As soon as the last words were out of her mouth she wanted to retract them. Wanted to tell him that it was sheer temper talking, that she was upset. Instead she stood silently as he recovered from the blow he had received.
‘You bitch, you fucking bitch of hell.’
Taking back his arm he slapped her across the face, sending her flying across the office on to the desk. The inkwell crashed to the floor. In the silence, Briony pulled herself to her feet.
‘I’ve tried, Briony, to be a good man to you. I’ve put up with things off you another man would have scalped your arse for, and this is how you repay me, is it? Well, we’re finished, girl, after tonight. I know exactly where I stand now, don’t I? We’ll sort out the pennies and halfpennies another day. For now, I have to get as far away from you as possible.’
Briony went to him, her eyes beseeching.
‘Tommy, Tommy, listen to me ... I didn’t mean it.’
He held up his hands.
‘Don’t touch me, Bri. Not now, not ever again. You’ve finished anything we ever had between us. You always had the gift of the gab, didn’t you? Talked us in and out of every situation. Well, you talked yourself out of me! I sat back today while you talked me out of five grand, lady. I’ve always listened to you, let you have your head, and all the time you had no more feeling for me than a mad dog. Talk about a fucking eye opener, eh! Get out of me way.’
Briony held on to him, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket.
‘Let go of me, Bri, or I’ll knock you out, I mean it.’
She held on harder, beginning to cry now.
‘Please, Tommy! I never meant it, any of it, I was hurt!’
Putting the flat of his hands on her chest, he pushed her with all his considerable strength. She flew backwards against the wall, the force knocking the breath from her body. She crumpled down on to the floor, her back aching with the blow.
‘Good night, love. See you around.’
She was crying hard now.
‘Tommy, I’m begging you ...’
He looked down at her and laughed.
‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Bri, you never did know when to give up, did you? Your big trap will still be moving when they put you in the ground.’
He walked from the office and Briony sat on the floor and cried bitter lonely tears.
Tommy walked from the club and out into the evening air. He pushed his hands down into his pockets and walked quickly towards the East End, his motor car left behind.
He felt the sting of tears and blinked them back. All around him London was quieting for the night, the streets empty and void of life. He had loved her so much, so very very much. She had been like a beacon to him, calling him home to her. She was his other half, his second skin. In her, he’d had a deep abiding friendship and a love he thought could rival any in the world. He had been such a fool, a stubborn fool, not to see what was under his nose all the time! Well, they were finished, finally and irrevocably. He couldn’t think what the upshot was going to be now. He still loved her dearly, despite what had happened this night. All he knew was that this was the end of the road for them. The final parting. He never wanted to look at her lovely face again.
In his mind’s eye he saw her as she had been all those years ago, with her belly high in pregnancy, her blue velvet suit, her stunning hair. Even then, she had had something special about her. He saw her when they opened their first house, her face serious and exquisite. What was it that made one person more to you than another? What was the magic chemistry that made only one person your life, your love? Why was he plagued by her day and night, year after year, when there were women aplenty in the world? Other women as beautiful, with better bodies and sweeter natures. Why was he cursed with wanting her? Because he still wanted her, even now. After all that had happened, he still wanted her.
It was this that hurt him more than anything. Where Briony was concerned, he had no pride.
Well, he decided, he would find the pride. Nothing would induce him to have her back after this night’s work. Not even her tears. From tonight, Briony Cavanagh was on her own.
And a little voice at the back of his mind said: So are you, Tommy Lane, and you’ll be the lonelier in the end.
He stood on London Bridge later that night, and watched the traffic on the water, the boats’ hooters sounding ghostly in the light of the dawn.
It was then, cold and tired, that Tommy decided just what he had to do.
Briony could hear the preparations for the wedding from her bedroom. She was sorry now she had decided to have the reception at her house. It meant she had to be nice to everyone, talk and chat and be the good hostess, when all she wanted to do was tell them all to bugger off out of it. Go away and come back another day.
It was overcast, and Briony hoped the heavens opened so the reception would be cut short. She looked in the mirror and groaned. Her eyes were swollen and red. Her face grey-tinged.
She knew that she had blown it with Tommy, that what she had said would always be between them. It was her wicked vicious tongue that had taken her over. It was not even the truth. Just words spoken in temper, a temper brought on by hearing the truth. She felt the useless tears again and swallowed them down. She had no time for tears now. But, oh, she was hurting inside, she was in an agony of pain.
The door was opened and Mrs Horlock bustled into the room. Briony looked at her with new eyes, saw the aged look of her face, the way the skin had sagged, the heavy jowls and ruddy complexion, and suddenly it occurred to her that years were passing with a sameness that was startling.
‘Come on, girl, get yourself up and eat this toast! I’ll cook you a proper breakfast later when the main work’s done. The bloody help is no good at all, a couple of nervous children! By Christ, you get what you pay for these days all right. Still, they’ll have to do and they’re showing willing so I mustn’t be too hard on them.’
She dumped the tray of tea and toast on a small table beside Briony’s bed.
‘Your mother’s arrived, by the way, sticking her great galloping oar in where it ain’t wanted!’
Briony ignored the tirade and sighed gently.
‘Look, lass, I don’t know what happened with you and your man, but he’s sent a message for his bags to be ready to be picked up first thing tomorrow morning. Now I know you’ve had a fight, but this is your sister’s wedding day and you’ve got to show willing. You and him have always fought like cat and dog. But he’ll be around with his tail between his legs as usual, and everything will be all right.’
Briony shook her head. ‘No, he won’t, Mrs H. This is the finish.’
‘Oh, Briony girl. Listen to me. Whatever has happened with you and your man, it’ll all be resolved before you know it ...’
‘No, that’s just it, Mrs H. Things were said last night that can never be retracted. Can never be forgotten. I blew it with Tommy. I pushed him too far this time.’
Briony started talking again, babbling, her words running into one another as she tried to make sense of them herself. ‘It was seeing my boy, it was seeing him. Being near him. I couldn’t get the thought from my head that if things had been different we would have been together. I could have looked at him every day. I hate the thought of him with them. It grieves me, it kills me. It should be me, not her. Then Tommy said we could have children and I said ... I said no. Never. And I meant it. I realise now I really meant it because I only want my boy! Benedict. My son. Any other child would be like second best, you know?
‘Tommy deserves better than that. And knowing all that, I still want him. I would have fifty children if it kept Tommy here, but now it’s all too late. Too fucking late to try and make any sense of it all.’
‘Then don’t. Don’t try and make sense of it. Try and pull yourself together, child, for God’s sake. There’s a whole army arriving here in a few hours and you’ve got to greet them with your sister. It’s her day, not yours. It’s Eileen’s day. And let’s face it, Briony, she deserves some happiness, doesn’t she? Think of Eileen and your sisters and your mother. Everyone will be expecting you to be the life and soul of this gathering.’
Briony looked into the lined face and before her and sighed heavily.
‘That’s been the trouble, hasn’t it? It’s all always been for everyone else. Never for me. For me mum, me family. I even frightened Joshua into marrying Eileen. What about me? What about what I want?’
As she walked down the stairs forty-five minutes later, she was a semblance of her old self, a veneer of the old Briony that pleased everyone. They all looked at her and she could read in their eyes the same thought.
Briony was here, she would take over, and everything would be fine.
Only she knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
But Briony, being Briony, played the game she had started so long ago, the game where she set the rules and never told anyone else what they were. Least of all Tommy Lane.
Chapter Twenty
Briony stood in Saint Vincent’s church with her mother and sisters, waiting for Eileen to walk down the aisle. She knelt down and made the sign of the cross, giving an offering prayer of two Hail Marys and an Our Father. As she kissed the cross of Christ on her rosary beads she noticed Kerry staring at her and dropped her eyes. Only Kerry had noticed something wrong with her, only Kerry had realised she wasn’t her usual self. Kerry was to sing today, at her sister’s wedding. It was a family day all right, and even though Joshua was giving Eileen his name, O’Malley, it was still a Cavanagh day.
Rosalee, dressed in a silver-grey dress and coat, looked at her and clapped her hands together. Briony smiled at her. Rosie was enormous now. Her flat face, so adorable to Briony, still made people stare at her. She trotted alongside her mother wherever she went, and was well known to all the shopkeepers. Her vocabulary was still limited to ‘Bri, Bri’. It was the only word she had ever spoken, though Briony guessed she would talk more if she really wanted to. Briony straightened up the black silk headscarf Rosalee wore and gave her a little kiss. Bernie was tapping her foot against the wooden floor. She looked agitated and Briony didn’t bother acknowledging her. She couldn’t bring herself to have a whispered conversation, just wanted to take Rosalee and walk from the church, from all this pretence, but knew she couldn’t. Instead she smiled wanly at her mother.
No one as yet had asked after Tommy, Briony’s demeanour had made sure of that. The fact he had ordered his clothes to be packed was common knowledge, though, thanks to Cissy. Dressed in an outrageous red silk suit, she was already crying before Eileen even walked down the aisle.
Kerry slipped from her pew and walked up to the altar. She knelt and blessed herself before taking up position at the side, ready to sing. Eileen had let her choose the hymns herself.
Joshua waited patiently for his bride. His new suit looked and felt incongruous. He had never owned anything so fine in all his life. He was frightened of all this sitting down because he didn’t want to crease it. It had been provided by Briony, which he hated, but he consoled himself with the thought it would last him the next thirty years if he watched his weight. It was of good material and fully lined, a fact that had him swinging between pride and a kind of shocked wonderment. It was a suit you could take to Uncle’s and get a good price for, and as it was no shame to pawn things, he was actually looking forward to doing so. It would only get damp or smoke-damaged hanging up in the house, depending on what time of year it was, and where the hell would he wear it, except maybe to weddings and funerals.
He bit his thumbnail, and quickly chastised himself. No biting nails in church, no crossing of legs or arms in church, and never, ever was one to think a bad word or thought in church. He concentrated on the pink roses on the altar. The church looked lovely. His mother and Eileen had dressed it early that morning. It looked a picture.
He smiled nervously at his friend Harry Higgins, and Harry patted his pocket to let him know he had the ring safe. The news Joshua was marrying Eileen, one of the Cavanaghs, had spread through the East End like wild fire. For the first time in his life he was treated with the utmost respect. Yet he wasn’t sure he even wanted to be here. At first Briony getting the better of his mother had pleased him. He had been forced into this marriage, and being a weak man, there was a kind of pleasure in that fact. Always living by his mother’s lights, he had exchanged that for living by Briony Cavanagh’s. But Eileen now, she was a different kettle of fish. With Eileen he would rule the roost and she would let him. That fact pleased him enormously. He had a fleeting vision of her naked before him and squeezed his eyes closed. After this day, he could take her any time he wanted to. He would be master in his own house, and master of her.
Everyone looked towards the back of the church when Eileen began the walk down the aisle on Abel’s arm. Kerry began to sing, low at first, her voice rising as she picked up the organist’s tempo:
‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
To save a wretch like me.’
People sighed with contentment as she sang. Eileen looked at Joshua, and even the stem old priest, Father MacNama, smiled, shaking his head in wonder at the sound of her voice. As he thought to himself, the way some of the eejits in his parish murdered the good God’s hymns, it was a breath of fresh air to hear that one sing them.
He opened his bible and blessed it. He was ready to begin.
An hour later Joshua kissed his bride and they went through to sign the register, everyone following, happy now the deed was done and all that was left was the merry making.
The sun had come out, and Briony was pleased. She was sorry for her churlish thoughts of the early morning. The heavens had not opened and the garden was jam packed with people.