Fools Fall in Love

by Freda Lightfoot

  Patsy hid a smile. ‘Fran is surprisingly fastidious, considering she lives with Big Molly.’ Not that Patsy blamed her for that. The very thought of doing ‘it’ with a perfect stranger, whether he ponged or not, turned her stomach.

  ‘Aye well, she’d already told me she’d no intention of stopping here, in this hole. How she had big plans and intended to move up in the world to better paying clients. Fast!’

  Maureen took a quick slug of gin then explained how she’d given her quite a bit of sound advice, to which Fran clearly hadn’t listened because the next time she ventured out, she’d got herself mixed up with Billy Quinn.

  ‘I believe he came looking for her. I warned Fran not to have anything to do with him. He’s evil is Quinn, but according to the other “girls” he was flashing money around like a man with ten arms and Fran fell for it. She was having a bit of a run in with Elsie at the time and then Quinn happened along. She’s a liability, that woman. Most of the “girls” stand by each other, but not Elsie. She’s one on her own. Anyway, they had this set to, then Fran went off with Quinn. According to my mate Rita, Quinn offered to instal her in his Pleasure Palace, as he calls it. Some bleeding palace! She’ll be pandering to the dregs of society in there, and nothing and no one will get her out of Quinn’s clutches now.’

  Patsy was struggling to take this all in, horrified by what she was hearing. ‘But why would she go? Fran isn’t stupid. She doesn’t even like Quinn. And when did this happen? You haven’t seen her since when exactly?’

  ‘Yesterday, when she chucked out Dell the Pong. But, like I say, my mate Rita saw her this morning, out on the street. She kept out of sight while all this was going on, but Rita heard everything. Apparently her mam owes Quinn money, and he’s decided that Fran, or at least the value of her services, will do nicely in lieu of payment. Rita says Fran didn’t look too happy about it, but went with him anyway.’

  ‘Oh, my God. I don’t suppose she had much choice. Does Big Molly know?’

  Maureen drew hard on her cigarette. ‘I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell her. Are you?’

  Patsy considered. ‘I reckon I must. Someone has to. I’ll just have to hope she doesn’t decide to crack the pavement with my head when I do.’

  Big Molly looked at Patsy as if she’d run mad. ‘You dare to stand there and tell me that my lass is on the game? My Fran?’

  Patsy had sent Annie off home, so that Clara wasn’t worried about them any longer than necessary, while she spoke to Big Molly alone. But one look at the woman’s furious expression and Patsy began to doubt the wisdom of that move. Big Molly was more frightening than any gang of youths down by the canal. ‘That is what I’ve been led to believe.’ Best not to be too definite, she decided.

  Big Molly’s great fat cheeks seemed to expand with fury, turning an odd shade of purple, and her eyes popped. ‘It’s that Maureen character, isn’t it? The one who sorted her when she fell pregnant to that Eddie Davidson.’

  Patsy had no choice then but to tell Molly what Maureen had told her, how Fran must now be under Quinn’s control, how he must have lured her into one of his ‘palaces’ in lieu of Big Molly’s debts. ‘It’s not certain, but it’s a strong possibility.’

  All Molly’s anger at once evaporated, and the older woman appeared to shrink in size, like a punctured balloon. They were standing in her kitchen. Neat as a new pin, and with not a sign of baking equipment in sight it seemed to have lost its soul, rather like its owner. Patsy thought Big Molly might be about to keel over as all the colour drained from her face, and she actually swayed on her feet, the size of meat plates though they may be. ‘He wouldn’t do that to me. I promised I’d pay by the end of the month.’

  ‘Yes, but which month?’ Patsy dryly and accurately asked.

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt my lass, just because him and me have a bit of outstanding business to clear up.’

  ‘It seems he would. He has.’

  The big woman’s knees gave way under her and she sank into a kitchen chair, her head in her hands. Patsy couldn’t help but feel sorry for her even though she’d got herself, and her daughters, into a right pickle, one way or another.

  ‘Oh, my giddy aunt. What have I done? Oh, Lord, what have I done?’ She grabbed hold of Patsy and almost shook her. ‘What will it take to get her out of there?’

  ‘Leave off, Molly. How should I know?’ Managing to extricate herself from the woman’s frantic grip, Patsy took a chair at the opposite side of the table. There was only so much she was prepared to do in the name of friendship. Tackling Quinn was way beyond that. ‘This really has nothing to do with me. It’s your problem. Yours and Fran’s, and Billy Quinn’s.’

  Big Molly leaned across the table, fat fingers clasped tightly together as if she were praying. ‘You must go and ask him for me. Now, before he does something to her. I can’t go. He’d not agree to see me. What with the interest and the extra charges for -. for another little favour he’s done for me recently, I daren’t go near him without a wad of notes in me hand. Our Ozzy won’t do owt, and who else is there if you won’t? No one on this market will give me the time of day right now. Even trade on the pie stall is dropping off something shocking. Just ask him how much it’ll take to get my lass out of his clutches. You can do that for me, can’t you?’

  Patsy was shaking her head. ‘Not if I want to live, I can’t. Why the hell should I? Like I say, this is your problem, not mine.’

  ‘I love my girls to bits. You must make him see that. I only wanted the best for them.’

  ‘You’ve a funny way of showing it. I’m glad I haven’t got a mother, if you’re an example of the breed.’

  It came to Patsy then, in a moment of startling revelation, that just because a person had a mother didn’t mean their life was simple or easy, that the streets were paved with gold for them, their path through life smoothed and the relationship everything they could wish for. Mothers made mistakes too, even if they did love their children. Patsy had no reason to doubt that Big Molly loved hers, for all her misguided attempts to control them and make them do what she thought best. And Fran and Amy loved her too, amazingly enough, which was why they were all in this mess, she supposed. Relationships could be complicated, however close the blood tie.

  Patsy gave a weary sigh. ‘I suppose there may be times when outside help, from someone not so emotionally involved, comes in useful.’

  They were interrupted at this delicate stage in negotiations by a furious hammering at the front door. They heard Ozzy curse loudly. He’d been watching television in the living room, studiously avoiding the issue of recalcitrant daughters, but they heard him shuffle along in his slippers to answer it.

  Big Molly went on talking. ‘Are you prepared to sit back and do nothing while Quinn helps himself to my girl?’

  ‘Are you?’

  The kitchen door burst open and there stood Chris, wild-eyed and ashen faced. ‘Tell me Amy is here. For God’s sake tell me she’s here, and safe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Amy has disappeared.’

  Once they’d calmed Chris down sufficiently to speak, he told them the tale, still in such frantic anxiety they could hardly take it in. ‘I haven’t seen her since I came home for a bite of dinner about one o’clock. I went to the kitchens looking for her but your Robert says she didn’t go back to work this afternoon. I’ve been looking for her everywhere, asking everyone. She was last seen talking to Billy Quinn. Nobody’s seen her since. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me he hasn’t got her. That she’s here with you. . .’

  Big Molly groaned, wrapped her arms about her plump bosom and rocked herself, making little keening sounds like a woman in the throes of grief. ‘Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I never expected it to come to this. Oh, hecky thump, what have I done?’

  ‘What have you done?’ Chris roared.

  Patsy jumped to her feet, fearing there might be blue murder done any minute. ‘Not now, Chris. This isn’t the moment for a row. We have to find
Amy.’

  They searched everywhere, even Ozzy, who was desperate to find his little princess, hammering on doors, calling on other stallholders, friends and neighbours, but Amy had apparently vanished off the face of the earth.

  Patsy heard a shout, and, looking up, saw Maureen hurrying towards them, emerging from the fog like a spectre.

  The market folk were well used to her presence in and around Champion Street, although they did their best to ignore her, but few were prepared to speak to her, nor did anybody approach her now. She went straight over to Patsy and drew her to one side, away from the curious stares of onlookers.

  Maureen was flushed from running, her hair standing on end like a bird’s nest, and she was clad only in a tatty old dressing gown and slippers. But even as she struggled to catch her breath, she was scrabbling in her pocket for a cigarette. ‘I’ve dashed over here to tell you something, girl. I’ve heard a bit of news from a punter. It’s right, what I suspected. Quinn has got Fran, but worse than that, he’s got her sister too.’

  Patsy went cold. So it was confirmed. Quinn had them both. As she looked over to Molly, she saw the big woman crumble to her knees on the cobbles. She’d read the awful truth in Patsy’s face and collapsed.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Their worst fears had been realised. They were back in Big Molly’s kitchen, Chris too, and no one was objecting to his presence.

  Patsy was saying, ‘I’m prepared to give it a go and act as intermediary, but not without taking Quinn a sweetener. You have to find some money, Molly, to prove you’re serious, even if you have to sell every stick of furniture in your house to find it, right?’

  ‘There isn’t time for that!’ Chris shouted.

  Patsy put a hand on his arm, rather as Clara did with Annie. ‘No matter what, you aren’t coming. You’d lose your rag and then we’d be in a worse mess.’

  ‘Don’t ask me for any money,’ Ozzy said, eyes wild with fear. ‘I’d give me right arm for our Amy and Fran, and might have to if Quinn turns nasty, but I haven’t got a bean. I haven’t dared place a bet in weeks, thanks to you,’ he shouted at his wife.

  ‘And what about your gambling debts with Quinn? They haven’t helped either,’ Big Molly shouted right back.

  Patsy tried to calm them both down, pointing out that falling out between themselves wouldn’t solve anything. Looking rather shame-faced, Ozzy suggested they borrow the money from the pie stall takings, until Molly reminded him that Robert had already been to collect it.

  ‘Ask for it back then,’ he said. ‘These are our girls, and that’s as much our money as his. We can’t stand back and do nothing.’

  Big Molly was on her feet, needing to be doing something, anything, rather than sit here moaning. ‘Aye, you’re right, lad. Stay here, the lot of you, you included,’ she instructed the hapless Ozzy, ‘while I pop round to our Robert’s.’

  It didn’t take her more than a few moments, since her son lived only on Hardman Street, but he point-blank refused to help. ‘If any sister of mine wants to go on the game, she deserves all she gets. I’m not bailing her out.’

  Molly kept tight hold of her patience, knowing that losing her temper wouldn’t help, acutely aware that if she started a row her prissy daughter-in-law would order her out of the house. Nevertheless, she was at pains to emphasise that Amy had not chosen to do any such thing, and the cash was meant to save his sisters from this fate worse than death, but Robert simply wasn’t listening. His sour-faced wife certainly wasn’t. The prim and proper Margaret stood right beside Robert, looking very much as if she’d been sucking lemons, muttering prophecies of doom for those who chose not to exhibit proper moral standards.

  ‘I’ll have you know that our Amy has very high moral standards, and our Fran . . . well, she has a big heart, I’ll say that for her.’

  A comment received with a snort of derision.

  Big Molly felt desperate, in way over her head. ‘If you and Robert don’t help your own family for God’s sake, Quinn will have them girls shut up in that rat hole he calls his Pleasure Palace quicker than a cat catches a mouse, and then what? Have you considered what he’s going to use them for? Have a heart Robbie lad, these are your sisters we’re talking about here.’

  ‘You got the cat bit right, anyroad. I’ll not help no toms, no matter what the excuse, and even if they are related to me.’

  Big Molly was outraged. ‘Amy isn’t a prOzzy! Don’t even suggest such a thing.’

  Robert looked troubled, but Margaret was unmoved. ‘Happen not, but my husband is not going to be the one to tackle him. Billy Quinn is the vengeful type and could make all our lives a misery. Anyway, I doubt even Quinn would have the nerve to touch Amy. He’ll see she’s an innocent and let her go. As for Fran, she’ll just have to take her chances.’

  ‘Chances?’ Ignoring Margaret, Big Molly glared at Robert. ‘You’re so afraid of getting your hands dirty, you’re willing to take a chance on your little sister’s virtue?’

  ‘You’ll not find much virtue left in our Fran! Let her look after our Amy for a change. She got her into this mess.’

  ‘Quite right! Absolutely,’ chimed in Margaret. ‘Let Fran take her punishment and reap what she has sown.’

  ‘By heck,’ Big Molly said, almost, but not quite struck dumb by their selfish attitude, ‘if you ever make a mistake, girl, and set yourself alight by accident, don’t expect me to blow the fire out. I’ll make sure you suffer for your sins in exactly the same way.’

  Faced with the brick wall of Robert’s refusal, Big Molly had no choice but to return to her kitchen empty-handed. Oh, but things would change in future. Once they were out of this mess, she’d put her pie stall back on a different footing altogether. Robert wouldn’t get away with ignoring his own kith and kin, and depriving his own mother of her hard won profits.

  With no one else to attack, Big Molly railed at Ozzy, banged a few kitchen cupboard doors, then sat down and sobbed her heart out into her mucky pinny.

  She’d done this to her own girls. She was the one who’d got Amy into this, without any help from anyone. It was all her fault. Oh, God, but she was sorry. Whatever the daft cows had done, they didn’t deserve this, not to be used as playthings by Quinn and his mob. Big Molly’s heart nearly gave out at the thought. Oh, Christ, what had she done? And how the hangment was she to put it right?

  Chris was the one to save Molly’s skin. He borrowed the money from his father, although he had a battle royal getting it out of him, with Thomas George at first shouting that he’d do nothing to save the skin of a Poulson.

  ‘Amy is my wife for God’s sake! If you don’t, or won’t, help, Lord knows what he’ll do to her, and I’ll never forgive you for that. Never! I’m quite convinced Quinn is the one who put word out and stopped me getting work. Now he’s taken my wife. Do you seriously expect me to sit back and do nothing?’

  Grumbling vociferously, Thomas George finally dipped into his retirement fund and loaned his son the necessary sum. Big Molly was forced to swallow her pride and accept it, since the risk to both her girls was so desperately serious. She knew that although she was the one who’d involved Quinn in the first place, the one who had got them into this mess, there was no way she could get them out of it without assistance. She didn’t have two halfpennies to rub together.

  The worst of it was that Thomas George, her hated enemy, had been told her part in all of this. Now shame licked through her like a forest fire.

  ‘I’ll pay him back,’ she cried. ‘I’ll not be in debt to the George family.’ This seemed to Molly almost more terrible, more humiliating in her eyes than owing money to Quinn, though admittedly less of a danger to her nearest and dearest.

  She turned to Patsy. ‘It’s all up to you now, lass. You’re my lucky charm.’

  Patsy didn’t feel like someone’s good luck charm facing this awesome responsibility. Realising the Higginson sisters would be worrying and waiting for her, no doubt tense and anxious, Patsy quickly slipped nex
t door to let them know what was happening. Once she’d explained to them that Amy had gone missing too and outlined the plan, they were far from happy.

  Patsy point blank refused Annie’s offer to accompany her on this occasion, knowing that she’d be more likely to alienate than placate Quinn. And Clara was simply too nervous to be of any use at all.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m expecting to be in and out in no time, and Chris is going to hang around outside, as Annie did when I visited Maureen, while I go inside to talk to Quinn.’

  Clara was wringing her hands with anxiety. ‘Chris should go in with you. What use is he down some back alley?’

  Patsy disagreed, telling them Chris wasn’t himself at the moment, how when she’d said they all needed to keep their heads and not go charging in with guns blazing, he’d muttered something about wishing he did have a gun.

  Clara nodded, still looking deeply worried. ‘I can see that Chris losing his temper wouldn’t help in the slightest. But you’ll be so vulnerable, Patsy dear, and it’s getting late.’

  As one they glanced out of the window. Dusk was falling for all it wasn’t yet seven o’clock, the fog growing thicker. Although it felt like twenty-four hours since Maureen had brought them the news, it was in fact less than one. Quinn usually called in at the Dog and Duck for his supper between eight and nine. Patsy intended to catch him earlier, before he left his so-called Pleasure Palace.

  ‘Leave it till morning,’ Clara was urging her. ‘It will be much safer in daylight.’

  ‘And what about tonight? Who knows what could happen to those poor girls before morning?’ A point the sisters silently conceded.

  Annie suggested they call the police but Patsy pointed out that this might get Big Molly into trouble too. ‘She’s been no innocent in all of this, but we’ve agreed that Chris will call them if I’m not back out again within thirty minutes.’