Jail Bird

Her lovely Saz hated her. She looked directly at her daughter, her heart feeling as if it was bleeding. Saz had erected an impenetrable wall between them, and she wanted so much to break it down, to find the girl who was hiding behind it. ‘Saz…what are you sorry about?’ she asked gently.

Saz’s face went blank: the shutters were down. Everyone – Lily especially – shut out.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘When you were sleepwalking last night in the master suite, you said the same thing over and over again,’ Lily went on. ‘You said, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” You kept on repeating it.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Saz burst out, her eyes angry. ‘I was sleepwalking. I do that sometimes. It’s none of your business; nothing I do is any of your business, you got that?’

‘Come on, Saz…’ started Oli nervously.

‘No!’ Saz turned on her like a snake. ‘Don’t tell me to come on. Christ, you’re so weak, Oli.’

Lily saw the hurt on Oli’s face.

‘You’ve swallowed all her lies whole,’ Saz went on. ‘Well, I ain’t. I’m not staying here. You’re welcome to each other.’

Jack phoned an hour later, while Lily was in the kitchen, alone, feeling miserable. She didn’t pick up at first, scared it could be him, the breather, but finally she thought oh sod it and snatched the phone up.

‘Yeah, what?’ she asked, relieved to hear Jack’s broad Cockney accent.

‘And a good morning to you, too,’ said Jack.

‘It ain’t a good morning, Jack. But go on, what’s the news?’

‘Oh, this and that. Found out from one of the nursing home staff that Alice’s brother was none the worse for wear after I decked him.’

‘Pity.’

‘I thought that too,’ said Jack, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘And I had to stump up a ton to get to know who paid her bills. Which will go on your bill, naturally’

‘Yeah, sure. And?’

‘Purbright Securities. Paid every month, on the first. You know Purbright Securities?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither. I’ll check it out with Companies House.’

‘Thanks. Anything else?’

‘Oh yeah. That fruitcake phoned.’

‘Which fruitcake? I know so many’

‘Suki the tarot lady’

‘Oh, that one. What did she want?’

‘She’s shot away, ain’t she? But hard to dislike. Quite nice, really, in a batty sort of way.’

‘What did she say?’ Lily didn’t think Suki was a nice girl. Nice girls didn’t shag other women’s husbands, not where she came from.

‘She said to tell you that you gotta take extra care. She did your reading after you left, and it wasn’t good, that’s what she told me. Said she turned up the death card and there were other things too. Now the death card, she explained this to me, the death card ain’t always a bad thing. It can mean transformation, she said. But it can also mean—’

‘Death?’ suggested Lily, trying to make light of it. But she felt – ever so slightly – spooked.

‘Got it in one. She said you had a troubled aura, very dark, she said she could see—’

‘Yeah. Enough, already,’ said Lily sharply.

‘Just passing on the message,’ said Jack.

‘Consider it passed. I’ll take care.’

She could hear wheels running over a floor, voices. She turned on the stool and looked through the open kitchen doorway into the hall. Saz and Richard were there, dragging their cases towards the front door. Saz paused, and threw her a poisonous glare. Richard didn’t look at her at all.

Lily sighed and turned away. ‘Was there anything else?’ she asked Jack.

‘I’ll drop the bill in sometime, okay? For services rendered.’

‘Yeah. Do that.’ She put the phone down.

Behind her, she heard the front door close. Saz was gone.

Lily sat there, feeling like shit. Finally, she picked up the phone and gave in. She called Nick.

54

Winston was singing along to the radio, he was happy. Bob Marley was on there, singing about one love, one heart.

But Winston had two loves.

Amen to that. Happy was Winston’s default setting, and why not? He lived here rent-free with two beautiful blonde mamas, he drew the social, he did a little man-vanning on the side, smoked a little ganja, got plenty of ciggies from the local tab house, did a few deals here and there, everything was cool, everything really was just fine, yes sir.

He’d been here three years with Bev and Suki, and he loved it. He loved London; he loved the sights and the smells of the big city all around him. His family were back home in the Caribbean, and he loved them, sent home what he could, but he didn’t miss that life too much, not right now.

He didn’t miss loitering outside the five-star complexes waiting for the rich white females to wander out to shop. He remembered the low wall beside the hotel that he and his mates had targeted, and they sat there smiling big smiles and urging the ladies to join them. They had pieces of foam to place upon the wall so that the ladies could be comfortable, and many did ‘take the foam’, enticed by buff young bodies and offers of cooling slices of watermelon. As a living, it was pretty okay. The ladies were often lonely and middle-aged, they liked the fit young bucks paying them attention; and the ladies were generous in their gratitude, buying the boys and him meals, drinks, clothes – and dishing out free sex, too.

Here, he didn’t have to work quite that hard. Here, he’d met Suki and Bev in a club, and before long they had become not a twosome but a threesome. Suki and Bev seemed to like operating that way, and it suited him too.

So he was happy. He bopped along to the radio as he washed up in the kitchen. It was late; the girls were already in bed – one in his, one in the spare. He didn’t know who he would get from night to night, he never knew, they said they liked to surprise him. He was just tidying up, bopping along to Bob, and yes, he was happy.

Only there was something niggling away at him. Just a little bit. It wasn’t Bev. Bev was no trouble at all with the chatlines, and boy did they pay.

‘I just say naughties down the phone and they come, then it’s over,’ Bev had told him. ‘Money for old rope – kerching!’ And she’d laugh.

Bev was cool. Detached. He liked that. She was a fine woman, a bit edgier than Suki, you had to give her space, respect. Suki was the emotional one, prone to getting all sorts of airy-fairy ideas about how she was in touch with the spirit world and all that crap.

Spirit world, my fine black arse, thought Winston.

She might believe she had the gift, but that was all bollocks as far as he was concerned. So it was seriously annoying, how the visit from that King woman and her hired help had unsettled poor Suki. More than annoying. He’d picked up Jack Rackland’s card after him and the King woman had left, tucked it into his shirt pocket out of Suki’s way. Winston knew trouble when he smelled it, and any more of this shit with the King woman and he was going to pay a visit, set them straight. He didn’t know where to find Lily King, but Jack Rackland was only a stone’s throw away – Winston noted the address, committed it to memory. Winston wasn’t having anything upsetting his girls, no sir. Jack Rackland would be sorry if he did; that was for sure.

Now Suki was imagining all sorts, talking about Death and how she had gone on to do the full cross spread after Lily had shuffled the cards, and it had been the worst hand she had ever seen.

‘The worst,’ Suki kept telling him, and her eyes were spooked. She was really,