The Family. Kay Brellend

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ pleased to have one of their parents still alive. Jimmy reckoned he’d manage to bring Stevie round to that way of thinking, but Stevie wasn’t the one holding the purse strings. Bobbie had the cash, and he was extremely hostile.

      Edie’s face was scarlet as she skidded to a halt by Robert. Her lips, customarily puckered as though she was sucking on an invisible cigarette, suddenly sprang apart and words came tumbling out of them. ‘So, it’s you. Thought it were the other one, ’cos Jimmy told me he comes down here collecting the rents. Thought you were Stephen. Just leave us be. We need somewhere to live, same as other folk. You don’t interfere with us, we don’t interfere with you.’ She turned and, having drawn in a lungful of air, yelled at the boy who was closest, ‘Get in there and lend a hand to your dad.’

      Casting a wary sideways look up at Robert, she manoeuvred the pram past the obstacle of his body, bumped it over the threshold of the house and started to unload it on to bare boards.

      The toddler, obviously over his mishap, came tearing down the road at such a pace that it looked as though his momentum would send him hurtling past his destination or falling on to his face. At the last moment he saved himself by clinging to Robert’s shins for support, offering up a shy smile before he scrambled on into the house. His older brother gave Robert a suspicious look before ducking his face behind his box and following on. Robert could hear their mother giving instructions to the boys on what to carry up the stairs. From those bawled commands Robert learned that one boy was named Michael and the other Adam. He wasn’t interested enough to peer in to discover which face went with which name. But he was interested in the girl coming towards him. And she knew it, and was battling not to look uneasy because of it.

      Having tilted up her chin and waited for Robert to move out of the way, the young woman turned sideways with her box to try to edge past him, muttering beneath her breath. He moved to block her path. Flicking her head aside in irritation, she stepped the other way to avoid him, her expression bored.

      ‘Do you know who I am?’

      ‘’Course I know,’ she said impatiently, setting her box down. ‘You’re one of his sons, me mum told me. She saw you just after we turned the corner and said there’d be trouble.’ She glowered at him with large blue eyes. ‘Are you going to get out of the way so I can go inside?’

      ‘Yeah … in a minute …’

      ‘Me mum told me you wouldn’t let them have a drink at your wedding reception and a ruckus started because of it. Tight-fisted git, are you, as well as having no manners?’ With that she again picked up her box and glared at him to move.

      ‘Well, if you’d’ve come along to the Duke that night, perhaps I might’ve thought twice about getting a round in,’ Robert said. ‘Or perhaps you’re too young to have a drink?’

      She blushed, but not because his subtle flattery pleased her, rather because he thought her a kid. ‘Why don’t you get off home to your wife so’s I can get in there and give a hand before your father turns nasty.’ She freed some fingers from beneath the box to give his arm a shove. Although her hand bounced off muscle, Robert relented and moved his fist from where it had enclosed a railing, effectively barring her entry.

      ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Faye! Get in here now and help, will you.’ Edie’s screech emerged from the bowels of the house.

      The young woman gave him a sour look and took a step forward, trying to shake off his grip, which had transferred from the railing to her wrist.

      ‘What’s your name?’ Robert asked again.

      ‘You deaf as well as all the rest?’ she cried out, yanking her arm free with such force that she dropped her box in the process. Cutlery and china scattered on the floor drawing a gasp of dismay from her. The ground was littered with blue-and-white shards that looked to have been a full tea service a moment ago, and not a bad one at that.

      ‘All of your name … Faye …?’ Robert insisted, idly scraping the debris to one side of the doorway with his foot.

      ‘Greaves,’ she shouted in exasperation. ‘Faye Greaves! Look what you’ve done! Now what we gonna do? Can’t even have a cup of tea – that’ll set him off for sure.’

      A note of real distress had entered her voice and Robert could guess why. His father now had an excuse to vent his anger on somebody. He wondered whether Edie Greaves would have the backbone to stand up to him and whack him back. Was she like his aunt or his mother? He’d seen Tilly knock Jimmy bandy for giving her sister a split lip. Rob reckoned Edie was more like his mother: she’d quake, but take the bruises so that her kids might escape the old man’s fists. Then there’d be other times when, too ground down to resist, she’d pretend not to hear the sound of a leather belt cutting through the air, or the whimpers that went on all night.

      He picked up the box and gave it to her. Then in a single scoop he collected the undamaged cutlery and chucked it in. He drew out a five-pound note and let it fall in as well. ‘Should cover it,’ he said. With that he walked off before Faye had a chance to recover sufficiently from his astonishing generosity to comment on it.

      ‘Want a lift home?’

      Alice had been walking with her head down, deep in thought, when she heard that tempting offer. ‘No, it’s all right, Rob,’ she declined with a smile. ‘It’s kind of you, but I bet you’re too busy to be running me about.’

      ‘Nah … I’ve got a bit of business Wood Green way in any case. Where’s Lilian?’

      ‘Josh’s mum’s looking after her.’ Alice knew that his question about her daughter’s whereabouts was just a way of avoiding talk of Jimmy. She wished she could cast the horrible spectre of her uncle out of their minds and out of this neighbourhood. ‘I wish Jimmy hadn’t turned up out of the blue like that,’ Alice blurted. ‘After all this time, it gave us such a turn.’

      She watched for her cousin’s reaction. Jimmy’s disappearance had always been a taboo subject. Bobbie and Stevie must have realised a vicious argument had taken place between their parents just before Jimmy vanished. Their mother had been in a terrible state the morning after the fight, as had their Aunt Tilly. But the boys had grown used to seeing Fran Wild laid up after a beating from her husband. And if they’d suspected Tilly had come by her injuries in an unsuccessful attempt to protect her sister, they’d kept it to themselves. By that time, their parents had been separated for some years, following Jimmy walking out to shack up with Nellie Tucker. But it had been his habit to come back on odd visits … usually when he was on the scrounge.

      With a little shudder, Alice recalled the surprise visit from the police that had unnerved them just as they were struggling to get back to normal after that dreadful night. A body had been found floating in the Thames that’d had a similar tattoo to the one Jimmy sported on his left arm. As Jimmy Wild hadn’t been seen in a while the police had put two and two together. Luckily, on the day of that shocking news, her cousins had been out so had not overheard talk of a headless corpse.

      A couple of months later, when Robert realised his father’s absence had been lengthier than usual, Alice had been present when he questioned his mother over it. Her aunt’s mumbled response that Jimmy had probably gone to France to do his duty, and not before time, had seemed to satisfy the boys. For the first time in their young lives they’d probably believed they had a reason to feel proud of him.

      But neither of her cousins had spoken much about him and not once had Alice heard them bemoan the loss of their father. However they’d СКАЧАТЬ