Lil had blown more than his cock and he was left breathless, leaning against his desk for support. His trousers were still unbuttoned and his flaccid member wet and cold in the cool of the February evening. Lenny opened his eyes and looked down at himself. His clothes were in disarray and his cock was hanging out like a wrinkled gherkin. Shame washed over him. He had bucked his hips like a teenager, ramming himself into her mouth with an urgency he had forgotten existed. As she smiled up at him he saw that her lipstick was smudged and her eyes were colder than a witch’s tits.
‘You just got yourself a job, Lil.’
‘Have I?’
‘You can start in the Baron’s Room on Monday.’
Lenny was busy putting himself away and tidying up.
‘Will I use the same office as I always did? Has anything changed?’
He turned to face her once more. His legs still felt weak and he could feel the contempt for him in her voice and he hated her for the effect she had on him.
‘You won’t need an office, Lil, not for what you’ll be doing anyway.’
She knew then that she had lowered herself for nothing. She swallowed back the anger and the hot tears of humiliation. Instead, she stood up and said, with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘Then you can stick your job up your arse.’
She took a gulp of her brandy and, swilling it around her mouth noisily, she spat the lot back into the glass.
As she picked up her coat and started to put it on he felt the pull of her once more.
‘Come on, Lil, can’t you take a joke?’
She stared into his face once more and he saw the deep grey of her eyes and the fine bone structure that made her look like a sculpture and gave her the edge when men looked her way.
‘I haven’t had a lot to joke about lately, have I, if you remember rightly.’
He was on her then and as he kissed her he could taste his own semen mixed with the brandy and the urgency inside was once more overtaking everything else. This time he took her properly. He took his time with her; laid her on the leather sofa in his office, undressed her and aroused her in every way he knew until eventually she opened her legs for him with the same urgency and excitement as he was feeling himself. As she moaned with enjoyment he knew that he would never feel like this again about any woman. She was wet and hot; she wanted him all right. As Lenny gazed down at her, Lil knew she had him. She didn’t know for how long but she knew that she had crossed the line and used the only thing she had going for her. How long it would last, she didn’t know, and what would happen when he finished with her was anyone’s guess, but she had the job she wanted. She had also found out that she could perform the sex act with him and even fake enjoyment in it as long as she pretended he was her Patrick. As long as she closed her eyes and pretended to herself that it was Patrick touching and kissing her. Lil had fooled Lenny as she would fool many men in the years to come.
That night, as Lil lay in her cold bed, she prayed that the kids would be all right and that their life wouldn’t be too hard from now on. Then she finally let go of the tears she had been holding back for so long.
Lenny Brewster was settled in as the new and improved overseer of the Smoke. He had taken out all the wild cards, and brought Spider in as his ally; south London was somewhere he knew he would have trouble controlling.
Lil started working in the club she had once owned and sleeping with a man who now owned her. The irony was not lost on any of them.
The seventies was the decade that saw the explosion of recreational drug use, the second generation of West Indians were now making their mark and the country was recovering from another recession and yet another ineffectual government. It was the era of punk rock and dole queues. It was the time for the new generation to make their mark and show their disdain for the shambles they had inherited from their parents.
Lenny Brewster and his ilk milked this for all it was worth. They made fortunes on the generation growing up and on the relaxing of most people’s moral codes. It was boom-time in the criminal fraternities and everyone was happy with their lot.
For Lil Brodie and for her children, it heralded the end of her life as she knew it. The death of Patrick Brodie would shape his children’s lives and not in the way he would have wanted.
Book Two
The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the children’s teeth are set on edge
- (Ezekiel 18:2)
Chapter Nineteen
‘Well, I am sorry you feel like that, Mrs Brodie, but your son is being expelled for fighting. If you can’t see anything wrong with that kind of behaviour then this is a pointless conversation.’
Lily Brodie gritted her teeth in suppressed anger. ‘My Shamus is not a hooligan, Mr Benton, and you know it. He’s only ten and the boy he was fighting with is nearly fifteen.’
Mr Benton felt sorry for this woman. She was a handsome-looking piece, no man could fail to notice that much, and her life had been hard and so had her children’s. She had produced two children in the last ten years and he was not relishing their arrival at his school in the future. The Brodies were a byword for trouble in these parts and he was sick of them all.
‘The boy Shamus was fighting with was trying to stop your son from bullying his little brother; the fact that Shamus hammered him speaks volumes. Shamus is a big lad, a strong lad and he is a lot of things, Mrs Brodie, but a victim is not one of them.’
‘His eldest brother is home now and he’ll watch out for him. After all, that’s what older brothers do, isn’t it, according to you?’
The man laughed then and the laugh was genuine.
‘Oh well, that’s all right then. His brother is home from prison at last and is going to put young Shamus on the straight and narrow. What a wonderful role model he’ll make. This is Patrick you are talking about, the same Patrick who was the bane of my life.’
The man’s sarcasm was not lost on Lil, but she knew it was pointless arguing any longer. Shamus was out, simple as that. And this sanctimonious old bastard was getting on her nerves.
‘Shamus was defending his brother too. They were taunting him about my Pat. He came home from nick this week, as you know, and they were teasing him over it. He just retaliated, that’s all. The older boy should have known better than to try and interfere in his brother’s dispute anyway. How the hell will that child ever learn right from wrong if his brother bails him out all the time? He needs to learn when to shut his trap and my Shamus did what any other boy would do in his shoes; he defended his family. But my family don’t matter, do they? They don’t count. Their father was murdered in front of them and no one allows for that, do they? Oh no, you only care that some shite has been bullied. Well, the boy had better get used to it because his brother won’t be there to protect him for ever.’
Mr Benton shook his head in utter disbelief at her words. He heard this kind of talk over and over again from parents who saw school as nothing more than a necessary evil, not a place of learning. Their idea of valuable information was not dates and facts, figures and problem-solving techniques; it was the law of the pavements. That this woman believed her son’s tormentor deserved a serious beating was in itself more proof of the running battle he faced on a daily basis. Just trying to instil a modicum of decency in these children was impossible. Mr Benton sighed in annoyance. ‘Well, it’s all academic now, isn’t it? I would appreciate it, Mrs Brodie, if you don’t allow Shamus to hang around the school gates or wander into the playgrounds. He is no longer welcome here in any capacity whatsoever.’
Lil sat back in the chair and surveyed the little man opposite her, and he was little, in every way. From his puny body and his bony little hands, to his small-mindedness. He was the bane of people like her and he was too stupid to see that. He lived in a parallel universe, in a place where people talked nicely to one another and washed their cars every Saturday afternoon. A world where shirts were worn to work and carpets were vacuumed daily. A world where people like
her and hers were seen as failures and beneath them; because they had to fight to exist on a daily basis and this man couldn’t fight if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t last five minutes on their estate and it was because of this mindset that he couldn’t interest any of these children in what he had to offer them, in what he had to say.
Lil stood up then and, holding her back straight, she looked down at the man who had been the bane of her life for years.
‘Mr Benton, my son will not trouble you again, you have my word on that. But let me just say this before I leave; if you had any kind of teaching ability you wouldn’t be working in a shithole like this, and I ask you to think about that tonight when you are driving home to your family. Like the pupils in this school, the teachers here are on the bottom rung of their ladder as well. So remember that when you look down your nose at someone because, like I said, if you had anything going for you, this is the last place you’d want to be.’
As Lil walked from the office she felt the headache that had been troubling her all morning start to subside. Shamus was sitting on a scruffy old chair outside the headmaster’s office and when he smiled at her with his usual crafty grin, she laughed weakly, ‘Come on, mate, let’s get you home.’
Shamus walked beside her; he was a good lad at heart and she knew that, but he was also a fighter and she knew that one day it would bring him real trouble.
‘I am sorry, Mum.’
She knew he meant it, every word of it; he always did. Until the next time, of course.
Lil hoped the boys were home; she was worried about them and what they might be getting up to. Lance was bad enough but with Pat Junior now back on the streets and hungry to earn a few quid so he could give it to her with pride and feel he was taking care of his family once more, anything was possible.
She stopped at her local shop and got a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka on tick. She needed a rest from her kids but she knew she wouldn’t be getting one.
‘Can I have a fag, Mum?’
Lil smacked Shamus hard across his face and she knew she had hurt him by his pained expression.
‘Don’t push me today, boy, all right? I am on the cusp of a violent episode thanks to you and that fucking school. Why couldn’t you just once, fucking once, walk away from trouble?’
She sighed in desperation. This boy would be the death of her. ‘You ain’t even worth arguing with, are you?’
Shamus shrugged then and she knew he was upset, but for once she didn’t care.
All she wanted at this moment was a large drink and a few hours’ kip, she was shattered.
Paulie Braden was pissed and, as always when he was pissed, he loved the world. Picking up his cigarettes he swept a low bow to his friends and, laughing loudly with them, he staggered out of the pub doorway. Taking a few deep breaths he pointed himself in the general direction of home and attempted the short long walk with all good intentions. As he strolled along the road he heard a car pull up beside him and, with his usual good-natured smile, he stopped and waited for the men to get out and threaten him. This was a weekly occurrence and he knew that it would be over quickly and he could get on his way. The money he owed was not that large an amount and once he got his wages he would pay a bit off the interest and keep this lot off his back for another few weeks.
But as Paulie looked at the young man who was coming towards him, he was nonplussed, this was not the usual bloke. This young fella had a cross face and a mean look in his eye.
The baseball bat hit Paulie with such force that he was knocked into the road and a car had to swerve to avoid him. The drink he had imbibed had made him unsteady on his feet and as he fell to the ground, the young man brought the bat down heavily on to his shoulders. The pain was excruciating and when the bat was brought down over and over again, he finally understood he had pushed his luck too far. When he was finally dragged to the kerb it was a few moments before he properly understood what was going to happen to him. Another young lad had now appeared and, grabbing his arm, he forced him to straighten it. Then he held it so Paulie’s wrist was on the kerb and his shoulder on the Tarmac; it was when he realised what was going to happen that he finally tried to fight. The boy smiled, then rabbit-punched him quickly in the face, immediately mashing his nose, and straightened his arm out once more. The first young man brought his booted foot down on to it heavily, smashing the elbow completely. Paulie Braden was in such agony he was screaming like a trapped rat and people stood there watching the little tableau with resigned expressions on their faces. A police car cruised by, slowed down so the officers could have a decent gander and then speeded up and disappeared around the corner.
‘Please, son, please. I can’t take this . . . I ain’t got the money, I swear...’
‘You got the fucking money to get pissed though, ain’t you, you old cunt. Well, I ain’t a person who can be mugged off, see I have what is known as a personality disorder. Straight up, it’s a recognised illness. They explained that to me in clink after I bit a geezer’s ear off because I thought he was taking the piss out of me. He had taken one of my bog rolls from my cell without my express permission so you can see my point of view, can’t you? He was wiping his arse on what was essentially mine and what’s mine is mine, and I want it.’
The man stamped on Paulie’s gut then; he was aware that this was well over the top considering what the man owed but he had to start off as he meant to go on. This would guarantee a lot of debts being paid in the next few days; the word would soon spread and anyone who owed Mills would be pawning their wives’ wedding rings and selling their first-born sons, anything, to make sure that nothing like this happened to them.
Paulie vomited loudly, the bile and beer spraying out of his mouth then running into the gutter with his blood.
‘You owed Jackie Mills two hundred quid. Well, I have bought the debt off him for a oner so you now owe me three hundred quid and I want it. Don’t you dare fuck me about. If I don’t get my poke I will come looking for you again and next time I will not be so reasonable . . .’ The sentence was left unfinished, the threat had been taken on board.
He lit a cigarette slowly and, dropping the match on to the man’s hair, he smiled. ‘You’ve got three days.’ Whistling happily, the young men got into the car and drove away.
Annie Diamond was washing her underwear in the sink when she heard her daughter arrive back from the school.
‘How’d it go?’
Lil walked into the kitchen and sighed. ‘How do you think? He’s been outed, expelled.’
Annie shrugged, her thin arms were plunged into a bowl of soapy water and a cigarette was dangling from her lips. Lil took the cigarette from her mother’s mouth and puffed on it deeply.
‘Look on the bright side, Lil. He can get a little job, bring in a few bob.’
‘I suppose so, but I wish life wasn’t always so fucking hard.’
Annie didn’t answer her. In the last few years they had all learned about hardship. In fact, she didn’t know how Lil had coped with it all. Especially with the boys; they had changed overnight.
‘Did Lenny send any money round?’
Annie nodded. ‘It’s on the mantel, only a oner though. He is as tight as a duck’s crack, him. Even the Queen comes to the opening of his wallet.’
Lil laughed then, a laugh she didn’t think she had in her. She poured herself a large vodka and she knew her mother was silently chastising her for it. But she didn’t give a toss, Annie Diamond was the least of her worries at the moment. Shamus had disappeared as usual and she swore under her breath. He was a little fucker and she hoped Patrick Junior would have a word with him and sort him out, now that he was finally home. Lance just seemed to make Shamus worse, but then he was good with the girls. For all his fuckery, he was good to his sisters. Especially Kathleen. She pushed Kathy from her mind, she had enough on her plate without thinking about her and all.
‘Where are the boys?’
Annie was rinsing her smalls no
w and her hands were numb, the water was so cold. She shrugged once more.
‘They went out this morning just after you, and I ain’t seen them since.’
Then she turned to her daughter and shouted at her, ‘Put some orange juice with that, will you; at least pretend you ain’t got a drink problem.’
Lil laughed once more.
‘If this was the only problem I had, Mother, how fucking easy life would be.’
The years had not been kind to Lenny Brewster and he knew that. He looked like he felt; over the hill and short of breath. As he wheezed with laughter at his own joke, the young girl with him wished he would just crash and burn so she could go home and have a cuppa and a ham sandwich like normal people. Lenny wasn’t going to let that happen though and she knew it. He wanted his money’s worth and she was going to have to make sure he felt he had been more than amply compensated for his initial outlay. He was a fucking mean bastard, and not only with money, he was mean in every other way as well. He wouldn’t give a bogie to a dying man, he’d sell it to him.
Still, she had managed to get a car out of him; lease-hire mind, so once he outed her it would have to go back, but it was a start anyway.
The men in the pub with him were all ready for the usual day’s drinking. Lenny was a cunt but he was willing to bankroll his cronies and make a day of it.
‘Jackie Mills was in earlier and he reckons he has sold all his debts on.’
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