Two Women (37 page)

‘I know you would, Sue. You’re a good mother, you know. A good wife. I never appreciated you really, not until I met Roselle. She thinks the sun shines out of your arse.’

He grinned and Susan smiled, pleased that he was praising her, pleased that Roselle liked her as much as she liked Roselle.

‘You want to look after her, Bal, she’s a diamond.’

He laughed out loud.

‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, can you?’

Susan laughed with him.

‘Why not? Everything tonight has been weird, you giving me a compliment being the weirdest thing of all. I thought I was a lazy fat whore who should get off her arse and lose some weight?’

Barry fell quiet.

‘I’ll have a word with Joey,’ he said finally. ‘Sort it out for you. Make sure he leaves you alone.’

Susan waved a hand in dismissal.

‘A waste of time. He’ll leave it now for a while before he starts again. Let it go, it causes more trouble than it’s worth. Besides me mother blew his cover tonight. Her mouth was going like the fucking Lutine bell. And you know them. Keep it quiet, keep it in the family. In more ways than one!’

Barry copped a quick look at his watch.

Susan saw him and sighed.

‘You’d better get a move on. What time are you flying out?’

Barry looked sheepish.

‘Nine in the morning. Yeah, I’d better go. Roselle will be wondering what happened to me.’

Susan nodded, inexplicably saddened by his words.

‘Of course. I’ll see you to the door.’

He kissed her gently on the cheek.

‘Ta ta, mate. Take care.’

She smiled tremulously.

‘And you. Have a good time. Give my best to Roselle.’

She watched him walk down the path and sighed. If only she brought out the best in him like Roselle did. They could have been happy then. Shutting the door, she felt the silence of the house crashing in her ears. Locking up, she crept upstairs and went into the bathroom to undress. In her bedroom she saw three faces on her pillows. All crashed out, dead to the world.

Susan smiled. Creeping into the middle, she put little Barry into the crook of her arm and cuddled the two girls at the same time.

She felt a moment’s happiness as she loved her children. Whatever else happened to her she had these three and for that she would always be grateful. But the loneliness inside her, the want of another adult to love and care for, stayed with her until finally she slept.

 

When Susan came down to breakfast, Kate was already at the back door. Letting her in, Susan smiled.

‘You’re an early bird.’

Kate’s face was grave.

‘Have you not heard? Has no one been round?’

Susan shook her head. It was aching from the previous night’s drinking and the subsequent events.

‘What’s happened now?’

Her voice was resigned.

‘Your dad threw your mother down the stairs of the flats. She’s in intensive care.’

Susan blinked. Her whole body seemed to be shaking.

‘He what?’

‘He threw her down the stairs, the concrete steps, and she landed awkwardly. She’s in a terrible state, child.’

Susan wiped a hand across her face.

‘Where’s me dad? Has he been nicked?’

Kate shook her head.

‘Everyone said she fell while drunk and they believed it. He’s at the hospital with her.’

‘I’d better get meself up there. Will you watch the kids?’

Kate nodded.

‘With pleasure. Bring them through and I’ll start the breakfast.’

She opened a carrier bag from the Co-op and took out bacon and eggs and bread.

‘You know you don’t have to do that any more, Kate, Barry sees we have enough.’

Her mother-in-law’s voice was gentle.

‘I’ll not eat food that was paid for by him, you know that, child. Now get yourself ready and go and see your poor mother. Though, God forgive me, I should imagine she asked for all she got.’

Little Barry toddled into the kitchen then and seeing his nan let out a scream of delight.

Kate picked him up and cuddled him, smelling the baby sweat from his night’s sleep and a distinct aroma of jelly babies from the previous evening.

Susan went up to get washed and dressed, ready for the hospital.

 

Debbie was doing the concerned daughter act. Susan wasn’t fooled, though. She knew her sister was loving the drama.

As she walked on to the ward in Whitechapel Hospital she saw exactly how the land lay.

‘How you can waltz in here after what you caused, I don’t know, Susan.’ Debbie was all self-righteous anger and the usual histrionic tears.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut your trap, Debbie, and tell me what the score is?’

She placed her hands protectively across her pregnant stomach and said dramatically, ‘He threw her down the stairs - chucked her with all his strength. It was awful, Susan. I’ve never seen them go at it like that.’

A nurse walked into the little side ward and Debbie switched to the official story.

‘She just went flying. I reckon she caught her heel, and with the drink she couldn’t do much to help herself.’ She smiled at the nurse, an Irish girl with hips like a steam liner and merry blue eyes. ‘This is me sister, Susan.’

The nurse smiled back.

‘The doctor will be in soon. Your mother seems better. Her OBs are stable and she has no real physical injuries. Broken bones, you know. Though she will be sore when she does wake, it was quite a fall.’

Susan nodded, unsure what to say.

‘Shall I get yous a nice cup of tea?’

They both nodded and smiled once more and she left the room. Debbie rolled her eyes up to the ceiling.

‘I feel like one of them dogs you see in the back of cars. Nodding and smiling all the time. I wish they’d all fuck off and leave us alone. I can’t be bothered to make conversation.’

‘They mean well, Debs. Where’s Dad?’

Debbie shrugged.

‘He went off with Barry just after the police left and they took Mum off in the ambulance. I assumed they were coming here like. But knowing the old man he’s out on the piss. Jamesie is fuming. He thought I should go home and leave them all to it. Fucked off, he did, and left me to cope with it all.’

Susan felt sad for her. What with the baby, she didn’t need this added aggravation. Then an icy hand gripped at her entrails.

‘Did Barry say they were coming here then?’

She tried to keep her voice light.

‘I don’t know. He called up to the balcony and me dad went down to him. Then he got in the car and I ain’t seen him since.’ Debbie started to cry. ‘I’ve been here all night on me own.’

Susan felt the fear mounting inside.

Barry had been strange the night before. He had been kind, considerate. She had missed him when he had gone, and considering all he had put her through over the years that in itself was strange. Yet she had felt for the first time in years as if he cared about her, really deep down cared. Whether it was just as the mother of his children she didn’t know. She assumed it was that. But whatever the reason it had felt good. Made her feel better about herself. As if it made her a proper person somehow, made her real. Proved she existed.

She should never have told him about her father and what he had done. Now she would have not only her mother on her conscience but also her father because Barry, upset and self-righteous, could easily have killed him or left him half dead somewhere.

Violence, violence, always violence. Would she never get away from it? Would her children have to live with it as she had?

Debbie watched the change of expression on her sister’s face and sighed.

‘Did Barry know about what happened?’

Susan nodded.

‘You told him, I suppose?’ This was said with the usual aggression and Susan lost her temper. Forgetting about her mother lying behind the curtains of the bed, she bellowed, ‘Why shouldn’t I have told him, eh? Unlike you I don’t find my father trying to have sex with me remotely normal. I know that probably shocks you, Debs, but that’s me, ain’t it? I’m weird like that.

‘I’m of the opinion you should only have sexual relations with people who ain’t your relations, if you get my fucking drift.’

Debbie dropped her head down on her chest.

‘Are you going to look at Mum?’

Susan shook her head.

‘Not yet, I can’t cope with all that yet.’

Debbie snorted.

‘’Course you can’t. Not you, Mrs Big Brain. Mrs Analyse Everything.’

Susan didn’t answer her, she knew Debbie was hurting. She only wished her sister would realise once and for all that their unhappiness stemmed from their upbringing. They had never learned to love properly, any of them. Love was always expressed by sex, a sexual act, sexual innuendo.

She remembered her father grabbing at her tits and Debbie’s tits, saying how big they were getting, not his little girls any more. No one thought it was wrong, his talking about them as if he owned them. A real father would never discuss his daughter’s attributes.

Now Debbie was caught up just like Susan with a man who was like Joey in every way. A man who used her and took her as and when he wanted. Gave her a slap when he decided she needed one, talked of and treated her like something he had found on the bottom of an old shoe.

It did not take an Einstein to realise they were broken people, living broken lives. Coping in their own way, giving the impression of being in control to the outside world. After all, they mixed with people who would not find their behaviour strange, they mixed with people like themselves. Other broken people who laughed at everything life threw at them, finding humour in the worst possible circumstances. And when one crisis was over, they blundered helplessly into another one.

‘Debbie, I think we should ask the hospital if they had anyone brought into casualty last night. Barry wasn’t pleased with the turn of events, I can tell you. For all he is himself he finds Dad’s preoccupation with sleeping with me hard to take. It makes him angry, and when Barry Dalston is angry anything can happen.’

Debbie’s eyes were round. The enormity of what Susan was saying was just sinking in.

‘You don’t think . . . Barry wouldn’t . . . Would he?’

Susan shook her head.

‘I really don’t know, mate. I don’t know what to think.’ Debbie jumped up from her seat and screamed at her, ‘Why did you have to tell him, Susan? You must have known what it would cause.’

The nurse walked in then with the tray of tea and smiled at them both. Her Dublin accent was strong as she informed them happily, ‘Your father’s here, just talking to the Doctor. He’ll be in soon.’

‘Is he all right?’

The nurse shook her head.

‘Well, obviously he is very concerned about your mother but he’s here now. I’ve told him you two are here as well and that pleased him.’

She pulled back the curtains from the bed and Susan finally saw June. She looked awful, her skin livid, her breathing strained and shallow. Joey walked in. He was tidy, shaven and in clean clothes. He looked almost respectable.

The nurse decided to leave the family together. But first she looked at the two women and said gently, ‘I know this is a stressful time but if you could keep your arguing down . . . there are other patients here, all very ill. And your mother may be able to hear you, you know.’

Joey looked at his wife and sighed.

‘She looks rough, don’t she?’

‘Where have you been? What were you doing with Barry?’

Susan’s voice was low now; all the fight had gone out of her.

‘He wanted a hand to collect a debt before he went away. Gave me a bar to do it.’

Susan nodded. She could not avoid seeing the pleased look cross Debbie’s face.

She drank her tea and was quiet. Fifteen minutes later Susan left the hospital. The concerned husband and daughter were making her stomach turn.

Inside, although she was glad Barry had not done anything to her father, she was also strangely disappointed.

‘You’re getting as bad as that lot.’

She spoke the words out loud and the people in the bus queue stared at her strangely. But Susan was too tired and too upset to care.

Chapter Eighteen

Roselle looked around the club. Satisfied everything was running smoothly, she decided to go up and talk to Ivan. This conversation was long overdue.

As she walked out to the foyer she saw Barry laughing with one of the new hostesses, a skinny northern girl with almond eyes and sallow skin. She had definitely been touched with the tar brush somewhere in her family line. Roselle stood observing them, and saw Barry put an arm across the girl’s shoulder and cuddle her to him.

It was the action of a man with intimate knowledge of the woman in front of him and Roselle felt the anger only a betrayed woman can really feel. Especially as she knew the girl had supposedly just got over a bout of ’flu and had been off work for a week recuperating.

Roselle wondered now what form that recuperation had taken. Barry and she seemed very close.

The girl’s name was Marianne. There were very rarely last names with hostesses, and the names they did give were usually made up. One girl called herself Starlight, and another, for reasons that were self-explanatory, called herself Miss Lovelace. But Marianne seemed to be catching the attention of all the men and Roselle wondered why. True, she was pretty, in a girlish spotty way, but nothing special. Roselle guessed that she offered the ultimate and that was usually a good reason for seeing a girl on her way.

S and M caused trouble in clubs. A suck and fuck was the usual menu. Once a girl deviated from it the money came in faster, but the life seemed to catch up with them faster as well. Looking at Marianne, Roselle wondered if she took the violence on herself. She had a lot of time off and Roselle believed she might be taking customers off the roll.