Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

steps into the bright sunshine. On the way out, she sees the winking old man. It turns out he has a twitch, and was not trying to flirt at all. He has emerged from the doctor with a patch and looks considerably more distinguished.

Precious stops at the street market. There are stalls selling clothes, second-hand vinyl, cheese and chutney, and a couple of fruit and veg stalls that have been there since Precious can remember. She goes to one of them and considers buying a fresh pineapple. It would be nice to have it in the flat even if she never gets around to eating it. People buy flowers to decorate their homes, so why not fruit? She picks a pineapple from the crate and inspects it for bruises, turning it this way then that, lifting it to her nose. It smells of honey and moss. Satisfied, she passes it to the grocer. As he folds the pineapple inside the brown paper bag, she plans her lunch. She will make a curry and use the pineapple. She asks the man to wait, and she assembles more fresh ingredients: broccoli, onions, ginger, chilies. She has some specialist pastes in her fridge and spices in jars. She wants something hot. Something that will raise her heart rate and make her eyelids tingle. Something that will get her in the mood for a fight and keep her on her feet all afternoon.

She hands over each additional item, and he wraps them in brown paper bags. She pays and walks from the market to her house with two full bags of shopping in each hand. The straps draw red grooves in her fingers, and she can feel the weight pulling her elbows and wrists. Sometimes, she notices her spine curling to a slouch and corrects her posture. The action reminds her of the remonstrance of a mother, far off, and a grandmother, far off, possibly deceased.

The prospect of the protest later makes her feel uneasy. The first one, a month ago, attracted a large crowd and press attention, but Precious is worried the novelty of their cause will have worn off. For the last few days, she has checked the weather forecast regularly. She can’t imagine many people will want to come along if it rains. The Met Office has predicted sunshine with intermittent cloud cover, and the possibility of a deluge at three o’clock. The protest begins at two.

Precious looks at the sky. It is currently a bright blue, but there are storm clouds in the distance, sitting somewhere over south-west London. Hopefully there will be enough time to gather, have a bit of a shout, get the message across, and hand out flyers before the heavens open. Most of the organization for the event was done by some enthusiastic activists who have become involved, but she still feels responsible for its success. She feels as if she has organized a party, and must now wait, done up in her best clothes, to see if anyone will come, dance, eat the finger food.

In the last few months, the question of the brothel has attracted an unexpected amount of attention. Not one but several feminist groups have taken up their cause, either in support of the sex workers or in support of the “prostituted women.” The former assortment of well-wishers campaigns in favor of them remaining in their homes and continuing to practice their trade. The latter view them as the victims of pimps, johns and, on a larger scale, the patriarchy itself, in which they and their bodies are unwittingly commodified. They tried to persuade Precious and the others not to be prostitutes, and they also colluded with the police. Tabitha went and told this lot to fuck off.

Some religious groups also tried to get involved. Although they looked different from the feminists and used different words, their aims were more or less the same: Precious and the others needed to be rescued and they were the only ones who could do it. There was also much discussion of daughters. They were all “daughters,” “our daughters,” “somebody’s daughter,” “imagine it was your daughter.” Precious has no daughters so presumably can’t pass comment.

For Precious, the situation has become tedious. She was grateful for the support at first, but she doesn’t like having to justify her existence and pretty much all of her life choices to several people every day. Precious isn’t oblivious to these competing views, but she tries to ignore them. For her, it is just a job. She does it for the money. She doesn’t much like it or enjoy it, but she didn’t much enjoy her previous employment either, and at least in her current occupation she has no boss, she keeps all the money she earns, she can take days off whenever she likes, and she has no commute.

Precious thinks her life is okay. She doesn’t mind the work. It’s only sex, for fuck’s sake. She doesn’t get what the big deal is. She never has. It is a thing you do with bits of your body. It sometimes feels good. It sometimes feels a bit uncomfortable.

When she worked in the beauty parlor in Highgate, she once accidentally dripped a tiny amount of hot wax onto the leg of an important customer and, despite admitting her mistake, and apologizing, the client slapped her across the face. She complained to her boss but the boss sided with the client and docked her a week’s pay. In her current line of work, when a punter gets aggy, Tabitha phones downstairs and the bouncers come and take the man away and kick the shit out of him.

Precious knows this set-up is unusual, and she is unique within the brothel for having only experienced this arrangement. Tabitha has lived in different circumstances. Before coming to Soho and retiring from sex, she worked in every type of horrible situation. She used to live in Chapeltown, a district of Leeds. She was pimped, she walked the