Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

Becky starts laughing. ‘That’s why you’re selling coke? To finance a community centre?’

Harry is embarrassed.

‘What?’ Her voice is small. ‘What you laughing at?’

‘No, not at you. Just. Funny.’ Becky stops laughing, shakes her head. Looks around the balcony at the cool kids with their cool hair, all stardom and boredom, and then back at Harry, tiny frame bunched up like a scribble, gripping her hands together, furrowed brow, eyes like smashed diamonds. ‘Good for you,’ she says. ‘Robin Hood.’

‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I can’t tell.’

‘What will it be like?’ she asks.

Harry leans forwards, sees it as she starts to describe it. ‘Well, in my head. I think of it like a kind of 1940s New York type of place, I suppose, dance floor and a stage, loads of space and light and everything done up all nice, tables in front of the stage. Dunno, have you seen the movie GoodFellas? ’

‘No.’

‘Well, I watched it a lot growing up. There’s this bar one of the guys takes his girlfriend to in that film, and it’s, like, I dunno. Maybe that’s where this all started.’

‘I never seen it.’ Becky sniffs twice. Mind drifting.

Harry could float off the bench she feels that light. She uses her hands to punctuate every word that explodes out of her. ‘I tell you what it is, right? I’m sick of the way that if you’re from where we’re from, you’re not supposed to want nice atmosphere and good people and conversation. As if all we want is shit beer and silence, beans and chips and fucking scratch cards. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do like scratch cards, and beans and chips, and silence, come to that, but my point is, I want to open up a place where couples would come, and families, and groups of mates, all different kinds of people. Do you know what I mean? A nice place that isn’t some stupid posh eatery that charges twelve quid for a breakfast. A lovely place that makes people feel welcome. A space for people to meet. We’re lonely. We’re so lonely in this city. We need places to go, I think. I don’t. ’ Harry breaks off, looks for Leon, but there’s never any sign of him until he wants to be seen. She looks back to Becky, earnest, it’s all coming out, fuck it . Good coke.

Even though Harry seems tough, Becky sees that she’s gentle in her manner, and far too kind for the work she does. ‘You’ve got to do it,’ Becky tells her, watching her eyes.

Harry’s face floods with gratitude. ‘I really want to.’

They look out over the city. Someone reaches over them to push the heater switch again. They duck and straighten up. Harry looks behind them, back through the double doors, into the bar at someone else’s dream. The attractive bar staff wishing they weren’t there, everything dark and red and antique, but no soul in any of it. All of it just a clever idea dreamed up by some savvy bunch of business people, seeing a trend and throwing their money at it. Everything, from the drinks they serve to the colour on the toilet walls, all cleverly done to keep certain people out and get certain people in. It makes Harry sick to her stomach. The way London’s changing. And not just this side of the river, either. It’s changing down south. She hardly recognises it these days. It’s heartbreaking. She lets her mind wander down its favourite path: Harry’s Place . The detail of the tiles on the bathroom walls, the smiles of the barmen, the colour of the light against the cymbals on the stage, the singer swaying, eyes closed, meaning it. Really fucking meaning it. None of this soulless on-trend bullshit. None of these jumped-up little 1960s throwbacks thinking they’re doing something groundbreaking because they got a blowjob in a dressing room once. No. Not at her place. She can see it. A couple at a table watching the singer with their skin tingling. An image of herself, older, smiling, leaning over the bar to embrace a friend. Nice to see you, pal . Full of colour and light and people, real people, eating well, and dancing and laughing with each other, and drinking and happy. Doing classes, learning languages, an allotment out the back for growing veg. Harry’s Place .

‘I’ve never told anyone that,’ she says, reaching down to scratch her ankle, her words sticking together. ‘Not really, not like that.’ She hangs her head, looks through her pockets for something she can fiddle with. Finds her cigarette box. Starts flipping it over in her hand.

Back inside, the people around them are hysterical, bent double, breath coming out like air from punctured lilos. Everyone’s beautiful and standing in groups or talking earnestly in couples or striking power poses. They move aside for a small, sharp-featured man, wilting beneath a thick forest of champagne glasses. His hair is blow-dried into a puff. Becky thinks to herself that he looks like a TV newswoman from the early 90s. His eyes are red at the edges and his toy waistcoat is too big for him. He offers them the champagne without making eye contact. They thank him and take two glasses each, but he doesn’t acknowledge anything about the exchange, he just falls back into the crowd.

Becky spins her glass around in her hand, body turned towards Harry. ‘I go to these weird business hotels on the outskirts of town in the middle of the night. Slough or fucking New Malden.’

‘Erith.’

‘Right.’

‘Reading borders.’

Becky laughs. ‘Exactly. Mostly it’s just strange business travellers who work in printing or sales or something so boring they don’t even know how to explain it, and they spend their lives in airports and hotels and boardrooms and haven’t been touched in weeks, or months, or even fucking years. Haven’t been touched by a human being in months. Or they feel so far away from their wives that it’s easier for them to pay a stranger to touch them.’ She pauses, turns her glass again, looks at Harry, ‘So, I go, and I give them a massage. And I enjoy it too—’

Harry can’t work it out. Troubled, she interrupts. ‘But, wait though, what is it? I mean, like, what do you do ?’

Becky thinks it over, fiddles with her earring. ‘I touch them,’ she says simply, ‘with my body and my hands.’ She looks at Harry, smiles a little. ‘It can be really beautiful,’ she says, shifting on the bench. ‘And yeah, sometimes, like, if you get someone looking at you like you’re a piece of meat, it’s. ’ She screws her face up, frowns and shakes her head. Mimes the feeling of cringing. ‘You know?’ Harry nods that she’s listening. ‘It’s pretty rare that the guy looks at you that way, but it does happen, if he’s loaded or something usually, if it’s like a really rich guy he acts like a prick, treats you like shit. But most guys are cool, they’re very respectful.’ She shrugs into the silence at the end of her words. Harry swallows champagne too fast; she’s not used to it, and the bubbles burn her nose. ‘I don’t have a problem with it, but other people get all high and mighty about it, you know what people are like.’

‘Yeah.’ Harry’s head is spinning. She’s pissed. She tries to stop her body from swaying without her telling it to.

‘It’s honest work,’ Becky says, watching Harry’s face for a sneer. Seeing none, she continues. ‘Obviously, I do it for the money. But also, I love it. And where I want to do less of this kind of work. ’ She indicates the room with a sweeping hand. Harry follows the gesture, takes in the pouting, fawning desperation. ‘I couldn’t even make that choice without the massage work to support me.’ Harry listens earnestly. Hums that she gets it. ‘But still, I don’t tell anyone what I do.’ Becky stares at her and Harry twitches in the beam of it. ‘I’ve not told anyone actually, in ages. Just a couple of my mates know and that’s it.’ Harry nods, dumb as a cake, her heart beats like techno. ‘And now you.’ Becky’s mouth twitches with the cocaine. She tilts her chin towards the ceiling as she talks. ‘Sometimes it is a bit like it’s all happening to a different person though. Still you , but just. different.’