Mountains of the Moon (21 page)

I find an instant black shoe shiner with a dabber on the end, does her shoes and my army boots. She’s smearing foundation on her face, wrong color really, too orange.

“Black or tan tights?” she says.

“Black,” the dog says.

I rip at her suit with strips of sticky tape.

“I’ll come with you for the drive,” I say. “I can wait in the car; just say I changed my mind.”

“Don’t be such a chicken!” She slings me one of her knee-length skirts. “We need to get you smartened up and businesslike.”

The skirt looks like a pelmet on me and even though I’m twice her height she’s wider than me on the hips.

“Oh dear,” she says.

The blouse is seven inches short in the arm. The trousers…

“Maybe not,” she says.

It’s too bloody cold to be undressed. I put my old jeans back on and my lumberjack shirt and my beautiful coat.

Funny, Gwen has decided not to notice my coat; int said a word about it. Soyoko in the Sheffield house was learning Fashion Design. One night late she tapped on my door, surprised me, said the mannequin weren’t no good, she needed to see the cut moving. The project was a full-length coat. The challenge, she said, was to get real warmth and beauty without any bulk. She paid for the black lambskins and all the pale broidery silks, come in the post from Italy. Every stitch was made to fit me. It took her three months and she nearly went blind hand-stitching the pale butterflies and flowers on the fluted cuffs. She came into my room and stood on a chair and kissed my cheek, got First Class and Exquisite. There was a show at the end of term and she arst me if I would go on the night and
walk up and down in the coat. I had to keep flashing, people wanted to see the shantung lining. After, when we got back to the house, Soyoko gave me the coat to keep. It made me cry, so chuffed, and when I finally stopped, she came with me out in the garden to burn my stinking anorak. Then the day she left I found a parcel, just in sides my door, with a note to say she hoped I liked it and it was made especial to go with the coat.

“You’re not going for an interview in that
soppy
hat?” Gwen says.

The light changes in the room. I go to the window and look out.

“It’s snowing,” I says.

Detective Cooper slips. I reckon it’s Roger with him. Looks like Roger, he feels the snow tween his fingers, smells it, don’t know if it’s true or not. I get back in bed and listens. Listens. Policemen in waterproof trousers come rubbing long the corridor, come rubbing down the ward. That’s how come I get a shock and my hair gets up both sides to meet them.

“I’ve brought a friend in to see you, Catherine,” Detective Cooper says. “Do you remember Sergeant Rawlings?”

I don’t look at Roger case I nod and get him in trouble.

“Hello Lulu,” he says.

I wishes he never.

Black Magic! Never even seen them coming. A big box and he puts them on my lap. Cellophane int on.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve eaten all of the toffees.”

Detective Cooper has a strawberry cream and walks off like looking for clues. My policeman has a chocolate clair. Roger has a caramel swirl and pulls a chair up closer to whisper me how everything is. The words is gnats around my face. I has to close my eyes.

“If you don’t say anything, everyone will think you’re guilty.”

I open and close my eyes, see snow sticking outside on the winder and getting thicker. Like words, piling up. Little fingers start flowering pink up gainst the snowy glass, Baby Grady is on the ledge.

“It’s a seagull, Lulu,” Roger says. “A seagull with a bag of chips.”

People is so confused. Detective Cooper comes back and has to arst me one more time. They wait. I don’t say nothing. Stead I pass the Black Magic and wonders if policemen is really liars. The lady in the next bed is playing Scrabble with her husband. He’s got triple-word score, VIADUCT; they can’t work out how many it is.

“Well,” Detective Cooper says. “We’ll see you again tomorrow, at Red Roofs, Catherine. Catherine?”

“Her name’s Lulu,” Roger says.

But Sarah from Social Services comes in. She minds me of a rag doll, no nose and no backbone. And she int happy. They pull the curtain around the bed and stand behind it like it was a wall.

“I’m appalled—I can’t believe you’ve charged her.” She int quite whispering. “A) I should have been present; B) She’s in no fit state, she doesn’t know what day it is.”

I does. It’s Tuesday.

“I consulted with the court,” Detective Cooper says. “If she’s over ten and if there is sufficient evidence to charge her, then she must be charged. It’s Parliament that makes the Law, Sarah, not me. If she’s not fit to stand trial, then she’s not fit to stand trial, we had to charge her; it’s a serious matter.”

“Come off it,” she says. “Jesus Christ, she’s hardly at large, she weighs three stone.”

It’s true, I int large.

“Has Catherine made a statement?”

“No, Catherine hasn’t said a single solitary word, not to us or her lawyer.”

“Her name’s Lulu,” Roger says.

“Then how the hell are you going to get a plea or an oath?” Sarah says. “Jesus Christ. I need a copy of the witness statements; I need to know what has happened to this girl. I’ve got nothing to go on, nothing, not a bloody thing. Out there Catherine Clark doesn’t even bloody well exist.”

“Lulu. Her name’s Lulu,” Roger says, folds the curtain back. They all look at me; I look at the coconut swirl.

“We’ll see you again, Catherine,” Detective Cooper says.

They walk way. Roger looks back from the door. He holds his hand up, more like hello than bye-bye. I lift my fingers, thanks for the chocolates, and then he’s gone.

Sarah’s hands is shaking.

“I’ve brought you some clothes to try on.” She tips a bag on the bed. “Will you stand up for me, so we can try these on you?”

I hobble out of bed. She undoes the strings at the back of my gown. Nothing fits. The trousers is Rupert Bear and too short and needs a belt to stop them dropping down. Jumper’s yellow. She puts it on me. I take it off. She puts it on me. I take it off.

“Lions,” I says. “Yellow int no good.”

“They’ll have to do.” She looks like she’s going to cry.

I hold out the Black Magic tray but she don’t want one.

Scrabble lady looks like dead, all the words on the board has slid. Her husband walks up and down, looks out of the winder; sits back down. The dictionary is by her hand.

“Psst,” I says.

Husband steps over my policeman’s legs, don’t even wake him up. I whispers in the man’s ear.

“
Dictionary
.”

And he gets it for me. Every time surprises me, how many words there is. I look up what else Roger said. Premeditation. Murder. Manslaughter. Demolished Responsibility. Wonders about
oath
. Oath. Sworn? Sworn Oath. I promises to tell the f-ing truth?

Don’t know how come the hospital done it, all this to make me live. I spects you has to be live fore they can kill you proper. Wonders if my mum will come to watch. She might run out of cigarettes and miss it, probably, or get doing a show stead. She might, I know how lucky I is. Still I listen all the time for her shoes in the corridor and everybody stopping to look. This policeman int big enough, case she chews him up. My heart bashes so hard hurts, panics, looking for the way out. My
policeman yawns, stretches, holds his hat up over his head. Puts it on his lap. Picks it up, swirls it around on his fist. Puts it on the floor tween his feets. Puts his foot up on it. Reads gain the papers from his pocket. He looks at me.

“What does it say?” I arsts him.

“Child pro-theck-tion order from Thocial Thervices.” He does it the shape of Donald Duck. “To thop your mum from coming in.”

I wonders if it’s the same as an injunction, won’t stop nothing, not if it’s coming. It’s dark outside, ward lights shine on the winder glass. Smudged girl stares at me. Could get out of the winder, stand on the ledge and fly way. I get out of bed and hobble on my heels. Her fingertips presses on mine. I look down, at where she means. Can’t, an Aston Martin is parked underneath. And the Sandwich Man smoking a cigarette, on the bonnet of his black Capri.

I’d run, girly, if I was you.

The building is one story, solid, winderless brick. We walk around the parked cars and raised beds searching for the entrance. It’s spotlit brass: CASINO ROYALE. Silk shrubbery covered in snow sides the black marble steps. I spected curly neon and migraine-patterned carpet and a big space like a bingo hall, but this is a small Edwardian parlor with a sofa and a silk aspidistra on the counter. Receptionist has come around with a duster and polish to shine the mahogany coffee table.

“Do you think it’s the uniform?” Gwen says. “I rather like it.”

“Edwardian.”

“It’s rather fetching.”

The long black skirt is ruched up high on the arse, gives an effect like a bustle. Front of the skirt is lifted though, as if by hands, to show shoes and ankles off. The receptionist sees us looking in, through slits in the etched glass. She goes behind her counter to get a set of keys. Her top is satin, black and gold in thin stripes; it’s like a waistcoat at the front but spilling over the bustle behind. She lets us in, turns all the locks behind
us gain. She’s so beautiful, Princess Grace of Monaco, I gawps at her lips talking, don’t hear nothing she says.

Smiling at me.

“Your coat?”

“Yes,” I says. “It is.”

Gwen digs me. Then I sees the row of hangers and Gwen’s jacket going cross the counter. Keeping mine on.

“…like a cross between
Bonnie and Clyde
and
The Railway Children
. Really suits you. Really does. My grandmother was a milliner.”

“Are we too early?” Gwen says.

Princess Grace picks up a receiver hanging on the wall, looks up above our heads at a CCTV monitor; I can see the screen in the mirror. Sees a spotlit white collar and a pair of cuffs walk to pick up a phone on an island in dark space.

“More for you,” she tells him.

He looks up at the camera. She presses a button and the camera zooms closer. He smiles stretching his arms, mimes what a massive yawn it all is. She loves him, can tell.

“The Pit Boss will be with you shortly,” she says to us.

“Have you had much response?” Gwen says.

The man I seen on the screen comes through solid double doors in a white shirt and black dinner suit, blows the Edwardian theme.

“Who is who?” he arsts.

“I’m Gwen.” She jigs.

“I’m Darren.” He shakes her hand.

I feel like Gulliver, like Joan of the fucking ark or something. He looks up at me, shakes my hand. His is soft, catches slightly on my holly-prickled hand. Was specting a bull terrier but this Pit Boss, Darren, is like mild weather, with gray eyes and fair hair, clean-shaved and polished. The suit has got a satin collar and a stripe down the leg of the trousers. Soft-shoe-shuffle shoes. He smells loverly and clean. Talks plain and softly.

“Come through,” he says.

The springs on the heavy double doors nearly snap my wrists. It’s
another world of mock Edwardian. A huge square room with a big clumsy circus of gaming tables looped together with red ropes. I spects the Pit is the dark bit in the middle, for dark staff with cuffs and a phone on a plinth. Customers go around the outside. None now, it don’t open til two. The curtains are real but the winders int, the views has been painted on. Clifton Suspension Bridge, we came past it on the way to Bristol. Ships. HMS
Great Britain
; we seen it in the harbor. The green gaming tables glare flooded under the lights. A man in a blue overall is hoovering the table surfaces with an upholstery attachment.

“Baize,” Gwen turns to say. Trips over the Hoover cable.

We follow Darren over the yellow-gold carpet, up and down slopes and shallow steps with lit edges. Carpets got a spring in it; I tends these boots int killing me.

An Edwardian bar is staged in the near corner with a couple of sofas and occasional tables. I nod at someone being an Edwardian barman, polishing glasses behind the bar. A pretty waitress called Dorit, in a shorter version of the girls’ uniform, is sent to get us coffee. Seems friendly, wags her apron at us. The place int as big as I thought, whole thing is done with gilt and mirrors, stinks of cigarettes and polish. We sit on low red stools at a roulette table. Dorit brings us coffee and a side table.