Beauty Read Online Free PDF

started up again and Beauty could hear the others repeating her name.
    Let them.
    One of the older white ladies sitting a few seats away leaned towards her. ‘Thass a loovly name, loov,’ she said.
    At eleven o’clock Colin let them out for their comfort break. Beauty followed the trail back downstairs, out of the building to the other side of the road, and stood apart from the small groups that formed on the pavement. The older men pulled out tins of tobacco with ready-rolled cigarettes inside. A large, round-faced white girl with a long denim skirt and a small nose approached.
    ‘Oright? It’s Beauty, ay it?’ she asked.
    ‘Uh-huh.’ People spoke funny here. Her little sister had picked up the accent.
    ‘Thass a really noice nayum. Suits you.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Beauty, but didn’t know what else to say.
    ‘Have you gorra spare fag?’ the girl asked.
    ‘Sure.’ She took the packet from her breast pocket and offered it. The girl’s fat fingers struggled to remove a cigarette.
    ‘Thanks, Beauty. I’m Nicola. Tonks. Have you got a light ’n’ all?’
    The rude, dirty boy spotted the cigarettes and left his group.
    ‘Yo!’ he called to Beauty, showing his stained teeth. ‘You told ’im, all right! I berr’e waar expectin’ that, fookin’ ’ell!’
    Stewart balanced in front of her on the edge of the pavement. ‘He’s a right tosser, that bloke.’
    ‘Is he?’ Beauty said, not looking up. ‘I didn’t know.’
    He looked at the cigarette in her hand and nodded at it.
    ‘Can I go twos on that fag wi’ you?’
    Share a cigarette with you? You gone crazy?
    She gave him the whole cigarette and he swaggered back to the group, flaunting his trophy to the fagless.
    ‘Got it off that Asian bird,’ she heard him say.
    ‘Her’s gorra name you know!’ Nicola shouted back at him. ‘Dey you hear ’er jooss?’ She turned to Beauty. ‘Do’ worry about him – he’s a fookin’ knob!’
    ‘Oh right.’ Beauty smiled to hide her embarrassment.
    ‘See? You can smile!’ Nicola said. ‘Hey!’ She turned and called out to the others. ‘She can smile!’
    ‘Sshh! Don’t!’ But no one looked over.
    ‘Y’m not from rowund here, am y’?’ Nicola asked. ‘I can tell from yer accent.’
    ‘No, I’m from London.’ White people were nosy in this town.
    ‘Oh, roight.’ She sounded impressed. ‘I ay never bin to London.’
    Arwa type – innocent.
    The two girls smoked in silence.
    ‘Hey,’ Nicola said. ‘We’m giwin’ to the pub at lunchtime. D’you wanna coom with us? You can meet me chap?’
    ‘Er … Pub’s not my thing,’ Beauty said. She looked down at the pavement.
    ‘Coom on, it wo’ hurt.’
    ‘Maybe next time.’
    Beauty remained alone. She finished the cigarette and watched the half-caste girl from the group come towards her, hair stretched tight back against her head, a diamond beauty-spot jumping as she chewed.
    ‘God, what a bunch of tramps!’ she said. She stood next to Beauty and lit a cigarette. ‘I’m Lesley. Where you from?’
    ‘Hackney,’ Beauty lied. A
halla
should know where it was.
    ‘Oh really!’ Lesley said. ‘Christ, what you diwin’ here?’
    Beauty was glad not to have to answer as the girl carried on.
    ‘I love Hackney. D’you ever go to the Empire?’
    Beauty saw the girl glance at her salwar and headscarf.
    Hackney Empire? The big white and brown building on Mayor Street?
    ‘Yeah, I did,’ she lied again.
    Where they do concerts?
    ‘Who did you go and see?’
    ‘Uh … just some Bhangra singers.’
    Al-lh, amarray maff horrio ami missa mattissee.
Would God forgive her for lying to this girl?
    ‘What? All that Indian stuff?’ Lesley said. She did a little dance on the pavement, Punjabi style at first, shrugging her shoulders up and down, hands up and palms out, then stuck out her arse and wiggled it.
    Beauty laughed. She didn’t mind the mocking dance. From a white person it would have been a different matter. She watched the