What Came Before He Shot Her

High Street where they’d entertained themselves first by trying on clothes at Top Shop, rooting through racks of out-of-season jerseys in H & M, and ultimately finding their way to yet another branch of Accessorize, where the general plan was to pinch a few pairs of earrings.

            Six excelled at this activity, and Ness wasn’t far behind her. Natasha, however, had very little talent in the sleight-of-hand department, being as clumsy as she was gawky. Usually, Natasha was in charge of diversion, but on this day she decided to join the action. Six hissed at her,

            “Tash! Do what you s’posed! You vex me, slag,” but that did nothing to turn the tide of Natasha’s intentions. Instead she went for the rack of earrings and knocked it over just as Six was attempting to shove three pairs of garish chandeliers into her pocket. The result of this was the three girls being escorted from the premises. There, outside the shop and in full view of the passing throng on the High Street, two overweight security guards, who seemed to materialise out of the commercial ether of the precinct, stood them up against the wall and photographed them with an old Polaroid camera. The pictures, the girls were informed, would be put up by the till. If they ever  entered this shop again . . . Nothing more needed to be said.

            The entire enterprise set Six’s teeth on edge. She wasn’t used to such humiliating treatment because she wasn’t used to being caught. And she wouldn’t have been caught had the maddening Natasha not taken it into her head that she was going to nick something from the shop. Six said, “Damn, Tash, you are one fuckin stupid cow,” but making that declaration to Natasha didn’t give Six the satisfaction she desired. She sought another focus for it. Ness was the logical target. Six went at her obliquely. Like most people unable to assess their own emotional state, she displaced what she was feeling onto something less terrifying. The lack of cash was a suitable substitute for the lack of purpose in life.

            She said, “We got to get some dosh. We can’t be relyin on nicking shit an’ passin it on. Dat’s goin to take ’s forever, innit.”

            “Yeah,” said Tash, maintaining her position of always agreeing with whatever Six said. She didn’t question what they needed the cash for. Six had her reasons for everything. Cash was always useful, especially when the bicycle-delivery boys weren’t willing to risk scooping a bit of substance from the top of a sandwich bag for whatever sexual fantasy they had that might be fulfilled.

            “So where we gettin it?” Six excavated her shoulder bag and brought out a packet of Dunhills recently pinched from a tobacconist on the Harrow Road. She prised one out without offering the packet to the other two girls. She had no matches or lighter, so she stopped a white woman with a child in a pushchair and demanded something “to fire up dis fag, innit.” The woman hesitated, mouth open but words blocked. Six said to her, “You hear me, slag? I need a fuckin light an’ I ’spect you got summick I could use in dat bag of yours.”

            The woman looked around as if seeking rescue, but the way of life in London —defined by a better- you-than-me morality—declared that no one was going to come to her aid. Had she said, “Step out of my way, you nasty piece of business, or I shall scream so loudly you’ll not have eardrums when I’m through with you,” Six would have been so astonished by the singularity of this reply that she would have done as the woman demanded. But instead, when the poor creature fumbled in her bag to accommodate the request, Six saw her wallet within, clocked its bulge, felt the gratification that comes with gathering a few easy unearned pickings, and told her to hand over some cash as well.

            “Jus’ a loan,” she said to the woman, with a smile. “’Less you want to make it a gift or summick.”

            Ness, seeing the interaction, said, “Hey, Six,” and her voice was a caution. Nicking merchandise from shops was one thing; engaging in street muggings was another.

            Six ignored her. “Twenty pounds’ll do,” she said. “Take that Bic ’s well, case I want ’nother fag later on.”

            The fact that it didn’t look like a mugging and didn’t run the course of a typical mugging was what allowed the enterprise to conclude smoothly. The woman—with a child to care for and far more than twenty pounds in her possession—was relieved to be let off so lightly. She handed over her lighter, extricated a twenty-pound note from her wallet without opening it fully to display how many more twentypound notes she was carrying, and scurried on her way when Six stepped to one side.

            “Yeah!” Six said, delighted by the conclusion of her engagement with the woman. And then she caught sight of Ness’s face, which didn’t bear the level of approval she was looking for. She said to her, “Wha’? You too good for dis or summick?”

            Ness didn’t like what had just gone down, but she knew the wisdom of not making a comment. Instead she said, “Give us a fag, den. I dyin for one, innit.”

            Six wasn’t persuaded by Ness’s reply. Living as she did by her wits and by her ability to read her associates, she could sense disapproval. She said, “Whyn’t you get your own, Moonbeam? I been takin the risk. You been scorin the profi t.”

            Ness widened her eyes but otherwise kept her expression the same.

            “Dat ain’t true.”

            “Tash?” Six said. “True or not, slag?”

            Natasha floundered around for a reply that would offend neither girl. She couldn’t come up with one quickly enough to satisfy Six. Six said to Ness, “Sides, you don’t need to risk nuffink, way I see it, Moonbeam. Gotcher man providin for you now. An’ you ain’t even sharin wiv no one. Not money, dat is. Not substance, neither. Bone or weed. As f’r other t’ings . . . well, I ain’t sayin.” She laughed and tried to light her cigarette. The Bic was dead. She said, “ Fuck  dat bitch!” and threw the lighter into the street.

            What Six had said about the Blade struck Ness in a place she hadn’t expected to be touched. She said, “What you talkin ’bout, Six?”

            Six replied, “Like I said. I ain’t sayin, Moonbeam.”

            “You best say, slag,” Ness told her, speaking from a fear as deep as Six’s own although having an entirely different source. “You got summick to tell me, you tell me. Now.”

            Possession of a mobile phone. Having a source of ready cash should she want it. Being chosen by someone of import. These were the stimuli to what Six next said. “You t’ink you the only  one, slag? He been fuckin a bitch called Arissa same ’s he fuckin you. Fuckin her ’fore  you, matter ’f fack, and di’n’t stop doin her when he started up wiv you. An’ ’fore you two, he got some slag up the chute over’n Dickens estate an’ he planted ’nother one in Adair Street, next door his mum, which’s why she t’rowed him out. Ever’one knows it cos dat’s what he does. I hope to hell you’re takin precautions cos he settin up you and settin up Arissa just like the others and when he done, he walk away. Dat’s how he like it. Ask round, you don’t b’lieve me.”

            Ness felt a coldness come over her, but she knew the importance of projecting indifference. She said, “Like I care? He get me a baby, I like it good. Get myself my own place, den, and dat’s just what I want.”

            “You t’ink he come round afterwards? You t’ink he give you cash?

            Let you keep dat moby? You pop out a kid, he finish wiv you. Dat’s what he does, an’ you so stupid you ain’t seeing it yet.” She directed her next comments not to Ness but to Natasha, speaking as if Ness had disappeared. She said, “Shit, Tash, wha’ you t’ink? He must got a solid gold one, dat blood. So obvious  wha’ he got in mind, innit. Either women ’s more fuckin stupider ’n I ever thought or he got a dick make dem sing when he plug it in. Which you s’pose it is?”

            This was far too much for Natasha to cope with. The conversation was obvious enough but the underlying causes were too subtle for her to understand. She didn’t know whom to side with or even why she was supposed to take a side at all. Her eyes grew watery. She sucked in on her lip.

            Six said, “Shit. I’m out ’f here, den.”

            Ness said, “Yeah. You take off, cunt.”

            Tash made a noise akin to a whimper and looked from Six to Ness, waiting for the fight to begin. She hated the thought of it: screeching, kicking, shoving, pulling hair, and clawing at flesh. When women went after each other, it was worse than a catfight, for brawls between women always began  things that went on forever. Brawls between men put an end to disputes.

            What Tash didn’t take into account in that moment was the influence of the Blade. Six, however, did. She knew that a fight with Ness would not end with a fight with Ness. And while she truly hated walking away from