5
Patronising, holier-than-thou, big-eared, wanker. Lorna stared through the windscreen at Huge Gay Bill’s Bar and Grill, teeth bared. Blood fizzing in her ears as the rain battered down and—
A boot thuds against the small of her back, another one into her shoulder. Lorna curls up tighter, arms wrapped around her head as the pair of bastards lay into her. First it was shoving. Then fists. Now boots.
Two against one.
‘Aaaargh!’ She bites it down. Don’t scream. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
More kicks, on her arms and legs. One to the kidneys that erupts around her torso like it’s full of angry wasps. Another to the hand covering her face and the world tastes of rust and hot batteries.
Lorna coughs and splutters out a spattering of bright scarlet.
And the beating stops.
She can hear them backing away. Panting.
Then Danners leans in close, her breath warm on Lorna’s skin. ‘Take a telling, you two-faced bitch. Next time we won’t be so polite.’
There’s the scuffing of feet on tarmac and she flinches, waiting for the blows to start again… But they don’t. Instead the sound of a Portakabin door slamming booms out into the rain.
She risks a look.
They’ve gone.
They’ve gone. She almost laughs, but her ribs hurt too much. So instead she struggles up to her knees, setting the wasps off again, then to her feet. Lurching across the car park to her little Fiat. Fumbling her keys from her pocket with fingers that are already starting to swell and stiffen. Unlocks the door and does her best not to fall inside.
Rows and rows of Northfield tenements drone by the car window, bricks and harling stained by the downpour. Everything aches.
Lorna’s mobile phone buzzes in her pocket, then launches into Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’. She pulls it out with one aching hand and squints at the screen: ‘BRIAN’.
Sod off, Brian.
She hits ‘IGNORE’ and keeps on driving.
Should get him a ringtone of his own. Something good. Then at least she can enjoy ignoring his calls.
The car park’s nearly empty as she pulls up outside Huge Gay Bill’s Bar And Grill. Turns the engine off. Sniffs. Blinks. Wipes a sore hand across her damp eyes.
Sits there and cries for a while.
Her phone goes into ‘The Bends’ again, the word ‘BRIAN’ filling the screen like a corpse. She hits ‘IGNORE’ again. Sags. Then grits her teeth and winces her way out of the car.
Locks it and lurches across the rain-puddled tarmac and in through the front door. Straight across the revolting carpet.
Huge Gay Bill looks up from stacking the fridge with alcopops and stares at her. ‘Dear God, are you OK? Do you need me to call a—’
‘NO!’ Storming right past him and into the ladies.
It’s all very fancy and fashionable in here, but the only thing that matters are the mirrors and the sinks. She grips the marble with blood-smeared swollen fingers and stares at the animal in the glass. Her left eye’s beginning to puff up – a thin purple line underneath it promising to blossom into a full-on shiner over the next couple of days. More scrapes and lumps on her cheek and forehead. A swollen bottom lip.
Her jacket’s torn at the shoulder and scraped through at the elbow – straight through the shirt too, all the way down to a raw patch of skin flecked with grit that starts stinging as soon as she sees it.
She turns on the taps and fills the sink with warm water. Splashes it on her face. Working her tongue along her bottom jaw. Flinching as it finds a rough bit of gum and a tooth that won’t sit still when she touches it.
How could it all go wrong? She’s been doing so well, and now this?
It isn’t fair…
The woman in the mirror blurs. Lorna drags in a serrated breath that tastes of blood. What does it matter if she cries in here? Isn’t as if there’s anyone to see it. Why shouldn’t she cry if she wants to?
She splashes her face with water again.
It’s a setback, that’s all. Nothing she can’t handle.
Bright red drips into the water, turning it pink.
Nothing she can’t handle.
Just breathe deep and calm down.
Stop shaking.
She folds forward and tries. And tries. And tries.
Then the door clunks behind her. And when she looks up – there, in the mirror, is Inspector Logan Bloody McRae. Because today isn’t enough of a crapfest.
Lorna glowered up at the neon sign above Huge Gay Bill’s, closed her eyes, and dragged in a deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
Turned the key in the ignition, wrenched the car into gear, hauled the steering wheel around, and drove for the exit.
‘The Bends’ jarred out of her phone and when she checked the screen, there it was: ‘BRIAN’. Again.
‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’
Lorna stabbed ‘IGNORE’ and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.
It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something about it.
Lorna pulled up at the kerb opposite the house and frowned. There was a car in the driveway – a new-looking Mini Cooper, parked on her driveway. Brian’s precious midlife-crisis Alfa Romeo was right outside the house, two wheels up on the pavement.
Thought he was meant to be at work today?
She winced her way out of the car and limped across the road. Ignoring the rain.
The Mini had to be new – the number plate was that year’s. Metallic red, with a white roof. A child seat in the back, about the right size for a toddler.
Why park here? Why not park in front of someone else’s nasty little matchbox house on the nasty little matchbox street with its nasty little matchbox people? Bland three-up two-downs with built-in garages that no one ever parked their car in, because they were too small. Putting fake stonework around the windows and edges, didn’t make it any less like an undiscovered circle of Dante’s Inferno. Where dreams went to be punished.
She huddled under the porch, pulled out her keys, and unlocked her front door.
Stepped inside.
The
