Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  She’d written daily. Long letters. Since the day he’d been taken. Long chatty letters, full of day-to-day minutiae and, because she was mindful that her letters would be read by other people, only very lightly sprinkled with coy references to sex. In return, despite him having all the time in the world, she was in possession of just the one reply. Which had at first upset her, it being full of self-pity and recriminations, and the sort of ‘me, me, me, me’ stuff Lucy was constantly pointing out to her. And very little, bar a crude ‘I hope you’re keeping it warm for me’, in the way of wondering how she was getting on.

  But when Vicky read to the end she understood things a little better. Paper and stamps both cost money (a prison reality she’d never thought about) and why would he need to be the one writing the letters to her anyway? He was stuck in a prison, with nothing to tell her, so why waste money on paper when he could at least buy a few cigs – anything to help him get through the endless grey days. And Paddy’d never been much of a one for wearing his heart on his sleeve. Why would that suddenly change? And would she want it to? She’d never been one for wet lads, after all.

  No, her letters to him were the things that most mattered. And now, in a matter of less than half an hour, she’d be seeing him in the flesh, the thought of which gave her butterflies. And made her heart leap, as if anxious to get there quicker.

  HMP Armley looked like a castle, Vicky thought. Not a fairy-tale castle – it could never be that – but with its towering stone walls, its giant doors and its turrets, the sort of castle you’d see in a film about the olden days – you could almost imagine it being stormed by knights on horseback.

  As it was, it was being stormed – albeit quietly and politely – by a small army of visitors, mainly women and children, some with babies hooked around their hips, many done up to the nines for their men. (Keeping it warm? The phrase couldn’t help but return to her.) But most of them wore the same sombre, almost defeated expressions of people who had to be somewhere they didn’t want to be.

  Joining the queue for entry, and clutching her vital piece of paper, Vicky wondered at the way the next few months were going to go. The curious business of her being ordered here once a fortnight (it was a visiting ‘order’ after all) in much the same way that Leanne had told her she’d be summoned to the baby clinic to check on her and the baby’s progress.

  ‘First time?’

  Having been silent for so long now, and still trying to take everything in, Vicky started at being spoken to. It was by an older woman – in her thirties, perhaps, and accompanied by two whey-faced children – who was behind her in the signing-in queue. The woman smiled. One of her front teeth was missing, and Vicky found herself wondering if the man she had come to visit had been the one to knock it out. She’d been studying everyone with the same ghoulish fascination, wondering what the men they were visiting were in for. Whose partner was a murderer? Whose son was a burglar? Whose brother was convicted of rape or assault?

  ‘Thought so,’ the woman said, seemingly pleased at her deduction. ‘You got that look about you. Don’t worry though. The natives are friendly. Well, mostly!’ She nudged Vicky’s arm and laughed. ‘My Don has his moments,’ she added brightly.

  The woman’s words struck a chord, and Vicky found herself looking into a future that she did not want to see. How often did these children get to see their father? Once a fortnight, for an hour? And for how long had that been? And for how long would it be? Half their childhoods? If she resolved anything – which was hard, because Paddy did what Paddy wanted – it was that she would do anything she could to ensure he was never locked up again.

  Still, the woman, for all that her life seemed to be the one Vicky least wanted, was helpful and cheerful and reassuring in the face of all the strangeness. She explained that after signing in, being patted down and surrendering her handbag to a locker, she’d be given a number and shown into a waiting room. There, amid a batch – there were various concurrent visiting sessions – she’d hear her number called and a guard would take her in.

  ‘They let you keep your purse, love,’ the woman explained. ‘You’ve brought some money with you, have you? There’s vending machines, see. So you can have a cuppa together. They like to be a bit spoilt on a visit, of course.’ She smiled. ‘And there’s usually home-made cakes and stuff, and all.’

  As if it was a school fete, or something. As if all of this was normal.

  The vending machine was the first thing Vicky did see – standing like a sentinel at the back of a room full of tables, at which of each sat a prisoner. The tables were set in rows, like exam desks laid out in a school gymnasium, except here, in place of invigilators in suits, who smelled of chalk, there were prison guards, unmoving, like stone pillars.

  Her batch of visitors began to stream out around her. And soon the silence was replaced by a hubbub of noise. Chairs being scraped back. Throats being cleared. Greetings, exchanges of kisses, the whoops of excitable children. The sharp shushings of mothers and soft cooings of fathers. It was almost like Vicky imagined a reunion after a war.

  She felt nervous and exposed, anxious to pick Paddy out in the sea of blue prison garb, but at the same time anxious about meeting his gaze, as well. Glancing around, watching women sitting down opposite their menfolk, she wished she’d decided to dress differently. Here, in the uniform world of the prison, the sense of occasion was only heightened further. Painted fingernails. Giant hairdos, glued in place by cans of hairspray, tight jeans, killer heels … even in her best jeans and a little white broderie anglaise top Paddy liked her in, she felt she’d not made enough effort. Was that what you did, though? Tarted yourself up to remind them what they were missing? Had she read how you did this all wrong?

  But there he was, and the look in his eyes reassured her. And his smile. It was just so obvious how pleased he was to see her. Perhaps absence really did make the heart – his heart – grow fonder. Perhaps this enforced separation would be good for them both.

  ‘Alright, babe?’ he drawled, as she hurried across to him and pulled her chair out. Then he half stood to embrace her, and kissed her hard, on the mouth. He smelt different. Clean, but still different.

  Vicky took her seat, feeling embarrassed by the ardour of Paddy’s kiss. She glanced across at two officers who were talking in low voices. About her?

  ‘Ignore the screws,’ Paddy said, his hands palm up on the table, ready to grasp hers. She placed hers in his. ‘You look nice, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Like I remember.’

  Like he was remembering. Remembering her unclothed. He didn’t need to say it. ‘It’s only been a fortnight, babes,’ she said. ‘How much was I going to change?’

  He squeezed her hands, sliding his thumbs back and forth over her palms. ‘I’m just so glad you didn’t plaster your face like the rest of the slappers that come in here. Bunch of tarts. Fuck me,’ he added, leaning in towards her, ‘I’ve missed you.’

  Relaxing now, she smiled at him. ‘How are you coping, babe? I miss you too.’ And as he squeezed her hands again, so gently, she almost told him, but he spoke first, glancing from side to side, as if he was a spy or something.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘But I tell you what, babes, I’ve had time to do some serious thinking. And I’ve worked it out. It’s all down to that fucking Jimmy Daley.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Don’t be dense, babe. The reason I’m fucking in here. How else would his dad have known? I’ve worked it all out, babe, like I said. He’s got someone on my case. And he grassed me up to his dad. It had to be him. Who else could it have been?’

  Vicky knew she wouldn’t have been the only thing on Paddy’s mind. But even so, his insistent tone made her anxious. ‘But how would Jimmy have known?’

  She wasn’t about to say so, but she knew Paddy had lied to her about that evening. And Gurdy too, albeit to protect her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but she had proof that he’d lied about the video recorders, because she’d since
found out that he’d pleaded guilty to some of the car-related charges. Why would he do that if he could prove that he hadn’t even been there?

  ‘Because fucking Gurdy knew!’ Paddy said. ‘Or at least he had half an idea, the little Paki fucker.’

  ‘Gurdy? Grass you up? He’d never do that, babe, never.’

  Paddy let go her hands, leaned back, and then leaned in again. ‘He must have. I can’t think of any other explanation, can you?’

  ‘But he’s your friend—’

  ‘And his too. They’re both up each other’s fucking arses, aren’t they?’

  ‘No they’re not. Paddy, Gurdy is your friend,’ Vicky insisted. ‘He wouldn’t say anything, especially not to Jimmy. He knows how the two of you are. Honestly, babe,’ she added, hating that she had come all this way – all this fucking way – and having to sit here and to defend bloody Gurdy. She still had to though. ‘Babes, he just wouldn’t.’

  All the warmth seemed to drain out of Paddy’s face. ‘Why’d you do that?’ he asked her.

  ‘Do what?’ she said,

  ‘Do that.’ He waved a hand languidly in her direction. ‘Go against me.’

  ‘I’m not going against you. I’m just saying—’

  ‘Where’s your fucking loyalty? Seriously, Vic. I mean, shouldn’t you be on my side in this?’

  ‘It’s not a question of sides, Paddy,’ she told him, feeling her hackles rise despite herself. ‘I just think – no, I know – you are barking up the wrong tree. Gurdy adores you—’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t.’

  ‘Babes, you know I do—’ She snaked a hand across the table. He withdrew his. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the nearest guard was watching.

  Paddy pouted now, and she knew he was tempering his response for their benefit. He stretched his hand out, then his other. She enveloped both, feeling ridiculously as if they were about to play that school game, where you kept pulling out the bottom hand and slapping it down on top.

  ‘Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,’ he said mildly. ‘You think all your mates are such fucking goody two-shoes, don’t you? But I’m telling you now, Vic,’ he added, in the same incongruously mild tone of voice. ‘None of them, none of them, can be trusted, you hear me?’

  A different prison guard stopped by their table, making Vicky start. ‘We’re not having any problems here, are we?’ he said softly. ‘Only, you are looking a little bit agitated, Mr Allen, and we can stop a visit if it proves to aggravate a man.’ He turned to look at Vicky. ‘Hmm?’

  She smiled at the officer. ‘Everything’s fine here, thank you,’ she said politely. ‘So,’ she added, turning back to Paddy, ‘shall I get us some cake?’

  The taxis were lined up and waiting when Vicky emerged. Plenty for everyone who wanted one. A bumper profit day. And she was lucky to get a bus almost immediately once back in Leeds, for the hour or so’s trip back to Bradford Interchange.

  It had got better. A little better. He had calmed himself down. They’d eaten cake – something with poppy seeds that lodged in her teeth – about which they’d laughed, and which he’d tenderly got rid of. She’d hang on to that. The words he’d mouthed as he’d touched his nail to her tooth. The way he’d slipped it along her gum, mouthing things that made her blush. The way he’d told her how he physically ached for her.

  Yes, she’d hang on to that. Not the stuff about her not going out. Not the stuff about how there were people on the inside who knew all about what happened on the outside. Not the stuff about how it would be best if she didn’t hang around with Lucy – with any of them – not till he was out and he could look after her properly.

  ‘I can look after myself,’ she’d told him, chin up, defiant.

  ‘You think you can, babe,’ he’d said, ‘but, trust me, you can’t.’

  No, she’d definitely stop trying to figure out what he’d meant. Just hang on to those last words. That he physically ached for her. And loved her. He’d been sure to tell her that.

  And as they’d hugged, it had occurred to her that his protective streak was a good thing. He would surely feel the same about his baby.

  Chapter 13

  ‘So you haven’t told him anything?’

  Vicky’s tone was incredulous. Lucy shook her head, feeling irritable and tearful all of a sudden. And all of a sudden wishing she had stuck to her guns and told Vic she’d prefer to get her results alone. It would be almost comical if it wasn’t so awful. Sitting here, in the waiting area of the packed gynae clinic only a week after sitting in the ante-natal one with her friend. Just a corridor and a whole world away.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said now, feeling guilty for sounding snappy. ‘There’s nothing to tell him yet, is there?’

  ‘No, but … you know. About your periods and that …’

  ‘No, Vic. I haven’t.’

  ‘Alright, mate,’ Vicky said, putting an arm around her shoulder. Which act of tenderness – almost maternal tenderness – just made it worse.

  Lucy had never been one for horoscopes or fate or other such spiritual nonsense. There was a girl at the solicitors – an articled clerk, so no doubt pretty clever – who read her stars in the paper daily, and, since she’d begun there, Lucy’s too. And Lucy (wondering how someone who had letters after her name could take any notice of such nonsense) would smile politely and agree that it would be nice to ‘come into some money’, or ‘see a welcome shift in a special relationship’, or whatever other guff was in the paper that day. And yet this morning – she’d taken the afternoon off for her appointment – astrology had warned her to be ‘braced for bad news’.

  ‘Though your natural Sagittarian optimism will help you overcome any obstacles,’ Marie had continued brightly, before dumping the paper and returning to her work.

  Lucy had picked it up and re-read it, trying to see it for the rubbish it was. And yet, was it?

  It had been such a strange and disconcerting few weeks. Vicky pregnant. Vicky pregnant. Vicky going to have a baby. As her mam had commented when she’d told her the astonishing news, it seemed only yesterday that the pair of them were babies themselves. ‘Running round the garden in your pants and vests,’ her mam had finished. She’d sighed then. ‘Where did all those years go?’

  And it did feel exactly like that, despite everything. Despite the fact that they’d both been with their boyfriends for ages. Despite the fact that they’d both been having sex. God, was it really so astonishing that Vic should fall pregnant? That was the way nature had designed humans, wasn’t it? To have sex and make babies while they were young and fit and fertile. Well, at least in Vicky’s case, anyway.

  ‘I’m so jealous,’ Vic had wailed to her when she explained about the GP having put her on the pill.

  ‘You know, Vic,’ Lucy had said, feeling chippy about it all. ‘There’s nothing stopping you from going to the family planning clinic, you know.’

  ‘Er, how about my mam?’

  ‘Vic, you’re sixteen. She doesn’t even need to know.’

  ‘Yeah, but you think I’d manage to keep it from her? Not a chance, mate. She’s like bloody Sherlock!’

  Which struck Lucy as a bit of a ridiculous thing for Vicky to say, since her mam could barely rouse herself enough to get off the sofa, much less start ferreting around in her daughter’s sex life. No, the truth was much simpler: she just hadn’t got around to it. That and the business of being brought up Catholic. And the ‘fact’ – if fact it was, and Lucy’s doctor had said it wasn’t anything like a given – that if you went on the pill you immediately put a stone on, and might get a thrombosis as well.

  But it was that stone – that was the main thing. Lucy knew how Paddy’s mind worked. He monitored Vicky’s size like it was a project he was micro-managing. If she put on so much as an ounce he’d be on at her that she was letting herself go.

  Oh, the irony. Vic would be putting on a lot more than that now. But would she be able to, ever?

  So,
no, she hadn’t yet told Jimmy – not least because another piece in the miserable jigsaw that had revealed this potential picture had been that when she’d told him about Vic’s pregnancy, that same evening, round at his, the enormity of everything she might now deny him had all become so painfully clear.

  ‘Christ,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘Poor fucking baby.’

  And just as Lucy had been about to leap loyally to her friend’s defence, Jimmy had gone on to clarify that he wasn’t being arsey – simply that it wasn’t exactly the best start in life, was it? What with Vic being sixteen, and her mum being rubbish, and the kid’s father being one Paddy-fucking-tosser-Allen, currently residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  ‘She won’t get rid of it,’ Lucy told him, ‘and I told her she shouldn’t either. God willing’ – like any God would have had anything to do with it – ‘she’ll see Paddy for what he is now, and finish with him. Who knows? It might happen anyway. For all that he thinks he owns her, I wouldn’t be surprised if he drops her like a brick once she tells him she’s up the duff.’

  But Jimmy didn’t want to even speculate about what Paddy might or might not do – didn’t know, didn’t care, didn’t want to waste his breath. ‘Far as I’m concerned,’ he said, ‘that twat is history.’

  He’d then added ‘or will be’, but didn’t explain further, because he was much more interested in Lucy and how she seemed. ‘You’re all emotional, aren’t you?’ he’d teased. ‘Christ, don’t tell me you’re feeling broody.’

  And that might have been fine – specially when they kissed and they cuddled, and, his dad working that night, soon went a good deal further – except that, afterwards, he’d whispered, ‘Just think, Luce, one day we’ll be at this lark properly – making our own babies. Christ, that’s something to think about, isn’t it?’