Free Blink of an Eye (2013) by Cath Staincliffe Page A

self. Even stronger. Still scatty at times, still prone to impulses (or from another viewpoint, open to fresh experiences and opportunities). But not reckless, destructive. She’d grown up. At least we all thought that.
I
thought that. I trusted her again, I thought she’d come through.
    Was I wrong? Not according to Alex. He had faith in her too.
    Back in 1981, my parents weren’t best pleased to learn I was shacked up in Rusholme with a boy they’d never heard of. They weren’t particularly religious, but even so, the swinging sixties hadn’t really percolated through to the suburbs of Huddersfield.
    ‘I only hope you know what you’re doing,’ my mum said when I went home for the weekend and broke the news over Friday night’s fish supper.
    ‘What’s he do then, this Phil?’ asked my dad. He looked terribly serious and I had a moment’s anxiety that telling them had been the wrong thing to do.
    ‘He has a shop, a record shop, and he plays in a band.’
    Dad gave a weary sigh.
    ‘We can’t all be accountants,’ I sniped. I had expected him to be more impressed that Phil had his own business.
    ‘What’s his turnover?’ he said.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘So you’re living with him and you don’t know—’
    ‘Bruce,’ Mum chipped in.
    ‘We’ve got separate bank accounts,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t know what I earn either.’
    ‘Rum do,’ my dad muttered.
    My mum was lively and outgoing; she liked nothing more than getting together with a group of friends. Didn’t matter what for, it was the company she relished, the chatter and friendship. She worked at C&A, the department store in town, and had firm friends there. She liked work, liked going there. Hated being idle. They were always organizing social events, nights out at the Talk of the Town in Batley, cheese and wine parties, trips to the cinema or the Alhambra in Bradford for a play, even the seaside, when they’d book a coach and bring the kids to Scarborough or Filey or Bridlington.
    My dad had gone along with it – enjoyed it too. There was more to him than just being an accountant. He had been a dancer, amateur ballroom, which was where he met my mum. And he’d played piano too, as a teenager, in a little jazz combo. We had a piano at home, and occasionally he’d sit down and spin out a tune. Back then, I suppose most people did play an instrument, made their own entertainment.
    I’d got my first job by the time I moved in with Phil, in a residential children’s home in Trafford. I worked funny shifts, doing some sleepovers, then having several days off, but it worked fine for Phil and me. In my free time I could go and see his band play, or we’d go and watch other people. Sometimes I helped out in the shop if it was busy. Saturdays were crazy: kids with their spending money eager to choose a record, people whose dole cheques went on music, the lucky ones in work with cash to flash. Phil had a Saturday girl, Amanda, who was into disco and kept up a running argument with him about how it was a superior musical form to punk rock.
    The other members of the Blaggards used the flat like a second home, especially Petey, the drummer, who had troubles at home. He was from a big, brawling Irish family who seemed to get evicted every other week. Petey would turn up and stay with us for a couple of nights every so often. He never spoke to me directly about what happened, though Phil told me his father used to hit him.
    Nights when I needed to go to bed because I was starting work early next morning, I’d have to turf Phil and Petey and Ged out into the kitchen so I could get to sleep. Later I’d hear Phil coming in, and sometimes Petey if he was crashing on the sofa. The pair of them stumbling about in the dark, whispering loudly or getting the giggles. ‘Be quiet!’ I’d hiss, but I couldn’t be mad for long and I always fell back to sleep without any trouble.
    Stealing out quietly with my clothes in the morning to get dressed in the