She dropped her cigarette, ground it under her fleeced boot, and blew Lucky a kiss, disappearing through the back door. A few minutes later, it sprang open again. A colossal man was making his way out, dipping his huge bald head under the doorframe to avoid collision. He was wearing a loose black leather waistcoat that several cows must have been sacrificed to make. Around his thick neck hung a silver chain with a chunky skull pendant hanging off it. He looked at her and smiled.
“You forget something, love?”
Lucky cleared her throat.
“Do you remember me? I was here on Friday.”
He barked a laugh.
“You mean the Toffs Gone Wild party? Sorry, sweetheart, there were too many to keep track of. What you looking for though? I can check the back to see if it’s there.”
Lucky felt like an idiot. What was she looking for? But she had come all this way and she had to at least try.
“You said something to me,” she said. “You don’t remember?”
BFG narrowed his eyes at her and took a wary step back.
“I’ve never made a pass at a patron,” he said. “Whoever you’re thinking of, it weren’t me.”
“No, no.” Lucky waved her hands to dispel this line of thought. “You said something about my sister Nicky. About me…” She was cringing, but she had to say it. “Always being her baby,” she said quietly.
BFG tilted his head to the side like a large bird and eyed her with curiosity.
“I don’t know a Nicky,” he said. “She was at the party too?”
Lucky shook her head. She was not being very clear, she could see.
“She’s dead,” she said simply.
BFG looked aghast.
“She died after the party?”
“No, she died last year of an overdose. I thought…I just thought you said you knew her.”
He seemed to relax at this, nodding his head in understanding.
“Ah. Sorry to hear that. Terrible thing, drugs. Enough to put you right off ’em.”
Lucky nodded her head in a vague gesture of assent, though, of course, Nicky’s death seemed to have had the opposite effect on her. Lucky had always been a hard partyer, but for the past year she had to admit it had taken on a death-defying edge that was new, even for her.
“Stick with booze, I always say,” he added.
“So you don’t know Nicky?” Lucky clarified.
BFG shook his head.
“Sorry, love. I know a Becky if that helps?”
Lucky looked at her feet. She was sure she had heard him say it. She felt as if she was going mad. Of course, she hadn’t exactly been in a lucid state of mind. But it felt so real, like a message just for her, a sunbeam piercing through the mist. Nicky’s baby. Could her unconscious have known she wanted a message from her sister so badly she hallucinated it? She must have been even more fucked-up that night than she thought. When she glanced back up, BFG was looking over her head thoughtfully. He was a man who spent his life looking over others’ heads.
“People have a hard time talking about death,” he said. “You find that? After my dad died, no one knew what to say.”
“Yup,” said Lucky. “It sucks.”
She was wasting her time. BFG didn’t know Nicky; no one here did. She’d been a fool to come.
“It wasn’t a good moment for him, my dad,” BFG continued, oblivious. “Imagine it was the same with your sister.”
“Did he…with drugs?” asked Lucky.
“Nah, ’anged ’imself. Same thing, though, innit?”
Lucky looked away down the alley. She didn’t want to argue with this man, but it was not the same thing. Nicky had been taking the painkillers in order to live, not die. BFG lit a cigarette and Lucky joined him, shaking one out from the pack she’d won at the pub. That already felt like a different day entirely. He proffered a lighter and Lucky leaned over the flame, their eyes meeting in a moment of pleasurable collusion.
“You have fun at the party, at least?” he asked.
Lucky was about to give one of her usual vague responses, then stopped herself.
“I got too fucked-up and I barely remember a thing,” she said. “Except that I really upset my sister. The eldest one,” she added. “Not Nicky.”
The man tutted.
“That’s bad, that is. You should watch it. We had a regular whose nose caved in from coke. Got one big nostril instead of two now, I’m not pissing you.”
Lucky laughed in spite of herself.
“I’ll be careful.”
