began to serenade her.
‘Say it’s only a paper moon,’ he sang, ‘Sailing over a cardboard sea, but it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me…’
Fascinated, she remained in the window, waiting for him to come up to her. She was his instantly. He saw her entire life, from birth to this moment. Roumanian originally, Macha Igescu was seventeen years old, working for Demetrios Malacou. She loved him because he beat her less than her last protector, never more than once a week. She had had two babies – both sold by Malacou to strangers – and her dreams were befogged by the poppy smoke. She was nearing the end of her professional life. Malacou, she knew, would dump her for that plump-titted Arab bitch, and she would be sold on into some dark dormitory to do her work chained to a cot.
He promised himself that he would find Malacou and kill him for Macha. He would not feed off the pimp; he would just open his throat and let him empty. After all, he was going to owe Macha for his life.
Latching his fingerhooks into the crumbling stonework, he began his climb…
11
I n Brewer Street, all the sex shops had identical notices up in their windows. A Merry Christmas to All Our Customers. The season of goodwill to all men gets everywhere. Anne wondered whether the girls in the Live Erotic Nude Bed Show had to wear Santa Claus hats and reindeer antlers. Weary shop assistants had been busy hanging paper lanterns from the rubberwear, and winding silvery tinsel through displays of sex aids. In a centrally-heated style shop, customers got to choose between purple and turquoise trenchcoats, assisted by young girls with cycle shorts and partially-shaven heads. A record store had a cardboard cut-out of Derek Douane, the teenage ex-choirboy who had inflicted ‘Christmas Caroline’ on the human race. Anne hurried past his fixed smile, trying not to think of the burbling, thought-destroying tune that could get into your brain and settle for hours. The traffic was snarled, and bike messengers were gleefully whizzing their way through the gridlocked maze of personalized numberplate limousines and delivery vans. In New York, this would occasion a din of honked horns, but the British drivers just sat and fumed in their tincans, waiting for the world to get better. Outside a Chinese take-away, three pigeons pecked determinedly at a splash of frozen sick.
A wino with black toes poking through his mangled trainers aimed himself at her. He skittered through the Christmas-shopping crowds like a pinball, bouncing off walls, lampposts and people, his shaky eyes fixed on her. The grubby hand was already coming out, and the ritual phrase was working its way down from the speech centres of his brain to the spirits-slurred tongue.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, before he could get it out, ‘Could you spare ten pence for a cup of coffee?’
Usually, derelicts retreated in astonishment at this tactic, but the Soho wino was a hardier breed.
‘Fuck you, sister,’ he coughed at her through black and broken teeth, ‘and the horse you rode in on.’
She sidestepped him, and walked on rapidly. She was not happy with her behaviour. She had done pieces on homelessness. She ought to have more sympathy.
‘I fought in three world wars for you,’ the tramp shouted at her back. She wished Mace was legal in this country.
The capital was turning into a Third World city, she thought. At every central London subway station, there were begging kids, shivering in several layers of clothes, a pleading message printed in biro on a piece of cardboard. Less aggressive than the alky panhandlers, the kids were even more depressing, fiercely ashamed of their situation, never meeting the eyes of the passersby. The tramp she had dodged was one of the old-style bums, the last of the summer winos, and was most likely feeling the pinch. With younger, less stereotypically derelict, not obviously cracked people sleeping rough and trying to get into the spare
‘Say it’s only a paper moon,’ he sang, ‘Sailing over a cardboard sea, but it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me…’
Fascinated, she remained in the window, waiting for him to come up to her. She was his instantly. He saw her entire life, from birth to this moment. Roumanian originally, Macha Igescu was seventeen years old, working for Demetrios Malacou. She loved him because he beat her less than her last protector, never more than once a week. She had had two babies – both sold by Malacou to strangers – and her dreams were befogged by the poppy smoke. She was nearing the end of her professional life. Malacou, she knew, would dump her for that plump-titted Arab bitch, and she would be sold on into some dark dormitory to do her work chained to a cot.
He promised himself that he would find Malacou and kill him for Macha. He would not feed off the pimp; he would just open his throat and let him empty. After all, he was going to owe Macha for his life.
Latching his fingerhooks into the crumbling stonework, he began his climb…
11
I n Brewer Street, all the sex shops had identical notices up in their windows. A Merry Christmas to All Our Customers. The season of goodwill to all men gets everywhere. Anne wondered whether the girls in the Live Erotic Nude Bed Show had to wear Santa Claus hats and reindeer antlers. Weary shop assistants had been busy hanging paper lanterns from the rubberwear, and winding silvery tinsel through displays of sex aids. In a centrally-heated style shop, customers got to choose between purple and turquoise trenchcoats, assisted by young girls with cycle shorts and partially-shaven heads. A record store had a cardboard cut-out of Derek Douane, the teenage ex-choirboy who had inflicted ‘Christmas Caroline’ on the human race. Anne hurried past his fixed smile, trying not to think of the burbling, thought-destroying tune that could get into your brain and settle for hours. The traffic was snarled, and bike messengers were gleefully whizzing their way through the gridlocked maze of personalized numberplate limousines and delivery vans. In New York, this would occasion a din of honked horns, but the British drivers just sat and fumed in their tincans, waiting for the world to get better. Outside a Chinese take-away, three pigeons pecked determinedly at a splash of frozen sick.
A wino with black toes poking through his mangled trainers aimed himself at her. He skittered through the Christmas-shopping crowds like a pinball, bouncing off walls, lampposts and people, his shaky eyes fixed on her. The grubby hand was already coming out, and the ritual phrase was working its way down from the speech centres of his brain to the spirits-slurred tongue.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, before he could get it out, ‘Could you spare ten pence for a cup of coffee?’
Usually, derelicts retreated in astonishment at this tactic, but the Soho wino was a hardier breed.
‘Fuck you, sister,’ he coughed at her through black and broken teeth, ‘and the horse you rode in on.’
She sidestepped him, and walked on rapidly. She was not happy with her behaviour. She had done pieces on homelessness. She ought to have more sympathy.
‘I fought in three world wars for you,’ the tramp shouted at her back. She wished Mace was legal in this country.
The capital was turning into a Third World city, she thought. At every central London subway station, there were begging kids, shivering in several layers of clothes, a pleading message printed in biro on a piece of cardboard. Less aggressive than the alky panhandlers, the kids were even more depressing, fiercely ashamed of their situation, never meeting the eyes of the passersby. The tramp she had dodged was one of the old-style bums, the last of the summer winos, and was most likely feeling the pinch. With younger, less stereotypically derelict, not obviously cracked people sleeping rough and trying to get into the spare
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