Anyone Who Had a Heart

by Mia Dolan

  Ella slumped down in the armchair opposite him. After bashing the chair arm back into place after it had sloped sideways, she ran her hands over her growing stomach.

  ‘I cannot have this baby.’

  He hated the way she said it, her face screwed up and whining as though she were choking on the words. She looked down at her stomach. ‘I cannot afford to.’ Her eyes were big and brown. He couldn’t help feeling as though he were falling into them. He wanted to do more to her than that.

  Tony leaned forwards, jamming his elbows between his knees, his hands clasped tightly together. His chin jerked up and down in a stiff nod as though he understood and sympathised. He could afford to do the former, but God help him with the second. Three weeks rent was owed when he’d first come calling here. He hadn’t meant to fall for her and couldn’t quite understand why. He lay awake at night thinking that one over. He usually went for blondes. Ella was dark skinned, spoke with a West Indian accent and had wiry hair kept in place by a brightly coloured bandana. Her breasts were high, firm and round. Her hips were ample and her backside was a joy to behold.

  While his hormones danced in one direction, his conscience reminded him that he had a wife; a blonde wife. Babs had been a ringer for Brigitte Bardot when she was younger. Things had changed. Getting blowsier year on year, her figure had ballooned; as good a reason as any to fall for Ella, he told himself.

  Disregarding the ache in his loins wasn’t easy, but he was here on business. ‘Look, love, this has to be the last time. You’ve got to keep a better check on your money – stop the old man taking from you for a start. I can’t keep paying it for you. You know what will happen if it don’t get paid, don’t ya?’

  She nodded. She knew alright. Some of the blokes who worked for Victor would have smashed everything up – Ella too probably. She’d seen it happen to neighbours.

  Tony sighed and thought what a prat he was getting to be. In the past he’d been paid to put on the pressure, but he’d been younger then. Must be getting old, old son, he thought to himself. He couldn’t bring himself to slap a woman, especially not when there were kids about. He still had to get the money out of her, but a few kind words cost nothing.

  ‘I know what you mean, girl. The National Assistance only spreads so far, love, but so does my dosh. I’m paying your rent, love, but you do have to pay me back sometime.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask you for any more,’ she protested. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. I told you before I knew I was pot bellied that I was going to get a job. I was going to pay you back. But with this …’ She spread her hands helplessly.

  When she looked at him with those big brown eyes, Tony was as soft as chocolate, but the edge of reason still nudged its way forwards. ‘You can get rid of it,’ he suggested. Good Catholic boy that he was, he knew what the Church thought about abortion. However, he also understood how desperate a woman could get without a steady income. Despite dictates of Church or society, the practicalities of life had to be addressed. If Ella did pop another kid into the world, she’d be hard pressed to make ends meet. Desperation could lead to prostitution; he knew plenty of slappers who used to be good girls until a smooth tongue and a wandering dick had got them into trouble. Single mothers with kids to support were particularly vulnerable. Part of him wondered if he cared about Ella’s predicament purely because she reminded him of his daughter. Marcie could so easily have not come home. But he knew that his feelings for Ella were far from fatherly.

  The windows rattled as another train went by heading towards Piccadilly. Neither of them spoke – neither of them could speak – until the rattling had ceased and the train had disappeared into a tunnel.

  Ella looked down at the scuffed lino where the edge of a ragged mat was unravelling as surely as her life. It looked to him as though she were considering his suggestion. He knew that if he asked around a name was bound to pop up. Old biddies in crummy tenements down near the docks and other places were still going strong despite the relaxation in the abortion law.

  But Ella had already been asking around. ‘I have heard of a woman …’ she began, her black eyelashes fluttering across her high cheekbones. ‘She charges a lot of money. Her name is Mrs Smith.’

  ‘I bet it is,’ Tony said with a sardonic smile and a toss of his head.

  ‘Do you not believe me?’ she said with wide-eyed innocence.

  Laughing, he reached across and patted her hand. ‘They’re always called Mrs Smith, though you might get the odd Mrs Jones thrown in for good measure.’

  She looked puzzled.

  He enlightened her. ‘Smith and Jones are common names. Harder for the law to track down. Know what I mean?’

  She nodded.

  Tony was already digging into his pocket. He brought out a wad of one pound notes.

  ‘I’m not sure what the going rate is for sorting you out. Here. Thirty pounds tops – that should do it.’

  He reached to offer her the money. She looked at it. He wasn’t sure how to read the look in her eyes. There was fear, that much was for sure. But fear of what? The money? The operation itself or the condemnation of her own conscience?

  Perhaps she was afraid of feeling obliged to him, which was quite understandable. To his surprise he felt a great urge to touch her dark glossy skin. Slowly her fingers curled around the fan-shaped fistful of pound notes. She looked down at them scrunched in her hand.

  Tony studied her reaction, wanting her to look up at him with gratitude but knowing she never would. Ella, he’d found out, was fiercely independent. He could only guess at how desperate she was feeling to accept his money. It was all about the kids of course. She’d do anything for them, he thought. If he asked her, she’d go to bed with him. He’d like that. Should he ask…?

  A pang of conscience he didn’t know he had swept over him.

  ‘Everything will be alright,’ he said for no reason other than to hear something, even the sound of his own voice.

  She was slow thanking him. Was she thinking there might be a catch? he wondered. The prospect was tempting. He wouldn’t make the first move. He’d leave it to her, and if she did, then he wouldn’t refuse.

  Slowly and silently, she got to her feet and went out to the kitchen. He heard the grating of a tin lid and guessed she was putting the money in the safest place she knew. She probably kept the tea or sugar in the same tin. It seemed a totally naïve thing to do; if anyone did break in they’d make straight for those tins. He smiled and shook his head. Women were so predictable.

  The toddler began yawning and crying for her bottle. Ella gave it to him, picked him up and snuggled him down beside the other child in the double bed that dominated the room.

  Tony put his teacup on the table and prepared to get up from his chair. Tonight he was taking Marcie out on the town. Boy, was she going to love it! Not a smoky old pub or third-grade dance hall in Sheerness. This was London and the bright lights would still be shining in the early hours of the morning. She was young, the city was swinging and she would love it!

  Pressing his hands down on the chair arms, he was about to get up when Ella came and stood in front of him, legs braced, fingers already unbuttoning her blouse.

  He said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Ella. There’s no need for this.’ But that wasn’t what he was thinking. His dream was coming true.

  She gave him a ‘happy face’ smile, the sort that photographers insist on before they click the shutter; a smile that’s not real but just pasted on for the moment.

  Her blouse parted to expose firm, glossy breasts with large areolae and nut-brown nipples. Despite his best intentions, his passion rose in his pants.

  He tried clearing his throat. ‘Ella, love. I don’t want anything in return. Honest I don’t.’ Like hell! He wanted her like crazy!

  She smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘Of course you do. All men want something in return for their money. But this is me wanting this, Tony. I want to feel that I have given you something in return for
all that money – for the sake of my children if nothing else. It is a matter of pride. I do not want charity. I do not want anything from any man for free.’

  He could smell the musky scent of her body. It came over him in a soft wave as she dropped her skirt and let her blouse and her underwear fall down on top of it.

  She gleamed in the muted light coming in from the window. Her belly was taut. Her breasts were firm and her hips flared out from a narrow waist.

  He wanted her. He desperately wanted her, but some segment of the scruples he’d once known stayed his hand and cooled his ardour.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ he said shaking his head and attempting once again to get to his feet.

  ‘I want you to,’ she murmured in a soft hush of a voice, her long fingers entwining at the nape of his neck, pulling his head towards her, his lips closer to one of her breasts.

  ‘You cannot do me any more harm than Joe has done me already.’

  The fact that she was pregnant was not that noticeable just yet. Her belly was rounded but it was early days. She could still get away with it.

  He thought of what his family would say if they found out. He thought about what his mates would say and tried not to smile. His mates would crow at his triumph. He’d had a black piece, though that in itself wasn’t that unusual nowadays. What was unusual was that this woman already had kids and precious little else.

  Babs wouldn’t find out of course. She was miles away with the kids living in a council house on the Isle of Sheppey. Was he crazy or what? Quite probably. But he couldn’t help himself. He was drawn to her. He was drawn to the prominent nipple with his eyes and his mouth.

  The bed was occupied, so they did it on the floor. The carpet was thin and the lino was cold. Her body was warm.

  Ella mewed like a cat during their coupling and purred like one once it was over, her buttocks sitting in the curve of his groin, his arm around her as he nuzzled her neck.

  ‘You were gentle,’ she said and sounded surprised. ‘And you waited for me.’

  ‘You could tell that?’

  ‘Yes. Not many men wait for a woman to be fulfilled.’

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. He couldn’t recall ever waiting for a woman to climax before he did. Something must have happened to him. Her name was Ella.

  He cleaned himself and kissed her on the lips, rearranged his clothes and checked his appearance in the cracked mirror of an ancient sideboard – the big Victorian sort that Scouts burned on bonfires on Guy Fawkes Night.

  ‘You look very smart,’ she said to him.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Timing what he had to do, he’d decided to put on his whistle and flute so he could go straight from Ella’s to pick up Marcie.

  He felt her eyes on him. ‘Are you going somewhere nice?’

  He stood by the door, hand poised on the old-fashioned Victorian doorknob.

  ‘Out on the town.’

  ‘With a woman?’

  He caught a hint of jealousy in her voice but nodded anyway. ‘Yes.’

  He didn’t elaborate and neither did he linger. He was already late for picking up his eldest daughter. The car was parked against the kerb and had attracted attention from a gang of small kids intent on ripping off his wing mirrors.

  They scattered on seeing him, regrouping around a lamppost where an impromptu swing hung from an overhead bracket. Funny, he thought, how kids all over the country congregated around swings hung from lampposts.

  He smiled as he got into the car. Before driving off he ducked down so he could better see the front window of Ella’s ground-floor flat. He saw the thin muslin curtain pulled back a matter of inches. Her face was like a shadow surrounded by the darkness of the old-fashioned interior.

  He raised a hand in farewell. She raised hers only briefly. The curtain fell back into place. She was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘BELLISSIMA!’

  Gabrielle Camilleri’s luminous brown eyes seemed to fill with tears. ‘My Roberto has such good taste.’ Her ample bosom heaved with pride. ‘And, of course, he is so excitingly handsome. Did you not think so?’

  Marcie found the flattery a little overblown, but Mrs Camilleri had been kind to her.

  ‘He’s very good-looking,’ said Marcie. ‘He takes after you I think?’

  Blushing like a girl, Mrs Camilleri clasped her hands together, her face full of adoration for her one and only son.

  ‘Roberto is my pride and joy. Whoever he marries will be his princess.’

  She looked tellingly at Marcie, who for her part had been impressed by Roberto’s way-out appearance. Roberto was indeed the stuff of legends, but she couldn’t help holding back. Johnnie was dead but the thought of going out with anyone else didn’t seem right. She had to counter what Gabriella was hinting at.

  ‘I also met Michael,’ said Marcie.

  The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realised she’d said the wrong thing. Mrs Camilleri’s expression soured at mention of Victor’s illegitimate son.

  ‘He is not like Roberto. Not like him in any way at all,’ she pronounced.

  The bitterness was obvious. Marcie said goodbye and left.

  Tony Brooks was knocked sideways when he first set eyes on his eldest daughter coming out of the apartment block where his boss lived. There were two reasons for this. Number one was she looked absolutely stunning. Number two she reminded him so much of her mother.

  ‘You look a right bloody knockout,’ he managed to say. ‘Like a bleeding film star. You’re better looking than Marilyn Monroe any day of the week.’

  ‘I would do. She’s dead and you’re late.’

  ‘Sorry, love. Got caught up in some business and then in the traffic.’

  The car was black and shiny, though had acquired a dent on one wing. Her father wasn’t that brilliant a driver. Perhaps it was because he’d never passed a driving test.

  ‘You’re supposed to pass a driving test,’ she’d once said to him.

  ‘Not me, darling. I can drive and nobody can stop me.’

  ‘The police might.’

  ‘Nah! Not at my age. I look too distinguished.’

  He was kidding himself about looking distinguished, she thought, but he was incorrigible and had never quite grown up; he just didn’t think the law of the land applied to him.

  Marcie shook her head. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘Nah! Be there in a jiffy.’

  She took that with a pinch of salt. The older she got the more convinced she was becoming that men were unreliable – except for Johnnie of course. One thing she would always believe was that Johnnie would always be the great love of her life. No one would ever replace him, of that she was certain.

  ‘So you’re liking your job?’ said her father while squeezing the car between a bus and a taxi coming in the other direction.

  The taxi blew its horn. The people on the bus bounced as the driver slammed on the brakes.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied.

  She closed her eyes and forced herself to dwell on other things. Yes, she liked her job but her heart was heavy. Joanna was miles away. She was missing her.

  The wages at Daisy Chain weren’t bad, but they were not enough to bring up a child. She had to do something that would bring in more money.

  ‘Just you wait till we get to the club,’ said her father. ‘All the young studs there will be after you, so just you stick with yer old dad. No matter what they ask, say no.’

  She laughed at that. ‘I’m old enough to take care of myself, Dad.’

  ‘Course you are, but stick with me anyway. Right?’

  ‘I met Roberto Camilleri today. He came into the shop.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘You didn’t say that the Camilleris would be there too at this club.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ he said, looking straight at her while aiming the car at the road ahead.

  ‘Dad! Keep your eyes on the road.’

  He turned his atten
tion back to the road just in time to brake at a zebra crossing. Two young studs in leather jackets gave him two-fingered salutes and shouted abuse.

  He wound down the window.

  ‘Wanna make something of it, you …’

  ‘Dad! Let it be. Think of your driving licence,’ she added cheekily.

  He blinked at her. ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Marcie took a deep breath and watched the people thronging along the pavement. It was Friday night. People milled in and out of pubs. London had a buzz that the place she’d grown up in could never match. She couldn’t help feeling both excited and apprehensive about this evening. Roberto had made an impression on her and much as she tried to push him out of her mind, his charm and flamboyant appearance wouldn’t go away.

  ‘He’s a bit of a lad, young Roberto. Watch yerself. I wouldn’t want him breaking my little girl’s heart.’

  She fancied that he might have chuckled if it hadn’t been for her. Men admired the stud in the pack, didn’t they?

  ‘No one can ever break my heart again.’ Her jaw ached when she said it. Johnnie’s death had broken her heart. Sometimes he never seemed that far away. She wondered if she would ever see him in the same way that her grandmother saw her grandfather.

  ‘You still think of that lad – Joanna’s father?’

  Amazing! Her father had hit the nail on the head.

  ‘How did you know I was thinking of Johnnie?’ She eyed the mane of dark hair that showed little sign of grey.

  Her father smiled and tipped her the wink. ‘You get that same funny look in your eyes that your gran gets when she’s in tune with me dad.’

  ‘P’raps I’m doing more than thinking of him. P’raps I’m seeing him – just like Gran sees granddad.’

  ‘Very likely, my girl. It runs in the family. My mother’s mother was also that way inclined, if you know what I mean. Back in Malta that was. She’s no longer with us, of course. She’s crossed over as your gran would say. Had a bomb drop on her during the war. They got a lot of bombing out there. They was out there at the time you know – your gran and your grandfather. Me too, though I don’t remember much about it. But your gran went through a lot. You want to ask her sometime.’