by Jessie Keane
She looked at the leaflet again. ‘Pay’s good, though,’ she said to Betsy.
‘Vi can earn five times that in an evening, not a sodding week,’ said Betsy with a sigh.
Ruby was careful to keep her gob shut about that. Betsy’s big sister Vi was, as some of the women around here whispered, ‘no better than she should be’. She’d only met Vi a couple of times when she’d gone round Betsy’s parents’ house, and she’d been too shy to talk to her, but the memory had lingered.
To Ruby,Vi had seemed as exotic as a butterfly, sashaying nonchalantly around her and Betsy’s shared bedroom in a peach-coloured silk robe, with her glossy dark-red dyed hair cut in a stylish short bob and her lips painted carmine red. Her eyes were the clearest, most luminous emerald green, shockingly intense. Ruby was fascinated by her, and that fascination was all wrapped up with unease because she knew what the people around here thought of Vi, she knew that Vi was bad – but she thought she was wonderful.
‘You’re not thinking of doing it, are you?’ demanded Betsy, seeing her mate’s distracted look. That was gentle, quiet Ruby: always dreaming, always with her head stuck in the clouds.
Ruby handed the sheet back with a shrug.
‘You could do what Vi does down that theatre place,’ said Betsy. ‘You’ve got the looks.’
‘Dad’d skin me alive.’ Ruby looked Betsy square in the eye. ‘Why don’t you do it?’
‘Ain’t got the legs, have I?’ Betsy pouted down at her short but attractive pins.
Ruby looked at Betsy. Her friend was pretty, with her kittenish heart-shaped face, pale green eyes and thick wavy strawberry-blonde hair. Ruby often thought that Betsy was like a watered-down version of Vi. And she wished she could be small and dainty like both Vi and Betsy were, instead of long-legged, big-breasted and dark-haired – and with an arse you could balance a pint of beer on.
‘Josephine Baker danced in Paris in nothing but a skirt made out of a bunch of bananas,’ said Betsy.
Ruby frowned. She was very sensitive about her colour, and Josephine Baker was black. ‘So what?You think I’d want to do the same?’
‘No, of course not. But just think about it. You got options in your life. Me, I couldn’t do it. You, you could. You don’t have to go on working in a corner shop all your life; I ain’t got much choice.’ Betsy stared morosely at the sheet of paper again. ‘I might do this,’ she sighed.
‘Yeah, or you might not,’ said Ruby. Betsy was always getting ‘inspirations’, and trying – and failing – to whip Ruby up into a frenzy over them. Work in an explosives factory. Become a land girl and dig turnips all day. Go dancing at the Windmill, for God’s sake! The list went on and on.
Betsy grinned at her mate and flung the paper into the air. The strengthening breeze caught it and whipped it away, out into the alley. At the same moment the back gate was thrown open, and Charlie and Joe fell through it, covered in blood.
‘You don’t tell no one about this,’ said Charlie.
Ruby nodded dumbly. It had been a hell of a shock, seeing them like that. Both girls had shrieked in surprise as the boys tumbled through the gate, and Joe had quickly told them to shut up, daft cows, the blood wasn’t theirs.
‘Then who the hell’s is it?’ asked Betsy, watching Charlie as he stripped off his coat and his jacket and then his shirt beside the yard tap. There was blood all over his arms and chest, but it was true what Joe had said, it wasn’t his own. Charlie was scrubbing himself, splashing the water over his torso. Pink water was running off him onto the yard. The metallic scent of blood was strong in the air and his chest and arms rippled with hard muscle.
He glanced up at Betsy and she blushed. Betsy had never said as much, but Ruby knew she’d had a terrible crush on Charlie for years. Charlie was always polite to her, but – until now – dismissive. She was his kid sister’s pal, little more than a kid herself.
But now Ruby saw something pass between her big brother and her friend. Ruby went into the lean-to and came out with a towel. Charlie stood drying his chest and arms with it, while Joe started stripping off. Charlie’s eyes were on Betsy and he was smiling faintly.
‘Nobody gets to hear about this,’ he said again, staring straight into her eyes.
‘No! ’Course not,’ she said, staring back as if hypnotized.
Joe went over to the privy and put something inside the door. Then he came back to the tap, and started sluicing the remnants of the evening’s entertainments off himself. Ruby and Betsy sat silent now, their heads full of questions they would never ask. But Ruby remembered the scene later, and thought: Yeah, that was when it all started to happen. That was just about the time that Micky Tranter turned up dead on a bombsite. That was when the Darke boys became a force in the East End.
6
In the midst of war, the police didn’t seem to care much about the disappearance of a rat like Tranter. There had been another gang fight. More casualties. So what? A few days later, Tranter himself was found under a pile of bricks on a bomb site far from where the fight took place, his head severed from his body, maybe by a pane of glass. The rozzers had no reason and little time to question it. They had enough on their plates without getting into all that.
Tranter’s funeral was low-key. He left a wife, who everyone knew he duffed over on a regular basis, so she must have thought all her Christmases had come at once now she was rid of the bastard. She was childless, but not exactly penniless, although word on the grapevine was that she was pretty near it. Tranter had pissed all his money up against a wall, indulged himself, he hadn’t been saving for his old age. And just as bloody well, Charlie joked on the day they buried him, because look what happened!
The remnants of Tranter’s boys had scattered. Now it was the Darke brothers who took charge of the bomb-ridden streets, and Charlie saw it as his first solemn duty to visit the grieving widow, bung her a few quid and reassure her that she would be looked after.
‘Gang money?’ she asked him, looking him over and clearly finding him wanting.
Charlie was a handsome man. Dressed in a black overcoat with a Homburg hat in his leather-gloved hand and his curly hair slicked into submission by Brylcreem, he looked the part of the boss now.
‘I don’t want your dirty money,’ she said, but she left it there on the table where he had placed it and went to put the kettle on. Out in the scullery, she ran the water into the kettle and came back into the kitchen to place it on the gas. Then she looked at him. ‘I suppose it was you?’
‘Me? Me what?’ asked Charlie, but he knew.
‘You killed him?’
Charlie shrugged, said nothing.
A wry smile twisted her face. She was around thirty-five, not exactly ugly but no beauty either; she looked forty if she was a day. Only her ginger-brown eyes retained any vestige of spirit. The years of marriage to Tranter had taken their toll.
‘Not saying much, are you? Well, if it was you, all I can say is thanks. You did me one fucking big favour,’ she said. She glanced down at the money on the table. Then her eyes met Charlie’s again. ‘Don’t get like him,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever get like him.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yeah, you say that. Fat chance. It changes a person, you know. People creeping around frightened of you, it twists you after a bit. Makes you feel the power you got. Then you abuse it. And then it abuses you.’
After he’d visited the widow Tranter, Charlie met up with Betsy in the street.
‘Oh – hello,’ she said, colouring up like she always did when she saw him.
‘Hello,’ said Charlie with a smile, thinking that she was sweet, and tiny, with her Betty Grable pinned-up curls and the lines drawn up the backs of her shapely little legs with gravy browning to make it look like she had stockings on. He’d bung her a few pairs, he could lay his hands on just about anything. She’d love that. He liked her smallness. Made him come over all protective. He thought briefly of Mrs Tranter. She was a dog, compared to Betsy. ‘Glad I caugh
t you. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Me?’ She was looking at him as if he was God Almighty. And he liked that too.
‘Yeah, in private.’
‘What?’
‘Over here,’ he said, and guided her into an alley.
‘What about?’ Her cheeks were flushed bright red now.
‘This,’ said Charlie, and kissed her. His tongue went into her mouth and Betsy let out a strangled squawk of surprise.
Charlie drew back. The Tranter woman was, annoyingly, there in his head again. What was he thinking about that tired old mare for, when he had this on offer?
‘Come on, you can’t say you haven’t been expecting this?’ he smiled.
‘Well, yes. No. I didn’t. You just . . . startled me,’ said Betsy, but she was smiling back at him. This was great. This was Charlie Darke, and he was a big noise around here now, everyone knew it. And he was kissing her!
‘Come on then,’ said Charlie, and kissed her again, and his hands were quickly inside her blouse and then inside her bra, touching her nipples, teasing them into hard little points. Hot bolts of sensation were shooting down from her breasts to her groin, and she moaned at the sweetness of it. It felt so nice, but when his hands roamed lower, she stiffened in shock. She wasn’t that sort of girl; did he think she was?
‘Charlie . . .’ she struggled to say, but his tongue was in her mouth again and now he was tugging her panties down.
‘You want it,’ he gasped. He’d felt worked up ever since that run-in with Tranter, he needed this. ‘Don’t you? I know you’ve always fancied me. And don’t be afraid, I’ll look after you.’
‘You mean get married, be together?’ she said, her eyes frantic and feverish on his.
‘Yeah,’ said Charlie, pushing his fingers between her legs. That felt good too, so good Betsy could hardly bear it.
Then he was unbuckling his belt, unzipping, his cock springing out. Betsy glanced down and was shocked by the size of it. She’d never seen an erection before.
Jesus, I’m going to be Mrs Charlie Darke, she thought.
He was lifting her up, her thighs clamping onto his waist as he guided his penis into her wet opening. He brought her down onto it, sliding in deep, and Betsy let out a small cry.
‘OK?’ Charlie panted, already thrusting.
‘Yeah,’ said Betsy, and let him do it. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought, This ain’t romance, is it? Is this what it comes down to, him rutting at me down a bloody alley, like a dog covering a bitch?
But if it meant being Mrs Charlie Darke, she would tolerate it. Men were beasts, her mum had always told her that, and here was the proof. But it seemed, after all, to be making him happy. She just hoped he wouldn’t take too long over it.
7
On the same day that Joe took the sword that had been the death of Tranter and threw it in the canal, Ruby was at Betsy’s house, up in Betsy’s bedroom, the room she shared with Vi. Betsy’s side of the room was girlish. She still had her teddy bears and old dolls propped up on the bed.
But Vi’s side . . . well, Ruby just loved wandering over there, looking at all the powders and perfumes Vi had on her dressing table. There was a copy of London Life there too, with three flimsily clad Windmill beauties on the front cover wearing gas masks to encourage ARP drill.
‘The one in the middle’s Vi. And don’t touch anything,’ said Betsy, who was reclining on her little bed by the wall, watching Ruby with a smile.
‘What?’ Ruby turned round with a guilty start.
‘Vi thinks she’s the queen or something. She don’t like people touching her stuff.’
Ruby nodded and moved away from the heady environs of Vi’s territory.
‘Don’t your mum and dad mind, Vi working at the Windmill, showing her bits . . . ?’ asked Ruby, curious.
Betsy gave a derisive grunt.
‘Vi calls it “art”. And you know Dad’s always at work in the docks. He don’t take no notice of nothing. Mum don’t tell him what Vi’s up to. She’s got no say in it anyway. Vi does what she pleases, she always has. Rules apply to other people, not her. Mum’s a bit of a mouse, you know. And Vi’s a bloody tiger.’
Even if Vi seemed terrifying, Ruby envied Betsy, having a sister – and such an exotic one too. Being the only sister of two older brothers wasn’t any fun at all. In fact – what with Dad being ill with his foot and bad-tempered all the time and Charlie kicking off at her – it was a pain in the arse. And Charlie and Joe’s behaviour frightened her lately.
It seemed to Ruby that her brothers had changed in the months since they’d run into the backyard soaked in someone else’s blood. Before that, they had been, well, just Charlie and Joe, dead-legging about the place, dodging the draft – Charlie with an imaginary ‘heart murmur’, Joe with ‘flat feet’ – and doing a few iffy deals.
Now, they had acquired a new aura; people – even their own father – spoke to them more respectfully. They dressed immaculately now, and expensively. It was wartime, for God’s sake, everyone was skint; but Charlie and Joe Darke had an air of prosperity about them.
It worried Ruby. She had strong memories of Tranter oiling his way around the bomb-damaged streets, doling out smiles and smacks. Something in the way Charlie and Joe conducted themselves now reminded her of him.
Still, it wasn’t her business. Best to keep her nose out and her head down.
‘What you two doing up here?’ asked a purring female voice, startling Ruby out of her thoughts.
She turned – and there was Vi. She was struck anew by how stunning, how distinctive,Vi’s style was. She was dressed in a well-cut dark-green coat, which she now pulled off and tossed casually aside to reveal a chic, cleverly cut grey dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a twenties flapper.
Vi just oozed charisma.
‘I live here,’ said Betsy chirpily. ‘And Ruby’s visiting. You not working today?’
‘Not today. Tomorrow. Unlike you, I do work. I do my bit for the war effort.’
‘Prancing around on a stage ain’t work,’ scoffed Betsy.
‘Try it,’ advised Vi, sitting down at her dressing table, taking up a hairbrush and applying it to her shiny dark-red bob. ‘It’s work, all right, I promise you. Van Damm’s a slave driver.’
‘I thought that place might close down, with the war,’ said Betsy, watching her sister with a sour little smile as Vi pouted and preened in the mirror.
‘We never close,’ said Vi.
‘It can’t help the war effort, doing what you do.’
Vi turned her head and sent Betsy a pitying smile. ‘Don’t be daft, ’course it does. Keeps the boys cheerful, don’t it?’
‘Cheerful? That ain’t what I’d call it.’
‘As if you’d know,’ sighed Vi, turning her head this way and that, picking up a lipstick, touching it briefly to her lips.
‘Oh, I know plenty,’ said Betsy.
Ruby was watching Vi, too fascinated to look away. Vi was so beautiful, she even smelled beautiful, of sweet Devon Violets. There was a little round bottle on her dressing table, containing liquid of a brilliant acid-green and with a tiny violet silk bow tied around its stubby neck. According to Betsy, she never wore any other perfume.
Vi’s brilliant up-slanted eyes met Ruby’s in the mirror. Then they moved down, over her body. Vi put the lipstick down and turned to eye Ruby assessingly.
‘Can you dance?’ she asked.
‘Well, I . . .’ Ruby was caught off guard. ‘A bit.’
Vi’s eyes were still on her. ‘You look . . .’
Ruby froze. She knew what was coming.
‘Well . . . dark, maybe. Just a bit. You’ve got that big arse, and your lips . . . you got a touch of the tar brush, baby?’
‘Vi! You can’t ask her that,’ Betsy intervened, her eyes moving between her sister and her friend. ‘Look, she had lessons before the war, before the old dance hall got bombed out. We both did,’ said Betsy. ‘You remember.’
/> Vi might not have remembered her sister and her little mate going for ballroom dancing lessons, but Ruby certainly did. She’d pleaded to be allowed to go, and Dad had finally let her. Ruby remembered the embarrassment of realizing the neat little sailor-suit ensemble she had stored up especially for the lessons made her look like a gink, and oh, the crucifying humiliation of discovering that she was taller than every single boy in the class. Some of them had called her Darkie – such a witty play on her name – and she had cried and thrown up in a hedge on the way home.
‘Well, the dancing don’t matter much. They’re always looking for new girls, girls with that certain something . . .’ Vi hesitated, then turned away, back to the mirror . . . ‘You’re a looker, all right. But maybe you haven’t got it. Think about it, though. We could all be dead tomorrow. Bombed to fuck.’
‘’Course she’s got it. Look at her, she’s gorgeous,’ piped up Betsy.
Shut up, Ruby mouthed at her.
‘Well, you can come along with me tomorrow,’ said Vi. Her eyes met Ruby’s again. ‘That’s if you’re interested . . . ?’
Betsy was silent.
‘But the shop . . . What’ll I tell Dad . . . ?’
‘Tell him you’re volunteering or something.’ Vi shrugged.
‘I can do a turn in your dad’s shop, stand in for you,’ piped up Betsy. Anything that brought her closer to Charlie’s orbit was absolutely fine with her.
Ruby hardly dared even consider it. She had seen the WVS ladies about in the bombed-out streets, proudly wearing their green uniforms and their silver-and-red lapel badges bearing the legend WVS above the words ‘Civil Defence’. They provided food, blankets and clothing for homeless families, and worked all hours running the local salvage centre, all instigated by Lord Beaverbook.
‘I . . . suppose I could say I was doing salvage voluntary work at the centre, it’s just down the road,’ said Ruby.
