Tough Love (13 page)

‘I can't be too sure.'

‘Oh, shut up, Lisa,' Leanne said, and pulled up her top. ‘Look, no wire, you paranoid idiot.' She sat down again. ‘Come on, spit it out.'

‘I know that that little girl of yours –'

‘Kia,' Leanne snapped. ‘She's got a name, and you know what it is.'

‘Kia. I know she's is closely related to my husband.' Lisa sat down next to Leanne on the bench but stared straight ahead.

‘Look,' Leanne said, ‘just so you know, I never meant for any of this to happen. I'm not stupid, but Jay fed me line after line and I fell for it. That's all I'm saying.'

‘Why did you keep her?' Lisa asked.

Leanne leapt to her feet. ‘If it's a personal heart-to-heart you're after, you've come to the wrong place. You sent some bloke round to frighten me the other week and then you want me to meet you and,
like a mug, I do. Then you ask me this! You've got a bloody nerve.'

‘I'm sorry,' Lisa said, and she was. She didn't want to rile Leanne. ‘I just wanted to agree a severance settlement with you.'

‘A what?' Leanne asked.

Lisa took some documents out of her bag. ‘A severance settlement. I've got some papers here, nondisclosure agreements, that I'd like you to sign, and a cheque for eight hundred thousand pounds. I know that things must be difficult for you at the moment and I want to help. Then we'll let sleeping dogs lie.'

‘
What?
' Leanne shrieked.

‘I thought you might like it.'

‘
Like
it? You're more demented that I thought you were. This is my daughter we're talking about, not some “sleeping dog”. As for your money, you can shove it, because I don't need it and I certainly don't want it.'

Lisa stood up. ‘But if you go to the papers, it won't be just our lives you'll ruin. It'll be yours.' She paused for effect. There was no way she was leaving without these documents having been signed. ‘And Kia's.'

‘Well, for your information, I've never been to the papers. I don't use them like you do, Lisa. And I don't care if I have to go and work in a chippy rather than sell my story to the highest bidder. Because that's what I'll do.'

Lisa put the papers back into her bag. She couldn't believe Leanne's stupid brought-up-the-hard-way attitude. The money could set her up for life. If she didn't take it she was a fool.

Suddenly she noticed that a tall, handsome man was heading in their direction. It was the last thing she needed – some guy recognising them and wanting a picture or an autograph.

As he got closer it became clear that he knew Leanne. ‘Everything all right, Lee?'

‘Fine. Lisa Leighton and her eight-hundred-grand cheque were just leaving.'

The man didn't pause to consider the sum in question. ‘Bribery. That'd look interesting in court – and in the papers for that matter,' he said, his eyes narrowing.

‘I came here to speak to Leanne.'

‘Well, I'm her brother Markie. You talk to her, you talk to me,' Markie said, stepping closer to Lisa. ‘Now, why don't you fuck off back to your mansion and tell that mincing shit husband of yours that if he ever wants to see his kid, fine, we'll sort something, but not to get his missus to do his dirty work.'

Lisa was shocked. How could she have put herself in such a compromising position?

‘And if Leanne gets any more visitors of the sort you sent her in London I'll be coming to see you and you won't like me when I'm angry.'

As he spoke, Lisa saw a lunatic glint in his eye. She turned and walked away, not looking back, feeling like a complete fool, focusing on the car at the top of the hill.

The last thing she heard as she negotiated her way in her Louboutin heels was Leanne's brother saying, ‘She's not much to look at in real life.' These words hit her harder than Leanne's refusal to guarantee her silence.

When Tracy woke, her head was thumping. She needed water and a fag, but first she had to piece together the events of the previous evening. She prised open her eyes and confirmed that, yes, the man whose life she had made a misery for the past few years was back in her bed, and Kent had gone. Paul was lying on his back with his mouth open, catching flies. Tracy tried not to get angry about his mere existence. She'd have to give him a bit of time to bed in so they could get used to one another again.

She was fairly sure they'd had sex, but she couldn't be one hundred per cent certain. On the floor beside the bed she saw an overflowing ashtray and a couple of empty cans draped with her bra. She pushed back the duvet and got up.

‘Morning,' Paul said, smacking his lips as if he'd just eaten something he'd enjoyed.

‘Morning, yerself. What you making for breakfast?'
Tracy asked, pulling on her knickers and running her fingers through her greasy hair.

‘I'm not making breakfast, my sweet,' Paul said, sitting up.

‘Get fucked. You are,' Tracy said, in her usual charming manner.

‘Let me finish. I'm taking you out for a slap-up two-for-one at the Beacon and an all-dayer. What do you say to that?'

This was the man who had rarely bought her a pint in the past and now he was offering to take her all-day drinking. This was a turn-up for the books. ‘You're on,' she said. Now that Paul had come into some cash it looked like he was finally pulling his finger out.

The Beacon was as it always was on a Monday afternoon – packed with hardened drinkers making the most of the pint-for-a-pound-before-three offer. Tracy and Paul ordered fish and chips and a pint of strong lager from Val, who was eyeing them suspiciously. ‘You look like you want to say something, Val,' Tracy said pointedly.

Val smirked. ‘I'm saying nothing.' She placed the pints in front of Tracy and Paul.

‘What the …?'

Tracy turned, to find Jodie standing behind her, gaping. ‘What? Can't me and your dad come for a bit of lunch without everyone gawping?'

‘Er, yeah, you could, if you hadn't spent the last three years ringing the police on 'im and calling
him all the names under the sun,' Jodie said, wagging her head from side to side like a
Jerry Springer
guest. Tracy flipped her daughter the bird. ‘Nice,' Jodie said. She turned to her dad. ‘And what about you, you mug?'

‘Why am I a mug?' he asked, wounded.

‘D'you want a list?' Jodie said. ‘What a pair.'

‘Who puts a roof over your head?' Tracy snarled.

Jodie pretended to think for a minute. ‘Er, the council.'

‘Me, that's who. If I hadn't filled out the forms for the house, you wouldn't be living in it,' Tracy said, and meant it.

Jodie looked at Val. ‘Heard this? Mother of the Decade?'

Val laughed.

Tracy wasn't about to stand around with all the nosy regulars eavesdropping on her business.

‘I'm not listening to this. Me and your dad are going to sit over there, mind our own business, eat our dinner –'

‘And get pissed out of your heads,' Jodie finished.

‘So what if we do? It's none of your frigging business, is it, you nosy cow?' Tracy walked over to a table in the corner, Paul following. ‘Mouth on her,' Tracy said.

‘Don't know where she got it from,' Paul said, without a hint of irony.

Tracy shook her head. ‘Neither do I.'

A few hours later, Tracy and Paul were deep in conversation. ‘You can fuck off with that. It was “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”.' Tracy slammed her half-full pint glass on the table.

‘That song came out in 1971. We didn't know each other then,' Paul said.

‘We did. Our Markie was born in seventy-five. We were at school together, you mong. Course we knew each other.' Tracy sat back in her chair, swigging her lager triumphantly.

‘Our song was “Live And Let Die”.' Paul was adamant.

‘No, we liked it, but it wasn't our bloody song. Jesus, you'd forget your head if it were loose,' Tracy said. The two were so lost in their argument that they didn't hear the door behind them fly open and a drunken Kent fall through it. But Jodie did.

‘Val!' she exclaimed.

Val grabbed the baseball bat that was mounted behind the bar. ‘Is he going to cause trouble?' she asked.

‘God knows.' They watched Kent lurch towards where Tracy and Paul were sitting.

‘I fucking knew it!' he shouted.

Tracy swivelled round in her chair. ‘Don't show me up in here!'

‘You're showing yourself up, going back with him after everything we had.' Kent burst into tears. ‘I love you. I fucking love you.'

Paul stood up and went over to Kent to steady him. ‘Gerroff me!' Kent said, swinging at Paul, missing him, spinning round and falling in a heap on the floor.

Val had been watching all of this unfurl and put down the baseball bat because it was clear she wouldn't need it. She walked over to Kent. ‘Come on, you, out!' she said, hauling him to his feet.

He began to sing “I (who have nothing)” through the tears.

‘That's right, love,' Val said, as she deposited him outside the pub.

‘I can't believe he's just done that,' Tracy said, more to herself than anyone else.

Jodie, who had lived in the same house as Kent for the past three years, wasn't quite as shocked as her mother that he had turned up drunk and desperate. ‘What can't you believe? Until yesterday he thought he was spending the rest of his life with you.' She threw her mother a withering look.

‘Well, you know what thought did,' Paul said, draining his pint.

‘Is this you two back together, then?' Jodie asked wearily.

Paul looked at Tracy and she looked at him as he dragged another wad of twenty-pound notes out of his pocket. ‘I think it is,' Tracy said. She gave her daughter a smile that told Jodie this was the last she wanted to hear about it.

Leanne had left Kia playing with Jodie, who had offered to put her to bed. As there was no sign of Tracy, she had been glad of the offer. Jodie had filled her in on the spectacle Kent had made of himself in the pub. Leanne wasn't his biggest fan – she thought he was a pushover who did everything Tracy said – but he hadn't deserved the way Tracy had treated him, reinstating Paul in the house and expecting Kent to weather it. But Leanne knew that that was how Tracy operated. She must have grown tired of Kent, but she'd never have got rid of him without a back-up plan. Leanne couldn't work out yet why her dad was that plan. Tracy had done nothing but badmouth him since they'd split up. She was sure, though, that her mother's reasons would become clear at some stage. Until then, Leanne had other things to worry about.

She walked into the dusty, old-man's pub tucked away in a part of Bradington she didn't know. The
barmaid stared at her as if she was trying to work out whether or not it was her. Leanne stuck her head down and walked to the side of the bar. In the corner, a man, wearing a baseball cap pulled down to obscure his face, was hunched over a pint. She went over to him. ‘Tony?'

His face was badly swollen, the left side purple with bruising and the eye shut. ‘Thanks for coming.'

‘Oh, my God!' Leanne sank into a chair. ‘Who did this to you?'

Tony laughed bitterly. ‘Come on, Leanne, who do you think?'

She knew straight away. ‘Markie?'

‘Well, he doesn't have to get his hands dirty, does he? He just gets someone else to do it. I should know. I've dished it out for him enough times.' Tony picked up his pint and winced as he sipped.

‘Why, though?' Leanne asked, reaching across the table to touch his arm.

‘Swing.'

‘But you didn't do anything. We just had a conversation.'

‘Well, you might see it like that but your brother doesn't and I can't say I blame him. I knew about Mandy and Swing and I never said anything. I'd be fucked off too, wouldn't you?'

‘Maybe, but I wouldn't go around doling out
beatings.' Leanne got to her feet. ‘I'm going to his place now to tell him exactly what I think.'

‘No, Leanne, you're not. Sit down.' Leanne did as she was told. ‘I wanted to talk to you because even though he's your brother there's no one else I trust.'

Leanne felt an overwhelming rush of love for him. If things had been different, if he hadn't always been so bound by what Markie thought, maybe they could have made a go of it.

‘I feel like such a dick,' he went on. ‘I've got fuck-all now – and what for? Just because I knew what a slag Mandy was.'

‘You shouldn't be so hard on yourself,' Leanne murmured.

Tony's face contorted. ‘Easier said than done, Lee. I've got no job and no fucker else'll take me on because they know your Markie'll have something to say. I lost you because I never stood up to him.'

Leanne flushed. She'd never heard him admit this before.

‘And,' Tony went on, ‘to put the tin hat on it, I've got some Russian bint cluttering up my flat, pretending she's my missus.'

Despite herself, Leanne burst out laughing.

Tony stared at her, until a reluctant smile broke across his battered features. ‘Good, innit?'

‘Well, me and Kia are going to get a place when I've got a bit of money together. You're welcome to kip in the spare room.'

‘If I moved into a place with you, Leanne, it wouldn't be to kip in the spare room.' He gazed at her, and she shifted uncomfortably on her rear. ‘D'you ever think about me and you before you went off to set the world alight?'

This comment irked Leanne. ‘I didn't go off to set the world alight, did I? I went to London to earn some money and someone made a promise that they'd come with me but they never did.'

‘That was because I knew you wanted to be left alone. You didn't want some bonehead from Bradington following you around when you were hanging out with all those famous people.'