Follow her in, and gangster rap is booming down from the flat above.
‘Fucking prick!’ she shouts up.
She bangs on her ceiling with a broom, but the music doesnae go down. I think he turns it up. She shoves a pile of wigs off the sofa. Pauline, who used to be Paul, is unconscious on the armchair.
‘He’s been on a binge, I doubt he’ll wake up again today. The bastard keeps nicking my good wigs, and he goes mental if I don’t call him her! You should see it when he goes mental — fucking hormones! Honestly, you’ve never seen the like. And I don’t actually mean it, I’ve always called Paul, Paul — you know, Anais, I’m not doing it to be contrary! He still looks like Paul to me. They’re pert wee tits, though, look.’ She lifts up his top. Pauline has perfect silicones.
I giggle. It’s good to see Pat, I cannae believe I’ve been away for so long.
‘So, is anyone giving you hassle?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Are you in trouble with the police?’
‘Not really.’
‘Liar, what’s that?’ She lifts up my jeans and has a gander at my tag.
Avoid her gaze and check out her paintings instead. She’s got even more than when I was here last time. They’re all over her flat; some are even painted straight onto the wall. There’s a stunning black lassie, naked, smiling at something. There’s a painting of a parrot on Pauline’s shoulder, and another one of her in a red glittery dress. Then there’s the penises. All kinds of shapes. Every kind there is. Some have faces on them, or top hats. Lots of them are smoking cigarettes. Each is deformed. They are all preposterous.
‘Fat Mike could get that tag off for you,’ she says.
‘That’s what I was hoping. Is he still around?’
‘Aye, Mike’ll outlive us all!’
We laugh. Fat Mike’s a genius of the underworld, but he looks dumb as. He’s clever that way — it’s how he’s got away with it all so long.
‘He’s cutting hair now as well,’ Pat says.
‘What?’
‘Aye, he was up last night for a doubler: me and Pauline. And he told us — he’s decided to find his inner hairdresser.’
Pauline turns over and stops snoring.
‘Can you picture it, Anais? Mike cutting your hair with a pie in one hand and a tinny in the other.’
She’s pushing my hair back, checking out my clothes and my skin.
‘Teresa would be so proud, Anais. You’re not on the game yet, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Good, that’s not for you, either. You’re built for better, mark my words. This shitty wee life’ll not hold you back. I’d place money on it. You could be a model — or a madam. In fact, if you wanted to train in one of the best dungeons in London, I know a lovely one in Shoreditch.’
She rummages in her bag and hands a card to me; it’s plain black with just a telephone number.
‘They do dominatrix stuff, high-class and kink only. D’ye know how much they make in London for the good stuff?’
‘No.’
‘You could clean up and buy a place outright by the time you were in your twenties. It’s a classy establishment. If you ever consider going on the game, Anais — you go there and you tell them I sent you.’
‘Nah, Pat. Anyway, Jay is getting out — in a few weeks. We might give it a go, ay.’
‘Jay? He’s not coming back here, Anais — I’d be surprised anyway. He’s in debt, and I mean a lot of fucking debt. You remember Mark, don’t you?’
‘Aye.’
‘He owes the troll a bomb, that’s what I heard.’
Pat rifles through Pauline’s cardigan and takes out a wadge of notes.
‘Here, you keep that. I’m being serious, take it — you might need it. I feel like you’re going to need it, and take these wraps. They’re quality speed, so don’t take it all yourself. You’re skinny anyway, but you could sell it for some cash. And this is premium-quality acid; be careful with this shit, it’s very strong! These are some happy pills, they’re downers — here, take them, Anais, you can keep them in this.’
She hands me a wee Tupperware tub.
‘Thanks, Aunty Pat. I might need tae sell them, though.
They want tae put me in a secure unit.’
‘They do, do they?’
‘Aye. They think I’m bad.’
‘That’s what the experiment want them to think.’
I go cold.
She’s moving around, picking things up and putting them down, and I don’t know if she knows what she’s said. Pauline looks weird, sleeping through all this. I can feel the experiment in the room, just like that. Watching through the half-opened slits of Pauline’s eyes.
‘You’re the brainybox, Anais, you could get out. Look at me.’ She gestures at her paintings. ‘Will you see this in art galleries? No, you won’t, cos they don’t want fucking art — they want ideas. Would you like one of my paintings?’
She looks hopeful.
‘Aye — when I get my first flat, though. I wouldnae keep it in a home.’
‘You take one whenever you want.’
She pours half a glass of vodka and hands it to me.
‘Straight,’ she orders.
I drink it down. She refills the same glass and does the same. It’s a tradition; her and Teresa used to do it nearly every night. She first poured me half a tumbler of vodka when I was nine, and I drank it straight then as well — I thought my throat was on fire.
‘You know what they don’t tell you in this life, Anais, it’s this, those …’ She points at a wall of penis paintings. ‘The phallus, the prick, the cock, whatever you want to call it, it’s not the most powerful thing in the world.’
‘No?’
‘No. Like — they think it is, they build skyscrapers and mosques and big weapons in the shape of penises, to make you think that it is.’
‘Why?’
‘Gender wars. Absolute domination, over what they fear. What men fear is a cunt, so they try and make the cock scarier. It’s why they cut off girls’ clitoris, and use rape as a war tactic. It’s why the sentencing for rape is so offensively pathetic.’
She pours another two straight drinks.
‘Men are scary, sometimes, Pat.’
‘Aye, but it’s all up here.’ She taps her head. ‘They want us to think rape’s the worst thing that can happen.’
‘It’s not?’
‘Look — I’ve been raped six ways from Sunday, and it wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was not as bad as losing my firstborn, it was not as bad as watching my mother die from cancer. I mean it was bad. I am not saying it wasn’t bad; it was horrific, it made me stab one guy and I won’t even tell you what I did to another. The point is: society’s conditioned us, men and women, to live in fear.’
Pat must be off her meds, but I dinnae want to ask in case she brings out the bazooka. Last time she stopped taking her lithium she bought a bazooka from Fat Mike’s cousin. She keeps it stashed in the airing cupboard, or she used to. The police had to stop her shooting rockets at passing planes last time she went manic; she thought we were in wartime, ay.
‘Teresa always knew they’d come for you,’ she says, draining her drink.
‘Who?’
‘The experiment.’
Heart thumping — cannae breathe. Pauline’s snoring and I want to get out of here, I want to get out of my face and wake up a different person.
‘Penises,’ she says. ‘Wrinkled wee piss-holes — so fucking what!’
‘I better head off, Pat.’
She points at her paintings.
‘When men, and women, understand that they are not the scariest things in the world, for either sex — it’s this!’ She taps her head. ‘That’s when the world’s real revolution will begin. I’m fucking telling you. It’s your own mind that kills you. The most dangerous weapon in the world is a brain. You need to learn to master yours, Anais. It’s like a wild fucking horse in there, I can tell.’