All The Days of My Life

by Hilary Bailey

  Molly, still washing up vigorously, looked over at her and told her, “I don’t seem to feel I’ve got a lot to smile about, Mrs Messiter. But we’ve all got our problems, eh?”

  “Life’s not easy for a woman on her own,” Lil said, shaking her head, “even if she has got lovely golden hair.”

  “That can make it worse,” Molly told her as she wiped down the bar with long sweeps of her arm.

  “Don’t fancy Arnie, then?” asked Lil, looking automatically at the door of the pub, to make sure that it was shut. “It takes a man to get rid of a man,” she added. “As long as you’re there on your own he’ll keep on prowling round.”

  “Have another half, Mrs Messiter?” asked Mary. “It’s all right – I can’t go home till I’ve swept up.”

  “I’ll have another drop,” Lil replied. As Molly brought the glass over Lil looked up at her with bleary eyes. Her grey-brown hair was tangled. She put a skinny hand on Molly’s arm as she picked up the used glass and said, “Get rid of him, Molly.”

  Molly said in an undertone, “What can I do? He’s dangerous.”

  “Find someone who can tackle him,” said the woman.

  “The Brigade of Guards couldn’t do it,” Molly told her.

  She went behind the bar, got the broom out of the cupboard and began to sweep the floor.

  “You’ll have to kill him then,” Lil said, beginning to laugh. “Take the carving knife to him.” She drank from her glass of beer and went on cackling.

  “Keep your voice down, Mrs M,” Molly warned, as she swept.

  “Drop something in his tea – murder him,” said Lil, enjoying it.

  Molly hastily swept up the dirt and cigarette ends and went out to the dustbins at the back with her dustpan. She emptied it, rinsed out the drying-up cloths and hung them on the sink to dry.

  “All finished, Mrs Messiter?” she asked. “Come on – I’ll see you home.”

  She took her by the arm and helped her up the street. It was eleven-thirty but her half-grown son, George, was still up.

  “Put her to bed, there’s a good lad,” she said. “She’s had one over the eight tonight.” Then, studying his anxious face, she pulled out her purse and said, “Here’s half a dollar for you – take it to please me.

  He grasped his mother round the waist with one arm and took the money with the other. “Thanks,” he said. “Come on, Mum – time for Uncle Ned.”

  What a fucking awful life for that boy, thought Molly, crossing Meakin Street in the drizzle. Not too good for any of us, at the moment. “Oh Christ!” she muttered when she spotted the figure in the darkness pressed up against her front door. Lamps made shiny patches in the puddles in the street. There was no one else about.

  ‘Hullo, Moll,” said the man in her doorway.

  “Who’s that?” she asked, approaching. But of course she knew.

  “It’s Johnnie, Moll,” he said.

  Now she fished in her handbag for the doorkeys, saying, “What a surprise.”

  He followed her in. In the passageway he took her round the waist and tried to turn her round and kiss her but she pulled away, saying, “What are you doing here?” She put out her hand and turned on the light. He smiled at her, almost as if he mimicked his old, carefree smile, but now he was thinner, his face sallower and the smile seemed more like a rictus. “Something wrong?” she said. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “You’ve got hard, Molly,” he could not resist saying.

  “I’m older and wiser,” she warned him. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

  “What sort of a welcome is that?” he asked.

  “Best you’ll get – better than you deserve,” she said. “I’ve been on my feet all evening at the pub and I’m tired.”

  He stood too close to her in the kitchen as she put the kettle on and put out the cups. Trying, Mary thought angrily, to see if she would respond to him as once she had. Using the body with which he had controlled several whores, one less than sixteen years old. And she asked again, “What are you doing here – are you in trouble?”

  “A little bit,” he admitted.

  She poured him a cup of tea and told him, “Then you’d better take yourself and your trouble elsewhere.” She lit the oven to warm up the small kitchen and offered him a cigarette.

  He wore a pale woollen suit and a black roll-necked sweater. There was a gold watch on his wrist. “The point is, Johnnie,” she said, “I’m busy at the moment, and tired, and I’ve got a girl of twelve. There isn’t much room for trouble here.”

  “I heard you were back here,” he told her, “and I was a bit surprised. I thought Ferenc would have left you in better nick. What happened to Orme Square? Didn’t he put something aside for you so you’d be all right?”

  “Things were in a right old state when he died,” Molly said. “And, after all, he wasn’t expecting to die. He’d never had anything wrong with him.”

  “Dodgy ticker, they told me,” Johnnie said. “Too bad – it must have been a shock for you.”

  “It certainly was,” Molly said, “especially with Arnie and Norman Rose coming after him from one side and the coppers from the other. I expect that’s what killed him. If you’ve anything left over from what you took off him, Johnnie, I could do with it now.”

  “Not even any jewellery?” he asked, ignoring her.

  “No, not even any jewellery,” she told him. “You sound like the Inland Revenue.”

  “Nice to be back,” he said, looking round the kitchen. “When I think about it now I realize how happy we were here. There wasn’t ever anybody like you, Moll, and I don’t suppose there ever will be.”

  She poured herself another cup of tea, feeling very tired. “You don’t bleeding well change, do you?” she said. “Something goes wrong and there you are, looking for a woman to lean on. What do you want, Johnnie? Let’s hear it now and get it over and done with. If it’s money you can forget it. There isn’t any here.”

  Putting down his cup he said, “A few weeks’ kip, that’s all. You can call me a lodger. Money’s no problem – if you like, I’ll pay rent.”

  Molly shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve told you – I don’t need any complications. There’s something at the back of all this and I don’t suppose it smells of roses.” A thought struck her then and she added, “Talking of roses, Arnie’s here a lot and I don’t suppose you fancy running into him.” She looked at him sadly. “It won’t work, Johnnie. Not this time.”

  He looked at her wearily. “I thought you’d say no,” he said. “Fact is, Molly, I got disturbed on a blag with Bones Ferguson – butcher’s over in Finchley – with the whole week’s takings in the safe at the back. So – there’s an intervention by the law – they get Bones and I get away. Now they’re looking for me. I can’t go anywhere. I need a few weeks, somewhere quiet, until the excitement dies down. Then I can move off.”

  Molly was horrified. “This is a bloody stupid place to come,” she exclaimed. “It’s like Piccadilly Circus round here. Hundreds of people – half of them know you and none of them like you. Are you barmy, Johnnie, or what? You need some caravan in a field somewhere, or get up to Liverpool, anywhere but here. And, you’re involving me. Think that’s fair? Harbouring a fugitive, that’s what it’s called.” She stood up. “Piss off, Johnnie Bridges,” she said. “I won’t get in trouble for you.”

  “One night,” he pleaded. “I’m tired, Moll. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

  “What about all those women?” she asked. “Can’t any of them take you in?”

  “What women?” he asked her wearily.

  She stood up. “One night,” she said. “On the sofa – I’ll chuck some blankets down the stairs. I’m going to bed, now. And you’d better get out early, the back way, before anyone’s about. Watch out for Arnie – he’s always on the prowl.”

  “Not for a week or two,” he said.

  Halfway up the stairs she asked, “Why not?”

 
“They say the Roses’ve been advised to take a holiday in Spain. There’s a few serious enquiries being made – they heard it would be better if they weren’t around.”

  “That’s one good thing then,” Molly said, throwing the blankets down the stairs.

  “I won’t sleep a wink,” she declared to herself. “Not with Johnnie in the house, a wanted fugitive.” Almost before she had framed the thought she fell comfortably asleep.

  Later he slipped naked into bed beside her saying, “Mary. My Mary.” And because it had always been true that their bodies knew each other, had always known each other and, in spite of everything else, would always be friends, Molly and Johnnie Bridges came together unhesitatingly. The brass-knobbed bedstead was their joy, their delight and their home. They soared from it together. They came back to it together.

  Then Molly said, “You leave tomorrow, though, Johnnie, in spite of all this.”

  “OK, Moll,” he said. “I don’t want to get you into trouble.” She lay with her head on his chest. There were questions she could have asked – about what he had been doing, about the prostitutes, about his time in jail – but, just now, she did not want to. She knew that in the years since they had parted life had become seedier, more selfish and more hopeless. She did not want to remind him of it. She did not want to hear about it. All she said was, “That right about Arnie? He’s had to leave the country?”

  “That’s right,” Johnnie said. “They went too far this time. The Barnett kid.”

  “Oh – good God,” Mary said in horror.

  “Go to sleep, love. Don’t think about it,” he told her.

  She awoke at six in the morning to find him getting into his clothes. She cried, whether it was for his troubles, or because he was going or just for what they had lost she did not know. In spite of the good suit he looked worn. His time in prison had beaten him, as it beats many men. The effects had not quite left him and perhaps never would. “Good luck, Johnnie,” she said.

  “Thanks, darling,” he replied. She heard the back door close and knew he was hopping the walls of the yards of the houses in order to get into Wattenblath Street. Then she relaxed. It was not just that she had been worried about harbouring a wanted man. He now made her nervous. She had come to associate him with pain and trouble. She did not want him too close, too often.

  She was peacefully cooking breakfast for herself and Josephine, feeling happy that Johnnie was gone and relieved that Arnie Rose had been forced to disappear, when there was a knock at the door. Anxious in case Johnnie had, compulsively, come back, or that the police had found out where he had been, she opened the door. The shock was actually worse than if it had been either Johnnie or the police. It was Arnie Rose, holding a huge bunch of yellow roses in one hand and a flat packet of papers in the other.

  He was beaming. Molly could not control an expression of horror. She had thought he was abroad. She now knew he had been involved in the death of a boy of ten, Kenneth Barnett. Realizing she was staring at him in fear she masked it by saying, “Well, well, you’re an early bird this morning – you’ll have to take us as you find us – Josie’s got to get to school and I’ve got a shorthand test at the college.”

  She walked rapidly down the passageway and went back to the grill. Turning over the sausages she tried to look as frowsty and tired as possible, while quickly reviewing the state of the house to see if she could remember any traces of Johnnie Bridges which might be lying about.

  “Help yourself to a cup of tea,” she told him. “Josephine – get the milk in off the step.”

  “No time – no time, Moll,” he said. “Thing is I’ve got to go away. Should have gone yesterday but I couldn’t leave without seeing you. Here I am – turn round and see what I brought you.”

  “I’ll put them in water, Arnie,” Molly said but she knew from her years with Nedermann what Arnie was delivering.

  Arnie was walking the few paces it took to cover the kitchen, up and down, up and down. Josephine took her plate of sausages wearing a contained expression on her face. As she put the plate on the table she glanced up at her mother, signalling doubt. Molly stared back, willing her to feel confidence. Meanwhile Arnie was saying, “It’s not the flowers I’m talking about, Molly dear. I want you to take these papers – legal title to a smart little mews house off Berkeley Square, 99 year lease, all drawn up in your name. But I haven’t got time to mess about any more – I want a quick decision and I want it now. You can get in there while I’m gone – talk to Morris about what you want –”

  She flung her arms round Arnie and said, “Oh – you’re so good to me, Arnie –” As she spoke she knew that she would have to go down to Brighton as soon as Josephine left for school. There she could get the ring back from the bank and, on the proceeds, she and Josephine would have to disappear.

  Arnie’s threatening mood evaporated. He kissed Molly and said, “Now you’re talking. I thought you’d see it my way. High time you got out of this rathole.”

  “Wash that ketchup off your mouth and get off, Josie,” Molly said.

  In the doorway her daughter looked at her and said, “I don’t have to live with him, I’ll stay with Grandma –”

  “Put your hat on and get off,” Molly hissed. “I’ll sort it all out. Don’t worry.”

  She was about to go in when she saw Lil Messiter coming up the street with a bottle of milk. She paddled up in her old raincoat and called, “Nice change you had last night, eh, Moll? Better than Arnie Rose –”

  “Yeah – raining again, Mrs Messiter,” called Molly and shut the door.

  “Did I hear my name?” asked Arnie, standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Lil Messiter,” reported Molly in a panic, “she rambles on something shocking these days. She’s had a hard life and she takes a drop too much – doubt if she’s ever really sober, as a matter of fact. Oh – all this is such a shock, Arnie. I must go and sit down for a bit.”

  It was true that she felt as if her legs were giving way. She was terrified that Arnie would find out that Johnnie had been in the house. If Arnie got angry with her he might do something to hurt her daughter.

  She walked into the parlour with her heart thudding. Behind her came Arnie saying, “Better to have a lie down, Moll. On the bed upstairs.” He’s like an ogre in a book, she thought. He’ll push me till he gets his way. The worst part of it was that she had not made the bed. If Arnie came upstairs with her he would spot there had been two people in it the night before. Oh, God, thought Molly, now she was for it. Already she could feel the blood and snot running down her face from a smashed nose. Her face felt raw, and unprotected. He took her round the waist just as the door went.

  “Don’t answer it,” he said.

  “It might be mum,” she told him. Only Ivy, as her mother, and as an old schoolfriend of the Roses, had the necessary influence to stop Arnie in his tracks. She had the impulse to run straight past anyone – postman, gasman or neighbour – who might be standing on the step and just keep on running, away from Arnold Rose.

  Fortunately, the caller was Ivy. She stalked in grimly saying, “I hear there’s bad news.” Lil Messiter had seen Johnnie coming in and had told Ivy that he was there. Molly, shaking her head at her mother and pointing at the parlour door, stopped her from saying more. Ivy, looking at her panic-stricken face, said, “I just thought I’d pop round for a chat.” They both knew that if Ivy stayed too long the girl behind the counter at the breadshop, Renée, would spend all morning humming “Love Me Do,” wrecking the till roll and ruining next day’s orders, but Ivy, guessing the situation, opened the parlour door with a determined air. “Well, Arnie,” she cried. “Fancy! I haven’t seen you for months.”

  “You’re looking very well, Ive,” Arnie said gallantly. “More like your daughter’s oldest sister. How do you do it?”

  “Don’t be silly, Arnie,” Ivy said. “And me with three grandchildren.”

  “I expect you could do with a cup of coffee, Mum,” Molly said, and
ran upstairs quietly. She started to make the bed. Ivy was suddenly on her, surveying the tumbled bed and hissing, “What’s going on in this house? Are you mad?” Nevertheless she grasped the bottom of the sheets and blankets and tucked them in swiftly.

  “Get this,” whispered Molly, throwing her the end of the counterpane. “Just stay here till he goes, Mum. He’s got to leave soon.”

  Ivy pulled her end of the counterpane straight, then she stepped back carefully, so as to make no noise, looked at the bed, searched the room with her eyes for other betraying details and nodded.

  “Go downstairs and make out you’ve been in the kitchen,” she said in an undertone. “And I’ll go and pull the chain up here in a minute or two.”

  Molly nodded and went swiftly downstairs.

  She made the tea and took it into the small sitting room, saying, “Here we are.”

  “I’m looking forward to our little mews flat, Molly,” Arnold said. Just then a car drew up outside.

  “I’ll answer it,” called Ivy coming downstairs. At the door they heard a man’s voice. Ivy came back into the room and said, “Gentleman at the door for you, Arnie.”

  “Ask him to step in,” Arnie said.

  A thickset man stood in the doorway. “Geoff,” Arnie said angrily. “How many times do I have to tell you – don’t disturb me when I’m here.”

  Molly’s nerves twanged worse than before. She was used to Nedermann’s bully boys but the sight of Geoff shocked her. He was six foot four inches tall. He had shoulders like a brick wall and his face was brutal and mindless. She tried to look calm as the man replied, “Something’s come up, Mr Arnold. Mr Norman said I had to come and get you.” He bent his huge bulk over Arnie Rose and muttered in his ear.

  Arnie looked annoyed for a moment and then put a good face on it. He remarked to Molly, “Well – there you go. Private plane waiting down in Kent and I’ve got to get on it. I’m sorry to be leaving in a hurry, Moll. See you when I get back. Over in Berkeley Square. Don’t forget now – ask Morris for anything you want.” He stood up and put a fat roll of notes on the table. He leaned over Molly and kissed her. “Back in two weeks at the latest,” he told her and walked out, followed by the large man. The door closed behind them.