Taken (7 page)

A black coffee and a half a Kit Kat later, Casey was on the phone to the landlord, frustrated at the lack of alarm Mr Goldman was showing.

‘What do you want me to do, love? Start charging him rent?’

‘I want you to do something about it. Come and take a look.’

‘It needs poison, not an audience. This is London love; weren’t you ever told the story of Dick Whittington? What you need is a cat.’

‘I thought pets weren’t allowed.’

‘They’re not.’

He laughed and carried on joking. This infuriated Casey, causing her to break down into floods of tears. Within a moment of her emotional outburst he agreed to take a look, preferring it, Casey supposed, to female hysterics on the phone so early in the morning.

After the call, Casey hurriedly went through her packed bag of clothes and discovered that apart from two pairs of lilac lace knickers, her only other clean item of clothing was a low-cut grey mini dress more appropriate for a night out than an overcast Thursday morning or a pair of jeans with a stubborn red wine stain on them.

After fifteen minutes of trying to get the stain out, Casey decided it wasn’t going to shift, no matter how hard she scrubbed. She felt faint and realised she needed to eat something other than chocolate; she had a busy day ahead.

Pulling on her jeans and putting on the least crumpled top she could find in her bag, she left the flat and wandered the short distance down Dean Street, doing a right into Bateman Street and walking into the first cafe she came across.

The runny egg on the chipped white plate and the overdone piece of fatty bacon were just two of the culinary delights of Lola’s Night Cafe. Casey stared at what was in front of her, feeling her stomach turning over once again.

‘Not hungry love? Never mind.’

Casey tried to smile at the woman who was speaking to her in between breaking out into short bursts of
‘
Fly Me to the Moon’, which was being played on the radio. Contrary to the toothless woman’s belief, Casey was very hungry, just not for what was on offer on her plate.

Getting up to pay, Casey saw the scrawled sign behind the counter:
‘Waitress wanted’.

‘Are you still looking?’

‘For what? My prince in shining armour? Bleedin’ hell, he’s already been in; took one look around and fucked right off again on his white charger.’

The woman opened her mouth wide and cackled loudly, causing Casey to draw back from her rancid breath.

‘I meant the waitressing job.’

‘I know what you meant, love. You’ll be no good to me if you can’t crack a smile.’

‘Sorry, I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’

The woman stared hard at Casey, looking her up and down and pausing at the top of her head; as if the job depended on Casey’s height.

‘You’ll do. I’m Lola by the way. Now take off that fancy jacket of yours and grab an apron.’

By the time four thirty had arrived, Casey’s feet were killing her and she was certain there were much easier ways to earn minimum wage. The stifling heat of the cafe, with its smells of old cooking oil, greasy fry-ups and countless bowls of watery tomato soup, combined with the lack of food in her stomach meant Casey needed to step outside on occasion into the busy street to get some fresh air.

‘I’ll dock your wages for that.’ Lola had glared at Casey for a moment but almost immediately had broken out into a smile. ‘You won’t have to mind me, Casey love; you’ll get used to me jokes. Keep smiling is what I say; helps your heart keep beating.’

Casey had warmed to Lola and found the woman’s open honesty about her past life refreshing but startling at the same time.

‘I was a brass for nearly twenty-five years. Don’t look so surprised! I didn’t always look like this. I use to have to put ear plugs in from all the wolf whistles I got.’

Lola laughed again and then her face went serious. ‘I would’ve carried on being a tom if it wasn’t for my last husband; been married five times and all of them were a waste of bog paper; but the last one, he was something else. You’ll probably see him in here from time to time, but take my advice, love – don’t be drawn in by his gift of the gab. Do yourself a favour and stay clean away.’

Casey nodded, taking in all the information.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Oscar Harding.’

Old Compton Street was packed with tourists with London guide maps in their hands and puzzled looks on their faces. It was nearly six o’clock and Casey wanted to sleep, but she’d no intention of going back to the flat until it was absolutely necessary. She thought about Lola and what she’d said, but for all she was and did, Casey suspected she was probably a darn sight happier than she was.

She could do with a drink to pep her up but she’d made a decision and for now she was at least going to try to stick to it. She sighed as she carried on walking. It was so hard to live in the present – her mind was always full of fading memories; but it was all she had and her reason for getting up each day.

The bus journey down towards Notting Hill Gate had taken longer than expected and Casey had been ready to get off the overheated bus and go back to the flat in Dean Street, but she’d seen a woman and a little boy sitting quietly at the back of the bus holding hands, saying nothing, just content in each other’s company. They reminded Casey what she had to do.

Portobello Road was dark and deserted, unrecognisable from the bustling market road it became during the daylight hours, and Casey wasn’t sure she’d come to the correct place. She looked down at the address she’d hurriedly written on a torn-off piece of newspaper and realised she was standing right outside where she needed to be.

The red door pushed open and Casey walked up the narrow stairs to the first-floor landing. There was another door to the left of her and she could hear voices coming from inside the room. Taking a deep breath, Casey opened the door to walk into a well-lit room.

‘Hello, please come in and take a seat.’

The red-faced man greeted Casey with a warm smile, gesturing for her to come and take the empty chair next to him.

‘We’ve just finished introducing ourselves. Perhaps you’d like to say who you are.’

Casey glanced at the man with his enthusiastic manner and smiled shyly.

‘Hello, I’m Casey and I’m an alcoholic.’

‘Hello Casey.’

The group greeted her in monotone unison, making Casey smile as it reminded her of being back in school.

‘I’m nearly one day sober and I need to get clean so I can find my son and tell him I’m sorry.’

The applause of the group made Casey blush and unexpectedly brought tears to her eyes as she was handed the white keyring of twenty-four-hour sobriety by a tall woman in her early twenties.

Sitting down in her chair she could feel her heart racing; she hadn’t thought she’d be nervous, after all it wasn’t the first time she’d been to a meeting. In Newcastle she’d been to a few and in Liverpool and in Birmingham as well, but maybe it was different because this time she was determined to get clean; she knew it was her last chance.

She’d never wanted this life but somehow it had invited her in and she’d stayed in its clutches. Living this way certainly wasn’t going to help her find her son, and even if she did, he’d never want her if she was a drunk. The meetings were her only way to keep steady on the tightrope she was walking.

Looking round the meeting in the small room above the designer clothing shop in Portobello Road was like flicking through the pages of a society magazine. There were models and actors both from film and from screen, musicians and old-time rockers, and sitting next to her was an infamous aristocrat holding on to his keyring of twenty-four-hour sobriety.

For the next forty minutes Casey sat listening to tormented stories about the struggle to stay sober, and as far removed as her life could possibly be from most of the people in the room, the sentiments by and large were the same.

In the remaining moments the serenity prayer was read out, as it always was at the end of any meeting, and even though Casey knew it off by heart she chose to stay silent. The words were so poignant to her and as she listened to them with closed eyes, she hoped they’d see her through the following days.

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things that I can and wisdom to know the difference.’

Casey groaned as she looked at the clock; her next shift at the cafe started in less than twenty minutes. She didn’t know if it was going without alcohol or the fact she’d never really worked in her life before, but she was knackered. She’d drifted in and out of work and never really had to worry about money till recently, having had a conservative but steady flow of money from her family who were only visible in her life through the money they’d put in her account.

Eighteen months ago she’d closed her bank account down, deciding it only served to rubber stamp her feelings of worthlessness; it made her feel her family were paying her to stay away. So now if she wanted to eat, drink or pay the rent, she only had herself to rely on; it was both frightening and liberating in equal measures.

Casey washed herself quickly and pulled on yesterday’s clothes. It was pointless putting on anything clean; within two hours of working in Lola’s she’d smell as if she’d taken a plunge in chip fat, and besides, if she was honest, she could just about make the effort to get dressed let alone bother to do herself up.

The cafe wasn’t open for another hour but Lola had asked Casey to come thirty minutes before opening time to help set up. She was early, which would give her half an hour to sit down with a cup of coffee, hoping it would help her wake up properly. The cafe door had a sign saying ‘closed’ but the open door said the opposite.

‘Lola? It’s Cass. Hello?’

There was no answer so Casey put her bag down and went to switch on the large urn to make some much-needed coffee.

Taking her coat off, she walked into the cloakroom and was stopped dead in her tracks by what she saw. Lola sat on the cold cracked tiles of the bathroom floor with a belt around her left arm, the other end of it between her teeth. In her right hand was a syringe, half full with a cloudy liquid which Casey guessed was heroin.

On seeing Casey, Lola paused for a moment before pulling the belt even tighter with her teeth, then plunged the needle greedily into her waiting vein.

Almost immediately Casey could see the heroin taking hold of Lola; her eyes rolled back and her head started to loll against the grimy walls of the cloakroom. Slightly incoherently, Lola spoke.

‘Don’t look like that, lovie, who did you think I was? Mother bleeding Theresa?’

Lola cackled and the force of her laughter against her drugged-up body threw her head forward to rest on her chest.

Casey was shocked and her stomach tightened as she watched the abandoned needle still stuck in Lola’s vein. The blood trickled down Lola’s arm and for a moment Casey didn’t know what to say. It was Lola who broke the silence.

‘He did this,’ Lola slurred, pulling out the syringe and lifting up her cream polyester blouse. Casey’s eyes widened as she saw a vast scar running diagonally from underneath Lola’s breastbone, across her stomach and finishing off at her hip.

‘My god, what happened? Who did this to you?’

Casey knelt down by Lola and touched the old but still raised angry scar gently.

‘I don’t really remember much of that night; me and the old man were watching some shit on the telly; usual Sunday night crap. He turned and stared at me as if I were a stranger in me own home; like he’d never seen me before. Then he blinked a couple of times and started cutting.’

‘Who did, Lola? Who?’

Casey watched Lola’s eyes roll when she tried to focus on her.

‘Oscar.’

‘Jesus, how long did he get?’

Lola burst into more high-pitched cackling. ‘He didn’t, I’m old school, love; we don’t grass on our own.’

‘But …’

‘But nothing, girl. I did alright; he got me this place as a way of compensation.’

Casey stood up and looked horrified.

‘Money’s money, love; it’s an expensive habit I’ve got. Most of what I earn goes up my arm and if I didn’t have this place I’d be back on the streets. So you see, Oscar did me a favour in a way.’

‘How can you say that? What he did was shocking.’

‘What he did was life, sweetheart. I’m happy like this, I like it, never wanted to give up …’

Lola just managed to finish speaking before she suddenly jolted and turned her head to the side to vomit. Casey curled her face in disgust and backed away. What the hell was she doing in a place like this?

‘I’m sorry … I’ve got to go.’

Lola wiped the side of her mouth and looked up. Casey could see the tears in her eyes and the pain on her face but she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

‘Don’t go, Casey. Stay and keep me company … please.’

Lola raised her shaking hand towards Casey and the stench of the vomit and the misery of the situation suddenly hit Casey.

‘I’m sorry, Lola, I can’t.’ Turning quickly and grabbing her bag from the chair, Casey ran out of the cafe to the cool of the morning air and immediately felt very ashamed for running out on someone who’d asked for help. She put her hand on the door to go back inside but something stopped her. The desperation of the situation was clear to see and it was as if she was looking at herself in the mirror – but all Casey wanted to do was run.

It was four thirty the following Wednesday and Casey had slept most of the last few days away. Walking in on Lola and going to sobriety meetings in the evening had taken it out of her, and as much as she hated being in the flat, she’d rather sleep than watch the minutes slowly tick by emphasising her struggle to abstain from drinking. What she really needed was to try to take her mind off it. She remembered the club Whispers had a comedy spot on most nights and even though she knew she’d have to stay strong not to drink, Casey decided having a laugh would be more helpful than lying on her bed staring at the ceiling. The sign said it didn’t open until seven o’clock, so Casey settled on the cafe four doors away. It was in these quiet moments she found the unwelcome memories came knocking; today they also had her reaching for her mobile phone. The phone on the other end rang twice before it was answered by a man with a deep voice.