Dina, here to stay and hungry for adventure

She might not belong in the glittering, gritty world of London’s Soho but Dina wants nothing more than to fit in. After all, when you’re a 26-year-old seamstress from Cyprus, what could be more exciting? She’s desperate to build a bigger, better life for herself, but she lives with her controlling brother, Peter. With his gambling habit and talent for bad decisions, he could be her biggest liability. And then there’s her new best friend, Bebba. Glamorous, irreverent, how could someone who’s so much fun possibly wreck her whole future?

Bebba sat me down on her bed and got me to close my eyes while she applied black eyeliner and a ruby-red lipstick, a darker shade than I’d usually wear. When she’d finished she pulled me over to the dressing table and we put our faces next to each other and stared at our reflections, turning our heads this way and that.
‘We’re like twins,’ she laughed. And although we looked nothing alike, I loved the idea and agreed.
‘I look older like this, more sophisticated,’ I said.
‘Well of course you do.’ She patted down my hair to try and get the curls to lay flat. ‘You’ve always had it in you – it was just a case of teasing it out.’
I was stung that she thought I needed so much help. I had to stop being so sensitive.

Bebba, her charismatic best friend

With her bleached-blonde hair and leopard-skin coat, Bebba looks like she’s stepped off the silver screen. But behind the impeccable exterior, she’s keeping a secret that threatens to unravel all their lives. 

After bolting the door behind her, Bebba slipped out of her pointed-toe shoes and placed them neatly against the wall. Then she walked to the battered wardrobe, put her finger under the metal filigree handle and pulled. There it was. She leaned over the grey suitcase and let her fingertips stroke the sturdy, hard shell.
Suddenly she was aware of a gnawing sensation in her stomach. Maybe she should eat? But she looked at the loaf of bread on the counter and couldn’t bring herself to start cutting and toasting now. And anyway, the baklava and kaffe had left her jittery and a little nauseous.
Grabbing the crocheted blanket, she lay down and wrapped herself tight in its multi-coloured squares. God, being Bebba exhausted her; all that perkiness, all that sparkle. She could never go back, she knew that. As sleep pulled her in tightly, she heard a soft, long wheeze. She sat up with a start.
The wardrobe door had swung open and there sat the suitcase, watchful. She slid back down.

Peter, Dina’s controlling brother

There are those who wait for life to happen, and those who grab it. And Peter reckons he’s the latter. After all, if you don’t take risks you get left behind. But what happens when the stakes are high and the risks don’t pay off? When you’re left spinning out of control?

The skin under his brow was as shiny and plump as a fresh red tomato and his eye had swollen shut.
‘Come here.’ I walked him to the sink and ran the tap. ‘Who did this to you?’
‘Don’t fuss, Dina. It doesn’t matter.’
I pulled a white handkerchief from the chest of drawers and held it under the cold water.
‘Was it money or a woman?’
He whipped the hanky out of my hand and walked to the mirror above the sink. He didn’t say anything, which was the same as saying everything. He flexed his right hand over the sink and I noticed that his fist was swollen and the skin on his knuckles was shredded. Gravel was embedded in the wound. I took his hand and held it under the running water and even though he flinched he let me keep it there. The dirt and blood swirled around the tiny sink before glugging down the drain.
‘Was she worth fighting over?’ I asked.
He smirked. ‘Her husband thought so.’
After I cleaned him up, he got changed and sat on my bed. His black Brylcreemed hair fell in a cowlick over his forehead and as he sat there in his blue and white candy-striped pyjamas and puffy eye he looked like a hoodlum roused from sleep.