Dangerous Lady (12 page)

Roy wanted to laugh. He towered over his mother. He had to admire her though. She stuck by her guns. Inside him there was a little nagging doubt. What his mother had said was true. He didn’t try to understand Janine. Slowly bending down Sarah picked up the saucepan. It was dented on one side. She stifled an urge to brain her son with it, and instead placed it in the sink. In unspoken agreement mother and son began clearing up the debris. Potatoes had flown to all four corners of the kitchen. Water was everywhere. When it was all put right, Sarah Pushed Roy into a chair. Outwardly, she looked her old

formidable self. Inside, she was gloating. She was actually enjoying herself! She had not had so much fun for a long time, since before she buried Anthony.

She made a pot of tea. Putting a cup in front of Roy, she said, ‘I came here this morning because I knew that something wasn’t right. I sensed it at the funeral. The child looked like the orphan of the storm, and Janine looked terrible. I admit that I’m as much to blame, I should have come to visit her, but I understood her mother was never off the doorstep, so I left her to it. When I came here this morning she was pulling the child’s hair out of her head.’

She watched Roy’s mouth harden. ‘And don’t you come the old biddy with me! If you had done your job properly, been a decent husband, then all this could have been: avoided.’ She poked him in the chest. ‘You are going to get yourself sorted out, my man, and you’re going to start coming home at nights. I sat in many a night myself when you were all younger, waiting for that piss artist of a father

of yours to come home, knowing in my heart that he was down the Bayswater Road, spending desperately needed money on old brasses. How I never got a dose of clap I’ll never know! Well, I won’t have any of my sons going the: same way.’

Roy sat staring at her. He knew, as all the boys had always known, that she had not-had the best of lives with his father, but she had never before spoken to him like this. He knew that she was trying to help him save his marriage, and in a tiny part of himself he knew that she was right. He had left Janine to fend for herself. He had chosen to ignore the fact that she took out her frustration on Carla. But he just didn’t know what to do. He was ashamed that his mother had so accurately put her finger on where he spent his nights. Since Michael had opened

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hostess club in the West End, he had literally had his pick of women to spend the night with. It had been easier than coming home to fighting and arguing. To a dirty home and an unhappy wife.

But he still loved Janine. He had thought that taking her away from her mother’s influence would have encouraged her to stand on her own two feet. Instead she had leant even more on him and he just couldn’t take it, so had chosen the easy way out. Now he had to face not only Janine and little Carla, but his mother. He heard the front door open and braced himself, looking at his mother for support. As Janine walked into the room, Sarah stood up and smiled at her.

‘You look an absolute angel, doesn’t she, Roy?’ She poked him in the shoulder, her bright smile belying the force she had used. Janine smiled uncertainly at him. The tension in the kitchen was like an electric current. Janine did look like angel. Her hair was swept up off her finely boned face, emphasising her long neck. Her deep green eyes were made up expertly and there was a wistfulness in them that pierced Roy’s heart. She was a cracker, he thought. She really looked the business. His mum was right, Janine was like a high-spirited thoroughbred. She needed gentle guidance. He got up from his chair and held out his arms to her. Janine hesitated for a few seconds before she slipped into them.

Sarah watched, a satisfied expression on her face. Now all she had to do was go and see Father McCormack and Set him to sort out her Michael and she would be happy. Half an hour later she left the two love birds, Maura and arla in tow. Her next stop was the Church and Father McCormack. She looked at her watch. If she hurried she would catch him as he finished six o’clock mass.

Sitting in the refectory with a glass of wine in front of her, Sarah poured out her heart to the priest.

‘I feel ashamed to tell you this, Father, but Michael has bought himself another club, this time a bordello.’ She sipped her wine to steady her voice. Then go there to … Well, I don’t have to paint a picture, now do I?’

Father McCormack looked at her through shrewd eyes. He was sixty years old and had been the parish priest for over thirty years. His hair was grey and cut in an American crew-cut. He had heavy grey-flecked eyebrows that gave him a wise demeanour and looked on religion the way some men looked on marriage: as a necessary part of life. You made the best of it. He put his large, soft hands together.

‘I see, I see.’ His Irish accent was still thick even though he had left Ireland over forty years previously. ‘Sure that Michael was always a difficult one. I can see why you’re worrying.’

‘I think that if you had a word with him, Father …’ Her voice trailed off. ;

‘Well, Sarah, I’ll do my best. But your Michael was always a strong-minded fellow. He might not like the interference.’

Sarah was determined that before she left this room she would have an appointment to save her son’s eternal soul! She tried a different approach.

‘Oh, Father, I know what people say about my Mickey, but as you know yourself, stories get stretched in the telling. All he needs is a little gentle guidance. If you were to talk to him, I’m sure he would listen to a fine man like yourself. Even when he was an altar boy, he always had ” high regard for you.’

The priest raised his eyebrows. When Michael had been an altar boy he had also stolen the lead from the church

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roof! But he had the glimmer of a plan forming in his mind, and it would please this poor soul sitting before him. He decided to do as she asked.

‘Hostess club, you say? Well, I think that a few words from me are called for, as you say.’ Sarah jumped in before he could change his mind.

‘If you come to my house at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, I’ll make sure that he’s there.’

He smiled at her, showing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Eleven o’clock it is then. Now tell me, how are the other children? I hear that all the older boys are driving big expensive cars and living the life of Riley. They all work for Michael, I take it?’

‘Yes, Father, that’s true. But if you can help to sort out Mickey, the others will follow suit, I’m sure.’

‘Well, Sarah, we can only put our trust in the Lord.’ He looked up at the ceiling as if expecting to see him floating there. ‘As it says in the Bible, “God is no respecter of persons”, Romans 2-11. Michael Ryan may be a big man on earth but in heaven he’s just another of God’s children.’

Sarah smiled at him. There was nothing, she thought, like a chunk of the Bible when spouted by a true believer. She left a little while later, happier than she had been for a long time. Over the years her religion had been a great comfort to her. As she had suffered one setback after another - no money, another still birth, one or other of the boys in trouble with the police - she had turned more and more to the church. Benjamin was no good at all. If she relied on him for anything, it never happened. Whether it was her housekeeping or anything, he always let her down. Michael, God love him, had been a good son in many ways. He had looked after his younger brothers and sister, he had made sure that she always had

enough money, but she had been hearing things of late that had frightened her. Anthony’s death had been the last straw. She knew that her eldest son was involved in all manner of criminal activities, that he was thought of as a kind of mobster. She shuddered. She was all for a bit of ducking and diving, that’s how everyone lived in her estimation, but from what she had gleaned recently about her sons, it was a completely different lifestyle they were after. She had seen the effect that Michael had on the people around and about. She herself was now treated like visiting royalty when she went anywhere.

She could, to an extent, understand Michael’s craving for recognition. She was shrewd enough to understand that the way he had been treated as a child would give him the added drive and determination to better himself. But she herself drew the line at prostitution. In her mind it was the ultimate degradation, and any man who could live on the proceeds of it was the lowest of the low. She fervently hoped that Father McCormack would be able to talk some sense into her son. The robbing was bad enough though the insurance companies could afford the losses and money had no soul. But the wilful destruction of young lives was a different kettle of fish altogether. She had been shocked to read in the News of the World about the drugs that were available now to youngsters. What on earth was the world coming to? Young girls selling their bodies for drugs.

In the war years and after, women had sold their bodies to feed their children. That fitted in with Sarah’s creed. You could do anything to feed the children, to keep the family fed or clothed. Even sell your body. But that had been for women with no man to protect them, so they had to do whatever they could and were respected for it. Sarah herself knew many women who had moonlighted down

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the Bayswater Road to supplement meagre war pensions or National Assistance. What Michael was doing was disgusting. He was putting them on the game, women and young girls who would otherwise never have dreamt of doing it. He was offering easy money, a far cry from the days when it was a means to an end.

She watched Maura and Carla skipping in front of her. Maura looked huge beside the tiny Carla. Dear Maura, she had taken the poor little thing under her wing. Sarah only hoped now that Janine and Roy sorted themselves out. That it wasn’t too late for her to take to her daughter. Oh, the worry of having children! A Jewish woman Sarah had been friends with, before the war, used to say to her, ‘When your children are young they tread on your feet. When they get older they tread on your heart!’ How right she had been! The poor woman had died when she had been bombed in the blitz. A direct hit. Sarah often thought of her. Too many good people had died in the war, had suffered in one way or another. She sighed. She was dead tired. Now she had to go home and start her own cooking and cleaning. Still, she consoled herself, Father McCormack was coming in the morning and hopefully everything would right itself. Father McCormack sat opposite Michael and appraised him. There was no doubt about it, he was a fearsome looking individual.

From his dark expertly cut hair to his handmade shoes he was the epitome of the new young man. His single breasted suit was made of mohair and he flicked a trace of ash off his trousers with a perfectly manicured hand. His closely shaven face was tense and his usually sensuous mouth set in a grim line. The priest had guessed that he was well aware of the object of this visit.

Sarah had made a pot of tea and left them together in the overcrowded room. It was as if, after years of having no furniture at all, Sarah had gone mad for it. The room was filled with tables, knick-knacks, chairs, and a large horsehair three-piece suite. Religious paintings were all over the walls. The Sacred Heart, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion stared down at them. Our Lady of Lourdes looked at the doorway opposite her in a gesture of supplication. On the large sideboard that covered nearly the whole of one wall statues of the Virgin and Child, as well as the holy family, stood silently. One particularly macabre statue of Saint Sebastian, arrows poking out of every limb, was given centre stage. The priest found his eyes drawn towards it and made a conscious effort to stop staring at it. He picked up his cup of tea and turned his gaze back to Michael.

‘I expect you know why I’m here?’

Michael sniffed and uncrossed his legs. ‘Yeah.’ His voice was wary.

The priest nodded as if in understanding. ‘Well, Michael, if you know then it’s pointless me droning on now, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’ This was said insolently. Michael’s fear of priests and nuns was long gone.

Father McCormack sat forward in his chair and replaced this cup on the table. His face hardened. He spoke in a low voice. ‘What I am here for today is something completely different. When your mother, good woman that she is, came to see me yesterday I was not shocked to hear what she had to say. I guessed that you were breaking the law in some way. I’m not a fool, you know. Anyway, that’s all neither here nor there … I want to speak to you as a man of the world.’

Michael looked at him. His blue eyes were sceptical.

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‘What I’m after is a little donation.’

Michael sat up in the chair, stunned. ‘A what!’

The priest became agitated. ‘Whisht now, whisht. You’ll have your mother galloping in here else. As you know, I am rather sympathetic to my countrymen. There’s poor Paddies in London even now, God love them, who have been driven out of their homes by the Proddies. It’s every Irishman’s duty to help these poor unfortunates.’

‘Look, Father, just because my name’s Ryan don’t mean I’m Irish.’

The priest banged his fist on the little table, causing the cups to jump in their saucers.

‘Listen here, you, since nineteen-twenty the Catholics have been discriminated against in Ulster, Belfast, all the North. They can’t even get a council house out there! The bloody Protestants run the whole fecking sheebang! I collect money for the IRA so we can build up an army and fight the bastards at their own game. One day, my laddo, we’ll be ready for the eejits. We forced them out of the South and we’ll fight the buggers in the North. We want an Irish Free State that spans the whole of Ireland.’

The priest’s eyes were alight. Michael stared at him as if he was mad. He had heard stories of Ireland from the cradle, as most Catholic children had. He could still hear his granny singing ‘Kevin Barry’ on Saint Patrick’s Day, still remember the stories of the Easter Uprising and the Famine. How his ancestors had left the meat that Queen Victoria had sent over to them to rot in the streets rather than accept help from the English. But this was nineteen sixty, for Christ’s sake. Who gave a toss what was happening out there?