Two-Faced by Mandasue Heller Read Free Book Online

because she’d booked the photographer for this coming Monday.
    She could have kicked herself for going ahead and committing to that without making sure that she could afford it first. But she couldn’t back out now, because the snotty bitch who’d made the booking had told her she’d be charged a cancellation fee. Anyway, she didn’t want to go crawling back to them, because her pride was still smarting from the way the woman had sneered at her like she was some kind of pauper for baulking at the amount that she’d been quoted. Making out like four hundred and seventy-five quid was nothing; that it was a small price to pay – if she thought her daughter was worth investing in.
    Well, yes, she bloody well did, actually !
    Kim marched into the kitchen and came back with a large knife. Shoving the couch away from the wall, she got down on her hands and knees and set about slashing a large gash into the material at the back.
    Walking in at that moment, Michelle gasped, ‘Mum, what are you doing ? Stop it – it’s not worth it!’
    ‘Oh, what, ’cos it’s your sister I’m doing it for and not for you?’ Kim snapped, shoving her hand through the gap she’d created and feeling around in the dust and accumulated junk in the base of the couch. ‘Just piss off round to Pam’s before you make me mad. And tell her it’s urgent, so I don’t want no messing about.’
    Traipsing miserably down the short path from her house and up the neighbouring one, Michelle knocked on Pam’s door.
    ‘She can’t do that,’ Pam protested when she heard what Kim had sent her for. ‘I’ll lose my commission. And what am I supposed to tell the collector when he sees I’ve got more written down than I’ve got in cash? He’ll think I’m on the fiddle.’
    ‘I’m really sorry,’ Michelle apologised, fully understanding why Pam was so pissed off. ‘But she says it’s urgent.’
    ‘I’ll give her bloody urgent,’ Pam grunted as she snatched a cardigan off the hook behind the door. Pushing Michelle ahead of her, she marched into Kim’s house and demanded to know what she thought she was playing at.
    Sucking on yet another cigarette, the floor around her littered with heaps of gunk she’d pulled out from the bowels of the couch, Kim said, ‘Our Mee’s going to be a model, and I need the money for her portfolio.’
    ‘You’re bang out of order,’ Pam argued. ‘And I wouldn’t mind, but it’s a pure waste of money.’
    ‘You trying to say my daughter’s not good enough?’
    ‘Well, she ain’t no fucking Jordan, is she?’ Pam retorted scathingly, never one to shy away from telling it as she saw it. ‘We all know you think the sun bounces off her backside, but she ain’t nothing special, and you’re a mug if you blow that kind of money on her. You might as well chuck it down the flaming grid!’
    ‘It’s got nowt to do with you,’ Kim informed her angrily. ‘It’s my money, and I want it back. All one hundred and twenty of it.’
    ‘In your dreams!’ Pam snorted. ‘You’ve only paid in eighty-five, so that’s all you’ll be getting back.’
    ‘You bloody liar,’ Kim gasped, staring up at her in disbelief. ‘I’ve paid in regular as clockwork.’
    ‘Yeah, and borrowed half back along the way for bingo and what have you,’ Pam reminded her. ‘I’ve got it all written down if you don’t believe me.’ Turning to Michelle now, she said, ‘You’re the only one around here with any sense – can’t you talk her out of this?’
    Michelle gave a helpless shrug.
    ‘Oh, get out, you jealous bitch!’ Kim barked, losing patience. ‘Coming round here bad-mouthing my daughter, just ’cos yours are a load of speccy four-eyed little retards! Go on – piss off!’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ Pam spat. ‘But that’s me and you done for good, so don’t come crying to me when you’ve spent all your money on that little trollop and can’t even afford a tin of fucking beans!’
    ‘Like I’d ask