Faces

by Martina Cole

  Michael was making his way in the world and, between them, they would look out for Gordon as best they could. The tears were once more threatening, and she blinked them away. Crying wasn’t going to solve anything, and Kenny might not take kindly to his sexual gymnastics being curtailed until he had sated himself. She could smell the acrid aroma that seemed to cling to his pudgy body. Even after a bath he still had the stench of the gutter on him. She supposed she did as well. But at least her perfume and make-up masked it long enough for her to forget where it had come from. Poor Kenny, for all his big talk and his big cars, he still looked what he was: a wide boy. A Face. It was evident in the gold he wore, and the clothes that he purchased; no amount of money could hide the fact that he had literally no taste and that his new-found wealth sat uneasily on him. He still felt more at ease in a speiler or a corner pub than in a nice restaurant or decent drinking club. As her old mum always said, you could take a boy out of the East End . . .

  As Kenny came inside her and she felt the shuddering that heralded the end of his bodily assault, she hugged him closely. She pulled him into her young arms and feigned the love she knew he craved. No man in his right mind could believe that without a good few quid and a decent standard of living he would have had the bird of his dreams anyway. It was one of the reasons men tried to be successful; a good-looking woman on their arm was all they eventually needed to prove to the world they had made it.

  It was a fair trade though: in return he gave her more or less anything she asked for. And Mary Miles asked for a lot.

  ‘You all right, babe?’ His voice was thick with phlegm and she felt the bile rise inside her. When he coughed deeply to clear his throat, hawking loudly, she felt the urge to physically attack him, so disgusted did he make her feel. But, as always, she forced a smile onto her lovely face and nodded her assent. He never questioned her too closely for fear she would answer him truthfully and break the tenuous link that kept her beside him in his bed.

  ‘Feel better?’

  She nodded once more as she marvelled at a man who could reach the age he had, yet still remain in blissful ignorance as to whether or not the woman lying underneath him had actually achieved anything even approaching an orgasm. Sitting up, she took the glass of brandy and Babycham from the bedside table and gulped at it greedily. She was praying it would help her sleep, help her find a measure of peace, not realising that her poor mother had done exactly the same thing many years before, and for exactly the same reasons.

  ‘Thanks, Louie, we really appreciate this.’

  Louie shrugged, and Danny noticed that he was getting old, shrinking somehow. And he was getting frailer. It was sad to see that, and Danny was amazed at how the realisation made him feel very protective of the old bugger. He would never forget that this was the man who had given him his first opportunity at earning when his father had fucked up so badly, who had taken him under his wing, and who had then looked out for him in one way or another ever since.

  ‘I thought I would give you two a heads-up but, listen to me, boys. I knew you were plotting against him and, to be honest, I don’t blame you. I hear everything, as I told you many years ago. Now, I’ll offer you another piece of advice: when you take him on, make sure you let the powers that be know, as an actual fact, that he was a grass. It will not only put the brakes on any comebacks you might incur because of his age and position in the world, but it will also guarantee you a lot of goodwill from the right people. You might have to deal with the usual ice creams out to cause a fuss, but they are nothing to worry about in the great scheme of things: you need the goodwill and the blessing of a lot of people if you want to take your drug business into the big world.’

  Michael grinned. He liked old Louie, he spoke sense, and he didn’t preach to them.

  ‘I have fallen out with him bigtime over defending you two, so don’t fucking let me down.’

  ‘We won’t, Louie.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your mother, she was an extraordinary woman.’

  Michael and Danny both grinned at his attempt to find something good to say about her.

  ‘That’s one way of describing her, I suppose.’

  For some reason the two young men found it hilarious and they started to laugh. Louie finished his drink; it was good to get grief out of your system and, if laughter was the tool the boy needed, then let him laugh. It had been a strange few days all round.

  As he watched them roaring with laughter, Louie saw the menace in them, and the youthfulness that made them believe they were untouchable, indestructible. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that Mangan had been just like them once. A young blood with the whole world waiting for him, and the certainty that it would always give him the best that life had to offer. He sensed that this wasn’t the time or the place.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gordon Miles was standing outside his block of flats with his good friend and sometimes co-conspirator, Jonjo Cadogan. He couldn’t believe he was going to bury his mother in the next few hours. It felt surreal. That she would not make old bones had been a given; he had always guessed the drink would do for her quicker than life itself. But he was still shocked, she had been such a big part of their lives even though, like his brother and sister, he had secretly wished her dead many times. Now she had finally gone, it felt wrong. He felt guilty for his thoughts, even though they were perfectly normal.

  He was a big lad for his age and, like his friend, he was a watered-down version of his older brother. The day was icy cold and, dressed in his new black suit and cashmere overcoat, he looked much older than his seventeen years. He watched silently as a crowd gathered: he knew they were coming to pay their respects to a woman who had been, for the most of them, a thorn in their side. He had wondered, as his sister had, if people would turn up just to make sure she was really dead. That would make more sense. So many people would be glad to wave her off this day and, as guilty as the thought made him, deep down, he knew he was one of them.

  The day was heavy with rain, the damp was everywhere, flattening the women’s hair and seeping through the thin jackets of the men standing around smoking and chatting in small groups. This was a scene they had witnessed many times over the years, a funeral was like everything else in their mundane lives, a bit of excitement, light relief, a topic of conversation. A funeral like this would be talked about for months. The casket alone was rumoured to have cost the national debt, and this for a woman who could drink most of the men under the table, and who, in her last years, didn’t have a kind word to throw to a dog, who had treated her children like dirt. She had left them alone, forgot about them for days on end, had relied on them to take care of themselves. She had become a by-word for bad parenting, and the perils of drink for women.

  It was also being talked about because of the fact the older Miles boy, Michael, was now a Face around the town, and he was in league with the new local lunatic, Danny Boy Cadogan. A young man who had not only crippled his own father, something even the most generous-minded of individuals found hard to comprehend, but who had also single-handedly stopped a lot of the gang crime on the estate just by his presence. For that alone people liked him. He had achieved with a few heavy blows from a wheel brace and a few choice words what the police had been trying to achieve since the place had been built just after the war. He was a local hero in many respects, and his shine had rubbed off on everyone around him. There was a frisson of excitement in the air as a black limousine pulled up and three large men with solemn faces and expensive suits got out. It was Kenny Douglas and it had been a long time since he had been seen in this neck of the woods. He was more of a Bethnal Green boy, a Valance Road cowboy as the locals referred to them. He was already lighting a cigarette as he carefully surveyed the faces around him, always on the lookout for anyone who might wish him harm. There were a lot of people like that in his world due to his bad attitude, and his habit of falling out with his contemporaries for the most childish of reasons. He was high maintenance
was Kenny, and everyone knew that about him. Not the most handsome of men, he had the air of someone who did not have a lot of time for the niceties in life. Anyone outside the game would feel the menace emitting from him and instinctively give him a wide berth. In his world, this same menace had become his passport to riches. Now, as he looked at the drab people observing him as if he was some kind of exotic bird, he felt the futility that poverty seemed to spread like a blanket wherever it decided to settle. This was too close to home for him, a reminder of his past; he was better than this now.

  As a kid he had buried his father in very similar circumstances, but without the money to give the old cunt a decent send-off. His father had gone out of the world in a pauper’s grave, buried with a crowd of other no-hopers. They couldn’t even put up a headstone for him, all they could afford was a vase for flowers, flowers that no one was going to bring for him. He had achieved little in his life, other than the hatred of his children, and the dislike of everyone else he had ever come into contact with. The shame was still there for Kenny, though. The shame of being the offspring of a drunk.

  Anyway, today he was only here for Mary, no other reason than that, and he was determined to make that point to her brother and his sidekick. A young man, it seemed, who was just as determined to make his mark in their world as he had been. The boy was doing all right, no one disputed that, and he had a few Faces in his corner, but he was also a lairy little fucker who would one day rub the wrong person up the wrong way. The boy bothered him lately, as did Michael Miles; they were a good team and they had a fine little crew. That actually worried him more than he cared to admit. Truth be told, the boy frightened him; he had a look in his eye that anyone with an iota of brain cells could see concealed a seriously deranged personality. Well, the ponce was about to find out that Louie fucking Stein wasn’t enough to take on any of the established Faces in the surrounding areas, and today was as good a day as any to make that point. Twenty-five and brash, Danny Cadogan was nothing more than a caricature of his own daydreams. He was dealing drugs, collecting debts, and had just dipped his toes into the world of anabolic steroids. He was no more than a prison sentence waiting to happen.

  Danny Boy might have crippled his old man, and rubbed out a debt, but that counted for nothing where the likes of him were concerned. It just showed him up for the treacherous cunt he really was. Everyone thought he was such a fucking good boy: that his father had deserved all he had got. But, at the end of the day, he had crippled his own flesh and blood, had taken out his own father, piece of shit though he might be. It was out of order, a fucking liberty. The boy was being fêted for something so heinous there was no precedent in their world to justify it.

  So today was going to be the day Danny Boy found out that his reputation wasn’t enough to take on the really big boys, not by a long shot. Kenny felt his stomach rumble and wished he had eaten breakfast, but he was taking communion today because his mother was going to be there, and he knew it would please her. Plus, he hadn’t been to mass for a few weeks and this was as good an excuse as any.

  Mary was sitting in her old bedroom listening to her cousin Immelda as she chattered on about what food had been prepared at the pub and how much it had all cost. Immelda was a big girl with beautiful eyes, heavyset legs and the beginnings of a seriously thick moustache. She had a very kind personality and had moved into the flat recently to keep everything going, and now she was trying her hardest to guarantee her place in this household rather than have to go home, where she was used as an unpaid skivvy. If Mary said she could stay there, no one would dispute it. Mary was a Face in her own right through Kenny Douglas, and she was hoping her cousin would use her new-found power to keep her where she was. She couldn’t go home now, she was enjoying this little bit of freedom, loving her life for the first time ever.

  Mary stood up, she understood exactly where her cousin was coming from, and said sadly, ‘Immelda, stop worrying, this is your gaff for as long as you want it to be. OK?’

  Immelda held out her chubby arms and Mary walked into them. As she hugged her, she said with real emotion, ‘You fucking star, cuz. I can’t go back to that lot now, they’d drive me up the bleeding wall.’

  Mary laughed softly, a laugh she would have laid good money on wasn’t inside her. But it was, and the two of them laughed together, both feeling relief, and for similar reasons. The unloading of a parent, a parent who had no real place in their world, but who they had to put up with anyway.

  Mary, though, had the edge, she was burying her mother and, as sad as that was, she couldn’t wait for the day to be over and done with so she could put it behind her once and for all.

  They were still hugging when Michael walked in and motioned to her that the funeral cars had arrived.

  ‘There’s a good turn out, anyway.’ He said it with relief. If no one had bothered to come and see what had been spent, their mother would have clawed her way out of the grave and demanded they did the whole thing over again. She loved a bit of show, and adored drama of any kind, catapulting herself into the centre of any that she might come across during her daily wanderings. Michael was only sorry that she couldn’t have been there this day, she would have loved it. She was where she had always wanted to be, in the centre of it all, the focal point of everyone’s life.

  Mary didn’t answer him. She looked very sophisticated in a fitted black Ozzie Clark suit with a tight pencil skirt and huge jet buttons that only emphasised her slim figure. Her blond hair was styled perfectly, hanging down her back in a thick curly mass, and she had never looked lovelier. Her wide-spaced eyes were made up expertly and gave her an innocence that was long gone. Michael was proud of her and how she looked, proud she had risen above the local opinion of their family, and proud she was strong enough to cope with what life threw at her. God knew they’d all had to develop thick skins over the years to combat their mother’s antics when in her cups.

  It was poor Gordon he worried about, the boy had been closest to his mother, he had been her baby. He was going to talk to Danny Boy about setting him up with a proper little earner until such time as they could suss out whether or not he would be an asset to them or a drain on their resources.

  As they walked downstairs Mary could feel Danny Cadogan’s eyes on her and she glanced at him with her usual disdain, even though he made her heart race and her legs feel weak. She had been secretly in love with him since she was a schoolgirl, and she had hidden it well. She had always known that if he had even guessed, he would have found it amusing, and she couldn’t have borne it if he had laughed at her, ridiculed her.

  He was looking at her with genuine sadness and she dropped her usual guard for a few moments and smiled at him. The smile transformed her face, and Danny saw the hunger for him in her eyes and wondered what she would be like in the kip. He had a feeling she would be a handful: he was convinced that Kenny couldn’t ring her bells, not in that department anyway. He was far too old for her, and far too jaded for their relationship to be any kind of a real love job. Not on her side anyway. Kenny was a means to an end, and even he must have been aware of that much. If he wasn’t, then he was a mug. He could take her off him with a wink and a smile, and one day soon he would. When the time was right; when it would do the most damage. Danny Boy was quite looking forward to it.

  Today though, he was sensible enough to know that this wasn’t the time or place to settle any scores, no matter how pressing they might seem. Today was Michael’s day, and he was going to ensure it went off without a hitch. After all, Michael was not only his best friend, he was also the real brains of their outfit and Danny needed him far more than he let on.

  ‘Come on, mare, I’ll walk you out.’

  As his arm circled her shoulders she started to cry, and he cradled her head with his free hand as he pulled her into his arms. She buried her face in his chest in the way many a grieving woman had before her and, Danny being Danny, he used the excuse of comforting her to cop a quick and sneaky feel. She felt
every bit as good as he had expected her to.

  The pub was packed out, and the heat, combined with the alcohol that was not only free but was also being provided in huge amounts, had given the wake a real party atmosphere. This was not unusual in the Irish Catholic community. People tutted their heads and acted as if it was a disgrace, but to them a funeral was a celebration of death: it heralded the deceased person’s journey into heaven, into a much better place. Especially someone as troubled as Mrs Miles. As the music got louder and the voices more raucous, Danny Boy stood with his parents and surveyed what was quickly becoming his own little kingdom. People came up to him and shook his hand, even the fathers of his old school friends gave him his due, and this was noticed by all the people around them.

  Kenny Douglas was a little worse for wear and Mary, Danny could see, was not impressed with that. He was supposed to be by her side, making sure she was comforted on this day, the day her mother was buried. Kenny was acting as if it was any other day, he was on the piss and out for a row. She knew, like everyone else there, that he should have greeted Danny Boy and her brother at the graveside, but he had not bothered to do so and it had annoyed her. It had also annoyed her brother and his partner-in-crime. Michael felt slighted because he was, after all, Mary’s older brother. Danny Boy felt slighted because he felt he was now in a position that should have guaranteed him the respect of his fellow Faces. A lot of people had used this funeral to show their solidarity with the two young men who were making such a stir in their world. They greeted and offered condolences, all the while wondering what these lads could be used for in the future. Wondering what they might have to offer when they became permanent fixtures in their own right. They were on the cusp of the big one, they were grafters: it was more a case of when they would come into their own, consequently most people were ready to give them their due. Louie Stein was also watching the situation with his usual canny expression, looking for all the world as if he noticed nothing, when in fact he noticed everything. This, he surmised, was a recipe for disaster all right. Kenny was mugging them off, and that would not be forgotten in a hurry. This would need to be addressed as both parties would demand closure at some point, and Louie had a feeling he knew who the victor would be when it all went off, and off it was going to go sooner, rather than later, by the looks of it. He watched and he waited, and marvelled at how pride could always guarantee a fall at some point. Kenny Douglas was about to fall from a great height and, like Danny Boy’s father, he wasn’t going to recover from it any time in the near future.