Two Women Read Online Free Page B

through him. Saw him as he really was: a loud-mouthed bully.
    And that was why they were all so worried.
    He would not shoot the black man. If anyone was getting shot it was going to be June because she was an easy target and today’s events would give him more creds with the neighbours, the people he thought were important.
    It never occurred to Joey that there was a big world beyond Roman Road market and that people outside the area cared little if he lived or died.
    He wanted to be a big fish in a little pond.
    People would be wary of him coming around their houses. He would get lots of drinks in the pub. Old whores and local slappers would give him the adoration he craved. But June, his June, would still look at him with those empty eyes and laugh at him behind his back. Because she knew him for what he really was: a coward, a storyteller, a liar.
    Deep down Joey was nothing. He knew it, and worst of all his wife did too. She was his Achilles heel because deep inside he loved her, really loved her, and he knew that once she had loved him. Adored him even. Until she had sussed him out.
    He cocked the trigger, the noise shocking in the quietness of the kitchen.
    June swallowed noisily, her voice dead as she said, ‘Do it, Joey! Fucking get it over with, I’ve had enough.’
    He stared into her ravaged face, saw the swellings and bruises that would have put a normal woman into the Old London for a week, and felt the sting of tears. He envisaged blowing her face away once and for all. Blasting off the top of her head. But the moment was gone.
    She was standing up now and making more bloody tea.
    ‘I’ll do your breakfast and then you can get bathed.’
    He stared at her, the gun still aimed at her, only now it was at chest level.
    June smiled sadly.
    ‘Get it over with, Joey. You’ll do it one day. Might as well be now while I don’t give a flying fuck.’
    Susan took the gun from him gently as Debbie cuddled into her granny’s arms. Ivy’s face was a white mask. Not because her son was going to murder his wife but at the thought of him going down. Joey was what gave her licence to be the vindictive old bitch she was. People allowed her access to their homes and lives because they were too frightened not to.
    Susan quietly took the gun to the bathroom and dropped it down the toilet bowl. She had seen a film once where a gun had been immersed in water so it didn’t work.
    She hoped that was true.
    As she slid it into the toilet the trigger went off. The gun was totally silent. She sighed heavily.
    It wasn’t even loaded.
    Her father had put them through all that for nothing.
    After putting the toilet lid down, she went back to the kitchen. Debbie was on her father’s lap now and her granny was pouring him a large Scotch. Hair of the dog, they called it.
    The kitchen was full of good-humoured camaraderie from the release of tension. Putting on her old coat and wellingtons, Susan slipped from the house. She was supposed to be the Angel Gabriel in the play this week and she had no real costume, nothing. Her teacher had made her some wings and she had promised to make herself an angel costume.
    What she really needed was a sheet . . .
    As she walked down the steps to the street she saw the lines of washing hanging out even on a crisp winter’s morning. There before her was a lovely white sheet, pristine and shining.
    Susan smiled to herself.
    She sat it out all afternoon, watching the sheet, making sure no one took it in. As soon as it was dark she whipped it off the line and under her coat. One last glance to see whether anyone had clocked her and then she ran like the wind back to her house.
    Inside, everything was rosy. Her mother was on her father’s lap on the settee, her granny had gone and Debbie had the right hump because she had been chief tea maker and sandwich filler for the afternoon.
    ‘What’s that under your coat?’
    Her sister’s voice was loud. She tried to pull the sheet from Susan who pushed