The commotion had brought all the lags out of their cells, and Vincent felt his hand being shaken, and his shoulders being hugged, but it was like a dream to him. A little girl – he had a little girl. He hoped his Gabby had not had too bad a time of it. According to half the men in here, the first one was a piece of piss – except George Palmer whose wife had died in childbirth, but that was twenty-five years ago. Things were so much different these days.

The screws congratulated him, and one gave him a pack of cigars, while another gave him two bottles of decent Scotch. He knew this lot was really from Derek Greene but he was grateful nonetheless. When all was said and done, he would much rather have been beside Gabby and seen his little baby for himself. The men on the wing understood that, and they did their best to help him forget. He was grateful to them because he wasn’t sure he could have coped with it alone.

Chapter Ninety-One

Celeste died just two hours after Gabby’s baby was born. Little Cherie Celeste Mary Tailor entered the world screaming, and it was a sound that her mother cherished from the first moment. She was a big lusty child with thick blond hair and the Callahan blue eyes. She was adorable, and Gabby fell instantly in love with her, as did her great-nana and granddad.

Jack looked at the child as if he had never seen a baby before. He wondered if it was the fact she was a great-granddaughter and he never thought he would live that long, or if it was because the baby was exquisite. He decided it was most probably a mixture of the two.

It was a night of celebration, and a night of mourning. As his Mary had pointed out, God takes one and leaves another in its place. A load of old cobblers really, but he wanted to believe it this night. Wanted to believe that his poor Celeste might live again through this child. He sat there for a long moment, the child in his arms, the fourth living generation of Callahans, and he wondered what kind of life this child would have. He prayed it would be a good life, a really good life. His old mum had often said, ‘Life at its longest is short, make the most of it while you still can.’ How true that was. But with this baby’s start in life, a very young mother and her father doing a big lump for armed robbery, he couldn’t really see any good coming of it. He hoped against hope that he was wrong.

Chapter Ninety-Two