CHAPTER TEN

Although never very substantial, Angel lost weight rapidly after she moved into the Colville Terrace bedsit. This was in part from lack of funds, as her wage did not stretch as far as she'd expected, and in part because the single gas ring in her room didn't encourage more than heating soup or stew from a tin. She took up smoking, finding that tobacco both dulled hunger and eased boredom, not to mention the fact that her boss gave her a discount on cigarettes.

She grew her hair long and straight, with a fringe that brushed her eyebrows and, unable to afford the new fashions, hemmed her skirts above her knees with clumsy stitches that would have made Mrs. Thomas cringe. Her lashes were heavy with mascara, her skin pale with the latest pancake foundation.

There were boys, of course, to impress with her newfound sense of style. As soon as word got round that she was on her own, they came into the shop in pimply droves, wanting to take her to the cinema, or out for a coffee.

At first she was flattered, but she learned soon enough what those invitations meant. After the first few disappointing encounters, she decided she preferred to stay in her room in the evenings, watching the telly and listening to 45s that scratched and hissed on her father's old phonograph. Posters of the Beatles now covered the damp stains on her walls- their smiling faces watched over her like medieval saints.

These small comforts kept her going until a bitterly cold night in March, when she came to the end of her wages, her food, and paraffin for the heater. It was two days until payday and, shivering beneath a swath of blankets as her stomach cramped from emptiness, she wondered how she was going to manage. Her employer, Mr. Pheilholz, was kind enough, but she knew he had nothing extra to give her. She could go to the Thomases, but the thought of Ronnie's pity and contempt made her decide she'd rather die than give in to that temptation.

Prompted by the thought of the Thomases, however, a memory came to her unbidden. She had been ill once, as a child, and her mother had soothed her with tinned chicken soup and fizzy lemonade. The recollection brought tears to her eyes. She shook it off, as she did most reminders of her former life, but the thought of her mother had triggered another vivid flash.

She got out of bed and scrabbled in the bureau. She didn't remember throwing away the last of her mother's tablets- were they still there? When her mother had been too fretful to sleep, the tiny morphine tablets had given her ease. Could they help her daughter now?

Her fingers closed on a smooth round shape, right in the back of the drawer. She drew it out- yes, it was the same brown glass bottle she remembered. Unscrewing the cap, she shook a few of the tablets into her hand, then, with sudden resolution, took a kitchen knife and cut one in half. Gingerly, she swallowed the tiny crescent moon.

She regretted it instantly. Her heart thumped with fear as she waited, wondering how she would feel dying, poisoned, unable to call for help.

After a few minutes, something began to happen. First came a cold numbness in her mouth, then warmth spread through her body and she felt a strange sort of separation from the cold and hunger. She was still aware of the sensations, she knew that they were a part of her, and yet she was somehow outside them.

Forgetting her terror, she relaxed, snuggling deeper into the blankets. It was all right… It was going to be all right. A rosy contentment possessed her. The light from her single lamp seemed to coalesce into a luminous halo, and she hummed to herself as disconnected bits of songs floated through her brain. At last, she drifted into a deep and blissful sleep, the first in days.

After that, she hoarded the little white tablets, saving them for the times when things seemed more than she could bear.

Summer came at last, and with it her seventeenth birthday. The day passed unremarked except for a card sent by Betty and her mother. It was hot, even for August, and as the afternoon wore on, the shop became more and more stifling. Angel was minding the place on her own, as Mr. Pheilholz had declared it unbearable and departed for the day. She stood at the cash register, aware of every breath of air that came through the open door, watching the hands on the big wall clock move like treacle.

The young man came in for cigarettes. She barely noticed him at first, as there was a faint buzzing in her ears and her vision seemed to be doing strange things.

"Are you all right?" he asked as he took his change. "You're pale as a ghost."

"I… I do feel a bit odd." Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.

"It's the heat. You need to sit down, get some air," he told her decisively. "Here." Dumping the apples from one produce crate into another, he turned over the empty one and placed it in the doorway. He then led her to it, holding her by the arm. "Sit. Put your head down." He pulled a newspaper from the display and fanned her with it.

After a few minutes, he asked, "Feeling better?"

"Yes, thanks." Lifting her head, she took in the blond hair brushing his collar, the clear, gray eyes, the smart, uncreased jacket he wore even in the heat, and the giddiness that washed over her had nothing to do with the heat. She thought that he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

"Come on, then," he ordered. "I'll take you out for something cold to drink."

"Can't. Not until closing. I'm minding the shop."

"Then shut it. It's too hot for anyone to buy groceries, much less cook them."

"I can't!" she protested, horrified. "I'd lose my job."

"And that matters?"

"Of course it matters!" she told him, but she was partly convincing herself.

He studied her, and she gazed back, as mesmerized as a rabbit facing a snake.

"How long till you can close, then?" he asked.

She glanced at the clock and was surprised to find that half an hour had passed. "An hour. It's my birthday," she added, inexplicably, feeling a fool.

"Is it? Then I suppose I'll just have to wait." Leaning against the produce case, he crossed his arms, looking about the shop with evident disdain. "What are you doing working in this lousy place, anyway?"

"It's all I could get." She was ashamed, seeing it through his eyes. "And it pays my rent."

"You haven't told me your name."

For a moment she hesitated, then she lifted her chin. "Angel."

"Just Angel?"

Excitement surged through her. He knew nothing of her, her parents, her background; she could reinvent herself as she chose. "That's right. Just Angel."

Two weeks later, she lay beneath him in her narrow bed, the rumpled sheets pushed back, the window open as wide as it would go. "Tell me what you want, Angel," he urged, his breath catching in his throat. "I can give it to you. I can give you anything- fame, fortune, glory." He had pursued her as if nothing else mattered in the world, waiting at her flat every day after work, taking her out for meals and to the cinema, buying her trinkets… and staying every night in her room. The wonder of it took her breath away. What could he possibly see in her, when he could have anyone?