Gillian Galbraith - Dying Of The Light

Ellen went on to describe how she had agonised for weeks seeking a solution to her predicament, and, ultimately, alighted on prostitution. Her next-door neighbour in Granton, Louise, had worked in a sauna for a couple of years, and that was what had given her the idea. Louise knew about ‘escort’ work too, a more independent option, which appealed to Ellen’s entrepreneurial instincts. It soon became apparent that as an ‘escort’, easy money, good money, could be made.

As it happened, she turned out to be very talented at her chosen profession. In constant demand, she said with pride. Obviously, she had invested in her new business venture, in fine clothes and other necessary accoutrements, and as a result she had mixed with the best and seen the world. Within less than four years all her creditors had been repaid but, by then, she had become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, to hand-made shoes and fine wines. And she had nothing left to lose by continuing. There was no way back to respectability, even if she had given up the business. Self-respect was all she needed anyway.

‘You two lovely ladies lookin’ fer company?’ enquired a watery-eyed drunk, hovering about their table expectantly and winking indiscriminately at each in turn.

‘Be off, grimy chancer!’ Ellen said imperiously, and they watched as, undeterred, he turned to face another table of lone females and began to try his luck with them. The same line in use again.

‘Go on,’ Alice prompted, gripped by the narrative. ‘Why and when did you stop?’

‘Oh, I carried on for about another eight years. But one day I found that the effort required in being nice, I mean constantly nice, all the time, to every single client, had become too much, even for the money I was making. I simply couldn’t listen to any more paeans of praise to Margaret Thatcher and remain silent. So, instead of biting my tongue yet again, I let rip, giving a client the benefit of my actual views on the woman. Well, I knew it was the end then, so I retired from the game, and now devote my not inconsiderable energies to better causes.’

‘Weren’t you head girl at school?’ Alice asked, cautiously, recalling their joint past.

‘Yes, indeedy,’ Ellen replied, ‘first blue ribbon, no less. And a Child of Mary to boot. I’m not sure if the nuns followed my career after that…’ she paused for thought, choosing her words with care, ‘…zenith. Still, you know the Catholic view of womanhood – Madonna or whore. I may not have managed the first, but, by Jesus, I was world-class at the second. A kind of success, surely? Can’t boast a Pope, but I did get quite close to a Cardinal once…’

Leaning on the bar, queuing for a refill for them both, Alice tried to impose order on the competing thoughts jostling for space in her mind. She had not often exchanged more than a few words with a prostitute, retired or active, never mind one as assured and articulate as Ellen. She found herself mulling over her story. If the truth be told, she had not imagined that anyone she knew might embark on prostitution or consider such a thing at all. And it certainly would not have occurred to her that it might be chosen by a friend simply as a means of paying off debts, far less as a lucrative career option. Most of the working girls she had come across had ended up on the game as a means of financing their addictions, having by then lost all hope in humanity, no longer valuing anything much, including themselves. Of course, in the massage parlours she had met girls prepared to exploit their assets who were, apparently, capable of remaining unchanged, undamaged, by the transaction. But, naively, she had not expected the same approach from a fellow old girl from the convent.

Looking around now at the pub’s customers, a random selection of men, largely elderly, she tried to consider the matter afresh, putting all her prejudices to one side. But, Christ, it would have to be a hell of a lot of money, more than could be contained in the vaults of a Swiss bank… So, was it just a question of the right price, then? No. Money simply did not seem the right currency for such an exchange. Shared love, certainly; shared lust, for sure, but not the stuff used to buy pork chops or razor blades. Her own flesh would be among the last of the commodities she would choose to sell, and it only when no other choices remained. But maybe that was it, maybe only extreme poverty focussed the mind sufficiently, allowing it to overcome fear of moral opprobrium and to take the option seriously. Because, whether she liked it or not, the nuns, with their adoration of the Virgin, had moulded her and imprinted their inconvenient morality on her. Her awareness of that fact did not entirely free her from it. Perhaps only relentless poverty would do so, would add the necessary dash of reality.

Still, all comers. The very thought! And accidentally catching the eye of a red-faced toper with a grog-blossom nose, finding herself favoured with a leer, it occurred to her that whether or not her own moral code would ever have allowed it, her five senses might have rebelled.

DC Alistair Watt switched the fan heater dial up to four in the Astra, blasting freezing air onto Alice’s face and legs, making her protest vociferously.

‘It’ll warm up soon,’ he said, unmoved by her entreaties, and blew into his cupped hands in an attempt to restore the circulation to his whitened fingers. His long legs were jammed under the dashboard, and he carefully spread a newspaper over his knees to act as a blanket. They had been chatting about the previous night’s disturbance in Carron Place and the revelations Alice had got in the pub.

‘I’d solve it all by setting up a designated, state-of-the-art, hoor park,’ he said. ‘It would have on-site medical facilities, inspectors and whatever. Hoordom has gone on forever and will go on forever, so it might as well be regulated, controlled…’

‘And where exactly would this facility be?’ Alice asked.

‘Well,’ he paused, evidently thinking. ‘Plenty of derelict industrial units in Leith, eh?’

‘So, not beside you, then?’

‘No room, sadly. Anyway, they are like homing pigeons, you know. They always return to that area. Or, maybe, more like bees. Buzzing back into Behar.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’d know,’ Alice replied. ‘But in your scheme, what about the freelances, the escorts? They won’t want to be penned-up anywhere. They go where the work is.’

‘Is that information straight from the whorse’s mouth, so to speak?’ Alistair asked, laughing unashamedly at his own joke, the newspaper crackling on his rocking knees. But his query remained unanswered. A hesitant female voice, timid and fluctuating in volume, came from the car-radio requesting assistance from all cars in the Leith area, as a body had been reported at Seafield cemetery.

‘Maybe a few of them in there, I suppose,’ Alistair said drily as he turned the car down Vanburgh Place, only to get caught behind an elderly gritter, meandering along, orange light flashing lethargically, as it dribbled its contents onto the road. Leith Links, under its white covering, glistened in the crisp moonlight, occasional breaths of wind rippling its smooth surface and dusting the highway with snow. When the sound of their siren broke the peace, the leviathan drew sedately to the side of the road, clouds of exhaust fumes in its wake.

They abandoned their vehicle at the end of Claremont Park and ran the last few yards to the rusticated pillars at the cemetery’s entrance. Inside, in the distance, the beam of a torch was slicing the air. They headed towards it, eyes getting used to the darkness, feet now wet and aching in the cold. Beside an overgrown flowerbed stood a uniformed constable, his arm around the shoulder of an old lady, the pair huddled together. At their feet lay a fat Labrador, and all three figures were staring intently at an isolated patch of undergrowth, a dark island in a sea of white.