by Martina Cole
Briony held her hand up to stem the flow.
‘I think I’ve heard enough from you for one night, Mariah. I never realised before that you didn’t like my boys. But I think I get the picture now, thank you very much.’
She started to pull on her fox fur coat and Mariah grabbed her arm.
‘I love those boys, Briony, but unlike you I can see their faults. They play you, girl. They get all spruced up round Bernie’s before they darken your door, then they sit and smile - and I tell you now, girl, they’re taking the bleeding piss! Oh, I don’t dispute they love you. No ... they worship you. But all the same, they know what you want from them and they deliver it. This is the proof of it. You told me tonight that they were thinking of getting a little business. You was pleased as bloody punch. Finally settling themselves, you said. And what is this business? Collecting fucking rents! It’s villainy they want, girl. They want to be like the Rileys. Like...’
Briony pushed Mariah in her ample breasts, shouting, ‘Go on, say it! They want to be like me ... me and you. Because you’re in all this up to your bloody neck too!’
‘I know I am, but unlike your bloody boys, me and you don’t heavy people. We don’t shoot stupid bloody thugs in dingy little clubs. Can’t you see that if you don’t put a stop to their gallop, they’ll end up dead or locked up?’
Even though Briony secretly agreed with everything Mariah said, her deep-seated loyalty to her family got the upper hand.
‘They’re my boys and I’ll deal with them.’
‘Well, you do as you see fit. But don’t say I didn’t try and warn you!’
Briony opened the door and snarled back, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
Slamming the door behind her she stormed out of Mariah’s house. She was even more annoyed with the twins now because on top of everything else they’d caused her to row with her best friend. All the way home in her car, she had a pain in her chest.
It was true what people said: the truth hurt. It hurt a lot.
Danny and Boysie came in at two-thirty. After the snooker club they had gone to The Two Puddings in Stratford and had a quiet drink. Watching the Rileys’ counterparts, the Moneys.
Michael Money was the leader and Boysie and Danny had made a conscious effort to ingratiate themselves with him. He was unaware that he was next on their list. Then at ten-thirty they had gone to a drinking club in Frith Street owned by Tommy Lane. There they had gradually come down from their earlier euphoria. As they walked in at the front door of their aunt’s house, the drawing-room door opened and Briony stood there waiting for them.
‘Well, well, well, if it ain’t Frank and Jesse James!’
Despite themselves they smiled. Only their Aunt Briony would talk to them like that.
‘Get in here, you two. Now!’
They walked into the drawing room behind her. Both stood in front of the blazing fire and looked at her.
Even in her rage she was overcome by the sheer power and magnetic quality of the two men in front of her. The two viciously handsome faces were turned towards her. The boys’ eyes and bodies were fiercely alert.
‘I want to know what happened tonight in Silvertown.’
‘I think you already know, Mum.’ The way Boysie called her ‘Mum’ tugged at Briony’s heart. They were her boys, her big boys now. Her Achilles heel.
‘I know enough to realise you two must be off your fucking rockers!’ Her voice filled the room. ‘Shooting people in front of witnesses. Carrying sawn-off shotguns. What next? You going to go in Scotland Yard and rob their payroll? You must be stupid. You are stupid. The Rileys will come after you hammer and tongs. Seamus was to be their next torturer, they worked for the Rileys, all the McNees, and what do you do? You go and shoot them. Jesus wept.’
Boysie and Daniel looked at the little woman in front of them.
‘We ain’t scared of the Rileys, or the McNees, or the Moneys. We know what we’re doing, Mum, so just calm yourself down. Gordon Bennet, anyone would think we’d done something really wrong!’
Daniel’s voice was jocular and suddenly Briony saw them both as plain as day. They’d always been the same, even as children. If they wanted something, they asked, then they asked again more pointedly, and finally they demanded it. She had always seen that they got what they wanted. She’d wanted to make up to them for not having Eileen, not having a father. She’d wanted her boys to have everything. Now the upshot of all this was standing in front of her. They wanted what the Rileys and the McNees and the Moneys had, and they would get it, she had no doubts about that at all. They’d get it.
They walked towards her and kissed her, as they always did, one on each cheek, and Briony was undone. Nothing she could say now would do any good. She had to retreat or she had to fight with them, and she wouldn’t fight with them. She couldn’t because then she knew they’d leave her, and if they left her she’d have nothing. Nothing at all. She had to go along with them, had to accept it. Deep inside herself, though she wasn’t aware of it, she was secretly proud of them. They wanted a life of villainy and, being her boys, had started at the top. At the pinnacle. If they took the Rileys out of the game they were set up for life.
‘Oh, boys. You do worry me. What can I do to help you with the Rileys? Do you want me to smooth it over?’
Boysie laughed.
‘The Rileys don’t trash you, do they?’
Briony shook her head. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Well, they don’t trash us either. Me and Danny Boy know what we want from life.’ He walked to the window and pulled back the heavy velvet curtains.
‘There’s a big old world out there, Mum, and me and him, we’re gonna be the kings of it. Ain’t that right, Danny?’
He nodded.
‘We want to make our mark in our own way. Without you, Mum. We’re men now, and we’re men who know what we want. And nothing and no one’s gonna stop us.’
Briony knew it was a threat and finally saw what Mariah meant. They were saying: ‘We’ll do it with you. Here in this house. Or we’ll leave and do it on our own.’
Briony went to them both and hugged them to her.
‘It’s also a dangerous world out there, full of people like the Rileys and the McNees and the Moneys. Don’t you ever forget that, boys.’
They smiled at her then, two identical smiles with identical white teeth.
‘We won’t.’ It was spoken in unison and Briony nodded at them. The course was set.
Chapter Thirty-four
‘Come on, Mum, get up! It’s after ten.’
Liselle pulled the covers back from her mother’s body and sighed.
‘Please, Mum, you’re recording at eleven-thirty.’
‘Leave me alone, Liselle, I’m tired.’
Kerry’s emaciated body was curled in a ball. Liselle put her arm under her mother’s head and pulled her forcibly to a sitting position. Then, half dragging and half carrying her, she pulled her from the bed, across the bedroom and into the shower. Kerry felt the cold water hitting her body and began to gasp for breath. Liselle laughed.
‘That’ll teach you to tie one on! I’m getting sick and tired of having to do this. Now, when you’re awake come down and have something to eat and a cup of coffee. I’ll drive you to the studios.’
Kerry stuck two fingers up at her daughter’s retreating back and turned on the hot water. Five minutes later she emerged from the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. Then, going back into her bedroom, she opened the dressing-table drawer and took out a bottle of pills. She swallowed five without the aid of water and slipped on a dressing gown. Downstairs her daughter was waiting for her.
‘You look like you’ve been done and left!’
Kerry smiled. ‘I feel like it, love. Where’s me coffee?’
She poured out the coffee and they drank in silence. Liselle studied her mother. Kerry was working late in the clubs singing, she was cutting an album, and she was also taking far too many pills. What really annoyed Liselle
was that her mother looked so bloody good on her way of life. Anyone else would have been burnt out, looked terrible, but not Kerry Cavanagh. She seemed to thrive on work, work and more work. Even during the war she’d travelled all over the world singing to the troops and had come back raring to go. It was the pills that bothered Liselle, those and the vodka.
At twenty-one she was her mother’s full-time minder. She wasn’t sure exactly when this had come about, but it had. It seemed to Liselle that she had spent her life looking after her mother instead of the other way round. She even signed all the cheques these days because her mother was either unavailable or stoned out of her brain. Now Liselle froze off reporters, she confirmed Kerry’s singing dates, checked that her clothes were all looked after, that her mother remembered to eat, hid as much drink as she could, and all in all made sure her mother was presentable for her public engagements. It was getting harder by the day. As Kerry’s eyes began to glaze again she sighed mentally. At least she could sing OK on the pills. It was when she had had the drink that it got difficult, though her mother’s reputation was well known in the business.
‘Come on, Mum, eat a bit of scrambled egg.’
Kerry made a face.
‘I wouldn’t eat that crap if you paid me! I’ve had a bit of toast, that’ll do.’
‘Well, go and get dressed then, we’ve got to go in a minute.’
Kerry stood up.
‘You’re a right old bossy boots, Liselle, do you know that?’ It was said in a jocular manner but it hurt Liselle nonetheless.
‘Someone’s got to get you sorted out. If it was left to you...’
Kerry sobered up immediately. ‘I know. I know, love.’
Liselle watched her mother walk from the room and wished she could bite her tongue off. Her mum was a difficult charge, she really was. But Liselle loved her.
Going out to the hallway she looked in the big mirror by the phone. The face that stared back at her had deep circles under the eyes and her full lips were painted with a deep red lipstick. Her deep brown eyes were heavily made up and her thick blue-black hair pulled up on to her head. She often wondered how she had got so dark, her mother would never tell her about her father, only that she had loved him very much and he had left her. She’d daydreamed as a child that he was a Spaniard or an Italian. Her granny always said they had Basque blood in the family, maybe it had come from there? It was strange not to know your beginnings and lately it had bothered her very much. But it was pointless asking her mother or her aunts, they all clammed up as soon as it was mentioned.
She heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs and picked up the keys to the car. It would all come out in the wash as her granny always said when gossiping about someone when she didn’t know the full story. It would all come out in the wash. Smiling at her mother they left the house.
Kenny Riley was so annoyed his face was coming out in red blotches. His breathing was painful and his fists ached from clenching them. He looked at his right-hand man, Michael Money, and sighed.
‘I want those Cavanaghs given a lesson they’ll never forget, do you get my drift? I think they’re a pair of little piss-takers who need to be taught a few manners!’
Michael Money nodded. He was still reeling from the shock of the shooting himself. The fact that the twins had turned up at the pub after and had chatted to him as if nothing had happened scared him. Scared him very much. Boysie was a nutter, a temper merchant, but Danny now, he was a different ball game. He was cute, he was clever, and by Christ if he was the brains behind the two, then they’d all better watch their backs. He didn’t say this to Kenny Riley though, he knew when to keep his peace. At the moment Kenny was on a short fuse and anyone who lit the match under it was guaranteed a long stay in the Mile End Hospital.
‘What about their aunt, Kenny? She ain’t exactly Snow White.’
Kenny clenched his teeth and said sarcastically in a high voice: ‘Oh, are we frightened of women as well as children now then? Shall I run home and get me old Mum to sort it all out for me? Eh? Shall I, Micky? Or how about me and you make some jam sandwiches and go for a nice picnic in Victoria Park, and when we come back all the naughty boys might be indoors having a bath and eating their tea! Bollocks to Briony Cavanagh! . Bollocks to all the Cavanaghs! Go out and get them and bring them here to me. I have a few words to say to them that might just frighten the little fuckers enough to make them leave me and mine alone.’
Michael Money nodded his head furiously and backed out of the room. As he looked around the crowded offices of Riley and Co. in Bethnal Green, at men, some too old to be villains really, some far too young, at the caches of guns and other paraphernalia garnered over the years, he felt a feeling of foreboding. Young the Cavanagh twins were, but frightened? Not a chance. Especially not Boysie. Boysie was a bona fide nutter, that was well known. Now he had the task, the frightening task, of telling them that Kenneth Riley Esquire wanted to see them. He didn’t know at that time who he was the more scared of, the Rileys or the Cavanaghs.
He soon found out.
Boysie and Danny had been up since seven. They had as usual eaten a large breakfast cooked by a very subdued Cissy who had heard the news and was torn between a natural hatred of violence and shock at thinking her twins were even capable of it. But as the meal had worn on their usual bantering had won her over and she consoled herself with the fact that the boys must have been driven to such a desperate act. Finally, by the time she had washed up their plates and made them another pot of tea, the McNees were the undisputed villains of the piece in her mind.
By eight-thirty Bernadette and Granny Moll were also at the house with Auntie Rosie in tow.
Molly, to everyone’s shock, was absolutely made up over what the boys had done. Briony sat and listened in amazement as her mother hugged them and kissed them and told them they were good sensible boys who knew what they wanted and went after it. Her mother’s easy acceptance of it all shocked Briony and Bernie to the core. Watching the boys’ performance, and Briony was honest enough to admit it was a performance, she felt a grudging respect for them even though they had shot a man. Mariah was exactly right in what she had said: they did play her and their aunts and their granny. The twins were what you wanted them to be, even when you knew darned well they weren’t! They still kept up the illusion of being her boys, her good boys.
Only the boys were now men, dangerous men, and the worst part of it all was that she still loved them with every ounce of her being. No matter what they did.
Rosalee was sitting on a chair and Boysie was helping her drink her tea. The gentleness of him as he wiped her chin with his clean white handkerchief and kissed her wet lips made Briony’s heart ring with love. Danny brought her another cushion and placed it at the small of her back, making sure she was comfortable.
Molly watched them with Rosalee and felt her heart swell with pride. These were men to be proud of - unlike her husband who had allowed life to get the better of him, who had sold his daughters off for the price of a drink and a good meal, these two here would always look after their own. The women who got them wouldn’t scratch in the dirt for a living, wouldn’t have to rifle through pockets in the dark, feared of waking the drunken tyrant in the bed beside her, to salvage a few shillings of their wages. Oh, no. These were men who’d bedeck their women in finery, would provide for their children, and love and respect their women. After all, weren’t they brought up by a houseful of women? Even Briony, the bastard of hell as Molly sometimes still thought of her, had made sure the boys respected women and had given them an insight and knowledge into women’s lives.
Oh, they were good boys, good men, and if they shot the legs off that scut McNee, who really cared? He was a dirty torturer, could do things with a pair of pliers that would make the Borgias sick to their stomachs. Now her boys would become the Barons of the East End and the streets would be safe and she could carry on holding up her head with pride.
The twins, for their part, accepted th
eir granny’s adulation as they had always done: with wide smiles and plenty of hugs. Briony, watching, was impressed in spite of herself. Eileen’s boys would go far all right.
It was just a case of whether they went too far.
Kenny Riley was waiting for Michael Money to arrive back with the twins. All day he had been thinking about what they had had the temerity to do. As he had looked around him at his crew, as he thought of the main men who worked for him, the earlier rage had worn off slightly and he was suddenly left wondering if maybe the Cavanaghs would indeed become a force to be reckoned with. With hindsight he remembered they were closely linked to Tommy Lane, one-time Baron and an old favourite of their aunt’s. Tommy, still a bachelor for all his womanising, was not a fool, and the boys would get plenty of support there. Also there was Marcus Dowling who worked for Briony and was a hard man himself. Briony Cavanagh was a hard case too. It was said years before that she was in on the disappearance and murder of Willy Bolger, Ronnie Olds and one of his minders. She and Mariah Jurgens were both shrewd enough to woo the right people, and they not only courted villains like Tommy Lane but also befriended high court judges and members of parliament, to name but a few.
By lunchtime he was beginning to sweat and regretting his earlier impulsive behaviour. He should have had the twins gunned down and then made his peace with the families. That was the usual way of the East End. Once they were dead there was nothing anyone could do. The McNee brothers wanted vengeance, his own brothers wanted vengeance, he wanted vengeance. But it was vengeance with a bitter taste. He had seen the worry in Michael Money’s face and Michael wasn’t easily scared.
Neither was he, for that matter, but the motley crew outside, much depleted by the war, seemed to him all of a sudden like a Darby and Joan club. Old lags and young tearaways were all he had now. Fuck the war! It had been hard in that department. Some of the best minders had joined up and died, while less patriotic counterparts like himself had gone on the trot and sat the fighting out from pub basements and other such places, building an empire that was now there for the taking by people like the Cavanagh twins.