Gemma Part II

Hannah

11:01 p.m.

I’ve never understood the way people get so worked up about things. Gemma was trying to talk to me about something today, prattling on about some poll or other that she’d read about in some pretentious article in some convoluted newspaper. I said to her, I can assure you, flower, I’d go down to the polling booth right this minute, my Friday night slap on and everything, if it meant I’d never again have to mop up the nightly puddles I discover around the toilet – murky pools set with an oily skin. Ejected at speed from unpredictable post-sex semi-erections, they slowly stain my once-brilliant tiles a dull yellow.

But when you’ve been in this game long enough, you learn: just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean things will ever change. You adapt. You find ways of putting up with the things that life has taught you are inevitable. You get on with it. What started as bad luck twenty years ago gradually becomes a trap. A sticky web of my own spun silk. Years go by and nothing really changes. Stuck in a loop. Repeating, repeating, repeating, forever.

A knock at the door.

I lift the peephole cover and peer through to the metal landing beyond. Illuminated in the glare of the burglar light, I can make out the fuzzy silhouette of a squat, round head, upon which unremarkable features appear to have been squished into the excess neck fat. The sides of the mouth are turned downwards in an almost comical fashion, like the sagging bumper of a burnt-out Rover Metro. There’s no doubt in my mind who this is.

I unlock the door and pull it open, allowing the bitter chill of the night to scamper in from the darkness. The temperature has really dropped tonight.

‘Hello, darling,’ I say. I suppose surprise isn’t really the word – I always knew he couldn’t resist it. The loss of control, I mean. He had to come back. I’m not surprised, no.

He stares at me, gormless and clearly terrified.

‘Get in out the cold, then, you silly bastard. It’s freezing.’ He nearly trips over the threshold as he skulks into the front room. I’d better get him a Bell’s, I think, before he tops himself. He mopes over to the settee in the corner as I remove a bottle from the spirits cupboard and decant it generously into a tumbler.

It’s all about how you play the game, you see. How you test the boundaries. Since we were bairns, we’ve all been constantly – eagerly – observing the world around us. Making judgements. Drinking in every action, every reaction, every consequence. Deciding where the boundaries are. Learning how to push them. We push. And we push and we push. Then, you have to know how to draw back – how to watch the situation play out. I know who I’m playing with here, and I know there’s a lot more that I can get out of him before the dam breaks. A lot more.

I drop the tumbler into his hand, and decide to name the elephant in the room. ‘Gemma is it, then?’

He’s gulping his drink down with force and doesn’t look up. Must be back on the bottle.

I open up the top drawer of the hall dresser and take out my little black book. I flick through the reservations. If he’s booked in, he’ll have to pay up.

‘You’ll have to be quick, mind,’ I say, straining to keep a straight face. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Mitch.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him look up. He gawps in my direction, his mouth hanging open like a guppy fish. I can’t meet his eye for fear of creasing up. I pencil his name in, dotting the ‘i’ decidedly.

Gemma. What am I going to do with you, girl? She’s got her pretty little head in the clouds, that’s the problem. I was so hesitant about taking her on. She’d got herself into a spot of bother with her partner at the time, Carl – so it must be nearly three years ago now. She turned up on my doorstep wearing nothing but a bit of slap she’d put on in Boots and a scrap of black lace draped loosely around her. There wasn’t much of her, then, and I could tell she was high. But it’s been all the rage for a few years now – lads like them a lot skinnier these days. So I said to her, you just promise me you’ll kick the smack and you’ll have a place here. If you work hard. You work hard, you eat, you live. I warned her, don’t get involved in anything you can’t handle.

Bea’s got the right idea. No more silliness with that Paul over at the chippy. She’s learned the hard way. When you work in this industry, you can’t ‘belong’ to anyone. She’s gobby. Aye, fuck me, she’s gobby. But she gets the job done and she’s not so confused. Gemma, on the other hand. Gemma is too bright for her own good. Or too stupid.

I knock on her bedroom door and let myself in. She’s standing at the dresser in a silk teddy, gliding a brush through her mousy hair. It shines golden in the lamplight, wispy and flyaway.

‘Gemma, love,’ I hesitate dramatically, ‘you’ll never guess who it is.’

She spins around with the grace of a dancer, a little crinkle of thought caught between her eyebrows.

‘It’s Mitch.’ I see something then. A flicker of something that lights up her crystal-blue eyes. My worries confirmed. ‘You do know you can’t see him again. Not like that. We talked about this, Gem.’

She takes a deep breath inwards before returning my gaze with more determination this time.

‘You know what to do,’ I say, soothingly. ‘You’re a clever girl, Gem.’

I move slowly towards the door before making it plain. ‘Just tell him to stop being such a dafty.’ I meet her eyes firmly, my hand on the doorknob. ‘It's just business, Gemma.’ I pause deliberately. ‘And no more stains on the carpet this weekend, please.’

She turns to face her reflection without a word, resuming her task. I let myself out and walk back down the hallway towards the front room. I can see that Mitch is in the same position I’d left him in: slumped forward, head down, glass empty.

‘She’s ready now,’ I say, standing at the doorway to the kitchen. He almost jumps out of his skin at the sound of my voice. But not as much as when the hallway door flies open, almost immediately. Ben is standing on the threshold, and he’s clearly agitated. His hands are balled up into fists, knuckles white.

‘You are ready, flower, aren’t you?’ I call through the now open hallway door. The veins in Ben’s neck become engorged with warm blood, piqued by the noise. I decide to try to calm him down. Ushering Mitch into the corridor, I turn to Ben.

‘Can I get you another drink, petal?’ I ask him, my eyes fixed on his.

Our gaze locks for a moment before he nods. ‘Aye, gan on, then.’ The tone is a high-pitched flutter, masked in a thin veil of self-assuredness.

I flick on the strip light in the kitchen and he follows me towards the fridge. After a few seconds of blinking, I become adjusted to the unnatural glare, eclipsed only by the shaven head and bony shoulders that tower a foot or two above me. I hand him a Carlsberg, squinting to glimpse his expression. He tilts back his head and takes a swig of his tinny, staring me down. His face illuminated, I watch his gaze ooze its way down my body.

‘Here, now. Did you not have enough fun with Bea tonight, like?’ I say, draping my unease in a joke.

He moves towards me.

Instinctively, I take a step towards the hob. I’m sure I hear footsteps in the front room, the door slamming shut. I look up to see Ben has spotted me eyeing the frying pan handle.

‘Howay, man, Hannah, ah kna ye love it just as much as the lasses.’ A glob of thick spit, yeasty with alcohol, hits my right eye and drips gloopily down my cheek.

‘No bother, pet. A’ll gan see whether Gemma fancies it, aye?’ His breath is stale on my face. In an instant, I’ve grabbed the frying pan and I’m holding it above me, swinging it upwards until Ben starts to retreat.

‘Get to fuck! Get the fuck out!’ I squeal at him. He ducks out of the kitchen door and I hear his feet on the metal stairs as he runs out into the night.

I walk, shaking, into the living room and remove the Bell’s from the drinks cupboard, taking swigs from the bottle. It tastes like honey.

13 November 1996

2:49 a.m.

I blink furiously. My eyes feel sticky, throbbing with a vengeful ache. I glance at the clock on the wall: 2:49. I must have passed out. The discarded bottle of Bell’s confirms my suspicions, as I see it has rolled against the fridge with a layer of gluey brown liquid cementing it to the kitchen tiles. Did Gemma and Bea just leave me here?

I stumble to my feet and rub my eyes as I make my way through the front room, propping myself up on furniture until I reach the hallway. I knock on Gemma’s door and let myself in.

The lamp is still on, her candle burned down to liquid wax. Gemma is sprawled across the carpet, her satin teddy torn from shoulder to hip. Her ice-blue eyes are open, wide and staring. Questioning.

A length of lace from her dresser drawer lies discarded beside her head. Her neck is already bruising.