Short Fiction

From a novel

Prologue

1990 Manchester

As she adds the final touches to her heavy make-up, the young woman squints at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink. Her face is thin and drawn, with dry, pale lips, and sunken eyes, the hollows of which suggest many a sleepless night. She has the hardened look of a woman older than her years, her hair is long and ragged, and her skin has an unhealthy, yellowish tint. In another time and place, she could have been pretty, here, she is not. As she leans on the sink and applies a touch more red lipstick, she winces as the bones of her rib cage and hips grind harshly against the cold enamel. As satisfied with her appearance as she can be, she straightens up, and clicking her handbag shut, she swings it over one shoulder, and turns to the door.

As she clatters down the bare wooden stairs, music blares from a room below and the smell of something sweet comes to her nostrils. The others are chasing the dragon again and as she passes the open door, they call to her, wanting to know if she has anything to bring to the pile of white powder smouldering on the tin foil in front of them.

Ignoring the voices, she steps over a body lying dead drunk in the hallway and out in to the street, not bothering to close the front door behind her. The road is dark , the street lamps either shattered, glass left glinting on the pavement, or so faint they are hardly noticeable, the light reflecting weakly off a piece of glass here and there.

She walks quickly now, six inch heels stepping nimbly over shards of glass and used condoms lying discarded in the street, and observed by no one, she makes a left turn that brings her out on to a wider, more brightly lit street. As she walks, cars drive past, some flying down the road, youths hanging out of the windows, music blaring, others cruising  more slowly, purposefully, scanning the pavement for fun. It is solely these cars that she is interested in, for they are watching, and waiting for someone like her. She stands alone,  curb side, looking this way and that, shrinking back in to the shadows as a police patrol car moves in front of her, reappearing when the tail lights fade from view. From down the street the voices of other girls are faint. Most of them work in pairs, taking turns to get in to passing cars, the other one not leaving until her partner has returned. For street girls, working this way is safer, it is a comfort for a girl knowing that someone cares about you, someone knows where you are, and some one will worry if you’re not back in twenty minutes time. This girl however, works alone. She does not have a partner to clock how long she has been or to worry that something may have happened to her. For this girl, making money is more important than that, in and out, from car to car, she does not have the time to stand around waiting for another girl to make her money while she shivers on the cold street, shaking her head at any car that may slow down. She works quickly, deftly, hardly pausing between rides if business is good.

 Tonight business is not so busy, she has been standing for five minutes and not one car has stopped for her as yet. Further down the road, car doors slam and engines rev as the other girls attract the custom, most of it regular. After some minutes, an old blue ford fiesta slows to the curb, the driver peering through jam jar spectacles at her, squinting in the glare of the head lamps, taking a closer look. When the car slows to a stop, she steps up to the window and quietly says, “It’s thirty for a fuck, twenty for a suck, and ten for a hand job.

You gotta use a rubber or it’s no go, and I charge more for extras, and that includes arse fucking and any dirty fetishes you might have, ok?” The driver snorts in contempt and pulls slowly away from the curb. The girls further down would charge half the price for what this jumped up whore is offering. Then, something about her forces the wheel to the left, and again the car is at the curb. The driver doesn’t speak, but leans over the passenger seat and pushes open the door. The girl hops in and the door slams shut. As the car pulls away the driver smiles inwardly. The bitch can name her price, for payment by this punter is of a different kind altogether.

As she lies beneath the bulk of him gasping and thrusting her pelvis upwards, sweat from his face falling on to her neck and chest, he suddenly grabs hold of her hair at the back so tightly that she cries out, and leaning backwards and still inside her he slams his huge fist in her face, breaking firstly her nose and then her jaw. As the blows rain down upon her head and chest, she reels from the pain, her ears ringing, blood streaming down her face, her brain screaming, don’t black out, don’t black out! They are on waste ground at the back of a disused car park, his car parked a little way away. At first he hadn’t appeared to want very much out of the ordinary, they started in the car with her crammed on her knees between him and the steering wheel, but then he had made her get out and lie on an old camp bed that some one had long since abandoned. Now he  pummels her face and head, every once in a while lowering his mouth to savagely sink his teeth in to the flesh of her breast. Just as she thinks she will pass out from the pain, she feels his body shudder, and as he begins to climax he grabs her by the hair, raising her head and then slamming it down on to the iron frame of the bed, his body erupting in spasms inside hers. Then darkness, black, empty darkness engulfs her and when finally she opens her eyes, he is gone. As she stares up at the night sky through puffed up eyes, her head feeling as though it will explode, she forces the lump in her throat back down, and feebly raises a hand to wipe away blood and tears. “It’s for you,” she whispers, “It’s all for you!”

* * *

1990 Mogadishu, Somalia

“Mamma, where are we going? What are you doing mamma? Where are we going?”

In a desperate attempt to quieten the child’s incessant questions, the mother presses a hand firmly to her mouth. The child squirms and squeals and tries to pull away, becoming increasingly distressed when the woman will not let her go.

“Shsh, please, just be quiet, I’ll explain everything later.” Then frantically, she lifts the hem of her skirt high, revealing legs and thighs purple with bruises. “Do you want Papa to do this to mama again?” She asked fiercely. The child shakes her head, silent tears trickling down her red cheeks. “Well don’t make a sound, and come with me.” The child whimpers and clings to her mother’s hand. She is frightened and confused, and doesn’t understand why her mother has woken her up in the middle of the night, and is packing everything she can fit in to a bag. Seeing the child’s distress, the mother drops the child’s favourite doll on the floor, and scoops her little girl up in her arms, pressing her to her breast. “It’s alright,” she whispers in to her hair, “Please just do as I tell you. Be a good girl and listen to me, and we’ll be safe. Papa won’t be able to hurt us anymore.” Pressing the child close, she stifles her own sobs, and draws every ounce of strength she has left. If she stays another day, it will be too late. Tomorrow will change the life of her daughter forever, the child has no clue of what is to come if they stay,

and it is her job to protect her daughter. She has held on until now, because so far no physical harm has come to the child, allowing her husband to vent his anger on her rather than hurt their daughter. Every time she gets a beating, she holds on to the thought that she is sacrificing herself to save her child, but she can no longer do this, because now it’s not her he wants, it’s her baby. They all want to hurt her baby, and she seems to be the only one who thinks it is wrong, the only one who wants it to stop. With a pain in her heart, she closes her eyes and remembers hands holding her, forcing her to lie down and spreading her legs, the sickening scrape of the blade being sharpened, and as the searing pain pierces her entire being, she sees her mother standing smiling to one side. “You’re a woman now,” she had said to her, tears of pride welling in her eyes. She wouldn’t let them do it to her daughter, wouldn’t allow her to go through the pain and suffering that she, and millions of other women had gone through. Placing the child gently on the floor, she kneels down in front of her, taking both her tiny trembling hands in her own, and looking in to her eyes. “I’m doing this for you,” she whispers, and as her husband stirs in his drunken stupor in the room next door, it is time to leave.

* * *

Part One

2005 England

The month was late March, and the recent snow that had covered parts of the country like a huge white hand, was now melting in to slurry, dirty puddles along the roads and running off the tops of hedges and fences and gates in the suburbs. After the freeze, the temperature was now surprisingly mild, the only thing bringing a chill to the bones was the strong northerly wind that rustled the leaves on trees and rattled tin cans along the streets. It was mid afternoon and the sky was changing from blue to dusky grey, and the light was slowly fading. In the centre of the city, the pace slowed before the chaos of rush hour set in, like the calm before the storm. People, tired from shopping lingered in shop windows, looking for any last minute bargains, and groups of friends sat in indoor cafes, sipping steaming mugs of hot drinks and catching up with news. Children, released from the dreariness of the school day, shrieked and ran down the streets, chasing each other and calling to their class mates, driving the market stall holders crazy. Slowly, people were starting to make their way home, trying to beat the stream of traffic that would build when the good people of the world finished their nine to five work day, and lined up along the roads, moving inches at a time, tapping their steering wheels impatiently, but knowing that they would be in for a long wait.

In a flat fifteen floors above the city, two lovers lie wrapped in each others arms, blissfully unaware of the growing darkness and building volume of traffic on the streets below. They are entwined on a sofa, lips caressing lips, cheeks, necks. They are warm and drowsy, their naked bodies glistening with moisture, the effects of two idyllic hours of firstly urgent, and then leisurely love making. Now they stir and stretch, and looking at each other regretfully they know what must come next.

 “I’d better,”

“Don’t say it,”

They kiss, and kiss again, the first trying to speak through tangled tongues and muffled lips. They both begin to laugh, and her face growing serious again, Nicole Sinclair takes her lover’s face in her hands, and murmurs, “I’m sorry darling, I really should think about moving. It must be getting late by now.”

“Hmm, I know I know.” Their lips touch again, and for a moment Nicole’s body weakens, and the familiar tingling between her legs that she feels so often these days starts again. She presses her body in close, and then reluctantly pulls away, disengaging her limbs from her lover’s, and slowly getting to her feet. As she bends to retrieve her clothes from the floor, she feels a warm hand stroke her buttocks, fingers trailing down in an attempt to seek out the warm moist flesh between her thighs. Nicole bends further, underwear in hand, inching her legs further apart, letting the hand slide closer, then at the last minute, she wriggles and steps forward, straightening up with a giggle, spinning around and proudly displaying sharply erect nipples. “You’ll just have to wait until next time,” she grins, a pink tongue flicking out to lick red lips. Then before she gives in to temptation she turns away and begins to dress. “Christ!” she exclaims, slipping a gold watch on her wrist, “have you seen the time? The kids are gonna be starving and Natalie’s going out tonight, I only asked her to have them for a couple of hours! Jesus you’re such a bad influence!” The other woman slips in to a cream dressing gown, the colour in sharp contrast against her dark skin. She is beautiful. Mesmerised, Nicole turns and pulls her close, wrapping her arms tightly around the slender figure, and burying her face in her long black hair. “God help me,” she whispers, her heart torn between wanting to throw off her clothes and be carried off to bed, and at the same time wanting to run far, far away, and try to go back to the way things were before this woman entered her life and turned her world upside down.

“I love you,” she whispers, “I love you and I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Shsh,” the woman lifts a finger to her lips, and then follows it with a soft kiss, “you’re panicking because you’re late. It’s going to be alright, we’ll figure it out. I love you too, now you’d better go.”

“Femi,” Nicole protests longingly, “Can’t you see I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to stay right here with you.”

“I want that too,” Femi murmurs, “I want that more than anything.”

“Not long now,” Nicole has pulled away and is picking up her bag and searching for the keys to her car, “and then we can be together properly, no sneaking around, I’ll fix it, I promise.”

They turn and exchange a long look before Nicole moves to kiss her, and then turning, she quickly leaves before she loses the will to go.

Now, in her car, Nicole takes a compact mirror from her bag, and studies her dishevelled reflection. Rummaging for her make-up, she hastily begins to reapply foundation, blusher, eye shadow and finally a little gloss, to try and cover up any signs that she’s been having illicit sex in the afternoon with a woman ten years her junior. As the soft brush touches her face, she inhales and her heart skips a beat as she catches the lingering  scent of her lover’s body on her fingers, and tries to block out the little voice inside her head that kept repeating, “cheat, cheat, cheat!” Then, after running a comb through her hair, she throws the bag to the car floor, and starts the engine, and pulls out of the underground car park. Nicole Sinclair, 33, married with two children, a boy and a girl, and ironically, with two lovers, one a man, the other a woman. The man is Robert Sinclair, he is ten years older than Nicole and just happens to be her husband. He owns a law firm, she is the editor of a best selling magazine, and it is through her job that she first met Femi, and because of the flexibility of her job that she is able to say she has been at the office when she hasn’t, and is able to spend time being seduced by an African beauty. The excuse of work, however, is wearing a little thin after nearly six months of sneaking around, and her standards are slipping. As she drives through the traffic heading out of town, her mind is somewhere else, it is with Femi, and she has the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, which always comes when she must return home to her family, and pretend that everything is ok. Robert will come home from the office, she will cook for the family, the children will do their homework and then go to bed, and she will be left alone with her guilt, and her husband. Most of the time they will prepare for bed with little physical contact, and she will turn out the light and lie with her back to him, pretending to fall quickly to sleep until his breathing slows and she can relax a little. Some nights however, he will want to make love to her, and she will put on the soft silk that he loves so well, and open her body up to him, leaving her mind closed. She knows she must act soon, must tell him that she’s met someone else, for she cannot keep this pretence up much longer. But in doing this she will also tear the children’s world apart, their mother and father will separate, they might have to move house, even schools if things turn nasty, and a woman will lie beside their mother every night, and they will have a new step mum. All these things terrify Nicole, and she lies awake at night wondering what sort of effect something like that will have on her babies. She also doubts Femi’s commitment, not to her, but to taking on a ready-made family. Femi is 23, she is young and vibrant, and selfish as those without a family and children and a mortgage to pay, usually are. Is she mature enough, responsible enough to take on the role of a parent? And although she insists she will do whatever it takes to be with Nicole, it is she who is risking everything, and it is she who will be left to pick up the pieces if Femi can’t take the pressure. Added to all this, there is the guilt of lying to her best friend, the only true friend she has, about where she is and what she is doing. She isn’t sure how Natalie will react if she tells her she is having an affair, let alone that she has finally accepted the fact that she is a lesbian and is ready to start a new relationship with a woman. It’s all so complicated, and day in, day out, her head is full, full with terrifying thoughts, full with inexplicable feelings of love, pain, guilt and anger. Anger at herself for burying her feelings, for being a coward and taking the easy option, or so she thought, of marrying Robert and hiding her true feelings. Now people would get hurt, and it was all her fault. Damn it Nicole! And as she pulls in to the driveway of her house, she realises that she’s  been gripping the wheel so hard, her knuckles have turned white.

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