Tiger Ragtime (28 page)

She shook her head. ‘The only place I can think of is Helga’s.’

‘He wasn’t there a few minutes ago. Helga said he came in from work, washed and changed into his best suit, barely touched his tea, and ran back out again. Tony said that David had paid him his winnings in the White Hart. I called in there on my way to Helga’s but David and Aiden Collins had already left.’

‘Then we’ll just have to wait for David in Helga’s,’ Edyth said determinedly. ‘As he’s lodging there, he’s bound to return there sooner or later.’

‘Do you think he’ll listen to us?’

‘No, but that’s not going to stop me from trying to talk sense into him,’ Edyth said forcefully.

‘Close-knit clan you Evanses, aren’t you?’ Micah smiled.

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed firmly, ‘and whether David likes it or not, as Harry’s brother-in-law he’s a full family member, even if his surname is Ellis.’

‘Have you got to go right this minute?’ Gertie complained when David left her bed.

He sat up and rummaged on the floor for his clothes. They were tangled up with Gertie’s but he managed to free his vest, underpants and shirt. ‘It’s after nine o’clock and I have to be up early in the morning to go to work.’ What he didn’t tell her was the reek of her scent on top of the fish and chip supper and beer he’d bought them was making him nauseous. He was also intent on taking Aiden Collins’s advice and calling in on one or two pubs on the way back to Helga’s to spread the news that he was available to take bets.

‘Come and see me tomorrow.’ She sat up, linked her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his bare back.

‘If I have time.’ He was suddenly and, in view of the way he had felt about Gertie an hour ago, inexplicably irritated with her. He felt that she wasn’t in the least bit interested in him, only in the contents of his wallet.

‘What do you mean?’ she cried indignantly. ‘“If I have time.” What kind of an answer is that for a regular to give a girl?’

‘Just what it says. I’m holding down two jobs –’

‘Goody.’ She locked her arms even tighter around his waist. ‘All the more money for me.’

She couldn’t have said anything worse in his present mood. ‘I have to keep myself too, you know.’

‘Why so cross, Dai?’ She watched him pick up his suit trousers from the floor and step into them.

‘Because all you ever talk about and all you ever ask for is money. And there’s pink face powder all over my jacket and my trousers.’ He tried to brush it off but it became ingrained in the suiting. He looked down at the floor. ‘Don’t you ever clean this place?’

‘I work all the hours God sends –’

‘I wouldn’t call what you do work,’ he said acidly.

‘Then what would you call it?’ When he didn’t answer her, she said, ‘I provide a service the same as the doctor and the dentist.’

‘They have set fees that don’t go up every five minutes.’

‘First rule of Anna’s house: every girl has to look to her own future.’

‘By fleecing her customers?’

‘That’s a vile thing to say.’ Her bottom lip trembled. ‘I gave you your money’s worth, didn’t I?’

‘You did when you charged me two bob. Tonight it was half a crown for the same, and supper and drinks. What will it be tomorrow?’

‘You’re in a bad mood. I’m not talking to you.’ She flounced back on to the bed and pulled the bedclothes over her head.

David found his shoes beneath Gertie’s frock and laced them on. He checked his pockets – and his wallet to make sure that no more of his money than he had intended had ‘accidentally’ fallen in the direction of Gertie and her piggy bank. When he was sure it was all there he opened the door. As he did so, Gertie pulled the sheet down, uncovering her face.

‘See you tomorrow?’ she pleaded.

He remembered how he had felt when he had walked into the room and softened a little. ‘Perhaps, I’ve told you I have two jobs.’

‘And they keep you so busy, you can’t make time for little me?’ she whined.

‘I can’t make firm plans.’

‘But if you come here and I’m busy – you’ll wait?’

Her begging made him wonder if Anna’s other girls were charging less for the same service Gertie was providing. ‘I’ll see how it goes.’

‘Please …’

‘Night, Gertie.’ He closed the door behind him and ran down the stairs. The red-haired woman he’d seen earlier, and, from her age, had presumed was Gertie’s ‘Anna’, opened the kitchen door and looked out into the passageway.

‘You just left Gertie?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed.

‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Are you one of her regulars?’

‘I don’t know,’ David answered uneasily, anxious to leave the house.

‘If you’ve visited her more than once, you must be.’

‘I have to go.’ David went to open the door but she joined him and leaned against it, preventing him.

‘What’s your name?’

David wasn’t sure why she was asking, so he used the nickname Gertie had bestowed on him. ‘Dai.’

‘You can’t be a sailor in that suit.’

‘I’m not. I’m working on the old Sea Breeze.’

Anna then repeated what Gertie had said when he’d told her the same thing. ‘You and every other man on the Bay. God help the lot of us when it’s built.’

‘Goodnight, Miss … Mrs …’ David faltered, it seemed disrespectful to call a women so much older than himself by her Christian name.

‘It’s all right; you can call me Anna without any other handle. Everyone else does on the Bay.’

‘Good night, Anna.’

‘I heard you and Gertie having words. She’s not trying to bilk you, is she?’

That word again – bilk. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Anna.’

‘Charge you too much?’

‘I gave her half a crown.’

‘That’s top whack, Dai; I hope she gave good service.’

‘She did.’

He must have sounded grudging because she said, ‘Any problems, come to me. The last thing I want is for this house to get a bad name. And you don’t have to tell me. I know Gertie can be greedy.’

David stepped outside, breathed in several lungfuls of warm, sea-scented air and headed purposefully for the lights of Bute Street. One of the open-air ‘casinos’ was operating in full swing beneath a street lamp and a circle of twenty or more onlookers were watching half a dozen men crouched at the foot of the lamp playing poker. When David drew closer, he saw that one of the players was Tony King.

‘David, my lucky mascot. Thanks to you I’m in the game.’

‘You winning?’ David asked, interested.

Tony pointed to the small heap of coins on the pavement in front of him. ‘See for yourself.’

‘Carry on at the rate you have done today, Tony, and it’ll be Rockefeller move over,’ Abdul, who was playing next to Tony, joked.

‘It might be, by midnight.’ Tony fished a watch from the top of his neighbour’s pile of winnings and checked the time. ‘Do me a favour, Davy boy.’

‘That depends what it is,’ David replied warily, expecting Tony to ask him for a loan.

‘Pick up Judy for me. It’s my turn to walk her home from the theatre and I don’t want to interrupt the game. These beggars will only mess with my cards if I do.’

‘As if we would,’ Abdul protested indignantly.

‘You would,’ Tony said calmly.

Steve Chan shrugged his shoulders. ‘We would.’ The others nodded good-natured agreement.

‘I was going to call in a few pubs on my way back to Mrs Brown’s.’ The last thing David felt like doing was arguing with Judy after quarrelling with Gertie. And if past experience was anything to go by, argue was all he and Judy ever did.

‘To do some advertising for your new venture?’ Tony guessed.

‘How did you know?’

‘I could see that you’d had a successful day when I picked up my winnings. Being a bookie’s runner can make you a lot of dough, as long as you remember to wear running shoes at all times.’ He glanced at a boy standing on the corner. ‘No sign of any men in blue?’

‘No, Tony,’ the boy yelled back.

‘Good lad. Tell you what, Davy boy: me and the boys will do your advertising for you, if you go to the New Theatre and meet Judy. A walk on dry land will do you good if half of what I heard about your voyage to the North Sea is right.’

David made a face. ‘All right, but you won’t forget about the advertising?’

‘We won’t.’ Abdul threw down one card and drew another.

‘Do you have a problem?’ Mandy asked when she walked to the stage door and found Judy, who’d left the dressing room ten minutes before her, standing in the entrance looking up and down the road.

‘It’s my Uncle Tony’s turn to walk me home and he hasn’t turned up.’

‘Want me and the girls to go with you?’

‘You’re all going the other way,’ Judy reminded her.

‘I owe you a favour for getting me that job in the Tiger Ragtime. Besides, we don’t mind, do we, girls?’ She turned to the rest of the chorus behind her. ‘A breath of fresh sea air will do us all good after that stuffy theatre,’ she coaxed.

The silence said more about the girls’ lack of enthusiasm than a list of excuses would have.

‘It’s all right,’ Judy insisted. ‘I’m perfectly happy to walk home by myself. It’s just that my uncles insist on meeting me. In fact, it would be nice to break the pattern. Once I do it by myself, they may allow me to walk home alone every night. It’s barely half an hour to my lodgings.’

‘If you’re sure that you’re happy about it. I’ve heard stories about Tiger Bay,’ Mandy said doubtfully.

‘So have I,’ Judy smiled confidently, ‘I was born there and I’ve lived there all my life. It’s nowhere near as bad as people try to paint it.’ Not wanting to delay any longer, or make Mandy feel any guiltier than she already did, Judy walked past the front entrance of the theatre towards Queen Street.

‘Judy?’

She turned and saw David standing outside the main entrance of the theatre. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you. Your uncle was busy so he asked me to pick you up.’

‘Busy?’ Judy reiterated. ‘You mean he was playing cards in one of the open-air casinos.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Auntie May will go wild if she finds out he’s been gambling. She’ll throw him out and then he’ll have to sleep in either Uncle Jed’s or Uncle Ron’s shed because their wives won’t have him in their houses when he’s quarrelled with May.’

‘Why not? He didn’t look drunk when I saw him.’

‘Uncle Tony drinks, but he hardly ever gets drunk. Gambling is his problem. A couple of years ago, Uncle Jed allowed Uncle Tony to sleep in his kitchen after he lost his entire week’s wages on a horse. Auntie May heard about it from the neighbours and came looking for Uncle Tony the next morning. When she found him snoring in Uncle Jed’s easy chairs in his kitchen, she lost her temper and threw all of Uncle Jed’s and Auntie Bessie’s china at Uncle Tony’s head. It took Uncle Jed two voyages to the Caribbean to earn enough to replace everything and two weeks for Uncle Tony’s cuts to heal.’

‘Vicious lot, your family.’ David had difficulty imagining someone breaking the entire china of a house over another person’s head.

‘Only to one another, and they love each other underneath it all.’ She caught hold of his arm, although he hadn’t offered it to her. ‘I can’t believe Uncle Tony sent you to walk me home. I wish my uncles realised I’ve grown up. If I can hold down a job in the theatre, I’m perfectly capable of walking myself home.’

‘Tiger Bay’s a dangerous place.’

‘To outsiders maybe. Not to people who grew up there. I’d only have to cry out for half the residents to come and see what was the matter.’

‘Look,’ he said in exasperation, ‘I didn’t have to come to get you.’

‘I know.’

‘So, are you going to complain about your uncles all the way back to Edyth’s?’

‘I’m sorry, that was unfair of me.’ She had given him an apology but she couldn’t resist adding a gibe. ‘Almost as unfair as you were to me when I met you at the station and I told you that I had found you lodgings. But if it’s any consolation, I’m cross with my uncle, not you.’

‘I did rather bite your head off when you met me at the station,’ he said grudgingly.

‘Is that a “sorry” for the way you behaved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you getting paid daily on the site? Because if you’re not, I can’t see how my uncle can afford to play poker. Since the last incident, Auntie May makes a point of taking everything except sandwich money off him when he works.’

‘Any food we order is taken out of our pay at the end of the week before we get it.’

‘So that’s how he got his stake. The crafty devil.’

‘He also bet a couple of shillings on the horses today and won.’

‘He told you?’

‘I took his bet,’ David said, proud of his new job.

She stopped dead in her tracks. ‘You’re not working as bookie’s runner for Charlie Moore?’

‘No.’

‘Thank goodness.’ She breathed a sigh of relief for Edyth’s sake. ‘That’s a mug’s game if ever there was one. Uncle Tony worked for him for a couple of weeks and ended up in court. He was fined twice as much as he’d earned.’

‘He didn’t go to gaol?’ David asked.

‘No, it was his first offence.’ She looked up at him sideways. ‘What do you want to know for?’

‘Because I’m working as a runner for Aiden Collins.’

‘The Aiden Collins who works for Aled James?’

‘The Mr James who’s building the nightclub, I don’t know of another one, do you?’ He led her across the road and down into Bute Street.

‘Don’t you know it’s illegal to take bets, you stupid boy?’

‘I am not stupid,’ he said fiercely.

She lowered her voice as they passed a crowd leaving the Salvation Army Citadel. ‘If the police catch you they’ll throw the book at you, lock you up, and toss the key in the dock.’

‘They won’t catch me,’ he said confidently. ‘And even if they do,’ he added somewhat illogically given his assertion, ‘Mr James promised me that no runner of his has ever gone to gaol.’

Judy was torn between loyalty to Aled James for giving her a job and loyalty to Edyth without whose help, friendship, and love she wouldn’t have been able to stay in Tiger Bay. And I, irritating, and maddening as David was, he was still a member of Edyth’s family. ‘That’s easy for Mr James to promise. He’s just come from America and hasn’t had any runners working on Tiger Bay before now that I know about.’