Glenford snorted in derision and annoyance. 'This goes deeper than that, Jimmy, this is far too personal. What the fuck has he done, fucked your wife?'
Jimmy didn't answer, and Glenford wondered what the upshot of this day was going to be. Life was a series of unavoidable events – until now he had not understood what his father meant by that. But he had known what the score was all his life.
His father was a handsome Jamaican called Wendell Prentiss, who had travelled over to Britain in the fifties with nothing but a Rasta hat and a sense of humour. He had a posse of outside children, from a gaggle of different white women, but his legal wife had unfortunately only ever produced one son, Glenford. Wendell had always argued with him, saying that you had only one life, and it was up to you, what you did with it.
Of course, Wendell would say, in his thick Jamaican accent and with a grin, there would always be the unexpected, you needed to allow for them kind of thing, mentally and monetarily, that would cost you dearly. Deaths, births, and more often than not, a serious prison sentence for the majority of Jamaican boys, because the British police don't like us one bit as a race, there too many of us now. Always remember, son, he had said with all the dignity he could muster, while drinking white rum and banging his dominos on the kitchen table, those things cost money, time, and the serious use of brain power. But other than that, he would say on a laugh, your life was your own, to waste or make the best of.
Jebb Avenue in Brixton, Wendell would say, his deep voice making his words as dramatic as possible, could be the marketplace you visit for a sheepskin coat in the darkest days of winter, or where you could end up queuing to visit your friends or family. Funky Brixton, as the prison there was called, was the place where white boys had eventually become the niggers.
Glenford had laughed with his father when he had philosophised about those things, yet he knew he had actually been stating facts.
Wendell had died ten years ago, still believing he was a prince, a walking flag of Ethiopia, and still smoking the weed that had actually prevented him from fulfilling his dreams. He had always been too stoned to do anything constructive.
'Life is what you make it,' he would say on a daily basis, loudly and seriously. 'You have a blank piece of paper, Glenford, and what you eventually write on it is of your own doing. Good or bad, you have to decide for yourself.'
Glenford had adhered to his father's teachings all his life, and they had kept him in good stead. His father had taught him that sometimes you had to hurt people, be cruel to be kind, but Jimmy Jackson, he was a different kettle of fish. He had always tried to make other people's lives easier, and the responsibility had weighed on him from day one.
Glenford had few real friends. Like his father before him, he was fussy about who called him by that name, to him friends were people you trusted as much as your family. In this case more than your family. Jimmy was a real friend. Freddie, on the other hand, was just treated like one. It was a subtle difference, but there all the same.
But to Jimmy, Freddie Jackson, was family, and in their world family, no matter how big a cunt they were, got a wage. That went without saying, but they were supposed to be grateful. They were supposed to understand their fucking good luck that someone close to them had the nous to earn a crust, a crust they were willing to share out.
Now Jimmy was threatening to remove that wage, was going to drop Freddie like a stone. It was Jimmy's call, and Freddie was one dangerous fuck, after all, but Glenford knew that in one way Freddie had a point and was within his rights to believe he was owed a job.
He also knew, by the way Jimmy was talking, that Freddie had irrevocably fucked up any relationship they had ever enjoyed, and Jimmy, whatever Freddie might think, was the better man in more ways than one.
The Jacksons had fought before and nothing had come of it. They had been the talk of the town, especially after Stephanie's death. Best-kept secret in London that was. But Jimmy had always accepted Freddie back into the fold. He still could, and Glenford hoped that would be the case.
He hated Freddie, but he knew they were better off with him in front of them, acting as a friend, than away from them, out of their orbit, and, knowing Freddie, planning their demise.
Glenford knew that Jimmy must have his reasons for what he was determined to do, but Freddie was going to go what was commonly referred to as ape shit.
Roxanna felt sick and she wasn't sure if it was the baby she was carrying, or her sister's revelation. Even her father could not be capable of something like that, of raping Maggie. It couldn't be true.
Maggie was strong, she would have fought him surely, stopped him, and she would have screamed it from the rooftops.
Wouldn't she?
But somehow Rox knew that Jackie would have made any kind of accusation impossible for Maggie, and she also felt certain that Maggie would have kept it quiet for their sakes as much as for her mother and Jimmy. Jimmy could never have been told something like that. Maggie was sensible enough to know that her Jimmy would be capable of murder if he had even suspected that something like that had occurred.
Kimberley must be wrong, must have got the wrong end of the stick. And if her dad had raped Maggie, did that mean Jimmy Junior had been his child, as Kim had insinuated? Was he her brother? One sexual act, and they had produced a child – it was too off the wall. She knew she had other half-brothers and sisters, she had heard the gossip over the years, but she had never felt the urge to see any of them. Why would she want to?
Jimmy Junior could not have been her father's child. It could not be true, it was an absolutely outrageous suggestion. Maggie wouldn't have let that happen to her, she would not have let him near her, no way, it was not feasible.
Not her aunt Maggie, the person who had been like a surrogate mother all their lives, who had always been there for them, and who was still their shelter when their lives got too stormy for them. When this excuse for a mother got pissed and caused fights at Christmas and New Year, they had gone to Maggie because she sorted things out.
Had he raped her? Was her father really that bad, capable of such an act?
The worst thing of all was, deep inside her, she knew it was true.
Kimberley had spoken the truth, and even her mother, her dad's biggest fan, his only alibi, and also the only person on the planet who actually really cared what happened to him, knew it. It was almost as if Jackie had been expecting to hear it, or something like it, at some point in her life. She had looked almost as if she was being told something she had always known, had looked almost smug because she had finally found out the truth, finally had an understanding of something that had been bugging her.
But Rox just couldn't let herself believe it, didn't want to believe it. She just didn't want to deal with it. Didn't want to look at her aunt Maggie, who she loved, and know that her father had intruded so violently into her life.