by Wez Wallie
"Yeh, it means ta threaten ta expose her personal address ta de world so yeh, dox away."
"Hmm. What a fun word."
She was about to shout up again, but the front door opened slowly with a creak. A little ginger-haired girl of about Shonny's age stood looking up at Dotty and squinting in the sun. She wore a blue spotty dress with a pretty red bow in her hair, with long white socks reaching up to her freckly knees.
Peader whispered: "Naw, Ms Walker – it’s jus' a liddle kiddy, like!"
The Hitnan looked down at her foe. "You Bluebell?"
The child nodded in confirmation.
"You born in 2012?" The kid nodded again.
"That confirms it! Right, ya little shit - don't fink just because you have a sweet little face and an 'airless muff that you’re gonna be saved from gettin' the full wedge of the stick! Now, you recognise me?!"
The girl shook her head.
"Ohh, I beg to differ. I bet you know exactly who I am! You're obsessed wiv me! I bet if I go storm up to your room, I'll find dollies in my image and your bedsheets and pillows wiv my face on 'em!"
The child just stared blankly up at her. The lack of reaction was boiling Dotty's blood. She bent down and got right in her little angelic face.
"Admit it - you love me really! That's what this is about, isn't it. You can't stand the fact that a fierce independent woman who don’t need no man is out here making her own way in life whilst you're stuck out here in farmland with nothing but crippling bitterness and presumably a lack of even a driving license! I bet you spend all day and night rubbin' pics of me all over your svelte and annoyingly youthful body whilst finkin' up all sorts of inane insults to post on me Youtube vids. You know, haters are really the most ardent lovers."
The kid still looked blank and bare.
"Cooome on - anyfing to say for yaself?!"
The girl shook her head once more.
"Speechless, eh? Not surprised. See, most who are givin' it the big'un online soon shoo to the size of a shrew when reality confronts you 'ard bro."
"Dat enough now, Ms Walker??"
Dotty ignored the cucked voice behind her.
"Do you have a muvver, huh?"
The child shook her head again.
"What, not no-one I can rip into about how they totally failed as a parent and how you need to be taken into social services for their own safety, 'n that?"
The kid stared her up and down. Then looked past her to see Peader, cap in hand, mouthing things like, "so sorry fer dis trouble" and "she doesn't mean it, like."
The child frowned in disgust and annoyance, before calling back to the house.
"Step-mummy, there is a grade-eight gum-gorder standing at our door, making faux-accusations amid babbling wildly about something she uploaded upon a video-streaming service. Furthermore, she reeks of urban café and has taken the art of gurning to an unreasonable level - shall I unleash the hound upon her person?"
"Gosh no, Bella," said a voice from behind the door. "Probably one of those Jehovah tossbags again..."
The child could barely hide her disdain. "Fair warning: she seems to have brought along a mute vagrant with her also." (Peader just kept looking around and behind him, #baffled).
"One minute, my love, just need to throw a towel on," called the voice behind the door.
Bluebell tutted in grievance and simply said: "Screw it. I'm unleashing the hound."
She whistled and a patter of paws came thundering down the staircase - "Go get the foxes, boy!"
Dotty's eyes widened as she stepped back and raised up her cane in defence! "Ooh, you evil git!"
The sounds of claws on marble were getting closer, muscular legs pounding towards them, as suddenly the dog smashed out of the doorway, pushed past The Hitnan and leapt up at Peader, knocking him onto his back into the gravel and licking his face and soon his ballbag.
"Wait, I know that fackin' dog!"
She turned back to the approaching voice at the door.
"Okay, Bella, I've got it, let me see what they want this time..."
The door squeaked open fully: "TILDA COONTIN' MAFFEWS?!"
"Dorothy!! What on Jove's crusty pie are you doing on my doorstep?!?" She looked down and spotted the cane aimed at her throat. "Oh crumbs, what's this? Some kind of Jill Dando scenario?"
Tilda had clearly just got out of the shower and was dressed in nothing but two white towels: one wrapped around her long yet scrawny torso and a smaller one wrapped way up on her head.
"Gawd, I caught you right in the vulnerables, didn't I!" said Dotty smugly, lowering the cane and chuckling with glee.
"Yes, well speaking of - your portly friend seems to be in the same predicament there..."
She motioned behind Dotty to where Peader was being harassed by a small sausage dog, and he was very confused as to whether this counted as his first sexual experience, or his second, after the first incident with the same dog and his balls a few nights ago.
"Get outta here!" she warned, with a smack of her cane on the ground beside the dog, who proceeded to run back behind its owner like a right pussio.
Bluebell looked up at Tilda. "Step-Mother, are you acquaintances with this pound-shop, Elizabeth Windsor-looking flid? She looks like a melted Madame Tussaud waxwork of Sir Iggy of the Pop."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Her pet gimp also?"
"Regrettably, that's affirmative."
"Hmm. I shall leave you to it then. Oh, and I trust by this time of the morning you have laid out my Nesquik and milk upon the downstairs dining table, with corresponding emerald bendy straw? No more of this avocado on toast malarkey, woman. I may be middle class, but I am still a pre-teen. And you shall not be compromising any more of my childhood, comprende? (That's Spanish for 'understand'.")
Tilda was going redder than Dotty's tommies. "We'll discuss this later, Bluebell!!"
"No, we shan't. You can explain yourself to father, once you're done fraternising with your little friends." Bluebell skipped off, presumably into the kitchen whilst Tilda stepped out onto the welcome mat in furry slippers and pulled the door to.
"Well, she's charming," said Dotty, sarcastically.
"How the hell did you find me yet again, Dorothy?! I've never told anyone I lived here, not even Bognor! And I know for a fact there's no more of your mincy boy's tracking devices in my neck as I did a thorough scan the other night in the bath!"
The Hitnan tapped her nose coyly. "We're professionals, Tildy-boo. Never forget it."
Peader stepped forward. "Sorry, do youse have a urination station, perchance? I'm bustin' at de seams here."
"Do you mean a toilet?"
"Aye, dat'll be it."
"Well, yes of course, but... oh, you're not coming in here? ...Surely not? This is my private home!"
"Unless you want Peter, here, tagging your drive full of septic Celtic piss, you'd better give us the old invite. Besides, I could do with a cuppa. We've come an awfully long way..."
Peader was standing with his thighs bent inward and his knees touching together, pulling strained faces like he was suffering a series of mini strokes.
"Gosh-dammit-fine! But don't touch anything."
Dotty squished past Tilda in the doorway with a self-pleased nudge. "This way, lad," she motioned to Peader. He approached the doorway as Tilda shoved an elongated finger in his face.
"And you stay away from my pooch, perv boy!"
"Well, it's nedder me lickin' his balls, now!"
He squeezed past and ran in. Tilda just stared out at the surrounding fields wondering why she just can't catch a break recently.
Chapter 16
Tilda and Dotty sat around the kitchen in the east wing, in order to avoid Bluebell, (and the randy dog), in the kitchen of the west wing. Peader finally returned from the toilet in a dazed state.
"Please tell me you didn't go for a defecation?" said Tilda, head in hand. "From the looks of you there isn't enough spray in the world to defumigate that room.
I guess I'll have to board up the door and abandon that wing entirely if that's the case."
"Ah, not ta worry, Ms Matt'ews. I jus' got lost is all. Yer attic's pretty dusty by de way."
"Christ, save me!"
Dotty gave her a sharp smack on the hip from the table. "The Lord don't appreciate slappers taking his name in vain!"
Peader sat opposite Dotty at the table as she threw him an extra bowl and spoon. "Oh sweet - second breakfast! T'anks, Ms Matt'ews!" Dotty poured him out some Weetos and finished up the milk.
Tilda threw her hands in the air - "Fine, help yourselves I guess!"
Her towel fell down as she did so but Peader was too excited fishing through the cereal box for the hidden toy to notice.
"Jackpot!" He reeled in the Hot Wheels car and began running it down the marble table like a lad on Christmas Day.
Tilda fixed a clip on her towel, retrieved her pre-made cress and cress sandwich from the fridge and sat down beside Dotty at the table. "I can't talk long so say whatever you've got to say. I have to deliver Bluebell to equestrian lessons by 10."
"Oh, she has an interest in astrology now, Ms Matt'ews? Interesting. I'm a Taurus, I tink."
"Equestrian, Peter. As in horse riding, man!"
"Peader, ma’am. I didn't know jockeys based dere races on de stars, like. Interesting." He just shovelled in more Weetos and went back to ramming his car into the side of his bowl.
"Look. I didn't come here for you," said Dotty, matter-of-factly. "I came here to teach that girl a lesson in online cyber bullying, but as you're here I should warn you, Bognor's asked me to do you in this time."
Tilda nodded in acceptance. "Not unexpected. I appreciate the head's up. Can you at least wait until Bluebell's off at the farm before you send me to the one in the sky?"
"What, so you can run off and plan a counter-attack? How stupid do ya fink I am? In fact, don't answer that - that was the bleeedin' saltshaker, not the sugar pot. Fack me, now you ruined me Weetos chattin' shite!"
Tilda snorted. "I knew you were on the spectrum."
Dotty whipped around: "So it was you making hurtful comments on me Youtube videos! You were using your own kid's account to troll me! You evil wench!"
"I don't know how this is still surprising to you, Dorothy, I would have thought even Hot Wheels over there worked that out the moment I came to the door."
Peader had grown bored with the toy and was playing Pokémon on his souped-up Game Boy, slumped in his chair and complete with his neck bent over at 45-degree angle, (practically begging for another cricking incident).
"Or maybe not..." Tilda made no apologies to Dotty, and Dotty did not try to pry one out of her. She wouldn't if the roles were reversed. After all, no archnemesis worth their salt would apologise for hurty-words to their foe. (Speaking of salt, why am I still eating this?)
Dotty coughed and wiped her moosh with a hanky. "So, step-mum, eh? You have a boyfriend then?"
Tilda went red. "I don't see him much."
"Best kind. Does he know what you do? What you really are, so to speak?"
"Not really. I say I'm away for work a lot. Hopefully he just assumes I'm having an affair. He is too, probably. I'm not much bothered. Long as he keeps this palatial roof over my head I'm not fussed."
"Wow, feel the romance!"
"Never was a family person. This just sort of happened." Tilda finished her own tea and then started drinking Dotty's.
"Where you meet him?”
"On a flight back from Cairo. I'm a nervous flyer. He gave me his nuts over the Nile and I never looked back."
"That's reckless - what if someone on the flight had allergies?"
"Well, we used a condom."
"Bleedin’ Libbie Luvvies!!"
Tilda just shrugged.
Dotty suddenly remembered something and tried to expose her with haste: "Hang on - nervous flyer?! You're a pilot who owns a plane, and you didn't seem particularly fussed jumping out of one the other night!"
"I'm a professional, Dorothy. I focus on the job at hand, and I mask my fear and doubt to accomplish my goals. That doesn't mean I'm not sometimes terrified whilst on a job. There's a lot you don't know about me, my dear. Let's face it, you never really bothered to ask."
Dotty frowned. "How much of all this is an act, then?"
Tilda leaned in closer, intimately almost. "You tell me. We used to be close, you and I, Dorothy. You were my best friend once upon a time. After all, you were the one who taught me how to dismantle a Beretta 950 whilst still in the palm of an enemy, and you were the one who showed me the difference between a Nigerian leglock and a Crouching Spider body wrap!"
Dotty smirked with pride. "Yeah, I was pretty badarse back in the day."
"Point is, you taught me how to be a better fighter, and thus, a better agent.”
Dotty was flattered but emotions were still rising inside. "I also used to teach you not to kill fings that don't need killin'. That's the difference between a professional and a serial killer. Somewhere along the way you forgot that. You followed a darker path. Probably right around the time you shagged me 'usband!!"
"Gosh, are you still bleating on about that?! It was like, forty-odd years ago, woman! I said I am sorry - how many times do I have to apologise?!"
"Apologies? You broke up me family! Frank left after your little rendezvous 'n I had to raise little Marion on me own. It was hard! You see, at work I was such a natural, it was effortless and then I find myself trying to raise a kid solo and for the first time in me life and I was struggling. My Marion turned into a druggie, influenced by wicked sources because I wasn't emotionally present in her life enough! Maybe if I was, she wouldn't have had to turn to the perverting arms of Gary Barlow and heroin."
"Look, I'm sorry you went through all that. For what it's worth, Frank and I spent one night slightly tipsy on Pinot Grigio and we made a mistake. The last thing I wanted to do back then is hurt you. You were my best friend, Dorothy. My only friend. But at some point, you need to forgive me and move on. What's done is done."
Dotty dried her tears on her hanky. "Hang about, you're just trying to emotionally disarm me so I don't fulfil my mission for Bognor - that's psyops 101! Well, it ain't gonna work!" She lobbed her bowl of salty Weetos into Tilda's face and unleashed a hailstorm of slippy-slaps upon her person.
"Stop - stop, Dorothy!!" Tilda clawed the frothy milk crystals from her eyelids and caught one of the incoming backhands, spinning The Hitnan behind and forcing Dotty's head into the kitchen sink. She threw on the cold tap and held her head under for a few minutes until Peader cut through the wailing of the two old birds, grabbed them both by the scruff of the neck and sat them down at the table again: one dripping with water, one dripping dairy.
"Hush now, youse two - I'm trying ta catch a shiny Pikachu!"
Both women sat at the table sopping like drowned rats, trying to blow back droplets of liquid trickling from their eyebrows, both barnets straightened down to their shoulders and looking like old silver hags from ye olde folklore.
"Fanks, Peter."
"Peader, ma’am. An’ naw bodder, 'tis what I'm here fer."
Tilda smiled sombrely. She looked 'round at Dotty, who was fingering her ear'ole trying to unplug the thing. "You know, you two have the strangest relationship."
"Woz that now?"
"Well, he's plainly a man-child too keen to please you, and you can't even pronounce his name right."
She kept digging and twisting the hole. "What you banging on about, wench? You busted me 'earing aid now."
Tilda turned Dotty toward her in her chair, held her wrists and spoke directly into her eyes: "You've got a boy there who adores you, Dorothy. Looks up to you. I mean, he makes you gadgets and your tea, and sorts out your contracts and your nighties... what would you do without him? He's your chance to get things right. Don't throw away a second chance."
Dotty looked at Peader, innocently engrossed in his game. "Since when did you start caring about us?"
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"I've never wanted to hurt you, Dorothy. Not really. I mean, I made sure you weren't in the room when I let the gas out in the Bingo hall. And I could've let that guard sneaking up on you in Sinclair's bedroom konk you good and proper, but I took him out for you. I even burned those three bodies at the penthouse because your lad there had left an imprint of his face in that poor lass's mammary glands. I did it all to protect you lot."
"But those two blondes weren't dea -"
"- Truth is, I don't really have many people in my life, not least a family like you have."
Dotty snapped back. "You almost put me in the same boat, blowing up my house! And it was supposed to be little Shonny's birfdy party - you're lucky it went off before the gaff was filled with twelve little girls!"
Tilda sighed. "Well, it's not like it was a bomb on a timer..." She fiddled with a napkin on the table.
"I guess, I'm kind of, maybe... sorry, possibly. A little bit. Just a smidgen."
Dotty wasn't sure what to make of Tilda's sudden finding of a heart. Her watery eyes seemed to sell the story, but the air of authenticity had always long been a tactic for someone in their game, and Dotty was too long in the tooth to blindly forgive a multi-decade grudge. But she did look around at the sterile kitchen. The wide-open garden space all neat and unexplored. The quiet echo of silence in a large property unlived and unloved in. Thus, she relented, for now.
"Come on, fatboy, we're outta here."
"Sorry, I was miles away dere, did'je sort out all yer troubles, like?"
"Yeah. Turns out she was just jealous of me success on the Youtubes." She looked back at the table. "Nuffin' more."
Tilda edged a smile. "Yeah. Don't fret, Mr Dreyfus. Just teasing her on the Youtube. Just the standard stuff."
"Actually, ma’am, it's -"
"Mr Seamus-Manus-Dreyfus," Dotty confirmed with an interjection.
Peader's eyes widened in surprise and appreciation. He walked her to the door as Bluebell stormed passed dressed in her horse-riding gear and proceeded to scream into the kitchen area at her stepmother, demanding to know why her grooming brush and breeches were not yet packed up in the car, and why her navel girdle was not strapped to sufficient girth. The child was raving and ranting with all the furiosity of the Third Reich reborn, and the cold venom in her eyes made Peader wince harder than Tilda was cowering against the back wall.