The Faithless

by Martina Cole

  She rued the day Jonny Parker had met both her daughters. He had brought them nothing but trouble and heartache.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Left alone after Gabby had followed Jack, Jonny Parker looked at Cynthia and it was as if he was really seeing her for the first time ever. She looked awful, and he could see the lines around her eyes and mouth, see the bitterness and ugliness that was inside her. He shook his head and turned to go.

  ‘You’re not walking away from me, Jonny. No one walks away from me,’ Cynthia spat. Even now, after all this, she still couldn’t bow her head in shame and hold her hand up to what they had done.

  ‘No one walks away from you! Who the fuck do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m the woman who took out fucking Bryant, that’s who I am, mate – and don’t you ever forget it.’

  Jonny grinned. ‘Who the fuck cares, eh? Can’t you just once in your miserable life admit to being in the wrong? I would give anything for this not to have happened. My Celeste is everything to me and between us we’ve destroyed her. Could you honestly see her dragged down even further?’

  Cynthia nodded, and said with her usual arrogant honesty, ‘Yeah, why not? Pity is no basis for a marriage. You need a woman who is as strong as you, you need a woman who knows the score . . .’

  Jonny looked at her for long moments before saying, ‘You’re off your fucking head if you think I would ever contemplate throwing my hat in the ring for you. Celeste means the world to me, and I thought you were sensible enough to know that. I have fucked you for years, but that’s it, Cynth. We fucked. If Celeste outs me, and I wouldn’t blame her if she did, I still wouldn’t want you and all you entail.’

  That was when she attacked him, when he knew the sooner he got away from her, and sorted out his life, the better it would be for them all.

  Her strength was no match for his and, violently shoving her away from him, he said, ‘Now I’m going to my wife, and I hope to Christ she forgives me, Cynthia, because until now I never realised just how much I needed her, how much she meant to me.’

  Cynthia heard the front door close behind him and then she finally cried. She knew that her Jonny, her Jonny Parker, was gone from her for good. Other than herself, he was the only person she had ever cared about in her whole life. Jonny Parker was her true mate, her perfect match, and she had believed, in her heart of hearts, that he felt the same as she did.

  Looking around her at the ruin that had been her kitchen, she experienced for the first time ever a feeling of loss – deep, emotional loss – and she was surprised at how badly it was affecting her. She knew that her old life was over, that from now on she would be alone, and that frightened her. But she also understood that it was somehow her own doing.

  All her life she had taken whatever she wanted, without a real thought for the consequences. Now, though, she knew that her mother’s words were true. Everything in life had to be paid for, and mostly it was paid for with bitter tears. She had never believed that those words could ever be used in conjunction with her, but she saw now how true they were. And, for the first time ever, she cried those bitter tears.

  Chapter Sixty

  Jimmy was drunker than he had ever been before and, to make things worse, he realised he had run out of gear. He searched his car until he found half a gram under the driver’s seat mat. He snorted it straight from the wrap, and felt the tingling in his nose which told him it was good stuff. He laughed pitifully to himself. Then he took another long pull on the bottle of vodka. It was nearly empty.

  He staggered out of the car, and the smell of his vomit hit him; he remembered vaguely throwing up earlier. He realised now he had knelt in his own vomit and felt the urge to throw up once again.

  He looked around him then, and saw the lights of London twinkling everywhere. He was at the top of a multi-storey car park, and he felt the breeze as it brushed gently against him. His gaze drifted to the night sky, and he saw the Plough. He remembered his dad teaching him about the stars on a camping trip to France. He smiled at the memory. He had been lucky in that anyway – he had had a good childhood, not like his poor kids, dragged up by that cunt he had married.

  Why had he stayed? He knew why really. Somewhere deep down he had always loved her, had hoped that inside her there was a nice person trying to escape. The last few years had been bearable. She had seemed happier, but now he knew the reason for that; she was trumping dear old Jonny Parker. Mate, family friend, brother-in-law and two-faced piece of shit. On his table where they ate their dinner every night, for Christ’s sakes.

  He heaved again at the thought. How often had they fucked on that table? Her calmly feeding them, knowing what she had done. She was beyond being a whore even – at least they didn’t pretend to be other than they were. What she had done was so outrageous it was unbelievable. And the worst of it was the fact he had never even suspected anything, so what did that make him? Did they laugh at him behind his back? Did they joke about what a fucking fool he was? He had trusted them – well, Jonny; he had trusted Jonny.

  He could hear music floating on the wind, and he strained to hear the song, he knew the melody, and then it came to him. Eddy Grant singing ‘Baby, Come Back’. The irony was not lost on him, and he grinned then. He hated her now, really hated her for what she had done to him. Done to them all. Poor Celeste – she was not good at the best of times. Now she would have to deal with all this. He wondered if Mary and Jack had known about it all along. In fact, did everyone know, except him? He felt the shame burning through him as he thought of the people he knew, all of them aware he was being cuckolded, and not by just anyone, but by the most dangerous man in London.

  Jimmy looked over the edge of the concrete barrier. The ground was a long way away. It was funny really – all this time he had believed he was a man, if not of renown, at least to be respected. But it seemed he had been wrong about that, as he had been about so many things.

  He was sitting on the barrier now and, sighing deeply, he dropped off the side. His last thought as he plummeted was whether or not his son was actually his child.

  He hoped not.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  ‘You happy now, Mum? He’s dead, me dad’s dead.’

  Gabby was in tears, weeping silently. She felt as if her heart had been ripped from her body, and the only thing inside her was this deep, dark sorrow. She had loved her dad. He had been good to her, and he had loved her, genuinely loved her. Now he was gone. He had killed himself because of her mother, her mother who had never cared for anyone or anybody in her whole life except herself.

  ‘Get your stuff, Gabriella, you’re coming home with me.’

  Mary Callahan looked at her elder daughter and wondered for the thousandth time how she had ever bred this excuse for a woman.

  ‘Get yourself away, Cynth, you’re not welcome here any more.’

  ‘I want my daughter, Mum.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have her. She doesn’t want to go with you.’

  Cynthia looked at the woman who had borne her, and who she had loved and hated throughout her life, and she said snidely, ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’

  Shutting the door in her daughter’s face, Mary said sadly, ‘Yes, Cynthia, I suppose we will.’

  She put her arm around her granddaughter then and, hugging her, she said kindly, ‘Come on, lovie, I’ll make us a hot chocolate.’

  ‘I ain’t got to go back there, Nana, have I?’

  Mary sighed heavily, then said in all honesty, ‘I hope not, Gabby. I hope not.’

  Jack Callahan was sitting drinking his beer; the telly was off, and the room was quieter than Gabby had ever experienced before. It was as if the events of the last few days had wiped out every bit of their energy and their happiness. Her auntie Celeste was back at home with her husband; he had, as always, talked her round. Jonny was sorry, there was no doubt about that, but her dad was dead because of him, and that wasn’t something that could be forgotten overni
ght. She would never forgive either of them. Her dad had been one of the few people who had ever really cared for her, and she wished now, more than anything, that she had told him just how much he had meant to her. Now her mother was determined to get her back home, and had not shown even the slightest remorse at her husband’s suicide, or acknowledged that she was the cause of it. As always it was about her mother, not anyone else. Her granddad and nana had aged before her eyes, and even James Junior was out of the picture. It felt as if her family had been dismembered, and she didn’t know how to cope with it all.

  The only bright spot was Vincent; he had been fantastic. Her granddad said he could come to the house, and that was wonderful. Just being near him, and feeling his love for her, was enough to make her feel she might, just might, get through all this heartache one day.

  Her mum was bad, toxic – she destroyed everything she touched, and she didn’t care who she hurt in her quest to get what she wanted. Gabby knew that she had been trying to get her uncle Jonny to go and see her. Phoning the house at all hours, until he had changed the number. It had made her nana and granddad furious. Her granddad said that it was common knowledge now, that the neighbours were having a field day. He also said that, if Jonny Parker had any sense, he would shoot Cynthia Tailor down like a rabid dog, and do them all a favour. She agreed with her granddad about that; she would gladly shoot her mother herself.

  That Jonny was back in favour didn’t surprise Gabby. She understood that her grandparents had turned their back on one daughter, but that they could never do it to the other one. Celeste needed her family, and they needed her. It galled her, though, that Jonny Parker had walked away more or less scot-free – that wasn’t right. He was as much to blame for her dad’s death as her mother was.

  Her poor dad, that he would kill himself like that! She felt the tears once more. It seemed as though her whole life had suddenly been destroyed, and she didn’t know how to make it better. She would never see her dad’s face again, never hear his voice. While her mother, the main cause of it all, seemed no different than usual. She was acting like her life hadn’t even really been affected. Even today, she didn’t look remotely bothered that her husband was dead, that he had dropped six storeys and landed on a set of metal railings. She looked like she always looked – angry, dissatisfied and bitter. It was so unfair.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Derek Greene was chatting to Vincent O’Casey, and they were getting on very well indeed. That young Vincent was seeing the teenage daughter of Cynthia Tailor was common knowledge as was the fact that he wanted an in with Derek and his crew. The boy had potential, that much was evident. He could steal almost any car to order, and he had a natural knack with engines of any kind. He would make a good driver, and that was a very important part of the bank robber’s plans.

  A good driver knew the roads like the back of his hands – the side streets and short cuts – and would not get flustered under pressure. Three burly blokes with sawn-off shotguns and a pile of cash, high on adrenaline, were not liable to be too kind to someone who didn’t know where he was going. So a good driver was considered an asset.

  From what Derek had seen and heard about this kid, he seemed like just the kind of lad they were looking for. More to the point, he had first-hand knowledge of what was going down with Jonny Parker, and that alone gave him an in where Derek Greene was concerned.

  Vincent O’Casey, for his part, was only too happy to tell Derek Greene anything he wanted to know. He was flattered by the man’s interest, and pleased that he had finally found himself a proper in to the world he so admired, the world he was determined to make his own one day. Jonny Parker’s indiscretion with his wife’s sister was the main topic of conversation around the campfires. It seemed he was not as clever as he thought and people were picking up on his skulduggery.

  As far as Vincent was concerned, seeing his Gabby so torn up inside was like a physical pain to him. He loved the girl and, as young as they were, he knew in his heart that they would be together for ever.

  ‘I hear that Jonny Parker’s old woman has had him back?’

  Vincent nodded. ‘Yeah, she ain’t all the ticket though, by all accounts. But Cynthia Tailor’s out of the loop for good now. Even her own kids don’t want her.’

  Derek nodded sagely. ‘And who could blame them? Six fucking storeys! That was not a cry for help – he was determined to top himself.’

  ‘My thoughts entirely, Derek. It’s my Gabby I feel sorry for. She’s lost her dad, her brother’s away in a nut-house, and her mother is about as much use as a fucking pork chop in a mosque. Her life as she knew it is over, and now she’s got to try and pick up the pieces. Did I tell you her mother is having her put into care? Won’t even let her go to her nana’s. She’s arguing that Gabby’s out of control and that her grandparents aren’t strong enough to cope with her.’

  After shaking his head at the shocking revelation, Derek said conversationally, ‘Could you find out Jonny Parker’s movements next Friday for me? I have to have a meeting with him, and I could do with a heads up. On the QT, like.’

  Vincent O’Casey almost swelled up physically with pride as he answered, ‘’Course I can, my Gabby can find that out for me.’

  Derek Greene grinned then. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Gabriella Tailor was heartbroken; they had finally buried her father, and it had been a distressing few hours. Seeing her mother, in full make-up, her head covered with a black lace mantilla and her body encased in a figure-hugging black silk sheath dress, Gabby had felt the urge to tear her apart. She had played the part of the grieving widow to perfection, and it was just that – a part she played. Her whole life was an act.

  Now, back at her nana’s, Gabby wondered at parents in general. Her father’s family had not shown, but then they never really had much to do with them anyway, her mother had seen to that. Suicide was a strange thing; people seemed ashamed of it. Some would rather see their loved ones waste away with cancer, or get killed in a car. To Gabby, suicide meant her father finally bailing out on her, once and for all.

  She had felt so lonely, so vulnerable in the crematorium, unused to the strange smells and subdued chatter. Quite a few people had turned out, but the majority of them were what her nana termed ‘sightseers’. People who came to tragic events out of a morbid fascination with other people’s troubles. But her heart had soared when Vincent had slipped into the back pew, and the wink he had given her had lifted her troubled spirits.

  Her mother, though, had stood alone, and she had wept alone. A forlorn figure, who wasn’t fooling anyone who really knew what she was like. Not one person had acknowledged her, and that must have shown her what people really thought of her. Still, knowing her mother, Gabby supposed she probably didn’t give a shit. Why change the habits of a lifetime?

  Now she had to face the truth of the situation, because a social worker, a Miss Bellamy, was telling her grandmother that her daughter, Mrs Tailor, had signed the papers to put her daughter into care. Her nana and granddad were arguing with her, but somehow she knew there was nothing they could do – not at the moment anyway. By the sounds of it, they had to go to court and get a judge to grant a temporary custody order, and then they might get their granddaughter back. It wasn’t a surprise to any of them; it was as if her mother had decided that if she couldn’t have her family then no one could have them.

  Still dazed from the events of the last few weeks, Gabby didn’t have the strength to argue that she didn’t want to go. Instinctively, she knew that if she caused problems with Miss Bellamy now it would affect her in the future.

  She seemed a nice woman – well, girl. She looked a cliché of a social worker, all flat sandals and fat ankles. Her thick dark hair looked like a furze bush, but she had kind brown eyes, and that gave Gabby hope.

  ‘Do I have to go?’

  Miss Bellamy looked at the pretty girl with the long blond hair and blue eyes and sig
hed inwardly. She had not liked the mother of this child, who had seemed overly adamant that the child should not be left with her grandparents. Most parents would prefer their children with family – it was rare that they opposed that – but Mrs Cynthia Tailor had been convinced she was in no fit state to care for the child herself. Since her husband’s suicide she had been on medication and suffering from depression – understandable, of course. But she had also stipulated that her parents were not fit role models; as well as their advanced ages, they were also supposedly drinkers, smokers and gamblers, among other more sinister things, not said but hinted at.

  So, as always, these cases had to be investigated and, in the interim, the child would be taken into the care of the local authority. Just going on this initial visit though, Miss Bellamy felt the girl would be all right here. The house was clean and well kept, the couple, though old and smokers, were agile enough, and there was genuine affection between them. There was also undisguised animosity against the child’s mother, and that was coming from every one of them.

  That there was a brother in a secure unit also had to be taken into the equation. The mother had washed her hands of him, saying he was far too disturbed for her to deal with under the present circumstances. James Junior had had a meltdown when told about his father’s death and had attacked everyone around him. And the next day he had knifed an orderly. He would not be going anywhere for a good while.