Kitabı oku: «The Family», sayfa 2

TWO

‘I did feel a right fool, fainting like that.’

‘All things considered, it’s lucky you didn’t have a bleedin’ heart attack,’ Tilly returned forcefully. ‘Or me, fer that matter,’ she continued in a mutter. Slanting a look at her daughter, she poured her a cup of tea then pulled out a chair opposite her at the table. A silence settled on the two women as they brooded on their own thoughts, elbows on the splintered tabletop, cups cradled in their palms.

A few days had passed since Stevie’s wedding reception had been ruined by Jimmy Wild’s reappearance in the land of the living. The party had broken up after the commotion, despite the newly wed couple’s half-hearted attempt to persuade people to jolly up and stay a while longer. The bride’s parents had been the first to leave. Mr and Mrs Plummer had scrambled to collect their coats and fled, relatives in tow. Tilly had felt like telling them that their daughter had a bun in the oven, just to wipe the contempt from their faces. But by then everyone had had enough. The festive atmosphere had vanished. The immediate family had been too preoccupied with the turbulent emotions and memories stirred up by Jimmy’s resurfacing; the guests couldn’t wait to get out and spread the gossip. Even for this neighbourhood, where calamity and drama were regular visitors, this was sensational news.

Tilly and Alice had not seen each other since that evening. Once Alice had revived from her faint, Robert had insisted on taking Alice, Josh and little Lilian home in his car. Today it was business as usual for those in employment, but Alice had taken a day off from her job as a charwoman. Abandoning her usual routine of taking Lilian with her to clients’ houses, she had set out early and dropped her daughter off with her mother-in-law to be looked after for an hour or two whilst she visited Tilly. Normally she would have walked, but today she had caught the bus from Wood Green to Islington. There was an urgency about this visit that justified the fare being spent.

‘He was dead!’ Alice whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘He was dead, wasn’t he, Mum?’ she pleaded. ‘All that blood …’ Her voice tailed off.

‘Seems he wasn’t. He must’ve just been knocked unconscious after yer aunt Fran whacked him with that iron pot …’ Tilly shuddered. ‘Did you notice that dent in his cheek?’ She clamped her lips together. ‘No point in going over it now. I put it out me mind years ago and it’s staying out.’

‘Should we tell Rob and Steve what actually went on?’ Alice asked with an apprehensive glance at her mother. ‘I know we’ve never lied, rather just avoided the subject, but …’

‘No!’ Tilly harshly interrupted. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie where they’re concerned. No point in upsetting them more’n they are already. If they’re interested in knowing where he’s been, or why he disappeared, they’ll have to ask Jimmy for answers.’

‘Will he tell them the truth, d’you reckon?’

‘If he does, it’ll be the first time in his miserable life,’ Tilly grimly replied. She pursed her lips. ‘He won’t want his sons, or anybody else for that matter, knowing he went on a rampage that night and we managed to turn the tables on him.’ Matilda slid a look up at Alice. ‘What did Josh have to say about it all?’

Alice shook her head in despair. ‘He doesn’t know what to think or to say, same as me.’ Her dark eyes seemed huge in her pale face as she gazed at Tilly. She knew that the same dark thoughts and secrets were circling in both their minds, but that didn’t make it any easier to speak about it. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Geoff. He was too young to fight, but he went to war anyway because of Jimmy’s wickedness. He died thinking he’d killed him.’ Tears of frustration glistened in Alice’s eyes as she remembered the strong, handsome youth she’d considered to be her best friend a decade ago.

Geoff had saved her from being molested by her uncle and, during a vicious fight, and in self-defence, had stabbed Jimmy with his own knife. On that dreadful night she’d been out with Geoff and had returned home to discover her monster of an uncle battering and attempting to rape her mother. She’d never forget the sickening sight of her mum’s bloodied face, or Jimmy’s penis poking out of his dirty underclothes as he loomed over Tilly sprawled, semi-conscious, on the floor. Alice knew that harrowing scene would remain in her memory until she died. When she tried to flee to get help, Jimmy had turned his attention on her, forcing her down on to the bed. With her mother too badly injured to protect her, it had been sheer good luck that Geoff was still close by and had heard her scream. He’d raced to her aid, and in doing so had forfeited his life.

There wasn’t a day went by that she didn’t devote private minutes to Geoff’s memory. Why would she not, when he’d sacrificed everything for her?

When she’d been growing up in Campbell Road the Lovat family had lived next door. Her big sister Sophy had married Danny Lovat, the eldest child of Bert and Margaret Lovat. The Lovats were still Tilly’s neighbours although they’d moved to the better end of Campbell Road where they’d got more room for their brood, most of whom still lived at home. The Lovats had been guests at Stevie’s wedding and had been as flabbergasted as everyone else to discover that Jimmy Wild was not dead.

But Bert and Margaret were not among the handful of people who knew why Jimmy had suddenly vanished from The Bunk. They would not have understood why his turning up alive was so devastating for Matilda and Alice. And they certainly had no idea that their son’s abrupt decision to go to war had been prompted by his role in Jimmy’s disappearance. At eighteen, Geoff had perished fighting in Flanders, as had Alice’s father.

‘Damn shame the swine ain’t dead.’ Tilly’s mouth pressed into a hard line. ‘Still, it don’t matter. Alive, dead – he’s nothing to us now. He can crawl back under his stone and stay there. I’m just glad yer Aunt Fran ain’t here to see the day.’

Tilly fingered her healing lip. She didn’t bear a grudge against Jimmy’s other half for clumping her. If the woman hadn’t been with him for long she might not know better than to stick up for the evil git. It had taken her sister Fran fifteen years to finally turn her back on him. This new woman had shown her loyalty in public, but what went on behind their closed doors was anybody’s guess. Tilly could guess. She knew Jimmy Wild would never change.

‘That poor cow he’s got in tow don’t know what she’s let herself in for. There’s plenty of people round here could tell her her fortune if she sticks with him.’ She grunted a sour laugh. ‘Nellie’ll give her a piece of advice,’ she said, mentioning one of Jimmy’s fancy women. Nellie Tucker had been a looker in her time and choosy in her punters, but now she’d grown blowsy and turned tuppenny tricks for drunks coming out of pubs. Tilly reckoned that every woman who came into contact with Jimmy Wild would be degraded by the experience. She’d fought hard to prevent it happening to her.

A knock on the door brought Tilly’s reflections to an end and her on to her feet. ‘Not expecting anyone.’ She frowned at Alice, pushing her chair back from the table.

A neighbour, who’d had rooms in a house across the street for almost as long as Alice could remember, barged in before Tilly had the door properly open. Obviously Beattie Evans was bursting with news she wanted to get off her chest.

‘Ain’t sure how to tell you this, Til,’ the woman wheezed out. It was always Beattie’s way to draw out a drama if she could.

‘Straight out’ll do,’ Tilly responded flatly, planting her hands on her hips.

‘First off, I just seen Lou Perkins. She’s back from Kent and ain’t pleased to know Jimmy’s arrived here before her. She reckoned she’d be the one breaking the news about him not being dead, ‘cos she ran in to him in Dartford market.’

‘That it?’ Tilly barked.

Beattie shook her head. ‘Jimmy and his woman are moving in up the road.’

Beattie had been expecting a fiery response to her news, but even so she jumped back in surprise at the force of it.

‘What?’ Tilly roared. ‘Where? What number?’ She was already rolling up her sleeves. ‘If he thinks he can rub our noses in this, he can bleedin’ think again.’

‘Mum! Don’t!’ Alice shot up from the table to position herself between her mother and the door, blocking her way.

‘He ain’t moving back to Campbell Road!’ Tilly thundered, swinging around to slam a fist on the table and send the cups crashing over. ‘Ain’t havin’ the bastard livin’ near me after what’s gone on. I’ll swing fer him, so help me Gawd. If he weren’t dead before, he soon will be.’

Robert Wild was of the same opinion as his aunt about Jimmy returning to his old stamping ground. Not that Robert lived in Campbell Road any more. For fifteen months he’d been renting a smart townhouse in Tufnell Park and kept his new Sunbeam Tourer parked on a side driveway that used to lead to stables. His ambition was to buy the freehold of the property. But for now he was content to use his profits to expand the businesses he already had, and to invest in more. Robert had a wily head on his shoulders and knew acting flash with his cash could jeopardise his plans for his future security. He was twenty-three and intended to retire a millionaire when he was thirty-five. His only real luxuries were his house, his car, and a few decent suits. He had justified those purchases with the logic that an appearance of modest affluence was necessary when negotiating with people who had more money and experience than he did. Young he may be, but he was careful never to present himself as a chancer, or a threat. He knew he was a match for any of them. He also knew it was too soon to let them become aware of the fact.

He had bought property, but none that he’d consider residing in himself. He was the landlord of a shop in Queensland Road and three tenements in Campbell Road. He also had a nicer house in Playford Road, where his brother and sister-in-law now lived rent-free on the ground floor. He’d picked them up as a job lot for refurbishment three years back. Solly, who’d owned the secondhand shop in Queensland Road, had wanted to quickly offload all his premises and retire to the coast before the cancer eating away at his insides finished its work.

Robert had been twenty at the time. He’d used every penny he’d scrimped and saved from working his market stalls for six years to do the deal behind the back of old Mr Keane, who liked to think he was the wheeler-dealer landlord in Campbell Bunk. The sulky old git hadn’t spoken to him since even though Robert had been at pains not to rub his nose in it because you never knew who you might need on side.

The deal had been struck with Solly because the old Jew liked him, and remembered a promise he’d made years before. When Rob had been at school he’d often run errands for Solly, and he’d done a bit of lifting and carrying the old boy couldn’t manage to do himself. Solly had never paid him; at the time he was a regular tight-fist, but he’d always told Rob he’d see him all right one day. And he’d been true to his word. Rob knew Solly could have got a better price for his properties from old man Keane, but he’d let him have them for what he could afford to pay. It had been the turning point in his career; from that point on he’d been resented and courted in equal measure. In the estimation of most of the folk in these parts, Rob Wild had hit the big time when he took on Solly’s stock.

He had three men working for him, but Stevie was the only one of his employees he trusted to collect the rents from his tenants in Campbell Road. Today he had taken on the task himself as Stevie and a few of the boys were picking up a shipment of market stock.

He had just stopped to scrape the sole of his shoe on the kerb, having stepped in some slimy cabbage stalks in the hallway of one of his properties, when he looked up and saw Jimmy carrying sacks of possessions into a house a few doors down from the intersection with Paddington Street.

Robert’s lips whitened over his teeth as he spat out a curse. He sprinted across the road and, grabbing his father by the shoulder, viciously spun him against the iron railings. ‘No yer don’t.’ He thrust his face up close to Jimmy’s concave, unshaven cheek. ‘Wherever it was you’ve been hiding yerself all these years, you can piss off back there. I told you, you’re not wanted round here.’

With a strength that belied his grizzled appearance, Jimmy pulled out of his son’s grip. ‘You don’t own this house, Bobbie,’ Jimmy sneered. ‘I made sure of that.’ He didn’t look or sound so complaisant today. ‘Old man Keane’s still got this one, so you can’t put me out. I’ll live where I want. And I want right here.’ He smiled slyly. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to yer aunt Til again. She’ll like that.’ A private joke caused him to smirk. He turned his head towards the junction with Seven Sisters Road where the Keivers had rooms. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to Stevie ’n’ all. Lives just around the corner in Playford Road now, don’t he?’ He started to gather up his belongings and move again towards the door-less portal, beyond which was darkness and a stink of decay.

Robert took hold of his father’s shirt collar and hauled him backwards. He pushed him stumbling into the gutter and threw the bags he’d dropped after him. A few old clothes spewed on to the pavement as one of the bags gaped open.

‘What’s goin’ on?’ Edie’s cry reached the two men as a faint wail. She had been proceeding down the road some way behind Jimmy. They’d turned the corner from Seven Sisters together but being relatively unencumbered, he had managed to pull away from her. With one hand Edie was pushing a pram filled to the brim with utensils; the other hand gripped the wrist of a small boy. The child was whimpering and dragging her back because his little legs couldn’t keep up with her faster pace. Behind them, and obviously part of the family, trailed an older boy who looked to be about ten years old and a young woman. Both were carrying boxes. Although the girl was some years older than her brother the resemblance between them was striking. Both had fair complexions and thick blonde hair and eyes of a deep blue.

Seeing Jimmy on his knees, scrabbling with his clothes, Edie started to jog, pulling the toddler with her and making him cry. Despite her spindly limbs she put on a spurt that belied her frail appearance. The creases in her complexion deepened with her determination to find out what was going on. As the toddler stumbled to his knees she let go of his hand and rushed on, the pram bouncing in front of her, and one of her hands batting back pots trembling precariously close to the sides. The young woman immediately dropped her box and went to tend to the whimpering infant. The older boy shuffled close by, obviously preferring to wait for his big sister to accompany him into unknown territory.

If Robert had not been so het up at the sight of his father on Campbell Road he might sooner have spotted Edie and the children trailing in her wake. Having digested the scene he turned back. ‘If you’ve knocked that lot out,’ he snarled at his father, ‘you must’ve started with that old bag before Mum was dead.’ His eyes were redrawn to the young woman who was crouched by the sobbing child and dabbing at his grazed knee with a handkerchief. Robert guessed she was in her late teens. ‘In fact, I’d say you must’ve been at it before we was hanging out the flags believing you was gone for good. Seems we were wrong about everything. We all thought Nellie Tucker was your tart.’

‘Can’t help being popular with the ladies, can I?’ Jimmy grunted a chuckle, still stuffing clothes back into the bag. He seemed unflustered by his son’s rough handling.

‘No lady would have anything to do with you. No wonder we never had a decent meal inside us as kids. You’d have spent yer last fucking farthing keeping yer cock happy rather than us, wouldn’t you?’

Jimmy sprung up, surprisingly agile all of a sudden, his eyes narrow slits in his puffy, sallow face. ‘You want to learn a bit of respect. Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m still yer father and can give you a wallop, y’know.’

‘Don’t I just wish you’d try,’ Robert returned softly. ‘’Cos I’m itching for an excuse to lay you out … just like you did to all of us.’

Jimmy slanted a look up the road. His scrawny wife was still haring towards him behind the bouncing pram.

‘Edie’s,’ Jimmy said succinctly, ignoring the reference to the brutality he’d dealt out to his first family. ‘All of ’em stepkids.’ Noting the direction of his son’s steady gaze, he pursed his mouth before a shrewd smile skewed a corner of it. ‘Well, I never … something about me yer like after all, eh, son?’ he taunted. A glance slew to his stepdaughter.

Faye was petite, like her mother, but there all similarity ended. Edie was shrunken and shapeless, and her once-fair hair had turned to an unattractive salt-and-pepper hue. Faye’s body was curvaceous and her shiny golden hair framed an extraordinarily pretty face. Jimmy liked to think he was a bit of a connoisseur when it came to women. He also liked to think that he appreciated the value of female allure. He’d been Nellie Tucker’s pimp for some while, and they’d both profited from it. He reckoned touting the services of a cheap whore from a damp room justified his arrogance.

With his bags in his fists he pushed past Robert and entered the gloomy hallway of his new home, chuckling beneath his breath. His laughter increased when Robert made no move to stop him this time. But he wasn’t feeling as smug as he’d sounded. Lou Perkins had recognised him in Dartford market and told him his eldest boy was flush with money. Jimmy had come to see for himself and work out a way he might benefit from an upturn in the Wild fortunes. He’d known his reappearance would cause a rumpus at first, but had counted on persuading his sons they should be pleased to have one of their parents still alive. Jimmy reckoned he’d manage to bring Stevie round to that way of thinking, but Stevie wasn’t the one holding the purse strings. Bobbie had the cash, and he was extremely hostile.

Edie’s face was scarlet as she skidded to a halt by Robert. Her lips, customarily puckered as though she was sucking on an invisible cigarette, suddenly sprang apart and words came tumbling out of them. ‘So, it’s you. Thought it were the other one, ’cos Jimmy told me he comes down here collecting the rents. Thought you were Stephen. Just leave us be. We need somewhere to live, same as other folk. You don’t interfere with us, we don’t interfere with you.’ She turned and, having drawn in a lungful of air, yelled at the boy who was closest, ‘Get in there and lend a hand to your dad.’

Casting a wary sideways look up at Robert, she manoeuvred the pram past the obstacle of his body, bumped it over the threshold of the house and started to unload it on to bare boards.

The toddler, obviously over his mishap, came tearing down the road at such a pace that it looked as though his momentum would send him hurtling past his destination or falling on to his face. At the last moment he saved himself by clinging to Robert’s shins for support, offering up a shy smile before he scrambled on into the house. His older brother gave Robert a suspicious look before ducking his face behind his box and following on. Robert could hear their mother giving instructions to the boys on what to carry up the stairs. From those bawled commands Robert learned that one boy was named Michael and the other Adam. He wasn’t interested enough to peer in to discover which face went with which name. But he was interested in the girl coming towards him. And she knew it, and was battling not to look uneasy because of it.

Having tilted up her chin and waited for Robert to move out of the way, the young woman turned sideways with her box to try to edge past him, muttering beneath her breath. He moved to block her path. Flicking her head aside in irritation, she stepped the other way to avoid him, her expression bored.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘’Course I know,’ she said impatiently, setting her box down. ‘You’re one of his sons, me mum told me. She saw you just after we turned the corner and said there’d be trouble.’ She glowered at him with large blue eyes. ‘Are you going to get out of the way so I can go inside?’

‘Yeah … in a minute …’

‘Me mum told me you wouldn’t let them have a drink at your wedding reception and a ruckus started because of it. Tight-fisted git, are you, as well as having no manners?’ With that she again picked up her box and glared at him to move.

‘Well, if you’d’ve come along to the Duke that night, perhaps I might’ve thought twice about getting a round in,’ Robert said. ‘Or perhaps you’re too young to have a drink?’

She blushed, but not because his subtle flattery pleased her, rather because he thought her a kid. ‘Why don’t you get off home to your wife so’s I can get in there and give a hand before your father turns nasty.’ She freed some fingers from beneath the box to give his arm a shove. Although her hand bounced off muscle, Robert relented and moved his fist from where it had enclosed a railing, effectively barring her entry.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Faye! Get in here now and help, will you.’ Edie’s screech emerged from the bowels of the house.

The young woman gave him a sour look and took a step forward, trying to shake off his grip, which had transferred from the railing to her wrist.

‘What’s your name?’ Robert asked again.

‘You deaf as well as all the rest?’ she cried out, yanking her arm free with such force that she dropped her box in the process. Cutlery and china scattered on the floor drawing a gasp of dismay from her. The ground was littered with blue-and-white shards that looked to have been a full tea service a moment ago, and not a bad one at that.

‘All of your name … Faye …?’ Robert insisted, idly scraping the debris to one side of the doorway with his foot.

‘Greaves,’ she shouted in exasperation. ‘Faye Greaves! Look what you’ve done! Now what we gonna do? Can’t even have a cup of tea – that’ll set him off for sure.’

A note of real distress had entered her voice and Robert could guess why. His father now had an excuse to vent his anger on somebody. He wondered whether Edie Greaves would have the backbone to stand up to him and whack him back. Was she like his aunt or his mother? He’d seen Tilly knock Jimmy bandy for giving her sister a split lip. Rob reckoned Edie was more like his mother: she’d quake, but take the bruises so that her kids might escape the old man’s fists. Then there’d be other times when, too ground down to resist, she’d pretend not to hear the sound of a leather belt cutting through the air, or the whimpers that went on all night.

He picked up the box and gave it to her. Then in a single scoop he collected the undamaged cutlery and chucked it in. He drew out a five-pound note and let it fall in as well. ‘Should cover it,’ he said. With that he walked off before Faye had a chance to recover sufficiently from his astonishing generosity to comment on it.

‘Want a lift home?’

Alice had been walking with her head down, deep in thought, when she heard that tempting offer. ‘No, it’s all right, Rob,’ she declined with a smile. ‘It’s kind of you, but I bet you’re too busy to be running me about.’

‘Nah … I’ve got a bit of business Wood Green way in any case. Where’s Lilian?’

‘Josh’s mum’s looking after her.’ Alice knew that his question about her daughter’s whereabouts was just a way of avoiding talk of Jimmy. She wished she could cast the horrible spectre of her uncle out of their minds and out of this neighbourhood. ‘I wish Jimmy hadn’t turned up out of the blue like that,’ Alice blurted. ‘After all this time, it gave us such a turn.’

She watched for her cousin’s reaction. Jimmy’s disappearance had always been a taboo subject. Bobbie and Stevie must have realised a vicious argument had taken place between their parents just before Jimmy vanished. Their mother had been in a terrible state the morning after the fight, as had their Aunt Tilly. But the boys had grown used to seeing Fran Wild laid up after a beating from her husband. And if they’d suspected Tilly had come by her injuries in an unsuccessful attempt to protect her sister, they’d kept it to themselves. By that time, their parents had been separated for some years, following Jimmy walking out to shack up with Nellie Tucker. But it had been his habit to come back on odd visits … usually when he was on the scrounge.

With a little shudder, Alice recalled the surprise visit from the police that had unnerved them just as they were struggling to get back to normal after that dreadful night. A body had been found floating in the Thames that’d had a similar tattoo to the one Jimmy sported on his left arm. As Jimmy Wild hadn’t been seen in a while the police had put two and two together. Luckily, on the day of that shocking news, her cousins had been out so had not overheard talk of a headless corpse.

A couple of months later, when Robert realised his father’s absence had been lengthier than usual, Alice had been present when he questioned his mother over it. Her aunt’s mumbled response that Jimmy had probably gone to France to do his duty, and not before time, had seemed to satisfy the boys. For the first time in their young lives they’d probably believed they had a reason to feel proud of him.

But neither of her cousins had spoken much about him and not once had Alice heard them bemoan the loss of their father. However they’d been distraught to lose their mum eight years ago during the flu epidemic that had decimated the population. An abrupt question from Robert put an end to her melancholy reflection.

‘Did you know Jimmy’s moved in up the road?’ He took Alice’s elbow and steered her towards his car, which was parked close to the junction with Seven Sisters Road.

Alice nodded and let out a dejected sigh. ‘Old Beattie came in and gave us the news. Mum’s gone mad. I told her to ignore him. I bet she doesn’t. I bet she’ll be up the road after him as soon as she’s had a few …’ She tailed off. As soon as her mother hit the whiskey she’d get reckless and belligerent. Rob knew as well as she did what Tilly was like. Their two families had lived cheek by jowl for too long not to know each other’s habits. ‘Glad I’m not living round here now,’ Alice said vehemently. ‘Bet you are, too …’

‘Yeah … But not because of him. He’s not going to affect my life ever again. I won’t let him.’ Rob opened the car door and helped Alice in, then tossed a coin to the young lad who’d been charged with keeping an eye on the vehicle while he went about his business. Despite Rob’s reputation as a hound you didn’t mess with, some of the local lads were sufficiently desperate to risk the consequences and try to steal the hubcaps or anything else they could prise free and sell.