Free The Footballer's Wife by Kerry Katona Page B

In the hospital she had tried to call him but he wasn’t answering his phone. She had sent him a number of texts but he hadn’t responded to any of them. Charly’s mind raced. For all she knew, Joel could be lying in a pool of blood on the floor after the injuries he’d sustained courtesy of Len. Or he could just be waiting and seething. Charly stepped out of the lift, her legs weak. She put the key in the lock and as she pushed the door open and shouted hello into the open plan apartment, she saw Joel, sitting in a chair, his face swollen and bruised but cleaner than last time she had seen him, with his injured foot raised. Joel stared at his girlfriend.
    â€˜I’m so sorry about everything,’ Charly said, beginning to sob. Up until now she had felt totally composed but as her shoulders began to shake she realised that she had been in shock.
    â€˜Not as sorry as me,’ Joel said flatly. She looked at him and his eyes burned through her. Charlywalked over and reached out to hold him. ‘Don’t even fucking think about it. I want you out of here.’
    â€˜What?’ Charly was stunned.
    â€˜You don’t want me to get out of this chair and give you the pasting I think you deserve.’ Charly looked at Joel, terrified.
    â€˜What pasting?’
    â€˜Get your stuff and get out. I don’t need this shit. From you or your trampy cunt of a father.’
    â€˜Don’t talk about my dad like that.’
    Joel bolted forward in his seat. ‘Out. Now!’
    Charly ran from the apartment in the clothes she stood up in. She didn’t even wait for the lift, she was so terrified. She ran down every stair to the ground floor, not noticing that she was gasping for air as she ran out into the street. What was she going to do now? Where was she going to go? Charly looked desperately up and down the street before remembering there was one place she would be safe.
    *
    Markie was having a weird week. His mother adding herself to the unofficial payroll was odd enough but last night he had managed to have the worst night’s sleep of his life and it made him feel asif he was driving through Bradington in some hallucinogenic dream. Tracy was starting her first day today and Mac had volunteered to take her out. Markie couldn’t quite work out why, now, suddenly Tracy wanted to go into gainful employment. She’d been happy to sit on her backside for the last three decades claiming state benefit, incapacity benefit, child benefit; you name it, she claimed it. It was a wonder she’d never managed to wangle herself a war pension, Markie thought wryly. He knew there was some reason that she wanted to come and work for him, but while Markie was figuring out what this was, he was going to adhere to the old adage and keep his friends close and his enemies closer. And anyway, he knew instinctively that his mum was going to be good at her new job.
    Markie pulled into the car park at the front of his office building and his mum and Mac came out of the door together, Tracy laughing like a drain. Markie looked on bemused; he wouldn’t have thought for a minute that his mum would have managed to drag herself into the office before ten – and it was quarter to nine.
    â€˜I’m just going to take your mum up the Hardacre.’
    â€˜Ey, cheeky,’ Tracy said, slapping Mac on the arm.
    Markie took a deep breath; the last thing he wanted was some hideous mental image of his mother and Mac courtesy of his mum’s innuendo.
    â€˜The Hardacre estate, you saucy mare!’ Mac said, laughing. Markie didn’t know what was worse, his mother’s cackling or Mac encouraging her.
    â€˜Right, what’s the plan then?’ Markie asked, hoping they’d both put a sock in their
Carry On
routine and get on with whatever they were meant to be doing.
    â€˜Got a few ladies to visit. Going to give your mum a dry run.’
    Tracy snorted a dirty laugh