the fluffy mush with relish, as though this was the first time he had ever really tasted food. Sheila would come round. She always did as she was told with a little persuasion.
‘I’ve thought it all through, She. I’m selling the business.’ He set his fork down authoritatively on the tray. Grinned.
But Sheila’s scepticism was etched across her face. Those fine eyebrows raised archly.
‘It’s not a sodding barber’s or a chain of corner shops, Paddy.’ She lowered her voice. Looked over her shoulder, though they were alone, with the hustle and bustle of the ward on the other side of a heavy fire door. ‘It’s a Criminal. Fucking. Empire.’ She leaned in further with each word. Tapped every syllable out on his dinner tray with almost perfectly manicured electric blue nails – one shorter than all the rest.
Undeterred, he ushered more potato into his mouth. Pictured the tropical paradise of Krabi, so very far from Manchester’s never-ending rain and Frank’s idiot schemes and the daily grind of having to look over his shoulder continually. Spoke with his mouth full.
‘Tariq and Jonny. They’ll have it. I bet you. I reckon ten mill, and me and you can just get on a plane and swan off to Thailand. Open a bar.’
Sheila shook her shining blonde mane.
‘You’re tapped,’ she said. ‘You think the Boddlington gang are gonna shove you ten million quid for something they’ve spent the last twenty years trying to nick for free?’
Paddy nodded, beaming at his own brilliance. He felt happiness register itself in his groin, overpowering the agitation that she had dared to call him tapped.
‘Suck us off, She.’ He pointed at Little Paddy, making his presence felt beneath the honeycomb blanket.
Eyes narrowed, Sheila was folding her arms. Paddy mused that the blow-job was looking unlikely. He didn’t have the energy to insist otherwise.
‘Tariq Khan and Jonny Margulies are a pair of thieving bastards, Pad. You’re a thieving bastard, too, or had you forgotten?’
‘They’ll snatch me bleeding hand off, She! Especially if they think there’s a chance I might sell to some hip-hop, drive-by snot-rag from London with his arse hanging out his trousers. Or some Scouser. It’s what they’ve always wanted, Tariq and Jonny. They’ve got north Manchester and now I’ll sell them the south. Fair and square. The gambling dens, the pharmaceutical side, the guns …’ He started to count his interests on his fingers, as though this would somehow curry her favour. ‘… The endangered species shit that the Chinese love, the nail bars, the moody art, the lot! Bollocks to it. If they pay up, they can have our kid’s club and your cleaning business too.’
Out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box.
‘My frigging company?’ She shook her head. Waggled her finger. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no you don’t, Patrick O’Brien.’
Her pixie chin stuck out defiantly. Reminded him of the time he had asked her out on that first date, after a Wednesday night at the Haçienda’s Zumbar. He’d spotted her during the intermission – before the cheesy cabaret act had come on. Parading down the catwalk, modelling clothes from some local fashion school wannabe. Legs that went on forever and tits that had a buoyancy all of their own. She had been seventeen. He, thirty-seven – old enough to have his minions selling drugs in clubs, but too old to enjoy them himself, as a rule. But it had been Frank’s birthday that particular Wednesday, with his band playing downstairs in the Gay Traitor bar, so Paddy had relented. His cash hadn’t impressed young Sheila, but he had worn her down with sheer romantic persistence and, later, rightful dominance. She’d relented in the end, just as she would relent now, he felt certain.
‘You can get a new hobby in Thailand, babe. I’ll buy a big fuck-off villa. You can get it done out like a five-star spa hotel. That’ll keep you busy.’
‘Nine years, Paddy,’ she shouted. ‘Me and Gloria have built that sodding cleaning company up over nine years! I’m just about to get a healthcare contract, cleaning a big private hospital. I’ve done quotes this week for two law firms in town and a bank! It’s not a hobby, you cheeky bastard.’
‘Hey! Wind your fucking neck in, woman, or I’ll wind it in for you!’
‘I’ve got women relying on me.’ Her generous, pink lips had thinned and were now arcing downwards.
‘They’re bloody trafficked skivvies from Um Bongo, aren’t they?’
‘The Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrick. Not bloody Um Bongo. And some of them are from Nigeria and Ghana and are legal, actually! Gloria knows them from church, the Ghanaians and Nigerians. They’re glad of a job. I am a responsible employer.’
Paddy snorted. ‘What? You don’t reckon you’d be leaving your nice African ladies in good hands? You think Tariq Khan and Jonny Margulies are incapable of screwing over slave labour and refugees as good as you? Do me a favour!’
Sheila glared at him. She clearly thought she could gain the upper hand, while he was laid up and at the mercy of a medical team. Cocky bitch.
‘I care about my staff.’
‘You’re full of shit, is what you are, Sheila O’Brien.’ Paddy picked up the framed photograph taken in Thailand. Thrust it towards her. Pointed at the girls. His heart rate picked up pace, as it occurred to him that – for perhaps the first time ever – without his being able to squeeze the defiance out of her physically, Sheila might put her foot down and refuse to bend to his will. ‘This isn’t about money, She. We’ve got enough to last us ten lifetimes. This isn’t about some scrubbers you don’t even know, or that nagging, sanctimonious bitch, Gloria. This is about me, staying alive for our daughters. For us. Family.’
Sheila’s face had a pinched look to it as she chewed her bottom lip. Her gaze flicked from the photo to Paddy and back. She was refusing to make eye contact with him and staring intently only at his chin or his forehead. Nostrils flaring gently, as though she were processing some internal argument.
‘You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
‘Yes.’ He held the photo to his chest. ‘For better or for worse, She. How bad could twenty years of tropical sunshine be?’ He grinned triumphantly. ‘I’ll buy you an elephant.’
‘Piss off, you daft bastard.’
‘You’d save a bomb on the sunbed.’
She dropped her gaze to her eternity and engagement rings, running her index finger over the large, solitaire diamond. Closed her mournful eyes.
‘If I agree, does this mean you’re getting out for good? No controlling the business from the end of a phone or a laptop? A clean break?’
He nodded. Felt his neck muscles start to relax.
‘It’d better be a damned big elephant, Paddy O’Brien.’
