by Jessie Keane
14
Sometime during the night, Shauna awoke to feel Josh’s arm around her and his hand cupping her breast through her clothes. She lay perfectly still, not wanting to break the spell. So much for his pretended indifference. She knew there had always been a spark between them, and this proved it.
But then, she thought again. Men weren’t fussy. Hand it to them and they’d lap it up, her mum had always told her that and she was right, drunken old cow that she was. Then she felt Josh’s big hand fiddling with the buttons on her blouse, pushing aside the thin material; he’d reached her bra.
He’s half-asleep. He don’t even know it’s me, she thought. Maybe I should stop him.
But then . . . she’d dreamed of this, fantasized about it so much. She wanted it.
Yes, she’d mucked about with the Cleaver brothers, tried her best to make Josh jealous, but she had never been even faintly interested in them, not really. Compared to Josh, they were nothing; he was the prize. And now . . . here he was. She had him.
Slowly she reached around, popped the bra open, then felt a shiver of lust as his hand quickly fastened over one naked tit, hardening her nipple in an instant. Helplessly she ground her hips back against his, felt the hardness there, wished he’d do it to her, right now. Do it, she thought. Please do it.
She heard him give a moan, felt his breathing quicken against her neck, then his hand left her breast and he was working the button on her jeans loose, tugging down the zip, pulling them off her.
His hand was sliding inside her pants now, touching her where she was most sensitive, feeling her readiness. She gasped as his hand moved away, wanted to say something, to protest, to say, Don’t stop, please don’t stop, but he was pulling her pants down, over her thighs, her knees, her ankles, and she was naked down there, and she was panting too now, her blood aflame with desire.
Josh pushed her on to her back, got between her legs. She couldn’t see him, she couldn’t see anything, all she could do was feel. She heard him fumbling with his clothes, heard the zip of his jeans go down, heard him pushing them out of the way. Her hands reached out and she felt him then, his cock naked and hard as iron, throbbing and somehow threatening but silky too, and she pulled him in almost frantically, wanting this, wanting him.
When he was there, right at the spot, she pushed up with her hips, taking him inside her, impaling herself on that big hard column of flesh. She felt such pleasure, such unbelievable thrills of desire, that she moved as he moved, pounding into her, taking her, filling her just as she had always longed for him to fill her. All those others had been rubbish, nothing but a rehearsal. This was the real thing.
Then he said it, moaned it.
‘Oh Jesus, Claire . . .’
Shauna stiffened. He really was half asleep – and he was dreaming he was fucking that dopey little cow Claire.
He could get me up the duff, thought Shauna.
But he’d said Claire’s name, not hers. Still, that wonderful thing between his legs was still thrusting inside her and her feelings were all over the place. She wanted to stop him, to push him away from her, because for God’s sake he didn’t even know it was her. But she wanted him to go on too. His movements quickened then, and he groaned.
He thinks it’s her, thought Shauna in fury, feeling spikes of passion rock her, making her stomach clench, making her clasp him even harder inside her.
She didn’t care who he thought she was, not right now. He was in despair over that Milo bitch, and he was taking blind, mindless comfort the way men always had, always would. For her, the pleasure was too intense, almost unbearable. He moaned again, and seemed to get bigger, harder, so that she cried out, not hurt but amazed.
Now he was almost pulling out from her, pushing back in, deeper, harder, fuller.
Shauna cried out again.
Josh pushed in hard, madly, and was still for a while, pinning her there.
Then he pulled out of her, flopped back on the bed. Shauna felt wetness on her thighs. Maybe he had given her a baby. That would be a hell of a result. A quiet, nice, decent man like Josh? He’d have to marry her then; he’d feel obliged to. Gasping and with their limbs tangled together, Shauna cuddled in against him.
‘It’s me, Josh,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s me. It’s Shauna.’
But he didn’t answer.
‘Josh?’ she whispered.
His breathing had deepened. He was asleep.
Shauna tried to sleep too, but she was too excited. Everything was starting to happen for her. Her life was beginning at last – her real life, with Josh Flynn.
15
Claire supposed she must have slept at some point. Or just passed out with the terror of what was being done to her. When she came back to herself she was lying, shivering, on hard stone and as she lifted her head a shaft of pain lanced straight down her neck. She let out a groan, pushed herself up so that she was sitting. Her wrist hurt. Her knees were scraped. She was . . . oh Christ in heaven, she was naked.
And then it came back.
It all came back.
Claire let out a choked cry as she looked around her, at the cool echoing interior of the church, at the relentless morning sun creeping through the stained-glass windows, throwing puddles of colour on to the stone slabs of the aisle. She caught her breath on a panicky sob. Oh God!
There was the grave, right in front of the altar, filled in now – but last night it had been open. Her hand touched a piece of cloth on the floor. It was her skirt. Discarded like a rag. The horror of the memories poured into her brain then, like iced water. The two of them clawing at her, bruising her, invading her. The pain. The humiliation.
Oh God oh God oh God . . .
Panic-stricken, shuddering, Claire stumbled to her feet, her mind whirling with remembered images so vile that she felt her guts start to clench and bile rising into her throat. Jesus, and they’d . . .
They killed Blue.
She started to cry, great wracking sobs, and her bleary eyes looked toward the grave in front of the altar.
Blue was in there.
She remembered Shauna Everett shoving a bundle of notes at her, and then . . . ah shit, then . . .
She couldn’t even think of it. She hurt everywhere and the shaking was bone-deep now as her brain skipped away from all that had happened here last night. Shuddering, she snatched up her clothes and started to pull them on, her fingers frozen, her movements jerky with shock and pain.
She’d always known Shauna was a cruel cow. She knew that. But she had never for one minute imagined the lengths she would go to just to get rid of her. She had underestimated Shauna. And oh God, it had cost her. It had cost her so dear.
Somehow her feeble hands managed to fasten her skirt. She felt filthy, ashamed. Soiled to her soul. She didn’t want anyone to see her, her life was over. Josh was gone from her and she had to clear out, she had to do this now. She couldn’t ever go home again. A stark image surged into her mind again, of those two animals laughing as they attacked her last night, thrusting into her like she was a piece of meat.
Oh Christ!
She had to get out of here. She had to get away. Because if she didn’t, Shauna would be mad. And then God knew what she would do. Now Claire knew what Shauna was capable of. For the moment she was alive and if she wanted to stay that way then there was nothing for it but to do as Shauna said and go.
Claire picked up her blouse and pulled it on with shaking hands. Her wrist throbbed, hot with pain. Her neck ached. She was black and blue with bruises and between her legs – oh God – she was hideously sore, and wet. She felt in the pocket of her skirt for the money that Shauna had put there last night. It was still there. She was surprised at that; she wouldn’t have put it past those godless bastards the Cleavers to have taken even that from her, along with her dignity and her virginity. They had taken everything else.
She managed a few tottering steps to the grave in front of the altar.
Blue. Oh my poor sweet Blue.<
br />
Her eyes lingered on the inscription there.
Something Old
Something New
Something Borrowed
Something Blue
Shauna’s idea of a joke, putting Blue in there? Claire didn’t know. She turned away, crying, beaten, bloody and sore, and staggered out of the church and away.
16
Josh knew where all the travelling folk were at any given time; all the Romanies did. There were the horse fairs, run as regular as clockwork, and then there were the funfairs, set up all over the country on bank holidays, with legal boxing booths being a big feature of the entertainment.
Unable to sleep, tormented by the thought of all that he had lost, he dragged his aching body from the bed and left Shauna Everett in the land of nod. He crept down the stairs and unbolted the door and let himself out into the warm night. Crossing to the car, he took off the handbrake and rolled her down and out to the gate, then started the engine and switched on the lights and turned the car south.
He drove until he saw the signs. Pole and Co Fun Fairs, they shouted, showing great grinning clown faces painted in brilliant reds and yellows. Fun’s the game and Pole’s the name! He turned the car down a long gravel driveway. Up ahead against a charcoal-grey sky he could see the outline of a big wheel, the massive cone of the helter-skelter. The big top was up, flags luffing in a sultry breeze.
Josh drove on, past the fairground, and found himself in a huddle of cars and caravans. The dogs started barking the minute he switched off the engine. He didn’t get out of the car, he wasn’t a fool. Some of them would be roaming loose, patrolling the site. As he sat there, a black-faced Alsatian came and stood its big forepaws against his window and let loose a thunderous barking.
Josh leaned on the car horn. It didn’t deter the dog, who was quickly joined by another, and then another, all surrounding the car and baying for Josh’s blood. Josh sat there and fought the urge to open the door and let them in to tear at his flesh. Maybe he deserved that. Maybe he would even welcome it. If Claire was gone from him, then the best part of his life was over.
Then he thought of last night, and Shauna. He’d felt so down, so lost. He knew he’d had her, knew damned well he’d taken comfort in a female body. It could have been anybody’s. Turned out, it was Shauna’s. As soon as it was done, he regretted it. Somehow, he had to go on with his life. Right now, he didn’t know how.
Finally, after minutes of Josh leaning on the horn, the dogs going demented, a light came on in one of the bigger vans, illuminating the windows. A curtain was shoved aside and someone peered out. Then the door was flung open and a bulky man came down the steps, zipping his trousers and pulling his braces up over his vast, grey-vested beer gut.
‘What the fuck’s happening here?’ he asked, swiping angrily at the dogs as he came.
They stopped barking, turning away and loping off into the semi-darkness.
Josh wound down his window. ‘Mr Pole? Mr Linus Pole?’ he asked, looking at the man who peered in at him. Pole was red in the face as Father Christmas. He was plump, with thin greying hair, an aggressive hazel-eyed stare and a big waxed handlebar moustache.
‘Who wants him? It’s the middle of the effing night.’
‘Josh Flynn,’ said Josh.
‘Who? Flynn, you say?’
‘I beat Matty O’Connor in a fair fight yesterday evening.’
‘I know Matty. Course I do. Everyone does. Man’s a legend.’
‘Well, he’s beat.’
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’
‘No, I ain’t.’
Now Pole was looking at him differently. ‘Well – what can I do for you, Mr Flynn?’
Josh shrugged. ‘Where there’s fairs there’s fights. I can beat any man you got on this site, Mr Pole. Set it up and I’ll prove it.’
Pole relaxed a notch. He’d set up more fights than he’d had hot dinners; they were always good earners, and he liked to earn.
‘You ain’t seen the boys we got on this site,’ said Pole.
‘Don’t have to. I can beat ’em.’
‘Cock-sure, ain’t you,’ said Pole, but he was smiling.
‘I know my own abilities.’
‘Come on over to the van, let’s talk.’
17
Shauna managed to sleep at last, and she woke when daylight crept through the curtains. The events of yesterday evening rushed back to her – getting rid of the Milo bitch and that damned hound of hers, leaving the campsite, arriving here and then falling into bed with Josh, who’d had her during the night. Had her, thinking . . . what? That she was really Claire? No. She reckoned that Claire was still a virgin – well, she had been until Ciaran and Jeb got hold of her. She thought that Josh had used her, like she was just anybody. That enraged her, killed her, but she would work on him, she would alter his feelings. She was hell-bent on that.
She flopped on to her back and stretched out a hand, a smile starting on her lips – and then she realized he was gone. Shauna shot up in the bed, her eyes casting around in the gloom. She could make out her bag, there on the floor. His wasn’t with it.
‘Shit! No, no, no . . .’ She flung herself from the bed and yanked back the curtains, feeling her heart thudding in her chest as she stared down at the driveway and saw that Josh’s beat-up old Ford Zephyr was gone too. Her mouth was dry as dust. She turned, groped for the clothes he’d pulled off her sometime during the night. That bastard. He’d screwed her and left her.
She yanked on her pants, her jeans, her bra and shirt. Glanced at her watch. Seven a.m. Hopefully Scrooge and his lady wife wouldn’t be up, getting the breakfast started. It wouldn’t be anything fancy anyway, she thought. Dry toast and a scrape of marge, maybe.
Shauna grabbed her bag, opened the door as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to bump into that ugly bugger and have to start explaining where her ‘husband’ had got to. Wounded and furious, she crept down the stairs and heard a loo chain pull somewhere in the house. Hurrying, she slipped outside into the dewy morning. She trotted down to the road, looked left and right, then headed south, back toward the campsite. She reckoned for sure that he’d gone back there, looking for the Milo bitch, hoping to change her mind over the marriage. On the way, she was going to find a phone box and call up a taxi. She had cash enough for that.
Fucking Josh Flynn.
18
By the time Josh had concluded his business with Linus Pole, it was daylight. Josh turned the car around and set off again, while the sun rose on another blisteringly hot day. Last night had turned into a waking nightmare, but today was a new day and he was going to see Claire and talk her round. He was going to roll over about the big wedding. Use that as a sweetener. He couldn’t just give up on her. She’d been upset after the fight, but today she would see reason. He knew it.
But when he got to the campsite clearing, all hell was breaking loose. As soon as he saw the flashing blue lights of a police car, his guts clenched in alarm. Muskras, here? It was unheard of. He drove straight on, and stopped two hundred yards along the lane. Then he got out, walked back to the clearing. Sure enough, there was the police car, parked up beside the vans. He hadn’t dreamed it. Its radio was burbling away, unheeded.
Josh looked around, feeling his heart pounding hard. There was his mum’s van, the curtains pulled shut. Cloudy’s big Morecambe was over there, the curtains closed, a light burning behind them. Claire’s folks’ van was lit up like Crystal Palace, the door wide open, yesterday’s washing still out on the line. He could hear raised voices coming from inside. Eva, Claire’s mum, was wailing. Young Trace’s voice was deeper. And Pally’s, deeper still, and Nanny Irene’s aged croaking. Now a muskra was coming down the steps. Josh saw that Blue was not at his usual post under the van.
Josh walked along the edge of the camp and came up close to another van. The dog tethered under it snarled, but he shushed it and it subsided; it knew him. Then Josh walked around the front and over to the policeman.
‘What’s going on, mate?’ he asked.
‘Who are you, sir?’ He looked about ten.
‘Bertie Mackey. I live over there.’ Josh pointed to a trailer across the clearing that was still closed up for the night. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Girl called Claire Milo’s been reported missing,’ said the copper. ‘Run off with her boyfriend, I reckon, ’cos he’s gone as well. Took her dog too, by the sounds of it.’
Josh felt his heart contract with shock. Claire was missing? Shit, what was going on?
‘Stay here, will you, sir? I’ll just be a moment . . .’ The policeman went back inside the van.
Josh stood there, sickened and reeling. Claire, gone? Gone where?
Claire was a stay-at-home type of girl. She wasn’t flighty and flirty like Shauna, who regularly stayed out overnight doing God knew what. Everyone in the camp knew that. This wasn’t like Claire. Not at all.
He stumbled back along the lane to his car and got inside. For a while he sat there, dazed.
Where the hell could she be?
Then someone started thumping on the window.
He looked up.
It was Shauna.
19
‘You arsehole,’ she said when he wound the window down.
‘What the fuck you doing here?’ asked Josh, his mind spinning. He’d left her at the B & B and he’d been about to go back there, but now here she was, wandering the streets.
‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here, more to the point.’ Shauna’s face drew into thunderous lines. ‘Been back to try and see Claire, have you? Changed your mind, I suppose.’
‘I haven’t seen Claire.’
‘You bloody bastard! You low-life cunt!’ said Shauna, and hit him.
‘Hey!’ Josh raised a hand to fend her off. Unable to strike, Shauna got madder still and kept pummelling at him until he grabbed her wrist. She was so crazy with rage she barely felt the pain of his grip. ‘Stop that!’ said Josh.