Blood Ties: Family is not always a place of safety

Her father’s expression told her he didn’t believe her. So had he noticed too? He chuckled. ‘If you say so, love,’ he said. ‘But Darren’s right. He is a shade old for you. Still –’

‘I am not sweet on Terry bloody Harris, Dad!’ she thundered.

‘So nothing to scrap about then,’ he said mildly. He almost chuckled. ‘Anyway, what you doing home so early, lad?’ he asked Darren. He got the same answer. ‘Well, there’s a nice bit o’ stew in the pan up there if you’re hungry.’

Darren headed off, giving Kathleen a final warning look as he did so, reminding her – as if he needed to – that that was that as far as she was concerned. Well, so be it. That would teach her not to get involved in his business. He was twenty. A grown man. He could fight his own battles. Even so, a gun. And had he got one? She realised she didn’t even know.

She finished up with the tables, while her dad got the bar ready, glancing across from time to time, feeling his eyes might be on her. They weren’t – he seemed as absorbed in his work as he ever was, but, even so, it rankled that he’d said what he’d said – even with the twinkle in his eye as he’d said it.

And as for bloody Darren – Darren who she often liked, and at worst rubbed along okay with – possibly getting himself in trouble. Yet another thing to worry about. A secret she didn’t want to keep for him. Should she tell her dad? Put him straight? But everything in his body language had told her not to. Not now, when, for all his dapper looks and ready smiles, he carried the burden of being married to that harridan upstairs like a physical weight around his neck. And with money always so tight, and her constant selfish nagging …

‘Right, that’s me done, I think,’ she said, smiling across the pub at him. ‘I’m off upstairs. What sort of mood is she in?’

‘She’s having a nap just now,’ her dad said. ‘But I’d keep out of her way for a bit. Migraine’s still niggling …’ he tailed off. He didn’t need to say any more.

And hopefully she’ll bloody stay napping, Kathleen thought irritably as she made her way up the stairs. For forty days and forty nights, ideally. But no such luck – she could hear her and Darren talking in the front room.

And about her, it seemed. ‘You pissing little trollop!’ Irene said to her, as she entered the room. ‘Terry frigging Harris! He’s a widower, you little slut. Have you no respect?’

Once again, Kathleen found herself glaring at Darren. He’d obviously come up and given his mam the same ridiculous story. Talk about covering your tracks and creating a diversion. This was ridiculous!

But Darren, presumably seeing her fury, was equally quick to defend her. ‘Oh, don’t go off on one, Mam,’ he said.

‘Go off on one?’ she rounded. ‘We keep a respectable pub here, if you don’t mind, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Showing us up …’

‘Mam, you’re being ridiculous,’ Darren said. ‘So what if she is sweet on him? Who’s it going to hurt? It’s not like he’s going to look twice at a girl our Kathleen’s age anyway.’

‘The way she looks at them? I’ve seen her. I’ve seen you, I have, young lady. Making eyes at all the lads –’ She made a move as if to slap her but Darren put himself between them.

‘I was just talking to him about our Sally and the kids!’ Kathleen shouted back at her. ‘I was just being friendly! There’s a law against that now, as well, is there?’

‘No there’s not,’ Darren said before Irene could protest further, placing an arm around her shoulder and leading her to the door. ‘Come on, Mam. I was supposed to be making you a cup of tea, wasn’t I? Special treat, since I’m home early. Take advantage while you can.’

He manoeuvred her through the doorway and then he turned around.

Then he knitted his brows slightly. Not quite a frown. Just an indication of what had passed between them. Then he smiled and disappeared off to the kitchen with his mother. ‘Now, Mam,’ Kathleen heard him say, ‘how about you tell me all about your day?’

Kathleen flopped down onto the sofa and considered her churning feelings. As grateful as she was that Darren had stopped Irene having more of a go at her, she was still angry; angry that she still didn’t know what was really going on with him, and angrier still that he’d made such a good job of deflecting things by turning all the attention on her. She wished she did have a lad – one of any sodding age – just so she could, even if only for the tiniest time, get out of this miserable place.

Chapter 5 (#u73595e65-dd51-52c3-b66d-19de06eedf6d)

‘Why don’t you come down and have a drink, lass?’

Kathleen looked up from the TV as her dad came into the room. It was Saturday night and, as usual, the pub downstairs was buzzing, the raised voices, loud music and gales of drunken laughter all conspiring to drown out the sound of Z Cars.

Not that either source of noise seemed to be getting through to Darren. He’d been drinking steadily since he’d returned from work and eaten his tea, and was now fast asleep in one of the two armchairs, a row of empty beer bottles by his feet.

‘Is it busy, then?’ Kathleen asked her dad, not quite trusting his ‘have a drink’ line. ‘You don’t need me to work, do you?’ She knew what Irene was like – chances were, she’d get her down there and then trot off to join the punters while she worked – specially the male ones, who she always enjoyed flirting with. Her dad didn’t seem to mind that, but she certainly did – particularly after a full day of bar-tending and cleaning already.

Her dad obviously read her mind. ‘No, silly!’ he said, laughing. He was quite merry already, by the look of it. ‘It’s just daft, that’s all – a young lass like you stuck up here on a Saturday night. It’s not right.’ He jerked his head towards Darren, who was snoring now, his lower lip hanging open and his fringe over his eyes. ‘You don’t want to be stuck up here. Come downstairs and enjoy yourself. I’ve just nipped up to change my tie – managed to get bitter splashed all over it – but I told your mam I’d pop my head round and ask you down for a bit. She’s in a good mood, I promise,’ he added after a pause.

‘Okay,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’ Then she uncurled her long legs from under her and went across to turn off the telly. Darren would be out for the count for the rest of the evening now probably, and there was no point in it playing to itself. She stretched, having stiffened up, then went across to the mirror above the fireplace. She looked respectable enough, she decided. Well, almost. She’d definitely have to go and run the brush through her hair. Not that she was actually that bothered about spending time in the pub this evening. She’d have far rather gone off to the Bull as she’d planned – there might well have been a few people she knew in there tonight. But with her mate Linda down with a bug, her evening had been effectively over – to walk there and turn up alone required the kind of confidence and courage she didn’t possess, even if a girl going to a pub alone wasn’t frowned on.

But there was one thing drawing her down, and she wondered if her dad knew it. Terry might be in for a bit. You never knew, anyway. Worth running the gauntlet of the battle-axe for that.

There was no law, that was the thing. That was the thing that really rankled. That was the thing that had really stuck in her craw in the week that had passed since Irene had called her a slut, for possibly – just possibly – being attracted to Terry Harris. Who was a widower. No longer married. Whose wife had been dead over two years now. How did that make her a slut exactly? By what rule? That was the thing that really got to her. The sheer lunacy – even over and above the name-calling aspect – of Irene thinking there was something so fundamentally wrong about a single girl being interested in a similarly single man; it wasn’t like Terry’s wife had died a month back or anything. It had been two whole years. Why on earth shouldn’t she like him and him her?

If he even did, which wasn’t a given – Kathleen was too aware of her own naivety to kid herself too much – it might well just be a case of wishful thinking anyway. It probably was, much as she always felt his eyes staying on her just that little bit longer than normal. But even so – there was still the principle. That was what mattered.

She glanced back towards Darren. It was a rare Saturday night when her stepbrother wasn’t out till the small hours. It was very out of character for him to be slumped where he was on any night, in fact. There were few evenings when he didn’t go out at some point.

But then Darren had been behaving oddly ever since she’d confronted him. And not just with her – with everyone else in the family too; he’d been grumpy, uncommunicative, unwilling to engage. And had been slumped in that armchair pretty much every night this last week, downing beer, dropping off, and then waking up ratty, before stomping off again, with a grunt, to his bed.

She kept thinking she should ask him again – why a gun? Who was he scared of? Or, if he wasn’t, what was he up to? Instinct still told her he’d tried to get one because he was frightened someone was after him, but now the idea of him being involved in some sort of crime had taken root in her mind, she couldn’t seem to shake it off. Time and again she had wondered if she should say something to her father. She almost had, too – the previous night, when he’d got home from work late – but she’d got no further than ‘Look, Darren …’ before being subjected to such a mouthful that she vowed that she would keep her ‘fucking nose out’ as instructed, as the slap he’d suggested she might get if she didn’t – again, completely out of character – didn’t appeal.

No, best leave him to it. Whatever ‘it’ was. That was clearly what he wanted. And she wasn’t that naïve. If someone was after him, he’d presumably sort it out. He’d have to. And if they weren’t – if he was planning to do something criminal … well, perhaps Terry would be in and she could speak to him again. Perhaps, she decided, as she went to get her hairbrush, he could even speak to Darren instead. At the very least, he might be able to give her some advice.

She went to get her brush – perhaps she’d add a lick of Vaseline to her lips, too – to find her and Monica’s bedroom in its usual Saturday night state of disarray – a wasteland of discarded tops, laddered stockings, open pots and spilled powder, much of which would be swept to the floor when she tottered back home again, significantly worse for wear, gusting alcohol fumes across the space between their beds.

Which was reason enough, Kathleen supposed, to go down. If she had a couple of halves herself she’d probably sleep all the better – the better not to be awake when Monica crashed in.

She ran down the stairs, the swell of noise and cigarette smoke rising to meet her, and the first thing she noticed was that she’d been right on one count – Irene was perched on a chair at a table near the bar, holding court with a gang of her favourite cronies from the estate. She was half-cut, by the looks of it, despite it still being quite early, and laughing just a little too loudly and raucously for it to be natural; she was playing to her audience. She saw Kathleen almost as soon as Kathleen had seen her and it was the expression on her face that would stay with Kathleen later – and expression of such confident, unthinking, everyday contempt, the like of which she wouldn’t be seeing again.

‘Oh, Jean, that’s priceless!’ she said, nudging her friend and turning slightly. ‘But hey up, better keep it down, girls – big lugs is here. And you know what she’s like for spreading the gossip.’

The other women laughed. Why would they not? She was a figure of fun to them. And if she’d learned one thing since becoming part of the fabric of a public house, it was that the insight of drunk people was every bit as lacking as their inability to realise how boring they always sounded was immense.

She glanced around in search of friendlier company. Mary, now recovered, seemed to be coping fine behind the bar, which was presumably why her dad wasn’t there.

‘If you’re looking for him,’ Irene called across, without any prompting, ‘he’s in the best room playing dominoes. Meant to be bloody helping, he is. Lazy old git. And her …’

Kathleen let the sentence drift away as she headed to the best room where, up till ten or so minutes ago, a band had been playing, the members of which were still busy getting their leads and amps together, and who nodded a hello to Kathleen as she entered. She knew them well. They played regularly – had done for as long as she could remember. A trio of men, nearer her dad’s age, all from the Canterbury Estate, who sang country music, folk songs, some unbearably sad to listen to; one in particular which Mike, who did most of the singing, and had known her dad back in his printing days, had always told her had been a favourite of her mother’s.

The jukebox was still blaring in the main bar – to which many had now decamped – but in contrast this room could have been somebody’s dining room, so was a choice spot for the older customers to drink and play their dominoes in peace.

Her dad seemed pleased to see her. ‘There’s half a lager here, love,’ he called as she glanced around. ‘And we’ve nearly finished this game if you want to join in the next one.’

Kathleen quite enjoyed the odd game of dominoes – it was one of those childhood things that had always bound her and her father – but it was Saturday evening and she couldn’t quite escape the feeling that a seventeen-year-old girl playing dominoes with her dad represented a tragedy just that bit too big to be borne. She pulled up a chair, though, to be friendly, and accepted the drink.

‘No ta,’ she said, smiling, ‘I’ll just have this half and watch, then I might go give Mary a hand behind the bar.’

‘I told you, love,’ her dad chided, ‘there’s no need for you to do that. Relax, love. Enjoy yourself. Mary’ll be fine.’

‘But it’s getting busy now,’ she said, glancing back across through the foyer to the tap room as a couple of new people came in. ‘Pictures probably turned out, and in a bit, she’ll be swamped with –’ She stopped, feeling her face flush. Terry Harris was standing watching her from the foyer. He was with a mate, but he’d stopped, and had obviously been waiting to catch her eye. He grinned and waved, and she immediately lowered her gaze. But at the same time …

‘You know what, Dad?’ she said. ‘Think I’ll head back to the bar after all. Can I take this?’ She raised the glass.

‘Course you can, love. I told you. But –’