A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [56]
‘Get up to bed, you little shits,’ Molly yelled at her children because they were arguing. Angela had crept off the minute she’d come in from the street, but the three older ones had ignored her previous order.
‘I wanna see Quatermass,’ Alan, the fourteen-year-old, said belligerently. ‘I always watch it.’
‘I’ll give you Quatermass with the back of my hand if you don’t fuck off,’ Molly retorted, rising somewhat unsteadily out of her chair.
The three children shuffled nervously backwards towards the door.
They were all remarkably alike, with the same dirty, straw-coloured hair, pinched pale faces, light brown eyes and sharp features. Alan, the eldest, had a squint. Mary, though only thirteen, had big breasts which were stretching her grubby blouse to bursting point. Joan, who was ten, had large buck teeth.
‘Go on, piss off.’ Molly took a threatening step towards them. ‘Mike and I want a bit of peace.’
‘You said we could ’ave some chips,’ Alan said, trying to look tough and eyeing Mike, his father’s nephew, with deep suspicion. ‘And where’s our Dora?’
‘If you don’t sodding well fuck off I’ll brain you,’ Molly screamed out. ‘And tell that half-wit upstairs to have a piss. If she wets the bed again I’ll belt ’er so ’ard she won’t be able to sit on ’er arse for a week.’
Realizing their luck had run out, the two younger ones fled. Alan hung on a second or two longer, but as his mother stepped threateningly towards him, he backed away and scampered upstairs.
‘That’s more like it.’ Molly slammed the door shut and returned to the couch. ‘Get us another drink, Mike.’
Mike got up, picked up her glass and walked towards the kitchen. He had an identical build to Alfie and all his brothers; five feet eight, bull-necked, broad-shouldered and muscular. His sandy hair was already receding, and he had the start of a beer gut. He was what his mother called ‘homely’, which he took to mean he was no Cary Grant.
Stopping in the kitchen doorway, he looked back. ‘Where’s Dora?’ he asked.
‘Gone to the flicks.’
‘Who wiv?’
‘On ’er tod.’
‘She don’t like going nowhere on ’er tod!’
‘She does if I tell ’er to,’ Molly retorted. ‘Now get us a beer.’
Mike was twenty-five and had lived with his Aunt Molly and Uncle Alfie since coming out of prison two years ago. He’d only got six months for breaking into a sweet shop, but his mother wouldn’t let him back in the house again. Within a few weeks he’d realized that there were some serious drawbacks to living here; it was like a madhouse most of the time, but he’d got nowhere else to go.
He was pretty certain Molly had got rid of Dora and the kids tonight because she was feeling randy, and just the thought of that turned his stomach.
It wasn’t very smart of him to start having it off with Dora. She was ugly, thirty-five and backward to boot, but getting his leg over was his first priority when he got out of the nick, and Dora was there, like a bitch on heat. To be fair to her she was kind of sweet, always eager and grateful, idolizing him and prepared to do anything he asked. But it was a bit sickening to know Alfie screwed her too whenever he felt like it.
It might not have been clever to get involved with Dora, but it was total insanity giving Molly one too. She was old, fat and as vicious as a rabid dog, and he never knew when she was going to pounce next. Weeks could go by and she wouldn’t come near him, then out of the blue she’d start touching him up, coming on strong. And she even did it in front of Dora and Alfie.
Mike stood for a moment in the kitchen, looking at the mess. It wasn’t any worse than usual, but perhaps because he knew what Molly had in mind tonight, he suddenly saw how filthy it really was.
The sink was full of dirty dishes that had been there for days, the table was strewn with more, along with sauce and beer bottles, chip papers and other bits of rubbish. The floor, never washed, was so dirty he couldn’t make out the pattern on the worn lino. Empty bottles,