Maura's Game

  Danielle looked into Maura’s serious face for long tortured moments before saying, ‘Is Garry going to kill him?’

  Hysteria was rising in her again and Maura hastened to reassure her.

  ‘Of course not. But he might have to be taught a lesson, see. He’s tucked us up big time and we can’t let that go.’

  Danny relaxed.

  ‘Maura, could you do me a favour, please?’

  She smiled.

  ‘Of course, Danny, what do you want?’

  ‘Break his fucking legs if you find him. At least that way he won’t be walking anywhere for a while.’

  She was half-joking, half-serious, and Maura’s heart went out to her once more. It was at times like this she was glad she had no children. They got you caught up in situations that would be laughable if they were not so tragic. To see this beautiful girl brought so low over a man broke Maura’s heart, and the worst of it all was, she knew that if Jamie walked in the door right now, Danny would get down on her knees and thank God for answering her prayers.

  Though if Maura had anything to do with it, Jamie Hicks was never coming home again.

  Sarah and Sheila had been to early Mass and now they were back at the house making themselves some lunch.

  ‘Your hair looks gorgeous like that.’

  Sheila smiled happily.

  ‘Thanks. It cost the earth but it was worth every penny.’

  ‘You look different altogether lately. If I didn’t know you better I’d say there was a man on the horizon!’

  Sarah laughed at her own wit, but Sheila didn’t. She knew her brand-new image, which pleased Lee no end, was really for the benefit of Tommy Rifkind. She was a foolish woman and she knew it, but it made her feel better to look good and Lee thought she was fabulous. But then, he thought she was fabulous in a donkey jacket and wellingtons. That was a lot of their trouble. It was hard being adored all the time, especially when you could not adore the other person back any more.

  Sarah answered a knock on the door and Sheila was stunned to see her usher in a big bald man who came into the kitchen carrying a huge bunch of flowers. He had a nice smile and was kissing and hugging Sarah who was loving every second of it.

  ‘How are you, girl?’

  The man’s voice was loud and genial and Sarah was over the moon. She loved attention and this man was certainly giving it to her big time.

  ‘You’re looking good, Mrs Ryan. I had to come and say hello. I was in the area like and I thought, I have to see how that lovely lady Sarah is getting on. I was sorry to hear about the old man, Mrs Ryan. He was a nice old boy. I was on remand at the time but I said a prayer in the prison chapel for him.’

  Sarah was nearly crying with happiness. This man had remembered her and she was gladdened by that fact.

  ‘Look at these flowers! My God, they’re absolutely fantastic. Thanks, son. Thank you so much for remembering an old woman like me!’

  She was being positively coquettish and Sheila was amazed to see her mother-in-law like this. Sarah placed the flowers in the big butler’s sink by the window and cried: ‘Sit down and have a cuppa. Or can I get you a beer?’

  Sheila was watching them with an amused smile on her face. Some of the types the boys knew were outrageous. Most people would take one look at this obvious hard case and run a mile, and yet here was Sarah treating him like a long-lost son. The scars on the man’s neck alone told you he was trouble.

  ‘I ain’t got time, love. Next time, though, I promise. I just couldn’t pass the door without saying hello and paying me respects like, to such a lovely lady.’

  Sarah was now on the verge of fainting with happiness.

  ‘And who is this other lovely lady?’

  He was smiling at Sheila as he spoke, little black eyes fixed on her. He certainly had a way with him, could make you feel you were the only one who mattered to him.

  Sarah slapped her forehead with her hand.

  ‘Where’s me manners! This is Lee’s wife, Sheila.’

  The man shook Sheila’s hand gently, swallowing it up in his huge callused mitt.

  ‘How do you do, Mr . . .’

  ‘Joliff, Sheila. The name’s Vic Joliff. You make sure you remember me to Lee, won’t you? Tell him I can’t wait to see him and I’ll be in touch.’

  He hugged and kissed Sarah once more and then he was gone. The kitchen seemed empty without his huge, oddly benevolent presence, and almost too quiet.

  ‘He was a case!’

  Sarah flapped her hand.

  ‘Vic’s all right. A bit of a tearaway when he was younger, but then weren’t they all?’

  She was thrilled to have been remembered like that. And the flowers! She could still see him and Michael as teenagers in her mind’s eye, along with Gerry Jackson, Michael’s best pal. They had all been friends years ago.

  She only wished it was those days still and she knew what she knew now. How different it would all have been! Sighing with happiness, she set about putting the flowers into vases. Vic Joliff had made her day. It wasn’t often that old people were remembered like this and when it did happen it made you feel special and wanted once more, something Sarah rarely felt these days.

  Tommy and Maura were at her new house. She had purchased the property five years earlier and rented it out. Now she had moved back in for the interim. It was a good base and though she’d never said it out loud she’d been relieved to stop living with Carla and Joey. Tommy had been glad of the change as well, which pleased her.

  As they ate she watched him. He was a fine specimen of a man and she knew on one level how lucky she was to have him. On another she didn’t really know whether she wanted a man in her life at such a tricky time.

  It was always like this with her. Michael always said she was too like a man for most blokes, and she wondered not for the first time if he was right.

  ‘What do you think about Joliff, Maura?’

  She closed her eyes in distress.

  ‘If I could only see Vic, on me own, I honestly think I could talk sense into him. He always liked me and I always liked him. We’re similar in many respects. Vic’s a natural-born villain but he’s been knocked off kilter by Sandra’s death. Needs to blame someone and exact retribution. I understand that, as do my brothers. We would need to do the same if one of the family died.

  ‘To make it worse, Vic’s been on the missing list for six years, and knowing him like I do this will have been festering inside him like a cancer all that time. I assumed he was dead, most people did, but he ain’t, is he? He is very much alive and off his trolley, as Garry would say. He feels he is righting a wrong. We need to make him see the error of his ways.’

  ‘Kill him, you mean?’

  Tommy’s voice was low.

  Maura shrugged.

  ‘If necessary.’

  She looked into Tommy’s eyes.

  ‘I would see anyone dead who threatened me or mine, wouldn’t you?’

  She realised her mistake the second she saw pain cloud his eyes.

  ‘I know what you’re saying, Maura,’ Tommy said gruffly.

  She was sorry for her clumsiness then, and grabbing his hand said sadly, ‘I am sorry about young Tommy B. I wish it was different. Because it will always be there, won’t it? He’s there between us like a silent ghost.’

  It was the first time either of them had mentioned what had happened to his son while they were alone together. Maura wondered what the upshot would be, but she knew that all this had to be said and the sooner the better before they got involved any further.

  ‘I don’t blame you, Maura, if that is what you want to know.’

  ‘Then who do you blame, Tommy?’

  It was a fair question but a hard one for him to answer. They both knew the reply would set the tone of their future relationship.

  He was silent for a while before saying quietly, ‘I suppose I blame him, Maura. I blame him for being young and stupid and arrogant. I blame him for throwing his life away and givi
ng his mother a heart-ache she didn’t deserve. That is who I blame. But I would be a liar if I didn’t say I hated Lee and Garry at times for what they did, even though I would do the same thing myself if I had to.’

  She was glad he had voiced his thoughts out loud, but deep inside she wondered if this would be enough. He had still buried a child, and even if that child was a two-faced little fucker who had asked for all he got, he was Tommy’s boy and nothing could ever change that.

  ‘Will it come between us, do you think?’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘I hope not, Maura. This has all been so good for me. After Gina I wondered if I would ever find anyone to really care about again. I admit I have trouble at times when I see you running the boys and the businesses. But I know that is what you have always done and I respect that.’

  His gaze took in the beautiful limed oak kitchen where they were sitting. He had money, but not by her standards. This house was as big as his show-piece home in Liverpool and until he had come down south to see this woman he had been more or less happy with what he had. Now, he often felt disgruntled. He would have trouble keeping up with her lifestyle here and he knew it. This house was only one of her investment properties. Her main home in Essex was a huge place that could practically solve the housing crisis in London. She hadn’t lived in it since the bomb. But he knew she had worked hard all her life to attain her style of living, and respected that. Still, it rankled sometimes. Nothing went on in the south east without this woman’s express permission. Even he had had to ask nicely before knocking over a bank or post office, and pay her a small percentage for the privilege. It made a man feel diminished somehow and he didn’t like the feeling.

  She grasped his hand.

  ‘I do care about you, Tommy, very much.’

  ‘Same here, Maura. You know that.’

  ‘Terry had a problem with my family . . . with the work side of things.’

  Tommy laughed nastily.

  ‘Well, he fucking would. I mean, once a filth . . .’

  He saw her expression and sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Maura smiled wanly.

  ‘It’s OK. The boys were the same about him.’

  He put a finger under her chin and brought her face to his. Kissing her gently, he caressed her silky hair with his free hand. He loved her when she was like this. Vulnerable. Feminine. Everything he felt a woman should be. He felt the stirring inside himself that her touch always brought and knew then that he would sit this one out for the duration.

  She pulled away first, as always.

  ‘What did you see in him, Maura?’

  She heard the genuine puzzlement in his voice and thought deeply before she answered him. She was as honest as she could be.

  ‘I knew him from when I was a girl. We met on a blind date. Marge, me mate, set us up. I didn’t know he was Old Bill, and by the time I found out it was too late. I was head over heels in love with him.’

  She said the words so simply that Tommy felt sad for the girl she once was with her broken dreams.

  ‘I got pregnant and by the time I told him, he had already found out about Michael, who was a face by then. In reality I’m amazed we carried on so long before anyone sussed us. Michael went fucking ballistic. Nearly killed him. Terry had already dumped me by then. He never knew about the baby . . .’

  Her voice trailed off as she remembered old hurts.

  ‘What happened to the baby then?’

  Tommy was interested in what she was saying. It was the closest she had ever come to talking intimately before and he was intrigued as well as pleased that she was confiding in him.

  ‘Me mum took me to an abortionist in East London. This was the sixties and it was still all backstreet and don’t let the neighbours find out then. It went wrong and I was left unable to have a child again.’

  Her voice faltered and she took a sip of wine before resuming her story.

  ‘So Michael brought me into the family firm and here I still am. But Terry and me, we got back together when there was the usual aggravation from plod and found we still felt the same about each other. So that was it really. I loved him, I always will, but I’m not in love with him any more if that makes sense.’

  She had deliberately skimmed over the precise circumstances that had brought them together again. Family matters were none of Tommy’s business. No need to fill him in on the way her own mother had shopped her to the police using incriminating files that Geoffrey, the bad apple among the Ryan brothers, had secretly kept on her before he met his own well-deserved end at the hands of the IRA. But not before they had killed her beloved Michael in the mistaken belief that he had betrayed one of their high-ranking officers to the Brits when in fact it was Geoffrey all along. Maura had refused to attend his funeral out of loyalty to Michael’s memory. Loyalty was everything to her. It was what being a Ryan was all about.

  ‘That’s a sad story, Maura.’

  Sadder than you know, she thought.

  ‘No sadder than yours or anyone else’s for that matter. Shit happens all the time. It was hard knowing I’d thrown away my only chance of motherhood. That was the worst part of it, I think. I had murdered my own child.’

  Tommy was studying her face. Even in the harsh sunlight she didn’t look fifty. She was still a stunning-looking woman in every way.

  He could feel her pain and her anguish at something that had happened over thirty years ago and wondered if any one of us has no regrets. He doubted it somehow. He wished he had not let his son get caught up in the dealing game, but he had and Tommy B had paid with his life. Tommy knew he was responsible for that and sometimes the guilt and regret were unbearable.

  ‘Come on, Maws, let’s go to bed for an hour.’

  She smiled and followed him up the stairs. This is one place, Tommy thought, where I am the master. In the kip she was all his and they both knew it. Twenty minutes later she was coming like a freight train and as he watched her face he savoured every second of it.

  Carol and Benny walked into Sarah’s house happily. He loved having a pregnant girlfriend, loved the way his gran fussed over them. Carol and Sarah got on like a house on fire. As he watched his grandmother making them coffee and cold drinks his eyes alighted on the flowers.

  ‘Got a secret admirer, Gran?’

  He was laughing as he said it and Sarah flapped her hand at him in a jolly way.

  ‘I have. An old friend came by today, one of Michael’s old pals. He brought the flowers with him. Aren’t they gorgeous!’

  ‘Who was it, Gran? Gerry Jackson?’

  Benny wasn’t really that interested; he was being polite. He was the dutiful grandson today. Just one of his many personas.

  ‘Oh, no. God love him, he rings me every week does Gerry. No, I don’t think you’d know this man. Before your time, son. Vic Joliff . . .’

  The name sent Benny rapidly out of his chair.

  ‘Did you say Vic Joliff, Gran?’

  He had to have heard her wrong; it had to be a mistake. Vic Joliff in this house!

  ‘That’s what I said. Came in here as large as life he did . . .’

  Sarah was ecstatic, telling the story once more. She had already regaled her old friend Pat Johnston with the whole thing on the phone earlier. She was suddenly aware that her grandson was getting himself into one of his monumental tempers.

  ‘Vic fucking Joliff was in this house? Is that what you are telling me, Gran? You actually fucking let him in here?’

  Benny’s voice was coming out in staccato bursts.

  Sarah, realising that something was badly amiss, was suddenly afraid. All her natural antagonism coming to the fore, she cried, ‘And why not, Benjamin Ryan? I knew him before you were even shagging born!’

  He put his head in his hands in despair. The thought of what Joliff might have done made his blood run cold. He was taking the piss now, taking the piss big time.

  Benny tried to level his voice and act normally.
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  ‘Listen, Gran, if he ever comes here again you do not let him in, right? You ring me or . . .’ He was running his hands frenziedly through his thick black hair, making it stand up. Carol knew the signs and was visibly frightened.

  ‘Better still, Gran, I am going to leave someone outside in future. We should have done it earlier but that’s beside the fucking point. Vic Joliff is one mad cunt, Gran, and you do not talk to him or see him without my express say so, OK?’

  ‘You can’t tell me who I can and can’t talk to. Even my Michael couldn’t do that . . .’

  Sarah’s hectoring voice seemed to send him mad. She was provoking him with her show of resistance and she knew it. Benny was so upset he forgot himself and the softly-softly approach went out of the window as he screamed at the top of his voice, ‘Oh, shut up, you silly old cow! We’ve got hag with Vic. He didn’t come to see you, he used you to wind us up. Can’t you see that, woman? Vic would walk straight past you if you had a heart attack on his doorstep. He wouldn’t give a shit!’

  Sarah was humiliated and it showed. She seemed to deflate before his eyes and he immediately felt sorry for what he had said.

  ‘Stop it, Benny. Can’t you see she’s upset enough as it is?’

  Carol’s voice was low. She was trying to comfort Sarah who shrugged her off with surprising strength.

  ‘Look, Gran . . .’

  His voice was calmer now, kinder. She waved him away as she said wearily, ‘I understand, Benny. He was using me. I was used. It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened, would it?’

  She walked from the kitchen and he saw how fragile and diminished by age she had become. He followed her out. In the hall she turned to face him, very much on her dignity.

  ‘Why don’t you go now. And shut the door behind you, Benny. I wouldn’t want any more of your enemies coming in here with flowers, now would I?’

  It occurred to him then that no one else had brought her flowers in years. He was ashamed, he was angry, and he was going to take Vic Joliff and break his fucking neck for the embarrassment he’d caused if it was the last thing he did in his life.