Rough Justice (7 page)

Could her life get any better?

Nell suddenly pulled away from Sylvia, went behind the bar and gave the pumps another
unnecessary rub with the rag. ‘I’d better get on.’

Nell knew Stephen Flanagan was a bit of a sore point with Sylvia for some reason – although she always said she could never explain why – and, she didn’t know how, but Sylvia seemed to be able to read her mind whenever she was thinking about him.

‘Nell, you do know how old that man is, don’t you?’

Nell laughed – not very convincingly. She knew Sylvia was serious about this, and had become even more so over the past few weeks as Nell had grown closer to Stephen. ‘Sylv, I told you, I haven’t even got any idea how old I am, let alone how old anyone else is.’

Sylvia moved closer to Nell, reached up and brushed her soft fair hair from her forehead. ‘Look at you, however old you are, you’re flipping lovely, Nell. Any man would be proud to have you on his arm, so why bother with an old bloke like Stephen Flanagan?’

‘But you’re younger than Bernie.’

Sylvia shrugged dismissively. ‘But I’m not a kid, am I? You told me you reckon you’re sixteen, and I know I told Bernie you’re eighteen, but me, I truthfully wouldn’t put you at more than fourteen, fifteen at most. And as for Stephen, the man’s got to be at least forty-bloody-five years old, and that’s not including the year he had measles.’

‘He’s nice to me, Sylv. He’s kind. And he says such nice things to me.’

‘I know, but there’s something about him, Nell.’

‘Please, Sylvia, don’t let’s get stuck on this again. We’re opening up soon, and I’ve not even polished the glasses yet.’

Sylvia leaned her back against the bar, taking in the sparkling bottles on the spotless glass shelves, the glow of buffed wood, and the glint of firelight sparking off the brass. Nell was more than a breath of fresh air; she was a bloody force of nature. Sylvia had never seen the place looking so good or anyone work so hard in all her life. The home might have had a rotten reputation for the way it treated the kids it was supposed to be caring for, but it knew how to train them to graft for a living all right. A few more girls like Nell working for her, and Sylvia would have been able to open a whole chain of pubs, and just sit on her arse all day watching them earning her money. But now Stephen – ‘just one more pint’ – flaming Flanagan had his eye on her. He might have been a big drinker – in fact he was in the pub just about every day – but he wasn’t a stupid man. Far from it. Sylvia always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he made her suspicious for some reason. From what she’d heard he’d had some sort of a turn since his wife had gone amongst the missing. Mind you, who could blame her for doing a runner from him and those horrible twins of his? Good on the woman, whoever she was, was Sylvia’s opinion.

She closed her eyes and let out a long slow
breath. If Nell decided she was going to go off with the old bugger, she’d be like flipping Cinderella, but without the benefit of a fairy godmother. But was she just being selfish, not wanting to lose her?

Sylvia plastered on a smile. ‘Darling, you do know – and you mustn’t mind me saying this – that all I want is for you to be happy, don’t you? But to be honest with you, love, wouldn’t you miss all this? We have a good laugh working here together, don’t we? And going shopping down the market. Having our cup of tea and toast together. You always love that. You would miss it, I know you would.’

Nell blinked back the tears that were threatening to show her up in front of Sylvia. ‘Course I’d miss it. All of it. Keeping everything looking nice, having you to talk to.’

She couldn’t control the urge to cry any longer. What was wrong with her? She’d never been so happy, but she’d never cried so much in all her young life either. ‘And having you as my friend,’ she sobbed. ‘Everything.’

Sylvia reached across the bar and took Nell’s face in her hands. ‘I’ve always said it: you’re a daft great ha’p’orth. And I’ll never stop being your friend, but I won’t stop worrying about you either. Please, Nell, please think about it.’

‘He only wants me to go down the Lane for a wander.’

‘Yeah, and –’ Sylvia paused, searching for an explanation that Nell would understand. Not
easy, when she didn’t really know what she meant herself. ‘And the snake only wanted Eve to have a little nibble of his apple, if you get my meaning. You’ve been to Sunday school, you know what happened next.’

As usual, Stephen Flanagan came into the Hope and Anchor at half past seven, and, as had happened for the past two months, Nell pulled him his pint of mild and bitter before he even had a chance to ask for it.

Sylvia watched, skunk-eyed, as the man brushed his fingers along Nell’s forearm.

‘All right there?’ she snapped, making Stephen pull his hand away, as if she’d just caught him rifling through the till. ‘Over here, Nell, there’s people want serving.’

While a blushing Nell took orders from a group of animated young doctors from the nearby hospital, Sylvia marched over to Bernie to bend his ear.

‘I’m telling you, Bernie, I don’t like the way that that Stephen Flanagan looks at her. And I ask you, did you see him touch her just now? It’s disgusting, enough to make you feel sick. Man of his age. He’s old enough to be her father. No, I’ll change me mind over that one, he’s old enough to be her bloody grandfather.’

‘Don’t keep leading off, Sylv, he’s only doing what any other red-blooded man’d do if he was brave enough.’

Sylvia blinked very slowly. ‘I beg your pardon, Bernard?’

‘’Cept me, of course, my little beloved. But while we’re at it, we’re not exactly the same age, now are we?’

‘You sound like Nell, but like I said to her: at least I’m a grown woman with a bit of understanding about the ways of the world. She’s so bloody innocent.’ Sylvia shook her head. ‘I just don’t like it. He’s got them two kids that are older than her, and a vacancy for a bloody skivvy to look after the three of them if you ask me.’

‘You worry too much, Sylv. You can see in the bloke’s face how taken he is with her. Leave ’em to it and it’ll all work out – it always does. And now,’ he said, pushing back his chair and standing up, ‘if you’ll excuse me, my little firecracker, I am off to have a word with the man himself.’

Sylvia fussed around, straightening her husband’s already straight braces. ‘Bernie, you know I love you, you great big lump, but why, where that man’s concerned, do I get the feeling that there’s something you’d rather I didn’t know about him?’

Having finished sorting out the drinks for the young medics – the who was going to pay for what, and the dealing politely and blushingly with their cheeky suggestions – Nell found herself urgently needing to wipe down the table where Stephen was now sitting with Bernie.

‘You were saying earlier?’ Nell said, without
making eye contact with either of the men, her heart racing and her cheeks burning red.

Stephen brushed the drips from his beery, salt and pepper moustache and stood up. ‘’Scuse me a minute, Bern.’

He gestured for Nell to follow him to the other end of the bar, well away from where Sylvia was serving.

‘What I was saying was,’ he said, ‘was I wondered if you’d thought about what I asked you. You know, if you’d like to come and have a walk with me over Petticoat Lane next Sunday morning. I never mentioned it before, but there’s a bloke who’s got a greengrocer’s pitch for sale and I thought I might go and see how the stall’s doing. See, since I stopped going to Mass – you know, after my Violet upped and left – I never really saw the point about not working on a Sunday. So I might as well be earning as sitting indoors by myself all miserable, eh? Especially now there’s nothing doing down the docks for anyone again. And if it takes off, I might try my luck down the Mile End Waste with a weekday pitch and all. People always have to eat, so there should be a good couple of bob to be earned.’

He glanced away from her, as if he didn’t want her to see his pain. ‘It’ll be good for me, take my mind off all the misery in my life.’

Nell could feel her eyes prickling again. The poor man, how he must have suffered – must still be suffering.

‘What about your children?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t
you spend a bit more time with them during the week?’ She knew that was what she’d have wanted if she’d had a mum or dad of her own.

He looked into her eyes. ‘The twins don’t need me no more, not in that way they don’t. They’re nineteen now.’

‘Nineteen?’ Nell was completely taken aback. She had imagined the twins to be little ones, like Sam, her favourite young boy back at the home. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might be even older than she was.

Stephen caught the change in her tone. ‘I never see my other kids; they’d got lives of their own, or so they told me when they took off. The twins are my last two at home, but they’ll be leaving and all before I know it. So they won’t be putting their money on the table for much longer.’

His expression clouded. ‘So I’ve got to find myself some work. And not just to occupy me.’ He drained his glass and slammed it on the bar. ‘Someone’s got to pay the bills and buy the food, and this stall might be the answer. But most important, it’ll give me something to do, help me forget my worries. So what d’you think? Will you come and have a look with me? I’d appreciate your opinion.’

Stephen kept looking at her steadily, directly. She was a beauty all right, a real little Christmas fairy, fit to put right on top of the tree. But had he persuaded her? Would she go with him?

Nell gulped, feeling herself welling up again.
What on earth was wrong with her? She could count on one hand the number of times she’d cried when she was in the home, and now she’d turned into a proper waterworks.

‘Of course I’ll come with you, Stephen. It would be my pleasure.’

‘Good. Now I need to get back to Bernie.’

He put his hand on her shoulder, making her sort of shiver inside. She didn’t know how she’d be able to wait until Sunday.

‘Nell, darling.’ Sylvia did her best to sound casual as she flicked a feather duster over the already clean bar. ‘Before you go up to bed can we have a word?’

Nell looked dismayed. ‘What have I done? I’m ever so sorry.’

Sylvia put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘Nell, I keep telling you: you are not in that bloody place any more. No one’s going to punish you or hurt you. I just wanted to say that I’m worried – and you know what I’m going to say – about the attention Stephen Flanagan was paying you again tonight.’

Nell didn’t like Sylvia hugging her when she spoke like that. It made her feel guilty, as if she didn’t deserve it. ‘It’s nothing. You mustn’t worry about me.’

‘How can I help it? I heard him asking you out on Sunday morning. Again.’

Nell blushed. ‘He’s thinking about buying a stall.’

‘You’ve said yes, haven’t you? You’re going with him.’

Nell nodded.

‘Bloody hell, Nelly. I can’t believe what you see in an old feller like him,’ said Sylvia, thinking, but not daring to add out loud:
Don’t you think there’s something stupid about Stephen bloody Flanagan – that he doesn’t even try to hide whatever it is he’s up to?

Instead she said, ‘I don’t suppose you ever had a chance to have a boyfriend in that place, did you, let alone go with a man?’

Nell didn’t answer.

‘Here, you haven’t, have you? You haven’t ever been with a bloke?’

Please God, she hadn’t been with Stephen Flanagan. If she went and got herself knocked up by him, that’d be it. No, it was too horrible to even think about.

‘How do you mean, have I ever been with a bloke?’

Sylvia stepped away from her, rested her elbows on the bar and covered her face with her hands. Did they teach them nothing about the world in that place?

She dropped her hands, puffed out her cheeks and looked up at the ceiling. ‘This is flaming worse than I thought.’

Half an hour later, a shocked, yet still rather sceptical Nell swallowed the last of the medicinal port and lemon that Sylvia had insisted she drink, while she continued to listen to the description of
what the landlady called, as delicately as she could, ‘having ladies and gentlemen’.

At least it explained the monthly bleeding in terms other than the matron’s ‘curse of womankind’ that had so frightened her – and the feelings she had had when Stephen Flanagan had stroked her arm.

Stephen Flanagan looked so different in his Sunday-best clothes. He had shaved his chin, oiled his hair to a flat, shiny grey cap and, from the glimpse of white peeping out from the neck of his heavy overcoat, Nell could see he had even put a collar on his shirt.

He handed her a brown paper bag.

‘It’s an orange,’ he said. ‘All the way from Spain. I’m partial to oranges. Bought a few last week, and that one was left over. Thought you might like it.’

Nell took the bag and looked inside. ‘I’ve never had an orange before,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen them though. Matron used to have them. In the home. Sylvia, she prefers apples, so we have them sometimes. They’re nice. Do you like apples?’

‘They’re all right.’

He didn’t sound that interested, and Nell wished so hard that she could have said something funny or clever instead of making herself sound like an idiot.

‘Shall we go then?’ he said, looking around. ‘Time’s getting on and I’ve got things to do, and this bloke to meet.’

‘I’ll just run this up to my room.’

When she came back downstairs, Nell felt her stomach churn – there was no sign of Stephen Flanagan. But Sylvia was there, standing behind the bar fussing about with a crate of quart bottles of pale ale.

‘He’s waiting outside,’ said Sylvia coolly. ‘I don’t think he fancied the thought of a little chat with me.’ She let the crate drop with a loud crash. ‘Cos he knows I don’t approve.’

Nell nodded, not knowing what to say, and started towards the door, but before she reached it Sylvia had skipped around from behind the bar and dodged in front of her, blocking her way.

‘You will keep your wits about you, won’t you, darling?’

‘Course I will, I promise I’ll be back before opening time.’