The Family. Kay Brellend

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СКАЧАТЬ money and experience than he did. Young he may be, but he was careful never to present himself as a chancer, or a threat. He knew he was a match for any of them. He also knew it was too soon to let them become aware of the fact.

      He had bought property, but none that he’d consider residing in himself. He was the landlord of a shop in Queensland Road and three tenements in Campbell Road. He also had a nicer house in Playford Road, where his brother and sister-in-law now lived rent-free on the ground floor. He’d picked them up as a job lot for refurbishment three years back. Solly, who’d owned the secondhand shop in Queensland Road, had wanted to quickly offload all his premises and retire to the coast before the cancer eating away at his insides finished its work.

      Robert had been twenty at the time. He’d used every penny he’d scrimped and saved from working his market stalls for six years to do the deal behind the back of old Mr Keane, who liked to think he was the wheeler-dealer landlord in Campbell Bunk. The sulky old git hadn’t spoken to him since even though Robert had been at pains not to rub his nose in it because you never knew who you might need on side.

      The deal had been struck with Solly because the old Jew liked him, and remembered a promise he’d made years before. When Rob had been at school he’d often run errands for Solly, and he’d done a bit of lifting and carrying the old boy couldn’t manage to do himself. Solly had never paid him; at the time he was a regular tight-fist, but he’d always told Rob he’d see him all right one day. And he’d been true to his word. Rob knew Solly could have got a better price for his properties from old man Keane, but he’d let him have them for what he could afford to pay. It had been the turning point in his career; from that point on he’d been resented and courted in equal measure. In the estimation of most of the folk in these parts, Rob Wild had hit the big time when he took on Solly’s stock.

      He had three men working for him, but Stevie was the only one of his employees he trusted to collect the rents from his tenants in Campbell Road. Today he had taken on the task himself as Stevie and a few of the boys were picking up a shipment of market stock.

      He had just stopped to scrape the sole of his shoe on the kerb, having stepped in some slimy cabbage stalks in the hallway of one of his properties, when he looked up and saw Jimmy carrying sacks of possessions into a house a few doors down from the intersection with Paddington Street.

      Robert’s lips whitened over his teeth as he spat out a curse. He sprinted across the road and, grabbing his father by the shoulder, viciously spun him against the iron railings. ‘No yer don’t.’ He thrust his face up close to Jimmy’s concave, unshaven cheek. ‘Wherever it was you’ve been hiding yerself all these years, you can piss off back there. I told you, you’re not wanted round here.’

      With a strength that belied his grizzled appearance, Jimmy pulled out of his son’s grip. ‘You don’t own this house, Bobbie,’ Jimmy sneered. ‘I made sure of that.’ He didn’t look or sound so complaisant today. ‘Old man Keane’s still got this one, so you can’t put me out. I’ll live where I want. And I want right here.’ He smiled slyly. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to yer aunt Til again. She’ll like that.’ A private joke caused him to smirk. He turned his head towards the junction with Seven Sisters Road where the Keivers had rooms. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to Stevie ’n’ all. Lives just around the corner in Playford Road now, don’t he?’ He started to gather up his belongings and move again towards the door-less portal, beyond which was darkness and a stink of decay.

      Robert took hold of his father’s shirt collar and hauled him backwards. He pushed him stumbling into the gutter and threw the bags he’d dropped after him. A few old clothes spewed on to the pavement as one of the bags gaped open.

      ‘What’s goin’ on?’ Edie’s cry reached the two men as a faint wail. She had been proceeding down the road some way behind Jimmy. They’d turned the corner from Seven Sisters together but being relatively unencumbered, he had managed to pull away from her. With one hand Edie was pushing a pram filled to the brim with utensils; the other hand gripped the wrist of a small boy. The child was whimpering and dragging her back because his little legs couldn’t keep up with her faster pace. Behind them, and obviously part of the family, trailed an older boy who looked to be about ten years old and a young woman. Both were carrying boxes. Although the girl was some years older than her brother the resemblance between them was striking. Both had fair complexions and thick blonde hair and eyes of a deep blue.

      Seeing Jimmy on his knees, scrabbling with his clothes, Edie started to jog, pulling the toddler with her and making him cry. Despite her spindly limbs she put on a spurt that belied her frail appearance. The creases in her complexion deepened with her determination to find out what was going on. As the toddler stumbled to his knees she let go of his hand and rushed on, the pram bouncing in front of her, and one of her hands batting back pots trembling precariously close to the sides. The young woman immediately dropped her box and went to tend to the whimpering infant. The older boy shuffled close by, obviously preferring to wait for his big sister to accompany him into unknown territory.

      If Robert had not been so het up at the sight of his father on Campbell Road he might sooner have spotted Edie and the children trailing in her wake. Having digested the scene he turned back. ‘If you’ve knocked that lot out,’ he snarled at his father, ‘you must’ve started with that old bag before Mum was dead.’ His eyes were redrawn to the young woman who was crouched by the sobbing child and dabbing at his grazed knee with a handkerchief. Robert guessed she was in her late teens. ‘In fact, I’d say you must’ve been at it before we was hanging out the flags believing you was gone for good. Seems we were wrong about everything. We all thought Nellie Tucker was your tart.’

      ‘Can’t help being popular with the ladies, can I?’ Jimmy grunted a chuckle, still stuffing clothes back into the bag. He seemed unflustered by his son’s rough handling.

      ‘No lady would have anything to do with you. No wonder we never had a decent meal inside us as kids. You’d have spent yer last fucking farthing keeping yer cock happy rather than us, wouldn’t you?’

      Jimmy sprung up, surprisingly agile all of a sudden, his eyes narrow slits in his puffy, sallow face. ‘You want to learn a bit of respect. Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m still yer father and can give you a wallop, y’know.’

      ‘Don’t I just wish you’d try,’ Robert returned softly. ‘’Cos I’m itching for an excuse to lay you out … just like you did to all of us.’

      Jimmy slanted a look up the road. His scrawny wife was still haring towards him behind the bouncing pram.

      ‘Edie’s,’ Jimmy said succinctly, ignoring the reference to the brutality he’d dealt out to his first family. ‘All of ’em stepkids.’ Noting the direction of his son’s steady gaze, he pursed his mouth before a shrewd smile skewed a corner of it. ‘Well, I never … something about me yer like after all, eh, son?’ he taunted. A glance slew to his stepdaughter.

      Faye was petite, like her mother, but there all similarity ended. Edie was shrunken and shapeless, and her once-fair hair had turned to an unattractive salt-and-pepper hue. Faye’s body was curvaceous and her shiny golden hair framed an extraordinarily pretty face. Jimmy liked to think he was a bit of a connoisseur when it came to women. He also liked to think that he appreciated the value of female allure. He’d been Nellie Tucker’s pimp for some while, and they’d both profited from it. He reckoned touting the services of a cheap whore from a damp room justified his arrogance.

      With his bags in his fists he pushed past Robert and entered the gloomy hallway of his new home, chuckling beneath his breath. His laughter increased when Robert made no move to stop him this time. But he wasn’t feeling as smug as he’d sounded. Lou Perkins had recognised him in Dartford market and told him his eldest boy was flush with money. Jimmy СКАЧАТЬ