Two Women Read Online Free Page A

either way and enjoyed making the women in his life wait to see what he was going to do. Was June going to get a kicking, or was he going to forgive and forget and make long-winded declarations of love? It was a good game, one he enjoyed.
    Ivy’s eyes were shining with expectation and excitement. This was more like it. This was exactly what she had waited for. Suddenly she was a young woman again and Joey was his father.
    What a man! Her husband’s namesake was just like him.
    Susan put on the kettle again, quietly this time. A loud noise could cause all sorts of trouble when her father was like this.
    He grinned at her.
    ‘Good girl, make the old man a cuppa. Calm him down after your mother had him nicked.’
    Still no one said a word.
    Joey looked at them all individually, drinking in the fear, the excitement and the tension. He sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag on it.
    ‘I reckon a cup of tea and an egg sandwich and I’ll be right as the mail.’
    The two girls let out a sigh of pleasure at the sound of his calm voice. Disaster had been averted, Dad was going to let it all go and they could relax. ‘Then, after my brekker, I’m going to go and shoot the coon. I nipped into Jonnie Braithwaite’s on the way home and got a nice little handgun. I’ll shoot his nuts off and be home for lunch.’
    Joey pulled an ex-Army revolver from the pocket of his bum freezer jacket. It was large, shiny and looked menacing.
    The girls’ eyes widened. Ivy’s face paled and June slumped in her seat.
    ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Joey. They’ll bang you up good and proper, then what will you do, eh?’
    Joey, who until this moment had not considered the possible consequences, stayed quiet.
    His little pig’s eyes gleamed.
    ‘I’ll worry about that afterwards. The soot is dead, mate.’
    Everyone in the kitchen kept quiet.
    ‘I put up with a lot from you, June, but fucking soots is one step too far. A big hairy-arsed wog now, is it? What’s wrong with everyone else then? Had your fill of white blokes, have you? Fancied a bit of black pudding?’
    He caressed the barrel of the gun then placed it under his wife’s chin. The metal was cold, icy cold. June closed her eyes.
    The tension in the kitchen was palpable.
    Joey was quite capable of shooting her then dissolving into tears of remorse. He would play the wronged man, the husband cuckolded by a flighty wife who had a penchant for black men.
    As usual he was living in his own fantasy world.
    Everyone in the room waited, breath held, eyes trained on the gun.
    Susan went to her father and put her arms around him gently.
    ‘Don’t shoot me mum, I’ve got me school play on Wednesday and I’m the Angel Gabriel.’
    Joey stared into his daughter’s face.
    But was she his daughter? Was either of the girls his?
    That was somewhere he definitely didn’t want to go.
    He looked at his golden child, his Deborah, the elder girl with whom he always felt a special affinity. Mostly because she had the same selfish streak as him, the same lazy way about her. Everyone loves seeing themselves in their children, and the more of their parents’ failings they have the more they are loved.
    It was human nature.
    Deborah was her father from head to foot. Pretty in a petulant way, she always made sure she got the lion’s share of everything that was going. She would hold out her hand and take all her life, never once giving anything back. Deborah, like her father, faced a very lonely existence as an adult.
    Even now, she was more worried about what would happen to her if her father shot her mother than the fact that June was in mortal danger from a man who didn’t understand that human life was for enjoying, for giving and for loving. Not for making everyone do exactly as he wanted.
    Being a weak man, Joey made a point of threatening, fighting and hating because he thought that made him look strong. He hated June and Susan at times because he knew they saw