Rose grinned, relief flooding through her to see her friend in the flesh. It felt like a lifetime since they’d seen each other, and just having her friend here lifted Rose’s spirits immeasurably. The two women hugged each other tightly.
‘Hello, Shona,’ Maddie greeted her. ‘Where are your children?’
‘With their gran,’ Shona told Maddie, cheering silently at Rose the second the small girl looked away, disappointed. ‘When I finally tracked her down she offered to have them for a bit.’
‘I wanted to see Tyler. I like Tyler if he plays what I want to play. Still, I don’t like Aaran at all, so I shan’t miss him.’
‘He sends you his love too,’ Shona said, amused. She was one of the few people that Rose was able to relax with around Maddie. Either she didn’t care about Maddie’s lack of social niceties or didn’t notice them the way most adults did, with sniffy disapproval as if Rose had deliberately done all she could to bring her daughter up with an unerring ability to offend and annoy. ‘Mum didn’t think a trip up north would be good for
them
, mainly because she thinks the north is full of cannibals and trolls, so they’re having a few days with her. Which means, I’m off the leash! Where’s the talent round here? I’m gagging.’
‘Very nice, I must say,’ Jenny, who emerged from behind the front door, muttered quite decidedly over her breath.
‘Who’s this, babe?’ Shona asked Rose, as she dumped a couple of carrier bags full of her stuff on the pavement and hugged her with one arm, whilst taking a packet of cigarettes out of the pocket in her denim jacket, and expertly inserting one into her mouth. ‘Tourist information?’
‘This is Jenny. She’s my … our landlady.’ Rose glanced at Jenny, who wasn’t taking much trouble to hide her disapproval of Shona, which to be fair, in Shona’s case was usually fairly justified. It didn’t help that she had rocked up in the tightest pair of white jeans that Rose had ever seen, with a full three inches of fake-tanned tummy blossoming over the waistband before being barely covered by a flesh-pink top that plunged in a deep V, leaving very little to the imagination. Which was exactly how Shona liked it. It was funny, odd even, because Rose knew that despite her promiscuous dress sense and feisty man-eating attitude, Shona’s actual sexual experience hadn’t been that much more comprehensive than her own. There had been that ill-advised encounter with the neighbour’s oldest son when she was fifteen, a boy she used to knock around with when the girls had waitressed together, and who had been much more into Shona than she had been into him, and then there had been Ryan. And despite his constant jealous accusations, violent suspicions and rages, Shona had never seriously looked at another man since she’d first set eyes on him, not even after he went to prison for hurting her. And yet, when you met her
for
the first time, it was a little like meeting Mae West, updated for the twenty-first century in her cut-off tops, her huge hooped earrings swaying back and forth.
‘No smoking on the premises,’ Jenny said, nodding at the lit cigarette in Shona’s mouth. ‘Or drinking, or funny business.’
‘Funny business?’ Shona took a deep drag of a cigarette, before flicking it onto the pavement and letting it smoke quietly away in the gutter. ‘Nothing funny about it, darling, not when I’m doing it.’
‘Sooooo!’ Rose said cheerfully, picking up Shona’s bags, quietly stubbing the errant cigarette out with the toe of her shoe. ‘Let’s get you to your room, shall we?’
‘I’ve tell you what, I’ve never driven so far in my life,’ Shona said as she followed Rose up the stairs, Maddie and Jenny in hot pursuit. ‘I had to borrow a ton off Mum and that barely covered the petrol, so I’ll probably be doing a midnight flit from here.’
‘I want payment up front!’ Jenny said, immediately rising to the bait that Shona had dangled so cruelly in front of her, much to Shona’s amusement.
‘It’s OK, Jenny,’ Rose said, as she opened the door to the room next to hers, which she had requested specifically for her friend. ‘Shona’s only joking. Aren’t you, Shona?’
‘Yep,’ Shona smiled briefly at Jenny, which was about as warm as Rose ever saw her get with someone before she knew them. Why she had singled Rose out to befriend from the very beginning, even back in the café days, Rose had yet to work out. It wasn’t as if they were ever obvious soul mates, even after they realised that their relationships had more in common than either one was comfortable admitting. Perhaps for all of Shona’s
bravado
, her leader-of-the-pack attitude and the sense of humour that always made her so popular, she’d looked back then at that skinny little orphaned teen selling ice cream because she didn’t know what else to do, and seen a true reflection of herself, the way she really was behind all the cut-price glamour. In any case, Rose was reluctant to ask; her dependence on Shona, to be the one person to reassure her that for all her faults she wasn’t completely mad, made her reluctant to do anything that might jinx her only adult friendship.
‘When you first arrived Jenny saw you out the window and said you looked like a chav,’ Maddie told Shona cheerfully, sitting demurely on the bed as Shona tipped the contents of one of her carrier bags into a drawer. ‘Or a “no-good gypo”.’
‘Maddie,’ Rose grumbled, cursing her daughter’s uncanny ability to report verbatim adult conversations that she wasn’t suppose to have listened to.
Shona raised a plucked brow at Jenny.
‘Breakfast is between eight and eight thirty, I don’t take orders, I don’t do coffee.’ Jenny was clearly determined not to be intimidated by Shona. ‘I take as I find and speak my mind. That’s the way I am. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.’
‘Or,’ Rose said, raising her palms, ‘or I could just make us all a nice cup of tea.’
‘I’ve got to go out,’ Jenny said uncertainly, looking as if she was unwilling to leave Shona unsupervised or, indeed, without an armed guard. ‘Would you like to join us for dinner tonight, Rose? And her too, I suppose.’
‘Cheers, thanks,’ Shona said. ‘I will, as I don’t suppose there’s a KFC round here. What is it, haggis or some shit?’
‘OK, thank you, see you later!’ Rose said, shutting the door on Jenny before a full-blown fight could break out.
‘Why do you do it?’ Rose asked Shona as soon as she heard Jenny stomping down the stairs, muttering furiously to herself. ‘You’re not like that, like some cartoon psycho, why do you let people think you are?’
‘Dunno.’ Shona shrugged at Maddie, who was sorting through her make-up bag, a rare treat, as Rose rarely wore any. She was having a wonderful time, not because she was a little girl who liked to play dress up, but because she liked to sort things. Within a few minutes Shona’s extensive collection of lipsticks would be lined up, organised by colour gradient, and her eye shadows the same. ‘It’s easier, I suppose, if that’s how people expect me to be. It’s too much effort to make them see different.’
‘I see you.’ Rose shook her head. ‘It doesn’t take any effort at all.’
‘Ah, no, I think you’ll find that’s you. You’re mental, it’s practically official.’ Shona glanced at Maddie and, picking up a bright pink lipstick, pointed her in the direction of the bathroom next door. ‘Go and try it on. I bet it’ll look lovely.’
‘Really?’ Maddie eyed the lipstick suspiciously. ‘I’m only a child, you know. I don’t want to look tarty.’
‘Oh, go on, you old stick-in-the-mud. If you’re a child act like one! Smear it on good and thick!’ Still looking uncertain, Maddie obediently trotted off to experiment with make-up, Shona careful to close the door after her.
‘Dickhead’s telling anyone who’ll listen that you’ve had a breakdown,’ Shona said, suddenly serious. ‘That you’ve run off with Maddie and that he’s worried for your mental health, that you’ve been talking a lot about your mother’s suicide recently.’
‘What?’ Rose exclaimed, her eyes widening, trying to take in exactly what Shona was telling her. ‘He’s saying I want to kill myself?’
‘He’s not saying exactly, he’s saying everything but, and then letting people fill in the gaps. My mum heard it off Yvette Patel, who heard it off that nurse, Margaret. Apparently he “confided” in her about what a terrible burden it’s been, keeping your problems hidden from view all this time, and how he’s worried sick about Maddie’s safety.’
‘But that’s not true, that’s not true at all.’ Rose was horrified, sickened and scared. She knew Richard, she knew how very good he was at being believable. It was his speciality, getting people to trust him, to put their faith in him ‘The
last
thing I want to do is kill myself. If anything, I want to save my life, and Maddie’s, by getting away from him! Has he called the police, social services?’
‘I don’t know,’ Shona apologised, seeing the anxiety wrought on Rose’s face. ‘But I do know that even if he has, they’re not going to start a nationwide search straight away and do a reconstruction on
Crimewatch
. The police are used to couples slagging each other off in the heat of an argument, trust me. The neighbours called them out on me and Ryan more times than I want to remember. Only a couple of times did they take us seriously, and even then they needed both of us to agree before they did anything, that’s why they never did anything until … Anyway, I reckon it’s the same for the social. They’ve got enough on their plates without being sent off on a wild-goose chase at a moment’s notice, even if it is Dr Dickhead making all the noise. I think you’ve got a little while yet before you have to really worry. Like I said, Rose is mental, chasing some bloody
bloke
across the country, just because he once sent her a postcard, but not in
that
way.’
‘Said to who?’ Rose asked her anxiously. ‘You didn’t tell anyone I was here, did you?’
‘No!’ Shona said instantly. ‘Well. Yes, I told my mum. I had to. You don’t just get lent a car, your kids taken care of and given a load of cash just to take off for no reason. But Mum won’t say anything, I swear. You know how grateful she was for how you helped me and the boys before; she’s not going to land you in it.’
‘I hope not,’ Rose said anxiously, wondering what Richard was up to even now to make sure that the whole world would believe him when he said it was she who was the danger. She who was unstable and couldn’t be trusted. If anyone could do it, it was Richard.
‘Look, don’t worry,’ Shona said reassuringly, as she dropped an arm around Rose’s shoulder, kissing her on the cheek, hugging her tightly and lifting her chin in defiance. ‘We’re miles from fucking anywhere here. The right arse-end of the universe. What fuckwit would ever think of looking for us here? So, where are the local shag spots? I hear it’s all about dogging in the country.’
‘Honestly, as if you would!’ Rose said, shaking her head at her friend. ‘That’s another thing I don’t get about you, always playing the tart, when really we both know nothing could be further from the truth. You’re just a big old romantic at heart. Always believing in the happy ending.’
‘Well, you’ve got to believe, haven’t you?’ Shona said. ‘Otherwise what else have you got? Anyway, it’s you who wants me to pack in Ryan for good, so maybe I need to start looking around.’
Shona
was thoughtful. ‘Hey, maybe I’ll marry a farmer, bake cakes and shit.’
Rose laughed. ‘
That
I would like to see.’
‘Well, you never know what sort of romance a quickie in a car park might lead to,’ Shona chuckled, digging Rose in the ribs.
‘What’s a quickie in a car park?’ Maddie asked, returning from the bathroom with a thick slick of pink gloss plastered around her mouth.
‘Um, it’s like a sort of parking ticket,’ Rose said.
‘Aw, now don’t you look pretty?’ Shona said, holding a mirror up for Maddie to look in, making her giggle. ‘You stick with your Aunty Shona, I’ll teach you the true meaning of style.’
Rose looked at her barely dressed friend, a pumped-up invention of a tough, sexy woman that had nothing to do with the real person that lay beneath, and shook her head.
‘Only over my dead body,’ she said.
‘Tell us all about it then,’ Jenny said as soon as Rose, Shona and Maddie appeared in the dining room. ‘How did things go with your dad? I rang Ted to find out, but he wouldn’t answer his phone, bloody boy.’
Rose puffed out her cheeks, looking at Maddie, who hadn’t been the least bit curious about how the meeting with her long-lost grandfather had gone. Nor had she looked like she missed Rose when she turned up after two large whiskys and with a slightly fuzzy head. If anything, she’d looked mildly inconvenienced to have to stop playing with the doll’s house and engage with her mother. Sometimes – often, actually – Rose would look at Maddie and wonder if the child loved her at all. Although more
often
than not Maddie’s anxiety when separated from what she knew was acute, Rose didn’t think that Maddie’s source of comfort particularly had to be her mother or her father. A favourite jumper, or Bear would do equally well. It was certainly true that Maddie had slotted happily alongside Jenny with the sort of ease of companionship that Rose found very rare herself. For her part she loved Maddie with a passion that she never thought would be possible, and one day, she supposed, it would just be nice to know with certainty that the little girl loved her back.
‘It went how I expected, I suppose,’ Rose said. ‘He was shocked to see me, and very unhappy that I’d come at all. He really just wanted me to leave.’
‘I feel like that when you make me play with Belinda Morris,’ Maddie said, carefully removing all the green beans from her plate, referring to the little girl that lived two doors down. Richard was keen that his daughter appeared to be just like all the other little girls and had encouraged the friendship, only for Rose to have to make excuses once Maddie had called Belinda ‘an insufferable little fool’ in front of her mother, claiming, ‘She’s got a stupid face.’
‘Awful, how a man could turn his back on his own child that way,’ Jenny said, looking at Brian, who was quietly reading the paper. ‘You should do something about it, Brian.’
‘Me?’ Brian said, affronted. ‘What the bloody hell should I do about it?’