The Take (57 page)

She put it down to coke paranoia. She had experienced it before, but this stuff Freddie had was out of this world. Each snort had made her feel more and more adventurous, in fact she was almost willing to strip off and go for it as Freddie kept urging her. If her aunt had not been upstairs, she knew the temptation would have been too much for her.

This was the life she dreamed of, being with someone like Freddie where every day was a holiday and every night was just a round of pubs and clubs and getting out of it, and making yourself up for your bloke.

No job, no real income, just an endless round of enjoying yourself.

If she played her cards right, she knew she could find herself right on her feet with Freddie Jackson. She wasn't silly, she knew he was married and she knew his wife was a right headcase. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

She only wanted to be his bird. He was far too old to think of marrying, he was almost Jurassic, bless him.

She was still congratulating herself on her catch of the day when a younger, much better-looking version of Freddie walked into the pub.

Freddie, who had been regaling her with his tales of derring-do whilst in prison, was suddenly aware that the place was empty, quiet.

Even the jukebox was silent.

'Well, well, if it isn't fucking Livingstone.'

Jimmy smiled. 'Pissed, are you? What happened to you this morning? I was waiting for you.'

Jimmy was talking nicely, almost conversationally. But Melanie picked up the nuances in the conversation and a fright took hold of her. The two men were so alike, but the younger one, he had the stature and the standing of someone important, someone who was listened to.

Freddie Jackson, beside him, looked like the poor relation and she guessed that Freddie felt the same way as she did.

The younger man had on a smart pair of trousers and a smart shirt, his gold watch was thin-banded and obviously expensive. He had well-cut hair and manicured hands, and even his voice was modulated. He sounded educated, sounded like someone who, as she had first thought, was listened to.

Next to him Freddie looked what he was, a dishevelled and bloated also-ran. He had the button eyes of a grifter and the sneaky look of a con man. In her heightened state of awareness it occurred to her that Freddie Jackson was not such a prize after all. This man was a prize, though, this man was someone to aspire to.

She smiled at him as he stood in front of her.

'Fuck off.' His voice was cold, calculatingly cold, and it unnerved her.

She immediately looked at Freddie for his reaction to the man's rudeness. Freddie grinned and she now saw the nasty glint in his eyes, the sallow skin and the redness around his cheeks that told her he was a drinker.

She raised her eyebrows at him to see what she was supposed to do, and he kept his eyes on the younger man as he said nonchalantly, 'You heard the man, Mel, fuck off.'

She was shocked at the callous way he spoke to her. A few minutes earlier she had been contemplating stripping off and doing whatever he wanted, she had even contemplated a relationship of some kind with him.

Now he was pushing her away, discarding her without a backward glance. She was also aware that she was letting this man talk to her like she was dirt, letting him look down his nose at her.

Freddie was laughing now. The look on Melanie's face was priceless, and now that Jimmy had come to him he was feeling an adrenaline rush.

'Come on, girl, chop chop. The big man has spoken and everyone has to do what you tell them, don't they, Jimmy?' This was said quietly, like a schoolboy to a teacher.

Then, passing her a drink, he took Mel's arm gently and led her to a table by the stained-glass window. After she was seated Freddie smiled at her and said, 'Wait here, this shouldn't take long.'

Jimmy watched the man he had admired all those years ago and wondered at what had happened to him. He had no respect left for him whatsoever. Freddie was dragging this stupid girl into their argument, into their business, because he could not do anything without an audience.

Walking over to them, Jimmy took her bodily by the arm and walked her through to the living quarters of the pub.

'Piss off, love.'

As he walked back he saw Freddie pouring out more drinks, and he sighed. Freddie was drunk and as always he was mean drunk.

'You came, then?' Freddie seemed to think that this was hilarious, and once more Jimmy was aware of how little esteem he now held this man in.

'I knew you'd come to me eventually.' This was said smugly, as if he had won something.

Jimmy didn't answer him for a few seconds, and then he said seriously, 'You're out, Fred.' He was gratified to see Freddie's look of complete astonishment.

'What do you mean, I'm out?'

Jimmy grinned. 'What I say, you are out.' He said the last few words distinctly as if talking to a small child, or a deaf person. Enunciating every word.

Freddie was nonplussed for a few moments. Then he said, 'Out of what, Jimmy?'

Freddie sounded as if he was in a padded room, narked up with Dospan. He sounded amazed and also as if what he was hearing was unbelievable to him. Which of course it was.

Now Jimmy laughed, as he said in a clear voice, 'You are out on your arse. You are
finished
, Freddie, and you had better get that through your thick head once and for all.'

Chapter Thirty

Little Freddie was at school and the novelty of being the perfect child was starting to wear off, but he knew that to keep on his father's good side he needed to act the dutiful son. As he looked around him at the classroom and at his classmates, he wondered how people didn't die of absolute boredom.

He was aware, though, that if he didn't keep this façade up he would be put away somewhere. His father had been on the verge of it, he knew, and Little Freddie had been reduced to giving him a load of fanny about it all just being a game that had got out of hand. Neither of them believed it but it was there, out in the open, for his father to use for his own benefit.

The annoying thing was, he was fed up with this act. It was wearing, being nice all the time.

He imagined the people around him in his power, imagined them in his complete control. They were all marks to him, nothing more, with their please and thank yous, and their fucking politeness. He was forceful enough to get them where he wanted them, he liked to manipulate people, liked his rep as a bad boy.

The fear of real violence could do that just as well, his father had taught him that much. He liked to remember things when he was alone, and he liked to fantasise about people around him.

He looked in the mirror every day and saw himself, and he knew that he was a handsome boy. Tall for his age, he had his father's looks and his father's build, though his dad was starting to run to fat. Young Freddie saw himself as apart from everyone else. He had friends but they were his friends, he wasn't theirs. He ruled them, they were wary of him, and his father's reputation got him an out on a daily basis.

He felt nothing, and when his friend's mother had died of cancer a few weeks earlier he had not understood the boy's crushing grief.

She was dead. Crying wouldn't bring her back. What on earth was the problem? She was a miserable old bitch anyway, always fucking carping on, silly cow.

Yet, as young as he was, he had already sussed out that he had to at least emulate the emotions of other people, and luckily for him soap operas filled this gap in his education. In fact, they were fountains of wisdom as far as he was concerned.

He knew how to act out emotion now and thanks to
EastEnders
he was happy in the knowledge that in East London you fought and argued to get what you wanted.

Little Freddie also knew that he got away with murder because of his looks. Beautiful people were treated better in the world than the ugly bastards were. His father had always said that, and it was true.

'Go home, Jackie, and don't come back here any more.'

Jackie was completely hysterical and the mother in Lena wanted to go to her, try to comfort her, but her husband had for the first time in years put his foot down.

'If you let her in, I will fucking walk out of this house, and I swear on that poor child's grave that I will never come back, and that is fucking swearing to it. I am sick to death of Jackie and her fucking problems.'

Lena knew he meant what he said, because now he was ranting and raging all over the small flat. Lena and Maddie shrugged at one another like conspirators.

'I am fucking sick and tired of her and that fucking boy of hers, that mad bastard she bred. When she was carrying him she was either pissed out of her brains or drugged up to the eyebrows. She lost one because of her fucking drinking and drugging and I wish the same had happened with him, because he ain't all the fucking ticket. I don't want him near or by me or mine, and the same goes for that fucking muppet she saddled herself with. Freddie Jackson is another fucking awkward ponce. Jimmy is outing him anyway, he gets the bad news today, and if you ask me not before fucking time.'

He looked at his wife as he said through gritted teeth, 'It's a serious out and all, Lena. There ain't been one like this since the fucking Krays walked the pavements. Freddie will be a fucking
outcast
, he will be like a fucking leper, and consequently it means that he won't be welcome
anywhere
. Any mates have to either blank him or lose their own livelihoods. That cunt is all but finished, and not before fucking time, I say.'

Lena had never seen him so angry before, and in his day he had given her more than her fair share of rows, black eyes and fat lips. But they had been passionate fights, at least that is how she remembered them now. Not as the vicious hidings they had really been from a man who was taking out on her his own guilt because he had pissed up every penny they had on some old sort he had picked up in a pub. Those had been the days, of course, when all women got a clump off the old man, especially if they nagged, and Lena was the first to admit that she could nag expertly and for hours at a time if the fancy took her.

Nowadays she would not take that off anyone, let alone a man, though in the past she had expected a shiner or two, like her mother before her. They had been stupid enough to think that a jealous man loved them, that a man in drink was not responsible for his actions. And that they, the women concerned, were somehow lacking, or the men would have come home on time.

But this hate-filled ranting was new, she had never seen Joe like it before. And if Freddie had the serious out, that meant her daughter would have to pack up and move away. There was no other choice, they would be social outcasts, and even family would be wary of seeing them. There may not have been an out like this since the sixties, but it would still be enforced. It was the criminal equivalent to being put away, except in nick you could have visits. Her daughter would be gone from her and she felt awful because the news made her feel relieved, and that was wrong. But she was so sick of all the trouble that came with Jackie and she was getting too old for it.

Joseph started raging once more, and Lena could see the absolute hatred he felt for his son-in-law in his wrinkled-up face.

'That big vicious ponce Freddie Jackson, thinking he can do what he likes to whoever he fucking likes, and that fat bitch out there who was demented enough to go and get married to him, shouting about rape. This shower of shite are all fucking barred now, the out is already in force as far as I am concerned. They will not cross this bastard, poxy, fucking doorstep and he can come round here with a fucking army-surplus flame-thrower and I will still tell him to get fucked!'

He was spitting in anger and Lena knew that he had something terrible on his mind. She had assumed it was the poor little fellow's death but now she wondered what he knew. If Jimmy boy had confided in him, what trouble was going to come to their door? She was worried herself now, and, putting on the kettle, she decided to make a cup of tea, not that she wanted one particularly, but for something to do.

Jackie's crying was going through her head and she assumed rightly that it was also going through her neighbours' heads. What she had to put up with from that girl and her husband was no bloody joke. She was now looking forward to the out, although she wouldn't admit that, of course.

She closed her eyes in shame as she heard Mrs Faraday, a very clean-living Protestant with a blue rinse and varicose veins, who resided on the ground floor, shouting up to her daughter.

'I am phoning the police, this is an absolute disgrace. You're drunk, woman, now go home and leave your poor mother in peace.'

Lena hated Mrs Faraday with her bloody cardigans and the annoying way she had of looking down her nose at people because they were Catholics, Irish, a mixture of both or Scottish. She liked the Welsh, apparently, and Lena gathered this was because they went to the correct church. That said, a Jehovah's Witness never knocked on another door in the block once they had experienced Mrs Faraday, and in that respect she could be very handy.

Lena had spent the best part of thirty years trying to look, outwardly at least, respectable to Mrs Faraday and two other tenants of the council block who acted as if they lived in Kensington Palace. Between her husband and Jackie she had fought a losing battle over those years. Now, though, with the grief inside her and the voice of Mrs Faraday bringing back memories of long-ago days when she had been humiliated by her. Lena suddenly lost all her maternal instincts and bolted from the flat like a banshee. Physically picking up her daughter by her clothes, she pushed and dragged her down the stairs, then she threw her out on to the pavement.

'Go home and sober up, you drunken mare, and don't come here any more. We've had enough of you for one bleeding day.'

She was pleased with herself for not letting a string of expletives come out of her mouth as was usual.

Mrs Faraday, who had been watching from her doorway, said primly, 'And about time too.'