Scarlet Women

‘He just told me not to go to Dolly’s again. Like, ever,’ she said, watering it down, conveying none of the viciousness, none of the fury that Redmond had displayed in Dolly’s front parlour.

‘Then don’t. He’s been pushed far enough. Pull back.’

‘But for God’s sake! I’ve spent half my life going in and out of Dolly’s place. Why’s this got him so hot and bothered? I’ve never seen him like this before.’

‘That’s something you’re going to have to ask Mira about. They were there to get her, after all.’

‘I know. I will.’

‘Anything else I can help with?’ he asked.

Yeah, thought Annie. Come over here and give me a hug, tell me this is all going to be okay even though I just know it never will be.

‘No. Nothing,’ she said instead.

‘I want to see you.’

She felt herself weaken when he said that. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Okay.’

A pause. ‘I’m going home soon,’ he said.

Don’t, she thought, clutching the phone tighter.

He paused. ‘I have a penthouse in Manhattan. It overlooks Central Park.’ He paused again. ‘The family never go there. Just me.’

Annie was silent.

‘Are you still there?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said, dry-mouthed.

‘You could go there too. Anything you want. A charge account. A life of luxury. Ten nannies for Layla. Anything.’

Max had offered her the same thing. History was repeating itself. Back in the day, she’d been Max Carter’s mistress. Now she would be Constantine’s. He’d found a way to have her in his life without upsetting the family order. She felt deflated.

‘We’ll talk,’ he said. ‘Okay?’

‘Yeah. Okay.’ She put the phone down. Thought about it. Tried to see it as a good thing, that he wanted her close, that his intentions towards her were serious.

But she still felt like a kid whose balloon had burst.

Chapter 40

First thing next morning she phoned Ruthie to speak to Layla. But Ruthie had a question for her first.

‘I’ve seen a man hanging around, watching the place,’ said Ruthie worriedly. ‘What’s going on, Annie?’

Annie took a breath. ‘He’s there for your protection. There’s been a little trouble. Nothing to concern you, it’s just insurance.’

‘Right. I see.’

‘You okay?’

‘Fine. Just…I’d forgotten what it was like. All the gang stuff. This reminded me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie. ‘It’s necessary, just for now.’

‘You want to speak to Layla now?’

‘Yeah. Please.’

‘You’re all right?’

Annie had to smile. Ruthie was still her big sis, still looking out for her.

‘Yeah. I’m great,’ she said, and then Layla came on the line, chattering at her, blowing her kisses down the phone, and for a few blissful minutes she was just a mother again, Layla’s mother, and it was bliss, it was wonderful.

At eleven Tony drove Annie over to a large mock Tudor villa in Harrow-on-the-Hill to see Mira. She was admitted by a grey-haired woman in a white coat, obviously a private nurse. The interior of the house was clean and quiet, with chequered black and white tiles in the hall, and glossy aspidistras as big as Triffids placed around it.

Annie was led into a big conservatory where the tiles were the same as the hall, and the greenery even more pronounced. It was like taking a trip up the Orinoco in there. A huge grapevine, clusters of black grapes dangling from its lush foliage, was twining around the top of the conservatory, casting welcome shade from the midday sun.

The door was open into the garden; somewhere a blackbird was singing. There was a wicker table with a tea tray on it, and several comfy-looking chairs. In one of them was Mira, still looking scrawny but at least clean, with her hair washed and her face scrubbed. She wore a clean set of oversized pyjamas. Her hands were bandaged. Her eyes looked lucid, as they hadn’t done before.

‘Hi, how are you doing?’ asked Annie, as the white-coated woman quietly vanished back inside the main body of the house.

‘I’m fine,’ said Mira, although she clearly wasn’t. She tried to smile, but it faltered.

Annie sat down. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Mira. ‘I did.’

Silence.

Then Mira said in a small voice: ‘I think…I can’t really remember too well what I did, but I think I tried to hurt you. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Annie hastily. It hadn’t been Mira anyway; it had been the drugs. ‘You want to tell me what’s been going on?’

And, haltingly, slowly, Mira started to tell her about her descent into hell.

Falling in love with Redmond Delaney. Then, the abortion. The despair quickly smothered by the drugs, and then the drugs taking over her life. His love—if he had ever loved her at all, if he was capable of love—then turning to irritation, to violence, to twisted cruelty, so that she had to get out because she was in fear for her life.

‘Christ, Mira,’ said Annie when she paused for breath.

‘He was abused as a child,’ said Mira. ‘He told me about it. Him and Orla. God, that can really fuck a person up. I should know, Annie.’

Annie knew about this; she had talked to Orla about it, years ago. A normal life was beyond Orla. What little affection she had, she lavished upon Redmond.

‘With Orla, she’s distant, can’t let anyone near her,’ Mira went on, ‘but Redmond is different. Once he has you, he can’t bear to let you go. He hit me, throttled me, suffocated me because he loved me. He said I was his, that if I ever left him he would kill me, and I believed him. He’d learned that controlling whoever he loved was the only way to be certain they didn’t hurt him. But now I have. I’ve hurt him. I’ve left him. And he’ll get me for it, I know he will.’

‘He won’t get you,’ said Annie. ‘You’re safe here.’

Mira gave her a tired smile and leaned back in her chair.

‘You know, it wasn’t so bad on the streets,’ she went on. ‘At least I was free of him. I used to go down the Sally Army some nights and sleep there. Other times a doorway would have to do. There were always church types who wanted to help, volunteers coming round with chat and blankets, and there’s a soup kitchen run by St Aubride’s in the hall beside the church. I used to go there—a lot of us did.’

Annie paused in pouring the tea. Aretha’s Aunt Louella sang in the choir at St Aubride’s. She had questioned the vicar there. They had buried Aretha there.

‘Did the vicar run the soup kitchen?’ asked Annie.

She remembered what Dolly had said about him falling down drunk at Aretha’s reception, and how he had vilified prostitutes.

‘I suppose he had a hand in it, but the volunteers were working the coalface.’