enjoy yourself first? I’ll get you some candyfloss.’
Johnny winked at Maggie and she laughed. He made her feel alive. Special. And even though she’d known him for less than a few hours, he also made her feel safe. And the feeling of safety was rare in Maggie’s life. In fact, it was almost unheard of.
And that was the moment Maggie thought she’d fallen in love. Fallen in love with Johnny Taylor. The first, the last and the only person who’d ever made her feel safe.
‘Not even a week and she’s got her feet so far under the frigging table they’re hitting bleeding Australia. Bugger me Frank, can’t you book her into a hotel – or better still, into the nearest flippin’ morgue?’
Frankie Taylor looked at his wife and wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up. The last thing he needed, however, was another hour and a half of Gypsy screeching at him; it was getting on his nerves. He’d got used to her soft – albeit expensively trained – voice, and had forgotten what it was like to hear the constant presence of the East End girl. But since the arrival of his sister, Lorna, that’s all he’d heard coming out of Gypsy’s mouth.
What made it worse was the fact he couldn’t even go out to get laid to relieve his tension. And by the way Gypsy was pacing about, giving a good impression of a Grenadier Guard, he didn’t hold out much hope of getting his dick sucked by her any time soon. He certainly wasn’t stupid enough to ask when she was in this sort of mood.
Gypsy poked him hard, knowing he wasn’t listening.
‘Christ’s sake Gyps, you’re starting to do me nut in. I don’t want to be worrying about this; I need to start thinking about what I’m going to do with Max Donaldson.’
‘Why do you have to mention that man’s name in this house, Frank? I told you a long time ago what to do with him. You didn’t listen then and look what bleedin’ happened. You got cut up the carkers and now you think you know what’s best about Lorna staying here. I’m telling you Frank, it’ll go arse over bleeding tit.’
‘Oh for God’s sake Gyps, turn it in or turn it down. Do you think listening to this tripe is helping me? Only just got out of hospital and I’m already getting grief. Would’ve done better to stay in there. Do yourself and me a favour and calm down.
‘Calm down? How can I when I’ve got Lorna living under the same hatch as me? I’m telling you, Frank, she’s like the witch of the North, South, East and bleeding West all rolled into one.’
Lorna Taylor stood on the other side of the walnut door, listening to her sister-in-law badmouth her, and smiled. From the very first time she’d laid her eyes on Gypsy she’d hated her – and she wasn’t going to stop now.
She was certain it’d been Gypsy stopping her from coming across to visit her brother again. Stopping Frankie from sending her a passport to travel on. Lady Muck had as good as made her a prisoner, forcing her to stay in Belgium all this time and Lorna was sure she knew the reason why – Gypsy was greedy and she didn’t want to share Frankie with anyone. She certainly didn’t want to share his money. She wanted it all to herself, to indulge in the luxury she’d become accustomed to without anyone trying to knock her off her ivory pedestal.
Lorna realised that she and Gypsy weren’t so many worlds apart. They were both East End girls with their childhoods being a replica of each other; poverty in their house and on every corner. Now, however, there was one big difference between them – Gypsy had it all and she had nothing. But Lorna knew that was soon going to change. If her sister-in-law thought she’d get rid of her as easily as she did the last time she was in for a shock. Lorna Taylor was here to stay.
She was owed; and owed big time. She wanted exactly what Frankie had and she was going to get it. It hadn’t just been her brother who’d been stuck in the kids’ home being battered by the workers like a fish in a chip shop. Yet it’d been only her who’d been returned from all those different foster homes because she wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough, or she didn’t give her new foster father good enough head.
All her life Lorna had been pushed about by men who thought she was something they wiped their feet on, but that was about to stop. She had no intention of going back to Belgium to her excuse of a boyfriend. She belonged here. Here with Frankie. Here with her nephew. Here without Gypsy. And whether Gypsy went of her own accord or whether she would have to get rid of her, one way or another, Lady Muck with her stupid pretentious voice was going to lose her crown very soon.
Lorna leant slightly nearer to the door, not wanting to miss a word of the argument between Gypsy and Frankie. As she moved her head to make her ear more comfortable on the hand carved panel, the door was opened and Gypsy appeared red-faced and glowering.
‘Oh! Not enough just to be under me roof Lorna; you want to be up in me business too. Flip me, where next? Wouldn’t surprise me if I woke up tomorrow morning to find you up me bleeding arse.’
‘Is everything alright? I’m sorry Frankie, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just heard a few raised voices when I came to knock. I wasn’t wanting to disturb you. You know me, I don’t like to pry,’ she said sweetly.
Frankie smiled and waved at his sister to come into the room, slightly embarrassed that she might’ve heard what Gypsy had been saying.
‘Don’t worry about it, Lorn. I’m sorry you had to hear it babe, especially after you coming all this way to see me.’
Gypsy watched Lorna’s sickly smile. She knew she spelled trouble with the letters B.I.T.C.H. Gypsy had been brought up in the East End, she was streetwise. She could smell a rat when she saw one, and Lorna Taylor was one of the biggest ones she’d seen in a long time. Even the Pied Piper of Hamelin would have trouble with her.
Gypsy continued to stare at her sister-in-law. Her bulbous body pushed at the seams of the expensive red Valentino dress which Frankie had sent her one Christmas. Her Harry Winston diamond cluster earrings struggled to stay on her fatty lobes. Her Tiffany necklace – a present from Johnny – almost choked her as it struggled to clasp round her neck and her wrist had ownership of a yellow gold and diamond Datejust special edition Rolex watch. Another present from Frankie.
She could hear Lorna breathing heavily from the excess weight pressing onto her lungs and her large breasts hung heavily in an ill-fitting bra. Her face, unlike Frankie’s, was rotund and her green beady eyes lay too close to her sharp pointed nose.
Gypsy curled her nose up. Everything about Lorna offended her. As she looked at Frankie and his sister laughing together it felt as if something very nasty had come home to roost.
Gina Daniels was smiling as she looked at her nephew, Gary, on the other side of the room. He was beginning to make a name for himself and once he did, she’d have the name too.
Gina leaned back on the table, stretching out her puffy legs and feeling a twinge of cramp in her calf. She glanced around, noticing how much of a mess Gary’s flat was in, but the difference between his mess and other people’s was what it was messy with.
Lab burners, glass vials, measuring jugs, pans and packets of opened baking powder lay scattered about the room in disarray. Then of course there was the cocaine. The cocaine to make the crack.
Gone were the days of Gary having to buy a few rocks of ready-made crack, earning so little it didn’t even pay for a week’s grocery shopping. He was moving up in the world. Here he was with his own crack lab in his kitchen, and Gina Daniels couldn’t have been prouder.
‘Come over and help me. No good just bleedin’ sitting there Auntie Gina, you know I was never good at cooking.’