by Pip Granger
We lost them in the end, although we could hear faint cries and clangs as the axe head hit masonry. We also lost Bobby. We waited in our pre-arranged rendezvous for some time, but he never showed up. Eventually, we started the long walk home.
‘Cheer up, it may never happen!’ yelled a meat porter as he lugged half a cow on his shoulder from a wholesaler’s store to a waiting vehicle in Smithfield Market in the early hours of the morning. Porters were rushing this way and that, their bloody overalls garish in the harsh lights. It was another world, and it brought the memory of poor Bobby with his axe back into sharp relief.
‘It already has,’ I yelled back sadly. A thought suddenly occurred to me. ‘Is there a cafe open around here?’
‘Yes, love. Just round the corner, you can’t miss it. Does a bloody good fry-up.’ He grinned, hefted a dead sheep on his shoulders and sped off before I could thank him.
Nobody felt much like eating but I made them. My knees were wobbling, my teeth were chattering and my brains felt like cotton wool. Upset or not, my body was telling me that neither I, nor poor, soaking, shivering, fuddled T.C. could go another step until we’d topped up on food and had a hot drink to warm us up. Even though we had to choke down every mouthful, it did the trick, and both T.C. and I were better for it. T.C. stopped shivering, my teeth stopped chattering and my knees were restored to working order. Even our brains began to stir into life again, and I sent Lucky to find a cab.
Enough was enough: it was time to go home by the quickest possible means.
35
It was a subdued and dishevelled little group that trailed into the club in the early hours of the morning. Bandy, Pansy and Sugar had been sitting vigil and the relief on their faces at our arrival turned to consternation when they realized Bobby was not with us. We, in our turn, felt hope fade when we discovered that Bobby wasn’t there, big grin on his face, waiting for us to appear. Nobody could enjoy Peace’s homecoming with the thought that that dear, gentle giant might be lying injured or worse in an East End alley. Although Bandy and Sugar did try, and so did Peace.
Bandy was so relieved to see the girl that she didn’t even shout, she just enfolded Peace in her arms and held her there for some time. Sugar was more demonstrative; he swung Peace off her feet and gave her a big, smacking kiss on each cheek between feasting his eyes on her. But Bobby’s absence from the scene definitely put a dampener on the reunion for us all.
We had just decided to send the police to Limehouse to look for him, when there was a hammering at the street door. Sugar went to answer it while I tried hard not to imagine a gang of Chinese, armed to the teeth and intent on vengeance, on our very doorstep. We were simply too shattered to rise to the occasion. We were sitting ducks.
I looked at the group around the table. Peace looked crumpled in on herself as she leaned against Lucky, not looking at anyone and crying quietly. The poor girl must have been reeling with fear, exhaustion and guilt, feeling that her running away had led to all this trouble for people who cared for her: she was fond of Bobby and he of her. Lucky had his arm firmly around her shoulders. Although he, too, seemed stunned, the set of his jaw declared he was also determined never to let go of Peace again.
When my eyes rested on T.C., I realized what an awful state the man was in. He’d lost his jacket, left behind on the lean-to roof, his shirt was filthy and wet, and so were his trousers, while his face was deathly pale. Every now and then, his body would convulse in a bout of uncontrolled shivering that made his teeth rattle like empty beer bottles in a shopping bag. It was time he found a change of clothes and a warm bed. I said as much to Bandy, who nodded and said she’d go and get Sugar’s dressing gown.
‘It’s all right, Band, I’ll get it,’ sang out Sugar from the hall. ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in!’ He flung out his arm like a conjuror’s assistant, trilled ‘Tra-la’, and stepped aside as the mighty bulk of Bobby Bristowe filled the doorway.
Pansy was the first to react. She flew across the room, launched herself at her husband and was swung off the ground as she sobbed, ‘I thought you was dead, darlin’. I thought you was dead.’
‘Well, if I am, someone forgot to mention it to me,’ Bobby laughed. ‘Glad to see you lot got back safe,’ he added, looking over Pansy’s head at the rest of us.
It was some time before we could all stop smiling, laughing and chattering long enough for Bobby to tell us everything. Sugar returned with his dressing gown, a stunning creation in pink velvet, with several ostriches’ worth of feathers around the collar and cuffs. Washed out as he was, T.C. looked so appalled when Sugar tossed it to him that the rest of us had virtual hysterics as we tried to persuade him to try it on at least. I’m sure the uncontrolled laughter was largely relief at seeing Bobby safe, sound and in one, large, happy piece.
In the end, with much tutting, Bandy went and got her dressing gown, a much more sensible creation in wool. T.C. was finally talked out of his wet clothes and into something warm and dry.
A fresh pot of coffee sat in the middle of the table and we all took reviving sips from our cups as we listened to Bobby’s tale. We’d last seen him defending the exit of the alley we’d had to leave in such a hurry, and although he was able to hold our pursuers long enough for us to disappear into the labyrinth of streets and alleys, he’d had to give way eventually.
‘I thought I was a goner, then I heard this Gawdawful racket from behind me,’ Bobby explained. ‘I thought there were more of ’em come up on me rear flank. I didn’t know which way to turn. Then I heard this Paddy shout out, “Hold on, big fella, we’ll give you a hand.” And about half a dozen bleeding great navvies waded in. Well, the Chinks – begging your pardon, Peace, Lucky, no offence meant – decided to leg it. I reckon it was the bloody great shovels what did it, all the Paddies had ’em and there’s no getting near enough to grapple with a Paddy with a shovel,’ Bobby concluded, giving Pansy a hug as he did so.
I looked across the table at Lucky and Peace, who were both relaxed enough, at last, to laugh and smile at Bobby’s tale.
T.C. looked puzzled. ‘It’s good that the Irishmen turned up in the nick of time, Bobby, but where on earth did they pop up from?’
‘They’re in digs round there. When they heard Lucky kicking up at first, they decided it was purely a Chinese matter. Later they heard the fighting and decided anyone could join in, so they did. ’Cause of all that building going on, they stay in the area to save travelling. Gives ’em more lolly to send home to the family in Ireland that way.’ Bobby beamed. ‘Lucky for me, eh?’
Bandy took charge. ‘Now you’re all back safely, I think you need some shut-eye, the lot of you. We’ll do all the celebrating and any more explaining later, how about that?’
It seemed like the best idea anyone had ever had. Peace took her old room at my place, while Lucky wound up upstairs, at Bandy’s insistence. ‘I want to keep a close eye on you, you young tyke,’ was how she put it. You could hardly blame her. Anyway, it seemed best not to send him home to Mrs Wong until we knew the lie of the land and it was a more respectable hour. For all we knew, Peace’s thwarted captors could be waiting for him to go home.
T.C. crawled into Sugar’s bed, on the grounds that he needed comfort to soothe his bruises, and anyway, his own bed was too far away. Sugar slept on my living-room couch to provide protection, in the unlikely event it would be needed that night.
We all slept like the dead; it wasn’t until a late breakfast that Peace and I had the chance to say ‘Hello again’ properly. Sugar had gone home and we had the kitchen to ourselves.
Peace could not look at me at first. ‘I am so sorry, Aunt Liz, for all the trouble I have caused you. You have been good to me, and it was very wrong of me to bring so much trouble to you.’
I didn’t know quite what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I just caught her up in my arms and held her for a moment, and tried very hard not to cry. After a while, I let her go, handed her a hanky and went to find another for myself. We w
iped our eyes, blew heartily and eventually I was able to say, ‘The main thing is that you are back with us and in one piece – at least, I hope you are. They didn’t hurt you, did they?’
Peace shook her head. ‘No, I was frightened only. They did not beat me or molest me.’
I simply stared at her. I had run out of words. I was just so glad to have her back.
‘Thank you for saving me from those men, Aunt Liz,’ Peace said with great formality.
‘Oh,’ I waved my hand airily, ‘it was T.C., Bobby and Lucky, really.’
Peace shook her head. ‘No, Lucky told me – it was you who insisted that I had to be saved from those men. He said that you said you would go alone, but you would not stand by.’
‘Well,’ I told her, ‘it wasn’t quite like that. But yes, I did want to get you back.’ I paused. ‘I missed you.’
Peace nodded slowly, her eyes glistening with tears that overflowed again. She dabbed with my hanky. ‘I missed you too.’ She spoke so quietly, I almost didn’t hear her.
Someone knocked at the door. I went to open it, with much more caution than usual, but it turned out to be Lucky, desperate to see Peace. I have to say, they made a very touching couple. It was not the Chinese – or indeed the English – way to show too much affection in public, but I could tell that the young pair were very much in love. It was the way their eyes constantly sought each other and their fingertips brushed lightly together at any tiny opportunity, like when they walked close together, or both reached for the sugar, or at any excuse at all, really. I knew the feeling all too well. Often, my own fingertips itched to smooth T.C.’s anxious brow or to pluck imaginary lint from his shoulders, but I was more reticent about it than they were.
‘What now?’ I asked the pair, who looked at me blankly. ‘What I mean is, you’re back, so what are you going to do now?’
Lucky answered me first. ‘We wish to marry,’ he said simply. ‘That’s why we ran away. We wish to marry and we did not think that Miss Bunyan, Peace’s aunt, would allow it.’
‘What made you think that? Did you ask her?’
Peace shook her head. ‘I did not need to. Aunt Bandy does not like me very much.’
I thought about that for a moment or two. ‘I’m sure that’s not true, Peace. Bandy suffered badly while you were gone. I think she’s fond of you, but doesn’t know how to show it. Remember, she spent most of her childhood in schools a long way from her parents or in the care of nannies. I don’t suppose she had much in the way of motherly affection herself, so doesn’t know how to be motherly, but that doesn’t mean she’s not fond of you. You should have given her the chance to listen to you, before you ran away,’ I chided as gently as I could.
‘She told me that I had stolen her pearls.’ Peace was like a fawn in the forest, as twitchy as anything and ready to run at the slightest sound, and I certainly didn’t want to drive her away again.
‘Yes,’ I said sadly, ‘she told us. She knows it was very wrong of her.’ I changed tack. ‘Do you have any idea who kidnapped you, or why?’
Peace and Lucky looked fearfully at one another, but said nothing for a second or two. Lucky answered for them both. ‘We thought it might be a rival Triad but we do not know why. And it does not explain why members of our tong would be part of it, and why they wanted Peace.’ Lucky looked down for a moment, almost as if he was ashamed. ‘I am not important enough for it to be because of me, I think. I have no money to pay a ransom and they would know that. It must have been to do with Peace herself, but they gave no clue.’
Peace took up the story. ‘It is true, they would answer no questions. They pretended they understood no English.’ She smiled for the first time since she clapped eyes on Lucky that morning. ‘And I pretended I had no Cantonese. So I heard them talking, but they said nothing about who wanted me to go back to Hong Kong.’
I brought the conversation back to the beginning. ‘You cannot marry in this country without the permission of your guardian, unless you’re prepared to wait until you are twenty-one.’ What I didn’t add, but felt keenly, was that they had better do something about this. They had been missing together for some time. Peace’s reputation was going to suffer badly. People would wonder if Lucky had respected her; many wouldn’t believe them even if he had. I was pretty sure the Chinese would take a very dim view, along with their English counterparts.
As Maggie would have said, glands had a lot to answer for, especially in the young and inexperienced. ‘So, someone is going to have to approach Bandy if you want to be safely married before Peace’s twenty-first birthday.’ Once again, Peace and Lucky exchanged stricken glances. It seemed to me that they would be happier to tackle the Triads, all of them, than take on Peace’s aunt.
36
It was late afternoon. Peace and Lucky, accompanied by Sugar and Bobby, were in Gerrard Street, explaining themselves to Mrs Wong. Sugar and Bobby had gone along as both escorts and guards, to make sure they arrived safely and also that Peace was returned promptly to Bandy’s jurisdiction.
Bandy, Peace and Lucky had had a long and private chat about things before they’d gone, which had left the young couple chastened and Bandy quiet and very thoughtful. And T.C. slept on in Sugar’s bed, oblivious to the romantic and domestic dramas going on around him.
I was sharing a quiet coffee with Bandy in her kitchen upstairs, when his dishevelled figure finally appeared, yawning and wondering if there was any breakfast; then, once informed of the hour, tea.
Bandy looked so alarmed at the thought of having to tackle a frying pan that I laughed and offered to do the honours. The relief was plain on Bandy’s face, and I set to while T.C. went to wash, shave and borrow a clean shirt from Sugar’s flamboyant wardrobe.
‘What do you think?’ T.C. shouted through the doorway. ‘The pink or the purple?’
I squinted at him through a cloud of Bandy’s cigarette smoke. ‘What about his cream linen?’ I asked. ‘That’ll suit you better.’ I tried hard not to look at the muscular lines of his body. My mum had taught me not to, and old habits die very hard, especially when a person is caught unawares.
T.C. looked bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not really up on clothes. A shirt’s a shirt to me, although I think pink might be going a little too far for my liking.’
Bandy had been watching me throughout this brief conversation and now she laughed her husky laugh. ‘Liz dear, the cooking is making you hot and bothered. I’ll keep an eye on the bacon while you show the poor, ignorant man what cream linen looks like.’
I joined T.C. in Sugar’s bedroom, acutely aware that he was half naked. The moment we were through the door, he pushed it to and caught me in his arms. ‘I’ve been aching to have you to myself since I walked into the kitchen,’ he said softly, and kissed me. It was a long, long time before we came up for air.
So long, in fact, that Bandy’s voice called out that it was time to turn the eggs over and she didn’t want to break them. ‘I always mangle the bloody things,’ she explained loudly.
I broke free, laughing quietly to myself, found Sugar’s cream linen shirt and handed it to T.C. ‘For goodness sake, make yourself decent before either Randy Bandy or I jump on you,’ I said, and ran out of the room before he could grab me again. There was a time and a place for everything and right then, with Bandy grinning like a smug Cheshire cat in the kitchen, it was time for a very late breakfast, or perhaps a high, very high tea.
It was certainly a jolly meal and we saw Bandy at her most human. ‘I want to thank you two,’ she said gruffly, unable to quite meet anyone’s eye; she looked at the gap between us. ‘You’ve been bricks, the pair of you, fine chaps to have at one’s wicket. If ever there’s anything …’ Her voice trailed off, but the message was understood. T.C. and I tried hard not to fidget with embarrassment, so as not to make Bandy feel any more awkward.
‘Well, you know,’ T.C. began, ‘we’re all friends, and friends help out in times of trouble. Well, good ones do.’
�
�And having Peace to stay was lovely and I missed her. Of course I’d want to get her back. I’ve already lost one child. I was blowed if I was going to lose another without an argument. So it was purely selfish, you see.’ I blushed deeply. It was the truth: I was being selfish. ‘I just couldn’t face the pain of another loss, especially if I was never to find out what had happened to her, so I simply had to get Peace back.’
‘None the less, I’ll not forget it.’ Bandy heaved herself to her feet. ‘Time I got going. There’s a welcome home party to organize for a start. I’ll leave you two to it. When you’ve finished eating, just pull the door to when you leave. I’ll be in the club if you want me.’
T.C. and I didn’t rush. We ate up every crumb and cleaned up after ourselves, chatting and kissing as the mood took us, all sense of urgency and panic gone.
‘You saved my life,’ T.C. said eventually, nuzzling my neck while I tried to concentrate on a sink full of washing up. ‘Clobbering the bloke who was smashing my head on the floor almost certainly saved my life.’
‘You wouldn’t have been in that position if I hadn’t threatened to go on my own,’ I pointed out. ‘I had to do something. It would have been all my fault if you’d come a cropper.’ I couldn’t mention death and T.C. in the same sentence, I was superstitious about giving God or fate ideas.
I don’t know who brought it up. I think it must have been him, because I would have been too shy. ‘I’ve not been sleeping with her, you know,’ he said.
‘Sleeping with whom?’ I asked as archly as I could manage through the happy haze of warm washing-up water, a full stomach and feeling safe at last.
‘You know “whom” – Cassie. It’s just that she’s started seeing snakes again when she’s been drinking heavily. She’s afraid to be alone at night sometimes. I try to be a comfort to her.’ He tried to catch my eye, but I wouldn’t let him.