I hear the door at the front of the shop and think Maggie has come back with the McDonald’s. But it isn’t Maggie.
“Hello, little girl, what’s your name then?” says the old man. He’s the one I saw when I peeked out the letter box earlier. He has a white beard like Father Christmas and a dog, so I think he must be nice.
“Ciara.” It sounds strange to hear the sound of my real name inside my ears again. I bend down to stroke the ball of fur next to him. It’s a little brown-and-white thing, with big eyes and a waggy tail. I think he looks like Toto from The Wizard of Oz.
“You’ll have to speak up, child. My ears aren’t what they used to be.”
“My name is Ciara,” I say a little louder, distracted with rubbing the dog’s tummy. I think he likes it.
“That’s a very pretty name.”
“We’re closed,” says Maggie.
I look up and see her standing right behind the old man. She is holding the McDonald’s Happy Meal, but she does not look happy.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my mistake.” He shuffles back out of the shop, as though his feet are very heavy.
Maggie closes the door behind him, locks it, then turns and hits me hard across the face.
“Your. Name. Is. Aimee.” She looks around at the shop floor. It’s all wet, I haven’t missed any. She walks towards the back of the shop, her shoes leaving a line of dirty footprints behind her, then she stops outside the customer toilet, looking inside. I know I’m going to be in even more trouble, I’m just not sure how much. She comes out of there so fast, it’s as though she is flying. With my Happy Meal in one hand, she pinches the top of my arm with her other, then drags me across the wet floor, my socks slipping and sliding all over the place.
“I told you that your name is Aimee, and I told you to mop this floor. Did you mop this floor, Baby Girl?” She points inside the customer toilet.
I look at the sticky yellow puddles. “Yes,” I lie, already wishing that I hadn’t.
“You did? Oh, well, that’s all right then. It really looked like you didn’t, but you wouldn’t lie to me, would you? Not after everything I’ve done for you, putting food in your belly and clothes on your back when your daddy didn’t want you anymore?”
I wish she’d stop saying that about my daddy.
“No,” I whisper, and shake my head, thinking maybe she doesn’t know that I lied and can’t see the puddles and dirt.
She tips my Happy Meal all over the floor of the customer toilet, then mushes it and slides it around with the heel of her shoe, until all the french fries are flat and all the chicken nuggets are broken.
“Eat it.”
I don’t move.
“Eat. It,” she says again, louder this time.
I pick up half a chip, the one farthest from the toilet, and put it in my mouth.
“All of it.” She folds her arms. “There are only three rules we follow under this roof. I keep telling you what they are, but seems to me you keep forgetting. What is rule number one?”
I make myself swallow the chip. “We work hard.”
“Keep eating. Why do we work hard, Aimee?”
I feel scared and sick, but I pick up a tiny corner of a mushed chicken nugget. “Because life doesn’t owe us anything.”
“That’s right. Rule number two?”
“We don’t trust other people.”
“Correct. Because other people can’t be trusted, no matter how nice they might pretend to be. Rule number three?”
“We don’t lie to each other.”
“How many of the three rules did you break tonight?”
“All of them,” I mumble.
“I can’t hear you.”
“All of them.”
“Yes, you did. I need you to learn a lesson, and it has to be a hard one, Baby Girl, because I need you to remember, and I need you to grow up. So, you’re going to eat all of your dinner off of this floor, no matter how long it takes, and then I hope you’ll never lie to me again.”
Twenty-three
London, 2017
“I really should eat something if we’re going to have another bottle,” I say. Jack appears to have ordered a second while I was in the bathroom.
“Nonsense, that will only make it more difficult for me to get you drunk and have my wicked way with you. It’s what I do with all my leading ladies on the last day of the shoot, haven’t you heard? It’s