It looked like Charlie had in fact gone easy on Jimmy, because save for a few spectacular bruises he was back at work in the car showroom within a week, and he didn’t mention Nula’s debt or Charlie Stone again.
But the debt remained, and she had to pay it. Stretched to the limit, too worried to sleep at night, Nula gathered together what cash she could and went to pay Charlie Stone back his stinking money. Well, some of it. Now she wished she hadn’t bothered with the nose job. All right, her vanity was appeased. An average slim young girl looked back at her from the mirror now, with no huge unsightly bastard of a nose marring her features.
But . . . oh God, the price she’d paid for it. Was still paying for it.
Terry let her in and her heart did its usual backflip at the sight of him. But – also as usual – he barely seemed to notice her. At least there was no Jill here today, thank God for small mercies. Terry ushered Nula along the hall, into what passed for Charlie Stone’s office.
And there was Charlie, squat and powerful, sitting behind his desk looking a question at her as she came in and closed the door behind her. And . . . her eyes fixed on his hands. Big blunt-fingered hands, loaded with gold rings. The knuckles of his right hand were scabbed, the skin there only newly healed.
‘You got some front, girl, sending your brother round here to mug me off,’ he said.
Nula drew in a breath, wrenched her eyes away from the evidence of Jimmy’s beating. ‘I didn’t send him,’ she said.
‘Well whether you did or whether you didn’t, that means the debt’s gone up, OK?’
‘You what?’
‘You heard.’
‘I’m struggling to pay it now.’
‘Struggling? You’re failing. The payment’s late. I trust you’ve come here today to settle up?’
‘I’ve come here today to pay a bit towards it.’ Nula looked in her handbag, extracted three fivers, and put them down on the desk. Then she looked him in the eye. ‘And to say I can’t pay the rest.’
Charlie sat back in his seat and eyed her beadily. She was a pretty little thing really. And she had backbone, fronting it out like this. Way back, he could remember her as podgy and plain, with her hair a mess and her nose dominating her whole face. Now, there was a big improvement. In fact – yeah – he fancied her.
‘You probably got the hump over me giving your brother a pasting,’ said Charlie.
‘No,’ said Nula. ‘I was glad you did.’
‘You what?’
Nula shrugged. ‘I don’t like my brother.’
‘Right.’ Charlie was eyeing her up. ‘So what if I was to say, come out to dinner with me one evening? Pay off your debt in kind, as it were?’
Nula returned his stare in surprise. She hadn’t expected that. No man had ever come on to her before. She was plain little Nula. Deep down she still felt like that, despite the evidence that looked back at her from her bedroom mirror these days. Outside, she was different. Inside, reality had yet to sink in. If it ever would, which sometimes she doubted.
Charlie had given Jimmy a thumping, and she liked that. Also . . . if she got close to Charlie, then she was getting close to Terry too, and it was Terry she was interested in. Maybe if Charlie noticed her, then somehow, by some miracle, Terry would too?
‘What would that involve?’ she asked bluntly.
Charlie frowned at her. ‘Having dinner. Talking. That sort of thing. You know. Normal boy-girl things.’
Nula thought of Terry, out there in the hall.
‘OK,’ she said.