AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

Previously on 'Skins 24 – Valentine's Day': Emily prepares a special Valentine's Day meal for her and Naomi after which Naomi gives Emily a locket and massage oils as presents. Pandora's mother decides to disguise herself as a teenager and gain entry to the club so as to check up on Pandora & Thomas. Cook tells JJ about him having got a young girl pregnant at a party and about his reluctance to go along with an abortion. Effy leaves her Mum recovering in hospital from her overdose and resolves to look after her after one final drinking binge later that evening at the club.


Time: 20.14.25

Katie applied the finishing touches to her make-up before nodding with appreciation at the result in the mirror – dressed to kill, she reckoned, though she said so herself, - and then picking up her handbag and going downstairs. JJ had agreed to pick her up at the house at half past eight and so she wanted to be ready for him when he called round. She went into the living room where her Mum and Dad were sitting watching television and sat down in an empty chair.

'You look nice, dear,' said Jenna, smiling at her elder daughter. 'Where are you off to?'

'Just to the pub and then on to a club,' replied Katie, coolly. She was still smarting from Emily's caustic comments about her and blamed her Mum for having inflamed the whole tricky family situation by sending Naomi that Valentine's card. If she hadn't done such a stupid and pointless thing, then none of today's flashpoint confrontations and hurtful remarks would have happened.

'Who are you going with?' asked Jenna, who could sense the uneasy atmosphere that had developed between the two of them and was keen to try to repair it as much as she could. 'Is it someone we know?'

'Yes, JJ's taking me.' Katie answered, still defiantly not looking up at her Mum.

'Is that the weird little guy who came for you and Emily last summer with his tall mate?' Rob would normally have stayed out of such conversations, uneasy or not, but on this occasion he couldn't stop himself from expressing his astonishment that Katie was going out with such a freakish oddball. JJ seemed nothing like Katie's normal type – they had always tended to be tall, well-built, cocky, arrogant smart-arses who he wouldn't have trusted for one second to treat his daughter with respect and keep their grubby little hands off her. But this lad – well, he couldn't imagine JJ even knowing what to do even if he was given the slightest encouragement by Katie.

'He's not weird, he's………different, that's all. He's sensitive and a bit shy. You probably frightened the life out of him that night, Dad. I wouldn't be surprised if he won't even come in to the house tonight if he knows you're here.' Katie was only saying this to wind up her Dad but actually she suspected there might be more than a grain of truth in what she had just said. JJ still had nightmares of the one time he had met her Mum and Dad and was probably keen to avoid another painful confrontation.

'What did I do to scare him?' Rob effected the injured expression and outraged tone of someone who had been falsely accused of the most heinous of crimes.

'Dad, he said you grinned at him like a blithering idiot the whole time he was here. You didn't take your eyes off him once and you made him feel so nervous he could barely speak. You scared the shit out of him!'

'Go on! I never even touched him! I was just concentrating on what he was saying, that's all. Not that it did me any good, mind. I couldn't understand a bloody word he was on about it.'

Rob's fuzzy but abiding memory of that brief visit to the house by JJ and his tall, skinny mate was that JJ seemed to be terrified of his own shadow and babbled and stuttered so nervously that he could hardly string two sentences together. Katie's much clearer memory of that uncomfortable clash of personalities, as told to her by JJ, was that he had let the cat out of the bag about having slept with Emily but so vaguely, so incoherently, that her Mum and Dad didn't cotton on to the real significance behind his nervous babbling.

The doorbell suddenly rang just as if JJ had heard his cue and realised it was time for him to make his stage entrance. Katie jumped up and went to the door, closely followed by her father, who wanted to see if this JJ seemed any different this time and so ignored the protests of Katie not to come and meet him. She opened the door and sweetly greeted JJ who was standing on the doorstep. He returned her welcome with an equally warm smile which quickly transformed into a sickly, fixed grin borne out of horror at the sudden appearance of Mr Fitch over Katie's shoulder.

'You're early, JJ. That's impressive. Most guys turn up late and keep a girl waiting. I'm glad you're not like all the others. Come on, let's go.'

'JJ! Good to see you again!' said Rob, stepping forward alongside Katie and holding out his hand towards JJ, forcing the frightened lad to acknowledge his presence and return his polite greeting.

'Um…..Mr Fitch……Yes…….um, hello. It's very nice to meet you again.'

JJ reluctantly extended his right hand to shake Rob's in time-honoured tradition and tried his damnedest not to wince or scream out loud as Mr Fitch's firm, manly handshake threatened to crush his own sweaty, limp hand into an unrecognisable pulp.

'So you're on your own this time, eh? You're a brave lad taking our Katie on,' smiled Rob in exaggerated fashion and he gave JJ a sly wink. This only served to make JJ even more nervous and terrified as he didn't quite know what to make of such an unexpected and enigmatic gesture. Was he giving him a cryptic warning to keep his increasingly sweaty hands off his daughter or was it a secret sign of encouragement to 'get stuck in there, my son, you have my permission to roger her senseless'?

He giggled nervously and involuntarily, not trusting himself to come out with the right words in response and felt his cheeks blush a deep crimson in self- inflicted embarrassment. Rob's eyes glazed over in utter bewilderment at this giggling village idiot standing in front of him and he wondered if Katie hadn't completely lost the plot in allowing such a nerd to take her out for a date. He wasn't sure if he preferred it when she used to go out with a procession of horny, self-confident, mouthy bastards.

At least he knew where he stood with them, he could relate to them very easily and knew exactly what they were after with his daughter. He could see elements of his younger self in those sex-obsessed bucks and studs and had no qualms in telling them just what they would have coming to them if they so much as laid a finger on his precious daughters.

Somehow he had the feeling that it would be completely unnecessary for him to issue the same warning of dire consequences to JJ if he meddled with Katie in any way. If anything, he felt sorry for the poor bastard and wondered if his parents knew that their son was getting involved with a real man-eater like Katie. Perhaps they should be the ones protecting their innocent son from her, rather than the other way round.

Katie could tell JJ was feeling extremely tongue-tied and nervous facing up to her Dad and took pity on him quickly. 'Bye, Dad, see you later. Don't wait up, I'll be back late. Come on, JJ. Let's go.' She offered JJ her arm and after a few seconds' hesitation during which he blinked at Katie with wide open, confused eyes, JJ twigged what was required of him and slipped his left arm under and then over hers .The two of them then briskly walked off down the garden path looking for all the world like promising entrants in some bizarre, party night 'Odd Couples Competition.'


Time: 20.32.47

Freddie came out of the kitchen carrying two cups of hot black coffee and took them into the living room where Effy was sitting motionless in a chair, staring blankly at the sofa where only a couple of hours ago she had found her mother unconscious.

'Coffee, Ef,' said Freddie softly and put the steaming mugs on the table which had been cleared of the bottles of pills by the paramedics when they arrived on the scene.

'Thanks,' said Effy, without making any movement to pick up her mug and drink from it. Freddie sipped his coffee quietly and looked across at Effy, trying to gauge her state of to work out how best to play it with her right then. It was difficult to say if she ought to get the whole thing off her chest now or whether it would be wiser to give her time to let the events sink in properly before discussing them. Freddie knew she was a tough, hard as nails, very controlled and composed young woman but this was the sort of thing that could knock anyone sideways. He remembered how his mother's death had affected him a few years back.

'Are you okay?' he asked, realising it was a pretty dumb question but knowing he had to start somewhere.

'Not really,' said Effy, looking up at him with expressionless eyes which seemed to be a million miles away. 'I just can't get it out of my head that if I'd have got back five minutes later she'd have been dead.'

'But you didn't. You got back when you did and that saved her life,' pointed out Freddie, wondering if he should go over to her and hold her and cuddle her. She had given no sign or indication so far that she needed a hug or any other form of close contact for comfort and he couldn't read the message in her eyes, if there was one.

'If I'd have spotted the signs beforehand, she would never have taken the pills in the first place, though.'

'You don't know that, Effy! You can't think like that. Stop torturing yourself. Your Mum might have done it on the spur of the moment. You don't know she'd been thinking of doing it for ages.'

'But I knew how unhappy she was. I could see how her self-pity and her anger were eating her up inside and all I wanted to do was get out and leave her to it. What sort of daughter was I? Where was I when she really needed me?'

'You were here when she needed you most. You were right here by her side when she could have died. You showed how much you cared by what you did then. Stop beating yourself up about it.'

This time Freddie stopped trying to think about whether or not it was the right thing to do, he just did it. He went over to Effy, sat on the arm of the chair and pulled her gently towards him. She made no effort to resist, leaning into his side as she closed her eyes and bit her lip, like she was straining to stop the tears from flowing.

'I can't run away now, Freddie. I have to stay with her and keep an eye on her.'

'I know. But…..I'll always be nearby, Effy. You do know that, don't you? I can help you anytime you want. You won't have to do this on your own, I promise.'

Effy looked up at Freddie and actually smiled for the first time in hours. Dear faithful, kind Freddie. She totally believed him, too – he would always be there for her whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on, someone to let off steam at, or someone to share her burden of guilt with. She could no longer be a free spirit for the foreseeable future and Freddie could rest easy that he wouldn't have to decide whether he was prepared to take a risk and tag along with her wherever she chose to go. She was going nowhere.

'Yeah, I know.' She raised her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek. 'Thanks.'

They sat like that in silence for five more minutes until Effy slowly disentangled herself from Freddie's comforting embrace and stood up rather unsteadily, as she felt her legs tingle a little with pins ands needles.

'I'm going to go and get ready for tonight, okay? I won't be too long.'

'Take however long you need. I'll be right here,' said Freddie and took her place in the armchair, smiling after her as she left the living room.


Time: 20.58.19

Most of the gang were seated at a couple of tables in a corner of the pub knocking back their first drink of the night. Naomi and Emily were next to each other, of course, still on an emotional high after their romantic meal at Naomi's and Emily was shyly yet proudly showing Panda and Katie her locket. They had both agreed not to bring the oils along, however, and share that particular joke with all the others.

'Oh, wow!' said Panda, as she examined the locket in great detail. 'That's beautiful, Emily. Look, Thomas. Isn't that absolutely super?'

Even Katie was sufficiently moved and impressed by Naomi's token of her love for Emily to pass an admiring comment on it. 'That's lovely,' she said and smiled at both girls. 'I wish I had someone who cared that much about ME.'

Emily was touched by her sister's genuine appreciation of Naomi's present and reached out to lay a conciliatory hand on Katie's arm. 'I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean any of it, honestly. I was so angry with Mum for what she did and I guess I just took it out on you.'

'Forget it,' replied Katie, squeezing her sister's arm to emphasise that the apology was accepted and that their row was a thing of the past. 'Mum shouldn't have done what she did. I wish she had told me what she was planning to do. I could have told her not to bother. A stupid thing like that was never going to break you two up.'

Naomi and Emily looked at each other and both laughed, glad that there wasn't going to be an unpleasant atmosphere between the three of them that evening after all.

Thomas was being his usual polite, attentive self towards Panda who was so excited that her mother had allowed them out that evening and had been singing Thomas' praises from the moment they had all met up. JJ was sitting next to Katie, feeling very awkward as her date for the evening and constantly blushing whenever Naomi made a harmless little joke at his expense about it.

Cook had joined them a short while ago but had seemed strangely subdued and quiet to all of them except JJ who looked over at his mate from time to time to see if he could pick up any sign from him on whether there had been any developments. Cook, however, seemed intent on avoiding eye contact with JJ and just sat very quietly drinking his beer more slowly than anyone could remember him doing ever before.

'What's up with you, Cook? You're very quiet tonight,' commented Naomi who liked to get to the bottom of things and wasn't afraid to ask a searching, direct question to get the ball rolling.

'Things on my mind, Naomi,' he said tersely, though not rudely, and he got up at the appearance of his uncle at the bar and went over to have a word with him without any further explanation. The others all looked at each other, puzzled and briefly speculated as to what could be up with him.

'He seems really down,' said Emily, as she played absentmindedly with her locket, hardly able to leave it alone for five minutes without needing to feel it was still there.

'Whatever it is, he'll cheer up when we get to the club and he can start picking off all the girls there,' sighed Katie, shaking her head in exasperation.

'I don't think he'll be doing that tonight,' said JJ softly, looking down at the table glumly, before looking up instantly, with a worried expression on his face, to see several pairs of eyes trained on him, all brimming with curiosity and expectation..

'Why, JJ? Do you know what's up with Cook?' Naomi stared hard at JJ and saw him turn red and begin to stutter and stammer in a sure sign that he knew something and was nervously trying to conceal it.

'No…….nothing….nothing at all…..I mean, I'm sure everything will be fine. Not that I know anything, of course……… I mean, it's a secret………..Shit! Don't all look at me like that, I'm not going to tell you about the baby, so don't even…….Fuck!! Shit!'

'Baby?' the rest of them all gasped in unison, shocked expressions etched all over their collective faces as they all stared at JJ even more intently.

'Who's having a baby, JJ' It was Katie's turn to take up the interrogation of poor JJ who now looked like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights, as he shook his head and looked wildly all around him for a means of escaping out of the hole he had just unwittingly dug for himself.

'No-one! I don't know her name. No-one you know, anyway. So…….Please don't make me tell you. I promised……it's a big secret…….he'll kill me if he finds out I've……oh fuck! You fucking idiot, JJ, you useless, stupid, brain-dead…….'

'JJ!! Calm down,' said an anxious Emily who had been here before, mindful of the last time she had been with the poor lad when he had got locked on to one of his fits of uncontrollable rage at himself. 'I don't want to have to get my tits out here, JJ'

'What?' said an incredulous Panda, for whom the idea of Emily getting her tits out for JJ to grab his attention was a truly fascinating image.

'It worked last time,' explained Emily, who was still concentrating on getting JJ focused back on reality and out of the dark, dangerous vortex into which he was rapidly spiralling before their very eyes. 'JJ! JJ! Listen to me!'

'Hey, JJ! Grab a load of these!' said Pandora, pulling up her blouse to reveal her pert, well-formed breasts, just about contained within a sea-blue bra but still seemingly straining to escape from their uneasy imprisonment. JJ immediately stopped babbling incoherently and started staring wild-eyed at Pandora's ample chest as if he was transfixed by the sight of yet another pair of breasts which had been revealed to him without him even having to ask.

'Wow!' he said open-mouthed, whereupon everyone around the table burst out laughing as Pandora teasingly pulled down her top to bring to an end her unexpected photo shoot and grinned massively around her.

'JJ, if I didn't know you better, I'd swear you did that on purpose just to get one of us to show you our tits,' remarked Naomi thoughtfully with a wry smile at JJ who had calmed down now and was blushing with embarrassment at having caused such a scene.

'So, JJ, can we get back to what you were saying before? Nice and calmly, though. Whose baby were you going on about?'


Time: 21.14.36

Mrs Moon had been standing in the queue for the night club for some five minutes now, casting anxious glances around her, terrified that her daughter would turn up at any minute with Thomas and instantly recognise her wearing some of her clothes. She had been having plenty of second thoughts about the wisdom of her bold plan but thought it was too late to go back on it now without running the risk of bumping into them on their way over.

She had cross-examined Pandora in great detail about her timetable for the evening and knew that she and Thomas were planning on getting to the club around ten o'clock .She reckoned that if she got into the club at least a half an hour before them she could find herself a position from which she could hide from their sight yet still see them when they arrive and be able to keep tabs on them for the rest of the evening.

What she hadn't bargained for, of course, being an infrequent night clubber to put it mildly (the last time she could remember going out dancing was over fifteen years ago) was the sheer numbers of loud, excitable, hyped-up and seemingly already spaced-out young people all hanging around outside who were making her feel extremely self-conscious and nervous. She felt uncomfortable enough as it was wearing an extraordinarily tight, brightly coloured dress of Pandora's.

She stood quietly, trying to keep herself to herself, not looking at anyone directly and continually checking herself out in her small make-up mirror to see if her disguise as a teenager was going to work or not. She had let her hair down for the evening, literally as well as figuratively, and was wearing a scarf over her head, in a desperate attempt to hide the evidence that her face might otherwise give away that her teenage years were a thing of the past.

One or two youths standing next to her had been staring at her for a few minutes and had attempted to make some sort of conversation with her but she had answered with just a shake of the head and the odd monosyllabic reply, making it abundantly clear that she was not in the mood for harmless small talk or feeble chat up lines

Her heart was thumping so hard and fast that she was convinced everyone around her could hear it and would suspect that something was not quite right about her. She was praying for the doors to open so she could free herself from this ordeal and seek the sanctuary of a quiet corner of the club from which to observe the events of the evening unfold without being disturbed.

'Are you on your own, darling?' a tall, dark-haired young lad asked her in a rather kind voice from behind her and she was forced to turn round and face him, as he had tapped her gently on the shoulder.

'Um, yes…..but I'm meeting friends inside,' she said, trying to effect a teenager's voice and hoping he wouldn't look at her face too closely.

'Well, if you get fed up with them, come over and see me, babe. I'll buy you a drink and we can maybe get down and dirty on the dance floor, yeah? You look pretty hot to me!'

Mrs Moon smiled nervously and giggled, not knowing what the acceptable standard response would be in such a situation. She presumed he was trying to 'chat her up' but sadly she was seriously out of practice in how to deal with a strange but quite nice looking guy unashamedly trying to pick her up outside a club. Fortunately her embarrassment was saved by the sound of a huge cheer going up and she looked over to the entrance to the club and saw the doors were opening and the queue of young night clubbers had begun to move slowly but surely in front of her.

Her anxious period of waiting would mercifully soon be at an end and she would be able to enter the unfamiliar world of the teenage night club scene where who knows what weird and wonderful sights and sounds would await her on this most bizarre and unexpected of Saturday nights. What a terrifying contrast it promised to hold in store for her compared to her normal routine of curling up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a good book or watching a nice, inoffensive, family light entertainment TV show.


Time: 21.26.58

There was an air of stunned silence still hanging heavily around the table even some time after JJ had been cajoled and urged into spilling the beans about Cook's predicament. JJ was looking very sheepishly at everyone, wishing he hadn't given the game away so easily and fearing what Cook's reaction would be when he came back.

Cook had disappeared round the back of the bar with his uncle more than twenty minutes ago and had still not reappeared, leaving them all to speculate on what he might be talking to him about.

'Maybe he's asking his uncle if he'll lend him the money for an abortion,' surmised Naomi intelligently.

'What if he's asking him to help him get away from here? Maybe his uncle has a place where he can disappear to until it's all blown over,' Katie speculated imaginatively. 'I mean, come on, there's no way Cook is going to want a child in his life at seventeen. Who in their right mind would?'

'I wouldn't be so sure about that, Katie,' said JJ. 'When I last spoke with him he was pretty determined he wanted this baby to be born. He muttered something about it being the only thing in his life that would feel like it was his. He said there was nothing else in his life that actually meant something to him but that this baby would.'

'I suppose it could give him a reason to stay here and make something of his life,' Emily said, looking around at the others with an expression which told of someone trying to see the best in any situation, however seemingly hopeless or adverse.

They pondered some more on the various courses of action open to Cook until the lad in question suddenly reappeared from behind the bar and made his way back to join them at their table, picking up his pint glass and downing the remains of his drink as he sat down. He looked across at the others who were staring at him in silence and he could almost hear their collective intake of breath and feel their steely eyes boring into the innermost thoughts of his scrambled mind.

'What?' he said, irritably. 'Why the fuck are you all looking at me like that?'

They remained silent, some still looking at him with mixed expressions of sympathy, sorrow or exasperation, others staring down at the table, not wanting to catch his eye any more. Nothing was said and Cook eventually guessed what had happened during his absence, all the more so since JJ in particular wouldn't look him in the eye and seemed to be squirming uncomfortably in his seat and was breathing heavily and blinking furiously.

'What the fuck have you said, JJ?!!'

'I didn't mean to, Cook. It ……it just came out. I'm really sorry. I …..I ….I just panicked, I suppose……and then before I knew it, I'd blabbed it all out.'

'Fuck me, JJ. Thanks for being a really great mate. I might have known I couldn't rely on you to keep your mouth shut. What the fuck was I thinking of letting you in on it?'

'Don't blame JJ, Cook! It wasn't all his fault. We pretty much badgered him into spilling the beans.' Emily wasn't going to sit by and watch JJ take the rap for giving Cook's secret away. Cook was on the point of answering Emily when the sound of the pub door being flung upon with an almighty racket cut him short and they all looked up to see a huge, burly middle-aged guy storm into the pub, with a face like thunder, followed by a young girl with long blonde hair who seemed terrified, with good reason.

'Right, my girl. Which one is he?' he barked at the young girl who was uneasily tagging along behind him. She nervously stretched out a long delicate and shaking finger and pointed at Cook who had turned round to see what the commotion was about. As soon as Cook saw the guy with the young girl whom he had had the conversation with in the pub earlier in the day, he knew instinctively who he was.

He could have made a run for it, he supposed. He would have had a head start on the guy and could have got out of the pub via another door and legged it down the road, doubtless with the furious father of the bride not-to-be in hot pursuit. But such an idea never really entered Cook's mind. He had never run away from anything in his life before, certainly not a fight or a potentially aggressive head to head confrontation and he wasn't about to start now. If the brutal truth had to be faced, well then he would face it head on even if it meant that head stood a reasonable chance of being thoroughly kicked in.

Cook decided to stand up and admit his identity and take the consequences. 'I'm Cook,' he said and watched as the guy marched over towards him, his chiselled jaw firmly set like granite and his eyes narrowing on Cook's face as he drew ever closer to him. He got to within a foot of Cook and then, with virtually no back lift, such that not even the normally fast reflexes of Cook had time to take evasive action, he threw the biggest haymaker that anyone sitting there watching could have seen in many a long year. Cook was sent flying clean off his feet and staggered back on to the table, sending all the glasses crashing to the floor, shattering into many pieces. Thick red blood spurted out of his nose and mouth in all directions as he fell off the table and on to the floor as all the girls plus JJ screamed out loud in horror.

By the merest of coincidences at the precise moment when Cook took the full force of the punch, Effy and Freddie walked into the pub and surveyed the dramatic scene in front of them. They immediately recognised the girl who was cowering beside her father, hands covering her face, as the one who had approached Cook in the pub earlier that day and, being both bright young things capable of putting two and two together, were able to make an educated guess as to what this might be all about.

'Get up, you bastard and fight!' roared the middle-aged man, who was now standing over Cook and kicked out at him as he lay prone on the floor of the pub in a pool of blood, beer and other liquids. Freddie stepped forward bravely and instinctively to help his best mate, intending to attempt to restrain the guy but he hadn't been the first to react. Cook's uncle had moved forward on seeing the punch having been landed on his nephew and was now behind the guy, closely followed by one of his burly associates and the two of them grabbed hold of the enraged father in a vice-like grip and overpowered him before he could inflict any more damage on a still dazed and bleeding Cook.

'Okay, okay, that's enough! We don't want any more trouble kicking off in here. This is a respectable pub. If anyone's got a problem we'll talk it over nice and quietly over a pint.'

The guy shouted words of abuse and struggled like crazy to throw his restrainers off him but together Cook's uncle and his associate were too strong for him and they comfortably held him down, despite his frantic thrashings of both arms and legs.

'Cookie, get the hell out of here and take your friends with you. I'll take care of this little problem. You make yourselves scarce, do you all hear me?'

The gang slowly got to their feet, the girls' faces still white with fear and shock at the brutality of the short-lived punch up which they had just witnessed at such close quarters. Thomas and Freddie helped Cook to his feet and each put an arm round his shoulders and practically carried him out of the pub, followed by all the others. As they passed by the daughter, who hadn't said a word while all this was going on, Cook stretched out an unsteady hand and grabbed hold of her, saying, 'Come with us, whatever your name is. We need to talk, you and me. Leave him, he'll be alright.' The girl looked over towards her father who had calmed down by now and wasn't putting up much of a resistance any more and then nodded silently at Cook and went with him through the door.

As they all trooped out of the pub and into the refreshing cold evening air, Naomi turned to the others and put into words, albeit in a near whisper, the thought that was running through all their minds. 'He's got that poor girl pregnant and he doesn't even know her fucking name! Classy piece of work, Cook!'


AUTHOR'S MESSAGE

Once again, may I offer my thanks to all those of you who have posted reviews of the story so far. Your comments of support and encouragement are much appreciated. If you haven't yet given a review but would like to voice your opinions, positive or negative, I would be thrilled to hear from you. All criticisms are most welcome!