The Good Life (4 page)

She plugged in the electric kettle and set about making another pot of tea, humming to herself as she relished the sights and sounds of her new home.

Jenny Riley woke up and didn’t know where she was for a few moments. Her mouth was dry and she had a deep ache behind her eyes. Sitting up, she was glad to see that she was fully clothed and in her own bedroom. She had no memory of how she got there. She had to take deep breaths to stop the feeling of nausea washing over her. This was her first hangover, and all she could think was, how could her mother wake up feeling like this every day of her life?

The evening before was a blur. She sat on the edge of the bed, vaguely remembering trying to eat a bowl of pasta. She closed her eyes tightly until the room stopped moving around her, and finally she made her way to the bathroom. Stripping off her soiled clothes she stood underneath the cold shower until she felt relatively normal. All the while flashes of the night before were moving before her eyes, but she couldn’t make head or tail of any of it.

The bathroom door banged open and her mother’s voice sliced through her skull. ‘Up then, are we?’

Jenny closed her eyes in distress. This was going to be a long day.

‘If I never see that ponce’s face again it will be too soon!’

Cain Moran laughed at Johnny’s words. ‘You sound like your mother!’

Johnny grinned, because it was true. One of his lads, big Paulie Jameson, opened the office door and said quickly, ‘Kenny the Pimp’s downstairs and said he needed to see you.’

Cain and Johnny exchanged startled looks, then both started to smile remembering the excitement of the night before.

Johnny turned back to Paulie. ‘Send him up, Paul.’

Cain sighed. ‘That’s all I need, Johnny, but I suppose it has to be done!’

‘Lovely little pair though, weren’t they?’

‘What the girl or her tits?’

Johnny grinned. ‘Both.’

Kenny the Pimp walked into the room like Uriah Heep on Valium, the fear on his face was visible and, as he looked at Cain Moran, he attempted a smile. Cain Moran knew how to play the game and he just stood there towering over the other man and looking seriously menacing.

‘You wanted to see me?’

Kenny nodded. ‘I heard about last night, and I can assure you that I have spoken sternly to Doug. He realises he was out of order. Blames the booze − you know how it is.’ He was warming to his theme now, and carried on in the same vein. ‘I’ve told him to be careful, make sure he don’t step on anyone’s toes, but what can I say, Cain? He’s a cunt.’

Cain laughed. ‘Lot of them about, Kenny.’

The insult was taken on board, but there wasn’t going to be any retaliation, they all knew that. This was an exercise in diplomacy, nothing more.

Cain went and sat behind his desk and, lighting a cigarette, he blew the smoke out in a long stream before saying, ‘The thing is, Kenny, Doug had earmarked a pair of nice young lasses. They were pissed and scared but he wasn’t fucking bothered. If I hadn’t intervened they would have woken up in a hotel somewhere stinking of sweaty blokes and that would have been just the start of their destruction. If I ever fucking see that cunt within a five-mile radius of this street, I will kill him. Hand on heart. Then I will pop in my car and I will drive to Brixton and kill
you
. Because it’s cunts like you that’s causing the huge police presence in Soho and the surrounding areas. You’ve got to take your business off the streets and start using your loaf. It’s nearly the eighties, and it’s a different world here now. It’s
my
fucking world. Don’t fuck it up.’

Kenny the Pimp swallowed deeply; one thing that could be said for Cain Moran was that he never made idle threats. Kenny cleared his throat noisily, his nerves in shreds. ‘Fair enough, if that’s what you think is for the best.’

Cain Moran stood up quickly and saw the man flinch. ‘I do think it is for the best. So fuck off.’

Kenny the Pimp scarpered, the laughter of the two men following him down the rickety stairs.

‘I hate ponces, Johnny. Living off women like that. They are scum.’

Johnny nodded in agreement. Like Cain, his mother had been a Tom, and that was why their friendship had blossomed all those years ago. It was a terrible stigma to live down, but it was the truth and there was nothing anyone could do about that. Johnny remembered how hard it had been for them, and so did Cain, although it wasn’t something they discussed very often. It was normally late at night, when well in their cups, that they broached the subject and discussed the finer points of their upbringings. But both worshipped their mothers − that was the main thing. They understood the times and the pressures and the lack of money for single women left with kids.

Cain had always been the bigger of the two. At junior school he had towered over the other lads. Johnny, on the other hand, was small for his age and black, which didn’t exactly help his situation in those days. But between them they had conquered their particular world and their friendship was true and lasting. Johnny loved Cain Moran and he knew the feeling was reciprocated; they were closer than most brothers. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the man.

‘I felt so sorry for those girls last night, but what I said was true − the new laws are going to clamp down on prostitution − well, for the younger girls anyway. The shrewd Toms rent a room and advertise as a model, or offer French lessons. The thing is, people like Doug and Kenny are a dying breed if they only knew it. They have to change with the times. I mean, if he invested in a house, he’d basically be legal. You can do what the fuck you like in a property you own. That’s how the letter of the law works. But that thick cunt can’t see it.’

Johnny put his jacket on. ‘Come on, Cain, we’re due in East London in an hour. Richie Jakobs is bringing his mate to offer us this marvellous business deal.’

Cain sighed. ‘I suppose we have to go, show a bit of willing, but I don’t trust that fucker.’

Johnny grinned. ‘No one trusts that fucker, but he can earn, and that’s all anyone really cares about.’

Cain nodded in agreement but he was still wary. Jakobs was a slippery bastard and, as such, needed to be watched closely. Cain Moran knew he wasn’t a man who could put that much effort into another person, especially not one like Jakobs. But he’d agreed to the meet, and so he had to go and at least hear what the man had to say.

Jenny Riley picked up the phone quickly, the ringing torture to her pounding head. She was still feeling the effects of the night before and every now and then she would remember the man who had saved her and her face would burn with humiliation. All the way back to her house he had lectured her on the perils of being a young good-looking girl, and the trouble that could get her in if she wasn’t a bit more savvy. The whole evening had since come back to her in stunning clarity and now she wished she could just forget it for ever.

‘Hello.’ Even her voice sounded fragile.

But instead of Bella as she hoped, it was the local publican Paddy Cartwright shouting that she had better come and get her mum or he was calling the Old Bill. Slamming down the phone, she grabbed her jacket and hurried out of the front door.

It was early evening and the weather was cold, but it cleared her head and, as she made her way to The Highwayman public house, she cursed her mother under her breath. She hoped Paddy didn’t phone the police; her mum was only inches away from a custodial sentence for brawling, drunk and disorderliness and shoplifting. The judge was sick of seeing her − this time he would bang her up no trouble. Paddy was a good bloke though − he tried to look out for her mother, Jenny knew that.

But as she approached the pub she sighed in distress. She could hear her mother’s big gob even from a distance, and she was in full fighting mode. Jenny ran as quickly as she could to try and defuse the situation; she was good at it because she had been doing it for as long as she could remember.

‘Mum! What the hell is going on?’

As Eileen turned to face her daughter, she still had hold of a dark-haired woman’s throat; she had been shaking her like a terrier and the woman was terrified.

‘Put the lady down, Mum.’

‘Will I fuck! She nicked me fucking drink.’

A small crowd had gathered to watch the debacle and Jenny turned to them shouting, ‘Had your fucking look? Grown men watching a drunken woman fight and you didn’t even step in to help?’

One of the men shouted back, ‘Eileen Riley don’t need no help, love, she fights like a man!’ Everyone laughed at that.

Jenny extricated her mother’s hands from the weeping woman’s hair, and tried to pull her away. But Eileen was having none of it. Knocking her daughter back, she set about the woman again, this time dragging her by the hair and raining punches down on her head.

‘I’ll fucking teach you a lesson, you thieving cunt.’

Jenny pulled herself off the floor just as the police arrived. It was chaos. Getting out of the car was PC Magnus Billings, a big man, running to fat to the extent that he looked like he was going to burst out of his uniform. He was much disliked, not only by the locals but also by the police force in general.

Jenny’s heart sank when she realised it was Billings who had come to break up the fight; he hated her mother with a vengeance bordering on mania. Eileen had once emptied a bucket of piss over him and he had never forgotten it. Neither had anyone else. It had gone down in the local folklore as those kinds of incidents generally do. Even his police colleagues referred to him as Pissy Bill, not a name he relished.

When he grabbed her mother in a chokehold, Jenny could see that he was really hurting her and, without thinking, she rushed to her defence.

‘All right, hold up a minute, you’re harming her.’

He laughed nastily. ‘Piss off. She’s fucking nicked.’

The other PC was a tall lanky young lad with dirty blond hair and bulbous blue eyes. He was attempting to help her mother’s victim who, it turned out, was even drunker than Eileen.

Jenny stood her ground. ‘You’re hurting her! She can’t even talk your hold’s so tight.’

Eileen Riley did look distressed. Billings was holding her at an awkward angle and it must have been agony.

‘If I’ve managed to shut this fucker up then that can only be good.’ He looked at the crowd for confirmation but they weren’t laughing now. The Filth were their natural enemy and, as bad as Eileen was, there was a strange affection for her. She brightened up many a dull day with her antics. Plus, if she was flush, she was always open-handed and willing to share her good fortune, even if it was earned on her back.

But now the police were involved, Eileen Riley was seen as the victim not the aggressor. A tall man with a bald head and a drinker’s belly shouted angrily, ‘Let her go!’

Billings retaliated by dragging her forcefully towards the patrol car, shouting over his shoulder loudly, ‘You want to fucking join her, mate? Because that can be arranged.’

Jenny launched herself at the man who was trying to force a kicking and fighting Eileen into the patrol car. Without thinking she jumped on to his back and, using all her strength, she dragged him away from her mother. Letting go of Eileen, Billings turned around and pushed her forcefully to the ground. Eileen, seeing this, launched herself once more at the officer, knocking his hat off and grabbing at his hair, cheered on by the crowd of onlookers who wanted to see Pissy Bill get his just deserts. Which he did, with honours.

Cain Moran had driven to Stratford for his meet and, as he parked outside The Highwayman, he saw a sight he didn’t think he would ever see. The lovely −
quiet
− girl of the night before was having a fight with a policeman.

Johnny Mac laughed. ‘That’s that little bird, ain’t it?’

Cain sighed. ‘So it would fucking seem. Not such a wilting violet after all.’

Cain and Johnny got out of their car and made their way over to the foray. Cain grabbed PC Billings and pushed him away from the fighting women. The man actually looked relieved.

Then he realised who had dragged him away and wished he had never answered the call.

‘What the fuck are you doing? Fighting with women? Get in your fucking plod car and leave.’

The crowd were thrilled. This was added excitement. A local Face turning up was the icing on the cake as far as they were concerned.

The two policemen did as they were bid and left the scene quick sharp.

Jenny was mortified that the man who had been her saviour the night before had once more come to her aid. She could feel the burn of humiliation on her face. She must look like a complete headcase. One minute she was being groomed as a prostitute, and the next minute she was brawling in the street.

‘Hello, young Jenny. You do have a flair for the dramatic, don’t you, darling?’

Jenny Riley was so mortified she burst into tears. Eileen, who was sobering up by the second, was amazed that her daughter, her lovely looking Jenny, could know someone like Cain Moran. Especially on a first-name basis.

Cain put his arm around Jenny’s shoulders and, motioning to Johnny, he walked her back to his car. Johnny Mac grabbed Eileen and they all left the scene together. Eileen Riley had once more provided the general populace with not just excitement, but also gossip. She was a girl all right.

Cain looked around Jenny’s home and his heart sank. It was a typical Tom’s house − empty bottles everywhere, the residue of half-eaten food and overflowing ashtrays. He should know; he had grown up in a place just like it. He could see there was an underlying cleanliness that he guessed, rightly, was from young Jenny trying to bring some normality to her surroundings. He felt heart-sorry for the girl. What chance did she have with loony Eileen, as she was affectionately known, as her mother?

He felt a deep sadness settle over his heart. He had suffered the humiliation of a mother on the game, and he had learned to fight at a young age. Whatever his mum might have been she was still his mum, and no one was going to say anything detrimental about her, even if it was true. Most soft Toms like his mum, Eileen, and Johnny Mac’s mum, were victims of their own looks and apathy. It was easy money, and you could drink and smoke into the bargain. It was a social job in a way, where you were out with other people. And it helped pay the bills and put the food on the table.