by Martina Cole
‘Do you need a doctor, little man?’
Once more Willy shook his head.
’Are you frightened?’
He didn’t answer.
’Are you frightened of me?’
Willy nodded then, his eyes like flying saucers.
‘Oh shit, Willy, you ain’t got to be scared of me, mate.’
His voice was so soft, so caring that it was the undoing of the young man sitting alone and frightened on the comfortable sofa. He burst into tears. It had been so stressful, all his life it had been so stressful, and he wasn’t able for it any more. He was going soft and he knew it.
Tyrell went to him and put a strong arm gently across his shoulders, frightened of making contact like that with the boy, frightened it would be misconstrued. But Willy grabbed the arm as if it was a lifeline and sobbed like he had never sobbed before. He cried for his own life, for Tyrell’s life and for all the boys and girls he had met over the years trapped in the same kind of world as his. He cried for his mother whom he had loved so much and who had never wanted him from the moment of his conception.
Tyrell held him while he cried and gently rubbed his back, making low, hushing sounds to try to calm him.
Finally, spent, Willy looked up into Tyrell’s face and said, ‘Thanks, mate, thanks for looking out for me.’
Tyrell pulled the red head to him and hugged him tightly, as he hugged his own boys, as he had hugged Sonny all that time ago.
‘Thank you, little man, for helping me out like you have. Now, come on, let me make you a nice hot chocolate, eh? I know it’s your favourite and I will even watch the Cramp twins if it will cheer you up, OK?’
Willy smiled then, a sad little smile that broke Tyrell’s heart.
‘I wish you’d been my dad.’
Tyrell ruffled his hair, he didn’t know what to say. After the brutality of the last few hours this boy was like a breath of fresh air.
‘So do I, son, so do I.’
He was surprised to find that he meant it.
Tammy lay back in the Jacuzzi and sipped at her gin and tonic.
She had always liked room service and the little waiter had been a dream boat. The hotel was expensive, and so it should be. She needed pampering at the moment. But even she knew she had to be as good as gold for a while. She wondered, once more, where her husband might be and how the upshot of everything was going to affect her.
Poor Angela, what a way to go, murdered by her own son.
She looked down at her body and, for once, she didn’t criticise herself. She wasn’t bothered about any of it any more. She had other things on her mind.
She would pick the boys up from school tomorrow. She would not, could not, stay in that big lump of a house on her Jack Jones. She knew that much. In fact, she decided she might get herself a live-in housekeeper.
They could all swim and just chill out. She would organise herself. She wasn’t stupid, was she? In fact, she had a feeling that once this was all over her real life might just begin.
She closed her eyes and tried to blot out, once more, the sight of her husband as he stabbed his mother in the back.
It was funny, she had used that expression so many times over the years and now he had actually stabbed someone in the back. Her husband was a nonce, a bona fide, card-carrying fucking child-chaser. What the fuck would she do if that all came out?
What would her so-called mates say? In reality, she realised that she didn’t really care.
After the events of today it seemed to put everything into perspective. The strangest thing of all was she also felt liberated. As if her possessive love for her husband had never existed.
Nick had always been a big strong lad, had prided himself on his strength. As he lay in a water-filled hole, dug for a cement footing, he regained consciousness. It took a monumental effort for him to drag himself to his knees, but he did it. The pain was like white fire threading its way through every part of his body and his mind was jumbled, confused. He was acting on the instinct for survival that every man has inside them regardless of race, colour or creed.
It wasn’t enough though. Dropping forward on to his face he landed in the watery mud and that was how he finally died. His last thought was of a photo of him and his mother smiling together as he collected a football medal. The photo had stood in his mother’s bedroom for years.
Willy was asleep at last and Tyrell tucked him in so he would be nice and warm. Going into his bedroom, he sat on the bed and put his head in his hands to steady his shaking.
It was shock and he knew that. He was in shock at all that had happened, not only today but over the last few months.
Jude was dead, Rudde had told him that, actually expecting him to be grateful. He knew his mother would take it hard but he couldn’t do anything about that, could he? She had always seen a different Jude to everyone else, as he had done himself for a while. He hoped sincerely that Jude had found some kind of peace. She had never known true peace, not like others had. Jude’s life had been one drama after another and he hoped that now she could finally sleep properly. She had been so beautiful once, especially when she had been carrying Sonny Boy, and he was sorry that her son and her husband had never been enough for her.
Now he had two broken marriages behind him because he knew that, no matter what, he would never go back to Sally again.
A bomb had exploded in his life and that bomb’s name had been Jude. The reverberations of that bang had caused ructions for nearly twenty years and now it was all over and he hoped that, finally, they might find some calm and some peace. Especially poor Jude, and his handsome Sonny Boy.
Once more, he cried.
Epilogue
Tyrell looked good and Sally could not help noticing it while she sat with his mother. She did it frequently these days, but only because Tyrell spent so much time there. She also observed how close he was to his sons.
Why had she never valued that before? Appreciated that fact for what it was, instead of finding fault with him all the time. Why had Jude and Sonny Boy always seemed to loom so much larger in her life than the good man she’d actually been married to?
Now Jude was dead, as well as her Sonny Boy, the victim of her own greed. She had finally scored a decent armful and it had killed her. Too late, though, to have been any good to Sally. If only she had known what was going to happen, she could just have waited for them both to disappear, and by now she would be his sole love. But she had not done that. Instead she had tried to make him choose and in the end he had chosen, but it had not been her.
Tyrell walked purposefully out into the kitchen. Even his walk was different. Everything about him was different these days.
The boys had noticed it too.
They didn’t talk to her like they had once before. They still treated her as their mother, were still respectful to her, still loved her. But now all their private thoughts were kept for their father.
Sally followed her husband out to the kitchen, ignoring her mother-in-law’s warning look. Verbena had advised her to stop throwing herself at him, said he needed time to heal. But Sally couldn’t do that, it was not in her make-up.
He was expecting her. She knew that because he was already facing her, leaning against the cheap worktop and smiling that strange smile he seemed to have developed in the last few months.
It was as if he was there all right, but also as far away from her as he had ever been, all at the same time. She just couldn’t get close to him at all, and that saddened her.
‘What do you want to talk about this time, Sal?’
His tone was neutral, but loaded with insinuation. She had the grace to feel embarrassed. She could hear her sons’ chatter coming from the lounge, knew they were talking once more about their brother because that was what happened frequently nowadays. Their grandmother was keeping his memory alive for them, making sure Sonny was never forgotten. The place was like a shrine to him and Jude.
Sally smiled and tried her hardest
to look non-confrontational, whatever that meant. It was something she had read in a women’s magazine and since she wanted her marriage back on track she was willing to try it. Willing to do anything. She wanted this man back where he belonged: in her house and in her bed. No matter what it took or what the personal cost might be to her pride, she wanted to make it all as it had been before.
Tyrell folded his arms across his chest and said quietly, ‘Come on, Sal, I ain’t got all day.’
He had been expecting this, she saw that now. Had brought her after him so she would not have to hunt for another excuse to be out here with him. Something she had done a lot lately. Was she that transparent?
‘Come on, the boys want to get going,’ Tyrell pressed her.
She looked humble, contrite. He could see the pain behind her eyes, and still it didn’t move him.
‘Please, Tyrell, please come home.’
It was the nearest Sally had ever come to begging and they both knew that.
He looked at her but didn’t answer.
She saw the heavy dreads that framed his face, saw the sadness in his brown eyes, saw how the weight had dropped from him, leaving him even leaner. More attractive, more sexy than he had ever been to her.
Why was it you never knew what you had till it was gone from you? Until you had driven it away?
And in her heart she already knew she had driven this man away when with a few kind words she could have kept him by her side for the rest of her life.
He had changed beyond all recognition. It was there in his face. This was still Tyrell but a different one, a harder, more complex man. All of a sudden she knew it was pointless trying to talk him round, his mind was made up and she would never be able to change it.
He was still watching her, and she could see the cynicism in his eyes, in the set of his mouth.
In his whole demeanour.
When he didn’t answer her she knew it was over. And the knowledge hurt her so much, she thought she might die from it.
Gino smiled at his mother and she smiled back. It had taken a while but they had come through it together, as Deborah was forever pointing out to him. He could smell the dinner cooking, frozen fishcakes and mashed potatoes. He felt an urge to be sick, but swallowed it down. Once he had eaten he could go out, and the first place he was going was to the big flats nearby.
The big flats were the tower blocks. He lived with his mother in a low-rise building, built before the Second World War when there had still been plenty of space and greenery around.
Gino was going to score a bit of gear for himself over there and chill out big-time. His girlfriend Abby was his blind, she was as up for the brown as him.
It was a perfect arrangement.
He liked the brown, liked how it made him feel, liked the fact he could get off the estate without having to get on a fucking bus. It was his world now, and Gino was grateful for it.
Jude might be gone, but her memory lived on.
He was proof of that.
Tammy lay by the indoor pool. She looked around her at the beautiful empty house and counted the days until she could get the boys from school and go to Spain. She sipped at her drink which was as strong as she needed it to be. She was still in seclusion after the murder of her husband and mother-in-law. Her friends had actually been good, rallying round her, even if it was only to find out what was going on.
Nick had been found face down in the footings of one of his buildings, beaten to death. No one had been arrested for the crime and she knew that no one ever would be. No one knew why it had happened.
Except Tammy, of course, and she wasn’t telling anyone.
What they guessed was their business, of course, but she had buried her dead in separate graves. In separate cemeteries even. It was the least she could do for Angela.
She wondered how much Hester knew, and how much she had guessed. But whatever it was she had not argued about any of the arrangements.
Nick was gone, and Tammy didn’t miss him at all. Why had she lived her life in his shadow for so long? It was pitiful really how much she had depended on him. Wanted him. Needed him.
All those wasted years and all the constant wondering where he was when all the time the man she thought she knew, believed she loved, was a hollow shell, not worthy of her love or anyone else’s.
Rudde was gone, hanged himself apparently, though no one seemed to know why. He had destroyed the photographs first, though, and made her see sense. Tammy had a lot to thank him for. Not that she would bother to go looking for him, of course.
And now here she was with more money than she knew what to do with and a sexy new slim figure, thanks to all the worry.
But it was all over, that was the main thing.
Finally, it was over.
The funny thing was, she was off men. Didn’t want anything to do with them these days. And after spending more time with her boys she had actually learned to enjoy them and their company.
If only she had found out years before what really mattered in life, how much happier she would have been. But she knew now, and was determined to make sure she never forgot her priorities again.
Willy Lomax was grinning widely. When Tyrell and the boys picked him up from the halfway house he had some good news for them all for once.
He had been allocated a flat.
He finally had a home of his own and this little family who had adopted him so readily would be his first visitors.
They were going bowling today and he was just grateful that they let him be a part of it all.
He was dying, and he knew it.
But he wasn’t dead yet!
As Tyrell said, you had to make the most of every day, and that was exactly what Willy was doing.
Justin smiled at the punter with every ounce of charm he possessed. He knew that was a considerable amount.
The man, a commuter in a crumpled black suit and a sweat-stained grey shirt, walked towards him with a sheepish grin. He was in his fifties, married to a social worker with a hectic hairdo and a constant sniff. Consequently he was up for a bit of fun and games. He had seen the boy earlier, and let his train go in case his assumption proved to be correct.
It was, and he was over the moon. They left the station together a few minutes later. The old rat house might be gone but a new one had opened up just as quickly around the corner.
Justin could find a rat house like other boys found cricket balls.
Tyrell watched the three boys as they bowled each other out. He watched everyone else as well now, something he had never done before. He looked around him all the time for men who were alone and watching the youngsters at play.
He felt a million years old now. Felt as if Methuselah was a babe in arms in comparison to him, now he knew so much about the world.
Jude was gone, her own victim, and Sonny had gone the same way. Tyrell had buried her, and had done her proud because he knew his mother expected that much from him. But he had seen her off without any kind of emotion whatever. He was past all that. He only cared about these three boys now. That was it until he had mended himself, and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do that.
Louis said he just had to wait, be patient until it didn’t hurt so much any more, and Tyrell had a feeling he was probably right about that. One day he would be ready to be with someone again, but it would never be Sally, he knew that much. He wanted someone who was softer, didn’t want to own him and his life. Sally had made sure he had lost precious time with his eldest son. Well, he had been given a steep learning curve lately and he knew he had learned a lot from that.
But he also knew that in a way he had been lucky.
So many people didn’t see what was happening right under their noses, but he did now. In fact, he was a fucking expert. Maybe, just maybe, if he had known all this before he might have been able to look out properly for his Sonny Boy. But that was something he would never know for sure.
Terry Clarke came into the Princess bowling all
ey in Dagenham then, a very unlikely visitor, and Willy’s smile grew even wider. Terry had taken to this boy, even when he had found out about his illness. Now he met up with them once a week and they all had the time of their lives. Tyrell saw a side of Terry then he had never guessed at before. He also knew that Terry popped by to see Willy on a regular basis on his own even though it was never discussed.
Wonders would never cease.
Tyrell grinned happily at Willy and his sons, glad that he had this chance to be with them and enjoy them. Glad that if nothing else he had learned one thing. You couldn’t protect your kids properly until you understood exactly what you were supposed to be protecting them from.
Then, and only then, could you actually keep them safe.
What follows is new and exclusive bonus material
- the author’s cut
TAMMY’S STORY
By
Martina Cole
Chapter One
Tammy could feel the man’s eyes on her and tried to glance at him from behind her mirrored sunglasses.
He looked familiar somehow. She was sure she knew him from somewhere, but where, that was the question.
It was hard for her, so many people knew her in Spain. Also, to make matters worse, she was never sure if a man was after her or her money.
