What Trixie would need, what she always needed, was money. There was never a time when she wasn’t short. She would look at the ravishing useless present and think: God - what I could have done with all that cash. For she would know the cost to within five pounds. Somehow she always did.
Janet stood hesitating as people surged about her and car horns blared and her lungs choked on exhaust fumes. Should she take the scarf back? Would the shop accept it? But that meant she’d turn up at Seventeen Waterhouse empty-handed and she did so want to take a present. What I should have done, Janet reflected with tardy sadness, is buy something that would be of real use. Some food. Or something to drink.
On the other side of the road there was a Marks and Spencer. With the same unheeding impetuosity with which she had entered Xerxes, Janet now dived after a group of pedestrians crossing and, a moment later, found herself in the food department.
It was a long time since she had shopped at Marks and Sparks and the shelves were a revelation. She bent over the freezer cabinet, loving the blast of cold air on her burning cheeks and picked up a box glittering with icy crystals: American Fudge Pie. She added a tub of Lemon Ice Cream. Then she turned to the made-up dishes, selecting crispy Peking Duck, Prawns Won Ton, Fillet Steak with Green Peppercorns and Salmon in pastry parcels. Into the trolley went real coffee, some double cream, a herby round cheese wrapped in vine leaves and wild strawberry conserve. A big box of Belgian chocolates. Bread of course (plaited Italian ciabatta), unsalted butter, asparagus. On the fruit counter she found two mangoes, a wonderfully scented Ogen melon and some Muscat grapes. Then she saw a cauliflower: snow-white curds tightly packed, leaves immaculately fresh. Recalling Arno’s poor weevily offerings, she simply had to have it. Just as she had to have the champagne.
It was while piling these things on to the rolling checkout belt that Janet realised it might have been wiser to use a basket. There seemed to be an awful lot of stuff, some of it rather heavy. It was possible to buy carriers larger and tougher than those freely offered so she picked up a couple, adding them to her bill (fifty-four pounds and seventeen pence.)
Stepping out of the air-conditioned store was a shock. Janet stood on the baking pavement and put her bags down, trying to ignore the honking traffic. She studied her map to regain her bearings then stopped a woman with a pushchair and showed her the address.
‘Straight down and turn at Caley Street.’ She eyed Janet’s shopping. ‘It’s quite a walk.’
‘Oh - is it?’
‘A good twenty minutes. I should get on a bus.’ She nodded at a longish queue nearby. ‘Fifty-seven.’
Janet had to stand on the fifty-seven but was able to put her shopping in the space behind the platform. She kept the black and white box, gripping it with one hand, hanging on to the rail above her head with the other. At the fourth stop, the bus half emptied and the conductor called, ‘Here you go,’ dragging her bags out.
Janet climbed down and stared around her in some bewilderment. She turned and called, ‘Are you sure this is right?’ but the bus was already moving off.
She was facing a large patch of scrubby ground littered with rubbish, around which reared six great cinder-coloured tower blocks. A boy clattered by on a skateboard and she caught his arm saying, ‘Waterhouse?’
He shouted ‘Carncha read?’ and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
A wooden board with orange and white lettering, much of it peeling off, and dotted lines to indicate covered walkways, gave the layout of the estate. Waterhouse seemed to be the furthest block away. She picked up her bags and trudged off.
Within a couple of minutes the busy sounds of the street were muted and she became aware of a quite different atmosphere. Oppressive, enclosed and curiously empty: curious because she must be surrounded by hundreds of people - a few feet away on the ground or stacked high into the clouds. Janet tipped back her head and craned her eyes upwards. No sign of human life. In spite of the glorious weather, not a soul sat out on their balcony, perhaps because there was no room amongst all the washing. No one looked down from a window either. Janet recalled how quickly the other passengers had melted away. It was really quite uncanny.
She passed two metal bins, taller than she was, smelling most unpleasant and humming with flies, and entered a walkway. She moved along quietly, anxious not to attract attention. The enclosure was covered with spray-on graffiti. It was all pretty uninventive, confining itself mainly to indicating where the observer should next go and what he should do when he got there. Janet, sweaty and nervous, was glad when she came to the other end.
But then, stepping into the open once again, she got a shock. Facing her was a group of youths straddling motor cycles. The nearest machine, powerful shiny black with a towering windshield, was so huge and threatening that it looked more like a weapon of war than a means of transport. All the bikes had tall masts on the back with pennants attached.
Janet stopped dead and her heart leapt. The boys stared, hard-eyed. Then one of them gave a wolf whistle and the others gave raucous shouts of encouragement. Janet thought of asking where Waterhouse was out of sheer cravenness but then decided simply to walk on. It wasn’t as if they were blocking her way. She had only gone a few steps when a tremendous revving roar of sound ripped the air. Janet nearly jumped out of her skin, dropping the black and white box. The lads nearly fell off their saddles laughing.
Finally reaching her objective, she stepped beneath the concrete overhang and put down her bags. Around her were several shabby doors numbered one to four. So if there were four flats on each level, V’s would be on the fifth. Janet pressed the button marked FT and waited. She pressed it several more times and was starting to get impatient when there was a bumping and thumping to her right. A young girl appeared wearing skin-tight jeans and white winkle-pickers, dragging a baby in a pushchair down a flight of steps. A toddler followed scrambling backwards, tearful at the prospect of being left behind. The girl spoke to Janet.
‘You’ll stand there till Christmas.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Not working is it?’ She dragged at the little boy, wrenching his arm, hoisting him down the final two steps. ‘Come on ...’ She sounded as irritated as if they had just come back from a morning’s shopping instead of just starting out. ‘Shift yourself for Christ’s sake ...’
She was walking away. Janet called: ‘Do you know if the people in Seventeen are in?’ The little boy started crying in earnest. The girl did not reply.
Janet walked to the base of the steps and looked up. There were eight, then a square to turn, then eight doubling back. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Not as if she were in a hurry. Thank heavens she hadn’t walked here from the town. As it was she felt reasonably fresh. Janet started to climb.
At the first ‘platform’, she had to stop to rearrange her shopping. The champagne bottle kept cracking against the side of her knee. She turned the bag round, took several deep breaths and fought her way up another two flights. Half way the sole of her open sandal caught just under the edge of the step and she nearly fell. She was careful after that, lifting her feet higher than was strictly necessary, putting extra strain on the muscles of her calves.
Resting for the second time, panting, aware of a hard, gathered pain between her shoulder blades, Janet noticed a damp stain was spreading over the black-and-white gift-wrapping on her beautiful box. She snatched it out of the carrier bag where it had been lying on top of the ice cream. Unable to face rearranging the shopping yet again, Janet wedged the box under her arm before striving and struggling on.