‘I’m all right.’ Flustered, Penny went to make the coffee. Her mother decided to have a dig back. ‘I know what it is. You’re in a narky mood because you found out that your pretty boy was queer.’
Penny was lighting a cigarette and managed to singe the ends of her fringe. ‘Why do you always bring everything back to sex?’
Liz raised both eyebrows and took her coffee. ‘I do not. I don’t care about it any more.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
‘You know best, Pen. Obviously you know it all.’
‘It’s like that joke yesterday. About keeping your fanny fresh. You enjoy that, don’t you?’
Her mother smirked. ‘What? What do I enjoy?’
‘Being embarrassing.’
This hit its mark. Liz lowered her eyes. Penny just wished she’d kept her trap shut.
At last Liz said, ‘So I’m an embarrassment to Lady Shite, am I?’
‘Vince called me that yesterday! Is that what I’m like?’ She was appalled.
‘We’re on about me here. Listen. Am I really an embarrassment to you?’ Liz’s fuchsia lips were set, grim. ‘You know you’re not. I didn’t mean it like that.’
Liz swung her legs round and jumped off her stool, shoving her almost untouched breakfast things into the sink. ‘No, you’ve got a lot to be embarrassed about. I’m not surprised. I’ve put you through too much.’
Penny knew then that she had to put a stop to this. It was a destructive mood, this one, and Penny knew it of old. It was a downward spiral. If Penny left her like this, Liz would stay at home today and think herself embarrassing and foolish until she found herself unable to go out. And nothing would talk her round.
‘Mam,’ Penny said, very decisively, making sure she had Liz’s attention. ‘You’ve never put me through too much. You really haven’t.’
Liz wouldn’t be easily talked round. ‘But the kids must say things at school.’
‘Not a word. They never realised. They don’t know. People accept things anyway. And you know that I can cope with anything. You’ve taught me that, Mam.’
Liz took two steps across the lino and hugged her. Penny sighed. Disaster averted. ‘You’re calling me Mam! You haven’t done that in… ages.’
Penny looked sheepish, gathered up in her mother’s broad embrace. ‘You’ve never claimed to be anything different.’ Her mother let her go. ‘You’re a smashing lass. Pen.’
She shrugged. ‘I know.’
‘There’s one thing I’ve got to tell you though, Pen.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve burned a bloody hole in my mohair with that fag of yours.’
FIVE
She tugged at her sleeves as she came downstairs. When she wasn’t bending her arms they didn’t look too short. Perhaps the jacket would be all right. It was smart enough for a club, anyway. It would do. It wasn’t as though they were all going to dress up to the nines. They were going for a quiet drink in a club, that’s what Jane had promised. That’s all Fran wanted to do. They weren’t going raving or anything. Her jacket was fine. The doorbell went on ringing.
Behind the misty glass of the front door she caught an impression of the squat form of Nesta from next door. Even through the frosted glass you could see the black roots in her self-bleached hair. Fran knew for a fact that Nesta had done her own bleaching with Domestos and a paintbrush. Nesta had told her so, proudly. She wasn’t going to pay a fortune to sit in a hairdresser’s window and look stupid. She’d do her own for next to nowt. When Fran opened the door Nesta gave her a loose grin and said, ‘I’ve brought you a pint back. Tony’s been given some money.’ She pressed the bottle on Fran, shouldering her way into the hall.
‘Thanks,’ mumbled Fran and followed her neighbour into the kitchen.
Nesta turned to eye the black velvet jacket. ‘Are you going out?’
This was what got on Fran’s nerves about Nesta. She came on like the doziest cow you’d ever meet. Everyone said she was intellectually subnormal. Jane had been in school with her. But when you got her on her own there often seemed something shrewder than that about Nesta. Conniving was the word, Fran thought. She’d perk up and stop being slow if she was going to get something out of it.
‘I’ve been trying my glad rags on. I haven’t dressed up in ages.’ Fran found herself being cagey. No one had invited Nesta to come out with them. No one had even considered it. They would have to buy her drinks all night and then she’d only be sick at the end of it. Like the time she’d thrown up on the nightie she was trying on at Jane’s Anne Summers do.
The black jacket made Nesta stop to think. At last she said, ‘Yes, they used to be quite fashionable, didn’t they?’ Fran looked blankly at her. She felt herself shrink inside the jacket. Oblivious, Nesta continued, ‘When they were in, I used to have one of every colour. Wine red, evergreen, tan, navy blue. You get them turning up in car-boot sales a lot. People chucking out their old clothes.’ Nesta was an expert on the car-booties.
I can’t let her get me down, Fran thought. I’m wearing this and that’s all there is to it. I’ve got nothing else and she’s not exactly Selina Scott, is she? ‘Well, I think it still looks nice.’
Nesta made her way to the kettle. ‘But it makes you look fat.’
Fran marched neatly over and slapped Nesta’s hands away from the flex. ‘Right, that’s it! If you’re going to be rude like that you can bugger off home, Nesta. I’m not having you come in here to slag me off. I’ve given you milk every day this past week because you won’t do your own shopping. You needn’t come round here again.’
Nesta was shocked. Fran was never like this. She stood quite still, not used to this treatment. Fran controlled her breathing and carefully put down the half-empty kettle. Nesta’s brow crumpled. She said, ‘I’ll go, then. I might see you
