She was Freddie's cup of char all right, up for it, been about long enough to know the score, but still young enough not to have the hard bitter look that Jackie and her cronies had acquired. Jimmy was gone from his mind now. Freddie was on the pull and in an extravagant and exhilarating way, much to the delight of Melanie Connors.
Melanie was funny, she had the chat, the look and the experienced way of young girls who had been at it from too young an age and still hadn't sussed out that sex was not a bargaining tool for most women.
Her witty ripostes were hilarious, and Freddie was enjoying the arrogance of her youth and her complete confidence in her good looks. But that could all change in seconds if she said something that he considered was disrespectful or downright challenging.
On Melanie's part, Freddie Jackson might be old enough to be her father, but she wasn't worried about that. He was, to her, gorgeous, with his dark hair and blue eyes. He also, she was pleased to note, had a wedge that could hold her mother's front door open in a hurricane, and she knew instinctively that he was hung like a horse. All in all, she was pleased with the way the day had turned out.
Paul, however, was absolutely gutted. He knew that Freddie was on the edge and poor little Melanie had not experienced Freddie with the hump just yet. As she was a relative of his wife's he would have to step in at some point and that was not something he was looking forward to.
At the moment, though, Freddie was like a sniffer dog in a crack house, happy as a sandboy and enjoying the afternoon's events. He hunted strange like other men hunted deer. He was quiet, he was watching her every move and when the time was right he was going to shoot this fucker down. If she was good at her trade she might get a second airing, if not she would be forgotten in the time it takes to find a new one with bigger tits and the pure attraction of unknown territory.
It was the chase he loved, the conquering of the girls. Once that was achieved they were history.
Dianna was in bits as both her sisters shouted simultaneously and with equal anger and annoyance, 'Oh shut up, Di!'
Maggie stared at the three girls she loved with all her being and then she turned to her sister and said quietly, 'Don't be so silly, Jackie. Kimberley heard wrong, that was all.'
Kimberley grabbed the branch she was being offered and hoped that it would stop her drowning in her own guilt. 'That's right, I was not sure what I was going on about, Mum. We were arguing, and I wanted to hurt you, that's all.'
'You fucking lying whore, you fucking junkie slag! You know what happened, I ain't fucking stupid!'
Maggie was under no illusions about how this knowledge was going to be received by the main antagonists, but she was past caring. Nothing could ever hurt her again and she wasn't sure she was even capable of keeping the peace with her sister. If push came to shove she was willing to annihilate her. If that's what it took to shut this slob up, then that was fine by her.
But she forced her voice to sound calm and civil once more. 'Come on, Jackie, have a drink, a coffee or a vodka, you choose.'
Jackie knew she was being offered a face-saver, a chance to stop this madness before it got out of hand, but Maggie's utter calmness was her undoing.
Even though she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this girl, and Maggie still looked like a girl, had been raped she could not for the life of her let that fact seep outside her closest circle.
'You are offering me vodka? Sure you don't want one now your fucking secret's out?'
Maggie looked into her sister's bloated face, remembering when she had been everything to her, had been the mainstay of her life. And she had been, there had been a time when Jackie had been the whole of her world, when she had always included her little sister in everything.
Maggie was more man aware that loneliness had been the real reason then, but it had also been because Maggie had taken on the kids for her.
She had practically brought the girls up, and she had to admit she had enjoyed every second of it, unlike this sorry item in front of her who only saw her kids as a wage each week, people to chain their father to the floor and make him cough up in more ways than one.
Maggie had played with them, bathed them, tidied up for Jackie and listened to her as she had run down everyone within a five-mile range – family especially, mates, and anyone she was jealous of. Since that encompassed everyone in the world she could get very irate. Jackie slaughtered everybody, and she did it in such a way that it was ages before you realised exactly what she was doing.
By the time she had been fourteen Maggie had stopped wanting to be like her, and instead become adamant that her life would be the complete opposite of Jackie's. She would pay her own bills, look after herself if needs be, but she was determined not to become a part of the man she was with like Jackie had.
Jackie's biggest fear was being left without a man, her man, but it was the man she loved so much, who had reduced her to the fat, scruffy wreck she was now. She was living proof that love was not the wonderful emotion young girls thought it was going to be. The man she loved had raped her little sister and yet she still had the power to delude herself, because everything was always about Jackie, never about anyone else.
'Was little Jimmy Freddie's son? I need to know.'
Jackie sounded so self-righteous and so fucking banal all at the same time, it was better than a play as far as Maggie was concerned. This woman had always been an innate coward, and this was being proved to her once again. Jackie only kicked off when she knew that the fight she had caused would be stopped.
Maggie laughed, but it sounded forced and it also made her sound like a woman who had had enough, enough of life, enough of the world and enough of the woman in front of her.
'If you really thought that there was anything remotely true in what you are saying, me and you would be rolling around the floor fighting now, Jack, and you know it.'
'Too fucking right.'
'But we ain't, are we, Jackie?'
The sarcasm was evident and Jackie Jackson had to acknowledge that her little sister was a force in her own right.
'There's still plenty of time for that, lady.' She pointed a grubby finger at her sister as she said loudly and in a voice full of her own self-pity, 'You always had your eye on my fucking Freddie, you always got what you wanted out of life. I was never good enough for Mum and Dad, it was always you! Now, the one thing I have and you fucking think you can take it!'
'What are you on about, Mum? Maggie is the best thing that ever happened to you, or us!' Dianna realised immediately she should have kept this gem of wisdom to herself, and Kimberley pushed Roxanne out of her way as she went to her mother and said angrily, 'I was winding you up, Mum, please listen to me.'
Jackie wanted to take the exit and leave the madness of her world, but she couldn't. This would eat at her now and she knew she had to sort it out today once and for all, no matter what the cost.
'Either go home and sober up, Jackie, or talk to me properly, OK?'
There was a steely quality to her sister's voice that Jackie had never heard before. In fact, she would go as far as to say that it was distinctly disrespectful.
'I will break your fucking neck, you cunt!'
Maggie sighed once more. 'Is that really the best you can do, Jack? Call me names, call me a cunt, the one word that I hate more than any other? I just realised, Sis, it sums you up lovely, doesn't it? I lost my child and you think you can come round here shouting the odds, because you think I wanted the piece of shit you married. You had better sort yourself out, mate. Listen to yourself now and again, you selfish, drunken fat bitch!'