When the Music's Over

Epilogue

It was a bitterly cold night but the nature of Jade’s work didn’t allow her to dress for the weather. She was shivering in her tube top and micro skirt as she paced her corner near the city centre. Streetlights and neons reflected in the puddles, and the noise of revellers from nearby pubs and clubs filled the air — a laugh, a glass smashing, a sudden cheer or whoop, loud music from a cover band imitating the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’. There was plenty of traffic, and the cars occasionally slowed down for a closer look at her, sometimes stopped to pick her up. But she still had hours of work ahead of her before she could get back to the flat and experience the rush and the euphoria that followed. That anticipation of blissful oblivion had quickly become all that kept her going in the cold city night.

The girls were spaced well apart, and Radnor came by every once in a while to make sure everything was all right, and to pick up the earnings. He was OK, she supposed. Better than some. And she wouldn’t be doing this for ever, she thought as she paced. She was still young. There was a man she’d been talking to, a pal of Radnor’s, who said he thought she’d be perfect for some films he was going to make. The work paid well. About a thousand euros a scene, he said, with extra for unprotected sex, gangbangs and fake rape. A few months of that, and she’d have a nice little nest egg to do with what she wanted. She didn’t know what that was yet, but she wanted to move somewhere far away from here, perhaps a village in the country. She’d kick her habit and live somewhere people were nice and there were trees and birds and sweet-smelling flowers and maybe a river at the bottom of her garden.

The wind seemed to rake against her exposed flesh and she felt the first drops of rain on her cheek. A car pulled up by the kerb about ten yards ahead of her and a hand beckoned out of the window. The engine purred and the red brake lights glowed like a demon’s eyes. She felt that same tightening in her stomach she always felt when a car stopped. You never knew what was going to happen next. Then she pulled herself together, thrust her chest out and remembered to swing her hips as she walked towards it.