Chapter Thirty-One
Phillip was seething, only now the anger was directed at his sister. How dare she take this matter into her own hands! Who the fuck did she think she was?
As he drove towards his mother's house he could feel black fury consuming him. Not that anyone looking at him would see that of course, at least no one who wasn't really close to him. He knew his biggest strength was the fact he never look harassed about anything. He always looked cool, calm, and, as his mother often joked, collected. But inside he was a writhing mass of hate and that hate was right now directed at Breda. She had gone too far this time. Fucking baseball bats in public, letting the world know their fucking business. He had already received three calls about it before he had left the house. What did she think, that her little escapade would be overlooked? She had just advertised to the world that their brother was a fucking grass, and she thought that would help them in some way? Why not go the whole hog and have it advertised in the fucking Romford Recorder and the London Daily News? The silly, stupid bitch. And as if that wasn't bad enough he now had to go and sort out his fucking mother, who was terrified of what was going to happen to her only daughter, let alone her fucking battered and bemused son! It was like living in a circus, they were all fucking clowns of one type or another. He was already trying to minimise the damage that dozy mare had caused; the Filth were being weighed off, and that wasn't fucking cheap at any time. Breda had made them look like a bunch of muppets. Incapable of getting their own house in order in a private and dignified manner.
Well, he was going to take her down a peg, and she would remember this fuck-up until the day she died.
Chapter Thirty-Two
'What possessed you, girl? Your own brother!'
Veronica's voice was thick with tears, she was still unable to comprehend what had taken place in her own family.
'He grassed up Declan, how many fucking times, Mother!'
Veronica screamed back at her daughter, her thick Irish accent even more pronounced with her anger. 'I don't believe it! I won't believe it! James Joachim Murphy might not be the brightest star in the constellation but he wouldn't be that fecking stupid. Use your head, Breda! He'd have to be halfway to the county home to even dream of doing something that fecking stupid.' She looked to where her husband was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a large Scotch. He shook his head at her then, refusing to get involved.
'Will you talk some sense into your daughter, Phillip, not just sit there like the fecking village idiot.'
There was dread in her voice now, fear that all she had heard was true. If it was true her Jamsie, the biggest eejit this side of the Irish Sea, would indeed be safer in a mental institution than in his own home. Breda was bad enough, but Phillip, her eldest, he would be like a man demented. There was no way he would let Jamsie walk away from something like this; it was inconceivable that it could even have happened. Surely they had it wrong and some begrudger was telling them lies to try and cause trouble between them all? Wasn't it bad enough she had lost her lovely Declan without them taking her Jamsie away from her as well?
'Phillip will kill him stone dead.' Her voice was higher than ever, the terror making her feel faint.
Phillip Murphy Senior got up slowly and went to his wife. Veronica allowed him to pull her into his arms, to hold her – she knew she needed holding at this moment. She had to calm down, get herself sorted so she could talk to her eldest son, make him see that it was all a load of old shite. That his brother wasn't capable of such skulduggery, that he wasn't bright enough to do something so underhand, so treacherous.
For the first time ever, Veronica saw her family as other people saw them: violent criminals with no scruples whatsoever. She could hear the talk now as if the voices were in the room with her. 'Look at them Murphys, even their own flesh and blood aren't safe. Their own brother!' It would never be forgotten. It would be dragged up and remembered on regular occasions. They would be seen as animals, wild animals with no care for anyone – not even their own. She knew that they were talked about now – their lifestyles, their way of going on, but that was normal, that was just gossip. There was even an edge of respect for them in it, but there wouldn't be any more. The tight-knit Murphys were no more. They would now be seen as people who turned on their own.
Breda had caused more trouble than she realised with her actions this night. And now they had to wait and see what the upshot was going to be, because it was Phillip who would decide the outcome, and Breda should have understood that from the start. As she watched her daughter, trying to pretend she wasn't bothered about the aggravation she had caused, she was filled with regret for what her family had been reduced to. No one knew her children's faults better than her; after all she had birthed them, each one, she knew their weaknesses, as well as their strengths. But for all Jamsie's stupidity, unlike this daughter of hers, he honestly didn't have the sense to work out that every action had a consequence. Her Phillip, on the other hand, had known that from a very young age, he didn't shit unless he had planned it down to the last detail. Breda should have used her loaf, thought about what she was doing. Her youngest son was fighting for his life in hospital and she couldn't even go to his side until she had sorted out the situation here first. She daren't leave Breda alone with her brother – otherwise the chances were she would be visiting two of her children in intensive care instead of one. How had this happened to them? It was as if overnight her family was being decimated before her eyes; their closeness which she had been so proud of was gone and her children were suddenly enemies. Everything she had worked for since their births was destroyed.
Breda was sitting on the kitchen chair defiantly, looking at her mother as if she was the one who had done something wrong, as if this was her fault somehow. Veronica left her husband's embrace and walked slowly over to her. Then, taking her arm back, she slapped her daughter's face with all the energy she could muster. It said something for Breda that she didn't retaliate, that she took the blow without a word. She looked at her father, but he didn't react in any way. He had sat down again quietly, and resumed sipping his whisky. As if he knew exactly what was going to happen and there was nothing he could do about it. Or wanted to. And it was that, her father's reaction, or rather his lack of it, that finally convinced her how much trouble she was actually in.
'I did it for our Declan, for his being banged up. I did it for the family!'
Veronica shook her head sadly; the fight had left her now. 'No, you didn't, Breda, you did it for yourself, like you have always done everything for yourself.'
Breda looked at her father again and, when he deliberately avoided eye contact, she said with bravado, 'Phillip doesn't scare me, the man ain't been born who can scare me.'