Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  Bobby stood there impassively, with the dogs straining and whining for action.

  ‘All right, all right. But let go. You’re hurting me.’

  ‘I’ll let go when you undo that chain.’

  As David listened to Cyril fumbling around and finally unhooking it, he kept hold of the old man’s arm, twisting it round in an agonizing arc. ‘Don’t get no ideas, Granddad, I’ve got two dogs out here that haven’t eaten since yesterday.’

  The very slightest look of shame clouded Bobby’s face for the very slightest of moments, as he followed his boss along the gleaming, polish-scented passage into the fragile old man’s home.

  ‘Hello, Nick,’ Vi purred into the telephone. ‘Yeah, long time no see. How are you?’

  ‘I’m great, my love. Great. And all the better for hearing from you.’

  Nick was an old flame of Vi’s, who, while not nearly as attractive as Chas, and also a good fifteen years older, had been a very generous lover.

  In financial terms at least.

  For as many years as Vi could remember, Nick had been her saviour. And he didn’t only have money, he had contacts. When Angie had been little more than a baby, it was Nick who had got Vi the council place on the Becontree housing estate in Dagenham. She had only mentioned how fed up she was living with her mum in Lancaster Buildings and, within a few weeks, she was moving.

  It was also Nick who put the occasional fifty quid through the letterbox, even when she wasn’t seeing him.

  He had never been much good in bed, but Vi knew enough tricks and techniques to convince even someone as dull as Nick that he was a raging stud, a romeo of the very first order. His generosity had always made it more than worth the effort. Vi liked nice things, nice restaurants, nice clothes and an easy life, and Nick was the sort of bloke who made sure she had all those things. He was a really decent sort.

  But that was the trouble. Who wanted decent? Vi was always attracted by excitement. That was why she was always leaving the poor sod in the lurch.

  She had dropped him – this time – six weeks ago, when Chas had come on the scene. Going for the short-term benefit had always been a problem with Vi, and Nick had, at times, been more like a boomerang than a boyfriend. But Vi just couldn’t resist a handsome new face, even though she usually wound up paying the price for her impetuosity. This time, the price was having to make an extra special effort with Nick so she wouldn’t be spending Saturday night all on her tod.

  She’d have to get round him, get back in his good books, make him want her as much as she wanted his big fat wallet. And she had every confidence that she would do exactly that. After all, she’d done it plenty of times before.

  But even though Vi prided herself on giving men what they wanted – their full money’s worth, in fact – she would have been horrified if anyone had so much as suggested that what she was doing was prostituting herself. In Violet Knight’s selfish, self-deluding world, there were her rules and there were rules for other people, and other people were the ones who led sordid, unpleasant lives. Vi merely had a good time; did things to stop herself being bored. She couldn’t help it if she wasn’t satisfied with the humdrum life that suited the likes of Tilly Murray and the other pathetic wives on the estate.

  And a good time was what Vi intended to have tonight. Sod Chas and his bloody wife, and their stupid Masonic dinner dance. She’d make her own arrangements.

  ‘What a lovely thing to say,’ she cooed into the phone. ‘I’ve missed you, you know, Nick. It’s been hard looking after Mum while she’s been so poorly. But you know I’ve got no choice.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Violet. There’s not many around who’d give up their time to look after their old mother, and to bring up their little sister all alone.’

  Without missing a beat, Vi launched into an elaboration of the tale that had served her so well over the years. ‘Mum’s no trouble, Nick, and let’s face it, she gave up her life for me and young Angie when she was widowed. I just feel I owe her, that’s all.’ At least the old bag had some uses, even if it was only as an alibi.

  ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Much better, thanks. And my cousin Susan’s come down from Newcastle to give me a break. Sitting in with Mum for a few days. I don’t like putting too much responsibility on Angie, she’s only a kid after all.’

  ‘You’re kind, do you know that, Violet? There’s not many young women about who’d bring up their kid sister and have her call them Mum. They’d be ashamed to have the neighbours putting two and two together and coming up with five. Really kind.’

  Bloody kind, she thought, especially as I’ve not got a cousin Susan, Angie’s obviously my own kid, and I’ve not talked to my old dragon of a mother since I can’t even remember when. ‘Don’t be daft, Nick. But that’s why I’m calling. Having this bit of time to myself, I wondered …’

  ‘I’ll be round to pick you up at eight. How’s that?’

  ‘Smashing.’ She paused. ‘What shall I wear?’

  ‘Something really nice, darling. I’m going to give you a great big treat after all you’ve been through. I’m cancelling the do I was going to and I’m taking you up the West End for a meal and dancing. Then we are going to go back to your place for a little night cap, and …’

  ‘Nick,’ she giggled, rolling her eyes in anticipation of the big non-event, ‘you are such a naughty boy. You’ll have me blushing.’

  Sonia closed her eyes and stretched out in the sweetly scented bath, with the bubbles right up to her chin. Her hand stroked up and down her thigh as she pictured in her mind what Mikey had done to her in the alley behind the Canvas Club. Christ, he made her randy just thinking about him and the things he did to her. She had never known a man like him.

  She slipped a finger inside herself and moaned softly. She wanted him so badly she couldn’t wait until tonight.

  But it was more than the excitement of the fantastic sex, Sonia had never felt so passionately about any man before, had never dared to take such risks, and had certainly never seriously considered leaving David for anyone. Even though she had been unfaithful to him since the day they had met, she had been discreet, careful, not wanting to gamble losing her very nice life, or, knowing David’s temper and his fondness for violence, even losing her looks. But her feelings for Mikey were different; they had grown during these past few months into something she had barely recognized at first, then, when she had realized what was happening, they had completely surprised her, frightened her almost. She was helpless to do anything about it, and was no longer the one in control. Mikey was the man she wanted, wanted to be with for the rest of her life.

  Wanted so badly …

  She bit down hard on her bottom lip as she came to a fast, shuddering orgasm, picturing what Mikey would soon be doing to her again.

  Aching for his touch, she took a deep breath and sank down under the foaming water.

  Jackie and Angie walked towards the sea front from Clacton Station in the miserable dampness of a dull, misty twilight. They were supposed to have arrived early in the afternoon, but having completely misjudged how far away Clacton actually was, they had missed daylight completely. To make matters worse, now they had finally arrived, the place was practically empty.

  ‘Hours we were on that train.’ Angie stopped to rub her heel. Why had she worn her new go-go boots without breaking them in? She was already getting blisters; by the time they got to wherever it was Jackie was taking her they’d be rubbed up to the size of poached eggs. And the black-and-white, op-art mini dress, with its skimpy halter-neck and cut-out midriff that Jackie had helped her botch together on Saturday afternoon – you’ll only wear it once or twice, it doesn’t matter if the machining’s wonky – was as good as useless against the chill of the evening air.

  ‘I didn’t think we were ever going to get here.’ Angie shivered. ‘And I’m sure it’s going to start raining. I don’t know why I ever said I’d—’

  ‘Ange, don’t go on. All right?’ Ja
ckie, in a red-and-green striped affair that looked more like a little boy’s rugby shirt than a dress, was almost as cold as Angie, although she would never have admitted it. ‘You’re doing my head in, moaning all the time.’

  ‘I’m not moaning, it’s …’ She waved her arms around in a pathetic show of disappointment. ‘I don’t know. After spending all that money on the ticket and coming all this way, I thought at least something would be happening.’

  ‘Ten minutes ago. On that train,’ snapped Jackie, marching forward with angry deliberation. ‘You were worried that too much was going to be happening. That we’d be threatened by gangs of greasers. I wish you’d make up your flipping mind about what you want and what you don’t want.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just wish—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ll be down the front in a minute.’ Jackie could barely spit the words past her gritted teeth. ‘You see. It’ll be great. Wonderful. Where it’s all flaming happening.’

  At that precise moment, they found themselves passing the town hall. It was a stately brick building, set back behind a manicured lawn, and, stuck in the grass, was a notice-board which listed forthcoming events. Unfortunately, the highlights, as far as the month of May was concerned, seemed to be an over-60s tea dance, two whist drives, and a junior badminton competition. Not really what the girls had been hoping for.

  Angie gestured at the notices in weary surrender. ‘Did I really let you bully me into coming all this way for a tea dance? I know, maybe, if we hurry, we can get to a church in time for the evening service. Then we won’t have wasted the entire day.’

  Jackie took a deep breath and kept on walking in a straight, determined line, moving in what she could only hope was the direction in which the cosmopolitan attractions of Clacton sea front would soon be laid out, tantalizingly, before them. And if they weren’t, she might just have to throttle her supposedly best friend, Angela Moaning Minnie Knight, because she was driving her right round the bloody twist. In fact, she almost wished she was really staying with Marilyn – as she had pretended to her mum – Marilyn, the girl who had moved away to East Ham in the second year, yet had still faithfully kept in touch with all her old school mates, and who had been so looking forward to seeing them all again at her birthday party. Shame Jackie had invented her on the spur of the moment – a birthday party was very tempting.

  Jackie stepped into the road without a second glance, her lips and eyes contracting into tight, displeased circles. ‘You are so ungrateful, Angie. I didn’t have to ask you to come, you know. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have been sitting at home all by yourself tonight, and tomorrow. Bank Holiday Monday.’ The gravity Jackie lent the words made it sound more like some arcane pagan ritual than a day off work.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry.’ Angie broke into a begrudging trot to catch up with her – that’d be all she needed, getting lost in this place – her sore feet making her uncharacteristically sarcastic. ‘I suppose I should be pleased you made me come with you. After all, you could have asked Marilyn. But, surprisingly, I am not absolutely flipping delighted that—’

  Before Angie could finish her sentence, her words were drowned out by the roar of a pack of accelerating motorbikes that had appeared behind them from out of the dark.

  Jackie spun round in alarm, and was confronted by a dozen, glaring headlights. She froze, a terrorized fawn in a hunter’s sights.

  Without a thought, Angie sprang forward and yanked her stunned friend out of their path.

  They stood on the pavement, panting and staring, as the bikes sped past; the hollers of abuse from the foul-mouthed rockers, as to what slags everyone knew mod girls to be echoing in their ears.

  ‘Exciting enough for you?’ Jackie gasped, her chin almost touching her chest. ‘They could have splattered me. All over that tarmac.’

  ‘They said we were mod girls,’ Angie gasped back incongruously.

  Without warning, the first of the bikers did a screeching U-turn and began heading back towards them. ‘Oi, slags!’ he yelled.

  Without further discussion, the girls broke into a run, their disagreement, and Angie’s blisters, forgotten, as, with a single mind, they headed for a family, complete with suitcases, who were walking along about fifty yards ahead of them.

  The girls, panting and wide-eyed, fell into step with the respectable-looking group.

  ‘Mind if we walk along with you?’ asked Jackie, in an ingratiating voice. ‘Only we’re trying to get away from those motorbike blokes.’

  ‘They said horrible things to us,’ explained Angie. ‘Called us all sorts. Really scared us.’

  The woman, a stern, matronly type, ushered her children to one side. ‘You walk along with Daddy,’ she said in a brisk, Yorkshire accent, then turned back to address the girls. ‘Is it any wonder blokes are calling after you?’ she challenged them. ‘You’, she pointed to Jackie’s thigh-hugging dress, ‘are practically showing your underclothes. And as for you.’ This time she jabbed a finger in the direction of the circular cut-out that flashed a small patch of Angie’s bare, pale midriff. ‘You look like … Well, never mind what you look like. But you do.’

  Angie hung her head, shame-faced at the woman’s words, but Jackie was furious, her lips were pressed together so tightly her cheeks ached. Bloody old cow! What did she know, with her daft voice and her ugly perm? Jackie had a good mind to tell her where to get off, and she would have done so as well, had the motorcyclist not just been joined by all his companions.

  They were circling in the road alongside them, continuing to jeer, although in a more subdued way now that they were in earshot of grown-ups, especially as the man with the kids looked a bit fit and might well be the type to front them out if they pushed their luck.

  The woman glared, narrow-eyed, at the bikers. She’d die if her Melvin grew up to be like one of those little tearaways, or, God forbid, if her Myra ever went out looking like these two. The make-up! They looked as if they’d had their eyes blacked for them in a fight. But they were still someone’s daughters. Although the Lord alone knew where their mothers were, letting them out in such a state. ‘Where’re you heading?’

  ‘Down the front,’ said Jackie hurriedly, worried that Angie would ask for an escort back to the station and that she’d then have to come up with some bizarre explanation for her mum, to account for their abbreviated evening at Marilyn’s. Bloody Marilyn. She was getting on her nerves almost as much as Angie. ‘We’re meeting my mum and dad down there.’

  ‘You’re in luck.’ The woman relaxed a little at this slightly unexpected news. She took a map from her pocket and waved it in Jackie’s face. ‘We’re going in that direction. We’re off to the Waverley.’ She paused, waiting for the name of the hotel her sister-in-law had recommended to register with the girls. Her efforts were wasted, there wasn’t a flicker of recognition of the name. Obviously, it was far too decent for the likes of these two. ‘I’ll see you safely down there, but I’m warning you, if you so much as think of looking at my husband, I’ll march right up to your mother and tell her exactly what I think of her. Allowing girls to go out with their private parts barely covered.’

  Jackie resisted saying she’d rather poke her eyes out with a sharp stick than have to so much as take a single peek at her ugly old sod of a husband. Instead, smiling sweetly, she replied, ‘That’s really kind of you, thanks ever so much.’

  The short, silent walk to the promenade brought them to a scene that couldn’t have contrasted more with the sober, residential streets around the station. It wasn’t only the bright lights and noise coming from all the typical seaside attractions that lined the front, it was the sheer numbers of young people milling about the place. Angie and Jackie had never seen anything like it. They were everywhere: on foot, on scooters and on motorbikes; parading up and down the front, jostling for space, swaggering and shouting; mods and rockers, male and female, divided only by tribal affiliations marked by choice of
hairdo and clothes.

  The atmosphere of youthful anticipation was so thick that the girls could almost taste it. It made their skin prickle with nervous excitement. And the underlying threat of conflict and violence that was bubbling up amongst the hoards of barely restrained young people wasn’t lost either on the woman who had guided them into this maelstrom of hormone-propelled tension.

  ‘I don’t know, Arthur. What on earth was your sister suggesting, sending us here when we could have gone to the Lakes?’ The woman scooped her children to her and shook her head. ‘Trust you for listening to her. Trust you. I’m warning you, this Waverley place had better have clean sheets, acceptable lavatory arrangements and good strong locks on all the doors. Or, Arthur Turpin, you’ll have me to reckon with.’

  Jackie and Angie scarcely acknowledged the Turpin family’s sour-faced departure for their hotel, sparing them only a brief mumble and a half-hearted wave to see them on their way; they were also now oblivious of the cold, and their row was a distant memory. The girls were transfixed.

  Youth, as it always had, and always will, was calling to youth.

  ‘This is more like it, eh, Angie?’ Jackie took her arm and they joined the packs of youngsters patrolling the promenade.

  This was where it was all happening. And they were right in the middle of it.

  Sonia walked across the car park and astonished the guard with a flickery wave and a cheery goodnight. It was the first time the stuck-up tart had even acknowledged his existence. Little did she know what he’d seen her getting up to with that dark-haired bloke the other night.

  It made him flush, remembering the shape of the dirty cow’s naked backside.

  Bloody hell! She was coming over to the booth.

  ‘Mr Fuller’s not back yet, then,’ she trilled, as she pointed to his empty parking space. ‘These businessmen and their meetings.’

  ‘No, he’s, er, not back yet.’ Had the woman gone mad? She hadn’t said a word to him all the time he’d worked here and now she was practically flirting with him.