‘Come on, girl, you can do this,’ Kit chanted to herself as she attempted a shortcut around a backstreet to escape an icy wind. There’s nothing to it, she told herself, I’ll stand up, say my bit and that’ll be it.
She felt no better and realised that a pep talk worked better if it included more than one person. Her jumping nerves were not soothed by the fact that she was not going to make her first meeting on time.
The shortcut led her to an alley where lurking fire escapes jumped out at her from the darkness. She was forced to retrace her steps to the main road. Great, that little caper had made her even later.
She pressed the button on a pedestrian crossing harshly, waiting for the red man to turn green. He wasn’t quick enough so she darted across the road anyway. She was narrowly missed by a silver BMW that sped past, covering her back and legs in murky sludge left over from a brief snow storm.
‘Bloody idiot!’ she screamed, raising her middle finger. She chose to ignore the fact that she shouldn’t have crossed.
The patchwork leather jacket prevented the cold water from seeping through into her T-shirt but the black canvas jeans absorbed it and clung damply to her legs. A furtive glance around told her that the embarrassment level was low: no one had seen.
The dark, open mouth of an underground passage loomed ahead. It didn’t frighten her nearly as much as admitting her weaknesses to a group of fellow drinkers who would now think her incontinent as well. I know, she decided, I won’t go. I’ll walk around until the meeting has finished, go back to the hostel and tell Mark I’m cured. The thought appealed to her for little more than a second, until she realised that her action would mean that she was running away and lying to Mark. Her thoughts changed pace. Why the hell should it matter that he’d smile with understanding while trying to hide his disappointment? Why should she care that his earlier pride and encouragement had been a waste of time? He was nothing to her. It was his job anyway – he got paid to irritate her. The aggression faded as quickly as it had appeared. It did matter.
It wasn’t exactly where she’d imagined herself at twenty-three; wading through used condoms and syringes in a subway, on her way to meet a group of strangers to bare her soul. There was just one problem; she’d sold it years ago to the devil himself.
The odour of stale urine invaded her nostrils as three youths came forward out of the darkness with cans of beer and lecherous expressions. Kit tensed slightly as she passed them. The crude catcalls started as she’d expected. They were unoriginal and nothing she hadn’t heard before.
‘Hello, darlin’, come and put your mouth round this!’ shouted a receding voice behind her.
If he’d been talking about the can of lager she might have considered it.
‘Fire your bloody scriptwriter, you ignorant tosser!’ she called back before picking up a speed that she maintained until she reached the safety of the street.
She shuddered with relief. At last a bit of life, a few crowds. Figures scurried hunched with heads down as protection against a wind that could freeze spit. Even at five minutes to seven the city centre was still buzzing with people leaving work.
A brightly lit wine bar mocked her from across the street. She closed down all of her senses; taste, smell, sight, she could even hear the brandy calling. She groaned audibly as she passed by with her head bent low.
Fifty yards before the entrance to the meeting place Kit spied a silver BMW parked beneath a street lamp. It looked suspiciously like the one that had almost reduced her to roadkill. A tiny red light flashed on the dashboard, which luckily she noticed just as she raised her foot in the direction of the driver’s door. She peered inside, wondering what it was like to be in the front of one of those cars. She’d spent plenty of time in the back doing her job.
She took a deep breath before entering the building. The steep staircase, barely covered with a loose-fitting, threadbare carpet, did nothing to calm her churning stomach. She entered the smallest room on the top floor. The meeting had already begun and her attempt to join the sombre circle quietly was ruined by a loud screech as she pulled out a chair that had rubber missing from two legs.
Oh well, no chance of being teacher’s pet now, she thought, sitting down as quietly as she could, just as the man beside her stood up.
‘My name is Kevin and I’ve been sober for seven months.’ Claps and cheers filled the room.
‘My name is George and I’ve been sober for twelve months.’ Enthusiastic claps, cheers and a lone whistle bounced back off the plasterboard walls.
This cannot be real, Kit grimaced as they worked around the ten people there. There were men in suits, men in casuals and suit men dressed in casuals. This has to be a low-budget movie, she thought as she realised it was her turn.
She stood abruptly. ‘My name is Kit and I’ve been sober for…’ she paused and checked her watch ‘…about thirty-five minutes.’
An unappreciative audience remained silent. ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry,’ she apologised.
‘Sit down, Kit,’ Jack said, shaking his head. Kit sat and stopped listening. She hoped the humiliation was in her mind only.
Her long legs stretched lazily before her, crossed at the ankles in a position of forced nonchalance, bare arms folded across her breasts. The warm palms of her hands achieved little as they moved quickly over areas of goosebumps rising from her skin. Her body gave an involuntary shiver as a breeze of icy February air found its way through the wooden window frame and brushed past her bare neck. She wondered idly if she would receive another chastising glance from the group co-ordinator if she retrieved her jacket from the back of her chair to protect her from a room as warm as an Eskimo’s attic. Nope, she was in enough trouble already.
When the pinstriped suit beside her clapped, she copied, throwing an occasional ‘well done’ in for good measure. Next came a cake complete with candles. Ooh, it’s a birthday party. Yippee, jelly and ice cream all round, Kit cringed, until she realised it was for a middle-aged man with a ruddy expression who’d abstained for a year. Yeah, so what, she wondered, fighting back the envy. Dry for a year, if only.
She glanced at the redheaded woman opposite who even to her untrained eye was clad from head to toe in designer labels. The cream Armani jacket sat ramrod straight without touching the back of the chair as though supported by wooden stakes. Wouldn’t want to get that nice, expensive jacket dirty, would we, Kit thought. Cold eyes stared right over Kit’s head.
Her interest was piqued slightly as one man told how he’d been a doctor for twenty years after drinking continuously since medical school. It hadn’t affected his work until he’d chosen to get help. Kit was surprised until she thought about it: alcohol had numbed the effects of her job too.
‘Okay, that’s enough for now. Refreshments over there,’ Jack stated, motioning to an unvarnished table housing bottles of fruit juice and a stack of plastic cups. Kit didn’t hesitate. Anxious to leave the orange plastic chair that had imprinted itself on her behind, she hated sitting for long periods. Her legs were long and demanded exercise.
She reached for the orange bottle – she could at least pretend there was gin in it. The telltale trembling returned as she tried to pour the juice into the feather-light cup that refused to stay upright against the force of the liquid.
‘Shit,’ she cursed as the table began to disappear beneath an orange blanket. She looked around for something to mop up the spillage as it seeped to the end of the table and trickled to the floor.
‘Let me help,’ murmured a strong female voice behind her. Kit’s gaze met with the cool, slate grey eyes that belonged to the redhead.
‘People have told me for years that I can’t hold my drink. I guess I’ve just proved them right.’
A polite smile that held little warmth was the reply.
Kit sensed rather than heard a presence loom up behind her. Her heart jumped inside her chest. She didn’t like anything behind her, it made her too vulnerable. She turned quickly, her body tense, but it was Jack, just Jack, the group co-ordinator. He registered her startled expression.
‘Sorry if I made you jump. Just trying to help.’
Kit smiled shakily. She was being silly. She grabbed a cup of weak liquid from the table and stood against the metal radiator that kept her back safely against the wall.
She chastised the jumping nerves in her stomach, but it was too late. An unwanted vision of Banda charged into her mind. His ebony face punctuated only by the absolute white of his eyes that held a manic glint that could travel the hundred miles that separated them and chill her blood to ice. Her memory filled in the detail of the shimmering blade in his hand. She shivered and forced the image away.
‘Are you all right? You looked a little shaken.’ Kit hadn’t seen Jack approach from behind. ‘I was only wondering why you were wet.’
She forced a smile, imprinting Jack’s round, bearded face on top of Banda’s. ‘Some idiot in a flash car almost mowed me down and then attempted to drown me.’
‘Which probably wouldn’t happen if people used crossings properly,’ said the redhead, who was standing four feet away. Kit wondered if she could taste the plums that lived in her mouth.
‘Well, thanks for the shower and the heart condition,’ Kit sniped, hardly able to believe that such a car had been carrying an alkie no better than her.
‘Thank you for the hand gesture. Exactly what phrase would that be in sign language?’
‘I was trying to tell you to fu—’
‘Kit,’ Jack warned, as the woman re-took her seat.
‘What the hell is a woman like that doing here, and how many people did she sleep with to get that car?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Inspiring surroundings, don’t you think?’ she remarked wryly at the drab paint that peeled in places from the wall. The stark emptiness punctuated only by an occasional suitably encouraging poster. The message was as outdated as the flared trousers and wide lapels of the individual smiling the heartening words. She’d been in rooms much like this one in London. The walls were the same, even the posters were similar, except those had warned against sexually transmitted diseases and encouraged contraception. She’d been escorted by Banda for her three-monthly check-ups to make sure she was clean. Even that indignity had to be observed by him after one of his girls had escaped by attacking the nurse and jumping from a second-floor window. Banda never made the same mistake twice.
‘I bet he needed a stiff drink after seeing that haircut,’ remarked Jack, following her eyes to the poster.
‘Hmm, very Saturday Night Feverish,’ she replied, pulling herself back from London. ‘How the hell are we expected to bare our hearts and souls in a room that’s like the inside of a fridge, but without the food?’
She wondered at the likely reaction of these people if she bared her soul. She could imagine the faint expressions of distaste if she revealed her hidden nightmares. Which would shock them most? The one that lived in a two-up, two-down terraced house in Liverpool, anonymous in a line that stretched for half a mile; or the terror in a London flat that she’d escaped less than three months ago.
Her hand softly touched the skin around her left eye. She had to remind herself that the bruises had gone but beneath the jeans a scar ran the entire width of her buttocks. It served as a permanent reminder. She would never forget.
Jack summoned them back to their seats. It was time for the Twelve Steps to be repeated and discussed. As it was Kit’s first night she was not expected to contribute too much, only observe. She noticed that Miss Fancy Pants said very little too. Kit listened while wondering idly if the AA principle was correct. Was alcoholism a disease of the spirit? And was spirit really a suitable word?
An audible sigh of relief filled the room as the words, ‘See you at the next meeting,’ left Jack’s lips.
Kit was already reaching for the heavy jacket behind her. It would be some comfort during the walk back to the hostel in the cheek-numbing wind. She was out of the door and down the stairs while some of the others waited for a private word with Jack.
A coffee shop beckoned from across the road. She shrugged. Hell, why not make a night of it?
The cafe was spacious with American diner booths that aided privacy. Fifties music played quietly in the background. Waitresses tended tables dressed in rock’n’roll attire, down to the nylon scarves and thick belts.
Kit checked her back pocket. Three pounds was her total asset value yet she was about to blow two-thirds of that on a cappuccino. Sheer decadence.
‘Let me get that for you,’ said the news-reader voice of the redhead from across the road. Kit hadn’t seen her approach.
‘No thanks, I’m no charity case,’ she snapped, handing over her money.
‘I meant as an apology for our earlier altercation.’
Kit didn’t even know what that was, but guessed she meant her attempt to get a breathing motif on the bonnet of her car.
‘Nah, I’ll just sue you instead,’ she snapped, heading directly for a booth beneath a ceiling-mounted blow heater. She removed her coat and shuddered as the circulating warm air caressed her bare arms.
Shit, thought Kit as she saw the woman approaching her table. She wondered if the words ‘misfit magnet’ were stamped across her forehead.
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Didn’t realise I was coming apart,’ Kit said.
‘Frances, Frances Thornton,’ the woman said, offering her hand.
‘Kit Mason,’ she replied, ignoring the outstretched hand, wishing this alcoholic would remain anonymous.
The woman removed her drink from the tray and returned it to its proper place. Kit’s remained on the table. She sat at a perfect ninety-degree angle just as she had in the meeting. Christ, has she got a built-in spirit level or what? Kit wondered.
Frances leaned forward. ‘That child by the counter is going to raise hell in a minute,’ she stated confidently.
How utterly thrilling, Kit thought.
As if on cue, a huge shriek, followed by a loud sobbing tantrum, ensued. Frances looked satisfied.
‘Got a crystal ball in there, have you?’ asked Kit, nodding towards the Gucci handbag.
‘I heard him wheedling and threatening for another piece of chocolate fudge cake. His dad was quietly telling him no as I walked past. It must be hard being a single parent.’
‘You can’t know that,’ Kit snapped.
‘How old do you think that little boy is?’ Frances had to raise her voice over the increasingly dramatic squeals emanating from the small body.
Kit shrugged disinterestedly, wishing this stranger would just go. ‘Dunno. Six or seven?’
‘Exactly. No wedding ring. It’s half term. It’s nearly nine thirty and they’re in an Americanised burger bar. He’s with Daddy for the school holidays.’
‘Well, I wish Daddy would shut him the hell up!’ Kit exploded at the exact second the child ceased crying. She was rewarded with a chilly expression from the father as he led his son out of the door.
‘Christ, there I go again! I only open my mouth to change feet. Thanks a lot, I’m thrilled you decided to sit by me,’ Kit said, trying not to laugh.
The pursed lips turned slightly upwards into what Kit guessed must be a smile.
‘You got any kids?’ Kit asked, just for something to say.
The shutters on her face slammed shut. Kit decided there were two people in that body.
She shook her head. ‘You?’
‘I love kids but I’d struggle to eat a whole one,’ Kit said with a straight face. ‘Anyway, it’s too many years until you can send ’em to the shop for fags.’
Kit had never really had a lot to do with children. She couldn’t remember being one and they’d had no place in her life in London. She thought that maybe she would like to have a child one day but she had plenty of time. She wanted to become a whole person by then.
The muffled ringing of a mobile phone made them both jump. Frances scrambled in her bag. She pressed the answer button harshly. ‘Hello,’ she barked into the mouthpiece. Kit watched as her face closed up completely. ‘No, Mother, I’m not at home… Yes, the case went well… Yes, Mother, we won… No, promotion hasn’t been mentioned yet… I’m… s… so… ther… ad… li…’ Frances said, waving the phone about. She switched it off and placed it back in her handbag.
‘Nice trick,’ Kit observed.
‘Works every time. She keeps telling me to get a better phone.’
‘You’re a lawyer?’ Kit asked suspiciously, eyeing the woman with bronze curls pulled so far back that her temples puckered with the strain.
Frances nodded confirmation. There was no pride in the movement. I should think not, thought Kit. The words ‘scum of the earth’ ran through her mind.
The hot liquid scalded Kit’s mouth in her efforts to get out of the coffee shop. What the hell was she doing sitting here chewing the cud with a lawyer of all things? A tribe of people Kit would trust less than the Manson family. All lawyers were scum, feeding off other people’s misery. As far as she was concerned they were no better than drug-pushers, and a lot less honest. Nope, you couldn’t trust a lawyer as far as you could throw one.
The cup smashed back into the saucer as she grabbed her jacket and legged it.
The sight of the hostel loomed up ahead. She should have hated it but she didn’t, purely because no strip search awaited her as she walked through the door. The anonymity of the busy road leading into the city centre thrilled her because no one knew her. Buses heaved and lorries trundled past, shaking the ground. She slowly walked the last fifty yards enjoying the sensation of cars speeding past her instead of drawing up alongside and winding down their windows.
The shrubbery and tall spindly trees that stood behind the knee-high wall welcomed her. Set amongst the numerous bed and breakfast establishments that lined either side of Hagley Road, it didn’t look out of place.
A removal van thundered past. Kit looked at the retreating vehicle and found it strange that no matter how many possessions you accumulated during your life, it would always fit in one huge van. A whole life in a van. It occurred to her that the driver was probably on his way home to a wife who’d warmed a tin of tomato soup for him, like on the Heinz adverts. He’d walk in, hug his wife and peer around the bedroom door, checking that their two-point-four children were sleeping soundly. Someone, somewhere, was going to be pleased to see him once he’d parked his vehicle up for the night. Did those families really exist? Kit wondered. Or were they the fantasy of idealistic directors where immaculate, size 10 women washed, ironed, raised kids, worked and still had time to produce something home-made for tea. Who would direct a film of her childhood – Wes Craven perhaps?
She mounted two chipped stone steps that led to the front door and delved into her back pocket for the keys. The first door unlocked with the black-tabbed key. It closed behind her and locked automatically. She turned in the small foyer, causing the straw mat beneath her feet to swivel on the polished tiled floor. The second door also locked automatically with a reassuring click.
‘Everything okay?’ shouted Mark from the communal lounge that adjoined the hall.
She threw herself into a green easy chair opposite. ‘Those people are so depressed.’
Mark raised his eyebrows.
‘I haven’t been drinking. Look…’ She held out her hands. The trembling was obvious. ‘See, I’d be steady as a rock if I had.’
‘Any incidents on the way back?’ he asked, folding his newspaper and removing his glasses.
She didn’t like walking alone at night. He’d offered to meet her but she’d refused. These were her battles to fight.
‘Yeah, three champion wrestlers threatened to rape and pillage me but I showed them a photo of you and they ran off screaming.’
Kit studied the telltale signs of the thirty-one years that lived around his eyes, adding a depth to his boyish face. He wasn’t classically handsome but his features appeared to be set in deliberate concentration. His expression rarely relaxed but the azure eyes speared and rooted you to the spot. She had nearly laughed out loud when she’d first seen him. Her first thought had been, how in hell is this boy going to protect me? I have pimples older than him! That was before she’d sat and talked with him. He did protect her and made her feel safe. Even from that first night when they’d sat together in the kitchen, whispering, as he prepared a veritable feast of beans on toast.
‘Well, do I have to forcibly extract an answer out of you – how was it?’
‘It was nearly as exciting as Sunday school, but not quite,’ she replied, looking away.
‘Cut the act,’ he ordered.
‘It’s bloody hard, okay! Is that what you want to hear? Sodding torture every single day that I can’t have a goddamn drink.’ Her eyes blazed at his probing. How much of her pain did he want? ‘I go to sleep thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it. I dream of having a goddamn drink. Whisky, brandy, cough mixture, I don’t give a shit what it is. Okay?’
‘Incidentally, I’m opening up a swear box tomorrow. Why not give me all your money now?’
‘Piss off!’
Mark laughed at the hostile tone.
‘Are you ever off bloody duty?’
‘Nope. What are the others like?’
Kit held her head in despair. ‘Questions, questions, questions… For God’s sake, can we talk about something other than me?’
‘How about the weather?’
‘How about you?’
Mark sat back in the chair, placing his feet on the teak coffee table. ‘Ask away.’
‘Why do you do this job?’
‘Why not?’ he shrugged.
‘Do you ever get pissed off?’
‘Should I?’
‘Are you going to answer every question with a question?’
‘Why, does it bother you?’
‘Oh, get stuffed!’ Kit laughed as the heat of the room permeated her body.
Mark puzzled her. As the ‘house mother’ she knew it was his job to remain perfectly balanced but the ease with which he related to her and the other four occupants surprised her. One thing she could never get from him was a reaction. Christ, she’d tried hard enough. Almost like a child tests its parents to see how far it can go. His permanent state of well-being convinced her he’d either had a full frontal lobotomy or he was on Valium.
‘Mark, lift up your hair,’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Humour me.’
He lifted the untidy blond fringe, shaking his head.
‘Okay, it’s the Valium,’ she stated raising herself from the seat. She bade him good night and climbed the stairs to the room that was similar in size and shape to the one in London. But this room was not threatening. Fear and humiliation didn’t breathe inside the brickwork. This room had bright patterned wallpaper and curtains that didn’t quite meet in the middle.
The bed was half of a bunk-bed set and suited Kit because it was small and nestled into the corner beneath the window. She always slept using only half of the undersize bed by lying on her right side, pushing her back and buttocks up against the coolness of the wall. Then she felt safe.
She sat at the dressing table and removed the harsh make-up that covered smooth white skin, and prepared to face the most torturous time of the day when the memories were harder to escape. During those dark hours when the whole world slept her mind would jump between Liverpool and London. Eventually she would fall asleep and dream. The two worlds would meet and become transposed. Banda’s hate-formed features would vanish beneath the fleshy, slack chin of Bill. Then she would wake, crying and trembling and alone but for the occasional vehicle that rushed past, shining its headlights into her room. She would sit, afterwards, on the edge of her bed trying to force it all away but sometimes she tried to examine and understand the events that had conspired to bring her to her knees.
It was easier to keep the memories of Bill hidden. She’d had years of practice and the assistance of a mind-numbing, memory-reducing friend. Alcohol. She knew he was there, in her head, but for now he remained locked in a cell in the dungeons of her mind until it was safe to let him out, but Banda was another story. He would not rest until she was dead. She had committed the worst possible sin: she had escaped.
She quickly undressed and burrowed under the covers as though the fabric of the quilt would keep out the past. She wasn’t there any more. Her hand reached under the pillow and felt the smooth hardness of her oldest possession, the flick-knife, which had accompanied her while she’d hitchhiked from Liverpool to London.
She instinctively reached for the reassuring coolness of the bottle. It wasn’t there. It was in London with her money and eight years of her life. She craved the comfort it had given her nightly as she’d held it possessively close while the others had slept.
She remembered the feeling of well-being behind which she’d hidden. She could recall the spinning head and random thoughts that had been her friends. But then, unlike now, she had fallen into the spiralling depths of an alcohol-induced dreamless sleep. Now she had to wait for fatigue to come and claim her, guiding her into a hazy world where her legs were made of feathers and would not move fast enough when the ghosts chased her. She always woke just in time, unsure which one would have caught her first.
She lay with her eyes open wide, listening for unfamiliar sounds as the determination fought with despair. She seesawed between the aggressive conviction that she would have a better life where she wasn’t controlled by fear or addiction and the tormenting, unrelenting terror that she would never be whole, that her past was so deeply ingrained into her skin, third-degree burns wouldn’t cleanse her.
She quashed a risi. . .
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