Blood Daughter: Flesh and Blood Trilogy Book Three (Flesh and Blood series)

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Neither answered as Jen tightened her hold. At least Dee knew who was supplying Jen’s new cash injection. She turned to Tiff. ‘You know about this?’

  Tiff shook her head sharply. ‘How would I know? I ain’t passed two words with Jen since she spat in my face when all her kid wanted was to see her kind-hearted aunt.’

  Before any more cross words could be slung a voice rang out along the corridor, ‘Mum? Mum? What’s going on?’

  Dee rushed forward and took a terrified Nicky into her arms. ‘Your dad’s just had a funny turn, that’s all. The quacks are giving him the once-over and after that we’ll be taking him home.’ She said the words for herself as well because that’s what she was desperately clinging onto.

  A doctor emerged from John’s room. ‘Mrs Black, can I have a word?’ Once she reached him the doctor said, ‘We think he may have a problem with his heart.’ She sucked in her breath. ‘We’re going to need to operate.’

  ‘Can I see him?’ Her voice quivered.

  ‘Me too,’ Kieran pumped out.

  Dee snarled and informed the doctor, ‘That one’s not a blood relation. I don’t want him anywhere near my John.’

  Sensing the tension the doctor coughed nervously. ‘He’s awake, a tad groggy, but you can have five minutes with him.’

  As she hurried Kieran called out, ‘You need to ask him a question for me.’

  ‘Piss. Off,’ she growled without turning around.

  She entered John’s room and was horrified. Her knees went weak at the sight. John was laid up on a bed with every kind of drip, syringe and electrical lead hanging off his body. His eyes were closed and he was deathly pale. He looked dead already. Dee hurried over to his bedside, took his hand and squeezed it.

  John’s bloodshot, watery eyes flickered open. He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m alright love, no need to look like I’ve already pegged out.’

  ‘Oh babes.’ She gave him a searing kiss on the lips and the gentlest of hugs.

  She almost jumped when she felt his palm cup her tummy. She stared at him, shocked. ‘Oh God John, how did you know?’

  ‘I remember what my mum went through when she was carrying my younger brothers and sisters. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.’

  Her face was wary. ‘John—’

  ‘Come here,’ he ordered. Cautiously she let him take her hand again. ‘You think I’m gonna hit the roof because I know it ain’t mine. We both know I’m firing blanks.’

  ‘John—’

  ‘Because it’s Kieran’s.’

  Dee’s face crumbled. The tears fell as she blurted out, ‘It was one time. I don’t even know how it happened.’ Her voice grew strong. ‘But I swear on my life I told him it was never going to happen again. That’s why I didn’t want him to come around no more. Not coz I was tempted but because every time I clocked him I felt so ashamed.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘So very ashamed.’

  ‘I wasn’t completely sure until Kieran came over to ours yesterday,’ her head slammed up, eyes wide with disbelief, ‘and you denied he’d been there.’

  ‘I swear, John, I told him to sling his hook.’

  He let go of her hand and placed it squarely on her belly. ‘I don’t care how this baby came into being, he’s ours. Mine and yours.’ Dee started crying openly. ‘Anyone who says different will have me to deal with. Now you need to listen to me carefully and dry those eyes.’

  She swiped her hands over her tears. ‘I’ve got a confession to make as well.’ He coughed but waved her back when she bent over him with concern. ‘I couldn’t help it love. I got back in the life. I missed it, so I—’

  Dee knew whatever he’d done was bad. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I had to . . .’ his eyes started drooping. ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘John? John?’

  The doctor said from the doorway, ‘We gave him something to help him sleep.’ She turned around. ‘When he’s awake we’ll be taking him to the operating theatre.’

  Dee gave her husband one final kiss on his forehead and left, wondering what John hadn’t been able to tell her. But no matter, he could tell her everything after the operation. And then she was going to give him the bollocking of a lifetime.

  Dee was greeted outside by a voice calling in a very posh accent, ‘Nicky darling, darling.’ She seethed as Flo flung her arms around her son and squeezed him tight.

  Dee bellowed, ‘You bring that two-faced bint in here while your dad’s fighting for his life?’ She lunged at Florence with both hands. Tiffany, Jen and Nicky tried to restrain her while Kieran stood back. The shouting, screaming and fighting brought the doctor running out of John’s room. ‘Excuse me, this is a hospital not a venue for cage fighting. Now calm down before I call the police.’

  Flo straightened herself up and led Nicky away, saying she was going to get him a coffee. Kieran decided he was taking Jen for a coffee too. Dee and Tiff were left standing alone.

  Dee was still seething. ‘If my John wasn’t sick I’d tear that bitch apart. Just thinking of her with my boy is making my head spin.’

  Tiff touched her arm. ‘Go and get yourself a coffee as well. I’ll join you in a bit. Just gotta make a phone call first.’

  Thirty-Nine

  In the hospital café the following lunchtime, the family occupied three tables in different corners. At one, Jen was asleep on Kieran’s shoulder. Nicky and Flo were stretched out together napping on one another while Tiff sat with Dee. The doctors still wouldn’t say how John’s op had gone and none of the family was allowed to see him.

  Tiff quietly asked, ‘What’s Stan’s evil spawn doing going out with Nicky? She must be nearly twice his age. Cradle snatcher.’

  Dee had a theory about that. ‘He’s an idiot just like most teenage boys. When my John’s back to himself I’m gonna make it my personal business to put that bitch down. For good.’

  Tiff tilted her head to the side with a knowing expression. ‘She’s worming her way into his life to try to get her cut of Mum’s houses, ain’t she?’

  With a sigh Dee stood up. ‘I can’t think about none of that now. I’m off to check on John.’

  Tiffany rested her head on the table and shut her eyes. She could barely keep them open. The previous night had been one long night.

  ‘I’m going to get myself a latte darling.’ She scoffed as she heard Flo’s sugar-coated voice from across the room. ‘Do you want one too?’ Tiff tuned out Nicky’s reply. All she wanted to do was to get a bit of kip. The next thing she knew, her shoulder was being shaken. She looked up and did a double take.

  ‘Mum? What are doing here? You’re meant to be in prison.’

  Babs was stony faced. Next to her stood Mags Sparks. ‘But you called me about John.’

  Tiff still stared with disbelief. ‘To keep you in the know. I didn’t tell you to do a runner. Shit mum, the Bill will be after you.’

  Babs gave Mags a meaningful look. ‘They ain’t none the wiser. They think I’m at Mags’ working at the memorial gardens. I had to come down.’ She scanned the room, her eyebrows lifting, taking in Jen and Kieran. They looked a bit chummy to her. Then she dismissed it, remembering how they’d met at the memorial gardens. ‘Everyone gather round,’ she called. ‘I can’t stop long.’

  The broken family assembled at the table under Babs’ beady eye. She looked at them all, one by one.

  ‘What the fuck is going on with this family?’ No one said anything. In fact no one wanted to meet her gaze.

  Then Babs breathed a sigh of pure relief when she saw Dee entering the room. ‘I came as soon as I heard hun.’

  Dee’s voice was toneless.

  ‘John’s dead.’

  PART 2: 2006

  ‘My family are at war.’

  Forty

  ‘That bastard killed my husband,’ Dee yelled, the unbearable grief inside her clear for all to see.

  Before Babs could deal with her shock at the tragic news, her eldest daughter jumped Kieran. They ended up on the floor
with Dee lashing out madly.

  ‘Get security,’ the woman at the till shouted in panic as people in the canteen scattered.

  ‘Mum, Mum, let him go!’ Nicky frantically tried to yank her off Kieran, but she wouldn’t stop. Kieran wasn’t fighting back, instead using his arms to deflect her attack, protecting his eyes, which she seemed intent on scratching out.

  Babs couldn’t believe what she was seeing. And then things got worse; Jen joined in. To Babs’ surprise she wasn’t helping her sister but letting rip at her. She was slapping Dee’s back, screaming, ‘Get off him, you bitch.’

  Dee turned on her. ‘You’re the bitch. A double-crossing bitch. My own sister going out with this piece of filth.’

  ‘You what?’ Babs’ gaze slammed into the man she’d always thought of as a son. ‘Is this true?’ She didn’t want it to be true. She loved him to bits but she didn’t want her girls mixed up in his world.

  ‘Enough,’ she roared.

  They all fell silent as she vented her rage. ‘I dunno what’s going on here but I’m disgusted to the core. John is dead.’ Her voice choked. ‘Dead. And all you lot are doing is fighting like ferrets in a sack.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘Shame on the lot of you.’

  Flo chose that moment to flounce in. She stopped dead in her tracks when she spied Babs. Her lip curled as she spat, ‘What are you doing here?’

  Babs looked her up and down. ‘I think you’ve pinched my line love. What are you doing anywhere near my family?’

  Nicky pulled himself away from Dee. ‘She’s with me Nanna Babs.’ Tears clouded his eyes. ‘And I need her.’ He gazed desperately at Flo, as the tears finally fell. ‘My dad’s checked out.’ Flo rushed over and pulled him into a deep embrace, murmuring sweet words of comfort.

  Babs’ head was in such a spin she thought it was going to whirl clean off her shoulders. John was dead. Nicky was with Flo. Jen was with Kieran. Dee was claiming Kieran murdered her husband. How had her family come to this? Mags was looking on, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide as if she’d descended into hell.

  Dee began wailing like a wounded animal. ‘My John’s dead. He’s dead.’ Her awful sobs tore through the air.

  Babs turned to Tiffany. ‘Get everyone outta here. Now.’

  ‘Right you lot . . .’ Tiff got on with the job.

  Babs parked herself on the floor and took her devastated daughter into her arms. She rocked her just like she’d done the one and only time she’d held her as a baby. ‘It’s gonna be alright. Mum’s here to take care of you.’

  Babs stood silently by Dee’s side as they looked down at John’s still face in the hospital bed. Mags waited patiently outside. She had warned her that they needed to get their skates on before the prison authorities got suspicious. But Babs couldn’t leave her beloved Desiree in this state. She’d been robbed of being her precious daughter’s mum when she was young; she wasn’t going to cut out on her now.

  Dee ran her fingers lovingly down his cold cheek. ‘I didn’t think much of him when I first saw him,’ she confided to Babs as she sucked the tears back. ‘Truth be told I thought he was a bit of a short arse.’ A ghost of a smile haunted her face. ‘It didn’t take me long to realise he was the best thing that ever happened to me. Anything I wanted he got it in a heartbeat. Even when I was ranting and raving at him.’ She leaned down and tenderly kissed him on the lips, which brought the tears to Babs’ eyes.

  Dee turned and Babs got choked up at her ravaged expression. ‘What am I going to do without him? He was my world.’

  Babs took her into her arms. ‘I know hun, I know.’ She gazed at her with love, but determination too. ‘But this is the way of life. We’re here for a short time and John was one of those people who made the best of his time here.’

  Suddenly Dee became angry again. ‘I know Kieran did something to him.’

  ‘That’s not the Kieran I know. He’s a bit urgent but he wouldn’t do that.’

  With wide-eyed shock Dee twisted out of her embrace. ‘What? You know that sleaze ball?’

  Babs took a deep breath. ‘I more or less brought him up. Poor lad had the mum from hell. I know he’s no angel, but hurt John?’ She shook her head with conviction. ‘No, not happening.’

  ‘But John collapsed after seeing him.’

  Babs moved forward and took Dee’s ice-cold palms in her own. ‘That boy was such a source of strength for me when you were born.’ Dee stilled.

  They rarely spoke of the time Babs hadn’t been there for her because those harsh memories hurt so bad.

  Babs’ face turned wistful. ‘I’ll never forget when you were in the hospital and I thought I was gonna lose you. Kieran put his little hand in mine and asked if he could come to Mile End ozzie to see you. Do you know what he did when we got there?’ Dee’s mouth tightened. ‘We were looking at you through the window in the premature baby unit and he puts his little hand against the window and says, ‘‘Keep fighting like Henry Cooper. Your mummy loves you little one’’.’ He could never hurt you because he’s loved you since he first laid eyes on you.’

  Dee snatched her hands away. ‘I don’t give a monkey’s nuts about what went on in the past. I know he did something to John. Maybe he said something that put John on edge, but as far as I’m concerned John would still be here if he’d never gone to see that scumbag.’

  The door opened and Mags popped her head in. ‘Babs, we’ve gotta run. I’ve just had the slammer on the blower and had to tell them some flim-flam story.’

  ‘I don’t want you to get into any trouble. You need to go.’ Dee teared up again. ‘Cheers for coming. I needed you Mum.’

  Babs nearly broke down. This was the first time Dee had called her Mum. How she had longed for this day. Mum was such a simple word, one most folks took for granted, but for Babs it was the greatest gift of all to hear her daughter finally call her that. The shame of it was the honour had come through such tragic events. They embraced once more before Babs reluctantly left her daughter looking down at the body of her dead husband.

  She was surprised and none too pleased to find Kieran waiting in the corridor. He looked like he wanted to punch the wall. ‘Babs, I never touched him—’

  Her eyes flashed with hurt indignation. ‘You’ve got a lot of accounting to do.’

  ‘You don’t own me Babs,’ he bit out. His stare was stone cold as if she were one of his rivals and he was making a promise to flatten them. It shook her up; he’d never put her in her place like that before. It made Babs realise, with open-eyed clarity, what her beloved boy really was.

  Then everything changed as he ran the tip of a finger gently down her cheek. ‘You know I’d never do nuthin to hurt you. Nuthin. I’d rather slice out my own heart. I feel the same about Dee. And John took me under his wing and showed me the ropes when most wanted to boot me to the kerb. I loved him like a father.’

  A worried Mags cut him off. ‘Babs, I’m sorry lovey, but I think I’ve got us into a bit of a tricky situation.’

  ‘What?’

  The other woman waved her hands fretfully. ‘I told the prison people I had to take you down the ozzie to get ’em off our backs. But they wanted to know what was wrong . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m dead sorry.’

  Babs could feel doom looming. ‘What did you tell ’em?’

  ‘That you’d broken your finger.’

  Forty-One

  Babs squeezed her eyes shut with vexation and disbelief. She hadn’t thought this day could get any worse. It just had. She fixed her troubled gaze on Kieran, her face tight. ‘There’s only one thing we can do.’

  He nodded grimly. ‘I know. Let me find a place – somewhere to do it.’ Babs gulped as he set off down the corridor.

  ‘I’m real sorry Babs, this is all my fault,’ Mags spluttered as she wrung her hands together.

  Babs wasn’t having someone else taking the blame for her shambles of a family. ‘None of this is at your door. You done me a favour bringing me here. It’s that bloody family of mine tha
t are the real problem.’ She shook her head sadly; she still couldn’t believe what had gone on. ‘They’re falling apart and I feel helpless, like there’s sod effing all I can do about it.’

  ‘They do seem to be a lively bunch, I grant you that.’ Mags’ tone switched to stern mode, which was unlike her. ‘But they’re adults, not nippers crying in their nappies. If they can’t live without you holding their hands, what does that make ’em? They need to learn to stand on the two feet God give ’em.’

  Babs huffed. ‘They wouldn’t know their own two feet if they reared up and kicked them in the gob . . .’

  ‘Ladies,’ Kieran called, his head poking out of a room further down the corridor.

  He beckoned them to shift themselves, so they hurried over. He shut the door on a small, white room filled with hospital supplies and equipment.

  ‘I’m gonna dress your finger.’ He pointed to a trolley where he’d laid out a bandage and pair of scissors. ‘That way—’

  ‘What are you chatting on about?’ Babs interrupted, gazing at him like he was off his rocker.

  He looked at her puzzled. ‘We agreed that I need to wrap a bandage around your finger so that it looks like it’s broken.’

  She frowned. ‘But I thought you understood what we had to do.’

  His mouth worked wordlessly for a few seconds, then clamped shut as his face turned white. ‘No way Babs . . .’

  ‘You don’t have a choice.’ She stepped closer to him to emphasise the importance of what she needed him to do. ‘As soon as I get back they’ll have the prison quack on my finger like a dose of salts, and if it ain’t broken . . . me and Mags will be for the high jump.’

  Kieran wouldn’t back down. ‘No—’

  She grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him so close their faces were inches apart. ‘We ain’t got time to play ‘‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’’. You have to break my finger.’