‘Stop it, please stop it,’ she cried, as he fed the white waxy rectangles one by one through the slit, each one burning on a corner. She managed to extinguish the first three, but on the fourth the petrol exploded with a dull whumph. Bracing her feet against her sister’s door once more and her back against the wall opposite, she forced herself up, foot by foot, inch by inch above the flames, but into the smoke. She realized she was not shouting, screaming, and she wondered why not. She realized that she had never been so excited in her whole life, that never before had she felt so alive, so at one with an elemental universe whose existence she had suspected but never before experienced. The fumes drugged her, she breathed them in with a welcoming abandon, fell dizzy, and dropped fainting into the tiny inferno three feet below. Almost her fall was enough to put out the flames, almost… Never had she felt so happy and her last thought was: I’m right about mice.
‘Why, I don’t understand why?’ her sister wailed later that evening.
The policeman tried to explain.
‘We think she must have seen something she shouldn’t have seen out in the street. A mugging maybe, something like that.’
‘But that’s not possible. She had terrible eyesight, tunnel vision, could only see properly with glasses that made her eyes look like oysters. She only wore them to read. She can’t have seen anything…’
ANGEL’S DAY by MOLLY BROWN
MORNING:
Angel woke, shivering, in a cheap hotel room littered with condom packets. She stepped into her clothes: a wrinkled pink summer dress with a white lace collar, and a leather jacket, much too big. (She knew this guy once; his name was Ricky. She woke up shivering and hurting and needing on a morning just like this one. Ricky was gone and the dope was gone and all the money she’d made the night before was gone, but the bastard left his jacket.)
She paused in front of King’s Cross Station, clutching the money in her hand, holding her breath, looking for the Italian. Then she saw him, outside the post office in Euston Road. He was leaning against the wall, dressed in expensive jeans and a black leather jacket, standing motionless. Hands in pockets, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, ignored by passers-by.
The light changed and Angel crossed a road filled with cars and taxis and buses. The night before – in the dark – she was pretty, with long brown centre-parted hair, big round eyes, and a tiny cupid’s bow of a mouth, but now it was morning and she was ill. Trembling, shoulders hunched, face ashen and glistening with sweat, she stumbled on legs that were stick-insect thin, fragile as glass.
The Italian took his hands out of his pockets and stepped away from the wall, walking very slowly. Angel wiped her dripping nose on her jacket sleeve and slipped a damp, crumpled note into the man’s outstretched hand. He spat, and a small foil-covered pellet landed on the pavement. (‘Cops can’t look in your mouth,’ Ricky once told her, ‘that counts as an intimate body search. If they grab you, swallow. If they put you in a cell, just make damn sure you don’t shit for twenty-four hours, then they’ve gotta let you go; it’s the fuckin’ law.’)
The Italian moved away, disappearing into crowds of morning people. He never once spoke, never even looked at her.
Angel bent down briefly, then stumbled back the way she came, fighting back waves of nausea.
In her tiny room near the station, she removes the wrapping from a chocolate bar and lets the chocolate fall to the floor; it is the silver paper she wants. She tears the cellophane from a fresh needle and lifts her dress, exposing the marks on her thigh.
AFTERNOON:
Angel was out working when it started to rain. She headed towards a place she knew, a tunnel underneath a railway bridge north of the station, alongside some waste ground and a depot. She stepped into the tunnel and three women blocked her path. She didn’t know them; she’d never seen them before. They were older than Angel, and big, with wide shoulders and muscular arms. ‘Where do you think you’re going, little one?’ asked the largest, stepping forward. She had shoulder-length black hair, parted on the side, and little piggy eyes smeared with blue make-up. Her face and arms were dotted with moles. She wore tight, ripped jeans and heavy, lace-up boots. She had a northern accent. ‘I asked you where the fuck you think you’re going, bitch.’
Angel stared at the ground. ‘Nowhere.’ Her voice sounded high and thin and faraway.
‘Nowhere,’ the woman repeated in a tinny falsetto, mocking Angel’s strained little-girl voice. The other two laughed. ‘Well, nowhere ain’t around’ere, love, is it?’ She grabbed Angel by the hair and slammed her against the tunnel wall. The other two leapt forward, holding her there.
Angel looked around in desperation. There was no one around that she knew, none of the regulars – these three must have scared them all away. Now the bridge belonged to them and there was no one who would help her.
A car drove under the bridge, lights on, window open, hugging the curb. It pulled to a stop, distracting the women’s attention. Angel bolted forward. ‘Get me outta here. I’ll do anything you want.’
The driver told her to get in.
The man drove a short way, then parked behind a derelict building with boarded-up windows and rainbow splashes of graffiti. He was blond, in his late twenties. He wore a flashy suit – pure silk – and several rings: gold. ‘Well?’ he said.
Angel’s eyes went blank; something inside her switched off. She bent forward, reaching for the man’s zipper, but he stopped her, grabbing her hand and pushing it away. ‘You gonna tell me what that was about?’
Angel looked up, confused. ‘What?’
‘All that bother under the bridge, what was it about, eh? If I’m gonna play a knight in shining armour, I want to know the reason why.’
Angel shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Dispute over territory, was it?’
Angel turned away, biting her lip.
‘How long you been on the game?’
‘Not long.’
‘You’re a cute girl. How long you plan to stay that way?’
Angel was confused. Men in cars didn’t talk; they never talked, unless they wanted something extra.
‘How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Bollocks. But if that’s what you want to tell me, I’ll believe you.’
‘I am. I’m nineteen. Do you want me to prove it or something?’
‘Nineteen,’ the man repeated, his eyes moving up and down her body, appraising her. He lifted a hand to her face. Angel tensed, ready to run. He wouldn’t be the first man she’d met who got his kicks from slapping women around, but all he did was push her hair back from her eyes, ever so gently, and begin to stroke her cheek. Then he smiled, tracing the outline of her lips with the tip of one finger. ‘You don’t even look fifteen, do you? You’re cute; you’ve got a voice like a little girl. Men like that, you know. Or some do, anyway. Enough to make it worthwhile.’ He leaned back in his seat, staring straight ahead. The tone of his voice changed, became harder. ‘So how much does it take a day, huh?’
‘I don’t understand.’
He sighed and rubbed his temples. Suddenly he looked very tired. ‘Please don’t play games with me,’ he said. ‘You think I can’t see you’ve got a habit? Honey, look at that thigh.’
Angel tugged at her dress.
‘So how much you need to make in a day? Minimum.’
Angel looked down at her feet, making a face. ‘About a hundred.’