Jezebel

.

JEZEBEL

by

JUSTIN HAMLIN

Text and Cover copyright © Justin Hamlin 2012-2013

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-943847-61-7

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment of the buyer only. It may not be re-sold, given away or lent to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CONTENTS

Taken without consent Four weeks ago Bit of a livewire Three weeks ago It’s MY body Two weeks ago Some kind of pervert Five hundred years ago The death of magic Forty-one years ago A man possessed Forty years ago I don’t sparkle Thirty-nine years and fifty-one weeks ago The Resistance September 14th, 1968 High-security female Five letters beginning with ‘D’ Honour Slaying Five minutes ago Three seconds later Eight months later

Acknowledgements

Also by Justin Hamlin

The Nephilim were on Earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God joined with the daughters of mankind, who bore them children. These were the mighty men of old, men of renown.

Genesis 6:4

"Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe

Love is a banquet on which we feed..."

Patti Smith

Taken without consent

Who am I?

I am nobody, of course. There is no ‘me’ at all. There is no-one here. Just empty grass at the bottom of this tower block, and the distant sound of a car ticking over somewhere in the night, and the hiss of wind.

Then two girls burst out the front door. One of them, a gym bag swinging from her hand, goes straight on, striding up the grass embankment towards the road. The other pauses, turns in the orange night light seeing nothing, her mouth hanging a little open and the glazed look of despair on her face. "Oh shiiii-IIIIT!" she yells.

At the top of the embankment, the first girl’s silhouette turns. "Oi, Jen, she says. I’m trying to think here – "

AAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE! the other screams, and bunches her fists and falls on her face in the grass, flump. Wanting it to all go away. Wanting someone there to make it all go away. Wanting someone to help her. Wanting someone please to be there for me and help me and make it all go away...

Swooping down. The back of her head. Her tousles are reddish gold. Her ear is unpierced and clean. The dark hole lined with tiny soft hairs, rushing into the depths of her head. There is one flash of self-awareness, one moment when, simultaneously, she realizes someone else is there and I, for just a split second, know that I exist, and I am there as well, and I say to her, Here I am.

Then that single moment of clarity is over and the two of us have merged.

Now I know who I am. I’m this girl, Jenny Anderson, and I’m lying face-down in the wet grass, and I have to get home, like, now.

I pull myself up to my feet. The sky’s black and the air’s cold and I’m in a mini skirt with the wind on my bare legs and my Yojimbo sandals sinking in the grass as I scramble up the embankment. As I gain the summit I’m right next to another girl standing there with a gym bag in her hand. Dressed sort of like me, but with biker boots instead of sandals. A very pretty girl. Long dark hair. Coffee coloured skin. High cheekbones. That’s my best friend Sharpie.

Jenny? Sharpie goes.

I check my surroundings. On the other side of the road the blocks of flats are less like towers, more like big houses labelled things like ‘44-54 UPPER GREEN STREET’. And outside one there’s a parked police car throbbing away to itself, both its front doors spread wide open and the light inside on, empty. No-one else around. Just me and Sharpie.

Oh, I know it’s wrong to steal a car. But I only want to borrow it. And besides, they left their car parked with the doors open and the engine rumbling away to itself, like it was waiting, and then I happened.

My Yojimbo sandals clack on the tarmac as I walk up the road. The doors are beckoning me in. It looks warm inside. It feels warm inside as I back into the driver’s seat and lift my legs in after me, curling my toes as I do so the sandals don’t fall off. Swinging the door to. It shuts and seals as easily as a fridge. Meanwhile through the open passenger door Sharpie is staring at me.

"JENN-NNY-YYYY?!?!" Sharpie goes.

I lean over. Come ON…

JENNY! Sharpie shouts, like she wants to wake up the whole neighbourhood. There’s no-one around but us, but for how much longer. Jenny you CAN’T!

Why not? I’m feeling for the pedals with my foot. Clutch, accelerator, brake. A, B, C. And this here must be the lever.

Sharpie rolls her eyes. "Jenny – it’s a police car."

"Yes and the police’ll be back out any second, so come on…"

I can sort of work out what Sharpie’s thinking. It’s not like Sharpie to turn down an adventure. Do something at the end of a night out. Something we can both scream over when we talk about it later. But then it’s not usually me whose idea it is. It’s never me whose idea it is. It’s always her idea.

I say, Well, throw the bag in the back, then! and press down once with my foot. The engine sucks in air and grunts loudly, then sinks back to its sleepy rumble. Sharpie waits just one second more. Then she does lean in, throw the bag over into the back seat and sits down next to me. Shuts the door on her side. Looks at me. Then looks away again, leans back hair swinging and claps her hands over her face. "Oh, fucking fucking fuck…" she goes.

Foot on the clutch. Hand on the lever. I shove it into Drive. The engine roars up and the car leaps forward, with a little squeak from the tyres before suddenly slamming to a halt again. Then it jumps forward a few inches and the engine cuts out. We’ve got as far as the bottom of the road and I’ve already stalled the car. I put it back in neutral and look for the ignition. There it is. The keys hanging down. Sharpie can’t contain herself. Jenny, what’re you DOING!? But she’s loving it. I’m her friend and I know when she’s loving it.

Stalled it, I tell her. I twist the key and the starter whirrs and the engine splutters back on. Got it.

We’re moving again. Bumping up onto the kerb and for one horrid moment the wheels on my side slip onto the grassy verge of the embankment, but then we’re setting back down onto the road again with a CLUMP... CLUMP as tyres hit tarmac. The road ahead is straight and empty. I veer the car from side to side, getting used to the steering. Then when I’ve got the hang of it I put my foot down and the engine howls like a rally car, like those tricked-out cars where the boys gather round and stand and point. It’s a police car. The police must always have the best engines. We’re riding that engine down Northbridge Road right now.

Sharpie’s starting to wake up to the sich. "Bit slow, isn’t it?"

She’s right. The engine’s going full tilt but we’re only doing, what, thirty-five? Then I suss it out.

It’s a stick shift, I say, and look down, see where the 2 is and move the lever around. The car jumps and slows – for a moment I think it’s gonna stall again – before it settles back into second with a conclusive crunch. Then we’re rolling back on time and the houses are scooting past at a much more satisfying speed.

"Use the clutch!" Sharpie shouts, like she can drive.

I forgot! I shout back. I forgot it was a stick shift!

’Stick shift’!? Sharpie goes. "Are you American now or what?"

She’s right. Where did I hear ‘stick shift’? It must have been on telly and I’d forgotten about it.

Just then there’s a terrible noise, an electronic noise, a blast like interference but right in the car with us, and I jump in my seat and almost bang my head on the roof and Sharpie beside me does just the same. And a man’s voice, almost loud enough to be through the loudspeaker at school Sports Day. "R109, R109, acknowledge!"

I’m sat in my seat hands on the wheel with shock-sweat on my bare arms and a sinking in my stomach. "Unit 14 is TAKEN WITHOUT CONSENT, repeat, TAKEN WITHOUT CONSENT," comes another man’s voice, and now a third bloke, higher-pitched and younger. "They took our fucking CAR!"

"Stolen police vehicle southbound on Northbridge Road. Repeat, Northbridge Road."

It’s worse than the time I got Saturday and had to tell Mum about it. The world is disappearing in swirls of colour behind my eyes and I get the feeling that this is all so small, the car, Sharpie and me, this is not happening, that this cannot be happening, I mean fuck, why did I do this, why did I take a car, a police car, I’m the good girl who always gets As and now I’m in a –

"JENNY! Sharpie yells. She’s squatting on her ankles on the front passenger seat, facing me. JENNY! Snap out of it!"

I take my fist away from my mouth where I’d been sucking my knuckles, my thing, my bad habit – thank God it wasn’t both fists, at least I kept one hand on the wheel. I feel ashamed, and hot, and worried suddenly that I might start crying. Sharpie is saying "Stop the car, Jenny!"

In the rear view mirror is a white light. Blinding like the sun against a background not of blue sky, but dead black. It’s coming on really fast. I know… it’s them.

"Stop the car! Sharpie yells. Thinks she can get on top of the sitch. We can still run!"

That’s a lie. Of course we can’t run. They will catch us. Even if they stop their own car and go after us on foot, they will still catch us. I’m fast on Sports Day, but I can’t outrun a man, not in this Pettegratti skirt and my high heeled Yojimbos. Sharpie’s fast as well but she can’t outrun a cop in her biker boots. The game’s up.

And suddenly I know what to do.

Sharpie, I say, buckle up.

Buckle up? Sharpie repeats, but she’s doing it anyway. I don’t look. I press down with my foot. The engine roars and I’m being pushed back into the seat with the force of acceleration. There’s some fast flickering like lightning from the cop car behind us and a WHOOP! from its siren. Then on comes the blue flashes and the car’s howling in the night. In the mirror the white light is closing the distance again. I’m at the top of my gear. Stick shift. I change up again.

"Jenn…nnny, Sharpie says. Then Look OUT!"

Cyclist! I swerve just in time and catch a glimpse of his face; stupid, open-mouthed in the headlight beams. There’s a SCRAWP of metal as I clip the parked cars, loud enough to be felt all through the chassis from my feet to my teeth. Why was he there? Oh yes, I was supposed to be on the left. We’re in England. The wing mirror on my side is hanging off by what looks like a wire and flying in the wind like a pennant. There’s the white light of another car coming towards us, beams up high. More blue flashing flicks on. Another police. Where to go now? Can’t go onto the grass, there’s another row of parked cars blocking us. Have to go up the next side road. If there’s time.

"18 to intercept, 18 to intercept," says the radio.

Now. Foot on brakes. This time there is a shriek; not from the tyres but from the brakes themselves, the rending of metal on metal. I’m flung forward and hit my forehead on the top of the wheel. There’s a big crack noise and everything goes dark for a moment, but then I open my eyes and the car is still going forward, only diagonally! The brakes on these must be very good. I’m flinging the wheel over and the car is curving across the road and somehow I get it in the side-street like putting it in the netball basket. Heel stamped on the accelerator again. I clutch-less change down to regain the momentum lost from the brake as we climb the hill. Terraced houses roar past us on either side. I didn’t know going so fast would be so easy. I look down at the speedo. It says 60.

"Woo!" I hear myself yelling.

"Woo-WOO!" Sharpie shouts in agreement. At the top of the hill we carry on going up – driving up in the air – and when we come down there’s an awful CRASH and I hit my head on the roof, and so does Sharpie, and sparks are flying out the sides from under the wheel arches, but somehow we keep on going across the crossroads and the needle is rising again. And the funny thing is… I can feel Sharpie’s excitement. It’s like pins and needles all over me, inside me, but good. Not like real pins and needles are. But why is it that I can feel what someone else is feeling?

In the rear view mirror the lights appear… again. They’re still coming after us. My throat’s gone dry all of a sudden. I swallow.

"Stolen unit 14 is northbound along Ashenden Lane, heading for Northbridge residential," says the radio.

Then Sharpie – I ought to have known she would, it’s always Sharpie who pushes it out – she leans over and picks up the handset and says Charlie Alpha Delta, repeat Charlie Alpha Delta, acknowledge. Acknowledge.

Oi! Sharpie, NO! I shriek, feeling like the Jenny I usually am. But Sharpie’s going off on one and when Sharpie goes off on one, you can’t stop her – Sharpie says "My friend thinks there’s a really hot voice on the line, can you put the hot voice back on for my friend?"

I try to get the handset off her, but Sharpie pushes me and leans back out of my reach even as the car wobbles from side to side, and while I grab the wheel and try to ease this brute back into a straight line Sharpie’s saying "My friend, see she loves the men in uniform, she likes rugby players as well, do any of you boys play rugby?"

I hate rugby boys and Sharpie knows it, it’s the skate boys that I like. But I can’t say anything. There’s the main road at the end of this one. Just out of sight around the corner. Should I turn left or right? Then the junction comes into view and – Shit! We can’t go either direction. There’s a big lorry easing its way bit by bit into our road and its body’s already blocking us diagonally. We’re zooming up towards the lorry-blocked junction and even in this moment I can see there’s no place to pass. Onto the pavement? That pillar box on the corner is in the way. Under the truck is too narrow. Have to double back. I flick the wheel about one eighth of a turn right and slam my Yojimbo on the brake, hard. The front end locks and the rear end keeps on going and me and Sharpie and our car are thrown right around in a semi-circle and pointed back the other way. Orange streetlight shows two curves of black rubber on the tarmac in front of us where we’ve been, and I can smell the hot smoke coming off the melted black stuff, even through the car’s air conditioning. I look down by the lever for first gear. Got it. The stick clunks into position and I rev the engine before I let the clutch out this time. The wheels spin screaming and the car sits back on its haunches, making me and Sharpie gasp, before the tyres finally get a grip on the ground and we’re flung forwards. The rev needle rises up the dial. Crescendo. Second gear. Crescendo. Third gear.

"How long have you been driving?" Sharpie shouts, all eager.

That question hits me in the stomach like a punch. Like I’m car sick. Because I can’t drive.

I’m not even interested in cars.

I’m only fifteen.

This is the first time I’ve even sat in the driver’s seat.

But didn’t I just know where everything was? The pedals, A B C, how to steer? We’re veering over to the side of the road. I can’t steer! The wheel’s just become hot in my hands and slick from my sweat. I can’t drive!

Sharpie speaks up again. "Where did you learn?"

I don’t want to think about that. I knew how to drive without knowing why. If I think about how I knew, I won’t be able to. If I think about it at all, I won’t be able to.

Sharpie, I say, just stop talking please.

Sharpie opens her mouth but thank God she says nothing, and I grip the wheel so hard I reckon there must be crescent-shaped dents in it from my nails that I only stopped biting the other week, and I concentrate on the wheel, and here come the police cars, right at us, side by side one in each lane, four blinding suns in the night with whirling blue above them, and I shift to the centre of the road so the white line is cutting between me and Sharpie and put my whole weight on that accelerator, lifting my bum off the seat.

Sharpie screams, E I I I I I I I I I I I I! and I’m screaming too as the light fills our whole world.

But then they’re gone and it’s just the empty road behind us dipping into a hill and from behind I hear a most terrible sound – two enormous dead thuds and metal ripping, and something bouncing and clattering down the road, and I know that the cops chickened out. They went off one on each side of us and one hit a row of parked cars and the other must have gone into the garden wall. Sharpie’s exhilaration is all over me like dancing white sparks all around me and all through me, like an orgasm… And there’s another sensation, coming from the wrecks way behind us now… shock and pain and fear, four of them (there must have been two in each car), and anger, and I’m feeling that like a different kind of pleasure, like the cramp you get in your calves when you’re doing it to yourself, or when you’re with a boy and your shin’s grinding against the bed-frame but you keep going because it’s adding something new, something wrong and delicious.

"Oh my God! Sharpie’s shouting. Shouldn’t we stop!?"

"You want me to stop!?!?"

"We could have killed them!"

But I know. I can feel that we haven’t killed them.

They’re all right, I say. They’re just a bit bruised, and sprained…

"Oh and like you know…" Sharpie is saying. But she’s my friend and I’d know what she’s thinking anyway, even without this, and she doesn’t want to stop. As for how I know that about the police, I don’t want to think about that. I cannot think about that. If I try to think about that, I won’t be able to drive either, and I’ll lose control of this car.

This car.

We’ve got to get rid of this car, I say, turning right at the crossroads. I check the mirror. No-one’s behind us.

Drop it at Briggs, Sharpie says. I don’t argue with that. Briggs is the name of our school, by the way. Brackwell Girls’ Grammar. Sharpie was all excited just a second ago, but now she’s as calm as can be. Whatever happens to Sharpie, she rises above it and gets to be the boss of it. That’s why she’s my best friend and I love her. Look at her now, sitting in the passenger seat of our stolen car running her hand through her long dark hair cool as can be. The only thing that would make her cooler would be if she rolled her seat back and propped her biker boots up on the dashboard.

Sharpie’s amazing when you think what her family is like. Always guns lying around the house, her father’s. Her mother does the whole thing, Parent Teacher Association and all that and she goes to all the meetings, but she talks a little bit too fast and her eyes are just a little bit too glassy, and when she smiles it’s just a nervous flash and anyone can tell it’s not really for real. That’s why she does the PTA cos the other mothers won’t spend any time with her otherwise. There’s her big brother… Kevin… Kevin… but worst of all is the little sister, twelve years old and still wearing her hair in bunches, always A grades and top of the first year. Sharpie gets good grades too, but all the teachers say she could do better, she just can’t be bothered enough.

And then there’s Sharpie’s Dad. Keith. Don’t get me started. I called there once while she was out, years ago, we were only twelve then, she was late back from a field trip and I didn’t know, so her dad said come in and sit down. He was watching telly by himself, so I sat in the other chair and watched telly with him. He didn’t say a word, and neither did I. Until the adverts came on. He started talking then and that was really weird.

"You’re from a good family," he said.

My Dad’s drowned and I’ve got no brothers or sisters, but anyway... I still said Yes.

He must have picked up on my thoughts cos then he went "I mean, your family lives well."

We do, actually. Single mums usually have it rough but Mum and me were very lucky. Widow’s pension and Dad’s life insurance policies, big ones. And my Dad was a Carpenter, of course. He was in the Lodge. Never forget the Carpenters.

Now I, me, said Sharpie’s Dad, "started with much less. He waved his hand at the big telly and the thick beige carpet and the big fat furniture, all cleaned and shined by Sharpie’s Mum’s frantic houswifey hands. I built this family up from nothing. When I started I’d just come out of a caravan."

"A caravan?" I went.

"Yeah, a caravan. I grew up in a circus, and let me tell you it was a real fuckin’ circus, Sharpie’s dad carried on. That was why I ran away. I had to live my life better than that."

A banker, that’s what he is. He ran away from the circus to work in a bank.

"And look where I am now. I’ve got a wife, I’ve got a car. It’s only two years old. It’s a Mondeo. And my kids, they’re all at grammar school. I never went to grammar school. None of my family did."

I didn’t know what to say. I think I might have said Well done, or something like that.

"You see, you and me we understand standards, said Sharpie’s dad. You got to make standards for your family. Can’t allow standards to slip, less you want to go back to living in a caravan." By then he wasn’t talking to me. This was his thing. It didn’t matter that I was his daughter’s friend, this was what he said all the time to everyone. Anyway, just then Sharpie came home and I got to talk to her instead. Relief.

But then again, people are funny about Sharpie, too. They think she’s bad news. They think she’s trouble. Well, she is trouble of course but not in the way people think. The way people like Mum think. Like tonight, before I went out I was just zipping up my track-top to cover my real top, the top I couldn’t let Mum see, when along came Mum, saying Jennifer?

"Mum?"

"Are you going out, then?" In that voice she has when she allows a flash of frailty to show through.

"Mum, I always go out on a Friday night and I’m always back by eleven."

"You’re going out with her again, then?"

You’re talking about Sharpie, I said. "You’ve got something against her."

"I don’t have anything against Sharpie. Mum always starts all innocent but then goes into her mother thing anyway. I just don’t see why you have to be seen with her, that’s all..."

"Mum. She’s my friend."

"But you’ve got so many other friends you could be with..."

"Yes, but I see Sharpie on Fridays."

"Can’t you take the time to see one of your other friends at some point, instead of just Sharpie all the time?"

"I do take the time to see my other friends Mum, and tonight I’m going out with her."

"No need to get all defensive, Mum sniffed. I’m only trying to make contact with my only daughter here, trying to show a bit of friendly interest..."

Okay mum. So what IS your problem with her?

"There’s no problem, Jennifer. I’m just concerned."

About what?

"Well, it’s her reputation."

"Reputation as what?"

"Jennifer dear, she was the naughtiest girl in school and now you’re going around with her. Why does it have to be you?"

And now I’m driving a police car down the main road towards Brackwell town centre. We’ll be going past the school in a minute. If Sharpie used to be the naughtiest girl in school, she’s just been knocked off the top spot.

Jenny, Sharpie goes. "you truly are, a demon driver."

I say nothing.

Sharpie reckons she’s got it sussed. You’ve been taking lessons, she says, like it’s something she should have known.

But I haven’t been taking lessons either. You have to be sixteen for that. Or is it seventeen? Anyway, I’m only fifteen, and so is Sharpie. I can’t have been taking lessons.

"Seriously, who was it? Sharpie asks. Was it your mum?" She knows as well as I do that Mum doesn’t drive. Dad had a car. Maybe I remembered my Dad driving. But Dad drowned two years ago and Mum sold the car. I can’t even remember watching Dad driving.

I don’t know, I say.

"What’s got into you?" Sharpie asks.

That makes me wonder, too. What has got into me?

I turn the car down the short East Dean Road, where Briggs’ gates are at the end. I snap the lights off without even wondering where the switch is, cruise through the school gate, thinking this must be how a teacher feels parking in the dark early morning, and ease into the car park. All the spaces are empty. The clutch goes in and the stick pops into neutral just like I’ve been doing this for years, and the engine stops with a contented grunt. Sharpie is out the passenger door and I am out the drivers’s door.

"Remember the bag!" Sharpie goes.

Oh yes. The bag. The bag that’s got our first stage clothes in it. The clothes we wear so our parents can’t see the clothes we really wear. I get the bag and leave the driver door open and then Sharpie and me are hurrying down between block C and block D. There aren’t cameras at our school. But what about –

"Oh fuck, Sharpie. Oh fuck!"

What?

"Fingerprints!"

"They don’t know what our fingerprints look like."

That’s the Sharpie I know, my best friend Sharpie. Sharpie takes the bag off me and takes my elbow with her other hand, which is warm, and she leads me across the dark netball court, which is all deserted and spooky. I’m hugging myself in the cold, but Sharpie’s marching along with even less on than me, that zip-up top of hers barely covers her bra, but she just goes on with it, she doesn’t feel the cold. Mum says it’s cos she’s a Gypsy. Mum says Outdoors is good enough for that type.

We come to the trees at the back wall where the hard girls from Year Eleven smoke, and there’s the wooden back gate that we’ve climbed over a dozen times. Sharpie throws our bag over and climbs up on top, sits down on the brick gate-post and puts out her hand to take my Yojimbos. I do the climb and jump down into the quiet backstreet barefoot. Sharpie thumps down beside me and waits for me to put my shoes back on. "Where we going next, crazy chick?" she asks while I’m doing up the straps, snagging my nail on the thin metal buckle.

I think. I need a…

I need some meat.

Sharpie bursts out laughing.

"What?" I go.

Jenny, Sharpie says. "You’re a vegetarian."

Quite right. I am. But there’s one thing I really need right now. Meat. Dripping meat. Its rancid smell, imagine tasting that… Because I feel so weak all of a sudden. Like I’ve expended all my energy in the chase. Sharpie’s excitement can only sustain me so far. I want…

"I want some meat."

"Oh dear. Jenny wants some meat inside her." Sharpie sighs.

"Shar-PIE!"

"I thought you just had some meat inside you? she goes. What, was he not enough? Was he afraid of you? Did you frighten him? Did Jenny frighten him with Jenny’s great big…"

I thump her on the arm, but I can’t stop giggling.

"At least I didn’t have two at a time like you did… slag…"

This time she thumps me. Just on the arm, for play. Not in the face, like if a boy had called her slag. I’m the only one who can say that. We’re both laughing and hugging. Her hair smells of conditioner and her funny house.

"All right. All right, Jenny-who’s-just-shagged-a-boy-and-still-wants-some-meat-inside-her. Insatiable Jenny. We’ll go down the kebab."

The kebab, I say. We’re walking side by side. Magic’ll be there.

Mmm-hmmm. Sharpie’s trying to act cool.

"I said, Magic’ll be there, Sharpie."

"Mmm-hmmm," Sharpie says again this time through a breaking smile. But over all this, over me ragging Sharpie about Magic, I keep thinking about meat. Great big red chunks of it like the muscles that pump and grind. The muscles that pump and grind inside people. And the blood. Sparkling red rivers of it, salty. It feels so wrong for me to suddenly be thinking this way, but it feels so right.

You tired? Sharpie asks. Are you in shock? We did shock in biology.

No? I’m just hungry.

Your head.

My head? I ask, but I still stop and wait while Sharpie runs her finger across my forehead.

Gonna be a big lump, says Sharpie.

"Oh wonderful. Just what I need. Walking round like the Elephant Man."

"Come on. She’s got me by the arm. I’ll fix you up in the toilets at the kebab. And you can get some meat inside you."

"And you can get some Magic inside you…"

She kicks me. But I’m grateful for her arm as she leads me to the kebab. I’m getting very weak very quickly.

Two police cars come tearing past as we come up to the kebab door, and after we go in we see two more follow outside the big glass window. The place is nearly empty. Just three blokes at the end of the bar. Magic is behind the counter in his apron with a sword in each hand. You wouldn’t think a man could be sexy wearing an apron and wielding a sword in each hand until you saw Magic’s smile. Now, Magic wouldn’t with us, of course. He’s really old, like, twenty-five. But if he did, we’d probably let him. Especially Sharpie.

Magic goes Sharpie! And Jenny! Then he sees my head and from his face I know it doesn’t look good. Holy crap what’s up with the lady’s head?

Sharpie speaks on my behalf. There were these boys down from London and they were calling us slags, prostitutes, so Jenny here headbutts this one on the nose. I think she broke it. Right on cue, another police car comes wailing past, and Sharpie indicates with her head towards the window where it’s gone by. We’re lying low.

Magic knows what to do. He lifts the bar with a bow and a flourish as he beckons us through. Up the other end of the bar his fat brother Rusty turns away from the three blokes with a scowl, but Magic gives Rusty an it’s-OK-look and holds open the staff-only door. A turn of the narrow corridor later and me and Sharpie are standing crammed into the staff toilet cubicle and Sharpie’s applying a cold wet paper towel to my forehead.

I say, D’you think Magic’s gonna get in trouble for letting us use the toilet?

Trouble with who?

With his brother?

Naah. Sharpie removes the towel and looks at it. Just a tiny red smear. I risk a peek over her shoulder in the mirror, at my face –

– No.

Looking down suddenly. There are two girls in the cubicle. One has dark hair. That’s Sharpie. One has reddish-gold tousled hair. That’s Jenny.

Sharpie says Magic can do anything.

Jenny just looks around. Blinks. Wide-eyed, almost the same look she had when she first came out of the tower block.

What’s up, Jen? Sharpie asks. She lowers dark brows, stares into her friend’s eyes. "You lost something?"

Mmmm, Jenny says. She looks around again, as if she has indeed lost something. But she hasn’t. Everything’s still here.

Sharpie, she says, almost a whisper. I think I’ve lost my mind.

Well, you got it back now, don’t you? Sharpie dabs some more with the paper towel. You dunno how lucky we were back then.

You're the best mate ever, Sharpie.

"Well, you and me, we promised to do our best, didn't we? Sharpie screws up the towel and drops it in the toilet bowl. That night at the campfire, when we were nine?"

As soon as they’re both back in the kebab shop and I’m Jenny again the tiredness really hits me and I almost fall down. I’m so weak and starved it’s hurting not just in my tummy but all over. Sharpie has me firmly by the arm and steers me into one of the plastic seats, into which I collapse like a floppy cloth doll. Magic’s got two on the roast, one that’s carved right down and another that’s still warming up, still red. I know which one I want.

"You cannot eat that, says Magic. It’s not cooked."

"I want it," I say.

"Jenny, says Sharpie. It’s all red. It’s all bloody. It’s full of blood."

That’s the best part, I nearly say. Nearly nearly nearly say.

It is not bloody, says Magic. It is not cooked properly yet, that’s why it is red. You have to cook it to kill the germs.

I’ll pay, I tell him.

"It’s raw," Magic protests.

Be like eating a rare steak, Sharpie adds.

I say; "People do eat rare steaks though. I want a kebab. From that one."

The customer is always right and in the end I get my loaf filled with red scraps full of fresh red meat. I was hoping to smell the delicious metallic tang of blood, and I’m disappointed not to. I guess Magic’s right, they do drain it, but the meat alone is more than good enough. I’m eating it, I’m shoving it into my mouth hand over hand, I can’t chew it and wolf it down fast enough. I shut my eyes as I eat, imagining I’m ripping away at a nice big carcass on the ground. A cow with its throat freshly cut and steam still rising from the blood. Yum. I’m aware that Jenny is vegetarian – that I am a vegetarian, or was up until now, and that I’ve always loved animals and I utterly refuse to eat them – but I’m too far gone to care. Too cold, and too hungry, and too… undernourished. Too unsatisfied.

Maybe I am insatiable after all, like Sharpie says.

You ladies need someone to walk with you on your way home, Magic says, slicing another scrap from the sizzling lump. If you stay here ten minutes we shut, I can walk with you. The three customers at the other end of the bar are finishing up, getting ready to go. One of them mutters something to the others.

"Thanks, Magic." Sharpie has her head on one side. She’s blushing, and I’m going to make her blush some more when I tell her about that later. "Thaaaanks. But we’re all right."

You remember that girl on the news, says Magic. Her body they found. She fuck, and death.

We’ll stick to the streets, says Sharpie.

Streets are rough, Magic points out, and does