Rock a Bye Baby

by Mia Dolan

  The gang members laughed – all except Bully. He eyed her far too brazenly for a thirteen-year-old. He was so big for a lad of his age. Determined not to be intimidated she folded her arms and held her head high.

  ‘Touch me if you dare.’

  Bully’s square chin seemed to bristle for a moment before his small mouth cracked into a grin.

  ‘You’ve got spirit! You can be my girlfriend if you want.’

  ‘I don’t want,’ snapped Marcie, blushing profusely despite herself. ‘I don’t go out with schoolboys and this isn’t a social call. I work for Mr Tytherington. We had a box of lollipops go missing. We’ve reported the theft to the police and the damage done to the stall. Now I come home to find my brothers eating the evidence. They tell me you were the thieving little sods who stole them. Oh, and besides not going out with schoolboys, I do not associate with common thieves.’

  Bully eyed her through the smoke he’d exhaled. His eyes narrowed and he certainly wasn’t looking at her like a thirteen-year-old should, the cocky little sod!

  She waited.

  He flicked a dog-end into a stained corner of the bus shelter. ‘You got it wrong. I’m no thief. I’m just the distributor, if you know what I mean. Got it?’

  Marcie knew Bully mostly by reputation; he was younger than her so wasn’t a kid she’d had much to do with. He was the sort she mostly avoided, but still she knew better than to show fear. On the contrary, she had to do the opposite. It wasn’t easy.

  He looked shocked when she snatched the three cigarettes from his pocket.

  ‘So tell me who did pinch them and you can have your fags back. Tell me now or I’m off to the coppers. Got it?’

  She could see by his face that she’d taken him off guard. A lazy eyelid flickered. His smile was slow to spread over his face and once in place was more like a sneer.

  ‘The dope,’ he snapped. ‘Dopey Davies.’

  Now it was Marcie who was taken aback. ‘Garth Davies?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t do something like that. And how would he get there? On the bus?’

  Bully grinned. ‘He would if we were holding his cat hostage. And no problem getting there and back. Not if I was driving my old man’s van. We wouldn’t let him have his cat back until he did the job.’

  ‘You’re too young to drive!’

  ‘So?’

  The gang members laughed along with him and stopped when he stopped.

  ‘Now give me my fags back.’

  He wasn’t smiling now, but Marcie didn’t care. Her fingers tightened around the three cigarettes. He’d probably stolen them from his parents. It might not be so easy to get any more. I hope not, she thought, I really hope not!

  She purposely crushed them in her hand. Bits and pieces of tobacco and cigarette paper crumbled to the floor. She ground the bigger pieces into the ground with her toe and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

  Bully’s face turned from pasty white to purple. He was furious and like all bullies he targeted the weakest. Rather than threaten her, he turned to her brothers. ‘Me and my mates will get you, Brookses. We’ll get you in school, you just see if we don’t!’

  His threat was ended abruptly with a swift right hook from Marcie. She wasn’t easily roused to violence, but unluckily for Bully Price he was a softer target than her father.

  Bully looked at her in amazement. ‘I like a girl with spirit,’ he repeated as he rubbed his chin.

  ‘But I don’t like bullies,’ she said, purposely stamping on his foot.

  ‘None of them will be bothering either of you two,’ she said to Archie and Arnold as they marched smartly away. ‘Head up. Chin up. Start as you mean to go on.’

  Marcie added that her half-brothers should not look back. ‘They’ll think you’re a coward if you do and the Brookses are never cowards!’

  Testing her courage against someone like Bully Price was bound to flood her with feelings of triumph. However, that triumph was tempered with surprise and sadness. Poor Garth had been bullied into doing what they wanted. She knew he had a cat and that he was fond of it. Sometimes he could be seen sitting on the steps leading up to the miserable flat he called home, the cat lounging across his lap. There had to be a way of keeping Bully and his mates off Garth’s back for good. She could tell his mother but doubted that would do any good. Despite her age she went around dressed like Marilyn Monroe; mutton dressed as lamb according to Rosa Brooks. Not that her grandmother condemned her for that. ‘She’s had a difficult life,’ she’d said.

  No, it needed a man to sort Bully Price out, a man who knew how to handle himself. She was unwilling to approach her father for obvious reasons. Even if she didn’t still harbour suspicions that he had done something to her real mother, or had, at the very least, driven her away, he was hardly the sort to ensure justice was done for Garth. Despite what he was, she’d still been brought up to respect him. However, she couldn’t help believing that he’d probably started out stealing sweets himself, before graduating on to bigger and more valuable property.

  Marcie thought about the coming Thursday and the weekend to follow. The fact that she was seeing Johnnie at the weekend made up for the fact that Rita was taking her hard-earned savings in exchange for the course of birth control pills. The prized pills outweighed the cost – what was a new dress and shoes in comparison to a weekend of bliss with Johnnie?

  As work was out of the question at the moment due to the renovations needed to the stall, she and Rita met for a coffee on a day out at Leysdown.

  Marcie had expected her to bring the pills with her.

  ‘I’ll give you them when we go up to London.’

  Marcie had no choice but to agree. It seemed that Rita was going to relish spending money, including her five pounds. She looked more cheerful than she had for days except when Marcie attempted to mention Johnnie. Rita turned curt when she did that, cutting across with her views that boys who rode motorbikes were disgusting and that she’d made her mind up to ‘get with it’.

  Rita’s father was driving them up in his sleek Jaguar. Apparently he had business to attend to. Her father was fine with that.

  ‘Alan knows how to handle himself. He’ll take care of you.’

  In more ways than you think, she thought to herself. He’s the one who can take care of Bully Price. If anyone was going to set the little sod to rights it was him.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  They were in Rita’s bedroom, a pink and white concoction of laminate furniture, sheepskin rugs and white plastic chairs, when the deed was done. A three-legged tubular standard lamp sat in one corner. Marcie had always envied her friend having a bedroom all to herself. Now the pink and white surroundings made her feel quite sick.

  Alan Taylor knocked on the door before coming in.

  ‘Won’t be long, girls. Are you both ready to go?’

  They both said that they were.

  ‘Marcie’s buying my birth control pills,’ said Rita without an iota of embarrassment. She waved the five pound note in front of her father’s face.

  Marcie went scarlet.

  Alan noticed the container. ‘What happened to them? Why are they in an old jar?’

  ‘Marcie’s gran won’t like it if she found them – so I disguised them for her.’

  Marcie didn’t care what sort of container the pills came in as long as they worked. Rita’s idea had been a good one, though – heaven knows what sort of trouble she’d get in if her gran or even her dad found out she was on the pill.

  She shoved the jar to the bottom of her handbag, still sporting a bright-red complexion. Whatever would Rita’s father think of her? Rita telling her father about their deal was the last thing she’d expected. Nobody told their parents things like that – not normally.

  Alan Taylor gave no sign of being shocked or embarrassed by his daughter’s statement; only interested. His deep-blue eyes narrowed when he looked at her. ‘Is that right, Marcie, girl? Must be someone special.’

 
A smile creased the corners of his mouth. Marcie half wondered if he were making fun of her – a silly little girl who thought she was in love.

  Rita bulldozed the information to him.

  ‘She’s in love with a leather boy named Johnnie. He’s a rocker. Rockers ride motorbikes, wear leather and are always tinkering with engines and oil.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Actually they stink. I’ve gone off them myself. I prefer my boyfriends to be well dressed and drive a car or a Vespa.’

  Marcie couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt at Rita’s tone. She was saying that Johnnie was downmarket and so Marcie was too. It was hard not to retaliate. She consoled herself by thinking of the weekend – she wanted to go away with Johnnie and needed Rita to cover for her.

  Alan raised his eyebrows in a knowing way and grinned at his daughter. ‘Trust you to want the best. But if that’s what you want, then that’s what you shall have. Please yourself in this life, my girl. It’s a pound to a penny that no one else will.’

  Alan carried their luggage out to the car and laughingly noticed that they were travelling pretty light, both girls having only one bag each.

  ‘I’ll have more bags when I come back,’ crowed Rita.

  Marcie said nothing. She wouldn’t be bringing anything back with the exception perhaps of a pair of tights. She’d seen some red ones that she thought would look good with a black mini dress in the winter. She’d seen a dress pattern she liked and the material – an old dress she’d spotted in a battered brown suitcase up in the attic.

  Rita had forgotten her favourite red nail varnish so had to rush back into the house to fetch it.

  ‘Sit in the front with me while we wait for her Royal Highness, Marcie love,’ offered Alan. He stretched across the front seat to open the car door. ‘You can sit up front all the way if you like. There’s not a great deal of room at the back and our Rita normally falls asleep after thirty minutes of travel.’

  Alan patted the length of leg above her knee. Normally she went bare legged at this time of year. Today, because they were off to London, she was wearing tights and a lilac-coloured crimplene mini dress with a full-length zip down the front.

  ‘Don’t let our Rita’s openness get to you. There’s no secrets between me and Rita. None at all. She tells me everything.’

  Having him try to reassure her did nothing except make her plunge to a deeper shade of crimson.

  Alan leaned closer. ‘Look, love. What the eyes don’t see the heart don’t weep over. Your dad would prefer you not to bring any trouble to his castle, know what I mean? And you’re in love with this bloke and can’t help yourself. No need to be ashamed, you know. It’s only natural. Men and women have been doing it for ages.’ He grinned widely at the same time as taking a sliver of her hair and brushing it gently behind her ears. It felt nice, very soothing.

  ‘Let’s face it, Marcie, if your mum and dad and my mum and dad hadn’t been hot for each other, neither you nor me would be here, now, would we? But you’re not ready for family commitment, so it makes sense to take precautions. Relax. This is the nineteen sixties not the eighteen sixties. Science has provided the birth control pill. Make the most of it, darling. Go out and enjoy yourself.’

  Despite his reassurances, Marcie still felt as though her face was on fire. In fact her whole body was burning with embarrassment. She badly needed to change the subject.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something. A favour,’ she said. Her long straight hair swung like skeins of silk as she jerked her head round to face him. ‘You remember Garth Davies, that funny bloke at the pictures?’

  Alan nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s been in a spot of bother, but it’s not his fault.’

  She went on to tell him about Bully Price threatening to hurt his ginger cat if he didn’t do as they said. ‘I told him I’d tell on him if he didn’t leave Garth alone.’

  ‘Sounds like a boy working his way up to bigger things – like protection rackets and even a spot of larceny,’ said Alan. ‘So what did he say to that?’

  ‘He was cheeky at first. Then he threatened to beat my brothers up in school. I got angry. So I hit him.’

  Alan threw his head back and laughed. ‘Good for you.’

  ‘The trouble is he might not take any notice of me. It needs someone who knows how to handle people like him.’ Marcie looked at him with pleading in her eyes. ‘Can you do anything?’

  So that’s why the kids were ganging up on the spastic lad. Poor sod!

  He grinned and patted her leg again. ‘For you, Marcie Brooks, I’d do anything. Like I said to you before, you’re the second daughter I never had.’ On seeing Rita on her way back to the car, he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘And far less expensive!’

  Alan Taylor had the sort of mind that twisted this way and that. They didn’t call him ‘The Dodger’ for nothing. Even as he drove he was thinking on how best to turn what Marcie had said to his advantage. From what she’d said, Bully Price had potential in some aspects of business he himself was involved in. Of course he’d need a bit of guidance and likely as not he’d do a stint in borstal before qualifying as an out-and-out incorrigible. Incorrigible! He liked that word. He’d read it somewhere, or likely Steph had and passed it on to him. Yeah. That was it. ‘That’s what you are,’ she’d said to him. ‘An incorrigible. That’s what they used to call criminals that refused to mend their ways.’

  He’d laughed it off. He felt like laughing out loud now. Everything as regards the seduction of Marcie Brooks was going to plan. She trusted him more than she trusted her own dad. Couldn’t blame her really. Old Tony was a bit of a loser. Lost his wife, lost his job, lost his freedom. Pretty soon, if Alan played his cards right, he’d be losing his daughter.

  And goodbye to Sheppey.

  Alan wanted a cut of the big time. He had a club in the East End that was really doing well, but success came at a price. At present he was paying ‘insurance’ money to the Maltese Mafia – relatives of Tony Brooks. It was Tony who’d introduced them to him.

  ‘It’s normal procedure around these parts,’ Tony had explained. ‘Might as well keep it among friends. Right?’

  Alan Taylor was no fool and realised he had no choice. The Maltese mob was in control – or at least they had been. Now the Kray twins were in the ascendant, taking over swathes of what had once been Maltese mob territory, including prostitution and protection money – insurance as they termed it.

  Being a shrewd operator, Alan knew that if he didn’t pay his place could be torched. What he did know was that it was better to throw your lot in with the gang that was on the rise. He reckoned he could get a good deal if he went to them direct, asking them for ‘insurance’ before they came demanding it. It made sense.

  He hadn’t told Tony, of course. Why should he? First as last it was his business. Anyway, Tony was a bit of a spent force, weighted down as he was with that family of his. Buried alive in Sheppey! Well, he wasn’t going to be that. He wanted to move onwards and upwards. He wanted to open more clubs and get in on the big time.

  The only way he could get that was to move up to the smoke – the big city – London. The pavements weren’t exactly paved with gold, but that depended on what you were doing. Oh yes. Alan Taylor was poised to move up in the world. He’d leave Steph behind and Rita too, but he’d take Marcie, just as he’d once planned to take her mother.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The shopping turned out to be better than Marcie could have anticipated. Alan insisted on buying her a black and white dress she very much admired, plus a pair of black patent shoes with a low Cuban heel and ankle straps.

  ‘But don’t let our Rita know. She’ll only get jealous.’

  Rita bought herself a pair of elastic-sided Chelsea boots and a pair of cream-coloured jeans to wear with them. By the time she’d bought herself a black top sprinkled with psychedelic swirls and a black felt hat, she didn’t have enough for the Crombie coat she wanted. Her father obliged.

  ‘And that’s y
our lot,’ he warned her. ‘No more shopping. I’ve got business to attend to.’

  He drove them to a narrow cobbled street in the East End of London. The street was lined with terraced houses built of dark-red brick.

  ‘Won’t be long. There’s some blokes I’ve got to see.’

  Kids stopped playing hopscotch or swinging from improvised swings – lengths of rope flung over lamp posts. En masse they milled around the posh car and made faces through the windows.

  A giant of a man came out of the house Alan Taylor had disappeared into and told the kids to shove off.

  They didn’t need to be told twice. The big man stood on the pavement with his hands folded in front of him. The kids went back to their games.

  Marcie lowered her head and looked beyond the man standing guard over the car.

  ‘Whose house is it?’

  Rita shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  She was sitting in the back taking each item out of the bag, scrutinising it and jabbering on about how good it was going to look on her and how much she was going to enjoy being a mod.

  Marcie made no comment. Rita’s father had hidden the dress and shoes he’d bought her in the boot.

  He’d smiled and winked at her. ‘We’ll meet up later – just the two of us. You can collect them then.’

  She sighed. Alan Taylor was the most generous and kindest man she’d ever known.

  Alan Taylor sat in the chair that was offered him. The twins sitting opposite nodded a swift greeting. Their faces were pale, their eyes unblinking and seemingly without any variation in colour. Their mother had placed a tray containing a pot of tea, sugar, milk and cups and saucers on the table.

  ‘I’ll leave you boys to it,’ she said cheerily once she’d added a plate of mixed biscuits. It was as though her sons were boy scouts, not two of the most vicious gangsters in the East End.

  Reggie took a biscuit from the plate. ‘I hear you’re a mate of Tony Brooks.’

  ‘Kind of. He does a few odd jobs for me – cleaning cars mostly.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Just about all he’s fit for nowadays.’