turned out to be a lie. He wept real tears when he told me about the youthful indiscretion that’d put him in the dock. When he threw himself on my mercy.

The Devil cries salty tears and can sleep on his back without fear.

In the last four years he has not acquired a single wrinkle or a grey hair. He has been cosseted. I wonder how many women have bought him clothes and shoes, provided freshly laundered sheets and towels. Did they pour his coffee and champagne like I did? Do they know that he doesn’t like mushrooms?

Electra whimpered softly. My hand was cramped around her collar—a clenched fist. I released her and my fingers ached.

‘I need a drink,’ I said.

Electra licked my thumb—so discreetly that I almost missed her message. I looked into the huge topaz eyes that said, ‘You promised.’

‘I know, I know,’ I said, ‘but what do I do about the rage?’

‘What’re you mithering about now?’ Joss said. ‘You’re always mithering. People think you’re barmy.’

‘What’re you doing here?’

‘You told us about it. I want to check it out. You shouldn’t keep the good stuff to yourself. We’re muckers, ain’t we?’

‘Where’s Georgie?’

‘Kensal Rise. That’s where he thinks you’ll be. We had a bet. Well screw him.’ Joss shifted uneasily from one foot to another. Obviously they had a fight last night. Georgie drives him insane but he’s lost without him.

‘Rich pickings?’ Joss looked down the little mews with its cute cottages and immaculate paintwork. Then he looked at the grand Victorian facades of Harrison Road. ‘What’s the story then?’ he asked. ‘What we doing here?’

‘I know why
I’m
here,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t invite you.’

‘That’s right, you didn’t.’ His face darkened with suspicion and he moved a few steps into the mews staring at the cobbles through his long lank hair.

You’d never guess he was only twenty-four—his hair and beard make him look fifty.

‘It’s not a new mission, you said? Yeah, this’d be a weird place for a mission. So what is it? Someone chucking out stuff you can sell?’ He whipped round and stuck his face into mine. I could smell cornflakes and his first beer of the day. ‘Why’re you holding out on us?’ he hissed. ‘Mates don’t hold out on mates.’

Electra whimpered. I took a step back. ‘It’s nothing like that. Last night I saw an old… I saw someone I used to know.’

‘Someone rich? From before? See, I always said you was never one of us. You come from higher places, you. I told Georgie, I said, one day she’ll go back to where she came from. She’ll be with her rich friends and forget all about us.’

‘Stop shouting,’ I said. ‘Someone will call the cops.’

‘Mates stick together,’ he snarled. And I remembered a story someone told me about when he was part of a ‘recycling’ team and another rough sleeper got badly beaten up when Joss thought his territory was under threat. That was before he met Georgie and settled down. But he was still paranoid—I could see that.

‘Fancy a coffee?’ I said. ‘I’m buying.’ I’d have to come back later—Joss was making me conspicuous.

‘What about your old friend?’

‘I don’t think anyone at this address is going to want a reunion with me. I shouldn’t have come.’

‘I don’t want coffee,’ he said, ‘but I could murder a can of Special Brew.’

I looked at Electra. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s not my fault.’

He led the way with unerring instinct towards the nearest off-licence. He moved quickly. I was carrying my back-pack and bedroll and followed more slowly, so, turning for a last look at the mews, I saw the woman from last night come out of the house with the yellow door. She checked her bag for keys—a Louis Whatsisname handbag—and hurried out of the mews to Harrison Road where she was picked up and driven away by someone I couldn’t see in a sexy red German car.

It’s her house, I thought, of course it’s her house. I used to check my bag for keys in exactly the same way when I left for work. When I had a handbag, a house and a job. And I too used to sneak a last look at the bedroom window when I’d left Gram sleeping on his back in the middle of my bed.

I could soak a newspaper in alcohol, set light to it and stuff it through the letterbox in the yellow front door. When Gram came stumbling out, coughing and retching from the smoke, I would be waiting and I’d clock him over the head with a manhole cover.

‘Do you want a fucking drink or what?’ Joss said, striding ahead. Electra hung back looking miserable. She knows what I’m thinking.

‘I’m jangling,’ I told her. ‘Because my mother would be alive today if it wasn’t for what that Devil did to me.’ Electra stared at me with sorrowful eyes and I knew I had her sympathy.

‘Got any money?’ Joss stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him.

‘Not much,’ I said. You don’t want to tell him how much you’ve got unless you’re prepared to put up with his company till it’s all gone. In that, he has a lot in common with Gram Attwood.

We clubbed together to buy a six-pack of Special Brew. It isn’t Algerian Red, I thought; I’m not breaking my promise. Beer is more thirst-quenching than wine but it causes painful bloat. Then there’s the question of where to pee, which is another problem with beer. Joss can do it in the underpass but I can’t. Knowing what to drink and where to pee are just two of the skills I’ve learned the hard way. That is why I stick to my own territory. I’m lost in South Kensington.

By the time I found somewhere near Gloucester Road tube station I was nearly bursting. I hate the smell of wee, but I stayed in there for ages. I wanted Joss to get fed up waiting for me and bugger off. I had the place to myself because any woman who came in took one look at me and walked straight out again. The dirty spotted mirror told me why: multiple layers of clothes, bedroll and backpack bent me out of shape. I stoop and hulk. My face is bluey-pink from broken veins and the weather. The grizzled hair that escapes from under my woolly beanie is an uncontrollable frizz. Four years ago I went to the hairdresser every five or six weeks. I had it layered and streaked with hi and lo lights for my court appearance—as if looking my best would save me. But women get into the most trouble when they’re looking their best. I met Gram Attwood when I was looking my best. That sort of trouble would never ever happen to me today.

I couldn’t help myself. I cried like a baby. I often do when I’m stupid enough to take a peek in a mirror.

‘Dogs don’t get ugly with age,’ I wept to Electra, ‘so why should I? Is it cos I look after you better than I look after myself?’

‘Don’t bring me into this,’ she said. Her amber eyes are more beautiful than any you’ll see on a super-model. She stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the wash-basin and I gave her a drink from the running tap. Why don’t greyhounds get bags under their eyes?

‘It’s the pure thoughts,’ she said. ‘I feel no hate or rage: only love.’

‘Oh do shut up,’ I said, and we went out into the stone-coloured afternoon.

Joss was there with a man who was circling him like a vulture, saying, ‘I should fucking kick your ugly teeth in. This ain’t your pitch, you nonce.’

‘Bring it on!’ Joss yelled. ‘Who you calling nonce, arsehole?’

Both of them were working their insane technique. It’s what certain guys learn in prison, and it’s like they’re saying, ‘I can take more pain and dish out more hurt than you cos I’m crazier than you.’

The sight of two homeless guys trying to frighten each other over a small square of pavement was so depressing that I left Gloucester Road and tried to find my way back to Harrison Mews. But could I? You’d think I was lost in the space-time continuum. I couldn’t find Harrison Road let alone the sodding mews.

‘It’s not like I’m… ’

‘What? Totally fucked up?’ Electra said. ‘Don’t kid yourself.’

‘Well you find it then. You can’t, can you? I should’ve chosen a bloodhound over a greyhound.’

She gave me a look full of patience and accusation before turning right through a hidden entrance, up some stone steps and out into a tiny secret churchyard. The sign over the church door said, ‘Apple Pip Montessori Pre-school.’ Dotted among the ancient headstones were wire cages holding lop-eared rabbits and ginger guinea pigs happily munching on the grass and bits of carrot. Electra and I stared at them, astonished. She sniffed at a couple of the cages but the occupants showed no interest or alarm. They knew her sweet nature without even bothering to ask.

I unrolled a blanket and sat behind a grave. It was quiet and private, an island in a fast moving stream. I settled down, and when no one came rushing out to send me away I opened a tin of dog food for Electra, plopping it onto her red plastic bowl. When she’d finished I gave her some of the guinea pigs’ water to drink. We were safe and comfortable in South Kensington and we celebrated by going to sleep.

Chapter
5

I Find Myself At The Wrong End Of A Boot

I
was dreaming about walking up to a house with a yellow door. My lovely high heel shoes clicked and wobbled on the cobble stones and I was afraid I’d fall over and mess up my party dress. It was important I look my best. Love and success were waiting behind the yellow door if I could only get there in time.

I opened my eyes. Two very small children in Oshkosh dungarees were petting Electra who had rolled on her back to let them tickle her tummy. A young woman with shiny fair hair was shaking my foot and saying, ‘You’ll have to go now. Wake up—you can’t sleep here.’ Behind her several children stared at me curiously.

‘Is she dead?’ one of them asked cheerfully. ‘Why’s she making that funny noise?’

‘Is she Big Foot?’

‘She’s snoring,’ the teacher said. ‘Go inside for your milk and biscuits.’

‘Can Big Foot have milk and bikkies?’

‘She isn’t Big Foot,’ the teacher said, ‘and she’s going home now.’

‘Can the doggie have some milk and bikkies?’

‘Go inside,’ the teacher said, a note of desperation creeping into her voice as I sat up smiling eagerly.

‘
Chocolate
bikkies?’ I asked.

So Electra and I were given milk and chocolate biscuits because the people at Apple Pip Montessori were too nice to send us away empty-handed. They even gave us directions to Harrison Mews. And waved us goodbye, their faces wreathed with smiles of complete relief.

I am a bad person. I have received gifts today—coffee, sandwiches, milk and chocolate. Strangers have been kind. I should be more loving because of it. But I cannot free my mind from its pit full of boiling rage. In this pit I am hungry and thirsty, yes, but not for food and red wine. Nothing will fill the jagged hole but revenge. I would like to see some blood. My hunger would feed on the sound of a cracking bone or two. I want to witness Gram Attwood’s pain and fear. He couldn’t be bothered with mine but his will be the medicine that makes me whole again.

When I’m free of this unliftable weight of rage and sorrow I’ll be able to walk free, to work for wages, to buy moisturiser for my purple face and cream-rinse for my splintering hair.

‘And you shall have a sofa to sleep on,’ I told Electra, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. She doesn’t understand the need for revenge. I don’t think she would even consider laying a tooth on the human beings, so-called, who treated her cruelly when her winning days came to an end, who rejected her and left her to rot. Like me.

‘Did you actually forgive?’ I asked her as we walked. ‘Acceptance is in your nature so it isn’t a virtue. But if you forgave… well, that makes you a better bitch than me.’

She didn’t answer, and at last we arrived at the house with the yellow door. I hunkered down opposite with my back against a wall and a trail of leggy buddleia tickling my ears. Electra sat beside me.

Two minutes later Joss hissed in my ear. ‘You stupid fucking cow—you can’t sleep here. Get the fuck out before someone sees you.’ He grabbed my arm with one hand and Electra’s collar with the other and started dragging us across the cobbles.

He was hurting me. I was going to start yelling when, to my complete astonishment, the yellow door opened and Georgie came skittering out like a ferret from a drainpipe. He sprinted past us to Harrison Road, turned left and disappeared. He was carrying three plastic bags that clanked as he ran.

‘What’ve you done?’ I cried.

Joss dropped my arm and bent over me. ‘You ain’t seen us,’ he snarled. To drive his meaning home he drove his boot into my side with such force I felt ribs crack—even under all my layers of clothes. He hauled back to deliver the same message to Electra but I snatched at his foot and he fell over. Electra ran for her life.

He scrambled to his feet. ‘You mad syphilitic old cow,’ he said and aimed his boot at my mouth.

I can’t remember the next couple of minutes, but when my eyes opened again my head felt like a smashed melon, all my teeth wobbled and my mouth was full of blood. Joss was gone. Electra was gone.

I badly needed a drink.

The yellow door was ajar and I crawled towards it. They always keep wine in nice little mews houses with yellow front doors.

I crawled on all fours across a blond maple floor to a tiny kitchen. There was a wine rack on the counter. I grabbed a bottle at random. The lady of the house didn’t go in for easy-open bottles so I had to find a corkscrew. It was the only thing worth trying to stand up for. Even so I threw up messily in the cute round kitchen sink. Throwing up, I discovered, was not a kindness to the broken ribs. It was only the thirst for red wine that kept me from passing out. I found the corkscrew in a drawer, and a box of dissolvable aspirins in the one just below it. I dissolved three aspirins in a tumbler full of wine and nearly sicked up in the sink again.

The floor slid up to meet me and I sat gratefully with bottle and glass until the room stopped heaving and the bottle was empty. It was the first time in years that I’d drunk wine from a glass.

‘This could’ve been mine,’ I said to Electra. ‘I should’ve been an area manager by now.’ But Electra didn’t answer. I looked round. An empty space had opened up at my side—a silent pocket that used to hold the warm doggy smell of her. Then I remembered. She ran away when Joss tried to kick her. I protected her but she didn’t protect me.

‘Fuck her,’ I thought. No sofas for her. I opened the fridge: white wine, milk and fizzy water in the door. Oh yes! And packets of ham, cheese and smoked salmon, plus six little jars of chocolate pudding—all the stuff I buy specially for Gram because I know what he likes.

I opened another bottle of classy French red. I took a chocolate pud from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer and slowly, oh very slowly, made my way upstairs. When you come home after a hard day the first thing you want to do is have a little drink and then take a bath; or maybe have a little drink
in
the bath. Sometimes when Gram is at home, waiting for me, we have a bath together, drinking wine and talking by candlelight. Today I think I’ll have a bath with lots of bubbles, the jasmine bubbles that Gram likes. Hot water, bubbles and good wine are what you need when your ribs ache and your teeth no longer fit in your mouth. I always leave the boiler on so that there’s hot water whenever Gram and I want it. And I always have candles. Candlelight is kind and forgives the years. It makes Gram forget I am older than he is.

I lie wallowing in hot jasmine water, healing from the day’s hurts, and wait for my one true lover. The only one. The one and only. The love and lonely.

I woke up when I heard the screaming.

The water wasn’t hot. The bubbles had burst. The bottle was empty but the stub of a candle still flickered on the edge of the bath. I struggled to sit up but my back and ribs went into spasm. So I screamed too. I grabbed for a towel, slipped and fell back, whacking my head. The candle went out. A door slammed. Darkness and silence.