Goodnight Lady

by Martina Cole

  The twins were broken-hearted. Briony watched them with a detachment she would have thought impossible a few days before. But some of the things Tommy had told her had changed her towards them. Oh, she knew she would get over the shock of learning about their sadistic ways, their vindictive assaults. They were her boys, no matter what they did. But she would like to think she could influence them enough to see the errors of their ways. She could try to change them.

  Jonathan stood with the twins, his face grave. It had been good of him to fly over from Hollywood for the funeral. He had been a good friend over the years, and would continue to be for a long time.

  She stared at the coffin, seeing Rosalee in her mind’s eye, smiling and clapping her hands, all those years ago in the basements, her chubby feet blue with the cold. Briony had sold herself to take them out of there, to give them all a better life, and the result was Eileen dead, Rosalee dead, and the new generation inheriting problems that were far worse than mere cold and hunger.

  Was it all worth it?

  It was a question she couldn’t honestly answer. Not now while her heart was laden down with this unhappiness, this terrible destructive unhappiness.

  Only the future could answer that question. Only hindsight could give her even a glimmer of an answer. She would wait.

  She had been waiting all her life for something, her natural son for one thing. A few more years wouldn’t make much difference.

  BOOK FOUR

  1968

  ‘In trouble to be troubled is to have your trouble doubled’

  - The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

  Chapter Forty-one

  1968

  Delia smacked her daughter’s chubby leg hard. A deep red handprint appeared in the skin as if by magic.

  ‘You touch that once more, Faith, and I’ll hammer you.’

  Faith looked at her mother and, lips trembling, put back the brightly coloured ashtray on Briony’s coffee table.

  Briony put her arms out to the child and she climbed on to her lap, starting to cry now she had a bit of sympathy.

  ‘Auntie Briony, you ruin her!’

  Briony laughed out loud.

  ‘What else are children for? She’s only three, Delia, she doesn’t really understand right and wrong yet. Give the child time!’

  It was said lightly but Delia was aware of her aunt’s controlled anger. She couldn’t bear to see a child smacked, it completely threw her. Delia wondered how Briony would have been if she had had to live as Delia did, in a high rise flat with a man who was no good whatsoever.

  She stifled this thought. They had all warned her about Jimmy Sellars and she should have listened. Now, after refusing all their offers of help, she was tied to a man whose sole occupation in life was getting stoned, listening to Hendrix, and having sex, preferably with everyone else but her. The worst of it all was she still loved him. Was, in fact, besotted by the bugger. This fact never ceased to amaze her. Knowing what he was, she still wanted him.

  So much for this new permissive society.

  Her old Auntie Briony was more permissive, what with her bloody ‘houses’ and her other nefarious businesses. She loved her Auntie Briony though, she did. Even at her advanced age, in her sixties now, Briony still looked good. Her hair did not have to be dyed, which amazed everyone; her face, lined as it was, still looked youthful. Her slim figure had not an ounce of spare fat on it. Delia looked down at her own overweight body and sighed. It wasn’t fair really. Even her own mother looked better than she did, but she had had her face done. Face and breasts, at her age! It was embarrassing.

  She watched Briony kiss Faith and smiled. The child was so loved by everyone. She was glad. Briony took the child’s little hand in hers and kissed the fingers greedily, making Faith laugh. Then Delia saw her aunt frown. Pushing up the child’s cardigan, she revealed a large purple bruise.

  ‘How the hell did she come by that?’

  Delia heard the outrage in her aunt’s voice and shook her head dismissively. ‘You know what children are like, she caught it in the bars of the cot.’

  ‘It’s about time you put her in a bed then, Delia! Christ, that looks painful.’ Briony looked at the little girl on her lap and said sweetly, ‘Is my baby hurting, my poor little Faithey?’

  Faith grinned her best grin and Briony kissed her once more, hugging her tight. Delia relaxed. That had been a close one all right.

  Too close for comfort.

  Boysie and Daniel were visiting their gran. She still lived in Oxlow Lane and they made a point of calling in often. She was alone now, Mother Jones passing away in 1950, and Abel dying of cancer in 1966. Molly was in her eighties, and though she now lived on the bottom floor of her house, finding the stairs too difficult, was still alert, still fiercely independent, and wanting to stay in her own home no matter how often Briony tried to persuade her to come and live with her.

  She made the twins a large pot of tea and sat listening to their chatter. They were still her boys. Her favourites. Their reputation was now legendary in London but every time Molly looked at them she saw her gentle daughter who had died birthing them. Her eyes misted over. More and more lately she was thinking of the people who had died. Abel, Mother Jones and even Mrs Horlock. The dead seemed more real to her than the living. Except for her grandsons. They were her whole existence rolled into two large men. They had taken over many of Briony’s clubs, and had also taken over the houses. They owned everything from used car lots to large plant hire firms. They had fingers in every pie and Molly was as pleased as punch with them.

  She began to doze in her chair, the fire roaring even in the late-spring sunshine.

  Boysie and Danny looked at her and grinned at one another.

  ‘Gran ... Gran ... Before you nod off I want to tell you me news,’ Boysie said.

  Molly sat upright in the chair. ‘I wasn’t asleep, you cheeky young bugger! I was thinking!’

  Boysie laughed. ‘Well, think about this then. I’m getting married.’

  Even Daniel laughed at the shocked look on her face.

  ‘What, to that Emerald bird?’

  Emerald was a high-class call girl Boysie had been seeing for about a year.

  He shook his head. ‘Nah! I’m marrying a girl called Suzannah Rankins. Her nan used to run the bingo down at the church. Remember her?’

  He was talking loud and slow and Molly slapped his arm.

  ‘I ain’t in me bleeding dotage, you know. I still have all me faculties! ’Course I remember Jessie Rankins. We was good mates. She’s in a home now, poor old bitch.’

  ‘Well, I’m marrying her granddaughter, Jessie’s son’s girl. Remember Jessie’s son, Frankie Rankins?’

  Molly looked at Danny and shook her head. ‘Will you explain to this bleeding numbskull that I can hear him all right? I ain’t at the end of the street.’

  Danny laughed. ‘All right, Gran, keep your hair on.’

  ‘How old’s this Suzannah then?’

  Boysie looked shamefaced.

  ‘Twenty-one, Gran.’

  ‘Good bit younger than you then.’ She paused. ‘Bring her around on Sunday at five-fifteen, I’ll tell you what I think then.’

  ‘I’ll bring him personally, Gran, all right?’

  The twins climbed into their white Rolls-Royce and drove away, oblivious of the stares of the other tenants in the road. They were sponsoring a boxing tournament for under-fourteens in Wapping, and were dressed up ready to have their photos taken for the local papers. They both looked the part: neat black suits, slicked-back hair and plain grey ties, their practised smiles coming now without any effort on their part. Big, powerful men, both physically and mentally.

  They thought they were untouchable.

  ‘What time are you meeting Suzannah?’

  Boysie shrugged.

  ‘About seven. I’m seeing her mum and dad tonight, about the wedding like.’

  Danny laughed. ‘It seems funny, thinking of you marrie
d.’

  Boysie laughed too. ‘I want a family, Danny Boy, a family and a nice house and a nice wife. A decent type of bird. I’ve had me eye on Suzannah since she was at school. She’s a good kid.’

  ‘Yeah, the emphasis on “kid”! She’ll wear you out, mate, before you know it you’ll be draped in nappies and smelling of piss and sick!’

  Boysie rolled his eyes in ecstasy.

  ‘I can’t bleeding wait!’

  Danny punched him on the arm, none too gently.

  ‘Well, just so you know and don’t get soft.’

  Boysie stopped laughing and said seriously, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

  They had had a small confrontation and both knew it. Daniel wasn’t happy that his brother was marrying. It was like splitting them up. But he would allow it, as long as nothing else changed. Their business partnership would stay as it was, Boysie had confirmed that.

  Detective Inspector Harry Limmington looked into the face of the man sitting opposite him in the interview room.

  ‘You’re going down for a twelve stretch, my son, and I’ll laugh my head off as they pass sentence.’

  Larry Barker was rolling a cigarette and Limmington saw his hands shaking. He smiled to himself. He had him worried all right. Really worried. They had had him in the station for twenty-eight hours and he hadn’t slept once. He had been interrogated continuously, with only a cup of coffee now and again to relieve the pressure. He was ready to crack.

  ‘How many kids you got, Larry? Five, is it?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Limmington. Five boys.’

  Limmington laughed scathingly. ‘Another crowd of fucking thugs growing up! What is it with you villains, why don’t you have many daughters?’

  Larry lit his thin roll-up with trembling hands. ‘I don’t know, Mr Limmington.’

  Limmington stood up and smashed a closed fist on to the table. “‘I don’t know, Mr Limmington. Yes, Mr Limmington.” I want results, boy, and I want them now! I’m losing me patience!’

  With that he clubbed Barker a stinging blow across the side of the head, sending him flying off the wooden chair and on to the floor.

  The young PC standing in the corner of the room kept his eyes straight ahead.

  Larry was dragged up from the floor roughly and shoved back on to his seat. The lack of food and sleep, the overdose of nicotine and the blows, had all taken their toll. He was indeed broken.

  ‘Now, Barker, you tell me all you know about the Cavanaghs and I’ll take you to a nice clean cell, get you a bit of egg and bacon, and let you have a lovely long sleep.’ Then he bellowed: ‘So don’t wind me up, boy! I know they was behind the blag, or at least a party to it in some way. I want answers and I want them now or I’ll kick you from one end of this station to the other!’

  Larry wiped a grubby hand across his sweating forehead, leaving a long black stripe.

  ‘I ain’t got nothing to say about the Cavanaghs, Mr Limmington. Nothing. With respect, sir, you can scare me, you do scare me, but not half as much as the Cavanaghs. You’ll have to go somewhere else to get them grassed. I’d rather do me twelve years alive and kicking than get off with it all and be dead.’

  Limmington sighed deeply. He knew now as sure as eggs was eggs that Barker wouldn’t crack. But it had been worth the try.

  He wanted the Cavanaghs, he wanted them desperately. The twins and that bloody dragon Briony.

  They were a taint on the earth, they were scum, and he wanted them out of the ball game for good.

  Kerry watched the woman warily as she put a sandwich and a glass of milk on to the table in front of her.

  ‘Come on, Miss Cavanagh, get this down you, you’ll feel much better.’

  Kerry smiled half-heartedly and took a bite of the ham and tomato sandwich to placate her. Then she picked up the milk in an exaggerated gesture and sipped it, holding it up first as if toasting the woman before her - with her great muscled arms and harshly cropped hair.

  ‘You’re a card, Miss Cavanagh, and no mistake.’

  The woman, Betty Bradley, shook her grey head and walked from the room. Kerry pushed the tray from her and looked once more out of the window.

  She needed a drink desperately.

  She could cheerfully kill for one.

  But Briony, Briony the wonder woman, the marvellous sister who knew everything and was practically omnipotent, had seen fit to supply her with a large, obviously lesbian, minder. Betty Bradley watched over her day and night. It was sickening.

  Kerry sagged visibly in her seat, her show of defiance leaving her drained.

  She had not worked since 1949. She had not sung in public since then, and only rarely in private. She had sunk into a world of booze and drugs after Briony, wonderful Briony, had seen fit to send her to that place where they had dried her out.

  Well, they had dried her out in some ways. But not the way they wanted.

  Six months later she had emerged from the beautifully kept grounds of Fairhaven in Surrey, slim, bright-eyed, and dead inside. It had shown in her performance and it had also shown in her face. She had lost it all, the need to sing, the love of music, she had lost everything that had made her special in that place, thanks to ECT.

  Within a year of being home she was on every kind of drug imaginable, she was into heroin, barbiturates, hashish, anything she could lay her perfectly manicured nails on. The last doctor she had seen had told her the same as all the others: she was self-destructive.

  Then why the fuck didn’t they just let her destroy herself.

  Suzannah Rankins was dressed in her best. She wore a short dress of white broderie anglaise, her legs in skin-tone tights and her make-up minimal. She had not worn much makeup because her dad didn’t like it. Her dad didn’t like anything, least of all her relationship with Boysie Cavanagh, and that was a big part of his attraction. Boysie was the main man, and when he had singled her out she had felt so special, so grown-up - yet so in awe of his fine clothes and cars and jewellery she had wanted to die of happiness. She really liked him as well. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she loved him, but as good as. Now he was marrying her, and she was glad she had taken her mother’s advice. If she had slept with Boysie, she knew he would only have used her. It was her virginity that attracted him, and her freshness. Well, soon she’d be married as she had always dreamt she would be, in a nice church in a big expensive dress with a rich husband beside her.

  It was a dream come true all right.

  Then, as Mrs Boysie Cavanagh, she could do what the hell she liked. No worrying about playing her records loud and at all hours, no worrying about what time she was in. No more hassles from her mum and dad, she would be a respectable married woman.

  Briony and Tommy were visiting Mariah. She now lived in aged splendour in a small but expensive ground-floor flat in Hampstead. She was surrounded by rock musicians, models and other well-off but unconventional folk, and loved every second of it. Her face, still plastered with make-up, looked garish, the thick green eyeshadow and painted red lips emphasising each of the considerable creases on her face. She held large, loud parties, and the twins and all the children doted on her. She was especially close to Delia, Bernadette’s younger daughter. Rebecca was married to an accountant and living in Brighton, an old married woman years before her time. Delia on the other hand was full of life, unconventional, and generally preferred by everyone, Bernadette and Marcus included. Bernie often wondered aloud how the hell they had got Rebecca, so prim, proper, and tight-lipped.

  Molly always said Rebecca was like Eileen, she didn’t need the excitement of the world like all the others, she was a respectable girl. Everyone rolled their eyes when Molly started her ramblings but her great age guaranteed she was listened to respectfully.

  Briony sipped her drink and looked with pleasure around her friend’s small garden. The young couple above Mariah had their windows open and the sound of heavy rock music was blaring. Mariah, to the amusement of Briony and Tommy, was tapping her foot in
time.

  ‘So how’s the Berwick these days?’

  Briony sipped her glass of white wine and sighed. ‘The twins have done well with it. It’s mainly a gambling place really, the girls are all dispersed around London and the home counties. They’re raking the money in, though.’

  Mariah laughed.

  ‘Good, that’s what I like to hear. As long as they don’t forget their old Auntie Mariah and her ten per cent of the profits!’

  Tommy laughed.

  ‘As if they could ever forget that! Have you heard Boysie’s getting married?’

  ‘No! What, Boysie? The most eligible bachelor in town! Who to?’

  Briony answered her. ‘To a young, very young, lady called Suzannah Rankins. She’s only twenty-one but seems like a really nice kid. The big do’s in June. Boysie can’t wait.’

  ‘I bet he can’t if she’s that young! Horny old devil. How’s Danny Boy taking it?’

  ‘Better than we expected, to be honest. I thought there would be hell to pay. I mean, they were both confirmed bachelors, but Boysie’s besotted with this little girl, and I for one am heartily pleased. He wants children, a nice house, the whole works.’

  ‘Not before time either. Him and Danny are so close, too close at times.’ Mariah nodded to herself. ‘He was always a strange one, Daniel. Very deep.’

  Briony put down her glass of wine with a bang on the ornamental ironwork table and said tartly, ‘Well, there’s no law against that, is there?’

  Mariah sat up in her chair and laughed.

  ‘You’ll never change, Briony Cavanagh, not while there’s a hole in your arse! Them boys are grown men, big grown men, they don’t need you looking out for them, they’re quite capable of looking out for themselves. And stop seeing bloody slights everywhere. It’s getting harder and harder to talk to you lately! It’s your bleeding age catching up with you!’