Josephine grinned. ‘She’s already had her breakfast. She loves her food, Michael.’
He felt his heart constrict with his love for her. If only she would admit that her compulsive buying was getting out of hand. The house they lived in was huge by anyone’s standards, but she was gradually filling it up with more and more boxes of food, talcum powder, even bloody dried milk. She bought stuff they would never even use, like the tins of chilli con carne, and the boxes of dried fruits. It was completely without logic. If they lived to be a hundred, they could never use it all. In the spare bedroom, she had piled up box after box of cereals, every kind. Big packs that were all out of date, along with tins of tuna and tins of pilchards.
‘She’ll need a big appetite won’t she, Josephine? There is more cereal in this house than in fucking Tesco.’
He saw the hurt on his wife’s face and immediately felt bad, as though he was in the wrong. Her eyes were filling up with tears, and he sighed. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Josephine, but surely you can see that this is getting out of hand? Look around you, darling. This place is like a fucking warehouse. We don’t even eat any of it. I tried to use a tin of beans the other week and you nearly bit my head off.’
Josephine rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘There were tins in the cupboard. You didn’t need to open the case up. I explained that to you.’
He picked up his daughter, pulling her from his wife’s lap. ‘Listen to what you’re saying, Josephine. Who gives a flying fuck where a tin of beans comes from, I ask you? And, as we have more beans in this house than a fucking army canteen, I would have thought you’d have welcomed someone actually eating the fuckers. They aren’t ornaments, are they?’
Josephine was nearly in tears now. He forced himself to lower his voice, calm down. ‘I’ve got a couple of lads coming round today. They are going to move all the boxes into the garages, OK? I want this place clear when I get home tonight. It’s not a fucking depot, all right? It’s our home.’
She didn’t answer him, just looked at him with those huge pained eyes.
‘I’m sorry, darling, but it’s arranged now.’ He stood up, playing with his little daughter, determined not to look at his wife and cave in as per usual. This time the house was being cleared, he was going to make sure of that. One of the rooms off the kitchen was a spacious old-fashioned larder. There were over sixty jars of jam on the shelves, forty jars of honey and, more worryingly, he had counted thirty-two tin openers in one of the drawers. Everywhere he looked, there was evidence of her hoarding, and it scared him more than he liked to admit. It wasn’t normal. He had seen her wiping the tins over with a damp cloth, and placing them back into the boxes they had arrived in. Who the fuck did things like that? He had to put his foot down. They had a child to look out for now. She needed to start getting with the program. He had hoped that her finally having a baby would have sorted out her eccentricities, but instead it seemed to have exacerbated them. He loved her more than life itself, but he knew that things were not right.
‘She’s getting to be a right lump, isn’t she?’
Josephine nodded. ‘She is. Like I said, she loves her grub.’
‘Well, she won’t fucking starve in this house, will she?’ He laughed as he spoke, trying to lighten the mood, but Josephine didn’t react in any way at all.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Declan was extremely irritated – almost fuming, in fact – and that was a very unusual occurrence for him. He was a man who rarely let anything throw him off kilter. He saw that as a weakness, a character flaw – not that he had ever said that out loud. His brother and Michael were his polar opposite in that respect. Chasing the dollar was why people like them got up in the morning.
Well, he liked the world he had created for himself. He ran a good business, and he ran it very well. Declan believed wholeheartedly that he had more than enough for his needs. He earned a good wedge, he had shagged more women than he could shake a tenner at, and he genuinely liked his life. He didn’t want marriage or children really. He was happy enough playing the eternal bachelor. What he didn’t like was discord, especially among the ranks. He was very easy going, but the people who worked for him knew that, if they pushed their luck, he was capable of great vengeance if the need should arise.
But now Michael Flynn needed a serious fucking talking to and he was going to give it to him, please or offend. This should never have been allowed to go so far, and Michael knew that better than anyone. It took a lot to make Declan angry but, when he finally succumbed to anger, he could be a very dangerous individual. Michael would do well to remember that.