Which made Josie giggle too. She realised she felt better than she had done since Vinnie went. It would be okay. They had each other and she knew it would all be better now. She wiped a dirty hand across her face and squeezed Carol’s arm. ‘That’s settled then. We don’t tell anyone. Not for now, at least. This is our secret.’
‘Our secret,’ agreed Carol. ‘Blood sisters, okay?’
Josie nodded and the two girls made their way out of the den. She felt stronger now. Strong enough to cope with it on her own. Strong enough to cope with Vinnie not coming home yet. When you had a blood sister like Caz you could cope with anything, however horrible. She just hoped that neither of them was going to have to.
February
Jock reached behind the front-room door for his sheepskin coat. It was the back end of winter and was freezing outside, but that wasn’t going to stop him going to work today.
Which wasn’t like Jock. Normally even the mere utterance of the word ‘work’ was enough to send him scuttling back to bed. Jock had his own, much nicer, way of making money. And one that didn’t mean grafting for some other undeserving fucker, either. Jock was a gambler. It was in his blood, same as it had been in his dad’s before him. Coming from a family of bookies he’d had the horse-racing bug since he was a lad.
So Jock didn’t really need to work – not all that often, anyway. Like most of the men on the Canterbury Estate the only regular work he did was his weekly trip to the dole office, to sign on for his unemployment benefit. If he fell short – perhaps needed extra money for Christmas or a party, then he’d do a bit here and there ‘on the side’. The only other main spur to him making the effort to pull a few quid together was, as it had always been, June. New clothes, a night out – she was always on his case about something she wanted – and every so often, when the frequency of her nagging got too much, he’d do whatever was required to shut her up.
But not today. Today was different. Today he was actually looking forward to going to work. This particular job was a right little number and if he played his cards right, him and June would both be laughing. It was a gift, a proper gift, and he could hardly believe his luck.
He went into the hall, shrugging on his coat as he did so. ‘Right, I’m off, then,’ he called up the stairs. ‘You coming along at dinner time again? Same place?’
‘Hang on a minute,’ June yelled back. ‘I’m coming down.’
Jock went back into the warm front room to wait for her. He looked up at the clock and shook his head in irritation. Silly mare was going to have him late again.
It was a full couple of minutes before she appeared in the doorway – not dressed, as he’d expected, but still in her short flimsy nightie, her face still caked in the make-up she habitually went to bed in. She was sauntering across the room with a look that meant business. ‘Come here, you,’ she said, puckering her lips and making a grab for him. ‘Give us a kiss before you go.’
‘Piss off, you silly get!’ he protested as he tried to dodge her. ‘Fuckin’ hell, June, a sniff of a few bob, and you’re all over me like a cheap suit!’
Not that he minded, he decided, as she giggled at him coquettishly. ‘It’s not a few bob any more, you divvy,’ she said. ‘It’s a few new pence, remember? Has been for two years now, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Fuckin’ decimalisation,’ he growled. ‘Never going to get the hang of it. They should have left well alone. Bleeding common market nonsense!’ He extracted himself from his wife and waved as he left. ‘Don’t forget,’ he called over his shoulder as he stepped out onto the pavement. ‘Wimpy at 12. Don’t be late, June, or you’ll fuck it all up.’
June laughed as she waved him off. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she called after him. ‘I’ll be there with knobs on!’
He could still hear her laughing when he was halfway down the road, and when he looked back, she was still waving from the front-room window, the daft cow. Still, it gave him a warm feeling, made him puff up with pride. Despite their fall-outs, he still loved her to bits.
He quickened his step, his mind now back on the job at hand. Things to do, places to go, people to see. It was a good 20-minute walk into town, and a cold one, and he was anxious to get where he needed to be. He pulled the lapels of his coat a little tighter together, reflecting that there was perhaps one too many people involved in this thing. So he was nervous. He didn’t mind admitting it.
Josie came downstairs, minutes later, to find her mother in the living room, admiring her reflection in the mirror.
‘Not bad for an old bird,’ she was saying (to herself, presumably, Josie decided) and arching her drawn-on eyebrows. Josie never understood why she did that – shaving them off and then painting them on again. Why? Why not just leave them as they were? ‘And tomorrow you’ll look even better,’ June promised herself, grinning. ‘Once you’re wearing all your lovely new clobber!’
Josie stood just inside the doorway for a moment, watching her mother blow a kiss at her own reflection, clearly oblivious that her daughter was even in the room. It had always been a bit like that with her mum – and when Vinnie had been home, even more so. Put Vinnie in a room with them and it had always felt as if she became invisible. She was her dad’s girl, always had been, and Vinnie was her mum’s boy – that was just the way it was, just the way it would always be, probably. They were poles apart, after all. Her mum was so unlike her. So glamorous and girly. So alien. Something Josie knew she’d never be. Not any more, anyway.
‘What are you going on about, you silly old mare?’ she said now.
June jumped, startled, and turned round to see Josie staring at her.
‘You daft cow!’ she said. ‘You scared me half to bleeding death.’ She flapped a hand at Josie irritably and stomped off in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Go on, get ready for school instead of sneaking up on folk.’
Josie ignored that. It was still only eight, after all. Instead, she followed her mother into the tiny kitchen, the same thing on her mind as had been on it for ages now. It had been months since they’d heard anything from Vinnie. Months and months. And she’d written – what? – three unanswered letters? Four? And still nothing back.
‘D’ya think we’ll have a letter today?’ she asked as she reached to put on the grill, though even as she did so she knew it was more in hope than expectation.
‘A letter?’ asked June.
‘You know, from our Vin.’
June sighed as Josie pushed past her to get a plate from the shelf underneath the curtain-fronted worktop. ‘Titch, you know what he’s like. Sending letters counts as a privilege and pound to a penny he’ll be all out of those. So fuck knows when we’ll hear from him, frankly!’
‘Yeah, but he’s got to send one sometime! It’s been for ever!’
June drained her tea mug and banged it down on the Formica. Then, seeing Josie’s expression, shook her head. ‘Look, I’m just as upset as you, love. Honest I am. But you never know – he might be allowed a phone call this week, mightn’t he?’
Josie scowled as she stood on tiptoe to slide two slices of bread onto the grill pan. The business of the phone was a constant bugbear. ‘Well, if you paid the bill, we’d be able to phone him, wouldn’t we?’
‘Shut it, gob shite,’ June said mildly. Then she grinned at her daughter, which she’d been doing a fair bit just lately,