Bad Blood. Julie Shaw

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      ‘Not a chance,’ Christine said. ‘He’ll be a Parker, just like the rest of us.’ She leaned across to stroke Joey’s head. Joey. He did look like a Joey. ‘Another kid in our family with just my mam’s name to carry him. Poor little fucker. Another one without a dad.’

      Josie managed a smile but didn’t say anything to contradict her. She knew as well as Christine did that little Joey would be exactly that. Another kid who didn’t know who his dad was, just like his mum and his uncle. ‘But with a wonderful mam to take care of him,’ she said, rising from the chair. ‘And, speaking of mams, if I don’t get back and fetch our Paula soon I’m going to have my ear chewed off, aren’t I?’

      Christine reached for Josie’s arm. ‘You sure, mate? You sure Eddie’s going to be okay with me – us – staying?’

      ‘Course he is,’ Josie said. ‘So let the nurse know, okay? I’ll phone here in the morning to check you’re still okay to be discharged, and if you are, I’ll be back lunchtime to pick you up.’

      ‘And you’ll pick up my stuff and that from home?’ Christine asked, realising there was still all that to sort yet. ‘And all the bottles and nappies and stuff in my bedroom?’

      Josie nodded, and promised she’d do exactly that. Though as Christine watched her leave, and returned the wave Josie turned and gave her as she disappeared, she wondered if any of it would actually be in her bedroom. Knowing her mam as she did she wouldn’t have been remotely surprised if Josie told her tomorrow that it had all been dumped in the front garden. She sighed. Of the home that wasn’t her home any more.

      If it had ever really been in the first place.

Chapter 4

      Josie looked out of the bedroom window and immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning, and it was Saturday, too, but already Eddie was out the front, shirt sleeves up, spanner in hand, tinkering with his beloved Ford Escort. Well, not so beloved currently, as it was refusing to work, but she didn’t doubt he’d eventually get it going again. If there was any justice, at any rate, given the amount of time he spent taking care of it.

      She’d done wrong, landing Christine and the baby on them without asking him. Inviting trouble to their door, as he’d immediately pointed out. They both knew what Lizzie Parker could be like when she was roused.

      But his concern was, as ever, more for Josie than for himself, and the fact that he’d taken it as well as he had made it worse. It wasn’t just the business of getting involved in it, after all. It was also that it wasn’t fair to expect him to put up with a newborn for the best part of a fortnight. He worked all hours, and Paula was a handful enough currently, being at that age when it was all ‘me, me, me’, day and night, and with the long days and short nights of summer thrown in, she was up before six every morning as well.

      Paula was sitting on her parents’ bed, flicking through a picture book and singing to herself. Josie glanced at her daughter now, and couldn’t help but smile. She also wondered, as she often did, how she’d managed to be so incredibly blessed. There was her sister Lyndsey, off her head mostly, her brother Vinnie banged up in prison, and here she was, with her Eddie, her beautiful little daughter, and, since the spring, even their own lovely home. So much happiness, which she wasn’t sure she’d any right to.

      She hardly dare think about it. Dared not take any of it for granted, ever – if she did she had this horrible notion (which never seemed to go away and often visited her in nightmares) that something terrible would happen, and she’d lose it all again.

      Right now, however, Josie’s thoughts were on Christine, and she wondered what kind of night she might have had. Pretty sketchy, if her own first night with Paula was anything to go by. And with everything else – with her future so uncertain, she doubted the poor girl had slept a wink. ‘Come on, missy,’ she said to Paula, holding her arms out to pick her up. ‘Let’s go down and make your dad a cuppa, shall we? See if we can butter him up a bit.’

      ‘Ah, bribery, now, is it?’ Eddie remarked, as Josie went out to join him, mug of tea in one hand, Paula on her opposite hip. He threw the spanner he’d been wielding back into the rusty old biscuit tin that served as his tool box.

      ‘Sort of,’ Josie admitted. ‘I do feel bad, love, I really do. I just couldn’t think where else she could go.’

      ‘Back to her fucking mother’s, is where,’ he said, accepting the tea. He’d been out there for some time now and had smudges of black on his nose and cheeks.

      ‘Dirty Daddy!’ Paula trilled. ‘Dirty Daddy!’

      Josie set her down. Being early on a Saturday morning, the street was safe enough, being so quiet. And she was more interested in the mud in the front flowerbed than the road.

      ‘Seriously, love, that’s what should be happening, Mo’s kid or otherwise. Can you imagine us treating our Paula like that? Ever? I’d fucking kill for her, I would.’ He shook his head. ‘How could anyone throw their own kid out?’

      Josie loved Eddie for lots of reasons – had done since she’d first started seeing him. But never more than when he talked about their Paula. Even though, at the same time, she knew she’d lived a bit more than him, which meant she knew that, in real life, it wasn’t always that simple. Thank God that, for him, it was.

      ‘I know, love,’ she said, ‘but perhaps she’ll come round.’

      ‘That mad cow had better not come round here!’ he said, and she could tell from his expression that he was purposely misinterpreting her meaning.

      Josie smiled. ‘She wouldn’t dare.’ And of that she was sure. For all that Lizzie could mouth off, Josie was still a McKellan. No, there was no danger of anything like that. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘it’s only for the ten days while the midwife is calling – and you’ll be at work most of the time anyway, so you’ll hardly see them.’

      Eddie grunted, then put the tea down and picked up his spanner. ‘Well, let’s hope so,’ he said, ‘and I mean it, babe, really. I’m not having you running around like a mad thing looking after that bleeding kid of hers, all right?’

      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 СКАЧАТЬ