Persons Unknown. Susie Steiner

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      So I’m not blind, I know he’s not perfect. The God thing, that makes me uneasy, and towards the end he let it be known how irritated he was by the general public and that was probably a mistake. And he’s partial to making a bob or two, but which of us isn’t? The whole B-Liar thing, though: the epic righteousness of it would be enough to send anyone postal.

      And in his heyday, my goodness! He united everyone. He didn’t make you hang your head in shame. All those years the Labour Party suffered with the bad comb-overs, the stumbling on the beach and then Tony came along, our shiny straight-talking saviour. We almost couldn’t believe he was left wing. He made me feel safe: I could sleep well knowing his hand was on the tiller. Three terms he gave us and now it’s as if that was a crime.

      I got up and kissed my two fingers, then planted them on Tony’s lips. His cross/stern eyebrows seemed to raise at this and he appeared to smile, in that way that said, ‘Let’s not let this go too far.’ A bit Presbyterian, a bit hair shirt.

      We sat in amiable silence, then I said, ‘I’m not being funny, but have you ever thought of modelling?’

      She pushed some wet hair over her face and sucked on a strand. Perhaps she was embarrassed. ‘Yeah, I have. Ages ago. It’s not a good business for girls. Makes them vulnerable. You can get caught up in things.’

      ‘What things?’

      ‘Dodgy stuff. There are blokes who hang around models like, well, like hyenas round meat.’

      ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘The modelling scouts appear to have passed me by.’ The self-deprecating joke – safe haven to fatties everywhere.

      ‘Actually, plus size is a growing area,’ she said and I flushed. I wasn’t prepared for her to acknowledge the elephant in the room quite so readily. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean … You’re not big.’

      ‘Thanks,’ I said but the atmosphere had darkened and she got up off the sofa.

      ‘Better get dressed,’ she said.

      ‘Shouldn’t we talk about what happened?’ I said. ‘About the car accident. About going to the police?’

      ‘Nothing serious,’ she said. ‘Not worth making a fuss.’

      Angel opened the bathrobe and showed me her torso – the left side. She had a huge bruise – deep red, black in places – from her bra strap down to the waistband of her knickers.

      ‘It’s feeling a lot better,’ she said.

      ‘I just don’t get it,’ I told her. Then I went to the kitchen to wash up our tea mugs. ‘You were hit by a car and you don’t want to tell the police about it?’

      Angel moved to stand at my bathroom mirror, in order to re-Goth. My flat is tiny, so it’s easy to talk across rooms.

      I said to her, ‘What if the bloke was drunk and he goes and hits a child next?’

      ‘It was probably my fault,’ she said. ‘Maybe I wasn’t looking where I was going. I think I stepped out without thinking.’

      ‘CCTV will show what happened,’ I said. I had come out into the hall, drying my hands on a tea towel and watching her layer awful black pencil all over her eyelids. Crying shame, shading over such a lovely face. ‘I don’t think there’s anywhere on earth with more CCTV than Kilburn High Road. And anyway, even if you did step out, it’s still an offence to drive away from an accident. He should’ve stopped at the very least to make sure he hadn’t killed you.’

      ‘Yeah, well, he didn’t, did he, so let’s just drop it, OK?’

      She’d finished with the kohl pencil and mascara, and was zipping up her makeup bag. She came out of the bathroom and was peering in at my box room – it had a single mattress on the floor and one of those concertina laundry airers, hung with stiff tea towels.

      ‘You’ve got an extra room,’ she said.

      ‘Think calling it a room is stretching it.’

      ‘Can I ask a favour?’ she said. ‘It won’t be for long.’

      She told me she wanted to stay a while, to get herself straight. I assumed she meant laying off the Lambrini, in which case I wasn’t too sure my flat was her best bet, it being above an entire shop full of cheap spirits and tins of super-strength lager – killing the poor quicker and younger. Carlsberg Special Brew, Tennent’s Super and Skol Super 9%. They used to die at 65, now they die at 45, even though they look 65. But I digress.

      Angel walked to the window in the lounge and lifted the nets, peered out at the street as if she was George Smiley looking for shadowy figures in doorways.

      ‘Are you on the run from MI6?’ I said, as a joke obviously, trying to change the subject away from latent alcoholism. I didn’t actually think she was on the run. I don’t think anyone is on the run in real life, but she turned, sharply, and said, ‘Why d’you say that?’

      ‘You’re acting like you think you’re in The Bourne Supremacy instead of sitting in a flat above the Killy High Road.’ I was going to add, ‘wearing too much eyeliner’ but thought better of it.

      ‘Look,’ she said, still peering out from under the nets, ‘there are people who would like to know where I am, and who I’d rather keep away from. That’s all you need to know. I could do with a place to lie low. I could go, tonight, get a bag of stuff, if you don’t mind me kipping in your box room for a while?’

      I thought about saying, ‘How long is a while?’ But instead, I said, ‘I’ll think about it. Now, I’ve got to open up downstairs or my lovely regulars will be wondering where to get their tramp juice.’

      Downstairs, turning my keys in the lock to open up, I thought about what it would be like later on, watching telly with someone there to pass the odd comment to, making a plate of carbonara for two and not eating it all myself. Asking if she’d like a bag of Frazzles and popping down to the crisp aisle. The drinking worried me a bit. I don’t like drinkers, much as they are my core fan base. I don’t like the feelings of risk and uncertainty they create. That said, we’ve all got our thing, haven’t we – that zone where we’re not in control? I’m quite safe around a bottle of Chardonnay. I’ve been known to yawn in the face of pornography. Show me a shoe shop and I can walk on by. But salty snacks? I will MOW. YOU. DOWN.

      This’ll shock you, but I own Payless. I don’t lease it; it’s not a franchise. About fifteen years ago, when I was in my mid-thirties, this lawyer managed to track me down and told me there was all this money held in trust for me and did I want to collect it, because I’d got to a responsible age when I wouldn’t squander it and he was retiring, so there would be no one left who knew the details of my legacy. I guessed it was money from Mum and Dad’s house, maybe from Nanny Fielding when she died. I didn’t really ask any questions – like why it had taken so long to come to me.

      I was working in Payless at the time, just on Saturdays – the rest of the time I was on the till in Primark and doing the odd shift on a street stall which sold lighters and knock-off Dove shower gel and the like, and so the next time I was in I asked Majid, who I worked for, how much he wanted for the shop and he laughed and laughed and laughed. And then he spoke very quickly in Urdu to his wife, and she split her sides laughing as СКАЧАТЬ