She stands up and turns her back. She has no wish to put her hand near her breasts in view of this grubby old lecher. But it’s perfect, the room. It’s off the radar in every way. No one from her old life would look for her here and she needs this place, needs the time to regroup, see to Janine and work out what she’s going to do next.
The cash is warm, slightly damp from contact with her heat-soaked skin. She turns back and holds the money out. The Landlord pinches it between thumb and forefinger, and stares her in the face. I must hold his gaze. I mustn’t be the one to look down first. If I do, he’ll know he’s the boss and I’ll never see the back of him.
‘I’ll need a receipt for that,’ she says.
Collette closes the door, tries to put the snib down on the flimsy Yalelock. It slides, but doesn’t engage. She waits, her ear pressed against a wooden panel, and listens for the sound of his leaving. Hears him hover in the hall outside, feels the weight of his labouring breath. After a minute or so his shuffling tread moves away, starts slowly up the stairs. He lets out a small grunt as he takes each step.
She looks round her new home. Yellowing magnolia walls, thin polyester curtains in a pattern of geometric colour blocks on a field of blue that she recognises from several one-star hotels she’s stayed in over the years, the unmade bed, the armchair, the small Formica table below the window. The previous tenant’s hairbrush lying on the windowsill, a few red hairs caught in the bristles. What sort of person moves on without even taking their hairbrush? she wonders.
Someone like you, she replies. She remembers her last room, in Barcelona: the clothes she will never see again, her make-up scattered across the top of the chest of drawers, her books, the necklaces hanging from panel-pins knocked into the back of the bedroom door, the sounds of café life in the street below. At least, thank God, she’d put the bag in a locker at the station, because once she’d seen Malik in the street outside she could never risk going in there again. She feels tears prick the back of her eyes. Someone will come along, eventually, when the rent runs out, and throw it all away. No one will wonder where she’s gone, why she left in such careless haste. She feels a certain fellow feeling with the vanished tenant. She’s part of the easy-come, easy-go world now and only Tony Stott wants to know where she is.
Collette goes over to the bed and pulls back the bedclothes. They smell of someone else. She saw a big Asda nearby from the window of the train. She’ll head there and buy a couple of sets when she’s had a rest; maybe even treat herself to a new duvet and pillows, too.
You mustn’t spend it all, she thinks, automatically, the way she has each time she’s started again. Don’t go blowing it. It’s all you have, Collette.
She fetches the bag from under the chair. Sits on the bed and checks, as she’s checked every hour since she fled for the station, that the contents are still there, pulls out the small stash of emergency belongings she stored in there and lays them out to mark her territory. A couple of summer dresses, a cardigan, flip-flops, a couple of pairs of knickers, a sponge bag with a toothbrush, a tube of face cream and a small collection of eyeliners from her handbag. All she’s salvaged, this time. Not much to show for nearly forty years, but it’s better than no life at all.
She sits, then lies, on this stranger’s bottom sheet. It’s mercifully free of stains, at least. She can’t face the thin, sad-looking pillows, though. Uses the bag and what remains inside as a rest for her head instead. It’s firm, unyielding. Who’d’ve thought? she wonders, that you could be this uncomfortable lying on a hundred thousand pounds?
Chapter Four
The signs are everywhere that Northbourne is coming up in the world, though it still has a way to go. There are new businesses springing up: a deli that sells sun-dried tomatoes and the sort of cheese that smells of armpit, an estate agent with a one-syllable name that hands out free cappuccino if you look smart and old enough, a dedicated greengrocer and a café with pavement tables and extra-wide aisles to accommodate the buggies. But most of all, Cher has noticed that there are new signs. One has appeared on the lamp-post on the corner of Station Road and the High Street since she passed by this morning. She stops to read her way slowly through it, her lips moving as she does so.
THIEVES OPERATE IN THIS AREA.
TAKE CARE OF YOUR BELONGINGS.
She raises her eyebrows. A sure sign, if ever there was one, that there are people living here now who have something worth stealing. Cher instinctively checks the breast pocket of her denim jacket, where her money is stored. Feels the slight bulge and smiles. It’s been a good week. She’s got the rent, and cash left over, and three days until it’s due. She might even take a couple of days off, do her roots, give herself a manicure. There’s a new range of glitter varnishes in the chemist on the High Street. She might pop in, buy some emery boards and treat herself to one of those while she’s there.
She hoists her floral backpack to her shoulder and turns on to the High Street. It’s the tail end of lunchtime, and the street is relatively busy, filled with savoury scents from the food outlets scattered among the charity shops: curry, fried chicken, Greggs’ sausage rolls, the smell of chips from the greasy spoon.
Cher dawdles along the pavement: no rush to be anywhere; no rush, ever. But her eyes, behind her Primark sunglasses, are watchful, take in everything around her in the search for opportunities. Life can’t be just about making the rent. There needs to be more. It’s hard to remember on a day like today, but winter will be coming – the long dark nights, the days spent mostly sleeping because it’s too cold to get out of bed. She needs to start saving to top up her meter card – there are some things you just can’t get for free.
She scans the road. Wherever there’s a crowd, there’s an opportunity. Today she’s done a circuit of the redemption stores of Tooting, Streatham and Norbury – no need for any great stealth, just confidence and an air of shame, a talent for playing the embarrassed, cash-strapped student who’s spent their loan on tech and run out of food. She rarely works her home patch, though, apart from the occasional foray into the Co-op when she’s forgotten to get cat food for Psycho. The West End, where people are distracted and careless with their tech, and she’s just one of thousands of girls in short skirts, is a richer and safer place in which to work. Only junkies and other people too wasted or desperate or tired to get themselves further afield work their own home patch. But her eye roams, automatically, and logs the chances available.
In front of the Brasserie Julien – one of the new arrivals, all brass and wood and marble table tops – a group of Yummy Mummies has gathered. The new breed of Northbourneite, driven further out by the rising prices of Clapham and Wandsworth and Balham in search of period fixer-uppers with room for a conservatory kitchen extension in the side-return. They’re drinking cappuccinos in the shade of the canopy, designer sunglasses perched on heads like hairbands, a couple of toddlers strapped into jogging buggies beside them, talking loudly about what a joy it is to live in such a multicultural area. Their handbags sit carefully between their feet, but a bag from the White Company hangs from the back of a buggy and all three have lined their iPhones up on the table like badges of identity. That’s £200, right there, she thinks. Just trip over one of their kids, and I’d have all their Apple products before they’d retrieved the organic low-fat apple snacks. Though their prices are going down as they get commoner and commoner, Apple products still have a greater resale value than any other tech because people still think they make them look rich. That’s why she specialises in scrumping.