by Mel Sherratt
Josie put her drink down on top of a coaster. ‘I haven’t called to spy on you. These are routine questions I ask all of my new tenants. I’m simply interested to see how the place is coming on. You have a real flair for making a home.’ Her eyes raced around the room again. ‘I’m genuinely amazed to see how much you’ve done in such a short space of time. Some of the tenants I signed up during the same week as you won’t have moved in yet, let alone started any decorating. Now that you’ve done that, though, have you thought any more about getting a part time job to tide you over?’
Kelly sat down on the other settee. ‘Yeah, I need to do something. I don’t know how people manage on benefits.’ She grimaced, knowing how it would sound to Josie but when she’d lived with Scott, everything had been acquired without question; now she was fending for herself, she had to watch every penny.
‘Why don’t you come with me to look around Mitchell Academy?’ Josie suggested. Mitchell Academy was a high school on the estate that had been used as a community college on its closure. Originally the building had housed six hundred pupils, but government cuts had insisted that it amalgamated with another school three miles away. ‘What do you fancy doing?’
Kelly sighed. ‘I don’t know what I can do. It seems so long since I left school. My mum reckons I could get some work at Miles’ factory because my auntie works there. I might give it a go.’
Josie nodded. ‘Great. It will alter your benefits if you do over eight hours a week but I think you could easily combine the two. My husband works at Miles’ Factory; he does the day and noon shift.’ She checked her watch and shot to her feet. ‘I’d better get going. I need to call another couple of times yet though, just to see that you’re settled. Is next Thursday morning okay for my next call?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so. And I’d better rescue Dot from Emily.’
‘Don’t you mean rescue Emily from Dot?’
Kelly shook her head. ‘I know exactly what I mean. That child can talk the hind legs off a donkey, given half the chance.’
Josie smiled to disguise her feelings. Her biological clock had been ticking for quite some time now but Stewart wanted to wait until the timing was right for him too. Then again, with the relationship how it was, there didn’t seem much point in trying for a baby if they weren’t more of a unit first.
‘I’ll show myself out and thanks for the drink,’ she said. ‘I don’t accept such offers from everyone I visit, you know.’
Later, as she went back outside to finish clearing up, Kelly recalled Josie’s visit. She found herself warming to the woman behind the coat of authority. Josie had no airs and graces, no false chit-chat. She was straight, to the point, yet never rude with it, and she didn’t judge people. But it was her ability to care without being patronising that she really found admirable.
It also made Kelly realise how much she’d given up for Scott. She was twenty-four-years old and not a friend to her name. Everyone she’d been close to had eventually been driven away in case they became too familiar and saw or heard too much. If she had had someone like Josie around all the time, to share her concerns and talk over her worries, maybe she might not have got into this mess.
Still, Kelly sighed, Josie was a housing officer. To her, a visit was part of the job. Kelly knew she must visit lots of tenants and make them feel that she was someone in authority that they could trust. But it did seem a pity that the arm of friendship she was offering came with strings attached.
CHAPTER SIX
It was nearing six thirty when Josie got home from work that evening. She knew she didn’t have to rush because Stewart was on the noon shift, two-til-ten. It made her feel sad to realise how much she relished coming home to an empty house. Every other weekend she’d be thinking that the next week, when Stewart was on days – six-til-two – it would be different. But by each Friday night, she couldn’t wait for his noon shift to start again.
She hung up her coat and checked the mail: a gas bill, two circulars, a bank statement for her and a bank statement for a Mrs S Mellor. She sighed. She’d rung the bank on several occasions to complain about the computer-generated error but still they kept coming. She left it on the kitchen table for Stewart, along with his monthly car magazine.
After running the hoover around the living room, she ate a quick meal and then decided to savour the peace and quiet by finishing off the last three chapters of the romantic comedy she was reading, but she was also keeping one eye on the time, as there was a film she wanted to watch at eight.
At quarter to ten, she woke up with a jolt to see the film credits rolling. Damn and blast, she’d missed the ending again. She walked through to the kitchen, made a cheese and tomato sandwich for Stewart and two slices of cheese on toast for herself.
She was halfway through it as she heard his car pull up in the driveway. Automatically, she switched on the kettle and slid the sandwich across the table, reaching across to bring the salt and pepper nearer.
‘Hiya, love,’ she greeted him cheerily. ‘It’s a bit nippy. Have you had to scrape the ice off your car?’
‘Yeah, it’s not fit for a dog out there.’ Stewart shrugged his coat off and threw it over the back of the nearest chair. He lifted up a corner of bread from the sandwich and frowned. ‘Couldn’t you have toasted it for me?’
Josie sighed. No rush to kiss her on the cheek, then. ‘You had that last night. I thought you might like a change.’
‘I’d rather have a curry.’
‘Well, order a takeaway if you want to suffer with indigestion all night.’ She pushed past him into the living room, taking her toast with her before he pinched it off the plate.
Fifteen minutes later, Stewart was still in the kitchen. Josie cocked an ear and yes, he’d turned on the portable television rather than come through and sit with her. Fuming to herself, she switched off the set she was idly watching, plumped up the cushions and took her dishes through.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she told him. ‘You can slob out on the settee in the living room now that I’ve gone.’
Without waiting for his response, Josie slammed the dishes into the sink, noticing the chaos all around her. Honestly, how much mess could you make eating a cheese sandwich? But then her eyes flicked to the table to see the sandwich still there. Next to it was a bottle of tomato ketchup, Stewart’s favourite – with cheese on toast.
‘Bloody hell, Stewart,’ she cried. ‘Isn’t anything I do good enough for you? What a waste.’
‘Stop whining,’ Stewart muttered, not taking his eyes from the TV screen. ‘I’ll have the sandwich for my dinner tomorrow.’
‘That’s hardly the point.’ Josie reached for the washing liquid, then immediately put it down again. Stuff it: she wasn’t going to wash them now. They could wait until the morning. After all, Stewart would never think to do them; it certainly didn’t bother him when the bowl overflowed.
With every step she took up the stairs away from him, Josie’s shoulders drooped a little more. She thought back to the nights when she used to rush upstairs half an hour before he was due home to change out of her sloppy joes and into fresh clothes to look nice for him, applying a little mascara and a smidgeon of lipstick and running a comb through her mass of hair. Come to think of it, Stewart had hardly noticed her then. That’s why she’d stopped making an effort.
Her mind still whirred over an hour later as she tossed and turned in her bed. She knew Stewart had taken her advice and moved through to the living room because she could hear the television blaring out. He was watching some action film: she could clearly hear gun shots and every scream for mercy.
Josie lifted her head and pummelled her pillow before resting it again, wondering why things had become so difficult between them. You’d think they’d have so much in common, both of them losing their mums in their late twenties. Stewart had never known his father either. He’d died before he’d been born. His mother had taken care of his every whim until she’d died too, so when he’d moved in with Josi
e, she’d found herself back in her previous role of carer. Over time, it had become easier to give in to his demands, keep the peace – live the lie.
It had been the same with her mother. Was that all she’d ever be, she wondered, a skivvy to domestic chores? Ever since their wedding day, Josie had taken care of Stewart in the same way she’d taken care of her mother: cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, and ironing. Maybe that’s where she had gone wrong. But looking after people was the only thing she knew how to do. Josie’s dad, Jack, had died suddenly of a heart attack when he was forty-two. Josie had only been two at the time so she had no memories of him at all. Her mum, Brenda, had been distraught. Widowed at forty, she’d complained bitterly about her life being over. She had never remarried: there had been a few ‘uncles’ along the way that Josie could remember, but no one had moved in. They’d stayed in the same house – at least Brenda had been lucky enough not to have a mortgage weighing heavily on her shoulders.
A few months after Josie’s fifteenth birthday, Brenda was injured in a car crash and was never able to walk unaided again. She wasn’t confined to a wheelchair as such but, due to not using her legs as much as she was capable of doing, the muscles wasted away and she became housebound. Depressed with her situation, Brenda became spiteful and jealous of her daughter’s position. She constantly reminded Josie that she could go out whenever she wanted and that she didn’t have to sit alone all day and all night too. Trapped somewhere between pity and hate, Josie would stay in to keep the peace. Missing out on her carefree teenage years, she’d borrow books from the local library and read while her mother fell asleep on the settee. It was easier to give in and, after all the housework that she’d had, as well as finding time for homework, there hadn’t been much time for anything else.
Josie hadn’t been quick to make friends at college, and was glad of the receptionist job that came up at Mitchell Housing Association. The head office had only been minutes away in her car, giving her time to call home every lunch to see to her mother. Things had become more difficult when she’d moved onto the Mitchell Estate as an administrative assistant, but she’d still managed the trip, most of the time eating a sandwich en route.
When she was promoted to housing officer two years later, Brenda tried to talk her out of it. Although she still had office hours of nine to five, there had been lots of evening meetings to attend and Brenda didn’t like anything that ate into the time her daughter should have been there to wait on her hand and foot. But Josie, for once, stood her ground and at last gained some control in her life. She enjoyed her job. It had been tough at first, but once she got used to it, she found job satisfaction. She could see the results of her labour, she helped to improve people’s lives and quite often was thanked for her efforts. Not all of the tenants were bad news. There was a terrific display of community spirit. Ninety per cent of them were workers, law-abiding people who made up for the other ten per cent of rubbish.
Josie looked after her mum until Brenda had two strokes in quick succession and it became impossible for her to cope. It was then that she had to make the distressing decision to put her into a nursing home. Brenda needed constant care and attention, way beyond what she could give. It broke her heart to let her go, but as soon as she settled her into Grove House, she knew she’d done the right thing. Josie had visited every other day until another, more severe stroke took her life eight months later.
As well as sorrow, Josie could remember feeling immense relief she’d been free at last to do what she wanted. She tackled some decorating and took a short break to York, her first ever time away from home, where she stayed in first-class indulgence. As the weeks rolled into months, she started to go on the odd night out with some of the girls from work or they came to hers for a takeaway and a bottle of wine. She started to meet new people and her confidence was given a boost. Six months later, she met Stewart. Now, memories of better times became overshadowed by a lack of passion. Perhaps this is how all marriages go, Josie considered.
She stopped in her tracks, her eyes opening wide in the dark of the room. Had she been aware of what was happening, just like Kelly Winterton? Had she turned a blind eye, even though she had done it unintentionally?
With that ugly thought, Josie switched off the bedside lamp and buried her head underneath the covers.
‘Not again,’ Kelly sighed, later that same night. Slowly she dragged herself to her feet, her daughter’s wail for attention getting louder by the second.
‘Hey.’ Kelly pulled her into her arms. ‘What’s up with my little monster?’
‘I want to go home. I don’t like it here, Mummy.’
‘Would it help if I sat here for a while?’ she whispered, knowing full well that Emily would be asleep again soon. Her eyes had already started to close.
Kelly tucked the duvet closer around her small body and looked at her watch. Eleven thirty: she’d only been in bed for an hour. She chewed lightly on her bottom lip. Even though Emily was safely tucked up in her own bed, the room was new, the place was new and the street was new. Through no fault of her own, her child had been dragged away from everything that she knew as her security. Kelly could understand her disorientation.
Her eyes scanned the room that she had struggled to decorate before she moved in. Emily had decided that she wanted everything as pink as possible: duvet, walls, curtains, lampshades. Kelly had drawn a line at a fluffy pink carpet when the men from Kenny’s Carpets had fitted flooring throughout. Jay had told her Kenny owed him a favour and she could choose whatever she wanted for free. Kelly had resisted at first, but after a few days she couldn’t bear to see those shabby floorboards any longer and gave in. Most of Emily’s toys had been hidden away in the cupboard above the stairs, making the bedroom look far tidier than it would have been at Patrick Street.
Peering down at her restless child, a perfect miniature of herself, Kelly couldn’t help but feel a huge surge of love. Emily had certainly arrived at the wrong time in her life, but she was so glad that she had her now. She was her hope for the future, a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dull world – just like, Kelly supposed, she had been for her mum at one time.
Minutes later, sure that Emily was safely back in the land of nod, she left her room, made a coffee and dropped into the nearest settee. The living room was quiet except for the noise of the dripping tap from the bathroom. Even with the door shut tight, she could still hear it. Drip, drip, drip. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Before long, she was sobbing like Emily.
The walls seemed to close in around her, suffocating her with their loneliness, dragging her down to despair. She hated it here in this flat and thought about her pending visit to see Scott. Jay was taking her in the morning. Even without the two hour car journey, she wondered if she really wanted to go into that environment. She’d heard too many stories to think that any prison cell could be void of a mass murderer or some evil bastard ready to slit your throat at the mention of slopping out.
Kelly wanted to hate Scott for what he’d done, but she couldn’t. What if Jay was telling the truth? What if Scott did need her more than she thought? Could she abandon him after five years together?
Questions, questions, questions.
Kelly’s eyes had closed for all of ten minutes before she was jolted awake again by the sound of the techno beat bursting out from the flat next door. Before her tears had started to fall for the second time, Kelly heard Emily beat her to it.
She sighed loudly. Would either of them settle in Clarence Avenue?
Over at Josie’s house, it was an hour later that Stewart finally came to bed.
‘I’m going in at six tomorrow,’ he said, not bothering to kiss her goodnight. ‘We’ve got lots of work on so I might as well do a few hours overtime while I can.’
‘Okay,’ Josie answered, before he dragged over the duvet and slept with his back towards her – the same thing he’d done for as long as she could remember now. She wondered why she thought it would be any different
tonight.
The following morning, Stewart was up and out of the house before Josie got out of bed. Making all the difference to the start of the day, she set off to work with a spring in her step. Driving through the rush hour traffic, the radio belting out its tunes, she sang along to the lyrics at the top of her voice and wondered how long the feeling would last.
It was all of thirty minutes – enough for her to grab a quick cup of coffee – before the first phone call came in. There had been another burglary over at Wilma Place, a row of bungalows for the elderly. Someone had made another complaint about Gina Bradley’s twins. That was the third one she’d had that week. Josie clicked onto the computer system and opened up the case. That was the beauty of hard drives, she surmised. If they were still using paper files, Clare and Rachel’s files would be at least two inches thick. And that was one case of the Bradleys – for once, it wasn’t their older brother, Danny. Nineteen-years-old and he’d already been into juvie twice for burglary and car theft.
Josie grabbed her car keys and coat. If she left now, she could see if Gina was in before she started her other appointments. She might as well get it over with first – it wasn’t going to be pretty.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With all the courage she could muster, Josie unlatched the broken gate and walked slowly up the path towards Gina Bradley’s front door. Every heavy step made her feel like turning around and running away. Although she knew Gina Bradley hated her with a passion, Josie tried hard not to show that the feeling was mutual.
She was about to knock on the door when it was yanked open. Gina stood there in all her splendour. She was a little woman but ‘fat’ and ‘round’ were too kind for her description. Looking like she hadn’t seen a shower in weeks, she was wearing black leggings that threatened to walk off on their own, filthy white socks and a grey sweatshirt three sizes too small. Her hair had been dyed bright red this month, and with no makeup on her pale face, she reminded Josie of a matchstick – a jumbo matchstick.