Treading Air (14 page)

He just says, ‘Ah, yes, now I remember,' so she reckons he's lying. He pours another drink. ‘Let's take this with us.'

He puts his hand on her upper arm. She doesn't move for a moment. He leans down and kisses her on the mouth. He has the sweet, foul breath of the champagne. His tongue pushes against her lips. When he pulls away, she's still leaning into his kiss and overbalances. He tugs her up and leads her into the bedroom.

‘You know your way around,' she says.

He gives her a sharp look, a smile with one side of his mouth. ‘Not as stupefied as you appear. I come here a bit, do some favours for Bea every now and then.'

‘This a favour?'

‘No, darling. A pleasure. Now take your clothes off for me.' Chris sits on the bed to watch her. The skirt she gets off easily enough, but she fumbles with the buttons on her blouse. He stands and puts his hands to her chest to help her. ‘You'll learn to do this soon. Keep up the eye contact, really let the fella know you're enjoying him watching you.' He kisses her on the mouth again. Brings his hand to her chin and pinches it, pulling her bottom jaw down. ‘Let me in, sweetheart.' He pushes his tongue into her open mouth. She can feel it over her own, slides her tongue above his. Then he pulls away. ‘Good girl. Kiss me back.'

She wants to try this kind of kissing, so she does. Feels it between her legs. He slides his tongue in and out as though he's fucking her mouth. She allows herself to enjoy this, pushes away the thoughts of Joe that surface, tries not to compare Chris with him. She's doing this so Joe can get better. Only one night. He doesn't even need to know.

Chris takes her hand and puts it on his erection. Clenches his teeth. ‘Brush it through the cloth, make sure it's nice and hard. That's it.' She slides her fingers over the material. Something strange about feeling his cock under the fabric, like that game she played as a child where you put your hand in a box and guessed what was there. She tries to trace its edges, to work out its size. Chris tugs off his trousers and underwear. His cock springs upward. She gets a little fright, steps back. Lets out a sharp, hysterical laugh.

He smiles at her emptily and says, ‘What is it?'

‘Just didn't expect it to come at me like that.'

Laughing, he thrusts his hips forward, pushing his cock between her thighs. ‘I want you so badly.' He rests his head on her shoulder and puts a finger between her legs to peel her knickers back. He shifts his cock forward, and it catches on her dry skin. He hooks a hand around her shoulder and spits, then he rubs the spit over his cock, shoves it between her legs again. It slips in. ‘That's better.' He rests again on her shoulder, moving the cock back and forth, moaning.

She waits for her own response. Feels nothing. She's bored, waiting for something more to happen. She looks at the bed and, just to get him to stop that bloody rubbing, moves over to it and lies down.

‘Learning quickly,' he says. ‘Open your legs for me.' He puts his hands on her knees and gently pushes them apart, as if she didn't understand what he asked. He says, ‘Stay still a moment.' She lifts her head awkwardly and sees him riffling through a drawer. He takes out a small packet and holds it up. ‘I'll put one on, shall I?'

Lizzie has no idea what he's talking about and watches, fascinated, as he pulls something from the packet. Like the empty skin of those beetle larvae she's found curled up in the garden, all white and loose. To her disgust now that she has this image in her head, he rolls it over his cock. ‘What is that?' she asks.

‘A dreadnought. Stops you from getting pregnant and me from getting anything nasty. Latest thing. Didn't trust 'em at first. Whoever heard of rubber ones? But better than fish skins, don't break as much.'

‘Like magic,' she says.

He laughs. She likes the easiness of the laugh.

He leans his weight over her, pressing. Fumbles around a bit. For a terrible moment she thinks he'll go back to the thigh-rubbing, just horizontal now, but he props himself up on his elbow and spits again on his other hand. He rubs his cock, turning down his face and mouth, trying to get the position right. She feels him at the edges of her cunt. The dreadnought is alien inside her. He pushes, and his breath is heavy on her face. He turns his head to the side and scrunches his forehead. She almost laughs, he looks that serious. His mouth opens, panting,
ah, ah
. The backs of her knees hit the bed. She wishes she was lying down longways, decides she'll do that next time, if there's a next time. He gasps, and she's sure he's coming. Relief.

He gets up and pulls the dreadnought off, holding it between his thumb and finger. ‘You need a bin in here,' he says. ‘You should thank me. Not every man will wear one of these.' The thought frightens Lizzie.

After tossing the dreadnought on the ground, he gets dressed. She lies still on the bed. His trousers on, he takes some coins from his pocket. He taps her knee and, without her knickers on, she finds the gesture intrusive, despite what else he's just done to her. She sits up.

‘Here, sweetheart. A pleasure to be your first.'

Shillings in her hands, she watches him go out, shutting the door behind him. She desperately wants to be clean. She stares around the room, and sees a pitcher and a bowl of water in the corner under the sideboard. A washcloth over the edge. She needs to get the smell of the man off her. She's stiff, mechanical, all the nervousness drained out of her. The water stings between her thighs. She dries herself and goes back to the front room to drink some more of that champagne.

By the third man, she's in pain, heavy between her legs and aching. She cries after he leaves. Thelma, in the next room, calls through the walls. Lizzie's heard her while she fucks a bloke, breathes out and walks down the hallway to greet another one, but she still hasn't seen her.

‘It'll pass,' Thelma calls now. ‘Try taking it between the thighs.' After another one, Thelma keeps saying, ‘It'll be alright.'

Lizzie finds she's alone. Her body has a heaviness to it; she'd like to sleep. Thelma comes in from the other room. Lizzie recognises her as the woman from the drunken night with McWilliams and the bike, and from when she fetched Joe a doctor, but now Lizzie's startled by the darkness of her skin in the gaslight. Close up, she has the strangest pale eyes. Her hair rolls from her face in waves. Lizzie can't get the thought out of her mind,
she's black, she's black
, unable to make sense of the voice that talked to her between the men and the flat-nosed woman in front of her. She cries again.

Thelma puts her hand on Lizzie's shoulder. ‘What's wrong? Still hurting?'

Lizzie can't tell her it's because she's black. She's so disappointed they can never be proper friends – she wants to have a new friend, someone like Grace. She can't say anything about her own confusion at the comfort of the voice and the face in front of her. ‘You don't look like you sound,' is what she says.

Thelma gives her two quick pats on the shoulder. Lizzie closes her eyes.

‘Try not to sleep, too hard to wake up,' Thelma tells her. ‘Some men like that, when you don't move. But you have to be ready if they ask you to ride them.' She gives Lizzie a little snow – just to rub on her teeth and wake her up. ‘I get the men to call me Madge. You'll want to use a different name, 'specially since you've got a hubby.' She turns her mouth down at Lizzie's ring. ‘I'd take that off if I was you. Some men get excited by it, but in a town this size, it might cause problems.'

Lizzie touches her ring and feels as if she's brushing her fingers over a wound. The snow kicks in. In this room, in the night, she wants to be the opposite of who she is in the daytime, with Joe. And she already gave her first name as Betty that day at the fan-tan parlour. She grins to herself. ‘How about Betty Knight?' she says. ‘This stuff is lovely.'

‘You can buy some off Murray later. Gets you in debt, but it's worth it.'

Lizzie buzzes, suddenly very aware of her own brilliance. They sit on the narrow verandah out the front of their cottage, looking back towards the pub. An orange moon swallows the sky around it. Thelma asks if she's met Bea's niece, Dolly, and Lizzie says she's seen her a couple of times. Turns out Dolly uses the room Lizzie's in, but wants to cut down her hours there. ‘Too tired, she tells Bea,' says Thelma. ‘Prefers to be drinking and playing fan-tan, truth of the matter. But Bea's got a blind spot for her. She's been on the lookout for someone for a while, take over some of Dolly's nights. Anyway, keep an eye on Dolly. Look you right in the face and lie to you.'

Lizzie nods. ‘Alright, but what's she done?'

‘Me things often go missing, nights she's here. Saw her wearin' a bracelet once, looked bloody familiar. Can't say anything because of her being Bea's niece.'

‘Didn't like the looks she gave me hubby.'

‘What does he reckon about all this?'

That's too much. Lizzie can't make sense of the question. ‘Dunno. Find that out when I tell 'im, I suppose.'

Thelma laughs, a bright sound in the night. ‘You'll be right, me dear.'

Their talk moves on. Thelma says, ‘Feel like I'm always biting my tail. I'm trying to save up for my boy.'

‘You've a son?' Lizzie imagines something growing inside her from one of these men, and the thought panics her. She thinks of the dreadnought, its seemingly magic powers.

‘His dad got killed in the war. After I met him, didn't care what would happen, just loved him too much.' Thelma lays the cigarette paper across her knee, lines the tobacco up, folds the paper over and massages the leaves into a line with her fingertips. ‘We were going to get married when he got back. Nup.' She licks the paper, rolls it closed, lights up. ‘Being with him, felt like I was on drugs, that good. Don't regret it, 'cause I look back and think, couldn't have stopped myself. Even knowing what I know now, couldn't have.'

The pain squeezes at Lizzie's back and groin. For some reason, her shoulders hurt. She can't remember using them. A man coughs nearby, and she startles.

Thelma levers herself off the chair. ‘Back to it.'

Bea checks in on Lizzie at about four-thirty, finds her curled in one of the bedroom armchairs. Thelma's still busy in her room.

‘I think that'll be enough for tonight, darling,' Bea says. ‘I hear you did well.'

A lightning flash of relief. Lizzie wasn't sure if the men all hated her. Maybe it was Chris who told Bea.

‘Now,' Bea says, leaning closer, ‘how much you get?' Lizzie gives her the money, and she counts it out. ‘Two pounds seven. Well done. Have a break tomorrow, then come back Thursday to start proper.'

Lizzie tucks her legs up and holds on to her knees. ‘I dunno. I'm so tired.' Her head, her eyes, ache. Her mind, clogged with snow, keeps returning to the money. It makes it alright somehow, that she's done this for Joe and her.

‘You'll get used to it, promise you. Won't hurt so much,' Bea says.

‘Joe. Me husband –'

‘He still out of action?' When Lizzie nods, Bea takes a step closer, her perfume heavy, almost sickening. ‘You talk with him. Tell him about the money. The men like you, Betty. You can make a good go of this.'

The possibility of making this much every night – Lizzie knows she should talk to Joe before saying yes, but she can't think about that properly right now. It fuzzes her mind. She feels compelled by Bea, and powerful, the love of the men with her. ‘Alright,' she says.

‘Good girl. Remind me to register you. I'm all aboveboard with that. Coppers leave us alone if my girls are registered. Last girl got doled out an odd number, so you'll be even. Keep Mondays free.'

‘For what?'

‘Examination.'

‘They going to ask me arithmetic?' Her career tumbling down before it's even started.

Bea laughs. ‘You're sweet. Nah, every two weeks, you go to the courthouse, some government quack examines your parts, gives you a piece of white paper says you're clean. I get all the girls to pin 'em up.' Bea waves at a square of paper on the wall, too far away to read. Then Bea hands all the money back. ‘See you on Thursday. I'll take my cut from then on.'

Lizzie walks home with the money still in her hand. She's rarely been awake at dawn like this, out on the street, and she's surprised by the strange uniformity in the colour, everything the same luminescence, and the heat started already.

She scrabbles at the lock of the front door. It opens, and Joe's right there, asking, ‘Where were you?'

It's the first time she's seen him up and about since his beating. She didn't expect him to be awake, let alone standing, and she's caught off guard by the pitch of his voice. It's deeper than she's noticed before, maybe because she's talked to more men in a row than she has for a long time, in this long night that's going on still, with Joe here now, all coiled up for a fight. She steps back from the door and pulls together the threads of her energy. ‘You shouldn't be up. Go back to bed.'

‘Hell were you? I haven't slept at all.'

‘I'm alright.' She pushes past him, feels her way to the bedroom through the purple-lit hallway and lies down in the darkness made by the blinds, pulled against the rising sun. Still clutching the coins.

Joe stands in the doorway. ‘I could bloody well shake you.'

‘Leave me alone.' Her mind flutters. Words aren't forming. She buries her face in the pillow.

The bed dips where he sits down. Her body's so sore, even this tiny movement hurts. She starts crying because she's so, so tired. Her pillow is wet, and she feels suffocated. Turns her head to wipe her eyes.

‘What's happened, peach?' His hand on her shoulder.

She can't stand him being nice to her, so she says, ‘I was working.'