Sins (34 page)

Josh looked at her. ‘Partners? Yo u and me?’

‘Yes,’ said Rose firmly.

The ambulance crew had arrived. Rose stood up to allow them to get to Josh.

As they set to work checking him over Josh winked at her and said, ‘OK, partner.’

His face was bloody and battered, but Rose knew if the ambulance crew hadn’t been there she would have flung her arms around him and hugged him right there out of sheer relief. Josh made her laugh. Josh made her feel that she could do things she’d never have believed she could do by herself. Most of all Josh made her feel safe. He was her friend and her security, and now he was her future as well.

Emerald’s baby was born at three o’clock in the afternoon in an expensive private nursing home just off Harley Street, early in February.

Emerald took one look at the red-faced bawling infant and then waved the nurse away. She was pleased that he was a boy, of course, and naturally she would make sure that her ex-mother-in-law got to know that she had produced what should have been Alessandro’s heir. But for now she wanted peace and quiet in a perfume-scented room, not one that smelled of blood and toil, and certainly not one filled with the roars of the red-faced ‘thing’ the nurse was still there holding.

Irritation brought a frown to Emerald’s face. She started to wave the nurse away again but somehow the baby caught her gaze and held it with his own. Something totally unfamiliar tightened round her heart as though the baby itself had grabbed hold of it with his small fingers. A feeling, something so elemental that not even her strong will could overcome it, took possession of her. To her own astonishment she held out her arms for her son.

Silently the nurse handed him to her.

He was heavier than she had expected: eight pounds eleven ounces, the midwife had told her with approval. Emerald searched his face for some recognisable resemblance to either herself or Alessandro, but could find none. Instead he looked…he looked…

‘Here, take him away,’ she commanded the nurse angrily.

How was it that her son could somehow have reminded her of Dougie? That simply wasn’t possible and yet Emerald could have sworn that the baby and Dougie quite definitely had the same unwavering gaze.

Emerald closed her eyes and let the nursing home staff fuss round her.

It was late evening when Amber arrived at the nursing home. Because Emerald had gone into labour a week early, Amber hadn’t been with her daughter in London as she had planned. The staff welcomed her and asked if she would like to see her grandson since her daughter was still asleep.

‘He’s got a fine head of hair,’ said the nurse who had shown her in to the nursery.

Amber agreed, but her attention was on her grandson. Her breath had caught in her lungs and her heart felt as though it was being squeezed by a giant hand. Looking at Emerald’s baby was just like looking at her own son, Luc, when he had been born. Unable to stop herself, Amber reached down and lifted the baby from the cot. It was funny how certain skills and instincts never left you. A mixture of wonderment and pain filled her.
She could have been a young mother again, holding her own child for the first time, feeling that first surge of maternal love and that sense of joyful recognition as mother and child see one another for the first time and know the bond they share. The baby opened his eyes and looked at her. Amber’s heart turned over.

Janey opened her eyes apprehensively and looked round the unfamiliar bedroom. She was alone in the bed, thank heavens. Unwanted images of the previous evening crowded inside her head. She couldn’t remember now who out of the group of girls and boys that went out together every Saturday night had suggested going to Eel Pie Island, but she did know that they had all agreed it was a good idea.

The nightclub on Eel Pie Island had a dangerously louche and therefore a very attractive reputation. It was a place where rock and roll and jazz met and sometimes clashed. Saturday night fights were part of what it was famous for, along with the coolest music, the best musicians and the prettiest and wildest girls.

Janey had worn her newest creation, her own take on a darling little frock she had seen in Mary Quant’s Bazaar the previous week–the frock she could now see lying in a heap on the dusty floor of the small cramped bedsit, which belonged to a man whose face she could barely remember, but whose smell lingered on his bedding and on her skin. Rather than think about him and what had happened, she looked instead at her dress, the cotton a dark moody plum scattered with bright pink flowers, which set off the blonde hair she was now wearing longer
with the ends flicked up, just like the models in all the magazines. Just like them too she had been wearing black eyeliner and pale pink lipstick.

Janey could remember how excited she’d felt when her friends had pointed out to her that the lead guitarist with one of the groups was looking at her. She’d tried not to be impressed when he had sung from the stage and actually dedicated the song to her: ‘The girl with the blonde hair right here who I’m going to take to bed just as soon as I get the chance.’

But of course she had been, and of course she had danced with him when his group had been replaced by another act. He’d had a dangerous sexy look about him, his dark hair long and sticky with sweat, his body thin and wiry, his grip on her hard and sure when they had danced together. His name, he had told her, was Jerry, and his dream was to emulate his hero, Jerry Lee Lewis, the famous American singer.

At some stage they’d drifted away from her friends to join another member of Jerry’s band and the girl he was with, a striking-looking brunette called Nancy, who was older than Janey, with a slightly world-weary air about her.

At first she’d merely been slightly surprised when Jerry had started rolling his own cigarette, but that had been before Nancy had explained to her that it was a cannabis ‘joint’. Janey knew people who knew people who smoked cannabis, but as far as she was aware, no one in her immediate group of friends did so, although it was talked about a great deal by some of the more daring members of the group, as something they would
like to do. And now here she was with someone who was actually doing it.

Janey had been impressed but at the same time had felt slightly alarmed. Nancy had obviously guessed what she was feeling because she had dared her to try one.

Janey had wanted to refuse, but somehow, what with Nancy laughing at her and Jerry putting his arm round her and her hugging her whilst he put his own ‘joint’ to her lips, it had been easier to give in.

At first she had thought the roll-up was going to make her sick but then as her nausea had cleared she had started to feel pleasantly light-headed and then even more pleasantly giddy.

Before too long she had been laughing uproariously with the other three, and feeling part of some wonderful, special privileged world to which only they had the key.

She and Jerry had danced again, Jerry putting his hand up her skirt and whispering to her that he wanted her to take off her knickers. But then his friend had tapped him on the shoulder saying that they should ‘swap girls’ and Janey had ended up dancing with Rick, the band’s drummer, who had stuck his tongue so far down her throat when he kissed her that Janey had hardly been able to breathe.

Janey couldn’t remember when they had left Eel Pie Island although she could remember the four of them climbing into Rick’s Morris Minor and then Rick driving them back to London and Jerry’s bedsit. Which was where she was now–and thankfully alone.

Janey pushed back the bedclothes, keeping a wary eye on the door as she pulled on her clothes, relieved to
discover that her coat and her handbag were on the floor under a chair.

Outside the bright light of the pale winter sunshine stung her eyes. Her head was pounding and her legs wobbly, the feeling at the top of her thighs making her glance anxiously at her reflection in a nearby shop window to see if she was actually walking like a jockey who had spent too long in the saddle. Her own mental reference set her face on fire. She really didn’t want to think about what had happened when they had got back to the bedsit. How they had all smoked another joint and how then Nancy had taken off all her clothes, encouraging Rick and Jerry to help her, whilst Janey had looked on with what had then, thanks to the cannabis, been a totally unembarrassed curiosity as Rick had stroked Nancy between her legs, whilst Jerry had fondled her breasts. Janey quickened her walking pace, wishing she had been granted the blessing of a total loss of memory where the events of last night were concerned.

She didn’t want to remember what had happened, she didn’t want to think about it and she certainly didn’t want her head to be filled with the shamefully erotic images that were now dancing around tauntingly inside her, just as she herself had danced around the bedsit last night, totally naked, in Jerry’s arms, whilst Rick had pressed up behind her, joining in their dance.

‘A delicious piece of super sexy filling in the men’s sandwich,’ was how Nancy had described her, before pulling Rick off Janey, then pushing Jerry away and starting to dance with her herself.

It made Janey want to writhe with shame and guilt
now to remember that when Nancy had started touching her breasts, instead of stopping her she had simply laughed. Just as she had gone on laughing when Jerry had joined in and slid his hand between her legs, taking her nipple into his mouth whilst Nancy cupped her breast for him. Rick had started rubbing up against Nancy’s back, cupping her breasts from behind and telling Janey to lick and kiss them.

Janey shuddered.

She hadn’t done so, but only because Jerry had picked her up bodily and carried her over to the bed, burying his face between her wide open legs.

The sudden tightening of her insides, as her body remembered
that
incident with embarrassing pleasure, brought Janey a fresh surge of hot shame.

Shortly after that Rick and Nancy had joined them on the bed and soon they had become a writhing mass, stroking, touching, licking, sucking,
fucking
, as Rick had said joyfully at one point, limbs, hands, lips and bodies.

It had been Nancy who had expertly rolled the condoms onto the men, insisting that that should be done–Janey admitted that she’d been too far gone at that stage to care.

What she had done was an awful terrible thing that filled her with shame, and it must never ever happen again. She must never ever even think about it again, Janey told herself firmly.

Someone was banging impatiently on the door to his flat. Oliver groaned and opened one eye to look at his watch. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. He’d been out
partying and hadn’t gone to bed until gone three. Whoever it was would have to come back. He pulled the pillow over his head, but the knocking persisted and, if anything, grew even louder.

Swearing under his breath, Oliver got up, pulling on his jeans.

‘All right, I can hear you,’ he called out as he padded barefoot to the door. ‘Christ, the whole ruddy street can hear you,’ he added as he unlocked and opened it, only to step back in astonishment as he saw his mother standing outside.

‘At last,’ she announced before he could say anything. ‘Come on, your dad’s asking for you, and there isn’t much time.’

‘What?’ Oliver scratched his head and yawned.

‘I’ve just told you, it’s your dad. He’s dying and he wants to see you.’ As she spoke his mother was picking up the polo-neck sweater he had dropped on the floor when he had undressed, and handing it to him, then picking up his shoes.

Automatically Oliver pulled the jumper over his head and then sat down on the bed to put on his socks and shoes, whilst his mother watched him grimly.

For as long as Oliver could remember his mother had watched him with that same look of determination, every inch of her five-foot-two frame focused on chivvying and nagging both him and his father into doing what she thought was ‘right and proper’. High standards, his mother had–too high, Oliver often thought–especially when it came to cleanliness. A demon with her mop and bucket, his ma was. Never wore anything fancy but always
looked spick and span, with not an ounce of extra weight on her, and the dark brown hair he had inherited from her always pulled back tightly into a bun.

Still half asleep, Oliver didn’t ask her any questions, simply following her out into the street where, to his surprise, she’d got a taxi waiting with its engine running. His mother, who never wasted a farthing and who could make one shilling do the work of ten, using a taxi in the first place, never mind one with the meter ticking over, was astonishing.

‘So what’s happened?’ Oliver demanded, once the taxi was in motion, but his mother simply shook her head and looked warningly towards the driver, indicating that she didn’t want to say anything in his presence.

The taxi sped down the virtually empty road towards the East End and Bow, but then suddenly the driver changed direction, heading not for the street where Oliver had grown up and where his parents lived, but to Plaistow, the posh part of the area, coming to a halt outside the largest of a terrace of four-storey late Georgian houses.

‘Come on.’ His mother’s hand tugged on his arm.

‘What have you brought me here for?’ Oliver demanded as he joined her on the pavement.

‘Have you gone deaf or what? Like I told you, your dad’s at his last prayers and he wants to see you before he dies.’

His dad? Oliver looked from the house to his mother. This house wasn’t the one where he had grown up; it belonged to the man his mother had worked for, for as long as he could remember.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ his mother told him sharply. ‘You’ve got enough brains to know that Tom Charters couldn’t have fathered you. Thick as two short planks, he is, and always has been. Now get a move on. I’ll never forgive meself if we’re too late. Bin asking for you all night, he has.’

Was his father…? Oliver swallowed the saliva that was threatening to block his throat. ‘Does he know? Dad? I mean, Tom?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Now get a move on.’