The Bricks That Built the Houses Read Online Free PDF

two stabs of laughter out of his gullet and then waves, winks and staggers fatly away.
    ‘Bye,’ says Becky in a monotone, watching him walk off. She looks at Harry, who swallows nervously. Julian’s back is bustling noisily towards the toilets.
    Harry feels Becky’s eyes on her, glances up, then away.
    ‘Your name’s Harry?’ Becky asks her.
    ‘Uh huh.’ Sirens howl in Harry’s ears. Why did she just do that? She looks around for Leon: no sign of him. She raises a hand to her temple, pushes her thumb in.
    ‘As in, Harriet?’
    ‘Nope.’ Harry shakes her head, smiling at the woman, in spite of herself. ‘As in Harry.’
    ‘Fair enough.’ Becky watches her closely, like a child with a caught beetle. ‘You smoke, Harry?’ she asks.
    ‘Yep.’ Harry holds the back of her neck, leans into her hand.
    ‘Wanna go for one?’
    They walk towards the smoking patio, out through the double doors at the back of the room. The air’s cold. The city’s twinkling all over the place. Becky lights a cigarette. Breathes in. Loves blowing smoke into cold night air. Takes another puff but it doesn’t feel the same.
    ‘You don’t look like a drug dealer,’ she says simply, a smile at the corner of her mouth.
    Harry’s eyes pop at the words. She rubs her jaw and laughs a quick breathy laugh. She leans in closer and speaks low, checking around her. She speaks nonchalantly. Acts natural, but her palms are damp and her legs are shaking. ‘What do drug dealers look like?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    They sit close together on a concrete bench next to a large flowerpot. There’s a tall heating lamp above them and every five or six minutes it turns itself off and then someone has to lean over them to press the switch again. Hardly a private place. Harry notices all the groups of people laughing loudly at each other; she can hear them talking, she wonders if they can hear her.
    ‘Is it a tough job then? For a woman, I mean?’
    Harry decides that they can’t hear her. She feels judders of electricity in her face and hands.
    ‘No more than any other job.’ She looks at the end of her cigarette. ‘No tougher than being a dancer.’
    ‘How long you been doing it?’ Harry screws her face up in discomfort. Becky pushes her leg. ‘What?!’ she says. ‘I’m not the fuckin’ police!’
    Harry takes a puff, holds it in, blows it out. ‘Ages,’ she says. ‘All my life, pretty much.’
    ‘How’d you get into it?’
    Harry taps her feet a few times, leans back. In all the years of showing up at parties like this, she has never locked eyes with a woman and sat down and discussed the ins and outs of her trade. Never. Not once. Usually, she turns up when she’sneeded, does what she has to do and then she leaves without speaking to anyone. Invited by clients, she walks in smiling, makes her trades and then it’s off to the next one. Sometimes she stays longer, if the client is somebody she likes. But she never tells
strangers
what she does. Why did she just give Julian the chop like that, standing next to this woman? Her heart is swaying like a pendulum. She feels someone looking over. She lifts her eyes and finds Leon staring with his eyes narrowed. She waves him away with a shake of her head. He watches her, puzzled. She looks away from him pointedly, and when she looks back to where he was standing she sees with some relief that he’s not there any more.
    Becky looks at Harry, and thinks she has the physicality of someone who is desperate to escape themselves; she is constantly adjusting unruly strands of hair or pulling at her clothes and she is riddled with the haunted, shy defiance of a woman born with all the bits adding up to the wrong amount. Becky recognises this in her. Watches her with interest, thinks about what it must be like to be a dealer and so small. Wonders if it’s dangerous. Imagines Harry running; she looks like she can run fast.
    Harry feels a whirling pressure mounting between them. If she was