Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  As Angie felt the boy’s breath, warm and damp on her neck, and listened to the sweet Tamla Motown sounds of the Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ wafting over her, she didn’t notice Jackie manoeuvring herself and her own leech-like partner so that they were dancing right next to her. But she felt the tap on her shoulder.

  ‘What?’ she mouthed.

  ‘All right, Ange?’ she mouthed back, rolling her eyes and indicating, with a bored glance, the blond six-footer who was trying – unsuccessfully – to get his hand up her skirt.

  Ange surprised herself by smiling and nodding.

  She hadn’t been sure about what to do at first, when the nice-enough-looking boy with the light brown hair had asked her to dance, but she had said yes when he had smiled at her so gently. Then, as he held her close to him in the dark, and the music filled her head, and it was obvious that every couple that shuffled by was snogging, Angie closed her eyes tight, lifted her chin, and let him kiss her.

  It was strange, frightening in a way, kissing a stranger – and she had had to be very clear that she would not let him touch her like that – but she liked being kissed. It felt good. And so very different from the chaste, lips tight together, experiences she had had when she was about thirteen, her only other experience of such things. Whether it was the music, the atmosphere, or just that she had grown up, this made her feel sort of buzzy and tingly. It was hard to describe, but it felt good. Really good.

  But what felt best of all was, at last, being desired. Being desirable.

  She was no longer an outsider, someone who just read about what it would be like to be held in someone’s arms. She was now one of the in-crowd, one of those girls who boys wanted to try it on with.

  And Angie was going to make the most of every single minute of it.

  Chapter 4

  ‘YOU TWO HAVE got to eat something before you go out.’ Tilly Murray stood in the door of her daughter’s bedroom with sandwiches, fruit and two glasses of milk on a tray. ‘No, Jackie, don’t even try and interrupt me, I’ve got wise to you two shopping all day of a Saturday and running out again before you’ve had so much as a drop of soup inside you.’

  ‘You can be so aggravating, Mum.’

  ‘I’ll cock a deaf ear to that sort of talk, Jacqueline Murray, and I’ll turn a blind eye to you ironing that pretty hair of yours again. You’ll ruin it, just you wait and see.’ Tilly squeezed past the ironing board, where Jackie was pressing the waves from her hair between two sheets of brown paper, and put the tray on the dressing unit, where Angie was experimenting with the contents of Jackie’s make-up bag.

  ‘There you are, Angie. Tuck in, love, and make sure that girl of mine eats something, will you?’ She smiled fondly at her wayward neighbour’s lovely daughter. She’d really blossomed these past few weeks. It was lovely to see it.

  ‘Course I will, Mrs Murray, and thanks very much. It’s really kind of you.’

  ‘It’s a pity you’re not a bit more like Angela, Jacqueline,’ Tilly said as she let herself out of the bedroom.

  Jackie waited for the sound of her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. ‘If she could see you later tonight, I don’t think she’d say that.’

  Angie pelted her with a crust, and they both giggled.

  ‘How did your mum take you going out again?’ asked Jackie, still stretched across the ironing board.

  ‘I never told her,’ she said, her mouth full of sandwich. ‘Nice bread.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, nice—’

  ‘Angie …’

  ‘I told her I was going over Nan’s.’

  ‘Lucky they don’t talk to one another, or you’d really be for it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t care.’

  ‘I bet your nan would.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She helped herself to an apple. ‘I’ll go over there in the week. After work.’

  ‘Blimey. You’re going mad, aren’t you? You’ve been out the past four Saturdays on the trot, and now you’re going out in the week as well?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Nan in ages. I’ve spoken to her on the phone from work, but I’ve never let it go this long without seeing her.’

  ‘Who’ll run round after your mum if you’re out again?’

  Angie shrugged and took a big slurp of milk. ‘She’ll just have to do things for herself or go without. Won’t she?’

  ‘Right, I’m off then. I’m going to the Canvas to check on things, then I’m meeting a few of the chaps there.’ David was looking in the mirrored doors of the walk-in wardrobes, fixing his cuff-links. He could see the reflection of Sonia lounging amongst the heaps of pillows on their huge, satin-covered bed. ‘I want to show off the place. Let them see how classy it is. Their wives are going to join them a bit later. I want you to be there.’ He forced out a smile. ‘You can brag about all the decorating you did.’

  It killed David to almost beg her to go with him, but Peter Burman had specifically said they were taking the women along, and how much he had wanted to see Sonia again. David didn’t want to look as if he had no control over her.

  Sonia studied her nails. She really had to speak to that manicurist, the colour of the polish was totally passé, not the slightest hint of glitter. ‘What time are you planning to be there?’ She sounded bored.

  ‘I’m having a word with Jeff, just before ten. Then meeting the others about quarter past, half past. Have a quick drink and—’

  ‘Too late. It’ll be packed with kids by then.’

  ‘—and then,’ he continued, barely keeping his temper, ‘we’re going to have a bit of supper at the Astor.’

  ‘I don’t feel like sitting in some stuffy night-club while you talk business.’

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then said lightly, ‘You always love the Astor. Or how about the Pigalle?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  He stared at her reflection in the glass. ‘Are you saying you’re not coming?’

  ‘I’ve got a headache.’ She dragged her hands dramatically down her face. ‘I could’, she said weakly, ‘come along a bit later. Say, eleven? I could have a nice cool bath, take a few pills for this blasted head of mine, and then I’m sure I’ll be right as rain. All smiley and fit to entertain your colleagues and their ghastly wives.’

  He wanted to ask her what made her better than the other women, at least they knew their place, but instead he said grudgingly, through tightly stretched lips, ‘I’d appreciate it. I’ll tell Bobby to be here for you at half ten.’

  ‘Don’t forget your briefcase,’ she called after him. ‘Oh, and don’t bother with Bobby. In case I decide to come a little earlier. I’ll call a cab. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  The moment she heard the door slam, Sonia snatched up the telephone.

  ‘Mikey. It’s me,’ she breathed into the receiver.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Mikey.’

  ‘Sonia.’

  ‘That’s better.’ She paused a moment, making him suffer. ‘You didn’t answer the phone right away. Busy?’

  ‘Not too busy for you, doll. Fancy meeting down in the car park again? See if we can give the guard a thrill? Let him get a little peek at those pretty lace panties of yours, while I—’

  ‘No, not tonight, Mikey,’ she interrupted him.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I’ve got a much better idea.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Mikey stared at Sonia as if she had taken leave of her senses. She had parked two doors along from the Canvas Club, and there, as clear as day, under the flashing, neon entrance sign, was her husband’s dark-green Jaguar. ‘How’re you going to explain me being with you? Tell him we’ve been shopping this time of night? Even he won’t swallow that one.’

  Sonia licked the end of her finger and traced a wet line around his lips. ‘We’re not going inside,’ she said, her pupils dilating with desire. ‘We’re going round the back—’

  Mikey gulped and took her finger in his mouth.

  ‘—to the all
ey behind the club. And we’re going to do it. Up against the wall. Apparently it can be quite a busy little spot.’

  Mikey threw back his head and laughed. ‘While your old man’s inside?’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘I love it. You are a dirty cow, Sonia. Do you know that?’ He slipped his hand under her skirt, searching out the top of her thigh, and then the soft mound of curly hair. ‘No knickers.’ He laughed even harder. ‘I like you, Sonia Fuller. I like you very much indeed.’ He slipped two of his fingers inside her and closed his eyes as he felt her, warm and moist and ready for him. ‘Now get out of this car,’ he breathed, ‘and let me give you a seeing-to you’re never going to forget.’

  Bobby stood there like a schoolboy, while his wife, Maureen, checked that his cuff-links were in properly, and that his tie and the handkerchief in his top pocket were knotted and folded, just so.

  ‘When Dave tells you your jobs for next week, remember they’re delivering the new carpet Monday morning, Bob.’

  He tapped his temple. ‘Got it in the diary, girl.’

  ‘You will make sure you’re here, won’t you? You know I don’t like strange blokes wandering all over the prefab when I’m by myself.’

  Bobby squeezed her round her little waist. ‘I won’t let you down, babe.’ He kissed her tenderly on top of her head. ‘You know that.’

  She twisted round, with his arms still encircling her. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of this old carpet. Them dogs of Dave’s have ruined it.’

  ‘You love them dogs.’

  ‘I know.’ Maureen unpeeled his hands from her waist and walked over to the corner of the living-room, where Duke and Duchess were snoring in a contented tangle of paws and tails on Bobby’s old sheepskin coat. ‘But it was still a bit much being landed with two full-grown Alsatians, just because Lady Muck didn’t want her place messed up.’

  ‘Here, I meant to tell you, Maur.’ Bobby patted his chest, making sure he had everything he needed in his inside pockets for a night out at work with David Fuller. ‘You ought to see the mat she’s made Dave have in their spare room.’

  ‘What in his study, you mean?’

  They both laughed at Sonia’s pretensions.

  ‘It’s sodding horrible.’

  ‘Language, Bob.’

  ‘Sorry, babe. But you should see it. Right vile, it is.’

  ‘I don’t know why he puts up with her. He could have had his pick of anyone he fancied.’

  ‘Not you though, eh, Maur?’

  ‘No, not me.’ She raised herself up on her toes and kissed her huge bear of a husband full and lingeringly on the lips.

  ‘Here, watch it, girl, you’re getting me all hot and bothered. I’ll be wanting to play the hop if you carry on like that.’

  ‘Just something to remind you to come home.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘After spending all night surrounded by pretty girls dressed in frocks that show their knickers.’

  Maureen flashed her eyebrows at him, then pulled away and busied herself plumping up the row of scatter cushions that she placed at even spaces along the back of the tan vinyl sofa. ‘I can’t understand how he tolerates her, Bob. Everyone knows he’s loaded, but the money she spends. She acts like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t know how she gets away with it. Especially on that load of old rubbish no other person’d give house room to. And the way she acts. Like she’s royalty or something.’

  ‘I’ve always reckoned he only got hiked up with her because he liked having someone who wears posh clothes and talks proper and that. It’s all this old nonsense he’s got in his head about looking kosher.’

  ‘We all know that, Bob, but there’s plenty of girls around who could do what she does. And be a sight more convincing, if you ask me.’ Maureen had now set her sights on giving the ashtrays a wipe round with the hem of her apron.

  Bobby watched his wife admiringly.

  ‘But what I don’t understand is why he’s still putting up with her.’ Maureen cocked her head to one side to appraise her handiwork. ‘After two years, he must have figured out what she’s like by now. Everyone else has.’

  ‘I was thinking that the other day.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Maureen spoke over her shoulder as she set about rubbing fingerprints off a heavy brass table lighter fashioned in the shape of an antique duelling pistol. ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yeah. See. I think she’s playing away.’

  Maureen just stopped herself from dropping the lighter on to the glass-topped coffee table. ‘He’ll kill her stone dead if he finds out.’

  ‘He sort of knows.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No. It’s like he’s playing some sort of a game with her. Beats me. If I ever found out that you—’

  Maureen flung her arms as far round her enormous husband as she could reach, and rested her head on his great barrel chest. ‘Bobby Sykes, that is not going to happen, now is it?’

  ‘No, course not, babe. Take no notice of me. It’s just, well, I can’t imagine what’s going to happen with them two. Something’s got to blow.’

  ‘She must be completely stupid.’

  ‘You ought to have seen her the other night at the flat. When they had that party thing. No one said nothing, but I reckon she showed him right up.’

  Maureen shook her head. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Bob, she’s not stupid, she’s stark, raving bonkers. No one in their right mind would mess with Dave Fuller.’

  ‘There’s gonna be ructions tonight, I reckon. Dave and that Burman bloke – the one he’s doing business with – are meeting up later on. At the Canvas. A crowd of them, there’s gonna be. All with their old women and that. But I can’t see Sonia trotting along and behaving like a good little girl. Not the way she’s carrying on.’

  ‘God help her. That’s all I can say.’

  Bobby stroked Maureen’s cheek. ‘Make sure the door’s shut properly behind me, babe, and I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’

  ‘Go on, get going, you big chump.’ Maureen punched him playfully on his bulging arm. ‘And make sure you clean them dog hairs out of the car when you get home.’

  As Bobby carefully spread a tartan travelling rug over the back seat of the Humber, he smiled proudly to himself. He was a lucky man. There weren’t many fellers who could say they had a little diamond like Maureen for a wife. Spotlessly clean; a good cook; never nagged him for money; and – he turned and winked at her as she stood, arms folded in the street doorway – she knew how to keep a man happy in more places than in the kitchen.

  He felt sorry for Dave, stuck with Sonia.

  ‘Chas,’ Violet whined, ‘why don’t we ever go out?’

  ‘We do.’ He was lying on his back in Vi’s rumpled double bed, smoking a cigarette. ‘We go to the pub.’

  ‘Yeah, that little place right out in the bloody sticks, full of yokels and their stinky dogs.’

  ‘It’s nice in the country. And we go for something to eat.’

  ‘Yeah, the Chinese in Barking.’ Her whining had turned to sarcasm. ‘Great.’

  ‘I took you out to Colchester last Sunday morning.’

  ‘You had to go to Colchester to see that bloke about them pick-up trucks.’

  ‘It was still out.’

  Vi stroked her hand down his naked thigh, letting her bare breast brush against his chest. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere nice, Chas? Don’t you like being seen with me?’

  ‘Course I do. I just don’t want me old woman seeing us.’

  Vi slapped the flat of her palm down – smack! – on his stomach.

  ‘Oi!’

  ‘Well, don’t be so horrible.’

  ‘You know I’m married.’

  ‘You don’t have to keep reminding me.’

  ‘And I don’t have to put up with this either.’ Chas looked at the chunky gold watch on his tanned wrist – the watch that had Vi picking Chas out for special treatment, above all the other clientele of the supposedly smart Chigwel
l pub, even before she had noticed his dark good looks.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Chas.’

  ‘Sorry. Got a Masons’ do tonight. A Ladies’ Night. She’d kill me if I was late.’ He threw back the covers, stood up on the bedside rug and stretched.

  ‘But I’ll be all by myself.’ Vi ran the tip of her finger across his bare, taut behind. ‘You wouldn’t want that, would you, Chas?’

  He stepped out of her reach and began getting dressed. ‘Maybe if you was a bit nicer to people, that kid of yours for starters, a bit less selfish, you wouldn’t be so lonely. I ain’t seen her around in weeks.’

  ‘Sod you.’ Vi rolled over and closed her eyes. ‘Don’t think you’re coming round here for a screw, then running out on me. You can go and bugger yourself.’

  ‘That’d be a neat trick,’ he said, pulling his sweater over his head. ‘People’d buy tickets to see that.’

  ‘You can’t get round me by making me laugh.’

  ‘Yes, I can.’ Chas bent down and kissed her on the top of her head. ‘See you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not sure. In the week, probably.’

  Vi sat bolt upright. ‘That’s not good enough, Chas.’

  He looked at her sitting there. She was still a bit of all right – for her age – but she was getting demanding. And that got on his nerves. ‘Like it or lump it, darling.’

  She said nothing. She didn’t want to burn her boats, not before she had found herself at least a temporary replacement. She smiled and shrugged. ‘No choice, have I, lover?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  He took out his wallet from his back pocket, took out two ten-pound notes and tossed them on to the bedside table. ‘Get yourself a new dress.’

  Vi looked up at him through her lashes and blew him a kiss. This was more like it. She’d have a nap, then she’d get up, get dressed and see if she could round up someone else to take her out for a drink and a bit of dinner.

  Angie and Jackie sat at the table in the club, sipping their drinks which glowed peculiarly in the ultraviolet lighting.