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holding out his hands. ‘Come, my dear,’
he says. He pulls me to my feet. ‘I’m Mr Periwinkle,’ he says. ‘Breakfast is
ready.’ He crosses the square and indicates that I am to follow him. We stop
outside a tall house. ‘I live here with my invalid daughter, Emily,’ the old
man explains. The front door is opened by Les Dawson wearing a pantomime cook’s
costume. Les smirks as I squeeze by him in the narrow hall. Mr Periwinkle shows
me into a room at the back of the house. Sunshine floods in, bleaching the
colours of the furniture and decorations. Mr Periwinkle says, ‘Emily, we have a
guest for breakfast.’
    I hadn’t
noticed the wheelchair in the corner or its occupant. Emily wheels herself
towards me. Her little face is pale under her lace cap and brown ringlets. She
lisps, ‘I saw you sleeping in the doorway last night. Were you dweadfully cold?’
    I
answer, ‘Upon my life I was most fearfully cold, Miss Periwinkle.’
    ‘I told
Papa as soon as I was dwessed, didn’t I, Pa? I said, “It is our Cwistian duty
to help that poor unfortunate. You must get weady at once and invite her to
share our bweakfast.” Didn’t I, Papa?’
    Mr
Periwinkle kisses the tips of his daughter’s white fingers. ‘My little gal has
not long to live,’ he confesses in an undertone. ‘But ain’t she just the most
perfect angel you ever saw?’
    Les Dawson
brings in every breakfast food I’d ever heard of. I gorge myself on porridge
and boiled eggs and toast and kidneys and kedgeree and bacon and sausages. I
eat six slices of toast and drink five cups of scalding coffee. Emily nibbles
on an arrowroot biscuit and sips on a thimble-sized cup of warm milk. Mr
Periwinkle’s eyes twinkle at the end of the table as he watches me eat. Then he
gets up and pokes the fire and invites me to sit by the hearth and tell my
story. When I am seated opposite him I say, ‘There are two things you should
know about me immediately. The first is that I am beautiful.’
    ‘Indeed
you are, ma’am.’
    ‘The
second is that yesterday I killed a man called Gerald Fox.’
    ‘Are
you informing me that you are a murderer?’ says Mr Periwinkle, whose eyes have
stopped twinkling. ‘In that case, Dawson, throw her out!’
    As I am
falling down the steps Les Dawson’s face looms over me. He is saying something
about his mother-in-law… .
     
    It was getting light. A
dustbin lorry was making its way around the square. Birds were flapping about
in group panic; time to start walking. The dustbin lorry ground up. Two men
walked briskly to the pile of black rubbish bags next to me. They both wore
gloves and orange overalls. One was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, the other a
Russian fur hat. Spectacles shouted, ‘You’ll have to move, so’s we can get to
them bags, lady.’
    Russian
Hat bellowed, ‘We’ve left you till last. Normally we start at the Foot
Hospital. S’unusual for us to finish ‘ere, ain’t it, Spog?’
    Spog
adjusted his glasses and said, ‘Un’eardov. But we could see you needed your
sleep.’
    I said,
‘I’ve got cramp in both legs, I can’t move yet.
    ‘I ain’t
surprised,’ Spog shouted over the grinding mechanism of the lorry. ‘Stuck in a bleedin’
doorway all night. ‘S a wonder you ain’t been interfered wiv’ an’ all. Some
blokes ain’t fussy, you know. They’ll go with anyfing, even dossers.’
    ‘Can
you help me up?’ I asked.
    ‘No we
can’t,’ said Russian Hat. ‘We ain’t allowed to touch the public; ‘specially
women, case they go complainin’ to somebody.’
    The
driver got out of the cab, a fat man with an Elvis Presley haircut and a string
tie. He walked over to us with a showbiz swagger, as though he were appearing
twice nightly at Caesar’s Palace. His voice was flat and hard. ‘Get out the
way,’ he ordered. I was frightened of him. So were Spog and his mate. I tipped
onto my side and pulled myself onto the pavement. My dead legs trailed behind
me. Fat Man picked the rubbish