my pimp. He takes a fair slice of the action but you can’t work without a protector. You can stay with me for a while. I need some help with the rent.’
So Amber-Lee unpacked her belongings in the small alcove in Brenda’s one-room flat and patted the lumpy bed. She hid her money in the lining of her coat and her box of mementos under the mattress. Among them was the photo of the day at Blackpool; looking at it, she wondered at how far she had come from the child in the photo.
She hated the work: the men, rough or kind, urgent or impotent, who used her body as though it were a thing. In the early weeks, however, something of Jilly remained. Perhaps there was another way.
She took herself to the Ward Street Shelter. A tall woman, with untidy hair and collar askew, asked her name.
‘Amber-Lee,’ she said.
The woman raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask for a surname. She knew better. ‘Okay, Amber-Lee. I’m Ilse.’ She had a slight accent. ‘I have to make a couple of phone calls and then we can talk. There’s a café bar over there. Just help yourself.’
Jilly sat on the edge of the worn sofa, cupping her hands around the plastic mug. The room was shabby, and the three workers behind the desks all wore worried frowns. Ilse was talking earnestly into the phone, firing frequent glances in her direction. Panic rose in the girl’s throat. Was the woman talking about her? Who was she talking to? What if they sent her to a foster home? When Ilse looked up again, Jilly had gone.
In the early days, Jilly had curled up under her thin blanket in Brenda’s flat and made plans. She would do this work only until she had enough money for her fare home to England, a place that she had endowed with an almost mythical significance. She longed for her family, but she wouldn’t go back until she was on her feet. She saw herself knocking on her grandparents’ door, wearing long leather boots and a smart coat with a silk scarf. She felt the hugs and saw the smiles and tears. She sat once again in the kitchen, eating her grandmother’s cake, the lost child returned. She even dared to wonder if her father was still alive. She had no illusions about her mother by now and suspected that she’d been lied to. She couldn’t picture an ageing Andy. She still saw him as a young man who held her soft little paw in his big, rough carpenter’s hands and ran with her, laughing, down the hill to the shops.
As the months went by, however, she saved very little. By the time she’d bought food and clothes, paid Brenda her share of the rent and given Vince the pimp his cut of the takings, there was very little left.
Amber-Lee worked the streets for eight months, and during this time, Jilly’s voice and Jilly’s tears became fainter. Her judgement was dulled as her sense of self continued to retreat. She had resisted for months, but her first experience of heroin provided the escape she craved. She worked harder but became more and more indebted to Vince, who was also her supplier. She’d earlier used a little of Brian’s money for living expenses, but some delicacy of feeling at first forbad her from using it to buy drugs, even though she could no longer maintain the fiction that this little bundle of notes was the beginnings of her escape money.
Sitting on her bed one evening before work, she realised that delicacy of feeling was a luxury she could no longer afford. Regretfully, she took the money from her coat lining and put it in her little treasure box, ready to give to Vince for her supply. It was early in her addiction, and she still had some sense of decency. She understood that Brian’s gift had been a sacrifice; he had little money left for himself after moving in with Patty. Sorry, Brian. She ran her hands through her hair, clutching fistfuls, tugging at the roots. Sorry, Brian. Fingers still knotted in her hair, she slumped and rested her elbows on her knees. Fuck it, Brian. I’ve run out of choices.
The photograph caught her eye, and she ran her fingers over its surface. What were they all doing now, her parents, her aunt and uncle, her cousins? Mr Pie would probably be dead. Lucky Mr Pie. She wiped her eyes