Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘There’s something I’ve got to say,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not your prayers, I hope, Angel.’

  Unable to face him, Angie turned over, only to see herself staring back from the huge dressing table mirror. Come on, Angie, tell him. Tell him now.

  ‘David,’ she began. ‘You remember what I said when you took me to the restaurant?’

  He frowned. Christ, what had she said? She wasn’t hinting she had a dose, was she? ‘You told me lots of things,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘About it being new to me, and me not knowing what I was supposed to be doing.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, this is sort of new as well.’

  ‘New?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve never …’

  A look of realization slowly spread over David’s face. ‘You mean you’ve never?’ His words came out in a mixture of disbelief, spluttering and amazement. ‘With anyone?’

  She nodded, embarrassed by her own innocence.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re on the Pill then?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  David twisted round and was on his feet and pulling on his trousers in a single, fluid movement. ‘Get dressed,’ he said firmly.

  She turned over and faced him, forgetting her embarrassment. ‘David, please. I didn’t mean to spoil everything. Don’t let’s go yet. It’s only early.’ She glanced desperately at her watch. ‘Five o’clock. That’s all. And I want to. I really want to.’

  He angled his head so that he was looking at her over his shoulder. ‘You’ve not spoiled anything, Angel. Nothing at all. You get yourself dressed and I’ll drop you round your nan’s.’

  Resigned to her own stupidity, Angie did as she was told.

  ‘I’m going to make an appointment for you to see a friend of mine. Get you sorted out.’ He winked. ‘And don’t you worry yourself. We can continue with this education of yours at our leisure.’

  And what leisure it was going to be. It was almost unbelievable. David could hardly keep the grin off his chops. He had found himself a real-life, genuine virgin.

  Just wait till he told Bobby.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing her one of the two cigarettes he had just lit from a single match. ‘Calm your nerves.’

  Angie took it from him and began to smoke. She didn’t like to mention that was something else she had never done before.

  David had just stepped inside one of his East End snooker clubs, off Shoreditch High Street, where he was meeting Bobby and Mad Albert Roper. The plan being that the three of them were going to collect a very large interest payment on a loan that Lukey Gold, a more than averagely stupid, mug punter had actually thought he could get away with not handing over.

  Despite it being almost twenty minutes since he had left Angel in Poplar, David was still grinning – she was a virgin! – but when he saw the expression on Bobby’s face, as he stood alone, by one of the tables, filling a thick, fisherman’s sock with billiard balls – a favoured weapon of his – thoughts of Angel couldn’t have been further from David’s mind.

  He stepped into the low pool of yellow light illuminating the green baize table and spoke to Bobby in a low, guarded voice. ‘What is it?’

  Bobby looked over his shoulder, making sure no one could hear. ‘Albert’s had a tug.’

  ‘Not already?’

  ‘Yeah. Whole crowd of coppers burst in on him. When he was doing the business with a brass.’

  ‘They what?’

  ‘There was murders apparently. Did him for a list of charges long as your arm. Not even one or two, just to hold him. Some of them went back years. Tried to collar him for the lot.’

  ‘Fuck me, Bob, he’s only just got out. Where they holding him?’

  ‘They ain’t. He was lucky. The bird he was with, that Christina—’

  ‘The old tom who works the pitch opposite the Canvas?’

  ‘That’s her.’

  David was taken aback. ‘Lucky? You sure?’

  ‘I know. She’s almost as potty as Albert. And pissed as a fart as usual. Can’t see how even Mad Albert could fancy—’

  ‘Yeah, all right, Bob. Get on with it.’

  ‘Well, she’s grabbed this box of matches and she’s only set light to the net curtains.’

  David couldn’t help himself. He started laughing. ‘She what?’

  ‘Truth. Then she threw a bottle of Scotch on it and the whole lot went up. Heavy curtains and all. Like bonfire night. Then they’ve fell down, on the bed like, and the eiderdown’s gone up. Bloody nuthouse by the sound of it. And while they’re all fannying around trying to put the flames out, Mad Albert’s gone and jumped out the window.’

  ‘But she’s … What? Two floors up?’

  ‘Three. But he was so pissed, he was sort-of relaxed. Landed with hardly a scratch, and had it away on his toes like a fucking greyhound.’

  ‘How about the tom?’

  ‘Down the nick.’

  ‘I’ll get hold of Marshall. He’ll sort her out. Where’s Albert now?’

  ‘He turned up at the Blue Moon. And, as luck would have it, I was over there checking the drink stocks.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I took him over my brother’s and he drove him down his caravan. In Suffolk it is. Right hole. So fucking quiet. But it’s safe. For now, anyway.’

  ‘You did well, Bob.’ David thought for a moment, then took the sock from Bobby’s hand and poured the billiard balls out on to the green baize. He picked one up and sent it spinning into the far pocket. ‘I’d better go and see Marshall right away. Sooner Christina’s out the better. Don’t know what Mad Albert might have said to her.’

  ‘You can trust Albert, Dave.’

  ‘Bob, he’s only been out a few weeks after eight years. And if Christina was pouring Scotch down both their throats, who knows what’s been said?’

  ‘See what you mean.’

  David jerked his head for Bobby to follow him. ‘Come on. Lukey Gold’s in luck tonight.’

  ‘You ain’t gonna let him get away with it, are you, Dave?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Bob.’

  ‘You want me to take someone else go over there with me?’

  ‘And have me missing out on all the fun? No. I’ll pay him a visit another night.’

  Chapter 10

  IT WAS MONDAY evening, and Jackie, with fat, plastic rollers bristling from her hair, was struggling along the street after Angie, who was sprinting towards the Murrays’ house.

  ‘Hang on, Ange,’ gasped Jackie, clinging to the privet hedge. ‘I’m getting a stitch. Your nan’s flat’s not on fire. She only wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Nan’d never phone me at yours unless it was urgent.’

  Tilly Murray was fretting, theatrically, on her doorstep. Incidents such as unusual telephone calls from grandmothers brought Tilly far closer to hysteria than any air-raid warnings of her girlhood had ever managed. Bombs were one thing, but family problems were quite another.

  ‘Angie, love,’ she wailed, ‘you’ve got to give your nan a ring. Quick. She’s so upset. Gawd knows what’s the matter.’

  Angie nodded her thanks and made straight for the phone on the black, wrought-iron stand just inside the front door.

  When she finally managed to get her fingers into the right numbers on the dial, she drummed impatiently until Sarah Pearson answered.

  ‘Nan, it’s me, Angie. What’s wrong? Are you ill?’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, love. I’m just being a silly old woman. I had to talk to someone, and I—’

  ‘Fifty-one is not old, Nan, and you are not being silly.’

  ‘I wondered if you fancied coming round tomorrow.’

  ‘Nan. Tell me. Please. What’s happened?’

  ‘I feel so useless, Ange. I don’t know where to turn. It’s Lily. She’s being chucked out.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Angie.

  ‘Lily Patterson.’

  ‘Lily Patterson?’

  �
��That’ll be Doris’s old pal,’ hissed Jackie’s mum, throwing her bit into the conversation.

  ‘We’ll be out the back,’ mouthed Jackie, ushering her mother into the kitchen.

  ‘Mrs Murray says she’s a friend of Doris’s,’ Angie said with a nod to her friend. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s terrible. Something to do with slum clearance.’

  ‘Nan, calm down, eh?’

  ‘They say they’re not doing up the terraces. Not like they did the Buildings. Instead of making them nice and letting people stay in them, some bloke’s bought them all up.’ Sarah started crying again.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s going to make all them little houses into flats. Right expensive they’re gonna be. No place for the likes of Lily. It’ll kill her if she has to move away, Ange. She’s got her life here. Her daughters round the corner. And her little job with Doris. And say I’m next? Say this bloke buys up the Buildings? Where would I go then? Who’d have me?’

  ‘Don’t cry, Nan. No one’s going to make you leave. I promise. I’ll come over tomorrow and see you. All right?’

  ‘You can’t miss work for me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll be over. I’m not sure when, but I’ll be there.’

  ‘Your poor nan.’ Tilly Murray, who had hovered in the kitchen doorway until she had heard Angie replace the receiver, was standing by the phone table, holding her face in despair. ‘And that poor Lily. She wouldn’t move to Dagenham when we all came, you know. Wouldn’t hear of it. Always said it’d kill her if she had to leave that house. Born there, she was.’

  ‘So Nan said.’

  ‘Stay and have a cup of coffee, love. You and Jackie go in the front room. I’ll bring it in to you. I’ll make it with nice hot milk and put in plenty of sugar for the shock.’

  Angie didn’t actually feel so much shocked as saddened. She had never heard her nan so upset before. She had always been strong. She blew out her cheeks and pushed open the front-room door.

  Jackie plonked down on the sofa next to Martin, who was watching a television programme that featured a man’s not very impressive efforts to make his voice come from out of a suitcase.

  ‘Your nan all right, Squirt?’ asked Martin pleasantly, twisting round so he could see her.

  ‘Yes thanks.’ Angie gripped the back of the sofa and stared, unseeing, at the black-and-white images flickering on the screen. ‘Just a bit worried about something, that’s all.’

  ‘Never mind all that, Angela Knight,’ bossed Jackie, without looking round. ‘You tell Martin what you told me on the way to work this morning.’

  ‘About what?’

  Jackie turned her head and opened her eyes wide in exasperation. ‘About what? About your job.’

  ‘He won’t be interested.’

  He twisted round to face her again. ‘I will.’

  ‘I’m thinking of giving in my notice.’

  ‘What? Got something better?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Tell him,’ demanded Jackie.

  ‘Someone I was talking to said I could do a lot better for myself than working in an office for slave wages.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Jackie to her brother, ‘she’s just got a rise and is earning very good money.’ Then she turned her attention back to Angie. ‘And tell him who that someone is who’s giving you all this good advice.’

  ‘Jackie. You promised.’

  Jackie shrugged and said nothing, knowing that, in almost mentioning David Fuller, she had very nearly gone too far. ‘You try and talk some sense into her, Martin,’ she said airily to her brother. ‘While I go and fetch the coffee. Mum’ll be fiddling about with biscuits on saucers for bloody hours if I leave it to her.’

  Once Jackie was safely out of the room, Martin patted the now empty seat beside him on the sofa. ‘Everything all right, Squirt? I won’t say anything to anyone.’

  Angie just shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. You know Jackie. Doesn’t like to think she’s not got me under her thumb any more.’

  ‘So long as you’re sure I can’t do anything.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  He touched her gently on the shoulder, and Angie felt the same flutter that could almost have had her giving away her virginity in a grotty bus shelter in Clacton.

  She closed her eyes, half-wanting Martin to pull her hard towards him, and half-repulsed at herself for being such a tart. She was already seeing David, for goodness’ sake, and was actually going with him tomorrow to see this ‘friend’ of his. So, how many blokes did she want?

  It wasn’t easy being this new, trendy person.

  ‘I’m glad you’re not in trouble,’ said Martin briskly, and patted her as if she were a puppy. ‘You’re like another little sister to me. Do you know that?’

  Angie’s eyes flicked open. Little sister? That wasn’t the right reaction.

  ‘Sorry I can’t stop and chat, Squirt. I’m meant to be meeting someone and I’ve not even had my bath yet. But if you need to talk about anything some other time …’

  Angie did her best to smile brightly. ‘Thanks, that’s kind. Enjoy yourself, won’t you? Have a good time.’

  He waggled his eyebrows to try and make her laugh. ‘I will. But, if not, I’ll be careful, eh?’

  Angie giggled dutifully, and Martin almost knocked into Jackie coming back into the room. She set down a tray of coffee and the inevitable biscuits on the low table in front of the sofa.

  ‘He’s off to meet some girl from college,’ said Jackie.

  Angie helped herself to a biscuit but made no attempt to eat it. ‘Is he?’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘You cared in that bus shelter.’

  ‘We were all drunk. And, anyway, I’ve got a boyfriend.’

  Jackie spooned sugar into her coffee. ‘Don’t you think he’s a bit old to be called a boyfriend, Ange? And you’ve only seen him a couple of times. That’s hardly a boyfriend, is it?’

  ‘Jealous?’

  Jackie dropped her teaspoon on to the tray with a metallic clatter. ‘Angie!’

  Angie stood up. ‘I’m not going in to work tomorrow.’

  ‘If you take another day off, you won’t have to worry about leaving, they’ll sack you.’

  ‘I can’t help that.’

  ‘Sit down, Angie. Please.’

  Angie did so. ‘I’ve got to go out somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just somewhere.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s private.’

  Angie’s words deflated Jackie as surely as a pin bursting a toy balloon. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Angie stood up again. ‘Look, I’d better get back home. I want an early night.’

  Jackie followed her to the front door. ‘Is it your nan’s you’re going to? I could go with you if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m not going there till later. I’ve got something to do first.’

  ‘Is it an interview?’ Jackie was scratching around for a clue. She was hurt.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You can tell me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘Why not? What sort of job is it?’

  ‘Look, Jack, I can’t tell you. Not now.’ Angie flicked a glance towards the kitchen where Tilly Murray was trilling away like a songbird as she cleared up. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ With that, she let herself out and shut the Murrays’ street door behind her.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Jackie to the door.

  ‘Talking to yourself?’ asked Martin, brushing past her on his way from the bathroom to the stairs.

  ‘I might as well be,’ said Jackie.

  ‘So, what was the big emergency?’ asked Vi, jiggling one crossed leg up and down on the other. ‘Lost her false teeth?’

  ‘Nan doesn’t need false teeth.’ Angie was standing in the doorway to the front room, looking at her moth
er’s make-up-clogged face and stained, fag-burned housecoat. ‘You’d know, if you ever went to see her.’

  Vi lit herself another cigarette after adding the remains of her last one to the pile of butts in the ashtray on the arm of her chair. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Because she’s your mum?’

  ‘And I’m yours, but you care far more for her than you’ve ever done for me.’

  ‘Don’t be selfish, Mum. She’s really upset.’

  ‘She’s a manipulative old cow is what she is. If only you could …’ Vi’s words trailed away as the Tom Jones record she had been playing on the radiogram came to an end. ‘Put that on again, Ange.’

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Bed? But it’s only nine o’clock. What am I meant to do for the rest of the evening?’

  ‘Phone one of your blokes to take you out. I’m sure one of them will oblige.’

  ‘You little—’

  ‘Save it, Mum.’

  ‘If that’s your attitude, I don’t know why you don’t just get out. Find somewhere else to live if I’m so terrible.’

  Angie shook her head at her mother’s childishness. ‘You know you don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t I? Try me. Go on. Leave.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mum.’ She closed the front-room door quietly behind her and went upstairs to bed.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ Angie said to herself, as she climbed between the sheets. ‘See you in the morning.’

  Detective Constable Jameson had parked his beaten-up, dull-grey Morris Minor opposite the staff entrance to the Canvas Club. Slumped as he was, low in his seat, he could get a clear view of the doorway without being seen.

  He’d come straight from work and it was way past midnight, but he wasn’t tired, he was too revved up to be bothered about sleep, too angry with his boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gerald Marshall. Boss or not, Jameson couldn’t believe the man’s cheek. How could he have the bare-faced front to tell him, not even wrapped in some sort of nicety, but straight out, that he was releasing that raddled old tart from custody, and that he should leave David Fuller and his businesses, and all his associates, alone. As a favour. Jameson would show him favour. He was compiling a private file on every part of that thug’s enterprise he could trace, and he didn’t care how long it took. And he was going to show up the corruption in that station if it was the last thing he did.