Blood Ties: Family is not always a place of safety. Julie Shaw

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      She grabbed the duster again and started attacking the final pump. Happy Birthday to me, she thought grimly.

Chapter 3

      ‘Haven’t you done in that bathroom yet?’ Irene was shouting. Kathleen sighed and gave a very satisfying two fingers to the closed door.

      ‘I won’t be a minute, Mam,’ she called back. The word ‘mam’, as always, stuck in her throat.

      ‘I don’t know why you bother, girl,’ Irene shouted back waspishly. ‘No amount of bleeding make-up could make that gormless face look any better. Now hurry up, I’m going to pee myself out here.’

      Kathleen smiled at her reflection in the mildewing cabinet mirror. The old cow could just bloody well pee herself then. She grabbed an elastic band from the side of the sink and carefully smoothed her shoulder-length hair back into a high ponytail, then eased the hair out at the top so she could make it all bouffant, like all the pop stars like Lulu and Dusty Springfield did. She took her time. She didn’t care about her stepmother’s bladder, because it wasn’t her fault she had to use the bathroom first, was it? It was Mary’s.

      Well, not so much her fault, because she couldn’t help being ill, could she? Kathleen understood that. But it was absence of Mary that had put Kathleen behind. She’d sent her husband round with a note for Irene first thing that morning, to let her know that she wouldn’t be able to do her shift on the bar. And, of course, Irene couldn’t possibly be expected to do it – at lunchtime? On a Wednesday? So, of course, it fell to Kathleen, on top of all the skivvying she’d still have to spend the afternoon doing – cleaning the flat, doing the washing, shopping for food and then cooking it, so her poor worn-out step-siblings would have a meal on the table for when they got home from their much harder jobs.

      The only solace, and one she clung to, was that while she was upstairs and Irene and her dad were busy downstairs, she could borrow Monica’s record player and play her few records, while fantasising about all the pop stars who might whisk her away to a more exciting life than the one she had now.

      Her dad was, as usual, down in the pub’s cellar at this time, so with Darren and Monica both at work, it just left the two of them in the flat. On a normal day, Kathleen would keep herself out of Irene’s way, but, still seething about her stepmother’s hand in last weekend’s non-birthday, today she felt a powerful urge to dawdle as long as she could, just for the sheer pleasure of winding Irene up.

      ‘Nearly done!’ she called, gaily, as she sat on the closed toilet seat and adjusted the straps on her slingbacks. ‘I’m just finishing off my hair.’

      But she couldn’t stay in there for ever. One last check – she liked herself better in a ponytail – and she unlocked the door. The grin soon disappeared.

      ‘Horrible little cow,’ Irene spat as she clipped her round the head, before pushing past her awkwardly, having to hobble because of her urgency, and slamming the door behind her as forcefully as she could.

      ‘Now get down them stairs and get some frigging work done!’ she yelled from behind the door. ‘And I’ve told you before, madam, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!’

      Or a human being out of a witch, Kathleen muttered to herself as she trotted down the stairs, enjoying the feeling of her ponytail swishing from side to side behind her.

      Kathleen was already in place behind the bar before her dad came up to open the front doors, looking out across the sea of neatly arranged chairs and tables, through the sash windows and over the hedges that were threatening to shut the light out, to what little she could see of the bright day beyond. Which was probably all she would see of it, too.

      Still, it being a Wednesday, there wouldn’t be a queue waiting, and the regulars would stroll in in their own time. You could set the clock by most of them, and each had their own drinking pattern. First would come the drunks, with the day stretching ahead of them, because they were all unemployed, then, from twelve till one, the workers, keen to fit in as many pints as they could before returning to their various jobs, then the pub would close for a bit, and it would be back to washing up and cleaning, while her dad went back to the cellar, getting the barrels ready for the evening – and more than likely filtering a gallon or so of water to the ones that were already on, just to eke the profits out that bit further.

      They’d then reopen for the tea-timers. Almost exclusively men, these would be the ones stopping off on their way home, and who’d be rolling home to their wives and kids at about eight, much the worse for wear – or a bit before that, if their wives came looking for them. Then it was the night crowd. The cycle rarely changed. Day in, day out, the same. And Kathleen wondered at the repetitive nature of it all. There should be more to life, shouldn’t there? Perhaps they enjoyed it, but sometimes the thought of standing here, pulling pints, for years and years, filled her with a profound sense of gloom. She could almost see herself, hand gripping a pump, a decaying skeleton, rictus smile still held firmly in place.

      She was shaken from her reverie by the sound of the front door going, and painted on the smile automatically. Because the smile was important. The most important thing about being a barmaid. Her dad had told her that a while after her mum had died, and she’d asked him how he could joke with the punters when all she wanted to do every day was cry. So he’d told her. He’d explained that once you were a grown-up, no matter how sad you were you had to roll your sleeves up and paint a smile on your face when you were working, and do all your crying on the inside.

      It had stayed with her that, and it had been something of a comfort. Where previously she’d thought he hadn’t cared as much as she did, it was a comfort to know he was crying just like she was, even if nobody could see. And now she was seventeen, she did it almost automatically. No matter what was going on in your life – whether it was everything or nothing – you forgot about it and smiled inanely at everyone.

      Her first customer, for instance, who was a middle-aged regular, who’d been hurt in a demolition accident. It had left him with a limp – he was limping across to her now, very obviously – and though he was only in his forties, a face that seemed much older. Which sort of fitted. He was ‘retired’, or so his line usually went, though, according to Irene, who never had a good word to say about anyone, he was just a lazy bastard who didn’t have a good day’s work in him.

      ‘Morning, Jack,’ Kathleen trilled, liking Jack because Irene didn’t. ‘A pint of mild is it?’

      ‘Please, love,’ he said, dragging a bar stool to his favourite spot. ‘No Mary today?’

      ‘No, she’s poorly,’ Kathleen told him, expertly pulling him a nice frothy top. ‘So you have me to put up with today, I’m afraid.’

      Jack grinned. ‘Now’t wrong with that, kid,’ he said, winking at her as he settled on his stool. ‘And mebbe Mary’ll be off a few days yet, eh? Wouldn’t mind that. Have you and that pretty sister of yours serving me any day, I would.’

      Kathleen tried not to grimace, because she knew she should be above that. It wasn’t like he was telling her she was ugly, after all. And Monica was pretty. No doubt about it. Well, when she was tarted up, which she mostly was. Everyone said so. ‘Pretty sister’ tripped off everybody’s tongue. Though not to Monica, she suspected – no, she knew – about her. It was her job to be the plain Jane. The dull presence beside which Monica could more easily shine.

      She wouldn’t normally СКАЧАТЬ