Chapter 7

Linda walked through the silent corridors of the block of flats where Sam lived. The hollow sound of her footsteps, the bareness of the walls with their regularly spaced doors seemed to echo herself, a silent melancholy.

She rang the bell and after a while heard Sam's footsteps. He opened the door and peered at her as if he didn't recognize her.

"Oh, it's you. Come in."

"You don't look pleased to see me, Sam."

It was a matter of complete indifference to her as long as he gave her some horse, but she said things like that to keep on the right side of him. like all junkies he underwent the usual fluctuations from high spirits to moroseness. She never knew how she'd find him.

"I suppose you've come for the usual?" There was an unexpected note of sarcasm in his voice.

She turned and looked at him with dull eyes, trying to smile.

"Of course," she said. "You know how I like both."

"Well you'll have to make do with one, today." The note of sarcasm was still here. She suddenly realized it was not meant especially for her, that it was directed at the world.

"What do you mean, Sam? What's up?"

"We're out of fodder "

Her eyes were startled.

"No horse?"

"No."

"Well can't you get some more? Where does it usually come from?"

"Where does it usually come from?" Sam mocked her. "She asks where does it usually come from. Little Miss Ignorant, never has to do any thinking 'cause it's always there for her."

God, he is in a bad mood, she thought.

"Well there isn't any where it usually comes from unless you have ten nicker." He looked at her with viciously mocking eyebrows. "I don't suppose you happen to have ten nicker?"

"Of course I don't! Where would I get money like that?"

"Of course she doesn't. Only Sam's able to produce money like that for little Miss Ignorant to stuff herself on horse. Well I 'aven't got any nicker no bees and 'oney at all!" He almost shouted the last words.

Linda was stunned. This was a situation she'd never thought of. She had accepted the limitless supply of pot and horse just as she'd accepted the provision of the flat. No horse! Her mind reeled under the impact. The necessity now became passionate whereas before it had been merely expected and desirable. No horse! The thought crossed her mind that he was kidding, or perhaps lying for other reasons. But it was only fleeting. He was too nervous and unhappy for that. Just now, he was the typical deprived junkie.

"What can we do, Sam?" The words were addressed more to herself than to him.

Sam's hands twitched. His sarcasm was gone now that she'd accepted the situation.

"I can't get my hands on any money for two weeks," he said, "and I've failed to borrow."

He stared at her with dull, unseeing eyes and laughed harshly. "You can't get that sort of stuff on tic."

"God, Sam, we've just got to get some."

She managed to make the T into a 'we' just in time.

"You're telling me, baby. You're the only one who can make any money."

"I don't know anyone to borrow from. How could I make money?"

Sam gave a short laugh.

"How'd you think? Juicy little girl like you. How'd you think?"

She didn't answer, staring at him. She knew what he meant and for a few minutes while they stared at each other her heart began to thump.

"I couldn't do that Sam," she said at last. Sam shrugged his shoulders with sham indifference.

"All right," he said. "Then there's no pot."

Linda walked past him and slumped into a chair in the salon. For a moment she toyed with the idea of pulling herself together, of pushing the thought of the drug from her mind. But it was such an unrealistic thought that it fled before she had time to fully savor it. She needed the horse, perhaps not as badly as Sam, but who cared about that. She needed it.

Images of the prostitutes in Brewer Street crowded into her mind: peeping from doorways, trotting up and down to the fringe of Piccadilly and back, standing against walls with one leg in front of the other, disappearing up stairways and into taxis. She and Betty had even seen one, desperate in the early hours, open her coat to a man displaying her utter nudity beneath.

And Hyde Park too. They had watched the approaches, seen the tangled arms and legs of couples on the grass with quiet shadows of the voyeurs flitting to trees for a view. They had seen one pro leap to her feet and threaten in coarse language to fling her shoe at the "bastards" and then return to her receiving position as the shadows slunk off. She and Betty had even been followed by men as they strolled through the misty dusk in the park and had felt shivers run up and down their spines when a male voice asked in the darkness if they had a light.

They had felt the cold loneliness of the women, waiting for the hunters to come and destroy them as they gave them enough for tomorrow's living.

She couldn't do it; just wander and wait for any man at all to approach her, give her money for the pleasure of putting his prick in her. It was like giving oneself into the hands of an employer, a wicked employer who cut the employee off from the rest of the world to use as he alone thought fit. The fact that money had been paid put an obligation on the woman. It meant the man could do what he liked and he might be a filthy, beastly ogre of a man. Her mind cringed under the thought. To be away from everyone you knew, all love and friendliness, naked and alone for your body to be used by an enemy. She shuddered.

And yet there was a certain frightening thrill in the idea, a prohibitive thrill, but one, nonetheless, which could send a pain into the loins.

Sam had followed her into the room and slumped down into another chair. He was watching her with dull eyes which masked his thoughts.

"It'd be dead easy," he said after several silent minutes had dragged by.

She raised her eyes and looked at him and he went on:

"What you do is stroll around Piccadilly you might even try Bond Street, you look sexy enough, although you're not very elegant in those togs. With your looks and youth you'll be picked up in no time." He gave a wry grin: "Ah, youth, wonderful youth," he mocked. "Then you tell the so-and-so you want ten nicker for the night if he looks a swell then ask for more; you can get up to 15 or 20 even walking the streets go with him and give him a good time and Bob's yer uncle."

"But what would I tell them at home?" Linda suddenly on the defensive, leaped at the first difficulty which came into her mind.

"Oh, fuck that!" Sam dismissed the objection and then, seeing that she was serious, added: "Christ, what's the difference between getting in at five in the morning and ten next day? You've been here till after four often enough."

"I always say I've been at Betty's or at a party but all night's a bit much."

Sam was warming to the subject. He saw Linda's indecision. It was only a matter of pressure and she'd be out on the job.

"Why don't you go back to Betty's place and get her to go round with you to your place and invite you to stay the night? Girls often stay at each other's 'omes."

"But if anything went wrong they'd find out from Betty's people that I hadn't been there."

"What could go wrong? And how often do they see Betty's old folks?" There was a belittling note in Sam's voice as if he considered the whole point unworthy of argument.

He came across and ran his hand up her thigh under the skirt.

"You can do it with your eyes shut, kid," he said encouragingly, searching with his fingers up under her briefs, for the cunt he'd so often enjoyed.

She pushed his hand away irritably.

"If I'm going to do it I've got to be fresh," she snapped.