Rock a Bye Baby

by Mia Dolan

  It made Marcie feel like an unimportant outsider. She was split between standing there looking stupid or pushing between the girls surrounding Johnnie – almost as though she were claiming him for her own.

  ‘I’ve got my leg over enough BSAs,’ said one of the girls. ‘I’d like a go on a Bonnie. Had a go on other Triumphs, but never on a Bonnie.’

  Marcie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wanted to laugh out loud. They were talking about cadging rides on various makes of motorbikes! Was that right?

  ‘Excuse me …’

  The girls looked at her in disbelief as she asked the question. Then they burst out laughing. ‘Yeah. That’s what we do. We see which of us can get a ride on the most bikes. Whoever wins … well … they win. And that’s it!’

  She should have guessed. They were like a strange kind of club, all wearing denim jeans, leather jackets and black sweaters.

  ‘You with Johnnie?’ Suzy asked.

  Unknowingly she had interrupted Marcie’s thoughts about how some girls never stopped being tomboys.

  Marcie shrugged defensively. ‘Not really. What makes you think that?’

  Suzy jerked her chin at Johnnie. He was standing watching her. Their eyes met. She sucked in her breath. What now? Give him the card? Toss her head and leave?

  And then he smiled.

  ‘Better go and wish him happy birthday,’ she murmured.

  ‘If you like,’ said Suzy looking more than a little puzzled.

  Marcie tossed one side of her mane of blonde hair back over her shoulder. There was no need to be nervous, she told herself. You look good despite the old dress.

  She flashed Johnnie a pink-lipped smile and fished the birthday card out of her bag.

  ‘Happy birthday, Johnnie.’

  He looked bemused when she gave him the card and even more so once he’d taken it from its envelope. It had a picture of a motorcycle on it plus a pair of crossed fishing rods. She didn’t know whether he was into fishing or not, but it was the only card she’d managed to find sporting a motorcycle.

  ‘A birthday card.’

  ‘I didn’t buy you a present, but perhaps this will be enough.’ She cupped his face with both hands and kissed him. The contact went on longer and deeper than she’d intended. Deep down she didn’t want it to stop, but her pride wouldn’t let her carry on. She mustn’t appear too keen. A boy like Johnnie would take advantage – just like Pete had taken advantage of Rita.

  ‘Well,’ he said somewhat breathlessly. ‘That was nice.’

  Yes it was, but play it casual she told herself.

  ‘I’m glad you think so, but don’t think there’s anything more than a kiss coming to you. I’ve only made this exception ’cos it’s your birthday.’

  The blue eyes blinked in an amused manner. ‘It’s not my birthday.’

  Marcie was taken aback. ‘Oh! Did I get it wrong? Rita said it was and so did your mate Pete.’

  At the mention of Pete he burst into laughter. ‘Take no notice of him. He was just pulling yer leg – that’s all. Stupid sod!’

  She wasn’t sure whether the stupid sod bit was aimed at her or Pete. She certainly felt stupid. And disappointed. And angry.

  ‘If that was his idea of a joke …’ she said huffily and took a backwards step. ‘Hey,’ said Johnnie, reaching for her with both hands.

  This whole evening was not turning out as well as she would have liked. First there was her dad not allowing her to wear her new mini dress, now there was Rita and Pete making fun of her.

  ‘I’ll kill that bloody cow,’ she muttered, already turning on her heel.

  ‘Don’t take it so seriously,’ said Johnnie. ‘It was just a joke.’

  Marcie’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘The joke being that I was supposed to give you something special for your birthday, a lot more than a kiss, in fact. No prizes for guessing what THAT was!’

  Livid and smarting, she turned her back on him and prepared to march off. She was disappointed and what’s more she felt a bloody fool! Well Rita bloody Taylor was going to get a piece of her mind!

  ‘Hey!’

  She knew he was behind her, following her down the stairs. Although she was hurrying she spared the time to glance at where the couple had been making whoopee under the stairs. They were still there. The girl was patting her hair and making sure her skirt was down where it should be. The boy had his back to her. She heard the sound of a large zip. He was zipping up his jacket.

  All over, she thought! Just like her and Johnnie, though in their case it was all over before it had even started.

  The crowd in the public bar was spilling out into the corridor. She squeezed through. Someone stepped on the strap of her shoe and pulled it off. She did a rushed hobble to the door and out into the night.

  There was a lot of shouting as a new surge of drunks fell out of the public bar behind her. Johnnie was bound to get caught up in that.

  Once outside Marcie bent down to adjust her shoe strap. It was still early. Alan Taylor would be picking her and Rita up at eleven thirty. She didn’t want to wait that long; neither did she want to go home early.

  She weighed up the alternative. The prospect of going for a drink by herself didn’t appeal. The alternative was quickly dismissed, leaving her with nothing else to do but to head for the bus stop and home.

  Purple clouds streaked with salmon pink hung low in the sky. The smell of late summer – fish and chips, candy floss, hamburgers and the sea – hung in the air.

  Johnnie made a grab for her. His fingers brushed her arm as she jerked away.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to leave you alone. If I’d wanted to leave you alone I wouldn’t have come back to that bus stop the other week.’

  ‘I managed.’

  ‘So I noticed. Well, there you are,’ he said, his tone turning surly. ‘A bloke with a Triumph Bonneville don’t hold a candle to a Jag when it comes to picking up girls.’

  She read the look on his face.

  ‘I was not picked up. It was Rita’s dad.’

  He looked surprised at that.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘This party was just a general thing we’ve been having for three years now.’

  Her silence and arms stiffly folded across her chest was enough of an answer.

  ‘Pete can’t resist a joke. Sorry about that.’

  Marcie turned and walked slowly away before stopping and pretending to study the skyline – not that Leysdown had that special a skyline – low-rise buildings that never failed to look vulnerable against the dark water lapping at the beach.

  Ice-cream banners flapped in the sea breeze; paper bags rustled in wire bins advertising Lyons Dairy Maid.

  ‘How about going swimming tomorrow?’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve brought my trunks with me. You up for it?’

  She thought about tossing her head and telling him to go and take a running jump. Instead she tapped her finger against her lips as though she were thinking it over. The taste of him still tingled on her lips.

  She eyed him from beneath her deep blonde fringe. He looked as though he was holding his breath in case she declined his invitation. She didn’t.

  ‘Yeah. OK.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up from your place.’

  She detected the frisson of excitement in his voice.

  ‘You don’t know where I live.’

  ‘If you let me take you home tonight I’ll know then. Right?’

  It was in her mind to tell him to get lost, but she liked the way he looked at her. There was respect in his manner.

  ‘I’ll have to tell Rita that I won’t be coming home with her. Her dad was going to collect us. In the Jag.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What do you mean? OK.’

  He shrugged. ‘What I said. I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I’ll have to tell Rita.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  Rita was annoyed when she told her. ‘What about my alibi?’

/>   ‘I thought you said your dad didn’t care what you did.’

  Rita chose not to comment on that particular statement. ‘Oh Christ! I’ll phone him. I’ll tell him I’m staying with one of the girls. You’ll back me up, right Patsy?’

  The tall thin girl with long ratty hair and a sallow complexion said that she would. ‘It’ll cost you a pint.’

  ‘Done!’

  Rita turned her back on her and shook hands with Patsy.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Rita wasn’t listening. Marcie knew when she’d been given the brush off.

  ‘She’s not happy,’ Marcie told Johnnie when she got back to him.

  ‘Because I’m taking you home.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Because she needed an alibi.’

  Johnnie put his arm around her and whistled through his teeth. ‘Your mate Rita likes to live dangerously.’

  ‘Is Pete dangerous?’ she asked.

  She didn’t really care. Johnnie’s closeness would make her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth if she didn’t say something.

  ‘In a way. Never mind them. Don’t know about you, girl, but I’ve had enough of this party. How about me and you take a walk along the beach?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes.’

  Close and warm they strolled off beyond the beach huts. Tiny lights from hundreds of caravans herded into coastal sites twinkled like fireflies.

  ‘Hang on.’

  Johnnie unzipped his motorcycle boots and socks. He also took off his jacket. ‘Too warm and too heavy,’ he added. He was forced to carry both. The jacket he slung over his shoulder; the boots he carried beneath his arm. He shoved his thick socks into his boots.

  Marcie slid her feet out of her shoes. They fitted inside her shoulder bag.

  The clouds had fallen like a wad of rolled-up bedding onto the horizon. The stars had come out. The evening that had not started so well now turned magical as they walked and talked their way in one direction along the beach, then changed direction and headed back again. The sand was damp beneath their bare feet.

  ‘Am I forgiven?’ he asked her.

  ‘For leaving me at the bus stop?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s nothing else to forgive me for is there?’

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘I can’t think of anything.’

  ‘Great. We can kiss and make up.’

  ‘Can we?’

  Her voice trembled with laughter.

  They turned to face each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  His voice was soft.

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  He took hold of her hand. They began to walk.

  Her hand was warmed by his. Her toes were cooled by the wet sand.

  ‘I liked the card by the way.’

  ‘Even the fishing rods?’

  He laughed. ‘I’ve tried fishing. I’m not very good though. You’d starve if you had to depend on me for a fish supper, I can tell you.’

  ‘Chips only?’

  He laughed, a big, throaty, infectious sound that got her laughing too.

  Time flew. They talked of their families. Marcie told him that her father had been abroad working and had only just come home.

  ‘It was all to do with the Navy,’ she said.

  Thankfully, he believed her.

  ‘My dad’s away at times too. That’s nothing to do with the Navy.’ He looked away. She fancied he was unwilling to tell her what his father did and she wondered if he too had done something to be ashamed of.

  Now the ice was totally broken, it seemed only natural that they should kiss and hug a lot more. By the time they’d put their footwear back on kissing and hugging had become something they just had to do.

  Johnnie had left his bike in the pub car park. A church clock struck eleven. She’d be home by eleven thirty as agreed with her father. She told herself that it didn’t matter that Johnnie would be taking her home and not Alan Taylor. It would be alright; she had to believe that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was gone ten o’clock and Rita had been drinking heavily when she finally got round to calling her father. She told him that she was staying with Patsy, another friend.

  ‘Marcie’s got a lift home so there’s no need for you to pick her up. Marcie can be a right little tart when she wants to be,’ she added with a slurred laugh.

  ‘Sure, sweetheart. That’s fine. As long as you’re OK,’ said her father. Alan Taylor put the ivory coloured phone back in its cradle.

  He didn’t believe a word of it, of course. He loved his daughter but she could be a right little baggage at times. She knew what she wanted and went after it no matter what anybody else might think. A bit like himself really.

  However, that wasn’t what had set his teeth on edge. He’d been counting on Rita making up a different excuse for staying late at the party. It would have been a lie, but he didn’t care. He would have had Marcie to himself. But maybe Rita was already lying about Marcie having a lift home. Sometimes it was hard to tell with his daughter. It depended whether it suited her to lie.

  Stephanie was thumbing through a magazine. A glass of gin and tonic plus a lit cigarette sat on the coffee table in front of her. ‘Is your little princess staying out again?’

  She said it in a desultory, lazy manner while continuing to study the stick-like fashion models. One was called ‘The Shrimp’. Another ‘Twiggy’. In Alan’s opinion they both had as much charisma as a wire coat hanger. Too skinny by far.

  He swigged back his own drink. At the same time his eyes strayed to his car keys.

  ‘She’s staying over with a friend. Somebody called Lynette.’

  He’d already forgotten what the friend’s name was. It didn’t matter.

  Stephanie picked up her glass of gin and eyed him over the top of it. ‘Do you know this girl?’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  He congratulated himself on making it sound as though Rita really did have a friend named Lynette. The truth was he didn’t have a clue who Rita’s mates were – except for Marcie. Marcie was not the sort of girl you could easily forget. She was like her mother – just as irresistible. Even now all these years later he still thought of Mary. Shame she’d never agreed to play ball, but there you are. But with Marcie it seemed he was getting a second chance.

  ‘Where’s this Lynette from?’

  The cock and bull story was ready and waiting. ‘Convent educated, but hey, you can’t hold that against her.’ Alan laughed at his own joke. Stephanie was unmoved.

  ‘Her old man’s a big noise up in Battersea. Owns a big Ford dealership and another forecourt a few miles away dealing in second-hand motors. Well wedged up, he is. I could be doing a bit of business there.’

  Stephanie had the face of a china doll – cold, shiny and devoid of any expression except one: aloofness. Stephanie made a hobby of being aloof.

  ‘She’s your problem. That girl takes no notice of me at all. Cocky little cow.’

  Stephanie’s voice was as deadpan as her face.

  ‘You’re the one she worships, so you’re the one responsible for her. And if ever she brings trouble to our door then it’s your fault.’

  Alan looked at his watch. He didn’t want to argue with Stephanie. Things between them were fragile, but he wasn’t ready to tell her to clear off just yet.

  ‘I promised to have a pint with Tony.’

  ‘Please yourself. As long as I don’t have to mix with him and that blowsy wife of his.’

  Alan narrowed his eyes. Stephanie never had a hair out of place and was always immaculately dressed. She sometimes forgot that it was thanks to the likes of his graft and employing blokes like Tony that she could have the things she had.

  He didn’t tell her that he’d already been for a drink with Tony. Living with Steph was claustrophobic at the best of times. She was hardly the only woman in his life, but she kept a nice home and knew how to dress. She looked the part at the legit side of his business and for social eve
nts where local bigwigs attended.

  ‘See you later,’ he said after collecting his keys from the onyx-topped table in the hallway.

  He wasn’t sure whether she responded and didn’t care. Their golden years were long over.

  The inside of the Jag always smelled of leather. The seats were tan coloured. Walnut veneer lined the dash and parts of the door. There was a lot of chrome both inside and out. Alan loved his car. No matter what other car he ever owned in his life, he would always love this one more than any other.

  ‘Better than a woman,’ he said to anyone who would listen.

  He’d always prided himself on having a feel for cars, one of the reasons he’d started dealing in them from an early age. Things had progressed from there of course; nowadays he had his fingers in other more lucrative pies. But the old respect for a good motor was still there. He normally made it a rule never to gun the engine from cold, but tonight he broke that rule.

  Slamming his foot to the floor he hightailed it along the road from the upmarket bungalows of Leys-down to Blue Town and Endeavour Terrace.

  There was a light on in a bedroom window when he got there. Rather than rushing in he turned off the engine and sat thinking about the best course of action.

  The first option was to go banging on the door and pretend that he’d gone to pick Marcie up but she wasn’t around. That should get old Tony worried.

  He gritted his teeth at the prospect that the lad on the motorbike was venturing where he wanted to go. So far as he could tell, little Marcie was virgin territory, territory he’d earmarked for himself.

  An idea came to him. How about dropping him in the proverbial?

  Alan Taylor was good at getting what he wanted without people suspecting what he was up to. Owning a nightclub in London had led to dealing with some of the hardest criminals in the East End. The secret was to appear that you were doing them a big favour when in fact you were only taking care of number one. Oh yes, he was good at that.

  ‘Here goes, my darling,’ he said as he swung his legs out of the car.

  Tony answered the door, looking as though he’d been sleeping in a chair. Waiting up for his daughter?