Faces (35 page)

Danny Boy had asked her to make a cup of tea as if this was a normal day, as if everything was OK. She knew his reputation as someone with a short fuse, a quick temper, but she had never believed in a million years that it would be turned on her. So she sat there, and she waited for him to finish what he was doing, and decided to accept whatever punishment he decided to dole out.

When he walked back into the bedroom, his body glistening with the water from his shower, she almost flinched. It was only now, seeing him naked, that she realised just what a big man he was. He was solid, all muscle and soft skin. She felt the tears come once more as she saw what she was going to have to give up. He stood before her, and she looked up into his handsome face. The face she had dreamed about for so long, and saw that he was smiling at her. The lazy, relaxed smile that fooled everyone into thinking he was one of the good guys.

He was looking at her, his dark blue eyes devoid of anger, instead they were soft and caring and Mary couldn’t believe that he was not berating her for the destruction of their wedding day. ‘Are you all right, mare?’

He sounded concerned, so kind and gentle that she wondered if she was dreaming.

She shook her head sadly. ‘I am really sorry for what happened, Danny Boy, I am so very sorry. Gordon doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time . . . He drinks, he’s always on drugs . . .’

She was trying to justify her brother’s behaviour and she didn’t know why; he didn’t deserve her loyalty, he had never shown any towards her.

Danny knelt down in front of her and said quietly, ‘He was only telling the truth, mare. Tell the truth and shame the Devil, remember. You were a fucking whore, and I have to live with that, don’t I?’

He grinned then, his even teeth pristine and his breath all cool and minty from the toothpaste he used. He was still smiling, and his words finally broke her spirit. He stood up and said gently, ‘Now, make the fucking tea, will you, and don’t ever make me have to repeat myself again.’

Chapter Sixteen

Mary was waiting for her husband to come home, but her nerves were so bad she was shaking like the proverbial leaf. She was sick inside, the cold sweat covering her body making her skin tighten, making her teeth chatter amongst themselves. She could feel the fear inside her, and knew that she had expected something like this since her first date, the danger that was Danny Boy was the attraction. The knowledge that he was an unknown quantity had attracted her, even though she had not admitted any of this to herself until now.

She looked in the bathroom mirror and saw that she was immaculate, as always. Despite what had occurred at their wedding she still made a conscious effort to look her best, look as if nothing could, or would, faze her, a trick she had learned from her years with Kenny. People only knew what you told them, only saw what you wanted them to see. Her mother had hammered that into her head since she was a child, a child with huge breasts and the knowledge of a woman three times her age.

You’re sitting on a goldmine, you play your cards right and you’ll never want for anything
. Her mother’s words were still crystal clear, except for the fact that she had actually fallen for Danny Boy many years before. He had been her childhood crush, her first love. Now she wasn’t sure what he was, or even what
she
was any more. All she knew now was that she was in danger, grave danger. He had shown his hand, his true feelings for her, and that had badly frightened her. She knew her humiliation was complete because he had known she would have him back in a heartbeat.

Her make-up was perfect, her skin was clear, and her thick, dark hair was salon fresh. Even at the worst time of her life, she was inordinately aware of how she looked, how her outward demeanour would guarantee her coming through this with at least a modicum of self-respect. She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down. Danny Boy had never really appreciated her natural nervousness, in fact, it angered him, and yet his anger only served to make her nervousness even worse.

She never knew whether he was going to come home to her; he was a law unto himself in that respect. But, if he did come home, she wanted to be ready for him as she had always been. She had spent the best part of the day making herself look beautiful for a man who she knew despised her, but who, she also knew, would never let her go. She was his now, and there was nothing she could do about that. It was too late. Danny Boy had destroyed her in a few short words, and her own brother had happily given him the ammunition he had taken great pleasure in firing right back at her. Gordon was unaware that he had been the conduit for the reason that her brand-new husband would use as an excuse for bad behaviour. Danny Boy was not a man to let things pass him by, not someone who would turn the other cheek. He was a man who looked at every opportunity and then worked out how best to turn it to his own advantage. In short, he was not unlike herself, they were both users, and they were both willing to use whatever means they could to further their own ends; unfortunately she had believed that they could have worked together on that in the future. Not use it against each other.

Danny Boy had the knack of making her feel like absolute shit, and she was on the brink of believing him. She looked at herself once more in the mirror and wondered at how this had happened to her. She remembered Kenny and what she now saw as his easy-going ways, remembered Danny Boy when he had been so determined to get her. How he had made sure she had felt wanted, and how he had made Kenny seem lacking to her. All her confidence had now left her, had disappeared almost overnight, and she knew that was precisely what Danny had wanted to happen, had ordained. She knew that he had not slept with her before the marriage because he had known that would throw her off the scent. He had been determined to destroy his arch-enemy and that somehow included her. He had finally taken her, one week after the wedding fiasco; he had taken her roughly, viciously, and she had been unable to walk for days after. His use of her, which was no better than his use of a common prostitute, was the final nail in the coffin of their so-called love. He had not only hurt her physically but, more to the point, mentally. He had deliberately, and with serious amounts of malice, taken her like a dog would take a bitch in heat, without any kind of care, or love, or real want. It had been nothing more than an act of destruction, an act of hatred. The final betrayal of their love and the final nail in the coffin of their real lives. He had wanted to make a point, wanted to make her realise just how little he really thought of her, wanted her to feel like she was less than nothing.

And it had worked. He had done his homework, and he knew she was too proud to admit her mistake out loud, and she was now far too frightened to do anything about her situation. Her fear of her husband was overwhelming. She knew without a second’s doubt just what he was capable of where she was concerned.

She had finally accepted her fate, accepted his complete ownership of her. She had known then, as she knew now, that leaving him would
never
be an option; he would kill her first, and he was an old hand at that. She also knew that their marriage was, for some reason, very important to him. It was something that he cherished, something he saw as not only important but, even more frighteningly, as something decent and good. Even after everything he had done to her.

The public humiliation, the loss of face and, worst of all, the guarantee that no one would ever see her as anything more than his wife, the wife he had married even though it was now assumed she wasn’t worthy of him. He was a clever man, a vicious man, but he was also a man of means, a man who was looked on as someone to respect, admire. He was her husband, and that was the most terrifying thing. She was tied to him, and the tie was not something
she
could break, that would only happen if
he
decided it had run its course, if
he
wanted out of the marriage.

Their actual life together would be, she knew, fraught with danger; he saw her as some kind of trophy, she saw him as some kind of maniac. He thought nothing of dragging her out of the bed by her hair at three in the morning, a favourite trick of Kenny’s, accusing her of all sorts. Accusing her of conducting affairs with his friends, even though he knew his so-called friends would never have had the guts to bed her, even if they had wanted to. She was aware that he knew his accusations had no basis in fact but, like everyone else around him, she didn’t try to argue with him about it. You didn’t argue with the Danny Boys of this world, you did whatever it took to keep the peace. You swallowed whatever he doled out and hoped against hope that things would get better. Even though you knew that they never would.

Mary knew that Danny needed her to vent his spleen on, and needed her to be acquiescent, needed her to allow him his rage. She was already becoming immune to it, was already able to shut herself off and let him take out his enormous anger on her without even a groan of pain. She was pleased that this, at least, pleased him, that her complete subservience was enough to keep him relatively happy anyway.

The home they shared was spotless, as he expected it to be; she was even afraid to sit on the furniture in case she made it look used, dented the cushions, or stained it somehow. The house was huge and, like a show home, it was perfect, but it had no soul. There was nothing real around her, not even a photograph, to make this place feel like a home. Danny Boy hadn’t even allowed her to
see
their wedding photos, much less let her display any of them. But she had gone behind his back on that at least; she had asked Michael to purchase a small album of their day on the quiet, she had wanted it for their children’s sakes. She knew that one day those photos would be important to the people they might have created. She wanted something to prove to them her validity in their world.

She knew Danny was desperate for a child, a son. And she had a child inside her,
his
child, and she was excited about that, hoped that this baby would bring them together again, would cancel out the wedding fiasco. Deep inside she understood that her hopes would be dashed, but she still prayed that her pregnancy would stop his angry assaults upon her body for a while, and stop the viciousness of his words. He spoke to her with a calm hatred that was as disgusting as it was regular. She wondered just when this had suddenly begun to seem like perfectly normal behaviour, and when she had actively stopped trying to make him like her again. She wondered when she had started to actually believe that a child would stop the nightmare that was her marriage.

She saw that she had gnawed off the lipstick she had applied so carefully throughout the day, and as she reapplied it, she held back the tears, the tears she knew were not only useless, but also guaranteed to wreck the perfection of her face. Danny Boy could arrive home at five in the morning, and she knew that he still expected her to be sitting there with full make-up on, waiting on him with a smile on her perfect face and the promise of complete submission from her body, and he always got exactly what he wanted. Even though she might have to wait for hours and hours, it was worth it to keep the peace. She waited and she waited for his arrival home, and she calmed her nerves with a few drinks as she sat alone and watched the clock, sometimes for days on end.

She hated him now, with all her heart and soul.

 

Danny Boy and Michael were arranging to pick up a few parcels of aspirin, which was how they referred to the anabolic steroids they were already distributing in large amounts throughout the south east. The parcels were innocuous; wrapped in plain brown paper they looked like a birthday present, but they actually contained more drugs than anyone would ever believe. Danny Boy had been spot on with this money-maker, the drugs were not only necessary to the people who acquired them, they were also semi-legal. No one could actually prove that the drugs, when seized, were not for personal consumption, which was why they were picking them up for themselves. No one cared enough about the body-building population to make sure they were safe. Danny Boy was aware of their dangers and, like anyone else involved in any kind of business, he knew all there was to know about his product. He knew that the drugs caused violent episodes, that the men taking them on a daily basis were kidding themselves because, without them, they couldn’t hope to achieve the body mass they so desperately desired. He knew that the drugs were bought and injected without any medical knowledge whatsoever, and that they were usually only half the strength of legitimate drugs anyway. He also knew that the people he supplied them to were flakes, wankers, who were not prepared to put in the hours that were needed to guarantee the body they desired, and that once they took the drugs in question they would come back time and time again for more because they were unable to function properly without them.

It was a win-win situation. It was also a market that was growing by the hour. Danny had picked up this load for one reason only. To spread them out and about into his world, and to get the general consensus on their veracity. He had been assured that they were good, that they were worth their weight in gold. If this was proved to be true, Danny Boy was set to pick up the equivalent of a lorryload once a week. They would be dropped at the scrapyard, and Louie would get himself a good drink for turning a blind eye.

Michael was, as always, quiet, they both knew that their new venture was a money-spinner, and they also knew that, since the wedding, they were somehow unable to get back to their original friendship.

Mary was Michael’s heart, at least that was what he had believed, still believed. Since the marriage, however, she was rarely seen out and about. She was also rarely seen in the marital home; if anyone went there she was either in bed or out shopping. He knew she was there though, just not showing her face, and Michael didn’t know how to broach this subject with Danny Boy. After all, Mary was now his wife and, as such, she wasn’t really under Michael’s jurisdiction any more. This bothered him, it was like a lot of things in his life, he knew he should do something about it, but he also knew there was nothing he could do. Unless Mary came to him directly and asked for his intervention, he could only stand back and wait until he knew the score. In his heart though, he was not looking forward to her arriving on his doorstep, Danny Boy was not a man you could reason with. And, if truth be told, personally he would rather not have to. The abortion that had constituted the wedding that had been to blame for his sister’s retirement from public life had been such a public embarrassment, such an awful situation. If he had been on the receiving end of it, he wasn’t sure he would have coped as well as Danny Boy had. That was the bugbear, he knew his friend had been mugged off and the fact he had still allowed Mary access to his home was to his credit in many respects. Any other man would have fucked her off big-time. At least, that was the general consensus anyway, though most of their older contemporaries were already onto a second or third wife of dubious character, and even more dubious morals. Youth being the only real requirement, the brains being used up by the first wife, the main wife. The woman who had stood by them through thick and thin, whose only sin had been to get old, and get old just as the dosh started rolling in. A young bird was a requisite these days, it gave the men in question the illusion of youth, made them feel powerful once more. It was only when they actually left the marital home that they seemed to realise the foolishness of their actions. By then they were well and truly lumbered. Young girls on a regular basis were a pain in the arse. Once the fuck was complete, what was there to keep a man enamoured?