She ripped open the envelope, as she climbed the stairs back up to the flat, smiling as she pulled out what was indeed a birthday card, and from the person she’d thought it might be from – her Auntie Sal. She was thrilled to see a ten-shilling note fluttering out, but then her face fell. This must mean that she wasn’t going to visit. And so it seemed, as she read the short message:
Have a lovely day, Kathleen
So sorry I can’t be there but our Lisa has the mumps. Hope to see you soon, though – just as soon as we’re no longer infectious!
Lots of love, Auntie Sal xxx
Sally McArdle wasn’t really Kathleen’s aunt. She was, in fact, her stepmum’s younger sister. Married to a lovely man called Ronnie (who she called uncle, and who was the blueprint for the sort of man she hoped to marry one day) Sally was the complete opposite of Irene. Blonde, slim and pretty, and with the sort of personality that could light up a room as soon as she entered it, she was everything Irene was not, and, as such, that Irene hated in a woman. Which was part of the reason that Kathleen loved her so much.
Auntie Sally lived in Thornton, which was two buses away, so she wasn’t able to visit all that often. But when she did, she always spoiled Kathleen rotten. She’d bring her a new jumper or something, and always a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream. She also shouted at Irene if she was being nasty to Kathleen, which meant she shouted at Irene quite a lot.
Kathleen could never quite fathom how you could have the joy of a proper sister (as opposed to Monica, who she’d never grace with that name, despite her dad, from day one, always suggesting she should) and manage to hate her so much. Kathleen would have loved a sister – or a brother, just a sibling to call her own – but Irene didn’t seem to like Sally at all; she called her all sorts of names behind her back, and hated it when she visited. She had even accused Kathleen’s dad of fancying her. ‘You’d love to get her into the kip wouldn’t you, you dirty old get!’ she’d yelled once after Sally had left. ‘I’ve seen the way you leer at her.’ That had been followed by the usual four-hour argument, with her dad having to crawl round Irene and tell her how beautiful she was and how he didn’t ever want anyone else. It made Kathleen want to puke.
The kettle was whistling on the stove so she quickly propped the birthday card up on the breakfast table before filling the teapot. It was a huge blue ceramic thing and weighed half a ton, but a year of working long hours in the pub had built up her muscles. She might be downtrodden, but she was young, fit and strong, and that pleased her, even if it was just another reason for Irene and Monica, both short and podgy, to resent her.
She spotted Irene’s cigarettes on the windowsill and pinched one to smoke while the tea brewed. She did this most mornings, and didn’t feel a shred of guilt about it. Irene made sure half her wages got taken straight off her for her board and lodgings, so there was never enough left to justify buying her own Woodbines – and certainly not when her stupid stepmother was so careless with her own. It was another ritual she enjoyed before the rest of the family rose. The back door of the flat opened out onto a small section of flat roof with a railing round it, from when the last owners of the Dog and Duck kept their dog there. Now it served as a sort of patio, perfectly placed as a sun trap, and though her table and chair were an upturned beer crate and a wonky stool respectively, it always felt a treat to be out there, out of the way, with just her own thoughts for company.
Despite the nip in the air, the sun was shining and the day looked like being glorious, so Kathleen lingered as long as she could before going back in to start rousing the family. Darren was first; he needed to be off soon for his early start down at the hospital, and as she went into his bedroom her nose was immediately assaulted by the stale, smelly air that filled the room. What was it with lads and their bodily functions? It was the same in the gents downstairs in the pub. The ladies was never half as bad.
‘Daz! It’s half seven,’ she whispered, shaking him awake. ‘Time to get up.’
Darren rubbed his eyes and yawned, adding another gust of fetid air into the room. He looked done in and Kathleen wondered what time he’d come in the previous evening. He was a closed one – you never really knew what was going on in his head. Not these days, anyway. Not since he’d left school, really.
He sat up and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. ‘Ooh, is there some tea on, our kid?’ he asked, as if there wasn’t tea on every morning. Still, at least Darren appreciated how much she did.
‘Course there is,’ she said. ‘But you’d better hurry up. And don’t you be falling back to sleep,’ she added, fanning her face in the wake of another gale of foul air, ‘because I’m not coming back in here again, you smelly get!’
She left Darren and trotted along the corridor back to her and Monica’s room. It wasn’t much of a room, really – not like the big bedrooms that people always seemed to share on telly – just two beds, a chest between them, a wardrobe and a sink. A tight squeeze for two girls and all their things. Well, all Monica’s things, mostly, because she had so many more of them, so she had three drawers to Kathleen’s one, and took up most of the space in the wardrobe – in fact, Kathleen had never really considered it to be her room. It felt like Monica’s, right down to the horrible brown velvet curtains she’d chosen, which sucked all the life from the room, even when they were open, making everything seem relentlessly dark and dingy.
‘Time to get up, Mon,’ Kathleen whispered now. Monica wasn’t what you’d call a ‘good’ waker.
‘Oh, piss off, Kathleen,’ she growled. ‘It can’t be half past yet.’
‘It’s twenty to eight,’ Kathleen corrected. ‘Come on, Mon, get up. And hey, guess what?’ she added, unable to resist it. ‘Me and you are the same age now. How crazy is that?’
Monica groaned and wriggled herself up into a sitting position. First thing in the morning, before she’d applied all her war paint, Monica looked a lot like Darren. Same eyes, same rounded chin. They weren’t that close, though. Darren was too much Irene’s golden boy for that to happen. Mostly on account of simply being the boy. Kathleen didn’t think Irene liked females in general. ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot,’ she said groggily. ‘It’s your birthday today, innit? Well, many happy returns and all that.’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Now piss off out while I get dressed.’
‘Dressed’ in Monica’s case didn’t really cover it. It was a full twenty minutes after Darren had left (and in a right arse because it was the biggest racing day of the week so he hated working every other Saturday) before she appeared in the kitchen, done up to the nines. Monica told everyone she was a hair stylist, but in reality she was no more than a bit of a dogsbody for Carol, who ran the local hairdresser’s from her house on the estate. Carol operated from her back room and the majority of her clients were pensioners, and as they mostly wanted curly perms, Monica’s job mainly consisted of winding perm curlers around grey hair and sweeping up. Not that she’d ever admit that. Far from it. She liked to give the impression she was working at a fashionable top-end salon, and dolled herself up accordingly. Immaculate hair and make-up, mini skirt and heels – all to go run around after Carol and her pensioners all day.
Still, Kathleen conceded, at least she made an effort. Perhaps it was good that she acted like she did – you never knew. Perhaps one day Monica would work in some fancy city-centre salon, whereas Kathleen could see little for herself in the future, other than toiling away in the pub, running around after her horrible stepmother, and for what? Out of some stupid idea that she couldn’t leave her dad. That he needed her to stay there. That if she left and found something better, they’d be somehow broken. Like she was abandoning him, leaving him, just like her mum had.
She was busy taking her frustrations out on the beer pumps when her dad wandered down. ‘Morning, lass,’ he said coming round to join her behind the bar. ‘By ’eck, you’re doing a grand job of them brasses,