Rock a Bye Baby

by Mia Dolan

  ‘No.’ Marcie didn’t add a sigh of relief. No wonder Maureen and her cronies hadn’t come after her and Rita following the incident in Woolworths. ‘Is she getting married?’

  Jennifer shook her head. ‘I heard she got rid of it. A back-street job.’

  ‘Want anyone to walk you home?’ asked one of the boys.

  She shook her head. ‘No. I need some fresh air. I might take a walk along the prom.’

  The breeze blowing in from the sea sent her hair flying out behind her. She stood staring out at the flashing lights of Southend and the ships wending their way up towards the Medway.

  The breeze also made her aware of just how much she’d had to drink, but she didn’t care. She’d needed a few shorts to chase away her blues. She’d also needed good company far more than she’d realised.

  After what seemed like over half an hour, she turned back the way she’d come, down over the grassy bank to where the locked-up tea stalls sat square and black against the lights of Sheerness.

  Car headlights swooped suddenly around her feet and she recognised the chromium spokes of Alan Taylor’s Jaguar coming to a stop beside her.

  He stuck his head out through the window. ‘What’s a lovely girl like you doing out all alone on a night like this?’

  His teeth flashed white. She reasoned that her falling out with Rita didn’t mean she’d fallen out with him. She got into the car.

  ‘Let me take you away from all this,’ he said.

  She laughed.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’

  She felt his eyes on her and couldn’t lie.

  ‘I met some friends. I needed a few drinks. I was feeling bad. My stepmother’s shot off, you know. She’s taken the kids with her.’

  Alan nodded slowly as he sped around a right-hand turn. ‘Any reason?’

  He didn’t let on that he suspected he knew what was probably at the bottom of it. The fact was that he didn’t possess the full details.

  ‘He reckoned she’s been knocking around with some other bloke – or even more than one other bloke – I don’t know. Anyway, he tried to strangle her and when he wouldn’t let go my gran hit him over the head with a frying pan.’

  It must have been the drink making her feel more relaxed because the funny side of it got to her. She burst out laughing.

  ‘Whack!’ she said, raising her arm in a pretty good imitation of her grandmother bringing the pan down on her father’s head.

  ‘Serves him right, the silly bugger!’

  Alan threw back his head and joined in her laughter. At the same time his arm snaked around the back of her seat. He gave her a hug.

  ‘Marcie, you deserve better. Ever thought about leaving the Isle of Sheppey?’

  She made a so-so face. ‘Not really … Well, sometimes.’

  ‘How about we have a talk about it; have a chat about your options now the summer job’s come to an end. Our Rita’s joining me in the local business, but I reckon you could do well in my place in London. I could give you a job. What do you reckon to that?’

  She paused. Was it merely coincidence or was fate pointing her in the direction of the big city. ‘I might like that. I’ve been thinking about London.’

  ‘Right. That settles it,’ he said withdrawing his arm and starting the engine. ‘We’ll go to my place now and talk it through. Steph’s gone to Brighton to see her mother and our Rita’s going on some trip to Margate with a group of scooter riders. I’ve got the place to myself.’

  Tonight had been great and she was in no hurry to rush home. It was long gone ten o’clock, but curfews had gone out of the window. Her grandmother and her father had weightier concerns. They didn’t care much about what she did at this moment in time. Strangely enough, it hurt to think that they were less caring now about what time she came home. She looked at Alan. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

  At least she still had him taking an interest in her life.

  All except for the kitchen and bathroom, the Taylors’ place was wall-to-wall carpet throughout. Thick Wilton and Axminster fitted carpets cushioned her footfall. The Taylors were the only people she’d ever met with fitted carpets. It just showed how rich they were.

  Alan invited her into what he termed ‘the lounge’. She’d been in here before. Once again she was impressed. The furniture was modern and flashy, and included a cocktail cabinet. Nobody else she knew had a cocktail cabinet. It was made of creamy coloured plastic with pinkish tones and gold-coloured fretwork around the top.

  ‘Lemonade,’ she said when he asked her what she’d like to drink.

  ‘Not in this house. A cocktail! I will mix you a cocktail, young lady, that will blow your socks off – or at least make you feel very, very happy.’

  It was easy to laugh. Her drinks at the pub made sure of that. She couldn’t stop giggling as he poured the mixture into a tall glass with a thin stem and a cone-shaped bowl. The mixture was blue.

  ‘It looks funny.’ She giggled.

  ‘It’s a kind of daiquiri,’ he said.

  She didn’t have a clue what that was. ‘It looks pretty.’

  ‘And tastes even better than pretty,’ he said.

  He slid along the brown leather settee until he was beside her, watching as she took the first sip. It tasted good.

  ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Just like lemonade.’

  The fact that Alan was hiding a triumphant smile behind his hand or that his eyes were shining with anticipation, did not register. The drink was pleasant to the tongue and refreshing, its alcoholic content smothered by bitter lemon and blue Curasçao.

  ‘Don’t just sip it. Drink it. Down in one. It’ll do you good.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘OK.’ The drink went down smoothly. Just like lemonade, though lemonade never made her feel as though she’d turned into a marshmallow.

  ‘Good?’ He was smiling at her through a silky haze.

  Feeling as though she were floating up to the ceiling, she nodded and smiled back.

  He made her another cocktail and sat with his arm around her until she had drained her glass.

  It felt as though she were floating and her body, which had felt so warm, seemed cooler. Eyes bleary and half closed, she fancied her bare breasts were being tickled with a bunch of feathers. Perhaps she’d fallen into the hen house by mistake and the old shed was still full of clucking cockerels being fattened for Christmas.

  She vaguely remembered lying full stretch on the settee and something heavy covering her; she presumed a blanket, though it didn’t smell like a blanket.

  In the morning Marcie found herself alone and feeling woozy. The night before was just a fuddled memory. All she could think about was getting home and explaining why she was so late.

  Carrying her shoes in her hand, she let herself out of the front door. If the ground was stony, she didn’t feel it. Not until she was sitting at the bus stop halfway between Leysdown and Sheerness did she notice that her feet were bleeding. Besides that, her head ached and she felt sick. She groaned. What a mess she must look.

  A sudden retch made her reach for the grassy area behind the bus stop where she left the contents of her stomach.

  Once it was up memories of the night before came back in a fragmented, piecemeal manner. First she remembered going out drinking with old friends and how good she’d felt when she’d left them. After that she recalled starting to walk home and then Alan Taylor picking her up. After that … she wasn’t sure, but the Taylors’ bungalow was close to the bus stop. How embarrassing! Had she been ill at the Taylors’ house?

  Walking home seemed like a good idea. She needed the fresh air. She also needed to concoct an explanation as to why she was so late. Her legs were like jelly. Her throat was as dry as the bottom of a bird cage. Despite the early morning air her head maintained its drumming beat all the way home.

  She went around the lane at the back of the house, lingering beside what was now just an old shed. The wood was rough and dry beneath her fingertips. Lea
ning her head against it, she strained to hear some echo of her brothers giggling on the other side, but there was no giggling, no sound at all.

  Staggering slightly, she made her way up the garden path and into the house.

  No bacon and eggs were being fried and no kettle being boiled. The kitchen was coldly bare and empty. Where was her grandmother? Where was her father?

  She remembered her father saying that he was off up to London but that didn’t explain her grandmother’s whereabouts. On the other hand she didn’t really want to bump into either of them creeping in at this time of the morning.

  As if to confirm that she’d been out all night, the old walnut clock ticking away on the wall struck six. Six o’clock in the morning and nobody was around. And nobody had thought to go looking for her.

  She made her way to the bathroom and ran the taps. Although her head still felt as though a drummer was beating a strict tempo, fragments of her time at the Taylor place came flooding back. She giggled at the thought of the cocktail cabinet; what a hideous piece of furniture – presumably Steph’s choice.

  She let herself into the outside lavatory and slumped down on the pan. At first it didn’t seem unduly odd that only one hook out of three was fastened on her bra. It was then she noticed that the pink gingham panties she’d put on yesterday were on the wrong way round – and inside out.

  She slumped forward.

  Nothing had happened at the pub to explain this; she’d merely had a good time. Her memories about that were pretty clear. There was only one other explanation, an explanation that was difficult to face.

  She didn’t want it to be true that the man she’d thought so much of wasn’t deserving of her respect.

  Twenty-nine

  Tony Brooks hammered on the dull brown door, his anger beating like a drum inside his head. A net curtain lifted briefly in the bay window. He hammered again and kept hammering until Barbara’s mother came to the door.

  She looked nervous but also hard as nails, her cheeks two red splodges on a heavily powdered face – mutton dressed as lamb, just like her daughter. Tony had met plenty of her type before, most of them pacing the streets of Whitechapel in search of clients.

  ‘Where is she?’

  At first Mrs Sanderson looked reticent, her lips pursing tight as a duck’s ass. Her fingers tightened over the edge of the door. He briefly noticed her fingernails were as red as her cheeks. But he wasn’t here to scrutinise her attempts to hold on to her youth. There was only one thing in his head. He wanted his family back.

  The door shuddered under the impact of his size ten boot. ‘Don’t even think about it!’

  ‘It’s no good you keep coming back here,’ she snapped, the tautly stretched face breaking into movement.

  ‘I want to see Babs! I want to see my kids!’

  ‘Well you ain’t seeing any of them. Worse day’s work my Barbara ever did was meeting you. Now clear off or else.’

  He pushed into the doorway. She couldn’t close the door at all now without it knocking him backwards and she wasn’t strong enough to do that.

  ‘Or else what?’

  He glared down at her.

  She gave a little gasp as she looked up at him, her eyes round as gobstoppers. The red rouge was joined by a fast-moving flush spreading up from her neck and over her cheeks. But she didn’t give in. Instead she seemed to gather herself up, like a snake rising and about to spit venom.

  ‘I’ll set my Donald on you!’

  Donald was Barbara’s father and too old and decrepit to stop Tony coming in. Tony jeered at the thought of it.

  ‘Just the man I want to see. Send him out.’ He peered over her head along the dark passageway leading to the scullery at the back of the house. ‘Come on, Donald. Let’s see what you’ve got to say.’

  Mrs Sanderson glanced over her shoulder. ‘He’d come out and protect his wife and daughter – if he was home. But he’s not.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  He saw a shadow move somewhere deep in the darkness behind her and knew she was lying.

  Donald would not come out and there was no point in staying, though it did cross his mind to force his way in. But there was no point. It wasn’t Donald he’d come to see – he wanted Babs and his kids.

  ‘Just you take note, you old bag. I’ll be back, and I’ll keep coming back until I see her. Right?’

  ‘Piss off!’

  He swung away from the front door and heard it slam behind him. Barbara had to be there, or they knew where she was.

  Back on the Isle of Sheppey, Rosa Brooks had fallen asleep in her armchair. The chair was old and had been inherited from her husband’s mother as had most of her furniture. Carved wood surrounded the stuffed headrest and the springs were pressing upwards through the seat.

  But Rosa loved that chair because it had been her husband’s chair. When she closed her eyes she could still detect the pungent aroma of Navy Shag tobacco from his pipe. It had faded with age but it was still there, the last remnant of his physical presence.

  Tonight the scent overwhelmed her and in her dreams she was with him again. During her waking hours she was now longing to be with him. Life was not worth living without her son and all her grandchildren. She had been brought up to value having her family round her. Now there was no one other than Marcie; and even she would be leaving home soon, Rosa fancied.

  It often happened that she dreamed of things to come, though rarely with regard to her own future. Although she often saw the future of others, her own seemed shrouded from her sight. She accepted that this was the way of things and the will of the Almighty.

  The emptiness of the house seemed to echo around her as though silence itself was a sound. A terrible darkness seemed to flood over her. She found herself gasping for air and smelled dark earth all around her; it felt as though she’d been buried alive.

  She awoke with a start. Her gaze toured the familiar surroundings. Everything was where it should be except for those photographs that Babs had taken with her.

  Shaking slightly, Rosa got to her feet. There was no real reason to rearrange the photographs of her and her son when he was still a babe in arms. Her fingers alighted and stayed on a photograph of her husband. She couldn’t help but smile back for to her he would always be young, and always be alive.

  The smile dropped from her face as she recalled the dream and attempted to interpret its meaning. Could it be that she’d witnessed her own death?

  She spoke of her concern to her husband’s photograph.

  ‘It seems I could be joining you soon, Cyril.’

  She smiled at the thought of it. In the back of her mind she tried to recall all the details. She frowned. She’d felt and smelled earth all around her, yet she hadn’t seen herself lying there.

  A shiver coursed down her spine as she retrieved what she could remember. There was a body, but not her own. It was a man’s body but she couldn’t see his face. She jumped to the obvious conclusion, closed her eyes and prayed.

  ‘Please, God, spare my son.’

  Chapter Thirty

  There were days that week when Marcie could quite happily have murdered Rita. She was going on and on about the new friends in her life and how trendy they were.

  ‘My new friend Sandie has got the most gorgeous pair of Courreges boots. Courreges,’ she repeated. ‘They’re white with cut-out bits around the top. I’m going to get a pair.’

  ‘Is that so!’

  Marcie was deliberately offhand. It had taken someone else to point out that Rita wasn’t such a good friend as all that. But Rita didn’t seem to notice and went rabbiting on about her new friends, and how fashionable they were.

  ‘Sandie looks a lot like Sandy Shaw. She doesn’t sing, though, but she is just so fashionable. It’s all shop-bought clothes, of course. She buys it up London in the King’s Road. Her boyfriend does too. He wears a suit with a round collar like the Beatles and a yellow shirt with buttons on the collar. He smells nice too. Not like rockers a
nd their dirty motorbikes,’ she added, an obvious dig at Marcie and her relationship with Johnnie.

  Rita’s dad seemed to pick his daughter up from work nearly every night that week, on each occasion offering Marcie a lift home. ‘I’m doing overtime,’ she said.

  ‘I can wait.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  She refused even to look at him. Her face reddened at the thought of what he’d done. She’d told no one. How could she? They’d question why she hadn’t reported the incident at the time. Besides, what kind of incident was it? She found she was wearing her knickers inside out, her bra not properly fastened. But you’d been drinking, they’d say. What can you expect? You went willingly with him to his house when his family was away. You’re a prick tease. You were asking for it.

  Once his car was out of sight she grabbed her things and marched to the bus stop with her head hanging. On the Friday she told Mr Tytherington that she didn’t want to work for him any more. He said it was OK, but he wouldn’t have minded keeping her on for a month or so, just to help him with the packing away.

  ‘Have you got a job to go to?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been offered a job in Woolworths.’

  She hadn’t been offered any such thing, but there had to be a chance of getting a job there now Babs had left. The true reason was that she wanted to be away from where Alan Taylor had an easy excuse to run into her.

  Johnnie was coming down every weekend, and Marcie was glad to leave the emptiness of the house. Her father was in London; her grandmother was like a lost soul. Many times she caught her staring out of the kitchen window. Perhaps like her granddaughter she was willing the garden to echo with her grandsons’ laughter once again.

  Alan Taylor never came to the house, but his car did pull into the curb in front of her on a few occasions and she knew he’d been following her.

  ‘Marcie! I need to speak to you. It’s important.’

  She ran into the nearest shop rather than speak to him.

  Rita never called, not even to ask why she’d left her job without saying goodbye. Sometimes she saw her riding pillion on a shiny scooter, its fairing festooned with a multitude of wing mirrors.