Wishing and Hoping

by Mia Dolan

  Paddy’s face had turned bright red. His eyes were like ping-pong balls on which someone had crayoned in a pair of staring pupils.

  Hampson-Smythe regarded him fearfully. He’d seen his client explode before, sending a chair crashing through a window. Rafferty was always the smouldering volcano waiting to erupt, beating up on anyone within hitting distance even if they were in no way responsible for his ire. He was almost tempted to sigh with relief when nothing immediately happened. His relief was short-lived.

  ‘Bastard!’ bellowed Rafferty.

  Poor Timothy Hampson-Smythe found himself lifted into the air. His feet left the ground and he was flying straight from Paddy Rafferty’s hands and up into the air.

  The ledge running around the pool was narrow. The pool was fairly large. Hampson-Smythe, complete with his trusty briefcase, made a big splash.

  While Baxter found the net they used to clean debris from the water to scoop him out, Paddy Rafferty went back to pacing the pool from one end to the other. With each pace he pondered on how best to pay Michael Jones back for his insults – and his refusal to enter a partnership.

  He focused on the fact that Michael had chosen to have his wife as his business partner. What a crap idea that was! No woman could cope with that type of business. It was a man’s world. He certainly wouldn’t have his wife as a business partner – even a sleeping partner. Millicent wouldn’t have a bloody clue. Bed and kitchen and shopping: that was all wives were fit for plus wheeling out when in respectable and legit company. But this! How smug could a man get? They were close! Fucking close!

  Men like him didn’t take insults lying down. Getting even niggled in his mind. What could he do to get back at Michael Jones and his perfect marriage? And was it perfect? Was it really perfect?

  He stopped in his pacing as a wicked thought came to him. So Michael presumed his marriage was strong enough for business. His wife trusted him to be out night after night taking care of things. What if he sowed doubt in her mind? They were obviously close, but what if events could be orchestrated so that a few cracks might appear?

  Smiling to himself, he shouted at Baxter to fetch him another whiskey. Leaving Hampson-Smythe dripping like a piece of garbage on the edge of the pool, Baxter went to the corner bar to pour his boss another Bushmills.

  Paddy was feeling pleased with himself. Sorting Jones out might still not get him a partnership – though it might. On the other hand it would give him great satisfaction to pay back the little upstart for being so outspoken and for preferring his wife as a partner. Well, the pair of them wouldn’t be so close by the time Paddy Rafferty had finished with them. Too bloody right they wouldn’t! In fact, he thought, if he had a mind to, he’d separate them for good. Now how bloody clever was that?

  Chapter Seven

  BARRY MASTERS – STAGE name Latoya La Monde – was being fitted for a sparkling backless number. Pink ostrich feathers floated out around his ankles fishtail style and he was preening himself in front of the full-length mirror.

  ‘You look a hoot!’ remarked Sally.

  ‘I look good! Soooo gooood!’

  Barry had a voice like a foghorn. On stage he wore a blonde wig and did a Marlene Dietrich kind of act. Today he’d left the wig at home and he looked strange standing there in a pink dress, his bald head catching the light and rivalling the sequins for brightness.

  Barry was a regular customer, possibly the busiest drag queen in London nightclubs, though he kept a low profile outside the profession. It didn’t do to betray any kind of inclination to dress in women’s clothes, the cops and the ‘queer laws’ being what they were.

  Besides making this dress, Marcie had copied the original Blue Angel outfit Dietrich had worn when she’d sang ‘Falling in Love Again’. It had to be admitted that Barry certainly had the voice for it. He had the figure too – slinky and slim from the bosom down with a square shoulderline up top, just like Dietrich.

  Marcie was on her hands and knees with Renee, her seamstress, pinning the feathers in such a way as to hide Barry’s rather large feet. Most drag queens and transvestites had to have their shoes made for them. Shoes made for women might, if he was lucky, just about go up to his size but were usually a killer on width.

  ‘So how’s your love life, Barry?’ asked Sally, who did a bit around the place during the day, which mostly consisted of making the tea and looking after the kids when Marcie was busy.

  ‘You know how it is in our game, sweetie,’ he replied in a smooth voice. ‘We work unsociable hours so loving consists of snatched moments between shows and taking in the milk bottles.’

  Both Marcie and Sally made sympathetic noises; they both knew that the hard-working nightclub turns usually got home at the same time as the milkman was trundling around in his electric milk float. When they got home they picked up the freshly delivered milk and went to bed.

  Due to the nature of the items made in the sewing room, there was no shop window display and prospective clients made an appointment to come along and discuss their requirements. Marcie’s clients appreciated how discreet everything was.

  Each costume she made was a one-off. The only time she made more than one of any outfit was for the Taylor Twins – two fat women who were something of a legend on the burlesque circuit – and the odd chorus line, which didn’t happen that much anyway. Most of the girls – or would-be girls – were solo artistes.

  A sudden loud knocking at the door took them by surprise. It was Sally who went to answer it. She came back looking worried.

  She addressed Marcie. ‘There’s someone to see you. I’ve put them in your office.’

  Marcie frowned. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’

  Sally said nothing, but Marcie could see by the pallor of her face that something had unnerved her.

  Her first concern was for her husband. ‘Oh no. It’s not Michael is it? He is all right?’

  ‘Is it the landlord? P’rhaps she’s got behind with the rent,’ quipped Barry once Marcie had left the room.

  Sally looked at him askance then blurted, ‘Of course it’s not the landlord. The rent’s been paid and all’s in order, you silly sod. Would you be standing here in the altogether if she hadn’t?’

  He gave a so-so shake of his head as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind. ‘You just looked shocked,’ he added.

  ‘Hmm,’ she muttered and began helping Barry out of his outfit.

  The truth was she was poleaxed by the woman she’d shown into the office. She knew her name, knew she used to work for the Camilleris and more recently for Michael at the Blue Genie.

  She’d thought about asking the woman – Linda, if she remembered rightly – what it was all about, but had known by the look on her face that questions would not be welcome.

  After placing the ostrich-feather outfit to one side, she looked the drag queen up and down. ‘Barry, you need new underwear.’

  Barry looked down at the salmon-pink corset he was wearing. ‘I know it’s a bit old-fashioned, but it was all I could get to fit.’

  ‘It looks like it once belonged to a horse.’

  Barry looked hurt. ‘It was my mother’s.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Sally. ‘My mind’s elsewhere.’

  The office was small. It contained a wooden filing cabinet of pre-war vintage, where Marcie kept all the paperwork and records she needed to run her business, and a desk on which sat a telephone and a rubber plant streaking upwards from a red plastic pot. There was a swivel chair behind the desk and a hard chair in the little space that was left. Tan-coloured carpet tiles covered the floor. The office had just one window overlooking the street above the shop selling darts and snooker trophies to local pubs and sports associations.

  The face of the woman waiting there was very white. She was sitting in the hard chair, staring out of the window, though she didn’t really seem to be seeing the buses, the cabs and the few remaining costermongers pushing their barrows away from their pitches on the other side of the road. The
latter didn’t linger much beyond three o’clock. Whatever they were going to sell that day had already been sold.

  It was purely premonition, that sickly butterfly feeling that makes you think that something bad is about to happen. That’s what Marcie was experiencing now, though in actual fact she had no real reason to feel that way. She didn’t know this woman. She didn’t know what she wanted.

  Marcie took a deep breath and told herself to be calm. There was nothing to fear. Nevertheless, her heart hammered in her chest.

  Marcie adopted an aura of calm and told herself not to be stupid. She greeted the woman and then asked, ‘Would you like a coffee? A cup of tea perhaps?’

  The woman shook her tawny bob. Her eyes were green. Her nose was pert and her lips glimmered with pink pearlised lipstick.

  Marcie sat down and smiled across the desk at the woman who’d introduced herself as Linda Bell.

  ‘I used to work for your husband,’ she began, her eyes downcast, her fingers smoothing at the hem of her coat which really did not need smoothing at all.

  Lashes heavy with black mascara fluttered as furiously as the butterflies in Marcie’s stomach.

  ‘You worked at the Blue Genie?’

  The woman nodded. At the same time she crossed one long leg over the other. Her tights were of a common colour – American Tan – probably by Pretty Polly.

  ‘I only recently became a dancer . . .’

  Although she could feel her stomach muscles tightening with nerves, Marcie nodded. ‘I see.’ Even to her own ears she sounded calm. ‘So you were an exotic dancer,’ she prompted, though striptease artiste would have been nearer the mark.

  Linda Bell certainly had the legs for it. And the face. Everything come to that.

  ‘I’ve been a hostess as well, but I really wanted to dance. Michael gave me my first break.’

  ‘That was the first time you stripped?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Linda’s glossy bob nodded with her head. ‘I was very grateful to him for giving me the break. Nobody else would. But there, that’s Michael for you – a lovely man. All the girls adore him.’

  It felt to Marcie that her stomach muscles were in danger of cleaving to her spine. This girl was going to tell her something she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Get to the point.’

  The lashes fluttered again. There was the downwards look, the nervous intermingling of fingers.

  ‘We were always good friends. I never thought it would be anything more than that – though I hoped,’ she said, her green eyes flashing up to face Marcie before they lowered again.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  A voice screamed in Marcie’s head. You don’t need her to say anything because you know what she’s going to say!

  When Linda Bell took a deep breath her breasts pushed against her coat so that the buttons strained and one came undone.

  Marcie couldn’t take her eyes off that button, probably because she didn’t want to look the woman in the eyes; she did not want to see the woman’s face as she recounted the terrible news.

  ‘Michael and I . . . well . . . we had a one-night stand. We never meant it to happen. Please believe that. But it did.’ She shrugged her shoulders. As she did so another button came undone. Marcie’s attention dropped to that one in preference to the other – for no reason other than she wanted to claw the woman’s eyes out.

  In order to stop herself doing that, she stood up and crossed to the window, turning her back on the room.

  The traffic on the street outside seemed to roll silently past. If there was any noise she wasn’t really noticing it. She wasn’t really seeing the traffic at all.

  She was aware of Linda shifting in her chair, which creaked as she changed position.

  ‘I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I just thought you should know.’ She sounded breathless, like an excited child, and certainly not as though she was sorry for what she had done.

  She had had a one-night stand with Michael.

  ‘I see,’ said Marcie, her voice as icy as the rest of her body. ‘I take it you mean sex when you say it was a one-night stand. You had sex with my husband.’

  She turned round to face the woman. She had a knowing, forthright look. Such a look probably suited a nightclub hostess, which this woman claimed to be. She’d been employed at one of the nightclubs owned by the Camilleris. The hostesses had a reputation for being pretty free and easy with their favours. But she’d wanted to be an exotic dancer and Michael, her kind-hearted husband, had given her the chance. Now how kind was that?

  ‘So what do you want me to do about it? What are you here for?’

  The slightly raised voice took Linda Bell by surprise. Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘As a mother I thought you should know that I’m pregnant.’

  The chill intensified. Marcie felt as though the whole room had turned cold and that her body had turned to ice.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I can assure you it’s true!’

  ‘No.’

  Nothing, nothing on earth could have knocked the wind out of Marcie more so than this. All the same, she was wary. Women could lie for money. That was their job, stroking the egos of middle-aged men so that they would throw caution to the wind and spend more. Lies were their stock-in-trade.

  ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’

  When the girl pouted Marcie was reminded of her stepmother. Despite the difference in colouring, this girl – Linda Bell – had the same brazen attraction that Babs had once had. Given half a chance, men were all over her.

  But this woman was here for a reason, a reason that could tear her apart if she didn’t keep her cool and so far she was keeping cool.

  ‘You could ask him,’ said Linda. ‘I’d go round there myself but he’d only show me the door. He gave me a few quid and told me he didn’t want to know.’

  ‘So why are you telling me?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘I thought I should do the right thing.’

  More like you wanted some kind of revenge, Marcie thought to herself, if what you’re saying is true.

  Marcie folded her arms and turned back to the scene in the street outside. Narrowing her eyes, she forced herself to analyse what she was feeling and her impression of this woman. On the one hand, she was feeling gutted. On the other, she couldn’t believe that Michael had been unfaithful. He was different from other blokes she’d met. It was Michael who had saved her from Roberto Camilleri. Roberto was in Pentonville at present on a charge of actual bodily harm. It’s what he’d got for being heavy-handed with some of the tenants of the crumbling buildings his father owned.

  So how was she going to deal with this?

  Follow your instincts.

  She spun round. ‘Right!’

  The woman jumped.

  Marcie picked up her handbag. ‘Right. I think a taxi cab is in order.’

  She called out to Sally that she was going out and for her to look after the kids while she was gone.

  If she’d jumped before, Linda Bell looked quite startled now. ‘Where are we going?’

  Marcie grabbed her by the arm. ‘To see my old man. Let’s see what he’s got to say about it shall we?’

  ‘With you?’

  Linda Bell looked astounded that a wronged wife should wish to accompany her on such a mission. After all, this was all about wrecking a marriage wasn’t it?

  ‘I’ve got an appointment elsewhere,’ said Linda who, if she was pregnant, certainly didn’t have a bump just yet.

  Marcie made the decision to treat this whole thing with contempt. She couldn’t believe Michael was cheating on her. This woman was just an employee who’d been sacked and was now out to make trouble. Yes! That’s it, she told herself.

  Consumed with rage, she grabbed the woman’s arm and flung her towards the door. ‘Get out of here. There’s nothing for you here. Get out of here now and don’t ever darken my
door again.’

  The woman kind of hung there on the edge of the half-open door trying to catch her breath. ‘You’ll be sorry,’ she growled raising her finger and pointing it like a gun at the spot between Marcie’s eyes. ‘I didn’t come here for money. I only thought I was doing the right thing.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Marcie slammed the door. For what seemed like an age but could only have been a minute, she stared at it.

  It was a while before she fully came to and got her thoughts into some kind of order.

  Her first instinct was to phone Michael and call him all the names under the sun. Her second was to play it cool in an effort to preserve her marriage. Their marriage was strong and they were happy. Best to forget that Linda Bell existed rather than rock the boat. Best to pretend that nothing had happened – just in case it had.

  Chapter Eight

  LINDA BELL HAD never run so fast from a place in her life. The last thing she’d wanted was to have to face Michael Jones in the presence of his wife. One at a time she could cope with, but not both together.

  She asked herself why the hell had she let herself get talked into this? The answer was swift in coming: money. Wasn’t money the source of all evils? Bugger that! Money bought her all the things she wanted. New shoes. New clothes. And drugs.

  She didn’t stop running until she found a telephone box, which she nipped into and immediately dialled Paddy’s office number.

  ‘Paddy? It’s me.’

  Gasping for breath, she outlined to him what had happened.

  ‘I did what you told me and sowed the seeds of suspicion to his old lady,’ she said, ‘but then the silly bitch wanted to take me along to face Michael. I don’t mind stirring things up with one of them, but I don’t know that I can carry it off with both of them there – especially if she started crying or something. That would be worse than them arguing in my book. So I thought I’d better tell you. Did I do well, Paddy? Did I?’

  On the other end of the phone Paddy Rafferty was close to blowing a fuse. Linda Bell was a good-looking bird but a bit lacking in the brains department. Besides having a drug problem, she fancied herself as a bit of an actress, which was why he’d offered her this part in the first place – with a prize at the end of it, of course. He’d told her that he knew a television producer who was looking for someone to replace one of the lead stars in Coronation Street. The truth was that the only bloke in television he knew was the bloke who’d come to plug in his new colour television set. But Linda was gullible and hungry for fame. On a day-to-day basis she was always hungry for drugs. He’d promised her an instant supply from some black geezer he knew down in Bermondsey.