The Sisterhood (24 page)

'No, I didn't. I didn't want to remember. I was afraid you might want to do it again.'

'Jesus.'

'What?'

'Rosa. When you ran out on me ... you were ill. Not from tequila, either. You were disgusted at yourself, and at me. You thought I'd taken advantage of you, and I probably had. I was so drunk that I could hardly see. But all the same, I made it happen. I wanted it to be bad for me and bad for you. I haven't told anyone that it was you. I've lost all my friends because I've sealed myself away, because I don't want to talk about what we did. I can't tell you how much I wish it was Steve. But it isn't.'

'Mmm.'

'So,' I said, hoping I sounded more controlled than I felt, 'I'm giving you my phone number. Think about this because I know it's a shock. If you want to see the baby or anything after it's born, give me a call. If you want we can do a DNA test. I imagine that's what it'll take to get you to believe me. And Rosa, I'm not asking you for anything. Not unless you choose, at some point, to be fully involved, and that's your decision.'

I had practised that speech, and was pleased with myself for delivering it calmly.

I scrabbled in my bag, found a pen and a crumpled receipt, and managed to write 'Liz Greene' and my phone number. When I held it out, Rosa didn't move. She was looking at the ground, her face frozen. I forced the paper into the pocket of her jeans. Suddenly, she smiled a vicious smile.

'Careful, darling,' she said, nastily. 'Don't get too close. You'll get me all excited.'

Then she patted me on the stomach again, and walked off. I stood still and stared after her. She walked briskly, without looking back. I knew that she knew I was watching.

'If you want money,' she yelled, without looking round or breaking her stride, 'you can go fuck yourself.'

I heard the catch in her voice. I sat on someone's doorstep and cried.

8 May

I looked one way, and then the other. I had to move quickly.

The long-haired woman was coming straight towards me.

'If you want money, you can go fuck yourself,' she shouted suddenly, without pausing. I could see her face. It was twisted into a bizarre expression.

Down the road, Liz said, 'Rosa.' She didn't say it loudly.

I could hide, I thought. I could run out into the road, and hide on the other side of the van. I could just stay here and watch her, and if Rosa looks at me, I could pretend to be fiddling with the back of the van, as if I owned it. Or I could get a bit closer and try to work out who she was. Liz had mentioned Rosa before. I needed to know what was going on.

I walked into her, on purpose.

She spun round, and stared at me.

'Watch it!' she muttered, and turned away, frowning. She was a strange-looking woman and I was certain that I had never seen her before. I wanted to ask why Liz was asking her for money, but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

'Sorry,' I said. 'Um, do you know the way to Café Lumière?' I added.

'Corner,' she said, without breaking her stride. She pointed, without looking.

'Thanks.' I walked with her, even though she was going the other way. I had nothing to lose. 'Was that woman asking you for money, then?' I added.

The woman stopped. She looked as if she wanted to hit me, and I cowered, sure, for a second, that she would. I leapt mentally ahead, and wondered whether Liz would come to help me, and if she did, what she would think of my being right here, in the middle of her drama.

'Oh, fuck off,' she said, and I didn't dare say anything else. This lady was obviously horrid, and I was pleased that Lizzy was fighting with her. It was always good to see Liz in a confrontation with someone else. It proved that she was just hot-headed, that nothing was really my fault.

I waited for Rosa to get a good twenty metres ahead before I followed. I didn't look behind me, because I was sure Liz was staring at the woman, and I didn't want her to realise that the person between them was me.

She wouldn't, from my back. I was dressed in 'spring's classic capsule wardrobe', which meant that I was wearing a white blouse with puffy sleeves, and a miniskirt with flowers printed on it. My legs were bare, even though it was too cold. I wanted to start getting them brown. They were covered with unsightly goose bumps. My hair was very blonde, but shorter than it had been last time Liz saw me, because after the staffroom incident I'd decided I needed a disguise of sorts. Then, it had gone halfway down my back. Now it rested on my shoulders, and I was holding it back from my face with a pair of sunglasses, ready to flip them down as an extra disguise, in case she saw me watching her. If I felt a bit hidden, it was easier for me to keep an eye on her.

Liz had told those people to go to Matt's, and my shift was starting in twenty minutes. This was it. I went into a phone box, put my glasses down over my eyes, and spoke to Tom.

'Wish me luck,' I said.

'Yeah,' he said. 'You'll need it, I reckon.'

'I don't think she cares about me any more,' I told him. 'In a good way, I mean. I don't think she really hates me. I didn't do anything to make her hate me, did I? She's a flawed character, but you can't choose your family, can you? She fights with everyone, from what I can see.'

'You'll be OK if you play it properly. Careful, though. I wish I was there to hold you back. Be cool. Don't get in her face. Make her think it's her idea. She did wrong, so be cool with her.'

I moved from one foot to the other, and back again. 'I know. It's hard. I so desperately want to tell her that she does have a mother, after all. Whenever I see her, I want to shout, "We're sisters!"'

'You'll scare her off. Promise me you won't.'

'Yeah, I promise.'

'Off you go then. Remember, cool, calm and collected.'

'Tom?'

'What?'

'Do you still have crazy half-hours?'

'No,' he said. 'Not really. They stopped. Hey, I think the parents are missing you.'

'They could always contact me.'

'I'll tell them.'

'Don't bother.'

I walked in, looking straight ahead, three minutes before the start of my shift. It was much cooler in the café, and I regretted my bare legs. I wished I had time to run home for a pair of tights. I could have been home and back in ten minutes, but I didn't ask, because Matt was obsessive about timekeeping. He ran the place on his own most of the time, and only had the occasional evening off if he managed to persuade his brother, Joel, to take over. Joel was a bearded stockbroker and I never knew what to say to him.

I always made sure I was at work on time, because I was not at all good at my job, and timekeeping was the only bit I could get right. It was odd to have obligations like turning up at work on time, because I had got used to doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, but in a way I liked the structure, and I loved the fact that I had a job at all.

I looked around surreptitiously. Liz and the people I presumed were her family were at a table by the window. I didn't look at them. It was hard, because if he was her father, that man was almost my stepfather. And the woman was a few degrees away from being my mother. I kept myself rigidly under control, and managed not even to sneak a glance. Tom would have been proud.

I ducked behind the counter, tied my hair in a little pony-tail, and smiled at Matt.

'Well, well, well,' he said. 'The lovely Helen. Just in the nick of time.' He looked me up and down. 'Looking gorgeous today, if one's allowed to say so.'

I tried to deal with Matt in a sophisticated and worldly way, but I hadn't quite worked out how to do it, so most of the time I smiled and laughed my special laugh at him. He was alternately flattering and nasty, and I had never met anyone like that before. I hoped he couldn't see how he confused me.

'Can I run home and get some tights?' I asked brightly.

'No,' he said, and he glared at me. 'You want tights, you put them on before you come. Not too much to fucking ask, one would have thought.'

'Sorry,' I muttered, looking at my shoes. I put myself into bubbly mode and attached my smile. 'So, Matthew! What needs doing?'

He set me to work cleaning one of the coffee machines. This was a relief as it gave me a break from doing sums in my head, and from trying not to spill beverages. Waiting on tables was turning out to be harder than it looked. The coffee machine was chrome, and I was able to stare at Liz's reflection while I worked. I didn't learn much. Even when I'd cleaned it, I couldn't see anything but a blurred profile.

Nobody from her table ordered any more drinks. They didn't even look around. I wondered whether the other pregnant woman was Julie. She was a tired-looking woman wearing boring old clothes. A few weeks ago, I could have been described in exactly those terms. Yet she was twice my age and heavily pregnant.

It was a pleasant novelty to me to feel superior. On top of everything else, I had youth on my side.

I made numerous cups of coffee and tea, opened bottles of beer, and poured wine for the afternoon's customers. I managed to do almost all the adding up on my little calculator. If I concentrated hard, I could convince myself that I was starting to enjoy my job. When I let myself panic, it all went wrong, but today I was rigidly controlled, and was even remembering to breathe. I liked living in my gritty flat with the puppyish Adrian and two girls I rarely saw. I liked the fact that Matt paid me.

'Is it pay day?' I asked him, as we converged at the coffee machine.

'Do us two lattes,' he said, and he patted my bottom.

'Could I sue you for that?' I asked, genuinely curious.

'Yeah, but you won't. And yes, one wage packet hidden under the counter, all above board, tax and everything.'

I beamed. These would be the first wages of my life. I had already received plenty of tips, most of them from men. The tipping thing surprised me, because in France, nobody did anything more than rounding the bill up to the nearest euro. Last week a man gave me a ten pound tip, and all I'd done was pour him a beer.

As time went on, people like that were beginning to make me uneasy. The unease started two weeks into the job, when a smart-looking man drank beer all evening with his friend, stared at me without stopping, stayed behind when his friend left, gave me an enormous tip, and hung around outside while we closed up.

'Hello,' he said, as I stepped out into the darkness.

'Oh,' I said. 'Hello.' I didn't know why he was there, or what I was supposed to say to him. I started walking, and he walked with me.

'Shall we go somewhere for a drink?' he asked.

'But everywhere's shut.' It was not, with hindsight, the best response.

'Do you live nearby?'

'Um, yes.'

'Perhaps you would invite me in for a coffee?'

I started to panic at that point. I had no idea how to get rid of him. I thought about going home and asking for Adrian's help, but I thought that maybe I shouldn't show this man where I lived. I looked at him sideways. He had to be in his fifties and I wondered what he wanted with someone as inexperienced and clueless as me.

I turned and started off back to the bar.

'Forgot something,' I said.

He smiled and looked at me as if he was pleased with me. 'Oh, yes?' he asked. 'Got the keys, have you?'

We walked in silence, and I was scared he was going to grab me. When we got to the bar, I pressed the buzzer for Matt's flat upstairs, holding my finger down on it.

'What?' he demanded down the intercom.

'Matt?' I said. 'Can you come down?'

The man looked angry.

'Why?' Matt asked.

I tried to be brave but I was hopeless. I tried to tell the man that he had me all wrong, that I was not that sort of girl, mainly because I didn't know how to be that sort of girl. A part of me wanted the adventure, wanted to do whatever this man was after just to see what it was like, but the rest of me didn't dare. Even now that I lived in London, there were things I didn't dare to do. I was pathetic.

Matt sized the situation up easily. 'Fuck off, mate,' he said, sleepily. 'Leave her alone. She's not interested.'

'Jesus,' the man muttered. 'She only had to fucking say so.'

He left, and Matt turned on me, wide awake.

'For Christ's sake, Helen.' He was furious. 'You've got to stop giving these people the fucking come-on! That guy's a sleazeball. Luckily for you, he's nothing worse. I see you doing it. You smile at them, you flash your legs. I'm surprised more of them haven't tried it on by now.'

I looked at the ground. 'Sorry' I said. 'I don't mean to.'

'Just fucking stop it or you're going to end up in one hell of a lot of trouble. OK?'

I knew it would happen again, because I still smiled at everyone. If I stopped smiling, I was afraid I would go back to being myself, and then everything would fall apart, because I wouldn't be able to do anything.

I pretended not to watch Liz getting up and walking over to the counter. I busied myself frothing milk while she stood and waited patiently for my attention. I watched her reflection in polished chrome.

'Hello, Helen,' she said when I had to turn round.

'Oh!' I knew I was doing a bad job of pretend surprise, but I ploughed on. 'Oh, Liz! Hello!'

She smiled, though her face was red and puffed-up. In spite of everything, I was angry with that horrible woman who had made her cry.

'Hello,' she said again. 'So, you're working here?'

I felt I had to explain. 'Matt had a sign up.'

'I remember.'

'I needed a job so I applied.'

'Look, I'm sorry. You felt you had to pretend not to see me when you came in. That's a crap situation for you to be in. I'm sorry that I was so horrible to you. A lot of other things had happened that day and I took it all out on you.' She looked at me, a nice, friendly look. 'You were only being nice. In fact, you were being lovely. Can we start again?' she asked.

I counted to five before I replied. 'Yes,' I said. 'Sure. Of course we can.' I fought to keep the hundred watt smile off my face. 'I understand.' I was being as cool as I could manage.