Staying Out

CHAPTER 1Linda O’Donnell was stunned to discover her sister-in-law slouched ungainly in her best armchair, with her bare feet sprawled on the table in front of her, watching a soap on the television. Christy sipped from a half emptied bottle of dry Martini and was smoking profusely. The air was polluted with it and Linda was compelled to open a window. “Hiya, Lin.” Christy greeted her in a voice badly slurred from drink. Wincing visibly, Linda willed herself to remain unaccustomedly calm and tolerant. Barry was on his feet immediately at his wife’s entrance as if he were a soldier in readiness for bed inspection by a superior officer. Darting shamefaced glances at Linda, Barry instinctively directed more reproachful ones at his kid sister. “So that’s it, is it?” Linda rounded on Barry fiercely. “Aren’t you supposed to be responsible for her?” speaking as if Christy were not present in the room. Despite her drunkenness, Christy couldn’t fail to be vexed. Barry slipped what he hoped was a conciliatory arm about his wife’s waist, a little plumper these days than when they were first married. After seven years and four miscarriages, Linda’s only consolation issued from frequent food binges. Christy dealt her sister-in-law a critical once over, decided Linda had grown a lot fatter, looked older and her short blonde hair was fashioned in much too tight a curl, which served to accentuate her age. Linda was 36, two years her husband’s senior, which made her thirteen years older than Christy. “Yeah, ‘course I’m responsible for her.” Barry said adopting an unaccustomed authoritative air for Christy’s benefit, voice hardening. “Put that bottle down, Sis, for God’s sake!” he commanded. “Don’t you think you’ve drunk enough and smoked enough? Besides all that stuff is bad for your health.” Giggling and winking conspiratorially at her brother undeterred by the chilling expression on Linda’s face, Christy tossed him the packet and the remaining two cigarettes inside. Her eyes moved to Linda, aware of the angry clenching of her fists, face flaming crimson with rage at this flouting of her authority. “So ain’t you gonna ask me how I’ve been, Lin? How was the food? The weather?” Christy giggled once more. Barry’s stomach churned nauseatingly. Whether it stemmed from the drink, he didn’t know. The evidence of pride almost ringing in his sister’s voice at her rather sarcastic reference to prison. As if it had really been just one big laugh. A game to her. The robbery. The security guard getting topped. Prison. Linda stared at Christy without an ounce of sympathy or feeling whatsoever. The little b***h was drunk. Flaunting herself, proud of what she had done, no doubt. Linda decided to take charge of the situation. Barry was obviously incapable. Briskly she retorted. “All right, I’m here now. While I’m forced to give you a home, Christina…” Linda fixed Barry with a withering look, “you’ll do exactly as I tell you. And you Barry, I’m surprised that you could sink this low!” Barry’s face had literally drained of all colour. “Wh… what d… do you m… mean?” And what was worse, that damned stutter was back. “A little dr… drink wouldn’t hurt.” Before he could prevent her, Linda snatched the bottle from Christy’s hand, marched with it into the kitchen and promptly emptied what was left of its contents down the sink. “b***h!” Christy muttered hotly under her breath. “Look, you do what she says, okay?” Barry said sharply, all six foot three of his lean muscular frame towering over her where she relaxed in the armchair. “She’s right. I am responsible for you. To see you keep your dates an’ stuff with the parole officer. And above all to make sure you stay out of trouble. That includes laying off the booze.” He wagged a finger at her meaningfully. Christy’s mouth tightened. “Oh for God’s sake, Bar. Cut out all this big brother crap can’t you? I know what I have to do. And let me tell you something,” sobering up a fraction “I didn’t swap one bloody prison for another. I’m out now and I intend staying out!” At the sink Linda arched her back like a feline about to spring, tears dangerously close to the surface. She had only been in the house a few minutes and already she had had a run in with Christy. But then she had invariably been on the defensive with her, hadn’t she? It was nothing new. Even at the outset when she had begun dating Barry. At 27, Barry had only been the second man in her life, the first having left her stranded at the altar. It had been a long while before she had dared to trust another man after that. In Barry O’Donnell, however, despite his tall muscular build, she had soon discovered the little boy lost, making him a candidate for her own inherent mothering. Then Barry had been 25, Christy 14, and their brother Steve, 17. Worlds apart from their steady going older brother, Linda recollected Steve as a stony faced youth with an enormous chip on his young shoulder. Invariably he carried a flick knife poking out of the back pocket of his jeans. Christina the irascible tomboy seldom, if ever, seen in dresses. She favoured jeans, t-shirts or worn, moth eaten looking jumpers that Linda would have thrown out to the dustman ages ago. Because Linda was not part of the impoverished way of life in the East End, which she also found difficult attempting to fit into. She had been raised and educated at a private school near Windsor, as befits the only child of a middle class industrialist. It was Christy who saw her as a potential target, much to Barry’s consternation, for risqué jokes about posh ladies. She would adopt a suitably cultured accent for her benefit, reminiscent of Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s Pygmalion. Linda hated visiting Barry’s home as much as Linda’s parents disliked the lower class cockney young man visiting their palatial Windsor abode. Now Barry had insisted on making a home for his wayward ex-con of a sister. The one and only time she had ever known Barry to have put his foot down about anything against her wishes. Oh God, how was she going to cope? Linda was instinctively conscious of Christy’s presence beside her at the sink. She caught herself stiffening accordingly, like a dog with its hackles raised at something to which it feels particularly averse. “Look, I’m sorry if I upset you Lin. Barry suggested I apologise.” Christy muttered with an ill-disguised grudging tone. Linda might have known she would not have taken it upon herself to do so and wondered how someone as obviously considerate and tactful as her husband could have such a despicable brother and sister. Linda refused to as much as glance at the girl when she spoke. “Barry and I have agreed to give you a home until such time as you can find suitable accommodation for yourself, Christina” Linda told her haughtily. “The least you can do is show us some respect. We’ve already seen you in your true colours. Barry is prepared to give you a second chance to make something of yourself. He obviously cares a great deal about you, so don’t go throwing it all up in his face, will you?” ‘b***h,’ Christy mused inwardly. With her bloody arrogance and her fancy words like she had swallowed the f*****g dictionary or something. The worst thing Barry had probably done in his life had been to marry this stuck up cow. Steve had thought so too. But Christy smiled sweetly at her nonetheless. “Look, I apologised didn’t I! I suppose Barry does care about me which is more than anyone else does, particularly Mum.” Christy’s voice hardened deliberately. “Someone poisoned her against me, that’s for sure!” Linda began unloading the groceries from each of her two carrier bags on the kitchen table. “Well it wasn’t me if that’s what you’re thinking!” Linda said quickly. “Besides, what reason would I have for doing so? Your home is really with your mother. Barry and I have our own life to lead.” Christy made a face behind her back and began to examine an unfamiliar label on one of the tins of beans Linda had taken from her bag. “High fibre?” Linda snatched the can of beans from her hand and put it on the shelf squeezed in between wholemeal spaghetti and low calorie bran cereal. She continued unloading her shopping bags, lifting innumerable cartons of low fat yoghurt from their plastic confines and committing them to the fridge along with a bag of rather squashed tomatoes and a four pound pack of oven chips. “Barry and I intend staying healthy be eating the right foods for a change. You should do the same. I expect the junk they served you in prison couldn’t have been up to much.” “Yeah, you’re right about it being junk.” Christy warmed to the conversation. “Why? Do you think I went on hunger strike?” “I thought it was because you were protesting about something or other.” Linda said superciliously. Christy grinned. “Yeah, it was. The food. The chips were always soggy. We used to think they were left over from the day before. The more grub you let on your plate the more leftovers you ended up with the following day. We even suggested marking a chip just to see, so one of the girls did. She stuck her thumb into one of the fatter soggier ones.” Christy grinned unmercifully when saw Linda making a face. “She left this big imprint in the chip. The next day one of the girls on our table got it on her plate.” In spite of her being on the defensive as far as Christy was concerned, Linda had to smile at the story. Christy, satisfied now that she had Linda’s undivided attention, continued a somewhat coarse description of prison life. Only the meagre good bits of course. Not the pain and agony after slitting her wrists. Nor the loss of her baby during an equally painful miscarriage. Barry, listening outside the kitchen door, failed to suppress a smile, pleased that his wife and sister should be getting along quite so well. Obviously in spite of her four years’ incarceration, his kid sister had lost none of her inherent and infectious Cockney sense of humour. Jimmy Lascar turned the stuttering Kawasaki motorcycle into a cul-de-sac adjacent to a seedy night club, the Magenta, off the Mile End Road. Leather gauntlet clad hands driven into the pockets of his biker jacket, determinedly Jimmy mounted the iron back stairs. How many times had he been here now during the past few weeks? He had actually lost count. He still owed. But he needed the cash badly, even if it meant he could appease Sharon and nothing else. What a f*****g mess. An 18 month old kid. Another on the way. Sharon already five months gone. It wasn’t going to be easy bringing up two babies in that cramped little flat. The bearded face was blistered by sweat. The bald head shimmering almost opalescent in the flow from a fading bulb suspended from the ceiling high in the shadowy room. Because of his ill-proportioned, 25 stone bulk, the man behind the inordinately polished desk swivelled his newly acquired red leather upholstered chair around with meticulous care. It was if the seedy club was a respectable Belgravia office instead of a slum building. Big Ed. Real name Edward Dewar. His sprawling chins engulfed a quivering unpleasant smile when Jimmy moved into the room in response to Dewar’s staccato, “Come in.” The smile broadened considerably. “Well, well, if it ain’t Jimmy boy himself!” he declared loudly, gimlet blue eyes sharpening like ice cold diamonds in the bullish features when he took in Jimmy’s appearance, the battered old leather jacket. Possibly the only one he owned. He had seldom seen him in anything else. Tight patched Levi’s. The young man so obviously down on his luck. The kind of person vultures like Bid Ed Dewar lunched on. Spat out when the going got rough. An unconcealed loathing for the fat man crossed Jimmy’s sweating face. But in his position he reasoned there was little else to do in spite, but humble himself and at least be pleasant to the guy, however unwillingly. Dewar stuffed a fat Havana between his wide blubbery lips. Nonchalantly flicking a solid gold Calibri to the end of the cigar he leaned his bald head against the soft leather headrest. “So what brings you here Jimmy boy? Got something for me have you kid?” He grinned in earnest. Jimmy sensed Dewar hoped he wouldn’t have anything for him, so that the fat man would be able to savour the deliciousness of breaking both his arms and legs just for the sheer bloody hell of it.