Fearless

by Jessie Keane

  ‘You had a word with him?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he swears he’s in love with her and wants to do the right thing.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Connor’d had the week from hell. The metal compactor at the yard had broken down and that was going to cost a mint to fix or replace. Costly car parts had been going missing. And the strangest thing had happened to him when he was in the shopping mall. He’d seen Kylie passing by, and called out to say hi. She’d looked at him wildly, then hurried on past. Surprised by her reaction, he’d caught up with her, stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  ‘Hey, Kylie. You OK?’ he’d asked.

  But Kylie glared at him. ‘Ask your bitch mother and her pet ape,’ she snapped, and dashed off.

  Connor didn’t think he would mention Kylie to Shauna. Truth to tell, he’d been relieved to see the back of her, and if Mum had whispered something in Kylie’s ear, he didn’t really care that much. But what was that thing about a pet ape? What did that mean?

  ‘Joey thinks he’s hit pay dirt, don’t he,’ said Connor to his dad. ‘He’s been trying to get on to the family firm for ages. Now he’s succeeded. If he’s one of us, he’ll get the cream of the jobs and plenty of perks, that’s his thinking.’

  ‘Well, he’s fucking spot on there,’ said Josh grimly. ‘If he’s Aysha’s husband, we have to see him right.’

  ‘It bloody galls me to have to say it, but that’s a fact. She’s so charmed by that imbecile that she’d cut us all dead if we took against him. But I’ve warned him – if he steps out of line just once, that’s it. Game over.’

  Shauna and Aysha were waiting for them at home, in the living room.

  ‘Hi, babes,’ said Shauna, standing up and kissing her husband on the cheek. He stiffened, but somehow managed to hug her. This was his wife, the mother of his children; and she was a monster.

  ‘Hiya,’ said Josh. He tried to catch Aysha’s eye, but she was looking at the floor, her face petulant. All these years he’d doubted she was his, and he knew it had hurt her, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

  ‘Aysha,’ he said softly. She looked up. ‘You OK?’

  Aysha nodded, bit her lip. Then she blurted out: ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

  ‘Come here,’ he said, and Aysha ran into his arms and started to cry.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she wailed, knowing she’d let him down.

  Josh hugged her tight. If he had been here more, not so dazzled by the Stateside money and razzle-dazzle the Greek boys had tempted him with, maybe this situation with Joey Minghella could have been avoided. It was obvious that his family needed him. Not so much Connor, but Aysha obviously did. He was painfully aware that he hadn’t been warm toward her, growing up. Desperate for male affection, she had flung herself at that twat. Was this his fault for being such an absent, uncaring father?

  But Claire . . .

  He wanted to be in New York with her. He didn’t want to be here. But he had to be. He glanced at Shauna. His wife, who had done such evil to the woman he loved. Quickly he looked away.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he told Aysha. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘I’ve let you down. I know I have.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ muttered Connor.

  ‘Hey!’ said Josh sharply.

  ‘Damn it.’ Then Connor relented. ‘All right. There’s nothing we can do about what’s happened.’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of planning to do,’ said Shauna.

  ‘What?’ said Josh, pushing Aysha gently away. He could barely stand to look at Shauna, he hated the sound of her voice.

  ‘The wedding. July or August would be good. Before she starts to show too much.’

  Josh looked at Aysha. He clasped her arms in his hands and gazed into her eyes. ‘This what you want?’ he asked.

  Aysha nodded, eyes red with tears.

  ‘Then we do it. Now dry your eyes, this is an occasion to celebrate. You’re going to get married, and you’re going to be happy.’

  Trouble was, he didn’t believe it. Any more than he believed he could sort out the mess his life had become.

  91

  Claire looked for Josh the next night, the next, then the one after that. The Greek promoter pals of his, Spiro and Nikos came in, but he wasn’t with them.

  She had too much pride to ask the Constantinous about him. She was afraid of the disappointment, the anguish, they would read in her face when she spoke his name. She knew what they’d say, anyway. She was pretty sure he’d gone back to England, back to his family, to his ghastly witch of a wife and the kids he’d given her.

  So she worked. She ran her club, juggled the staff rota because half of them were off with the flu. She chatted to the clients, got on with her life and tried hard to forget him. But she couldn’t.

  ‘All men are bastards,’ said Suki, hurting for her mother.

  ‘Josh isn’t,’ said Claire, but she was frantic.

  Time wore on and Claire tried to put Josh to the back of her mind. Clearly, he wasn’t coming back so she had better just try to forget him. Again. Meanwhile, Suki found a better apartment a little closer to the club. She furnished her new home with pieces from vintage stores, tried to make it look good, although it wasn’t exactly Park Avenue. Claire and Vicky – Vicky lived just over the Brooklyn Bridge – came to help her decorate.

  There was a tiny roof terrace at Suki’s new place and sometimes in the evening she would sit out there and drink a glass of wine and smoke a daring menthol cigarette with Claire, although neither of them really liked the taste. Suki told Claire about Aunt Ginny and what a rock she had been to her. She said that she wished Aunt Ginny could see her there, the cool city sophisticate. Ginny would laugh her socks off at the sight. She would cheer and say, You go, girl!

  Then one day Claire got a call from England: it was Josh. He told her about Aysha.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going?’ she demanded. She was fuming mad at him. And damned glad he’d called her, all at the same time. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Hey! I did. I had to go, quickly. You weren’t in, I left a message.’

  ‘I never got it.’

  ‘Nick the barman. He said he’d tell you.’

  ‘Nick’s been off sick. Got a dose of that thing doing the rounds. I thought you’d bailed. Gone back to Shauna. How is she, by the way?’ she said with a hint of acid in her voice. That bitch.

  ‘Who gives a fuck how she is? I had to be here for Aysha. Not her.’

  ‘Then that’s OK.’

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get the message. I love you.’

  Claire melted. ‘I love you too. Oh, for God’s sake, Josh!’ Her voice was full of tears. ‘I don’t want to waste any more time.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Please hurry home.’

  ‘I will.’

  92

  Over the months that followed, Josh found himself flitting back and forth across the pond, torn in two between his duties to his family and his love for Claire.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Claire told him, but he knew it wasn’t, not really, and that she was afraid one day he’d go back and never return. ‘I understand you’ve got to be there sometimes. I know that.’

  He tried to reassure her. Slowly, they got back the physical bond that had once drawn them so close together, and she would endure his kisses and caresses, but balked at going further, refused to spend the night with him, and that frustrated him.

  One day he took her into the bedroom of his hotel suite and showed her the bolster running down the length of it that he’d placed there. Claire looked at it, then at him.

  ‘Boxing’s all about discipline,’ said Josh, pulling her close to him. ‘You see that?’ He pointed to the bed. ‘You can sleep with me. And I won’t cross that middle line. You know me. Do you believe me?’

  Claire gazed into his eyes. ‘Yes. I believe you.’

  ‘Stay with me tonight
then. Please.’

  So Claire stayed, and Josh didn’t cross the middle line.

  All too often, Shauna was on the phone to him, summoning him back to England to get his morning suit for the wedding fitted, and asking for his help on cooked-up household problems. A radiator off the wall. A bust boiler. She even wanted his advice on the bloke who trimmed the hedges, because he’d just hiked up his prices.

  ‘Fire him,’ said Josh coldly. ‘Get another one in.’

  ‘Yeah, but you know how it is with these people,’ she wheedled. ‘They see a woman on her own and they take advantage.’

  Josh wondered who the fuck would have the balls to take advantage of Shauna Flynn. He also wondered if Jeb Cleaver was still on the scene. Shauna was a highly sexed woman and had to be getting her kicks somewhere, as she damned sure wasn’t getting a thing off him. Probably she had Jeb round there fucking her while he’d been away earning their money, the filthy mare. He didn’t want her, the very idea made him want to puke: he wouldn’t fuck her with someone else’s dick, much less his own. And Jeb Cleaver? He promised himself that one day soon, when all this business with Aysha had died down, he would sort that bastard out quietly, once and for all.

  ‘You have to come back,’ she said, over and over. ‘The suit needs altering, and that takes time, and the wedding’s not far off now and Aysha will want you to look your best . . .’

  Shit. ‘All right,’ he said, aware that she was yanking his chain. He knew – and of course Shauna knew it too – that he hadn’t been a great father to Aysha over the years. So he had to do the wedding stuff, see her off into married life in style. ‘I’ll be back Tuesday, OK?’

  She was satisfied with that. And as he put the phone down, he thought: Now I’ve got to tell Claire.

  And so it went on, Josh coming and going, Shauna complaining, Claire often in tears as he left her, the pressure building so high that sometimes he thought he was going off his head, wondering what time zone he was in, wondering which way was up.

  93

  When Aysha came downstairs dressed in her bridal gown on her wedding day, Josh could hardly draw breath.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said honestly.

  Aysha did. She had dark gypsy colouring, black hair and a stunning figure – which was not yet too obscured by the bulge of the baby she was carrying. Shauna had moved heaven and earth to make this wedding happen exactly as she wanted, mercilessly bullying florists, photographers, priests and caterers. There had been tantrums along the way, and tears and screaming matches, but somehow all that had passed and now here they were, on Aysha’s big day.

  ‘It doesn’t show too much, does it?’ Aysha asked her dad anxiously, coming down into the hall and picking up her bouquet of long-stemmed white lilies from the hall table.

  Josh just shook his head; he was too choked to speak. The poor little bitch couldn’t help what had gone on between her parents, could she? Aysha looked like an angel in a white chiffon scoop-necked gown, cut in the high-waisted Empire style to help conceal her pregnancy. The gown had long sweeping sleeves and a trailing crystalled hem that pooled behind Aysha like a glittering waterfall. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, and her make-up was subtle but flattering.

  ‘You look wonderful too,’ she told him. Josh had the stature to carry off a morning suit.

  There in the hall, with the sunlight streaming in through the windows and lighting this vision of bridal loveliness, Josh looked at his daughter and said: ‘You’re sure now? Really sure?’

  Aysha nodded. ‘Dad . . .’ she said, then stumbled to a halt.

  ‘Hm?’ Josh was smiling at her.

  ‘I . . . I know you’ve never liked me very much, and—’

  The smile slipped from Josh’s face. ‘Aysha—’

  ‘No! Let me finish, because I don’t think I’ll ever have the nerve to say this again. I know you’ve never loved me like you love Connor, and I wish . . . I just wish I knew what I’d done to cause that, to make you hate me . . .’ Aysha stopped speaking, then half-smiled shakily and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Shit, I’m going to ruin my mascara.’

  Josh felt like crying himself. Poor bloody Aysha! She was ignorant of all the crap that had gone down before she was born, she couldn’t know that she could easily be Jeb Cleaver’s daughter – or any of the Cleaver boys, or maybe even Bill the dad’s, the filthy old bastard – and not his.

  ‘Honey.’ Josh caught her shoulders in a gentle grip and looked her dead in the eye. He’d raised this girl, but he knew he’d caused her pain with his attitude toward her. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. You hear me? Nothing. And you know what? Looking at you here, today, I couldn’t be prouder. You . . .’ He swallowed hard and forced out the words he knew she needed to hear. ‘You’re my daughter, OK? And I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Dad,’ said Aysha, blinking back her tears.

  ‘Kushto bak, my darling girl.’

  Aysha grinned at that. He’d used the old Romany words, meaning ‘good luck’.

  ‘Good job Mum didn’t hear you say that,’ she told him, and he laughed.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Josh. They might be Romany, but Shauna never liked to be reminded of it.

  Josh hugged her, careful of her veil. Then he drew back. ‘Well then,’ he said, and held out his arm.

  Aysha tucked her hand under his arm and Josh, smiling, led her out to the waiting Rolls-Royce.

  Shauna was already inside the church, up at the front. The priest was waiting, ready. The organist was playing ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’. She had said hello to Frank Minghella and to his latest girlfriend, a blowsy old tart with frazzled hair and bad teeth, and to his waster of a son Joey and the best man, a skinny, pimply little runt of a boy who must be one of Joey’s younger brothers.

  God, these people are going to be our in-laws, she thought.

  Shauna deliberately hadn’t invited any of her upmarket friends such as Tanya and Chloe to this. She thought of what that bitch Philippa Houghton would have made of this shindig, and shuddered. Not that Phil was a problem any more. No way would she want the people she mixed with seeing the rabble across the aisle. She’d come a long way in her personal life, and she’d done that by becoming a shrewd judge of occasion. The low lifes on the right-hand side of the church were all toffed up in cheap too-short skirts, orange fake tans and fascinators. Not one decent hat between the lot of them – and the clothes! The last time Shauna had seen such a load of old tat she’d been passing a recycling bin. And the men were little better, all of them badly groomed, wearing cheap shiny suits and stinking of stale sweat.

  Shauna’s outfit could never be compared to those worn by the women over there. Her dress suit was a lovingly cut and beautifully draped rose-peach Yves Saint Laurent, and her hat was Philip Treacy. She knew she looked damned good, and so did Connor, who was acting as an usher today, along with a couple of Minghella brothers.

  Because the Flynns had more or less lost touch with their family from way back, there were no bridesmaids or pageboys. But that was OK. Shauna was only sad – and furious – to think that Aysha was going to link their family to a bunch of no-hopers like the Minghellas. Well, they wouldn’t have to see much of them, she supposed. She would make very sure of that.

  Then the organist launched into ‘Here Comes the Bride’, and everyone was standing up. Shauna glanced back. Josh was looking a million dollars as he led their daughter up the aisle. Her Josh. Her heart felt like it was going to burst with pride then. All these years, and he was still with her.

  Pity he don’t love you though, whispered a voice in her head.

  But there was no time to dwell on that today. Her daughter was getting married.

  ‘Dearly beloved,’ started the priest, and then he said the words that would bind Aysha to Joey Minghella for life.

  94

  A week later, when Aysha and Joey had gone off on honeymoon – paid for, of course, by Josh – to the Seychelles, Shauna took the opportunity to have a word with he
r husband.

  ‘Listen,’ she said as they sat in their palatial living room. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Oh?’ Instantly Josh was wary. He’d been downstairs in the basement gym all morning. It was kitted out with speedballs, skipping ropes, heavy bags, light bags, a big mirror for shadow boxing so that he could improve on his ducking-and-diving technique, weights and a rowing machine. It was a refuge, away from her. After a gruelling three hours in there, he’d showered – and now she’d taken her chance to corner him.

  ‘You don’t have to go back to the States, do you? You could organize some more bouts here. All that travelling, and what’s it for? We’ve got plenty of money, you could earn enough here to keep us in clover.’

  The hopeful expression in her eyes might once have made him feel bad, but not any more. The truth was, he wanted to go back to the States. Claire was there. Here, with Shauna, he felt stifled. Miserable. Over there he was a free man again, in control of his own life, happy with the woman he loved.

  ‘I suppose I could,’ he lied.

  ‘Yeah! Course you could. It would be great, having you home again.’

  Shauna was grinning from ear to ear, compounding Josh’s dread. This bitch had forced him into marriage, used sex to gain control over him, and finally bound him to her with iron threads by giving him Connor. As for Aysha, well, who knew? Now he felt he’d never be free of Shauna. But he wanted to be.

  ‘The Poles still in the fight game?’ she asked.

  ‘Linus has retired. But his nippers have taken it over, they’ll still be setting up bouts,’ he said, feeling his heart sink to his boots. He hated the idea. It brought it all back, being here. Those fucking deadbeat Cleavers. Shauna’s part in all that had happened to Claire. Everything.

  ‘That’s it then. Get in touch with them and see what you can get sorted out, all right?’ she said happily. Then her voice grew wheedling. ‘At least wait to see Aysha get back from her honeymoon, will you? She’d love it if you were here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Josh. ‘I will.’ For a couple of weeks, he’d do it. Longer than that? Forget it. He had to get back to Claire. She was right. They shouldn’t waste any more time.