by Limey Lady
Penny let him tuck in before asking, ‘What's to do tonight?’
‘It’s rugby training.’
‘Should you be eating all that before running about, bashing into folk?’
‘It doesn't start until half seven. I'll be starving again by then. And I might have to get fish and chips on the way home. Er . . . I don't suppose you can lend me a tenner.’
‘I'm not sure which part of that request should surprise me. Your very inventive use of the word “lend”. Or the fact you think I’m ready to believe fish and chips cost a tenner.’
Penny looked in her purse and, on impulse, pulled out a twenty. She waved it in the air until she had Jamie's undivided attention.
‘This could be yours,’ she said enticingly. ‘All you have to do is answer two simple questions.’
‘Go on then,’ he said, still watching the twenty pound note, spellbound.
‘If you were fighting someone and he pulled out a knife, could you really beat him?’
‘Of course I could. No problem. Let's have the second question.’
‘Not so fast. I'm really fretting about this, Jamie. You have to convince me you're not all talk.’
‘Me? I don’t just talk the talk. I walk the walk.’
‘So convince me.’
‘All right, I will’ He had another mouthful of goulash before continuing. ‘It happened to me in the park a few months ago.’
‘Jamie! Why didn't you tell us?’
‘I didn't want to upset you.’ Jamie laughed. ‘And there wasn't money at stake.’
‘What happened?’
‘Three lads from Beckfoot tried to mug me and Nando. As if we would have anything worth taking! They must have been dumb as well as desperate.’
‘And . . .’
‘Not much more to tell. When one of them pulled a blade I took it off him and gave him a mild pasting. That's all there is to it. The other two ran off before I could get hold of them.’
‘And what did you do with the . . . the blade?’
‘I threw it into the river; in that deep bit, by the bridge. Okay?’
‘As okay as I am going to be, I suppose.’ Penny sighed heavily. ‘Right, the make or break question: What if that knife had been a gun?’
‘Different tactics, same result,’ Jamie said smartly.
‘Don't tell me. You've done courses.’
‘No, better than that, Uncle Rick taught me last summer.’
‘But Uncle Rick isn't qualified to do that. He isn't an instructor . . . is he?’
Jamie didn't answer for a moment. He seemed torn before saying: ‘You and Dad don't know what Uncle Rick really does in the Army, do you?’
Before Penny could answer the door from the lounge opened and Geoff came in, back home from the office at last. ‘What's all this then?’ he said.
‘Mum's just lending me a few quid,’ Jamie said quickly. ‘Aren't you, Mum?’
Penny realized she was still waving the twenty pound note and gave it to Jamie, who kissed it before stuffing it into his jeans’ pocket.
‘I haven't quite finished with you, young man,’ she said. Then, turning to her husband: ‘You can't get thruppence worth of chips anymore, apparently; they've gone up.’ She frowned, ‘Geoff, are you all right?’
‘I feel all right,’ he shrugged. ‘It's just . . . oh, I don't know!’
At first glance he looked okay. He’d finally weathered the red blotchy stage and his healthy Lanzarote tan hadn't yet started to fade. Standing there in the kitchen, in one of his better business suits, he looked every bit the smart professional about town. Except for the strange, haunted look in his eyes.
‘I feel like I've been April-fooled,’ he said.
‘Has to happen before dinnertime,’ Jamie said helpfully. ‘Else it doesn't count.’’
‘It was before dinnertime. Although you obviously don’t know what day it is.’
‘It’s the third. And you were the one who mentioned April fools, not me.’
‘Don’t squabble,’ Penny cut in.
‘I’m not squabbling,’ Jamie objected, spooning up more food.
Neither was Geoff. ‘I'd been over to Park Row,’ he went on, disregarding his son. ‘And I was on my way back to base. The lights changed on me three-quarters of the way across the pelican crossing. Well, you know what drivers are like in the middle of Leeds; it was like the start of a grand prix. I tried to make a run for it but . . . Pen, remember when I went for the papers on holiday? It happened again.’
‘No power,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘That's it. No power. My run turned into a sort of staggering lurch. If a community support officer hadn't caught me, I'd have gone flat.’
‘Saved by a plastic policeman,’ Jamie laughed.
Ignoring him, Penny led Geoff back into the lounge and told him to take off his jacket and pants. She worried when he did this without any of the usual wisecracks. She worried some more when she noticed how unsteady he was on his feet, too.
‘Whatever it is, it's affecting your balance,’ she said, kneeling in front of him. ‘But your legs still both look the same.’
‘Not from behind they don't,’ Jamie put in. ‘That's the affected one . . . the right.’
Now even Jamie had stopped wisecracking and Penny really was concerned. She watched her son examine Geoff's ankles and calves. ‘The right calf is definitely wasted,’ Jamie said. ‘But the left feels a bit flabby too. Dad keeps himself reasonably fit for an old git, so I wouldn't expect flabbiness.’
‘Less of the “old”,’ Geoff chuckled, but Penny could tell he was as concerned as she was.
‘Try standing on tiptoe,’ she said.
Geoff tried but couldn't. He could run on the spot in a clumsy, shuffling fashion . . . but only for a few seconds. Hopping was worst of all; he tried to do it on his left foot and nothing happened then, as soon as he tried on the right, he fell and Jamie had to catch him.
‘I'm afraid it's the doc's for you, Dad.’
‘Too right it is,’ Penny agreed.
Geoff looked pale behind his tan. ‘Okay,’ he conceded meekly, ‘but not tomorrow. There's a meeting I can't miss. Make me an appointment for Monday morning, as early as possible, and I'll be there.’
‘You're not getting out of this one, Geoffrey Rodgers,’ Penny said, suddenly close to tears. ‘I know you; you'll pretend to feel better after the weekend and put it off. And . . . and . . .’
‘No he won't, Mum,’ Jamie said, wrapping his heavily muscled arms around her. ‘I won't let him.’
*****
DeeDee drew in a deep breath and sighed. Even though she was still coming to terms with her mother's death, even though she could feel the life she had built in Bristol rocking on its foundations, for now, at least, she felt calm.
Pat McGuire, she thought, and had to stop herself from laughing out loud. Unless he'd been acting for Sean's sake, he'd sounded yesterday as if he had honestly believed she'd forgotten him.
“Hi, DeeDee,” he'd said, “it’s Pat McGuire, from Bingley.”
And her brain was filling with delicious memories long before he got to “Pat McGuire”, never mind the utterly superfluous “from Bingley”.
She’d known Pat since he was a little boy and had had a crush on him since he was about twelve. As it wasn't good form for an older girl to fancy such a young lad, for long enough she’d said nothing about it. But all the while Pat was there in the background, as he had been all her life, forever flitting in and out of her house with Sean, joking with her mum, ever more fuckable as the months and years rolled by.
Had he really supposed he'd needed to tag on “from Bingley” to identify himself? Well it had been a waste of words. He hadn't really needed to say his name. Although she hadn’t thought about him in ages, as soon as he had got as far as “Hi” she had known exactly who was calling. And yes, her heart had been pumping hot red blood . . . just as always.
The very sound of him roused her beyond endurance.
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The first time she’d given in to temptation had been purely by chance. For some reason her brother had started hanging out with a new crowd and was seeing a lot less of Pat. That meant she hardly saw her younger neighbour at all. And she had definitely not expected to bump into him at her friend’s twenty-first birthday party at the rugby club. He’d been training, he told her. The season had finished but a gang of them weren't taking a break. They all wanted to be regulars in the First XV next time, and competition was going to be fierce.
The way she remembered it, he’d shown every sign of being pleased to see her. Then again, she’d been done up to the nines and had practically stuck her tits in his face when saying hello. Whatever his initial motivation, it had taken no effort to persuade him to talk to her and even less to escape the other partygoers, who were mostly paired off that night anyway.
So, rather than sweating it out on the dance floor, she’d passed a very enjoyable evening standing with Pat in the Committee Room, her the only female in her light party frock, surrounded by eighteen- and nineteen-year-old wannabes and a crowd of older players and ex-players. If anyone had noticed the age-difference between guest and escort they certainly hadn’t mentioned it.
It seemed like the Committee Room bar never closed that long-ago summer. That particular party had finished and been forgotten when, leaving Pat's rugby mates playing Fizz Buzz, they set off for home. Pat had clearly intended to take the longer, illuminated route up Bradford Road but, at her insistence, they set off into the dark, cutting across the playing fields of Bingley Grammar's arch rivals, Beckfoot.
And her in her heels! Although the ground was rock hard she’d had to grip his arm for balance.
Or so she’d told him.
He hadn’t seemed to mind having her clinging on tight, frequently bumping her soft, party-frocked body against his tough, rugby player’s muscles; him unaware that she was almost self-combusting with lust.
The odds on them making it all the way across those playing fields without stopping had never been good. As it happened, they made it about a hundred yards before she asked if he’d ever scored against the hated enemies.
‘Course I did,’ he replied. ‘I even got the winner here last time we ever played.’
‘Here?’
‘On this very pitch,’ Pat said proudly. ‘It’s their best one. Not that it did ‘em any good.’
‘Show me the exact spot.’
So he’d steered her ten yards or so off their meandering route. ‘Right here,’ he said, ‘smack between the posts.’
She had kissed him and pulled him down on the spot and pretty soon he was scoring between her posts; scoring magnificently. She hadn’t expected him to be a virgin (which he very clearly was not!) but had never suspected he would be so bloody good at it. And nothing had prepared her for the size of his dick, which was just massive. He’d made her scream twice that first time; about halfway through (when she came) and again at the end (when they both did).
Laughing and arm in arm, they’d made it about another three minutes across the fields before she dragged him down in the grass and had him again, really relishing him, making it last. Then there’d been a third and final time that night, all of Pat's making. He'd picked her up in his strong arms and taken her very vigorously against the wall of a snicket, not two hundred yards from their homes. That was the best of the bunch. She would never know how she'd kept from screaming when he did that.
The rest of that long-ago summer had passed with Pat telling Sean he was always rugby training and DeeDee always “out with friends”. In reality she was either out with Pat or else watching him train first. The rugby club was a place Sean and his new cronies would never frequent; it became their sanctuary. And it was fun sneaking about, keeping Sean in the dark, having sex on just about every public blade of grass in town.
Going back to university had physically hurt. She’d somehow stayed celibate throughout the autumn semester and hurried home at Christmas, thinking of Pat every inch of the way, only to be disappointed at the lack of chances they'd had to be alone. Cold, wet winter, bad luck and their almost obsessive secrecy conspired against them. Easter was no better and, hating herself, she’d ended it.
Or so he’d though. It turned out that a thing like theirs couldn't just be ended. She'd lost count of the times she'd determined never again, then gone home and found herself fucking him within the first hour.
Never again . . . who’d she been kidding?
Their on/off affair had lasted three years. All through it she had considered Pat to be the most skilled, most ardent and most gratifying lover any woman could ever have had. It never ceased to amaze that he said the same sort of things about her. And he was always calling her “sophisticated”. Her memories were filled with grabs at zips and gobbles at his throbbing dick. There was very little she could remember doing that was in the least sophisticated.
DeeDee had never married and supposed she might by now have had as many as fifty other lovers. Experience had taught her that plenty of men were more skilled or even more ardent than Pat . . . and a lot were more amusing, better-read. Some (not many, but one or two) even had bigger dicks. She could write lists and lists of qualities in which he was lacking or had in short supply, but one thing shone through now as it had then, under the goalposts: to her he was always going to be SIMPLY THE BEST.
Maybe some people are just made for each other, she thought. Maybe my pussy's a perfect size PAT, and his best action is DEEDEE’S NUMBER ONE.
Chapter Seven
(Thursday 3rd April 2008)
The Shipley Pride had never officially been Harry Williamson's base, but he'd used it all of his drinking life. There was always a fair chance of finding him there, glass in hand. The boozer held many happy memories. He’d had his first underage pint there as a fifteen-year-old wannabe, before a match against Birmingham City. And he had watched on TV there in 1992 while the scum of Manchester lost, handing the very last League Championship to Cantona and the Mighty Whites. Those were bonds that would tie him to this place for ever. Given a choice between Sylvia and drinking in the Pride, he’d have to sit down and seriously think about it.
Not that it was likely to come to that.
Not the way things had been going lately.
Right now Harry was in as good a mood as he’d been for a long while. Gladstone was (literally) blown to bits, Frizinghall had been retaken and his businesses were more or less running themselves. He was able to rest easy, rake in the cash and plot ahead for conflicts still to come. The only issues being brought to him now were trivial, everyday things where the solutions were already quite obvious and just needed his rubber stamp.
Like this latest one of Jonjo's.
Harry had a swig of his Saltaire Blonde then summed up what he'd just heard.
‘Dave the Pimp's losing it in Windhill. His girls are complaining they're losing clients. They’re saying a gang of teenagers have made it a no-go area. And Dave's done fuck all to help.’
‘Correct,’ said Jonjo. ‘That's not how Dave explains things, but that's the way the girls are seeing the situation.’
‘Is it time to put Dave out to grass?’
‘No, it’s probably not.’ Jonjo wiggled his shoulders as though it had been a close call. ‘I had a look up there myself. There are always at least ten of the little fuckers hanging about; far too many for Dave to handle single-handed.’
‘Don’t they know whose patch they're on?’
‘Dave says they don't care; the youth of today and all that; no family and no respect for anything.’
‘Are there any famous names in there?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Do whatever it takes to move 'em onto someone else's manor. Short of killing them, that is. I know they deserve it, but we’ve had enough news crews crawling around after Gladstone’s little accident.’
Jonjo nodded and started to get up for refills. Harry stopped him. ‘Wait there, Hopalong. I'll get these.’
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At the bar Harry's attention was caught by a big guy squabbling with a barmaid. From what he could gather, the man wanted a double port added into his pint of cider but the barmaid was reluctant to sell so many units in a single drink. The squabble didn't last long before the man cancelled the port and grumpily ordered another cider instead. After paying the man turned his back on the barmaid and leant against the bar, drinking one of his pints and glaring around the pub, as if looking for someone to punch.
‘Who the hell's that?’ Harry asked as he re-joined Jonjo.