‘We wondered if yous wanted to meet us over the park tonight. There’s a party over there and loads of us are going. We’re all gonna get smashed, ain’t we, Steph?’ Tammy said, trying to sound cool.
‘It all depends if you’re gonna let us have a feel around that ginger minge of yours,’ Mark Potter said, chuckling.
‘You don’t wanna feel round there. They don’t call her Tampax for nothing, you know,’ Chris Cook chipped in.
‘You’re such a wanker, Cooksie,’ Wayne said, laughing. None of the lads called one another by their first names. Jacko, Potter and Cooksie sounded far more hip than Wayne, Mark and Chris.
When Wayne knelt down beside her, Stephanie’s face reddened to a similar colour as Tammy’s hair.
‘Gonna offer me some of that cider, sexy?’ he asked.
Hands shaking, Steph passed him the bottle she was holding.
‘Gissa fag. Potter will have one an’ all,’ Cooksie said to Tammy.
Annoyed at the way the boys had taken the piss out of her, Tammy shook her head. ‘We’ve only got six left and they’ve gotta last us all night,’ she replied, haughtily.
‘We’ve only got six left and they’ve got to last us all night,’ Cooksie chanted, mimicking Tammy’s voice.
Ignoring his pal’s laughter, Wayne winked at Steph. He could tell how much she fancied him. He had the same effect on most girls, and he loved playing on his attractiveness and winding them up. ‘So, why did you really call us over here? Did you wanna ask me something?’ Wayne asked, staring at Steph intently with his piercing blue eyes.
Feeling as though she was about to faint, Steph shook her head frantically. Letting Wayne know that she fancied him was totally out of the question, so she had no option other than to lie. ‘Tammy wanted to call you over. She fancies Potter,’ Steph blurted out.
‘You lying cow! I heard that and I do not fancy Potter. The reason we called you over is because Steph’s got the hots for you, Jacko. Been doing my head in ever since you whistled at her in the alley. All I hear is Wayne this and Wayne that, so on Steph’s behalf, will you go out with her?’
When Potter and Cooksie burst out laughing, Stephanie hung her head in shame. She’d experienced some embarrassing times in her life, none more so than when she’d fallen off the stage dressed as Rizzo out of Grease during her school play, but this beat that cringeworthy moment hands down.
Wayne chuckled. He could sense Stephanie’s humiliation and was rather enjoying the enormous effect he was having on her. ‘So, you wanna go out with me?’ he asked, with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
Stephanie shrugged. ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ she replied, in almost a whisper.
Wayne grinned at Potter and Cooksie, then turned his attention back to Steph. ‘Ask me properly and I’ll see what I can do for you.’
Stephanie glanced at Tammy. This was all her bloody fault. ‘Will you go out with me?’ she mumbled, unable to look Wayne in the eye.
‘Sorry, still can’t hear you properly,’ he replied, cockily.
Knowing it was shit-or-bust time, Steph decided to stand up and brave it. Wayne must fancy her as much as she fancied him, else why would he want her to ask him out in the first place? ‘Will you go out with me, Jacko?’ she asked, boldly.
Wayne ran his hand through his trendy wedge haircut and smirked at his pals. ‘I can’t I’m afraid, darling. I’ve already got a bird and I’ve gotta dash now as I’m gonna be late meeting her. See you around, Steph.’
When Potter and Cooksie burst out laughing, Steph’s eyes filled up with tears. Wayne Jackman had made her look a complete and utter idiot and she knew she’d be a laughing stock at school on Monday morning.
As the lads walked away in high spirits, Tammy tried to hug her best friend. ‘Jacko’s an arsehole, you’re worth a hundred of him, Steph,’ she said, truthfully.
Feeling both furious and degraded, Steph violently pushed Tammy away. ‘This is all your fault. If you hadn’t opened your big mouth, none of this would have happened. I hate you Tammy Andrews, and I never want to see you again.’
Bursting into a flood of uncontrollable tears, Stephanie picked up her purse and ran off as fast as she could.
With little money left every week out of their wages, Pam and Cathy did virtually all their socializing indoors. Neither women were big drinkers, but most Saturday nights they liked to share a bottle of Liebfraumilch between them. Sunday was the only day that neither woman worked, so it was nice to let their hair down a bit.
‘How’s the café been this week? Busy?’ Pam asked her friend.
‘Yeah, not bad. We keep attracting a crowd of school-kids though. The little sods are bunking off from the Priory, I think. Bleedin’ nuisance they are.’
Pam chuckled. Cathy worked in a café in Broad Street Market, which was only a spit’s throw from their homes in Manning Road.
‘What about you? How’s the eating-in idea working out?’ Cath asked, as she opened the bottle of wine.
Pam worked in a bakery in Dagenham East that had recently expanded and started an eating-in service.
‘It’s really begun to take off now. We’ve even started selling cooked breakfasts and jacket potatoes,’ Pam said, excitedly. She was hoping the extra business would give her a much-needed pay rise.
‘Quick, come ’ere. There’s a blue van just pulled up outside the old slapper’s with an old boy and a young fella in it,’ Cath exclaimed.
‘Someone’s moving in by the looks of that mattress. I saw the black man leave about half an hour ago. Surely she ain’t got another victim already?’ Pam said, laughing.
‘Well, it can’t be the young one, he’s younger than my Michael. She’s gotta be moving the old boy in, surely?’ Cath said, bemused.
‘How is your Michael? I ain’t seen him for ages. Still loved-up, is he?’
Unable to take her eyes away from the window in case she missed anything worth noting, Cath nodded her head. Her eldest son, Pete, had recently got married, and now it looked as though her youngest was about to fly the nest too.
‘Only comes home to bring his washing back and stuff his face now. She’s a nice girl, that Jane he’s with, but I wish she didn’t already have a kid. I reckon he’ll move in with her soon, but I do worry about him, Pam. I mean, taking on another man’s child ain’t ideal, is it? And I’ve just found out the father of the kid is in prison. It’s times like this I rue the day I moved to Dagenham, mate. If I had put me foot down with that philandering bastard of a husband of mine and insisted on staying in Poplar, my Michael wouldn’t have even met this bleedin’ bird.’
Pam nodded understandingly. Both her and Cathy’s husbands had been born and bred in Barking, which was why they had ended up with council houses under Barking and Dagenham council. In Pam’s case, her David had insisted Dagenham was a nicer area to raise children than the East End, but Pam had never been truly happy living there. She missed the old estate she had lived on and her frequent trips to Roman Road market. The pie-and-mash shops in Dagenham were rotten, in Pam’s opinion, and not a patch on Kelly’s up the Roman.
‘Your Steph’s home, looks upset she does,’ Cathy warned her friend.
Pam ran out into the hallway to greet her eldest daughter. It was very unusual for Steph to arrive home before her weekend ten o’clock curfew, so she knew something must be wrong. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asked, clocking her daughter’s tear-stained face.
‘Nothing. Leave me alone,’ Steph replied, trying to duck past her mother so she could run up the stairs.
Petrified that her daughter had been attacked, or even worse, Pam grabbed hold of Stephanie’s shoulders. ‘You ain’t going nowhere, young lady, until you tell me what’s happened. Has someone touched you?’
Collapsing into Pam’s arms, Steph cried more tears than she’d ever cried before.
Unaware of the drama that was currently going on downstairs, Angela Crouch had got over her earlier sulk and was now thoroughly looking forward to her big night
out. Unlike her sister, Steph, Angie had been into boys from a very young age. At ten, she’d had her very first French kiss and at twelve she had let Gary Ratcliffe tit her up, the Dagenham term for touching someone’s breasts. However, even though she’d had plenty of boyfriends, Angie had never been in love before, not until now, anyway.
Turning the music up to Kool and the Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’, Angela stood in front of the mirror singing into her hairbrush. Even though both she and her sister had always been called pretty, Angela knew she knocked spots off Steph in that department. Angie was twenty months younger than her sister and shorter in height, but knew she looked older. ‘Get down on it, suck my helmet,’ Angie sang, flicking her hair over her shoulders seductively. Her new boyfriend had taught her the rude lyrics to the song and Angie thought they were hilarious. Glancing at the Swatch watch her mum had recently bought her for her thirteenth birthday, Angie took the needle off the record. She’d arranged to meet her boyfriend at 7.30 outside the Princess Bowling Alley along the A13, and she didn’t want to be late.
‘What’s a matter with you?’ she asked, as her sister barged into the room and threw herself onto her bed face downwards.
‘Don’t ask! I ain’t going a school Monday. I’ve asked Mum to find me a new school ’cause I ain’t never going back to Priory again,’ Steph wept.
Whereas she herself could turn on the waterworks on a regular basis just to get her own way, Angie had rarely seen Steph as upset before. She sat on the bed next to her, hoping that something bad had happened. ‘What’s up? I dunno what happened to your photo by the way. I was doing my make-up and it fell on the floor. I reckon the string must have snapped.’
‘Sod the photo. I’ve fallen out with Tammy and I’ve made a complete fool of myself over a boy. I am such a fucking idiot, I hate myself.’
‘Why have you fallen out with Tam?’ Angie asked, surprised. She knew how close her sister and Tammy Andrews were, and she had never known them to argue in all the years they’d known one another.
Needing to get the whole episode off her chest, Stephanie began at the beginning of the story and told her sister everything that had happened.
‘But if you lied and said that Tammy fancied this boy’s mate, then you can’t blame her, Steph. It’s you that’s out of order. Who is the boy anyway? Why won’t you tell me his name?’
‘Because he goes to our school and I know what a big mouth you’ve got. Enough people are gonna find out what happened as it is, without you telling all your mates an’ all,’ Steph replied, truthfully.
‘I won’t say nothing, I promise. Tell me his name?’ Angie asked, nosily. She was thoroughly enjoying her sister’s despair and wanted to know more.
‘Swear on Mum’s life you won’t tell anyone,’ Steph said, solemnly.
When Angela crossed her heart with her right hand and repeated the oath, Steph sat up and squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘It was Wayne Jackman. He’s in the fifth year, do you know him?’
The look on Angela’s face immediately changed from a look of false concern to one of contorted rage. She snatched her hand away from her sister’s and stood up. ‘Wayne’s my boyfriend, you slag!’ she exclaimed.
Stephanie looked at her sister in pure amazement. Angela was only in the second year at Priory – she’d missed out on being in the year above because she had been born a week too late – so there was no way she could be dating Wayne, who was in the fifth year.
‘You gotta be joking, Ange. Jacko wouldn’t go out with a second-year girl. You sure you’ve got the right boy?’
With hatred in her bright green eyes, Angela glared at Stephanie. There was only one Wayne Jackman at Dagenham Priory, and not only was he gorgeous, but he belonged to her. ‘I’ve told him I’m fifteen. I’m meeting him tonight, he’s taking me to his mate’s party in Beam Avenue. I swear, Steph, if you mess this up for me by telling him my real age, I’ll never forgive you for it.’
‘I won’t say nothing, I promise, but he’s gonna find out your age, Ange. How can he not? You go to the same school, you div.’
Putting her trendy beads on, Angela picked up her silver purse and pointed her forefinger nastily in her sister’s face. ‘That’s for me to worry about, not you. I swear, Steph, if you ever say one word to him, I will fucking kill you.’
CHAPTER TWO
Stephanie spent all day Sunday moping about in her bedroom. Angela had flounced in and out a few times and, not wanting to face her sister, Steph had pretended she was asleep. Yesterday’s heartbreak had now turned to rage, but Steph wasn’t annoyed with her sister, she was angry with herself for acting like such an idiot. Wayne Jackman had humiliated her good and proper and, as Steph flicked through an old copy of Jackie Magazine, she vowed never to let another boy get the better of her again. If Wayne hadn’t been dating her sister and had just let her down gently, she would probably still have been in love with him. Instead, she had managed to force herself to hate him overnight.
Refusing to eat her roast-lamb dinner by claiming she had a sore throat, Stephanie used the same lie on the Monday morning when her mum woke her up to go to school. Facing Wayne and his gloating pals was totally out of the question – she’d rather eat nails.
‘Well, best you get that arse around that doctor’s then and get yourself some antibiotics. You better not be trying to pull the wool over my eyes, young lady, because if I find out you’re lying, I shall drag you into that school by your hair tomorrow,’ Pam warned her daughter.
Stephanie waited until her mum had gone to work and her sister had gone to school before getting out of bed. She hadn’t even had a wash or cleaned her teeth yesterday so, feeling filthy, she decided to run a bath. Turning the taps on, Steph went back into her bedroom and stared out of the window. The weather was dull and wet, just like her mood. Spotting a dark-haired boy leaning against Marlene’s wall smoking a cigarette, Stephanie lifted the net curtain up slightly so she could get a better view of him. Steph was well aware that her mum and Cathy were obsessed with the coming and goings at Marlene’s house, but surely this young boy wasn’t her latest conquest?
Aware that the boy had spotted her staring at him, Stephanie let go of the curtain and quickly jumped back from the window. Boys were now vermin as far as she was concerned.
Tammy Andrews somehow got through her classes and, as the bell rang for home time, grabbed her schoolbag and ran through the corridors. Falling out with Steph had upset her greatly and she had to see her best friend to try and sort things out.
‘Stop running, Andrews,’ Tammy heard one of the teachers shout. She slowed down and, as she turned the corner, bumped straight into Wayne Jackman and his cronies.
‘All right, Tampax. Where’s your mate?’ Mark Potter asked her.
‘Can you get out of my way, please?’ Tammy replied, glaring at the grinning buffoons.
‘Tell Steph that I will go out with her, but only if she sucks me dick first,’ Wayne said, laughing.
‘Steph is worth a thousand of you, Jacko. Now get out my way before I grass you up to Mr Jones.’
Pushing past the lads, Tammy heard one of them refer to her as ginger minge. Furious that it was because of their idiocy that she and Steph had fallen out, Tammy turned around to face them again. ‘You think you’re so cool and hard, don’t ya? Well you ain’t. All three of you are complete knob-ends and you seriously need to grow up.’
Thrilled that she’d had the bottle to stand up to her and Steph’s tormentors, Tammy ran towards her friend’s house with a smile on her face.
‘Steph, go round the shops and get me a carton of single cream. Lin’ll be home soon and I’m cooking her her favourite,’ Pam shouted up the stairs. She had rang the doctor’s earlier to check that Steph had been to see him and, even though she had, Pam was still positive there was nothing physically wrong with her daughter.
Stephanie stomped down the stairs. ‘But I thought Lin’s favourite was chicken soup,’ she said, sulkily.
‘It is.’
‘What do you need cream for then?’
Sick of the stroppy tone in her daughter’s voice, Pam couldn’t help but lose it as she handed her a fifty-pence piece. ‘Because I put the cream in the bastard soup! I know there’s sod all wrong with you, so get your arse round them shops before I really lose me rag. Oh, and tomorrow you’re going back to school, like it or not, young lady.’
When Stephanie slammed the front door, Pam set to work on peeling the King Edwards. Her home-made soup was more like a chicken stew and Linda loved a big dollop of buttery mashed potato with it. Pam was pleased that Linda was now having an extremely fulfilling social life. In Pam’s opinion her mother had always wrapped Linda in cotton wool and forbade her doing things that other women of her age liked to do. Since moving in with Pam, Linda’s life had evolved somewhat. She now had a job working in the local Butterkist popcorn factory, had made plenty of friends there, and was always out with her workmates. This weekend was only Linda’s second ever independent holiday. In April she had gone to a soul event in Caistor with her mates and this weekend had seen her trot off to Margate for a hen party.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Pam shouted, as she heard a loud banging on the door. She rinsed her hands under the tap, dried them on her apron and went to investigate.
‘Is Steph there?’ Tammy asked, nervously.
Unlike Angela’s best friend, Chloe, who Pam had never really liked, Pam adored Tammy. ‘Go and sit in the lounge, darling, and I’ll make you a cuppa. She’s only popped round the shop for me – she won’t be long.’
Scuttling back into the kitchen to put the kettle on, Pam smiled. Her Stephanie was a strong kid, a chip off the old block, and Pam was positive that once Steph made things up with Tammy, she’d be back to her old jolly self again.
Walking down Broad Street, Stephanie had a strange feeling that she was being followed. She bent down to tie the lace of her trainer and furtively glanced behind her. She recognized the culprit immediately. It was the same lad she’d seen in Marlene’s front garden earlier.
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