Читать книгу The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4 - Jessie Keane - Страница 43

All in all, Annie was pleased at how smoothly the switch had gone. She had moved into the apartment, Dolly had taken over in Limehouse. Dolly had panicked a bit at first, phoning her all the time with questions the daft bint already knew the answers to.

Annie took her up West shopping for some suitable clothes. Nothing Dolly currently owned fitted the bill. Miniskirts short enough to show her rent book, long tarty PVC boots, low-necked tops, all that had to go. Dolly didn’t like it.

‘We all have to do things we don’t like in life, Dolly love,’ said Annie. For instance, I have to have a minder, she thought, as Donny trailed behind them like a bad smell.

Annie ushered Dolly into posh Knightsbridge boutiques where the salesgirls looked at her like she was something they’d have to scrape off their shoes. No doubt about it, they had a point – Dolly looked like a tart. But when Annie showed them the money it was a different story. Suddenly they were all eager to please, they started acting like they were going to adopt Dolly and take her home.

‘Christ,’ she said as she wrestled, sweating, into yet another dress in the changing room. ‘All this fuss over a fucking frock.’

‘It’s not just a fucking frock,’ said Annie, pulling the costly thing straight and zipping Dolly up. She grabbed her shoulders from behind her and told her to look in the mirror. The oatmeal shift dress was tasteful, discreet, and it flattered Dolly’s blonde looks. ‘What do you think? You like?’

Dolly screwed up her face. ‘I dunno.’

‘Well I do. And what I say goes. So we’ll take this one, and the navy, and the pale blue. We’ll get your hair sorted too.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my fucking hair,’ said Dolly.

‘It needs cutting.’

Dolly grabbed her flowing curly blonde locks in alarm. ‘You’re not cutting my fucking hair off. No way.’

‘A short cut will flatter your small features,’ said Annie decisively. She peered at Dolly’s face in the mirror. ‘Now you’ve packed up the fags your skin’s improving. And you’ve lovely eyes.’

Dolly stiffened. ‘You’re not a closet lezzer, are you?’

‘Don’t be daft. I’ve always thought you could be a very attractive woman, but you’re hiding behind all that sheepdog hair and half a ton of cheap make-up.’

‘Christ, this is a nightmare,’ said Dolly, but she trailed around for the rest of the day with Annie, moaning and groaning and throwing out curses like confetti. At the end of it, Annie was pleased to see that Dolly looked halfway decent. Job done.

Annie was pleased to get back to the apartment. The chap on the door in his neat red uniform nodded politely to her as she entered. God, it was nice, coming back here. It was nice to be treated right, like a real lady. It was nice to leave that fucking po-faced Donny at the door too. She took the lift up and tossed her keys into the little dish on the hall table. Max’s keys were already in there. She kicked off her courts and coat, and wandered through into the drawing room. Max was sprawled out on the couch and she joined him there, curling into him.

‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

‘No, just a cuddle.’ Annie sighed. ‘I’m knackered. I’ve been out all day with Dolly. That Donny gives me the right hump, always watching me like he does.’

‘That’s what he’s paid to do.’ Max kissed the top of her head.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.’

‘You’ll have to.’

‘Jesus, you’re a hard taskmaster, Max Carter,’ said Annie, but she was smiling as she lifted her lips to his.

‘He comes in handy though, doesn’t he?’ Max asked against her mouth. ‘He said one of the Delaneys was bothering you the other day in Harrods.’

Annie drew back in surprise. ‘No one was bothering me,’ she said. ‘That was Kieron. The painter? He just came up and hugged me. We’re friends, Max. It’s a bit off when a friend can’t come over and say hello.’

Max smoothed down her dark hair. ‘Do you believe that old fanny? That men and women can just be “friends”?’ he asked seriously.

‘Of course I do.’ Annie was frowning at him. ‘Don’t you think they can?’

Max laughed. ‘Not where I come from. D’you reckon any of my boys would just be “friends” with a woman? The only reason any of the men I know are nice to a woman is to get her on her back.’ Max frowned. ‘That fucker’s getting far too familiar with you, if you ask me.’

Annie knew he had a point about his macho ‘boys’. Niceness was a weakness as far as they were concerned. Look at them the wrong way and they’d knock your head off. They wouldn’t understand a man like Kieron at all. They were hard men; Kieron was an artist.

‘He’s a different sort of man,’ said Annie.

Now it was Max’s turn to frown. ‘How d’you mean, different? He’s got two legs and a cock, just like the rest of us.’

‘He isn’t like that.’

‘Darlin’, we’re all like that. So you’re telling me you were laid out in his studio stark naked and he never tried it on?’

‘Of course he didn’t.’

‘There was absolutely nothing between you?’

‘No!’ For God’s sake, she didn’t realize any of this had even entered Max’s head. He couldn’t really think that she and Kieron … could he?

‘But you like him. And he’s got a charming way about him, I hear. If he can charm the birds out of the trees, why wouldn’t he charm the knickers off you?’

‘I like him. That’s it. I like him, but I love you.’

Max looked at her closely. Then he shrugged. He was supposed to say he loved her back, but he didn’t. Annie felt a bit disappointed, but she knew that a man like Max would never wear his heart on his sleeve.

‘I’ve never developed Jonjo’s knack of taking women lightly,’ said Max, slipping his hands around her neck, lifting her chin with his thumbs. His mouth came down and he kissed her, hard, bruising her lips against her teeth.

‘I know,’ she said when he drew back.

‘Fidelity’s very important to me.’

But you’re cheating on your wife, she thought. But she knew what he meant – her fidelity to him. Her total faithfulness. Anything less would disgust him and cause him loss of face among the boys, she knew that. Anything less would be unacceptable. Perhaps punishable. But she didn’t want to think about that. She had no reason to stray, she was in love with this man, she always had been. If he couldn’t trust her, that was his problem.

Maybe Kieron’s too, Annie wondered. But she brushed the thought aside.

Dolly phoned again a few days later.

‘Fuck me, not again. What is it this time?’ asked Annie, exasperated.

‘Your sister pitched up this morning looking for you. Said it was urgent, that you were to phone her on this number.’ Dolly reeled it off. Annie grabbed a pen and wrote it down. It wasn’t her mum’s number, it must be the Surrey house.

‘Oh. Okay. Thanks. Dolly?’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t give her this number, I hope?’

‘You told me not to give it out to anyone.’

‘And you didn’t.’

‘Of course I fucking didn’t.’

‘Wind your neck in, I’m only asking. I’ll give her a call. Thanks, Dolly.’

Ruthie must have been sitting right by the phone. She picked up immediately.

‘It’s me,’ said Annie.

‘Not before time. It’s like trying to reach the Queen.’

‘Well I’m here now,’ said Annie. ‘What’s up?’

There had to be something going off. She had no illusions that Ruthie would have phoned her for a girly chat. This had to be some sort of emergency.

‘It’s Mum,’ said Ruthie.

‘What about her?’

‘She’s not well.’

‘What, she’s drunk again?’

‘No, it’s more serious than that. I phone her every day but a couple of days ago she didn’t answer. I asked Maureen to go round, and she found her in a ruddy coma.’

‘What do you mean, a coma? Is it the drink?’

‘Yeah, it’s the drink. They drained a load of fluid off her, they said her liver’s shot. Cirrhosis.’ Ruthie’s voice cracked. ‘I tried to get hold of Max, but he’s off doing business and I couldn’t speak to him.’

Annie gulped. She hadn’t seen Max for a couple of days either. Again, the guilt took hold of her guts and screwed them into a tight knot. She took a breath to calm herself.

‘Is there anything they can do?’ she asked.

‘They say no.’

‘God, this is awful.’ It had been a long time coming. Annie had been expecting this call for years, and now the time had come. Finally, Connie’s love affair with the bottle was going to kill her stone-dead. The funny thing was, she felt almost relieved. At last, it would be over. All the torment, all the hate and love, would be gone.

‘Oh come on. You can’t pretend you’re broken hearted.’

‘It’s upsetting,’ said Annie. She didn’t want to fight with Ruthie.

‘Upsetting?’ Ruthie spat down the phone. ‘I’ll tell you what’s upsetting. That I couldn’t get hold of you to tell you your own mother’s on her way out. That I had to phone you to let you know, because you never go and even see her.’

‘She wouldn’t want to see me,’ said Annie sharply. ‘She made that very clear.’

‘Oh don’t give me all that, Annie. The truth is you’re very happy with your own life, so what do you care about hers?’

‘Of course I care.’

‘No you don’t. You don’t give a monkey’s, we both know that. You were always a daddy’s girl, you never had any time for Mum.’

‘That isn’t true.’

‘Yes it bloody-well is.’

‘I don’t want to fight with you,’ said Annie tiredly.

‘Oh, of course you don’t. You’re all ladylike now, I forgot. But you’re a whore, that’s all you are. Kath told me all about your privileged life as Max’s kept slag.’

Fuck it, she knew. Ruthie knew. Annie sat back on the couch, at a loss.

‘Yeah, I know all about it,’ said Ruthie. ‘You bloody tart! Max and me were going to try again, too.’

‘Oh for God’s sake Ruthie,’ snapped Annie. ‘Both you and I know that’s wishful thinking on your part.’

‘He’ll never marry you,’ spat Ruthie.

‘I know,’ said Annie. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know that better than you? He won’t divorce you. He can’t.’

‘So that’s spoiled your plans, hasn’t it?’

‘I don’t have any plans, Ruthie. All I know is I love him and he loves me.’

‘Love?’ roared Ruthie. ‘You’re his tart! He don’t know the meaning of the word love and he certainly don’t love you.’

God, that hurt. But Annie knew she deserved it. Both barrels, straight through the heart. Ruthie had really hit the target.

‘Where’s Mum at the moment?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, you don’t want to hear the truth, do you? The truth hurts. She’s in hospital. They don’t think she’ll last the night. She’s not coming out of this one.’

Annie put the phone down. She wished Max was here, but he was on business and she knew not to disturb him, even if Ruthie didn’t. She could handle this.

Dig deep and stand alone, she thought. She’d lived by that credo all her life, but for once she wished that he could be here to support her. When, of course, he should have been with Ruthie, supporting his wife. Not his tart. Grimly she went to get ready for hospital visiting. Her mother was dying, but she didn’t feel a thing.

Connie looked like a corpse already. That was all Annie could think as she stood by her mother’s hospital bed. There were tubes going in and out of her skinny, yellow little body. She wore a hospital gown. She looked fucking awful. But Ruthie was Mrs Max Carter and Carter money had provided the best for her, so she had a private room. Ruthie had managed to get in touch with Max at last and although he hadn’t visited – and wouldn’t, Annie was sure of that – he had sent flowers, a huge bouquet of mixed pinks and creams. Not red and white, thought Annie. You never sent red and white – it meant blood and bandages. And yellow meant forsaken, didn’t it?

Annie tried to look anywhere else but at her mother’s face. Connie didn’t have a tooth left in her head and she had her dentures out, giving her wrinkled cheeks a sunken look. Her hair was like wisps of dried straw. Annie looked at Ruthie instead. No comfort there. Ruthie was sitting there holding Connie’s gnarled hand. Look at the mother and you’ll see the daughter in thirty years’ time, that’s what they said. Annie looked at Ruthie, and saw Connie sitting there as clear as day. Weak women left to their own devices and failing to stand alone. One drunk following in the footsteps of another.

What a way to end up, thought Annie. Connie had struggled to get by all her life. Annie knew that she had never got over Dad leaving like he did. Her one triumph had been Ruthie’s wedding to Max. But even that hadn’t worked out for her. Max despised drunks and wouldn’t have them near him, in-laws or not. Without Ruthie close at hand to monitor her intake, Connie had sunk fast. Now all that remained was for her to give up her last breath and leave this world for good.

‘This is my fault,’ said Ruthie. ‘I should never have left her.’

Annie drew up a metal chair and sat down.

‘What were you going to do, Ruthie? Spend all your life propping her up? Never have a life of your own?’

‘God, you’re a hard cow,’ said Ruthie, glaring.

‘I told you, I’m not going to argue with you.’

‘I bloody hate you, Annie Bailey.’

‘I know,’ said Annie. ‘You hate me because I get what I want out of life and you’re too soft to try.’

Shit, why had she said that? She had promised herself on the way over here that she wouldn’t get into any rucks with Ruthie. It was pointless. And here they were again, trading insults.

‘Fuck, I’m sick of this,’ she said, and stood up.

‘Don’t go,’ said Ruthie in panic. ‘Don’t leave me alone with her.’

Annie froze.

‘Stay with me this once,’ said Ruthie, her voice shaking. She put a hand up to her disordered hair. Her hand was shaking too.

Of course it is, thought Annie. Ruthie had been here for hours and she probably left home in a panic and forgot to pack a bottle. She had the DTs because she hadn’t had a drink. Fuck it, talk about history repeating itself.

‘I can’t cope with this on my own,’ said Ruthie, tears in her eyes.

Annie slowly sat back down. ‘No more arguments,’ she said.

Ruthie shook her head frantically. ‘No. No more arguments, I promise.’

‘Or I walk,’ said Annie, feeling sick at heart.

So they sat there together, in silence, and waited for Connie to die.

At half past eleven that night, Annie said good-night to Donny and quietly let herself into the Park Street apartment. Max’s keys were in the dish; he was back. She switched on a table lamp, then went to the open bedroom door and looked in. Max had fallen asleep with the bedside light still burning. His chest rose and fell smoothly with the rhythm of his breathing. Annie softly crossed the room and turned off the light. Then she went back into the sitting room and sat down, knowing that she couldn’t get into bed with him tonight, not after spending time with Ruthie, not after watching their mother quietly fade away.

She sank her head into her hands. Jesus, what a day. She stank of disinfectant, she realized. Disinfectant and death. Her mother had slipped so quietly into that final sleep, the nurse checking her pulse, shaking her head, then walking away to let them say their goodbyes.

She had been more choked by it all than she had expected. Ruthie had sobbed and wailed inconsolably, but Annie had been unable to cry, although she had felt waves of misery engulf her. All she had been able to do was hold Ruthie tight, stroke her arms and kiss her hair.

It was a measure of Ruthie’s distress that she had allowed this. And to Annie it had been painfully poignant, reminding her how long it had been since she had enjoyed this close contact with the sister she still – despite everything – loved so much.

So no, there was no way she could sleep with Max tonight.

Although she loved him.

Adored him.

She lay back against the couch and thought about Max. God knows it was easier than thinking about poor bloody Ruthie. Max who so enthralled her, who shared her life here in this apartment. This felt like reality, what they shared here, not the harsh, threatening outside world. They were at it like rabbits most of the time, they had christened every part of this place – this couch, the floor, the bath, everywhere. The sexual pull between them was so strong, so overpowering. Everything there was to do, they had done it together. Nothing was off-limits. And they were close. Really close.

But still he was Ruthie’s husband and he should have been with Ruthie, she knew that, comforting her, waiting in her bed. Not in Annie’s.

‘How’d it go?’ asked Max from the bedroom doorway.

Annie glanced around, startled. He was running a hand through his dark hair, pulling on his robe, yawning. So bloody casual.

She felt anger rise. ‘Oh fine. My mother, and incidentally your wife’s mother too, died about an hour ago.’

Max came and sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’ Annie looked daggers at him. ‘For not being there for Ruthie? For my loss? What?’

‘Both,’ said Max. ‘I know how bad I felt when my mum died.’

That wasn’t at all the same. Annie knew that Max had idolized Queenie and mourned her passing with genuine grief. Ruthie had been horribly cut up to lose Connie, but for Annie it was different. Of course she was sad at her mother’s death, but most of all she was glad that Connie’s suffering was over.

Annie took a breath, shut her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said, opening them and looking at him. ‘I just feel so bad about Ruthie. At least she had Mum before. Now what’s she got, the poor little cow? I’m worried about her.’

Max nodded. ‘I’m selling the Surrey place. That’s why I’ve been busy these past few days,’ he said.

Annie stared at him in surprise. ‘Why?’

‘Ruthie hates the fucking place. I hate the fucking place too. I think it’s jinxed. Everything bad that’s happened, it’s happened there. Mum going like she did. And poor bloody Eddie. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

‘But what about Ruthie? Where will she go?’

Every time she saw her sister, it seemed to get worse. The guilt, the worry, the anxiety. It was eating at her more and more. The thoughts she’d had in the hospital about Connie declining after their dad left kept niggling away at her. Now she saw a parallel with Ruthie and Max. If Max abandoned Ruthie, what would become of her? Would she have the strength to carry on? Oh, they would still be married, Max would never contemplate divorce. But they would live completely separate lives. Shit, they already did.

‘Ruthie can move into Mum’s old place in Bow.’

Annie thought about that. She knew this was a huge concession on Max’s part. Queenie’s place was sacrosanct. To live in it was, to him, an honour. She just hoped Ruthie saw it the same way.

‘Don’t give up on her, Max,’ said Annie tiredly. ‘I really am worried about her.’

‘What, you mean the drinking?’

‘Oh. You know about that.’

‘Bloody sure I know about that. You’d be amazed what I know, Annie. It pays to keep your ear to the ground.’

Now what did that mean? Watch out, I’ve got my eye on you?

‘She needs a bit of support,’ said Annie.

‘Like her mother?’ asked Max. ‘Sweetheart, you could have propped Connie Bailey up with iron staves and she would still have keeled over.’

‘I know. But as a favour to me, Max? Be nice to Ruthie.’

They locked eyes.

‘I’ll be nice,’ said Max. ‘I promise.’