‘Nay, my lads slip me a bit when they can. Our Bert’s very generous, and even Tommy sends me something now and then, though he’s saving up to be wed, so that’s tailing off now. Our Harry’s been a bit short lately. Has Leah said owt?’
Jess shook her head, frowning slightly. ‘She says very little about Harry, or anything that goes on at that club, in fact. She’s become much quieter these last few months, not at all the bubbly personality I used to know. I do worry about her, but she won’t talk about it, not a word. Do you think they’re having problems, her and Harry, with the club? Or with their marriage?’
Cora sucked in her breath, wondering how much she should tell. She, of all people, could guess what was going on behind closed doors, and so could Jess if she put her mind to it. Maybe she didn’t want to know, liked to think that everything was hunky-dory for her friend, for all she’d got herself mixed up with the dreadful Delaneys. ‘I don’t reckon trade’s too bright, and it’ll get worse now the yanks are going back home.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You’re doing well though, with that band.’ Cora cast her a sideways glance. Don’t interfere, said the familiar, chiding voice at the back of her head. Never did no good to poke your nose in to Harry’s business. Except, happen, for once, she might give it a try. That wife of his looked thin as a drink of water, and somebody needed to do something before she slipped through a crack in the pavement. ‘It’s none of my business, and I don’t like to pry, but I suppose you do pay Leah something for playing in it.’
Jess had been choosing a few rosy apples for Johnny as a treat, now she paused, money in hand, surprised by the question. ‘Of course I do. We all earn good money from the band. It’s an equal partnership.’
‘Then what d’you reckon she does with it? She doesn’t put it on her back, though that kiddy doesn’t go short of owt.’
‘Harry dotes on him, I think he’s always buying him presents.’
The market holder said, ‘I thought you were buying those apples, but happen not.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Jess abstractedly handed over a few pennies, still frowning at Cora. ‘But you’re right, Leah gets very little for herself these days. I wonder why? Perhaps she’s saving it, like me, for a rainy day.’
‘If it rains much more on that lass, she’ll flaming drown.’
Jess abruptly stopped walking, causing the woman behind to bump into her, full tilt. ‘Sorry,’ she hastily apologised yet again, then quickly turned back to Cora. ‘What do you know, that I don’t? What’s going on? Come on Cora, get it off your chest.’
Cora stared at her in wide-eyed innocence. ‘What would I know?’
‘Quite a lot, I should imagine.’
‘Well, I’m saying nowt.’
‘Yes you are. We’re going into Old Ma Greenwood’s Café here and I’m going to buy you pie and peas and you’re going to tell me all you know about Harry and Leah.’
Having tied Johnny to a chair, his bib neatly in place with a dish of peas before him, and once Cora had satisfied herself that the pie was nowhere near as good as her own, she finally spoke of her fears. The plump, homely face creased with such concern that for the first time she looked like an old woman. She told of how she thought Harry was beating hell out of the poor lass. ‘Can’t you tell by how thin and scraggy looking she’s gone lately.’
Jess went death pale. She should have guessed what was going on. Like father, like son. Somehow, she felt as if she had personally let Leah down by not being there to protect her. ‘I thought – I hoped, that was just from running around after the new baby.’
Cora dolefully shook her head. ‘And she’s always bleating on about money. Same as our Harry is. He says Bernie left them with debts. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not but I were wondering, what with you doing so nicely with that band of yours, whether you couldn’t lend him a bob or two.’
‘You want me to give Harry money?’
‘I said lend. A loan, for your friend’s sake. It’ll happen get them out of whatever hole they’re in, and it might persuade him to stop taking it out on that lass, stop him bullying her into nicking from her dad.’
Jess went whiter still at this new, putting down her knife and fork, her appetite quite gone. ‘Oh Cora, no! Not that as well.’
‘Afraid so. She told me not to say anything and I haven’t, all this time, but she needs help. And she’s too proud to beg for it from her folks, not after what she’s done to them. Clifford Simmons gave one lass the sack over it, innocent though the poor lass was, and Leah had to be more careful after that. But Harry wouldn’t let her stop. Once he’s got the flaming bit between his teeth, there’s no budging him.’
‘I won’t lend him a single penny, not while I live and breathe. I’ll help Leah any day, but not him. I know he’s your lad, Cora, but so help me, he’s more his father’s son than yours. He’s Bernie all over again, come back to haunt me.
Words which proved to be more prophetic than she could ever have imagined. The very next time the band played, Jess took the opportunity to speak to Leah, asking her how she was, remarking on how thin she’d got and would a bit more money help?
‘It went down like a barrage balloon,’ Jess told Cora afterwards. ‘Wouldn’t hear of a loan, or even a rise. Insisted she was just fine, thank you very much, and what gossip had I been listening to?’
Cora groaned. ‘I hope you didn’t say it came from me.’
‘I’m not entirely stupid.’ The two women chewed the problem over for a little while but in the end decided that they could do nothing more at present except keep a close watch on events.
In any case, Jess had problems of her own to deal with. Doug was still proving obstinate about the band. Having got it into his head that she was being deliberately perverse by carrying on with it in order to plague him, he’d now instructed her to close it down completely. But the more he insisted that she should give it up, the more determined Jess became to keep it.
‘That band is my life,’ she told him.
‘No,’ he stubbornly responded. ‘I am your life. Me and that child of yours.’
‘You mean Johnny. He’s not that child! Why won’t you ever say his name?’
Harry was a worried man. He’d taken risks to get where he was today, as had his father before him: nicking booze, running an illegal card school, using girls for what he thought girls did best. Another was getting involved with Jimmy Doyle, generally known as Little Jimmy since he was the brother of Big Pat, the female all-in wrestler. He was a small, stocky man with gentle Irish eyes, but despite his diminutive size, he was not a man to cross wasn’t Little Jimmy. Not least because if he ever did find himself in a spot of bother, he called Big Pat in to help.
Harry hadn’t given this association too much consideration in the past, simply because taking risks was par for the course, certainly to a Delaney. Then a couple of unexpected visitors to his establishment one day in early June, were to change his mind on that score.
Setting up the club had strained even Harry’s powers of imagination, and the gaming school had been one step too far. Bernie had done the renovations but equipping it all, putting in those chandeliers which gave the place taste, however brash, had been Harry’s idea. When Bernie’s money had run out, Harry had borrowed a few quid from Jimmy, who’d shown interest in the project from the start. Thus it hadn’t been his father who’d run up the debts, as he’d claimed, but Harry himself, and he’d been aware that one day Jimmy Doyle would call in the debt.
So when two of Jimmy’s sidekicks turned up at his door, Harry was studiously polite to them, ever circumspect when it came to saving his own skin, giving them a free chaser with the beers they ordered.
‘It’s good to see you appreciate what Mr Doyle has done for you,’ said one.
Harry hastened to assure them just how very grateful he was.
‘Were you considering showing this gratitude in a concrete way, any time soon?’ asked the other, an altogether nastier piece
of goods in Harry’s opinion, with that twisted leer and a cast in one eye.
‘Indeed, I shall be making another substantial repayment by the end of next week.’ Harry knew that he hadn’t a hope in hell of doing any such thing, not unless his luck changed overnight. He’d always believed that the owner of a card school was the one who made all the profit, but he’d discovered to his cost that wasn’t the case at all. By the time he’d paid staff, barmen, cleaners, a couple of heavies to watch the punters didn’t cheat him, there was precious little left over for his own pocket. He got his cut from the girls and from the tenants he found to occupy the other rooms above the club, but that barely covered the cost of maintaining this establishment, which was huge. It was all very worrying.
‘Next Saturday, first thing,’ he said again, reassuring himself as much as them, and pouring second whiskies all round.
‘This Friday would be better.’
Harry swallowed carefully, still smiling. ‘This Friday it is then.’
If I don’t do something quick, I’ll be a goner by Saturday week, he thought. Maybe it was time to call in a few debts of his own.
Jess took to calling round to see Leah more often than previously, trying on several occasions to persuade her friend to confide in her. So far all efforts had been fruitless. Leah remained steadfastly silent about her troubles, maintaining that all was well with her marriage, that nothing was wrong, nothing she couldn’t cope with anyway.
These visits hadn’t gone down too well with Harry who started complaining Jess was like a constant bad smell around the place. Then one afternoon while she was waiting for her friend to get changed, he came up the stairs to the flat, glass in hand as usual, sprawled in his chair and, quite out of the blue, asked point blank how much she was making out of the band.
Jess was caught unawares. ‘I think that’s my business, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t, as a matter of fact, not if my wife is playing in it.’
‘She gets her fair share, as we all do. Leah would be the first to tell you that.’
‘Let’s put it this way,’ Harry said with what might pass for a smile. ‘It isn’t enough. We need more, and you owe it to us.’
‘I owe you nothing. As a matter of fact I recently offered Leah a loan, because I thought she looked so sad and careworn, and she refused. Said she was fine, thank you very much, and she’d let me know if and when she needed anything but that she was well looked after by her loving husband. Perhaps you don’t appreciate how ridiculously loyal she is to you. Loyal to a fault, some might say.’
‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Still the same lippy cow you ever were.’ He carefully set down his half drunk beer and came to stand threateningly close, leaning over her with his hands resting on each arm of the chair in which she sat, effectively trapping her within it. ‘But you do owe me. Quite a lot, in fact. Had it not been for your provoking my dad, Mam would never have needed to lay him out cold, then me and Bert wouldn’t have had to bury our own father in that bomb site. Have you any idea how that makes a chap feel? It’s not very nice, I can tell you that for nowt.’
Jess felt as if the room were retreating, as if all sounds and images were coming from some great distance, and she was floating above it all, drifting backwards into the realm of nightmares. ‘I - I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.’
‘Aye you do. You understand well enough. When our Mam clocked him one, she finished old Bernie off for good. Happen it were a hefty rolling pin, or else he had a thin skull. Either way, because of you, she’s a murderess. Do you hear? Our mam is a murderess and could be hanged for knocking off her old man. So don’t try saying that you owe me nowt.’ He pushed his big face close up to hers, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. ‘You get me some hard cash love, or happen it’ll all have to come out in the open. Only the way I’ll tell the story, it’ll be you doing the time, not our mam. Got that chuck? Loud and clear?’
Jess knew she was trembling with shock, but desperately tried not to let it show. She wouldn’t give Harry the satisfaction. ‘That sounds very like blackmail.’
‘Call it whatever fancy word you choose but make no mistake - I mean business. We can discuss the amount later, but a nice tidy sum, eh?’
‘Never! Do your worst, I don’t care what happens to me.’
It was pure bravado, and he knew it. ‘Aye you do.’ He gave a bark of laughter before going back to his own chair to pick up his glass and finish his beer in one long swallow. Wiping the froth from a mouth twisted into a sneer, he looked more than ever like his father. ‘You have a child to think of, remember. What would happen to him if you were incarcerated, as your mam once was?’
Jess went sick at the thought.
‘Besides, once the polis start asking questions, who knows where it’ll end up? And you don’t want owt to happen to our lovely Cora either, now do you?’
‘You wouldn’t risk anything happening to your own mother.’
Harry’s smile was wintry as he calmly replied. ‘She killed my dad. Happen I’m not too bothered either way which of you cops it, so long as somebody pays up. Preferably in cash.’
Jess thought this was a nightmare from which she might never wake. She felt quite unable to fully grasp what Harry had said. Cora had killed Bernie? Dear God, what a mess! So that was why they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in all this time. What had Harry said? That they’d buried him in some bomb site, and the rescue services had done the rest. A nightmare indeed.
‘Is it true?’ She had to ask Cora. Worried as she was over how to deal with the matter, she couldn’t seem to let it lie.
Cora barely paused in the rolling of pastry for yet another pie as she calmly replied, ‘Whatever he got, he had it coming. Not fit to lick your boots, the nasty bugger.’
Jess sat staring at her aunt, dazed, and she couldn’t help wondering if the rolling pin she was using now for the pastry, was the self-same implement she’d used on him. ‘Cora, tell me straight. Did you really do for him with that rolling pin?’
‘Happen I’m stronger than I look.’ She looked like an all-in wrestler, someone who could go more than the expected three rounds with Big Pat herself. ‘But like I say, he asked for it, great bully that he was. He’d no right to interfere with you in that way, no matter how drunk he were, or how far he managed to go – you know what I mean - it were too far. I had to save you, lass, what else could I do?’
‘Oh Cora, what can I say?’
‘You could say good riddance to bad rubbish, I do, every day.’ And by the determined set of her several chins, she clearly meant it. ‘Put it behind you. You’ve got a new life now, not the one you intended to have, happen, but there’s not a blind bit of good moping. That’s the way it is, so live with it. What can’t be cured. . .’ And as if this settled the matter, she rolled up the pastry lid onto the wooden pin and spread it neatly over the pie dish, before trimming away the excess pastry with a very sharp knife.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jess did her utmost to follow Cora’s wise advise to put the whole sorry tale behind her, but it wasn’t easy. Bernie’s image did indeed come back to haunt her. Night after night she would see his round, sneering face, feel his big wet slobbering mouth on hers, see the glisten of his greasy hair over his bald head, and she’d wake in a cold sweat. She couldn’t pretend she was sorry he was dead, any more than his own wife did. He’d brought little joy into anyone’s life, not even to his own sons if they could so easily dispose of his remains.
But if Jess thought too closely about the price she had paid for his ‘interference’, she truly would go mad. Not only had he been the reason for Lizzie being sent to jail, for all she remained the only one to mourn him, but Jess would never have lost Steve had it not been for Bernie Delaney. She wished she could agree with Cora that Johnny was Steve’s child, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do so, however much she might try.
She picked up the baby and gave him a cuddle, as if to reass
ure him it wasn’t important, that he had her. Beaming happily, Little Johnny bobbed his nose against hers in an imitation of the Eskimo kiss she liked to give him, making Jess laugh out loud.
How could she ever have not wanted him, have deprived him of her love when he’d first been born? She must have been mad, or sick in the head. Wallowing in self pity, and where was the point in that? What had happened wasn’t the baby’s fault. He was the innocent in all of this mess. He was her child, a part of her, and yet already a little person in his own right. Whoever his father was she loved him to bits, more than life itself.
‘Let’s play music and be happy,’ Jess told him, and sitting Johnny in his chair, she picked up her trumpet and began to play. He banged his spoon with perfect rhythm, proving he was indeed her child. But it brought tears to her eyes as she was transported back to a time when everything had seemed so straightforward, when she’d dreamed of marrying Steve, and of being the next Ivy Benson. A time when she’d been young, filled with hope for the future, and the joy of loving. If all of those dreams were now gone, she must make the best of what she had left. At least she had her lovely child and her music.
Harry was the big worry, a chip off the old block as you might say, and not a man who liked to be ignored. What was she going to do about Harry?
‘All we can do is concentrate on looking after Leah and little Susie,’ Jess had said to Cora, who had sadly nodded. But privately, Jess believed that more definite action would be required. Harry wasn’t one to let go, not once he’d made up his mind on something.
A few days later Harry came round, and since Jess was out he spoke to Doug, asking if she’d left a package for him.
‘What sort of package?’ Doug asked, curious. ‘Don’t you see Jess every day at the club, when she comes round to gossip with Leah?’
Harry mumbled something about her always forgetting it, claiming she’d left it at home, so he thought he’d come round and save her the trouble. ‘It’s probably in an envelope, a big one.’
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