What They Do in the Dark by Amanda Coe Read Free Book Online Page A

large and angry energy that she dispensed on whoever caught her attention. Until her interest waned, this was very likely to be Pauline.
    ‘Look at the state of her, Mam,’ complained Joanne, sitting at the table with a fag and a handleless mug of something when Pauline came in from school. Joanne was one of the few people to call Nan anything other than Nan. ‘Come and give your mam a kiss then.’
    Pauline trotted over and clamped Joanne in a strangling hug. She couldn’t get on her lap because it was occupied by Cheryl, Pauline’s little sister. Cheryl looked confused but happy. She babbled all the time anyway, as though she couldn’t stop herself talking, but her racket today indicated her pleasure at the reunion with their mother.
    Pauline hadn’t seen Joanne for six months at least. It had been so long that she had begun to forget about the previous visit, but as soon as she spoke it was as though it had been days ago.
    ‘She looks like a fucking gyppo,’ Joanne complained to Nan. ‘Can’t you do summat about her hair?’
    Nan sighed. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate without being a bloody hairdresser.’
    ‘What d’you think you look like, eh?’ Joanne shook Pauline lightly. Pauline said nothing. ‘D’you like looking like a fucking gyppo?’ Pauline still said nothing. Joanne delivered a stabbing tickle under her arms, meant for affection. ‘When I go to’t shop I’ll get some shampoo. Eh? Dirty little bastard you are. You’re that bloody ugly.’
    Nan grumbled around the kitchen. The gas supply for the cooker had been disconnected long ago, and a Baby Belling ring with a frayed flex was balanced on top of it. Nan opened the oven, which was full of old newspapers.
    ‘You haven’t seen my tablets, have you, our Pauline?’
    ‘No, Nan,’ said Pauline dutifully. Nan took tranquillizers for her teeth. She got Pauline to renew the prescription for her down at the chemist whenever she ran out. Pauline took the tablets herself sometimes, since Nan never counted them. They made you feel better, although they gave you a headache the next day, and if you took more than one, which she had only tried the once, your legs didn’t work properly.
    ‘I’ll find them for you,’ Pauline offered, and escaped the kitchen.
    ‘Never lifts a bloody finger when you’re not around,’ she heard Nan say.
    ‘Thinks I don’t know what the little bugger’s like,’ Joanne retorted fondly.
    Pauline found the tablets down by Nan’s rank special chair, which had a perfect imprint of the back of Nan’s head and Nan’s bum worn into it. Gary was in the room watching cartoons with Pauline’s little brother, Craig, as well as Uncle Dave, Uncle Alan, Uncle Dave’s current girlfriend, Sharon, Sharon’s baby, Christopher, and Sharon’s brother, Keith. Craig tried to start a fight for the pill bottle when she picked it up off the floor, just because she wanted it, but he let go after Pauline kicked him in the face.
    Pauline was furtively relieved to find that Joanne had disappeared when she returned to the kitchen, sneaking a couple of tablets into her jumper pocket for herself before she handed them to Nan. Joanne had run out of Coke for her rum and gone for fresh supplies. That was just one of the many remarkable things about her: she always went to the shops herself, instead of sending the kids out like the rest of the family did. When Joanne got back, she’d bought a lot more than the Coke: cans of beer for the uncles and Keith, dandelion and burdock and Tizer for the kids, bags of crisps, a Swiss roll, fags, milk, a bottle of lime shampoo and another plastic bottle which she flourished at Pauline.
    ‘Get us a towel, gyppo!’ she shouted excitedly. Pauline found one on the floor in Uncle Dave’s room, frayed and stiff with stains. If she ever needed to dry herself she used the candlewick spread that was the only covering on her own bed, shared with Cheryl. But since the taps in the bathroom basin had stopped