‘I’il go an’ see if I can get a job tomorrow, start payin’ some rent.’
Rosie nodded. ‘Okay. You want to come to AA tonight?’
Lorraine hesitated. ‘Okay.’
As before, Lorraine sat at the back, playing no part in the proceedings. As she checked over the list of jobs she’d try for in the morning, her head throbbed. Then, without any warning, the sweating began, and she slipped out into the corridor where she found the water fountain. She had gulped down several cupfuls before she was steadier and her mouth stopped feeling like sandpaper. The fountain was close to a large bulletin board: there were lists of contacts, jobs, AA meetings, white elephant and garage sales. Lorraine noted down an address for second-hand clothes.
Rosie appeared, looking concerned, but seeing Lorraine squinting up at the bulletin board in that odd way she had, writing down information, she relaxed.
Lorraine looked over to her. ‘I guess I’ll need some clothes for work. There’s a yard sale on. You want to come?’
It wasn’t until they got there and Lorraine began to stack up suits, shirts, shoes, that Rosie wondered how she was going to pay. When she asked how much they’d cost, Lorraine told her fifteen dollars for the bunch — the woman wanted to get rid of the stuff quickly as she was moving. She had actually paid a hundred and fifty and was now down to less than a hundred bucks in her stash. The fact that she had broken into it for something other than booze, was — even though she didn’t realize it — another step forward.
Rosie sat draining a can of Coke as Lorraine inspected her new clothes, trying them all on, mixing and matching. Her face wore a studied, concentrated expression. She muttered and nodded, running her hand through her hair. ‘Mmmm, nice, not bad... yes, I like it.’
She felt jealous as she watched Lorraine parade up and down like a model on a catwalk. The clothes were good, anyone could see that, tailored skirts and jackets, a particularly nice cream silk shirt, and a black crêpe one, tasteful walking shoes and a pair of brown slingbacks that had never been worn. ‘I doubt if you’ll need that gear for the jobs Jake’s got lined up for you,’ Rosie pointed out, burping from the Coke.
Lorraine was looking at herself in the long wardrobe mirror. ‘Maybe I’m gonna try for a real job. There were quite a few listed at the meeting.’
Rosie pouted. ‘Like what?’
Lorraine turned round. ‘Receptionist — got to look smart for that — nice and easy, sittin’ down all day. I might get lucky.’
Rosie sniffed. ‘You might not.’
Lorraine hardly slept. The sofa was uncomfortable at the best of times, but constant worrying about the next day made her toss and turn. Four times she had to walk through the bedroom to the toilet, but she didn’t disturb Rosie, who slept as always like a beached whale, snoring loudly. Lorraine’s thirst seemed unquenchable. She finished all the Coke, all the bottled water, sweating and shaking, flopping up and down on the old sofa. Then it started — the craving. She badly wanted a beer. Would it be so bad to have just one?
She slipped into Rosie’s old dress, and inched open the screen door. The need consumed her; she could think of nothing else. She got as far as the bottom step before she saw the patrol car moving slowly up the road, the two officers inside staring at the buildings as they cruised along. She watched for a few moments before returning to the apartment, where she looked out from the window as they passed on down the road. By the time they had disappeared she didn’t feel so desperate. Still fully dressed, she got back on the sofa.
She had been expecting them. They must have contacted the cab ranks by now, but because she had seen no sign of police interest, she had been too wrapped up in herself to give it a second thought. Now she remembered... but instead of focusing on the present, Lorraine recalled her own days in uniform.
The only female in the precinct, she hadn’t even had a place to piss in privacy until they designated a toilet for her. She would do anything rather than go into the john and even when she had her own there was always a cop leering, presenting his dick for her appraisal. Her partner would throw fits because she was always asking him to pull over at public conveniences. It got so she wouldn’t drink during the day so she didn’t have to piss. They nicknamed her the Golden Camel, because no matter what temperature blistered the paint off the car, rookie Lorraine Page never accepted a drink. Later, she sure as hell made up for it, and when she had moved on, and upwards, she could drink most of her colleagues under the table. It had started as an act of bravado, to show she was as good as any man on or off duty. She could hold it. And then she got a new nickname: ‘Hollow Legs Page’.
Half dreaming, half awake, Lorraine recollected times she had not thought of for years. In these sequences she was always in uniform, and what hit her hardest was the persistent humiliation to which she had been subjected. A woman in a man’s world, a woman none of them wanted or encouraged to become part of their close-knit group. She had clawed every inch up the ladder — she had always had to prove herself tougher than any man. She was not better educated, she had no special qualifications, and if her father had not been a police officer she doubted that she would ever have joined up. She’d enrolled almost as an act of perversity.
Lorraine had hated her father because he had no time for her while he had doted on her brother, Kit. Whatever Kit had wanted Daddy made sure his precious son got. Kit was the pride of the family.
Lorraine’s mother had been an alcoholic, a frightened, pathetic woman who drank in secret, who remained inside the house, afraid of her own shadow until she had drunk enough confidence to go out. To everyone’s embarrassment, she would be picked up and brought home in a squad car by one of her husband’s colleagues. She was never charged with being drunk and disorderly, whatever she did. If she stole money or became abusive, it was quietly glossed over, and she would be locked in her bedroom to get over yet another binge. Poor Ellen Page, sober and regretful, apologetic and weepy. Lorraine used to hide from the sound of her sobs by covering her ears with her pillow. When her mother was sober, the house would return to order and routine — until the next time.
Lately Lorraine had not given her mother much thought. Now, she could picture her pale face, her white hands always twisting the thin gold wedding ring. Her red-rimmed eyes, her lank blonde hair. Lorraine was the image of her mother: perhaps that was why her father had so little time or love left for her.
She never discovered what had started her mother’s drinking. She used to search for the hidden bottles and, under instruction from her father, pour the contents down the sink. At first she always told him when she found the tell-tale bottles, but it seemed to Lorraine that the awful fights that followed were always directed at her — as if the blame was somehow partly hers. In the end, the pale, thin look-alike daughter protected her mother, and simply poured away the booze without saying anything.
Lorraine’s mother died quietly in her sleep. She was only forty-two, and Lorraine thirteen, but from then Lorraine ran the house. She cooked and cleaned up, waited on her father and brother. She would watch them leave for ball games, always together, like pals rather than father and son.
Kit was killed in a car accident. Two kids joy-riding in a stolen car mounted the pavement and ran him down. She could see him clearly, it was strange, she hadn’t given him a thought in she couldn’t remember how many years. Now she could even hear his voice, the way he always called out when he came into the house: ‘Hi, I’m home, anythin’ to eat?’ He had never talked about their mother’s ‘problem’ — if anything he refused to acknowledge there was one. When Lorraine was forced to clear up her vomit, wash her like a child, he shut himself in his room and played his records. Loud, louder than ever if Ellen was weeping, or if she was stumbling around the kitchen trying to get supper ready.