Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  ‘All right then. I will.’

  Vi blinked rapidly. ‘It’s not as easy as that, young lady.’

  ‘Let go of my arm, Mum.’ Angie pulled away and ran out of the room.

  Vi caught her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Angie, I’m warning you.’

  Craig joined them in the hall. ‘I don’t need all this bloody drama.’

  Angie started up the stairs. ‘What? Get enough of that in Scotland, do you, Craig? From your wife and kids?’

  ‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ he said, puffing out his cheeks and shaking his head. ‘I’ll see you sometime, Vi.’ He undid the front door, turned, smiled up at Angie and winked. ‘And I hope to see you again too, sweetheart.’

  Vi’s eyes were blazing. She had spent nearly two hours getting ready to go out and now she was being elbowed. ‘Don’t think you can come running back here any time you like!’ she shrieked.

  Craig stepped outside and closed the door quietly behind him.

  ‘Good riddance,’ shouted Angie, running up the stairs.

  ‘How could you do that to me?’ Vi wailed. ‘Chucking yourself at him. It’s disgusting. You’re meant to be my daughter.’

  Angie stopped on the landing. ‘And you’re meant to be my mother.’

  ‘I just don’t understand you any more.’

  ‘No, you don’t, do you, Mum?’ She held on to the banister, leaned forward and stared down into her mother’s face. ‘You know this was nothing to do with me. It was your snake of a rotten boyfriend. He could have raped me. But you couldn’t care less. So long as you get what you want. And you have, yet again. I’m leaving. Satisfied?’

  Vi slapped Angie, hard, across her tear-stained face. ‘You spiteful cow. I’ll be glad to see the back of you. And don’t think you can go running along the street to Tilly Murray. Cos I’ll tell the old bag exactly what you’re like.’

  ‘What I’m like?’

  ‘Yeah. A bloody Lolita. That’s what you are. Nothing more than a grubby little whore.’

  Angie said nothing more. She turned round, went into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and pulled out all the glossy carrier bags from her shopping trips with David. She stuffed as many of her things into them as she could carry and left the house to the sound of Vi screaming that she never wanted to set eyes on her, ever again.

  When she heard David’s voice, Angie took a deep breath and pressed the sixpenny bit down into the slot; she could barely move for all the bags packed around her in the phone box. ‘It’s me, Angel.’

  ‘Everything OK?’ He sounded busy, distracted.

  ‘Fine. I know it’s late, but—’

  ‘Angel, I’m a bit tied up at the minute.’

  ‘Sorry, I know we’re not meeting till tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you those two weeks are up. The two weeks the doctor said I would have to wait, if I …’

  ‘So they are.’ David motioned for Bobby to close the door to the outer office so that he could hear her better. ‘Now, what are we going to do about that then?’

  Angie could hear the smile in his voice. She only hoped he would be as happy when he heard what she had to say next. ‘You know the other week, when you told me you had more than one flat?’

  She thought she heard a slight pause before he said ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I’ve sort of fallen out with my mum. And I need to ask a favour.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Would it be a real cheek if I asked to stay in one of them? Just for a day or two. Until I sort something out. I wouldn’t need much space, and I’m really tidy.’

  ‘Angel, don’t say anything else.’

  She closed her eyes. She had gone too far. Asked too much. Why had she chucked in her job? At least she would have had some money. Where could she go now? Her mum wouldn’t think twice about telling Tilly Murray all sorts of lies. And that would mean getting Jackie caught up in the whole rotten mess. And if she went to stay with her nan, how would she explain being out with David till all hours and not going in to work any more? Angie almost laughed. Shame she didn’t have Marilyn’s number on her.

  ‘Angel? You there?’

  ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

  ‘I said, have you got a pen?’

  ‘I think so. Somewhere.’

  ‘Well, find it. I’m going to give you an address. It’s the top floor of a nice little house. You jump in a cab and you can move in tonight. I’ll meet you there in about an hour.’

  While Angie was writing down the address, Vi was banging on the door of Sam’s shop. It was all shut up and the main lights were off, but she could see him through the glass door, in the pale light of the desk lamp that stood by the till. She banged harder. She was buggered if she was going to spend another evening by herself.

  After much sliding of bolts and turning of locks, the door was eventually opened.

  ‘Violet, what a lovely surprise.’ Sam was almost drooling at the sight of his unexpected visitor, as if he was a big, pink, hungry baby and she was his next feed. ‘I was thinking about you, while I was cashing up.’

  ‘Were you, Sam?’ Vi lifted her chin and looked into his watery, almost colourless eyes.

  He nodded eagerly. ‘I was. Come in. Please.’ His mouth was so dry he could barely spit out the words.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said sweetly, following him through to the back of the shop.

  He wasn’t Craig, but any port in a storm.

  It took Sam a lot less time to get her out of her clothes than it had taken Vi to get into them. Within moments they were writhing around on the sofa he had installed in the stock-room – her naked, him with his trousers round his ankles – and it took Sam even less time to reach a gasping, breathless climax.

  Sam’s always speedy achievement of sexual gratification – his own, not hers – was not a problem for Vi, it was a relief. She preferred to have as little contact with his flabby, sweaty body as possible.

  Now Craig on the other hand, with his firm, taut belly, and his big, muscled thighs, she could have had him pumping away at her for hours, have had him touching her and …

  She could kill that ungrateful little cow. Making a pass at him like that. Her own daughter.

  ‘Violet.’ Sam was panting into her ear. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

  ‘What’s that then?’ she asked, looking up at him through the curtain of greasy grey hair that had fallen over his pudgy face.

  ‘I’ve decided to tell Cissie. About us.’

  With surprising force, Vi pushed him off her, shoving him to one side like an unwanted portion of overboiled cabbage, and then levered herself up on to her elbows. ‘Don’t be hasty, Sam.’ Christ, if he left his old woman, he’d want to be hanging around her morning, noon and night.

  ‘Don’t you want to be with me?’ He looked like a kid whose lolly had melted.

  ‘Of course I do, darling.’ With a bit of difficulty, Vi rolled him back on top of her, knowing that the feel of her flesh against his would soften his brain as surely as it would harden his penis. ‘I just don’t want you losing everything in the divorce courts. Not when you’ve worked so hard for it all.’

  Sam smiled happily. ‘You’re so good, Violet. Always worrying about me. Most women would only be after what they could get.’

  ‘I know, Sam,’ she said, running a fingernail over his fluff-covered buttock. ‘Some women are just selfish.’

  ‘Craig.’ With one eye on the light shining from under the lavatory door, Vi whispered urgently into the phone that was mounted on the stock-room wall. Sam had only just gone into the loo, and she knew from experience that he would be in there a good few minutes. ‘I had to call you. I can’t get you out of my mind. I promise, nothing like what happened tonight will ever happen again. Honestly, Craig. It was all so stupid. She was just showing off. I don’t know what’s got into that girl lately. Please, let’s be friends again.’

  Craig took a long moment as he considered what to do, and eventually came to the conclusion
that he was at a loose end for the night, Vi was always willing, and, what the hell …

  ‘I’ll be round in about an hour,’ he said.

  Gratified as she was to be back in Craig’s good books, this wasn’t what she had expected. She’d thought he would punish her. Make her wait at least a couple of days.

  ‘An hour?’ she said brightly, then jumped at the sound of Sam pulling the chain. She’d better get a move on.

  ‘Tell you what, Vi. As I’m already in bed, come over to the hotel. I’ll tell reception to expect you.’

  She was already half-dressed when Sam appeared in the doorway of the loo, wearing a pair of voluminous white Y-fronts and a look of profound disappointment.

  ‘Not going already are you, Violet?’

  Vi put on an appropriately pained expression. ‘I’ve got to, Sam. I was enjoying myself so much I lost all track of time.’

  He wobbled towards her, his amorous intentions clearly showing in his underpants. ‘Can’t you stay for a little bit longer?’

  ‘I’d love to. You know that. But I promised I’d go and stay with my mum. She’s not been well and the neighbour who usually looks in on her has had to go away for the night. I can’t leave her by herself. Not when she’s been poorly.’

  Sam smiled a benevolent, understanding yet disappointed sort of a smile, and kissed her chastely on the forehead. Then he led her through to the shop.

  ‘Here,’ he said, taking two five-pound notes from the still not cashed-up till. ‘Take this for a cab, and get a few flowers for your mum in the morning.’

  Vi looked suitably surprised and grateful. ‘You are such a generous man,’ she said, tucking away the money in her bag.

  It was almost half past nine, and Sonia was driving at speed through the back streets of Chelsea, trying to avoid the worst of the Friday evening traffic. She was going to meet Mikey in a pub in the King’s Road and she couldn’t wait to be with him. She hadn’t seen him for four whole days – David had been working him ridiculously hard – and all she could think about was being in his arms, making love with him and then discussing their future together, the family they would have and the life they would share for ever.

  Sonia had just negotiated the left-hand turn into Flood Street – where she could only hope she would find a parking place – when she screeched to a sudden, tyre-burning halt.

  There, across the road, outside a pretty, flower-bedecked house, was someone who looked exactly like David.

  She frowned, screwing up her eyes for a better focus.

  It was him. There was his Jag, parked behind a taxi, and there he was, unloading parcels from the back seat of a cab and chatting to a girl. A young, pretty girl.

  Now he was carrying the parcels into the house. David, who never did anything that he could pay someone else to do for him, was carrying some kid’s shopping.

  And he was bloody smiling.

  Smiling like a lovestruck teenager.

  And – she didn’t believe this – there was Bobby Sykes, coming out of the house and walking down the path, carrying a parrot in a cage.

  A bloody parrot?

  And he was sodding smiling as well.

  Sonia, forgetting her carefully achieved reinvention of herself into a charming, sophisticated wife, slapped the steering-wheel angrily and hissed nastily under her breath, ‘What the fuck is going on here, David Fuller?’

  It took her only a few minutes more to work it out. The bastard was setting up some cheap little tramp in a cute little house off the King’s Road, a place that she herself would have loved as a pied-a-terre. Some rotten bitch who looked barely old enough to have left school and, worst of all, looked almost young enough to be her daughter.

  Sonia reversed into the kerb and did a careful U-turn. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, didn’t want him to see her, didn’t want him to know what she knew. Not yet. Not until she worked out what she was going to do next.

  As she turned back on to the King’s Road, Sonia took a last look at the sickening sight of the love birds in her rear-view mirror. ‘Two can play at that game, David Fuller.’

  ‘If I get off right now, Angel, I can sort things out and be back in an hour. Two hours, top whack.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK. And, David. Thank you.’

  He pulled a mock stern face. ‘What for?’

  ‘Everything. I can’t believe you’ve done all this for me. You’ve been so kind and generous. And I am so lucky.’

  He chucked her under the chin and winked. What a little doll. And a virgin! ‘You make yourself at home. All right?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And don’t keep thanking me.’ He walked along the parquet-floored hall towards the door. ‘You can show me your appreciation later.’

  Angie smiled, but, as David closed the door behind him, her stomach was tying itself into knots. To distract herself from thinking about what was going to happen later – that something she had been longing for so badly, but which still absolutely terrified her – Angie wandered around the flat, trying to take it all in.

  It was small, compared to David’s other places she had seen, but it was incredible, fantastic, just like the fashionable pads featured in magazine articles about trendy, busy young women living in London.

  There was a main, L-shaped room divided into sitting and dining areas, a neat little kitchen, fitted out with all the latest equipment, a smallish single bedroom, and, best of all, a big, bright, airy double bedroom with French doors that opened out on to a tiled terrace, with a table and chairs and pots and tubs spilling over with all sorts of plants and greenery.

  Angie roamed through the rooms, imagining herself to be a character in some groovy film like Darling, or The Knack, or A Hard Day’s Night, or something – with David co-starring as Michael Caine, of course – then, more prosaically, wondering how this had all happened to her. How such good fortune had smiled on mousy little Angie Knight from Dagenham. How she had met this wonderful, exciting, powerful, generous, handsome man; had gone on the Pill; had got groped by that revolting Craig and thrown out by her mum – that had definitely been what her nan would call a blessing in disguise; and had then moved into a flat in Chelsea.

  A flat.

  In Chelsea.

  Jackie was going to go green with envy, completely bottle green. No, she wasn’t, she was actually going to pass out cold when she saw it. Flat as a mat.

  If she saw it.

  Angie started tidying all her bags and parcels into the wardrobe – she wanted it to look nice for when David came back, but wouldn’t take the liberty of hanging anything up – and thought about Jackie. Angie really missed the closeness of their old friendship. Since she had become Angel, things just weren’t the same any more; it was as if they were from different worlds.

  Angie looked at her watch to see how much longer she had to wait for David. The watch her nan had given her.

  She missed her too.

  Angie wandered into the white-carpeted living-room and looked at the telephone on the smoked-glass coffee table.

  David had told her to make herself at home. If she was quick, surely he wouldn’t mind, and she could always offer to pay for the call.

  She settled herself gingerly into the basket chair that was suspended on a chain from the ceiling, lit a cigarette and picked up the phone. It took her a moment to get used to the press-button dialling, but then she was through.

  ‘Honestly, Nan, I’m fine. Marilyn’s mum said I can stay as long as I like. I’m in Marilyn’s brother’s room. He doesn’t need it because he’s away at college. It’s funny, he’s at exactly the same place as Jackie’s brother, Martin. And East Ham’s really convenient for work. Much nearer than Becontree. The fares’ll be so much cheaper.’

  Sarah wanted to say, Don’t strong it too much, Angie, I’m no fool. Instead she just asked her granddaughter, ‘Are you sure you’re all right, babe? You would tell me if you were in trouble?’
>
  Angie put on her brightest, happiest voice, and set about changing the subject. ‘I’m fine. Really. I promise. Here, how’s Doris’s friend Lily? Pleased she can stay in her house?’

  ‘I wanted to ask you about that, Angie.’

  Annoyed with herself for choosing such an unwise diversion as Lily Patterson and Burton Street – she didn’t want to get drawn into discussing David, however indirectly – Angie butted in. ‘Mum was ever so angry, Nan.’

  Sarah Pearson let the subject of Burton Street drop. For the time being, at least. ‘Does she know where you’re staying?’

  ‘No. I’m going to write to her. Let her know I’m all right.’ Angie hesitated. ‘I worry about her, you know, Nan.’

  Sarah sighed. Poor little love, it should be Violet, the mother, worrying about her daughter, not the other way round. ‘I know you do, lovely. Just like I worry about you.’

  ‘There’s no need, Nan.’ Angie looked around the room at the impressive pictures, expensive furnishings and exotic plants and closed her eyes tightly. She hated lying to her. ‘I told you, I’m fine here at Marilyn’s. Just fine.’

  ‘Come and stay with me.’

  Not only would her nan never approve of David, say she found her Pill packet …

  ‘I’m fine, Nan. You know Mum. It’ll all have blown over in a day or two and I’ll be back home.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ And I’m sure I want to be with David as much as I want to be away from my spiteful, selfish mother and her disgusting boyfriends.

  ‘Are you sure about this, Sonia?’ Mikey definitely wasn’t sure. After spending the past four days amongst the missing – he’d been busy schtupping the little blonde waitress from the Coffee Bongo, who he had generously decided to give a second chance – Mikey had expected Sonia to rip off his clothes the moment she saw him, not insist they go to bloody Plaistow to watch the boxing.

  It wasn’t as if he had even wanted to see her tonight. The novelty of fucking Fuller’s wife, regardless of her very appealing adventurous streak, had worn thin. He preferred younger birds. Then, when she had mentioned the boxing, he had given her a knock back at first, not fancying being with her in full view of any face in London who fancied a bit of sport that night. But Sonia, much to his surprise, had started making threats about talking to her old man about the keys and the club. They were veiled threats, admittedly, but still threats. Then she had gone all soft and lovely again and had talked some girlie bollocks about how much she loved him.