Lucky Page 14

Another breath-held look. The dark rumble of his snore, eyes still shut, chest in rise and fall …

  Do it.

  Out past the bed. Bending to sweep, soundless, her bag from the chair. Ten steps, barefoot, to the front door. Silent, silent; excuses on her lips at every step.

  She is out, away, down the steps, foot-flesh cooling on concrete.

  Done. Too late.

  Runfuckrun.

  Chapter Nine

  SUNDAY, 1 JULY 2018

  She stood at the hob and cracked eggs in silence as Ola drank coffee at the kitchen table, making notes in one of his research notebooks.

  The night before, she had run, gone flying, and fallen flat onto the tarmac ten feet from the taxi rank. Footsteps had approached, slowing, someone bending over her. ‘Are you OK?’ the Sikh had asked.

  She had thanked him and got to her feet in time to see the skinhead cram himself into a hatchback and drive away without a backwards glance.

  She sighed, but Ola didn’t look up. Ten minutes later she was still standing at the hob while Ola shovelled eggs in with one hand and captured higher thoughts with the other. Still he did not see her; he did not care to know why her portion of the chilli-spiked scramble sat going cold in the pan as she stood and stared at the wall thinking blackmail. At her back he did his endless mechanical fuelling thing – fork, eggs, lips, chew.

  Thoughts and stomach were churning; she had stilled her nerves with a whole pint of wine, drunk as Ola showered. She pulled her gaze from a grease stain on the cooker hood and turned to look at the man she would marry, viewing him as if from a great distance. This loving, preoccupied man, to whom appetites and absences, even her own, seemed to mean nothing at all.

  Good. If he did not notice her, did not speak, she could hear herself think and set about solving the problem. She turned back to the grease stain.

  blackmail

  She had thought about it as she stirred egg into the onion and diced pepper: blackmail was the situation. But blackmail was not the problem. Chris Wise was the problem.

  She needed to deal with Chris Wise.

  How, though? Should she guilt-trip him? Entrap him with false promises of sex? Plot to end his life? Her own life had become one of those hen-party dilemma games, Shag Marry Kill. Except it was no game.

  She would not delete or block him. No; she needed to know where his head was at, just to be able to function. After all, he knew where she lived, or near enough. So dumb of her, chatting on about the ice rink and Teddy’s Café … But she had thought they were mates. He had completely blindsided her; she could not predict his next move.

  Until he gave himself away, she would have to ignore him.

  Meanwhile: how fucking dare he?

  He had contacted her, rocked up in her message inbox offering tips and matesy this and VIP that. He had drawn her in, deceived her. Lied! All a trap to extort money. All a line, a merman’s song, a slippery serenade to lure her life onto the rocks.

  Sure, she had planned to use him, to a certain extent, but she had been right up against a wall, beyond hope, devoid of even the murkiest financing options; desperate. He had seen his chance, got his bad self in there first and charmed secrets from her like snakes from their basket.

  Then she remembered: it had been crueller than even that.

  U new yes? He must have hunted her down on Cozee from the start, waited to corner her from a coward’s distance, stayed steel-cold as his texted words cut her. He would now let her bleed out.

  This was not funny. She would have to act, fast. He was coming after her, wanting the one thing she did not have: money. He knew her secrets, and her failings and her dependencies and she – stupid woman – had never even shaken his nasty old hand. She would have to stop him, before he ripped off the bandage of lies and exposed the weeping sores to the man she loved. Or to the police. Who knew what this nutter would do if she did not stop him?

  She could bloody kill him.

  ‘Etta, are you not eating?’

  Ola had spoken at last, pen in hand. He was looking into her eyes with such concern that she felt ashamed.

  ‘Of course, I …’ She shook the vicious thoughts from her head, showed bright teeth. ‘Wait, just coming.’

  Swallowing down her revulsion, she scraped the congealed eggs onto a plate and sank into the chair next to him.

  blackmail

  She stared at the pale yellow scramble, eyes swimming; her throat was tight. She could see white globs of albumen where she had not whisked hard enough. Ola seemed to be enjoying his breakfast, but then he was not paying attention. Chris Wise had paid attention. That’s why she was in this mess.

  blackmail

  £10K

  debt debt

  £22K

  God

  The air was growing heavy around her; the dark thoughts were there, here in the kitchen, eddying around the wrong room. She inhaled in short gasps; her struggle for breath was real, the panic building. Ola looked up at her.

  ‘Not hungry, Etta?’

  ‘I—’

  She scooped a lump of cold peppered egg into her mouth, swallowed and coughed hard, finding enough presence of mind to thump her chest, as if to clear her lungs, dipping her head to hide streaming eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Ola.

  I’m fine,’ she said. It came out as a croak. ‘God, sorry …’

  Ola rose. ‘I’ll get you some water.’

  She shut her eyes and tipped her head back as he went to the sink. She tried her hardest not to think, to find her breath, though her mind was veering high and low, and her lungs were congested.

  He passed the water.

  ‘Etta?’

  ‘I can’t breathe!’

  ‘Oh God, really?’ He started rubbing at her back, looking worried.

  She was underwater. She was drowning in fear. Steer, she had to steer herself back up to the surface, somehow. Up, chin up. This had to be a bad dream.

  ‘Etta? Breathe, my darling, breathe.’

  Etta opened her mouth wide, tried to gasp. Nothing.

  ‘Oh dear heavens. Etta! God. Oh no, no, now your nose is bleeding …’

  Ola jumped up and away from her.

  Etta twisted her head in panic, right and left.

  Ola hurried back to her side with grabbed kitchen roll.

  ‘Oh hell …’

  Seeing her writhing like a landed fish, he dropped the tissue and slapped her, hard, on the back, his eyes wild, fearful.

  The shock did it.

  A breath at last, rasping and low. And another, and another. Etta gasped and cried and bled, pressing the kitchen roll to her nostrils.

  ‘Keep taking deep breaths, my dear,’ he said. ‘You’re OK now.’

  Etta sat with hanging head, Ola’s voice the only truth in the room, trying to still her thoughts.

  Ola rubbed and rubbed at her back; the more Etta calmed, the more aware she grew of the towelling dressing gown scrubbing at her shoulder blades.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, gently shrugging his arm off and dabbing at her nose. ‘I think it’s stopping now. I hope so.’

  Hope was all she had; it was all she could do. As she dabbed at her nosebleed and sipped the water Ola gave her, she tried to force her mind back to him: to the hired home they shared and its reassuring confines. But those thoughts were dwarfed by rage and doubt; even the concept of hope was trolling her.

  No, she would not rely on hope, she would sort it out with action. Beyond the absurd wish that everyone stay forever in the dark – a dank notion growing like a fungus upon her thoughts – what was the best she could hope for?

  ‘You must be overworked. Always in our study. It is making you unwell, Teetee. You need some time out.’

  ‘I’m OK now, thank you.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I’m worrying about you. In fact, I’ve been thinking …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you do so much for us both, all this housework and cooking, all the time, and you always say
it’s easier when it’s just you. We can’t afford a holiday but maybe … I have two conferences in the Midlands within five days. I think rather than backing and forthing I should stay in Birmingham for a week or so and give you space to—’

  ‘No, Ola! No.’ Etta brought her tone down. ‘I don’t want to be alone right at the moment.’

  Ola sighed. ‘If you’re sure. Because I’ve been thinking that—’

  ‘No, Ola. I’m sure. Something needs to change, but not that.’

  Ola rubbed the back of his neck. ‘OK. I hear you. But you should do something today to feel better. Maybe go shopping?’

  She lowered her bloodied clump of tissues.

  ‘You hate me shopping.’

  ‘Yes, I hate it when it’s for stuff and nonsense. But why not buy something good, heh? You look down in the mouth. You need a dress, something fresh. Something to lift you again. You’ve been talking about that new way place forever. Go there.’

  Etta raised her head.

  ‘New way? What new way?’

  ‘That place you want to go to Way … Fort?’

  ‘The Waysford Place mall?’

  ‘That is the one.’

  ‘I never said I wanted to go there.’

  ‘Heh? Yes, you did.’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘Well. I have heard it has excellent shops. Plenty of this and that to choose from. Made for women with good men and soft lives who still need cheering up.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Ha! I’m right, though, eh?’

  ‘Maybe …’ She recalled her breakfast of wine. ‘I can’t be arsed to drive there.’

  ‘There’s a shuttle that goes right past us. Go.’

  Etta weighed it up.

  ‘Here,’ he said, passing her three £20 notes. ‘Get something for yourself. I’m only joking, I know you work hard o, shutting yourself away in that room all the time. You deserve a treat.’

  The stoicism in the Queen’s face looked like sadness, three times over.

  ‘Thank you, Ola,’ she said and rose to shower and change.

  She would do it, this normal thing, take a step away from Cozee and a step towards atonement; see what lay in store.

  As she waited at the coach stop, she breathed shallow. The cheerless vehicle turned up. The journey, though: the ride to Waysford Place soothed beyond all expectation. The aircon shushed, chilling down her thoughts, numbing nerve ends. She drummed the fingers of one hand upon the fold-down tray-table to match the operatic ditty in her head.

  Tock, tock-tock. Tock, tock-tock …

  Pa-pa-pa-Papageno

  Sunlight flashed across her vision, staccato bursts of brilliance upon her face. She could feel herself changing. An epiphany: Ola’s work chatter was finally showing her the way. He was always going on about neuroplasticity; how our repeated actions could alter the pathways that formed the constellation of neurons in our brains. This, to Etta, was remarkable, worth remembering at least as much the effects of smoke on our lungs, or liquor on our livers. Just sitting there, submitting to the rocking and rolling of the bus, tapping and humming, her brain would not be exactly the same as when she had boarded the coach. The changes might be minute, microscopic, but she found the thought comforting. Perhaps she need only get onto the motorway, get as far as Land’s End, to step off as a different woman altogether, although that might be too much to hope …

  ‘Waysford Place!’

  The shopping centre – tall, bright, fancied itself – also had transformation on special offer. It was part plate-glass theatre – pristine vitrines, wares polished and pressed, prices slashed from gasps to sighs – but also a clinic, promising a retail cure for the depressed and the destitute. Or it was what it seemed: a monoglot mall, speaking only the language of ‘sell’. Her neural pathways were not even quivering.

  Etta drifted through the acres of white tile and shop window, her gaze enlivened by neither the clothes, nor the skin stuff, nor the tech stuff, nor the food stuff. She tried stuff, anyway. She pulled on a feathered top that did not tickle her, high heels that left her flat and, with no little effort, a sale-price swimsuit that did not float her boat. After untold time browsing her purchasing options, each more banal than the last, she walked on.

  After a minute, she edged close to a window displaying a kaleidoscope of fingernails. The colours were meant to conjure up the full spectrum of femininity, to evoke the sass, quirkiness, sex, strength, sweetness and the like. Etta slowed, watching the people inside. A laugh breezed out of the door, taunting her: smile, love. A dark image flashed: her raking red talons across Chris Wise’s cheek; him stunned, bloodied and repentant.

  At the open door, she halted. Something going down: the salon’s air had been shocked still. She edged inside.

  A striking tableau: one dark-haired woman stood flushed and glaring, with a bleeding finger; one seated nail technician, possibly Thai, with her head dipped, a turquoise streak in her bobbed hair. Other employees were bent, blameless, over their clients’ hands. All was silent, save the dryers and fans.

  As Etta entered, a petite redhead rushed from the massage chair lounge:

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she addressed the injured woman, then whipped around to her employee, arms aloft:

  ‘What are you trying to do to me, Pensri?’

  ‘I have never had this,’ began the woman with the finger, in a lurching accent. She was young and striking. ‘I am so—’

  It was all too much for Pensri, who shrieked Thai disavowals, or apologies, black-and-blue bob shaking as she unplugged her phone and stuffed it into her bag. The client held up the finger before her, blood not yet clotting on its damaged tip, poise bruised, indignation swelling. The unfortunate Pensri shot up and pegged it, trailing phone and bag, glancing Etta with a featherweight shoulder as she flew out the door. Her colleagues watched her escape, gaped for a moment, then stared back down at their clients’ hangnails.

  ‘Honestly! You teach these girls everything and then this … She’s just gone off! Always turning up late, then this! I’m so sorry, my lovely.’

  Another woman, still smaller, emerged from a back room and came up to Etta where she stood.

  ‘Your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Etta Oladipo.’

  The woman ran her finger down a page in the desk diary.

  ‘Eh? Ta? I no see you.’

  No, I’m lost.

  Etta stared at the smallest woman, her larynx dead. The woman stared at the boss. The boss stared at the client’s finger. No one moved. After a moment, a bleached girl emerged from the back room and interrupted the Mexican standoff by handing the injured woman her jacket and a clutch of discount cards.

  Etta found her voice. ‘Sorry, I don’t have an appointment.’

  The smallest woman scoured the list once more, as if she hadn’t spoken:

  ‘Eh. Ta?’

  ‘You know what?’ said Etta. ‘Don’t worry.’

  She turned to go, only to be pushed past once again.

  ‘You,’ said the damaged client. ‘Sorry.’

  Etta now saw she looked familiar. FrameTech client, maybe, low-level admin. Or a neighbour, another renter, further down the street?

  Didn’t matter, she was gone.

  Etta turned to leave too, eager to retreat into the busyness of the glass, white and steel atrium.

  She carried on, gliding through hallways that sold discount dreams to shoppers, slim-fit salvation hanging within reach, or shelved for better days; she rushed away from brittle nails and bloodied egos, putting distance between herself and the cutting calamity, hurrying away from the callousness. She turned to look behind her a couple of times, certain that someone was watching her progress, or following her steps. Her skull felt airy and strange; her brain had to be … forget it, enough. Enough of the mall. She was not buying it.

  She still wanted to kill Chris Wise.

  She could see it: the blood would pour from him, keen, hot and stark red … then a glorious silen
ce.

  Wicked.

  Etta walked back through the retail maze, gathering pace until she burst into the sunlight. Did she look as she felt? Eyes were on her, she knew it. A bus stop faced the mall’s exit; she crossed the road to shelter herself from the people, from all of their looking at her.

  Twelve minutes to wait. Easy to hope, if you trusted timetables. Easy not to panic if you trusted in luck: if you could forget about the blackmail; if you could stop thinking about fraud and debt for five minutes; if you could ignore what you had absorbed that morning from the papers about Brexit, planet-trashing and other crimes; if you fought back the dark thoughts; if you stayed strong.

  Etta stood at the bus stop, seething with paranoia. She put an uplifted look on her face for the benefit of the many strangers passing by with their many, many bags of shopping. The bus would come, any minute. After a while, she toned down her expression to one of insouciance: had she been grinning? Did she appear deranged, or religious? As the bus pulled in, she noticed someone watching from across the road. The wounded woman was waiting at the taxi rank, her gaze turned towards Etta. That face, she had seen it hurt … blood, another nosebleeder like her … Yes, she was a client from the First Welcome Project.

  Her face rang no bells, though; housing issue, or had it been a benefits query? As Etta tried to recall the bureaucratic stumbling-block to match the face, a bus drove between them and she vanished.

  Etta arrived back in Sycamore Road to find Jean and her mother in their driveway, watching a man in his thirties erect a long pole. A ludicrously tall For Sale sign going up? Could be: their life in that dimly lit house hardly appeared to be happy. You people. Nonetheless, moving was generally an optimistic act, and Etta would have put money on the fact that the women would have stuck with that house until one or both of them dropped. That was not saying much, however; she was one to put money on many unconsidered things. She was learning this about herself.

  Casting a wan smile in the direction of her neighbours, she entered her house without one bag of shopping; she suspected this would secretly please Ola, despite his frown. Pleading tired feet, she went straight to the spare room.

  Within thirty minutes, Etta was down to the last of her gambling funds. The computerised reels no longer looked like a machine to her, they looked like a brain. A dreaming, thinking organ. This Diana’s Diner game would conceive of her future; she had abdicated all responsibility for as long as the reels rolled.