One of Us (18 page)

They stared at me while I walked back to the counter. Then they went back to their own world. Violence and strange foreign waitresses were interesting enough, but no competition for milkshakes and kissing.

~

As soon as I walked in the front door of the hostel, I knew that something had happened. Three women stood in a corner of the hall talking, and when I came in they stopped. There was something in the air, a change. I climbed the stairs to my floor, and let myself into my room.

Safeta sat in a chair crying. Sally sat on the edge of Alice’s bed, chewing on one of her finger nails.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Safeta, and she sobbed and said something to me in her own language that I could not understand and probably would not have done even if it had been in mine. I looked at Sally. She said nothing, but jerked her thumb towards the bed.

“They came back?” I said. Sally nodded. “For Alice?” Safeta sobbed again.

“Bastards,” I said. “They can’t send her back.”

“Course they can,” Sally said. “They can do what they want. I’m having her bed, mine’s freezing, I want to be by the radiator. What?” She looked at Safeta and me. “What? I’m sorry too, but it’s not like she can have it any more, is it?”

I didn’t say anything to Sally, but I knelt on the floor next to Safeta and I put my arm around her until she stopped crying. When she did, which was not for quite some time, I knelt on Alice’s bed, despite Sally’s mutterings, and I carefully peeled each of the pictures of her children from the wall and put them into a drawer in the lopsided cabinet beside my bed.

“Maybe I can find out where they have taken her,” I said. “They might let her have them.” Safeta smiled. Sally snorted. That night, the landlord moved a new woman into the room, and she smiled shyly at us and got into Sally’s old bed and went to sleep facing the wall, without saying a word.

Alice was not the first who had disappeared like this, and she would not be the last. For the people I knew, this is what things were like. Faces came, faces went. Some of their own choosing, some not. Some were taken, some left before they were taken, others nobody knew about at all. Everyone had names, and a place that they were from, but none of these things mattered any more, and you never knew if the names and places were true or a story anyway. We all lived in stories. Not many had a happy ending.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I woke up early the next morning, because the rain rattled hard at the windows and the wind shook the roof and made it sound like the end of the world. When I opened the front door of the hostel I paused to see if it was still raining. A little way down the road, a very big man leaned against a black car, his arms folded. I looked away as quick as you take your hand from a pan you did not know was hot. I pretended to hesitate in the doorway, looking for something in my bag. The last time that I had seen this giant of a man, he had been opening the door of that car for the Ukrainian. A bad choice to follow someone, I thought. And then I thought: not if you were meant to see him.

I shook my head, showing how annoyed I was that I had forgotten what it was that I had looked for in my bag, and I wandered back into the hostel. But I ignored the stairs to my room and ran down the narrow stairs at the back of the building and into the basement where they kept the boilers and the mops and buckets for the caretaker to clean the common areas once a week. It smelt of bleach and mildewed cloths. The door to it was meant to be locked, but it never was. I ran through the boiler room and unbolted the heavy door that led to the back alley behind the hostel, and dragged it open. The alley was empty of everything but bins and litter and stink. At one end there was the blank face of a dirty concrete wall three times my height. In the other direction the alley curved round and then led out onto the street. It would be a risk, because from where the Ukrainian’s man stood, you could still see where the alley met the street. But I didn’t have a lot of choice.

When I reached the end of the alley, I peered round the corner of the building, feeling stupid, like I was pretending that I was in a spy film. The Ukrainian’s man leaned against his car, arms folded, looking like he was made of stone. I stood where I was for a moment or two, breathing heavy, trying to convince myself that I could make it. Then he moved, turning his head as if someone had spoken to him, and he dug in first one pocket, then another. As he found his phone and pulled it out to see who was calling, I slipped out from the alley and ran in the opposite direction, taking turning after turning until I did not have the breath to run any more. I found my bearings and set off down towards the river.

The blocks of flats on Ranson Square had been new not that long ago, but had aged more in thirty years than most houses had in a hundred. A boy with his shoulders pulled back, and a swagger in his walk like a pirate in a film, walked a dog that looked as vicious and as alien as a dinosaur around the square. The boy stared at me while the dog pissed against a dying tree that slumped against rusted railings.

Most of the windows were boarded up, and it gave the buildings a blank-eyed, blind look as if anything could happen here and no-one would see, no-one at all. The boy hawked up a noisy blob of phlegm, spat on the pavement and walked his dog on past me. It lifted its squat pointy head as it waddled by, and gave me a surly look through little eyes. So did the dog.

I walked along one side of the square, past a rectangle on the road of blistered tarmac and oil stain that marked where a car had been burned. There was a clatter near me. A man had come out of one block of flats, and unfolded a metal picnic chair on the step. I walked towards him. He was quite old, I thought about sixty, but if he had lived his life around here he might have been younger than that. He was running to fat, which was very visible because despite the chill air he was only wearing a vest and tracksuit bottoms. He popped open the tab on a can of beer, and sat drinking it and watching me come closer.

“Now there’s a better view than normal,” he said as I got near. That could have sounded nasty and leering, but the way he said it, it did not. “Making my day, this is. Bit of sunshine, nice drink, and now you. I’ll have to get myself down the bookies this afternoon, get a bet on, it must be my day.”

“It is a bit cold for sitting out, even with the sun,” I said.

“Not for me. Don’t feel the cold, see, and I do love a bit of sun, so you got to take advantage.” He looked as if he did, his arms and face were that deep brown that you only get if you are outside most of your life.

“I wonder if you can help me,” I said. “I am looking for someone.”

“Oh, don’t go and spoil it by being someone from the dole. You’re not are you?” He looked me up and down. “No, you’re not. Not police, either? Insurance? Someone claiming for a bad back and you’re here to ask if I’ve seen them getting picked up in a van of a morning to go and do labouring? You looking for someone, you can tell me who you are.”

“I am not anyone,” I said.

He laughed at this. “Love, you’ve got to be someone.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But some days I am not so sure.”

He laughed again, but did not stop looking at me. His eyes were very pale blue, startling against the brown of his face. He took a drink from his can.

“So who you looking for?”

“A man called Jones or Jonesy. He lives here, in a squat. He had purple hair, once, I do not know what it is now.”

“And why you looking for him?”

“He might know where a friend of mine is.”

“Can’t be much of a friend if you don’t know where he is.”

“He is a good friend, my best friend,” I said, angry. “It is not my fault I do not know where he is. No, it
is
my fault I do not know where he is. In many ways it is my fault. But I worry for him, and I am scared for him, and now I want to find him and put the things right that I did wrong and stop him from getting hurt.”

The man in the chair looked at me again for a good long while. He rubbed his chin with his hand, and I could hear the scratching of his bristles.

“I knew the lad Jonesy,” he said. “Not well like, but live round here, you get to know most people. No-one likes a stranger on the square.”

“So which flat is his?” I said. “Please.”

The man in the chair pulled a face. “Sorry, love.”

“No!” I said. “I am not police, I am not benefit, I am not anything, I just look for my friend, that is all, please, tell me.”

“Aye aye,” the man said, looking past me. “Who’s this then?”

I turned and saw a black car pull into the square on the far side. It crept along slowly, as if someone in it was paying great attention to each of the buildings that it passed. I did not know if it was the same black car that had waited outside my hostel, and I did not want to find out. I had not shaken off my followers. Or they had found their way to Jonesy by other means. There were a lot of people in the city who would talk for money, or out of fear.

“Please,” I said, and the man must have heard the fear in my voice. “They must not see me.
Please
.”

He looked at me for a moment, and came to a decision. “In here. Move, then.”

I pushed through the door and nearly fell over a child’s bike with only one wheel. Outside, I heard a car engine.

“You’ll have to use the window,” the man said, puffing a little as he hurried me down the corridor and through the door to his flat. It was very tidy, but that may have been because there was little in there. An old television with a bunny ear aerial, a sagging armchair, one book on a small table. He led me through to a tiny kitchen, and yanked at the window. It opened a few inches and stuck, and the man swore and hit it with the side of his fist, and it opened all the way.

“Best get a move on,” he said. “I don’t fancy having to explain to your mates in that motor why I’m doing this.”

“Please,” I said. “Jonesy?”

He shook his head. “You don’t give up, do you? The flats on the other side, that was all burnt out? That was the squat. No-one been there for a month or more. Not seen your boy with the purple hair for longer than that.”

“You don’t know—”

“Where the lad is now? Not a clue. Sorry love. Now, you going to get out of my flat or what?”

I climbed onto the cold metal drainer, and started to squeeze myself through the window.

“I wouldn’t come back around here,” the man said. “No-one likes a stranger on the square, ’specially not when they’re drawing the attention of people who drive cars like that one out there. And no offence, because you seem like a lovely girl, but when you come asking questions like this right on the heels of someone else, and then these other buggers turn up, people will wonder what’s going on, and you don’t want that.”

I froze, halfway out of the window. “What do you mean, someone else?”

“What I said, love. You’re not the first to be asking after Jonesy. What’s the lad done, eh?”

Kav, or another of Corgan’s men. It had to be. I wondered what had led him to Chris and Tessa. It would not take long for a man like Kav to make Tessa say anything that he wanted her to say. Or maybe he had found Jonesy another way. People talked, for money or fear or spite. “This man, what did he look like? Did he have a little beard, and he was very tanned. Short, nasty.”

The man grinned and shook his head. “We don’t remember that sort of thing, round here. Same as if this lot ask, I won’t remember you. Speaking of which...”

I dropped from the window on to a patch of scrubby turf. A set of small goal posts with no net leaned at the wrong angles at one end, and tyre tracks had turned the middle into rutted mud. I looked around me at the back of the flats. Although I did not see a single person, and many of the windows were boarded up, I felt a hundred stares watching me.

I turned and walked away. I felt numb, and very tired. I did not know what to do, or where to look. “I’m sorry, Sean,” I said to a seagull stabbing at a paper bag. This had been my last chance to find him. Now, that was gone. If he was still in the city, Corgan and his men would find him first. And that would be the end of it all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I walked in to work. Sean was gone, and I was not going to find him, and that was that. I had done what I could, but it was not enough. I hoped that Sean had disappeared so far that Corgan’s men would not find him either. But I thought that they would be very good at finding people, and they would threaten and bribe and people would talk to them who would not talk to me. I had not started my shift yet, and my feet already hurt. I needed new shoes. I thought and thought very hard about what kind of shoes I would like if I had money, as much money as I wanted. I kept thinking about this, every style, every colour, nothing but this, and I reached the last street before the burger restaurant without yet having decided. A car door opened next to me, and a large man squeezed himself out.

I stepped back, towards the road. I stuck a hand in my pocket, wrapped it around my keys so that the biggest stuck out from my fist, and tried to keep breathing, and tried to stop shaking.

“Anna.”

Tight fear unwound into hot anger.

“Peter,” I said. “You fucking scared me to death. What the fuck are you doing jumping out at me? I am coming to work, you see me there, why are you scaring me like this?”

Peter had always been good to me, and I did not feel uncomfortable around him, but I did not know him that well and many women had trusted men they knew very well, who were good to them, and they found out that they did not know the men very well after all. My keys were hurting my hand, but I did not let go of them.

“Jesus, sorry,” he said, stepping back, looking conscious of his bulk. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You did not mean to, but you did—why are you standing around here, has the restaurant burnt down or something? Are you hiding from someone?” Then I thought about how Peter had defended me against Kav, and I felt bad. Maybe Peter had cause to hide, and that cause was me.

“I know you come in this way,” he said. “I needed to catch you before you got there. I’ve had visitors...”

“Same as before?” I said, looking up and down the street. “The man, the one you chased away?”

“No,” Peter said. “Anna...you can’t come to work tonight. Maybe not again.”

I stared at him for a moment. “You are sacking me.”

“No...well, no. Anna, you’ve been one of the best. Always thought you could do better than this, but that’s not my business. You’ve been one of the most trustworthy, hardest-working—but whatever you’re mixed up in, I can’t have any part of it Anna, I’m sorry. Last thing I can afford is for something going on to draw the attention to who I’m employing, or where they’re from, whether they have the right bits of paper. I don’t scare easily, but I’ve got to think of the business, it pays the mortgage and if anything happened...”

“I know,” I said. “It is OK.” I did not know why Corgan and his men would be intimidating Peter, but it did not really matter why. This was the end of things. No Sean. No job. What was there left for me?

“No it’s not,” he said. “It’s not at all. Anna, what the hell are you involved with. It was like the bloody mafia. It’s to do with back home, isn’t it?”

This took me by surprise. “What do you mean? What makes you think that?” How does he know, I thought. How the hell could he know about back home.

“Well, the bastard sounded like he came from your part of the world. So I assumed...”

Not Corgan. “This man, did he have anyone with him?”

“Oh, he had someone with him all right. Built like a brick shithouse, pardon my language. He comes in, opens the door for the little old bloke, stands behind him, says nothing, doesn’t need to.”

“What did they want?”

“Everything about you,” Peter said. “What did I know about you, who were your friends, how long had you worked for me, where had you come from, who came to see you, what names did you mention. They wanted your file, would you believe? Told them didn’t have one, paid you cash in hand as you were illegal. Sorry, but...”

“No,” I said. “No, thank you for not giving them anything.” It will not be long before they lose patience, I thought, and simply come for me, and make me tell them what they think it is that I know. What I do know.

“What are you mixed up in, girl?”

“You do not want to know, Peter.”

He shook his head, very sad. “No, you’re right, I don’t.”

“Thank you for the warning,” I said.

“I thought they might be watching the place,” Peter said. “Watching for you. And I knew you were due on shift.”

So you stuffed yourself into your little car because walking makes you out of breath, and you came here and you waited for me, I thought. I stepped forward and gave Peter a big hug. He grunted with surprise, or because I hugged him too hard, or maybe it was something of both.

“Thank you,” I said to his enormous chest. “For doing this.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, not really knowing what to do with his thick arms, not sure whether to wrap them around me or just keep holding them out as if they were both in casts. “I’m really sorry Anna.”

“I know,” I said. I let go. “It’s OK. If I go back there, they’ll keep coming. It’s not fair on the other staff. Or you.”

“If this all dies down,” Peter said. “Maybe...”

“Yes, of course,” I said brightly. On that polite lie that we both agreed on, we stepped back from one another. “You’d better get back,” I said. “Lenny will be breaking the milkshake machine if you are not there to keep an eye on him.”

Peter nodded. “I ought to,” he said. “What a bunch. First Sean, then you, my two best people.”

“Edward will keep things right,” I said. “He works very hard, and he is smart.”

“Yeah.” He looked embarrassed, scratched at his beard. “Look, I’ve finished off your wages,” he said. “Paid you some time in notice.” He dug a brown envelope out of his pocket and gave it to me. It was much thicker than it should have been. I did not say anything, because I knew I would not change Peter’s mind, and also because I could not turn down the money.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Good luck Anna.”

“Good luck, Peter.” I wondered whether I should, I could, kiss him, but Peter thought of it at the same time, and in self-defence he held out his hand. I stepped forward, and we shook hands formally, like in business. Then he turned and lumbered away down the street, back towards his restaurant, the place where I had worked. I would not be going back there again.

I walked back to the centre of the city, and when I got there, I realised that I could not remember anything about the journey. I sat on a bench by the side of the road for a little while, breathing in the fumes of the cars and trying very hard not to cry. Then a man came and sat down, and although he sat on the other end of the bench, and looked as if he was reading a newspaper, every time I looked up he seemed to be a little closer to me, so I walked away from there and past shops, not looking in windows in case I saw my reflection.

The city moved around me, people living their own lives and not caring about mine. I was like the road sign or the pavement, just there, part of the city, one tiny broken piece and no-one would notice if I was gone. I stopped, taking a deep breath, and a woman with bags of shopping in one hand and a mobile phone pressed to her head with the other pushed past me with an annoyed mutter. I swore at her, but she did not hear me.

I thought that coming here, to this place, I could build something. It was not home, because home was where my family had been, but home had become a poisoned place, and I could not go back there. So I came here, thinking that I could build some kind of life. But I looked at what life I had, and I did not like it very much at all.

I had found someone in Sean, someone I could trust, someone else who knew what it was like to be on the outside of things. And because of me, he was gone. I lived my life a lie, my identity a person who was not me, and in return I worked for Corgan and no matter that I made people well again, it was bad work. And what did that make me?

I walked through the city, killing time, crossing roads and not paying that much attention to whether the traffic was stopping or not. A man in a taxi shouted at me, but I did not listen. I saw myself in the window of a clothes shop, and I thought: you are a ghost. I looked away, and when I looked back, I was surprised that I was still there.