Free Lady Bag by Liza Cody Page A

around waiting for the next interesting thing to happen. If it was raining like it is now we’d stop in a doorway, I’d pull out a sheet of polythene and we’d shelter under it, steaming it up with our warm breath. No one would mistake us for soldiers in Belshazzar’s army.
    I wasn’t always alone. Once I had a lover, a mother and a brother. But the lover was Lucifer, the mother died of shame and the brother blamed me. Now Natalie’s brother will blame me for Natalie death. And who knows, maybe I am to blame. It was me who brought Joss and Georgie to her house. I didn’t mean to, but it happened.
    It was all Gram Lucifer Attwood’s fault. I followed him. I couldn’t help myself. I crave the pain of love and loss.
    I watched them walk across the square in front of the National Gallery. I saw the palm of his scentless hand on her back. I saw her flirt, nuzzle and kiss him goodbye. And maybe my scaly-skinned, green-eyed jealousy wanted Natalie dead so that I could have her house, her handbag and her lover. She dripped jasmine oil into his hot bath and lay with her thighs and his thighs woven like silk. She let her breasts caress his knees when she leaned forward to kiss his sculptured mouth. Stealthily, like a sniper. I know she did. She broke my crumbling heart so she had to die.
    If I am Natalie, if I am her, will he love me again? Once upon a time he told me that he would always love me. No matter what. He said this right before the first police interview. And he repeated it just as the trial started.
    I used to be loved. I used to be intelligent. I lay down on the bunk bed.
    With my eyes screwed shut, I fought with my memory which told me I was never loved—I was used; I was never intelligent—I was fooled. I showed him how to steal and he persuaded me to take the fall. I let him do it because I thought that if I gave him no trouble he’d find me more loveable; he’d need me so much it’d be impossible to leave me. I would be his heart and lungs and he wouldn’t be able to live without me.
    I was love’s creature. But it turned out that he was the Devil, a slave to the cruelty and deceit just as I was a slave to him.
    He used to tie me up with a biting clothesline and say, ‘Do you trust me?’ At first I thought he wouldn’t hurt me. Then later I realised that he was teaching me to enjoy pain. A valuable life-lesson as it happened.
    Sometimes I get cross. Not with him because when all’s said and done he was only being true to his devil nature. No, I get cross with myself—not for being stupid—that too is nature; nor for being fooled—that can’t be helped when you meet someone smarter and more ruthless than you. When I get cross it’s because I was such a wimp, an abject servant of blind, buggering love.
    I took a co-codamol for my ribs, and then another for my head. The last squirt of red laid my temper down to rest. I closed my eyes.

    I woke suddenly and sat up, cracking my head on the upper bunk. That’s how I caught Smister red-handed with his mitts in my handbag. He didn’t even blush. He said, ‘Where’s your effing credit cards, Momster? I’m running out of readies and I got to take a cab back to civilisation.’ He was wearing an off-the-shoulder apricot coloured sateen negligee and his hair was wet and tousled from the shower. Without make-up he looked unbearably young and clean.
    I snatched the bag back.
    ‘Kev!’ he yelled.
    Buzz-cut barged in growling, ‘Where’d I put my fucking keys?’ He saw his high visibility jacket on the floor and stopped dead. ‘She nicked me coat,’ he said plaintively.
    ‘She won’t lend us her credit card.’ Smister sounded just as plaintive.
    ‘Boot her out. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.’ Buzz-cut bent to pick up his jacket. ‘Keep the poxy pooch if you think you can use it. But she fucking goes.’
    ‘I’ve got brain damage,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember any of my PIN numbers. You can’t use my cards without PIN