The Faithless
| The Faithless | |
| Martina Cole | |
| UK | |
| (2011) | |
Gabby looked at the woman she had hated nearly all her life. Then she sat down on the ladder-backed chair, put her face into her bloodied hands and cried. To the outside world, Cynthia Tailor is a woman to envy; she has a devoted husband, a lovely home and two gorgeous children. But Cynthia is deeply unhappy with her lot; she has always craved the best things in life, and is determined to see that she gets them. Cynthia will let nothing stand in her way, even if it means devastation and tragedy for those nearest to her. And the casualties are many: her husband Jimmy, weak and unable fight the wife he can never please; her sister Celeste, from whom Cynthia steals her most precious possession; and her parents, Mary and Jack, who pick up the pieces. But the victims who suffer the most are Cynthia's children. For James Junior and Gabby, the pain she causes will stay with them forever.
THE FAITHLESS
Martina Cole
Copyright Page
Copyright © 2011 Martina Cole
The right of Martina Cole to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2011
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 9780755375561
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
By Martina Cole
Dedication
Prologue
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Book Two
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Book Three
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
Chapter Ninety-Two
Chapter Ninety-Three
Chapter Ninety-Four
Chapter Ninety-Five
Chapter Ninety-Six
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Chapter One Hundred
Chapter One Hundred and One
Chapter One Hundred and Two
Chapter One Hundred and Three
Chapter One Hundred and Four
Chapter One Hundred and Five
Chapter One Hundred and Six
Chapter One Hundred and Seven
Chapter One Hundred and Eight
Chapter One Hundred and Nine
Chapter One Hundred and Ten
Chapter One Hundred and Eleven
Chapter One Hundred and Twelve
Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen
Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen
Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen
Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen
Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen
Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen
Chapter one Hundred and Nineteen
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Three
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Four
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Seven
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Eight
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Nine
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Two
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Three
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Four
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Seven
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Eight
Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Nine
Chapter One Hundred and Forty
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Two
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Three
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Five
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Six
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Eight
Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Nine
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Two
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Three
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Four
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Five
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Six
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Seven
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Eight
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Nine
Chapter One Hundred and Sixty
Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-One
Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Two
Epilogue
By Martina Cole and available from Headline
Dangerous Lady
The Ladykiller
Goodnight Lady
The Jump
The Runaway
Two Women
Broken
Faceless
Maura’s Game
The Know
The Graft
The Take
Close
Faces
The Business
Hard Girls
The Family
The Faithless
Dedication
For my Freddie Fling Flang.
Love you, darling
Dolly R . . .
xx
Prologue
‘Ain’t It Grand To Be Bloomin’ Well Dead’
Leslie Sarony
Song title
2009
‘You are not going to make me listen to this shit, Gabriella. You are wrong, very wrong. Use your bloody head, girl! I loved that little boy with all my heart . . . and, as for your brother . . . I don’t believe a word of it – they must have the wrong person.’
But Gabby could see the fear in her mother’s eyes, and she knew that it was true. Every word of it.
‘I met your old mate, Jeannie, today. That’s how I know everything – she told me all about the house in Ilford.’ She could see her mother’s head working, trying to figure out exactly what she was saying, could almost hear her brain whirring as she tried to lie her way out of what they both knew was the truth.
‘What the hell have you been taking this time, eh? What the fuck are you on, Gabriella, to make you come out with this shit?’
Gabby found she’d picked up a large bronze statue of a cat. As she held it in her scarred hands she felt the weight of it. Her mother kept talking. The world according to Cynthia Tailor who, along with God Himself, was almost omnipotent in the lives of her family, who ruled everyone around her with a rod of iron. She could see her mother’s mouth moving constantly, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying any more; all she was conscious of was a rushing noise in her ears. Then she struck her.
She lifted the bronze statue back over her head and hit her mother across the face with it, using all the force she could muster, and enjoying the feeling of total retaliation. She was determined now, determined to shut her mother up once and for all.
Cynthia fell sideways on to the white leather sofa. The spray of blood that came from her mother’s face was like a crimson mist. Gabby hit her again and again, each blow easing the knot inside her, each blow seeming to calm the erratic beating of her heart.
She looked down at the bloodied form and, for the first time in years, she felt almost at peace. Her mother’s face was unrecognisable, a deep red gash that was pumping out blood at an alarming rate.
Gabby looked at the woman she had hated nearly all her life. Then she sat down on the ladder-backed chair her mother was convinced was an antique, put her face into her bloodied hands and cried.
Book One
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light
Paradise Lost (1667)
John Milton, 1608–74
For the love of money is the root of all evil
1 Timothy 6:10
Chapter One
1984
‘Come on, Jimmy, have another one. I’m celebrating.’
Jimmy Tailor grinned; he had an easy-going nature that some people took advantage of. He was a big man, big in all ways – over six feet and well built. Before his marriage he had been a body builder, and he still held traces of his former physique.
‘Nah, better get home, Cynthia’s waiting for me.’
It was Friday night and all his pals were going to have a few more pints before meeting their wives and girlfriends later on in a wine bar in the West End. He would have loved to have joined them, but he knew that Cynthia wouldn’t come.
‘Fucking hell, Jimmy, you’re married, mate, not joined at the hip.’
This from his best friend Davey Brown. Davey thought Jimmy was a mug and that he should put his foot down with Cynthia, but Davey didn’t understand her. No one did it seemed, except him. He smiled, but it was a tight smile. ‘We’re saving, what with little Gabriella and all.’
‘’Course, mate, you get yourself off.’ Davey seemed immediately sorry for his jibe.
Jimmy left the pub a few minutes later, reluctant to go if he was honest, but even more reluctant to stay where he was. He walked along the road, feeling the cold hit him, making his face sting and, pulling up the collar of his overcoat, he made his way slowly home.
Chapter Two
Cynthia Tailor was pleased with herself. Her house looked lovely and festive – just how a home should look at Christmas time, from the scented pine tree, decorated in what she felt was a tasteful manner – no tinsel and no coloured lights – to the neatly wrapped presents underneath it. It couldn’t be further away from the house she grew up in, with the dirt, the smell of frying bacon, and the garish, cheap hanging garlands. She shuddered inwardly as she thought of her mother’s house. She had escaped from that life and there was no way she was ever going back.
Cynthia’s sitting room was painted a pale cream, and the carpet was a thick Axminster. It had cost the national debt, but looked wonderful against the walls and the luxurious chocolate-brown velvet curtains at the windows. She knew her home was beautiful, and she never tired of cleaning it, or enhancing it. This was the first step on the ladder for them; they would go on from here, make their money on this place, and get bigger and better houses each time. She sighed with contentment at the thought.
James was a decent man, boring in some ways, but she knew that with his accountancy job in the city they would always be all right for money. And he was expecting some big news about a promotion any day now. Cynthia had come from a council estate in Hackney, and she had been determined from a young age that she wouldn’t be staying there for longer than she had to. Now here she was, with a lovely semi in Ilford, and the chance to go onwards and upwards.
She walked out into her kitchen, and checked on the casserole she had bubbling on her new halogen hob. The kitchen was like something from a magazine, all white doors and stainless steel sinks. It was Hygena, and she knew it was far too good for the house, but she saw it as an investment. James had balked at the price but she had won him over. He always saw the sense of her arguments in the end; after all, she was the one stuck here all day, and she was entitled to have what she wanted around her – at least that was what she thought, anyway. And she had her ways to make sure he knew who was the boss under this roof.
She heard her daughter’s cry and, sighing, she left the kitchen and made her way up the stairs.
Gabriella was a handful, and this was the only bugbear in her otherwise perfect life. She should be clean at night by now. The other kids at Gabriella’s playschool were all clean, so why was her daughter so late?
She went into the child’s room. It was decorated as a girl’s bedroom should be decorated, with pale pink walls, and cream carpet. Cynthia loved this room. She had been brought up in a flat and had had to share her bedroom with her sister. It had been scruffy, cold and damp and she had hated every second she had spent in it.
The small night-light cast a rosy glow in the room. Kneeling down beside her daughter’s cot, she looked at her child.
‘What’s wrong, Gabriella?’
The little blue eyes held a plea, and she knew immediately that her daughter had wet the bed again.
‘Oh, Gabriella, why don’t you call me, and I’ll take you to the toilet.’ She lifted her daughter out of the cot with a heavy sigh, and set about cleaning her up, without another word.
Gabriella allowed herself to be stripped, washed and redressed in a clean nightie without saying a word either. As young as she was, she could feel the tension filling the room. The unspoken disapproval and the knowledge she had done something wrong was enough to quieten her. She knew her mummy was cross, and she knew better than to aggravate her.
Ten minutes later, Gabriella was once more alone in her cot and, closing her eyes, she tried hard to get herself back to sleep.
Chapter Three
Jimmy came in as his wife was putting their daughter’s pyjamas and bedding into the washing machine.
‘Dinner smells good, Cyn.’
She didn’t answer him. She could do that, just blank someone, make them feel an outsider in their own home. It unnerved Jimmy. He was from a family who were boisterous, noisy, happy – not that Cynthia allowed him to see them any more. He wasn’t used to long silences that had some kind of accusation in them, even though nothing was actually said. He wasn’t sure how to deal with them. Turning abruptly, he went into the hallway and removed his coat. Careful to hang it up properly to make sure it didn’t look untidy. Why this was a necessity when they were locked away in a cupboard under the stairs he wasn’t sure. But Cynthia wanted everything perfect, so he did it anyway; it was easier in the long run.
As he went into the sitting room, he smiled at Cynthia’s efforts. The room looked lovely, and he reminded himself how lucky he was to have a wife like her. She was not just pretty, she was like sex-on-legs. With her stunning blue eyes and thick sovereign-coloured hair, she turned heads everywhere she went. He knew that other men envied him his gorgeous wife. Everywhere she went men looked at her, and she noticed them looking, he knew that. It pleased her, because it showed her that she was still attractive, even after having a child. It was important to Cynthia that she was wanted. Not that sex was her top priority, unfortunately, but because she liked the power it gave her. She was a strange woman, cold – even towards their daughter. She only smiled when the child was doing what she wanted, acting as she felt a child should. Like him, poor Gabby had to behave just how Cynthia believed a daughter should, and not show her up. His wife had no room for reality, and that really worried him. Cynthia had two beliefs: that she was right, and that everyone else on the planet was wrong.
Now he had to give her some bad news and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Not at all. No matter how he dressed it up, she frightened him; her colossal temper could erupt at any moment, and when it did she was like a madwoman. Most of the time she acted like a lady, he had to give her that. She was perfection personified – until you crossed her and told her something she didn’t want to hear. Then she could swear like a docker and fight like the Irish. But then her family was Irish – not that she bragged about that.
He glanced at the TV set, but didn’t put it on. Cynthia didn’t think watching telly all the time was something nice people did. A good film or a documentary was fine, and News At Ten of course. But gameshows or comedy programmes were beneath her radar. She saw those as common, and common was what really sent her off her head.
It wasn’t easy being married to her and, even though he told himself that he was lucky a girl like her chose him, it was getting harder and harder to keep up that pretence. They were overstretched in every way – every half-penny was accounted for and, as much as he appreciated her housewifely acumen, he knew they were way over their heads in debt. Not that she wasn’t good with money – she was – but, all the same, he felt they could have lived much better if she didn’t feel this almighty urge to be something she wasn’t. She had such exacting standards and, though he knew she wanted a better life for them all, he felt at times they’d be much better off if she spent the money in other ways, like on a night out or a day at the seaside, not just on things she felt were needed for the home. They had the best house in the street, but still that wasn’t enough for her. She would never be content, he understood that now. The kitchen alone had cost a bloody fortune, and the carpets and curtains, all paid for on the weekly, were another drain on their resources.
Now she had the Christmas bug, had talked about having a goose and all other manner of expensive frippery. He knew she wanted the best for them, but it had to be stopped. She had to understand they couldn’t go on like this.
Cynthia came into the room, slipping in quietly, as if she had materialised out of thin air. Her quietness had been what had attracted him; she had seemed so self-contained, yet so vulnerable. Not that he really believed that any more. It was getting harder and harder to convince himself that she was anything other than what she really was. A bully. His mother had warned him, but he had not been inclined to listen to her. Now he wished he had. But, as his old mum also said, hindsight was a wonderful thing.
Cynthia stood before him, her head slightly at an angle, and that tight little smile on her face. ‘I’m dishing up.’
He sighed heavily, and barely nodded in reply.
‘Are you all right?’
He sighed once more. ‘Not really. Brewster got it.’
He saw her face freeze, and could see in her eyes, not pity for him – he could have coped with that – but disgust. Veiled disgust, but he saw it all the same. He knew what was going on inside her head. He tried to talk himself out of those kind of thoughts, but it was no good.
‘And you just let him, I suppose.’
She was still standing there, only now her back was rigid, she was looking at him as if he had done it deliberately. He felt the air leave his body as if it had been punctured. He had been dreading this.
‘I can’t make my boss give me the position, Cynth. Be fair, love.’
She sighed heavily, her face set in a rigid mask of acceptance. ‘’Course not, I mean why would he give it to you, eh? Hardly setting the fucking place alight, are you? You know your trouble, don’t you? You’re weak. Weak as a bloody kitten.’
She left the room then, and her animosity went with her. The quiet was like a balm to his tortured spirit.
Willy Brewster was five years younger than him, and he was a dynamo. Jimmy liked him, you couldn’t not. He was fun, clever and popular; he did set the place alight all right, with his energy and wit. Jimmy wasn’t like that, and he didn’t begrudge Willy for being something he wasn’t.
He walked out to the kitchen, feeling better now he had actually said the words out loud. Had told her.
She was standing at the sink. Her shoulders were slumped and her hands were gripping the stainless-steel draining board so hard her knuckles were white. Her head was hanging, and he knew she was biting her lip. He could almost feel the hate coming off her in waves. Looking at her now, he felt a great sorrow for her, because he knew that there was a terrible kink in her nature. It was a mixture of loathing for her start in life, and a covetousness that made her envy everyone in her orbit. She would never be satisfied, because it wasn’t in her nature. He hated that part of her, but he also pitied her for it. He understood that she had never known one happy day because she was always convinced that everyone else knew the secret of happiness, and it would always elude her. Yet if she could just once let herself be content with what she had, he knew she could find the thing she craved. If she could only understand that happiness had nothing to do with an expensive kitchen, and designer clothes, or being better off than the neighbours.
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