Dangerous

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she muttered, straining away from him.

  ‘Shut up, Clara,’ he said. ‘This was always going to happen, and you know it.’

  His lips were on hers, warm, moving, stirring up things in her that she thought she would never feel. She’d never wanted to feel them, either. In panic she bit down, hard, and he jerked his head back, blood trickling from his lip. Marcus raised a hand to it, and his fingers came away stained with red. He looked from his fingers to her face.

  ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘You’re starting to fucking well annoy me.’ And he wiped his blood off on the front of her coat.

  Clara gasped. ‘That’s pure cashmere, that cost me over forty pounds, what are you doing?’ she demanded.

  ‘Clara, you know the cost of everything and the value of nothing,’ he said, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing at his lip. His eyes met hers. ‘Cards on the table then. I want these clubs. And I want you.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have them,’ she snapped. ‘Or me.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘No we bloody won’t.’

  ‘Yes. We will,’ he said, and with a last parting smile he went to the door and was gone.

  53

  Clara took a cab back home. She looked forward to these late nights when she and Toby could talk business, discuss how things were going, chat about what was in the news, the Berlin Wall going up and the ban on nuclear testing, all that stuff. But what she really wanted tonight was to talk to him about Marcus, how he was pestering her. Not pausing to take off her coat, she walked from the hall straight into the study, and he was there, reading the paper.

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ he said with a smile, putting the paper aside.

  ‘Hello, Toby.’ Clara sat down. ‘Good news on the Oak’s takings. Up by a third.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. He frowned. ‘Clara, there’s blood on the front of your coat.’

  Clara looked down. ‘Oh . . . it’s nothing. One of the girls cut herself on a glass, that’s all. Toby . . . ’ said Clara.

  ‘Clara . . . ’ said Toby at the same time.

  ‘Go on,’ said Clara.

  ‘No, you first,’ said Toby.

  ‘No, you. Go on. What were you going to say?’

  ‘Just . . . ’ He stared at her face . . . ‘You’ve been a great asset to me. And . . . ’ his eyes dropped and a faint colour came into his cheeks . . . ‘and I’m sorry. It’s . . . Jesus, Clara. You’ve been so good, so understanding, such a diamond, and it’s played on my mind something horrible. That fucking farce of a honeymoon. You didn’t know, and I should have told you beforehand. Instead of . . . ’

  Clara remembered – and she could see that he was remembering – the night when he had forced himself to enter her, how he’d hurt her, then left her in distress.

  ‘It’s forgotten,’ she said, although it wasn’t. Of course not. He’d given her the shock of her life that night. But she had forgiven Toby. And she had grown so very fond of him.

  Toby stared at her. ‘You’ve been a terrific wife to me, Clara,’ he said.

  Clara had to smile. ‘And you’ve been a great husband.’ Her smile widened. ‘No trouble at all.’

  ‘I should think not! Oh, Clara I’m sorry I can’t be different.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want you different in any way.’

  And that was true. She had never felt the least physical attraction for her husband. But they were workmates, friends, part of a successful team. And she worried about him. ‘You ought to be careful, Toby,’ she warned. ‘People don’t understand. It’s frowned upon.’

  Toby was nodding. He knew. Every week there were reports of homosexuals being charged as perverts and forced to undergo aversion therapy. Clara couldn’t bear the thought of him ever having to suffer through anything like that.

  ‘You saved me, you know,’ he said. ‘Early on in the marriage, things were . . . shall we say, tricky?’

  ‘Tricky in what way?’

  Toby sat back with a sigh. ‘There was talk of Redmayne snatching the clubs by force. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again, you can be sure of that. See an opportunity to shove his way in, and take it. Look at what happened to Lenny Lynch. And others, too. But fortunately he didn’t, and now I’m wondering if I have you to thank for that.’

  Clara was frowning. Marcus fucking Redmayne. Hadn’t he said something to her at the time? Something about Toby’s fortunes being about to change? Yes, he had. She was certain of it. But Toby’s fortunes, since she’d been on board as his wife, had only risen. Not diminished.

  Now Clara knew that she could never tell Toby about what had passed between her and Redmayne tonight. That the blood on her coat was his, that he’d kissed her and nearly snatched her breath away, and that far from being deterred by Toby’s refusal to sell, he had set out his intention to have both her and all Toby’s clubs for himself.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about my parents?’ he asked.

  ‘What? No. You never did.’

  ‘My mum died young, when I was eight. Dad raised me. He wasn’t exactly an understanding sort of man.’ Toby pulled a face. ‘In fact, he was a thug. A big bullish type who didn’t think any son of his could ever turn out to be . . . well, queer.’

  Clara’s eyes were resting on his face. ‘That must have been horrible for you.’

  ‘It was, pretty much. When he realized – I never told him, but he caught me once, with someone – well, when he realized, he tried to beat it out of me. He whipped me. He said he’d get this evil out, one way or another. I was a disappointment to him, and he thought I should be ashamed. When he died, I was so pleased!’ Toby let out a laugh. ‘I hated his guts. The clubs were his, you see, and I never thought I’d get into the club business, but I inherited them and so I made a go of it. A pretty good go, actually. Had to learn a few dirty tricks to survive – I’ve shown you a few – but I did it.’

  ‘You did,’ Clara agreed.

  Toby looked at her, head cocked to one side. ‘Are you happy, Clara?’ he asked.

  ‘What sort of question is that?’

  ‘I want you to be happy.’ Now Toby looked faintly embarrassed. ‘I am, you know. Jasper and I . . . well, it’s only been a year, but it’s serious, it’s love, he’s my best beloved. Does that sound stupid?’

  Clara felt her throat catch with emotion at the tenderness in Toby’s voice. Best beloved, she thought. It sounded sweet, indulgent.

  ‘It doesn’t sound stupid at all. And I’m glad you’re happy. I’m happy, too. Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘You could take lovers, you know. Discreetly. I’ve no objection. Of course we have to do our best to maintain the illusion of a married couple . . . ’

  Clara thought of Marcus Redmayne. No, she had no intention of complicating her life with that. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then let me buy you something nice. Some more furs, perhaps? A winter break? Some jewels?’

  ‘Some jewels would be good.’

  ‘Jewels it is then. I’ll have Asprey send over a tray of goodies.’ He laughed. ‘We have fun, don’t we, Clara?’

  ‘Yes. We do,’ she agreed. It was a marriage. It wasn’t hearts and flowers, a bed of roses. But it worked. All that thrilling, heart-stopping nonsense with Redmayne was nothing more than daydreams. And they were dangerous ones, at that.

  54

  Marcus had never forgotten that night at the Blue Bird when Jacko Sears died on him, and now his brother Fulton was still causing ructions. Pete had been there with Marcus that night, he’d helped him put Jacko Sears to rest out Epping way. Was it such a big stretch to think that Jacko’s brother had heard something, taken revenge, targeted Pete?

  Maybe Fulton would be coming for Marcus next. He was going to have to be very careful, but he’d lived under threat for most of his adult life; he was used to it.

  He carried on bedding Paulette, moved her into a better, bigger flat in the hope that this would stop her leaving all her shit at
his. And when he fucked her? He dreamed, always, of Clara Hatton who was now Clara Cotton. Clara with her solemn blue-eyed gaze and her tumble of black curls. Somehow – he didn’t know how – she was stuck in his brain. Just the thought of her was enough to set his blood on fire. And she’d rebuffed him, then gone and married that nancy-boy Cotton. Even knowing what Cotton was, it still drove him crazy-mad with jealousy, thinking of her with someone else, not him.

  And meanwhile?

  He had Paulette – who had now added a yappy little apricot poodle to her repertoire of things designed to irritate the crap out of him. The thing chewed his belts and shoes, and Paulette cooed over it like an idiot when it pooped on the floor. Fucking thing. He thought of ditching her, taking up with Pete’s old party girl Sonya instead.

  Oh yeah, bright idea. Then every time you fuck her, you’ll see Pete’s decapitated head and dead hands on your desk.

  He still couldn’t get over Pete. They’d taken the remains, him and Gordon, and buried them way out in the sticks. He’d even said a silent prayer over the grave site; he didn’t know what for, but it made him feel better somehow. And he’d given Sonya a job in one of the clubs, because Pete would have liked that.

  In an attempt to lighten his mood, Marcus bought another car, a phallus-shaped red E-type Jag, and drove it first to Old Bond Street and then over to his mother’s.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Mum as she stood at the door to let him in.

  ‘It’s a car,’ shrugged his mother.

  The women in his life? They gave him no joy at all.

  55

  ‘What do you think of these, sweetheart?’ said Toby, coming up behind Clara, who was looking in the drawing-room mirror at the two glimmering strands of pearls around her neck. He held up a pair of fire opal screw-on earrings. Each opal was ringed with a circle of tiny bright diamonds.

  Asprey had sent over a tray of jewels this morning. The jeweller was standing patiently in front of the closed hall door; there was a security guard on the other side of it. Clara paused, looked at Toby and the opals, and smiled.

  ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ he said. ‘These would match your eyes. Deep shimmering blue. So pretty.’

  ‘Don’t they say opals are unlucky?’

  ‘Do they? Superstitious crap.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I wonder if Jasper would like them? I could wear one on each bollock, what do you think?’

  Clara gave a snort of laughter, then glanced at the jeweller, standing there pretending not to listen. Toby caught the direction of her gaze and sighed.

  ‘I love these pearls,’ said Clara.

  ‘They are extremely fine, madam,’ agreed the jeweller.

  ‘Would you like them, darling one?’ asked Toby.

  ‘Oh, darling, could I?’ They were playing now, their eyes filled with mirth as they looked at each other in the mirror.

  ‘Of course you could, sweetness.’ Toby nodded to the jeweller. ‘And the matching bracelet, perhaps . . . ?’

  ‘You’re so good to me,’ said Clara, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Darling, nothing is too good for you,’ said Toby, hugging her.

  So the transaction was completed and Clara felt herself to be very lucky. She had an indulgent husband, a fabulous home, and now she had a double strand of real pearls in a necklace and a double-stranded bracelet too, both necklace and bracelet finished with matching sapphire-encrusted fasteners – and Toby had bought his fire opal earrings.

  Annoyingly, the bloodstain on the cashmere coat wouldn’t come out, though; and soon, Bernie dropped a bombshell that wiped the smile right off her sister’s face.

  ‘David and I have decided to get married,’ said Bernie a couple of weeks later over dinner.

  Clara nearly choked on her salmon. ‘You what?’ she asked, incredulous.

  ‘David and I have decided that the time is right for us to be married.’

  Toby and Clara exchanged a long look. Then Clara said: ‘But . . . he doesn’t have a bean, Bernie. How will he keep you?’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ said Bernie.

  ‘Manage?’ Clara let out a hollow laugh. ‘I don’t think that’s good enough. Manage how? I mean, where will you live?’

  ‘David has a room over his studio.’

  ‘Which he rents. He doesn’t own that room. He doesn’t even own the studio.’

  Toby cleared his throat, dabbed lightly at his mouth with a napkin. ‘Clara, if they are happy . . . ’ he started.

  ‘How can they be? Oh, they might be happy now, but it can’t last. Bernie, don’t you remember what it was like, living hand-to-mouth? You can’t want to go back to that!’

  ‘Perhaps I could find a job for David?’ suggested Toby.

  Clara scowled at him. I’d be happier if you’d fucked him, she thought. But that hadn’t happened. David was straight as a die, and now Bernie was going to waste her life on the tosser.

  But Bernie herself quashed Toby’s offer. ‘David’s a photographer. A brilliant technician. That’s all he wants to do. He couldn’t work in a club.’

  ‘Yes, but with a wife to support, he’d have to think again,’ said Clara.

  ‘I wouldn’t want him to “think again”,’ said Bernie. ‘That’s what he does, that’s how he chooses to make a living, I wouldn’t want to dissuade him from carrying on with that.’

  Clara was shaking her head. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’

  ‘I love him, Clara,’ said Bernie firmly.

  ‘Love? What good is that going to do you, when you’re dirt poor and pregnant? Don’t be mad, Bern. It’s out of the question.’

  Bernie scraped back her chair and stood up. Her face was livid and she was trembling hard.

  ‘Look, we can’t all forget our feelings and just marry money,’ she snapped.

  Clara stood up too.

  ‘Oh, now look . . . ’ said Toby, ever the peacemaker.

  ‘I won’t allow it,’ said Clara.

  ‘You can’t stop it,’ said Bernie, and marched out of the room, slamming the door hard behind her.

  56

  Clara was sitting up in the office at the Heart of Oak one evening, thumbing though the day’s papers, glancing at yet more Ban the Bomb demonstrations as American and Russian attitudes hardened.

  It was over a month since she had last visited the Oak, a month since she had seen Marcus Redmayne. Since then, she’d heard no more from him and had even begun to relax, to think that he was all talk, like most men. And she had other things on her mind. More and more Toby was leaving the bulk of the running of the clubs to her while he swanned about the town with Jasper. She didn’t mind; she liked the work, the feeling that for all she took out of the business, she was putting something tangible back.

  Bernie worried her, though. She seemed set on this idea of marriage to that no-hoper Bennett, and what good could ever come of it? But Bernie was determined. She was talking about a formal engagement now; and they’d argued again last night.

  ‘Could he afford to buy you a ring?’ Clara had scoffed – Clara, whose fingers, thanks to her careful choice of second husband, were bristling with cabochon-cut emeralds, starry diamonds and stunning sapphires, and, of course, with her most treasured item, her mother’s old thin wedding band.

  ‘He’ll give me his mother’s ring. It has sentimental value.’ Bernie had looked scathingly at Clara’s hands. ‘It actually means something to him, besides what it’s worth.’

  Then they’d been off again, shrieking at each other.

  God, she didn’t know what to do about Bernie. And now, dumpy little brunette Jan had come up the stairs to tell her that Sal hadn’t been in.

  ‘For how long?’ asked Clara.

  ‘We ain’t seen her since a few days after you last came in here.’

  ‘Well . . . she’s probably just moved on.’ Staff turnover was high in all the clubs. Girls found other jobs they liked better, or drifted back full-time onto the streets. Very rarely did they bother t
o give any sort of notice.

  Jan was shaking her head. ‘Nah, Sal wouldn’t do that. She liked it here, with all her mates.’

  ‘You been round to her place?’

  ‘Yeah, I been round. Didn’t get no answer, though. I thought maybe she’s moved out of the area, who knows?’ Jan looked worried. ‘But I don’t think she’d do that. Not without telling me. We been friends for years.’

  ‘Where’s she live?’

  ‘Houndsditch.’

  God! That place. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll turn up,’ she said.

  ‘She won’t. I know she won’t! Look, would you come round her gaff with me? See she’s all right?’

  ‘God, Jan, I’m up to my arse in—’

  ‘Please! For God’s sake, anythin’ could have happened to her.’

  ‘Isn’t she a bit of a drinker? Don’t she like the gin?’

  ‘Yeah, she does,’ admitted Jan. Sal had been known to go off on a bender and roll in a week later – Clara had chewed her arse about it on more than one occasion. But it was getting on for a month now . . .

  ‘That could be it. She might be off on one.’

  ‘No! It’s too long,’ said Jan fretfully, echoing Clara’s own thoughts.

  Shit, thought Clara. Jan was looking to her to do something, take some action. But Houndsditch . . .

  She remembered it. She’d never forget it. The stink of the slums. The damp and the despair. She shuddered to even think of it. She didn’t want to go back there.

  ‘Please, Clara. Come round there with me will you? I’m getting scared now.’

  Clara took a breath. Fuck it. ‘Look, we’ll go tomorrow morning, all right? You and me. Come in here at eleven, I’ll meet you and we’ll go.’

  ‘Thanks, Clara,’ said Jan, looking relieved.

  Shit, shit, shit, thought Clara. Houndsditch.

  57

  Next day they set off in a taxi into Clara’s deepest, darkest nightmares. The driver, a big bluff Londoner, stopped at a certain point and wouldn’t go any further.