Disfigured Love

She was holding a syringe.

Even then I couldn’t react. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked stupidly.

She inserted the needle into my flesh with expert precision. Misty was a nurse, I gathered in wonder. The needle exited my flesh. My eyes traveled up to her.

‘I love him,’ I whispered to her. ‘Please… Misty, don’t let him send me away… Please don’t… Help me…’ And then a jarring thought. I looked at her without real comprehension. ‘You had the needle ready.’

‘I always knew you would end up here,’ she said very softly, and her eyes were glittering with hate.

Shocked, I hung onto her, but the ability to grasp had left me; my fingers were becoming like butter, soft and melting. She gently rubbed my back, the action totally at odds with the hatred shining in her eyes. My last thought was silly—but we were supposed to exchange presents on Christmas day.

Then blackness came. But the blackness was soft and deep.

And you let her go…

You see her when you fall asleep,

But never to touch and never to keep,

’Cause you loved her too much

And you dived too deep.

—Passenger, ‘Let Her Go’

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Chapter 24

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a woman’s face. She was staring at me curiously, but as soon as our eyes met she shifted hers away. I was slumped against a glass window. I realized immediately that I was in a moving train. In a panic I looked out of the window and saw rolling countryside. My mouth felt cottony.

I looked at myself. I was dressed in the same clothes as last night, but I was also wearing my blue coat. Feeling dazed I glanced around me. There was no bag or suitcase. I did not even have a change of clothing. I patted my jeans pockets on the coat and my jeans. I pulled it out. It was a British passport. I opened it. The passport was mine: it bore my picture and my name and showed my nationality as British. I held it tightly in my hand. I had been cast away with no money at all. Not even my lace. And yet he had left me with a passport. Why the passport?

I looked again at the woman opposite me. She was now pretending to look out of the window. She had curly ginger hair and a thin, long nose.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, my voice sounding thick and frightened. ‘Can you tell me where this train is going to?’

She gave me a funny look. ‘Last stop is London.’

‘London,’ I repeated softly. I bit my lip. ‘Do you know what station I got on at?’

She looked at me suspiciously. ‘No, you were already here when I got on.’

I covered my face with my hands. What on earth was I going to do now? How was I going to manage? I had no money. I knew nothing about London. I’d end up on the street in the middle of winter. I had seen on TV how dangerous the streets were. The train was stopping. The woman opposite me stood up. I felt like clutching her hand. She seemed like my only hope. But I remained sitting and she left the carriage. How could he? How could he do something so heartless to me? I began to cry. A middle-aged woman from the seat across the aisle got up from her seat and came and took the seat the ginger-haired woman had vacated.

‘What’s wrong, my dear?’ she asked softly. She had kind blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and short brown hair. There was an old-fashioned brooch with dull stones pinned on the lapel of her collar.

Somehow I trusted her. ‘I seem to be homeless and penniless,’ I admitted.

‘Oh dear,’ she said.

‘Did you see what stop I got on at?’

‘I’m afraid not, dear. You were already on and fast asleep when I got on.’

‘Would you know where I could find shelter and work? I’d be willing to work very hard just for food and shelter.’

‘Well, there are shelters for homeless people dotted about London, but you don’t want to go there, my dear. You seem to be such a gentle little thing. They are a rough, tough crowd. You wouldn’t fare too well; they’d steal your shoes from under your feet.’ She looked at me as if considering something in her mind. Eventually she smiled and said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t really. My daughter is always telling me off for picking up strays and waifs from the streets, but, I suppose, you could come and stay at my place for a few days. My daughter is away at university and you can stay in her room for a bit.’

I stared at her, not daring to believe my ears or my luck.

‘Do you mean live in your house?’

She nodded with an encouraging smile. ‘Yes, come and stay with me until you sort yourself out.’

I wanted to fling my hands around her neck and kiss her. And I did. She went pink with embarrassment. ‘It’s not a big flat, but it’s clean and safe.’

‘How kind of you. Thank you. Thank you.’

She waved my effusive thanks away. ‘It’s nothing, my dear.’

‘How can I ever thank you?’ I choked.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Tonight I will call my son and ask him about helping you to find a job. Waiting jobs are plentiful in London.’ She winked. ‘And with you being such a pretty thing I’m sure you will make a fortune in tips.’

‘Oh… I don’t even know your name,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘I’m Margaret Mann, but just call me Margaret.’

‘And I’m Lena.’

‘What a lovely name,’ she said and opening her handbag took out a bar of chocolate. ‘Are you hungry?’

I realized I was starving. ‘Yes, please.’

She brought out a sandwich, too, from her voluminous handbag. ‘Here, you might as well have this as well. I thought I might get a little peckish, but I’m not.’

The trip into London was uneventful. I ate the sandwich in a daze. It was the most incredible luck. And Margaret deliberately did not pry into my affairs but talked pleasantly about the friend up north that she had stayed the weekend with and about her daughter who was reading law at university. She pointed out the towns we passed and told me a little about them too. I had no time to think of Guy. He lay at the back of my mind the way a throbbing pain does.

Finally, the train came to a stop at Paddington. A ticket inspector was waiting at the end of the platform. Margaret tried to explain to him that I had lost my ticket, but he shook his head firmly. Margaret would have to pay at the counter. So poor Margaret had to pay the full fare for me. We put our tickets through a machine and the machine opened its flaps and let us through. I stood in that vast station in awe, my mouth open.

It was so busy. So alive.

I had never seen anything like it before. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. It was such a shock to my system. It was sensory overload. The smells, the sounds, the sights. There were people of all races and they milled around me like busy ants. And I loved it. Here, no one knew me. I was invisible—another body in the crush of bodies. Right then and there I knew. I was never going to live in Russia again.

‘Follow me,’ Margaret said confidently, and took me down the Underground system where there were even more swarms of people. I fingered the passport in my jacket pocket and told myself again and again that everything would be all right.

Margaret lived in Bayswater. As she had warned me it was a tiny two bedroom flat. She put her key in the door, pushed it open, and said, ‘We’re home.’

And I knew then that it would be all right. I would survive.

The flat was scrupulously clean. She showed me to a room with a single bed. ‘This is where you will sleep.’ She went to the cupboard and, opening it, said, ‘These are all the clothes that my daughter didn’t deem good enough to take with her, so I don’t think she would mind if you wore them. She is shorter than you but about the same size. Why don’t you take a shower while I make some tea for us?’

While I was in the shower I cried. I cried because I had frozen and I had not told him I loved him, I cried because of the pain I had seen in his eyes, I cried because Misty had betrayed me, and most of all I cried because I was frightened that I wo

uld never see Guy again.

*****

Margaret’s son, Brian, came around that evening. He was only a few years older than me. He had a friend who owned an Italian restaurant. He grinned at me.

‘You’re one lucky girl, Lena. A waitress walked out yesterday and he’s desperate to replace her since Christmas is a busy time.’

‘I don’t have any experience,’ I said worriedly.

‘These things are easy. You can learn on the job. Anyway you have to start somewhere.’

‘All right.’

‘He’ll be there now. Come with me, I’ll introduce you.’

He took me to a small Italian restaurant in a cobbled side street. It had red and white checked curtains and tablecloths. Inside, it was warm and friendly. I could hear voices speaking in a foreign language coming from the back.