Dirty Game

‘Hello Annie. Well, aren’t you coming in?’

‘You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to,’ said Connie, looking at Annie with open dislike.

‘What good would that do?’ asked Ruthie. ‘Let her in, for God’s sake, Mum.’

They went through to the kitchen. There were plates piled high in the sink and on the draining board. The lino was scuffed and sticky underfoot. The stove looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for a month. Annie sat down at the kitchen table, looking carefully at the chair before she did so. Ruthie sat too, and smiled grimly as she saw Annie’s mouth thin with disgust at their surroundings. Jesus, thought Annie, she lived in a flipping knocking shop but she would never stomach this sort of mess around her! Surely, even if Connie was too drunk or bone-idle to clear up, Ruthie could shift herself and do it?

But this wasn’t the Ruthie of old. She had to keep reminding herself of that. This Ruthie didn’t do housework. This Ruthie had sleekly dressed hair and polished nails. This Ruthie wore a smart two-piece suit not dissimilar to the one Annie wore. Fuck it, they looked like two flamingos perched on a muck¬ heap in here! The thought was amusing, but Annie didn’t share it. Ruthie wouldn’t see the joke. Ruthie’s face – so much thinner than it used to be – was set in grim lines. She didn’t look like she’d laughed in a long, long time. And that’s my fault, thought Annie. She felt shrivelled inside with the guilt of it.

‘Don’t think you’re getting a fucking cup of tea,’ snorted Connie, hovering threateningly over Annie, scattering venom and fag ash and drink fumes. ‘What did you think I’d do, roll out the bloody red carpet for a cheap little whore like you?’

‘Mum,’ said Ruthie loudly.

‘Well, she’s got a fucking nerve, showing up here. Hasn’t she done enough damage?’

‘Just give us a few minutes, will you Mum?’ asked Ruthie coolly.

Connie withdrew, leaving the kitchen door open into the hallway. Ruthie got up and shut it. She sat back down and looked at Annie.

‘So,’ she said. ‘What is it you’ve come for, Annie?’

‘I’ve come to see how you are.’

Ruthie looked at her blankly. ‘You’ve come to see how I am,’ she echoed. Then she laughed. ‘I’ll tell you how I am, shall I Annie? I’m surviving. That’s all.’

‘Ruthie, I’m sorry.’

Ruthie nodded. ‘You should be.’

‘I wish you were happy, Ruthie. I really do.’

‘Well I’m not.’ Ruthie’s eyes were hard. ‘Let me tell you about my life, Annie. I spend a lot of time sitting alone in that mausoleum in Surrey now that poor little Eddie’s gone. If I go out to get my hair done or to go shopping I have to take my minder with me. The stockbrokers’ wives with their little Pony Club kids and their twinsets and pearls don’t like my accent or my dodgy connections and they shun me. I don’t see my husband very often, he’s a busy man, but when I do we’re at each other’s throats. Mum’s in bits on her own but Max won’t let her come and stay with us because she might mess up Queenie’s rugs or leave drink stains on the tables. So I came back to the Smoke. I go out to the shops here, but still I’ve got to take my minder with me. The shopkeepers all serve me first, before all the other women. I go straight to the front of the queue, even if I don’t want to. I have to apologize for that, but the other women say, oh don’t worry, we’re not in a rush. But they stare at me and they hate me and they envy me. They’re afraid of me. Or rather they’re afraid of Max. That’s my life, Annie. That’s my life.’

Suddenly there were tears in Ruthie’s eyes. Instinctively Annie put out a comforting hand, but Ruthie snatched hers away.

‘Don’t you dare pity me,’ she said.

‘I don’t,’ lied Annie.

‘I’d rather be me than you,’ sniffed Ruthie, her expression one of disgust. ‘Running a massage parlour! For God’s sake, whatever possessed you to get sucked into all that?’

‘Mum threw me out,’ Annie reminded her. ‘Where the hell else could I have gone? And Celia always liked me.’

‘And now she’s left you in charge?’

‘Yes.’

‘You ought to be careful,’ said Ruthie. ‘You’ll get all sorts banging on your door.’

Don’t I know it, thought Annie. But the parlour had been her lifeline. She was busy expanding it. Fuck it, she was proud of the work she’d done there. It had been running at a quarter of its full capacity under Celia. Under Annie’s rule, it was thriving.

‘I’m always careful,’ said Annie. ‘So … are you and Max still together, Ruthie?’

Ruthie looked at her sister scornfully. ‘Yes, we’re still together. Contrary to rumour. I’m going back at the weekend, we’re going to spend it together. Don’t think you’re going to step into my shoes, Annie Bailey. I’m still wearing them.’

‘I don’t,’ said Annie, colouring.

‘No?’ Ruthie gave a derisive snort. ‘He always wanted you, really. But he won’t ditch me for you, Annie. Max doesn’t dump his commitments. He isn’t Jonjo. He takes his responsibilities seriously.’

‘I don’t want him to,’ said Annie, standing up sharply.

‘Sure you don’t,’ scoffed Ruthie.

‘I don’t!’ God, was she trying to convince Ruthie or herself? Flustered, Annie snatched up her bag. Her cheeks felt hot. She looked at Ruthie. ‘I just wanted to see you,’ she said.

‘What for? To see the damage you’ve done?’ snapped Ruthie.

‘We were so close before,’ said Annie.

‘Before? You mean, before you fucked my bridegroom?’

It wasn’t like Ruthie to swear. But then this was a different Ruthie – hardened and sharpened by life, by all that had happened to her. Annie stared at her and could see nothing of the Ruthie she had known and loved. Nothing at all.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ said Ruthie. ‘Of course you are.’

26

‘I think he’s had enough,’ said Annie, passing through the hallway and pausing to look at what Aretha was up to.

More and more Annie was becoming blase about the sex parties. Men were a strange lot, straight sex seemed to be the last thing on their mind. One client had begged her to let him redecorate the kitchen – while stark naked of course – while Aretha whipped the crap out of him and told him to do it better. Annie had declined his request. The kitchen was off-limits to clients. Men! What a bloody strange bunch they were. In her limited experience, women were so much easier to please. Most women wanted a nice warm one-to-one cuddle – blokes wanted much more diverse pleasures.

‘Why? He’s a very naughty boy,’ purred Aretha.

This was becoming a practised part of their little act. Aretha was the slave mistress, the beater and abuser dressed in a leather basque and holding the whip, Annie was the prudishly clad, sweet voice of discipline and reason who said enough was enough. It was good cop/bad cop, really. Which was ironic, when you considered that the bloke who was strung up from the stairwell was a chief inspector.

‘Who’s a naughty boy then?’ asked Aretha, biting pineapple and cheese from a cocktail stick and then giving the copper a playful stab in the buttocks with the point. He shrieked with ecstasy and writhed about.

Frankly, Annie had seen prettier sights than this middle-aged man, his fat arse slick with baby oil, hung up there like a sodding Christmas ham. It tickled her that Chris was still sitting by the front door, his face impassive. He could have been a eunuch standing guard in a harem for all the interest he showed in the proceedings.

‘Another ten minutes.’ Annie looked at the alarm clock set up on the hall table. It would ring at three o’clock