Two Women (3 page)

Maud’s eyes were like saucers as she breathed, ‘Oh, Junie, you are a one.’

Ivy mimicked her.

‘Yeah, and a right one at that, eh, Junie? My boy will boil your eyes, love, when I tell him this.’

June sat at the kitchen table and felt the sting of tears. Her face was decimated, swollen and black. It would take weeks before she looked even remotely like her usual self. Her hand was killing her and her back felt as if it was going to break. Her whole body was sore. But she was used to that. It was knowing that her husband was not going to let this one go for a good while that really bothered her. She liked her new man. He was lovely, gentle and kind, treated her with respect. He was generous as well.

June had been moonlighting as a prostitute for years, as did most of her neighbours. It was part and parcel of their lives. Kids needed new shoes? Off you went and no one was any the wiser.

What you didn’t do was mouth off about it, and you certainly didn’t open your trap when Maud was about. She could find gossip at a prayer meeting.

Susan and Debbie came into the kitchen as their grandmother started her tirade once more. According to her June was totally useless. Susan asked her mother if it was okay for them to go out and play.

Before June could answer, the front door nearly came off its hinges under a mighty banging.

She sighed.

‘Get that for me, will you?’

Susan opened the front door and saw the biggest black man she had ever laid eyes on standing there.

He smiled at her gently.

‘Is your mother there?’

Susan was nonplussed. She liked this man, he was nice. But she knew his presence would be like a red rag to a bull so far as Granny McNamara was concerned.

Debbie ran into the kitchen, squealing, ‘It’s the black man, Mum, he’s at the door.’

June rolled her eyes to the ceiling and stifled an urge to scream against the injustice of it all. Pulling herself from her seat she said sarcastically, ‘Close your mouth, Maudie, you might miss something juicy.’

As she walked out of the kitchen her heart was pounding. Jacob Omomuru was basically a very kind man as she well knew. That was what made it all so much harder. The chances were her old man was going to kill her over Jacob, and deep down she knew that if she had an iota of sense she’d run off with him. But she also knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t cope with real life, couldn’t cope with Joey hot on her trail because that would be the upshot.

Jacob was standing on her doorstep in front of all the neighbours in a smart navy blue suit with toning shirt and tie. The gorgeous crinkly hair that she loved was cropped close to his head; his wide almond-shaped dark eyes were pleading with her. Jacob Omomuru loved her and secretly that knowledge made June a very happy woman. But her life was set and nothing would change it.

He was folding her in his arms, exclaiming over her face. She winced as he pulled her against him. She could smell his special scent of sandalwood soap and cigarillos. She pushed him away just as her mother-in-law came to the door, her face like a white mask, mouth set in a large and ugly O.

‘Leave her alone, you black bastard! My boy will cut your throat when he finds out about this lot.’

Jacob stood there, a large and intimidating figure among the women and girls. Maud was nearly wetting herself with nervous excitement. This was better than the telly, as she would inform people later in the day when she dropped in on anyone she could think of for a cup of tea and a fag. She had never heard of the expression ‘keeping mum’.

‘Come on, June. Come with me now, darling. Let me take good care of you and the girls.’

June looked up into his handsome face and shook her head.

‘You better go, Jacob. Joey’s home soon and if you’re here there’ll be hell to pay.’ Her voice was low, no emotion in it whatsoever.

Another neighbour walked past, a young mother of twenty-three with four kids, enough stretch marks to be used as a railway timetable and more mouth than a cow’s got udders.

‘Here, Junie, you bringing work home now or what?’

June ignored her.

Jacob stared down into the face he loved so much. He knew June McNamara’s reputation, everyone did. She was a ‘sort’ as the East Enders called it. June used the only asset she had. ‘Sitting on a goldmine’ was the way he had heard other women refer to their bodies. But nevertheless he had fallen for her heavy soft breasts and the accommodating moistness between her legs.

He was pussy whipped and he knew it.

He also knew that the chances of a mixed race relationship working out in 1960 were practically impossible. Especially in their neck of the woods.

But June had given him something he had never expected to find in the coldness of London. She had given him a little happiness. He took so much working in the Victory - he took their insults dressed up as jokes, and he took their money - but he knew that each and every day he walked a fine line. It was only his size and the fear factor that kept him alive and well in East London.

Jacob used his dark brooding looks to good effect in the pub and knew that was the edge he had over the white men. The women liked him. In London, especially the East End, powerful men were sought after. It was a trophy thing. ‘My man can batter your man’s brains out.’ It was almost tribal. He allowed himself a secret smile at the thought.

June was pushing him towards the stairs as her mother-in-law screamed at the top of her voice, making sure she called people to their doors.

Turning from Jacob, June screamed back at her, ‘Shut up, you dried up old bag! Will you shut your trap and give your fucking arse a chance for once?’

Then, turning back to Jacob, she pleaded with him.

‘Will you go? You’re just making things worse. He’ll swing for me when he finds out you’ve been round here. Just go away and leave me alone!’

Her voice was husky with emotion and Jacob felt the sinking sensation of a man who realises that he has not only lost the battle but the whole war as well. He looked down into her battered face.

‘You’re a fool, June. I’m offering you a way out. I’m offering you a life.’

She laughed nastily.

‘I’ve already got a life, Jacob, and it’s fuck all to do with you and your kind.’ She knew she had hurt him and whispered more kindly, ‘Let it go, mate, just let it go.’

He tried to put a hand around her waist. She shrugged him off.

‘Look at me, Jacob. This is it for me. It can’t be any other way. If my old man comes home and finds you here, one of you will be doing time, okay? And quite frankly I ain’t worth it. Now will you go?’

Before he could answer, a bucket of cold water hit the pair of them.

Ivy was in her element. All the neighbours were out and her boy was due home so she could really let her hair down now. If June slung her out she knew one of the neighbours would gladly take her in so she was guaranteed a cuppa and a ringside seat while she waited for her son’s return.

June turned on her mother-in-law like a demented cat.

‘You vicious old bitch! What did you have to do that for?’

She chased her back into the little flat, could hear laughter from the neighbours as Ivy screamed with fright and excitement. If her mother-in-law would just drop dead her life would be so much easier. Susan and Debbie watched wide-eyed as her mother set about their granny. June gave her a few resounding slaps around the mouth and head. Ivy dragged at her daughter-in-law’s hair.

‘You whore! He’ll fucking paste you round the estate when I tell him about this. A wog, is it? Bleeding coons now, is it? By Christ, you’re lower than the dock dollies you - you’d take on anything. Even they think twice about a black man.’

Dragging her mother-in-law by the hair and throwing her into a chair by the TV, June bellowed, ‘He’s a decent man! A bloody decent man. Too good for the likes of me. If I had half a brain I’d go on the trot with him, I would. But I know that between you and that ponce of mine we’d never know a day’s peace. Your son has taken everything from me - everything. Look around you, look what we are, then pat yourself on the back, Ivy. You did a fucking great job with your boys. A really great job. We’ve got nothing, even less than you.’

Both women were worn out now, by the fighting and the screaming. The room went quiet, the two protagonists staring at one another like trapped vixens.

‘Shall I make another cup of tea?’

June turned to her friend and neighbour and barked, ‘Oh, fuck off, Maudie. Ain’t you seen enough today? Go home and look after your kids. You’ll hear it all through the wall, love, you normally do.’

‘I’ll make the tea, Mum.’ Susan’s voice was low and her mother stared into her daughter’s face sadly.

‘I’ll put a drop of Scotch in it, shall I? Clear your head.’

She closed the front door after Maud had left then put the kettle on. Five minutes later she took two large steaming mugs of tea in to her mother and her granny.

Both women were whacked out though neither would admit it. Now that Joey was due home even his mother had gone quiet. No one ever knew what mood he would be in. He swung from laughter one minute to searing anger the next.

The flat was so quiet they could all hear the ticking of the clock on the Belling cooker in the kitchen.

Chapter Two

It was an hour later when Joey put his key in the front door. As they heard him fumbling, Ivy looked at her daughter-in-law and whispered, ‘Now don’t wind him up, right? Just agree with him. Whatever he says, just agree.’

June didn’t even bother to answer her.

Joey walked through the door quietly, his narrow dark face closed and impassive. Picking up Debbie, he kissed her on the lips.

‘How’s my best girl, eh?’

Debbie snuggled into him, kissing him back. Susan watched. He winked at her and then walked into the kitchen. Looking at his mother, he sighed.

‘Hello, Mum. Come round to pour trouble on oily waters, have we?’

Ivy kept her body still, her mouth firmly closed. Joey turned his gaze to June, taking in her battered face and hand. He blinked a few times as if unsure whether he was seeing right.

‘What happened to you then, June? Had a tear up with a bus, love? You look rough, girl.’

No one said a word.

This was par for the course with Joey. He could go either way and enjoyed making the women in his life wait to see what he was going to do. Was June going to get a kicking, or was he going to forgive and forget and make long-winded declarations of love? It was a good game, one he enjoyed.

Ivy’s eyes were shining with expectation and excitement. This was more like it. This was exactly what she had waited for. Suddenly she was a young woman again and Joey was his father.

What a man! Her husband’s namesake was just like him.

Susan put on the kettle again, quietly this time. A loud noise could cause all sorts of trouble when her father was like this.

He grinned at her.

‘Good girl, make the old man a cuppa. Calm him down after your mother had him nicked.’

Still no one said a word.

Joey looked at them all individually, drinking in the fear, the excitement and the tension. He sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag on it.

‘I reckon a cup of tea and an egg sandwich and I’ll be right as the mail.’

The two girls let out a sigh of pleasure at the sound of his calm voice. Disaster had been averted, Dad was going to let it all go and they could relax. ‘Then, after my brekker, I’m going to go and shoot the coon. I nipped into Jonnie Braithwaite’s on the way home and got a nice little handgun. I’ll shoot his nuts off and be home for lunch.’

Joey pulled an ex-Army revolver from the pocket of his bum freezer jacket. It was large, shiny and looked menacing.

The girls’ eyes widened. Ivy’s face paled and June slumped in her seat.

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Joey. They’ll bang you up good and proper, then what will you do, eh?’

Joey, who until this moment had not considered the possible consequences, stayed quiet.

His little pig’s eyes gleamed.

‘I’ll worry about that afterwards. The soot is dead, mate.’

Everyone in the kitchen kept quiet.

‘I put up with a lot from you, June, but fucking soots is one step too far. A big hairy-arsed wog now, is it? What’s wrong with everyone else then? Had your fill of white blokes, have you? Fancied a bit of black pudding?’

He caressed the barrel of the gun then placed it under his wife’s chin. The metal was cold, icy cold. June closed her eyes.

The tension in the kitchen was palpable.

Joey was quite capable of shooting her then dissolving into tears of remorse. He would play the wronged man, the husband cuckolded by a flighty wife who had a penchant for black men.

As usual he was living in his own fantasy world.

Everyone in the room waited, breath held, eyes trained on the gun.

Susan went to her father and put her arms around him gently.

‘Don’t shoot me mum, I’ve got me school play on Wednesday and I’m the Angel Gabriel.’

Joey stared into his daughter’s face.

But was she his daughter? Was either of the girls his?

That was somewhere he definitely didn’t want to go.

He looked at his golden child, his Deborah, the elder girl with whom he always felt a special affinity. Mostly because she had the same selfish streak as him, the same lazy way about her. Everyone loves seeing themselves in their children, and the more of their parents’ failings they have the more they are loved.

It was human nature.

Deborah was her father from head to foot. Pretty in a petulant way, she always made sure she got the lion’s share of everything that was going. She would hold out her hand and take all her life, never once giving anything back. Deborah, like her father, faced a very lonely existence as an adult.