The Life (42 page)

She had never believed that anything could feel
that
good. She wondered if her mum could see her; she had known about her feelings for Petey, and she believed she would understand that, after everything that had happened in the last few days, Tania had needed to be loved like this.

She had lost so much so fast; it was only right to take what happiness she could. No one knew better than her how easily things could change, how easily people could be taken from you. She had been empty inside, and now Petey, her Petey, who she loved with all her heart, had made her feel alive again.

‘Oh, Petey, I never knew anybody could feel like this.’

Petey, now the euphoria had worn off, was wondering what on earth had possessed him. If she told anyone, his life would be over. Her brothers were bad enough, but if her
dad
, or God help him, his own father, found out what he had done to her, he would be truly finished.

He hugged her gently, but looking down into her lovely, trusting face, he knew he had to get himself away from here, from
her
, tout suite. He must have been off his fucking head! If she told
anyone
there would be murder done. He should have left her alone. What had possessed him? Why did he do these things? It wasn’t even as if she was that special. Pretty enough, but nothing to fucking justify the consequences should they be discovered. He had to get away, and he had to make sure she kept this to herself.

He whispered quietly, ‘Listen, Tania, this was really lovely. I can’t thank you enough for giving me something so special, my darling. But we should never have done it, we should never have let it happen. You’re so young and so attractive, but we are fooling ourselves if we think this can go any further.’

Tania looked at him, seeing the face she’d dreamt of for so long right in front of her – his brown eyes, his chocolate skin, the manliness of him. She could smell him on her body, could feel the pain of his loving. She remembered the way he had looked at her as he undressed her, and how she had not felt shy or awkward, believing that he had felt the same way about her as she felt about him.

Now, though, she could see the panic rising in his eyes, feel his sudden need to be anywhere but in this bed with her. She’d already lost him, she knew that as well as she knew her own name.

‘Look, darling, I have to go. But you must realise that no one can ever know about this, right? It would cause so much upset, and not just for me either. Remember that.’

He was warning her off, actually trying to frighten her into silence. She knew then, with stunning clarity, that this man had used her, in the worst possible way. He had taken what was offered and now all he wanted was to get away from her. Her dreams and hopes were laid bare, and finally she could see them for the childish desires they really were.

As he got dressed, she watched him sadly. He was clumsy in his haste, and she saw the softness around his belly, and the flab that was settling on his thighs. He was much older than her and, until now, that had not mattered so much. Now she was seeing him as he really was, and she was sorry to the heart that she had wasted something so precious on someone so unworthy.

When he was finally dressed, he knelt by the bed and looked into her pinched white face. ‘Are you all right, darling? Will you be OK?’

But she knew instinctively that he had no interest in her whatsoever – he never had. Not only was she used goods, she was also dangerous to him. The power of knowing that went a small way to assuaging the humiliation of her situation. Seeing the way he was trying so desperately to leave, while at the same time trying to keep her on his side, was every bit as shaming for him as it was for her. He smiled at her, giving her the full force of the Petey Bailey charm offensive.

‘Come on, Tania, you’re a big girl now. You know it makes sense.’

She looked him in the eye for long moments, before she said nonchalantly, ‘Fuck off, Petey. Get over yourself.’

Then, turning away from him, she listened as he crept down the stairs, and when she heard the front door close behind him, she finally let herself cry. In less than a week she had lost so much: her mum, who she missed with a physical pain, and her innocence. She had kissed goodbye to her childhood. She had
been too naïve to understand the enormity of what she was doing, and Petey had left her feeling like she was worth nothing
– less than nothing. That was the worst thing – the knowledge that she meant so little to him.

She pushed her face into her pillow as she said over and over, ‘Oh, Mum.’

Daniel Bailey couldn’t look his daughter in the eye. He knew that he should have made sure she was taken home, well away from the scrapyard. He could see the hollowness in her eyes; she had become very quiet since that night, and he blamed himself for it. She had only just lost her mother, and then she had been witness to such extreme violence, and he had been too wrapped up in his own grief to think about what was best for her. His guilt was doubled by the feeling that he had let his beloved Lena down; she had done everything in her power to protect their daughter from the Life, and he had undone all of that in just a few short days.

He missed his wife so much. The hardest thing for him to deal with was that she was gone because of
his
lifestyle. Lena had been frightened for so long that the Life would be the death of
him
– none of them had thought, even for a second, that it would one day be the death of
her
.

Daniel felt tears welling up, and he swallowed the urge to howl out his pain; it was crippling him. He was scared for the first time in his life – scared of being alone. Once Lena was buried, once he had avenged her death, he would be bereft; he knew he would not be able to cope, because he didn’t know
how he was going to carry on without her. She had been his life, his companion, his lover, the only person to know
everything
about him – the good and the bad – and she had still loved him, no matter what. Now he was left with the responsibility of caring for their daughter and he wasn’t sure what to do or how to make things right for her, but he owed it to Lena to try.

First, all he really cared about was finding out who the fuck had been behind his wife’s murder and, therefore, who felt they were hard enough, powerful enough, to try and take out his brother. He couldn’t sleep, eat, or shit without those thoughts constantly playing on his mind. Knowing she was gone and how she had died was eating at him like a cancer. He hated being in his home, he hated being in his bed, he hated that he woke up every day and she was not there beside him. Every morning when he opened his eyes, the first thing he thought of was his wife’s terror as the bomb had gone off; she had to have known what was going on, even if only for a split second. It tortured him. Now, though, he had to try his best for their daughter.

‘Come on, Tania, eat your breakfast, darling.’

He had cooked them both eggs and bacon and, as he poured them both mugs of strong tea, he wished once more that his wife was there with him. He knew what she would say if she was – she would tell him to be himself. Lena had always believed that he was a good man at heart.

‘I’m not that hungry, Dad. I’m sorry.’

He smiled gently. She was a lovely girl, and he knew she had the same capability for love as her mother had. She needed him to be patient with her. ‘Just have a few bites, eh? For me, for your old dad.’

Tania knew this was unfamiliar territory for her dad and appreciated that he was trying. It proved that he loved her, and
she needed to feel loved now more than ever before in her life. Her mum had always enveloped her in love and kindness; she had guided her, advised her, stood beside her. What would her mum think of her now? She was so ashamed of what had happened with Petey. It was as if losing her virginity had somehow opened her eyes to the brutal truths of the world. She had been used, she knew that now – he had seen his opportunity, and he had taken it.

She was utterly ashamed at how easily she had allowed it to happen; in fact,
she
had instigated the whole incident – that was the worst part. She had orchestrated her own downfall, and given him something of which he was not worthy – that was clear. She was his cousin, and he was old enough to be her father. Petey should have known that she was hurting over her mother’s death – he should have held her, comforted her, and made sure she was safe. But instead he had taken advantage of her youth and vulnerability. She had been no more than another conquest and this knowledge was destroying her.

God knew, she had heard the boys talk about Petey over the years – what a womaniser he was, how he was known to dog a girl until she gave him what he wanted, how he would then lose interest in them. She had heard them talk about Bernadette O’Toole
– even her mum and her Auntie Ria had said her only advantage was that she wouldn’t sleep with him without the benefit of Holy Matrimony. Yet, despite knowing all this, she had still harboured her childish illusions and refused to believe anything bad about him.

Now she knew why her mum had kept such a close eye on her; she wasn’t interfering as such, she had just understood that there were people in this world who were capable of causing great hurt as well as great sadness for young girls. During her teenage years, boys had been scared of asking her out, because
her family name was Bailey, and the Baileys were renowned for their violent reputations and criminal connections. No boy she had met had been brave enough to take that on and she couldn’t blame them.

Her mum had warned her of the pitfalls of falling in love – how you needed to be clever and use your brain, not your body, to get someone who would really love you for yourself. She told her that most young men were only after one thing – the very same thing a girl needed to keep for the man she loved, because once it was lost, you could never get it back again. How ironic then that it was a Bailey who should be the one to use her and throw her away like a used Kleenex, rather than the nameless, faceless young lads that her mother had always warned her about.

Many of her friends had already slept with their boyfriends – even gone on holiday with them; Tania had felt so green in comparison. Now look where she was: she was used goods. She was still sore, it stung when she passed water, and the reminder of him was more than she could bear. It was only a day since it had happened, and it was still raw in every way.

Daniel Bailey sipped at his tea, watching his daughter, unable to tell what she was thinking. He took a deep breath, then said carefully, ‘Look, Tania, about the other night. You should never have been anywhere near that. I’m not in my right mind, or I would have known that then, darling. I should have protected you. But I’m a bit confused – I don’t know how you are supposed to cope with something like this. I don’t know what the protocol is.’

He was nearly crying, and she was heartbroken for him; she knew better than her brothers just how much he had loved her mum.
He is a good man
, was what her mother would tell her constantly.
No matter what you hear
,
Tania, in the future, always
remember that your father is a good man
. Tania could see how contrite he was and unsure how to make this better. He believed that he had let her down and, more importantly, that he had let her mother down. But, even after witnessing first hand exactly what he was capable of, she wasn’t frightened of him in the least. In fact, she understood him and his actions. She had cared nothing for Billy Allen or his suffering; she had never realised how much of a Bailey she was. She grasped her dad’s hand in hers; it was huge and rough, a hand that made you feel safe, despite also being a hand capable of great violence.

She could never tell anyone about Petey; this hand she was holding would be used to happily choke the life out of him. Her father would see it as a personal affront, and Petey Bailey would be a dead man – of that much she was sure. It would destroy the whole family.

She only wished she had been sensible enough to see this before. She was seventeen years old, but she had been a very naïve and immature seventeen year old. Every time she remembered Petey’s haste to get away from her, every time she relived the whole episode, she knew that if her mother had been alive it would never have happened. She had best put it behind her, but that would not be an easy task; the shame of it was still too real. But this man, her dad, was the only parent she had left, and she just wanted him to feel a bit better and take away some of his worry if she could.

‘I promise you, Dad, I didn’t see very much – it was pouring with rain, remember? But I understand that you were only doing what you felt needed to be done to try and resolve this upset. Please, Dad, let’s just forget it, eh?’

Daniel was proud of her; she was trying to make him feel better, comforting
him
. His little girl was growing up, and he truly believed that she would be one hell of a woman. She had
much more of his mother in her than she knew, but it was tempered with Lena’s innate kindness. He hoped he would do right by her; it was the last thing he would ever get to do for his wife.

‘You took your fucking time!’

Petey Bailey laughed at the man’s obvious annoyance. ‘All right, fucking relax! I’m here now, ain’t I?’

Terrence Allen looked awful; he was hungry, tired, and he stank, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was stuck in this shithole for the foreseeable future – at least until he could find a safe place abroad somewhere. He was in seriously deep shit, and there was no way out for him at the moment.

Petey looked around the flat; it was a junkie’s dream. He saw the remains of wasted lives and wasted dreams. These flats had been nice once with face brickwork, Georgian windows, large airy rooms, and what were now classed as antique fireplaces. They had even sported beautiful ornamental ironwork on the balconies. Built after the war as homes fit for heroes, they were now condemned. They would have been sought after if they had been private instead of council.