He was perfect, nine pounds seven ounces of dark-haired Jackson. Lena and Maddie were over the moon, and she was experiencing the pride she had felt after all her births. She loved the babies when they were brand new and it was only when the novelty had worn off and everyone stopped coming round that they started to get on her nerves.
But with this child, from the first time she had looked into his eyes it had been different inasmuch as she had felt a physical tugging inside her chest. It was like looking at Freddie. The baby was the living image of his father and she felt the exhilaration of knowing she had at last given Freddie what he wanted.
When Freddie had arrived she had been triumphant. Her mother-in-law had insisted she tidied herself up and brush her hair and she was so glad she had done it. He had taken one look at the baby, and she had watched in sheer amazement as his face had lit up, and for a few seconds he looked seventeen again. All the love she had for him was once more to the fore. The hurt he had caused, and the neglect she had felt over the last six months was all forgotten as they both shared the miracle of their little son.
Maddie and Lena had looked on with relief as they had observed the little tableau, mother, father and son together.
Lena, as thrilled as she was with her grandson, was worried at how fast her Jackie was knocking back the champagne. Her eyes were glassy and she was talking loudly, but thankfully no one else noticed that she was already half pissed and the child was not yet an hour old.
‘What a handsome boy, eh?’
Maddie smiled her agreement and enjoyed the look of pure happiness on her son’s face. It was so rare these days.
‘Maggie said she kicked off in the hospital.’
Maddie nodded. ‘It was embarrassing, I wish she wouldn’t carry on like that.’
Freddie sipped at his cup of tea and watched his mother’s face, scowling now. He knew that for someone like her, his wife’s way of carrying on was scandalous. He had to admit that he was coming round to her way of thinking more and more as time went on. No matter how much money he gave Jackie, she was always skint, no matter what they bought for the house, the place always looked like a tip.
Sitting like this, in his mother’s lovely front room, he missed the orderly cleanliness of his childhood. He missed the feel of crisp clean bedding he’d had as a child. Maddie had starched the sheets and he had loved the feel of them, the smell of them. She would pop a hot water bottle in for him when it was cold, and he had snuggled down into the warmth and felt safe.
With Jackie, he was lucky if she bothered to sling the duvet on the bed about five minutes before they got in it.
He had been proud of his mother and father when he was growing up, from their lounge diner to the York-stone fireplace. He had felt different from all his contemporaries because his home had been superior in every way.
Now he was working for Ozzy, he felt that his home should reflect his standing, but he also knew he could never trust Jackie with a mortgage. If he got banged up it would all go pear-shaped in no time, since she didn’t even pay the rent until they threatened her with eviction.
He picked up money for Ozzy every month from people who owed him for a variety of reasons, and through this collecting he had been given an education. The way some of the people lived had opened his eyes to a life he had never known existed. But the most amazing thing was that they were all like him, they had come from council estates. The difference was that they had made their money work for them.
Ozzy had made him see what he called the big picture. He had sat and listened to Ozzy explaining about this new order, about how Thatcher was going to put money in everyone’s pocket, starting with a housing boom. How it had never been cheaper to borrow money, which for people in their game meant easier laundering of their profits. He loved Margaret Thatcher, he saw her as the saviour of Britain, and Freddie had listened and he had learned.
Freddie wanted to be a part of that world, because he knew people treated you differently when you had money and possessions. It was human nature. When he went inside the great big gaffs and saw the way they were decorated and the way they were kept, he respected the people who lived there because they had achieved that status.
It wasn’t like when you saw rich ponces on the telly who had never done a day’s collar in their life, and inherited fortunes and then pissed them away. Who could respect people who had never earned a penny in their lives? It was not the way of his world, you earned shedloads of dosh, so you earned respect.
As he sat in his mother’s house, and watched her as she plumped cushions and brought in biscuits, he could not believe that once he had thought this little semi the height of sophistication. His father had been an earner all his life. A grafter, and yet now he realised that if his old man had used his loaf he could have been drinking his tea in a drum worth fortunes.
Even Jimmy was saving up for a deposit on a house, and he knew the boy would get one as well. When Ozzy had explained to him in prison one boring Saturday afternoon about how you worked your way up the housing ladder he had been fascinated. Until then it had never occurred to him, he had thought people who got in debt for a house had to have been off their heads. He had never understood the logic of making money work for you long term.
Freddie’s world had been so small, but now he had a son and he was determined that he would have everything a son could possibly have.
‘You all right, Mum?’ She looked distracted, this woman who had always had a perfectly made-up face, who no matter what happened had always been above hysterics, who was as cool and calculating as a two-ton-an-hour barrister.
She smiled, and he saw the new lines around her mouth, the papery thinness of her skin. She had got old and he had not even noticed.
‘Not really, Freddie.’
For the first time in his life she wasn’t being strong. He had always relied on her strength because it was what had got him through his darkest hours. No matter what he had done she had been there for him. She had lied, cheated and committed perjury for him and he saw for the first time that she might actually need something back from him.
He sat up and said magnanimously, ‘Whatever you want, Mum, it’s yours.’
He really meant it and Maddie felt the urge to cry. Her big, blustering son, who like his father was so self-centered he would only give himself a kidney, was trying to be there for her. It was in some ways too little too late. But she was desperate, if she hadn’t been she would not be asking. She knew he would understand that.
‘Can I ask you a favour, Freddie?’
He smiled. He was being charming, he had a handsome new son whose birth had made him realise that he loved this woman with all his heart. She had gone through that pain to bring him into the world. She was his mother and he was suddenly aware of what that really meant.
She seemed embarrassed and he noticed that her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were pleading with him to help her out, help her say what she wanted to say, and his immediate thought was that she was going to mention his father’s latest amour. So he kept silent. He didn’t want to start a conversation about his father that they would both regret. Once things were said out loud you could not take them back. It had to come from her and he had to listen and then make a decision over what steps he was going to take to relieve her of her worries.
After a few minutes his mother said quietly, ‘I have no money, Freddie, could you please lend me a couple of pounds.’
The shock of her words was like a bucket of ice water hitting him in the face.
Maggie was cuddled up to Jimmy in the back of his car.
It was not ideal but it was warm and roomy and they had made it as comfortable as they could. Jimmy kept blankets in the boot and they snuggled under them together, happy just to be in each other’s company.
Jimmy loved the feel of her against him, when they were together like this he understood how men could kill for a woman.
‘He’s a lovely baby, ain’t he?’
Jimmy s
hrugged and then kissed the top of her head.
‘He’s a baby, they all look the same to me. At least Freddie’s happy, anyway.’
He felt her body shudder against him as she gave a loud snort of derision.
‘Fucking happy, he’ll make a fuss for a week and then get fed up with it like he always does.’
‘That’s their business, Mags, don’t let it interfere with tonight.’
She wanted to laugh, he was always trying to keep the peace. She understood Jimmy and Freddie were close and she knew he didn’t like the way Freddie treated Jackie, but his loyalty was one of the things she loved about him.
In fact it was his loyalty that she would have to depend on in years to come. When she had a couple of kids and the relationship was older. She knew that as time went on and he made his way in their world he was going to have young girls throw themselves at him. You only had to look at Freddie and his father to see how life could develop.
‘Let’s get married soon, Mags, eh?’ He squeezed her to him. ‘I have enough to buy a place, we can go looking at the weekend. I want us together like this all the time, I am sick of having to take you home and pretend we ain’t shagging at every available opportunity.’
She laughed. ‘I am ready when you are, mate.’ He kissed her on the lips, and she felt the urgency in him once again.
Sooner rather than later suited her, she just wanted out of her mother’s house and into a place of her own. She had it all planned, and she was determined to see that her plans did not go awry. No kids for at least six years, and a nice little business to see her through the future. She felt so lucky, and she prayed silently that they would not end up like Freddie and Jackie.
If he ever stopped loving her like this she knew that she would die inside, and it was this knowledge that helped her understand why her sister and mother acted like they did.
Freddie Senior was in his element. He was experiencing a high the likes of which he had never thought possible.
Kitty Mason had just blown him off and it had left him weak as a kitten and feeling like Tarzan.
She was now rolling herself a joint. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her naked body shining like marble in the lamplight. All the years he had been married he had never seen his wife in the nude, and though he had sown his wild oats he had never had a woman so at ease with herself and her body like Kitty. Even after two kids her body was like a well-chewed Blackpool whelk, not a mark on it!
He could watch her for hours, there was something about her that made him want her like he had never wanted any woman before. He had always had his sidelines, and he had enjoyed them, and then he had left them. They had known the score and that had been their attraction. He took them out and he wined and dined them, gave them a seeing to as and when it suited him. They, for their part, had the opportunity to be seen with a well-known Face and experience the criminal lifestyle of money and long nights out.
It was an arrangement that suited everyone and this state of affairs would carry on until the relationship died a natural death.
But from the moment he had seen Kitty it had been a totally different experience. He had been besotted within seconds.
This was an alien concept to him. Never in his life had a woman affected him so strongly. He knew he was setting himself up for a fall, that the thirty-odd-year age gap could only bring him grief, but he was drawn to her. When he wasn’t with her he wondered constantly where she was and what she was doing. Drove himself mad wondering if she was with someone else, more to the point, if she was sleeping with anyone else.
Freddie Senior knew in his heart the way he felt about her was unhealthy. She was like an addiction, yet he could not bring himself to try to give her up. Her little flat was lovely, and even though she had two kids she kept the place spotless. It was nicely decorated, and her kids were well behaved. Kitty was a free spirit, and he was attracted to that. She looked after herself, paid her own bills, had even done her own decorating. She had a strength of character that wasn’t apparent to most people and it was that independence that most attracted him.
The downside of Kitty, though, was she never knew when to shut her mouth. She opened it without ever once thinking about what she was saying. In his world, women were rarely afforded that luxury and she had put a lot of backs up with her outspokenness. When she had a drink she got very loud, and she also had a problem with any other women around her. It had not taken her long to see that it was her involvement with him that allowed her to say more or less what she liked. But he knew he was going to have to put the hard word on her soon and he was dreading it.
Kitty was capable of having a knock-down, drag-out fight, and afterwards giving him the most amazing, mind-blowing sex he had ever had in his life.
He lay back on the sofa as he listened to Sade. He had a dry mouth and his heart was beating fast, the sound of it loud in his ears, and he knew he was getting the rushes from the amphetamines he had snorted earlier.
He felt sixteen again and he loved it. The feeling of being completely free was like a drug in itself. He snorted, he smoked dope and he listened to music that until Kitty had turned him on to drugs had sounded like shit. He had been an Elvis fan, had loved Sinatra. Now he was listening to ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ and actually liking the stuff.
The drugs had been a revelation to him, he had not been turned on or tuned out in the sixties. He had been a fifties man, a man who saw alcohol as his only vice. He had loved his wife, who he now saw as nothing more than a brick gradually helping him sink into his old age. Maddie was a decent woman, and he respected her. But all his married life she had been respectable, he had never had a decent shag or a decent conversation in thirty-four years. His generation had stayed married whatever. They had consciously looked for decent women who they knew would take care of the home and any kids they might accrue. They had married their mothers and felt honoured to be doing so.
Now, though, he wanted excitement, he felt the sap rising inside him and he knew that Maddie, God love her, would never be enough, had never been enough. Even before the kid, when she had been well stacked and had a face like a movie star, she had been cold. He knew that people from their background believed that women who enjoyed sex were wanton, were untrustworthy, and he felt cheated because of it.
Freddie Senior had spent the best part of his life looking for what this girl gave him, belief in himself as a man. Not as a giver of children or a provider. Kitty lay back and let him take her. She would howl her enjoyment out and he got off just watching her as she came.
She passed him the joint now and he toked on it deeply. The speed was making his heart beat erratically and he wanted to come down a bit.
As Kitty got up and slipped her dressing gown back on, he heard a knock on the front door. It was the middle of the night and Kitty, being Kitty, did not even think it was unusual. He jumped up and pulled on his trousers and shirt.
‘Who the fuck could that be?’
Kitty laughed at him. ‘Probably a mate, Fred. Relax, for fuck’s sake.’
Kitty was used to people coming round at all hours. She had a flat and she had gear, so it was a natural occurrence for her.
She opened the front door a few minutes later and Freddie Senior was surprised to see his son walk into the room.
‘All right, Dad.’
Freddie was smiling, the picture of friendliness and camaraderie. He heard a child crying and the low voice of Kitty as she went in and hushed it. As he looked around the room he was surprised at how nice it was and this showed on his face.
‘She keeps this place lovely.’ Freddie Senior was explaining himself away and they both knew it. ‘So, what brings you here?’
Freddie could hear the nervousness in his father’s voice, he knew the fact he had come here would throw him.
‘Jackie had a boy tonight.’
Freddie saw the smile on his father’s face, the genuine pleasure he was feeling for him, and he grinned back.
‘Ha
ndsome fucker he is, built like the proverbial, a Jackson through and through.’
Freddie Senior shook his son’s hand and hugged him tightly. ‘Sit down and I’ll get you a beer.’
Freddie sat on the sofa, observing the room. In spite of himself he was impressed. He would not have put Kitty and this flat together in a million years, and she had certainly gone up in his estimation. He clocked the speed that was lying in neat lines on the smoked glass coffee table and the half-smoked joint in the ashtray.
His father came back with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. ‘Let’s have a proper drink.’
Freddie accepted his whisky and downed it in one gulp, then he knelt on the floor and snorted a line of amphetamine quickly. Sniffing loudly, he held his forefinger to his nose for maximum effect. The speed was good and it hit his brain in seconds.
‘Might as well have a party, eh.’
His father laughed and poured them out more Scotch.
Kitty came back in. She had put on a pair of jeans and a cheesecloth shirt. She looked very young and very pretty. Freddie Senior was grateful to her for getting dressed, it seemed wrong somehow for her to be in a state of undress in front of his son. She sat on the sofa and poured herself a glass of wine.
‘Nice little drum.’
She smiled at Freddie then, and he saw why his father was like a dog with three lampposts.
‘So you’ve got a boy, then?’
He grinned again, and Kitty was reminded of how good looking he was. She felt she was looking at his father at the same age - the resemblance was uncanny.
Freddie stood up and said gaily, ‘Yeah, me son and heir. Can I get a refill?’
She nodded happily. The fact he was here said that he accepted the relationship with his father. To her this was progress indeed.
Freddie picked up the bottle of wine that Kitty had placed by the whisky, and turned and slammed it with all his might over his father’s head. He then stabbed at him with the broken bottle five times, leaving the man a bloody mess.
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