Fearless

by Jessie Keane

  ‘TEN!’

  The referee grabbed the Icelander’s arm and yanked it into the air.

  ‘The WINNER!’ he yelled, and the Icelander went prancing around the ring to catcalls and boos and a meagre scattering of cheers. His corner was alive with celebration. Everyone in Josh’s was still and shocked. Josh was spark out on the canvas. Nikos ran over to slap his face, then dab him with water.

  ‘Shit, I hate this,’ said Claire, trembling.

  Suki hugged her mother. ‘He’s fine, he just took a bad knock,’ she said.

  Nikos was there, kneeling beside Josh.

  ‘Why isn’t he getting up?’ said Claire.

  Now Nikos was calling the referee over. The man went, and bent over Josh. He was patting Josh’s face, and his expression was worried. He straightened up and gestured to someone outside the ring.

  ‘God, I’ve got to . . .’ said Claire, and ran forward and ducked under the ropes. Someone caught hold of her.

  ‘Let go of me!’

  Seeing something in her face, the man let her go. Claire ducked under the ropes and went and knelt by Nikos at Josh’s side. He lay on his back and it was almost like he was asleep. Nikos looked at her.

  ‘Took a hard punch,’ he said, but he looked yellow-pale and sick with shock. ‘He’ll be fine.’

  ‘Josh! Wake up,’ she said, her guts creased with horror. This was what she had feared the first time she’d seen him fight. Now it was all coming true. ‘Come on!’

  The referee was at the side of the ring talking to Spiro. The Icelander had stopped prancing around and was now standing still, looking down at Josh lying there. The referee came back.

  ‘They’re sending for an ambulance,’ he told Claire.

  Oh Christ. This was serious. This was an illegal fight, and they were actually going to let paramedics in here? Risk prosecution?

  ‘Just a precaution. He’ll wake up in a minute,’ said the referee, patting her shoulder.

  The room had fallen silent.

  Claire was weeping, hugging Josh to her, clutching at his bruised and bloodied hands. ‘Wake up. Please wake up,’ she sobbed.

  But Josh did not respond.

  123

  The phone was ringing beside the bed. Shauna woke up with a start, dazed from sleep, and switched on the onyx-based bedside light, one of a very expensive pair she’d gone to huge trouble to source. She snatched up the phone.

  ‘What?’ she mumbled, running a hand through her hair, looking around the big master bedroom, coming back to herself and the reality of her situation.

  Josh was in New York. Aysha was at her place in Kensington. Connor was in town too, at his Notting Hill flat. She was alone here, in this big house in Henley-on-Thames that once had so delighted her. The hours she had spent on doing the fucking place up, bossing around interior designers until they got the look of it exactly right! But now it was little more than a mausoleum, a sad reminder of what had once been a happy family home.

  She thought of her last conversation with Josh. She was sorry she’d said all that now, in the heat of the moment. Afraid she’d pushed him even further away from her.

  How much further away could he be, Shaun? she wondered. He’s not even in the same country as you any more. And you think he’s fucking some other woman.

  Someone was talking on the other end of the phone. A foreign accent, speaking English. She let out a sigh, paid attention.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ she asked. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Mrs Flynn, my name is Spiro Constantinou, I am a friend of your husband’s. I’m phoning from New York.’

  ‘He’s never mentioned you.’ But then, when has Josh ever mentioned anything about his life over there?

  ‘I am afraid . . . I am afraid I have some very bad news.’

  ‘Oh?’ Suddenly Shauna’s mouth was dry. ‘What’s happened? Is Josh all right?’

  ‘He was in a boxing match tonight.’

  ‘He told me there was a big fight coming up. Is he OK?’

  ‘He was knocked out in the ring, Mrs Flynn. Taken to hospital.’

  ‘But he’s OK?’

  ‘Mrs Flynn.’ Spiro paused, seemed to take a breath. ‘He had a bleed on the brain. They operated but they couldn’t save him. I’m sorry. He didn’t come round again.’

  ‘He . . .’ Shauna was shaking her head, over and over.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Flynn. Truly I am. Josh is dead.’

  BOOK THREE

  124

  Shauna phoned Connor first. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Josh, dead?

  She couldn’t take it in.

  Connor picked up, sounding bewildered, snapping out of sleep to a waking nightmare.

  ‘Connor . . . it’s your dad. I just had a call from the States. He’s dead. He took a punch in the ring and now he’s dead.’

  Shauna started to cry.

  ‘What . . . ?’ Connor’s voice was thin with shock. ‘Mum, you’re sure?’

  ‘A friend of his called. Spiro somebody. I’ve got his number here.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Shauna gave him the number and Connor rang off.

  Numb, Shauna replaced the phone on the cradle. She looked around the room and barely saw the costly Osborne & Little drapes at the windows, the plush watered-silk red buttoned sofa at the end of the bed that so beautifully matched them. The chandelier, the fitted wardrobes, all the stuff she had set such store by when all she had ever really wanted was Josh, right here with her.

  She had lost him years ago. She knew that.

  And now, she had lost him for good.

  Josh, dead?

  She let out a howl of anguish and the tears started to fall. Maybe she could have got him back, made it all good again. Now . . . She couldn’t. There was no coming back from this. Josh and the bloody fight game.

  ‘Noooo! ’ she wailed, hitting the pillow, wanting to hurt somebody or something, to take her own pain away.

  Now the fucking phone was ringing again. She picked it up. Swallowed. Swiped at her eyes.

  ‘Connor? That you?’

  ‘It’s Aysha.’ Aysha’s voice was thick with tears. ‘Connor just called me. Told me the news. Jesus, Mum, this is so awful . . .’

  ‘Can you come over?’ Shauna’s voice was pitiful, childlike. Not like her voice at all.

  ‘I’ll be right there. Just hold on.’

  Hold on to what?

  Aysha rang off and Shauna replaced the handset again. It rang immediately.

  ‘Connor?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, Mum. I got hold of this Spiro person. I’m sorry. He said they did everything they could for Dad at the hospital, but . . .’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘Oh God, oh God,’ moaned Shauna.

  ‘I’ll come over,’ said Connor and put the phone down.

  Shauna sat up in her palatial bedroom with a dead phone in her hand, crying her eyes out. Her children were coming. But . . . ah, Christ . . . Josh was gone.

  125

  The morning after the fatal fight, Claire sat in the living room of the apartment she had shared with Josh. She sat on the couch in the room where the light flooded in, while Suki made her coffee she didn’t drink, and offered her food she couldn’t eat.

  ‘Spiro has phoned the family,’ said Suki, choked with tears and watching her mother with concern. ‘Josh gave him his home number in England ages ago.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Of course. They were Josh’s family, those people over there – that bitch Shauna and his kids. Not her.

  ‘Everyone’s very upset,’ said Suki.

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Of course they are.’

  ‘I wish you’d eat something. Some toast?’

  Claire shook her head. She’d had him back. At last. And now, it was too much: she’d lost him forever.

  ‘Let me run you a bath. Get these clothes off you.’

  Claire looked down at the dress she’d been wearing when Josh died; it was her favourite colour – turquoise. There were
small smears of his blood on it. She was never going to wear that colour again. From now on it would be black, or nothing.

  ‘OK,’ she said, although she didn’t want to, because when she took this ruined dress off it was cutting ties with the life she’d known with him. All that ended right now. Somehow, her life was going to have to go on, without Josh.

  Maybe she wouldn’t let it.

  Suki went and ran the bath, and then she came back and took Claire’s hand and led her into the bathroom. As sweetly as if she was the mother and Claire the daughter, Suki removed Claire’s clothes.

  ‘Suki, can you get rid of that,’ said Claire, indicating the dress. ‘Please?’

  Suki nodded. She opened the door and threw the thing outside, closed the door again. Then she helped her mother into the bath, sat her down, took up the sponge and the soap and washed her clean, while she sat there with tears streaming down her face.

  ‘What will happen now?’ Claire managed to ask.

  Suki swallowed hard. She’d loved Josh too, in her way. So much. They’d grown closer and closer over the past few months, and to think of never seeing him again was devastating.

  ‘They’ll fly him back to England. Back to his family.’

  ‘I’m his family.’ A flare of anger ignited in Claire’s gentle blue eyes. ‘Me.’

  ‘No. I know you loved him very much,’ said Suki. ‘But he belongs back there, with them now.’

  ‘I just think I’ll wake up in a moment, that it will all have been a bad dream,’ wailed Claire.

  ‘I know.’ Now Suki was crying too. Christ, this was awful. ‘But now you have to let him go.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Claire with a heavy sigh, the warmth of the water and Suki’s gentle touch soothing her, just a little. But the thought of him going back to Shauna, that cruel heartless bitch, made her choke with rage. ‘He was going to divorce her.’

  Josh might have had the best of intentions, but Suki thought he was tied in to his English family too tight to have ever got away. But she didn’t say that aloud. Let her mother cling on to any illusions she had.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you out now.’

  Claire lay back, shook her head. ‘Leave me here a moment, I’ll have a soak,’ she said.

  But Suki had seen the bleak look in Claire’s eyes.

  ‘You soak,’ said Suki, taking a seat on the toilet. ‘I’ll sit here, OK? Keep you company.’

  When Claire finally got out of the bath, Suki dried her, wrapped her in a warm bathrobe, then fed her a little soup as tenderly as if she was a baby. Still she felt no better. If she’d had a gun, she would have finished her life right then. Sooner or later, Suki was going to have to leave her, and then Claire thought that maybe she would go up on to the roof and just let herself fly down into the street below, end this anguish. Then she caught herself. If she did that, Suki would be alone. She had a daughter. And she couldn’t bear to cause her pain.

  Suki stayed. Days and nights passed, Claire didn’t know how many and she didn’t even care. There Suki was, preparing food which Claire only nibbled at. All she could think about was Josh’s body travelling back home, back to England where his family – where that vicious cow – would be waiting for him.

  And what about her?

  What did she have left?

  Only memories.

  She went to the wardrobe where Josh’s things hung. Fingering the jackets, the shirts, she hugged them to her and smelled the faint scent of Josh’s skin still on them. Cried wrenching tears over the loss of him, when their future had held such promise.

  ‘What should I do with those?’ asked Suki, finding her there in the wardrobe sobbing her heart out. ‘Do you want me to sort that out for you?’

  Claire drew back, closed the wardrobe door, shaking her head.

  ‘No. Not yet,’ she said, and went back to bed.

  126

  Connor was passing through the hall at Shauna’s place when the phone rang. He stopped, picked it up. His eyes fastened on the Christmas tree in the corner – a modest one by Mum’s standards, only twelve feet high and sparkling with gold baubles. It seemed to mock him. All the family Christmases! How could any of them have known that last Christmas was going to be Dad’s final one with them?

  ‘Hello?’ he said.

  ‘Could I speak to Mrs Flynn?’ asked a female voice.

  ‘She isn’t here at the moment.’

  In fact Shauna was upstairs, in bed. It was one o’clock in the afternoon, and all Shauna seemed to want to do since she’d heard the news about Dad was sleep. Christmas was cancelled. Connor and Aysha had moved back in after they’d got the news although neither really wanted to. Mum was a dictatorial pain in the arse at the best of times, and these were the worst. And soon they’d have Dad’s funeral to face. It was a fucking nightmare.

  ‘I’m her son. Can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m sorry. This is a confidential matter, I need to speak directly to Mrs Flynn.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Lesley Deveney. If you can get her to call me when it’s convenient? Here’s my number, in case she’s mislaid it.’

  Connor jotted the number down as Lesley reeled it off.

  ‘You can’t tell me what this is about?’ asked Connor.

  ‘No. Have her phone me, please.’

  Lesley hung up.

  When Connor woke Shauna at two o’clock with a cup of tea, he handed her the scrap of paper with Lesley’s number on it. ‘This woman called. Lesley Deveney. Said she had to talk to you, no one else.’

  Shauna sat hunched in bed, her eyes sore from weeping, every muscle aching, and looked dully at the number on the paper. She recognized it as the detective’s office number. A laugh that was little more than a croak emerged from her mouth.

  ‘What?’ asked Connor, watching his mother’s face.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. She’d been mad as hell a couple of weeks ago, wondering when Lesley was going to give her an update. Now – too late – here Lesley was, no doubt about to say she was sorry to hear about Josh, because she had been out there in New York, she must know what happened.

  ‘Drink some tea,’ said Connor, going to the window and opening it, letting in some fresh air. ‘Can I get you anything else? You hungry?’

  ‘Nah. Where’s Aysha?’

  ‘In the kitchen. Look, I’m going out but she’ll be up in a tick.’ He came back to the bed and dropped a kiss on to her cheek.

  ‘Quite a rota you got going on, the pair of you. Make sure Mum don’t top herself or something, that it?’ Shauna almost smiled.

  ‘You wouldn’t do that,’ said Connor. ‘You’re tough.’

  But I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost Josh. ‘Yeah, that’s me. Hard as nails.’

  ‘Drink your tea,’ he said, and left the room.

  Shauna took a sip of the tea. It was nice, hot and strong. Then she picked up the phone and dialled Lesley, who picked up straight away.

  ‘This is Shauna Flynn,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Flynn. I’m sorry, I’ve been off with a rotten cold or I would have called you sooner . . .’

  ‘That’s OK. We’ve had a family bereavement,’ said Shauna. ‘My husband died. Maybe you know that? You were supposed to be in New York watching him.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Lesley paused. ‘God, I’m sorry. No, I didn’t know he’d died. It must have happened after I came back. That’s shocking.’

  Now, Shauna thought it was all beside the point anyway. All her suspicions, none of that mattered any more. ‘If you send me the bill, I’ll settle up,’ she said. All she wanted was to tie up any loose ends and forget it.

  ‘Well, the thing isn’t quite finished yet, Mrs Flynn.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. My husband’s dead, didn’t you hear me? Whatever he did prior to that, what does it matter now?’

  ‘You seriously feel that way?’

  ‘Right this minute? I do. Yes.’

  ‘Because I got some pictu
res. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m being insensitive and, if I am, I apologize. Maybe under these circumstances you don’t want to see them.’

  Do I? Shauna wondered. She thought of Josh, being untrue to her. Cheating on her. There was still a flare of deep indignation at the thought of it. She’d been through so much to get him. To make him hers. And even with him dead, the thought of any possible infidelity on his part was beyond toleration. She couldn’t have it. Not now. Not ever.

  ‘Was he . . . ?’ she started, then found she couldn’t even say it.

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

  ‘All right,’ said Shauna, feeling her heart shrivel to nothing in her chest. Ah God, it was true then. He had been deceiving her. ‘Can you come over? Say, at three?’

  127

  Connor went home to his flat, throwing the post on to the kitchen table and making coffee. He checked his phone for messages. Benedict had called a couple of days back. That was OK, he’d phoned his mate from Shauna’s place this morning and explained what was happening.

  Christ, Dad was dead.

  He couldn’t take it in. All the times Connor had said to him, Please, Dad, give up the fight game. Why had Josh never listened? If he had, he would have been alive today.

  ‘Ah fuck,’ said Connor.

  It was awful, thinking he was never going to see Dad again in this world. He was relieved to be away from his mother’s black well of grief and depression for a while, although he felt bad about that. Shauna was his mum but she was also a colossal pain in the arse, always kicking off and seeing doom in every situation. In a black mood, she sucked all the life out of everything around her, including him, including Aysha.

  Then the doorbell rang. When he opened the door he found Aysha standing there.

  ‘Thought you were babysitting Mum?’ he asked as she came in.

  ‘I was. But she told me to piss off out of it. She’s getting up.’

  ‘She’s getting up?’ Shauna had seemed like she was glued to that bed.

  Aysha nodded. ‘She’s got someone coming over, and she said to me, “Go out, do something, I want a private word with this person.” So I have been dismissed.’