In Cold Blood: A Brother’s Sworn Vengeance. Julie Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ grinned. ‘That’s right, innit, Mam? You’ll save me a Santa sack for when I get home, yeah? Cos I’m sure Saggy Tits Sally won’t be buying me a selection box this year.’

      June frowned, her expression hardening. ‘God, I hate bleedin’ social workers, Vin!’

      She was on one now, full throttle, and Josie watched in awe. She always did when her mum transformed from little sex-kitten June into this arm-swinging, neck-shaking, raving lunatic. ‘They’re all bastards, the lot of ’em!’ she railed now. ‘Locking up innocent kids …’

      Then Jock kicked off too. ‘Innocent? For fuck’s sake, give this woman a fucking Oscar. That’s his trouble, June. You!’

      ‘Piss off, Jock,’ she snapped. ‘Who asked you?’

      June glanced through the window, as she’d been doing every other minute for the last half hour. Josie could tell just by the way she stiffened that they must have come for him. And they had. ‘Oh fucking hell, Vinnie,’ her mum said. ‘They’re here. They’re outside!’

      Vinnie jumped up. This was it. Josie scrambled up as well. Did Vin feel as terrified as she did? He must be feeling shit-scared by now, mustn’t he? But if he did, he wasn’t letting on. The only way she could tell that he might be was by the way he licked his lips before he spoke. ‘Go to the door, Mam,’ he said. ‘Don’t have ’em in. My stuff’s all here, I’m just gonna go out and get off. Don’t be showing me up, all coming out.’

      Vinnie then turned once again to his sister and winked. ‘Never be ashamed of our tears,’ he whispered. ‘Remember that?’

      Josie nodded and tried her best not to start wailing. Her mum and dad wouldn’t have a clue what Vinnie meant, but she did. It was a sad part in the book Great Expectations. That was another thing she’d miss and it made the tears well even more – her brother reading to her late at night when he was excited about one of his books.

      She remembered the words from this one very well. Pip, the hero, had been sad about leaving for London and his life changing, and sad about Joe, but after he’d cried, he felt ready to go on again. Trust Vinnie to dig up one of his favourite stories, she thought, to try to make her feel better. And it did. And she’d have to hang on to it, because now he really was leaving her. He gave her shoulder another quick squeeze and then he was out the door.

      Josie dragged her dad’s foot stool across the tatty linoleum, positioning it under the front-room window so she could climb up to wave Vinnie off. June was beside her, holding back the once-white net curtain, trying to put on a brave face, while Jock sat back in his armchair and rolled a cigarette.

      ‘Stop crying, Josie,’ June said gently, giving her an unexpected hug. ‘You’ll upset him if he sees you.’

      She lowered the net, just as the black car pulled away, then walked away from the window, sighing heavily. Josie remained where she was till the car disappeared, and with it, her brother. Life was certainly going to be a lot quieter without Vinnie, she knew that. She felt strange, as though she had suddenly lost part of herself. She wondered if her mum felt the same. Like there was a hole in her stomach. She certainly looked angry as she turned to look at Jock. ‘Happy now?’ she asked him, waving his plume of smoke away.

      Jock was having none of it. ‘You can blame me all you like, you stupid mare. But we all know whose fault it is, June. If he wasn’t such a little fucker, he’d be going nowhere, would he?’

      ‘Fuck off, Jock,’ she spat back. ‘You’ve never liked him, never stuck up for him, you’ll be loving this.’

      Josie shook her head sadly. Was this what she had to look forward to now? These two at it all the time? As sure as she knew night followed day, she knew that her mum wouldn’t settle until Vinnie was home. That this argument would grind on till he was home, as well. Josie wrestled with emotions that sometimes felt wrong where her brother was concerned. She loved her brother every bit as much as her mum did, but she could also see her dad’s point. She knew that Vinnie had a bad streak. Was even nasty to her sometimes. She shuddered as she remembered some of the tricks he’d played on her, and yesterday’s had been no exception.

      She still shuddered as she brought it to mind. The sight, the sounds, the smell – the horrible smell. If Vinnie hadn’t been leaving her today things would have been different. She’d still be fuming with her brother about that.

      She should have seen it coming though. That was the thing. What possessed her? Him asking her if she wanted to go to the cemmy with him and his mates should have told her he’d have mischief in mind. And it wasn’t like she agreed because she thought they’d include her much – they wouldn’t. She’d only said yes because she didn’t have anything else to do and because she liked to look at the inscriptions on the gravestones.

      She always had. Since she was little and had gone to the cemetery with some nuns from her school and they’d done rubbings with paper and a pencil on some of the more ornate graves. It was on that visit that she’d come across the resting place of one of her uncles. She’d been shocked at first, to think of Uncle Brian being buried right there with all the other dead people, but after a while she’d got used to the idea. In fact, she’d often go back, after that, to see if she could find other dead relatives. The rest of the family would tease her and call her a nutter but she didn’t care. She felt at ease with the dead.

      And that’s what she’d been doing, mostly, while the boys messed about, trying to scare each other by telling ghost stories, when Vinnie, without warning, but who must have planned it all beforehand, had grabbed his little sister and pushed her backwards. She had fallen straight into the open grave just behind her, which had been freshly dug ready to take a new coffin. Yes, it had been empty, but still she’d screamed and screamed, terrified – imagining all sorts, scrabbling down there among the worms and the maggots, while the boys just stood and laughed at her, tipping their heads back. That was typical of Vinnie, and Brendan and Pete too, they were thick as thieves – they were thieves – and bad as each other. It felt like forever before they finally deigned to haul her out, by which time she was out of her mind with fear and disgust.

      Oh yes, Josie knew what her brother was, but she loved him even so, and listening to her parents now, screaming at each other like she wasn’t even there she wondered just how she was going to get through till Christmas. It seemed like such a long way away. Today though, she just had to get out of there. She’d go and get dressed, she decided, and see if there was anybody knocking about on the estate who she could play with. She’d been allowed off school today because of Vinnie, so she didn’t hold out much hope of seeing her friends, but anything was better than being stuck indoors with her warring parents.

      Josie went up to her bedroom and dressed in the one pair of jeans that she owned; tatty flares passed on to her from an older cousin, which she was just about short and skinny enough still to fit. Though only just – she grimaced as she pulled them up and then, looking down, lowered them again, pushing them down on her hips so that the bottoms touched the floor. Grabbing her cowboy shirt and sniffing the armpits, she sighed. It hadn’t been washed and she could smell it – though that was nothing new. Her mam had never been much of a housewife.

      Josie sometimes envied her best mate, Carol; her mam always did the washing and Caz always smelled nice. As she pushed her arms into the sleeves anyway – there was nothing else to wear – she wondered what it would be like to live in a family where the kids had everything done for them. If Josie needed something clean, she usually had to wash it herself, more often than not in her own dirty bath water.

      She made a final check of herself in the mirror on her window СКАЧАТЬ