Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Needless to say, Kitty hadn’t meant to end up in Calderdale Royal on a Tuesday lunchtime. She should have been on second shift at The Duke, or at least back home at Beth’s attempting something that could, if you were being charitable, be called cooking. But she wasn’t. Instead there’d been a small incident with an electric guitar, an amp and too many fucking wires, as she was always letting Yvonne know. Jess had only let her in to the garage for five minutes on her break just to try and nail the transition she kept fucking up every time they rehersed. And yet. Here she was, a busted elbow that she was pretty sure was royally screwed (not a medical diagnosis, but close enough), bored out of her skull, waiting. Her elbow was in a loose sling Jess had whipped out when it became clear that rather than returning to pour pints, Kitty’d be off to get an x-ray; she could have managed the pain with alcohol-induced numbness, but that was frowned upon at work, it seemed.

And Kitty, she was one who could truly appreciate the ridiculousness of her current predicament. Staff shortages at the Duke (fucked up elbow to blame, of course) had meant Jess couldn’t leave the pub, resulting in a stultifying bus trip (with two changes) just to be told that the main A&E waiting room, one Kitty had frequented too many times, was out of action. Burst pipes, apparently. She wasn’t too fussed; Kitty only had bad memories of this place, or if not bad memories then the space where bad memories should be, obliterated by booze. But it meant she’d ended up here, stretched out across two tiny blue plastic chairs, leaning up against a white washed wall, a Minion on one side and Mickey Mouse on the other, stencilled in bright paint. The specialist kids A&E certainly was something to look at: toys sprawled across a rug in the middle of the room, the eyes of Winnie the Pooh and Bob the Builder inescapable, tiny chairs cutting off circulation to her arse.

Kitty wasn’t the only soul cursed to wait in a room that assumed you were two foot tall with a rabid interest in bright colours and inane, smiley kids’ characters, though it wasn’t what you’d call heaving. Perhaps everyone else had fucked off to Leeds, where no pipes had exploded and nothing was flooded, and you could get whatever was screwing you up treated without feeling patronised. But there was only one other person who’d stuck with it, sitting across the waiting room. She looked like she’d gone ten rounds in the ring with Muhammed Ali, sporting a shiner of a purple smudge around her left eye, her fist a burst of red and grey along the ridge of her knuckles.

‘Fucking cheery, isn’t it?’ Kitty muttered, shifting on the plastic seats to try and bring some life back to her legs, which by now were screaming with pins and needles. She wished Beth was here, but it was 2pm on a Tuesday, so she was safely at work. Hadn’t stopped her incessantly texting once word had got round about the amp-based accident. Jess and her loose tongue, ey. ‘I mean, d’you really think a screaming kiddie’s gonna feel better about the - I dunno - Lego he’s swallowed ‘cause there’s Mickey Mouse on t’wall?’ Kitty hadn’t really been talking to anyone, more just passing comment on the decor, but the woman across from her gave a smirk.

‘I’m not sure we’re the target audience,’ the stranger said, leaning back and resting her head against the wall. A wave of pain rolled across her face. Kitty figured the stranger must have been fifteen years younger than her, hair in a dark bob, serious and quiet. But there was something recognisable there. Maybe it was the black eye, or maybe it was something else. Something brutal and vulnerable all at the same time. It reminded Kitty of all the fucking times she’d ended up here, knocked about by somebody or other over the years. She rejigged her arm in the sling, so tenderly knotted at the neck by Chloe in the backroom of the Duke, and she realised that her life was so different from those days now.

‘How’d you get that?’ Kitty asked, unable to help herself, gesturing at the shiner. The stranger glanced down, then back up at the ceiling.

‘Not how you think,’ she said. There was an echo in what she said, something hollow. Kitty recognised that, too. ‘I’m a copper. Some twat we were nicking thought it were a good idea to lamp me one.’

‘And you lamped him back?’ Kitty raised an eyebrow at the bruised knuckles.

‘Telling the tosser to lay off didn’t work,’ she shrugged.

‘Well deserved then,’ Kitty nodded. The stranger hmmed in agreement.

‘I’m Ann, by the way,’ she said.

‘Kitty.’

Across the room, Ann dropped her gaze, taking in the sling and Kitty’s slouch. ‘What happened to you then?’

‘Well - and you might not believe this - but I had a fight with a guitar.’ Ann frowned, and Kitty went on. ‘I’m in a band, see. I thought I should get some practice in, but some twat put the cables back in some different way and I’m..well, lets just say I didn’t look where I were going.’ She gave a dry laugh, and shook her head.

Ann gave a look that said fair enough. ‘You any good? Your band?’

Kitty grinned wolfishly. ‘You should come see. We’re doing a set down the Duke in Hebden on Sunday. Then you can make up your own mind.’

Ann smiled, and shrugged in a noncommittal way. Kitty turned her head, just a little, to the side. For a flicker, she felt like she knew this stranger, this copper with a black eye; this woman she’d never met before. But then it was gone. And they were just two people, sitting under the imperious gazes of childish cartoon characters painted on the wall.

The swing doors to the waiting room opened - an end to this kids’ purgatory of waiting. Two nurses in neat uniforms filed in, one after the other, both glancing down at their notes, then up at the two of them. A strange little pair on the tiny blue chairs, an odd solidarity between them.

‘Kitty Eckersley?’ the first nurse called, just before the second nurse called for: ‘Ann Gallagher?’

Taking care of her fucked elbow, Kitty reconstituted her back - out of place from the terrible, tiny chairs - and climbed to her feet. Across the room, Ann also rose. Before they went their separate ways, Kitty turned to her.

‘Good luck with the shiner - I hope nowt’s broken,’ Kitty said. ‘And I mean it. The Duke of Wellington, doors open 6pm. Don’t miss it.’

Ann laughed. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’

Chapter Text

‘And she just invited you to go?’ Daniel looked up from his phone, his reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose. Ann, across the bedroom from him, pulled on a cardigan and gave a non-committal shrug. ‘To some gig down in Hebden Bridge? Just like that?’

‘Sounds about right.’ Ann flipped up the duvet and slipped in beside him. The old farmhouse was drafty and both of them often retreated upstairs as the evening stretched out. They were only just getting used to living here, to living together, but Ann liked it best in moments like this - Daniel in his pajamas, scanning the news, soft at the edges. Sometimes she wondered how they’d ever got here, after everything. But they had. Domesticity had never suited either of them well - made them wild like caged animals had been Catherine’s summing up of the matter when she’d found out Ann had shacked up with her son. But somehow here they were. It might sometimes feel like play-pretend, but in the quiet of the slow reaching dark of night, it was real enough.

‘How’s the war wounds?’ Daniel asked, turning to look at her over the top of his glasses. He brought a hand up to ghost along the aching bruise around her eye socket. If anyone else had done that, Ann would have probably broken their fucking fingers, but for some reason she allowed Daniel things she’d never let anyone else do. That was love, she guessed, though it had taken her a long, long time to admit it.

‘Nowt broken,’ she mumbled, shying away from his gaze. ‘And yeah, she just said, you know, come down if you can. Check it out.’

‘Clare says they’re pretty good, y’know,’ Daniel said, turning back to his phone. Ann curled up beside him, resting her cheek - the non-pulverised one - on the headboard. The ache had been softened in the heady, woozy blur of medicated numbness. It was a familiar feeling to Ann, these days. ‘Riot Women, that’s what she said they were called. She saw them at that festival thingy in May. Before the Ogden Water Babies. You know, we were in Manchester for that show, remember?’

‘You talked to Clare?’ Ann closed her eyes, felt her heart - usually beating so hard she thought it would burst right out of her chest - start to slow. It only ever happened like this; wild animal indeed, that had been Ann since all the shit that had happened, she’d always been on high alert, fight or flight. Until now. Until this, with Daniel. God, she felt so soppy, so vulnerable admitting it, but it was true: here they were, in bed together at nine-forty-five like pensioners, and she was wearing a fucking cardigan because it was a bloody listed building and way too cold, and Daniel was wearing reading glasses, for god’s sake. But she wouldn’t be anywhere else, not any more. This was it; she was knocked clean through.

Ann was almost asleep when Daniel replied. ‘Yeah, she called earlier. Wanted to see how you were. I told her you could survive anything.’ She flicked her eyes open and caught him grinning at her. ‘But she said - Clare, that is - she said that one of ‘em, in this band you’ve been personally invited to see, they used to work with me mum.’

‘That right?’ Ann said, sleepily. It had been a long day, too much of it spent in a kid’s A&E with suspect fractures that just turned out to be fucking painful blood bruises. Reflexively, she opened and closed her thankfully not-broken hand. The tosser had deserved it, but god it hurt now.

‘Yeah, Holly summat or other. Retired now too, like mum. Do you want to go?’

Ann, who was almost asleep, shrugged. Daniel pressed a kiss to the top of her head and again she felt the hot bloom of love in her chest she thought she’d never feel. ‘Well, we’ll see, ey?’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll see.’

…

‘Riot Women, then?’ Catherine said, her voice booming through the speaker on Ann’s phone, which was propped up on the kitchen table. Daniel was faffing in the garden, trying to wrangle the weeds in the border like he was built for manual labour, when he most certainly wasn’t. But part of moving out here, to this house, together, was about turning over a new leaf for them both. Which meant trying new stuff - hence the gardening, and Ann, attempting something that might be called cooking. Pots and pans were strewn across the kitchen, marooned on the neat countertops, and spilling over the modern-yet-sympathetic stove tops. The phone line crackled again. ‘You still there, love?’

Catherine was somewhere in Europe. Ann wasn’t entirely sure where, but since she’d finally handed in her badge, Catherine’d been difficult to keep track of. Ann understood; sometimes she had the same desire to leave all the terrible shit behind. She felt the urge less since whatever this was with Daniel had settled. It was even approaching the conventional these days, a surprise to them both

‘Yep, still here,’ Ann mumbled, flicking through the cookbook splayed open on the table in front of her. It had been a present from her dad; she knew neither of them had been blessed with the domestic gene, but still - she was trying. The chef on the front cover had been one of her mother’s favourites. It had not been lost on her, the sentimentality of it. God, how far they’d come - Ann and her dad - after all this time.

‘Clare says Holly Gaskell’s on bass. That’s a turn up,’ Catherine marvelled. Ann imagined her on a beach somewhere, sipping cocktails, though that was hardly likely on a police pension.

‘You know her well?’

‘Holly? As well as anyone. We had different beats, but two middle aged women - we were always going to be lumped in together. Was it Holly that invited you? Daniel said something about A&E, but - and forgive me, Ann - I wasn’t really listening. You know how it is when he starts rabbiting on…’

Ann laughed, and attempted something that might have been called whisking, but by any trained professional - or even anyone who’d held a whisk before - probably wasn’t. ‘No, not Holly. It was some redhead, we were both in the A&E waiting room together. She’d done something to her arm, dunno what.’

‘Not ideal for performing,’ Catherine noted wryly.

‘No, can’t imagine it was.’ Ann gave up with the whisking, and picked up the phone, switching off speaker and putting it to her ear. She stepped towards the window and glanced at Daniel, still doing battle with the weeds. ‘And it was Kitty. Kitty Eckersley.’

The name gained an instant reaction from Catherine, no matter how many miles between them. ‘Jesus fucking Christ, that’s a blast from the past.’

‘Do you know everyone, Catherine?’ Ann folded an arm across her front, and leant against the window sill, fully aware a story was heading her way.

‘Wow, that’s - and no I don’t bloody know everyone, the cheek - but Kitty Eckersley…Well, you’ve heard of the Eckersleys, right?’ Ann didn’t get a chance to answer, before Catherine barrelled on. ‘No, would have been before your time. But they were right nasty buggers. Out Bradford way - drugs, girls, the whole nine yards. We didn’t have anything to do with them, but you heard things, you know. And it must have been, yeah that’s right - twenty, twenty five odd years ago now, back when I was a beat copper down on the Beverley Road Estate - a pretty ugly patch, even then - we were called out to the offie on the corner, y’ know where it meets Collingbourne Lane?’ Ann murmured her agreement - she vaguely knew where Catherine meant, but also that it didn’t really matter. Catherine was in the flow now, and Ann was intrigued. ‘It’s a flower shop or something now, I don’t know. But back then it was a right dodgy Off Licence. Anyway, we got called out and went down there, and there she was, your Kitty Eckersley, pissed as a fart, threatening all sorts. She was this young thing, much younger than me at least and - don’t laugh - I was young then, too. We nicked her for drunk and disorderly. She got a caution if memory serves, but it made no difference. She got sent down not longer later for sending some guy sparko for trying to chat her up.’

‘No one in all of North Yorkshire’s safe from the long arm of the law when Catherine Cawood’s involved, ey,’ Ann laughed.

‘Careful,’ Catherine laughed, but the moment changed. Even over the phone, Ann felt it. If Catherine had been next to her, she would have seen it on her face - a heaviness, a moment of reflection. It weighed quietly in the silence. ‘She - and don’t take this the wrong way, eh Ann - thinking back, y’know, she reminded me of you. Well, you know what I mean - you remind me of her.’

‘Stunning, beautiful and talented?’

‘No - and I did say, don’t take this the wrong way - fucked up. Angry at the world.’ As ever, the Catherine Cawood specialist insight was blunt and unwieldy, but right. It rang true to Ann, who had sensed it too, even in the few minutes she’d spent in Kitty Eckersley’s company in A&E the day before. ‘At least - and I still can’t believe I’m saying this - you’ve got our Daniel. To, of all things, even you out.’

‘Jesus, thanks for the compliment, Catherine,’ Ann hit back, goodnaturedly. Catherine’s judgement felt right, in a way Ann didn’t really understand.

‘Anyway, are you going to go hear her sing? I’ve heard, well Clare said, she’s got a fucking fantastic voice.’

Ann laughed again. Out the window, Daniel had finally finished with the weeds. She watched him sweep them up, sweaty and out of shape, looking like a misplaced office manager, but somehow managing to make it work. She was gripped, again, by how right it felt to be here, with him, after everything. She thought about Kitty Eckersley, and felt an echo of something she couldn’t name. She let it linger for a moment, and then she turned back to the bombsite of a kitchen. Domestic goddess she was not.

‘Probably,’ she told Catherine, finally making up her mind. ‘Might as well, right?’

Chapter Text

‘We just can’t let you go anywhere, can we now?’ Yvonne certainly didn’t look impressed, standing by the garage door, her guitar case held in both her hands in front of her, as if Kitty might spook and launch at her. But Kitty herself was safely balanced on top of the speaker, tucked away in the corner. She was unable to launch herself even if she felt the inclination. Her elbow - fucked to oblivion, no thanks to Jess’ concrete garage floor - was loosely resting in a soft sling. No cast, which had been a surprise, but they wanted her to start moving it sharpish, so it didn’t stiffen up. Whether it was easier to play a guitar like this, Kitty wasn’t quite sure.

‘Your concern is duly noted, Yvonne,’ Kitty said, tongue firmly in cheek, swapping a cross-eyed, sarcastic glance with Beth, who looked on the edge of telling her off, but as always in that goodnatured way they had. ‘And anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to smash my elbow to pieces on your shitting concrete floor, Jess, if you got a rug like Beth so reasonably asked.’ Yvonne rolled her eyes and started setting up her equipment, slipping in beside Holly, who was testing cables by the door.

‘Piss off,’ Jess said, without looking up from her sheet music. ‘I’ve got bigger problems to worry about than a sodding rug. We’ve got to be note perfect today, ladies.’

‘Fuck off, no we don’t,’ Kitty said, distracting herself watching Beth stick her tongue between her teeth and scrawl something out in her notebook. She leant across, careful of the fucked elbow, and said conspiratorially, ‘Using my pain as inspiration?’ Beth gave a small snort of laughter, as Kitty straightened up. ‘And anyway, we’re not playing for the Queen, Jess, it’s just Inez’s birthday.’

‘Oh no,’ Miranda muttered from the corner. ‘You’ve gone and put your foot in it there, Kitty. It’s only Inez’s birthday.’ Miranda did a passable impression of Kitty, gesturing broadly, then gained a middle finger in response.

‘It may be “only” Inez’s birthday,’ Jess said, through gritted teeth, ‘but it needs to be good, okay? Note perfect might be beyond us, but…’ She trailed off, shaking her head. Despite the good natured needling, Kitty knew this was important, flashing a small supportive smile - not one that undid all the teasing, but something, at least. ‘We can give it a try, eh?’

‘Yeah, you heard the boss,’ Kitty said, with a fake salute, attempting her best to rally the troops, who were now mostly set up. ‘And anyroad, I’ve got someone coming, so we better be on our best behaviour.’

Beth frowned, and Kitty couldn’t meet her gaze. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d brought it up, especially given she had no idea if the random stranger she’d invited to a gig in an A&E waiting room was actually going to show up, but she figured there were layers to the whole interaction that Beth would understand better than Kitty herself did, and she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

‘Ooh, aye, you’ve invited someone have y’?‘ Kam piped up, with the teasing tone of a teenage girl on the school playground. She and Nisha had been, until then, glued to their phones, swapping memes with Miranda. ‘Bloke or girl?’ After a glare from Nisha, Kam clarified, ‘Sorry to assume, Kitty, I just always thought…you know, you were an anything goes …kind of…girl…’ Everyone had turned to look, and Kam lost steam halfway through, visibly cringing at the hole she was digging herself.

‘Well,’ Kitty said with gusto, ‘that I may be, but this is nowt to do with that.’

Yvonne frowned, genuinely baffled. ‘Then enlighten us, Kitty. Who else would you be inviting to a gig?’

Kitty glanced down at her sling, for once the bravado failed her. She faffed with the velcro, until she could muster an offhand response, attempting her best to seem uncaring even with Beth - and it was always Beth who made her feel seen even when she didn’t want to - staring. ‘Just some lass I met at the hospital. She seemed dead keen.’ She picked at the velcro, and then a thought hit her - a welcome distraction from the jumble of turned gazes from people who thought she’d invited - in Beth-speak - a potential suitor along today. ‘She said she was a copper, y’ know. Maybe you know her, Holly?’ She embraced the way the attention in the room span, alighting on Holly now, who gave a quizzical look that said, as if I know everyone, but the room was aware that she was going to. It was a small word, after all - just look at Kitty and Beth.

‘Go on then, what’s her name? This copper lass you’ve somehow invited to Inez’s birthday?’ Holly folded her arms, guitar slung low across her hip on the strap, as if to say, hit me with it. Kitty shrugged, and thought about changing the subject, but she knew that she couldn’t get away with it. No matter that they still needed to rehearse before the gig, everyone in the room was invested now. God, Kitty cursed her big mouth and wished she’d kept it to herself.

‘Well, she might not come now,’ Kitty pouted, once again picking at the velcro of the sling, resulting in a nudge from Beth, as if to say, you’ll pull the threads out if you keep doing that. ‘But it’s Ann, I think. Ann Gallagher.’ Holly’s face clouded instantly, the mood in the garage nosediving. ‘What?’ Kitty said, with her first frown of the afternoon, ‘she a right bitch, or summat?’

Beth reached out and touched Kitty’s sleeve, just as across the room, Yvonne said, with honest surprise, ‘Did you really live under a rock before you joined this band?’ Kitty got the feeling that she had missed something big. It felt like the air in the room had been sucked out.

‘None of you lot say anything,’ Jess cut in. ‘Not when Miranda’s here. She’s too young.’

Miranda, who’d been scrolling on her phone, glanced up and without missing a beat said, ‘I have google. And it was in the news.’ She shook her head as if Jess’ was out of touch with the youth of today, but the interaction just served to further confuse Kitty.

‘Too young for what?’ Kitty protested. ‘Come on, what am I missing? What’s so fucked up about Ann Gallagher?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Holly dismissed, unsettled, strumming her guitar as if to move the moment on. Jess, too, started to tap at the drums to cut out the silence. ‘No, really, it doesn’t. You said you weren’t sure if she was going to come, anyway.’

Beth reached out again, and Kitty shrugged her off. ‘No, you’ve all gone dead weird. What’s the big deal?’ Nisha and Holly shared a pointed glance. No one would look at Kitty, all eyes downturned. Other than Beth, but Beth never looked away.’Yeah, I don’t read the fucking news, but don’t be twats. What is it?’

‘Look, we should get started,’ Jess said, battling against the turn in the mood. Yvonne nodded heartily, matching it with a discorded strum of her guitar. Beth leaned towards Kitty, who was on the edge of raging out at them all - crushing her hands into closed fists in an act of self-restraint, which she wasn’t usually very good at. ‘Ann Gallagher, Kitty, she…well she was in the news a little while ago.’

Kitty frowned again. The garage around them had burst to life with uneasy chatter and clashing chords. Holly was watching Kitty too closely now, and Beth’s face was wide with open concern. ‘No shit,’ she snapped. ‘That I had gathered, Beth.’ She winced at the harshness of her tone. ‘Sorry. I just don’t like feeling like everyone knows owt I don’t.’

‘It’s okay,’ Beth said, quietly, hand brushing Kitty’s sleeve again. It was that, more than anything, that was putting Kitty on edge. It was too tender. It didn’t fit. ‘Ann, she…well you can google the details, as Miranda so inelegantly put it, but something bad happened to her. A long time ago now. And the man, well one of the men, who did it - he was put away, for life. It was a very big story at the time,’ Beth explained. ‘Are you sure it doesn’t ring any bells?’

Kitty shook her head. ‘Why would I want to know about everybody else’s shit when my life was hardly a fucking fairytale?’ she pointed out. She slumped back against the garage wall. Her elbow was aching; she wanted - not very suddenly, as it was a constant battle with Kitty - to be drunk, to let the haze of booze soften the weird edges of the atmosphere in the room. From the way Holly was staring at her, and the way no one wanted to speak about it, Kitty didn’t need to be a genius to work out what the “something bad” was.

‘Shitting hell,’ she muttered, with a slight shake of her head.

Beth glanced at her, and mouthed, ‘You okay?’

Kitty shrugged. Then she reached down and picked up her guitar with one hand, awkwardly. She knew there was one thing, and one thing only, that drove away the ache that had settled in her chest.

Good job they had a gig coming up.

There was nothing as cathartic as singing, Kitty had found.

Chapter Text

Ann was not someone who dithered - someone who threw herself with gusto into terrible decisions, yes. But not someone who hovered on the threshold, unable to step in. And yet - here she was, finding herself turning to Daniel, and saying ‘Maybe we should just go home?’ They were parked down the street from the Duke of Wellington pub, but even from here they could see the buzzy atmosphere. It looked like any number of pubs round here - welcoming, friendly and utterly ordinary. And yet she couldn’t make herself go in.

Daniel glanced at her. He was - comfortingly - dressed in his stupid coat that made him look like a farmer who’d taken a wrong turn, and which, for some reason, Ann had become strangely attached to. She wrapped her arm around his, and leant her head on his shoulder. She leant with her good side; she’d put enough makeup on before they’d left so that she didn’t look like she’d gone ten rounds in the ring unless you were up close and personal.

‘If you really want to,’ Daniel said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, ‘but I don’t really think we’ve driven all the way down to Hebden on a Sunday evening just for you to hightail it back home.’ He raised an eyebrow, and she looked up at him from her vantage point on his shoulder. ‘Didn’t have you as someone who walked away from a challenge.’ He said it with a grin, and she swatted at him in mild annoyance.

‘I’m not,’ she pouted.

‘Then let’s go. If they’re shit, then at least we can have a pint. And I can tell me mum all about Holly Gaskell’s crappy band. To be honest, if mum was still around I can imagine her smashing out a tune or two.’ He paused. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t give her any ideas. And anyway, they might be good. Who bloody knows. But we’re here now.’ She laughed at the idea of Catherine Cawood in a band, knowing she was bloody-minded enough to have made it work, and pressed a kiss to Daniel’s cheek.

‘Thanks, you know,’ Ann said quietly.

‘Don’t get soppy on me, ey?’ Daniel joked, undercutting the moment, like they always did when things got too heavy. Never were two people worse at talking about their feelings as Ann and Daniel. It was a miracle they’d made it here, really. She hadn’t told him what Catherine had told her, about Kitty Eckersley - they might share a lot of the same fucked up ghosts, but that didn’t mean they talked about it. That was why, perhaps, it had taken her and Daniel so long - stumbling, failing, breaking - to make it here. To farmhouses, and domesticity, and the promise - however fragile - of something good.

In response to his words, she prodded him in the ribs. ‘You-’ she said, punctuated with another prod, ‘don’t be a soppy git then.’ And then Ann strode off, towards the pub, and the promise of a gig she still wasn’t 100% sure she’d actually been invited to.

…

‘It’s someone’s fucking birthday party,’ Ann said, her voice low, into the shell of Daniel’s ear as they battled their way past the crowds towards the bar. Above the door behind them, someone had strung up a string of interlinked sparkly letters that spelled out happy birthday inez! and there were balloons - silver and gold - at both ends of the bar, and floating lazily towards the ceiling. There was no sign of any band either.

‘Did you get the day wrong?’ Daniel asked as they reached the front of the queue, gaining a glare in reply. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, putting his hands up in surrender. ‘But it does seem a bit…weird, you know.’

‘Which part, Daniel, of being invited to a gig by a woman with a broken elbow in A&E isn’t weird?’ He shrugged in a way that said, touche.

‘What can I get you?’ said the dark haired barmaid, sliding across from serving a couple beside them. Ann was being jostled on each side, and had to strain to hear. Daniel looked at her as if to say, your call, knowing that she was still unsure about this whole thing. But Ann remembered what he’d said outside, about how she never backed down from a challenge, and so she leant forward and went to order, but before she could, she was cut off by a shout from somewhere behind the bar.

‘Inez!’ The barmaid turned to the sound of the yell - the source of which was a blonde woman who burst out of the side door. ‘Where did you put the other mic stand? Me mum’s getting all arsey about it.’ The barmaid who’d been about to serve her - who had a tattoo on her neck that Ann, too scared of needles to get inked, secretly envied - turned to the blonde woman and said, ‘It’s in the backroom. By the dartboard. For the karaoke. ’ in an accent more often seen in Madrid than in North Yorkshire. The blonde yelled cheers, and disappeared off back the way she’d come, calling out that it was okay, crisis averted. Ann watched, bemused, and wondering what the fuck they’d walked into.

‘Sorry about that,’ the barmaid - Inez - said. ‘What can I get you?’

‘Two pints of beer, please,’ Ann said, and then she added - trying to sound casual - ‘And is there a gig on today? I heard, y’know - about the mic stand…’

Inez grinned wolfishly, and gave a laugh. ‘So you’re here for the Riot Women. With all their big mouths, I didn’t think this would stay quiet.’ She shook her head. ‘For my birthday, Jessie said, and bullshit I said - they just like being the centre of attention.’

‘How come you’re pulling pints if it’s your birthday?’ Daniel asked, leaning on the bar, with a frown. Inez turned to him and put down the first pint.

‘Good question,’ she laughed again. ‘But when half the bar staff are going to be on stage in two minutes…what choice do you have?’ The second pint appeared, and Daniel tapped his card against the machine to pay. Inez’s attention was snatched away by the next in the bustling queue, and Daniel and Ann were almost swallowed up in the crowd. But in a sterling act of multitasking, Inez turned back to them and called out, all while pouring another pint - ‘They’ve set up in the car park at the back. If the band’s what you’re here for,’ before the crowd shuffled again, and they were pushed back into the centre of the room, Daniel clutching two foamy pints.

‘Well this seems dead organised,’ he noted wryly. Ann bumped him on the hip as they stood side by side in the busy pub, life flowing around them, accompanied with an eye roll. Then they weaved their way towards the back door, the one Inez the barmaid had gestured towards. Ann took her pint from Daniel as they spilled out onto the cobbled back garden, which abruptly became a carpark-slash-road-slash-service-street, concrete swimming to the left and right. Punters were perched at picnic tables, and pressed up to high tables, chatting and sipping drinks. It all seemed pretty regular fare for a pub garden.

All of course apart from the drums.

It was the first thing Ann spotted through the sea of punters. But even as Daniel guided them to a table - high, sticky with booze, tucked in beside the door and pushed up against the wall - the crowd parted, and it all came into view. Riot Women were real, and here they were.

The blonde who’d been yelling at the bar was backchatting a woman in a floral head band and flowy cardigan at the drums - her mum Ann assumed - and clutching a collapsed mic stand. In front of them, two guitarists had their heads together, practising their chords - Ann saw enough family resemblance to assume they were sisters. Three women in sparkly jackets were wrestling with more mic stands, slotting microphones into their place, in sync enough for Ann to assume they were back up singers - and, with yet another assumption given how similar they looked, that two of them, as well, were sisters. Was the whole band related, she wondered.

And then, standing with her back to Ann and Daniel, stooping down to make last minute adjustments with the keyboardist - who Ann vaguely recognised as one of the teachers at Ryan’s new school - was the woman who’d started all of this. Even from behind, she was instantly recognisable. The red hair was a give away, and so was the dark blue sling around her neck from the broken elbow that had catapulted her and Ann together.

Across the cobbles, Kitty Eckersley finally turned around - leaning across to the drums, and taking the mic stand off the blonde, who’d finally finished snipping at her mother. Folding her arms, and shaking her head, the blonde flounced off back into the pub - to take over at the bar, Ann could only assume. She was doing a lot of assuming with the dynamics of this band. It all felt like one big, weirdly interconnected family - and it made Ann wonder what people thought when they had one of their big parties at Catherine’s house - though a long distant memory now, what with Catherine gallivanting off across the world, the Himalayas only the start. Did people see them and think they were family? They were, of a sorts now, though Ann had no way to summarise it all. She’d fucked it, really, by getting with Daniel - though fucked it wasn’t perhaps the right word.

‘I’m guessing - and it’s just a guess - that the one in the sling’s the one who invited you,’ Daniel said, nodding his head in the direction Ann was staring.

‘Gold star for you, Daniel,’ Ann laughed.

‘I mean I’m just glad you didn’t break anything,’ he said, turning to look at her. His eyes were soft. Though he didn’t say it, she knew what he meant. You two fuckers are emotionally bloody constipated, that had been Catherine’s verdict when she’d found out they’d been sneaking around. To say she’d been caught unawares would be an understatement. Catherine had thought it was a car crash waiting to happen, the two of them - fuck ups, who would only fuck each other up more when it went wrong. And Catherine was sure it would go wrong. She’d not been right about that, in the end, something she couldn’t admit outloud, but her vociferous complaints on the matter had faded away the longer the relationship lasted.

But Catherine hadn’t been entirely wrong with the whole emotionally repressed thing. And yet sometimes - most times - they didn't need to say it. Ann knew it. She’d heard the fear in his voice when she’d called from the hospital and told him; she’d felt the way he’d held her tighter that night in bed. Everything was so fragile. No one knew that better than the two of them, after all.

Ann reached out and squeezed his hand for a heartbeat. She willed him to understand in return. ‘I’m all good, yeah?’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ he said, with a firm nod.

They were saved from any more emotional truths by a fuzzy burst of static which rang painfully in their ears. Ann winced and turned to where the band had clearly finished setting up - as did the assembled crowd around them. The chatter died down, as she took in sight in front of her. Everyone was in their rightful place - and there was Kitty Eckersley, front and centre like she was born to be there, in a slightly too long leather jacket and thigh high glittery boots, awkwardly trying to hold a guitar with a broken elbow.

‘Hiya everyone,’ Kitty said into the microphone, looking somewhat disgusted by the fuzzy feedback that followed her words. She faffed with some of the cables with her unbroken arm, until something clicked into place. Her next words were crystal clear. ‘Thanks for coming out tonight. I hope you don’t all freeze your tits off-’ Kitty said, gaining a few hard glares from her bandmates, but mainly from the drummer, and she raised a hand in apology. ‘Sorry, sorry. But I guess you’re all here for us so... We’re going to play a short set, cause we don’t have all that many songs yet.’ Kitty gave a nod, as if to punctuate her words, or to give herself confidence, dipping away from the microphone for a breath. Then, before the music started up, she seemed to remember something, and stepped back. ‘And, shit, I forgot. Happy Birthday Inez, yeah - happy fucking birthday!’

The drummer rolled her eyes, hard, before the band launched into their first song.

Ann smiled into her pint - and she knew then, solidly, she’d made the right choice to come tonight.