Peg slipped her arm through Ulysses’ and they walked on.
Noticed how Col’s dating alphabetically? he said.
That’s what you wanted to see me about? said Peg and then she stopped. Blimey, he is, she said. Denise, Elaine, Fionnula …
G next, he said.
They found Cress underneath the canopy of blossom and a sudden intimacy enveloped them. Cress looked troubled. He kept his voice low and said, Ginny’s got a fella, and he told them about the love bite and Peg said, Christ, not again. And Ulysses said, You sure it’s not kids messin’， Cress? and Cress shrugged. I dunno, boy. I just know she needs a bit of mothering. And the two men looked at Peg and Peg swore because mothering wasn’t her thing.
The news about Ginny sunk Peg’s mood and she was a bitch to the kid all afternoon, no this and no that, and the kid kept a wide berth; well you would, wouldn’t you? That night, the kid wanted her to read a story, and she held out The Little Prince, the book Ulysses had given her the week before.
And how am I supposed to do that? Peg’d asked him at the time. And he’d said, It’s easy, Peg. You just sit on the bed and you read out loud.
So she sat on the bed and the sound of her voice was clumsy and unconvincing, but the kid was entranced and eventually fell asleep. Peg read on. Childhood. Breaks your fucking heart.
The following evening, the ambulance set off for Epping Forest trailed by a plume of Col’s aftershave. He’d made up the bed in the back, and had packed a small gas stove and two tins of soup – tomato – and tea and milk for breakfast. Breakfast was his destination and his balls were as heavy as a coal sack. It had been so long since he’d had a real woman, one who didn’t feel sorry for him.
The ambulance only got as far as Cressy’s tree before the siren began to wail. Cressy looked out from under the blossom and saw Col the colour of puce. Fionnula stared out of the window, face blank like a hostage.
The evening light caught the wake from a canal boat and gulls crested above the gasometers. Peg and Ginny held hands along the towpath, and to outsiders, those who didn’t know, they could have been work friends, equals without a doubt. But a duck broke the illusion, and Ginny raced ahead, arms flailing, till the duck jumped back in the water. Peggy laughed. Come here, Ginny, sit with me.
Ginny sat.
How you doing, Gin?
Happy. You, Peggy?
Peggy nodded. Yeah. Happy.
She took a bag of crisps out of her bag and Ginny opened them, shooed away a curious pigeon.
Who’d you meet down here, Ginny?
I’m not allowed to come down here.
I know that, but I know you do, and Peg leant into her and nudged her. We all used to come down here. I had a boyfriend nobody liked, and I’d meet him down here and we’d walk all the way to Islington. It was so dark under the bridges. Just him and me. Sometimes I’d meet him at night, Ginny, and the feeling was the best feeling because I was escaping all the rules, and this fella, my boyfriend, he was older than me, and him being older made me feel older. Like I was in the world, at last. The way he looked at me.
Ginny listened.
I could make him do anything, Gin. Him all gaga over a schoolgirl. Never told me he had a wife.
Peg took one of Ginny’s crisps. I know you’ve got a boyfriend, too, Ginny.
Ginny shook her head.
Yeah you do. We were all told not to tell, but we’ve all gone through it. He nice to you, Gin? He kind?
Ginny nodded.
Is his name Travis? （Travis? Why did that name come back to her?）
No, silly, said Ginny and she got up off the bench, waved to a passing barge. She said something that Peg didn’t catch so well, and Peg said, Davy? Was that what you said? Is Davy on there? she said, pointing to the barge.
Ginny looked confused. No.
What does Davy look like, Ginny? Is he like your dad or Ulysses?
No.
Not like them at all?
She shook her head.
Different.
How different?
Stop, Peggy, too tired.
Ginny leant down and rested in Peggy’s lap. Peg stroked her hair.
No blood any more, Peg, she said.
How long no blood, Gin?
Long time, she said.
Peg reached down and put her hand on Ginny’s stomach. The bump was taut and slight under the billow of her dress.
That night, Peg slept over at the pub. She was there the following morning with Old Cressy and Ulysses when the ambulance turned the corner, siren wailing. Col was alone in the front.
He parked up and slammed the door. The siren died with the engine.
How was it? said Ulysses.
Fuck off, said Col as he walked into the pub.