After You

‘Don’t you have to be at work?’

He smiled, accepted more coffee from the waitress. ‘I told them I had an important meeting.’ He folded his newspaper neatly and put it down.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I need to get a job.’

‘A job.’ He sat back. ‘Well. What kind of job?’

‘I don’t know. I kind of messed up my exams.’

‘And what do your parents think?’

‘They don’t … I can’t … They’re not very happy with me right now. I’ve been staying with friends.’

‘You can’t go back there?’

‘Not right now. My friend isn’t very happy with me either.’

‘Oh, Lily,’ he said, and sighed. He looked out of the window, considering something for a minute, then glanced at his expensive watch. He thought for another moment, then called his office and told someone he was going to be late back from his meeting.

She waited to hear what he had to say next.

‘You finished?’ He put his newspaper into his briefcase, and stood up. ‘Let’s go and make a plan.’

She had not been expecting him to come to the room and was embarrassed by the state of it: the damp towels left on the floor, the television blaring trashy daytime programmes. She dumped the worst of it in the bathroom and shoved what was left of her belongings hastily into her rucksack. He pretended not to notice, just gazed out of the window, then turned back when she sat on the chair, as if he had only just seen the room.

‘It’s not a bad hotel, this,’ he said. ‘I used to stay here when I couldn’t face the drive to Winchester.’

‘Is that where you live?’

‘It’s where my wife lives, yes. My children are long grown-up.’ He put his briefcase on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. She got up and fetched the complimentary notepad from the bedside table, in case she needed to take notes. Her phone let out a chime and she glanced down. Lily just call me. Louisa x

She shoved it into her back pocket and sat down, the notepad on her lap.

‘So what do you think?’

‘That you’re in a tricky position, Lily. You’re a bit young to be getting a job, to be frank. I’m not sure who would hire you.’

‘I’m good at stuff, though. I’m a hard worker. I can garden.’

‘Garden! Well, perhaps you could get work gardening. Whether that’s going to bring in enough for you to support yourself is another matter. Have you got any references? Any holiday jobs?’

‘No. My parents always gave me an allowance.’

‘Mm.’ He tapped his hands on his knees. ‘You’ve had a difficult relationship with your father, haven’t you?’

‘Francis isn’t my real father.’

‘Yes. I’m aware of that. I know you left home some weeks ago. It all seems like a very sad situation. Very sad. You must feel rather isolated.’

She felt the lump swell in her throat and thought for a moment that he was reaching for a handkerchief, but it was then that he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a phone. Peter’s phone. He tapped it, once, twice, and she saw a flash of her own image. Her breathing stalled in her chest.

He clicked on it, making it bigger. Her cheeks flooded with colour. He stared at the photograph for what felt like several years. ‘You really have been quite a bad girl, haven’t you?’

Lily’s fingers closed in a fist around the hotel bedspread. She looked up at Mr Garside, her cheeks burning. His eyes didn’t leave the picture.

‘A very bad girl.’ Eventually he looked up at her, his gaze even, his voice soft. ‘I suppose the first thing we need to do is work out how you can repay me for the phone and the hotel room.’

‘But,’ she began, ‘you didn’t say –’

‘Oh, come on, Lily. A live-wire like you? You must know that nothing comes for free.’ He looked down at the image. ‘You must have worked that out a while ago … You’re obviously good at it.’

Lily’s breakfast rose into her throat.

‘You see, I could be very helpful to you. Give you somewhere to stay until you’re back on your feet, a little leg up the career ladder. You wouldn’t need to do very much in return. Quid pro quo – you know that phrase? You did Latin at your school, didn’t you?’

She stood abruptly and reached for her rucksack. His hand shot out and took hold of her arm. With his free hand he tucked the phone slowly back into his pocket. ‘Let’s not be hasty about this, Lily. We wouldn’t want me to have to show this little picture to your parents, would we? Goodness knows what they would think about what you’ve been up to.’

Her words stuck in her throat.

He patted the bedspread beside him. ‘I would think very carefully about your next move. Now. Why don’t we –’

Lily’s arm flew back, shaking him off. And then she was wrenching the hotel-room door open and she was gone, feet pumping, racing down the hotel corridor, her bag flying out behind her.

London teemed with life into the small hours. She walked while cars nudged night buses impatiently along main roads, minicabs wove in and out of traffic, men in suits made their way home or sat in glowing office cubicles halfway to the sky, ignoring the cleaners who worked silently around them. She walked with her head low and her rucksack on her shoulder, and when she ate in late-night burger restaurants, she made sure her hood was up and that she had a free newspaper to pretend to read: there was always someone who would sit down at your table and try to get you to talk. Come on, darling, I’m only being friendly.

All the while she replayed that morning’s events in her head. What had she done? What signal had she sent? Was there something about her that meant everyone assumed she was a whore? The words he had used made her want to cry. She felt herself shrink into her hood, hating him. Hating herself.

She used her student card and rode on underground trains until the atmosphere became drunk and febrile. Then it felt safer to stay above ground. The rest of the time she walked – through the glittering neon lights of Piccadilly, down the lead-dusted length of Marylebone Road, around the pulsing late-night bars of Camden, her stride long, pretending she had somewhere to be, only slowing when her feet began to ache from the unforgiving pavement.

When she got too tired she begged favours. She spent one night at her friend Nina’s, but Nina asked too many questions and the sound of her chatting downstairs to her parents while Lily lay, soaking the grime out of her hair in the bath, made her feel like the loneliest person on earth. She left after breakfast, even though Nina’s mum said she was welcome to stay another night, gazing at her with concerned maternal eyes. She spent two nights on the sofa of a girl she had met while clubbing, but there were three men sharing the flat, and she didn’t feel relaxed enough to sleep and sat fully clothed, hugging her knees, watching television with the sound turned off until dawn. She spent one night at a Salvation Army hostel, listening to two girls argue in the next-door cubicle, her bag clutched to her chest under the blanket. They said she could have a shower, but she didn’t like to leave her bag in the lockers while she got wet. She drank the free soup and left. But mostly she walked, spending the last of her cash on cheap coffee and Egg McMuffins and growing more and more tired and hungry until it was hard to think straight, hard to react quickly when the men in doorways said disgusting things or the staff in the café told her she’d made that one cup of tea last long enough, young lady, and it was time to move on.