The Woman He Loved Before Read online

  I almost said ‘Gypsy’ but didn’t think I could get away with it. I wasn’t going to tell him my real name, and the film that had been on the TV when I left home earlier came into my mind. ‘Honey,’ I said. From A Taste of Honey. I’d been on the verge of tears watching it – the scene where Josephine is forced to leave home because of her mother’s boyfriend scraped far too many raw nerves for me.

  ‘Honey,’ he repeated. ‘That’s good. You’ve got that sweet and innocent look about you. And I ain’t got any other Honeys on the books. Go on, get out.’

  And that was it.

  On the way out, I saw another woman on her way in. She was incredibly tall and incredibly beautiful. She smiled at me and I smiled at her. ‘Are you new?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, I’m Connie and I’m working tonight if you want to come back and ask me some questions. I’ve been here donkeys.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, grateful to her. I wasn’t looking forward to having to befriend other people to find out my job description. I was learning not to trust people after what Ophelia had done. ‘Can I ask you something now?’

  She nodded, her large, slightly hooded eyes staring at me intently and kindly.

  ‘What’s a minge?’ I asked.

  I could have died when she told me. She also told me to get it waxed rather than shaving because it lasts longer and doesn’t itch as much when it grows back.

  Really tired. Don’t know if I can write any more right now. Feel a bit worn down by it all. No wonder Dawn used to sleep half the day away. I’m sure it wasn’t just from the drugs. It takes it out of you in a whole different way to normal work. But more about that later. Right now, I just need to sleep.

  Eve

  15th October 1988

  I’ve been a dancer for over a month now. Isn’t that great? I work six nights a week and earn more money than I did as an admin assistant, so I can afford luxuries like keeping the lights on when I have a bath, or buying more than one loaf of bread a week. I was poor before, when I worked in the office, but that was fine because I had the idea in my mind that I could possibly make a career out of it. I could maybe become an office manager or even do as Maggie suggested and go back to take my A-Levels and train for a profession. Even if it wasn’t accountancy, I could do something.

  Now, I have more money – enough to live on, enough to get by – but I’m not sure where I’m going after this. I still apply for jobs, but it seems a bit pointless now. I’m hardly going to put this down on my CV, am I?

  It’s not so bad, really. I think the second night was worse than the first. The first night I was nervous. I’d watched the other girls, I’d seen how they approached the men, how they smiled and chatted to them, subtly moving their bodies so the men became almost hypnotised by them and wanted to have them dance for them. I watched the way they came close to sitting on the men’s laps but would never touch – that was the main rule, NO TOUCHING – and how they would get nearer and raunchier to the men towards the end of a song so the man would eagerly pay more for the dance to continue. There was the pole, which everyone has to have a go on during the night but which the girls weren’t that keen on because being up there meant less money.

  Some of the stuff the girls did on the pole I just knew I could never do. It was physically demanding so I figured that I’d have to use it as much as possible to incorporate into a dance routine and hope I was so rubbish they would take me off it after a song or two.

  Why was the second night worse than the first? The first night, a little bit of me was hoping I would be told to go away and never come back. I didn’t want to be standing in front of a man who had his legs wide open, and had his hands clenched on his thighs as he did all he could to stop himself touching me. My first routine was for a young good-looking guy who was on his own and wearing a grey pinstripe suit. He came in alone, sat away from the other men at tables and ordered drink after drink while staring at me. Other girls went over to him but he turned them all down, just stared at me, and eventually I went over to him.

  ‘Would you like me to dance for you?’ I said to him. My voice was different because I’d been practicing all day. I’d been getting into the role of Honey. She walked differently to me, she talked differently, she danced differently. She was different because she could take her clothes off in front of people she didn’t know whereas I would always have a problem with it.

  He nodded. I’d got a new thing to keep in my head – the money I would make from a dance. I focused on the twenty quid I would get and kept that figure in my head. I put a wall around my mind, so I wouldn’t think about what I was doing, and on that wall in huge numerals I would see ‘£20’.

  The song came on and I danced, doing what I’d seen the other dancers do and adding some of the things I practiced at home. When the song ended, he gave me a five-pound tip and then looked through me while I put on my bra and dress. It was virtually the same the whole night and at the end of it I was told to come back again the following night. I got some cash in my hand, from which they’d taken the fee for being there, and the owner – Adrian – patted me on the bum for doing so well and said he’d see me the next day.

  The second night was worse because I knew that was it. I was there for a while, I was there until I got another job and with the world as it was, still in recession, that other job was not going to be coming around soon. So as I put on make-up like I’d seen the other girls do, and got ready to go out there, I felt a sickness I hadn’t felt since I’d come up with this crazy plan. This was my life, this was what I’d chosen to do. I had chosen to wear the persona of a fantasy girl so that the real-life one could carry on living in this world. And for the foreseeable future, that was what I was going to have to do to get by.

  One bath wasn’t enough to remove the smell of smoke and booze and sweaty expectation that had wound itself into my hair and ground into my skin, but eventually I felt OK again. I felt like Eve again.

  I just had to leave all that to Honey.

  As I went to sleep that second night, I couldn’t help thinking about Dawn. About which came first – the drugs or the dancing. What had she told herself to get through every day of doing that? And how much longer was she going to be alive?

  It’s second nature now, of course. It only took a couple of weeks for me not to have to concentrate on being Honey when I get up there to dance. Now, the second I walk through the doors of Habbie’s I switch into being Honey and I switch her off the second I leave. That’s what is so good about having her: I don’t have to bring my work home with me because the person who does it, is just a figment of my imagination.

  Eve

  18th October 1988

  Every day I walk past this shop. It’s just an ordinary little clothes shop. But it’s got this dress …

  It’s not the sort of thing I’d usually like, and I can’t ever afford it, but I have to stop every time because it’s so beautiful. That’s not the word. It’s more than that. Breathtaking, like people say, you know, about the places they see on their hols. It takes my breath away, and I can’t not look at it. Sometimes, even if I’m nowhere near there, I go and have a look. It should be mine. I want it to be mine. I’ve never had anything like that, anything so pretty and so classy. It’s this incredible shade of pink.

  It’s tight at the top, around the boobs and to the waist, with a delicate scattering of sequins down the front and a tie around the middle. Then the skirt falls in waves. Each strap goes up and branches out into a V, but it’s not too revealing because it’s got a little panel across the centre. In the window, they’ve got this big net skirt underneath it, but I wouldn’t wear it like that – I’d just let it flow around my legs, right down to my shins.

  I want it.

  I want it so much it’s difficult to breathe, sometimes. I stare at it long and hard, looking at the stitching, the detailing, the depth of the hem, the spacing of the sequins, the way light falls on the gentle folds of the fab
ric. I’m always looking for imperfection, something that will hopefully put me off, make me love it a little less.

  It should be mine. But where would I wear it? What would I wear it for? I don’t go anywhere. Just to work and then back again. I sit in this little flat, and I watch the telly, or read a book from the library, or I smoke cigarettes. It’d be silly to buy it. To spend all that money just to sit in wearing it.

  I want to stop loving it, but I can’t.

  Kind of sounds like how I feel about my mother.

  Eve

  21st October 1988

  Had a moment today. The first time ever.

  Bit shaken afterwards.

  Man grabbed me into the alleyway beside the club. He came out of nowhere. I was walking past, thinking about the shower and bath I was going to have when I got home, when I felt the hand on my arm, another one in my hair, and I was being dragged into the narrow gash of the alleyway, unspeakable things squishing and squelching, crunching and crackling beneath my feet. I was winded as the hands slammed me against the wall, and hundreds of stars exploded behind my eyes.

  A second or two later I felt a hand, as thick and clumsy as a ham, close around my throat, and fear crept into me. I realised what was probably going to happen to me.

  ‘You liked it, didn’t you, bitch?’ he said right up at my face, not bothering to hide his. ‘When you were on top of me, you liked it. You wanted more.’

  On top of you? I thought. And then, through the dim light, I saw the shadows and contours of his face. He didn’t stand out, they never stood out. Not really. Not unless he was especially ugly. Or stench-ridden. Or rough with his hands. Or had flashed a particularly big wad of cash to try to get as many girls as possible vying for his attention. Most of them were quite ordinary, and I wouldn’t know them if I tripped over them in the street. This man wouldn’t stand out if I tripped over him in the street, or if he slammed me against a wall, wanting more than he had paid for. Wanting the extension to the lap dance he probably begrudged shelling out for.

  I stared at his face, wondering if he was one of the ones who had touched me. The ones I pretended were special so I let them touch me so that they would stay and spend their money with me. Or was he one of the ones I could tell wanted to touch but would move on after a song or two, wanting to clock up as many girls as he could so he could leave feeling like a big man?

  ‘You’re not like the others,’ he said to me, his voice low and rasping with his sick excitement. He didn’t look like a thug, more like the normal blokes I used to see on my way to work every morning – the ones who would stumble in with their mates following a few after-work drinks, looking for a laugh.

  This man wasn’t laughing. ‘Tell me you wanted more,’ he said, shaking me slightly.

  I stared at him. Not defiant, but mute with fear and shock. Was I that good an actress? Did he really believe that?

  ‘Come on you dirty little whore, tell me you want more!’

  Are you talking to me? I wondered.

  One hand still around my throat, the other started to move lower, down into my trousers, his thick fingers, with their jagged fingernails clawing at my skin, trying to get inside me.

  Started screaming then. Started to shout and scream and fight back. I didn’t care that his vice-like grip around my throat was tightening because I was still managing to make noise. He was telling me to shut up, snarling it at first, then shouting and, although he was stronger, I was managing to fight him, keeping him at bay.

  ‘Oi, get off her!’ A voice suddenly cut through the scuffle of noise we were making, and he was being hauled away from me. ‘Get off her! What do you think you’re doing?’

  And suddenly my attacker was scrabbling around on the filthy ground, trying to get his footing again.

  ‘You don’t treat women like that,’ my saviour said.

  ‘She ain’t a woman, she’s a whore, mate,’ he spat at my saviour as he got to his feet. ‘She gets paid for it. She likes it rough.’

  ‘Just get lost,’ the second man spat.

  ‘You ain’t going to get nothing for free mate,’ he said. ‘So I wouldn’t bother.’

  ‘Piss off!’ the other man snarled.

  My attacker scuttled away, leaving me with the second man.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  I nodded, still a bit too shaken to speak.

  ‘You should be careful around here, you know, because of that club. No decent woman is safe to walk the streets, they’re constantly being mistaken for strippers,’ he said. ‘I wonder if the tarts in there think about the danger they put other women in?’ Then he looked at me, really looked at me, and he stopped talking because he saw my make-up and my big hair and he realised that I wasn’t a decent woman. I was one of those tarts.

  He shook his head, disgust on his face. ‘You should be careful.’ Then he walked away.

  The second man actually hurt me more than the first one.

  But it’s true isn’t it? I’m not a decent woman. No decent woman would do what I do.

  God, I hate myself sometimes.

  Going to stop signing my name as Eve. What’s the point? I know who I am.

  8th November 1988

  Dress was gone from the window.

  Felt sick.

  Rushed inside shop, heart racing. Just couldn’t believe it. Someone had bought it after all this time. It’s only a small shop that people call boutiques. The woman who ran the place looked me up and down.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, dead snotty.

  I was like something nasty and smelly to her, but I didn’t care. I only cared about the dress.

  ‘The dress from the window,’ I said to her, out of breath with anxiety. ‘Is it gone?’

  Her mean eyes flicked over me again, up and down, quick and disgusted. ‘Someone, a paying customer, is trying it on, although what business it is of yours I don’t know, I’m sure.’

  ‘I wanted to buy it,’ I said, giving her a bigger hold over me, giving her a chance to act even more snotty and superior and snide.

  ‘It’s a designer original, costing well over four hundred pounds. Do you really have that sort of money?’ she said, not adding that she fully expected me to try to steal it. I would never steal something as incredible as my dress. I would never steal, full stop.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to be brave.

  The corners of her mouth twitched because she was going to start laughing at me. I felt the tears trickling down my throat and rushing like a fast-moving stream to my eyes. I did not want to cry in front of her. The metallic whoosh of curtain rings being pulled back filled the gap between us and we both turned to the small changing booth at the back of the shop. Out stepped a woman wearing my dress.

  It felt like she was wearing my wedding dress, and she was going to marry my groom because of it. It was like she had skinned me alive and was wearing my skin. The pain was immense, and like nothing I had felt in so long. She had something that should be mine and she could afford it. She could buy it whenever she liked. While, I … I would always be on the other side of the glass, looking in at things like this. I would always be on the wrong side, because I did not deserve to have nice things.

  ‘You look absolutely divine in that!’ the saleswoman said brightly, more for my benefit than hers. She wanted me to know that she knew I was scum. She left the counter and walked towards the woman in my dress, shutting me out, telling me to leave, I was not welcome here. ‘I absolutely insist you buy it.’

  ‘It’s a little out of my price range,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, we have some very reasonable discounts and payment terms for our favoured customers,’ she said loudly, because she was actually talking to me. ‘Leave a small deposit and you can pay the rest off over a month or so.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware you did things like that,’ the delighted wearer of my dress said.

  ‘As I said, we do for our most favoured customers.’

  ‘Oh God,
should I? It is a beautiful dress, it does look lovely on …’

  ‘It certainly suits someone like you. Very few people can get away with wearing something this beautiful. It wouldn’t suit just anyone.’

  ‘Oh … it is lovely.’

  No, it isn’t! I wanted to scream at her. It is not lovely or beautiful or any of those pathetic, lowly, unworthy words you’re using. It is divine. It comes from the place where the sun gets its rays, it is made from the cloth woven from pieces of rainbow, it was sewn by angels, it is so much more than beautiful or lovely. It is perfection.

  I turned away, ripping my eyes from what was happening in front of me. I could not watch her buy something that she did not have full appreciation for, not when I would love it much more. This was what it would feel like to watch the man you love, have given your life to, marry someone else. I never wanted to feel like that again.

  I knew the woman who owned the shop would be smiling as she watched me leave in the mirror, feeling superior and satisfied that she has seen off scum like me. I never did anything to her, but still she took great pleasure in putting me in my place.

  I walked home in a daze, feeling like I’d had the fight kicked out of me. Didn’t realise how much that dress had given me purpose. Focus. I didn’t seriously think I’d buy it but, I suppose, the possibility that I might had kept me going. The possibility that I might one day own something pretty, something nice – like the other girls who I used to work with and who I pass all the time in the street – kept me from going completely insane. Kept me from questioning why I haven’t tried harder to get more temp work, instead going back to Habbie’s night after night, coming out smelling of the foul creatures who walk in the door, and barely being able to look myself in the mirror.

  I suppose the dress has been a sign that I was capable of changing my life. Of doing better. Of being ‘normal’ again.