the heavy pot she held. She brushed past Geoff and swung the vessel sideways, with all her might, into Jimmy’s cheek. He rolled away groaning, trying to avoid another blow from her. She followed, wordlessly, doggedly, and smashed the pot down again on his head as he writhed at her feet.
Geoff tried to push Fran clear as he saw the knife rising in Jimmy’s fist but he was too late and it scored Fran’s belly, finally drawing a rasping sound from her. Geoff came down on top of Jimmy, pinning him to floor to try and wrestle the blade from his grip. A moment later there was a loud grunt followed by a cough.
Geoff struggled to his feet and looked down at Jimmy’s rapidly blinking eyes. Suddenly the lids fell and his head sagged to one side. Geoff turned to the women in the room. All three were looking expressionlessly at the man sprawled on the floor.
‘Is he dead?’ Tilly croaked.
‘Dunno … Think so …’ Geoff answered hoarsely.
‘Good,’ Tilly said tonelessly. She finally managed to drag herself to her feet using the bed edge. One of her hands rested on her daughter’s down-bent head, just briefly, before she staggered over to her bleeding sister.
‘Let’s see,’ she said and, dragging Fran’s trembling hands from where they covered a crimson stain, began to pull apart her clothes.
Geoff went to the bed and sat down next to Alice. ‘You hurt?’
‘No … I’m not … no, I’m not … he didn’t … I’m not …’ she whispered through chattering teeth.
Geoff put his arm about her and drew her head down onto his shoulder.
‘Thought Dan was the boxer out of yers.’ A hysterical giggle followed Alice’s words.
‘Used to spar with him. Was always better than him. Never let on though. Didn’t want to get roped in.’
Alice clung to him, feeling him shaking as violently as she was herself. Suddenly she started to keen quietly, her hands clutching at her face.
‘Wot in fuck’s name’s gone on here …?’ Jeannie Robertson took a hesitant step into the room. Her eyes flitted over the carnage, settled on the young girl weeping on the bed being supported by a young man with a face as white as a sheet. Finally she gazed at the man on the floor, a dark pool spreading under him on the floorboards.
Quietly she closed the door behind her. Hoisting up her smart skirt to keep it clean she stepped over Jimmy’s body and stood by the table. For some long moments she stared at the two women who seemed to be propping each other up. Their features were almost unrecognisable because of the battering they’d taken.
Tilly blinked back at Jeannie through an eye that was puffed to a slit. For almost a minute nobody spoke and Alice’s weeping was the only sound.
‘He the one done this to you all?’ A jerk of Jeannie’s head took in Jimmy’s inert form.
Tilly nodded. Moisture slid from the small crack hiding her eye. She winced as she knuckled it away. ‘Tried to rape me ‘n’ me daughter too,’ she croaked.
‘He weren’t no good,’ Fran mumbled with such absurd understatement that Jeannie raised her eyes heavenwards.
‘Well, he ain’t gonna bash or rape nobody no more, is he?’ Jeannie said gently. She looked at the young couple still huddled together on the bed edge. She could stab a guess at what had gone on, and how Jimmy Wild had finally got what he deserved. ‘You intending getting the police involved?’
As though the consequences of Jimmy’s death had not occurred to any of them, four people lifted their heads to stare at Jeannie before they exchanged glances with one another.
‘It were self-defence,’ Fran mumbled through her swollen lips. ‘He had a knife and Geoff tried to take it off him after he cut me. Look what he’s done to me,’ Fran moaned and opened her blouse to show the long gash on her belly.
‘Ain’t done yer face no favours either, love,’ Jeannie observed as she frowned at the lump of flattened flesh that was Fran’s nose. ‘So you gonna get the police involved then, and hope for the best?’
‘No … we ain’t!’ Tilly whispered forcefully, spitting blood. ‘Not if we can help it. Could go bad for Geoff and he don’t deserve to …’ She stopped but everybody knew what she’d left unsaid.
A court case, a trial, a jury … Geoff could be found guilty of murder if things went against him.
‘Ain’t swingin’ fer him,’ Geoff said quietly. ‘Ain’t even risking getting locked away for that piece o’ shit.’
Beside him Alice retched, and crossed her arms over her belly as though to contain its contents. Fresh tears dripped from her eyes.
‘We got to somehow sort it out,’ Tilly muttered, agitated, and knuckled again at her blurry vision.
‘Looks like you need a favour doin’ after all.’ Jeannie dropped the bag that contained her unwanted clothes onto the table. ‘Wish now I’d never bleedin’ offered,’ she wryly added. ‘Can you get him down the stairs and out the back to the shit house?’
Geoff looked up, realising Jeannie was addressing him.
‘Yeah,’ He agreed automatically. ‘I can do that.’
‘Good. With luck I’ll get him gone by morning.’
Geoff made a move to get up then sat down again and turned to Alice. ‘I’ll be going in the morning too, Al. Looks like I’m off to fight after all,’ he said with a bleak, twisted smile.
Tilly slipped out into the back yard at dawn.
She’d not slept and neither had Fran. They’d done what they could to clean themselves up while Alice went down to tell Bobbie and Stevie that their mum had had a little accident and was going to sleep up in theirs. The boys had accepted the news, as they always did – wide-eyed and close-lipped. If they thought it odd that Alice looked weird and white and shaky they said nothing. No questions. They undressed quickly then huddled together in bed, whispering about their game of football.
Alice had wearily climbed the stairs again to join her mum and aunt. The three of them had lain down on the bed in the front room and waited for the dawn light so they could grapple with a new day. Dazed with shock and exhaustion there’d been no further conversation between them, just intermittent moans from Fran as her injuries throbbed and she tried to ease her position on the mattress.
Tilly raised a hesitant hand to the door of the shit house. Her eyes closed as she pulled it, groaning, open. It was vacant and stinking dirty as usual. Staggering relief swamped her. She shoved the door closed and leaned back against it for a moment. Then quickly she went back inside.
‘Going to work Al?’
Alice nodded and looked at her mum. A dreadful question hovered in the air between them and it seemed neither could find the courage or energy to mention it. There were so many dreadful thoughts, urgent thoughts, battling for attention. A deceit, possibly of more than sixteen years standing, could wait a little longer.
‘He’s gone,’ Tilly gruffly told Alice, eliminating one of the torturing uncertainties
