Bar Girl (10 page)

*****

She came to in a bed. A bed with white sheets. White walls surrounded the bed. White light made her eyes hurt. She felt vertiginous. Thirsty. A man. In a white coat.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

His voice was neither kind nor unkind. He just asked the question. She felt she could have said anything. It wouldn’t have mattered much to him.

‘Thirsty,’ she said.

Her voice sounded far away from her. She fought for clarity. She looked at her arm. A white bandage ran from her elbow to her wrist. A needle and tube protruded from the other.

‘Yes. That’s normal,’ the man said. A doctor.

She concentrated. He would have said the same thing whatever she had answered. It was a voice without emotion. A voice of authority.

‘The police want to speak with you,’ he told her.

‘What about?’ she asked.

‘That is not my concern,’ he answered, and left the room.

Siswan lay back onto the pillow. She wanted to sleep. She felt tired. Weary. She closed her eyes. Dozed off. She didn’t hear the door open.

‘What happened?’ another voice asked. Equally without emotion.

She opened her eyes. Looked up. A policeman. Brown, skin tight uniform. Gun on his hip. She was reminded of the policeman in the village. She and her friends had been scared of him. Siswan was too tired to feel frightened now.

‘I was attacked,’ she said.

‘What were you doing in the park?’

‘Sleeping.’

‘Why were you sleeping in the park?’

Why was he asking her that? Was it wrong to sleep in the park? Who cared about that? Why not ask about the man who attacked her? Was this all going to be her fault? Were they going to tell her off? Arrest her?

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Why were you sleeping in the park?’ he asked, again.

‘Because I wanted to,’ she answered. ‘Because I couldn’t sleep anywhere else.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘A village.’

‘What village?’

She gave him the name of a village she had heard about before. It was miles from her own.

‘And how did you come to be sleeping in the park?’ He didn’t stop asking the same question.

‘I came into the town this afternoon,’ she said, wearily. ‘I missed the bus home. I was going to get the morning bus home tomorrow.’

‘Don’t you know it’s dangerous to sleep in the park?’

‘I do now. I didn’t before.’

‘There’s a lot of drunks who sleep there at night. How old are you?’

‘Sixteen,’ she lied, quickly.

He seemed to accept the lie. Didn’t say anything about it.

‘What is your name?’

‘Bee,’ she lied, again.

‘Were you raped, Bee?’ he asked. Again there was no emotion in his voice.

‘No. I fought him off.’

‘We caught the man who attacked you,’ he told her.

She opened her eyes fully. Tried to lift her head off the pillow.

‘Who was he?’ She wanted to know everything about the man who had attacked her.

‘Just an old drunk. He claimed you were in his bed. Where he slept at night. He said you attacked him when he tried to wake you up.’

‘He ripped my clothes.’ It was all she could think of to say.

Had the old man only been trying to get his bed back? Had she attacked him first?

‘He has a nasty cut on his hand and a broken nose,’ the policeman said.

‘He cut my arm,’ she said.

‘He says that you did that as he was trying to give you back your knife. Was it your knife, Bee?’

‘No. I didn’t have a knife,’ she said.

‘So, it was his knife then?’

‘I don’t know.’

She felt young again. Like a little girl. This was going to end up being her fault. But she had smelt the whiskey. Felt his breath on her. His hands had rubbed against her. Yes, but did you deserve it, she asked herself silently. Had the old man only wanted her to move out of his sleeping place? She felt confused. Close to tears. No, she would not cry.

‘I’ll tell you what happened as far as we know, Bee. Then you can fill in the details, okay?’ he said.

‘I’ll try,’ she answered.

The police had received an anonymous phone call from a young man who sounded as though he’d been drinking. He told them that there was a girl in the park who had been cut. She was bleeding a lot.

When the police arrived at the park there had been no sign of the young man. The police guessed that he was an underage drinker, out with some friends, and had run off rather than face the police.

When they checked the area he had mentioned, the police had come across Siswan lying face down and unconscious. They called a medic from the local hospital who attended to her arm to stop the bleeding.

Whilst that was going on, the police checked around the perimeter of the park. It wasn’t too difficult to follow the trail of blood back to an old tree. Looking under the branches they found the old man snoring on a rattan mat. He had a cloth tied around a cut on his hand and his nose had been freshly broken. There was a pair of girls’ sandals beside him.

When they had him awake and coherent, he told them he had been attacked by a teenaged girl with a knife. He had found her in his bed and had asked her to move. She turned on him, cut his hand, broke his nose and ran away. The police had taken him, along with the girl, to the town hospital. He was now asleep a few doors down the hallway.

‘That’s about all we know, Bee,’ he finished.

‘I didn’t know it was his bed,’ she said.

‘Yes. But it was. All this could have just been an argument over who slept where.’

‘But he ripped at my clothes.’

‘He says he didn’t. He says you must have ripped them clambering through the low branches of the tree.’

‘But that’s not true!’

‘How do we know what’s true, Bee? We weren’t there.’

Siswan let herself relax back onto the pillow. There was no point in arguing. No point in fighting. Everything that happened was going to be her fault. She could tell by the voice of the policeman. They were always right. Even some drunk in the park. Always the men.

‘I’ll let you get some rest now, Bee. We’ll talk again in the morning.’

He rose from the chair and walked out. She could see him turning right through the glass viewing panel in the door.

More questions in the morning. By which time they will have checked her village. Found out she had lied about that. Found out she had lied about her name. Her age. If she had lied about all that then the old man must be telling the truth. The girl was just a liar.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to wait until the morning. She knew there would be more trouble. More than she deserved. Had she attacked for no reason? She didn’t know now. Wasn’t sure of herself. As she lay there, half awake, half asleep, she remembered the swishing stick. The sharp pain. The sting. Tomorrow the stick would be longer, harder, more brutal. And it wouldn’t break.

Struggling against her own body she forced herself awake. She had to leave. Had to get away. She checked the room. Blinked in the bright white light of the overhead fluorescent tubes.

Her small bundle of clothes were on a chair in the far corner. She could see where the old drunk had ripped a strip off the sheet. Presumably to make his bandage. Her torn tee shirt hung over the back of the chair. Her jeans and sandals were on the floor. The rattan mat the old woman had loaned her wasn’t there. Neither was her knife.

Checking her body she found she was dressed in a white nightgown. She felt cleaner. Maybe they had washed her as she slept. She didn’t know. Under the white bandage that covered her right arm she felt a throbbing pain. It pulsed as though there was something alive inside the sterile wrapping. Not exactly agony. An itching sensation. She wanted to scratch it.

In her other arm there was a needle. Attached to the needle was a tube. The tube led up to a plastic bag half full of blood hanging from a metal stand. A plaster held the needle in place. She needed to get up. Needed to get away. Her head sank back onto the pillow.

She fought against the need to sleep. Just rest for a few minutes, she thought. Just rest a while. Give the policeman time to leave. Give her body the time to regain a little strength. Just a few minutes. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the garish white light had been replaced with a faint glow from the corridor beyond the door. The glass viewing panel seemed to hang in the dark. She had slept and cursed herself for being so stupid. She glanced up at the bag of blood. It was almost empty. She had to go. Had to get away.

She lifted a corner of the plaster holding the needle. It pulled at her skin as she peeled it back. A small bruise marked the entry point of the needle. She pulled it out. Dark, red blood, almost black in the dim light, dripped onto the white linen. Left a stain.

She climbed out of the bed quietly. She didn’t know where to go. Just away. She slipped off the gown and pulled on her jeans. Opening the bundle she found another tee shirt. She left the torn one hanging on the chair. She didn’t want it. Didn’t want the memory.

She tied the bundle, stooped to pick up her sandals. Bare foot she went to the glass panel. A corridor. The policeman had turned right. Was that the way out? She opened the door a fraction. Looked out. The corridor ran to the right until it reached double swing doors at the far end. To the left it turned left again. It seemed to lead deeper into the building. She would head right.

Slowly and carefully, she slipped through the doorway. Holding her breath against making any sound, she moved along the corridor keeping her shoulder against the wall. Her arm throbbed. Pounded. She could feel the pulse as though her heart was concealed under the gauze of the bandage.

When she reached the double swing doors she looked through one of the glass panels. A counter on the right. A nurse sat behind the desk. She was reading a book. No. A magazine.

Siswan waited. Knowing she would be caught. She wouldn’t be able to get past the nurse. She thought of going back to her room. Accepting her fate. Tomorrow there would be trouble. Today, she corrected herself. She guessed that it must be the early hours of the morning by now.

The nurse glanced up from her magazine. Had she seen her? Had she spotted her looking through the glass? She almost turned to run. Almost went back the way she had come. But something held her still. The nurse hadn’t looked at the double doors. She had looked at the computer screen sat in front of her.

Dressed in white trousers and white jacket, the nurse stood and walked out from behind the counter. She turned right. Away from where Siswan watched. She walked past a few doors down the corridor and stepped through one on the left hand side. Now, Siswan told herself. Now. Go now.

She pushed through the doors and quietly made her way down the corridor beyond. Past the counter. No one there. A beeping noise coming from the computer. The sound matched the throb of her arm. Like a heart beat.

She moved along the corridor as quickly as she dared. Here was the room the nurse had entered. She glanced through the glass panel. The big lights were on in the room. The nurse was bent over an old man. He looked frail. Weak. A yellow pallor to his skin. His nose was black and bruised. A bandage on his hand. The drunk. The drunk from the park. Weak and frail.

Siswan ducked down and continued down the corridor. She went through two more sets of double doors. Down a flight of stairs. Along one corridor that led nowhere. Backtracked. Tried another. Saw a way out. Took it. Ran away from the hospital.

All the time she had been thinking. Old. Frail. Weak. He didn’t look well enough to attack her. Had she been wrong? Had he just wanted to sleep? The questions ran through her mind again and again. Had she been wrong? Had she attacked him? She ran. Away from the town. Away from the doubt in her mind. What had she done? The thought wailed in her mind. Screamed at her. What had she done?

*****

When Siswan stopped running she had passed the outskirts of the town. She was back in the countryside. The sun had broken the horizon and the fields around her sang with the noise of crickets. The main highway she followed stretched away into the distance and the trucks that passed, buffeted the air against her. Her face and hair were covered in the dust they threw up. She felt alone and tired. Her arm throbbed under the bandage.

She was a young girl in a strange place. She needed help. She imagined all the good things that could happen to her. Maybe a kind old woman would stop and take her home where she could wash and change. Maybe the kind old woman would give her something to eat. Take care of her. Look after her as though she were her own daughter. Perhaps the old woman had lost a daughter and Siswan could be that girl’s replacement. The kind old woman would treat her well and, in return, Siswan would grow to love her and take care of her as she grew older.

She shook her head clear of such fantasies. That wasn’t how it worked, she told herself. In the real world she had to take care of herself. There was no one else. Just her.

Another truck roared past and she closed her eyes to the grit and dust the huge wheels threw up. The truck braked. Stopped ahead of her. A head appeared out of the passenger window. A young man.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked, as Siswan drew near.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘We’ll give you a lift if you want,’ the young man said.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

She didn’t have a clue where she was going. She could hardly just say ‘away’. It wouldn’t make sense and might even arouse suspicion.

‘We’re heading all the way to the coast. You wouldn’t want to go that far!’ he laughed.

‘Yes. That’s where I’m heading,’ she told him.

She didn’t know what the coast was but it sounded far away. That was what she wanted. To be far away. Far away from everything.

‘Come on then. Jump in.’

The young man jumped down from the cab and held the door for her. She clambered up and found an older man sat behind the wheel. Two men. One young, one older. She immediately felt nervous. Before she had a chance to change her mind, the younger of the two climbed up beside her and slammed the door. With a crunch of gears, the truck set off towards the far horizon.