By Martina Cole and available from Headline
Dangerous Lady
The Ladykiller
Goodnight Lady
The Jump
The Runaway
Two Women
Broken
Faceless
Maura’s Game
The Know
The Graft
The Take
Close
Faces
The Business
Hard Girls
The Family
The Faithless
For my Freddie Fling Flang.
Love you, darling
Dolly R . . .
xx
‘Ain’t It Grand To Be Bloomin’ Well Dead’
Leslie Sarony
Song title
2009
‘You are not going to make me listen to this shit, Gabriella. You are wrong,
very
wrong. Use your bloody head, girl! I loved that little boy with all my heart . . . and, as for your brother . . . I don’t believe a word of it – they must have the wrong person.’
But Gabby could see the fear in her mother’s eyes, and she knew that it was true. Every word of it.
‘I met your old mate, Jeannie, today. That’s how I know everything – she told me
all
about the house in Ilford.’ She could see her mother’s head working, trying to figure out exactly what she was saying, could almost hear her brain whirring as she tried to lie her way out of what they both knew was the truth.
‘What the hell have you been taking this time, eh? What the fuck are you on, Gabriella, to make you come out with this shit?’
Gabby found she’d picked up a large bronze statue of a cat. As she held it in her scarred hands she felt the weight of it. Her mother kept talking. The world according to Cynthia Tailor who, along with God Himself, was almost omnipotent in the lives of her family, who ruled everyone around her with a rod of iron. She could see her mother’s mouth moving constantly, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying any more; all she was conscious of was a rushing noise in her ears. Then she struck her.
She lifted the bronze statue back over her head and hit her mother across the face with it, using all the force she could muster, and enjoying the feeling of total retaliation. She was
determined now, determined to shut her mother up once and for all.
Cynthia fell sideways on to the white leather sofa. The spray of blood that came from her mother’s face was like a crimson mist. Gabby hit her again and again, each blow easing the knot inside her, each blow seeming to calm the erratic beating of her heart.
She looked down at the bloodied form and, for the first time in years, she felt almost at peace. Her mother’s face was unrecognisable, a deep red gash that was pumping out blood at an alarming rate.
Gabby looked at the woman she had hated nearly all her life. Then she sat down on the ladder-backed chair her mother was convinced was an antique, put her face into her bloodied hands and cried.
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light
Paradise Lost (1667)
John Milton, 1608–74
For the love of money is the root of all evil
1 Timothy 6:10
1984
‘Come on, Jimmy, have another one. I’m celebrating.’
Jimmy Tailor grinned; he had an easy-going nature that some people took advantage of. He was a big man, big in all ways – over six feet and well built. Before his marriage he had been a body builder, and he still held traces of his former physique.
‘Nah, better get home, Cynthia’s waiting for me.’
It was Friday night and all his pals were going to have a few more pints before meeting their wives and girlfriends later on in a wine bar in the West End. He would have loved to have joined them, but he knew that Cynthia wouldn’t come.
‘Fucking hell, Jimmy, you’re married, mate, not joined at the hip.’
This from his best friend Davey Brown. Davey thought Jimmy was a mug and that he should put his foot down with Cynthia, but Davey didn’t understand her. No one did it seemed, except him. He smiled, but it was a tight smile. ‘We’re saving, what with little Gabriella and all.’
‘’Course, mate, you get yourself off.’ Davey seemed immediately sorry for his jibe.
Jimmy left the pub a few minutes later, reluctant to go if he was honest, but even more reluctant to stay where he was. He walked along the road, feeling the cold hit him, making his face sting and, pulling up the collar of his overcoat, he made his way slowly home.
Cynthia Tailor was pleased with herself. Her house looked lovely and festive – just how a home should look at Christmas time, from the scented pine tree, decorated in what she felt was a tasteful manner – no tinsel and no coloured lights – to the neatly wrapped presents underneath it. It couldn’t be further away from the house she grew up in, with the dirt, the smell of frying bacon, and the garish, cheap hanging garlands. She shuddered inwardly as she thought of her mother’s house. She had escaped from that life and there was no way she was ever going back.
Cynthia’s sitting room was painted a pale cream, and the carpet was a thick Axminster. It had cost the national debt, but looked wonderful against the walls and the luxurious chocolate-brown velvet curtains at the windows. She knew her home was beautiful, and she never tired of cleaning it, or enhancing it. This was the first step on the ladder for them; they would go on from here, make their money on this place, and get bigger and better houses each time. She sighed with contentment at the thought.
James was a decent man, boring in some ways, but she knew that with his accountancy job in the city they would always be all right for money. And he was expecting some big news about a promotion any day now. Cynthia had come from a council estate in Hackney, and she had been determined from a young age that she wouldn’t be staying there for longer than she had
to. Now here she was, with a lovely semi in Ilford, and the chance to go onwards and upwards.
She walked out into her kitchen, and checked on the casserole she had bubbling on her new halogen hob. The kitchen was like something from a magazine, all white doors and stainless steel sinks. It was Hygena, and she knew it was far too good for the house, but she saw it as an investment. James had balked at the price but she had won him over. He always saw the sense of her arguments in the end; after all, she was the one stuck here all day, and she was entitled to have what she wanted around her – at least that was what she thought, anyway. And she had her ways to make sure he knew who was the boss under
this
roof.
She heard her daughter’s cry and, sighing, she left the kitchen and made her way up the stairs.
Gabriella was a handful, and this was the only bugbear in her otherwise perfect life. She should be clean at night by now. The other kids at Gabriella’s playschool were all clean, so why was her daughter so late?
She went into the child’s room. It was decorated as a girl’s bedroom
should
be decorated, with pale pink walls, and cream carpet. Cynthia loved this room. She had been brought up in a flat and had had to share her bedroom with her sister. It had been scruffy, cold and damp and she had hated every second she had spent in it.
The small night-light cast a rosy glow in the room. Kneeling down beside her daughter’s cot, she looked at her child.
‘What’s wrong, Gabriella?’
The little blue eyes held a plea, and she knew immediately that her daughter had wet the bed again.
‘Oh, Gabriella, why don’t you call me, and I’ll take you to the toilet.’ She lifted her daughter out of the cot with a heavy sigh, and set about cleaning her up, without another word.
Gabriella allowed herself to be stripped, washed and redressed in a clean nightie without saying a word either. As young
as she was, she could feel the tension filling the room. The unspoken disapproval and the knowledge she had done something wrong was enough to quieten her. She knew her mummy was cross, and she knew better than to aggravate her.
Ten minutes later, Gabriella was once more alone in her cot and, closing her eyes, she tried hard to get herself back to sleep.
Jimmy came in as his wife was putting their daughter’s pyjamas and bedding into the washing machine.
‘Dinner smells good, Cyn.’
She didn’t answer him. She could do that, just blank someone, make them feel an outsider in their own home. It unnerved Jimmy. He was from a family who were boisterous, noisy, happy – not that Cynthia allowed him to see them any more. He wasn’t used to long silences that had some kind of accusation in them, even though nothing was actually said. He wasn’t sure how to deal with them. Turning abruptly, he went into the hallway and removed his coat. Careful to hang it up
properly
to make sure it didn’t look untidy. Why this was a necessity when they were locked away in a cupboard under the stairs he wasn’t sure. But Cynthia wanted everything perfect, so he did it anyway; it was easier in the long run.