Trouble In Paradise

by Pip Granger

  The big question, of course, was what to do about it? Zinnia and my family were all beset with troubles and it all went back to the Hole clan and those bloody offshoots, Charlie and Brian. Right there and then, I could’ve swung for Charlie, I was so angry with him. How dare he set Ma Hole loose on Zinnia? How dare he? Even if he hadn’t meant to, it was him that started the whole thing.

  I was hopping mad, but also, funnily enough, eerily calm. The decision I’d made to leave my husband had hardened into a firm resolve to do it as soon as possible. Nothing on the face of this Earth was going to stop me, and once Frankie had escorted Mrs Dunmore home, I was free to talk about it. We talked until late, too late for me to go home.

  But first we talked about what to do about Ma Hole and Percy Robinson.

  ‘It’s probably gonna take a slap or two to convince the parties concerned there’s no future in it,’ Frankie observed.

  I brought up a point that had been slowly dawning on me. ‘And Brian’s armed. The law hasn’t found the gun or the grenade yet. There’s no telling what that idiot would do if he was cornered, Frankie.’

  ‘I’ll have to make sure I don’t corner the little bugger then, won’t I?’ He smiled at me, and winked.

  ‘The blood runs cold to think of his mother in possession of an armoury,’ Zinnia warned him. It was true, too. Ma was very definitely a loose cannon.

  ‘It bears some thinking about and planning,’ said Frankie. ‘I won’t rush into anything. I can always send for reinforcements if it looks like I’ll need them. Never seen no point in being a dead hero.’ He turned to me. ‘What’s this about you and your old man? You planning on doing a runner?’

  I nodded. ‘I can’t stop with him any more. I want to strike out on my own. The only thing is, I’ll have to move right away. You can see what a vindictive so-and-so Charlie is by what he’s done to Zinnia. Can you imagine how he’d be if his wife dared to walk out on him? He’d make my life hell if I was handy. The only good thing is, he’s a lazy sod. I don’t suppose he’d travel far to make me miserable.

  ‘Then there’s my dad. He won’t want me bringing shame on the family. The only thing that worries me is that I’ll have to move away from everyone I know.’

  ‘If Charlie’s as idle as he sounds, it’s not as if you’ve got to leave town. You can stay in the Smoke, near your folks. It don’t have to be Timbuktu, does it? You know people in Soho. You know Mr Burlap, Sharky Finn, Maggie and Bert, and now me.’ Frankie flashed a blinding smile. ‘Why not try there? I reckon Joe’d find he had a spare gaff for you somewhere. He owns a lot of places round and about.’

  It was an idea, certainly. I started to get quite excited the more I thought about it. I liked Soho, and if I could find a place there, it’d suit me fine. I wouldn’t be too far from home, I could see my family, my mates. Of course, I’d have to find work, I’d have rent to pay, food to buy. I said as much, and Frankie had ideas about that too. The man was firing on all cylinders all right.

  ‘You’ve done catering. There’s lots of nosheries in Soho and more’ll be opening now the war’s over, you can bet your life. There’s waitressing in the clubs as well. Miss Makepeace mentioned you’re a dab hand with the sewing; lots of theatres and costumiers in the area. You might find something to suit you there. Wardrobe mistress or something like that. You won’t know until you try.

  ‘I’ll tell you who to ask: Maggie and Bert. They know everybody and pretty much everything that goes on in the manor. Ask them, they’ll set you straight.’

  I looked at Zinnia. She was smiling so hard, I thought her face would split in half. She thought he had a point, that it was a good idea. Suddenly my heart was racing and I was truly, wildly excited. For the first time in years, I could see a future I could live with, that didn’t fill me with dread.

  I wanted to rush off there and then and get started straight away. But I didn’t. I’d be in Soho soon enough, on Saturday morning with Vi and Tony. I’d start then. The thought even held the terror of seeing Charlie at bay. I had a plan, a concrete plan at last!

  42

  Tony was still trying to stay out of trouble, but the strain was beginning to tell on us all. The poor kid was looking haunted as well as hunted. He’d lost weight, too.

  I happened to be with Gran when pent-up feelings finally boiled over into a slanging match in the street. We were outside the King’s Head, having just bought a couple of jugs of stout to take home for Mum, Gran, Vi, Zinnia and me. Mum was convinced that stout was the thing to perk me up after the gruelling few days I’d just had. It wasn’t surprising that Mrs Dunmore hadn’t turned up for work on Wednesday, but she didn’t turn up on Thursday either, which was. I was worried about her, and had decided to call in during work the next day if she still hadn’t shown up in the morning. Apart from anything else, Friday was pay day; we all needed our money, and I couldn’t draw it from the bank.

  Also, despite my secret plan, I was beginning to get nervous about seeing Charlie the next night. I had been trying to make up my mind whether or not to tell him I was leaving him while he was home on leave. Part of me felt it’d be best simply not to be there when he came home for good, to just melt away and disappear. I doubted that he’d take the trouble to look for me, in case he found me; I didn’t think he really wanted that.

  Another part of me felt I owed it to him to tell him I was off, but then masculine pride might rear up if I was actually there with my suitcase. I could imagine Charlie being so determined that no woman was going to leave him, that he’d stop at nothing to bar the exit. But if I was actually gone, the same pride would stop him from hunting me down, on the grounds that Charlie Fluck didn’t run after women. It was all so confusing.

  To add to my worries, Frankie seemed to be taking more than a passing interest in me and I found I quite liked it. Apart from Percy Robinson, there’d been nothing like that for a while, and let’s face it, having a pulse was enough for old Percy, so he didn’t count. But Frankie taking an interest was flattering. Being flattered was better than being flattened any day, and that had been my lot for far too long.

  I didn’t think a swig of stout was likely to sort that little lot out, but it might just take my mind off it all. That was my reasoning, and that was why I was stepping out of the King’s Head with a large jug of bevvy in one hand and my handbag in the other. Gran was right behind me, also with a jug in her hand.

  ‘Birds can’t fly on one wing and if we’re going to have a sip of stout, we might as well make it a good one,’ was Gran’s notion, and it happened to match Mum’s sentiments exactly. Vi and me were more cautious. It was a week-night, and three of us had to be hard at work in the morning. Zinnia would have a steady stream of boils, scraped knees, asthmatics, rheumatics, women’s troubles, bad backs and rashes to deal with, and had to be on the ball, but she was a whisky drinker and a little stout wouldn’t cramp her style. Vi, though, sweated it out in a laundry down Dalston Junction way and, like me, had to have her wits about her if she wasn’t to be steamed, scalded or boiled.

  Anyway, I just stepped out of the King’s Head and right into the path of Ma Hole, who crashed into me, slopping the precious stout. Gran walked straight into my back, and spilled some of her jug too, so I was sopping wet and reeking of stout, front and back. Which made Ma’s words all the more infuriating.

  ‘Watch where you’re going, you stupid mare,’ she spat.

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ I answered. I was feeling full of myself, now I’d come to a decision.

  ‘Watch who you’re speaking too, Zelda Fluck, or I’ll tell young Charlie to teach you your manners when he gets home. He’s a good boy is Charlie, does as he’s told.’

  At this point Gran stepped from behind me and glowered at Gladys Hole. ‘You watch who you’re speaking to. You barged into us and you slopped our drink.’ Gran’s face was red and her specs glittered in the last rays of the sun, giving the appearance of flames sparking from her eyes.

  ‘Daft old women shoul
dn’t hit the booze. Their brains is addled enough already, if you ask me.’ Ma sounded amused.

  ‘Ah! But we didn’t ask you. And talking about addled, what are you doing letting your Brian run around with guns and bloody hand grenades? That’s what I want to know.’

  I saw a brief look of utter bewilderment cross Ma’s face. She had no idea what Gran was on about! Her mouth was open to speak, but Gran’s own gob was running away with her, and nothing was going to stop it except lack of steam. I just hoped like hell that she wouldn’t drop Tony further in it. I stood ready to jump on her foot if I sensed it heading towards her gob.

  ‘I’m sick and tired of you lot thinking you can just walk all over everybody, take what you want, scare people half to death and get away with it. The law’s on to your Brian, and you as well, I’m sure. It’s only a matter of time, Mrs Hole; it’s only a matter of time before you get your just deserts.’

  Ma had gathered her wits, and wasn’t about to let on that she hadn’t got control of her own son. She hadn’t, though. I saw it in her face. Brian’s personal arsenal was a complete surprise to her.

  ‘I told you’ – Ma ran her index finger round her temple in a circle and rolled her eyes – ‘off your trolley. Senile, completely doolally, bats in the belfry. I’ve long thought it and now I know. You’d better not go spreading your lies about my boy, Ida Smallbone, or you’ll have me to answer to, you evil old cow.’

  She turned to me. ‘You ought to keep her off the streets. She’s a bleeding liability, the state she’s in.’ Her voice took on an edge of menace. ‘Talking of off the streets, I haven’t seen your Tony lately. I know my Brian’s been looking for him. P’raps I’ll keep an eye out for him an’ all. I’ll tell Brian to bring him home for his tea.’

  She made it sound as if Tony was on the menu, or maybe I was just overwrought. But in a state or not, I knew what I had seen. Ma hadn’t known about Brian; but she did know now. It’d be a good idea to keep Tony very, very close, I thought, and I watched Ma’s large back disappearing down the road with Gran’s final insults apparently bouncing off it.

  ‘You and your lot have always been wrong’uns, Gladys Hole, always. You bring down everything you touch. You corrupt people, you do, even your own offspring.’ Judging by a slight stiffening of Ma’s backbone, Gran had hit home with that one.

  Since he’d been driving poor Sylvia Dunmore mad by not coming to the canteen for his dinner, Percy Robinson had been very scarce generally. Frankie was chafing at the bit, trying to track the man down, but Percy kept managing to dodge him at the docks and Zinnia wouldn’t let Frankie corner him at home. She thought that Mrs Robinson had enough to contend with, being married to Percy, without being mixed up in his messes.

  As Frankie said in an aside to me, ‘And one less witness is always welcome, should there be any necessary violence to make Percy boy see the error of his ways. It ain’t nice to frighten old ladies.’

  Zinnia heard the ‘old ladies’ and thought he meant her. ‘Less of the “old” lady, young man. I’ll have you know I’m in my prime.’

  Frankie laughed. ‘True enough, Miss Makepeace, true enough. I’m sure Mr Burlap can vouch for that. But I was talking about Percy’s old lady as it happens.’

  I could hardly believe my eyes, but Zinnia blushed almost as deep as a ripe Victoria plum. I thought at least her barnet must catch fire with the heat, but it didn’t. Did Frankie mean what I thought he meant? Surely not. Not Zinnia and Mr Burlap! I tried to imagine the two of them together. No, surely not!

  But then, Zinnia was secretive about him. We’d known her for donkey’s years and only very recently heard Mr Burlap’s name, let alone got to meet him. Yet she’d known him more than thirty years, and they kept in such close touch that she was dispensing her remedies to some of his cronies. People in Soho had seen enough of her to grow fond of her and to want to look out for her welfare. Bert had mentioned it, Sharky had too, and Mrs Joe had seen to it that something was done, via her boy, Maltese Joe.

  What’s more, Frankie obviously respected her, judging by the way he’d never call her ‘Zinnia’. So perhaps her many mysterious trips and days away over the years had been assignations with her lover, Mr Burlap … No. I couldn’t see it, not Zinnia. Not Mr Burlap. But then, she was the colour of plum jam. It certainly gave me something to think about, but it was like trying to imagine my mum and dad on the job. I mean, they had to have done it, at least six times, but I didn’t want to have to think about it. And when I did, it made me squirm with embarrassment.

  I’d always thought of Zinnia as a maiden lady, like so many who had come through the Great War. So many millions of eligible young men had either wound up dead on the battlefields, or of influenza or so badly maimed, gassed or shell-shocked that they were incapable of taking up normal life again when they got back from the front. It made for an awful lot of spinsters. And naturally, to us younger women, middle-aged spinsters were automatically suffering from in-growing virginity, and quite right too. Sex was for the young, any fool knew that. But I was beginning to think that nobody had bothered to mention it to Zinnia and Mr Burlap.

  43

  Mrs Dunmore was late, but at least she did turn up at work that Friday morning, much to the relief of her workers. It meant we’d get paid. She still looked pale and drawn, but her tongue had been blunted by her troubles and she wasn’t sharp or critical. If anything, she was depressed and withdrawn and crept about as if she didn’t want to be noticed. Her manner was so different, we almost – but not quite – longed for the old Mrs D. back.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Beryl wanted to know. ‘I mean, if it’s Percy that’s got to her, p’raps we should tell her he spends his dinnertimes in the boozer, nowadays. He’s there most nights too, keeping out of his missus’s way. Her ladyship could nip along there and give him a piece of her mind. You never know, a good old slanging match might make her feel better.’

  ‘It might,’ I said, ‘but then again, she might do better just to ignore the bugger. Which boozer is he going to anyway?’ I asked innocently. I wanted to be certain that it was the Star and Garter before I passed the news along to Frankie.

  ‘Don’t tell me you fancy him yourself,’ scoffed Beryl cheekily. I didn’t trouble to answer. She knew what I thought of Percy Robinson, so I simply glared at her.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Cook. ‘If any female between nineteen and ninety wanted Percy, she wouldn’t have to track him down, he’d find her. He can smell a bitch on heat from miles away,’ she pointed out – rather unkindly I thought, seeing he’d found Mrs Dunmore.

  What none of us realized was that Mrs Dunmore had been listening. The first we knew of it was when Molly Squires came in the back door a few hours later, with a very distressed Mrs Dunmore under her wing. She’d taken her dinner hour in the snug of the pub, and instead of giving Percy what for, as Beryl had suggested, she’d begged to be taken back. While I was plying Mrs D. with a cup of tea and several hankies in her office, Molly was telling Cook and Beryl what had happened. I was brought up to date later, once I’d seen Mrs Dunmore home for a nice lie down – via the bank for our wages, naturally.

  ‘Molly said he was cruel, really wicked,’ Beryl told me with relish. ‘Said she was a dried-up old bag and he’d only been having his bit of fun, that she should never have taken him serious.’

  ‘The bastard!’ I breathed. Well, he was!

  ‘We’ve always known that, ducky,’ Ronnie piped up. He’d popped in for his dinner and, sensing scandal, had waited for me to come back.

  ‘It’s true enough. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last,’ Cook said sagely. ‘It’s his wife you’ve got to feel sorry for. What must it do to her?’

  I nodded. Talk of unhappy marriages made me think of Charlie. He’d probably be in soon after I got home from work. My heart felt like lead as I doled out our wages on the large kitchen table. Ronnie watched as I carefully counted out our measly pounds, shillings and pence. It didn’t seem mu
ch for the week I’d had, or any of my weeks, for that matter. I think Ronnie noticed that I was in the doldrums, because he offered to stroll home with me. Charlie couldn’t object to Ronnie being my escort, if anyone reported seeing us together, him being a confirmed bachelor and all. I decided to close the canteen early. I was due the bonus of an hour or two of Charlie-free time, if only for being sicked up on by the boss.

  ‘You’re on,’ I told Ronnie, and let the others know we were getting off early. They took it in their stride; in fact, I almost got trampled in the rush for the door.

  On the walk home, I brought Ronnie up to date with what had been happening and what decisions I’d made.

  ‘Well, dolly, you certainly live in exciting times! All that in one week! We can’t let you out on your own, can we?’ Ronnie gave me a reassuring squeeze. He realized that I was badly rattled by all the events: the clonk on the head, Mrs Dunmore, Tony, and now Charlie.

  ‘I won’t say I’m surprised you’re leaving Charlie. It’s been a long time coming and you’ll be better off without him. You’ll manage. You’re a tough little palone, dolly. You just don’t know it yet. But look at the stock you come from: your gran, your mum – they’re not shrinking violets, either of ’em.

  ‘And I think Soho will suit you down to the ground.’ He smiled widely and squeezed again. ‘Yep, down to the ground.’

  Ronnie was a poppet. Seeing my dread, he climbed the stairs and waited while I turned my key in the flat door, saying he’d have a cup of tea with me. We heard scuffling noises from inside and knew that Charlie was home early, too. Ronnie took the lead. ‘Yoo-hoo, Charles, look who’s come for tea.’ And he minced into the flat like a drag queen, flapping a limp wrist in greeting.