If it wasn’t for his broken fingers, Jake Bellingham would’ve given Emmie a hard slap in the face. He was lucky to be alive, and all she could do was give him a headache with her crocodile tears while her fat mother sat eating her second bar of chocolate, keeping an eye on them.
They’d given him painkillers but he was still in agony. Alfie Jennings had delighted in breaking four of his ribs, the fingers on both hands, and extracting five of his teeth – and all because he was going to bone his frigid daughter.
The last person he thought he’d get a visit from was Emmie. The minute she’d walked in and seen him lying at the end of the four-man ward, she’d run and grabbed hold of his broken fingers and buried her face in his body, right on top of his broken ribs. When he’d yelled out, his mouth had started to bleed again and Emmie had screamed for the nurse before sitting down on the chair crying; something she’d now been doing for the past ten minutes.
He couldn’t even talk to tell her to stop as his mouth was too sore, so all he could do was wait for her to shut up and stare at the faded green curtains around his hospital bed.
Finally, Emmie stopped crying and spoke. ‘I’m sorry Jake, I had no idea you were this bad. Dad doesn’t know I’m here, he’d kill me.’ Emmie hesitated for a moment before adding, ‘Well, kill
you
really.’
She smiled apologetically and Jake squirmed.
‘I wanted to come and see you before but it took me forever to persuade Mum to bring me. I thought I’d die before she’d agree.’
She smiled at her mum and Jake scowled, turning his face away from them. She was so dramatic and obviously thought she meant something more to him other than a quick fuck – not that he’d even got one. He hadn’t even got a whiff of her pussy, which made the whole situation even harder to accept.
The next half hour was torturous for Jake as Emmie chattered away about her school friends who sounded as pointless as she was, so he was more than grateful to hear the West Indian nurse come into the ward, letting his unwanted visitors know it was time to go.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave; visiting time’s over.’
He was less grateful however, when he heard the rest of the conversation.
‘Mr Bellingham, you need to open your bowels for me, the doctor wants to see if you’ve got any blood in your stool. Shall I help you get on the bedpan, or would you like your pretty girlfriend here to help?’
Without giving Jake a choice, Emmie piped up, ‘It’s alright, me and my mum will help him, won’t we Mum?’
As Jake watched Emmie come towards him holding the bedpan and her mother rolling up her sleeves, Jake felt his humiliation was complete. Somebody was going to pay dearly for it.
Back at the Jennings house in Essex, Alfie wondered where Janine and Emmie were. He’d tried calling, but as usual both his wife’s and his daughter’s phone went straight to voicemail. It infuriated him when they didn’t answer their phones and it wasn’t doing anything to help his current mood either. When they
did
finally find their way home, he’d certainly have a lot to say to them; and he was sure they wouldn’t like it. Alfie Jennings would be turning the air a deep shade of blue.
‘Are you using this house as some sort of drop-in centre? Where the fuck have you two been?’ Alfie roared, striding up to his wife’s white Range
Rover as it came down the pebbled drive.
Janine looked at Emmie, trying not to look guilty. They’d decided to tell Alfie they’d been to Lakeside shopping centre, giving them the excuse to stop off and buy a couple of new tops in Karen Millen on the way home.
Janine wasn’t a good liar – she always felt guilty – but there was no way she could ever tell her husband where they’d been; she was sure if he ever found out, it wouldn’t be just Jake who was lying in a hospital bed.
Janine had listened to Emmie beg her to take her to the hospital to see Jake. She’d listened to her daughter’s hysterics turn to pleading and then into quiet sobs in her bedroom. Eventually she’d caved in, remembering how she’d felt when she’d fallen for Alfie twenty-odd years ago, and how she’d wished she’d had an ally in her own mother. She also hoped by letting her go and see Jake, Emmie could see that she was on her side, and then perhaps she might start opening up to her about what else was playing on her mind. Janine felt Emmie was slipping further away from her and she’d do anything to stop that happening, even if it meant going behind Alfie’s back. And she guessed if it was a lie for the greater good, what harm was there?
After the showdown with Janine and Emmie, Alfie made a few phone calls and left the house. He was going to meet up with Oscar again and get formally introduced to the head of the Albanian gang, Zahir, who spoke the English language far better than he did. It was important for him in business to know every link of the chain; that way, Alfie knew exactly what he was dealing with.
He and Oscar were going to discuss the possibility of bringing some more girls into London from Albania, but first they needed to discuss the costs. The girls they had in their possession now had been exchanged for kilos of heroin, so only drugs, not money, had been involved.
The Albanians had wanted to flood the streets of Manchester with heroin so they could become the main supplier of brown up there, but their drugs supply had been compromised after the cargo ship carrying it had been searched at Bilbao docks and consequently, the smack had been seized. They’d been desperate to get hold of a large amount of gear quickly to keep their finger on the market up North, so they’d put the word out they were looking to buy.
When Oscar had first come and put the idea to him about the exchange of goods Alfie had been uncertain, even though they’d been in possession of an excess amount of heroin, following a gangland killing of a main dealer in Holborn. The dead man had worked for Todd Wakeman, the leader of the EC1 gang. Alfie and Oscar had been owed money by the deceased and as Todd hadn’t wanted any more trouble, he’d let them take the dealer’s supply of heroin by way of payment.
When Oscar had explained the returns and showed him the sums, Alfie hadn’t been able to say no. As he and Oscar had owned the heroin 50/50, they now owned the girls in the same split.
Sitting in his car and waiting for the traffic light to turn green at Piccadilly Circus, Alfie knew it was vital to get their numbers up if they were going to make a real go of it. They were already two girls down but he was feeling better about the whole situation now; he’d gone over it in his head and he could see what a great opportunity it was. He’d had a twinge of conscience but then he’d thought some more and realised he wasn’t a social worker – the world wouldn’t be healed overnight if he didn’t do this. There was a market for it and why give it to someone else when he could have it? That would be like giving a stranger a bag full of money. After all, he was Alfie Jennings, and if there was anything which was going to make him feel he was doing the right thing, it was making money. Lots of it.
It was the following Saturday morning and Casey was relieved she wasn’t working in the cafe. She’d even managed to sleep till eight, which was unusual as her troubled mind usually woke her up.
Up until that morning she’d only been able to have a wash using a flannel and a bowl of hot water in the lounge as she refused to go into the bathroom apart from to use the toilet, so she’d taken herself off to the swimming baths in High Holborn, where she’d been able to have a shower for the cost of the three-pound entrance fee.
She felt fresh after spending ages scrubbing her skin and washing her hair. She’d carefully blow dried it so it now hung down in tousled shiny auburn waves to the middle of her back.
On the way home she’d treated herself to a new light blue top from Berwick Street market and washed her clothes at the launderette in Romilly Street. For a moment she’d felt happy; the late winter sun on her face and the unseasonably warm breeze on her skin reminding her of the time she went on holiday to Sardinia with Josh.
She hadn’t wanted to go and had refused at first, crushing his boyish enthusiasm. She was worried he’d be watching her every move, her every drink, and she wouldn’t have the freedom she needed to sneak off when she wanted to as she did at home. Though when she thought about it, she didn’t actually need to hide – she had hours on her own to do as she pleased, to go where she liked and to drink as she saw fit.
On some days she and Josh would be like ships passing in the loneliness of the night. The long hours he worked gave her the opportunity to live her life as she wanted to without having to see the disappointed look in his eyes.
She stood her ground, refusing to go and refusing to look at the brochures of the upmarket hotel he’d booked them into, but after a week of him looking forlorn over the breakfast table, Casey had reluctantly agreed.
‘You won’t regret it, Cass. It’ll be wonderful, I promise.’
Casey smiled knowing the sentiment of the moment didn’t really hit either of them as it should’ve done.
Sardinia was a jewel; bathed by turquoise seas and surrounded by ivory white sandy beaches, and for a moment Casey forgot her pain and was able to live in the moment of the seductive beauty of the island.
Josh picked up the hire car – an open-top white Mercedes – and drove them both away from the busy seaside resort of Santa Teresa di Gallura; along winding roads, past citrus groves and velvet green pastures, up towards the rustic blanket of forested mountain peaks and just beyond to Bosa, the impossibly picturesque medieval town with pink and white buildings flanking the swirling river.
‘It’s beautiful, Josh.’
‘I told you you’d like it,’ Josh said, grinning.
And he’d been right. Casey had loved every moment. She hadn’t stopped drinking but it didn’t have that desperate edge to it and Josh had said nothing, just held her hand as she walked unsteadily along the mountain paths. He sat by her side as she slept off the lunchtime bottle of wine, and when the day was finished, he carried her to bed after the town’s evening festivities.
It was all going so well – the simple things were being let back into her life; and then on the second week when Casey wasn’t looking her world came falling in again.
‘Why don’t we have a baby? Our baby. It might help you.’
Casey had looked at Josh, taken in his face and the naive excitement in his eyes before speaking, the distance between them becoming wider than it was already.
‘Take me home, Josh. I want to go home.’
Within four hours they were on a plane heading back to England.
When she got back to the flat Casey remembered she’d promised to meet Vaughn later; annoyingly she couldn’t call him to cancel their drink as she didn’t have his number.
Sighing, Casey absentmindedly picked up her diary and started flicking through it. For a two-year diary it had surprisingly few written entries. It was mainly full of doodles, and scribblings of homework.
Partway through the journal, Casey came to a familiar page which made her catch her breath and the tears swelled in the back of her throat. Stuck neatly in the middle of the page was a lock of hair.
Fri 15th January 1996
Nurse brought me a tiny lock of hair from baby. I will keep it forever. Feel so, so sad, can’t stop crying. Think I’ll cry forever.
‘I’m sorry Casey; it’s more than my job’s worth.’
‘Please, just take me to see my baby.’
‘I’m sorry; you know I can’t do that. Sweetheart, you’ve got to try to stop thinking of it as your baby; it’ll only make it harder for you. I know it’s tough but eventually it’ll get easier.’
Casey looked at the midwife who’d been so kind to her; she thought she might have been able to convince her to take her down to the neo-natal unit but Casey could see from the look on the midwife’s face it was pointless trying to persuade her.
The feeling of isolation was crippling; no one would tell her anything about her baby. Her mum had come to see her twice, both times with a sullen look on her face. She hadn’t seen her dad at all and had only received a telephone message from him wishing her a speedy recovery.
‘Then if you can’t do that, just tell me what I had. Was it a boy or girl?’
Before the midwife could answer, Casey’s mother drew the bed curtains back sharply.
‘Casey, stop pestering the nurses. If it’s so important for you to know, I’ll tell you. You had a boy.’
The midwife glanced at Casey’s mum and scuttled away with her head down, leaving Casey to bury her head in her hands as her mother stood motionless at the side of her bed.
It was well past midnight and Casey was drifting off into a restless sleep when she felt someone at the end of her bed.
‘Casey?’
Casey sat up to see the kind nurse smiling at her. The nurse spoke in a whisper.
‘Casey, I brought you this but it’s only between you and me; I’ll lose my job otherwise.’
The nurse took Casey’s hand and placed a tiny curled lock of hair in the middle of her hand. It took Casey a moment to realise what it was.
‘Is that from …?’ Casey was unable to say any more but the nurse smiled again and nodded her head as she watched the light come into Casey’s eyes for the first time.
Casey stood up, making sure the lock of hair was still secure in the pages of her diary. She was about to throw it back in her bag but she stopped and instead put it inside her jacket pocket. Maybe it was silly, but sometimes she needed to have the diary close to her. Knowing the lock of hair – the only reminder of the child she had – was next to her was the only way she got through the day.
She
had
to go to a meeting; the urge to drink to take the pain away was beginning to overwhelm her and she was afraid if she didn’t make it this time, it would be the end.