Two Women (2 page)
Lying on the top bunk, her hair immaculate, her make up perfect, was Matilda Enderby. Dark-eyed, with masses of chestnut hair, she sat up and gave Susan the once over. Then, turning to the PO, she said gently, ‘You’re putting this in with me?’
The voice was deep and husky with a middle-class accent.
Susan looked the woman in the eye and attempted a brief smile.
The PO ignored her, saying briskly, ‘Listen, Enderby, you don’t pick and choose in here, love. You gave up that right the night you murdered your old man. And as you’re both in for the same thing I think you two might have more in common than you think.’
She left the cell and pulled the door to behind her.
Susan placed her bundle on the bottom bunk and pulled it open. The first thing she did was take out the photos and letters from her children. Then she quickly unrolled the few belongings she had and put them into the empty drawer of a small bureau.
Matilda Enderby watched her every move.
When Susan had finished she slid on to the bunk and, lying down, gazed at her children’s faces. Especially the baby’s.
Matilda left the cell and came back with two large mugs of tea. She opened a packet of Digestives and placed a few on the bunk beside Susan.
‘Did you really hit your old man . . .’
Susan interrupted her acidly.
‘One hundred and fifty-two times with a claw hammer? Yes, I did, I counted the blows, it gave me something to focus on.’
Matilda nodded. Even her face seemed still now. Gone was the perpetual eye movement betraying someone who was carefully observing what was going on around her. The two women were quiet for a while.
‘What happened to you then?’
Matilda half smiled.
‘Don’t you recognise me? I’m the focus of a lot of media attention at the moment. I’ll be out of here soon. Mine was one stab through the heart, and the bastard deserved it after what he put me through.’
Her voice was full of bitterness as she asked, ‘Why did you do it?’
Susan shrugged.
‘Who knows?’
‘Well, you know, surely, even if you’re not telling.’
Susan didn’t answer her.
Instead she lay back on the bunk and tried to empty her mind. She had never told anyone what had led up to the murder and she didn’t think she ever would. There were too many people involved, too many secrets to keep.
But then, that was how she had lived her whole life: one lie on top of another lie, one secret on top of another secret.
Later that day, as the prison noise calmed down and the cell door was finally clanged shut until the morning, Susan was left to her own thoughts. The same thoughts she had night after night. It was only in her own head, in the dark of night, that she could allow herself to think about what she had done and, more importantly, why she had done it.
She knew that to understand her own actions she had to go way back into her early life. That held the key to everything that had happened to her later. After the last two years of listening to psychiatrists repeatedly trying to find out the reason behind her crime, Susan finally understood why she had done what she had to Barry.
BOOK ONE 1960
‘Nothing begins, and nothing ends.
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in other’s pain,
And perish in our own.’
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in other’s pain,
And perish in our own.’
- Colley Cibber (
The Double Gallant
, 1707), 1671-1757
The Double Gallant
, 1707), 1671-1757
Chapter One
The girl opened her eyes. Sleep was sticky in them and she wiped it away with one small hand. She could hear her sister’s steady breathing, little muffled snores that reminded her of a puppy’s. The bed was warm and enveloping. She snuggled into her sister’s back, the two little bodies fitted together like a pair of spoons, and drifted back to sleep.
The crash woke them both.
Susan knew she had not been asleep long because her arm wasn’t dead yet and it usually was when she slept all night cuddled into her sister’s bony frame.
Their father’s shouting was reaching a crescendo.
Debbie giggled.
‘Silly old bastard! I wish he’d go to sleep.’
Susan laughed too.
The fight, which had been going on for two days, was because her mother had got a job in the local pub. Their father was convinced she was only working there because there was something funny going on between her and the landlord.
He was always convinced their mother was having an affair and usually he was right.
That was what made the two girls smile. Even at eight and nine they knew the score and it amazed them that their father hadn’t quite sussed it out yet. Their laughter stopped when they heard a loud slap, followed quickly by their mother’s heels clacking down the lino-covered passage.
‘You fat bastard! I’ll fucking knife you one of these days.’
‘Knifing, is it, eh? Always stabbing someone, you. Getting stabbed with that fucker’s prick is all you’re good for, lady.’
The battering was really starting now. They heard the thud as their mother’s head hit the wall and both girls winced.
‘You get up, Sue, I went last time.’
She sat up in bed and shook her head.
‘No way. He hates me, you know he does.’
A loud smashing noise told the girls the fight had moved into the small front room.
‘There goes the new lamp - that’ll send Muvver off her trolley.’
Debbie was right. June McNamara screamed at the top of her voice: ‘You fucker! You rotten bastard. Why must you always destroy everything?’
The fight was in full swing now and they knew their mother was holding her own. They could hear their father saying, ‘Give over, you stupid cow, for fuck’s sake.’
He was laughing now, and his laughter was infuriating his wife even more. Which was exactly what he wanted.
The girls sat up in bed, eyes wide.
They knew the next step would be Joey McNamara beginning the real hammering that would blacken his wife’s eyes and possibly break some bones.
Debbie leaped from the bed. At nine she was tall for her age and very pretty. In these scruffy surroundings she looked too beautiful for the life she lived. Opening the bedroom door gingerly, she stepped out into the hallway.
June was on the floor of the lounge, her face a bloody wreck. Her husband was leaning over her, his breath coming in deep gulps as he ripped clumps of hair from her head. Susan followed her sister nervously. They both breathed a deep sigh of relief as the police banged on the front door.
‘Come on, Joey. Open up, mate. We know you’re in there.’
Susan ran down the hallway and opened the door. Sergeant Simpson bowled in with two other uniforms, knocking the child out of their way. She watched as they pulled her father off her mother while he tried unsuccessfully to kick her in the head.
‘Calm down, man. You’re already nicked for a D and D. Do you want to add assaulting a police officer to that as well?’
‘She’s a whore . . . an old whore! Shagging the fucking landlord of the Victory now, if you don’t mind. And him as black as nookie’s fucking knockers. You bastard!’
Once more he tried to attack his wife.
‘Making a laughing stock of me she is, everyone knows about it.’
June vomited on to the orange and green shag-pile and one of the younger PCs heaved with her.
‘Come on, Joey, you’re on an overnight. It’ll all sort itself out in the morning. Sleep it off, lad, come on.’
He nodded then but as they walked him from the room he took back his booted foot and crashed the heel down on his wife’s hand.
June screamed. Getting rapidly up off the floor, she attacked him once more.
The two girls watched it all round-eyed.
Sergeant Simpson looked at Susan and shrugged.
‘Get your arse round your granny’s. Tell her the score and come back with her. Your mother needs to go to the Old London, he’s hammered her senseless.’
She nodded and went back into her bedroom. She pulled on her wellies and an old coat. Because she was heavier than Debbie and not as pretty she got all the shit jobs. Everyone always assumed she was the eldest too.
When she came out of the bedroom her mother was sitting on the sofa, nursing her injured hand, and Debbie had one arm around her shoulders trying to comfort her. Susan saw her mother shrug the arm off and sighed.
Debbie never learned to leave things well alone.
She slipped out of the front door into the coldness of the winter night and began the walk along Commercial Road to her grandmother’s.
It was four in the morning and Ivy McNamara was not going to be pleased to be dragged from her warm bed. Quite frankly Susan didn’t blame her.
Her feet were numb by the time she arrived at her granny’s and tapped on the front door gently. Hopping from foot to foot, she waited for the inevitable shriek.
‘Who’s that at this time of night?’
Susan didn’t like Granny McNamara. No one did. Ivy was a vindictive, mouthy old bitch - and that was what people said when they were being nice about her.
The front door was thrown open and she stood before her granddaughter in all her splendour. Bright yellow rollers surrounded her head like a crash helmet and her toothless mouth had spittle in its corners. She had lines of age and sleep in abundance and her hands were dirty claws, hygiene never being one of her virtues.
She was only fifty-seven years old.
‘Come on in then. You’re letting out all the heat!’
Susan followed her into her bedroom where Ivy pulled an old fur coat from the wardrobe and slipped it on.
‘Find me teeth, I can’t go without them.’
Susan looked around the bedroom until she saw the teeth in a glass by the bed.
‘Here you are, Gran.’
Ivy slipped the teeth into her mouth and immediately years dropped off that caved in face.
‘What’s happened now?’
‘The police took me dad. He was belting me mum.’
Ivy laughed loudly and broke wind at the same time.
‘Found out about her and the macaroon from the Victory, ’as he?’
Susan nodded.
‘Fucking whore she is! I don’t know why he married it, but he wouldn’t listen to me, would he? Oh, no. Had to have her - the biggest slapper this side of the water. You’ll rue the day you poked that, I told him. And he did.’
Susan went on to autopilot. Her granny ripped her mother to pieces regularly and she had heard it all before. As her grandmother ranted the girl stood by the bedroom door and watched her.
Ivy put on her stockings then a pair of socks and her fur-lined ankle boots. A large knitted hat finished off the ensemble. Picking up a huge black leather handbag stuffed with everything from old ration books to her children’s birth certificates and special offer vouchers, Ivy nodded to let her granddaughter know she was ready.
And without a warm drink, a decent jumper or a scarf, Susan walked all the way back home in the crippling cold of an icy London winter.
Back at the house Debbie was making tea. Their mother’s face was destroyed and both girls avoided looking at it. Granny McNamara immediately took over and that made them feel even worse. She gripped her daughter-in-law’s face tightly and moved it from side to side.
‘You’ll live. Though one of these days he’ll fucking do for you, and who could blame him? Everyone’s talking about you and that black mushy from the pub.’
The two little girls made faces at each other. Mr Omomuru, as they called him, was nice. He gave them lemonade and crisps and made them smile by telling them about Africa and his family.
Once the blood was washed away June’s face didn’t look so bad but it was still very battered. Getting up unsteadily, she walked to the mirror propped up on the windowsill and groaned.
‘That rotten bastard! Look what he’s done.’
Ivy laughed raucously.
‘Your soot won’t want to see you for a while - not with a boat like that. Anyway Joey will finish you when he gets back.’
She seemed to relish this thought and, fortified with tea and brandy, June turned to face her and shouted, ‘Bollocks to you, you dried up old bag!’
Her hand was swollen to three times its usual size. Emptying the bowl, Susan refilled it with icy cold water. Her mother plunged in her hand and sighed.
‘That feels better. Time you fucked off, ain’t it, Ivy? Or will you hang around for your darling son to be released and see the end of the drama?’
Ivy shut up. She knew when she’d pushed things too far. June was quite capable of slinging her out of the house so Ivy kept her own counsel for a while. There was no way she was missing her son’s return from prison; it would give her something to talk about at bingo.
‘You in, Junie?’
Maud Granger’s voice was loud as she walked into the tiny flat later that morning. She stepped into the kitchen and, seeing Ivy, nodded in her direction.
‘I seen the Old Bill taking him - it’s a fucking disgrace the way that man treats you. Look at the state of your face.’
June put the kettle on once more and winced as her hand throbbed.
‘He’ll be home soon, they normally kick him out about lunchtime, then it’ll all start again. He’s convinced I’m having an affair. As usual.’
‘And as usual you are,’ Ivy chipped in.
June turned to her and sighed heavily, trying hard to keep her temper. ‘I am not having an affair. If you must know he pays me, Ivy, and without the money I couldn’t survive as your darling son drinks anything that comes into this house. So now you fucking know, don’t you?’
June quickly wished she had not been so outspoken because her friend Maud’s mouth was like the Blackwall tunnel and that remark would be all over the estate by two o’clock.
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