Debbie started to cry. She was desperately worried about the safety of the child she was carrying, and now knew that her mother and Perfect Peter had been right all along. Who was Billy McDaid? Tonight had proved she didn’t know him at all. Devastated, she cried herself to sleep.
Billy was at his mate Andy’s flat on the second floor. He’d calmed down by now, the cannabis and Strongbow had seen to that.
‘I’ve had it now, mate, I’m off to bed. You stay as long as you like, Bill,’ his friend told him.
As Andy left the room, Billy felt his anger return. It wasn’t Debbie who’d caused it this time, but memories of his childhood and the bastard cards he’d been dealt.
Billy McDaid was born in 1955, at home, in a slum in the back streets of Glasgow. Father unknown, Billy had spent his younger years watching a succession of uncles coming to and from the house. His mother barely spoke to him, and most of his time was spent with his brother Charlie, who was seven years older than himself.
Looking back, Billy must have been the only wean in Glasgow who actually looked forward to going to school. The teachers there were nice to him and showed him kindness, something he’d never known at home. When he was seven, his mum bought home a man called Uncle Colin. When he was nine, Uncle Colin came into his room one night, turned him on his front and shoved his penis up his arse.
‘This is our wee secret, Billy. One word to your mother and you’ll no’ see her or your brother again.’
The abuse carried on for years. Every time he was in the house alone with Uncle Colin, he was subjected to the man’s sexual depravity. By now his brother had left home and Billy hadn’t a soul in the world to talk to about his predicament.
At eleven years old, he could stand it no more. He told his teacher. Mrs McLintock informed the appropriate authorities, who then approached his mum. The social worker stood by and did nothing as his mother then beat him to a pulp.
‘You lying little bastard!’ she screamed accusingly.
A children’s home was the next stop for Billy. Hoping life would be better there, he behaved himself and tried his hardest. He needn’t have bothered. He ended up bullied and sexually abused there, too.
At sixteen he made contact with his brother Charlie and went to live with him. It was only then that he found out that Uncle Colin had subjected Charlie to the same abuse as himself.
The next couple of years were the happiest of Billy’s so far poxy life. He and his brother lived together, worked together and drank together. Billly felt that he had more or less recovered from his fucked up childhood; unfortunately, his brother felt differently.
Unable to deal with the guilt he felt for knowingly leaving his younger brother in the hands of a paedophile, Charlie began to experiment with heroin. The drug helped him forget what he’d done, but at the same time took a hold of him. He died three months later, of an overdose.
Overcome by grief, Billy went off the rails. He drank himself into oblivion and shagged everything in sight. Within six months, two girls claimed that they were carrying his children. Unprepared for fatherhood, Billy decided a fresh start was the best thing for him. He headed South and picked up work on a building site in Bow.
Hoping a change of scenery would make him forget the past, Billy worked his arse off and made new friends in the process. Sadly, as the years rolled by and he grew older, the past increasingly returned to haunt him. All his relationships seemed doomed. As soon as he got close to someone, all he could think about was his dead brother, and cuntsmouth Colin. He knew all the problems in his life were his mother’s fault. That’s why he hated women so much. Slags, they were, all of them. He didn’t trust ’em one little bit.
Billy finished his drink and spliff, stood up and brushed the ash off his suit. Debbie, though, was a good girl, different from all the other slags, and he was desperate to make things work with her. He loved her, she’d been the making of him, and he owed it to her to make a go of things, whatever it took.
Shutting Andy’s front door behind him, he took the stairs two by two. He was desperate by now to reach the thirteenth floor and put everything right again. Out of breath, he dashed into the bedroom.
‘I’m so sorry, Debs, really I am. I promise you, babe, I will never hurt you again. I swear on my life. Please believe me?’
Debbie saw the sincerity in his eyes as he crouched down beside the bed. The baby had been kicking her all night and seemed as strong as ever. The love she felt for her unborn child was worth forgiving its father for.
‘Just get into bed, Billy. You were well out of order earlier, but I’ll forgive you, just this once. If you ever do anything like that again, me and you are history.’
Later, unable to sleep, she lay wide-eyed as Billy snored. Tonight had been awful but Debbie wasn’t about to give up on him, not just yet. It was obvious now that Peter had been speaking the truth about Billy’s past. Well, she’d made her choice and it was up to her to deal with it. Going back to her mother’s, cap in hand, wasn’t an option. Debbie was stubborn as an ox and the thought of Perfect Peter telling her ‘I told you so’ was a non-starter.
The only thing she could do now was to think positive: hope and pray that what had happened tonight was a fluke, a one-off. Turning on to her side, Debbie willed herself to go to sleep. Her baby seemed to move about morning, noon and night. She was having a nightmare pregnancy and couldn’t wait for it to end.
Debbie wished more than anything that she could ring her mother, talk to her and ask her advice. Angrily, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. She knew she had to be strong. There was no other way.
Peter’s last words to her still echoed in her mind.
‘Life is full of choices, Deborah. People make their own beds, and if they choose the wrong one, they should bloody well learn to lie in it.’
MICKEY DAWSON PULLED UP at the top of the cul-de-sac, turned the van around so he wouldn’t be seen, parked up and switched off the engine. Positioning the wing mirror so that he could clearly see his mother’s front door, he pulled down his baseball cap until it partially covered his eyes. Picking up his copy of the Sun, he prepared himself to wait, however long it took.
Ten weeks he’d been out of prison, ten fucking weeks, and he still hadn’t seen his mother or sister once, thanks to that jumped-up ponce they happened to be living with. Not wanting to cause them any grief, he’d decided against bowling up to the front door. He’d been itching to knock and give Peter a right-hander, just to wipe the supercilious look off his face, but he knew that in the long run it wasn’t the best way forward. Debbie would probably have laughed, but it certainly wouldn’t earn him any brownie points with his mother. This was why he’d decided to borrow his mate’s plumbing van and was now waiting for the dickhead to fuck off to work before he made his move.
As luck would have it, he didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later the front door opened, Peter appeared with a briefcase, jumped into his Ford Granada and sped off. Not wanting the nosy neighbours to see him, Mickey grabbed his phone. When he’d gone into nick, mobiles were unheard of and he’d purchased his first one only a couple of weeks ago. It was an absolute godsend, especially in his line of work. His mum’s phone was answered on the fifth ring. A lump came into his throat at the sound of her voice.
‘Mum,
