The Widow Ginger

by Pip Granger

  Betty called out to her retreating back, ‘Tell Paulette I’m sorry I missed her.’ Madame Zelda waved to show she’d heard, but didn’t turn.

  That left me. To be honest, I was choked, and finding the biscuits hard to swallow. I liked Betty. We’d been friends, and I was fed up to the back teeth with losing my friends. I liked things to stay pretty much the same and people to stay where they belonged, but nobody ever takes into account what kids want, or not often anyway. Kids were supposed to put up and shut up when it came to big decisions like coming or going, staying or leaving. I was also very cheesy about Betty upsetting poor Luigi the way she had. I was sulking, there was no doubt about it.

  ‘Well, Rosie dear, this is cheerio then.’ Betty’s voice sounded hearty but I couldn’t tell what she looked like because I’d turned my back on her. I didn’t answer. Auntie Maggie frowned and jerked her head at me but I ignored her too. Betty had another stab at it, louder this time. ‘I said that it’s time to say cheerio, Rosie.’

  Still I munched that dry digestive that wouldn’t get past the lump in my throat and kept my back to her. She could bugger off if she liked, but she couldn’t make me watch her go. I’d had just about enough of that.

  Auntie Maggie was sharp. She liked good manners, did my auntie Maggie, and anyway kids were not supposed to be rude to their elders; it was a rule. There weren’t that many rules in our house, compared with some, but children not being bad-mannered to grown-ups was one of them. I was breaking that rule and right under Auntie Maggie’s hooter too. I must’ve been feeling brave, or stupid, but the funny thing was I didn’t care.

  Now, my beloved auntie Maggie never hit me, or physically bullied me in any way and neither did my uncle Bert, but she came very, very close to it the day that Betty left.

  ‘Betty’s speaking to you, Rosa! Rosa!’ Her voice could have sliced bacon; bricks even. I was in big, big trouble, but I’d started sulking and didn’t know how to back down gracefully, so I stuck my heels in.

  ‘I said, Betty is speaking to you. Now turn round and behave yourself like a decent human being and not a spoilt brat.’

  Spoilt brat! Things were heading downhill fast and I had no brakes.

  Still I didn’t turn round. Then I heard Betty’s voice. ‘Don’t force her, Maggie. I expect she’s upset. She’s already lost one mate recently, and perhaps she’s miserable about losing another. I’ll be back to see you, Rosie, I promise.’ I felt a hand brush my curls briefly and then a little squeeze of my shoulder.

  Suddenly it was all too much. I turned round and hurled myself at Betty’s legs, sobbing my heart out. She had a big damp patch on her skirt by the time Auntie Maggie was able to prise me loose. Uncle Bert had appeared and picked me up and I got a whiff of pipe tobaco and fry-up. A few minutes later, all three of us stood in the cafe doorway, waving as Betty walked down the street towards Cambridge Circus, her head bowed into her hanky.

  What with Jenny’s funeral, and Betty leaving, there had been a lot of changes in my life, but one terrifying thing stayed the same: the Widow was still on the loose. It was a Sunday morning, and our little living room at St Anne’s Court was full. Auntie Maggie, Uncle Bert, Maltese Joe and I were dressed. Maltese Joe was smart in a suit, having just got back from taking his ma and his missus to Mass. Sugar was still in his hairnet and Bandy was in her dressing gown. The room was littered with coffee cups, plates full of pain au chocolat crumbs and brimming ashtrays that reeked of dead Passing Clouds and pipe cleanings.

  Maltese Joe prowled around as there was nowhere to sit. His left leg was slightly shorter than his right, which gave him a limp but didn’t seem to slow him down any. Auntie Maggie said he always reminded her of a terrier: small, but powerful, aggressive and dogged. Maltese Joe never gave up on anything, unless he wanted to, and right now he obviously didn’t want to. ‘Rita told me she saw the bloke who set fire to Peter Street dodging out of that spieler down Brewer Street yesterday. I don’t think we need use our loaves too hard to work out who that was. That backs up Rosie’s feeling that the Widow’s close by, at least some of the time. So I’m going to have to free up some of the boys from watching our various business enterprises and set ’em to doing the rounds of the clubs again.’ Maltese Joe’s eyes bulged a little more than usual as he shoved a lock of dark hair back over his high forehead. ‘Some fuckers know he’s here and are keeping it to themselves. I think it’s time we handed out some reminders.’ He thwacked his fist into the palm of his other hand with a dull thud, then added, ‘Any chance of a coffee in this bleeding desert?’

  Sugar got to his feet. ‘Righto. I’ll knock up another pot and get into something less comfortable. I was due at Freddie’s half an hour ago to help them with some costumes. Boring stuff. Nun’s habits – ghastly! Why do they call ’em habits, does anyone know?’

  Nobody did, but I gave it some thought and piped up, ‘Could it be that nuns always wear the same thing, so it’s like a boring habit instead of a bad one?’ Everyone laughed, but I couldn’t see why.

  Once coffee had been served, Sugar drifted off to get dressed and the rest of us settled down for a natter. Bandy was sprawled across an armchair, her slender feet hanging over the arm, cigarette holder loaded and smouldering. ‘I suppose Maggie and I could swan around to Lizzie Robbins and see if she’ll let us in. Hissing Sid says she’ll hardly see anybody and she hasn’t been out since the funeral.’ She didn’t sound keen, though, and made no move to get up and get dressed.

  ‘I’ll go on my own,’ my aunt said. ‘No need to get dressed if you don’t want to, Band. I’ve got poor little Jenny’s school stuff that Rosie brought home. I ought to take it round. I’ve got to drop in on Mrs Williams anyway, to remind her she’s coming here for her tea. I’ve got the cucumber specially.’

  So it was agreed: Bandy’d look after me, Uncle Bert and Maltese Joe would go for a Sunday drink and try to track down information while they were at it, Sugar’d be next door with Freddie the Frock and Auntie Maggie would pop round to see Mrs Robbins on her way to old Mrs Williams at the grocer’s shop.

  My heart sank at the thought of cucumber sandwiches for tea and having to be seen and not heard. On the bright side, though, I was being babysat by Bandy, and she was always good fun. Apart from anything else, she told the most amazing stories right off the top of her head.

  ‘Right, Rosa, my blossom, I’m off back to my pit. Find me my cigarettes, there’s a honey. Then you can snuggle up next to me and I’ll see if I can think of a story I haven’t told you yet.’ And Bandy wandered off back to her room, while I turned over the chair cushions looking for a pink packet of Passing Clouds.

  I loved Bandy’s room. She had managed to make it her own by bringing stuff from her flat. There was a thick silk bedspread on the bed, all rich reds, deep purples and dark greens, with just the odd touch of gold, and a huge mound of cushions and pillows, so it was like settling back into a feather throne. Once we were both comfortable, she was off.

  ‘Once upon a time’ – you have to start stories like that, it’s the rule, Bandy told me, and anyway it’s in all the books – ‘there was a princess, and she lived in a funny sort of castle.’ Bandy spun a tale that involved dragons, genies – ‘only a puff of smoke, you know’ – and a wilful flying carpet that took you where it felt like taking you and not necessarily where you wanted to go, and expected a tip. It was given to much sulking, folding its fringe in a huff and refusing to move if the tip was not up to expectations. ‘Not unlike one of our cab drivers, really,’ Bandy remarked. That carpet took us all over the place in Bandy’s imagination and it was a good hour and a half later that I surfaced.

  ‘And what do you think happened then?’

  I knew what this meant. ‘Oh no, not tomorrow, Bandy,’ I wailed.

  But she was firm, as she always was. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. Now run along and play or something, and let me grab a little more shut-eye.’

  I knew when I was being dismissed. I dutifully left the bedroom and went
to the kitchen for a glass of milk and a biscuit, if I could find one. Travelling on an imaginary flying carpet, with just a puff of smoke for company, was very thirsty work. I had just wiped up the pool of milk on the kitchen table when I heard the front door open. I would have sung out to Auntie Maggie to tell her where I was, but I remembered that Bandy was trying to sleep. I tiptoed to the kitchen door, milk in hand, and was about to step out into the hall when I realized that my auntie Maggie was not alone.

  When she moved to one side, I saw the neat, pale head of the Widow Ginger, and in his hand, pointing at my beloved aunt, was a socking great gun.

  34

  For what felt like a year, I stood there, hidden behind the kitchen door.

  Rooted to the spot, unable either to move or to breathe, I prayed and prayed that they wouldn’t come into the kitchen. It was in those long, long moments that I realized just how terrified I was of coming face to face again with the strange American. Soho had more than its fair share of villains, toe-rags and nutters, let’s face it. I would be mad to say that we were all decent people in our own way, because some of us were seriously nasty bits of work. But without doubt, the Widow Ginger was far and away the nastiest I had ever come across. And he was just outside in the hallway, holding a big, black, ugly gun on my lovely aunt.

  I heard movement, and a glance through the crack in the door showed me that they were going towards the living room. Then I heard his voice. ‘What is it with you English? Don’t you ever clear your dishes? Kid’s the same way. He thinks that letting the faucet drip on the platter is enough to shift eggs and all kinds of shit.’

  I’ll say this for my auntie Maggie, if she felt afraid of the madman, she wasn’t showing it. Her voice was strong and sharp as she answered him. ‘I don’t remember asking you to come in, so if you don’t like what you see, then piss off somewhere else.’ I realized then that Auntie Maggie had no idea that she and the Widow were not alone. She’d never have said ‘piss off’ if she’d thought I could hear. She must have thought that Bandy and I had gone out somewhere.

  ‘Temper, temper, Margaret. We don’t want Albert to come back to find that you have displeased me, now do we? You never know, he could stumble across all kinds of … what’s the word now? Unpleasantness! Yes, that’ll do, unpleasantness. It has that pleasing sense of understatement that you guys are so big on. Do you think “unpleasantness” covers blood on the walls and brains on the rug, Margaret?’

  ‘You can threaten all you like, Stanley. I ain’t telling you where they went and I’ve got no idea when they’ll be back. What do you hope to gain by trying to scare the living daylights out of us, that’s what I’d like to know? You’ve never said; just slunk around setting your fires and putting the frighteners on poor sods like Kid. You’re a sad man, Stanley, a very sad man.’ Auntie Maggie’s voice really did sound sad as she said it.

  ‘Spare me the pity, Margaret. The day I need pity from a fat, ugly pile of trash like you is the day I might as well chuck myself off the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ll tell you what I want. I want what’s coming to me. I want what’s mine. You guys cheated me out of my dues and I’ve come to claim my share, with interest. I figure I’m owed quite a chunk of change from all the business I missed out on when I was in the penitentiary.

  ‘Then there’s the matter of exacting a little vengeance. There I am trying for some of your famous English understatement right there. I don’t want a little vengeance, Margaret, I want a lot. I suffered for years in that shithole, and as it was Albert, Joseph and Bandy who put me there I figured it was time they suffered too.’

  ‘I don’t remember my Bert or anyone else having anything to do with that,’ said Auntie Maggie sharply, like she’d caught him out in a whopping great porkie. ‘The way I remember it, you tried to kill one of your own, a bloke from your barracks – just shoved him under a night bus from Waterloo in the blackout. All over a crate of booze you tried to cheat him on. He was paralyzed and you was court-martialled. That’s what I heard. How you’ve managed to work any of our lot into it I don’t know.’

  I heard a hissing sound like something heavy flying through the air and a muffled whump as it landed. I risked another peek through the crack and to my horror Auntie Maggie was holding her face and a trickle of blood was oozing through her fingers.

  ‘Not one of those bastards spoke for me, Margaret. All they had to say was that I was with them. Friends stick together when they’re jammed up, but they refused to my face. Said I had it coming. For that, they suffer.’ I heard another sickening blow and looked again, but the Widow’s back blocked my view. His pale hair glimmered in the dim light. His voice went very quiet. ‘Now, would you like to know how I’m going to make them suffer, Margaret?’

  Both the Widow and I waited for her answer, but Auntie Maggie kept schtum.

  ‘No? Well, I reckon I’ll tell you anyway. I’m going to get them through their loved ones, Margaret. They have all allowed themselves to get emotionally tied up, and people with emotional ties, Margaret, are weak people. Take my word for it: I’ve been studying that fact of life for many years. By the time I’ve finished with you, that faggot of Bandy’s and Joe’s mom, they’ll be begging me to take anything, everything, just so I leave you alone.’

  You know when people talk about getting a red mist in front of their eyes? When they do something that wouldn’t have crossed their minds in a million years? Well, that’s what the sound of the Widow’s threats and the sight of my aunt’s blood did to me. I really did see a red mist, and before I knew it I’d grabbed the nearest object from the table and was out of that kitchen and behind the Widow before my brains had caught up with me.

  I heard a voice from miles away saying, ‘You leave her alone, or I’ll kill you.’ And it took me a moment to realize that the voice was mine. I shoved what I had thought was the carving knife into the middle of his back before I realized that, instead of several inches of cold steel threatening his liver and lights, I was armed with a foot of fresh, but very blunt, cucumber. I was just about to panic; I knew that what might work in the Westerns on Saturday mornings was less likely to come off in real life. The Widow only had to turn round and Auntie Maggie and I were both goners.

  All this was just dawning on me when a cool hand covered mine and moved the cucumber up to the back of the Widow’s head so that I had to stand on tiptoes, making me wish I’d had ballet lessons like some of the girls in my class at school. Then I heard Bandy’s posh tones. ‘Rosie, my sweet, if you wish to make sure that your protagonist is in no position to argue, hold the gun to his head. That way, if you do have to shoot him, he won’t be in any condition to walk away. We don’t want him to cause any unpleasantness on another day, now do we? Oh, and while you’re at it, do release the safety catch, there’s a good girl. Now, you hold that steady, squeeze the trigger gently if he moves, and don’t jerk. I’ll just relieve him of this nasty Luger. There, that’s much better.’

  Bandy stepped well back, out of the Widow’s reach. She fiddled with his gun for a moment and then carried on speaking. ‘OK, Rosie dear, you can stand easy now. This is loaded, and I for one would quite enjoy shooting this sod. Perhaps you’d like to help your auntie out of here, clean her up, try to stop the bleeding, that sort of thing.’

  We didn’t need telling twice. Without speaking Auntie Maggie and I went into the kitchen. I was just wetting a tea towel for her face when there was a commotion in the living room. Auntie Maggie swept the carving knife from the table and headed back in, with me right behind her. The Widow had obviously made a grab for Bandy, and they were struggling over the gun. Round and round the room they went, knocking over furniture, smashing a lamp and finally landing in a writhing heap on the settee. Bandy’s arm, waving the gun, managed to escape the scrum and I darted in to grab it.

  The heap heaved again and the Widow came out on top for a moment. Auntie Maggie stepped forward, carving knife flashing dangerously. She looked as if she was going to plunge it into his back but she spoke fir
st. ‘Let her go, Stanley, or I swear to God I’ll stick you with this.’

  Then the Widow did something that none of us expected. He let go of Bandy suddenly, leaped to his feet, and lunged for me before we could blink, let alone move. Of course, I was standing there like a lemon, still holding that rotten gun. Without thinking, I hurled it away as hard as I could, out of the door and into the hallway, where it bounced off the wall with a terrible explosion and then slid along the lino and came to rest against a huge pair of feet that had just walked in the front door. My eyes travelled up from the gun and the feet to see a nun standing there, with two more crowding the doorway behind her.

  We all froze for a moment: Auntie Maggie with the carving knife poised in a stabbing motion. Bandy sprawled on the settee, the Widow looming over me – and the three nuns who stood stunned in the hall.

  One of the nuns was the first to find her voice. ‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’ she barked.

  The Widow, who was looking even paler than usual, muttered ‘Nothing, Sister’ as he stumbled out of the living room, barging past the nuns and scattering them like skittles as he rushed down the stairs to the street. Nobody followed him.

  Once again, it was the nun who broke the silence. ‘Would somebody please tell me what is going on? Bandy, what were you doing grappling with that bloke on the sofa?’

  Bandy sat up, still breathing hard. ‘It is you, Sugar, isn’t it?’ Her voice sounded just a tiny bit shaky. ‘What are you doing kitted out like a damned nun?’

  ‘Is anybody hurt?’ asked Auntie Maggie. ‘You, Rosie, are you all right, love? That explosion – it must’ve been the gun going off. Is anybody hurt?’