by Jessie Keane
But she was gone. The bleakness filled Max again at the thought of that.
Gone for ever.
‘Where’s Jonjo?’ he asked Eddie.
Eddie made a face. ‘Out with a new blonde.’
That cheered Max up a bit. Jonjo was good entertainment value, that was a fact. Jonjo and his fucking blondes. When Marilyn Monroe offed herself last year, Max almost thought that Jonjo would off himself too. Marilyn, to Jonjo, had been the ultimate.
Max couldn’t see it himself. He preferred dark-eyed brunettes. And Eddie preferred pretty young blokes, but so long as he didn’t frighten the horses, so what?
Eddie was looking at the gun in his brother’s hand.
‘You did it then,’ he said flatly.
Max paused and looked at Eddie square in the eye. Max’s eyes were suddenly a chilly blue, like arctic ice. ‘I did nothing.’
Eddie swallowed nervously. His lips quivered. ‘Holy Christ,’ he muttered.
Max replaced the gun in its oiled cloth and held it out to Eddie.
‘Take it out and bury it,’ he told him. ‘I don’t want to know where.’
Eddie did as he was told. Max went into the lounge and put Mozart on the radiogram. He sat down with a brandy, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
3
‘And where the fuck have you been?’ Connie Bailey demanded of her daughter as Annie let herself in the front door of her mother’s little terraced council house.
It was nearly dawn and one of Max’s boys had just dropped her off at the end of the road. Annie silently cursed her mother’s erratic sleeping habits. Connie was always trotting about in the night, making cups of tea and smoking fags, and that was in the quiet times. Now it was the day of the wedding, and with all the excitement Annie doubted that her mother had slept a wink.
Connie was perched on the bottom stair with a mug of tea and a cigarette. Annie looked at her with stark dislike and hoped it wasn’t true that daughters turned into their mothers.
Connie was dirt-poor skinny, with a smoker’s lined and yellowish skin. Her dry, dyed blonde hair was up in the sponge rollers she always wore at night, and her candlewick dressing gown, once peach-coloured, had faded to dirty beige.
Oh God, Annie thought, I could do without this. She was still smarting from the fact that Max had barely bothered to say goodbye to her. Annie wondered if he’d had Ruthie yet, but she doubted it. Ruthie was the Virgin Princess, the sort that men took home to meet their mums. Ruthie had been presented to Queenie Carter over tea at Christmas and, when she had met with Queenie’s approval, the marriage had been given the go-ahead.
Annie had never even met Queenie, although she had seen her about now and again with Max and his brothers. She’d never meet the imperious old woman now. She’d croaked back in the spring, heart attack or something.
There had been a lavish funeral on a rainy April day, a huge fleet of black Daimlers gliding through the East End behind the hearse. The pink carnations on either side of Queenie’s coffin had spelt out MUM. The streets had been lined with silent, respectful watchers.
All the men had removed their hats.
Some of the women had cried.
The Carter family were held in high regard around this manor, and that day was the proof.
‘I stopped at Kath’s,’ said Annie, closing the door behind her.
‘You’re a bloody liar,’ said Connie flatly, snorting smoke from her pinched little nose. ‘I spoke to Maureen two hours ago and she said that Kath was home by eleven and she didn’t have you with her. You’ve been up to no good.’
Annie let out an angry breath. ‘I’m twenty, Mum, not ten. What I do is my business.’
‘Not while you live under my roof,’ snapped Connie. ‘You’ve been out mucking around with some bloke or other.’
Annie stared at her mother. She ached to wipe that smug look off Connie’s face by telling her that the bloke was Max Carter, who was marrying good-as-gold Ruthie today.
It would be quite a laugh, standing behind them both at the altar in her role as bridesmaid, looking at Max’s broad, expensively suited shoulders and knowing that her scratch marks were still on them.
‘What’s going on?’
They both looked up. Ruthie was standing at the top of the stairs yawning as she shrugged into her red dressing gown. Her mousy hair was rumpled around her plain, placid face.
Ruthie wasn’t bad-looking, really.
There was a serenity about her.
But she didn’t have Annie’s incendiary beauty, and she didn’t have that flirtatious spark that made men lose their heads and sometimes their hearts. Connie always said that Ruthie was her good little girl. She also said that Annie was trouble just like her father, always had been, always would be.
Annie had been hurt by that when she was little. For a while she had tried to be good like Ruthie, to prove her mother wrong, but then Dad had left so it was clear that the good-behaviour policy had got her nowhere. Bad behaviour won her a lot more attention. All right, it was a clout around the ear or bed without supper, but it was attention nevertheless, and she had to claw a little back from perfect Ruthie now and again, or go mad.
‘Nothing’s going on, sweetheart,’ said Connie, and Annie’s lip curled because even Connie’s voice was different when she spoke to Ruthie. It was soft and gentle and soothing. When Connie spoke to Annie, her voice was harsh with dislike. ‘Just Annie out on the tiles, hooking her pearly about for any lad that wants it.’
Now that was unfair. Sure, she went down the pub with her mates and up West sometimes when she was flush, and she flirted and danced and teased, but she’d never come across for a man until last night, and she wanted to tell her mother that but she couldn’t. Pride wouldn’t let her.
‘Oh Annie,’ said Ruthie. ‘I don’t want you looking all washed-out for the big day.’
‘I won’t,’ said Annie tightly, pushing past Connie and running up the stairs. She paused in front of Ruthie. ‘What time did you say we had to be at the hairdresser’s?’
Ruthie rolled her eyes. ‘Nine o’clock. I told you.’
‘I forgot. I’ll get washed up,’ said Annie, and hurried into the bathroom.
She leaned on the sink and looked at her reflection. Her face was flushed, her dark eyes flashing with suppressed anger. She heard Ruthie go downstairs, heard their murmuring voices and knew what they were saying.
Poor Annie, Ruthie would say, she seems so lost.
Little tart, Connie would retort, if she isn’t knocked up before Christmas I’ll eat my hat.
Annie touched her belly thoughtfully. No, Max had been careful. An unplanned pregnancy would really put the cat among the pigeons. She thought back to how tender he had been at first, how sweet … and then how dismissive. Had and then forgotten, she thought. Her first time, a special time with a special man. That’s what it had been to her. To him, it had been nothing.
Nothing at all.
She felt tears prick her eyes again and blinked them back, hating the momentary weakness. Dig deep and stand alone, she told herself. She never cried. Even when her dad had left, she hadn’t cried, even though she had missed him like mad. She had idolized her dad and he had called her his little princess, but he had left her all the same, left them all, without so much as a kiss-your-ass.
Annie had withdrawn into herself with the shock of his leaving, but Ruthie had cried for days and got lots of cuddles off Connie as a consequence. Annie was made of tougher stuff, and she knew it. You could only ever rely on yourself in this world, she knew that too. Hard lessons, but she had learned them well.
So what if Connie had cuffed her more often than cuddled her? She had learned to cope with that.
She would cope with this.
4
Billy Black was excited. He stood among the gathering crowds outside the Bailey house and stared with awe at the pristine white Rolls-Royce parked at the kerb. Peach-coloured ribbons fluttered from the flying-lady m
ascot on the bonnet and flowers were draped over the parcel shelf behind the rear seats. Small, wide-eyed boys in short trousers ran their grubby hands over the paintwork.
The chauffeur stood there in his peaked cap and glared.
Aproned mothers with curlers in their hair and fags in their mouths snatched the boys back, but not too roughly. Everyone was in a good mood. The sun was shining, that was good too. Ruthie was a sweet girl and she deserved the sun shining upon her on this special day.
Then the front door opened.
The onlookers surged forward with smiles and cheers.
‘Look out, here she comes!’ rippled through the crowd, but it was the bridesmaids. It was Annie, Ruthie’s sister, and Kath her cousin, done up in empire-line peach silk and awkwardly clutching bouquets.
Billy held his breath.
‘Don’t they look a picture?’ cooed a woman beside him, but he was deaf to all that, his attention focused one hundred per cent on his beautiful Annie.
That was how he always thought of her: his beautiful Annie. He had adored her since she was eleven years old and he was sixteen, but not in a pervy way. In a pure and noble way. Her sister was all right, but Annie’s beauty glowed like a beacon, eclipsing all around it. He’d never been in love until he clapped eyes on Annie Bailey across the school playground. Once he’d seen her, he’d been lost.
Not that she would ever show the slightest interest in him, he knew that. He knew he was odd-looking. He had a long, thin face and a vacant look to his eyes. He’d had rickets when he was little and so he had a limp, and a bit of a humped back. Sometimes he stammered.
Billy had always been the outsider, watching everyone else having a good time and wanting to be included in that charmed circle. He had desperately wanted to be in Max’s gang when they were at school. All the others were part of Max’s gang, and they had grown up still in a gang and become Teddy boys together and gained a reputation for being tough nuts to deal with.
Billy remembered Max back then, how elegant he’d been in his royal-blue, black-trimmed Teddy jacket, black drainpipes and blue brothel-creepers, while his brother Jonjo had gone for red with black trim.
Billy didn’t like Jonjo.
Jonjo had a bit of a temper.
All the boys in the gang had gone on to work for Max in the rackets. Max was the leader and everyone else was doing his bidding. This had always been the case. When Max was a boy, he’d hung his white shirt out of his bedroom window, the signal for all the gang members to come running; and they had.
Billy had so wanted to be one of them, summoned by Max, valued by him, and he had been as proud as punch when one of Max’s boys had approached him in The Grapes and asked if he wanted some work. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but he was dependable, everyone knew that. It was just picking up and dropping stuff around town, that was all. He didn’t have to split the atom or anything. He’d jumped at the chance to be on the inside for a change, a part of the action; and he’d done his job punctiliously, pleasing Max and prompting him to trust Billy with other jobs.
Now he regularly did the milk round for Max. That was what the boys called collecting the takings from the billiard halls and arcades and parlours. Billy relished the responsibility and he was scrupulously honest.
Max appreciated that.
Billy was a bit slow but he was not a fool. The temptation was there sometimes to pinch a bit, but no one in their right mind would cross Max Carter.
Sometimes the Delaney mob pushed their luck, and Max didn’t like that at all. Billy felt a tremor of unease when he thought of the Delaneys. They’d done him over many times at school, but he’d pushed in on the edges of Max’s crowd and so gained a tenuous place of safety.
The Delaneys were scum, that’s what Max said, a mad, red-haired family of self-serving, devious Irish tinkers who didn’t belong here, and there was big trouble brewing. Tory Delaney and Max Carter had always been sworn enemies, and there had been many minor rucks between hot-tempered Jonjo and Mad Pat Delaney.
The whole thing made Billy nervous. The Delaneys were right cheeky gits and getting bolder all the time. He wondered at their nerve. Billy knew it was madness to upset Max. There were stories of people being done over by the boys, broken bottles and chains and even knives and guns coming into play.
There were even rumours about a pub landlord who’d parted company with a hand and a foot because he’d been into something nasty. Billy didn’t know what the man had done and he didn’t want to either. Keep your head down and do your job, that was his policy. That way you kept Max sweet, and nothing was more important than that.
Oh, but Annie was beautiful! She grinned, full of self-confidence, and waved to the crowd. Billy edged back among the throng. He didn’t want her to see him. He was too bloody ugly even to be in her presence. But he loved her. Worshipped her.
She ducked into the Rolls and was gone from view. Kath followed, looking surprisingly good for a change. She was an ugly mare, but today she looked okay. Her mum Maureen stood by, beaming with pride, in a purple suit and one of those feathery little clip-on hat efforts. Annie’s mum, Connie, was in yellow which didn’t suit her. Her weary, washed-out, smoker’s skin was emphasized by her yellow cartwheel hat.
Billy had a fine appreciation of hats. He’d seen Jack the Hat McVitie in his trilby around town, doing a bit of business and rattling the Kray clan, and Billy thought he looked quite stylish. He had quickly realized that here was a way of attaining sartorial elegance.
He chose for himself a deerstalker, which made him look intelligent like Sherlock Holmes. He teamed the hat with a raincoat and a large brown leather briefcase in which he carried the tools of his trade, his notebooks and pens. People looked at him, and he felt proud. He had achieved what he had long craved for; to be a respected member of Max Carter’s gang.
He watched regretfully as the Rolls roared away. It would come back in ten minutes and collect Max’s bride-to-be, but Billy wasn’t going to wait around with the rest of them to catch a glimpse of Ruthie on her big day and throw confetti all over her sweet, laughing face.
He turned on his heel and walked away. He’d seen all he wanted to see.
Billy went down The Grapes because they always made him welcome there. The Grapes was on Max’s manor, and all Max’s boys were respected there, even himself. There was never any trouble. Two of the boys, Gary Tooley and Steven Taylor, were in, wearing their best suits and white carnations in their lapels. They were sitting just inside the door of the snug, talking in low voices.
Billy moved about quietly and he had good ears, Max always said so, and Billy heard Gary say: ‘No offence, all respect to the man, but you’d have to be a bit of a cunt to do that, don’t you think?’
‘I’m not paid to think,’ said Steven.
‘Yeah, but even so. Buying a fucking mansion in the arse end of the country, what’s that all about? He’s an East End boy like us, why the airs and graces? He’s getting out of touch.’
‘Nah, he’s in touch,’ said Steven, shaking his head.
‘No, he ain’t. And he’s been odd since his old mum died like she did, you have to admit that. He’s starting a shitstorm war with the fucking Delaneys, and that means all our cocks are on the chopping block, see what I mean? Fair play to him, he’s got to do something about it, but I dunno.’
Steven saw Billy hovering there. ‘Watch your mouth,’ he said, and nudged Gary. Gary looked up and went pale.
‘Heyup, it’s creeping Jesus,’ he said with bravado. ‘All right, Sherlock? How’s Doctor Watson keeping, then?’
Billy smiled uncertainly at the pair and moved over to the bar to order his usual lemonade. He never drank alcohol, and that was another thing that Max valued about him.
Billy thought that the atmosphere in The Grapes felt strange today, and he drank up quickly and left as soon as he could, noticing as he did so that Steve and Gary were already gone. It was a big day; Max’s wedding. Billy hadn’t been invited but then
he hadn’t expected to be. It was close friends and family only.
It was a day of celebration for the Carters. It would have been nice if old Queenie Carter could have lived to see it, but her heart had given out, that was the word that was going around.
Billy frowned.
There had been a robbery. There was a story circulating that someone had meant to rob the annexe where she lived at Max’s posh place in the country and finish her off at the same time; a deal had been struck with someone, maybe one of the other mobs. Maybe the Delaneys. But her heart had given out before the deed could be done.
Lots of rumours, nothing definite. It worried him.
Ruthie Bailey had never felt so happy. Her life had been hard, with Dad going like he did and Connie taking to booze for the duration. And she’d always been the plain one next to Annie, the dull one, the worthy one, the one everyone approved of. Which wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, even if it did win her Mum’s approval while Annie caught all the drunken knocks. Ruthie had always felt boring beside Annie; predictable, staid – a homebody.
Then she’d got the push from the hairdresser’s because business was slack and it was last one in, first one out. Connie had told Max. He was always ready to help the people on his patch. Suddenly her little Ruthie was a hat-check girl in one of his swanky clubs. The job was all right, but it was Max who made it for Ruthie. From the minute he’d handed her his coat and winked at her, Ruthie had been in love with him.
She hadn’t told a soul.
She watched him charming everyone, throwing parties for famous people, even mixing with members of parliament, and she silently adored him.
He came in and out of the clubs and as the weeks passed he’d say hello to her, ask her how the job was going, then he’d started to chat to her and – oh God! – then he’d asked her out on a proper date. She couldn’t believe it was true. She, dull little Ruthie Bailey, was dating Max Carter.
