Blood Sisters: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?

‘No, you really don’t,’ Paddy said. ‘Trust me, Vic. You were just fine as you were.’

‘Pad, babe, I am dressed because I am going out. With Luce,’ she added, picking the towel up. ‘Remember?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Paddy said, as the tape began playing. ‘Moonlight, Music and You’, one of his favourites. Granny music, she’d called it once. Which had gone down like a lead balloon.

‘Babe, don’t be dense,’ Vicky said. ‘I told you about it ages back. And I mentioned it Monday. It was our last day today, remember? I am no longer a schoolgirl. And we are going out to celebrate the fact. Remember?’

Paddy turned up the tape player. Vicky resisted the urge to turn it down again. Next thing she’d have her mam screaming up the stairs at her. Which she really didn’t want, since the one thing she did want was to cadge a fiver off her.

Paddy pulled a face Vicky knew well. ‘So what about me, then?’ he asked her, sticking his lower lip out.

‘What about you?’

‘What am I supposed to do while you’re gallivanting round Bradford with that gormless friend of yours? It’s me you should be celebrating with, not her.’

‘Don’t call her that,’ Vicky said. ‘And how am I supposed to know what you’re supposed to be doing? You were supposed to be going out with the lads and I’m going out with Luce and Gurdy. We can celebrate together tomorrow night’ – she blew a kiss at him. ‘As per the plan.’

Paddy rolled his eyes. ‘Gurdy? That Paki twat? Jesus,’ he countered, ‘why the fuck do you want to hang around with him tonight?’ Despite his harsh words, he was still grinning as he inched nearer to her, moving in and whispering things in her ear that would have her mother’s toes curl if she could hear them.

She wriggled away from him again, despite feeling the familiar tug of animal attraction, and began transferring what she needed into her clutch bag. ‘Paddy, I’m going out. O.U.T. No arguments. Luce will be here any minute. And there’s no point in you trying to sweet talk me, because it won’t make any difference …’

Though, even as she said the words, it already was. He was nuzzling at her neck now and, infuriatingly, she was enjoying it. ‘I wasn’t planning on sweet talking,’ he said, purring the song lyrics into her ear, and pinioning her within the circle of his ridiculously strong arms.

‘Paddy, stop it,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m going out.’

He let her go then, and flung himself down on her bed with a heavy sigh.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘Leave me then. Go on. Leave me all on my lonesome so you can go and chat up all the other lads in town.’ His gaze travelled up and down her again. ‘And they’ll be all over you, dressed in that. Actually—’ He sat up again, grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his lap. ‘I reckon I ought to come with you. Keep you safe from wandering hands …’

‘Pad, I’m sixteen,’ Vicky pointed out, already imagining Lucy’s face at the thought of having Paddy chaperoning them. Lucy was as fond of Paddy as Paddy was of Lucy, i.e. not at all. And, increasingly, it was becoming tedious to have to deal with. Not least because Vicky loved Paddy, and her loyalties felt increasingly divided, and Luce never quite seemed to get that. Never quite seemed to get that, actually, Vicky didn’t mind that Paddy could wind her round his little finger. Because it worked both ways. He’d do anything for her. He’d give his life for her. She knew that. Luce didn’t quite get that bit either, Vicky reckoned.

Still, tonight was different. They’d made a plan and she was determined to stick to it. ‘Seriously,’ she added, climbing off Paddy’s lap again, ‘I can look after myself.’

‘That’s not what I’m worried about,’ Paddy said. ‘It’s all the lads that’ll be trying it on with you, that’s what I’m worrying about.’

‘Okay,’ said Vicky, seizing on a way to turn things to her advantage. ‘How about me and Luce go out, like we’d planned, and then we meet up with you later on? We’ve much more chance of getting into places if you’re there, after all. Go on, that’ll work, won’t it? You go and find someone else to play with for a bit, and then we’ll meet up at Jokers. How about that?’

Paddy reached out and slid a hand up the back of her thigh. ‘But I want to play with you …’

Nothing for it. She’d have to be firmer. ‘I’m telling you,’ she said briskly, batting his hand away. ‘Cut it out!’

‘God!’ he said, sighing theatrically for a second time, as he grabbed the packet of cigarettes and lighter Vicky was just about to put in her bag.

‘Oi!’ she said as he lit one. ‘Smoke your own! That’s all I’ve got.’

Ignoring her, he drew on it deeply and blew the smoke out in rings. Then stood up and walked through the cloud he’d created, first turning up the volume and then picking up her dressing-table mirror and setting it carefully down on the bedroom floor.

He’d done it countless times. He loved to dance, and particularly in Vicky’s bedroom because of the lino on the floor. All the better to practise his moves. She stood and watched him, as she always did, even though it wasn’t really her music. Loved to watch how he lost himself so totally in the music, his eyes on the mirror as his feet slid and flicked across the floor. He was so good. So impossibly, mesmerisingly good. And then, predictably, almost, he reached out a hand to her, parked his fag in the ashtray and swept her up with him.

It was crazy. There was no room to swing a cat, let alone her. But she went along with it anyway. Giggling as he twirled her, losing herself too, just like she always did when he let her come to the Mecca on Manningham Lane with him, happy to be led by him – he was such a brilliant exhibitionist – basking in the oohs and ahs and loving all the comments about how amazingly they danced as a couple.

And then, as the track ended, he reeled her in towards him, cupped a hand round her buttock and began kissing her again.

‘Pad, babe,’ she started. ‘Look, you know I can’t resist you, but I’m on a promise and I have to go out, okay? I—’

There was a cough. ‘Not on my account, you don’t.’

It was Lucy’s voice, from the doorway, the light spilling across their feet as she pushed it open wider.

They both span around. ‘Luce, you’re here—’ Vicky started, conscious of Paddy deliberately taking his time lowering the hand that had been kneading her left breast.

‘With brilliant timing, as per usual,’ he finished dryly.

‘So it seems,’ Lucy said, her eyes darting between them. ‘So if I’m interrupting …’

‘Course you’re not,’ Vicky said, snatching her bag up and shoving her fags into it. ‘I’m just about ready. Just got to grab my jacket and see if I can scrounge a couple of quid off Mam. God, just think,’ she said, conscious that she was beginning to prattle, ‘this time next week we’ll both have pay packets. Can you imagine?’

She was aware of Paddy behind her, crushing his – her – fag out. Then bending over the cassette player and getting his tape out. She reached across Lucy to switch the bedroom light off.

‘I won’t,’ Lucy said, and her voice was flat and hard. ‘I’m on a monthly salary, aren’t I? It’s going to seem like an age.’

‘What d’you expect?’ Paddy said, as he slipped the tape into his back pocket. ‘That’s what you get for working in an office, isn’t it?’ He managed to make it sound, Vicky thought, like it was some sort of offence. ‘Anyway,’ he then added brightly, ‘where to first, then?’

Vicky felt her friend’s eyes on her before she turned to meet them. Accusing. Questioning. Boring into her back, as she led the procession back downstairs. She met them at the bottom of the stairs and frowned apologetically. But she could see Lucy was not in the mood for an apology.

Her eyes narrowed and she looked behind Vicky, to Paddy. ‘What, you’re coming?’ she said to him.

‘Course I am,’ he told her. ‘Got to keep an eye on my girl, haven’t I? Why?’ His voice was challenging. ‘You got a problem with that?’

Lucy ignored him. ‘Seriously?’ she said to Vicky, looking exasperated. ‘Seriously?’

‘Is it such a big deal?’ Vicky responded, feeling her hackles rise, despite herself. ‘It’s not like Gurdy won’t be out with us, not to mention half of bloody Lidget Green, for that matter.’

Lucy’s expression hardened. ‘Yes, actually, Vic. Yes it is. Because it means I get to play gooseberry while he bloody paws you. Great girls’ night out that’s going to be. Cheers, mate.’

Vicky could see Paddy’s satisfied grin forming out of the corner of her eye, and for a moment it crossed her mind to tell him that, actually, Lucy was right. That he needed to go somewhere else and amuse himself for a bit – Christ, he knew every-fucking-body, didn’t he? But something stopped her, or at least made her hesitate, and she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Or maybe she did know. It was frustration. Couldn’t Lucy just roll with it for once? Why did she have to make everything to do with Paddy so bloody difficult? Because Lucy knew as well as she did that when they got to the Boy and Barrel or the Crown or wherever they were going first, he’d be off on the dance floor, or off with some of his cronies, within minutes of them so much as stepping into the place. So why couldn’t Lucy just let it go?

‘Look, let’s just go, shall we?’ she said. ‘Let me just go talk nicely with Mam, yeah? Won’t be a second. Where’s Gurdy going to be anyway? He’ll be wondering where we’ve got to …’

Not waiting for an answer, she headed off into the back room, where her mam was, as ever, full-length on the sofa, fag in hand, tea at her elbow, telly blaring.

‘I’m off, Mam,’ she said. ‘And I was wondering …’

Her mam ferreted in her cardigan pocket before she’d even got the rest out. ‘And that’s only a sub,’ she said, pushing a five-pound note into Vicky’s palm. ‘Not a gift. And now you’re earning, I’ll be expecting keep off you too.’

Vicky slipped the money into her bag and headed back into the hall. Paddy was standing on the doorstep, the open door allowing a balmy summer night’s breeze in. It had a sweet, exotic scent to it, heralding the start of what she was determined was going to be a brilliant night. Lucy would get over herself. She usually did.