Maps of Hell

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ she yelled.

Net curtains were starting to twitch. A couple of doors opened and female heads peered avidly around doorframes.

‘Chucking you out, you worthless tart,’ said Connie. ‘And good riddance.’

The door slammed shut.

Annie stood there, wondering what had hit her.

‘Annie?’ The low male voice broke into her tumbling thoughts. Where would she go? What would she do? She looked around to find a hunched man in a deerstalker hat standing there staring at her with limpid brown eyes. He wore a mac and held a large, brown leather briefcase. It was Billy. He was a bit slow in the head, but he was one of Max’s boys. She knew him of old. He was always wandering around the manor with that vacant look on his face, poor bastard.

‘Hello Billy,’ she said absently.

A car went by, nearly hitting the suitcase which was lying in the road. The horn blared. She went and retrieved it and put it on the pavement. She glared at their next-door neighbour, who was still peering out nervously. ‘Seen enough?’ she demanded loudly, and the door closed. A curtain twitched again across the street. ‘Nosy old bitches,’ shouted Annie, and the curtain fell.

She snatched up the case and started walking. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was going to do about a roof over her head. She’d think of something – she’d have to. She was deeply irritated to see that Billy had fallen into step beside her. Why didn’t he just bugger off? This was just what she needed, an idiot for company when she was on her uppers.

‘Has she chucked you out?’ asked Billy.

‘No, I’m off on my holidays. Of course she’s chucked me out. What else did you think when you saw this suitcase flying past your ear?’

‘What will you do?’ he asked. Billy was impervious to mockery and deaf to insults. He’d suffered them all his life. He was happy for the moment because he was at last talking to the beautiful Annie, the girl of his dreams, and she was talking back to him.

‘Who knows?’ Annie shrugged, but deep down she was worried. She wondered who else Ruthie had told about her and Max. This could turn out to be a difficult situation if she’d blabbed it about too much.

It was starting to rain more heavily. People were diving for cover, ducking into shop doorways, heading for home. Home! She didn’t have a home now. She looked up and down the road and saw a big black car drawing nearer. Her heart seemed to stand still in her chest. The car drew level with them. Annie and Billy stopped walking. The back window wound down and Max looked out with cold blue eyes.

‘Fuck off, Billy, there’s a good lad,’ he said.

Billy glanced between Max and Annie. He hesitated, but knew better than to disobey. He scuttled away up the rain-misted street and was soon lost to view. There wasn’t a soul about now. Annie’s hair was hanging around her shoulders in rat-tails, her mascara was running in the rain. She was shivering.

The car door opened. ‘Get in,’ said Max.

* * *

‘Take a walk, Tony.’

The driver got out and walked off, flicking his collar up and hunching his shoulders, into the rain. The windscreen wipers were still going. Ker thunk. Ker thunk. Ker thunk. Annie felt the sound inside her head. She felt as if she were going mad. Max just sat there, cool as you like. He was always cool. Usually, she liked that about him; but she didn’t like it now. It smelled of leather in here, and petrol, and expensive cologne. She felt as if she was going to throw up. Yet despite her fear she felt that old treacherous tug of attraction. Max had an aura of intense male sexuality. Even when he was looking at her as if he despised her, still she felt its pull.

‘Some men hit women,’ said Max.

Annie’s head flicked round. She stared at him. He looked right back at her, dispassionately, like she was a bug wriggling on a pin.

‘My old man,’ Max went on, ‘was going to hit my mum once. Came home from the pub all tanked up and full of himself, she had a go, gave it some verbal, and then he thought he’d have a go. Funny how you remember these things.’

Something was required of her. Annie worked some spittle into her dry mouth and swallowed before she could speak.

‘What happened?’ she asked, trying to make it sound casual.

‘I broke his arm,’ said Max. ‘In two places. Men who beat up women are scum. They’re not men at all.’

Annie nodded. It was too soon to feel relieved, but still, she did. She knew Max had a strict code of honour. A man on equal terms, fair game. Women or children, forget it. So she was safe enough. And yet, she doubted it. He was seriously pissed off with her, that much was plain.

‘Why did you do it, Annie?’ Max asked.

Annie shook her head. It was all a jumble. All those years of being second-best with Ruthie forever the favourite. All those small slights and hurts that had somehow burrowed beneath her skin until they formed one huge uncomfortable boil, that somehow had to be lanced. When she had whispered in Ruthie’s ear on her wedding day there had been one blissful moment of utter release. At last, she had her revenge. But then there had been the numb hurt on Ruthie’s face, Ruthie who had always been kind to her, even when she was far from deserving it.

‘I don’t know,’ she said hopelessly. It was all a mess, muddied by rivalry and bitter black hatred and deep despairing love.

Max suddenly grabbed her chin and dragged her face close to his.

‘What do you mean, “I don’t know”?’ he snarled. ‘You wreck your sister’s happiness, you piss me off, and you say “I don’t know”? What the fuck’s all that about, Annie? What the bloody hell did you go and do that for?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie.

‘You’re sorry? You don’t know the meaning of the fucking word yet, girl.’

Yet. Too soon to be relieved, then. Far too soon. Her jaw was aching in his grip, but she kept still.

‘I told you it was a one-off. I told you to keep it buttoned. What did you think, that I was having a laugh or something? That I didn’t mean it? Do you think I say things I don’t mean, Annie Bailey? For fuck’s sake, say something.’

‘I’ve got no excuse,’ said Annie, closing her eyes with the pain. ‘She got on my nerves, all right? She was so smug and self-satisfied.’

‘Well you must be pleased now. She’s in fucking bits.’

Yeah, I should be pleased, thought Annie. Butsomehow I’m not. There were all these confusing images in her mind. Ruthie at ten, giving Annie a lick of her ice cream when she’d dropped her own on the mucky pavement. Ruthie picking her up and dusting her down when she fell over and scraped her knee. Ruthie defending her when she committed the indefensible and was down for a hiding from Mum. Ruthie, Ruthie, Ruthie. She hated her and loved her in equal measures. After the relief of hurting her had come the remorse. A sick, soul-eating remorse that had been gnawing at her ever since.

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Annie. ‘All right?’

‘No, it ain’t all right.’ Max released her with a derisory flick that sent her reeling back against the car door. The expression on his face was one of complete disgust. ‘What a selfish little tart you are,’ he said.

Annie rubbed her jaw. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said bitterly. ‘That’s me.’

‘Go on, bugger off.’

Annie stared at him.

‘Bugger off!’ yelled Max. ‘And keep the fuck out of my way in future, or you’ll be sorry.’

Annie hardly knew she had opened the door, but she tumbled out on to the pavement. Tony, the driver, was there in an instant, plonking her suitcase down at her side as she scrambled to her feet. He stepped into the driver’s seat, and the car pulled away. Annie was left there, the rain beating down on her head. With nowhere else to turn, she started walking up the road towards Limehouse, towards her only possible place of refuge.

9 (#u32b84b9c-0be0-5914-83e0-92552a530974)

‘She told me you’d be coming,’ said Aunt Celia when she opened the door and found Annie there, wet, bedraggled, and clutching a suitcase.

Annie was irritated to be so obvious. But where else could she have gone? Connie would have lost no time in spreading the word about her tryst with Max, and all the relations would side with little angel Ruthie against her; they always had. Annie’s best friend was Kath, her cousin, but she was on Mum’s side of the family, and her mother would kick up bloody hell if she knew Annie had been in touch and got a good response. Bailey family bonds were strong. Max’s influence was even stronger.

But Connie detested her husband’s sister, Celia. Annie didn’t know why. She said ‘that family’ were all the same; wasters and thieves. Annie hadn’t seen Celia for years. She hadn’t even been sure that she still lived in the same place. Celia and Connie had had a major falling-out when Dad left and all contact had been lost. But here she was, still in the same large Edwardian semi. Still pretty – although slightly faded. Still with that same wry smile on her face, still wearing her neat two-piece suits, still with a fag in her hand. The fag was still stuck in an ivory holder, too.