Anyone Who Had a Heart

by Mia Dolan

  She trailed her spoon around the circumference of the coffee, making peaks of the foamy surface.

  ‘I do. I think that’s why I don’t smile too much.’

  ‘You’re bringing her to London?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘There’s a sparkle in your eyes as though you’re looking forward to something very special.’

  Marcie found herself relaxing in his company. Michael Jones – Jones was his mother’s name; he’d never accepted the name Camilleri – was easy to confide in. She found herself telling him a lot of things including the fact that her father hadn’t been home to see her stepmother and her half-brothers and half-sister for weeks.

  ‘He sends her money but that’s hardly the same. She’s certain he’s got another woman.’

  Michael frowned. ‘I hadn’t heard as such, but there, if a bloke wants to keep a bird a secret from his wife, it’s best he keeps her a secret from everyone.’

  She told him he was probably right.

  ‘Look,’ he said after a moment of thoughtful introspection, ‘how about you let me take you down to collect your kid and bring you back again? You’re going to have a lot of stuff to bring with you. Am I right or am I right?’

  She told him he was right but that she didn’t have a problem with that. ‘A girlfriend is giving me a lift.’

  She didn’t say who that girlfriend was and that she took her clothes off for a living.

  The flat was above a shop in Balham. The shop sold cheap trophies for darts leagues and Sunday football leagues. Marcie was being rented a room at the back.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she said, head back in order to better see the Victorian cornice running all round the room.

  ‘I thought it would suit,’ said a smug-looking Allegra.

  ‘Suit? You bet it does.’

  Marcie was over the moon. The flat had two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and its own bathroom. Recently refurbished, the walls were painted in fashionable magnolia and the carpet was equally fashionable and brown. It wasn’t large but it was hers and it was smart.

  She presumed Allegra owned it. ‘How can I ever repay you?’ she said to her.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ returned Allegra.

  It was left to Marcie and Sally to deal with the furnishings: curtains of a geometric mustard and brown design, a G-Plan three-piece suite, plus matching sideboard. There was a double bed and two wardrobes for the bedroom and a small dining set for the kitchen with metal legs and a Formica top.

  ‘Great! I’ll make the tea,’ said Marcie as they both paused to take a breath.

  ‘I’ll make the toast,’ said Sally.

  ‘I haven’t got a toaster.’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll use the gas grill.’

  Over tea and toast Marcie asked Sally how she’d become an exotic dancer.

  ‘Carla,’ she said before biting into a second piece of toast.

  ‘Is she one of the Camilleris?’ asked Marcie, eyeing Sally warily.

  Sally laughed throatily, testament to her forty-a-day cigarette habit.

  ‘Not bloody likely. They don’t cross our Carla I can tell you.’

  Marcie found it hard to imagine that the Sicilian men might be afraid of a woman. ‘How come?’

  ‘She’s a hard nut is our Carla and clever with it. She’s been known to supply good acts for nightclubs. She’s the one they send for when their class acts don’t turn out so classy. She furnishes them with top-quality girls who know how to move it around. Know what I mean?’

  Marcie said that she thought she did. She noticed that Sally’s eyes were sparkling, that she wanted to say more about this Carla person.

  Sally winked. ‘Don’t think that men get all their own way when it comes to shady women and shady deals. Carla’s boss can knock spots off some of them – so I’ve heard.’

  ‘And she’s a woman?’

  ‘Oh yes, and I tell you what …’

  Information regarding Carla and her boss had come pouring out of Sally’s mouth. Now she clammed up, as though suddenly realising that she had said too much.

  ‘Never mind all that,’ she said cheerily. ‘Tell me all about your baby again. Joanna? That’s her name, isn’t it?’

  That night Marcie lay in her bed in the new home she would share with her daughter. Her life was seemingly dividing into two sections: there was her first home on the Isle of Sheppey and this home, the new home she would share with Joanna.

  Her whole being tingled at the thought of bringing Joanna to live with her; Sheerness was home but London was exciting. She’d made good friends here and found a good career.

  She giggled at the thought of what she would be making. Who would have thought it? She’d already decided to tell her grandmother that she was designing and making the same things she’d always made. Declaring the truth was not on.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  MARCIE WASN’T WILLING to share the truth of what had happened and what she was up to – even with her father. She sensed he was going to have a go at her about leaving the place and position he’d found her.

  ‘I’m working things so that I can have Joanna with me. If you see Gran before I do you can explain. Are you going home this weekend?’

  Mentioning going home put a stop to questioning her reasons for leaving Daisy Chain, which led her to the inevitable conclusion that Babs was right: her father had another woman. There was nothing for it but to ask him outright.

  ‘Who is she?’

  Her sudden question took him unawares. He turned defensive.

  ‘Don’t you speak to your father like that, young lady! Show some respect.’

  ‘Like you do for your wife?’

  ‘Sod this,’ he said and took off, slamming the door behind him. He came back in on realising that he was walking out of his own bedsit. Marcie had gone to visit him.

  She looked around the squalid room, searching for evidence of what he was up to. The place was usually a tip, though it looked as though he’d at least made an effort to improve matters. His clothes were hanging over the back of a chair rather than in a wardrobe, but even that was an improvement. They were usually strewn across the floor.

  He was in a foul mood.

  ‘Get out of here.’ He did the pointing at the door thing, as though she were the fallen woman being turned out into the snow. She almost laughed at the comparison. Where was that stuff coming from?

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Ungrateful little cow. That’s what you are. I got you a decent job and this is all the thanks I get.’

  Marcie paused. She was about to say that he’d made things difficult for her but the Camilleris and Roberto were hopefully in the past. Whoever asked in the future she would tell the truth. She was a single mother working hard to make a place for her kid in a difficult world. If it wasn’t for her grandmother, she didn’t know what she’d do.

  Thinking of kids made her think of her half brothers and sister. She felt sorry for them, but her stepmother was not her favourite person. Babs wasn’t exactly wicked in a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs kind of way, but not that likeable either.

  Reminding her father about his commitments and his family on the Isle of Sheppey didn’t do her ego much good either. She was missing Joanna and feeling guilty about not having her in London. Two weekends had passed without a visit. She couldn’t hold it off for much longer, but she was desperate to get her business off the ground and was working night and day to get things going. She had so much to prove – both to herself, to those that loved her and to those that doubted her.

  As her grandmother didn’t have a telephone and the phone box on the corner was often occupied, Marcie phoned Father Justin O’Flanagan at the presbytery, which did have a telephone. He promised faithfully to take a message to her grandmother.

  ‘But I will be home next weekend,’ she added enthusiastically. ‘So much has happened. I’ve got so much news.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be glad to know that, my c
hild. Your grandmother has been worried about you and I’m sure your daughter misses you; mother and child should never be parted. And old folk should never be left on their own no matter if they do have the solace of our Blessed Virgin to keep them company.’

  Marcie caught the condemnation in his voice and knew he was doing it purposely. He wanted her to feel bad about it. But she didn’t feel bad. Was she selfish because she didn’t feel bad? She was young and alive and had places to go in her life. The city she had not wished to come to had a buzz she could not get from her cold, damp home sitting on the edge of the North Sea.

  ‘I’ll be home soon.’

  ‘I’ll be up in London myself next week. Perhaps I could call in on you.’

  ‘No.’ Her mind worked frantically. The last thing she wanted was for Father Justin to see the outrageous garments being sewn up on her wonderful professional sewing machines. The machines had cost a fortune; she kept repeating this fact over and over to Allegra who merely brushed it aside saying that she would get her money back eventually. ‘I shan’t be around. I’m doing some research on current fashion. It helps me focus on what I should be designing.’

  ‘Ah!’ He sounded disappointed. ‘Then I won’t be bothering you. Shame though. I wouldn’t have minded a chat over a cup of tea.’

  Having to see his eyes over the rim of her teacup was something Marcie had every intention of avoiding.

  Before he had a chance to try to persuade her, she pretended that she was in a phone box and her money was running out.

  ‘I’ve got no more pennies, Father. I’d better go now before the pips sound. Tell my grandmother that I love her – and that I’ll be down shortly.’

  She brought her fingers down on the telephone cradle. Allegra had thought it a good idea for Marcie to have a phone in her flat. As far as business was concerned, it was. As far as phoning her family was concerned it was a dead loss; none of them had a phone.

  ‘Look at this, Marcie, you’ve done me proud.’

  Marcie had forgotten that one of her clients was trying on her new stage outfit. Eileen Palmer, whose stage name happened to be Madam Medusa, worked with a fifteen-foot python named Monty. She’d ordered a slinky outfit in silver lurex, the legs cut so high that the crotch looked likely to cut her loins in half.

  ‘I look just like one of them Amazon warrior women,’ she exclaimed in a thick Bermondsey accent as she twirled and posed in front of a full-length mirror.

  Eileen’s breasts swelled over cutaway bra cups as she stretched herself to full height on four-inch stiletto-heeled shoes. Her nipples peeped over the top of the low-cut cups like pink-eyed fledglings peering out of their nests.

  ‘The blokes love it when my nipples poke out,’ she said, eyeing them with outright satisfaction.

  It occurred to Marcie that Eileen could only just about glimpse her areolae over the immense swell of her breasts.

  ‘I bet the audience love that,’ laughed Marcie.

  ‘Bet your life they do, darling. They love to see Monty flicking his forked tongue over them. They think he’s injecting a bit of poison and I’m going to fall down in naked agony.’

  Marcie held in her amusement, until her eyes met Eileen’s.

  ‘Silly buggers,’ said Eileen.

  The two of them burst out laughing.

  Barbara Brooks sat across from her mother-in-law with a devilish look in her eyes. For years the old cow had looked down her nose at her thinking she wasn’t good enough for her son. Well now she was sure as hell going to give some back!

  ‘She’s black!’ She spat the information out as though the taste of it was bitter on her tongue. ‘Black!’

  Not a flicker of resentment, shock or even disdain crossed her mother-in-law’s face. Rosa Brooks was unmoved.

  ‘Well!’ Babs sat up dead straight with her head held high behind a pall of cigarette smoke. ‘What do you think of your beloved son messing around with a black tart?’

  Rosa’s expression was inscrutable. ‘My son will do the honourable thing. He will never leave you. You are his wife – until death.’

  ‘Yes! His bloody death if he don’t sort ’imself out!’ Babs snorted, her whole body bristling with the indignation of the wronged wife – though goodness knows she was hardly a saint herself.

  ‘You did not see Antonio to speak to yourself?’

  ‘No. I did not. I just met this woman, this Ella! That bloke Tony works with gave me her address. She’s got two kids and lives in a slum. That’s all I can describe it as – a bloody slum!’

  Everything Babs was saying was being delivered at the top of her voice. Rosa was glad the cottage had thick stone walls and that the windows were closed. What happened within the family should be kept within the family.

  ‘So how do you know that the woman is telling the truth?’

  ‘Of course she’s telling the truth!’

  ‘She may just want it to be the truth,’ offered Rosa, taking the kettle off the gas stove and using a little water to warm the pot. ‘She may have set her cap at my Antonio without him realising it. Women can be very devious when they want something.’

  There was meaning in her voice and in the swift uplifting of her dark eyes.

  Babs was only momentarily deflated. She knew where Rosa was coming from. She’d angled her particular cap at Tony, determined to get him even though he hadn’t exactly been free at the time. Yes, Mary had gone missing, but that hadn’t meant they wouldn’t get back together. It had been she who had persuaded Tony to divorce her on the grounds of desertion.

  ‘She’s his woman. I’m sure of it. Someone needs to find him and speak to him. I thought Marcie could.’

  Babs hadn’t said she’d like a cup of tea, but Rosa poured one anyway.

  ‘Yes. Marcie could. But I do not think it would do any good. She is his daughter. He still thinks of her as a child even though she is a young woman and a mother.’

  ‘How about if you go up and speak to him?’ Babs leaned forwards, the look on her face leaving Rosa in no doubt that this was what she’d come here for in the first place. She wanted her mother-in-law to talk to her son and make him see sense. It would hurt Rosa’s pride to do so and Babs knew that. Rosa saw little wrong in her son because he was her son – her only son.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Huh! Well, that’s typical. And you, always the one for the family and all that!’

  Again Rosa turned those dark eyes on her daughter-in-law, fixing her with a hard, fiery glare.

  ‘I will not go. I have Joanna to look after. I will ask Father O’Flanagan to go and speak with your husband. I will also ask him to take Marcie with him. Your husband loves one and respects the other.’

  Babs was satisfied. She left Endeavour Terrace with a gloating look on her face. Getting Rosa Brooks to admit that her son wasn’t bloody Prince Charming was, to some extent, an act of revenge for all the crap she’d put up with over the years.

  Do not swear in my house, Barbara.

  Do not smoke in my sitting room, Barbara.

  Do not read trashy magazines at my kitchen table, Barbara.

  Close the garden gate after you, Barbara, or next door’s dog will get in and foul my garden.

  Well sod it! She purposely left the garden gate swinging on its hinges and with a toss of her head made for home.

  In her warm cosy kitchen, Rosa sat thoughtfully in one of the overstuffed armchairs to the side of the fireplace. Closing her eyes she let her thoughts drift towards the ceiling while her tea went cold on the table.

  She didn’t need to speak to Cyril out loud. The words were silently thought and Cyril responded. Not all the time. Sometimes he just didn’t seem to be there. Atmospherics used to affect the radio transmissions of fighter aircraft during the war. When Rosa didn’t get any response from Cyril she put it down to the same thing.

  She decided to speak to Father O’Flanagan anyway, but wouldn’t send him to check on Marcie. She’d seen the look in his eyes. He couldn’t help it of course
. The church ordained that priests should be celibate. Nature decreed otherwise. She’d send him direct to her son to remind him of his marriage vows – even though there had been occasions when Babs had failed to remember hers.

  Marcie too had not been home these last two weekends. Rosa was scared. Was it a case of like father, like daughter? She hoped not. This weekend Marcie had promised to be home to see her and Joanna. She’d tried to persuade her to visit Garth, but Marcie had refused. She’d seen the look in her eyes. Nobody liked to visit asylums – even if they cared for the person incarcerated there.

  Marcie rang the phone box at the end of the street. Somebody fetched her grandmother. They exchanged the usual greetings. Marcie finally plucked up courage to ask what was on her mind.

  ‘Gran …? I was wondering …’

  She was wondering whether Rita had been around making a nuisance of herself or whether she’d heard of any gossip spreading about her and the night she’d met Alan Taylor on the beach. In her darkest moments she still wondered what might happen to her if anyone found out the truth about that night. It wasn’t that she felt consumed by guilt at what she had done, more she worried about what would happen to her daughter if she were ever arrested. What if she ended up in prison, just as she was finally building a better life for her and her child? She swallowed hard and shut her eyes, finding a strange comfort behind her closed lids.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Rosa Brooks.

  Marcie had second thoughts about asking. It wasn’t fair to burden her grandmother with any more of her troubles.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said and severed the connection. Let sleeping dogs lie.

  A sliver of light showed between the curtains to Bob Wilson’s room. The light caught on the gold chain twinkling among Bob’s chest hairs. He was lying in bed smoking. Rita was lying beside him seemingly dead to the world, one heavy leg draped across his groin.

  He gave her a nudge. ‘Hey! Sleeping Beauty!’

  She didn’t make a sound which was unusual for her. Usually after they’d done the usual, they had a bit of shut-eye and she’d be snoring like a good ’un.

  Easing his leg across the bed, he reached over to pour himself the last of the whisky. No more than an inch trickled from bottle to glass. They’d sunk the rest the night before. Rita had taken a few pills with hers. She’d offered him some, but he’d declined. He dealt with the stuff, made a packet from it, but he didn’t indulge. Give him booze any day. Bob Wilson was no prat. He knew what was good for him. Whisky was good. Pills were something you took for a headache.