Jimmy Bailey felt his body relax, he had not realised just how tense he had been. He knew that Michael had expected to walk in and take over, and he also knew that he had only staved him off for the present. It was not in Michael Hannon’s nature to be a part of anything without at some point trying to take the lion’s share. It was the nature of the beast, it was the survival of the fittest. It was also not going to happen, not in his lifetime anyway.
Well, he had managed to calm him down this time, but he knew it was early days yet. At some point Michael Hannon was not going to be so easily placated and that was when the trouble was really going to start.
Imelda was watching her two children with what her mother always described to herself as an unhealthy disinterest. Mary would observe her daughter as she looked at the children she had produced from her own body, and see the complete and utter bewilderment in her eyes. It was as if Imelda had no recollection of carrying them inside her, or the pain of giving birth to them. She had no real care for them at all. She liked to show Kenny Boy off, but that was because he was a big lad, a handsome lad, and Imelda could only ever really bond with males. Poor Jordanna was seen by her mother as a threat, all females were seen as a threat to Imelda. Jordanna was already a beauty, and that was not just the proud granny talking either. Jordanna was stunning, she was her mother’s double in many respects. But thank Christ she had not inherited any of her mother’s personality. Jordanna was a kind, generous and giving person, and she found it inside her to forgive her mother time and time again for her wanton neglect and for her vicious remarks.
She herself would police her daughter when she visited her children, unable to cut her daughter completely out of her life because Imelda had custody of the children and therefore she only had them because Imelda said so.
Mary didn’t think that Imelda would bother with all that drama again, would probably not try and take them away from her out of spite, she was older and wiser these days, but she was still capable of using them to get what she wanted if the need ever arose.
On the plus side, however, Mary was also well aware that Lance’s death was still an open case where a lot of people were concerned, especially the Filth. So she knew that Imelda had to toe the line in many respects because of that, and she was confident that Imelda was not about to have her life turned upside down by two little kids, kids whose lives were monitored by social workers and probation officers. Not that they had been any use the last time. They were fucking useless, all they did was spout shite. If Imelda burnt the poor little fuckers alive they would still try and find the good in her.
But, even knowing that, Mary also reminded herself that Imelda, when thwarted, was capable of anything, would use anything or anyone to make her point, or to force the issue. She was a wild card, and as such she had to be kept close. Like any good enemy she needed to be watched, and watched over carefully.
‘Ain’t she got weird legs?’
Mary looked at her daughter and, frowning slightly, she looked once more at the television in the corner of the room. It was never turned off, and Mary stared at it for a few seconds trying to work out who her daughter was referring to. All she could see was three men discussing the latest world events.
‘What are you on about?’
Imelda pointed at her daughter and said loudly, ‘Her, Jordanna, she’s fucking weird. Look at her legs, they are two minutes off bandy. I never noticed that before, did you?’
Mary saw the hurt on Jordanna’s face and, shaking her head slowly, she looked at her daughter and said snidely, ‘Had a fucking good look at yourself lately? That child is your double, lady, so if she has got bandy legs, then she inherited them from you.’
Imelda laughed at her mother’s indignation. ‘She’s fucking bandy, Mother, you could drive a number nine bus between her legs.’
Kenneth was now watching the two women, he sensed their antagonism, their mutual dislike, and he felt Jordanna’s nervousness as if it was his own. He moved instinctively towards his sister, Jordanna opened her arms to receive him, and she pulled him into her arms. They stood together as if they were one, and Mary saw the anger that simple action caused by the sudden dislike in her daughter’s eyes.
She hated Imelda when she was like this: petty, hateful, vindictive. She wished her daughter dead at times, and the guilt she felt for those thoughts was terrible, yet she still wished for it on a daily basis.
Imelda was wearing a beautiful navy-blue wrap dress; it was very plain, and it looked wonderful on her slim frame. Her hair was perfect as always, as was her make up. She wore her trademark boots, but they looked good with the dress; her long slim legs made it possible for her to wear what she wanted and still look good. Her Imelda, her junkie daughter Imelda, unlike others of her ilk, looked as far from an addict as you could possibly get. She was such a strong personality that, even though her life revolved around drugs, she still had the determination and the energy to make sure she was well turned-out.
Mary had to admire her at times, she knew how to fucking con everyone; she looked for all the world like a young girl on her way to work.
‘Come here, Kenny, come to Mummy . . .’ Imelda was holding out her hand towards him, her whole body stiff with annoyance, and Mary saw the bewilderment on the boy’s face.
‘I said come here, Kenny. I’m your fucking mother, whatever
she
might try and tell you. Now, come to me this minute.’
She was still holding out her hand, and Kenneth was still standing with his sister wondering what he was supposed to do for the best.
Mary pushed her daughter towards the kitchen. ‘Stop it, Mel, I ain’t having it any more, I told you that the last time.’
She was still pushing Imelda away from kids and, as she approached the door that led into the kitchen, she pushed her daughter through it with all the strength that she could muster.
As Imelda stumbled out of the room, Mary looked at the two dumbstruck children and gesturing with her eyes towards the ceiling, they both took the hint and went up to their bedrooms. Jordanna was visibly shaking at her mother’s presence, and Kenny was, as always, unsure about who he was supposed to be pleasing this time round.
Imelda, however, was fuming now. ‘Fucking push me like that, you’re lucky I don’t fucking lay you out, you old bag.’
Mary ignored her words, she was used to her daughter’s vitriol and she sighed heavily before saying sadly, ‘Leave the girl alone, Mel, what has she ever done to you, eh?’
Imelda lit herself a cigarette slowly and with exaggerated nonchalance, before saying loudly, ‘What has she ever done to
me
? You ask me
that
, after what she did, after what she caused . . .’
Mary had listened to this same harangue about the child so many times before, and today she threw all caution to the wind as she shrieked in anger and frustration, ‘Oh fuck off, Mel, no one believes that she did it, only the fucking no-necks you slob around with. She kept you from getting a fucking serious lump, because I know in my heart that you shot him. I also know that if it had not been him you would have killed someone eventually. You are a great big fucking accident waiting to happen; you caused your father’s death, and Jordanna’s dad’s as well. You cause trouble without any thought for who might be caught up in the abortion that you call a life. That little child, that lovely, dear little girl, has never done anything to hurt anyone in her life. And I swallowed you blaming her for Lance because I’m your mother, and I didn’t want to see you go down for years and years. But I tell you now, I wish they had banged you up. Because at least then I would have been spared the knowledge and the public humiliation of you being on the fucking bash, on the game. You leave her alone in future, Mel, or me and you will really fall out. I know you fucking think you can treat people however you want, well, you can’t.’
Imelda was, as usual, completely unfazed at her mother’s words: nothing affected her unless she chose to allow herself to be affected by it all and then she would act either outraged, deeply angered or, at a push, she was also capable of acting out being desperately hurt.
Mary likened her daughter to a robot; she had no genuine feelings at all, and where that knowledge used to worry her, now she just saw it for what it was. Her daughter’s natural personality, if you could call it that. She was a strange girl, and she lived a strange life that consisted of her, and her alone.
Mary had stopped caring about that a long time ago. She loved her, but she had never really liked her. But she was lumbered with her, and she had to accept that.
Imelda was in her outraged mode today, and Mary watched her daughter as she pretended to feel emotions she knew deep inside she was incapable of really feeling. It was all an act, her whole life had been an act of some sort.
‘I hate you, and I hate her. You two are so alike, Mother. She might look like me on the outside but inside she’s just like you, a bitter and twisted old fucking witch.’
Mary laughed at her daughter’s choice of words, she never ceased to amaze her.
‘Oh, Mel, I wish you would listen to yourself sometimes so you could see what a fucking eejit you really are!’
Imelda was laughing with her now, and Mary knew that once more her daughter had experienced another of her lightning changes of mood.
Mary shook her head in despair, why did no one else see her daughter for the fucking maniac she was? Why did they always fall for her lovely face, and for the act she would put on for them all? She remembered the psychiatrist in Holloway, he had been deceived within minutes of meeting her daughter, and she had sat back and watched it happen, powerless to do anything about it. She had watched her daughter as she played the victim, then the coquette, and finally, she had played the innocent who was openly enamoured of the man sitting before her. He had not had a cat in hell’s chance, and she knew that he probably still patted himself on the back at his success with Melly, as he called her.
‘Oh come on, Mum, let’s not row any more, eh?’ Imelda was almost pleading with her now, beseeching her mother to let it go.
Mary shook her head again slowly, her troubled face showing her absolute incredulity at her daughter’s utter disregard for morality, for decency. She put the kettle on and then, sitting at the kitchen table, she opened the paper and concentrated on the crossword.
Imelda chain-smoked and sat casually beside her, giving her the answers to some of the clues as if nothing had happened.
Jimmy Bailey was sitting in the Crown and Two Chairmen pub in Dean Street. He had a large Scotch on the rocks, and he was nursing it with more care than Florence Nightingale. He liked this pub; like a lot of the places in Soho it had a nice atmosphere about it, but then he also knew that unless you were a Soho person, these places could seem like the arse end of the world. It was about knowing where you were, and who was who. As he sipped his drink, his eyes were watching the door. Every time it opened he felt his heart stop in his chest, and when it wasn’t Imelda coming inside he would relax once more. He annoyed himself when he waited for her like this, for just a glimpse of her, just to satisfy his need. He just had to see her sometimes, not to touch her, or talk to her even, just see her face, nothing more.
Jimmy knew that if he wanted her, he could line up with the rest of them and pay her, and he knew that she would give him the same service she gave everyone else. But he also knew that she had somehow got under his skin and, even knowing everything that he knew about her, he still couldn’t shake her off. So periodically he did this, he sat and waited in one of her regular haunts, just so he could look at her.
He knew that his obsession with her was not healthy in the least. But he also knew that he could not do anything about it. He would look at her for a few minutes and then he would leave, his thirst for her slaked for a short while.
Jimmy loved Imelda in a strange way, not her as such, but the image he had always had of her, the image that she represented to him, and to everyone else for that matter.
With her long, blond hair and her wide-spaced blue eyes, she looked like the girl next door, only she was a better, newer, more improved model. And he wondered over and over again why she was the only person ever to make him feel like this. Why it took a whore, and a dangerous whore at that, to make him understand what real love felt like. He hated her for what she was, and hated himself for still wanting her, even though he knew she had been under more men than a public latrine. But no matter what he told himself, the fact remained that he still wanted her, ached for her, in fact.
As he was drinking the last of his Scotch she came through the door. She was alone, as always, and she was already well gone, her eyes told him that much, though to the layman she just looked sexy. Her stoned eyes just made her look even more desirable, they were softer somehow, a much deeper blue. It was the dilation of her pupils, they gave her the look of innocence.
Jimmy saw every man in the place give her a once-over, and he chastised himself for the spurt of jealousy that coursed through him, and reminded himself that any one of the men in here could possess her body if they paid the price required. And he even got a cut when they did. She would do whatever they wanted, and she would do it willingly, and with a good measure of experience; she would see that they had the time of their life.
He hated himself for waiting to see her, for being reminded that she was only in here between jobs, and that at any moment one of his cab drivers would pop his head round the door and beckon her outside to take her to her next punter.
As Jimmy placed his glass on the table he saw that she was watching him now and, sauntering over to where he was sitting, she lowered herself into the chair opposite him. ‘Long time, no see. How are you, Jimmy?’