Two Women

by Martina Cole

  She poured Barry a Scotch and he sipped it.

  ‘You sure you know what you’re doing, mate? Only this bloke’s all right, a good customer. But I need a few grand sharpish and he seemed like the only viable way of getting it.’

  Barry grinned and Babs began to like him. He had a funny charm she couldn’t resist, a bit like a white Jonah.

  ‘What time does he normally get here?’

  Babs sipped at her drink. Barry watched as her full lips caressed the glass. Painted a deep red, they were suddenly very interesting. All of Babs was interesting. From her small pointy breasts to her tight high arse, she was suddenly very interesting indeed.

  ‘At nine on the dot. He’s a funny little bloke really, a nice man in a lot of respects. Some of the punters are right arseholes. Flash, you know. They think because they’re paying for it they own you. Pushing you around, making you do things they haven’t paid extra for.’

  She held up one finger as she spoke. It had a long red nail and Barry was mesmerised by it.

  ‘I had a bloke yesterday, about fucking sixty he was - ugly as sin and he smelled. A lot of them smell. Funny that, ain’t it? Anyway in he comes all sweetness and light and then he wants me to put on these shoes. So I put them on and walked about a bit. Then, right, he wants me to give him a blow job in the window - in the window, if you don’t mind - while he wears a balaclava!’

  She roared with laughter then.

  Barry looked at his watch. It was ten past seven.

  ‘Listen, Babs, I’ll be back at nine, all right? I’ll have him before he even gets here so don’t worry.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, I thought you didn’t want to know before, when you didn’t turn up. What did happen, Barry, because I’ve seen you every day since.’

  He sighed heavily.

  ‘I told you, something came up, love.’

  She bent over to pour herself another drink and he saw the track marks on her arms.

  ‘You should keep away from that shit, it’ll kill you one day.’

  Babs laughed again, a real belly laugh.

  ‘Barry, you fool, I’m already dead, mate, from the neck down.’ She pulled her little top down and showed him her breasts. ‘See these, boy? They take on average seven men a day, six days a week. Now over four years that amounts to . . .’

  She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, trying to work out the exact amount.

  Barry answered for her.

  ‘That’s one hundred and sixty-eight men a month. Times that by twelve and then by four.’

  Babs pulled back the top.

  ‘Don’t bother. I think we both get the picture, don’t you?’

  He was shocked by the thought.

  ‘Fucking hell, Babs, that’s a lot of blokes.’

  She laughed again.

  ‘I don’t just take on men, I have a couple of women customers too. We whores call it having a bit of soft. It gets you like that in the end. Men have no mystery for you, see, so you tend to gravitate towards other women.’

  Barry was even more shocked now.

  ‘Don’t you ever feel the urge to have a bit then?’

  ‘I’m always having a bit, Barry, that’s the fucking trouble.’

  They both laughed and the atmosphere was defused.

  ‘You’d better go, I have a punter due in ten minutes. A nice man with a wrinkly cock and wrinkly balls, but he’s quiet and it’s all over in ten minutes. Give me the olds any day of the week, they ain’t trying to prove nothing.’

  Barry finished his drink. He was looking forward to rolling the punter. He saw them all as perverts now. How could any man sleep with someone who was a stranger and had been sleeping with strangers all day?

  The thought depressed him, and after he left he found himself walking, walking, and thinking about how Babs and people like her became what they were.

  As usual he found himself walking towards Susan’s flats. He stood outside and looked up at the windows.

  The anger was back. Anger at himself, anger at Susan for having him over, and anger at Joey McNamara who was trumping her and getting away with it. Barry wondered what all the hard nuts would think if they knew that Joey was a beast, and the worst kind of beast at that. He fucked his own kid. And how long had that been going on? Barry would find out.

  But Susan was grounded and it looked like it was for life. No one had seen her. Not at school, not anywhere.

  He noticed Debbie tripping up the road. This was a whore in the making, with her make up, her fag and her provocative clothes. He watched her surreptitiously from the cover of the flats opposite.

  As she walked towards her own entrance he called, ‘Oi, Debbie, over here.’

  She looked through the gloom and smiled radiantly to see him.

  ‘Hello, Barry, how are you?’ she asked, walking over.

  She was pert as usual. The heavily lipsticked mouth wore a practised pout and her breasts were thrust out on display. He knew she liked him, knew she would do the dirty on her sister at the drop of a hat.

  She disgusted him. Give him Babs any day of the week. At least she didn’t pretend to be anything other than what she was.

  But he smiled at Debbie.

  ‘How’s Susan?’

  Her face dropped.

  ‘Susan is in shit so deep it would take ten paddies with shovels to get her out.’

  She laughed at her own words.

  Barry didn’t laugh and his expression told Debbie she ought to go easy.

  ‘She’s still grounded, still laid up in bed. No one can go in there now except me dad. He takes her her meals and that. It’s awful. Can you imagine what it’s like for me?’

  Barry smiled briefly. Trust Debbie to see only her own troubles and no one else’s.

  ‘She’s always hated me dad, but now her and me mum are at it it’s even worse. Me mum acts as if Susan ain’t in the flat. I tell you, it’s terrible. I can’t get in to see her unless they’re both out and that’s not often. But she always asks if I’ve seen you so I can tell her now that I have and that will cheer her up, I can tell you. Do you want me to give her a message?’

  Barry wasn’t sure whether he wanted it or not now he had the opportunity.

  ‘Tell her I said hello.’

  That needn’t mean anything. He would decide what he wanted to do once Susan was back on the street.

  ‘So your dad is the only one allowed in to see her? What about the doctor?’

  Debbie’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he flayed her, didn’t he? Beat the shit out of her.’

  Debbie realised she was on dangerous ground. Everyone knew that there had been trouble but no one knew the extent of it, her father had made sure of that.

  ‘He gave her a dig, yeah, but she asked for it.’

  Barry grinned.

  ‘A dig? Well, that’s not too bad then. I heard he’d hammered the fuck out of her.’

  ‘And where did you hear that?’

  ‘From your nan’s bedroom actually. I heard everything, Debbie. Everything.’

  His words were loaded and she knew it, but loaded with what?

  ‘Don’t let me dad find that out, Barry, or you’ll be the next one getting flayed as you put it.’

  Realising she had let him in on too much she turned from him and he watched as she teetered across the road. Her confident gait was gone, he noticed, and was glad. She was a slag.

  Barry began the long walk back to Babs’s. He had work to do and this must not interfere. He had a plan already forming in his mind and wanted to make sure he got it just right before he made it happen.

  Susan’s eyes were red-rimmed and the weight seemed to be dropping off her. It was three weeks now since the showdown at her granny’s and she was still imprisoned in her bedroom. Her father and mother seemed set on keeping her here for the rest of her life and this scared her more than anything.

  The school had been told she had had an accident
and had sent work home for her. Susan had nearly laughed at the irony as her father had given her her schoolbooks and told her to get on with it all.

  She was still not allowed to get dressed, not even to comb her hair. She knew she looked dreadful, even worse than usual. She also knew it was a psychological thing. Joey wanted to break her, and she was pretending that he had. She knew it was the only way out of her situation.

  In her world the authorities were kept at bay with bullshit and aggression. It had always worked before and it always would. She knew that as clearly as she knew her own name and address. It was the reason her father walked the streets instead of being locked up and her mother lived her lifestyle.

  They were the scum of the earth in everyone’s eyes so no one expected any different from them. ‘The under-class’ they were called by sociologists. Susan knew all this, and she also knew that nothing would ever change it. It was inbred in them, too much a way of life to be changed by anything. Any government who thought they could change things should read the classics. There had always been families like the McNamaras and there always would be. They were a law unto themselves.

  Debbie slipped into the room and Susan was glad to see her. Even though they did not really get on, she had come to rely on her sister’s visits to keep her sane. Even Debbie’s chatter was better than nothing.

  ‘I just seen your bloke, Barry Dalston.’

  This was said in a low voice and Susan felt her heart race at the words.

  ‘What did he say?’

  Debbie snorted nastily.

  ‘He said to tell you hello. Not much of a conversationalist, is he? Even the blokes outside the pub could do better than that.’

  It was more than enough for Susan in her isolated state, it was like a ten-page letter. He had not abandoned her, he knew the worst and still wanted to see her! She felt the pounding of her heart as it quickened. She had to get out of here, had to get back to some kind of normality.

  ‘He’s a wanker and if you have anything more to do with him you’ll be sorry, Sue. If Dad knew there’d be murder done and you know that. Just let him go.’

  Susan looked into her sister’s painted face. All panstick and cheap mascara, she looked much older than her years, sounded much older too.

  She sighed at the futility of their lives.

  ‘How did he look?’

  Debbie curled one pink-painted lip in a gesture of contempt.

  ‘Well, put it this way, he didn’t look like he was pining for you if that’s what you mean.’

  Susan knew that he had annoyed Debbie and was sorry for the fact. She could have been a go-between, but now it was out of the question and that depressed her even more.

  ‘Have a nice time?’

  Debbie shook her head.

  ‘Nah, not really. The pub was fucking empty and Dave was with that slag Lynda from the buildings. What he sees in her I don’t know. All tight skirts and make up.’

  Debbie looked at herself in the mirror as she said this and Susan wondered how she didn’t see that she was just like that herself.

  In fact she was more made up than poor old Lynda, a good-looking girl who had to live down the fact that she was from an even worse family than their own. At least they had some cachet as the daughters of the local bullyboy. Not much to brag about, Susan knew, but in their world it afforded them a small amount of respect.

  Lynda’s father was an Irish drunk who beat their mother in the street and had got the two elder daughters pregnant before they were thirteen. But then, everyone knew about him. Pity they didn’t know about Joey. That would put a stop to his gallop in more ways than one. Even the Bannermans and the Davidsons would balk at employing him then.

  You could do a lot of things in the East End: murder, steal anything, inflict violence. But touch children, especially your family, or rape and you were on your own. It was an unwritten law.

  ‘Did he look nice then - Barry?’

  Debbie took pity on her sister and smiled.

  ‘Yeah, he looked lovely. But listen to me, Sue, he reckons he was in Nan’s when it all happened, and if that’s true there’ll be murders. I mean, if he was there why didn’t Ivy say anything?’

  Susan rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Why do you think? She likes him. Thinks he’s all right. If Dad knew, imagine what he’d do to the old cow.’

  They laughed at the thought of Ivy getting one over on the son she professed to adore.

  ‘All the same, Sue, Dad wouldn’t be a happy bunny if he knew.’

  ‘Fuck him. I’m sick of thinking about him.’

  The words were loaded and Debbie was quiet for a moment. The two girls looked into each other’s eyes.

  ‘He might not be your dad anyway. At least you can console yourself with that much.’

  It was the first time Debbie had hinted at such a thing and Susan was grateful to her.

  ‘If he ain’t me dad, then who is?’

  Debbie laughed gently.

  ‘Well, not being funny, mate, but with Mother’s track record that’s a question that may never be answered.’

  They laughed then, girls together, finding humour in the darkest of secrets and circumstances.

  Sitting upright in bed Susan looked prettier than she had before. She was much slimmer and her dumpy legs had fined down.

  ‘You look better than you did, Sue. Try and keep the weight off and you’ll look great in no time.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t really care what I look like, not any more. With my face and figure what chance have I got anyway? Barry liked me the way I was, or at least he told me he did. Not with words, of course, more with actions. You know.’

  Debbie nodded. She knew Susan meant he wanted to sleep with her so ergo he must like her. Susan, she reasoned, for all her book reading knew nothing about blokes. They would sleep with anything at Barry’s age, it was the law of youth and hormones.

  ‘I’d better go. Mum’s snoring off the lunchtime sherry and the old man’s due in soon. I’ll try and pop in later, all right?’

  The phone started to ring and Debbie rushed from the room. She knew it would be for her.

  Now their father was a gangster they had a phone. It was used by all the neighbours and the number was given out to relatives to ring if there was a problem, such as a death or a birth.

  Susan found it laughable.

  Debbie loved it, she felt as if she was the queen of the street now because of it - giving out the number to everyone and anyone with her eyebrows arched and her pert bottom arranged expertly to look the picture of the sophisticated phone owner.

  Susan heard the front door open and sighed. Joey was home. Her life could only get more difficult now.

  Joey had the raving hump. It was in the way he walked, the way he closed the door and in his face as he saw his eldest daughter curled up on the new Dralon telephone table-cum-chair.

  He had been drinking, that much was evident, and he had also lost a lot of money on the horses. That much would not be evident until later in the day. Sufficient to say that one look at her father told Debbie to cut the call short. The sensible part of her brain was telling her this, but the stupid part of her wanted to talk to Dave who had apparently dumped Lynda from the buildings and had now rung her.

  He was trying to talk her into going back down the pub. She was going to go back down the pub but her womanly instincts told her to make him beg first. If her father had the hump then that was his look out, not hers.

  ‘Get off that fucking phone, I’m waiting for an important call.’

  Debbie put her hand over the receiver and whispered, ‘Two minutes, Dad, that’s all.’ She put the phone back to her ear and carried on talking to Dave.

  Joey watched her and in his drunken state his daughter’s heavily made up face and tight clothes registered on his brain.

  It could have been June sitting there twenty years before. For some reason this annoyed him. Debbie annoyed him just by loo
king like her mother. Everyone annoyed him tonight.

  ‘Get off the fucking phone, Debs, or I’ll rip it out of the wall.’

  As he spoke he took the phone from her and slammed it back on to the cradle.

  Debbie jumped up from the mock Tudor love seat and bellowed, ‘What you fucking think you’re doing? I was talking to someone.’

  She had no fear of her father, he always let her get away with everything. She picked up the phone again and started to dial a number. Ripping the phone from her hands, Joey threw it against the wall. It crashed to the floor in pieces.

  Debbie’s eyes were like saucers as she looked at her father.

  ‘Well, that was clever, weren’t it? No fucking phone now for you, me or anyone.’

  She dragged her coat off the hook by the front door and started putting it on.

  ‘Where are you going, madam?’

  Her father’s voice was dangerously low but Debbie was too angry to care.

  ‘Out. What does it look like?’

  Joey stepped towards her.

  ‘You ain’t going nowhere, lady, you hear me? And you talk to me with a bit of respect. I’m your father not some kid off the street.’

  ‘Piss off, Dad, you’re drunk.’

  Her dismissive words were like a knife through his brain. June had woken up at the noise and come into the hallway.

  ‘What’s going on now?’

  Joey looked at her. She looked terrible; her make up was smudged, her clothes creased.

  ‘What’s going on, June? I’ll tell you what’s going on. Your daughter is talking to me like I am a piece of shit. Now I wonder where the fuck she could have got that from, eh? Not you and that other fat cunt in the bedroom by any chance?’

  He dragged Debbie roughly towards her mother and pushed the two women into the lounge.

  ‘You,’ he pointed at Debbie, ‘are going nowhere. And you, lady,’ he pointed at his wife, ‘are not going anywhere either. What the fuck am I in this house, eh? I earn the wedge, I put the food on the table and clothe the lot of you, me mother included. And you two treat me like I’m the local fucking nonsense. Well, not any more.’

  He was bellowing now, his face red with temper and fists clenched ready to strike them.