THE SIXTH GUEST: Chapter Two - Part Five

Selina Paterson was the third guest to move into the house on Gladstone Road East. She had the big room downstairs between the lounge and the toilet/wet-room and despite the lies she had told when she signed the contract with Clare, she was by no means a non-smoking professional. Far from it.

While Henry was slipping his wrinkled hand down the crack between his trouser button and his pale white belly, while Clare was asking herself if she was being foolish not to see a doctor, and while Joey was lying unconscious still on his bottom bunk, Selina was down in the centre of Bournemouth town, doing one of the things that she did best.

When it came to scabbing cash off the kind of chumps who meandered through the square, Selina had got it all figured out. Begging for money was only part of her income but it never failed to give her what she needed: easy money for an easy lifestyle.

It was a matter of following the principles of good sales techniques while keeping her eyes open on body language and constantly readjusting her methods to suit the mark and the situation. She never loitered near off-licences so the chumps wouldn’t think she was going to waste her ill-gotten gains inside (even though she did a lot of the time). She never smoked or drank on the job for the same reasons – it was counterproductive. She kept moving: never basing herself in the same spot at the same time from day to day. It was a big conurbation: solid right through from Poole to Bournemouth to Boscombe and on to Christchurch and the other smaller towns out that way. She didn’t like to get a reputation in any one place and keeping mobile minimised that.

She didn’t ask for money from people as they entered a shop; she got them on the way out while their change was still in their hand. If she could wrangle it she took up position outside a bakery; it was weird but there was something about the aroma of freshly baked bread that opened purses quicker than a hold-up at gunpoint. She dressed like she was a slightly dishevelled office worker (which had the added bonus of perpetuating the lie with her landlady, Clare). Research and practice had shown her that people gave more generously if they thought she was more like them. Even if she wasn’t.

As far as Selina was concerned, they were all stupid bastards and bitches. She hated the ones who didn’t give her money and she despised the ones who did. She made a game of studying the faces as those who didn’t stop tried to pretend they hadn’t seen her; the pinched features with their guilt and shame. She watched the gangs of lads who shouted insults at her or walked past like she wasn’t even there. She stared into the eyes of the ones who handed over money, smugly thinking how special they were. She stared until they got uncomfortable and hurried away.

And she always opened with a question about something completely different to get them talking. Because once they were talking, chances were she had them hooked.

“Excuse me. Do you speak English?”

“Yes.” The businessman paused in his hurried walk-by, perhaps thinking she was in need of directions. There was a slight roughness to her that could only come from breeding and dissolution, but she was good looking in a world-weary, not quite slutty kind of a way. He was probably wondering what it would feel like to shag her.

Normally she might have been wearing her formal work clothes; she might have reddened her eyes and gone with one of her sob stories: that her car had got a flat; her boyfriend had dumped her; maybe even a rape story if she thought she could get away with them not trying to help her too much. But tonight she was meeting Travis, her boyfriend, and the rest of the troop, and she wasn’t going to have time to get home and change so she was wearing her evening garb: a strappy top and short skirt. It wasn’t the best outfit for scrounging but it was workable. And from the look this guy was giving her – the sharp dips in his eye line from face to cleavage then back again – told her it was working.

She considered using the bus fare line (“I just need a bit of cash to get home”) but she was bored of that one. She was bored of a lot of the stories she used. She fancied going with something she’d never tried before so without any forward planning she opened her lips and let the lies come like they always did. “Can you help me please? My husband’s away on the job – he’s in the navy – and I had to take my wedding ring to the pawn brokers so I could cover the rent. Now I can’t afford to get it back and the time limit’s almost up. I’m terrified of what he’ll say when he comes back if I don’t have it anymore.”

The businessman looked at her stupidly; a touch of suspicion like they always had but enough interest to be worth pushing on.

“I’m trying to get the money together to buy it back and I’m almost there but I need another twenty seven pound eighty nine before I can get it.” Always quote an odd amount of cash. It made them far more likely to pay up because it sounded more real. “Is there any way at all that you could spare a little to help me out?” Selina smiled at him with just the edges of her mouth and crinkled her brow: an expression she’d practised numerous times in front of the mirror that was actually based on the cute expression of a little orphan girl she’d seen in a cartoon.

This was the hinge moment, where the mark would tilt one way or the other: selfish prick or self-satisfied do-gooder. Selina didn’t say anymore. She let the silence and her expression talk for her. Talking too much was always a mistake. The businessman continued to hesitate, his hinge flapping between each possibility. Something needed to bring him down on the correct side. Selina took the chance that an extra flash of cleavage might get his cock to do his thinking for him and tilted just a little to bring her chest more into view. With the button pushed, his eyes flicked down exactly as predicted, but she saw instantly that it was the wrong play. He faltered, a different kind of guilt (one that didn’t help her) factoring in. She was going to lose him.

Unless she did something. And anything now was better than nothing. Instinct usually did it best. Selina had long believed that instinct was the best element of her mind and when shit came down she always stepped back to let it take over.

She said, “My daughter...”

Just that. Left it open. Then waited again to see if it could hook him back in.

The businessman hesitated, the No, sorry that he wanted to say stalling in his larynx. But his head started to shake. He was almost gone.

Selina lowered her chin and mumbled the word, “...she...”

She didn’t lift her face. Her voice suggested a hint of tears but her eyes were quite dry. She looked at the cloth of his suit, noting the craftsmanship in its manufacture, the indication it made of his disposable income.

 “I’m sorry,” he said, backing up a step. And he was lost to her, just like that. “I don’t have any spare change. I’m sorry.”

Selina didn’t look up right away. She stewed for a moment, reflecting on the way the word sorry wasn’t meant for her at all. It was meant to stroke his own conscience, to make him feel like he wasn’t being as big a bastard as he was being. Screw the fact she was bullshitting him. As far as he knew he was keeping her from her wedding ring; maybe setting her up for a beating from her fictional navy husband

She raised her head and made eye contact, feeling the evening’s heat in her anger that was suddenly brewing. “Fuck you then you bald wanker,” she snapped.

He didn’t say anything but he stopped moving, gaping at her.

“Go on, get out of here you skinny little cunt.”

His mouth shivered then it and his nose twisted in disgust.

“Don’t look at me like that you gormless shit. Go on, get out of here!” She pointed. “Go on! Piss off you ugly dick! But make sure you get another perve at these before you do!” She gestured to her chest. “Then run home and fuck your wife while you fantasise about me! Then afterwards fuck yourself! Go on!”

Speechless, the businessman backed up a couple more steps then turned and scurried away.

“Go on! Get out of here!” she shouted.

All across the square, people were looking or trying not to look. She knew she was being a spas; she knew it was hurting her chances for more cash; but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes the fuckers just pissed her off. And Travis was going to be there to meet her any second. And she wasn’t going to have enough money now to get the good whisky rather than the shitty stuff. “And it is so fucking hot! Why is it so hot?!?!”

Selina glared round at the passers-by, daring them to look at her. A little boy caught her eye before his mother shooed him on and she snapped a quick “Fuck you looking at?” in his direction.

Sweat was breaking out all down her back, prickling her skin. It was like the sodding tropics all of a sudden which was crazy because it was dark already. Maybe she was coming down with something. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried that shit that she tried. Maybe—

Selina jerked and came rigid, almost on her tips. Her eyes were pinned open. Her oesophagus was burning like acid was funnelling down it into her stomach. At her waist, her hands shook and the shakes ran up to her shoulders. She couldn’t control her body, could barely manage her thoughts, but she could see the people in the square around her, hurrying on, scowling at what they saw as just a continuation of her uncouth behaviour. There was something really wrong with her, couldn’t they see that? But they were passing by! Nobody cared. Nobody was helping her!

Her whole body was in spasm. Every muscle cracked simultaneously. Her thought patterns sparked like lightning on the jump leads of a car. The rapid flashbacks of life that Joey had seen came to her too, each of them gaudy and dismal and grim.

Then her brain logged off and Selina crumpled onto the smooth cream stone of the square as the people of Bournemouth kept walking by.