Certain details in this book, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
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First published by HarperElement 2017
FIRST EDITION
© Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Alexander Vinogradov/Trevillion Images (posed by model); Paul Gooney/Arcangel (street scene)
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Source ISBN: 9780008142797
Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008142773
Version: 2018-09-13
As well as dedicating this book to my wonderful family, my parents, husband, kids and grandkids, and of course my huge extended family of Hudsons and Jaggers, I want to make special mention this time to the best friends of my younger days. Sharon Thornton and Bridget Hone were my true blood sisters, and yes, we did the whole cut and touching blood thing! Memories of our escapades certainly played a part when writing this book.
Contents
Clayton Village Hall Youth Club, Bradford, 1983
It’s late on a summer Friday, the sky just turning peachy, and two twelve-year-old girls who’ve been best friends since nursery are hiding behind the stage curtains in the village hall.
They’re making a solemn oath. It’s the most important kind of oath. Which is why they’ve taken the trouble (which has been both a risk and a challenge) of ‘borrowing’ the craft knife from the art drawer in the hall kitchen, which they are now using, in turn, to slit the skin on their right thumbs.
The blood forms beads, dark and glossy behind the drapes, as they squeeze, and in perfect synchrony, despite neither of them consciously timing it, they touch their thumbs together, allowing the blood to mix.
‘I solemnly swear,’ whispers Vicky Robinson, who is the taller of the two, ‘that no boyfriend will split us up, or anyone else come between us. I swear we will be sisters for the rest of our lives … Your turn,’ she then finishes, smiling at her friend.
‘I solemnly swear,’ agrees Lucy Briggs, her voice equally low, ‘that no boyfriend will split us up, or anyone else come between us. I swear we’ll be sisters for the rest of our lives …’
‘Blood sisters forever!’ they both whisper, in unison.
Then they put the knife back in the drawer, roll up the waistbands of their skirts, and, giggling as they both re-apply a sheen of lip gloss, feel their way round the edge of the musty stage curtains and go back to join the boys in the smoking shed.
Life was good in the summer of 1983.
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him – a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9–12