Stay Dead

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Hiya, Jackie,’ she said.

  ‘Holy fuck.’ He wheezed and a splodge of ash fell from the cigar he’d just clamped back between his teeth. ‘What you doin’ here?’

  ‘Looking for you.’

  Now Annie had found him she was wondering if it had been worth the effort. She was – literally – scraping the bottom of the barrel with him. Jackie was a mess. He had a three-day white-whiskery growth of beard on his skinny chin, his cheeks were sunken, his complexion yellow. He’d never been a beauty, but now he looked fucked. He looked two steps away from a cancer ward and a terminal prognosis, and his head was weaving about in that characteristic drunk’s nod that made her think for one moment, horribly, of her own mother, Connie, who had always been pissed on the sofa and who had died of the drink.

  ‘Jesus, the state of you,’ she murmured.

  ‘Get you a drink?’ he asked, as the barman came over and plonked another whisky down in front of his best customer.

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  Even before the barman turned away, Jackie fell on the whisky like a desert dweller on a watering hole. He threw it back, smacking his lips with relish, emptying half the glass in a single gulp.

  ‘Jackie,’ said Annie.

  ‘Yeah. What you doin’ here then?’ he asked, obviously forgetting he had just asked her the same question.

  ‘Jackie,’ said Annie again.

  ‘What?’ he slurred.

  ‘Steve was right then.’

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘Steve. He was right. You are a pisshead.’

  A hint of annoyance went chasing across Jackie’s face, then it was gone.

  ‘You got no call to speak to me like that,’ he whined.

  Even the tone of his voice reminded her of Mum, lying drunk and shouting pitiful rants while the rent man hammered at the door and Annie and her sister Ruthie cowered in fear of eviction.

  ‘No? You’re saying you’re not a pisshead then? Only the evidence says different. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, and you’re downing whiskies. You’re drunk. You’re unshaved. You’re not even washed, I can smell you from here, you stink like a polecat.’

  ‘Now hold on . . .’ His watery eyes were blinking at her.

  ‘No, you hold on. I need some help, you berk. Steve’s not going to provide it, Gary Tooley’s told me to sling my hook and Chris at the Shalimar is running scared because someone’s just done his place over. Tone? I don’t even know where the fuck he is, but the way things are going I won’t be getting big hugs and kisses from there, either. You know what this is about? Why everyone’s acting so damned weird?’

  He looked at her. Then he shook his head gingerly, like it might drop off his shoulders and roll on to the floor.

  ‘You heard about Dolly Farrell?’ she asked. ‘You know about that, do you?’ Or about anything?

  ‘Course I do. I’m not a fucking fool. I heard it. It was on the news, in the papers.’

  ‘Good. Then you know we’ve got work to do, you know that. But for fuck’s sake! You don’t look capable.’

  He said nothing. Stared at her dully. Then he reached for the whisky again. Annie snatched it from his hand and dashed it on to the floor. Several of the other patrons turned and looked.

  ‘Hey!’ Jackie started up, his face twisting in rage.

  ‘Oh, that got through, did it? Taking your dummy off you, that hurt?’

  ‘You got no call—’

  ‘Oh shut up, you’re a bloody disgrace.’

  ‘You don’t know what I been through . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t, and what’s more I don’t bloody care. Do you know anything about why everyone’s acting strange?’ She was almost sure she knew the answer to this question herself now. But she hoped – she really hoped – that she was wrong.

  ‘What . . . ?’

  Annie stared at his blank expression. No, he didn’t know a thing. He didn’t know because he wasn’t being included, or even contacted, because Steve was right; he was a useless drunk. But at least he wasn’t reacting to her the way everyone else had.

  ‘Jackie, we got things to do,’ she said, calmer now.

  ‘What . . . ?’ He was looking at the empty whisky glass, wishing it full again. She could see it.

  ‘Yeah, we got some work. Remember that? Come on. Follow me.’

  Annie stood up, gathered up her case and bags, then walked out into the street. Jackie followed behind her. And at that point, the fresh air hit Jackie Tulliver like a roundhouse punch, his eyes turned up in his head and he slumped straight into the gutter and lay there, out cold.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Annie loudly. She stayed there for a moment, staring down at him; then she let out a sigh, hefted her bags and suitcase, and hailed another cab. She didn’t bother trying to wake Jackie up; it was a waste of time.

  As usual, she was on her bloody own.

  31

  As soon as she’d checked into her hotel, she got a call put through to the villa in Barbados, praying that Max had returned home and had got her message. But the cleaner answered and told her Mr Carter was still away.

  Yeah, but where? With who? Doing what?

  ‘Thanks,’ said Annie. She replaced the phone on the cradle and fell back on the bed.

  The skies outside her window were dark and pouring with rain, so she reached out and switched on the bedside light.

  Loneliness settled over her like a black cloud. She had got used to being with Max, living with him, loving him. Their relationship had always been stormy, but she had never doubted his love.

  Now, she did. And she felt abandoned.

  Where the hell had he gone? Why hadn’t he told her?

  It made her uneasy and sad, this enforced separation. And alone, truly alone, with no one standing firm beside her. Not Chris, not Ellie, not even Steve. Tone? Who knew. She’d find out soon, but she had a horrible feeling that the news wasn’t going to be good on that front either. Jackie Tulliver had turned out to be a dead loss. And now, on top of all that, there was this terrible business with Dolly.

  She buried her face into the pillow and let out one deep, heartfelt sob. She didn’t cry. She never cried, but this pain was so great, her heart seemed to seize up in her chest, stopping her breath, making her squeeze her eyes tight shut like a child who can only pray the monsters will go away.

  This monster wouldn’t.

  Dolly was dead.

  Annie had few friends, but those she did have were precious to her. Like Ellie – who seemed to have turned her back on her. And Dolly, the feistiest, the best of them all, was gone.

  Into Annie’s mind came images of her old pal; Dolly laughing, moving briskly about behind the bar of the Palermo, snapping orders at the bar staff one moment then roaring with laughter with them the next. She remembered how delighted Dolly had been when she’d left Tony the driver and the Jag for Dolly’s own personal use around town. Dolly, who according to Annie’s Aunt Celia had struggled so much in her youth, who’d had it really hard, was now queening it around the place, a woman of means, a woman in charge.

  There were more images parading through Annie’s brain now. Dolly getting rat-arsed at their habitual meetings at the Ritz, her tongue running away with her even more than usual. But that was Dolly, wasn’t it. All attitude, that was Doll. She’d suffered in her life and her stance had become: don’t fuck with me, or you’ll be sorry. She was loud, coarse and impulsive; Annie was the exact reverse. Maybe that was why, after their initial skirmishes, they’d got on well and stayed friends ever since.

  Christ, how could that happen to Dolly? Annie wondered, thinking of some scumbag walking into the Palermo, up the stairs, into Dolly’s little flat, her treasured pink-toned haven, and shooting her dead.

  I’ve got to do something, she thought, and then, exhausted, still fully dressed, she fell asleep.

  The phone woke her, breaking into a dream about Dolly and Celia. She opened her eyes, which felt gritty. It was bright, morning. No, it wasn’t. The light w
as on, glaring. She was . . . she didn’t know where the fuck she was. She sat up. There was a small brass carriage clock on the bedside table, it said one-fifteen in the morning, and— Oh God, now she remembered, she was in London, everything had gone tits-up, and Dolly was dead.

  Her heart sank again as that realization hit her. But the phone kept ringing. She reached out, pushed the hair off her face and snatched it up.

  ‘Yeah?’ she snapped.

  ‘Mrs Carter, there is someone in reception. I’m so sorry to disturb you at this hour, but he insists it’s urgent.’ There was a hushed conversation, then the receptionist came back on. ‘It’s a Mr Tulliver.’

  Annie let out a quivering sigh. ‘Send him up,’ she said.

  Jackie Tulliver was in a foul mood when he got to Annie’s door.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ he demanded, bustling past her into the suite.

  ‘You know where I went. I went here.’ Annie looked at him. He might be a godawful mess but there were still a few brain cells rattling around in that thick skull of his because here he was; he’d found her. ‘And you tracked me down.’

  ‘No big bloody trick. Holland Park’s all closed up, I remembered that. You weren’t at the Ritz. You’ve stayed here before, you’re a creature of habit, right? So you had to be here.’

  He’d sobered up a little.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said, examining and then opening a TV concealed inside a large ornate Georgian doll’s house. ‘I was with you in the pub, then we went outside . . . Jesus, look at this. Ain’t that neat.’

  ‘You passed out in the gutter. And you know what? It suited you so well, I left you there,’ said Annie, sitting down on the bed.

  He turned and looked at her. ‘Thanks for fuck-all then,’ he said. ‘Anything could have happened. I could’ve choked, or died of the cold.’

  ‘It’s June, and you were spark out, on your side. Not choking.’

  ‘You wouldn’t give a toss if I was.’

  ‘So true. So what do you want, Jackie? It’s the middle of the night, in case you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘You got any drinks in here?’ he asked.

  What the fuck. If he wanted to kill himself, she wasn’t his damned mother, was she? Annie sighed and pointed to an antique writing desk. Jackie went over, found and opened the fridge concealed there. It was stuffed with chocolate bars, miniature whiskies, brandies, vodka. Jackie grabbed a whisky with an unsteady hand, didn’t bother to enquire about a glass. He unscrewed the cap and necked it in one swallow.

  ‘That crap’s going to kill you,’ Annie told him.

  Jackie shrugged, lobbed the empty bottle in the waste bin, and swiped another full one before closing the door.

  ‘Look, I’m makin’ an effort here,’ he said, coming and sitting down on the bed. He bounced up and down a couple of times. ‘What size is this? It’s comfy.’

  ‘Jackie.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Watch my lips. If you’re up to it, we have things to do. Never mind the damned décor.’

  ‘What things?’ he asked, his eyes wandering around the room.

  Jesus, is this it? wondered Annie. Is this the best I’ve got to play with?

  The answer was yes.

  ‘Important things. Things that require you being sober, not pissed out of your head.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Jackie looked at her, his face working. ‘You think I’m a loser, don’t you?’

  ‘You got that right.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘Oh really? Prove it.’

  ‘How the fuck am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘First you get on to our tame coppers in the Met. There’s still a few on the payroll. Tone’s on it too, but turns out he’s unreachable right now, and anyway two heads are better than one. See what’s cooking on Dolly’s case. See what the narks are telling them.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said Jackie. ‘I can be your strong right arm, count on me.’

  Annie looked at him. ‘The only strong thing about you is your smell. Just fuck off and do it, will you?’

  32

  Limehouse, 1958

  Dad got rid of the aborted baby. He brought up newspapers and wrapped the thing up and took it away. Then he came back with clean linen and a bowl of hot water, flannel and towels, and left Dolly to make the bed and clean herself up.

  Still in pain, she slept after that; no one came near. She slept all through that day and into the next, and when she woke at last the pain was gone, the enema had finished scraping out her insides and she had nearly stopped bleeding too.

  It was over.

  Dolly felt huge relief at that, along with massive guilt. She thought of the stained-glass angels in the church windows again, but her mind shied away. She ought not to be thinking of those angels, not her, she was wicked, bad to the bone.

  But . . . was it really over?

  The baby was gone, but where did that leave her?

  Dad had looked as sickened as she did when the baby came away, she knew he’d seen himself, his own features, in the poor kid’s face. Well, good. He ought to suffer. Christ knew, she had suffered enough and none of it was her fault. Or . . . was it? Was it something she had done, trying to make herself look pretty maybe, had that somehow forced him to do the man-and-woman thing with her? Was it her fault, really? Had her wickedness infected him, made him do those bad things?

  And there was something even worse loitering at the back of her mind. Once she was up and about and well again, would he pick up where he’d left off, start all that again, maybe even – and now she sat up in the bed, horrified – would he make her have another child, take another trip to the Aldgate woman? Would she have to endure another day and night of agony, only to deliver another dead horror?

  It could happen. Dolly thought it really could. This awfulness could happen again and again until she went like Mum, totally off her head. And she couldn’t allow that. She wouldn’t.

  Dolly’s mind was spinning in small trapped circles. Terrified though the idea made her feel, she knew she had to do it. It was the simplest of plans, really. And she didn’t have a choice in the matter, not any more.

  She gave it a couple of weeks, enough to get her strength back, to return to her usual robust state of health. All the while, she was careful to tell Dad how rough she felt, that her insides hurt, just in case he should think of resuming the stuff he liked to do with her upstairs. She told him about the washing powder in the bowl and the enema, and could almost have laughed to see how it turned his stomach. He was revolted by female stuff, the mess and gunk that came with periods and babies and the results of him having his fun.

  Then, late one night when Sarah was fast asleep and the whole household too, Dolly dressed, picked up the bag she had already packed, and left home. She was nearly fourteen.

  33

  It was summer, so life on the streets wasn’t quite so bad as in wintertime.You could sleep in doorways and the coppers didn’t bother you much if you kept out of their way. And Dolly saw there were others doing this too. She bought cakes with what little money she had, and bottles of pop. She washed in the ladies’ loos in the town centre. Kept herself nice, or tried to. But it felt awful, being without a home. It made her sick with anxiety. Still, when she thought of what she’d left behind, she could only be grateful not to be there any more.

  When the money ran out, she started to make a living for herself giving hand and blow jobs to strangers down the alleys. All you had to do was keep your mind blank while this went on, and she was good at that. She’d had plenty of practice. She did it, took the money. Fed herself. Then sat on the pavement outside the shops during the day, watching the world go by, watching people, lucky people with homes to go to.

  Men brushed past her, women clattered by on stiletto heels; one of them, in a sharp mustard-coloured skirt suit, holding a fancy cigarette holder in her hand, paused in front of her and then, to Dolly’s surprise, tossed a few coins into her lap. Dolly looked
up. The woman’s button-black eyes were warm and twinkling; then she moved on.

  Dolly had been on the streets for a couple of weeks when she was approached late one evening by a tall skinny man wearing eagle-tipped shoes. She looked up, up, up and saw there was a scar running down the length of his cheek. She’d seen him about before; he was flashily dressed and looked a nasty piece of work, she thought. Dolly had just been thinking of going back to her usual sleeping spot, but now here he was, planted on the pavement in front of her, looking her over.

  ‘What you doing out here?’ he asked, his voice faintly foreign.

  Dolly didn’t answer. She stood up, gathered her things together. He grabbed her arm.

  ‘You on the game here? This is my patch, my girls work this street.’

  ‘I’m not on the game,’ said Dolly, who had a pretty good idea what he meant by that now. He meant the man-and-woman thing. So far, she’d avoided that, used her hands and mouth instead. She’d seen his ‘girls’ – most of them middle-aged and shivering the nights away on the streets with short skirts and high heels, poor cows. They’d given her looks – not friendly ones.

  ‘You better not be,’ he snapped. ‘I’m Gregor White, I own this patch, all right?’ And he walked away.

  The woman with the posh fag holder and the twinkling eyes came by again a couple of times in the week after that. She never spoke, but always she tossed a couple of quid in Dolly’s lap and then walked on. Dolly watched her along the road until she turned the corner and was out of sight. Then she sighed and gathered up the notes. Money was getting very tight. Soon, she might have to go the whole hog, do the man-and-woman thing. She hated the thought, but at least while she was being poked she would be getting paid more, there was that to be thankful for.

  Once or twice she got the bus and went and stood at the end of the road where the family home was. She stood there, half-hidden behind a garden wall, and watched her dad go to work with his jaunty bow-legged stride; saw formal, upright Nige and pale, skinny little Sand come out, saw mad Dick go barrelling out the gate all dirty and dishevelled with his satchel flying, on his way to school. Once she saw an ambulance pull up, saw Mum being wheeled out in a chair to go and get her brains unscrambled. But she couldn’t feel sorry for Mum any more. She could only hate her.