East End Angel

‘Well, come on, Charlie … places to go … people to see,’ Wes chivvied playfully. He picked up his hat from the counter, tipping it at Mabel Butler before plonking it back on his sleek black head.

‘How’s your missus?’ Wes asked as they walked off towards the greengrocer’s shop on the corner. Within the premises was another local merchant who had felt disinclined to hand over his contribution to fund party politics, thus necessitating Wes arriving in person to explain to him the gravity of the situation. ‘Saw your Ruby not so long ago and she looked a bit peaky, I thought. Hope everything’s all right at home, son.’ Wes gazed up at his sidekick’s tense profile, noticing the lines on his face and the grey at his temples. Charlie was some four inches taller than he was and six years older. Nevertheless, Wes liked to think he was his superior in every way.

‘She’s dropped the nipper already,’ Charlie muttered, keeping his eyes on passing traffic.

‘Yeah?’ Wes waited expectantly.

‘Bleedin’ kids …’ Charlie grunted, stuffing his hands in his pockets. ‘Fuckin’ pain in the arse …’

‘Well, that’s one way to make sure you don’t get her up the duff in future, Charlie.’ Wes smirked. ‘Either that or take your business elsewhere when you’re horny, son.’

Charlie tightened his lips. It wasn’t the first time his boss had implied his wife was a brass. Although Charlie knew Ruby had been on the game before they met, he liked to think she’d laid off the profession since.

The fact that there was a little bastard at home who had yellow skin and slitted eyes naturally knocked sideways that fond notion. Charlie had knocked Ruby sideways when he’d first found out she was expecting. He could work out easily enough that he’d been locked up when she’d got herself in the family way again. What he couldn’t understand was why she hadn’t got rid of it. Soon after Pansy’s birth his wife had got pregnant. She’d not told him how she’d stopped her belly bloating but he’d guessed she’d done a job on herself. This time she’d kept the kid, yet she must have known that when he got out of prison he’d go berserk. The idea that Ruby might not be as frightened of him as he liked to believe had enraged Charlie almost as much as the image of her opening her legs for a Chinaman while he’d been wanking on a prison bunk.

She’d wailed at him she’d been so skint without his wages coming in that she’d had to do whatever she could to earn a few bob to feed them all. It was probably true, but the excuse cut no ice with Charlie. He’d simply clumped her again and would’ve kept on but for Peter getting in from school and jumping on his back, howling. So he’d had to chastise his son with his fists as well. And that was a shame because he liked the boy. Peter sometimes reminded him of himself at that age: mouthy and brave …

‘So … what is it, then? Boy or gel? Look like you, do it?’

His boss’s jolly questions interrupted Charlie’s thoughts, putting his teeth on edge.

Wes already knew the answers to his questions, but he liked to wind Charlie up. Ruby’s new kid looked Chinese, so he’d heard. Wes was relishing the irony of it all. They were out and about canvassing to collect for the Fascist Party and rid the country of immigrants and there was Charlie with a Chinese baby under his roof. In a couple of years’ time, it would be calling him Dad. Wes slanted a contemptuous look at his henchman but felt quite sorry for him. Charlie would be a laughing stock amongst his workmates on the dock if he let the cow get away with it.

‘Up ’n’ about again, is she, Charlie?’ Wes prodded. ‘Don’t do to let women get away with shirking for too long. I had my May back on her feet as soon as the midwife walked out the front door. Get lazy, see, don’t they, if you don’t watch ’em …’

It was Charlie’s turn to hide a snigger. He knew that Wes’s old woman ran rings round him. If May wanted to sit on her fat arse all day long then that’s what she did. Wes was just happy his wife had a brain on her so the two of them could share it.

‘In we go then …’ Wes lilted out as they came abreast of the greengrocery display piled up outside the shop. ‘Another nonce, Charlie, who needs telling that all the immigrants are taking our jobs and our women. What bloke’s gonna put up with a foreigner humping his wife … eh?’ Wes’s crafty glance revealed that he’d successfully touched a nerve about Ruby’s Chinaman. Sometimes, Wes felt bad about tormenting his sidekick but he had to carry on because it made Charlie so much better at doing his job.

Charlie burst in through the doorway, sending boxes of apples flying, making the greengrocer spin about at the commotion. The last thing the fellow saw before his face was rammed onto the wooden counter was Charlie’s snarl.

Joyce Groves raised herself by digging an elbow into the feather pillow, while twirling her champagne flute by its stem. ‘What you doin’?’ she asked. She eyed the broad back of the man sitting on the edge of the bed. Reaching out lazy fingers, she trailed them to and fro over ridges of muscle.

‘Making sure you don’t get pregnant,’ Nick said as he took the French letter out of the packet and put it on. Joyce put her glass of champagne down on the bedside table and flopped onto her back. Nick turned, sinking back onto the mattress, then rolled to drag her into his arms. He covered her in a swift precise movement and kissed her. Immediately, Joyce wound her arms around his neck, hooking her calves over his.

‘Looking after you, see,’ Nick growled against her hot eager mouth. ‘You want to show me how grateful you are for that?’

Joyce wasn’t grateful but she bucked and squirmed as he started to arouse her and soon she forgot to feel annoyed that he might have rumbled her little game.

Afterwards, she lay back, luxuriating in sensual lethargy, and thought she could grow used to this life … expensive hotels and fancy food and drink. Nick had treated her to a night in a West End hotel and they’d seen a show and had a fantastic dinner of lobster and fillet steak. She glanced at the breakfast tray that held the remnants of their meal of eggs and smoked haddock, and another half-empty bottle of champagne. She felt quite like a princess, and she wanted her prince to make it a permanent state of affairs. She didn’t want to go back to working in a greasy-spoon café that catered for workmen in overalls who pinched her backside every time she walked past.

She watched Nick through half-closed eyelids as he strolled to the window to stare at the street scene while fixing his tie. He’d been up and about as soon as his passion was again spent. The strength of his lovemaking this morning had left a pleasant ache throbbing at the apex of her thighs and she stretched in cat-like contentment against the silky sheets, thinking.

She knew the reason Nick used johnnies was to protect himself rather than her. She’d heard that his wife had used the trick of getting herself pregnant to get a ring on her finger. Joyce had hoped to use the same ploy. But it seemed he wasn’t going to fall for it second time around – more was the pity.

She’d liked Nick since she’d been a school kid. He might be seven years older than she, but she’d noticed him right from the start. She knew he hadn’t been aware she existed, but now she was old enough – and attractive enough – to put herself in his way, she was about to make sure that changed.

‘I’m going to settle the shot,’ Nick said, turning about and digging in his trouser pocket for a packet of cigarettes. ‘Give you an hour or so to get yourself decent …’ he raised a mocking eyebrow at her dishevelled appearance, ‘then we’ll head back home.’

Joyce twisted onto her belly, an ardent look slanting from beneath her lashes. ‘Sure you don’t want to stay another night? I’ll show you I’m not decent at all.’

‘Got business to get to.’ Nick shrugged into his suit jacket. ‘Look lively, Joyce,’ he added briskly, ‘or you’ll be catching the bus back to Whitechapel.’ He smiled but Joyce didn’t. She’d been seeing him for a few weeks now and knew he wasn’t joking. He’d walked out on her before when she’d angled to keep his company for longer than he was prepared to allow her to have it.

In a short while, Joyce had learned that Nick Raven could be a cold man, despite the fire in his loins. And if he were not so generous in bed and out of it, she’d think he really didn’t like women very much.

‘Let’s see how the little fellow’s doing,’ Kathy said, picking up the wrapped bundle and looking into small closed features. Ruby’s baby was now a fortnight old and had not yet put on any weight. His complexion was smoother and it was clear he was a handsome child, despite his frailty. He had a mop of neat black hair and long ebony eyelashes.

When Kathy had arrived at the Potters’, she was relieved to find Charlie was out. The last time she’d come on a postnatal visit, he’d been home and had sat in the chair watching her from beneath his brows with a mean expression. This afternoon, little Pansy had opened the door to her and nodded solemnly in answer to Kathy’s question about whether she was helping her mum to look after her new little brother.

‘Have you named him yet, Mrs Potter?’ Kathy asked, laying the boy down so she could unwrap the swaddling layers of threadbare sheeting and examine him. He was wet but, that apart, seemed clean and cared for as he had on her previous visits.

‘Might call him Paul … I like names beginning with P so they go with Potter,’ Ruby mumbled.

Kathy smiled, thinking Charlie probably held no such fondness for that theory this time round.

‘Have you clean nappies? He needs changing.’ Kathy glanced about the messy room.

Without her mother instructing her to do so, Pansy got up and fetched a scrap of towelling from a chair back where it had been hanging to air.

Thankfully, it was dry, and Kathy cleaned the child’s bottom and powdered it, then fastened the square of cloth around his hips.

‘Have you had any help from family?’ Kathy asked. She knew that Ruby’s own mother had passed on as Mrs Mason had brought up the subject on the day the little boy had been born. But Kathy recalled that Ruby had once mentioned her mother-in-law lived in the locality.

‘Nobody’s been over,’ Ruby said sourly.

Kathy nibbled her lower lip. She guessed people were shunning Ruby because she’d been caught out committing adultery. ‘Perhaps in a few months’ time, when things settle down,’ she said kindly.

‘Things ain’t gonna settle down, are they?’ Ruby laughed bitterly, nodding at the baby. ‘Let’s face it, he ain’t gonna look any different in a week, or a year, is he?’

‘And how have you been?’ Kathy changed the subject, sticking to routine, although she was feeling frustrated at being unable to help Ruby in her predicament. ‘Are you breast-feeding without trouble?’

‘Got an abscess, I think,’ Ruby muttered. ‘It feels hot and painful. I’ll bind meself up to stop the milk.’

‘Let me see …’ Kathy gently examined the inflamed skin Ruby had exposed. ‘There’s no need to stop feeding. We can sort that out with—’

‘Don’t want nuthin’. Gonna put him on the bottle.’

Kathy glanced at the woman’s averted face and guessed she was repeating what her husband had told her to say.

‘Perhaps you should tell your husband how much formula milk costs,’ Kathy said briskly. The mean wretch wouldn’t want his wife spending on anything she could get free from her own body.

‘Get yer bike back, did yer?’ Ruby asked, quickly buttoning up her blouse.

‘Doubt I’ll see that again. I came on the bus today. But I hope my boss will sort something out for me.’ Kathy had got a ticking-off over losing the vehicle, so she wasn’t feeling optimistic about a replacement bike being soon forthcoming from Dr Worth.

‘Trouble all round that night, weren’t it? And it ain’t done yet,’ Ruby said gloomily. She glanced at the baby, sleeping soundly. ‘Poor little mite don’t know what he’s in for …’

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_fd0dace1-a196-51ee-b4bb-6c95a17fe188)