Bad Sisters Read Online Free PDF

choosing instead a binge of Tennent’s Extra and a cocktail of speed, methadone and Valium that had finally done for her. Maxie, Devon and Deeley had been gone from Bill’s by then; Maxie had managed to persuade Maureen’s estranged sister, Sandra, to take them in after Bill ‘went missing’, on the understanding that they’d do jobs after school to help pay their way, and that their mother would never be informed of their whereabouts.
    Aunt Sandra had done her duty and taken Maureen’s daughters to her funeral. But after that, Maureen was never mentioned again, which was fine with the girls. Their mother had been nothing but a source of misery to them, and they barely remembered their father, a soldier who’d been shot serving in Northern Ireland shortly after Deeley was born; he’d hardly been around even when he was on leave. Maureen had blamed her spiral downwards into drug addiction and alcoholism on the shock of Patrick McKenna’s death, and the girls had believed her for years, until Maxie slowly put the pieces together and realized that their mother had been up to all sorts of mischief all the time her husband was on active duty.
    Oh God, Mum,
Deeley thought sadly.
You should never have had kids. Or you should have given them away to someone who wanted them. Aunt Sandra did her best, I suppose, but she didn’t want kids either.
    Aunt Sandra had died of a stroke when Deeley was nineteen and living in London. The sisters had no family left; they’d never known their father’s relatives. All they had was each other.
    And that’s not going so well at the moment, is it?
Deeley thought sadly, feeling suddenly very alone.
    Deeley shoved her hands in her pockets and stared down at her feet. She’d needed to make this pilgrimage to Bill’s for all sorts of reasons, but the main one was the weirdest.
    I feel like I want to thank him for everything he did for us.
    It was wrong, irrational, completely illogical. Bill had abused Maxie; he’d told her he was going to start on Devon next. He’d cynically taken them in, not to help out their mum after all, but for the sake of having her three attractive and underage daughters in his house, under his control.
    I’m so messed up about this,
Deeley thought helplessly.
How can I possibly remember Bill and not feel like I want to throw up, after everything he did? Maybe this is why I’ve never had a proper relationship, why I agreed to date Nicky and put any real chance of romance on hold for years and years. Because I didn’t trust myself to pick someone nice. I’m too confused by the fact that the only memories I have of our awful, abusive sort-of-stepdad are ones where he was amazing to me, like the dad I never had and always longed for so much. He really made me feel loved and wanted . . .
    She knew she was in front of the house now. Her feet had stopped, her brain telling her that it had recognized the familiar chipped old wall in front of it. The low gate had been broken then, needing a new latch: Bill had always said he’d get round to repairing it, but never found the time. Now it was hanging completely off its hinges, rusted and fallen against the battered brown recycling bin that was contemptuously overflowing with plastic bags out of which were spilling polystyrene takeaway containers, half-gnawed chicken bones, general household detritus. Nothing that could possibly be recycled. Just like the contents of the recycling bins on every other house on the street that Deeley had passed. The inhabitants of this area obviously didn’t think much of the local council’s effort to go green.
    Hasn’t exactly come up in the world, Thompson Road
, she thought, taking in the pebble-dashed semi with a shock of recognition. It was much smaller than she remembered, but that was only to be expected. Things always seem bigger from a child’s perspective. What took her aback most was how much the house had deteriorated. She recalled Bill as having been very house-proud.