Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘So, if that bloke sitting over there wants to meet you.’ Jackie raised her chin to indicate a nearby table. ‘All he has to do is pick up the phone in front of him, dial the number that’s on our sign—’ she pointed to the chrome-and-black number eleven by way of demonstration ‘—and our one rings and you pick it up.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Angie.

  ‘I’m telling you, Ange. That’s how it works. All the tables can ring one another.’

  ‘No, I mean I wouldn’t pick it up.’ She paused and took another sip. ‘Not if it was him ringing me. Look at him, he’s like the old boy in Steptoe and Son.’

  They both burst out laughing, and, as the disc jockey announced he was going to play ‘She Loves You’, a ‘real golden oldie’, Jackie snorted, ‘Just like that bloke!’

  As their laughter grew even louder, heads turned to see what was so funny.

  At the sight of the pretty blonde and her lovely copper-haired friend, men around the room reached for their receivers. The girls’ phone began ringing and didn’t stop for the rest of the night.

  They made a formidable pair in the unsophisticated atmosphere of Chadwell Heath.

  Martin swallowed the last of his red wine – he was getting quite a taste for the stuff – and put the empty glass on the floor beside the armchair. ‘Please, Jill.’

  Jill was sitting on his lap, her arms around his neck. ‘Martin, we’ve discussed this so many times. You know how much I like you. Really like you.’ She paused to kiss him and he shifted urgently beneath her.

  ‘Then why not?’

  ‘Because I’m not ready yet.’

  ‘It’s not like I’m asking you to do anything you don’t want to. I know you want to.’

  ‘Of course I do, but …’ Her cheeks reddened. ‘Say we made a mistake and I got—’

  ‘I’d be careful.’

  ‘I can’t.’ She shook her head and stood up. ‘Not yet. I need more time.’

  ‘I suppose you want me to go.’

  ‘It is late.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He got up from the chair, the ache in his body a mocking reminder of what he wanted to do with Jill, what he wanted to do so badly that he almost felt sick.

  She fetched his coat from the bedroom, hurrying before he had time to follow her in there. ‘Will you be in college tomorrow?’

  ‘Course not. It’s reading week.’

  ‘I know, I just thought you might be popping in, that’s all. Thought I might …’

  ‘What? Get me all frustrated again?’

  ‘I was going to say cook you something and then go through the notes for the next assignment.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’ve cooked for me enough over the past weeks.’

  ‘I like doing things for you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘We could go to the pictures.’

  ‘I’m doing a few extra shifts at the garage. To get some money for the weekend.’

  ‘Planning something special?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m going down to the coast on Saturday, but you wouldn’t be interested. I’ll probably be staying the night and that wouldn’t suit you, would it? Who knows what I might try and do?’

  ‘Martin, don’t go like this. Please.’

  ‘You can’t keep leading me on, Jill. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Come on, Jackie. Make a bit of effort. We’ve got to get that middle bit right.’

  ‘Sorry, Ange, I’m knackered.’ Jackie let herself flop backwards on to her bed. ‘I can’t dance with blokes all night and then come home and start practising again.’

  ‘But your mum and dad’ll be back from your Aunt Mag’s soon, and they’ll make us turn the music off.’

  Jackie rolled over on to her stomach. ‘Getting a few dance steps right isn’t what I call important. When I’m old, I don’t know, when I’m thirty or something, I’m supposed to be able to look back on all this and say these were the best days of my life. I want something more, Ange. I’ve got bored with going to dances and that. Aren’t you sick of seeing the same old faces?’

  ‘I haven’t been going anywhere long enough to get sick of anything.’ Angie stepped twice to the side, clapped, and spun round in time to the Supremes. ‘Anyway, you seemed to like it well enough tonight when those blokes drove us home in their Triumph.’

  ‘Yeah. That was all right.’

  ‘All right? We were given a lift in a convertible.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘Here, do you think they’re still waiting for us up on the corner?’

  ‘I hope so. I told them we’d only be a minute while we nipped home and told our mums some lies about where we were off to next.’

  ‘Good job you lied about which street we lived in and all. I’ll bet they’re searching Greenfield Road from top to bottom.’

  The record finished and Angie bent down to put ‘Stop in the Name of Love’ back on the turntable for the fourth time. ‘We’ve had a laugh tonight, haven’t we, Jack? How about when you told that boy you were getting married and we were out on your hen night? Fancy him swallowing that!’

  Jackie sighed grandly. ‘I do look older than seventeen.’

  ‘At least twenty.’

  ‘Twenty-two, more like.’ She picked absently at the pillowcase. ‘Ange?’

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘D’you want to go somewhere special next Saturday?’

  ‘I thought you already made plans for us.’

  ‘I did. All the old gang from school are going to the Cubana in Ilford. Janice phoned and said she’d love to see you again. She heard all about your new look from someone who’d seen you getting on the train at Fenchurch Street.’

  Angie snorted. ‘She’d love to see me again? What, so she can bully me like she used to when we were kids?’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that. Not now.’

  ‘No, not now I look better than she ever could.’

  Jackie said nothing, but it was true. Angie looked fantastic. With the new haircut, make-up and clothes – it was a complete transformation. Not like the ugly duckling or anything; Angie had never been ugly, and she wasn’t exactly beautiful now. Not beautiful, but what she had was the look that every young woman was trying to achieve. Modern. Trendy. A dolly bird. The look that wasn’t only envied by the girls, but which blokes all appreciated as well.

  ‘Where do you fancy going then, Jack?’

  ‘Anywhere that’s not Chadwell Heath, Ilford, Romford or Tottenham. Not the Bird’s Nest, the Cubana, the Wyckham, or the Royal. I want to go to somewhere really exciting. Like you read about. Up London. Where it’s all happening. Somewhere like the Tiles. Or the Canvas Club.’

  Angie stretched out on the bed next to her friend and they stared up at the ceiling. ‘I’d like that as well. We might bump into Terence Stamp.’ She elbowed her friend in the ribs. ‘Here, Jack, say this is all there is? Say we stay in this street for the rest of our lives, living at home. Never getting married. Never having kids.’

  Jackie sat up straight. ‘And say we wound up looking like Miss Midgely?’ She groaned. ‘Looking like a geography teacher with your hair in a bun. Honestly, Ange, this can’t be as good as it gets. There’s got to be more.’

  ‘Haven’t you enjoyed me coming out with you these past weeks?’

  ‘Don’t sound hurt.’

  ‘Well, I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I would never have known how to do my eyes or where to get my hair cut and everything. I don’t want to think I’m tying you down, or holding you back from doing other things.’

  ‘It’s not you, Ange, it’s just that all the magazines tell you this is the most exciting place in the world, Swinging London, the best place to be young. And what am I doing with my life? We might as well go back to the rotten youth club up St John’s.’

  Angie didn’t much care for the direction which the conversation seemed to be taking. ‘I never went to the youth club.’

  ‘I asked you enough times. You always said no.’

  ‘I said no to
a lot of things.’

  Jackie rolled over and stared hard at her friend. ‘But you’ve changed now. And you’re still changing. And so am I. I want to go places. Clubs where they have rhythm and blues. Modern jazz. Blue beat. Ska.’

  ‘What’s ska?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the trouble. That’s what I want to find out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I don’t really fancy going up the West End. Not yet.’

  Jackie returned to sullenly contemplating the ceiling. ‘If you won’t go up West, how about if we go to Clacton?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Whitsun next week. All the mods are going down their on their scooters. Hundreds of them, they reckon. For the whole Bank Holiday. Martin’s not stopped going on about it.’ She sat up again, her eyes shining. ‘And we can go as well. We can get the train.’

  Angie frowned. ‘It’s a long way.’

  Jackie was now inspired. ‘We could go Sunday afternoon and stay the night. Come back Monday evening. Sleep on the beach.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Come on,’ whined Jackie. ‘We’d be mad to miss it. Martin says it’s going to be the best weekend ever.’

  ‘But say we get stuck and—’

  ‘Don’t be so wet, Ange. Come on. It’ll be a right laugh.’ She slipped off the bed and threw open her wardrobe door. ‘You can borrow whatever you want. And just think: all them fellers …’

  Chapter 5

  ‘LET ME LOOK at you.’

  Angie twirled round with her arms held wide.

  Sarah Pearson could hardly believe her eyes. Here was her seventeen-year-old granddaughter, standing in front of her with her brand-new haircut, a trendy miniskirt, and cute, navy tartan knee socks with a row of gold buttons that she had sewn down the sides. She looked like a fashion plate come to life.

  There was one thing, however, about Angie’s new look, that Sarah wasn’t so keen on. In her opinion, Angie was wearing far too much make-up. They all seemed to want to look like pandas nowadays; all the young girls were the same.

  As she thought those words, Sarah’s heart filled with pride. Angie was a fashionable young woman, just like all the other girls.

  Sarah could have cried with happiness for her. ‘Whatever do they make of you at work?’

  Angie unhooked the Black Watch tartan bag from her shoulder, dropped it on the floor, and threw her arms around her grandmother’s neck. ‘They’ve put me in telephone ordering, Nan! Talking to the customers. Sorting out what they need. And “being charming”, my supervisor said. And do you know what that means?’

  Sarah shook her head; offices, and what went on in them, were a mystery to her.

  ‘No more filing. No more tea-making. And no more inking up that horrible old Gestetner machine and getting covered in it.’

  Sarah had no idea what a Gestetner machine was, but if Angie didn’t like them, then nor did she. ‘That’s great news, love. I’m so pleased for you. Just seems daft they never realized what you were capable of before.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d have thought I was capable of much myself. Not the way I used to mope about. But that doesn’t matter. It’s all in the past. This is me now.’ She twirled round like a ballerina in a jewellery box. ‘And it’s fifteen shillings a week more!’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you, sweetheart. You look just like one of them models.’

  ‘Leave off, Nan. I’ve changed my hair and put on a bit of make-up, I’ve not performed a miracle.’

  ‘If I can’t be proud of my own granddaughter …’ Sarah guided Angie gently towards the table. ‘Now, you get stuck into that lot, while I fetch something from the bedroom. Don’t wait for me. You must be starving after working hard all day.’ Sarah was beaming with pleasure. ‘Telephone ordering, eh?’

  Angie settled down to tackle the heaped plate that Sarah had had ready for her. ‘Smells lovely, Nan. I love your boiled bacon dinners.’

  She had barely swallowed her first forkful of carrot and pease pudding, when Sarah was back by her side.

  ‘I got these off Doris. She said they were all the go.’ She held out a short, royal-blue, V-necked shift, with a long, white, pointed collar, and a pair of white plastic, mid-calf boots, with cut-out panels running round the top.

  ‘Nan!’ Angie was on her feet, touching the dress. ‘It’s exactly like the one me and Jackie saw in Kensington. That we couldn’t afford. And the go-go boots. They’re fantastic.’

  Knowing Doris’s girls, it probably is the one you saw in Kensington, thought Sarah, but what she said was: ‘Same as in the magazines, Doris reckons.’

  ‘They are, and they’re fab, Nan. Really fab.’

  ‘I’m glad I picked the right things. And looking smart won’t do you any harm in your new job.’

  ‘They’re much too good for work. I’m going to save them for going out at the weekend.’

  ‘Well, sit back down and finish your tea, and you can tell me all about where you’re going.’ Sarah carefully draped the dress over one of the armchairs and sat at the table opposite her granddaughter. ‘Anywhere special?’

  Angie’s enthusiasm seemed to wane momentarily, and she took a long moment cutting a slice from one of her boiled potatoes. ‘Me and Jackie are probably staying round our friend Marilyn’s. With a few of the others.’ A stranger would have thought she was speaking matter-of-factly, but Sarah could hear the guilty hesitation in her granddaughter’s voice. ‘We’re going out dancing. I’m not sure where yet.’ She left the potato speared, uneaten, on her fork. ‘Mum’s driving me mad about going out again, and she said she hates me going out in short skirts.’

  ‘You take no notice, babe, you look lovely. Really pretty.’

  Angie dropped her chin. ‘It’s nothing to do with how I look, Nan. Not really. She just doesn’t like the fact that I’ve started having a life of my own. That I’m not some little kid still. Not her slave any more. But I couldn’t carry on like that, Nan. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, pet. I know how she gets.’ She put down her knife and fork and reached out for Angie’s hand. ‘And I also know what it means when you say you’re staying round a friend’s. I had it enough off your mum when she was a girl.’

  ‘I am, Nan, I’m—’

  ‘Listen to me, Angie. If you’re going to a party, promise me you’ll look after yourself.’

  ‘Nan …’

  ‘Promise me, Ange.’ She went to pick up her fork again then changed her mind. ‘And you know you can come and stay here any time you want. Doesn’t matter how late. If you need somewhere, don’t you dare think you can’t just turn up. All right?’

  As he eased the Humber into the kerb, Bobby Sykes ducked his head to get a good look at the decaying row of terraced houses in the Plaistow backstreet.

  ‘Bloody hell, Dave.’ He whistled softly. ‘Fancy living in this shit-heap.’

  ‘This shit-heap is near the underground, Bob.’

  Bobby didn’t know what sort of a reply he should give, so he said nothing and just watched as David shot his cuffs, pulling them just so, leaving an even half-inch of pure white Sea Island cotton showing under his dark grey, lightweight suit, making him look every bit the prosperous, urbane businessman.

  David then felt around under the car seat until he located the length of lead piping he had stashed there, which he then wrapped in an anonymous, white hand towel.

  ‘Get the dogs’ leads on, Bob.’

  As Duke and Duchess were transformed by their choke chains from snoozing teddy bears into snarling threats, Bobby took a closer look at the terrace and wondered why the boss was worrying himself so much about a poxy row of houses. He knew he wasn’t blessed with the most agile of brains, but he preferred it that way. He was quite content to provide the muscle. But this puzzled him. What was it all about?’

  In the past, Bobby had managed to get his head round the niceties of running the protection racket – the core of Dave’s business – the clubs and the snooker halls
, well, as much as he needed to understand to do his job properly. And the way the money could be raked in from managing the girls, that was obvious, even to him, but this property lark his guvnor was getting into was well beyond his understanding.

  Dave had tried to explain about buying houses at rock-bottom prices and then dividing them into flats, and Bobby had followed him that far, but then Dave had told him about getting bent mortgages on all the separate bits of the property or something, and that’s when he had lost him. But apparently it all brought in a lot of dough. And, as long as it got him his wages to take home to Maureen of a Friday, that’s all Bobby was interested in. He’d leave the big time and the figuring out to Dave.

  David pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves and gestured, with a jerk of his head, for Bobby to follow him.

  With the exception of number six, every house in the terrace had boarded-up windows and doors, and, with its little tub of pansies by the step, the clean, freshly painted woodwork, and the neat, lace curtains shading the windows, it stood out like a single, perfect tooth in a rotting skull.

  David rapped on the polished brass knocker and waited.

  He and Bobby heard a chain going on and bolts being shot, then saw the door being opened the merest crack.

  ‘Yes?’ It was an elderly voice, probably a man’s, but so frail they couldn’t be certain.

  ‘Cyril?’ David asked. ‘Cyril Watson?’

  ‘Who’s that? Is that you, Jim?’

  ‘No, Mr Watson,’ answered David. ‘It’s me, Mr Tennyson. Ronald Tennyson. From the council.’

  ‘I don’t know no Mr Tennyson.’

  ‘I’ve come about the house. I’ve come to help you.’

  ‘Show me your papers.’ A parchment yellow hand appeared, palm outstretched. ‘I’m not talking till I’ve seen your papers.’

  Before the old man knew what was happening, David had grabbed his wrist, and had yanked him, hard, until he was pulled up tight against the door jamb.

  ‘Now, Cyril,’ David hissed at him through the narrow opening, ‘you either slip that chain and let me in to talk to you, or I’m going to kick it down with you behind it, and snap your skinny arm right out of its socket.’