Read by Sarah Feathers
Everyone on the estate knows Kinky Sue, from Chicken Shop Taz to the Hermit Family. She's lived at Chaucer House since anybody could remember, though Mike from the pie-shop reckons she's his age, cos they were in the same maths class at school. She was called something else then, but he couldn't remember what. Ani's not seen Sue for four years, not since Mum died, and never on her own. But now Sue's the only person who can help her.
It's sort of a badge of honour to visit her, in fact. You have to bring gifts: the packet of fancy fags, the bottle of Lambrini (not chardonnay or even champagne, only Lambrini will do) and the condoms. She might as well demand gold, frankincense and myrrh considering how hard it as for a scrawny teen to get hold of that lot. Especially when the Morrisons cashiers are told to Think 25. But it's all part of the challenge. Ozzy Ricks, who looked eleven till he was 20, got his sister to steal the stuff from the cornershop where she worked. Cost him fifty quid in the end but Ozzy said it was worth every penny. Sue's a local legend, like Mad Pat who wanders barefoot up and down the High Street year-round, or the Park Wanker; but sexier.
The other thing Sue does, her version of outreach work, you might say, is talk to the girls about sex. From the way they front it on the 21 bus, you'd think they know everything and more. But half of them, the half with no sisters or tightlipped mums, don't have a clue. There's only so much that school sex-ed, the Cosmo website and word-of-mouth about Raychel and Maxwell in the cleaning-cupboard can teach you. The rest you have to learn first-hand, or ask someone who knows. And so it's Sue Ani turns to when Dex puts her in a dilemma.
*
It's a drizzling Friday evening; the walkways deserted, the wet grass between the blocks coarse and limp as dead hair. Some lads are kicking a football against the wall by the bins with a ringing twang, a metallic noise Ani feels in her teeth. Winter's in the fading sky, and her short blue Primark dress and down jacket suddenly aren't enough: her exposed legs are freezing. Mum always said that letting your tits and arse hang out was trashy, but a bit of leg was classy. She never asked where Mum got that idea from, and it's too late now, but Ani always follows her Mum's advice. It's all she's got left of her.
Another thing Ani's Mum said once was that Kinky Sue wasn't as bad as she was painted. Ani had replied that nobody thought Sue was bad, just a bit of a slag, and Mum gave Ani a look that'd scorch paint. Like one of those pudding torches on Masterchef. Anyway, Ani has her present wrapped in a blue-and-yellow LIDL bag and she's on her way up to Sue's.
Sue's flat isn't hard to pick out; it's the end of the walkway on the top floor, where the building pushes itself into the resident-parking below. Outside Sue's door the walkway widens to become a little square terrace, and in summer Sue takes advantage, making a front garden out of it, with bright flowers sprawling from mismatched pots, a deckchair and a mini-fridge on an extension lead, so she can lie out under the sun with ice-cold Lambrini on hand.
This year she even bought Astroturf to make a little lawn, but got rid when she realised she couldn't lie down, cos it prickled through her towel. Last year she got a barbecue on special from Argos and invited all the neighbours' sons round to try and get it started. They say the lad who finally sparked it up got his hot dog grilled. But they say a lot of things about Kinky Sue.
Tonight a couple of late roses clamber towards the yellow warmth of Sue's kitchen window, blooms clenching in the low sun, and a higgledy parade of overgrown plants lines the waist-high walls. Ani knows Sue's home because she smells smoke through the open door. Sue smokes Sobranies when she can get them (or rather, when one of her little boyfriends can) and B&H the rest of the time. The scent knocks Ani right back to age twelve and her Mum's last summer. Mum always used to smoke B&H. Ani wondered if that's why Mum and Sue hung out together, cos they were brand-buddies and could borrow each other's fags? But it probably had more to do with Sue not minding babysitting when Mum was on shift at the garage; not minding anything much, in fact. Easygoing, that's Sue.
“Christ,” Sue says, looming through the doorway in a bright pink Chinese dressing gown, “if it's not Ceci's girl. Come on in then, or the neighbours'll talk.”
“All right?” Ani mutters, ducking under Sue's fag arm and into the smoky gloom. Inside, it smells of patchouli and ash: red scarves are draped over the lamps and joss-sticks smoulder in the corners. There's old-fashioned pictures that remind Ani of stained-glass windows all over the walls, of sweet-faced women; saints she supposes. Some of them have blue robes, dark hair, and haloes. But most of them wear red. Red's Sue's colour: red lips, red nails, red wine (when the Lambrini runs out) and short tight dresses red as a postbox. Any shade, dark or bright, will do, but the colour's always red. Sue watches Ani unsettle herself on the corner of a knackered sofa covered with a crimson velvet throw, and her scarlet lips stretch.
“What can I do you for, darling?” Sue asks, skinny arms crossed, ruby nails tapping. “Sprite, Coke, tea? Cheeky glass of fizz?”
Ani doesn't have long. Dad'll miss her when he gets home. She's not sure he'd approve of her talking to Kinky Sue.
“Advice,” she says, then on second thought, “and a cuppa, please.”
“All right love,” Sue says, half-hitching a grin, “tea and sympathy it is.”
*
It takes half-an-hour of small talk about Strictly and X-Factor before Ani can get it out. “Thing is …” she mutters into her mug, “there's this boy.”
“There's always a boy,” said Sue calmly, sipping her LIDL Lambrini. “What's his name?”
“Dexter.”
“Like on TV?” asks Sue.
“Yeah, sort of. Not a serial killer though.”
Sue snorts. “Far as you know.”
Ani tells her about Dex. In an American high school he'd be the jock and the bully rolled into one, with the prom-queen on his arm. He's big and built and tall and goodlooking. He couldn't give a fuck about exams or anything but sport and whatever boys do when they hang out together after school. Anyway, Dex and Ani got paired up for a biology project and now he's asked her to prom. Sue's expression gets more confused as Ani's story unrolls.
“I ain't seeing the problem, hun,” Sue says eventually. “Or did you just want to borrow some condoms? I say borrow, you don't have to give 'em back!” She rattles a laugh.
Ani stares at her. “Look at me,” she says. her voice all strangled like when she told Dex she'd think about it. “it's obviously a wind-up isn't it? Why would he want to take me to prom?”
Can't Sue see Ani's skin, her hips, her horrible hair? How could it be anything but a joke?
“Why wouldn't he, love?” says Sue tartly. “To me you're all fucking beautiful, just none of you realise it. You got a lovely face, you're not fat, what's the problem?”
“Prom's the problem,” Ani says, but she can't explain. Sue is too old, too far-away. Ani misses her mum like a vital organ.
“Prom, bloody hell,” sighs Sue. “Didn't have 'em in my day. New way to get teenagers spending £200 on a frock, is it?”
“Yeah,” Ani says, staring at her scuffed Reeboks. “except more than that. Everyone makes such a big deal of it, like if you don't go you'll die, and if you do you've got to … Like you owe it to your date. I can't even afford a dress. And even if I went, I wouldn't know ... you know. What to do.”
“So you came to me?” Sue says.
“Yeah,” says Ani. “Just in case it's not a wind-up, you know. So if he really likes me I can –”
“Yeah,” says Sue, “I know.” And she lifts the bottle and pours Ani a glass of Lambrini.
*
Turns out Sue was married once. She was brought up strict religious; her mum was Russian Orthodox, took Sue to church every Sunday till she died suddenly when Sue was 11. Her father wasn't pious so much as controlling. Sue never went unescorted in public until her wedding-day; she married at 18 just to get out of the house. But of course she knew nothing about sex; didn't know when she fell pregnant, didn't realise she was miscarrying until too late. If she had, if she'd got to hospital in time ... No more kids, anyway. Her husband hadn't known much about sex either, but he knew he wanted children, so he'd left her. High and dry.
“I decided to educate myself,” she says, “and others. Stop anyone else falling into that trap. Sex is a vice. Lust is a sin. All that shit.” She lifts one of the red chiffon scarves from the shelves to show an eyeboggling array of sex-toys and porn DVDs. Ani nearly chokes on her fizz.
“If you're gonna do it,” Sue shrugs, “might as well do it right.”
*
It's late now. The dirty old sun went down long ago and the wine-bubbles are making Ani's head spin. In between sex lessons, Sue tells her stories about her and Ani's Mum Ceci, and her Dad too, from waybackwhen. Turns out it was Ani's Mum who clued Sue up on the sex basics in the first place, so Sue giving Ani The Talk is sort of payback.
“Your Mum was Catholic too,” Sue tells Ani. “She once said the two women who know the real power of sex are the virgin and the whore. The two Marys.” She gestures at the women saints on the wall, staring down in red and blue. “I've been both.”
“What do you mean?” Ani asks, Lambrini-headed and giggly.
“I was christened Maria, but after my husband left I needed a change. Sue's the name I gave myself. I reckoned Sexy Sue had a ring, but it never caught on. Kinky's what they called me. You can't help what other people say and do, can you?”
“No,” says Ani, thinking about Dex, the things she knows now she bets he'd never dreamed of. Ani reckons she'll wear siren-red to prom. Split skirt, showing some leg; classy not trashy. Sue's got a dress she can borrow. And if Ani comes round next Friday, Sue says she'll give her a makeup lesson, do her hair too.
“You'll be hot, darling, don't worry,” Sue promised. “Red hot.”
“Too hot to touch,” says Ani and smiles. Because fuck prom, is what she's decided: fuck prom and the girls who care and the boys who expect and the Instagram group photos and the bank-loan dresses, and fuck Dex too. Or not, but that's up to her.
(c) Amy Eddings, 2014
Amy Eddings is serving a four-year stretch as a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, specialising in Georgian poetry. She writes short stories for a bit of light relief.
Sarah Feathers trained at East 15. Theatre work includes All You Ever Needed (Hampstead Theatre), A Hard Day’s Month (Rose Theatre, Kingston), 26 (BAC), Moll Flanders (Southwark Playhouse) and The Winter's Tale (Courtyard Theatre). Film includes Coulda Woulda Shoulda, Feeling Lucky and More Than Words. TV: The Real King Herod.
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