by Martina Cole
It was this simple fact that was stopping him in his tracks now. He knew what it was like to be unwanted. His father had never cared for him, not really, and he understood his son’s fear that someone else might be more important than him. Might be snatching the little bit of love and affection he was given as and when it suited the parent in question.
Freddie was more than aware of his failings, and he wanted to put this night, and this son, as far away from him as he could, but he was responsible for Little Freddie.
He knew he should do what he had promised, but it was easier said than done. This was his legal flesh and blood, and he wasn’t so sure he could dump him now.
It wasn’t just his face and the fear it was displaying, though. He could feel the genuine terror coming off his only son in waves. It was also because Little Freddie was his only son, and he knew how it felt to be ignored, knew how it felt to be unwanted, seen as nothing more than a bind. Freddie’s mother too had used him and made him the be all and end all of her married life. Like Jackie, Maddie had known that his father would have gone on the trot. It had been left to Freddie to make sure he finally did the right thing, and he had. Freddie had been there for his father from the beginning to the end of his chequered and pointless life.
So he wasn’t sure he could turn this child away now the anger had subsided and the knee-jerk reaction of earlier in the day had all but worn off.
He had a duty to his only son. He should be standing by him, trying to make sense of what had happened and try to stop it happening ever again.
He wanted to wash his hands of Little Freddie and punish him for his actions, and until now he had been determined to do just that. But now, looking at him and seeing the child’s deep unhappiness he really was not so sure he should give up on him. Jimmy Junior was gone, but this boy was still here.
His mobile went off and cursing silently to himself he answered it.
Lena and Joe had come back to the hospital because they didn’t really know what else to do. They felt so guilty, so responsible. Their daughter was prostrate with grief and they decided they should be beside her no matter what.
Joe, especially, felt the full force of what had happened. He felt it so acutely that he wondered if he would survive this feeling he was carrying around in his chest like a lead weight. It wasn’t just that the boy had died, it was also because he knew it was not the accident everyone thought it was.
He should have opened his mouth as soon as he had realised what had really gone on. That mad bastard Freddie had finally killed someone, and he had killed the dearest, the most important person in their lives.
But, for all that, and as big a fucker as that child was, Joe’s natural loyalty made him unsure about bringing this into the public domain. Little Freddie was his flesh and blood, and Joe was also worried about Jackie’s reaction.
In his heart he was worried about Freddie knowing the score, though he was even more worried about Maggie finding out. It would bring his whole family down in an instant.
He also knew, or rather guessed, that Jimmy knew far more about this than he was letting on. So he sat with his wife and son-in-law by the bedside of his lovely daughter, who he knew would never recover from this tragedy.
Jackie snorted her line of coke, sniffing noisily as she brought the white powder through her nose and into the back of her throat. The bitter taste made her gag but she brought her head forward and sniffed loudly once more to make sure she got the full monty inside her head. Then she looked into the dirty mirror that adorned the wall of the pub toilet and for the first time in years saw herself as others saw her.
She was yellow, not yet jaundiced, but well on her way. ‘Sallow skinned’ was how her mother described her.
Her hair was lank and greasy, her eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and her body was aching and bloated. She had waited for her Freddie, and she had longed for her Freddie, and when he had finally emerged from his prison cell he had looked younger than ever and fitter than ever.
That was when she had really needed a drink.
Deep inside, her condition frightened her, but like many an alcoholic before her, until the symptoms were up and running and kicking her arse she would ignore them. What else could she do? Drink made the days bearable and the nights pass.
Freddie didn’t want her, he wanted the Pats of this world and the young girls, and she couldn’t compete with them. She was too far gone now. Since Kimberley’s birth she had been ruined. Her belly was saggy and she was marked all over. Even the backs of her knees and the backs of her arms had been stretched. The little confidence she had possessed had deserted her like her husband had.
Jackie hadn’t had the advice that was given out these days - use a lotion, don’t put on too much weight. She had been told she was eating for two! No one was expected to look like a fucking beauty queen when they were in the club, no one had told you then how to avoid the wrecking of your body. Magazines were not read for those kind of tips. She had only ever bought True Crime, sometimes a Woman’s Own. When the recipes had been the hook, and she had not even known about healthy eating until it was all too late.
The first birth had ruined her all right, and when you had someone like Freddie, you were more than aware that there were trollops lining up to be on his arm, the villain’s arm. Freddie, like most of his counterparts, needed the approbation those girls afforded him, needed to be seen with those young girls. Her father had been the same, but in a much smaller league of course.
Freddie had broken her heart and she had never recovered from it.
So stopping drinking was not an option for her. With a few drinks inside her, she could pretend her life was great, convince herself that her husband loved her really, and with a few shots in the morning her hands stopped shaking long enough for her to light a cigarette.
It was so easy for everyone else to condemn her, talk about her drink problem. Especially her girls, who were still relative virgins where men were concerned and still believed in happy ever after. But they would learn, as all women learned eventually. Life took its toll on women far quicker than it did on the men.
Jackie had a few drinks because without the crutch of alcohol, her life and all it entailed absolutely terrified her. It had helped her sleep when Freddie had been banged up, when the utter loneliness had been more than she could bear. A couple of shots had brightened her day when the pressure of being alone with three kids had been so intense, and the need of her husband had been so acute, she had felt as if she would die from the want of him.
When a man was sentenced to prison, the judge, the lawyers, barristers, whoever was involved in the court process, never realised that a whole family was often sentenced along with them. The bad man was put away, and so he should be, he had broken the law. Society could sleep easier at night, but what about the mothers and the wives and the kids that were left behind, mourning someone they loved who was gone for a lifetime, but who was not dead? What about the love they had for them? The person being accused in the courts was often like a stranger to their family members, and was often made to look far worse than they actually were by over-zealous policemen and the Crown Prosecution Service. So the family didn’t think that justice had actually been done, because they missed the person they knew, the person who had loved them, and who they loved in return, the person who had always stood by them, or who had walked the floor with them when they were babies, sat beside them when they were ill. Loved them whatever.
No one thought of people like her, whose whole life was over in minutes because of a jury verdict, who had two little girls and a belly full of arms and legs when her husband had been placed so far away from her. Who had been left on her own and without any kind of support whatsoever. Who had given birth alone, and with tears running down her face because the baby would not see her father for months, and could only be parented from afar, on visits, and by a man who she didn’t know from Adam. So a drink had been her salvation in the end, had been the one thing that coul
d stop the ache inside her and ensure she slept at night.
By the time Freddie had been on the out she had been consumed with the habit, and even his presence had not been enough to make her stop.
Now she looked into this grimy and scuffed mirror and she saw what Freddie saw. Terry Baker had proved to her the truth of her life, that she was a nothing, a no one and that she was only a joke to people.
He had destroyed her in front of nearly everyone she knew, and it didn’t matter that Dicky boy had stepped in to defend her. The damage had already been done.
She cut another line quickly and neatly. She needed total oblivion tonight and she was determined to achieve it. If she was going to walk out there again and face everyone she needed all the Dutch courage she could get. She might be a piss head, she might be a prescription drug queen, but the great thing about it all was, with a few drinks inside her she could laugh about it, in a way she’d never manage if she was straight and sober.
Now that was a state of mind she hoped she never experienced again, because it was only the drink that kept her from jumping off the nearest bridge she could find. Drink problem, well fucking whoopee. For all their whispers, they were actually confusing her with someone who cared.
‘Can we go home, Dad, please?’
Freddie shook his head. They were on the way to Paul and Liselle’s. He had just received a call to say they were experiencing a soupçon of trouble from a local bully boy. His Roxanna had rung him, before it all got out of hand. She said that the usual faces were in there, but she felt he should come and have a look see. Freddie was annoyed now. Paul and Liselle were good people and he was not about to have them disturbed by what amounted to the equivalent of a fucking lager lout. A few of the local fucking ice creams had tried to get an in, and they had been sorely disappointed. So an event like this was not unheard of, though he would not normally deal with it personally. Any other time he would have made a call, he would have delegated the job out to a lesser person on the payroll.
He was good at that, delegating, but he had decided to sort this lot out for himself, to show willing, he supposed. The pub was Ozzy’s and so he had to make sure the punters’ nights were untouched by any kind of aggravation. They expected to drink in a trouble-free environment. He was also going there personally because he needed an excuse to delay his decision about his boy.
Without looking at his son, he said, ‘I have to sort out a bit of business. Now just be quiet and let me concentrate on me driving, eh?’
Little Freddie was for the first time in his life unsure of what he was going to do. He had no remorse in him, he was incapable of it, but he was frightened of his father because this time he might actually put him away. The social worker had been harking on about it for ages, and he knew that one word from his dad and he was guaranteed a lock-up somewhere, without any chance of kiddie parole. It was his mother who was keeping the wolf from his door, and he made a point of keeping her sweet.
This man, though, his father, who walked in and out of his life at a whim, finally had him well and truly sussed out. For a moment there, Little Freddie had been convinced he was off to the land of the psychologists. Now, though, he had seen a little chink of light, and he was going to milk that for all it was worth.
He was learning the hard way that he had to keep on the right side of everyone, especially his father, and his days of saying and doing what he wanted were long gone. He had to keep a low profile, do what was expected and wait until he could safely and securely be himself to do what he wanted, when he wanted. And he was shrewd enough to know that even then he would need the protection of his family around him.
Since he could first understand his surroundings, he had known on some level that he was different. He had no real feelings for anything or anyone. He had thought his father was like him, but now he was not so sure.
Jimmy Junior had been a severe irritation for a long time, and he had been determined to rid himself of the boy’s constant presence. He was disappointed in his father because he was only trying to emulate him. He had not wanted him to find out what he had done, but he had not expected his dad of all people to make such a song and dance about it.
Now it was all about damage limitation, as governments said when they fucked up big time. And he was more than aware that he had fucked up what had been a very relaxed and very protected lifestyle.
Damage limitation was definitely the order of the day.
Freddie walked into the bar and the first thing he saw was his girls surrounding their mother in a protective cocoon. After the revelation about his boy, he was pleased that they were such good girls, even poor old Kimberley was a diamond, problems or no problems. He saw how protective they were of Jackie and he was heartened to see it. She was going to need them in the future, he would lay his last pound on that.
As soon as he’d entered the pub he’d sensed that there was something drastically amiss, and he was right. Paul motioned with his head and he followed the direction of the man’s eyes. What he saw put the seal on what had already been a strange few days.
Terry Baker, his one-time friend and the archenemy, was lying in a pool of blood by the back doors.
He had been dragged there by Paul and Dicky until such time as someone decided to take him to the hospital on their way home. Some of the regulars were debating on whether they should just dump him at the train station, always a good place to dump people, but seeing Freddie Jackson in the doorway they were saved from any more pointless conversation about it. He would sort it out, so they could get back to the serious business of the night, drinking and talking.
Mug bunnying was the order of the day, coke was dispensed liberally, and the tragedy that had befallen Jimmy was as good a topic of conversation as any.
Taking a drink from Liselle, Freddie walked over to his family and for the first time in years he was not scanning the room for strange. He noticed that his wife looked crestfallen and guessed that whatever had happened with Terry Baker had involved her in some way.
Looking at the girls he was reminded of how attractive they actually were. Even his Kimberley, who had been a big girl when she was young, now had a trim figure and a sweet, heart-shaped face like the other two.
He was told what had occurred quietly and succinctly, and he amazed everyone once more by shaking Dicky’s hand, thanking him, and not bothering to go over and finish the job young Dicky had started. Pat had received nothing more than a curt nod and this everyone knew must have been annoying for her. Freddie didn’t even look at her after that, he had other things on his mind.
Terry was unconscious now, and that was how he would stay until he was delivered back into the outside world.
‘What a ponce, eh? You all right, Jack, you OK?’
Jackie looked at this husband of hers in speechless shock. He was genuinely concerned. Young Dicky was also amazed and he could see that Rox was thrilled by the reception he had received from her father.
Freddie had just finished his drink when young Freddie knocked on the doors to be admitted, and there was nothing his father could do to stop him. Jackie, full of her own self-pity and still smarting from the insults she had received, hugged her son to her tightly. For once in his life, he was quite happy to let her.
The girls made a fuss of him, pleased he was on his best behaviour, and he was all smiles and big eyes as he charmed them.
Freddie watched him closely as he interacted with his family, aware that his son was sensible enough to know that he was going to need all the friends he could get.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maggie had hardly spoken to anyone since she had woken up in the hospital with her head heavy from the drugs used to calm her and her whole being numb with shock. She had left with her husband the next morning with a prescription for the tablets that had kept her from feeling anything too acute. And since then she had just gone through the motions.
She was pale and she looked delicate. Other than that she was her usual pretty se
lf, but all the happiness had gone from her face. She looked tired out, sad-eyed, and she was acting almost normally except she barely uttered a word.
Her hair was perfect, and her clothes were, as always, immaculate, and she even cooked a meal for Jimmy as she had always done.
Jimmy watched his wife now as she made coffee for him, and observed her as she laid out a tray, with a plate of biscuits, a napkin and a small coffee pot. The caterers were working around her. She had not even acknowledged their presence, but he knew she was aware of them. He had been relieved when he had seen her dressed in black. He had been dreading having to force her to go to the child’s funeral.
She filled the little white china pot with coffee, and she wiped the sides delicately before placing it on the tray once more. It was like a work of art, and he had no stomach for it.
She had a knack for making things look smart, stylish, she always had done. Their homes, even the little rabbit hutch they had first owned, had looked like something from a magazine. Now this house, which had finally become like the home he had always dreamed of, the house that had finally rung with the sound of childish laughter, was suddenly like a mausoleum.
He couldn’t bring himself to go in the boy’s bedroom. He knew that Maggie did, he had listened to her sob there in the night, the only time he had observed a proper reaction from her. When he had gone in there, though, she had pushed him away. She wanted to be alone with her grief and her hurt.
But he couldn’t bear it. He knew he was not ready to see all the paraphernalia that constituted a child’s life, the toys, the little slippers, the trains that had been painted on the walls so carefully.