‘Don’t be daft. Dom would bloody kill me. There are a lot of blokes at work on it, though. Most of them are real big drinkers as well. I’m fine, I can handle the pressure and stress, but you’d be surprised how many men can’t, especially the macho, straight ones. Anyway, enough about me. How are you? You look much happier than when I came up last weekend.’
‘Well, now I’m out of that awful hospital wing, I’m sleeping so much better. The maternity wing is quite nice compared to the rest of the prison. The staff are polite and my new cellmate is lovely. Her name is Babs, she originally comes from Jamaica and we get on really well. I’ve only known her for a short while, but it feels like we’ve been mates for years.’
Joey was pleased by the change in his sister. Her mood had been so low on a couple of his previous visits that he hadn’t really known what to say to her. He’d cried once as he had left the prison because he’d felt so bloody helpless.
‘So, what’s your friend Babs in here for? Is she convicted, or on remand like you?’
Frankie leaned forward so nobody could hear what she was saying. ‘Babs is on remand and she’s in here for stabbing her boyfriend as well. He died and now she’s looking at life, poor cow.’
Horrified that his sister was sharing her cell with a murderer, Joey clasped her hands in his. ‘Be careful, Frankie. Watch she don’t turn on you.’
‘Babs is one of the most sweet-natured people I’ve ever met in my life, Joey. Her bloke was far worse than Jed and I don’t blame Babs for killing him. Any woman would have done the same in her situation.’
‘What did he do? I won’t say nothing, I promise,’ Joey said in a hushed tone.
Frankie leaned over and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘He raped her twelve-year-old daughter, the fucking nonce. The bastard deserved to die, don’t you think?’ she whispered.
Joey nodded dumbly. This conversation was getting a bit heavy for him and he was desperate to change it. ‘Dad popped round the other day. He didn’t stay long; I think he’s got a lot on his plate over what Paulie and Ronny did. He’s even sent Gina away to stay with her mate. I think he’s lonely in that cottage on his own.’
‘What! Is he living with her then?’
Cursing himself for putting his foot in it, Joey lowered his eyes and looked sheepish. ‘I thought you knew they were living together. Gina’s really lovely, Frankie. If you gave her a chance, I know you’d like her.’
Fuming that her father had forgotten to mention that he’d moved his old tart in, Frankie glared at Joey. ‘Unlike you, I’m loyal to our mum. You might wanna be friends with the old slapper, but I don’t. She probably only got her claws into Dad ’cause she knows he’s a face and he’s worth a few quid.’
Joey shrugged. He wasn’t about to argue, because when Frankie had one of her cobs on she could be a complete bitch. He changed the subject yet again. ‘I wonder how Georgie and Harry are coping? Do you reckon Jed and Alice are looking after them properly? Dom and I miss them dreadfully, so I hate to think how you must feel.’
Frankie’s face hardened. She’d spoken about her children to Babs and she couldn’t help constantly dreaming about them, but at all other times she tried not to think about Georgie and Harry as it upset her too much. Knowing the O’Haras had custody of her children was pure torture and Frankie could not deal with it. ‘I don’t wanna talk about the kids, Joey. I can’t, OK?’
Noticing tears in his sister’s eyes, Joey gently squeezed her arm. ‘You’ll get them back one day, I know you will, Frankie.’
Frankie ignored his comment. ‘How’s Nan and Grandad? Have you seen them lately?’
Joey shook his head. ‘What with being so busy at work and visiting you up here, I haven’t had much chance to pop round there. Nan rang me at work the other day, invited me and Dom to dinner this Sunday, so we’ll see them then. She was ranting and raving about Grandad on the phone, something about a new car. You know what they’re like, Frankie, they don’t change.’
Frankie smiled. Her grandparents had never got on, but it was her nan who threw all the insults – her poor grandad had never had the guts to retaliate.
Desperate to get an answer to what had been playing on his mind, Joey leaned forward. ‘Kerry rang me late last night; she wants to come and visit you. I spoke to her for ages and even though she wouldn’t tell me much, I know something really bad happened, Frankie. Why did you really try to kill Jed? We’ve never kept secrets from one another before, so please tell me the truth.’
Frankie’s heart urged her to open up to her brother, but her head told her not to. Joey was close to her father again. He was also a gossiper, especially in drink, and if he blurted out the truth, all hell would break loose. Her dad’s life was probably already in danger because of what her uncles had done to Jed’s family and if she told Joey that Jed had tortured and murdered their grandfather, Harry, carnage would be sure to follow. Frankie knew just how evil Jed was and the thought of her dad or brothers getting killed was enough to make Frankie keep schtum for ever more. Relieved that the bell was ringing to signal the end of visiting time, Frankie stood up and hugged her twin brother.
‘You take care and give my love to Dom,’ she said.
Joey pulled away from her and stared deep into her eyes. ‘You haven’t answered my question yet, Frankie.’
‘I wish I could answer it, Joey, but I’m sorry, I can’t,’ Frankie replied. She then walked away without a backward glance.
Stanley Smith was not having the best of evenings. When he was a lad he had been taken to one of the first Chinese restaurants ever to open in London. He had no memory of whereabouts exactly it was, but he did remember that he had been taken there because it was his Auntie Agnes’s fortieth birthday. The evening itself was nothing to write home about, but what did stick in Stanley’s mind was that he was forced to eat some kind of fish heads, then on the way home he got a clip round the earhole from his mother because he spewed his guts up over some poor bloke on the train. Ever since that day, Stanley had avoided eating Chinese food like the plague.
‘So what do you fancy then, Stanley?’ Jock said, handing him a menu.
Stanley glanced at the menu and immediately felt queasy. ‘Don’t they do any English food, Jock? I ain’t a lover of rice or bleedin’ noodles, mate. I had food poisoning on this shit once.’
Jock laughed and called one of the waiters over. He explained Stanley’s predicament and the waiter turned to Stanley. ‘We do very nice omelette and very nice chip.’
‘Yeah, that’ll do, mate,’ Stanley said politely.
As Jock chatted to his granddaughter, Stanley studied the rest of the company. They were all bloody youngsters and he felt about as out of place as a Nigerian at a National Front march.
‘You remember my daughter Louise, don’t you?’ Jock asked, as he excused himself to go to the toilet.
Stanley hadn’t seen Jock’s daughter for a good few years and she had put on that much weight he would never have recognised her unless Jock had told him who she was.
‘Hello, love. You look well,’ Stanley lied.
‘Ah, thanks Stanley. How are you keeping? Your Joycie still looks well, don’t she? I saw her recently in a pub.’
‘What pub? She never said, where did you see her, Louise?’
Louise sat down on the chair next to Stanley. ‘In the Bull in Romford. I work behind the bar in there at lunchtimes. To be honest, I didn’t speak to her, Stanley. I’ve put on a lot of weight recently, so she probably wouldn’t have recognised me anyway. Not only that, she was with Eddie Mitchell and I didn’t wanna make meself busy.’
About to swallow a sip of his beer, Stanley very nearly