The Take (36 page)

Jackie burped, and the sound made Dianna's stomach churn. She was like an animal at times. She only hoped that her father turned up, because if he didn't there would be trouble. Her mother laid great store on her birthday, and on her husband being with her in the pub for all to see. It was a sham, and Dianna was sick to death of it all.

Jackie was dressed in a black trouser suit and she looked nice. She was pleased with how well she had scrubbed up, but the drink had bloated her and although the weight that had piled on a few years ago was now dropping off her at an alarming rate, her hands and face were still puffy. She should cut down on the booze, but knew that she wouldn't.

Anyway, it was her
birthday
. If you couldn't have a drink on your
birthday
, when could you?

Dianna looked great, Jackie thought. She was a beauty, and Kimberley was looking lovely too. Kim worried her, though. Unlike Rox, who had fucked off at the earliest opportunity, she looked like she was here for the duration. Kimberley, who had always been the mouthy one, had changed over the last few years. She rarely went out in the evenings to the pub, or to go clubbing. She was like the ghost of Christmas past, and now she didn't even seem to work that much. Jackie knew Maggie had tried to stick a firework up her arse on more than one occasion because she had let her down in the salons.

Kim always looked like she was sickening for something, as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. But she was all grown up now, so it was none of her business what went on in that girl's head. She had done her bit, and it was up to them to sort themselves out.

Jackie put her daughters out of her mind and wondered if her Freddie would turn up like he had promised. He had better. She didn't ask a lot of him, just that he came out with her on high days and holidays. Surely as his wife she was entitled to that much?

Little Freddie kicked out at Kimberley as she walked past him and she ignored him. He started shouting and swearing at her as she walked up the stairs to go into her bedroom.

Dianna watched her go and sighed. There was trouble waiting to explode and it would happen sooner rather than later. If her mum or dad actually looked at Kim one day they would realise exactly what the score was. But they were not going to hear it from her. She had enough to contend with as it was.

Freddie was already in the pub, not because he was waiting for his wife, but because he was chasing a piece of skirt who worked behind the bar. She was young, only eighteen, but she had the knowing look he loved, and the slutty way of dressing that told him she was well up for it.

Well, so was he. He was now investing in his future sex life by buying her drinks and charming her with his stories and jokes. He was a Face, and as such was already halfway into her knickers. He was half pissed, too, but he was being a good boy because he wanted to impress this little hussy and hopefully bed her before the night was out.

He knew she had a baby, which was always a guarantee for a good time in his experience. Once they were lumbered with a kid and a council flat, the novelty of motherhood soon wore off. Then they were lonely, skint and, more to the point, looking for a bit of excitement to liven up what had turned out to be a very dull and boring existence.

Girls like this little barmaid amazed him. They wanted kids but when they arrived, very few actually enjoyed the experience, and then they wondered why the men in the equation fucked off out at the earliest opportunity. What man in his right mind would believe that the same girl who had dropped her drawers in nanoseconds for him had not done the same thing many times before with other mugs? So the girls quite rightly ended up on their Jack Jones, and then became the local shag for married men like himself.

Oh, he knew all the signs. They were dressed to kill � even just going up the local shops for a loaf of bread or their family allowance, they were half naked and plastered in make-up. Their lives revolved around a few mates in a similar position to them, their mums, and their mum's houses, and pulling a bloke, hopefully a live one.

They were accidents waiting to happen, and he liked to get them while they were still halfway decent. Within a few years, this girl would have produced another baby, maybe two and she would be relegated to being a booty call for the local no necks, giro blasters and tracksuit wearers. At the moment, though, he wanted her, and he was determined to have her.

He felt in his pockets and caressed his wad of cash. Every time he pulled it out to get a drink her eyes nearly popped out of her head. So far he knew her name was Charmaine, she had a baby girl of thirteen months and a flat within walking distance of the pub and the house where he lived with Jackie, and that her big dream was to go to Florida. She was already proving to be uncomplicated and without any kind of imagination at all, so there was no chance of her wanting long conversations or trying to impress him with her staggering intelligence.

He was on a roll when Jackie and the girls walked into the pub, and he sighed heavily as Charmaine took one look at Jackie, who was now standing beside him like his minder, and sensibly made her way to the other end of the bar in a state of extreme fright.

'Ain't you going to wish me happy birthday, then?'

Freddie smiled and said casually, as he tried to get the landlady's attention for a drink, 'No, Jackie, I ain't.'

Little Jimmy was watching a cartoon and eating a biscuit when Little Freddie finally rolled up at his nana's house. Jimmy Junior was terrified of his cousin because he was such a noisy and aggressive lad who seemed to take great delight in frightening him.

As soon as he came into the flat the atmosphere changed, and Maddie, who had hoped that Little Freddie wouldn't want to come and sit in with her and Jimmy Junior, was already feeling a nervous wreck.

Little Freddie was enjoying the effect he was creating. He loved the way people were scared of him and tried to get round him, to get in his good books. He was a handsome lad, though his features were marred by his surly and unhappy expression. He was also badly scarred since he had been stitched up many times, mainly over his refusal to feel any kind of danger, and because he had been in so many fights.

Now he looked at the little boy who he knew was hoping that he would not be nasty, and he smiled at him because his father had warned him that one more incident with Jimmy Junior and he would really take him in hand.

Little Freddie had realised that his father was wary of Big Jimmy, and that had been a learning curve. He had never imagined his father fearing anyone or anything. But he had realised a while back that it was Jimmy who ran everything and that even his father had to do what he was asked.

So he smiled at his little cousin and, giving his old nana a big hug, he sat down and watched the cartoons with a light heart and a calm exterior.

Like his father before him he was formulating a plan, and like his father before him, it needed serious plotting and serious intention. Unlike his father, though, he paid attention to the details.

Maggie looked around the pub and willed the clock to go faster. She hated this place now, though there had been a time when she had loved coming in here. It was still dirty, still had the same cloying smell of disinfectant and beer in the carpet and, more worrying, it still had the same people in the same seats as when she had first come in there all those years ago.

The place was like some kind of time warp.

Her mother and father were having the time of their lives, despite having sworn they'd leave early, and she envied them the carefree joviality they seemed to possess no matter what happened to them.

Jackie was pissed out of her brains, and Freddie was watching a skinny barmaid with too much make-up and greasy hair. The girls were all laughing and joking at the bar, and that young Dicky was looking at Rox as if he had just won the Rollover on the National Lottery.

Maggie felt a pang in her breast as she remembered that she had been like that once — carefree, young and madly in love. She sought out Jimmy with her eyes and saw him in earnest conversation with Dianna.

She was a beauty, was Dianna. As Maggie watched them talk, she heard Jackie's high-pitched voice as she started to abuse the young barmaid. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she saw Freddie being held back by Jimmy and her father, and the girls trying to help Jackie up off the filthy floor. Jackie had a bloody nose, and she felt an urge to cry at the complete abortion that constituted her life.

Instead she got up and walked to her sister and, taking her gently by the arm, she helped the drunken and bleeding woman into the toilets.

Freddie pushed Jimmy and Joseph away from him, waving his arms to let them know he was calmer and then he said loudly, 'Cabaret's over, let's get another drink.'

Everyone in the pub went back to what they were doing. This kind of occurrence was the norm, and broke up the sheer boredom that most of them felt for the majority of the time.

Rox and Dianna watched their mother as she limped into the toilet with Maggie and then saw their elder sister sneak out to the other bar. Dicky looked at Rox and made a face that told her he wanted to go, and go sooner rather than later.

She nodded in complete agreement. They had done their bit, and now they were free to leave and enjoy themselves at last.

Maggie had a headache and she knew it was going to be a blinder. As she stripped off her clothes, she glanced at herself in the full-length mirror on the dressing-room wall. She didn't have a mark on her, no one would ever believe she had given birth to a child. She knew this fact annoyed her sister Jackie no end, but it didn't bother her either way. Any pleasure she had ever garnered from her body was long gone.

Freddie had seen to that.

In her salons, she was complimented all day by women who wanted perfection and thought that she possessed it. If only they knew the truth of it. She saw her body as something corrupt, something disgusting and something that had been the vessel that had brought her and her family to this point.

She slipped a white silk nightie over her head. Seeing her reflection again she knew she looked lovely, and that Jimmy would take her and she would let him. It was easier than trying to make excuses not to make love.

She walked back into the bedroom and sat on the chaise longue that was supposed to have been used for romance, but was used for her to watch TV. Jimmy was putting the boy to bed, and she knew he was making up for not seeing him earlier and, as well, trying to make up for her complete lack of interest in the child.

She placed a hand softly on to her belly and rubbed it unconsciously.

She had never taken any precautions since the boy's birth and there had been nothing. This had only strengthened her belief that Jimmy was besotted with Freddie's child. And Jimmy Junior was by some strange quirk of nature a
nice
child, he was a dear little soul. But she knew that one day he would change. He would turn into his true self, and then Freddie Jackson would be living under her roof.

Maggie knew he still believed that Jimmy Junior was his child, and that he was pleased about it. She heard him telling Jimmy how much he looked like his father, and he would be looking at her as he said it. The two men looked so alike it was uncanny.

She hated Freddie Jackson, and the boy had just been another stick to beat her with. If she had only had another child, she could have got away with her deceit, got Freddie off her back. But it had never happened, not even a threat of one.

Every time she allowed Jimmy to take her, she prayed that this time he would give her a proper child, a child of their own.

But inside herself, she felt that would never happen.

'Did you have a nice time at Nana's, mate?'

Jimmy Junior nodded. 'Freddie came and was nice to me.'

Jimmy could hear the relief and surprise in his voice, and he hugged the boy to him, feeling, as he always did when near to him, the sheer strength of his love for his child.

The boy's blue eyes had incredibly long lashes and his little nose was a perfect blob on his handsome little face. His thick dark hair was so like his, wavy and black, and the smell of his small, chubby body was distinct and wholly his own.

'Are you happy, my little soldier?'

The boy looked up at him with complete trust and said happily, 'Yes, I love you, Dad.'

'And I love you, son. Now, off to sleep, eh?'

He watched as he cuddled up to his teddy bear and closed his eyes, and knew it was not natural that this child had never once tried to get into bed with his mother and father.

Jimmy looked around the perfect bedroom. It was a real boy's room. Trains were hand-painted on the walls, and pennants were pinned up to show all the places he had visited in his little life. All his other toys were hidden away in the large toy store, as Maggie insisted on calling it, and the few toys lying around were jigsaws of Thomas the Tank Engine and colouring books and pencils that were all neatly put away in their cases.

This was not how a three year old's bedroom should look. Jimmy didn't know how he knew that, but he was convinced he was right. The jigsaws and colouring books signified solitude to him, and he knew that this child was alone far too much for his own good.

Kissing his little son's forehead, he walked quietly from the room.

Freddie was at the delectable Charmaine's house, and he was happily drinking a beer and watching a video while she made him something to eat.

At least her flat was clean, he would give her a few points for that much anyway, and the kid seemed a nice little thing from the photos that were all over the place. She was at her grandmother's house. Well, there was a novelty on this estate. He would bet not one child under the age of twelve had ever stayed in with their mothers on a Friday night in their life.

Char, as she liked to be called, came back into the small lounge and gave him a cheese sandwich and another beer. She was a nice little thing, well house-trained and with a cracking little arse on her.