Bad Blood

Josie kissed the top of her head. ‘You don’t have to explain, mate. I know. Something of your own. Something to love. Someone to love you. I understand.’ Then she smiled ruefully. ‘Christ, I sound like a bloody soap opera!’

Christine balled the paper towel. ‘My life is a bloody soap opera!’ she said, with feeling. ‘But at least now I can get out of it. Get away from that shit hole. Get away from her and make a life of my own. But, look, Josie, you’ve got to tell her for me. Tell her before she comes here. Give her a chance to –’

‘To what? Build up a proper head of steam before she gets here?’

Christine shook her head. ‘Just to get used to the idea before she arrives. Not that he’s Mo’s kid. Just that he’s a half-caste. Just to get her used to that idea first.’

‘Love, you’re not thinking straight. You think she won’t work it out? Really?’

‘She’s no reason to if I deny it. And that’s what I plan on doing.’

‘And you’ll say it’s whose, exactly? Like who exactly might be in the frame, here? Like you really think if you tell her it’s some anonymous bloody Indian bloke she’s going to believe that? Like, say, Imran? I think you’re clutching at straws, love, I really do.’

Christine looked across at the cot. Reached a hand out to touch her baby. ‘She’s going to kill me, isn’t she? She’s going to hate him for ever. Even if I …’ She started sobbing again. ‘She’s going to kill me.’

Josie sighed as she reached for her handbag. ‘I’ll try her again now, okay?’ she said, squeezing her friend’s arm, then passing yet another paper towel to her. What a mess. What a complete fuck-up. ‘I’ll see what I can do, okay? See if I can at least get it down to life without parole.’

Josie put the payphone to her ear again, reflecting on the irony that she’d initially thought it a bonus that Lizzie had picked up. She’d not expected her to – thought she’d probably stay out for half the evening, so she’d tried the house phone again more in hope than expectation. But she was now seeing the error of her ways. It would have been so much better just to leave it. Leave it all till tomorrow. Tell Lizzie Christine was staying at hers for the night. She’d have believed that, because she often stayed over.

Josie could see that now, of course, and mentally kicked herself for not thinking it through. Because Lizzie was currently two things – furious and drunk. A bloody nightmare of a combination.

‘I will, you know,’ she was saying now. ‘I’ll fucking kill her. Everything I’ve done for that little bitch and how does she repay me? By sleeping with my fucking boyfriend!’

Josie considered pointing out that Lizzie wasn’t quite right on that score. However much she might bury her head in the sand about it – and she clearly had – it was common knowledge that Rasta Mo had a number of girlfriends scattered around the estate. Not to mention kids – and quite a few of them, if talk was to be believed. And besides, to mention that would be to confirm that it was Mo’s. Which, despite her knowing it was pointless, Christine had made her promise she wouldn’t.

And it was pointless, because another thing everyone knew about Mo was his penchant for a bit of young flesh. And Lizzie knew that too, however much she might try to kid herself otherwise. One day, as far as Mo went, she’d be deemed over the hill.

Josie pondered how to play it – whether she should state the bleeding obvious; that her beloved boyfriend might have somewhat forced his hand there. That Lizzie knew what he was like, how he’d have groomed Christine in preparation. Then raped her, to Josie’s mind, for all Christine denied it. She wasn’t yet convinced he hadn’t told her to say that. Commanded her to say that. Or else.

But there seemed little point. Not right now. Because Lizzie was half-cut. Best just deal in facts, not recriminations. ‘What’s done is done, Lizzie,’ she said firmly. ‘So you’re just going to have to make the best of it. Oh, Liz, I tell you, he’s so gorgeous. Just wait till you see him. I know it’s … complicated, but can’t you just –’

‘Make the fucking best of it? What are you on about?’

Okay then. Time to fight fire with fire, Josie thought. ‘Lizzie, will you just get over yourself?! We’re talking about your fucking grandson!’

‘My grandson? My grandson! I tell you what. Give that slut a message, will you? That that sprog she’s popped out is no grandson of mine! Actually no. Don’t do that, Jose. I’ll fucking tell her myself!’

The receiver went down with a clatter.

It was around a ten-minute walk from Lizzie’s house on Quaker Lane to St Luke’s, and Josie’s immediate thought was to hurry back there and attempt to head her off. But no sooner had she got halfway down Little Horton Lane (having opted not to waste time going back to the ward and explain to Christine) than she saw a car flash by, hooting – a car that she recognised. It was Gerald Delaney’s, a young lad off the estate, and she could see Lizzie glaring at her from behind the windscreen. She silently fumed. How much unluckier could you get?

She turned around and began jogging back where she’d come from, watching the car swing into the hospital grounds and disappear out of sight. Where it would soon disgorge Lizzie, a spitting ball of bile and fury.

Breathing hard, she reached the entrance, the car having long gone now, wondering quite what she was heading back into. It had been a vain hope – a mistake – trying to play the ‘happy grandparent’ card, clearly. This was a woman without a maternal bone in her body. Which wasn’t all her fault. Josie had sufficient empathy to understand that. Josie might have had a tough childhood, what with what had happened to her and everything, but at least she had a mam and dad who’d loved her, in their way. And her brother Vinnie. Always Vinnie. All things Lizzie had never had – she’d been not so much brought up as dragged up, when they could be bothered, by a pair of neglectful, preoccupied drunks. It was a miracle they hadn’t lost her to a foster family years back – she remembered her own mam saying that. Or, if you looked at it another way, a shame.

Either way, Lizzie Parker was on the warpath, and she needed to catch her.

Chapter 3 (#u1d9f07eb-8571-5f7f-9ac4-ab585437e615)

It didn’t take long. Though Lizzie had obviously had sufficient presence of mind to present a calm, motherly exterior at the reception, Josie was still outside the post-natal ward when she first picked up more familiar tones. What was the stupid woman thinking of? Turning up there, hanging out all her dirty washing in public? No, she might not give a flying fuck about who heard the torrent of abuse she intended for Christine, but did she not have sufficient pride to worry about how it would make her look? Like a pissed-up old fishwife with a mouth like a sewer – and it was odds on there’d be someone in earshot who’d know of her, even if they didn’t know her personally.

But it was clearly too late to try and lead her away and talk some sense into her. As Josie approached the double doors, she was already behind a small gathering of nurses, who were hurrying to the scene in a blur of blue.

She spotted Lizzie right away. It wasn’t difficult, as she was dressed to be noticed, in spray-on drainpipes and a clingy long-sleeved vest top. And Josie could tell from her stance that she was as drunk as she’d sounded on the phone – slightly wide-footed, as if recently dismounted from a horse. The same stance she remembered from her own childhood, when her mam had returned from a lunchtime session down the pub. She’d stand in front of the mantelpiece, randomly prodding her hair, and trying to focus sufficiently to apply her signature blood-red lipstick. Like a kid holding a crayon and trying to colour inside the lines. One of the reasons Josie never adorned her own mouth.

Christine was still in bed. She’d given birth less than two hours ago, for fuck’s sake! And to the side, standing protectively in front of both mother and baby (and looking like she’d happily deal with any nonsense) stood a nurse – senior by the looks of it, probably the ward sister – with her hands held out in front of her, at chest height. She put Josie in mind of a football referee trying to stop an angry forward starting on a defender.

She hurried up. Touched Lizzie’s arm, which was immediately shaken off. ‘Lizzie, it’s me,’ she hissed. ‘Will you please calm the fu—’ she quickly swallowed the expletive – ‘down!’

Lizzie glanced at her, but only briefly. She was already engaged in conversation with the nurse, clearly. ‘Of course I’m going to fucking leave!’ she was saying. ‘Does it look like I want to stay here? I’ve seen everything I need to see, thank you very much. And, yes,’ she added, in response to some pointed nodding and gesticulating by the nurse to one of the others, ‘feel free to call whoever the fuck you like, love. I am outta here,’ she finished dramatically. Josie rolled her eyes. Had she heard that expression off the telly? ‘And as for you, you little bitch –’ she stabbed a burgundy-tipped finger in Christine’s direction – ‘don’t even think about coming back home.’

Christine, whey-faced and visibly shaking, said nothing in response to this.

The nurse did. ‘Mrs Parker!’ she exploded. ‘That’s enough!’

Josie became aware now of the occupants of the two other beds in the bay. Both young-looking. Both wide-eyed. One with a hand to her mouth. There was the sound of a baby crying. Christine’s baby, she realised. She saw her friend glance at the cot. Watched Lizzie’s eyes swivel too, towards the source of the noise. Josie touched her arm again. Grabbed onto it more firmly this time. Was she bloody going or wasn’t she? The nurse was moving towards her, perhaps to take hold of her other arm.

The nurse didn’t, though. She just strode up and was right in Lizzie’s face. ‘Out.’ She didn’t raise her voice now. She didn’t need to. A noise from behind alerted Josie to the reason why – the arrival of more support. She let Lizzie go and glanced backwards, relieved. She wouldn’t put it past Lizzie to engage in a spot of brawling, but perhaps not with the three burly young porters who were now approaching.

Lizzie wasn’t done yet, however. Stepping round the nurse, presumably keen to add a pithy parting shot, she headed straight for her daughter. But then turned her head away again and, as if on impulse, cleared her throat.

Oh, no …

Josie realised what she was about to do, and reached out in vain to stop it happening. Too late. As Christine’s expression changed from fear to disgust, Lizzie filled her mouth, noisily, and then spat into the cot. ‘That thing? My grandson?’ she said. ‘Not fucking likely.’

She even laughed – a weird, almost Disney-esque moment, Josie thought – as, like the bad fairy godmother, she was quickly escorted out, and everyone was suddenly talking all at once.

Thankfully, Lizzie’s phlegm missed the baby’s face by inches. A new blanket was fetched. Both cot and baby were changed. And after an intense round of chatter – the sister and Josie comforting Christine, the junior nurses reassuring the other mothers – within no more than fifteen minutes the ward was once again quiet and orderly, the echoes of the whirlwind that had so recently invaded it reduced to memories (and gossip, for when new visitors came) of the unpleasant scene that had been witnessed.

Christine was shaken, but surprisingly sanguine on the surface, but then, she’d just given birth and was shattered, no doubt. Josie suspected it would only properly hit her later. There was also the small matter of expectation and familiarity. Lizzie had always been fiery. Had always had a temper. She wore her heart on her sleeve, said what she thought, and Josie couldn’t recall a time when she’d cared the slightest jot who happened to hear her.

But this was rich, even for her – this thing had clearly sent her reeling. Which made Josie anxious; could she really be that blind about Mo? As for Christine herself, perhaps now, for all the excruciating embarrassment, she was relieved it was done now, finally over, this secret that she’d been carrying. A weight that, emotionally, must have felt almost as big as the baby’s. Which, positive though it was, still frustrated Josie greatly – why on earth hadn’t she confided in her?

Still, that was done now, and Josie knew she could only follow Christine’s lead. Perhaps she’d always known, after all, how her mum was going to react. Perhaps things were panning out entirely as she’d expected.

Well, from Christine’s point of view, perhaps, but certainly not the nurse’s. Who was indeed the ward sister. And a ward sister who now had a problem.

And once tea had been bought – the hospital trolley having rattled up in timely fashion – it was one she was keen to address. And in doing so (and this was unusual, so a testament to the difficulty of the situation) she was only too happy to include Josie. The problem was simple and quick to establish; that, from the sound of it, Christine – and her baby – had nowhere to go.

‘Which leaves us with a problem, my love,’ she told Christine gently. ‘Because I can’t discharge you till I know you have an address to be discharged to. And, with the best will in the world – and I obviously don’t know the circumstances in the way you both do – I can’t see your mother coming round. And that’s assuming we were entirely comfortable with you taking the baby there anyway. Which, given what we’ve just witnessed’ – she grimaced – ‘I’m not entirely sure we are.’

Christine shook her head. ‘No, that’s fine. I don’t want anything to do with her ever again. For as long as she lives,’ she added, for good measure.

So now what? Josie was conscious of time marching on. What had begun as a dash to drop her friend off in hospital had now become something very different. It was already gone four and she knew her mam would be wondering where she’d got to. It was Friday in her house just as much as in Lizzie’s, and she’d be wanting to get ready for her night out. It didn’t happen often but, as Josie thought about the mess Christine was in, she found herself really appreciating her mother.

Not to mention understanding the background to the extreme way Lizzie had reacted, even as she’d been completely appalled. Lizzie was clearly reeling. She’d been that blind about Mo – was still that blind, clearly. She’d obviously had not the tiniest inkling what Mo had been up to, so he’d obviously covered his tracks well. He was a master – had effectively washed his hands of Christine, and carried on, business as usual, with her mother. And as for Christine – Josie sighed; it was all such a needless mess, this – she’d simply buried her head in the sand.

But Christine was still a child. That was the crux of it. An innocent. Something Josie hadn’t been in a long time. And a victim, every bit as much as if Mo had raped her, rather than just seduced her. Something Josie still wasn’t ruling out. The five years that separated them in age suddenly seemed like a gulf, with Josie, so much older and world-wearier and wiser – and Christine, for all that she too was now a mum, still on the other side. She’d been seduced by a fucking expert and was now about to pay the price. It was all a bit of a ball scratcher, as their Vinnie would say.