by Martina Cole
Evander looked at the girl with her silky blue-black hair and the high prominent cheekbones, her sensuous lips, and felt the enormity of what he’d done. What he had created. In the States she would have been aware of what she was from day one and would have adjusted accordingly. Brought up here, in this cold barren country, she wasn’t remotely prepared for what life was going to dish out to her. Inside himself, he felt a cracking, breaking sensation. It was fear: fear of what she would think of him, fear of what was going to happen to this tall lithe creature who would draw men to her, who had such a beautiful, appealing exterior thanks to himself and his forefathers. Here in England she’d live in a no man’s land, neither black nor white. Brought up white, she’d have no understanding of the black culture, of her people. Until she began to breed. Then she’d bear the legacy of her father and his father’s father.
Kerry watched the two eyeing each other. Going to the table she poured out three stiff drinks. Handing one to Evander and one to Liselle, she sat on the settee, watching them warily now. It had not worked out as she had thought. It had all gone wrong. No one spoke a word for what seemed an eternity.
Kerry guzzled her drink, coughing at the unfamiliar taste of the raw cheap black market bourbon.
Evander stood silently with his drink in hand. He didn’t want a drink now, when he should want one, when he should be gulping the precious liquid down to kill the pain inside him.
‘Sit down, child. We need to talk.’
His voice was deep. Hearing it for the first time, Liselle was snapped out of her shock. Putting the drink on the mantelpiece untouched she strode past him, out of the room and out into the snow-filled night. Slamming the front door behind her she hurried away, slipping and sliding on the icy pavement.
That couldn’t be her father. It couldn’t. Not because he was black, but because he was so horrible. He was dirty-looking, he smelt of stale food and cheap scotch. She came from better than that, she knew she did.
She made her way back to The New Yorker in a cab. Auntie Briony would know what to do.
She always did.
The twins were in one of their ‘spielers’, an illegal gambling club in Stepney. The place was packed out as usual. The twins were now treated like visiting royalty wherever they went in the East End. People went out of their way to be noticed by them. If they went into a shop, the cigarettes or whatever else they bought became ‘gifts’. Stallholders made a fuss of them, shopkeepers kept on the right side of them. The twins, Boysie especially, loved this. Revelled in it.
The ‘spieler’ was approached through a large barred door, a small peephole was opened to establish who was there, and then they were duly let in, frisked, and allowed to get to the gaming tables and the bar. Prostitutes worked the clubs, generally married women out for a bit of adventure and a few quid to supplement the housekeeping. Nothing was organised in the twins’ establishments unless they organised it themselves.
The place was buzzing tonight. The twins got themselves a drink and went through to the offices. They were waiting for a young Jew named Isaiah Lipman. He was twenty-five years old and one of the best ‘longshoremen’ in the business. The twins wanted to cultivate him.
The Jewish community and the Irish were similar in a lot of respects. They were immigrants, they were disliked by the majority, and Jewish men seemed much like the Irish in the fact that they either succeeded beyond imagination or they were wasters. Both cultures, though, had an inbred cunning. The Lane, or Petticoat Lane as it was better known, traded on a Sunday because of the Jews. Like the Irish they kept to their religion no matter what else they might do. And it paid off for them.
Longshoring was the term used for a particular scam. It involved renting cheap premises, getting headed notepaper printed up and then opening accounts with suppliers. For the first couple of months, while the business was supposedly getting on its feet, you paid for your goods as invoiced, with cash off the hip. Ready money. Gradually building up your credibility as a customer. Then one day you ordered fantastic amounts from your suppliers on credit, as usual. Then you disappeared off the face of the earth with up to one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of stock. Usually electrical appliances or good clothes. Anything that could easily be sold on. This stock then found its way on to the markets, into shops and anywhere else it could be sold.
It was a very easy operation, it was patience that was needed. That was where Isaiah came in. Danny and Boysie wanted everything yesterday.
Boysie sipped his drink. ‘That was a turn up, what The Aunt told us about Liselle. I guessed though. We both did. But hearing it like, that’s a different thing.’
Daniel looked at himself in the mirror on the wall behind their desk. He patted down his hair and, licking a finger, smoothed one of his eyebrows.
‘Yeah... We’ll have to watch the rhyming slang now, Boysie. Lemonade, spade. Macaroon, coon. Whistle me dog, wog. Sounds different when it’s one of your family, don’t it? If someone called Liselle that, I’d break their fucking necks. I’d rip their heads off with me bare hands. Yet I use those terms all the time.’
‘That’s because we ain’t never known many blacks. I always liked Bessie, even as a kid. I liked that flowery smell of her when I was little ... We’ll have to stop saying front wheel skid and Yid, as well as a four be two, once old Isaiah becomes a part of the firm. Fuck me, we’re going international, ain’t we?’
Danny laughed. ‘Yeah. I’m looking forward to meeting this bloke properly, though. He ain’t a hardman, but he’s got brains. Brains we can use to our advantage. Once we get him under our wing, we’ll leave him to work on his own. He won’t tuck us up.’
Boysie laughed as he left the room. ‘He wouldn’t dare, Danny Boy.’
Briony listened to Liselle’s story with amazement tinged with annoyance. Only Kerry would pull a stunt like that! Anyone else would have done it gently, prepared the ground. But anyone else wouldn’t have been under the influence of vodka and barbiturates. The way she felt now, if she saw Kerry she would be hard pressed not to slap her a ringing blow across the earhole.
‘All right, love, calm down.’
‘But you don’t understand me! It wasn’t that he was black. I knew that, I’ve always known that, though I couldn’t admit it to myself. Now I know it’s true, I don’t care. It’s him, the man himself. I can’t believe he’s my father. He smelt, Auntie Briony, of stale fags, booze and food. He was gross. He was so ... so ... tatty-looking. That’s what hurt me, that I could have sprung from him. And his hands ... his hands were horrible. Then Mum said you had had that done to him. You got someone to break his fingers. But you wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?’ It was a plea.
Briony sat down in her chair and sighed. Outside the office was the sound of Bessie singing, the clinking of glasses, the buzz of conversation. If only they were out there instead of in here, trying to make sense of something that happened over twenty years ago. Something that should have stayed buried.
‘Listen, my love. Your father was a big handsome man when he knew your mother. Really, he was like a big black Adonis if that’s possible!’ She smiled to take the edge off the words. ‘He was talented, really talented. Together they could have conquered the world. When I got rid of him, and I did get rid of him, make no mistake about that, it was because twenty years ago...’ Briony swallowed hard. ‘Well, you have to realise, it was in the twenties. Mixed marriages were unheard of then. It wasn’t like now when lots of girls marry their black GIs. It’s a different world now, love. Then it would have ruined your mother and him. A black man seen with a white woman could cause murder to be done.’
Liselle sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Your father looks like he does now because I sent someone to force him to leave. Well, the bloke, Kevin Carter, went too far. He broke his hands. I never asked him to, I take oath on that, Lissy. But I suppose that having his hands destroyed stopped Evander earning his living, doing what he did so well. He was a brilliant j
azz pianist once, believe me, and I truly regret my part in putting an end to his career.’
Liselle nodded, trying to take in what her aunt was saying, trying to decipher her true feelings from amongst the sadness and shock that was enveloping her. Her aunt made it all sound so nice, so romantic. Her mother wanted the brilliant black man who could play the piano. Now, all these years later, Liselle was to be saddled with a man who’d been crippled because her aunt thought that getting rid of him was the best thing at the time.
‘Shall I take you home?’
Liselle shook her head. ‘Can I stay with you, please? I don’t want to see me mum. Not for a while.’
Briony smiled and put her arm around the girl’s slim shoulders. ‘You can stay as long as you like, my darlin’. You know that.’
The twins had arrived at the club just after one-thirty. Briony had sent Liselle home with Tommy to look after her. She herself was determined to find Kerry. She was not at home, Briony had been ringing in ten-minute intervals, so they made their way to Rillington Place.
The twins had listened to Briony’s explanation of the night’s events in silence. Boysie shook his head in disbelief. His Aunt Kerry was a fruitcake. Poor old Liselle! They knew that their own mother hadn’t been all the ticket, and now by all accounts Aunt Kerry was tipping herself over the edge. Well, they were finally going to meet the soot who had caused all this hag. They hoped for his sake he wasn’t here to try and cause trouble.
Briony had voiced the opinion that it seemed funny, on reflection, for a man to turn up all these years later and rent a house. A tourist went to a hotel. Suddenly, it seemed very suspicious. Getting in touch with Kerry whose number wasn’t listed ... Who did he get it from? Who else knew he was here?
‘Don’t worry, Mum. If necessary we’ll blast off every front door in the road but we’ll find the right house. Stop letting it bug you.’
Boysie caressed a Beretta he kept with him at all times. Daniel smiled as he drove. In the boot was a shotgun that could kill a marauding elephant at a hundred paces. They’d find out the score all right.
In fact, he was quite looking forward to it.
After Liselle had left the house, Kerry got up to follow her. Then three men walked into the room. Kerry, in her usual drunken state, barely noticed. But when one man, whom Evander addressed as Mr Skip, pushed her back into her seat, it dawned on her that here was big trouble.
She looked at Evander with frightened eyes. ‘What’s going on here? Who are this lot?’
Skip laughed out loud.
‘We are your biggest nightmare. Pour the lady a drink, Marty.’
Marty did as he was bidden and Kerry took it gratefully. But as Skip explained to her what they wanted, she gradually began to feel a numb fear.
Evander listened to Skip’s gloating voice, wishing himself anywhere in the world but in this dirty little room. As he watched Kerry’s eyes widen with fear and the realisation of what was happening, he felt sick inside himself.
Twenty-five thousand dollars was a lot of money. But was it really worth all this? When did this get so out of hand? When did it become so dirty, and so shaming?
As Skip had played back the tape Kerry’s mouth had opened and shut, like a fish out of water, gasping for life. Now she knew why he had asked her three times why she had named her child Liselle for his mother. Why he had repeatedly asked her about their life together. It was for this. Even in her drunken, drugged state she saw what a fool she’d been. She’d wanted to right wrongs when the biggest wrong was being done to her!
She started to laugh, a low chuckle at first. Then, as all became crystal clear, it turned into a full-throated belly laugh. Four pairs of eyes watched her in amazement.
‘You can give this to anyone you like. The newspapers, anyone. I couldn’t give a monkey’s fuck!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘I ain’t ashamed any more. I don’t care. My baby knows now. She knows. Once she knew about this, it was blown wide open. You did all this for nothing ... nothing!’
Skip gave her a stinging blow across the mouth. But still she laughed.
‘Go on, beat me up! Nothing you can do to me can really hurt me, because I’ve been hurting all my life.’
But the laughter was gone from her voice now.
Skip, seeing his well-laid plans go awry, took her at her word. He began to lay into her with heavy fists. Evander stumbled across the room, his useless hands clawing at the man attacking Kerry. The two younger men watched with morbid fascination. Evander turned to them.
‘You fools! She’s famous ... If you really hurt her, you’ll all be finished.’
His voice persuaded the other two. They began pulling Skip off her, dragging him from the room as he hurled abuse at Kerry, at them and at Evander. They pulled him into the kitchen and tried to calm him down.
Evander went to Kerry. Her mouth and one eye were bleeding profusely. Her arms were crossed defensively. Pulling her into his arms, he held her close, sorry to the core for what he had brought on her.
An hour later he saw the headlights of a car coming up the road. The curtains were back. He had opened the window to let in some air. Skip, calmer now, was still in the kitchen, trying to salvage part of his plan. Marty sat in the room with them, refusing to let either Kerry or Evander leave.
Kerry’s face was swollen, her lip split, one eye black and blue. Evander was still holding her to him tightly. The shock of what had happened had counteracted the vodka and even the pills. Kerry was aware that they were both in great danger. Skip came into the room, calmer now.
‘Listen to me, lady. I am gonna sell those tapes to the newspapers and whether you care or not, your career will be destroyed. Everyone will know what your daughter is and what you are. I have ten black men who will sign confessions saying they’ve slept with you. Had disgusting, perverted sexual relationships with you. Your name will be dirt, synonymous with every kind of filth, when I’ve finished. Unless you pay me what I want. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
Kerry nodded painfully. ‘How mueh?’
‘Three hundred thousand pounds. I’ve upped the ante because I don’t like mouthy broads, especially mouthy broads who sleep with niggers.’ His voice was so vehement even Evander was shocked.
‘I don’t have that kind of money.’
It was Skip’s turn to laugh now. ‘Then my advice to you, little lady, is to find someone who does.’
The car Evander had heard was the twins’ Aston Martin.
As they parked in the narrow road and got out, they saw into the room of number sixteen. It was the only house still lit up.
‘Wait here and keep down,’ Danny ordered.
Creeping into the small front garden he looked in at the window of the lounge. The net curtains were about two inches too short for the window and he saw Kerry sitting on the settee opposite him, her face bloody. Beside her was the black man, Evander Dorsey; he was holding her hands in his. The three white men were sitting around the room watching them; one had a gun beside within easy reach of his hand. Daniel found his eyes riveted to his aunt and the man beside her. He glanced once more at the gun and went back to Boysie and Briony.
‘They’re in there all right, with three other men. One has a gun. Aunt Kerry’s face is a mess, someone’s roughed her up.’
‘What?’ Briony’s voice was incredulous.
‘That’s the truth, the coon’s sitting on the settee with Aunt Kerry. Something is happening here, Mum, and I don’t know what. But me and Boysie will find out in about one minute.’ He motioned to Boysie with his head. ‘Come on, round the back. You sit in the car and wait. We’ll open the front door when everything’s sorted.’
Briony bridled.
‘Excuse me, Danny ...’
‘Mum, please do as we ask - there’s a shooter in there. Danny and me will sort it. Now sit in the car and wait.’
He took the Beretta from his coat and checked to see it was loaded.
Briony snatched the gun from him.
Boysie shook his head.
‘Oh, leave it out, Mum...’
‘No! You leave it out. That’s my sister in there, and something’s not kosher. Don’t let’s argue amongst ourselves out here. They’ll let me in. I’ll pretend I’ve come because of Liselle, because she’s so upset. You two come in in five minutes, right? I don’t want to hear any more about it.’
With that she walked away from them and up the pathway towards the front door. She turned and motioned to them to go around the back. As they disappeared down the alleyway that separated the house from the one next-door, she put her own Beretta into the pocket of her fox fur coat and knocked loudly on the door. Inside, everyone stood stock still as the hammering on the door reverberated through the house.
Skip slid off the table and picked up the gun.
‘Stay here, I’ll deal with this.’ Pushing the gun into the waistband of his trousers and covering it with his jacket, he went out into the cold hallway. He opened the door to a tiny redhead and breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Is my sister still here? My niece came home in a terrible state. Is Kerry here...’ Briony walked into the house without a by your leave, pushing past the man to walk into the lounge.
Kerry’s face and Evander’s frightened eyes told her everything.
Turning to the man who had answered the door, she said in a shocked voice: ‘What the hell is going on here?’
The man walked towards her, smiling nastily. As he opened his mouth to speak, Briony moved so fast he didn’t have time to think. Nobody did. In a split second she was behind him with the Beretta digging into his kidneys.
‘One move, big boy, and I’ll splatter your guts all over this house!’ She looked at the two other hoods, still sitting in the fireside chairs. ‘Take out any weapons you’ve got and place them on the floor in front of you.’ Skip started to put his arms down and Briony pushed the gun into his back once more.