Blood Sisters: Part 1 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?

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.

Paddy had his back to her, but turned around when he heard her and smiled.

‘Where’s Lucy?’ Vicky asked, looking past him into the street and not seeing her.

‘Stomped off, as she does,’ he said mildly. His hair had the same inky gloss as next door’s black cat. He ran a hand over it now, smoothing it down, feigning innocence.

‘Christ, Paddy! What did you say to her?’

‘Me?’ he looked astonished. ‘That one could start a fight with a fucking plant pot. Stomped off in a huff because I even fucking exist. Seriously, babes,’ he said, hooking the letter-box knocker to close the door behind them. ‘You don’t get it, do you? She doesn’t like me. And there’s fuck all we can do about that, is there? Seriously,’ he began again.

‘Pad, I feel awful. Where’d she go?’

‘I have no idea. She obviously didn’t feel like enlightening me.’

Vicky felt dreadful now. Dreadful and, all too belatedly, so bloody wrong. ‘Well, which direction did she go, then?’

‘This way,’ he said, as they fell into step. ‘She’ll be propping up the bar by the time we get there, you wait and see. But you know, babe, you’ve left school now and you’ve got to face facts. She’s got some high falutin’ job now, not to mention seeing a fucking copper’s son.’

‘So what? What difference does that make?’

Paddy slipped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Babe, you really need to ask me that? It makes all the difference. Sometimes,’ he squeezed her shoulder again, ‘you’ve just got to let friendships go. Hey!’ he added, as she raised a hand to belt him, albeit lightly. ‘I’m just saying. That’s all, babes. Just saying.’

Chapter 2 (#u18eb4d50-5f6b-510a-992f-057eb170a689)

It was going to be such a lovely night. That was the thing that really pissed Lucy off, as she stomped disconsolately round the corner into Terrington Crescent. It was just getting dark now, the sky coral at the horizon, and the air was warm and fragrant. Almost tropical in fact. One of those nights when everyone spilled out onto the streets, and you could half-believe you were in somewhere like Spain. A rare night, in fact. And it had all gone to pot. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

She shouldn’t have stormed off, and she cursed herself for it. Because that was exactly what he wanted her to do. So he’d called her a prick-tease. Putting it out when there was nothing on sale, and taking a none-too-subtle look up and down her. So what? She’d been called a lot worse in her time. And what the hell did he know about it, anyway? And the satisfaction of telling him to go and stick it where the sun didn’t shine, for all that she’d felt it, had been all too fleeting. And now what? All dressed up and nowhere to bloody go. Not unless she bit the bullet and went to Caverns anyway. Let Vicky persuade her to ignore her horrible boyfriend and get on with their evening as planned.

But would she? There was no sound from behind, so it didn’t look like her friend was rushing to catch up with her, did it? But then who knew? Paddy could have told her anything, couldn’t he?

So, home then? She dismissed the idea as soon as she thought it. All she’d get would be a tedious interrogation from her mother and that told-you-so look from her dad. And she definitely couldn’t stomach going to the phone box and ringing Jimmy. She might cry if he felt sorry for her. Which he obviously would, because he’d known how excited she’d been about her night out with Vicky. Unlike Paddy bloody Allen, who was a shit and a lech of the first order, her boyfriend was kind and considerate and decent. And, besides, it would only add fuel to the fire if she told Jimmy. And there was quite enough heat between the two lads already. Oil and water, best never mixed.

No, she was done up for an evening out, and she was having an evening out. She’d have a walk down to Lidget Green and see if she could find Gurdy, and if not, she might get lucky and bump into some mates who might fancy a few drinks in the Second West or the Oddfellows. Half the school would be out celebrating tonight, after all. And she didn’t need town anyway. Not if they were going to be there. She stuck her chin in the air, fluffed her hair up a bit, and teetered off in determined mood down Bradford Road.

Gurdy had obviously seen Lucy before she saw him. Because the first thing that alerted her to his probable whereabouts was an ear-splitting and familiar wolf whistle, coming from the bench outside the cricket field at Lidget Green. It had taken him a while to get the hang of it, but since he’d mastered the art, Gurdy now wolf whistled at any opportunity, much to the disgust of his prissy mother.

It hadn’t taken very long to track him down, and Lucy was glad she’d chosen to walk there. Had she braved the bus into town on her own she’d have missed him. And now she had an evening in prospect again, her relief was huge. Her spirits lifting finally, she even found herself smiling as his familiar scrawny figure resolved itself from in front of the backdrop of trees and he waved an arm wildly in greeting. Such an odd choice of friend – lots of people seemed to think that – a scrappy Pakistani, and a boy, as well, of course. But she and Vic’s friendship with Gurdy went back a long way; back to the day when they’d come across him being beaten up by a trio of scuzzy third-formers from Scholemoor, and, in a fit of righteous fury that neither fully understood, they had bravely waded in and seen the astonished bullies off.

They’d not known at that point that he was actually a year older than they were; he’d been a second year then, same as Lucy’s Jimmy. Just a very, very small one. And the sort of kid who had absolutely nothing going for him. Insubstantial, Indian (so not even a ‘Paki’, as it turned out), funny accent, class clown and, a greater crime than all of them – and half the reason for the bullying – invariably dressed for school as if off to see the Queen – something the girls decided, once they’d finally met Mr and Mrs Banerjee, was actually on their wish list for both of their sons. They even had a picture of the royal family on their mantelpiece.

And Gurdy’s dreams were only slightly less ambitious. Now seventeen, he’d worked in his dad’s grocery shop on White Abbey Road since he’d left school, but his ambition was to eventually own his own curry shop, no less.

So, yes, an odd friendship, but also a dear one.

‘Wow, Luce!’ he said, pinging away a cigarette as she neared him. ‘You going on the game later, or what?’

He’d scored an unwitting bullseye. It was now a doubly sore point. Not just because of Paddy, but because her dad had said pretty much the same thing earlier – the heels, the ra-ra skirt and off-the-shoulder crop-top designed not for traipsing about Bradford before it was even properly dark, but for the far less disapproving light of a nightclub. It certainly wasn’t the right kind of clothing for sitting on a bench by the bloody cricket pavilion. ‘Shut up, Gurdip,’ she said, aiming a friendly punch at his shoulder, before sitting down. ‘Anyway, what you doing here? I thought we were supposed to be meeting up at the pub?’

‘Meeting a mate for a bit,’ Gurdy told her and she didn’t ask him to elaborate. ‘Meeting a mate’ could mean stuff she didn’t want to know about. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here, for that matter?’

Lucy pulled her cigarettes from her handbag and handed one to Gurdy. ‘Don’t ask.’