Lost Angel

by Mandasue Heller

  Johnny nodded and made his way off the ward and out into the bright morning sunlight.

  It had been a long night, and it was starting to catch up with him. His eyes were burning, and his legs felt heavy. He just wanted to go home, climb into bed, and stay there for the rest of the day.

  But that was what the old Johnny would have done, and he had responsibilities now. Frankie had entrusted the business and the family to him, and he had to step up to the mark like the man that Frankie obviously believed he could be.

  17

  When Frankie was discharged from hospital a few weeks later, he was brought home to an invalid-friendly house. In his absence, Johnny, Big Pat and Dave had transformed the front room which had previously been used as a dining room into a bedroom, and the large hall closet into a wheelchair-accessible toilet cum wet room. They had also redecorated all over to cheer the place up, and had laid new laminate flooring in the hall to make it easier for Frankie’s chair to be wheeled around.

  Still sulking, having found out that Frankie had visited his solicitor a few weeks before falling ill and had put Johnny in control of everything, Rita had refused to lift a finger while the alterations were going on and had stayed locked in the parlour with her booze.

  Which suited Ruth just fine, because it gave her free rein to look after her dad without interference when he came home, and get the house just so for when the baby arrived.

  Big Pat, in the meantime, had brought Johnny up to speed on the true nature and extent of Frankie’s business dealings – and Johnny had been shocked by what he’d learned.

  He’d always known that the car lot was a front for the stolen motors, but he’d had no clue that Frankie was also dealing drugs and running a protection racket from there. All the men he’d seen traipsing in and out when he’d been a lowly car-washer – the ones he’d always wondered about, because they never even looked at the cars – they were dealers coming to drop off money and pick up their next batch, or heavies come to deliver the takings from whichever clubs and pubs they had collected from the night before. And on top of all that, Frankie had stakes in two massage parlours – both of which were actually brothels.

  Johnny couldn’t understand why Frankie had taken the risk of doing all this from the yard – or how he’d been getting away with it for so long. Money was pouring in hand over fist, but with so many people involved it would only take one of them to open their mouth and the whole thing would explode. And while Frankie’s reputation had most likely been the zip that had so far kept everyone’s mouths shut, once they realised that he was no longer a threat who knew what could happen?

  Johnny’s most pressing concern was the large quantities of cannabis that seemed to be routinely stored at the yard. He’d seen enough busts while living on the estate to know how the police operated, and one of the major flag-ups was a continuous stream of people going in and out of a place. And while it was perfectly normal for a business to have a large volume of visitors on any given day, it wasn’t normal that none of those visitors ever actually bought anything.

  ‘We need a total clear-out,’ he told Big Pat decisively. ‘The yard is the only legitimate thing Frankie’s got going for him, so it needs to be squeaky clean and operating properly.’

  ‘It works fine the way it is,’ Big Pat argued, afraid that this boy was going to fuck everything up if he was left to his own inexperienced devices.

  ‘If Frankie wants to turn everything around when he’s back on his feet, that’s his business,’ Johnny said firmly. ‘But while I’m in charge, things are going to be done my way. And if you don’t like it, maybe you should think about bowing out till he’s back at the helm.’

  There were several long moments of silence after he said that when Johnny felt sure that Big Pat was going to jump up and kick the shit out of him to put him back in his place. So he was relieved when the man nodded, and said, ‘Okay, you’re the boss. Tell me what you want me to do.’

  Once Johnny had the bit between his teeth, things moved pretty quickly. He shifted the drug operation into a nearby flat, and set up one of Frankie’s most trusted dealers to run it. And then he rented a dingy little backstreet garage so that Big Pat and his mechanic mate, Jeff, could deal with the stolen motors away from the legit ones. Then he hired a couple of lads from the estate who Dave had known and trusted since they were kids and put them on the pickups, while he and Dave got the yard properly up and running.

  It was ambitious and expensive putting his plans into action, but Johnny was so deeply immersed in his new role by then that he decided to just go for it – and deal with the fallout when or if Frankie ever recovered enough to take over again.

  18

  Johnny was at work when he got the call to say that Ruth’s waters had broken.

  ‘Give her my love,’ Dave called as Johnny rushed out and jumped into his car. ‘And good luck!’

  Johnny waved and tore out of the yard.

  Nine hours of screaming and shouting later, his ears were ringing and his nerves were completely shredded. But it was all forgotten in an instant when the midwife placed his daughter in his arms. And when she opened her eyes and gazed blurrily up into his, he fell head over heels in love.

  ‘Is she okay?’ Ruth asked sleepily.

  ‘Absolutely perfect,’ the midwife assured her with a smile. ‘What are you going to call her?’

  ‘Rebecca,’ said Ruth – at exactly the same time as Johnny said, ‘Angel.’

  ‘I thought we agreed it was going to be Rebecca,’ Ruth reminded him.

  ‘That was before I saw her,’ Johnny said, stroking a fingertip down the soft, peachy little cheek. ‘She looks like an angel, so that’s what she should be called.’

  Too tired to argue, Ruth waved her hand in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Hello, Angel Conroy,’ Johnny cooed. ‘I’m your daddy.’

  A bitter wave of jealousy washed over Ruth when she saw the way he was looking at the baby. They had been married for almost three years, and she loved him more with every passing day. But even in their most intimate moments he had never looked at her like that. There was a pure, soul-deep love shining from his eyes, and in that moment Ruth realised that, even if she were with him from now till kingdom come, Johnny’s feelings for her would never come close to what he already felt for his daughter.

  PART TWO

  19

  Angel was an exceptionally pretty baby, and Ruth couldn’t take her out without somebody stopping to peek into the pram and comment on her white-blonde hair and enormous sapphire-blue eyes. And it was even worse at home.

  Johnny was still so busy at work that Ruth was lucky if she saw him from one day to the next, but when he did come home she didn’t get a look-in because he only had eyes for Angel. And it was already becoming obvious that Angel adored him every bit as much. Ruth was the one who fed her, bathed her, changed her nappies and made sure that her little bottom didn’t get sore. But Angel didn’t appreciate any of that. All she cared about was Johnny: she would twist her head whenever she heard his voice, and her eyes would light up with delight whenever he went near her.

  Ruth hated her. She couldn’t help it. She’d thought that a baby would bring her and Johnny closer together but, instead, it had just driven an even bigger wedge between them. And she wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

  ‘Still think he’s ever going to love you?’ Rita gloated as Ruth sat in the parlour one day, watching enviously as Johnny played with the baby in the back garden. ‘You can’t even compete with a snivelling little brat. But, like they say, what goes around comes around. You destroyed my marriage making goo-goo eyes at your father, and now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Ruth glowered at her. ‘I never made goo-goo eyes at my dad.’

  ‘You still do it now,’ spat Rita. ‘Always in there, messing about with him. God only knows what the pair of you get up to behind my back.’

  ‘You’re disgusting.
’

  ‘And you’re stupid. You tricked your precious husband into getting wed ’cos you thought he’d learn to love you. But take a good long look at the pair of them, ’cos they’re the only two people he’s ever going to love – himself and her.’

  Ruth got up and marched into the kitchen. She felt sick. Her mother had wrecked her own marriage by being a foul-mouthed alcoholic, but Ruth hadn’t put a foot wrong in hers. She’d tried to be the perfect wife, giving Johnny everything his heart could possibly desire, and yet still he didn’t love her. Now here he was, doting on a baby who had given him absolutely nothing. It wasn’t fair.

  Johnny came in a short time later.

  ‘I think she needs changing,’ he said, handing Angel over to Ruth.

  ‘You know where the nappies are,’ she replied, holding the baby at arm’s length.

  ‘You what?’ Johnny frowned as if she’d just suggested that he should go and wipe her dad’s arse, or something.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ruth muttered.

  ‘Shit, I didn’t realise it was that late,’ Johnny said when he clocked the time. ‘Is my bath run?’

  ‘No, I forgot,’ said Ruth, dumping Angel in her pram and wiping her hands on her skirt.

  ‘I told you I was going out,’ he complained. ‘What’ve you been doing?’

  ‘Looking after my dad. Sorry, I’ll do it now.’

  ‘Forget it, I’ll do it myself.’

  Ruth gritted her teeth when Johnny left the kitchen and snatched a nappy out from under the pram. Angel’s chin wobbled when Ruth yanked her tights off roughly, and she started bawling.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Ruth hissed, bouncing the pram up and down. ‘Just shut up, you little bitch!’

  When Angel’s crying got louder, Ruth reached into the pram and pinched her leg. Angel sucked in a sharp breath and momentarily stopped crying. But when she started up again, she was more hysterical than ever.

  Johnny had forgotten his mobile phone. He came back down to get it, and frowned when he walked in to find Angel screaming.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked as he walked over to the pram.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ruth lied, letting her hair fall over her face so that he wouldn’t see her guilty blush.

  ‘Hey, what’s all this noise?’ Johnny cooed, leaning over and tickling Angel’s tummy. He hesitated when he saw the red spot on her leg, and peered at it closely. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What?’ Ruth asked innocently.

  ‘This.’ Johnny traced his fingertip over the welt.

  ‘No idea.’ Ruth shrugged and looked down at it with a frown of concern. ‘Looks like an insect bite. Did you put her on the grass?’

  ‘Yeah, but not for long,’ Johnny admitted guiltily. He picked Angel out of the pram and held her against his chest to comfort her. ‘Don’t cry, baby,’ he soothed, kissing her hot wet cheek. ‘Daddy’s sorry.’

  Angel’s crying gradually quietened, and she relaxed against him, sniffling softly.

  ‘She’s wiped,’ he told Ruth. ‘Maybe you should feed her and put her down.’

  ‘I’ll get a bottle,’ Ruth said, sidestepping him when he tried to hand Angel back to her.

  ‘Bottle?’ Johnny frowned. ‘I thought you were feeding her.’

  Which just shows how much attention you really pay to what’s going on around here, thought Ruth peevishly. She’d stopped giving Angel the breast weeks ago.

  ‘I was having trouble getting her to latch on,’ she told him. ‘So the health visitor told me to switch her to the bottle in case she wasn’t getting enough.’

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose she knows best,’ Johnny conceded. He placed Angel gently back in the pram, took his phone out of his jacket pocket and went back up to his bath.

  Ruth changed Angel’s nappy, made the bottle and pulled a chair up to the pram. Lifting the baby out, she held her in her arms and slid the teat into her mouth. A wave of guilt washed over her as she gazed down into the teary eyes, and a tear slid down her own cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  And she meant it. But it didn’t stop her from doing it again.

  ‘That baby’s doing my flaming head in,’ Rita complained a few weeks later. ‘It’s that idiot husband of yours’s fault ’cos he’s spoiling her bloody rotten. You need to put a stop to it, or you’re going to regret it in the long run. It’s not natural.’

  ‘I can’t tell him not to play with her,’ Ruth replied defensively, all too aware of why Angel cried whenever Johnny left: because he was the only one who was ever nice to her. But the more the child gravitated towards him, the more Ruth resented her, so it was a vicious circle.

  Rita reached for the remote and turned the volume of the TV up to a deafening level. Drumming her fingernails on the arm of her chair, she stared at the screen for several seconds, then snapped, ‘Oh, for God’s sake! I’ve had enough of this. I can’t get any peace in my own flaming house.’

  ‘I’ll sort it,’ Ruth told her, getting up.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Rita warned as Ruth made her way to the door. ‘’Cos if you don’t, I will.’

  Ruth’s nostrils were flaring with irritation as she stomped up the stairs. As usual, Angel had started crying as soon as Johnny had tired of playing with her and put her down, and Ruth had tried everything to shut her up. She’d given her a bottle and bathed her, but that hadn’t worked, so she’d dumped her in her cot and shut the door on her. But her high-pitched wailing still filtered out and echoed all over the house.

  She walked into Angel’s room now and gripped the cot rail. Angel’s face was scarlet, her toothless mouth wide and quivering, her eyes a watery mess.

  ‘Shut up,’ Ruth hissed, glaring down at her. But the sound of her voice just seemed to make Angel cry all the more, so she put her hand over her daughter’s mouth – and held it there for several long seconds.

  The child stopped squirming. Snapping to her senses, Ruth gaped down at Angel in terror.

  ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’ she gasped, snatching her out of the cot and shaking her. ‘Wake up, Angel, please wake up!’

  Angel gulped in a quivering breath and started crying again. Her whole body shaking with relief, Ruth held the child against her chest and patted her on the back, whispering, ‘Ssshh, baby . . . ssshh, ssshh, ssshh.’

  Exhausted, Angel eventually fell asleep. Terrified to think that she had almost killed her, Ruth laid her gently back in the cot. The sheet felt damp, so she took another one out of the drawer and covered her with it. Then she sat down on the chair and cried.

  Anyone who came into this nursery would think that Angel was the luckiest baby alive. The drawers were neatly stacked with freshly washed sheets and baby clothes, and the walls were painted in pretty pastel shades, and decorated with jolly murals of nursery-rhyme characters. And Ruth had done it all – like a good mother was supposed to. So why couldn’t she actually be a good mother?

  I’m going to change, she vowed for the hundredth time. This stops now.

  20

  Frankie passed away a week before Angel turned six but the funeral was held on her actual birthday, so the child was pretty much overlooked while Johnny and Ruth concentrated on giving her grandfather a lavish send-off.

  As befitted the big man Frankie had once been, they had spared no expense. Four black stretch limousines were booked to ferry the relatives from the house to the church to the cemetery and back, and an ornate glass-sided carriage and four black horses were lined up to parade Frankie through the streets in his super-expensive black-ash coffin.

  Every living member of the Hynes family had come from all over to pay their respects, and the house was bursting at the seams by the time the wake kicked off on the night before the funeral – with Frankie in his open coffin taking centre stage in the front room.

  First thing in the morning, Ruth cleared the whisky and Guinness bottles out of the coffin and wiped the lipstick marks off her dad’s waxy cheek
s, before rooting around for the cigar that an uncle had placed between Frankie’s unresponsive lips the night before and which had mysteriously disappeared. Finding it underneath him, as if he’d concealed it to smoke in peace when the dust had settled, she brushed the ash off his suit and then carefully applied some make-up to give him the glow that he’d favoured in life. Then, as a final touch, she arranged his freshly dyed hair back into the quiff he’d always worn and kissed him goodbye before tearfully allowing the undertakers to secure the lid.

  All of which should really have fallen to Rita but she was already half-cut, having started drinking even before she donned her widow’s weeds, so Ruth had gladly taken on the task.

  The parade kicked off once the rest of the mourners had arrived. After a slow walk through the local streets, followed by a full Catholic service at the church where Ruth and Johnny had been married, the cortege escorted Frankie on his final ride to the cemetery before making their way back to the house to continue the party in his honour.

  Angel didn’t understand any of it.

  She hadn’t really known her grandpa, because she’d been forbidden from going into his room on her own when he’d been alive. Not that she’d have gone in even if she had been allowed to, because she’d been scared of him on the occasions when she’d been forced to see him – usually on his birthday or at Christmas. He was old and grey, and he smelled bad. But it was the horrible noises he made when he tried to talk that had really frightened her.

  Although nobody else seemed to have been frightened of him. Her mum, dad, and the big bear man used to smile and act as if they understood what he was saying, while her nan tended to shout at him – and everyone knew that you didn’t shout at people you were scared of. You kept your mouth shut and stayed out of their way – like Angel had long ago learned to do with her mum and her nan.