The Business

by Martina Cole

  Now though, here was Kenny Boy asking for a fucking personal introduction to a woman who was toxic. Who would see that as some kind of personal interference in her life. She would also enjoy the fact that he had warned her off already and would now be seen as backtracking.

  ‘Why me? Why ask me to do it?’

  Kenny grinned then and, opening his arms out wide in a gesture of friendliness, he said sarcastically and with barely concealed anger, ‘Well, from what I gather, Bas, you are the only man she listens to. I want to meet me mother, Basil, and believe me when I say that if you fuck me about I will not be a happy bunny.’

  Basil was suddenly unimpressed with Kenny’s attitude, and he was not averse to letting his feelings about the boy’s request show. He pointed his finger at him, trying to keep a lid on his temper. ‘You would fucking dare to talk to me like this? You lairy little fucker.’

  Basil was out of his seat now, his anger was such that he was more than willing to give this boy a lesson that he would not forget in a hurry. He was still a kid, and kids needed to be disciplined.

  Kenny also knew that for all his bulk he was not yet in the same league as Basil. Kenny saw the way the man stood over him, saw that he had the determination needed to wipe out any kind of opposition. He also knew that this bravado of his would be filed away for future reference, and that he had been a mug to give it large where Basil was concerned. He was always willing to learn important lessons and, unlike most young men, he was also willing to take the said lessons on board. He was doing that just now, his temper was always going to be his downfall and he had to learn to contain it. He had to learn to use it constructively, and not let it get the better of him.

  He had only turned on Basil because he was embarrassed at wanting to see his mother in the first place. He had known that his request would not be welcomed. He knew that his mother was not someone who most people saw as worth getting to know. He knew Basil had given her the face full of Mars Bars she still carried. The scars were really livid, but he had made a point of finding out about her anyway, years before all this. He had never felt the urge to see her though, not until now.

  He saw how angry Basil was, and he was sorry for his arrogance. Basil was not a man you crossed lightly, and he was also the only man who had ever given him the time of day in his own right. Kenny felt the shame wash over him, Basil had always been there for him and he knew that loyalty was more important than anything else. Even if Basil’s was tinged with guilt.

  ‘I am sorry, Basil, I can’t believe I just mugged you off. But I have been watching me mum, and knowing how everyone hates her, I didn’t know how to bring the subject up without us having a tear-up of some description. I know I was out of order, and I sincerely apologise. But she is still my fucking mum, no matter what people say about her, true or otherwise, and I want to see her for meself. I want to know her. Surely you can understand that?’

  Basil did understand, that was the trouble. He sat back down, forcing his face once more into a neutral expression. He saw that Kenny Boy was on the verge of tears and knew that he would have felt the same way if he had been in the same position.

  People were always interested in where they came from, at least, who they had evolved from anyway. That seemed to be something most people yearned for. It was why adopted children looked for parents who had given them away and didn’t appreciate the people who had taken them in and brought them up like their own. Strange how they never felt the urge to tell the kids involved that they felt no real care for them, wished they had been their real flesh and blood and not some other fucker’s cast-off, who would now be hunted down and treated like visiting royalty. Life was a joke really.

  Basil was sorry for the boy, sorry for his extreme youth and his adolescent belief that he would find out something about his mother that would make him happy. No chance.

  He knew that Imelda would fuck this boy up, and she would laugh while she was doing it. Her big, handsome son would appeal to her for a while, would make her feel like a valid person for a while. She would hold him up as a yardstick, use him to make herself feel better, look better. She would then devour him without a thought, and this boy would probably let her. He was ripe for her kind of manipulation.

  Basil wasn’t without feelings and he understood the boy’s need to feel he belonged somewhere, knew that his initial contact with the woman who had brought him into the world would be exciting, would be of importance to him and his self-esteem. But, unlike Kenny, he also knew that at some point that same woman would lose her interest in him. One day she would not be able to fire up the enthusiasm for his company that he would demand as his right. Basil knew that eventually Imelda would destroy Kenny, just as she destroyed everyone else around her when they got too close. Probably when he started to suss her out.

  But, on the other hand, the boy had apologised to him and Basil knew that the lad needed to find out about Imelda first-hand. Otherwise he would never understand how dangerous she actually was. If he saw through her now, as a young man, it could make it easier for him in the future. Sooner rather than later seemed like a good idea. After all, no one had ever wanted Imelda in their life for any real length of time. She saw to that herself.

  ‘I assume you want me to keep this quiet?’

  Kenny nodded. He really was a big lad and yet, for all his size, Basil knew that his mother would still chip away at him until he finally had to admit that she was no good. He only hoped that he was right, and it would be sooner rather than later.

  ‘If you want to meet her I can arrange it. But I warn you now, Kenny, one day you will regret it. She is poison, she lives for skag, nothing else. Remember that she did not even offer to help pay for you and your sister’s food or clothing. She is a dog, she’s been in more hotel rooms than the Gideon Bible. She has no real care for anyone or anything. She’ll fuck you up, believe me, I know that better than anyone. I know what she is capable of better than anyone. So, when she finally fucks you over, boy, and she will, promise me you will walk away and chalk it all up to experience?’

  Kenny nodded. He didn’t really trust himself to answer the man who he knew was only looking out for him. Who was only telling him the truth of the situation.

  Basil looked long and hard at the young man, at his arrogant face and his nervous demeanour and, smiling sarcastically, he said with a real insight that Kenny had not expected from him, ‘You’ve already seen her, haven’t you? But you didn’t have the fucking guts to talk to her? You were frightened you’d get an even worse reaction than your sister?’

  Basil waited patiently for a reply, a retort of some kind that would give the boy an out if needed. Nothing happened though.

  ‘You think that if I introduce you to her, she’ll be forced to recognise you. That that way she can’t blank you, deliberately or otherwise. You fucking idiot, she will not care about anything that is relevant to you and her. All she’ll care about it how she can use you. It’s what she does.’

  Kenny didn’t answer him, he had a feeling that what Basil was saying to him was true. But that aside, he still needed to know where he had come from, and he needed to know what his mother was really like. First-hand, not just what he had been told about her.

  His sister remembered her, he did not. Now and again he felt a fleeting memory of her wash over him. A sound, a word could conjure up images he had long buried.

  He remembered her smell though, but even that was not something he could truly rely on. He did not know if he had ever really known her, or if he had made her up. His whole life he had wanted to meet her, and Jordanna seeing her had just forced home to him how long he had been without her. After all, she was his mother, she had carried him inside her. She obviously had no care for him or his sister and, even though he knew that, he still wanted to meet her. Until he understood her, how the fuck could he ever understand himself ?

  ‘Will you do what I’m asking or not? I don’t want a fucking big drama about it. I just want to see the woman who birt
hed me.’

  Basil laughed then, a real belly laugh. ‘There’s an old saying, you know, be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, what do you want now? Are you stalking me or what?’

  Basil looked into Imelda’s eyes and, as always, he was sorry that he had never seen any kind of emotion in them. She was like a basilisk, all she saw was how things could be turned in her direction, could be made to work for her somehow. There was never any kind of care, or even real interest in them.

  If, as someone had once said, the eyes were the window to the soul, then Imelda Dooley’s eyes showed that there was nothing even remotely resembling a soul inside her body. She looked, but she did not see. It was impressive, she had fooled so many people over the years, and she would continue to do so for as long as she lived, he was sure.

  People, it seemed to Basil, saw what they wanted to, what they needed to. Not what was there in front of their eyes. And it seemed that his theory had been proved by this woman’s son. Only a child would still want to know someone with her reputation, and her knack for walking away from anyone who might even pretend to care about her.

  Basil was here now because he believed in damage limitation. He knew that the boy would not welcome this much interference on his part, but he also knew that the boy was still far too young to understand that he was only doing this in his best possible interests.

  ‘You make me laugh, Mel, I hammered the fuck out of you and yet you still think you can talk to me like I am a cunt. Like I am one of your punters. Your mother is right about you, never did learn when to keep your trap shut, did you?’

  Imelda sighed. Basil knew she was irritated by his presence, knew she was more than willing to take another hiding if that was what it would take to get him off her back. She forced the admiration from him; he knew men who would be wary of a private visit like this.

  Imelda shook her head, and he saw a flicker of the younger Mel, the feisty girl who had captured his imagination all those years ago.

  ‘What can I say, Basil? In prison I was told by a shrink that I had a negative personality disorder. He also wanted me to wank him off. You tell me, who wouldn’t be negative in a situation like that?’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  She grinned then, and it softened her whole face. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You are scum, Mel, but then you know that, don’t you?’

  She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘You say that as if I would care about your opinion. You should know me better than that by now. I might have to let you dictate to me, you are stronger these days, but I don’t have to let you bother me as such. The shrink was right, Basil, I do not give a shit about anyone, it’s part of my charm. I am a negative person, it’s what gets me up in the afternoons.’

  Imelda was satisfied to see that Basil was not smiling now. She had hit a nerve, as she had intended to. If she was going to get a hiding she was of the opinion that it was better to get beaten as a sheep than as a lamb.

  ‘You ain’t got anything charming about you, Mel. You’re a dog, pure and simple. But I need you to do a favour for me.’

  Imelda sat back in the car seat, relaxing her body now. Basil could smell the muskiness that always seemed to emanate from her. It was strange how she always managed to put him on his dignity. How, after a few minutes in her company, he felt the urge to obliterate her from the face of the earth. She had a way about her, she always seemed as if she was laughing at you even though you could not prove it in any way. She made sure the people around her could feel her utter contempt for them.

  Imelda Dooley was more than capable of murder, Basil knew that and she knew that he knew that. His only real concern was that her son didn’t seem to understand that about her. In fact, he wondered if her son had inherited the mutant lunacy gene he obviously carried from her. But whereas Imelda’s ruthlessness was seen as something to be abhorred, in her son it could, one day, be seen as his greatest asset. Even for Basil, that was food for thought.

  ‘So, who do you need tucked up?’

  It was the way she said the words that caused Basil to side-swipe her; catching her on the side of her face with his fist as he put all his considerable strength behind the blow. The sound was loud in the darkness, he could almost hear the pain it caused and yet she didn’t even whimper. Instead, she sat back in her seat once more and, as the blood dripped on to his nice leather upholstery once again, she didn’t even attempt to use her tissue to stem it. She was bleeding profusely, and Basil knew she probably needed stitches.

  As the blood found its own pathway, as it glistened and thickened all over her clothes, her skin, and the interior of his car, he knew she was pleased at his reaction. He knew he had done what she wanted. Imelda loved a violent reaction, if not from her then from the people around her. It was what made her like she was, what set her apart from everyone else. It was why she was like she was; violence was the thing she craved once the high had dissolved, it was the same thing that had caused all her problems in life. She was an adrenaline junkie.

  ‘Feel better now, do you? Feel like you’re better than me?’ She was looking directly at him now. In the half-light of the lamp-post he was parked under, she looked like something from a Hammer Horror film.

  Not for the first time, Basil wondered if heroin killed not only emotions, but also pain. She seemed immune to pain of any kind. Mental or physical. He was convinced that even if she did feel real hurt like everyone else, she at least enjoyed the sensation of it. Or, at least, she enjoyed the guilt it caused in the perpetrator of the pain. She wanted to be the victim at times, it suited her. If she could not control the situation by her own force, she controlled it by letting the protagonist use their own force, their own anger, against her. Taking the passive stance gave her a strength that was in some ways more powerful. Mainly because, unlike her, the people she was dealing with were capable of guilt, disgust and shame at their actions.

  Imelda was like a predatory animal, she sensed the weakness in her foe, and she exploited it without any kind of preamble whatsoever. She used, or she allowed herself to be used. Either way, it had kept her alive much longer than expected. She was a real piece of dirt, and he was about to inflict her and all she stood for on a young man who was completely without the strength needed to deal with her and everything that came with her.

  His only regret was that he would need to wait until this animal showed her real self to the boy and, when that happened, he would be in a position to make her disappear once more. Only then would he be in a position to pick up the pieces. Because Imelda would shatter her son’s life as completely as she had ruined everyone else’s around her.

  Basil pulled a pristine white handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and threw it at her. ‘Wipe yourself, have you no fucking shame?’

  Imelda shook her head, and he could see the puzzlement at his anger and his hatred. He knew that she was willing to take what he was going to give her, but that his actions had affected her for the wrong reasons.

  ‘Have you no shame? You sought me out, not the other way round. I have the bruises to prove it.’ She was laughing gently, as if it was an intimate moment they were sharing together.

  ‘What is it with you, Mel, why do you make people so fucking angry with you? Why do you enjoy other people’s hatred so much?’ He was being honest with her, wanted to know the answer to his question.

  Imelda knew that what he was really interested in was why he felt the need to hurt her so much, and she was confident that they both knew the answer to that one.

  The blood was everywhere now, as she wanted it to be. She hoped it was sinking into every nook and cranny around her. The stitching would never be the same again, nor would the carpets. Blood was a fucker like that, it lingered longer than a bad fart.

  She wanted him to see the damage he had caused her. Wanted him to know that his back-hander had caused a real wound once again. She did not really care about things like that, she never ha
d. He was the one who cared about this crap. He cared far more than she did that he was once again guilty of opening up her face. She knew that his reaction to her simply proved that she had been right about him all along. He still felt something, and they both knew it.

  Satisfied that he was not going to repeat his earlier action, she picked up the handkerchief from her lap and began to wipe away the blood from her face with gentle, feminine strokes. The action was almost sexual in its intensity. Looking at the blood that now soaked the white cotton, she looked towards him once again and said sadly, ‘Is this about Kenny Boy? Only, he has been watching me for a while now. After Jordanna’s histrionics and your fucking outrage, I had a feeling he might come around. I heard many moons ago that he was asking everyone about me. I know that you and my mother keep him close. So, what do you want from me, Basil? Only, I think I might need to see a quack, don’t you?’

  He realised then that she had known what he would want from the second she had laid eyes on him. She had been expecting something like this.

  ‘How come you are saying all this to me now? If you knew what I wanted, why not save this aggro?’

  Imelda grinned. Basil noticed that she had lost a few of her back teeth. All junkies lost them eventually, it was because they spent the best part of their lives gritting them. She was also missing clumps of her hair, another junkie trait. But she did what all functioning drugheads did, she backcombed the remaining hair and, in so doing, she managed to look normal.

  ‘Why would I, Bas? I didn’t know for certain what you wanted from me. I ain’t a fucking mind-reader. You never gave me credit for what I am capable of. I junk because I like it. It’s the same reason I gave my kids to my mother, because she wanted them. She needs them like I need the junk. Except, unlike her, I can only fuck meself up these days. Now, can we finally get to the point?’

  Basil had a handgun underneath his seat. It was loaded, ready for action. He knew that he could retrieve it quick smart, then blow this skank’s head off. He looked around him, the road was quiet; it was very late, two-forty in the morning. He would be able to dispose of her and the car within an hour. It would not be the first time he had felt the urge to take out trash on short notice. He was in possession of a scrapyard near Tilbury Docks where more than one belligerent fucker had been crushed and forgotten about. But he knew that this was not an option at this particular moment in time.