The Business by Martina Cole

help her out then, that was something he could have understood. Anger, violence. In his world they were everyday emotions. But sex, sex or love, he had no real concept of, at least not where his baby was concerned anyway.
    Her mother had kept him from her door for weeks, but she knew that was not going to last for ever, he wanted answers, and he wanted them sooner rather than later. A pregnancy did that, time was not on her side, and her mother couldn’t keep him from hammering her for much longer.
    Imelda could picture the scene outside her bedroom door, knew from the sounds and the scuffling that her mother was holding her father back, was preventing him from bursting in on her. She also knew that her father, until now, had allowed her mother this one thing, to allow Imelda to remain strong about the father’s name. Because, like his wife, he didn’t want to know really. Because once he pushed it, once he knew, he would have to do something about it. She had relied on that for a good while, but unfortunately no one had come knocking with the offer of a wedding ring. And she had even allowed herself to imagine that happening, had prayed for such a happenstance. And then she had pondered why it was the female who was made to feel as if they were the main culprit when it was the father’s fault as much as theirs.
    ‘Would you ever fuck off, woman, and let me sort this once and for all?’
    Imelda heard the sound of her mother’s body as she was thrown down the stairs, heard her muffled cries as even in her pain she was still too embarrassed to let on to the neighbours what was actually happening.
    As her bedroom door slammed against the wall Imelda flinched involuntarily and she automatically tried to protect her baby, a baby she didn’t even want. A baby she couldn’t even envisage.
    Her father grabbed her by her hair, dragged her upright, and she could hear her brother shouting at her, ‘Who the fuck is it, Mel? Just give him a fucking name for Christ’s sake, before he really hurts you.’
    She knew her brothers were more worried about her father than they were about her, didn’t want him to get nicked. That was their biggest fear; he was bankrolling the lot of them, and if he didn’t get over this latest drama, they would all be left out in the cold. There was a big part of her that understood that, and she wanted to stop it as much as they did, but unfortunately she was too frightened of him.
    As her father pushed his huge fist into her face, as she felt the strength of him, she knew that he was capable of killing her. Never in her life had she felt so exposed, so vulnerable.
    ‘Please, Dad, please . . . don’t hurt me . . .’
    Imelda looked into the face of the man she had loved all her life, and she saw nothing familiar. He was a stranger to her, and she knew then that she was a stranger to him. Since the news of her pregnancy he had taken the time to re-evaluate her status in his community and had decided that she amounted to nothing. His pride was worth much more than her well-being.
    It was a real wake-up call and, as always, it had come far too late for her to benefit from it in any way.
    ‘Tell me who the cunt is or I’ll break your fucking neck.’
    He meant every word, she could hear it in his voice and feel it in his anger. She knew then that he had finally reached the end of his patience, that tonight was her last chance to redeem herself in his eyes.
    Her mother was still trying to pull him off her, was attempting to place herself, her own body, between her daughter and her husband.
    But Gerald Dooley shrugged her off as if she was a fly, knocking her against the bedroom wall without a second thought. ‘I’ll fucking stab you, you loose whore you, before I see you make a fucking eejit out of me.’
    Imelda saw her brothers standing in the doorway of her bedroom and knew that they were not going to intervene on her behalf. She saw her mother looking at her with fear and she knew that she was