The Long Weekend Read Free

traffic report on the radio. He was a courier, so it was important for him to find out if the bank holiday jams had already begun.
    ‘Pour us a cup of tea, Jeff,’ she wheedled, plugging in the iron and twirling the dial up high. She wasn’t going to tell him about the rubbish. If she admitted to noticing it, she would feel obliged to pick it all up, and then she would be late for work. Her mother would find out soon enough, when she deigned to drag herself out of bed. She could have the argument. Trudy didn’t have anything else to do, after all.
    Jeff reached out an arm without blinking and poured the dark-brown dregs from a stainless-steel teapot into a mug, sloshed in milk from the carton, then held it out to her obligingly.
    ‘Ta.’ Angelica held the mug to her mouth, then grimaced as she realised the tea was lukewarm. ‘Yuck – it’s disgusting.’
    ‘You know where the kettle is,’ riposted Jeff.
    She plonked the mug down on the side as the steam came out of the iron in an angry hiss.
    ‘Go on. Make me a fresh one. You know you want to.’
    He rolled his eyes and got up, lumbering over to the kettle. It turned her stomach just to look at him, his belly bulging under the Jack Daniel’s T-shirt optimistically tucked into jeans and cinched with a belt displaying a hefty gilt eagle. Add to this his wispy grey ponytail and the goatee beard . . . Angelica shuddered, wondering just what it was that had attracted her mother to him.
    Actually, she knew. It was because Jeff was kind. Plugugly and boring to the max, but a kind-hearted soul. He couldn’t do enough for her mother – well, except actually get the rubbish into the bin – and for that Angelica was grateful, because it took the pressure off her. Anyway, Jeff might look like a skank and have dodgy dress sense, but he was a million times better than her mother’s last boyfriend.
    Angelica had never seen why she should have to cover up her modesty while she ironed. Unfortunately Jeff’s predecessor had taken advantage of the fact that she was only wearing her underwear to have an experimental grope, sliding his fingers into her knickers. Angelica had grabbed his wrist, slammed his hand down on the ironing board and shoved the iron on his palm. There was a hiss of burning flesh, followed by a roar of pain and rage. It had taken the bloke a few seconds to realise what had happened.
    ‘You mad cow! I’ll call the bloody police on you. That’s assault, that is. Jesus!’ He had run to the sink and turned on the cold tap. ‘I’ll sue you into the middle of next week.’
    Angelica had watched him calmly.
    ‘I think you’ll find it was self-defence,’ she replied.
    Trudy had come down to find out what the rumpus was all about.
    ‘You’ll have to take me to the hospital!’ He held out his injury for inspection. ‘She put the iron on my bloody hand.’
    ‘The hand you had in my knickers,’ Angelica pointed out fairly. ‘And stop moaning. It wasn’t that hot; it was only on polyester.’ It had been before she worked at the Townhouse, when she was serving at the pasty shop.
    ‘You shouldn’t be ironing in your underwear!’ shouted her mother.
    ‘It’s my house too. I’ll iron naked if I want,’ Angelica shouted back.
    The bloke had never been seen again, and Angelica’s mother had sulked for weeks. Until she’d found Jeff at the country-and-western night she went to at the local pub, and dragged him home. He’d been part of the fixtures and fittings ever since. He brought a little bit of stability to the household, for when Trudy had a man she was definitely calmer, which made things easier to handle.
    Angelica stuck the iron back in its holder with a crash.
    ‘Put it away for me, would you?’ she asked as she left the room, knowing full well that he would.
    ‘Oi – what about your tea?’ he demanded, indignant.
    ‘Haven’t got time . . .’
    She raced up the stairs, checking her watch.
    She’d given Dill as long in bed as she