The Bottle Stopper (4 page)

“He did this, didn't he? Your pimp got you pregnant.”

Lacey nodded. “He told me to sort it.”

“I'm a monk, Lacey, I don't have any money.”

She wiped away a tear. “I don't have anyone else I can ask.”

Harris thought for a moment. “How much do you need?”

“Two hundred.”

“I'll get it, somehow. I'll work it out. Until then, you can stay here with me.”

“I can't. If he finds out, he'll kill us both.”

7

The sky was already beginning to lighten when Maeve heard Uncle Lou trip up the stairs outside. The shop door opened, then slammed shut. Bottles breaking. Swearing. More stumbling on the stairs. As the footsteps passed her room, Maeve held her breath and tightened her grip on her blanket. She relaxed as he tripped up the stairs to his room. Two bumps as he kicked his boots off, then the creak of his bed.

Maeve crept downstairs and took the step stool from behind the counter. Positioning it by the front door, she climbed up and lifted the door's bell from its hook. She placed a closed sign in the window, and double checked that the door was locked. Lou would be angry to lose a morning's trade, but he would be angrier if someone woke him.

She tip-toed to the storage room, gently pulling the door closed, and set about filling more bottles with river water. She held one up to the light, and watched the flakes of dirt and lumps of muck settle to the bottom.

“How do you get away with it?” she said, shaking her head.

Once her small cart was full of bottles, she pulled it across the room, wincing as the bottles rattled and clanked against one another.

She backed into the kitchen, but the cart's back wheel caught on the door frame. Maeve tugged the cart sideways to try and free it. The cart tipped onto two wheels for a moment, teetering, before dropping back down. Maeve watched as three bottles toppled onto the floor. They smashed, covering the tiled floor in river water and shards of glass.

Maeve held her breath, and listened to the silence.

“Please, please, please,” she whispered.

“God-bloody-dammit!” bellowed Uncle Lou.

She heard his footsteps on the top staircase, tracked them across the landing above her, and listened as he slipped down the stairs to the hall.

Maeve sprinted towards the shop, passing the stairs just as Lou was regaining his feet. She threw herself through the open door into the shop, kicking it closed behind her. It bounced off Lou's toes and swung open again.

“Get back here, you bitch!” he roared.

Maeve scrambled across the floor, and reached up, fumbling for the door catch. Her head snapped back as Lou grabbed hold of her plaits and yanked them hard.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” He pulled her plaits again, and she fell back from the door. “Come here!”

Maeve clamped her hands to her throbbing head as Lou dragged her through to the kitchen.

Glass crunched under Lou's thick socks, and shredded Maeve's bare feet. Blood smeared across the floor. Lou lifted her onto a chair, and swept the table clear of its usual clutter.

“Sit there,” he said. He pulled a kitchen drawer open and dug through its contents. He pulled out a ball of string.

“Uncle Lou, I'm sorry,” Maeve said, cowering as he approached.

He stopped, and pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. “I have such a headache. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And you—” He gestured at the bottles and groaned; his sentence finished with a guttural expression of displeasure.

He stepped behind Maeve, and pulled her shoulders against the back of the chair. He took hold of her plaits and pulled them down, forcing her to tilt her head back. She stared at the stains on the ceiling as he tied her plaits to the chair. Tears ran over her hot cheeks. She screwed her eyes shut to contain them, knowing they would only fuel his cruelty.

She heard him step away, and the clink of bottles. He walked back to her slowly, purposefully igniting her terror.

She heard the gentle squeak-pop as a cork was removed, and she opened her eyes to see the dimpled base of a bottle above her.

Lou moved his mouth to her ear, his breath stale with beer. “You need to take your medicine.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “It will make you all better.”

He grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks, forcing her mouth open. He turned the bottle over, and its stinking contents sloshed over Maeve's face. The neck of the bottle hit her teeth hard as Lou forced it in.

The river water filled her mouth; cold and sour. Her stomach automatically urged, bubbling up. Maeve swallowed hard, the water burning into her throat.

Lou pushed the bottle down harder, its widening neck forcing Maeve's mouth open further. Somewhere beneath the fetid taste of the water, Maeve tasted blood.

Lou pulled the bottle from her mouth and placed it down with a thud. He tapped Maeve's forehead.

“Better try not to be sick,” he said. “You'll choke to death if you do.”

Maeve held back her tears until Lou had left the room. She heard him open the shop, greeting customers with a bright and lively voice. She stared at the ceiling, as pain crept from her neck, to her shoulders, and down her back. She counted stains, mapped out the cracks, and all the time, she planned.

8

Gretta helped Maeve onto a stool in the kitchen behind the bakery, and gently washed her face with a warm cloth. She washed her arms, and her legs. She pulled Maeve's dress, stiff with sick, off over her head, and dropped it onto the floor.

“We'll just throw that out. No point in washing it. I'll find you a dress of Topley's to wear. I keep buying them, and she keeps refusing to wear them.”

She handed Maeve a soft, clean towel, allowing her to cover herself before handing over her underwear. The stained items joined the dress on the floor.

Maeve allowed Gretta to lead her upstairs to the bathroom, where the air was thick with steam and the dusky scent of lavender. Gretta helped her into the bath, and she eased herself down into the hot water.

She rested her aching head on the cool porcelain of the tub, and closed her eyes. Gretta slowly unplaited Maeve's hair, gently teasing out tangles with her fingers.

“Would you like something to eat?” Gretta asked. “Or a hot chocolate perhaps?”

Maeve's stomach churned at the thought, and she shook her head quickly.

“No. Maybe just warm water with some lemon then. It will help settle your stomach.” She patted Maeve's shoulder as she stood up. “You just relax, no one's going to disturb you.”

Maeve sunk deeper into the water. It soothed her muscles, and eased the throbbing in her head. She glanced up at the open bolt on the door.

Too many times, Uncle Lou had disturbed her while she bathed. Sometimes he was too drunk to even notice her there as he pissed. Other times he noticed her too much.  She had taken to having very quick, cold baths, as infrequently as she could.

But now, she allowed herself to relax, and closed her eyes. She hadn't realised how tired she was, and surrendered herself to dozing.

She woke to Gretta gently shaking her.

“I'm sorry to wake you, darling, but I don't want you catching a cold in there.”

She helped Maeve out of the bath, and wrapped her in a towel. She smoothed down Maeve's wet hair.

“Shall we cut this for you? It will be much easier to manage.”

Maeve nodded, and Gretta helped her back down to the kitchen.

Maeve watched her hair drop to the floor like autumn leaves. She knew it wouldn't stop her uncle's violence, but it gave him one less method of torture.

Gretta chatted as she cut. “It's amazing how a bath can take away our troubles. As the knots flow out of our joints and muscles, they flow out of our heart and soul. Don't you feel lighter already?” She smoothed down Maeve's hair. “All done. There's a mirror in the hall if you want to have a look.”

Hitching her towel up under her arms, Maeve shuffled into the hall. She barely recognised herself. Gretta had cut her waist-long hair almost to her jaw. It looked thicker, fuller, and curved delicately around her face.

“I look so grown up,” Maeve said.

“You're almost a woman,” Gretta said. “It's time you found your own way in life.”

“He'll never let me go.”

“Once you're eighteen, he can't stop you.”

“And where would I go?”

Gretta placed her hands on Maeve's shoulder and caught her eye in the mirror. “I suppose the bakery next door wouldn't be far enough away.”

Maeve shook her head.

“There must be somewhere. A refuge. A shelter.”

Maeve turned around. “Maybe one hundred years ago. Back when women didn't have to endure violent men. Besides, this thing won't help me once they try to scan it.” She held up her left wrist, displaying the black strip tattooed into her skin.

They both knew what it signified. Further up the cliff, every girl received her ID strip implant at birth. They were part of the system, they were tracked and traced by it. They were owned by the authorities, but they were also under its protection. Slum girls were left to fend for themselves. While a tattoo, designed to look like an ID strip, gave them freedom to move around Falside, and helped them blend in, it was just an illusion. As soon as their wrist was scanned, they would be shown for what they were: nothing but a slum girl.

“Our duty is our purpose. Our role is our life. Obedience is our freedom.” Maeve whispered the administration's motto.

“Well, just you remember that you're always welcome here, and we'll do whatever we can to protect you. Why don't you go and show Topley your new hair?”

That evening, Maeve watched Lou take his usual route down to The Slip from Topley's bedroom window. They knelt, side by side, on Topley's bed and watched his figure stumble along the wooden walkways.

When he'd disappeared from view, Maeve lay down, lacing her fingers behind her head.

“What will he do tomorrow?” asked Topley.

“Who knows? Sometimes he takes it out on me, sometimes he just sulks. For days. Sometimes he doesn't seem to even remember anything happened. I don't know which is worse.”

“Will he be angry about your hair?”

“He may not even notice. Until he goes to grab me by it.”

“Well, you look gorgeous. Maybe a handsome boy will fall in love with you.”

Maeve grimaced. “A slum boy? What? And become the wife of a scrapper, or worse, a dredger.”

Topley made a vomiting sound. “No, something better than that.”

“Maybe a man from further up then? A man from Lynstock, or even Haverhead. A banker, or a lawyer.”

“No, better than that, Newstone. A real prince.”

Maeve looked up at Topley. “Now you really are dreaming.”

“People from further up come to your Uncle's apothecary, don't they?”

“Sometimes. It's that whole romantic notion of the slums. I don't understand how anyone could find this pile of mud romantic.”

“Because we're outside of the system. We're rebels. Free. Wild.”

“We spend half the year knee deep in filth.”

Topley laughed. “True. But they don't see it like that. We're mysterious to them, something they don't quite understand. Plus, there are a lot more girls born down here.”

Maeve sat up and leaned back against the wall. “Why do you think that is?”

Topley shrugged. “Good genes, I guess.”

“I can't imagine that's true. It's amazing up there. Everyone's so beautiful.”

“I've never been.”

“You've never been up the stairs?”

Topley pulled back her sleeve to reveal her blank wrist. “I've never got the tattoo. And you can't blend in up there without it. Mum always said that their lives were none of my business, and I had no reason to venture up there. Apparently I clambered up when I was about four. An officer found me, and Mum had quite a fight to get me back. So, yeah, I'm kind of forbidden. Besides, The Floor has everything I need, I suppose.”

“But there's things up there you can't even imagine. Smells, sounds, tastes. They have this stuff called marshmallow, and it's like, like, it's like kissing with tongues.”

They both howled with laughter.

“When have you ever done that?” snorted Topley.

Maeve shook her head. “I've seen it though. The prostitutes do it.”

“Well that's not a great endorsement.”

“Maybe your mum would let you go up now. You're nineteen, she can't really stop you.”

“My life is here. It's my duty to obey her.”

Maeve dropped back onto the bed. “God, I wish I was a boy. Life would be so much easier.”

Topley lay down next to her. “We'd just have different duties. I don't think it's really any better.”

“At least I'd be able to fight back.”

Topley's green eyes shone in the semi-darkness. “There's always a way to fight back.”

9

The shouting outside woke Maeve. Topley was already awake, kneeling up and peering out of the window.

“What is it?” asked Maeve. She rubbed her eyes, trying to bring her mind back to reality.

“Your uncle's here.”

Maeve leapt of the bed. “Shit. I need to go.” She pulled her new hand-me-down dress over her head.

“Don't. Dad'll sort it out.” Topley reached out to grab Maeve's arm, but recoiled from the already bruised skin. “Just... don't go back there.”

Maeve rubbed her arm. “He'll kill me if I don't.”

“He'll kill you if you do.”

“It's not that simple.”

Topley took hold of Maeve's hands and pulled her back onto the bed. “I'll hide you here. Tell him that you've run away.”

Maeve snorted. “He'd probably sniff me out.”

“Then we'll both run away.”

“When you've never even been up the stairs? How far do you really think we'd get?”

Topley rubbed her wrist. “Then let's fix that.”

The tattoo shop was in a small shack at the far end of Hole Street. Several young men lounged around outside, drinking, smoking, gambling. As Maeve and Topley approached, they straightened up, and began to show off their tattoos to one another. They flexed their muscles, and sucked in their stomachs. By the time the girls ducked through the doorway, they ached from laughing.