Read Online The Age of Scorpio by Gavin Smith - Free Book Online

stay until I can get some work and afford a place of my own,’ she said.
    ‘Not much work for a jailbird. Not much work . . .’
    ‘I’ll get something.’
    He just nodded. Beth waited, looking for something more – anything. They let the awkward silence grow, then she headed for the door. She turned back.
    ‘When’s Talia back?’ she asked. It was like watching his face crumple. Tears appeared on his cheek.
    ‘She’s gone. Left me,’ he said, his voice a wailing rasp.
    Beth was by his side, reaching for his hand, but he flinched away from her.
    ‘You! You did this. You drove her away when you killed her man. What were you thinking?’
    Beth stood up slowly. I was thinking that maybe if I left it this time he would beat her so hard he’d finally kill her , Beth thought. Talia, the pretty one, Talia the popular one, Talia the feminine one, Talia the fucking trouble-magnet. Beth took after her dad and Talia took after some lost dark beauty from their family’s genetic past. They had never got on, but Talia was her younger sister so she had looked out for her. Not the easiest of jobs for someone that self-destructive. Beth had lost count of the number of times that someone had come to find her to peel Talia, messed up on drugs or alcohol, off the floor and take her home, or pull her out of some other scrape. Not that she had ever been thanked.
    Talia had found Davey with her unerring ability to get involved with the worst guy possible. He was a minor-league dealer with a history of violence against his partners. None of this had mattered to Talia. It had been true love through the bruises. Beth had been pretty sure that Davey was going to kill her that final time. That said, she knew she had lost control. She had not needed to go as far as she did. Even then it had still hurt to see Talia in court testifying against her. Had it not been for that, the sentence might have been suspended.
    ‘How long?’ Beth asked.
    ‘Six months.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Down south somewhere, where they all go.’
    This was the way it went in this house, Beth thought: Talia broke her parents’ hearts, back when her mum was alive, and Beth got blamed for it.
    ‘She was going to leave home eventually anyway,’ she told the old man. She left it unsaid that Talia had never had anything but contempt for them all anyway. She could not wait to get out of there. Talia had just been waiting for a way to sustain her lifestyle with the minimum of actual effort on her behalf.
    Beth stood and headed up the stairs.
    Beth had the music on too loud. She knew that, but what was he going to do? He couldn’t even shout at her after all. She was doing press-ups, carefully so she didn’t make the needle jump on the old vinyl. She was exercising out of sheer boredom. She had done a lot of this in prison.
    Beth heard him making his agonising way up the stairs but she did not go to help and did not turn the music down. Eventually the door to her room opened, and her father, coated in sweat, stood gasping for breath in the doorway. His look expressed what he thought of her activity. This was clearly another thing that good girls were not supposed to do. Like beating her younger sister’s boyfriend to death, she guessed.
    He made his way to her bed and sat down. He used the time he needed to recover the ability to speak to gaze around her bedroom disapprovingly at the posters of the various bands she liked on the walls.
    ‘Go and find her for me,’ he finally rasped.
    ‘Dad, she’s just moved out. A lot of people do it.’ She had known he wanted her to do this downstairs.
    ‘No word, nothing,’ he told her. That’s because she doesn’t give a shit about any of us , Beth thought but said nothing. ‘She would have phoned – she’s a good girl.’ He might as well have added ‘and you’re not’, Beth thought. She had heard it anyway.
    ‘Have you tried phoning her?’ Beth asked.
    He shook his head. ‘No number,’ he managed. ‘She said she