Survivor: Only the strongest will remain standing . . . Read online

  Lolly couldn’t clearly remember living anywhere else, although she knew she had. They’d moved here years ago but she wasn’t sure where from. Her mum was always vague when asked, saying things like ‘Oh, here and there,’ or, if she was in one of her more suspicious moods, ‘Who have you been talking to? Has someone been asking questions? You mustn’t tell anyone anything, Lolly.’ As if she had anything to tell. Her memories were vague and dreamlike, odd wisps that floated through her mind.

  After a few minutes, Lolly gave up on the lift and decided to take the stairs instead. Fourteen floors was a long way to walk but it wasn’t so bad when you were going down. It was the going up that made your legs feel like lead and pulled the air out of your lungs. She sang to herself as she made the descent: ‘Knock Three Times’ by Dawn.

  By now the estate was starting to wake up. She could hear the muffled sound of radios, of voices, of toilets being flushed. The day was going to be a hot one and most people had the upper part of their windows open, the part that was too small for any thieving bastards to climb through. Crime was rife on the Mansfield and anything not nailed down disappeared in five minutes flat. The cops were always around, knocking on doors.

  On reaching the ground the first thing Lolly did was to check the base of the stairwell to make sure her mother wasn’t there. She approached it with caution, afraid of what she might find. In the event there was nothing scarier than a pile of litter, a load of fag ends and some empty bottles. She stared into it for a moment and then quickly withdrew. It was dark and nasty and stank of pee.

  Lolly wasn’t alone as she crossed the estate and headed for the main exit. There were people emerging from all three blocks; men and women on their way to work. Most had the same miserable expression on their faces as if the day, even though it had only just begun, was already a disappointment to them.

  She set off for the high street. Her favourite spot for discarded food – apart from the market – was round the back of the Spar. Now was a good time to go before the staff came in to open up. As she walked she kept her eyes peeled for her mum. Lolly was always worried about her. Was she sleeping? Was she eating? Was she getting sick again? It was as though their roles had been reversed and she was the parent. There had been a time – she was certain of it – when things had been different, but now she just accepted the situation as normal. Other mothers didn’t do the things hers did, but that didn’t matter. Her mum was the only one she wanted.

  Lolly’s gaze made a wide sweep as she left Mansfield Road and turned left into the high street. She looked up and down the length of it – no sign of her mother – before she started checking the pavement and the gutters. Sometimes there were pennies to be found, loose change that had slipped from someone’s pocket. Once she had even found a shilling. That kind of luck didn’t come too often but it paid to be vigilant. It was surprising how careless people could be.

  Halfway down the high street she passed the pawnshop, still with its steel shutters down. It did a brisk trade during opening hours with customers exchanging their valuables – and everything else they could lay their hands on – for ready cash. It was run by Brenda Cecil, a woman who was built like a house and who had clearly never missed a meal in her life. No one messed with Brenda; there were rumours she kept a baseball bat under the counter and wasn’t afraid to use it.

  Lolly didn’t like Brenda, or perhaps it was just that she didn’t trust her. Was that the same thing? She was the kind of woman who placed a value on everything from what you were wearing to the furniture in your home. She knew this because Brenda popped round to the flat for a brew from time to time. The woman’s eyes would move slyly round the living room as if she were making mental calculations as to what each item was worth.

  Lolly’s mother didn’t have many friends, at least not the sort who stuck by her when she was ill, but Brenda’s friendship never seemed quite real; she was always asking questions, always digging in a roundabout sort of way. There was something false about her. Lolly couldn’t exactly put her finger on it. She couldn’t put it into words. It was just a feeling.

  She carried on walking until she came to the narrow alley that led round to the back of the Spar. Here hunger got the better of her and she jogged the last twenty feet until she reached the yard with the old metal bins. One quick glance around to make sure no one was watching and then she dived in. Almost instantly she saw that the pickings were slim. Her mouth twisted with frustration and disappointment. One of the bins was empty and the other only had a few bits of cardboard, a couple of bruised apples and a badly dented tin of corned beef. She grabbed the tin and put it in her pocket. She took the apples too – if she cut the bad bits off, there’d still be some left.

  Lolly’s next port of call was the chippie. She went back up the alley, along the high street and checked the bin outside the shop. Reaching down she squeezed the scrunched up wrappings until she found a likely prospect. Pulling it out, she opened up the sheets of newspaper to reveal a handful of chips. Last night’s leftovers, cold and congealed, but she wasn’t fussy. She stuffed them into her mouth, too hungry to care about germs or someone else’s spit.

  When she’d finished, she crossed over to the green. It wasn’t really big enough to be called a park. It was about the size of a football pitch, a grassy oblong with trees and bushes and a few seats. Sometimes her mother came here to sit and gaze into space, but today the benches were all empty. She skirted round the mounds of dog poo and headed back to the high street.

  At the café, Lolly pressed her nose against the glass and peered in through the window. Through the fug of fag smoke, she could see there were no women inside, only a load of blokes drinking mugs of tea and reading their papers. The smell of frying bacon and eggs floated in the air making her mouth water. The abandoned chips had taken the edge off but she was still hungry. She’d have killed for a hot breakfast.

  With nothing else to do, Lolly wandered back to the Mansfield. She wasn’t sure of the exact time now but the traffic was starting to build, the red double-deckers and the cars lining up along the street. She checked the main paths and walkways of the estate, strolling round each of the towers in turn. Once she’d established that her mother was in none of the more obvious places she decided to go home and wait there for a while. There was probably nothing to be concerned about – it wasn’t as if her absence was anything new – but she wouldn’t stop worrying until she saw her again.

  It was a relief to find the lifts were working and she took one up to the fourteenth floor, trying not to breathe too deeply. They always stank. Why did blokes pee in lifts? She didn’t get it. Still, it was worth the stench if it meant she didn’t have to climb all those stairs.

  ‘Mum?’ she called out as she went through the door.

  Silence.

  Lolly could sense the flat was empty. It had that peculiar stillness, that lonely hollow feeling. Her heart sank. Where was she? With a sigh, she gazed around the living room as if by sheer force of will she could make her appear. It was hard not to imagine the worst, but she tried to push those fears aside. Instead she sat down on the battered sofa, took the tin of corned beef out of her pocket, pulled off the tiny metal key and set about the tricky business of getting it open without slicing off her fingers.

  2

  Lolly only had one friend on the estate, one other person she could trust. By midday, when her mother still hadn’t shown up, she walked down to the twelfth floor and knocked on the door. It was a while before he answered. She jumped from one foot to the other while she waited, playing invisible hopscotch on the floor. Finally, he opened up and looked down at her. Jude Rule was tall and gangly with a lock of dark brown hair that fell over his forehead. He was older than her, sixteen, but he didn’t treat her like a little kid.

  ‘Hey, Lolly. What’s up?’

  ‘Have you seen my mum?’

  ‘She gone AWOL again?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  His eyebrows shifted up a notch before he stood
aside to let her enter. ‘She’ll be okay. You want to come in for a while?’

  Lolly followed him through to the living room. It was as dark as always with the curtains pulled across. A tight white sheet took up a quarter of the wall, and black and white images flickered across the makeshift screen. She stopped and stared. ‘Which one is this?’

  ‘Dead Reckoning. Bogart and Lizabeth Scott.’

  ‘Why do you always watch old films?’

  ‘Because I like them. You want a sandwich?’

  ‘Yeah, if you’re making. Ta.’

  ‘Sit down, then. It’ll have to be peanut butter. We’ve got nothing else.’

  Lolly sat down on the green corduroy sofa and stared at the screen. She’d seen this film before although she hadn’t remembered its name. It was about Rip and Coral. Rip – Humphrey Bogart – was the good guy, and Coral was trouble. The women in most of the films Jude liked were trouble. They were wild and independent and beautiful, but they didn’t behave in the way women were supposed to. And for that they always got their just deserts. Coral was going to end up dead just like she had last time.

  Lolly shifted her gaze to the open door of the kitchen. Jude was wearing grey shorts and a dark blue T-shirt. She watched as he buttered the bread, watched the sweep of the knife and his long slender fingers. She knew he was odd but that didn’t bother her. She was used to odd. Jude was a film freak and spent all his free time either going to the cinema or watching at home. He didn’t seem to like the daylight much.

  Lolly knew she could always get food at Jude’s, but only if his father wasn’t around. His dad, a tall taciturn man, didn’t like other people being in the flat. She wasn’t allowed in if he was at home. A projectionist at a West End cinema, he worked shifts and was usually out in the afternoons and early evenings.

  She shifted her gaze again to the shelves to the right of the screen, all filled with film reels in boxes. In the flickering light, she could see some of the titles scrawled on the sides: Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, The Lady from Shanghai. There must have been hundreds of them. She started to count but lost interest at twenty-four when Jude came in with the food.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Lolly made an effort not to snatch the plate from him. Although she’d eaten half the corned beef, that was ages ago and she was hungry again. Jude’s sandwiches were like doorsteps, big and bulky, the bread bought from the bakers on the high street. She knew that was where Mr Rule got it because she’d seen him in there. He never bought the sliced stuff from the Spar.

  ‘Where have you looked?’ Jude asked, sitting down at the other end of the sofa. ‘For your mum, I mean.’

  ‘All over.’ Lolly talked with her mouth full, deciding this wasn’t rude if the room was dark and no one could see her doing it. ‘All round here and on the high street. I went to the green too.’

  ‘She acting funny again?’

  Lolly shrugged. ‘She thought she was being followed yesterday. I don’t know if she slept at the flat. She wasn’t there when I got up this morning.’

  Jude made a tutting sound with his tongue. ‘She shouldn’t leave you on your own. It’s not right, Lol.’

  ‘She can’t help it if she’s scared.’ Lolly knew that Jude had strong opinions about mothers who didn’t look after their kids. His own mum had done a bunk years ago. He said he didn’t care but she knew he did. Whenever he talked about her his face got all fierce and red and he’d chew down on his lower lip as if to stop it from doing things he didn’t want it to do.

  ‘What’s she scared of?’

  ‘All sorts.’

  ‘Did you check the caff?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jude stretched out his long pale legs and gazed at the screen for a while. Rip and Coral were exchanging meaningful looks. Then, without turning, he asked, ‘Why did she call you that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your name. Why did she pick that name?’

  ‘Lolly?’

  ‘No, your real one. Lolita.’ Then he split it up, drew it out and said again, ‘Lol-it-a.’

  She felt instantly defensive as though he might be laughing at her. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  Jude pushed some sandwich into his mouth and chewed. ‘Humbert Humbert.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You ever heard of a fella called Nabokov?’

  Lolly shook her head. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘He’s Russian, a writer. He wrote a book called Lolita. It’s about a middle-aged bloke called Humbert Humbert who falls madly in love with his landlady’s daughter. She’s actually called Dolores, but his secret name for her is Lolita. And she’s only twelve.’

  ‘He’s weird, then.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s really weird. He even marries the landlady so he can hang about with her. Creepy, yeah? They made a film out of it too. James Mason played the bloke. But they changed the girl’s age so she was fourteen instead.’

  ‘What kind of a name is Humbert Humbert?’

  ‘One you remember,’ he said, grinning. ‘Like Lolita.’

  Lolly put the empty plate on the coffee table and wiped the crumbs from her mouth. She slipped her feet out of her shoes, pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. She liked making herself small, sinking down into the darkness. ‘My mum doesn’t have many books.’ She didn’t tell him there was only one in the flat, a well-thumbed collection of British fairy tales. Once upon a time her mother had read to her, stories called ‘Mr and Mrs Vinegar’, ‘The Secret Room’, or ‘The Changeling’, but now she was too old for make-believe.

  ‘Humbert reckoned Lolita was a nymphet.’

  Lolly stared hard at Bogart while she wondered what a nymphet was. There were sprites and nymphs in the fairy stories but she had the feeling this wasn’t what he meant and she didn’t want him to think she was stupid. She rolled the word over her tongue – nymphet, nymphet – while she tried to figure it out.

  He saw the expression on her face and laughed. ‘Nymphets are birds like Amy Wiltshire.’

  Lolly knew who Amy was, one of the popular, pretty girls who all the boys fancied but pretended not to. Although she was the same age as Jude and in the same class at school, she looked older. She had big breasts, a slim waist and green eyes like a cat’s. Her hair was long and blonde and she was always swishing it back off her face. ‘Do you like her?’

  ‘Boys don’t like girls like Amy. They just want them.’

  Lolly heard the longing in his voice and felt her stomach shift. She didn’t like the idea of him lusting after Amy Wiltshire – or lusting after anyone come to that. Her crush on him, although always carefully hidden, was a constant source of awkwardness and pain. She squinted at him through the gloom. ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Like when you want something that you know is really bad for you. It looks all nice on the outside but…’ He paused, his eyes narrowing a little. ‘Inside, it’s no good. It’s rotten. Except you don’t always find that out until it’s too late.’

  ‘Is Amy rotten?’

  Jude’s mouth twisted. ‘To the core.’

  ‘Like Coral.’

  ‘Yeah, just like Coral.’

  Lolly squeezed her legs more tightly and settled her chin on top of her knees. ‘But what makes them bad? I mean, are they born that way or has something awful happened to them? Are they —’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Jude roughly interrupted. ‘You can’t make excuses for the bitches. They’ve got bad souls and that’s the beginning and end of it.’

  Lolly shrank back into the corner of the sofa. She didn’t like it when he spoke like this, when his expression became hard and angry. And who was he actually talking about? Was it Amy or Coral? Maybe even his mother. She pondered on what it felt like to have a bad soul. Like a stomach ache, perhaps, or a nagging toothache that throbbed and throbbed and kept you awake at night. Or maybe it didn’t hurt at all. Maybe you didn’t even know you’d got it.