Authors: Jessie Keane
The Make (9 page)
21 December
‘Oh my Christ! I never want to have to go through anything like that ever again,’ said Suze, collapsing into a chair at the kitchen table when she and Gracie arrived home.
‘Do you think that was our fault?’ asked Gracie, sitting down opposite her mother and exhaling sharply.
Suze looked up. ‘What?’
‘That nurse told us they hear things. People in . . .’
Comas.
‘. . . People out of it. Did he hear us arguing, you think? And it upset him?’
‘No.’ Suze frowned. ‘Jesus. I hope not.’ She sank her head into her hands. ‘Thank God they got him stabilized.’
Gracie nodded. She felt shaky with the aftermath of fear. George’s heart had stopped. George had
died.
But, somehow, they’d brought him back online again. Saved him. She and her mother had left the hospital an hour after it had happened, both shaken to the core. They could have lost him, right then and there. George – big jovial confident George, so full of life – could have been gone forever.
Gracie raised a trembling hand to her mouth and felt like she might cry again, which she rarely did. Oh, she’d shed tears at her father’s death, shed tears at his graveside, but tears never came easily to her.
Yeah, she was cold.
No, not cold, she corrected herself. Just logical, reasonable. Always looking for answers, weighing up odds.
So what are the odds on George coming out of this, Gracie?
The odds were bad. She didn’t even want to start thinking about it.
‘Jesus,’ she groaned, ‘I need a drink.’
‘That,’ said Suze, levering herself upright with her hands flat on the table – looking like an old, old woman all of a sudden, ‘I can do. Got sherry here, or brandy . . .?’
‘Brandy,’ said Gracie, and watched while her mother went to the cupboard, got out two glasses and a bottle, and came back and threw herself back down into her chair.
Suze slopped the brandy into the glasses. Looked at Gracie. Then she picked up her glass.
‘To George,’ she said. ‘To my darling Georgie.’ Then her eyes filled and she put the glass back down, starting to sob.
‘He’s going to pull through this,’ said Gracie. She looked at her mother, half exasperated, half feeling like joining in and wailing like a banshee too.
‘You don’t
know
that,’ blubbed Suze.
‘I know George is tough,’ said Gracie.
She looked at her mother’s hand, there on the table. A few wrinkles were on that hand now, a couple of age spots. She hadn’t seen or known her mother in a long time, but those hands were as familiar to her as her own. Families might splinter apart and loyalties might be tested to the limit, but blood ties remained forever strong, and that surprised her.
Tentatively Gracie reached out and put her hand over her mother’s.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she told Suze firmly.
‘No!’ Now Suze was shaking, crying, shouting. ‘It
ain’t
going to be all right. George could have
died
tonight. Someone did this to him, put him in fucking
hospital.
He might never recover.
Never.
And Harry. God knows what’s happening to Harry. Where is he, Gracie? What the hell’s happening to our lives?’
Gracie stared at Suze, unable to give her comfort. She was almost relieved when she heard the key in the front door, glad of someone else’s presence,
anyone’s
, because she didn’t know what to say to ease Suze’s pain.
It was Claude, coming in red-nosed from the pub, bringing in a waft of icy winter air with him. He came into the kitchen and looked at Suze, sitting there in floods.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Oh Claude, it was horrible,’ said Suze, and sprang up and flung herself into Claude’s arms.
Claude looked a question at Gracie. ‘George’s heart stopped,’ she explained. ‘They restarted it. He’s okay.’
For now, anyway.
Gracie threw back the brandy. It warmed her all the way down to her toes. She stood up. Hated this feeling of being powerless, swept along like a reed on a current of water. She was used to being in charge, in control. Owning her surroundings. But all this was so strange to her. She didn’t like it. Not at all. It didn’t suit her, and she wasn’t about to accept it.
‘I think I’ll go on up,’ she said, easing her way past her mother and her boyfriend.
She went wearily up the stairs to her room, feeling exhausted. She went to the window and looked out at the dark street. There were little wisps of snow drifting down, but it was too thin and it was still too warm for snow to settle.
Christmas was coming and here was a perfect winter’s scene to go with it. But George was lying half dead in intensive care. And Harry . . . well, where the fuck was Harry? She thought of the matching bags of hair and felt her guts twist with anxiety. And the notes. The bloody
notes.
Maybe they
should
get the police involved. But Harry. She had to think of Harry. If somebody saw them talking to the police, where would that leave him? Up shit creek.
There was a cough behind her.
She turned.
‘Settling in?’ asked Claude, smiling at her from the open doorway. She hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs.
‘Yeah. Fine,’ said Gracie.
‘If there’s anything you need, anything at all,’ he said, addressing his comments to the front of her shirt.
‘There ain’t,’ she said coldly, and walked over and shut the door in his face.
Creep
, she thought, then dismissed him from her mind. She had come down here to find answers. And she was going to bloody well do that, starting first thing tomorrow.
22 December
By ten next morning, Gracie was slipping one of Suze’s spare keys into the outer door of the building where George and Harry rented their flat. The building was a soulless, Thirties block of ten flats, set on a busy main road. Outside there was no greenery, no ornamentation, nothing to suggest homeliness. Stepping inside, Gracie looked round at a bare concrete hall, a utilitarian staircase. The grey-painted doors to flat 1 and 1A were on her left. The air in here smelled of cooked cabbage and curry.
‘George and Harry live on the first floor,’ Suze had told her at breakfast. ‘Flat number two. I don’t know what you think you’ll gain from going there, but here’s the keys if you really want them. And you can fetch a clean pair of George’s pyjamas and a dressing gown for him if you don’t mind.’
Suze had handed over a bunch of four keys – two for the outer door to the block, two for the flat door. Gracie didn’t know what she was going to gain, either. She just knew she had to start somewhere, and their flat seemed like the best place to begin. She went up the stairs. There was no one about. Flats 2 and 2A were to her left. The same, putty-coloured paint on the door. Spyholes on both, just like on the flats downstairs. She brandished another key and slipped it into the keyhole.
The door swung open. It was dark inside the flat, the curtains drawn. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. It smelled stale, too. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then smoothed her hand down the wall beside the door and found the light switch, knocking a phone off its hook, and swearing. She flicked the light on and pocketed the keys.
George and Harry’s flat was revealed to her. The phone on the floor was an entry phone, attached by its flexible wire to a small intercom. She replaced it, then looked around her. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz. There was a dirty-looking beige carpet on the floor, and the curtains were dark blue. It was warm in here, the boiler obviously set by a timer to automatically switch on. She picked up a few envelopes from the doormat and went over to the curtains and yanked them back. Dust plumed.
Two young men living on their own. Well, did I expect it to be neat and tidy?
There was an old-looking telly with a digibox. Several dusty-looking, blue-shaded lamps. An open bed-settee, with a rumpled quilt and pillows laid out on it. Lots of clutter. Some dead roses in a vase of stinking water. Guitars and bongo drums and clothes all over the place. She remembered George and his clutter. George was a magpie. Hated to throw anything away. Harry was tidier, she remembered that, but he wasn’t going to win any domestic prizes.
There was a small kitchen to one side of the living room, and that was in disarray too. Unwashed cups in the sink. Pans left to dry out on the sink top. There were garments behind the glass door of the washing machine. Gracie walked along the small hallway where there was a bathroom – tiny – and two bedrooms, both beds unmade. A computer desk and chair were in the corner of the larger one, with an empty, scummy mug with GEORGE on the side, a PC, monitor and printer set up on the desk.
She went over to the dressing table and opened a couple of drawers. In the bottom one she found a pair of what looked like unused pyjamas and she stuffed them into her bag. She grabbed the dressing gown hung on the back of the door, rolled it up and stuffed that in there too.
Gracie moved back into the living room and flicked off the light. The weak yellowish sun shone in the dirty windows and highlighted all the dust and disorder in here.
Well, what now, Gracie Doyle?
If . . . no,
when
George came out of hospital, he wouldn’t want to come back to a tip like this. She was going to have to have a word with Suze; they were going to have to get this place shipshape. That much, she could do. Organize a cleaner or something.
So what else are you hoping to find here?
‘I don’t know,’ she said aloud, and she wandered over to the telly, looking at the pads of paper and pens and scrawled notes set out on a low table beside it.
She unbuttoned her coat, sat down and started picking up bits of paper.
Get milk and bread
, said one.
Phone Tone!
, said another.
Mr Cuthill
, followed by a phone number.
Gracie picked up the phone and dialled. It was answered straight away.
‘Hello? Mr Cuthill?’ asked Gracie.
‘Who’s this?’ He didn’t sound particularly friendly.
‘I’m Gracie Doyle, George and Harry’s sister. I’m just tidying up their flat,’ she lied smoothly. ‘And I came across your number, and—’
‘They missed last month’s rent. I
told
them. Payment on the dot, I told them that when they moved in or they’d be out the door. I
warned
them.’
Ah. Mr Cuthill is the landlord. And what a charmer, too.
‘They ain’t been answering the fucking phone,’ he said, sounding aggrieved.
‘George has been in hospital, and Harry’s away.’
‘That ain’t my problem. When do I get my rent?’
Gracie took up a pen. ‘Tell me what’s due and give me your address, I’ll sort that out for you straight away.’
‘This month’s due soon too. Fat chance I’ll get
that
, I reckon. If they’re late on that, they’ll be out.’
‘I’ll pay both months, okay? I’m sure missing last month’s was just an oversight.’
‘It’d better be,’ he sniffed ungratefully, and gave her the details.
Gracie put the phone down and put the slip of paper in her bag.
She sifted through the other notes there. Nothing helpful. She looked at the post. Should she open it? That would feel like snooping, but what else was she doing here, if not to snoop around, look for some sort of answer to what had been going on? She put the post into her bag, undecided.
I’m watching you, Red.
Stifling a shudder, she stood up, took off her coat, then went and put the kettle on. Then she wandered through to the bedroom where the computer station was. She was standing there staring at the blank dead screen when a buzzer sounded loudly.
Gracie jumped. What the hell . . .?
It was coming from the lounge. She walked back through. The kettle was starting to boil. The buzzer sounded again. It was the entry phone. Someone was at the door downstairs, wanting to get in.
Harry?
She felt a wild surge of hope. But then Harry wouldn’t be ringing his own damned doorbell . . . would he? Well, maybe if he’d forgotten his key and thought George was in here to let him in. She lifted the receiver and said, ‘Hello?’
A moment’s silence. Then: ‘Who’s that?’ asked a male voice. It was tinged with a faint Irish brogue.
‘Who’s
that
?’ returned Gracie, although a strong feeling of recognition had shot through her as he spoke.
‘
Gracie?
’ asked the voice, sounding incredulous.
She did know that voice. She knew it very well.
‘You’d better come up,’ she said, and pressed the release tab.
It didn’t take him long to get up the stairs. He rapped on the door a few seconds later, and Gracie opened it, her heart in her mouth. It
was
him.
‘Fuck
me
,’ she said faintly. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Lorcan Connolly stuck his hands in his coat pockets and looked her dead in the eye.
‘Hi to you too,’ he said with a wry half-smile. ‘Is that
really
any way to greet your husband?’
22 December
Gracie drew back and Lorcan stepped inside the flat. Her heart skipped several beats as she closed the door.
Not
a good sign. She didn’t want to react to him at all. They’d been apart for five years; all those feelings should have been dead and gone by now.
But . . . she sneaked a peek at him as he moved from the hall into the lounge . . . he was still so damned good-looking. Dark, neatly trimmed hair, strong face, sharp suit. That black coat was cashmere, she could tell, and snowflakes were melting on his shoulders in the fuggy warmth of the flat. She caught a whiff of his aftershave as he passed by, something new – sharp and lemony with an undertone of sandalwood.
Lorcan Connolly.
Her husband.
Who – incidentally – had just petitioned to divorce her.
That thought made Gracie snap back to attention. That, and Lorcan’s next words as he turned and looked at her with unfriendly eyes. ‘So. Come on, Gracie, tell me now. Where the fuck is he?’
‘What?’ Gracie was half afraid that her tongue had been hanging out, but now she straightened, focused. All right, the shock of seeing him after five long years of silence and distance was considerable; but she had to get over it, compose herself. After all,
he
certainly didn’t look fazed by seeing
her.
Lorcan Connolly wanted rid of her. Fine. If that was how he wanted it, then that was how it would be. And she wasn’t going to relive the past by behaving like a star-struck teenager around him. She had more dignity than that.
She reminded herself sternly that she was a good game player, she could bluff for England. She could be cool. In poker – and she was an expert at poker – you didn’t play the hand of cards you’d been dealt, you played your opponent. You read his reactions, his ‘tells’ – the movements or gestures he unconsciously made that gave away his thoughts. She had a
great
poker face. She could do this.
‘George,’ said Lorcan impatiently. ‘He hasn’t turned in for work yet again, so where is he? Jesus.’ He was looking disgustedly around at the unmade-up sofa bed with its crumpled sheets, the dusty surfaces, the clutter. ‘It’s a tip in here.’
Gracie tried to get her head around what he’d just said. ‘George has been working for you?’
‘Yeah, as a dealer. Didn’t your mother tell you?’
‘She hasn’t mentioned it, no.’
He swung round and looked at her. ‘And what are you doing down here? I thought your time was fully occupied in Manchester. How
is
the business, by the way?’
‘Fine,’ snapped Gracie, and went into the kitchen before she forgot about playing it cool and lamped him.
What the hell was he talking to her like that for?
She rummaged in the cupboards and found a packet of cheap-brand tea bags amid the jumble and spills and out-of-date goods. ‘I’m having tea, you want one?’ she called through.
And I hope it chokes you.
‘Yeah, go on.’
She looked in the fridge. There was milk there, but she took a quick sniff, pulled a face and dumped the glutinous white mass into the sink. She looked in the cupboard again. A tub of instant milk powder, which would have to do.
‘You haven’t answered,’ said Lorcan, coming into the kitchen.
It was too small in here. There wasn’t room for a six-foot-four-inch man
and
a six-foot woman. They manoeuvred around each other with inches to spare. Or at least
Gracie
manoeuvred. Lorcan just leaned against the worktop like a wall of stone and watched while she made the tea. She could feel herself getting hot, could feel her face flushing with embarrassment.
‘I didn’t realize answering was compulsory,’ she said, stirring with a vengeance. ‘And while we’re on the subject of questions, I’ve got one for you.’
She dumped the tea bags on the sink top – the bin was overflowing – and thrust a mug towards him.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking it. ‘All right, shoot. What’s the question?’
Gracie swept past him, clutching her mug of tea, and went into the lounge. She turned and stared at him as he followed her.
Fuck
it. He was still seriously gorgeous.
‘Why now with the divorce papers?’ she asked flatly.
‘Why now?’ He put his mug down on the dusty coffee table. ‘You really want to know the answer to that? Okay, I’ll tell you. George has been letting me down for weeks, throwing sickies, rolling in late. Some of the boys have said he has something else going, some little sideline that pays better. You know George, he never could keep his mouth shut. But I gave him a job because he was your brother, Gracie. You ran out on me, but I believe in loyalty so I thought, hey, he’s her brother, I’ll keep him on. And now
he’s
playing silly buggers too.’
Gracie opened her mouth to say something cutting, she didn’t know what.
She
ran out on
him?
The bastard, how could he say that? She was getting angry, forgetting she had to be cool. But then – this had been the pattern of their lives together, hadn’t it. She remembered it oh so well. Tearing lumps out of each other during screaming rows. Ripping each other’s clothes off during frantic making-up sessions. And in the end it had all come to nothing. Nothing at all.
‘So I came here today to tell him to fuck off,’ Lorcan went on, glaring at her. ‘The whole Doyle family’s a nightmare, so I thought, sod it, I’m firing George’s arse. And then I started thinking, why not make the whole thing neat and tidy? It’s been five years since we last communicated, and
that
was just you shouting down the phone at me that you’d had enough and our marriage was over. I’m cutting ties with your brother, and I guess it seems like a good time to cut ties with you, too.’
Gracie shut her mouth like a clamp. Then she opened it again, and said: ‘George is in hospital.’
‘He’s . . . you
what?
’
‘In hospital. In intensive care.’
Lorcan paused for a beat, staring at her face. ‘What happened?’
‘Someone did him over. Mum found him unconscious outside her place.’
‘What’s the damage?’
‘What, you mean you care?’
‘Hey, don’t start getting all antsy with me,’ said Lorcan sharply. ‘I like George. I always have. All the staff like him, too. What I don’t like is him taking the piss.’
Gracie sipped her tea. She knew he had a point; George had always been a lovable rascal, pushing his luck in every possible direction. Now, it looked like maybe he’d pushed his luck too far.
‘Which hospital?’ asked Lorcan.
Gracie told him.
‘You have any idea what happened?’ he asked.
‘How would I? The first I knew of any of this was when the police pitched up at work and broke the news.’
‘I didn’t think you had anything to do with your family down here.’
‘I didn’t. But Christ, Lorcan. I’m not made of wood.’
Lorcan looked at her. ‘Really?’
She wasn’t going to rise to it. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself not to. She was cool, controlled Gracie Doyle, wasn’t she? She held on to that. Lorcan was fiery, passionate, im patient, given to grand gestures and not afraid of angry scenes. He came from a huge extended family in Donegal, a family who hugged and kissed and enveloped each other in a comforting blanket of warmth. Consequently he was expansive, confident, chatty and charming. Her upbringing had been completely different; she’d realized early on that her mother wished she’d been a boy, not a girl, and she had retreated into wary coldness to protect herself from further hurt.
‘Lorcan – this is George we’re talking about.’ Gracie blinked hard, feeling that choking edge of tears. ‘They’re saying it could go either way. We were there last night, and his heart stopped. They got him stabilized, but . . .’ She shrugged.
‘As bad as that?’
‘Yeah.’ Gracie took another sip at her tea. It was too hot, almost scalding her lips, but she barely noticed. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Lorcan Connolly, and she was having to concentrate hard to stop herself from doing that.
‘So why come here, to the flat? Thought you’d be staying at your mother’s.’ He turned away to stare out of the dirty window at the busy main road.
Gracie looked at his broad back and almost,
almost
poured it all out then. The fire at the casino. Harry missing. The bags of hair. Those horrible notes. Instead she said: ‘It’s okay, Lorcan. I can manage perfectly well. I don’t want your help or anything. I’m used to managing alone, I’ve had a lot of practice.’
Lorcan turned, and instead of the sharp retort she expected he said: ‘Your car’s not a silver Merc, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Sports job?’
‘Yeah. It is.’ Gracie quickly joined him at the window.
‘Only I think someone’s down there doing something to it . . .’
They got down the stairs, out the front door and raced over to the Merc. They looked up and down the road, but there was no one about. Whoever had done it had gone. Moving around her lovely car, Gracie stooped and gawped in horror at the damage. All four tyres had been slashed through and the beautiful sleek Mercedes was lying there in the gutter like a diva with her legs cut off.
‘Oh
shit
,’ she wailed out loud.
I’m watching you, Red.
Gracie looked up and down the road again. Someone
was
watching her; that much was obvious. The very idea gave her the creeps. And her car, her beautiful car . . .
Lorcan was stooping down too, looking at the tyres and then up at Gracie. He frowned.
‘What?’ she snapped.
‘Someone doesn’t like you,’ he said.
‘Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.’
Lorcan was staring at her face, his expression thoughtful. He walked around to the front of the car. ‘Is this to do with George?’ he asked her.
Gracie sighed and said nothing. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t
trust
herself around him. She could manage alone, hadn’t she just told him that? And she could. She would lock up the flat, take the tube back to Suze’s place, arrange for a garage to collect the Mercedes, then think about what she would do next.
‘Gracie?’ prompted Lorcan when she didn’t speak.
‘I don’t know, okay?’ she said angrily.
He was staring at the windscreen. ‘Come and look at this.’
All Gracie wanted to do was get away from him. Impatiently she joined him at the front of the car and looked where he was looking. Her mouth dropped open.
YORE DEAD
Someone had sprayed the message on to her windscreen with black paint.
‘Well,’ said Lorcan after a beat. ‘They can’t spell, but even so it’s not exactly a message of friendly intent, is it?’
Gracie could only stare, feeling sick and afraid.
Whoever had tormented her with fire and bags of hair in Manchester now knew she was here, in London. She felt, amid the fear, a spasm of anger. The bunch of long-estranged fuck-ups she called family had royally pissed off someone – so badly that this ‘someone’ had deemed it appropriate to travel north and inflict harm on her there before following her south and wrecking her car.
Lorcan got out a key. There was a chirp and a flash of tail-lights from the black BMW across the road. He looked at Gracie, frowning. ‘Drop you somewhere?’ he offered.
‘No thanks,’ said Gracie, and walked away from him, back into the flat to lock up.
