Good Bad Woman. Elizabeth Woodcraft

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СКАЧАТЬ on, Lena, you can’t wear those. They’re far too femme for you,’ I said.

      Lena sighed, as if I was spoiling her fun. ‘As you and I have discussed on many occasions, Frankie, the headings Butch and Femme are merely a shorthand and superficial description of the myriad ways women express their sexuality. And clothes are the least helpful indicator of how a woman feels about herself. I have a leather jacket, you have a leather jacket, and we are sometimes described as butch, but then Kay has a leather jacket and Sophie has a leather jacket, and they are undoubtedly femme. What conclusions can we draw from that?’

      ‘That we’re all very boring people. But those are really femmy boots.’

      She tried them on and she couldn’t walk in them so they went back in the box.

      By the time we’d slipped into Fox’s Wine Bar for a small glass of white wine and some haddock pâté and then gone into the book shop on the High Street for something uplifting and topical to read and discuss, it was gone four o’clock. It was time to prepare myself mentally for my mother’s visit. I sauntered back home, thinking positive thoughts, planning a little more washing up and general tidying, and bought a small bunch of white and orange freesias to perfume a small part of my living room, in her honour.

      As I turned into Amhurst Road I could see a taxi outside the house and a short bulky figure getting out. It was my mother in a large fake fur coat.

      ‘What do you think?’ she said, twirling in the street.

      ‘It’s astonishing,’ I said, paying the driver and picking up her two cases. ‘You’re early.’

      ‘Freda next door was going into town and offered me a lift to the station. Anyway I thought it would be nice to have a bit of time with you – and your black eye – before your big night out.’

      Fortunately, for both our sakes, she didn’t mention the eye again. Instead we spent two hours drinking tea while my mother brought me up to date on all my relatives who lived near her in Colchester: two aunts and their husbands, and one unmarried uncle. Then I heard about the neighbours and the parents of old friends of mine who still lived nearby. By now we were on gin and tonic. When we got to the antics of the couple who were the holiday replacements for the people in the newsagents, I left my mum to watch Blind Date while I went into the bathroom to prepare for the Queen of Sheba, as the club was known.

      ‘Now don’t you worry about me,’ she said, looking up from the Guardian TV page, as I slid my wallet into my inside jacket and decided against wearing a coat. ‘There’s not a lot on television tonight, but I’m sure I’ll find something. Can you get Channel 5 here?’

      ‘Not very well,’ I said, and pointed to the pile of Rock Hudson and Doris Day videos I had dug out from my collection specially for her.

      ‘Oh, you know me,’ she said, ‘I can never work a video. I’ll be all right, dear. Off you go and enjoy yourself.’ She patted my hand bravely and I stomped out of the house, rage and guilt steaming off my skin into the cold night air.

SIX

       Saturday Evening – The Queen of Sheba

      Lena had rung to say she’d just remembered her car needed a new MOT so we agreed we’d take my car and I’d pick her up from Finsbury Park. I hooted as I drove past her house then double-parked a couple of doors down.

      Through the rear-view mirror and in the light from the lamp-posts I saw her come out of her house and walk towards the car. She was wearing her long straight maroon coat, her hair was loose and shiny and she looked exotic and mysterious. My own efforts at glamour had been to change my round dark glasses to small rectangular ones, and to put on my charcoal grey Jigsaw suit with the bootleg trousers.

      As Lena settled herself into the passenger seat she asked, ‘Where’s your number plate?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Where’s the back number plate? You have no back number plate.’

      ‘Oh my God, it hasn’t dropped off again. I thought that was just in summer, when it got hot. I stuck it on with some …’ I tried to remember the name.

      ‘Sticky-back plastic?’ Lena asked brightly. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to have worked.’

      ‘It’s dropped off,’ I said.

      ‘Yes.’ Lena put on her best understanding voice. ‘Where do you think it dropped off?’

      ‘I don’t know. It could have happened anywhere.’ An idea was forming in my mind but I didn’t want to deal with it. ‘It could have happened weeks ago, months ago, I never look at the back of my car.’

      ‘You would have been stopped by the police by now if it had been that long. Where have you been in the last day or two?’

      ‘Here, there, you know.’

      ‘Did you hear anything?’

      I looked at her.

      ‘You know, when it dropped off?’

      We were at Stoke Newington Green. I signalled and pulled into the side of the road, got out of the car and walked round to the back. Lena followed. There was no number plate.

      I looked under the car, in case the number plate was hibernating underneath where the spare wheel should be.

      ‘We could retrace your steps over the last twenty-four hours.’ Lena seemed to relish the prospect of a game of hunt the number plate. I ran my hand along the bumper. ‘We should organise this methodically. We could do it tomorrow morning. Frankie? Frankie, what is it?’

      ‘Look at that,’ I said, ‘not a mark on the rest of the car. You wouldn’t even think it had been bashed.’

      ‘Bashed?’ Lena said uncertainly.

      I took a deep breath and decided to come clean. ‘Last night someone banged into the back of the car and then came round and punched me in the face.’

      ‘What? Your client’s husband?’

      ‘Yes … no. Let’s get back in the car.’ We settled back into our seats and I switched off the lights. ‘It wasn’t my client’s husband.’

      ‘Who was it then?’

      ‘I don’t know, someone called P. J. Kramer.’

      ‘Billy J. Kramer?’

      ‘No, P. J. Kramer. I don’t know who he is, he’s been following me. And I – well, I’ve been following him.’ I was fiddling with the ignition key.

      Lena scrunched round in her seat to face me. ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘Nor do I.’

      Her face was creased with such anxiety it was contagious and with a jerk I started the car. ‘Don’t do that,’ Lena said.

      I СКАЧАТЬ