Loyalty & Betrayal

Hey, Tanya has a story to tell, too! Sienna & Bobby will be the focus of the next chapter, I promise.



For those trying to keep track of the chronology here, I should perhaps mention that the action here takes place on the same day as the events described in the last chapter, but earlier in the morning (i.e. Alex was still asleep).

***

House of Tanya and Jack Simmons-McAllister, London, England.
Very early in the morning of the day after “Bulletproof Armour”.

It’s 4.30am, which is early even for me, but I’m wide awake, so now is a great time to get up. I got a lot to do.

Jack, bless him, is sound asleep. I love him for this. He’s not pretending to be asleep, he’s not drowsy, he’s not asking if he can come with me, he is really and genuinely ASLEEP. Thank God. Early morning has always been my time, ever since I figured out as a kid that getting up before everyone else was the one sure way I was guaranteed to be able to do whatever I wanted.

Reminds me, I have to tell my Mum some time about this. Not looking forward to that. She thinks she and my useless stepdad can mess up my kid’s life like they did mine, they have another think coming. Still, gonna be fun watching my precious sister’s face when she realises I beat her in the race to produce the first grandchild.

Now, I got a whole lot of things to do, and I’m trying to decide which one comes first, when my guts take the decision for me and I’m spending the next five minutes in the toilet. Ah, sod it. At least the sickness is over with quickly. Always has been for me. SiSi usually knows when she’s had enough to drink ‘cause she starts feeling sick. I never get that, before or after. I’m okay, suddenly I feel sick, suddenly I AM sick, suddenly it’s all over, thank God.

SiSi, priority number one!

I think back, but I don’t remember hearing footsteps last night, neither big nor small. I am pretty sure that she and the big guy spent the entire damn night up there, which is great. I look in at Jack, who is snoring gently in bed, and grin. I hope that SiSi is feeling this happy right now, but I couldn’t swear to it. I was really tired last night, and since it was my birthday – and I’m, well, pregnant – I decided it should be about me, and we threw everyone out early and went straight to bed.

So, I gotta go check on her just in case, ‘cause if things did not work out for her last night I need to go find her before she decides daytime drinking is the way to fix a broken heart. (It is, but not alone, that way lies puking and possible blackouts in bad places.)

So, I pad back in, and get my rooftop trousers, plus my good boots and a strong bra and black jumper. Pause as I’m pulling on the jumper and securing the trouser fastening carefully, and look down. My hand drops down and cups her, carefully.

You okay in there, kid? I think, a little nervously, which is stupid. I mean, this kid’s a real survivor. So far she’s made it through several weeks’ intensive training, one martial arts competition (nothing too bad though, only semi-contact), one all-in brawl with a bunch of drunk footie hooligans, close encounter with a sniper plus an accidental vodka or three two weeks back, before I started to suspect. Just lucky I had a competition a few weeks ago, I guess. Training meant I wasn’t drinking or going out much, and when I did go out a bit later on after I started to suspect, it wasn’t a heavy session, so I just ordered diet Coke and pretended it had vodka in.

Ye gods, another seven months without drinking. Hope you appreciate everything I’m giving up for you, kiddo.

I have this sense that somewhere inside me, a little voice is muttering Yeah, well, this is just the start.

Once again, how great a husband is Jack? Here I was doing all this worrying about that last one I lost, wondering when the hormones were going to be out of my system after I came off the jab, and he gets me pregnant first time. Know when it happened too. We took the bike out to that little place in the woods, which is just perfect since it’s where we first got together.

I go down to the kitchen, walking nice and quiet so as not to wake up Alex, who is asleep around here somewhere, and pick up some bread rolls, make a flask of coffee. I need an excuse to go up to the roof.

I grin. I feel fantastic all of a sudden. This baby is Jack’s baby, so it is going to be just fine inside me. I already feel it. I have a real sense I can talk to her, which I never did the last time, but then… I asked at the hospital and they said a lot of miscarriages are just natural selection in action. Bad genes; wouldn’t have made it to full term. I have to be honest; wouldn’t have made it to full term, full stop. I would not have got those three stripes on my sleeve if I’d stopped to have a kid.

And let’s face it, back then I would’ve made a really crappy mother. I drank, shagged around and picked fights with anything that moved. (Yeah, obvious joke; I just stopped shagging around.) Now, though, I have Jack, and I have a life which doesn’t involve me getting shot at, at least not too often. Our daughter’s gonna be just fine.

Climb back up the stairs towards the first floor of the house, and pause to put the tray down and open the door to the roof garden.

I am sure it’s a girl already. Drew once told me that all babies are girls up until around three months, which is why men have nipples, so technically of course she’s a girl, but I think she’s going to stay one anyway, which is good, because Jack’s family title goes through the male line, and I refuse to move to Scotland and herd sheep. His sister’s kid can be the next Laird McAllister.

Enough with the thinking, I need to get my arse up there and go check on Sleeping Beauty upstairs. I carefully prop the door to the roof open. Not that it is a major problem for me if someone locks it behind me… but it would be a bit inconvenient.

I think about the last few days as I’m going up… ah shit, Drew. Jesus God. Am I surprised that my oldest friend screwed over my newest friend? Nope. I have known Drew a long time, and the next thing on my list (after check on SiSi, check Alex is okay downstairs, and thank Jack properly for being such an excellent husband) is ensure that they are taking proper care of him. Drew, flat on his back and spaced out on drugs, is a really big target when you think how many people he’s imprisoned, inconvenienced and just plain pissed off over the years. Gotta take care of him, too.

I’m near the top of the stairs now. It’s just getting light outside, perfect conditions to be going and taking a look-see. I’m going up on all fours, balancing the tray on one hand. SiSi always said Goren had good senses, good hearing, came from being Army Intelligence. Can I see him being Army Intelligence? Yeah. They were always a bunch of weird buggers when I was in uniform, and I doubt the Yanks do things any differently. Going up on all fours means my weight’s more evenly distributed and my footsteps are lighter. Harder for someone else to hear me, easier for me to hear what’s going on up there. I don’t pick up anything, which is good, in a way, don’t want this guy thinking I’m a perve, I’m just concerned.

I pause just before I emerge, and finish the thought I had earlier. I have had SiSi crying on my shoulder about not being with Goren more times than I can count, to the extent where I once told her that she was getting boring and would she please just go back to New York already and get on with it? She screamed back that she was fucking useless at choosing men and what the fuck did I know anyway?

Right on the second count, wrong on the first, because there was nothing off in her judgement. Drew deliberately manoeuvred her right into a situation where she’d fall for that useless waste of space John Durham. (I met a shedload like him in the Army, and I was never wrong about them; could spot the ones going bad a mile off.) And he did that by… well.

That’s what gets me. This past two years, I really would’ve said Drew changed. He and I, we have always been there for each other, but I never knew him have any other friends. But these past two years, he and SiSi really seemed to hit it off. (Not like that. Drew only ever shags men and, lately, only Michael.) She told me herself, when we were all getting to know each other, that back when she was living in New York and they used to exchange information on the phone, he always asked how she was, how things were going, like he cared.

The hell he did. All he wanted was a good opportunity to drip a few more words in SiSi’s ear about how Goren never saw her as more than a good fuck, how he’d been a bachelor too long, how the only woman in his life was his mum, how the age gap was a problem… I know all this, because SiSi brought it all up, every time she and I got drunk.

Still kicking myself about that. I’d really been listening, I’d have noticed how many times she said “It’s like Drew said…”. Yeeeahh. Guess in that respect I was as dumb as she was. Forgot that the fact that Drew’s my friend doesn’t mean he can’t also be a manipulative little bastard.

(Even so, these things are not that simple. If I’ve learned one thing from being with Jack, it’s that. Can’t help thinking that Drew was bang on the nail about one thing; if Goren had given SiSi even a small chance to think that he and she would make it, she’d have told Drew to stuff his job and stayed over in the States to try and work things out.)

I admit, Goren is not what I was expecting. His partner, Alex Eames, is way more like the picture “New York cop” conjures up. Tough, determined, takes no shit from anyone. I like that in a woman.

But Goren… well, SiSi always said he was strange. Too smart for his own damn good. I mean, I get the attraction side of things… SiSi goes for the big guys, and they really don’t come all that much bigger; he’s bigger than I am, even. (Still bet I could take him, but it’s not the done thing to beat the daylights out of your best friend’s intended, even just out of curiosity). I’ll bet before he put on those few extra pounds, he had women queuing round the fricken’ block. Then again, I would also put money on the fact that when he hit forty-one and suddenly a young curvy redhead practically drags him into bed, that was just what a guy going through a mid-life crisis needed.

Ah, I’m being cynical. SiSi wanted to marry him; he must have good points… and he’s obviously smitten with her.

I’m at the top of the stairs now. Poke my head out and take a good careful look across at the bed.

Okay, this isn’t good. I’m seeing him, alright. Big broad back under the covers, facing away from me, looks to be dead asleep. But I am not seeing her.

Shit.

Right, need to be sure about this before I go running off calling SiSi and generally raising hell. Unfortunately, I can’t get much closer to the bed without waking Goren, and whilst I have every right to prowl around my own damn roof, this calls for a little tact and diplomacy.

Fortunately there is a dead simple way to solve this. I rise to my feet, put the tray down and glance around and out at the street. Still too early for anyone to be up. Okay.

I reach up and grip the edge of the roof, when it occurs to me I maybe shouldn’t be doing this, being pregnant and all. But the hell with it, this is a walk in the park for me. Not like that last time…

That time in the stadium was the only time in my life I didn’t want to fight. I mean, I’ve run from fights before, ain’t no shame in keeping yourself alive. But before…

…when I was backed into a corner, when it was me or them…

…I always fucking loved that, because suddenly the world goes clear and everything else goes away, just me, the other guy, and the knowledge that one of us won’t walk away on our feet, and it won’t be me.

But that time, then, then I would have run if I’d been able, to protect the kid. As it was, I was shit scared, and then it happened, the world went clear, and I knew we’d be alright, because I had the pipe and I was going to kill those drunken bastards if I had to, to keep the kid safe.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to, which is just as well. As it is, I’m kinda glad that someone somewhere in MI5 or the like has explained to them that they don’t get the option of trying to sue me for assault. (Like to see that in court, I could wear a dress for once and look pregnant, the jury would like that.) Just as well for Constables Dean and Knowles, too. They’re good lads, but they were a bit enthusiastic about subduing the buggers. Maybe I shouldn’t have taught them that if you just shove your fingers into that little nerve spot on the collarbone, you can make your opponent’s arm stop working for the next few days. Oh well, too late.

So I pull myself up onto the edge of the roof, planting my feet along the nice solid iron gutter along the top and fitting my fingers into the little cracks in the tiles. I don’t really need to be cautious, I’ve done this so many times. Besides, one day the kid and I will do this for real, I’m going to teach her everything I know. If she wants it, anyhow. Jack and I are agreed, our kids can do whatever they damn well like with their lives. Not gonna force them to try to be someone they’re not.

Still, for Jack’s sake, I pull the kusarifundo – long thin chain with a hook on the end - out of my climbing kit, and throw it up and above, so it secures itself over the apex of the roof. (Yeah, real Batman stuff. But hey, if you believe the movies, Batman knew ninjutsu too, like me.) I have myself a nice solid rope to hang onto now, not that I need it, I’m only a few storeys up.

Ten seconds inching along the gutter and hanging on to the rope, and I’m along the edge of the roof to the house next door. This is the advantage of living in a terraced house; easy to scramble along the roofs if you need to. Next door has a upstairs garden, like ours, only Mrs Hamble is eighty-five and arthritic, so she has the door to the attic sealed with a padlock and no-one ever comes up here. (I know ‘cause I did my getting to know the new neighbours thing when we moved in here. You should always check out who shares your living space.) No-one except me, anyway.

I drop down carefully into the roof garden next door, then snap the kusarifundo like a whip, dislodging the hook, then flip it off the roof and let it slither down the tiles back to my hand. From here, if I just stand on this old box here, I can see right across into my own roof garden next door. (Which we will have to do something about, maybe put screens up around ours, when Mrs Hamble pops her clogs and her family sells the house. I’m not shy, but Jack and I spend a lot of time up there, and I’m too old to be performing for an audience.)

Now, if I just lean over a bit, I can see across to the other side of the bed…

…aw, damn, look at that. I couldn’t see SiSi before because she was under the covers and hidden behind Goren. He really is fricken’ huge; she must have thought she’d hit the jackpot when she pulled him. They’re curled up like two spoons, and I can just see a little bit of red hair on the pillow; rest of her’s under the bedclothes with his arm over her. Keeping her safe.

Ah… can’t help grinning. I’m thrilled for her. Real sorry to be losing her, though. She’s going to be on that plane back to New York in about three minutes. Kind of a shame; the kid is going to have to get to know her Auntie SiSi long-distance.

Then again, maybe some day there’ll be tiny little red-headed SiSi’s running around.

As I watch, Goren stirs and tugs the covers down a little. Yup, SiSi is definitely under there, and yup, they definitely spent the entire night shagging. I can just tell. He looks around (I duck down) and spots the tray, then gets up and gets it, and I politely avert my eyes, since I am happy to take SiSi’s word for it that everything there is in proportion.

She’s sitting up, now. Awake and happy, I can hear her voice: “Oh wow, food, I’m really hungry, thanks…” You’re welcome, kiddo. Goren settles back into bed besides her, and I can hear the sounds of food being eaten… and other things too, by the sounds of it.

Jesus, they were up here all night. Sounds like SiSi has the stamina of a rabbit. Him too, I guess. Okay, I don’t need to see or hear any more. I do, however, need to get back into my house, which is kind of a problem since I can’t go back the way I came…

This is going to take a little longer than I was expecting, but never mind. Hang tight, kid. Mummy just has to do some breaking and entering.