The Saturday Girls

by Elizabeth Woodcraft

  They scarcely even looked at the soft, creased piece of rag which the Visiting Order had become in Sandra’s hands, and we were directed to a large, airy room like a seaside café, with frosted glass windows. We sat down at an empty table. Around the room men in royal-blue cotton overalls were chatting quietly to women. Two small children chased each other around the seats. Then Danny came in, laughing and joking with the warders. Sandra stood up and pushed back her chair. She and Danny kissed for a long time, with their arms round each other. It was like being in Chelmsford bus station on a Saturday night.

  When Sandra and Danny sat down she gave him the cigarettes. And then she brought out the chocolate. It had grown since it had been in her bag. It was the size and shape of a hand grenade. Danny unwrapped the silver paper slowly, looking over at Sandra from time to time, and then carefully put the silver paper in the ashtray. I sat rigid. Carefully he bit off the tip of the chocolate, tilted back his head and swallowed the contents. Sighing with pleasure, he put the empty chocolate shell on top of the silver paper in the ashtray and we all watched it rocking gently to a standstill.

  A warder came up and said, ‘Everything all right, Danny?’

  Danny burped. There was the sweet smell of rum. My mouth went dry. ‘Yeah, how’s yourself?’ he said. The warder nodded and moved away.

  ‘The screws love me.’

  ‘Why’s that, Danny?’ I said.

  ‘Because everyone loves a lover.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘That reminds me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something for you, Linda.’ Sandra stiffened. Danny turned in his chair towards the tea trolley. ‘Oy, Trevor,’ he called. Another man in a blue prison uniform, holding a cup under the tea urn, looked up and waved. Danny said, ‘That’s Trevor. He’s a bit lonely and I said I’d fix him up.’

  ‘With me?’ I said. Someone for me? We were in a prison, lying about who we were, smuggling in rum and now I was being set up with a criminal! If this was Chelmsford life, I didn’t want it.

  Trevor smiled at me. He had short brown hair and a thin face like a weasel. In different clothes he would have looked like a mod from Chelmsford. In really good clothes he could have come from Mile End. I smiled back uncertainly. He looked twenty or even older. I wondered how old he thought I was.

  Sandra said, ‘Who’s he?’

  Danny said, ‘Trevor’s an old mate of mine.’

  Trevor laughed. I wondered if we had seen him before. There was something very Chelmsford about him.

  *

  ‘No one writes to him.’ Danny winked at Trevor, who was placing a cup of watery tea on the table in front of me. ‘All right, Trevor?’ He slid a packet of cigarettes across the table.

  I couldn’t think why he was giving cigarettes to Trevor. He should have been giving them to me, because I was the one doing Trevor the favour. If I ever did do him a favour. If I smoked Embassy. If I smoked.

  ‘All right, Mulroney.’ Trevor sat down next to me. ‘So you’re the famous Linda,’ he began. ‘Very nice. Take sugar?’

  ‘No thanks.’ We sat in silence and looked at Sandra and Danny. They were holding on to each other’s arms, murmuring.

  Trevor looked at his watch. He was bored. ‘Don’t let me hold you up,’ I said, looking over at the tea trolley.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘They can serve themselves. Keep the screws busy.’ He looked at me. ‘So you’re from Chelmsford. Is it still a whole scene going down there?’

  ‘We get some good groups, if that’s what you mean,’ I said. ‘We’ve got Wilson Pickett on Saturday.’ I wanted to have a normal conversation, I wanted to look normal, I didn’t want anyone looking too closely.

  ‘Oh yeah? Lucky old Wilson,’ he said.

  I heard Danny say, ‘Good girl, thanks.’

  ‘You’ve got a nice little figure,’ Trevor said. He leaned over to another table to get an empty ashtray.

  ‘Have I?’ I looked down at my twinset. Danny was stroking Sandra’s stiff hair.

  Trevor offered me a cigarette. I shook my head. He held the packet out towards Danny. ‘Danny tells me you haven’t got a boyfriend.’

  ‘Danny doesn’t know everything,’ I said.

  At the mention of his name, Danny looked up. ‘That’s right, I forgot,’ he grinned. ‘There’s always Tommy Steele, or is it Mark Wynter now?’ He took a cigarette. Sandra slapped his arm and he put it behind his ear.

  ‘I’m actually into blues, if you must know,’ I said. I had liked Tommy Steele when I was much younger, but I had never liked Mark Wynter. ‘Do you like blues?’ I asked Trevor.

  ‘I get the blues,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have the radio in here?’ I said. ‘You should listen to Mike Raven’s music programme. Radio 390.’ Trevor said nothing. ‘On Wednesdays.’ I wondered if I was talking to myself. But I wanted him to understand. ‘It’s the emotion of the songs I like, and the sound, as if they’ve been recorded in a toilet,’ I said.

  ‘This one likes toilets,’ Trevor said to Danny. ‘Is that what gets the girls going in Chelmsford?’

  I could feel the blush rise up my cheeks.

  ‘What’s she saying now?’ Sandra frowned at me.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘We’re talking about music.’

  Sandra turned back to Danny.

  ‘It’s the way the records hiss because the recording’s so scratchy.’ I wanted to explain myself. ‘It’s not just the sound, it’s the rhythms.’

  ‘Oh, I like rhythm. I’m a great one for rhythm, me.’ He took a drag on his cigarette.

  I knew he didn’t care but I wanted to get the word toilet out of the air. ‘They sort of ache with sadness and despair.’

  Trevor looked round the room. ‘Yeah, there’s a lot of that in here.’ He yawned. Danny settled Sandra into the crook of his arm.

  ‘And the records he plays, in his programme, sometimes it’s people who play at the Marquee.’

  Trevor stretched his legs. ‘If you say so.’

  I felt stupid. ‘In Soho,’ I finished uncertainly.

  ‘Oh, Soho?’ Trevor sat up. ‘So you go to Soho? Is that where you work, then?’ He laughed and pulled his chair closer to mine. His eyes were small and his eyelashes pale, almost invisible.

  ‘No,’ I said. I knew what he meant. ‘That’s where Tin Pan Alley is, isn’t it?’ He looked at me. He wasn’t yawning. ‘And the Two-i’s? Where Tommy Steele was discovered? I think Cliff Richard started there too.’ I made a face, to show that although I knew the history, I didn’t really care about Cliff Richard. He had always been too smooth, his voice too posh to be a real rock and roller.

  ‘I like Cliff Richard,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ That was disappointing.

  Sandra and Danny were talking intensely, their heads close together.

  Trevor put his arm along the back of my chair. There was a smell of sour sweat as he tucked the St Michael label back into my cardigan, brushing my neck with his fingers. My back tingled. ‘When I get out, Linda, perhaps you and I could go to Soho.’

  ‘Yeah, perhaps,’ I said, thinking, not if you like Cliff Richard, we couldn’t. You’d have to be wearing really, really good clothes if that was ever going to happen.

  A bell rang. Sandra’s eyes got red. She took a hanky out of her pocket and blew her nose. Danny stood up and wrapped his arms round her. ‘Bye-bye, Sandy,’ he whispered. She clung on to him, burying her head in his chest. Danny looked over at Trevor and winked.

  Trevor stood up. ‘You’re lucky she’s got good legs, Mulroney,’ he said over my head, ‘or it would be more than one packet of fags.’

  ‘I told you you’d like her,’ Danny said.

  ‘All right, Mulroney, we’ll see,’ Trevor said.

  I stood up and Trevor leaned towards me. The sour smell was strong. He put his face near mine, bumping my nose. ‘Can you do something for me, dear?’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’ My heart pounded, what did he mean? A convict wanted me to do something? a jo
b for him?

  ‘Nothing illegal.’ He laughed. ‘Just see she gets home all right.’

  ‘Who? What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not so much for me, it’s for Mulroney there. He wants you to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  The bell rang again, loud and persistent, like a fire alarm bell.

  Trevor looked over his shoulder. Sandra and Danny were still kissing.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Shh! He’s – he’s finishing with her. He doesn’t want to go out with her anymore.’

  I jerked my head back, angry with relief that it was nothing illegal. ‘You’re making it up. Are you a friend of his, or what? Look at them.’

  ‘That’s just for show. Don’t forget, me and Mulroney go back a long way. We have what you might call an understanding, even if we have our ups and downs.’ He almost laughed.

  ‘Why doesn’t he tell her himself?’ I said. ‘Or if you’re such a good mate, you tell her.’

  He pulled me tightly towards him. ‘He doesn’t want a scene.’ He muttered into my ear, ‘He thought she might get upset.’

  ‘I think she might. Why? What’s it all about?’

  Danny was touching Sandra’s cheek, tenderly, with his thumb. Could Trevor really be telling the truth?

  Trevor looked round, then began to stroke my hair as if I was his girlfriend and we were saying a sad goodbye. ‘It’s the other girl, you know. Brenda? Belinda? What’s her name? B . . .’

  ‘Barbara? Do you mean Barbara?’

  ‘Shh! Yes, you got it! He said you were a brainy girl. Look, between you and me, Barbara’s in a bit of trouble, if you get my drift, and Mulroney’s the – the person who needs to sort it out. He wants you to tell Sandra, though not about the – ah – trouble, obviously. He knows you’ll think of the right thing to say. Don’t tell her till you’re at home. Understand?’

  I looked at him, furious.

  ‘Ooh, look at her, wrinkling her nose,’ he sneered. ‘Don’t blame me, mate. I’m just passing it on. She’ll get over it, don’t worry. There’s plenty more fish in the sea. And you’ll do it, won’t you?’ He put his face close to my ear and whispered, ‘I hate it when people don’t do what I ask them to, don’t you?’ He moved away and smiled. ‘Anyway,’ he said in a normal voice, ‘this is your lucky day, you’ve met me and we’ve got that date in Soho, yeah?’ He picked up the packet of cigarettes from the table and gave me a little shove towards the exit.

  Sandra and I walked to East Acton station. I was silent as she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose, and I stayed silent as she grew brighter, talking about the romantic things Danny had said and all her plans for the future. I wanted to say, ‘What about what Trevor said?’ But was it true? He might simply be holding a grudge against Danny. He said they’d had their ups and downs. Should I tell Sandra? I wanted her to know so we could discuss it. But he’d said to wait till we got home. What if he had someone watching us?

  As our train pulled out of Liverpool Street Station, Sandra wrote the word ‘Danny’ on the misted-up window of the carriage. ‘Cheer up,’ she said. ‘We didn’t get arrested, and you’ve got yourself a nice boyfriend.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Actually, I should probably tell you,’ Sandra said, ‘he’s up for armed robbery. He’s supposed to have shot someone.’

  ‘Oh great,’ I said. ‘I’ve just spent the afternoon with a killer.’

  ‘He didn’t kill him, he shot him in the leg.’

  ‘Shot him!’

  ‘It was only an airgun. It was self-defence. Apparently.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’ I didn’t know what to do. I wrote ‘Tap’ very small in a corner of the window. The train was leaving Romford Station when Sandra said, ‘So go on then, what did he say to you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Trevor.’

  I shrugged. ‘Nothing. About Soho and stuff.’

  ‘No, at the end, what did he say to you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Is he really a friend of Danny’s?’

  ‘Danny said he was. He said he met him years ago. I think that means they met in borstal. And that was him in the fight that night in the Dolphin.’

  I shivered. ‘He didn’t look much like a friend then.’

  ‘But Danny said Trevor gave you an important message.’

  So it was true.

  ‘Go on, tell us,’ she wheedled. ‘He said I shouldn’t ask till we got back to Chelmsford, but go on.’

  I took a breath. ‘He said I had to look after you and make sure you got home all right.’

  ‘You? Have to look after me? Why?’

  ‘That’s what I said. He said – he said that Danny was finishing with you.’

  Her face went white. ‘What?’

  ‘He said –’

  ‘I heard. Are you saying he’s packed me up?’ she hissed.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it’s not true. Trevor could be making it up . . .’ My voice trailed away.

  ‘He’s not making it up, it’s true. I knew it. I knew there was something. He was being so nice. How could he? How could he?’ She plunged her hand into her bag and pulled out his last letter. She squeezed the pages into her fist. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I hesitated. ‘Trevor said something about Barbara.’

  ‘Barbara? Bloody Barbara? Look at this! Look at this!’ She held out the pieces of paper. ‘ “I love you . . . I can’t wait to see you . . . You’re the best girl”. Yeah, after bleeding bloody Barbara. Who was it ringing up weird people, delivering messages for him?! It wasn’t bloody Barbara, was it? It was me.’

  ‘What do you mean? What sort of messages? Do you mean that phone call? Is that what we were doing today? Passing messages? Sandra! What if your dad found out? What if the police caught you? We could both be in so much trouble.’

  ‘Well, it’s done now.’ She started to tear the pages. ‘He didn’t have to write all that love stuff. Why couldn’t he just finish with me in the letter, like a normal person?’ She pulled down the window and threw the scraps of paper back along the track. There were tears in her eyes.

  I couldn’t keep on at her. ‘Perhaps he thought it was better to tell you face to face.’

  ‘But he didn’t! He told Trevor to tell you to tell me.’ Sandra was breathing on the window. The word Danny was just readable, the letters disappearing into tears of condensation. She wiped her hand across the glass. Danny was gone.

  She opened her bag again. ‘Do you want a bit of chocolate?’ She pulled out the empty grenade and handed it to me.

  ‘I didn’t see you pick that up,’ I said. I spread a hanky on my lap and cracked the chocolate. I gave Sandra a piece.

  ‘At least he drank the rum. I hate rum,’ she said.

  We chewed the chocolate in silence, through Shenfield and Ingatestone and past the lights of the Chelmsford City football ground. As we stepped out onto the platform, she linked her arm through mine. ‘He’ll probably change his mind when he gets out,’ she said.

  ‘But you won’t?’

  ‘We’ll have to see,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Sandra,’ I sighed.

  *

  We were passing the grammar school when a green-and-white Corsair glided past and then stopped.

  ‘All right, girls?’ Cooky said. ‘What have you been up to today?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Sandra said. ‘Take us home, will you?’

  Cooky drove us up to the shops where we got out and he drove away.

  ‘Why’s he so friendly all of a sudden?’ I said.

  ‘Who do you think sent that Valentine I got?’ Sandra looked up the road as Cooky took the long way out of the estate.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sylvie Tries

  EVERYTHING SEEMED CALMER AFTER THE trip to Wormwood Scrubs, and now I had to focus on my exams which were a week away.

  When I got
home from school Mum was ironing in the living room. She was having a week off. A heap of washing sat on her armchair. ‘Ah, there you are.’ She heaved a sheet across the ironing board. ‘I was in the shop this morning and Mrs Weston mentioned that as it was early closing this afternoon, she was taking Mansell over to Braintree for a visit.’ She straightened the edges of the sheet. ‘She wondered if you would like to go and sit with Sylvie.’ Mum gazed at me. ‘It’s a good thing to do.’

  ‘What about my exams?’ I said. ‘I’ve got to revise biology. It’s the ear. The ear is complicated.’

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t use your holiday to do it,’ Mum said.

  ‘I was working,’ I said, bitterly. ‘Earning money. It’s not just about hearing, you know, it’s about balance and giddiness and all sorts.’

  ‘It sounds as if you know it already,’ Mum said. ‘But if you’re so anxious to revise, take your books with you. I think it’s important that you go. Have a slice of bread now and then you won’t need any tea.’

  I had to knock three times. Then a tired voice called, ‘Coming.’ Sylvie pulled open the door. I stared at her. She looked cold, her skin was almost, what was that word? translucent. In fact she looked quite nice, what my mum would have called ‘pale and interesting’, in her plain green shift dress and her hair brushed back from her face in a French pleat. She smiled at me and silently beckoned me in.

  I followed her into the kitchen. She put the kettle on, while I pulled out a chair and sat down.

  She leaned back against the sink and held on with both hands. ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ she said, the first words she had spoken. ‘I haven’t seen many people lately. So what have you been up to?’ She spoke as if it was a strain, as if she was trying to swallow the words.