Andy looked back up and blushed, because Mark had seen him staring. Mark shrugged and said it was time for him to shower off: school was finishing soon and it was his weekend with his daughter. Through the porthole window Andy watched him shower and imagined the water running into the plughole tainted with his every colour. But it ran clear and Mark’s tattoos showed up glossier.
They met daily and struck up a conversational ease and an ease with each other’s bodies and nakedness. Even over the Christmas period they weren’t too busy for the gym. Andy looked upon his work-out plan as a challenge, and having people who expected him there made him feel obliged to keep going. Mark was doing the same thing, he thought. More than once Mark had told him how pleased he was to get out of the house. He got the impression Mark anticipated a bleak Christmas so he invited him round to the house. Mark was pleased but said he had visits to make all round his split-up family. But here he was on New Year’s Eve, stepping into the busying party, mesmerising everyone. Here was Mark wearing an excessively baggy Marksies jumper and jeans and all you could see of the real him was that bald blue head and the backs of his hands as he opened a can and started to drink it greedily down.
Fran was asking Nesta if she had seen Big Sue since Boxing Day.
“I’ve not seen nobody,” Nesta said through a mouthful of Battenburg. Jane was seeing to some cocktails with the clear plastic shaker-maker she’d brought with her and she rolled her eyes at Nesta. Across the buffet table Nesta’s daughter Vicki was sneering at Peter, all dolled up in his frilly shirt and suit.
“She’s still shaken up,” Fran said.
“Who, Big Sue?” asked Jane.
“Since them lads threatened her.”
“What’s this?” All of a sudden Nesta was interested.
“She was on the bus coming back from the sales on Boxing Day,” Fran said. “And these lads were baiting her. They sat on the back seat and took all her bags off her. They emptied them over the back of the bus and there was nothing she could do.”
“Never!” said Jane.
“Everything she’d bought in the sales, all over the back of the bus. And she’d been getting knickers and bras at BHS. They had them all out, laughing at them. Big Sue got off the bus in tears and came straight round mine. She left all her bargains on the bus. She ran straight off, she was scared of getting battered. The bus driver did bugger all. And the lads got right off on her stop. Well, you know the size of Big Sue. She just about killed herself, running from the bus stop to my house. She thought they were chasing her. But guess where they were going?”
“Where?” asked Nesta blandly.
“Over the road?” Jane asked. “Was it that lot from over the Forsythe house?” She knew fine well it was. They’d been nothing but trouble for months.
“Ay,” said Fran, glancing through the faces at the party, which was getting busier, the lights lower, the murmur of voices building. She looked at Elsie. “Ay, of course it was that lot.”
As she said this her eye caught Elsie’s and the way Elsie flushed red made it clear she was earwigging. If there was one thing Fran couldn’t abide, it was earwigging. If you were told something in confidence or whatever, then that was OK. But listening in for kicks was the pits. Still, Fran was ashamed of making Elsie feel bad. Just one glance had been enough to make her blush. Why should Elsie be made to feel responsible for the lads over the road? Just because her Craig was a tearaway.
Fran mulled on that word, tearaway. It made her think of coupons out of magazines, of perforated edges. It was a soft word for hooligans, she thought.
Jane noticed Fran and Elsie’s exchanged glance and she went weighing into attack. “Can’t you sort that son of yours out? They’re like bloody animals over there. When are they going to get something done about them?”
Elsie opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she said, “Our Craig has nowt to do with anything violent.”
“Yeah?” snapped Jane, giving her cocktail-maker a vigorous shake. “If you ask me, they’re all as bad as each other.”
“Let’s just drop it now,” Fran said, wishing she’d never started this. “It’s a party.”
“Are they having a New Year’s do over the road?” Jane asked Elsie.
“I think so,” was the surly reply.
“We can expect fireworks then,” Jane sighed. “How long before they get guns and drugs and all sorts over there? God! It’s like gang warfare.”
Elsie said again, “Craig has nowt to do with the violence.”
But in the past year their estate had become a more dangerous place to live. Everyone was scared of the louche, raucous boys over the road and the free rein they enjoyed.
Nesta spoke up. “But what about Big Sue? Where’s she tonight? Is she too scared to come out?”
“Maybe I better go and call on her,” Fran said. “Check she’s still coming here.”
“It’s bloody rotten that she has to have an escort,” said Jane.
“It’s the way things are,” Nesta said glumly. “In this day
