Maura's Game (14 page)

Her voice trailed off and Dennis grabbed her hand and kissed her fat fingers.

“That was over thirty years ago.”

“Oh, don’t remind me. How did this happen to us, Den? When did we get this old?”

He laughed.

“I don’t know, girl. It just crept up on us. Have you wrapped Maura’s present?”

She nodded.

“Of course. Hope she likes it.”

“So do I, it cost enough.”

Marge flapped her hand at her husband.

“I could hardly get her something from Marks and Spencer, could I?”

“I suppose not. But Maura understands we ain’t got the money she’s got.”

Marge wasn’t listening, she was too busy looking at her eldest daughter and her Sikh husband getting their kids from the car.

Dennis followed his wife’s gaze and sighed.

“They’ve been married over twenty years, Marge. You’re going to have to get used to it some time.”

“I am used to it and I love them kids, you know I do. But the shit she takes hurts me and I know it hurts her.”

“She’s an adult, Marge, and the kids are all growing up now. Leave her be and let them sort themselves out. You talk about bloody Sarah Ryan, you’re no better.”

Marge was saved from answering by her daughter’s appearance in her new kitchen.

“Oh, Mum, it’s bleeding handsome.”

“Do you like it, love? Sit down and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”

Dennis was smiling as his wife put on her usual best behaviour for her son-in-law. She was a case was his Marge and he loved her with every ounce of his being.

Chapter Seven

Sarah looked at the table laden with food and hoped she had not worked all day for nothing. If Maura spurned her, Sarah didn’t know what she would do. Inside herself she knew that it was important she made her peace with her daughter before she went to meet her Maker. And she wondered if she could honestly meet up with her husband Benjamin Senior and look him in the eye if she left this earth estranged from his favourite child.

She looked around the kitchen. The house in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, had been bought by Michael and now her daughter owned it. Maura had never once brought that fact up but Sarah knew that she lived as she did because her daughter decreed it. She had never held a grudge in that way towards her mother so maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for them. If she could only turn Maura from the error of her ways she could die in peace.

Sarah welcomed the thought of death. She wanted to see her husband and the sons who’d gone before, even Michael who she was convinced would be a good and kind man now he was in the Kingdom of Heaven. She could not believe that Our Gracious Lord would put her children anywhere else: hadn’t she prayed for the repose of their souls for years and years?

Maura was mellowing. Age did that to a body and Sarah had heard through Roy that she was largely handing the bent business over to Garry and Benny these days. That was what had given her the idea of trying to bring her daughter back to the Church, into the Catholic fold. And if she changed, maybe Benny would too.

This set her thinking about death once more. Her own death. Her grandson was her heart, God love him. He was her Michael all over again and she had to try making peace with Maura, for Benny’s sake.

If she could do it, make Maura a daughter once more, a real daughter, then maybe she could get her on her side to show Benny the error of his ways. It was all very simple really. If only Sarah had thought of it years ago.

Happy now, she pottered around her kitchen cutting more sandwiches and making more cakes. Tonight would be a triumph for her, she was sure.

In fact, she was depending on it.

Benny got to Maura’s at just after twelve. She was thinking about Michael and seeing Benny was like seeing her brother before her. Until he spoke.

“All right, Maws? You look like you seen a ghost.”

“I feel like I have. You’re getting more and more like Mickey every day.”

Benny loved hearing this. Uncle Michael was his hero. He would sometimes seek out old lags who had worked with his dead uncle and would pump them for anecdotes about him. He wanted to be Michael so badly he even tried to affect some of his mannerisms.

He smiled at his aunt.

“I aim to please. You look lovely, nothing like fifty.”

Maura closed her blue eyes in annoyance. If one more person mentioned the word fifty again she would do someone a damage.

“Do you think so?”

Benny grinned.

“I want to tell you something in private, Maws. Me and Carol already agreed we’re getting married. I’m announcing it tonight. She’s just told me she’s having a baby an’ all.”

Maura’s face lit up with pleasure.

“This is wonderful news. Congratulations.”

Benny was embarrassed and it showed. Maura was surprised to see just how excited and shy he was about the news. He put the kettle on to stop himself from crying and as she saw the sheer jubilation in him she wondered if this might just be the making of him. Family loyalty was inherent in him; having a child might make him appreciate the benefits of continuity, help calm him down.

She hoped so.

“It’s the best birthday present I could have been given. I am over the moon for you, Ben,” she said encouragingly.

He placed the teapot on the table and Maura was amused once more at how finicky he was about such things. When he had served them both he sat opposite her and said seriously, “I am so jealous, Maura, that I’m ruining my relationship with Carol. But I can’t help it, you know? I feel inside like I’m going to explode with love for her, and if I even see her talk to someone else I want to kill them both even though I know she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. I’m afraid that she’ll like them more than me, see?”

His eyes reflected genuine pain as he tried to explain his innermost feelings and Maura knew what it must have taken for him to come to her with this.

“I worry that she’ll realise just how bad I really am. How ignorant and stupid in comparison to other blokes.”

Maura could have cried for her nephew. He was talking from the heart, and knowing how proud he was she marvelled at how hard it must have been for him to say all this to her. But he trusted her, respected her, and she knew it was a real compliment that he felt he could talk this way to her.

She stared into his troubled eyes and suddenly felt the urge to run away: from him and her family, from all of it. They came to her no matter what problems she might have of her own. She knew that because she had no children it was assumed she had no life. It had always been like that. She fought the urge to run.

Instead she said quietly, “What are you going to do then? Have you thought about this? Thought about how you can stop this behaviour?”

He nodded. After taking a sip of the scalding tea, he said with supreme honesty, “I was thinking of going on one of them anger management courses, what do you think?”

He sounded so earnest she wanted to cry. But she also wanted to laugh out loud. Benny on an anger management course? The Airfix King of Essex? The man who kept a cattle prod on his person day and night just in case someone upset him?

Yet she knew he was serious. That he wanted to change his life if only so he did not lose his Carol.

She laughed, the humour of it too much for her, and Benny laughed with her. Albeit nervously.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea then?”

He was still grinning nervously and her heart went out to him.

“It’s up to you, Benny. But I think you should say this to Carol, not to me. She is the one you should be talking to. She is the one carrying your child and who you need to reassure.”

He nodded and she knew he regretted telling her his innermost thoughts. It was always the way with deep feelings: people resented you once they’d exposed themselves to you. She supposed it was human nature.

“Silly fucker, ain’t I? But I want this to be right, Maws. I lost it again this morning and put the fear of fuck up her. I can’t bear the thought of hurting her and I know, even while I’m ranting and raving, that what I am doing is wrong. On one level I know I am out of order but the rage takes over. Seems to obliterate everything else.”

He grabbed her hand tightly.

“Help me, Maws. You’re the only person I would listen to, you know that.”

“Michael was the same. Garry’s like it and all. You sound just like Mickey when you talk: he used to say the same things to me. All I can advise is that you talk to Carol, explain how you feel. It’s a form of self-hatred. You don’t feel good enough for her, do you?”

He shook his head, pleased she understood him, that he could unburden himself to her without feeling a fool even while he didn’t really want to hear what she was saying.

“Well, you have to find a way to make yourself feel good enough for her. You have to use all your strength and force yourself to stop making scenes about things. Do you understand what I’m saying, Ben? You have to make yourself stop hurting her, and yourself, with your behaviour. You need to respect her and her right to talk to other people. She loves you, Benny, you can see that, surely? I mean, she must, some of the stunts you’ve pulled over the years and she’s still there beside you.”

He nodded.

“Yeah. You’re right, Maws.”

He stretched, and it was as if he’d had the weight of the world taken off his shoulders.

“In future I am going to leave the prod in the car. I am going to take a deep breath and tell me self that I love her and therefore I mustn’t hurt her in any way.”

“That’s it, Benny. You know it makes sense. Now, more tea?”

He shook his head.

“No, Maws, I have to get back. I’m taking her out for a few hours before tonight’s jollifications…”

“What’s happening tonight then?”

He grinned once more.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He rose from his chair and hugged her across the table.

“Thanks, Auntie Maura. I feel so much better now.”

“You’ll be all right, Benny, just try and keep that temper of yours in check. Keep it for the business, leave family out of it. And Carol is your family now, remember.”

He nodded.

When he had gone Maura thought about what he had said and felt a terrible sadness fall over her day. Benny was mad, everyone knew that. He swung from extreme laughter to murderous rage within a split second. What was the kink in their family that made so many of them like that? Had to be their mother, she knew it inside herself. If her own child had lived, would it have been the same? Maura shook off the thought; she would never have let it be like that. Janine and her mother had made Benny and Michael what they were with their neediness and obsession with their sons. Neither of them had had any time for their daughters, as she herself knew from experience. Sins of the mothers and all that. She sighed, depressed once more.

Then the thought of Benny on an anger management course made her smile again. She could see the newspaper headline now: “Man on anger management course glues eyes of course leader together and attacks him with cattle prod’.

It wasn’t funny really, and she knew that, but it still made her smile.

As she loaded the dishwasher she wondered what her life would become. She was fifty years old and surrounded by a lunatic family whom she loved, but with no children and no real happiness of her own.

She closed her eyes briefly as loneliness descended on her once more. She had to hand over the businesses properly and get a life before it was too late. It was the only way out for her and she knew it. If she didn’t do it now she never would. She had done what she could for her family and now it was time to take care of herself.

In her mind’s eye she saw Terry smiling at her and felt the pain of his loss once more. She pushed the thought away and walked from the house.

As she got into her car she wondered where the hell she was going. It wasn’t the first time she had driven herself nowhere. In fact, it was becoming a regular occurrence.

She knew that eventually she would end up at Michael’s grave. Even though she was inwardly determined she wasn’t going there, she knew it would be her journey’s end. She missed him so much and being near him reassured her. She still didn’t know why that was; he was dead and buried this long time.

But it did.

Sheila and Sarah watched the children running amok in the garden together. They smiled at the antics of the smallest boy and the only girl, who was treated with kid gloves by her brothers and lorded it over them all.

“The food looks nice, Sarah.”

The old woman shrugged.

“It’s all her favourites. I remember how Maura used to help me when she was small. She was a good child.”

“All children are good.”

Sarah smiled.

“Not all. You know, my Garry was a bastard from the first day he drew breath. I’ve been driven demented by him all his life, him and his shagging inventing! Nearly killed my Benny he did once.”

She was quiet for a few seconds before saying sadly, “He was killed anyway so maybe it would have been better if he had died then. They tortured him, did you know that? My Benny. My baby boy. He died a painful and terrifying death.”

They both shuddered, remembering the way Benny’s head had been found on Hampstead Heath. There were tears on Sarah’s face now and Sheila placed an arm gently round her shoulders.

“Don’t upset yourself.”

But the fear was in her voice and Sarah heard it.

“It’s only me reminiscing, it’s just me age. My Michael would have been in his sixties now. I have trouble at times realising just how old ”’ I am. My Michael would have been sixty-five to be exact. Can you imagine that?”

“I hope I see my children grow up to be old.”

;. “I wanted that as well, but it never happened, did it? Not with I them all anyway.” Sarah grinned.

“He would have hated being a pensioner anyway, my poor Michael.”

They laughed at her words and the dark mood was broken.

“My Lee was always the good boy. He just follows the pack, always did. Bear that in mind when you’re cross with him, Sheila.”

She went to make another of her endless cups of tea. Sheila watched her children closely. She watched for any of the | bad Ryan traits, determined to stamp them out before they took hold. She would not bury any of her kids, she knew that much.