Playing Around (37 page)

Sonia, her fury at this latest development somehow giving her the strength to rise from the chair, staggered unsteadily to her feet.

Leaning against the filing cabinet, she pointed accusingly at Angie. ‘You’ve got all sorts of nice stuff have you, sweetheart? How very touching.’

Angie blinked disbelievingly at the tear- and make-up-streaked face of the woman who was spitting such venom at her. Who was she? Why was she so familiar?

‘Sonia. Shut your mouth.’ David’s voice was low, angry. If Bobby hadn’t still been holding him back he’d have shut it for her.

Now Angie was really confused.
Sonia
? But they were divorced. Why should she care? And she had expected someone older. Much older.

Sonia moved slowly towards her. ‘Does she know that I know all about her, David? And about all your other women? And do they know about her? Do you’ – she jabbed Angie in the chest – ‘know I’m David’s wife?’

‘David’s divorced.’

‘Is he now?’ She stuck out her left hand, flashing a massive platinum and diamond ring. ‘That’s news to me.’

‘I said, shut it!’ David finally erupted. Shoving Bobby out of his way, he threw himself at Sonia, sending her crashing back into the heavy wooden filing cabinet.

Angie stared at Sonia crumpled to the floor, with blood pouring from her mouth and one of her ears. ‘A boyfriend didn’t buy me my watch,’ she whispered.

David touched Sonia with the toe of his shoe. She didn’t move.

‘My nan did. For my birthday.’

David turned to Angie as if he had never set eyes on her before. ‘What?’

‘You’re my first boyfriend, David. I didn’t know you were married when I slept with you. Then you said you were divorced. You are divorced, aren’t you?’

‘Bob, get her out of here. Stick her in a cab or something.’

Bobby took Angie, too dazed to resist, by the arm, and began steering her towards the door, but the sound of police sirens and tyres screeching to a halt in the street below, stopped him in his tracks.

‘Shit, she really did call the law. Come on, Dave, move yourself.’ Bobby looked about him for inspiration. ‘Through the back and along the alley. We can get to the motors that way.’

David said nothing, he just gave Sonia a departing, vicious kick in the side, and followed Bobby, as he dragged Angie, now sobbing pitifully, through to the fire escape.

David jumped into his Jaguar and sped off, without a glance or a word in Angie’s direction. Bobby pushed her, sprawling, into the back seat of his Humber, and, after a squealing U-turn, drove off in the opposite direction to his boss.

As soon as she stopped carrying on and drawing attention to herself, he would get rid of the kid, drop her off somewhere – anywhere – then get himself home and make sure Maureen was all right.

*

It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon before Bobby finally thought it was safe to let Angie out of his car. He had been driving round for two and a half bloody hours since they’d bolted down the fire escape, when all he wanted to do was get home to check on Maureen. But he couldn’t have risked letting an hysterical bird loose on the streets.

He could only hope that no one had got hold of Dave.

‘Honestly, Bobby.’ Angie was doing her best to appear calm, unperturbed by what she had seen. What she had seen the man she had thought she was in love with do to a woman. To his wife.

‘I’m fine. Please. Leave me here.’

‘Where’ll you go?’

‘My nan’s. She only lives—’ She could have bitten off her tongue. ‘—nearby.’

Bobby had to hand it to her, she was looking out for herself better than he would have credited. ‘Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna follow you. I’ve got plans of me own.’ He pulled into the kerb. ‘Need any money?’

Angie shook her head, but Bobby pressed a fiver into her hand anyway. She wasn’t a bad kid. Just a bit too innocent for her own good. ‘Go on, clear off. And, Angel.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mind you keep your trap shut.’

Angie banged on her nan’s front door for a good five minutes before a kitchen window along the balcony was pushed open, and Doris Barker stuck out her head.

‘What’s all that sodding row?’ she hollered.

Angie stepped back from the door so Doris could see her. ‘It’s only me, Mrs Barker.’

‘Hello, love. I thought it was them bloody kids from downstairs again.’

‘Have you seen Nan?’

Doris considered her words. ‘She had to nip out.’

‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Thanks anyway.’

Doris could see she was upset. ‘You all right, love?’

‘Yeah. I’m fine. I’ve got to go. If you see Nan, tell her I’ll be back, will you?’

‘Course. But you’re sure you don’t want to come in and wait? Have a nice cuppa tea?’

‘No. Thanks all the same.’

Doris pulled the window closed and went over to the stove to boil the kettle. Something was going on, and she’d lay good money that that little creep Jameson was at the root of it. She just hoped that a soft touch like Sarah could handle it. Whatever it was.

By the time Angie sat down in her mum’s kitchen, she was exhausted; the mixture of fear, weeping, and simple, undiluted terror at what she had witnessed had drained her.

Vi, who was in her usual position in the kitchen – in front of the mirror over the sink, touching up her make-up – didn’t take much notice, putting her daughter’s pale complexion and red eyes down to too much burning the candle at both ends. She rather liked the fact that someone so young could look so wiped out. She didn’t even notice that Angie was trembling as if she were suffering from a tropical fever.

‘Nice outfit,’ Vi said, checking out her daughter’s reflection in passing as she outlined her lips. ‘I fancy a trouser suit.’ She turned round to have a look at Angie’s feet. ‘And matching red patent shoes. Blimey.’ She smiled nastily, knowingly, as she returned to studying her own face. ‘That new job must be paying well.’

Angie clasped the side of the table, trying to stop the shaking.

‘And able to afford a flat as well. Who’d have thought it. My little Ange.’

Angie stared down at the greasy kitchen floor. How it got that way, she couldn’t imagine, her mum certainly never did any cooking. It must be all the scraps of fish and chips and saveloys that had been dropped on it since Angie had stopped skivvying for her. How long had that been? Two months? Three? When had she got her hair cut?

She felt dizzy.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?’ Vi admired her completed face, lost in thoughts of Craig moving down south, of being in bed with him and of him treating her like the queen she knew herself to be.

‘How are you?’ Angie managed to ask. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth.

‘Managing, just, to get along without my little girl. But I’ve got some lovely news. Craig’s—’

‘I’m in trouble, Mum.’ Angie broke in. ‘Terrible trouble.’

Vi spun round and stuck her fists into her waist. ‘I might have known. That explains why that grandmother of your’n turned up earlier. It was obvious she wasn’t coming to see me.’

Angie looked up, trying to focus. ‘Nan was here?’

‘Yeah. Bloody woke me up she did. And in a cab if you don’t mind. When I said I didn’t have a clue where you were, she cleared off.’

Angie buried her face in her hands.

‘Don’t worry, Ange. I know someone who can get rid of it.’

This was all too hard for Angie, too difficult for her to understand.

‘And you will have to get rid of it, you know. I can’t be any help, not with—’

With considerable effort, Angie lifted her head. ‘Get rid of what?’

Vi nodded at Angie’s middle. ‘The baby, of course.’

‘But I’m not pregnant.’

‘There’s no need to pretend to me, Angie.’ She sighed self-pityingly. ‘You don’t know how hard it is to raise a child alone. I fought so hard to keep you. Maybe I should have let them take you, then you’d have had a better life and wouldn’t have wound up in this state.’

‘Mum—’

‘You’re a daft little cow.’ Vi pinched Angie’s pale cheek. ‘Fancy getting yourself in the same boat as me.’

Angie stared at her mother, with her lipstick just a shade too bright and her hair tinted just a shade too red and with the cigarette burns in her mauve nylon housecoat. ‘Same boat as you?’

‘Pregnant before you’re eighteen.’

‘I’m not pregnant. I’m in trouble.’ The tears brimmed in her eyes. ‘Mum, I’m so worried.’

‘Worried? You? You don’t know what worry is.’ Vi lit another cigarette. ‘You’ll learn though, before long. When your looks start going.’

Angie’s panic had earlier dissolved into confusion, but it was now sharpening into anger. Why wouldn’t this woman – her own mother – help her?

‘You’ve had it too easy, Angela, that’s been your trouble all along. You should have had my terrible life, then you’d really have something to complain about.’

‘Your terrible life?’

Vi glared at her daughter. ‘How dare you use that tone with me? I hardly know you any more.’ She picked a fleck of tobacco from her lip. ‘I’ve never known what it’s like to be free. Not like you. Always at the beck and
call
of a child, when I was barely more than a child myself. And now look at me.’

‘What, at a selfish, spiteful woman, who didn’t even know she had a child most of the time? I was practically brought up round Nan’s until you fell out with her. Then, when we got this place, I was always at Jackie’s. You’ve never cared about me. Never.’

Vi looked at Angie as if she had just stabbed her through the heart. ‘Angela!’

‘Leave off, Mum. We both know what you’re like. Anything you ever do is only for yourself!’

Vi couldn’t be bothered keeping up the charade of being hurt, it took too much effort. She shrugged. ‘I’m just not the motherly type.’

Angie looked at her as she flicked her ash into the sink full of dirty plates and cups. ‘Do you know, Mum, I’m beginning to feel sorry for you. Your own daughter comes to you for help and what do you do? You moan about how life’s treated you.’

Vi snorted unpleasantly.

‘You reckon you’ve never been free. If you ask me, you’ve been a bit too free. You never took any responsibility for me. None. All you cared about was yourself, and going out, and your latest, useless boyfriend.’

‘You watch your tongue. I’m still your bloody mother.’

‘Mother? Mrs Murray’s been more like a mother to me than you ever have. And you know it. And she’s never gone on about being free. Her and Mr Murray have had kids and they’ve looked after them.’

‘Stifled them, you mean.’

‘No. They’ve just done their best.’

‘So have I.’

‘Have you, Mum? Who for?’

‘This is getting boring.’ Vi sighed wearily, but, in the moment it took her to register that someone was knocking on the door, a sickly smile had spread over her heavily made-up face. She pulled her housecoat demurely to her throat. ‘Get that for me will you, love?’ she wheedled. ‘I can’t go to the door looking like this, can I?’

‘I’m leaving. I’ll get it on my way out.’

Vi listened as her daughter opened the street door.

‘It’s for you,’ she heard Angie call.

‘Is that you, Craig?’ Vi’s voice was light and girlie.

‘It certainly is,’ a loud Scottish voice replied.

Vi dashed out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. ‘Put the kettle on and make Craig a nice cup of tea, will you, Ange?’ she yelled from the other side of the door. ‘Just while I finish putting my face on?’

Doing her best to hold back her tears, Angie pushed her way past Craig, and stood for a moment on the grimy, unpolished step. ‘I said, I’m leaving,’ she called over her shoulder, then hurried down the path, shoved open the gate and ran off down the street, in too much of a hurry and too preoccupied to hear Craig’s long low whistle of appreciation.

Martin opened the Murrays’ front door. ‘This is not a very good time, Squirt. There’s been a bit of a row.’

‘Let me come in, Martin. Please. I need to see Jackie.’

He hesitated. ‘She’s upstairs with Mum.’

‘Please.’

Despite not wanting an audience for the ructions that were going on in the house, Martin could hardly refuse her, not with the distress she was in. ‘Go through to the kitchen. But no noise, eh?’

She sniffed miserably. ‘What’s going on?’

Martin could kill his bloody sister. He handed her his
handkerchief
and she blew her nose loudly.

‘There’s no need to pretend, Squirt. Jackie’s been along and told you my news, hasn’t she?’

Angie tried to summon up interest in Martin’s ordinary – appealingly ordinary – little life. ‘No, Mart. She hasn’t.’

Martin knew she had, the interfering cow, and he knew how much Angie had always fancied him. Anyone could see it was breaking her heart. Jackie could be a spiteful bitch at times. Just because Angie had grown up into such a looker.

‘Ange, I know she’s your mate, but you don’t have to protect her.’

Angie wracked her brains for a clue as to what this was all about. ‘Have you messed up your exams?’ She was speaking automatically, platitudes that she didn’t have to organize or think about. ‘And you worked so hard.’

Martin sat down next to her at the kitchen table. She really didn’t know. Jackie hadn’t blabbed for once. ‘It’s nothing to do with exams. The results aren’t out for ages yet. It’s …’ He bent forward and clasped his hands over his head, as though he could hide himself away from all this. ‘It’s something more personal. And it’s bloody terrifying. I’m getting married.’

Angie lifted her chin and looked at him, hunched over like a beaten dog. He looked as if he’d been condemned to the scaffold.

‘That’s nice. When?’ What else could she say? There she was, the witness to what might well be a murder, frightened out of her life, desperate for someone to tell her what to do next, and here was Martin, about to get married, acting as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

If her situation wasn’t so genuinely terrifying, she
might
have found Martin’s melodramatics quite funny.

He straightened up, throwing back his head and staring at the ceiling. ‘In about a month. Mum went mad when I told her. She’s been in her bedroom bawling her eyes out ever since.’