It was a wonder that Miss Campbell hadn’t been there, Nicky thought, sitting up the back, taking notes.
They left the Honda in the Showcase car-park and took an Escort in its place.
“Wait up,” called Martin, as they were turning past the Assembly Rooms and in sight of the bus station. “This is as good a place as any.”
“What for?” Nicky wanted to know.
“You stay put,” Martin told him. “Make sure no bastard nicks the fucking car.”
So Nicky popped a Polo in his mouth and lit a cigarette, while Martin and Aasim made their way between the bus stands towards the toilets. Aasim, two years older than Martin, was almost a foot taller, a mustache already thick upon his lip. Martin had met him first in the children’s home, Aasim sitting on the top bunk looking at the pictures in Penthouse and Hot Asian Babes and listening to his Bangra tapes, over and over again.
Twenty minutes and three cigarettes later they were back: Martin had sixty pounds in twenties, fifty in tens and three tatty fives; Aasim had blood drying from a cut alongside his mouth and a graze across his fist.
“Better’n a bank,” Martin said with a grin. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here. This place gives me the runs.”
“Where we going?” Nicky asked.
“What do you care?” Martin said. “Just wait and see.”
But Nicky was already thinking that wherever it was, it probably wasn’t the place he most wanted to be. Sitting around kicking his heels while others were off doing stuff wasn’t his idea of a good time.
“I’ll tell you what,” Aasim said, “when we’ve finished this, let’s go to a club.”
This was Chinese takeaway, sweet and sour, chicken and cashew, chicken chow mein; Nicky had ordered two portions of toffee banana as well and now Martin was only reckoning they were for everyone, reaching over into the back of the Vauxhall with his plastic fork.
Oh, yes, another car. As soon as they had reached the ring road, Martin insisted on taking over the wheel and within less than a mile had wrapped the near side of the Escort around a bollard, after which Aasim had made a detour across the grass to the Social Sciences car-park of the University and liberated a Fiesta XR2.
“Fuckin’ students, man, got too much money. What’s some fucker on a grant doin’ with a car like this?”
“Maybe it belongs to some teacher,” Nicky suggested. “Lecturer, whatever they’re called.”
“Don’t make me piss myself, man. Whatever sort of teacher drives a fuckin’ XR2?”
Nicky finally got tired of fending off Martin’s fork and let him have it all, tipping the contents of the container forwards across the seat and into Martin’s lap.
“Fuck it, Nicky! Just fuckin’ watch it, right?”
But Nicky was rapidly getting to the point where he didn’t give a shit.
“Syrup all down my tossin’ jeans!”
“Be cool,” Aasim said, “make you taste sweet.”
Martin laughed and, in disgust, Nicky lowered the window and threw all that remained of the food out onto the street.
“Right,” Aasim said, setting the car in gear. “We wasted enough time already, right?”
“Where we going?” Martin asked, still brushing away at his clothes.
“Clubbin’, I told you.”
“Not me,” Nicky said.
“Come on, you got to. I know this guy, right, works the door at the Black Orchid, yeh? Won’t cost us nothin’.”
It was beginning to grate on Nicky more than a little, the way Aasim knew someone who worked everywhere, some cousin, uncle, aunt, or brother. He’d bet anything you liked, mention somebody doing the most far-out job you could ever think of, personal bodyguard to Madonna, something stupid like that, and Aasim would swear on whatever it was they swore on that he knew the bloke’s Siamese twin.
When the XR2 pulled up outside the club, both Nicky and Martin got out but neither of them moved towards the door. “Suit yourselves,” Aasim said. After he’d parked the car and talked his way inside, the two of them jumped into a cab that had just dropped off four girls with skirts up around their tits and headed into town.
Sitting in the back, Martin did his best to persuade Nicky to work the Forest with him. Martin, he’d get some punter back into the trees and then Nicky could jump him, the two of them would beat the shit out of him and take him for whatever he had. “They’ll never do nothing about it,” Martin assured him. “Not the coppers nor nothin’. Married, most of ’em, that’s why.”
But Nicky wouldn’t budge. He left Martin cadging a light from a tart on the corner of Waterloo Road and took off down Southey Street, heading for home.
“Smoke?” Sharon asked.
Lynn shook her head.
“I know, I keep trying to give it up.” Sharon lowered the window on her side of the car a crack before she lit up.
The streets were busier now, small knots of girls in different shapes and sizes, gossiping at corners, blowing into their hands. Others, most often in pairs, walked slow along the pavement’s edge, a quick dip of the head towards any car that drew near.
“No lads,” Lynn said.
“Not yet.”
The drill was, park for a while where you have, as far as possible, an unimpeded view of one stretch of the territory; next, drive around the circuit at a steady pace, eyes peeled, letting the ones that knew you know you were about, casting a careful eye over anyone new on the patch. Look out for trouble, warn persistent punters away. Every now and again, there would be a lot of conspicuous action, rounding the girls up and taking them in. Fines in the coffers, a small knee jerk in the direction of the moral majority. Keeping the trade under wraps.
“You seeing anyone?” Sharon asked, stubbing out her cigarette and resisting the temptation to light another.
“Sorry?”
“A bloke, you know.”
“Oh. No.” In the close proximity of the car, Lynn felt herself beginning to blush and blushed all the more. “How about you?” she asked.
Sharon smiled, almost a laugh. “Depends what you mean. Not in the regular sense, no. Friday nights at the pictures, Saturdays a takeaway and a couple of videos from Blockbusters, nothing like that.”
“But?”
To hell with it! Sharon lit up anyway, lowered the window a farther half-inch. “There’s this one guy, I don’t see him often, just, you know, when we can fix it. When he can.”
“Married, then?”
She did laugh this time. “Of course he’s married.”
Lynn stared out through the window; what she thought were shapes moving was probably nothing more than the wind in the trees. “He won’t leave her. You know that.”
“He’d better not!”
“You know you’re just saying that.”
“Like hell I am. Leave her and what’ll he expect? Me to dump his washing in the machine last thing at night, collect his suit from the cleaners, cook, be nice to his kids. I’ve had a bellyful of that once on my own account; I’m not about to fall for it again.”
“What is it, then? Why do you keep seeing him?”
Sharon drew in smoke and exhaled slowly through her nose. “Sex, why d’you think?”
It was quiet inside the car, each woman aware of the other’s breathing, the heat of her skin.
“I don’t know if I could,” Lynn said. “Not unless …”
Sharon barked out a laugh. “Unless you loved him?”
“Unless I thought it was leading somewhere.”
In the semi-darkness, Sharon was looking at her. “You’re young, you’ll learn.”
“I hope not.”
Sharon lowered the window a little more and tapped ash out into the air. “Look, me and him, we spend the night together, most of it, once every two or three weeks. He’s a nice bloke, a good lover. Treats me with respect. He’s never aggressive or overdemanding unless I want him to be, he’s got great hands and a lovely cock. And he makes me laugh. You think I should be holding out for what? A co-signee for the mortgage and someone to help me push the trolley round at Safeway?”