Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(90)

“Fuck off Cam, even my Dad’s jokes are funnier than that, are you sure you’re thirty and not fifty two, because that was a proper, lame, Dad joke.”

He stares at me blankly for a few seconds, I watch as his Adams apple bobs in his throat as he swallows hard, for a split second I think he’s going to cry because I didn’t laugh at his joke, when he says, “Her name was Chantelle, she was my wife.”

My eyes widen as I realise this one of those moments where I need to keep my mouth shut and listen. “Our parents were best friends, I was two years older than her, and it was just always assumed that we would end up together. Her Dad owned a few businesses, my Dad owned a few. She was an only child so her Dad had no boys to take over the reins. Robbie was too old for her, Joshie too young. When my Dad was killed, Colin, her Dad, stepped in and helped us out, he made sure nobody came in and tried to take what my Dad had built up while Rob and I established ourselves.” He takes a moment to sit himself up and leans back against the headboard, I sit up and tuck the quilt under my arms and sit cross legged next to him and listen to the rest of what he has to say.

“Georgia, I’m assuming you’ve worked out by now that not all of what I do is entirely above board, entirely legal?” I nod my head and just make an mmm sound.

“Me and your Dad are very similar in the way that we do things, the way we run our business, we're both very fair with people, we don’t take the piss and we always try and help people out when we can but if you cross us, we will f*cking break you.” I nod some more. “Chantelle wasn’t my girlfriend or anything until I was twenty five when Colin got diagnosed with cancer, it all happened so fast, there was so much going on. There’s a family called the Riley’s, they used to be faces around the East End in the sixties, then they moved out to Basildon way and made a name for themselves there. When my Dad was killed, they tried to make themselves busy, tried to take over a couple of the doors we run security for in Romford and Harlow, they would send people into the clubs to cause trouble, then report the bouncers to the Police, that and a few other things, anyway, it died down once they realised we had Col on board and that me and Rob weren’t just a pair of kids to be f*cked around with. So then Colin gets told he’s only got months to live and he wants to see his daughter married, I know what I have to do, I did love her but she was just, she was more like a mate but I was prepared to give it a go. Colin lived a bit longer than we thought he would and Chantelle was six months pregnant when he died, this triggered all sorts of problems, she had had a bit of high blood pressure during the pregnancy, I… ” He looks up at the ceiling and I can see he’s struggling.

“I’m no angel Georgia, never have been, never will be, but I’m sorry for how I treated her when we first got married, I stayed out all night, getting off my nut on Charlie, f*cking other women and she wasn’t stupid, she knew, but she loved me, she f*ckin’ worshiped me, she always had, always did.” He stares blankly right at me but I’m not there, he doesn’t see me.

“Anyway, she’s a mess after her Dad dies and I realise that I need to step up, she’s on complete bed rest to try and keep her blood pressure down and I’m trying to deal with her and the Riley’s who’ve crawled out of the woodwork again and are causing us problems.”

I watch as his hand comes up to his jaw and he rubs with his thumb and index finger, he seems to study me for a few long moments, I think he’s debating whether or how to tell me whatever it is he’s about to say next. “I went out George, I went out on the Friday night, I was off my tits and pubbed, clubbed and f*cked my way through Friday and Saturday night, I didn’t call her, not once George, not once did I give my sick, pregnant wife a thought during that weekend, not until I pulled up Sunday lunchtime, back at our home.”