TRAPPED (2 page)

Maggie paused and took a deep breath. She was determined her father wouldn’t get the rise he was looking for. When she had the fire in her belly not many things would stop her clenching her fists and wading in, even if it meant her coming off worse.

That’s what’d partly got her into the latest trouble. Most of her life her anger had gotten the better of her. She’d become resilient to being knocked about and getting into fights with people when her temper rose up. But everything had to be different now. She’d made a promise to herself. Even though she knew it was going to be hard not to resort to fists and fury, she had to try. Besides, being away this last time had changed her.

After a minute she spoke, narrowing her eyes as she did so. ‘You’ve got the front to stand there and say it was
all
my fault?’

Max grinned menacingly and winked at his daughter, waiting for the usual reaction. But instead, Maggie calmly stepped forward, surprising herself with her control. The surprise was also reflected in Max’s eyes. This wasn’t the Maggie he knew. The Maggie he knew would have verbally leapt at him without thinking of the consequences, but this tall, beautiful, self-composed woman was a stranger to him. A stranger who unnerved even him.

Maggie was within spitting distance of her father’s whiskey-smelling breath, centimetres away from his unshaven face. She stood glaring back at him, struck by a sudden realisation; she wasn’t afraid of Max now, not the way she used to be. Wary perhaps, but she’d lost the nauseating fear that used to sit tightly around her chest, stifling the air she breathed, causing her to sometimes wet herself, even as a teenager, when she’d heard his voice.

She felt a light touch on her arm and Maggie became aware of her mother, Sheila, standing fearfully by her side.

‘Leave it Maggie, please. For me. No trouble.’

Maggie looked at her mother and smiled softly, wanting to calm the dancing fear she saw in the terrified eyes staring up at her. Feeling the trembling hand on her arm made Maggie’s heart almost burst with sadness.

She took in every detail of her mother’s face as they stood in the overheated kitchen; the deep furrowed lines, the grey hairs by her temples, the little scar above her lip – the result of a broken bottle thrown in her face – and lastly, her mother’s eyes: wide, anxious and blue like her own. Maggie slowly nodded. She would keep the peace – at least for today she would.

Stepping back from her father and facing her mother straight on, she spoke quietly and warmly with love in her eyes.

‘For you; I’ll do anything for you.’

Maggie touched her mother’s cheek then bent down slightly to kiss Sheila on her forehead. ‘It’s good to see you Mum. I’ve missed you.’

Max Donaldson watched this exchange scornfully but also acutely conscious of the change in his daughter.

She was no longer afraid of him and he knew it could only spell one thing: trouble.

Still deep in thought, Max took out a small folded wrap from his pocket and emptied the white powder on the table. Leaning over, he pulled a rolled-up twenty pound note from his other pocket and, holding one nostril and placing the note in the other nostril, he expertly snorted up the cocaine in one go.

As it cut the back of his throat and the first tingle of coke hit his bloodstream, he straightened himself up, rubbing his nose between two nicotine stained fingers to wipe off any excess. He stared hard at Maggie who stood defiantly watching him from across the other side of the table.

He chose to ignore her. He had to think. Picking up his car keys, Max walked out of the kitchen, deciding he needed to find a way of putting his tramp of a daughter firmly in her place – and preferably sooner rather than later.

As soon as she heard the front door shut, Maggie threw down her bag and grinned excitedly, giving her mum a huge hug as she spoke.

‘Well, where are they? Where am I going to meet them?’

Sheila broke away from the hug and looked down nervously at the red tiled floor, deciding it needed another clean now that most of last night’s dinner had been chucked onto it. Not wanting to look at her daughter directly, she spoke softly.

‘That’s what I was going to tell you love; I didn’t like to worry you when I came to visit, but a few things have changed since you were here.’

Maggie squinted her eyes. She always knew when her mum didn’t want to tell her something, especially if it was something bad. This was one of those times. Watching her mother shuffle from side to side, Maggie bent her tall, slender frame down to her mother’s eye level and spoke firmly but quietly.

‘Mum, if you’ve got something to say, for God’s sake, spit it out.’

Shelia stared into her daughter’s eyes for a split second but quickly turned away, unable to hold her gaze. Her daughter’s big blue eyes always made her feel guilty, reminding her of her kids’ rotten childhood.

Maggie had seen so much and heard so much but complained so little. She’d always been a good daughter to her. Even though Maggie had suffered at the hands of her father and had been left for hours on end to look after her siblings when her mum was either in hospital or just couldn’t cope, Maggie had always been loyal.

Her daughter was the only one who’d helped around the house, making well-needed brews, helping with the mounds of dirty laundry and the seemingly never-ending piles of washing up. It was only Maggie who’d ever spoken kind words to her and it was only Maggie who’d ever walked through a blizzard of snow to come and visit her in hospital when Max had fractured her pelvis. And closing her eyes at the thought, Sheila knew it’d only ever been Maggie who, even from an early age, had stood terrified but bravely in
front of Max, willing to take the punches instead of letting him
hurt her mum and siblings. Shamefully she’d let her; Sheila had let her daughter stand there, becoming a human shield for her and for her other children.

Shelia knew by rights it should’ve been
her
who was there for her daughter, but knowing life would’ve been even more intolerable than it already was without Maggie, she ignored the gnawing guilt of this role reversal and just continued to be grateful for the care her daughter showed. And now the one time Maggie had
actually
asked her for help and needed some support, she’d let her down and Sheila Donaldson didn’t quite know how she was going to tell her.

‘Sweetheart, you better sit down. You won’t like what I’ve got to say.’

Max Donaldson hacked a deep chesty cough, releasing sticky yellow mucus from the back of his throat before spitting it out expertly on the step of
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club
. He was angry. Not just because Maggie was back home. And not just because the stifling heat of the Soho streets was causing the sweat to drip down his back. And certainly not just because of the run-in he’d had last night at the casino with one of his rivals. He was angry for no other reason because that was who he was and always had been.

Since he was young, Max had felt the presence of anger as he felt the presence of the air he breathed. On some days he’d wake up feeling the slow burn of irritation, and by the time he’d got washed, shaved and was ready for breakfast, he was ready to pummel anyone who got in his way. He didn’t fight the feeling – it got things done; made things happen. His temperament had made him a face. It stopped people taking the piss; the sensible ones anyway, the ones who didn’t want to wake up in a hospital bed.

Striding to his car and ignoring the ‘no littering’ signs, Max threw away the contents of his pocket next to the bin. He was heading over to Wembley Park to see a person who hadn’t taken what he was saying seriously – but Max was certain once he had paid them a visit, they’d never make such a stupid mistake again.

He’d thought about sending his ‘butchers’ to deal with it. They were the men who did the chopping – the hurting – but today he’d wanted to do it himself. In fact, he’d go as far as to say he was looking forward to it.

On paper, the Windsor Estate sounded majestic. Anyone who’d read only the name might be forgiven for imagining large white houses surrounded by trees with wildlife roaming in the nearby woods, but in reality Max knew the only wildlife the occupants saw were the cockroaches running up and down the cracked walls. And the closest it got to being majestic was its residents being carted off to do a stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure. There was no other way to describe it but bleak; bleak and harsh. It was, as Max saw it, the arsehole of life.

The estate, also known as Crack Castle, had been forgotten by society, making the tenants living on it easy pickings and often desperate for his services. When they ignored his warnings, there was no one foolish enough to call the police. More tellingly, there were no police officers willing enough to respond to their call.

Max stared at the grey door with peeling paint and indecipherable graffiti. He took a deep breath, preparing himself as if about to go into the ring, then kicked the bottom of the door several times, not wanting to touch it with his hands. The dried red marks looked suspiciously like blood. Receiving no answer after three knocks he booted it hard, taking the door off the top part of its hinges as he did so.

Fired up, Max ran into the front room curling his nose from the stench of urine and ignoring the sounds of a crying baby. He bellowed loudly, banging the wall with his fist and feeling the charge of adrenalin seeping through his body.

‘Where the fuck are you?’

A woman in a nightie appeared at the door of the bedroom with a look of shocked recognition. Her thick brown hair was a mass of knots and grease, her skin had an outbreak of angry red spots and her eyes were devoid of any life.

‘He ain’t here.’

Max snarled, disgusted at the woman’s appearance.

‘I’ll be the judge of who’s here or not. Get out of me way.’

Max didn’t wait for her to move. He pushed her hard, knocking her to the floor and stepped into the bedroom to see a child no older than six slumped on a dirty mattress which lay on the bare floorboards.

‘Where’s your Da?’

The boy’s eyes were as dead as his mother’s and he shrugged fearfully at the angry intruder.

‘I said, where’s your fucking Da?’

The woman – recovered from her fall – scrambled in front of Max, petrified for her son.

‘Leave him alone, he ain’t done nothing.’

‘That’s right, he ain’t, but it don’t matter to me who I have to knock about to get me money. So cop on to yourself and do your son a favour; tell me where your old man is. He owes me big time.’

The woman’s eyes darted from Max to her son.

‘Go through to the kitchen, get yourself a drink love, I’ll be though in a minute.’

The boy ran out of the room quickly.

‘He’s paid you; he’s already paid you the five hundred quid he borrowed.’

‘Yeah, but he was late and as we agreed when you were so eager to borrow the money from me, any late payments means double payments.’

‘He was only late by two days.’

‘I’m no charity sweetheart. Interest occurs on my loans, just like in a bank. Think of me like a bank.’

‘We haven’t got anything else to give you; you had your men take the telly last week.’

Max sneered and stepped closer.

‘If it makes you feel any better darlin’, there’s nothing on telly worth watching.’

He sniffed and spat on the floor continuing to talk in a threatening manner, feeling the early summer’s heat stifling the already putrid air. ‘I want this week’s payment
now
or you’ll be standing watching your boy becoming my punch bag.’

‘You’re sick, you know that.’

Max leaned into the woman’s face, smelling her early morning breath and stale cigarettes.

‘
I may be sick babe, but that don’t stop me wanting my money.
I’m telling you now, I want to feel the greens in my hand by the count of five. Don’t underestimate what I’ll do.’

The woman’s eyes suddenly flashed with terror.

‘Look I ain’t got your money, I swear.’

Max touched the woman’s face and circled his large podgy fingers around her lips.

‘Well there lies the problem because I’m not sure if you’ve got anything I want. Now if you didn’t look like an arse end of a rat I might get you to work for me; pay off the money, but I can’t imagine many punters willing to pay to shag a hanging bag of bones, can you?’

Max watched the woman’s eyes fill up with tears as he walked towards the door.

‘Now where is your old man? Or do I have to go and find that son of yours to show you how serious I am? One … two … three …’

As Max counted he produced a small silver headed cosh out of his pocket. The woman’s eyes flitted around the room then she nodded her head towards the tall wardrobe in the corner, indicating Max should look there. He opened the doors, then laughed scornfully as he saw a sinewy looking man cowering in the bottom of it.

‘Well, well. What have we got here? A coward and a money cheat.’

Without waiting for the man to talk, Max leapt at the trembling figure. His fists pummelled into any part of human flesh he could find. He felt his knuckle knock through front teeth and felt the wet of the blood on his hand. He pushed again with his clenched fist and heard the squelch of the teeth leaving the gum behind.

Max hammered down with the cosh; over and over again, until he felt a twinge in his back. He stood up, panting, still attacking the man with his feet as he kicked him in the side of his head.

‘Next time you pay me on time. I don’t like having the piss being taken out of me. Next time I won’t go as easy on you.’

Max looked down at the man who was silently nodding. He was fairly certain the next time he came for his money it’d probably be wrapped in a big pink bow. Turning to the woman, Max grinned. He walked towards her and started undoing his trouser belt. As he reached her his hand stroked her shoulder.