The Manor

by Keane Jessie

  ‘Yeah?’ Charlie still wasn’t sure. He was thinking that it couldn’t be that easy, could it? And he was beginning to mistrust this smiling little bastard.

  ‘OK,’ said Saddam patiently. ‘Another route? We fly the product straight from the Rif to the Spanish provinces. Quiet places, small airfields. Easy.’

  Although it all sounded tempting, Charlie was still not convinced. Morocco gave him a bad feeling. He thought the souks and medinas were full of thieves and cutthroats and he couldn’t go into raptures about the beauty of the mountains. He was there to do business, that was all, not to go on the ruddy camel rides that dopey Beezer suggested. Fuck the camels. It wasn’t very long before he was regretting his rash plan to leave Terry at home and take Beezer out into the Moroccan wilds with him. Fucking place this was. It was hot and dry and somehow alien. But Saddam taught Charlie a lot about kif. He witnessed the whole process from the reaping, the pressing, the crushing and the oil-making.

  After the luxury of the Tangiers hotel, their trip out to Saddam’s home village was a shock. Him and his family of nervous, cowering women made Charlie and Beezer welcome. The food was foul. Sheep’s heads and stuff like that, revolting things. After they’d finally agreed a deal for a couple of tonnes, Charlie fell into a troubled sleep in Saddam’s fly-ridden, charmless little hut of a house, which was set in the middle of a slum area outside Ketama. Charlie couldn’t believe that people really lived like this, pissing in the gutters, dodging swarms of flesh-eating bugs and eating crap. He was uneasy about his poor surroundings. Worried about the way these people looked at him. He was carrying a large amount of money to seal the deal, and Saddam was looking less and less like the civilized, trustworthy acquaintance Charlie’d first met in London’s Mayfair, and more like a lowlife robbing bastard who would happily turn him over and keep the product for himself.

  At ten o’clock in the evening, Charlie gave in to his jittery feelings. He roused Beezer, who could sleep on a damned clothesline, the idiot, and was already snoring away peacefully while Charlie’s nerves were jangling at every slight sound he heard. Together they legged it out of the village and to a hotel up the road that refused locals entry. Then Charlie felt safe. He started chatting to the staff in the hotel about his contact, and the word was that Saddam was a bad lot and had probably been planning to rob Charlie and his companion and murder them in the night, so keeping both Charlie’s money and peddling the hashish on to the next unwary traveller.

  ‘Oh really?’ said Charlie, fuming.

  At four next morning, Charlie and Beezer returned to Saddam’s place and grabbed the thieving bastard. He cried and pleaded his innocence as Charlie told him all he’d heard.

  ‘No! I swear it’s not true!’

  ‘Fucking liar.’

  Together Charlie and Beezer dragged him out from the village, into the dunes. Beezer knocked Saddam down and then Charlie fell on him and grabbed his throat. Inch by inch, the light vanished from Saddam’s eyes as Charlie throttled him. Finally, he was still.

  Charlie stood up, still quivering with fury.

  ‘Cunt!’ he swore and kicked the corpse.

  They hid the body away, burying it deep in the sands. At nine o’clock that same morning, Charlie contacted one of the tribal elders Saddam had introduced him to, and he got his deal made. He paid up, and a taster pack of two hundred and fifty kilogrammes of prime kif was on its way back to England. Feeling glad to be still in one piece, Charlie gave Beezer the nod and they both headed home.

  27

  Nula was getting used to Charlie jetting off all over the world. She actually rather enjoyed his absence, it was peaceful. Charlie was like a whirlwind around the house; so noisy, so full of himself. While he was out in Morocco, Terry was in the big house with her, having stayed overnight at Charlie’s request.

  She came down to breakfast while the au pair – of course she had an au pair – saw to baby Milly, and there he was in white shirt and well-worn jeans, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow showing his muscular forearms fuzzed so fetchingly with blond hair.

  ‘Morning, Nula,’ he said. ‘You sleep well?’

  ‘Yeah. Fine, thanks.’ She always slept well when Charlie was away, and she never had to get up in the night with the baby, she let the au pair do that. Milly’s birth had kicked the crap out of her, but she was feeling much better now. It was going to be her last experience of all that and she knew Charlie was devastated. He did care for his daughter Milly but he craved a son. Terry would probably have a son one of these days. Jill – the sainted beautiful Jill – would give him one, without any effort at all. But it was beyond Nula, she couldn’t deliver more children, she was a rotten failure as a woman, and that ate at her, dug deep into her insecurities.

  ‘Coffee?’ Terry asked.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Terry poured her out a mug. ‘Sugar? Milk?’

  Nula shook her head. She was working herself up to something bold, something major, and now was the time to do it. Charlie was due back tomorrow. She was over the birth now, she felt fine. Fully functioning. Figure back to normal. Tits still looking good.

  She’d prepared for this, but now she felt nervous.

  Fortune favours the brave, she thought. Didn’t they say that?

  But now the moment had come, she wondered if she could go through with it. Yes, she’d planned this. She was wearing her sky-blue silk robe and she’d done her make-up, styled her hair. She’d checked herself out in the dressing room mirror before she’d come downstairs. She’d opened up the gap over her now quite spectacular breasts – she hadn’t breastfed Milly for an instant longer than completely necessary, no bloody way – then she’d fluffed up her hair, smiled at herself in the mirror. She looked good. Didn’t she?

  ‘Terry,’ she said, taking a sip of coffee.

  ‘Hm?’ He glanced up from the paper and his gorgeous green eyes met hers.

  ‘I’m going to say something to you. Just once. And if you don’t like the sound of it, that’s fine. If you do like it, that’s fine too and we’ll go ahead. But we won’t talk about it, ever again. It’ll be forgotten.’

  He was frowning at her. God, he was handsome. Charlie was not bad looking, but he was dark and short. Terry by contrast was tall as a Greek god. For years Nula had been fantasizing about him. Oh, her and Charlie had messed about with some of their other ‘friends’. But Terry was Charlie’s closest buddy, in a separate league to all those others.

  She remembered her arsehole of a brother saying that Terry had only taken pity on her that long-ago night in the dance hall. Maybe he had; but she was so changed now.

  ‘What I have to say is this,’ said Nula briskly. ‘Look. I’ve fancied you just about forever. So tonight, let’s sleep together. No strings, no commitment, it need never happen again. Just this once, OK? What do you say?’

  Terry said nothing. The silence was thick in the kitchen all of a sudden, stifling. Nula could feel her face burning, could hear her heart racing in her chest. Why didn’t he speak?

  Then Terry pushed his chair back and stood up, yanking his jacket from the back of it and slipping it on. He was breathing hard and when he looked at her his face was twisted with disgust.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he said tightly. ‘Charlie’s my best mate. You’re supposed to be his wife. I can’t believe you’d say something like that.’

  Nula stood up too, bile prickling in her gullet as anxiety tore at her. She’d misjudged things. Terry being polite to her as Mrs Charlie Stone didn’t translate into Terry fucking her. She could see that now. Terry, usually so even-tempered, looked furious. She tried a smile, a shrug, although inside she felt sick with humiliation.

  ‘As I said,’ she told him, ‘no problem. I’ve asked, you’ve said no. That’s good enough for me.’

  But it wasn’t good enough. Once again she felt like the awkward one, the fat big-nosed flat-chested cow in the communal changing rooms at school.

  Nula the loser.

&n
bsp; She could still hear the girls chanting that, laughing at her in her vest when they were all in starter bras. All the good-looking boys at school had been beyond her, way out of her league. Now, with Terry, nothing had changed. She was still the same girl. The same loser.

  ‘I’m going to check the grounds,’ he said, then went to the kitchen door.

  Everything was in lockdown these days. With the drugs game came the need for ever-increasing security. There were gates. Alarms. Heavy-looking blokes everywhere. Thinking of all that, Nula realized that she hadn’t felt truly safe in a long, long time. Sometimes she really wished they could step the whole thing back a gear. Expand the legit cover business, the furniture factories, and ditch the drug stuff. But this was Charlie. There was no chance of that ever happening, not while he drew breath.

  Suddenly Terry turned back and stabbed a finger in her direction. ‘We won’t talk about this again.’

  Then a horrible thought occurred to Nula. ‘You won’t tell Charlie?’ she said faintly. Now she really felt sick. Charlie would go ballistic, and that was a terrifying thought. Charlie in a rage was not a pretty sight.

  Oh Christ, I got this wrong . . .

  ‘Tell him what? That he’s married to a cheating cow? I don’t know, Nula. I really don’t know.’

  Then he was out of the door and gone.

  28

  Charlie realized he’d been lucky to get out of Morocco with his life. But now – thankfully – he had a new link made out there, with a more trustworthy connection, and shipments were coming into docks and airports with no trouble and the money was flowing freely from that direction at last.

  Now, with the Moroccan link set up, Charlie was looking to expand his manor even further. A Turkish deal soon followed; his manor was building up nicely. But he wasn’t done yet. He felt ready to go on and conquer the world. Colombia next. The big cartels. Maybe the Matias crew, the biggest of all. They were already sniffing around, looking for established firms to handle the British end of their operations.

  ‘Sky’s the limit,’ he told Nula when he eventually came home. Then he looked at her. She was pale, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘You OK, babe?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Nula, but she wasn’t.

  The truth was, Terry’s rejection had scorched her soul and she had been on tenterhooks ever since, waiting for him to tell Charlie, waiting for the whole thing to blow up in her face. Up to that point, she hadn’t realized how desperately she’d wanted him. Now, she knew. And now he knew, too. It was humiliating, being knocked back hard like that. It had rekindled all those feelings of failure and embarrassment she thought she’d left far behind her in her former life on the old manor. Now she was finding it nearly impossible to be civil to Terry, or Jill. She’d felt so bad that she’d gone to the doctor’s and he had given her some nerve pills when she broke down on him in the surgery.

  ‘Ah, you missed me, did you, doll?’ asked Charlie, grinning, pulling her in for a hug.

  ‘I told you,’ said Nula, shrugging him off. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Time of the month, is it?’ He rolled his eyes.

  Nula was about to say something cutting when the au pair came in with little Milly. Charlie was instantly all smiles, embracing his daughter.

  ‘Come to Dada,’ he said, scooping her up, throwing her into the air. He produced a small stuffed camel from inside his coat and Milly grabbed at it, smiling. ‘Dad’s been away on business. Mummy missed me, did you miss me?’

  Nula watched them together. Poor plain little Milly was the spit of her when she’d been a little girl. The kid was delighted with her father’s return and with the gift. Charlie always brought Milly back little treasures like this; flamenco dolls from Spain, even a voodoo doll from Haiti, which gave Nula the creeps: she’d burned that. She didn’t like the thought of the sinister thing sitting on a shelf in her daughter’s room. After half an hour, the au pair took the little girl away upstairs and Nula and Charlie were alone again.

  ‘You know what I reckon?’ he said.

  Nula shook her head. Maybe one of these days Terry would tell him what she’d proposed during his Morocco trip. And on that day, she was going to be in a shitload of trouble. Again, there was that feeling of sickness, of things spiralling out of her control, of the previously solid earth moving, swaying under her feet. The doctor had told her to join a club, do something physical. She hated the idea of that. She wasn’t sporty, or particularly sociable. He’d suggested she keep a journal, to express her feelings. She’d started doing that, pencilling in how she felt day by day, all that was happening around her.

  ‘I reckon you’re broody. All that stuff after you had Milly, realizing you couldn’t have any more kids, I think it hit you hard,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It hit you, too,’ Nula pointed out.

  ‘Yeah. I can’t lie, it did. But you know what? I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I think we should adopt. What do you reckon?’

  Nula looked at him. Christ, he was such a piece of work! Charlie Stone thought that anything could be overcome. Even a wife who couldn’t pop out sprogs any more.

  Adoption? It wasn’t something she’d considered. But if Charlie wanted more and this was the way to further secure her position – just in case Terry ever did spill the beans – then maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.

  ‘We’ll do it proper. A government adoption agency. It’ll all be kosher, I promise you,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

  And Charlie hugged her and kissed her, beaming with pleasure.

  ‘A little boy this time, yeah?’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ said Nula.

  29

  That same day, after Charlie had driven off to town, Nula went looking for Terry out by the garages. He was often there, tinkering with the cars. He loved engines; should have been a mechanic. Her hunch proved right: he was under the bonnet of an old Alfa Romeo. When Nula approached he straightened up, his face setting in stern lines as he wiped his oily hands on a rag.

  ‘All right?’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t tell him then,’ said Nula, moving closer.

  Terry stared at her. ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Why?’ Maybe he was protecting her; she liked the idea of that.

  ‘Because it would hurt him. And I don’t want that,’ said Terry.

  Nula felt deflated. Hurt. So he’d been thinking of protecting Charlie; not her. She took another step closer. They were alone under cover in the garage; no one was about around here today.

  ‘Neither of us want that,’ said Nula, watching him. She moved closer still. She was standing right beside him now. She could feel the heat coming off his body. She could smell the scent of his aftershave and the oil on his hands. The thought of those hands on her . . . !

  Without even thinking of what she was doing, Nula reached up and kissed him. She couldn’t help it. Her tongue licked his lips and nudged them open. Her hand went first to his muscular chest and then slipped down, down, until she found the length of his cock under the worn denim of his jeans. Her fingers groped lower, cupping his balls. Nula moaned, feeling heat rush through her, knowing – oh shit – that this for her was serious. That she actually loved him, that she always had. It wasn’t just the pull of sex. Terry was the better of the two men. Unlike Charlie, he did have some finer feelings.

  But as quickly as she had kissed him, touched him, Terry stepped back, shoving her away.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he burst out, wiping his mouth.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I . . .’ Nula was holding her hands up, trying to apologize. In the heat of the moment, she’d done what she’d always wanted to do.

  Terry looked disgusted. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

  Nula dragged her hands through her hair. She was blushing with shame. He’d knocked her back last time, but this time was worse.

  ‘You won’t tell him?’ she asked urgently. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I
didn’t mean to do that.’

  Terry’s face was red with rage. ‘Piss off, Nula,’ he spat out. ‘Just piss off out of it before I do something I bloody well shouldn’t, all right?’

  Nula didn’t argue. Trembling with embarrassment and hurt, she left the garage and went back up to the house.

  30

  ‘What’s up with you, honey?’ Jill asked Terry while they sat in the kitchen over breakfast. He’d been quiet the last few days, not himself. He’d changed somehow. That worried her, set her on edge. Their lovely little daughter, five-year-old Belle, was zooming up and down the hallway in the toy pedal car she had nearly outgrown now, blonde hair flying, making honking noises, giving them grinning flashes as she zipped past the open door.

  Jill watched her daughter with proud exasperation. Belle was a spectacular child in every way. Super-bright and pretty. Milly, who had quickly become Belle’s little playmate, was running right there alongside her, laughing and yelling encouragement. Milly – and this was surprising, given that she had come from the loins of Charlie Stone – was a sweet little thing, much quieter than Belle, no trouble at all. Jill watched as Belle screeched to a halt and let Milly clamber into the driver’s seat; then she pushed her little friend along to pick up speed.

  Terry took a sip of coffee. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said to his wife.

  ‘Look, Daddy, look!’ shouted Belle as both girls went shooting past their eyeline once again.

  ‘That’s great, darlin’,’ said Terry absently to his daughter.

  Jill looked at him, her big handsome husband. So solid, so dependable. Their rise through poverty to comfort to luxury had been almost too fast for any proper adjustment to be made. For quite a while she had felt that Terry was growing uneasy. Well, damn it. She was too. She was still a poor kid at heart, just like Terry was. They had risen on the tail of Charlie Stone’s bright comet, shooting heavenwards in his wake. It made Jill nervous.