by Mary Jaine
"C'mon, let's go Nicky, I need to rub your back; how's the Betamethasone cream helping? I saw a lot of the redness seems to be fading, does it still hurt much now?"
Nicky shrugged at the sudden twinge of pain as he thought about his injuries, about the mass of scar-tissue that was his back, raw scars inflicted by his psychopath father so many years earlier; his back had never really healed properly, never really stopped hurting, and it never would, but the pain had become so much a part of him now he barely noticed it.
"Back's fine, babe, and yeah, the itching along some of the major scars has died down; that was a good idea dad had, I think I'll stick with the cream, I think it's working."
Hand in hand, Nicky and Ashley, once upon a time brother and sister, now, husband and wife, parents, and part of a strong, solid, and deeply connected family, switched off the lights and TV, checked the windows and doors, and went to their bedroom, pausing only to look in on their two little girls, tuck them in and kiss them goodnight one more time.
*
Leon slumped down on the couch and glared at Nicky, while he tried to block out the sounds of mayhem as seven excited kids shrilled, gabbled, shrieked, and argued at the tops of their voices in the next room. Nicky grinned at him and saluted him semi-mockingly.
"Welcome to the wonderful world of childcare, Leon; how convinced are you about kids now?"
Leon grimaced at the thought, thinking of what Judy had to say, in-depth and at length, on the subject.
"Look, Nick, I know they're technically my nieces and nephews; one of them's even my sister-in-law, and I love them all like crazy, I love being 'Unka Leon', I love being Rachel's big brother too, truly, and I know how crazy Judy is about all of them, but I have to be honest; today they nearly drove me batshit; it was like trying to reason with a busload of lunatics; loud, angry, attention-deficit, sugar-rushed lunatics; if Ashley and Judy are planning to get me into 'Father-Mode', this was not the way to do it...!"
Nicky turned his head to hide his grin; he'd figured out during their excursion with the wild-bunch exactly what Judy was doing, aided and abetted by Ashley, so he decided to help it along a little.
"And yet you're still alive... Be honest, Lee, I don't think we did too badly, no broken bones, we arrived home with the right number of kids, all ours, too, no innocent bystanders killed in the cross-fire, I'd call that a win! Now, if we could manage seven wild things, how hard could it be to manage just one?"
Leon cocked a suspicious eye at him.
"Have you been talking to Judy again?" he demanded, "because I'm not ready for all...this...this...lunacy, not yet; I already put my foot down with Judy...!"
Nicky looked pityingly at him, trying to hide his grin.
"You. Put. Your. Foot. Down. With Judy, and yet you're still here, still alive, with all your bits still attached...you're either the bravest man alive or the biggest fool in Christendom..."
Leon backpedalled hastily.
"OK, what I meant was, I thought about putting my foot down, in fact, I very nearly did, but..."
Nicky grinned.
"Yeah, I thought so. Look, there are going to be times when you're wrong, and Jude's right; what you should have worked out by now is that's approximately one hundred percent of the time. Always remember one thing, and keep it top-of-mind; this is JUDY we're talking about here, your hyper-intelligent, adorable, smart-mouthed, darling wife, who is also my not too scrupulous little sister, a girl not exactly overburdened with old-fashioned ideas about right and wrong and how rewards and punishment work, and our family's very own vengeful Practitioner of The Dark Arts, with a brain like Einstein's evil twin and absolutely no compunction about using pain as an educational tool. Leave us not forget, YOU asked her to marry you, she spends her life surrounded by kids, it's what she wants once she's finished her internship and can make life-choices about either a residency or family, with you, and only you, you idiot, why is that a problem? Money's not an issue, so what's really the problem? Don't you love her?"
Leon opened his mouth to protest that of course he loved his wife, but just then Ashley poked her head around the door, her eye rolling and quick head gestures reminding Nicky that she wanted him to get Rick alone and talk to him. Leon watched the by-play with an amused grin. Ashley disappeared again, and Leon made as if to leave too.
"I see Ashley's been at you too about Rick," he observed. "Judy gave me the scoop yesterday; it seems she and Ash have been doing a little plotting, so good luck with that..."
Nicky pointed at him, staying him in his seat.
"I know where they're going with this; they both have some sort of need to fill-in some of the blanks, and they think Ricky needs to tell his story. I'm not convinced; if he's shutting down about it, he's probably got good reasons that have nothing to do with me and are none of my business; this is where you come in; I'm Ricky's big brother, true, but you're his oldest and closest friend, and Ashley and Judy obviously feel that counts for something; maybe he'll tell you stuff he can't or won't share with me...?"
Leon grimaced, shaking his head.
"You're right, Nick; Ricky is my friend, he's one of the best people I know, and that's exactly why I'm having no part of this; there are some things families share, there are some things friends share, and there are some things that should never be shared; some things should remain private, and this is one of those things; if Ricky hasn't shared this with any of us, it's because he doesn't want to, and I respect that. You're his big brother so you do it. Just leave me out of it."
Nicky grinned and bumped fists with him.
"Bingo, that's exactly what I told Ashley you'd say; now, perhaps, those two will let this whole thing drop; Ricky doesn't need us rummaging around inside his head, he's had enough to deal with."
Something made Leon look up, to see Ricky standing in the doorway, his eyebrow quirked in that exact same way Nicky did. As always, Leon was struck by how much Rick looked like Nicky; aside from the different hair and eye colours, they could almost do duty as doubles for each other, even though there was a more than four-year age gap; they had the same mannerisms, the same way of speaking, even the same taste in clothes and weird English foods. To cap it all, there was even a third, Bobby, who was like another dark-haired, grey-eyed carbon-copy of Nicky.
Nicky spun around, seeing Rick, and his expression.
"Rick, I'm sorry, it was just that..." he began, but Ricky waved him to silence.
"Guys, it's OK, really; I overheard Jude talking with Ashley, and just now...so, what do you want to know? I mean, there's nothing sinister in my past, if that's what you're worried about, no secret life as a contract-killer or Yakuza enforcer or anything like that, just me, so ask away; I know I never told you anything before, and it's funny, Yaz and I were talking just the other day about what we were going to tell the kids when they get a little older, about who we are and how we met, that whole 'Mummy, where did you meet Daddy?' thing, so perhaps now is as good a time as any."
He grinned, looking even more like Nicky.
"You better go get Ash and Judy, I know they're bursting to hear this, might as well let them in from the beginning, it's probably about time we all talked about this."
*
Ricky's Tale
My name is Richard (aka Ritchie or Ricky) Davies, the original teenage loudmouth loser. When I was seventeen, my whole world fell apart; for reasons I couldn't really comprehend at the time, my father was arrested, put on trial, and after two years of legal back-and-forth, extradited, and chucked in an American prison for what amounted to the rest of his life. Not content with doing that, the 'authorities' then decided that everything we owned was bought with the 'proceeds of criminal enterprise', that was the phrase they used, and came and took it all away to be auctioned-off, and the money they obtained from selling all our stuff went to compensate dad's 'victims', hah, and the Ministry of Justice for the time and expense involved in jailing my dad forever. The only reason we even kept the house was because dad had put it in a trust
for us the day he'd inherited it from his father or grandfather or uncle or something, so it couldn't be proved to be in that catch-all definition they'd used to take everything else.
If I sound a little bitter, it's because I was; they'd decided my dad was guilty of preposterous 'crimes against the United States' so they got to take him and incarcerate him in a federal prison somewhere thousands of miles from us, so we'd never see him again, and left us, my older brother Robert and I, in a shell of a home, with no money, no benefits, no state-aid, and no prospects, no hope, and no-one to turn to.
I did have an older brother, Nicky; he was getting on for five years older than me, but he doesn't really come into this; he sneaked away one night, where he went no-one knew or cared, and his pointless mother, Barbara, committed suicide in the house the next day; dad was furious, we had the cops traipsing in and out for days, muddying the carpets and asking stupid questions, like we cared; she'd killed herself, so what, why was it our problem? It wasn't like she was MY mother, after all, so why should I give a shit what she did to herself...?
That was how I thought back then, that's the kind of person I was, and that's why I think I would have won the 'World's Biggest Asshole' accolade hands down; I really was that loathsome, repulsive, uncaring, and disconnected; I have a lot to be punished for, a punishment I really managed to earn in a solid, heartfelt way, by virtue of who I was, what I was like, and how I thought, behaved, and believed. Bobby wants to have that crown for himself, he really believes he earned it, but all I'll concede on the point is that between us, as later events conspired to show both of us, if there had been an Oscar for 'Most Repulsive Little Shit of the Year', we'd have been fighting on stage over it.
I started with all this to tell you what I think of myself back then, because my life changed in one day, in the most amazing and soul-shattering way, and what came out of it is the life I have today, the people I have around me, and the family we all discovered, Bobby, Nicky, but most of all, me; Richard Brian Davies, former dickhead and spoiled, entitled, arrogant little brat, now and forever part of something so much bigger and better than anything I ever dreamed of.
So where to begin? I suppose Nicky would say "Begin at the beginning" but even now, all these years later, now that I have some perspective on things, I still don't really know where that is, so I'll just tell you how things went, and you make up your mind if I've got it all in.
*
After Nicky left, sneaking away in the middle of the night, as dad had claimed, and Barbara, Nicky's mother, had gone and hanged herself in the old Butler's Pantry, everything rapidly went downhill; a few weeks after Nicky did a runner, the sky fell in; people showed up with warrants and Court Orders and Repossession Orders and removed all kinds of things from the house, everything of value, even the furniture, rugs, and dinnerware; big serious men in serious suits backed-up by square-faced coppers with blank, impassive faces showed up and took dad away for questioning again and again, and all of dad's businesses were confiscated or suspended while he tried to fight the preposterous charges being levelled at him.
Through all of this, he did nothing but blame it on Nicky; I suppose if I had been a little older, or a little more considerate, or even inclined to think at all, I might have wondered how it could possibly be his fault; after all, dad gave Nicky nothing, did nothing for him, pretty much ignored him when he wasn't smacking him around, and treated him like the bastard at a family wedding ninety percent of the time; Nicky had nothing, and he certainly didn't have the kind of power and resources dad had, so how could he have brought all this about?
But I never once thought that; instead, I joined in wholeheartedly with dad and Bobby in hating Nicky for destroying our family, taking away everything we had, and subjecting us to the kind of scrutiny only reserved for criminals. The worst part, and the guilt and sin I will always bear in my heart, was that we rejoiced in Barbara's death, it actually made dad grin every time he told us how he'd found her hanging from the old pulley-hook in the butler's pantry, and we'd grin along with him, my father's two servile, fawning little sidekicks, prepared to believe unquestioningly anything bad about Nicky and his worthless mother, and rejoice in the fact they were out of our lives forever.
I don't know if there's a God, but if there is, one day I will have to stand before him and explain myself, and I can't, nothing excuses what I did, so all I can do is hope desperately that I will have done enough with my life to atone for the hurt and the harm my mean, gleefully spiteful, unthinking malice has caused, and that I've maybe earned the right to at least ask for the mercy I don't know that I'll ever deserve. I know Bobby feels the same way; perhaps one day our mother will forgive us for being what we were and take us to herself way she did her beloved Nicky, who wasn't even her son, but who loved her more than life itself.
*
After two long years of endless court hearings, dismissals, re-filings, and court appearance after court appearance, the Court of Appeal finally made the jaw-dropping decision that my dad had committed crimes against The United States of America, and could be handed over to the Federal authorities. We watched in helpless shock as they led my dad out of the court and straight to a prisoner transport to take him directly to Heathrow Airport, so he could be handed over and punished for his so-called crimes by a country notorious for ridiculously heavy-handed sentences. Watching him being led away in handcuffs was the hardest thing I'd ever had to endure, because I knew, I just knew, we were never going to see him again; he seemed to know it, too, because he never even looked-up to see us one last time as they led him away.
And now the hard slog began; Bobby and I had very little money, just two savings accounts dad had set-up for us that were haemorrhaging cash we desperately needed to stay alive. With no income, Bobby and I were sunk; if we wanted to eat, we were going to have to dig-in and start looking for work. We trudged miles following-up ads in local papers, in the Jobcentre, information boards in shop-windows and supermarkets, anything we could think of, but always there was nothing for teenage boys without any kind of qualifications; dad had had us home-schooled, but had never sent us for any public examinations, because he thought they were for losers; we were going to inherit his businesses and he didn't think we needed a piece of paper to take over from him, he'd decide how qualified we were.
Predictably enough, the job-market for teenage boys with no formal schooling was pretty limited. Bobby got lucky and landed a dogsbody, zero-hours contract job with the local council, meaning he only worked when they called him in, and only paid him minimum wage for the hours he did work, cutting grass verges and road-sweeping, a pointless, grinding, minimum-wage job with no prospects. I wasn't quite nineteen by then, and I couldn't find anything, so Bobby slogged away at his thankless job while I hung around the house wearing most of my clothes to keep warm, saving heat and hot water for when we really needed it, and just killed time until Bobby got home so I could light a fire to warm up a little and have someone to talk to.
Eventually, out of sheer boredom, I started rummaging through the house just to keep myself occupied, and make myself tired enough to sleep (and, in the winter, keep warm; we couldn't afford to keep the heating on, we could barely afford basic utilities like gas and electricity). The house was a huge, echoing barn of a place, built in the days when labour was cheap and everyone who could afford it wanted a mansion to overawe the neighbours with. There were six bedroom suites, each comprising large master bedroom, dressing-room/maid's room, and a bathroom, which used to have a high-backed cast-iron enamel bathtub and polished copper pipes everywhere. Those antique bathtubs were taken away, of course when the courts stripped the house for valuables for auction; they would command a high price from the interior designer, retro, and vintage stores.
I worked my way through the rooms, scavenging anything we could use, although there was precious little of that; anything too ramshackle or damaged was left behind, while all the good stuff was carted away. It was during one of these scavenging to
urs that I found a pile of boxes of dad's papers in one of the attics that had been returned as being 'of no evidential value' according to the Crown Prosecution Service labels slapped on them. I had nothing better to do, so eventually, sheer boredom drove me to rifle through them to see if there was anything interesting in there. At first it was just tedious and dull; store receipts for clothing, supermarket till receipts, Bobby's and my old exercise books, incomplete tax returns, letters and documents from his business associates full of wordy paragraphs about dull things, the kind of stuff that ends up in landfill.
One of those boxes turned up a few surprises, through; I kept coming across mention of an Ayesha Shahida, and increasingly, documents with her name and signature, and, finally, fragments of paperwork from a hospital in East London that hinted at the possibility that this Ayesha person had given birth around the time Bobby was born. That set me back on my heels; was this woman the mysterious 'mother' dad had always refused to discuss with us, or even allowed to be mentioned? Was she in fact Bobby and my mother? Barbara obviously wasn't our mother, she was Nicky's mother, but Nicky was older than us, so why did his mother live with us, while there was no sign of mine; was it possible this Ayesha person was more than just a name on a few pieces of paper?
The more I dug and waded through those boxes and boxes of paper, the more I became convinced Ayesha Shahida was somehow connected to Bobby and me. All I had was hints, and scraps of paper that individually didn't really say anything much, but put together they began to paint a picture of someone who had a long-standing, possibly even family connection, to dad, and Bobby and me.
I tried to involve Bobby in what I thought I'd found, but he wasn't interested; his life was taken up with being the breadwinner, and he was too busy being sunk in depression and nursing his anger to take any notice of anything I had to say.
Eventually, after wading through piles and piles of meaningless papers, I struck gold; a torn-up envelope addressed to 'Ayesha Shahida', in dad's handwriting, stamped but never used, for an address in Dalston, North-East London, in the London borough of Hackney. Finally, I had something, and once again I tried to involve Bobby; perhaps it would lead to this mysterious mother of ours who was never mentioned, or at least to someone who had a connection of some kind with my dad. So I made an executive decision, took (let's be honest: I stole it) the emergency fund Bobby had stashed under his bed, £200 in all (which I do feel guilty about even today, when so much has happened; it was all he had socked away for a rainy day) and headed out on my quest to find out who we really were.