by Martina Cole
Her voice was small.
He smiled sadly, a lop-sided grin that made him look very handsome and very young.
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’
Debbie walked into the hospital room. Holding before her a carrier bag full of sweets and drinks, she smiled nervously at her niece.
‘Hello, love, how are you feeling?’
Wendy was so astounded to see her Aunt Debbie that she started to cry and laugh at the same time.
‘I thought it was me mum for a second. Come and sit down, it’s lovely to see you, really it is.’
They were the right words. Debbie walked in and sat on a chair by the bed. She hadn’t seen Wendy for two years and the change in her was remarkable. The girl looked almost a woman now with that thick hair inherited from her father and the big chest that was Susan all over again.
‘You’ve grown, I can see that.’
Wendy nodded. Her aunt looked terrible. Aunt Debbie who had always been the arbiter of fashion looked old and tired. She wore no make up and her hair was lank. Her clothes were too tight but nondescript. Her appearance made Wendy sad. She didn’t know why.
Debbie saw the appraisal and smiled.
‘I had a long journey, love. So, how are the kids then?’
‘They’ll be here in a minute. Miss Beacham, the social worker, is bringing them. She’s ever so nice, Debbie. We’re seeing as much as we can of Rosie before she goes, I suppose.’
The desolation in the girl’s voice brought a lump to Debbie’s throat.
‘I had a lovely letter from your mum, love. She asked me to keep an eye out for you like.’
Wendy sat up properly in bed.
‘I have to see a psychiatrist apparently. Tell them why I tried to top meself. Like this situation doesn’t say it all! Still, at least I can go back to the home soon. I wish I hadn’t done it, Debbie, I really do. I caused me mum so much grief and stuck in nick there was nothing she could do, was there? I just worried the life out of her.’
Debbie saw a girl who was half child and half woman and it hurt to know that she herself had not tried to help the children at all since Susan had gone.
‘How’s Uncle Jamesie?’
The question was asked merely out of politeness and it showed.
Debbie smiled.
‘The same as usual, love. He’ll never change all the time he’s got a hole in his arse.’
The way she said it made them both laugh, though neither of them knew why they were laughing so hard.
‘How’s me nan and granddad?’
‘The same. They’re still a pair of arseholes.’
They laughed uproariously again and Miss Beacham heard the laughter and was pleased as she walked the children down the ward.
If Wendy could laugh like that she had to be over the worst.
Barry and Alana walked in with Rosie between them. She looked lovely in a little yellow dress and shoes with a large hat to match, courtesy of the kindly Simpsons. She ran to the bed. Putting up her chubby arms, she immediately wanted to sit on Debbie’s lap.
Debbie lifted up the beautiful child and smiled at her. Rosie smiled back happily and, pointing to the window, said loudly, ‘Garden. Doggie.’
They could hear a dog barking in the distance and all laughed with her. At three she was slow speaking but had picked up more words over the last few weeks.
Barry, spying the sweets, said jauntily, ‘Shall I put all this away in your dresser for you?’
He had already opened the carrier bag and was sorting through the booty.
Alana smiled at her aunt nervously. Debbie smiled back. Miss Beacham stood and watched until Wendy, remembering her manners, introduced them.
‘This is me mum’s sister, me Aunt Debbie. This is Miss Beacham, our social worker.’
The two women nodded at one another.
Debbie felt so out of place she went quiet. It was guilt, the guilt of knowing that while she had been wasting time trying to hold on to a man who was no good and never would be, these four children, her own flesh and blood, had been trying to come to terms not just with the loss of their father but also their mother.
‘Ain’t it lovely down here, Auntie Debbie? We’re going to the sea front later. Miss Beacham promised.’
Barry’s voice told everyone, especially Miss Beacham, that he was going whatever anyone else thought.
‘Why don’t you join us, Debbie? I’m sure the kids would like that.’
Alana didn’t look too sure but little Rosie had taken a shine to her auntie and was grinning all over her face as if she understood what they were saying.
Debbie didn’t answer, but she smiled and that was an acceptance.
Later, as she watched the kids playing around together, enjoying each other’s company, as she saw the deep affection they held for one another, Debbie envied Susan what she had achieved against all the odds.
She had produced four beautiful loving kids who still worshipped the ground she walked on. Even though she was away from them, had been away from them for so long. If nothing else the visit had certainly put her own life into perspective.
‘You all right, Matty?’
‘If you ask me that once more I’ll go mad,’ she snapped.
Susan shrugged. ‘Well, you look ill, girl. Depressed. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.’
Matty stood up. Pushing Susan down into a chair she took over tidying her hair. As she expertly fashioned it into a neat French pleat, she said sadly, ‘Sometimes, Susan, the past catches up with you and you can’t be bothered to fight it any more. No, I’ll rephrase that. You’re not in a position to fight it any more.’
‘What you on about, Matty?’
‘What I said. I’ve come to what’s called a watershed in my life.’
Susan laughed.
‘You don’t half come out with some things, Matty. I thought a watershed was where you went before they invented indoor toilets.’
Matty grabbed her hair playfully and made her sit still.
‘A watershed is when something happens and you have to make a decision. A decision that will affect the rest of your life. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing, don’t you? We breeze around this place yet we’re captives. Whatever else we do, whatever we think inside, we’re captives here and basically we know it. All our thoughts are on getting out, being back in the world. In your case, being back with your family is your priority. I mean, I’m basically a very selfish person. I always was and prison hasn’t changed that. If anything I’m even more selfish than ever.
‘You are learning that you should have been more selfish. If you had been, you wouldn’t even be here. You did the same as me ultimately, you protected yourself. But, unlike me, everyone here believes you.’
‘Stop it, Matty. You have got the prison blues, like you’ve had for ages. Christ, your appeal is a foregone conclusion. You’ve even got celebrities saying you should never have been locked up. What have I got, eh? I can just see Wham! signing a petition for getting me out, can’t you?’
Susan laughed.
‘Cheer up. If you let yourself get down in here, you’re lost. Every day I have to make myself cheerful. Make myself face the day. My kids’ letters get me over the blues. You need to do something else with your life. If ever anyone needed someone else to think about, that person is you. Do you the world of good.’
Matty walked around and stood in front of her. Placing her hands on her shoulders, she said seriously, ‘Susan, you’re the only person I’ve ever really cared about. I told you I would talk to my brief and I didn’t. I didn’t because at the end of the day I wanted her to work for me and only me. That’s how big a person I am. I didn’t even want to help you when it came to it. I’m not noble or nice or any of the things you make me out to be.
‘I’m a sociopath, Susan. I know that and you should be warned about that. Be on your guard against me and people like me. We’re destroyers. We destroy everything we touch because we want to. We can’t
help ourselves. I’m Barry in a dress with a pretty face and a trim little figure. Please stop pretending I’m anything else.’
Susan looked into that earnest face and sighed sadly.
‘You’re not. You’re unhappy and lost deep inside, just like I am. You need to talk to someone, get all that rottenness out of you. I ain’t a shrink but I sussed out you wasn’t all the ticket, mate. But people get like you are for a reason. Parents shape their kids. Husbands and wives shape each other’s lives.
‘Now I don’t pretend to have your brain capacity, Matty. You’re clever, really bright. Turn that brain on yourself, help yourself, because at the end of the day that’s what we all have to do. Look at ourselves in the mirror and see ourselves for what we really are.’
The two women were quiet for a few moments then Matty said seriously, ‘But that’s just it, Susan, I have turned my brain on myself and I know what I am. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I already know myself inside out. It’s knowing myself so well that’s depressed me. The past catches up with you, no matter how clever you think you’ve been. The past is the future but you don’t realise that until it rears its ugly head again.’
Susan shook her head and said vehemently, ‘You’re wrong, Matty, so wrong.’
She grinned, the same little grin she always put on when she wanted people to like her.
‘Am I? Are you so sure about that, Susan?’
Geraldine stretched. She was tired but feeling much better than she had before talking to Colin the whole afternoon. She had opened another bottle of wine and now felt the tightness around her eyes that white wine always gave her. She was not a drinker.
Colin, though, could gulp wine at an astonishing rate. As she saw him refilling the glasses she accepted the hangover she would have the next morning.
She liked him. He was easy, uncomplicated and kind. Very kind.
‘Do you think Susan will work with us? I mean, Geraldine, I know it all sounds great in here but this is a false environment. At the end of the day it’s what she wants, not what we want.’
Geraldine took the glass of wine and shrugged.
‘I think after what happened with Wendy she’ll be willing to do anything to get out.’
Colin still wasn’t convinced.
‘If we can get a closed courtroom we could tell the truth, and that’s more powerful than anything we could dream up. Plus the truth is much harder to disprove, isn’t it?’
‘We can only wait and see what Susan thinks of our plan. That’s all we can do at the moment. Leave it for now.’
He sat beside her.
‘You look tired.’
‘I’m half drunk! I never was much of a drinker.’
He grinned.
‘You don’t take after your father then? His reputation for putting Scotch away is legendary. Almost as legendary as the cases he fought and won.’
Geraldine didn’t answer him.
‘Do you miss him?’
She stared into her wine glass for a few moments.
‘No, actually, I don’t. I never really liked him.’
Colin was amazed at her words and it showed on his face.
‘Other people loved him. He was the typical Irishman made good. A brain like a computer coupled with a natural charm that made him everyone’s favourite paddy. But you see, Colin, at home with his wife and daughters he was a bully. A big, brash, drunken bully. So, no, I don’t miss him at all.’
‘I never realised . . .’
His words were faint and inadequate.
‘No one knew. We could hardly broadcast it to the nation. Even after his death we kept up the charade. It’s what people do, isn’t it? When he died he was actually with a seventeen-year-old prostitute. He had her in his chambers at Holborn. But friends rallied around, you know what the legal profession is like. That’s why Matty was put away, because her husband was one of us. A legal. Though I also have a sneaking feeling she killed Victor Enderby in cold blood.
‘Nothing in life is ever quite what it seems, is it? You thought my father was a saint like everyone else, champion of the underdog, the little man’s protector. Well, he didn’t give a toss about any of his clients. He cared about winning, though. That was everything to him.’
Colin was quiet. There was nothing to say and suddenly Geraldine felt sorry for him and for all she had laid at his feet.
She was drunk. She should never get drunk. It was dangerous, and she should know that better than anyone.
She placed a hand on his arm and smiled.
‘I’m sorry, Colin, I shouldn’t have said any of that.’
He smiled at her, a friendly smile. She knew her secrets were safe with him.
‘I think you had to say it one day. Everyone has to say these things at least once in their life.’
She nodded and sipped once more at her wine. Lying back, she relaxed into the soft cushions and sighed.
‘My family were boringly normal,’ he told her. ‘Nice mum, nice dad, nice sister. I still lived at home until two years ago.’
The last was said sheepishly.
She put a hand on his arm and said gently, ‘Then you were very, very lucky.’
He grinned again.
‘So it seems. I haven’t any hidden secrets like most people. My life was textbook really. Nice semi, nice holidays, nice everything. But crushingly boring.’
Geraldine finished her wine at a gulp.
‘Don’t knock boring, Colin. Some people would give everything they have for a nice, safe, boring life. Believe me.’
He looked into her eyes and said seriously, ‘I do, Geraldine. I believe you.’
Jamesie walked into the house with the usual scowl on his face. On the table in the kitchen was a large roast dinner and a trifle. He was hungry after a day’s work and looked at the food appreciatively.
Debbie piled his plate with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, carrots and cabbage, roast potatoes and mash. She had even made him his favourite swede. He always came home on a Sunday. It was the only day she could ever really expect to see him, a ritual now. He worked overtime on Sundays. Getting himself a stake, was how he termed it. Debbie knew the money went to Carol and the boy. Now it would go to the new baby Carol was flaunting so proudly.
Debbie smiled at him as she tucked into her own food.
‘You look pleased with yourself?’ he grunted.
She smiled again.
‘I am, actually. I went to see Susan’s kids yesterday.’
‘Really? Well, make the most of it. You won’t be going again.’
He bit into a piece of beef and she saw his uneven teeth and wondered why she had never noticed them before. He ate with his mouth open as usual.
‘Is that right?’
Debbie sounded nonchalant.
Jamesie placed his knife and fork on his plate and looked directly at her.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
She carried on eating as though he had never spoken.
‘Are you listening to me, Debbie? Taking on board what I’m saying, are you?’
‘They’re nice kids, Jamesie. She was a good mother, Sue. I never gave her credit for that before. Always felt it was unfair, her having kids like nobody’s business and me and you left without any. I hated her at times.’
Jamesie was staring at his wife as if she was about to be transported from the room by aliens.
‘She was a murdering cunt! That’s what she was. Going soft in the bleeding head, you are. You keep away from them kids. You can’t have any and that’s that.’
‘No, but you can, can’t you? I hear Carol’s expecting again. Sure it’s yours, are you? Only she’s been round the turf more times than Red Rum. Even me mum looks down on Carol and that’s saying something.’
He looked into his wife’s face and was not at all sure what to do before the change in her. Gone was Debbie, the little wife, grateful to see him. Trying her best to please him. In her place was a woman with stone hard eyes and a smile that di
d not quite reach them.
‘You’re asking for a fucking slap, Debbie. I’m warning you.’
She laughed then and carried on eating.
‘You ever slap me again and you’ll know all about it, Jamesie, believe that, mate.’
He pushed back his chair, the scraping noise loud in the small kitchen. Debbie was up before him. She had the meat knife in her hand.
‘Go on, you big fat bastard! I dare you. Then you’ll get some of what Barry Dalston got. I know me rights, mate. I can have this house all to meself and you can whistle for it. You ain’t got no claim on it. I have had advice, boy. I know me rights now. Tell Carol the cunt she ain’t ever getting across this doorstep, her or her fucking kids.
‘I have had enough of you and your whoring. I’ve had enough of you and what you want. What about me, eh? What about me, your wife? What about what I want for a change?’
She still held the knife above her head as if ready to plunge it into him at any second.
‘Put the knife down, Debbie, I’m warning you.’
She shook her head.
‘Get out, you prat, and go back to that thing you spend all your time with. I have had enough. At last I have had enough. I wouldn’t have you now if your dick was dripping in diamonds and you farted perfume. So piss off.’
Everything he had ever done to her was written on her face, there in the words she used.
He looked down at his dinner. He was starving and knowing Carol all he would get there was a sandwich. Suddenly his home comforts seemed rather attractive.
Debbie walked slowly round the table.
‘Get out, Jamesie. Piss off back to her. I don’t want you any more. I will not have you and all you stand for in my kitchen. This is my house. I cleaned it, decorated it, and kept it for you. Now it’s mine.’
As she took another step towards him he backed away from her. Finally he walked from the house.
Debbie bolted the door behind him and sighed heavily.
She had done it, really done it.
He was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rhianna watched as Matty sat by herself, face drawn and white, eyes listless. She looked terrible. Even her hair was lifeless.