Trilogy Collection. Julie Shaw

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      ‘Hang on a minute,’ June yelled back. ‘I’m coming down.’

      Jock went back into the warm front room to wait for her. He looked up at the clock and shook his head in irritation. Silly mare was going to have him late again.

      It was a full couple of minutes before she appeared in the doorway – not dressed, as he’d expected, but still in her short flimsy nightie, her face still caked in the make-up she habitually went to bed in. She was sauntering across the room with a look that meant business. ‘Come here, you,’ she said, puckering her lips and making a grab for him. ‘Give us a kiss before you go.’

      ‘Piss off, you silly get!’ he protested as he tried to dodge her. ‘Fuckin’ hell, June, a sniff of a few bob, and you’re all over me like a cheap suit!’

      Not that he minded, he decided, as she giggled at him coquettishly. ‘It’s not a few bob any more, you divvy,’ she said. ‘It’s a few new pence, remember? Has been for two years now, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

      ‘Fuckin’ decimalisation,’ he growled. ‘Never going to get the hang of it. They should have left well alone. Bleeding common market nonsense!’ He extracted himself from his wife and waved as he left. ‘Don’t forget,’ he called over his shoulder as he stepped out onto the pavement. ‘Wimpy at 12. Don’t be late, June, or you’ll fuck it all up.’

      June laughed as she waved him off. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she called after him. ‘I’ll be there with knobs on!’

      He could still hear her laughing when he was halfway down the road, and when he looked back, she was still waving from the front-room window, the daft cow. Still, it gave him a warm feeling, made him puff up with pride. Despite their fall-outs, he still loved her to bits.

      He quickened his step, his mind now back on the job at hand. Things to do, places to go, people to see. It was a good 20-minute walk into town, and a cold one, and he was anxious to get where he needed to be. He pulled the lapels of his coat a little tighter together, reflecting that there was perhaps one too many people involved in this thing. So he was nervous. He didn’t mind admitting it.

      Josie came downstairs, minutes later, to find her mother in the living room, admiring her reflection in the mirror.

      ‘Not bad for an old bird,’ she was saying (to herself, presumably, Josie decided) and arching her drawn-on eyebrows. Josie never understood why she did that – shaving them off and then painting them on again. Why? Why not just leave them as they were? ‘And tomorrow you’ll look even better,’ June promised herself, grinning. ‘Once you’re wearing all your lovely new clobber!’

      Josie stood just inside the doorway for a moment, watching her mother blow a kiss at her own reflection, clearly oblivious that her daughter was even in the room. It had always been a bit like that with her mum – and when Vinnie had been home, even more so. Put Vinnie in a room with them and it had always felt as if she became invisible. She was her dad’s girl, always had been, and Vinnie was her mum’s boy – that was just the way it was, just the way it would always be, probably. They were poles apart, after all. Her mum was so unlike her. So glamorous and girly. So alien. Something Josie knew she’d never be. Not any more, anyway.

      ‘What are you going on about, you silly old mare?’ she said now.

      June jumped, startled, and turned round to see Josie staring at her.

      ‘You daft cow!’ she said. ‘You scared me half to bleeding death.’ She flapped a hand at Josie irritably and stomped off in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Go on, get ready for school instead of sneaking up on folk.’

      Josie ignored that. It was still only eight, after all. Instead, she followed her mother into the tiny kitchen, the same thing on her mind as had been on it for ages now. It had been months since they’d heard anything from Vinnie. Months and months. And she’d written – what? – three unanswered letters? Four? And still nothing back.

      ‘D’ya think we’ll have a letter today?’ she asked as she reached to put on the grill, though even as she did so she knew it was more in hope than expectation.

      ‘A letter?’ asked June.

      ‘You know, from our Vin.’

      June sighed as Josie pushed past her to get a plate from the shelf underneath the curtain-fronted worktop. ‘Titch, you know what he’s like. Sending letters counts as a privilege and pound to a penny he’ll be all out of those. So fuck knows when we’ll hear from him, frankly!’

      ‘Yeah, but he’s got to send one sometime! It’s been for ever!’

      June drained her tea mug and banged it down on the Formica. Then, seeing Josie’s expression, shook her head. ‘Look, I’m just as upset as you, love. Honest I am. But you never know – he might be allowed a phone call this week, mightn’t he?’

      Josie scowled as she stood on tiptoe to slide two slices of bread onto the grill pan. The business of the phone was a constant bugbear. ‘Well, if you paid the bill, we’d be able to phone him, wouldn’t we?’

      ‘Shut it, gob shite,’ June said mildly. Then she grinned at her daughter, which she’d been doing a fair bit just lately, her eyes lighting up, like she’d just been told she’d won the pools. She nudged Josie. ‘If this job goes all right for your dad, all the bills will get paid this month,’ she said. ‘Every last one of them.’

      Which wasn’t what Josie wanted to hear. She’d heard enough about this ‘job’ of her Dad’s already. Like a lot of what her parents and their neighbours on the estate got up to, it didn’t sit okay with her. Why were they constantly trying to get things that didn’t belong to them? It made no sense. Not to her. ‘Goody two-shoes’ they all called her. Well, let them. ‘I don’t wanna know, Mum,’ she said. ‘All I know is that it’s dodgy. Half the fucking estate are on about it.’

      June laughed, as she poured more tea and went back into the living room. ‘No,’ she called back. ‘Half the fucking estate are in on it, you mean!’

      Josie turned the toast over and watched the other side brown in silence, feeling the familiar rush of resentment that her mother didn’t even seem to care that much about Vinnie any more. Stupid cow was too concerned with herself and her new ‘clobber’ to even give a fuck about him these days – and to think he was supposed to be her golden boy! Eighteen months he’d been in Redditch borstal – 18 whole months. Where had the time gone? It felt like he’d been gone for ever. It had been so long – there’d been the long spell before that, over in Manchester, at that St Augustine’s reformatory place, as well. Was he ever going to come home? She pulled her toast out and carefully unfolded the wrapper from the Adams best butter. And mother dearest, she thought as she scraped up slivers of glistening yellow, didn’t even seem to give a shit.

      ‘I’m off up to get ready for school,’ she shouted as she went back through the living room, raising her voice above the din of T. Rex on the radio that June had just put on at her usual stupid volume. ‘And maybe we could even go visit our Vinnie. When you’ve robbed me dad of all his wages.’ She headed for the stairs then, toast balanced on her palm, remembering to duck as she did so, to avoid a slap from June on her way past.

      Vinnie had been sentenced to three years the previous January. It should only have been six months in Redditch borstal, that was all. Just six flipping months. And then they’d finally have him home СКАЧАТЬ