Shafted by Mandasue Heller Page A

been willing to stand by her, but she wasn’t brave enough to face that on her own. Her dad had a vicious temper when he was angry, and she was bound to get battered – and not just for this, but for stealing his precious Cindy’s ID, too.
    Larry hadn’t even considered how Tania’s parents might react to the news that their daughter had spent the night with him. But now that she had mentioned them, it struck him that they would probably be even more scandalised than the rest of the country about him supposedly corrupting their little girl. Worried that they might decide to take the matter further, he asked if she thought they were likely to go to the police.
    Shaking her head, Tania said,‘No chance. They wouldn’t want the neighbours gossiping. They’ll probably just put me on total lockdown till I’m thirty , or something.’
    ‘Oh well, that’s good.’
    ‘For you . But what about me? They’ll kill me if they find out I stayed here.’
    ‘Can’t you tell them you stayed with a mate?’
    Face lighting up, Tania said, ‘Yeah! I can say I kipped in Joanne’s garage – they’ll deffo believe that.’
    ‘They’d believe you slept in a garage?’ Larry gave her a doubtful look.
    Assuring him that she did it all the time, Tania said, ‘It’s more a sort of den than a garage, with beanbags and cushions, and that. Me and my mates always doss there when it gets too late to go home. And Joanne and her mum are at her nan’s in Scotland this week, so no one would know if I’d really been there or not. I’ll just say I got a taxi from Bone. And if they ask about you I’ll say you told me to get lost when you found out how old I was.’
    Smiling, grateful that she was willing to put herself on the line for him, Larry gave her a fatherly pat on the arm, and said, ‘Good girl. That’ll really help me out.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ Tania said, her own happy smile fading when Larry slipped his jacket on, because she knew that she would have to leave him now. Biting her lip nervously, she said, ‘Can I ask you something?’
    ‘Shoot,’ Larry said, looking around for his keys.
    Dreading a negative answer, Tania looked at her feet and said, ‘You do like me, don’t you?’
    ‘Course,’ he replied, magnanimous in the face of relief. ‘What’s not to like?’
    ‘I mean in that way,’ she persisted, blushing furiously, but determined to take this one last chance to salvage something from the disaster. ‘Only, I’ll be eighteen in two years, so, I just thought . . . well, maybe I could see you again – when nobody can say anything bad about it?’
    ‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ Larry said, herding her towards the door. ‘I’ll take you out to dinner on your eighteenth birthday. How about that?’
    ‘Really?’ Eyes glowing, Tania gazed up at him lovingly.
    ‘Really. Now, where did you put my keys?’
    Winking at her when she said she’d left them on the hall table, Larry reached for the phone and ordered two cabs, then led her out.
    ‘My cheque!’ Tania squealed when he picked up his keys and opened the front door. ‘I left it on the bed.’
    Reaching out to stop her as she made to go back for it, Larry said, ‘Forget it, sweetheart. They’ve probably already cancelled it. You won’t get a penny.’
    ‘But why?’ she gasped. ‘I won it fair and square.’
    ‘You lied about your age,’ he reminded her, pushing her gently but firmly into the communal corridor and stepping out after her.
    ‘It’s not fair,’ she complained, folding her arms as he locked the door and led her down the stairs to the car park. She might have lost him for the time being, but that money would have really helped to soften the blow.
    ‘Yeah, well, life ain’t fair,’ Larry said simply – blissfully unaware of just how true that statement would prove to be for him in the coming months.

4
    Larry’s life fell apart. And not gradually, which he might have been able to work his way through, but swiftly and