My name is Fay

My name is Fay - 5

Time passed while I sat there, my mind blank apart from the one wish that a bottle of gin would appear next to me so that I could drown my sorrows and I wouldn't have to think about them. I knew people who vaguely heard of me would refer to me as the 'shining star of Whitechapel,' and as I sat there, I felt my star begin to fade. There was only so much positive thinking I could do in my life, surely? Maybe I had used all of mine up in the slightly over two decades I had spent breathing on these streets. I closed my eyes, letting my head fall forward onto my chest, some hidden instinct making me be as small as possible.

My body clock told me night had passed, and the dawn light was starting to filter through the thick smog, dirty dappled light falling on my face. This was probably the cleanest time of day, before the factories started up their machines. The poor workers whose job it was to power them hurried by, blending into the dark wall behind them, for they were as black as the smoke which poured out the chimneys, day after day. I had managed to fall into a fitful sleep, haunted by my family and a ghost of Jack in the distance. I lay there for a while my eyes still closed, refusing to accept that I was still here. I knew other people would just pass me by, me looking like one of the drunken prostitutes I passed so often when I went about my day. I always felt sorry for the poor souls, which always earned me a scornful comment from my so-called family if I ever said anything. Sometimes I felt like I had a heart which could never harden to Whitechapel standards, but there was no other place for me to go.

Just as I am about to open my eyes to face the day, and try to find a way back to where I recognise, I hear a voice.

'Fay? What you doing here? I didn't know you drank, honey. Whitechapel taking its toll?'

My eyes flutter open as I recognise the voice I thought I might never hear again.

'Mary? Mary-Jane? Is that you?' I know I sound a bit childish, and maybe even retarded, but the voice of my one true childhood friend was the one I thought I would never hear again.

'Sure is, sweetie, sure is. Come on, I'll get you a drink and we can have a chat about... everything, really." Her sweet and pretty face smiled down at me as she helped me to my feet. I blinked to clear the last of the gunk out of my eyes, and looked around, shocked. This is the street I would walk down every day after work, where Giles lives. I didn't have a clue how I got here and I didn't really want to know if it involved talking to that bastard Jack again. I crinkled my forehead, more for myself than anything, and shook my head. I told Mary-Jane that I didn't drink, not yet anyway, and I gave myself a silent reprimand. I tried not to swear at anything, and I wasn't going to let Jack change me for the worse. It might have seemed like I was trying too hard to be like a little angel in the dirty streets, but I saw it as a downward spiral of alcohol and fights. I wasn't an angel anyway, and Jack especially should know that, I thought, thinking of the time I first met him on my way to my doss-house.

I chatted to my childhood friend about nothing on the way to the pub, as I guessed that was where we were going. At a face value, it would seem like we had just started again where we left off, but we were both trying to keep the conversation light to avoid the question slowly burning though my brain towards my mouth. Last night was the second time I would have turned to the bottle if there had been one, and Mary had been the cause of the first time. I tried not to think about it though, reassuring myself that she would have a sound reason for leaving like she did.

We seat ourselves at the very pub off Mitre Square where I work. The barman, my boss, glares at me as he approaches. I glare right back. I know the question he would ask me, and I knew the reply I would give.

'And where were you last night, Miss Fay?' He sneers, casting a quick, approving glance over at Mary-Jane. She did generally have that effect on most people, maintaining the amount she drunk to a glamorous amount that would be respectable at wild parties and considered sober in most of Whitechapel. She smoked too, the thick cigars favoured by upper-middle class men, when she could get her hands on them. I had no taste for them personally, finding the heady tobacco cough-inducing on my lungs, though Mary herself swore they were good for you.