Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  It just needed time. ‘Nice work if you can get it,’ she said mildly. ‘But what about you? Bet you’re itching to get back to work now, aren’t you? You know – having a bit more of your own money?’

  Vicky shook her head, just as Lucy had known she would. Which was another thing. The fact that Paddy would rather she didn’t work at all. She’d be completely dependent on him for everything then, wouldn’t she? Which must not happen.

  ‘Not particularly. I mean, I will, for now. But, you know, in the longer term. Once he’s back on his way, with Mo’s garage and that, Paddy will want to look after me, won’t he?’ Lucy thought that was pretty debatable. ‘And his mam and dad are loaded. And it’s not like I want much. Just enough.’

  ‘And the odd Saturday night on the town,’ Lucy said, realising that now probably wasn’t the time to remind her friend that before Paddy came out of nick she’d been counting the days till she could get back to work. How things had changed. ‘I suppose it’s not a lot to ask, really,’ she finished.

  ‘Exactly,’ Vicky agreed. ‘Anyway, what are you and Jimmy up to?’

  ‘Probably just a few drinks in Lidget Green,’ Lucy told her. Jimmy didn’t like going into the centre of town much. Too much risk of meeting up with some of the criminals his dad had collared. Or, probably worse than that, their mates.

  Vicky sighed. ‘God, I so wish we could all go out together.’

  ‘I know, mate. So do I,’ Lucy lied.

  As far as she was concerned, anywhere Paddy Allen might turn up was exactly where she didn’t want to go.

  Chapter 17

  There was no reason to suppose Lucy would be bumping into Paddy either. For one, she remembered the look on his face when she’d seen him, and clung on to the vain hope that he’d stand Vicky up and head into town with his dodgy mates instead. Anything to hasten the demise of a relationship that she knew in her heart no good could come of. And for two, the last place she expected to see him these days was the Oddfellows at Lidget Green.

  But as they stepped through the door – propped open to allow in the evening sunlight – there he was, with his back to them, at the bar. She felt Jimmy’s hand tighten around her own as she glanced around, but of Vicky there was no sign. So perhaps – the thought cheered her – she wasn’t here?

  ‘Let’s just go somewhere else,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t trust myself around him.’

  She really didn’t. She’d been brooding on it all the way back from Vicky’s, wishing she’d chased after him before she’d even gone into the house, and given him as good as she’d got. But her thoughts, as ever, turned to the depressing reality that, just as with her trying to get Vicky to wake up to reality, every barb she slung at Paddy just gave him further encouragement for him to take her on – in the business of ownership of what he saw as his property. She wondered, as she always did, what kind of twisted mind existed beneath that head of piratical hair.

  ‘You don’t?’ Jimmy muttered under his breath. ‘Join the bloody club! Come on, we’ll go across the road to the Second West instead.’

  Too late.

  ‘Jimmy D! Hey, my man, how’s it going?’ It was Vikram, Gurdy’s brother, peeling away from a group near the door, his voice ringing out across the still half-empty pub. He clapped Jimmy on the back and winked at Lucy, like he always did. As if they shared some in-joke that was known only to them. She’d never quite understood why that was.

  ‘We’re just off, mate,’ Jimmy said, but Lucy already knew it wouldn’t happen, because just as he did so, Paddy Allen turned around to face them, and made a big show of leaning back, elbows on the bar. Which, of course, meant that no way could – or would – Jimmy leave.

  Not now. And even as she braced herself to loyally tough it out, a part of her cursed stupid male pride.

  Vikram clocked Paddy too, and studiously ignored him. ‘Let me get you two a drink, yeah?’ he said expansively, ushering them in. Then ‘Good to see you’ as if they never went out. But she knew it wasn’t just because Vikram wanted to be generous. Yes, he was generous, always, and there was absolutely no side to him, and Lucy knew how much he appreciated their friendship with Gurdy. But it was more than that. Vikram didn’t involve himself in the murky world Paddy Allen chose to swim in, so, happily, their paths hardly ever crossed. But he certainly hadn’t forgotten Paddy’s behaviour at his party, and nor would he. And Vikram wasn’t scared of the likes of Paddy Allen. So to snub him in favour of Jimmy would be fun.

  Too much fun, perhaps. Lucy really wished he wouldn’t.

  But it seemed Jimmy, now he’d adjusted, was perfectly happy to snub Paddy also, pulling Lucy along as they headed for the far end of the bar.

  ‘We’ll just stay for a quick half,’ he promised, obviously sensing her displeasure. But even as he did so she could see the change coming; sense that all too soon, a drink in, he’d revise that decision – because to leave the pub they’d intended to spend the evening in, because of Paddy, would feel too much like cause and effect for him to stomach.

  And as if to endorse her gloomy premonition, Lucy then saw Vicky appear from the ladies. So she was here after all.

  Her expression when she saw Lucy was immediately apologetic. And for a moment Lucy wondered if her friend had actually engineered this. Persuaded Paddy to come to the Oddfellows specifically in the hope that she’d see them. But would she really be so stupid? So naïve? Surely not. It was a nice thought, that the four of them could co-exist in harmony, but if she thought it could ever happen she obviously lived in la-la land.

  But no, Vicky didn’t think that. Lucy could tell as she approached, in the way she was glancing at Paddy, who was now busy chatting to one of his cronies – but whose eyes never left her – as she skirted round tables so she could come and say hello.

  Vicky pulled a face and mouthed ‘Awkward!’, and she looked it, as well. Saying a breathy hello to Jimmy, politely declining a drink from Vikram, and, despite looking so cool in a flowery skirt and crop top, putting a hand up to the flush that was blooming on her cheeks.

  ‘We’re not stopping,’ Lucy told her as Vikram passed her and Jimmy their halves of lager. ‘You off as well? You’re looking nice. Still going to town?’

  She had her back to the other end of the bar now – a conscious decision – but even as she was beginning to relax, listening to Jimmy and Vikram chatting, Vicky’s anxious glance behind her told her trouble was coming.

  And it soon arrived. ‘On the halves?’ It was Paddy’s voice, loaded with derision. ‘You’ll be asking for some blackcurrant in the fucker next.’

  Lucy turned around to find him next to her. So close that she could smell the musky aftershave he went for, and which would forever be unpleasantly associated with him. Had always been – she even used to catch it in Vicky’s bedroom sometimes. He was like an animal, marking his territory.

  And by the bucket load, judging by the strength of it. He grinned at her, and she decided he might already be on something. But one thing was certain – that his words had been for Jimmy, rather than her.

  Thankfully, Jimmy simply ignored him. As did Vikram, who hadn’t even bothered to glance around.

  ‘Leave it out, babes,’ Vicky said, her own voice high with tension. She’d almost made it sound like a question.

  ‘Alright, Luce?’ he said, shaking off Vicky’s hand on his arm. He was definitely high on something, Lucy decided. A snort in the loos? A joint? Some sort of pill? Something, at any rate. The pub was flooded with light, but his pupils were huge. ‘You out, then?’ he asked, his gaze sliding up and down her front. ‘Out for a night on the tiles with your man?’

  And she just couldn’t help it. It was the way he was leering. She just couldn’t stop the words bursting from her mouth. Just the two words, but the wrong ones. ‘I was.’

  ‘Oh, you was?’ he mimicked, looking delighted to be challenged. ‘Sorry, love, did I say man?’ He raised his voice a touch. ‘What’s wrong with a fucking pint?’

  Now
Lucy did clamp her mouth shut, conscious of silence behind her. But Paddy hadn’t finished anyway. He put his own pint on the bar. ‘Mind you, Vic,’ he said, turning to Vicky and nudging her, ‘pints are for proper men, aren’t they?’

  ‘Paddy, shut it,’ Vicky hissed. ‘Just bloody shut it!’

  Paddy put his hands up as if someone had just trained a gun on him. ‘Sorr-eeeee,’ he said. ‘But I’m only telling it like it is, babes. You know, how some men aren’t real men, on account of firing blanks. Just saying, babes,’ he finished. ‘Just saying.’

  Lucy heard an intake of breath and realised it was her own. She glared at Vicky. Stared at her, open-mouthed, appalled. How could she? How fucking could she?

  But before she could so much as order her thoughts, she saw a hand reach out – Jimmy’s hand – and Paddy’s glass being raised aloft, and before she could stop it happening, even in its grisly slow-motion, watched Jimmy tip the lot over Paddy’s head.

  A flailing of arms, a bit of shoving and they were on the floor in seconds, making animal noises as they ripped into one another. She felt sick. Sick and helpless. Like she really was going to be sick. And above it all, across the tangle of bodies on the floor between them, she saw Vicky. Her so-called friend. Who’d betrayed her. ‘How the fuck does he know?’ she screamed at her above the din. ‘How could you do that to me? Why the fuck did you tell him?’

  The landlord and landlady were out from behind the bar now, pushing both girls aside roughly in an attempt to pull the lads apart and stop half the tables going over. Vicky was crying now. Looking lost. Like a princess out of a fairy tale. Looking like she didn’t have a clue how it had happened. Lucy hated her.

  ‘You fucking told him!’ Lucy said again, still stunned at her disloyalty.

  ‘I didn’t mean to!’ she sniffed, as the lads were hauled to their feet, both still growling at one another. ‘I never thought. I only mentioned it when I visited once. Yonks ago. I was sad for you …’ She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and smeared all her mascara. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, honest. It just came out!’

  ‘Well, fucking thanks for that,’ Lucy said, looping an arm through Jimmy’s, as, kicking and bucking, he was now being escorted from the bar by one of the older barmen, followed by the landlady. Paddy, she noticed, was being similarly encouraged to leave the premises, though by the back door, only with enough of an entourage that she at least didn’t have to worry on that score. There’d be no danger of a resumption of hostilities out in the road. It wasn’t that sort of pub, and she knew they’d like that to remain so. She hoped they’d give him a bit of a kicking, out of sight.

  But Vicky. God, Vicky. What the hell had she been thinking? Was she really so thick that she didn’t even consider how much of a gift something like that would be for Paddy? How much pleasure he’d get out of her and Jimmy’s pain? Mr Cock of the Walk, strutting around, like he was some sort of god. God, he’d probably cherished that bit of news like it was a valuable bloody gemstone. Had probably been waiting so gleefully for a chance to bloody use it. And the worst of it, the very worst of it was that it wasn’t even true. It was her who was firing the fucking blanks!

  Yet Jimmy hadn’t said a word to put the bastard straight. But then, why would he? He made his point using his fists. She grabbed his hands now and kissed his knuckles. Kissing them better. Tasting dust.

  ‘I’m alright,’ he told her, splaying them. ‘See? No harm done.’

  ‘More’n can be said for my front bar!’ said the landlady. She was brushing dirt from her blouse with swift, irritable movements.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m so sorry. It was all my fault.’

  ‘What?’ Jimmy said. ‘No it fucking wasn’t!’

  The landlady touched her arm. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not barred, love.’ Lucy hadn’t even thought to ask her, but was grateful nevertheless. ‘Neither of you,’ she added. ‘That little shit was bang out of order. I just can’t be having a brawl on a Saturday night, can I? Come back another time, you’ll be fine.’

  ‘That’s good of you,’ Jimmy said, standing as if to attention and ploughing his wayward curls back. Reminding her so much of his father.

  He was silent then, as they both watched the landlady go back in. Standing stiff-legged in the empty road. Like a statue.

  ‘You alright, love?’ Lucy asked him. ‘God, Jimmy, I feel terrible.’

  He turned and smiled at her. Full wattage. Like none of what had happened had even happened. ‘Do you?’ he said. ‘I don’t. That cunt had it coming. Has got it coming.’ He put an arm round her waist and smiled again.

  ‘But what he said. God, I can’t believe she told him. God, I’m sorry.’

  He put his other arm around her waist. ‘You really think I give a fuck what that cunt says?’

  ‘But it’s not even true!’

  ‘Exactly. So why worry?’

  He seemed odd. Strangely fired up. Like he was glad about what had happened. ‘Let’s go home, shall we?’ she said. ‘To yours, maybe? My mam and dad are home tonight, or else …’

  ‘Fuck that,’ he said. ‘I mean, not that.’ He grinned and kissed her. ‘I mean, let’s save that for later. Come on, let’s go and have a proper drink, shall we? Somewhere decent. Trust me, Luce,’ he said, as they set off down the sunset-dappled street, ‘I’ll have the last laugh in all this, you mark my words.’

  ‘You keep saying that,’ she said. ‘Why? How? What do you know that I don’t?’

  ‘Stuff you don’t need to,’ he said firmly.

  Chapter 18

  Paddy leaned across the unfamiliar single bed and reached for the girl’s cigarettes. She was still sleeping, curled up foetally, with her back to him, her hair, long and blonde, half across her face. She looked doll-like and he wondered idly how old she was. He had some recollection that she’d told him last night that she was sixteen but, looking at the array of posters on her bedroom wall, he doubted it. Wanted to believe it, but doubted it even so. Oh, well, he thought, striking a match.

  It was the smell rather than sound that finally woke her. She’d turned over in her sleep now, and wrinkled her nose like a rabbit. A young one. But Paddy remembered the old adage he’d learned from Mo: if they’re old enough to bleed, they’re old enough to slaughter.

  He shook her shoulder, ‘Hey, sleepy head, it’s time to wake up.’

  She stirred, pushing the sheet back. She was brazen, no question. Then she rubbed her eyes, rearranging the last of her eye make-up. ‘Morning, Paddy,’ she said, impressing him by remembering. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Half nine,’ he said, letting his gaze rest on her tits. Which were small, but beautifully formed. Not like Vicky’s. Who knew having a kid could wreak such fucking havoc? Like a pair of saggy watermelons, they were, these days. Christ – how long had it been since he’d seen a pair this perfect?

  He felt a familiar twitch between his legs and wondered if he had time for a quick shag before getting off, but immediately dismissed it. Not only because with the daylight had come sobriety – and a tiny amount of guilt – but mostly because he had to get to the lock-up to meet Mo. ‘So you’re going to need to shift your arse. Duty calls. Tell you what, though, my mouth feels like Gandhi’s fucking flip-flop. I could murder a cuppa tea.’

  Obediently – and he did love an obedient woman – she pulled the sheet off all the way and swung her legs out and onto the floor, then picked up a white towelling dressing gown and shrugged it on. Again the twitch, and he did a quick mental calculation. Tea or shag. No, on balance, the tea. Not least because the robe had her name embroidered on it – Jenny, that was it – which felt a markedly adolescent thing to do.

  ‘But just you be quiet, okay?’ she told him as she carefully turned the bedroom door handle. ‘My mam and dad like a lie-in on a Sunday and the last thing I need is you waking them up.’

  Paddy put out his cigarette in the ashtray, which he’d rested on his chest, nestled among the ever-incr
easing thicket there. Prison had put hairs on his chest – and in more ways than one. That done, he put the ashtray back on the cluttered bedside table, got up and stretched, then walked naked and curious over to her desk, picking up various bits and bats to have a nosey.

  And soon found the evidence, in the form of a school exercise book, on which was written (in small writing, in purple biro) Jenny Froggatt, A3. Science. Fucking third year! Jesus, the lying little cow! Still, if she was okay about bringing blokes home for a quick romp while her parents slept, then who was he to argue?

  Not that he wanted to meet her father on the landing, so he dressed quickly and quietly, with special emphasis on the quietly. Two gulps of the tea and he’d be off, he decided. No point pushing the bit of luck that had brought him this bounty, after all.

  And it had been an unexpected bit of luck, as well. The non-starter of the fight – well, that had been an amusing enough diversion, and it had been good to trade some punches with fucking Daley. But Vic blowing up like that – that had been entirely unexpected. What had she expected him to do with the knowledge she’d given him (and completely willingly, for that matter)? Forget it? As if. Or perhaps, in her stupidity, she thought he’d accompany the pair of them down the adoption clinic, going ‘there, there’. Was that it?

  So for her to kick off the way she had was disingenuous at best, pathetic at worst. And that was another thing – since when was that loud-mouthed bitch of a friend of hers more important than him? They were a fucking couple, for God’s sake – fucking parents of a kid! It was high time she started thinking about her priorities. So there was a kind of justice in her going off on one and telling him to go and fuck himself – because it gave him carte blanche to go into town and do exactly that.

  Still, the twitch in the loins of lust couldn’t compete with the jab in the ribs of guilt. He downed half the tea the girl brought back up to him in two thirsty swallows, answering her question ‘Am I going to get to see you again, Paddy?’ with a kiss (on her head, not her lips – class A fucking 3!) and the whispered explanation that, lovely as she was, he reckoned his bird might have something to say about it.