‘Yeah, and so are you,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I’ve had about twenty messages off your mother in the last ten minutes, panicking about you not going straight home from school. Did you tell her you were coming here?’
‘I think so.’ Angel shrugged.
‘That’s not good enough,’ Johnny scolded. ‘You know she gets worried. And I don’t like the idea of you running around if no one knows where you are. What if something happened?’
‘Dad, I’m nearly sixteen,’ she reminded him. ‘And I haven’t seen you all week, so I don’t see the problem. It’s not like I’m always taking off, or anything.’
‘You still should have let her know.’
‘Fine, I’ll tell her next time.’ Angel sighed. Then, giving him a cheeky grin, she said, ‘I’m going to say you were waiting for me outside school, then you’ll get the blame.’
‘The earache, more like.’ Johnny chuckled. ‘And I suppose you’ll be expecting a lift home, an’ all?’
‘Of course. Unless you want me to take the bus . . . in the dark . . . on my own.’
‘It’s not even dark.’
‘No, but it will be in a bit. Anyway, I don’t see why you’re complaining. Anyone would think you didn’t want to spend time with me.’
‘All right, you win,’ Johnny conceded. ‘Just let me have a quick word with Dave first.’
‘Can we go for a Maccy D on the way home?’ Angel wheedled. She didn’t even want a burger, but it was the only thing she could think of to snatch herself a bit of time alone with her dad before they got home. Once there, her mum would want him all to herself and she wouldn’t get a look-in.
‘We’ll see.’ Johnny tossed his keys to her. ‘Wait in the car.’
Smiling, because she knew that she would get her own way – like she always did with her dad – Angel climbed into the car and watched as he and Dave shook hands. She got the sudden feeling that somebody was staring at her and turned her gaze towards the lads who were standing in a group in the reception area. A little tingle ran through her stomach when her eyes met those of the lad she’d bumped into. All the others were white, but he was mixed-race. He had a diamond stud in his ear, a lightning flash shaved into the side of his close-cropped hair, and he was wearing the baggy kind of jeans that were so low on his hips they looked like they were about to fall right down. Her friend Vicky would have called him a bad boy, but Angel thought he was gorgeous.
‘Who were they?’ she asked her dad casually when he came back to the car a few minutes later.
‘Who?’ He twisted his head to look back over his shoulder as he reversed around to the gate.
‘Those lads in the office.’
‘They work for me,’ Johnny told her as he set off. ‘Why are you so interested?’
‘No reason,’ she lied, grinning slyly as she added, ‘Just keeping tabs on the business – seeing as it’ll all be mine when you snuff it.’
‘Jeezus, talk about bouncing on my coffin,’ Johnny snorted, shaking his head as they pulled up for a red light at the end of the road. ‘Anything happened while I’ve been away?’ he asked when it turned green and they set off again.
‘Not really,’ Angel said, seeing no point in mentioning her mum and nan’s nightly drinking and arguing sessions, because they were hardly news. ‘How was London?’ she asked instead.
‘Boring,’ Johnny told her.
‘Should have taken me.’ She grinned. ‘I’d have livened it up for you.’
‘Maybe next time.’
‘You always say that.’
‘I know, darlin’, but I only found out I was going at the last minute, so there was nothing I could do about it. Anyway, I don’t go down there for fun. It’s business. You’d be bored stupid.’
‘Not if I was your PA.’ Angel gave him a hopeful look. She tutted when he shook his head and said, ‘What’s the point of making me go to a posh school if I’m never going to be allowed to use any of what they’ve taught me?’
‘How do you think it’d make me look if I let my girl work?’ Johnny asked, unknowingly echoing exactly what Frankie had said to Ruth when she’d been Angel’s age and had mooted the idea of getting a job after leaving school. ‘I’m your dad – it’s my responsibility to look after you.’
‘Oh, and locking me away with them for the rest of my life is looking after me, is it?’ Angel complained.
‘Drop the attitude,’ Johnny told her. ‘And don’t talk about your mother like that.’
‘Sorry.’ Angel sighed and gazed out of the window. It was all right for him; he hardly ever came home, so he didn’t get it in the neck 24/7 like she did.
‘What’s up with you now?’ Johnny asked, frowning as he drove into the McDonald’s parking lot.
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. Then, making an effort to shake off the mood before he changed his mind and took her back home instead, she tipped her head to one side and gave him a massive smile. ‘There . . . is that better?’
‘Much,’ Johnny said approvingly. She was stunningly beautiful, and he was as proud as punch of her. But he wished she wasn’t growing up so fast, because the older girls got, the more adept they became at manipulating you – and if you didn’t give them what they wanted, they piled on the guilt with their pouting and sniffling.
His mobile started to ring as he was parking up. He took it out of his pocket and rolled his eyes at Angel when he saw Ruth’s name on the screen.
‘She’s with me, and she’s fine,’ he said when he answered it. ‘I was passing her school and saw her coming out, so I picked her up.’
‘Liar,’ Angel whispered, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
‘No, I couldn’t text you back, ’cos I was driving,’ Johnny went on, giving Angel a mock-warning look. ‘No, she couldn’t do it, either, ’cos the phone was in my pocket.’ He held the phone away from his ear when Ruth squawked that she’d been worried sick, but cut back in after a moment and said, ‘I’ve got to go, there’s a pig car behind me. See you in a bit.’
‘You’re bad,’ Angel teased when he’d disconnected the call.
‘I’m an adult – I’m allowed,’ he said, grinning as he unbuckled his seat belt.
Back at the yard, the lads had received their instructions for the night and were making their way home. Ryan and his friend Tommy both lived in Hulme, so they walked down to the main road together to catch the bus back.
‘I’m looking forward to this one,’ Tommy said, rubbing his hands together as they boarded the bus. ‘Baggsy I drive it back.’
‘Go for it,’ Ryan agreed as he made his way to the back seat.
Tommy had been working for Johnny for a couple of years longer than Ryan, and still buzzed off it. To his way of thinking, the world was made up of cunts and people like him. Cunts had shit, and stamped on people like him who didn’t have shit to make sure they never got shit. So if they lost some of their shit every now and then – tough shit.
Ryan didn’t see it quite like that. In his eyes, anyone who earned the money to buy a luxury motor was entitled to park it up at night without worrying that some little scrote like him or Tommy was going to come along and nick it. But principles didn’t put food on the table, and with no qualifications to his name, a black face and a ghetto postcode, he’d had zero luck with all the legitimate employers he’d approached after leaving school. Fortunately, Johnny Conroy came from the same place, so it made no odds to him if you were black, blue, purple or green. As long as you showed loyalty and gave respect he would give you a fair crack of the whip, and Ryan was grateful for that because his wages were the only thing that was keeping his mam from having to sell herself to keep his deadbeat dad in beer and fags.
When the bus reached Hulme, Ryan and Tommy touched fists before going their separate ways. As Ryan darted through the heavy traffic on Chester Road and made his way through the estate, his mind drifted back to Johnny’s daughter. She was absolutely gorgeous, and if he saw her in a nightclub he wouldn’t hesitate to ask her o
ut. But it was easy to approach a girl when you didn’t know anything about her. Not so easy, however, when you both already knew that she was out of your league. And Angel Conroy was way out of his. She’d grown up surrounded by money and power, and went to a posh school where loads of rich boys were probably drooling over her every day, so there was no way she would ever look twice at an uneducated scumbag like him.
Still, there was nothing wrong with dreaming, and Ryan was smiling to himself as he walked up the path a few minutes later and slotted his key into the lock. But his smile soon vanished when he opened the door and heard the sound of screaming coming from the living room at the back of the house.
He raced up the short hall and burst in to find his mother on the floor with blood trickling from her nose and one of her eyes already black and swollen. His dad was kneeling over her, one hand around her throat, the other bunched into a fist and raised above her face. In the playpen in the corner his baby brother was screaming hysterically, which told Ryan that it must have been going on for quite some time already.
‘Get off her!’ he yelled, rushing across the room and shoving his dad in the back.
Gary Johnson fell heavily onto his side, and a hissing sound came out of his mouth as the wind was temporarily knocked out of him. But he recovered fast and kicked out, knocking Ryan’s legs from under him. He jumped up when Ryan went down, then booted him in the ribs.
‘Think you’re big enough to take me on, do you, you little cunt? Come on, then, let’s have it! Here, I’ll even give you the first shot . . .’ He backed up a step and thrust his bristly chin out in a challenging gesture, inviting Ryan to take a swing.
Ryan stood no chance, and they both knew it. His dad had been a bare-knuckle fighter back in the day, and even though his muscle had long ago turned to fat and his lungs were fucked from smoking, he still had a punch like a sack of concrete. But Ryan knew from experience that his dad wouldn’t stop until he’d had his fun when he was in this kind of mood, so he swallowed the bile that had risen into his throat and stood up to take whatever was coming.
As soon as he was up, Gary lamped him. Ryan’s legs already felt like jelly, but they buckled like broken matchsticks when the punch landed and he went straight back down.
‘Get up, you fuckin’ pussy,’ Gary ordered. ‘Get up and fight like the man you reckon you are.’
‘Stop it!’ Zeta Johnson sobbed when her husband started kicking her son all round the room. ‘Gary, please . . . you’re going to kill him!’
‘Shut your gob,’ he roared, backhanding her across the face and sending her sprawling across the floor.
He gave Ryan one last vicious boot in the ribs, then went back to his chair and flopped down. He was wheezing by now, his heavy chest heaving, so he took a couple of puffs on his inhaler before lighting a cigarette.
‘Fuckin’ little faggot,’ he sneered as Ryan dragged himself painfully to his feet. ‘What y’ got for me?’
‘I ain’t got shit for you,’ Ryan replied defiantly, aware that his dad was asking for money, because that was all he ever wanted. The cunt thought the world owed him a living and sat in his chair from morning till night, watching telly and swigging the beer that he’d bullied Ryan’s mam into buying, borrowing or stealing for him. And so what if there was never any food in the house, or the baby’s arse was covered in sores because there were no clean nappies – so long as he was all right, the rest of them could rot.
‘Like that, is it?’ Gary smirked. ‘No problem, I’ll just send your mam out to earn me some.’
‘Here . . . fucking have it.’ Ryan took a twenty out of his pocket and threw it at him. ‘Just leave me mam alone.’
‘Or what?’ Gary snorted, pocketing the money. ‘She’s my wife, I’ll do what the fuck I want to her.’
Ryan’s eyes blazed with loathing as he glared at him. ‘One of these days you’re gonna get what’s coming to you, you fat bastard.’
‘Leave it,’ Zeta urged, scooping the baby out of the playpen as Gary burst out laughing. ‘You’re just making it worse.’
Ryan kissed his teeth with disgust and strode out, slamming the door behind him. He was nineteen and earning good money, so he could easily get a place of his own. But he couldn’t walk out on his mam, because his dad would have her back on the game in no time. And he had his little sister and baby brother to think about, as well – both of whom had already witnessed more violence than any kid should ever have to see.
But you could only kick a dog so many times before it bit you and, one of these days, something was going to snap. And when it did, either Ryan or his dad was going to wind up dead.
22
Three weeks after Johnny got back from London, Angel’s school closed for the Easter holidays. She woke up on her first morning of so-called freedom and opened the curtains to see the sun blazing outside. But it didn’t make her happy; it just made her think about all the fun she was going to miss out on. Her friends had arranged to meet up and go to the cinema today, and after a whole load of creeping, Angel had managed to persuade her dad to let her go with them. But last night her mum had complained that her stomach was playing up, so he’d told Angel that she had to stay home to look after her instead.
She was convinced that her mum was putting it on to stop her from going out, and had spent most of last night sulking in her room. But she knew there was no point arguing about it because it would probably only result in her getting grounded for life, so she pushed the thought of her friends having fun to the back of her mind and went out into the garden to try and get a tan.
Angel laid her towel out on the grass and lay down on it with her eyes closed and her arms and legs stretched out. But she hadn’t been there ten minutes before she heard someone banging on the window. Shielding her eyes, she looked up to see her nan gesturing frantically from the back bedroom window.
She went inside and called ‘Yeah?’ up the stairs, expecting that the old bat would probably demand a cup of tea, or some toast – or something else that she was too lazy to get for herself.
‘Call the doctor,’ her nan shouted down, sounding unusually panicked. ‘Your mum’s taken a turn, and I don’t like the look of her.’
‘Why, what’s wrong?’
‘She’s bleeding. So never mind standing there asking stupid questions, just do it!’
Angel didn’t understand why her nan hadn’t already made the call if she was that worried, but she kept her thoughts to herself and did as she’d been told before going upstairs to see her mum.
Ruth was clutching at her stomach and writhing around in the bed. She’d been having pains on and off for a few weeks but she’d ignored them, telling herself that it was probably the onset of early menopause. But it had been getting progressively worse, and today it was unbearable.
Shocked when she saw how pale her mum was, and how clammy her skin looked, Angel felt immediately guilty for thinking that she’d been putting it on.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Do you want me to get you anything?’
‘Get her some water, and fetch me a couple of thick towels,’ Rita ordered, pushing her back out onto the landing. ‘How long did that doctor say he was going to be?’
‘They said he’ll try and come round after morning surgery,’ Angel told her, already halfway down the stairs.
‘What do you mean, try?’ Rita leaned over the banister and glared down at her. ‘Get back on that phone and tell him he’d better get his arse round here right now, or he’ll have me to answer to.’
‘Don’t you think we should just call an ambulance?’ Angel suggested.
‘And make me look a fool if there’s nothing wrong with her?’ snapped Rita. ‘Just do as you’re flaming well told.’
Angel rang the surgery again, only to be told that the doctor was with a patient and that she should call an ambulance if her mother was as ill as she was making out.
‘All right, phone one, then,’ Rita snapped when Angel handed her the towels and relaye
d the message. ‘And tell ’em to hurry, ’cos it won’t just be the sheets that are ruined in a minute, it’ll be the mattress an’ all.’
The paramedics rushed Ruth straight to A&E. Angel rang her dad on the way and he reached the hospital twenty minutes later, just as the doctor finished examining Ruth and came out to tell them what was going on.
‘It’s cancer, isn’t it?’ Rita blurted out when she saw the grim expression on the doctor’s face. ‘I knew it.’
‘The ultrasound has revealed a mass in Mrs Conroy’s womb,’ the doctor explained. ‘We’re concerned that there may have been some kind of rupture, but we’ll need to operate as soon as possible to find out exactly what we’re dealing with. Unfortunately, she’s unable to sign the consent form, so her next of kin will have to—’
‘That’s me,’ Rita cut in, pushing herself forward. ‘I’m her mother. I’ll do it.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Johnny told the doctor, snatching the form.
Angel stood back and wrapped her arms around herself. She hadn’t understood what the doctor had said, but she’d never seen her dad look so serious before and that scared her even more than the doctor’s air of urgency.
‘You can pop in and see her,’ the doctor told them when Johnny handed the signed form back. ‘But you’ll need to be quick because she’s about to be sedated.’
Johnny turned to go into the room but hesitated when Rita plonked herself down on a chair and folded her arms.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
‘I’ll wait my turn,’ she replied childishly. ‘You’re obviously more important than me.’
‘Oh, just grow up,’ Angel snapped. ‘This isn’t about you. My mum’s about to have an operation.’
‘I’ve had loads,’ Rita informed her. ‘But you don’t hear me complaining.’
‘You never stop,’ Angel retorted incredulously.
‘Don’t,’ Johnny said quietly. ‘Let’s just go and say bye to your mum, then I’ll drop you both home.’
‘I’m not going anywhere with her,’ Angel said defiantly.
‘You’ll do as you’re bloody well told,’ Rita informed her angrily. ‘And if your father was any kind of man, he’d kick your backside from here to hell and back for being so disrespectful.’
Lost Angel Page 23
