Part four
"Your round or mine, Lauren" Cassie asked, and the very attractive dark haired woman made her way to the bar in the spacious pub they had taken themselves to.
Cassie smiled nostalgically to herself that this was the place that had been the start of many of her affairs in the past. Besides, she felt comfortable here.
Lauren was very gratified at the good service at this pub. Cassie had chosen well. No sooner had she got to the front of the queue than the barmaid smiled in a very friendly way and had served her with a couple of glasses of white wine. She could think of some places where she was propping up the bar for ages trying to get served, trying to catch the barmaid's eye and tut-tutting under her breath that the silly cow was almost deliberately ignoring her and serving some guy who thought he was God's gift to women who had jumped the queue. This barmaid was dead friendly and had a chat while Lauren paid for their drinks.
It was a typical hot summer's day and the pub doors were left open and the large overhead brass fan on the ceiling was gently rotating, wafting a tiny flavour of cool air to the table where Cassie and Lauren sat.
"Is it girls night out here, Cassie? Only a couple of guys here and they aren't exactly my type. Julian Clarry never exactly turns me on."
"You could say that, Lauren." Cassie smiled to herself. She wondered to herself how a woman like Lauren as street smart as you could get, who had knocked around a lot, who had the Atkins brains hadn't worked out the obvious. Still, Cassie thought to herself, she was a respectably partnered woman with kids and, really, she chose the pub with the nicest feel about it where she felt comfortable to have a quiet chat with a mate. All the other pubs on a night like this would be packed out solid and you needed to be able to lip-read to have any chance of a natter and ignore the drunks.
"So where's Roisin then, Cassie."
Cassie sighed. Since Roisin divorced Aiden, she had thought divorce means,' good riddance', 'you're history' but with two children, it wasn't that easy. They had spent more time with solicitors than she thought possible and all the endless haggling about access and maintenance seemed to be designed to line the pockets of knobbing men in expensive suits speaking in patronising accents. These sort of guys reminded her of the wankers she had to deal with when she started work in the bank. Roisin had gone up to see Aiden to ask him to look after the children while they attended the trial. It would crop up in school holiday time, something she was starting to be accustomed to as part of her life cycle.
"She's gone to visit that waste of space and persuade him to look after the kids while the trial's on. Jesus and I thought I had trouble in handling clients when I worked at the bank. Roisin has the patience of a saint in trying to get Aiden to agree to anything. I'd end up ramming this bottle" and here Cassie gestured to the small bottle on the table" right down his knobbing mouth."
Lauren smiled in appreciation at Cassie. She hadn't got many mates and when Cassie first came round to visit Mum on her release, she had got chatting to her and hit it off right away. It made her blink the casual way she talked about her partner and that that partner was a married woman. Hiring hit men who pretended to do pizza deliveries, growing up hearing Charlie's drug deals going down and strange thuggish enforcers coming round all hours having a drink with Charlie, yes, that was part of her life but where she grew up, everyone was 'straight.
"Hi Cassie." An attractive woman with long dark hair floated by, smiling at Cassie. "Thought you'd hidden yourself away."
"Yeah, well, I've got company." muttered Cassie. "Private company, if you know what I mean" glaring daggers at the tart whom she'd once had a fling with once and regretted it.
"I can take a hint, Cassie. Enjoy yourself." The woman smiled and floated off elsewhere.
"Someone I used to go out with." Cassie said. "She's bad news. No friend of mine either."
It was moments like this that Lauren found strange. Cassie was a mate like she had had mates before and her sexuality faded into the background nearly all the time. Cassie had a similar very direct quality, less 'in your face' than she used to be once. Lauren realised that Cassie was simply insecure when she first met her, wanting her approval as Yvonne's daughter, very much anxious not to blow it that she overcompensated. It didn't take long for Cassie to relax. In turn, Lauren learned to drop her guard with her. There weren't many straight ahead people around in her life that didn't lie, manipulate, tell all sort of tall stories to impress the Charlie's of this world. Cassie was a refreshing change. If Lauren was talking a load of crap, Cassie would tell her that but never in a way that would hurt, just out of friendly concern for her.
"How well did you know my mum in Larkhall?" asked Lauren. Since Mum had come home she had been quiet about her experiences. Sure, Lauren heard all the funny stories like the time Body bag went in and frisked the one genuine solicitor out of the pretend 'briefs' that she had fixed up and Lauren laughed along with them. She had seen brief glimpses of it in the times she'd visited Larkhall and the sight of Mum in the orange bib was imprinted on her mind. The letters she'd sent out were obviously written to hide how down she felt sometimes.
"Well," smiled Cassie, "In one of my madder moments, I fancied Yvonne and thought I could get off with her. Sorry Lauren" Cassie added hastily.
"It's all right, Cassie. Mum is over sixteen. She can do what she likes as long as she doesn't get hooked on some bastard. One is enough." Lauren's lips tightened, thinking of Charlie and that scrubber with bleach blond hair the last time she saw him.
"Rest assured. Your mum is totally straight. If I couldn't pull her, then……….."
After thinking she'd put her foot in it again, well done Cassie, she loosened up and gently reminisced about Yvonne and the memories that, for all her own brashness and apparent toughness, Yvonne was the real thing. Yvonne was the one whose authority like invisible
strings kept things together. She never forgot the scorn in Yvonne's eyes when she had been stupid enough to run a betting operation on a fight between Maxi and Shaz. There was no malice in it and the next day or so, Yvonne was back to her old self. There was no moody sulking but if anyone really crossed the line, there was no crawling back.
"You're a lot like Yvonne, Lauren. She was always talking about you and she thinks the world of you……like I do." And Cassie, for the first time in her life blushed. For the first time in her knobbing life she's been with another woman, and what sounded like a 'chat up' line wasn't. It was a simple statement of respect for a woman she knew with stone cold certainty was wiser than herself and her daughter who had that same strength beyond her years.
The evening wended its way along in its delightful way and they ordered in the drinks at regular intervals. The sounds of the bar got louder Lauren could put the booze away and Cassie felt compelled to keep up with her which was a big mistake.
"Can't take the pace, eh, Cassie. If you can't stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen." Lauren's mocking smile wobbled before Cassie's eyes, as she thought, oh no, not another drink.
"I'm absolutely pissed, Lauren." moaned Cassie. I'll never drink again after this night. Just as well the kids are away, seeing a drunken mum come reeling in."
Lauren smiled to herself to hear Cassie, that very modern and 'out gay' woman, sound so exactly like every other mother she had seen, hyper anxious not to disgrace herself 'in front of the children' while to Cassie, the world seemed to be seen through a distorting mirror that kept moving and wouldn't settle down.
When the landlady called out for last orders, Cassie lurched to her feet and Lauren caught her before she fell. Holding her tightly round the shoulder, Lauren steered the smaller woman towards the exit while the couple cuddling in the corner saw them go in a sentimental haze that another couple seemed happy and set up for the night.
The barmaid sighed to herself. You win some, you lose some. Anyway she was knackered.
In the back seat of the black cab, Cassie was slumped in a corner while Lauren called out to the driver, the other side of the glass grille. She would have to somehow navigate Cassie into the spare bedroom, she thought, as the street lights set against the dark whizzed by and it lurched all the way to Yvonne's house.
Once managing a three handed trick in fumbling for her keys, nudging the heavy front door open and gripping Cassie tightly so she didn't slump down on the ground, Lauren needed all her strength to heave Cassie step by step, up the wide green carpeted staircase. Her own room was nearest, she was knackered so, to hell with it, she manoeuvred Cassie through the door. Suddenly she tripped over an object and they both went flying through the air, crash onto her large, comfortable double bed nearby.
Shit, Lauren, I will have woken the dead.
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Lauren?" I've known you bring strange fellas back from a night on the town but this is bloody new for you." Yvonne's throaty, irritated tones, fresh from suddenly disturbed sleep tones reverberated round the room. Lauren could see her eyes squinting at her as she tried to adjust to the sudden bright light and to make sense of what appeared to be in front of her eyes. She didn't think Lauren was that type or so she had thought. Lauren blushed a pretty shade of pink with was another new thing for her. Atkins don't do blushing.
A half-conscious Cassie, crashed out helplessly on Lauren's bed, sleepily grinned in amusement and seemed to lie there for ages with a nice warm secure feeling inside of her. Above her head with her lover next to her in the same cell, the electric light seemed to stare down at her and describe elegant circles over her head making her dizzy to look at it .Then a well known, authoritative voice seemed to cut through her alcohol haze.
"Jesus Christ, where the hell's the night shift gone? And what's this drunken orgy going on here? Lights out everyone."
Oh shit, that means we're up for adjudication with Betts tomorrow and we're going to lose our nobbing privileges. I'm really really sorry, Roisin babes, she slurred drunkenly, it's all my fault as she wondered why the nobbing screws didn't put the light out like they said they would. She wanted to sleep more than anything else right then.
"Your round or mine, Lauren" Cassie asked, and the very attractive dark haired woman made her way to the bar in the spacious pub they had taken themselves to.
Cassie smiled nostalgically to herself that this was the place that had been the start of many of her affairs in the past. Besides, she felt comfortable here.
Lauren was very gratified at the good service at this pub. Cassie had chosen well. No sooner had she got to the front of the queue than the barmaid smiled in a very friendly way and had served her with a couple of glasses of white wine. She could think of some places where she was propping up the bar for ages trying to get served, trying to catch the barmaid's eye and tut-tutting under her breath that the silly cow was almost deliberately ignoring her and serving some guy who thought he was God's gift to women who had jumped the queue. This barmaid was dead friendly and had a chat while Lauren paid for their drinks.
It was a typical hot summer's day and the pub doors were left open and the large overhead brass fan on the ceiling was gently rotating, wafting a tiny flavour of cool air to the table where Cassie and Lauren sat.
"Is it girls night out here, Cassie? Only a couple of guys here and they aren't exactly my type. Julian Clarry never exactly turns me on."
"You could say that, Lauren." Cassie smiled to herself. She wondered to herself how a woman like Lauren as street smart as you could get, who had knocked around a lot, who had the Atkins brains hadn't worked out the obvious. Still, Cassie thought to herself, she was a respectably partnered woman with kids and, really, she chose the pub with the nicest feel about it where she felt comfortable to have a quiet chat with a mate. All the other pubs on a night like this would be packed out solid and you needed to be able to lip-read to have any chance of a natter and ignore the drunks.
"So where's Roisin then, Cassie."
Cassie sighed. Since Roisin divorced Aiden, she had thought divorce means,' good riddance', 'you're history' but with two children, it wasn't that easy. They had spent more time with solicitors than she thought possible and all the endless haggling about access and maintenance seemed to be designed to line the pockets of knobbing men in expensive suits speaking in patronising accents. These sort of guys reminded her of the wankers she had to deal with when she started work in the bank. Roisin had gone up to see Aiden to ask him to look after the children while they attended the trial. It would crop up in school holiday time, something she was starting to be accustomed to as part of her life cycle.
"She's gone to visit that waste of space and persuade him to look after the kids while the trial's on. Jesus and I thought I had trouble in handling clients when I worked at the bank. Roisin has the patience of a saint in trying to get Aiden to agree to anything. I'd end up ramming this bottle" and here Cassie gestured to the small bottle on the table" right down his knobbing mouth."
Lauren smiled in appreciation at Cassie. She hadn't got many mates and when Cassie first came round to visit Mum on her release, she had got chatting to her and hit it off right away. It made her blink the casual way she talked about her partner and that that partner was a married woman. Hiring hit men who pretended to do pizza deliveries, growing up hearing Charlie's drug deals going down and strange thuggish enforcers coming round all hours having a drink with Charlie, yes, that was part of her life but where she grew up, everyone was 'straight.
"Hi Cassie." An attractive woman with long dark hair floated by, smiling at Cassie. "Thought you'd hidden yourself away."
"Yeah, well, I've got company." muttered Cassie. "Private company, if you know what I mean" glaring daggers at the tart whom she'd once had a fling with once and regretted it.
"I can take a hint, Cassie. Enjoy yourself." The woman smiled and floated off elsewhere.
"Someone I used to go out with." Cassie said. "She's bad news. No friend of mine either."
It was moments like this that Lauren found strange. Cassie was a mate like she had had mates before and her sexuality faded into the background nearly all the time. Cassie had a similar very direct quality, less 'in your face' than she used to be once. Lauren realised that Cassie was simply insecure when she first met her, wanting her approval as Yvonne's daughter, very much anxious not to blow it that she overcompensated. It didn't take long for Cassie to relax. In turn, Lauren learned to drop her guard with her. There weren't many straight ahead people around in her life that didn't lie, manipulate, tell all sort of tall stories to impress the Charlie's of this world. Cassie was a refreshing change. If Lauren was talking a load of crap, Cassie would tell her that but never in a way that would hurt, just out of friendly concern for her.
"How well did you know my mum in Larkhall?" asked Lauren. Since Mum had come home she had been quiet about her experiences. Sure, Lauren heard all the funny stories like the time Body bag went in and frisked the one genuine solicitor out of the pretend 'briefs' that she had fixed up and Lauren laughed along with them. She had seen brief glimpses of it in the times she'd visited Larkhall and the sight of Mum in the orange bib was imprinted on her mind. The letters she'd sent out were obviously written to hide how down she felt sometimes.
"Well," smiled Cassie, "In one of my madder moments, I fancied Yvonne and thought I could get off with her. Sorry Lauren" Cassie added hastily.
"It's all right, Cassie. Mum is over sixteen. She can do what she likes as long as she doesn't get hooked on some bastard. One is enough." Lauren's lips tightened, thinking of Charlie and that scrubber with bleach blond hair the last time she saw him.
"Rest assured. Your mum is totally straight. If I couldn't pull her, then……….."
After thinking she'd put her foot in it again, well done Cassie, she loosened up and gently reminisced about Yvonne and the memories that, for all her own brashness and apparent toughness, Yvonne was the real thing. Yvonne was the one whose authority like invisible
strings kept things together. She never forgot the scorn in Yvonne's eyes when she had been stupid enough to run a betting operation on a fight between Maxi and Shaz. There was no malice in it and the next day or so, Yvonne was back to her old self. There was no moody sulking but if anyone really crossed the line, there was no crawling back.
"You're a lot like Yvonne, Lauren. She was always talking about you and she thinks the world of you……like I do." And Cassie, for the first time in her life blushed. For the first time in her knobbing life she's been with another woman, and what sounded like a 'chat up' line wasn't. It was a simple statement of respect for a woman she knew with stone cold certainty was wiser than herself and her daughter who had that same strength beyond her years.
The evening wended its way along in its delightful way and they ordered in the drinks at regular intervals. The sounds of the bar got louder Lauren could put the booze away and Cassie felt compelled to keep up with her which was a big mistake.
"Can't take the pace, eh, Cassie. If you can't stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen." Lauren's mocking smile wobbled before Cassie's eyes, as she thought, oh no, not another drink.
"I'm absolutely pissed, Lauren." moaned Cassie. I'll never drink again after this night. Just as well the kids are away, seeing a drunken mum come reeling in."
Lauren smiled to herself to hear Cassie, that very modern and 'out gay' woman, sound so exactly like every other mother she had seen, hyper anxious not to disgrace herself 'in front of the children' while to Cassie, the world seemed to be seen through a distorting mirror that kept moving and wouldn't settle down.
When the landlady called out for last orders, Cassie lurched to her feet and Lauren caught her before she fell. Holding her tightly round the shoulder, Lauren steered the smaller woman towards the exit while the couple cuddling in the corner saw them go in a sentimental haze that another couple seemed happy and set up for the night.
The barmaid sighed to herself. You win some, you lose some. Anyway she was knackered.
In the back seat of the black cab, Cassie was slumped in a corner while Lauren called out to the driver, the other side of the glass grille. She would have to somehow navigate Cassie into the spare bedroom, she thought, as the street lights set against the dark whizzed by and it lurched all the way to Yvonne's house.
Once managing a three handed trick in fumbling for her keys, nudging the heavy front door open and gripping Cassie tightly so she didn't slump down on the ground, Lauren needed all her strength to heave Cassie step by step, up the wide green carpeted staircase. Her own room was nearest, she was knackered so, to hell with it, she manoeuvred Cassie through the door. Suddenly she tripped over an object and they both went flying through the air, crash onto her large, comfortable double bed nearby.
Shit, Lauren, I will have woken the dead.
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Lauren?" I've known you bring strange fellas back from a night on the town but this is bloody new for you." Yvonne's throaty, irritated tones, fresh from suddenly disturbed sleep tones reverberated round the room. Lauren could see her eyes squinting at her as she tried to adjust to the sudden bright light and to make sense of what appeared to be in front of her eyes. She didn't think Lauren was that type or so she had thought. Lauren blushed a pretty shade of pink with was another new thing for her. Atkins don't do blushing.
A half-conscious Cassie, crashed out helplessly on Lauren's bed, sleepily grinned in amusement and seemed to lie there for ages with a nice warm secure feeling inside of her. Above her head with her lover next to her in the same cell, the electric light seemed to stare down at her and describe elegant circles over her head making her dizzy to look at it .Then a well known, authoritative voice seemed to cut through her alcohol haze.
"Jesus Christ, where the hell's the night shift gone? And what's this drunken orgy going on here? Lights out everyone."
Oh shit, that means we're up for adjudication with Betts tomorrow and we're going to lose our nobbing privileges. I'm really really sorry, Roisin babes, she slurred drunkenly, it's all my fault as she wondered why the nobbing screws didn't put the light out like they said they would. She wanted to sleep more than anything else right then.