The Last Button on Wood Street

Bianka danced all night with Igor, left him in a spree. A baby in a rucksack, his wallet in her teeth. She sold her son in Northampton, because Igor’s credit cards turned to dust. For three thousand quid, then Valium, she glimpsed at some kind of lust.

Misses her solder boy sometimes, he is never going to call. What the fuck did she expect from him, when she fleeced him down the hall? His eyes were as black as jet that day, his tears as real as rain. He was nothing but a hard luck story, another sucker on her vine.

She sews multicolored buttons now. Orange, blue and white. Buttons are her pennies, and pennies are her life. Washes her clothes with Palmolive, scuffs her boots with a felt tip pen. Christmas cracker Jewellery from Krakow, face made up like a setting flan.

She’s out tonight in Primark. Revlon, Red Bull, revenge. It’s the scraping hour, the loss of power. The thin end of the wedge.

Seething in the Plough in Wood Street, She could suck this whole world off for joy. Peanuts, bugs and betting slips, furnish a linoleum fray.

There’s a pound coin resting against the skirting board, drops her handbag close for distraction. She picks it up with a knuckle grip, clicks sprightly out to the junction.

Outside the wind cries merry. There is a dog with a fox in its jaw. A piss and shit telephone box. A dialing tone for this drawn, rusty whore.

‘Igor. Igor?’