Lucky Seven
Page 36
“You fucking little bitch.” He roared as he lunged for her again. “You need to be taught a lesson you will never forget.”
He pulled his belt from his trousers and she knew what was coming. He’d done this a couple of times. One time was when he had offered her to Liam and she was having a period which had apparently upset Liam. He had belted her that night, despite the fact Liam had still fucked her and slapped her around for making him feel so disgusting. Her thoughts were disturbed by the crack of the leather across her thighs and as she cowered, he hit her again, across her back, her shoulders, her arm, she wasn’t sure where he was hitting her now. She cried out and thought this had to stop and the police must be on their way.
Her thoughts briefly transferred to Jim and how he worshipped Lizzie and even Lenny cared about what Lizzie and Philip did. That was normal, they were proper dads, not this lunatic she had been unfortunate to have been sired by. She thought how mad Jim would be when he knew she’d come here. He had told her to stay away and to call the police if anything started. He had also said she shouldn’t put herself in danger to protect the others and here she was shrinking on the floor under his belt and fists. She had stopped crying and was trying to switch off completely.
Unsure how much time had passed, Tasha became aware of Lucy’s voice, “Tash, let the paramedics take a look at you.”
Tasha looked up from the floor and there were people everywhere; policemen, paramedics, Dan, Pippa, Lucy, her mum and Gerry.
“Hey, Princess. What the fuck has he done to you now? Lucy is right, you need to get checked out. I’ll come with you if you want,” Gerry offered as he crouched on the floor next to her.
She shook her head, numb and a little disorientated. “I’m fine, I just need to go home.”
“Miss, we will need a statement and your friends are right, you should see a doctor or at least let these lads check you out in the back of the ambulance,” said a uniformed officer.
Before she could reply, her mother interrupted, “No statements. This is a private matter and we have nothing to say.” She stared at Tasha and spat her next words, “In fact, I think you owe your father an apology. You need to get a solicitor down to the police station to get your father home, now.”
Tasha shook her head, only slightly disbelievingly then looked back at the policeman. “My sister is fifteen and my mother is as big a fuck up as my father, meaning I don’t think she is safe here, so until things are settled I’d like to take her home with me, if I’m able? And my brother too?”
He looked at Pippa and Dan who both looked petrified and horrified by the evening’s events and nodded. “Is that what you want?” he asked Pippa.
She simply nodded as Dan appeared to be holding her up.
“That should be fine, Miss. I will need to take your details.”
Tasha sent her siblings to gather some belongings and gave the police the necessary details, almost forgetting her mother was still there until she voiced her thoughts.
“I forbid it, Natasha. You have no right.”
Tasha cut her dead with a cold and stony glare before she spoke, slowly and calmly, “If you try and stand in my way over this I will make a full and frank statement to this lovely officer and I will contact a solicitor and a press agent and I will sell every dirty, sordid secret this house keeps. I will spend the money on shoes and bags and leave you and the bastard you allowed to do all of this to fend for yourselves and rot in hell. Are we clear?” Her mother didn’t look convinced until Tasha took a single step closer. “And for the record, it was you, you and him who had no right.”
Her mother said nothing.
“So, if you want a solicitor for our darling father then you get him one, but I will not be paying for it or anything else, ever again, with cash or any other currency,” she added as Pippa and Dan reappeared.
Lucy helped her out to the ambulance where Gerry joined them. “Tash, can I do anything?”
She shook her head, declining his offer of help but seeing his friendly and loving expression began to cry.
“Please let me come with you to the hospital,” he almost pleaded.
She shook her head again. It would be so easy, too easy to allow Gerry to be at her side, but it wasn’t his job anymore. She’d made it clear to him, they were done. His future was with Kara and their baby meaning she had to do this alone, or at least without Gerry. Also, the truth, that she realised at that very second was she wanted just one person at her side when hurt and vulnerable, Jim, and although he was thousands of miles away she had a feeling he’d come running if she told him. Not that she planned on telling him.
“Lucy, can you follow me to the hospital? I think my arm may need looking at,” she admitted, struggling to move her shoulder without being in agony. “Gerry, have my keys and take Dan and Pippa back to mine and stay with them until Lucy or I get home, please?”
He nodded, resigned to not escorting her in the ambulance. “Do you want me to let your boyfriend know what’s happened?”
Tasha laughed loudly and then winced as pain radiated through her upper body. “No, thank you. He is going to go ape shit as it is without my ex-boyfriend calling him. I will tell him, if I have to, and not a second before.”
Silence fell as her mother appeared with the policeman who took their details. With a single glare aimed at her daughter, Mrs Bailey spoke. “Natasha, you always wind him up and it wasn’t as bad as you think it was and you actually made it a whole lot worse.”
Tasha made no response as the ambulance doors closed with a heavy thud, making her jump before they travelled to the local A&E department together. With her temper building again, Tasha tried to bite her tongue, not wanting to rise to her mother’s words and ignorance, but she kept pushing.
“You know you wind him up and you are always going on at him. He has always tried his best—”
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up!”
The paramedic jumped at Tasha’s raised voice.
“I don’t want to hear it. You are a fucking disgrace and you and he deserve each other, but Dan, Pippa and I deserve so much more, we always did. I have more and now Pippa and Dan will too. I hate him. I have hated him for years, but I always somehow loved you, or at least made excuses for you, but no more. You are as bad as him and I hate you, too. Now, don’t speak to me again,” she spat and then her phone rang, ‘Viva Las Vegas’. With a sigh, she rejected the call.
“Elvis, eh?” smiled the paramedic.
Tasha offered a very weak smile before she replied. “Elvis singing, but crazy, over protective, control freak boyfriend calling.”
The paramedic laughed at her description, possibly even mistakenly thinking she was exaggerating. “Maybe you should let him know what’s going on. I’m sure he’d want to know.”
She didn’t doubt he’d want to know, expect to be told, but the truth was that once he knew he was going to flip out and his flipping out would only be exacerbated by the fact he was so far away.
“He’s in L.A. so it complicates things slightly. I’ll see him at the end of next week and am hoping to keep him in the dark about it, if I can.”
“I see, but if the press get wind of this, he will find out. I recognise you off the TV, sorry,” he said with a smile, a kind, if a little apologetic smile at potentially embarrassing her further with his knowledge of who and what she was.
“I’ll play it by ear then.”
While the paramedic checked the dressings on her face her phone bleeped causing a loud sigh to leave her mouth once she checked it.
Tasha was unsure just what she should and could say but made her best effort to deflect from the truth whilst calming his suspicious thoughts.
They arrived at A&E and Lucy was already there, waiting. Immediately, she took her free hand, scowling at the phone in her other hand.
“Jim,” explained Tasha. “He couldn’t get me so has text instead.”
“Have you told him?”
Tasha shook her head and explained her reasons for not doing so, including her fears, not for her own safety but of the potential fallout from Jim knowing what had gone on that evening. “He can’t see me like this.”
“If by knowing it means he’ll come over and beat the shit out of your father give me the phone and I’ll tell him.” Lucy sounded a little too serious for Tasha’s liking, but she smiled anyway and shook her head at her friend as she was taken straight into a cubicle in A&E where her phone beeped again.
He really was very good at sussing out when stuff wasn’t right or she was lying, even via text.
A nurse came in and did her obs then left again with the promise of a doctor being along shortly.
“Lucy, will you phone Angie for me and fill her in just in case this gets out, but tell her not to confirm anything. I can’t have Jim finding out about it through the press or rumours.”
Lucy nodded and went outside to call Angie.
Once alone, she replied to Jim’s message cautiously, still hoping to avoid him discovering the truth.
His reply was instant.
She sighed and suddenly felt very emotional. She was hurt physically and although she’d endured worse over the years these incidents still impacted emotionally, but it wasn’t that, not really. The truth was her threatened tears were tied up in Jim. As much as she wanted to avoid him knowing the details of her evening it really was inevitable that he’d discover each and every aspect of it. But what then? At what point would he decide Tasha and a relationship with her was going to be too hard, too much and cut his losses and move on.
Her tears were no longer a threat by the time Lucy returned. “Angie is on it and—oh Tash, look at you, you poor thing.” She pulled Tasha in for a hug, causing her to wince in pain.
Her phone rang again and as ‘Viva Las Vegas’ echoed around A&E she cried harder because she knew she had to answer it.
“Do you want me to speak to him?”
Tasha shook her head and answered as the ringing persisted.
“What is going on, Tasha? You’re being cryptic,” Jim said with only concern.
She wondered about the best way to deal with this and decided to go with only lies of omission that would still bite her, but less savagely than outright untruths.
“There’s been a bit of trouble at home. My dad has kicked off big style and hit my mum. She’s at the hospital and he’s been taken away by the police.” There was a slight wobble to her voice.
“Christ, Tasha, are you okay?” His concern had gone into overdrive at the possibilities of her father kicking off.
“Yeah, just a bit shaken. Gerry took Dan and Pippa back to mine, but I have a feeling this may come out in the tabloids.” She was ready to cry again.
Amazingly, Jim ignored the Gerry comment. “Have you contacted Angie? And your P.R. people? What about your legal people to secure a residency order for Pippa? What have the police said? Will your mom press charges? Is she badly hurt?”
She shook her head as she felt overwhelmed by all of his questions; very good questions she hadn’t even thought of. This is why he was rich and successful, because Mr Control Freak knew exactly what to do and who to contact.
“Tasha, baby, are you there?”
“Yes, sorry. Angie knows and is prepared, and she is my P.R. I don’t have legal people. I don’t know what the police have said and my mum is most unlikely to press charges and is a little bruised and bloody.” She rushed the words out, almost rambling whilst sniffing back tears that were desperate to fall.
“I will get you some P.R. and my legal people will contact someone over there. You need to make her see she has to press charges—”
The sight of the doctor appearing distracted Tasha from anything else Jim said. “I have to go the doctor is here.” She hung up.
“You okay?” asked Lucy.
She nodded, clearly anything but. “Mr Control Freak is going into overdrive.”
“You didn’t tell him you were hurt,” she said, stating the obvious.
“No. He would have MI5, the FBI and the CIA on the case.” She laughed despite the situation and pain it caused.
The doctor examined Tasha and diagnosed soft tissue damage, bruising, grazes and abrasions, but fortunately no broken bones. He prescribed some strong pain killers and said she could go home. Lucy looked hugely relieved and as they prepared to leave, her mother found them.
“You alright?” she asked her daughter with something resembling concern, but not quite.
“Not really, you?”
“Could have been worse and you know he doesn’t mean it—”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Mum, wake up. He is a pig, always has been and always will be. Are you pressing charges?” Tasha spoke with impatience. She simply needed her mother’s reply, hopefully the right reply because without it she really was done.
“No. He’s my husband. I have refused to make a statement.” Her voice carried something akin to pride.
“Then you are more stupid and deluded than I gave you credit for. He is your husband, but what about your children? Don’t we matter?” Tasha asked, ready to cry again, but not because she was hurting physically, more because she needed to know, to see a sign, even just a glimmer of one that her mother loved her and for once could and would put her first.
“I suppose, but he’s my husband,” she repeated.
“Then this conversation is over.” Tasha wasn’t just talking about today. Looking at Lucy she frowned. “Let’s go, Luce.”
****
They arrived home where Gerry greeted them at the door and began fussing around Tasha, to her irritation.
“Gerry, thanks for everything, but I think we are all just going to crash now,” she said firmly.
“If you need me to stay I can,” he offered.
“No, really, you’ve done enough, and I am very grateful, but I’m knackered and a bit woozy on drugs and it’s been a wild old night.” She laughed half-heartedly.
“Okay, but if you need anything just call.”
Gerry left and Pippa hugged her tightly, worried for her big sister. “Oh, Tash. I was so scared for you, are you really okay?”
“Yeah, just a bit bruised and battered, but I’m fine and this ends now. I won’t let either of you go back there. We will sort it out together, okay?”
Dan and Pippa both nodded.
“Right. Pippa, you and I will share my bed and Dan you get the sofa, but we will sort something more permanent out tomorrow. We can go and buy a bed and we’ll share my room.”
Dan hugged her. “I am sorry for letting him do this to you. I should have stopped him.”
“No, Dan, it’s our fucked-up father and mother who are to blame, not us. Although, I think Jim will blame me for going anywhere near him and not calling the police.” She hugged her brother a little more tightly.
Lucy smiled across at them. “You should call him back.”
Tasha nodded. She couldn’t put it off much longer. “I will call Grandma first and then Jim.”
She sent Pippa off to bed and called her grandmother, giving her a full account of the
evening’s events and promised to visit the following day and to keep her updated on any developments.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket Tasha saw it was almost midnight so selected the contact, ‘J office’ as she accepted the cup of tea Dan had made for her.
Amanda’s voice answered immediately, “Good afternoon, Mr Maybury’s office.”
“Amanda, it’s Tasha Winters.”
“Oh, hi Tasha, how are you?”
“Fine, thanks,” she lied. “Is Jim available?” She hoped she wasn’t interrupting him.
“He will be for you and it might cheer him up to hear from you,” the other woman laughed before adding, “sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Tasha knew her news was unlikely to cheer him up, quite the opposite.
“It’s fine,” she said reassuringly.
“Let me put you through.” And like that, she was through to him.
“Tasha, how are things?” Jim asked with a little caution, but mainly concern.
“Could be better.”
“I’ve got you a P.R. agent who’ll call you first thing in the morning and an attorney who will need some details but seems confident on securing a residency order for Pippa.”
“How? It’s midnight here?” She was in awe of his ability to sort things.
“My people know people and time is incidental, baby. You need P.R. and you need a legal team, so now you have them. Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked, somehow without actually offering her the option of not answering.
She explained about Dan’s frantic call and how she and Lucy had headed over there.
“You did call the police though, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Lucy did, but not until we were there.” She held her breath.
“I told you to call the police and not to put yourself in danger. Christ, Tasha, you are infuriating.”
She hadn’t been infuriating for a while and smiled a half-smile, knowing he cared enough to be infuriated by her.