—
At the appointed hour, she had pitched up at the Amethyst and was told by Betty to go to the Sphinx because they were short of a couple of hostesses. Freda had learnt that Nellie Coker owned five clubs and she wondered if she was going to be endlessly bundled about between them. “Oh, and here, take this,” Nellie said, handing over a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “A new dress, you can’t keep wearing that ridiculous outfit.”
“New?” Freda said, excited by the idea.
“Not new,” Nellie said. “New to you.”
Freda was still excited, thinking it might be one of Betty’s or Shirley’s cast-offs, but it turned out to be an old thing that had been worn to death by one of the hostesses and left behind when she “moved on,” although when and where to was not specified.
“She’ll be feasted on in the Sphinx,” Betty said.
“Like a lamb in a pack of wolves,” Shirley said. (Not a lamb, a girl.)
It turned out that it was Ramsay Coker who was in charge over at the Sphinx. In Freda’s opinion, Ramsay Coker was a first-class twit. His head was always in the clouds. “I’m writing a novel,” he told her, as if that was something to crow about, as if there weren’t enough novels in the world already. He was incapable of organizing a raffle, let alone a nightclub. The Sphinx would run just as well without him. Gerrit the barman and the Glaswegian manager were always scheming together about something or other in their incomprehensible accents. They were robbing the Cokers blind, skimming off the top, but Ramsay seemed oblivious to what was going on right beneath his nose.
Freda earnt only tips for her first night in the Sphinx because apparently she was no longer on probation and would get wages at the end of the week like everyone else, but that was fine as she still had most of the money she had earnt in the Amethyst. Some very odd types came to the Sphinx and kept her on her toes, in more ways than one. In the Ladies’ powder room, she was always finding small cardboard pill boxes that had been abandoned. The traces of white powder in them were exactly the same as the stuff that she had found in Florence’s packet of postcards. Tasted the same, too. “It’s dope,” one of the hostesses told her and then had to explain what dope was. A chill ran though Freda. She couldn’t imagine Florence as a drug fiend. But then nor could she have imagined Florence disappearing into thin air.
Freda employed the same evasive tactics as she had at the Amethyst when it came to closing time and found a place to sleep in one of the storerooms. The Sphinx after hours felt very different from the Amethyst. There were strange creaks and taps and knocks all night long, and she might as well have been walled up in an Egyptian tomb. There was a mummified cat—which was basically a dead cat—that sat on the bar and infected the air with its malevolence. She couldn’t help but think of all the ancient Egyptian mice it must have killed.
* * *
—
And then a miracle. An actual miracle. Not the resurrection of Florence, but something almost as wonderful.
The following day, Freda had been walking along Poland Street, where one of the hostesses at the Sphinx said there was a lodging house with decent rooms to be had. She was counting off the street numbers in her head when she heard a hoarse voice behind her cry, “Freda! Freda!” and she turned to see a woman staring at her in amazement. The woman reached out a hand and touched Freda’s cheek as if making sure that she was real. “Freda, is that really you, pet?” she said. “Of all the people in all the world, fancy running into you here,” and Freda found herself suddenly enveloped in ratty fur and the familiar scents of Habanita and Sarony cigarettes. It seemed Vanda was no longer in Grantham.
* * *
—
Vanda had a flat nearby in a dark alley that ran behind a row of restaurants. To get to it you had to weave your way past an obstacle course of galvanized dustbins giving off their scents of fish and offal and something darker and more offensive. “They’ve been poisoning the rats,” Vanda said. The smell followed them into the building (“They’ve died in the walls”) but had, thank goodness, mostly dissipated by the time they reached Vanda’s front door on the third floor. “It’s quite a climb,” she said. “I had one gentleman conk out on me on the second-floor landing. His heart. Dead as a dodo. Shame.
“Home sweet home,” she said, opening the door with a flourish.
* * *
—
And now Freda lived there, too. Somewhere to come home to every night and soak her aching feet in an enamel bowl of hot water, courtesy of a little gas water heater fixed to the wall next to the kitchen sink. There were two rooms—a kitchen and a bedroom. Freda slept in the kitchen, in a bed in an alcove, like a cupboard really but with a curtain on a string that she could pull across. To get to her little cubbyhole she had to negotiate a forest of Vanda’s stockings and knickers (“trollies” she called them mysteriously) that were draped everywhere to dry.
Vanda and her friend Joan, who had the neighbouring flat, clacked up and down the stairs all night long, bringing “gentleman friends” home with them, something Freda only discovered on her night off, because normally when she got back from the Sphinx the gentleman friends had gone and Joan and Vanda would be sitting in the damp, warm little kitchen, smoking cigarettes and sharing a bottle of gin. “Mother’s ruin,” Joan said cheerfully. She’d had a son in the Navy, she said. Freda didn’t like to ask what had happened to Freda’s Grantham baby.
Joan had a coarse face and strange hair, an unnatural black that she plastered down on her head to hide a bald patch, but she brought in Empire biscuits for Freda and made her cocoa. Joan had different gentleman friends from Vanda because she had what she referred to as “specialities.”
“Like vanilla puffs and French fancies?” Freda asked, remembering Mr. Birdwhistle and his cakes.
“Yes, pet, something like that,” Vanda said, still maintaining her role as the protector of Freda’s innocence, not knowing that it had already been violated. Freda preferred to keep Owen Varley to herself, it seemed too late now for sympathy and understanding.
Sometimes the three of them played cards and Vanda reminisced about their time on the road with the Knits and what a card sharp Duncan had been. When Freda said that she had heard Duncan was in prison, Vanda said, “You don’t know, then?”
What didn’t she know? “Hung himself,” Vanda said, and Joan said, “Christ,” even though she’d never known Duncan, and they toasted his memory in gin and cocoa and Empire biscuits.
* * *
—
The Sphinx had closed later than usual tonight. There was no sign of Ramsay, and the Dutch barman and the Glaswegian manager had stayed open to make some extra money for themselves.
Freda didn’t like walking home in the dimly lit streets at this hour. There were always the unexpected she had to sidestep—people appearing out of nowhere like jack-in-the-boxes. Some wanted money or to sell something to her, but quite a few just wanted her. Tonight, she had the shivery feeling that someone was following her, but whenever she looked behind her she couldn’t see anyone.
There was a cat yowling somewhere and she could hear the tail end of a drunken fight. A lot of singing and shouting as well, no doubt a consequence of alcohol, and she made her way through the side streets in an attempt to avoid whoever it was.