Sin City Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered!

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  About Bello:

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

  About the author:

  www.panmacmillan.com/author/wendyperriam

  Contents

  Wendy Perriam

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Wendy Perriam

  Sin City

  Wendy Perriam

  Wendy Perriam has been writing since the age of five, completing her first ‘novel’ at eleven. Expelled from boarding school for heresy and told she was in Satan’s power, she escaped to Oxford, where she read History and also trod the boards. After a variety of offbeat jobs, ranging from artist’s model to carnation-disbudder, she now divides her time between teaching and writing. Having begun by writing poetry, she went on to publish 16 novels and 7 short-story collections, acclaimed for their power to disturb, divert and shock. She has also written extensively for newspapers and magazines, and was a regular contributor to radio programmes such as Stop the Week and Fourth Column.

  Perriam feels that her many conflicting life experiences – strict convent-school discipline and swinging-sixties wildness, marriage and divorce, infertility and motherhood, 9-to-5 conformity and periodic Bedlam – have helped shape her as a writer. ‘Writing allows for shadow-selves. I’m both the staid conformist matron and the slag; the well-organised author toiling at her desk and the madwoman shrieking in a straitjacket.’

  Dedication

  For Barbara,

  last of the angels

  Chapter One

  St Joseph, are you there? Please hold me, hold me tight. I’m small. I’m very small. Just a tiny baby, like Jesus in the manger. I wasn’t born in a manger, but in a hospital in Reading. My mother wasn’t there. I was born to you, St Joseph, born to a father. You put me to your breast. Flat pale hairy man’s breast. I’m suckling now, eyes shut, mouth pulling at your nipple.

  Hold me tighter. So tight I can’t see anything, just feel your chest pressed against my eyes. That’s nice. Nice and safe. I like it. Your milk tastes of bananas. We never had bananas, not when I was small.

  Afterwards, you bathed me. Warm water, hard green soap. You wore a plastic apron and I slipped and slid against it, free without my nappies. When you put them on again, I wet myself – felt the pee run down, hot and wet; soak into your robe. Old brown robe now stained with wet and me.

  “Norah Toomey, you’ve wet your bed again. A great big girl like you. You’ll wash those sheets yourself – and iron them.”

  Heavy linen sheets which never dried. Nothing dried. St Joseph’s was near a river. Damp stains on the walls instead of pictures. The iron was heavy, too, the ironing board too high.

  I don’t wet beds now. I moved from St Joseph’s forty years ago. The nuns went back to Ireland, didn’t take me with them. I was sent into a Home. It was bigger than the convent, not as quiet. Everybody shouted. I think it was a punishment.

  Then I moved again. The new place wasn’t damp. Small and cramped with shiny turquoise paint. I had to scrub the paint.

  Then I went to Belstead where everyone was ill. There was a garden with real flowers, but you weren’t allowed to pick them.

  I forget what happened next. But I came here one December. It was bitter cold, with snow. The walls looked very high, and the snow was grey, not white.

  I’m in the Day Room now. I sit here most mornings and every afternoon. The walls are green. The chairs are brown with lumpy plastic seats. The ceiling has two cracks in it. They’re very long and wiggly. One day, I think they’ll meet.

  Half the chairs are empty. All the younger patients have gone to see a film. I didn’t want to see it. Films are always guns.

  Ethel Barnes is talking to a man who isn’t there. Annie’s gone to sleep. Lil can’t move at all.

  It’s still two hours till dinner. It’s salad on a Monday. Little cubes of beetroot with one leaf of purple lettuce underneath and some chopped up peas and carrots mixed with salad cream. I like the pudding best.

  The clock ticks very loudly. They had to choose a loud one because some of them are deaf. My hearing’s good, but sometimes I still leak a bit. Sister says my bladder’s fallen down, and not to cough or laugh.

  Someone’s just come in. That new nurse with the smile. They all smile when they’re new, though not much later on. There’s a girl with her. A pretty girl, fair, with nice blue eyes, and messy hair curling round her shoulders. She’s smoking. They nearly all smoke here, staff as well as patients. There are ninety-seven burn holes in this carpet. I counted just last week. And burn-marks on the chair-arms. Sometimes patients pester you all day. “Cigarette, cigarette,” they wail, even when you’ve told them you don’t smoke.

  They’re coming right towards me, Nurse in front, the girl walking very slowly as if she’s frightened that the floor is made of paper and might not hold her up.

  “Hallo, Norah. Know where Sandy’s got to?”

  “She’s gone to see the film.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Clint Eastwood. Damn! I wanted her to keep an eye on Carole. Norah, this is Carole. Carole’s new.”

  Carole. That’s a nice name. Prettier than Norah. I try and smile. It hurts. The girl looks very sad and very young. Sandy’s young as well. Most people are old here.

  “They’ve put her in your ward. She ought to be in Robson, but the ceiling’s letting water.”

  Our ceiling leaked as well once. They had to put three buckets underneath, to try to catch the drips. Carole has red shoes on. I’ve never worn red shoes.

  “Carole, this is Norah. Norah Toomey. Norah’s been with us over twenty years.”

  The girl stares at me and swallows. She looks scared now, not just sad.

  Nurse pulls another chair up, next to mine. The seat is torn and some soft grey curly stuff is oozing out.

  “Can I leave her with you, Norah? I’m wanted in the office.”

  I feel frightened now myself. I won’t know what to say to her. I’m not that good at words.

  “Fred, get away.” screams Ethel.

  Carole jumps.

  “Fred isn’t there,” I tell her. “He died two years ago.”

  The clock is ticking louder. Carole’s looking round. I wish the room was nicer. They took the curtains down once and no one put them back. We used to have some goldfish, but they died. Two of them were grey, but Nurse still called them goldfish.

&nbs
p; “It’s supper in two hours,” I say. “You can leave the pudding, but you have to eat the meat.”

  She doesn’t answer. I think she’s going to cry. Her cigarette’s burnt right down to the end. She lights another one. “Cigarette!” Peg moans.

  “Unless you’re vegetarian,” I add. No one is. Not here. We had two vegetarians at Belstead, but one died and one was moved.

  Carole blows some smoke out, puffs again. There’s a ladder in her stocking. Suddenly she speaks. “Toomey’s Irish, isn’t it?”

  I nod. A lot of people hate the Irish. I expect she’ll move away now, find another chair.

  “You don’t sound Irish, not at all. I went out with this Irish bloke and he was really broad. Quite a laugh as well. It didn’t last, though. I only saw him twice. Where d’you come from? Dublin?”

  “No. Belfast.” That’s what they told me, but I don’t know where it is. I’ve never been there; never been to Ireland. “I was born in Reading,” I explain.

  “I was born in Glasgow. I’m not Scottish, though – not really anything. My mother was just passing through. She ought to be a patient here, my Mum. She’s more a mess than I am.” Carole laughs. The laugh is very sad. “What are you in for?”

  “I … live here.”

  “Yeah, but why? You can’t just live here like it’s some hotel.”

  I’ve never been in a hotel. Sister Watkins went to one, in Spain, a huge one on a beach. She sent us a postcard of the beach and wrote on the back ‘I can see this from my window.” The other Sister pinned it up, but someone scrawled three black lines across it.

  I ought to answer Carole, but I don’t know what to say. I try to think way back. I can see the convent, very tall and quiet. I must have grown too big for it. I can see a mop and duster. The duster’s soaking wet. “I used to cry,” I say. “Every day. All day, some days.” I tried to stop, but the tears came on their own.

  “Oh, depression.” The girl flicks her cigarette. The long wobbly worm of ash collapses, powdering her skirt.

  I nod. That’s what the doctors call it when you cry. They give me pills which make my face stiff, so it’s hard to cry or laugh now. Though the things which make me cry are still there.

  “I’ve warned you, Fred,” shouts Ethel.

  Olive’s snoring. Peg has tipped sideways in her seat. There’s a bad smell in the room. It isn’t me. There are forty-eight toilets in this hospital. I’ve used them all, except the staff ones, which have proper towels and locks on all the doors.

  I wish Sandy would come back. Or Alison, who talks a lot. Carole’s saying nothing. I don’t think she likes the room. There’s nothing in it really, only chairs. There’s a wall outside the window, so we don’t have any view. There used to be a beech tree, but two men came with a lorry and cut it down. They tied it up with chains first. Then they cut its fingers off, and next its arms and head. It took them a long time. I think I heard it scream.

  Carole’s looking round again. There are bare spots on the walls. People pin things up, then rip them down again and the paint comes off as well. I shut my eyes and everything looks better.

  “Would you like to see the library?” I suggest. The library is the best bit of the hospital, small, but very quiet. I’ve never seen a burn-hole in the library. It’s the only room with pictures – proper ones in stiff black frames. The books have pictures, too, or some of them. I’ve looked at every picture in every book at least a thousand times. Mountains are my favourite. I’ve never seen a mountain, not a real one.

  Carole shrugs. “Okay.”

  I walk very slowly in case Carole is on pills. Many of us are. It’s a long way to the library, seems longer still this time, with neither of us speaking. The corridors are grey and very cold. Carole’s shivering.

  “Have my coat.” I wear it all the time indoors. It makes me feel there’s more of me.

  “No, thanks,” she says. “I’m boiling.” Her voice is wobbly like the ash.

  There’s rain outside, sleety rain, and the sort of wind that claws, whining through a broken windowpane. I never go outside.

  We turn a corner. There’s a trail of number two across the lino, human number two. The smell is terrible.

  “We’re nearly there,” I say, to give her hope.

  The library is empty. People prefer just sitting, or TV. Miss Barratt’s there, of course. She always is. She’s grey as well, but very very clever.

  “This is Carole.” I try to keep my voice low. Libraries are like church.

  “Hallo, Carole. And what can we do for you, dear?” Miss Barratt wears glasses, but mostly round her neck. She wears them on a long gold chain which twitches when she moves.

  “Get me out of here.”

  “Come on now, it’s not so bad, is it?”

  “It’s worse than bloody prison.”

  Miss Barratt hates bad words, pretends she hasn’t heard. “Do you like reading, Carole?” She puts her glasses on, takes them off again, then puts a smile on, keeps it on. She’s really trying. Miss Barratt always tries. Her dress is gravy-coloured, her feet are long and thin. “How about a book, dear? Let me get your details down, then I can issue you with tickets. What’s your other name?”

  “Joseph.”

  I hold tight to the bookshelf. “Joseph?” I repeat.

  Carole turns to face me. “Yeah, it’s Jewish. I’m only a quarter Jewish, actually, and I don’t look Jewish at all, not even a quarter. My father’s father came from …”

  St Joseph must have sent her. Sent her specially when Sandy wasn’t there. Sandy’s her own age and should be looking after her. But St Joseph made it me. She hasn’t got his eyes. St Joseph’s eyes are brown, dark brown in all the pictures and the statues, and hers are blue, a greenish-blue with tiny darker flecks in them. Her hair is fair and wavy, lighter at the ends.

  Joseph’s more like me. Plain and lined and getting on, with thinning hair which comes out on the comb. I always wear a fringe. Sister pinned it back once, but too much of me was showing. We don’t have mirrors here, so I’m not sure what I look like. I’ve never been that sure. I’m on the inside and I look different from the inside. I tried to tell the doctor that, but he didn’t understand.

  Carole’s staring at the floor, trying not to cry. She’s been in tears already, I can tell. I think she’s sad about her father. She started telling us about him, then her voice went dead.

  Miss Barratt sits down at her desk, starts filling in a form. “Norah’s quite a reader, aren’t you, Norah?”

  I don’t reply. I’m very slow at reading, but I like it for the quiet. Sometimes I read backwards, start books at the end. The important things happen at the end.

  Miss Barratt shakes her pen. It isn’t working. “We’ve got some nice romances.”

  “Romances?” Carole makes a face.

  “Or Westerns. What sort of thing do you like, dear?”

  “Crime,” she says, fiddling with her hair. “Horror stories. Death, funerals, suicides. Mass suicides.”

  Miss Barratt looks quite frightened. I try to help her out. “I like books with pictures in.”

  Carole swings round to the window. “What’s that noise?”

  “Only the pump, dear.” Miss Barratt tries another pen, a black one. “It’s very old, so it makes that sort of roar, revs up every hour or so. You won’t hear it once you’ve been here a few weeks.”

  “I’m not staying a few weeks. No fear!”

  I cough to fill the silence, feel a dribble from my bladder, try to hold it in. Miss Barratt’s writing Carole’s name on tickets. “Joseph, C.” I’ve never heard of Joseph as a surname. There was a Joe in Belstead, but he died, and a female patient who called herself Josephina, but her real name was something else.

  Carole walks towards a desk, puts her handbag down on it. “Hey, can patients sit in here? I mean, if you’ve got some work and stuff, you can do it here?”

  “Yes, of course.” Miss Barratt looks relieved.

  “I’ll stay here then, if
that’s okay. There’s something really urgent I want to get on with, and that other lounge-place stinks.”

  She sits down, tips out her bag across the desk-top, finds a sheet of paper with writing on it, scribbled small both sides. I feel excited. She’s clever like Miss Barratt. I’ve stopped her crying. I’ve brought her to the library. She likes the library. It doesn’t smell at all.

  I find a chair, sit down very quietly so I won’t disturb her writing. She’s doing something urgent, writing very fast. She stops a moment, frowning, bites her pen, sneezes, starts again. Words are tumbling down a whole new sheet of paper, black important words. Her legs are twisted round each other. Her shoes are red, and dirty. Her hair is falling round her shoulders – wavy hair, lighter at the ends. She shakes it back, combs it with her pen. I keep my eyes down till she goes on writing, watch again. Her hands are small. She wears five rings, all silver, and a bracelet with a heart on. I’m glad St Joseph sent her.

  Carole Joseph.

  Joseph.

  Chapter Two

  I smoke Players No.6 because … I smoke Players No. 6 because … because they’ll give me cancer, because they waste my money, make me cough. Stop it, girl, you’ve got to take this seriously. I smoke Players No.6 because I’m dead keen to win this competition and you have to send three rotten cigarette-pack fronts with every entry form. I’ve never smoked them before and never would again – except I won’t win if I tell them that. I smoke Players No.6 because … because I’ve got to get away, got to have a break. They’ll probably take my picture if I win, squeezed between two Names – maybe a DJ and a pop-star, or Miss World and … Imagine Miss Joseph and Miss World! “Nice big smile for the cameras, girls. That’s great, darlings. That’s absolutely great.”

  Blast. The pen’s run out and I haven’t got a pencil. I’ll have to use my eyebrow one, which smudges. If I don’t get on with it, I’ll miss the closing date. October 16th. Only two days left now.

  I smoke Players No.6 because … because … I’m scared and broke and I hate this hospital. I’ve tried to kick the habit, but I started sweating, shaking, and I sucked so many fruit-drops I put on half a stone. Fruit-drops don’t do much for you – not like nicotine. I smoke Players No. 6 because I love my fix. That rhymes. Perhaps I should do it in poetry. At least it would be different. Fix, kicks, six.