Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  Sitting in the tiny, partitioned-off area that served as the office – profit-making space for the paying customers was at a premium in Soho clubs like the Canvas – David rocked back in his chair and clasped his hands across his muscled belly. ‘So, Jeff, tell me, what you’ve—’ he paused for effect, picking at imaginary debris between his teeth with his little fingernail, ‘—observed these past weeks?’

  Jeff looked uncomfortable, but he owed his boss too much to mug him off like some gormless punter in off the street. When Jeff had arrived in London from Jamaica, and the so-called ‘colour-bar’ had seen him not only without a job but without even a roof over his head, David had given him a chance. He had treated Jeff as just another bloke looking for work as hired brawn, and, when David had realized that he had a brain as well, he had promoted him, trusted him. So Jeff owed David Fuller, even if it meant crossing that piece of shit, Mikey Tilson. Jeff wasn’t a man who scared easily, but he knew Tilson could be a really nasty bastard. When something stood between him and what he wanted, he went after it with a childlike greed and cunning that was never predictable, but was always spiteful.

  ‘He came in that first night, Dave, after you told me to hold back the five per cent, and he got all confused. Counted the takings three times. Then he stared at me, hard like, but he never said nothing. When it was the same the next night, he accused me – me – of helping myself.’ Jeff allowed himself a wry grin. ‘Threatened to grass me up. To you.’

  ‘He’s got more sodding front than Brighton.’ David shook his head. ‘Then what?’

  ‘I acted the innocent for the rest of the week.’ Jeff hesitated, considering whether he had overstepped the mark. ‘Then I kind of, you know, used my initiative.’

  David showed no signs of emotion, he simply nodded for Jeff to continue.

  ‘I told him it was a management decision. To hold back the five per cent.’

  ‘Management decision? What did he say to that? Long words ain’t exactly Mikey’s strong point.’ Another thing that made it so aggravating that Sonia was so impressed with the little arsehole.

  ‘You’re right there, Dave. I had to explain it was because the dough had been disappearing before it reached you. The boss. He wasn’t happy about it.’

  Still David’s expression gave no hint of what he was thinking. ‘Then what?’

  ‘I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel. He went all red and lunged across this table at me. Grabbed me by the collar. Saucy fucker. Told me I was a liar, and if I thought I was getting away with it, he’d kill me.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  ‘Yeah. Flash little git.’ Jeff curled his lip into a disgusted sneer. ‘I’d like to see him try. I’d rip his stupid head right off his shoulders.’

  David stood up and straightened the handkerchief in his top pocket. ‘Jean and the family all right, are they?’

  ‘Yes thanks, Dave. They’re fine.’

  Sonia was sitting, naked, in the back seat of Mikey’s dark-blue Ford Zodiac, repairing the damage that Mikey’s passion had wreaked on her make-up. She had felt a bit let down when he had driven them to High Beech again. Epping Forest was all very well, but Sonia had fancied trying somewhere new, and then, despite the gloriously sunny start to the early June day, the heavens had opened. Looking up through the car window, as Mikey spreadeagled her along the car seat, was like trying to peer through a curtain of grey steel stair rods. It had actually made her feel quite depressed. It wasn’t what she had wanted for today at all. Today was meant to have been special. She had had it all planned. But, after her initial disappointment, Mikey’s fingers, insinuating their way between the silk of her underwear and her eager, moist body, soon had her forgetting that she had ever wanted anything else to happen that afternoon than what Mikey was doing to her right there and then, in the thunderous, pouring rain. The sound of it sheeting down on the car roof had suddenly sounded thrilling, and she had helped him to tear off her clothes that were now discarded in a heap on the floor. After half an hour of Mikey’s attentions, Sonia had relaxed into a mellow, receptive state in which nothing could have been better.

  She licked her freshly painted lips, and pouted at her lover. ‘Will I do?’ she breathed girlishly, angling her chin towards him and running her fingers through her tousled blonde hair.

  As usual, Mikey wasn’t in the mood to talk after sex, let alone pay compliments, and he just ignored her, concentrating instead on tidying himself up ready for the journey back into town.

  ‘Mikey. Look at me.’ Sonia took his hand away from re-zipping his fly, and put it on her bare breast. ‘Please.’

  He did so bad-naturedly. Bloody women. Why couldn’t they just let him do the business and be done with it?

  ‘Mikey …’

  In a grudging gesture of goodwill he squeezed her breast hard and flicked his thumb backwards and forwards across her nipple. He didn’t want to spoil her, but then again he didn’t want to risk upsetting her too much either; say what you like about Sonia, she was no prude, and he thoroughly enjoyed her very willingness to do the sorts of things that most women called him a pervert for even suggesting.

  ‘I think I’m too tired for another go,’ he mumbled into her neck.

  ‘Try. For me.’

  Mikey moved slowly down her body, running his tongue over the salty film of sweat on her naked belly. She caught her breath as he moved lower still.

  ‘Mikey,’ she gasped, her head tilted back. ‘I think I’ve fallen in love with you.’

  Mikey’s head popped up like a Jack-in-the-box. ‘I don’t know about that, Son.’

  She held his head in her hands, drawing him to her, then touched her lips tenderly against his. ‘I mean it, Mikey. I know this started out as just a game.’ She kissed him again, harder this time. ‘But I’ll do anything to make you happy. Anything.’ As Mikey lay on top of her, staring into her eyes, she ran her hand up and down his arm. ‘Anything at all.’

  A slow smile spread across his face, crinkling his eyes, and making little creases appear by the sides of his nose.

  Sonia wanted to almost cry with pleasure. She had made him happy.

  ‘You mean that?’ he asked.

  ‘You know I do. You can ask me to do anything.’

  He wriggled his trousers and underpants down to his ankles, and stroked her cheek. ‘Anything at all?’

  She wrapped her legs round his waist and stared into his eyes. ‘Name it.’

  ‘The keys to the Canvas club would be a good start,’ he said, and pushed himself into her, his passion reignited by the thought of what he was about to do to David Flash Boy Fuller, and it wasn’t just screwing his wife.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Shielding her eyes from the glare of the lamp-post, Angie stepped back to get a better look at the imposing, four-storey house in the narrow street close to Tower Bridge. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen any before, Jack, but don’t you think this looks a bit posh to be student digs?’

  ‘Posh? Take a closer look.’ Jackie pointed to the weed-and litter-strewn, cracked stone steps, which led up to the broad, but peeling, front door. ‘Try to imagine it in daylight. And remember, it’s all fellers living in there.’

  ‘I suppose it does look a bit run-down.’

  ‘You’re not kidding. When Martin told me how to get here, he said to look for the really grotty one next to the lamp-post.’

  At the mention of Martin’s name, Angie’s stomach contracted as a rush of elation surged through her. She had relived those moments, when he had kissed and touched her, over and over again. And now she was going to a party with him. She hadn’t set eyes on him since the weekend – not since he had staggered off with Keith, groaning that he wanted to be sick, leaving her and Jackie to weave their drunken way back to the station, where they had waited half the night for the milk train – and she couldn’t wait to see him, and to be back in his arms.

  ‘He reckons there’s about fifteen of them living here,’ Jackie went on. ‘May
be more. All sharing the place. There’s only meant to be half a dozen, but they all bunk in and split the rent. He reckons the whole street’s what they call short-let housing. A developer’s bought up the lot. Can you imagine having that much money, to buy a street? And he’s renting them out to students till he’s ready to demolish them. Then he’s going to put up luxury places for rich people who work in the City.’ She snorted sceptically. ‘Can’t see anyone wanting to live in an area like this, can you? He’ll go broke, I reckon. City types’ll never put up with this dump.’

  ‘Do you think we’re dressed right? We’re not exactly student types, are we? I’m going to hate it if they all stare at me.’

  Jackie rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve not listened to a flipping word I’ve said.’ She steered Angie up the steps and knocked on the door.

  She was about to rattle the knocker for a second time when a serious-looking girl, dressed in a man’s shirt tied in a knot around her waist and purple satin hipsters, threw open the door. As Jackie opened her mouth to introduce herself, the girl turned her back on them and walked off down the hall.

  ‘Great sounds,’ Jackie shouted above the throbbing beat of Eric Burdon belting out ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find Martin.’

  A dim, bare bulb, hanging down from the ceiling barely illuminated the musty-smelling, moth-eaten hallway, but, in the girls’ eyes, a place lived in solely by young people could appear nothing but exotically glamorous. The few bits of wall which could be seen, between the posters declaring solidarity with the North Vietnamese and gigs for the Yardbirds, were painted a matt, deep red.

  They passed an open door on the left and peeked in, but all they could make out in the dark were moving shapes that looked as if they were snogging couples swaying to the earthy, pulsating rhythms of the Animals.

  ‘He’s here somewhere,’ mouthed Jackie with a falsely jolly expression. She felt completely out of place, just as Angie had feared they would, although the problem wasn’t that they were being stared at. Not one of the scruffily dressed young people who were sitting or squatting on the floor took a blind bit of notice of them, as they picked their way along the passageway towards the door at the end.

  The door opened on to the kitchen, a big, wide room, which took up the whole of the back of the house. Angie, as if she was connected to him by some invisible radar system, immediately spotted Martin. He had a paper cup of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and was talking animatedly to a boy, who could, in the dingy red light of the scarf-shaded bulb, have been a double for John Lennon, right down to his forward combed hair and collarless Beatles jacket.

  ‘Martin!’ Jackie called to her brother, waving as if she were a desert-island castaway who had sighted a ship.

  Before he looked round, Martin closed his eyes for a moment longer than a blink. They’d turned up. Christ. His little sister and Squirt, his little sister’s bloody friend. The seventeen-year-old he had very nearly screwed …

  As the shameful, drunken memories had gradually come back to him during the week, they had made Martin feel sicker than the vodka and orange.

  He slapped on a smile and turned round. ‘Hiya, Jack.’

  ‘Great place, Mart.’ Jackie punched her brother playfully on the shoulder. ‘How about getting us a drink then?’

  ‘Yeah. Course.’

  ‘Not vodka and orange though.’

  ‘Not vodka and orange.’ He lifted his chin, sheepishly, at Angie. ‘You all right?’

  She nodded shyly, hoping he’d notice the trouble she had taken to look nice for him. ‘Yeah. You?’

  ‘Great.’ He gulped anxiously at his drink. ‘Just great.’

  John Lennon smiled at Jackie. ‘Hello,’ he drawled. ‘Where’s young Martin been keeping you?’ He certainly didn’t sound like his Liverpudlian double, more like Prince Charles.

  Jackie looked at him steadily. Despite her nerves at being in such unaccustomed territory as a student party, she knew she could still turn it on at will as far as individual blokes were concerned. ‘At home, of course.’

  ‘Oh.’ Deflated, he turned to Martin. ‘You’re a darker horse than I thought. I never knew you were living with someone.’

  Martin snorted, horrified, into his beer.

  Jackie laughed girlishly. ‘I’m Jackie, Martin’s sister.’

  ‘Really? What good news. I’m Richard. How about a dance?’

  Without further discussion, Jackie left Angie, with no more than a flash of her eyebrows and a wink over her shoulder, and allowed herself to be led away to whatever was going on in the front room.

  ‘I’ll get you that drink.’ Martin beckoned, with an urgent jerk of his head, to a slim, blonde boy, who was standing by the open back door, narrowing his eyes against the smoke, as he drew long and deeply on a hand-rolled cigarette.

  ‘Steve. Come over and meet Angie, while I get her a drink.’

  Despite knowing Steve’s reputation for getting through girls as if they were of no more value than the disposable paper cup in which he had his beer, Martin was more than willing to abandon her, while he escaped to the safety of the draining-board bar.

  This was a bloody nightmare. What was he going to do? Here he was, waiting for Jill to turn up, and now he was stuck with his little sister’s mate, a kid with a major crush on him. He felt bad about kissing her, really bad, but he’d been as drunk as a rat. So it wasn’t his fault. And she hadn’t exactly objected …

  He took a moment to compose himself, then took her her drink.

  ‘Lager and lime.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Angie sipped her drink. ‘Great sounds,’ she said, imitating Jackie and hoping she sounded smart and sophisticated.

  ‘You like the Who?’ Steve nodded his approval. ‘I’ve got loads of their stuff. Upstairs. In my room.’

  Martin took a moment for his conscience to kick in. ‘Oi. Watch it.’ He stared pointedly at Steve’s arm that had somehow found its way round Angie’s shoulders.

  Angie, unaware that Martin’s motives were fuelled by guilt rather than concern, smiled ecstatically. She was Martin’s girl!

  Steve put up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Sorry.’ And wandered off.

  Martin and Angie stood in silence, Martin wondering how he had let himself be suckered in to such a ridiculous situation, and Angie wondering when Martin was going to kiss her. She had made up her mind that, when he did, she was going to tell him that she wasn’t ready – yet – to go all the way, but, once they had started seeing each other properly for a while, then she would be.

  ‘You’ve been busy all week, Jackie said.’

  Martin swigged at his drink. Shit. Now she wanted a bloody conversation. ‘That’s right. Loads of work to finish. For college.’

  ‘Been spending all your time in the library.’

  ‘Yeah. You know how it is. Work, work, work.’

  ‘So,’ a voice said from behind her, ‘that’s where you’ve been, in the library.’

  Martin looked over Angie’s shoulder. ‘Jill.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ she asked flatly, looking Angie up and down. She hadn’t seen this one around college. Martin must have brought her with him. She was quite pretty. In a vulgar sort of way.

  ‘Jill, this is my little sister’s friend. Squirt.’

  Jill’s face softened into a smile and she held out her hand to Angie, but Angie didn’t notice. She was staring at Martin.

  Squirt? How could he? How could he show her up like this? Making her sound like a little kid. Especially in front of this tall, dark-haired girl, who looked so together and mature, standing there all in black, in her velvet skirt and skinny rib roll neck. Angie felt like ripping off her own lime-green bloody dress and throwing her rotten white go-go boots in the bin.

  ‘Squirt. What a funny name. Sweet.’ Jill was amused. Relieved. ‘Hi.’

  Angie said nothing. Who was this Jill? This stuck-up cow who was staring into Martin’s
eyes?

  ‘I’ve really missed you, Martin,’ she cooed in fluting, cut-glass tones that sliced through Angie like a shard of broken crystal. ‘Really missed you.’

  Angie could do nothing. She was powerless as she watched this Jill making herself into a couple with Martin right there in front of her.

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to come back to my flat later,’ Jill was saying to him, as she straightened his collar, and stroked the side of his neck with the back of her finger. ‘You could stay if you like.’

  ‘Jill,’ Angie heard him murmur. ‘You know how much I’ve wanted that.’

  It was as if everyone else at the party except Angie, Martin and Jill had disappeared, melted away to some other place. There was no music. No laughter. No talking. Just the gut-wrenching sight of Martin taking Jill in his arms and kissing her.

  Angie turned slowly away.

  When Angie woke the next morning, it took her a few moments to figure out that she was in Jackie’s bed. It took only a few more to remember the humiliation of the previous night.

  When Jackie came into the bedroom with a tray of tea and toast, two glasses of water and a bottle of aspirins, tears were rolling down Angie’s cheeks.

  ‘That bad, is it? I thought you’d need some of these,’ Jackie said, offering her two of the tablets. ‘This hangover lark’s getting a bit of a habit with us.’

  Angie took the aspirin and Jackie plonked down on the bed beside her.

  ‘That Richard said he wants to see me again. What do you think? Bit too gormless? And I think he’s a bit of a snob.’

  Angie ignored her question. ‘It’s not a hangover,’ she said, rubbing away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘I’m angry. That’s all.’

  ‘No puzzles, eh, Ange?’ Jackie pleaded, holding her head. ‘I can hardly remember getting home last night, let alone working out what you’re going on about.’ She closed her eyes self-pityingly. ‘I just hope Mum never finds out we came home in that bloke’s van.’

  Angie wasn’t listening to her. ‘I might not be going to college,’ she sniffed. ‘I might not even have a single O level to my name. But I’ll show them. I’ll show everyone. I’m going to make something of myself. I’m going to live life more than that lot ever will.’