The Day I Died. Polly Courtney

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      ‘Um…my parents are.’ Genius. She was getting quite good at this.

      ‘But where—’

      ‘Could you just remind me of the hours I’ll be working?’

      He looked at her, smoothing the apron over his enormous belly, then finally replied, ‘Well, you’ll remember we settled on seven till noon because of your classes in the afternoons.’

      ‘My classes, yes, exactly…Seven, that’s what I thought. And I can’t remember what you said about pay. Could you…?’

      ‘Thirty pounds a day, as we agreed,’ he snapped. ‘Six days a week.’

      Jo nodded again. That was a hundred and eighty pounds a week. How much did it cost to rent around here?

      ‘Shall I show you the ropes?’

      Jo breathed a sigh of relief and allowed the bald man to give her a sweeping tour of what was really quite a basic setup: hot-water tank, toaster, fridge, coffee machine, cupboards filled with grotesque sets of matching brown and gold crockery. It was clear that the man had delusions of grandeur for Trev’s Teashop.

      The reference to Jo’s parents had left her feeling ill at ease. It wasn’t that she didn’t like to lie to the man; she barely knew him, and what she did know she didn’t particularly like. It was that she didn’t know what the truth was. She didn’t know where her parents were from–or where they were now. She didn’t know whether they knew about the nightclub explosion, or whether they knew she’d been caught up in it. She didn’t even know if she had parents. The chances were, though, there was someone out there who cared about her. She just didn’t know how to let them know she was OK without turning herself in–and that was the one thing she couldn’t do.

      ‘I’ll expect you to do most of the flitting between tables.’ The man waved a stubby arm across the premises. She nodded again, wondering who had been flitting up until now. ‘Now, you’re wearing black trousers, I trust?’

      Jo froze, suddenly remembering that she was wearing a tiny dress and no shoes underneath the jacket. ‘Well, I couldn’t find trousers, but—’

      ‘Ooh, Mr Jackson! First customer!’ cried Trevor. ‘First customer!’ he said again, ushering her towards the back of the café. ‘Your shirt’s in the store cupboard under the stairs. Quick, quick!’

      It was with mixed feelings that Jo pulled the brown aertex shirt over her head. She wasn’t keen on the embroidered teacup that covered her left breast, or the fact that she had Trev’s Teashop’ plastered across her front, but she had to admit that it was more appropriate than her own attire, which she was desperately trying to convert into a knee-length skirt to cover the tops of her long legs.

      Along with a trowel, a plastic rhino, a sketchbook and a rah-rah skirt, Jo found what she was looking for in the back of the store cupboard: a mirror. She peered at her reflection in the half-light.

      It was like looking at somebody else. Jo pulled at her skin–young skin, she thought, probably early twenties–and tilted her head this way and that, inspecting her face. Her eyes were bottle green, with dark lashes, which were coated in heavy, day-old makeup. Her lip had been bleeding slightly. She gathered her long, knotted hair in one hand and tried to twist it into some sort of order. It was almost raven black, with a dyed red streak at the front.

      She spat on her hand and wiped the worst of the dirt off her forehead, wondering how her appearance had passed without comment by the portly teashop owner. Something caught her eye in the mirror. On the back of her hand was a splodge of blue ink. Writing. ‘SASKIA DAWSON,’ it said.

      Who was that? Was it her? Was she Saskia Dawson? If so, why had she written her name on her own hand? Saskia. It didn’t sound familiar. But then, very little did. Jo tore a page from the faded sketchbook and scrabbled around for a pen. Letter for letter, she copied it down and tucked it into the waist of her newly formed skirt.

      ‘Ah, Jo! Go and serve table four, would you?’

      Jo quickly worked out how Trev’s Teashop operated. It wasn’t so much a teashop as a caffeine outlet for commuters on their way into London–at least, that was how it seemed at seven o’clock in the morning. She did her best to flit from table to table, but there was only so much flitting one could do with so few seated customers and a queue for takeaway coffee that occupied most of the shop. She marvelled again at her boss’s self-delusion.

      ‘Blasted thing,’ muttered Trevor, turning purple with exertion as he tried to break his way into a new tub of coffee beans.

      Jo cast her customer an apologetic look and turned round. ‘Let me try.’

      ‘Doesn’t work,’ he said, reluctantly loosening his grip on the tin-opener. ‘The tub’s got some new-fangled seal thing on it. We’ll have to—Oh. Right. You’ve done it.’

      Jo handed over the open container and got back to serving customers, trying not to smirk. It had just been a case of employing some common sense: twisting the seal, applying some pressure and then levering off the lid.

      Common sense. That was something. At least she had that. And having it gave her a clue as to what type of person she was. Her brain worked in a logical way–like a scientist’s, perhaps. She could think laterally and solve problems. It was true, she made a reasonable waitress, but she didn’t think she’d been one before. Not properly. Maybe as a summer job a few years ago, while at school…School. That was another blank.

      She tried picturing herself in various workplace scenarios. Sitting in an air-traffic control tower. No, too stressful. Patrolling the streets in police uniform. Too much authority. The Trevor experience had taught her that she didn’t like being told what to do. Staring at a computer screen in an office. Boring. Standing up in court dressed in robes and a wig. Not unfeasible, she thought, although she was probably a bit young for that…Jo poured another filter coffee and sighed. She didn’t have a clue.

      Fortunately, Trevor seemed sufficiently unobservant to overlook his waitress’s lack of footwear. Her feet were freezing and the soles were turning slowly black, but there was nothing she could do except try to keep them in the shadows behind the counter. Occasionally, he would send her to check on table ten, the little bench outside the café where a commuter would occasionally perch as he waited for a train or a friend, and every time, somehow, he failed to spot the bare feet.

      It was on one of these errands that Jo found herself in the situation she’d been dreading. Another girl, about her own age and of similar build and colouring, was running up the road towards the teashop, hair flying, satchel banging against her hip. She was dressed in black trousers and a cheap polyester blouse.

      Jo caught her attention and stepped out to greet her. ‘Hi! You must be…’

      ‘Renata,’ she gasped, trying to push her way into the café.

      ‘Yes, you were due to start work at seven, weren’t you?’ Jo stood in her way.

      ‘Am so sorry,’ she said breathlessly. Her accent was Polish, or something like that. No wonder Trevor had been confused by Jo’s fluency. ‘Bus was not come, so I walk, then bus come but wrong bus…’

      ‘Oh dear.’ Jo smiled sympathetically. She felt terrible for doing this, but her need СКАЧАТЬ