Dangerous

by Jessie Keane

  She drew in another breath. Finally she was able to get the words out: ‘Bernie – we have to go.’

  They only had time to grab their coats and Clara’s bag before she pushed them all out of the flat door and down the stairs. Maybe they could get out onto a fire escape? Maybe someone would help them? But who?

  Leaning over the banister, Clara saw the coppers and the doctor coming up.

  Fuck.

  They had to find a hiding place and quickly; with the doctor and the police already on the stairs and climbing, if she didn’t get Henry and Bernie off the main stairway in the next few seconds they’d meet head-on.

  She herded them quickly down a couple of flights, thinking she would go into one of the neighbours’ flats and with any luck they wouldn’t give them away. Why would they? All the people around here hated the police.

  But for once all the doors were shut. Clara guessed that someone else had spotted the police outside and word had spread. There was no one on the stairs; no one to help. She was starting to panic, she daren’t knock at a door – chances were no one would open up, and she’d only end up alerting the police to their presence.

  Then she spotted the young black woman who’d smiled at her, peeping out of a half-closed door on the landing below. Seeing the stark fear on Clara’s face, the woman lifted a finger to her lips and hurried out. She ushered Clara and the kids into the reeking communal toilet.

  Inside, there was scarcely room to breathe – not that they wanted to. It stank to high heaven. Clara shot the bolt and they clustered together, clinging to each other like shipwrecked sailors.

  ‘Got to be quiet now, Henry,’ hissed Clara, pulling him in close against her and putting an arm around Bernie. Clara could hear her own heart, thundering in her chest.

  Outside, the tread of the coppers and the doctor kept coming closer, closer . . .

  Oh God, let them keep going, please let them keep going . . .

  The footsteps went on by. Moments passed and all Clara could hear was her own terrified heartbeat and the drip, drip, drip of the cistern overflow. Then there was a knock on the door and it was all she could do not to scream out loud.

  Clara gulped, unable to get words out. ‘Who is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Me! It’s me,’ said a female voice.

  Clara unbolted the door. It was the young woman. She made come on, come on motions with her hand, and Clara pushed Bernie and Henry out and hurried down the stairs. Then she paused.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Go. Shoo! Hurry up.’

  And Clara was off, away, down the stairs and out the door with Henry and Bernie.

  14

  There was a geezer hanging around Soho like a bad smell, who always seemed to make it a point to be a pain in Marcus’s neck. Jacko Sears was his name; he was a newcomer to the Soho scene and was trying to muscle in on Marcus’s business. Things had got to the point where something would have to be done about the tosser soon, else he might get even bigger ideas.

  ‘I’ll ask around, see what’s known,’ said Pete. Though his real name was Pete Driscoll, he was known around town as Pistol Pete, thanks in part to his gunslinger looks – the skinny build and Rhett Butler moustache – but also because he was handy with a gun. Marcus had known him since their schooldays, when they’d run wild together, and he was the first person he turned to in a fix. It was Pete who’d taken care of the Lenny Lynch situation for him.

  Before too long, Pete came back.

  ‘So what’s the news?’ asked Marcus.

  Pete shrugged. ‘He’s from Manchester, seems him and his brothers have a bit of a reputation up there. Jacko’s the youngest of the gang. The two older Sears boys, Fulton and Ivan, are still up north, but Jacko’s decided to make a name for himself down here. Pulled a gun on Con Beeston over in Greek Street and told him he was taking his club over. And he did.’

  Marcus digested this. His own rapid takeover of Lenny’s empire was not at all unusual by Soho standards. Anyone could take a club by force then walk into a Post Office and get a club licence for two shillings and sixpence. And the temptation was strong, especially when there were so many clubs in Soho and such rich pickings to be had.

  Marcus never ceased to be astonished at the sheer number and variety of clubs available to the public on these streets. Theatricals had the Kismet in Charing Cross Road, journalists frequented the Candy Box, lesbians had the Festival in Dean Street and the homos had the Duce or the Alphabet. Underworld faces drank in the Mazurka, run by an ex-Windmill girl, and there were clubs like the Premier where the Old Bill went in and took their money like a weekly wage for palling up to the villains, arranging the suppression of evidence and payments for services received. For himself, Marcus liked to run a fairly straight gambling and drinks club, but he wasn’t against keeping a few tame coppers on the payroll. You never knew when it might come in handy.

  ‘Word is, he wants to take your clubs off you,’ said Pete.

  ‘He’ll find that harder going than mugging poor old Con,’ said Marcus.

  ‘He’s out to cause you trouble.’

  ‘Well, fuck him,’ said Marcus succinctly, and that was the end of that conversation.

  When he got home, had a shower, a shit and a shave, he went to his wardrobe and there was even more stuff of Paulette’s in there. Fuck, she was getting keen. And he wasn’t. Oh, she was a party girl, OK to pass the time with, to look good around town with him, to take to bed and smash the life out of now and then, but this wasn’t part of the deal and it was starting to get annoying.

  ‘All this stuff in here,’ he said to her.

  ‘Yeah? What about it?’

  ‘Thin it out, will you? This ain’t a fucking five-star hotel. I need some space too.’

  ‘Christ, you’re always moaning,’ she complained.

  Yes, Paulette was good-looking, and obliging, but she was turning out to be bloody expensive too. Every week he gave her seventy pounds, which she seemed to have no trouble at all in spending. Last Christmas she’d asked for a fucking horse, would you believe it? So he’d bought her one, a fine dapple-grey Arab mare for three hundred pounds, which he now paid to have stabled at Ennismore Mews. Turns out she was a lousy rider, always falling off the damned thing and onto her arse along Rotten Row.

  A club owner had to have a showy mistress, that went without saying; so he tolerated her. And she came in handy, fending off the women who were forever chucking themselves at him. Not that he minded the odd fling, but it got annoying when they were too persistent or possessive. He’d yet to find any woman he’d trust enough to develop deep feelings for. He’d never been in love; only in lust.

  Marcus toured his clubs, making sure everything was ticking over nicely, and then he made his usual duty call, first to the jeweller’s in Old Bond Street, then to his mother’s gaff. She was exactly the same. It put him in mind of an old saying, pickled in aspic, which he guessed meant set a certain way, never changing. That was his mother. She accepted his gift like always, plonked it on the table beside her chair. Didn’t open it.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Marcus.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Silence fell. Marcus wondered where all the gifts went. Did she keep them in a box somewhere? It would have to be a bloody big box by now. Or did she sell the sodding things on?

  That wouldn’t surprise him.

  Nothing his mother did would surprise him. The woman had a heart of stone.

  Maybe he’d inherited something from her, after all.

  ‘Took over another club this week,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Really?’

  Yes, bloody really.

  He stayed another fifteen minutes, and then left. Once out the gate, and certain she’d shut the door on him, he kicked the brick pillar and swore.

  15

  Frank Hatton could hear knocking. And he could hear something else, too: a kid crying, very loudly; a heartfelt wail that drilled straight through his sore brain. He’d sunk too many pin
ts down the Bear the night before. As per bloody usual. Alerted by the din, Attila the Alsatian started barking out in the backyard, where he had a kennel and was secured on a chain.

  Wearing only his long johns, Frank pulled himself out of bed with a groan.

  ‘Attila, you fucking bird brain, shut up!’ he yelled, putting on his trousers and then stumbling along the hall to the front door. Attila fell silent. Frank tugged his braces up over his shoulders, ran a hand through his dishevelled thinning grey hair. The knocking – the pounding – went on. ‘Don’t beat the bloody door down! What do you—’

  He flung open the door. The volume of the crying soared to fever pitch. Clara Dolan was standing there, and behind her there was a younger girl with reddish-brown hair. clinging to the younger girl’s skirts was a boy of seven or eight years old.

  ‘What the fu—’ said Hatton.

  Clara was staring at his face. She gulped, and got the words out.

  ‘You said if I needed anything, I could call here,’ she said flatly. ‘You gave me your address. Well I do. I – we – need a place to stay.’

  There are moments in life when everything turns, and Frank Hatton could see that this was such a one. You get up in the morning, the day’s the same as every other, then bang! What you’ve always desired comes and lands straight in your lap. He could hardly believe his eyes or his luck, but this was happening. Little Clara Dolan with her glossy mane of black hair, her huge violet-blue eyes and her determined chin, Clara Dolan who had been haunting his drunken dreams for a long time, was here, asking for his help.

  ‘Jesus . . . ’ said Hatton.

  ‘Well?’ snapped Clara.

  Hatton pushed the door open further. ‘Come in,’ he said.

  Frank Hatton led the way into a disorderly kitchen, thick with dirt. Clara looked around in disgust. The Dolans might be poor, but they were never dirty. This place hadn’t seen a duster or a broom in months. There were soiled boots on the table on a sheet of newspaper beside bike parts and a container of oil; there was a stained washing-up bowl on top of the stove. The linoleum was sticky with food spills and grubby with ingrained mud and paw prints. You could see at a glance that no woman lived here.

  Sick misgiving clenched at her stomach as she looked at Hatton. Oh Christ, and he was no oil painting either, was he? Anything that had once been muscle had long since turned to fat, his skin was yellow, his eyes bloodshot, and he hadn’t even bothered to wash or shave. What a state!

  There was silence in the room. Henry had stopped his sobbing and Attila had given up barking. Clara slumped down at the table, and Bernie sat too, shivering and hugging herself. Hatton stood propped against the sink, looking at the younger kids. His eyes fell on Henry.

  ‘Go out and play in the yard,’ he said to the boy. ‘Don’t you touch that bloody dog though, he’ll eat ya.’

  Henry wandered off outside. Clara looked at Hatton.

  ‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.

  Clara told him.

  ‘Shit,’ said Frank when she’d finished.

  ‘So can we stay? For now?’ asked Clara.

  On the way over, she had formulated a plan. The flat was history, and so was the Singer sewing machine that could have earned them a small crust. So she had made up her mind that something else would have to do. At least this way, the family could stay together. Bernie and Henry had been through far too much to endure any more upheaval.

  Hatton was silent for a while, thinking it over.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said at last. ‘Why not?’

  He showed Clara and Bernie upstairs to a bedroom. It was dusty, the windows grimed from years of dirt. But there was a big metal-framed double bed for them to sleep on, big enough for all three of them, just about.

  While Bernie sat down on the bed, Clara went over to the grimy window and looked bleakly out onto the street. There were people down there, going about their everyday business, nothing exciting happening, but for the once-wealthy Dolans, everything had imploded; everything had changed.

  Clara’s mind wouldn’t stop replaying it all: first Dad’s business going, then Dad deserting them when it had all got too much for him to cope with, leaving his pregnant wife and young children to scratch a living in the slums. And how were they supposed to cope? A visceral anger gripped Clara so hard that she shivered. They’d not only lost the roof over their head, they’d lost Mum – a loss that was too terrible, too fresh, to even think about. So Clara decided she was going to shut her mind to it and just get on with it. Do what must be done. You either sank in shit in this world or you came up and gasped in air. Clara Dolan had no intention of sinking.

  ‘Clara?’ It was Bernie, breaking into her reverie.

  Clara turned, looked at her. Bernie looked very small, very pale, sitting there.

  ‘Can we go back to the flat now?’ she pleaded.

  Clara stared at Bernie, long and hard. She could understand how her sister felt. It was awful back there at the flat, really horrible, but it was their last link with Mum and at least it was familiar. All this was new, and frightening. ‘We can’t,’ she said at last.

  Bernie’s eyes were desperate with panic. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that. We can’t go back there, not unless you want to be taken into care and Henry with you. Maybe even me too. We’ll get separated. Don’t you see that?’

  ‘But Clar . . . Mum . . . ’

  ‘Mum’s gone.’

  ‘Won’t there be a funeral?’

  ‘No. We couldn’t have afforded one anyway. God’s sake, Bernie, show a bit of sense. All that’s over, gone and done.’

  Bernie’s face was white as snow. ‘So . . . where will they . . . ’

  ‘The council will bury her,’ said Clara.

  Bernie put her hands to her mouth as if Clara had struck her. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  ‘But we won’t know where,’ she gasped.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Clara flatly. ‘She’s gone.’

  She had to turn away from the pain on Bernie’s face, back toward the window. As she stood there, considering what options they had left, she could see her reflection in the mucky glass, faded like an old Venetian mirror.

  Clara had no illusions about the sorts of things she could do to raise money, to keep the family together. She could get a job in a club tomorrow, stripping. She had a good face, a thick waterfall of black hair and a body that would fit the bill, she knew it. She was five feet eight inches tall, nine stone in weight, with richly curving hips, a small waist and full breasts that were neither too small nor too large. But she was revolted by the thought of doing that. Not when there was another way.

  ‘Clar?’ Bernie’s voice was very low.

  ‘Yeah, Bern?’

  Clara didn’t look round. She was afraid if she did that Bernie would see that she was almost at the end of her rope; she felt like her whole being was coming apart, that she was spinning, helpless, in a black turmoil of grief and despair. But she had to keep thinking, figuring out what their next move should be. For all their sakes.

  ‘Was it my fault, that Dad left? Did he go because of me? Because of something I said?’

  Clara turned around and stared at Bernie in surprise.

  ‘What?’ Then she saw the numb miserable certainty of guilt on Bernie’s face. She went to her and grabbed her frail shaking shoulders and shook her lightly. Trust overemotional Bernie to get the wrong end of the stick. ‘No, Bern. Don’t think that, don’t ever think that. He got himself in a mess with the business, that’s all and . . . well, the authorities could have got involved, so he had to go. It was nothing to do with you, nothing at all.’

  Bernie nodded and seemed satisfied with that. At least, Clara hoped she was.

  ‘Go and check on Henry, make sure he’s all right,’ said Clara, patting her sister’s shoulder.

  With Bernie gone from the room, Clara worked it all through in her mind again.

  She was doing the right thing.

  The
only possible thing.

  16

  Bert Shillingworth was up in the dead of night, making one of several trips to the loo. He was seventy-six years old and he felt it. Everything ached – his back, his legs, his whole damned body. His bloody eyesight was going. Since his wife died, he hadn’t slept well. It sounded stupid, but he missed her snoring! Now, apart from the cat, there was only him in the little flat above the tobacco shop he ran in Soho. He was glad of Tabs the cat, of another heartbeat under the roof when the nights were long and lonely.

  Bert used the pot he kept under the bed to save him a trip all the way down the stairs to the outside lavvy in the backyard, then he heard a motor revving out front. Middle of the fucking night, didn’t the bastards ever sleep around here? All these clubs and strip joints and prossies and pimps hanging about on corners, music blaring out – and not good music, not like in the war, not ‘Run Rabbit Run’ or ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’. No, this was new stuff, and he hated it. The place was getting worse, going to the fucking dogs.

  With Tabs winding silkily around his legs, Bert tottered over to the window, yanking the curtain back. He looked out just as a car screeched to a halt outside the Blue Banana club, opposite Bert’s shop. Someone got out of the car, moving quickly. There was a flare of fire, the sound of glass breaking, and then whoomph! The place was alight. The man jumped back in the car, and it sped away.

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Bert.

  The fire brigade came out, and the police (some of whom had been drinking in the Blue Banana not three hours earlier) and it was agreed that this was a petrol bomb attack, probably gangland stuff, about which Old Bill didn’t give a flying fuck. Once the fire was put out, they all buggered off home.

  Marcus was summoned from his bed, shaking off Paulette’s clinging hands and promising he’d be back soon. He made a couple of calls and then set off, arriving outside the Blue Banana to find the door blackened, the bricks scorched, several posters destroyed, the signage severely damaged and all the lights over it exploded from the heat of the fire.