‘As if I’d be interested in anything you have to—’
‘Uday, are you being nice?’ Maude said, coming into the lounge in novelty pyjamas that Beth thought made her look like a gothic Dalmatian.
‘No,’ Uday said pettishly. Maude handed him and Beth cups of tea.
‘Thanks,’ Beth said.
‘She was just going,’ Uday said pointedly. Maude turned to Beth.
‘Have you got anywhere to go?’
‘Home?’ Uday suggested.
What a good idea, Beth thought. ‘Just got to sort out a few things first—’
‘What, because your bitch sister blew herself up?’ Uday interrupted. Beth turned to stare at him. Uday, to his credit, met the glare and held it. Maude’s face began to crumple into tears. Uday’s face softened as he put an arm around her. ‘Oh darling, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was just being a bitch.’ Uday glared at Beth as if this was all her fault.
‘I’ll go,’ she said and unzipped the sleeping bag, standing up to pull her combats on. Maude reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘Look, you don’t have to go. You can stay here for a while.’
‘No, she can’t!’ Uday all but screamed. Maude turned to fix him with a stern glare.
‘Uday, you’re being horrible. Just because you never like Tal—’
‘Because she was a heinous bitch!’
‘Uday,’ Beth said quietly. He turned to glare at her, daring Beth to speak. ‘My sister wasn’t a very nice person, I know that perhaps more than anyone. But she’s dead, so please don’t talk about her like that. I wouldn’t do it to you if the positions were reversed.’
Uday stared at her. ‘She fuck you over as well?’ he finally asked.
Beth thought about this. They both seemed nice. Close. Uday was clearly just a protective friend. Beth had the choice of how much to tell them, but she really didn’t like letting anyone in, not when she hadn’t known them for a long time. Trust did not come easy to her.
‘She testified against me at my trial after I hurt her boyfriend, who nearly beat her to death,’ Beth said. It felt like a massive gamble. It felt like she was opening herself up to attack. She decided not to tell them that she’d killed her sister’s boyfriend. Maude looked shocked. Beth didn’t think what she had just told her gelled with the girl’s image of Talia.
‘Okay, you can stay. But just for a little while. I fucking hate freeloaders.’ Uday finally said.
‘Yaaay!’ Maude said. They were just children, Beth thought, and I’m not a freeloader.
Beth walked over to the window and looked out onto a broad tree-lined road. The houses were all three or four storeys, many of them converted into flats, and she thought it must have been a wealthy area at some point in Southsea’s past.
‘Do you know where I can get some work?’ she asked.
Beth guessed the amusements on the pier looked better lit up at night. During the day you saw the cracks. It was an odd place: a mixture of bright plastic, irritating jingles, peeling paint and frayed, stained carpets, the smell of fried food and brutal concrete buildings that reminded her of home. The main building had what looked like a flying saucer on top of it. Bright plastic pirates and animal-headed characters enticed children onto the rides and parted parents from their money.
The guy she had spoken to was called Ted. A large man, he had seemed cheerful enough, but Beth felt there was an edge behind the happy fat-guy demeanour, that he was not someone you messed around with even if the constant cigarettes he smoked made him short of breath. It made sense if he had been running this place for as long as he claimed. He had clocked her for what she was straight away.
‘You’ve been inside,’ he said. Beth hadn’t seen the point in lying. She had just nodded.
‘Drugs?’
‘No.’
‘You mess with children?’ She just glared at him angrily. He was studying her. Coming to his own decision, looking for the reaction not the words. After all, anyone who had hurt children probably wouldn’t admit to it. ‘Got a temper?’ he finally said, apparently content that she didn’t mess with children. Beth gave his question some thought.
‘I worked doors. I’m used to putting up with a lot of shit before I blow.’
Ted watched her some more.
‘Well, we can always use someone who can look after themselves round here. Thing is, you look desperate to me.’
‘I’m not desperate; I need the money. Who doesn’t? Look, you don’t know me, that’s fine, but I don’t need much and I work hard.’
‘I can’t have people sleeping here,’ he said, but she knew that meant he would hire her. She could kick in some money to Maude and Uday and get a little money behind her for a place of her own if she was going to be here that long.
‘I’ve got a place. I’m not on the street or anything.’
Ted’s face brightened and he shook her hand.
‘Start tomorrow. Be ready for long days of screaming kids and longer nights of drunk older kids.’
Beth nodded. It felt good to be working again.
Beth had used a little more of the precious money that her dad had given her to celebrate. She had bought herself some fish and chips and a can of decent bitter and gone down to the empty pebble beach. She looked over the slate-grey water. She could see artificial islands with buildings on them and beyond them, the Isle of Wight. It wasn’t the sea proper. She knew that. It was a channel called the Solent. She didn’t care. With the ships and the boats it was the sea to her.
A fierce wind caught her hair, whipping it around as nearby a hovercraft swept up the beach to land by a small passenger terminal. She watched as a big passenger ferry left for some place she would probably never visit. She hoped that everyone on board wouldn’t just enjoy where they were going, but take pleasure in being able to do the very journey itself. She watched some kind of warship – it looked high-tech to her eyes, violent – coming into the port, disappearing between Old Portsmouth and Gosport into the harbour, presumably towards the naval dockyards.
She liked it here, she decided. Maybe it was because it was a change. Somewhere different where you didn’t get to see the same old faces age in front of you. Where everyone didn’t know what you had done. Or maybe it was just because it was open: the air could get to you here; you weren’t trapped in a valley. Beth had no doubt that this town had its problems, just like everywhere else, but she didn’t feel the same air of defeat she felt at home.
Late evening but still warm. Port Solent was obviously a new development. Shops, cafes and restaurants, surrounded by high-rise luxury apartment blocks for whoever passed for the beautiful people of Portsmouth, Beth assumed. She always felt like an outsider in places like this. She had been waiting outside the address that Maude had given her for over an hour, waiting for someone to go in.
Finally a man walked past her, not even registering her existence, and keyed the number into the door. Beth waited until it was just about to click shut and slid her fingers into the tiny gap to stop the door from locking. The guy had his back to her walking down the hall. She slipped into the apartment building.
In the lift Beth tried to get the words of her favourite revenge song out of her head. This was about information, not revenge, she told herself.
Beth had chosen the bayonet purely for intimidation. Size is everything, she thought. She knocked on the door. It was a secure building, so he would be expecting a neighbour, someone safe; he wouldn’t have a chain on the door or check the peephole. She hoped. The door opened.