by Julie Shaw
‘Made sure of it, more like. Look, Vic.’ She leaned forward. ‘Open your eyes. He’s a bad lot.’
Vicky leaned back, frowning. ‘Do you know something I don’t, or something?’
‘Vic, I don’t need to. I’m just telling you to take stock, that’s all. If he goes inside, you’ll be better off out of it, believe me. Get some freedom back in your life – remember what it feels like. Enjoy doing what you want to do without him breathing down your neck.’
For the second time that day, Vicky wondered if she talked too much about Paddy. Wondered, too, despite wishing she wasn’t having to wonder, if Leanne’s words didn’t hold an element of truth. She’d never say so but Paddy had already said as much to her. That if the worst happened, he was going to be sick as hell wondering what she might be up to.
But that was because he loved her. Because he’d miss her. And – hell, how would it be if the boot was on the other foot? She saw girls moving in on him twenty-four seven. And she didn’t like how it made her feel, did she?
‘Listen,’ Leanne went on, ‘I’m not trying to stir things up between you. I just think he’s far too controlling, that’s all. Just an observation. From a friend.’
A friend, Vicky thought, who didn’t have a boyfriend. So how could she possibly understand how complicated it all was? ‘I know,’ Vicky said, knowing there was no point in arguing. ‘I know, but I’ll be fine.’
Then she stood up, grabbed their mugs and busied herself at the sink, so she could continue the conversation with her back turned. ‘And if he’s done, then I’ll wait for him. That’s the plan. We have plans. One day at a time, that’s the way I’m going to play it. And when he comes out,’ she added, turning round and clocking Leanne’s cynical expression, ‘who knows – he might have missed me so much that he wants to get engaged.’
‘Yeah, and pigs might fly, mate,’ Leanne answered.
Lacey was just arriving back from the pub as Leanne unlocked the salon door again. ‘Shall I make us all a coffee?’ she asked brightly as she shrugged her jacket off and reached for her apron. And, smarting still from Leanne’s cynical assessment of not only Paddy but her future prospects with him, Vicky willed herself to respond nicely to Lacey’s kind offer. She was glad of the distraction, if nothing else.
‘Go on, I’ll have another one,’ she said, making an effort to smile. ‘Nice lunch?’
‘Lovely, thanks,’ Lacey answered as she headed for the back room. ‘Oh, and I’ve an invite,’ she called back. ‘To Roger’s party, next Saturday week.’
Vicky and Leanne exchanged glances and raised their eyebrows. ‘Ooh, that sounds interesting,’ Leanne said. ‘What kind of party would that be, then?’
Lacey stuck her head out from the back room, coffee jar and teaspoon in hand. ‘His birthday party. Well, sort of. It’s not at a venue or anything. Just a group of us having a night on the tiles, really. We thought it would be nice, you know, if you’re free. And Paddy, of course.’ She smiled at Vicky. ‘It would be nice to get to know the famous Paddy a bit better. I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to – we just thought, well, that it would be nice, now we’re all working together. But only if you want to. No pressure!’ She disappeared into the back room again.
The famous Paddy? Did she really drone on that much about him? Or, more accurately, given recent developments, the infamous Paddy. Vicky wondered how much Lacey really did know. Perhaps Roger had filled her in, over lunch at the Market Tavern. About how Paddy might not even be around for his little party.
Unless her prayers were answered, anyway. That the dickhead from Derby who reported the car might suddenly die of a heart attack or something. That there’d be no court case. That Paddy would, as he kept promising her, get off. That everything could get back to normal, of a kind.
But then again, yes, pigs might fly.
Chapter 9
Vicky entered the Caverns nightclub with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man being marched to the gallows. She’d always felt this would be a mistake, pretty much since the moment Lacey had suggested it. And the famous décor did nothing to dispel the feeling.
Like any self-respecting nightclub, the Caverns was gloomily lit, bathed variously in deep red or watery blue light, which lent it a subterranean air. The theming didn’t stop there, either, because the place was arranged as a series of caves; all low-ceilinged nooks and crannies, where you could tuck yourself away, each separated by rough sloping walls and pretend stalactites, which also formed pathways between a series of dance floors.
Vicky looked around her, trailing the already noisy group. The place was heaving, and she doubted there’d be anywhere to sit down. Which she was dying to, having been on her feet all day at work and, then, since it was Saturday night, in the packed pub. Paddy, in contrast (and, Vicky felt sure, fuelled by coke) was almost bouncing off the ceiling. Having established that he and Lacey’s Roger had a few mutual (and dodgy-looking) mates, he’d been holding court at the pub, milking his new celebrity status for all that it was worth.
Worse was that Lacey was being seriously annoying, her constant giggling – at pretty much anything Paddy uttered, Vicky had come to realise – beginning to grate like a finger scraped down a blackboard. And it wasn’t even as if there was anyone else in the group she could chat to. Leanne had gone home now, as had the only other girl – Roger’s sister – leaving her and Lacey the only girls in the group.
It had turned out to be a large group, as well. Much larger than she’d anticipated from the way Lacey had described it at work. And being mostly lads, who were mostly single and on the prowl, she knew that within minutes they’d be all over the place. And this very much seemed to include Paddy, as she’d anticipated, him having made it clear, more than once, that if he was getting banged up the following week, then he was going to make the most of his night out.
‘There you go, babes,’ he said, handing a vodka and lime back to her from his place at the crush at the bar. The glass was hot. It had obviously just come out of the dishwasher.
‘No ice?’ she asked, frowning.
Paddy shook his head. ‘Not tonight, Josephine,’ he told her. ‘The ice machine’s broken.’ He must have caught the irritation in her face because his own expression changed. ‘And tell you what, how about you get yourself a bloody smile to go with it instead? If it won’t crack your make-up, that is.’
‘Ha bloody ha,’ Vicky said, glaring at him. He was already too drunk and too punchy for comfort and, with little appetite for getting pissed herself, she really noticed. He’d be off on the dance floor at any minute, no doubt, keen to impress his doting audience, or – and you never quite knew which way it was going to go at this hour – he’d see some slight in some look that some random bloke might give him and, as night followed day, start a fight.
‘You okay?’ Vicky turned to see Lacey beside her, having wormed her way out of the squash of sweaty bodies. She had a half of lager in her left hand and a glass of water in her right. ‘Rehydrating before it’s all too late!’ she finished brightly.
There had never been any doubt in Vicky’s mind, nor Leanne’s, but it was nice to confirm it anyway: Lacey was even more irritating when she was drunk. Vicky had to push down the thought that she’d like to wipe the inane grin off her face. Since when had she got so mean-spirited? But there was just something about Lacey, something about her relentless, girly niceness. Something fake, that was it. Like a handbag bought off one of those blokes in the market.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Vicky reassured her, having to half-shout over the thud of the music. ‘Just not really in the mood tonight – you know how it is sometimes.’ Yeah, as in times when your world’s about to fall apart around you, and, as a consequence, you just can’t get in the mood to go clubbing, because you’ve been sat in the pub with a bunch of virtual strangers and, try as you might, you can’t get past the horror of it all – that your boyfriend might be in prison this time next week.
In prison. Because that was it,
really. That was why she felt so down on smiley bloody Lacey. Just the sheer weight of it all pressing down on her. How could Paddy be so bloody bouncy and full of it and cheerful, knowing how likely it was he was going to prison? Not that she planned on sharing any of that with Lacey. She nodded towards the bar, where the lads were all joshing each other about something, Paddy once again centre stage. She was aware of Lacey following her gaze. ‘Still, he’s in enough of a party mood for both of us, eh?’
Lacey smiled. ‘He’s quite something. How long have you two been together?’
‘Long enough,’ Vicky said, not much liking that ‘something’.
Lacey opened her already wide eyes even wider. ‘You’re kidding me. Really? God, I don’t think I’d be in such a rush to kick him out of bed!’
‘I didn’t mean like that—’ Vicky started, as some of the lads arrived to join them. ‘I meant long enough to know that—’
‘I need a piss, love,’ Roger said to Lacey, thrusting his newly poured pint out. ‘Look after that for me, while I’m gone, yeah?’
Since Lacey didn’t have a hand free, Vicky took it automatically. And it was at that point, she thought later, when she should have acted differently, because it was at that point that she heard ‘The Snake’ come on – a song Paddy loved – and, moments later, saw him fist-punch the air. ‘Yesss!’ he yelled. ‘Get in. Who’s dancing?’
And as night followed day, it felt almost inevitable that Lacey would squeal ‘me!’, along with most of the rest of them and, somehow – and she’d later wonder what the fuck she’d been thinking – she’d volunteered to mind not just Roger’s drink, but everyone’s, so they could head down the little path and take ownership of the dance floor. Paddy didn’t so much as give her a backward glance.
It took all of a few minutes for Vicky to lose track of everyone. Roger returned, and politely took over drink-minding responsibilities, so that Vicky could go and use the loo herself. But when she returned to the little side table – well, more accurately, the crowded ledge in the cave wall they’d now occupied – both Roger and the drinks had disappeared. At first she panicked, albeit mildly, and more in irritation than anything, but it didn’t take long to track him down. He’d nabbed a table in another nook, and was waving wildly at her, but, much more to the point, she had mislaid Paddy. He certainly wasn’t on the dance floor she thought they’d all gone to, and, more anxious to find him than to finish her warm drink, she motioned to Roger that she was going to go and look for him.
Finding him took a lot longer. The club was not so much cave as bloody rabbit warren, she decided, as she pushed and shoved her way through the sea of resistant bodies, all too aware that just as she was casing the joint in one direction, he could be doing likewise in another.
But there was a bitter appropriateness to the way she finally found him. Via the sound of a particularly irritating giggle.
She made her way to the sound as if a moth drawn to moonlight. They weren’t dancing. In fact, when Vicky first saw them, they didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Just standing in a random corner, apparently chatting, in that way people generally have to do in a noisy nightclub, by alternately bending their lips to the other’s ears. Or in Lacey’s case, obviously, lifting them.
Of more interest, however (and Vicky absorbed all this slowly) was that Paddy was perched on the edge of a table, legs splayed, Lacey almost standing between them. And as she watched her boyfriend lift his hand and place his beer on the table behind him, Vicky knew – knew as surely as that ‘long enough’ she’d mentioned to Lacey meant she would know – that the hand that had held the beer was going to snake round behind Lacey, cup her right buttock and pull her against him.
The kiss came out of leftfield, however. Mostly because Lacey – fucking Lacey – was the one to instigate it. And for just a moment – a precious moment – Vicky thought she knew what would happen. That Paddy, taken aback, would naturally pull his head back, the flirting being one thing, but the kiss – any kiss that wasn’t from her – being a step way too far. And he did pull his head back. She exhaled her relief.
But it was apparently only to grin. ‘Well, well,’ he mouthed slowly. She couldn’t hear but she didn’t need to. She could lip-read it perfectly. Then his mouth was on Lacey’s, his black hair striped with blue, and then red, and then blue, and then red again.
Vicky felt something physical heave in her stomach. Not quite nausea, no, worse, something much worse than that. And for a moment it rooted her as firmly to her viewpoint as if she’d been set there in stone. It was only when someone barged her, in a rush to get past, that she was jolted from her paralysis.
‘What the fuck?’ came a bark. ‘What the fuck?’
Belatedly, she realised it was Roger who was barging past her. Roger squaring up to Paddy. Paddy proclaiming innocence. Lacey feigning it too. Roger telling Lacey – shouting, spittle flying from him – that she was lying. That he saw what he fucking saw. Paddy going, ‘Look, mate, it was nothing. Look, cool it, okay?’ Going, ‘Christ, it was nothing. Just a fucking peck. Nothing!’ And then a couple of Roger’s mates pitching up and joining in. One saying, ‘Mate, it’s not worth it,’ the other, ‘Come on, we’re all pissed’. Then Paddy looking past him, his eyes scanning everyone. Seeing Vicky. His mouth opening. Then forming her name. Then him moving towards her, and being pulled back again. A hand slamming down on his shoulder.
Oh, Paddy.
She turned, blind with tears, and began to push her way out then, knocking a glass off the edge of a table she passed and hearing ice cubes go skittering across the floor.
Ice cubes. They did have fucking ice cubes. Bastard.
Out on the street, Vicky took in great gulps of air. It was dry and chilly, the clear air crisp and scentless and cold, and she felt the breeze whipping around her bare legs. Bar the pair of bouncers on the door, there was no one on the street now, the conga-line of chattering people waiting to get in now having vanished, and those already in there still a long way from being turfed out.
Bastard. She scanned the empty street, a worm of pain turning inside her, the memory of what she’d seen causing it to writhe in her gut. And, for a long anguished moment, she was incapable of coherent thought, choked and broken – and to a degree she wouldn’t even have thought possible. How could he do that? Just let that little bitch kiss him like that? Kiss her back. Touch her up. Like it didn’t even matter. What about her? What about them? What the fuck was she supposed to think now?
Vicky turned a circle on the pavement, unsure what to do. He’d be coming out after her, surely; the expression on his face had said so. But was he even now getting a pasting from the luckless Roger and his mates? What a bitch, she thought again. What the frigging hell was she up to? She had a fucking boyfriend! What the hell was going on?
Her thoughts racing away in directions that she didn’t want to contemplate, Vicky realised she needed to get away. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to hear so much as a word of his bullshit. But where could she go? She was supposed to be sleeping over at his – bastard – and there was no way in the world she was going home. Christ, she’d rather spend a night on a park bench with all the winos than listen to her mother’s drunken litany of ‘I told you so’s’ and slagging off of Paddy. Even in her anguish, she thought wretchedly, she couldn’t stomach that. She knew she’d find herself too moved to defend him.
And what did that say about her? She filed the thought away, unable to face it. No, she needed to escape. But where the hell should she go? It was gone midnight – the thought of being out alone so late suddenly gripped and held her – so what the hell was she supposed to do now? How dare he – how fucking dare he – put her in a position like this.
Rage forced its way to the top of her consciousness, and was an altogether preferable emotion. Rage fired her muscles and propelled her tired legs, made her arms swing, her heels click, her mind – thankfully clear of a debilitating level of alcohol – become resolute. She h
ad already left Thornton Road and was heading up Bradford Road towards Clayton before anything other than rage could get a grip.
Thank God. Or she knew her legs would buckle under her.
Chapter 10
Lucy woke with a start, but had no idea what had woken her. Thinking it must have been a dream, she lay still with her eyes closed for a few moments, and was just drifting back to sleep when the noise came again. Someone knocking – knocking on the front door downstairs. Very softly, but knocking nonetheless. She checked the display on her alarm clock. At this time?
She threw her duvet off and swung her legs out of bed. There was no way she was going to go down and see who might be out there, but at least her bedroom window (she had the small bedroom that looked out onto the front garden) gave her a view of the gate and street beyond, if not the actual doorstep.
She was just peering down the road, satisfied that she couldn’t actually see anything – or anyone – dangerous-looking, when a shape resolved itself, walking a few steps backwards up the concrete path. A shape that then looked up, and which then waved at her with both arms.
Lucy blinked in surprise. Good God – Vicky?
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she hissed, once she’d pulled on her dressing gown, padded downstairs and let Vicky in. ‘Come on, come back up to my room. Be safer than going in the kitchen. And for Christ’s sake, be quiet.’
Not that Lucy was concerned that her friend would start shouting. Even the short glimpse she’d managed to get of her friend in the dark hallway told her that Vicky was as sober as she was. Or at least almost. So this clearly wasn’t some mad, impulsive, drunken thing. And it didn’t look like she was round to kick off about Jimmy either. If she was angry – and, judging by her body language, it seemed so – it didn’t appear to be at her. Thank God for that too.