at this hour, I’d think she was a man. Her hair is wet and messy, a little brown and a little pink. She looks like a fawn with no tits, but her legs don’t lie. I’ve seen thighs, and these are a woman’s thighs.
I leave her at her front door and go upstairs. If you say you don’t need me, little girl, I’m outta here.
The apartment is a total mess. I’ll get myself organised tomorrow. I’m not gonna be here for long, but I need to look settled for my parole officer. I need to play the part of someone who wants to be good and work and calm down, and not someone who can’t wait to leave. I take off my clothes, toss them on the tattered couch and don’t bother to put anything else on. I take a cold shower because there’s no hot water, then I lie down, still wet. Then I fall asleep and I don’t dream about a fucking thing.
3
In the morning, Penny woke up early after a deep sleep. She wasn’t due at work until after lunch, but sleeping late was not a luxury she could afford. A scene of devastation would greet her most mornings, as if a tornado had upended everything in the apartment. The disorder wasn’t because they’d been burgled or a hurricane had swept through – it was all caused by her grandma. The sweet and dreamy Barbie suffered from an inadequate supply of blood to the brain, and as a result had been struck by early onset dementia. Her current fixation was the kitchen: she was reliving the period when she had been a primary school teacher and had combined her twin passions – for children and the sweeter things in life – by preparing all manner of delicacies for her little ones. She had guided them along the journey of knowledge with no reproaches or beatings, encouraging them instead with exquisite heart-shaped chocolates and meringues packaged like sweets. Unfortunately, only her passion had survived from that time, and not her precision in following recipes. If she decided to bake cookies and couldn’t find flour, there was a risk she’d use talcum powder or even laundry detergent. She created mess in every corner, and Penny would get up early every morning to tidy it up, pretending first to taste her grandma’s delicacies and share some with the neighbours, and then cooking something that was actually edible before helping her grandma to wash and dress. After that, they would both play pretend, like kids who were best friends. So there was no time to sleep, though she’d only gone to bed that morning at five.
In the afternoon, Penny’s second commitment awaited her: she worked at the library. The neighbourhood was known for its violence, and yet the library was always packed. Maybe it was the chance to spend time in a heated building, or the quiet and friendly atmosphere, or the pure and simple pleasure of reading a good book in peace, but the fact was that it was always full of people. The library was small but elegant, clean and uncluttered in style, with wooden floors and books with multicoloured spines, and Penny felt like Alice in Wonderland whenever she was there. It wouldn’t have surprised her one bit to see a white rabbit with a pocket watch slipping between the shelves. After the squalor of her night-time work, mixing drinks for drunk bikers or girls stoned to the dark roots of their dyed hair, all in a similar state of undress that revealed everything there was to reveal, the placid world of the library made her feel reborn.
‘Shall we head outside for a while?’ Penny asked her grandma, after brushing her hair for a long while and dusting it with the rose-scented powder that Barbie loved. ‘I still have a couple of hours – shall we go for a walk?’
Her grandmother nodded happily. She loved to go out, but couldn’t do it alone. She had a limp and very quickly got tired, and there was always the risk that she’d grow confused and not know how to get home.
Along with her grey coat, Penny pulled on her pink beanie, which had dried out over the few short hours she’d been home, and then took her grandma by the hand. It was no longer raining, but the air was still cool. They set off down the stairs, Barbie looking like a little girl with her mother.