The traffic is bad and the car crawls slowly down Kilburn High Street. I stare blankly out of the window. I know I’m not dreaming this. This is actually happening and yet...it has a dreamlike quality. The street looks the same only there are many people staring at the car and into it, at me. Their eyes seem unfriendly. The rich are resented here. I feel restless and disturbed. I need a bit of time to think. Walking always helps. I ask Tom to drop me off by the shops.
‘Are you sure, Miss? I don’t mind waiting, while you pop in. I’m free until much later.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine, Tom. I’ll probably see you tomorrow, anyway.’
Tom nods. ‘All right then. Mind how you go.’
I enter the newsagent and buy a bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes for Billie. Then I walk home slowly, taking the long way home so I pass by my old house. I stand on the street in the drizzle and look up at it. At the blue door where we once lived, my mother and I, for so many years. Some of them happy, but most of them filled with stress and worry and fear. Now she was gone.
For a moment I stand there, my face upturned, pretending that my mother is still there. That I could, if I wanted to, simply go up those stairs, put my key in the door, open it, and find her in the kitchen. Bald and thin to the point of skeletal, but happy to see me. Then the blue door opens and a child about seven years old comes out. She has brown hair cut very short.
From the interior a woman’s voice yells, ‘And I want change from the fiver.’
The girl doesn’t answer. Simply slams shut the door and runs to the top of the stairs. She is so cocky she reminds me of Billie. I hear her shoes clattering down the stairs. She runs past me, dirty stained top, yellow shorts and brown legs. And suddenly, I am racked by a sense of deep nostalgia for those times when Billie and I ran free. Summer days. Fingers sticky with ice lollies. Not a single responsibility in sight. I watch the girl turn down the road towards the shops. Then I slowly begin to walk towards the tower block flats where Billie and I now live.
It is a horrible place, far, far worse than this small, friendly block. If Blake saw where we live now, he would literally have a heart attack. All his worst nightmares are realized here. Prostitutes work the underpass and there are fights and stabbings when the pubs clear at night. Their drunken shouting and cursing floats up to our flat. Inside our block it is no better. The lifts perpetually smell of stale urine and the stairwells are littered with blood-filled hypodermic syringes and used condoms. Kids play among the needles in the morning.
I live here, but in my heart I am absolutely determined that it will only be temporary. I intend to work hard, make our business work and, hopefully, by the time Sorab is old enough to walk the three of us will be out of here. A sign says no ball games and no dumping of rubbish. In defiance the place is littered with empty cans and someone has simply tipped a badly stained mattress over one of the long balcony walkways of the tower.
I pass the children playing on the concourse.
‘Hey, Lana, we saw you get out of a big car by the shops. Whose car is it?’
‘Never you mind,’ I tell them tartly.
‘Somebody’s got a sugar daddy,’ they sing, and I am surprised anew by how clued up these kids are. At their age, my innocence was complete, my childhood totally unsoiled by any adult knowledge.
One of them breaks from the group and sidles up to me. ‘Go on, give us a pound to buy some sweets,’ she cajoles. She has a head full of bouncing brown curls.
I look down at her. ‘Does your mother know you are begging for money?’
‘Yeah,’ she pipes up immediately, standing her ground without the least trace of embarrassment.
I look into her eyes and feel sad. I know her mother. A hard-faced woman with six kids. Each one from a different father, all dirty and unkempt. For a split second I consider teaching her not to beg, to have pride, and then I give up. I know in my heart it is pointless. I wish a different future for her, but she is already infected by the generation before her. In her round, beautiful face walks the shadow of a drop-out, perhaps even an alcoholic. A blight on society through no fault of her own. I reach into my purse and give her a pound. She grasps it in her small, hot palm and runs off in the direction of the shops, calling after her. ‘Thanks, Lana.’
I skirt the weeds and step onto the cracked concrete. Moodily I kick a Coke can out of my path and round the block. I look up to the second floor of the ugly gray block and see Billie standing on the long walkway balcony outside our door. She is smoking a cigarette and leaning against the metal railing. One of her bare feet is curled around a metal bar. Her hair is no longer white, but flaming red. She changed the color and the style last week when she broke up with Leticia. It is now cut very close to her head on one side and falls longer on the other. She must have just got out of the bath, for her hair is still wet and slicked to her head. She does not see me.
I run up the smelly stairs and step on to our level. She looks up from her contemplative stare and watches me. I step over discarded toys, a tricycle, a plastic bucket and spade, and then I am standing in front of her.
I grin. She kills her cigarette on the metal railing. I fish out the vodka. She grins back. Hers is real, mine is not.
She takes the bottle from my hand. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I say.
She puts the bottle on the ground, grabs me around the hips, and sweeps me off my feet, laughing. Her joy is so infectious I have to laugh.
‘Put me down before you drop me over the balcony!’
Instead of setting me back down she whirls me around a couple of times, carries me over our threshold and kicks the door shut like a man, before setting me down on the dining table.
‘You. Are. A. Fucking. Genius,’ she says. Then her face undergoes a sudden change. ‘Oh, shit,’ she cusses and dashes outside. And she is just in time too. ‘Oi you,’ I hear her shout. ‘Touch that bottle and you’re dead.’ There is the sound of little feet scuttling away and Billie comes back into view cradling the vodka bottle.
I slip off the table. ‘How did it go with Sorab?’
‘The usual, you know, eat, shit, sleep, repeat,’ she says, and thumps the bottle on the table.
‘Let me have a quick peek,’ I say, and go into my bedroom. I stand in front of his crib, my heart heavy with sadness. He has no one, but me. He will never know his father. I have denied him his father and a life of unimaginable riches. I push the guilt away. Not now. Not yet. For a moment I think of Blake standing alone in the crowd. We are all of us alone trapped in our own version of hell. I gently trace my finger on his sleeping arm and go outside.
Billie is sitting at the table. The vodka bottle is unopened.
I slip my jacket off. It is too big for me and swings from my shoulder. I open the fridge. ‘I’m going to make some pasta. Want some?’
‘No, had a couple of Turkish Delights.’
‘Bill, you can’t survive on leftover pizza, jam, and chocolates, you know.’
‘It’s not me who looks like a walking skeleton.’ She stares at me daring me to contradict her.
I close the fridge door and face her.
‘You know, when I saw you walking home with the plastic bag from the newsagent I didn’t dare believe, because I could see that you had been crying. I’d like to think you cried because you were so happy but that’s not it, is it? Want to tell me what really happened?’
I sit opposite her. ‘Blake was there.’
Billie pulls forward with a frown. ‘There where?’
‘At the bank. He processed our loan application.’
‘Don’t. You’re going to make me cry.’
‘Can you bite back the sarcastic remarks for one moment?’
She raises her hands, palms facing me.
‘Apparently he has been monitoring my account with the intention of making contact.’
Billie opens her eyes wide. ‘Wow! That’s tenacious.’
‘He wants me to finish the contract.’
Billie closes her eyes in a gesture of extreme exasperation. ‘Oh God! You agreed or we wouldn’t have got the loan, would we?’
‘Yes,’ I say, but before I can tell her more she leans forward, her chin jutting out aggressively.
‘Lana. Are you completely crazy? Have you forgotten what that bloodless troll he is engaged to and those reptilian entities masquerading as his family did to you the last time? They closed ranks and kicked you out of the fucking country. Anyway, didn’t she make you sign in blood never to go near her man again?’
I flush. ‘No, simply that I must never make contact with him again. I didn’t.’
‘Yeah, she’ll appreciate the difference.’
‘As a matter of fact, Blake said that he has told her about me and she is prepared to wait until he is over his infatuation with me.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘Well, it was something like what she told me.’
‘If you believe that then you definitely should stay away from him. You are not equipped to deal with such lethal cunning.’
‘I won’t come into contact with her. It’s only 42 days.’
‘We don’t need the money, you know? We can always start small. We talked about this. In fact, it was unlikely that you were ever going to get the money without collateral or business experience. It was only an off chance. We’ll do without it. In fact, that might be more fun.’
‘I didn’t do it for the money,’ I say very quietly.
There is a moment of shocked silence. Billie looks at me as if I have lost my mind. And in a way she is right. I am risking everything.
‘Fuck me, Lana. Have you forgotten how difficult it was for you to get over him?’
‘I’m not over him.’
‘Exactly. So why walk into the lion’s den again? Look at you. You are already just a shadow of yourself. Why put yourself through it? Besides the spectacular sex, that is.’
I try to smile and don’t succeed. I feel my chin and lower lip begin to tremble. I press my lips together. ‘You don’t understand. I owe him. He was good to Mum and me, but I didn’t keep my word. I should never have taken Victoria’s money. It was wrong. I knew that the moment I saw it sitting all fat and jolly in that Swiss bank account. I’m not a Swiss bank account person. It was only when I gave it all away to that hospice that I felt better. I will only feel right again when I finish what I started. Until then I will never be able to close this door.’
‘And Sorab? Are you going to tell him about him?’
‘Of course not. They would take my son away and turn him into a cold-eyed predator, like Blake’s father and brother.’
‘So what happens to Sorab then?’
I squirm a little. ‘I told Blake Sorab was yours.’
‘Right,’ she says slowly, obviously unable to get her head around such an idea.
‘He thinks you did it to jump the welfare queue and get a flat.’
Billie grins suddenly. ‘So you didn’t tell him that as a child I wanted to have my entire reproductive system removed and replaced with an extra set of lungs so I could smoke more.’
I shook my head.
‘What does all this translate to then?’
‘You keep Sorab here for three days of the week and I keep him at the apartment for the other four days.’
Billie draws a deep breath. ‘What does he imagine I am doing for the other four days?’
‘Spending the night at your girlfriend’s place.’
‘Jesus, I’m a shit mother, aren’t I?’
‘Do you mind terribly?’
‘I don’t give a monkey’s what he thinks of me, but are you OK with being apart from Sorab three days a week?’
My little heart is breaking at the thought but I put on a brave face. ‘Well, it is only for 42 days and I was thinking that three weeks of that time I could say you are on holiday and Sorab is too young to go with you.’
‘And you think he’ll believe that?’
‘Quite frankly, I don’t think he cares enough to ponder the matter too deeply.’
‘I don’t want to take the philosophical upper hand here, but if it’ll all be over in 42 days, isn’t this all a bit…unnecessary?’
I trace my fingernail along the wood grain of our kitchen table. We bought it in a charity shop for twenty pounds. It has two cigarette burn marks on the surface, but I rather like it. It has character, a story to tell.
‘I know you think I am being foolish, but have you never had someone touch you and you go up in flames? Or that odd sensation as if your bones are melting and your ears ring like bells in your head?’
‘No,’ she says flatly. ‘And judging from what it has reduced you to… No thanks. I enjoy my self-control. My ability to say no and walk away from a situation that screams danger or abuse ahead.’
‘Don’t you miss Leticia, Billie?’
‘Yes, I do, but… ’She looks at me meaningfully… ‘Unlike you I have never had to crawl around the floor with missing her.’
I lower my eyes. Once many months ago when I first left the country I was reduced to crawling on the floor, but that intense pain passed. His reappearance, though, has awakened new realms of need and craving.
‘I can say no, but I still miss him, Bill. I miss him like crazy. Even if there is no hope, I still want whatever I can have. I want him on any terms. I actually find it impossible to resist him.’
She sighs elaborately. ‘OK, it is your life. When does this charade start then?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I guess we won’t need a babysitter for Friday night, will we?’
I make an apologetic face. ‘Sorry. Can you babysit tomorrow?’
‘While you bang Banker Boy? Sure, why not. I hope that kid remembers what I have done for him when he grows up.’
I smile gratefully.
She fills two glasses with vodka and pushes one towards me. ‘Here’s to Sorab.’ I don’t want a drink. I am all churned up, but we clink and down. The alcohol burns the back of my throat. This is no celebration. Not for me and not for Billie. When our eyes meet again, hers are unsmiling; they warn me I am making a dreadful mistake.