Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘Aye, she’s maybe been Googling it with her newfound skills, eh? How to get muscles on a skinny wee fucker, she’s maybe inputted.’

I snort. ‘I bet Mrs Miller would be on my side in the Is-Willow-Too-Fat debate.’

‘Aye, likely.’

Willow’s six now and she’s staying with us tomorrow night so Carly and Connor and Erin can all go out. Mum bans poor Willow from eating any sweets or crisps or ice cream or basically anything nice while she’s with us because she says she’s on the cusp of obesity but I love her chubby little cheeks and her chubby little arms and legs. She’s so adorable.

I’m telling her Dad’s Wanderer stories and she loves them.

‘She wouldn’t be so cute if she was thin. It’s like cats – they’re super-cute when they’re really fat, but Mum says you should think about their health, and I know she’s got a point, but when Willow gets back to yours she’ll just stuff her face to make up for it anyway.’

‘Aye, Carly needs to stop buying that wean crap. She needs to step up as a responsible parent, eh?’

I shrug. ‘I guess. And talking of which – have you spoken to Ryan about Ailish yet?’

‘No yet.’

‘You don’t think he’d do it.’

‘Ryan would do anything for you, Beckie, you know that, he feels that bad about your da, eh? That’s no the issue here. Do you no think it’s maybe best to just move on, eh, and forget it?’

‘Nope.’

Ailish needs to be punished. If she hadn’t stopped Jasmine coming forward and telling the police she’d seen Ryan, they would have focused the investigation on him from the start and Mum would never have gone to jail.

But even more important than that is what’s happening to Jack. Jasmine’s little toddler Jack. While Jasmine’s at work, Ailish is meant to look after him on Mondays and Wednesdays and she’s all ‘Just call me Super Gran’ and posting photos on Facebook of stupid cakes she’s baked for him and stuff. She hardly ever features Jack himself, though, and when she does it’s always from the back. Mia’s all over that Facebook page now – ‘Quality niece and auntie time!’ – because Mia’s really really pretty, like a model. Ailish is always taking her photo without her knowing, so Mia can’t mess it up by making one of her gargoyle faces. Mia says Ailish basically ignores Jack unless she needs the back of his head for a photo. Otherwise he’s in his playpen the whole time apart from when he’s being fed or changed, and if Thomas or Mia is there they have to do that.

Ailish basically despises Jack because he’s got this eye problem and he’s cross-eyed. Ailish keeps going on to Jasmine about how they should take him to Bulgaria or wherever to get it sorted because no UK surgeon will do the operation until he’s older.

Until she can put him on Facebook and get ‘Oh he’s so gorgeous’ comments, she doesn’t want to know.

The evil, evil cow.

Mia and Thomas have tried telling Jasmine what she’s doing, but Jasmine doesn’t believe them because Ailish has brainwashed her. Mia was crying about Jack last time we Skyped, and I was too. Mum says we’d need evidence before social services would intervene and maybe Mia could set up a camera or something, but footage of a toddler in a playpen probably wouldn’t cut it.

It’s so not fair.

It’s Thomas all over again.

This time, though, she’s not getting away with it. Some people just shouldn’t be around kids, and okay so Ailish isn’t as bad as Jed and Bitch, but she’s still pretty fucking bad.

‘It’s not like I’m wanting Ryan to put out a hit on her or anything. Although…’

Connor whips his head round.

‘I’m joking! God, Connor! But I’ve been thinking maybe framing her for burglary isn’t the way to go.’

All he says is ‘Oh aye?’ but he’s obviously thinking Thank fuck for that .

‘It would be her first offence, so she probably wouldn’t even get a custodial sentence. But I’ve been thinking – what if she was filmed being super-neglectful and there were witnesses and she was convicted of child neglect?’

‘We cannae hurt a bairn.’

‘Of course not! But what I’m thinking is, one really hot day in summer when she’s doing her Super Gran stuff, one of Ryan’s goons can somehow give her Rohypnol and get her and Jack and the buggy and her car into town. Somewhere there’s no CCTV. Park up the car, get a load of alcohol down Ailish, and leave her slumped on a bench or somewhere with the empty buggy and an empty bottle of Bailey’s. Meanwhile, one of the goons, acting the concerned citizen, has to smash the car window to get Jack out of the boiling hot car before he dies of dehydration and heat shock. They wouldn’t actually leave him in the car, but with no CCTV, who’s to know? They take him to the nearest hospital and the police get involved. Someone else meanwhile secretly films Ailish as she’s coming round, as she’s realising “Fuck where’s Jack?” and going mental, staggering around with the empty buggy looking for him. The footage goes up on YouTube, all her Facebook friends get sent the link, and she’s trolled by a load of self-righteous bitches just like her. Then hopefully she’s arrested for child neglect, and her life’s basically over. And she never gets near Jack again.’

‘Aw Christ Beckie.’

‘Would Ryan be able to organise all that from prison?’

‘Aye, but –’

‘Ryan owes us big time.’

I can’t wait to see Mum’s face when I’m like ‘Oh Mum look at this that Mia sent me!’ and I show her the YouTube footage of Ailish and she reads all the troll stuff. She’s going to be ‘Oh that’s dreadful’ but secretly she’ll be going Yes!

Andrew’s right. One thing I’ve learned from all the shit that’s happened to me is that being a dove just gets you fucked over. Like Mum and Dad were by Bitch. And like Mum was by that Tricia girl. If she had stood up to Tricia she would never have got into all that trouble in the first place.

I do kind of wonder about that, though. I mean, the bow and arrow. How is it possible to accidentally fire an arrow at someone? Even if you tripped up, wouldn’t you just let go of the bow as well as the arrow and they would both just get dropped to the ground? And how could that Gail tell it was an accident?

But I so would not blame Mum if it wasn’t.

Tricia had it coming. People like Tricia and Ailish and Bitch, they’re hawks and they’ll basically try to shaft you every time. You have to be a crow. You have to shaft them back.

‘He’ll be able to organise that, you reckon?’

Connor shrugs. ‘Aye.’

‘And you’ll ask him? It’s really not a big deal, is it, compared with the stuff he’s already done? Compared with, oh, I don’t know… murdering my dad ?’

Connor looks at me sideways. ‘Beckie –’

‘Yeah yeah, heard it all before. Will you ask him or will you not, Connor?’

‘Aye, okay then.’

And now we’re turning into Andrew’s road on the edge of Westport. It’s called Abattoir Road which doesn’t exactly sound like it’s a brilliant address, but it’s out in nice countryside with lots of grass and trees between the houses and there’s a view of the mountains, and his house is nowhere near the actual abattoir. And Connor suddenly slows down and says, ‘Check the fantail!’ and he points up into a tree and there’s a fantail jumping about in there flicking his tail and it really does look like a fan, it doesn’t look real, and I’m ‘Awww amazing!’

And now we’re at Andrew’s house and he’s waiting at the end of his drive in a black T-shirt with the Crab Nebula on it and brown trousers that so don’t go, and when he sees the car slowing down he waves in a really dorky way, like he’s making a circle in the air with his hand, and he’s grinning like Wallace out of Wallace and Gromit , and Connor’s saying ‘The wee fuckwit’ and oh my God I love my life.