Inside the warmth of the pub Freddie made his way straight over to a crowd of girls who were drinking at the bar.
Maggie saw her sister’s face and sighed.
Jimmy slipped into the booth beside Maggie and, putting his arm around her, kissed the top of her head. Maggie instinctively snuggled in closer to him and watching the little tableau Jackie felt the rage that was always bubbling away inside her well up.
Her eyes were cutting through her husband’s clothes and practically stabbing him in the back. He was aware of her watching but he didn’t come back to sit with her until he had flirted enough to make the girls uneasy and his wife white faced and drawn.
Chapter Two
Steel Pulse was loud in the quiet of the room, cannabis smoke hung heavy on the air and the three men inside watched each other warily.
Outside the window were the usual summer sounds of kids laughing, traffic moving, and every now and then a car stereo booming its way down the street.
‘What is it with him, eh?’
Freddie was shaking his head in disbelief while Jimmy was standing beside him, quietly watching the proceedings.
The black man with relaxed hair and gapped front teeth smiled wider. Jimmy knew that the man was dangerous. He looked friendly, affable even, but there was a steely glint in his eyes, and the unmistakable shape of a machete under his long leather coat. He also had a posse of mates outside the door of his house in South London.
Glenford Prentiss had a large spliff in his hand and he toked on it deeply before saying, in a gruff, smoke-filled voice that intermingled with his heavy coughing, ‘It was shit, Freddie, that’s the long and the short of it, man, nothing to wipe down. I sold it and you got your money. My boy made a serious fuck-up when he accepted it. I’m just saying in future I do the deals from now on.’
His thick Jamaican accent was interrupted as he tried to clear his throat. He was stoned but still lucid.
Freddie looked at the man before him. He was actually a nice geezer, he liked him, and he was absolutely right. Freddie had weighed Glenford off with some right shit the week before, and now he was learning a lesson.
Freddie prided himself on his ability to learn lessons, learn who could be had over, find out who might put up a bit of resistance. As he was Ozzy’s front man he had to watch his step, mind his manners. Ozzy expected him to cream something off, not rip people off. There was a fine line and he knew that he had crossed it.
He had no choice but to hold his hand up, wipe his mouth and make the best of it.
He grinned, that white-toothed grin that crinkled up the corners of his eyes and made him look for all the world like someone’s favourite son.
That grin belied the dangerous personality of its bearer and Glenford Prentiss knew that better than anyone. He had had his say, he was willing to fight his end, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t have to. Why shoot the messenger boy? For all Freddie Jackson’s hard-nosed demeanour he was only Siddy’s puppet.
And Ozzy pulled all their strings.
Everyone knew that.
‘It won’t happen again.’
Glenford grinned. ‘I know that, man.’ He embraced Freddie then, laughing that infectious laugh he had. He slipped him a brown envelope stuffed with money, and Freddie didn’t count it, he knew it wouldn’t be light.
As Freddie pocketed the money Glenford said to him quietly, ‘You got to try, man, I know that. I would have done the same myself.’
He passed the joint to Freddie who toked on it deeply, holding it in his lungs for a few seconds before he slowly exhaled it. Then looking at the joint he said, ‘Now that is good grass.’
Glenford grinned. ‘Me never smoke what me sell, boy. Especially when it was bought from white boys.’
They all laughed then and Jimmy felt the tension depart the room. He finally exhaled his own breath then. The blacks worried him, but only because they were so unpredictable. He liked Glenford though and he had said the week before that Freddie should only unload the shittier grass on the skinheads who never knew the difference.
In the car a few minutes later Jimmy said as much to him again.
‘That was a close one, Freddie. I mean, like I said last week, they know their puff.’
Freddie stopped the car. Turning in the driver’s seat he looked into Jimmy’s face and said sternly, ‘Don’t you ever fucking lecture me again, right? We had a touch last week and that’s the end of it.’
Jimmy nodded furiously. ‘I know that, Freddie. I was just saying—’
‘Shut it.’
Freddie was staring into his eyes and the venom was there for anyone to see. Jimmy could feel the menace and he swallowed down the retort he was longing to give.
He was nearly twenty years old and he was a player, and it was getting harder and harder to keep his anger on a leash. Freddie treated him like the hired help and it rankled. He could hold his own with anyone and he wanted the respect that should have afforded him.
Freddie slammed his fist on the steering wheel in frustration. ‘I’m sorry, Jim, but look at me, I am still selling shite for Clancy and the time has come to put him wise, whatever Ozzy might think. He is lumped up for the fucking duration and I ain’t spending the rest of my life as one of his heavies.’
He started the car up again. ‘And I don’t need you reminding me, all right?’ He smiled then, a sad little smile. ‘Let’s go and get a drink, eh? I have a little bird on the go in Ilford, you can drop me there and take the car, OK?’
He turned on the cassette player and the sounds of Phil Collins filled the cramped space between them.
Jimmy sighed inwardly. Freddie hadn’t been home for days and he knew it was bringing untold aggravation for everyone concerned, except of course, for the man who caused all the upset.
In the last six months he had caused murders with Jackie, and while everyone else suffered, Freddie just did his own thing.
As Maggie’s dad always said, Freddie Jackson would never change all the time women had tits.
‘Stick the kids in the bath for me, would you?’
Maggie nodded, and, going upstairs, she started to run the bath, putting in a hefty dollop of Matey so the girls would have something to play with.
Once the girls were settled in there she washed their hair quickly and then left them playing with their toys.
In the front room she saw Jackie had opened another bottle of Liebfraumilch.
‘Where the fuck is he? For all I know he’s banged up.’
Lena, who was in the kitchen making sure her daughter had food in the fridge to feed her children, said loudly and sarcastically, ‘They would have informed you by now.’
Maggie could have lamped her mother for her answer. While Jackie could convince herself Freddie was banged up she was, if not happy, then at least reassured that her errant husband wasn’t trumping the nearest female he could lay his grubby hands on.
Jackie closed her eyes in distress. ‘He’s with a bird, ain’t he?’
Maggie sat beside her on the sofa and said gently, ‘You don’t know that, Jackie. Calm yourself down, those kids can feel something’s up.’ She lit her a cigarette and placed it in her hand, taking the wine glass from her at the same time. ‘This ain’t going to do you any good, is it?’
Jackie sniffed, the tears near once more. ‘It helps me sleep.’
Maggie lit a cigarette for herself. Seeing her sister like this drove her mad. Jackie was so strong in every way, but Freddie reduced her to nothing. Lena came in with two more wine glasses. She poured them quickly and, sipping hers daintily, she sat on the chair and said seriously, ‘Sling him out, love, he’s no good for you.’
Maggie could have screamed now. Her mother was like a cracked record and even though she spoke the truth it only served to make Jackie even more upset.
‘Leave it out, Mum, can’t you see she’s upset enough as it is?’
She was staring at her mother trying to tell her to let it go. Lena shrugged and sipped at her w
ine then started once more in a friendly conversational tone.
‘He’s a fucking piece of shit. Your father was the same, he would track down a bit of strange like a bleeding blood-hound, him. Fights I had over that fat git . . .’
She was smiling now. ‘Here, do you two remember that neighbour in Silvertown? What was her name?’
Jackie laughed suddenly. ‘Maggie was too small to remember that one, Mum. Oh, your face!’
They laughed together and the sound was happy, friendly, they were allies now. All Jackie’s hurt was forgotten at a funny memory.
‘What happened?’ Maggie was all ears now, interested in one of the family stories, stories that always involved her father, or her sister’s husband and a woman, or series of women. But the tales were told in a funny way, they always saw the humour of their situation and they could make you laugh out loud.
‘I heard off me sister Junie that he was trumping a blond-haired woman, she said she was a neighbour. So I’m looking out the window trying to catch the bastard and I see him and this blond bird who’d just moved in our flats, see. I opens the window and he shouts out to this sort, “I’ll be over in a minute.” ’
Lena swigged at her wine, her voice as always getting higher and higher and her hands waving the cigarette and the wine glass around dangerously as she got into her story.
‘Anyway, I went down the stairs of those flats like a bullet out of a gun. I go haring over to her place and I really fucking mullered her. Her old man came out and dragged me off, Jackie was giving him verbals, your father was doing his crust. I had handfuls of that poor whore’s hair, there was claret all over the pavement . . . The neighbours were all out watching.’
They were laughing together now.
‘So what happened?’ Maggie was grinning at the way her mother and sister were roaring with laughter.
Then, wiping her eyes, Lena said, ‘Well, it weren’t her, was it.’
Maggie’s eyes were stretched to their utmost. ‘You’re joking.’
They cracked up.
‘Straight up, your father had borrowed a hammer off the woman’s husband a couple of days before and they wanted it back. I could have fucking died on the spot.’
Jackie polished off her wine in two gulps and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with her fingers, laughing her head off.
‘Oh, that was funny, Mum.’
Lena nodded then she said quietly, seriously, ‘It weren’t really. We make it funny, but it was terrible. The poor cow was battered like a Friday night cod. I see her up the Bingo sometimes, and I still feel bad about it. I battered the fuck out of her in front of her kids and she was a nice woman. Might have been a good mate even, you never know.’
Maggie could hear the sorrow in her mother’s voice and felt a sudden urge to cry for the wasted years she had spent chasing a man who didn’t want to be chased. Waiting for a man who had no intention of coming home. Jackie was her mother’s daughter all right.
Then Lena said flatly, her voice husky from too many cigarettes and late nights, ‘You’ll learn, Jackie, just like I did, love, they ain’t worth it. When you get to my age they only stay home because no one else wants them. If I had a pound for every time I followed him, fought over him, argued and screamed over him, I would be a rich woman. I dragged you kids all over the country visiting him when he was banged up and he never appreciated it, not really.’
She swallowed down her wine.
‘My mum used to say to me, don’t assume because you want him everyone else does. I wish I had listened to her because she was right.’
Jackie stood up unsteadily and walked out of the room.
Lena sighed then. ‘You’ll have to stay with her till he deigns to come home. Who knows what she’s capable of.’
Maggie nodded sadly. ‘Do you regret marrying me dad then, Mum, really?’
Lena smiled and her washed-out good looks were evident in the kindly light of an evening drawing to a close.
‘Every fucking day, sweetheart, every day of my life.’
At first Maggie thought that she was dreaming, and putting up her arms protectively she tried to push the offending hands away.
They were still there. Opening her eyes she saw in the dimness her brother-in-law Freddie Jackson trying to lift up the nightie she was wearing, all the time kissing her neck and shoulders. Realisation hit her then and she sat bolt upright on the sofa, the fear apparent on her face.
‘Stop it.’
She was whispering, even in her fright she was aware that her sister would rip her head off, would blame her if she saw this sight.
Freddie gave his usual lazy smile. He had Jackie where he wanted her and they both knew it. He was trying to force Maggie back into the cushions once more, smothering her with his mouth, the wet stickiness of him making the girl want to heave. He smelled of beer, cannabis and sweat. He had been on the missing list for a few days and she was staying over with her sister to try to keep her company and, more importantly, to keep her calm. Now here was the man of the hour trying it on with his wife’s little sister, and the worst of it was that Jackie would never believe her husband capable of anything so low. Even though low behaviour was normal behaviour to him, Maggie knew the blame would be put squarely on her.
She was pushing him away more aggressively now.
‘Fuck off, Freddie.’
He was digging his fingers into the flesh on the top of her arms and she felt tears stinging her eyes. The fear was enveloping her now, fear of him and fear of her sister mingling. She punched him in the chest as hard as she could.
‘Will you fuck off.’
He still hadn’t spoken. But now as she writhed in his arms he looked down at her and she saw he was determined.
‘Shut the fuck up, you stupid little bitch, do you want fatty down on top of us?’
Somewhere in his drink- and drug-addled brain he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he had been after this particular piece for a while. She wouldn’t even accept a lift home from him any more, preferring to get the bus. She knew her sister had her suspicions but could prove nothing. As always, everyone involved with Jackie saved her feelings, yet she walked over people at the drop of a hat and expected total loyalty even though she didn’t know the meaning of the word.
The only person Jackie was loyal to was this drunken beast who, at this moment, was trying to shove a heavy knee between her slim thighs.
It was the baby Rox’s voice that seemed to break into his head like the blow of an axe.
‘Auntie Mags?’
Maggie saw the little girl in the doorway and, feeling Freddie’s grip loosen, took the opportunity to slide from beneath him on to the shag-pile carpeted floor.
‘Come here, sweetheart. Do you want a drink, lovie?’
She scrambled to her feet and then, picking the child up, she walked quickly into the kitchen. Her heart was still beating a tattoo in her chest and the revulsion was still in her mouth. It tasted tannic, like tin, or lead. She wanted to clean her teeth and bath herself. Wash the feel of him off her.
She sat the child on the draining board and made her a drink of orange juice. Rox gulped at it gratefully. She was a dear child, with beautiful blue eyes and thick curly hair. Maggie hugged her and rubbed her face in Rox’s soft curls. If she ever had a child she hoped it would be just like this one, she was perfect.
She heard Freddie stirring a few minutes later, knew even at her young age that he was waiting for her to return to the front room. She stood in the freezing cold kitchen and cuddling the child to her she waited until she heard him stumble up the stairs to bed with her sister.
Maggie waited another ten minutes until she heard voices, and then she deemed it safe. She brought the child into the front room and settled her beside her so they were both comfortable. Rox wanted a story, and as Maggie spun her a yarn she could hear the bedsprings above her creaking.
She lay there for hours, and the dawn was breaking before she dared to close her eyes and sleep.
It had been a close shave this time, but she was determined to best him. She always kept it to herself because of Jackie. Freddie used that knowledge and she lost a serious amount of respect from him because of it.
There was no one to confide in because it would cause too much trouble. Her father would cause a war, her mother would cause a bigger war and the family would be smashed apart in nanoseconds.
The worst of it all was she couldn’t even tell her Jimmy. He idolised the man who in turns frightened and disgusted her on a daily basis.
She was almost fifteen years old and already her life was becoming a series of deceptions.
‘What’s the matter with your arms, Mags?’
Her mother’s voice sounded worried. ‘Has that fucking Jimmy been pushing you about?’
Her father was up and out of his chair in seconds. ‘You what, Lena? What’s wrong with her?’
Maggie pushed her mother away. ‘For crying out loud, we was mucking about that’s all, he don’t know his own strength!’
Lena looked into her daughter’s lovely face and saw the confusion there.
Maggie turned to her father. ‘Tell her will you, Dad. Jimmy would never hurt me in a million years.’
‘She’s right, Lena, he worships her.’ He picked up the Sun from the table and laughed as he said, ‘He is a big lad for his age, be fair.’
He went back to his chair and his television, happy that his younger daughter was OK.
Lena wasn’t so convinced. ‘You ain’t been yourself lately. Everything all right?’ She nodded, pointing with her head towards her daughter’s tummy. Realising what her mother thought, Maggie’s eyes stretched to their utmost. ‘Thanks a lot, Mum! I ain’t like me sister, getting a belly full before I have even had a life.’
Lena knew by the scandalised tone in her daughter’s voice that she was wrong about that much at least.
Jackie burst through the door, her eyes red rimmed from crying. ‘He’s gone.’
Lena rolled her eyes at the ceiling as she filled the kettle with water. ‘What, he on the missing list again, then?’
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