The Time Gene, page 54
Ade came on all bashful. “Oh, I can’t talk about that.” Typical Ade – fake modesty. Roxanne snorted. Kayleigh elbowed Ade again. “Go on, tell them.”
Ade pussy-footed for another half minute. “I’ve got another modelling job.”
Roxy yawned. “Freshfoods again?”
“Aye,” Ade said. “But it’s only a first step…”
“I don’t get it, though,” Roxanne grunted. “They sell frozen chicken, mouldy oven chips and out-of-date milk. Why do they need models?”
“They’re expandin’ their clothing line.” Ade purred.
“D’you reckon you’ll get permanency with them?” Leonie asked.
“No’ yet,” said Ade. “At the moment, it’s only as an’ when, but fingers crossed it’ll get more regular. It’s good money…80 quid for two hours work!”
Roxy scowled. Ade didn’t even notice, as she was too busy describing her dresses, blow-dry, make-up etc. “Holleigh says the supermarket get paid by Bellucci if I preview their new lashes; they’re not on the market yet; they’re kind of barely black, and they’ve got a shimmer; and they’re in this crimped style…”
That night, Roxanne left work late and in a foul mood. She’d had to report to Larissa for dropping the f-word to a customer. Leonie trotted after her like a poodle, having been late herself as usual. Every day at the end of her shift she’d log back into at least ten accounts to catch up on admin. She would write copious notes explaining that the customer was unhappy that Blu would not compensate them for lost viewing time when they had a hip op, went on holiday, or their cat died. She was mulling over a particularly unpleasant conversation with an irate lady who swore blind her husband could not possibly have booked The Sex Channel.
“Honestly, she’s so up herself, that Larissa,” Roxy ranted as she flounced past the Blu logo. “‘I’m very disappointed in you, Roxanne.’” “Just cos she’s a bloody supervisor, you’d think she was the flamin’ queen.” She stomped towards the electric blue revolving doors on her four-inch heels.
“Hey, whassup wi’ you?”
Roxy, fuming, had collided with Kayleigh, who was loitering at the back of the vending machine queue. “What are you still doin’ here?”
“Waitin’ on Ade. She’s takin’ an important phone call. She’s in the girls’ bogs.”
Roxy raised an eyebrow. “Who is it?”
“Her agent.”
“Agent?” Roxy seethed. “Agent? God, is she holdin’ out for Versace?” Roxy strutted into the ladies’. Leonie trotted after her like a shadow. The basins and bowls were white in colour, but the lighting, metallic doors, walls and hand-dryers gave off an eerie blue glow. Roxy felt queasy as she adjusted her lipstick. Her face, plastered in foundation to hide her acne, glowed a metallic blue. “Ade, you comin’? ADE?” A toadying voice trilled from three cubicles along. God, did she realise how skin-crawlingly sycophantic she sounded? “Yeah, sure. That would be awesome, Holleigh. Yeah, I could do Saturday. 3:30? I’ll just write a note in my diary. I’m so excited…”
“We’ll miss the bus, Roxy…”
Roxy squirted perfume on her arms, neck and back, before storming out. “Comin’?” she carped at Kayleigh, who was munching a King-sized Mars bar. Kayleigh resolved to wait for Ade. Roxy rolled her eyes and strutted into the chilly night air, waving Leonie to follow her. Roxy resumed her rant against their boss as she marched up to the bus stop. “I didn’t swear at a customer; I swore to a customer; there’s a difference. I told him to ‘use the effin’ remote’; how’s that the same as tellin’ him to eff off?”
They caught the bus just as it was pulling away. “Why is it I do more work than Larissa and Ade put together, an’ they earn more than me?” Roxy whined to Leonie as they staggered on.
The bus was unheated and the seats were hard and comfortless. Leonie looked despondent. “You can use your brilliant call statistics to stand up to Larissa when she bullies you, but what can I do?” With a snivelling sigh, she changed the subject. “How’s Liam?”
Roxy perked up at the mention of her fiancé. “Better since he got the buildin’ site job. Course, people are just so bigoted, eh? Took him a year, but things are goin’ good for us, finally. His boss is some fat Greek bloke with huge biceps,” she giggled. “But even he can’t lift as much as my Li. Says he’s the fastest worker on the site, an’ the strongest to boot.”
Leonie’s head sank back down. “I’d give anything to be good at my job.” She sighed. “Is your flat better?”
“Oh…it’s okay, I suppose.” She relapsed into sullen silence. “Thing is, though, Leonie…I’m scared I’m gonna be forty-six one day an’ still livin’ in a poky flat – like Mum. I’m sick o’ bein’ nothin’ an’ no-one. I’m sick of bein’ treated like dog shit on somebody else’s shoe. I’m sick o’ havin’ doors slammed in my face. Oh, God, if only I could turn back time...”
Roxy pounded on the chipped door to the bedsit flat. “Lemme in!” she bellowed, for it was bitingly cold outside. The keyhole had rotted beyond repair in spite of (or perhaps because of) Raoul’s efforts to fix it. The first person home picked it open using a mangled fork they hid under the doormat, whilst the second rapped on the door (the doorbell had ceased working altogether after Raoul mended it.) Liam answered the door wearing dungarees and a grubby apron. “Hey, Rock. I cooked for us!” he said eagerly. “I rustled us up a curry. Sit down and relax, Madame, and let Liam the gar-song lavish all his attentions on you.” Innuendo purred through his husky voice and atrocious French accent, but Roxy was in no mood for romance.
She raised an eyebrow. “You cooked a curry?” She laughed on spying a greasy carton protruding from the dustbin, and hearing the microwave clink.
“Aye…your favourite!” Liam beamed. He clearly expected her to consider this haute cuisine. A cursory glance around the kitchenette told Roxanne that Liam had not only set the table, but washed the breakfast dishes. They still had bits of muesli stuck to them, the chipped mugs were stained a mauve brown, and the cupboards and units were saturated in water and foam. Nonetheless this was mighty impressive by Liam’s standards. She smelt a rat. Guilty conscience. “Liam, what’ve you done?”
“N…nothin’,” said Liam, blowing his nose into his apron.
She put her hands on her hips. “Liam…”
His hand trembled. “I got paid off, eh, cos they found out I had a criminal record.”
Roxanne flung down her bag and slumped into a chair, eyes blazing. “Li, you said you’d told them you had a record!”
“I meant to, Roxy…I did, honest. But I thought, like…if I proved myself, an’ then I told them…they wouldnae fire me.”
“Aw, it’s so bloody unfair!” Roxanne bawled, grabbing a semi-clean mug from the cupboard (which severed completely from its hinges) and banging it down so hard on the sink that it broke.
Liam retorted that smashing up their kitchen was hardly a solution.
“Maybe...but I’m so freakin’ sick of penny-pinching!” She demanded of Liam how Achilles had discovered his criminal past. Liam shrugged. He had seen a man in a long coat sniffing around by Achilles’ chair. He suspected one of his sacked co-workers, the ones who couldn’t hack the heavy lifting the way he could.
“If I ever find out who dobbed you in, I’ll…” Roxy clenched her teeth and brandished a potato peeler like a machete.
“What? Get me to burn their house down?”
She gave him a withering look. “That was low.”
“Well, maybe. But you’ve got tae no’ lose your rag, Rock. That’s what’s got us into trouble again an’ again. That’s how I got a record, eh.”
“So it’s my fault?” she fumed. “My fault you stole our football coach’s car an’ mowed down a pensioner? My fault you cannae hold down a job, an’ we’re livin’ in a hellhole like this?” She leaned against a stack of shelves, which crashed down, sending books, magazines, computer games, shoes, their toothbrushes and the dirty laundry crashing down. Raoul had warned that they were not stable when he erected them, complaining that he could not fix them because the walls were too hard.
Liam flung his arms round Roxy. At first she kicked and punched at him, but ended up crying into his paint-stained overalls.
“No, it’s not your fault, Rock. We’ve been decimated by the system. People like me an’ you re-offend because society doesnae rehabilitate us. What we need is a just society. But we willnae achieve it by violence.” Her mouth sagging, she picked her way through the drab supermarket curry. He cleared everything away, washed the dishes as if he were trying to give a tiger a bath, then ran the bath towel over the greasy table to clean it. Roxy complained that she was bloody freezing, but she’d have to grin and bear it because they couldn’t afford to turn on the gas any more. The boiler kept cutting out anyway. Liam put the heating back on, made her a hot water bottle and a hot chocolate, gave her his last cigarette, and helped her into her dressing gown.
“I’m sorry, Li,” she murmured as she puffed on the cigarette. She had a terrible migraine from crying, but they had no paracetamol left.
“’S’ alrigh’, Rock,” said Liam, gratefully sharing the last vestiges of smoke from the cigarette he’d given away. “I’ll get another job soon, I promise. I’ll sign on tomorrow, an’ go on the laptop.”
“Aye - an’ play Aliens 3 a’ day long,” Roxy retorted, but without malice. She looked around, and meekly surveyed their collapsed shelving, the cupboard door lying on the floor, the broken cup in the sink, the crumbling plaster and cobwebby walls. Another of their antiquated dimmer lights popped out. “We can manage on my salary,” she said firmly, “if we give up the ciggies and the booze, an’ we don’t go wi’ the Bhoys to Tenerife this year…” She fought back the tears as she said this, as it would have been her first holiday abroad since her father’s incarceration. But she steeled herself. “We’ll be fine,” she said, stroking his cheek, and wishing fervently that she had Leonie’s flat, which, if hardly palatial, had two bedrooms, a separate kitchen, and wasn’t falling to bits.
Liam cleared away the last of the dishes and emptied the ashtrays. He found his toothbrush on the floor amongst the wreckage from the collapsed shelves and shuffled to the bathroom. As he heaved at the creaky door, the handle came off and Roxy tittered. “You always forget!” She couldn’t help but notice how he tiptoed around her, as if she were a raging bull poised to attack any second. To be fair, she was. They both were, in a way. He changed into his pyjamas (leaving his overalls on the floor) and bodily carried Roxanne to bed. The bedsit had an alcove for sleeping, sectioned off by a ragged curtain, and they had only a sunken mattress. “Take more than that to break us, eh?”
Roxy yawned a sleepy affirmative, but her stomach could not help but churn over Ade’s £200 bonus. Her eyes spanned the ripped curtain, peeling green wallpaper, wet rot and torn lampshades, and glazed with unshed tears.
“This is only a first step, Rock. Promise. Someday, I’m gonna buy you a house fit for a princess.”
Roxy doubted this very much. But did it really matter right now? His touch was warm and his lips soft. She kissed him until drowsiness overpowered her.
Chapter Fifty-two
The Invincibles
Dundee Docklands, Saturday 14th January 2005
Ade’s feet ached in her six-inch heels. Worse still, she was frozen half to death in her micro skirt and skinny jumper. The road was longer than she’d expected. She cursed herself for not taking a taxi. After all, soon, she would never have to worry about money again. On the plus side, that skinny pullover felt much roomier than it had in November. She’d lost four more pounds since Christmas. Yay! The downside, of course, was the unending hunger pangs. She’d have to start sucking on ice soon to stave off the gnawing.
She skimmed across the frosty ground, ignoring the danger of slipping. She mustn’t be late. The plan was simple. Give the agent the password, sign the contract, do the shoot. Number 221, Holleigh had said. Number 201 was an oil refinery. Odd. She pushed on, as a blast of Arctic wind threatened to hurl her slight frame to the ground.
She’d be generous, of course. She’d donate to her old school, and she’d support the campaign to keep Braemuir library open. She’d help her family. She’d buy houses for her mum, brother and sister. She’d set Kyle up as a private consultant dermatologist. Or was it gynae-something or other? It was the one to do with skin. She’d pay her uncle through rehab. She’d buy back the equity release on Auntie Eglantine’s house. She’d stay in touch with her old friends. Though not too often. When you were jetting off to Paris and Milan and New York, when Jean Paul Gaultier, Calvin Klein and Yves Saint Laurent were competing to have you showcase their latest fragrance, when you boogeyed most nights with Naomi and Kate and Elle…then you didn’t want a Kayleigh dangling on your arm. It would be like wearing gardening gloves with your Chanel dress. Especially when she rang you at 2am to weep because her boyfriend hadn’t called her back. God’s sake...as if Rick would cheat on her. Neither of them needed to fear infidelity. There weren’t many perks to dating a minger, but that was one of them. Her Kyle, on the other hand, was a head-turner. Which was why she always had to keep the weight off and wear micro skirts. She smiled to herself. Being a millionaire supermodel would help, though.
Frankly, you couldn’t have a Malone cramping your style either. Murderer’s daughter, chequered past, but even aside from that, she was mental. She was nice enough when she wasn’t tripping people down stairs, flushing heads down toilets or burning someone alive, but she was a nutjob. And as for that bonkers Leonie, she took the proverbial. Ade would make a clean break when the time came. She’d do it as nicely and diplomatically as possible, but a diamond did not sit among coaldust.
She stopped short. This was 221, wasn’t it? That couldn’t be right. The derelict car warehouse, that had shut five years ago? Ade’s heart shuddered. TopModel wouldn’t be paying her mega-bucks any time soon if this was where they hailed from. But come on, wasn’t she being paranoid? The coldness in her stomach abated. This would just be a meeting place for the Agent (Holleigh had said the name was Mike Holmes) to whisk her off to some swish office suite. In a Jag, hopefully. Maybe he’d even come by helicopter, to fly her to London or Paris or Rome. Her eyes gleamed.
But the glow faded when she heaved open the rusty door. A muddy puddle filled with dead leaves soaked her feet. She almost lost her balance. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found herself in a deserted and empty room, riddled with graffiti, used takeaway boxes and old newspapers. A few decrepit old car wrecks still blighted the place, rotting away. Layer upon layer of cobwebs and dust almost obscured the pop art graffiti. The dust and stale air made her nose itch and irritated her throat. Something cold and slimy dripped down her neck. She gave a shriek.
Tears welled in her eyes. All her instincts told her to run. And yet she could not flee, or bang would go her big break. Lost forever. Terror jolted through her as a hulking figure appeared in the doorway. She held a hand to her chest. A tramp, by the look of him. Shaggy grey coat. Unshaven. Tangled, woolly hair. Deepset, gnarled features, as if someone had put him in a food blender. All at once Ade felt intensely vulnerable in her micro skirt and low-cut pullover.
She backed behind one of the wrecked cars as he paced towards her, foolishly holding up a tiny black patent leather handbag in defence.
“Password, please,” the man hollered.
Ade almost keeled over. “You work for TopModel?”
“Judging a book by its cover, eh?” he mumbled. “I’m Mike. I’ve brought your contract.” Ade noticed for the first time that he was brandishing a dogeared brown envelope in his scabrous hands. “You paid the money?”
Ade nodded shakily.
“Well, I haven’t got all day, Sweetheart. You got that password or not?”
Ade tremored. She had been mulling over whether to give it to him or not. Although he had given the right name, everything about him was screaming Scammer. But he knew a) that she was expecting a contract, b) that she had been asked to give a password, and c) that she had paid a large amount of money into a certain bank account.
“Sherlock,” she faltered.
The man leered at her. “Good girl,” he said. “Here are your pictures. I’ve no doubt you’ll find them flattering.”
Adrienne opened the envelope, her heart hammering. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. Her long and elegant fingers fumbled, almost dropping the envelope. Ade clutched at the contents, straining to see in the dim light from the few misted-over, cobwebbed windows. Ade emitted a piercing scream, and the envelope spiralled down into the dust. Ade was left holding chopped up sections of the original photographs she had submitted to the agency, crudely cut and pasted onto photographs of overweight, hairy and acne-ridden women. Onto these hideous frumps Ade’s face, torso or legs had been superimposed. Ade yelled blue murder, and threatened the man with some old karate moves. He looked no more intimidated than if she were an arthritic bluetit.
Mike Holmes shook his head and guffawed at the spectacle. “Take a look outside the door,” he chuckled, “you’ll find Givenchy and Gaultier and Saint Laurent fighting over you.” He nodded towards the photos. “Looking good, huh?”
Tears spurted down her cheeks. “Look, what the fuck is this? Who are you? Why...?” The words trailed off, buried in loud, undignified sobs.
“Didn’t I tell you? You weren’t suitable. Not hot enough, babe.”
“Not hot enough?” Ade blurted, as shocked and astounded as if he had complained that lava was too cold.
