In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  Next day, they opened George’s for the first time. Arnold hammered at the door at one minute to eight then banged on the glass and pointed at his watch. ‘Cup of tea and two slices of toast,’ he said, as Annie unbolted the door and let him in.

  ‘On the house,’ called Vanessa from the kitchen. ‘You’re the first customer under the new temporary management. Have what you like – sausage, bacon, tomatoes …’

  ‘Don’t even mention it – it’d turn my stomach. Still, this management is a lot prettier than the last one – you’ve cleaned the place up, too, not before time. Still do with a coat of paint, though,’ he said, looking round.

  ‘That’ll have to wait,’ said Annie, who had been up late going over the books and bills.

  ‘You’ll have to try and make it pay better, won’t you,’ responded Arnold, claiming his tea and toast from the counter. ‘Hope you won’t try putting up the prices – people won’t stand for it.’ He sat down by the window, adding encouragingly, ‘Educated woman like you ought to be able to bring in more money. You could make something of this place if you wanted to. Course, you’ll have to if you want to stay in business. Not enough here to keep both of you. And old George didn’t leave for nothing, did he?’

  Vanessa, who had been catching some of this while she thumped the old-fashioned chipper down on peeled potatoes, called out, ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t want to worry you …’ He paused.

  Annie was bewildered. ‘Is there something the matter?’ she asked as Vanessa quickly came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her overall.

  ‘Look, Arnold,’ said Vanessa. ‘If you know something, don’t keep it to yourself.’

  ‘They’re saying up and down the market the company that owns it is going to raise the rents – nearly double them. The company which owned them sold out. It’s a new company. They want more money, the idea is to drive out all the old shopkeepers and make it all go more upmarket. Yuppies and that. It’s only a rumour,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a protest, but what can anybody do?’

  Annie and Vanessa looked aghast and Arnold added hastily, ‘Like I say – it’s just a rumour.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Annie said grimly. George’s figures showed that the café made about £150 profit a week. Her own share would only cover her mortgage but if the building society agreed to defer her payments for six months at least she would have some money to live on. However little this was for her, it was even less for Vanessa, who had two children to keep. Annie knew that the profits would simply have to be pushed up over the ensuing months or, when they were both obliged to pay rent and mortgage payments again, there would be no way for either of them to manage. If the rent on the café doubled, it would be a fantastic, perhaps impossible struggle, to make the profits meet their needs. Realistically, the café would only provide a living for one of them.

  ‘Looks as if he’s left you with a few problems,’ Arnold said, with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Hallo – something’s burning.’

  Vanessa ran to the sausages. Annie, behind the counter, looked at Arnold with dislike. He sat there enjoying his tea and toast, tasting the effect of his bad news as well the sugar in his tea. No wonder in ancient times they’d killed such messengers, she thought. It might not have been the news, just the look on their faces. Was it for this man that they had scrubbed and cleaned and studied invoices and put in orders? But it was poor business to hate the customers, so she offered him another cup of tea.

  Now the flow of market traders, cold and tired after setting up their stalls, began. The effort of keeping up with the orders – sausage egg and chips, sausage bacon and chips, sausage egg beans and chips, just chips, just toast, bacon sandwiches, ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, tea, coffee, Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, Mars bars for passing schoolchildren stocking up for the day – was exhausting. By ten that particular rush was over, the café empty but for a woman who had shopped early and needed a cup of tea. They began to clear up.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve done a day’s work already,’ Vanessa said, adding hopefully, ‘Maybe it gets easier as you get into the rhythm of it.’

  Dinnertime was worse. Exhausted and greasy, Annie and Vanessa sent a boy to the off-licence for two cans of lager and they sat with their feet up, drinking from the cans to save washing up.

  Melanie came in with Alec. ‘He wants to see his mum,’ she reported.

  ‘Give him a Kit Kat,’ Vanessa said weakly.

  ‘You ought to think of his teeth,’ Melanie told her.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Vanessa. ‘What do you reckon we made, just from this morning?’ she asked Annie.

  ‘There’s probably about seventy pounds in the till,’ Annie said. ‘We must have had seventy people in and out this morning, even if it was only for a Coke or a cup of tea. But it’s not all profit, of course. I’ll have to cost it properly. I should think we’ve earned ten pounds each, so far.’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘Ten pounds more than you had this morning,’ Melanie chipped in. ‘They’d go mad where I come from thinking you can drop into a job like this down here. You don’t know what it’s like up north. Let me take over for the afternoon. Bound to be quieter, isn’t it, now the breakfasts and dinners are over.’

  ‘You’re only thirteen,’ Annie reminded her.

  Melanie bridled. ‘So – I’m younger, aren’t I? More resilient, like.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Annie said. ‘It won’t be so busy this afternoon. Why don’t you take Alec off and I’ll keep going with Melanie? You’ve got to collect Joanne from school. We’ll do it the opposite way tomorrow – and Sunday,’ she told Melanie, ‘we’ll go to Gravesend.’

  Vanessa agreed, and walked out on her stiletto heels, wincing.

  ‘Sensible footwear, tomorrow,’ Annie observed.

  Vanessa turned round. ‘Yes. And a less sensible face tomorrow, too.’

  Earlier she’d nagged Annie, ‘Look – half our point is being two good-lookers. That’ll bring in trade. But not with your hair hanging round your face. Stick it in a nice plait down the back, put on a bit of make-up – it’ll make all the difference. I’m not trying to be rude,’ she explained. ‘But we might as well use what we’ve got because that’s all we have got.’

  Some of the remarks they’d been making to each other on that first morning, especially when Vanessa dropped a fried egg on the floor, bent to wipe it up and Annie cannoned into her with a tray of dirty plates and cups, had been blunt, if not bordering on offensive. But Annie’d yielded on the question of make-up. Now Vanessa, even though she disliked the suggestion, yielded on footwear. As she went out of the door, holding Alec’s hand, she called back, ‘Love, money and revenge!’

  ‘Some cry Liberty – we cry Love, Money, Revenge!’ returned Annie.

  Vanessa told her mother later that she didn’t know how they’d got through that first week at the café. No bath or shower seemed to remove the smell of frying from their hair, no amount of washing could take the smell from their clothes. Their feet ached more and more each day. Chaos, in the form of spoiled food and discontented customers, was always in the offing, not always averted. Adults, teenagers, even children were constantly trying to filch food and money. They took the cutlery. Vanessa and Annie had been advised to watch the street. A gang was said to be roving the market, seeing what they could grab. Another gang, armed with iron bars, had entered some of the shops, threatened the staff, grabbed the contents of the till and got away.

  That week, too, the weather had been bad and the small café was crowded with market traders in big coats and mittens and with frozen shoppers with bulky bags, all crammed together in the steamy atmosphere, desperate for hot food and boiling cups of tea. The floor was muddy from early morning on. Perhaps there were even more customers than would normally have sought George’s during this hard time of year, when snow flurried in the streets and an east wind bit deep. They came to check out the new management or exchange a word or two with Vanessa, who app
eared to have been at school with everybody in Foxwell. Meanwhile the regulars were snappy about delays and demanded better standards of tea and fried bread. The men took advantage of their confusion and made offensive remarks and suggestions to Vanessa and Annie and Vanessa had to bar a particularly obscene nineteen-year-old.

  On Friday, just before closing time, Annie burst into tears and rushed into the back yard where dustbins overflowed and unpacked cartons of baked beans and soup lay despondently covered with a light veil of snow. She didn’t know how she would be able to face the next day, which was bound to be busier still.

  Vanessa came out and started shouting at her. ‘Get back inside, you stupid bitch. There’s two people waiting and then we’ve got to clean up. What’s the matter with you? Can’t handle it, can you?’

  ‘Shut up and leave me alone,’ sobbed Annie. ‘This was a stupid idea. I’m worn out. It’s no good. We’re not even making any money. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. I’m going home.’ The thought of going through the café sobbing was terrible but she couldn’t stand in the cold, untidy yard, either. She ran inside, and snatched her coat from the peg.

  Vanessa shouted, ‘That’s it – that’s typical – just cop out when you feel like it—’ They scarcely noticed in the kitchen the elderly woman who had been there on the day when George made his offer to them.

  ‘Look!’ Annie cried. ‘I just can’t go on.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ sneered Vanessa. ‘OK for you, isn’t it, Miss Fancypants? Pack it in when you feel like it. Not so easy for me, old Vanessa from the council house with two kids. This is practically the only chance I’ve got of getting through the next three months, and here you go, copping out on me. But that wouldn’t bother you, would it? People like you can always get out when it suits them.’

  Annie sniffed tearfully. ‘It’s a disaster. We’re dog tired. We’re not earning enough and, all right, I can’t manage. I’m admitting it – I can’t. I’m just not good enough. On Sunday I’m supposed to go to Gravesend to find Melanie’s uncle – I won’t find him. I don’t know what to do about that poor girl – every bone in my body aches – my feet are killing me – the smell in this place makes me sick – what can I do? If you need it, you do it. You can take all the money, that way you can probably survive …’

  ‘Ah – what happened to all those plans?’ Vanessa said contemptuously. ‘The sandwich bar? The delivery service? That was all talk, wasn’t it? You know damn well I can’t manage alone. I couldn’t manage the kids or the accounts. Face it – this partnership finished after a week because one of the partners couldn’t hack it—’

  Pale and shaking, Annie faced Vanessa. Vanessa’s small figure was rigid with rage. Annie thought she might be going to hit her. She stared at Vanessa for a moment, then suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh my God, I think you’re right!’

  Vanessa, reared in a to-the-death-right-or-wrong tradition of argument, was startled to hear this admission. ‘What?’ she gulped.

  Suddenly they both noticed the café was empty but for Arnold and the woman in the plum-coloured coat, composedly washing up a huge pile of plates on the draining board. Her rings, one a large diamond and the other an odd mix of sapphires and rubies with another, greenish stone, lay on the windowsill beside the sink. Vanessa peered at her. The woman said, ‘I’m afraid after you both went out a young woman went straight to the till and tried to open it. I chased her out and closed the café.’

  Annie sat down weakly. Now the woman put down the brush she was using to scrub the plates and dried her hands. Replacing her rings she said, ‘I must leave you now – I’m only just back from Brighton. Arnold!’ she called. ‘They’re shutting now. You must go.’

  ‘Bit early,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Arnold,’ she reproved him and he stood up. She straightened her hat and took up a suitcase she had left in a corner. ‘Goodbye, Madame Katarina,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Vanessa,’ said Annie, ‘I just felt done in. I’m ready to go on, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘I don’t know about “sorry” – it’s not good enough, Annie. If you’re going to keep on freaking out—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Annie cried. ‘Let’s just get on with it, shall we? We’re closed,’ she shouted at two boys banging on the glass. They went on banging. ‘Fuck off!’ she yelled.

  Vanessa burst out laughing. ‘You’re learning!’

  An hour later, when they’d finished cleaning up and were walking back to Rutherford Street Annie asked, ‘Who’s Madame Katarina?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen her plate?’ Vanessa was astonished. ‘She’s got the flat above the café and a brass plate by the door: “Madame Katarina, Clairvoyant”. Haven’t you seen her going in and out?’

  Annie shook her head.

  ‘Don’t ever try to make a living as a detective,’ Vanessa advised. ‘I had a word with her the other day, before she went to Brighton. She’s got another practice there – she commutes – spends most of the winter in London, only going to Brighton on and off, then in the summer she spends more time down there, doing consultations for holidaymakers. She does cards, palmistry, crystal ball and so forth. I asked her last week if she’d give me consultation. She was very polite but said best if she didn’t, us being neighbours – she’d never given one to George till she finally took pity on him over the Cyprus business – she reckoned she’d seen in his cards he was going to be happy in Cyprus and wouldn’t come back. What do you think of that?’ They had reached Vanessa’s gate.

  Annie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose if you asked me I’d have to say I didn’t believe in that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well – I suppose you would say that,’ Vanessa said tolerantly.

  ‘What?’ Melanie asked, coming out of the house.

  ‘Annie doesn’t believe in fortune telling,’ Vanessa told her.

  ‘She wouldn’t, would she?’ Melanie said. ‘I asked that Madame Katarina if she’d give me a reading, about whether I’d find my uncle and that. She said I was too young. You have to be eighteen. Joanne’s watching TV,’ she added. ‘So’s Alec, but I think he’s dropped off on the couch.’

  Annie and Melanie went home. Annie glumly contemplated the sitting room, which seemed sparsely furnished since Julian’s raid. Melanie’s trainers lay on the floor and a heap of teen magazines on the table where the computer had once stood. Annie sprawled in the only remaining easy chair, her feet on a wooden one from the kitchen. Her head throbbed, her feet ached, she smelt only café grease and felt her hair sticking to her head. She was exhausted and confused – she recalled Minnie Knipe, of 20 Threpp Street, who had been observed leaving the Lion in Whitechapel at two one morning and staggering away the worse for drink, looking, she said, for a customer who would pay her sixpence, the rent being due next day. Described as previously a milliner and now a common prostitute, she had then disappeared and it was rumoured the customer she found had murdered her. She was only twenty years old.

  Melanie came in with a tray on which she had nicely arranged a teapot, jug of milk and teacup. She presented this to Annie and sat herself down on a large floor cushion she had found upstairs, saying civilly, ‘Would you like to watch telly, or shall I put a record on?’

  Annie knew Melanie hated her music. ‘Put on the TV, Melanie. I’m going to have a long, hot bath and go to bed in a little while. You’ll be all right on your own?’

  ‘Glad of the peace and quiet after those kids,’ Melanie responded. ‘That Joanne’s a handful. She’s violent. And poor little Alec – they can’t cope with what’s happening.’

  ‘Nor can Vanessa,’ Annie said, thinking, And neither can I.

  They got through Saturday, somehow. At dinnertime the sink blocked. ‘It’s inclined to do that,’ Arnold remarked at the counter.

  ‘Where can we get a plumber on Saturday afternoon?’ Vanessa demanded. ‘We might have to close.’

  ‘Tell you the truth,’ Arnold stated, his elbows on the counter, ‘I’ve done it before. All y
ou’ve got there is a tight S bend. Wrongly installed – George has never spent the money to get it right.’

  ‘Can you?’ Vanessa enquired suspiciously.

  ‘You’d be surprised what I can do when I get started,’ he remarked flirtatiously.

  ‘There’s a drink in it for you if you can,’ Vanessa said in a businesslike tone.

  Arnold borrowed some tools from a friend and capably unblocked the sink.

  ‘I can plumb, do electrics, the lot,’ he said gloomily. ‘Now I just do bits and pieces when it suits me. One day I woke up and thought, what am I doing out here on a building site, all hours, all weathers with no safety precautions, no tax or stamps paid? There was kids from the YTS messing about and getting half killed all the time, the contractors was all on the fiddle, shoddy work, done too fast. It was disgusting – you’d know.’

  ‘Oh, I know all right,’ agreed Vanessa.

  ‘Worked for your old man once,’ Arnold mentioned. ‘Anyway, what finished me was this bill from the income tax for four thousand pounds and the upshot was it took me a year and a half to pay it off – I’m anxious all the time and the wife ups and leaves me, taking the kids, and I develop a nervous breakdown. After that I think, thanks very much, but I can take this or leave it alone …’

  He gave a final, determined twist with his spanner and stood up. ‘There you go. You won’t have any more trouble with that till the next time. Let me know if there’s anything else you want doing. It all has to be’ – he gestured with his hand. Vanessa nodded. ‘All part of the black economy, isn’t it?’ he remarked as Vanessa gave him some money from the till then asked, ‘Seen Andy Campbell yet?’

  Vanessa was surprised. ‘No. Who’s he?’

  ‘Don’t worry – he’ll tell you,’ Arnold said. ‘Ta ta, then. I’m off to watch Leigh Rangers. Hope your brother manages better this week than he did the last.’

  ‘He scored a goal,’ Vanessa said indignantly.

  ‘One,’ said Arnold. ‘Wasn’t quite enough, was it?’