by Mia Dolan
‘I’ll have you for this, Jones. Damn you, I’ll have you for this!’
Pumped up with adrenalin, Michael stood over him. There was no way he was going to take any lip about his mother. No way at all. His attitude towards Rafferty was one of total contempt.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he’d said, so filled with anger that he totally ignored Tony Brooks shaking his head in warning. ‘So how about the gloves come off, hey, Paddy? How about it?’
There was only Tony, Michael, Paddy and one of Paddy’s henchmen in the room. All the same there was a stunned silence as Michael whipped off Paddy Rafferty’s gloves and they all surveyed the horror beneath.
The skin on Paddy’s hands was pink and white and his fingernails were non-existent. The fire that had destroyed his hands had also damaged his ligaments so that his fingers curled in on themselves, like talons and not like hands at all.
Paddy was a legend for protecting his hands, for not allowing anyone to see them. It was rumoured that he even wore his gloves in bed – even to the bathroom.
‘Two days, that’s all I’m giving you,’ Paddy snarled as the man with him helped him to his feet. ‘Just two days. After that I’ll destroy you.’
After he’d gone, Marcie’s father glanced over his shoulder before closing the door. If the circumstances weren’t so serious, Michael would have laughed. Tony was acting like James bloody Bond not some small-time crook from the Isle of Sheppey. He was less than cool though. Sweat had broken out over his forehead. James Bond never did that.
‘He’ll do you,’ Tony gasped. ‘Not just a bit of a going over, he’ll do you personally good and proper. He plays for high stakes, that bloke.’
Michael still hadn’t been perturbed – not until he’d been informed that two of their dancers had been cut up, their blood used to write a message on the mirror of their dressing room.
‘Two Days.’
Michael had been shocked. OK, he’d expected himself or the club to be a target, but not two of his employees. The girls were – or had been – pretty. He felt responsible. His main worry then was that if he didn’t give in Marcie and the kids could be targeted next. He’d told himself not to be foolish, that they lived in a safe suburb where people went to work in the City. Things like that didn’t happen in such areas – and Rafferty wouldn’t be able to find out their address. Then he’d found a dead cat tied to their front gate. There was no note. There didn’t need to be. Paddy Rafferty knew where he lived.
Chapter Four
ROSA BROOKS STOOD at the front door of her cottage. The sun had taken the opportunity to peer out from behind a cloud. The red bricks of her home sparkled with sea salt when the sun was brightest.
Rosa’s face was turned in the direction of where her granddaughter Marcie and her husband were unloading their children and baggage for a weekend stay. She hadn’t told anyone about her encroaching blindness and she wouldn’t tell them now. She’d also sworn Garth to secrecy, treating the event like some kind of game.
‘It’s a secret,’ he’d said.
‘Not to be told,’ Rosa had warned him. ‘Not until it’s your birthday.’
As Garth had no idea when his birthday was, it didn’t seem much of a problem.
Her old heart had leaped with joy when Father Martin, a likeable young man who had replaced Father Justin O’Flanagan, had come with the news.
‘Your granddaughter phoned me,’ the young priest had explained.
She’d thanked him accordingly and then engaged Garth to help her get things ready: the old cot out for the baby, the blankets and sheets to be aired, the bedrooms swept and the old range working flat out to warm the house and cook the roast dinner she intended serving.
Garth had been making paper chains from painted newspaper for Christmas. Tongue hanging from his mouth, he’d concentrated on snipping the pieces of newspaper into the right size strips, then gluing each piece together with glue made from self-raising flour and water. He’d done all the preparations himself and Rosa had left him to it. He’d seen how to do it on a children’s TV programme called Blue Peter. Rosa hadn’t had the heart to tell him that Christmas was still nearly four months away. It kept Garth occupied and happy.
He’d moved in with Rosa shortly after his mother died. It was either that or he would have been institutionalised. Rosa wouldn’t countenance that. Although a grown man, Garth was a bit below par, but he didn’t deserve to be cut off from the world. He was harmless and sometimes – just sometimes – he was a lot more than that.
Like Rosa Brooks, Garth had something of the psychic about him; not that he was aware of it. Having the mind of an eight-year-old, Garth was unaware that his frequent insights into the future were out of the ordinary for most folk. He accepted everything that happened in his small world.
Rosa had told him that Marcie was coming to stay for the weekend with the children.
‘You’ll have to help me make the beds and do the shopping,’ she’d said to him.
‘I’ll help. I can do everything. I can be your eyes!’
Rosa carefully composed her face so that her surprise did not show. She’d never given Garth any reason for asking him to go shopping with her, or helping her out around the house. She’d never admitted that she was losing her sight. She’d come to the conclusion that God might have given men reason so they could work things out for themselves, but like the creatures he’d created, God had given Garth instinct, a finely attuned instinct.
The fact that she was losing her sight angered her. What had she done to deserve it? In consolation her insight – her gift – had become more pronounced. But at least she could hear her granddaughter talking to her children and she could still cuddle them.
She heard Marcie speaking to Joanna.
‘Go on, Jojo. Go and give your great-gran a hug.’
She heard the four-year-old laughing and her tiny feet tip-tapping up the garden path. Fuzzy and indistinct, the child was a blur of pink face and yellow dress. A pair of hazy arms rose to hug her.
She bent down and hugged the child close. ‘Joanna, you are the prettiest little girl in the world.’ She closed her eyes and, not for the first time in this past year, she wondered how long she had to enjoy these little things, the simple things that are so taken for granted in day-to-day life. She was growing old and knew her time was near.
‘How are you, Gran?’
Her granddaughter hugged her too. She welcomed the feel and warmth of her arms around her and attempted to puff herself out in order that Marcie wouldn’t notice just how fragile she’d become, like a small bird that was getting ever smaller.
‘Gran, how many cardigans have you got on?’ Marcie exclaimed with a laugh.
‘You people up in London do not feel the winds blowing in from the North Sea. It is colder here than it is up there. So we wrap up.’
Marcie laughed and said that she’d forgotten, though she wasn’t feeling cold at the moment.
Rosa laughed too, confident that her ploy had worked. There was plenty of time to be honest about what was happening to her. But not yet, not until Marcie had got through the ordeal to come and Rosa had to be here for that. She had to help her through it.
Marcie suggested a walk to the pub once they’d eaten and put the kids to bed. She was still worrying that Michael was working too hard, that he needed more leisure time. After all it wasn’t as though he was a one-man band. At the last count he employed thirty people including her father.
Getting him away from London and from work was becoming more and more difficult. Even though he trusted his manager, Kevin McGregor, to run things, and even trusted her father, business was never far from his mind.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she said as they passed the bright red telephone box at the end of the road.
‘Ouch,’ he said as though she’d kicked him on the shin. But he smiled all the same.
‘Dad said something about the police being called in,’ she said suddenly.
Michael turned up h
is coat collar and shrugged himself down into it before answering.
‘Did he?’
‘What was it about?’
‘Oh, just some argument over two of the girls. They decided to leave but were afraid of some blokes hanging around outside.’
‘Stage Door Johnnies? Isn’t that what they’re called?’
‘Something like that,’ he replied.
She sensed there was something he was not telling her, but that was Michael’s way. He tried to protect her from the bad things in life. He still bristled at the fact that he hadn’t been there to stop his half-brother, Roberto, from brutally assaulting her when Marcie had first moved to London. Since their marriage he’d taken it upon himself to wrap her in cotton wool. At first it was nice, but now sometimes it jarred. She didn’t need protecting, not now that Roberto was languishing in prison.
Banishing the negative thoughts, she clutched her husband’s arm close to her side, glad he was there. The thoughts didn’t go away that easily but like a rubber ball kept bouncing around inside her head.
A stiff breeze was keeping the rain at bay, chasing the clouds across the sky and sending sea spray travelling yards through the air.
Marcie’s long blonde hair was being whipped round her face. Sometimes she pulled it back, holding it close against her cheek. Sometimes she let it fly because it helped to hide her expression.
What was Michael hiding from her?
It didn’t help that Sally had phoned that morning. Marcie had mentioned Michael being a bit distant, a bit too wrapped up in the nightclub. She didn’t mention what her father had said about the police.
‘As long as he’s not wrapped up in the arms of another woman,’ Sally had responded chirpily.
Marcie’s throat had gone dry. Another woman? She thought of the exotic dancers that used to come to her sewing room. The sewing room had remained closed for the last two years because she’d been busy with her new husband, the pregnancy and the birth of her son. The girls were gorgeous. Even the drag acts were gorgeous once they were dressed in silver lamé and diamanté.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Sally suddenly cottoning on to what she’d just said. ‘I didn’t really mean that. Not Michael. He thinks the bloody world of you. Oh no! He won’t stray. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.’
It was never going to be easy to trust someone who worked in an environment surrounded by scantily clad beauties and other women who at some stage in the evening wore nothing at all. But she’d come to terms with it and Michael had assured her that he only had eyes for her.
Besides that he had a son and he had great plans for his son. Nothing could come between him and his ambitions for Aran.
‘Did you hear what happened to Sandra and Polly?’ Sally asked suddenly.
‘No. What?’
Marcie listened in silence.
‘Don’t know who did it,’ said Sally. ‘But there are rumours. Might even have been that nutcase, Roberto Camilleri. Do you know if he’s out yet?’
Marcie had turned cold. Now here she was walking along beside her husband. He wasn’t being himself and she wanted to know why.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’ she queried softly. He’d hardly said a word since they’d left her grandmother’s cottage except to comment on the sea, the sky and the smell of fish and chips still drifting in from the beach.
‘Do you think we’re putting her out at all – your grandmother I mean?’
‘No. Of course not,’ Marcie replied. ‘She’s always glad to see us. She’ll move heaven and earth to fit her family in. That’s the way she is. That’s the way we all are come to that.’
He surprised her by kissing the top of her head. He was just tall enough to do that when her head was resting on his shoulder.
‘She’s never brought her bed down into the front room before.’
‘Oh, no,’ Marcie said breezily. ‘She’s sleeping on the sofa in there. She told me it was firmer and better for her legs nowadays. She is getting on a bit you know.’
Michael shook his head. ‘I went in there by mistake. Her bed’s in there.’
Marcie frowned, her thoughts about tackling him about the police coming to the club put behind her. Her grandmother was more important than a nightclub any day of the week. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded. ‘A double bed with walnut head and footboard. That’s her bed, isn’t it?’
This was too perplexing for words. Marcie frowned against her flying hair and the wind blowing it across her face.
‘She didn’t tell me she’d done that. Garth’s up in the attic. We’ve got my old room and the kids are in the other. That still leaves her room which means . . .’
‘That she’s sleeping in the front room all the time.’
‘And that she’s a lot more fragile than I thought,’ Marcie murmured.
She might have given it more thought if she hadn’t spotted two young lads leaning against the wall outside the pub. They appeared to be arguing over a cigarette.
‘Tear it fairly. Half for you, half for me.’ The voice was brusque and instantly recognisable.
‘Arnold? Archie?’
Their hair tousled, their faces dirty, her two half-brothers were growing up. Their faces beamed when they saw her.
‘Hey, Marcie,’ said Arnold. ‘Got a light?’
Grinning cheekily the two boys stuck the halves of the cigarette into the corners of their mouths.
She asked them what they were doing there
Arnold did a sidelong nod towards the pub door. ‘Waitin’ for our mam to bring us out two shandies and two packets of crisps. We ain’t had no tea. She did promise us.’
It was no secret that her father’s second wife was far from being mother of the year, but things had gone from bad to worse.
‘And where’s your sister?’ Marcie couldn’t stop the alarm from rising in her voice. Annie was only a little older than her own Joanna. She’d taken care of the child when she was younger, mainly because Babs had been working in Woolworths.
‘With Ethel next door. She plays with her kids then goes to bed with them.’
‘You kids had no tea yet? Well, we can’t have that, can we?’ Michael was already rooting in his trouser pocket. ‘Here. Take this. Half a crown each. Get yourself some cod and chips. OK?’
‘OK!’ said Arnold. His shrill response was accompanied with a loud rumble from his belly.
Archie turned towards the pub door.
‘Where do you think you’re going,’ said Michael getting a good grip on the lad’s coat collar.
‘In to get a pint,’ Archie responded.
Michael jerked him back out onto the pavement. ‘You’re not old enough.’
‘I’ll soon be fourteen,’ Archie protested.
‘That’s still not old enough. Come back when you’re eighteen. Besides, I gave you that money to you to buy fish and chips not beer. Get on with you. Off with your brother.’
Archie swaggered away, resigned to doing what he was told – though only for now – until Michael’s back was turned – until he nipped into the off-licence and got what he wanted there. Or another pub. Archie told himself that he wasn’t a kid any more and Marcie had no business ordering him about. He was almost grown up and reckoned he could look after himself.
Marcie was immediately reminded of her father and was saddened. He should be here with them, then perhaps they wouldn’t go in the same direction as he had done – a lifetime of petty crime and imprisonment.
‘Right,’ she exclaimed rolling up her sleeves and swinging her handbag. ‘I’m going to have it out with her.’
Michael caught her arm before she had a chance to yank the door to the public bar open. ‘Stay cool, Marcie. It’s not worth it.’
Marcie could not contain her anger. Michael’s intervention wasn’t entirely welcome. She cared for her brothers. She cared for her dad too.
‘That bitch is in there knocking them back while the kids are farmed out with empty bellies. My dad sends her
money for their welfare not so she can knock the booze back.’
It wasn’t often she didn’t listen to Michael’s advice but on this occasion her blood was running fast and hot. She’d never been that close to her stepmother, though things had calmed a while back. But a leopard never changes its spots, she decided, and in Babs’ case she was spotted all over.
The brass door handle to the public bar was in need of a polish and sticky beneath her fingers. The bar smelled of stale beer, men’s sweat and the air was filled with cigarette smoke and the sound of darts thudding into the board.
If she hadn’t spotted the boys, she and Michael would have gone into the saloon bar for a drink. But Babs preferred the public bar where the men gathered, and Marcie wanted a word with her.
Babs’ raucous laugh could be heard above the murmur of male conversation so she was easy to find.
Marcie grimaced. Her stepmother was sitting on a stool at the bar, one leg crossed over the other. Her skirt was a sliver of a thing, more suited to a teenager than a thirty-something housewife with three kids. Her hair was back-combed into a beehive and her face was rendered pale by virtue of an ample application of panstick. She was obviously enjoying herself, with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The smoke from the lighted cigarette was mixing with the beehive. It wasn’t impossible to believe that a swarm of bees might evacuate it at any moment.
Babs was in her favourite environment, surrounded by men who were buying her drinks and offering her cigarettes. In Marcie’s opinion it was obvious what they were after: get her drunk enough and it would be payback time. One of the men was already resting his hand on her thigh. Another was leering at the ample bosoms spilling over the neckline of her low-cut sweater.
Eyes thickly outlined with shiny black liner turned in Marcie’s direction. Babs had seen her. The laughter was silenced and crack lines began to appear in the thickly applied make-up.
‘Marcie,’ she said, attempting to resurrect some semblance of a smile while hitting away the hand creeping up her thigh. On seeing Marcie with her long blonde hair and fresh-faced complexion, the two men leered suggestively. The leers soon disappeared once they saw the look on Michael’s face. Seeing their plans were on hold for the moment, they moved further along the bar.
