Free Lady Bag by Liza Cody Page B

numbers.’
    ‘Good thing you kept them stored in your phone, then, isn’t it?’ Smister smiled, sweet, white and deceiving.
    ‘You stole my phone! I remember now. You steal everything.’
    ‘You stole my coat, and I bet you got my fucking keys.’ Buzz-cut Kev glared at me.
    ‘Did not!’
    ‘I’ve given you a place to doss,’ Smister said, offended. ‘So what if I tap you for a bit of rent? You’re loaded.’
    ‘Doesn’t mean you’re getting any of it.’
    ‘No?’ Smister looked to Kev for support.
    Kev said, ‘What’re you doing here anyway, Natalie Munrow? What you got to hide? That’s what we want to know. Who you hiding from? You ain’t kosher, that’s for sure.’
    I hugged Electra for support. She sniffed my head and wrinkled her nose. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Brain damage. What am I doing? Why did you bring me here? Who the hell is Belshazzar?’
    Kev loomed over me. ‘Give me my fucking keys and shut the fuck up or I’ll give you the boot myself. Right in the arse.’
    ‘Kev, sweetie,’ Smister said. ‘You told me there’d be no violence.’
    ‘That was before I met her . She made me change my fucking mind.’
    ‘You said you wanted… ’
    ‘Don’t fucking remind me what I wanted, you disgusting… ’ Kev was looking at Smister as if he’d found him on his shoe.
    ‘Disgusting what?’ Smister smiled tauntingly. ‘Poofter?’
    ‘Freak, I said fucking freak.’
    ‘And I say pot, kettle and black.’
    Kev had a fist the size of a cabbage and he walloped Smister on the ear with it. It must’ve hurt like buggry but Smister didn’t yell or fall over. He just looked patient, as if that was what he’d been expecting all along.
    There was a moment’s silence after that because Kev didn’t seem to know what to do next. I was afraid he’d turn on me or Electra so I said, ‘You left your keys by the front door.’
    ‘Why would I do that?’ he snarled. ‘They’re always attached to my belt.’
    I looked at his belt and I looked at his cabbage-sized fist. I didn’t feel like saying anything else. Electra whimpered and went over to nuzzle Smister’s hand.
    ‘Fuck you all,’ Kev said at last. ‘Don’t get comfortable. I know you’re fucking up to something.’ He slammed the door behind him. Only then did Smister sit down on the bed. He rubbed his ear and moaned, ‘Why do I always go for straight men?’
    ‘I do too,’ I said. ‘I’ve had better luck with dogs.’
    ‘Got anymore pain-killers?’
    ‘You’re going to get slaughtered again?’
    ‘Why not? You already did.’
    ‘I had an early start and I used my own money. Plus I’ve got a good excuse.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Smister said, ‘brain damage. You said. Well, now I got an excuse too.’ He drew his blond and lavender hair away from the side of his face and showed me his swollen ear. Then he pulled the negligee aside and displayed cabbage-sized bruises all over his back and torso.
    He said, ‘If he isn’t big enough and mean enough he can’t protect me, can he?’
    ‘But he’s who you need protection from.’
    ‘If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t love.’
    I know that sounds perverted, but the moment he said it, in spite of the fact that he was a boy, he felt like my sister. So I rummaged in my bag and found him some co-codamol.
    ‘You love him then?’ I passed him the nearly finished bottle of wine to wash the pills down. His bruises reminded mine to come knocking so I took some pills too.
    ‘He’s a pig,’ Smister said, ‘but he’s sort of what a man should be. I know I’m sick, but look—he’s given me a home. I’m safe from every one else. That’s what real men do.’
    ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ I said, because I couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore. He could’ve been my son, or daughter, if I’d met someone when I was young.
    I filled the kettle and Electra came in behind me. She said, ‘You should be nicer to the kid. It’s not his fault.’
    ‘I’m making him tea, aren’t I?