Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  They both looked mortified at Angie’s reflection. Loose strands of greasy hair were plastered unflatteringly to her cheeks; her eyebrows had been shoved down into a single, scowling line; and she was left looking as if she was wearing the kind of rubber bathing cap sported by people who liked to lard themselves up in preparation for a swim across the Channel.

  It looked even worse on her than Martin’s crash helmet.

  ‘Maybe if I loosen the button a bit.’

  ‘Nan, it looks barmy.’ Angie turned to face her grandmother, her features distorted into a troll-like grimace. ‘I look barmy.’

  Sarah whisked off the hat and shoved it in her apron pocket. ‘She’s given me the wrong bloody size. That’s what she’s done. I’ll skin that Doris when I see her in the morning.’

  Angie stared down at her feet. She couldn’t stand much more of this.

  ‘Here. Open this.’ Sarah handed her the black leather case. ‘And if that doesn’t fit …’

  Angie let out a resigned sigh. What was this, a false nose, glasses and moustache set? Something to make her look even more ridiculous? But she still did as she was told. Angie was like that.

  Inside was a dainty marcasite watch with a narrow, black velvet strap.

  Her voice quivered with self-pitying shame. ‘Nan. It’s lovely.’

  ‘Just like you, sweetheart.’

  ‘But I can’t take the money. Or this. It’s too much. Too nice.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You are going to take yourself, and that money, up West, and you are going to buy yourself the prettiest dress you can find.’

  Sarah bent down to put her purse back in her bag, automatically straightening the already perfectly tidy, lace chair-back as she stood up. She hesitated, then said, ‘You mustn’t let your mum get you down, you know, babe. She doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘It’s not Mum. Well, not only Mum. It’s …’ Angie’s words trailed away.

  ‘I know.’ Sarah took her by the shoulders and turned her back to face the mirror. ‘Here. Just look at yourself.’

  Sarah unwound the elastic band and loosened her granddaughter’s hair around her shoulders. ‘Look at the thickness of it.’ She weighed Angie’s heavy, if oily, dark, chestnut hair in her hand. ‘Plenty of girls would go mad for hair like yours. And look at those lovely green eyes. You’re at a difficult age, that’s all. You’ve just got to believe you’re worth something.’ She swallowed back her tears as she turned Angie back round to face her.

  Kissing her tenderly on the forehead, she folded her granddaughter in her arms. ‘You’ve just got to believe in yourself, darling, that’s all.’

  The glass-domed clock on the desk chimed nine. Another of Sonia’s ‘finds’. David Fuller hated the bloody thing. With its weird twists of this, and shiny bits of that, it looked like it was worth about two bob. It looked like it was worth that, but David had seen the bill.

  It wasn’t just the cost that made him so wild, he could afford it after all, but it actually looked like a piece of crap, that’s what upset him. Sonia was a mug for any posh-speaking salesman who told her something was classy. At least she used to get it right most of the time, buying decent antiques and things David could understand, but since she’d started going for all this modern gear, it was like living on the set of some dodgy spy film.

  Still, he never had to put up with any of her old nonsense littering up his office over in Greek Street – Sonia wouldn’t soil her calfskin pumps walking the streets of Soho to get there.

  Christ, that woman had changed.

  He bit the end off a King Edward cigar and stuck it in his mouth, waiting for the bulky shape of Bobby Sykes to reach out and light it for him.

  David savoured the first taste of tobacco in silence, then levered himself forward in his leather chair. ‘Right. What have you got to tell me, then, Bob?’

  Bobby clasped his hands in front of him, as though protecting himself from a kick in the groin, and gazed down at the rug in which his size elevens were almost half-submerged. He was puzzled by the bold, geometric design, wondering how someone would want such a monstrosity. His Maureen would never let a mat like that through the street door, let alone have it down on the floor of the prefab. Maureen liked nice things, in nice tasteful colours. Sometimes Bobby wondered how Dave let his old woman get away with buying such a load of old shit.

  ‘Bob?’

  ‘Yes, Dave?’ Bobby looked up mournfully. He hated all this getting mixed up with other people’s domestic bollocks. Especially Dave’s. It was awkward. Tricky. You never knew if you were saying the right thing. He would much rather be out on the streets, straightening out some villain or other. He could handle that: keeping people in order. That was his job. But all this lark, this was a different matter. This got him down.

  ‘Wake up, Sykesy. I was expecting some sort of a report, remember? On what happened this afternoon.’

  A report. Bobby rubbed one of his massive hands over his shaven head. ‘I, ummm …’

  ‘Just spit it out.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I watched her, like you said. Parked up and followed her on foot.’ Bobby stared down at the patterns again, big pink triangles against deep orange squares and a sort of purply, swirly background. Weird.

  David squinted up at him through a haze of cigar smoke. ‘Do you know, Bob, you’re getting on my nerves. Do me a favour: pull that chair over here, sit down, and tell me what happened.’

  Bobby cheerlessly followed orders. ‘As soon as you left, she ran across the street. In a right hurry, she was. Nearly got run—’

  David slapped his palm on to the desk. ‘Bob!’

  ‘She went in a phone box.’

  ‘She made a call?’

  Bobby, accepting the glass of Scotch that David pushed across to him, shrugged. ‘Yeah. I reckon so.’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘She come out looking all chuffed. Then started walking up and down this one bit of the park. Up and down, up and down. Like bloody Felix the Cat she was. Just kept on walking. I’m telling you, Dave, me legs are killing me.’

  ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘She kept looking at her watch, like she was expecting someone to turn up or something.’ Bobby stared into his glass.

  ‘Come on, Bob, I’m getting old here.’

  ‘I’ve got to say it, Dave, she got herself worked up into one hell of a mood. All happy at first, then right agitated. Then she went back to the call box, looked like she never got through – as far as I could make out, like – then went off and got herself a cab. Then I followed her back here, waited for five minutes, then I called you from the phone box on the corner and you let me in.’ He paused, then added, for want of something else to say, ‘And, as you can see, here I am.’

  ‘I’d have to be blind to miss a big old lump like you, Bob.’ David stood up, took the barely touched glass of whisky from Bobby’s hand and slipped him a tight roll of notes in its place. ‘Go on home. Buy something nice for Maureen for spoiling her Sunday. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  As David padded along the broad, thickly carpeted corridor that led through to the bedrooms, loosening the collar of his sports shirt – Sonia liked him to ‘look respectable’, even at sodding weekends – he heard Bobby Sykes slam the front door from what sounded like about half a mile away. The size of this flat was a joke. Another of Sonia’s bright ideas. It was bloody huge, easily big enough to house a family with three or four kids, rather than a miserable, sodding couple without a single one.

  As David neared the master bedroom, he could hear Sonia talking on her private line.

  He stood there, in the passageway, listening.

  ‘It’s all right, I just heard him going out. The pig slammed the door as usual.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘But are you really sure it was a coincidence? Why should he call you on a Sunday?’

  Another pause.

  ‘I suppo
se so. I missed seeing you, that’s all. I had the room booked and everything.’

  She giggled happily. ‘Mikey Tilson, you are such a rude boy.’

  David’s lips twisted into an enraged snarl. ‘I’ll give him fucking rude.’ He kicked the door open wide, just in time to see Sonia fumbling around as she tried to fit the receiver back into the cradle.

  ‘Wrong number?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  David was pleased to see she was shaking.

  The next morning, David was sitting in his Greek Street office, at a big, scratched dining-table that served as his desk, talking to someone called Peter about a business deal in West London.

  Bobby Sykes stood in the corner of the room, waiting in respectful repose, as glad as his boss to be far away from the Mayfair mansion block where they had had their embarrassing conversation about Sonia Fuller’s latest tricks the afternoon before.

  Bobby could cope with this. This was a man’s world. Sort of grubby, shabby, just the way he liked it. He wouldn’t like to live in a grimy place like this, of course, your home was different, but women sorted all that out. This was his work, and even though the street betting business was finished now, they were still doing men’s work. Proper graft. Bobby wasn’t exactly sure what it was they did, apart from it being about getting people out of properties that Dave had acquired, and something to do with getting into import and export, but the actual mechanics of earning the dough, that was for the Guvnor to know, and for other people not to wonder about. Asking questions wasn’t sensible in Bobby’s world.

  Another of the bank of telephones on the desk rang. David looked over at Bobby and gestured for him to answer it.

  Bobby did so with a gruff, ‘Yeah?’ then hurriedly had to conceal his exasperation.

  ‘Mrs Fuller’s on the blower for you, Dave. What shall I say?’ He had tried to mouth the words in a subtle sort of way, so as to minimize the interruption of his boss’s other call, and to prevent Sonia from hearing him. He had failed on both counts.

  David looked at his watch. It wasn’t even nine thirty. ‘Blimey, up this early on a Monday morning? She must’ve fell out of bed.’ He sniffed loudly and cleared his throat. ‘Tell her I’m busy.’

  The big, burly man raised his eyebrows, and gave David a don’t do this to me look. He held out the receiver. ‘Dave.’

  David could hear Sonia going on. And on. He shook his head.

  Bobby swallowed hard. ‘Er, Mrs Fuller? Dave says—’

  David heard her screeching blue murder. ‘Just give it here, Bob.’

  Bobby handed him the telephone, relieved not to be part of whatever was going on.

  ‘What is it, Sonia? I’m busy.’

  Bobby thought it appropriate to make himself scarce, and disappeared into the outer office, where Bill and George sat in the comforting fug of old cigarette smoke and ripe language.

  ‘I wondered if I could have the Jag.’ Sonia paused for the briefest of moments, but long enough for David to notice. ‘With a driver,’ she continued. ‘I want to go shopping.’

  ‘What, fed up with the Mini already? Well, I suppose you must be; it’s all of two weeks old.’

  ‘David, don’t be so unkind. You know what it’s like trying to park in Kensington. And Monday-morning traffic is always dreadful.’

  ‘You’ve got a terrible life, you have, girl.’

  ‘Why are you being so grumpy?’

  ‘All right, don’t go on. I’ll send the motor round with Bobby.’

  ‘Bobby! But he’s such a thug.’

  ‘Sonia, I am a thug.’

  ‘No, darling, you are a businessman.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. So’s everyone in the property and import games these days.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Who d’you want me to send round? George? Bill?’ He waited. No reply. ‘Or how about Mikey?’

  ‘Mikey will be fine.’

  David could hear the triumphant smile in her phoney, poshed-up voice. ‘I bet he will,’ he sneered.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You will be, sweetheart,’ he said, after he had put down the receiver.

  ‘What are you doing here, Squirt?’ Martin sank his teeth into the doorstep of hot, buttered toast that he held in one hand, and snatched his parka from the banister with the other. ‘Can’t stand the thought of going to work on this beautiful Monday morning?’ He grinned and winked at her.

  Angie blushed and concentrated on her feet. ‘Jackie had to come back for something,’ she mumbled.

  They both looked up the stairs as they heard Jackie wail in alarm. ‘Aw no, Mum, I can’t wear them! What’ll everyone think of me?’

  Then they heard Tilly Murray making soft, cajoling noises, and then Jackie responding with a despairing moan.

  Martin rolled his eyes. ‘Hark at the fashion plate.’ He checked through the folders in his canvas satchel and then slung it over his shoulder. ‘You know, Squirt, I don’t know why you two have stayed friends. You’re nothing like one another.’

  Angie managed a miserable little smile. She didn’t need Martin to tell her that.

  ‘You should have stayed on at school. Done your A levels and gone on to college like me. All Jackie’s ever interested in is what she looks like. She could never be bothered with school, but you’re different. You should use that brain of yours. Make something of yourself.’

  Angie was momentarily stunned; of course she should have stayed on at school. She knew that. Maybe she wouldn’t have made it as far as A levels, but she could have done her Os and got herself a better job than the dead-end, rubbishy one she had now. Unlike her friend, Angie had desperately wanted to do her GCEs, but her mum had insisted that she had to leave. Had to. Angie would never forget her words: ‘You’ve got to go out into the world. Learn how to make your own living. Learn how to look after yourself. No other bugger will.’ Ironic advice, considering her mum had hardly ever done a hand’s turn herself, but had preferred to live off her never-ending succession of boyfriends.

  But how did Martin know she had a brain? Know she was unhappy being a rotten filing clerk and rotten dogsbody in the head office of a rotten shipping and heating oil company? He wasn’t interested in her.

  Was he?

  Before Angie had a chance to think of something bright, or funny, or even simply sensible to say in reply, Martin gently ruffled her hair and was off out of the street door.

  Thank goodness she had got up an hour early to wash it this morning, and that her mum had left her hairdryer on the kitchen table. Her nan was right, her hair was nice when it was clean. Thick and shiny. And maybe Martin did care about her. No, not maybe, he had to care about her. He had said such nice things. Had really noticed her.

  She would buy a new dress with her nan’s birthday money. A whole new outfit. And she’d … She’d … She’d do lots of things.

  She felt hope and happiness rising in her heart, and even Jackie’s groans and complaints as she stomped downstairs couldn’t spoil her mood.

  But as Angie stood on the platform of the local underground station twenty minutes later, looking along the tracks, willing a train to appear she was, again, well and truly fed up.

  Not only was she late for work, all her attempts to tell her supposed best friend about her exciting plans for a new look had been ignored; all Jackie was interested in was the tragedy of how she came to be wearing such hideous hosiery.

  It had all started when she and Angie had been hurrying down the steps at Becontree station for the first time that morning. They were dashing to catch the tube to Barking, from where they would take the mainline train to Fenchurch Street. But Jackie had caught her leg on the central banister and – disaster! – had laddered her sheer, cream tights. Being unable to contemplate going to work with a run in her tights, she had insisted on going home to change. She had also insisted, of course, that Angie accompany her. Then Jackie had almost passed out with shock when she discovered the only things to wear in the wh
ole house were a pair of American Tan stockings belonging to her mother. Stockings were bad enough, but American Tan.

  Now she and Angie were back on the platform, and Jackie was failing to come to terms with the indignity of it all.

  ‘I hate these rotten things, Ange. I hate them. I only hope that shop in Leadenhall Street’ll be open, so I can get some decent tights. Do you think it will be?’ Still peering over her shoulder at her calves, she added, ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering asking you.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that.’

  ‘Well, be honest, what do you know about fashion? It’s important to me, how I look–’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Don’t get touchy. It’s because I’m a receptionist. You’re stuck in that horrible little back office, so it doesn’t matter. And you don’t care anyway.’

  ‘Thanks again. And, if you must know, I do care.’

  Jackie bent down and ran her fingertips up her shin, trying to smooth the thick, orange nylon into something more acceptable. ‘Yeah,’ she said absently, ‘course you do.’

  ‘I mean it. I was looking at that magazine you gave me over the weekend.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Honey. I read it and worked out what I want for my birthday.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’ Jackie was still preoccupied, but Angie was her friend, so she had to at least sound interested.

  ‘You’re going to have to help me.’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘Did you hear me, Jack? I want you to help me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want you to change me.’

  ‘Change you?’ Jackie giggled. ‘Into what? A white rabbit? I’m not a bloody magician.’

  ‘Don’t laugh. I want you to help me look pretty.’

  That had Jackie’s full attention. ‘Pretty?’

  ‘I want to be a dolly bird. Like in Honey. Nan’s given me some money for my birthday, and I’m going to use my savings to get a really fab hairdo.’

  ‘A really fab hairdo,’ she mimicked. ‘Bloody hell, Ange, hark at you.’

  ‘And hark at you. Your mum’d go mad if she heard you swearing like that, Jacqueline Murray.’ Angie tossed back her hair. ‘Anyway, why shouldn’t I be a dolly bird?’