Briony was still a very good-looking woman even though she was well into her forties. Her figure was slim, and her face barely lined. The new fashions suited her and her spectacular hair was worn in a chic French pleat. It was only her voice that betrayed her. Until she opened her mouth, people always assumed she was from the upper classes.
‘You’ll never guess what the twins done tonight?’
‘What?’ Mariah’s voice was shocked. Briony never spoke about the twins like this. Usually she spoke of them as a mixture of the Pope and God himself.
‘They only shot bleeding Seamus McNee in the legs. In a snooker hall in Canning bloody Town. The stupid little gits! Wait ’til I get my hands on them. It’s all over Silvertown so you can bet it’ll be everywhere in the morning. And as for the Rileys, well, I just heard they’re not too happy about it. The McNees worked for them.’
‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake!’
Briony swallowed the burning liquid and shrugged.
‘Oh, sod the Rileys, they don’t bleeding well scare me. It’s the audacity of those two little sods. They sat in that house tonight like butter wouldn’t melt! They must have been planning this... You wait ’til I get my hands on them.’
Mariah took a deep breath and spoke.
‘Listen, Bri, me and you go back a long way, girl. Let me tell you something now. Those two boys are out of control. Look at last year when they had that fight at the fair in Victoria Park. They crippled that bloke, remember? Even as little kids they had a violent streak. This is the culmination of it. You’ve got to put your foot down once and for all. Stop bloody well getting them off the hook.’
Briony closed her eyes ’til they were slits and looked at the big woman in front of her. Mariah bleached her hair and still wore dresses that were too tight; she plastered the make-up on these days but she looked her age: sixty-two. It suddenly occurred to Briony that out of everyone she knew, Mariah had never been one to sing the boys’ praises. She had always pointed out their shortcomings. Even though at heart Briony knew that what her friend said was true, hearing her pulling her boys to pieces went against the grain.
‘So that’s your opinion, is it?’
Mariah shrugged. ‘For what it’s worth. It’s about time someone told you the truth of it. You and your family treat them like visiting royalty. Well, look where it’s got them. They’ve kneecapped a known villain in a dirty snooker club. I bet you’re really pleased about their good education now, ain’t you! And another thing while we’re about it...’
Briony held her hand up to stem the flow.
‘I think I’ve heard enough from you for one night, Mariah. I never realised before that you didn’t like my boys. But I think I get the picture now, thank you very much.’
She started to pull on her fox fur coat and Mariah grabbed her arm.
‘I love those boys, Briony, but unlike you I can see their faults. They play you, girl. They get all spruced up round Bernie’s before they darken your door, then they sit and smile - and I tell you now, girl, they’re taking the bleeding piss! Oh, I don’t dispute they love you. No ... they worship you. But all the same, they know what you want from them and they deliver it. This is the proof of it. You told me tonight that they were thinking of getting a little business. You was pleased as bloody punch. Finally settling themselves, you said. And what is this business? Collecting fucking rents! It’s villainy they want, girl. They want to be like the Rileys. Like...’
Briony pushed Mariah in her ample breasts, shouting, ‘Go on, say it! They want to be like
me
... me and you. Because you’re in all this up to your bloody neck too!’
‘I know I am, but unlike your bloody boys, me and you don’t heavy people. We don’t shoot stupid bloody thugs in dingy little clubs. Can’t you see that if you don’t put a stop to their gallop, they’ll end up dead or locked up?’
Even though Briony secretly agreed with everything Mariah said, her deep-seated loyalty to her family got the upper hand.
‘They’re my boys and I’ll deal with them.’
‘Well, you do as you see fit. But don’t say I didn’t try and warn you!’
Briony opened the door and snarled back, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
Slamming the door behind her she stormed out of Mariah’s house. She was even more annoyed with the twins now because on top of everything else they’d caused her to row with her best friend. All the way home in her car, she had a pain in her chest.
It was true what people said: the truth hurt. It hurt a lot.
Danny and Boysie came in at two-thirty. After the snooker club they had gone to The Two Puddings in Stratford and had a quiet drink. Watching the Rileys’ counterparts, the Moneys.
Michael Money was the leader and Boysie and Danny had made a conscious effort to ingratiate themselves with him. He was unaware that he was next on their list. Then at ten-thirty they had gone to a drinking club in Frith Street owned by Tommy Lane. There they had gradually come down from their earlier euphoria. As they walked in at the front door of their aunt’s house, the drawing-room door opened and Briony stood there waiting for them.
‘Well, well, well, if it ain’t Frank and Jesse James!’
Despite themselves they smiled. Only their Aunt Briony would talk to them like that.
‘Get in here, you two. Now!’
They walked into the drawing room behind her. Both stood in front of the blazing fire and looked at her.
Even in her rage she was overcome by the sheer power and magnetic quality of the two men in front of her. The two viciously handsome faces were turned towards her. The boys’ eyes and bodies were fiercely alert.
‘I want to know what happened tonight in Silvertown.’
‘I think you already know, Mum.’ The way Boysie called her ‘Mum’ tugged at Briony’s heart. They were her boys, her big boys now. Her Achilles heel.
‘I know enough to realise you two must be off your fucking rockers!’ Her voice filled the room. ‘Shooting people in front of witnesses. Carrying sawn-off shotguns. What next? You going to go in Scotland Yard and rob their payroll? You must be stupid. You are stupid. The Rileys will come after you hammer and tongs. Seamus was to be their next torturer, they worked for the Rileys, all the McNees, and what do you do? You go and shoot them. Jesus wept.’
Boysie and Daniel looked at the little woman in front of them.
‘We ain’t scared of the Rileys, or the McNees, or the Moneys. We know what we’re doing, Mum, so just calm yourself down. Gordon Bennet, anyone would think we’d done something really wrong!’
Daniel’s voice was jocular and suddenly Briony saw them both as plain as day. They’d always been the same, even as children. If they wanted something, they asked, then they asked again more pointedly, and finally they demanded it. She had always seen that they got what they wanted. She’d wanted to make up to them for not having Eileen, not having a father. She’d wanted her boys to have everything. Now the upshot of all this was standing in front of her. They wanted what the Rileys and the McNees and the Moneys had, and they would get it, she had no doubts about that at all. They’d get it.
They walked towards her and kissed her, as they always did, one on each cheek, and Briony was undone. Nothing she could say now would do any good. She had to retreat or she had to fight with them, and she wouldn’t fight with them. She couldn’t because then she knew they’d leave her, and if they left her she’d have nothing. Nothing at all. She had to go along with them, had to accept it. Deep inside herself, though she wasn’t aware of it, she was secretly proud of them. They wanted a life of villainy and, being her boys, had started at the top. At the pinnacle. If they took the Rileys out of the game they were set up for life.
‘Oh, boys. You do worry me. What can I do to help you with the Rileys? Do you want me to smooth it over?’
Boysie laughed.
‘The Rileys don’t trash you, do they?’
Briony shook her head. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Well, they don’t trash us either. Me and Danny Boy know what we want from life.’ He walked to the window and pulled back the heavy velvet curtains.
‘There’s a big old world out there, Mum, and me and him, we’re gonna be the kings of it. Ain’t that right, Danny?’
He nodded.
‘We want to make our mark in our own way. Without you, Mum. We’re men now, and we’re men who know what we want. And nothing and no one’s gonna stop us.’
Briony knew it was a threat and finally saw what Mariah meant. They were saying: ‘We’ll do it with you. Here in this house. Or we’ll leave and do it on our own.’
Briony went to them both and hugged them to her.
‘It’s also a dangerous world out there, full of people like the Rileys and the McNees and the Moneys. Don’t you ever forget that, boys.’
They smiled at her then, two identical smiles with identical white teeth.
‘We won’t.’ It was spoken in unison and Briony nodded at them. The course was set.
Chapter Thirty-four
‘Come on, Mum, get up! It’s after ten.’
Liselle pulled the covers back from her mother’s body and sighed.
‘Please, Mum, you’re recording at eleven-thirty.’
‘Leave me alone, Liselle, I’m tired.’
Kerry’s emaciated body was curled in a ball. Liselle put her arm under her mother’s head and pulled her forcibly to a sitting position. Then, half dragging and half carrying her, she pulled her from the bed, across the bedroom and into the shower. Kerry felt the cold water hitting her body and began to gasp for breath. Liselle laughed.
‘That’ll teach you to tie one on! I’m getting sick and tired of having to do this. Now, when you’re awake come down and have something to eat and a cup of coffee. I’ll drive you to the studios.’
Kerry stuck two fingers up at her daughter’s retreating back and turned on the hot water. Five minutes later she emerged from the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. Then, going back into her bedroom, she opened the dressing-table drawer and took out a bottle of pills. She swallowed five without the aid of water and slipped on a dressing gown. Downstairs her daughter was waiting for her.
‘You look like you’ve been done and left!’
Kerry smiled. ‘I feel like it, love. Where’s me coffee?’
She poured out the coffee and they drank in silence. Liselle studied her mother. Kerry was working late in the clubs singing, she was cutting an album, and she was also taking far too many pills. What really annoyed Liselle was that her mother looked so bloody good on her way of life. Anyone else would have been burnt out, looked terrible, but not Kerry Cavanagh. She seemed to thrive on work, work and more work. Even during the war she’d travelled all over the world singing to the troops and had come back raring to go. It was the pills that bothered Liselle, those and the vodka.
At twenty-one she was her mother’s full-time minder. She wasn’t sure exactly when this had come about, but it had. It seemed to Liselle that she had spent her life looking after her mother instead of the other way round. She even signed all the cheques these days because her mother was either unavailable or stoned out of her brain. Now Liselle froze off reporters, she confirmed Kerry’s singing dates, checked that her clothes were all looked after, that her mother remembered to eat, hid as much drink as she could, and all in all made sure her mother was presentable for her public engagements. It was getting harder by the day. As Kerry’s eyes began to glaze again she sighed mentally. At least she could sing OK on the pills. It was when she had had the drink that it got difficult, though her mother’s reputation was well known in the business.
‘Come on, Mum, eat a bit of scrambled egg.’
Kerry made a face.
‘I wouldn’t eat that crap if you paid me! I’ve had a bit of toast, that’ll do.’
‘Well, go and get dressed then, we’ve got to go in a minute.’
Kerry stood up.
‘You’re a right old bossy boots, Liselle, do you know that?’ It was said in a jocular manner but it hurt Liselle nonetheless.
‘Someone’s got to get you sorted out. If it was left to you...’
Kerry sobered up immediately. ‘I know. I know, love.’
Liselle watched her mother walk from the room and wished she could bite her tongue off. Her mum was a difficult charge, she really was. But Liselle loved her.
Going out to the hallway she looked in the big mirror by the phone. The face that stared back at her had deep circles under the eyes and her full lips were painted with a deep red lipstick. Her deep brown eyes were heavily made up and her thick blue-black hair pulled up on to her head. She often wondered how she had got so dark, her mother would never tell her about her father, only that she had loved him very much and he had left her. She’d daydreamed as a child that he was a Spaniard or an Italian. Her granny always said they had Basque blood in the family, maybe it had come from there? It was strange not to know your beginnings and lately it had bothered her very much. But it was pointless asking her mother or her aunts, they all clammed up as soon as it was mentioned.
She heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs and picked up the keys to the car. It would all come out in the wash as her granny always said when gossiping about someone when she didn’t know the full story. It would all come out in the wash. Smiling at her mother they left the house.
Kenny Riley was so annoyed his face was coming out in red blotches. His breathing was painful and his fists ached from clenching them. He looked at his right-hand man, Michael Money, and sighed.
‘I want those Cavanaghs given a lesson they’ll never forget, do you get my drift? I think they’re a pair of little piss-takers who need to be taught a few manners!’
Michael Money nodded. He was still reeling from the shock of the shooting himself. The fact that the twins had turned up at the pub after and had chatted to him as if nothing had happened scared him. Scared him very much. Boysie was a nutter, a temper merchant, but Danny now, he was a different ball game. He was cute, he was clever, and by Christ if he was the brains behind the two, then they’d all better watch their backs. He didn’t say this to Kenny Riley though, he knew when to keep his peace. At the moment Kenny was on a short fuse and anyone who lit the match under it was guaranteed a long stay in the Mile End Hospital.