The Make (10 page)
Authors: Jessie Keane
22 December
When Gracie got back to her mum’s place, there was a slight, pale-skinned girl with long, glossy, ash-blonde hair sitting at the kitchen table with Suze, drinking tea. Both looked up as Gracie came in but neither smiled.
‘Hi,’ said Gracie, sore of foot and heavy of heart. She’d phoned the garage to get her precious, beautiful car towed and the tyres replaced, and they ‘couldn’t say’ how long all this was going to take; they would phone her to let her know when she could collect it.
‘But I need my car,’ she’d protested.
‘Lady,’ said the mechanic at the end of the phone, ‘have a heart, will you? We’re up to our arses here, and it’s Christmas. Lighten up.’
Then she’d schlepped from George and Harry’s flat over to where Cuthill, the private landlord, lived. Paid the miserable bastard, got a receipt for her money. By the time that was accomplished, it was mid-afternoon, and getting dark. She’d caught the tube, passing a Santa strumming a banjo down there in the depths, his small black dog wearing reindeer horns; then she’d walked until her feet throbbed, and pitched up back at home.
Home.
Well, once it had been that. Years ago. Now it was a strange place, filled with strange people.
‘This is Sandy Cole,’ said Suze.
‘We spoke on the phone,’ said the girl, in that same high, almost childlike voice. She got to her feet and held out a hand. ‘You’re Gracie, right?’
Gracie shook hands briefly and sat down. She was tired. Worried about her brothers and her business. Unsure of her feelings after seeing Lorcan again after such a long time. She wanted to grab a hot shower in her own beautiful flat, to sit on her own big couch and eat supper in front of the telly. She wanted everything back the way it was, normal. What she
didn’t
want was to be here, feeling her mother’s hostile gaze upon her, having to make conversation with a stranger.
‘I told Sandy about what happened with George last night,’ said Suze.
The smile dropped from Sandy’s face. ‘It’s awful.’ Her eyes filled up with tears. ‘My poor George.’
‘So you and he are quite an item,’ said Gracie, thinking that it would have been better if her mother had spared Sandy the grim details. What would it gain, distressing the poor cow even more than she already was?
Sandy nodded and sat down when Gracie did. ‘George proposed to me,’ she sniffed. ‘We’re in love. Look.’
She extended her bony little left hand and showed Gracie the ring on the index finger; it was a clear stone the size of a pinhead, possibly a diamond, set on a thin band of what looked like white gold.
‘He didn’t say a word about it,’ complained Suze. ‘You’d think he would, now wouldn’t you? But then, I don’t suppose I matter, do I? I’m just his mother, after all.’
‘Oh, I’m sure George would have told you soon,’ said Sandy, clearly anxious not to offend. ‘It was a whirlwind romance. We’d have been having an engagement party very soon. George promised. And then this happened, and now he’s in hospital . . .’ Her voice tailed off. She looked down at the table.
‘He’s tough. He’ll be fine,’ said Gracie, feeling sorry for the girl.
Suze gave Gracie a sour look. ‘Easy to say, when you don’t care.’
Gracie had to grit her teeth to keep back the angry words that threatened to come out at that. ‘I wouldn’t have driven down from Manchester if I didn’t care,’ she said instead.
‘It’s so awful,’ said Sandy, filling up all over again.
‘You going in to see him tonight?’ asked Gracie.
‘Yeah.’ Sandy had the tissues out, mopping at her eyes.
‘I might tag along. If you don’t mind?’
‘God no. I don’t mind. I’d like the company.’
‘Right.’ Gracie stood up. ‘I’m going up to get showered and changed.’
‘How’d you get on over at the flat?’ asked Suze. ‘You fetch George’s things? Bet it’s a mess.’
‘Yeah, I got his things. And it is a mess,’ said Gracie. ‘We’ll get a cleaner in, get it smartened up for when George gets out.’
‘
If
he does,’ said Suze darkly.
‘Unless you fancy getting your hands dirty?’ Gracie couldn’t resist that. She knew she should have, but she just couldn’t. Suze had never been a housework fiend. Her nails were French manicured even now. She just glared at Gracie. And was that
really
going to help poor bloody Sandy, hearing Suze say
if he does?
She left them to it, went on upstairs and into her old room. It was strange, being back in here. It seemed smaller. The decor had changed, and the bed linen was floral lavender – not her sort of colour choice, but it was clean, and neat. She kicked off her shoes, took off her blouse and was rummaging in her open suitcase for clean underclothes when someone tapped at the door and opened it immediately. Expecting Suze to start in on round two, Gracie was startled to see Claude standing there in the open doorway, with his eyes fastened to her front as usual. And to her intense irritation she realized that her bra was skimpy; there was a lot of her front to see.
‘Oh – sorry,’ he said, and gave a sheepish grin.
Gracie had had enough. The damage to her casino and then her car. The anxiety about George and Harry. Seeing Lorcan again. She felt suddenly as if her brain was about to implode with the stress of it all. And now,
this.
She stood there as if carved from stone and said: ‘You will be if you come in that fucking door unannounced again, arsehole. You got that?’
He looked startled. ‘Suze asked me to come up and see if you wanted something to eat, that’s all,’ he said, the grin vanishing, guilty colour rising on his florid cheeks.
‘No. I bloody well don’t.’ She’d grab something at the hospital, fuck this place. She took three swift strides across the room, fury sending the blood buzzing in her ears, and shoved Claude out on to the landing. His face was an almost comical mixture of shock, arousal and awkwardness. ‘Mother!’ Gracie yelled full volume down the stairs.
Claude was edging away from her now and making
don’t do that
gestures. But Gracie was only just getting up a full head of steam.
Suze poked her head out around the kitchen door. She gawped up at Gracie standing there on the top landing in her bra and skirt, and at Claude there beside her.
‘Hey, Mum – tell your
fucking
boyfriend to keep out of my room. He comes in here again without an invitation, I’m going to cut his nads off and stuff them down his bloody
throat
, okay?’
Gracie went back into her room and slammed the door shut. She faintly heard Claude saying
I don’t know what she’s talking about
, and Suze shouting something from the bottom of the stairs. Gracie took a chair and jammed it under the door handle. Then she started, once again, to get washed and changed.
This
time she was interrupted by her mobile. She picked up. Down in the hall, the shouting was escalating.
Well good
, she thought.
Better she knows what he’s like.
‘Hi Gracie, it’s me. Brynn.’
Gracie sat down on the bed. ‘Hey, Brynn. How you feeling now?’
‘Better.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘Yeah, but Gracie, there’s other stuff, I thought I’d better give you a call, let you know what’s been going on.’
‘How’re the staff? You’ve been in touch with them?’
‘Sure, sure. They’re on full pay, for now. Hope that’s okay.’
‘For now, yes. Of course we don’t know how long the repairs are going to take.’
‘The police and insurance people weren’t too keen on you shooting off so soon after the fire,’ said Brynn.
‘Yeah, but the police
knew
I had family trouble.’
‘Even so, they weren’t happy.’
Gracie was getting a horrible sinking feeling about this call. She thought of the bag of hair,
smoke getting in your eyes . . .?
‘I’m not sure the insurance will pay up,’ said Brynn. ‘I’m sorry to piss on your parade, Gracie, but they’re talking about arson.’
Gracie stood there, feeling her orderly, safe little world crashing around her.
Smoke getting in your eyes?
‘They got any proof of that?’
‘They said there’re traces of an accelerant having been used to start the fire. You know I thought it might be electrical? The electrics were fine.’ Brynn’s sigh was audible down the line. ‘Look, they’ve told me it’ll be another couple of days for the police forensics team to finish combing the site for evidence, then four
more
days before the insurers get anywhere near being satisfied, and personally I don’t see much hope of that . . . then the clearing-up can begin. It’s going to be
weeks.
And Gracie, our own inside security system showed someone hanging about outside the building. Which ties in with the CCTV footage out in the road. Sorry, Gracie. It looks like the fire was started deliberately.’
Gracie was silent.
‘And there’s more,’ said Brynn. ‘The police were quizzing me about your finances; they were thinking maybe you’d started it.’
‘Me?’ Gracie blurted. ‘They were asking if you had money troubles.’
‘They asked me the same thing. Fuck
me
,’ said Gracie angrily.
‘Gracie – you haven’t, have you?’
‘I don’t know how you can even ask me that,’ said Gracie in exasperation. ‘You’ve seen the books. You know we’re well in the black.’
‘Yeah, but personal stuff,’ said Brynn, sounding uncomfortable. ‘You know, personal debts . . .?’
Gracie stared hard at the phone. Brynn was asking about her expensive apartment, her car, her high-end holidays.
‘For fuck’s sake, Brynn, you know the wage I draw from the business. You know I have a budget. You know I’m not careless with money. I take money
off
the punters. I don’t gamble myself.’
‘I know that . . .’
‘Look, I’m not in financial trouble, Brynn. I pay all my bills on time; I clear my credit cards at the end of every month.’
‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, Gracie. I’m trying to prepare you, that’s all. For sure they’ll want to speak to you in the New Year, and these are the things they’ll be asking you about.’
Oh terrific.
This was just getting better and better.
NOVEMBER
It was another black-tie do. Harry arrived slightly early at Jackie Sullivan – aka ‘the cougar’s’ – gaff in Notting Hill. She opened the door to him, wearing a different halter-necked maxi-length dress – white this time, not the old funereal black – and she still looked endearingly awkward and over-dressed. Her pale eyes were nervous as she smiled up at him.
‘Goodness, don’t you look gorgeous,’ she said.
‘So do you,’ said Harry.
‘And you’re such a marvellous liar,’ she smiled.
‘I’m not lying,’ said Harry, and he wasn’t. She had the sweetest face and he was pleased to be here with her again. ‘Do you think we’ll make it this time?’ he asked, stepping into the big lemon-yellow hallway with its myriad prints and antiques.
‘Oh, to the . . .’ Jackie paused, blushing – remembering, Harry knew, what had happened on their last date. The tears, the outpouring of grief over her husband; and then the night, the hugs and kisses and the surprisingly satisfactory sex.
‘Sorry,’ said Harry, seeing that he’d embarrassed her.
Jackie bit her lip. ‘No,
I’m
sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m so sorry that I as good as ignored you when we bumped into each other in Covent Garden. I felt awful about that afterwards, but I was with a client, and I was just so surprised to see you – all I could think to say was that you were a friend of Emma’s.’
‘Well, I’m a friend of
yours
, so I think I can stretch to Emma too – even if I didn’t meet her at uni.’ Harry hadn’t been to university. He hadn’t been
anywhere.
He’d left a pretty useless school at 16 without any qualifications, got a couple of dead-end jobs and wound up on the dole. Being an escort and actually earning well was the pinnacle of his achievements so far.
‘My mind just went blank,’ said Jackie.
‘It’s okay. Not a problem. You ready to go?’
Jackie paused. Checked she had her wrap, her tiny sequinned evening bag. Glanced back at the photos on the console table. Her husband; her daughter. Harry wondered if she was going to start crying again. But Jackie turned to him with a smile.
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said.
‘So how’s it going, Lefty?’ asked Deano.
Lefty was in the back room behind the fetish club, summoned there by Deano Drax. This room was all business – desk, filing cabinets, cold steel and big mirrors – in complete contrast to the hot reds and golds and dim lighting out in the club itself. The pounding beat of the club’s sound system was thrumming through the walls and into the body of the office, keeping pace with Lefty’s rapidly accelerating heartbeat.
There was a boy who looked about fourteen years old sitting on Deano’s desk. Deano’s hand was resting on the boy’s denim-clad thigh, smoothing over it caressingly. The boy was slim, dark-haired and blank-eyed. There was a dusting of white powder under his nose. He was sipping from a bottle of Bud.
Underage drinking
popped into Lefty’s addled brain. And that sure wasn’t
talcum
powder on the kid’s upper lip, now was it? But Lefty thought that both those things were the least of this kid’s worries, if he was in Deano’s hands. Lefty had the horrible queasy feeling that Deano’s dick had been out of his trousers just a second before he came in the room.
Lefty’s mouth seemed to have dried of all spit. He swallowed hard, came up empty.
‘Only,’ Deano went on, ‘you been days looking for my boy Alfie now, and I said I’d give you some time. But there’s a limit. You do
remember
I said that, don’t you?’
‘I remember, Deano,’ said Lefty, gulping hard. ‘And I’ll find him. Don’t you worry about that.’
‘Oh, I ain’t worried, Lefty. I got every faith in you. But time’s moving on.’
Lefty saw Deano’s hand wandering ever further up the boy’s thigh. Oh
shit.
He had to look away. One thing turned his stomach, it was noncing.
‘Only so far you ain’t been doing too good, Lefty,’ went on Deano. ‘You been letting me down. Way you’ve been going on, if I asked you to post me a pair of bollocks, I’d end up with a set of tits, that’s my feeling.’
The boy smiled vaguely at Deano’s piercing wit. Lefty raised a wilted, trembling smile.
‘I’m gonna find him, Deano. I swear to you on my mother’s life.’
‘Yeah?’ Deano smiled too. The boy leaned over and tenderly held the bottle to Deano’s lips. Deano sipped the ice-cold beer and the boy smiled. Then Deano looked straight at Lefty. ‘I’m gonna hold you to that, Lefty. Your mother’s life. Or yours. I don’t care which. Okay?’
Lefty nodded. He couldn’t speak; he was so frightened he was afraid he was going to piss himself. His mother, his sweet dear mother, lived over in Brixton, and he wondered if Deano knew that. He thought that Deano probably did. Deano knew
everything.
‘Now fuck off,’ said Deano.
Lefty hurried from the room.
The boy leaned in close to Deano, who looked at him assessingly. He was a pretty thing, but he wasn’t little-blond-angel Alfie. It was Alfie Deano craved – for now, anyway. It was Alfie he wanted, Alfie he loved, Alfie he was completely obsessed with. He missed him so much; he
had
to get him back again.
‘Who’s this you got him out lookin’ for?’ whined the dark-haired boy.
Deano smoothed a hand over the youngster’s hair. Suddenly he grabbed a handful. The boy let out a yelp of surprise. Deano yanked him off the desk by his hair and threw him to the floor. The bottle went flying, spraying beer and the scent of hops. The boy lay there, clutching his head, the brown liquid seeping in and staining his t-shirt. He stared up with eyes full of tears and fear at Deano, who hadn’t even moved out of his chair.
‘Now don’t you go getting jealous on me, babycakes,’ said Deano. He wagged a finger at the boy. ‘Papa don’t like that. And you don’t ever ask me about my business, you understand?’
The boy nodded, crying and gulping with shock and pain.
‘Now don’t cry, sweetness. Papa loves you,’ crooned Deano. ‘Come up here and sit on Papa’s lap . . .’
Outside in the club, Lefty picked his way between the rubber-encased women and crawling, chain-locked muscle men. He went over to the bar and asked Chippy for a whisky, then spotted Mona, gyrating on her podium in her thong, with her heavily augmented naked tits swinging about like twin pendulums. He grabbed his drink and went on over there.
‘Hi sweetie, is that make-up?’ asked a stoned-looking blonde wearing nothing but a transparent blue gauze, lurching up to him and fingering his head wound.
Lefty pushed her roughly aside. Pervs. He hated fucking pervs. Worst of all, he hated the perv who ran this place. He pushed his way through the aimlessly milling people, the music crashing in on his ears and roaring around his pounding head; it was deafening. He reached Mona’s podium and grabbed her leg.
‘If you can’t afford the goods, don’t handle ’em,’ she shouted. Then she looked down and saw who it was and her movements faltered to a halt. ‘Oh for fuck’s
sake
. . .’
‘What time you get off tonight, girl?’ Lefty demanded, swigging back the whisky, thinking that he was in hell here, deep in the bowels of hell, and he needed his next fix so bad, and what about his mum, his poor old mum over in Brixton? Had Deano meant that, could Deano target his mum if this didn’t work out?
Lefty thought that Deano probably could. And
would
. Lefty knew he was well and truly in the shit, and he couldn’t even warn his mum because if he told her what was going on in his life she would go mad, she would swipe him upside the head with her meaty fist and say,
You no-good little asshole, you are
exactly
like your waster of a father
,
a
nd he didn’t want to hear that from her. He loved his mum; it hurt when she was angry with him. He cringed at the thought, because maybe she was right, maybe he really was just as bad as dear old dad, who’d done a bunk way back when Lefty was ten. His dad had smoked ganja and never worked. Now . . . now Lefty sniffed butane and, although he worked, what he did wasn’t something to be proud of. He knew it. But it was his life; it was all he had. He didn’t want to have to go south of the river and tell his mum he’d brought trouble to her door, no way. Desperation gripped him now. He needed to get a result. And for that, he needed Mona.
‘I get off at twelve,’ hollered Mona.
Lefty rummaged in his pocket and came up with a twenty. He stuffed it roughly into Mona’s G-string. ‘We got work to do,’ said Lefty.
‘
Fuck
it,’ said Mona. ‘No, Lefty—’
‘You give me any more lip and I’ll fuck
you
,’ said Lefty. ‘Take you down the dungeon room and give you what-for.’
Mona stiffened and missed her step. She’d
seen
the dungeon room under the club. She hated going in there – although she had entertained a couple of punters down there in a dark corner, just cash-in-hand quickies, she was always in a rush to get straight out of there, as fast as she could. And Lefty meant it. She looked into his half-crazed eyes and she just
knew
he did.
‘Okay, okay,’ sighed Mona, and danced on.