Two Women

by Martina Cole

  Outside the room they stood and looked at one another and Barry said seriously, ‘I am sorry, Roselle, I miss you so much.’

  She nodded gently.

  ‘Susan talked me into giving you another chance today. Ain’t that strange?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Not really, Roselle. She knows the score and she’s sensible enough to live with it.’

  Roselle looked into his handsome face. His hair was streaked, as was the fashion, and he looked like a footballer or a pop star. His blue eyes were to die for and his bone structure was fantastic. It came out in all his children.

  ‘You’re a fool, you know, Barry. Susan is a decent person. Better than me or you can ever hope to be. There’s men out there would give anything for a wife like her. She’s the best thing that ever came into my life, you know. For the first time ever I have a female friend I can trust, one I can talk to and be with without worrying about what I do for a living, or being judged, or having to pretend things to make my life seem more respectable, more valid. I can discuss Joseph with her and she understands why I want more for him even though she would have to be dead herself, before she would let one of her kids go.’

  She felt tears sting her eyes and Barry pulled her into his arms and hugged her.

  ‘Be nice to her, Bal, please. Don’t treat her like you normally do. Buy her some flowers or something, make her feel special, just once.’

  He nodded. ‘All right then, mate. Will I see you tonight?’

  She pulled away from him and nodded.

  ‘Aren’t you coming back to work then?’

  He grinned, that little grin that melted her heart and reminded her of the power of beauty. He was good-looking and dangerous. That was his attraction. She went up on tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth, to the outrage of two nurses and a midwife who had helped deliver the baby.

  ‘See you later.’

  Barry smiled.

  ‘That is a definite, darling, you try and keep me away.’

  He went back into his wife’s room, a wide smile on his face.

  ‘All right, girl? You done sterling work today, all over in an hour and a half. I reckon you’re getting too good at this. Soon be giving lessons.’

  Susan saw his happiness and relaxed inside herself. A nurse came in then with more tea and toast for her and the look she gave Barry told Susan everything. She suppressed a smile. Watching him cooing at his new daughter she awaited the visit from her mother and father, Kate and Doreen.

  She was looking forward to seeing Kate and Doreen. Her mother and father she could do without. But she knew she was expected to see them, let them give the new grandchild the once over then go home and get as pissed as possible to celebrate the new arrival in the family.

  And Susan, as usual, did as expected.

  She was good at that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Roselle watched Barry closely. In the year since the last baby was born he had become closer to Rose than he had been to any of his other children. She was his golden child, the apple of his eye. Even Alana, the previous favourite, had to take a back seat.

  As he changed her and kissed her little belly Roselle felt a momentary pang, almost a feeling of jealousy, and shrugged it off as quickly as it had come over her. In fact she should be glad he had these feelings, she told herself, it proved he was human after all.

  But his love for Rose was almost an obsession.

  She was him, a born again Barry. From the amazing eyes to the chiselled cheekbones. She had his thick black hair and his gracefulness. Everywhere he went with the child people exclaimed over her, admired her beauty and her daintiness. She really was exquisite.

  Barry had her as often as he could, for an afternoon or a morning. Roselle had watched him mastering parenthood so Sue could not put a block on him and what he wanted.

  ‘Who’s her daddy’s girl then, eh?’

  Rose smacked a kiss at him and he laughed loudly.

  ‘See that, did you? She kissed her old dad, love her. She knows who the important one is, don’t you, darlin’, eh?’

  Rose grabbed at her fat little baby feet and broke wind loudly, laughing all the while.

  ‘Well, even you can’t answer that, Barry. I think she told you exactly what she thought of you there, mate.’

  Roselle’s voice was strained and she tried to cover it with a smile. But having a baby around, even one as lovely as Rose, put a different complexion on things.

  Barry the dad was not part of her equation and she felt awful for feeling that way. But justified it to herself with the thought that Susan didn’t like his obsession with his daughter either. And that was what it was, an obsession. Rose was all he talked about and it was getting wearing.

  ‘Don’t you think you should get her back, Bal? We open in two hours.’

  He nodded, his attention still on his daughter.

  ‘Susan will be wondering where you’ve got to.’

  ‘Let her fucking wonder. Rose is mine as well as hers.’

  ‘So are the other three, Bal. Yours as well as Sue’s, I mean.’

  He didn’t answer her, kept his own counsel, but she could see he was annoyed. Looking down at this mirror image of himself Barry finally understood the love of a parent. His other three kids were crosses to bear most of the time. They were good enough kids and he grudgingly allowed that Sue was a good mother. But Rose, his little Rosie, was something else entirely.

  She really was wholly his.

  She responded to him in a way the others had never done.

  It didn’t occur to Barry that he never gave the other three a chance to be anything other than an annoyance. He saw himself as father of the year. A man misunderstood by everyone else.

  Especially the women in his life.

  Thinking about the women in his life made him hurry up with the changing and dressing.

  He had a little bird on the go near where Sue lived and just had time to have a quick coffee and a leg over before work. As he kissed Roselle goodbye, promising to be back by seven, he felt a trickle of fear run down his spine. If she found out she would kill him this time. But she wouldn’t. All he had learned from the last time was not to get caught.

  After dropping Rose off he made his way to Maggie Brittan’s council flat.

  Maggie was twenty-five, with a young son called Duane. She was what Susan would call a slag. Her home was dirty, her little boy ran the streets, and she drank and smoked all day to her heart’s content. She bonked for England with anyone who caught her eye and wore too few clothes and too much make up. All in all, exactly what Barry needed. No real conversation, except a few of his hard nut expressions, a fuck that lasted as long as he wanted it to, and no crying when he left after an hour.

  As he parked Roselle’s Aston Martin outside Maggie’s block he felt a happy man. When he walked into the flat Maggie was asleep on the sofa. He could see she had been crying. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail and without foundation her skin was spotty and red. Her nose was chapped from crying and her mouth wore the usual discontented pout.

  He could smell rubbish and guessed rightly that the bin was overflowing. There was a faint smell of sour milk about her person and he smiled gently as he looked down at her.

  She was a dog really.

  Maggie opened her eyes and sniffed.

  ‘Oh. It’s you, Barry.’

  Sitting up, she tried to tidy herself.

  He leered at her. ‘I’ve only got an hour.’

  She grinned. ‘That’s plenty of time for what you want, eh?’

  He undid his trousers and pulled out his already erect member. Pushing her head on to it, he forced it into her mouth. He watched her making a right meal of it and grinned. She was a dog but a game bird for all that.

  He looked around the scruffy room, saw the dirt everywhere and smelled her body odour, a mixture of cigarettes and cheap perfume mingled with fried food and Weetabix. He could feel her tongue running over the tip of his cock and felt the
stirring inside his belly as he moved his hips so she could accommodate him properly.

  He rode her mouth, forcing himself into the back of her throat, hearing her gagging and laughing at her. Enjoying the power he had over her. She would take any abuse as long as it was from a face, a name. From someone with a bit of criminal kudos.

  In her little world it made her feel somebody, made her feel she counted. She would tell all her mates that Barry Dalston, local hard case and lunatic, was giving her one. Was her bloke. Like he would be seen in public with it!

  But she did the job expected of her and afterwards he zipped himself up and she made him a coffee.

  ‘This place is like a fucking tip. Shall I get a skip so you can have a clean up?’

  Maggie laughed at him, too stupid to take the insult on board. She spat into the sink, on the bowls and cups left there from breakfast.

  ‘That’s made all me throat burn.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I needed that, Bal, needed to see you. I’ve had a terrible day today. You know I was seeing that Peter Groves?’

  He nodded. Peter was an all right geezer, very much like himself though obviously not in Barry’s league.

  ‘What? Is he giving you grief?’ He had his macho stance on now and watched her watching him, pleased at the reaction he got from her.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, grief is the right word. He reckons I’ve given him something called herpes.’

  Barry felt as though an icy hand was holding on to his testicles and gradually squeezing them.

  ‘What did you say?’ He had to be hearing things.

  Maggie faced him and sighed, annoyed he wasn’t listening to her.

  ‘I said, he reckons I’ve given him this disease called herpes. Says it’s American, so how the fuck can I have given it to him? Silly fucker, where would I meet a Yank?’

  She raised her arms in an exasperated gesture.

  Barry’s head seemed to be filling with hot air. He looked around the squalid little flat and felt sickness rise in his belly.

  ‘Well, ain’t you got nothing to say then?’

  His hand was on his cock, feeling it through the outside of his trousers as if it might have disappeared without his knowledge.

  Herpes, the talk of the hostesses, the new scourge. Jesus fuck! Even the old timers were using Durex these days. The whores were always the first with diseases, they spread them. They talked about this and tried to avoid it. Well, the sensible ones did. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead.

  Roselle would denut him in a moment if she knew anything about this. Anything at all.

  ‘What makes him think he got it from you then?’

  Maggie laughed. Her teeth looked suddenly yellow and he saw her for what she was. A dirty slag. Why hadn’t he seen that before? He could kick himself.

  ‘He reckons he gave it to his wife, that’s how he found out he had it. Anyway, he went schlepping up the Old London and they give him the bad news. But how does he know it was me? He says he reckons he only shagged me. Yeah, right. He’d shag his own fucking sister in a good light!’

  She chewed on a fingernail, face alive with misery as she reached the climax of her story.

  ‘He gave me a slap, Bal. I told him you wouldn’t have that and he said, “Fucking tell him then. Tell him and tell him to come and see me.”

  She was expecting Barry to do his crust, assure her he would ‘sort that ponce out’, and then she would have a story to tell all and sundry. Instead he stared at her, and as he stared she felt the fear creep over her.

  ‘Are you going to answer me?’

  He nodded, eyes cold now and fixed on hers.

  ‘If I find out you have herpes, Maggie, I will personally take you and slaughter you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

  She scratched at a scab on her arm and he looked at her tattoos and her grey skin and felt sick. Whatever had possessed him to shag that, he didn’t know. He thought back to his wedding night, and what he had given his heavily pregnant wife, and felt the sickness sweep over him again.

  Roselle would not be as trusting as Susan or as forgiving.

  ‘Well, if you have got it, whose fault is it, eh? Not mine, Barry. I just have a laugh, that’s all. It’s up to you to take care of yourself, mate.’

  He thought of the prostitute he had kicked to death and wondered if he could get away with it again. But everyone knew he visited here. The Aston Martin he had parked so happily gave him away. He’d loved the thought of people talking about him trumping a slag. It was part of his hard man image. Well, not any more.

  The blow, when it was delivered, sent Maggie across the kitchen and into the hallway. Barry gave her a good hiding, making sure she was repaid for what she had done to him. There was blood all over the walls when he had finished. It gave him some satisfaction at least.

  Her face was swollen and bruised beyond recognition and he knew he had broken her arm. But he did not care.

  She had asked for it, each and every blow.

  When he had finished he walked from the flat. Other occupants were out on their balconies, listening to the trouble going on in Maggie’s. Older women nodded to each other sagely but no one phoned Old Bill. They watched Barry walk down the stairs and get into his flash car. Then, when they deemed it safe, they went into the flat and tried to help the hysterical girl.

  Barry went straight back to Susan and told her the whole sorry tale.

  ‘Well, what is herpes then?’ Susan’s voice was nonplussed. She was unsure what to say to him.

  ‘It’s like VD. Well, it is VD. But unlike a dose it never goes away. You keep it all your life like a fucking birth-mark. It’s sores around your nuptials. They hurt and weep and make you feel ill.’

  ‘Can it kill you, Bal?’

  ‘It fucking can if you give it to me, mate.’ His voice was a bellow, a roar of despair.

  ‘Well, who you got it off then? Surely not Roselle. I’d never believe that.’

  ‘Of course I never got it off of her, you stupid bitch. I got it off some old fucking sort, didn’t I?’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got it? I mean, have you had a test?’

  ‘The same person gave it to Chopper Groves, and he gave it to his old woman.’

  Susan’s face was a picture of shock.

  ‘You mean, that bastard’s given it to poor Brenda?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The rotten creep. I hope it fucking drops off.’

  Barry raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘I hope his knob drops off too, but it’s mine I’m more worried about at the moment, Sue.’

  ‘Poor Brenda, and she ain’t long had a baby, has she? A few months after me she had her little boy, I seen her down the clinic. What a bastard.’

  ‘I think we are both agreed that he’s a bastard. Now can we drop the subject of him and fucking Brenda? Sue, I am panicking here. Roselle will launch me into outer space if she finds out about this lot.’

  Susan stared at him. She wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say.

  ‘Well, you need a test, Bal. Make sure.’

  He nodded, his face drawn. His whole body seemed to be shaking, his hands constantly on the move. He was like a trapped tiger and Susan felt sorry for him in a funny way. He never thought about the consequences of his own actions. He spent his whole life doing what he wanted and not worrying until something awful happened.

  Then, when it did, it was everyone else’s fault.

  ‘Who did you get it off?’

  He couldn’t look her in the face.

  ‘Come on, Bal, who’s the culprit?’

  ‘Maggie Brittan.’ His voice was so low Susan thought she was hearing things.

  ‘Not tattooed Maggie!’ Her voice was incredulous.

  Everyone knew Maggie, she was a legend in her own lunchtime. She went with anyone, and that meant anyone. She took them on mob-handed after a few drinks and laughed about it afterwards.

  The Brittans were even lower
in the food chain than her own family and that was saying something.

  ‘Oh, Barry, what have you done? She’s had everything from crabs right through the card. What possessed you to sleep with her?’

  He shook his head, bewildered. He didn’t know why now.

  ‘She was there, that’s all.’

  Susan answered him sarcastically.

  ‘Like Everest? Jesus, Barry, you don’t half get up my nose at times. Suppose I was to go out tonight and see a nice bloke. I fancy him and he fancies me, so I bring him home here and give him a right seeing to. What would you think of me then? Because there are men who would go to bed with me, Bal, you just proved it by sleeping with Maggie Brittan. If she can pull, I’m fucking sure I can.’

  He took a deep draft of Scotch and didn’t even attempt to answer her.

  ‘Do you see how people might judge your behaviour now, Bal, even though you’re a man? Do you know how I felt that day I lost Jason? Can you imagine if we lost little Rose like that - because you couldn’t keep it in your fucking trousers! Put yourself in my place, Bal, think of what that did to me, knowing you were putting something in me that only hours earlier had been stuffed into someone else . . .’

  Her words brought home to him the fact that his cock had been stuffed in Maggie’s mouth not that long ago and he felt an urgent desire to go and wash himself again. Susan had only narrowly dissuaded him from pouring bleach on it, to get it really clean.

  As she looked at her husband she felt an overwhelming hatred for him. She knew her words had meant nothing to him, could never mean anything to him. He was only ever interested in himself.

  What he wanted, what he needed.

  Never a thought for anyone else.

  ‘Roselle will kill me, Susan.’

  She didn’t bother to answer him.

  ‘Like I said before, you’ll have to get a test. Nothing else you can do, is there?’

  He didn’t answer her.

  ‘Look, are you sure Chopper got it off her? He might have got it elsewhere.’

  ‘If he slapped her, then he’d traced back the source of his infection. I’ll see him anyway, though. I have to, don’t I?’

  Susan nodded. ‘I suppose this ain’t the time to ask but I want to get a new three-piece, this one’s had it.’