Faces (2 page)

Danny was always checking up on her; not directly of course, but he would make a point of going round where she had allegedly been, normally her sister-in-law’s, joking around and having a laugh, then dropping the question into the conversation, as if making conversation. ‘What did you two girls talk about last night, then?’ Waiting to see if she had actually been where she had said. As if she would dare to thwart
him
.

She could hear him, his voice full of interest and artifice, could see his eyes watching Carole closely for any hint of subterfuge. Could see his hands clutching the coffee mug tightly, his knuckles white, his anger at her daring to go out without him making him irrational. Deciding whether Carole was telling him the truth, or whether she was covering up for her friend, and wondering what other agenda she could possibly have. If he chose to believe his own suspicious nature over his wife’s friend it would cause aggravation for months. But one thing that Carole had going for her was that she was overweight. Her life was her kids and her husband, and she had no other interests in anything outside of her home and her family. Danny, Mary knew,
approved
of Carole Miles. She was one of the few people he allowed her to see on a regular basis. Carole wasn’t a threat to him, he saw her as someone who would not lead his wife astray. Who didn’t dress well or feel the urge to go to a gym. Carole was the woman he should have married, and now she wished, with all her heart and soul, that he had done just that. She realised she was crying, a slow, quiet crying that was as controlled as everything else in her life. She had not allowed herself one normal reaction for over twenty-five years.

How had she ended up like this? How had her life, a life that most women envied her, become so bereft that she fantasised about killing herself? But she knew how it had happened, she knew that better than anyone. Tonight had been her swan song, her last chance at breaking away from him, of making a proper life for herself and her girls. But it wasn’t going to happen, it would never happen, and she should have known that before she had put herself in such a stupid and pointless position. Hindsight, she decided, was a fucking wonderful thing.

 

‘Nana, can I have another lolly?’

It was nine thirty at night and Leona Cadogan had no intention of going to bed. Her nana, Angelica Cadogan, had no intention of sending her there either. ‘Sure, you can have what you want, darling. Now go and settle yourself on the sofa and I’ll bring it in.’

The little girl preened happily, her long black hair and wide-spaced blue eyes so like her father’s. Angelica opened her new acquisition, an American fridge, and removed another lolly with pride. Her son made sure she wanted for nothing. She gave her granddaughter her lolly and, placing a blanket over her, she kissed the top of her head.

Leona had the remote control for the TV clutched tightly in her hand, and she watched her programme without even giving her nana a second glance. Her sister Laine, known affectionately as Lainey, was already asleep on a chair. Leona was watching over her younger sister, as she was expected to do. This was a family who watched out for each other, and her nana made sure that is
exactly
what they did.

Angelica saw the child was watching
Little Britain
and shook her head slowly. Even at six years old Leona understood that humour. Her heart told her to turn it off, but at her age she couldn’t be bothered with the aggravation. Unlike her own children, her grandchildren got away with murder. These two girls especially, it was as if Danny had fallen in love all over again when these two had arrived so late in the day. The other children had never been enough, but then they were not with his lawful wife. She could understand that, to an extent, Mary was a martyr to put up with him, but then he was a man any woman would be proud to call her own. If Mary had only produced sooner, after her first daughter had died, he would never have strayed. Angelica was sure of that much.

As she watched Leona open another bag of crisps she waved her hand in dismissal at nobody in particular and left the room. The sight of a man dressed as an old woman and vomiting all over the place was more than her stomach could bear. Bring back
Little and Large
, at least they were an act the whole family could watch. This new humour was way over her head. Even Jimmy Jones was preferable to this shower.

Leona was chuckling loudly, and Angelica sighed once more as she walked into the kitchen; she felt safer in there. It was, after all, her domain, the place she had spent over half her life in. It was a sight better than the kitchen she had first encountered as a bride, and just the gleam off the tiling made her happy.

As she lit a cigarette she poured herself a small whisky from the secret stash she kept under the sink, behind the detergents, where she was sure no one in the family would ever think of looking. She opened the paper and, happy that she had at least some of her family around her, she read Ian Hyland’s hilarious take on the TV shows she hated, but ultimately found herself watching.

Loneliness was a terrible thing; it ate into you and, if you weren’t careful, it could cause a body to become bitter. You birthed them, you brought them up, and then you stepped back. It was the way of the world, but it was a hard road for someone like her, someone who had been everything to her children, and had made sure they knew it. At least, that was how she saw it now; the truth was a different thing altogether. The past was often better viewed through rose-coloured glasses.

Now she was older and greyer, and had been forced to take a back seat and it galled her even though a small part of her was relieved to have had the burden of them lifted from her. She had a fine house, a house that would knock the eyes out of anyone she knew, and she had a good few quid to do with as she liked as well. And, more importantly, she had a family who had all done well for themselves in one way or another. She missed the old house though, and her old friends: this place was like living in a prison camp. Everyone kept themselves to themselves, and no one thought to knock unless there was a valid reason to. No cups of tea and a quick gossip here, it was all lawns and fencing. Garages and barbeques. Radio 4 and documentaries. She was like a fish out of water, but she knew her Danny thought he had done the best for her, and she couldn’t tell him otherwise, could she? Not after everything he had given her, everything he had provided for her. If he had not paid her phone bills she would have gone doolally tap, as her mother used to say, without a friendly voice now and then. For an Irish immigrant she was living like a queen but even though she missed her cronies, she couldn’t bring herself to admit that to her son. So she talked to them for hours at a time, even though she knew that they were long past her and her new life, that she was different now, and it was only her son’s reputation that kept them from mugging her off once and for all. She even missed that drunken bastard she had married. At least with him she could have a conversation without having to think it through thoroughly first, in case she offended him. Having a conversation with this lot around here was like a military operation, what with their ‘Good Mornings’, and their pleasantries.

At least the church afforded her a few friends, anyway, but even they were intimidated by her family though, in fairness, they were chatty enough when she did see them. Maybe she would go on one of the coach trips the church was always arranging for the older people, do her good to have a break from cleaning the house and waiting for the kids to come round and see her. God was good, she knew that, and God himself
knew
she had sacrificed a lot for her children. The shame was that she wasn’t sure if her children realised that. Especially her only daughter.

As she sipped at the whisky she suddenly had a terrible feeling of foreboding wash over her; it left her breathless with its intensity, and with a layer of sweat that left her clammy and cold. A wave of sickness came over her, and she saw the broken body of her dead husband in her mind’s eye. Her son had beaten him nearly to death, left him a cripple and had then proceeded to terrorise the rest of his life. Yet, she still loved her son, still watched over him. Even though she knew he was a bully, a vicious bully. Life had seen to that much. Life had broken them all in one way or another.

She had an awful feeling that Danny Boy was in danger, but then, he lived in a constant state of anger and danger that put him in the frame on a daily basis. The feeling was now gripping her heart, she could feel an invisible hand squeezing the life out of her. She clutched the back of her chair, unable to call out with the pain. She attempted to rise, tried to stand. Poor Mary was lying in her bed upstairs, sleeping off her day’s alcohol consumption, and the girls were in the lounge watching their shite on television. She had to try and attract someone’s attention, she knew that much. She was in serious trouble.

 

‘Stop it, Danny, you’ll cause more trouble than you’ll prevent. Losing your temper and getting hot under the collar will gain us nothing.’ Michael poured them both a generous measure of Chivas Regal Scotch before he spoke once more. ‘Crystal meth is going to destroy everything we’ve grafted for if we don’t distribute it properly and with due thought, you know that. We’ve already been through this, timing is key and you know it. We need to see what the demand is like before we start to supply it. For all we know, it might not take off over here. America is a different market, and they have a much larger proportion of junkies per capita than we do.’

Danny took his drink and sipped it, waiting for his friend to finish what he had to say and using the time to gather his thoughts as well as his temper.

‘At the moment it’s a gay drug: they always get things first. Let’s pick and choose our distributors wisely because this is going to hit the streets with a fucking big bang and we have to make sure that the reverberations from that don’t come back to bite us. It’s not like coke and it is definitely not like grass. This is like the brown, the big H mixed in with a nuclear warhead, and it’s going to make a major fucking hole in our society. We can sell it all right, we can sell anything, but even we won’t be able to walk away from this if we ever get a capture.’

Michael was sitting with the man he wanted dead, and it was not something he was surprised about. In fact, he had known deep inside that it would not have come to anything because, without a break, such as a gangland murder, or a car crash, Danny Boy Cadogan was not going anywhere he didn’t expressly want to go. But there was still time to make the break, time was all they had now. Michael sipped his Scotch slowly, thoughtfully. He had thought this through with his usual caution. He had a bad feeling about crystal meth. He knew it was going to either take off like a Jumbo Jet on speed, or die a death overnight. The secret was to wait and see how the preliminary findings worked out before committing themselves. But Danny, as always, saw only the pound signs, and the power that a major distributor of such a product would wield.

‘This has to go out through a
trusted
subsidiary company, and it can
never
lead back to us. All our tame Filth and contacts will run a fucking mile if it does. So just wait a bit, hold your hand, and let’s see what develops, eh?’

Michael was speaking as quietly and as sensibly as he always did, in fact it was one of the things that Danny liked most about him. He always thought things through; Danny often joked that Michael spent a fortnight weighing up the pros and cons before he had a wank, let alone anything else. But there were a lot of people interested in this product and, at the moment, there was a growing sense of excitement in their community. Like crack before it, this was a drug that appealed to the useless, and ended up being taken by the foolish. It could be a licence to print money, and that was something that attracted them both. So Danny nodded his agreement, as Michael had known he would. It was talking Danny down that was the easy bit. As long as it was about the business, Michael knew he would be heard. If it was about grudges, however, or the slights that Danny seemed to see all over the place, then that was a different ball game. But Michael allowed for that, it let Danny get rid of some steam and it calmed him down, at least until the next time, anyway.

‘Anyone in mind?’

Michael shook his head and smiled. ‘Not yet, but we’ve plenty of time for all that. Let the drug filter through to the straights, let it hit the pavements first, see how it is welcomed, then we’ll be in a much better position to make an informed decision. Until then we’ll keep our options open and not rush into anything. The Russians are fucking useless at distribution and so are the other Eastern Europeans, fucking useless ponces the lot of them and, more to the point, they don’t know how to work together on anything, and that will eventually be their downfall. They live big and they die young but, on the plus side, they have a large army of disposable people. We’ll make a decision eventually and, when we do, it will be the right one, as always. The Colombians are still in the running, as are the fucking Blacks. Let’s see who comes up with the goods first, and then wait and see how the weekend dance mob takes to it. After all, Es are so cheap now, and are easier to get than aspirin and a line of coke is cheaper than a glass of wine. Crystal meth is a
tenner
a time, and it keeps people going for fucking days; it could be the new drug of choice just because of its price, let alone its other benefits. That gives us the council estates
and
the hoorays. We need in on the beginning, for the big bucks,
but
we need to be out of the game well before it becomes the new social problem.’

Danny nodded his head sagely, as Michael knew he would. ‘Yeah, you’re right, Mike. As always, you’ve done your market research.’ He grinned, showing expensive and intricate bridgework. The smile was warm, it was bright, and it hid the fact that it barely touched his eyes.