Blood Ties: Family is not always a place of safety

She spotted Irene’s cigarettes on the windowsill and pinched one to smoke while the tea brewed. She did this most mornings, and didn’t feel a shred of guilt about it. Irene made sure half her wages got taken straight off her for her board and lodgings, so there was never enough left to justify buying her own Woodbines – and certainly not when her stupid stepmother was so careless with her own. It was another ritual she enjoyed before the rest of the family rose. The back door of the flat opened out onto a small section of flat roof with a railing round it, from when the last owners of the Dog and Duck kept their dog there. Now it served as a sort of patio, perfectly placed as a sun trap, and though her table and chair were an upturned beer crate and a wonky stool respectively, it always felt a treat to be out there, out of the way, with just her own thoughts for company.

Despite the nip in the air, the sun was shining and the day looked like being glorious, so Kathleen lingered as long as she could before going back in to start rousing the family. Darren was first; he needed to be off soon for his early start down at the hospital, and as she went into his bedroom her nose was immediately assaulted by the stale, smelly air that filled the room. What was it with lads and their bodily functions? It was the same in the gents downstairs in the pub. The ladies was never half as bad.

‘Daz! It’s half seven,’ she whispered, shaking him awake. ‘Time to get up.’

Darren rubbed his eyes and yawned, adding another gust of fetid air into the room. He looked done in and Kathleen wondered what time he’d come in the previous evening. He was a closed one – you never really knew what was going on in his head. Not these days, anyway. Not since he’d left school, really.

He sat up and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. ‘Ooh, is there some tea on, our kid?’ he asked, as if there wasn’t tea on every morning. Still, at least Darren appreciated how much she did.

‘Course there is,’ she said. ‘But you’d better hurry up. And don’t you be falling back to sleep,’ she added, fanning her face in the wake of another gale of foul air, ‘because I’m not coming back in here again, you smelly get!’

She left Darren and trotted along the corridor back to her and Monica’s room. It wasn’t much of a room, really – not like the big bedrooms that people always seemed to share on telly – just two beds, a chest between them, a wardrobe and a sink. A tight squeeze for two girls and all their things. Well, all Monica’s things, mostly, because she had so many more of them, so she had three drawers to Kathleen’s one, and took up most of the space in the wardrobe – in fact, Kathleen had never really considered it to be her room. It felt like Monica’s, right down to the horrible brown velvet curtains she’d chosen, which sucked all the life from the room, even when they were open, making everything seem relentlessly dark and dingy.

‘Time to get up, Mon,’ Kathleen whispered now. Monica wasn’t what you’d call a ‘good’ waker.

‘Oh, piss off, Kathleen,’ she growled. ‘It can’t be half past yet.’

‘It’s twenty to eight,’ Kathleen corrected. ‘Come on, Mon, get up. And hey, guess what?’ she added, unable to resist it. ‘Me and you are the same age now. How crazy is that?’

Monica groaned and wriggled herself up into a sitting position. First thing in the morning, before she’d applied all her war paint, Monica looked a lot like Darren. Same eyes, same rounded chin. They weren’t that close, though. Darren was too much Irene’s golden boy for that to happen. Mostly on account of simply being the boy. Kathleen didn’t think Irene liked females in general. ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot,’ she said groggily. ‘It’s your birthday today, innit? Well, many happy returns and all that.’ She flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Now piss off out while I get dressed.’

‘Dressed’ in Monica’s case didn’t really cover it. It was a full twenty minutes after Darren had left (and in a right arse because it was the biggest racing day of the week so he hated working every other Saturday) before she appeared in the kitchen, done up to the nines. Monica told everyone she was a hair stylist, but in reality she was no more than a bit of a dogsbody for Carol, who ran the local hairdresser’s from her house on the estate. Carol operated from her back room and the majority of her clients were pensioners, and as they mostly wanted curly perms, Monica’s job mainly consisted of winding perm curlers around grey hair and sweeping up. Not that she’d ever admit that. Far from it. She liked to give the impression she was working at a fashionable top-end salon, and dolled herself up accordingly. Immaculate hair and make-up, mini skirt and heels – all to go run around after Carol and her pensioners all day.

Still, Kathleen conceded, at least she made an effort. Perhaps it was good that she acted like she did – you never knew. Perhaps one day Monica would work in some fancy city-centre salon, whereas Kathleen could see little for herself in the future, other than toiling away in the pub, running around after her horrible stepmother, and for what? Out of some stupid idea that she couldn’t leave her dad. That he needed her to stay there. That if she left and found something better, they’d be somehow broken. Like she was abandoning him, leaving him, just like her mum had.

She was busy taking her frustrations out on the beer pumps when her dad wandered down. ‘Morning, lass,’ he said coming round to join her behind the bar. ‘By ’eck, you’re doing a grand job of them brasses, girl. I can see my face in them.’

He made a big show of looking, too, turning his chin one way then another. She wondered if he’d remembered that it was her birthday, but decided not to give him an opportunity to prove that he might have forgotten. If he had, then she’d rather not know. So she helped him.

‘Morning, Dad,’ she said brightly. ‘Did you see the card upstairs from Auntie Sal? That was nice of her, wasn’t it? Shame she can’t come and see us, though.’

‘I did, lass,’ he said. ‘And don’t you worry. I haven’t forgot. Happy birthday, love,’ he added, giving her a cuddle.

She decided she believed him anyway. ‘Well, what with yesterday and all that, I thought you might have. I wouldn’t blame you if you did,’ she added, even though she would – deep down, she would. ‘Anyway, we still off to the pictures, then?’

It was only then that she realised her dad had something for her behind his back, but there was something in his expression that signalled not all was well. He handed her an envelope with her name on, and a large paper bag. ‘I can’t do it, love,’ he said, his face a picture of guilt and misery. ‘I completely forgot the brewery were due this afternoon. Completely forgot. Well, till your mam reminded me. But we’ll do it another day,’ he promised, gesturing towards the bag now in her hand. ‘Go on, take a look, lass. I think you’ll like what we’ve got you, at least.’

Kathleen thanked her dad through gritted teeth. Trust Irene to mess things up on her birthday. Not that she’d expected any less, because Irene was a cow, but couldn’t her dad, just for once, find the guts to go against her? To tell her that no matter what, he was going to do something with his own daughter, and she could piss off and see the brewery men without him?

But expecting that was like expecting it to snow in July. It wasn’t going to happen, and that was that. She opened the bag, already knowing that the present was going to be a record, and it was. And the one she most wanted. She felt a rush of affection for her dad then, for going into Smith’s and getting it. For caring enough to know exactly what to choose. It was ‘I Got You Babe’ by Sonny and Cher, Kathleen’s current favourite song – and everyone else’s pretty much, because it was currently number one, and might even have been sold out before he got there.

‘Oh, thanks so much, Dad,’ she said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. ‘I’ll go give it a play soon as I’ve finished down here.’

John smiled at her, clearly pleased to have chosen so well. ‘Wait till your mam’s come downstairs, eh? Only I didn’t tell her I’d bought it, and what with Darren losing all his money this week, she’ll be in a right mood if she thinks I’ve been splashing out on you.’

Kathleen’s cheerful mood dissolved as quickly as beer foam into a bar towel. ‘She’s not my mam!’ she reminded him. ‘And, Dad, it’s my frigging birthday! What does she expect?’

‘Come on, Kathleen,’ he urged. ‘You know how things are. Don’t make trouble. And don’t let her hear you saying she’s not your mam, either. She tries her best for us, love, you know that. You might not always realise, but she does.’

Kathleen bit her lip to prevent the words she wanted to say from spilling out, because all she’d get was the usual gentle lecture – which was still a lecture – about how she was too young to understand the complexities of life and how, once she was older, she’d understand it better, and so on and so on and bloody so on. But how complicated could it be? Irene wore the trousers. Irene bossed her dad around. Her dad let her. That was all there was to know about it.

And, as a consequence, she not only wasn’t going to the pictures, she wasn’t even going to be allowed to enjoy her birthday present – hell, she didn’t even have her own record player to play it on, so had to ‘borrow’ Monica’s, like that was in any way fair! All that, and he still called the cow her ‘mam’. That woman who she’d heard so many times point out to people that no, Monica and Darren were hers, but she wasn’t – she was ‘John’s girl’.

She opened the envelope. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Dad, you’re safe,’ she said, unable to suppress the sarcasm. ‘I won’t be finished in here till after then anyway, will I?’

In answer, he gently patted her, then headed off to the cellar to sort out the barrels. He was already out of sight when she realised what he’d put in the card. ‘Happy birthday’, yes, above the usual couple of lines of printed verse, but underneath he’d written ‘Lots of love from Dad’.

‘What about this?’ she called after him, holding the card up. ‘Am I allowed to put it up, or is this a secret too?’

He popped his head back round the door. ‘What, love?’

‘Is this card a secret, too?’

He looked confused, and she immediately regretted what she’d said. However much he infuriated her, he was still her dad and she loved him.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Go on. You’re fine. The card’s lovely. I’ll pop it up with Aunt Sally’s once I’m done here.’

But all she could think of was how there was anything else to understand in the fact that her ‘mam’ hadn’t even signed her birthday card. How many brain cells did you need to understand that?

She grabbed the duster again and started attacking the final pump. Happy Birthday to me, she thought grimly.

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