Tough Love (10 page)

A Sky reporter took up the story: ‘Rumours have surrounded the celebrity couple for years with regard to their childless marriage, but their spokesperson insists that they will have their own children when they are ready. For the moment they are happy to give a better life to a child born into poverty.' He went on to talk generally about the Leightons but everyone in the country already knew everything he was telling them unless they'd been living in a cave for the past decade.

Leanne tucked her knees under her chin and stared at the TV: the wedding in a hillside mansion in the Scottish Highlands; the A list party they threw every year in the grounds of their Italian mansion; Lisa having dinner with Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes; Jay showing Tom Cruise a good night out in Mayfair; and the one that stung her most, the staged picture of Jay giving Lisa a happy-go-lucky shoulder ride on the beach in Cancún the week after news broke about his affair with an unnamed celebrity.

Leanne could feel Markie watching her. A single tear plopped down her cheek and she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.

‘You all right, mate?' Markie asked, softening.

Leanne shook her head. She knew that if she said anything she'd collapse into floods of tears.

‘Come here.' Markie held out his arms.

She got up and went across to where he was sitting, fell into them and began to sob. Markie stroked her hair, allowing her to cry, not asking what was wrong.

After a minute or so, she pulled back, her face swollen with tears, and looked at her brother. ‘I'm sorry, Markie.' She sniffed and took the tissue he was offering her. ‘You've got your own shit to deal with. It's just all this –' She waved her arm around to indicate Tracy's house ‘– it's too much to get my head round, if you know what I mean.'

‘That makes two of us, darl.' He pushed the hair away from her eyes.

‘What am I doing, Markie? I had everything I wanted and I've blown it, haven't I?'

‘You've not “blown it”, you're just having a bad patch, same as me.'

‘It's not the same! I'm not a bad person!' Leanne cried. Immediately she knew she'd gone too far.

‘And I am?' he asked.

‘I didn't mean it like that. I'm just feeling sorry myself, that's all.'

Markie got up and went into the kitchen. Leanne picked up the remote control and switched off Sky News. Then she followed her brother. In the kitchen she said, ‘Markie, I didn't mean it.'

He was slapping bacon on to a baking tray.

‘There's coke on that,' she pointed out.

Markie's shoulders dropped. ‘Fucking brilliant,' he said, took off the bacon, dusted it and the tray, then replaced it and stuck it in the oven. He looked at his sister. ‘Am I that hard to talk to?'

‘You're not hard to talk to at all. It's just what you do when you find stuff out, that's the worrying thing.'

‘Look, Lee, I've been in Strangeways for two years. And let me tell you, it fucks with your head. And then I come out to this.'

Did Markie mean he'd been abused while he was in prison? She'd read it happened quite a lot but she'd thought he knew how to handle himself. ‘What did they do?' she asked, panic-stricken.

‘Jesus, Leanne, I didn't get bummed in the showers! I was just in a room like the fucking box room upstairs for all that time listening to some half-wit junkie from Eccles peck me head night and day.' He smiled for the first time, amused by his sister's assumption. He pointed at his backside. ‘Only person getting up there is the undertaker to pull me giblets out.'

‘Markie!' Leanne threw a tea towel at him.

‘Yesterday should never have happened,' he said.

‘Try telling Mandy that.'

‘Fuck Mandy. I've been a mug to that girl since I met her and what happens? She shags Swing, while I'm bankrolling her and her shitty ideas – that bloody nail bar, for instance, what happened to that?'

Leanne knew only too well what had happened to it: it had gone bust, as had the tanning salon. The last thing Bradington had needed was another of those. It had already had one on every corner.

‘I propose to her before I go inside,' he went on, ‘big grand gesture, keep her quiet.' Leanne raised an eyebrow. ‘Don't look at me like that, Lee, you know what she's like as well as anyone. If Teddy Sheringham walked in here now, she'd be off like a shot. All she's bothered about is money in her pocket and having the biggest and best in town. She didn't love me. I knew that. We were just used to each other, you know how it is.'

Leanne didn't, really. ‘Why go through with it, then?'

‘I didn't know she'd shagged one of my best mates, did I?' Markie said bitterly.

‘Come on. You know what I mean. Why let her go to all that trouble if you just thought she'd up and leave?'

Markie opened the fridge and sniffed the milk bottle, then swigged from it. He thought for a moment. ‘I didn't have time not to go through with it, did I? I'm in the nick blissfully unaware that she's planning a wedding to rival Liz Hurley's when I come out. What am I meant to say? “Tell you what, sweets, cancel the plumed horses, I don't think we'll be needing 'em.”' Markie sighed.

‘Well, I wouldn't like to have to say no to
Mandy,' Leanne said, looking up just in time to see a Transit van screech to a halt outside the house and a livid Mandy jump out of the passenger seat. Her brother, Neil, got out of the driver's side and stomped to the back of the vehicle. He pulled up the shutter noisily as Mandy hammered on the front door.

‘I know you're in there, you fucking wanker!' she yelled.

Markie jumped to his feet. Leanne went up to Kia; she knew her daughter would be scared if she heard this commotion.

At the top of the stairs she found the little girl coming out of the bedroom they were sharing. ‘What's wrong, Mummy?' Kia asked.

Leanne took her hand. ‘Nothing, darling. Auntie Mandy and Uncle Markie are a bit cross with each other …'

‘Get out here now, you piece of shit!' Mandy screamed.

Leanne winced. From the landing window, she could see Neil throwing Markie's belongings on to the ground: chairs, a mattress and bags of clothes.

‘You can fuck off, you deranged bitch!' Markie shouted through the glass door.

‘I will not fuck off. You've ruined everything!' Mandy shrieked. Then she smashed her fist into the glass-panelled front door, shattering the pane, which sliced into her hand.

‘Fuckin' hell!' Markie bellowed.

The door to Tracy's bedroom flew open. ‘What the bleedin' hell is she up to?' Tracy stormed down the stairs.

Now, to Leanne's horror, Neil was dousing all of Markie's things with petrol. Mandy was moaning, blood dripping all over the pavement from her hand.

‘Now listen here, you,' Tracy shouted, through the hole in her front door. ‘If I hear another fucking dicky bird out of you it'll be more than a chopped-up hand you've got, you hear me?'

Leanne pulled Kia close to her, trying to shield her from the violence that she found all too familiar. She could feel her daughter shaking.

‘And you can get fucked, you mad bitch!' Mandy howled.

‘Mad? That's rich coming from you!' Tracy roared back.

Markie, who had been in the front room weighing up his options, suddenly burst past his mum. ‘Leave her to me.' He threw open the front door and Leanne saw him shove Mandy to one side as a ball of flame knocked him backwards off his feet. Tracy followed Markie outside to shout at her daughter-in-law.

‘You're dead' was all Leanne heard her brother say to Neil, and then a bone-shattering thump. Mandy began screaming again but this time she
was pleading with Markie to leave her brother alone. Markie was asking Neil why he was getting involved, helping his slag of a sister, and all hell seemed to be breaking loose. Leanne took Kia, who had begun to sob, into their bedroom and shut the door. She grabbed her iPod and put on one of Kia's favourite songs from
The Little Mermaid.

‘I don't like it here, Mummy,' Kia sobbed.

Neither do I, Leanne thought, as she listened to Mandy and her mother screaming at the top of their lungs and Markie dealing out the pasting of a lifetime to Neil while his worldly belongings blazed to cinders.

Scott was sitting in front of the TV watching
Extreme Makeover
and rubbing Charly's shoulders as she painted her nails. ‘Can't we watch something else?' he complained.

‘Like what?
Police, Camera, Action
?' Charly said sarcastically.

‘Well. Yeah.' Scott loved that programme. He knew a few people who'd been on it. Felons, not coppers, of course.

Scott was happy staying in with Charly for the time being. Yesterday he'd had enough excitement to last him a lifetime and, anyway, whenever he went out, someone wanted to ask him about what had really gone on at the wedding, why Swing was in hospital, why Markie was holed up at his mum's. Scott was playing daft but he didn't have to play anything: he hadn't a clue what had gone on. All he knew was that they'd all been having a blinding time, then Mandy's crying and the party's over.

‘I want to see what she looks like,' Charly said, of the woman with the bandaged face on the screen.

‘She looks like shit,' Scotty said, kneading her shoulder.

‘When it's done, you div.' Charly wriggled to get Scott to work his hand a bit further down her back.

‘Well, switch it back on when it's nearly finished. No point watching all the gory bits.'

Charly turned round and eyeballed him as if he was the thickest person she had ever met.

‘Scott, if I'm going to get my tits done to 34FF, don't you think I might want to know what I'll have to go through? This is research.'

‘Who's paying for that, then?' Scott asked. It was news to him.

‘I am. I'll get a credit card.' Charly swung her head back to the TV.

‘No one'll give you one.'

‘Well, I'll just have to get the money another way, won't I?'

Scott thought for a moment. ‘What d'you mean by that?'

‘I don't mean anything. I'll just have to get a job.'

‘But you're not qualified to do anything.'

‘There's something I'm good at.'

Scott didn't like where this was going. ‘Such as?'

‘You know! I could work at Poles Apart.' Scott dug his fingers into her shoulder. ‘Ow!' she squealed.

‘You are not working in a pole-dancing club!' Scott spat.

‘I just want to be independent and you keep holding me back.'

Scott looked at his beautiful girlfriend. He couldn't think of anything worse than a load of leering men paying money to watch her dance. ‘How much do new boobs cost?'

‘About five grand.'

‘Right.' He wondered where on earth he'd ever get that kind of money. He'd have to shift one hell of a lot of knock-off gear. ‘I'll see what I can do.'

Charly jumped up and hugged him. ‘I love you, Scott Crompton.' She kissed him on the lips.

He smiled. ‘I love you too.' And he did. With all his heart.

*

It was Kia's first day at school and she was nervous. But not as nervous as Leanne. Leanne had enrolled her at Bolingbroke Primary last week, the school that she herself had attended twenty years previously. There had been little involved in the process. Not like the hoop-jumping exercise she had gone through to get Kia into that private prep school in London.

She walked Kia to her classroom door and the teacher came out to greet them. ‘Hi, Kia, I'm Ms
O'Donnell,' she said. Leanne warmed to her immediately. ‘Now, we're going to have a lot of fun today, aren't we?' Kia nodded shyly. Ms O'Donnell looked at Leanne and smiled. ‘I'm sure she'll be fine. My name's Helen.' Leanne shook her outstretched hand. No teacher at the school in London had ever introduced themselves by their first name.

She kissed her daughter and the teacher took Kia's hand. As the little girl gazed round her new classroom, Helen said to Leanne, ‘I'll come out to see you when school's finished and tell you how she's done.'

‘Thanks. I'd really appreciate that. Oh, I'm Leanne by the way. Sorry, how rude.'

‘No need to apologise.' Helen smiled. ‘I know who you are. My boyfriend's a massive fan.'

Leanne blushed. No one had mentioned her public persona for several days and she had been getting used to the anonymity. But she had spent the last five years in and out of the tabloids so she could hardly expect no one to recognise her.

At 3.30, she was waiting for Kia outside her classroom. Her stomach was in knots. She hoped that Kia had had a nice day but she feared the worst. The door opened and the children piled out. Kia ran to her mother, and Helen followed her, beaming.

‘It's been really good today, Mum, and I've got
some new friends, Jada and Beth, and I've been doing reading and it was bigger books than we did back at home but I was good at it, I think, and we did a painting and I painted Tower Bridge!' Kia gabbled, and held up a picture that was thick with wet paint. A few blobs trickled off and hit the floor. ‘And no one else had been to London, so Miss showed them some pictures in a book and everyone was really excited that I used to live there.'

Leanne rummaged in her bag, produced a tissue and mopped up the paint.

‘I think it's fair to say that Kia's enjoyed herself today, haven't you, Kia?' the teacher asked, and Kia nodded vigorously.

‘I can't tell you how made up I am,' Leanne said. ‘I wasn't sure how she was going to settle in.'

‘They think I talk funny, Mummy,' Kia said, giggling. ‘I don't, do I?'

‘She's brought the house down today. All the kids wanted to be her friend. I don't think there'll be any problem with her fitting in,' Helen said.