she supposed to do now?
She shouldn’t have stormed off, and she cursed herself for it. Because that was exactly what he wanted her to do. So he’d called her a prick-tease. Putting it out when there was nothing on sale, and taking a none-too-subtle look up and down her. So what? She’d been called a lot worse in her time. And what the hell did he know about it, anyway? And the satisfaction of telling him to go and stick it where the sun didn’t shine, for all that she’d felt it, had been all too fleeting. And now what? All dressed up and nowhere to bloody go. Not unless she bit the bullet and went to Caverns anyway. Let Vicky persuade her to ignore her horrible boyfriend and get on with their evening as planned.
But would she? There was no sound from behind, so it didn’t look like her friend was rushing to catch up with her, did it? But then who knew? Paddy could have told her anything, couldn’t he?
So, home then? She dismissed the idea as soon as she thought it. All she’d get would be a tedious interrogation from her mother and that told-you-so look from her dad. And she definitely couldn’t stomach going to the phone box and ringing Jimmy. She might cry if he felt sorry for her. Which he obviously would, because he’d known how excited she’d been about her night out with Vicky. Unlike Paddy bloody Allen, who was a shit and a lech of the first order, her boyfriend was kind and considerate and decent. And, besides, it would only add fuel to the fire if she told Jimmy. And there was quite enough heat between the two lads already. Oil and water, best never mixed.
No, she was done up for an evening out, and she was having an evening out. She’d have a walk down to Lidget Green and see if she could find Gurdy, and if not, she might get lucky and bump into some mates who might fancy a few drinks in the Second West or the Oddfellows. Half the school would be out celebrating tonight, after all. And she didn’t need town anyway. Not if they were going to be there. She stuck her chin in the air, fluffed her hair up a bit, and teetered off in determined mood down Bradford Road.
Gurdy had obviously seen Lucy before she saw him. Because the first thing that alerted her to his probable whereabouts was an ear-splitting and familiar wolf whistle, coming from the bench outside the cricket field at Lidget Green. It had taken him a while to get the hang of it, but since he’d mastered the art, Gurdy now wolf whistled at any opportunity, much to the disgust of his prissy mother.
It hadn’t taken very long to track him down, and Lucy was glad she’d chosen to walk there. Had she braved the bus into town on her own she’d have missed him. And now she had an evening in prospect again, her relief was huge. Her spirits lifting finally, she even found herself smiling as his familiar scrawny figure resolved itself from in front of the backdrop of trees and he waved an arm wildly in greeting. Such an odd choice of friend – lots of people seemed to think that – a scrappy Pakistani, and a boy, as well, of course. But she and Vic’s friendship with Gurdy went back a long way; back to the day when they’d come across him being beaten up by a trio of scuzzy third-formers from Scholemoor, and, in a fit of righteous fury that neither fully understood, they had bravely waded in and seen the astonished bullies off.
They’d not known at that point that he was actually a year older than they were; he’d been a second year then, same as Lucy’s Jimmy. Just a very, very small one. And the sort of kid who had absolutely nothing going for him. Insubstantial, Indian (so not even a ‘Paki’, as it turned out), funny accent, class clown and, a greater crime than all of them – and half the reason for the bullying – invariably dressed for school as if off to see the Queen – something the girls decided, once they’d finally met Mr and Mrs Banerjee, was actually on their wish list for both of their sons. They even had a picture of the royal family on their mantelpiece.
And Gurdy’s dreams were only slightly less ambitious. Now seventeen, he’d worked in his dad’s grocery shop on White Abbey Road since he’d left school, but his ambition was to eventually own his own curry shop, no less.
So, yes, an odd friendship, but also a dear one.
‘Wow, Luce!’ he said, pinging away a cigarette as she neared him. ‘You going on the game later, or what?’
He’d scored an unwitting bullseye. It was now a doubly sore point. Not just because of Paddy, but because her dad had said pretty much the same thing earlier – the heels, the ra-ra skirt and off-the-shoulder crop-top designed not for traipsing about Bradford before it was even properly dark, but for the far less disapproving light of a nightclub. It certainly wasn’t the right kind of clothing for sitting on a bench by the bloody cricket pavilion. ‘Shut up, Gurdip,’ she said, aiming a friendly punch at his shoulder, before sitting down. ‘Anyway, what you doing here? I thought we were supposed to be meeting up at the pub?’
‘Meeting a mate for a bit,’ Gurdy told her and she didn’t ask him to elaborate. ‘Meeting a mate’ could mean stuff she didn’t want to know about. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here, for that matter?’
Lucy pulled her cigarettes from her handbag and handed one to Gurdy. ‘Don’t ask.’
He sat down again. ‘Come on, what’s up, duck?’ he asked as she held out her lighter. ‘What gives, divs?’
‘Bloody Paddy Allen! That’s what’s up,’ she said once she’d lit her own cigarette. ‘Honest to God, Gurdy, if I were a bloke, I’d kill him. I hate that horrible bastard. Hate him.’
She turned to him then, recognising his silence for what it was. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I know you’re okay with him and that but, oh, he gets me so mad!’
Gurdy got on with most people. It was kind of a thing with him. Not so much religious, or because that was how his mam and dad had brought him up, but because the years of bullying had taken their toll. Gurdy was a bit of a people pleaser and if there was one thing Lucy wished she could better drum into him it was that you didn’t have to try and make everyone like you.
But his friendship with Paddy, irritatingly, seemed genuine. Yes, he was better friends with her Jimmy – they’d been in the same class at school, and at one point it looked like Gurdy might do a plumbing apprenticeship with him too – but he spent increasing amounts of time with Paddy, helping him out in his garage (which wasn’t actually Paddy’s garage) and doing God knew what else. She could see nothing good coming from it, but Gurdy actively wanted to work all hours, so he could add to his curry-house-buying stash.
But he was always happy to listen to her rants. ‘Go on,’ he said, nudging her. ‘What’s he done now, then?’
‘Well, as you well know,’ Lucy started, ‘me and Vicky were meant to be going out tonight, weren’t we? And before you say anything, he had no business turning up in the first place. This was planned weeks ago – months ago. And it’s supposed to be a girls’ night, you get me?’ She nudged him back. ‘Present company excepted, of course. But it’s like he thinks he bloody owns her! Like she’s his property or something. Like Emmeline Pankhurst never bloody existed!’
‘Emme-what?’
‘Never mind. You won’t have heard of her. Not off your mam, at any rate. And, of course, Vicky—’
‘—sides with Paddy because that’s what she always does, and you go off on one and have a row with him and off you trot.’
‘God, I know! I know I shouldn’t rise to it, but what else am I supposed to do? Just trot along behind, playing gooseberry while he gropes her? It’s the principle. My Jimmy doesn’t give me any of that sort of nonsense, does he? I tell you, Gurdy, I swear it’s like he really does think he owns her. Doesn’t want her going out on her own having fun in case another bloke so much as looks at her. And she might just look
