CHAPTER 14
I did the honours with the fresh bottle, and when Ox had popped my cork, I returned to our table, where Hira was interrogating the others.

“So it is the tall man who is the baker?”

Alicia was taking question point.

“Yes, as in he is the one with the bakery, over to Cathays. Nana Deb’s his wife, and she runs a, well, a girls’ home. That’s where I live”

“Why in a---what I am hearing is ‘foster’, or ‘in care’. I don’t want to be rude unless I do want to, and at the moment I don’t”

Pick the bones out of that sentence. Alicia did her best.

“I had a problem a few years ago with my mother. Had to leave home, and Nana Deb was there for me. It’s not the same now, cause my Dad’s lovely, and, well, Mam’s gone now. I could go home, but we agreed I could stay with Debbie while I was at uni. Saves on travelling”

She waved at the remaining Bakers.

“Lots of them are with me in the House, and there’s some of them with me at Uni. I sort of know Alwen here. through college. Then there’s Gemma Cakes there, works for Frank, the baker, but I think that’s more ‘works with’ these days. She’s a patishioner, or whatever the word is. Makes fancy pastries”

“Makes Moi fat, girl. Hello. I’m Marlene. Did you enjoy your evening, and the answer to that will be ‘yes’, because this bijou pubette is my place, all mine, and Moi is easily offended”

Hira looked up, a long way.

“No”, she said drily, “I don’t believe you are”

Marlene switched her attention to me.

“You disappoint me, woman. You clearly haven’t plied her with enough of my stock, so how are you going to sell her for body parts and elope?”

I looked quickly at Amina, who was stifling laughter.

“We don’t need to elope, as we’re already married, and what would we do with the parts?”

“Store them in the ambulance until they’re needed, of course”

Hira finally lost it, only just swallowing before her laughter burst free.

“I see I shall have to come here more often! This has honestly been very enjoyable, but I suspect many of my family might not agree”

She shook hands firmly with Marlene, who asked, “Where are you from, sweetheart?”

“Grangetown girl, me. Always a worry coming over to the wrong side of the river”

“What do you do?”

“Apart from clearing up after these two? I was a district nurse”

“On a bike? With one of those hats?”

“No, a Mini, and as you can see, I can’t do hats. That’s how I met Jen here. Mind you, that was a long time ago, when she was still squeaky, and this one was off being intellectual. Amazing how much stuff you can fit in a Mini”

She fixed Amina with a little hint of a glare.

“Twice”

“Mam…”

“Told you Aston was the wrong place, didn’t I? Anyway, not for tonight. Things are sorted. Top me up, whoever, please. And what do you do, Alwen?”

“Student, like Alicia said. Another one where home, family home, is a bit difficult. I do bar work in the evenings”

Hira’s breezy manner was evaporating quickly.

“How many of you have these… difficulties?”

Alicia answered for her.

“Got about fifteen in the House at the moment, but it changes. Some of the girls have moved out, married and so on”

“This Deb, she sets limits?”

Alicia shook her head, smiling happily.

“No, that’s the point. She’s very clear: it’s our home as long as we want or need it, that’s all. I mean, I only stay----no. Saying that would be wrong. I was going to say I only stay because Dad lives down West, and I’m studying here, and travel, but, really, the girls are my family”

Hira stared hard at me, for some reason, and then abruptly changed tack.

“Where’s the place that this Gemma does her cakes, exactly?”

Hira was taking our spare bed for the night, so we shared a cab back, in silence. That lasted until we were in the front door and shedding our jackets.

“I know what those girls are, you two. I am neither stupid nor out of touch”

“Mam?”

“I remembered that name, the Nana woman, from the news. She was one of that Cooper pig’s victims, am I right? And wasn’t she involved with that rapist, the Councillor?”

I sighed, giving up a bad game.

“You are right, of course, Hira. Sorry if that blindsided you”

“Not at all. I was just worried, when I realised: had I said anything hurtful?”

“No, not at all, unless you count the number of times you demanded someone else top your glass up”

“Privilege of age, Jen. They looked happy. Well, apart from the ones we beat, of course. This Nana Deb, she’s a good woman? Now? Sorry; that wasn’t called for”

My wife towed the two of us into the living room.

“Mam, let’s just say there is no way I would ever like to get on the wrong side of her. It was another of the girls said it…”

“Which one, love?”

“It was Maria, oddly, Jen. She said Deb is the second hardest woman she’d ever met, but fuller of love than anyone else she knew”

I bit.

“Out of curiosity, did she say who was the hardest, in her opinion?”

“Her sister. Deb’s sister, not Maria’s”

“Ah. Point taken. Tom and I met her once, you know? Deb’s sister? At work”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Some kid got knocked off a moped. Nasty leg fracture, so the two of us were busy, and Traffic were delayed. She stops, gets off her bike and comes over to check on the kid, just as the car driver---”

“BMW?”

“Of course. He’s trying to get insurance details off the kid while we’re trying to stabilise him, complete pain in the arse, so she just walks up to him and tells him to move away and be patient”

I left a deliberate pause.

“Just not in those words. Tom and I just made sure our body cams were pointed away from her”

Hira was open-mouthed.

“And?”

“I think she was part way through ‘On your feet or on your arse when the Traffic car pulled up, and it was two of ours, friends. Barry and Bryn. So we turn back round to let our cameras have the full view”

It had been so funny. The man had clearly been weighing up his chances of hitting Wildcat and getting away with it (slim to vanishing) or of backing down, and he was then presented with six foot five of Barry.

“Hiya, Wildcat. You involved with this?”

“Not at all, Officer. As a soft-hearted woman who likes puppies and unicorns, I saw that this poor child had been injured, and so I stopped to see what I might be able to offer in the way of help”

The driver had protested, “I was just trying to exchange details with him”, and Wildcat had taken another step forward.

“And I was just explaining how you need to move away from the nice ambulance crew trying to clear up your shit. Yes, I saw what happened. He left-hooked the kid, and I wear a helmet cam. If I have to wear a bloody lid, I’ll use it to carry useful things. You’ll want the footage, no doubt”

She turned her back on the driver, insultingly so, and called over to us.

“The kid going to be fine?”

“Working on it, woman”

“Thanks, Jen. Let us know, please. Officer, I’ll call in at Central nick so they can secure the footage.”

It hadn’t been until she rode away, her colours now visible, that I saw Mr BMW Driver realise who and what he had been trying to front up to. Once I had finished the story, Hira softly asked how the boy was now. Shit.

“Lost the leg below the knee, I’m afraid. Driver got done for causing injury by careless driving. Points and a fine. Had a message from a little bird later, though, that he, the driver, spent a few nights in Casualty a couple of months later. And that, Hira, is who Maria thinks is her hardest woman”

My mother-in-law was away the next morning, by bus, as we finished our breakfast.

“What was that about Aston? You’ve never mentioned that place before”

“Er, Reading was my second university. I was at Aston first”

“Why the change?”

“Because I was stupid. Look, it was after Dad had fucked off to Brum to marry his cousin, aye? I was thick enough to believe him when he said I should study close to family, and he was Dad, so I took the bait, and it was frog-boiling”

“Sorry?”

“You know the old thing about boiling frogs, that you heat the water up slowly and they don’t notice till it’s boiling, and they’re dead? It was like that. There’s him and Shilti, Shitty Shilti, and they’re really pushing the cultural thing, go home on a visit, ‘home’ being Pakistan, where Dad had never actually been till he married the Shit, and there’s me trying to find my first girlfriend. I’m down the Union bar and mention that to a friend, and she jokes, says ‘Hope they haven’t got a hubby lined up for you’, and that’s when it clicks, and I ring Mam. Claimed change of domestic circumstance, dropped out of Aston, and found a spot at Reading and, um, Sandra. First girlfriend. Took a while to calm Mam down just then; she thought it was just a reaction to Dad’s scheming”

“And this Sandra?”

“Lasted three months, love. But I finally knew for sure who I am”