00: 55.
Her pimp would be here any minute now. If she was lucky, and she put herself about a bit, she should just be able to scrape together the money she needed to buy enough crack to see her through until tomorrow night. Claude would have a few rocks on him, and Tracey definitely needed a hit before she would be fit for work, if that was the right word for it, selling herself in some dim and dingy alley for thirty pounds a time.
The fly in the ointment was that Tracey didn’t have any money to pay for that all important first rock, and Claude Winston wasn’t the type of man to let her have anything in advance. Claude looked after number one. Everyone else was there for him to screw, one way or another. That was his philosophy.
The bedroom door opened a fraction, and a sleepy-faced child cautiously poked her head around it. An infectious smile immediately lit up her young face as she caught sight of the woman kneeling by the dresser.
“Hello mummy,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her knuckles.
“Go back to bed, April,” Tracey managed, using her sleeve to wipe a string of dribble from her chin.
“But I heard a scary noise,” April protested. As she stepped into the room something scrunched under her foot, and she bent down to retrieve a tube of lipstick, which she examined inquisitively under the weak glow of the room’s forty-watt bulb.
“Put it down,” Tracey said, irritably.
“Can I play with it, mummy?” the girl asked, brushing the long blond hair from her face. Clad in a pair of tomato red pyjamas that had little yellow teddy bears imprinted all over, the child possessed a purity of heart that her mother could no longer recognise or appreciate.
“No, you bloody can’t.” Tracey snatched the lipstick from her hand and viciously threw it onto the dresser.
Tracey’s eyes clouded. “What did you say you wanted?” she demanded impatiently.
“Mummy, a scary noise woke me up. Pooh was scared too, and he wants to stay with you tonight?” She indicated the worn bear tucked into the crook of her right arm. It had been a constant companion since she received it on her first birthday, four years previously.
“No,” Tracey said, averting her eyes from the child’s piercing stare.
“Pleeeeeeaase!” April’s tiny, tired voice was both hopeful and demanding.
“NO!” Tracey all but screamed. She didn’t need this. Not now! Why did the kid have to pick this night to have her nightmare? Couldn’t she see that Tracey had more important things to worry about? “Look, I’ve got to go out to work, so stop pestering me and go back to bed.” Her voice rose dangerously as she tottered on the verge of hysteria. Suddenly, the room reminded her of the stifling cell she had recently vacated; the very walls seemed to be closing in to suffocate her. Tracey staggered to her feet; dismissing her daughter’s outstretched arms, ignoring her tear-filled eyes.
Where the hell was Claude? She needed some stuff. Right now! Tracey pushed past her child. Oblivious to the pain her rejection had inflicted, she stormed out of the bedroom without a backward glance.
Tracey’s mother, Rita, had been fast asleep, but the shouting woke her up and she rushed across to her daughter’s room as fast as she could, arriving just as Tracey charged out. Powerless to do anything, Rita could only watch in anguish as Tracey stomped off along the narrow hall. After grabbing her coat from the back of the door, she stormed out without saying a single word.
The street door slammed violently.
Little April was sitting on her mother’s bed, hugging her teddy and trying very hard not to cry when Rita walked in. “What did I do wrong, Nanny?” April asked in that angelic little voice of hers. She looked so sad, and it broke Rita’s heart. “It’s alright baby. Come to Nanny.” Rita’s voice was thick with emotion as she fought back tears of grief. Dear God, she prayed, help me to be strong for the child’s sake.
April fell into her Grandmother’s outstretched arms and began to cry, her little body racked by giant sobs. It just isn’t fair, Rita thought, as she carried the girl back to her own room and tucked her into bed. It was hard enough for an adult to cope with having a drug addict in the family, let alone a child. She found herself shaking with anger. How could Tracey do this to them, her own flesh and blood? Wishing she knew how to make things better, Rita sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her granddaughter’s hair and whispering soft words of reassurance. Gradually, the sobbing faded and blessed sleep came, wrapping the child in its protective embrace.
Little April hadn’t been planned. The father had vanished, never to be seen again on the day that he found out Tracey was pregnant. Tracey, consumed by her inadequacies, had been an absent parent from day one, leaving Rita to raise the child alone. As she tiptoed out of the child’s bedroom, all Rita could think about was what would become of her beautiful granddaughter if anything ever happened to her.
◆◆◆
Tracey slammed the street door shut and repeatedly jabbed at the button for the lift. She knew she ought to feel bad about the way she had treated April, but all that mattered now was finding a way to persuade Claude to give her some crack. Perhaps if she offered to blow him in the car park, he would let her have a little something on account. She doubted it though. He had long since ceased to find her even remotely interesting in that way.
The lift door opened and she went in. The light in the small metal box was dim and flickered constantly. She half expected it to go out before she reached the ground, five floors below. The inside was covered with graffiti, and the smell of urine
