‘I’m open for business,’ smiled the woman, and the man ushered Suki inside. ‘Come in, do. Sit down.’

Suki sat. She looked at the woman. She was mid-forties, with an air of efficiency, and she wore a bright-red jacket that clashed with her big mop of dyed auburn hair. Not a looker; mouth too big, eyes too small. But she had a real friendly aura about her.

‘You done hostess work before?’ she asked Suki, pulling out forms from drawers and selecting a pen from a pink pottery tub of them on her desk.

‘Waitressing, mostly,’ said Suki.

‘Nothing wrong in that,’ said Donna, getting to her feet. ‘Here. Fill this in, we’ll see how we go, OK?’

Donna left the room, closing the door after her. Suki looked at the form and sighed. What was she doing? Did she seriously want this job? No, she didn’t. But she wanted to be here, she wanted to soak up the atmosphere of the place; to feel it. It was like walking in her treacherous mother’s footsteps. So she picked up the pen and started writing.

When Donna came back ten minutes later, Suki had finished filling in the application form.

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ said Donna, going around her desk. She didn’t sit down, but reached out a hand, indicating that this little meeting was at an end. ‘Thank you for coming by. I’ll take a look, and then I’ll be in touch, OK?’

Suki nodded. What if she didn’t get the job? She’d have no excuse to come back here again.

‘Do you know a woman called Milo? Claire Milo?’ she blurted out, coming to her feet.

Donna looked at her sharply and Suki quickly went on: ‘She’s a friend of my mom’s, and Mom thought she worked here once, a long time ago, at this club. She wanted me to give Claire her regards, that’s all.’

Donna nodded. ‘Claire Milo don’t work here,’ she said.

‘Oh! She doesn’t? Mom must be mistaken.’ Suki felt her heart sink. Of course Claire Milo wasn’t here any more. It had been lunacy to think she would be.

‘No, your mom’s right in a way, Claire is here, but she don’t work here, not as such.’

Suki was flustered. What the fuck? She couldn’t understand what Donna was saying to her.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, feeling like an idiot, a bright blush creeping up over her cheeks.

But Donna only smiled. ‘I mean that Claire Milo owns Sylvester’s. She don’t work in it.’

80

80

Aysha didn’t know how to tell Joey the news. Over a year now, they’d been dating, mostly in secret. There’d been quite a lot of heavy petting. Then he’d started asking for oral, which frankly made Aysha want to puke. She felt guilty about that, and he sulked.