by Mark Timlin
'You still remember?'
'Of course I remember. What am I, an amnesiac?' Mark thought from her tone that she might like to be. She went on. 'I remember how much of a mug I was. There weren't many good manners in evidence when you left without saying goodbye.'
'No,' he said as he pulled up his own chair and poured two cups of tea, after giving the bags a good squeeze with a spoon.
Linda meanwhile took a baby's cup from her bag, filled it with juice from a bottle and gave Daisy her drink, which she started to swallow with gusto.
'She likes that,' said Mark for something to say.
'Yes,' said Linda as she toyed with her cup. 'So come on, Mark. You didn't follow me here to talk about Daisy's likes and dislikes.'
'No. I came to see you.'
'Seems like you've seen me already. You told me you've been watching.'
He nodded. 'I only found out where you were yesterday.'
'So how did you know where to watch?'
'Uncle John told me.'
'Good old Uncle John. And what did he tell you?'
He told her.
'Seems like he knows me as well as I know myself.'
'He didn't do it to hurt you or your children. He was just keeping up.'
'Christ,' she said. 'You people. You can never leave things alone.'
'I'm sorry.'
'No you're not.' She took a sip of tea, keeping the hot cup well away from her daughter. 'Do you know what?' she said. 'I gave up smoking the day I found out I was pregnant with Luke. Six years ago. I've never touched a cigarette since. But by God, I'd love one now.'
He moved his head towards the sign on the wall. 'No smoking in here,' he said.
'Still the same, Mark. Still the jokes. Do you still smoke?'
He nodded. He would've given anything for a smoke too, but mums with babies didn't like it. That was another piece of information he'd gleaned from the papers.
'Andy gave up the same day,' said Linda. 'For what it was worth.' She paused. 'Andy was my husband.'
'I know.'
'Of course. Uncle John told you.'
Mark ignored the jibe. 'He sounds like he was a good man. I'm sorry about what happened to him.' 'He was,' she replied. 'And you're not.'
He didn't know what to say. Whether to ask how long she'd been married, how they'd met. What do you say to a widow you used to ' sleep with?
'But he wasn't you,' she said softy.
'What?'
'Nothing. Forget it.'
A long silence followed except for Daisy's drinking noises and the hisses from the hot water machines behind the counter. Mark looked at Daisy. 'She's beautiful,' she said. 'Your daughter. She looks just like you.'
'Oh please.'
'I mean it.'
'Yes, well, everyone says so. But I'd better go now.'
He knew that this was the moment. 'Can I see you?' he asked.
'You are seeing me. Here I am, in the flesh.'
'You know what I mean.'
'Do you think I'm quite mad, Mark? I've got a family. I've got my brother, who I'm sure you're aware is a police officer, living in my house. And you're, well, what you are. I'm a widow.' She shook her head. 'That's got nothing to do with it. What I have got is a life, Mark, and now you turn up out of the blue and expect me to drop everything and start up with you again. Christ, Mark, you're a bloody…'
'Don't say it,' said Mark, touching the back of her hand and feeling the same old electricity. 'Forget that. I just want to see you.'
'Do you?'
He nodded.
'Do you know how many times in the last… How long is it?
'Eight years…'
'Something like that.'
'Do you know how many times I've wanted to hear you say that?' He shook his head. 'Every bloody day,' she said. 'Even when I was married to Andy. Even when I was screaming my head off with pain as I had my babies. And now you're saying it, I'm not sure I'm ready.' 'Please, Lin.'
'Don't Lin me. A cup of tea doesn't get you back in my good books.'
'Please. Somewhere private where we can talk.'
The emotions rushed over her features again. 'There's a flat,' she said with a long sigh. 'In Balham. By the station. Over a shop. Andy and I bought it for an investment. To rent out. But each tenant was worse than the last, we always seemed to come out down. Of course it doesn't matter now. The compensation and insurance paid for it ten times over. But I'm sure Uncle John told you all about that.'
Mark nodded again.
'So when I got the last people out I had it done up and left it empty. I'll keep it until one of these…' she nodded down at Daisy.'…Wants to leave home and they can move in if they want to. It's appreciating like mad at the moment.'
'A hot spot,' said Mark.
'What?'
'Nothing.'
'Anyway. We can meet there. I don't know why I'm doing this, Mark.'
'When?' he asked. 'Today?'
'No, not today. What do you expect me to do? Turn my life around just to suit you? Oh, of course you do, I've always done it before, haven't I?'
'Sorry. Tomorrow?'
'OK. Tomorrow afternoon. I'll get the kids sorted. Greta can look after them.'
Greta, Mark imagined, was the blonde in the Fiat.
'What's the address?' he asked.
She told him. Then she finished her tea and got up. 'I'd better get the rest of my shopping,' she said. 'Though God knows I've lost the mood.'
'Sorry.'
'You keep saying that.'
'Sorry.'
She shook her head and smiled for the first time. 'Goodbye, Mark,' she said. 'Don't spy on me any more.'
'OK.'
'I'll see you tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow. Goodbye, Linda; goodbye, Daisy.' The little girl looked him long and hard and he swore she lifted her hand to wave.
Chapter 15
Mark spent the rest of the morning driving the streets, just going nowhere, his mobile phone switched off. He checked out the address in Balham that Linda had given him. It was over a shoe shop next to a newsagents, with a green door that you could easily miss if you didn't know it was there. He looked up at the windows, blind against the day and imagined Linda and her husband eagerly discussing the pros and cons of buying, decorating and then letting the place out. They must have been innocents to keep getting turned over. Or at least Andy must have been. Mark knew how he would've dealt with reneging tenants. Go in and give them a bit of a surprise early one morning. Show them exactly what the terms and conditions of the lease meant. He'd met landlords before who would string your cat up or poison the goldfish just because the rent was a day late.
But then, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be innocent. Mark tried to remember what that was like, but it was too far in his past to register. And maybe that was what Linda had needed. An innocent to become involved with. A bloke who went to work every day, came home clean, and whose idea of excitement was a Saturday night bottle of wine, a video and a beautiful woman to take to bed after. And he did get the girl, when all was said and done. At the same time Mark was moving around Europe, doing jobs that were dangerous or stupid or both, working with unreliable people, just to get money to live.
At this thought he started the car and headed towards Streatham. He parked up behind the six-screen cinema and spent the afternoon trying to forget who he was in the company of a Tinseltown hero who never had to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Mark got home just as Martine arrived back from work.
'Haven't seen much of you lately, handsome,' she said.
'I've been about.'
'I bet you have. I hear you've been messing around that Linda again.'
'Is that right? Who told you?'
She just grinned and shook her head. 'Not a good idea, Mark,' she said. 'She was never the right one for you.'
'And you'd know.'
'Course I would. I know you better than you think.'
'Yeah.'
'What are y
ou doing?' she asked.
'When?'
'Now.'
'Nothing.'
'Come with me. I've got a couple of places to show you. We can have a drink.'
He shrugged. He wasn't doing anything, and it might take his mind off Linda. 'OK. Where are we going?'
'You'll see. Come on, it's important. Historically important.'
He allowed himself to be led out to Martine's Mini Cooper. She started it up with a roar and sped out on to the street, through the gates and past the inevitable parked up Mercedes. She accelerated hard up the hill in the direction of Streatham, then took a succession of narrow back streets, the blat of the car's exhaust bouncing off the fronts of the houses. 'Are you going to slow down?' asked Mark, one hand tight on the handle above the passenger door.
'Sure. When I'm dead,' she replied and put the little car into a four- wheel drift at the next corner, making a white van coming in the same direction mount the pavement to avoid them. 'Soft, fat fucker!' she screamed as-she took the next corner on two wheels, sped down the white line, back on to the main road close to Streatham bus station and pulled up.
'Christ,' said Mark, the memory of his recent adventures on four wheels still fresh. 'Who taught you to drive like that?' 'Chas,' she said.
'I might've known. What are we looking at?'
She pointed at the building across the road. 'That's the old ice rink,' she said.
'I do know that.'
'Do you know that's where Dad met Chas and Hazel?'
'What? Skating?'
She shook her curls and laughed. 'No. Not Dad's speed at all. At the back there was a place called the Bali Hai. Sort of dance hall, disco, meat market, all done up like some Polynesian knocking shop. It was where all the likely lads and girls used to go Friday and Saturday nights back then. Chas had been in borstal for stealing cars. My dad and your dad were there one night scoping out the girls when they bumped into Chas. Dad knew him a bit. When he found out he was looking for a bit of villainy he asked him to join the gang. It was Chas who suggested that they branched out.'
'Doing what?'
'Have patience.'
'And Hazel?'
'That's another funny story. I'll get Chas to tell you. Now, how about that drink?'
'If you say so.'
She started the engine and roared off, up by Streatham Common and back the way they'd come, except she suddenly turned off up another side street, drove to the top, pulled in outside a small bar and killed the engine. 'Come on,' she said. 'I'm thirsty.'
'Why here?' asked Mark.
'Come inside and I'll show you.'
They got out of the motor and went into the bar. It was warm and quiet with an open fire in one corner and some moody Blue Note compilation playing on the stereo. There were a couple of other customers but no one paid attention as they took stools at the counter. Martine ordered two beers from the boy behind the jump and once they had them they went and sat by the fire.
'So?' said Mark, looking round. 'What's so special about this place?'
'This is where it started,' said Martine, taking a sip of her beer straight from the neck.
'What did?'
'Everything. This was where Dad started his protection firm.'
'Here?'
'Yeah. It used to be a pub, and it was the first one he got to pay up.'
'I thought it was drugs that got him started.'
'It was. But the pubs and restaurants paid the wages.'
'Jesus. How do you know?'
'Dad brought me here on my eighteenth. Showed me what could be done and then took me and a load of my friends up to Soho for dinner.'
'Amazing. I wonder what it was like then.'
The first pub John Jenner chose to put Chas's masterplan into action was a disreputable little boozer at the back of Streatham High Road, in a steep street full of terraced houses with a few shops at the top. It was called the Beehive and, like most pubs at that time, had a saloon bar, a public, a snug and a bottle shop. So small was the building that the three bars and off- sales seemed to be almost climbing on top of each other for space. The decoration inside was post war green and brown, the carpet in the saloon had a pattern that even an archaeologist would have had trouble finding, and the snug and public's floors were bare wood without a trace of polish. There were open fireplaces in each of the bars that glowed dimly with smokeless fuel. Legislation had been brought in to put a stop to the smogs that had killed so many Londoners over the previous century or so. It was a cheerless place, flyblown and miserable, and when John and Billy entered one chilly autumn morning just after the barman had opened the doors, it smelled of stale beer, old cigarettes and lavatory cleaner.
'Are you sure about this?' asked Billy as they sat at a wobbly table on the corner of the saloon bar. They had ordered two halves of bitter that tasted to both of them like piss.
'Sure I'm sure. Chas did collections for a bloke down Croydon way last year. Pubs, clubs, restaurants, the lot. They were coining it.'
'And Chas must be right,' said Billy. He was getting a bit pissed off with the most recent recruit to the gang. John was giving too much credence to his ideas. But the drugs were about all gone, and money was getting tight. John Jenner had walked out on his job at the primers, rented a flat in Brixton Hill and bought an old Pontiac convertible that was always breaking down, off a bloke called Dev.
Billy still wasn't working and Wally was getting stroppy. And as for Martin, the Goon… well, he was just Martin. And although he was good for putting the frighteners on customers who were disinclined to pay their debts, he was another drag on their finances, because John had insisted on giving him a regular-weekly wage. He said it would be worth it in the end, and he was the boss.
'So what happened?' asked Billy.
'What?' said John.
'If they were coining it, what happened?'
'He got nicked for breaking into cars, that's what happened. And got sent to borstal.' Billy said nothing, just took another sip of his drink and looked at the old cat sat on the bar, regarding him with rheumy eyes. 'Don't worry,' said John. 'It'll all work out, you'll see.'
'But I do worry.'
'Too much, if you ask me.'
'So what do we do now?' asked Billy.
'Watch.' John got up from his seat and went over to the bar. 'Get much trouble in here?' he asked the barman.
'Do me a favour,' said the man, resting for a moment from putting bottles of tonic water on a shelf. 'Does it look like it?'
'Could be,' said John. 'See, I've got a proposition for you.'
The barman turned and leant on the counter. 'What? You a pop group? We've got no music licence.'
'No, no, no,' said John, although it was an interesting idea that he put away for later. 'See, we're a security firm.'
'In that get up?' said the barman. John was wearing a suit from Lord John in Carnaby Street. A blue pinstripe, with a waisted, tight-sleeved jacket, a pale blue pin through collar shirt, narrow black knitted tie and Chelsea boots. The reefer coat he'd been wearing over it had been carefully removed and folded neatly on to a seat when they'd first come in. That was another thing. Although money was tight, John insisted that his boys, apart from Martin who could never get anything to fit right, still dressed in the height of fashion.
'What's wrong with it?'
The barman shrugged. 'To each his own,' he said. He was wearing baggy flannels, a collarless, once-white shirt and a cardigan that looked like he used it to mop the gents.
'Anyway,' said John. 'What we do is, for a certain sum each week we make sure you don't get any trouble.'
The barman laughed out loud. 'Sonny,' he said. 'Drink your drink and get yourself and your mate out of here before I call the law.'
John thought for a moment. He knew that he'd meet resistance but hadn't considered what to do when it arose. We'll burn those bridges when we come to them, he'd always thought. Well, here was one.
'I'm sure you'll reconsider when you've had time to
think,' was all he could say.
'I'm sure I bloody Well won't. I fought the bloody Germans so's you could prance around in that suit, son. Do you think you can scare me? A spell in the army would do you lot a power of good. Why they stopped National Service I'll never know.'
Christ, thought John, he's just like my old man. Stupid git. But he left it, turned, and with as much dignity as he could muster, went back to the table and collected his coat. Without touching any more of their drinks, he and Billy left.
'Told you,' said Billy as they walked up to Streatham High Road and went into the Golden Egg restaurant to get the taste of the beer out of their mouths. 'Bloody told you, didn't I?'
'A little local difficulty,' said John quoting something he's heard some politician or other spouting on the TV a few days before. 'Martin, Wally and Chas'll see to it.'
'How?'
'I think it's about time those boys had a night out. A few drinks down the old Beehive should do the trick.'
Billy sucked at the straw in his coke. What had started out as a laugh was getting out of hand. He was tired of all the ducking and diving it involved. A few weeks earlier he'd seen a documentary on TV about young men joining the police, and what a good career it was. He'd watched it with interest. It seemed like a good, reasonably well-paid job, and it was on the right side of the law. Billy was no fool. He could see this whole gangster business ending in tears, with all of them in jail. He fancied a try at joining the police, but knew that John would go mad if he told him. 'Whatever you say,' he said. 'But I don't want any more trouble.'
'You like the money though, don't you?' said John.
'I don't care about the money,' replied Billy. 'You know if my mum finds out what I've been doing it'll kill her.'
'Mummy's boy,' said John.
Fuck me, maybe that's just what I am, thought Billy as he looked miserably out at the busy street. It was beginning to rain.
