Marie was upset to hear the bitterness in his voice.
‘She’s been through a terrible ordeal, Dad . . .’
He held his hand up to silence her.
‘I know, I know. But she’ll make sure we never hear the end of it for the rest of our natural lives. Anyway, I’ve left her. I should have done it years ago.’
Marie’s face showed the complete astonishment she was feeling.
‘You what?’
He smiled sheepishly.
‘I’ve left her. Didn’t pack any bags, of course. No clothes left, were there? All I have is what I stand up in. But I left all the same.’
Marie was looking at him as if he was a maniac and it annoyed him.
‘You can’t just leave her now, Dad. Not while she’s like she is . . .’
He ran his hands through his hair in agitation. Marie didn’t feel she knew the man in front of her, so changed was he.
‘What’s the difference? I mean, I was going on the trot anyway. I couldn’t cope with her well and supposedly happy so I definitely couldn’t cope with her burned and miserable. No fucking way, Pedro. Her and Lucy can sort themselves out. Fuck them.’
Marie could not believe this was her father. Her quiet inoffensive father who had always taken her mother’s side to keep the peace.
‘She needs you, Dad.’
He sipped his tea then started to roll himself a cigarette.
‘She don’t need no one. Never did. All she wanted was kids, and even then she only wanted fucking Marshall. She should have had a house full of men and then she’d have been happy. You and Lucy were thorns in her side. I remember when you was only a few weeks old, she was crying one night and I comforted her, like, the way you do, and she looked at me and said seriously, “I don’t like this baby, Kev. I really don’t like it.” I thought it was the baby blues, but it wasn’t. She didn’t want you from the second you were born and were a female. But Marshall! Oh, that was a different kettle of fish. All over him like a cheap fucking suit.’
He pointed the roll-up at her and she watched, fascinated, as the smoke curled around his yellowed fingers.
‘She was a fucking weirdo from the off and I never saw it. We had to get married, did you know that? She got me lovely. Picked me like a ripe peach, she did, and I fell for it. Well, enough is enough. I’ve wasted too much of me life pretending I was happy and content and liked being dictated to by that fucking female Hitler, and I ain’t putting up with it no more.’
It was as if a dam had burst and he was overflowing with hurt and pain. Marie listened to what she had always known at heart.
‘Wouldn’t let me visit you. Oh, no! Couldn’t even mention your name without a fucking full-scale war erupting. And I went along with it. Wasn’t man enough even to stand by me own daughter, the only person in the house I had ever really cared about. I admired you, do you know that? You told her where to get off when I never had the guts to. I never even got me end away, she put paid to all that. I just settled the bills and escorted her round the fucking shops and to weddings like a fucking badge of honour.’
‘Oh, Dad . . .’
Marie felt his pain as if it was her own. She was crying and unknown to him taking all the blame on herself. She had caused all this and would pay for it for the rest of her life.
‘Anyway, I’m here about Tiffany. I saw Cissy Wellbeck and she said that the Social Services had taken her baby and Tiff was on the missing list. I been round her flat. Old Bill had broken in and now the door’s boarded up. I thought you should know.’
Marie sat down on her typing chair and sighed heavily.
‘What is it with this family, Dad? We seem to be cursed. Since I got out there’s been nothing but fucking trouble. I attract it.’
She was crying and Kevin wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. Because in some ways what she’d said was right.
Marie’s return had set in motion a whole train of events. Though she was a victim too, she was also the catalyst for the major changes in all their lives.
Patrick had not come home and Tiffany was getting more and more wired. The rocks were long gone and she was relatively straight. Now she had to face the demons that were plaguing her. She was amazed to see a photo of Anastasia on the mantelpiece but guessed, rightly, it was for the benefit of the women he brought here as opposed to any real manifestation of fatherly love.
Her mother had been right, and that rankled. Her mind alternated between thoughts of her daughter and of drugs. In all honesty she didn’t know which she wanted more.
She sat in the stainless steel kitchen and looked out over the river. It was bustling today, and she thought of all the people going about their lives without all the shit she had to deal with on a daily basis.
The phone rang constantly and she listened to the different voices and wondered who they were. Most sounded so normal, especially the women. It occurred to her that Patrick Connor had a life, a real life. That was something that had never occurred to her before.
She was sweating and knew she needed something soon.
She wandered into the bedroom and began opening drawers and cupboards, unsure what exactly she was looking for. She knew he would be too shrewd to keep drugs in the house. Then she opened a shoe box in the wardrobe and smiled widely.
It was full of money, twenties and fifties bundled up into neat thousand-pound wraps. She sat on the floor filled with fear and excitement. There was so much money, surely he wouldn’t miss a little bit? All she could see as she looked in the box was rocks. Rocks, rocks and more rocks. She suddenly realised she was smiling, Anastasia gone from her mind as if she had never existed.
Taking two bundles of cash she stuffed them into her shirt and five minutes later was gone from the flat.
Tiffany flagged down a cab and made her way back into London. She was a woman on a mission and determined to fulfil her dreams as soon as possible.
She missed Patrick by forty-five minutes.
Marie was at Bethany’s grave. She had locked up the Portakabin and made her way to East London Crematorium, needing proof of her own badness more than ever before. As she looked down at the dilapidated little headstone she felt the tears begin.
The sun was high and birds sang in the trees. Overhead an aeroplane buzzed and Marie wondered briefly where the passengers might be going. She had never been on a plane. The only time she had ever travelled was when they moved her from prison to prison, and then it wasn’t like she saw any of the places she was confined to. Durham was apparently a fine city. She only saw the filthy old castle she was incarcerated in. She had never done most of the things normal people took for granted. She had been to Southend a couple of times as a teenager with friends, and once to Walton-on-the-Naze with her mum and dad when she was a kid. They had stayed in a caravan and she had enjoyed that. Her mum had seemed brighter on holiday, and they all seemed to put their natural antagonism on hold for two weeks.
Her whole life had been such a waste.
But, unlike Bethany and Caroline, at least she still had a life of sorts.
She laid the roses on the grave and then sat on the damp ground. She started to clean the plot, pulling up weeds and grass so it looked tidy. As she cleaned she talked to Bethany, trying to say sorry but unable to find the right words. She was assailed by memories instead.
She remembered them all going out, their hair styled in the trend of the day, bleaching it as they got older. Remembered Bethany’s donkey-like laugh that made everyone grin when they first heard it. Saw dingy pubs and clubs where they had been the top girls. Fights they had been involved in and won, a few they had lost but that was because they had fought men.
How had they ever believed that they were living good lives? What had made them think that giving themselves to men for money or presents or even a few drinks had made them special?
She wiped her eyes with a tissue she had found in her pocket.
‘Well, well, well.’
The voice broke into her
reverie and she turned to see Janie Douglas, Caroline’s sister, standing beside her.
‘You’re the last person I expected to see here today.’
Marie was mortified, and couldn’t answer. Instead she started to stand up. Janie forced her back on to the grass by pressing down on her shoulder with a strong hand.
‘Don’t run off, Marie. I won’t do anything, I just want to talk.’
‘What about?’
Janie shrugged.
‘I don’t really know.’
She sat beside Marie and opened a large plastic bag. She took out a flask of tea and some sandwiches.
‘Sad fucker, ain’t I? I do this every year, come to the graves and clean them up, see how they’re doing. You seem to have saved me a job. It’s me day out when it’s sunny. Caroline’s over there.’
Marie didn’t answer her, she just stared, waiting for the attack she was sure was going to come.
‘Poor Bethany. Like Caroline and you as well she never did see the big picture. You all thought you were so clever with your drugs and your outrageous behaviour. And where did it ever get any of you, eh? Now your father is threatening people with guns and Karen, the silly fat whore, is locked up, and you think the whole world is against you.’
‘What do you mean, my dad threatening people with guns?’
Janie looked at Marie and satisfied herself she really didn’t know.
‘Ain’t you heard he went after Petey? Put the fear of Christ up the fat ponce and all, I can tell you. You look well, Marie, you look young. I expect that’s from being banged up without any real problems to put lines on your boat, eh?’
Janie was overweight and looked years older than she actually was. She had the defeated look of a woman who had too many kids and not enough time. Her once lustrous auburn hair was shapeless and lank, needing a wash, her blue eyes were faded and her skin a spotty mess.
She saw Marie looking closely at her and smiled. Even her teeth looked grey, a couple chipped or missing.
‘I married Stevie Baily.’ It was almost said by way of apology for how she looked and they both knew it. ‘Rotten ponce he is. I envy Beth and Caroline in a way. Always young and always remembered with affection.’
She poured them both a cup of tea and Marie took hers gratefully. They drank in silence for a while, listening to the sounds around them, the busy road, seeing the mourners at recent funerals milling around.
‘Why did you do it, Marie?’
She shook her head. This felt surreal, sitting at Beth’s graveside being asked questions about something that had happened so long ago but was still raw in her mind. Still felt as if it had happened only yesterday.
‘I really don’t know, Janie, and that is the gospel truth. I have gone over that day time and time again and I can’t pinpoint anything that could have caused it. I was out of me box, I suppose, and it just happened. I think we must all have had a fight. It wouldn’t have been the first time, would it? We were renowned for fighting, weren’t we? All three of us were hard bitches. Remember Beth’s T-shirt? “I can go from nought to bitch in two point five seconds!”’
They both smiled, remembering.
‘She was a girl, all right.’
‘Is that really true about me dad, not just Black talk? You know what they’re like.’
‘They are really feeling it. Public opinion is strong against them and Karen’s mother has washed her hands of her. You’re almost a martyr figure at the moment. I mean, at least you was out of your nut, like. Everyone knew you were an addict. You all made sure people knew that, didn’t you? It was almost your badge of office. “We are bad girl druggies and we don’t care who knows it.”’
‘We were so stupid and we really didn’t see it.’
Janie shrugged and opened the sandwiches.
‘You would all have been dead by now anyway if it hadn’t happened. Heroin addicts don’t make old bones, everyone knows that. Look at Gillian Wise. Found propped up against her radiator, dead as a fucking doornail, been there over two weeks. ’Course, the heating was still coming on and off. She was a maggot-ridden corpse when they finally found her. One of the neighbours had complained about the smell. Smacked out of her tiny mind as usual. That was ten years ago. It could have been any of you, couldn’t it?’
Marie nodded sadly.
‘I suppose so.’
They were quiet for a few seconds, thinking about everything, then Marie said: ‘Gillian taught us how to highball. I remember it clearly. You get two mates. One injects you with speed and one injects you with heroin at the same time. As they meet in your body it blows you out of your head. Bethany loved it because it was dangerous.’
Janie shrugged. ‘She would. Beth always had to go too fucking far. You all did. I’m only sorry it ended in such tragedy. I remember that day so well. I’d been up to see Caroline, score a bit of grass for Stevie, like. She was out of her box!’
She smiled at the memory.
‘Funnily enough your brother Marshall was there. He nearly shat himself when he saw me. In case I told your mum, I suppose. He was waiting for you to come round, you’d passed out on the floor. Caroline was jacking up and that always made me feel sick so I shot off. That place was a shit hole. The smell! It was awful.’
They were both quiet again, remembering Marshall and how he’d died.
‘I never knew he was there. Do you think he saw it all and that’s why he killed himself ?’ Marie asked.
Janie shrugged again.
‘Could be. I never told anyone I saw him there. Everyone had enough on their plate. Anyway I wasn’t getting involved with Old Bill so I kept stumm. The way you do.’
Marie lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
‘Poor Marshall, he so wanted to be one of the in crowd. If my mother had known she would have launched him into outer space.’
‘Her little soldier, she called him. It would have destroyed her,’ Janie agreed.
‘She was destroyed anyway, only I did it to her and not him. When he killed himself she stopped living, apparently.’
Janie poured them both more tea.
‘Depends what you call living, don’t it? Cold woman, your mother. No one likes her though she has the sympathy vote at the moment, of course. Have you seen her?’
Marie shook her head.
‘No. She hates me.’
‘You’re in good company then. She don’t like anyone much, does she?’
Marie found herself smiling.
‘I’m glad I saw you, Marie. Would you do me a favour?’ Janie asked.
She nodded.
‘Of course, anything.’ She was desperate to make amends and it showed on her face.
‘Live the rest of your life, live it for them two. Make something good come of it all, mate. It’s happened, as the kids say these days, deal with it.’
Marie didn’t answer her, too choked with emotion. She had come here to try and find comfort from her dead friends. Instead she had found it in the shape of Janie Douglas, a woman she had laughed at and ridiculed for being straight all those years ago.
Life was strange sometimes. Very strange.
Tiffany was freebasing and it felt good.
She had spent five hundred pounds in one go and had sought and achieved complete oblivion. She lay on the cold floor of a squat in Willesden and scanned the room for her friend Rosie.
But she was long gone. She had taken some of the money with her, Tiffany remembered that much, but what it had been for she couldn’t for the life of her remember. She closed her eyes and let the good feelings roll.
Lionel Green was watching her as she lay on the filth-strewn floor.
‘Who the fuck is she?’
Another man shook his head.
‘Rosie brought her, she’s loaded.’
Lionel raised his eyebrows. ‘Loaded? How loaded?’
‘She had a couple of grand when she came in. Rosie’s took some of it and gone to score some skag, but that one’s on the rock. Out of her box
too by the looks of things.’
Lionel studied her. She could be pretty if she tried, but she looked like a street-living girl, dirty and unkempt. But unlike those girls her clothes were good quality and her nails still relatively clean. He noticed things like that, being a street liver himself. He prided himself on his acumen. It had kept him alive for ten years on the street. He had been eleven when he had run away from home. He had never gone back to the little terraced house in Essex and he never would.
He didn’t miss Tilbury, but he missed his mother. He missed his brothers but didn’t miss his stepfather with his great big boots and fast fists. He had a new life of sorts now and a new family.
He slid across the floor to Tiffany and she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
‘My baby. I have to get my baby.’
‘She’s on more than rock, has Rosie jacked her up?’
The other boy shook his head, unconcerned.
‘Might have, who knows? Do you want a quick blast?’
He offered Lionel the crack pipe.
‘Nah, never been my bag. I like a drink.’
‘Shame, ’cos she has loads of it and I intend to stick with her till it’s all gone.’
‘Has she got a baby?’
The other boy was getting annoyed.
‘I don’t fucking know. What are you, Old Bill? I couldn’t give a fuck if she’s got ten kids or gave birth to a litter of pups. All the time she’s got a rock she can stay here, and that’s it.’
Lionel was quiet. His years on the street had taught him that was best around druggies who were too unreliable to be rational. When he was sure he was unobserved he searched Tiffany till he found the last of her money and slipped it into his jacket pocket. The others would only have done it anyway once they came round enough. He watched over her until she came back into the world and then, smiling, helped her sit up. It was evening now and she had lost nearly all the day.
‘You OK?’
He gave her a can of lager and she drank from it deeply.
‘Come upstairs and chill out, it’s warmer.’
She followed him up the rickety staircase, fighting off the effect of the drugs. On a dirty mattress they sat and talked. Lionel knew the score and started off asking her easy questions: name, age, how she knew Rosie. Then he sat back and listened to her tale of woe.
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