She was standing in a street.
She was always standing in a street in those days. She was staring at the footpath opposite. Brief flashes of a red dress were caught between passing strangers’ legs. A shudder as the grip of London’s cold tightened with the passing hours.
She could have been waiting for a bus, but one passed leaving her standing in a sepia wake. The city’s rank smells were pumped regularly from the sewers below and the shop vents above. Cigarette smoke mingled with diesel, beer and cheap food and in a few hours’ time fresh piss and vomit would join the heady mix.
Nicky watched Della as she smiled, sometimes speaking, sometimes appearing to move to the music that poured on to the street from nearby doorways.
Soho was getting busier and the evening was drawing in, the sky already dark. Footsteps grew less urgent and more inclined to linger and explore the opportunities that the night might offer or withhold.
Eventually she saw Della had struck up a conversation with a pale looking young man in a suit, carrying a briefcase. He was smiling and speaking to her while eagerly checking the streets around him. Soon she had her hand resting on his arm. A familiar gesture he probably thought, but even more familiar to Nicky. Della’s beauty seemed wildly improbable on these smoke stained streets, making easy to see why the men she noticed felt lucky.
They were walking now, Della and her gentleman friend. Nicky was nearby, having circled back around Wardour Street to be in position to meet Della in Meard Street. A light fog had started to fill the busy air of the narrow street. Nicky paused, but not for long. A wave and a smile from Della drew her near to watch the familiar conversation play out.
She would get them a room. A decent one, so it would feel special. At this range Nicky could see he was younger than she thought, perhaps 20. A boy wanting to be a man. Della explained a deposit would have to be paid to get a room key. The money would be refunded when the key was returned. Of course Nicky could be trusted, but anyway she would stay with him.
His reluctance in drawing his wallet from his jacket pocket made Nicky nervous. On hearing that the sum required would be £50 for both the deposit and the room, he visibly faltered. The wallet was returned to his breast pocket along with Nicky’s hopes for an end to the evening’s pursuit. Della moved in front of him for maximum impact. His voice plaintiff while Della’s was calming and confident.
He looked down to the briefcase and after a pause and a reassuring hug from Della he opened it. The contents were initially lost in the darkness but after a few seconds of searching an envelope emerged. He held it momentarily, perhaps a promise or a debt crossed his mind before he reached in to it and passed several bills to Della who in turn passed them to Nicky.
Suddenly a man’s voice shot towards them from the end of the street. “You thieving little bitch, get here!” Both women immediately recognised the unmistakably figure of a man they had fleeced a couple of nights before. His corpulent form made steady but uncoordinated progress up the paved street towards them.
Nicky’s eyes flashed towards their male companion who, now filled with realisation pushed Della to one side and lunged towards her. “Run!” It was Della’s voice. Nicky watched her as she regained her footing long enough to grab a handful of the boy’s blond hair.
The footsteps were fast approaching so Nicky took aim and kicked the boy in the groin with all the strength she could summon and flung herself at the briefcase. She successfully tackled the bag from its owner and scurried towards a doorway and out of reach. The struggle between Della and the boy was taking on gladiatorial proportions as her fur coat flew and he struggled to defend himself against the nails and heels of the wild beast he wrestled with.
“Bitch, thieving bitch!” The accuser made his final approach and stretched his arms out to join the fray. His aim and attention concentrated on the action in front of him while his stunted legs managed a brief jog as he passed Nicky in the doorway. Her response was quick and direct, the briefcase making its penultimate appearance, sliding out on to the footpath before sending its victim to the ground and a brutal face first landing.
Della in the meantime was beginning to succumb to the grip of her much recovered attacker who had successfully wrestled her in to a restraint hold by taking up position behind her and gripping her arms. He was confident enough to try to view the outcome of the struggle beside him and so turned his head only to see his briefcase, for the last time, being hurled towards his face. The impact stunned him, forcing him off his balance and in the direction of the prostrate body of Nicky’s previous victim. But his grip on Della’s discarded coat did not falter. The image it created as it landed on the bodies of the two men proving so bizarre it forced all those within range to stop and stare at the animal remains in front of them.
‘You gonna eat that or what?’ Nicky’s roommate Gale was staring at the remnants on Nicky’s plate. A strip of bacon, half an egg and the crusts of two pieces of toast. ‘I thought you weren’t hungry’, Nicky looking in to Gale’s already clouded over eyes before allowing them to follow the long greasy hair towards the wrists that jutted out from her ill-fitting jumper. Her skin almost translucent and flecked with the marks of a poor diet.
‘I just hate wasting it. Y’paid good money for that’, Nicky rolled her eyes and pushed the plate at Gale. ‘Told you I’d get yours’, Gale not hearing started to gnaw at the bacon.
The room was buzzing with refugees from Camden’s market. A group of young goths in one corner noisily celebrated hard won prizes from hours of trawling second hand clothes stalls while a couple of brightly dressed Rastas filled another corner with lively patois. Only the blasts of fresh, cold air that came with each opening of the café door penetrated the dense mix of bacon and cigarette smoke that hung in the warm fetid air.
‘How’s Della?’ Gale methodically licked the food from each of her fingers. ‘Yeah, a’right’, Nicky reflected. ‘Saw her nearly get skinned alive last night.’ Gale’s face changed slowly to reveal a cigarette stained, but still charismatic smile.
‘You girls should just put out and get paid proper and stop screwing around. One day you’ll get thumped good and proper’.
‘Is that where you’ve been then?’ Nicky searching unsuccessfully for signs of her roommate’s habit. ‘I’ll tell where I been’ Gale visibly livened up and for a moment Nicky was able to see the young woman that inhabited the ill-fitting clothing.
‘I was working at the door of club last night. Fuck it was as cold as a witch’s tit. A group of blokes arrives. Think they were a sports team or sommit ‘cos they was built like brick shithouses, the lot of ‘em. Giants of pricks they were.’ Gale reaches for Nicky’s near empty tea mug and swills the last of its contents.
‘Anyways, after about thirty or so minutes there’s a right ruckus. I mean they’re tearing the fuck’n place to shreds. So, like a prat I go to see what’s goin’ on and I mean they’re levelling it mate. Chairs flying, the screen’s in shreds. They got Eddie by the throat up against the wall while one of them’s pissing on his leg. And then one of ‘em clocks me standing there. Woah man I legged it.’ Her laughter continuing above an ensuing cough.
‘But this is the best bit’, Gale reached across to Nicky’s cigarette packet. ‘I’m not as daft as I look’. Nicky looked up from Gale’s most recent theft. ‘When I heard the racket in the club I stuffed the door takings in my pocket, just in case. So tonight I’m going to celebrate.’
Nicky let a small smirk creep up on her. ‘Well you jammy little git’, both women’s smiles reflecting recent good fortune. ‘But why wait until tonight?’ Nicky leaned conspiratorially towards Gale. ‘Why not start as you mean to go on and buy me some more tea’. The smoke from Gale’s cigarette forced her to close one eye as she drew on it. ‘Right you are vicar’. And with that she jumped up from her chair and headed for the counter, a slight wobble in her walk the only outward sign that her celebrations had already commenced.
They made an improbable picture. Della sitting in her fur coat, immaculately made up, as always, Nicky sitting beside her in jeans and leather jacket. The sea in front of them foamed and hissed with seasonal change as each expended wave retreated across the pebbles.
They had sat like that for almost an hour. An occasional word or observation broke their silence, their stillness singling them out from the buffeting wind and relentless chorus of the sea.
‘Good idea to come to Brighton Nick’. It was Della who decided to break the deadlock. ‘I’m glad you came’, Nicky said leaning forward and folding her arms on the railing.
‘Well it’s not the celebration I thought we was having, but it’s good to be out of London. Christ, I’ve not been down here for years. My mum used to drag us down on the train in the summer. Ain’t changed much since really’. The memory brought with it a smile. ‘How you feeling?’ She turned to Nicky and rested an arm on her back.
‘Not sure, sad I guess’. ‘She’d been alright on the street. You could ‘n done nothing Nick, it was down to her, poor cow’.
Nicky lifted her head and looked up, past the pebbles, past the waves to the horizon that’s always invisible in the city. Della followed her gaze and smiled. ‘The next time we get clobbered we’ll take the ferry to France eh?’
‘She was fifteen Dell, same age as me’. ‘I know hon. But it don’t mean nothing. You gotta remember, she wasn’t murdered, she wasn’t unhappy, she wasn’t bad, she was just a junky. An’ junkies always get fucked up. Do like I do and never let drugs or cocks in ya less you have to.’
‘Never knew anyone that died before. Have you?’ Nicky looked at Della and waited for the reply. ‘Of course you haven’t, you’re too young. It’s nothing new.’
Suddenly Della smiles. ‘How about chips with vinegar?’
‘Dunno, don’t feeling very hungry’. Undefeated Della continues
‘Ok, how about a walk on the pier?’ Nicky shrugs and resumes her horizontal vigil. A dog walker passes them unable to hide his curiosity.
‘You know why I love it here?’ Della continues. ‘Cos it’s so easy to imagine what it was like years ago when those ladies sat here in their long dresses with their brollies to protect them from the sun with a fella on their arm. Must have looked magical, but a bit mad’.
‘Mad like us’, Nicky continued to resist Della’s cheer.
‘C’mmon kid, let’s get going’. She slapped Nicky on the leg and stood up while taking one more look at the sea. ‘Where?’ Nicky remained seated. ‘I’m freezing my bollocks off in this dress Nick. What the hell do you want to do?’
Nicky could feel guilt creep over her already uncomfortable emotions. ‘Sorry Dell, I just can’t stop seeing her lying there’.
Della sat down again and put her arm around Nicky. ‘I know’, she offered and then let the moment drift. ‘Tell me something, what would Gale do if she were here?’
At first a pause as Nicky considered the question. Then, slowly but inevitably a slight smile before she turned to Della, ‘She’d be trying to win something in those stupid arcades on the Pier. And when that didn’t work she’d try and jimmy the machines’.
Della again rose to her feet, ‘Then that is exactly what we shall do. And after we’ve buggered up every machine on the pier we’ll get a pint before getting the train back to London. C’mmon misery guts’, taking Nicky by the hands she pulled her up. ‘Gawd you weigh next to nothing. And you’re not going back to that bloody squat ever again alright?’
They were walking now, but Nicky had stopped listening. She was looking at a couple of marks she had not noticed before on the skin of her wrists. ‘Can we get fish ‘n chips?’ she remarked to no-one in particular.
