For the first few weeks I put everything I had into that job. I was determined to be good at something, however paltry it might have been. I told myself that if I worked hard, kept clean, then I could win Danny back. I was for him, and he was for me, we both knew that. We’d just lost our way a little bit, that was all. And I could fix that. I just needed to show him that I was still me, still Neef. Prove to him that I was capable of earning a living the proper way. That I wasn’t a druggy, a skank. That I was different from my mam.
I didn’t touch a thing that first month, steered clear of Ste, despite his constant goading. What’s up with yer? What you actin all prissy with me fer, eh? he’d chide. No point trying to pretend you’re summat you’re not, Neef. I know you too well fer all that.
There were plenty of nights when I almost cracked, when the miserable truth of what my life had become threatened to steamroll me. I missed the feeling of being off my head, of being able to block it all out. But there was gold at the end of the rainbow, I was sure of it. Every abstinence brought me closer to Danny.
The day I got my first pay packet you couldn’t have wiped the grin off my chops. I practically skipped into Gary’s office to pick it up. I’m here fer me wages, I said, standing in front of his desk like a kid.
He leaned back in his chair, sensing my keenness, my pathetic eagerness for that meager little envelope.
Oh yeah?
Yeah. I nodded, holding out my hand. He didn’t move, just sat there with a sick little smile on his face. Can I have em then?
Gary licked his lips, then made a big show of reaching into his drawer, pulling out the thin brown packet. I stepped forward to take it from him and he drew back his hand.
Ah-ah-ah, he said, waving his finger at me. Ask nicely now.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, played along, even though it made my stomach reel. Please can I have me wages, Mr. Gary, sir? I simpered.
He grinned, dropping the envelope into my hand. There’s a good girl now. Off you go.
After that I got the bus straight up to the garden center, a fizzing in my chest, the sights and the sounds and the smells of the place reminding me of Danny with such force that twice I found myself turning to him, only to remember that he wasn’t there.
I wanted to buy him something, a gift so that he could see how well I was doing. I’d save the receipt and all, show him I didn’t need to help myself from there anymore. I had a job now, my own place to live, sort of. Danny would be proud of me. I could picture him, scrambling to show Denz that he had me all wrong. In the end I picked out a lush little plant in a terra-cotta pot, its leaves striped in all different shades of green. The lady next to me told me it was called a calathea.
It’s got a special meaning, she said, reaching forward and caressing the stems with her knotted fingers, each of them clad in chunky rings that matched her silver hair. Means “to turn over a new leaf.”
I burst out laughing then, told her it was perfect, and she smiled at me sagely, touched my hand, wished me good luck.
On my way back to the hotel I stopped at the pay phone, dialed Danny’s number, the digits ingrained in my brain. I was being silly, not calling him off my own phone. He’d have answered, of course he would. But still…
When he picked up, the sound of his voice made my own catch in my throat, so that he had to say hello over and over again.
Danny. It’s me.
A beat passed. You all right? he said eventually, his tone gruff.
Yeah. You?
Yeah.
My reason for calling vanished from my mind and then just as suddenly reappeared, so that the words came tumbling out of my mouth too quickly. I were wonderin. If you wanted to meet up. If you wanted to see me.
Danny let out a breath. I dunno, Neef—
Please, Dan, I cut in, hating the sound of the whine in my voice. I just…I’m doin really well, see, and…I wanted to show you. That’s all, that’s it. I…I really fuckin miss you.
There was a noise on the other end of the line, a shuffling, a changing of position. I could picture every line of him. The slouch of his shoulders, the curve of his neck, the way he’d press the phone between his shoulder and ear. All right, he said falteringly. Okay. Yeah.
We arranged to meet the next day by the viaduct, and I walked all the way from the hotel with the plant clutched to my chest, a forest of dappled leaves blocking my view. I was dizzy, giddy with excitement, ignoring the fears that niggled at the edges of my mind. The coldness of his tone. After all, I was doing so well now. I hadn’t been using, hadn’t been shifting. So it would be fine. It could go back to how it was—it would all be fine.
I got there early but Danny was late, so late that I began to doubt he would turn up at all. When he eventually did, the sound of his footsteps startled me, making me pick up my keys and clutch them between my fingers, the way girls are taught to.
We stared at one another, his face confused as I grinned up at him. Something switched on in his eyes, and then just as quickly turned off. Y’all right? he frowned.
For a moment I was speechless, taking him in, all of him. His hair had grown over the past six weeks and he’d put on weight. It scared me, to see him changing. Already he was less of the boy he’d been, more of the man I would never see him become.
You look fit, I said eventually and a flicker of annoyance passed over his face. I’d wanted to make him laugh, but I could see it hadn’t worked and so I cleared my throat awkwardly, thrust the plant toward him. I brought you this. Fer…I trailed off, my reason escaping me now, the stupidness of the situation, of my pitiful idea, crawling across my skin.
Ta. He nodded, taking it, glancing over his shoulder nervously, then back in my direction without meeting my eyes.
It’s called a cally…calla…I can’t remember now exactly, but it’s written there on t’label, see? There! Calathea, I said, my voice too manic, too high. There were this woman in there, proper hippy she were, had all this long gray hair down to her arse. She told me it means summat special. Turnin over a new leaf, she said.
New beginnings, said Danny quietly. That’s what it means.
Right! Yeah! Exactly. I grinned. That’s good then, innit? That’s like…fittin. Don’t you think, Dan?
He nodded, still not looking at me.
Aren’t you gonna sit down then? I said, gesturing to the space beside me.
Danny sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. I can’t stay long. I got a lift here. Me dad…he mumbled, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the car park.
Yer dad’s here?
Yeah.
Does he know you’re seein me?
Yeah.
We were quiet then, me looking up at Danny expectantly, him staring down at the ground.
It’s just…he began.
What?
Danny rubbed a hand over his face. I’ve got to be somewhere.
Where?
I’m meetin someone.
You’re meetin me.
Neef—
How old are you, Dan? I snapped. You runnin off because yer dad’s told you to stay away from me?
Neef.
Jesus, Danny. Grow a pair, why don’t yer?
Danny looked at me properly then, our eyes locking. You know it int like that.
I know fuck-all.
Yeah, he said after a while. Yeah, you’re probably right.
He turned then, heading back down the path, still holding the plant. I didn’t call out to him, just watched him disappear.
That night I found myself out there with the others. In that dirty kitchen, smoking cigs and sniffing lines of whatever was going, off the surface of the grimy tabletop. And it wasn’t so bad, you know, because after all, who was I to complain? I should count my lucky stars I had a roof over my head, people who knew my name.
There was all sorts of stuff knocking around the hotel by then, most of it thanks to Ste. Gary was in on it too, I came to work that out pretty quick. He had to have been, the amount everyone was off their heads in that place. Often I’d see the two of them standing by the outbuildings, both of them looking shifty. Other times I’d watch from one of the hotel windows: Ste in his Corsa, pulling away from the hotel and onto the main road, then slowing at the corner and the passenger door opening, a lanky figure slithering inside, suit trousers shining.
Before long I couldn’t even remember what had been the point of that job. I became slovenly, half making beds, giving scum-ringed baths a cursory rinse with a showerhead, piling trays of plates one on top of the other and then leaving them for someone else to find. Five minutes before the end of my shift I’d abandon my trolley outside the cleaning cupboard so that I could avoid the other girls, their narrowed eyes watching to make sure I put every spray and wipe and bloody bucket back in its hole.
When I was younger, the locals at the pub used to tell me to stay away from the people who worked at the hotel. They’re up to no good, they’d say. Dangerous. I knew better than to judge, but still I’d been wary of them. Later, when they started coming round to Mary’s to pick up, I could see that the locals had been right, even though I was a lowlife myself by then. Nothing compared, though, to what I was in the hotel. There, I was one of them. A parasite whose rotting skin and empty eyes made other people’s skin crawl.
I thought time had turned upside down in those last few months at Mary’s house, but the inside-outness of that place was far worse. The strange shifts, the odd hours. I tried to fool myself, tell myself this was what it was like, this industry. I’d got the staff wrong before, I hadn’t understood. People had to adapt, hospitality has its own rules.
Ste had been waiting for me to drop my knickers for years, and in the end his time came. We’d been drinking in the kitchen all night, and all he kept banging on about was how much money I owed him, asking how I was planning to pay him back. I kept trying to change the conversation, to move onto something else, but before long I was in his bed, flat on my back. I don’t remember much of it, just limbs and sweat. Hot breath and stink. The sensation of someone inside me, although in that moment I couldn’t remember who. Waking in the morning tangled in his dirty sheets, feeling sickened by the thought of what I’d done, but more sickened by the thought of being on my own.
I don’t know if he was keeping tabs on it, crossing off a debt every time we entered into one of those empty, feelingless transactions. But I found myself there with him often.