CHAPTER 86
Marty must have had his chat with Gemma, for she asked for a house meal the next Friday evening, which brought a flurry of urgent requests for additional places to be laid, one of them for a much smaller person. No Blake, however, as it turned out he was doing some coppering job or other. What the hell; I had asked Paul and Paula as well, so it was the second dining room, as ever, for a full House. Gemma insisted on doing the cooking, really pushing the boat out with little savoury nibbles to start with followed by a full-on chicken dinner with more trimmings than a Mod’s Vespa, and as she bustled around the kitchen, directing some of the other girls to ‘pour this’ or ’peel those’, I found myself looking properly at Marty, as he sat in an alcove, as much out of the way as he could manage, given his size.

He wasn’t that tall, to be honest. I had met many bigger men, especially on the rally scene, that blonde Englishman being a more-than-double yardstick. Marty must have been around six foot three, but he was wide, rather tubby if I wanted to be cruel, and while he was doing his best to grow a beard, there were copious acne scars visible beneath the bum fluff. It struck me, just then, what he was thinking. Too tall, too fat, too spotty to have ever found someone looking at him; too soft a nature ever to have taken it out on someone smaller, quite clearly. Gemma would look at him ever so often, a smile popping out to play each time, and there would be a slight flush to his cheeks. What came from her was happiness, while from him it was so obviously disbelief in his good luck. I decided just then that I had pushed him hard enough, and that I would back away. Tender shoots.

We got the meal underway, and as Di had brought her boy in a special pushchair thing with a detachable body that doubled as a baby seat, all of us were around the table. Marty had brought some wine over, and so we had a toast before the main course, initially to Paula’s success, before Marty started to stammer out his own announcement, that blush burning in his cheeks.

“I’ve got… It’s all Clara’s fault, this”

That girl looked up from her plate in surprise.

“Me? What have I done?”

Marty was gaining confidence now.

“Took a load of cakes to school, that’s what!”

“Sixth form college, not school!”

“Whatever. You took cakes there, anyway”

Her eyes widened even more.

“Oh! I see what you mean, then. Cupid, me, but a girl one, course”

Marty was nodding.

“Little things, yeah, with big consequences. Quantum butterfly, Pterry calls it”

I must have looked lost, because Paul nudged me, whispering “Discworld books; explain later”. Marty carried on, but his confidence was evaporating the further he moved on from whatever the thing about the butterfly had been. He looked to his left, where Gemma was staring at him, and she simply put a hand on his shoulder and nodded. His hand went up to squeeze hers, and that seemed to be all he needed.

“Short announcement. Another of Kim’s housemates has left, and Gem and me are taking the space, so it will be us living with Kim and ‘Licia. That’s all”

Gemma leant forward so she could see past Marty to Clara.

“Yup! All your fault, girl, so big thanks! Pud will be a few minutes”

Nicely done, Gemma, and Marty. Di caught me as Rhod was being passed from girl to girl, and I half expected to see him throw up, but he was actually giving little baby-laughs as he went from cuddle to cuddle. I pointed to Gemma and Marty, as the former sat slumped happily against a boy now doing his best to be a decent man, and doing well at it.

“This is what I work for, you know”

She snorted.

“What? The course of true love?”

“No, Di. Not specifically. I just try and give the girls some room to grow, a safe space to start living”

I had a couple of unwelcome thoughts just then, about Serena, Andrea…

“And somewhere to run back to if it goes to shit, aye?”

Diane took a few moments to watch Gemma and Marty, then asked quietly, “You think it will?”

The best of questions, in a way, and I gave it the best answer I could.

“Really? In this case? No, I don’t. I have had some free and frank talks with that young man, making sure his eyes are as open as possible, and no, I don’t have worries about him”

That was a little unfair on Marty, so I smiled at her to draw some of the sting from my words. I really believed my following comment, though.

“Worries FOR him, those I have. Man with freak for partner, aye?”

Diane winced, then waved her glass at the older couple.

“Deb, well, yes. Couple of things, though. Look at Paula there: even someone with my Mam’s background, all that weight of convention, even Mam is now calling her ‘that author woman’, and Gemma is going to stay ‘that bloody good pastry chef’. People can adapt”

I was going to add something darker, but she was on a roll, the words clearly bursting to escape.

“I have a friend, Deb, not one here, and she’s trans. Married now, and I watched her with her family, with her man, and not only was it right and fitting but it was accepted”

I hadn’t been wrong, then, and turned in my seat to smile at her.

“Copper? Over to Sussex?”

I had clearly caught her out.

“You know about her?”

“Let’s just say I keep a very, very keen eye on the news. Never know what will come out. Car bomb woman?”

She shuddered, and there were other things she wanted to say, but she did her best to keep it as professional as she could.

“Yup. I knew her when she worked over this way”

I let that one lie, at least in terms of words, but my face had clearly betrayed ne, as well as my soft “Aaaah”. Her face softened, and I don’t know whether it was the wine, or Blake’s absence, but she was suddenly a lot more open.

“Ah, indeed. Bloody good job I never pushed it…”

Her face took on that absent look again, and I understood what she was doing, as what had seemed to be an imminent confession of unrequited lust was put back into the cupboard.

No; that was unfair. What I was picking up from her was a deeper thing, and I cast a quick glance at Paula, and the similarity was there. Smitten, was Di, absolutely gone, and all over a man who had never been one in the first place. Marty in reverse, sort of. I let it lie, as she shook herself, smiling at me in a politely unnatural way.

“Now, I am stuffed, Rhod’s just about asleep, so I think it is time to disengage him from your girls’ love and affection and get him home to bed. The Sedakas have done the driving thing tonight, otherwise..”

She waved her wine glass at me, before doing the necessary cleaning job on her infant, then strapped him into the seat/cot thing and clipped it into the wheeled part of the pushchair, as Paul and Paula hugged their way round the room, ready to make their own exit. A gaggle of pining young women saw them all out of the old front door, Paula linking her arm with her fiancé as they set off for their own homes, and I assumed that the number of places involved was most definitely no more than two, as I couldn’t see anything short of a crowbar prising Paula away from PC Welby. Time for a cuppa.

The hammering on the door came just as I finished filling the kettle, and after a quick check through the peephole, I saw it was Paul, and he was covered in sodding blood, and…

“What the fuck!”

“Paula, Deb! Shot! Gemma! Ambulance, call one, please! Deb, towels, tea towels, whatever!”

As Gemma snatched for the house phone, I was out of the front door with him and Charlie, half the contents of my towel drawer in my hands, and Paula was on the ground, Di kneeling beside her, hands pushed somewhere and blood all over her arms, even splashed onto her face, and more of it pooling on the pavement, but thank fuck it wasn’t spurting, as whatever Di was doing seemed to be working at least a little, but Paula’s eyes were open, her heels drumming ever so slightly on the slabs and…

There were blue lights, a huge copper talking so, so calmly to Diane, little Rhod back in the House door with the girls, and then an ambulance, and paramedics with all sorts of things, reaching around my friend and coaxing her hands away from Paula’s shoulder, and finally, finally, Di could let go of both Paula and herself. I realised that if I let go of my own self, as she had now done with Paula, I would never get back up, so I pulled her to her feet, leaning on her almost as much as she was on me. The blood was everywhere.

I was starting to shake now, and that very big copper whispered an excuse, then eased me away from Diane. He was absolutely calm, and I have no idea how anyone could react like that, a pool of blood on a footpath now spread further as paramedics stepped in it while doing their best to save a loving woman’s life.

“Stay strong, girl. Stay strong. Hubby’s on his way with Sammy. Notes, girl. Get it written up while it’s still fresh, then we get you clean and your clothes bagged”

Di was all over the place, her focus on the blood soaking her blouse, the splashes of it all the way up her arms.

“What?”

He muttered something in Welsh that had an awful lot of nastiness to it, and that was when I realised how false that air of calm was.

“Di, we will get these turds, but we want as much on our side of the scales as we can, aye? Picture of you and the blood, that’s the sort of thing that gets juries seeing things our way”

“I didn’t even get the fucking number of the bike…”

She was just about to break down, and I wanted to drag her into the House, into a shower, because I needed to get Paula’s blood off me, and so must she, but he was doing his job so fucking professionally I wanted to scream.

“Not now, Di. It happens. You were with friends, pushing your kid. You’re not superhuman, are you? Are you?”

He was hugging her, as she complained he would get blood on his uniform, but he clearly didn’t give a shit, which nearly set me laughing when he used exactly those words.

“Does anyone give a shit, girl? That bike is probably toast by now, so the number isn’t that important. Let’s get you sat down, evidence written up, aye? Your mate there, she got a space for us?”

He was looking at me, but Charlie answered from behind him.

“For Paula? For Di? Of course we have. Come with me”

She led us into the kitchen, and the big man, Barry she was calling him, Barry continued being calmly professional as he wrote so much down, and then there were men with cameras, and they were asking if I could find somewhere for Diane to change into a white boiler suit thing so they could take her clothes for forensics, and then, finally, there was another big man there, as Blake arrived with Inspector Patel.

Diane broke a couple of minutes later, but her professional parts had been covered. Before she went to a bathroom to let them take her clothing, Patel was already organising her next steps. Diane had one last gasp of coppering, though.

“Paula? Any word?”

The little man’s mouth tightened.

“Straight to theatre. Lost a lot of blood, they say, but she’s still with us. We’ll let you know, OK? But go home. Now”

That was a moment when I felt myself lifted, as Tiff simply apologised for breaking into Diane’s phone and ringing the number listed under ‘Mam’.

“Di? Got your phone here. Hope I didn’t overstep, but I rang your Mam”

Diane caught a look on her face.

“Why the tears, love?”

“Stupid question, Di! And she wanted to know who I was, of course”

“What’d you tell her?”

Tiff stood up straighter, as Blake took their son back for a cuddle of his own

“Just said I was one of your sisters, didn’t I? Anyway, you’ve been told, woman. Home!”

My Tiff. My girl.

Diane changed in the bathroom, all sorts of odd sacks coming out to seal her sodden clothing in, and when she reappeared, she was wearing a paper suit with a little hood and a long zip, her face greying slowly now as the shock started to bite, and I thanked god they didn’t seem to want my clothes as they had Di’s and Paul’s, and once everybody was gone, I went up and stood in the shower for ages, trying to find every last drop of Paula’s blood.

Eventually, I was able to gather enough of my sanity to settle down in the living room with a mug of hot chocolate, as Gemma sent Marty on his way with a kiss. When she came back in, she quietly asked me to go to the back door with her.

A small figure was standing there in nondescript clothing, a bicycle in hand and a baseball cap pulled down over the eyes. They looked up, and I realised it was Rosie.

Her voice was a simmer of rage, but she was as professional as that big copper had been.

“Dumped the van a few streets away, Sis. Listen, no interruptions, and I am then gone. You do NOT come up to the clubhouse, not until we tell you. Got that?”

She paused, some of her control leaking away, and then she spoke once more, before turning on her heel and riding off.

“We are going to sort this, Sis. Nobody does this to our family and walks again. Fucking NOBODY”