Trilogy Collection. Julie Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ somehow, like ‘sod it’, like she’d do what she liked. Was there even a part of her that wanted something bad to happen to her? Just so her mam would notice she was there?

      Well she’d certainly got her wish. No doubt about it.

      ‘I know,’ she said now. ‘I know that now, Lynds.’

      ‘And now he’s back for seconds, is he? God, just you wait till I tell Robbo. He’ll kill the old fucking tramp.’

      ‘No!’ Josie cried out, ‘No, Lynds!’ Then, remembering the girls upstairs, she lowered her voice again. ‘No, Lynds, no. What’d you have to tell him for? I didn’t tell you because I wanted Robbo to know. That’s the last thing I want! I’m only telling you because you’re my sister, and I thought you might know what to do!’

      Lyndsey shook her head and, in a rare gesture of physical warmth, grabbed one of Josie’s hands between her own. ‘Titch,’ she said, ‘that’s just it. I do know what to do. Have Rob go round there with me and help me punch his fucking lights out!’

      ‘No!’ Josie said again. ‘You mustn’t tell him, Lynds. You mustn’t! If you do that, then it’ll be all round the estate and I can’t bear that. And s’pose our Vinnie gets to hear of it once he’s home? He’d go apeshit! No, Lynds, you mustn’t tell Robbo!’

      Lyndsey let Josie’s hand go and reached for her baccy tin. ‘Okay, okay!’ she said. ‘But what do you want to do then?’

      Which was the problem. Had always been the problem, right from the first time. What did she want to happen now? She didn’t even know. She hadn’t thought past the business of unburdening herself – of just telling. Of not having to carry it all around any more.

      ‘I just thought – oh, I don’t know, Lynds – couldn’t you speak to the police or something? Have them go round there? You know – warn him off and that? Threaten him?’

      Lyndsey snorted disgustedly. ‘The fucking bizzies? That’s the last thing we’d do, divvy! No, mate – trust me, if anyone’s going to threaten him it’s going to be me and Robbo.’

      ‘But I don’t want you to tell Robbo. You promised you wouldn’t tell Robbo!’

      ‘Titch, you’re not being sensible. Don’t you see, I’ve got to tell Robbo. Yeah, I could warn him off, but Robbo can properly warn him off, can’t he? No, that’s the way. We’ll put the frighteners on. We’ll sort everything out for you.’

      ‘But you won’t tell mam and dad?’

      ‘No, I won’t, Titch.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘No, let me think this through for a bit … No,’ she said at last. ‘No, you’re right. No point in telling them, is there?’

      ‘Promise?’

      Lyndsey reached out and patted Josie’s forearm with her cold fingers. ‘I promise. Don’t you worry, kid, leave it with us. We’ll sort the bastard out for you. And don’t you be telling anyone else either, alright? You got that?’

      Josie nodded. As if she was going to tell anyone anything about it! Why would her sister even think that?

      ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Not anyone. Only Caz knows, that’s all. And she’ll never, ever tell because we’re blood sisters.’

      ‘Good,’ Lyndsey said comfortingly, patting her for a second time. ‘Just forget about it now, okay? Don’t you worry. Mucky Melvin won’t be touching you again.’

      ‘But what are you gonna do?’ Josie wanted to know, still fearful about involving Robbo. He was so off his fucking head most of the time he might do anything.

      ‘We’re gonna make that bastard wish he’d never been born, mate,’ Lyndsey told her. ‘I’m going to make him wish that so much. It’ll be my pleasure. So don’t you worry about it. And if he ever tries to touch you – or even speak to you again – you just tell him to fuck off and that you’ll be speaking to me, okay?’

      Josie refused Lyndsey’s offer to make her supper and walked home feeling thoroughly miserable. She’d thought she’d feel better now – and maybe she did – but it was completely overshadowed by another worrying feeling. What was that story she remembered hearing in school? That was it – Pandora’s Box. She remembered going home and asking Vinnie if he’d heard of it; how she opened the box and all the bad things flew out, and she couldn’t get them back inside again, except for one – hope. And Vinnie had told her that it was something called an ‘allegory’, about how humans should know when to leave well alone. Should she have done that? She knew she shouldn’t but she felt that all the same. That a lot of bad things would come flying out. Having hope didn’t seem much of a consolation, either. Nothing she ever hoped for worked out.

      She was glad to get home to a quiet empty house, and went straight to her bedroom without bothering with her tea. It was way too early for bed yet, so she spent some time trying to read but failing, so just lay in the gathering darkness, silently saying an ‘Our Father’ and hoping that tonight she would sleep without dreaming. She wasn’t a holy person but the nuns always said that you could pray to God for anything. She mused for a moment about why the nuns always looked so miserable and then threw in a ‘Hail Mary’ for good measure.

      She thought of Robbo and what the nuns might think of someone like him, and how he might react when Lyndsey told him what she’d told her. How weird it was that it was him, of all people, who was going to put the frighteners on Mucky Melvin – when he’d tried doing almost the exact same thing himself. Well, kind of, in his pathetic, stoned, ineffectual way. Looking back, she decided she could have fought him off easily. He just thought he’d try it on and when he realised he wasn’t wanted … She wasn’t scared of Robbo. Not really. He was just what he was – a stupid idiot. And what he’d done was something she’d definitely not be telling Lyndsey – not at any time, ever. Which depressed her to think about – why did she have all this horrible shit to deal with? What was it about her that made these things happen?

      It was because she never told. That’s what she kept coming back to – what the nuns would say. Because she didn’t tell in the first place. If she’d told then maybe someone would’ve got rid of Mucky Melvin. Maybe Saggy Tits Sally would have had him arrested. That was the sort of thing she was good at. And if she had told, Robbo would’ve known to keep his filthy druggy hands off her, and Melvin himself would be history. She so wished he was history right now.

      She stared at the David Cassidy poster pinned to the back of her bedroom door, and tried to tell herself she’d done the right thing telling Lyndsey. That Carol was right – that it had made her feel a bit better, and that she could trust her sister to put him straight and scare him off. But though she could just about persuade herself that telling Lynds was better than having not told, she couldn’t see anything good coming out of that idiot Robbo being involved.

      But she had told. So there was nothing she could do now either way.

      The banging on the door had started as a distant, muted drumming. In a jungle somewhere, deadened by miles of dense and dripping foliage; a jungle in which June was currently hacking her way, in order to get to … now, where exactly was she headed? All she knew was that the sound was getting louder and louder, and that soon she’d be … Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

      Consciousness СКАЧАТЬ