Tara

by Lesley Pearse

  He was almost at Hyde Park before he stopped and pulled open the heavy door of the phone box. Inside it reeked of piss and vomit, but he still closed the door behind him.

  He took out the card with the name and phone number on, took a deep breath and dialled.

  'It's me again,' he said softly. 'I've got an address for you, and a name. Clive Dunning, known as Ginger, 134 Baytree Road, Brixton. Basement flat. He's the man who shot the nighrwatchman, not Harry Collins. If you go there now you'll find him in bed. Some of the leathers are there, too. Watch the back way. He might try to leg it out that way.'

  The air smelled sweet as he walked back home. Next week he'd look into finding a shop in the King's Road, and maybe Oxford Street too. He felt lucky.

  Chapter 21

  January 1967

  'They've dropped the murder charge?' Tara was so astounded she almost dropped the receiver. 'Are you sure?'

  She glanced round to see both her mother and gran standing stock-still, clutching each other's hands.

  Bacon was sizzling in the pan. Pails of pig swill were steaming on the floor, ready to be taken out. Gran was back in men's trousers, boots and a sweater; Amy still had on a duffle coat and gloves.

  'Well, I got it from 'Arry's brief,' George said, his voice rumbling as if he was trying to suppress a wild whoop of joy. 'Seems the plod picked up the other geezer in the early hours of yesterday morning.'

  'They've picked up the man who really did it,' Tara quickly relayed back to Mabel and Amy.

  'Oh, Uncle George, I'm so thrilled!' She giggled. Amy was gesticulating wildly, presumably sending love and kisses, while Mabel had sunk down on to a chair, her smile like a slice of watermelon. 'You should see Gran's and Mum's faces. They're both grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats.'

  'Bless 'em.' George's voice broke. 'I tell you, sweetheart, there's going to be a lot of celebrating round our manor tonight. S'pose I'll 'ave to go and set up me stall in a minute, but I can't see me selling nothin', I'll want to give it away.'

  'What happens now?' Tara asked, wiping a tear from her cheek. 'Will he get bail?'

  'Doubt it, love. 'E's due back in court next Monday, but as this is a lesser charge, and he'll be pleadin' guilty now, I expect they'll fix a new date.'

  'How long will he get?'

  'The brief's hoping he might get probation, but I don't fink that's on. Maybe six months or a year. Anyway, I'm going over to Brixton this afternoon to see 'im.'

  'Give him our love.' Tara let out a deep sigh. 'Can I go and see him when I get back?'

  She sensed a change in atmosphere in the room and glancing round she saw Gran's smile had gone, replaced by a look of horror.

  'No, love, you keep away. That ain't no place for you. 'E won't want you going to court, neither. There's bound to be a lot of press there and we don't want your boat race in the papers.'

  She gave a reluctant sigh to indicate she would do as he said.

  'Well, give him a hug from all of us. Of course we always knew he didn't do it.'

  'You gotta remember he's still going down for thieving,' George reminded her in a gruff voice. 'A girl going up in the world like you must keep that in mind. Know what I mean?'

  'Yes, Uncle George, I know. Well, bye, and thank you for the wonderful news.'

  An hour later they were still sitting round the breakfast table when Greg came in.

  'What's this?' He looked cold and tired, but he picked up the party atmosphere immediately. 'Didn't anyone tell you Christmas is over?'

  Amy blurted out the news, her eyes shining. Greg took off his tweed jacket and sat down heavily.

  'Well, that's certainly something to brighten my day.' His round face broke into a wide smile. 'I've been out on calls all night. Mrs Purvis had a stroke just after midnight and I'd no sooner got her to hospital than I got a call to say Mrs Thrush's baby was on its way in a hurry.'

  'You poor thing.' Amy ruffled his thinning sandy hair affectionately. 'I'll make you some breakfast. Was it a girl or a boy?'

  'A great big boy.' Greg smiled. 'A ten pounder, no less. But never mind my patients. I want to know everything about Harry.'

  Amy made Greg a bacon sandwich and a fresh pot of tea and Tara related what George had told her.

  'Let's just hope this sets him straight.' Greg ran his hand round his stubbly chin reflectively. 'I like Harry, he's a man with tremendous abilities, but prison can change men drastically and not always for the good.'

  'I think he'll pull himself round,' Amy said stoutly.

  'Huh!' snorted Mabel. 'You're the worst judge of character I ever met.'

  Tara looked at her grandmother and smiled.

  'Oh, Gran!' She shook her head. 'You believe in Harry, I know you do. Why don't you just admit it?'

  'I want to see proof before I go trusting him again.' Mabel tossed her head and flounced over to the sink. 'Now are you going to sit there all day, or can I have my kitchen back?'

  'Eighteen months.' Tara put her head in her hands and sobbed.

  She had come over to Paradise Row during the afternoon to wait with Queenie till George got back from the court.

  'It ain't so long.' George slid his arm across her bent shoulders. ' 'E's already been on remand for three months, with time off for good behaviour he could be out before Christmas.'

  It was a bleak, cold day in late January and for the last few days Tara had bolstered herself up with the possibility that Harry might just get probation and actually be here with them now.

  'Ain't no sense in dwelling on summat that can't be altered,' Queenie said sensibly. 'Now I'm going to make the tea and you, my girl, are going to tell us all about Christmas, the shop and how quick we're gonna see your name in lights.'

  George switched on the television to watch the news. He was a little puzzled by Tara's reaction to Harry's sentence; after all she was stepping out with Josh now.

  He'd had to admit to Harry she'd taken Josh to the farm for Christmas and he knew his son was gutted. But judging by her tears, he suspected his son wasn't entirely out of the running.

  ' 'Ow's it going with Josh, then,' he asked a little later, when she had composed herself again. He thought she looked very pale, but maybe it was just the black sweater.

  'He's not my boyfriend,' she said softly. 'We're just friends, that's all.'

  'I didn't mean that.' He grinned, cheered by her reply. 'I meant the shop an' all.'

  'Fabulous,' she said, but her smile was so weak it diluted her description. 'I'm busy getting a spring range together, but it's hard to think of spring when it's so cold.'

  She lapsed into silence after that remark. George glanced across at her every now and then and wondered what was on her mind. He was certain it wasn't only Harry's sentence.

  Tara paused in the shop after George had driven off, trying to see it as the customers did. Considering the stock was old it all looked remarkably fresh. Earlier today Miranda had changed the window displays to feature pin-striped trouser suits which had been sticking. She'd jazzed them up, one with a triby hat and a frilly white shirt, the other with a red scarf and beret, and the central display model wore a black and white checked suit.

  Tara was speaking the truth when she said everything was fabulous. Two of her designs were to be in Honey magazine next month. The shop was becoming the in place for the young and trendy, and Josh was finding some wild fabrics that lent themselves to designs she'd had in her head for some time.

  It was Josh who was the problem. Since she got back at New Year he'd been a bit strange. Before Christmas he had been like a mad dog most of the time, demanding this, shouting about that, but she could understand that kind of behaviour. What she'd expected when she got back, and perhaps dreaded, was the smarmy, creepy attitude of someone who wants to please. But it wasn't that either.

  This was something else entirely. He was getting extravagant ideas, about two new shops, a townhouse in Chelsea, even a villa in Spain. He'd barely looked at her latest designs, just accepted them,
even some that a year ago he would have thrown out as impractical. He was more talkative, too, sometimes so much she couldn't get a word in edgeways, and full of nervous tension.

  He had a bee in his bonnet about publicity. Yesterday he rang the Evening News and told them his girls wore the shortest mini skirts in London, and Tara had to shorten three skirts to a mere fourteen inches before the photographer came to take pictures. Last week he was contemplating getting a girl to model topless in his window, but fortunately he was advised against that by his solicitor.

  Tara sighed as she walked through to the back of the shop. If Josh was doing all this to try to impress her, it was having the opposite effect!

  The whole of 1967 was a confusing, yet thrilling year. She saw Ginger sent down for life in April and read the judge's chilling words which might have been said to Harry. 'You took a man's life coldly and deliberately and it is my duty to put you away to protect society.'

  But while judges were taking a high moral tone, London was the Swinging City. Young people from all over the world were flocking to be part of it. Clubs and boutiques opened up like mushrooms overnight. Skirts got shorter, jeans got tighter. Messages were coming over from the States about Flower Children and the first love-in' was held in Alexandra Palace.

  For a designer like Tara it was a heaven-sent opportunity. Anything went, from long velvet tubes to cheesecloth smocks and tapestry jackets. While every other person under the age of twenty-five was rushing off to the UFO club in Tottenham Court Road to listen to Pink Floyd, Procol Harum and the Soft Machine, she was hastily turning out the clothes to make it happen for them.

  Gone were the days when one pattern would be made into fifty identical dresses. Now she had to produce dozens of different designs in one week. They had to be quick before other shops copied them, always one step ahead, keeping the stock changing.

  Josh began to buy Nehru shirts from India and bales of flimsy cotton so cheap it was laughable. He opened the shop in Oxford Street in May and installed a bookkeeper and secretary in a suite of offices above it. Next came the fourth shop in King's Road, opened in a blaze of publicity on the first of June with four bunny girls giving out free Champagne. The empty room next to her workroom became a stockroom, then the next one, too. Bales of cloth eight-feet high filled the landing and soon Josh had to employ a driver to handle getting it to all the shops.

  Tara began to understand why Josh took drugs. His life was one of relentless pressure. He had to be first, he had to be best. He was on a treadmill going faster and faster, and if he broke his pace for a moment everything might collapse.

  She often saw him swallow a couple of pills with a hasty cup of coffee before rushing off to the factory or a mill. Meals were eaten on the run, even a night out was always to do a deal or to impress someone. His hair was right down to his shoulders now, he had got so thin she could see his ribs through his cheesecloth shirts and she doubted he got more than a couple of hours' sleep a night.

  The pressure was getting to her, too. Sometimes she started work at seven in the morning and at eight or nine at night she was still sewing on buttons. Occasionally she went out with Miranda to the UFO just to keep abreast of the rapidly changing scene, and often she was so tired she was tempted to buy some speed to keep her awake enough to enjoy herself.

  But of all the things that affected her in this frantic time, sex was the dominant force. All around her girls were sleeping with anyone they fancied. In the parks, on the Tube, even on street corners couples were kissing and cuddling. The Pill was available to all, every poster, record and magazine promoted free love. There was no escaping it.

  She had two brief experiences, she couldn't call them romances exactly as they engaged nothing but her body. The first was with an American who was trying to dodge his draft papers, the second with an Australian who was doing the customary tour of the Continent. But these two men left her nothing, not even laughter.

  She was still confused about Josh and Harry. She knew from George that Harry waited eagerly for news of her, yet she had to keep in her mind that he was a blueprint of her father. At night, alone in her bed, she would think of that kiss out on the landing and tell herself it was only the remnant of a schoolgirl crush.

  Her feelings about Josh were no clearer. When he was close to her he made her flesh tingle. She knew she could start an affair with him at any time, but reason told her it was dangerous. Josh believed he was hipper, sexier and cleverer than anyone else. And his womanising was no longer a secret. All the girls he employed were the same type – long blonde hair, legs that went on forever and bodies like goddesses. Rumours reached her that he made love to girls in stockrooms, time and again he was in the papers with another glamorous girl on his arm.

  He bought his townhouse in Chelsea in November. When she went to his housewarming party the only furniture was a huge double bed, and during the evening she saw him take two different girls into it.

  Yet for all that they were friends. They could laugh about things together, both shared the same love of fashion. She had to remind herself that, if she let it become more than friendship, she would have to take her turn with all his other women.

  It was just two days before Christmas when she heard Harry's release date was set for January 2nd. On the same day Greg bought her mother an engagement ring.

  Although it was customary to throw a release party, George refused point-blank on the grounds that it might encourage Harry to think he was a hero. Instead Tara met Harry, Queenie and George for dinner in a Greek restaurant in Islington.

  It was bitterly cold that night. She wore a white rabbit coat, a plain black mini dress with a scoop neck and her hair was loose.

  They were already seated at the table when she arrived and Harry's pallor made her falter. His skin had always glowed from exposure to the sun and wind, but now it was grey, his cheeks sunken, emphasising his angular bones. She had seen his navy blue suit hundreds of times, but now it merely hung on a far leaner frame. Even his eyes looked dull. But he leaped out of his seat when she walked in, with all his old animal grace.

  'You look even more beautiful than I remembered,' he said as he kissed her lightly on the lips.

  She knew with just that brief touch that she hadn't imagined anything. All those feelings she'd tried so hard to banish were there, waiting for him to light the fuse.

  Sitting opposite him was the sweetest agony, laughing and chatting, all the time wishing she could hold him. She wanted to run a finger down those sharp cheek-bones, kiss the hollows beneath them.

  'He looks so thin, don't he?' Queenie said, patting his stomach as if he was a little boy. 'I can see I'll 'ave to do a bit of baking.'

  'The food was so awful 1 couldn't eat it.' Harry grinned as if it hadn't mattered, but Tara could see pain in his eyes. 'It was the stink of the place, the sad, sick people who've never had a chance in life. I used to lie on my bunk and focus on your picture, Tara. It cut everything else out.'

  'Well, it's over now, son,' George lifted his glass for a toast. 'And here's to the future!'

  George wore a new waistcoat, scarlet with gold embroidery, and a red bow-tie. His plump face shone with happiness. Queenie lived up to her name in brilliant blue satin, a mink stole and diamond earrings, her blonde hair arranged in fat curls, each one studded with a tiny blue flower.

  Tara told them about the engagement party on Christmas Day at the farm, and how Gran got drunk but insisted she was sober even when she had to be carried upstairs.

  'When are they going to set the day?' Queenie asked. 'Will it be this summer?'

  'I don't know.' Tara shook her head. 'You know how awkward Gran can be. Greg made some sort of suggestion about building a practice in the meadow by the side of the farm and she went crackers.'

  All through the meal Tara was painfully aware of Harry watching her. She saw his eyes travel down her neck to her breasts and felt her nipples harden under his gaze.

  'Tell me what it's like to be famous?' he asked tea
s-ingly. 'How does Josh feel now his rival is out?'

  She had avoided the subject of Josh and the shops. She didn't want Harry to feel put down by hearing such a success story when he was at such a low ebb.

  'I'm not famous.' She blushed. "There's only been one article about me. Josh is the one who's becoming a celebrity. Speaking of him, he wished you well.'

  In fact Josh had turned red with anger yesterday afternoon when she mentioned Harry's release and this celebration.

  'Don't go tangling with him,' he warned her. 'The media will be on to it in a minute. He's bad news.'

  She had called him a turncoat, suggested he was getting too big for his boots, forgetting old friends.

  Josh tried to get round her later, said he was frightened of losing her and how much he cared. He held out a hundred pounds and asked her to give it to Harry to help him out till he found a job.

  'I bet he wished me a thousand miles away,' Harry smiled, looking into her eyes as if trying to gauge whether he had been told the truth. 'It must scare the hell out of him imagining me snatching you away. His business would crumble over night.'

  'For the record, Harry,' she said softly, 'Josh tried to give me a hundred pounds to tide you over. I refused it, because I knew you would. And his business wouldn't crumble without me, he'd have dozens of designers jumping to take my place.'

  She ought to have said he couldn't snatch her away anyway, but at that moment she knew he was maybe the one man who could!

  'I don't believe that.' Harry's lips were twisted into a wry smile. 'The money was a bribe!'

  'Come on now,' George interrupted. 'It's 1968 now, a new year, a new start. I'm going to order a bottle of Champagne and we'll leave the past behind us.'

  It was after midnight when they left the restaurant. Harry slipped his arm round Tara as they stood together looking for a taxi to hail. Queenie and George were still in the restaurant doorway, chatting to the owner.

  'Tara!' A male voice came from nearby but it wasn't one she recognised. She looked up at Harry in astonishment and a camera flash went off. It was a second or two before they got over the surprise and by then the photographer was jumping into a car and heading off down Essex Road.