Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  Still, at least she’d had company this time, and for that she was extremely grateful to her friends. Because it wasn’t like it was easy – Lucy had had to book a day’s holiday and though Gurdy mostly worked his own hours he was probably much shorter on work now that Paddy was inside, so it wasn’t like he wouldn’t miss the chance of a day’s pay.

  Yet they’d been insistent – not least because they all knew the score; that Paddy’s reaction to becoming a father was a major unknown. Plus, as Gurdy had pointed out, the markets in Leeds were way better than those in Bradford – like he’d also come out as some kind of shopping guru.

  The thought made her smile. She was probably panicking about nothing, she decided, as she raised her arms robotically in readiness for being patted down. And, good or bad, all the wondering would be over in a minute. Just as soon as she clapped eyes on his face.

  Though it wasn’t his face that first drew her gaze. No, as she made her way across the blue tiles of the visiting room, it was his arms she saw first. They were outstretched.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ Paddy said, his smile wide and welcoming. And all at once, Vicky felt her fears vanish. ‘Oh, babes,’ she whispered, as he drew her into his embrace across the table. ‘I’ve been so worried about everything. Why didn’t you write to me? I’ve been on pins!’ She felt ridiculously like crying. Well, not so ridiculously, given the emotion she felt, but she didn’t want to break down in here. Not in front of all the bloody screws. Specially didn’t want to mess up her make-up.

  ‘What’s the point, babes?’ Paddy answered. ‘Fuck me, you smell good. By the time I got your letter it was, like, why bother writing? I’d rather tell you – show you’ – he managed to get his tongue into her ear – ‘than write some stupid letter.’

  ‘So you’re okay with it?’ she pressed, once he’d let her go and they’d both sat down. ‘Honestly? You’re not cross?’

  ‘At the thought of a little Padster in there?’ He gestured towards her stomach. Then he sat back. ‘Nah, not at all. In fact, I like the idea. I mean, it’s not the best timing, but, you know, what will be will be and that …’ And Vicky realised that he genuinely liked the idea – not least the idea that he was such a stallion. His face said it all.

  ‘Oh, babes, I’m so happy. Because I couldn’t begin to think of getting rid of it. I couldn’t. I mean, people told me to—’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Oh, just a girl …’ she stumbled. She’d almost said a girl at work. ‘You know how it is. People always think you’re too young. And what with you being in here … But, Christ, I sometimes feel I’m older than bloody Methuselah. I feel like a mum already – to my own mum. And what with Lucy …’

  ‘What about her?’ Paddy’s mouth formed a frown.

  ‘Oh, just that she’s had the worst news from the hospital. She and Jimmy probably can’t even have children.’

  He raised his brows. ‘Like I’d care?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be like that, babes. It’s sad.’ But sensing this was a conversational avenue she shouldn’t even be going down, she laid a hand over his – big and hard, and more calloused than ever. Man’s hands. Hard-working hands. Her man’s hands. She squeezed them. ‘I mean, it just made me think, you know? Realise that you can’t take stuff for granted. I mean, I know it’ll be hard but, you know, it’s a life we’ve made, isn’t it?’ She touched her belly with her other hand. ‘I still can’t quite believe it’s in here. I’ve got my scan booked though. I can’t wait. I can get a picture to bring you.’

  ‘Can you feel it?’ he asked, stretching across the table to touch her stomach. ‘She’s preggers, my missus,’ he told the nearest screw. ‘Just copping a feel. Nothing to worry about.’

  My missus. Vicky loved that. Though rather less so when he added, ‘And it’ll keep you out of mischief an’ all.’

  ‘Paddy! Will you bloody stop that!’ she said, slapping his hand away.

  He grinned and shook his head. ‘Jesus, babe! Keep your hair on,’ he said mildly.

  She got tea and cake for them. Stewed tea. Some sort of fruit cake. And sat and ate it, almost like it was a tea party in a village hall. But it wasn’t very long before Paddy being Paddy, he lost interest in hearing about the bump he could hardly feel, let alone begin to visualise as a person. And she got that; she knew lads were like that about babies. After all, it wasn’t them pregnant, was it?

  But despite her efforts to keep things light, and update him on all the gossip, he very soon returned to his favourite topic of conversation: why he was banged up and who’d put him in there?

  ‘I hear things,’ he said, when she told him for about the fourth time that he was being paranoid. ‘And I keep coming back to the same bloody thing. Why am I in here and no one else, eh? Like that little Paki friend of yours.’

  ‘He’s your friend as well, Pad. Why d’you keep forgetting that fact? He even brought me here today.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In his car. He’s got a car now. An old Mini. Drives like a sewing machine. But at least it’s something …’

  ‘A car? Where the fuck d’he get the money?’ And his expression made it clear that, far from quelling his suspicions, it had only added to them. ‘Where the fuck did that little twat get the money to buy a car? Rasta Mo?’

  ‘It’s not insured,’ Vicky whispered, in case one of the screws could hear her.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ He was beginning to look really cross now. ‘I tell you what, since he’s mister all about all of a sudden, you can tell him something from me. Just tell him he’s not as clever as he thinks he is, okay? And to remember that there’s always someone new joining me in here.’

  ‘What are you on about? What exactly do you think he’s been doing?’

  The bell went then, and Paddy immediately pushed his chair back, and as the room was full of leaving sounds – the scrape of chairs, the crackle of coat zips, the kissing – he pulled her to him roughly, kissing her properly, hungrily, his hands tight round her biceps.

  ‘Just always thought,’ he said finally, once he’d released his grip slightly, ‘that it was a bit fucking odd that I got collared and he was left untouched, that’s all. Always assumed that fucking Jimmy had purposely kept him out of it, but from tales I’ve been told recently, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘You’re being paranoid,’ she told him firmly, feeling flustered by his kisses. ‘Gurdy loves you. He’d never grass you up, babes. Honest. Never.’

  ‘Never say never,’ he said darkly.

  Then he smiled again. ‘Anyway, babes,’ he added, ‘you keep that little one safe, yeah? For his daddy.’

  She smiled too. She hated leaving on a bad note. ‘How d’you know it’s not a girl?’

  He touched his nose and winked. ‘I just know.’

  She saw Gurdy first, waving manically at her, as she pushed her way through the crush at the pie shop. ‘At last!’ he said. ‘We thought they’d banged you up an’ all, didn’t we, Luce? Where’ve you been, mate? We thought you’d never get here!’

  Vicky said there’d been a long queue for taxis but, in reality, she’d walked a fair bit of the way before flagging one down on Armley Road.

  The queue hadn’t been that long – she’d just wanted to walk for a bit. She felt light. So much lighter than she’d felt in long weeks now. He was happy. It was still sinking in. He was happy. She didn’t so much want to walk as skip back into Leeds, because the world suddenly felt a much more manageable place. She wanted to walk so she could bask in the joy of feeling happy. Before she met her friends and would have to be necessarily less excited. She had to think of Lucy and how tough all this must be for her.

  But now her feet hurt and the cake was repeating on her mercilessly. ‘I’m parched,’ she said. ‘Shall I go up and order?’

  ‘You sit down,’ Gurdy said, springing up. ‘I’ll go and do it. What’ll it be for you?’

  Bless him, she thought, how could anyone think ill of Gurdy? ‘Oh, just a
pork pie with mushy peas and a Coke.’

  Lucy tugged at Vicky’s arm as she sat down. ‘Here, have a peek at all the stuff we’ve managed to get,’ she said, pulling a wodge of bags from the space between their seats. ‘Bootees and matinee jackets, oh and these amazing little babygros.’

  ‘Blimey, mate,’ Vicky said, touched almost to the point of tears. ‘All this, and so early.’

  She wished Paddy could see it too. Wished so much that he wasn’t missing out on all this. Because it was important, wasn’t it, that he felt involved? But she knew Lucy didn’t want to talk about Paddy. As far as Lucy was concerned, Paddy could go straight to hell. Vicky knew, though Lucy tactfully stopped short of saying so, that she thought the best thing would be if she moved on from Paddy. That she wanted to hear Vicky tell her that he was angry to find out she was pregnant. Except he hadn’t been angry. He’d been the opposite, and she wished things could be different. That she could tell Lucy that.

  Gurdy obviously sensed it, though. ‘You look like the cat who’s got the cream, mate,’ he said as he put her drink in front of her.

  She couldn’t help it. ‘He was fine. He was fine about it. Happy. All that worrying …’

  ‘Yeah, for now,’ Lucy pointed out so quickly that she’d obviously already been thinking it. ‘Easy to be happy when it’s not actually born yet …’

  ‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Gurdy said. ‘Anyway, more to the point, did he say anything about me?’

  ‘You?’ Vicky said, wondering quite what was behind this. Who had gone into Armley, and what exactly had they said?

  ‘No,’ she added. ‘Why? Were you expecting him to or something? I mean, you know what he’s like. Always paranoid, world’s always out to get him.’ Gurdy’s frown only deepened at this and Vicky frowned back at him. ‘Mate, what’s up?’

  Gurdy shook his head and shrugged. ‘It’s probably nothing. Just something Pete was saying the other day. Saying stuff about Paddy apparently blaming me for his arrest.’

  ‘Blaming you?’ Lucy said. ‘It had fuck-all to do with you. And I know that for a fact.’ She turned to Vicky. ‘And so do you.’

  Vicky nodded. And decided she should maybe start trying to find out. ‘Course I know that. Everyone knows that. You know what he’s like.’ She smiled at Gurdy reassuringly. ‘But no, he didn’t say anything about you,’ she lied.

  Gurdy sat back, looking palpably relieved. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘because if he thought that, he’d fucking kill me, I know he would.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘Now who’s being paranoid? As if.’

  Part Two

  Whenever I saw those who ploughed wickedness and planted misery, they gathered its harvest.

  Job 4:8

  Chapter 15

  Clayton, Bradford, June 1988

  It was a huge effort of will not to shout. To scream, even. Vicky certainly felt close enough. Today of all days, and her mother was being a total pain. Being useless, just like she had been, pretty much, since the day of Chantelle’s birth.

  Yes, she supposed she had made an effort to help out. But even as Vicky conceded that, it induced a fresh wave of anger. Why should she have to berate herself for thinking badly of her mother? For all that she’d acted promptly when Vicky had gone into labour, where had the love been? The support? The little murmurings of reassurance? It was more like some basic animal instinct had kicked in, and she’d simply gone through a tick-list of things to do.

  Chantelle’s birth had begun by the old twin tub in the kitchen; her cries of pain – and astonishment; astonishment as much as anything – blending seamlessly with its wheezings and chunterings.

  At that point her mam had been in the other room sorting clothes out; some of Vicky’s old romper suits that she’d brought down from the loft, and the exquisite babygros and little outfits Lucy and Jimmy had bought, and which had brought tears to her eyes.

  At that point, her mam was like this wholly different person, leaping for the phone, calling the ambulance with such a sense of purpose and authority, picking up the last bits Vicky needed and packing them efficiently in her little case.

  And, with no Paddy around to hold his ‘partner’s’ hand (the young woman at the ante-natal clinic always called the men ‘partners’) her mam had lumbered into the ambulance with her, to go too. Not to actually go in, not to the birthing suite – that would have been a motherly step too far for both of them – but at least she’d been in the building. Been a presence. A reminder, particularly when the crunch came, that though it often felt like it, she wasn’t completely on her own.

  But just as Boxing Day followed Christmas – invariably gloomy and anti-climactic – so the reality of Chantelle (who she’d named after her dead maternal great-grandmother, having always loved the exotic-sounding name) soon spirited whatever instinct had driven her right away. Business as usual. Trackies and cider, while Vicky functioned like a pilot groping blindly in a fog. Like being a grandmother meant absolutely nothing to her.

  She was doing it now. Just sitting there on the sofa, while her granddaughter screamed herself hoarse on the living-room rug, her only attempt to soothe her being to stick a bunioned foot out and intermittently poke her shoulder with her big toe.

  Vicky bit down on her lip, hard, before speaking to her mam again. After all, what the fuck else had she honestly expected? ‘Can’t you just pick her up?’ she said. ‘Just take your eyes off the telly for one bloody minute? For God’s sake, Mam, are you still pissed, or what?’

  Her mother turned and glared at her, apparently unrepentant. ‘It’s your frigging kid, madam, not mine! And anyway, they just need leaving when they cry for nothing, otherwise they’ll grow up soft.’ She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Go on, go back upstairs. Get yourself tarted up for bleeding lover boy and leave me alone! I know what I’m doing.’

  Vicky scowled at her mother, all her nerves firing and jangling. They didn’t warn you how your baby’s crying could get to you the way it did. And with a mam like hers for a grandmother it got to her all the time. That and the fury. Her frigging kid indeed. Exactly! Which meant she shouldn’t be having to run around after her frigging mother as well! Which she was still doing. Not to mention spending half her maternity money to keep her in bloody cider. Much as the thought of leaving Chantelle appalled her, a part of her was desperate to get back to work. She’d not spent so much time in her mam’s company in years, and she was fast reaching the end of her tether.

  But it wasn’t just that. It was the thought of having Paddy home. The thought of him finally clapping eyes on his daughter. She was eleven weeks old, almost, and he’d yet to even meet her. He hadn’t wanted to. Was adamant that prison was no place for a kid, and had been content just to look at the photos Vicky had brought in instead. Though not looked at with any degree of interest, if she was honest, despite what she’d kept on telling Lucy.

  Today though, she was sure everything would change. Today she’d go and meet him, and bring him back home, and he’d take one look at his little girl (his own flesh and blood; and there was no mistaking the likeness) and his heart would melt. He’d be head over heels.

  His little girl who was still sobbing her heart out on the rug currently. ‘For Christ’s sake, Mam,’ she said, fighting against the urge to pick Chantelle up herself. She daren’t. If she didn’t get her skates on she’d miss the train to Leeds. ‘I’m already late. Please at least warm her bottle and give her that. Listen to her, Mam. She’s just hungry!’

  ‘She is not,’ Vicky’s mum huffed. ‘It’s not been four hours yet. She’s just trying it on, same as you used to.’

  ‘Mam, she’s just a baby. How can she be frigging trying it on? Look,’ Vicky said, making a Herculean effort to keep her tone one of appeasement. ‘I know you know best, but I have to get going. Please?’

  Her mother finally relented. ‘Go on, piss off then,’ she puffed, hoisting herself off the couch and stepping over the baby to reach for the empty bottle. ‘And I suppose I’m minding her till y
ou get back, am I?’ she added, which made Vicky cross all over again. Like she took it all for granted. Like she hadn’t had to ask her mam so nicely. Like it was such a bloody inconvenience to spend time with her only grandchild.

  ‘Mam, it won’t be for long, honest,’ she said as nicely as she could, through gritted teeth. ‘And if you feed her she’ll probably sleep till I’m back, won’t she? If you don’t have the telly on too loud, anyway.’

  Her mam lit a cigarette then and with it planted firmly between her lips, finally picked up the baby – who stopped crying immediately – and took both her and the bottle into the kitchen, while Vicky belted back up the stairs.

  It had been a conscious decision not to take Chantelle to meet her father. Much as she’d have loved to, Vicky knew all too well that it was her Paddy wanted to see waiting outside the gate for him. Her alone. And looking her very best for him. He’d made much mention in the final couple of visits before the birth of how much he was looking forward to her getting ‘back to her old self’ instead of the ‘lumbering fucking pudding’ she’d turned into.

  She wished she hadn’t shared that particular gem with Leanne. Most men, Leanne had said, really fancied women when they were pregnant. Thought they looked sexy. Vicky wasn’t sure when Leanne had become the expert in such matters. But what she did know was that Paddy definitely wasn’t one of them.

  And even two weeks after the birth, when she’d made the long journey to see him – no small effort – almost the first thing he’d remarked upon (and way before he so much as mentioned Chantelle) was how he hadn’t expected her to look so much like she was still pregnant. That had stung. She’d worked so hard to lose the extra pounds, too. And how could she ever get back to ‘her old self’ anyway? She was her new self. A mother. A proud and happy mother. No longer a girl, but a woman and his daughter’s mother. It never ceased to surprise her that she’d coped so well so far. And once he was home, he’d soon appreciate quite how well she had coped.