by Jessie Keane
Joe and Betsy had married not long after the end of the war, and it had seemed like they’d never have their yearned-for kids. But now – at last – it had happened. So Ruby had to force herself to smile, to behave as if she was delighted for them. She was, really. But it still hurt her to see their joy.
‘What are you going to call her?’ she asked her sister-in-law, who lay back on the pillows, her usually immaculate blonde hair all over the place. Betsy looked exhausted, but radiant.
‘Nadine,’ said Betsy.
Ruby gazed down at the slumbering infant, inhaling the sweet powdery smell of her.
Oh God – my babies . . .
‘Were you in labour for long?’ she asked.
‘No, it was very quick. Four hours.’ Betsy managed a taut smile for her sister-in-law. They had never rekindled the friendship they’d lost during the war, but she was married to Ruby’s brother, they were kin – they had to be civil to one another.
‘She’s a marvel,’ said Joe, holding his wife’s hand and staring at her with loving eyes.
Ruby thought of her own labour, the doodlebug going over, her fear that they would be hit, that her babies would be killed even before they’d drawn breath. But they had survived. Now her daughter was with Cornelius and his family, named and raised by them. Her son . . . she had no idea. Charlie had never told her what had become of the little boy, only that he would be cared for.
She gave Betsy flowers, hugged Joe and congratulated him. She stayed for an hour – the longest, most tortured hour she had endured for years. Then she left, and went home to her solitary, luxurious flat above what had once been Dad’s corner shop: now it was a big store. The emerald green ‘Darke & Sons’ sign was long gone. Now the sign was huge and burgundy-red, with DARKES picked out in black-outlined gold. The same signage appeared over the entrance to all her shops, on the bags and food packaging, and soon – if the wholesalers kept pissing her about like they were – that same name would be on the labels of the clothing range too. She had some plans for that.
Yeah, but it’s just business, right?
The business had kept her sane.
But now . . .
Ruby listened to the echoing silence of the flat all around her. Her babies were out there. Young adults now. She felt her eyes fill with all the tears she’d been holding back for so long, so many empty years when she’d buried herself, immersed herself in work. They flowed like a river as she stood there in her sumptuously appointed flat. She didn’t try to stop her tears, she couldn’t. She was rich, she was successful, she had everything. But without them, without her babies . . . she had nothing. Nothing at all.
Her daughter was with Cornelius and Vanessa. They’d christened her Daisy; she had seen the announcement in the Tatler back in the day. Daisy, her beautiful daughter, had been raised as a lady, in comfort and style. Whereas her poor nameless boy . . . she had no idea what had become of him. She hoped he was happy, prayed he was well.
Maybe now it was time – well past time – that she made them a part of her life again somehow.
Next time she saw Joe, she tackled him straight away.
‘The boy. My little boy,’ she said, dry-mouthed, wondering if she was doing the right thing here. Opening a can of worms that would be better left untouched.
‘What?’ Joe was looking at her.
‘My little boy, Joe. Charlie said he was with a friend of a friend. I want to know who, and where.’
Joe sat down with a thump. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Do I look like I’m joking?’
‘For God’s sake, Rubes. All that happened back in the war. Twenty years ago, is it now? let it go.’
‘I can’t let it go. It’s been playing on my mind so much. Have you any idea what it’s been like for me? You’ve got a family, Joe. You’ve got Betsy and now you’ve got a daughter. What have I got? Nothing. Nothing at all. I want to know who Charlie left my boy with. He must have told you. He told you everything, back then. Didn’t he?’
Joe glanced away from her face; his eyes were troubled.
‘Charlie never told me a thing about it. He didn’t want to talk about it, kept going on about how you’d shamed him, showed yourself up, acted like a slag.’ Joe saw the expression on his sister’s face and nodded. ‘I know, I know. Things are changing now. Just a bit. But then . . . well, it just wasn’t done, was it? An unmarried woman, keeping bastard kids.’
‘So he told you nothing.’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘You still go to see him sometimes, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes. Not often.’
‘He sends you a visiting order.’
‘Yeah. He does.’
Ruby looked him straight in the eye. ‘Next time you visit, tell him I want to see him. And in the meantime, I’m going to make contact with my daughter.’
Joe stiffened. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal. You know it wasn’t. Bray won’t have it.’
Ruby shook her head, her eyes flaring. For a moment Joe could see the bloody-minded businesswoman his quiet, unassuming sister had become – the one the papers now called the Ice Queen of Retail.
‘Fuck Cornelius Bray. I don’t care about deals, Joe. I want to know my own kids. Since when was that a crime?’
53
1962
When Kit Miller was nineteen, he was a Friday-night gangster, going around the clubs and pubs, the restaurants and arcades. Kicking up trouble for no reason other than he liked to. He’d left proper schooling at sixteen, and even then he’d been trouble. Any youngster who joined the school had to fight Kit in the playground, but he was artful, he never got the cane like everyone else in his class. When one of the old masters, Gerald Ratterton, left, he said he’d caned them all and Kit cockily shouted out, Not me, sir – and so earned himself a last-minute walloping off the old goat.
With school out of the way, he got a job through a youth employment agency in a bedding company. He knocked holes in the edges of beds day after day, for two shillings an hour. Pretty soon he thought, fuck this, and he left and found a succession of other dead-end jobs that paid similarly badly. He was a bookie’s runner for a while, then finally he pitched up on the lorries, selling soft drinks door to door. After a week heaving crates of Corona about for pennies, he liked to let his hair down on a Friday night, get drunk and start to rip up the town with his mates.
He and his mates tore up Gasworks, the restaurant where one of the attractions – apart from the chance of seeing Princess Margaret being fawned over by the underworld enforcer John Bindon – was a chess set with pieces depicting couples having sex in various positions.
Then they moved on to the next place, Sheila’s, to cause more mayhem. And that was when Kit felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
‘Someone wants a word with you,’ said the man standing there. He was built like a brick shithouse, with white hair and a face you didn’t want to argue with.
‘Tell them to go and fuck themselves,’ said Kit.
He looked around, expecting to see his mates grinning. But they weren’t there any more. They’d all scarpered. The cunts.
Kit stood there alone, with King Kong’s bigger uglier brother breathing down his neck. He twisted sideways, away from the man, and elbowed him hard in the ribs. Then he followed through with a belter to the jaw. He wasn’t running. He was standing his ground, fighting back. Kit always did. His mates told him he was stupid, but he saw himself as a gladiator, a fighter to the bitter end. He’d been fighting all his life, ever since he was a kid.
But now . . .
Kit was doling out his best work, but the man didn’t seem to even feel it. He gave Kit a fast uppercut to the jaw, and Kit went down hard. Head spinning, he found himself being dragged to his feet and hauled into a back room.
Uh-oh, he thought.
His jaw felt like it was coming off. He rubbed it with one hand and stared around at the blokes assembled there – six of them. They all looked heavy, nasty. They were looking at him like he was
excrement – but then he was used to that. Nineteen years of ducking and diving, he’d grown a hide like a rhino.
His mates had left him here to face the music alone. So what? He would face it.
‘He’s not a bad-looking kid, is he?’ said the man seated behind the desk. ‘Could scrub up, I reckon.’
They eyed up Kit like he was a piece of meat. He had a cocky bearing about him, a way of swaggering through the world as if ready to spit in its eye. He had good height, an athlete’s bouncy energy, broad shoulders, curly black hair, dark skin. His face was arresting – his eyes in particular were startling, given his skin colour. They were a sharp, clear blue, and there was a quick intelligence in them that was there for all to see. His nose was straight, the nostrils widely flaring, and his mouth was sensual. Women turned to look at him in the street. Men too, sometimes.
‘He’s presentable. And he’s got a good punch on him,’ said the white-haired one who’d dragged him in here. ‘Got balls. All the rest of ’em ran for the hills.’
‘What’s your name, son?’
Kit stared around at them all. ‘I ain’t your son,’ he said stiffly.
‘See? Balls like a tiger,’ said the white-haired one, smiling.
‘How’d you like a job?’ asked the one behind the desk.
‘Doing what?’ asked Kit. He was bored to tears with the lorries.
‘A bit of this, a bit of that. Nothing too difficult. But you do what you’re told. Can you do that?’
Kit stared at the man behind the desk. He looked like trouble. He was forty, maybe fifty and very handsome in a strong and brutish sort of way. He was neatly dressed, with a square jaw, a neatly trimmed head of thick dark iron-grey hair and grey eyes, hard as chips of granite. He looked the sort that could drop shit on your head like a ton of bricks, if you weren’t very careful.
Kit had got used to standing up for himself, summing up a situation quickly and knowing which way to jump. He changed jobs like other people changed their hats. He was rootless. He drifted around finding work where he could, if he could. He had no loyalties, no responsibilities. So if they were offering him a job, that was OK. But if he got bored, he’d piss off.
‘I s’pose,’ he said.
‘All right then. You’re on the payroll, as a breaker.’
Kit knew that a breaker was a heavy, a paid thug. Well, he could do that. He had been coping on his own for so long, he could do anything. He’d been in the kid’s home, but then he’d left at sixteen, found work on the streets of the East End wherever he could, kept himself fed. He was a coper. He’d had to be.
‘What’s your name?’ asked the man behind the desk again. He shook out a cigarette from the packet, placed it between his lips, snapped open a gold Dunhill lighter and lit it. Took a long, deep drag.
‘Kit Miller.’
‘I’m Michael Ward,’ said the man behind the desk, wreathed in smoke. ‘This is one of my gaffs. I got other places too. Other restaurants, a couple of clubs, some shops and stalls, and I do loans.’ He picked up a pen and scrawled a note on a piece of paper. He held it out to Kit. ‘Go round to this place in Lewisham in the morning. Watch yourself. They eat their own young down there. Get fifty quid off this geezer – he’s late paying. I gave him one week, now he’s asked for another. He’s taking the piss. Lean on him hard. Think you can do that?’
Kit pocketed the piece of paper. ‘I can do it.’
‘What happened?’ asked Kit’s mate when he came out onto the street. ‘I thought they were going to do you over proper.’
‘Nah, they gave us a job,’ said Kit with a grin.
‘You’re joking. Doing what?’
‘Dunno yet. But fuck the lorries. This looks more interesting.’
54
When Astorre Danieri died, his eldest son Tito took control of his father’s clubs and business interests.
At Astorre’s funeral, Cornelius was in attendance. Since the war, he’d done well for himself. Now he was Lord Bray – the Right Honourable Cornelius Baron Bray – having been raised to the peerage as a life peer in 1958. He’d been appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1950, made a Knight of the British Empire in 1953 and an Honorary LLD by St Andrews in 1959.
Cornelius shook Tito’s hand and conveyed to the old frail widow of Astorre his sincere condolences.
‘Astorre was a great man,’ he said. ‘A true friend.’
‘Thank you,’ said Bella, and she turned away, weeping.
‘You’re too kind, your lordship,’ said Tito, holding on to Cornelius’s hand. ‘Let’s hope we can continue the strong friendship you first forged with my father, uh?’
Cornelius looked at Tito. Tito wasn’t a boy any more. Now he was a big man, tanned and bulky. Tito was immaculately and expensively dressed. He had close-cropped hair that was turning from black to silver. He sported a small, neatly trimmed grey-flecked beard, but his eyes were the same: a stunningly clear, cruel ice-blue.
‘That would be most agreeable,’ said Cornelius.
‘My father very much valued his association with you,’ said Tito, still holding Cornelius’s hand.
‘I valued our friendship too, immensely.’
Tito’s eyes were drilling into Cornelius’s. Like Astorre, he wanted to nurture his association with this upper-class twat. It could be useful. Now he was in charge, things would be a little different. Astorre had blocked his, Tito’s, wishes on many things, including that old mail van business. Tito had raged in silence about it. He felt his father’s decision on that had been the wrong one. And now, of course, it was far too late. The currency was different. Even if he could have traced the cash, it was worthless and could only bring trouble.
‘My father liked you,’ he told Cornelius. ‘So much so that he took photos. Many photos. To remember the happy times you had at his club.’
Cornelius felt his heart freeze in his chest. What was the conniving shit saying? He thought back frantically to all the times he had taken his pleasure at Astorre’s place, with highly paid prostitutes, with hostesses, with boys, indulging in perversions that he knew must never come to light. He had never seen a camera. Never.
Which didn’t mean that there hadn’t been one, secretly recording it all.
‘I think we understand one another,’ said Tito, with a slight, cool smile. ‘If everything continues as it is, no one will ever see those photos.’
There had been a camera. That fat cunning old goat Astorre had stitched him up. He’d filmed those sex sessions Cornelius had so enjoyed, and now Cornelius knew he was in Tito’s pocket. Of course, he was pretty certain that his journalistic and police contacts would instantly bury any unsavoury details that might emerge, but could he be absolutely certain nothing would leak out?
No. He couldn’t.
He swallowed hard. He wanted to grab Tito by the throat and throw him into his cheating old fuck of a father’s grave. But he was old school, well tutored in the art of self-control when it came to doing business.
‘We understand one another perfectly,’ Cornelius agreed.
‘Good. So we’ll see you in the club one night next week . . . ?’
‘Of course,’ said Cornelius, and he turned away with a smile. His heart was full of black hatred for the dead father – and for the son.
But he knew he was going to continue his liaison with Tito.
That he couldn’t turn his back on all that Tito had to offer.
He couldn’t help himself.
And besides . . . he didn’t seem to have much choice.
55
1962
‘You look beautiful, darling,’ said Lady Bray to her daughter.
Daisy Bray was turning back and forth before the mirror, looking at her reflection with a critical eye. Not so much beautiful as distinctive to look at, she thought.
She had very nice blonde hair, tumbling loose in artful tendrils from a French plait. She’d fought forcibly with her mother to prevent her from whisking her off to the Knightsbridge s
alon where Monsieur Albert would have inflicted a perm on her. She would agree she had lovely blue eyes, just like her father’s. Piercing, and yes – beautiful. She’d agree to that. Her skin was good too, and she was tall – maybe too tall? – but nicely proportioned.
And now her mother had said she looked lovely! This was rare praise indeed, coming from chilly, buttoned-up Vanessa.
Daisy loved her dress. Yes, she thought all this coming-out business Vanessa insisted upon was impossibly old-fashioned, a leftover from the fifties – a last-gasp remnant of another time. But now she was glad she had laboured through all those tortuous fittings at the House of Worth in Grosvenor Street.
The dress was a swirling floor-length primrose-yellow shimmer of lace and chiffon, suspended from a nipped-in waist and a strapless, boned bodice. She fiddled about with it. She was clumsy and quick-moving. She worried aloud that her ample bosom might escape over the top of it if she moved too suddenly.
‘Well, you don’t move suddenly in it, darling,’ said Vanessa. ‘You deport yourself like the lady you are. You don’t dash around like an idiot.’
Vanessa bit her lip, aware that she had been sharp with Daisy – too sharp. She stifled a sigh. She tried so hard, she really did, but she couldn’t seem to help the resentment that haunted her every day. This feeling of resentment over Daisy’s parentage had grown and festered over the years until it was like a solid lump in her chest, stifling her.
Every time she saw Daisy, she seemed to be searching for traces of Ruby Darke in her – and, oh God, the worst of it was, she was finding them too. The older and more troublesome Daisy became, the more Vanessa pushed her away. She just couldn’t help it.
Chastened, Daisy stared at the dress in the mirror. It was the colour of spring, of optimism; she loved it. Better still, it hid her big bottom. She turned away from the mirror, watching her mother anxiously.
Vanessa sighed, sitting down on the bed in the master bedroom and holding out her hands. Obediently Daisy went to her, took Vanessa’s thin cold hands in hers, and sat down beside her. ‘I remember my own coming-out ball,’ she said.