‘Oh, my God. Pete, mate. It’s you.’
The boys, all catcalling and crowing to hide their disappointment, or perhaps relief, that it wasn’t them. Peter, climbing to his feet, his narrow cat’s eyes meeting hers. Different from the others: his accent spoke of somewhere tougher.
‘Here?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Next door.’ He gestured towards the bedroom.
She stepped neatly over the girls’ legs as they walked through to the next room. One of the girls grabbed at her ankle, telling her not to, and she shook her off. She walked with a faint swagger, feeling their eyes on her as she left. Dare. Always dare.
Peter closed the door behind him and she glanced around her. The bed was rumpled, a horrid patterned duvet that you could tell from five yards hadn’t been washed in ages, and left a faint musty trace in the atmosphere. There was a pile of dirty laundry in the corner, a full ashtray by the bed. The room fell silent, the voices outside temporarily stilled.
She lifted her chin. Pushed her hair back from her face. ‘You really want to do this?’ she said.
He smiled then, a slow, mocking smile. ‘I knew you’d back out.’
‘Who says I’m backing out?’
But she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t see his handsome features any more, just the cold glitter in his eyes, the unpleasant twist to his mouth. He put his hands on his zipper.
They stood there for a minute.
‘It’s fine if you don’t want to do it. We’ll go outside and say you’re chicken.’
‘I never said I wouldn’t do it.’
‘So what are you saying?’
She can’t think. A low buzzing has started up in the back of her head. She wishes she hadn’t come in here.
He stifles a theatrical yawn. ‘Getting bored, Lily.’
A frantic knocking on the door. Jemima’s voice. ‘Lily – you don’t have to do it. C’mon. We can go home now.’
‘You don’t have to do it, Lily.’ His voice is an imitation, mocking.
A calculation. What’s the worst that will happen – two minutes, at worst? Two minutes out of her life. She will not be a chicken. She will show him. She will show them all.
He is holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s loosely in one hand. She takes it from him, opens it and swigs from it twice, her eyes locked on his. Then she hands it back and reaches for his belt.
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
She hears the boy’s catcalling voice through the thumping in her ears, through the pain in her scalp as he grips her hair too tight. It is too late, by then. Way too late.
She hears the camera-phone click just as she looks up.
One pair of earrings. Fifty pounds in cash. One hundred. Weeks later and the demands keep coming. He sends her texts: I wonder what would happen if I put this on Facebook?
She wants to cry when she sees the picture. He sends it to her again and again: her face, her eyes bloodshot, smudged with mascara. That thing in her mouth. When Louisa comes home she has to stuff the phone under the sofa cushions. It has become radioactive, a toxic thing she has to keep close.
I wonder what your friends would think.
The other girls don’t talk to her afterwards. They know what she did because Peter flashed the picture to everyone as soon as they walked back into the party, ostentatiously adjusting his zipper, long after he had to. She had to pretend she didn’t care. The girls stared at her and then looked away and she had known as soon as their eyes met hers that their tales of BJs and sex with unseen boyfriends had been fiction. They were fakes. They had lied about everything.
Nobody thought she was brave. Nobody admired her for not being chicken. She was just Lily, the slag, a girl with a cock in her mouth. It made her stomach go into knots even to think about it. She had swigged more Jack Daniel’s and told them all to go to hell.
Meet me at McDonald’s Tottenham Court Road.
By then her mother had changed the locks to her house. She couldn’t take money from her purse any more. They had blocked her access to her savings account.
I haven’t got anything else.
Do you think I’m a mug, Little Rich Girl?
Her mother had never liked the Mappin & Webb earrings. Lily had hoped she wouldn’t even notice they were gone. She had made fake cooing faces at Fuckface Francis when he gave them to her, but she had muttered afterwards that she really didn’t understand why he’d bought her heart-shaped diamonds when everybody knew they were common, and a pendant shape was far better against her bone structure.
Peter had looked at the glittering earrings as if she had handed him small change, then tucked them into his pocket. He had been eating a Big Mac and there was mayonnaise in the corner of his mouth. She felt nauseous every time she saw him.
‘Want to come and meet my mates?’
‘No.’
‘Want a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s it. That’s the last thing. Those earrings are worth thousands.’
He had pulled a face. ‘I want cash next time. Proper cash. I know where you live, Lily. I know you got it.’
She felt as if she would never be free of him. He texted her at odd hours, waking her up, keeping her from sleep. That picture, again and again. She saw it in negative, burned onto her retinas. She stopped going to school. She got drunk with strangers, went out clubbing long after she really wanted to. Anything not to be alone with her thoughts and the relentless ping of her phone. She had moved to where he couldn’t find her and he had found her, parking his car for hours outside Louisa’s flat, a silent message. She even thought, a few times, about telling Louisa. But what could Louisa do? Half the time she was like a one-woman disaster area herself. So Lily’s mouth would open and nothing would come out, then Louisa would start rattling on about meeting her grandmother or whether she had eaten something and she had realized she was on her own.
Sometimes Lily lay awake and thought about what it would have been like if her dad had been there. She could picture him in her head. He would have walked outside, grabbed Peter by his neck and told him never to come near his little girl again. He would have put his arms around her and told her it was all okay, that she was safe.
Except he wouldn’t. Because he was just an angry quadriplegic who hadn’t even wanted to be alive. And he would have looked at the pictures and been disgusted.
She couldn’t blame him.
The last time, when she’d had nothing to bring him, he had shouted at her on a pavement behind Carnaby Street, calling her worthless, a whore, a stupid little skank. He had pulled up in his car and she had drunk two double whiskies because she was afraid to see him. When he’d started shouting at her and saying she was lying, she had started to cry.
‘Louisa’s chucked me out. My mum’s chucked me out. I don’t have anything.’
People hurried past, their eyes averted. Nobody stopped. Nobody said anything, because a man shouting at a drunk girl in Soho on a Friday night was nothing out of the ordinary. Peter swore, and turned on his heel, as if he was leaving, except she knew he wouldn’t. And then the big black car had stopped in the middle of the street and reversed, its white lights glowing. The electric window hummed its way down. ‘Lily?’
It took her a few seconds to recognize him. Mr Garside from her stepfather’s business. His boss? A partner? He looked at her, and then at Peter. ‘Are you all right?’
The boys, all catcalling and crowing to hide their disappointment, or perhaps relief, that it wasn’t them. Peter, climbing to his feet, his narrow cat’s eyes meeting hers. Different from the others: his accent spoke of somewhere tougher.
‘Here?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Next door.’ He gestured towards the bedroom.
She stepped neatly over the girls’ legs as they walked through to the next room. One of the girls grabbed at her ankle, telling her not to, and she shook her off. She walked with a faint swagger, feeling their eyes on her as she left. Dare. Always dare.
Peter closed the door behind him and she glanced around her. The bed was rumpled, a horrid patterned duvet that you could tell from five yards hadn’t been washed in ages, and left a faint musty trace in the atmosphere. There was a pile of dirty laundry in the corner, a full ashtray by the bed. The room fell silent, the voices outside temporarily stilled.
She lifted her chin. Pushed her hair back from her face. ‘You really want to do this?’ she said.
He smiled then, a slow, mocking smile. ‘I knew you’d back out.’
‘Who says I’m backing out?’
But she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t see his handsome features any more, just the cold glitter in his eyes, the unpleasant twist to his mouth. He put his hands on his zipper.
They stood there for a minute.
‘It’s fine if you don’t want to do it. We’ll go outside and say you’re chicken.’
‘I never said I wouldn’t do it.’
‘So what are you saying?’
She can’t think. A low buzzing has started up in the back of her head. She wishes she hadn’t come in here.
He stifles a theatrical yawn. ‘Getting bored, Lily.’
A frantic knocking on the door. Jemima’s voice. ‘Lily – you don’t have to do it. C’mon. We can go home now.’
‘You don’t have to do it, Lily.’ His voice is an imitation, mocking.
A calculation. What’s the worst that will happen – two minutes, at worst? Two minutes out of her life. She will not be a chicken. She will show him. She will show them all.
He is holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s loosely in one hand. She takes it from him, opens it and swigs from it twice, her eyes locked on his. Then she hands it back and reaches for his belt.
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
She hears the boy’s catcalling voice through the thumping in her ears, through the pain in her scalp as he grips her hair too tight. It is too late, by then. Way too late.
She hears the camera-phone click just as she looks up.
One pair of earrings. Fifty pounds in cash. One hundred. Weeks later and the demands keep coming. He sends her texts: I wonder what would happen if I put this on Facebook?
She wants to cry when she sees the picture. He sends it to her again and again: her face, her eyes bloodshot, smudged with mascara. That thing in her mouth. When Louisa comes home she has to stuff the phone under the sofa cushions. It has become radioactive, a toxic thing she has to keep close.
I wonder what your friends would think.
The other girls don’t talk to her afterwards. They know what she did because Peter flashed the picture to everyone as soon as they walked back into the party, ostentatiously adjusting his zipper, long after he had to. She had to pretend she didn’t care. The girls stared at her and then looked away and she had known as soon as their eyes met hers that their tales of BJs and sex with unseen boyfriends had been fiction. They were fakes. They had lied about everything.
Nobody thought she was brave. Nobody admired her for not being chicken. She was just Lily, the slag, a girl with a cock in her mouth. It made her stomach go into knots even to think about it. She had swigged more Jack Daniel’s and told them all to go to hell.
Meet me at McDonald’s Tottenham Court Road.
By then her mother had changed the locks to her house. She couldn’t take money from her purse any more. They had blocked her access to her savings account.
I haven’t got anything else.
Do you think I’m a mug, Little Rich Girl?
Her mother had never liked the Mappin & Webb earrings. Lily had hoped she wouldn’t even notice they were gone. She had made fake cooing faces at Fuckface Francis when he gave them to her, but she had muttered afterwards that she really didn’t understand why he’d bought her heart-shaped diamonds when everybody knew they were common, and a pendant shape was far better against her bone structure.
Peter had looked at the glittering earrings as if she had handed him small change, then tucked them into his pocket. He had been eating a Big Mac and there was mayonnaise in the corner of his mouth. She felt nauseous every time she saw him.
‘Want to come and meet my mates?’
‘No.’
‘Want a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s it. That’s the last thing. Those earrings are worth thousands.’
He had pulled a face. ‘I want cash next time. Proper cash. I know where you live, Lily. I know you got it.’
She felt as if she would never be free of him. He texted her at odd hours, waking her up, keeping her from sleep. That picture, again and again. She saw it in negative, burned onto her retinas. She stopped going to school. She got drunk with strangers, went out clubbing long after she really wanted to. Anything not to be alone with her thoughts and the relentless ping of her phone. She had moved to where he couldn’t find her and he had found her, parking his car for hours outside Louisa’s flat, a silent message. She even thought, a few times, about telling Louisa. But what could Louisa do? Half the time she was like a one-woman disaster area herself. So Lily’s mouth would open and nothing would come out, then Louisa would start rattling on about meeting her grandmother or whether she had eaten something and she had realized she was on her own.
Sometimes Lily lay awake and thought about what it would have been like if her dad had been there. She could picture him in her head. He would have walked outside, grabbed Peter by his neck and told him never to come near his little girl again. He would have put his arms around her and told her it was all okay, that she was safe.
Except he wouldn’t. Because he was just an angry quadriplegic who hadn’t even wanted to be alive. And he would have looked at the pictures and been disgusted.
She couldn’t blame him.
The last time, when she’d had nothing to bring him, he had shouted at her on a pavement behind Carnaby Street, calling her worthless, a whore, a stupid little skank. He had pulled up in his car and she had drunk two double whiskies because she was afraid to see him. When he’d started shouting at her and saying she was lying, she had started to cry.
‘Louisa’s chucked me out. My mum’s chucked me out. I don’t have anything.’
People hurried past, their eyes averted. Nobody stopped. Nobody said anything, because a man shouting at a drunk girl in Soho on a Friday night was nothing out of the ordinary. Peter swore, and turned on his heel, as if he was leaving, except she knew he wouldn’t. And then the big black car had stopped in the middle of the street and reversed, its white lights glowing. The electric window hummed its way down. ‘Lily?’
It took her a few seconds to recognize him. Mr Garside from her stepfather’s business. His boss? A partner? He looked at her, and then at Peter. ‘Are you all right?’
