Gerry tried to shrug it off. ‘Wasn’t interested. I just pay her to mind my stall. Anyway, she’s not that sort of girl.’
Charlie gave his suggestive laugh. ‘Go on! They’re all that sort of girl once they get going. Quiet ones are the best. You take my word for it, bruv. Best of all are the religious ones. Phew! Get a religious girl and you’re made.’
‘You best be careful her mum don’t find out, then,’ Gerry said.
But Charlie was enjoying himself. ‘You ever had a virgin? You’re not a proper man till you have. Now Ellen Johnson, she’s a virgin. Nice girl, brought up proper, too busy minding her family to play around with the boys. Mind you, bet she won’t be by the time Harry Turner’s had a try at her.’
Gerry stood up. There was a pounding in his ears, a sick jealousy and hatred boiling in his guts. If he did not go out right now, he was going to throw up or hit his brother.
‘I’m going down the Puncheon for a drink,’ he said.
Charlie’s crude laughter pursued him through the door.
At the O’Donaghues’, in a back bedroom drenched with the exotic heady scent of florist’s roses, Siobhan was holding court.
‘. . . So then I sang my new song and they went wild. Clapping and stamping, they were, and calling out for more. And I curtseyed and I kissed my hands to them – like this – and then the curtain came down, but still they were shouting. They wouldn’t stop. I was coming off, but the stage manager, he came rushing out from the wings.
‘“Go back,” he hisses at me, “go back and give ’em an encore, or they’ll tear the place apart.”
‘So back I go, and the band strikes up the introduction, and there’s a great roar from the audience, and when the curtain went up again they were shouting so loud I couldn’t start . . .’
Theresa choked back a scream and pulled her pillow over her head. She was lying with her back to her cousin, pretending to ignore her, but there was no escaping Siobhan. She was sitting up in bed, bright and bursting with life despite a late night, waving her arms about as she talked. Sixteen-year-old Mary sprawled across the foot of the bed, drinking it all in, while little Bridget bounced up and down, caught up in the excitement of the tale. Theresa could not bear it. It was nothing but Siobhan, Siobhan, Siobhan. If she wasn’t there herself, they were all talking about her. If Theresa went out anywhere, people did not ask how she was doing, they wanted to hear about Siobhan. She wasn’t anything herself, she was just Siobhan’s cousin.
‘. . . When I got back to the dressing room, there was this great big basket of roses . . .’
‘Ooh, wonderful.’ Mary groaned in vicarious pleasure. ‘Who was it from? Who sent it?’
Siobhan grinned. ‘Look at the card,’ she said.
‘Get the card,’ Mary told Bridget. The little girl frisked across the room and fetched it. Mary groaned again. ‘From a devoted admirer,’ she read aloud.
Theresa could take it no longer. She flung away the pillow and sat up.
‘For crying out loud!’ she screamed. ‘Can’t you shut your face? Don’t you never talk about no one but yourself? Me, me, me – that’s all you ever say.’
Siobhan merely sat looking superior. She did not have to say anything; her loyal followers said it all for her.
‘Shut your face y’self,’ Mary retorted. ‘You’re just jealous, that’s your trouble.’
‘Yeah, you haven’t got a basket of roses,’ Bridget jeered. ‘You’re just an old sourpuss.’
‘Oh, let her be,’ Siobhan said, lazily magnanimous from her pinnacle of beauty and popularity. ‘Poor thing. Twenty-two and not wed. Sure and ’tis hard when you’re left on the shelf.’
‘So who’s left on the shelf?’ Theresa exploded. ‘You’re only a few months younger than me and I don’t hear no wedding bells ringing.’
Siobhan lay back against the rickety bedhead, a patronizing smile on her beautiful face.
‘Ah, but I’m not busting me knickers to catch someone, am I? I’m biding me time. If I wanted to get wed, I could do it tomorrow. That’s the difference.’
It was true. That was what twisted Theresa in an agony of jealousy. Siobhan could have anyone she liked, whereas she had only a secret on-and-off relationship with Charlie Billingham, and she would not even have that if she did not agree soon to do what he wanted.
Then with a spurt of malicious pleasure, she remembered that Siobhan did not have quite everyone she wanted.
‘You can bide your time as much as you like, but you won’t get Will Johnson unless Maisie dies. I can just see you taking on all his screaming brats,’ she spat. Oh, the satisfaction of it.
‘That’s a wicked lie, so it is,’ Mary said. ‘Our Siobhan would never go with a married man.’
‘That’s right,’ Bridget chimed in.
Siobhan merely shrugged. ‘’Tis all she can think of to say.’
Theresa was consumed with the desire to grab handfuls of that curling black hair and yank it out. She wanted to hear Siobhan cry out in pain and beg for mercy. She wanted to trample on her. But she had one more verbal weapon.
‘And you haven’t got Harry Turner, neither. He sees you for what you are. He’s not interested.’
For just a second or two, Siobhan’s face showed a shadow of the frustration and longing that possessed Theresa. She seized on it.
‘Everyone knows you’d like to have Harry Turner. But he hasn’t never asked you out. Not once. He’d rather have Ellen Johnson. Just fancy, you being cut out by Ellen Johnson!’
‘What do I want with Harry Turner?’ Siobhan sniffed.
But Theresa knew that she was putting it on. ‘I seen you looking at him. I saw the way you made up to him at the Coronation party.’
‘Coronation party! That was years ago. I was only a kid then.’
‘Yeah, years ago,’ Theresa agreed. ‘You wanted him all this time.’
It was the truth and they both knew it. But Siobhan was never going to admit to it.
‘You’re talking through your hat, so you are. Harry Turner! I’m not looking to live here all me life, you know. There’s more to London than Dog Island, believe it or not.’
‘Yeah, you never been anywhere. Siobhan has,’ Mary said.
Her brief victory swept away, she could not help but rise to the taunt.
‘That’s a lie and all. My young man takes me all over. He takes me to music halls. And he buys me suppers.’
‘Oh yeah? And who is this young man of yours, then?’ Mary asked. ‘We don’t never see him. I don’t think there is anyone. You’re just making it up.’
‘I am not! I just don’t want all the old women in Trinidad Street eyeing him up, that’s all. You don’t keep nothing to yourself round here. You only got to cough and they’re all talking about it. That’s why I don’t bring him back here.’
Mary gave a rude snort. ‘I never heard nothing like it. What a load of old cods.’
‘It’s not! I have got someone!’ Theresa screamed, rigid with rage. She hated all of them, hated her sisters for ganging up on her, hated Siobhan for everything. Nobody cared about her.
Siobhan was sitting looking at her with that infuriating superior smile. She waited till the row died down. Then she spoke.
‘Prove it.’
There was a brief silence as all three sisters took this in.
‘Yeah.’ Mary took her up. ‘Prove it. Go on. Bet you can’t.’
‘’Course I can,’ Theresa retaliated.
It was at that moment that she knew she would have to give in to Charlie. To hold out would be to lose not only him but the only rag of pride she had to clothe herself with. Without a man to boast about, she would be completely swamped by Siobhan.
Theresa managed to hang on to Charlie through the autumn, but she could never be sure of him from one week to the next. Because of the difference in their religions, it all had to be kept a deadly secret. She could never ask him to call for her, and when she went to meet him, he was always late.
Th
at’s how it was again one bleak November evening. She stood in the shelter of the shop doorway, trying to shrink right out of sight. She hated the way people stared at her as they walked by, summing her up. It made her feel like a prostitute.
‘’Evening, darling. All alone?’ a passing young man called.
Theresa put her nose in the air and pointedly ignored him. The man laughed and went on.
A group of girls from the church club went by. Theresa flattened herself against the window, praying that they would not see her. But God was not listening to her today. He did not consent to be party to deceit.
‘Oh, look, it’s Treece. Wotcher, Treece! What you doing here?’
They all clustered round, some half-dozen of them.
‘She’s waiting for someone. Who’re you waiting for, Theresa?’
‘She’s waiting for her fella, that’s what. Who is it, Treece? Is he nice?’
Theresa could not resist that one. ‘Yeah, he’s ever so nice,’ she said.
‘He didn’t ought to get you to meet him here. Why don’t he come and pick you up at home?’
‘Bet her mum don’t like him, that’s why.’
‘Who is he, Theresa? Come on, you can tell us. We won’t let on.’
But Theresa gave nothing away. Whatever they might promise, she could not trust them not to talk, and then she really would be in trouble. Her mum would never let her out again. As it was, she was taking a huge risk. These were the girls she had told her mother she was going out with this evening.
In the end, they got fed up with questioning her and made off, linking arms and talking loudly amongst themselves.
‘Oh well, if she don’t want to talk to us, that’s her funeral.’
‘Let her keep her silly secret. He’s probably horrible, anyway.’
‘Must be to treat her like that. I wouldn’t wait around in the street for any boy, I wouldn’t.’
Theresa glared after them. She touched the heavy gold cross that hung round her neck on its piece of string. Charlie had given her that. It was lovely, really heavy against her chest, an expensive gift, not some cheap bit of rubbish from the market. She brushed aside the memory of the manner in which he had given it to her, pulling it out of his pocket and flinging it down at her with one of his dismissive shrugs.
‘Here, this is the sort of stuff your lot wears, ain’t it? You best look after it. You ain’t getting nothing else.’
It was just his way. He must love her really if he gave her something like that.
Harry Turner and Ellen Johnson drifted by arm in arm. There was no danger of their noticing her, they were too wrapped up in each other. Theresa watched them with envy. It was all right for Ellen, her mother liked Harry. She did not have to make up stories and wait in the street. Some people had all the luck. Still, it was good being able to get at Siobhan with the fact that Ellen had Harry. Siobhan hated it. She could pretend not to care, but Theresa knew she was sick about it. She hugged that thought to herself.
When Charlie finally turned up, the evening was half over.
‘Had a bit of business to do,’ was all he offered in explanation.
Theresa was so pleased just to see him that she did not protest. He was here – that was all that mattered. He was here and he was hers. He had given her an expensive present, so that even Siobhan looked impressed. Siobhan had been jealous of the cross. She did not have anything as nice as that.
Charlie forged up the street with his swift, stiff-legged walk, his hands in his pockets. Theresa had to almost trot to keep up. She threaded an arm through his and tried to slow him down.
‘What’s the hurry?’ she asked. ‘Where’re we going? Somewhere nice?’
‘I need a drink,’ he said. He was all tense and excited about something. Theresa could feel it vibrating in the muscles of his arm, but she knew better than to ask him about it, especially if it had to do with his ‘business’. Charlie never explained anything he did not want to.
They walked in this fashion for some way before turning in at a pub. They had been there several times before. Nobody from their way went in it, since it was practically in South Millwall, but Charlie could always find some mates hanging around there. Charlie ordered a pint with a whisky chaser, then, as an afterthought, a half of milk stout for Theresa. Theresa stared doubtfully into the thick black liquid. She was none too keen on milk stout. She watched as Charlie downed his pint and threw the chaser after it. He couldn’t half drink, could Charlie. Nobody else in the bar was drinking anything as posh as whisky chasers. She forgot about the stout, fiercely glad just to be with Charlie, proud of the way he looked, with that swagger to him, even proud of the way he neglected her, leaving her alone at a table while he laughed and joked with the other men in the bar. After all, that was how a real man behaved. Later, she would have him all to herself. In the meantime, she wanted to grab people by the shoulder, to tell them that she was with Charlie Billingham, to see the respect in their eyes.
As an hour or so ticked by, she could see the tension drop away from him. He became loud and cheerful. Theresa’s complacency began to fade. At this rate, the evening would be gone and she had hardly had anything of him. She waited for a lull and risked sidling up to him. She pulled at his sleeve.
‘Charlie.’
He whipped round and stared at her as if he had forgotten her existence.
‘Who . . .? Oh, Treece. What you want?’
‘Charlie, we been here an awful long time, and my mum’ll kill me if I’m back late. You know what she’s like.’
Charlie gave a grimace. ‘Old witch.’
But he drained his glass and banged it down on the bar, then put his arm round her, his hand sneaking under her arm and pinching her breast.
‘Or, I got to go now,’ he shouted to his cronies. ‘Me and my girl are going for a walk.’
Theresa blushed scarlet. Half of her was bursting with pride at being identified with him, the other half curled with embarrassment at the loaded suggestiveness of Charlie’s voice, the whistles from the other men.
They emerged into the dampness of the autumn night. A fog was beginning to drift in off the river, wrapping the streets in a shroud of grey.
‘We better go somewhere a bit sheltered,’ Charlie said. ‘Bloody weather. I hate winter. Come on.’
He led the way back towards home along the muffled roads until they came to St Luke’s. Theresa suppressed a surge of guilt. After all, it was not as if it was a proper church. It was only a Protestant one. They made for the porch, but it was already occupied. Trysting places were few once the summer was over. Cursing under his breath, Charlie dragged her round the churchyard, keeping close under the walls. The first alcove they came to was also taken up with a couple. After stumbling against gravestones, they found a place tucked under one of the buttresses.
‘This’ll do,’ Charlie decided.
He backed her into the corner, leant the weight of his body against her and fastened his mouth on hers. Theresa returned his kiss with desperate eagerness. This was what she had been waiting for. Now she had him to herself. Nobody could distract him now, for she could give him what none of his pals could.
She stood with the rough stones of the wall digging into her back, her legs braced, pretending to enjoy it as he kneaded her breasts and bit her neck, his hips all the while thrusting at her until she could feel his hardness through the layers of her clothes. He struggled with her long skirt and petticoats, his rough fingers demanding against her soft vulnerable flesh, poking and rubbing. His breath was coming in harsh gasps, and she could hear him grunting and cursing with frustration.
‘Sod it,’ he hissed. ‘Why do you have to wear so bloody much? I hate doing it standing up, you can’t get it in proper. Come here.’
Taking her by the wrist he pulled her away from the wall and on to the wet grass. Stumbling, Theresa caught her shin against a gravestone and nearly cried out in pain. It was cold and rank-smelling amongst the close-packed graves, but Theresa knew
better than to complain. She lay with the chill dew seeping through her shawl and blouse while Charlie thrust into her, waiting for that moment when he cried out then subsided on her, that moment when he always said he loved her. She moved with him as he had taught her to, her arms clasped about him, her eyes tightly shut, glad that it no longer hurt like it had at first. And then, swiftly, it was over, and he was collapsed on top of her, groaning now with pleasure.
Theresa stroked his head tenderly, every nerve straining to hear him whisper her reward.
Nothing.
Still she waited. His breathing was settling into a slow steady rhythm.
‘Charlie?’ she breathed in his ear. ‘Charlie? Darling? You do love me, don’t you, Charlie? Say you love me.’
The only reply was a low unmistakable snore.
Misery welled up from the core of her being. She did all this for him because she loved him. She would give anything and everything just to keep him, but she had nothing but herself, so she gave him that. All she asked in return was the right to call him hers, and a kind word. She lay and sobbed while he slept and grew soft and slipped out of her.
High above them the clock struck the hour. Eleven. Charlie woke up.
Theresa was gripped with panic.
‘Eleven! Oh no. Eleven! I thought it was only ten. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, my mum’ll kill me. An hour late! She’ll keep me in for a month. What am I going to do?’
‘Oh, shut your row,’ Charlie grumbled.
He got slowly to his feet and started doing up buttons while Theresa frantically sorted out her clothing, all the time gabbling about getting back.
‘Come on,’ she squealed, grabbing at his arm.
Charlie shook her off. ‘If you’re in such a hurry, you get going,’ he said. ‘I want to sit here and have a fag.’
Weeping with fear, Theresa hobbled in the direction of the gate. Her petticoats were still all caught up, her blouse half undone, her back soaked to the skin. She blundered into gravestones and twice nearly fell before reaching the road. Once there, she tried to pull herself together. It was dark and foggy, and she could hardly see five yards in front of her face. She took several long, shuddering breaths, did up the buttons and shook out her underwear. She felt very slightly better. She must not get lost. That would be fatal. Which way? Right. She must turn right for the quickest way home. She must remember exactly which street she was in. Still sobbing and whimpering, she put her hand against the wall to steady herself, and trotted into the thick night.
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