Anyone Who Had a Heart (34 page)

He looked quite distraught. ‘It didn’t occur to me. Honest it didn’t. And they never said anything.’

‘No. They wanted things to run naturally – just putting me in front of him and leaving it to him to pluck me like a flower. Only they didn’t know that I was far from being untouched and had a kid. Can you imagine what Roberto was like after he found that out?’

‘He ended it I suppose …?’

Marcie found herself unable to respond to the question. If only …

‘Love,’ said her father, his hands falling away from his newspaper, sending it collapsing into his lap. ‘If I’d known that’s what they were thinking, I wouldn’t have done it – or at least told you. It’s just, I wanted it clear that they weren’t to think about you at all for their other side of the business. Look, I had nothing to do with that side of the business, but you know they run girls as well as property? I just wanted to protect you from that.’ Tony Brooks always had a ready excuse, but that was the way he was, a man who functioned best in a man’s world. As long as his girl was alright, he didn’t care that much about the sex trade side of Victor Camilleri’s business.

She didn’t elaborate too much on her leaving Daisy Chain and living under the Camilleri’s roof. She didn’t tell him anything of her relationship with Roberto and what he had done to her. Sometimes in the night she woke up sweating into already soaking bedding because she’d been dreaming about it. He’d raped her. It was a criminal offence and the police should have done something, she thought to herself as she rinsed out some of Joanna’s bibs beneath a running tap.

The police rarely see the woman’s point of view
.

‘You can say that again,’ she said out loud to herself.

Avoiding responsibilities had formed the backbone of Tony Brooks’ life. If in doubt, keep your head down. He was doing that right now, his nose buried in a copy of the
Daily Mirror
. He peered over the top of it. ‘What was that, love?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just talking to myself.’

Looking out of the kitchen window she could see Garth digging amongst the cabbages, flinging weeds in one direction and snails in another. His mouth was going all the time.

‘He is speaking to Albert,’ said her grandmother on coming to her side at the sink with yet another cabbage from the garden.

‘Hmm,’ Marcie responded.

‘And Albert whispers in his ear just as my dear dead husband whispers to me.’

It was odd the way Marcie became absorbed in what her grandmother was saying. That was why it came out the way it did.

‘Someone whispers to me.’

She felt her grandmother’s eyes on her but didn’t meet the searching gaze; the question she knew would be there.

‘I see. Is it a pleasant voice?’

Marcie tried to think. Was the voice pleasant? She nodded. ‘Yes. I think so.

In London she would not have admitted she was hearing voices. City people didn’t hear the pulse of
life
beating just beneath the surface. They certainly wouldn’t understand someone hearing voices of people who were not there. They would think she was mad. Here on the Isle of Sheppey was a different matter. Perhaps it was the air. Perhaps it was the people themselves that were different, the pace of life slower and minds more open to the basic rhythms of life.

Her grandmother didn’t ask her who she thought the voice might belong to, but there was a sharp brightness – a knowingness as Marcie had come to interpret it. Either she knew that her granddaughter was becoming more like her, or she didn’t need to ask who she thought the voice might belong to – because she already knew.

Archie and Arnold came round to lunch on Sunday bringing Annie with them in her pushchair. The little girl could walk perfectly well, but knew she could count on her brothers to push her over to see her grandmother and her aunt.

On seeing Marcie, she stretched out her arms. ‘Big cuddle,’ she lisped.

Marcie gave her that big cuddle, although the little girl’s face was sticky with jam. Annie’s mother, Babs, hadn’t changed one iota.

Archie and Arnold told her that Bully Price was trying to persuade them to work for him.

‘As what,’ she asked, her mind already racing ahead of the question to the obvious answer.

‘Nicking bikes,’ proclaimed Archie.

‘I somehow had a feeling it might be,’ she muttered.

‘And he reckons he’s going to marry you because nobody else will have you,’ Arnold added.

Marcie bristled with indignation. ‘Oh does he now!’ she said, her fists resting on her hips.

‘But I told him you wouldn’t marry him because you were married already.’

Marcie cocked an eyebrow. ‘Go on. I can’t wait to hear this. Who am I supposed to be married to?’

‘Jesus!’ said Archie with unbridled enthusiasm, his fine hair flopping like a horse’s mane over his eyes.

Marcie tried to work out where this was coming from. Impossible.

‘How do you work that one out?’

Archie laughed. ‘Because you’ve had a baby and ain’t got no husband. Just like the mother of Jesus. His father was in heaven just like Joanna’s father. My mum said he’d gone to heaven but he probably wouldn’t have married you anyway.’

Marcie mangled the dish cloth she was holding and wished it were her stepmother’s neck. The cow! Even Babs, who couldn’t keep her legs together even when she was married, was slinging slander her way.

Marcie watched as the two boys and Annie tucked into their roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and three different lots of vegetables. An enthralled Joanna looked on, spoon only halfway to her mouth. Michael arrived, his sunny disposition making it seem as though the freshness of the outside world had entered the house.

Marcie went outside the back door to get some fresh air. Michael followed her out, his arm creeping around her waist, his lips brushing her ear.

‘What a world,’ he said.

She thought she knew what he meant. There were no big problems here; no big money either. She thought both of them knew the value of that.

Silently they watched the simple things.

Cabbage butterflies fluttered over the heads of Garth’s vegetable patch. The smell of Sunday lunch brought him running down the garden path.

‘Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and cabbage,’ he said to her. ‘Me and Albert are going to eat it all up.’

‘You’re still coming back to London?’ Michael asked her.

‘Yes,’ she said because she knew she had to. That’s where the work was. That’s where her home was and, despite everything, she had good friends there, but also enemies, she reminded herself. You also have enemies.

* * *

On the Sunday afternoon before leaving for London, her grandmother handed her a letter.

‘I did not like the feel of it. Garth did not like the feel of it either so I kept it back. I wanted this to be a nice weekend. A family weekend.’

Marcie tried to read her grandmother’s face. She was famous for having the gift of second sight. Marcie mused that she’d never realised this might include having x-ray vision. How else could she perceive whether a letter was evil or not?

She tried to laugh off the sudden fear it generated. ‘Gran, you should be doing a stage act.’

‘It is not an act, Marcie.’

Marcie knew better than to continue with that particular approach. Without checking the handwriting, she ripped the envelope open, searching inside with hesitant fingers for a note that might bring joy, but could just as easily bring devastation.

Her worst fears were realised. There was no letter; nothing but a playing card – the Ace of Spades. It had to be Roberto. The Camilleris owned casinos as well as nightclubs. Sending her a death card would be easy for him to do.

As she crumpled the envelope and ripped the card in two, a cold shiver ran through her body like the first frost of winter. There was no need to check the handwriting at all. She knew who it was from and what it meant; Roberto had found out her home
address
. It was likely that her father had given him the information without a moment’s thought. It was also likely that Roberto had given him a very plausible excuse for wanting it.

‘You look pale. Do you wish to share this fear?’

She looked up into her grandmother’s eyes. The eyes that looked back at her were coal black and yet they had incredible depth. It was like looking into a long tunnel, a place to run to when things were bad and she needed safety and shelter.

She shivered. ‘I feel a bit cold.’

Her grandmother cupped her elbow and led her into the small front parlour where coal glowed in the hearth.

‘Come on. Let’s warm you up.’

Marcie threw the crumpled envelope and card into the fire where they curled into flames then blackness.

Her grandmother waited and watched with her as the flames devoured the card and the envelope. She did not pass comment. Marcie was grateful for that.

‘Garth told me it was a death card. The Ace of Spades. I guessed.’

She told her grandmother about Roberto. ‘He wanted me to give Joanna away. He said that if I didn’t give her away it meant I didn’t love him. So I ran.’

For a moment her grandmother’s narrowed eyes seemed deep in thought. ‘This is a man who is in love with himself, I think.’

Marcie nodded mutely. It seemed so obvious when she really thought about. Her grandmother carried on.

‘If he had loved you enough he would have loved and accepted your child as Michael does.’

Marcie nodded, her blue eyes enlivened by the fire and reflecting its glow.

‘Your father said that he is going back to London. He sets great faith in these Sicilians. He’s told them that you are doing very well and that he is grateful they took you in and taught you your sewing. He says he’s told them that you are now your own boss. He is proud of that.’

The flames threw shadows across her face.

‘Oh no,’ she whispered. ‘That means he’s told them.’

Her grandmother frowned. ‘Told them what?’

She told her grandmother about Michael being the half-brother of the sender of the letter. She avoided telling her too much about Daisy Chain and how young girls, excited to be working in the King’s Road, were enticed by clothes and money into a life far removed from selling clothes. She wouldn’t do that because her father worked for Victor Camilleri. She didn’t want to blatantly declare that her father was a small-time criminal who worked for bigger criminals. It would be too hurtful.

Michael had been helping Garth with his cabbages
when
she’d thrown the card into the fire, but she told him about it anyway.

‘He’ll find out my address in London. I know he will,’ she exclaimed to Michael in alarm on the journey back to London. ‘I should have made my father promise not to tell anyone. He trusts Victor. He trusts all the Camilleris.’

‘And that,’ said Michael grimly, ‘is a serious mistake.’

THERE WAS NO
one waiting for her back at her flat or lurking behind the sewing machines in her workroom. Two, then three, days passed and still there was no sign that Roberto had found out where she was living.

Michael told her not to worry. ‘I am going to sort this out once and for all.’

‘Don’t get hurt!’

She knew he intended confronting his brother. The thought of them facing each other and fighting was terrifying. They were both proud and headstrong, though each in their own way. She didn’t want Michael getting hurt.

Despite the ongoing concern, she did her best to make life as normal as possible. The business was doing well. The girls she sewed for were great fun; rich, brash and blatantly sexual.

Sally came round to keep her company. ‘Klaus is on holiday with his family. I’m at a loose end.’

Marcie didn’t condemn Sally for her relationship with a married man. Nothing was black and white any more in this modern world. What Sally got up to was her business.

It was on a Tuesday morning that she realised she was being watched. The rush-hour traffic had been and gone. Across the road from the trophy shop were a newsagent, a greengrocer’s and a bakery.

Marcie was on her way to the bakery with Joanna in her arms. Sally was having a go on a sewing machine in her absence. Her skills were woeful but she’d taken it in her head that she couldn’t be a showgirl for ever.

‘I’ve got to think of what I’m going to do once my tits start heading south,’ she said in her vulgar but funny manner.

The sewing machine whirred away and in the background an American group, The Monkees, belted out ‘Daydream Believer’.

Sally’s verdict on the manufactured group followed her down the stairs. ‘Not as good as the Beach Boys.’

Marcie chuckled to herself. ‘They’re supposed to be like the American version of the Beatles, not the Beach Boys,’ she said to her daughter.

Joanna chortled as though she understood. Marcie couldn’t imagine life without her now.

‘I wish your daddy was here to see you,’ she said softly.

‘Daddy,’ said the toddler.

A sharp pain stabbed at Marcie’s heart. If only …
Her
first thought was for Joanna not having her father. Her second was for herself – not having a mother. For the thousandth time in her life she wondered where she could be; whether she was alive or dead.

The heavy mood had to be lifted.

‘Let’s get a tube of Smarties for my favourite girl,’ she said to her darling daughter.

A workman came out of the shop opposite opening a packet of Senior Service before getting into a van and driving off. The only other vehicle parked there was a black limousine. Marcie glanced at it then glanced again. It looked like the same one that Carla had gone off in.

Just as she turned curious eyes in its direction, a puff of smoke came out of the exhaust and it pulled away.

A sickening fear stayed with Marcie even after it was out of sight. Were her worst fears justified? Was it possible that it was Roberto she’d seen in the car and he was awaiting his chance to pounce, to persuade, to intimidate her to bend to his will?

The old-fashioned bell jangled as she pushed the door open with her hand and her hip. Joanna was clapping her hands with delight, face upturned at the brass bell. Marcie put on a brave smile for her daughter’s sake and told herself it was nothing. Roberto didn’t have a car like that.