The Business (19 page)

‘If you can come up with a price that I find acceptable then you have a deal: if not, then me and the baby will be forced to throw ourselves on to the mercy of the council.’

Mary nodded in agreement, terror for the child inside her daughter taking over. ‘You name it and, if it’s within my power, you will have it. You tell me what you want, that will make it much easier all round.’

Imelda smiled again but she didn’t answer the question. ‘Nice room, Mum, I just hope that the poor little fucker will finally get to sleep in it.’

Mary was nearly in tears now. ‘Oh, Mel, what is wrong with you, why are you so vicious, you don’t want that poor baby, you know you don’t.’

Imelda shrugged happily. ‘No, Mum, you’re right, I don’t want it. But the whole point is that you do.’

 

Jimmy Bailey arrived at Mary’s house just after eight-fifteen. She was ready for him, as always, and, as always, he was seriously impressed with her almost encyclopaedic knowledge of people’s lives. She knew who they were related to, even distantly, she knew where they lived, what they did in their spare time, and she knew who they owed money to and who owed money to them. She could tell Jimmy their parentage back at least three generations and, more to the point, how long it would take them to gather together the money he was after. She could even tell him the people the poor bastard might ask for a loan. She was fucking amazing. No wonder her husband had been such a good collector. With her on the case it must have been easy. Mary Dooley knew everything about everyone. He had asked her how she researched the debts, and she had told him that he wouldn’t understand, so he had left it at that. She was a real mine of information though.

He noticed that today she was quieter than usual, and he found himself asking her where the boys were, just to get the conversation going.

‘I don’t know, they are both grown men.’

Mary was obviously not about to be drawn on anything of a personal nature so he gave up, he had always believed that people had the right to their privacy, and also the right to their own thoughts. Providing they didn’t owe
him
money of course. Then, their lives were basically an open book as far as he was concerned, until he got what he wanted, and then he lost all interest in them. He saw the way the big banks repossessed houses for money borrowed against them, saw how the courts took the side of the mortgage companies, the lenders. He knew, like the rest of the country, that people who took out loans were expected to pay them back. It was the law of the fucking land for Christ’s sake, only, when people borrowed from him, or people like him, they didn’t have the choice of a court case, or bankruptcy, they knew that they had to weigh him out eventually, or they would not have loaned the money to them in the first place. If you borrowed money, you now owed, if you owed, you were vulnerable, if you were vulnerable, then you were going to get hurt. It was almost biblical in its simplicity.

Jimmy also knew that Mary’s boys were not possessed of that kind of understanding. But he kept his own counsel, there was plenty of time for personal conversations and opinions in the future.

As he was getting ready to leave, the door opened, and Jimmy Bailey saw a girl who was so lovely she actually took his breath away.

The effect she had on him did not go unnoticed by Mary Dooley, and that was when he saw the similarity between them. Mary must have looked very similar to her daughter when she had been the same age. It was amazing and, as always, his envy of families came to the fore. He was not envious in a nasty way, he was envious in an interested way. He felt his own loss more acutely when he was around people who had real relatives, real family. When people cared about each other, and cared about what happened to them.

He also knew that this was the daughter who had caused more fights than Joe Bugner, and who was pregnant by poor Jason Parks. Jimmy was of the opinion that Jason was not capable of the act of rape, but he also conceded that no one knew the truth of any situation except the people who were there at the time. But he had also heard that this girl had a rep so large it made the Bayeux Tapestry look like a hanky.

But her face, she was like a painting. Her skin was flawless, her eyes were huge and were a deep-blue, so dark they were almost indigo. She was extraordinary-looking and, as she gazed at him with that quiet, steady stare she had, he actually felt himself begin to blush.

She smiled gently. ‘Hi. I’m Imelda, Mel.’

Jimmy shook her hand, marvelling at how small and delicate it was.

‘Hello. I’m Jimmy, Jimmy Bailey.’

He said his name, as always, with a certain pride because it was now so well known in certain circles.

‘I know who you are.’

Then, turning from him as if he had somehow ceased to exist and smiling at her mother she said quietly, ‘I need some money.’

Mary looked at Jimmy briefly, then she said quickly, ‘Give me a few minutes to see Jimmy out and then we’ll talk, OK?’

Imelda grinned then, and Jimmy felt his heart constrict at just how lovely she was.

‘I need some money now, Mum, the baby is on its way.’

‘Hey, I can drive you to the hospital if you want.’ Jimmy felt a real panic at the thought of a baby arriving in the next few minutes.

‘I have hours yet, and I would much rather go by myself if you don’t mind.’

Jimmy was amazed at her calmness, at how cool she was. He knew that most women were blown away by the imminent arrival of their child, of a real live person. He was not sure how he was supposed to react to her.

He saw how heavy she was, at least her tummy was anyway. Other than that she looked like a little bird. She was wearing a purple smock top, and from the side the child was very apparent; from the front, she looked just like any other young girl. Though he had a feeling that most young girls did not have her eyes; they were almost like an ancient’s, as if she knew everything in the world there was to know. He assumed that her predicament might have something to do with that.

Jimmy knew Imelda was classed as second-best now. Like all the girls who had their babies without the benefit of marriage, she would be automatically classed as a second-class citizen. It was unfair really, because if they had an abortion their lives were automatically back on track, and no one would ever know that they had ever been pregnant. They automatically got a second chance at life, at being respectable. He had to admit though, he admired the girls who kept their kids, unless they dumped them, of course, like his fucking mother had him.

‘I’ll drive you, relax. Get your coat, Mary.’

He felt the tension between the two women, felt the fear that was emanating from Mary, and saw how pale her face had become as she waited for her daughter’s permission to accompany her.

‘Can I come? Please, Mel.’

She was almost begging and suddenly Jimmy felt as if he was watching something really private and personal, something not quite nice, something reprehensible. He guessed that Mary was being held to ransom somehow.

Imelda shrugged. ‘I don’t give a fuck, do what you want.’

Jimmy could hear the indifference in the girl’s voice, he had only ever heard that kind of vicious indifference in one person’s voice once before. His mother’s.

His mother had never had any kind of interest in anything or anyone except herself, and
her
life, to his knowledge.

Jimmy felt the same dead vibe from this beautiful girl that he had felt from his own mother, the few times he had been in her company that is.

Mary was putting on her coat and, smiling in a friendly way, he walked them both through the house and outside to his waiting car. He drove a gold Daimler Sovereign and he was a little bit disappointed that no one acknowledged the beauty of it. But given the daughter’s labour, he supposed he could overlook their being underwhelmed just this once.

As Jimmy drove to the hospital he could not help noticing that the two women, who were so alike physically, did not exchange one word during the whole journey.

Now, he was not an expert on female behaviour, and he did not pretend to understand them, but even he thought that the birth of a child should have been greeted with at least a small spurt of excitement.

As he drove to the hospital, the awful silence between them seemed to grow, until when they finally reached the hospital he felt physically relieved to see the back of the pair of them.

 

Three hours later, after a quick and uneventful labour, Jordanna Dooley entered the world. She was not held by her mother until twenty-four hours after the birth. Imelda had waved the child away, and insisted on being taken to the day room so she could have a cigarette in peace. The day room had a phone, and the phone had guaranteed Imelda the outside world, and the outside world had provided her with the drugs she needed to cope with her new-born baby.

So her grandmother had held Jordanna instead, gently talking to her and falling in love with her. Mary had hugged the child to her, and she had known then that without her in the picture, this poor little girl would be destroyed without a second’s thought by her own mother.

Jordanna didn’t cry like the other babies, it was as if she already knew, even at such a tender age, that her mother was not really interested in her.

Chapter Nine

 

Mary watched as Jordanna ate her dinner and, as always once the child was within her orbit, she finally relaxed. She saw the bruises on the girl’s little arms, knew that she had been picked up bodily by her mother at least once, then thrown violently onto a bed, a sofa or a chair, but that was par for the course where Imelda was concerned. She took all her anger and her frustration out on her little daughter. She did it knowing that there was not a lot anyone could do to stop her. She had the trump card; she was the mother and that meant everything to the people involved in her daughter’s shitty life.

Mel was a fucking nightmare, she didn’t want the poor child, but she was determined that no one else was going to get her either. She used her as leverage, mostly for money. Imelda
always
needed money; no matter how much money she had, she always needed more.

She was a junkie and that was a junkie’s life. The pursuit of money, easy money, so they could begin the pursuit of their drug of choice. Mel also used the child for the guaranteed Social Security money she collected every Monday from her local post office. She also used her daughter for the Family Allowance money she was entitled to, and which she cashed on a regular basis to buy drugs.

Imelda believed the money was hers, for her own personal use whenever she needed an extra hand-out of some kind. Her social worker was so deluded by Imelda’s hard-luck stories that she even blagged money off of charities for her, and she also ensured her daughter’s utility bills were paid. The social worker had never in her life experienced anyone like Imelda, and it showed. She was so impressed with Mel’s hard-luck stories, and the insight into a junkie’s lifestyle, that she would forgive her anything.

Any money Imelda accrued from the people she scammed went straight to her dealer. She even entered methadone programmes to keep the social workers happy, make them believe that she was really attempting to sort herself out. She would then sell the methadone around the local pubs, and buy the real deal with the proceeds. It was a cycle of despair, and her little child, her little money cow, was stuck in the middle of it.

Poor Louise Parks was at her wit’s end. Mary herself felt such sorrow for her granddaughter’s lifestyle, but even more so, at times, for Louise Parks. Imelda would promise Jordanna could stay with her nana Parks, and then Louise would give Imelda the money she required. The little girl would then be delivered, would settle into a routine, would be happy and secure once more. Then Imelda would arrive at some point at Louise’s house, with no warning whatsoever, and she would take the screaming child away with her. Mary knew how that felt, because Imelda did the same thing to her on a regular basis. Sometimes she would have the girl for weeks, months even, and then, in a space of ten minutes, she would be removed from all the safety and regularity that should constitute a small child’s life. She would be dragged back to a filthy bed in a filthy flat, and she would be surrounded by people who were not exactly pillars of the community.

Mary would watch from afar as the little girl she loved would gradually disappear further and further into herself, until she stopped talking, or communicating in any way.

Mary would ring the social services and tell them what was happening, and they would tell her the same thing. Jordanna was OK, she was being fed, and she was with her mother. A mother who was trying so hard to get herself together, and who was trying to make a life for herself. The inference being that
she
, Mary, was actually the cause of her daughter’s phenomenal hatred, and her daughter’s addiction. They would then go on to say that maybe, if she was not so critical of Imelda, she might experience a complete revelation. They told her that a filthy home did not mean that the child was not
loved
. That the absence of clean clothes and regular meals did not constitute a
bad
mother. They asked Mary if maybe she was expecting too much of her daughter, and that it might be her demands that were the cause of her daughter’s problems.

It was a fucking
scandal
the way the social services allowed that child to be treated, how they allowed her to live. The little girl was in a constant state of terror, was unable ever to relax, was without any kind of love from her mother. They might tell her that a dirty house was not enough reason to remove a child, that the people who visited the flat were invited there and were her daughter’s
guests
. She was told that she should try and build some bridges with her daughter instead of trying to take her child from her. That Mary’s repeated accusations of neglect, and criticism of her daughter’s parenting skills and her chosen lifestyle, were not doing anything for her daughter’s self-esteem. What fucking self-esteem? Mary wanted to ask them. Her daughter would fuck a tramp if it got her enough money for a fix. Her daughter manipulated them all, and they allowed her to, they allowed her to indulge herself on a regular basis. The social workers were the reason her daughter was such a fucking skaghead, they enabled her to do what she wanted and gave her the means to bully her child and her family. Social workers saw Imelda’s addictions as an illness. Mary tried to explain that her daughter was a user, a user of people, a user of anyone who she felt might further her career, not just a user of drugs. But it was as if she was talking to a fucking brick wall.