They picked up their crates and with a friendly nod to the chef, they walked out of the door and up the basement steps.
Tesco threw the crates in the back of the truck, then walked round and got into the driving seat. He turned to Harry.
‘So what do you think?’
‘What do I think? Like I said, Micky, the place is a bitch.’
As Shirley came downstairs, she could hear the TV blaring. She walked into the lounge and there was Linda, curled up nice and comfy amid the cushions, gawping at the screen. Shirley swore she was so fed up with having Linda and Bella living in her house — particularly Linda — she’d prefer to have Greg back. She stood in the doorway with her arms folded.
‘Any chance of you cleaning the bath after yourself?’ she asked in a sarcastic tone.
‘Sure,’ Linda replied distractedly. She pointed at the TV. ‘What a load of old rubbish. Gawd almighty. I mean, I know it’s a kids’ program, but it’s completely ridiculous.’
Shirley looked round the room. There were dirty coffee cups on every surface. ‘And maybe when you’ve finished with the bath, you could do some washing up? If you get a minute, of course, Linda. Linda? Linda, are you listening?’
Linda seemed totally absorbed in the TV program.
Shirley rolled her eyes. ‘Right, I’m going to see me mum.’
‘Oh, in that case,’ Linda said, without taking her eyes off the screen, ‘would you pick up some coffee, tea, butter, eggs, milk...’
Shirley put her hands on her hips. ‘Oh, fine, I said I was goin’ to me mum’s, but I’ll take the trolley with me!’
‘Great. Oh, and don’t forget some soap, and cornflakes...’ Linda was still adding items to the shopping list as Shirley walked out of the room.
After a while she got up to change the channel. She saw the video machine under the TV had a film in it. She pressed the button and went back to sit on the sofa. It couldn’t be any worse than what’s on TV, she thought. She just hoped it was something for adults.
A minute later, her jaw hanging open, she found that it was.
Ray Bates had spent most of the morning at Mothercare. He felt a strange thrill, walking up and down the shop, looking at all the gear he could buy. He’d come back with a pair of tiny blue bootees and he had them in his hand, smiling stupidly at them, when Micky Tesco arrived.
He looked at Ray and the boots. ‘New line, is it?’
Ray beamed and told him the whole story. ‘I’m gonna be a father, at my age! Isn’t that fantastic?’
Tesco couldn’t quite take it in. ‘You mean Audrey?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ray. A worried look suddenly came over his face. ‘Tell you what, though, I hope to God business picks up!’
Tesco grinned and sat down. ‘You’ve obviously been keepin’ your end up!’
One of the bootees was flung at his head. Micky held it in his hand and plucked at the wool.
‘Shirley working, is she? Doin’ any modeling?’
‘Why? Gonna offer her a job, are you?’
Micky tossed the little shoe back. ‘Why not? Friend of mine runs a model agency. I think I could do something for her.’
Ray shook his head with a grin. ‘I bet you could, Micky, I bet you could!’
The video was still playing when Linda ushered Dolly into the room. She picked up the remote control and began to play the film back to catch up on the bits she’d missed. Dolly put her bag down and began dusting off her coat. She’d been at the damned drill hall again, and it was still filthy, absolutely disgusting — you’d think with kids round they’d clean the place. Then she looked at the screen and her mouth dropped open.
‘What in God’s name is this?’
Linda grinned. ‘I found it in the machine. Tell you what, that Shirley’s a bit of a dark horse. Let me rewind a bit. There’s a bloke — no word of a lie — who’s got one down to just below his knees.’
Dolly was disgusted. ‘Turn it off!’
The front door slammed and Dolly called out sharply, ‘Who’s that?’
Bella pushed open the door. ‘Only me.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘How does this sound — cops were down in the car park in under a minute. Rang them, said I’d seen a flasher, and... Bloody hell, what’s this?’
‘One of Shirley’s videos,’ Dolly told her.
Bella roared with laughter. ‘Shirley’s?’ She got closer to the screen. ‘Oh my gawd — how did those two get into that position?’
‘I think there’s three of them,’ Dolly said, shaking her head.
‘Oh yeah?’ Bella screeched. ‘You seen it before, have you, Doll?’
Furious, Dolly went and ripped the plug from the wall. ‘If that’s all you two have got to think about then I’m sorry for you!’ She looked at Linda. ‘You get a case for the money?’
‘Me and Bella talked it over,’ Linda said, ‘and thought a briefcase was a bit too obvious. So we decided to use one of Shirley’s old shopping bags.’
Dolly thought for a moment. ‘Fair enough.’
‘What time are we going to call Harry?’ Linda asked. She had to repeat the question three times as Dolly was just sat, staring into space.
Eventually, sounding distant, as if she was talking to herself, Dolly answered. ‘Not until way after midnight. The later the better. We still have to work out exactly how long it’s going to take us all to get there. Shirley will need at least three hours, knowing her driving.’
She opened the holdall to look at the money she’d taken from the drill hall, then leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes, muttering, ‘This is crazy, it’s crazy!’
‘You think Harry’s gonna try something?’ Bella asked.
Dolly opened her eyes and tipped all the money out of the bag. Her voice was chillingly cold. ‘I don’t think, I know it. Now, where’s Shirley?’
Linda picked up some of the money and began counting it. ‘Shopping.’
‘What time did she say she’d be back?’
Linda shrugged. ‘Dunno. She said something about seeing her mother.’
Bella picked up some of the money. ‘It’ll work, Dolly. Sixty thousand pounds is a lot of cash!’
This was the moment when Dolly could have told them just how much she’d cleaned out Harry for. But she didn’t. She just sat there and watched the two girls carefully counting out Harry’s pay-off.
Shirley couldn’t believe her ears.
‘Yeah, two months!’ Audrey repeated, a bit sheepishly.
Shirley almost had to hold on to the kitchen table to stop herself falling down. ‘But you can’t be! You’re too old!’
‘Oh, thanks a lot!’
Shirley picked up her shopping bag and put it on the table. ‘You’re not gonna have it, are you?’
Audrey laughed. ‘Of course I’m gonna have it.’ Then she looked at Shirley and added, ‘Ray’s over the moon about it.’
‘Oh, I’ll bet,’ Shirley shot back. ‘Gonna have a white wedding, are you, Mum? He gonna marry you, is he? Oh, come on, don’t be stupid. You can’t have it!’
Audrey put the teapot on the table and looked at her daughter.
‘I mean, what’s everybody gonna say, Mum?’ Shirley continued. ‘You can’t have a baby at your age. It’ll be a mongol!’
Audrey gasped. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say. Don’t say things like that, you hear me?’
Shirley took a cake out of its box and put it on a plate. ‘Does Greg know? How’s he gonna take it?’
Audrey got some plates from a cupboard. ‘I really don’t care what he thinks. It’s my baby — mine and Ray’s.’
Shirley went to the cutlery drawer and took out a cake knife. ‘Well, he’s gonna go off the deep end, I reckon.’ She shook her head. ‘I dunno — never mind about having another kid, you can’t even handle the ones you’ve got!’