Love Me by Gemma Weekes Page B

innit?’
    â€˜True.’
    â€˜I didn’t get it, by the way.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜That job in
Gloss
magazine. Bloody bastards. They took this really skinny bitch instead. Properly fucking skinny. Looked like her last meal was breast milk.’
    I look out of the window.
    â€˜So what,’ she says, pushing her hair back and adjusting the mirror, ‘is going on with you and Dwayne?’
    â€˜Dwayne? What the hell does he have to do with anything?’
    â€˜I think he likes you.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t like him,’ I say, then, ‘I do . . . but not like that.’
    â€˜He’s a good bloke, Eden.’
    â€˜So? There’s a lot of good guys I’m not interested in.’
    â€˜Well, you are too pretty for ’im, anyway.’
    â€˜Damn right.’
    Max taps absently on the steering wheel. ‘Well, I like Zed quite a lot,’ she says, disjointedly. ‘He’s got something about him. Mysterious like . . . You know what I mean? Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he’s so fucking
buff
!’ she laughs. ‘Bloody ’ell. I told ’im he should try and book some modelling jobs.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I say, trying to do something acceptable with my face. Hating her: hating him: hating myself. ‘You guys look really happy together.’
    Max slides to a halt before a red light, eyes forward.
    â€˜We are, I think,’ she confirms, and glances over as the light blinks from yellow to green. ‘You’re so gorgeous with that figure and those lovely eyes . . . You’ll find somebody.’
    I try to keep the weak curve of my lips intact. ‘I’m not looking, actually.’
    When we get to Clapton Pond, I ask Max to drop meoff at a corner shop in her beat-up Mini. She says it’s no problem, she can wait and then take me home.
    â€˜No, it’s fine. I don’t live far from here . . .’
Parole officer
, I don’t say.
    â€˜Well, OK.’ Max leans over and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Be safe, yeah?’
    â€˜Thanks for the lift, Max,’ I reply, fake-smiling.
    â€˜I’ll call you later!’
    I wait ’til she’s out of sight to wipe the bubble-gum-coloured gloss off my face. Walk really fast.
    â€˜You alright, princess?’ says the Turkish guy in the off-licence, with a wink.
    â€˜Give me a bottle of Jack and we’ll see,’ I tell him, just as a local nut-job walks in for his twentieth can of Special Brew. I leave quickly, before he has a chance to harass me. Take a left into Kenninghall Road where tower blocks dominate the landscape.
    My manor isn’t as leafy and clean as Zed’s upscale, Highgate neighbourhood. It’s squashed up, noisy, and full of happenings. The people all seem to be either silent or screaming, barrelling into you or standing in your way. It’s all about bald, demoralised patches of grass, stunted trees and a dirty white van parked halfway onto the kerb. It’s all about dogshit left to harden. It’s all about sweet-faced, hooded boys and running toddlers and silly tarts wearing clubwear at two in the afternoon.
    I’ve not even had a holiday in ten years. This is all it’s been for the longest: scummy London with its scarred pavements and faded sky. Oily puddles. Brazen lunatics walking endlessly, repelling gazes like the wrong end of a magnet. And they are the only ones that speak what they’re feeling because wherever you are in London, there’s no space for big emotions. Swallow it, stifle it, shut up. It’s branded into us all at birth or on arrival.
    When I look around here sometimes, I kind of understand why my mother felt that she had to leave. But if she’d made do, if she’d learned to be resigned, all our lives would be different.
    I rub my arms and walk quickly towards home, avoiding men’s gazes.
    A cloud’s gone over the sun and I feel cold in this dress.

July

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