Faces

by Martina Cole

  This day had been all she had thought about for weeks, all she had cared about, and all she had talked about. Gordon, like Michael, had known how much this wedding had meant to her, how much she depended upon its success so her marriage could start off on the right foot. Gordon, more than any of them, knew how much she had depended on her family’s cooperation, to not only ensure the day went off without a hitch, but also to guarantee that there would not be any embarrassing moments. Now he was the instigator of his sister’s humiliation and it wasn’t fair.

  She had planned this day down to the last detail and, now that it was finally here, now that she was legally married and her life more or less sewn up, it was on the point of imploding because of a few choice words uttered by her little brother with a drunken arrogance and fatal finality that she knew was going to make her fall from grace all the more spectacular. That her little brother was the one who was showing her up in front of her friends, at least her new husband’s friends, was harder to bear than anything he was saying about her. That he was so obviously enjoying his ruination of her big day was hard for her to comprehend. She couldn’t ever imagine herself doing something so heinous, so hateful to her own family. But why would she hurt him, after all, she loved him.

  She felt the sting of tears at the enormity of his betrayal, and blinked them away angrily. Then she whispered in his ear brokenly, ‘Shut your fucking mouth, Gordon. Who do you think you are?’

  She looked into the face so like her own and marvelled once more at how he could hurt her like this, could enjoy the spiteful words, as if she was his worst enemy. How could he enjoy making her feel so bad about her lousy family on the biggest, most important day of her life. He always made a point of targeting her, making her feel like nothing. She knew it was because he could, because he knew he would always be a nothing, a no one, and that was why he felt such joy when he hurt her like this. He borrowed money from her, and used her when he needed anything, and he resented her for that, for her generosity. Instead of feeling thankful that he had a sister who loved him and was more than willing to help him out he resented her for her generosity and hated himself because, without it, he couldn’t exist. She finally knew what he had known all along. Gordon was a ponce, a twenty-four carat drunken ponce, devoid of conscience and unable to grasp the rudiments of daily life. He was ruining her wedding without a second’s thought for her or her husband. That knowledge would plague her for the rest of her life. Anyone else and she could have stood it, but her little brother’s betrayal was too much for her to take.

  ‘You rotten bastard. Stop this, Gordon, and I mean it.’

  Gordon laughed. Away from Michael’s side he was quite a good looker, but, next to Michael and this sister of his, he looked what he was; a cheaper, much rougher version of his siblings. He knew that, and it was one of the reasons he always had to cause upset whenever they were together like this. He opened his blue eyes wide, acting innocent, then, placing a grubby hand across his mouth, he said loudly and sarcastically through his nicotine-stained fingers, ‘Oh, sorry, sis, what’s the official story then? That you’re a born-again virgin? Surely Danny Boy hasn’t forgotten Kenny, he had a bit of a problem with him didn’t he? You must remember Kenny, sis, surely, I know I do.’

  He had finally stepped over the line, and somewhere in his drink- and drug-addled brain even he knew that. Knew he was out of order, was going to pay for his treachery, knew his sister was never going to forgive him.

  None of the small crowd nearby were official friends of either her or Danny Boy really, they were what she termed as the alternative guest list. People Danny felt had to be invited, as opposed to people they wanted to invite. So her brother’s antics were all the more outrageous because they were not used to him like her friends were, they were not in a position to shout him down, to tell him to stop his lunacy before Danny Boy heard him. These were people who were actually on the lookout for a bit of gossip about the night, who were not there to wish them well, but were there just to show their face, show a bit of goodwill and give a decent present to show how far on they had come in life. For them to witness her little brother’s tirade was more than she could bear, especially as she knew every word would be repeated and picked over by half the London underworld for years to come. Her lovely day was ruined, the day she had sweated blood over planning was going to be a terrible memory like so many other bad memories in her life, especially where her family were concerned. But, knowing that everything was now ruined anyway, and that all she could do really was effect some kind of damage limitation, she smiled as best she could and said through her gritted teeth, ‘Danny Boy will kill you for this, Gordon, he won’t swallow your fucking antics like we do. You are making a mockery of a man who, as you rightly pointed out, is capable of killing to get what he wants. He is also capable of killing people he thinks aren’t giving him the respect he feels is his due.’

  The last few words were as much for the benefit of the people listening in, a tacit reminder that Danny Boy Cadogan was capable of extreme and excessive violence when pushed over the edge. She was suddenly worried now at Danny’s reaction to her little brother’s actions. As much as he could irritate her, she still didn’t want to see him hurt. Leaning forward, she whispered in his ear, ‘You’ve ruined me day for me, I hope you’re happy now.’

  He leaned back, his boyish body cumbersome in his grey tailored suit and shouted happily, ‘I’m over the moon, sis. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer girl.’

  Then, looking around the beautiful room, he said even louder, ‘Mum would have loved this. She’d have felt like me, Mary, that you’re acting like you’re better than everyone else, and trying to pretend you are happy. Well, you don’t fool me, girl . . . You’re a fucking mug . . .’

  Mary was really crying now, because he was so far off the mark it was laughable; he believed she was doing what her mother had expected of her, marrying Danny Boy for what he could offer her as opposed to what she might want. Her mother would have pushed her into the marriage and then slaughtered her because of it. Her brother’s usual drugged and drunken ramblings were generally ignored by family members, but this was public, tantamount to mutiny, and she wasn’t about to let him get away with it any more.

  As she stood there in her long white dress, her veil touching her slim shoulders and her high-heeled shoes crippling her, she felt a terrible sense of foreboding, as if this was a warning to her about how her life was going to be from now on. It was so real she felt as if she was going to pass out, and she wanted that to happen, just so she could get away from this feeling, and from her brother’s vitriolic ramblings.

  Jonjo Cadogan was in shock, he had always known that his friend was a bit of a headbanger, but to hear him talking to his own sister with such disrespect was unbelievable, and on her wedding day as well, the day she had married his brother and taken his family name. Jonjo felt the anger erupting inside him then, and suddenly he understood his brother’s need for their family’s name to be honoured. For the first time ever, he felt the urge to defend his family name. Danny Boy had always seemed over the top to him, his hatred of their father and his determination to make their name mean something had always seemed stupid, unnecessary. Now though, it seemed perfectly reasonable. Danny always said, all you had at the end of the day was your name, and that made it the more important because it was something you either respected or you were ashamed of. Your name was all you had, the only thing that you couldn’t ever deny. Now, listening to Gordon, he saw for the first time what Danny Boy had meant by that. Your name was all you had. You had to give it away one day, to your bride, or your children, and then you had to live up to it, or you had to live it down. Your name was the only thing you ever really owned, for good or for bad; that choice was yours. Danny Boy was trying to reclaim their name, make it mean something once more. He had given it to Mary Miles, and her brother had stamped on it without a second’s thought. She was a Cadogan now, and her shame was now his.

  Jonjo los
t his usual good-natured camaraderie and he hissed at his old friend, ‘You cunt, you fucking bastard. You think you are going to get away with that, do you?’ He brought his fist back and planted it firmly into the centre of his friend’s face, knocking him flying. As he went to carry through his attack Mary grabbed his arm.

  ‘Please, Jonjo, get him out of here, please get him away from me.’

  She was white with fear and her humiliation was obvious to anyone who was watching her, and that was now most of the guests. Ilford Palais was packed out and she could feel the eyes of everyone burning into her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mary, I’ll fucking sort him out. I don’t know why he does it but he won’t be capable of saying anything else once I finish with him.’

  He was so sorry for her, she was almost burning with humiliation. ‘No one listens to him anyway, mare, everyone know he talks bollocks.’

  He was trying his best to make her feel better but they both knew it was not working. As she began to speak, she saw Michael and Danny Boy walking purposefully in their direction and her older brother linked Gordon’s arm in a friendly way, while dragging him up from the floor roughly. Then he started to walk him out of the club as if nothing untoward had happened, Jonjo following them.

  Mary leaned against her new husband’s chest and cried, really cried, her day was ruined. She was overwrought and the drink had lowered her defences. But, instead of holding her as she had expected, Danny Boy grabbed her arms roughly and pushed her away from him, his handsome face marred by the spitefulness of his words.

  ‘Happy now, are you? Everyone chattering about what a dog you are. Even your own brother is disgusted with you. What a fucking day, eh, me wife is unmasked as a slag by her own fucking brother.’

  Mary couldn’t believe what he was saying to her, couldn’t for the life of her comprehend his anger and his disloyalty. How could he condone her brother’s words on their wedding day? How could he let other people think that what Gordon said was true, even if it was? Their whole life was about front, about believing what you wanted to believe, about making your life up as you went along. If Old Bill was to come to her house and ask where her husband was at any given time, she would not hesitate to say he was with her, whether he had been with her or not. Her husband’s words could only exacerbate her brother’s; Danny Boy’s anger could only make Gordon’s diatribe seem even more believable. She was now almost begging him to take her side, something she knew she should never have had to ask of him. He should be making her feel better, be making her feel safe and secure. ‘No, Danny Boy ... Come on, you know he talks rubbish . . .’

  Danny Boy looked down at his new little wife and enjoyed the humiliation she was feeling. He didn’t so much want a wife as a scapegoat, someone he saw as nothing more than a means to an end. Now, thanks to Gordon, he saw a perfect opportunity to start off his married life with a wife who was already wrong footed, already unsure of her power.

  Mary was a good-looking girl, a babe, and also a fucking know-all if she was allowed to give vent to her feelings. Priding himself on always seeing any opportunity when it presented itself, he knew that this was one he couldn’t miss. If he played his cards right he could cow her for the rest of her days, and he used the moment without any qualms whatsoever.

  ‘You are a right fucking prize ain’t you, your brother mug-bunnying about you in front of everyone.’ He shook his head with a calculated and theatrical disgust.

  Then, pushing her away from him, he walked out of the club without a backward glance, leaving her alone and distraught, and without a shred of self-respect.

  It was the talk of London the next day because he didn’t bother to come back again and the new bride eventually went to her new home alone. It was awful for her and no one knew what to say. Everyone went home, but before they went they tried their hardest to find something nice to say to her before they left. But it was too late, her day was ruined, and her brand-new husband had gone AWOL.

  The honeymoon was cancelled, and the reception was wrecked, but she still sat there, full of hope, in their brand-new detached house, the house that they had so lovingly decorated and furnished, and she prayed for him to return to her on this night of all nights.

  She finally passed out blind drunk at six in the morning; she was still in her wedding dress, and she was still cherishing the belief that he would come back to her at some point, it was their wedding night. She believed that he couldn’t really have been so cruel to her, that he couldn’t really have humiliated her in front of basically everyone that they knew. But she knew she was wrong, as she had been wrong about so many things where her new husband was concerned.

  Danny was drunk as a lord, and the girl he had picked up at some point during the night’s revelry was now snoring her head off beside him in a strange hotel room. She had not looked so heavy last night, or so hairy; she had a much more luxuriant moustache than most of the men he knocked around with. But, in fairness, she had been game and, from what he remembered, she had given him a good few hours. Her thick black hair was heavy as a rope, and it was fanned out around her head making her look much more exotic than she actually was. He was looking at her with genuine interest, amazed at what beer goggles were capable of doing to a man’s brains. In the usual run of things he would not have given this bird a second’s thought. Now he had spent his wedding night with her, and that knowledge made him smile. She turned over in her sleep and he saw how flabby her belly was. He knew then that she had kids somewhere, and his dislike of her was now ten-fold. Who the fuck was taking care of them while she was out whoring? He hated it when he woke up with mothers, somehow it made everything seem even more seedy than it really was. The babies they had birthed at least had the right to a mother who wasn’t a fucking trollop; at the end of the day it wasn’t that much to ask was it?

  He poured himself out a stiff drink and, as he did so the girl stirred momentarily in her sleep; he now believed she had heard the splash of alcohol in her subconscious and, once more, wondered at a woman who could lower herself so much she would be quite happy to wake up next to a stranger without any kind of shame. That he had slept with her didn’t enter into it. He was a man, and he was built to chase strange. It was in a man’s nature to fuck indiscriminately, whereas women were expected to have a modicum of decorum. He knew God had provided women like this one expressly for men like him.

  He wondered what his wife was doing now, was she awake and wondering what had happened to her lovely day? The very day that she had gone on about so much he had felt the urge to scream. He wondered what her cunt of a brother was doing, considering he had caused the fucking rift in the first place. She was a lovely girl, but he would have dumped her anyway at some point in the day, she had needed knocking down a peg or two, flash prat she was, and her brother had inadvertently provided the excuse he had needed to do just that.

  Now Michael was also on board with his tantrum, because it was his little brother who had caused the rift that Danny Boy had wanted so badly. All in all, it had worked out well. He knew the importance of being discussed, and how a spectacular scandal could catapult someone into the psyche of everyone around you. His wedding would guarantee his name going down in the annals of the local folklore. He would be respected for his open-heartedness when he took his wife back. It had been the same with his father, his public treatment of his father had garnered him many a friendly pat on the back. He had crippled him because of his gambling and his wicked abandonment of his family, and leaving them in enormous debt. And yet he was liked because he still saw the old boy all right. It was good PR. He was the main talking point of the Smoke today, and he knew it. That he had walked out of his own wedding, and a fuck-off expensive wedding at that, would cause ripples that would reverberate for many years. He would live it down, there was no shame on him, but Mary never would, and that was what he had wanted. To make her see what she was getting herself into. Gordon had played right into his hands and, for that, he would be forever grateful. She was
all he had ever wanted in a woman, but she was also all that a lot of other men had wanted in a woman. He hadn’t fucked her before the big day because he couldn’t really bring himself to go where Kenny and the others had gone before. Yet he still wanted her to be his wife, and he had deep feelings for her. The fact that those feelings were often on the verge of hatred was something he had accepted long ago.

  As he remembered the feeling of his flaccid cock inside this sleeping girl a few hours earlier, the stickiness of his come inside her, remembered the thick wetness as it had dripped down on to her thighs as he pulled out of her, then the sickly stench of her when he had finally awoken, he thought of his new wife and wondered how many times this same situation had happened to her. She had put it about, and now he had to make something good come of this marriage. He had wanted her, but he couldn’t get past this; the fact that she had been seen like this by so many other men, had been used like this. He had made his point, and now she would spend the rest of her life regretting her colourful sex life, he would make sure of that. He remembered his mother’s swollen belly after his father had all but destroyed the family he had created and then abandoned as and when the fancy took him. That she could have welcomed him back into her bed was, to him, the ultimate betrayal considering what he had caused them. When she had miscarried that child he had felt the last vestige of love leave his body and he had celebrated that fact. She had wanted his father and she had got him, and he had made damn sure that they paid the price for their treachery. He took on the mantle of man of the house as a young kid, and yet his mother had been willing to let his father come back and carry on as usual, even though it would mean her children could once more go without. Women were fucking carrion, they lived off whatever they could get from the man who was fucking them. He knew the truth of that better than anyone. He had put his life on the line, fought the Murrays and made a life for himself because of his father’s fucking gambling and his mother’s fucking selfishness. Six hundred quid had been the cause of his life being so fucked up. Six hundred quid, that was now what he classed as spending money, as fuck all, as nothing. Well, as his father used to joke, marry a whore, she can’t ever get any lower. So he had done just that. Now he had to face the music and he couldn’t wait.