“When we were kids we would come down here. Tash would bring me and Pip down here, with Gerry, usually to get us out of the house if our parents were fighting, or worse still, not fighting. Tash would always end up on the bandstand, singing and dancing, putting on a show. It carried on for years.” Dan smiled and as Jim smiled back at the thought of Tasha having a happy place his guts knotted at the expression Dan wore. It was the Natasha Winters haunted expression.
“What happened? What did he do?” Jim knew their father had to be involved in this.
“He hurt her, with his belt.” Dan, unable to keep a lid on his feeling cried tears of guilt for his sister being unsafe again but also at the memory of the beating Tasha had endured. Her cries had echoed around the house as she’d suffered a beating he’d done nothing to stop because while Tasha was punished he was huddled in a corner with Pippa, his hands over his ears hoping to block out the sounds of her cries that still haunted his nightmares. “She hadn't done anything bad. He was just pissed off and when Tasha wasn't home he went out and found her in the street with Gerry and a couple of other kids; she'd already cleaned the house and cooked dinner for me and Pip.”
“How old was she?” asked Jim nervously.
“About twelve, maybe thirteen, no more. He found her outside and dragged her home for everyone to see and when he got her inside he really pasted her with his belt so when he went out she decided she'd had enough and armed with a bottle of vodka and some pills she’d found she came here. To the park. To the bandstand and tried—she erm—fuck, I’m sure she wouldn't want you to know this.”
“Fucking hell,” cried Jim sadly, filling in the gaps for himself before hugging Dan as sobs wracked his body. “What happened to her?”
“Gerry. He was walking the dog and I think he knew Tash would be here. His family would have heard the noise from our house. She was very drunk but hadn't taken the pills because she was scared that if she was dead then that would make me dad's main target, and as for Pippa…Gerry took her home and gave her lots of coffee, but with a bottle of vodka missing and a hung-over Tash the next day she got another good hiding for nicking the booze. Nobody knows that story except Gerry and now you. He told me when I was first getting involved again at home. I think to show me how much Tash loved me and how low they'd sink, how far down they'd tried to drag her and still she had risen above it, but it suddenly made sense why she never ever came back to the bandstand. He even ruined that for her, her one happy place.”
“Take me to the bandstand,” ordered Jim, thinking that his initial mistrust and jealousy of Gerry was being wiped out by gratitude and indebtedness with every revelation.
Walking in step with Dan, Jim could just see the bandstand coming into view and was relieved to see three figures on it, one of them being Tasha. She stood before the other two, presumably her mother and Liam.
He pulled his phone out and called Jerome Stewart to check that the injunction against Liam was still valid. It was. He also checked what historical charges could be brought in relation to Liam and Tasha's father. Jerome was reeling off crime after crime and then explained that Mrs Bailey could be viewed as something of a facilitator and an accomplice. Jim gave Jerome an overview of what had gone on that night and he’d offered further advice on ways to proceed but explained that if the police were involved now there were no guarantees Dan wouldn't end up being charged for drug offences assuming the other two would sing like canaries and it would be impossible to keep thedetailsoff the newsstands. Jim decided that as he could see Tasha and she looked safe he would hold fire on the police, for now.
There were a number of bushes in place around the bandstand allowing Dan and Jim to get closer without being too obvious.
“Where is Dan?” Tasha sounded tearful.
“Safe. That's all you need to know,” sneered her mother. “For now, so shut the fuck up and listen.”
Tasha stared wildly between Liam and her mother wondering what the point of this was.
“I need cash and I need your father.”
“And this involves me how?” Tasha sounded hard and antagonistic which concerned Jim and yet it also made him rather proud of her ballsy nature and gave him an insight into how his wife had survived to this point.
“You can give me both,” her mother replied.
“No can do,” Tasha told her. “Well, I could give you cash, but I won’t, and you might need to try shagging the governor of the scrubs for Daddy dearest, or is she a woman. I'm sure one of the prisons over here has a female governor,” said Tasha as if she was giving it serious thought.
A sharp slap echoed around the quietness of the park as Joanna Bailey stood in front of her daughter having delivered a single, stinging slap to Tasha's face.
“Shit,” whispered Jim. Ballsy was going to get his wife into more trouble if she didn’t temper it a little, but at least for now Liam’s hands were being kept to himself.
“You can confess that your father was not the driver who forced you off the road, that Mickie told you that when she held you hostage. You can divorce that husband of yours and move back home to take care of your family. You can bring the baby too. There was a pop star on the TV the other day who had written a book about her disastrous marriage to an older man who had brainwashed her, like that Stockholm syndrome. You could do that because for some reason people like you.”
Tasha stared at her mother while Jim wondered how anyone could be surprised by other people's ability to like Tasha. Even at her most infuriating she was highly likeable.
Tasha laughed at her mother as Jim and Dan exchanged a concerned glance.
“I love my husband and I would never consider divorcing him. Along with my son, he is my reason for getting up in the morning. I am nothing without him. Where do you fit into this?” Tasha turned to Liam.
“Your dad said we'd been having a baby.” He sounded sad and overwhelmed.
“He had no right, but I was angry with him when I told him.”
“So, it's true?” asked Liam.
“Yes. I was sixteen and you were my abuser, so I got rid,” Tasha said coldly, although Jim was all too aware of the feelings of guilt and sorrow his wife carried with her at the termination she’d had.
“How can you be so cold?” Liam’s question made Tasha laugh wryly.
“You, all of you, my whole fucking life until I went to New York made me cold and bitter. My husband makes me better. He makes me real which is why I had his baby and not yours and I have never regretted that beyond being responsible for having killed an innocent baby, my baby.”
