Two Women (41 page)

Then, when it did, it was everyone else’s fault.

‘Who did you get it off?’

He couldn’t look her in the face.

‘Come on, Bal, who’s the culprit?’

‘Maggie Brittan.’ His voice was so low Susan thought she was hearing things.

‘Not tattooed Maggie!’ Her voice was incredulous.

Everyone knew Maggie, she was a legend in her own lunchtime. She went with anyone, and that meant anyone. She took them on mob-handed after a few drinks and laughed about it afterwards.

The Brittans were even lower in the food chain than her own family and that was saying something.

‘Oh, Barry, what have you done? She’s had everything from crabs right through the card. What possessed you to sleep with her?’

He shook his head, bewildered. He didn’t know why now.

‘She was there, that’s all.’

Susan answered him sarcastically.

‘Like Everest? Jesus, Barry, you don’t half get up my nose at times. Suppose I was to go out tonight and see a nice bloke. I fancy him and he fancies me, so I bring him home here and give him a right seeing to. What would you think of me then? Because there are men who would go to bed with me, Bal, you just proved it by sleeping with Maggie Brittan. If she can pull, I’m fucking sure I can.’

He took a deep draft of Scotch and didn’t even attempt to answer her.

‘Do you see how people might judge your behaviour now, Bal, even though you’re a man? Do you know how I felt that day I lost Jason? Can you imagine if we lost little Rose like that - because you couldn’t keep it in your fucking trousers! Put yourself in my place, Bal, think of what that did to me, knowing you were putting something in me that only hours earlier had been stuffed into someone else . . .’

Her words brought home to him the fact that his cock had been stuffed in Maggie’s mouth not that long ago and he felt an urgent desire to go and wash himself again. Susan had only narrowly dissuaded him from pouring bleach on it, to get it really clean.

As she looked at her husband she felt an overwhelming hatred for him. She knew her words had meant nothing to him, could never mean anything to him. He was only ever interested in himself.

What he wanted, what he needed.

Never a thought for anyone else.

‘Roselle will kill me, Susan.’

She didn’t bother to answer him.

‘Like I said before, you’ll have to get a test. Nothing else you can do, is there?’

He didn’t answer her.

‘Look, are you sure Chopper got it off her? He might have got it elsewhere.’

‘If he slapped her, then he’d traced back the source of his infection. I’ll see him anyway, though. I have to, don’t I?’

Susan nodded. ‘I suppose this ain’t the time to ask but I want to get a new three-piece, this one’s had it.’

Barry nodded distractedly.

‘Already? Okay, what you like, I’ll pay. Do the place up if you want. But, Sue, promise you’ll help me out. Come to the clinic with me, will you?’

She nodded sadly.

As much as he annoyed her, made her full of hatred and anger at times, she could never really resist the pull of him when he was like this. The real Barry as she thought of him.

‘Don’t worry, Bal, we’ll sort it all out, mate. Now you’d better get to work or Roselle will be wondering where you’ve got to.’

Roselle was worried. Barry was acting so strangely. He had developed a swollen testicle, a boil according to him, so he couldn’t have sex with her. But that had been over a week ago and she had sneaked a look at him in the bathroom mirror earlier on and he seemed to be in perfect working order to her. Then, when she had caressed him, he had almost pushed her from him.

‘Is there something going on, Barry? Something I should know about?’

He looked down as he buttoned his shirt, so he didn’t have to look her in the face. He raised his voice, as if he was annoyed, couldn’t believe what she was asking him.

‘For crying out loud, Roselle, I’ve been feeling really rough. It happens. I’ll be okay in a day or two. Don’t start hassling me, please. Just let me get meself sorted out.’

She stared at him.

‘What’s going on, Barry?’ Her voice brooked no arguments and finally he looked her in the face.

‘What do you mean?’ He was still trying to fend her off.

‘I’m telling you now, Barry, I need to know what the problem is. If you tell me, we can sort it out. If you don’t tell me and try and keep up this charade of everything being hunky-dory, then I’m afraid I’m going to cause you untold aggravation until I get to the bottom of it. So let’s talk now and see what we can do, eh?’

Barry stared into her beautiful strained face. She was everything to him, he knew that. But he also knew she would never understand his need for other women. Susan did. Because she was so grateful to have him, she would swallow anything. But Roselle was a different kettle of fish.

He also knew that she would haunt him until she knew the score. She wasn’t stupid. She could nag for England when the fancy took her and he could see the fancy taking her even as they spoke.

He tried a different tack.

‘Let me go and see babes, little Rosie. I promised Susan I’d run them up the clinic. When I get back we can have a proper talk, okay?’

She stared at him for a full twenty seconds before she answered.

‘I want you back here by twelve and my questions answered. Otherwise, Barry, you are out. Out of here and out of my life. Right?’

He saw the sadness in her eyes and the determination and felt an overwhelming sensation of being trapped. He got his results today, he would know the score by then. He would have to play it by ear.

He smiled, a big sunny smile he could have sworn he did not have inside him.

‘Let me go and see me babe and then we’ll go from there, all right?’

Roselle nodded almost imperceptibly and Barry felt every muscle in his body relax. He had a few hours. If he wasn’t infected he could sort himself out. Although it would not have bothered him if he gave it to anyone else, he was terrified of giving it to Roselle and even more terrified she had already caught it.

The thought brought him out in a sweat every time it entered his head. That the disease could already be moving through her veins, crawling through her body and waiting to give her the first attack, terrified him more than anything else.

He also didn’t know if he could bring himself to touch her. Suppose she was infected and infected him with it again? It might make what he had even worse. Who knew? No one seemed to know very much about the illness.

At the Whitechapel VD clinic they’d seemed as ignorant about it as he was. But Barry had spoken to Chopper, and Chopper had told Barry that he had definitely got it from Maggie.

Like him, Chopper used women as and when the fancy took him.

Like him, Chopper was now shitting hot bricks and throwing them out of the window. He still had to explain the full implications of the disease to his wife.

Kissing Roselle briefly on the lips Barry left the flat, wondering if he was leaving it for the last time. Whether it would still be his home later on in the day. He used her car, just in case he never got the opportunity again. Because if he had the big H, as Chopper called it, he was well and truly fucked in more ways than one.

 

Susan made them both a cup of tea and placed Barry’s on the table in front of him. She had sent all the kids to Doreen’s so they could go to the clinic in peace. She had not retrieved them afterwards because of Barry’s utter shock and disgust with himself.

He was positive.

The funny thing was, she still felt sorry for him. Because she knew him so well, she understood he never thought about anything until it was too late.

Well, it was too late now.

Roselle wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole, and who could blame her?

‘I’ll kill Maggie Brittan. As God is my witness, I’ll swing for that slut.’

He was angry, but Susan realised there was no conviction in his voice. He knew that what he had was never going away. Even killing Maggie couldn’t make it go away. She’d given him the disease but he knew deep inside himself that
he
was the real cause. He had brought this on himself.

That was what he was finding so hard to accept.

‘You’ll have to tell her, Bal. She has a right to know.’

He pushed the tea away from him with a violent shove, sending it all over the table and the floor.

‘How can I, Susan? You know what she’s like. She won’t swallow this, she’ll go fucking mental.’

Susan picked up the mug from the floor and automatically started to clear up the tea stains with a cloth.

‘Mental? She’ll go ape shit. But she still has a right to know, Bal. This is too serious to brush under the carpet. Much too serious to forget about and hope it will go away. You heard what that man at the clinic said. Your first attack can be mild or severely damaging. It could kill her. You have to tell her.’

She was rinsing the cloth under the tap when Barry’s fist hit her across the side of the head.

‘Don’t fucking tell me what I have to do, Susan. I’ll deal with this in my own way.’

Her ears were ringing from the blow. She put her hand on the sink to steady herself.

‘What you picking on me for, Bal? What have I done?’

There were tears in her voice.

‘I’m your wife, mate. I’ve stood by you through everything and you do this to me? You hit
me
when all I’m trying to do is help?’

He stared at her, but she knew of old that he wasn’t seeing her. He was thinking how he could get himself out of trouble as usual.

‘Unlike when it happened with me, Bal, a few injections and a course of antibiotics won’t be enough. She needs to get herself tested soon. As fast as possible.’

He was nodding.

‘I could always say I got it from you, Sue.’

She widened her eyes and opened her mouth but no words would emerge from it.

He grabbed her arms and cried, ‘It’s the only thing I can say, ain’t it, you silly bitch? She can’t moan at me for giving
you
one, can she? You’re me fucking wife.’

Susan shook her head in despair.

‘You bastard. You’d let her think I had it so she’d swallow it a bit better? And who am I supposed to have contracted it from, Bal? The phantom herpes giver of East London? Who are you going to blame?’

He was biting his bottom lip. Wendy did it when she was worried about something. Any second now he would chew at the side of his thumbnail.

She knew him so well.

‘I’m sorry, Bal, but there’s no way Roselle will swallow that one. She knows me better than you do. She knows I wouldn’t put it about. I wish we could say the same about you, mate.’

He was staring at her now, eyes fixed on hers.

‘It’s the only thing I can say. I can’t come back here, Sue. I can’t.’ His voice was a whine. ‘I’m used to better these days. I couldn’t hack living here again. I’d lose me job then where would you be, eh? No more money coming in for you to spend on three-piece suites and the kids.’

Susan knew he was trying to talk her into taking the blame, make it easier for him with Roselle. Make her into the dirty individual who’d caused this epidemic of disease.

She shook her head sadly.

‘I’m sorry, Bal, but there’s no way I will carry the can for this lot. No way.’

She saw his fist clench and flinched instinctively, but he didn’t raise it. Instead he stormed from the little house and slammed the door behind him.

 

Roselle’s face was so white she looked terminally ill.

‘Susan has given you what, Bal?’

He dropped his eyes to the carpet and answered her softly.

‘Fucking herpes, the whore. Apparently she kipped with some geezer from the pub.’

He opened his arms as if he was trapped himself and unsure what else to tell her, which of course was true. Barry was playing it all by ear at the moment. Hoping against hope that Roselle swallowed everything and forgave him. Susan
was
her mate after all.

Roselle, though, was still trying to take in what he had said to her. Herpes? He had caught herpes? Off Susan. His wife.

She let the information seep into her brain for a full five minutes. The longest five minutes of Barry Dalston’s life.

Then she started to laugh. It was a high-pitched wail of sound, nearer to tears. It had the underwater quality of laughter tinged with heartbreak and sadness.

‘You rotten bastard! You’d blame poor Susan for something like this? Blame her for something
you’ve
done. Where did it really come from, Bal - Marianne? Was it that little whore you picked it up from or was there another one tucked away somewhere?’

That she had hit the nail so accurately on the head threw him. She knew him better than he’d thought. She wasn’t about to swallow his story of getting it from Susan. His wife had too much respect for herself to sleep around. Deep inside he knew that much and so did Roselle.

She stood up, all righteous indignation and hurt pride.

‘I want you to get your stuff and leave, please. I will not talk about it any more. I want you out. And, Barry, don’t make me involve Ivan in all this. Because you give me any aggravation and I will involve him, I swear on my son’s life.’

He watched as she pulled a jacket on, her face still set in that mask of incredulous shock.

‘I’ll be back in an hour and I’ll expect every trace of you out of this place by then.’

He went to her, tried to pull her into his arms.

‘Please, Roselle, I’ll do anything . . .’

She interrupted him then, a half-smile on her face that was full of hatred and disgust.

‘Don’t you think you’ve already done enough? If I do have this herpes I’ll hate you till the day I fucking die, you piece of shit!’