The Family

‘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 had come to see for himself and work out a way he might benefit from an upturn in the Wild fortunes. He’d known his reappearance would cause a rumpus at first, but had counted on persuading his sons they should be 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 been distraught to lose their mum eight years ago during the flu epidemic that had decimated the population. An abrupt question from Robert put an end to her melancholy reflection.

‘Did you know Jimmy’s moved in up the road?’ He took Alice’s elbow and steered her towards his car, which was parked close to the junction with Seven Sisters Road.

Alice nodded and let out a dejected sigh. ‘Old Beattie came in and gave us the news. Mum’s gone mad. I told her to ignore him. I bet she doesn’t. I bet she’ll be up the road after him as soon as she’s had a few …’ She tailed off. As soon as her mother hit the whiskey she’d get reckless and belligerent. Rob knew as well as she did what Tilly was like. Their two families had lived cheek by jowl for too long not to know each other’s habits. ‘Glad I’m not living round here now,’ Alice said vehemently. ‘Bet you are, too …’

‘Yeah … But not because of him. He’s not going to affect my life ever again. I won’t let him.’ Rob opened the car door and helped Alice in, then tossed a coin to the young lad who’d been charged with keeping an eye on the vehicle while he went about his business. Despite Rob’s reputation as a hound you didn’t mess with, some of the local lads were sufficiently desperate to risk the consequences and try to steal the hubcaps or anything else they could prise free and sell.

‘Ta, mister.’ The boy beamed at the thrupence on his palm and hared off.

Robert put the car in gear and headed up the road. As they passed the house where Jimmy and his family had just moved in, he didn’t even turn his head. But a muscle contracted spasmodically in his cheek.

Alice glanced at her grim-faced cousin and wondered how to lighten the atmosphere. Getting a ride in a car was a treat for her, especially when she’d been expecting a long walk home. The last thing she wanted was to spoil a pleasant drive with more depressing talk about rotten Jimmy Wild. ‘So … what’s this I hear about you getting engaged to Vicky Watson?’ she teased him. Alice had already guessed it was more gossip than truth. Vicky had probably started the rumour in hope rather than expectation of it becoming fact.

Robert smiled. ‘First I’ve heard about it!’

Faye Greaves was standing close to the window when the open-top car and its laughing occupants sailed into view. She felt an illogical little pang tighten her insides as she watched the pretty dark-haired young woman enjoying her husband’s company. He obviously had a better side to him. She’d been on the point of moving away to avoid observing their contentment when her mother looked over her shoulder and also saw Robert and Alice drive past.

‘So, he’s off is he,’ Edie muttered, keeping her voice low so Jimmy didn’t hear. ‘I’ll have him next time he’s about. He owes us for a tea-set, and I’ll have the money off him for it, you wait and see. Tight-fisted git,’ she spat.

Faye chewed her lip, feeling guilty. She’d called him a tight-fisted git, too, and to his face, but she’d discovered that Stephen Wild was anything but mean with money. He’d handed over far more than was necessary to replace the broken china. But she wasn’t about to let on that she’d been compensated. If they’d had any inkling of it, her mother and Jimmy – especially Jimmy – would have had the cash off her.

She had said nothing to Jimmy about the loss of the crockery, and she knew her mother would keep quiet about it. Angry as she was about the damage, Edie didn’t want any more trouble with Jimmy’s sons; she was relieved just to have a roof over their heads after they’d absconded from Kent.

Their old place, a poky, spartanly furnished terraced house in Dartford, now seemed a palace compared to the two squalid rooms that had replaced it. Faye would have returned there in a flash if she could. Not that there was any possibility of that.

She thought back to the times their landlord, Mr Mackinley, had come battering on the door on rent-collection day. Rather than open the door to him, her mother would holler out of a bedroom window that Jimmy had sworn he’d paid everything up to date. Mr Mackinley would bawl back up at her in his guttural Scottish accent, telling her that she was a stupid woman who should know by now that she was saddled with a donkey. Through it all, Faye would sit on the bed, listening dejectedly to their raucous shouting and muttering her agreement with the landlord’s opinion.

Faye had known for some time that, with Mackinley threatening to send in the bailiffs, a flit was imminent, but it had never occurred to her that they’d be dragged as far away as North London. Then one evening Jimmy had come home from the market empty-handed but with a sly smile that’d prompted Edie to demand why he was looking so pleased with himself when there was no food for their supper. Faye now knew that had been one of the rare occasions he’d given her mother a truthful answer. He’d run into someone from the old days, and they’d given him some right good news about how well one of his sons was doing.

Faye’s eyes slipped sideways. Jimmy probably wasn’t feeling quite so chipper now the reunion had taken place and his sons had made it clear they wanted nothing to do with him. She turned to focus properly on Jimmy, who was frowning at the newspaper pinned beneath his elbows, tapping his teeth with a pencil. He’d been sitting like that for some time, leaving Faye and her mother to bring some sort of order to their seedy home. Faye turned away from the front-room window and swept the room with her gaze, taking in the stained and sagging flock mattress that covered the bed, which had been pushed against the wall to make room for the rest of the furniture, all of it shabby and clearly on its last legs. In the back room, where she would sleep with Michael and Adam, there was a tiny iron bed for her and a large flock mattress on the floor for the boys. All the bedding was in a similar sorry state with springs and wadding exposed in places.

Faye’s eyes returned to Jimmy, who was squinting fixedly at the racing pages, sucking on his pencil. Luckily it seemed he hadn’t been eavesdropping on her conversation with Edie. A five-pound note was rare treasure and she wasn’t going to let anyone deprive her of it. She could get a decent secondhand tea service for a few shillings, perhaps some dinner plates as well to sweeten her mother and make her forget about bringing up the subject with Jimmy’s son when next their paths crossed. Faye would tell Edie she’d treat her to the new set from her wages. Fortunately she’d already found a job.