The Business (32 page)

Imelda also liked Basil and his easy-going ways, and she liked that he was not impressed with Jimmy Bailey’s set-up.

She was shrewd enough to know from the off that he was well aware of who she was, and she was also aware that he had since asked around and knew that Bailey had attempted to blackball her. She had eventually told him the truth of what had happened, and he had laughed with her at what he had called Bailey’s provincial fucking mindset.

She knew that Basil watched her and that, like most men, he saw her as eminently fuckable. That had been her cross to bear all her life, and she had seen fit to use it for her own benefit when necessary. She also knew that as a brass he would see her as beneath him socially, and that suited her fine as well. She didn’t want to marry the cunt, just earn off him.

Imelda wanted regular amounts of dough, and her gear as and when she desired it. Unlike most people, she was actually very happy with her life on the bash, it suited her, and she had no real ambition for anything different. She knew better than anyone that with her looks she could have married money, could have guaranteed herself an easy life. But she had no desire to be married to anyone, she
liked
her own company and her chosen lifestyle. It suited her, and she was happy as she was. She just lived for the chemical highs that she created for herself on a regular basis.

But Basil had great plans for her; she was unaware of them as yet, but he knew that once he explained his ideas to her she would be receptive.

He saw her as someone delicate, feminine, so it was a shock to actually hear her talk. She still looked like a young girl, and yet he knew she was the mother of two children, and that she was the proud possessor of a temper that was by all accounts on a par with Vesuvius when it had erupted and decided to destroy Pompeii. Basil liked her, she had a strange honesty about her, and he also knew that she was not a fool in any way.

She knew how to pass herself off in good company. And she was his main earner within weeks. She was requested over and over again by his biggest clients, his wealthiest punters, and Basil knew that she was more than aware of her popularity. He wanted to expand his business, and he felt that she was the perfect person to help him to do just that. And, if it fucked off Jimmy Bailey in the meantime, then all the better. He wouldn’t trust Imelda as far as he could throw her, but he knew that if he played fair by her, she would be more than willing to reciprocate.

Chapter Fourteen

Jordanna was laughing loudly at her brother’s antics, and as they chased each other around the garden, Mary found herself laughing with them. If only life was always this simple how much easier it would all be. The sun was shining, the breeze was cool and the kids were genuinely relaxed for once. They were so happy with her, they had almost forgotten their mother’s lunacy, her completely fucked-up existence. If only their mother was as interested in their welfare as she was, life would be much more pleasant for all involved. But she wasn’t, all she saw was the next few hours, her next score, her next adventure. As she lit herself a cigarette, Mary pondered on this latest development in her family unit. A unit that was destroyed now, was devoid of anything even resembling care and affection.

Brendan’s wife had recently birthed twin boys and, as expected, Mary had gone to see them at the hospital, thrilled at the new additions to her family. She had been received very coolly by the woman of the hour. Mary had felt the atmosphere almost immediately and knew that she was not as welcome as she would have expected, especially as she had been bankrolling the fuckers since day one.

She had not been invited to hold the new babies, or even to touch them in any way. The fucking treacherous whore had more or less mugged her off completely. She knew she was being set up, knew that they thought she would weigh out more for access to her new grandbabies.

No chance. She had just about been pushed to her limit by them all; at least with her daughter, as big a fucker as she might be, she knew that her kids were
actually
her kids. That Imelda had actually birthed them was never in any doubt. Unlike her parenting skills, of course. Mary herself had seen them both arrive, emerge from the child she had pushed into the world many years earlier. Daughters were a touch in that respect. With her sons, however, and allowing for their choice of wives, she was not so bloody sure about the parentage. And she knew that they were trying to force her into abandoning the children produced by Imelda in favour of theirs. As if that was ever going to happen! The fact they had no care or sorrow for the children in question spoke volumes as far as she was concerned anyway.

Well, she was well able for them in the future. The next time they were on the fucking borrow, on the want, she hoped they found a bank mug enough to entertain their stupid fucking ideas and their pathetic excuses for all their debts. Because she was finished with them all now. She had felt about as welcome as a nun on a stag weekend, she had been treated like an outsider, like the enemy. And this by the very people who expected her to see them all right for a few quid. She didn’t even know the names of her grandsons.

Mary knew that Mel’s kids were seen as the opposition, were seen as the only people she seemed to care about, and she knew that, to an extent, that was probably very true. They thought that Mel being the cause of all the family’s trauma should have guaranteed her and her children’s exclusion. Mary understood that to an extent as well. But she also knew that she was open and willing for love from
any
of her children’s offspring. She knew how important family was; after all, family had been her life for a long time. All she had cared about, or thought about. But the need of these two poor babies was like a canker with her sons and their respective spouses. They saw these children as standing in the way of any children they produced. They did not seem to understand that their sister’s kids needed her,
needed
someone they could rely on. Needed their uncles as much as they needed their granny. They didn’t understand that Jordanna and Kenneth needed the illusion of normality in a world where their mother’s addiction guaranteed them a life of nothing more than abysmal betrayal, interspersed with their mother’s haphazard affection, along with her blatant ignorance of them as people, of their lives, or of their welfare.

Poor Jordanna was already accused of being a murderer. Oh, they might dress it up as manslaughter, but it was still whispered about as murder when it was gossiped about. Like mother, like daughter, seemed to be the general consensus. And her sons had not even tried to help her out, had not shown any loyalty at all. In fact, they had distanced themselves so much that she had been surprised to find they were still in the same fucking country. That had hurt, that had really smarted.

Her Brendan was so weak and so childish he put her in mind of an old Irish shawlie. He was unable to even make a decent argument about why he had not attempted to help his sister’s children out. Blanking Mel, she understood. But the children needed their uncles and yet they had acted as if they were the spawn of the devil. She had asked her sons for their help just once, and they had not even bothered to answer her calls. Her Brendan was completely manipulated by the ugly mare he had tied himself to, and by his misguided idea of loyalty. He was terrified of his wife, and so he should be, she was the size of a fucking all-in wrestler, and she had a face like a boiled shite. She was all scowls and unspoken insults, and that was when she was in a good mood. A seriously ugly bitch both inside and out, and a real bully as well. She had the art of the martyr off pat, and she played it for all it was worth.

Well, she could fuck her old man over with her constant carping till the cows came home, but where she was personally concerned, the ugly bitch could take a flying jump. Mary had told her as much on the quiet, with words of practised friendliness but determined insolence. She had told her that the twins were welcome, but as they had two parents her daughter’s children would have to be her priority. She had been told in no uncertain terms that she had to choose, and she had chosen there and then. She had been advised that their children would be far better off if they did not have to mix with Mel’s children, who they felt would be a bad influence. She had shaken her head slowly and sagely, and she had then told Brendan and his wife they were right. She was sorry that she would not see much of the boys but she understood their predicament, as they must understand hers. She had hinted that the money she was normally so liberal with could be much better spent elsewhere and had taken her leave from the hospital with her usual brusqueness.

She was willing to sit this all out, wait till the twins reached manhood if necessary, before she might finally manage a relationship of some kind with them, because then
they
would want to see her, would wonder about her, would be sick to death of the parents that God had seen fit to force on the poor little buggers in the first place. And that would be enough for her. That was all she could hope for in the future. Especially as it was so tough for her nowadays. She already had enough on her plate with Mel’s brood, with the fact that she was now bringing up more children when she should be enjoying life as a granny, should be enjoying just seeing them periodically, not taking them on as her own.

She had not overstayed her very thin welcome at the hospital. She had swallowed the insults from her son’s mother-in-law, who had acted as if she was an intruder, every word and look telling her that she was not welcome. Which obviously, she wasn’t.

Mary knew that her son’s mother-in-law saw her as a threat, even though she had been bankrolling the boys since day one. Well,
fuck
them all now, the new kids included. No one treated her like a mug; she was now so hurt and angry by their treatment of her that she was never again going to lend them a fucking halfpenny. She knew that Brendan would be round within weeks on the borrow, on the ponce, for money that they never had any intention of paying back anyway. She was just throwing good money after bad, and she knew that she had to make a stand at some point and now was as good a time as any. Let them get proper jobs now that the scrapyard had fizzled out. She was in a position to buy her grandsons’ company, should she desire it, but she was not about to do that just yet.

She would not buy her sons’ affection, or put up with their wives’ contempt. She was far too shrewd, and far too busy with the children who genuinely needed her for all that crap.

She knew that Brendan and his brother Gerald Junior really believed that it was their
father’s
money they were taking from her anyway, that she
personally
had no right to any of it. They were convinced that she wasted it all on their sister, the junkie, the whore, and her children. She was actually earning more than any of her boys would ever earn in their lives, and she was earning it on a regular basis. Her old mum had always said that everyone had their niche, something they were good at. They just had to find it. Well, she had found hers: ferreting out people’s most private and personal agendas. This had made her a rich woman; her husband had provided, but she was making more money than he had ever done. She had a respect now from her new career, that she had never had when she had been no more than the wife of a repo man. People gave her the time of day, made a point of hailing her when she walked the streets. Yet she knew that she was still seen by her sons and their wives as a fool, as even worse than that, as the
enemy
.

She had brought up three fine children, or so she had believed for all those years, but what had she actually spawned? Two boys, sons who were chronically lazy, who were unable to grasp even the simplest of concepts. Who had been fed and cared for, firstly by herself, and secondly by their father. A man who had once described them to her as thick and thicker. She had laughed with him at that description, but deep down they had both known it was the truth, that there was not one ounce of real gumption in either of them. Gerry had known, as she had, that the boys’ only real chance at any kind of life was if they worked alongside their old man. And they had, and they had convinced themselves that they were the dog’s gonads. They still didn’t have the sense to understand that without anyone to tell them what to do, they were useless. Which was why they had lumbered themselves with a pair of female bullies who, unfortunately, didn’t understand the whole set-up either.

Her boys had both taken on complete arseholes and, as far as she was concerned, that was their prerogative, but they had alienated her and she was now quite happy to return the favour. Her disappointment in her children knew no bounds, and her sons’ actions were not something she was prepared to dwell on. They were a pair of complete wasters and, as such, they were now beneath her contempt. She had needed them after the first of her tribulations, had expected the boys to stand by her and their little sister. But they had done what they had always done. Stepped back, and waited to be told what was the right thing to do, waited for someone to take over so they did not have to even think about anything, let alone make it all right. Her sons had turned out to be such a let-down, and she knew that their treatment of her had basically been the cause of her active dislike of them both.

Then there was her only daughter, the girl she had loved and cherished like no other. She had been the cause of her own father’s death, and her lies had been believed by so many people that they were still assumed to be the gospel truth by hordes of people even to this day. Imelda had brought about so many heartaches, had been the instigator of so much pain and hurt. And now what had happened to her?

She had seemingly fallen on her feet once again, she was earning fortunes, even though she was not on the bash any more, at least, not publicly. She had taken on the mantle of the pimp now instead, arranging for other people’s daughters to go out on the bash instead. Her daughter actually saw this as a step-up in the world, as some kind of
promotion
. But all that aside, Mary guessed that her daughter probably still had a few private customers on the side, it was the nature of the beast that she would always put the earn first.