CHAPTER 8
“Debbie?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

She was in tears; I could hear it in her voice.

“It’s Sam, love. And Carl. I… I don’t want to do this over the phone. They’re both in hospital. Can you come up to the clubhouse?”

“You’ve got me really worried, Rosie. On my way”

Straight back into my boots, thinking that a change of socks could wait, jacket on, keys, lid, and out of the door kicking the little bike into life before trying not to ride too fast or too stupidly through the city. There was a prospect on the gate, as always, and he simply waved me straight through to the main building, where I found Rosie wrapped up in Oily’s arms.

“Debbie! Thank fuck!”

Carl’s brother simply passed her to me, as she broke down completely. Within a very few minutes, a couple of mugs appeared, hot chocolate from the smell, and as Rosie’s sobs slowed, I looked around the clubroom, seeing expressions that all appeared to be set and hard, and bloody angry.

“Talk to me, woman?”

“Sorry, Deb. Should be stronger”

“Fuck off, Rosie. All this lot know your class”

Her hand clenched tightly on the front of my T-shirt for a few seconds, then relaxed a little.

“Sam. He was out on business and he got grabbed by another club. They really worked him over, and he’s in St David’s. Carl’s in the Royal Infirmary, with coppers on bed watch”

Her voice failed her once more, and I felt another hand on my shoulder, Oily’s, squeezing it gently before pulling up another chair.

“You settle, Rosie. Debbie’s here, so I’ll talk her through what’s happened. That OK with you?”

I felt her nod, and the big man sighed.

“Grim Reapers, Deb. Sam was picking up rent from one of our studios, and they jumped him. Really worked him over, serious damage. The tattooist saw the start, and gave us a ring here. Carl took the call, and grabbed a couple of lads and went straight out. He’s been hurt as well, but that’s not the biggest piece of shit. He’s going to be OK”

I felt myself relaxing, not having noticed how much I had tensed at his words.

“What have they done to him?”

“Ah, tried to take his head off with a spade, then an axe. His nose is a mess, so’s his throat, or so I’ve been told. Coppers won’t let me in to see him, so I had to use the ‘real brother’ card to get the word from the doctors”

“Coppers?”

“Aye. Carl handed back the axe to one of the Reapers. He’s an ex-Reaper now”

His face twisted, and I caught just a murmur, but I was pretty sure that the gist of the comment was that the ex-Reaper would be joined in short order by the rest of them. Oily looked over towards the bar.

“Horse is going to have a club meeting in a little while, love. You can’t be here for that. You really don’t need to be, and trust me when I say you don’t want to be. There’s a van outside you can fit that little Honda into, and if you don’t mind, and I know the class you have, so I already know your answer. If you don’t mind taking Wildcat here, Rosie, home with you. Gandalf’s in no fit state, neither’s his missus, so take your sister and look after her. Please”

He stood up, face settling back into that hard look once more, and paused as he walked away.

“Oh, yeah. Just got back home, haven’t you? Want a bite to eat before you go?”

Pie and chips was delivered ten minutes later, Rosie only eating half of hers as the pressure grew from the eyes of the men who were steadily filling the big room. I stood up, pulling my sister to her feet.

“This suit you, love? Staying at mine?”

She gave me a very bleak smile.

“Could I find anyone better than you, Deb? Come on. Oily will let us know what’s what when he gets more news”

That took five days, as I filled my time with driving, and Rosie her own with trips to St David’s hospital on the bus, until I borrowed Bert’s van again so that she could use my Honda. The news was dreadful, and it was no surprise when Rosie simply moved into my bed with me, in the same way I had slept between Mam and Dad when I was first given a new and better life.

Sam was in a coma, with massive head injuries and a number of broken bones. Gandalf and Rosie’s own Mam, Linden, were almost permanent fixtures at the bedside. I suspected part of the reason I had Rosie was to allow the two parents some respite, but there was no way I begrudged them that, no way I felt that I was being used.

Two things I had learned from my own parents were the importance of family, and what obligation really meant. Rosie, Sam, all of them were my family, and always would be. I hadn’t fully realised how much I loved them all, right up to such a really shitty moment.

The news was slow to come out, but it did, as a drip feed. Our beloved Carling was under arrest, although in hospital, for the murder of some piece of shot or other.

An unlicensed drinking establishment run by a biker club was shown on the television news one evening as it, and the collection of bikes parked outside, all burned in a spectacular way.

I continued to drive for Bert, doing my best to avoid a certain Tesco store, and Rosie continued to fester in my house, and then Carl was taken from hospital to the Crown Court, where he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and got sent down for ten years in Long Lartin.

What a steaming pile of shit.

The only thing that kept me going, I believe, was Rosie. She needed me, and that grounded my life. I could cope, I would cope, because if I didn’t I would be failing my family.

Obligations.

I extended their range a couple of weeks later, by offering space to Gandalf and Linden in order to save them the long journey to and from St David’s, and once or twice I caught the older man smiling at me, almost with clear signs of pride. After all, hadn’t he helped shape my character?

Work, and family support. Pat had given me so much help in coming to terms with the loss of Mam and Dad, and I found that being able to give back a little of their gifts to my wider family was healing me. I was needed; I had a place in the world.

I couldn’t manage to keep off the run to Tesco forever, so I simply had to grit my teeth and drive the wagon there. I was surprised not to see the smile I had got rather fond of, and as the loaders scurried around my trailer I simply asked.

“Frank not on today?”

“No, love! Don’t work here no more, does he?”

“Oh?”

“Aye! Got his own shop now, off down to Maindy. Says he can do proper stuff now, not just reheating and that”

The man’s look changed a little, appraising me carefully for any reaction as he dropped his little bombshell, and clearly having some idea of how close we had been.

“Got engaged as well, isn’t it? Going to be wed in August. No point in looking him up now, girl. That ship’s sailed!”

It took me a while to get my feelings in any coherent order, and by ‘a while’ I mean weeks. Rosie was wonderful just then, and I suppose it must have been the same sort of thing I had found: dealing with your own crap is easier if you focus on being there for someone else’s. It didn’t end my pain, but it scabbed the wound over so that I could deal with life in a much more stable way. I looked up the shop once, taking a massive detour on the way home, and it looked just as Frank had described his dream to me.

The window display held small pastries to one side, a range of pies to the other, and through the glass, past a fair number of customers, I could see a wide range of bread, from little rolls to French sticks. The little board on the pavement advertised more stuff, including decorative icing for ‘occasions’, and I slipped away on my bike, not finding the courage to enter the shop.

Routine, then. Three house guests, steady work with the lorries, and repetitive messages from the hospital about Sam. No change, no change, no change, no fucking change. I went in with Rosie one weekend, and he was simply lying there, a mass of dressings all over his head, wired up to a collection of boxes and a drip, with a tube down his throat that went ‘ooh” in a steady rhythm, and I just wanted to kill someone.

My beloved brother lingered for sixteen more weeks before they finally decided to turn off the machines.

Farewell, to the sweetest man I ever knew.