The Faithless

by Martina Cole

He grinned with pleasure. Celeste was always glad to see him. ‘So do you, love. In fact, you look wonderful.’

  She almost shone with pleasure at the compliment. Jimmy would never understand his wife’s animosity towards her sister. It was beyond his comprehension. Jimmy didn’t have a jealous bone in his body, so he never understood the naked envy in his wife’s eyes when she looked at her little sister.

  ‘Don’t start her off, her head’s big enough as it is.’ He could hear the nastiness in his wife’s voice.

  Celeste smiled at her sister and said sweetly, ‘You’d know all about that, Cynth. It’s a wonder you can leave the fucking house!’

  Everyone laughed. Cynthia watched them as they laughed at her expense. She hated that they were her family, hated that these people were her blood, hated that she needed them, that they were the only people who really knew her. It was the last place she wanted to be on Christmas Day but, then, she never missed an opportunity to lord it over them and look down her nose at them.

  ‘Ha bloody ha ha. What are you so done up for?’

  Celeste grinned once more, she was always so good-natured it made Cynthia want to hit her.

  ‘Don’t you mean for who? Didn’t you tell her, Mum?’

  Mary flapped her hand with feigned discretion. ‘Why would I? It’s your news to tell.’

  ‘Come on then, Celeste, out with it.’ Cynthia sounded bored now, as if anything to do with her sister was beneath her. Which, as far as Cynthia was concerned, pretty much summed up how she felt about Celeste and her excuse for a life.

  ‘I’m seeing Jonny Parker, have been for a couple of months.’

  Mary watched Cynthia as she digested this little bit of information, saw the shock as it occurred to her what that statement actually meant in real terms.

  ‘He’s too old for you.’

  Celeste laughed, a happy, loud laugh, a natural laugh that made her look prettier than she actually was. She too had the arresting Callahan blue eyes and blond hair, although she didn’t have the striking glamour of her sister. She might be a pale imitation in looks but Celeste’s beauty came from within, from her nature. She had a wonderful lust for life, and she honestly believed that everyone was nice and kind, like her, and that if you treated people decently they would reciprocate.

  ‘What you talking about, Cynthia? He’s twenty-seven, and I’m nineteen. Eight years ain’t much now, is it? It ain’t like I’m thirteen and he’s twenty-one. He’s such a nice bloke, Cynth, treats me like a queen.’

  Cynthia forced a smile on to her face; her sister couldn’t know how this news was really affecting her. ‘Well, you make sure he carries on treating you like that, OK?’

  Celeste nodded happily, and Cynthia saw the genuine pleasure on her face. She turned to her father. ‘What do you think about it, Dad?’

  Jack Callahan shrugged. He was already half cut, having been down the local pub for the best part of the day. He tried to focus on his elder daughter for a few seconds before saying amiably, ‘What’s to think? He’s a nice enough fellow, and you can tell he thinks the world of her. Did you know he’s bought the bookies on the high street? He’s a dark horse, that one. He already owns a couple of pubs. This one here will be living the life of Riley if she plays her cards right!’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’

  Celeste was crimson with embarrassment at her father’s words, and they all laughed at her discomfort at being the centre of attention, but knowing that she loved it really.

  ‘Gabby can be your bridesmaid, she’d make a gorgeous little attendant!’ Mary’s voice was loud, and she watched her elder daughter carefully; if Celeste decided to settle down with Jonny Parker, and it looked more and more like that was going to be the case, Cynthia needed to accept it as soon as possible. Jonny and Cynthia had a history, not that Celeste knew that, but Mary knew that Cynthia had set her cap at him years ago. He had not been averse at first – no bloke was when she looked at them with her lovely face – but he had realised very quickly that Cynthia was seriously high maintenance and had dropped her so fast it had made her head spin. She was now hoping Cynthia would not feel the urge to enlighten her younger sister of that fact. Not that Celeste would be all that bothered, but Mary suspected from her reaction that Cynthia had never quite got over Jonny. And, as much as her elder daughter aggravated her, she still wouldn’t like to see her hurt. But, more than that, she didn’t want her younger child’s happiness compromised because Cynthia was jealous. And jealous she might be, because Jonny Parker was going places, and that meant that Celeste would be going with him.

  Mary Callahan looked at her granddaughter, the light of her life, and wondered, in the glow of her Christmas tree, what the future held for them all.

  Knowing her elder child like she did, she knew that her younger daughter’s life could be destroyed in an instant. But, if that ever happened, Mary would retaliate in a heartbeat because, if push came to shove, her younger child would win hands down. Cynthia had been given her chance with Jonny Parker many moons ago, and she had played it all wrong. Now he was fair game, and her Celeste was welcome to him. If Cynthia felt the need to challenge that, then Mary would be only too happy to put the fucker wise. Cynthia needed a wake-up call, and this might just be it.

  Mary had two daughters, and she loved them both in her own way, but she wouldn’t let one of them walk all over the other.

  Chapter Six

  ‘He’s so handsome, Cynth!’

  Mary wasn’t surprised that her daughter didn’t answer her, it was par for the course, but sometimes, like now, it grated. She looked down her bloody nose at them all, yet she still dumped the children on her parents on a regular basis. ‘He’s the image of Jimmy, but I can see you in him as well.’

  Cynthia smiled but it wasn’t a real smile. She was just going through the motions.

  ‘We love having him over. Little Jimmy Junior!’

  ‘He’s James, Mum, he’ll always be James.’ Her daughter said it as if it was a matter of life and death. Which of course it was to her.

  ‘Well, that’s your call, love. He’s your son after all.’

  Cynthia nodded in agreement. ‘Can you keep Gabriella for a few more days, just until I get into a routine?’

  Mary nodded silently. She had been looking after Gabby for nearly six weeks now and, apart from Jimmy popping in most evenings to see his daughter, she might as well be an orphan, because Cynthia didn’t bother with her at all.

  James Junior was now a month old, and it looked like Cynthia was going to be the same with this child as she was with poor little Gabby. She fed him, changed him, and washed him, he was immaculately turned out, and well cared for in every way – outwardly that is – but she never picked him up unless she had to. Cynthia only did what she felt was expected of her. It was frightening to admit that his own mother, her daughter, had no real love for him. Because she knew that she didn’t. She didn’t truly care for either of her children. It was as if love was beyond her. Mary wished she knew how to stop it, how to make her daughter see the mistake she was making. Tell her how she saw through her – her life, her marriage and her sorry attempt at being a mother. She never comforted or played with her children, showed them any love or maternal instinct. Yes, she catered for their welfare, but she always kept her distance from them somehow. Cynthia always seemed to be on the periphery of their lives, never at the centre of it like she should have been.

  Cynthia had always been a cold fish, she had never grasped the meaning of happiness. It seemed to have eluded her somehow, and Mary wondered at times if that was her fault. But she knew logically it wasn’t anything she had done – in the beginning she had loved Cynthia as much as she had Celeste. She had loved both her girls with a deep and abiding passion from the minute she had given birth to them. But Cynthia had always had this wall around her, and nothing Mary had done had ever broken through it. So she had eventually accepted her daughter’s personality, accepted that her Cynthia was not built for big displays of affection
– in fact they troubled her, bothered her. Cynthia had always been a law unto herself, and it had been hard for Mary, a genuinely warm person, to be rebuffed by her own daughter from a young age. From then on, Cynthia had been a child who was difficult to love, really love. Mary had even disliked her sometimes, and now she wondered if that was why her daughter was such a hardcase. She’d tried to understand her daughter’s personality but, if she was honest, it was beyond her. Cynthia had never been an easy child, and she was not an easy woman.

  But now, her daughter’s aloofness, and her complete indifference to her own children really worried her. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it, because outwardly Cynthia was the perfect mother – who would believe her? But Mary worried that her grandchildren would suffer one day for their mother’s lack of genuine affection.

  Jimmy tried to make up for it, she knew, she saw that every day, and she wished she could tell him that she understood what he was going through. But voicing her worries would be tantamount to treason, would be criticising her own flesh and blood, and she just couldn’t do that. It would be different if Jimmy came to her, and said it out loud. But she knew he would never do that. Cynthia had him well and truly under the thumb.

  ‘Are you all right, Cynth? You look so down, love.’

  Cynthia looked into her mother’s eyes, the same deep blue eyes that her daughter had inherited, and she said in genuine bewilderment, ‘’Course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Mary smiled sadly. This was hard for her, really hard – she didn’t know how she was supposed to deal with any of this.

  Chapter Seven

  Jimmy looked around the kitchen and made sure there wasn’t a cup out of place. He wanted Cynthia to come home from her mother’s to a spotless house and a nice meal. He had even cooked for them. He was looking forward to seeing her and his new son, of course. He just wished his daughter was coming home with them too.

  Jimmy found he was shaking, and he hated that he was so nervous about something so normal. His wife had only been for a visit to her mother’s – it wasn’t as if that was something outrageous. But she was so difficult these days, even making a cup of tea was like a military operation around her. He loved his new son and he adored his daughter, but Cynthia made everything awkward, he felt unable to enjoy being with his own family. He hated that he was so weak, and he knew that she hated that he was so weak. But he didn’t know how to fight her, he had never known how to fight for anything. That was the trouble.

  He had always been the type of person who would do anything to keep the peace. That was all he had ever wanted, peace and quiet. How had it turned out so wrong? When did he realise that his life was a sham, and everyone had known long before he had that his wife was a nightmare?

  As he heard the taxi pull up outside, he walked out into the hallway and said a silent prayer that his wife would be in a good mood for once. That she would walk into their house with a smile on her face, and tell him how much she had missed him.

  But he didn’t hold out much hope.

  Chapter Eight

  Jack Callahan was watching Rainbow with his granddaughter on his lap. He loved this little girl, and he was loathe to send her back home to her mother. He didn’t think Cynthia was strange – he thought she was a complete fucking nut-job. And he was very vocal about his opinions, much to his wife’s chagrin.

  ‘Listen, Mary, the trouble with Cynthia is she’s self-obsessed, always was, and always will be. There is nothing you can do about it, so let it go, will you?’

  Mary didn’t answer her husband; she knew from experience that he had said all he was going to say on the subject. Unlike her, he never made any allowances for his elder daughter, in fact, he was quite happy to denigrate her on an almost hourly basis. He had no time for Cynthia whatsoever and, as she had no time for him either, it was a very mutual arrangement. But it hurt Mary, because she loved her family, and she hated that her elder child had ruined everything with her toxic personality. She had left this poor child with them and, as much as she loved her, she knew that Cynthia should have wanted her own daughter at home with her, along with her new son. But Cynthia had never wanted Gabby, not really, and Mary knew she mustn’t think about that too much. It just hurt her feelings, hurt her inside.

  Thankfully she had her younger daughter to take her mind off it. Celeste had just got in from work, and she was beaming, as always, with happiness. Smiling widely in response, Mary looked at her younger daughter and said with determination, ‘You look happy!’

  Celeste grinned back at her, and Mary decided that this child at least was going to be all right. Celeste was the antithesis of her older sister – she had no side to her, what you saw was what you got.

  ‘I’m all right, Mum. I take it Cynthia hasn’t taken poor Gabby home?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I think she’s still a bit tired after the birth of young Jimmy . . .’

  Celeste frowned then, very theatrically, in a perfect imitation of her older sister, said ‘Don’t you mean James, Mum!’

  They both laughed. Cynthia hated the child being called ‘Jimmy’. She had given birth to a James, and James was his name, that was the end of it.

  ‘Yeah, James! Like anyone will ever call him that.’

  Celeste stopped laughing and said seriously, ‘Cynthia will, Mum, you know what she’s like.’

  ‘That’s true. Like anything else where the kids are concerned, we can only do what she wants.’

  The laughter stopped completely then, even the pretence of it. They had often laughed about Cynthia and her ways, mocked her even – behind her back, of course – but suddenly it was as if they had decided to stop playing the game, as if they had all realised that, in reality, none of it was actually very funny. In order for Mary to see her grandchildren she had to go along with Cynthia’s rules – they all did. She used the children like a weapon. And they let her, they allowed her to do it, because they knew that without them in the background the children would have nothing.

  ‘Do you think she’ll ever be all right, Mum? Because she seems to me as if she’s getting unhappier by the day.’

  Mary flapped her hand in annoyance. ‘She’ll never be happy, Celeste, it’s not in her nature.’

  ‘Well, that’s as may be, Mum, but at least she has a husband, and a family who care about her.’

  Mary smiled sadly. ‘Well, for the time being anyway, eh, love?’

  Jack Callahan, who had been listening to this exchange with half an ear, looked at his wife and daughter and shook his head in disbelief. Gesturing at Gabby, whose eyes were still glued to the TV, he said loudly, ‘Look at this little one here, would you two rather she went home with that hard bitch?’

  Celeste sighed heavily at her father’s words. ‘I think you should think a little about what you say in front of the child, Dad, you know.’

  Jack Callahan laughed uproariously, amazed at his daughter’s stupidity where her elder sister was concerned, and he said as much. ‘Oh, fuck off, this little one here knows the score. For fuck’s sake, she spends half her life here with us! As small as she is, she knows the score with that mad fucking whore.’

  Mary Callahan shook her head in exasperation and, looking at her husband, she said seriously, ‘Will you ever stop calling your daughter a whore?’

  Jack Callahan took a deep breath and, after exhaling loudly, he said in a very quiet voice, ‘And would you two ever fuck off? This child knows that she’s safe here with me. Because her father, God forgive him, is as frightened of her mother as everyone else is. Well, I ain’t, and I told him, poor fucker that he is, that if he was any kind of man he would batter her on a daily basis. Women like Cynthia need that. They are like poison, and you have to sort them out from the off. She looks down on us, and she looks down on everyone around her. If he had any fucking gumption he’d leave her, and do you know what? I’d be the first one to shake his hand if he did.’

  Celeste looked at her mother and shrugged in resignation. Then Jack Call
ahan dropped his bombshell.

  ‘And you, Celeste, had better watch your back because, mark my words, she doesn’t like what’s going on between you and Jonny Parker. As long as she leaves this little one here with us, I’ll swallow me knob, but I’m telling you now, I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could kick her.’

  Gabby looked up at her granddad and smiled happily. She knew that he would always stand up for her. As young as she was, she knew, deep inside, that her mummy didn’t love her properly. She only felt truly loved and cared about when she was with her father, or her grandparents. Her daddy, she knew already, was too nervous of her mother to be trusted completely. Her granddad, though, would fight for her with everything he possessed. It was a good feeling, cuddled up with him, because she knew that he was the only person in her little world who wasn’t scared of her mummy.

  Chapter Nine

  As Jimmy watched Cynthia kneel down at the altar, ready to receive Holy Communion, he wondered at how they had ended up like this. They were like strangers. She avoided him at every opportunity, slept in their spare room, and tried to convince him it was because it was easier to see to their son. She shrugged off any attempt he made to discuss their financial situation – which, thanks to her, was dire – and she continued to spend money at an alarming rate.

  Looking at her like this, from a distance, he understood how he had fallen in love with her. She was still beautiful, her body was hardly changed by childbirth. If anything, she looked lovelier. She had filled out somehow, and her curves were all in the right places. But now he knew her properly, and that, in all honesty, meant he knew that inside she wasn’t in any way beautiful. In fact, as far as her personality went, she was ugly. Ugly and hateful. Dissatisfied in every possible way with her life. And with him. She told him over and over again, how bored, disenchanted, and completely disillusioned she was with him and the life he had tried to give her. She made him feel as though everything he tried to do for her was pointless.