The Family

Breda heard her brother swearing under his breath, and knew that Christine really was there, had turned up at the house to save her. Breda could feel the tears breaking through her closed eyelids; the relief was palpable now, and her body started to shudder as shock set in.

Phillip Murphy was looking at his wife as if she had just grown a separate head on her shoulders in front of his eyes as he registered the shock and the disgust in her face. He knew that his mother was behind Christine coming here, shaming him further. Oh, would this fucking day never cease to surprise him? Would this day never fucking end?

Christine walked tentatively into the kitchen, and he could sense the fear emanating from her, almost smell it. His wife's fear affected him in a way Breda's failed to, he needed her goodwill, needed her to think well of him.

'What's going on, Phillip…? Come on, Breda, get up off the floor, love, did you fall over or something?'

It sounded silly even to her own ears, but Christine knew in her heart that she had to pretend she had no real idea what was going on here. She knew that her husband was not only volatile, but that he'd had some kind of break with reality. She had sensed this only a few times before, and she had been loath to explore her feelings then. She was even less inclined to think too much about it now.

She bent over Breda offering her a hand, and trying to smile reassuringly at her. The situation was so surreal she wondered briefly if she had stumbled into some kind of twilight dream world. There was whisky all over the floor and Breda looked like she had been flattened somehow, her whole face was swollen and already bruising. But it was Phillip who was worrying her – he looked vacant, unaware of what was happening around him, but she knew that he was more than aware and was watching them both with an intensity that made her feel he could see into their minds. She was pulling Breda's hands from around her head, making her let go, silently trying to impress on her how important it was to get up off the floor and away from Phillip as soon as possible. Once she was out of his sight she would be safe, for a while anyway.

'Come on, Bred, get up, will you? I'll make us a nice cup of tea and we'll all sit down and have a chat. I'm freezing, I need a hot drink.' She could hear the desperation in her own voice, hated herself for her weakness. She knew she needed to be strong tonight in order to get Phillip out of that house without doing his sister any more harm. But she was shaking with terror. This was the father of her children, and the thought that he could have passed this vicious trait on to the boys, along with his good looks, was weighing heavy on her mind.

Breda finally seemed to realise she had to move, and she slowly and gradually pulled herself up into a sitting position, all the time avoiding her brother's gaze and concentrating on Christine's eyes. Eyes that were telling her to keep calm, and do as she was told.

Phillip watched the display as if it was the singularly most fascinating thing he had ever witnessed in his life. His wife, his little Christine, helping foul-mouthed Breda, it was an incongruous situation, and it should never have happened. It wouldn't have happened if Breda had not been the catalyst for all the ills this day had brought him, and now this last humiliation was almost too much to bear. He pictured himself taking the bread knife from his mother's drawer, slicing it into his sister's liver over and over again, saw the pool of blood as it spread pleasingly across his mother's lovely floor.

But he knew that Christine couldn't see that, could never see anything like that. Christine didn't understand the real world, the world she lived in, and he didn't want her to. He didn't want her tainted with it, like the others were tainted. Christine was too good for this, she was far, far too good. In every way.

Phillip turned abruptly and walked out of the house, unable to tolerate the scene before him any longer without retaliating in some explosive and frightening way.

When the front door closed behind him, Christine felt her sister-in-law start to cry. She held Breda to her as she cried loudly, and with absolute abandon.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

In intensive care, Jamsie opened his eyes to find his mother sitting by his bed. It took him a few minutes to remember what had happened to him; when he did, he closed his eyes again, wishing he had never woken up in the first place. He heard his mother praying softly, could hear the gentle clicks as she passed the rosary beads through her fingers at the end of each prayer. It was comforting for him, reminded him of when he was a kid and she'd make them all say the rosary in May for Our Lady, Queen of Heaven.

He felt the sting of tears then; everything he had ever known was gone now, everything he had thought would always be there, that he had taken for granted, was gone. He had pulled some stunts in his time, and they were legion, but they were nothing compared to getting Declan put away. He had crossed a line, and there was no going back.

His mother leant towards him; he could smell the mints on her breath and, opening his eyes, he looked at her sadly. 'Mum?'

She stared into his eyes for a long moment before she said gently and forcefully, 'You should have died, Jamsie, you treacherous little bastard.'

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Veronica was worried. Phillip had been missing for five days, and she was once more sitting in her daughter- in-law's kitchen, watching her grandsons' antics, and hoping against hope that her boy would walk in the front door as if nothing had happened.

That was how these things usually panned out – after a bout of violence when he was young he would go off somewhere, and she would have the heart across her until he came back home. She wasn't frightened of anything happening to him, she was more worried about him hurting other people. He wasn't able to calm himself down, that was the trouble, and anyone in his path was easy prey. She knew from experience how he could get, knew that he was dangerous and incapable of controlling himself when things went too far. He had to hide away and try to wait out his immense fury. She knew the score, she was only nonplussed now because it was so long since he had experienced an episode like this one she had secretly hoped they were a thing of the past.

Yet if she was honest with herself, she doubted whether it was possible to grow out of that kind of anti-social behaviour. Phillip was, as her husband had once remarked, a complete nut-bag. She had laughed at the epithet at the time, but now it seemed to sum him up perfectly. She had seen Christine as his saving grace, had believed that his feelings for the girl proved he was at least normal enough to love on some level, and the same with the boys she had produced for him. Around his wife, he was a different person, the person Veronica knew he wanted to be. It was all a pretence, of course, she realised that now – his whole life was one big game. She looked around her at the lovely home he had provided for his family, and knew that, like Christine and his boys, this was his proof to the world that he was successful, that he was different to his peers. He saw himself as above everyone else and she knew how much store her Phillip put on how other people perceived him and his.

Now, thanks to Breda and that piece of shite Jamsie, he was back to where he was ten years previously. Between them they had destroyed their own family. She would never forgive either of them.

Her son might not be all the ticket in comparison to most other people, but he was her first-born and she loved him more than all the others put together. He needed her more than they did, even though he didn't actually realise that himself. Phillip was broken: it wasn't anything she had done, he had been born that way, and as such he was her responsibility. That, as far as she was concerned, was what being a mother was about.

Chapter Forty

Breda was like a caged lion. She sat in her mother's house and waited, feeling like she had the Sword of