He turned away, faced the wall. ‘I have a brother, you know, younger than me . . .’
‘What about him?’
‘Well, I have to succeed for both of us, you see. I owe him . . . I owe him.’
She could barely hear him, and moved a little closer. His fists were clenched as he fought his emotion and she saw his face twist with anger. ‘Why am I telling you this, why?’ Neither spoke for long moments until he whispered, ‘I owe him his freedom.’ The word ‘freedom’ hammered inside his head and he struck out at the wall, his back to her. His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘That was my father’s name – Freedom – he was a Romany gypsy, a gyppo . . . You see what I mean, you don’t know me.’
‘I think it’s a beautiful name . . . Freedom.’
Hearing her say it with such gentleness calmed him, but he still wouldn’t turn and face her.
‘He always loved my brother best. He bought him a dog once, I remember. I wanted a dog so badly, but I pretended not to like it. One night, one night, Harry, we had this argument . . . You wouldn’t understand, you couldn’t, I’m a liar and a cheat, I’m cheap . . . I come from the slums, Harry, real poor, you know? But I won this scholarship and . . . and . . .’
She remained standing, not moving closer, just standing there. He could feel her behind him. He pressed his head against the brick wall and the tears streamed down his face.
He turned to her, lifting his hands in a helpless gesture. Her huge eyes looked deep into his. She was so different from all the women he had known – it was a direct gaze, innocent, and she wasn’t frightened by what he had told her. It was a terrible puzzle to her – his disconnected words showed his anguish and torment. She didn’t even lift her arms when he cupped her face in his hands. He kissed her gently, chastely, on her wonderful mouth, so soft and warm. A loving kiss. She loved him and he knew that he loved her. He held her face until his fingers marked her cheeks.
But Harriet was a child.
He turned on his heel and walked out. She stood staring after him. It was the most decent thing he had ever done in his life.
Dora had been in tears all day. Johnny Mask had been picked up for black marketeering. Not only that – when he was arrested they discovered that he had also skipped conscription. He chose to go into the army rather than jail, and so arrived at his tasteless apartment with his head shorn and wearing a corporal’s uniform.
He was philosophical about it all, reckoning that the war wouldn’t last all that long, and by the time they’d got him trained he would be back at the club. Dora wept buckets, she could see him opening fire on rows of Germans and being shot to pieces.
‘Darlin’, listen to me, I’ll be confined to bleedin’ barracks for three months before they can even ship me over. What you howlin’ for? I keep on tellin’ you I’ll be all right, for Chrissake . . . Dora, will you shut it!’
She gulped and mopped her tear-stained face. With Johnny gone, who was going to run the club? Who was going to look after her? She started up again, her face puckering, and he threw his arms up and threatened to slap her around, he had work to do and she was part of it.
‘They got me on a load of gin, but I got a warehouse full of stuff scheduled to come in tomorrow night. Now I can’t trust any of those sons of bitches I got workin’ for me, so I need someone on the inside.’
Dora started to think, her little brain teetered around and she tossed a few names to Johnny, who shook his head.
‘Yer not wiv me, are yer, you stupid cow? Look, you know the club racket – you should do, you’ve been runnin’ it wiv me long enough, even get the girls in for me, so . . .’
Dora suddenly felt the tears departing. Sharp as a tack, she picked up on what he was saying. She wasn’t going to be ditched, far from it.
‘I’ll be able to get out on weekend leave, right? All you gotta do is run the place until I’m fancy free again. I can even start a racket going down the barracks so I’ll need you even more on the outside, workin’ for me.’
Dora gaped, then threw her arms around his neck, kissing him, and he had to shove her away. ‘We got no time for that stuff. First I’ll take you over the accounts, the orders, who you got to bung a few quid to on the side so we don’t get any aggro from the law . . . Dora! Siddown and fuckin’ pay attention! Gawd almighty . . . I must be outta me head.’
Dora sat, attentive, and Johnny opened the safe, taking out papers, and to her stunned amazement, rolls and rolls of banknotes.
‘An’ another fing, Dora, you handle this right an’ I might even make an honest woman of you, when I’m out, like . . . Don’t start howlin’ again!’
She was over the moon, he was going to marry her – she asked if he really meant it? He relented and sat her on his knee, saying she’d never let him down, all the years they’d been together she’d never let him down and he appreciated it. Of course he meant what he said – when he got out of the army he would marry her. ‘Here we go! It’s not real, it’s what they call a zircon, but no one would know it’s not the real fing. You like it? I got it off Harry the Jew over in Paddington, does it fit?’
The ring, three sizes too big, sparkled as Dora held out her hand. She was so happy she danced around the bed. ‘Johnny, I love it, I just love it, and it’s perfect . . . Hey, I’m engaged, I’m engaged!’
He tossed his head and grinned. He liked the way she was so tickled, but he was also making sure she would tell everyone she was his ‘intended’. There were reasons behind it – he reckoned that if the lads knew this woman who was running the place was not just a tart they might leave her alone.
Dora sat at the reproduction antique desk and began sorting through the papers – who had to be paid off, who to order the booze from, who to welcome into the club and who to warn off. He had two good men for the door and the bar, and an ‘inside man’, who would be the one she would signal to if a customer was giving trouble.
‘Fing is, Dora, we gotta keep up the nice class of our customers. We can clean up, officers, you know – elbow the likes of me, we don’t want the riff-raff in, keep it classy. That goes for the girls too, an’ make sure they’re clean, any with a dose get ’em out quick.’
He went to great lengths to show Dora the bookkeeping. One set for the government, one set for Mr Mask. She was to bank only the takings from book one, everything else went into the safe. They didn’t want to be copped for taxes and busted, they had to keep it legal and straight.
Dora ended up with so many instructions and lists of arrangements that had to be made over the next month that her head reeled.
‘Another fing, gel – now we’re an official couple you don’t lay the customers. It don’t look right, you’re the boss, an’ you gotta act like one, so you get respect, understand me? So you stick to ginger ale. I hear one word you get yourself legless and I’ll be out an’ you’ll be for it.’
They spent the night together, Johnny so eager to get Dora clued up that he was unable to get a hard-on. She giggled and said it didn’t matter, they would have lots of time for that when they were married.
‘Johnny, we gonna have kids like normal people?’
He flopped back, still desperate for an erection, and gave up.
‘Gawd ’elp us, we only got engaged an’ you’re arranging the bleedin’ nursery . . . Go an’ get the baby oil, will you, and shut up?’
Johnny left the following morning, handing out instructions as he went. He had to come back as he had forgotten to kiss Dora goodbye. She started getting tearful and he gave her one of his looks that was usually followed by a slap. She forced a brave smile.
‘Thatta girl, I’m dependin’ on yer, so don’t fuck it up, all right, darlin’?’
She had only a few moments of doubt and sadness at Johnny’s departure. Returning to the satin-covered bed, the open safe, she suddenly perked up and flopped back on to the bed, laughing.
‘It’s all mine! Bloody hell, Dora Harris, you’re rich.’
The train from Yorkshire grou
nd to a halt yet again, and Edward swore, went to the window and lowered the sash. ‘What’s the problem? What’s the delay?’
A guard, running down the track swinging his lantern, shouted something inaudible and kept on running. All the lights on the train went out, the signals, the station two miles up the track blacked out . . . The train remained stationary for about half an hour and was then shunted into a siding. The passengers heard the drone of planes overhead, but no bombs . . . the planes passed over and were gone. Looking up, they asked each other if they were ‘ours’ or ‘theirs’.
Miles away they saw the sky light up like bright red and yellow fireworks and they knew they were German planes. The train began a slow backward shunt and halted again. Crowds of soldiers began to board and filled the front carriages.
‘Got a light, mate?’ The soldier looked no older than Edward. He clocked the gold cigarette lighter and lit up a thin, hand-rolled cigarette. ‘Thanks . . . thanks, mate.’
The boy and four more soldiers were told by their commanding officer to get back up front. Their vacated seats were taken by officers who sat back, eyes closed. Edward put his glasses on and buried his head deeper in his jacket collar. It was the first time he had felt any form of guilt.
The young officers were all very well-spoken, their upper-crust voices loud. He listened to the conversation as one officer stared out of the window.
‘Rocket, I’d say.’
The other officer shook his head, said that the rocket sites were in Holland, too far away.
‘That was a rocket, I’ve seen them before.’
‘Wait, we’ll soon know if it was a rocket or not, only takes a few seconds . . .’
They were all silent, then suddenly they heard it, a huge explosion. They sat back again in their seats.
‘Told you it was a rocket, saw the flash.’
‘Our chaps are overrunning them now, don’t see many more coming. The Allied Forces are wiping them out, thank God.’
‘I knew it was a rocket, I knew it was one of those V2s. One landed near our chaps, centre of the road, smack on a junction . . . It was not long before ten-thirty and one pub had run out of beer so all the customers were moving on to a bar in McKenzie Road. Bloody place was jam-packed when the bloody thing came down. The bar-room floor collapsed, the poor fellahs were dropping through into the cellah, whole building came down around them . . . Foggy night, too, and a bloody one, we had to tunnel under the debris, poor bastards screaming . . . But every time we removed a part of the building the rest just crumbled on to those below. I still hear them, you know, still hear them screaming.’
The train began to move and Edward lurched in his seat, heard the soldiers in the front carriages give a cheer. The officers, all bomb-disposal experts, relaxed in their seats and slept for the rest of the journey. They were exhausted, their mouths open and snoring as the train made its slow, unsteady journey to Paddington Station. In the station buffet they heard a newscast of the latest report.
‘The Fourteenth Army is advancing through Burma, the Japanese in full retreat.’
The soldiers in the buffet let rip with a cheer, and stretched over the counter for mugs of tea and stale bread rolls. The newscaster ended his report with a rousing, ‘Let’s hope the longed-for end to these long years of war will soon be here.’
The soldiers raised their mugs of tea and cheered, and their officers barked orders for them to get themselves to platform three, they were on the move again.
Edward sipped his tea, watching the boys barging out of the doors towards the platforms. The woman behind the counter looked over the glass case. ‘Bastards hit the East End again last week, it wiped out my husband’s allotment, all his onions gone, not one left. Pulverized the whole onion bed and yer could smell it fer miles around. See, they was cookin’ in the fire, I dunno . . . Oh Gawd, ’ere they come, the Yanks are back.’
The buffet filled with American soldiers joking loudly with one another, and Edward walked out to wolf whistles and lewd remarks. He picked up a taxi, it was past eleven.
‘I can only take yer as far as Hyde Park Corner, guv, they got the road up round Marble Arch, crater in the road size of this station.’
They rattled through the blacked-out streets. The cab driver was an authority on German warfare, Hitler’s strategy. ‘I’m tellin’ ya, mate, he made a mistake. See, he was so close – Jersey, you know – they was that close, yes, fella in the cab yesterday hadda get out. See, if you don’t have actual documents sayin’ you was born in Jersey then you hadda get off the island, he’d left everything he’d worked for. But they occupied the bastard, an’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else, the Americans, if they hadn’t hit Pearl Harbor they wouldn’t have backed us up . . . Now then, with them behind us we’ll wipe those German buggers off the face of the earth . . . I’ve nothin’ against ’em, the Yanks, they may be shaftin’ all our girls, but my daughter’s got herself a lovely fella, he’s brought us the best corned beef I’ve ever tasted in me life, tins of the stuff. Works in the canteen, see . . .’
Edward was glad when the cab pulled over. He refused the offer of certain items that could be got for a good price, and of introductions to some good clubs, and by the time he’d paid the cab off he would have liked to throttle the driver.
Dora had spent a lot of Johnny’s money on clothes, but she told herself that that was what she should be doing, she had to look the part. She had a new platinum rinse, silvery-blonde, almost white, and her face had been made up in the beauty department at Harrods. Her eyebrows were plucked, and she wore the new, deep-red lipstick. Her hair was scooped into a roll on each side of her face, the back curled into a pageboy. The clustered pearl earrings and matching hair slides made her look very sophisticated in the little black dress with the padded shoulders. It was nipped in at the waist and tight over her little bum. She had put some sticking plaster around Johnny’s ring so it didn’t swivel around her finger, and she flashed the ring and her long, red nails. She was smoking Lucky Strikes from a gold cigarette case, and couldn’t keep her eyes off herself. She kept catching glimpses of herself in mirrors around the club and liked what she saw so much that she constantly tilted her head and touched her hair.
The club was full, and the girls were working hard at entertaining. Edward sat at the far corner table, watching Dora swanning around the club. She hadn’t seen him yet, and she disappeared through a small door marked ‘Private’.
‘You on your ownsome, darling? Would you like company? We can offer some lovely champagne, and there’s small snacks if you’re feeling peckish. You feeling peckish, lovey?’
He smiled at the pouting young girl and shook his head. He asked for a whisky and soda and said he was waiting for Dora.
‘Oh, Miss Harris. She know you’re here, does she?’ She stepped back, dropping the big come-on act as he looked at her.
‘I’ll wait for her, thank you.’
‘There’s a geezer sittin’ on his own, Miss Harris, says he’s waitin’ for you.’
Dora pursed her lips and picked up her small black handbag, took out a compact and flicked it open. ‘Phyllis, you do not call customers “geezers”. How many more times do I have to tell you that? Who is he and what’s his name? You ask what he wants and then you come to me an’ you say, “Miss Harris, there’s someone who wants to speak to you.” That clear, lovey? Now, which table is he at?’
Dora moved aside the small flap covering the peephole in the door and Phyllis peered over her shoulder, said he was the customer sitting at the back table in the alcove. Dora let the cover slip back into place and smiled to herself. ‘Bring the gentleman into my office, would you, and bring us a bottle of Dom Perignon, one of the real ones.’
‘Well, Eddie, this is a surprise. Sit down – thank you Phyllis, that’ll be all for now.’ Phyllis left the champagne in its ice-bucket and slipped out.
‘You want a drink, Eddie? It’s good stuff, none of the muck we serve out there . . . You look well, nice suit, how do
you think I look?’
He gave her a nod of approval, refused the drink, and noticed she didn’t touch it herself. She sipped from a long, thin glass of iced water, and crossed her perfect legs.
‘How’s your mother?’
Dora waved her hand vaguely, said her mother had snuffed it months ago, couldn’t even remember how long. ‘Pity, really, I’d like her to see me doing so well. I manage the place, you know? Well, more’n manage it – I run it, see. Johnny got enlisted, terrible shame. They picked him up for black marketeerin’ and then found out he was a draft-dodger. I worry about him because he’s in the bunkers and he suffers from claus . . . er, claus . . .’
Edward finished the word off for her, ‘. . . trophobia’. Dora nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s some kind of phobia, he don’t like enclosed places, ever since he was in the nick one time . . . Well, tell me about you.’
When she saw the gold cigarette case, the gold lighter, she gave him a quick once-over. He let the smoke drift out of his nostrils . . . He was still the best-looking man she had ever set eyes on. Trouble was, he knew it, he had that manner about him. ‘Very sure of yourself, aren’t you, Eddie?’
He laughed and suddenly he looked younger, and said he could say the same for her. He stood up, crossed over to her and held out his hand. ‘Let’s cut the crap and go to bed, I’m tired and I need a place for the night.’
She wanted to say no, wanted to say she wasn’t his for the taking, not any more, wanted to say she was engaged to be married, but she simply nodded her head. ‘Go out an’ get a cab to Johnny’s place, it’s same as last time – only difference is, it’s mine . . . I can’t be seen leaving with you, not now I’m runnin’ the place. Doesn’t look good. I’ll be with you in a few minutes, just sort out a few things. Here’s the keys, let yourself in.’
He caught the keys and walked out, closing the door behind him. Dora remained sitting for a few moments before she buzzed for Arnie Belling.
At first Arnie had not liked taking his orders from Dora, but Johnny had given him a twofold assignment. He was to act as bouncer inside the club, and he was to look out for her. He was paid extra for the latter. Only after Arnie had seen her spot a barman fiddling the till and observed the way she handled him did he begin to respect her. She had asked him simply to stand close, close enough so the barman would be aware of his presence. Then she had smiled sweetly, sat the man down and offered him a drink. The barman had relaxed, drinking, saying they were doing good business and that Johnny would be proud of her.
The Talisman Page 23