Sweet (7 page)

Then there’s the two daddies of the pack – Nev and Navdeep. Nev’s an ex-docker from Shoreham and Nav’s this cool Sikh with a turban and all that, and sometimes he lets us touch his dagger! They’re kind to us, but they’re very much a self-contained pair, spending most of their breaks doing Sudoku and trying to force us to do them too, ‘To keep your brains working,’ as Nav would say sternly. What’s he mean, keep! – most of us, they never started. Specially the luggage guys who just play football all the time.

So it smells and it’s slow and it’s hardly the stuff dreams are made of, but there’s a few perks. First, the security staff have to search you every time you go in and out of the lounges, and some of them are well fit. And second is this mystery boy, about my age, who keeps himself to himself and spends all his spare time with his squeegee, but he’s just about the prettiest thing you ever saw. Asif, I think his name is. And one of these days, not long from now, if he hangs around too long in the cloakrooms after home-time, he’s going to get some Sweet-smooching. A Sugar-shagging, even.

Yes, I KNOW! What do I want – boy or girl, Indian or Chinese? Seems like I just can’t make up my mind these days. But whatever, it’s all sweet.

8

Cute as a Christmas puppy or not, I didn’t just want to jump feet first into a relationship – or even a sex-thang – with some cute immigrant kid who cleaned out karzies for a living. Don’t forget, I was still walking on air, or at least some invisible catwalk, from my recent reign as Baggy and Aggy’s muse. Though my part in their next world-conquering collection was finished in practical terms, I still couldn’t shake the notion that there might be some sort of modelling job for me when the clothes were finally good to go.

I was standing in the restroom phoning them on their landline for the nth time that day – having been texting them and trying their mobeys all week – suggesting we get together, when I heard the door go behind me. I turned around and there was Asif – his mouth was like a kiss, I thought immediately, and as he looked at me it was like I could see birthday candles in his eyes. I closed my phone, walked across to him and, reaching behind him, I closed the door softly. Yes, I KNOW what I said, but rules were made to be broken. Especially your own. And especially ESPECIALLY if there might be a decent shag as a result.

‘Knock knock,’ I whispered in his ear.

He stared at me, terrified.

‘Say “Who’s there?”,’ I prompted him.

‘Who is there!’ His eyes went really big – big mistake, as it only made him more perve-worthy.

‘Asif,’ I purred.

‘Asif –’ He pointed at himself and smiled nervously.

‘Say “Asif Who?”,’ I instructed.

He laughed, finally realizing I meant him no harm. Hmm, well, not in a VIOLENT way. Unless he struggled, of course. ‘Asif who!’

‘As-if-I-wouldn’t-snog-you,’ I whispered in his ear. He turned his head slowly – I kept mine still; we were eye to eye and mouth to mouth. And by the look in his eye, and the way his lips parted, I knew we were speaking the same language, all right.

But as I said, I wasn’t about to throw my future away on some tasty toilet-tender. Play it as cool and sweet as ice cream, that’s the Sugar-shock. I held my phone up to his mouth.

‘Put your number in. But kiss it first.’

‘Kiss . . .?’

‘It’s a Sussex custom. “Silly Sussex”, they call us. Cos we get a rush out of doing daft things. You know what a rush is, don’t you, Asif?’

‘When people hurry – they rush—’

‘Na, not that type. The fun kind.’ I pushed the phone against his lush lips and he winced. ‘You want to have fun, don’t you – not just clean out toilets all your life? You’re too beautiful to be doing a crap job like this . . .’

He shook his head. ‘No . . . YOU are beautiful – I am . . .’

‘You’re gorgeous.’ I put the phone in his hand. ‘Put your number in –’

I watched his lovely dark face as he did it, wondering if he was blushing or not. He handed it back to me.

‘That’s right,’ I told him. ‘So now I’ve got your number, we can have fun.’

‘Tonight? When we finish work? We go out?’

Why not? Wasn’t like I had any other hot date lined up when I finished going berserk with the Cillit Bang, was it? I opened my mouth to give him instructions.

Then my phone rang.

I checked it – Baggy and Aggy’s landline. And seeing it, I snapped back into reality – MY reality. A place where people lived in big white houses and did creative things – not cleaned toilets and ate at Burger King before a quick fumble by the bins round the back.

I gave Asif a quick dismissive smile – ‘Not today, kid – I’ll call you sometime’ – and a good view of my coldest shoulder as I turned away to take the call.

‘Hiya!’ I squealed into the phone. ‘How’s it hanging!’ Behind me I heard the door close quietly, and if a door could sound sad, it certainly did.

‘Pretty good, last time I looked,’ someone sniggered. But it wasn’t B or A.

‘Who’s this?’

‘It’s Duane, Shugs – Duane Trulocke.’

‘Oh, right.’ I couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt that my mates were still obviously doing whatever they were doing with Duane, when they hadn’t had any time for me. ‘They still screwing you, then?’

‘Yeah, I s’pose.’ There was a pause. ‘But not just me. You want to meet up?’

An hour later I was watching Duane walk through the door of the Macky D’s in the Western Road. I could tell straight away that something was up, because usually he walked like he’d just done your brother and was on his way to do your mother – dead cocky. But now he was walking like he’d just done your budgie, and then let it out the window into the bargain – real shifty, like he didn’t know how to break the awful news.

He sat down opposite me and pinched a chip. I pushed my tray towards him. ‘Go on, have the lot! I’m not touching ’em, I know where your fingers have been!’

‘Same to you. How come you got McNuggets? Thought Filet-o-Fish was more your speed,’ he sniggered.

I hate that – the way everyone knows about me and Kizza. It’s like I’m labelled for life – DYKE! KEEP OFF! Another reason why I should bag Asif. But then, it’s like another label – two teenage toilet cleaners copping off together! Dead depressing. That’s why I needed to climb out of my ‘box’, so to speak – score the smart, exotic Dr Fox, or better still some really hot creative bloke. Like Baggy and Aggy – only not gay. Or a minger. Or a couple. You know what I mean!

‘Spit out it,’ I said coldly. ‘And I don’t mean the chips. Haven’t you got something better to do like, ooh, I don’t know, perving over some fit bird that’s been like a sister to you when she’s spread-eagled on six square foot of BacoFoil with her defences down?’

He didn’t say anything, just got out his phone. ‘Want to show you something – because you WERE like a sister to me, cos you knew I didn’t have no proper family. You were dead kind. Even when Jesus and me done that thing with the superglue and your tampon that time—’

‘Spare me the gory details,’ I said hurriedly. Sitting in McDonald’s with a rent boy, discussing sticky fun with tampons from times past, having just clocked off from my cleaning job, was hardly the glamorous life I was cut out for, at the risk of sounding snobbish. ‘Just tell me the big news and let me finish my Fruit ’n’ Yogurt Parfait in peace.’

He got out his phone, fiddled with it and pushed it slowly across the table to me, screen downwards, looking furtively around as he did so. As I reached out for it I had the most horrible feeling that I was never going to feel the same about B&A again after looking at it. I put my hand over it and pushed it back towards him.

‘Put it away, Duane. I don’t want to see what they’ve done to you.’

‘Do you want to see what they’ve done to YOU, though?’

He pushed the phone back and this time I picked it up.

The first picture showed my Princess dress on a mannequin. Only it wasn’t the Princess dress the way it had been described to me. It was still short and sleeveless but it wasn’t black silk – it was made out of a black rubbish sack, with glitter splashed randomly over it. And the label across the dummy’s face said, in big black capitals, WHITE-TRASH TINKERBELL.

I looked up at Duane. He may only have been fifteen, and a little prick of a bum-chum rent boy, but I suddenly wanted him to put his arms around me and tell me everything would be all right. Instead he shrugged and said, ‘I’m sorry, Shugs. But I just thought you should know –’

I nodded, and hit the button. Next up was my beautiful micro-mini skating skirt with attached knickers, which was meant to have been in lush red velvet – with matching muff! But now it was in a horrible check – even worse than Burberry! – and as for the muff . . . well, you can guess what
that
was made to resemble. The label on this one said PRAM-FACED PRICKTEASE. My sight was a bit blurry by this time, but I noted that the next dress had pregnancy tests hanging off the hem and was called LATE AGAIN! Then there was PIKEY PRINCESS – a princess at last! – and CHIPSHOP CHIC.

Then I came to the final shot. It was the culottes. I’ve always hated culottes anyway. But these – these were bright yellow, with gurgling babies printed all over them. And a trickle of blood running down from the crotch. It was called MUM’S ABORTION.

I couldn’t believe it. My friends. MY FRIENDS . . .

Duane took his phone back from me gently. ‘You didn’t know about none of this, did you.’

I shook my head, no.

‘But you were modelling for them for ages—’

‘They put these white material things on you – “toiles”, they’re called. They help them get the outline right – then they cut it on the proper material . . . that way there’s no waste . . .’ The fact that I knew this thing which I’d been perfectly OK not knowing seemed to sum up for some dumb freaking reason every dumb freaking thing I’d hoped for, and I suddenly saw how I’d been SO fooled by these bastards into believing that I could be something I wasn’t, when all I’d ever be was a chav. A chipshop-chic, pram-faced pricktease, white-trash, late-again CHAV – worrying about her mum’s abortion! They lied to me, and they gave me money, and they dressed me up and let me look into their mirrors – and I saw a princess. But those mirrors were evil fairground mirrors, it turned out, because where I saw a princess, the rest of the world just saw a pikey. And always would, because of everything about me, from my blood to my postcode.

I began to stuff cold chips into my mouth then, just more and more and more, until they started to fall out, because of course I couldn’t swallow because my throat had closed up, because I was crying.

‘Ria! RIA!’ Duane sounded really shocked. Yeah, I know – I never cried! But then, I’d never been made to look ten types of twat in one go by a pair of giggling paedos, had I! Through my veil of tears I saw him get up from his seat and then I felt his arms go round me and pull me gently up from my seat. I made a half-hearted attempt at shaking him off – it was all wrong, me being comforted by a boy.

‘Leave me ’lone – want my parfait!’ I protested.

‘No! – come on! – you’ve got a rep, you can’t be seen blubbing in here!’

I let him manhandle, or rather boyhandle, me out, and we walked without speaking up North Street to the corner of West Street, the long hill of clubs and pubs that leads to the seafront, often referred to by the local police as ‘Little Beirut’. As we walked past the scene of many a conquest and catfight, I couldn’t help thinking how bloody ‘ironic’ – thanks, Kim! – it was that I had had so many run-ins here with some of the toughest types in town, boys and girls both, yet in all that pushing and shoving I had never once been made to cry. And now I was in floods because of a pair of namby-pamby middle-aged frock-makers.

And it struck me that I’d been
so much stronger
before I knew what irony was. Maybe you’re just better off not knowing certain things.

‘It’s called “The Council Couture Collection”,’ Duane said apologetically after a few minutes. ‘I would have told you before. Only I thought at first you might have been in on the joke.’

‘No. I was just the punchline.’ A black rubbish bag taunted me with my dreams of glory and I kicked it viciously. It spilt its guts everywhere – a bit like I had with those
bastards
.

‘I heard them talking about it – they said they was sick of making frocks for thick rich footballers’ wives and this was their experimental collection,’ he said helpfully.

‘I’LL BLOODY EXPERIMENT ON THEM!’ I screeched, stopping dead still. ‘I’ll take a pair of their freaking huge pattern-cutting scissors and a tube of your superglue, and I’ll make them the first two-faced, two-headed gaylord on earth to have two crinkle-cut bum-holes, THAT’S what I’ll do –’

But then I realized that there was no point in making a minger-monster out of them – who’d notice the difference, for one? However, there was SOMETHING I could do with scissors and superglue that would make a LOT of difference to their lovely jubbly quality of life, the twisted trollops . . .

I grabbed Duane and shoved him against the glass front of the amusement arcade at the bottom of West Street. ‘You got a key to their place?’

‘I can nick one—’

‘You know what date they’re showing their crap collection?’

‘I can find out—’

‘Come on then!’ I grabbed his hand and pulled him across the road towards the sea. Car horns shrieked in protest, but I was used to that; I didn’t give a damn about the clamour or the anger that followed in my wake – bring it on! The thing was that I had a plan, and I was back on my feet, teetering down the shingle in high heels, dragging a laughing Duane after me. MY LIFE!

9

Well, it was a somewhat different Sugar who clocked in at Stanwick next day, Saturday, and while I can’t exactly claim that I embraced my mop and bucket as though they were him off of T4, or even my passport to a better life, I
did
look at them like there were a pair of old – what’s the word –
adversaries
, that’s right, who had to be faced before I could move on to anything else.

Another difference was that I was no longer looking down my nose at young Asif. Instead I was looking down my cleavage at him, grinning like a loon, while he failed to notice me and instead nodded seriously at what Navdeep was saying.