The Squeeze E-Book

Lesley Glaister

• Herausgeber: Salt
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 372

Beschreibung

Set between 1989 and the downfall of Ceaușescu, and 2013, The Squeeze travels between Edinburgh, Romania and Oslo and sees this ­multi‑award-winning and bestselling author at the height of her powers. Marta, a teenager trafficked from Romania in the early 1990s is forced to work as a prostitute in Edinburgh. Mats, a Norwegian businessman, who longs only to be a good husband and father, becomes involved with Marta and both their lives are wrenched – for good or ill – in new directions. Told in a splintered narrative style that allows glimpses into several points of view, The Squeeze explores the transactions that take place between men and women. Sex, money and the desire for love, are at its heart.

Leseprobe

THE SQUEEZE

LESLEY GLAISTER

Set between 1989 and the downfall of Ceaușescu, and 2013, The Squeeze travels between Edinburgh, Romania and Oslo and see this ­multi-award-winning and bestselling author at the height of her powers.

Marta, a teenager trafficked from Romania in the early 1990s is forced to work as a prostitute in Edinburgh. Mats, a Norwegian businessman, who longs only to be a good husband and father, becomes involved with Marta and both their lives are wrenched – for good or ill – in new directions.

Told in a splintered narrative style that allows glimpses into several points of view, The Squeeze explores the transactions that take place between men and women.

Sex, money and the desire for love, are at its heart.

Praise for the author

‘Eerily atmospheric Little Egypt, made me shudder; certain passages were read through half-closed eyes, the way you watch grisly scenes in a film — desperate to know what happens, but not wanting to disturbing images imprinted on your mind.’ —ROSEMARY GORING, The Herald

‘Glaister’s greatest success in Little Egypt is in her pacing and her use of language to obscure change; through effortless and consistently engaging prose, Isis’s transformation, the degradation of the house, the growing panic over her parents’ prolonged absence, and the book’s more sinister themes, all emerge discreetly.’ —CLAIRE KOHDA HAZELTON, TLS

‘This tale of imprisonment and neglect explores our passion for nostalgia, with hints of Dodie Smith’s darker side. An excellent read that pulls at the heart as well as the head.’ —VICTORIA CLARK, The Lady

‘Glaister’s novels always appear to be as effortless for her to write as they for us to read.’ —The Times

‘Glaister has the the uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on things we most fear, of exposing the darkness within.’ —Independent on Sunday

THE SQUEEZE 

lesley glaister is the prize-winning author of thirteen novels, most recently, Little Egypt. Her short stories have been anthologised and broadcast on Radio 4. She has written drama for radio and stage and published a pamphlet of poetry. Lesley is a Fellow of the RSL, teaches creative writing at the University of St Andrews and lives in Edinburgh.

Published by Salt Publishing Ltd

12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0AX United Kingdom 

All rights reserved

Copyright © Lesley Glaister, 2017

The right of Lesley Glaister to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing.

Salt Publishing 2017

Created by Salt Publishing Ltd

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 978-1-78463-117-8 electronic

For Jill Glaister and in memory of Oliver Glaister.

One

1989–91

Alis

Mama’s salt tin had a picture of a ballerina balanced on one toe. Her other leg floated up behind her, one finger pointing to heaven. Her dress was made of silver cloud. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be this ballerina.

So stupid.

I am a realist. Of course, I always knew I’d end up like Mama. She worked hard and sometimes the men were bad but not often. Usually there was food for the table, sometimes very good food. And drink. Mama had the need to drink. But when she was not too drunk she was very funny. She made jokes and we’d laugh and laugh at the stupid pricks. We laughed a lot. We did.

Mama died long ago of too much drink.

I don’t know what happened to the salt tin.

Mats

Watching history happen before your eyes, it is amazing. It was on the news, extended news that night: the breaking down of the Berlin Wall. We saw the sudden party it became, people from East and West chipping with hammers and chisels for souvenirs; heavy machinery; cranes swinging blocks through the air; tears and songs and laughter, a kind of ecstasy of destruction.

My wife wasn’t a political person, or an emotional person, but she cried. Never had I seen her like this. I was moved too for sure, by what was happening in Berlin, and by Nina’s face. In the flicker of the TV light I watched her struggle with her expression – she hates to give anything away. We wanted to be a part of it so we opened a bottle of red though it was a work night. We raised a glass to freedom and then raised several more.

It was seeing Nina in that moment as almost vulnerable that gave me the courage to ask her the question I had not dared to ask before. I’d been offered a transfer from our head office in Oslo, a promotion to Director of Communications and Transformations in our northern UK branch. This would mean a move to Edinburgh, for at least a year, maybe for longer or even for good.

She stood to move away and mute the TV. ‘But I have everything here,’ she said, sweeping her hand to indicate this. Her back was against the glass wall of our apartment; snowy pine trees behind her showed blue. I could not clearly see her face. Her hair was piled high on her head the way I like, to show her neck, so delicate.

‘Why would I want to leave my job? My friends?’

‘Not for ever,’ I said. ‘Maybe a year – and see what you think then?’

She turned her back. So slim in her black clothes. Around her the blue snow glowed. She said nothing; I said nothing. She made coffee. We sat on the sofa across from the window, coffee pot on the table. On TV, silent youths danced on top of the wall, throwing high their fists. We watched for a few minutes more before she switched it off.

Her jaw was pulling little strings in her neck – a bad sign. When she spoke again it was to change the subject. We talked about her work, so much more interesting than mine; her patients, some of them famous. She works with skiers, the Olympic team, sportsmen and women of different kinds, providing physiotherapy. In the early days, if I had a stiff back she used to fix it, her fingers hard and cool, effective. But later, not so much.

Maybe it was stupid of me to bring up the subject of the child at that moment. Next year, she always said, but the years were adding and she was 39. Past time already, I considered. Most of our friends had children by now. My first thought when Kristian offered me the post, had been the child: would this be good or bad news for the prospect? I was excited at the thought of working somewhere new and Edinburgh was a city I had many times promised myself to visit.

Whenever I mentioned a child, Nina’s hand would go to her flat stomach. There it went again, onto her thin, black wool sweater. On her white hand the diamond of her ring glinted; two platinum rings, wedding and engagement. Each night she took them off to polish. She’d lay them neatly on the bedside shelf and rub cream into her hands, cream that smelled faintly medicinal.

Her face I could not properly see. I stood to switch on the lamp. She is so fair with slanting eyes, blue like sea glass, even in the light impossible to read.

‘You could take a sabbatical,’ I suggested. ‘Relax, maybe get pregnant. Have the baby there, maybe.’

There we were in the glass, a couple having coffee in the evening. The pine trees had gone now but through our reflections street lamps pricked points of light.

She put down her mug, loud on the glass table. ‘I’m certainly not giving birth in a foreign country,’ she said. ‘What are you thinking, Mats!’

We sat in silence. I stood to fetch a cigarette, switch on music, Garbarek, soft saxophone winding like the smoke. Her hair shone in the lamplight. Her small skull gave me a tender feeling. I bent to kiss her slim neck, downy at the back, fine white strands she has never seen.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘It was just an idea.’

She reached up and caught my hand. ‘How about the cabin, at the weekend?’

In winter there is nothing at the cabin but fire and snow, the sauna and the bed.

We added brandy to our coffee and went upstairs.

Alis

Mama told me not to go near the guy with the flashy car. How do you think he got so rich? And girls did disappear, pretty girls. But in Romania, to disappear was not so strange. An everyday thing.

I took no notice and now I am here.

It is dark and I am alone. I do not like to be alone. I do not like the dark. Please God bring me light.

Marta

Pocked with shell damage, the bridge was unsafe for traffic, but always busy with pedestrians. On a sultry afternoon, Marta walked Milya home from school. A chemical haze hung in the air – you wouldn’t want to breathe too deeply. Milya ran back to talk to a friend and Marta waited, gazing at the posters plastered all over the stonework; not so long ago you’d have gone to prison for that. Or disappeared. Years ago this bridge was lined with statues of saints, but now along the parapet stood only the stumps of feet and shins.

Marta peered down at the riverbank, clogged with rags and rubbish, scum and slime, but in the middle, still deep and bright, swam fish. You’d have to be desperate to eat them, knowing what they swam in. On one side of the river were the flats where the workers lived; on the other the school, shadowed by the chemical plant and the cement works. In the chemical plant lights burned twenty-four hours a day so that the sky never grew properly dark at night, was always stained with orange.

‘Come on.’ Milya tugged at Marta’s hand.

‘Five plus seven,’ said Marta.

‘Twelve. Do me some takeaways.’

Marta wiped her brow, noticed a guy watching her, a stranger in a suit. He had the look of a businessman. Marta began to hurry past but he held his hand up and spoke: ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for a place to eat. Is there a restaurant nearby?’

Marta had to fight not to laugh. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘No, it’s just flats that side.’ She pointed at the six towering blocks – stained concrete, hanging washing, broken windows, haphazard patchings, hen coops and leggy tomato plants on the balconies. ‘You need to go back into town.’ In truth there was Yuri’s where you could buy tea and onion soup, but it was too close to the stink of the river, not a place for the likes of him.

Milya fidgeted beside her. ‘Come on, Marta.’

Marta lifted her shoulders at the man, apologetic. He was ­middle-aged, heavy and well cared for. Though he spoke Romanian, he was dressed as if he came from the west. His suit was beautiful, a sheen to the cloth in the hazy sunshine. His shoes were scuffed, but beneath the dust you could see the gleam of expensive leather. Everything was dusty from the cement works. Even Milya’s copper curls looked grey.

‘I’m hungry,’ Milya insisted, tugging.

‘You’re not the only one.’ The man smiled down at Milya, who stared back at him curiously.

‘You can have your dinner with us, can’t he Marta?’ she said.

‘Milya!’ Marta flushed. ‘Mr . . . the gentleman’s looking for a restaurant. Go back across the bridge, take a taxi back to town – there you’ll find . . . fine places,’ she finished vaguely.

‘Of course.’ His eyes lingered on her face. ‘Good day, Marta is it? Antenescu, Pavel.’

She took his moist hand, confused by the look he was giving her, just like those from the factory boys. She knew where such looks led and did not want that, no thank you, not a flat full of babies before she was twenty.

‘And you live?’

‘There.’ Milya pointed. ‘Flat 67, block 1. It’s the bestest block.’

‘And what’s your family name?’ he asked.

‘Sala,’ said Milya. ‘Come on, Marta!’

Before he turned away, Mr Antenescu squeezed Marta’s hand tight in his own, leaving an imprint in her fingers.

‘Don’t be so free to tell people things,’ Marta scolded.

‘Why?’ Milya tore her hand away and ran ahead.

For a change, the lift was working; as it creaked and grunted upwards they held their breaths against the stench. When she entered the flat, Marta tried seeing the apartment from a stranger’s point of view, noticing afresh the grease and urine smell that, scrub as they might, she and Mama could never overcome. Nor could they overcome the sadness that had clung to the furniture and deepened the shadows since Tata’s death.

Marta began to peel potatoes, cutting away the green bits, the bad bits, the sprouting eyes. The memory of Pavel’s warm, smooth squeeze stayed in her hand and she stopped to gaze at it, considering.

Alis

Never did I trust a guy before, but this one, he said he loved me and I believed him! What happened to my brain that day? He said I was his girlfriend, the special one, and then I remember nothing for a while. Maybe a drug in my wine or my coffee. How do I know? I woke up in the dark with a pain in my head. There was noise. Something soft nearby. I could not see, but I could feel long hair, thick hair.

It was a girl and I was so glad there was another girl so I was not alone in the dark.

The trip was rough. I only knew it was a ship when we started to tip. We were hidden behind boxes with dishwashers inside. We did not see this till the container doors were opened and there was light. The girl was small, only up to my shoulder, very pretty, thin but with big tits.

As soon as I saw her I thought she’d never stand whatever was coming next.

Mats

It took an hour or two to heat the cabin that had been empty for weeks, to light the sticks and get the logs to burn. There is no electricity in the cabin. We had a routine. Nina likes routine. She is an efficient person. If she says a thing will work, it works. At first I used to argue and find my own way to do things, but she turned out always to be right.

While I worked on the fire, Nina lit the candles and lamps, bringing the place back to life. I set the sauna stove going too, ready for the morning. It was late before we had the place the way we liked it, warm enough to remove our sweaters as we ate bread and cheese and sipped red wine heated on the stove. Snowflakes fell through the darkness against the windows like big hands stroking. Later, we climbed the stairs to the bed on the platform above the main room, made each other hot, watched flame shadows playing on the timber above us. Our shadows were enormous when we sat up, the ski slope shadows of her breasts, the nipples peaked, the mazy patterns of her hair.

We made love so much that weekend I was afraid I’d let her down if she wanted more. We sweated in the sauna; she rolled in the snow, though that extreme is not for me. So tender we were, raw and open. We would have made a baby for sure if she hadn’t been on the pill. I wondered if she might have stopped taking it, the way she kept her legs around my waist, keeping me deep inside her even when we were done.

Our best times were always at the cabin, our most natural times. I mean that is where we were our simple selves. It was so good, but curiously I found it a relief when we packed up to leave on Sunday afternoon, the passion, how can I say it? almost too much. I wanted to be back at our apartment in the hot reliable shower, in the flatter, firmer bed.

The way you sank into the feather mattress of the cabin bed, sometimes it was as if you might never climb out. I thought how different it would be if we had a child; there would be purpose other than just our own physical gratification, a responsibility. We had driven all that way basically to eat and drink and fuck. I was tired when we left, after the Sunday routine: clean the stove, strip the sheets to take in the car with empty bottles, wipe up the butter smears, sweep the floor.

The last part of the routine: ‘Bye bye, cabin,’ Nina said, winding her scarf around her neck. The cabin had been in her family since she was a little girl, and she kept this childish habit, the only one. I found it incredibly touching. And then she turned to look at me.

‘Take the job,’ she said as she stepped out of the door.

Alis

This I have never told a living soul.

It is too sad to tell.

I was twelve the first time. Big money for a virgin. And then many more men paid big money for a virgin. I was small and they believed. Stupid pricks. Mama said I was too young to have a baby. I got bigger round my stomach and tits. Of course, I was growing up. But one day my belly started to jump.

When Mama saw this she cried and said, Sorry, so sorry, so sorry, my baby to have baby. She said, God forgive me and she prayed to God to ask Him what to do. My Mama was not a bad person, only a poor person who needed to drink.

Maybe sometimes she was bad.

But God forgives.

It was a good time for me when I was pregnant. Mama said I did not have to work any more till the baby came. Mama helped me when he was born. My little boy. I held him for one hour. He had dark hair and a sweet wrinkled face. My little monkey. His fingers were strong. He held my thumb very, very tight with his tiny fingers. Nobody else has ever held me so tight – except to get something from me. I can still feel his fingers on my thumb. They squeezed so tight.

But Mama pulled his fingers away and took him to an orphanage for a better life. There was a box in the door for new babies in the night. It was the only way, she said. I cried terribly. My heart was bust right open, never to mend. But I did believe he’d be looked after well in the orphanage and maybe adopted by kind people.

After that I never cried again.

Marta

The workers on Marta’s shift, 6pm to midnight, were the young and the old and the feeble. Everyone else – including Mama – worked a full-length day or night shift. On Sundays – the only day she saw her mother for more than a few minutes – Marta noticed the grey skin, the harsh lines that dragged from nose to chin, and knew that soon she must offer to swap shifts. Although Mama was only forty she seemed an old woman already, the way she stooped, and sighed.

Not that Marta found the twilight shift and the queueing for food, the housework and minding Milya easy, but at least it meant she could find an hour most days to study her English books. Once she’d swapped with Mama there’d be no more time for that. Giving up her English now would feel like giving up on Tata – giving up on herself – altogether.

You couldn’t speak at work. Each side of the conveyor belts was a line of blanked faces. The heavy canvas masks, which looped behind the ears, obscured the nose and mouth. Each time she put one on, Marta wondered how much good it did – the canvas heavily saturated with the chemical dust that hung in the air and made the unprotected eyes smart – and so hot. The packers were meant to wear goggles, but the lenses were so scratched and dusty it was impossible to see through them, so the foreman ignored their flouting of the rules and was generous with eye drops when the chemicals were particularly noxious. The work – grading and packing industrial chemicals – was simple, unpleasant, tedious and Marta soon lost any curiosity about the use or destination of the chemicals.

After Tata died she’d had no choice but to offer to leave school and earn money, hoping, hoping that Mama would say no. But Mama said yes. Tata would have been so angry. Marta struggled not to feel bitter at the irony that by dying in the name of freedom, Tata had left her trapped, any hope of university gone. She’d hoped at least for an office job, sometimes one came up, but at that time there’d been no such vacancies. So here she was, packing chemicals as Tata had promised she’d never have to do. But at least it was part-time; at least she could still study. Until she had to go full time. That day was looming. Still, she hadn’t given up hope, not yet, that something better might come along. Some chance.

She nodded across at Sig. Her yellow scarf struggled to contain her springy curls, and above the mask, plucked black brows arched above her reddened eyes. Raising her eyebrows, Sig looked across at the clock. Involuntarily, Marta checked too, annoyed with herself for giving in: she tried not to look; the more you did, the more time dawdled, seeming sometimes actually to stop. You might look at the clock several times and see no movement of the hands at all.

Now it was nearly 10, two thirds of the shift done, just the hardest, weariest third to go. If only we could talk, Marta thought, as she did each night, but the machinery that drove the conveyor belt drowned speech and the canvas masks prevented lip-reading. She continued to scoop blue crystals into plastic pots. This chemical was not bad, only a little stinging of the eyes and a sharp clean smell, on the edge of pleasant. There was an itch at the nape of her neck, but she could not scratch it with her contaminated glove so had to bear the itch that bloomed like a sparkly flower. Shrugging her shoulder blades together she concentrated on her dream – to go to England. To travel past Big Ben each day on a red London bus, to send home so much money that Mama wouldn’t have to work.

It was how she bore the itchy, eye-stinging hours at work, practising her English verbs or dreaming of the UK and embroidering on the dreams. Sometimes she concentrated on the effect at home of the money she would send: Mama’s face smoothed out and smiling; a new carpet, no more smell of pee; Milya with a leather satchel and fresh school blouse – now she would go to university.

But tonight Marta had something else to think about. All day she’d fended off the thought but now she let it come. This morning a letter arrived, a letter in a smart blue envelope addressed to Miss Marta Sala. It was from Mr Antenescu, inviting her to meet him for tea on Sunday in the Hotel Bucaresti. The Bucaresti! This was a swanky place in the town – not the sort of place for the likes of Marta. Her first impulse was to tear the letter into shreds and throw it away: this was the sort of thing you were warned about. Strangers making promises. But he’d made no promises. And what if this was her big chance? What if she ignored it and the chance went by? She’d rescued the scraps from the bin and pieced them together. The handwriting was small, neat, educated. I wish to compliment you on your natural beauty and grace, he had written. Natural beauty and grace! It was nonsense, of course. Just the sort of flattery you must not fall for. But still, no one had ever said such words about her.

Of course, she would not meet him. How could it lead to any good? She wasn’t naive. She knew what happened to girls who fell for such men. But still, natural beauty and grace. She tucked thescrap of letter that bore these words inside her bra where it made her feel beautiful. Tata used to say she was, but that was a father’s biased opinion. Tata used to say – but no.

Eight months since he’d gone and she was getting better at bearing it; had learned to shrink the grief into a bean that she could swallow down.

At last the hour hand dragged itself to 12 and the hooter blew. The workers filed out, dropping gloves and masks into barrels by the door ready for the next shift. Sig took off her yellow scarf and her bleached curls blossomed out. Marta shook loose her long, dark hair. The girls walked arm in arm across the bridge. The sour river smell smogged around them making the other figures frail and dreamlike in the lit-up dark. Sig, the same age as Marta, was already engaged to Gustav from the cement works and was chattering about him, as she always did, recounting every conversation, revealing who said what, how many kisses and where she’d let him put his hands.

‘It’ll be you next, Marta,’ she said, ‘then you’ll know the meaning of “turned on”. It’s like your belly melting and wanting to slide out between your legs.’

Marta said nothing. There was a boy, Virgil, who’d made her feel the beginnings of something like that. She used to meet him on a dump of wrecked cars, a dangerous place, a place where gypsies hung out, but still she’d go there and sit in a smashed-up car with him. They never did more than hold hands, though surely soon he would have kissed her. She’d loved his hands, long fingers, little red hairs flecked on the backs, thick rough knuckles.

Tata forbade her from seeing him, but still she did. In the car they played a game. Virgil in the driver’s seat; Marta, looking at his hands on the steering wheel, telling him where to take her, somewhere like the moon or a crazy made-up place, but most often London or Loch Ness or somewhere in the UK.

❦

Suddenly she clambered onto the parapet of the bridge.

Sig squealed. ‘You nutcase! Be careful!’

The parapet was wide enough to stand on, but Marta’s stomach plummeted at the dim glimmer of the river through the smog. She held out her arms for balance and took a step or two, almost tripping on the broken ankle of a saint.

‘I can’t look,’ wailed Sig.

‘Everything all right there?’ Some busybody. Marta imagined falling. Not jumping, just letting go, the swoop of space, the splash and the cold plunge and then the death. Or maybe not death, more likely she’d get caught up in the rubbish on the bank, fished out and rescued, mortified, coated in slime and crap.

‘Jump down now, no need to be hasty here,’ said someone. Marta laughed wildly. Did he think she was a suicide? The donkey! It almost made her want to jump now just to show him, just to do it, and with a thrill of adrenalin she looked down again, it would be so easy and so much less embarrassing than being helped down from the parapet.

‘It’s Mrs Sala’s girl,’ said someone, ‘she’s on my shift.’

‘It’s all right.’ Marta jumped down, jarring her knee in her clumsy landing. ‘Some people should mind their own business,’ she said as she strode away.

Alis

Igave my little boy the name Marcus. I thought he would grow up with kind people. I wished for him to be happy. I prayed every day for God to care for him.

After he was born, after he was gone, Mama drank too much and drank and drank until she choked to death.

God forgives her.

I was not alone. I stayed with Mama’s friends. I was careful and had no more kids. It was a not bad life. But every year on his birthday I thought of Marcus, where he was, was he happy? I sent him love. I prayed to God to keep him safe.

When they shot Ceaușescu and his wife, and showed it on TV, we did not believe our eyes. We screamed, we were so happy. We fucked for free that day. We thought we were free.

But after Ceaușescu was killed, there was news on TV of things that happened in his regime, bad things, secret things the people did not know. He was very wicked man, more wicked even than we thought.

Please God, never forgive that man.

One day I saw a movie about orphanages on TV. The kids were not looked after. There was no love, no toys, the babies were tied up in cots. When I saw the faces of the kids, empty faces, rows of cots, like hundreds of tiny prisoners, I wanted to die. I wanted to stab myself in the heart.

Forgive me.

I wanted to kill God.

Marta

On Sunday Marta borrowed Sig’s blue dress. Although Sig was taller, it fit Marta more snugly round the chest, showing the crease where her breasts were squashed together in her too-small bra. Antoni was home, dressed in a cheap shiny suit. He’d got away from the neighbourhood, so why not she? He was eighteen, but his greased-back hair and spindly moustache made him appear almost middle-aged – until he smiled and then, with his snaggle of teeth, he looked about six.

The Revolution had brought him freedom. He lived and worked in town – it did not do to think too closely about his work – and had made this Sunday visit bearing a joint of beef and a bottle of wine. Mama was flushed with the pleasure of these gifts (she did not ask how he got them) and with having her son back in her kitchen. Every now and then she reached out to touch his arm, to check that he was real.

All this for staying away for months on end, for barely sending any money.

‘You can’t go out,’ Mama said to Marta now, tearing her gaze away from Ant, ‘we’ll have a feast.’

‘You look like a tart,’ Ant said, letting his eyes rest on the strained top buttons of Marta’s dress.

‘You look like a pimp,’ she said.

‘Marta!’ Mama scolded.

‘But he said . . .’

‘What’s a pimp?’ said Milya, clambering onto Ant’s knee.

‘And how would you know?’ Ant said. ‘Spend a lot of time with pimps?’

‘What’s a pimp?’

‘I’m going.’ Marta grabbed her bag.

‘Please stay,’ Mama called.

‘What’s a pimp?’

She slammed the door and wobbled down the corridor in Mama’s best shoes, high-heeled, mock leather sling-backs. She took it as a good omen that the lift was working and stood within the scratched steel box holding her breath. It was a risk getting inside on a Sunday – once Ant had been stuck between the 2nd and 3rd floors for half a day and had to pee in the corner. But today it worked smoothly and soon she was stepping out into hazy sunshine.

The shoes pinched as she walked to the tram stop. It was two rides to the centre of town. She could have spent the fare on sweets for Milya, or a glossy magazine. It still seemed amazing that you could openly buy magazines from the west. Once that would have been enough to make you disappear. She could spend her money as she liked, though guilt pinched like the shoes.

Quarter to three; she stopped outside the hotel. What did you do in a place like this? Report to a reception desk and explain your business? It’s all in your attitude, Sig had told her. ‘Walk in there like you own the place, look down your nose at all the flunkies.’ Sig was all grand words, but now she was not only engaged to ordinary Gustav but had missed a period. So, she’d settled for this life and this time next year might be a mother. Not me, Marta thought, not me.

Half hidden behind a lamppost, she waited. The polished white marble steps gleamed with silver in the sunshine. They were spotless. Every day someone must have to polish them. She caught sight of a smudge of brown, half a footprint and it pleased her. Nothing can stay that clean.

When Mr Antenescu arrived, she’d step out, bright and breezy, pretend she’d only just rolled up herself. She held her elbows out from her sides to dry the dampness in the armpits of the dress. A doorman in a gold-frogged uniform stepped forward to help people into or out of the taxis that drew up, and to carry their luggage up or down the steps. These days any man with a car could call himself a taxi driver. So many tourists, willing to pay ridiculous prices.

A horse-drawn trap drew up, and a couple of elderly Americans creaked out. They took a photo of each other beside the horse, the driver – in some version of Romanian national dress – grinning and raising his whip.

She watched and waited, aware of suspicious looks from the doorman. 3:05. How long should she wait? Her stomach twisted with the sudden certainty that he wouldn’t turn up – but there was also relief. Two trams and she could be back for beef and wine, tomorrow she’d boil the bone for soup . . . her mind ran on to carrots and onions, dried beans, dumplings flavoured with dill.

‘Can I help you, Miss?’ the doorman said.

‘I’m waiting for a friend.’

‘Perhaps you could wait inside?’ His eyes rested on her bursting buttons, ‘or else come back later. Loitering around like this, it doesn’t look good.’

Marta flushed. ‘I was only enjoying the sun, but if you have a problem with that . . .’ With a dignity ruined only by the wobbling shoes, she made her way up the steps, through the revolving door and into the plush of deep blue carpet, muted light, a smell of smoke and polish. It took a moment for her eyesight to adjust to the gleaming wooden reception desk, big as a bed, the pairs of deep sofas facing each other across low tables, the lamps with their respectfully bowed faces. There were people sitting around, some formally, some lounging as if in their own homes, tea trays and liquor bottles. The elderly American couple shared a huge bottle of Coca-Cola from an ice-bucket on a silver tray. A uniformed waiter moved towards her. About to throw her out, she was sure. She saw the sign for the Ladies toilet and fled inside.

It was beautiful in there. Her heart hammered. It was like a temple. The marble walls and floor. The folded pile of paper towels. The cakes of white soap. A red rose in a vase. Her stupid face, blazing in the mirror. Who did she think she was? She locked herself in a cubicle. Her stomach was cramping. She pulled down her pants and sat. It seemed almost sacrilegious to soil the crystal water in the porcelain bowl, but she had no choice and hunched, ashamed of the smell, jumping up quickly to flush the toilet.

She washed her hands with the white soap, webbing her fingers with scented bubbles. In the bright space the mirror lit her cruelly, the way the dress strained across her chest made her look fat and you could see the ridge of the safety pin holding together her bra. Natural beauty and grace, indeed! What a fool she was! Thank goodness he had not come. She would go straight home, take off the dress, eat beef with Mama, make peace with Ant. She slid a cake of soap into her bag, and a wad of paper towels. The only other thing to take was the rose, plastic it turned out and moulded into a clear Perspex vase. Mama would love it. She bent the stem to fit it inside her bag and scuttled out quickly – startled to find Mr Antonescu right outside the door.

He took her hand and smiled down at her. ‘I’m sitting there.’ He indicated a table tucked away in the farthest recesses of the room. ‘I asked a waiter to point you my way, but . . .’ He gestured at the Ladies.

Marta looked down at the shoes, noticed a splash of water on her skirt, screwed the material up in her hand to hide it.

‘Well. Here we are,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

In his corner they sat side by side on a leather sofa. She sank deeper than expected and gave a little gasp. He sat close beside her, trousers tight as sausage skins round his thighs. Breathing in his smell of expensive cologne, she crossed her legs, letting one high-heeled sandal dangle in a way that seemed casual and sophisticated.

‘Coffee, cakes and perhaps a brandy?’ he said. ‘You look as if you could do with it!’

Marta nodded. She supposed that he would be paying – but what if he expected her to pay her way? How much did things cost in such a place as this? Was this a date? Could you call it that? She kept her bag, fat with stolen goods, clenched under her arm.

Pavel beckoned the waiter and made his order. Then he leaned towards her on the sofa. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all week,’ he said.

Smiling sideways at him, Marta hid the little thrill that ran through her. He seemed younger close-to – perhaps not much more than thirty. She’d thought 40 at least on the bridge. But look at Ant, how much older the suit and moustache made him appear. Pavel’s eyes were small, deep-set, a very pale blue that reminded her of Mama’s best tablecloth. And that cloth would surely be unfolded today in honour of Ant, in honour of the beef.

‘How old are you?’ Pavel asked.

‘Seventeen.’

‘You look younger . . . and older at the same time,’ he said, as if determined to flatter her one way or the other. ‘And so pretty, and so . . .’ He glanced down at her chest and she vowed never to borrow Sig’s dress again, ‘well proportioned.’ She waited for him to say Natural beauty and grace but he did not. The waiter brought a tray with coffee, slices of vanilla torte, a bottle of plum brandy and two glasses. Pavel leant forward and poured a measure of liquor into each glass. ‘Let me toast you,’ he said, holding up the glass. ‘To you. To pretty Marta!’ He swallowed the drink in one go.

‘Thank you.’ Marta took a sip and felt the burn.

‘Knock it back,’ he said.

‘To you then,’ she said and forced it down in a gulp that brought tears to her eyes but then a lovely feeling of warmth and comfort, and at once it was as if she’d been born to sit on just such a sofa, in just such a place as this. She revolved her ankle, enjoyed the prettiness of the dangling shoe.

The coffee was strong, the cake soft and meltingly sweet on her tongue. He was a talker and after they’d chatted about the weather he told her about London, London, where he did business. He’d even been to Scotland. The brandy loosened her tongue and she quizzed him about the UK, till with a laugh he held up his hand.

‘Enough!’ he said. ‘Now, tell me about yourself.’

Marta shrugged. ‘There’s nothing much, I’m just a girl who lives across the river, who works the twilight shift at the chemical plant. What else?’

‘Well, you have a little sister.’

‘And a big brother who works in town.’ She paused for another mouthful of cake. Really it was a waste to eat such a delicious thing and have to concentrate on conversation as well.

‘Your parents must be proud.’ He poured two more shots of brandy.

She took a breath and made the hard feeling come in her throat before she said, ‘My Tata’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He bowed his head for a moment. ‘It must be a struggle for your mother.’

‘We manage. Mama and I work and Antoni. He contributes.’ She fought to keep the edge from her voice.

‘Always a struggle, eh?’ he said. ‘Another drink?’

Marta shook her head. ‘I mustn’t, I have to be able to walk!’ A silly slurred giggle came from her mouth.

‘Another brandy, another coffee and how about another slice of cake?’ Pavel said. ‘I won’t take no for an answer!’

How could she could resist? She was expecting, at any moment, that he would make a pass. She looked slyly at his lips, narrow and wet; at the little paunch that strained against his shirt. Could she bear to let him touch her? People did of course; every day people gave part of themselves to get something back. As long as you were sure of getting something back. Something worth getting.

Pavel gestured to the waiter: ‘Again,’ he said, and the waiter strode off. It was wonderful the authority Pavel had, the confidence. Would there ever be a day when she would be able to click her fingers and say, ‘Again,’ like that – and have someone take notice?

‘Do you come here very much?’ she asked.

He waggled his hand. ‘Now and again, you know,’ he said, ‘when it suits.’

‘What do you do?’ she said. He looked surprised by the question, which, perhaps it wasn’t polite to ask. ‘I mean what line of business?’ she blundered on.

‘Exports,’ he said. A silence gaped between them. Marta couldn’t think of a suitable question to ask; had she offended him? Leaning forward, he topped up their glasses. She picked up hers and went to drink and missed her lips so that the liquor splashed down Sig’s dress.

‘Oh no, and it’s not mine!’ she said, stupid, stupid, what did it matter whose dress it was? And now he’d think she’d borrowed it specially. ‘We swap clothes all the time,’ she added. She opened her bag to take out her handkerchief and the head of the plastic rose popped out. It was identical to the one on the coffee table, so there was no mistaking its origins – and his smile! Her face throbbed, almost burst with a rush of blood. He leant over, tucked the rose back into her bag and fastened the zip.

‘There,’ he said, patting the bag. ‘For Mama?’

The waiter came with the coffee and cake, took a minute clearing the dirty crockery, tilted his head to look at her. Marta held tight to her bag.

‘How about I buy her some real roses?’ Pavel was saying. He put a finger under her chin and turned his face to hers. ‘Your secret is safe,’ he said. ‘A dozen red roses. I’ll have them sent. Would she like that? Would you?’ She pulled her face away. He lit another cigarette. She swallowed the brandy.

‘Eat your cake,’ he said. He leant back and watched her eat, blowing smoke in long thoughtful plumes. The smell of the smoke mixed with his cologne was cloying and spoilt the taste of the cake; if only he would look away so that she could wrap it in a paper towel and take it home for Milya, but to open her bag again would be impossible. She forked in another creamy mouthful. Ash powdered down on Pavel’s knee, a flake or two on the blue of the dress. He brushed it off, his hand lingering. She shifted her leg away.

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting pretty things, a girl like you. It’s only to be expected.’