‘Where the hell have you been?’
Sarah jumped up off the sofa and stubbed out her cigarette as Vinnie let himself into the flat. Her flat. Recently she’d started to regret letting him move in. Not that she’d had a lot of choice, mind you. Vinnie had just tipped up one night with his bag, declaring that he had left Gloria and that it was Sarah he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Of course, she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t surprised when she’d heard the next day that it was Gloria that had sent him packing, but she hadn’t minded. She’d wanted him back then. Now, though, she wasn’t quite so sure. Vinnie always seemed to be kicking off about something or other, and it was starting to get wearing.
Last night he hadn’t come home, and she’d been worried sick, imagining all sorts. She’d had images of him lying half dead in some gutter, or a hospital bed, or worse still, lifeless on some cold mortuary slab.
‘Are ya all right, Vin?’ Sarah put her hands up to her lover’s face to check for any evidence that he had been in a fight. ‘Where’ve yer been?’ She wasn’t quite sure whether she was angry at him or just relieved he was back home alive and well.
‘Where’ve I been?!’ Vinnie grabbed hold of both of Sarah’s hands, now lightly cupped around his face. He squashed them in his own, before flinging them aside as though they were pieces of screwed-up paper. ‘Where’ve I been?!’
Sarah rubbed her hands. He had squeezed so hard it hurt. Vinnie had never been violent towards her, but lately she had felt that a part of him sometimes wanted to be. Sarah knew Vinnie hadn’t been averse to giving Gloria a few slaps, but he had always made out that she had been the one to start it and she’d given back as good as she got.
‘I’ve been banged up in town. Stuck in a soddin’ police cell all day yesterday and all last night! That’s where I’ve soddin’ well been!’
Sarah was taken aback.
‘You? Banged up?’ she asked, her face contorting with disbelief. Vinnie, generally, kept his snout clean. Especially when it came to the plod. ‘What the hell for?’ Her voice rose, but just as she was asking the question, she guessed what the answer was.
‘Please don’t tell me it’s anything to do with yer ex-missus, or that bab you keep going on and on about?’
‘Bloody hell, Sarah, I’ve got a good right to rabbit on about the bairn! Especially with you putting it into my head that the bab mightn’t even be mine! It’s your fault I ended up stuck in a stinking cell all night! You wound me up a treat with yer “Have you thought it might not be yours?”’ Vinnie put on a whiny voice, mimicking Sarah’s. ‘Bloody hell, I couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about it, that’s why I decided to go to the christening. See for myself.’
‘Oh!’ Sarah’s hands went up into the air. ‘I might have guessed I’d be to blame for this!’ She walked over to the coffee table and snatched her box of fags. As she did so, she knocked the overflowing ashtray and cigarette butts spilled onto the table.
‘So, come on,’ she snapped. ‘Tell me all the gory details. I might as well hear it from the horse’s mouth rather than from chatty Cathy down the road.’
Vinnie huffed.
‘Like I said,’ he started to explain, ‘I was going to the church. To see the bab. To see my daughter being christened. The christening I hadn’t even been told about – never mind invited to! My own soddin’ bairn’s christening!’
‘Well, why didn’t yer tell me yer were going?’ As Sarah spoke, a stream of smoke trailed out of her mouth.
Vinnie dismissed her question with an irritated shake of the head.
Sarah was riled now. ‘So, go on, what happened? Did yer see the bab?’
‘Did I hell!’ Vinnie snatched the packet out of Sarah’s hands, rammed a cigarette into his mouth and looked around for a box of matches.
‘Here.’ Sarah struck a match as Vinnie bent down to take a light off her. ‘Go on.’ She sat on the little two-seater settee and tried to calm herself down.
‘Well, I was walking to the church – that one down Hendon, the big one on Suffolk Street?’ Sarah nodded, she knew which one he was talking about. ‘When all of a sudden, I felt a hand on the back of my shoulder and it was some copper asking me where I was going and – what were his words? – what my “intentions” were!’
‘Then what?’ Sarah asked.
‘I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t any of his business and to sod off! Then I guess there was what yer might call an “altercation”. The next thing I knew I was being hauled off to the cop shop,’ Vinnie told Sarah, as if he were the epitome of innocence, never having done anything even remotely wrong in his entire life.
‘So, how come they kept you in? What did they charge you with?’
‘They said they were going to slap some trumped-up charge of “intent to commit serious bodily harm” on me. Complete bloody joke! There’s a soddin’ war on and they’re wasting their time on people like me who only wanted to go to a bleedin’ christening!’
‘For God’s sake, I’ve never heard the like!’ Sarah said, although she wasn’t stupid and was sure there was more to it and she’d hear it when they were down the pub, which was where they would inevitably end up this evening.
There had been a time when she would have hung on Vinnie’s every word, believed everything that came out of his mouth, but since they had been living together she had seen a different side to him. His interpretation of events was often very different from reality, not that he could or would see that for one second. In Vinnie’s eyes, he was always right. He would never back down. And he would certainly never apologise, because nothing was ever his fault.
‘Obviously, I haven’t cooked,’ Sarah said, stubbing out her cigarette and looking at her packet to see how many she had left. ‘I’ve been that worried about yer, I haven’t been able to do anything.’
Vinnie let out a burst of genuine laughter. ‘Pull the other one, Sar, it’s got bells on.’ He blew out smoke. His tone of voice was evidence that his mood was improving.
‘Let’s face it,’ he added, walking over to the sofa and sitting down next to her, ‘I didn’t fall for yer cooking skills, or yer housekeeping.’ As he spoke they both looked around at the flat, which was in need of a good clean and a tidy-up.
Vinnie put his arm around the woman who had been his mistress well before Gloria had chucked him out and whom he still fancied like mad, even if she drove him round the bend half the time.
‘Come here, give us a kiss ’n a cuddle,’ he said, pulling her close to him. ‘I missed ya last night, lying there on my lonesome on a slab of cold concrete.’ Vinnie’s voice had softened, and Sarah knew what was coming next. Part of her couldn’t be bothered but the other part of her relaxed, knowing that Vinnie’s temper was being replaced with a need for intimacy.
‘Let me make a sandwich, then we can go down the pub – and when we come back we can kiss and cuddle all night long,’ Sarah said with a suggestive smile on her face. This was a part of Vinnie she had control over and always had. When it came to the bed department she could wind him round her little finger.
As Vinnie watched Sarah get up from the sofa and walk into the kitchen to make the sandwiches, his eyes were drawn to her pert, rounded bottom, which he knew she was proud of, considering her age, and was the reason she always wore skirts that looked just a little too small for her.
As he lit another cigarette, he knew that he had a good life here with Sarah, and that he had to be careful not to ruin it. Besides, if she chucked him out, he’d be stuffed. He didn’t have a pot to piss in, never mind the money to pay any kind of rent for a roof over his head.
He had to play this one carefully, but by God he was going to see that baby if it was the last thing he did. Gloria was not going to get one over on him, and he needed to make absolutely sure that the bairn was his. He’d had the slightest of doubts when he’d first found out Gloria was in the family way – but only because they very rarely slept together and whenever they did, he was always careful.
Well, he’d know for sure when he actually got to see the bab. His two boys had looked the spit of him when they were born. Same deep brown eyes. Both chunky – like little barrels, they were. He just needed to find a way to do it. The custody sergeant had warned him to stay well away from Gloria, telling him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t, he’d find himself right back in police cells – and this time they’d charge him.
As he listened to Sarah clatter around the small kitchen, his mind drifted back to the copper who had arrested him. What was his name? That was it – Detective Sergeant Miller. He thought he recognised his voice. He’d sounded very like the balaclava man who’d given him a thrashing a while ago and told him he’d be drinking beer out of a straw if he ever hurt Gloria again. Could they be one and the same? And if it was the same bloke, did this mean that Gloria had him in her pocket?
‘Here you go.’ Sarah placed a plate of spam sandwiches in front of Vinnie. ‘I’ve put a good lashing of mustard on there. Just how you like it,’ she said.
‘Ta,’ Vinnie said, but his mind was still on the detective. No, he argued with himself, Gloria wouldn’t even know any plod, never mind a detective, and a detective sergeant at that, would she?
But then how had this DS Miller known he was on his way to the christening? He’d thought it was just a coincidence, but last night when he’d been stewing over it all in that bloody awful cell, he’d started to have his doubts.
‘Get us another beer, Sar,’ Vinnie asked through a mouthful of bread and spam.
He heard Sarah walk back to the kitchen, open the cupboard door and pop the top off another bottle of Double Maxim. He watched her pouring it carefully into a pint glass.
Well, it didn’t make any difference either way if the copper knew him or not, or if Gloria had friends in the force – he couldn’t give a fig. He had a bloody right to see his own bairn.
And by God, he was going to, come hell or high water.