Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

‘How’d you do it?’

‘It was that or gaol, wasn’t it? I don’t really know how, to tell you the truth. Just did, I suppose. I was helping Mike out. I thought maybe he could do something for himself. Stupid. He was never going to do that.’

‘Attached to him, are you?’ Grace said sympathetically.

‘Yeah. You do get attached. People start to mean something to you.’

‘They do. They get to you after a while.’

They get under your skin whether you want them to or not. Even if you’re not sure what to make of them. Or what they think of you.

Gina found Grace a parking spot down towards Rushcutters Bay, near a large run-down terrace, its exterior painted in bright colours. A man sat on a nearby step, his arms tensed, rocking backwards and forwards in the light rain, lost in the drug. Grace looked at him and notched his existence into her mind, an imprint of the outside world.

They walked past him up a narrow, dog-legged road. They went to McDonald’s on Darlinghurst Road where they had hamburgers with everything, fries and hot apple pies.

‘How well did you know Lucy, Gina? Do you want to tell me something more about her?’ Grace asked, ploughing her way through the food.

‘She used to come in here.’

Grace looked up more sharply at this answer. Gina had wiped her mouth clean and was looking around. Her gaze did not seem to have a focus as she stared at the people near her, most of whom looked away, some of them laughing. Her mouth was moving but she did not speak. Grace followed her stare.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’ Gina regained a toughness as she spoke. ‘It’s just that we all used to come in here. We’d sit and we’d talk and that. Just over there in the corner.’ Grace looked at a large table, with seating for about six people. ‘We’d sit in here all afternoon and we’d just laugh.’

‘She really was your friend?’

‘Yeah, she was. For a little while.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing really. Just time. You don’t see people any more for all sorts of reasons. She can’t be my friend now. She’s going to gaol for ever because of me. And I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.’

‘What do you think might happen to you?’

‘I was just saying that. Anything can happen to anyone. You never know what’s going to happen, you could walk under a truck tomorrow.

But we used to come in here. We used to have fun. I wanted to have a look at it again because of that. Because they were good times. She’d say these things, she’d make you laugh. She wasn’t frightened of anything.’

Grace glanced around at the plastic fittings, the bright lights against the light-coloured walls and mirrors.

‘And she liked a hamburger as well?’

‘She did. And a chocolate thickshake. That was her favourite meal.’

Gina was shredding her used napkin into small soft snowflakes of paper.

‘Do you want to go somewhere else and have some coffee? I want to get out of here now. I know a place where they have really nice baklava, they make it themselves. We can smoke in there. I need a cigarette.’

‘That’s fine with me. I could use a smoke too.’

They walked out into the damp, crowded night-time street, full of light and movement. Gina looked around, her mouth moving silently as it had in the restaurant.

‘I used to work back down there a bit. You can get really tired by the end of the night. But I don’t care about that, you know. I love it here. I do. There just isn’t anywhere else for me.’

‘Does there have to be anywhere else for you? If this is what you want,’ Grace asked.

‘I’m just saying it. It’s really nice to be here right now.’ She stretched her backbone, her mouth a little open, drinking in the soiled air. The rain touched her face, she laughed. ‘It’s just being here. That’s all I want. Just for this little while.’

‘I’ve got more time than a couple of hours if you want it, Gina,’

Grace said. ‘If you want help, I can try to help.’

‘No, I’ve got to be somewhere. Let’s go, okay?’

Inside the cafe near the other end of Crown Street the air was blue with cigarette smoke. They sat at a table at the back and were served thick sweet coffee and small diamonds of baklava dripping with honey.

‘You know Lucy,’ Gina said unprompted, ‘she did things no one else would do. She could steal anything that wasn’t tied down. She used to take orders.’ The girl laughed. ‘She got me clothes, all my make-up once. She never wanted any money for them, nothing. If she wanted any stuff for herself, she’d just go and take it. But then other times she just gave things away. She used to rip things off just to give them away. Anything. It was a game, that’s what she was doing all the time. She used to say the whole world is crap so what does it matter what I do. That was her way of letting everyone know it. I don’t really want to see things that way. You don’t have to think like that. You’ve got to hope sometimes. Don’t you think?’

‘I do think that,’ Grace said. ‘Sometimes you just have to hang in there till things get better. Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do.’

‘Yeah, that’s right. That is the way it is. That’s how I see it.’

‘What are you hoping for now, Gina?’

‘That things will work out. What else would I want?’

The conversation faltered. The girl looked at her over her cigarette, a challenge in her eye.

‘Did you ever do any sex work?’ she asked. ‘While you were singing maybe? You could have done. You could have made a lot of money.’

Grace shook her head, mindful that everything they said was being listened to and recorded.

‘No, Gina, I’ve never sold sex. Just my voice,’ she replied quietly.

Yes, her voice, that was all she had ever sold of herself. It had still been her though, up there on display on the stage. No, Gina, I don’t sell sex, I never have, I never will. I give it away and sometimes I go out looking for it. That’s my choice. Just so long as I can choose who and when and how, it’s okay.

Gina was still talking.

‘It’s a good way to get money if you need it. But if you work the way I do, you’ve got to be careful about your customers. They could be anybody.’

So can the people you sleep with for nothing, for love or the passing need. It’s all on the finest balance between love and hate and you never know what the man you’re with might do next, no matter how close you get to him or how naked you both are.

There was silence.

‘Are you armed? Have you got a gun?’ the girl asked suddenly, aggressively.

Grace, whose firearm was nestled against her ribcage under her armpit, did not answer.

‘You are, aren’t you?’ Gina said.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Well, if you really want to help me out, you can give it to me.’

Grace shook her head.

‘If you want help, why don’t you just come in, Gina? Talk to someone. Talk to me,’ she said.

The girl laughed softly at her, shaking her head.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

Grace looked at her watch. ‘It’s still early. Half past nine.’

They sat in silence for a little while longer. Grace watched Gina look down into the coffee cup, checking the thick black leavings, and then look up again. The girl’s blank stare meant terror, nothing simpler. She shook back her hair.

‘Time to go. I can’t wait around any more,’ she said but did not immediately move. ‘Thanks for the talk. And the smokes.’

‘Gina, ring me if you’ve got any more to tell me. You can get me on the numbers on that card any time. You remember that. Any time.’

‘Yeah. Why not?’

They went out into the street. It had begun to rain heavily. The roadway was greasy in the wet, shining with the lights of passing cars.