Two Women

by Martina Cole

  Doreen, a patron of the clubs herself, knew he had a bird and just who that bird was as well.

  ‘Probably, knowing him, Sue. It’s the way he is, you know that. It don’t mean nothing.’

  She wanted to spare her friend more heartache and was also hoping that if what she’d heard was true Barry might leave her for Roselle and let Susan get a bit of a life.

  ‘The electric’s nearly out, the food’s nearly gone, and the rent and everything is overdue. I’ll have to find the fucker. I know he’ll go mad but I have to speak to him, try and get something from him. It’s not like he ain’t got the money, is it?’

  Doreen didn’t answer, she knew she wasn’t expected to. Susan was just sounding off to her, getting it off her chest.

  ‘I gave the girls beefburgers and chips with my lot. Okay?’

  Susan smiled gratefully.

  ‘Fucking real, ain’t it? He’s walking around in the top fashions like a rock star and his kids ain’t even got a bit of fucking grub in the house. He is one selfish ponce.’

  Doreen laughed.

  ‘Ain’t they all? I never met a man yet with a brain in his actual head. Most of them keep it in their cocks.’

  Before Susan could answer the lights went out.

  ‘That’s all I need now, ain’t it, with babes teething like mad. Thank fuck I’ve got a gas cooker.’

  The two girls ran into the kitchen.

  ‘The lights have gone, Mum, and the telly’s gone off.’

  Susan laughed loudly.

  ‘I never would have noticed if you two hadn’t pointed it out.’

  The two girls giggled with glee.

  ‘Good job you got us then, Mum, if you didn’t notice that.’

  ‘Go through to my kitchen and get me purse, lovies. I’ve got a bit of change. See if we can get the telly back on for you, eh?’ said Doreen.

  They ran out of the back door and Susan had to hold back tears.

  ‘You’re too good to me, Dor. What would I do without you?’

  Doreen held her close and tried to lighten the situation.

  ‘That’s what friends are for, mate.’

  As if on cue little Barry started to cry, a great yell that sent Susan running from the kitchen. By the time she had taken him out of his cot and cuddled him the lights were back on. Walking down the stairs, she pondered her situation. She had to see Barry and sort something out. She wondered briefly if he might have left her, but decided that her luck wouldn’t run to that. If only he would leave her she could get herself on the jam roll and sort herself out from there. At least with the dole she would have a budget, know what was coming in each week so she could spend accordingly. At the moment she never knew where she was when in fact Barry was earning a good wedge. Though Christ knew what he did with it, he was always pleading poverty.

  Her gold was pawned and everything else on which she could raise a quid or two. This time she didn’t think she would ever be able to get any of it back from uncle.

  Putting Barry in his playpen and telling the girls to keep an eye on him, she went back out to the kitchen. Doreen had made the tea and was smoking a cigarette at the table.

  Susan felt she had taken as much as she could. Everywhere she turned someone had their hand out for money and she was getting desperate. Even the few quid she’d had saved was gone. She was on her uppers and that meant literally. Her shoes had given up the ghost as well. She was reduced to wearing slippers constantly because of her swollen feet.

  Now there was another child on the way and Barry was on the missing list and she didn’t know what to do. There was nothing in the house for the kids tomorrow morning. Then Wendy came into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve still got three pound notes from my birthday money, Mum, you can have that if you want?’

  Susan looked at her gratefully.

  ‘That’s all right, darlin’, Mummy will sort it all out.’

  The child held the notes out without a word. When Susan didn’t take them she placed them on the table by her cup of tea. Then she walked back into the lounge and sat down by little Barry’s playpen. She was making him laugh by pretending to disappear behind her hands then popping up and saying ‘boo’ to him. He was crowing with enjoyment and holding his ear at the same time.

  Susan looked down at the money. Leaping from her seat, she said to Doreen, ‘Will you watch this lot for a few hours?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Susan smiled. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  Pulling a comb through her hair and dragging on her old coat, she left the house with the three pounds safely in her pocket.

  Roselle was dressed to kill in a revealing spangly dress she had bought that afternoon in Regent Street. She felt good and looked better. Barry was supposed to be taking her to a Chinese in Greek Street that catered for the night workers and did a great breakfast-cum-dinner at three in the morning. It also had a little gambling room and she fancied a flutter.

  Now, though, he was telling her that he had to get home and sort a few things out. He was constantly moaning about his wife. Saying they only stayed together for the kids and how she was a spendthrift who blew all his money, etc. It just went on and on. Now he had to go home when Roselle wanted to go out.

  ‘That’s okay, Bal, I’ll go with the girls. They’re going to the Stage anyway. I’ll tag along.’

  The Stage was a blues in Brixton just off the Railton Road, or the Front Line as it was called. A blues was a disused house that became a twenty-four-hour-a-day nightclub. An enterprising person would board up the windows, put in a makeshift bar and sound system, and take money on the door. It was perfect. You could smoke dope or speed or trip all day and all night if you wanted to.

  Roselle knew Barry hated her going there which was why she told him she was. Elementary female psychology.

  A stripper came on stage and started to gyrate to a Slade single. The noise was deafening and Roselle walked away from Barry and over to the bar. He watched the stripper, a strikingly ugly brunette with a hook nose and acne and the biggest pair of tits this side of the water.

  When he went over to the bar Roselle had gone. Smiling to himself, he walked out into the foyer and into the worst possible nightmare for a man like Barry Dalston.

  Susan was standing there, large as life in her old blanket coat, with her hair looking like something from a book on birds’ nests and her sagging body revealed to all the world along with the latest lump.

  To add insult to injury Roselle was standing with her, looking like a magazine plate and actually listening to what Susan had to say. Then his wife spied him and, smiling broadly, gave him a friendly little wave.

  ‘Here he is, love, thanks for helping me out.’

  Susan was smiling at Roselle and Roselle was smiling back at her. Only her smile was tinged with sadness and a trace of disbelief. They both looked at Barry and he wished the ground really could open up and swallow him.

  Susan looked just what she was and it hurt Barry to have her show him up in public. He saw her from Roselle’s point of view: badly cut hair in need of styling, a heavy body unrestrained by anything remotely resembling a girdle; a face devoid of even the most basic cosmetics; and a huge belly denoting the fact she was once more with child. He saw her bitten nails with the skin around them chafed and red-looking. They were caked with grime from cigarettes and housework. He saw the large heavy breasts that could touch her belly button these days and needed a bra with enough metal in to armour a tank. He saw her teeth, yellowing and blunt. Saw her legs - no tights, a month’s stubble on them and varicose veins already evident.

  He also saw how Susan automatically deferred to Roselle, assuming she was someone of importance in Barry’s working life. It would never occur to her to be spiteful or jealous of the other woman, Susan was too nice for that.

  He also realised Roselle would have been expecting a right bitch with a gob like the Dartford tunnel and a self-righteous attitude. That was the way he’d always described hi
s wife, after all.

  Walking towards the two women he felt as if he was moving through heavy swirling water.

  Roselle smiled at him sarcastically.

  ‘Barry, your wife’s just popped in to see you.’

  She turned to Susan and smiled once more, this time genuinely.

  ‘Lovely to meet you at last, Mrs Dalston. Do stay for a drink. I’ll be in the bar to introduce you to everyone.’

  Susan smiled at the glamorous woman and nodded.

  ‘Thank you. Thanks very much. I’m ever so sorry to trouble him at work like this . . .’

  Roselle interrupted her.

  ‘Don’t be so silly. See you again soon.’

  She walked away, her tight little bottom wiggling in an exaggerated fashion. Barry looked at his wife, his scruffy dilapidated wife, and felt hatred boil within him for what she had done.

  ‘What you fucking doing here?’

  Susan reacted as if she had been punched.

  ‘I had to come, Bal, I’m at the end of me tether. I ain’t got a bean - you ain’t been home. I ain’t even got any electric.’

  Barry turned and saw the receptionist watching them, an interested expression on her face. Then all the hostesses seemed to want to go to the toilet. All sashaying past on clouds of perfume, eyes alert. Checking out a legal and finding her wanting. He knew they’d all thought he had a wife like the other doormen. Nice-looking women with their cars and their houses and their holidays. What they were seeing in Susan was themselves if they weren’t careful.

  A defeated-looking breeding machine.

  They all knew about Susan’s life because they had taken the course they had, prostitution, to stop the same thing happening to them.

  Grabbing her arm, he forced her out on to the street.

  ‘Go home, Susan, fucking coming here and showing me up! Look at the fucking state of you.’

  She looked at him and snorted through her nose in disgust.

  ‘Is that all that’s bothering you, that I look a mess in comparison to a load of old brasses?’

  He didn’t answer her.

  ‘Listen here, you, I might not be fucking Joan Collins. How could I be even if I wanted to? I have three kids and another on the way, enough debt to keep a small banana republic going, and on top of all that I have an old man who thinks more of his work associates than his own kids. I have no food, no electric and no help. I’m sorry if I look a scruff bag, Bal, but what you give me don’t fucking stretch to shopping for anything other than cheap cuts of meat and bargain basement clothes.’

  She was crying now and annoyed at herself for letting him upset her so much.

  Barry took a ten-pound note from his pocket and gave it to her. If he got shot now he could still go out with Roselle. After Sue’s inopportune entrance he needed to see Roselle as soon as possible to put over his side of the story.

  Susan stared at the money in disbelief.

  ‘Is that all? A tenner?’

  He didn’t answer her. He needed the rest for his night out with Roselle. Susan was defeated already. Looking at him, she shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘You’re a selfish bastard, Barry. I ain’t even had the money for Junior Disprin for the baby and you don’t bother to come home and see we’re all right. I’m living on a fucking shoestring and look at you. New clothes, hair freshly cut and highlighted.’

  She stabbed one finger into his chest.

  ‘Your kids have been waiting night after night for me to give them the lousy twenty-quid deposit they need to go to France, and what do you do? You go on the missing list. What about this child I’m having, Barry? What shall we do with this one, eh? Another fucking mouth to feed and you ain’t feeding the three you’ve already got.’

  He still didn’t answer, just stared at her. Willing her to go away. She looked so perplexed, so baffled by his attitude, that he felt like crying. Surely she could see how it was for him, a wife who looked like a bag lady coming to his place of work obviously looking for money. She was making him look bad. Deliberately making him look bad. She was trying to blackmail him.

  Then Roselle came outside and told him he was needed at one of the tables to sort out a difficult customer.

  He walked back into the club and pushed Roselle through the door before him. Then, turning to Susan, he bellowed at her, ‘Get home, you silly bitch. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  She stood outside the club. It was raining now and bitterly cold. She stuffed the ten pounds into her pocket and turned away. The road was dark and busy. People were pushing past, ignoring her.

  Turning back, she looked through the glass-fronted double doors of the club and saw Barry deep in conversation with Roselle. He looked so smart. He was wearing a new suit, his hair was immaculate and she realised he’d also had a manicure. His hand had felt softer than hers as he’d thrust the money at her.

  Looking at him, head inclined towards the little woman in the red spangly dress, the way he talked to her, handsome face earnest, Susan realised what all the dressing up and grooming himself was for.

  He wasn’t having his usual leg over.

  Barry was in love.

  While she was sitting at home worrying herself sick, he had been spending all his money on that little woman with the beautiful clothes. Opening the door of the club Susan stepped inside once more. Warmth hit her like a blanket. Her chapped cheeks smarted. Barry and Roselle turned towards the draft of cold air and saw her standing there once more.

  Barry looked at her as if she was nothing, beneath his notice. Walking towards her, he grabbed her roughly by the arm and pushed her back on to the street. Then he began to drag her along the pavement. People stood watching them, amazed.

  Susan forced him to let go of her.

  ‘You rotten bastard! No wonder we ain’t seen hide nor hair of you. There’s us lot thinking you was off on your usual skirt chasing and all of a sudden we find you’ve gone up market.’

  He stared at her again and she could see that she had pushed it as far as she should. Barry had a short fuse at the best of times and tonight he was practically ready for blast off. He shoved her hard in the chest, his hands brutal against her soft body.

  ‘Fuck off, Sue. I’m warning you, girl, don’t make me lose me temper.’

  He shoved her again and this time she lost her balance and fell into the road. A black cab skidded to a halt and a passer by helped Susan to get up. She was crying now. The cab driver leaned across from his seat and shouted through the open window, ‘Sober yourself up, woman,’ before driving off with a stream of obscenities floating behind him.

  Susan stood forlornly in the busy street. Her attempt to get Barry to cough up some money had gone horribly wrong. All she had wanted was a few quid to tide her over, that was all. Instead she had been humiliated and abused for doing what she had every right to do. She knew she had upset him but didn’t he ever think about her? Didn’t she and his kids even come into the equation?

  She watched him shrug and felt a moment of stunning hatred for him. It was so intense she could practically taste and feel it. It was rising inside her like a big black cloud, seeping out of her pores and into the very air around her.

  ‘All I wanted was money for the kids’ school trip, Bal, not the last two pennies off your eyes. I had to come up here on the tube using three quid I skanked off poor Wendy. If I hadn’t found you at work I’d have had to walk home so I had enough to buy food. Yet you treat me like a fucking leper, like I’ve done something wrong.’

  ‘Go home, Susan, before you get hurt. I ain’t in the mood for all this tonight.’

  He shoved her hard in the chest once more and she nearly lost her balance. Out of the corner of her eye she saw people from the surrounding buildings looking on.

  A pretty girl with a long black wig and high heels watched them from the peep show doorway, a smile on her face. She obviously thought Susan was trying to get into the Hiltone and the bouncer was removing her. It would be a funny story, a bit of
light relief.

  ‘You bastard, Barry. Well, I ain’t going until you give me some more money.’

  The next punch caught her in the jaw and Susan felt her legs go. Like a boxer she staggered back, trying to keep on her feet, her head a blaze of white pain as she felt her jaw click back into place.

  Holding it she screamed at him, ‘That’s your answer to everything, ain’t it, Barry? A kicking. Well, fuck you. I don’t care any more.’

  She was crying now, snot and tears mingling on her face.

  ‘I just don’t care. My kids need money and I’ll fucking go in there and do a night’s work if I have to, to get it. You’re not the only one who can work Soho, mate.’

  Roselle listened to the woman through the glass doors. She was seeing a new side to Barry Dalston and did not like it one bit. Opening the door she walked over to Susan. Taking her arm, Roselle gently led her into the club and up the stairs to the offices above.

  Hostesses had left their tables and the bar to watch the little kitchen sink drama out on the street. One of them, a large blonde in a tight black sequinned dress, passed Susan a bunch of toilet roll to wipe her face.

  ‘You all right, love?’

  Susan nodded. They were all women together now. Looking out for one of their own kind who was obviously in dire straits.

  ‘Come on, come up to the office, I’ll get you a cab home.’

  Roselle looked at Barry as if he was something nasty she had found on her shoes. ‘Ivan will skin you for this, boy.’

  She took Susan gently by the arm again and helped her up the rickety staircase. Her bulk seemed too large for the confined space and her legs were still unsteady. She felt defeated, humiliated and cold.

  In the office Roselle made her a cup of coffee and poured a good measure of brandy into it.

  ‘I’ll send you a percentage of Barry’s wages every week, okay? I’ll clear it with Ivan - he’ll be sweet as a nut once I explain. We do it with a lot of the blokes, love.’

  She was lying and Susan knew but was grateful to her for making it so easy.

  ‘He’ll kill me for this. I didn’t want to come here tonight. I’ve never wanted to come in one of these places, not even out of curiosity. I know Barry loves it here, loves the idea of it all, but it’s never appealed to me.’