twelve-noon-one

‘You getting a taxi?’ I asked, knowing the answer, turning away and sucking on a cigarette I’d ponsed.

We were last out of the AA meeting because she was top-table convener, which meant she binned the sandwiches that had gone hard, pasty white bread curving away from boiled ham, put the almost curdled milk in the fridge and checked we hadn’t left the lights on and shook the door to make sure it was locked.

 ‘It’s not far,’ a mocking laugh and she looked straight through me.  ‘We’ll walk.’

It was alright for her because she was quite fat and needed the exercise, but it was raining hard and I was rattling for a drink or jellies or both. 

On the steps outside, the old guy with the fancy car, whose name I forget as soon as he told me, leaned across and planted a smacker on Sarah’s cheek and had a fly look at her tits, before waving his car keys in a farewell gesture and taking a quick squint sideways.

God didn’t bless me in the tits department, but I grew up quickly knowing his type and how I could wind him around my little finger. But he’d uhmed and ahed before he passed me on to her as my AA sponsor. She reminded me of one of the snooty prison guards in Corton Vale. She marched ahead the wind lifting her coat tails, looking neither left nor right, pedestrians shuffling and making way.  I trailed behind her like a stray dog, splashing through the puddles. An guy with a shaggy grey beard and tartan bunnet, standing outside the Rosevale Bar having a fag, looked at her and looked at me and guffawed.

I fucking hated her big time by the time we got to Apsley Street, my heels were rubbed red raw and I’d stubbed my toe on one of the close stairs, but the lights and heating were off in my gaff, I was skint and had nowhere else to go.

I gave her my big-eyed smile, licked my lips. And when I kicked my shoes off in the lobby, I grabbed her arm, to lean on her. I’ll say this, she smelled nice and her house was spotless, high ceilings, bright colours and modern. If she wanted to get naked and munch on my box, I wasn’t really that fussed.   

‘I’ve no drink,’ she lifted my fingers from her arm, so I stumbled. ‘But I can make you a nice cup of tea and we can talk.’

She smiled and her eye where crinkly and kind.

‘Aye, that’d be great,’ I was panting as if I was out of breath. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a spare fag?’

She chuckled, her chin wobbling and shook her head as if I’d told a corker of a joke. I followed her into the living room.

The heating had been left on and it was homely with thick piles of carpet and a three-seater and two-seater leather couch facing where the fireplace had been. On the wall was this bas-relief of this reclining Greek god and he was naked holding grapes. Sour grapes, I’d have thought, his penis wasn’t up to much, to be honest.

She yawned, showing the black of age and back molars, rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand and sighed. And I felt kinda sorry for her. She wandered across to the window and looked out into the street.

If you really listened you could hear the traffic. I slid into the nearest seat and sat down, glad to be off my feet. She’d a lot of knick-knacks lying about. Bright things like coloured feathers in a vase and glass things that didn’t quite match, but did, and dull features like a pile of white stones on a ledge on the mantelpiece. A kid would have its hands full, but it wasn’t really a place for children and there were no animal hair. And the coffee table on the rug at my feet was heavy with weight and age.  

‘Tea,’ she said, overly bright, making an effort and smiling.

‘Yeh,’ I said, ‘that’d be great’.

‘Won’t be a minute. Make yourself at home.’  

‘Can I use your toilet?’ I stood as she passed, inhaling a whiff of her expensive perfume. ‘I’m bursting.’

‘It’s through here.’

Once again I tagged on behind her, but there was no longer any sense of hurrying. She pointed to where the toilet was and went swishing through to the kitchen. I could see from the hall pillows and a teddy with a red ribbon around its neck on pristine white sheets. And figured it was one of those cut-up rooms, open-plan, and kitchen-bedroom.   

She was waiting for me in the living room. A pot of tea, buttered scones and thin slices of Madeira cake, jam in dish on the edge of the table. Classical music was on low coming from the speakers, some kind of wood pipes. She sat on the two seater couch facing me.

For the first time in ages I felt hungry and picked up a scone and stuffed it in my mouth. She laughed, held out a china plate to catch the crumbs falling from my chin and handed me it to hold.

‘You take milk and sugar with your tea?’ She leaned forward and poured me a cup.

‘em, yes, I mean, no,’ I said. ‘Dash of milk. No sugar. These scones are amazing.’  

‘I made them myself.’ She glowed, pushing a china cup towards me.

The tea helped wash down the scone and I ate another, holding a bit of Madeira in my hand like a kid in the playground that isn’t going to share.  

Her hands cupped black tea, but she made no move to eat anything. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘maybe we got off on the wrong foot, but us girls have got to stick together. I’m guessing, like me, you’ve been in this position before. I’m not here to tell you what to do.’ She laughed again. ‘God knows I’ve got enough trouble keeping my own life on track. I’m not even sure I can offer you any advice, but what I can do is listen.’  

She put her tea down, edged back in her seat and made one of those gestures with her hands that meant it was my turn.  

‘I don’t know what to say!’ I no longer felt hungry, in fact I felt a bit sickish, put my hand over my mouth, put the plate down and pushed it towards the middle of the table.  

She shrugged, ‘you don’t need to say anything.’

That daft pan-pipe music was beginning to get on my goat. ‘But…you’ve been awful nice. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’

She leant forward. ‘That’s not the way it works. You know that. What we try to do is make a choice so that you don’t take a drink in the next minute, in the next ten minutes, in the next twenty minutes and the next hour. And then we take it from there – god willing. So if I ask you,’ and she did that rolling, flapping hands, gesture, ‘what can we do so that you don’t take a drink for the next ten minutes, what would be a good starting point?’

‘Eh, killing myself.’

We both smiled at that.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve not got any money anyway, not a penny.’

‘So what,’ she said. ‘There’s been millions of times in my life when I’ve not had a penny, but I could still find a drink. I can be a sneaky bastard you know and I’m betting you can too.’

‘Alright,’ I said, picking up the cup and fiddling with it. ‘But you know I had my baby taken off me.’

‘No, I didn’t know that,’ her eyes softened.

‘It was when I was young, really young.’ I took a deep breath and the words came out all raggedy through tears. ‘I hadnae been sleeping and I took a good drink and a diazepam tablet. Maybe more than one.  And the next thing I knew the baby was screaming. I’d left it in the living room and it was one of those boiling hot days and the window was wide open. There was blood everywhere and a rat was in the pram with her. It had bitten off her nose and her fingers and was chewing on her cheek.’

‘Jesus,’ she whispered, her hand over her mouth, crying. ‘What did you do?’

‘Do?’ It took me a few seconds to work out what she was talking about. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

And I was back there getting grilled by police and social workers. They banded phrases about like at-risk register and unfit mother.

The worst of it was when this big burly policeman, took me down to the cells while they waited upstairs for some high-heid yin to show up for another protracted meeting.

‘How’s Dawn?’ I finally plucked up the courage to ask him. They’d taken my baby away in an ambulance.

The turnkey spat in my face. He kept his set of key in his hand when he smacked me in the back of the head with them and shoved me into the cell. ‘Yer fucking babies deid,’ he said. ‘And if it was up to me, ya fucking cow, I’d string you up too. But you’ll be getting time for this. Don’t you worry. And we’ll make sure everybody know what you did. Maybe somebody’ll dae us a wee favour and help you along the way.’