Tara

by Lesley Pearse

  The raising was slow, Harry had to keep himself in check, wanting to raise wildly and get it over with, but knowing he mustn't. Jack folded first, putting his jacket on and smiling broadly as if nothing mattered but going home to bed. On and on it went after Jack's car had roared away into the night. It was nearly five, there had to be twelve thousand on the table, a great tottering pile of notes, and Alf folded.

  'I'm off, lads,' he said cheerily, tapping Harry on the shoulder. 'You're a gutsy player. Hope the club goes well.'

  Harry felt a little ashamed he'd taken so much money from a good sport. He just hoped Duke and Chas would be the same.

  Duke folded and it was just like that first game all over again. Now it was between Chas and him.

  Chas put the last of his money on the pot, but Harry had no way of knowing if he had more. He raised him again, but his own pile was getting dangerously low. Should he call, or play one more?

  He raised just a little, all he had left now was seven hundred on the table and the one still in his pocket. When he saw Chas reach into his pocket he groaned inwardly, but to his surprise Chas brought out a folded document.

  'I'll be honest,' he said, still not moving a muscle or showing any emotion. 'I'm broke. But I'll put these in and see you.'

  'What is it?' Harry's eyes were blurry now, his head aching and heart racing.

  "The deeds of this place.' Chas shrugged. 'Put the rest of your dough on the pot and I'll see you.'

  The cold impassive face chilled Harry to the bone. He looked first at his small pile, then at the mountain of notes on the table. Reason told him the bloke must have an excellent hand to risk everything, but then again so had he.

  'OK!'

  They laid out their cards simultaneously. Chas had a full house, but Harry's four of a kind beat them by a whisker.

  A wild glee rose up in Harry. He wanted to shout, scream with joy, but he didn't dare. He hadn't got out yet!

  Duke whistled through his teeth, but Harry was only looking at Chas. For the first time in the night muscles were moving in his face, as if he was struggling to control himself.

  Harry had to steel himself. He didn't owe these men anything, they would cheerfully have taken the shirt off his back. But all the same, could he really take it all? There had to be twenty thousand there, more money than he'd ever dreamed of.

  'Are you really broke?' he asked.

  Chas shrugged his shoulders, his large stomach quivering.

  Harry stood up. He was at his most vulnerable now. Duke looked capable of knocking him out with one blow; Chas was desperate enough to go along with it, and the river was far too close. In the back of his mind he remembered something Mabel had once said to him. 'Kindness is your biggest asset, Harry, don't ever lose sight of it.' He scraped the money together on the table and put the deeds in his pocket.

  'Write me a note to say the building's mine,' he said quietly. 'Duke, witness it.'

  The thick smoke was burning his eyes, sweat was breaking out all over him and he could sense Duke was like a coiled spring.

  'How much did you sit down with?' he asked.

  'Three thousand.' Chas tried to smile but his mouth was set. A nerve quivered in his cheek.

  Harry took some notes from the top of the pile and slid them over to Chas, he guessed it was around a thousand.

  'A stake for another game.' He felt deflated now and knew he would never play again. He couldn't risk ending up like this fat man. 'Just sign the paper.'

  'You didn't have to do that,' Chas said in a curiously small voice, pulling a fountain pen from his pocket. 'You won it fair and square.'

  Harry saw the oil painting out of the corner of his eye. 'Call it for that picture,' he said.

  Chas smiled then, with real warmth. He took the sheet of notepaper Duke silently offered him and began to write.

  'That was my great-grandfather,' he said as he finished. 'He was an honourable man, too.'

  Duke's head was whirling. Harry was no real poker player, he was too wild, and he'd just drawn good cards. Duke had come out even himself, perhaps a little down, so he had nothing to reproach the man for. But this last act of chivalry touched him and he knew that Harry Collins was a force to be reckoned with.

  Joe had been so sure Harry would lose that he'd offered no alternative plan and Duke wasn't thrilled to be the man to relay the outcome to him. But what could he do at this late stage anyway? Joe would have mugged him, that was a certainty, but Duke Denning wasn't going to lose his reputation that way. He witnessed the note without a word and handed it back to Harry.

  Chas slid a set of keys across the table.

  'It's all yours now.'

  'I underestimated you,' Duke said as he watched Harry slapping the notes into bundles and putting them in his pockets.

  Harry looked up. 'Most people do,' he said softly. Picking up his cigarettes from the table, he opened the door and left.

  George was in the kitchen when Harry let himself in. He shivered in the narrow hall, pockets bulging, fingers stained with nicotine, his angular face pale with exhaustion. But the house was warm. He could smell coffee from the kitchen and Queenie's lilac soap wafting down the stairs on a cloud of steam from the bathroom.

  'What time's this to come in?' George grumbled. 'It's bleedin' Saturday, son, the busiest day. You won't make a market trader if you stay up all night.'

  He was wearing red pyjamas and checked slippers, the little hair left around his head standing out like a bottle brush.

  'I ain't gonna be a market trader for much longer.' Harry grinned. 'You'd better sit down, Dad. I don't know if your old ticker can stand this.'

  George just stared at the money on the table. He had the deeds of the warehouse in one hand, the note in the other.

  'You crazy boy,' he said, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

  'I ain't ever going to do it again,' Harry knelt beside his father's chair and leant his face against George's chest the way he did when he was small. 'I ain't got the stomach for it, really. I was just lucky tonight. But I'm going to use it now I've got it. Just think of it like me winning the pools.'

  George held his son's head tightly. He didn't approve of gamblers, he'd seen too many end up in the gutter.

  'Tell me what you want from life, 'Arry,' he whispered.

  Harry knew what his father was afraid of.

  'I want to build up a business,' he said, his voice muffled by his father's chest. 'I want to make something of myself. I'll make you proud of me.'

  He couldn't tell him yet that he intended to have Tara beside him, that would be tempting fate.

  George lifted Harry's face up in his big hands.

  'I've always been proud of you,' he said fiercely. 'And I know if yer mum's looking down on you, she is too. But build an honest business, son, no more duckin' and divin'.'

  Chapter 23

  'You aren't serious, Harry?' Tara looked up at the dilapidated warehouse in horror. 'A night-club! Here in Wapping?'

  Tara had gone over to Paradise Row for tea and Harry had whisked her round in the van to see this place he'd won. He looked like a navvy, in old trousers daubed with muck, a grey roll-necked sweater, big dirty boots and a donkey jacket. Even his black hair was dull with dust.

  The news had reached her about the poker game long before George or Queenie got around to telling her. Angie heard it in a pub in Bethnal Green the evening after the game and telephoned straight away. The winnings had risen to forty thousand by that time and the building was made to sound like something grand.

  Harry might be a hero to the whole of Bethnal Green, but not to Tara. It was an unwanted reminder of her father and a timely warning not to embark on a love affair with him.

  'I'm completely serious,' he said. 'I've already had some rough plans drawn up and got someone to act for me with the council. Unless they turn it down, I'm on my way.'

  In another hour it would be pitch dark, but even in daylight it looked forbidding.

  'Who's going to c
ome to a club here?' She wrinkled her nose in disgust. An icy wind was blowing rubbish down the narrow street, bringing with it the stink of the river, and she felt dwarfed by the menacing, soot-stained buildings pressing in all around her. Further along the street an uncleared bomb-site had become a tip, strewn with old mattresses and abandoned cars. The only homes she'd seen were tenements, many of which were boarded up. At night it would be terrifying. There was virtually no street lighting and she could imagine rats scrabbling out of the sewers to look for food.

  'Toffs,' he said airily. 'They used to come in Victorian days for illegal gambling and it was a darned sight more dangerous then. Look on the positive side, Tara. We can make as much noise as we like, drunks wouldn't bother anyone. It just needs a good publicity campaign.'

  'Show me inside,' she said in a weak voice, wrapping her rabbit coat round her. He'd obviously made his mind up and the sooner she got it over with the better.

  He opened the narrow door beside the loading bay and led the way in.

  'Careful now,' he warned her. 'I've pulled up a few floorboards to look underneath, so it's a bit dodgy.'

  A smell of mildew and rotting timbers made her pull up her collar and bury her nose in the fur. She wanted to be enthusiastic, for his sake, but it was like the set for a horror film.

  'The windows are a pretty shape,' she ventured, noting their curved tops. They were boarded up at the front, but enough light spilled through from the river side to see by.

  'They remind me of prison,' he chuckled, taking her hand to lead her past a gaping hole where he'd pulled up some floorboards. "They were the same in the Scrubs, I used to lie awake and count the fifteen little panes.'

  To her right a metal spiral staircase led up to the next floor and ahead, through a partially broken partition, was the main part of the warehouse. She saw a vast area, with girders across the ceiling and iron pillars holding it up. It was open to the full force of the wind on the river side, the loading door having long since rotted and fallen into the mud below. A few tea chests were piled in one corner and evidence of Harry's exploratory probing showed in more ripped-up boards, hammers, levers and a pickaxe.

  'Look at that!' he led her over to the river, throwing his arms wide, as if showing her the Himalayas at sunset. 'What a view! Imagine yourself with a drink in your hand, soft carpet beneath your feet, the band playing and all this!'

  Tar a could only see a wide expanse of dirty river and a few barges. Below, the low tide revealed an expanse of stinking, oily mud, strewn with refuse.

  'Harry, you can't possibly do it up,' she gasped. 'It's too far gone.'

  She had to admit it was big enough. If it had been in Chelsea she might have been cautiously enthusiastic. But Wapping!

  'This is the worst bit.' He grinned cheerfully, expanding his chest and breathing in the river air. 'But I've had a survey done and it's structurally sound. Once I've got the windows in and a new floor laid, it'll soon take shape.' He waved one hand towards the wall on the left. 'I'll have a long, curved bar there. Those bench seats that make alcoves, with a table, all along under the window. Then over there at the back, a small stage and a specially sprung floor for dancing.'

  It grew more and more ridiculous as he showed her round the rest of the place. The spiral stair would be replaced by a wide grand one, a chandelier would hang above it. He even talked about removing part of the first floor to create a kind of gallery. There were to be gaming rooms on the next floor, and he even talked about making a flat for himself up in the top-floor rooms. His thin face glowed with a missionary zeal. He didn't seem to notice the cold and dirt, or be daunted by the sheer size of what he was proposing.

  Until news of the poker game broke, Tara had fondly imagined he was staying away from her until he found a good job. Now she felt he was betraying her trust in him.

  'So it's going to be a gambling club?' she said, tight-lipped. Her hands and feet were like ice, it was dusk now and every dark corner was scary.

  'Of course. I won't lure rich people here otherwise.'

  'Take me home, Harry.' She sighed. 'I'd like it to be a success, but I can't see it happening.'

  He caught hold of her arm and spun her round to face him. His eyes burned brightly, his chin had a determined thrust to it.

  'It will be a success, Tara, because I'll make it happen. I don't want you to come here again until opening night, then maybe you'll believe in me.'

  Not a kiss, not even a few words to say that she was important to him. As the last rays of daylight left the sky she wondered why she'd ever thought he cared.

  Hot June sun seared through the workroom window, even with the Venetian blinds closed. Tara sat on a chair by the sewing machine, her hair and flimsy cheesecloth dress damp with perspiration. She was hand-stitching the hem of a green crushed velvet dress, but she had to keep stopping and wiping her hands because the needle was sticking.

  Below in the shop she could hear the pounding beat of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; out in the street the ceaseless roar of traffic.

  A fan beside her machine merely churned up the hot, stale air. Chemical smells from bales of fabric and damp cloth on the pressing machine mingled with joss sticks from the shop and gave her a headache.

  She wanted to be at the farm, to sit under a tree and read a book, or bury her nose in her mother's roses. She wanted her own bedroom, the feeling of starched cool sheets against her skin, with a soft breeze ruffling the curtains. She wanted a man to love her, not to be torn between two crackpots who had put her life on hold while they played out their fantasies.

  Harry was actually camping out in that awful building. She hadn't seen him since that day in February. He'd phoned a couple of times but all he talked about was steel beams, timber and the price of lighting.

  Josh, meanwhile, was getting wilder and wilder. He'd bought a new silver Mercedes with the number plate JB 12. He continued to stage publicity stunts, including having a couple of models fighting over him at Annabel's nightclub, buying a picnic at Fortnum & Mason with a famous actress on his arm and getting Tara to make clothes for an entire rock group, for which he took the credit. He was making a fortune, there was no doubt about that, and if it wasn't for his wild social life he'd probably have opened more branches still.

  Every time Tara complained about the work foisted on to her, he gave her a rise. But money wasn't really what she wanted, she never had the time or inclination to spend it anyway. Sometimes she barely went out of the building in a whole week and, aside from a night out now and again with Angie or Miranda, she had no fun.

  She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a lie in, or a walk in the park. Just this eternal pressure to get things done, to solve problems, to fit in with what everyone else wanted.

  The phone rang and she picked it up wearily, fully expecting it to be Josh asking when the sample dresses she was making would be ready.

  'Hello, princess. Fancy a day at the seaside tomorrow?'

  The shock of hearing Harry's voice and such an unexpected invitation threw her.

  'I can't,' she replied, looking around her workroom at the piles of unfinished samples.

  'Why not?'

  She hesitated. It didn't matter how long she spent in this room, the piles of work never got smaller because someone always brought more.

  'You can't think of a good reason,' he said teasingly.

  'Oh, Harry, I can't take a day off...' But even as she said it she glanced out of the window. Through the blinds she could see girls in sun-dresses eating ice cream and a couple of workmen with bare chests, and suddenly the room seemed even more airless.

  'You can,' he insisted. 'Look, the club's nearly ready. I don't know when I'll find a spare minute again. Just imagine a day at Southend, paddling, eating ice cream and shrimps. I'll win you a teddy bear on the rifle range and we'll ride the Wild Mouse!'

  His words pulled a cord somewhere inside her, making her feel light-headed and giggly.

  'OK,' she said, biting
her lip because she'd committed herself now without even thinking about it properly.

  'Get the Tube to Bethnal Green,' he said quickly, as if afraid she'd change her mind. 'If I come to collect you it'll take forever getting out through town. Eight o'clock all right?'

  'Fine,' she said. 'I'll see you then.'

  She hadn't even had time to think up a plausible story when Josh came crashing up the stairs with some dresses in his arms.

  He wore white jeans and a red shirt, black curls cascading over his shoulders. At least he'd had some time in the sun, his face was tanned and his big nose was even a bit red.

  'Look at these,' he said gleefully. 'What do you think?'

  He was buying a great deal of stock from India now, and one of his plans was to go over there later in the year.

  Tara gave them a cursory glance. They were made from flimsy cotton, with bright embroidery down the bodice; pretty but very badly made, something he always seemed to overlook these days.

  'Great,' she said without much enthusiasm. He didn't listen anyway and today she couldn't be bothered to warn him about continually lowering his standards for the sake of price.

  'God, it's hot in here!' He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. 'Why don't you open the window?'

  'Because it's so noisy and dusty,' she said wearily.

  Josh was usually too hyped-up to notice anything unusual about his staff, but her tone of voice made him look properly at her. She was very pale, with mauve shadows beneath her eyes, and her hair was decidedly limp.

  'What's up?' He moved over to where she sat and put his hand on her shoulder. Through the thin fabric he could feel how hot she was, and she seemed bony. 'Let me take you out to supper tonight?'

  'I can't, I've got all this to do.' She waved a hand towards the mountain on the cutting table.

  "That can wait till tomorrow.' He barely glanced at them.