by Jessie Keane
‘Yeah, Mrs Redmayne?’
‘Call me Clara, for God’s sake. I need to go out and do something.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ said Liam, as Clara had known he would.
‘Just need to pick up something first,’ said Clara, and she went to the table Marcus always occupied when he was in, the prime table at the front near the stage; from underneath it she took what he kept concealed there: the hammer.
She left the spiked knuckledusters.
She wouldn’t need those.
123
Ted Hagan had been verger at St James’s church for fifteen years, and he loved his job. The vicar was a sweet man, mildly eccentric, but that didn’t matter. Every day was full of joy for Ted because he could work in and around the church grounds, making them perfect, keeping everything running as smoothly as an oiled clock.
Whistling, he walked up the path in the sun, happy to be going in to work. He had the surplices to send off to the laundry, the prayer books to straighten, the hymns for today’s christening to be put up on the board, and Mrs Milner would be in soon to do the flowers; her husband grew red hollyhocks and deep blue delphiniums, they would look so nice.
And then he stopped walking.
He stared.
His mouth fell open.
‘Jesus!’ he burst out. And then clapped a hand over his mouth, asking forgiveness for taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Then he stood there, his happy mood disintegrating as he saw what some vandal had done in the night. He strode over to the place and stared again. Where once there had been a headstone, beautifully carved and lovingly inscribed, there was now nothing but a pile of rubble, jagged bits of stone that had been pulverized by some unthinking, uncaring shit.
Oh God, he mustn’t curse and swear, not even in his thoughts, it was bad.
But this was bad too.
This was awful.
He bent and picked up a chunk of wrecked masonry. There was just the remnant of a name there. FRANK.
He bent again, picked up another piece and read it: HATTON.
Frank Hatton.
Poor soul, his grave had been destroyed. Ted looked around him. All the other graves were untouched. He let out a sigh at the wickedness of the human race. He was going to have to tell the vicar about this, right now.
124
‘Oh. Hi! It’s you,’ said Sonya when she opened the door of her flat over the sweet shop and found Paulette standing there.
‘Yeah, hi!’ Paulette air-kissed Sonya’s cheeks, thinking that the Russian or Yugoslavian or whatever the fuck Sonya might be was looking very chic today. She was obviously about to head out the door, dressed in a chocolate mink coat, high heels and dark glasses. Rings glinted on her fingers. Big gold earrings glittered when she flicked back her white-blonde hair.
Paulette hadn’t brought Binky out with her today; she’d left her precious little man yapping his head off in the flat. She had things to do, Sonya to visit in particular, and she was worried that Sonya might not like dogs. Time was moving on, and soon Marcus’s largesse would be coming to an end. She still kept a horse in livery, she still had her personal grooming to keep up to the required standard. She was a party girl, and she had to carry on looking the business, even if she had lost her meal ticket.
‘Did you want something?’ prompted Sonya. Paulette had never visited her before, although she had always known where she lived. Paulette in fact had always made it a point to look down her nose at Sonya, to be bitchy and unkind because she was the head man’s girl and not just the kept girl of his second-in-command. So why the social call now?
‘Um . . . well, yes. This is a little awkward, if I could come in . . . ?’
Sonya stepped back, let Paulette into the flat.
‘Have a seat,’ she said, and glanced at her watch.
‘I won’t keep you. I only wanted to say that I was so sorry over what happened to Pete,’ said Paulette.
‘Oh! Well, that’s kind of you,’ said Sonya.
‘Not at all. It was a tragedy. Awful.’ Paulette swallowed delicately. ‘Do you have someone else in your life now?’
Sonya heaved a sigh. ‘Marcus gave me a job in one of the clubs. Hat-check girl, bit of a come-down. I hated it, and the pay was shit. But a girl has to live, and I’ve got used to a certain lifestyle,’ she said. ‘So yes, I do have someone, he’s . . . nice.’
The MP who now kept Sonya was nice. Flamboyant and elegant, he liked living rich and high. He wasn’t Pistol Pete, but beggars could not be choosers.
‘Marcus and I have split,’ said Paulette. ‘It was a mutual thing.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, it was all wearing a little thin. On both sides.’ Paulette gave a vivid smile. ‘So I’m back on the market again. Free and single. And I wondered . . . I just thought, if you have any contacts who might be interested . . . ’
So that’s why she’s here, thought Sonya. She’d heard the word going around and knew that Paulette wasn’t telling the truth. Marcus had dumped her, and everyone was saying it was because he was – of all crazy things – in love with his wife. Sonya wondered if that was true. Maybe. Maybe not. He’d certainly done well out of Black Clara’s clubs, that was for sure.
Sonya looked at Paulette sitting there, her honey-blonde hair carefully curled, her grape-green eyes so hopeful. Paulette had never been nice to her, but Sonya had been taught good manners and kindness at her mother’s knee, so it was Paulette’s lucky day.
‘Actually,’ said Sonya in that charmingly accented lilt of hers, ‘there’s a party tonight. They have asked me to bring along some friends, so if you’d like . . . ?’
‘I’d love it!’ gushed Paulette.
When they got to the posh address in Belgravia, each of them done up to the nines, Sonya knocked on the door. They could hear music seeping out through the walls of the place, could hear laughter and the clink of champagne glasses.
The level of noise shot up dramatically as the door was opened by a tall narrow-hipped blond man wearing nothing at all. His large erection was jutting out from a haze of mouse-coloured curls. Paulette thought she’d seen him somewhere, and then she realized: it was in the papers, and he was a well-respected Cabinet Minister. He smiled at them and his cock bobbed an exuberant welcome.
Behind him, she could see a pale-skinned nude woman with dark hair bent over a semi-circular table, her tiny breasts swinging as a portly man entered her energetically from behind. He looked round at the door at the new arrivals but he didn’t stop what he was doing.
‘Come in, come in,’ he called. ‘The more the merrier!’
Sonya didn’t even blink; neither did Paulette. Off with the old, on with the new, she thought. Sonya had been forced to settle for this, and now she was too.
It was going to be that sort of evening.
But what the hell.
They were both used to it.
125
Fulton Sears wasn’t exactly sure where he was. There had been the flat, the dog, the altar. One moment everything had been fine, and then things had sort of . . . disintegrated. People had passed through the flat, talked to him, but he wasn’t too clear about what they were saying or even who they were.
Her brother. Henry. He remembered Henry, standing there looking at him.
Clara’s brother.
Oh, Clara.
All her stuff, someone had smashed it, pulverized her watch. The table was broken. Her comb, still with her hair attached to it. Her handkerchief, still holding her scent. But . . . she was a bitch, a whore, she’d laughed at him and he was going to kill her very soon.
You promise? the hopeful voice in his head asked him.
Very soon, he promised.
They had brought him here – wherever here was – and now he was in a small pink-painted room. They had dressed him in pale blue trousers and a tunic. They spoke to him gently. Fed him. Helped him take a bath. Soon, they told him, he would start to feel better, just take your medication, Fulton, b
e a good boy.
So he’d worked this much out: all he had to do was be calm, cooperate, fool them. Stop the muttering; he could do that. He could do anything if he set his mind to it, and one day very soon he was going to walk out of here a free man, and then he was going to kill that cow Clara.
‘All right, Fulton? How are we today then, eh?’
Colin was the orderly who looked after him. Sometimes – when he lost it a bit – sometimes, not often, there had to be another man in the room too, when they had to hold him down, force the plastic thing between his teeth so he didn’t bite clean through his tongue. But those episodes – Colin called them episodes – didn’t last long.
Fulton merely grunted and carried on muttering under his breath about Clara, that bitch, that cow. He was having trouble stopping the muttering, and that was annoying, but he was OK. He didn’t know precisely where he was, but he was safe and warm and plotting his revenge, so he didn’t much care. Colin led him along to the bathroom, where the tub was already filled, ready and waiting for him. Like a hotel, this place. Almost cosy. And Colin was nice, with his fox-face and his sharp grey eyes. He smiled, and helped Fulton strip, helped him get in the bath.
The warm water soothed him, it was luxurious. He sighed with pleasure.
‘Won’t be a mo’, Fulton,’ said Colin, and left the room.
Fulton closed his eyes and dreamed of her, of Clara, of how surprised she was going to be when he turned up at her door again. Nothing would save her this time, nothing at all. He couldn’t wait, he just had to stop this mumbling, which would be hard, but he could do it, convince them he was OK. They’d let him go, and then watch out.
He heard Colin come back into the room and was starting to open his eyes when hands suddenly grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down under the water. He opened his eyes in shock, gasped for air and took in bath water instead. Above him, he could see Colin, and another one.
Fulton thrashed and wriggled like an eel, kicking, his arms flailing, but they were big men, strong men; they had to be in this job.
Desperate, he surged upward, got his head above water, whooped air into his starving lungs.
‘Shit! No! Fuck me, don’t . . . ’ he managed to get out, and then they forced him under again.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw a single breath. He struggled, he fought, he lashed out, and water cascaded everywhere, all over the floor, the two men were slipping and sliding about but they were holding him down . . .
And all at once it seemed very peaceful; he just inhaled the water, let it all go. Fulton grew still. The air bubbles rising from his mouth and drifting to the surface of the bath water grew slower until finally they stopped.
The men still held him down under the water. Made sure.
Colin looked down at the bug-eyed gaze and the open mouth of the late Fulton Sears for several long minutes, then he nodded to his colleague and together they let go.
‘All done,’ he said.
126
Henry had organized Bernie’s funeral beautifully. There was a butter-yellow yew-wood coffin for her, and a vast floral arrangement of flowers in soft whites, pinks and pale powder blues decorated the top of it. ‘Abide with Me’ was sung by the small congregation, and the sermon spoke of the afterlife, of Bernie’s release from the pains of this world to enjoy the glories of heaven.
God, I really hope so, thought Clara as she stood there in the church, Marcus on one side of her, Henry on the other. She’d barely spoken to Henry in the days after Bernie’s tragic death, and she didn’t know what to say to him now. She felt she could say sorry forever, and it would never be enough to make up for all he’d been through.
Jan and some of the other girls and boys from the clubs were there, and Sasha, Bernie’s friend; but much as the vicar wanted to say it was all fine, that Bernie was in a better place, Clara’s mood was still bleak.
She was glad when it was finally over, and they went out to the graveside and the vicar said the words and it was finished; Bernie’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Clara threw a pink rose in on top of it. Touchingly, little Jan came up to her, squeezed her hand, hugged her, and she remembered their conversation.
Jan was her only sister now.
‘Chin up,’ Jan whispered in her ear, and then it was all done and everyone was going back to the Oak for the wake.
Marcus moved away, talking to someone in the crowd, and Jan did too. Clara stood alone for a moment with Henry. They exchanged a look. Then Clara said: ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ said Henry.
‘Yes there is! I didn’t know, Henry. I thought you were vile, the things you did. I didn’t know it wasn’t you. You should have come to me. Told me the truth.’
Henry shrugged. ‘I was a kid, Clar. I was scared to death.’
Clara looked at him, her ‘little’ brother with his copperbrown hair and his blue-grey eyes. Henry had grown up so handsome, with a solid, unflinching air about him. Bernie’s manipulations and Clara’s own harshness had taught him a toughness, a self-reliance, that she could only admire.
‘I’m sorry I misjudged you, Henry. Really I am.’ Clara shook her head, blinked back tears as she looked at the open grave. ‘I didn’t know how damaged she was. I didn’t know what was happening to her. Those things she did, and blamed them on you. And then Toby! Henry, she burned him to death . . . ’ Clara’s voice choked. ‘She admitted it.’
Henry was silent. They both stood there and stared at their sister’s grave.
‘We’ve come a hell of a long way, haven’t we?’ said Clara. ‘We’ve come so far – but now we’ve lost Bernie.’
Henry nodded. They’d come a very long way indeed. Clara in particular – from riches to rags and then back to riches again.
‘Clara – we were always going to lose Bernie. She was running out of time fast, from the minute she first drew breath,’ he said.
Clara looked at his face. Thought of all they’d been through, the whole wild merry-go-round that had been their lives so far.
‘Do you think he’ll ever come back, Henry?’ she asked.
‘Who?’
‘Dad. Do you think he ever will?’
‘Seriously?’ Henry let out a gusting sigh. ‘I can hardly even remember what he looked like. But come back? No. I doubt it. We’re on our own, Clar. Just like always.’
Clara took a breath and tentatively linked her arm through his. He didn’t shrug it away.
‘We’ll have to bloody well manage then, won’t we?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, with the ghost of a smile. ‘We will.’
127
A few days after Bernie’s funeral, Marcus drove over to Bond Street to make a purchase and then to his mum’s place. Quite some place, it was, all paid for by him. And he knocked at the door, but no one answered. His mother never went out. Frail and elderly now, she was practically a recluse.
Marcus went down the side alley and out to the back. Knocked there, too. No answer.
‘Ma?’ he shouted, peering in through the glassed top half of the door, wondering where she’d got to.
No answer.
Marcus broke the glass with his elbow, reached in, popped the door open. Then he stepped into the kitchen, which was neat as a new pin; well, of course it was. He paid for the cleaner, too.
‘Ma?’ he called again, moving down the hallway and into her sitting room. He stopped just inside the door, and there she was.
The fire had burned down to ashes and he thought she must have been sitting there in her usual station beside it since yesterday. She looked the same as always; immaculately turned out, skinny, made-up, her hair neat.
‘Ma?’ he said more quietly.
She didn’t stir. He walked over to her chair, took a closer look. Her eyes were closed. She was dozing. He reached out, touched her shoulder. No movement. Then he laid his hand against her cheek and he saw that she was dead.
‘Fuck it. Ma,’
he said softly.
He felt a bit shaky so he sat down in the chair on the other side of the hearth. He had a blue Tiffany box in his hand, tied with white ribbon; another gift that she would have put aside. And now he was looking at the little table beside her chair, and at the built-in cupboard behind that.
She’s dead, he thought, and wondered why he didn’t feel anything.
It’s because you hated her, right?
All his life she’d been cold to him and he’d never understood why. And now . . . now he could see that he never would. After a long while he took a deep, shaky breath, then he stood up and edged around behind her chair to undo the little clasp on the cupboard. He thought he knew what he would find. He opened the door, pulled it wide.
It was full of pale blue boxes tied with white ribbon.
She hadn’t opened even one of his gifts, not one.
He gulped and shook his head and felt tears spring into his eyes. Christ, when had he last shed actual tears? When they’d been bombed out and she hadn’t bothered to look for him? Maybe then. Since then, nothing. And he wasn’t going to shed any now, he decided. She wasn’t even worth it.
He drew in a shuddering breath and went back along the hall and out of the kitchen door.
EPILOGUE
Three weeks later, Clara got home late from touring the clubs. Home was now the Calypso, the largest of Marcus’s clubs; they had a very nice furnished flat above it. She went up the stairs, kicking off her shoes, tugging off her earrings, and there he was, sprawled out asleep on the couch in black slacks and a white shirt, her gorgeous husband, his black hair dishevelled, his whole body relaxed. There was a tumbler of whisky on the table beside him. The stereo was on, and Ketty Lester was singing ‘Love Letters’.
Clara passed by the couch, thinking that his mother’s death didn’t seem to have touched him at all. He hadn’t shed a single tear at her funeral. But maybe that was a front. They all put on a front at times, her, Henry, Marcus, everyone. It got you through, when life was hard.