a fight. The question wasn’t really a question, and she knew better than to try to answer anyway. She was just another target at which Irene could vent her anger. She drew in her breath – another reflex – and silently prayed that her dad would step in and take the attention back away from her.
John’s tone always grew quieter the more Irene’s increased in volume. Sometimes Kathleen thought this might be a good way to calm things down. At other times, she just wished he’d shout back louder. ‘Can’t you see what he’s doing, love?’ her father now said quietly. ‘It seems that everyone and his horse knows what’s going on but you. The lad’s got gambling fever, Irene!’ he added, with just a slight edge of exasperation. ‘He can’t possibly lose his wages every frigging Friday, can he? Every frigging week? Love, come on.’
Kathleen’s eyes widened in disbelief. Was he spoiling for a fight as much as she was? Yes, she was happy her dad had deflected Irene’s attention back to him again, but accusing her stepbrother of having gambling fever was going to rile Irene even more. She wished she could slip away, hole up in her bedroom – well, if bloody Monica wasn’t in there, anyway – but her way was blocked and, besides, she knew all too well that if she moved, she’d just become the target of Irene’s fury once again. She needed precious little encouragement to yell at her at the best of times.
Kathleen watched her stepmother puff herself up even further, like a balloon that was in danger of being blown up too much. ‘Gambling fever? Gambling fever!’ she screamed, predictably, her bust now almost bursting through her blouse. It was made of red satin, an even brighter shade than her hair, and was much too small for her; almost everything she liked to wear was. She lunged at her husband now, both fists hammering at his chest, and Kathleen was struck by what a ridiculous sight she looked, because her dad was a full ten inches taller. ‘You miserable twat!’ she yelled. ‘My poor boy gets robbed on his way home from work again – again! And do you have any sympathy? No, you do not! Be a different story if it was little miss prig over there, wouldn’t it? But, no – all you can do is call him a frigging liar! How dare you! You better shut your trap, John Adamson, or I swear, I’ll shut it for you. So help me, I will!’
Kathleen tried hard to see the humour. To hang on to the ridiculous image of her stepmother as a balloon that, once upon a time – how long ago was that? – would have at least made the shouting more bearable. But she’d lost the knack. Now it was all she could do to hold back the tears. All she wanted to do now was to simply open her mouth and scream. She was sick of it. Sick to death of it. Sick of the wretched, repetitive drudge of it. Sick of every day seeming to hold the stomach-churning potential for upset and violence and bile. Sick of living above a pub, wishing she could go back to being in school again. Wishing she could go anywhere – anywhere to escape this horrible place. She was sick of her entire life seeming now to revolve around it; the monotonous grind of working all hours in a job she could not detest more.
Most of all, though, Kathleen was sick of the family she’d inherited when her father, having taken over as landlord at the Dog and Duck had attracted – and married – this cow of a woman. That had been a day to remember – the day she’d always remember, as being the one where her old life had come to an end. The day she’d been gifted not just a wicked stepmother worthy of any gruesome fairy tale, but an ugly stepsister (ugly on the inside even if she wasn’t on the outside) and a stepbrother who, though he could occasionally be kind to her, was – as was so often the way with Darren lately – the root cause of her current misery.
Irene was an idiot. A stupid woman who couldn’t see past her own nose. Not when it came to her precious son. And since Darren himself was the one who understood that the best, he never wasted an opportunity to exploit it. He didn’t pull any punches about it, either. So much so that all the regulars in the Dog and Duck knew the truth of what was happening, and how Darren was taking the piss out of Irene. But, oh, how she wished her dad hadn’t just said what he’d said. Not just because it set Irene off on one of her rages but because everyone downstairs in the pub would be able to hear it – and knowing Mary, the other barmaid, they’d be able to hear it all too well, because she’d probably turn the music down so that everybody could have a laugh.
Worse still, though, was that this could go on for hours yet. Once Irene was off on one, she didn’t have an off button. Kathleen glanced at her watch. She really needed to leave them to it. She was due on the bar again in an hour and she’d yet to even have her bath. She shifted her legs a little, which had stuck to the stupid plastic cover Irene insisted on keeping on her stupid settee. Why the fuck she insists on covering this piece of shit up, I’ll never know, she thought as she painfully extracted the back of her thighs from it. Happily, Irene was too busy shouting at her dad and punching him in the chest to notice, so she was able to stand up and slip past the pair of them to the door.
Well almost. She’d not quite reached it when she felt a sharp tug on her pullover. ‘Go on, you ugly little bastard,’ Irene spat. ‘This is all your fucking fault!’
How the fuck is any of this my fault? Kathleen thought. She remained silent, though, knowing better than to voice something so inflammatory. Instead, she found herself cringing slightly, as she so often did, in anticipation of the usual crack around the head. But it seemed Irene hadn’t finished ranting yet.
‘If he didn’t have you to support,’ she railed, almost as if she’d known what Kathleen was thinking, ‘we wouldn’t be in this sorry position in the first place! Fucking leeching off us all the time, never out of our frigging sight, then maybe your father wouldn’t begrudge my frigging kids a bit of something when they need it!’
‘Irene!’ John shouted finally. ‘For God’s sake, let the girl go. She’s got to get ready for work, hasn’t she? And there’s no point giving her a bollocking, is there?’
With Irene letting go of her, so she could return to the assault on her husband, Kathleen took the opportunity to slip out of the door. And she would have legged it, had she not almost fallen arse over tit over Darren himself, who’d clearly been squatting down, earwigging at the keyhole. He was twenty. A grown man. But he looked like a ten-year-old, sneaking around, looking like the shifty sod that he was.
He stood up. And then he grinned at her. ‘Steady on, kidda,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll do yourself an injury.’ He gave Kathleen a friendly slap on the back. ‘Everything alright in there?’
Kathleen didn’t even reward him with a dirty look. ‘You know damn well it isn’t, Darren,’ she hissed. ‘Have you gambled all your wages away again?’
‘Tut, tut, tut, our young ’un,’ Darren said, managing to mock her even as he’d caused so much shit. ‘I was robbed on me way home again. Two black ’uns it was. Big as houses and bold as brass, the pair of them. It’s called “demanding with menaces”, it is. Should be a law against it, shouldn’t there?’
‘And I suppose she’s subbing you all week again to make up for it, is she?’ Kathleen demanded, shaking her head. She stabbed a finger towards the living-room door. ‘You cause all this shit, Darren. You. So how is it fair that it’s me that’s on the end of it all the time? I’m the one who has to work here, remember? You’re off doing your job, and Monica’s off doing hers. And I’m the one who has to deal with all the shit you create!’
She could feel tears – angry, frustrated tears – threatening to spill over her cheeks. She sniffed hard to stop it happening. God, how sick she was of it.
‘Hey, them’s the breaks, our kid,’ Darren said before walking off, whistling, leaving Kathleen open-mouthed in his wake.
An hour later, in the bar, Kathleen kept her ‘trap shut’, as always. That she must keep her trap
