Faces (15 page)

Gordon grinned knowingly. He had the same golden hair as his sister and the same crooked smile. They were a handsome family, and they knew it. Mary was already blossoming and that was why her older brother watched her like a hawk. At nine she already knew too much for her own good, and she understood how easy it was to get the males in her life to do whatever she wanted.

Gordon skidded to a halt beside them, his heavy body cumbersome and making him seem even more gauche than usual. The bike was a mongrel. It was an embarrassment really, made up from bits of scrap he had salvaged from friends and neighbours; functional but ugly. He was slaughtered because of it, yet he knew that it was a means to an end. He had wheels, which was more than a lot of his contemporaries could say.

He had learned many years before that front was the main ingredient needed to survive on the streets, and he possessed it in fucking glorious abundance. Now he grinned once more, only his sister knowing that he was seconds away from clumping his friend and neighbour over his derogatory remark. ‘I ain’t embarrassed, Jonjo, it’s one bike more than
you’ve
got, whatever it looks like.’

Jonjo knew when he was being put in his place and he accepted the reprimand with good grace. After all, any bike was indeed better than no bike at all. ‘I was joking, can’t you take a fucking joke?’

Gordon shook his head sadly. ‘No, actually I can’t, not from the likes of you anyway.’

He looked at his antagonist with real hatred as he said loudly, ‘You coming home, Mary? Mum was looking for you.’

Mary Miles sighed heavily; if her mum was on the prowl that meant she was pissed as the proverbial newt. It meant pain, physical as well as mental, it meant hours of drama and recriminations, and it also meant she would be expected to sort it out with the Filth when they arrived; and they would arrive, her mother would make sure of that. It was her new party piece, and she enjoyed the drama of it all.

The police were used to Mary’s intervention when her mother was on the rag; they relied on her, in fact, to talk her mother down, and to settle any disputes that were on her current agenda. Her mother had started to have arguments with the neighbouring households without a second’s thought; vicious, violent rows that were always her fault, and always ended in a physical fight. A punch-up was now her mother’s release valve, it was how she coped with her everyday life. She had become the local joke and it made her kids’ lives unbearable. They had to live with her personal vendettas, her increasingly frequent drunken ramblings and, worse than that, they had to face their classmates, all more than aware of the situation or, more often than not, whose parents were on the receiving end of the shouting and swearing.

Parents were a pain, but she didn’t care about any of that. Not until she had to anyway. All she cared about was the here and now, the future was a foreign country. Now though, thanks to her brother, Mary Miles had to go home and investigate her mother’s latest escapade, find out who she had fought with, then try to smooth it all over. It was so unfair; all she wanted was a regular life, no more and no less.

‘Is she indoors, Gordon?’

He grinned then, displaying his perfect teeth.

‘She is now. She’s
indoors
with Lily Law; they’ve nicked her for assault and battery, threats to kill and discharging a firearm.’

Jonjo started to laugh then, the charges didn’t really surprise any of them. Mrs Miles was a case; she was a one-woman arrest record. She was the loveliest lady in the world when sober, but give her a drink and she was a fucking nightmare. She was already on a suspended sentence for her last foray, that included shooting out the optics in the pub, and then somehow arguing it was mistaken identity. She was also still on bail for breach of the peace and lewd behaviour, this was caused by her insisting on stripping off in the local working men’s club while threatening the real stripper with death on pain of torture and destruction. Her sin being that she had accepted a drink off Mr Miles while his wife was within their vicinity.

Jonjo was sorry for his friend, but she had become used to this kind of thing happening. Her mother was the stuff of nightmares, a drunk who saw insults and aggro where there wasn’t anything remotely troublesome going on. She could make a simple ‘Good Morning’ sound like a declaration of war. She also had access to an air gun that no one, even her own family, could ever lay their hands on. She could be drunk as a skunk, but she always managed to hide the bastard thing before she was finally tracked down. When she had slept it all off though, no one was sorrier than she was. In their world, a woman who drank was vilified far more than a man. Women were still held up as paragons of virtue, even if their old men were robbing, thieving, lying shitbags. The women were held accountable for their actions, the men weren’t.

‘Discharging a firearm? How did she get hold of the gun this time?’

Gordon shook his head, the smile gone from his eyes now. ‘I don’t know, Mary, I think it was the old man’s. He was probably going out on the rob again.’ It was said simply, without any emotion or excitement.

‘I better get home, Jonjo . . . See you tomorrow, eh?’

Jonjo nodded, wondering at her calmness, knowing that if her mother was found guilty she would be looking at a lump and a half.

‘Good luck, mate.’

Mary laughed sadly. ‘Good luck? What’s that when it’s at home?’

Chapter Seven

‘My life is shit, son, and you know it. You’ve made sure of that. Me own husband afraid in his own home, I never thought I’d live to see the day.’

Angelica Cadogan sounded for all the world like a woman hard-done-by, as if her husband was innocent of any charges that might be brought against him. Danny couldn’t believe his ears.

‘You fucked your own life up, Mum, then you fucked up ours.’

‘I gave my life to you children . . .’

‘Pull the other one, Mum, it plays “A Hard Day’s Night”. You never gave us
fuck all
, and you know it.’

Danny Boy turned from his mother, refusing to listen to her ranting.

‘Don’t you dare turn your back on me, boy.’

He sighed in annoyance, wanting to hurt her as she had hurt him, had hurt them all. ‘You’d serve us all up in a heartbeat if it got you an audience with your old man, and we all know it, Mum. We have lived with that knowledge for years. You only care about us when you’re alone in the world, when the old man goes on the trot. Once he’s back, you blank us again.’

The truth hurt and Angelica knew that better than anyone. It was why she was getting so angry with this boy before her. Her first-born son, the lad who had kept it all together and made sure they were taken care of. Her guilt and shame made her lash out then, ‘You vicious little bastard ... ’

Danny Boy held up his hand and said sadly, ‘Don’t do this, Mum. Please. He’s fucking scum, he always has been, and you know that better than I do. Don’t try and justify his behaviour, or your treatment of us because of it. Look, Mum, I’m fucking warning you, please don’t start me off on one. Not tonight.’ He was pointing his finger in her face, his anger was there for anyone to see, and she knew it was taking all the strength he possessed to pretend that he didn’t know what she wanted from him. It was a game they had played many times in the past. Only this time he wasn’t going to let her get away with it. They both knew he wasn’t going to play her game any more.

She shook her head sadly, her eyes dark with pain and her tears now genuine. ‘Please, son, do this for me, eh? He’s my husband, your father . . .’

She was almost begging once more, and they both knew it. For Danny it was enough to break him down, but only if he had been foolish enough to let her empty words have an effect. Instead, he had hardened himself to her pleas. He hated her for the fact that she saw this drama as even necessary, that she thought he was that soft she could still talk him round, even after all that had happened.

‘I’ve said he can stay. But I still hate him, Mum. Don’t make me start to hate you as well. He cares nothing for this family, stop trying to make him into something he ain’t. Something he can never be. Never was, for that matter.’

His mother’s face was screwed up in temper, her voice loaded with malice. ‘He is a cripple, thanks to you. He has nothing any more. We’re all he’s got now, boy.’

Danny Boy shook his head in consternation. That she was trying to garner some kind of sympathy for his father was too much, was going too far.

‘He might be a raspberry ripple, Mother, but no one cares about that, do they? If he had been left to his own devices the same thing could have befallen any one of us. He beat us all, you included and, if we’d been left a raspberry, he would not have given a flying fuck. But then you know that, don’t you, deep down in your fucking so-called heart. He could have crippled you or me in his heyday. Kicking and punching us, shouting the odds. He put his fag out on your face, I saw him do it. So bollocks to him, and bollocks to you and all.’

He stepped towards her then and, for the first time, she felt in fear of him; he could almost smell it off of her. It didn’t make him feel bad, it just reaffirmed his belief that without him this family would have sunk without trace. This woman, his own mother, aggravated him nowadays: she just made him more aware of how base and how untrustworthy most women could be. She thought he was a live one, a fucking Greebo. Thought he was cunt enough to swallow her old crap and let that leech back into all their lives as if nothing untoward had happened. He, Danny Boy Cadogan, had taken on the mantle of man of the house, had taken over the bills, everything. He had been forced to. That they had never been so well-off in their lives was a bonus, yet she would still rather be at the mercy of that ponce, his so-called father, than be with her own kids. Be content with her children, her real family. She wanted the man who had destroyed them all in one way or another. It was a real eye-opener for him.

And it hurt him to know his mother still felt the need of the man who had almost brought about the family’s downfall.

All this aggro for a bunk-up, for a shag, because that was all that this could be about. His father had given them nothing all their lives except a harsh word or a good hiding. His mother, on the other hand, had spent her life trying to avoid all of that, had tried to protect everyone, herself included, from his drunken assaults. Now she was acting like they were a fucking perfect match, a love job. He had sacrificed his childhood for her, for his family, and she was asking him to forget the past, act like it had never happened. She was asking him to pretend they were all hunky-dory; it was a fucking diabolical liberty on her part.

She was obviously missing him in some way. But how? She couldn’t be missing his silver tongue, that was for sure. Nor his fucking humungous wallet. They had only seen him when he was borassic lint, when he had spent his wages, had one bet too many. Pissed up and itching for a fight was when they finally got him. Then he would come home to them like the avenging angel of Christ. All fists and terror, bad-mouthing her, beating her up, then taking her to his bed with a threat and a punch, his kids left to listen to it all as they huddled under the covers waiting for him to start on them.

This latest thing though was all about her, her needs. Was about her getting her fucking end away. Gnawing the bone. It was a disgrace as far as he was concerned. For the first time ever she had enough money, she didn’t have to scrub anyone’s house, didn’t have to kneel on anyone’s floor, and it still wasn’t enough for her. He couldn’t provide the main ingredient she needed. Heating, light, food, drink, a bit of bingo when she fancied it, was second rate, all she seemed to want was her old man back in her bed, no matter what he had done to her kids, or to her, for that matter. Women, he now realised, were not to be trusted. All his life his mother had run his father down to him, all his life he had heard nothing except how fucking useless he was and how he should never be like him.

And he had listened to his mother for years; she was the fountain of all knowledge, especially where his father was concerned. Plus he had seen it with his own eyes. Seen what a useless cunt for a father he had been lumbered with. Consequently, none of them had any time for him, except their little sister, but she didn’t count. No one begrudged his love for her, that was expected, that was the only decent thing he had going for him as far as they were concerned.

Now though, it seemed, if you listened to their mother, this father of his was on a par with the Second Coming. He was now more sinned against than sinner, a poor man who had been trying to fight the odds all his life. What fucking drainhole did she think her sons had climbed out of?

He paid all the bills, something his father had been loath to do all his life. Ergo, as far as he could see, that meant that
he
now ran the whole fucking shebang. Just because his mother was once more a wife, it didn’t mean they had to jump on the bandwagon with her.

A raspberry ripple, a fucking cripple, and that was all thanks to him. She only had her husband home with her because he
couldn’t
go anywhere else, even if he wanted to. But that didn’t mean they had to fucking kowtow to him. They had long memories; even if she chose to rewrite history, it didn’t mean they had to. He would use the old coot, but if she thought they were going to start playing happy families she could think again. He had to make that plain to her, make her see that she was getting the old man back, but it didn’t mean that he was once more the dog’s gonads. ‘I’ve said he can stay, Mum, for you. But don’t you
ever
fucking try this old fanny with me again. The kids are my responsibility now, as you are. You and him made sure of that much between you. I ain’t got nothing on my fucking conscience where you’re concerned. I wish you could say the same about us kids. He means nothing to us, fuck all. We know him too well, Mum, and there ain’t nothing you can say that will make us care for him now. It’s too fucking late.’