Goodnight Lady (74 page)

Briony held his arm, digging her nails in with the force of her grip.

‘Calm down, Danny, calm down. Losing your rag is what got you into this. If you take a bite out of her now, she’ll crumble. Believe me when I say she’s learnt her bloody lesson. She knows what she’s done. You shouting and hollering at her ain’t going to achieve anything.’

Marcus spoke for the first time.

‘It’s funny, you know, I always had a soft spot for Delia, more so than Rebecca. But at this minute I could cheerfully break her neck, I could. I could snap it like a twig when I think of what she’s caused!’

‘Calm down, Marcus. It’s as Briony said. Delia isn’t very stable at the moment. If you go hammering her, there’s no telling what she’ll do. I never thought I’d say this but that girl is trouble.’

 

Delia had heard the raised voices coming from below and her heart was beating a tattoo in her chest.

The worst of it all was not so much the fact that Jimmy was dead, though she was very sorry about that, but the loss of face. The being found out for what she was. And the more she thought about what she was, the more she needed something to take the edge off it. Danny and Boysie and her father were now aware that she was a liar, a troublemaker and, worst of all, a child beater. Her mother had already informed her that the child was never leaving the house with her again. Well, she wasn’t too trashed about that. Faithey was a nice enough kid, but she did rather cramp Delia’s style. All she had been was a way to get Jimmy Sellars, and she had done that much.

Now Jimmy was gone and Delia had blotted her copybook, she had to look for a new life.

 

Boysie was pleased at his reception from Suzannah who had literally thrown herself into his arms. Boysie picked her up on her front step and Doris Rankins stood at her window and nodded to herself with glee.

Her girl had picked wisely.

Boysie kissed Suzy fervently, feeling her hard little breasts squeezing against his chest.

‘I knew you couldn’t have done that terrible thing, Boysie. I told me mum and dad that!’

‘It was all a big mistake, darlin’. Now how about me and you go for a little drive and plan that wedding of ours?’

Suzy grinned as he placed her on the ground gently.

‘That would be lovely, Boysie.’

He took her to Hatton Garden where he bought her an engagement ring that was staggeringly expensive and inordinately showy.

Suzy, pleased that her man was back home and the wedding was still on, looked at it with both pride and fear.

Now she was owned by Boysie, irrevocably and forever. In fact, a little voice told her, she was owned by the whole of the Cavanagh clan.

But she swallowed the feeling down and kissed Boysie full on the lips in front of the aged jeweller. She couldn’t wait to flash this ring in her friends’ and relatives’ faces.

‘So where have you been then, Boysie? You just march out of here without a by your leave, and stay out all night. I wanna know where you’ve been? And more to the point, Boysie Cavanagh, who you’ve been with?’

Suzy’s voice was shrill. It seemed that in the year since they had married her voice had taken on a strident quality, frighteningly similar to that of a pantomime dame.

Boysie tried unsuccessfully to put his arms around his wife’s swelling belly.

‘Don’t you touch me, I don’t know where you’ve been.’

Boysie gritted his teeth together and then said, as quietly as his anger would allow, ‘Suzy darlin’, I have been out on a bit of business. That’s all. I never discuss my business dealings with you, love. The less you know, the better. Now, shut your trap and get me a bit of brekky, will you? I’m starving.’

Suzy knew by the inflection in Boysie’s voice that she had pushed him as far as she could. Knowing when to retreat, she gave him a cold stare for a few seconds before she went into the kitchen and began cooking eggs and bacon. Her face was closed now, but she was still fuming.

She lived in a large imposing house, it was furnished to her taste, she had more money than she knew what to do with, and she was having a baby. Her husband, she knew, doted on her. So why wasn’t she happy? Why did she cause this ruckus every time she felt like it?

Because, she told herself, you hate every second of it. You have hated it since the novelty wore off and you got a real inkling of what your life was going to be.

She could not go out alone or with friends. She went out only with her husband, normally to clubs he owned or pubs where he was more than welcome. His aunts were frequent visitors to her house, and she was expected to visit them frequently.

Boysie watched her like a hawk. The friends who still visited were given the silent treatment by him, who said he had nothing to say to a gang of young girls.

Well, she was still a young girl, wasn’t she?

She wanted a life of her own but even her music had to be turned down because Boysie couldn’t stand loud noise.

Even the novelty of being treated like visiting royalty in shops and around the markets had long worn off. In fact it got on her nerves. The day before she had gone into the grocer’s and he had stopped serving someone to serve her. She had seen the naked hatred on the other girl’s face, as she looked at Suzy’s new clothes, her packed purse, and the deferential manner bestowed on her by the shopkeeper.

Suzy had felt like screaming at her: ‘You wouldn’t want to be me, love. It all looks nice but it’s not. My life is like a caged bird’s. I can’t move but there’s six people asking me where I’m going, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.’

Even his bloody granny, Granny Moll as he still called her, was like another appendage of him. Always round the house, poking her beak in where it wasn’t wanted. His Auntie Briony listened to him with rapt attention, the same as she listened to that little brat Faithey. Faithey! What a stupid name.

Suzy flung three rashers of best bacon into the frying pan. The fat was so hot it spat at her immediately, hitting her on her cheeks. The stinging sensation brought tears to her lovely china blue eyes.

She hated being pregnant, and she hated being married. Married to a man who treated her like some kind of doll, to be picked up and played with when it suited him, and then cast back into the toy cupboard until he wanted to play with her again.

She placed his breakfast in front of him ten minutes later and, pouring out two cups of tea, sat and watched her big fine husband eat the lot.

It occurred to her then, that she was beginning to hate him.

 

Bessie and Liselle helped Kerry dress for her television appearance. After appearing on the Music Show on BBC2, at Briony’s instigation, Kerry had enjoyed a little of her former fame. Now, a year on, she was taking on quite a few engagements. Liselle was over the moon at the turn events had taken. She was now her mother’s manager, which cut down the number of visits to see her father in New York but which nevertheless pleased her immensely.

‘This deep green suits you, Mum, it brings out the highlights in your eyes. You’ll look well on camera.’

Kerry sighed slightly.

She didn’t care that much about her looks, she was more interested in getting in the green room before the show and having a quick snifter of vodka. She made the effort and smiled though.

‘Thanks, darlin’. I think I’ll shock quite a few people this time with my choice of song. I mean, me on the Old Grey Whistle Test! At my age.’

Her laughter was genuine.

‘Listen, Mum, John Peel knows a good thing when he hears it. There’s a big jazz revival that’s been going on since the late-fifties. It was only a matter of time before you were remembered. You were one of the best blues and jazz singers of your day. You were singing the blues when most of the singers today weren’t even thought of! I’m not surprised you’re back on top again. You deserve it.’

Kerry smiled at her daughter’s words. Lissy, as she still thought of her, was one hell of a daughter in some respects. Her absolute belief in her mother’s talent being one of them. Liselle, no matter what, had always had a great respect and regard for her mother’s voice, and now she managed her with an iron will. No one would knock Kerry Cavanagh while her daughter was there. No one.

In some respects she reminded Kerry of Briony. She had the same single-mindedness her aunt possessed when she wanted something badly enough. Briony had kept her promise a year ago, albeit a few days late. She had taken Kerry out, dressed her from head to toe, and had arranged for Kerry to appear on the Music Show, taking her there herself and giving her two large neat vodkas to calm her nerves. Kerry had sung ‘Miss Otis Regrets’, clearly and hauntingly, gathering all her old fans to her once more, and quite a few new ones. Young fans who looked through old seventy-eight records on the markets to hear her old songs. In the last twelve months her life had taken on some surprising new angles, but at least she was enjoying it again.

Today, she would have two large vodkas before her performance, and the few snifters she could sneak herself. Liselle had come to terms with the fact Kerry needed a drink to sing. It was that simple. If they monitored her drinking, they could get a performance from her which pleased Kerry, Lissy, Briony and the audience. She had already guested at Ronnie Scott’s and Bessie had sung with her at other venues around London.

Kerry was drinking again, but she was drinking in a constructive way that even the Harley Street doctor, bought and paid for by Briony, couldn’t find fault with. As he had said himself, many people had a couple of large drinks every day. It took the edge off stressful work situations, and from otherwise claustrophobic marriages.

Kerry liked Dr Montgomery. He was her kind of doctor. She hadn’t told anyone that he was the kind of guy who also administered shots of demerol for forty quid a time. After all, no one had asked her about that, had they? So why spoil a good thing?

 

Briony and Tommy sat in the studio with the whole of the family around them. Briony watched Boysie and his wife sitting at the end of the row. She sighed inwardly. There was trouble there, she’d lay money on that. Daniel sat beside her, his current amour Christabel - what a Godawful name that was - chattering to him nineteen to the dozen. Briony smiled grimly to herself. She wouldn’t last long.

Bernadette sat with Marcus and her face, the skin stretched over the bones like parchment, was heavily made-up. Since Rosalee’s death and Marcus’s misbehaviour at that time, Bernie had taken an inordinate interest in her appearance. She now spent a small fortune on cosmetic surgery, and any other paraphernalia she could lay her hands on to keep her young-looking. Well, poor old Marcus was too old for his philandering now. Bernie should come down to earth with the rest of the mere mortals and start looking a little more her age.

Beside Bernie and Marcus sat Rebecca and her husband John. Briony saw the thin-lipped look of husband and wife and suppressed a smile. They even looked alike these two, with their dark hair, their almond-shaped eyes and Roman noses. Rebecca had on a fur coat even in the heat of the studio lights and Briony guessed correctly it was new. Second hand, but new to Rebecca. It was her way of showing them John was doing all right. Strangely, this fact pleased Briony. Rebecca was doing all right, and she was glad. If she wanted to go it alone, without the help of the family, all the more power to her.

Briony’s eyes clouded a little as she looked at Delia. She sat with another one of the great unwashed, which was the family’s terms for Delia’s boyfriends. She sat quietly though. Unlike her old self, unlike the girl she was before all the trouble with Jimmy. Her pupils were dilated and Briony wondered what shit was pulsing through her system tonight. It was strange how drugs and drink seemed to play a big part in the Cavanagh women’s lives. There was Kerry and her drinking and her drug taking. Now Delia. It was a crying shame really. How could they be so weak?

It amazed Briony, who could never understand that not everyone was as strong as herself, could cope with life as she did. It was one of the things everyone else knew and admitted to themselves except Briony. Because she was such a strong personality, she abhorred weakness in others.

She shifted her eyes to her mother, then grinned at Tommy who shook his head and smiled. Molly was sitting between her two grandsons, her beaver lamb coat sending out a powerful whiff of mothballs and lavender toilet water. She was a great age and a great woman, Briony accepted that fact now, all the old animosity buried. At the end was Cissy, hankie already out for when she started crying. Cissy, love her heart, cried at the drop of a hat.

The studio lights were warm and Briony settled herself into her seat. All around her were people who, young or old, had one thing in common. They wanted to hear Kerry Cavanagh sing. Briony felt so secure as she sat there, so invincible, it was like a warm invisible cloak wrapped tightly around her. They had weathered so much, this family. There was nothing more that could befall them. Or so she thought.

 

John Peel came out and began talking to the camera and the studio audience.

‘Tonight we have a woman who has sung for nearly five decades. After a lull in her career of nearly twenty years she’s back, proving that she is still one of the greats. Miss Kerry Cavanagh!’

The lights came up at the back of the stage to show Kerry and her backing group. The applause was deafening and took three minutes to settle down. When the studio was quiet, Kerry spoke to the audience in her sing-song voice.

‘Thank you. Thank you one and all. Tonight I’m going to do a few of the old numbers, but first I want to sing a song I heard a few years ago which touched me deeply, and which I hope you all enjoy.’

A young man began to play an acoustic guitar, then Kerry stepped to the microphone, and taking it in her hand, she beat her foot in time for a few seconds. Then she began to sing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’. The audience sat stunned, listening to the clear tones, to the breadth of her talent. Then of one mind they relaxed and enjoyed the song.