“God no. That would be like sleeping at the office. This is where Precious does her thing. We’ve got a little bedroom out the back. The bed’s actually much more comfy than this one though. We’ve got a memory foam mattress.”
“You say ‘we.’ Are you a couple?”
Precious and Tabitha exchange a knowing look. “You see, Mona, that’s a good question with an answer that is, for some people, very easy to understand, and for other people extremely difficult to understand,” Tabitha says.
“I’m very open minded.”
“I’m sure you are, Mona. The thing is, when I met Precious she was in her mid-twenties and I was in my mid-thirties.”
“You were forty.”
“Whatever. I was a working girl, booking a room in this building in shifts. That’s how some of the girls here work; not all of us live here, and I didn’t back then. Anyway, I was wanting to wind down, move towards the maid side of things, see if there was someone younger who could use my help.”
“Excuse me, but what do you mean by maid? Are you her cleaner?”
“I do cleaning and laundry. But it’s more than that. A maid looks after her girl, helps her out, is there to watch out for her when she’s got a dodgy client. Anyway, about ten years ago now—”
“Closer to twenty.”
“I met our Precious. Back then she was working at a beauty treatment place up in north London. It was dead fancy. Lots of rich clients, and celebrities and that. I could tell she hated it, and obviously saw she was gorgeous so could make a packet in my line of work. And I made the suggestion.”
“And you became a prostitute, Precious? Just like that?”
Precious shrugs. “The money was better and the people were nicer.”
“At first it was occasional. She was living down Peckham way bringing up the boys. She came up here every now and then. When they were teenagers they went to live with their dad’s mum in Crystal Palace, and me and Precious moved into the flat together. We knew each other really well by that point. An intimacy develops, you know, when you do our work. Like a lot of maids and their girls, we share a room.” Tabitha goes on with her story. Precious knows she’s enjoying it. “Are me and Precious a couple? Well, let’s see. I love her more than I love anyone else in the world. I live with her. I share my finances with her. I go on holiday with her. I sleep in the same bed as her. I cook for her and she cooks for me. She looks after me when I’m under the weather. I run hot baths for her after she’s had a hard day at work.”
“You knit hats and scarves for my sons and granddaughter.”
“I knit hats and scarves for her sons and granddaughter.”
Tabitha stands back and puts her hands on her hips as if she’s proved some kind of point. “Sounds like a couple, doesn’t it? But what’s missing?”
“The obvious thing. Are you romantically involved or just friends? Do you have sex?”
Tabitha throws her hands into the air and smiles at Mona enigmatically. She says nothing more.
After a brief pause, Mona asks, “Well, do you?”
Tabitha laughs. So does Precious. Tabitha loves bringing people to this point.
“With all due respect, love, that’s none of your fucking business.”
She winks mischievously and potters into the kitchen.
After she has gone, Mona whispers to Precious, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause offense.”
“Absolutely none taken. She’s messing with you.”
Precious follows Tabitha into the kitchen to collect their tea.
Mona disappears beneath a black cape that she has brought with her. Precious hears some clinking and rustling and then Mona asks her to undress to her underwear and to sit on the bed. Precious does so. She removes the blazer she was wearing to make herself look respectable and sophisticated for the protest. Then she takes off her top and the neat skirt she selected. She is wearing a bra and knicker set in ivory silk and lace. The color suits her. She is confident in this getup.
Mona tells Precious to make herself comfortable, but Precious doesn’t need telling. She sits at the edge of the bed with her legs crossed and the toes of her left foot just about touching the floor. She stretches her arms out behind her and rests her palms on the bedspread, fingers outstretched and turned away from her. She tucks her tummy in a little, not because she is self-conscious at all, but she is having her photograph taken so clearly wants to look her best. She wears a broad smile.
“Say when,” she says.
“It’ll be a little while yet. I’ve got a bit more faffing to do.”
Mona seems to take a long time to get the camera sorted, and even after it appears as if it is sorted, she continues to fiddle with it for many minutes. As she turns knobs and tightens screws, she chats to Precious as she said she was going to. They talk about lots of different things. Precious tells her about her childhood, her family, her life in Nigeria. She tells her about moving to London, about her ex-husband, about how she felt when her granddaughter was born, about the first time she fell in love.
After a while, Precious herself becomes curious, and asks Mona a question. “Why do you do what you do?” she asks. “What do you get out of it?”
Mona looks her in the eye. Her expression is blank; she gives nothing away. “I seek fame and fortune through the beautiful rendition of other people’s pathetic lives.”
Precious falters. Her face falls. She panics. Mona takes the photograph.
The Devil’s Reward
After her meeting with Tobias Elton, Agatha tells Roster she’ll see him at home, then she walks to a nearby gallery.
There is an exhibition of religious art from the Spanish Golden Age she has been meaning to see. Paintings have been imported from all over the
