six

THERE WAS A TIME then where nothing much happened. It wasn’t exactly like going back to normal, more it was about people pretending. The contract didn’t get signed and no one mentioned it. Sharon was even invited back into Maths, which hadn’t got any less complicated while she was away. She saw Justin round and every time he went to open his mouth she felt her world breathe in, hoping he might tell her there was another job on the way. Only he didn’t. Probably he’d heard what had happened with Madeleine or someone had seen the list. That would be it then. They’d never bother with some stupid little girl who couldn’t even get spending money right. They’d find someone else, someone whose life didn’t trip over its own feet every time it tried to take a step forward.

And English just got weirder. Some days Trish was hard-out, and sometimes they hardly did anything at all, just mucked around, played games or told jokes. One day she took them all out up into the scrub on the hill above the rugby field and made them sit there with their eyes closed, not saying anything, for fifteen minutes. And then when it’d finished and they asked her why she’d done it she’d replied, ‘just to see if you would. It’s a screwed up world don’t you think?’ and that was it. She was so loose, but sort of intense too. You couldn’t find anyone in the class who hated her, but you couldn’t find anyone who was sure about her either. So they all watched her, like you watch a car that’s just crashed, waiting for someone to move, or for it to burst into flames. Even people like Jason were talking about the painting assignment, like some rule had changed, like it was suddenly okay to talk about things that happened in class. Sharon wasn’t so sure. Rules never changed. The times you didn’t get that were the times you ended up getting hurt.

Knowing that made Sharon restless, and pissed off too, that she should have so little control. It wasn’t a good time for Kaz to introduce Derek to their home.

• • •

It was just before six and Sharon was going down for fish’n’chips, because she couldn’t be bothered cooking. She was surprised to see Kaz in the kitchen. Sharon didn’t even know she was home.

‘Where are you going?’

‘What’s it to ya?’

‘Can you wait five minutes and watch Zinny? I just have to go and get something from the shops.’

She was sitting at the table, a glass of water half emptied in front of her. Odd. Kaz wasn’t much of a water person.

‘I’m going down there. I can get it.’

‘Bottle of wine. They won’t serve you.’

‘Since when did you drink wine?’ Sharon asked, not really caring, just making a point.

‘Since she met me.’

He appeared at the door and stood behind Kaz, hands on her shoulders like she was something new he’d bought downtown, something to photograph and show to his workmates. There were no shoes on his feet and he hadn’t even bothered to tuck himself back in. Sharon couldn’t shift her eyes from his moustache, the thick type that men grew when their hair started falling out and their stomachs expanded. The sort of man who hadn’t worked out how to age properly, the sort Kaz had been bringing home lately.

‘And you’re here to fix the toilet are you?’ Sharon said.

‘Sharon, this is Derek,’ Kaz replied, in her don’t-start-with-me voice. Don’t start with me because I’m not even pretending, so there’s nothing to uncover.

‘How are you love?’

‘I’m not your love,’ Sharon replied.

‘Pity,’ he smiled, like he thought he was so smooth.

‘You couldn’t afford me,’ Sharon snarled. ‘I’m much more expensive than my mother.’

‘Feisty too eh? Just like Kaz.’

‘I’m nothing like her,’ Sharon assured him, but it sounded empty. Kaz stood and grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair, totally unfazed, like nothing unusual was happening. It wasn’t.

‘Money.’ She held out her hand and Derek passed her a twenty.

‘Aren’t you going to give him a receipt?’ Sharon asked.

‘Five minutes.’ Then she looked at Derek. ‘You can come too if you like, see the neighbourhood.’

‘That’s alright. I think I’ll stay and chat with Sharon here.’

He had the sort of smile you couldn’t trust, crawling out from under his moustache but not too far. When Kaz had gone he sat down at the table.

‘So Sharon, tell me about yourself.’

‘Sorry, got to go in here, watch Zinny.’

She walked through to the lounge, where Zinny was sitting at the television, drawing pictures on the screen with his dribble.

‘You know you really shouldn’t be like that with your mother. She deserves better.’

Derek had followed her and was standing in the doorway.

‘That’s pretty much my point.’

‘She worries about you.’

‘Yeah? Well I worry about her too. I worry about the diseases she might catch.’

‘Quite the little smart arse aren’t you?’

‘Smart enough.’

‘Not smart enough to pass level one though.’ And Sharon burnt with a sudden rage. Not because of what he’d said, but because Kaz would tell him something like that. Something a person like him would get all wrong, because people like him didn’t understand shit. She would have stormed off then, but she couldn’t leave Zinny alone with him. So she turned her back and didn’t speak again, not even when she felt him stepping further into the room.

‘Here, Zinny, move away will you?’ Sharon said. Not that she was interested, but having something to watch made it easier to ignore Derek, who was standing at her shoulder now.

‘What are you doing with it on this channel anyway?’

It was the news. Some thing about protesters and changes in benefits. They were interviewing one of those losers with long hair and a big jacket and then the camera picked up someone in the background, sitting on the grass behind him, taking a slow swig from a paper bag.

‘Be you one day Sharon, way you’re going.’

‘Whatever.’

As soon as Kaz got back Sharon was out of there. She needed to do something; make it feel like things were happening. She needed to feel in control.

• • •

Mark’s place was a world away. The door Sharon knocked on was taller than the doors she knew, and wider. A heavy, keep-you-out-if-we-want door. Nothing happened and she knocked again, harder this time, trying not to lose the feeling she’d worked up to on the way over, the feeling of staying in charge, in amongst all the strangeness of pot plants in clay vases and red brick paving.

‘Yes, coming.’

The voice was uncertain behind the thick door, like a television with the sound down low. Mark’s mother was as overdressed as the house, as if Mark’s father had bought the two of them together, part of some package deal. Her hair bristled with styling, and frightened eyes peered out from a carefully made-up face. Not frightened by the girl at the door, Sharon could see that much. Just normal, all-the-time frightened, the sort some people carried.

‘Can I help you dear?’

‘Yeah, I’m here to see Mark.’ Confusion blurred the mother’s eyes, just for a moment. She looked Sharon up and down, trying to make the picture fit.

‘He’s up doing his homework.’

‘No worries. He’s expecting me.’ And Sharon was through the door, before she could say anything else.

‘Um, it’s up there.’ Mark’s mother hovered behind Sharon, pointing nervously at a carpeted stairway. ‘Mark dear, you’ve a visitor.’

Mark’s door half opened just as Sharon reached it. She pushed him back through, and closed it behind her, so his mother would understand.

‘What do you want?’ Mark looked more uncomfortable than usual, even though this was his room, so it should have made him safe. Sharon looked around. No posters on the walls, no clothes on the floor. A dog would have made a better job of marking its territory. A computer on top of a tidy desk flipped onto its screen saver, some old Star Wars shit with flashing light sabres.

‘You been checking out porn again?’

‘What? No, of course not. What do you want I asked?’

He was trying to sound in control, but at the same time he was backing away from her, only stopping when his legs felt the side of his single bed.

‘Nice view.’ Sharon looked out the window. It was good, the way she could do this to him, make him feel any way she wanted.

‘I’m busy. I’ve got study to do. There’s exams next week you know.’

‘You’d better be quick then hadn’t you?’ Sharon replied.

‘What with?’

‘My writing.’

‘Mark dear?’ There was a quiet knock and his mother’s head appeared around the door. ‘Is everything alright? Would your friend like a drink?’

‘I told you not to come up here,’ Mark said, his face screwing up with an anger he never took to school. Never let out of the house, probably.

‘I’m sorry dear, I just…’

‘Go away,’ he snapped. And she did.

‘Go Mark,’ Sharon mocked, moving past him and sitting down on his bed.

‘Here, get pen and paper ready. This is what I want to say.’

He half opened his mouth, but whatever it was he was thinking it got stuck somewhere along the way. He moved back to the chair in front of his desk.

‘It’ll be quicker if I type it.’

‘Whatever. You’re sort of like my secretary aren’t you?’

‘Hurry please,’ Mark said, his face all tight like mentally he was holding his breath, waiting for this to end.

‘Alright, it’s like this…’

And just like the last time the words rushed from her mouth, pushing and shoving in their hurry to get out. Big dreaming words, boastful words, the sort you keep inside your head most days. ‘Fuck you to the world’ words, that she could imagine on a wall in fifteen different sprayed-on colours, and they felt so good she had to see them straight away.

‘Can you print it?’

‘Yeah, I ah, I just need to run a spell check.’

Sharon stood up and looked over his shoulder while the spell check worked its way down the page, pausing at every obscenity, like a late night shopper picking their way through a drunken mall.

‘Here, yes, that’s it right. Give it here. Give it here.’

The printer whirred to life and her words slid out onto his desk. Sharon snatched at them, the ink still glistening.

‘Shall I save it?’ Mark asked, swivelling his chair around, close enough for Sharon to make her point.

‘No you fucken won’t. And here’s the other thing. Tell anyone, anyone at all, even breathe out while you’re thinking about this,’ she reached down to his crotch and took hold of a soft and useless handful. ‘And you will lose these. Understand?’

The horror on his face turned to pain but it didn’t stop him speaking, as soon as she let go.

‘This is for the wall isn’t it?’ he said.

‘What wall?’

He wasn’t meant to know. They weren’t meant to have told anyone.

‘Ms Black’s project. She’s not allowed to do it you know. They’ve already told her.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘It’s not. My Dad’s on the board. He’s the chairman. Mrs Flynn has already told her she can’t do it.’

‘Yeah, well that’s not going to stop her. She’s not like that okay?’

Sharon knew how wrong it sounded, her defending a teacher to Mark. But she could just imagine them, people like Mrs Flynn and Mark’s Dad, not getting any of it, and it made her so angry.

‘Hey Sharon,’ Mark said as she opened the door.

‘What?’

‘It’s not me. I think she should be allowed.’

‘Like anyone would care what you think.’

And she left, before she had to make him cry again.

• • •

The quickest way back from Mark’s place was past the back of the school, not that Sharon was in any hurry. Derek would still be there with Kaz and they’d both be getting pathetic. Twenty dollars was enough for two bottles, if you bought cheap enough, and Kaz always did. They’d be talking too loudly, like Zinny wasn’t there, trying to sleep in the next room. All over each other like they were young again, like they cared. Like they were things they’d never be. And Sharon couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t shout at them, and Derek would shout back, to show what a man he was, until Zinny came out crying and they all said sorry for his sake. So she walked slowly, three times stopping under streetlights to reread what Mark had typed, in case somehow those words might make a difference.

And then she was there, without having planned it, right outside the school flat where Trish had said she was staying. Sharon didn’t click at first, she only stopped because there were sounds coming from somewhere, and she thought it might have been a party. Then she realised, and next thing she was knocking on the door, just because she was there, with the writing in her hand. And because it meant not going home.

‘Sharon? Hey, good to see you. How’s it going?’ Trish had to shout above the music. Some dance thing, the same sort of stuff Justin listened to. ‘Here, come in.’

The house was a mess, the sort of mess that made it hard to feel like a visitor. They walked in through the kitchen, where all the cupboards were open and empty, and the floor was covered in packing boxes. Bits of screwed up newspaper had escaped from most of them and Trish waded through it, kicking a path with her feet. The lounge was the same, except a space in the boxes had been cleared along one wall, room enough for the stereo and two large cushions. Trish sat on one and pointed at the other.

‘Sit down. Sorry about the mess. I decided it wasn’t worth unpacking, just for four weeks, but slowly all the boxes have come out because it’s like there’s one thing I need in each one. I’m a bit of a mess like that to be honest.’

She smiled and shrugged, like she was explaining it to some old friend and Sharon only felt more awkward. She wished she’d kept walking. Derek was a pain in the arse, but at least he was easy to understand.

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘Ah…’ Sharon couldn’t think of much of an answer. She looked down to her hands where she was still holding her piece of writing. ‘Oh, yeah, I wrote this.’

She handed it over, even though most of her was screaming not to. It was better than saying nothing.

‘I didn’t want to hand it in in class. I thought, I don’t know. I just didn’t.’

And she shrugged again, just in case Trish still hadn’t worked out how stupid she was. Not that Trish seemed to notice, or care. The way she was in class wasn’t an act then, it was just how she was.

‘Great. Wonderful. I hoped you’d write something, I really did.’

She stood and turned the stereo down till the room stopped vibrating. Then she settled back onto her cushion with the printout and Sharon shuffled across so she could read it again, over Trish’s shoulder. It felt so bad just waiting, seeing the words now like Trish would be seeing them.

 

I’VE GOT PLANS

 

I’ve got plans. Plans don’t have to be written down. They don’t have to have numbers attached to them, years at school, shit like that. Plans aren’t knowing what job you’re going to do. I don’t know where I’m going but it doesn’t mean I don’t have plans. I know where I’m not going. I know what I’m not going to be.

People who tell me I’ve got no future, like that makes me any different. What the fuck’s the future anyway? The future’s now. Same as it was yesterday, same as it will be tomorrow.

There’s all these people waiting, like waiting for something is enough to make it happen. That’s the future, having something to wait for. I’m glad I don’t have any future then. I hate waiting.

I’m not a loser like them. I know what I’ve got and I know how to keep it, so that’s a plan. I’ve got other plans, plans so good I can’t write them down. They think there’s only one way. They think school and jobs is the one way. Well that’s only for people who don’t have any ideas of their own. I know what I want and I know how to get it. So fuck them. I’ve got plans.

 

Sharon could see Trish’s eyes had stopped scanning the page. She was worse than Justin like that, the way she could keep you waiting.

‘How long did it take to write this?’

‘Um, not too long. How come?’

‘It’s great, I think. Yeah, wonderful. Thanks Sharon.’

Sharon felt herself go red and she looked away.

‘Here, what do you drink?’ And she touched Sharon’s knee as she asked it, the way some people always do, with their friends.

‘Um, dunno.’ Sharon shrugged again.

‘Beer, coke, water, juice, there’s half a cask of wine in the fridge I think but it’s fairly disgusting.’

‘Coke,’ although a beer would have been better.

She came back with two glasses and an unopened two litre, along with a six pack, like she knew there was only one way this evening was going.

They got to talking again and there was something about it all that Sharon couldn’t keep fighting. Partly it was the music getting inside her head, loosening her up, but mostly it was Trish, doing the same thing. It wasn’t what she said exactly, more like the things she knew not to say. Not asking about school or home, not sounding all concerned. No advice or checking on her plans for the future. Just getting the beers open and letting the talk flow, like the start of a good party. Trish talking mostly, silly stories and meaningless crap, the stuff you’d only say to a friend. It was like she’d found some way of cheating, of working out rules that nobody else seemed to get.

‘So how come you’re a teacher then?’ Sharon asked her, because it didn’t make any sense, that a person like her would choose to spend her time in school.

‘Got to do something,’ Trish smiled like the question embarrassed her. ‘Nah, it is good though. I don’t know. It’s sort of fun.’

‘But don’t they piss you off, other teachers?’

‘More than you could possibly know.’

‘I hear they’re not going to let you paint the wall,’ Sharon said.

‘Yeah, I heard that too,’ Trish grinned. ‘You know what they say though. Easier to say sorry than please. I’m getting kinda good at sorry. Here, another beer?’

And when the beer was finished and they saw it was past twelve it didn’t seem strange that Trish would go and get a sleeping bag so Sharon could crash on the floor. In a place where she would never have thought of looking, Sharon got the feeling she’d found a friend.

The next morning when she left, Sharon was still on a high. So when she saw a curtain twitching in the next door flat, some uptight little teacher checking up on her new neighbour, Sharon had to smile and raise a single finger, a finger that said you can think what you like, cos I don’t need people like you.

• • •

There were three types of men in Kaz’s life. She’d said so herself, explained it all to Sharon in one of the mother-daughter chats Sharon knew other daughters didn’t get. First there were the locals. Men like Tom, from just down the road, or the guys she saw every time she went to the pub. Guys she’d have a laugh with, who knew her every mood, sad through to paralytic. Guys who’d step in straight away, if Kaz ever looked like she was in some sort of trouble. It was like having a huge collection of older brothers. They’d often call in, hang round the house, filling it up with laughter or complaining, depending on the mood. But they never stayed. It was one of the rules, according to Kaz. You never slept with locals.

Then there were the casuals. Guys Sharon’d see once, coming out of the bathroom in the morning, looking sort of embarrassed, like they knew what it must be like for the daughter, starting her day with an eyeful of them. And they never did look too good first thing. But they’d be gone soon enough, shuffling up to Kaz’s room to rescue their clothes, then out the front door and back into whatever life it was they’d slipped out of. Sharon didn’t mind them too much. They didn’t try to befriend her, they didn’t hang round the kitchen, eating stuff out of the fridge. Their clothes never made it into the washing machine. They knew their place.

It was the last group, the stayers, Sharon hated. There were less of them, maybe because of the stink Sharon caused every time Kaz tried to slip a new one into their lives. Or maybe Kaz was getting to the age where stayers were harder to find. Derek was a stayer. Sharon knew it first time she saw him. Soon he’d be buying them things, her and Zinny. Little stuff, meant to make them like him. Or worse, he’d try to take them places, the whole family, like they could ever belong buckled into the back seat of his Jap import. He sold car stereos for a living, and had a speaker under the front seat that made the whole car shake. Sharon hoped soon someone on the street would steal it, and then he would go away.

Sharon tried to explain it to Kaz, how awful he was, how stupid he was making her look, how she could do so much better, but Kaz wouldn’t let herself listen.

‘Look at you,’ was all Kaz said. ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old to believe in fairy tales?’

So Sharon took to spending more time out of the house, just hanging round, like she was waiting for something to happen.

Justin hung back, like he could, but he must have been watching all the time. It was like he could read her, sense her moods. He picked the perfect time to ask, one afternoon when she was feeling restless, ready to agree to just about anything.

‘Came into some money lately,’ is how he started, up in the trees just after interval, when the other smokers had walked back to class.

‘Yeah,’ Sharon replied, trying to sound as casual as he was, though she knew he wouldn’t mention money if he didn’t have a point.

‘Thought you might like to come out with me, movie or something.’

He said it the same way he said everything, how he’d announce an itch on his leg or the death of a friend. If you wanted to get excited about the things Justin had to say, that was your business. He wouldn’t go helping you.

‘Maybe,’ Sharon replied, sucking too hard on the remnants of her cigarette, because she wasn’t as good at the game.

‘Tonight?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll pick you up about seven then.’

‘You don’t know where I live.’

‘Yes I do. Got the stereo remember.’ Justin smiled, but not in the way that he was being a prick about it.

‘You don’t drive.’

‘We’ll take a taxi.’

‘Waste of money. I can walk.’

‘Not into town you can’t. Anyway, we can talk in the car. There’s stuff we need to discuss.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll see.’ Justin stood, deliberately not looking at her, trying to keep it mysterious. ‘Dress up, it’ll be fun.’

He walked off and Sharon didn’t follow him. She lit another cigarette and breathed in the feeling she’d been waiting for, the feeling of life kicking back in. People could say what they liked, people like Derek or Mrs Flynn, people who’d never understand.

Justin’ll get me outta here.

• • •

‘It’s not the geek is it?’ Kaz asked when she caught Sharon going through her earrings.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘It’s not natural. Think of the children.’

‘Oh, like I would.’

‘Who then?’ Kaz asked.

‘Justin.’ Sharon shrank at the sound of the name, not the sort of sound you make in front of your mother.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Don’t breathe all that smoke over my dress.’

‘My dress.’ Red, and too tight really, but at least it wasn’t short, like most of Kaz’s stuff.

‘Whatever.’

‘So who is he then?’

‘That’s him.’ A taxi tooted from out on the road. ‘See ya later.’

Justin got out to open the door, wearing the same clothes he always wore, big denim jacket slipping off his skinny body, same green boots that would have looked stupid on anyone else.

‘I thought you said to dress up,’ Sharon said, feeling obvious now, and cold.

‘I did. You look great.’ Said so it was hard to tell what he meant. Not sleazy though. Justin wasn’t like that.

The taxi took them all the way into town, thirty minutes, and the whole time Sharon waited for Justin to say something, do the discussing he’d promised, but he just looked out the window, at the dark water and the floating lights of the harbour. Half an hour of biting her lips, wondering if it was the dress, wondering if he’d changed his mind. Justin got the taxi to stop down by the wharves, across the road from the stadium, nowhere near any of the movie places. When Sharon asked what he was doing he didn’t reply, just handed the driver a fifty through the window and told him to keep the change.

‘Come on, follow me, through here.’

Justin led her down an access way. Painted signs on the high wire fence running alongside explained that trespassers would be prosecuted. Sharon noticed a small bag hanging by a strap over Justin’s shoulder, bouncing on his hip as he glided on into the shadows.

‘Here, this way.’ The fence ended at the edge of the wharf. Holding the last support with one hand, Justin swung around into the container compound. Sharon followed him. It wasn’t too hard. Maybe this was another job, or another test.

‘So what sort of movie is this then?’ Sharon whispered. Justin had stopped walking and was looking out across the yard. It was bigger than you’d think from driving past, rows and rows of shipping containers, and back to the left a stack of logs that looked set to tumble. Beyond them, out on the waterfront, were the crouched dark outlines of the loading cranes.

‘Changed my mind.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘No worries.’

A gust of wind passed through them.

‘So, what are you doing? It’s cold here.’

‘I want to get a photo, over by the cranes.’

‘What?’

‘Bought a new camera yesterday.’ He patted the bag. ‘It’s for my photography assignment.’

‘You brought me into town to do school work? That’s fucked.’

‘Not just that.’

‘Whatever. Come on then. It’s cold.’

‘Just a sec. Sometimes there’s a guy does rounds with a dog. If you see it, go straight back round the end of the fence. It’s fucken fast.’

‘You been here before?’

‘Couple of weeks ago.’

‘So why didn’t you take your photo then?’

‘Like I said, the dog’s fucken fast.’ He smiled and the wash of the security lights blew up his features, making him look even more pleased with himself, and more frustrating. ‘Anyway, you weren’t here then.’

‘I’m not going in any photo,’ Sharon told him. ‘Not dressed like this.’

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘No one’ll know it’s you. I don’t want to use your face.’

‘Well that makes it a lot better.’

‘I’ll show it to you first, promise. Come on, it’s clear now. Dog can’t be on tonight.’

He ran across the yard, and although it hardly looked like he was moving Sharon had to breathe hard to keep up with him, and concentrate harder to stop herself from breaking an ankle in Kaz’s stupid shoes.

Justin took forever to set up, hardly a shock. Sharon had to admit it was a cool place for a photo. Surfaces that would have looked old and shitty in the day time were painted with strange shadows. The cranes towered above them, black and staunch, and behind the lights of Mt Vic made it all seem even less real. She felt sort of stink, sitting in the cold while Justin stalked around her, playing with his lens, changing his mind every time it looked like he might have settled on an angle. It was good though, just because it was so weird, so Justin. And he’d said there was something to discuss. There was still that. There was still a possibility. So she sat and she didn’t complain. And when he put his camera back in the bag and suggested they go and shelter behind one of the containers to talk she said okay, and when they got there and he took his jacket off and draped it over both of them she had to smile.

‘Heard they’re trying to get you on contract,’ Justin said, maybe just to get a conversation started. It was hard to tell with him.

‘No, Mrs Flynn’s given up on that idea I think. She met Kaz. That helped.’

‘Good on her,’ Justin replied.

Sharon tried to imagine what Justin would think of Kaz, if he met her. He’d like her, she was fairly sure.

‘Yeah, she’s okay.’

‘Right.’

There was silence then, and it belonged to Justin. It was obvious he had something else to say, something he’d been coming at the long way.

‘Got a proposition for you.’

Sharon couldn’t look at him, in case her eyes gave away how desperately she’d been wanting to hear that. So she looked past him, back to the lights of the city, where the cleaners would be now, emptying bins and flushing other people’s toilets.

‘Sharon, is there something wrong?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well it’s just this is really important. I think it could be our big break.’

Sharon felt hope surging in, washing her clean of weeks of nothing.

Our big break. Him and me together.

‘What?’

‘There’s another job. Simon wants you for it. No one else. And the pay’s real this time, bigger than he’s ever offered before. You got lucky.’

‘What will I have to do?’ Sharon asked but Justin acted like he hadn’t heard.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘this could be it for me. Here…’ He leaned even closer and whispered ‘5000 each’ in her ear.

Sharon started to smile, at the way all the good luck that life had been holding back was starting to ooze out. Play it right and soon it’d be a flood. Then she remembered he still hadn’t answered her question.

‘So what’s the job?’

‘Well obviously it’s going to be a bit tricky, for that sort of money.’

He said it without going near her eyes, like he was scared they’d trap him.

‘But not as bad as you’re thinking.’

‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’

‘Not dangerous, is what I mean.’

He stopped there, like it was a full explanation and she could go away now, lucky to have heard that much.

‘And…’

‘I don’t have all the details yet.’

‘So why are you asking me?’ He was wimping out. It was easy to see.

‘Okay, okay. There’s this guy, a rich guy, quite old. There’s some stuff in his house, not valuables, some sort of documents or something, and it’s no good asking what cos Simon never lets on about those sorts of details. Anyway, his house, well it’s actually an apartment, and it’s like impossible to get into. That’s where you come into it. You go round to see him, and while you’re in there you disarm the alarm. Then we can follow you in.’

Maybe it was Kaz’s dress, digging into her at the place where the bottom of her stomach rolled over, that made her get it straight away. Or the way the lights of the city sparkled, so clean and distant, like they were mocking her. Maybe it was just what she was used to, seeing all her best chances collapsing.

‘No way. No fucken way.’ Said too loud, so it bounced off the water and the containers, came straight back at her. ‘I’m not a slut. I wouldn’t do that.’

Justin looked relieved, that he hadn’t had to say the words himself.

‘No. It wouldn’t be like that. Not exactly.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.’

Five thousand bucks. You could lose that in one night, just on drinks for the neighbours. But some things, once you’ve done them, they’re yours for life.

‘I’m not a slut. You shouldn’t have told him I was a slut. Get a slut to do it. Madeleine’ll do it, just for the experience. You won’t even have to pay her.’

‘No, let me finish,’ Justin said, holding up his hand like he was some father off television, being patient with his children. ‘This guy gets escorts all the time. Fancy ones. He has drinks with them, then takes them out to dinner first. Always. You just have to do a runner during the meal. It’s easy. We wouldn’t do that to you. Shit, I wouldn’t do that to you Sharon. No way.’

‘How do you know? How do you know that’s what he always does? And how do you know he won’t change his mind. You don’t. You can’t. This is all shit. All of this.’

Sharon stood up and threw his jacket back at him.

‘I’m outta here.’

Justin stood too but he didn’t try to stop her, just pulled another magic trick and had forty dollars in her hand before she realised.

‘For the taxi. I’ll see you tomorrow, when you’ve had time to think.’

The taxi ride was all the time she needed. By the time she got home it wasn’t Justin she was pissed off with. She was pissed off at herself, for ever having believed it might happen that easily.