Rough Justice

by Gilda O'Neill

  Stephen also said he didn’t like Sarah and David Meckel because they were Jews. Nell didn’t understand why that should mean there was anything wrong with them, especially as he had seemed only too keen to do the business deal with Solly over the stall. Then, when Nell had asked Sylvia, she just shrugged and said, ‘You know what some people are like, my dad was Jewish and my mum’s family disowned her,’ immediately bringing the matter to an end. And Nell wasn’t about to ask Stephen. Her years in the home had taught her the warning signs of potentially aggressive behaviour, and she’d soon discovered that Stephen Flanagan was the type of man who lost his temper very easily. So she ignored her doubts and got on with doing what she had to do – just as she always had.

  She dried her hands on her apron, and then gave the glass doors of the dresser a final polish with the tea towel, pleased with a job well done. It wasn’t the hard work that Nell minded, she’d never minded that, and it made the days pass by more quickly, but, she couldn’t help thinking about it, it was the nights she dreaded. She had begun to loathe even the idea of bedtime.

  She filled the kettle without really thinking what she was doing.

  When Sylvia had explained ‘things’ to her, she had made it sound almost nice, in a frightening sort of a way, but then she didn’t have Stephen and his grunting and his boozy breath to put up with. Nell had tried making excuses for not going to bed – some job or other to finish, or things to prepare for the morning – but Stephen had told her she could just get up a bit earlier if there were chores still to be done. It was then that Nell truly wished she had listened to Sylvia, but she had done it now, she had committed herself to living under Stephen’s roof and she had to make the best of it – and he wasn’t so bad, he worked such long hours to provide for all of them.

  Yet, as she looked about the kitchen on this dark, raw February morning, she had to admit that she was scared of what would become of her. Was this really what her life would be like until the day she died?

  Nell went back into the bedroom, thinking that she might snatch maybe a quarter of an hour more in bed. The alarm clock ticked ominously, its mechanical rhythm moving it slightly, rocking the battered tin plate on which it stood, and swirling the handful of glass marbles noisily around its feet – Stephen’s tricks to ensure that Nell wouldn’t be able to oversleep. Was this her punishment, she wondered, for living with a man outside wedlock? Was God watching her like Matron Sully always claimed, watching to catch her out in a sin?

  It was one of Stephen’s wholesale days, and he had been gone for what must have been almost two hours now; as usual, before he’d left, he had made sure that Nell didn’t forget how ‘good’ he was – getting up and going out so early just to bring in money so that she could have such an easy life – and now she actually felt guilty that she had crept back to bed for a while. Was her life really so bad? Why should she expect more? Why should she think that she was in any way special? She was sure that plenty of women would be flattered to be told by Stephen Flanagan that he wanted to have them move in and share his home.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the clock again, and instead of climbing back under the bedclothes she returned to the kitchen and began to organise breakfast for the twins. Stephen had decided the night before that Solly had been right – market life was hard – and that it was time that Lily and George started doing their bit and contributing to the household. He had become quite angry with them, demanding why it should be him who was doing all the work, especially as they were still showing no signs of leaving home.

  Why would they, thought Nell, as she stood at the kitchen sink washing her hands before slicing bread for the twins’ toast, when they were living like a prince and princess?

  She shivered against the chill – living with Sylvie and Bernie had made her soft.

  Chapter 13

  Kettle on and grill heated, Nell braced herself to rouse the twins. George’s was the first door along the hall, so she might as well start with him.

  At nineteen years of age, and the image of his father in bulk, height and temperament, George Flanagan towered over Nell in every way. He could easily be sharing the load with Stephen, but working on a fruit and vegetable stall apparently wasn’t good enough for George. He didn’t know what he did want to do, but he knew it didn’t involve getting up while it was still dark. Nell would happily have left him stewing in his pit, but Stephen had been very firm, and her allegiance had to be to him rather than to his brutish son. If Stephen wanted his children up and out of bed at what he considered a decent hour, then that was what Nell would make sure happened.

  She took a deep breath and knocked on George’s door. ‘It’s gone six, George. Your dad’s expecting you on the stall.’

  No reply from him, but a loud groan came from Lily’s room.

  Lily was almost as coarse as her brother, and Nell could only imagine the perverse delight Matron Sully would have taken in instructing her in ‘decent’ ways. Their mother had left when the twins were just children, and in the subsequent years Lily had stored up enough resentment against the world to make her one of the most sullen, disagreeable people that Nell had ever met – even angrier with her lot in life than Matron had been. But Nell knew what it felt like to know she wasn’t wanted, so she made every effort to get on with Lily – but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

  ‘You should try and be grateful for what your dad gives you,’ Nell had said when she’d encountered Lily’s brick wall of bitterness after she had first moved in. ‘He works so hard, he’s had to be like both your mum and your dad, and you’ve got this lovely flat and your own room. In the home we never had anything for ourselves.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a stinking orphan am I? I’ve got a dad. Not like you.’

  Nell tried a smile. ‘And now you’ve got a mum as well.’

  ‘You? Piss off, you’re just a bloody kid. You’re not even married. You’re nothing more than a poxy lodger.’ Lily looked her up and down, her expression one of raw derision. ‘You’re not even the first one he’s brought home. He’s had birds in and out of this place ever since that old tart buggered off and left us. You’re just the only one who’s stayed, that’s all. Nowhere else to go I suppose, cos all the others cleared off in no time.’

  Over a month later Nell still recalled the shock, almost as hard as a physical blow, at the cruelty of Lily’s words.

  She hadn’t been the first.

  How could she have been so naive? Nell had felt soiled. Used. And so upset that she had hardly registered that Lily had sworn at her. The customers in the Hope and Anchor had cursed a bit when they’d had a few too many, but it only took Sylvia to remind them that there were ladies present, and that ‘outdoor language’ wasn’t acceptable, and they’d mumble their apologies and lower their voices – even though everyone accepted that a few choice words often slipped into Sylvia’s own conversation. But all that was just a harmless use of language; Lily’s had been so much more than that. Lily had really wanted to hurt her. And she had succeeded.

  But then Lily and George were full of surprises and she could only wonder, as she tried to rouse them from their beds, if they had any more waiting for her this morning.

  ‘Time to get up, you two,’ she called, rapping her knuckles on George’s door. ‘Please, come on, I promised your dad.’ It never failed to amaze her that they each had these lovely rooms of their own and yet still they complained. ‘And the porridge I’ve made you will set like stone. And you know your dad wants you both down the market to start learning how to run the stall.’

  Still no reply.

  Nell took another deep breath, and straightened her apron. ‘Please, George, will you get up?’

  ‘What the hell’s all that bloody noise about?’ Lily shouted from her room.

  ‘It’s her going on again,’ George shouted back.

  ‘Well, shut her up, can’t you? I’m just about sick to the back teeth of her and her moaning.’

  George’s
door was suddenly flung open. He stood there in his green-striped pyjama bottoms and baggy vest, with his dark, greasy hair plastered to one side of his head, and his chin covered in dark stubble. It might not have been obvious to outsiders how such an almost pathetic presence could have been so terrifying, but Nell had seen that look of unconcealed fury before – not when his father had been there, of course – resulting in the smashed china and overturned table for which she had been blamed. So she was as good as expecting it when he lunged towards her, with his open hand raised high above his head ready to strike her across the face. Not being half asleep like George, Nell had the advantage, and she was able to duck out of his reach and take off along the hallway to the front door. She had her hand on the latch a bare moment before he reached her.

  Nell flung open the door and threw herself out onto the landing – right into the arms of Martin, Joe and Mary Lovell’s son. He was just stepping out onto the landing from Number 57.

  ‘Morning,’ he said with a bashful grin, stepping back as he took his hands away from her. He raised them to his shoulders, making it clear that he’d not intended to touch her. ‘What’s the rush? Someone after you, are they? If they are I hope they’re—’

  It was the most that Martin had ever said to her, but he wasn’t given the opportunity of saying anything more. George had launched himself across the landing and grabbed Martin by the collar of his overcoat. He started shaking him with the force of a muscular bull mastiff dispatching a wiry young terrier pup.

  ‘You get away from her, you nasty little bastard,’ George spat through clenched, morning-furred teeth. ‘Right now. D’you hear me? Now.’

  Martin waved his hands in mock surrender. ‘Come on, George, nothing intended. She only run into me by mistake.’ He nodded at Nell, and smiled. ‘You’re all right, aren’t you, Nell?’ Martin blushed as he said her name out loud for the first time – although he’d repeated it in his head enough times. ‘You were going at about twenty miles an hour just now.’

  He tried another grin. ‘Sorry if I embarrassed you. I didn’t mean anything.’

  Nell didn’t reply, she just stared down at her shoes.

  ‘What’s this then, a bloody tea party, all having a nice little chit-chat are we?’ George gripped Nell by the upper arm and started hauling her back to Number 55. ‘Come on, move your bleed’n’ self.’

  Martin, now frowning, followed them. ‘Here, George, aren’t you being a bit rough with her? I mean, look at the size of you, mate.’

  George had spun round and thrown himself on him before Martin even knew what was happening. George slammed him in the chest and threw him backwards, smacking him into the wall beside the open door of Number 57. Martin’s head hit the lime-washed brick with a thud. But he didn’t fall; instead he rocked forward and squared up in a boxer’s stance, fists up in front of his chest.

  ‘All right then, George, if you think you’re so tough, let’s have you. Or d’you only pick on girls?’

  George looked at Martin, pausing to consider – could he, a whacking great nineteen-year-old, take on this smaller, much slighter lad of sixteen? Even one who went to a boxing club?

  Course he could. He was twice his size.

  As it happened, George was wrong, and when Martin’s parents appeared in the doorway of their flat curious to see what all the commotion was about, they saw George stretched out on the floor, panting like a train, dabbing at his bloody nose with the back of his hand. Their son was straddling him, fists raised ready to lay him out again, daring him to move.

  ‘Martin?’ Joe Lovell said quietly. ‘What’s going on here, son?’

  ‘He was hurting Nell, Dad.’

  Mary Lovell, dressed to go out, took off her gloves as she stepped around her son and the still horizontal George. ‘You get yourself off to work, Martin, or you’ll be late,’ she said, drawing Nell close to her. ‘And I’d better get myself down the shop soon or Sarah’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. It’s one of the mornings when I set up with her, see Nell.’ She spoke evenly, as if everything was perfectly normal. ‘But I’ve got enough time to make you a nice cup of tea before I go, love. You come indoors with me, eh?’

  Mary knew she had to calm the situation; the last thing she wanted was a feud with the Flanagans. Stephen and George had the reputation of behaving like a pair of lunatics when they got going, and Lily wasn’t a lot better. That was what happened when there was no mother to keep the pot from boiling over.

  Nell shook her head. ‘No thank you, Mrs Lovell.’ She knew Stephen’s views on women who wasted their time drinking tea with the neighbours; she didn’t even let him know that Sylvia came by regularly.

  ‘As you like, love, but I told you before, you’re to call me Mary, all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mary.’

  George gave Martin a half-hearted shove in the chest and propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Call me bleed’n’ Mary? And a nice cup of tea? Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself? Your son’s just split my nose open.’

  Joe Lovell frowned and pulled his chin tight into his chest. ‘What, our little sixteen-year-old lad did that to you? The one who’s not even a fully grown man yet?’

  ‘What does it matter how old he is? Look at the state of me.’ George examined the blood on the back of his hand. ‘Tell you what, I’ve got a mind to call the law.’

  Joe snorted. ‘And make you and your family a laughing stock?’

  The door to Number 56 opened – up until then the only closed door of the three on the landing – to reveal Ada Tanner in all her morning glory: hand-knitted cardigan over an ankle-length winceyette nightgown and her head bristling with the vicious-looking metal grips that she firmly believed coaxed her hair into film-star waves.

  ‘Who’s a laughing stock?’ she demanded. Never knowingly pleasant, was Ada. ‘What have I missed then?’

  Mary Lovell closed her eyes. Ada Tanner, just what they needed to add too much salt to the stew. ‘Nothing, Ada. Nothing at all. So why don’t you go back inside in the warm? It’s not even seven o’clock and it’s freezing out here. You’ll catch your death.’

  ‘With a bit of luck,’ mumbled George.

  Ada wasn’t drawn, being too busy looking from one face to another, trying to sort out the playing order of whatever it was that had occurred in her absence.

  She paused on Nell. ‘Well, I might have known she’d be involved in whatever it was.’ She waggled a thumb at Number 55. ‘I’ve not heard anything but shouting and hollering from in there these past two months. And you can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that it was then that he moved her in there with him. Trollop, look at her, not even a ring on her finger.’

  Nell shrivelled back against the wall.

  Joe nodded at his son. ‘Go on, Martin. Do as your mother says, or you’ll be late.’

  ‘Yeah, you’d better get off to work like your mother tells you, Martin,’ chipped in Ada, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she turned her attention away from Nell. ‘And your mother had better not hang around too long either, or who’ll bring in your father’s beer money?’

  ‘Take no notice of her, Joe,’ said Mary, stretching over George so she could kiss her husband on the cheek. ‘She thinks all men are like her Albert. Still in bed is he, Ada? Resting while he waits for your granddaughter to bring round the family “contribution”?’

  George scrambled to his feet. ‘Hang about, you lot. I don’t give a shit about whose husband does what. Why’s nobody worried about me? That scraggy little bastard just assaulted me.’

  ‘Makes a change from the Flanagans using their fists,’ said Martin, moving menacingly closer to George.

  ‘Leave off, you two,’ Mary said, concentrating on pulling her gloves back on. ‘If you’re sure you don’t want a cup of tea, dear, me and Martin will be on our way.’

  George stabbed a finger at Martin. ‘You’ve done it now, Lovell. You just wait till I tell my dad what you’ve done.’

  ‘Tell your dad?’ J
oe shook his head. ‘How old are you, George?’

  Mary tutted impatiently. ‘Please, grow up all of you. And you, Nell,’ she finished drawing down the last finger of her gloves, ‘if you change your mind, Joe’ll make you a nice cup of tea, won’t you Joe?’

  Ada threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know about Mary and Joe Lovell, you two are more like Mary and Mary Ann Lovell. A man making another woman tea while his own wife’s out at work? I ask you. What are things coming to?’

  Joe stood up straight and proud, pulling back his shoulders as he stared Ada directly in the eye. ‘And I’ll have the flat all shipshape and your tea on the table when you get home, Mary.’

  ‘Thanks, love,’ said Mary, but she was distracted, looking about her, frowning. ‘Nell. Where is she?’

  Only Martin had noticed Nell slipping away down the stairs. Why hadn’t he had the guts to go after her?

  Chapter 14

  ‘Blimey, hold up out there, I’m going as fast as I can.’ Sylvia tucked a stray lock of her bright auburn hair behind her ear and stretched up to slide back the brass bolt. ‘We’re not open for hours yet, so if you think you’re getting a drink, you’ve got another—’

  As she opened the pub door, Sylvia let the cleaning cloth she’d been holding drop to the floor. ‘Nell, darling, whatever’s up?’ She took Nell by the hand and drew her inside, over to the fire. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing coming out without a hat and coat on? It’s ready to snow again out there.’

  Nell couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend; she didn’t want to lie to Sylvia, but she’d walked for over an hour without thinking and had found herself standing outside the pub, with no idea where else she might go. What was she supposed to do, wander the streets until she collapsed from the cold? Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, to have just fallen down in a heap and not to have woken up again.

  ‘Nell, I asked you a question, darling.’