Blood Ties: Part 2 of 3: Family is not always a place of safety

He raised his glass to her. ‘Got an hour’s kip on the boat, but you know what I always say? Plenty of chance to sleep when I’m dead.’ Then his expression became thoughtful. He glanced at John, who’d moved off down the bar, and he grimaced. The weight of it was everywhere. The sense of life being so fragile was always in everyone’s minds. ‘Anyway,’ he said, dipping his head closer to her, ‘more to the point, Kathy. How are you?’

Kathy. She loved how he always called her Kathy. ‘Oh, okay,’ she said. ‘So-so. Ups and downs. You know how it goes. But all the better for …’

‘Seeing me?’ he said, his eyes meeting her gaze and making her blush again. ‘If so, I have to say the feeling’s mutual.’

She batted him lightly on the arm. ‘I was going to say all the better for having a Friday night off, for a change. But, since you mention it …’ She buried her face back in her glass, all too aware that the colour in her cheeks had probably already finished the sentence for her.

‘Ooh, look at you!’

They both looked up. Irene had evidently come down, then. She was now standing, hands on hips, behind the bar. She was also smiling idiotically at Terry.

‘Alright, Irene?’ he said, before finishing the last inch in his own glass.

‘Look at you,’ she said again, extending an arm and then a finger, which almost reached but didn’t quite connect with Terry’s chest. ‘Hmm,’ she said, her eyes running past Kathleen in a point-making fashion. ‘Who’s dressed you tonight, eh?’

Now it was Terry’s turn to blush. He seemed lost for words. Then eventually found some. ‘My fairy godmother, evidently,’ he said, glancing at Kathleen and smiling.

But Kathleen was still standing there, agape. ‘Mam!’ she hissed. ‘What are you on about? You’re embarrassing him.’

Irene didn’t bother to answer. Instead she winked at Terry. ‘Oh, I think he knows.’

To which there seemed no kind of answer. At least, Terry didn’t make one. Instead he turned to Kathleen. ‘Done with that?’ he said, gesturing towards her two-thirds empty glass.

She put it down on the bar, unfinished. ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to miss the fireworks, do we?’

And even then – even then – Irene wouldn’t let them alone. ‘Plenty of fireworks to be had here,’ she simpered, again looking suggestively at Terry. Had she already started on the gin tonight, or what? ‘So make sure you hurry back here, eh?’ she finished, her painted lips puckering then parting, in a come-hither smile.

Kathleen looked over at her dad, who was serving a customer at the far end of the bar. What on earth would he make of all this ridiculous carrying on? So she felt rather than saw Terry’s hand wrap around her own. ‘Oh, I doubt we’ll be back,’ he told Irene. ‘Not before closing time, anyway. I told this young lady here –’ he squeezed Kathleen’s hand as he said this – ‘that I was taking her out for the night, and the night is still young, so …’

‘Young lady?’ Irene scoffed. ‘This one?’ She nodded in Kathleen’s direction.

Kathleen sensed Terry stiffen. He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘That was the word I used, Irene, yes.’

Irene made a sound that was halfway between a huff and a puff; the sort of sound she was apt to make when passing judgement on female customers who dressed not to her liking, or on punters who refused to succumb to her charms. A sort of dismissive ‘pah!’ She began to turn away, muttering, grabbing a tea towel and flicking it. Terry watched her, but made no move to lead Kathleen away.

Then he spoke. ‘Young lady,’ he said. ‘Yes. Do you have an issue with that, Irene?’

He was talking to her back, but now she slowly turned around. Kathleen glanced towards her dad again, who was still chatting to the same customer, arm resting on pump, still oblivious to what was going on.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Irene snapped at Terry, her face pinched and pallid.

‘I said, do you have an issue with that, Irene?’ he repeated.

‘An issue?’ Irene blinked at him. ‘What’s an “issue”, when it’s at home?’

Once again, Kathleen felt Terry’s hand tighten around her own. His was hot. So was hers. It was difficult to work out where one began and the other ended.

Irene flapped the tea towel again, glaring hard now at Kathleen. She looked expanded now somehow, as if being pumped up, like an airbed. She fixed on Kathleen. ‘And you can wipe that smug look off your chops, while you’re at it, you little madam!’

Kathleen said nothing. Just looked despairingly towards her dad. But far from noticing what was happening, he’d now got embroiled in another conversation – discussing something in the paper with one of his other regulars. But it seemed Terry was happy enough to finish this on his own. ‘You know what?’ he told Irene mildly. ‘You’re a nasty piece of work, you. I’m sorry for your loss – truly sorry too, because I liked Darren. He was a nice lad, a good lad, and he’ll be very much missed. But, you know what? All this’ – he raised the hand that still had Kathleen’s curled within it – ‘is just nasty. Uncalled for. Offensive. What’s Kathleen ever done to you, eh?’

‘Terry, don’t …’ Kathleen entreated. She couldn’t help herself.

He squeezed her hand. Nodded. ‘No, you’re right, love,’ he said. ‘Let’s blame it on the lack of sleep, eh? Mine and hers,’ he said, nodding dismissively towards a now open-mouthed Irene. ‘Let’s get off to the bonfire, shall we? Got your coat? Let me help you. Let’s get going,’ he finished, his eyes glittering as they met hers. ‘Get outside, where the air’s a bit less poisonous.’

‘You cheeky bloody bastard!’ Irene began, as Terry helped Kathleen into her coat. ‘How dare you! How dare you come in here and start mouthing off at me! How dare you –’

But neither of them heard any more. Just the sound of the foyer door sighing closed behind them.

Chapter 10 (#u37f60eaa-34a3-5a06-bfb1-a0f71486f617)

As it turned out, Irene had been right. There were plenty more fireworks to be let off that evening – a whole box, a big box, full of rockets.

They’d skipped out onto the empty street, arms as well as hands now entwined, and for a few lingering moments, Terry had said nothing to her at all. Just pulled her towards him and smiled, and kissed her hungrily on the mouth, under the benign gaze of the street lamp outside. His skin was cold – the air was bitter – but his lips and arms were warm, and as he snaked the latter round her, she buried her own up inside his jumper. ‘Blimey, Terry,’ she admonished him, once they finally separated. ‘Haven’t you got a coat with you? You’ll catch your death out here!’

He tipped his head back to look at her. His hair was haloed gold by the street light. Then he grimaced. ‘Guess what? It’s on the coat hook, back in there.’

It was too cold to even think about going to the bonfire without it, so, after some whispered deliberation, it was Kathleen who fetched it, sneaking into the foyer, keeping low, avoiding the glass-panelled inner doors, and emerging with it moments later, almost doubled up with stifled giggles.

Terry kissed her again then, reeling her in as she tried to help him fasten it – it was a donkey jacket, which fastened with big, troublesome buttons, and with the temperature so low now they were out in the night air, he was having some difficulty doing them up.

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ she said finally. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘What, that? I’ve been waiting to do that for days now, I can tell you.’

‘No, not that! I meant taking on my stepmam like that.’

‘Earned the kiss, then?’

‘Earned several,’ she said, threading her arm through the crook of his.

They set off up the road, walking fast, to keep the cold from creeping up on them, heading towards the snicket, where they could cut through to the rest of the estate.

‘I’m not sure I can quite believe it myself,’ he admitted, after a moment. Then he sighed. ‘It was just on the spur of the moment. I couldn’t help myself. I hope I’ve not caused you a lorry load of trouble now.’