She’s not hungry, really. Just wants to stretch out the interval between doing the accounts and starting on the single cleaning duty she reserves for herself because she can’t trust anyone to do it well enough. Her eye skims over the plates of scones, the giant, softening chocolate-chip cookies. Blessed holds forth behind her, her voice filled with refined African distaste.
‘I don’t know,’ she is saying, ‘what they are thinking. And their friends… are they animals, these people?’
Amber selects a ham salad sandwich with yesterday’s sell-by. It will be sludgy in the centre, the crusts like cardboard, but there’s not much that’s savoury on offer and she’s not in the mood for sweet.
‘What’s that, Blessed?’ she asks, turning to their table.
Jackie drains her coffee mug. ‘Blessed’s found another turd,’ she announces.
‘What?’ Amber sits down and starts to unwrap her sandwich. ‘On the waltzer?’
Blessed nods, pulls a face. ‘Right in the middle of the seat. I don’t understand how they manage it. I mean, they must have to take their trousers down to squat.’
Jackie’s face goes dreamy. ‘I wonder if they do it when it’s moving?’
‘I’m sorry, Blessed,’ says Amber. ‘Are you OK dealing with it? Do you need me to…?’
‘No,’ says Blessed. ‘Fortunately, Moses has dealt with it already. But thank you. I appreciate the offer.’
‘Thank God for Moses,’ says Jackie. By her elbow, her phone leaps suddenly into life, skitters across the table.
‘Good God,’ says Tadeusz, springing suddenly awake from his small-hours reverie. ‘I don’t believe you. Two-thirty in the morning? Who gets calls at two-thirty in the morning? Woman, you’re insatiable!’
Jackie kisses her teeth. ‘You wish,’ she says. Picks up the handset and frowns. ‘Oh, fuck sake.’
Amber takes a bite of her sandwich. Warm, soggy, somehow comforting. ‘What’s up?’
Jackie slides the phone over to her. Tadeusz reads the text on the display over her shoulder. Where are you? You have no right to do this. call me!
‘Someone’s keen,’ he says.
‘Fucking nuts, more like,’ Jackie says.
Tadeusz stares at her with renewed respect. ‘You’ve got a stalker?’
She looks up from the screen sharply. ‘Does that raise my value in the market, Tad?’
Tadeusz shrugs. His own, lean, slightly lupine appearance has accustomed him to easy attractions, clingy extractions. Blessed looks concerned. ‘Who is this man?’
‘Just… Stupid little arsehole. I went on two dates with him.’
And the rest, thinks Amber uncharitably. But she says nothing, slides the phone back across the table. She learned long ago not to be a judger. Out loud, at least.
‘You don’t reply, do you?’ asks Blessed. ‘You shouldn’t respond, Jackie.’
Jackie shakes her head. ‘Not any more, no. I was stupid and humoured him for a bit at the beginning, but no, not now. Weaselly little wanker. I only went on the second date ’cause I felt sorry for him that he couldn’t get it up the first time.’
‘Jackie!’ Blessed protests. She hates talk like this. And yet it’s always at Jackie’s table that she sits. ‘Because you shouldn’t. Respond. You must be careful. Women get killed, you know. You know that. You need to be careful.’
‘Oh, hardly,’ says Jackie. ‘He’s not a bleeding serial killer. He’s just a sad little wanker.’
‘You shouldn’t joke about this,’ says Blessed. ‘That’s two girls this year already in Whitmouth, just off the strip. And you don’t know anything about this man. Not really.’
‘I wasn’t joking, Blessed. Sorry.’
Blessed shakes her head. ‘Well, don’t. I don’t understand how people can be so casual about it.’
‘’Cause they weren’t from here,’ says Tadeusz. ‘Simple as that.’
‘That’s terrible,’ says Blessed. ‘If you think that.’
‘But it’s true,’ says Tadeusz. ‘No one from around here knew either of those girls, so it doesn’t count.’
‘But they’re still people,’ says Blessed.
‘Yes, they are,’ says Jackie. ‘But they’re not our people. If it was our people we’d be too scared to go out. Thank God it’s outsiders, that’s what I say.’
Blessed shakes her head, sorrowful. ‘How cold you are, Jackie.’
‘Realistic,’ corrects Jackie.
‘How long has this been going on, anyway?’ asks Blessed. ‘This man…’
Jackie sighs and puts the phone down. ‘Christ. For ever. What is it, Amber? About six months?’
‘I have no idea,’ says Amber. ‘Why would I know?’
She could swear she sees Jackie pout. ‘Well, he’s your friend.’
It’s news to her. ‘You what?’
‘Martin. Bagshawe.’
The name’s faintly familiar, but she can’t attach it to a face. Shakes her head and feels herself frown. ‘Who?’
‘Vic’s birthday.’
‘Vic’s birthday? That was months ago.’
‘Yuh-huuh.’
Amber shakes her head again. She doesn’t remember that much about Vic’s birthday. Especially not what other people got up to.
‘I know. Told you,’ says Jackie. ‘Can’t shake the grimy little weasel off. Where the hell did Vic get a nutter like that for a friend?’
Amber casts her mind back. A Saturday night, the Cross Keys. Not so much a party as a telling-your-mates-where-you’ll-be. Vic on fine form, his arm slung round her shoulder all night, drinking Jack and Coke and not saying a word when she got in her third glass of dry white. A good night, a fun night. And vaguely, from the corner of her memory, she remembers Jackie, late in the evening, wrapped round some bloke, a diminutive figure in, as far as she remembers, an anorak. An anorak on a Saturday night. Jackie must’ve had the Heineken goggles on to have copped off with that.
‘Don’t blame Vic, Jacks. You can’t exactly tell someone to go away in the Cross Keys, can you? He’s just some bloke who goes in there.’
‘No,’ says Jackie. ‘He said Vic was…’
Amber can’t quite suppress a smirk. ‘And it didn’t occur to you to ask Vic?’
‘Well, if somebody’d warned me…’
‘If you’d asked, we might’ve been able to. I don’t suppose Vic even knows what his name is. He’s just one of those weird little pub people you can’t shake off.’
‘You see,’ says Blessed, ‘that’s what I mean. You need to be careful. You can’t just… pick people up in pubs.’
Jackie shoots her a look. ‘Yeah. Church isn’t my scene, Blessed. Thanks all the same. It’s the way it is. Christ, I only talked to him in the first place because I felt sorry for him.’
‘You’re all heart, Jackie,’ says Tadeusz.
‘Yeah, well,’ says Jackie, ‘we can’t all be jammy slags like Amber. Not all of us have a lovely warm Vic to come home to.’
‘You should tell the police,’ says Blessed. ‘Seriously. If the man is harassing you.’
Jackie laughs. ‘Yeah. Right.’
‘No, you should. If it worries you, you should ask for help.’ Amber is often amazed that, of all the people she knows, the one who shows unshakeable faith in the authorities should be a woman who spent the first two thirds of her life in Uganda. Blessed has emerged from sub-Saharan hell with a moral framework that puts her neighbours to shame. She remembers her final gift, and reaches into her bag. Leans towards Blessed and lowers her voice as the others carry on talking. ‘I found this in the lost property,’ she says. Holds out the MP3 reverently.