What Came Before He Shot Her

obvious that she interested none of them either. The handful of young women in the place had captured all the attention. Kendra felt every one of her forty years.

            She would have insisted upon leaving had Cordie not already determined that Kendra needed some fun. To her suggestion that they depart, Cordie said, “In a bit, but le’s go above first,” and she headed in the direction of the stairs. To her way of thinking, if there were no men available up there, at least she and Kendra could get in a few dances, by themselves or with each other.

            On the first floor, they found that the noise was deafening, and the light came from only three sources—a small anglepoise lamp shining on the DJ’s equipment, two dim bulbs above the bar, and the strobe. Because of this, at the top of the stairs, Kendra and Cordie paused to get used to the murk. They also had to get used to the temperature, which was very nearly tropical. London in early spring meant no one would dare think to open a window, even to be rid of some of the cigarette smoke which—lit by the strobe—made the room look like a tableau demonstrating the perils of yellow fog.

There were no tables up here, just a chest-high shelf running round the room, on which a dancer could place a glass for safekeeping while experiencing the joys of the music. This was currently rap, all lyrics, all beat and no tune, but no one was finding that a problem. It seemed as if two hundred people were mashed together in the dancing area. It seemed as if another hundred or so were vying for the attention of the three bartenders, who were mixing drinks and pouring pints as fast as they could.

With a whoop, Cordie plunged directly into the action, handing over her drink to Kendra and shimmying between two young men who appeared happy to have her company. Watching them, Kendra began to feel worse than she’d felt below—her age and more—which illustrated how different life was for her now. Prior to the Campbells’ arrival, she’d been living primarily with the knowledge—fueled by both of her brothers’ deaths— that life was fleeting. She’d been experiencing things rather than reacting to them. She made  things; they did not make her. But in the months since her mother had foisted an unexpected form of parenthood upon her, she’d managed to do very little that even resembled her old life. It seemed to her that she’d ceased being who she was, in fact, and what was worse, she’d ceased being who she’d long ago intended to be.

Time and experience—and especially two marriages—had taught Kendra that she had only herself to blame if she didn’t like the way her bed was made. If she was feeling her age and feeling burdened by responsibilities that she did not want, it was up to her to do something about it. It was for this reason and because at that precise moment the something  appeared to be dancing in a crowd of perspiring twenty-yearolds that Kendra decided to join them. But fuelled by that chemical depressant—the alcohol she’d consumed that evening—she found that the activity did not uplift her. It did not bring about the desired secondary result, either, which was finding someone to shag at the end of the evening.

            Cordie was all apologies for this as they walked home later. She herself had managed a very nice fifteen minutes of snogging with a nineteen-year-old boy in the corridor leading to the toilets, and she couldn’t believe that Kendra—whom she declared to be “dead-on-anybloke’s-feet gorgeous, girl”—had not managed at least as much. Kendra tried to be philosophical about this. Her life was too complicated to accommodate a man, even temporarily, she said.

            “Jus’ don’ start t’inking you ain’t got it no more, Ken,” Cordie warned her. “’Sides, men being wha’ dey are, you c’n always get one, you lower your standards enough.”

            Kendra chuckled. It didn’t  matter, she told her friend. Stepping out for the evening had been enough. In fact, they needed to do this more often, and she intended to turn over a new leaf in the matter, if Cordie was in agreement.

            Cordie said, “Jus’ tell me where t’sign up,” and Kendra was about to reply when they emerged from the gloom of the path that passed in front of Trellick Tower into Edenham Way. There she caught a glimpse of the front of her house. A car was parked to block her garage door, a car she couldn’t identify.

            She said, “Shit,” and quickened her pace, determined to see what Ness had got up to in the hours they’d been gone. She had her answer before she reached either the car or her front door. For it soon became apparent that the car was occupied, and one of the two people inside it was unmistakably her niece. Kendra could tell this from the shape of Ness’s head and the texture of her hair, from the curve of her neck as the man she was with lifted his head from the region of her breasts.

            He reached across her to open her door, much like a kerb crawler dismissing a common whore. When Ness didn’t remove herself, he gave her a little push, and when that didn’t work, he got out of the vehicle himself and walked around to her door. He pulled her out, and her head lolled back. She was either drugged or exceedingly drunk. Kendra needed no further invitation. She shouted, “You bloody well hang on right there!” and she charged forward to accost the man. “You take your hands off that girl!”

            He blinked at her. He was much younger than she’d thought, despite being entirely bald. He was black, bulky, and pleasant featured. He wore odd harem trousers like an exotic dancer, white trainers, and a black leather jacket zipped to his throat. He had Ness’s bag slung across his back and Ness herself under one arm.

            “You hear me? Let her go.”

            “I do that, she crack her head on the steps,” he said reasonably. “She bleedin drunk. I found her up in—”

            “You found her, you found her,” Kendra scoffed. “I don’ fucking care  where you found her. Get your bloody hands off her, and do it now. You know how old she is? Fifteen, fifteen.”

            The man looked at Ness. “Lemme tell you, she don’ act—”

            “Give her here.” Kendra reached the car and grabbed Ness by the arm. The girl stumbled against her and raised her head. She looked like a ruin; she smelled like an illegal distillery. She said to the man, “You wan’ t’ stick it in me or wha? I tol’  you I ain’t doin no free shots, innit.”

            Kendra glared at him. “Get out of here,” she said. “Give me that bag and just get out. I get your number plates. I phone the cops.” And to Cordie, “You take down his number plates, girl.”

            He said in protest, “Hey. I jus’ bringin her home. She up at the pub. It clear she goin to get herself into a bad situation ’f she stays there, so I get her out of th’ place.”

            “Like Sir Bloody Lancelot, eh? Get those numbers, Cordie.”

            As Cordie began to go through her shoulder bag for something to write on, the young man said, “Fuck it, den.” He shook Ness’s bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. He bent to look her in the face, and he told her to tell the truth.

            Ness said cooperatively, “You wanted me to suck is the truth, innit. You wanted it bad. ”

            He said, “Shit,” and slammed the passenger door. He went back to the driver’s side and said over the roof of the car to Kendra, “You better deal with her ’fore someone else does,” which resulted in Kendra taking note that the term seeing red  was an accurate description of what happened to one’s vision when anger’s heat reached a certain degree. He drove off before she could reply: a stranger standing in judgement of her.

            She felt utterly exposed. She felt enraged. She felt used and foolish. So when Ness giggled and said, “Tell you, Ken, dat one got a prong like a fuckin mule,” Kendra slapped her so hard that her palm sent pain up the length of her arm.

            Ness toppled. She fell against the house. She dropped to her knees. Kendra surged forward to hit her again and drew her arm back. Cordie caught it. She said, “Hey, Ken. Don’t,” and that was enough. It was also enough to sober Ness up, at least partially. So when Kendra finally spoke to her, she was more than ready to make a reply.

            “You want the world to know you as a slag?” Kendra cried. “’S that what you want for yourself, Vanessa?”

            Ness struggled to her feet and backed away from her aunt. “Like I bloody fuckin care,” she said.

            SHE STUMBLED TOWARDS the path between the terraces of houses and from there into Meanwhile Gardens. Behind her, she heard Kendra call out her name, she heard her shout You get back home, and she felt a harsh bubble of laughter force its way up into her throat. For Ness, there was no home any longer. There was just a place where she shared a bed with her aunt while her little brothers slept on hastily purchased camp beds in the room next door. Under those beds, Joel and Toby had persisted in keeping their suitcases neatly packed for more