Two Women (15 page)

As Susan walked into her bedroom Debbie was waiting for her, a nasty smile on her face. ‘You’ve got some front, Susan, doing that to Muvver. I could hammer you meself.’

Susan looked at her and answered in a tiny dead voice.

‘I wouldn’t if I was you, Debbie. I might decide to go for the double and then where would you be, eh? If I do the old man, I’ll get to keep the match ball!’

Debbie was shocked by her answer. Where had Susan McNamara gone? Her sister wasn’t violent, in fact she was too easy-going if anything. But not any more by the looks of it. Susan was still aggressive even battered to bits.

As she stripped off Debbie saw the cuts and welts all over her body and against her better judgement felt sorry for her sister. Going to the kitchen, she came back with a bowl of warm salty water with Dettol in and started to help her clean herself up.

‘That was some hiding, Susan. I’m amazed you’re not in hospital. You’ll be scarred for life.’

Susan didn’t answer her.

All she knew was that Barry had heard what had gone on and had not helped her. Part of her was pleased about that but another part was telling her he should have interfered, should have tried to help her.

The shame of it was inside her like a black cancer, eating her from the inside.

Joey had it all ways. He had her and her mother. Both of them. He treated her with contempt and enjoyed doing it. Barry had listened to the rape of his girlfriend and done nothing.

Did her father really wield such power?

It seemed he must, it seemed that he could get away with anything and no one would attempt to stop him. Even Barry wasn’t going to help her now.

Yet she had believed that with him she would be safe. Wrong again. Knowing he knew her secret was just about the worst thing that had ever happened to Susan and she knew all about bad things happening. He would not want her now, she realised. She was used news, already tarnished by her father and his actions. Barry was probably pleased he didn’t have to dump her himself.

This realisation made the tears slip from her eyes, big fat tears that were salty on the tongue and fast-flowing. Her shoulders began to shake as the shock set in. Everything was wrong, everything was over.

Barry would not touch her with a barge pole now, not once he realised that her father, her own father, was using her sexually.

Debbie, sorry for her sister and her obvious hurt, tried to cuddle her, but the bruising and cuts made that impossible. Instead she placed a blanket over Susan’s naked body and held her hand as her sister cried as if her heart was breaking.

Then June came into the room. Debbie left at a nod from her mother. She looked down at her daughter and felt nothing. No sorrow, no shame, nothing. All she saw was a child who had all her life made June feel as if she had done something wrong.

Susan was a child born of pain, her very conception had been in pain, and now she was the cause of yet more pain.

Looking down at her, June saw Joey’s square jawline, the same round face and piercing blue eyes. The heavy-boned body that had no grace in it whatsoever, no style at all. Yes, Susan was her father’s daughter all right. She even had his mean streak inside her. She had proved that with the hiding she had given her own mother.

But June had decided now she would change her. Or let Joey change her. He was right, Susan had had it all her own way for too long. Pulling the blanket back, June looked at the marks on her daughter’s body and smiled. She hoped the little bitch was in agony as she herself was.

It never occurred to her that the reason for the change in her daughter was the way she had been treated, the fact that her life so far had been led in a home devoid of love or normal comfort. That June’s way of life had rubbed off on her girls, making them unfit to be with decent people. That her father’s taking her in lieu of his wife had made the girl mixed up and aggressive, unable to see things from the correct standpoint.

June, as usual, saw only herself and what had happened to her.

‘I hope you realise what you did today, Susan, because it’s going to come down on your head for the rest of your life.’

She did not answer her mother. She had nothing at all she wanted to say. Barry, her Barry, was gone from her and it was all this woman’s fault.

‘You should have looked after me, Mum. You know you should.’

The words came out eventually and June felt an urge to rip her daughter’s face off her body because to her shame she knew that it was true.

Instead she turned and walked from the room.

Chapter Eight

Babs had a different look about her and Barry found he quite liked it. Instead of her usual heavy make up and sluttish clothes, he was surprised to find that at home and without the prospect of customers she looked like a regular person. In fact she seemed both young and very appealing.

Babs was seventeen and had been on the streets for four years. She was a hardened whore and knew it, but still she liked to go to church now and again and spent all her money on her small daughter Bianca who was looked after by her maternal grandmother, Ruth.

She poured Barry a Scotch and he sipped it.

‘You sure you know what you’re doing, mate? Only this bloke’s all right, a good customer. But I need a few grand sharpish and he seemed like the only viable way of getting it.’

Barry grinned and Babs began to like him. He had a funny charm she couldn’t resist, a bit like a white Jonah.

‘What time does he normally get here?’

Babs sipped at her drink. Barry watched as her full lips caressed the glass. Painted a deep red, they were suddenly very interesting. All of Babs was interesting. From her small pointy breasts to her tight high arse, she was suddenly very interesting indeed.

‘At nine on the dot. He’s a funny little bloke really, a nice man in a lot of respects. Some of the punters are right arseholes. Flash, you know. They think because they’re paying for it they own you. Pushing you around, making you do things they haven’t paid extra for.’

She held up one finger as she spoke. It had a long red nail and Barry was mesmerised by it.

‘I had a bloke yesterday, about fucking sixty he was - ugly as sin
and
he smelled. A lot of them smell. Funny that, ain’t it? Anyway in he comes all sweetness and light and then he wants me to put on these shoes. So I put them on and walked about a bit. Then, right, he wants me to give him a blow job in the window - in the window, if you don’t mind - while he wears a balaclava!’

She roared with laughter then.

Barry looked at his watch. It was ten past seven.

‘Listen, Babs, I’ll be back at nine, all right? I’ll have him before he even gets here so don’t worry.’

She nodded.

‘Well, I thought you didn’t want to know before, when you didn’t turn up. What did happen, Barry, because I’ve seen you every day since.’

He sighed heavily.

‘I told you, something came up, love.’

She bent over to pour herself another drink and he saw the track marks on her arms.

‘You should keep away from that shit, it’ll kill you one day.’

Babs laughed again, a real belly laugh.

‘Barry, you fool, I’m already dead, mate, from the neck down.’ She pulled her little top down and showed him her breasts. ‘See these, boy? They take on average seven men a day, six days a week. Now over four years that amounts to . . .’

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, trying to work out the exact amount.

Barry answered for her.

‘That’s one hundred and sixty-eight men a month. Times that by twelve and then by four.’

Babs pulled back the top.

‘Don’t bother. I think we both get the picture, don’t you?’

He was shocked by the thought.

‘Fucking hell, Babs, that’s a lot of blokes.’

She laughed again.

‘I don’t just take on men, I have a couple of women customers too. We whores call it having a bit of soft. It gets you like that in the end. Men have no mystery for you, see, so you tend to gravitate towards other women.’

Barry was even more shocked now.

‘Don’t you ever feel the urge to have a bit then?’

‘I’m always having a bit, Barry, that’s the fucking trouble.’

They both laughed and the atmosphere was defused.

‘You’d better go, I have a punter due in ten minutes. A nice man with a wrinkly cock and wrinkly balls, but he’s quiet and it’s all over in ten minutes. Give me the olds any day of the week, they ain’t trying to prove nothing.’

Barry finished his drink. He was looking forward to rolling the punter. He saw them all as perverts now. How could any man sleep with someone who was a stranger and had been sleeping with strangers all day?

The thought depressed him, and after he left he found himself walking, walking, and thinking about how Babs and people like her became what they were.

As usual he found himself walking towards Susan’s flats. He stood outside and looked up at the windows.

The anger was back. Anger at himself, anger at Susan for having him over, and anger at Joey McNamara who was trumping her and getting away with it. Barry wondered what all the hard nuts would think if they knew that Joey was a beast, and the worst kind of beast at that. He fucked his own kid. And how long had that been going on? Barry would find out.

But Susan was grounded and it looked like it was for life. No one had seen her. Not at school, not anywhere.

He noticed Debbie tripping up the road. This was a whore in the making, with her make up, her fag and her provocative clothes. He watched her surreptitiously from the cover of the flats opposite.

As she walked towards her own entrance he called, ‘Oi, Debbie, over here.’

She looked through the gloom and smiled radiantly to see him.

‘Hello, Barry, how are you?’ she asked, walking over.

She was pert as usual. The heavily lipsticked mouth wore a practised pout and her breasts were thrust out on display. He knew she liked him, knew she would do the dirty on her sister at the drop of a hat.

She disgusted him. Give him Babs any day of the week. At least she didn’t pretend to be anything other than what she was.

But he smiled at Debbie.

‘How’s Susan?’

Her face dropped.

‘Susan is in shit so deep it would take ten paddies with shovels to get her out.’

She laughed at her own words.

Barry didn’t laugh and his expression told Debbie she ought to go easy.

‘She’s still grounded, still laid up in bed. No one can go in there now except me dad. He takes her her meals and that. It’s awful. Can you imagine what it’s like for me?’

Barry smiled briefly. Trust Debbie to see only her own troubles and no one else’s.

‘She’s always hated me dad, but now her and me mum are at it it’s even worse. Me mum acts as if Susan ain’t in the flat. I tell you, it’s terrible. I can’t get in to see her unless they’re both out and that’s not often. But she always asks if I’ve seen you so I can tell her now that I have and that will cheer her up, I can tell you. Do you want me to give her a message?’

Barry wasn’t sure whether he wanted it or not now he had the opportunity.

‘Tell her I said hello.’

That needn’t mean anything. He would decide what he wanted to do once Susan was back on the street.

‘So your dad is the only one allowed in to see her? What about the doctor?’

Debbie’s eyes narrowed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he flayed her, didn’t he? Beat the shit out of her.’

Debbie realised she was on dangerous ground. Everyone knew that there had been trouble but no one knew the extent of it, her father had made sure of that.

‘He gave her a dig, yeah, but she asked for it.’

Barry grinned.

‘A dig? Well, that’s not too bad then. I heard he’d hammered the fuck out of her.’

‘And where did you hear that?’

‘From your nan’s bedroom actually. I heard everything, Debbie. Everything.’

His words were loaded and she knew it, but loaded with what?

‘Don’t let me dad find that out, Barry, or you’ll be the next one getting flayed as you put it.’

Realising she had let him in on too much she turned from him and he watched as she teetered across the road. Her confident gait was gone, he noticed, and was glad. She was a slag.

Barry began the long walk back to Babs’s. He had work to do and this must not interfere. He had a plan already forming in his mind and wanted to make sure he got it just right before he made it happen.

 

Susan’s eyes were red-rimmed and the weight seemed to be dropping off her. It was three weeks now since the showdown at her granny’s and she was still imprisoned in her bedroom. Her father and mother seemed set on keeping her here for the rest of her life and this scared her more than anything.

The school had been told she had had an accident and had sent work home for her. Susan had nearly laughed at the irony as her father had given her her schoolbooks and told her to get on with it all.

She was still not allowed to get dressed, not even to comb her hair. She knew she looked dreadful, even worse than usual. She also knew it was a psychological thing. Joey wanted to break her, and she was pretending that he had. She knew it was the only way out of her situation.

In her world the authorities were kept at bay with bullshit and aggression. It had always worked before and it always would. She knew that as clearly as she knew her own name and address. It was the reason her father walked the streets instead of being locked up and her mother lived her lifestyle.

They were the scum of the earth in everyone’s eyes so no one expected any different from them. ‘The under-class’ they were called by sociologists. Susan knew all this, and she also knew that nothing would ever change it. It was inbred in them, too much a way of life to be changed by anything. Any government who thought they could change things should read the classics. There had always been families like the McNamaras and there always would be. They were a law unto themselves.