Playing Around

by Gilda O'Neill

  *

  No more than a few stairs up from the greasy spoon, Christina, the overripe tom, sat on her bed staring forlornly out of the window.

  ‘Look at them,’ she muttered spitefully, her dark lipstick bleeding into the spider-web cracks around her dry, thin lips. ‘Bloody kids. No more than twenty years of age, most of them.’

  She watched as they queued in the street below, in a long, winding snake, laughing and joking, waiting to get in to the Canvas Club.

  Discothèques. What use were they to her? She blamed the likes of David Fuller. Why couldn’t he stick to the businesses he had always been in? The snooker halls, the spielers, the strip shows, the clip joints, the all-day private drinking clubs. They made sense to Christina. They brought in decent trade, the genuine punters with a few quid to put in her direction, not kids rushing to spend every penny they had on pills and all that other crap they took.

  Christina and her friend Marie had been talking about it all that very afternoon, after Christina had told her about what she saw happen outside the Canvas last night.

  Marie had agreed with her, of course: it was a disgrace what was happening in Soho. The place was going downhill fast. And the working girls were losing money because of it. But then so were the likes of Dave Fuller, in the long run, because brasses like her and Christina wouldn’t be able to find his bloody rent for him, would they? Then what would they all do? It didn’t make sense to Marie. None of it.

  As Christina remembered their increasingly agitated conversation, an idea slowly formed in her drink-sozzled brain. Maybe Dave Fuller could earn her a few bob after all. Maybe if she told someone other than Marie about what she had seen outside the Canvas …

  Despite the warm evening, Christina pulled on her astrakhan swagger coat – she couldn’t seem to get warm lately, it was as if her bones themselves were frozen – and tottered down the rickety stairway to the payphone in the greasy spoon downstairs.

  ‘Mr Jameson,’ she said, shielding the mouthpiece with her hand, ‘it’s gonna cost, mind, but I think I might have a bit of information that might interest you.’

  Chapter 14

  DORIS BARKER FOLDED her arms as far as they would reach across her substantial shelf of a bosom, and moved back – just a little – to let the man into her flat.

  ‘Not so quick,’ she said to him, blocking the hallway. ‘In the kitchen, if you don’t mind. The front room’s kept for best.’

  The man did as he was told. He knew full well the other rooms in the flat would be full of knocked-off gear, but he wasn’t interested in the old bat’s fencing, not this morning he wasn’t. He could pop round another day to sort all that out, or he might just file the thought away and fetch it out when he needed to. Storing useful information was, after all, a mainstay of Detective Constable Jameson’s policing methods.

  ‘And you are?’ Jameson asked a middle-aged woman, who was sitting on a high stool at the breakfast bar, in the tidy, spotlessly clean kitchen. He knew very well who she was, but he liked to play his hand carefully.

  ‘This is Mrs Pearson. My neighbour.’ Doris waved at a chair, indicating he could sit at the little fold-down table.

  ‘Pearson? That would be Sarah Pearson, would it?’

  Doris and Sarah flashed a look at one another.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Doris, speaking for her stunned-looking friend.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘At the door, you said you were based up the West End,’ Doris went on.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So what are you doing round here then? Wasting our Monday morning. You might not have anything better to do, young man, but me and Mrs Pearson have got washing and ironing to get done. Laundry don’t do itself, you know.’

  Jameson looked cynically at the two mugs of tea and the plate of biscuits that the women had obviously been enjoying before he arrived. ‘I can see for myself how busy you are, ladies. We learn to sniff out those sorts of clues during basic training.’

  Doris bristled. ‘If you’re going to get sarcastic …’

  ‘My apologies, Mrs Barker.’ His tone was as arrogant as his sneering expression. ‘But I’m here to follow up a lead.’

  Doris narrowed her eyes. ‘Down from the West End? And by yourself? That’s not very usual, is it? Not that I’d know very much about police comings and goings, of course.’

  Jameson allowed himself the pleasure of a mocking smile. ‘Let’s call this a courtesy visit. I tell you a few things, and you – I hope – tell me a few.’ He studied his fastidiously clean nails, before concluding smugly: ‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’

  Doris went over to the stove, looked over her shoulder at the police officer, and lifted up the kettle by way of a question. She didn’t like this one little bit, but she had to keep steady. Not do or say anything silly.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Barker,’ Jameson said very formally. ‘Two and a half sugars, not too strong, and just a splash of milk. And I prefer a cup and saucer to a mug, if you don’t mind.’

  Usually, Doris would have laughed at such affectation, especially in a so-called man, but today she didn’t feel like laughing. This pale, insipid weasel with his watery, colourless eyes and his sparse, mousy hair was obviously a right nasty little bastard.

  ‘So, like I was telling you, Sal’ – as she set about making the tea, Doris addressed Sarah as if their conversation had never been interrupted, and certainly not by the arrival of a policeman – ‘when I was down the market on Saturday, I said to Ginger Freddy: “I can’t get through here,” I said, “not between them stalls. That gap’s far too narrow for the likes of me.” And he said, “Well, turn sideways then, girl.” And I said to him: “Darling, I ain’t got no sideways.”’

  Despite her churning stomach, Sarah managed a fair imitation of tickled amusement.

  ‘Anyway, all the stall-holders are laughing and cheye-eyeking. You should have heard them.’ Doris spooned tea into the warmed pot. ‘So I turned to Ginger Freddy and said, “But it’s worth sticking with big girls like me, you know, Fred. We keep you warm in the winter, and throw out shade in the summer.”’

  The women laughed – an apparent vision of relaxed, self-assured pleasure.

  Jameson didn’t register so much as a smile.

  ‘Now, Mr Jameson.’ Doris handed him his tea in a delicate bone china cup. ‘Seeing as you’re not in uniform, I presume you really are a copper.’

  ‘Mrs Barker, I showed you my warrant card.’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know what one looked like. So I’ll just have to take your word for it that it was genuine.’

  Jameson was growing bored with this innocent act. ‘It’s genuine.’

  ‘Then perhaps you’ll tell us why you’re here.’

  ‘Before I start’ – he made a great show of sampling his tea, considering if it was to his liking, then dabbing the corners of his mouth on his very white handkerchief – ‘I think you should know that I am fully aware of the blind eyes that are being turned on this estate.’

  ‘Blind eyes, Mr Jameson?’ Doris looked suitably puzzled.

  ‘Regarding the, shall we say, informal economic activities being carried on.’

  Doris hoiked herself up on a stool next to Sarah at the breakfast bar, leaving Jameson to look up at them from his much lower chair by the fold-down table. ‘I haven’t got a single idea what you’re talking about. And I thought you said you was from the West End. Why should you care about the estate?’

  ‘I make it my business to know what’s going on in all kinds of places, Mrs Barker. Poplar included.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Doris, catching Sarah’s eye, silently urging her neighbour to keep calm. ‘Makes you feel safe knowing the law’s looking out for you.’

  ‘And one of the things I know about this place is that there are plans to start pushing drugs round here. They’re big plans. And for very bad drugs.’

  ‘All drugs are bad,’ said Doris through pursed lips. ‘I don’t even approve of dri
nking. Not after what it did to my Harry, God rest his soul. And, anyway, I can’t see people round here putting up with drug-dealers.’

  Sarah just listened, taking it all in.

  ‘The drugs are coming, Mrs Barker. Believe me. The club and dance hall trade’s at saturation point, so the pushers are looking for new markets and willing new customers. They start by selling it at cut-down prices to your children and grandchildren, and before you know what’s—’

  ‘They won’t be selling that rubbish to my grandchild,’ Sarah broke in. It was the first time she had spoken.

  ‘How can you be so sure, Mrs Pearson?’

  ‘Because she’s a good girl, that’s how.’

  ‘Is she? Are you sure?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t you wonder what she’s been up to lately? Where she’s been? What her new boyfriend’s like? How he’s got so much—’

  Sarah stood up. ‘You,’ she pointed at him, ‘outside in the hall, if you don’t mind. I want a private word. You will excuse us, won’t you, Doris? No offence.’

  ‘None taken, Sal. You go ahead. I’ll wait in here.’

  With that, Doris closed the kitchen door on them, topped up her mug of tea, selected a biscuit, and sat down to wait until Sarah had finished.

  She admired Sarah Pearson, just as she admired many women on the estate. They hadn’t had easy lives, most of them, but they had done what they needed to do, in order to get by, and they would do whatever was in their power to protect the ones they loved. Even if it meant someone as quiet as Sarah Pearson standing up to a snotty-nosed copper like DC Jameson.

  She took her cigarettes from her apron pocket and lit one. Not that any of poor Sal’s efforts had served any purpose as far as her tart of a daughter Violet was concerned. Still, she’d have more luck with Angie, she was a good kid. A nice kid. Sensible too.

  It was almost noon, and Angie, having struggled with the idea of forcing down a late breakfast, abandoned the toast she had made to the bin and was making do with a pot of weak tea and a cigarette; the sight of the butter melting and dripping off the grilled bread had made her feel physically ill.

  Angie was no stranger to hangovers, in fact, she had had more than her share of them lately, but having one on a Monday morning seemed worse somehow. It made her feel guilty. It was such a shabby way to start the week. She also felt stupid, as she genuinely hadn’t realized just how much booze she had actually swallowed.

  They had only intended to pop out for a couple of hours, going round to visit half a dozen or so clubs owned by friends of David’s, who all seemed to owe him money. But while David was collecting what was due to him, they had all insisted on pressing drinks on her. The club owners probably wanted to repay David’s generosity, as she noted that he was allowing them to pay by instalments, as he promised every one of them that he would be back the same time next week for their next payment. When she saw David so clearly approving of the welcome they were extending to her, she hadn’t liked to refuse, and they had wound up staying at each of the clubs far longer than David had originally intended.

  The drinks had just slipped down so easily.

  But it wasn’t only the hangover, or the feeling of guilt, or even her own stupidity, that was putting her off eating anything, it was the table, no, the whole kitchen. It looked, and smelled, disgusting.

  When they’d pulled up outside the flat last night, David had told her that his friend Albert had moved in earlier that evening, while they were out, but, by then, it was so late, and David was so keen to get her to bed – he’d been turned on by the way the club owners had all so obviously fancied her, he’d said – plus she had had so much to drink, she hadn’t noticed the mess. But she noticed now all right. It was a complete tip. And he’d only been in the flat for a few hours.

  She knotted the belt of her turquoise towelling bathrobe, lit another cigarette, stuck her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. Maybe she should go back to bed for a couple of hours. Then she would feel all fresh and be able to sort out the place before David came home.

  She was just wavering between whether she should close her eyes for five minutes at the table, or actually try to find the energy to haul herself back to her bed, when she heard the spare bedroom door being swung back violently on its hinges, then whacking against the wall with a hangover-amplified crash.

  Angie’s head snapped up from her hands and she staggered out into the hallway to find out what was going on. She was confronted by a heavily made-up woman with a dated, platinum-blonde beehive and a far too youthful minidress hopping out of the spare room, pulling on her shoe.

  ‘You weird fucker,’ she was hollering at a man, who was standing in the bedroom doorway in baggy, off-white underpants, grinning broadly at her. ‘You’re fucking sick in the head. Do you know that? Sick.’

  ‘And I thought you loved me,’ he said amiably.

  ‘Get stuffed.’

  ‘That’d be nice. Maybe you’d be prepared to oblige me again in that department, darling. How about tonight?’

  ‘I wouldn’t come back here tonight for all the tea in fucking China.’ The woman suddenly noticing Angie, shot her a sympathetic glance and strode off down the hallway. ‘Rather you than me, sweetheart,’ Angie heard her call as she let herself out of the flat.

  ‘I hope you don’t kiss no one with that filthy mouth of your’n,’ he shouted after her, then turned his attentions to Angie. He leaned against the door jamb, and rubbed distractedly at his crotch, as he slowly assessed her.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said, levering himself towards her. ‘Just my type and all. Mind you, there ain’t many that ain’t my type. Albert’s the name.’

  Angie nodded abruptly, backing away from him and into the kitchen. He might have been good-looking, in a swarthy, gypsyish sort of way, but he had the manners of a pig. Touching himself like that. It was revolting. David couldn’t know he’d be so horrible, or he’d never have let him stay. She’d have to phone the office. Get rid of him.

  She was about to pick up the red wall phone by the Fridgedair, when she heard Albert come into the kitchen. She turned to face him. Why hadn’t she gone back into her bedroom? She could have locked the door while she phoned.

  He was so close she could smell him. He reeked of staleness and must, and something she didn’t even want to try to identify. It made her want to choke.

  ‘How about a little kiss? Just to be social. To welcome me to your lovely home.’

  ‘Your girlfriend wouldn’t be very impressed,’ Angie said to the floor – anything to avoid looking at him playing with himself.

  ‘Girlfriend?’ He didn’t understand. Then he laughed. ‘She was a brass, darling. Girlfriends have to be better-looking than that old what’s-it. Girls like you, now you’re girlfriend material. A man could have dreams about having the likes of you.’

  Slowly, Angie raised her eyes, and stared at him. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Or I’ll tell David.’

  Albert let go of his genitals and raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Only having a laugh, darling. What can you expect when a man’s been away for an eight stretch?’

  Angie pushed past him and ran into the bathroom.

  She opened all the taps and flushed the lavatory, praying that he couldn’t hear her vomiting over all the noise, and that he wouldn’t realize just how much he terrified her.

  Martin sat in the college refectory, staring blindly over Jill Walker’s expensively clad shoulder into the middle distance. He felt as if he had been pole-axed.

  Jill was holding his hand across the Formica table, beaming at him like an evangelist intent on sharing her vision of the light and the one true path.

  Whatever else Martin had expected this morning, it certainly wasn’t this. He had come along to college to see his personal tutor, to hand in his final piece of work before the long vacation, and to put up with the embarrassing rollicking he actually knew he deserved for
being so late with the essay. But, as humiliating as that had been – he had felt like a naughty schoolboy – it was nothing compared to this bombshell.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Martin. Truly. You can still finish your degree. Mummy and Daddy have promised to help. And’, she squeezed his hand, ‘guess what? Daddy says there’s a place for you in the partnership.’ She laughed happily. ‘Not as a partner, of course. Well, not yet. But sons-in-law do get special treatment in the City, especially when their father-in-law is the senior partner in the firm. And there’s this sweet little cottage in the village …’

  This was going too fast for Martin. A job all set up for him in an accountancy firm? He’d only just finished his bloody first year at university. Say he wanted to travel the world? Be a pop star? Screw as many girls as he could get his leg over? Just be a drunken twenty-year-old in the student union bar? Be the sort of person who had opportunities in life, not someone chained to a bloody drudge-filled life, day in, day out, for the rest of his natural. Visions of his parents, and their silent evenings in front of the telly, swam before his eyes. He didn’t want this.

  ‘When did you find out?’ He sounded as if he had a mouth full of wadding.

  ‘I suppose I’ve known for a couple of weeks. I’m never late.’

  ‘Have you been to a doctor?’

  She nodded. ‘Mummy took me to her gynaecologist. He said I’m nearly three months.’ She touched Martin lovingly on the cheek. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t realize, when I kept being sick in the mornings.’

  Sick? Martin was the one who felt sick. ‘But how did it happen?’

  Jill dipped her chin and smiled coyly. ‘I thought I was meant to be the virgin, Martin.’

  Martin screwed his eyes shut and pressed his lips hard together; he hadn’t cried since Elvis, his tortoise, had gone missing, when he was ten years old.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he managed to say. ‘Why didn’t you take precautions?’

  Jill stiffened. ‘How was I meant to go to the doctor or the family planning clinic? I haven’t even got an engagement ring to show them, never mind a marriage certificate. And if you were so bothered, couldn’t you have used something?’