The Business (62 page)

Kenny was distressed at his sister’s obvious bitterness and anger. He knew that she had good reason for her antipathy towards her mother, he also knew that, until she faced her one to one, she would never be completely free. He felt that Jordanna needed to see their mother for the broken and nondescript person she really was. If she saw her properly, as she was now, saw how completely devoid of anything even remotely resembling her old self, he felt Jordanna would finally be able to move on. He had forgiven his mother when she had gone away to save her daughter’s arse. He was a realist: he knew that Imelda had not really had any choice in the matter. But he chose to overlook that. He felt that whatever she was, she was still their mother. And, as such, they were honourbound to accept her. He also knew that Jordanna had always taken the brunt of Imelda’s madness, had been the thorn in her side. He had guessed, early on, that every time she looked at her daughter, she saw herself, saw the person she should have been had she not chosen the needle over everyone and everything else in her life. But she had, and that was tough shit for all concerned.

‘Look, Jorge, all I want is for you to make your peace with her. I have and, believe me, it wasn’t easy. But, at the end of the day, she
is
our mother. And, as such, we have a fucking duty towards her. I forced her to go away for you, we all know that. It ain’t like no one ever worked that one out for themselves, is it? She might still get on the big train; drugs are her lifeline after all, but she just wants you to accept that she done your time for you. That’s all. And I think if you are
so
fucking religious, then you should see her, let her make her peace. If you did that, she wouldn’t keep hunting you down, and she wouldn’t keep starting fights with you.
You
know what she’s like, she will cause a big fucking row just to get a reaction. If you really want shot, then
talk
to her, let her say her piece. She
needs
to talk to you and I think you need to hear what she has to say.’

Jordanna looked into Kenny Boy’s handsome face and knew he was the victim of his own success. He saw his acceptance of his mother as him being the big, benevolent Face. If
he
could accept her, then so should everyone else. They had to, because she was
his
mother and, as such, she could
not
be disrespected. He saw that as a reflection on him, saw that as a personal affront. Even though the people concerned might not see Imelda in quite the same light. He chose to forget a lot and only then because he was more interested in his own fucking personal reputation, his own fucking standing in the community. Jordanna understood that to an extent, she knew better than anybody how hard it was to be related to Imelda Dooley. But Kenny Boy’s sudden fucking desire to defend his mother’s actions and then to try and justify them to
her
, of all people, really rankled.

Kenny didn’t remember Imelda, not really. He had been her golden boy, her little man and the only reason she had cared for him was because he had been a big lump, a heavy-boned child who was obviously big for his age, and Imelda had basked in his reflected glory. Everyone had remarked on his
size
, on his
strength
, on his good looks. Imelda had seen him as a reflection of herself.

Imelda had killed his father, and she had conveniently put the blame for that on her little daughter. What
he
didn’t know, or anyone else for that matter, was that there had been a second shot fired that night, fired from her little hands, and that her so-called mother had shot the gun into the big double mattress Lance had shared with her, while holding the gun in her daughter’s hands. She remembered the pain from the gun’s report. How its powerful kickback had hurt her all over. How it had
jarred
her shoulders, and made her teeth rattle inside her head. She had remembered her mother threatening her that if she spoke about it to anyone she would be taken away and she would never see anyone she knew again. Her own mother had forced her to look at Lance’s corpse and had assured her that she would be blamed. She had to promise that she would never say a word about it to anyone. It had been easy, really, she had lived with lies and secrets ever since she could remember. Her mother and her granny had seen to that.

She had lived with the images of that night her entire life, and she had still kept her own counsel, even when she had finally understood what had really happened. She had spent such a large part of her life trying to make her mother care for her, make her mother acknowledge her in some way. She had hoped and prayed that her continued silence for so many years would make her mother finally accept her. But it had never happened and, finally, she had accepted that it was never going to happen. She had suddenly understood that she was so far beneath her mother’s radar that her involvement in anything pertaining to her mother was negligible as far as Imelda was concerned. In short, she knew that she just didn’t exist for her. She also knew, even then, as young as she was, that that would never change. It was another thing that she had pushed down inside of her, another thing she had tried to blot out. To bully a child was a terrible thing, but to ignore them and their desperate attempts for attention, was far more wicked.

Kenny Boy had
never
been on the receiving end of his mother’s hate, or her spite. He still didn’t understand, all these years later, how she had used her own flesh and blood for her own ends. He wouldn’t understand, even now, that he had been protected, had been sheltered from his own mother’s self-destructive lifestyle. And that was only because of how Imelda had used her own daughter. Kenny Boy didn’t realise that, if it wasn’t for
her
taking the brunt of Imelda’s lunacy, he would have eventually been used by her as a scapegoat as well.

Jordanna knew that her brother was only arguing their mother’s case because she, his sister, had in effect turned her back on him, and all he stood for. But that wasn’t anything personal, it wasn’t about him. It was about
her
, and her
need
to make her life mean something. She had realised after her breakdown just how useless and vacuous her life had been. She had been bundled off to Spain, money had been thrown about in huge amounts, and she had once more been expected to digest, to accept, and to forget what had happened to her. Even her granny, God love her, had expected her to just wipe it all away. Forget about it, pretend it had never happened. Kenny Boy, like Granny Mary, had managed to do just that. Like Mary Dooley, Kenny had the knack of deleting from his psyche anything that he saw as troublesome. Well, Jordanna didn’t have that knack, and she had always known that. Imelda could do it, she did it unconsciously; she could edit anything that happened in her life to suit her own ends.

Imelda took after her mother for that and, as much as Jordanna loved her granny, she knew better than anybody just how easy Mary found rewriting history for her own ends. This, after all, was a woman who had buried her husband amid serious accusations and violence, and who had then turned her back on her own sons. This was the same woman who had regularly visited her only daughter in prison, knowing all the while that she had been the cause of
her
granddaughter’s complete mental breakdown. The same granddaughter that she had taken great pleasure in removing from her only daughter’s orbit all those years before. Jordanna had believed, for all those years, that she had done all that to save
her
from her mother’s car crash of a life but she now knew that she had actually done it to ensure that she had another family to raise. She had allowed her husband free rein with her first batch of babies, had walked away from her sons and made sure that her daughter’s children were wholly hers. Her granny had her love, she always would, but she had lost her from the day that she had learnt of her granny’s new-found interest in her daughter.

Jordanna couldn’t pretend that things had not happened, couldn’t pretend that she didn’t care: unlike Kenny Boy, whose attitude was if you don’t think about it then it never happened. Her breakdown proved that she
did
care, that all the things she had pushed aside, that she had forced away, that she had tried to forget, could
never
be erased, forgotten about. She had been forced to confront them, had been forced to accept them, and she had finally understood that her breakdown had culminated in an act of violence so shocking and so devastating that she would never get over it. She would never again know a day’s real peace, or experience a full night’s sleep.

Unlike her brother, Jordanna wasn’t capable of conveniently forgetting the things that she didn’t want to remember any more. Her trouble was that she remembered them too well, in stunning clarity, and they were the reason that she would never again know a truly happy day.

Kenny Boy was genuinely heartbroken at his sister’s sorrow, he could feel the deep sadness that he knew would always be a part of her. In fact, had always been a part of her since he could remember.

Jordanna had always been there for him, all his life she had been the one person he had known he could rely on. She had been the only person who had never been scared of him, who had never had a hidden agenda. He knew how terrifying he could be, he knew that, like his mother, he was incapable of really caring for anyone, except this woman before him. Jordanna was the only person he had ever loved. His granny Mary had his care, she had his loyalty but, like his mother, she was only really important to him because she was his flesh and blood. Other than Jorge, there was nobody.

Her breakdown had affected him far more than he had ever let on. He had seen it as a personal affront, seen it as something he could not control, that he couldn’t mend, couldn’t make better. He had understood, for the first time in his life, that money and prestige were worthless when you were faced with genuine grief. He had been forced to accept that some things in life were far too important for money to make a difference. Kenny had watched his sister live quite happily in her little house, and saw her try to heal herself with prayer and a belief in a God who he felt, in his darker moments, had abandoned his sister from a very young age.

‘Please, Jordanna, don’t make me feel like I failed you, all I have ever wanted is what was best for you. I still want that.’

Jordanna smiled sadly, and Kenny saw the evenness of her teeth, the kindness in her face that her smile always portrayed. He saw the dark blue of her eyes that, even without make-up, made the person looking into them see the beauty inside her. She had high cheekbones and thick, blond hair that needed a good cut, but still shone with a burnished gold coveted by the majority of women. Jordanna was a real beauty, but the saddest thing of all was that she genuinely didn’t know that. She honestly had no idea just how lovely she really was.

Jordanna had wandered through her life and she had never once realised her true worth, she had stumbled from one fucking disaster to another. Kenny knew that he had turned a blind eye to her problems, had been more than happy to pretend that they had not even existed. He had removed his mother from her orbit, and that had assuaged his guilt for a while. But, deep down, he had known that one day he would have to deal with all of this. Why was it that he only admitted that to himself now?

‘I hate her, Kenny, and I pray every day for that to change. But it doesn’t. In fact, my antipathy for her just seems to deepen, and my capacity for hatred towards her seems to grow stronger by the second. Every time I move away, she tracks me down, and I have to subdue the urge to physically attack her. Destroy her once and for all, because until she is dead and gone, I know I will never experience even one day of real peace. So
stop
trying to buy me happiness,
stop
trying to purchase my peace of mind, and please
stop
believing that one day I will finally let her come back into my life. It will
never
happen. Unlike
you
, Kenny, I remember the
real
Imelda and, unlike you, I know what she is really capable of. I’ll move house again if I have to. I really don’t want to do that, but if that is what it takes, then that is what I am willing to do. You want her,
you
can have her, but don’t try and palm her off on me. I’ve had just about enough of her to last me a lifetime.’

Kenny saw the distress and the anger in his sister’s face, he felt the hurt as she instinctively stepped away from him, distanced herself from him both physically as well as mentally.

‘She went away for you, and because of that I will be eternally grateful to her. Nan pointed that out to me, Jorge, and she was right.’

Jordanna nodded her hread slowly and Kenny knew that she’d had just about enough for one day.

‘Read my lips, Kenny, I really don’t give a flying fuck.’

 

Imelda was stoned out of her brains; she was unaware of how out of it she actually was, but that was nothing unusual for her. As Imelda cut herself a line of coke, she silently thanked God for her son’s generosity. He knew she had done them a favour and, Imelda being Imelda, she now felt that her selfless act could never really be repaid by her children. As she snorted the large, fluffy white line of cocaine, she allowed herself to dwell on her children’s disrespectful behaviour and their gross ungratefulness. Although her son saw her all right for money and her other sundries, knowing that he was in receipt of serious amounts of wedge, had started to bother her.

Imelda’s sensible head reminded her that she was not to be trusted with money; she admitted that if she had twenty quid, she would spend twenty-
one
quid. But, all the same, she had come out of nick expecting her children to welcome her with open arms. She had kicked the needle, though she still used occasionally when the urge came over her. In Holloway she had been introduced to the wonders of cocaine. A drug she felt was far more suited to her particular personality. There, heroin users were seen as being below even child killers, and Imelda had understood that from the off. As a murderer, she knew that she would be kept as A-category for a while. So she had weaned herself off the habit with the help of methadone and a social worker from the Gambia who had a sketchy command of the English language and a rather unhealthy habit of believing everything he was told. Consequently, Imelda had had a field day. She had been weaned off the needle, but still maintained the availability of her methadone, and had sold it on in good faith for a tidy profit. Her son’s name had guaranteed her an easy ride, and that was why she now felt confident enough to push her luck as and when the fancy came over her. She had gone inside because she had not had any other options available to her; she had fucked up big time with everyone around her. But she had also come to realise that she was doing a dirty great big favour for her kids at the same time.