Blood Mother: Flesh and Blood Trilogy Book Two (Flesh and Blood series)
Page 22
Pete Miller
He crossed out the final names of the people who had propelled him well on his road.
Babs Wilson
Babs Miller
PART TWO: 1978
‘Hell hath no fury like an East End woman wronged’
Thirty-Nine
‘Now, as we lay our sister to rest . . .’
Maggie Brooks’ funeral wasn’t packed, but it was a good turnout for a woman who had done her best to put clothes on her children’s backs. Shame she turned her back on her own daughter when her old man tried to fiddle with her, Babs thought bitterly.
She’d put on a touch more weight in the last six years, as was to be expected after giving birth to two children. Her hair was a flip and fly replica of Farrah Fawcett’s on Charlie’s Angels and her slap a touch brighter with the coming of the disco age.
Babs felt the extra chill around the grave, which had sod all to do with the weather but with the bad blood between some of the people paying their last respects. First off there were the relatives. One or two of them – the ones who didn’t look the full ticket – had turned up to see if there were rich pickings to be had in her will. As if! Next up was her lecherous husband Darren, who everyone knew was doing a number as the grieving husband and making a very poor job of it.
Then there was Babs. Her bad blood was standing across from her – her parents. Six long years: that’s how long it had been. They were carefully avoiding looking at her, pretending she didn’t exist. Babs wasn’t doing the same. Her gaze pierced right into them. She shook with rage. If it hadn’t been for them, her life might’ve been so different. Not a word of regret had ever been passed on. Perhaps they were glad Desiree was dead if it saved them embarrassment.
Most of the gathered crowd were family or folk from Whitechapel way but there were a couple of strangers. One in particular caught Babs’ eye. A bloke who stood apart from everyone else, huddled in a sheepskin jacket and casual trousers. He had a trendy ’tache and the dark looks of that Ross Poldark character from the show that Babs had been glued to, like the rest of the nation, most Sunday nights. He seemed to be studying the mourners rather than listening to the vicar who, admittedly, had a voice that would cure anyone of a sleepless night.
But no one else seemed to have clocked the guy. Everyone’s attention was on the young woman that Darren Brooks had tucked up close to him. He’d introduced her as his ‘close friend’. Close friend indeed! The girl had the nerve to parade herself in a leopard-print fake-fur overcoat, patent-leather wedge boots and a skirt so short you could tell where she’d bought her drawers. Babs was standing behind them, so she had a clear view when Darren pinched her bum. Filthy fucker. At his own wife’s send-off.
The brazen bird whispered, ‘How much longer is this going for? The pubs’ll be shut by the time that bloke in the black and white dress finishes droning on.’
Darren murmured back, ‘Oh do shut up, show some respect.’
The bold brass hissed, ‘The old boot’s gorn, ain’t she? If you don’t show me some respect you’ll be reading dirty mags at bedtime instead of copping a feel.’
If dirty looks could kill, Darren might have had a double booking at the cemetery, with the airhead going underground too.
Mercifully the vicar finished and the gravediggers began spading earth onto the coffin to a whisper of ‘thank fuck for that’ from Darren’s tarty piece. Babs’ gaze drifted over to her mother. She looked older now. Babs twisted her mouth, thinking of how her parents had cast her out. And Desiree too. She saw her mum looking at her. Babs turned and walked away. She’d never forgive them. Never.
Hand trembling, she took out her Annies, the anti-anxiety pills she’d got from the quack. Then she pulled out the flask of gin she carried most places and took a long, hard tote. After Desiree was gone, she hadn’t been able to sleep, tossing and turning because she couldn’t get her sweet baby’s face out of her mind. Stan had warned her to lay off the Annies before she became a pill head, but that was easy for him to say. She’d started knocking back the drink instead – and she’d ended up doing both.
‘You a member of the family?’ The voice dragged Babs back to the funeral.
She turned to find the Ross Poldark type next to her. Up close, he was a real head turner. She shook her head, discreetly slipping her flask away. ‘No, I’m a friend of the family. Maggie was mostly a good woman.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Babs thought that answer was strange, like he hadn’t known Denny’s mum at all. ‘I’m Richard Smith,’ he introduced himself.
‘Died of a broken heart, that’s what took her,’ a feeble, shaking voice behind them said. Babs turned to find one of Maggie’s aunts, half stooped with age.
‘I’m sorry?’ Babs asked, annoyed for some reason that the guy had left them to it.
‘She never got over losing her Denny.’ The woman’s bony fingers bit into Babs’ arms.
Babs felt the weight of the guilt she carried knowing she’d never told Maggie the truth – that her daughter was never coming back. But then again, Maggie hadn’t helped her daughter when she needed it.
‘My Maggie couldn’t get to sleep most nights without a drop, just so she didn’t have to think about her girl being gone,’ the woman carried on. ‘Poor cow’s liver finally packed up.’
Is that what’s going to happen to me? Babs thought. Am I going to end up dying of a broken heart because of what happened to my baby?
‘She’s at peace now,’ Babs said gently.
The old woman’s eyes grew big. ‘There’s no peace, luv. She’s still here, you know.’
Babs frowned. ‘Who is? Maggie?’
‘Denny, of course.’
Fuck me, we’ve got a right one here. ‘Yeah, sure. Well, I’ll be seeing ya.’
When Babs tried to pry the old biddy’s hand away, her fingers dug in with the strength of Samson. ‘I can hear our Denise in the trees when the wind blows and on the sea at Southend when the waves crash on the beach.’ Babs tried desperately to get her arm back as the mad woman’s eyes rocked and rolled. ‘She’s still here. She’s still here.’ Her thin voice rose and quivered. ‘She’s still here!’
A shiver shot straight up Babs’ spine as she managed to tug herself away. This woman was giving her the willies. Maggie’s aunt’s attention was trained back on the graveside. ‘Can you believe that thick-headed fuckwit has brought his hussy to our Maggie’s funeral?’
Babs turned to look. It seemed the batty aunt was not the only unhappy one. Now the vicar had made a speedy exit, a row and a half had broken out over the freshly dug grave and the mourners weren’t holding back.
Darren was defending himself to the hilt. ‘Look, the girl’s just a mate of mine. She’s here to offer me support. Plus me and Maggie – God rest her eternal soul – always said if one of us passed over then the other was to get on with their life.’
His son, Roger, was fizzing and flying off the handle. ‘Yeah, but not at the fucking funeral, you prick.’
‘I don’t have to explain myself to my own son,’ Darren spat back.
‘Yeah,’ his fancy piece snapped, ‘why don’t you go for a walk?’
Roger went for her but his brother and sister held him back. Seeing a ruck looming, Darren grabbed his ‘mate’s’ arm and marched her away.
Babs noticed two men with the look of undertakers waiting at the cemetery gates. They stood to attention as Darren and the girl tramped over the grass. One of them barred Darren’s way. He pulled out a snooker cue and delivered a solid whack to Darren’s ribs. As the not-so-grieving husband fell, his girlfriend started screaming blue murder. The other mourners rushed forward in a wave of black but were stopped dead in their tracks when the other man produced a cue of his own. ‘Stay back. No need for anyone else to get any unpleasantness. Go to the wake and have a drink.’
They all stayed back, even Darren’s girlfriend.
‘I ain’t done nuthin’,’ Darren wailed out, his arms cradling his ribs.
That got a horrified gasp from the crowd. Babs smiled grimly. Finally, Darren Brooks was getting what was coming to him.
Maggie’s aunt screamed, ‘Get me a spade, I’ll help.’
Blows began to rain down on him.
‘Alright, that’s enough fellas, break it up,’ ordered the guy who had introduced himself as Richard. He’d run up when he saw what was happening.
One of the attackers turned on him, menacingly pointing his cue. ‘Do you want some mate? If not – piss off.’
But the geezer wasn’t spooked. He clearly knew how to look after himself. ‘I said, that’s enough. Unless you want to start on me too.’
When the hired heavy saw that the geezer wasn’t backing off, he lost his bottle. He shrugged and turned to his associate. ‘Alright, pack it in, that’ll do. Our friend down there has got the message.’ They shouldered their cues and took off, their long coats flapping in the wind.
Richard turned the blooded and battered Darren over while the girlfriend wailed hysterically again. Richard said calmly, ‘You’ll be alright. You’re lucky your wife and stepdaughter are gone and the law can’t use them as witnesses. Otherwise you’d be in a spot of bovver.’ He got to his feet and walked away as if nothing had happened.
‘Who’s that Richard, then?’ Babs asked one of Denny’s brothers.
He shrugged. ‘Never clapped eyes on the geezer before in my life. Knows how to handle himself though, don’t he? If it wasn’t for the hair down to the collar, you’d think he was a soldier.’
Forty
‘Our Babs looked good, but a touch peaky,’ Rosie Wilson tentatively informed her husband after the funeral. She spoke as if they talked about their daughter every day of the week. In fact, they’d rarely mentioned her name since ’72. Not since the day a distraught Babs had cursed them out on their own doorstep. George wouldn’t allow it. He insisted on calling her ‘that girl’.
They were in the sitting room by the open fire. Rosie had a cuppa while George pulled on his pipe as he watched the news. Rosie might have a few more grey hairs and wrinkles but her husband hadn’t fared so well. He had shrivelled and aged before his time and it worried his wife sick.
‘She ain’t “our” anything,’ George announced. He would never admit it in a million years, but the day he’d put Babs out of his life had nearly killed him. Their girl had been his life and soul. But he couldn’t forgive her for what she’d done. Rosie was scared witless that his pain was growing like a cancer inside him and would kill him one of these days. She’d taken what Babs had done hard as well, but seeing her daughter today reminded her how much she missed being a mum.
‘She’s still our flesh and blood,’ she added quietly.
George yanked his pipe from his mouth. ‘I’ve said that girl ain’t our anything. How can she be after what she did—’
‘She made a mistake,’ Rosie implored him. ‘And the baby died, for crying out loud.’
‘And shamed us in front of everyone.’ His body twitched in his armchair. ‘You know what someone said to me at work – is it true you had a darkie granddaughter? I nearly clouted him one.’ George waved a fist in the air.
Rosie’s face crumpled. ‘But I miss her so.’
Some of the anger left George. He got up and put his arms around his wife. ‘She made her feelings clear six years back. She don’t wanna see us, we don’t wanna see her. Done and dusted.’
Rosie knew he was right, but that didn’t stop her yearning.
For some reason Babs couldn’t get Richard out of her mind as she walked onto the Essex Lane Estate. No one seemed to know anything about him and he hadn’t known Maggie from Eve, so what had he been doing at her funeral? Mind you, that was the trouble with funerals and weddings, all sorts turned up. Look at Stan’s mum, showing her face unexpectedly at their wedding reception and causing all kinds of mayhem. Stan didn’t see his mum often, but when he did, Babs stopped at home. There was something about Shell Miller that was plain nasty and it wasn’t that she had a screw loose.
Babs’ attention was caught by a crowd gathered near the corner shop. No one had to tell her there was trouble. That’s all the Essex Lane was nowadays – trouble and strife. The gleaming new estate she had moved onto as a hope-filled nineteen-year-old was falling like a lead balloon. The type of families the council were dumping on it behaved as if their last home had been either Pentonville or Chessington Zoo. And the kids . . . well, it was Babs’ strong opinion that some of them should have been put down at birth. No manners, playing out until all hours – what decent parent let that happen?
Babs made her way to the crowd, her nose wrinkling at the smell of burning tyres in the air. Those fucking kids had been at it again, burning tyres in the cemetery like it was some kind of new religion. Babs noticed sixteen-year-old Kieran Scott standing in the distance. He still wore his National Health glasses but had ditched the plaster for his lazy eye. He didn’t come around any more, probably thinking he was a big boy who shouldn’t be seen hanging around with an old girl like her. Babs worried about him. She suspected he’d finished with school years back. That bloody mum of his had a lot to answer for.
‘Oh, Babs,’ Beryl wailed. ‘It’s Cheryl. Fucking animals.’
In the middle of the crowd, lying on her back on the ground, was Cheryl. She had a black eye, one of her shoes was missing and her shopping was strewn all over the place.
Babs let out a gasp as she bent down. ‘What happened?’
A dazed Cheryl stared back at her. ‘I was just going about my business . . .’ She sniffed back some tears. ‘I did a bit of shopping and then I went into the chemist . . . Next thing I know, two lads are on me. One grabbed my bag and the other slogs me one in the eye . . .’ She shook her head over and over, like she couldn’t believe what had happened.
Babs gently embraced her, her mouth set into a murderous line. If she got her mitts on the no-marks who did this, she’d kill them. The walkways that had once looked so posh were now hiding places of lowlifes ready to pounce on anyone walking by. Probably junkies who’d clocked Cheryl coming out of the chemist. Scum, that’s what they were, every last one of them. The days when you could leave your door open were long gone.
‘Let’s get you down the ozzie,’ Babs said as she helped Cheryl to her feet.
‘I’m alright,’ Cheryl insisted. ‘Just a bit winded is all.’
‘Someone should call the Bill.’
‘Nah,’ someone threw back, ‘they’ll do sweet FA unless they’re friends of yours.’
‘That ain’t a bad idea,’ Beryl jumped in. ‘That commissioner fella who retired – Robert what’s his face – cleared a load of them bent coppers out. The plod are all meant to be respectable now, people you can trust.’
Most of the crowd just scoffed at that.
‘Essex Lane Estate,’ one of them sneered, ‘more like Devil’s Estate.’
And from then on, that’s what the place became known as – The Devil’s Estate.
As Babs and Beryl helped their friend home, Babs noticed a removals van off-loading furniture into a ground-floor maisonette in another block. Babs hoped this new family were the civilised variety. Then she got the shock of her life. A man and a woman with a little one in her arms emerged from the flat. Mickey and Melanie Ingram.
Mel looked into Babs’ eyes and drew her finger across her throat.
Bitch! Witch! Murderer!
The three words bounced inside Babs’ mind as she slammed the door to the flat. All she could see was red. That woman had some nerve to put down roots here after what she’d done.
‘Babs, is that you?’
‘Stan!’ Babs practically flew with outrage. ‘Stan! You’ll neve
r guess who’s moved in.’
Babs found her husband with the kids in the sitting room. Tiffany was howling her head off and Jennifer was playing with Mister Silly, her stuffed blue elephant. The girls were her pride and joy. She’d miscarried her and Stan’s first, which Babs had taken badly. She’d so wanted a little one to replace baby Desiree. Jennifer had come along in ’75 and little Tiffany last year. Her children had given her a second chance to prove she was capable of being a bang-up mum. Although she loved her girls equally, they were very different kids. Jen was a happy little soul, content to play on her own, while Tiff was usually fussing and screaming, demanding her parents’ undivided attention.
‘It took you long enough to get home,’ Stan grumbled as he stood and handed her the baby. Stan was still a suits man but had gone a touch John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, adding white waistcoats to his collections.
‘She’s wet through Stan, couldn’t you at least have changed her?’ Babs popped a sweetie cigarette inbetween Tiff’s lips. She sucked on it; they were the only things that kept her quiet.
‘Don’t start. I’m not the kid’s mum.’
Stan had never really taken to being a father. He was usually only around long enough to give them a pat on the head. That was the problem with their marriage. Stan was always out and about on business. In fact, there were days on end when he never came home. She understood that he was trying to make a crust, but what was the point in having a family if you hardly ever saw them? She’d had enough. It was time Stan started behaving like a husband and dad.
‘Stan—?’
But he cut her off, sensing what she was going to say. ‘Gordon Bennett, Babs, I’ve had it up to here with you giving me earache about work. If I’m sitting on my jacksie all day how the fuck are we going to live?’
‘By letting me find something part-time like the other mums.’
Stan looked like he was ready to blow his stack. ‘How many times have I told you that I’m not having latchkey kids? The girls need their mum.’