Doug made a show of looking but was able to honestly say he knew nothing about any envelope and sent Harry packing.
Harry had managed to wangle an extension from Jimmy Doyle, on the strength of a promise that he had some money owing to him, but he wasn’t so naïve as to think Doyle would be patient for too long. It wasn’t Big Pat who troubled him so much, for all she had muscles on her the size of hams. She was merely a woman, and Harry was quite sure he could handle himself, if push came to shove. What he didn’t relish was the prospect of open warfare with Little Jimmy’s army. Who knew how many other ex-squaddies he had waiting in the wings, just itching to have a go at him.
Wanting an outlet for his frustration, Harry went straight round to his brother and dragged him out for a drink at the Crown. Settled in a corner with a couple of beers before them, Harry came straight to the point. ‘We have to do something about that cousin of ours,’ he raged.
‘Like what, Harry? What has our Jess done to upset you?’ Bert was a contented man these days, with a wife and family he adored, and felt some reluctance to return to the old days of being forever under his brother’s thumb. He had a job down at the docks that paid good money, and was legit. Harry had refused him a partnership in the club, done nothing but boss him around and Maisie had convinced him that he should have more pride in himself. She had a lot of common sense did Maisie. Bert trusted his wife completely, and he’d never been more happy in his life, which was saying a great deal.
‘We have to make her sorry for what she did to us, and to our dad.’
‘I thought it were Mam what did for him, and you were glad to see the back of him, as I recall. Made you into a big man, right?’
Harry flashed a startled glance about the crowded public bar. ‘Have you still not learned to shut your mouth? Who knows what ears might be flapping round here. What I’m saying is that we still haven’t paid her that lesson we promised her, and I’ve decided it’s time we did. She’s rolling in brass from that band of hers. I don’t know about you but a bit extra would come in very handy.’
‘Is she going to lend you some, Harry?’
‘Lend? Who said anything about lend? Let’s say she’s going to make a large donation to the Keep-Harry-Alive-Fund. I’ve got a bit of a problem with Jimmy Doyle, and it needs sorting.’
Bert went ash-white. ‘Did you say Jimmy Doyle? Little Jimmy, Big Pat’s brother?’
‘Have you gone deaf all of a sudden? All I need you to do is make her see that it’s in her interest to pay up. Have you got that into your thick skull?’
Bert was looking more and more alarmed as he thought of the implications for himself if he got involved with the likes of Jimmy Doyle. ‘You want me to ask our Jess for some brass? Why me?’
‘She doesn’t need asking. I’ve already told her to pay up, and explained in careful detail what’ll happen to her if she doesn’t. I don’t think she’s keen to see the inside of a prison cell, or to get hanged for a murder she didn’t commit.’ Harry seemed to find this amusing, and he began to laugh. ‘So you shouldn’t have any bother. None at all. All you have to do is to collect what’s due to us, see that she pays up in full.’
Bert thought of his lovely Maisie, of his fine little son, and the next one due in a few months. Life was turning out to be pretty good, and even if money was tight and they weren’t very well off, they were content. What’s more, Maisie didn’t make him feel like a witless fool the whole time. He drained his glass and stood up.
‘No, Harry, I don’t think I fancy getting involved with the likes of Jimmy Doyle. I reckon you’d best find someone else to do your dirty work. Besides, I’ve always rather liked our Jess. She’s got spunk, that lass, and my Maisie says that she depends on me to keep on the straight and narrow, or we’ll all be in pig swill, what with a new baby coming. So, count me out.
Harry shouted after him, even offered to buy another round, but Bert didn’t so much as glance back over his shoulder as he hurried off to his precious Maisie. Harry was so furious that when he got home, he took out his ill temper, as he always did, on his wife.
Jess put a suggestion to Harry, one she’d given careful thought to over a number of days. She chose late afternoon when the club was closed, knowing he’d be there polishing the glasses and counting his winnings. As soon as he saw her through the glass of the door he eagerly went to let her in, even offered her a small sherry on the assumption she’d brought him the money.
‘I knew you’d come round, that you’d see the sense in my request since you, of all people, wouldn’t want to risk incarceration, let alone being hanged for something you didn’t do.’ He smirked at her, well pleased with himself.
Jess took the seat he offered at a small table and Harry sat opposite, quaffing beer in a self-satisfied way while she sipped quietly at her sherry. Eventually, Jess said, ‘How would it be if I bought the place off you?’
He put down his glass. ‘What did you say?’
‘If you’re not managing to make a go of the club, I’ll buy it off you, take it off your hands. We’ll agree a fair price. Get it independently valued with everything above board. I’ll settle your debts, get whoever’s putting pressure on you off your back once and for all, and you’ll have enough left over to start again somewhere else.’
That way, Jess hoped, if he was free of debt and fear he might behave better towards his long-suffering wife. She could think of no other way to help her dearest friend, since Leah refused to admit there was even a problem.
Harry was looking at her as if she’d grown two heads, had gone mad or something. His eyes were dilated with shock, probably because he’d never imagined she was quite so well placed. His next words confirmed that. ‘By heck, you like to throw your brass about. So you have made more money out of that band than Leah?’
‘No, I told you, we took fair shares but I’ve saved mine whereas her earnings have been wasted by you. So, what do you say? It’s a fair offer.’
‘And what would you do with a club?’ he sneered.
‘I’d smarten it up and run dances here. Turn it into a decent place to visit instead of the dive it currently is. I’d have nothing to do with the kind of low-life you get involved with.’ Jess dropped an envelope on the table. It lay between them, like a gauntlet; a challenge. ‘That’s a down payment, to show good faith. It will no doubt take some time to get the legal wheels moving, so that’ll help pacify whoever’s pressing you for payment.’
Jess was no fool. She understood her cousin too well for that. He’d kept quiet all these long months about his father’s fate so that if he were ever in a tight spot he could use it to his advantage. Besides which, she’d had a quiet word with Bert, got herself filled in on the details.
Harry picked up the packet and weighed it in his hands. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘It’s all you’re getting, for now. Get the place valued. Speak to your solicitor, if you can find one prepared to work for you, and you’ll get the balance when the legal work goes through. In the meantime. . .’ and here she leaned across the small table which divided them to look him directly in the eye, - ‘leave Leah alone. If I ever hear of you laying another finger on her, the deal’s off, and Jimmy Doyle and his squaddies can have you for dinner. Got that?’
Whereupon, she got to her feet and walked calmly from the room, leaving Harry shouting and yelling after her that she couldn’t talk to him like that.
‘I just did.’
Doug couldn’t understand why Jess wouldn’t do as he asked. She was still playing her trumpet, still going to rehearsals, and obstinately planning yet another dance next Saturday night, this time at the Co-operative rooms. He knew this for certain since he’d followed her on several occasions, just to check on where she was going and what she was up to. To add insult to injury, one of the posters advertising it was stuck up on the side of the wharf warehouse, a real slap in the face that was. Even his work mates were making fun, teasing him for having such a talented wife.
‘How
do you know what she gets up to at all these gigs she does?’ one asked.
Another said, ‘I wouldn’t let my wife loose with all of these yanks still around, not that any of them would have my missus given in a Christmas cracker. Face on her like backside of a cow, not like your lass.’
‘Aye, I’d lock her up tight, if she were mine. Right bobby-dazzler, she is, your Jess,’ agreed his mate.
Doug protested that the Americans wouldn’t be around for much longer; and Jess was too busy playing in the band to dance with anyone.
‘What about the interval, when they change the band? Nay, I’d watch it if I were you.’
In his heart, he agreed with them. She shouldn’t be parading herself in such a fashion. It was all right for a young, unmarried woman but not for a wife and mother. It wasn’t seemly. He’d been quite certain, in his own mind, that he could put a stop to this business long before now: first when the baby was born, and later when he’d finally persuaded her to give up working at the tea room. She could play the trumpet at home, for him. He’d no objection to that. And hadn’t he done his best for her? Why wasn’t he good enough? It was his own mother, all over again. Never satisfied. You simply couldn’t trust a woman. Ever! It made him so angry to find himself in exactly the same situation as his own father, and he’d expected Jess to be more obedient, extra-loving, out of sheer gratitude for him having saved her from disgrace.
Was she taking advantage because he didn’t make a fuss about the lack of intimacy in their marriage? Was that the reason? Perhaps he should press a bit harder in that direction, if he could just work out the best way to go about it. He found it easier to touch her when there were folk around, oddly enough, because she wouldn’t be expecting too much of him then, in a public place. On their own, in the privacy of a bedroom, was another matter entirely.
Doug wasn’t absolutely certain that he could perform well enough to satisfy her in that department, so preferred to avoid the issue. But he did expect her utter devotion in other ways. Oh dear me, yes. Didn’t he deserve that, at least?
He decided to have it out with her, make his feelings on the subject plain. Unfortunately, she was rarely in the house more than five minutes together over the next few days. What with rehearsals every evening, and popping in on her friend Leah where they apparently spent hours together in the flat over the club, happily sewing new dresses out of the remnants of parachute silk for the girls in the band.
‘Will this be the last one then?’ was all he managed to ask one morning at breakfast, as she scooped cereal into little Johnny’s mouth.
She sighed and refused to discuss it. ‘Not now Doug, please. I’ve enough on my plate right at this minute. Don’t take my music away from me, there’s a dear.’
But he persisted, asking what problems she could possibly have? She was his wife, for goodness’ sake. Didn’t he take care of everything for her? She only shook her head in that exasperating way she had when irritated with him, and claimed that this particular problem was none of his concern.
‘It’s a private matter which I’ll sort out in my own way, am already in the process of doing so. Thanks all the same.’
Doug was shocked by her attitude. ‘How can a wife possibly have any private matter of which her husband is unaware?’
She simply looked up at him, startled for a moment, and then laughed out loud. ‘Oh Doug, you’re such an old fuddy-duddy. This is the twentieth century, for goodness’ sake. Of course a wife is entitled to her privacy. Now do stop fussing. You’re going to be late for work.’
It was a week or two later that, to Doug’s utter surprise and dismay, Jess announced that the band was going on tour. She hadn’t even asked his permission.
‘Cora will be looking after Johnny, of course, as usual. But since you’re on late shift this week, could you mind him for a few hours please, and take him round to her later?’ To Jess, it seemed strange that she even had to ask her husband to do this small task for her, but that was the way things were with him. He never volunteered to help with Johnny. ‘She has to take Sam and Seb to the dentist this morning so she won’t be back till around dinner time, and we’ve got to catch the ten-thirty bus as the first gig is in Birmingham, so we’ve a long journey ahead. After that we go on to Leicester, Wolverhampton, Rhyl, then back up to Preston. Ena has made the bookings and we’re all thrilled to bits. Our first real tour. Exciting! But don’t worry, we’ll be back by Thursday.’
‘Thursday!’ He’d protested, naturally, firmly insisted that it simply wasn’t possible, that she must stay home and behave as a good wife should. She’d listened patiently to his outburst, then kissed him on the nose, patted his cheek and reminded him not to forget to wear his scarf when he went off to work, as the mornings were turning quite nippy now.
Minutes later, she was gone and he was alone in the kitchen with the child. Her child, the one he’d had to accept as part of the bargain, in order to get her.
He glared at it, sitting there in sublime ignorance, grinning good naturedly as it happily banged a spoon on the table of its high chair. Be damned if he’d wet nurse the bastard for her. The child was definitely not his responsibility. That wasn’t part of the bargain. He’d expected her to give it up, to have it adopted as she’d said she would before the creature was born. But then she’d changed her mind, insisted on keeping it and doing her duty, even though at the time she’d shown not a scrap of love for the child.
Doug had been furious and had decided that she needed a little more persuasion.
It had proved easy to dislocate the child’s hip. Like snapping a match. He’d been quite certain that having a deformed and disabled child would appal her, that she would see him then for what he was: the product of evil, finally see sense and let him go. Instead of which, the opposite had happened. Nosy old Cora had spotted there was a problem and before you know it, the doctor had been called in and Jess had started doting on the creature, rarely leaving him alone for a second. There was really no accounting for women. Utterly perverse.
Doug simply couldn’t understand why they were so utterly illogical. Why would Jess risk being constantly reminded of that unspeakable thing which had happened to her? He’d certainly no wish to venture into intimacy with a woman sullied and despoiled by her own uncle. Respectability, a marriage in name only was what he’d offered, what they’d agreed upon, which suited him perfectly. Why didn’t it suit her? Why did she need more, this music of hers, for instance, which gave her far too much independence.
He liked to keep Jess close by his side each and every day: to see her lovely face, watch the way she moved, feel the softness of her breasts, hear her laughter and touch the soft cloud of her hair. He could scarcely believe that she remained obstinately determined to hang on to a way of life which should have ended with the war. It was one thing to play for the Salvation Army, quite another to make an exhibition of herself in front of all those men.
He really wasn’t having it.
In no time at all, Doug had Johnny dressed in his coat and strapped in to his perambulator, and was walking him round to Cumberland Street.
As Jess had predicted there was no sign of Cora. The kitchen was empty save for Lizzie, who sat with her skinny legs dangling over the arm of her battered old chair, smoking one of her endless cigarettes. He could tell by the glazed look in her eye that she’d had a few, even if he hadn’t noticed the bottle poking out from under the cushion beside her. The room, as ever, was suffocatingly hot with a fire half way up the chimney and an all pervading sour smell of boiled cabbage and human sweat. Doug wheeled the pram in, parked it beside her and said in a loud voice, as if addressing an idiot. ‘I’ve fetched the child, as arranged. Cora knows all about it. I’ve got one or two jobs to do before I go off to work, so I’ll leave him with you, right?’
Minutes later he was out in the street, a free man. And if it wasn’t for him needing Jess Delaney so much, he thought he’d have been better off staying that way.
The tour was goin
g well. They were playing in ballrooms where the great Joe Loss himself had played, plus other illustrious names such as Oscar Rabin and Jack Parnell. Jess idolised famous band leaders such as Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Ivy Benson, hoping to follow in their successful footsteps. Ena had already got them a substantial booking in the Isle of Man for the summer, and another in Brighton over Christmas, which wouldn’t please Doug one bit, but was so exciting. Jess couldn’t understand why he was being so difficult, yet was determined not to let him get her down. The war was over and this was a new beginning for them all. Who knew what they might achieve?
All the girls were equally thrilled with their success, looking forward to their first tour with eager anticipation. They didn’t mind if the digs were a bit seedy, if ration books and points were still the order of the day. There was a great optimism in the air and even Miss Mona, thumping out the rhythm on her double bass with gusto would cry, ‘Today Manchester. Tomorrow, the world.’
Tonight was a big dance contest. There’d already been prizes for the Quickstep, Foxtrot, Samba and Tango. Delaney’s All Girls Band were currently playing for the Jive section, starting with Jukebox Saturday Night, followed by a couple of Glen Miller numbers.
They played for half an hour before being replaced by another band who instantly changed the tempo to Tooraloora Loora, in order to conclude the competition with the Waltz. Jess could only marvel at the sureness of step, the smooth confidence and expertise of the dancers, all cheered on and applauded by an enthusiastic crowd, eager to watch and learn so they could emulate these skills later when the floor was opened up for all. Jess became so engrossed watching the dizzying, spinning steps of the waltzers that, for once, she paid little attention to the band.
But then the music changed to Now Is the Hour and something in the distinctive tones of a saxophone brought her head up sharply, and there he was. She could hardly believe her eyes, although she would have known that sound anywhere. There was something in the unique way he played, in the manner with which he held the instrument, instinctively lifting his head as he brought forth the most magical notes imaginable. She whispered his name, allowing it to slip over her lips as if by saying it, new life was breathed into her. Steve. Oh, Steve! She alone knew how much she had missed him, how she had ached for his touch, but now, as she regarded him in the flesh, she realised even she had underestimated that need.
Dancing on Deansgate Page 35
