Bad Blood

Josie tried not to grin. For all his big talk – which he liked to try out from time to time – Eddie was actually a teddy bear at heart. And a loyal one; another reason why she’d fallen for him so completely. He’d do anything for her and Paula, and he’d always fought her corner – never been afraid of her family (rare in itself). Even Vinnie. She felt safe with him, secure, and that was a feeling beyond value, her life before she’d met him having been no sort of life – her childhood destroyed by rape and, she’d thought, her future with it. But he’d saved her. Would poor Christine be as lucky?

She came around the side of the car and nipped his bum through his oily jeans. ‘Thanks, babe,’ she said. ‘Now, how do you feel about a bacon sarnie? Only I’ve got to nip down to Lizzie’s and pick up Christine’s stuff for her, and –’

‘And muggins here is expected to hold the baby? Bleeding typical!’

Josie turned and blew him a kiss as she scooped Paula up and headed back inside. ‘Half an hour, I’ll be, tops, babe,’ she promised, deciding that this would probably not be the time to mention that she was going to have to shell out for another cab to fetch Christine back. No, that could wait and, who knew? He might yet fix the car. Miracles did sometimes happen.

Josie wasn’t expecting any miracles on Quaker Lane, though. The sarnie made and eaten and the baby put down for her morning nap, she left Eddie to his tinkering and walked the short distance from their house to Lizzie’s. It was a proximity that had, up till recently, been quite a plus.

Before all the business of Christine’s pregnancy, Lizzie’s home had been a friendly, familiar place, mostly because Josie couldn’t remember a time when Lizzie and her mam hadn’t been friends – that they’d make the trip there from Ringwood Road to catch up on all the gossip, or would have Lizzie, Nicky and Christine in their own kitchen. She’d been one of the constants in a difficult, traumatic childhood.

But this was trauma of a different kind. One that could drive a wedge between them. As she walked, she pondered the conversation she’d had with Lizzie yesterday, before she’d gone down to the hospital and made such an exhibition of herself. Was she regretting that now? She’d been adamant then that she was washing her hands of her daughter. Would she still be of the same mind this morning? Josie hoped not, but though she hung on to a vestige of optimism in her heart, her head said that Lizzie would have softened not a jot.

Reaching the house, and trotting down the cracked concrete path, she decided that, today, she’d not simply walk in. Instead, she bent down and lifted the flap on the letter box. There was a low whine, which she recognised as the hum of the vacuum cleaner. It being Saturday, Lizzie would be cleaning the house. She was no clean freak but she always did the housework on Saturday mornings, because Mo’s ‘weekly’ visits – when they happened – always happened on a weekend.

And he invariably came bearing gifts. Drugs, often – usually just some weed or a bit of Lebanese black – a few cans of cider, and invariably ready cash. And to an extent that since becoming one of his ‘regulars’ five years back, Lizzie had even given up her job on the fruit and veg stall on John Street Market, fancying herself as some sort of pampered ‘kept woman’. It was a point of contention, though Josie wouldn’t ever dream of mentioning it. Just one of those things that made you realise the sort of woman you didn’t ever want to be. Though Eddie brought the wage in while she looked after little Paula, that was a team effort, both of them doing their respective jobs; she would never in her life want to be ‘kept’ by any man. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get back to work at the factory.

‘Lizzie! It’s me!’ she yelled through the letterbox. ‘Can I come in, mate?’ But Lizzie clearly couldn’t hear her, because the whine of the hoover carried on. She stood up again, tried the door. But it was locked, which surprised her. No one ever locked their doors on Canterbury. Was that how it was, then? That she was expecting her daughter – less than twenty-four hours after giving birth – to show up on the doorstep, babe in arms?

She was just bending down again when the sound of the cleaner stopped. ‘It’s me!’ she called. ‘Josie! Can you let us in, mate?’

She heard a noise on the stairs, then the door was flung open. Lizzie stood there, looking gaunt underneath her usual layer of slap; all in place, of course, despite her only doing the cleaning. Josie wondered if she’d ever feel that same sense of competitiveness with Paula as Lizzie had done since Christine hit her teens. No, she couldn’t. Not at all. It was beyond her imagining.

But perhaps that was because she’d never seen herself as a looker. Far from it. She’d spent most of her childhood and teens doing everything she could to remove every trace of girlishness. First as a response to all the slap her own mam wore and after Melvin … She shuddered. After what he’d done to her … Well, it was almost a miracle, her and Eddie. She’d never forgotten that. He’d saved her. Made her whole again. She’d never forget that, either.

Maybe it was different for women like Lizzie. She’d been a looker, no doubt about it. Striking. Always a head turner. And when it seemed she’d given birth to an equally pretty daughter, Josie would have reckoned she’d be pleased. But it was never like that. The more Christine grew and blossomed, the harder Lizzie seemed to take it; dressing younger and younger, as if clinging desperately to a raft. She’d embraced punk like a drowning man might embrace a lifebelt, and though she didn’t know it, there were mutterings from those who liked to mutter that, with Mo’s thing for young flesh well known around the estate, she was looking a bit raddled and desperate these days.

She certainly looked raddled now. ‘Oh, so it’s been discharged then,’ she said, turning around and stalking off down the hallway. ‘And you’re putting her up, then, are you?’ she added. ‘Like some kind of mug?’ She turned around in the kitchen doorway, her eyes boring into Josie’s reproachfully. ‘I thought you were a fucking mate, Jose.’

‘I am, Liz,’ Josie said, shutting the front door and following her. The house smelt of furniture polish. Ordinary. Clean. Funny how easy it was to create an atmosphere of calm and normality. Just that whiff of polish and everything was okay. Was on the surface, at least. There was still all the crud swept under the carpet. ‘And like I tried to tell you yesterday,’ she continued, ‘there’s no point going on one at me. I’m just the bleeding piggy in the middle, me, as per usual.’

Lizzie had picked up a packet of Regals from the kitchen counter and now lit one, blowing the smoke across the room towards Josie. ‘Your choice,’ she said coldly. ‘What do you want, then? All her worldly goods, I assume?’

Josie shook her head. ‘No. Look, Lizzie, she’s only stopping at mine till the midwife’s done her visits. She needed a fixed abode, didn’t she? You know that as well as I do. And while she’s with me, she’d going to put in for a council flat –’

Lizzie sneered. ‘Oh, she is, is she? Just like that, eh?’

Well, you should know, Josie thought, irritable at Lizzie’s complete lack of insight. Wasn’t the promise of getting a council place precisely why she’d decided not to abort Nicky? She’d said so often enough down the years, and Josie had understood – all her friends had. Having a baby – though unplanned – was her chance to create a better life. To get away from her horrible excuses for parents. Could she not see it was happening again? Was she blind?

‘No, not just like that,’ she replied, ‘but she’ll obviously get one, now she’s got a nipper in tow.’ Though what was going to happen between the midwife finishing and a place being found for her, Josie had no idea. She couldn’t expect Eddie to keep her longer. Wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair. But maybe, just maybe, Lizzie would come round. She needed to hold the baby. Make that connection. That was key. That it registered that it was her own flesh and blood. That might just soften her up a bit. Right now, though, her expression said it all.

‘Anyway, for the moment, I just need the stuff for little Joey. The bottles and nappies and that, plus a few bits and bobs for Chrissy. She’d got nothing but the clothes she had on when I took her in yesterday. And they’re in a right state, as you can imagine, the poor thing.’

If Josie had hoped the mention of Christine struggling in labour might soften Lizzie’s heart, she was mistaken. ‘Oh, it’s Joey, is it?’ she said. ‘Little Joey. Diddums.’ The same implacable expression greeted this acid pronouncement as it had everything else.

But then, all of a sudden, Lizzie seemed to drop the attitude as swiftly as she might have a hot brick. She pulled out a stool from under the worktop and sat down on it heavily, her face beginning to contort as she did so.

She was crying. That was what was happening. She was sobbing. Josie hurried to put an arm around her. She felt bony. Brittle. ‘Aww, mate,’ Josie said, squeezing her friend’s shoulder. ‘I know this is all shit – I do – I really understand how you must feel about it, you know. But in time you’ll work it out. I know you will. You have to. We’re talking about your grandson here, Lizzie. It’s –’

‘Yes, my grandson by my fucking bloke, Jose! Don’t forget that little detail! My daughter’s bastard by my fucking bloke! You don’t get it, do you? That’s all I can think of – of her screwing my fucking fella! Where did they do it? When? I can hardly bear go in her bedroom without heaving. Were they screwing in there whenever I was out at fucking work?’

‘Liz, it wasn’t like that … He worked on her. Got her drunk …’

There it was. Out. If it could ever have stayed in. Lizzie angrily shook Josie’s arm from her shoulder. ‘How the fuck would you know? She give you blow by blow about it, did she? Fill you in on all the sordid details? The little bitch. I’m not interested in hearing any of her fucking excuses. How could she do that to me? I never want to see her or that fucking kid again as long as I live.’

Josie felt the irritation well again. ‘What about Mo?’ she asked. ‘Hmm? Where does he figure in this? What’s his part in it, eh? I told you, it wasn’t like that!’

‘So she says.’

‘Don’t be so bloody naïve! That’s the way you’re determined to see it, is it? That he’s just some poor helpless sod whose head was turned by your calculating, predatory daughter? I notice you’re cleaning the house. Hoping to see him, are you, Lizzie?’

She had to stop herself saying more. From spelling out a few more home truths. Christ – like she even had to! He was the biggest bloody drug dealer around and the biggest womaniser to boot. How Lizzie could live in such breathtaking denial was beyond astonishing.

Josie sometimes wondered if life wouldn’t be a whole lot less fraught with anxiety if she could be that blessedly naïve. Oh, yes, Lizzie had probably lived a bit – she was in her thirties, after all – but at the tender age of twenty-two, so had Josie. Too much, too soon. And as a consequence she knew exactly what some men were like. Not just the filthy nonce who’d raped her. But her own scumbag of a brother-in-law, Robbo, who’d tried to get himself between her legs too.

And who was she to say – in all seriousness – how that particular nasty memory could have turned out differently? Suppose he hadn’t been a coke-head and a twat and a loser? Suppose he’d liked her, been kind to her, been a confidant and friend to her? How could she say, hand on heart, that she wouldn’t have succumbed to his charms? And Mo was a charmer. Good looking, full of swagger, knew how to smooth-talk women. Whether Christine accepted the fact or otherwise, he had as good as raped her. Known exactly what he was about, confident of controlling her innocent teenage mind.

It had been playing on Josie’s mind, that – that the reason Christine was adamant Mo hadn’t forced himself on her was that she still harboured some sort of wildly naïve hope that, now the baby was born, he’d have a sudden change of heart, and sweep them both off on his white charger. God, she hoped not, but she wasn’t ruling it out.

Lizzie sniffed and scowled at her, perhaps reading her mind. ‘Fuck off, Josie,’ she said, drying her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Don’t try to make out she’s been Miss Fucking Innocent. And don’t you worry – he’s going to fucking get it an’ all. You know as well as I do that men’ll take it when it’s offered on a plate, and that’s exactly what that sneaky little get has obviously done.’

She stood again, coughed up some phlegm, and lit another cigarette. It had been revolting, what she’d done yesterday, and Josie wondered if she was regretting that today, too. But perhaps not. She was clearly still in too much of a state. She was looking at Josie through eyes which (it was now all so evident) had done a great deal more crying than she’d just witnessed. She had a moment of clarity. Lizzie really was that upset. Over fucking Rasta Mo, of all the people in sodding Bradford. A man who’d slept with half the women-of-a-certain-age-and-persuasion on the estate. And was still working his way through the rest. All of which Lizzie knew. All of which she had always known. It made no sense.

Or perhaps it was just jealousy of her daughter, pure and simple. And jealousy was a powerful emotion. ‘I’m not interested in owt else you’ve got to say, Josie,’ Lizzie told her. ‘You’ve got ten minutes. I’m off next door for a cuppa with Barbara, so get what you need and take it. But tell her to keep well away from me, okay? And if I hear she’s been looking for Mo, I’ll fucking kill her.’

Josie opened her mouth – really? – but thought better of it and closed it. She watched Lizzie leave – slamming the front door behind her – then went upstairs to sort out what she needed to take. Despite what she’d said to Lizzie she decided to take as much as she could carry: all Christine’s clothes and shoes, some of her toiletries, plus her precious collection of things for the baby, which she’d been saving up for and buying week on week. She might as well – she doubted there’d be a reconciliation any time soon.

And as she carried them down and then out and then along the road back to Exe Street, she tried her hardest to sympathise with Lizzie’s point of view. It must have been hard; she’d had a shit childhood and a pretty shitty adulthood. And however small a part of Mo’s harem she was, she was still in that harem. You could say – some did – that she was a constant in it, too. He might not cherish her (obviously didn’t, since he was all too happy to fuck her daughter) but he saw her regularly, gave her stuff, gave her an illusion that she was cherished. And perhaps that illusion, in her shitty life, was the raft she clung on to. So, perhaps, she should judge her less harshly. After all, how would she feel if she found out Eddie had been cheating on her? Murderous, no doubt.

Still, in a couple of hours, hospital willing, she’d be bringing Christine and the baby home with her. For ten days, during which time a miracle needed organising. And maybe it would be. Which would be handy, since, last time she heard, miracles were a lot easier to whistle up than council flats.

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

Christine winced as she passed baby Joey out to Josie, and then again as she climbed out of the taxi. It wasn’t Imran’s today, and she was glad. He’d take one look at her son and no doubt say something sarky, and she didn’t trust herself not to burst into tears. So much crying. It was getting exhausting.

Or she’d thump him. Maybe that was more likely. Because in the last twenty-four hours she’d discovered something about herself. Something that she hadn’t really reckoned on. A kind of fury, the like of which she’d never felt before, which rose up inside her, and took her unawares. An instinctive, protective fury that pitched her against anyone who seemed against Joey – and though she recognised that it might be what she’d heard called maternal instinct, the term seemed much too commonplace, the idea of it too benign, to have anything to do with the intensity of how she felt.

It had been the strangest, most draining twenty-four hours of her life. She’d barely eaten, barely slept, barely been able to shuffle to the loo, even – and that despite the night nurse’s insistence that she wouldn’t be allowed to leave till she’d ‘passed water’; something she hadn’t understood at first, like so much of the language and routines on the ward. She’d felt nagged at and violated and never left alone. Shall we see if we can get baby to latch on? Shall we check your down-belows? Baby sounds like he needs changing. Baby looks like he needs winding. Where’s your mam, love? Expecting anyone? Shouldn’t you be putting baby down?

And worst of all – that muttered ‘oh’, when the night nurse came on duty and peered into the little plastic cot while doing her rounds. She’d not said anything else to Christine after that. She hadn’t needed to. Her expression, as she glanced from Joey and up to Christine and back again, had already amply made its point. And then Christine had seen her afterwards, up at the nurses’ station at the far end of the ward, leaning over the desk and whispering to one of the other nurses. Then glancing back at her and whispering to the other nurse again. Christine hated her for that. Hated her. For Joey.

‘You okay, love?’ Josie was holding Joey like she knew exactly what she was doing. Holding him in the crook of one arm, jiggling him slightly so she didn’t wake him, the Morrisons carrier bag with Christine’s dirty clothes in dangling from the same elbow, and still proffering her other hand to help her friend out. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let me help you. Feeling sore?’

Christine took Josie’s hand, thinking how the word ‘sore’ didn’t begin to describe it. She’d remembered her mam mentioning it, a good while back, when she’d first confessed to being pregnant, and had ventured to ask what giving birth was like. ‘Like having your fanny put through a fucking mincer’ had been her immediate brusque reply.

It galled Christine, somehow, to realise she’d been right. To accept that in some things her mam did know better. The thought also saddened her. She’d ruminated on it miserably for half the frigging night. To think her mam had been through exactly what she had in order to give birth to her. And had now disowned her, apparently. She couldn’t quite make sense of it. How it might have happened. How she felt about her baby – that she would kill for him, love him always – and how her mam now seemed to feel about her. How did you get from the one to the other?

She clambered out, with Josie’s help, and grimaced as she did so. ‘Jesus, Jose,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling battered. I thought once you’d done the birth bit that was it for the pain.’