London Noir

ANGEL’S DAY by MOLLY BROWN

MORNING:

Angel woke, shivering, in a cheap hotel room littered with condom packets. She stepped into her clothes: a wrinkled pink summer dress with a white lace collar, and a leather jacket, much too big. (She knew this guy once; his name was Ricky. She woke up shivering and hurting and needing on a morning just like this one. Ricky was gone and the dope was gone and all the money she’d made the night before was gone, but the bastard left his jacket.)

She paused in front of King’s Cross Station, clutching the money in her hand, holding her breath, looking for the Italian. Then she saw him, outside the post office in Euston Road. He was leaning against the wall, dressed in expensive jeans and a black leather jacket, standing motionless. Hands in pockets, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, ignored by passers-by.

The light changed and Angel crossed a road filled with cars and taxis and buses. The night before – in the dark – she was pretty, with long brown centre-parted hair, big round eyes, and a tiny cupid’s bow of a mouth, but now it was morning and she was ill. Trembling, shoulders hunched, face ashen and glistening with sweat, she stumbled on legs that were stick-insect thin, fragile as glass.

The Italian took his hands out of his pockets and stepped away from the wall, walking very slowly. Angel wiped her dripping nose on her jacket sleeve and slipped a damp, crumpled note into the man’s outstretched hand. He spat, and a small foil-covered pellet landed on the pavement. (‘Cops can’t look in your mouth,’ Ricky once told her, ‘that counts as an intimate body search. If they grab you, swallow. If they put you in a cell, just make damn sure you don’t shit for twenty-four hours, then they’ve gotta let you go; it’s the fuckin’ law.’)

The Italian moved away, disappearing into crowds of morning people. He never once spoke, never even looked at her.

Angel bent down briefly, then stumbled back the way she came, fighting back waves of nausea.

In her tiny room near the station, she removes the wrapping from a chocolate bar and lets the chocolate fall to the floor; it is the silver paper she wants. She tears the cellophane from a fresh needle and lifts her dress, exposing the marks on her thigh.

AFTERNOON:

Angel was out working when it started to rain. She headed towards a place she knew, a tunnel underneath a railway bridge north of the station, alongside some waste ground and a depot. She stepped into the tunnel and three women blocked her path. She didn’t know them; she’d never seen them before. They were older than Angel, and big, with wide shoulders and muscular arms. ‘Where do you think you’re going, little one?’ asked the largest, stepping forward. She had shoulder-length black hair, parted on the side, and little piggy eyes smeared with blue make-up. Her face and arms were dotted with moles. She wore tight, ripped jeans and heavy, lace-up boots. She had a northern accent. ‘I asked you where the fuck you think you’re going, bitch.’

Angel stared at the ground. ‘Nowhere.’ Her voice sounded high and thin and faraway.

‘Nowhere,’ the woman repeated in a tinny falsetto, mocking Angel’s strained little-girl voice. The other two laughed. ‘Well, nowhere ain’t around’ere, love, is it?’ She grabbed Angel by the hair and slammed her against the tunnel wall. The other two leapt forward, holding her there.

Angel looked around in desperation. There was no one around that she knew, none of the regulars – these three must have scared them all away. Now the bridge belonged to them and there was no one who would help her.

A car drove under the bridge, lights on, window open, hugging the curb. It pulled to a stop, distracting the women’s attention. Angel bolted forward. ‘Get me outta here. I’ll do anything you want.’

The driver told her to get in.

The man drove a short way, then parked behind a derelict building with boarded-up windows and rainbow splashes of graffiti. He was blond, in his late twenties. He wore a flashy suit – pure silk – and several rings: gold. ‘Well?’ he said.

Angel’s eyes went blank; something inside her switched off. She bent forward, reaching for the man’s zipper, but he stopped her, grabbing her hand and pushing it away. ‘You gonna tell me what that was about?’

Angel looked up, confused. ‘What?’

‘All that bother under the bridge, what was it about, eh? If I’m gonna play a knight in shining armour, I want to know the reason why.’

Angel shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Dispute over territory, was it?’

Angel turned away, biting her lip.

‘How long you been on the game?’

‘Not long.’

‘You’re a cute girl. How long you plan to stay that way?’

Angel was confused. Men in cars didn’t talk; they never talked, unless they wanted something extra.

‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Bollocks. But if that’s what you want to tell me, I’ll believe you.’

‘I am. I’m nineteen. Do you want me to prove it or something?’

‘Nineteen,’ the man repeated, his eyes moving up and down her body, appraising her. He lifted a hand to her face. Angel tensed, ready to run. He wouldn’t be the first man she’d met who got his kicks from slapping women around, but all he did was push her hair back from her eyes, ever so gently, and begin to stroke her cheek. Then he smiled, tracing the outline of her lips with the tip of one finger. ‘You don’t even look fifteen, do you? You’re cute; you’ve got a voice like a little girl. Men like that, you know. Or some do, anyway. Enough to make it worthwhile.’ He leaned back in his seat, staring straight ahead. The tone of his voice changed, became harder. ‘So how much does it take a day, huh?’

‘I don’t understand.’

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Suddenly he looked very tired. ‘Please don’t play games with me,’ he said. ‘You think I can’t see you’ve got a habit? Honey, look at that thigh.’

Angel tugged at her dress.

‘So how much you need to make in a day? Minimum.’

Angel looked down at her feet, making a face. ‘About a hundred.’

He laughed and told her she could make twice that, easy, in just a few hours a night and all she had to do was sip orange juice and make small talk in that baby-doll voice of hers, and it was all completely legal. Then he asked her if she was interested.

EVENING:

His name is Brian and he treats Angel differently than anyone has treated her in a long time. He buys her a cup of coffee in a cafe, he talks to her. He asks her questions, he wants to know everything about her. He offers to buy her dinner, but all Angel wants is a bag of crisps and she can’t even finish those. He eats and she watches.

When the time comes, he gets her what she needs. He follows her into her squalid room without comment, and at the sight of the needle, he averts his eyes. He raises a hand to his face for just a moment, and for that moment, Angel allows herself to imagine that he is brushing away a tear.

She stabs herself in the thigh. Squeezes. Angel leans back on the mattress, veins flowing with golden honey. Warm – the room is so warm. Alive with Brian‘s presence.

She feels Brian breathing, feels the beating of his heart. The air around him crackles with electricity; she can see the sparks, feel them explode against her skin. Even a blink of the man’s eyelids sends shock waves across the room, making Angel shudder.

‘We should be going,’ Brian said, looking at his watch.

NIGHT:

Two men walked down a Soho street, past nightclubs and restaurants, past neon signs promising food and liquor. But they’d had their fill of both and now they were looking for something more. Something that smelled of sweat and cheap perfume.

They turned down a narrow, badly-lit passage. A woman called to them from a doorway – the only doorway in that particular passage – and after a moment’s discussion, the men headed down a steep flight of steps. The ceiling and walls above the stairway were painted a garish shade of yellow with the words ‘Exotic Women’ and ‘Live Strip’ printed at intervals, in large black letters. A redhead in black hotpants sat behind a counter at the bottom, smoking a cigarette. ‘You here for the show? Three pounds each.’

The men paid her and went inside, through a beaded archway.

A dark-haired woman in a short red dress greeted them with, ‘Have a seat, the show will start in just a few minutes, aw’right?’ Beside her stood the bouncer: a shaven-headed giant in a tight black suit. He crossed his arms and grunted.

The men sat at a candle-lit table, noting the tiny stage in one corner, dark and empty, and the pale-faced man with thinning hair who stood behind the bar, slicing a lemon. There didn’t seem to be any other customers.

A girl approached them for their drink orders. She was small and painfully thin, dressed in pink. She didn’t look a day over fifteen. Her long hair hung from a centre-parting, nearly obscuring her face. ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ she breathed in a little-girl, Marilyn-Monroe sexy voice. ‘What can I get you?’

She came back with two beers and something that looked like a glass of orange juice. She placed the drinks on the table and sat down, uninvited. The men exchanged amused glances. ‘Where are you from?’ she asked them.

‘Germany,’ they replied in unison, heavily accented.

‘Are you here on holiday? Or on business?’

They told her they were in London on business. She asked a series of polite, general questions. The men answered distractedly, looking towards the empty stage.

A woman, tall and angular, with short-cropped hair bleached almost white and dark red fingernails like talons, appeared out of the shadows, brandishing a square of white cardboard. ‘Pardon me, gentlemen, but I have to collect for the drinks.’

They nodded and reached for their wallets.

‘That’s two hundred and thirty-seven pounds, please.’

‘What?’ the Germans shouted in unison.

‘Two hundred and thirty-seven pounds,’ the woman repeated, adding firmly, ‘You’ll have to pay that now. We collect by the round.’

‘But this is crazy!’ one of the Germans shouted. ‘We have only two beers.’

The giant in black moved closer; he was at least six foot six and must have weighed nearly twenty stone. ‘You raising your voice to the lady?’

‘There is some mistake,’ said the other German.

‘No mistake.’ The woman held the cardboard square up to the flickering light of the candle. It was a printed list of prices, and it was the first time that either man had seen it. ‘You had two low-alcohol lagers, at fifteen pounds each.’ She tapped the appropriate line on the menu. ‘That’s thirty pounds. Plus one Satin Duvet,’ she tapped again, further down, ‘at fifty-two pounds fifty…’

‘Wait!’ one of the Germans interrupted. ‘What is this Satin Duvet?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘That’s the lady’s drink.’ She made a point of emphasizing the word ‘lady’.

‘But we didn’t order…’

‘You pay for the lady’s drink,’ the giant informed them, cracking his knuckles.

‘Plus one hundred and twenty pounds hostess fee,’ the woman continued briskly, tapping a line of small print across the bottom.

‘But we never asked…’

‘This is a hostess bar,’ she explained in a voice of patient indulgence, as if she was talking to a pair of not-too-bright children. ‘It says so quite clearly,’ she tapped the cardboard menu again, ‘here. And then there’s VAT. Altogether it comes to two hundred thirty-seven ninety-four, but I’m dropping the ninety-four p.’ She spread her hands in a gesture of magnanimity, smiling sweetly. ‘Now you do have enough money, gentlemen, don’t you?’

‘We’re not paying.’

The bouncer shook his head. ‘You’re paying,’ he told them. ‘Turn out your fucking pockets.’

Angel stood up and moved away. Brian appeared from a room behind the stage.

The Germans remained defiant. ‘We’ll call the police.’

‘You won’t call nobody if you don’t get out of here alive,’ the bouncer reminded them.

The Germans looked up at the giant standing over them, looked at Brian looming behind him, the bartender moving in their direction. ‘OK, OK,’ one finally said, ‘I have a Visa card.’

Brian shook his head. ‘No cards. Cash.’

The Germans paid and left, shouting threats, as a party of seven Japanese descended the stairs, chattering excitedly. ‘Three pounds each,’ the redhead told them.

It was late and the dark-haired woman in the red dress was taking her turn at the counter while the redhead sat with two men at a table, sipping orange juice and assuring them that the show would start in just a few minutes.

Angel was in the office with Brian. He opened his wallet and she saw that it was crammed with notes, more money than she had ever seen in her life. He counted out two hundred pounds, and handed it to her. He muttered that they’d be closing soon, and she didn’t have to stick around if she didn’t want to. She told him she wanted to stay a while longer, it wasn’t like she had any other plans. He shrugged and handed her an empty glass coffee pot. ‘If you want to hang around, then make yourself useful.’ Angel hesitated, staring at the pot in her hand. ‘Just fill it with water,’ he told her.

Angel giggled. ‘Oh yeah. Sure.’

‘Ta,’ Brian said a minute later. Then he smiled at her, and Angel felt her mind begin to spin. She started thinking, ‘What if?’

What if someone – someone with a smile like Brian’s – wrapped her in his arms and never let go. Would it be enough to drive the demons out of her head? Would it be enough to make her forget all the things she needed so desperately to forget, the things that drove her to seek oblivion from the jab of a needle. She looked into Brian’s eyes and imagined herself sinking into a different kind of oblivion.

‘You all right?’ he asked her, touching her arm.

‘Yeah, sure.’ Angel trembled. His hand was still on her arm. She tried to pull herself together, tried to act as though nothing was happening, even though he was sending an electric current right through her. She wondered if he knew what he had done to her, what he was still doing. (Ricky used to tell her a junkie couldn’t fall in love, but she always knew he was wrong.)

‘Well, back to work,’ she said brightly, wanting Brian to notice how energetic she was, how eager to please, how quickly she had become indispensable.

Cold raindrops splattered the pavement. A man staggered around the corner into the narrow passageway where Angel stood waiting in a doorway. ‘If I were you,’ said Angel, ‘I’d want to come in out of the rain.’

The man stopped in his tracks, swaying slightly. He was about forty-five, with bloodshot eyes, a large red nose, and puffy cheeks threaded with broken veins. He wore a crumpled beige raincoat over jeans and a polo-neck jumper. ‘I’ll come in if you will,’ he told her.

Angel and the man sat down at a candle-lit table. He didn’t seem to care that there was no sign of a show; he never once looked at the stage. He was sliding a calloused hand up Angel’s thigh when the taloned manageress appeared with the bill, demanding two hundred pounds. ‘Wha’?’ he asked, dazed, no different from any customer that night. The manageress repeated her demand, and he jumped up, roaring like a lion, knocking her back with a swipe of his hand.

The bouncer was on him in a flash; they rolled on the floor, knocking over chairs and tables and candles. The bartender leapt across the bar and into the melee. Angel ran towards the office, screaming for Brian. He opened the office door, shoving past her.

The bouncer and the barman got back on their feet, pulling the man up with them. They held him still while Brian punched him in the stomach, over and over.

He slumped forward; they let him go and he dropped to the ground. Brian went through the man’s pockets, finding less than fifty pounds. ‘Get the son of a bitch out of here, then lock the doors and bugger off home.’ He yawned, smiling ruefully, ‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve had it for tonight.’

Brian and Angel stayed for an hour after the others had left. Brian counted up the night’s receipts while Angel swept up broken glass, emptied ashtrays, wiped down tables. ‘What are you doing, Angel?’ he finally asked her. ‘What the hell do you want from me?’

‘Nothing. I’m just trying to help, that’s all.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean why? You said yourself you were my knight in shining armour, didn’t you?’

‘Let’s get out of here, OK?’

Angel stood outside waiting, watching the neon lights of Soho wink out, one by one, while Brian pulled a set of metal gates across the doorway. The rain had finally stopped and the air smelled clean and scrubbed and full of promise. There was a pink glow on the eastern horizon; Angel imagined herself absorbing that glow. She felt beautiful and alive, like that first rush of liquid sky, when you feel like kissing God full on the lips. She wondered if it was possible to feel this way forever, feel this way watching a thousand sunrises with Brian by her side, feel this way without drugs. And then she thought, I’d like to try. She heard a padlock click into place, and turned to see Brian signal her to follow.

They turned the corner and were confronted by the leering face of menace. A man, his clothes torn, his face savaged, was waiting. Angel knew him at once; it was only an hour since his rough hand had worked its way up her thigh. He lunged at her, twisting her thin arms behind her back, and raised a steak knife to her throat. ‘I want my money.’ Angel couldn’t believe this was happening; the man didn’t have a knife an hour ago, he must have stolen it from a restaurant.

‘You what?’ said Brian.

‘You robbed me! I want my money back.’

‘Piss off,’ said Brian.

Angel tried to say Brian’s name, but she couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe; the serrated edge of the blade was pressed close against her windpipe.

‘I’ll slice her fuckin’ head off.’

Brian shrugged. ‘Be my guest.’

‘Huh?’

‘Do you think I care what you do to her? She’s just some piece of shit from the streets of King’s Cross, does blow jobs in cars for a tenner. I only used her tonight ‘cause I was desperate. I mean, look at her!’

‘All I want is my money,’ said the man, ‘I had forty-nine pounds. That was all I had in the world.’ His grip loosened. Angel could finally breathe again. She gasped for air, scalding tears streaming into her open mouth. Brian’s words hung in the air, solid and tangible, and something inside her died forever.

‘Forty-nine pounds!’ Brian nearly doubled over laughing. ‘For her? Well, she’s all yours now mate, do what you want with her.’ He backed away, palms up. ‘I’m off.’

An ugly sound pierced Angel’s ears, a cry that didn’t sound human. Angel fell to the ground, hitting her head. Everything went dark for a moment, then there was another sound, the scraping of blade against bone. Her eyes slowly came back into focus; she saw Brian clutching at his chest. She watched him crumple.

The man in the raincoat turned towards her, the restaurant knife in his hand dripping blood. ‘I didn’t want to. I never meant…’ And then he was gone.

Angel’s eyes darted from side to side; she was in a narrow alley, just before dawn, and there was no one around. No one anywhere. She looked up, saw empty windows. No faces, no prying eyes.

She crawled towards Brian on all fours. A puddle of blood formed beneath him, growing larger. She gently brushed the hair back from his eyes before stroking his cheek and tracing the outline of his lips with one finger, exactly the way he had touched her once – when was it? Only a few hours ago? It seemed like a thousand years – back when he was a knight in shining armour and she, a beautiful damsel in distress. He made a horrible noise: a kind of gurgling. Then he didn’t seem to breathe any more.

Angel reached into his jacket pocket and carefully removed his wallet.