Anyone Who Had a Heart (22 page)

And so because Rita had told him that Marcie and she had been best friends, he’d decided to stay at least until Michael caught up with him. That way he could find out about Marcie’s past in order to design her future.

‘Have you got any brandy?’ he asked the dumb girl with the heavy thighs.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want any.’

‘It wasn’t you I was thinking of.’

The cocktail cabinet was the obvious place and she didn’t tell him otherwise when he went there.

He pulled out two glasses, held one up and looked enquiringly at her.

Rita nodded. ‘OK.’

She didn’t usually drink brandy. The half-bottle of Martell was part of her father’s old stash. He’d drunk anything come the last so it came as something of a surprise that there was that much left.

She peered through bleary eyes at the bloke who’d
brought
her home. Even though she was still the worse for wear, he seemed like a dish.

‘My bedroom’s upstairs.’

‘Is that so.’

‘You can take me up there if you like. You can stay if you like.’

‘Sorry, love. I’ll have to pass on that. Perhaps another time.’

Roberto added a splash of soda to each glass, sure of the fact that another time would never come for him and her. He passed her one of the drinks and pulled up a chair so he was sitting opposite her.

She took a sip and grimaced.

‘Work it around your jaw. It’ll help with the pain.’

Rita’s face was crumpled like a piece of squashed dough just before the baker got at it. The anger was still there; he could see it smouldering beneath the surface.

She took his advice and swilled the brandy around in her mouth.

Roberto took a sip from his own glass and chose his moment. ‘So. You and Marcie used to be friends. What went wrong?’

Rita screwed her face up even more. ‘I’ll tell you what went wrong. I’ll tell you everything. Then you’ll see what a slut she is!’

‘I’m all ears,’ said Roberto, and waited.

THE WEEKEND AT
Endeavour Terrace came to an end all too quickly. Joanna had been perfect and to Marcie that was all that mattered. Marcie tried not to dwell on Roberto finding out about her status as an unmarried mother. Even if he did, if he loved her it wouldn’t matter. That’s what she told herself and although it calmed her at first, the fears came back, flowing over her with as much force as a North Sea wave.

Babs had visited with the kids in tow, bumping Annie down the path in her pushchair.

‘That bloody bus conductor was downright ignorant,’ she declared before turning her bad temper on Marcie. ‘Well? Where is he?’

Marcie knew she was referring to her father. ‘He said to tell you he had some business to deal with. Nightclubs get busy on weekends.’

Babs had smoked, drank and pursued men and affairs for most of her life. Her face and figure were beginning to show the ravages of time and the pubs and chip shops she’d often frequented. The dark crescents beneath her eyes looked as though they’d been
drawn
on with an eye pencil. There were wrinkles around her lips from constantly drawing in and puffing on cigarettes. Her dark roots were showing in her hair and her tight skirt was straining over her belly.

‘You tell that bastard that I’ll cut his fucking balls off if I find out he’s knocking around with a London tart! You just tell him that!’

Bundling Annie back into the pushchair, Babs left in a flurry of stale sweat and unwashed clothes. She was hardly the blonde bombshell she’d always tried to be and now that she didn’t go out to work any longer, she didn’t seem to give a damn about her appearance.

A disapproving Rosa Brooks shook her head. ‘Such language.’

The two boys loitered. Their grandmother gave half a crown to each of them. ‘Your father told me to give this to you.’

Marcie knew it wasn’t true. Her father was lingering in London and not even his own mother had heard much from him in the past few weeks.

Archie pulled on Marcie’s sleeve. ‘When you see me dad, will you ask him why he doesn’t love us any more?’

Marcie felt her heart lurch in her chest at the sight of the big doleful eyes, eyes as brown as his father. ‘Of course he still loves you, he’s just … busy.’

‘Can you ask him to come see us?’

What could she say except yes, of course she would ask him.

‘Promise?’

‘Archie, you can depend on it!’

She watched the two brothers dash after their mother, leaving the garden gate slamming back against the hedge. Her father had put himself out for her of late, but he was doing nothing much for his other children. OK, she could almost –
almost
– forgive him for not wanting to be with his wife. The woman was going swiftly to the dogs. But his children? She looked at it from her own point of view as a parent. Never, ever could she miss a weekend home with Joanna.

‘I’m sorry that Rita and I fell out,’ Marcie said to her grandmother when they were discussing things after Joanna had gone to bed.

‘Cheap meat.’

Marcie almost choked on her tea. Rosa Brooks certainly had a way with words when it came to describing people.

‘That girl was not your friend. She was her own friend. Always her own friend.’

A silence fell between them. There were two subjects Marcie was trying to avoid. One of them was Garth, the other was Babs. She was scared to ask about Garth and still didn’t believe he’d had anything
to
do with the fire that had destroyed the only boutique on the Isle of Sheppey.

‘Garth is well,’ her grandmother said suddenly as though she’d read her thoughts. ‘The staff there treat him very well.’

She sounded surprised that anyone beside herself could treat him anything but very badly. All the same her face was drawn and anxious. She’d always had a hand in caring for Garth.

‘I don’t believe he set fire to Angie’s place,’ said Marcie.

‘No.’ Her grandmother’s face clouded. ‘The man who lives in the flat next door said he saw him sleeping there. Yet Garth says he enjoyed the smell of the shop. I think he meant the fish and chip shop. Garth
would
like the smell of that.’

A wan smile played around Marcie’s lips. Her grandmother had a point. Garth’s belly followed his nose. A clothes shop would have no attraction for him at all. He dressed like a scarecrow. A fish and chip shop on the other hand …

‘What if Rita knew that man …?’

Her grandmother’s eyes met hers. Neither woman spoke until Marcie shook her head.

‘I don’t know where that came from,’ she said, clutching her teacup with both hands. She shook her head. ‘I was just thinking aloud …’

‘The thought popped into your head.’

Her grandmother’s eyes held hers, yet it seemed in that moment that Marcie was seeing features in the wrinkled face that she’d never seen before.

She licked her lips and shook her head, tucking a stray tress behind her ear.

‘Where did the thought come from?’

‘Someone put the thought in there. Someone who crossed over. Either that or you see it yourself. Adding two and two, or just knowing … just knowing runs in our family.’

‘My mother or Johnnie?’

‘Johnnie loved you.’

Marcie was startled. ‘And my mother did not?’

Whereas before her grandmother’s expression had seemed open and all her thoughts easily accessible, it now seemed that a door had closed.

‘I did not say that. But I know Johnnie loved you.’

She got up and took the empty teacup from Marcie’s hand, leaving her granddaughter with her mouth hanging open and a questioning look in her eyes.

Her grandmother took both cups to the sink where she proceeded to run them beneath the cold water tap. Marcie followed her. ‘Have you spoken to Johnnie?’

Her grandmother stopped swilling the cups and looked at her. ‘Sometimes it’s the living that tell us things.’

‘Is my mother still alive?’

Her grandmother’s wrinkled hand wrenched the old brass tap shut as though it needed that extra strength. The truth was that it shut off easily, the washers worn with the years.

‘I cannot say.’ She turned suddenly and looked into her granddaughter’s face. ‘You will be well off without her.’

The need to know prodded at Marcie’s heart. ‘Why did you disapprove of her?’

Rosa Brooks looked startled. ‘Disapprove? I never disapproved! Not until she ran off leaving her child crying in the night.’

Her words brought back faint memories of not understanding why her mother did not come when she called. As a child she would have been heartbroken. She instantly recognised it as the reason her grandmother could not forgive.

‘So she’s still alive,’ said Marcie.

Rosa Brooks said nothing. Her silence said it all.

Marcie turned over and nuzzled into the pillow. She closed her eyes and thought about her mother. If she was alive she had to be living in London. She was sure of that. And in time she might meet up with her – if she knew where to look. Perhaps her newfound instinct might lead her to that elusive woman. She sincerely hoped so.

THE PUSSY CAT
Club was not exactly one of Tony Brooks’ favourite haunts, but nobody he knew of any consequence went there so he judged it was just the place to take Ella.

He didn’t know how it had happened, this attraction between them, though he had to concede the blame lay heavily with him. Her old man was a waster, she had no money to pay the rent Victor demanded for the crummy rooms she lived in, and he’d felt sorry for her.

He’d paid one of Ella’s neighbours to look after her kids and given her some dosh for a new dress. Victor paid him well. He had no quibbles about that!

‘How do you like this, honey?’ she said in that fruity voice of hers. She did him a kind of half-twirl to one side then the other. The dress was red and covered in sequins and clung in all the right places. Someone else might have looked a right tart in it. Against Ella’s conker-brown skin it looked a treat. Unlike a lot of the West Indian women that rented rooms with their families in the grim tenements Victor
owned
, she wasn’t overblown. Her breasts were pert and he was pushed to cover each buttock with his hand – not that he was complaining.

Gold hoops jangled in her ears each time she moved her head – and she was moving her head a lot.

‘Do they play music?’ she asked excitedly as they squeezed themselves beside a small round table.

‘Sometimes.’

He hadn’t told her this was a strip club and the only dancing of note would be done by the ‘exotic dancers’ getting their kit off on the brightly lit stage.

‘Drink?’ he asked.

‘Rum. With pineapple juice.’

He thought the drink an odd combination and the barman was of the same opinion. Besides, his stock didn’t stretch to pineapple juice.

‘Most people prefer rum and black.’

Tony looked at Ella. She wrinkled her nose at first before caving in. ‘OK. I have to become English. Not Jamaican.’

As she looked around her, he studied the profile of her face, the nape of her neck. She seemed to stand out against the club’s dark ambience, as though someone had traced round her with a contrasting colour. He couldn’t tell what colour.

The bulbs in the table lamps dimly lit the faces of those smoking and drinking. Smoke from cigarettes
and
cigars drifted upwards, moving and twirling like something living.

Nobody looked in their direction. Thankfully there was no one here that he knew who would see him with his coloured girl. He didn’t think of her as though she were a lesser mortal because of her skin colour, but there were plenty that did. God help them if they deferred to her with anything but respect. He’d give them a good clumping if they did.

There was nothing to worry about. The punters’ faces were turned towards the stage. They’d come to see the strippers. The entrance fee was exorbitant, but the show was good.

She jerked her head round and smiled when Tony covered her hand with his own.

‘Enjoying yourself, darling?’

She smiled broadly. ‘You bet.’

It had been a long time since he’d gone gooey over a girl. At his age! What was he, nearly twice her age? He tried not to think of what his mates would think of him. Not that they’d say it to his face. To them he was the hard man, but every so often his heart ruled his head. It didn’t happen often but when it did there was nothing he could do about it. Until the infatuation wore off – which it would in the end.

Ella made him feel like a kid again in the days when he’d first met Marcie’s mother. Mary! She still
came
back to him and thoughts of her still hurt, though not so much since he’d met Ella.

‘Can we dance?’ she asked him suddenly.

‘We’ll see.’

He lit a cigar that Victor had given him. At the same time he wondered whether the Pussy Cat actually had a dance floor. He couldn’t recall seeing one. Dancing was confined to the stage and nowhere else as far he knew.

Ella’s face was a beautiful silhouette against the backlit stage. She clapped when everyone else clapped. The first dancer had made her entrance.

The dancer was billed as Little Lily. She wore her hair in pigtails and was dressed in a see-through baby-doll nightie. She was carrying a teddy bear. The aim was to make her look a lot younger than she was. Tony Brooks frowned. He might have spent some time in prison but that was for straightforward criminality – if being a criminal could be called straightforward. It certainly wasn’t going anywhere near straight that was for sure.

The fact of the matter was that he had two daughters – or one, he reminded himself, still unsure whether he was Annie’s father or not. He didn’t like to see women in kiddie costumes and not because it wasn’t to his taste. Some blokes got dark thoughts seeing that. He wouldn’t want them close to his girls.

The girl on stage had small breasts and slim hips.
Her
legs seemed to go on forever, though the white cotton socks and pink flat shoes put him off taking her seriously.

She took her time removing the gauzy nightdress that barely skimmed her thighs. As she did so, she cuddled her teddy bear to her breasts and did other things with it that no teddy should ever do.