The Runaway (11 page)

‘I just want to be alone. Please leave me alone.’

He belted his trousers and began picking up the money from the floor. Wiping a hand across his face, he saw blood on the back of it and felt a moment’s irritation. When he looked in the mirror he saw the four long red welts on his skin and cursed under his breath.

‘For fuck’s sake, Cathy, it ain’t like we don’t know one another, is it? I said I was sorry, girl. What more do you want?’ He knew it was just bravado, knew he was trying to justify his actions to himself as much as to her, and still he heard his voice carrying on. ‘It’ll be better next time, love, you’ll know what to expect. It’s always hard on the bird the first time, but you’ll get used to it . . .’

His voice trailed off. ‘Please, Cathy. Please . . .’

He could no longer pretend. He had done something unforgivable, had hurt Cathy. But she must forgive him, she
had
to, or all his triumph counted for nothing. Without her, he was a beaten and neglected child all over again.

‘I don’t know what to do, Cathy. Please, darlin’, tell me what to do?’ Kneeling by the side of the bed, he began to cry. He pressed his face into the covers as tears bubbled out of his eyes and into the musty bedding.

Finally, after what seemed an age, she put one hand on his head. Looking up into her white face he was amazed to hear her say, ‘Don’t cry, Eamonn. Just go home.’

She had touched him. He was halfway to getting her back, they both knew that. As his arm went around her waist and he lay beside her, holding her to him tightly, he cried with her. When both her arms eventually went around him and she held on to him as tightly he knew a moment’s intense relief.

They lay entwined, tears eventually ceasing, and only the beating of their hearts and the soft sounds of their breathing broke the silence of the room. As the shadows deepened on the walls, still they lay together.

They had crossed a bridge that night, and a further bond had been formed between them. Two broken children, they were both well aware that all they had ever really had was each other.

Cathy would forgive him anything, Eamonn knew that now. As he held her to him, he felt the excitement of a man who owned another person wholly.

Like Dixon owned him, he owned Cathy. Lock, stock and barrel.

Chapter Six

‘Are you sure you’re all right, love?’

Madge’s voice was low and husky-sounding from too many cigarettes and too much booze when she came into her daughter’s room later that night.

Cathy nodded, closing her eyes against the harsh light and the sound of the radio playing loudly in the front room. She could hear men’s voices too, and sighed. ‘Mum, go back to your punter. I’m fine. Really.’

Madge stared down into her daughter’s white pinched face and said gently, ‘Is it your time of the month, love?’

Cathy shook her head. ‘I’ve got a bellyache, Mum, that’s all. I’m fine.’

Madge stared down at her for a few seconds more then, screwing up her eyes, said, ‘You ain’t been up to nothing with that Eamonn, have you?’

Sitting up in bed, Cathy cried out: ‘No, I bleeding well ain’t! And if I had been, who are you to criticise anyway? I mean, be fair, Mum. It’s a wonder I ain’t out on the bash with you. That’s what a lot of people think I do anyway.’

Her temper faded as quickly as it had erupted, and lying down again, she said wearily, ‘Please leave me alone, Mum. I feel so bloody rough. I’m probably coming down with something.’

Madge stood up and said snidely, ‘As long as it ain’t a bellyful of arms and legs.’

‘Oh, piss off, Mother. You get on my wick at times.’

Cathy’s voice was so virulent, Madge was shocked for a few moments.

‘Don’t you talk to me like that, lady! Whatever you think of me, I’m still your mother . . .’

Cathy interrupted her by saying nastily, ‘Pity you don’t think of that when you go out on the gatter and bringing home half the docks.’

The sharp slap on Cathy’s cheek shocked both mother and daughter. When the girl started to cry it was as if she would never stop. Tears drenched her face and rolled on the sheet unchecked. Looking down at her daughter once more, Madge found herself in the grip of unaccustomed emotions. Unable to understand Cathy as a child, the emerging woman was becoming like a sister to her, a friend, and it grieved her that they were at loggerheads.

‘I’m sorry, baby. I could cut me bleeding hand off.’

She pulled her daughter roughly into her arms. The two of them held each other and cried. Madge, motherly for once, caressed her child’s narrow back and whispered endearments into her hair. ‘I’m sorry, Cathy. I’m so sorry, love.’

Enjoying the feel of her mother’s arms around her, she tightened her grip on Madge’s waist. ‘I love you too, Mum. I’m sorry I was such a crosspatch.’

Madge smiled through her tears. ‘Crosspatch’ was Cathy’s word from when she was a small child, a tiny little bundle, all stick-thin legs and huge blue eyes.

‘You’re not a crosspatch, darlin’. You were right in what you said. I’m an old trout. It’s the way God made me, but I love you, Cathy. In me own way, I love you very much.’

At that point the door was pushed open and Ron came into the room. ‘What’s going on here then, eh? A fucking mother’s meeting? Get your fat arse back into the front room, girl. I’m getting lonely all on me Jack Jones.’

Madge tutted loudly. ‘Piss off, Ron. Can’t you see the girl’s upset?’

‘What’s the matter with her then?’ Pushing his face towards Cathy’s, he bellowed, ‘What’s up with you, you silly little mare?’

She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Get him out of here, Mum.’

Ron, drunk and on his dignity, bellowed, ‘ “Get him out of here”? Are you talking about me, young lady? Only if you are, I’ll have you know that I put the fucking roof over your head these days, and it would do you no harm to remember that.’

Stepping towards the bed, he poked Cathy in the chest as he ranted: ‘I took your mother off the streets and turned her into a real professional. No one talks to me like that, especially not a jumped-up little girl who should keep her big trap shut and her snotty nose to herself!’

Standing up, Madge bolstered her chest with one meaty forearm and said, ‘Are you quite finished?’ Her voice was quiet, dignified and calm. A sure sign to Cathy that her mother was ready to explode at any moment.

Ron, on the other hand, unaware of Madge’s little ways, carried on regardless. ‘No, I ain’t fucking finished. When I am you’ll be the first to know, all right? Now get your arse in that front room and pour me a drink.’

Cathy watched wide-eyed as her mother figured out whether she was going to kill him or kiss him.

To Cathy’s horror, kissing won.

Taking Ron’s arm, she pulled him from the room, cajoling him with a merry voice as she cried: ‘Come on then, let’s get a nice drink down our gregorys, and then we can all have a laugh, eh?’

Ron, stretching himself to his full height, smiled benignly at her and allowed himself to be removed from Cathy’s room. Over her shoulder Madge winked at her daughter before rolling heavily painted eyes at the ceiling.

Lying down again, Cathy wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. If this was how her life was always going to be, maybe it wasn’t worth the effort.

Ron, full of drink and bravado, began baiting Madge in the lounge next door.

‘You treat her like a fucking china doll. She should be out grafting, bringing in a few bob. With her hair and eyes, she’d earn a fortune. A bleeding fortune.’ His voice was low now as he contemplated the vast sums of money to be earned off that little girl with her huge blue eyes and thick blonde hair. He wouldn’t be averse to breaking her in himself; unless that toerag Docherty had got there first, of course. The thought annoyed him.

Pouring Ron a large Scotch, Madge closed her eyes tightly. Ron’s eyes had strayed a few times towards her daughter’s burgeoning charms and she had ignored it. Now, though, he was putting it into words, saying it out loud, and Madge was not happy about it.

‘Don’t talk like that, Ron.’ The steely tone was back in Madge’s voice. There was a coldness, a hardness, she could project in her voice, and anyone who knew her well always dropped the subject that had upset her. Madge with a drink taken could be a lunatic. Like most whores, she harboured grudges and gave vent to them every now and again. When she did, her outbursts were of Olympian standards.

‘Leave it out, Ron,’ she warned him now. ‘The girl was upset. At the end of the day, she’s still my kid.’

He snorted derisively through his long beaked nose. ‘Pity you don’t think of that when she’s walking around like a replica whore. All that make-up on, those little tits pressing against her clothes . . . She’s her mother’s fucking daughter all right.’

Madge looked at the man beside her, seeing the thinning hair, the moist mouth and slack lips, those grimy fingernails. Without a second’s thought she threw her drink in his face.

‘How dare you? How dare you talk about my child like that? I might not be an ideal mother, I know that, but she’s still my baby. My flesh and blood. No one speaks about my kid like that. No one, do you hear me?’

She pressed her face to his and screamed into it: ‘You jumped-up pox doctor’s clerk! Look at you - take a fucking good butcher’s hook, mate. You’re a piece of shit. You and all your cronies, you’re scared of your own shadow. You’re a coward, mate, a twenty-two-carat coward. Now you want my girl, do you? You want my baby. Putting me on the game ain’t enough. You want the two of us whoring for you, do you? Well, let me tell you, even if I did want her on the bash, I wouldn’t let you touch her with a barge pole. My girl is worth fifty . . . no, a hundred of you and all your ilk, mate. She’ll
be
somebody.’

Laughing scornfully, she said to him then: ‘Who the fucking hell do you think
you
are, with your tin pot club and your one-inch cock? What use are you to any woman, eh? Even an old whore like me. At least Eamonn could get me going, mate, get me all loved up. You couldn’t turn on a fucking light switch!’

Somewhere in Madge’s drink-fuddled brain she was aware that she was going too far. But the drink seemed to have triggered something inside her. All her anger and frustration came bubbling to the surface and Ron was the recipient of her hatred of herself, her life, and all the ugliness she’d had to endure.

‘A step up, your club?’ Her voice was a screech by now. ‘That’s a fucking laugh! I’ve had better punters down the docks, mate. And as for you - I’ve been fucked by four-foot sailors with more going for them than what you’ve got. That dinky little cock, and all your moaning and groaning and sweating . . . It makes me sick to my stomach to think of you. So now you fucking know.’

Ron was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. He had never been spoken to like that by a whore. Especially not one of his own whores. He was enraged and his back slap to Madge’s face shocked them both. Then the real fight began.

With her extra bulk, Madge was a formidable opponent. Grabbing at Ron’s hair, she dragged him unceremoniously off the settee, her heavy breasts straining with the exertion. She had fought men all her life, it was a part of her job, survival to her. This time, though, it was personal. It was an act of vengeance. Madge had been abused all her life; now this man wanted to abuse her child. She felt the white heat of anger and jealousy as it rose inside her. Felt the strength of her hatred of him, and of all men, overwhelm her. She dug her nails into his neck and spat into his eye.

Looking blearily up into her face, Ron saw that the woman was completely out of control. The watery eyes, caked with mascara and blue eyeshadow, were positively manic. Madge had lost it. After years of being abused she was fighting back.

Ron was every man who had roughed her up, every decent woman who had made a joke at her expense, every punter, good, bad or indifferent, who had contemptuously dropped money into her hand.

Using the last of his strength, the man pushed her away with all his might, sending her careering across the room. She landed with a heavy thump against the far wall. As Ron got to his feet, she watched him warily, her heaving bulk trembling now from head to foot.

‘I’ll break your fucking neck, woman.’ As he advanced on her, both were unaware of Cathy standing in the doorway watching everything. She flew across the room and pulled frantically at Ron’s hair.

‘Leave me mum alone! Let her be. Go home, Ron, for Christ’s sake!’

He shrugged her off without a thought.

‘Go home, man. My mum’s drunk and so are you. Come back in the morning.’ Cathy’s voice was high-pitched, terrified.

The long-suffering Sullivans next door were once more banging on the walls for quiet. Used to noise and shouting, they didn’t take the situation seriously enough actually to do anything. Like battered wives, whores were to be ignored or at best tolerated. Such people were always left to their own devices. It was the way of the world.

Ron began to beat Madge in a calm methodical way. Shock had given way to rage by then. As he began systematically to punish her, Madge crumpled to the floor. Curling up, she covered her head with her arms and let herself relax as all people used to violence learn to do. Blows are easily absorbed by a slack body; only the tensing of the muscles causes real pain. Madge was used to pain, she lived with it every day, took her life in her hands at work. A beating wasn’t such a big deal to her.

Not so for Cathy, though. Picking up the breadknife from the table, she stood beside Ron, beseeching him to stop hurting her mother. She could see Madge’s body taking the blows and as Ron’s anger was almost spent, he drew back his leg for a final kick.

It was when he did this that Cathy plunged the knife into his neck. It was a reflex action. She just wanted him to stop hurting her mother.

The girl watched in horror as his skin opened, inch by inch. It was like a slow-motion picture. She looked dumbly at the knife in her hand, realising for the first time what she had done. Ron, bewildered now, looked at the girl in front of him and registered her huge terrified eyes and trembling hand as he fell heavily to his knees, his hand to his neck.