She sat down on the floor of the shower cubicle and began to sing the chorus of the children’s song from Klaipeda.
Lydia Grajauskas.
Lydia Grajauskas.
Lydia Grajauskas.
She loved that song. It had been theirs, hers and Vladi’s. They had sung it together loudly every morning as they walked to school through the blocks of flats in the housing estate, a syllable for each step. They sang their names loudly, over and over again.
‘Stop singing!’
Dimitri shouted at her from the hall, his mouth close to the bathroom door. She carried on. He banged the wall, shouted again for her to get out of there fucking pronto. She stayed where she was, sitting on the wet floor, but stopped singing, her voice barely carrying through the door.
‘Who is coming next?’
‘You owe me money, you bloody whore!’
‘I want to know who’s coming.’
‘Clean up your cunt! New customer.’
Lydia heard real anger in his voice now. She got up, dried her wet body and stood in front of the mirror that hung above the sink, put on her red lipstick, put on the nearly cream underwear in a velvet-like material that Dimitri had handed to her that morning, sent to her in advance by the customer.
Four Rohypnol and one Valium. She swallowed, smiled at her reflection and washed the tablets down with half a glass of vodka.
She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the hall. The next customer, the second of the day – a new one, someone she’d never seen before – was already waiting on the landing. Dimitri was glaring at her from the kitchen, watching as she passed him, the last few steps before opening the front door.
Before opening it she made him knock once more.
Hilding Oldйus gave the wound on his nose a good hard scratch.
The sore on his nostril wouldn’t heal. It was the heroin: whenever he shot up, it itched and scratched. He’d had a sore there for years now. It was like it was burning; he had to rub, rub, his finger digging deeper, pulling at the skin.
He looked around.
A crap room at the welfare office. He hated it, but he always came back, as soon as he got out there he was, ready to smile for a handout. It had taken him one week this time. He’d been brown-nosing the screws at Aspsеs prison. Said ‘Cheerio’ to Jochum. He’d been kissing the big boy’s arse these last few months; he needed someone to hide behind, and Jochum was built like a brick shithouse. None of the lads even thought of messing with him as long as he hung out with Lang. And Jochum had said ‘see you’ back. He only had one bleeding week left. (Hilding suddenly realised he’d be out tomorrow. A week had passed: fuck, it was tomorrow.) They’d probably never meet up again outside. Jochum had protected him for a while, but he didn’t do drugs and people who didn’t just sort of disappeared, went somewhere else.
Not many people waiting here.
A couple of gyppo birds and a fucking Finn and two bloody pensioners. What the fuck did they want?
Hilding scratched the sore on his nose again. They were just taking up time, a crowd of losers getting in his way.
It was one of those days, a day when he was all sensitive. He didn’t want to feel anything, mustn’t, and then one of the days from hell hit him, when he knew, felt, felt, felt. He needed a hit badly, had to get rid of this crappy feeling. Had to get some fucking kit. But all these bloody awful people were sitting there, in this crappy room, holding him back. It was his turn now, fuck’s sake, it was his turn.
‘Yes. Who’s next?’
That fat old cow opened her office door again.
He hurried over to her, his jerky movements propelling his thin body forward. Everyone could see that here was another young person, not even thirty yet, whose childish face somehow blended in with his punctured junkie skin. He was heading somewhere, but it certainly wasn’t life.
Hilding scratched his nose again and realised that he was sweating. It was June, but raining non-fucking-stop, so he was wearing a long raincoat. It didn’t let any air in or out. He should take it off, but couldn’t be arsed to. He sat down on the visitor’s chair in front of the bare desk and empty bookshelves. A nervous glance round the office. No one else there, no other fucker. There were normally two of them.
Klara Stenung settled on her side of the desk. Klara was twenty-eight, the same age as the heroin addict facing her. She had come across him before, knew who he was and where he was going. She knew the type; she’d worked as a social worker’s assistant in the suburbs for two years, and then at the Katarina-Sofia office here in the city for three years. Thin, stressed out, noisy, just out of prison. They came and went, disappeared for ten months at a time inside, but always reappeared.
She stood up and reached across the desk. He looked at her hand. He looked at it, considered spitting in it, but then took it in a flaccid shake.
‘I need some cash.’
Her eyes met his; she didn’t say anything, just waited for more. He was on her books, filed away. She knew everything about him. Oldйus was just like the rest. No father, not much of a mother, a couple of older sisters who had done what they could. He was very bright, very confused, very lost. Alcohol at thirteen, cannabis at fifteen. By now, he was on the fast track. Smoked heroin, then started to inject. First prison sentence at seventeen. Now, at twenty-eight, he had been inside ten times in eleven years, mostly for burglary and a couple of times for dealing in stolen goods. He was a petty criminal, the kind who had waved a bread knife at the assistant in the late-night corner store and then hung around outside the shop for the first dealer to come along, bought some kit and mainlined in the nearest doorway and couldn’t understand it when someone in the shop pointed him out to the police when they turned up. He still didn’t get it when the police bundled him into the back seat of a patrol car and sped off towards the station.
‘You know the answer. No money.’
He twitched nervously in his chair, rocking backwards and forwards, nearly losing his balance.
‘But I’m just out. For fuck’s sake!’
She looked at him. He shouted, he scratched his nose and then the sore started to bleed.
‘I’m sorry. You’re not registered. As unemployed, or as a job-seeker.’
He got up.
‘You fat cunt! I’m fucking skint. Fuck’s sake. I’m hungry!’
‘I understand that you need money for food. But you aren’t registered so I can’t give you any money.’
The blood dripped from his nose on to the floor. It was flowing fast and the yellow lino was soon covered in red. He hurled abuse, of course, threatened her as well, but never any more, it never got worse than that. He was bleeding, but didn’t fight; he didn’t have it in him and she knew it. It didn’t even occur to her to call for support.
He slammed his fist on the top of the bookshelf.
‘I don’t give a fuck about your fucking rules!’
‘Whatever you say. You still won’t get any money. All I can do for you is give you two days’ worth of food vouchers.’
A lorry rumbled past outside the window, the sound pushing its way up between the solid buildings that lined the narrow street. Hilding didn’t hear it. In fact, he heard absolutely nothing. The stupid old slag in front of him had been banging on about food vouchers. And since when could you get fucking kit with food vouchers? He stared across the desk at the fat woman, glaring at her big droopy tits and fucking pathetic necklace of big round wooden beads. He burst out laughing, then shouted and knocked over the chair, kicked it into the wall.
‘I don’t give a toss about your fucking tickets! I’ll have to find the fucking cash myself then! Fucking cunt!’