Deciding a change of tactic was needed, she pondered over what to do next. She’d been playing Mrs Nice Wife recently and it had been getting her nowhere. A different game-plan had to be put into play.
Still too drunk to think straight, she guzzled the remainder of the wine, before sobbing in a crumpled heap on the sofa. If he was going to get rid of her, trade her in for some newer model, she was determined to go out with the biggest bang possible.
Terry made sure Billie was OK and then got into bed in one of the spare rooms. He could hear Michelle crying downstairs. She’d played the drama queen act for so long during their marriage that she was now an expert at it.
How the fuck has my life ended up like this? he thought silently, as he drifted back to his past. His childhood had been awful. The eldest of three boys, he’d been born into poverty. His father was a drunken brute, who had resented him from the day he was born. His mother was a typical downtrodden Irishwoman who did her best to avoid her husband’s violent temper.
Terry’s salvation had been starting work. At thirteen, he had got a part-time job at a car lot in Romford for a guy named Benny Bones. Being a streetwise kid, Terry was a fast learner and within months had mastered the trade off by heart. Benny was a cockney through and through. He knew every song, saying and villain that had ever come out of the East End of London. Terry loved his accent, stories and slang. He’d never felt Irish and having never really lived there, he classed himself as an Englishman. Irishmen reminded him too much of his drunken father.
Within a year of working for him, Terry had Benny’s repertoire off to a tee, so much so that customers used to think they were father and son. In Terry’s mind they were. Benny was the father he’d never really had.
It was around this time that Terry arrived home one night to see his mother lying on the floor, covered in blood, with her eyeball hanging out of its socket. Dragging his father out of the armchair, Terry proceeded to knock seven colours of shit out of him. All the years of pent-up frustration of being bullied by the bastard were finally released. Ex-boxer or no ex-boxer, a drunken ageing Paddy was no match for the up and coming Terry, whose parting sentence was to tell his father that if he ever touched his mother again, he would come back and finish him off. Terry walked out of the house that night and never went back.
Terry moved in with his boss Benny and over the next year or two used his knowledge to take the car trade by storm. Having saved enough money for a deposit, he then bought himself a little flat situated just off Seven Kings High Road. Enjoying his first taste of independence and throwing himself into his work, he had little or no time to bother with women. Witnessing his parents’ fucked-up relationship had put him off for life, and apart from a few one-night stands, he couldn’t be bothered.
He was thirty years old when he had the misfortune of meeting Chelle. His mother had warned him about girls like her, but he’d still been silly enough to let her dig her claws in and then trap him. The unplanned pregnancy had been a shock to him. Determined to do the right thing, he’d married her. Within months, he realised he’d dropped a clanger. A terrible wife equalled an awful mother, but determined his daughter would have a stable childhood, he battled on.
Now he was at the point of no return. Gone was the sweet, pretty brunette he’d first met. In its place was a money-orientated, nasty fat bitch with a mouth like a sewer.
‘What a poxy night,’ he muttered to himself, as he snuggled up under the quilt. He was wrecked now, worn out by it all, and couldn’t wait to get some shut-eye.
Part of him felt guilty. If he hadn’t come home so late, the row would never have happened. He wasn’t bothered about Chelle, she could go and fuck herself. Billie was his only concern and he could tell his daughter had been shaken up by the scene that she’d witnessed earlier. Deciding to make it up to her by spoiling her rotten, he nodded off into a deep, welcome sleep.
Hearing her dad snoring in the next room, Billie wept quietly. The rows between her parents she’d learned to live with, she’d had to, but the events of earlier had nigh on scared her to death. The thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t heard the commotion and come down the stairs was too traumatic for her to even think about. Her home life was bad enough, surely it couldn’t get any worse. Consoling herself with the thought that it was probably just a one-off, she willed herself to sleep. She had a busy day ahead and didn’t want it spoilt by being overtired.
As Billie nodded off to sleep, she was totally unaware of the run of bad luck that was catapulting towards her.
This morning’s episode had been the start of it, a taster.
Unfortunately for Billie, the worst was yet to come.
MICHELLE WOKE UP on the sofa to be greeted by the hang-over from hell. As the events of earlier that day came flooding back, she cursed herself for letting fly at Terry. She was now a hundred per cent sure that he was having an affair. She was his wife for God’s sake and women just know these things.
The smell of perfume on his shirts. The fact he left his mobile locked safely in his glove box. She’d even gone as far as sifting through his dirty underwear, checking for stains and that unmistakable smell of sex. She might be a lot of things but silly wasn’t one of them. Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself, that had always been her motto, and now she’d gone and blown it. After the earlier show-down he’d be more careful than ever at covering his tracks. Jackanory would have been proud of Davey Mullins’ version of events. There were more holes in his story than a pair of fishnet stockings. Swanley my arse, she thought as she gingerly lifted herself off the sofa. Her head was pounding and was making her feel sick. Deciding that the only thing to perk her up would be the good old-fashioned hair of the dog, she headed towards the kitchen. An Alka Seltzer and two vinos later, she started to feel like her old self. Her headache had gone, her hands had stopped shaking and she felt ready to face another day. Hearing footsteps, she froze for a second, thinking it was him. Once she realised it was only Billie, she breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Oh it’s you. I thought it was your dad.’
Plonking herself down at the kitchen table, Billie came straight to the point. ‘Is it all right if I stay at Tiffany’s tonight? It’s her dad’s birthday and they’ve invited me to go for a meal with them.’
Billie knew the answer would be yes before she’d even finished the question. Her mum didn’t give a shit where she went, what she did or who she was with. If she said she was going out with Fred and Rosemary West for a meal, her mother would have OK’d it. Her dad was a different kettle of fish. He wanted to know where she was going, who she was with, spoke personally to all of her friends’ parents to check arrangements, and made sure she had a lift to and fro.
‘Of course you can stay at Tiff’s.’ Michelle breathed a sigh of relief. It was her best friend Hazel’s birthday and she’d arranged to go out later with her and the rest of the girls from the gym. The fact she now didn’t have to rush back suited her down to the ground, let Sleeping Beauty upstairs have a taste of his own medicine. See if he liked it, if she stayed out all night. Surreptitiously retrieving the wine glass that she’d shoved behind the microwave when Billie had first entered the kitchen, Chelle turned to face her daughter.
‘I’m going upstairs to get ready now, Bill. You have a nice time tonight.’
‘Thanks,’ Billie said, watching her mother swan out of the kitchen.
Trying on outfits galore, then chucking them on the floor in a temper as she realised they no longer fitted, Michelle felt like screaming. Making as much noise as she could to try and wake the no-good bastard sleeping in the next room,