He felt her shift in the passenger seat.
‘You’re so good-looking,’ she said. ‘You look like Cary Grant or someone. Your dad was very handsome. He was cultured too.’ She laughed to herself. ‘His name was Richard. We were going out, you know. It wasn’t a one-night stand or anything of that sort. We’d been going steady for six months. He was a funny sort. Odd, in his way, but I liked him all right. His idea of a date was to get the train to somewhere or other and go and see ruins. Ruins he loved. Couldn’t get enough of them.’
They had reached the coloured blocks of Southgate flats. Christopher stopped the car.
‘Let’s get you home,’ he said.
‘Did you buy the cider?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good boy.’
She was swaying as she opened the door to the flat. The door banged against the inside wall. She leant against it for support.
‘Do you still have the whisky?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Billy, love. It’s in my bag.’
She went ahead, into the darkness. Billy followed but stopped to search out a light switch. He turned on the light but almost wished he hadn’t. The hallway was a mess: balled-up clothes, shoes, a net bag with what looked like cans of food inside. The place stank of stale cigarette smoke, stale food, stale life.
‘Come in, then, if you’re coming,’ she called to him from the living room.
He followed. The room was much the same as when he had first visited. An ashtray lay on the thin carpet, full of orange cigarette butts. Other butts too, browned at the edges, one with a pin sticking out of the end. He fought the urge to run.
‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ he said.
She sat heavily on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. ‘Sit down, Billy.’
‘I’ll fetch you a glass.’ He stepped over plates, mugs half-full, scummy. More clothes, a shoebox, one burgundy court shoe. In the kitchen, the smell of off food grew stronger. He put his hand over his mouth and nose. In the sink, a half-eaten Pot Noodle, a mug full of cigarette and reefer butts, plates thick with ketchup or something that had dried hard and brown in stripes. In the cupboard without a door he found glasses. He sniffed them, ran them under the tap and shook them dry. On closer inspection, he thought they might in a past life have been jam or mustard jars.
In the living room, Rebecca had lit a cigarette. She smiled as he came towards her, showing the black gaps at the side of her mouth. She had put on the ceiling light. It was too bright – he could see the dark scabs on her face.
‘Drink?’ He poured cider for her, a small one for himself.
She took the glass from him. ‘You’re a good boy, Billy.’
He surrendered. ‘Thank you. I do my best.’
She drained her glass and held it out towards him. He refilled it. This wouldn’t take long, this final thing he had to do, and then he could get on with the rest of his life.
‘Do you remember me from your street?’ She picked at one of the scabs on her cheek.
‘Yes.’ How often, he wondered, would she repeat that question if he let her?
‘And you looked for me, didn’t you? You looked for me?’
‘Yes. I looked for you.’
‘My Billy.’
She dropped forward and drove her cigarette into the hedgehog pile, sending three or four cold, spent butts over the side to the floor. When she righted herself, he saw that her eyes were shining. The sight was pitiful. She was as thin as an abandoned dog. He imagined her ribs beneath her dark clothes, contracting and expanding like the bellows on an accordion. Bile rose to his throat; the taste reached his mouth and he swallowed some cider to clear it.
He poured more cider for her. ‘Did you finish the whisky?’
She winked and pulled the bottle from a fold in her clothes that may have been a pocket. She must have taken it out of her bag, he thought. She must have been drinking it while he went for the glasses. Less than a third of the bottle remained.
He teased it from her grip. ‘Chaser?’
She giggled like a little girl – the effect was grotesque, and again he sipped at his cider to quell his rising bile. ‘Naughty. Go on then.’
He poured a glug of whisky into her cider. While he did this, she pulled out her cigarettes and lit another, offered him the packet.
He shook his head. He felt sick.
‘Cheers,’ he said, handing her the gruesome cocktail. ‘To family.’
‘Oh, Billy.’ Her voice wobbled with emotion and her eyes filled. ‘To family. My boy.’ She tipped the glass and guzzled its contents. It was unwatchable. He could not take his eyes from the sight.
She groaned as the alcohol hit her and collapsed against the sofa. ‘I’ve had a lot of problems, Billy. Drugs and that. People take advantage. I’ve been inside, but I’ve never done anything bad. If they hadn’t taken you, I would’ve been all right. But they made me work in that place and in the end I ran away. I had to.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He eased the glass from her hand and filled it: cider and whisky in equal measure. Surely this would knock her out like a shot horse.
‘It’s not your fault, love.’ She took the glass from him and cradled it in both hands. ‘But of course I had nowhere to go. Ended up in a hostel. I sorted myself out though, got myself the flat. It’s not much, but it’s somewhere to live.’
‘And your boyfriend?’
She peered at him and leaned slowly to the left. For a moment she looked as if she would keep on sliding until she hit the sofa cushions, but she gave a slow blink and straightened up. ‘Boyfriend?’
‘There was a man here when I came to see you. I left him directions. I gave him money.’
Her mouth fell open – he averted his eyes from those black iron pits in her bottom jaw. ‘You mean Bri. He’s not my boyfriend, Billy, love. He’s my neighbour.’ She drank. It almost hurt to watch her. ‘He’s all right, is Bri. He’s my friend.’
‘He was very nice.’ He filled her glass again. She had drunk over a pint, he reckoned, in the short time they had been there. The whisky was gone.
Without prompting, she began to weep, sucking at her cigarette and blowing out the smoke with a bitter pursing of her blackish lips. ‘You’ll help me, won’t you?’ She closed her eyes. The glass lolled but by some miracle did not spill. ‘I just need a bit of cash to see me through the week.’
‘You want money?’ His fingers tightened around the glass.
‘Don’t say it like that,’ she said. ‘You make me sound awful. I only mean a bit, maybe something each week. I wouldn’t call on Phyllis or anything. I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Phyllis? How do you know Phyllis?’
She gave a brief laugh, as if it were perfectly obvious. ‘I’ve followed you all your life, Billy. I knew you were at university. I was so proud. I knew your name, the name they gave you. Christopher Harris. I followed you to the coach station once. They had no right to take you from me. If I hadn’t had to give you up, my life would have been different.’
‘Why haven’t you contacted me before?’
She shrugged. ‘You looked happy.’
‘So why now?’
‘You contacted me, remember?’