The Life

by Martina Cole

  My four brothers – all big, handsome, honourable men – sat on her other side and my father, broken by his wife’s death, and completely unaware of his only daughter’s shame, sat by me. It was how my mum died that was affecting him even more than just the loss of her. She had been taken in a heartbeat – those were his words, not mine.

  I stood beside him, his youngest child and his only daughter, small-boned like my mother and with my parental grandmother’s thick auburn hair. But I had his eyes – the deep blue Irish eyes that showed every emotion and told the whole world what I was thinking, especially him and my brothers. I learned quickly to never let anyone know my true feelings and that is a sad testament to the life I live now. Knowledge is power and even the smallest slip can be enough to bring you down.

  We were the Baileys – the most talked about and revered family in the East End – the foremost family in England, actually, for many a long year. We led charmed lives, we had everything – and I mean everything. My father, Daniel Bailey, saw to that.

  As I held his hand on that cold bleak day, he slipped it into his coat pocket as he had when I was a small child. Even at nearly eighteen, I still appreciated the warmth and kindness behind the act. I knew my father was dangerous from the time I was a child, but I had not known just how dangerous he really was until recently. He had only ever done what he felt was needed; I understood that and, on that day, unhappy and devastated at the loss of my mother, I depended on him more than ever to bring me comfort.

  My world had changed overnight. With my mum gone there was no one to shield me from my family’s real way of life. My mum, God love her, had done her best to make sure I never knew the real deal, but however hard she tried, I overheard more than was good for me. My family were murderers, liars, people for whom violence and intimidation were literally their daily bread.

  My brothers were years older than me – I was my mum’s last hurrah, as she would say with a big grin on her face. God had sent me to her as a gift – I was all hers. She talked about God a lot, she set great store by Him and His son, the Christ who had died on the cross to take away the sins of the world. When she died, they just didn’t know what to do with me, this female left in their predominantly male world, but they loved me all the same and would do anything to protect me, I knew that. And I’ll never stop loving any of them, as bad as they are. They love me, and they care for me. And, at this time in my young life, that is enough.

  I suspect my mum knew more than she let on about her husband’s and sons’ activities and it must have been very hard for her to hear so much that was bad about them, and still believe in them. She was a decent woman in her own way – God fearing, and with a strong belief in the afterlife. She put up with the men in her life because she had to. She was a mother after all, and these were her little boys. But deep inside she had to have condoned what they were.

  I remember smiling at my eldest brother Danny that day, knowing he would always be there for me. Danny, despite his blond hair, was my dad’s double, like the spit out of his mouth, as the old fucking shawlies – as my nana called them – would say. He and my other brothers Davey, Noel and Jamsie had each received Confession, made a good act of contrition, so they could take Communion at their mother’s funeral without fear or favour – my father had made sure of that. Hypocritical, I know, but it was for her more than for him, and I loved that he had done that for her. He had loved my mother with a vengeance.

  Years later, when I remembered seeing him cutting a man’s fingers off, I would also see him as he was on this day. The two sides of Daniel Bailey.

  I watched his face contort with emotion as his brother Peter Bailey and his wife Ria entered the church with their remaining children. He gritted his teeth, and I saw in his eyes that it was hard for him to forget his brother’s part in this terrible day.

  My Auntie Ria, Peter’s wife, had always been good friends with my mother – they were very close, and she looked unbearably sad.

  I smiled at her, and at my cousins as they followed their parents to the front of the church. My cousin Imelda, a beautiful woman with long, dark relaxed hair, who exhibited more Jamaican heritage than her brothers, walked over to me and my father. Smiling sadly, she hugged him first, then me, her eyes wet with unshed tears. I was pleased and so relieved when my father had hugged her back; she had always been a favourite of his. No one really knew then how much the Life had affected her.

  I looked at my Uncle Peter, a big, handsome black man, and at my father, so like him in many ways, even though he was what would be called white. They had the same mother, but different fathers, and were so close they were like pages in the same book, united now in their grief. It was a grief that transcended feuds.

  The church full of people were wondering who the bastard was that had set the car bomb that had blown my poor mother all over Soho. But, unlike them, we knew who was responsible for planting the bomb which had caused this carnage. And we also knew that the bomb hadn’t been meant for my mother. If the intended recipient had died maybe, just maybe, things would never have turned out like they did. Hindsight really is a fucking wonderful thing.

  I still had a lot to learn about my family. On that day I knew nothing about guns, and the murder of a baby, an innocent child tragically drawn into this world of violence as easily as my mother had been. I would find out about these things eventually. You name it, my family had done it. But they couldn’t have foreseen how deep they would get into the quagmire of revenge, and how they would lose all semblance of reality, forgetting about the real world outside of their world.

  The loss of my mum had opened my eyes to the truth of the Life. In the last month I had seen and done things which would change me for ever. And, despite everything my mum did to protect me, she didn’t prepare me for how seductive the Life could be.

  There was an old Irish saying of my nana’s – she always said you get the life you deserve. I hope against hope that there was no truth in that. But only time will tell.

  Book One

  She shakes the blues off then she tries her luck

  Makes a little bet, hopes her horse comes up

  Pickin’ pockets for some easy money

  ’Cause she blew the goddamn lot on the National Lottery

  Alabama 3, ‘Mansion On The Hill’

  Album: La Peste, 2000

  Flip, baby flip my switch

  Blow my head off

  If you’re gonna cry, keep your shades on

  Alabama 3, ‘Keep Your Shades On’

  Album: Outlaw, 2005

  Chapter One

  1979

  ‘You and whose fucking army? Listen to yourself! You’re threatening us with your cunt of an uncle? You’re talking utter shite.’

  Daniel Bailey was fuming, and everyone in the factory knew that this was not going to end well.

  Michael Lanson, or Micky L as he liked to be known, was trussed up like a chicken, and he was seriously regretting opening his big trap. He had heard the Baileys were a law unto themselves but he had not really understood the seriousness of their outfit until he had been abducted off the street two hours previously.

  He worked for his uncle, a man called Jed Lanson, and he had believed he was invincible because of that. Jed was an old-time Face; he had his creds, and no one, until now, had ever had the nerve to take him on. It seemed that Daniel and Peter Bailey were the exceptions to the rule.

  Peter Bailey sat quietly, sipping on a glass of white rum, watching his brother with interest. Peter understood the logic of his brother’s methods even if he didn’t follow them himself. It was why they were such a good team – they each had different strengths. Peter liked to do things quietly, with the minimum of fuss. He liked privacy. But he was also known to be a man who would seriously harm anyone who crossed him. Long and slow was Peter Bailey’s retribution. It was rumoured he enjoyed the whole gamut of emotions his victims were put through, from fear, pain and agony, to begging for their lives to be finally ended. But t
here was never any evidence; the person would disappear, and all that would be left of their ordeal would be rumours.

  Daniel, on the other hand, was happy to take out anybody who crossed him with as much melodrama as possible. He believed that if you were going to take someone out you should do it in such a way as to make it a lesson of sorts. Make sure that people understood what would happen to them if they pushed it too far. Daniel knew the value of a decent reputation. It kept mouths shut, and kept the ‘hoi polloi’, as he called them, in their place. He believed that reputation was everything; there was time enough for the down low when you were properly established – until then you had to build your rep and you had to make it a good one. The brothers were in their thirties now, and this was the time to take what they wanted. No more fucking about, working for other people, being taken for cunts left, right and centre. It was time to take what was rightfully theirs.

  Daniel and Peter were starting with the Lansons. Micky’s uncle was a seriously big fish, in a very, very small pond. So small, in fact, that it was easy for the Baileys to walk in and take it away from him. Jed Lanson didn’t have an eye to the future: he still thought he was hard enough to keep a hold of what he had created. But the fact that this boy – his own nephew – was confident enough to mug him off, spoke volumes to the Baileys. It was time for Jed to disappear. First, though, the kind of disrespect Micky L had shown his uncle had to be dealt with. It was a diabolical fucking liberty and, to the Bailey brothers, it was tantamount to fucking mutiny.

  Daniel picked up a ball-peen hammer and, motioning to his men with his chin, he said angrily, ‘Hold his fucking hand out. I’m going to teach him a lesson about loyalty he won’t forget in a hurry. You should have known that family is worth more than strangers, boy. You mugged off your uncle, your mother’s brother, your own flesh and blood. You’re a fucking Judas, in every sense of the word.’

  Daniel watched as his men did his bidding without hesitation. Micky fought them with all his might. A ball-peen hammer had that effect on people. It was a legal weapon you could put in your boot without worrying about a tug from the Old Bill, unlike a shotgun or a machete, both of which could lead to a serious nicking. A hammer, on the other hand, was like a screwdriver or a chisel – a legal tool for legal business – even though it could inflict serious and personal damage in the right hands. In his hands anyway.

  Micky was sweating with fear, and Daniel grinned at him, before taunting him, ‘You thought you could take us for cunts, did you? Call my brother a fucking coon, and me a coon’s asswipe, and you really thought we would let that go?’

  He brought the hammer down on the boy’s hand, as it was held on the concrete floor. Everyone heard the crunch as the bones were shattered, the blood splattering everywhere.

  The pain was excruciating, and Micky, feeling the bile rising in his stomach, knew he was going to black out. He finally understood the enormity of what was going on, just as Daniel Bailey had intended. He had been seriously harmed, and he could die in this stinking factory, on this stinking floor.

  Daniel shook his head at what he perceived to be the sheer skulduggery of the man before him. ‘Fucking look at him, will you? Fainted, like a fucking little girl. Hold his head up, boys. When he finally decides to rejoin us, I’m gonna take the wanker’s teeth out. He won’t be fucking smiling at anyone for a few years.’

  ‘You’re letting him get out of here? Seriously?’ One of the crew voiced what they were all thinking, incredulous.

  ‘’Course I’m letting him out! This ponce is the reason his uncle is going to come after us.’ He pointed to the man on the floor. ‘This is the reason his uncle is going to get his fucking ugly big head caved in, the treacherous bastard that he is too.’ Daniel walked back to where his brother was sitting. ‘Like fucking nuns these days – a bit of pain and they faint like virgins on a stag night.’

  Peter Bailey laughed. ‘He’s not the first person to call me a coon, and you know it.’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘It always bothered me more than it did you, Peter, even when we was kids. But if he insults you he insults me and, more to the point, he insults our mother. But you’re right – this time it’s just another excuse for having a go. Fucking wanker. Thinks he can short-change us? I don’t fucking think so.’

  Peter nodded. ‘A fucking liberty all right.’

  ‘Well, bruv, we’ve worked long and hard for this, and tonight we’ll take it. Be like the fucking black and white minstrels just took over East London. After all, that’s what they are calling us, according to that ponce anyway.’

  Peter smiled, showing his expensive white teeth. ‘I always liked them myself. Remember when we were kids and we used to tap dance on the lino copying them? After tonight we will tap dance all over the Smoke.’

  ‘Fucking right we will, Peter, we’ve fucking earned it.’

  ‘Well, after this little lot, we’d better be prepared because this is not going to go down too well.’

  Daniel laughed. ‘I should hope not, or this was all in vain! Fuck them! Me and you, bruv, are on the up.’

  A groan from the floor interrupted their conversation, as Micky came round. Daniel knew he was in terrible pain and bewildered as to why this had happened to him, but he said delightedly and in an exaggerated pseudo-posh voice, ‘Oh, Peter, I do believe our guest is finally back with us. Where’s my fucking manners?’

  He walked slowly back to where Micky was being held upright on his knees by his men and, looking into the young man’s eyes, he said jovially, ‘I hope you’ve got a good dentist, son, you’re going to fucking need one,’ before taking out the boy’s jaw, and the majority of his teeth, with one swipe of the hammer. Then, throwing the hammer on to a nearby bench, he said offhandedly, ‘Drop him off at his uncle’s pub, right outside the public bar. We don’t want people thinking that we don’t look after our guests, do we?’

  Chapter Two

  Lena Bailey was always worrying about something – it was part of her everyday life. But tonight was different. She knew in her heart that something was going to happen – what that was to be, she had no idea. Daniel was keeping very quiet, but then she never asked him about his business dealings.

  Trying to put her worries out of her mind, Lena turned to her mother-in-law and smiled. ‘Theresa, that smells fantastic. You’re too good to us.’

  Theresa Bailey was still a good-looking woman, with traces of her youthful beauty in her eyes and her smile. She was in her early fifties, but with her make-up on, and in the right light, she could still pass for early forties. Peter and Daniel were so proud of her. Her boys both adored her, she was everything to them, and so she should be. She had borne them against the odds, and she had brought them up against even harder odds. Never having married, they had her maiden name; neither of their fathers had stayed around long after the births.

  Theresa shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Ah, I was always the good cook. My mother, God rest her soul, she taught me feck-all about life, but she taught me good, basic Irish cookery.’

  They both laughed at that.

  ‘Leave it to cool, it will be gorgeous tomorrow. And it will feed your whole fecking bunch for two days!’

  She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall; Lena could tell that her mother-in-law was as worried as she was, otherwise she would already be down the pub. She liked her nights there – she had good friends, played bingo, and enjoyed her life such as it was. She had given birth to her two sons in the forties, one by a Jamaican soldier, the other by an East-End wide boy. She had brought them up on her own, and she had made a life of sorts. She had never gone back to Ireland, her homeland, knowing that she would have had no welcome there considering the circumstances she was in. But she was still a devout Catholic, and she loved both her sons with a vengeance.

  Theresa often said that life was for the people who were prepared to live it, and she had lived her life, and she didn’t regret a second. She had two handsome sons, and they had provided her with enough grandc
hildren to keep her busy into her old age. Lena often wondered who Theresa was trying to convince – herself or her sons. It had not been an easy life for her, and she respected her mother-in-law for the way she had brought the two of them up, and the wonderful way she had stood by them. Not an easy life in those days, or these days, if they were honest. Theresa had been sixteen and eighteen respectively when she had given birth to her sons. Her sister, who had begged for her to come over to England and help her out after marrying an English soldier, had thrown her out after the first one had arrived, and stopped talking to her altogether after the second. But she had never really let anyone know that she cared what they thought. Lena knew from things Theresa said that it had hurt, deep down, but she had too much pride to let other people’s narrowmindedness ruin her days. Consequently, she had worked her fingers to the bone, and given her two sons the best she could afford. Now, they tried to repay her by making sure she wanted for nothing.

  Both Lena and Peter’s wife Ria adored her. Ria, like Theresa herself, had faced prejudice to be with her Peter, but she had won the battle and married him anyway, although her father had never accepted it. He had seen her marriage to a black man as a foolishness which could only bring trouble. Ria’s mother had come around eventually, and visited her on the sly as often as she could. Even so, she would still be loath to acknowledge her son-in-law in the street, or her grandchildren for that matter. Ria had understood her mother’s prejudice in her own way. It was the way of the world. But to the Bailey family, colour meant nothing, and any prejudice they encountered just made them all stronger and tighter.