Pretty Ugly Place

By Sasha McCallum

With little to her name until her separation settlement, Annalise winds up in a public housing development where she meets someone she didn't expect. Mina has lived on the block for two years, she's educated but, more crucially, streetwise, offering a supportive friendship in the new environment. What should be the worst period of Annalise's life, turns into a revelation, loaded with possibility.
A dialogue-heavy story of digging beneath the surface to find trust, laughter and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sasha McCallum
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463416662

Sasha McCallum

"Talent and success are perpendicular to each other." Sergei Dovlatov

Book preview

Pretty Ugly Place

By Sasha McCallum

Copyright 2019 © Sasha McCallum

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to your dealer and buy a copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Other titles

Chapter 1

Annalise's arms were lean and not particularly strong, they tired fast hauling grocery bags home; it was fortunate they put her in a flat so close to a supermarket.

That she'd had to give up her opulent deli foods and her bags now contained questionable budget items didn't bother her. She missed her car though; she'd always felt safer in the car than the house, it was her sanctuary. Registered in her name, her solicitor assured her it wasn't part of any legal battle and she would have it back pronto. She knew Lyle would be making his job as difficult as possible.

She exited the parking lot and started north along Merton Street.

Kowhai and bare cherry blossom trees lined these roads; she could imagine the scent in the air when spring hit in a few weeks.

A slim blonde walked a hundred metres ahead of her, ambling with all the time in the world. The same woman who had captured her attention around the council buildings.

A police car screeched past, siren blaring, and she appraised the woman's figure from behind. She wore faded jeans, heavily scuffed Converse chucks and a plain wool jumper, long hair pulled back in a loose knot. Her clothing was tight enough to suggest the curves beneath. The kind of curves in all the right places that meant she surely exercised to keep unwanted weight off.

Lyle had paid for Annalise to have personal trainer; this woman wasn't wealthy, maybe she would have tips on how to stay in shape without money. It seemed as good excuse as any to talk to her.

An object fell to the sidewalk behind the woman as she walked, inattentive—luck liked Annalise today. She boosted her pace and identified a pair of sunglasses, cheap but chic. She must've had them hanging from a pocket, the sun had dropped below the horizon only within the hour.

Annalise picked them up, pushed them in a bag and hurried to catch up to the blonde.

Her walk was not a meandering, carefree one, as Annalise first thought, but difficult, like she dragged her feet through mud. She carried no bag and kept her hands stuffed in her pockets. The walk of someone struggling to put one foot in front of the other, because, after all, what lay ahead to get to? Annalise knew it well enough.

She tried to get the blonde's attention as she got closer. It took three Excuse me's and another surge in pace before she paused and finally turned to look curiously at Annalise who approached flustered.

It's hard to get your attention, she puffed as she stopped in front of the woman.

Sorry, she responded. I make this walk with my head in the clouds.

Her make-up was light; a little eye-liner, foundation, maybe a dash of lip colour. Up close, her almond-shaped, pale emerald eyes were celestial in the slowly dwindling light of early evening. To stop herself staring, Annalise surveyed the light traffic passing.

Get to the point, you noodle.

She set her bags down, pulled the glasses from one and held them out.

You dropped these back there a bit. Shame, to cover eyes like that.

Thanks. The woman accepted and fitted them to the top of her head. She gestured at Annalise's bags. You're carrying all that and you still stopped to pick up my glasses.

Of course. She struggled to get her bag straps back into her hands.

Let me help, Blondie said and reached for a couple.

Thanks. Annalise smiled shyly. I've seen you around. She gave her a sidelong look as they made their way to Flora Grove. The blonde's movements were immediately different when they resumed walking—there was a spring in her step. Annalise wondered if it was a deception or because she was actually happy to have company. You live in 7, the big building.

Third floor. I've seen you too, they put you in 29, didn't they?

Yes. How's the view from your place? I thought it looked like— She felt the woman sidling closer as they walked, uncomfortably so for a stranger. She reflexively widened the gap between them. It was terribly noticeable; she cringed.

I'm sorry, the woman said. It's just that you speak so quietly, I can hardly hear you.

Oh. Her embarrassment flourished. She raised her voice, I know. It's something I'm working on.

The blonde head nodded with little expression.

The view is good, she returned smoothly to the previous topic. Alternately entertaining, heart-breaking, amusing; scary, depending on the day. I can see 28 and 29 well on the eastern side.

A good spying position? Thankfully her voice maintained a level of confidence.

You're hard to miss. Pretty, prime-of-your-life, white, dressed the way you do. Doesn't happen a lot around here. We get pensioners, crazies, criminals, ex-criminals and, of course, their children and their children's children.

You're there, she pointed out, because the adjectives could easily be used to describe Green Eyes herself and she needed something to cover a blush at the cursory compliment.

The woman stopped and turned to Annalise. She spread her arms and testified, My clothes are from The Warehouse and Save Mart. You must have paid a small fortune for that coat, I can literally smell the money on you.

But I don't have any money on me.

She snorted. Clever. So, no money, but brains. Brains are better.

She hadn't been trying to be clever but okay, cool. Annalise felt shy, anxiety pinching at her. Unconsciously, she lowered her voice back to whisper level.

He let me take my clothes. At least a police liaison got him to. Some of them anyway.

I see, came the consummately simple response and Annalise felt like hugging her for accepting the sentence without pity or questions. You haven't been here long.

Two weeks. I've only said hi to a couple of people. I noticed you because you looked around my age and always seem to be alone. She cut off, embarrassed.

Always alone... the blonde said distractedly, turned and offered a half-smile. I'm at ease alone.

She seemed genuine, but Annalise didn't believe her. All the same, she wondered if it would ever be a sentence she could claim for herself with any certainty. She must have looked lost because the emerald eyes narrowed at her in thought.

Is the flat habitable? she asked as they approached the front door to number 29.

Yes. The important thing is, it's mine—I can do whatever I want.

The blonde set her bags on the front steps. Thanks for picking up my glasses.

Thank you for helping with my stuff.

I'm sure I'll see you around, she said then turned and walked toward her own building.

Nice to meet you, Annalise said softly, disappointed.

Unloading her bags in the tiny kitchen, the green eyes drifted through her mind. They hadn't even met, they hadn't exchanged names. Maybe she seemed too needy. She must have, she was needy.

Annalise had called the council development home for fourteen days. Funny how they called them developments. They were dotted in every town in the country and all had varying bad reputations. Cheap housing magnetized desperate people. And now, she was one of those desperate people.

After the final rupture with Lyle, she'd spent a night in hospital before the police had placed her with Woman's Refuge, in a stifling house with other abuse victims—this did not suit her; it only heightened the shame of her situation. She was moved quickly into emergency accommodation, which amounted to a cheap motel, until Housing NZ offered her the flat at Flora Grove in a northern suburb of Wellington.

The other end of the island from Lyle. It seemed admissible.

Through these weeks she was questioned by lawyers and police so the separation settlement would be to her benefit. She barely registered the meetings. It was the counsellors who made the biggest impact—patient and gentle, they had experience with bringing people like her back to life.

Now she had more secure accommodation, was far away from Lyle and using a name he was unlikely to find her under, she was working her way back to what she'd been before her marriage. Herself.

Sequestered in her privileged Hillsborough house, these areas had seemed a galaxy away. News reports constantly leaked out about shootings, stabbings; drug-deals gone wrong, gang wars, but she could only hazily connect those stories to the place she was living now.

The buildings were ugly and apparently placed without designated layout, but the rest was pretty with its neatly trimmed patches of grass and alliance of evergreen and deciduous trees.

There were two main sister buildings, three storey's in height, standing opposite each other with a stretch of green in between. Around them, small, prefabricated, single-storey flats assembled.

She was timid when she first arrived; she would be timid for a while yet, as Blondie had almost certainly observed by the reduced volume of her voice. But it was passing with regard to her new environment.

It didn't feel like the news reports made the places out to be.

The flat was small and dusty, but it was functional. She'd attempted to personalise the inside without the money to do so. What she could afford was paper and pencils—these she bought, used, and hung the sketches she created compulsively all over her walls. It was an act of joy and defiance.

She drew everything, but she liked recreating the scenes around her most. It was all so new. She felt she'd figured something out once she'd drawn it. Felt more comfortable with views simply knowing she could reproduce them.

There were usually people knocking about outside. The chatter, laughter and music from the surrounding flats made her feel like a part of life. She had never felt that with Lyle, in that overcompensation of a house and all those extravagant gifts he bought in apology. She had never agreed with the adage 'money doesn't buy happiness' more than now. The big downside was the music from next door, which sometimes went late into the night. But since she had no early schedule to keep, it didn't pose a problem yet.

When she woke in the morning she was relaxed; there would be no unpredictable moods and withering looks at breakfast, no demands. She could eat what she wanted, or not at all if it suited her. Those first few mornings, she lay in bed with a smile on her face, listening to the dawn chorus of birds. The pest eradication programme meant birds were thriving and she heard the calls of bellbirds, fantails, the strange cackle and screech of the tui with its white plumage and, at night, the elusive morepork. On top of this, she was surprised (and increasingly titillated) to discover she could hear a woman having sex in the next flat most mornings. She seemed to enjoy it, the moans didn't sound faked, though Annalise was no expert in that area.

She was, for the first time in six years, if not happy, content.

Loneliness hadn't registered for a while after she left Lyle because the relief of being free of him was too great. Peace and quiet was exactly what she needed to sort her head out. It only