Be a good girl and you won’t get hurt

Be a Good Girl and you Won’t Get Hurt. 

I originally wrote this, in longhand with very few ‘crossings out’ about fifteen years ago, fairly soon after walking away from the full time writer status I had somehow drifted into and went off, instead, to do a lot more travelling. It resurfaced several years later at the bottom of a battered suitcase I was about to take to the tip. A serendipitous resurrection. 

This short passage was attached: 

‘I’m supposed to be an ex-writer these days. Taking a sabbatical, perhaps. Try telling that to the voices in my head in the wee small hours. I’ve got four unfinished novels gathering virtual dust in my computer. Who needs another one? Ideas don’t behave rationally and this one arrived at three o’clock   one morning. A possible opening chapter for a new novel? A feisty main character and a few ideas in place – that’s as far as I’ve got with this one. I’ll write it down here and see what happens. I may just get the taste for writing a new novel. Stranger things have happened. Until then, let it languish, unseen, un-edited, un-polished, just as it arrived. It’s a long way from the finished article, but who knows whether that day will ever come? Certainly not me.

Edit

Several years later this scene became a key element in the novel that gave me the most satisfaction by the time of its completion. Megan was never destined to become a dominate character, but one of those seemingly random links in the narrative that are essential if a story line is going to flow smoothly. 

Here’s that original fragment, untouched and unimproved. 

Megan moved serenely through the crowded room, swinging her hips with an easy grace to avoid minor collisions like a beautiful yacht gliding through the waves and ocean currents, without any visible effort. Her complexion put Dresden china to shame: flawless white skin offset by a discreet line of pale pink lipstick. Her hair fell straight and sheer to her shoulders, the colour of ripe corn in a summer meadow.

Every man in the club, and many of the women, watched her walk towards the exit. She knew they were watching. It pleased her, but a tiny niggle of conscience detested her own vanity.

The young guy behind the glass-topped counter smiled broadly as Megan approached. He had red hair and goatee beard. Two strikes and he’s not said a word yet, Megan thought. No wonder he’s trying so hard to please.

She rummaged in her bag for the ticket, but her jacket was already waiting for her. The beaming smile still fixed in place, even as she took the jacket from him without a word and turned away.

Three paces and she turned round. ‘Thank you, ‘ she said and the young man’s smile must have been painful by now as he bobbed his head in acknowledgement of her words.

‘Not going already, Megan?’ Anthony Duffy – always Anthony, never Tony – owned the nightclub and thought he owned the clientele as well; particularly the pretty girls who were good for business. His professional smile transcended all known parameters; warm and apparently spontaneous. Nobody who didn’t know Duffy would ever guess that the smile was totally lacking in sincerity.

Megan unleashed her own full one-hundred-watt smile that dazzled for a moment and then disappeared like she’d thrown a switch. From the vantage point afforded by five-inch heels Megan looked down at the top of his head. Her eyes were drawn to it like pins drawn to a magnet. A hair weave was one of her pet hates. She’d spoken about Duffy’s attempt to defy the advancing years earlier with her girlfriends in the club. The consensus was, unless you have a burning desire to look like a Victorian toy doll that has seen better days, don’t even think about throwing good money away on a process that makes you look far worse than you did previously.

‘I’m bored with this dump.’

‘Don’t be like that, Megan,’ Duffy whined, placing a clammy hand on her arm. She shook it off, with a barely suppressed shudder. She’d worked here once. Not any more.

‘Don’t touch me,’ Megan snapped and saw the hate flare in his eyes.

Deep shadows below his eyes imparted a melancholy appearance.

Duffy had tried it on one night, after closing time, as he did with all the girls. Megan ran every day, pumped iron at the gym every other day and had learnt boxing skills from her elder brother. Twice a week she shuffled round a dusty square of canvas, throwing punches and evading those thrown at her.

When she’d rejected Duffy’s advances, he’d cut up rough and slapped her face. Instantly, she responded with some of the best combination punches she’d ever thrown. Leaving her employer flat on his back, clutching his broken nose, she’d helped herself to the wages she was due from the till and walked out. Tonight had been a mistake. One of her former workmates had snared a wealthy boyfriend and was leaving. She’d chatted to the girls for long enough to know their lives were set on very different paths these days and decided to call it a night.

‘See you sometime, Tony,’ Megan called as she opened the door, hearing Duffy’s suppressed snarl of anger at her use of the forbidden diminutive.

Outside, it was cooler but still mild enough for her to decide against ordering a taxi and walk home. She set off, heels clattering an accompaniment to her progress and had soon left the bright lights of the club far behind.

Silently, yet with purpose, a man slipped out of the shadows and followed her echoing footsteps at a discreet distance in the manner of a reprimand coming after an incautious remark. Separate, yet closely linked.

This area of London was so different from where Megan had grown up, but less than a mile away were areas that would have been familiar territory a few years ago. Back up North where the streets that cut through the bleak estate had no names and the main entrance road was a lunar landscape with deep ruts and potholes. Her memories of that time would never leave her. The harsh outline of the towering apartment blocks, the rows of concrete posts standing useless and redundant, their globes having been smashed in a single night of riot and mayhem and never replaced. There had been little demand for their reinstatement; no one who walked these dark and dangerous streets after nightfall had any pressing desire for illumination.

Megan drew her jacket tightly around herself and put away the memories. She had good reason to leave and yet barely a day went by without the intrusion of memories she was trying so hard to forget.

The wind stirred the branches of a tree rustling the leaves like the whispering of naughty schoolchildren. Megan looked upwards but could see nothing. She wasn’t concerned, not even slightly nervous. The darkness and the silence were oddly comforting. It was dark and she could barely see the pavement beneath her feet.

A sudden shaft of moonlight pierced the gloom, illuminating the scene for a moment. The moon was up there somewhere, still battling hard and winning a rare victory, but the dense cloud cover ensured there could only be one winner.

Megan stopped dead as the moonlight revealed a broken paving slab and as she stepped to one side to go around it, she heard it. The sound of a footfall. Faint, but definite. Someone walking stealthily and certainly not just some old boy weaving his way home from the pub.

She’d not seen a car since she left the club and for the first time she realised how dark and silent it was. Megan listened carefully, but heard nothing. Just the faintest rumble of traffic from the main road in the far distance, that was all. Not a voice, not a clatter of crockery or a barking dog. The silent darkness wrapped around her shoulders like a thick cloak and she shivered. Just now, even rap music blaring from an open car window would be welcome and Megan detested rap music with a savage intensity.

There! She heard it again. Somebody was following her. The moon dipped behind a cloud for a moment and in the stygian gloom Megan stooped to remove her shoes. They’d make flight impossible, if that became necessary.

As she rose, Megan saw the vague shape of an onrushing man. She straightened and swung the metal-tipped heels of her shoes blindly in front of her. She felt the shock through her forearm as the shoes found their target and instantly turned to run.

She stubbed her bare toe on the broken paving slab and the shock and pain made her stumble. In an instant huge hands reached out and lifted her off her feet, her bare heels drumming without any effect on the legs of the man who held her aloft with contemptuous ease.

The clouds moved away and the man set her back on her feet, still holding her arms tightly. He was huge, shaven headed and muscular, and she’d never seen him before.

He sucked in a deep breath through his open mouth and grimaced. ‘Think you chipped a tooth, girl. Big mistake.’

Megan looked at his bulk and wondered how to hurt him. How to stop him in his tracks. He wasn’t that big really; not much larger than a Range Rover. And just about as solid. She could hit him with her best shot and he probably wouldn’t even notice. She knew the weak points: eyes, throat, knees, instep, and bollocks. Maybe she could disable him in some way with a lucky blow, but without any guarantee that he’d be unable to retaliate. The thought of him hitting her wasn’t anything she wanted to dwell on for long. One tap from those huge hands and she’d be history.

‘Be a good girl and you won’t get hurt. You’re going home, Megan, and I’ve been sent to fetch you. Did you really think you could just walk away?’

His words struck her like a hammer blow. Her former boyfriend had come a long way since she’d walked away and left him. Tiny had prospered in the drug trade and was now a powerful figure in the Northwest. She’d hoped he’d put her out of his mind, but had always suspected it was a vain hope. Tiny didn’t allow anyone to walk away, much less anyone whose sudden departure had publicly humiliated him.

Megan clamped her teeth together, trying desperately to stop them chattering, until her jaw ached with the strain. A stabbing pain over her eyes made her want to moan aloud, but she kept her jaw tightly clenched. She had to hold herself together or she would be lost. Her breath came as a series of tormented gasps. Her pulse raced and she felt a relentless pounding in her ears as blood raced through the veins and arteries of her head.

‘Let me go,’ she cried, struggling vainly to free her arms. She threw her head back and then brought it forward as fast as she could, trying to butt him. He eased backwards and her head banged uselessly against his barrel chest.

Her captor released her arms, but before she could move his clenched fist struck her high on the chest, directly on the breastbone, and threw her backwards like a discarded toy thrown from a toddler’s pushchair. The pain set in before she reached the ground, flooding out from the centre of her chest in great waves. This must be what it feels like to have a heart attack, she thought for some reason. An incongruous thought even in these circumstances. Megan lay flat on her back and looked at the figure standing over her as a fresh wave of pain hit her and spread through her body like a forest fire.

The man reached down and pulled her to her feet. What she felt was way beyond fear. She’d been afraid before and this present situation was a whole new experience. She was terrified. An incorporeal sound broke the silence; surely not human. Megan heard the sound again and belatedly realised it came from her own lips. Her hands fluttered like a trembling captive bird.

A large car drew alongside and the back door swung open. Megan was tossed inside and the large man climbed in beside her. As the car drew smoothly away, a man in the front passenger seat turned around and flicked a switch above his head illuminating the rear seats.

‘Hello, Megan,’ he said. Deep grooves were etched into the skin of his face. In the Prussian army of long ago, the duelling scars they resembled would have been a badge of honour. This was a face that had found any excuse to frown and laughter had been an alien concept. Megan stared back at him, her face ashen. She knew this man. He worked for Tiny and she’d personally seen him beat a man senseless for staring at his scars a moment too long.

‘We both know you’re not Megan,’ the man continued. ‘Not really. Changing your name didn’t do you much good, but if you want to be called Megan now, it doesn’t bother me. Behave yourself and you won’t be hurt, but remember, I’m not a nice guy and Tiny asked me to get you back. He didn’t say anything about you being undamaged.’

‘You fucking bastard,’ Megan cried; her ragged voice crackling with emotion. She was just about holding herself together but only by the slenderest of margins and the thin lines etched into the skin either side of her anxious face deepened with the effort.

The man smiled and drew a pistol from an inside pocket. He pointed it at Megan and she froze. Her nerve endings were on fire. She felt detached from her own body, almost as if she were a disinterested observer of her own self.

Megan looked down the barrel of the gun without flinching. Her focus settled on the isotropic barrel, a dull grey in colour and, in its own way, a thing of beauty. She forced her gaze away from the gun and looked at the face of the man holding her immediate fate in his hands.

‘You won’t kill me,’ she said. ‘Tiny wouldn’t allow that.’

The two men and the previously silent driver laughed in unison

‘Let me tell you about guns,’ the scarred man said; his voice calm and soothing.

‘A bullet behaves like an underwater explosion when it comes into contact with the human body. Obviously, it devastates any hard surfaces, bouncing around like a pinball and glancing off any bones it happens to encounter. But, remember that a human body is mainly water. Hence the similarity to an underground explosion. The same massive shock waves radiating out in all directions. Under the sea you’d get a tidal wave forming. A tsunami, if you like. Scale that down to the human body and the effect is exactly the same.’

Megan said nothing, but there was something in her expression that was almost feral.

‘Every fucking time you give that speech,’ the driver said. The tone of his voice belied his words. There was no doubting the man in the passenger seat was the one in command.

‘It serves a purpose.’

Megan looked at him defiantly and he moved the gun away and slipped it back inside his jacket.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I think we understand each other. Get some sleep. You won’t be getting much soon enough.’

Again the three men laughed; a sinister aspect to their humour that chilled Megan to the bone.

‘Yes, you’ll be quite a prize. Tiny can expect to make a decent profit on tonight. Have you ever fucked forty or fifty men a night, Megan? What about a hundred? Every night? Even the very best only last a week or so. It’s not as much fun as it sounds; for the girls, I mean. Or so I’m led to believe.’