Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  She looked genuinely shocked. ‘You’ve got a girlfriend? Well, what the fuck did you come home with me for?’ she hissed.

  He bent to kiss her head again, but she darted away crossly. He raised his hands in supplication. ‘Love, you wanted a bit of the Padster, did you not? And I’m afraid I can’t say no to a pretty face.’

  He then pulled on his leather jacket, responding to her teary-eyed ‘You can fuck off then’ with an apologetic grin, and heading quickly (and again, quietly) down the tastefully decorated staircase, past the door to the kitchen (again, decent, fitted kitchen) and out of the door, reflecting that some girls never learned, did they? Give it up in a heartbeat, and you’ll get your heart broken.

  Christ, the thought of his own daughter shagging on demand like that … He closed the front gate and glanced up at the front bedroom window. No, he’d be a much better dad.

  Realising he was in Great Horton – it had all been a blur, last night, really – put an extra spring in Paddy’s step. He was near enough to the town centre to be able to walk in and grab a pint, before heading up to the taxi office and getting a cab to the lock-up on Manningham Lane.

  He could give Vicky a quick ring from there as well. And as he walked, thoughts of conciliation soon resolved themselves into anger, so by the time he’d arrived at the Old Crown, he was not only unrepentant about making the most of the opportunity she’d given him (not that she’d ever know about it) but also increasingly of the opinion that what she most needed was a bollocking, both for giving him so much grief when he pretty much had to fucking keep her, and for showing him up in front of everyone in the bloody Oddfellows.

  He got himself a pint, which went a long way to soften the hard edges of an increasingly nagging headache, then went to call her from the payphone. ‘Oh, baby, I’m so sorry about last night,’ she said immediately she answered the phone. ‘I’ve been going mad here, not hearing from you. I’m really, really sorry. I was just so upset – I just hadn’t thought about it – you know, Lucy and that, and having told you about her not being able to have a kid and everything – just completely forgotten, and she was so upset, and I just lost it. And it was my fault in the first frigging place. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I didn’t mean to stomp off like that.’

  Her tone of appeasement momentarily floored him. He’d been expecting a rant and was up for a fight. All so much neater if she was still in a rage. Put shagging Jenny the randy schoolgirl in the right moral box.

  Still, he’d stick to his guns. ‘Quite bloody right! It’s not on, Vic. I’m getting sick of you mugging me off at the slightest fucking thing. I was like Billy fucking no mates in town on my own. Like a div. And I’m not fucking having it.’

  ‘I know, babes,’ she gushed at him. ‘And I’m sorry, I really am. Anyway, you coming up now? So I can apologise to you properly?’

  He was sorely tempted, even though he knew he absolutely couldn’t. She was good value for money when she was feeling apologetic. And despite everything, she still had that something about her. He’d never known a girl quite so sinuous and biddable. Perhaps because he’d been the one to deflower her.

  Such an odd word that, he mused, as he took a sip of his pint. Surely, when you thought about the mechanics of sex, it was a lot more about her flowering?

  But she killed it dead. Started wittering about the baby. Again. Oh, you should have been here! She almost rolled over! I can’t believe it! So early! And so on. He rolled his eyes. This was getting to be too much of a regular thing these days. Her on about the bleeding kid all the time, like she was some kind of genius. Babies were just that: bloody babies. They cried, they crapped, they drank milk, they slept. This one, as far as he could tell, was no different from any other. Like his dad used to say when his mam had some cousin or neighbour’s kid over to babysit, ‘Show me again once it can actually bloody do something.’

  Still, she was now on about cooking dinner, and she was a half-decent cook, so the prospect of heading over there after doing his bit of business with Mo wasn’t without an element of appeal.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll be there when the pubs shut in that case. About half three, but don’t think you can get round me that easily. A roast dinner doesn’t make up for last night, babe.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ she twittered, as if she hadn’t even heard that, but then maybe she already knew the subject was closed now. That, even if she didn’t realise why, they were square. ‘And I’ll put our Chantelle in that new pink dress that I bought her,’ she went on. ‘And I’ll try to keep her awake till you get here.’

  Paddy shook his head as he put the phone down. Our fucking Chantelle? What was she like?

  ‘Bird trouble?’ the barmaid asked as she pulled Paddy another pint. He was obviously giving off some sort of aura today, because she smiled at him provocatively and made a big show of leaning right across the bar in order to give it to him. And in a top that left little to the imagination.

  ‘Could be if you don’t put those threepenny bits away,’ he told her, winking. She was at least as old as his mother, but firm-looking, and she probably knew a trick or two.

  ‘In your dreams, gorgeous,’ she replied, winking back.

  It’s a hard life, Paddy thought, as he gulped down half the second pint. So many birds and so little time. But Rasta Mo would be royally fucked off if he wasn’t at the lock-up to receive the next load of coke, so no time for flirting. Not today anyway. This lass would have to go in his ‘to do’ book.

  It was – and would never be – a good idea to mix booze, dope and coke. The unholy trinity, Paddy thought, feeling pleased with his invention, though less pleased with the state of his head, bones and muscles, which were now in a state of mutiny, and refusing to work as a team. Sod it, though, he thought as he pushed Vicky’s gate open. It was a pay day that was worthy of a celebration, after all. Why do all that graft and take all those risks if you couldn’t splash some cash around now and then? And it wasn’t like he was mean with his good fortune either. Sure, he could be, but almost as good as the money was the look on folk’s faces when he pulled his wad of cash out and bought drinks for anyone who he talked to.

  Irish Pete called it pathetic, being flash with your money, and if Pete hadn’t been Pete, he’d have given him a slap for fucking saying that. What did Pete know about him? His life? The things that mattered to him? What did he know about the importance of respect? Pete just didn’t get it. And he probably would never get it. He wasn’t trying to buy it, he was fucking earning it, wasn’t he?

  He was also pretty generous with the blow. And he always had a stash of ready-rolled joints for his special friends; the ones who made a proper fuss of him like he felt he deserved. The ones he could rely on. His family, if you liked – yes, he liked that. He closed the gate with a clatter and walked carefully up the path. He hoped the fucking kid was asleep.

  ‘Paddy, your dinner’s ruined!’ was the first thing Vicky said. So her good mood hadn’t stayed the course then.

  ‘It’s not half four yet!’ he pointed out, having consulted his watch.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s like an hour since you said you’d be here, and everything’s ruined. Bloody chicken, too, and all the trimmings, which I made specially for you. And now it’s all dried up!’

  ‘A bit like you then, you mardy cow,’ Paddy slurred. He wasn’t sure if her anger was a pain or a plus. On the one hand she could rant like a banshee when she was riled, but, on the other hand, it made her all the wilder in bed. ‘Just give it here,’ he said. ‘I’ll eat the fucker, for fuck’s sake. I’m bloody starving, I am. I could eat a cardboard box. Anyway, where’s the dragon?’ he asked, following her into the tiny kitchen, all steamed-up windows and chicken smells and unwashed pots and pans.

  ‘Bingo,’ Vicky said, her back to him as she pulled the plate from the oven. ‘Just left. Lucy and all. I think we’re okay now, thank God.’

  Paddy found himself sparking with sudden anger. ‘What d’you mean “okay”? What
the fuck have you got to apologise to her for? Seriously, Vic, have you only got one brain cell?’

  Vicky lifted off the plate covering Paddy’s meal with gloved hands. Her back was stiff. ‘I wanted to apologise for upsetting her.’ She turned around now. She’d put her hair up into some sort of clip, and bits of it clung to her temples and neck. She looked suddenly so much a woman. An adult. ‘Pad, she didn’t know, did she? I never told her I’d ever mentioned it to you. I’d pretty much forgotten myself, it was so long ago. So she was bound to be upset, wasn’t she?’

  Paddy took a step closer to her. The food, dried up though it might be, made his stomach rumble. And for some reason – the weed, perhaps? Probably, he decided – he couldn’t really be bothered to have a fight with her. ‘So what you’re saying,’ he said, ‘is that you were apologising for me. For what I said to her cunt of a boyfriend.’

  She blinked at ‘cunt’. Then she shook her head. ‘I was apologising for having told you in the first place. Because I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Your girly secret.’

  ‘Our girly secret,’ she agreed.

  ‘So that’s the way it goes, is it? You two keeping secrets from me?’

  ‘Like you don’t?’ She sounded defiant. ‘Like what you’re up to? Where you go? What you do at that lock-up with Mo?’

  He’d half expected her to add ‘Where were you last night?’ to the list. But she didn’t. So that was good. He couldn’t help it, he smiled. Must be the weed. Definitely the weed.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Vicky said, her face crumpling, ‘and what have you been taking? You’re acting all weird.’

  He laced both arms around her waist. She smelt, not unappealingly, of stuffing. ‘Don’t start,’ he said mildly. ‘I just think … I just think …’ What did he think, really? ‘I just think it’s them …’ he decided upon. Yes, that was it.

  ‘Them?’

  ‘Him and her. Laurel and fucking Hardy. We only ever row about them, don’t we? When we bump into them, or about them, or anything to fucking do with them. And we shouldn’t. We’re supposed to be a family, aren’t we? You, me and Chantelle. She asleep, by the way?’

  Vicky nodded, looking bemused now. ‘Just gone down.’

  ‘So I just reckon,’ he said, making a calculation about the dryness of his dinner, ‘that we’re better off out of it. Away from them. Completely. Away from her, that means. You get me? Right away. She might be your mate, babe – and I know you go way back, and fair enough, I respect that – but her fucking boyfriend is dangerous, you get me? To me. To us. To our family,’ he added. ‘So I really don’t want her around my daughter, you know?’

  She nodded again, meekly. My daughter. He could tell that had got her.

  Vicky glanced out into the hall. The baby was probably kipping in her pram in the living room. So be it. Paddy let her go and popped the plate back on the other plate. Then slid it onto a shelf in the still-warm oven.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking Vicky’s hand and tugging on it playfully. ‘Let’s nip upstairs for a quickie while the dragon’s down the Mecca dotting her numbers.’

  She tugged playfully back.

  Easy as one, two, three.

  It had turned out to be quite a productive weekend.

  Chapter 19

  Seeing Gurdy sitting in the corner of the Italian café on John Street gave Lucy a little pang of something she recognised as regret. She loved her job. Liked the people – even the toffs she thought she wouldn’t like. She also loved the salary, loved the fact that she had prospects for a different, better future. But it still struck her, all the time, specially since Vicky’d decided to blank her, that she was moving up in the world, on in the world, but away from her friends. In Vicky’s case forcibly, but in Gurdy’s case not so; it was more like he was being dragged from her by an invisible thread. Part of the fabric of his increasingly different life now.

  She waved then pushed the door open, glad he’d suggested the place he had. It had been a brisk walk from the office but at least the service would be quick. The owner was such an arsehole the staff couldn’t be anything else.

  She also brightened at clocking the pleasure on her friend’s face in seeing her, and wondered how much he knew about recent events. He was like a radar for trouble – emotional trouble, anyway. She wondered if he’d seen anything of Vicky. Or just Paddy. She hated that he still worked for Paddy. Hated that he seemed increasingly to work for Paddy. And, by extension, that monster Mo. She wished he’d stop.

  ‘What d’you fancy?’ Gurdy asked her, hopping up as she sat down. ‘I’m guessing you don’t have a lot of time, yeah?’

  He looked skinnier than ever, though he was wearing an expensive-looking shirt.

  ‘Just the hour,’ she said, ‘thank you. And just a plain omelette and salad, and a diet Coke,’ she added, undoing the zip on her handbag to get a fiver out.

  Gurdy pulled a face. ‘Sure?’ he asked, dubiously. She nodded. ‘And don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘Lunch is on me today.’ He patted his back pocket and then burst into un-self-conscious song. ‘Moolah, moolah, moolah!’ he warbled, rubbing finger and thumb together. ‘Is a rich dude’s world!’

  Lucy couldn’t help but laugh. Gurdy had this way of making everything seem better, and she felt momentarily guilty that her main reason for phoning and asking him if he fancied lunch was so that she could unburden herself about Vicky and bloody Paddy – whom she knew was behind everything – by dumping all her murderous thoughts on him.

  Not that she was stupid – he probably knew that only too well. Almost definitely, according to Jimmy, who’d bumped into him earlier in the week, when his first question had apparently been, ‘How’s Lucy?’

  Gurdy was back in moments. They’d done well to get in before the rush. He announced he’d ordered a burger and chips, as if to a waiting audience. ‘If they could see me now …’ he sang as he took his seat again, and handed her a can of Coke.

  ‘If who could?

  ‘Mummy and Daddy, of course,’ he said, grinning. ‘Christ, you’d think I was murdering a fucking cow in front of their eyes if they copped me eating that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Must be odd, that,’ Lucy commented, wishing she’d done the same now. Did it really make that much difference to her prognosis, all this healthy eating lark? Was there any science in it? She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like she normally ate like a pig, was it? All she knew was that it didn’t make her feel any better, and a lot of the time – now, for instance – it just made her feel sad. She didn’t want to be thin and sad, she wanted to blossom with fertility.

  Gurdy looked at her quizzically. ‘Odd?’

  ‘You know, having all this stuff you’re not supposed to eat.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ Gurdy said. ‘Could be a Muslim, couldn’t I? No bacon sarnies then. Now that really would be torture.’

  True to form, the food arrived in less than five minutes and as they started eating, having dispensed with the usual catch-up pleasantries (yes, work was fine, no, he hadn’t yet found a boyfriend) she launched straight into how Vicky had dumped her.

  ‘Well, I say dumped – it wasn’t quite like that. More “just best if we don’t see each other at the moment, because it’s coming between us”. As in her and that bastard. And how she had to realise where her priorities lay now. I mean, fucking hell, Gurdy, when is she ever going to see him for the control freak he is? He is such a bastard!’

  ‘That lunch of yours doesn’t look any too pretty either,’ Gurdy observed, pushing his plate closer to her. ‘Go on, help yourself to some chips before you die of salad poisoning. And, erm, not anytime soon, I reckon, don’t you?’

  Lucy leaned forward. ‘Look, I know you’re stuck in the middle of all this, mate, but has he said anything to you? Only I keep veering between one thing and the other. Do I keep trying to speak to Vic? Or her mam? She can’t stand him. Or do I speak to Paddy?’

  ‘You’re seriously thinking of doing that? What would that achie
ve?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … I just keep thinking of the baby … What’s happening with her now? How the hell is Vic managing without me to help with the childcare? I just, oh, I don’t know … I just can’t do nothing, can I?’

  Gurdy put down his burger and wiped his mouth delicately on his paper serviette. ‘He’d love that, of course.’

  ‘Who, Paddy?’

  Gurdy nodded. ‘It’s like a game to him, you and Vic.’

  ‘Well, that’s clear enough …’

  ‘No, I mean, in keeping you apart. He likes winding you up. I reckon he likes winding you up more than he likes winding her up. Because he fancies you.’

  He sat back, clearly pleased with his little bit of detective work. Lucy was tempted to tell him he was talking rubbish. It wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted to articulate – definitely not the sort of thing she’d like said around Vicky. But there was no getting away from the fact that it might be true. To a point. She’d make a good scalp. A good notch on his bedpost. He was such a shit.

  She said so. ‘Not to mention the fact that he also hates me.’

  ‘They reckon there’s a thin line between love and hate, Luce,’ Gurdy said. ‘It’s not just that you’re with Jimmy – though that’s obviously a part of it. No, I think Paddy hates you because he knows he can never have you. And he’s used to getting what he wants, or who he wants, when he wants.’

  All of which Lucy knew to be true. ‘Hark at you, with all the philosophy,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry to drone on at you. I just feel so frustrated at having to stand by and watch my mate – our mate – fuck her life up with that twat.’

  ‘But you have to, you know,’ Gurdy said, his expression suddenly serious.

  Lucy took a couple of chips. Why the hell hadn’t she ordered chips? Like their absence would make everything, anything, okay.