Vinny bought himself an Italian style suit and several silk shirts and ties, really cool and trendy so that he looked like a mod, putting an end to the Teddy Boy image for good. He might only play in a cheap little band, but he looked a million dollars, so sexy!
When they’d finished shopping he took her to lunch in a trendy little pub where a jukebox played loud music and they were served chicken and chips in a basket.
He said they deserved to celebrate the band’s success, and the fact that national service had been abolished so he wouldn’t have to risk losing his freedom, or her.
Freedom, Harriet thought, was what this was all about. Oh, and didn’t she just love it?
The band were performing one evening at The Hare & Hounds on Broad Street. It was not exactly the Ritz and due to be closed soon as it awaited demolition. Harriet had accepted the booking because money seemed to be going out faster than it was coming in, and she really felt they needed to take everything on offer until they had some savings behind them. Vinny did not agree, and he grumbled and muttered and bitterly complained as the lads tuned up and prepared to go on.
‘We should be appearing at the Plaza, or Belle Vue, not some tuppenny-ha’penny flea pit.’
‘Smile,’ Shelley said. ‘Or you’ll frighten away the punters.’
As usual, Harriet found herself a spot right at the back where she could watch in peace without disturbing the audience. She crossed her fingers, praying Vinny would behave himself and not go stalking off in a temper as he was wont to do when in a bad mood.
She glanced around, trying to assess how many people were present - little more than twenty or thirty, she thought and most of them were busy talking, paying little attention to the lads playing their hearts out on the small stage. She felt sorry for them, knowing how much effort they put into these performances. There was perfunctory applause at the end of the first number and then Shelley came on to sing, which perked up the men’s attention no end.
Shelley was wearing the shortest skirt Harriet had ever seen, scarcely skimming her bottom, and a daringly low neckline. No wonder a reverent silence had fallen over the assembled drinkers, although it had little to do with the quality of her singing despite it being excellent, as always.
Harriet shook her head in despair. It wouldn’t please Vinny if Shelley got all the adulation and attention, and, judging by the applause which followed, that’s exactly what was happening. She couldn’t help but smile though as she watched the intent expressions on the faces of the audience, all whistling and cheering, begging Shelley for an encore.
It was then that Harriet noticed one man who wasn’t even looking at the stage, let alone joining in the applause. He too was scanning the crowd, looking all round him as if searching for someone. Her heart gave a loud thump as she recognised Steve, his gaze fixing on hers at exactly the same moment.
Oh, lord, he was coming over. He began to weave his way towards her between the tables.
Harriet often thought about Steve, particularly at night when she lay curled up alone in some anonymous hotel room, wondering where Vinny was, what he was doing, or with whom. She would dream up scenarios of what might have happened if Nan hadn’t given her that devastating news, if Joyce hadn’t kicked her out, or if she hadn’t been attacked by that gang or Vinny hadn’t come to her rescue. Steve had always been her friend. They’d been together since their school days, and she missed him badly.
The next instant he was standing before her, a great big grin on his face, and Harriet couldn’t help but smile back.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.
‘I said I’d come and see the band, didn’t I? I’ve been keeping a look-out for one of their gigs, is that the right word?’
Harriet agreed that it was. She cast a quick glance in the direction of the stage, hoping Vinny wouldn’t notice her talking to Steve; then again, seeing her with another bloke might make him jealous and appreciate her all the more.
‘It’s good of you to come, but you must think this a bit third rate, after the kind of shows you see with your college friends.’
Steve frowned. ‘Don’t be daft. You know I’m not the sort to go to the Philharmonic or watch Shakespeare. I’m going to teach maths and geography, not be a professor. I think they’re great.’ He turned to listen for a moment, then asked. ‘Which one’s Vinny?’
Harriet casually pointed him out, not wanting to make too much of it.
‘I liked the way they played Red River Rock, it had a real beat to it.’
‘Thanks, I’ll tell Vinny you said that. He’ll be pleased.’
‘So, what are you doing with yourself these days? Where are you working now?’
Harriet didn’t quite know how to answer this, except with the truth. ‘I work for Vinny. I – I help with the band.’ It sounded so inadequate, put like that.
His eyebrows climbed in surprise. ‘You mean you manage them, do all the bookings, and promotions and stuff? Are they so successful?’
Harriet shook her head, her cheeks flushed, although there was a defiance in her tone. ‘Not exactly, and Vinny does all of that, but I look after the money side of things. And I look after him, of course.’
There was a small silence while Steve absorbed this. ‘Right,’ he said, sounding thoughtful. ‘I see.’
Would she have found the courage to do something more worthwhile with her life if she’d stayed in Champion Street? Harriet wondered. She might have gone to college too, if she’d been clever enough, or at least stuck at her secretarial course. Maybe then Steve wouldn’t have dumped her, illegitimate or not.
Was she happy trailing after the band and sticking by Vinny? Where was she going? What was she doing with her life?
Harriet swallowed, staried unseeing at The Scrapyard Kids as they tuned up for their next number. And would she have been any happier if she was still waiting for Steve back home in Champion Street? She might have felt safer, but that wasn’t quite the same thing, was it? In any case, he’d changed, and not simply in appearance. He seemed more assured, more mature somehow. No doubt he’d found himself a ‘nice’ girl by this time, at that fancy college he attended, someone classy to spend his life with, if only to please his flipping mother. She could see that he was used to hanging around with a different crowd these days. He proved it with his next words.
‘He looks a bit wild.’
‘What?’
‘The way he strums that guitar, as if he’s beating the hell out of it. I hope he doesn’t treat you like that.’
Harriet was incensed. ‘Why would you imagine that he would? Anyway, what’s it got to do with you how he treats me?’
‘Because I believe you’ll regret ever getting involved with him, if I know you as well as I think I do. You’re wasting your life hanging around with the likes of Vinny Turner, Harriet.’
‘Why are people always so anxious to tell me what to do with my life, always so condemning and critical of everything I do? You sound just like Joyce.’
‘No I don’t, but I can see that he’s trouble, with a capital T.
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ Harriet fumed. ‘He’s lovely, is Vinny, if you want to know. Really kind and generous, buys me clothes and everything.’
Steve gave her a look of utter disdain. ‘I can’t believe you actually said that. I find it hard to accept that you’d settle for being some guy’s plaything, being bought presents and such. Why would you think so little of yourself?’
Harriet felt stung by his words, could feel herself growing all hot and bothered. ‘If you’re implying they were gifts for services rendered, you can just take that back.’
‘I didn’t!’ Now it was Steve’s turn to blush as a stain of colour flooded right up to his hair line. ‘I just think you’re perfectly capable of getting a good job of your own, of building a life for yourself. The independent-minded Harriet I once knew would never have agreed to being some chap’s pampered pet.’
�
��I’m not a pampered pet!’ Harriet raged, ‘and you can keep your comments to yourself.’ She knew she was making too much of this, was dangerously close to tears, but couldn’t seem to help herself. Inside her head a small voice was screaming, He’s right, but it’s too late to do anything about it now!
Too much had happened since Steve Blackstock had been the love of her life. He’d made it very clear that he was no longer interested in her as a girl friend, so why even bother about what he thought of her? It was too late to turn back the clock. What was the point in remembering how much she’d adored him? His parents had disapproved and he hadn’t stood by her. He’d made it clear he hated her. For heavens sake, she even hated herself. She was no longer the innocent young virgin Steve fondly remembered. She’d given herself to Vinny now.
‘Just leave me alone.’
Steve was flapping his hands as he used to do when she’d accused him of ruining her skipping game in the playground. ‘OK. OK, keep your hair on. I just wanted to ask when you’d be coming home, that’s all. But obviously you aren’t by the sound of it.’
‘No, actually, I’m not. I’m staying with Vinny, thanks. And it would be best if you just forgot all about me.’
He was looking at her now with a sadness in his gaze. ‘I see. That’s what you want, is it, to be with Vinny?’
Harriet looked away. ‘Yes, it is.’
There was a long pause before he spoke again. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ and with a curt nod he walked away. Out of the pub, out of her life.
Harriet slapped the tears from her cheeks and stared at Vinny, her new love, leaping about like a mad thing. She could never go back, not with the way things stood, so why fret about it?
She’d made her choices, and she would stand by them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Little by little, and by dint of sheer will power and bloody-mindedness, Irma forced Rose to get going again. She made the old woman do regular exercises, first with her hands and arms, which she would massage and manipulate, and then her legs. Irma would make her lie on her back while she rubbed and bent them up and down, up and down. Then she’d make her sit on a chair while she did the same there. After a few weeks of this, she started hoisting her to her feet, holding the fragile old woman safe in her big arms while Rose got the feel of the weight of her own body again.
It sometimes went wrong. Rose would lose her balance, or she’d use the wrong word, and they’d fall about laughing like a pair of silly teenagers. But that was no bad thing.
Irma absolutely refused to allow her friend to sink into depression. She kept Rose alert by reading to her, by persuading her to listen to her favourite programmes on the wireless: Woman’s Hour, Paul Temple and Valentine Dyal as The Man In Black, whom she loved. And Irma talked, mostly nonsense but it didn’t matter. Anything she could think of to stimulate her friend’s mind and prevent her from just lying there doing nothing.
Joyce frequently objected to the noise they made, claiming that the loud music disturbed her customers, that their shrieks of laughter were doing her head in. She objected even more when a constant stream of visitors began to trickle through the hair salon, all asking if they could just pop upstairs and have a bit of a crack with Rose.
‘We miss seeing her out and about on the market,’ Winnie explained. ‘Anyroad, she’ll want to know all about this campaign that she’s started.
‘What campaign?’
‘To save the market. It were Rose’s idea that we investigate thoroughly what’s happening and then set up a special committee to fight the closure. We’re not going to let them get away with it. She’s very determined, your mother, when she sets her mind to something. Anyroad, you’ll be glad of the help to get her back on her feet, I reckon, even if it’s not coming from the direction you would have sought.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re implying, Winnie.’
‘No, course you don’t. Why would you? I’ll just go up, shall I?’
The whole of Champion Street Market seemed to be trailing through her salon and up Joyce’s stairs at one time or another. It was infuriating.
Joyce hated to feel beholden to anyone, and loathed having Irma in the house. Apart from the fact that it put paid to any hope of secret trysts with the silly woman’s husband, Joyce deeply resented the intrusion into her own private domain. And she hated to be at the mercy of the market gossips.
Steve could have kicked himself. He’d messed up yet again. He seemed to make a habit of saying the wrong thing. Not only had he upset Harriet by implying she was letting herself down, but he’d criticised her precious new boy friend too, which apparently was unforgivable. Why was she behaving so stupidly? He couldn’t understand it.
Yes, he could.
After all she’d been through he could understand perfectly. It was difficult to imagine how anyone would react to suddenly discovering that your mother wasn’t your mother, after all. Even if Joyce Ashton hadn’t been the easiest woman in the world to live with, she was the only mother Harriet had ever known. Steve’s own mother could be a pain at times, but he still loved her.
Worse, because of their quarrel, he’d again forgotten to tell her that Rose was ill. Harriet would be furious with him if she ever found out that he’d known about her nan’s stroke yet had failed to mention the fact. And Joyce clearly didn’t intend making any effort to trace Harriet and inform her of the state of her grandmother’s health.
There was no help for it, he’d have to pay another visit to a gig by The Scrapyard Kids, and tell her. Apologise to her yet again, this time for failing to tell her that her grandmother was ill.
Steve felt a spark of hope. At least it would give him an excuse for seeing her again. He certainly wasn’t going to give up on her, or forget her, despite Harriet having told him to do so, even if she was behaving stupidly.
The problem was that his time was limited since he was at college during the week, which meant he only had the weekends, and, once his work load increased as the course progressed, even those would be in jeopardy. He spent the next weekend trailing around from pub to pub, like some sort of desperate inebriate, looking for any sign that The Scrapyard Kids were due to perform. He spotted Grant in one pub, and then in another, and turned the other way, wanting to avoid him.
The next weekend, Steve followed the same routine, with little better luck, and yet again he spotted Grant. What was the lad up to?
Grant had followed Harriet back to her digs, and, now that he knew exactly where she was staying, kept a close eye on her movements, covertly following her wherever she went.
He would see her call in at a baker’s shop to buy them sandwiches or pastries, or go to a take-away for burgers or fish and chips. At other times she’d visit some pub or other, presumably to talk with the landlord about a possible booking. Grant thought he was really rather clever trailing after her as she went back and forth on what seemed to be a constant stream of errands for the band while they rehearsed in that decrepit old warehouse. It amused him to think of her as being little more than an errand girl.
One evening she called at several public houses, then recklessly chose to take a short cut down a side street, clearly anxious to get back to lover-boy as quickly as possible. Grant followed her. Dusk was falling and he thought that maybe this could be the very opportunity he’d been waiting for. He pictured in his head what he would do to her.
He would shove her down into the gutter where she belonged, strip her of her dignity, pummel her soft white flesh with bruises and reduce her to tears. He’d make her beg for mercy, plead with him with tears in her lovely grey eyes for him not to hurt her. Oh, but he would hurt her. If she could open her legs for all and sundry in that band, she could open them for him too. She deserved to be humiliated. She needed to be made to understand the injury she’d done to him over the years, the neglect she’d caused him, just by being Stan’s favourite.
Grant slipped from one doorway to another as he made his way along the s
treet, making sure that he kept a safe distance. As she reached the end and swiftly turned the corner, he put on a little spurt so that he didn’t lose her. Then, edging slowly around the corner, he found to his utter shock and horror that he’d walked right into her. She was standing waiting for him, hands on her hips and an expression of cold fury on her face.
‘So what’s this all about, Grant, this creeping about behind me like some tin-pot detective?’
He valiantly attempted to recover his equilibrium, though he was sweating furiously. ‘Good evening, sister dear, I wondered if it might be you. What a coincidence!’
‘Coincidence my foot, you’ve been following me for days. Did Joyce put you up to this, or was it your own idea?’
‘I can’t think what you mean?’
There was something about her demeanour which unnerved him. She’d never been the meek and mild sort, always considering herself to be a cut above him, and completely unmoved when he, as her older brother, exercised his right to discipline her. She’d always been a cocky little madam who refused to do as she was told. Grant hated her for that attitude alone.
She might think she was somebody because she was involved with this ramshackle band, living in cheap little boarding houses, but she wasn’t at all. Harriet was nothing but a bastard, the scum of the earth. So what right did she have to lord it over him?
Grant curled his upper lip in a sour smile. ‘If you want to know, I came out for a bevy and I spotted you in that pub. It’s really not the sort of place a young girl like you should visit on your own. I don’t approve of any sister of mine making herself look cheap, so I followed you to check that you were OK.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Grant. And don’t creep about. I’m not stupid and I won’t be spied on. You go back home and tell Joyce that I’m fine, thank you very much. I might be homeless but I’m not starving, and I’m not without friends, so don’t for a moment think of trying anything.’
Grant adopted an injured expression of outraged innocence. ‘What are you suggesting, sister dear?’
Lonely Teardrops (2008) Page 19