out here,” said Ginger. She was right. Julian stared out the window, biting his thumbnail. A few minutes crept by. The wind dropped and silence pressed in on him from every side. He heaved a breath just to break it.
“How do you know Mia?” asked Ginger. Julian made no reply. Telling her that would be as good as telling her his name, and he didn’t want her knowing who he was or, more importantly, who his parents were. “It may surprise you to know that I care about what happens to her.”
Julian turned to look at Ginger, incredulous.
“You’ve no right to look at me like that,” she said. “Not until you’ve lived my life. You think I like living this way? You think I chose this life? You think I chose to be conceived in the womb of an alcoholic mother from the seed of a one-night stand?” She shook her head. “Ah, what the fuck am I telling you this for? Unless you’ve been there, you can’t understand how it is.”
“But I want to understand,” said Julian, thinking about Mia, thinking that maybe it would help him understand her.
“Then you’re as crazy as that boy out there.”
“I need to know where Mia’s been.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe then I can work out where she’s gone.”
Giving Julian another long, appraising stare, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of him, Ginger said, “You into sexual role-play? You know, dressing up, acting out a part?”
“No.”
“Well the client me and Mia were brought here to…” Ginger searched for the right word, “service was into it. He had very specific needs. He wanted a fourteen or fifteen-year old girl, a blonde, girl-next-door type. And she had to be English, not some dyed-blonde, two-a-penny Eastern European slut. That’s where the real premium comes in. It didn’t matter so much about the woman, just so long as she was old enough to be the girl’s mother.”
A queer, sick feeling rose in Julian. He put his fist to his mouth, swallowing.
“You see where this is going, don’t you?” said Ginger. “Do you want me to go on?” Julian nodded. He didn’t want to hear it, but he had to. So she went on and told him how her and Mia played mother and daughter, and the client played father. And she told him how together they’d ‘serviced’ the client, the things they’d done and the things they’d said. And suddenly the sickness in him was replaced by rage-fuelled visions of punching, kicking and strangling the life out of Mr X, whoever the bastard was. “How could you?” The words grated between his teeth. “How could you do those things?”
“It’s business, that’s all,” said Ginger, eyeing him warily. “You just do it and don’t think about it.”
“Yeah, well it makes me want to hurt something thinking about that ugly fucker with his hands on Mia.”
“What makes you think the client was ugly?”
It suddenly occurred to Julian that there was an important question he hadn’t asked. “What does Mr X look like?”
“Dunno, I’ve never seen him.”
Julian screwed up his face in confusion. “But how’s that possible? You said-”
“I know what I said,” interjected Ginger. She sighed. “Okay, look, here’s the truth…” She fell silent, biting her lip, as if she was having second thoughts about saying what’d been on the tip of her tongue.
“Go on,” implored Julian. “If you really do care for Mia.”
Ginger’s eyes flashed with resentment. “You think I’d be here if I didn’t care for her? Anything you or Jake could do to me is nothing, you hear me, nothing compared to what Mr X will do when finds out I brought you here.” A sheen of tears filmed her eyes. She blinked them away and managed a grim smile. “Fuck it. If you dance, you got to pay the piper, right? Truth is, Mr X wasn’t the client. He’s the guy who sets up the jobs.”
“You mean like a middle-man?”
“I suppose. When there’s a job going, he rings and tells me what the client wants. I sort out the girl, or girls, or whatever, then he sends his driver to pick us up and take us to the house. The driver and the client are the only people we ever see. After the job’s done, the driver pays us and takes us back to town.”
“So you’ve only ever spoken to Mr X on the phone.”
“Yes.”
“Well, could the driver be Mr X?”
“Dunno, he never says anything. I doubt it, though. He’s a big guy, looks like he’d have a big, deep voice. Mr X’s voice is clicky, like…like some kind of insect.”
“What about the client? What was he like?”
“Middle-aged, average looking. You know the type, hair starting to go, bit of a beer-belly. He looked like somebody’s dad.”
Julian cleared his throat in disdain. “Just you’re average guy with average fantasies about raping his daughter. Don’t suppose Mr Average told you his name?”
Ginger looked at Julian as if to say, what do you reckon? He pushed his hand through his hair, digging his fingernails into his scalp, almost drawing blood. “How does something like this happen around here?”
“Why shouldn’t it? What’s special about here? It’s just a place like any other.”
No it’s not, thought Julian, this is my home, the place I grew up. Stuff like this happens other places, not here. He remembered what his Grandma Alice had said to him all those years ago. She’d said, someday, sweetheart, you’ll find out that there’s a great big world beyond this speck of a town, but not today. Well, he was seeing that world now, whether he wanted to or not. Only he didn’t have to look beyond the town, it was right there in front of him. The whole world contained in one place. The whole beautiful, ugly world.
More time passed. Julian glanced at the clock again. It was nearly half-an-hour since Jake had left the car. “How much longer you gonna wait for him?” asked Ginger.
“As long as it takes.”
“He’s a crazy little shit, but I like him. You like him, too, don’t you?”
Julian hadn’t really thought about it. But now that he did, he realised Ginger was both right and wrong. Jake was someone he found easy to like and dislike, the same as Mia. Besides, it wasn’t really a question of like or dislike. He was drawn to both Mia and Jake by something else. He couldn’t define what it was. It was simply there, haunting him like a shadow in the moonlit forest, seemingly too vague and deep to be expressed in words. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said, not seeing any point trying to explain what he couldn’t explain.
“Then drive to the edge of the forest, phone the coppers. Every minute you stay here puts him in more danger.”
Julian stared out the window, biting his lip.
“Listen to me.” Ginger’s voice grew loud with urgency. “You’re way out of your depth. That boy’s gonna end up hurt, maybe dead. And it’ll be on your conscience, ’cos he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
Julian twisted around to look at her. “How do you know that?”
“Well someone must’ve seen me in the car with Mia, and I’m guessing that someone was you.”
Julian’s forehead scrunched into lines of uncertainty. “Maybe I should go look for Jake.”
Ginger shook her head. “Do that and you’ll be fucked too. Besides, the second you leave me I’m out of this car and running for the main-road.”
Julian resumed looking out the window, his hands clenching and unclenching on the steering-wheel. “Come on, Jake,” he muttered, “Where the fuck are-” He broke off with a start as a light came on, flooding the road ahead with its harsh white glow.
“Shit!” cried Ginger. “Let’s get out of here!”
His heart beating in his mouth, Julian’s hand shot to the ignition key. He hesitated to turn it. “What the fuck you waitin’ for?” yelled Ginger, almost choking on her own panic.
“Shh,” hissed Julian. From around the curve in the road came a scraping, electronic whirr.
“The gate’s opening. Oh God, oh God, he’s coming! You have to hurry. Please, please.”
Still, Julian hesitated, held in place by that indefinable something else. There was the click of a door opening. Ginger lurched out of the car and fled, stumbling in her high-heels on the uneven, stony surface. Julian didn’t go after her. He goggled at the road ahead, his eyes illuminated externally by the security-light and internally by the fear coursing through him like fire. The internal light flared brighter as Jake staggered into view and collapsed against the car’s bonnet, his head hanging forward. Flinging the door open, Julian rushed to help him upright. When he caught sight of the blood oozing from Jake’s mouth and nostrils, he felt a sharp dropping sensation inside. “What
