Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  Though thinking that made her anxious because one other thing she did know was the thing her mam had drummed into her since she was old enough to hear it. That a lot of men were bastards, her own father included – they got you up the duff, then, when the baby came along and life got complicated, they scarpered.

  She couldn’t let herself believe that. Not all men were like her father. And she mustn’t, wouldn’t, let herself become infected by her mother’s bitterness. Paddy wasn’t like that. Paddy worshipped the ground she walked on. If a lad so much as glanced at her he freaked, didn’t he? She was nervous about seeing him, even so. It was one thing for him to cherish her while he was banged up in prison. Quite another now he was once again free. So she’d made no small effort with her appearance in the scant time she’d had left to her – donning her gypsy skirt (pure white, and not to be worn around the baby) and the off-the-shoulder Bardot top he always loved her in. Not too much make-up – Paddy hated girls who slapped on too much make-up – and her best pair of flat winkle-picker shoes. It felt not so much an outfit, though, as armour. To do battle with the demons that couldn’t help but harass her daily. That kept reminding her that, however much he constantly told her otherwise, he might not fancy her new self anymore.

  The complicated train and bus journey finally over, Vicky stepped down onto an Armley Road that was bathed in bright sunshine, her hair – which she’d styled into a bouncy half-pony – being stirred by a light summery breeze. And for a moment she felt a little like Sandy, from the movie Grease, off to claim her own John Travolta.

  It was a big step. The first day of their new lives together. And as she covered the short distance to the hated iron prison gates, and glanced at her watch, she felt a surge of joy at the thought that, in a scant matter of minutes, she was going to have everything she wanted. Well, almost. It was irritating that she was still living at home, and that they couldn’t yet be a proper family, but, as Paddy had pointed out when she’d broached the subject of getting their own home, how could he be expected to sort their lives out from a prison cell?

  But that was all about to change now. She’d take him home, make him happy, show him how beautiful his little daughter was, and he’d melt, she just knew it. He would melt.

  Vicky hadn’t, however, anticipated just how much she’d melt when she saw him. But, when the heavy doors finally opened and Paddy stepped out into the sunshine, the unexpected butterflies in her stomach momentarily floored her.

  She had forgotten just how handsome he looked in his own clothes. Having only seen him for the last nine months in drab blue prison garb, she almost gasped at the enormity of the transformation. He was in his court clothes, as he would be. They’d been stored there since his arrival. The smart black trousers (‘Look decent, that’s the way, lad,’ the solicitor had told him) and the same, then brand new, white cotton shirt.

  He wolf-whistled extravagantly when he saw her. ‘You scrub up alright, babes!’ he called, almost shouted, waving, and then glancing back to see if the guards were still there watching. They were. And still were when he jogged the last yards between them, pulled her tight against his body, which felt hard and lean and masculine, and kissed her hungrily, pushing his tongue between her lips. ‘I hope you’ve kept it warm for me,’ he whispered when he stopped for air. ‘I tell you, babe, I’m like a fucking dog on heat.’ He grabbed her behind. ‘Just you wait till I get you home.’

  She was wanted. So wanted. It was all the welcome she needed. Her fears dissolved. Everything was going to be okay.

  Chapter 16

  Lucy felt a pulse of anger throb in her temple as she watched Vicky snivelling on her knees on the living-room floor. She was trying to change the baby, plopping tears on her belly, fannying around ineffectually with the square of towelling beneath her. ‘Oh, fuck, Luce,’ she sobbed. ‘What the hell am I doing wrong?’

  It was tragic to witness, but Lucy resisted the urge to help. Right now she wasn’t even sure where her anger was directed. Was it at Paddy Allen, whom she’d just encountered out on the pavement? Who’d shouted, by way of greeting, ‘And you can fuck right off, you bitch!’ at her, before she’d so much as opened her mouth?

  In part, yes, of course. She could slap him as soon as look at him. But it was also, she knew (which was why she had yet to answer) an anger she couldn’t help but feel at Vicky. When the frigging hell were the scales going to fall from her eyes? How much more shit was the stupid cow prepared to take off him?

  But the shuddering of Vicky’s shoulders made her heart soften a little. She joined her on the carpet. ‘Come on, you ninny, you know how to do this. Get a grip. You take this corner first, then …’

  ‘Not the nappy!’ Vicky sobbed. ‘I mean, with Paddy!’

  What a long and rosy honeymoon it had turned out to be. Sweet, but, like her mam had always been fond of saying, like a chewed-up bit of toffee. It was like they were thirteen again, and mooning over some pop star. Except it was just Vicky doing the mooning, and it wasn’t about a pop star. Just the same Paddy Allen as always.

  It had been sweet to the point of setting Lucy’s teeth on edge. He’d showered Vicky with presents. A leather jacket. Diamond earrings. A fake designer handbag. A bunch of lingerie from Debenhams, all black and red and satin – ‘Ooh, isn’t it gorgeous, Luce? Though why he’s bothering, I don’t know! He has it off me the second I put it all on!’ And other similarly edifying gems.

  Then the stuff for the baby. The ridiculously enormous teddy bear. The overpriced baby clothes she’d grow out of in a matter of weeks. The garish expanding silver bracelet she’d be saddled with for years. The money, the money, the money, the bloody money. Ironic, Lucy thought, as she looked at her friend now. The money and the attention had been almost like a drug to her. Yet she was blind to the drug-dealing it had come from.

  It was sickening. Or rather had been. But there was no satisfaction in the knowledge that she’d known it wouldn’t last. No pleasure in saying ‘I told you so’ to Vicky.

  She sighed as she took over the nappy-changing duties. Perhaps this, she thought – the business of the crappy terry nappies – would be the straw that might break the camel’s back. No more Pampers, it seemed. Back to basics for Paddy’s baby. And all because he’d finally had to go out and buy some himself and, so appalled had he been at the cost of the things, he’d decided (unilaterally) that since Vic was no longer working – and that was another thing – old-fashioned wash-them-yourself ones would be henceforth good enough.

  Vicky blew her nose as Lucy deftly fastened the clean nappy. ‘He barely even looks at her these days,’ she snivelled. As if it had been a year since he’d been out of prison, rather than just over a month. ‘He’s like Jekyll and Hyde all of a sudden, and he barely even looks at her. Just like that. Why? And the slightest thing sets him off. Just, like, anything.’

  ‘Just like now,’ Lucy said, rather than asked. ‘So what was that about?’

  ‘He called me a fat pig,’ Vicky said, a touch of welcome defiance creeping into her voice now. ‘I mean, the bastard – Christ, I’m back to a frigging ten! What more does he want?’

  ‘He’s insane,’ Lucy said, holding back the urge to point out that only a week previously, according to Vicky’s breathless, all-too-detailed account, he’d not been able to get enough of her assets. But it was something she really didn’t want to dwell on.

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ Vicky said. ‘I told him if he didn’t like what was on offer he should fuck off out the shop.’

  ‘So he did. And you’re stupid to rise to it. He only does it because he knows it winds you up, you know that.’

  Vicky’s eyes filled with tears again. She nodded miserably. ‘But I can’t help it.’ Lucy wasn’t sure if she meant her weight or being wound up. ‘And he told me if I didn’t hurry up and sort myself out he’d go and find someone else who appreciated him!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, mate,’ Lucy said, scooping the baby up off the rug, and wondering if she�
�d got stuck between the pages of a teenage girls’ magazine. ‘He’s a total bastard, and it’s him who needs to appreciate what he’s got. You, for instance. And he knows that. So don’t take any bloody notice. And as for this one’ – she jiggled the baby on her lap – ‘she’s such a cutie. I mean, look at her. How anyone could blank her beggars belief. And that’s bloody rich, that is. The way he talks about her down the pub, you’d think he was dad of the frigging year!’

  If Lucy had thought this would endorse her dim view of the bastard in question, Vicky’s expression soon put her straight. ‘He does?’ she said, her face brightening noticeably. She got up off the floor and reached for a baby wipe to wipe her face with, leaving Lucy to get Chantelle back into her clothes.

  And that was another thing, Lucy thought, as she turned the baby’s vest the right way out. This sort of thing was becoming more and more of an occurrence – this letting her take over anything Chantelle-related. Like her arrival always equalled a temporary end to Vicky’s shift.

  It had been a shock the way Vicky seemed so happy to let her do so much. Lucy had expected her friend to turn out to be such a brilliant mother – and while her bastard boyfriend was still banged up, she’d been doing okay. Yet it seemed Paddy, now he was out, was even getting in the way of that – claiming first place to their daughter’s poor second. Lucy had already babysat her twice just this week, much to Jimmy’s annoyance. But how could she not, when the alternative was being left with Vicky’s mum – and her bloody cider – while the pair of them were out till God knew what hour?

  She looked up to see Vicky had moved to the window, where she’d pulled back the net to peer out. Something snapped. ‘For God’s sake, Vic, get a grip, will you?’ Lucy said. ‘Look at you! Gawping out of the bleeding window, hoping he’ll come back and grovel. Fuck him, Vicky! You told him to sod off and he has.’

  Vicky turned around and Lucy held out the wriggling, cooing baby. She didn’t take her. ‘This is the person you’re supposed to be looking out for,’ Lucy told her. ‘Honest, mate, you’ve got to think about your priorities. Don’t let him spoil this for you. Trust me, you’ll regret it forever if you do.’

  Vicky’s expression hardened. ‘Oh, like you know all about what it’s like, do you? I’ve got enough on my plate without you lecturing me as well. And he’s not going to spoil it. It’s just hard this, bloody hard. For both of us, okay?’ She took Chantelle from Lucy finally. ‘But he will sort himself out. He will.’

  ‘Oh, hello, love.’ Lucy turned to see Vicky’s mam in the doorway. Still in her nightie, despite it being gone three in the afternoon. She crossed the room, slumped into an armchair and lit a cigarette. ‘Who will? Lover boy? I heard the door slam. He gone on the missing list again, has he?’ Her laugh turned into a low, phlegmy cough. ‘Fucking big man he is, that one. Does fuck-all for this one. Fuck-all.’

  Lucy caught Vicky’s eye; a familiar expression. Start her mam off and she’d never stop going on.

  Which would help nothing. Only entrench Vicky even further into defending him. It was like her default position. To wail on and on about all the ways he wronged her, then when you agreed with her, to defend him unto bloody death. It was almost like he’d re-programmed her brain. ‘He’s nipped off about some work,’ Lucy said, while Vicky put Chantelle back into her pram under the window. ‘You reckon that bottle’s cool enough now, Vic? Shall I go and fetch it for you? Or, I tell you what,’ she said, seeing the way Vicky was glaring at her mam now, ‘how about we head off for a walk in the park? Take it with us. It’s much too nice a day to be stuck indoors.’

  ‘Nice day?’ Vicky’s mam growled. ‘What’s that when it’s at home? Not been a nice day since way back fucking when.’

  ‘Don’t start, Mam,’ Vicky snapped as she snatched up the baby’s bottle and her own cigarettes. ‘Don’t forget, when Paddy sorts our flat out, I’ll be out of here as well. Just wait till you see how nice that is.’

  They walked up to the park, mostly in silence, while Chantelle guzzled on her bottle, holding it firmly between her splayed chubby fingers. ‘I’m sorry,’ Vicky said suddenly, as they approached the park gates.

  ‘For what?’ Lucy said. There could be any number of things, after all.

  ‘For saying what I did. I didn’t mean it. Course you know what it’s like. You’re more of a mother to her than I am half the time.’ She smiled ruefully.

  ‘Forget it,’ Lucy told her, even though she knew she wouldn’t. ‘Ice cream,’ she said decisively. ‘We need an ice cream. My treat.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Don’t you even dare bloody think it,’ Lucy commanded. ‘You’re having a bloody ice cream and that’s the end of it, you hear me? If he wants a twig for a girlfriend he should go to the bloody garden centre!’

  Which made Vicky laugh, and, for now at least, the afternoon felt a little brighter.

  Well, for a while at least. Because no sooner had they bought and eaten their ice creams than Vicky was already on about having to get home again.

  ‘What?’ Lucy said, gazing around her at the pretty sunlit park. ‘Why? Back for what? What’s the rush?’

  ‘Because I’m supposed to be going out?’ Again the hint of defiance in Vicky’s voice. But this time directed at her. No, not so much defiance, as defensiveness, Lucy decided.

  ‘Out where? Out with who?’

  ‘Out with Paddy.’

  Lucy stopped walking, wondering how she’d come to be pushing the pram. Not to mention wondering if she was going slightly mad. ‘But you just told me you’d told him to sod off.’

  ‘I know. I did.’

  ‘But you’re still going out with him.’

  Vicky frowned. ‘Luce, don’t start.’

  ‘No, come on. Explain it to me, will you? You’re in floods because he’s called you fat, and you’ve told him to sling his hook. Yet you’re standing here telling me you’re going out with him this evening. How does that work? Did you make up by telepathy, or what?’

  ‘Luce, you know what he’s like. He just goes off on one, doesn’t he? Because he’s stressed. So—’

  ‘So he’ll be back round to pick you up in that lurid bloody car of his and it’ll be like nothing ever happened? Is that what you mean? Or, no—’ She raised a hand to stop Vicky from answering. ‘More like you’ll get yourself ready just in case he comes calling. Mate, you’re beyond help, you really are. I tell you what you should do, you should make sure you’re not in, that’s what you should do. Keep him on the hook, not the other way round.’

  ‘Luce, it was just a silly tiff. They happen. Come on, let’s not have a row about it, please?’

  ‘Vic, I don’t want to row with you, but can’t you see how mad this is all becoming? Yes, tiffs happen. But don’t you think you should stand up for yourself a bit? The way he talks to you …’ She tailed off. What was the point in going on? They’d be straight back to the same place they always got to with Paddy. He’d wind her up, make her cry, Lucy would pick up the pieces. Then he’d be forgiven. Defended. And round they went again.

  And the worst of it was that Lucy knew it would be exactly as Vicky’d told her. That he’d turn up and sweet-talk her, possibly bring her flowers. And though her mam would scowl and moan, being left with the baby, off they’d skip to enjoy their Saturday night, Vicky with a gormless grin on her face.

  ‘So where you off to?’ she said, feeling bad all of a sudden, for the contempt with which she’d viewed this scenario. This was her friend, who was in a dangerously volatile relationship, and did indeed have a lot on her plate.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ Vicky told her, a spring forming in her step now. ‘Depends what sort of deal Paddy manages to do today.’ She turned and smiled at her friend. ‘He reckons he stands to make a few hundred pounds today if it all comes off, so we’ll probably end up down town. Fingers crossed, eh?’

  All these ‘deals’ being ‘done’. All these ‘bits of work’, and things ‘in the pipeline’. Lucy wondered at what point
Vicky might actually wonder what any of those words actually meant. Cars, that was the line. That it was all about the garage. And Vicky – knowingly? – didn’t seem to want to know more.

  And Lucy, a conspirator too, didn’t ask her. Truth was she didn’t ask because she didn’t need to. He was back working for Mo. And doing overtime, by the sound of it. Recklessly so. She blew a raspberry at Chantelle, who’d just woken up, and reflected on the genes that were running round her veins. Paddy’s genes, God help her. Lucy could only hope she didn’t inherit his bloody arrogance. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would lay low for a while after being released from jail. Not Paddy Allen. He was all about – like the last nine months had never even happened. No, he was probably, at this very moment, either buying a load of cocaine, or selling it, or (and, increasingly, given the changes in his behaviour, this seemed highly likely) shoving it up his own nose in some town-centre pub.

  She couldn’t quite believe that Vicky was totally oblivious to that side of her boyfriend. Could she really be that naïve? Or did she just not want to know? She’d said herself that he’d turned into this Jekyll and Hyde character, but did it never occur to her to wonder why that was? The possibility that it might be down to drugs?

  Because it was drugs. No question, however much he denied it. And deny it he obviously did, because the one time Lucy had ventured to suggest it, Vicky had looked at her as if she was crazy. Paddy Did Not Do Drugs. Total shut-down. Even angry. So it seemed there was nothing for it but she find out for herself one day.

  As she would. Lucy knew this because Jimmy had told her. And not just Jimmy; she’d also heard stuff from one of the junior solicitors at work, who was friendly with John Cordingley, who’d been Paddy’s solicitor. Paddy was, it seemed, on increasingly shaky ground.