‘Albacore Crescent! I can just imagine it.’
‘It’s on the map. Just get off the train at Deptford.’
‘We’ll have tea somewhere,’ Lady Arrow had said, and now she laughed at the thought of it, seeing nothing in ten minutes of walking but two fish-and-chip shops with steamy windows, and a take-away Chinese restaurant. She was angry for noticing they were filthy: she didn’t like to think of herself as a fastidious person. Here, everywhere she looked, she had to face the limits of her tolerance. And she thought: This is what it means. When people say they’re living in Deptford they mean this, the gasworks, the nasty little shops, these poky houses, the smoke. Really, a pitiful confession.
Across Deptford Broadway to the hill and then into Ship Street, where she saw the entry to Albacore Crescent. She had not wanted to arrive by taxi; she deliberately avoided taking it to the door: she was ashamed. But it would not have mattered — the house was larger than she expected, and all the blinds were drawn. Seeing it, she remembered why she had come. It was more than a glimpse of Brodie at home, how she lived, what she did, whom she saw, a piecing together of the girl’s other life to make a story for herself she hoped she figured in — a way of ordering it, like an artist, so that it could be set aside. She wanted that, but she wanted more: Brodie. At Hill Street she had resented Murf’s hold over her, the companionable glances, the laughter, the assumption that she was his. She wanted to separate her from Murf, break his hold over her and have the girl to herself.
Lady Arrow was not discontented with her life, but she knew it lacked any edge, and it was enclosed — too secure. Other people, living close to the ground, spent more congenial days, like the waiters she envied, whispering intimately to each other in restaurants where she was dining. And sometimes she thought that even the girls she visited in prison had more to challenge and amuse them than she did. The plays she brought them gave her a chance to act with them. She would not be shut out from anyone’s life, and she was surprised that Brodie’s seemed so inaccessible: five phone-calls and what amounted to a bribe to gain entry!
She rang the bell, heard footsteps on the stairs and listened to the snapping of locks, bolts at the top and bottom of the door being shot. Brodie’s pale eager face appeared at a crack.
‘You’re barricaded in!’ said Lady Arrow as she stepped through the door, seeing the locks and bolts and heavy chains.
‘We don’t usually come in this way, said Brodie. ‘We’re supposed to use the back door.’
‘I hope I’m not infringing the rules — but who makes these rules? I say, is that your ice-cream van?’
Brodie was shrugging at the questions. ‘Sort of. It belongs to someone, but they’re not here, see.’ She was vague. In a thin sleeveless shirt, Brodie’s breasts budded at the pockets, and Lady Arrow saw the tattoo, the blue-bird chevron on her white upper arm. Brodie’s trousers were much too large for her; she held them up by the waist to prevent them falling down.
‘Hey, Murf — she’s here!’
Murf put his head through the door and nodded. His head was small and the sun behind his ears lighted them to look like the membranes of kites, one with a gold tail, the swinging ear-ring. He wore a jersey with a chewed collar, a pair of girl’s tight pink slacks, and in his bare feet he clawed at the rug with his toes. He plucked at the slacks that sheathed his legs and pushed at his thighs. Lady Arrow thought of a pet beast, ridiculously costumed.
‘They’re mine,’ said Brodie. ‘Them slacks. I’ve got his on. We decided to wear each other’s clothes today.’
‘What a splendid idea.’ Lady Arrow moved down the hall and she smelled — what? — something she couldn’t name, a hairyness of sour perfume.
‘Murf said it turns him on.’
‘Except it don’t,’ said Murf. ‘It was just an experiment, like.’
‘A pity it’s not working,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But then how awkward for me if I’d come and found you fucking. I’d hardly know where to look!’
‘Yeah, well,’ said Murf, averting his eyes, pushing at his ears. ‘That’s how it goes. Have a seat.’
‘Is this all yours?’ Lady Arrow entered the parlour and paced. ‘It’s quite huge. I think it’s a success, I really do. And I imagine there are lots more rooms in the back and upstairs. It reminds me of a dove-cote, all these little rooms rising to the roof. Whatever do you do with them all?’
‘There’s some other people,’ said Brodie.
‘Yes, the owner of the ice-cream van.’
Murf glanced uneasily at Brodie, then said with mild aggression, ‘We don’t know nothing about that there van. Maybe someone nicked it and left it there.’
‘I understand,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘You can trust me with your secrets.’
‘We don’t have no secrets,’ growled Murf, still facing Brodie, who got up and left the room.
‘Of course not,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Why should you?’
‘Have a seat,’ said Murf again, pulling a stuffed chair away from the wall and awkwardly presenting it.
Lady Arrow ignored him. She leaned into the hall and said, ‘Does it extend very far? It seems to go on forever, more rooms in the back — and a garden as well.’
‘Here,’ said Brodie, entering the room. In an attempt at etiquette she had placed an unopened bottle of pale ale on a green saucer with a souvenir opener. ‘Oh, I forgot the glass.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I never drink beer. I’ll have some of this.’ She tapped some snuff onto the back of her hand, lifted it to her nostrils and tipping her head back inhaled it. She snorted and blinked, then she said, ‘Aren’t you going to take me on a tour?’
‘Sure, there’s some pretty groovy places around here. We could go down to the power station. Murf’s got a mate who works there. Or we could take a bus to the Cutty Sark. It’s up Greenwich.’
‘I meant a tour of your house.’
‘There’s nothing to see,’ said Brodie. ‘Just more rooms.’
‘But how many?’
‘Six or seven.’
‘Why it is huge!’
‘You can’t go up,’ said Murf. ‘I’m redecorating the bathroom.’
‘Do let me have a peep.’
‘Have a seat,’ said Murf, and now he looked as if he might spring up and throw her into the chair.
‘Oh, all right,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But I’d much rather have a tour of this lovely house. By the way, who owns it?’
Murf said, ‘Some people.’
‘You are a mysterious fellow, aren’t you? But you’ll see — Brodie will vouch for me — I don’t pry. I’m just interested. I was hoping we could be friends. Don’t you want to be my friend, Murf?’
‘Sort of,’ said Murf and picked self-consciously at Brodie’s pink slacks sitting so uncomfortably on him and clinging to his skinny thighs.
‘I’d like that,’ she said. But she thought: No, what’s the point, what am I doing here? She had tried to flatter them by taking an interest in the house; but flattery didn’t work — there was narcissism even flattery couldn’t penetrate, and her compliments, so close to satire, only made them suspicious. She had guessed, alighting from the taxi at Deptford, that it would be a failure and now that was confirmed. She had expected too much, and she could see she was unwelcome. It occurred to her that she might take a hundred pounds from her purse and say, ‘Here — it’s yours.’ It was a hopeless thought: they were children. You could give them anything, and they wouldn’t notice; but you couldn’t take a thing from them. They made themselves inaccessible. She had been foolish to think that she could take Brodie away and keep her. The young were not free enough to know affection, and why, she wondered, did they always insist by their lazy silence on kidnap?