‘Long? Thirty years. I was a bar girl myself, when the Americans were here. Things haven’t changed much. Not so many of them here, but plenty of others. That’s where I thought I knew you from—long ago there was a child who looked like you. Then, I thought I saw you again, the other day. A child who looked just like you or the person I thought was you. She was with the Colonel. Just the way you…’ The old woman stopped and looked hard at Wednesday. Wednesday reddened and looked away. Her heart was beating so fast she thought the old woman would see it pounding. ‘Oh well…old eyes play tricks, huh?’

Wednesday smiled and thanked her and got down from her stool. She looked at the old woman who was now busy frying chicken. Wednesday knew she had been recognised. Now her time here was going to be very precious. She picked up her bikini from the tailor’s and headed back to Lolita’s, ready to spend her first night as a dancing girl.

46

At its busiest time, between ten and twelve, Lolita’s had over eighty girls working the floor. They took it in turns to dance for the clientele in groups of fifteen. They had choreographed routines, matching outfits, and they took centre stage in turns to perform. The rest of the time they milled about waiting to be invited onto tables. When the girls weren’t dancing, and there weren’t enough punters in to warrant them all being out, they sat in a crowded room at the back of the club. They chatted in groups, some dozed, others fanned themselves—there was no air-con and their bikinis were sweaty.

The talk tonight was of the fight. Peanut was still not able to work and Comfort was blamed by the other girls. Comfort had a corner all to herself and an empty seat next to her. Wednesday instantly recognised her when she walked in. They had been children in Angeles together. It was Comfort who had replaced Wednesday in the Colonel’s affections.

Wednesday hoped Comfort wouldn’t remember her. Comfort had seen so many girls come and go, maybe she wouldn’t. She went to sit with her.

‘Hi. Mind if I sit here?’

Comfort gave a shrug.

Not even a second look

, thought Wednesday.

I’m safe.

Comfort glanced over at the other girls to see if she was being set up—by their lack of interest she assumed she wasn’t. She figured she could trust the new girl not to attack her. Comfort wasn’t feeling good about the fight either. She had already agreed to give Peanut some of her wages, otherwise she would have nothing to send home to her mother who was looking after Peanut’s baby boy.

‘Why aren’t you in a bikini?’ asked Wednesday.

‘I don’t dance here. I work the bars at the end of the Fields.’

‘Are they all owned by the same person?’

‘Yes, the Colonel owns most of this street.’

‘What’s he like? Is he good looking?’ she asked, feigning ignorance.

Comfort laughed cynically. ‘No. He’s mean and he’s ugly, but he’s the boss.’

‘Have you been here a long time?’

Comfort buried her face in her hands fleetingly, then sat up and gave an ironic smile.

‘Forever. This is my home.’

‘Does the Colonel have a wife?’

‘Huh!’ Comfort’s shoulders shook with laughter. ‘Yes, he has. She is a little girl; he carries her around like a doll.’

Wednesday couldn’t help the gasp that stuck in her throat, and for a moment she could not speak. She looked away for a few seconds so that Comfort might not see how that little girl’s face matched Wednesday’s.

‘And will he be here tonight? Will he watch us dance?’

‘Who knows? Probably not.’ Comfort got up to walk away. ‘But if he is in, he’ll want you. He wants everything new.’

The ten girls filed out and stepped on to the elevated bar that they were expected to dance on top of. Most of the men sat around the long, oblong bar. A few of the tables were occupied. Wednesday was the fourth in the row; Mamasan Mimi had told her what she had to do. They had four poles between them; they took it in turns to dance on them. She would have to wait her turn for the pole. She didn’t mind. They hadn’t had poles when she used to dance, but her moves were the same. She began gyrating her hips slowly to the beat. She was a good dancer. She caught the attention of a noisy table of young men from the UK. They were indulging in the hair of the dog, talking about the previous night’s escapades and getting themselves in party mood. When she finished her dance she was called over to their table. They made room for her to sit in-between one of the drunkest and a sullen one. She tried to make conversation but was ignored by the sullen one. The drunken one touched her breasts.

‘No can touch.’

‘Yes can touch,’ he mimicked. ‘Can touch as much as I want.’

He fondled her roughly. Wednesday squirmed from his hands and pressed him firmly away. His face was purple with drink. His breath stank. He nuzzled into Wednesday’s neck and tried to remove her bikini top. The others around the table laughed. She pushed him away harder this time.

‘Hey, you’re a strong girl. Look at these muscles!’ The lad across the table reached over and held up Wednesday’s arm. ‘Fuck me—that’s more like it! Come and sit over here and I’ll give you an arm wrestle.’ The lad pulled Wednesday out of the clutches of his drunken mate and she scrabbled over laps to sit next to the arm-wrestler. He cleared the table and set his elbow on it. He held tightly to Wednesday’s hand.

‘Ready steady

go!’

They both held each other’s eyes and Wednesday could see that he was going to let her win. She played along and finally she pressed his hand flat to the table. A cheer went up. They kept drinking. It was getting late; she had to be out by the time the Colonel came in. Wednesday had to make a move on her lad. She slid from the table and began a private dance for him. His eyes fixed on her as she spun her body around the pole. She never took her eyes from his. She walked onto the centre of the stage and leaned her back against the pole and slid down it, opening her knees wide. She had been taught to dance by the Colonel and the mamasans when she was a girl. She could still open her legs into the splits. She dropped into a straddle and turned into a scissor splits. She rolled over and pulled herself up on the poll before arching her back and bringing herself slowly to standing. She wiggled her hips like a belly dancer as she moved towards him and jiggled her breasts in his face as she straddled his lap. His face was lost in lust. He pinned her to his lap and ground her to him. She could feel that he was hard.

‘You better take me home, big boy. I gonna private dance for you.’

Mamasan Mimi was called. Negotiations were made and Wednesday was bought out for five ladies’ drinks—the system that got around the supposed illegality of bar fining, which was the payment given to the bar to buy a girl out for sex. She went to change. Her heart was in her mouth. She had run away from this work nine years ago, now she was back where she started, but one of these lads might be able to help her. If she told them her story, one of them might help.

Back at the hotel she tried to get the sex over with, but he was in no hurry. Wednesday tried to engage him in conversation in the hope that he would want to know something about her, that he would care what her life was like, that she could tell him about Maya and he would help. But when the sex was over he went to sleep. At dawn he awoke and wanted sex again. At nine she decided to leave. She felt the hopelessness of it all. Soon the Colonel would find out she was here, and she didn’t know if she could face him again. It had been years since she’d seen him, but inside she would always be that little girl he had owned. The Colonel would come and get her and she would never get her baby back. He had told her to come alone and not to contact the priests. Those had been the Colonel’s orders —Pepe said: ‘tell her to come alone—no priests. If you come with priests he will slit her throat.’