Chapter 2

Dignity is a funny thing. You keep telling yourself you've hit rock bottom only to have the carpet swept from beneath your feet. Carpet that you didn't even realise you were standing on.

Signing up to stay at a shelter should have been easy. Mai'd been in a fire. She was an orphan. She needed help. Why did she have to fill out a dozen different forms in triplicate? Not to mention the entrance interview. Sister Mara had all but strip-searched her for drugs.

There was no sign of the nice priest that the taxi driver had mentioned.

It was midday before they admitted Mai to Saint Giles.

In the corridor beyond the interview cells, a dower matron scowled from behind a clipboard. 'The futons are full.' She sucked her teeth while glancing down at Mai's bare feet. 'Put your shoes on.'

'I don't have any. You see, there was a fire—'

The woman scribbled something on her clipboard. 'Wait in the canteen.'

'But…' What the heck was with these people? Weren't they there to help her? What had she done to piss everyone off?

Someone shoved her from behind, saying: 'Out of the way, you stupid bitch!'

Mai stumbled against the cinderblock wall and then glued herself to it as the strung out woman who had shoved her proceeded to vomit all over the dower matron's clipboard and starchy grey uniform. The matron grimaced but remained calm—as though being vomited upon was just part of a day's work.

Maybe the shelter staff's harsh and distrustful attitude had more to do with their typical 'guests' and less to do with Mai herself. If the people you are trying to help lie to you, go out and get drunk and do drugs, and then they come back and vomit all over you on a regular basis—well than Mai supposed Saint Giles' staff probably had earned their jaded demeanours.

'Do you need help?' Mai asked the matron, but the woman swatted her away like a fly.

The shelter's canteen wasn't terribly busy and so Mai settled into a moulded-plastic chair and tried to keep cheerful by imagining all the awful comments that Naru would make about the place. The tea? Steeped soil. The ventilation? Venting inward the stench of motor oil and tempura. The furniture? Stolen from a preschool. The other 'guests'? Lunatics with no taste buds (as they appeared to be guzzling down the 'tea').

Exhaustion weighed heavy on her shoulders, and she put her head down on the cool table. Mai was out cold for several hours despite the uncomfortable chair and her troubled sleep.

Commencing months ago, her dreams took the form of violent, unrelated scenes that were strung together like grainy, badly edited frames on the local TV news. They occurred in rapid fire, with sounds and settings often overlapping, and Mai always woke in a sweat—as though she'd run a marathon through a hundred perverted minds. That was why she thought of them as marathon night terrors. The only times she felt she had some control were during the reoccurring scenes, such as the rioting art gallery. Through trial and error, she'd figured out that she could escape that particular scene by stepping into the exhibition's artwork. Usually she did not have an escape route, and to her great frustration, Mai now totally identified with poor Alice during her nightmare in Wonderland.

That afternoon in the Saint Giles canteen, the terrors loosened their grasp on Mai just as a corpse latched onto her shoulder—unfortunately, Mai lashed out and smacked a very real hand away.

Mai snapped her eyes open and stared at a shocked girl wearing a high school uniform. Scrambling to her feet, Mai bowed deeply. 'Please forgive me.'

The girl bowed as well. 'No, forgive me. I'm sorry to have startled you, Taniyama-san. I'm Atari Risa. I volunteer here at Saint Giles.' She smiled and put on a good show of concern. She reminded Mai of Michiru and Keiko. Innocent and excitable. She obviously had yet to be vomited upon by a 'guest'.

'I'm sorry, Atari-san, but is there a place I can bathe?' Mai asked, interrupting the girl's raving commentary about a charity auction in which Saint Giles was taking part.

The girl blinked her giant, childlike eyes. 'Y-yes,' she stammered before launching into a cheerful description of the western-style shower facilities and clothing donation box that Saint Giles provided for their 'guests'.

As it turned out, everything in the clothing donation box smelled of mothballs, talcum powder and vermin and was either made out of flannel or spandex. Never before in her life had Mai yearned for Gin Knockers' uniform skin-tight trousers.

With a belt-skirt, a pair of loafers and fishnet tights in hand, she crept into the bowels of Saint Giles to find the shower facilities. Lined with padlocked doors, the hallway took several strange twists before it broke off into the men's and the women's shower rooms.

The tiled cubicles were orange with mould and wads of hair protruded from the drains. Luckily a gargantuan spider stalked Mai from the ceiling and half distracted her from thoughts of communicable diseases. Plantar warts. Athlete's foot. Ringworms.

...

Slapping herself on both cheeks, Mai tried her best to put on her Gin Knockers game face. She had to keep cheerful. Fujiwara could never find out about her situation.

'Where's your uniform?' Saito Aoi asked, flicking her cigarette into the alleyway. She latched onto Mai's arm and dragged the younger girl into the light of Gin Knockers' backdoor. 'Hate the shoes, love the stockings, adore the skirt, your shirt reeks of smoke… and you're not wearing a scrap of makeup, and is your hair lopsided and burnt?'

Forcing a smile, Mai ran her fingers through her hair, which was exactly as Aoi described. 'Would you believe me if I told you that I burned my hair along with my makeup and my uniform and my apron?'

'Inside.' Aoi yanked open the backdoor. 'You are a pain in my ass. Let's fix you up before Fujiwara gets back.'

Mai sighed with relief. 'He's not here.'

'Lucky, eh?' She shoved Mai toward a stool. 'I've got to have something in here….' She muttered incoherently while she rifled through her oversized tote bag, pulling out everything from a pair of thongs to a curling iron.

Saito Aoi fit into Gin Knockers as though she were part of the furniture. Her knee-high boots were made of the exact same black-purple vinyl that covered the nightclub's booths. Her luminous green eye shadow matched the wallpaper, and her teeth were as crooked as the management. She headed the bar staff, wouldn't have anything to do with Fujiwara's hostess service, and was the most blunt person for whom Mai'd ever worked. Worse than Naru—and perhaps that was why Mai couldn't bring herself to hate Aoi. The woman always wore black, constantly drank tea and never said thank you.

'Scrub your face with this.' A damp tissue slapped against Mai's forehead. 'Do you trust me?' Mai scrubbed at her nose and glanced up at Aoi. The woman flicked open a switchblade. 'Tough.'

Aoi grasped a clump of Mai's hair and sawed it off.

Ten minutes later Aoi switched off the electric shaver and roughed a hand through Mai's hair as though she were enthusiastically petting a dog. 'It's the same cut that I gave my brother.'

'You gave me a boy's haircut?' Mai asked, staring down at the piles of auburn locks that littered the floor.

Aoi whacked Mai's head back and sprayed it with something foul. She swept the inch-long fringe to the side and nodded with artistic satisfaction. 'Don't worry. You're boobs balance it out. Or they will...' The woman held up a hot pink, pleather tube top. 'Put that on, and you can use Kiki's apron.'

'Won't Kiki need it?' Mai asked. Kiki was a flighty but well-liked barmaid.

'She's one of Fujiwara's now,' Aoi sneered. 'I look after you girls, and what thanks do I get? Kiki gives me no notice, and you show up like some kind of refugee.'

So Kiki was a hostess now. Mai bit her lip. She couldn't image why Kiki would do something like that. Sure, she'd never struck Mai as the brightest bulb in the box, but still….

Having struggled into the tube top locker-room-style, Mai spun on the stool. 'Will she be okay?'

'Shit. Don't start crying now. You've got to keep yourself together, Taniyama. And you've got a lot more important things to worry about than stupid Kiki.' She pinched Mai's chin. 'Listen to me, I don't care how you burnt your hair and lost your makeup—don't you go telling Fujiwara about it. I can't afford to lose more bar staff this week. If he asks where your uniform is, direct him to me. Now get over here and let me see your face.'

Aoi dropped Mai's chin and proceeded to engulf her in a cloud of white powder and a beating of brushes. She felt as though she were being forced through a drive-thru carwash—without the benefits of water and soap.

When Aoi finished, she stood back and assessed Mai as though she were a piece of Dadaist art. 'Well….' Aoi cocked her head. 'It's a look. Make it work.' She handed Mai a pair of stiletto boots. 'Now get out on the floor—you're late for your shift.'

Mai yanked on the boots, zipping them all the way above her knees, before putting on her apron. 'Aoi-san, thank—'

'You're late. Move before I dock your pay,' Aoi said, throwing her tote bag back on the coat rack and heading for the kitchen.

Mai nodded and tottered down the long corridor that led to the front-of-house. She longed to dart into the ladies toilet and see what she looked like, but Aoi had a fickle personality. She could easily go from makeover queen to bloodthirsty boss.

The steel door that separated the front- from back-of-house rumbled with the bass from the dance floor. Cracking open the door, the chill from the air conditioners swept over her body. Gin Knockers had been open for twenty minutes. Only a few customers had made their way past the doormen, ticket office and coat check—and most of them were gathered around the centre bar.

The centre bar staff were already in full swing, mixing drinks faster than humanly possible and beaming as though they couldn't think of anything better than prostrating themselves to the drunken hoards. And though Mai felt incredible respect for the centre bar staff, she thanked her stars that she never had to work with them. She definitely preferred her low-key bar, which was tucked off to the right of the main dance floor and catered to a more sedate crowd.

As Mai settled into her station, her colleagues threw her questioning looks, but everyone had too much to do to stop and chat. Anyway the Gin Knockers staff didn't share the same camaraderie that Mai'd loved about SPR. Shaking off the temptation to sulk, she logged into the till-system before starting her routine station and stock check.

The slow atmosphere was deceptive, and before midnight the club was packed. DJ Bling-Babe worked the turntables, adding random snips of English and warped sirens to the techno music. Occasionally strobes replaced the club's coloured spotlights, and fractions of time dropped away like frames spliced from a film. Fujiwara's hostesses acted as cocktail waitresses for VIPs while the normal crowd had to fight their way to the bars. They were mostly students and good-natured young professionals, and all they wanted was to drink and dance and crack a few jokes.

'You've got new hair,' Captain-san shouted across the bar. He was Mai's favourite regular—and he'd been so from the moment she met him. She suspected that he just had one of those likeable faces—the kind of person that, though you've never seen him before, you swear you've exchanged smiles with him a thousand times across a crowded room. The thirty-something-year-old man wore an eye-patch and always managed to look like he was tap-dancing, no matter what kind of music the DJ played.

'Does it look okay?' Mai asked, grabbing a bottle of rum and two tumblers. One tumbler for Captain-san and one for his young and beautiful—if vacant looking—boyfriend, whom Mai'd named Polly-kun. Shot measurements didn't apply to Captain-san's drinks, and the bottle glugged as she poured.

'You'd look good even if you shaved it,' he said. She exchanged the glasses for a wad of money large enough to cover the price of three bottles of bourbon. 'Keep the change.'

Knowing that arguing would only hold up the queue of customers, Mai nodded gratefully and pocketed the money. Captain-san and all her other well-tipping customers were the exact reason why Mai continued working at Gin Knockers. Though the hourly wage was ridiculously low and she was treated abysmally, she took home in tips double what any 'respectable' job would pay her, and she needed the money more than ever.

Being eighteen meant that she was no longer eligible for scholarships and the loan company could now hold her accountable for her mother's debts. The medical bills had been astronomical. Mai's stomach knotted at the memory of the first night that her mother's 'loan company' had come banging at her door. The beefy yakuza men made it perfectly clear that Mai had to make the huge monthly payments or they would liquidate her assets—Mai's person being foremost part of those assets. She couldn't ask Ayako or Bou-san for the cash—Ayako worked hard to not be dependent on her parents and Bou-san's band had yet to sign for a record deal; furthermore, she didn't want to drag anyone into her problems. Tips from customers, such as Captain-san, made the payments possible—and Mai maintained two white lies with the former-SPR irregulars. First she told them that she worked in a café and she had a cranky boss who did not like friends of staff dropping in. Substitute the word club for café, and it was true, though the guilt ate away at Mai like acid. Second she avoided the topic of school. She'd made it through the last term, and opted not to continue into the exam year. What was the point of revising for an exam on the university track? She'd never be able to afford university.

A group of drunken tourists leaned across Mai's section of the bar. 'Love you long time!' one guy said and then proceeded to chatter on in a language that Mai did not recognise. She ignored him and cracked open several bottles of beer. When he made a grab for her wrist, she smacked him away. The group complained loudly, and the guy reached for Mai again.

'Good evening, gentlemen.' Fujiwara, wearing a pinstriped suit and looking every inch the pimp he was, came to stand next to the drunken group. He assessed the men, from their designer shoes to their blond mop-like hair, and smirked. 'Could I interest you in our VIP service? Kiki-tan!' He snapped his fingers and Kiki slinked out of the shadows. 'Show these gentlemen to a booth in the balcony.'

Kiki's nearly non-existent tube dress—or perhaps it was better to say, the expanse of skin not covered by her nearly non-existent tube dress—drew the crowd away. Mai wouldn't be caught dead wearing something like that.

'This is a new look, Mai.' Mai bit down a shudder at Fujiwara's casual manner. 'Perhaps you'd like to explain where your uniform is?'

Mai licked her lips. 'Ask Saito-san.'

Fujiwara stared at her as though trying to read her mind. Seriously doubting that the man had any psychic ability, Mai affixed her trademark cheerful expression and accepted another generous tip from her customers.

'You better claim all those tips, Mai,' Fujiwara said. 'I don't want the bar staff bankrupting my establishment.'

'Of course I claim my tips!' Thirty-percent of them, to be exact. They all claimed exactly thirty-percent of their tips—that was the house rule—and what sleazy, greedy Fujiwara didn't know wouldn't hurt him. It wasn't stealing.

Mai's stomach lurched.

Perhaps it was stealing, but didn't her situation warrant it? Didn't she earn the money? Mai scrubbed at the tension beneath her eyes.

'Fujiwara, don't you have anything better to do than pester my staff?' Aoi asked, coming around the bar. 'Taniyama-san, hands off your face. You'll ruin your makeup.'

Mai nodded, sucking in a deep breath, and welcomed her next customer. It was only half-past-twelve. By last call, everyone looked alike, and it felt as though hot pokers carpeted the floor.

Mai stumbled as she handed Aoi the last of the empty glasses from her section of the bar. 'Learn to walk in those boots,' Aoi said.

How was she supposed to learn to walk in the boots when they were obviously too small? Her heels felt shredded to bits, and the stinging slipperiness could only be attributed to continued blood loss. Only the thumping of her apron against her thigh—the pockets heavy with the night's tips—kept a cheerful expression on her face.

As the other wait staff changed and headed home, Mai stashed her money and went to the storage closet to retrieve the mop. She never had to vacuum or sweep the club—the barmaids always took care of that while the barmen sorted stock behind the bar—but for a nice lump of cash more, she remained after hours and scrubbed the front of house floors. Not a glamorous job, but Mai could think of worse ways to make ends meet.

Lugging the bucket of hot water and bleach to the empty dance floor, Mai contemplated taking off her boots. The cleaning liquid would sting the open wounds on her feet. Typically she'd change into a tracksuit and a pair of trainers, but that wasn't an option tonight. Before tomorrow she'd have to go through the donations at Saint Giles again and see what other articles of clothing were available. It irked her that she hadn't thought of this before. Mai struggled out of the boots and wrung out the mop.

A pair of house shoes skidded across the floor and stopped centimetres from her bare feet.

'Aoi-san…?'

The older woman took a stool down from the bar and perched on it. 'I'm waiting for someone. Don't let me stop you.'

Mai slipped into the house shoes and returned to mopping. She hummed under her breath—a habit that she'd picked up from her mom—and forcing her exhaustion to the back of her mind, she took her time scrubbing every corner of the club. Do it and do it right. It wasn't a bad motto by which to live. Immense satisfaction could be found in simple proficiency. Cleaning floors, washing dishes, balancing a chequebook, filing bills, blending and steeping and serving tea. Do it and do it right. It had to pay off eventually.

When she finished her task, Mai lugged the bucket to the ladies' toilet and flushed the muddy contents. At the backdoor, Aoi stood waiting with a set of keys and a paper bag. Mai held out the house shoes to her.

'What would I want with those nasty things now? Leave them for tomorrow,' Aoi said.

Mai placed the shoes under the storage shelves. 'Thank you.'

'Hold this while I set the alarm.' Aoi handed her the paper bag. The heavy contents rattled.

The backdoor slammed shut, and deep in the club, the alarm beeped. 'I thought you were waiting for someone?' Mai asked, holding the bag out to Aoi.

'What gave you that idea?' Aoi asked, ignoring Mai's outstretched hand and proceeding out of the alley. Sunrise in the city was blue-black, gold and sickly green. 'Keep the bag, but you better listen to me. If I took in every wounded bird that came pecking at my window—well, let's just say that I'd have myself a zoo. And my building doesn't allow for pets. Am I making myself clear, or has the mixed metaphor confused you, Taniyama-chan?'

'This is your tips. Your tips from tonight,' Mai whispered, staring into the paper bag.

'And a bit more—but this is where my charity ends. Life's a bitch, sweetheart, so fuck her.'

'Excuse me?' Mai squeaked.

Aoi laughed and took a deep pull from her cigarette. 'Cute. You're too cute for your own good. Put that money in the bank, Taniyama-chan, and wipe that stupid expression off your face.'

'Yes!' Mai, clutching the paper bag to her chest, stumbled on the street curb.

Fisting Mai's shirt in one hand, Aoi dragged her out of the path of an approaching taxi. 'Jeez, kid, someone better send you a knight in shining armour fast—because I'm nobody's idea of a fairy godmother.'

...

Slumped in his study in Cambridgeshire, a brooding narcissist stared at a faded photograph of two-dozen grubby-faced orphans. A cup of tea sat at the far end of his desk—cold, brackish and untouched.