Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (27 page)

She shifts. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘That’s just great,’ I throw at her. In complete despair, I leave the house. I hear her call out to me, but what’s the fucking point? She’s just going to explode my head with more nonsense.

I get into the car, start the engine, and drive blindly. In the end, I find myself driving to one of Dominic’s clubs. The valet jumps into my car and radios the staff in the reception. They wave me through. At reception there are more wide smiles, and of course, there is no entrance fee for me to pay. A pretty girl lifts the curtain and I enter Heat Exchange. The housemother comes towards me with a large smile.

‘We haven’t seen you for a while,’ she says softly. ‘We’ve had a really nice blonde girl join us. Anastasia is Russian. Beautiful body.’

I nod and she leads me towards a booth. It is early and there is hardly anybody in it. A girl is on stage gyrating. She has long dark hair. Something about her reminds me of Layla. I quickly look away.

I sit in the booth. A waitress comes. ‘The usual?’ she asks.

‘No. Get me a bottle of rum.’

‘Of course.’

A blonde girl, obviously Anastasia, sashays towards me. She is bite-your-arm-off beautiful and there is only one way to describe her body. Roger Rabbit’s girlfriend’s statuesque. She stops in front me and strikes a pose to show her body to its full advantage.

‘Hey, big boy,’ she says throatily.

‘Hello.’

‘You want a dance?’

‘Sure,’ I say and put a twenty pound note on the table and push it a few inches away from me.

She smiles, takes it, and pushes it into her garter. And then she starts dancing. At first keeping her distance and then getting closer and closer until her breasts are either a hair’s breath away from me or accidentally brushing me. She times her five minutes with precision.

‘Do you want to buy me a drink?’

‘Why not?’ I signal for the waitress.

‘A glass of champagne,’ she tells the waitress and turns her glance back to me.

‘So, you have a clubs of your own?’

I nod.

‘If I need a job, I can come to you?’

‘No. I don’t deal with that side of the business.’

‘Of course. You are too busy.’

I find I can’t be bothered to talk. I let my eyes travel down her body. She gets it straight away. ‘You want to go to the VIP room?’ she asks.

‘Sure,’ I tell her. We walk to the VIP room together, Roger Rabbit’s girlfriend and me, but inside I am dying.

Layla

I dream that I am bleeding, that blood is gushing out of me. I try to staunch the flow with my hand and it oozes between my fingers. I feel myself become lighter and lighter and I float out of my body. I look down at myself, a corpse. I want to reach out and touch my own body. In my dream I think,
this is what I will look like when I die.
Then I wake up. I look at the alarm clock. It is almost midnight and BJ is not home. I call his phone, but it is switched off. I leave a message and call his manager. He has not been there all night. I try all the other places he could be. No luck. So I call Jake.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ I ask softly.

‘No. What is it?’ There is a wire of panic in his voice. In the background I can hear music.

‘I can’t find BJ. Is he there?’

I hear the relief in his voice. ‘He’s not here.’

‘I’m worried about him. We … we argued. He stormed out.’

There is a moment of silence. Then Jake’s voice comes on. It is calm and business like. ‘I take it you’ve already tried all his restaurants and clubs.’

‘Yes,’ I reply holding the phone with both my hands.

‘I think I know where he is. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. I’ll call you a bit later. Get some rest, OK?’

Jake Eden

I end the call and look at my phone.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lily asks worriedly.

I turn towards her voice gratefully. God, I cannot imagine what it must be like for BJ. If it was Lily I’d have to … I walk up to her and kiss her. ‘That was Layla. BJ is MIA and she’s worried, but I think I know where he is. I don’t know how long this will take so don’t wait up for me, OK?

‘I will wait up for you.’

I smile. ‘Wear something special for me.’

‘You bet.’

‘Right, I’m off.’

‘Give him a big kiss from me,’ Lily says.

‘You’ve always liked him, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I’ve never forgotten that he saved your life.’

I don’t say anything, but memories flood back into my mind.

There is no traffic on the roads and it takes me less than an hour to drive down to the coast to where the old smuggler’s network of caves are. I know BJ used to go there many years ago. Once I stumbled upon him. We were still enemies then, but he was very drunk and he offered me a drink. We shared a bottle, but he was so plastered I don’t think he has any memory of that night. If he has, he’s never referred to it.

As soon as I turn off the road and drive down the dirt track, I spot his vehicle. I stop the car and text Layla.

Found him. All is well. Will make sure he gets home safe.

My poor sister must have been watching the phone like a hawk. She texts back almost instantly.

Thank u from the bottom of my heart. xxxx

I take my torchlight out of my car’s glove compartment and go into the mouth of the cave. It is dark and dry. My shoes sink into the soft sand. After a while, the soft sand gives way to rock and I start to hear the sound of water dripping. A few yards later I come to the flooded area of the cave. I take my shoes and socks off and rollup my pants, then wade through the water.

When I reach dry stone, I put my socks and shoes back on and walk for another ten minutes or so through the twisting tunnel. It opens out to sheer drop into the sea. BJ is sitting at the end of it. He’s so heavily slumped he looks like a rock in the darkness. He has an oil lamp beside him. I switch off my torch. As far as the eye can see is the ocean. In the moonlight, it glistens like a black, oily mass. Arching over it, the sky is a blanket of stars.

I notice that he’s barefoot. He must not have bothered to put his shoes back on. I sit at the edge beside him and let my feet dangle down. He is holding a bottle of rum.

‘Layla was worried about you,’ I say.

He passes the bottle over to me. I take a swallow and return it. He takes a swig and wedges it between his thighs.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it? There was a time I wished I knew what it was like to be with her, even for a moment. I guess I got my fucking wish. So I can’t complain too much.’

 I take the bottle of rum from him and take a huge mouthful.

He turns towards me. ‘If you carry on like this you won’t be able to drive me back to her. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

‘That’s true. That’s what she wanted from me.’

‘And what Layla wants, Layla gets,’ he says bitterly.

I frown. ‘At first I, too, wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, but now I understand that she is making a moral decision. And that is her right. I can’t force her. She wants to do the right thing, the thing that she can be proud of. I didn’t realize my sister was such a little hero.’

He takes another swig and stares at me bleary-eyed. ‘Yeah. I know. I want to support our little hero and everything, but I can’t. You see, I only ever wanted her. I cannot ever remember a time when I’ve wanted another. All my life, I was waiting for her. And now she wants me to give her the OK to go and risk her life for a fetus that has a high probability of spontaneously miscarrying anyway. How the hell can I be expected to support that?’

‘What will happen if you don’t support her and … something happens?’

He makes a sound. A grunt of deep pain. ‘Something? Define something.’

I remain silent. It’s impossible to say the words.

‘Here’s a question for you, then. What if it was Lily this was happening to?’

I grab the bottle and glug down so fast I have a coughing fit. BJ thumps me on the back. ‘Well, that’s no way to answer the question.’

I look him in the eye. ‘At first, I thought I’d rather tear that baby with my own hands than let it destroy Lily. But a baby is a miracle, BJ. And if Lily wanted it, even if it killed me, I’d support her. I’d do whatever it took to ensure that she got the best holistic support. I’d have the best doctors in the world waiting in the wings, weeks in advance, to pull that baby out of her.’

‘Ah yes, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Smile through da pain.’

‘You’ve got to get your shit together man. Layla needs you like never before.’

‘Never in a million years did I ever think I would be in this situation. I feel like a mastodon dying from hundreds of crude spears in my flesh.’

‘Come on. Let’s get you back.’

He stands and sways slightly before righting himself against the wall of the cave, then turns to go.

‘BJ,’ I call.

He turns to face me. He’s so broken. He looks nothing like the great fighter I once faced. At that moment I realize that he might not be able to survive without Layla. I had been wrong about him. He truly loves my sister.

‘I’m sorry I made you have the commitment ceremony,’ I say.

‘I didn’t do it for you.’

He picks up the lamp and starts moving into the dark passage. With a sigh, I follow him.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Layla

M
addie asks me to lunch and we arrange to meet in an Italian restaurant half-way between both our workplaces. I arrive first and am sitting with a bottle of mineral water when she walks through the door. She does not smile when her eyes meet mine. Not even as she slips into the chair opposite me.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, surprised by her unfriendly demeanor.

‘Yeah?’ Her jaw is clenched, and her tone is an inch away from downright hostility.

I don’t react to it. ‘Yeah. I’m all right. I’m not in pain or anything like that.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ I say, knowing that she is brewing towards some kind of confrontation.

‘Well, you’re the lucky one, then. Because I’m in pain, and I bet you’ve got poor BJ bleeding his heart out.’

I stare at her in astonishment.

Her eyes stab at me angrily. ‘I never thought I’d say this but you’re so cruel, Layla. How could you do this to all of us?’ She takes a shuddering breath before carrying on. ‘We love you so much, and there you are giving it all up for a … a … fucking fetus. It doesn’t love you like we do. Fuck, it doesn’t even feel.’

I sense myself start to crumble inside. My defenses are weak. Everyday I am fighting to keep it all together when all I want to do is weep. Because I’m the one who could lose everything.

Blindly, I reach for a packet of breadsticks and tear it open. All around us are the civilized, muted sounds of cutlery against plates, conversation, laughter, and piped music.

Don’t cry, Layla. Just don’t do it.

I pull a stick out and bring it to my mouth, but my body doesn’t want it. One part of me says it is full of preservatives another part simply feels too sad to even pretend to eat. No one truly understands. Not Ma, not Jake, not BJ, and now, not even Maddie. Tears are stinging at the backs of my eyes. I blink them away, and place the breadstick back on the pristine tablecloth so it is almost perfectly aligned with the knife.