by Lizzie Lane
‘You’re abducting us,’ she said resolutely. ‘That’s how the police would view what you’re doing. They’ll throw away the key. You’ll spend years in jail. There! Do you want that?’
She couldn’t believe how calmly she was dealing with this, but then, what choice did she have? There was no guarantee it would do any good.
For a moment he stared at her with that cold, codfish look of his.
She prayed he was thinking it over. He wasn’t saying anything. Just looking.
Suddenly he snatched at her face, pinching in her cheeks with horribly strong fingers. She knew then that her threat had made no impression. Bradley Fitts would have it his way.
‘I’m taking you out on the town. And you’ll be grateful. Get it? You’ll be grateful!’
He flung her backwards so hard that the back of her head bounced against the top edge of the seat.
Susan huddled closer, shaking from top to toe.
‘What’s going to happen to us?’ Susan whispered.
Magda swallowed hard. ‘Nothing – not if I’ve anything to do with it.’
She sounded far braver than she actually felt. She knew without needing to see her reflection in a mirror that his fingers had left red marks on her cheeks. Threatening this man with the police had done no good whatsoever – like water off a duck’s back, as Winnie would say.
Her thoughts raced this way and that, searching in her mind for some way out of this.
Inevitably she thought of one or two of the girls across the road. For the men they appeared compliant. When alone they voiced their contempt. All that had mattered was getting paid for what they did.
She had to follow their example. In the case of Bradley Fitts, they had to pretend to enjoy this night out. They had to buy time and trust, enough so they could make their escape.
She gave Susan’s hand a reassuring squeeze before catching sight of Bradley’s eyes in the rear-view mirror and saying, ‘You win. We’ll come for a drink with you.’
Bradley Fitts took his gaze away from the road ahead and the busy traffic of a London night, and turned a smiling face to her.
‘That’s more like it. Never refuse Bradley Fitts. You have to learn that. Now I’m telling you, girls, you’ll enjoy yourself. You just see if you don’t. First a couple of drinks in the pub. Then I might even take you to my old man’s club for a bit of dancing. How would that be?’
‘Dancing?’ Magda nodded, her brain working overtime. ‘Yes. I … we … like dancing, don’t we Susan? Though I’m not sure we’re quite dressed for it. My hair for a start …’ She made a big show of smoothing back her hair and flicking at the corners of her mouth to dislodge excess lipstick. ‘Still, if you won’t take no for an answer, we might as well enjoy ourselves.’
Magda crossed one leg over the other and clasped her hands around her knee. She saw Bradley’s eyes follow the action. He would interpret it that she was feeling more relaxed. More pliable. More submissive.
‘That’s my girl,’ he said, bringing his gaze back up to her face. ‘You and me are going places, girl. You know how I feel about you. How I’ve always felt about you.’
He squeezed her clasped hands before turning back to face the front.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susan looking at her wide eyed. The girl who had been so keen to go out with these men now looked like the little girl she still was – despite the new hairstyle.
Magda raised a finger to her lips in an action that begged Susan to say nothing.
Susan blinked. Then she gave a little jerk of her chin as a sign that she understood. Say nothing. Keep calm. Wait for the chance.
Magda stared out of the window. Shops, houses, blank walls and dark alleys tumbled past in quick succession.
After taking a few turnings off the main road, the car came to a stop at the kerb. The pub was situated on a corner. An old gaslight hanging from a wall bracket hissed above.
The moment the car came to a standstill, a swarm of small boys wearing ragged pullovers and hand-me-down short grey flannels crowded around.
‘That your car, Mister?’ The kid who spoke had a pudding basin haircut and a heavily freckled face.
‘It belongs to Mr Fitts here,’ said Eddie who had got out first and was holding the door open for his boss. ‘You’ve heard of Mr Fitts, haven’t you boys? So you know not to touch it and not to let any other bugger touch it. Right?’
Bradley Fitts nodded at Eddie. ‘A farthing each to guard it.’
Eddie fished in his pockets and found enough farthings and ha’pennies to go round.
Bradley opened one of the rear doors of the car.
‘One at a time, girls.’
Magda stepped out first, wincing at the fierceness of his grip on her upper arm. A warning.
Susan remained in the car until Eddie had finished paying the kids. Her face was paler than Magda could ever remember it.
Bradley Fitts swung Magda to one side of him and addressed Susan.
‘Right. Get out.’
Susan did as ordered. Eddie grabbed her as tightly as Bradley was holding Magda.
‘Hold onto her, Eddie. Want to appear the gentlemanly escort, don’t we now.’
Eddie laughed.
Bradley slipped his arm through Magda’s, holding her tight against his body.
One of the kids pushed open the pub door and earned himself another coin.
Bradley hustled Magda through, closely followed by Eddie holding onto Susan.
A fog of cigarette smoke and stale beer covered them like a blanket, killing the fresh air that had dared to enter with them.
The night outside was warm; the public bar of the Kings Arms hot and humid, a thick soup of tobacco, beer slops and stale sweat.
‘Lounge bar, Eddie,’ Bradley ordered. ‘We have ladies with us and standards to keep up.’
His hand firmly cupping Magda’s elbow, he steered her through a door and deposited her at a small round table.
‘Port and lemon for you I think, Magdalena. In fact, I insist,’ he murmured, his moist breath falling into her ear as his hand ran down her back.
‘Why do you always call me Magdalena?’
Smiling, he shook his head and shucked his hat back further on his reddish-blonde hair.
‘It’s your name, isn’t it?’
She nodded.
‘But nobody calls me by my full name – except you.’
His smile widened. ‘I’m not just a nobody. I’m different.’
The lounge bar had wooden floors, small round tables on iron legs and bentwood chairs. Supposedly better equipped than the public bar, the people in here were tidily dressed – no grimy work clothes smeared with coal dust from the gas works or blood from Smithfield or Billingsgate.
The barman, far older than the young thug who’d just entered, touched his forelock and addressed Bradley as Mister Fitts, his voice oozing humility.
Once released from Eddie’s grasp, Susan clamped herself to Magda’s side.
‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered.
‘We’re going to walk out of here,’ Magda whispered back. ‘They think we’ve fallen in with their plans, but we haven’t.’ She looked at Susan. ‘Have we?’
Susan shook her head. ‘They’re scary.’
Seemingly convinced that they were now compliant, Bradley and Eddie were up at the bar. Other people up at the bar stepped aside to make space for them.
Compared to the other men, these two were dressed like lords, both wearing smart suits.
Never mind dancing; it was obvious that at the end of the evening there would be a price to pay.
She asked a woman sipping sherry the whereabouts of the lavatory.
The woman pointed to a door in the far corner at the end of the bar. ‘Down there ducks.’
Bradley saw where they were going and told them not to be long.
‘Got your drinks.’ He held up the two dark drinks and jerked his chin in the direction of a table.
‘
That’s very generous of you. We’ll be right back,’ Magda threw him a reassuring smile.
‘There might be a door along here,’ Magda murmured to Susan. ‘If there is, I’m going to open it and dash out – even if we end up behind the bins at the back of Battersea Dogs’ Home.’
The corridor was narrow and dark and had no door to the outside.
‘No wonder he didn’t mind us coming out here,’ Magda said with a sigh. ‘Oh well.’
She slapped open the door of the ladies’ lavatory, wrinkling her nose as the smell of urine and drains came out to greet them. ‘Keep your fingers crossed, Susan.’
Besides being a bit smelly, the toilets were cold and dark. There were three cubicles on one side and three sinks on the other. A chipped mirror hung above one of them and a towel for those who actually did wash their hands was draped over a couple of empty beer crates.
‘No door,’ remarked Susan, peering from behind Magda.
‘There doesn’t need to be,’ Magda murmured back, her eyes falling on a small sash window at the far end.
Her heels clattered over the concrete floor to the window. It took both hands to heave it open. She looked out.
The window overlooked the yard at the rear of the pub, a small area squeezed between the backyards of crowded housing.
Barrels and empty beer crates were piled each side of a pair of double wooden gates. She reasoned that even if they were locked, it would only be a matter of sliding back a bolt.
‘Right,’ she said hitching up her skirt. ‘The one thing Bradley Fitts forgot about girls like us is that we’re not too ladylike to climb out of windows.’
‘I can climb as well as my brothers,’ chirped Susan who seemed to have returned to her old self.
Once the towel was placed elsewhere, the wooden beer crates, stained with stale beer and old soap, were placed one on top of the other.
‘I’ll go first, shall I?’
‘If you like. I’m right behind you,’ said Susan.
‘Take off your shoes. Heels are no good for climbing either up or down.’
Magda went first, swinging her legs out first even though her skirt rode up to her backside, then dropping to the ground.
‘Do it like I did,’ she hissed at Susan.
‘No. I’m good at this,’ Susan hissed back.
She sat sideways on the window ledge, one leg over before the other.
‘You’ll get stuck that way.’
Susan was adamant. ‘I told you. I’m good at this. Better than my brothers.’
She threw down her bag. Magda caught it.
A light went on in an upstairs window flooding the yard with sudden light.
‘Quick,’ urged Magda.
Susan tried to swing her other leg over but stopped halfway.
‘Ooops.’
‘What’s ooops supposed to mean?’
‘My knicker leg’s got caught on the catch.’
The sound of raised voices came from the front of the pub. Magda peered round the corner to the back door. So far, nothing. But Bradley and Eddie were bound to come searching for them shortly – or ask the landlord whether there was a window in the ladies’ toilets and, if so, what did it look out on. Once they knew, they’d be out here in the yard and that would be it.
‘Come on. Do something,’ hissed Magda.
The sound of something ripping indicated that Susan had indeed done something.
‘Well, that’s them finished with,’ she declared. ‘That’s my elastic gone.’
‘Susan!’
This time, Susan followed Magda’s advice and swung both legs over the window ledge. Unfortunately, her knickers fell to the ground first, a patch of white cotton amongst the dirt.
Susan picked them up. ‘They’re a bit ripped,’ she said, squinting at them in the semi-gloom. ‘But they are repairable. Can’t throw away a good pair of knickers now, can I?’
She shoved them into her handbag and clipped the catch shut.
Just as Magda had suspected, the double wooden gate to the yard was held shut by two bolts, one at the top and one at the bottom.
Luckily both were fairly well oiled, no doubt due to the fact that the draymen came on a regular basis to make deliveries and liked things to run smoothly. It was a well-known fact that they were rewarded for their diligence with a pint of beer at each pub. Goodness knows their condition by the time they finished their round.
They slid out through the gate, pulling it to as best they could behind them.
A bus ride or two and they were back where they’d set off, both breathless.
Susan was apologetic.
‘Sorry. That was my fault.’
Magda shrugged. ‘Well, it was certainly some celebration. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nothing lost either.’ She grinned. ‘Only your knickers.’
Susan burst out laughing. ‘A stitch in time saves knickers!’
The joking continued. ‘Lucy Lastic is your middle name.’
‘Well, what a bloomer that was!’
‘A pair of bloomers,’ Magda corrected.
Magda couldn’t help feeling elated, and not just because they’d escaped the clutches of Bradley Fitts. Tomorrow she would pay her aunt for that big old Bible. First off she would write to her grandparents in Ireland. Then, once the basic introductions had been made, she would travel over there.
Her heart leapt at the prospect of seeing them. In her mind’s eye she could visualise the meeting; the tears, the laughter, the swapping of stories.
She told Susan of her intentions and of her concerns.
‘I think Winnie is worrying about me going, but I told her I’ll be back.’
‘Why? She’s not related, is she? And family is family.’
Susan’s comment was like a knife in her ribs, stabbing into something soft at her centre, something she’d been keeping securely locked away.
‘Look at it from her point of view. She’s old and without you she’s all alone.’
The laughter was gone. Magda hadn’t wanted it confirmed to her that once she found her family, nobody else mattered. She didn’t want it to be that way, but Susan had made a point.
‘If it were me that was old and alone, I’d want to keep you close,’ said Susan.
Magda shook her head. ‘I think she’ll be fine. I think we’ll be fine.’
Susan stopped walking and raised a solitary finger. ‘Listen.’
The mad jangling of bells announced the approach of a fire engine.
Magda sniffed the air.
‘I can smell burning.’
She saw a thick pall of smoke and sparks spiralling into an ink-black sky.
‘Not my house,’ cried Susan. ‘Please God, not mine.’
She ran towards the fire. Magda ran after her.
‘Not our street,’ said Susan coming to a halt. ‘It’s from Edward Street!’
Magda cursed under her breath, then burst into a run, her pulse racing, her court shoes clattering over the uneven pavements.
Even at a distance she could taste the iron dryness of scorched air as sparks and smoke seared the sky. The flames crackled, snapped and popped.
They stood together, the pair of them, their upturned faces lit by the flames.
A policeman pushed them back as the fire engine rattled into the street and men dived off, hauling hoses that had come too late; too late to save the house, Aunt Bridget, or the one thing that Magda held dear.
‘Everything burnt to a cinder,’ said one of the girls from the whore house.
‘So’s your Aunt Bridget,’ said Susan. ‘Probably burning in hell.’
Despite the flames, Magda felt as though her blood had turned to ice. There was no love lost between her and Bridget Brodie; it was sad to admit it, but she really didn’t care whether her aunt was alive or dead.
What she did care about was her mother’s Bible. Tears stung her eyes. The Bible was the key to finding her family. It was gone.
Chapter Twenty-seven
T
he Twins 1935
Anna Marie was forking hay when Venetia raced up to her, apron flapping and her boots thudding into the muddy ground.
‘Guess what? The Caseys are coming out to fix the stone wall that fell down in the gale. Isn’t that marvellous, Annie? Isn’t that just plain marvellous?’
Anna Marie looked at her sister’s excited expression and felt that perhaps she didn’t know her sister’s mind at all.
‘He let you down. He wouldn’t go to America with you. And he told on us. I didn’t think you were ever going to forgive him.’
It was true. Her sister had declared again and again that she would have words with him when she could. However, the chance to have words with him had never quite come about. There had been no chance to meet alone; their grandparents saw to that. The only time either of them had seen Patrick Casey was from a discreet distance. Either he was with his father doing a building job in the town, or on the rare occasions that Patrick attended mass. The Caseys were known to be a bit lax in their churchgoing, keeping their attendance to a Sunday, the day they considered was the Lord’s and his alone.
‘He’ll never leave here,’ Anna Marie stated. ‘Surely you should know that by now.’
Venetia’s eyes flashed and she adopted a coquettish pose to her body, looking at her sister sideways, hair held with one hand and piled on top of her head.
‘He won’t be able to resist. All I need is a little time alone with him and we will be leaving – together!’
‘Are you going to get him to marry you?’ Anna Marie looked shocked and incredulous.
‘Why not? He’s who I want anyway, and let’s face it he’s about the only good-looking fellah around here.’
Anna Marie looked away. She rarely disagreed with her sister, mainly because it was easier to go along with everything she said. What she was certain of was that Patrick Casey would never leave his father’s employ. If he had been willing to leave and loved her enough, wouldn’t he have boarded the ship with them at Queenstown?
Her views on her sister’s relationship with Patrick were not new. She’d had this opinion for a while, but had never dared point it out to Venetia who was as head-over-heels in love with Patrick as he was with her. Or was he? Anna Marie blushed at the memory of the way he’d looked at her in Queenstown. There’d been something in his eyes that had caught her breath.