Being Bess

by Blueberry Pie

(part 4, continued on from here)

Belinda and I worked opposite each other. If a city has frown lines, one definitely ran between our concrete office blocks, and it was there that we sat every day at 4.30 pm – in between the recycling bins and a rusting Queen Victoria plinth.

London is faster than me most of the time, but some things carve order into life. For us it was the regular addition of the white-blonde old lady who smoked on the bench opposite in a pale blue mac every day at 4.45 sharp. Following soon after was man-in-a-rush, who could never reverse his car out of his parking space and was always on the phone. The sound of wheels fighting against tarmac was our signal to part.

In those minutes Belinda smoked her first cigarette of three a day (or ten if alcohol was imminent), and I sipped my industrial tea, over-strong and rough on tastebuds. Even when memories start to rip at the seams, some sections of life remain: this predictable tableau was one of them.

Belinda is beautiful. Not my type: but definitely a whistle-at-her-stunner. Long blonde hair that should look crusty but somehow wafts about her, sheets of tangles making friends then parting. At work: tied up smart, great black suit, then always flat bulky leather shoes. They ain’t flattering, but there’s nothing quite like a pair of dyke shoes to mix it up in a sea of Next Directory colleagues: not a rare sight when you work in recruitment.

“So what the fuck! What happened last night…? I heard you disappeared with Ivy…” Belinda begun.

“Oh yeah… that seems like a long time ago.”

“Right. What? Bess, it was half a day ago…”

“Er… a lot has happened since then.”  Belinda stared blankly. It was rare enough for conversation with me to veer that far off whatever new foodstuff I’d recently discovered, or which colleague was chipping away at her patience most. When I had gossip this big to share I didn’t usually shrug it off.

“Oh my god, what could be more interesting than you disappearing with Ivy… IVY! Bess… months of staring, and something is more significant?”

Enter: blue-macced silver foxette. Click: lighter, cigarette.

“Well, Charlotte came back today.”

“Oh God. Are you ok…” I looked at the ground and bit my nails, feet tapping, a small smile. I looked over to Belinda, and she laughed. “You didn’t… oh mate.”

“But it’s bad right Belinda, I mean it’s good, but probably not good really right? Sort of um… not good good? Um.”

And then the rain began. From nowhere: city rain that creeps between toes and nestles behind ears. Bitter and dusky. Foxette was already gone… We jumped up, tinfoil-folded bodies crouched against rain’s efforts.

“Bess, work is so bad today… can we just leave? Come with me… let’s just go out. Somewhere stupid,” she said.

“Allright… fuck it.”

We dashed through the rain. That day was all a bit cinematic really. I felt like some tall story, fading from scene to scene: each one more widescreen than the next….

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. “Well I’ll eat it, said Alice, “and if it makes me larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care what happens!”

…and so we ran into Old Street station, through its half-aging shell, and down into the next few hours.