Two Women (70 page)

Rhianna still heard from her occasionally, rambling letters full of veiled threats and promises of undying friendship. Matty was really over the edge this time, had lost any ability to tell fantasy from reality. She lived on Depixol and dreams these days.

She was paranoid, apparently. That always made Rhianna laugh when she heard it. They were all paranoid, it was what prison did to you.

She closed the cell door and walked slowly back downstairs. She realised she had her fingers crossed and grinned, displaying her perfect teeth. A PO passing on the landing underneath looked up at her and shrugged.

There was no news yet.

But she could wait. After all, every woman here had time on her hands. All the time in the world. Most of them had been waiting all their lives.

 

June and Joey were in the pub. June had drunk more than she should have so early in the day, but she was in a good mood.

Joey looked old. She saw him clearly for the first time in years, really studied him, and realised he looked debauched. His life was written all over his features and his body, from his fat beer belly to the red cheeks threaded with spider veins after too much drinking and whoring.

She smiled to herself. He couldn’t raise his pint these days, let alone anything else. He’d had a heart scare recently and that had taken its toll too. He hadn’t drunk for a week and actually ate a salad.

Now, though, he was back to ‘moderate’ drinking. She watched him down a pint in two swallows and smiled again.

June thought for the first time in years about her Jimmy. Her eyes softened. She should have looked after him better, should have kept him. He had been her only chance at a good life. She felt a lump in her throat.

People still thought Joey had topped him. It had gone down in local folklore. Even the up and coming youngsters gave him his due for that, bought him a drink, talked to him as an equal.

If only they knew!

Joey placed a heavy hand on hers and grinned at her. His eyes, though, were on the new barmaid, a tiny blonde with big tits and a cast in her eye. Not that he had noticed the cast, of course. Joey never looked a woman in the face until he had bedded her.

It pleased June, though, that there was life in the old dog yet. As much as she hated him, she still cared about him. It was a habit she had acquired many years before and somehow she had never been able to kick it. Like smoking. You knew it would kill you in the end but, oh, God, that first fag of the day.

‘I wish they’d hurry up, Joey. I feel all nervous and apprehensive.’

He shrugged.

‘Stop getting your knickers in a twist. We’ll know soon enough.’

June was suddenly annoyed.

‘This is our daughter, our flesh and blood.’

Joey swallowed down his whisky chaser and stood up. He wanted to get another glimpse of that little bird’s Bristols while he had the chance. She went off at two o’clock.

‘So you keep telling me, Junie. So you keep telling me.’ He ambled towards the bar, a big man in a suit too small for his heavy frame, with hollows under his eyes and a sad downturned mouth.

June stared into her drink. What a wasted existence they’d led, the pair of them.

 

Rosie had dragged the Woolworth’s silver tinsel tree across Debbie’s lounge three times in the last hour. The other kids thought it was hilarious but Debbie was fast losing patience.

Now Rosie stood with her hands on her hips and cried, ‘Bad, Rosie!’ at the top of her voice.

This made the other two children laugh even more and even Debbie found a smile inside her.

One part of her wanted Susan home so badly she could taste it. Another part, the old selfish part, was terrified of what the consequences would be. These kids had wormed their way into her affections in a few short months, into her very body. She would kill for them now. They had shown her what life could be like, what Jamesie was enjoying. She understood now the hold Carol had over him. Every time she looked into their little faces she understood what life was all about.

But Susan would share them with her, she was big enough to do that. That was if she got out.

Little Barry picked up the tree and put it back in the corner of the room. Alana was collecting the balls and ornaments that were scattered across the floor. His eyes lingered on the presents, all gaily wrapped up awaiting little hands to tear off the paper and reveal the treasures hidden inside.

‘This is the best Christmas ever, Auntie Debbie.’

Barry didn’t know about the appeal. No one had wanted to get his hopes up, least of all his mother.

Alana looked at her aunt and smiled tightly, the strain of the knowledge heavy in her little heart-shaped face. People often thought Debbie and Alana were mother and daughter. The family resemblance was there for all to see.

She hugged the girl to her tightly.

‘Everything will be all right, love.’

Alana looked at her gravely.

‘I’ve heard that before, Auntie Debs. We all have.’

The little face was empty now, as if she had used up all her emotions and was waiting for a refill.

‘Shall I make a cuppa?’

Debbie nodded.

The radio was on in the kitchen, and she knew the news was due. Alana wanted to listen in case something had happened. Debbie checked that the phone was in working order for the fiftieth time that day. Would it ever ring and put them out of their misery?

She picked up Rosie and hugged her, kissing the thick curly hair and enjoying the feel of her sturdy little body.

Rosie smiled and kissed her back.

All this unconditional love was heady stuff to Debbie. She wasn’t sure she could survive without it.

 

Wendy sat on the steps of the Old Bailey. She watched the people walking backwards and forwards, all with lives to lead and places to go.

Roselle was standing down on the pavement, smoking furiously. It had to be her thirtieth cigarette of the day. Wendy watched her throw it to the ground and stub it out then immediately light another one.

She wished she could have a cigarette herself but had promised her mother she would give up and she had. Today the craving for nicotine was almost overwhelming.

Her bottom was numb from the concrete steps. She stood up, feeling the blood rush back into her legs and feet. They tingled, reminding her she was alive.

She stared over to where the TV cameras and the reporters were cordoned off and smiled. No one had sussed out who she was yet, Geraldine had made sure of that. For a little while longer she was just an attractive girl in a black designer suit, courtesy of Roselle. Everything was courtesy of Roselle. Shoes, bag, even her haircut. What a wonderful friend she had been to them all.

Soon Wendy would be the girl raped by her own father. The reason her mother had battered his head until he was unrecognisable as a person. Soon she would be all over the papers. Geraldine had warned her about this and they were all ready for it.

At least, she thought she was ready.

Either way it was done now.

Wendy only hoped it was enough to get her mother out and back home, in charge of her life and her children’s lives once more. Back where she belonged and never should have left. She had sacrificed all her children for one. Wendy would remember that all her life. No matter what Mrs Eappen or any of them said.

Her mother was worth a hundred Mrs Eappens. A thousand even. Her mother was a heroine and always would be to Wendy, whatever the outcome today. She only hoped that the outcome was what they were all banking on. Otherwise Wendy Dalston wasn’t sure she could live with herself. It had been hard enough up to now.

She wasn’t sure what exactly would happen if they kept her mother locked up, and there was a good chance they would, even with the weight of public opinion and the women’s groups who were all waiting outside with their placards and their Monsoon dresses.

Men in particular seemed to find her father’s death more sinister than the usual murder. It was the obliterating of his whole head that did it. To hit someone with a claw hammer over a hundred times seemed the work of a maniac.

But Geraldine had argued that was because Susan Dalston had not been in her right mind at the time. Shocked by his rape of their daughter, she had wanted to expunge him from the earth.

The papers were going to have a field day with this. Gone was Barry Dalston the likeable rogue and in his place was the real man: diseased, violent, a pervert who’d wrecked his daughter’s life.

Geraldine had seen to that.

She had scraped up everything she could about him and it made a very unpleasant tale. The tabloids thought they’d died and gone to heaven. All the papers wanted her mother out now.

Wendy hoped they got what they wanted. She needed her mother now more than she had ever needed her.

 

Susan was disappointed with her PO, an older woman with iron grey hair and buck teeth. She was one of the screws who felt they had to impose a sentence of their own on the prisoners. Susan had come across her kind many times. They stuck implicitly to the book and never deviated.

Susan smoked a cigarette and sipped at a lukewarm cup of tea. She had tried to make conversation with the woman twice and each time had been ignored. She could feel the animosity coming off her in waves.

The cell door was unlocked and Susan stood up expectantly. It was another PO. Ugly was going for her dinner break.

Susan relaxed.

This could go on all day and into the next. It had been known on appeal. She saw the other woman sit down on the hard chair and smile at her.

Susan smiled back.

This screw would dine out on her hour with Susan Dalston for years. She knew that, could see it in the woman’s excited eyes and the way her hands fluttered.

Susan smiled at her once more, a big friendly smile.

‘What’s it like out there?’

The PO grinned.

‘Everyone reckons you’ve got an out. I hope so, love, I really do.’

Susan was inordinately pleased at this friendly response.

‘Well, fuck knows it’s cost enough.’

Though it hadn’t cost her or Roselle a penny. Geraldine had done it all for nothing, not even claiming legal aid. So far as she was concerned, this was for women everywhere. Women like Susan, with no one to speak up for them, no one to care what was happening to them in their own homes.

When she thought back to Barry now, it was as if it all had happened to a different person. A different Susan Dalston. Someone she once knew.

It didn’t feel like it had all happened to her personally. She had trouble at times remembering what he’d looked like. If she did see his face it was when they were both young. Before the kids and his discontent with life.

She had wasted all those years on a man who’d only wanted her because her father was a villain. A thug. Why had she never realised that at the time? Why had she thought so little of herself that she had gone along with it all?

She shook her head at the treachery of life. It jumped up and bit you on the arse and before you knew what had happened you had four kids, a black eye and a prison sentence hanging over your head.

Susan took a letter from her pocket and read it again: Peter wishing her all the best. Even his mother had written a postscript wishing her well.

There
were
nice people in the world, it had just taken her longer than most to meet some. It was strange but true that her best friend had been the love of her husband’s life and another was a convicted prostitute and thief. Rhianna and she were closer than ever now. After the turn out with Matty, Susan wasn’t sure what she would have done without her.

Now she was back to doing what she knew best, though.

Waiting.

Susan Dalston had been waiting for something all her life and until this moment she had not even known that fact.

She had always waited for something to happen.

Something to change her life for the better.

Well, it seemed that moment might have arrived if she could hold on just a little bit longer.

 

Doreen had regretted asking Ivy round while they waited for the verdict. The old woman was driving her mad.

‘Even as a baby, Susan was me favourite.’

Doreen stared at Ivy as if she was fascinated by her every word. Inside she wondered if the older woman was finally going senile. Everyone knew what she had done to Susan as a child. Even if she had championed her granddaughter’s innocence since the murder.

The news came on and both women listened in strained silence for anything about Susan’s appeal.

Doreen looked around the room, at the Christmas tree and the presents, and wondered if her dear friend would be able to share it with them. She lit a Benson and Hedges and drew on it deeply.

Ivy’s voice brought her back to reality.

‘I mean, even though she killed him it wasn’t like he was a real person was it. Not like he was a taxpayer. Mind you, from the moment I saw him I hated him. I warned her, you’ll rue the day you took up with him, I said. But she wouldn’t listen. In love she was.’

Doreen looked at the other woman and spoke softly.

‘Ivy, love?’

‘What?’

‘Shut the fuck up!’

Ivy pursed her lips and sighed. Then pouring herself more Scotch, she started to talk again.

 

Kate Dalston sat up in bed in the nursing home. They had placed a TV set in her room and it was showing an inane afternoon soap opera. She turned the sound down with the remote and lay back against the pillows. The girls here were nice. Friendly, caring and kind.

Kate loved it.

She was a bit of a celebrity at the moment and she knew it. When Debbie had brought the kids in to see her there had been a near riot to have a nose at them. Cups of tea and biscuits were used as excuses to come into the room so they could all have a gander at the murderer’s kids.