Lady Bag (18 page)

‘All I need is a little support,’ I said. ‘But all you ever do is tear me down.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Always going on about how clumsy I am—how I drove our dad away with my neediness. Is it any wonder I turned to Satan for affection?’ I took another swig of gin.

Smister snatched the bottle away. ‘You are so totally marmelised I can’t understand a sodding word you say. I’m taking Electra and if you’ve got a single brain cell left you’ll come too.’

But I wouldn’t. They didn’t get me. I
had
to wait for the Devil. It’s what I always do.

I studied the cars on Milton Way and there it was—the cat I’d last seen crapping in my mother’s garden appeared on the pavement. It crossed the road and sat sheltering under a little red German car. I had one of those lodged in my memory like a speck of dust in my eye. It was irritating but I couldn’t get to it. It was a sign. I approached with caution. The cat hissed and climbed into the wheel arch. I put my hand out and touched the hood of the car. The cat spat and slithered away. But it left the mark of Satan—the hood was warm.

I know what Electra would’ve said. She’d have said that the engine was warm and that’s why the cat chose the little red car for shelter. She’d have said the engine was warm because the car had been recently driven not because the cat transferred its demonic energy to whatever it touched.

But Electra’s just a dog, she doesn’t understand signs and symbols. The corporeal world, with its sights, sounds and smells, overwhelms her. She has no room left for alternative dimensions. Although sometimes she can sense them. Then her hackles go up and she trembles.

But tonight the hair on the back of
my
neck prickles and
I
am trembling. For Gram Satan Ashmodai sent the cat to me as a message.

He is coming.

Chapter
31

I See The Devil’s Feet

I
awoke to the sound of his voice, to the smell of truffle oil and
Rive Gauche
.

He said, ‘But you’re only going to be there a few more hours. Can’t you… ?’ He sounded angry, but not thunderous. It was that complaining, impatient dissatisfaction I’d learned to avoid at all costs.

My head was on a pillow and the pillow smelled of Natalie. My eyelids creaked. I woke up in my mother’s room and Gram Attwood’s bed. How the hell did I get there? Gram Attwood was downstairs talking on the phone.

He said, ‘Well, I need a shower first and coffee… I’ve been up half the night with you, in case you’ve forgotten.’

He needed a shower. He was coming upstairs.

I got off the bed. I grabbed my hat. I fluffed a pillow, tried to straighten a sheet.

There was nowhere to hide. I went down on the floor and scrambled under the bed.

He said, ‘The sooner I can shower and have breakfast, the sooner I… No, I’m not trying to… No, I’m not threatening you… now that’s just paranoia… no I did not hire them—you’re raving mad.’

I could see his feet in hand-tooled black loafers and midnight blue silk socks. Then I saw his naked feet. I could’ve reached out and stroked them.

He said, ‘If I was going to put the frighteners on you I wouldn’t hire a derelict old man and a blonde bimbo to do it, would I? No, I’d do it myself, wouldn’t I? And we’d both enjoy it.’ He was almost laughing. His voice was caressing but his bare feet paced impatiently. The Devil, oh the Devil.

I buried my face in my hands and tried not to breathe. He was blaming me again. That’s why I was here. I came when he called. As always.

And yet… I couldn’t hear her but I knew she was accusing him. I knew she was crying and begging for comfort. She was not happy in love. She was nagging and demanding and he wouldn’t like it.

She was accusing him of sending two people to hurt her. Why? Had she threatened him? Did she know something he didn’t want known? Was she holding it over him? On maybe
she’d
done something bad. She’d offended him in some way. She thought he was punishing her; that he sent for me and Smister to punish her.

He cut the phone call short. I turned my head and saw his heels going away to the bathroom. I saw his silk shirt rumpled on the floor, his trousers, like empty snake skins, beside it. I heard the sound of running water and the screech of the shower door.

I rolled out from under the bed. I stopped myself from picking up his clothes, folding them and burying my nose in them. They wouldn’t smell of him anyway.

I crept away, down the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was no more gin. I tried all the cupboards. There was nothing in the fridge but milk and white wine. He didn’t cook. There was only bed, wine and pain when you took the Devil for your lover.

I picked up an already opened bottle and necked it.

I couldn’t put it back in the fridge empty, so I looked round for a rubbish bin to hide it in. I opened the cupboard under the sink and grabbed the first black plastic bag I saw. The weight surprised me. I dropped it on my foot and stifled the yell of pain.

Inside the bag was a little stone lion with a broken leg. The lion’s head was stained rusty red. I put it back.

From upstairs, I suddenly registered that the shower water had stopped running. I stuffed the empty bottle in my pocket and let myself out by the kitchen door.

The rain was misty in the air. I tipped my hat down over my eyes and shuffled as quickly as my headache would allow down Milton Way. Last night I had a plan, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I had seen the Devil’s feet, his cloven hooves. I was terrified and now all I wanted was to escape his wrath.

I dumped the wine bottle in the bin outside the Pizza Place on the High Street. Then at Mother’s old hairdresser, Claire’s Hair, I remembered my plan. I used to call Claire ‘Hairy Clairey’ because she was a malicious gossip and I hated her. But I could use her.

‘What’re you doing up at this time?’ Smister snarled. ‘It isn’t even seven o’clock.’

Electra smiled at me sleepily and thumped her tall. She was warm and didn’t want to get up.

I was wet and cold but I had to tell them my plan before I forgot again.

‘You’re going to the hairdresser,’ I told Smister.

‘Like fuck, I am. I had a whole restyle a week ago. I’m perfectly happy with it.’

‘Say you’ve got split ends or something.’

‘Split ends?
Me?
’’ He was outraged.

‘I don’t know what you do at a hairdresser anymore, but you’ve got to go and talk to Hairy Clairey. She lives next door to Mother and she’s the World Champion gossip. She knows all and tells all.’

‘If you think I’m going to let someone called Hairy Clairey within a million miles of my head you’re even more demented than you look.’

I suddenly caught up with what Smister said about the time: it wasn’t even seven o’clock. No wonder Gram had been in such a foul mood. He hated getting up early, and after spending half the night with Natalie he’d want to sleep till noon. She didn’t know how to treat him. She wasn’t a worthy handmaiden for him.

I turned Electra out into the car park to do her business. Smister snuggled back into his sleeping bag with his back to me.

I said, ‘I’ll make coffee.’

‘Don’t even
touch
the Primus. You’ll break it.’

So I had to sleep till Smister woke
me
up with a mug of coffee at eleven.

Chapter
32

What Hairy Clairey Said

S
mister was in a rancid strop when he got back from Claire’s Hair. ‘I will not say one single word to you till I’ve washed out this suburban crust. Momster, I swear to God there were old age pensioners in there waiting for their monthly blue rinse.’

‘He’s such a snob,’ I said to Electra.

‘Too
right
,’ Smister said, bending double over the tiny sink and turning on the water. ‘
Nobody’s
allowed to make my hair feel crusty. She’s made me look middle-aged. It’s unforgivable.’

I had to agree. Hairy Clairey only knew one style, and what was fine on my mother looked like shite on Smister. I should know—it was shite on me too the few times I let Mother bully me into going.

‘Okay, she’s a rubbish hairdresser,’ I said, starting to help him rinse. ‘She’s a world-class gossip though.’

‘Oh she’s that, alright.’ Smister wound a towel into a turban around his head. He examined his face in the mirror. ‘D’you think I should get my cheekbones done when I get my new boobs?’

‘Never mind your boobs; you should get new brains.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

‘You’re trying to wind me up, aren’t you?’

‘And it’s so easy.’ Smister sighed. ‘No wonder that arsehole dumped you. You’re no challenge. Boring.’

‘You want the body of a woman but you’ll never lose the instincts of a bitch.’

‘I’ll have the body and instincts of a
goddess
, thank you very much.’ He yawned and stretched. ‘Don’t blame me for what your mother told her tragic hairdresser. Her words; not mine.’

‘Boring? Easy?’ My mother was dead, but she could still hurt me.

‘If you’re going to go all whiney I won’t tell you anything.’

Obviously I’d seriously annoyed him by sending him to Claire’s Hair. I said, ‘Let’s go to the pub. I’ll buy.’

‘No! I’m so fed up with you making trouble for me. We’ll have coffee here. And I’m not saying another word till you take the pledge and swear on Electra’s life you’ll stop getting twat-faced.’

I didn’t answer but I let Electra out into the car park. It had stopped raining.

Smister went on, ‘I don’t understand you. Claire said you were quiet and
ladylike
. You hardly ever had a drink except at Christmas. And then you started making cow’s eyes at a man half your age… ’

‘I didn’t.’ I could hear my mother’s voice coming out of Smister’s mouth. ‘There were only eleven years’ difference. That’s nothing these days.’

‘Plain, unpopular, never one to run around—in fact as far as Claire knew you’d never been out with a lad even as a teenager. Then you took up with a toy-boy and broke your mother’s heart.’ He was deliberately imitating Claire, who I knew had been mimicking my mother.

‘You’re so cruel.’ I was sobbing.

‘How am I being cruel?
You
forced me to go there and ask questions. You shouldn’t ask questions if you can’t take the answers.’

‘I wanted to know about now, not about years ago.’

‘She was filling in the background. I was expecting some great doomed romance but it was just banal and grubby.’

‘She was telling it wrong then,’ I shouted. ‘My love, my passion, is
not
banal and grubby.’

‘
Nor was my hair
,’ he shrieked.

‘Your hair is not as important as my life.’

‘It
is
my life.’

‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’

‘You
totally
don’t get me. You’ll never get me.’ He was so upset his eyes filled with tears. That hadn’t happened even after Jerry-cop abused him. ‘You haven’t even said you’re sorry,’ he wailed.

My throat tightened. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m so, so sorry. Claire’s a horrible person and a worse hairdresser. I shouldn’t have sent you there.’

‘That’s all you had to say,’ he sobbed, gripping my hand. ‘And I’m sorry I said you were easy.’

We sat quiet for a minute. Then he started putting gel onto his damp hair, teasing it, drying it and keeping an eye on its progress with two mirrors. I couldn’t deny that it mattered a lot to him. But his life? I may be barmy but I’m not
totally
clueless.

‘You’re beautiful,’ I said, when he turned off the diffuser and could hear me.

‘One drink,’ he said. ‘Only one. I mean it. And you’ve got to eat something. You haven’t eaten anything since we left the squat.’

So after he’d prettified himself to his own satisfaction he tidied me up too and we took Electra to the pub. Electra had already made friends with the landlady. She’s my ambassador. Maybe she represents my human side. The landlady, Abbie, let us into the pub as long as we sat by the door. ‘Your dog has the most beautiful eyes,’ she told me. ‘I used to have a boyfriend with exactly the same colour eyes.’

‘So did I,’ Smister said. And they giggled together like a couple of schoolgirls.

We had shepherd’s pie and peas. Smister was persuaded to give Abbie a makeover and I promised to sweep the car park so we ate for free. But we had to pay for our own wine and coffee, and Abbie watched me like a hawk while I sipped from my glass and tried to look ‘ladylike’. I’d fallen so far away from Acton’s idea of ‘ladylike’ that I didn’t know what it was anymore. Would I ever recapture it? Would I want to?

Smister said, ‘I told that hair-butcher that I was staying a few days with a friend and I’d been woken up in the dead of night by an ambulance at number 17. She said she had as well, cos she lives at 15 which is next door. She said she couldn’t get to sleep for ages afterwards worrying about that poor Mrs Attwood.’

I started to protest but he interrupted. ‘Don’t gulp. You’re only getting the one glass so don’t look at me like that. Eat your peas or I won’t tell you anymore.’

I gulped my coffee instead and burnt my tongue.

‘Anyway the butcher said that she’d met “Chantelle Attwood” one day last year when she was bringing the milk in and Chantelle was brushing leaves off the windscreen of that swanky little red Porsche. She said, “She wasn’t fooling anybody. She didn’t even wear a ring. If you ask me she deserves everything she’s going to get from that slimy little snake.” She meant your Ashmo-Devil. That’s when she started filling me in on what happened to you and your mother. I shouldn’t have called it banal. I’m sure it was totally horrid.’

‘Why’s she calling that woman Chantelle?’

‘Cos it’s her name?’

‘She’s Natalie Munrow.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw her with Gram outside the National Portrait Gallery and I followed them to Haymarket. Gram took a taxi to her house in Harrison Mews. Then I saw her leaving the theatre with her friend. The next day I saw her leave the house in Harrison Mews. She was picked up by someone in a little red… oh!’

‘What?’

‘The little red Porsche was outside 17 Milton Way last night.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be—if it’s Chantelle’s car and she went there to see Gram?’

‘But… ’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say. A structure was falling to pieces in my head and all I could hear was smashing glass.

‘I don’t understand why you think Chantelle’s Natalie and Natalie’s Chantelle,’ Smister said, stirring the debris in my head with a giant spoon.

I said, ‘Because why would Gram kill anyone unless there was money to be made? So it has to be a life insurance scam, or something to do with inheritance. Natalie’s pretending to be Chantelle.’

‘But who said Gram killed anyone?’

‘He’s Ashmodai, Lord of Lust and Wrath. Evil is his game.’

‘I don’t think that would stand up in court,’ Smister said.

Electra got to her feet and stretched. She laid her head on my knee and gave me the sweetest, most sympathetic look I’d ever seen.

‘You agree with me don’t you?’ I said. But she shook her head till her ears flapped.

‘Listen to me,’ Smister said. ‘You’ve got to stop all this devil crap. You don’t believe it yourself—you don’t even believe in God.’

‘I see no evidence for God in this world but the Devil’s work is everywhere.’

‘Bollocks. And who cares anyway? What I want to know is where’s the evidence that a weaselly saddo like Graham Attwood ever got the guts to kill anyone. According to the hairy butcher he’s just an old fashioned fanny-hound who lives on women and has the hots for high finance. She said every single woman she saw him with, including you, was something in a bank.’

‘No!’

‘You’ve got to hear this, cos it seems to me you’ve let a pile of crow droppings ruin your life. He grew in your head until you turned him into a ginormous figure and called him Satan. But he isn’t, Momster, he’s just little. Small. Nothing.’

‘He… ’

‘Don’t start yelling. If you start yelling, the landlady’ll kick us out.’ He covered my depleted wineglass with one hand and snatched his own out of my reach. Electra whimpered.

‘You don’t understand,’ I whispered painfully. ‘You’re talking about something terrifying and mysterious as if it’s… ’

‘Just ordinary? Listen, Momster, somewhere, sometime, you got broken. You can survive out on the street, you can save me from a fire, you can nurse me back to health after
I
got broken, but for some reason you can’t look up Graham S Attwood in the phonebook. Why? I think you knew where he’d be all the time.’

‘I didn’t… I can’t… ’ I couldn’t get my tongue to work. Suddenly my glass was empty. I said, ‘You don’t understand. I’m his servant. In the beginning I took the blame because he wanted me to. Then he called and I went to a house with a dead body in it, and now the cops are looking for me. He called again. I answered and Natalie Munrow fell downstairs and nearly broke her neck. It isn’t just
ordinary
. He has powers.’

‘Not over me, he doesn’t,’ Smister said. ‘I went there because I was looking for something to hold over
him
. See, if he gave your house back
I’d
have somewhere to live. Okay?’

Then he stopped. ‘You’re not okay, are you? I’m an idiot. Let’s go for a walk.’

Outside, the pavement was still wet and shiny. Electra’s claws clicked by my side. The world smelled of rain and carbon emissions. It was as it should be except for the emptiness and fear in my heart. For if Smister was right, and the Devil was as irrelevant as God, then I’d really have to be afraid of the police who couldn’t even get my name right. I’d have to be afraid of laziness, ignorance, cruelty and bigotry.
Ordinary
evil.

Electra and I shuffled into the rhythm of long-distance walking, and it soothed us.

Smister said, ‘Chantelle worked in the City for Griswold and Brown—they nearly went bust but the government bailed them out. The crappy crimper said Chantelle was let go when Lloyds took them over, but she got a humungous golden handshake.’

‘How does Hairy Clairey know that?’

‘It was part of a bigger scandal about bonuses and payoffs. The media went in for naming and shaming. Chantelle was named.’

‘What about Natalie?’

‘Forget Natalie.’

‘I can’t. There are two women: one’s dead and the other’s hurt. I don’t know which is which.’

‘I suppose that’s progress.’ Smister sighed. ‘Can we go home now?’

Even in Acton the streets smell of life—the bins whiff of curry, the gardens of syringa and wet grass. There are recycling boxes out on the pavement which smell of soggy newsprint, old milk and cola. Electra’s scent is warm and zooey while Smister’s is salon fresh. Life smells sweet’n’sour. Non-life smells of nothing—except maybe battery acid.

Smister said, ‘Are you sure the woman you saw with Gram outside the National Portrait Gallery was Natalie? Did you even see her face properly?’

‘Not then, I was behind her. But later when she and her friend left the theatre I was as close to her as I am to you. I could smell her. She smelled of
Rive Gauche
and… oh.’

‘What?’

‘Truffle oil.’

‘So?’

‘That house, in Harrison Mews, I sat at her dressing table. I sprayed myself with… She didn’t have any
Rive Gauche
, did she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’ve smelled it. Natalie… Chantelle reeks of it and you practically carried her to bed.’

‘Oh,
that
smell. Momster, surely if Natalie was involved with Gram, Hairy Clairey would’ve known about it? I mean Natalie was in the papers, probably on TV when she died. If she was known as Gram’s squeeze he’d have been crapped on by the cops and the whole of Milton Way would’ve known. The hair butcher would’ve mentioned it.’

‘Maybe nobody knew.’

‘It was a secret shag? He was humping Natalie behind Chantelle’s back? But they were friends so Chantelle must never find out?’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘Or maybe she still had a job—Natalie I mean. Maybe he’d spent all of Chantelle’s golden boot and was moving on to the next meal ticket.’

‘How could I get it so wrong?’ I said.

‘You were pissed?’ Smister suggested, patting my shoulder sympathetically.

‘But they were friends,’ I protested. ‘Friends talk to each other about their boyfriends.’

‘Not if you’re bonking your friend’s number one shag you don’t. In that case you lie like a stair carpet—up, down and sideways.’

We walked back to the pub car park and the ambo. But I wasn’t happy. Yes, I get pissed and, yes, I may have the odd memory lapse or a rare error of judgement. But this sounded incomplete. It was the sort of reconstruction Smister would indulge in when he was tired and wanted a nap; when
an
answer was preferable to
the
answer.

‘What do you think?’ I asked Electra, but she just yawned.

‘Natalie Munrow had Issy Miyake perfume on her dressing table,’ I told Electra. ‘I couldn’t smell it because of the Draino.’ But when I turned over to look, both she and Smister were asleep.