The Bricks That Built the Houses (4 page)

A sulky little man with flowers in his hair appears beside Becky and leads Marshall off across the room. Everyone in the circle follows behind like bridesmaids, entranced, including Aisha and the agent, until only Becky and Harry are left, stunned in the aftermath, staring around like it’s the morning at a rave. Harry wants to reach for her hand and take it and see what happens. But there is no part of her that would actually allow her to do that, and so she drains her glass in a fast gulp and reaches for another from the smiling tray-bearer who appears beside her.

‘Interesting man,’ Becky says, following Marshall and his disciples with her eyes.

Harry watches the top of Marshall’s head as he sashays across the room. ‘I was interested,’ she says, ‘definitely.’ Becky hears the familiar accent of home: south-east London’s curving vowels and glottal stops. ‘You in the band?’

‘No, I’m a dancer. I was in the video.’

Harry is impressed. Looks at Becky with wide eyes. ‘A dancer, yeah? What kind of stuff?’

‘All kinds.’ She brushes over it.

‘You in a company or something?’

Becky looks at Harry strangely. ‘No. Not at the moment. Just videos and telly stuff.’

‘You enjoy it?’ Harry watches her face. Some lonely distant thing behind the smile.

Becky nods. ‘Yeah, it’s really cool . . .’ She heaves a deep sigh. One hand goes up to her hairline, strokes her forehead a couple of times and drops back down again. ‘What about you?’ Becky drinks, watches Harry over the top of her glass. ‘You work with these lot then?’

They look around at all the cackling crotch-hungry monsters. Throwing their heads back.

‘Yeah.’ Harry nods. ‘I’m in recruitment, I work with a couple of guys from the record label.’

‘Lucky you.’ Her sarcasm is well practised. It lives deep in the tissue of her language.

Harry also knows the code. ‘Yes,’ she says wearily, ‘lucky me.’

A fat hand lands on Harry’s shoulder and pulses there, leech-like. ‘Harry!’ a man says. ‘Lovely to see you, sweetheart.’

Harry looks round. ‘Julian,’ she says, and an awkward silence descends on the three of them. Julian grins into it, begins to guide Harry away towards the corner of the room, Harry looks from Julian to Becky and digs her feet in, pulls him back. Stands her ground.

Julian, confused, smiles at Harry and lifts his hand. ‘Harry?’

‘It’s OK,’ Harry says, mouth dry. ‘She’s a friend.’

Becky feels pride swimming through her, pausing at the shallow end to shake its hair and flex its muscles.

Harry, allowing herself a rare departure from routine, looks briefly around her as she takes four chunky wraps from the pouch attached to the inside of her waistband and, in one subtle movement, presses them into the fat-handed man’s palm. So swift it is almost invisible. They shake hands. Vigorous. Friendly. The cash in Julian’s palm is transferred to Harry’s pouch. The man sends his froggy eyes over Harry’s body, and then over Becky’s. Harry’s heart is thumping hard as marching troops.

Becky watches the exchange like it’s a piece of immersive theatre. Wondering what she is meant to be discerning from it.

‘Friend of Harry’s?’ Julian asks her, his bloated face bobbing.

‘Yeah,’ Becky says, looking away from him.

‘Lovely, just lovely. What a picture.’ He grins. Flashbulb wink. He nods enthusiastically. Sniffing and swallowing and jerking his face around. His voice is a bellow. As if he has never known shyness. He roars. ‘AND AND AND AND HOW ARE YOU, HARRY? HOW’S THINGS? YOU LOOK WELL, DON’T YOU? yOU LOOK VERY WELL.’ He looks her up and down, sniffing loudly, huge darting eyes, lips moving faster than the words they’re trying to say, brain pulsating almost visibly through his skull.

Harry smiles patiently at him, talks slowly. ‘I’m fine, thanks, Julian. Getting by, you know. Getting on.’

‘Oh that’s great to hear, that’s great.’ He spits as he talks, brittle flecks explode from his Ss. ‘OK, well. My drink’s getting cold.’ He forces two stabs of laughter out of his gullet and then waves, winks and staggers fatly away.

‘Bye,’ says Becky in a monotone, watching him walk off. She looks at Harry, who swallows nervously. Julian’s back is bustling noisily towards the toilets.

Harry feels Becky’s eyes on her, glances up, then away.

‘Your name’s Harry?’ Becky asks her.

‘Uh huh.’ Sirens howl in Harry’s ears. Why did she just do that? She looks around for Leon: no sign of him. She raises a hand to her temple, pushes her thumb in.

‘As in, Harriet?’

‘Nope.’ Harry shakes her head, smiling at the woman, in spite of herself. ‘As in Harry.’

‘Fair enough.’ Becky watches her closely, like a child with a caught beetle. ‘You smoke, Harry?’ she asks.

‘Yep.’ Harry holds the back of her neck, leans into her hand.

‘Wanna go for one?’

They walk towards the smoking patio, out through the double doors at the back of the room. The air’s cold. The city’s twinkling all over the place. Becky lights a cigarette. Breathes in. Loves blowing smoke into cold night air. Takes another puff but it doesn’t feel the same.

‘You don’t look like a drug dealer,’ she says simply, a smile at the corner of her mouth.

Harry’s eyes pop at the words. She rubs her jaw and laughs a quick breathy laugh. She leans in closer and speaks low, checking around her. She speaks nonchalantly. Acts natural, but her palms are damp and her legs are shaking. ‘What do drug dealers look like?’

‘You know what I mean.’

They sit close together on a concrete bench next to a large flowerpot. There’s a tall heating lamp above them and every five or six minutes it turns itself off and then someone has to lean over them to press the switch again. Hardly a private place. Harry notices all the groups of people laughing loudly at each other; she can hear them talking, she wonders if they can hear her.

‘Is it a tough job then? For a woman, I mean?’

Harry decides that they can’t hear her. She feels judders of electricity in her face and hands.

‘No more than any other job.’ She looks at the end of her cigarette. ‘No tougher than being a dancer.’

‘How long you been doing it?’ Harry screws her face up in discomfort. Becky pushes her leg. ‘What?!’ she says. ‘I’m not the fuckin’ police!’

Harry takes a puff, holds it in, blows it out. ‘Ages,’ she says. ‘All my life, pretty much.’

‘How’d you get into it?’

Harry taps her feet a few times, leans back. In all the years of showing up at parties like this, she has never locked eyes with a woman and sat down and discussed the ins and outs of her trade. Never. Not once. Usually, she turns up when she’s
needed, does what she has to do and then she leaves without speaking to anyone. Invited by clients, she walks in smiling, makes her trades and then it’s off to the next one. Sometimes she stays longer, if the client is somebody she likes. But she never tells
strangers
what she does. Why did she just give Julian the chop like that, standing next to this woman? Her heart is swaying like a pendulum. She feels someone looking over. She lifts her eyes and finds Leon staring with his eyes narrowed. She waves him away with a shake of her head. He watches her, puzzled. She looks away from him pointedly, and when she looks back to where he was standing she sees with some relief that he’s not there any more.

Becky looks at Harry, and thinks she has the physicality of someone who is desperate to escape themselves; she is constantly adjusting unruly strands of hair or pulling at her clothes and she is riddled with the haunted, shy defiance of a woman born with all the bits adding up to the wrong amount. Becky recognises this in her. Watches her with interest, thinks about what it must be like to be a dealer and so small. Wonders if it’s dangerous. Imagines Harry running; she looks like she can run fast.

Harry feels a whirling pressure mounting between them. If she was smoother or more confident or male she might have the nerve to lean in and kiss this girl. But as it is she rubs her face with a clumsy hand and stretches her legs out and crosses them at the ankles. She never knows if girls are coming on to her or just being friendly. She never knows. She always feels creepy for assuming. She sweeps the patio again for
Leon or for a client wandering over, but seeing no one she recognises, she shifts on the bench and looks into Becky’s face for as long as she can without going blind. Which is about a quarter of a second.

‘I have a plan,’ she says, ‘that I’m working towards.’

Becky waits for more.

‘Go on then,’ Becky urges, waving her cigarette in the air like a conductor with her baton.

‘Go on then, what?’ Harry asks, laughing.

Becky rolls her eyes, looks away. ‘You’re no fun.’

‘What’s your name?’ Harry asks her.

‘Becky.’

‘Becky.’ Harry repeats it to herself. Logging it. Someone leans over and pushes the heater switch. They lean forwards together, ducking the arm that leans in, then backwards again. ‘What about you? How long you been dancing?’

‘Same, all my life.’

Harry finishes her cigarette, stubs it out carefully, places it on the floor, neatly, next to the leg of the bench. Becky flicks hers towards the corner of the patio; the little bulb blooms as it soars through the air. They sit in silence, listening to the party roaring.

‘So, is it always parties like this?’

Harry sways on the bench, knocked by the confidence of this woman.

‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you,’ she says quietly, looking away. ‘I don’t know you, do I? You could be CID. Or
fucking . . . you could be working for anyone.’ Harry holds her knees. Eyes darting.

‘Yeah, but I’m not though,’ Becky says. ‘I’m obviously not.’ Harry watches her closely. ‘It’s alright. Keep your hair on. You don’t have to tell me anything. I was just trying to make conversation. I’ll keep it to myself next time.’ Becky looks away, at the people standing round. Her hair, almost black, has the remnants of a dyed redness running through it and when she moves, Harry sees the redness and is drawn towards it. She leans back, crosses her legs.

‘Tell you what.’ Harry’s heart is rolling up its sleeves.

‘What?’

‘I’ll tell you all about it.’ She pauses, holds the moment, watches strands of Becky’s hair ripple in the wind. ‘But you have to tell me something first.’

‘Like what?’ Becky leans back on to her hands.

‘Don’t know. Something you don’t tell people?’

‘Fine,’ she says simply.

‘Yeah?’

‘Why not?’ She flicks her hair and glances around, keeps her eyes elsewhere as she talks. ‘The dancing don’t pay so well. It’s not regular income and it’s crazy hours. So . . .’ She drinks. Harry watches her throat pulse as she swallows. ‘I work as a masseuse.’ The word lasts a long time in Becky’s mouth. ‘You know, a
masseuse
.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s the same deal as your job really, no one knows. Except I don’t have a massive chip on my shoulder about it like you seem to.’

It hits Harry like a thrown brick. Knocks the wind out of her for a moment and she hiccups as she draws smoke in. She plays it cool. ‘No one knows?’

‘Nope. Well, a couple people know, obviously. But mainly I keep it to myself. Less hassle that way.’ Harry stares at her, eyebrows raised; Becky looks back, bold and unflinching. ‘So don’t worry. I can keep a secret.’ Harry’s blood starts pumping the other way round her body. ‘Now you,’ Becky says gently.

Harry looks up for Leon, sees no one, checks around her for the others on the patio and begins to speak softly, which pulls Becky closer towards her.

‘Well. OK,’ she says. ‘OK.’ She psychs herself up for it. ‘So. I go round offices uptown, all, like . . . pre-arranged.’ She measures her words as she speaks, her voice is low, slow and gradual. A soft lisp curls up from the ends of her words. Becky studies the body she sits beside. Legs apart, shoulders back, but still girlish, somehow. ‘Fucking media firms, literary agencies – I got a
diary
. We have
meetings
. You believe it, Becky? Coz that’s the truth of it.’

They have turned themselves towards each other, Harry’s knees touch in the middle like two oars. She feels like she’s at the crest of a ravine, tipping downwards. She breathes out through a weak smile.

‘I mean, I get phone calls from secretaries of company directors. I go in, like, we have a coffee, talk about the weather, then, like, I give them a load of gear. Eleven thirty in the
morning, right in the centre of town! And then on to the next one. I could probably start doing bank transfers, make it all legit. Register as a sole trader. Taxes too. Coz it’s booming. It really fucking is. It’s fucking
booming
!’

She pauses, stares into Becky’s face.

‘Meant to be a recession on, right? I never sold so much gear! I never sold so much fucking gear in my life!’ Harry throws her hands up in disbelief. Lets them land gently in her lap. She checks around her. Lowers her voice. ‘I’m unthreatening, aren’t I, punctual. You know,
female
. So. No danger. They recommend me to their accountant mates, and then the accountant mates recommend me to their art-dealer mates, and then the art-dealer mates recommend me to their film-director mates. And that’s how come I’m here.’

Becky plays with her earring, leaning in towards her new friend, focusing on her mouth as the words come out. Harry dries up.

‘Can I have some then?’ Becky asks.

‘Have some what?’

‘Go on,’ she says.

‘You want some gack?’ Harry furrows her eyebrows.

‘Yeah, go on. Is that alright? I’ll buy it?’

‘Buy it? No way.’ Harry shakes her head, she lifts her shirt slyly and takes a wrap from a pouch in the waistband of her trousers. Becky glimpses the softness of her stomach, the sharp kiss of her hip bone, the stretch of her side as she reaches. She puts a decent gram into Becky’s hand. Becky widens her
eyes in thanks, opens it in her palm like a seasoned pro, takes a little bump out with the edge of her lighter. Sniffs it up.

Harry watches her.
Fucking hell
, she thinks. She’d only had a couple of those cocktails, hadn’t she? What had she even been saying? Becky purses her lips in concentration, discreetly arranging another bump. She sniffs it, nonchalant. Arranges one for Harry. Nobody notices. Expertly done. Harry leans over, sniffs.
Kiss
. The slope of her neck.
All over. Kiss her all over
. The coke is nice. Sobers her up. She tilts her head back. Breathes in and out. Soon now, she’ll be back to normal.