She could hear herself shouting at him and in her rage she couldn't even comprehend what she was saying to him: 'You fucker, you bullying, wicked fucker…'
Lil was screaming the same words over and over again and Janie sat and watched the scene before her with an awe that she would say later was due to the fact that Lance was still denying any wrongdoing even after his mother had opened up his eyebrow. She would tell people in a hushed voice that Lil Brodie was like a maniac, that she had doled out a hiding many a man would have been loath to be on the wrong end of. She would tell anyone who asked her that Lil Brodie was a decent woman who had administered a beating to that little bastard to teach him the error of his ways. She had paid him out tenfold for her girl's injuries and without realising it, Janie set out Lil's reputation as a battler once and for all.
Lil was crying now, a low groaning cry of despair and disappointment and long strings of snot were hanging from her nose as she knelt over the boy, and, forcing down the urge to crack his skull open with her clenched fist, she said to him, 'I'm on to you, boy, and you will get this or worse every time you step out of line. You fucking bully, you rotten, stinking bully.'
Lance stared up at the woman he alternately loved and hated and he said through his tears, 'It wasn't me, Mum, it was Patrick… I swear… I swear to God…'
Lance was still lying to her, still trying to worm his way out of it. He had not a scrap of shame or pride inside him. Lil pulled his head up towards her face with a force so great that his teeth crashed together loudly enough to make Janie Callahan jump. Lance could feel her breath on his face once more as she bellowed at him.
'You liar, you are still fucking lying. Tell me the truth, you mad bastard, tell me the truth or I swear to God I'll fucking bury you!'
She was staring into his eyes and he knew then that she meant every word she said. She saw the lids of his eyes come down like blinds on a window and knew he was changing tack. The knowledge depressed her even as it worried her. He was such a strange child and now she had acknowledged that fact to herself and to Janie Callahan, she felt her fear of him evaporate.
'It was me. I'm sorry, Mum… I'm sorry… She was looking at me… She thinks she is better than us she does.'
The whine in Lance's voice, and his constant lying, was too much for her. What the hell had she bred? Where the hell did this child come from? Lil threw him away from her then as if the effort of touching him was anathema. Then, holding on to the arm of the sofa, she pulled herself up from the floor with difficulty and Janie quickly leapt up to help her. She had been silent as she had watched Lil take matters into her own hands. Before, she would have laid out money that Lil had been aware of her son's reign of terror; how wrong she had been. And how relieved she was now that her kids would finally be free of the little boy who looked like an angel but had the vocabulary of a sailor.
Lance was battered and bloody and Janie could feel no remorse for what had happened to him. Like his own mother, she felt only distaste and relief that he had finally got his comeuppance. She had enjoyed seeing him squirm and it bothered her that a young child could stir up such feelings inside her.
'Get out of my sight.' He dragged himself up slowly and Lil could see that she had gone too far, that she had really hammered him, but she didn't care. There was a kink in Lance's nature and she was going to iron it out if it killed her.
When Lance was gone from the room, Lil sighed and, lighting a cigarette, she pulled on it deeply. Blowing out the smoke noisily, she said sadly, 'I am so sorry, Janie. I knew nothing about it. Is the little one all right?'
Janie nodded. Taking the proffered cigarette, she lit it and said, 'He could have killed her, Lil, and it was that which brought me round here. I don't want any trouble and you know that. But my kids are mortally afraid of him. Not a day goes by but he is at them…'
She was crying again now. The sympathy that was in Lil's eyes made her break down.
'Where was my Pat while all this was going on?' She was suddenly afraid that her eldest son was a part of it all.
Janie shrugged and wiped at her eyes with a grubby tissue, the cigarette stains on her fingers showing just how bad her nerves had become. Looking at her with the cigarette dangling from her lips and the tear-stained face that was blotchy and swollen, Lil saw her own life if she wasn't careful. Lance was capable of making her into the wretch she saw before her and she was determined not to let that happen.
'He puts a stop to him if he catches him. He's a good boy, Lil.'
The words were like a balm to Lil and she sighed again, heavier this time, before bellowing once more at the top of her voice, 'Don't you dare go up to him, Mother…'
She got out of the chair again and, as she walked from the room, Janie could hear Annie Diamond arguing with her in hushed tones.
Janie looked around her at the lovely home that Lance lived in and she wondered at a boy who had everything laid on a plate and who still was going to the bad. The carpet was new and reached all the walls, the furniture was expensive and comfortable, and even the ashtrays were coloured glass, shaped like big blue fishes. A colour TV stood in the corner and velvet curtains adorned the windows. It was like something from a magazine or a shop window. Yet she wouldn't trade places with poor Lil for all the money in the world.
'I mean it, Mum, you leave him to stew in his own juices.'
Annie was agitated and upset. Lil was amazed at the way her mother felt for this child of hers, considering the woman had never once shown her so much as a scrap of affection while she had been growing up. No Christmases, no birthdays, nothing; it was as if she had not existed. Now she was willing to argue for a boy who had thrown a six-year-old child off a moving bus. As she pushed her mother none too gently down the stairs, she said in a deep whisper, 'Fuck off home, Mother, and leave me to sort this out.' Annie was beside herself as she said quickly, 'You ain't going to tell Patrick are you?'
Her voice was high with fear and Lil was aware that she was shaking with emotion; her mother, on whom she would have bet her last penny that no real emotion had ever existed inside her body.
'Fucking right, I am telling Patrick. That child needs sorting out once and for all and I am going to make it my business to see that happens.'
Annie was shaking her head like a wet dog, and then she shrieked: 'He was only being a boy. All kids do silly things, Lil. Please don't tell Pat about this. Pat will kill him; you're bad enough but Pat don't know his own strength…'
'Go home, Mother. Leave me and my family alone. And while we are talking about Pat, he will blame you for all this anyway, so make yourself scarce before he aims you out the door once and for all.'
Lil went up the stairs then and looked in on Lance, he was lying on his bed sobbing and alone and she was reminded of how little he was really. But his plight still didn't move her in any way. He was looking at her now with his big blue eyes and she saw the cunning behind them and shivered. He was a vindictive little bugger and she wondered where he had got that from. It had to be from her mother. Annie could be cold, she knew, and she was going to make a point of curtailing the time she spent with him.
When this baby arrived, she was going to take control of the reins once more, and she was going to watch him like a hawk. She never wanted to hear another story about him and his hate-fuelled antics ever again. This all stopped today. She was determined to make Lance finally appreciate that all his actions had consequences.