Romeo and Juliet

They call me Nanny Finch. I don't do much nannying anymore mind, my charge is all grown up. The Capelins kept me on even when she reached adulthood. I made myself useful, making cups of tea and whatnot, but that wasn't what they paid me for. It eased their conscience, you see, to know she wasn't too lonely. God knows they didn't know how to keep her company themselves. And then it was only natural I looked after her own son when the time came. So, I'm still here, despite that Justine, that's her name, is going on for forty-two now. But the events I want to tell you about happened some eighteen years ago. It's a tale of woe, if there ever was one, and it'd do me good to get it off my chest.

The first time I heard mention of the gang was when Justine and her parents were at the breakfast table one day. Her dad couldn't half rant over his breakfast, he had a lot on his plate besides scrambled eggs, as chief constable of the county. Mind, it's the price of success, that's what I say. It was Justine and her mother that paid that price every morning. Justine would keep her head in a book, and her mother would wait for him to finish, then change the subject. Anyway, that morning he was going on about these youths on bikes, Cult of Chaos they called themselves. The old chief had nowt good to say about them: lazy good-for-nothings, vandals, troublemakers... Really though, the thing that had gotten his goat was that he couldn't keep them in check. The day before that rant at breakfast they'd outnumbered his men, and by the time reinforcement had arrived the truants were halfway down to London. Funny, thinking back, he'd said some of them even had girls riding with them. Stupid hussies he called them. If he'd only known what his daughter would do. He never did find out. To this day he's still plodding on in his make-believe world.

The family - well, the three of them, family's too far-fetched of a word, but I'll use it for want of another - the family was invited to a certain Mrs Osborne's cocktail party that night. Justine glowered as she dressed, her mother had someone to introduce her to. Bent on getting her daughter married before she was twenty-five was Mrs Capelin. ‘Time is of the essence, nanny Finch,’ she would say to me. ‘Time is of the essence. Her eggs will shrivel up before we know it.’ We both knew it had more to do with social status than ovaries, but I nodded along. She sniffed out all the eligible bachelors for miles around. Patrick this one was called. Just finishing up law at Cambridge. Justine looked a picture when she left for that party, fitted red dress with a low neck, and heels you wonder how she walked in. Her hair was her great pride though, and my, how it flowed and shined, thick dark brown waves down to her waist. She always wore it loose when she went to dos like this one.

The next morning I probed her about the new suitor.

‘Oh nanny,’ she said, she still calls me that even nowadays, ‘He was the most dreadful bore, dull as dishwater, but nanny, I must tell you what happened at the party, you missed a treat.’

‘But was he handsome?’ I asked.

‘Nanny what does handsome matter if he's a schmuck? Anyway, nanny, listen. Remember those bikers Daddy was talking about at breakfast yesterday? Nanny, they gatecrashed Mrs Osborne's party! You should have seen the guests, they stood about not daring to open their mouths. One waiter shook so much he almost dropped a full tray of martinis. And Mummy hissed to Daddy that he should do something. What was he to do nanny? An old fud on his own, and at least twenty big, bearded men, forearms as wide as his thighs, opposite him. It's a provocation he said. I won't be provoked. And besides, let's not spoil Mrs Osborne's party. They'll be leaving soon. So we all just stood there while they helped themselves to the buffet with their hands and downed champagne like shots. And they did leave soon. But nanny, there's more. Promise you won't tell nanny?’

I promised, of course. Who could resist those big trusting eyes?

‘Well nanny there was this one man with the gatecrashers, didn't eat a thing, just stood there with a glass of whiskey looking around. Then he looked at me. And nanny, I felt naked standing there with him staring at me. He didn't even smile.’

‘Miss Justine!’ I pretended to be shocked. We both knew I wasn't.

‘Not naked like that nanny. You know, seen. I don't know how to describe it. Anyway, when they left I couldn't help myself.’

Then she preceded to tell me, the brazen thing, that she'd sneaked out and followed them down the driveway. Hopped on the back of his bike, would you please.

‘Oh nanny, it felt like flying. The wind in your hair, the way the motors roar. Such a thrill. I wish you could feel it, even once.’

Not likely I ever will. Anyway, long story short, he took her to a cabin, deep in the woods, at the end of a path, not even a dirt track. I told her she was out of her mind. She said he'd been a perfect gentleman. Carried her over the mud to save her nice shoes, lit candles, only wanted to talk, and brought her home before her parents even left the party. A gentleman in a leather jacket with oil on his face, really, I'd heard it all. Robbie his name was.

‘I should have been terrified, but I was too busy thinking what a delicious evening I was having,’ I remember those words like she said them yesterday.

My, was it a summer of love that followed. That cabin may have been at the end of a path to nowhere, but goodness was there some exploring going on. I won't embarrass you with the details she gave me, they're not mine to share. Almost every night she snook out. Her parents didn't even notice the sound of a Harley tearing through leafy suburbia. They didn't notice that the noise always coincided with me finding some questions which required all their attention. But that noise was her signal. She'd creep out in the dark while I covered for her with my chatter.

Sometimes they went to parties, meets she called them, with the other ruffians. Mostly they went to the cabin in the woods. Did sound cosy, mind, even if it was just a room with a bed and a wood stove and only tin mugs to drink from.

Some evenings she had to go to dinner with Mr Dishwater. She was very slow on those days, putting off getting ready, talking about Robbie.

‘His eyes are so blue, nanny. And I don't mind that his chin is rough. I even kind of like it. And nanny, I can't figure out what's so sexy about having questionable artwork scribbled all over your arms in permanent ink. Or maybe it's just the arms. They're so strong.’

And one day she said a thing that I think pretty much summed up the fatal attraction:

‘It's quite a thing when such a rough-looking man holds you so fast and whispers tender things in your ear.’

One morning, come autumn, she came home all out of sorts. Red eyes and smudged mascara. He'd had to go away. He wouldn't tell her where, said it was too dangerous. There'd been an altercation between the gang and some policemen. He'd injured one of the policemen badly, so he had to scarper for a while.

‘He hadn't intended to, you know, nanny,’ she'd said, naive as she was. ‘But the policeman struck at his best friend Mel. And you know, well, they take their friendships very seriously. And actually, he said it was his fault Mel was hurt, he said he'd been trying to keep the peace, break up the fight, and he got between Mel and the policeman. That's when the policeman struck Mel. See nanny he's a good man, he didn't want them to fight.’

Her mother appeared then, wringing her hands and crying her crocodile tears.

‘You've obviously heard the news,’ she said, after one look, a quick one mind, at her daughter. They were all to go to the hospital, cousin Tim was injured. The thugs on bikes had done it, when Tim was only trying to do his job.

The way Justine looked at me then haunts me still. The penny'd dropped. She'd never be introducing Robbie to her parents. She'd been harbouring secret hopes I suppose.

I followed along to the hospital, brought them tea while they sat around Tim's bed. And even then, with her cousin lying there unconscious, her dad goaded her, nosed around about Patrick. Told her not to string a decent man along. The day's events had fuelled the old chief's love of decency, apparently. She tried to stave him off, but he insisted. He'd given him his blessing he said. What was the poor lass supposed to say? No Daddy, I'd rather marry a thug. Actually, I'm madly in love with the one that did this to Tim. But he's lovely really, once you get to know him... 

She waited until everyone had gone to bed that night, then called Joe. He was the leader of the pack. The president, that's what they called him. Robbie had said Joe'd look out for her while he was gone. He'd said that's what they do, look out for each other's girls. You have to admit, for all their troublemaking, they've some values most folk'd do well to reacquaint themselves with.

I sat there with her by the window, with just the light from the street lamps on her face. Looked like a glowing angel she did.

She looked deep into my eyes the whole time she spoke. I'd wager she didn't even blink.

‘Joe, get a message to Robbie. I'm going to leave a suicide note for my parents. It's the only way. Tell him to meet me at the cabin.... What cabin? He'll know what cabin. Make sure he knows it's a hoax. I'll be at the cabin tomorrow. Stop drinking now Joe. And Joe,’ she paused then before her grand finale. ‘Tell him I'm pregnant.’

My, was she in a pickle. What a hasty hash they'd made of it. I came around to thinking it would better she settled down with Patrick after all, and I told her so. She said she'd consider it, but her eyes wouldn't meet mine when she spoke. And she carried out her plan.

She cycled away before dawn. I was to keep the note hidden and pretend to have found it around breakfast time. I just laid it on the table for them. ‘I found this,’ I said, and left them to it. Late morning I heard a bike like Robbie's coming down the street, it stopped in front of the house. I looked through the net curtains. It was Baldy, but do you think he'd walk up the garden path? No, he took a diagonal across the chief's neat front lawn. Don't imagine a bald man, he had a full head of hair. Quite nice hair if I might say so, although in need of a trim. And that ridiculous strip of fabric he wore around his forehead to keep it from his eyes when he was riding... Anyway, it was Baldy short for Baldwin. Mrs Capelin opened the door, told him he had a nerve coming there. He asked for Justine. I'd known her for years but her answer had me leaning on the windowsill, weak at the knees. ‘Little fool's killed herself,’ she said. Mind, she did have red eyes. Baldy was back on his bike before I could stand up straight.

I went down to their headquarters then. Well, that's what they called that seedy place. They all hushed up when I walked in. No doubt they weren't expecting an old prude who hadn't had time to take her curlers out. I marched right up to the bar as if I owned the place and asked for Joe. He wasn't there, he'd been dumped in front of headquarters that night with a still-to-be-established number of broken bones. He'd left, the barman told me, on some urgent mission the night before, something about a message for Robbie. And having too much whiskey in him had forgotten to take his colours off. I asked him what that meant. Maybe he was trying to be superior, using their fancy terms.

‘His colours,’ he deigned to explain. ‘The gang's name and symbol we wear on our backs. You know, Cult of Chaos, and the picture of the skull.’

I knew their name well enough, and I'd seen that ridiculous picture, but I let him talk.

‘We usually change our jacket when we go out alone. Them letters spell strength when we're riding together, but trouble for a man alone. He crossed paths with the Iron Reapers. They messed him up alright. He's at home now, resting with his girl.’

I thought of Justine then. If she married Patrick she wouldn't have to spend her days fixing up her man after every brawl.

‘You got here just in time,’ he said. ‘We were just getting the boys together to go pay them Reapers a visit.’

I asked him if Joe had made it to Robbie before the scuffle happened. He shrugged. He doubted Joe made it that far. Robbie was quite a distance away, and Joe was only gone an hour when the Reapers brought him back.

‘He said some half-finished sentence to Baldy when he got back, passed out before he could finish,’ he said.

Then a man sitting at the bar, drinking whiskey at noon, chimed in:

‘Did you hear Robbie knocked that rich girl up?’

That's what he said, word for word. Seemed Joe had spread the news before he left. So, Baldy would be ripping down the motorway to tell Robbie Justine was dead, and with their baby in her womb. That might've been the worst, to think of the bairn suffocating.

I wanted to find Robbie, but they were thick as thieves those bikers, not one would give me his whereabouts. In any case, Baldy would get there first. Mind though, Robbie wasn't all Justine made him out to be, or so I thought. He'd just shrug it off and find some other strumpet to take back to his sleazy hideout.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Justine went to the cabin like she said she would. Robbie went there too, but not expecting to find her. I'd say, but it's only my guess, that he went there because it was the only place made any sense to him then. Some romantic notion about it being the right place for the deed he was about to do. You know, my heart breaks when I think that a few minutes, seconds even, would have made all the difference to the poor young things. But as it happens, time was against them. Tragic, it really was. That afternoon Justine went for a walk in the woods behind the cabin while she was waiting. Pretty day, she said it was, with sun on the autumn leaves and all, and she felt all warm inside, that's how she put it, waiting for her love. And she was just turning back to the cabin when she heard the motor roaring through the trees. She ran when the motor stopped, she was that excited. She would have been back at the cabin in a couple of minutes. Can you picture her? Skipping over the roots, long hair bouncing, smiling to her ears? But then she heard it, just one shot, muffled like, from inside. He was lying on the floor when she got there, head in a pool of blood. She took the gun from his hand and held it to her own dear head. ‘My hands were shaking so bad nanny, and I could hardly breathe. I pushed it hard against my temple to steady it. But then it just clicked. He hadn't left one friendly bullet to help me after.’

She lay with her head on his chest then till his body was cold. I think the idea came to her while she was lying there, of the other way to die. Or maybe it wasn't that intentional. If I know her though, I'd say she knew what she was doing.

Next morning, she came to the breakfast table, all clean and made up.

Dead inside, though, if you ask me. 

‘I'm so sorry for overreacting Daddy, and I apologise if I caused you pain,’ she said, voice steady as ever, although somewhat quieter than usual. ‘But you'll be pleased to know I've decided to marry Patrick.’

The old fool said it was excellent news, and went back to ranting about some sordid strip club where they'd just uncovered some dubious goings on.

And now here I am all these years later. It's Justine's conscience I'm easing now, keeping young Robert company. I've not found it in me yet to tell him this story. God knows I'm the only one who ever will.

Patrick's happy enough, as happy as he ever aspired to be. Only thing he doesn't understand is why his son is a reckless romantic with no interest whatsoever in law school.

And why his wife won't part with the Harley in the garage. She polished it again just the other day.