Good Bad Woman. Elizabeth Woodcraft

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СКАЧАТЬ suppose so, possibly, mmm.’

      Lena said, ‘I’m just going to talk to …’ and slipped away.

      I was looking at Margo’s almond-shaped eyes. There were lines at the corners and her mascara was slightly smudged, but they were the deepest blue I had ever seen.

      ‘Why are you wearing dark glasses?’ she asked me.

      ‘I have a black eye,’ I said. ‘It’s a long story.’

      ‘Take them off.’

      Reluctantly I removed the glasses. She raised her hand and gently smoothed her fingertips over the bruise. Her hand was cool. ‘You can hardly see it,’ she murmured, kindly. ‘Don’t put them back on. You have lovely eyes. I like brown eyes.’

      ‘How did you come to be singing here tonight?’ I asked. I watched her mouth as she spoke about knowing the bar woman who was a friend of the manager and the band they’d booked having let them down and the manager having rung her friend who had rung her. She spoke softly and slowly and her full red-stained lips formed the words hypnotically. I had to stop myself licking my own lips.

      She looked at me watching her and smiled. For a moment neither of us spoke. She looked at her watch.

      ‘I’ve got five minutes. I need to get some fresh air before I go back on stage,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come outside while I have a smoke?’

      We walked to the side of the stage and she led me out through a fire door into the chill dark air. We were in an alley, with high brick walls on either side. The narrow rectangle of the sky was clear and there were some stars. ‘Can we see the Plough from here, do you think?’ I asked her.

      She leaned against one wall and took a pack of Camel cigarettes from the small bag on her wrist.

      I don’t like smoking – I don’t like the smell of smoke, I dislike the sight of a saucer filled with squashed cigarette butts, I hate it when people smoke in the non-smoking compartments of trains, but now I was standing in a dark alley next to a woman with a cigarette in her hand. And at that moment all I wanted in the world was to slip my hand in my pocket, pull out a silver lighter and flick it open to light her cigarette. But I didn’t have a silver lighter, or any lighter at all, and she lit her own cigarette with a match which she waved out with a snap of her wrist.

      She rubbed one arm with the other.

      ‘Are you cold?’ I asked, ‘Do you want my jacket?’ I went to take it off.

      ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘You’ll get cold too.’

      I leaned against the wall opposite and watched her as she smoked, inhaling deeply, creasing her eyes against the smoke. ‘It always feels so good, up there on stage,’ she began, looking down the alley. ‘It’s such a buzz.’ She shook her head and inhaled again. ‘It’s so different from the rest of my life. I feel like a different person, a stranger. And tonight there’s you. I don’t know what’s happening. I’ve never spoken to a barrister before.’ She looked me straight in the eye. ‘I didn’t know barristers could be lesbians.’

      ‘Barristers can be anything,’ I said. ‘It’s not who we are, it’s what we say that counts. I suppose it matters sometimes …’ I could feel myself getting boring, but I couldn’t stop. ‘Sometimes you don’t get the briefs. But that’s usually because you’re a woman, not because of who you sleep with.’

      ‘How long have you been a barrister?’

      ‘Ten years.’

      ‘Ten years is a long time. What would my life be like if I’d started doing this ten years ago?’

      ‘I don’t know, what was your life like ten years ago?’

      ‘Well, ten years ago it wasn’t bad, it just got worse as time went by.’ She shook her head again, then looked up. ‘What did you say about the Plough?’

      We both gazed up at the sky. I took a step forward and could feel her close to me. I ran my hand down her arm and felt her shudder. We looked at each other and I took another step towards her and put an arm across her shoulders, watching her face to check her reaction.

      She was an inch or two shorter than I was and she looked up at me with her head on one side. I pushed her gently back against the wall and put my hands on either side of her head. She slid her arms around my waist and closed her eyes.

      She felt soft and ripe in my arms. I bent my face into her hair and smelt perfume and cigarette smoke. She raised her eyelids and looked at me while I put my hand against her cheek. It felt like peach down. I tilted her face to mine and kissed her. Her lips were as soft and full as they had looked in the club, and now they parted slightly. I slid my tongue between her teeth and in the warm dark wetness of her mouth her tongue touched mine.

      I pulled her closer and felt the curves beneath her dress all the way down my body. She moved her arms up round my neck, sliding her hands into my hair, pulling my mouth closer into hers.

      As we drew apart she smiled at me. She licked her lips. ‘I feel like a stranger in paradise,’ she said. ‘You’re a good kisser.’

      ‘It takes two to tango,’ I said.

      ‘I’ve always been fond of dancing,’ she murmured, and pulled my head down.

      After five minutes or perhaps ten she looked at her watch. ‘Oh God, I’ve got to go back on.’

      ‘What time do you finish?’ I asked and then remembered my mother. ‘I’d like to see you after, go for a drink, invite you home with me, but my mother is staying. She came up to do Christmas shopping.’

      ‘Don’t talk to me about Christmas,’ she said. ‘It’s OK, I’d like to invite you home with me, but I can’t.’

      ‘Another time,’ we said together.

      I took out my wallet and gave her my card, writing my home number on the back. I wrote her number on the reverse of another and slid it back into my wallet.

      She walked slowly on to the stage for her last set. She sang ‘One Fine Day’ in her soft, husky voice of honeyed gold. And I thought that I certainly wanted her for my girl.

      As the room erupted with whooping and cheering, Margo was gazing at the back of the room. I turned and saw Saskia.

      And she did look remarkable. She was wearing my grey shirt, which looked stained and crumpled, and, I noticed with some concern, torn along one of the sleeves. Her hair was flat, which made her look subdued, crushed. The bruising on her face wasn’t so visible. But her expression as she stood staring into the room was bleak and desperate.

      I stood up abruptly and pushed my chair back. I was torn between staying to applaud and smile at Margo and going to speak to Saskia. I patted my wallet which contained Margo’s phone number and turned towards the back of the club.

      The crowd seemed to have swollen. Everyone was on their feet now, clapping and whistling, stamping their approval, pressing towards the stage. I pushed my way to the back, stepping on toes, knocking elbows, shouting, ‘Sorry, excuse me, sorry, sorry, excuse me.’ When I got to the back of the room, Saskia was gone.

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