‘So do I. There’s a taxi rank at the top of the street,’ Boyd said, inhaling his cigarette at last.
‘You’re as drunk as a skunk,’ Kirby said. ‘Come on, I’ll bring you to the best little whorehouse in Ragmullin. I think you’re due a night in the saddle. Two fingers to Jackie and… well, you know who.’
Boyd realised Kirby was talking about Lottie. He stared up at the street lamp, seeing two where there should only be one. The door of the Chinese takeaway across the road swirled into three. Jesus, he was well and truly pissed.
‘Think I’ll go home,’ he slurred.
‘Don’t be a spoilsport.’ Kirby walked on ahead up Gaol Street.
Boyd followed in the middle of the narrow road, walking on the white line. Was he tagging along because he wanted to get laid?
‘Please God, don’t let me remember all this in the morning,’ he pleaded as Kirby hailed a taxi and poured him into it.
* * *
Boyd awoke to find himself sitting on the floor at the top of a flight of stairs. A short corridor lay before him, with doors floating in and out of focus around him. How did he get up the stairs? Did Kirby drag him here? He glanced at his watch. Jesus, it was 12.35 a.m.
He shook his head, trying to remember, and groaned with pain. Cafferty’s. Drink. Lots of it. Pints and shots. Dear God, he’d been drinking shots. He scanned his surroundings blearily. A girl stood half in, half out of a door at the end of the corridor. Staring at him.
He could see she was beautiful even though she was slipping in and out of focus. Eyes like saucers, dark hair falling across them and down along a bare shoulder. But she looked too young, and immediately he felt it was all wrong. Wrong that he was here, wrong that she was here. She should be in college or somewhere. Anywhere but here.
‘I have to go,’ he said.
Her eyes questioned but her mouth remained sealed, lips quivering. Too much red lipstick.
His stomach heaved. God, he was going to puke.
Easing his spine up along the wall, shuffling his feet until he was standing. He clutched the banister of the stairs. Steadied himself.
She put out her hand. To help him? For money? Had he to pay her? For what? He’d done nothing. Had he? No. He was sure he hadn’t. He searched for his wallet, thinking how Lottie would have plenty to say about this if she found out. Kirby better keep his mouth shut or he’d kick the shit out of him.
‘Can’t pay you,’ he said, not liking the sound of his own voice in the penetrating silence. Christ, he had to get out of here.
Still she said nothing. Stayed where she was. Unmoving.
‘’S not your fault,’ he slurred. ‘Mine.’ He pushed his wallet towards his trouser back pocket, then carefully, one step at a time, walked down the stairs and along the hallway. He pulled back the linked chain and opened the front door. Warm night air greeted him as he moved outside.
Shutting the door behind him, he walked down the steps hoping it was a dream. Maybe a bad dream, but just a dream.
Mimoza waited until she heard the front door close, downstairs, then crept from her room over to where the man had been. His wallet was on the floor. Picking it up, she ran back inside, shutting the door with a soft thud. She had needed the toilet but had forgotten to go when she’d seen him lying there. Drunk and unconscious. When he’d woken, fear had held her to the spot, frozen in time. And then he was gone.
Glad he hadn’t been allocated to her, she wondered idly which one of the other girls had missed out on being puked on.
She went to the wardrobe. After placing the wallet on a shelf, she pulled on clean underwear and shuffled back to the bed. She yearned for the comfort of oblivion. The bliss of a long uninterrupted slumber to drown out her fears and terror. Her eyes closed and the door opened. Another client began unzipping his trousers before she could raise herself on to her elbows. Slowly she removed her underwear and spread her legs for the impatient man. He groaned in rhythm to her moans. He in pleasure; she in pain.
Lottie couldn’t sleep. She twisted and turned. Glanced at the digital clock: 1.15. Got up, pulled on her jogging pants again and a light hoodie. Prowling at night was becoming a habit. Bad habit. She wondered if Boyd was in bed. Maybe she’d call over.
Running quickly through town, she was sweating by the time she reached his apartment. As she rang the bell, a car drew up on the pavement and stopped. The door opened and Jackie Boyd stepped out, dangling keys in her hand.
‘Well if it isn’t the woman who stole Marcus’s job.’
Lottie ignored the gibe. Jackie looked tired and haggard. Good, but who am I to judge? she thought.
‘Hello, Jackie. What brings you back to Ragmullin?’ And what was she doing at Boyd’s at this hour?
‘I’ve some things to discuss with my husband. Not that it’s any of your business.’
Lottie smiled wryly. ‘I’ll let you get on with it so.’
She moved away from the door. Jackie walked by her and turned. The cloying scent of an expensive perfume suffused the night.
‘I don’t think he’s at home,’ Lottie said. ‘By the way, I hear McNally’s back in town. Where is he?’
‘Definitely none of your business,’ Jackie said, jabbing the doorbell with a bitten nail.
‘It had better stay that way,’ Lottie said and hurried down the path, away from the constant ringing of the doorbell.
Suddenly she felt very tired.
Thirty-One
Chloe checked Twitter once more. No posts from Maeve.
Tomorrow, she thought, if I hear nothing by tomorrow, I’ll tell Mam everything.
She plugged in the charger, placed her phone on the locker and fixed her headphones. As she stared at the ceiling, her room was lit up momentarily by the last train passing high up on the tracks behind the house. She wished she could shed her clammy PJs and sleep naked. But there was no privacy in her house. If she locked the door at night, her mother would be banging it down asking her what would she do if the house went on fire?
As if.
The heat of the day settled into her room, suffocating her. Opening the buttons on her pyjama top, she allowed the air from the open window to ease over her body. Only for a few minutes, she thought, and hummed to the music blasting in her ears.
She must have drifted off to sleep, because suddenly she was thrust awake by a horrible feeling that someone was watching her. She pulled her top closed. Yanking off her headphones, she glanced around in the darkness at the shadows dancing on the walls. She jumped up and dragged the curtains across the window, blotting out the moonlight. Falling back onto her bed, her skin crawling with a cold sweat, she saw a figure standing in the doorway.
She screamed. ‘Mum, help!’
‘Shut up, you silly cow.’
‘Jesus Christ, Sean. You frightened the shite out of me.’ Chloe bolted towards him, pulling on a hoodie.
‘I thought I heard someone at the front door,’ he said.