Free One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

somewhere along the line, but although I try for ages it’s too hard to unravel, and that’s how my life feels – it was all going along so beautifully and then I got two 6’s and no 3 and now it’s fucked up, irreparable. The tears come again, silent, gliding, ominous, and I see the room for what it is – a grotty horrible little room in a grotty horrible house in a grotty horrible part of London. I see myself for what I am, a stinking self-centred coward who has run away from Ben and Charlie, rather than stay and face up to things. I miss Charlie in particular right now, the still-baby smell of him, the feeling of holding him tight, despite him trying to wriggle out away from me, and us both enjoying it anyway – me for trying, him for knowing that I’ve tried, that I love him.
    There’s a soft knock on the door. I startle and wipe my eyes, and Angel pokes her head around.
    “Oh, you are there babe, just checking you were OK.” She looks around. “Jesus Christ, have you been on Changing Rooms? This place looks amazing. Can you do mine next?”
    “Yeah, I went on a bit of a mission yesterday,” I say, as brightly as I can manage. “Chanelle seems OK about it too – it’s better isn’t it?” I look at her glitzy top. “Are you going out?”
    “No, I’ve just come in babe. I keep funny hours in my job. I’m starving, though. D’you fancy going out for breakfast – there’s a cafe round the corner that’s not too bad?”
    “I’d love to,” I say, instantly feeling better.
    “I’ll just get changed then, give me two secs.” She disappears.
    I jump out of bed and survey the clothes in my new wardrobe: two pairs of jeans, one interview outfit, two T-shirt dresses, some linen trousers, expensive belted grey jacket (ruined), a few tops, a denim skirt, a cable knit jumper. Nothing feels right anymore. I choose jeans and a mid-blue jersey cowl-neck top and I feel boring, un-Catlike, although I don’t know who Cat is yet. Ten minutes later Angel reappears. She has changed from her short black skirt and red satin blouse (is that her uniform?) into a floaty white Indian cotton dress and she has tied her ash blonde hair back, it’s just long enough, and gentle tendrils escape. She looks effortlessly casual and stylish and innocent. Her heart-shaped face is small and guileless and she doesn’t look like she should work in a casino. I realise I don’t know what a croupier does look like, apart from in Oceans 11 and that doesn’t count.
    “Come on, babe,” says Angel and I follow her quietly, gratefully, down the steep threadbare stairs, through the trainers- and coat-stuffed porch, past the debris-filled front garden, onto the sallow early morning street.
     
    10
     
    Angela shoved her way through people’s legs, past the stools that were as high as her, away from the bar, towards the stage. As she moved the odd hand came down and ruffled her hair affectionately, as if she were a dog. The punters were used to seeing a small blonde girl in here these days, and Angela had grown used to them, mostly. She still hated the choking smoke and the adultness of the club, dimly aware that this was no place for a child, and some of the men looked at her in a way she didn’t yet understand but knew she didn’t like, and sometimes they even squeezed her bottom as she passed. But she’d worked out how to pass the time in here now – sitting on a bar stool drying beer glasses when her favourite barmaid Lorraine was on, she seemed to really appreciate the help; or playing with her mummy’s make-up in the tiny dressing room behind the stage, being careful to cover her tracks in the lipsticks and rouge so Ruth wouldn’t find out and go mad; or sometimes playing dominoes with Uncle Ted, if she could persuade him. It wasn’t fun coming here anymore though, she was bored of it and it made her tired for school – but now she was older her mother had started bringing her along to jobs more often, she wouldn’t shell