She sat on the stool nearest to her and started to cry. Pouring her a neat vodka, Freddie said, ‘Sexual assault and mugging, Jackie. That is just for starters, love. We bred a fucking right good one, us.’
Jackie was shaking her head vigorously, she was denying that anything like that could ever happen in their family. She was really sobbing now, a noisy, frightened crying that told her husband that despite this denial, on one level she believed everything he was going to say without even hearing the facts.
‘No, Freddie, you are wrong, not our boy, not my baby . . .’
Freddie dragged his wife up off the stool and whispered into her face with such hate and anger she was terrified all over again. ‘She was eighty years old, Jack, and she was robbed and assaulted. And it ain’t the first time he has done something like this either. I was guilty of letting it go the last time. I sorted it for him because that’s what we do, ain’t it, for our kids? But not this time, I ain’t going to do it, he is a fucking nonce, a nonce, and I ain’t fucking turning a blind eye. You had better shut your fucking trap, before I fucking shut it for you once and for all. He is a fucking beast and we have to sort this cunt out now!’
Jackie was bawling now. She was in bits, and she was also petrified that what Freddie was saying was true.
‘You are wrong, Freddie, he is a little boy!’
For the first time in years Freddie felt something for his wife, he was so impressed with her loyalty towards their son. If Little Freddie had robbed a bank or even murdered someone he would have stood beside her and lied with her. But this was different, this was wrong. This was beasting, this was about the fucking nonces on the VPU units. This was so far out of his sphere it frightened him. Supposing this boy did something and people heard about it, knew that this fucking sex offender was his flesh and blood.
‘It was Mrs Caldwell, your old granny’s mate! They robbed her, assaulted her and then, how is this for a fucking party piece, Jackie, they set fire to a fucking tramp who had tried to help the poor old cow!’
Jackie was now on the edge, she was hysterical. ‘He wouldn’t do anything like that, Freddie, he ain’t like that. My baby ain’t like that . . . Why ain’t they come for him, then? Why ain’t Old Bill come here, eh?’
Freddie sighed. ‘I was told about Mrs Caldwell by the attending officer. As luck would have it, we pay him off. He alerted me to what was going on, Jackie, and I have had to lay out serious wedge to keep this fucking ponce out of the nick. Now will you fucking believe me, Jackie? I only gave this cunt a pass because I can’t live with what he’s done. Or with people knowing what he’s done. Can’t you fucking understand that much at least?’
Little Freddie lay on the sofa in the living room and listened to his parents arguing. He knew from experience that eventually they would forget about him. He had fucked up, but for all his father’s threats he wouldn’t really put him away. He would ground him, watch him, and give him another curfew.
Then it would die down. The man who had sired him would find other things to do, and his mother would let him out and lie for him as always.
All in all, he had got off lightly.
Jackie came into the living room and gave her baby a gentle hug. She had finally understood where her husband was coming from, but no matter what he said or what he threatened, her son was going nowhere. He was not bad. If only Freddie could see him like she saw him. He was only a kid. Because he was a big boy for his age people thought that he was older than he was and tried to treat him like an adult. But he was only a kid and Freddie was too hard on him.
Everyone was against them, since day one she had fought against getting any kind of help. He was just a child and because his last name was Jackson he was ostracised and picked on by everyone. The filth hated him, the courts hated him, the social workers looked at her as if she was dirt! They had it in for him and all. He was her baby, her last-born, and she was not about to let anyone tell her that he was bad.
He was in with the wrong crowd, and because he was such a big fucker people remembered him more than the others. He was easily led, and that was all that was wrong with him. They wanted him to be put away, put in care, or stuck in some fucking home, some fucking institution. Well, not while she still had a breath in her body. She would fight for her baby, she would keep him home with her. No one was going to take him anywhere.
She knew inside that none of this was true, that the name Jackson actually stopped anything even remotely like that happening, but it was the only way she could cope with her son’s problems.
She was grateful for the vodka Freddie had brought in for her, although it also told her how bad this had become. But as ever she pushed all the terrible things from her mind, drank herself stupid and made a point of forgetting anything detrimental to her own peace of mind or wellbeing.
Freddie had fucked off and for once she was glad he had gone out. Over the years she had wanted him home so badly, but now she didn’t care either way. Her Little Freddie was sitting with her, cuddling her, and she didn’t need anyone else. He was her life, and no one would take him from her.
Now she was drunk as a skunk, she told Little Freddie that over and over again.
Maggie was lying on the bed with her son. He was asleep in her arms and she marvelled at the love she had for him. When she looked at him she wondered how she had ever let Freddie dictate her feelings for someone so precious, someone who had come from her own body. He was half hers, half of him was made up of her and she had let her hate for Freddie come between her and her child.
Her child.
Since the day she had fronted Freddie up, she had felt so much better. She felt she had taken the power back, even though that expression irritated her, especially when she heard it from complete drongos on daytime talk shows, who had no concept of real women’s problems. She knew what having real power over someone meant. She had lived with it day in and day out for so long.
Freddie had possessed the power over her because she had been terrified he would tell his wife what had happened and Jackie would blame her because she could never admit that her husband was capable of raping her sister.
It was Jackie’s reaction she had been most afraid of.
She had also been so scared that Freddie would tell her husband, tell everyone they knew that he had slept with her, and she had believed that everyone would think it had been by choice. Now, all this time later, she knew no one would think that she would even contemplate touching him.
Now, she was happy, happier anyway, than she had been in years.
Seeing Kimberley in the hospital that night, and seeing Jackie for what she really was, a fucking coward and a drunk, had made her understand her own fears and her own problems.
Telling Jackie that she would lay her out had been such a big step for her. All her life her elder sister had dictated to her, told her what to do, given her advice, slagged her off, insulted her. She had treated Jackie like some kind of fucking goddess when, in reality, she was a drunk. A manipulating, vicious, drunken bitch who for some reason she had always felt a strong and genuine love towards. And she had always assumed that the feeling had been reciprocated. Now Maggie wasn’t so sure. She knew Jackie ran her down to her mates and talked badly about her within the family.
Maggie had also realised that, whatever happened between her and Jackie, she wouldn’t lose the girls’ love. She had taken them over many years before and they loved and needed her. The girls would still be there, whether she was talking to Jackie or not.
So she had told her sister what she thought of her, and gone home to find Freddie trying once more to inveigle his way into her confidence, into her mind and, worst of all, into her real life with her husband.
He had sat in her house with her man, and she had finally had enough. She had wanted him to tell Jimmy what had happened so badly. She was sick of keeping it secret, protecting people who did not deserve her care or her protection.
If she had never seen Jackie again she wouldn
’t give a fuck. She felt, for the first time in years, free, unencumbered, light-hearted and indifferent about who she might hurt if anything did come out.
Fuck them all, her Jimmy included. It was knowing that she didn’t now care about how he would react that had actually made it all so much easier. Jimmy had become the one she had been trying to protect, and Jimmy was the strongest of them all.
She had dared Freddie to spill the beans and he had walked away. She had taken back the power.
Now, she was happy. She loved her boy, had always loved her boy - the half that was hers anyway - but thanks to Freddie she felt so guilty about the circumstances of his conception she had found it hard to watch her Jimmy being his father. And loving Jimmy so much, she had been terrified that Freddie would let the secret out, just to prove a point, just to make trouble. Just to teach her a lesson.
But that night she had discovered that he was wary of Jimmy, scared of him in fact. And she had finally sussed out that Jimmy was the reason it had started in the first place.
Things weren’t all back to normal, but she was trying to make things right, and if Freddie would only leave them in peace, their lives would be so much better.
And look at his kids. Without her, what the fuck would the girls do? He was not even interested in Rox getting married. She had made a fucking good match in their world, and he had no interest.
Jackie had no interest in any of them either. Kimberley was off the gear, and Maggie had helped her get a flat, but neither Jackie nor Freddie had bothered to go and see her, which had hurt the girl. Maggie knew how she felt, knew how it was when you had let people down, but these were people who let themselves down and Kimberley was better off without them. All the girls were better off without them. Even Dianna was seeing a little fucker, and would be gone before they knew it. Neither of them gave a shit, yet when Freddie finally found out who the bloke was, Maggie knew the Third World War would erupt.
Why was one person allowed to have so much power? Why did everyone feel the need to make his life easier when all he did was use people? And Jackie was just the same, full of her own self-importance.
Maggie had pointed out to Jimmy that he paid the wages, not Freddie, and yet he still fucking pandered to him. She knew it had hurt Jimmy, she knew it was a provocative statement, but as she had said it time and time again, who the fuck did Freddie Jackson think he was? What gave him the right to treat people like he did, including her Jimmy, her husband?
She had argued that with Jimmy the night before. He had been telling her how Freddie was still conning money off people. Big news on the grapevine that was. All these years later, he was still nicking pennies and halfpennies off fucking no necks. And she had told Jimmy, ‘You give him his power, and until you take it away from him he will always be trouble.’
Now she had his daughters’ lives in her hand, and she wanted to help them out because she loved them. Like her little son, she knew he was only half of them, and the other half was nothing to do with him and his life.
For all that, though, Little Freddie was scary, and she knew that he was on borrowed time. She made sure her little man was never in his orbit for any length of time, and that he was never alone with him.
If it was left with her now, she would blank Freddie and Jackie without a second’s thought. They were just not worth the aggravation.
Jimmy Junior opened his eyes and she smiled at him. He sat up and she kissed his handsome face and she tickled him until he was screeching with laughter.
This was her life now, this boy, her baby, and she was determined to make his life everything it could possibly be.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Look, Jimmy, I had a lot on my fucking plate.’
It was obvious that Jimmy thought that Freddie was taking the piss. He laughed in derision and annoyance. ‘You had a lot on your plate? I had Amos here, Glenford, the whole fucking shebang. It was like the Black and White Minstrel Show - your term for the meet if I remember rightly, not mine. Remember now, do you? The meet where you should have talked your way out of the shit? Ring any fucking bells, does it?’
Jimmy’s sarcasm and open animosity were so unusual that Freddie was for once speechless. Jimmy never goaded him, Jimmy never lost his rag, that was Freddie’s department, not Jimmy’s. Freddie was the wild card, he was the one no one knew how to deal with. Not Jimmy. Jimmy was the placid one, the thinker, the fucking brains of the outfit, according to the gossip.
‘You made me look a right fucking knob. Well, not any more, Freddie. You can go and fuck yourself from now on, and I mean that.’
Jimmy lit a cigarette and pulled on it deeply before saying,
‘These are shit, how can people buy them!’ He put the cigarette out and rummaged through his desk until he found another pack. The cigarette he had lit the first time was Chinese contraband. They looked like Benson & Hedges, they were in the same packaging, and they had the same health warnings. However, they were made and rolled in China and sold off here for a fraction of the original cigarettes’ asking price. The tobacco was cheap, they were easy to manufacture and they were selling like hot cakes thanks to Gordon Brown and his determination to make smokers into the elite. Jimmy, however, always knew a snide fag, and he hated them.
He lit up again, his fury still evident. ‘I tell you, Fred, I looked at Amos and all the others and I could see their point. Why should they have you ripping them off, eh? Who are you to do that to them? What gives you the fucking right to have them over when they are only grafting a living the same as us?’
Freddie was astonished. Jimmy had always tried to be respectful of him and his feelings, and he knew he had not always given young Jimmy the same respect back.
‘It was Little Freddie, he is in big trouble . . .’
Jimmy waved his hands in dismissal. ‘Oh, fuck off, Freddie. His whole life will be trouble, he is his father’s son. You left me standing on my Jacksy like a fucking cunt, and I had some serious people here because of you. And I have had enough. Do you hear me? You and me are that far -’ he held up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand about an inch apart - ‘from fucking falling out altogether. You fucking cheap ponce. I had to kiss their arses over fucking twenty grand! Twenty fucking grand they were light, and it wasn’t the first time, was it? Jesus Christ, but fucking Ozzy had you fucking taped from the off.’
Freddie had never seen Jimmy like this, he had never seen him so angry or so uncontrolled in what he was saying. Jimmy always thought before he spoke, even in anger, and Freddie knew this could mean he was on his way out.
He watched Jimmy as he walked around the office. His huge shoulders and his taut body denoted a man who looked after himself, and Jimmy did just that. He took care of himself inside and out. He also took care of everyone around him, and that was the bugbear.
Now Freddie was finally accepting that Jimmy was the better man and it was too late. Jimmy had reached the end of his tether and Freddie was wise enough to know when it was best to keep quiet. Let him get it out of his system.
‘Don’t worry, I weighed them out, Fred, don’t you fucking worry about that. I weighed them out and gave them a drink on top for their trouble. You cost me a fucking fortune, but what I can’t understand is where your poke goes! You don’t even possess a decent bit of clobber. You must spunk it up like no one’s business. You earn a serious fucking wage and you got fuck all to show for it. You are thieving off my workers and they are not earning anything near your fucking wages, and so I want to know, where the fuck is it all going?’
Freddie didn’t answer him, but just shrugged nonchalantly.
Jimmy sighed. This was the older cousin he had always loved, and who he had once revered. All he saw now was a large man with a beer gut and a bad attitude who was ageing fast. He could not for the life of him understand what was going on in Freddie’s head, what was making him tick, and the worst thing of all was, he had stopped caring.
Maggie was right. He had carried Freddie all thes
e years out of guilt, but as she had pointed out so many times, if Ozzy had wanted Freddie to run the businesses he would have given them to Freddie. But he hadn’t, he had given them over to Jimmy, and now he had to finally and irrevocably make that point. Freddie seemed to think that he had been done over, but Ozzy had decided that Jimmy was to be the main player and so anything that Freddie thought was now moot.
It was Ozzy’s world they lived in. Ozzy still pulled the strings and called the shots as he always had done, and it was Ozzy who had given Jimmy the main shots. Ozzy was the number one and the sooner Freddie understood that, the sooner they could all get on with their lives.
He was a fucking albatross hanging round their necks and, as Maggie also said, although she was related to him by marriage and Jimmy was related to him by blood, that did not give him any Brownie points where Ozzy was concerned.
Jimmy knew she was right, and the last few days had just proved her point. He just wished that he had brought this out into the open years ago.
‘You are out, Freddie, out of the main drag. You will be on an earner now and you will be nothing but a collector. You can kiss goodbye to anything else until you show me you can be fucking trusted.’
Freddie was convinced he was hearing things. ‘You what? A collector, me?’
Jimmy nodded, and Freddie was reminded of just how far his little cousin had come. Jimmy was a man’s man. He had the presence of a leader, and he also had the backing of Ozzy and all his counterparts. Freddie knew that Jimmy deserved everything he had accomplished, but that knowledge did not make it any easier for him. Now, this boy was seriously considering putting him on to the collecting, like he was a fucking no one, a fucking no neck.
It was outrageous, it was unbelievable, and it was also long overdue. If the boot had been on the other foot he would have aimed Jimmy out long ago.