‘Sanctimonious bitch.’
Mr Dymovsky shakes his head tiredly as the two women continue to take verbal pot shots at each other across the room. It’s bad for business.
‘Take Justine into the office,’ he tells me. ‘Then go buy her some shoes, something to wear. It is not safe that she walks around dressed like, like . . .’ He waves one hand towards her, looking gallantly at a fixed point above her head.
He gives me a fifty out of the till to back up his request and I head around the corner to Chinatown, where I go into the first variety store I come across and pick up a pair of black men’s kung fu shoes in a small size and Chinese-style pyjamas, with change to spare. It’s not high fashion, but Justine’s still got that creep’s bomber and the ensemble will do until she can get home and into a change of clothes.
She’s self-conscious as she slips into the lemon- coloured, faux silk pyjamas in Mr Dymovsky’s office. ‘Don’t look at me,’ she mutters, changing hurriedly while I stand guard at the door like she told me to. ‘I’ve broken out across the tops of my shoulders from all the latex they’ve been getting me to wear lately — it’s disgusting.’
She slips the soft, flat shoes onto her large, wide feet. They’re only a little too big. The bomber jacket she asks me to hand to Sulaiman, to dump it straight into one of the skips outside.
‘It smells like him,’ she says, and shudders. ‘Don’t want it.’
Mr Dymovsky gives me a long-suffering roll of his eyes when the two of us come out of his office. ‘Of course you can go early, Lela, I was expecting it. And you take care, Justine. Don’t go back to that place; you come work here instead, okay?’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Justine says, suddenly shy, as we take our leave.
She raises a hand gratefully to Sulaiman in the kitchen. He gives her an unsmiling nod, gets right back to the tray of pizza he’s making for tomorrow.
‘I think I’m in love with that guy,’ she laughs in quiet despair as we bat our way out of the plastic curtain hanging over the door. ‘I always pick the tricky ones — guys on drugs, guys with rap sheets longer than my arm, women-hating latent homosexuals, and now a big Muslim bloke who probably thinks I’m trouble. I’m hopeless. Might as well shoot me now.’
I take the sleeve of her Chinese pyjama jacket between my fingers, steer her up the road towards the same bus stop she pointed out to me yesterday.
‘He’s all right, Sulaiman. Not seeing anyone, Cecilia says. Doesn’t talk much about himself, bit of a mystery fella. But he’s contemplative, spiritual, respectful, no woman-hater, I can vouch for that. You’d have to wear a few more clothes, though, change your line of work, if you’ve set your heart on him.’ I grin at her.
She looks down as we cross the street to the bus stop. ‘Stripping’s a crap living,’ she says sadly. ‘But it’s a living.’
‘But it’s not a life,’ I say pointedly.
Her reply is weary. ‘But I’m no good for anything else, am I? I mean, look at me. I’m a joke.’
After fifteen long minutes of Justine tapping on her crooked teeth with her baby pink fake nails, of Justine itching at her shoulderblades, shuffling her too-big slippers, no bus comes, so we flag down a cab.
When it pulls up, Justine clutches at my sleeve. ‘Would you come with me? I don’t want to go in by myself. He might be there. And you must live cloa jy seeing as we get the same bus. It won’t take long . . .’
I can feel her tension as she waits for my answer.
I check Lela’s watch and see that Georgia will still be with Mrs Neill for a few hours yet. The council carer should be there, too.
‘Sure,’ I reply, making another decision almost in the same instant. ‘And you’re welcome to stay at our place tonight. Just in case, you know. We have plenty of bedrooms.’
Bedrooms filled with dried flower arrangements, foot massagers and doilies, overflowing with books and papers, cushions, clothing, hat racks draped in more clothing, plastic bags, shoe boxes, walking canes and filing cabinets. Rooms and rooms of stuff that soon no one will want.
‘I can’t promise it’ll be tidy, though,’ I caution. ‘You’ll have to dig yourself out a place to sleep.’
‘Best offer I’ve had in years,’ Justine says gratefully.
She gives the driver her address, then falls silent and stares out the side window for the entire ride. The cab’s filled with the smell of well-worn leather, stale sweat and pulsing bhangra music. When we get to Bright Meadows, I hand over forty-five dollars, waving away Justine’s embarassed thanks.
‘All my stuff’s still at the club,’ she says.
She gets out with as much grace and dignity as a person with smeared eye make-up in an oriental costume can manage. The middle-aged cabbie gives her a hard sideways look as she slides out the door, keeps looking at her as he executes a slow U-turn and heads back the way he came.
We’re standing in front of a 1970s mission-brown brick apartment block with crumbling balconies in a nice, contrasting light beige. She can tell from the appalled expression on my face that it’s no kind of place to call home. She buzzes someone’s doorbell and they let her into the building. The stairwell smells of cooked cabbage and inadequately aired clothing, cats’ piss, dead rent, lost opportunities, a failure to capitalise.
‘Got a credit card?’ she says when we fetch up outside her apartment.
I’m not sure; hand her Lela’s red wallet to rifle through. A second later she takes out a thin plastic card and plays around with the lock on her front door. About two minutes later, the door swings wide open.
‘There’s a reason it’s cheap,’ she says. ‘Can never lock yourself out. One of the benefits. Wait here for me.’
I do as she says, noticing that the narrow hallway is unrelieved speckled concrete. There’s rising damp along the skirting boards, the florid 1970s wallpaper bubbling up in places as if fed by a subterranean stream. The ceilings are low and there’s a pervasive smell of mould, or bacteria.
I shudder and move further back into the external corridor. Oh, Justine, I can’t help thinking.
A block and a half later and I’m unlocking the door to Lela’s house.
‘Mum?’ I call out softly.
Georgia rises, gathering her things as I enter Mrs Neill’s bedroom with Justine in tow. She nods at Justine, not batting an eyelid at her weird get-up.
There’s an awkward expression on Justine’s face as she looks around the room. ‘Lela,’ she says quietly. ‘I had no idea.’
‘She’s sleeping now,’ Georgia whispers, ‘but she’s been asking for you. I’ll be here at the usual time tomorrow, but call the number on the fridge if she gets worse overnight. One of the team will respond. She might . . . Not that I trust myself, but it’s just a feeling I get.’
I nod, my face grim. ‘Me, too. And thanks.’
Justine perches in the chair I usually sleep in, so I clear a footstool for myself to sit on.
‘That you, Lel?’ Mrs Neill murmurs without opening her eyes when I draw the stool closer to the edge of the bed.
‘Yes, Mum,’ I reply quietly. ‘And I’ve asked a friend to stay. Her name’s Justine.’
Justine leans forward. ‘I won’t be any trouble, Mrs . . .’
‘Neill,’ I interrupt quickly at Justine’s stricken look. We are practically strangers.
‘Mrs Neill,’ Justine repeats awkwardly.
Lela’s mum opens her eyes, turns her head slowly, giving us both an unfocused smile. ‘So lovely to meet you. Lela used to have friends over all the time. It’s been months since she’s done that.’
She swallows painfully, closes her eyes, polite to the finish. ‘Please make yourself at home,’ she adds, her voice like something carried back on the wind from the afterlife.
She slips immediately into an uneasy sleep, as if the effort of speaking is too great to sustain. I must bend low to perceive that she is still breathing, still with us.
I stand and Justine immediately stands, too.
‘Kitchen’s here,’ I say as we approach the entrance to it. ‘We can offer you . . .’
I open the refrigerator and see a solitary jar of apricot jam; look in the freezer, see half a loaf of bread — provenance unknown, age unknown — and boxes and boxes of a frozen brown pureed substance. Food for Lela’s mum, I figure, and I’m loath to serve it because I don’t know what it is.
‘. . . jam sandwiches for dinner,’ I finish apologetically.
I’m not often hungry myself, only eating or drinking mechanically when the body I inhabit feels hunger or
