Chapter 25
Simone dropped by the office to let Gayle know she’d arrived.
‘You came back then?’
‘Yeah. I went to the alternative option store this weekend, but they were all out.’
‘At least that gives you something in common with everyone else here.’
Tasha wandered in eating toast. She caught sight of Simone and walked straight back out again. Simone ran to catch up with her.
‘Tasha!’
No response.
‘Just give me a second, would you?’
Tasha stopped and pivoted. ‘One,’ she counted, then turned tail again.
She followed her. ‘Okay, maybe sixty seconds.’
They reached Tasha’s room.
‘I’m sorry for what happened on Friday,’ said Simone.
Tasha grabbed the door handle.
‘Genuinely. I’m really sorry for upsetting that landlady.’
‘Really?’
‘Okay, I’m not sorry for what I said to her, but I am sorry that it upset you.’
Tasha turned the handle, strode inside, and sat down on the bed. Simone took the still-open door as enough of an encouragement to follow her in.
‘But Jesus, Tasha. Pregnant? Holy fuck!’
‘That’s generally how these things start.’
She was determined to keep things light. Absolutely no lecturing.
‘Is it definitely yours?’ she said.
She was rewarded with a scowl. ‘Very funny.’
‘And you want to keep it?’
‘Yes.’
‘For fear of sounding like every grown-up I have ever despised, you’re still practically a child yourself.’
Okay, she was lecturing.
‘I don’t feel like one,’ said Tasha.
She scanned the room. There were no posters or personal touches of any kind.
‘How far gone are you?’
Tasha smoothed her top over her belly. No bump yet. Not far then.
‘You have options.’
‘As I’ve said before, the one thing I don’t have many of are options.’
What had she been up to at Tasha’s age? She’d have been working for a few years by then, a little nest egg of savings sitting in the bank from the modelling jobs her mum had once forced her into.
‘And I’m not having an abortion, if that’s what you mean.’
‘There are other ways.’
‘I’m not giving it up either. I couldn’t live with myself.’
It would be far harder to live with herself if she had a baby that she then screwed up.
‘Didn’t you have sex ed at school?’
‘I learned on the job.’
‘Do you know who the dad is?’
Tasha tossed her braids over her shoulder. ‘What, do you think I’m some kind of slag? Yes, I know!’
‘For the record, I don’t believe in slags. I believe in women who haven’t met the right penis yet.’
Tasha laughed, a lovely mellifluous chirruping sound, and her entire face transformed.
She chanced sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘Okay. What you do is your choice, even if I think you’re fucking mad.’
Tasha seemed to appreciate the sentiment.
‘And I didn’t come here to give you a talking to. I came to ask a favour.’
‘What favour?’
‘You know everyone around here. With the funeral tomorrow, I thought it might be helpful if I brought in some suits for people to wear.’
Tasha eyed her suspiciously. ‘You brought in suits?’
‘I also bought you an outfit – in case you fancied a change. Although I realise you dress like you’re going to a funeral every day, so…’
Tasha scowled contemptuously.
‘I’m going to set them up on a rail in the lounge. Could you tell people to come and see me if they need one?’
Tasha was examining her through her sceptical lens. ‘What happened?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Last week you’re all I’m too good for this shit; this week you’ve bought in a haul of free clothes. Were you visited by three ghosts in the night?’
‘It’s just some suits. They were on the everything’s-a-pound line at the Red Cross.’
This was a lie. She was surprised by how much the suits had cost. She’d assumed charity shops existed to enable poor people to buy things more cheaply, but a supermarket suit probably wouldn’t have been much dearer. Still, at least the Red Cross would make better use of the funds.
‘Chill. No ghosts. I get it.’ Tasha got up from the bed.
Simone cleared her throat. ‘I really am sorry if I was a bit of a dick the other day.’
She offered to contact Mrs Grimshaw to smooth things over. Tasha waved the idea away. ‘You were right, it was a total dump.’ She smiled hesitantly. ‘To be honest, I really appreciate you standing up for me. I don’t have many people who’ll do that.’
An awkward silence descended like a piece of theatrical scenery. Simone jumped up off the bed, breaking it with some babble about needing to get on.
‘Just let me know if you want to take a look at this dress I got you.’
Tasha had found something uncommonly interesting about her feet to focus on. ‘Thanks, Simone. I will.’
* * *
Jasper came in as she was struggling with a guy called Mike’s tie.
‘Hey,’ shouted another of the day visitors who’d availed himself of a pale grey cotton suit. ‘Bet you never thought you’d see the day.’
‘Where is Andrey,’ said Jasper, ‘and what have you done with him?’
‘I feel like a new man!’ Andrey gave him a twirl.
She’d been genuinely surprised at the reaction a few smart two-pieces could elicit. She’d been here for just over forty-five minutes, and the room had transformed into an impromptu catwalk, albeit a rowdy one with lots of heckling.
Jasper sidled up to her. The required fabric folds were even more tricky under his watchful gaze.
‘Do you need a hand with that?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I have no idea what I’m doing.’
‘So I see.’
‘It’s not like I’ve ever had to dress in a man’s suit.’
‘Really? Because I can definitely see you being someone who wears the trousers.’
He deftly created a perfect knot, allowing Mike to amble off and admire his reflection in a nearby window.
‘So,’ he said. ‘This is all very … unexpected. This is the most animated I’ve ever seen them.’
‘Is that because they’re usually on spice?’
She cursed herself. It was a stupid reductionist comment, one for which Jasper would doubtless mark her down in his mental inventory.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Some of the people who come here do, in fact, do spice.’
His trying to make her feel better only made her feel worse.
‘What the fuck is going on here?!’ Gayle’s voice careened towards them. ‘Is it Homeless Fashion Week? Only I missed my front row invite.’
‘Hey, check me out, Gayle!’ said Mike. ‘Bet yer fancy me now, dontcha?’ He grabbed her by the arm and tried to twirl her round.
‘Get off me, you bleeding imbecile. I wouldn’t touch you with Terry’s barge pole, and he’s had gangrene in his.’
Another man, presumably Terry, saluted.
Simone glanced enquiringly at Jasper. ‘Gangrene?’ she whispered.
‘From injecting heroin,’ he whispered back.
‘Jesus!’
‘Oi! Jasper!’ shouted Gayle. ‘Are you planning on working today, or were you going to stand around pretending to be Karl Lagerfeld?’
‘I was just helping Simone to?—’
‘Were you now? Well, Miss Anna Wintour, these aren’t the offices of Vogue. I’ve got a list of errands that would make Martha Stewart shit a brick, so if you don’t mind, perhaps you can wrap up Queer Eye for the Homeless Guy and get some fucking community service done?’
‘Well, I think I was done here anyway.’
Jasper looked at her with something like … oh god, was it pity?
‘This was a stupid idea,’ she said. ‘I just thought … you know … with the funeral.’
She saw how this might seem to him. She was some vacuous idiot, imagining that an outfit would change anything. It was like trying to cure skin cancer with concealer.
‘It wasn’t a stupid idea… I?—’
Gayle shouted at him again. There wasn’t anything going on between them, but the woman could still enjoy a second career as a professional cockblocker.
‘I do need to go,’ he said.
‘That’s fine.’
‘I’ll… I’ll try and catch up with you later.’
‘No need. I’ll leave these here. People can help themselves.’
When he got to the door, he glanced back briefly and gave her a half-smile that said … what exactly? She awkwardly waved in response. She was still staring at the spot from which he’d disappeared when something moved in her peripheral vision. Steve, already dressed in a suit (and not of the shell variety), was taking another from the pile.
‘Oi! It’s one each,’ Simone said.
‘Sorry, I was just?—’
‘Are you nicking that? Are you planning on selling it?’
‘No. I swear down, I wasn’t.’
‘Because that is pretty fucking despicable.’
Steve held up his hands like he was facing spooked US armed cops, not a marginally slighted woman who’d hoped for a better reaction from a woman whose approval she hadn’t (until that moment) realised she was seeking.
‘I was taking it for Hozan. I figured he could use a change.’
‘Oh.’
Steve slowly lowered his arms. ‘Is that okay?’
‘I’m sorry. That was out of order.’
Two apologies in an hour. What next? Writing confessional poetry?
‘It’s okay, mate.’ He looked like he was going to hug her, but then clocked her facial expression and thought better of it. ‘Gayle doesn’t mean it, you know. It’s one of them – what do you call ’em – coping mechanisms.’ He scooped the suit up.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t bother me in the least.’
‘Yeah.’ He gave her one of his little sage nods. ‘Denial’s another one.’