by Jessie Keane
‘Yeah,’ said Gregor, distracted because he was looking for his bitches, who had vanished, apparently, and by fuck, by God, he swore he was going to mark their card good. Give them both a swift kick up the cunt. And then he was going to get back indoors in the warm.
Gregor pulled out his gold lighter, the one he’d had initialled; he liked his nice threads and he liked his accessories too, his eagle-tipped shoes, his gold initialled bracelet – he had a lot of style and he liked to show it.
Gregor flicked the lighter and a flame erupted, illuminating the other man’s face. Green eyes, he thought. That was rare, wasn’t it? That was the last thing Gregor thought and those mean green eyes were the last thing he saw. There was the slightest puff of movement behind him and then there was a crashing pain in his head. Then there was only blackness.
45
Limehouse, 1962
Time passed and Dolly grew up. Once past sixteen, Celia asked if she’d like to earn some more wedge, become a working girl like the others here; Celia would hire a cleaner to take over Dolly’s duties, what did she think?
‘What – do the man-and-woman thing?’ asked Dolly, shocked.
‘Fuck the punters, yes.’
‘Oh no. I don’t think so.’
‘Your decision. Up to a hundred sovs a night, though.’
‘How much?’
‘You heard me. The money’s damned good,’ said Celia. ‘Not to be sniffed at. Maybe set yourself up, do something with your life, something different one of these days with money like that behind you. What do you think of that?’
Dolly looked blank. The money sounded great. But to start all that again . . .
‘Think it over,’ said Celia.
Dolly did, long and hard. She went and sat on Darren’s bed and asked him what he thought of the idea. Darren was nice and he had style, and Dolly – who didn’t – admired that.
She did try. Sometimes she got the home dye out and coloured her straight mouse-brown hair – but she ended up with a yellowy blonde mop that looked hellish with her pink-toned skin. Thinking to improve it, she then permed it, and she had nice curls for a little while before her tortured barnet rebelled and took on the dull brittle texture of horse hair.
Ah yes, she tried. Didn’t see the point, really, but she did. She let her roots show on occasion, bit her nails. Truth to tell, she knew she looked a bit of a mess most of the time. Yeah, Darren had style all right. And so did Celia. Dolly thought sometimes that she’d give a lot to be as polished as them, but she was realistic enough to see that it just wasn’t going to happen.
‘I wondered when she was going to get round to asking you, with Cindy and Tabs moving on. I should bite her bloody arm off,’ Darren told Dolly, squinting his large blue eyes as he primped his glossy blond hair in the mirror, then carefully adjusted the peach chiffon scarf around his neck.
Grinning, he blew a kiss at his reflection and turned to Dolly. ‘Wake up, Doll. This is a nice place. I’ve never worked in better. Madam down there looks after us all, she don’t work us to death either. Gives us breaks, makes sure we’re kept safe, insists on the clients washing themselves first and using French letters. This place is properly run.’
Then Dolly went in to Ellie’s room where Ellie was loading six 45 rpm records on to the retaining arm of her little red Dansette. Dolly told her about Celia’s offer while they sat on Ellie’s bed and listened to ‘Stand By Me’, then ‘Crying’, and then Patsy Cline was wailing on about falling to pieces when Ellie said: ‘Do it.’
Ellie shook out a couple of Player’s cigarettes from a packet and passed Dolly one. She struck a match and lit them both up. ‘Lay down any ground rules first, though. Celia knows I don’t do the French polishes – the blow jobs – never have, don’t like that at all, and she makes sure the clients know it. Anything you really draw the line at, tell her.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Dolly, pulling a face as she exhaled smoke. She liked smoking. It calmed the nerves, even if it did turn your fingers yellow. And she was remembering the time when the punter had disregarded Ellie’s wishes, become obsessive and dangerous, and they’d had to call for the Delaney mob to do a dark alley job on the stupid cunt.
‘The money’s bloody good,’ said Ellie.
Dolly thought it over. It wouldn’t be like all that had happened in the past, with Dad. She would be in charge, that was the difference. And this time, should anything untoward happen, there was always the Delaneys to fall back on. She liked the thought of that, very much.
Thoughts of what happened years back always made her feel depressed. She tried not to think about it, but she didn’t always succeed. Sometimes, she still caught the bus and went down the end of the street where she had grown up. She watched for Dad going to work, and she saw Sarah and the boys, growing up now, in big school, and little Sand bumbling about the place. She couldn’t talk to them, couldn’t even know them any more, because they would ask why did she go, and she couldn’t tell them, couldn’t even speak of it.
She didn’t see Mum, but no surprises there; Mum was probably banged up in the funny farm by now, a permanent resident instead of a part-time visitor. Thinking of Mum was the worst thing of all, because she ought to feel sorry for her but she couldn’t.
She mulled Celia’s offer over for a couple of days, then thought of the money and all that she could do with it out in the big wide world some day in the future when she was no longer so scared as she was right now, scared like she had been ever since the man-and-woman stuff had started with Dad. So she said yes.
It wasn’t so bad. All she had to do, she discovered, was what she had always done in the past – just take herself off somewhere in her mind while it happened, let that familiar old blankness settle over her and then, wallop, two minutes and it was all over and the customer was off out the door.
By the time she hit nineteen, she had a pretty good stash of loot put aside in the bottom of her wardrobe but she had no idea what to do with it. Dreams, plans, those were for other people. Unlike Ellie, there was nothing she objected to with the clients because she was never actually there while it happened. So she did the lot. The blow jobs, the full sex, the hand jobs, anal, even some tying up and whipping (although most clients preferred to go to the more experienced Aretha for those services) and she even accommodated the Golden Rainers who liked to piss on a woman for some weird perverted reason of their own.
‘Oh, I seen worse than that, girl,’ said Aretha. ‘One of my boys? He likes to eat my . . . well, I think you get the picture.’
Nothing was off limits to Dolly, because she never felt it, was never truly aware of it happening. Somewhere, deep in her core, she knew that something had been killed in her; something that had once been alive and well was now dead and rotten.
‘Smarten yourself up a bit, will you, Doll?’ Celia asked sometimes when the blackness descended and Dolly’s scruffiness reached a new low.
Dolly kept up with the home dye but her hair did look frazzled. Sometimes an inch of dark root showed through. She chain-smoked and didn’t eat good food, only rubbish, so her skin was bad and she had to slather thick make-up on it to make it look passable.
Celia nagged Dolly sometimes about her appearance, but the truth was she didn’t much care what she looked like because what was it for? The punters, who climbed on board and used her? Fuck them. If they didn’t like it, they knew what they could do.
Despite the bad memories it conjured up, she still made the occasional bus trip to her old home, just to stand at the end of the street, watching. She didn’t know why. It was something she felt she had to do, a compulsion, beyond her control. Common sense said leave it. The past was dead and it should stay that way. But every so often she’d get the urge to go back there and no amount of reasoning with herself could stop her.
Then one day – the day when she realized hell had opened up – she stood there at the end of the street for over an hour. That day she saw no boys, no Nige, no Dick, no little Sand try
ing to jump over the front wall and falling on his arse as usual, no Mum. What she did see was Sarah, her little sis, now fourteen years old, coming out of the door with Dad, and going out the front gate.
She saw Dad’s arm draped around Sarah’s shoulders. Saw his springy bow-legged walk, and felt her stomach heave.
But the worst thing? When she thought about it afterwards – and she couldn’t stop thinking about it, try as she might – the very worst thing was Sarah’s face. It was turned up to her father’s and Dolly saw clearly that it wore an expression that was cowed but at the same time pitifully hopeful. Dolly’s heart stopped in her chest as she saw it. Sarah’s face said: I’ll be good, Dad, so please don’t hurt me. I love you, Dad, why do you hurt me?
And in that instant, sick beyond words, sick to her stomach, Dolly knew.
46
Dolly had her own worries, her own private concerns, but she wasn’t completely cut off from the rest of humanity. She went downstairs one morning and into the kitchen, and there they all were: Celia, Darren, Aretha and Ellie, all sitting around the table with untouched cups of tea in front of them, all looking like they’d lost a tenner and found sixpence.
Dolly stopped inside the kitchen door and stared at them. Celia hadn’t even lit a fag, hadn’t even put one in her ivory holder. It lay on the table in front of her, unused, beside an unopened packet. It was like they were all in suspended animation. They didn’t even look up at her.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, gazing around at their still, frozen faces.
Celia was the first to respond.
‘Oh! Doll,’ she said, and seemed unable to say more.
‘What is it?’ asked Dolly, taking her usual seat. She gave a tentative smile. ‘What’s happened then? Somebody died or something?’
Celia gave a slow dip of a nod. ‘Yeah. Something like that, Doll.’
‘What?’ Dolly had been joking. The smile fell from her face.
‘You know the Delaney boys?’ said Aretha.
‘What about them?’ said Dolly.
‘We got the news ten minutes ago. Can’t take it in really,’ said Celia.
‘What is it?’ Dolly’s mouth was dry. Whatever it was, it was bad. Really bad. She could see that.
‘Tory Delaney’s dead.’
‘Tory . . .’ Dolly frowned. Tory was the one in charge of the Delaney gang they paid protection money to, the one who’d come in here with his hair-trigger-tempered brother Pat and sorted out that punter who’d been beating on Ellie.
‘He’s been shot. Outside the Tudor Club in Stoke Newington,’ said Celia, whose face was pale with shock.
‘Four times, they reckon,’ said Darren. ‘Three in the chest, one in the head. Nobody knows who did it, but we’re all thinking the Carters.’
Dolly knew the Delaney and Carter gangs were at loggerheads – had been for years. But this . . . this was going to bring open warfare on to the streets. And if Tory was dead, who was going to be in charge of the Delaney gang now? Who was going to take revenge for Tory’s murder?
‘Redmond will take over. He’s the eldest. Not Pat – he hasn’t the brains for it,’ said Celia.
‘Redmond? That’s the one with the twin, ain’t it?’ asked Aretha.
‘That’s the one. Redmond and Orla. Redmond’s a thinker. Christ, I’ve only just got used to dealing with Tory. Tory was always a bit of a hothead, but Redmond? He’s a cold fish. Cold right through, that’s Redmond, that’s what everyone says,’ said Celia.
‘Wasn’t there another son? Younger still?’ asked Ellie.
‘That’s Kieron, the painter. No, he wouldn’t be into dirty games like the others. He’s kept himself apart from all that,’ said Celia.
Dolly tuned them out; she was still thinking about seeing Sarah and Dad on the street, still reliving it, still seeing little Sar’s face. She felt powerless and terrified whenever she thought of Dad. She couldn’t face him, she couldn’t bear it.
But oh God. Sarah!
‘Dolly! Wake up girl, stick the kettle on, will you? This tea’s stone cold,’ said Celia.
Dolly tuned back in. She stood up and did as Celia asked, feeling a cold shiver run right up her spine. Things were changing here at the knocking shop, and she hated that.
47
Limehouse, 1963
Dolly would never forget the day Annie Bailey showed up on Celia’s doorstep. It was not long after Tory got himself shot to death, and the rumours were rife. Max Carter, Max Carter, that’s what everyone was saying. Max Carter did it. He was guilty as sin. And then there were other rumours, even more shocking ones; Max Carter had got married the day after Tory Delaney’s death, but on the night that Tory had been killed Max Carter had also bedded his soon-to-be bride’s sister. Somehow, this had become known to the Bailey family – and the shit had hit the fan big-style.
‘Christ, that bloke’s been busy,’ was Darren’s opinion, shared with all the girls at the kitchen table. He made a fanning gesture with his hand. ‘I’ve seen him, you know. This Max Carter person. Hot as hell, that one. Shame he’s straight. That man is gorgeous.’
‘Do you think it’s true? That he did all that?’ asked Dolly, fascinated.
Darren shrugged. ‘Who knows? Could be. He don’t give a shit for anyone, that man. He’s been shoving the Delaney boys for months now and I reckon it’s about time they shoved back. And the girl? This Annie Bailey sort? He’d do that without a moment’s thought.’
And then, this exotic-looking girl arrived – Celia’s niece, by all accounts – and Celia Bailey took her in. Despite all her worries about Sarah and Dad and the changing situation with the Delaneys, Dolly glimpsed Annie and thought, Just look at her. Talk about Lady Muck.
Dolly herself was no beauty, and when she saw beauty in others she resented it. Annie was dark-haired, tall, with bone structure any girl would kill for and a stately, upright way of carrying herself. She had fabulous dark green eyes and a great body, shown off by a brief white PVC mini-mac and white kinky boots.
‘That’s her,’ Aretha said to Dolly and Darren, as Celia led Annie up the stairs.
‘Who?’ They looked at her in confusion.
‘Jeez, keep up will you? That’s her.’ Aretha leaned in so that Celia shouldn’t hear them gossiping away down in the hall. ‘That’s Annie Bailey, that’s Ruthie Carter’s sister, that’s the one who was fucking Max Carter the night before he married Ruthie, the night they also say he killed Tory Delaney. Christ, don’t you know anything? Her mum threw her out when she found out about it, and Celia’s taken her in. Bet that went down well with dear old Mum, don’t you?’
‘She’s a working girl then?’ asked Darren, eyes like saucers.
‘Nah, Celia’s her aunt, her father’s sister. I don’t suppose anyone else would have her after what she did.’
‘This Annie’s sister took it bad then?’ said Ellie.
‘Bad?’ Aretha gave a guffaw of laughter. ‘Ruthie Bailey told their mum straight off, I heard, and the mother went crazy and kicked Annie Bailey’s high-toned arse straight out on to the street. They ain’t got a clue she’s come here. Celia and the mother don’t talk, haven’t for years. Word is, Ruthie Bailey – no, Ruthie Carter – is taking to drink just like the mother, she’s that upset about it all.’
In the days that followed, Dolly watched Annie. She carried herself like a queen. Which of course she wasn’t. Dolly knew that. She was no better than any of the workers here, she was a tart, surely? No, she was worse than that. She’d fucked her brother-in-law, betrayed her sister. She was the lowest of the low.
One evening, Dolly went up to the room where Annie was hiding out, keeping out of everyone’s way.
Guilty as sin, thought Dolly as she went up the stairs. Ellie’s Dansette was playing Cliff Richard, and Darren and Ellie were in there, singing along, both of them out of tune like a couple of cats howling on a roof; they couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. They were all at a loose end tonight except Aretha, who was banging
away with a client like a good ’un. It was raining; that always put the punters off.
Dolly was about to go and join Ellie and Darren when she saw Annie heading into her room.
‘I know you,’ said Dolly, pausing there. ‘Word is, you fucked your sister’s bridegroom the night before the wedding.’
Annie hesitated. After a moment she said in a low husky voice: ‘Whatever the “word” is, I’ve got nothing to say about it.’
‘Oh, go on,’ crowed Dolly. ‘I could do with a laugh.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Annie Bailey.
‘I’m only taking an interest.’
‘Who asked you to?’
Dolly’s smile dropped from her face. She moved in closer. ‘I could tell you the things I’ve heard,’ she said.
‘Such as?’
‘They say your sister’s on the bottle. Took it all bad.’
Annie’s face remained blank. ‘Says who?’
‘Says everyone. You know, you ought to be nicer to me,’ said Dolly. ‘I could get word to your sister that you’re living in a knocking shop. How would that go down? You wouldn’t be so fancy then, would you, with her thinking you were making your living flat on your back.’
Annie slapped her, hard. Dolly stood for a moment, shocked, transfixed by the nerve of this cunt, then she launched herself at Annie, flinging the door wide and knocking the taller woman back on to the bed, clawing at her hair. Annie hit her again, even harder, and Dolly let out a screech of surprise, trying to get her nails hooked into Annie’s face.
Annie grabbed Dolly’s wrists and pushed her back, and then there were shouts and Darren and Ellie were there, yanking Dolly off. Dolly was shrieking and spitting, but between them they managed to drag her out of Annie’s room and back on to the landing.
‘You’ll be sorry you did that,’ screamed Dolly.
