The Business Read Online Free PDF Page A

one here. She’s pregnant and she won’t tell me who the culprit is.’
    Imelda and her mother watched as Gerald digested this information. The differing expressions on his face were enough to put the fear of Christ up any man young or old, and his wife and daughter didn’t feel any different. As he walked around the table towards his daughter, his hair almost on end and his muscles straining with anger, his wife ran between them both, realising what she had caused. She was a different woman now, a quiet woman, the peacekeeper. The voice of reason. ‘Gerry, Gerry, come on now. It’s not that bad . . . Calm yourself down, man.’
    In that few seconds Mary knew he was capable of killing the child, and the poor child within her. In those few seconds she saw that she had read this situation all wrong. In those few seconds she knew that her doting husband was not above a murder for his daughter’s crimes.
    Imelda was cowering on the floor now, her face a mask of terror and disbelief. That her father, her dad, could ever turn on her like that was unbelievable. She had thought he would have been the one calming her mother down, which was why she had felt confident enough to argue with her mother in the first place.
    She had not expected this reaction towards her. Towards the father maybe, but never towards her. He had stood by her all her life, had been the one she ran to when anything had gone wrong. He was the one who would take her part against her mother, her brothers, even the school. He had been her rock and now she was finally finding out what it was like to live without his blind acceptance. She could see the hatred in his eyes as he looked at her. The disappointment. The absolute disgust.
    Gerald was about to attack his daughter physically when he felt his wife’s hands on his chest. Felt her shoving him away from his youngest child. Somewhere in the chaos in his mind he knew this was a good thing.
    He allowed himself to be pushed from the room, allowed his little wife to steer him towards the dining room and shove him inside. But all the while he could feel his anger and his disappointment getting stronger and stronger. His daughter had lain with someone, and he knew from experience that it wouldn’t be anyone they would be pleased to welcome into their home. If that had been the case, she would have had the sense to bring him there. This man was some piece of shit that she had taken up with, because for all her innocence you didn’t live in a house like this without picking up a few tips about how the world outside worked.
    He pulled out a chair and sank into it, his usual pride in the room was diminished now. Ruined by his daughter’s actions. He felt the murderous rage abate just a little and was amazed to find that his wife was still talking to him, still trying to quieten him down. He had heard nothing, not a word of her babbling. It was as if he was on a different planet, a planet where the life he had always known was over. He felt as if he was in a parallel universe, as if he was caught up in an episode of The Sky at Night . It was all wrong. Felt wrong. It was out of whack. Someone had taken his baby down and he was going to see that they paid for it. Paid for it dearly.
    Even though he cared, cared for all the other people in his orbit, wife, sons, etc., they were really nothing to him. His little girl was the be all and end all of his existence. From her birth, she had stolen his heart. She was the child he had heard about, but had never believed existed. The golden child. The daughter that friends had assured him would mean far more to him than his sons. He had never really believed them.
    Until he had looked at his daughter’s face, had held her in his arms, he knew that until then, he had not really understood real love. He had not believed that a man could worship a child as he had worshipped her. She had been born at home, like the others, but when he had held her in his arms, he had felt an