‘I told you it was a mistake, didn’t I, Rose? All along I said it was a mistake. Just those bleeding coppers out to make a name for themselves, and not worrying about sending an innocent man to prison.’ Mary was in her element, bustling around the large room that served as parlour and kitchen as fast as her swollen legs would allow, heedless of the pain she would endure later for this disregard of her infirmity. It would be a small price to pay for such a wonderful evening.
Frankie was out of the nick, and his first port of call had been her house. Well, maybe not his first, but what difference did that make? He’d come round, hadn’t he? And him a busy man like he was. No wonder Rose had been a bit off last night: the poor girl must have been bursting to tell her about Frankie’s release but had decided to surprise her with a visit from the man himself.
And what a surprise it had been when Frank had poked his head around the parlour door, his mischievous grin lighting up the room. And not just the room either. Seeing him standing in the doorway, as large as life, his handsome face beaming down at her in that familiar, loving way, she had been filled with such a surge of emotion that she had felt fit to burst. Thank goodness she’d had a good tidy-up this morning while Rose was out down Petticoat Lane. The mantelpiece, dotted with ornaments on either side of the old bronze clock, was shining, as was the glass-fronted cabinet by the wall. The double bed in the corner by the window was covered with a new patchwork quilt she’d made, adding a splash of gaiety to the room. The table was covered in her best white embroidered cloth, and the woven rugs that lay atop the scrubbed, faded oilcloth had been given a good beating that morning. She had even ironed her best antimacassars to cover the backs of the battered armchairs. It was as if she’d had a sixth sense about the impending visit. And it wasn’t just a five-minute visit either. Oh, no!
Her Frankie was here for the entire evening. He had brought a case of her favourite stout, and a bottle of port, saying that they would drink a toast to his freedom later. So that must mean he intended to stay. Normally he would just pop his head round the door saying, ‘Can’t stop, Mary. Just dropped in to see how you are,’ before disappearing as quickly as he’d come. Even on those other occasions when he’d just got out of the nick, he normally only had time for a flying visit. But not tonight. He had taken off his jacket, loosened the top button of his white shirt, and was sprawled easily in one of the comfortable armchairs by the open grate. Oh, it was so good to have him here like this. It was just like old times. Her and Frankie and Rose, all together in the parlour, shutting out the rest of the world from their cosy little family… Well! Not exactly like old times, she amended grimly, her euphoria temporarily dampened by the presence of Jack Adams, sitting upright on a straight-backed chair at the table, his face set in tight lines of silent disapproval. Well! Bugger him. This was her house, and if he didn’t like the company, he could bleeding well piss off.
She couldn’t understand why Rose had asked him to stay after Frankie had turned up unexpectedly. She must have known Jack’s presence would put a dampener on the evening. No! Sod it! Jack Adams wasn’t going to spoil her night. Mary was suddenly anxious to prove to Frankie that the policeman’s presence hadn’t been her idea. She cast an aggrieved look in Jack’s direction. ‘Don’t let us keep you, Jack. We know you’ve gotta get up early for work.’
Jack shifted on the chair, then pulled it tighter under the table, resting his arms on the surface in the attitude of one settled in for the duration. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, Mary,’ he said easily. ‘My shift doesn’t start until eleven tomorrow so I’m in no rush to get home, but thanks for being so considerate.’ He smiled broadly at her, determined not to let her rile him. Though it wasn’t easy. Specially that crack about ‘bleeding coppers sending an innocent man to prison’. Good God! Was she really so blind to Buchannon’s faults? And the answer came back swiftly. No. Mary Miller wasn’t a stupid woman. She was only doing what countless others had done before her: closing her eyes to the dark side of a loved one – as did her niece.
For a brief moment, Jack almost envied Frankie. To be able to engender such devotion and loyalty in two strong, forthright women like Mary and Rose surely said something about the man. Then his mind shifted to the countless beaten men and distraught women Buchannonhad left in his wake, and his heart hardened once more.
Rose, corning in from the scullery with a tray of tea, stopped in the doorway, her teeth nipping at her bottom lip in dismay at the scene before her – and the undeniably heavy atmosphere. Oh dear! She would have to get Jack away from here before things got any worse.
Like her aunt, she had been delighted to see Frankie turn up at the door, though for slightly different reasons. She had been on the verge of telling Mary that he was out of prison when he had arrived, saving her a tongue-lashing from her aunt.
It was unfortunate that Jack had been there when Frank arrived. Another five minutes and he would have left. But the moment Frank had stepped into the house, Jack had dug himself in, refusing to acknowledge that his presence was unwelcome, in a bloody-minded effort to antagonise his adversary.
Jack glanced up at Rose, saw her annoyance and lowered his eyes. That he was upsetting Rose and Mary was painfully evident, and for that he was genuinely sorry, but he had no intention of leaving. If he had to stay here all night, then so be it. He wasn’t going to leave until Buchannon did. The policeman in him upbraided him for his childish behaviour, while another part of him, the part that was achingly vulnerable where his pride and Rose were concerned, resolved not to be browbeaten.
Seeing the stubborn set of Jack’s chin, Rose blew out her cheeks in exasperation. He was acting like a spoilt child, and Frank was no better, deliberately shutting Jack out of any conversation or making comments about the police, calculated to provoke him into heated retaliation, which he had resisted – so far!
Setting the tray down on the table with a loud thump, Rose looked at Jack crossly. He remained steadfast, merely smiling gently and saying, ‘Thanks, love. I could do with a nice cuppa. I’ve never been over-fond of beer – it muddles the mind and I can’t afford that, not in my line of work.’
Rose bit back a retort that this was the first she’d heard of Jack not liking beer, and poured out a cup for herself. She sat down on the arm of Mary’s chair, leaving Jack to pour his own. The slight wasn’t lost on either man, and Frankie raised his glass in Jack’s direction. ‘Quite right, Constable. We can’t have members of the police force running round drunk. Gawd knows, they make enough mistakes when they’re sober. Cheers!’
‘Frank!’ Rose said warningly. Then, at Frankie’s infectious grin and his broad wink, she found herself laughing, which only served to fuel Jack’s smouldering anger.
Rose’s defection, as he saw it, was the last straw. He pushed back his chair, clenched his fists, and ground out slowly, ‘We’ve managed to put you away enough times, Buchannon, and you’ll go down again…’
Mary had just taken a large gulp of stout so was temporarily silenced, but then, spluttering and coughing, she shouted, ‘’Ere, don’t you start slinging round insults in my house, Jack Adams. Frankie here is family, you ain’t. So if you don’t like the company, then piss off out of it.’
‘Aunt Mary!’ Rose cried, aghast, but Mary was unrepentant.
‘Don’t you Aunt Mary me, love. I ain’t one for mincing me words, never have been. If your friend wants to come here, then he’ll treat me visitors with respect. If he don’t, then he ain’t welcome.’
Jack had risen to his feet, his face burning with rage and humiliation. As much as he’d told himself not to get riled, there was only so much flesh and blood could stand. Yet, curiously, he didn’t hold any animosity towards Mary. He understood the reason for her hostility, and that reason was sitting just a few feet away. Studiously ignoring the amused glance of the man opposite the irate woman, Jack said quietly, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Mary. I’d never hurt you on purpose, but I ain’t one for mincing words either. I only give respect where it’s deserved, and that doesn’t include thugs and bully boys.’
Outraged, Mary struggled to get out of the chair, her face alight with rage. ‘Clear off! Go on! Get outta my house, you ungrateful sod you!’
Frankie leaned forward, motioning Mary back into her chair. ‘’Ere, come on, old girl, don’t get yourself all upset on my account, it ain’t worth it.’
Jack stood, pale-faced, watching the scene, his hands clasped tightly behind his back for fear that he would lash out at the mocking figure of Frank Buchannon. The other man was obviously enjoying the situation.
Then Frankie turned his dark, brooding eyes on Jack, who saw the malice in that glance, and knew that his adversary was willing him to start a fight. Jack drew himself upright. Well, Buchannon was out of luck this time. If there was any more upset in this house, it wasn’t going to be laid at Jack Adams’s door.
Turning on his heel, he nodded to Mary, then said to the white-faced Rose, ‘Are you going to see me out, love? Or am I in disgrace with you too?’
Rose shook her head wordlessly and walked slowly from the room. After a moment’s hesitation Jack followed her.
‘Mind how you go, Officer.’ Frankie’s voice floated after him. ‘If you run into any trouble on your way home, just mention me name and you’ll be all right.’
Rose was waiting by the open door, her face downcast by the events of the evening. Apart from having her purse stolen it had been such a lovely day – and it could have been a wonderful evening. She hadn’t seen her aunt so happy in a long while, and now it had all been spoilt. She didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or shout. When the hand came to rest on her shoulder she pushed it away angrily. ‘Don’t say a word, Jack, just don’t say a word. You’ve said quite enough already.’
‘Now, just a minute, Rose,’ Jack interjected, his anger matching her own. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t the only one chucking insults around.’
‘No, I know that. But if you’d gone home when you intended to, there wouldn’t have been any call for any unpleasantness.’
‘Oh, so I should have scuttled off like a cornered rat the moment Mr God Almighty came in, should I? Well, thank you, Rose. I was under the impression you liked my company. I even thought we had an understanding between us, but it looks like I was wrong, don’t it?’ Jack, his face growing redder by the second, pushed past her and out of the open door.
‘Jack! Don’t be so childish! All I meant was that… Well, you must have known there’d be trouble if you stayed. I don’t mind so much for myself, but Aunt Mary was so pleased to see Frank. She was really looking forward to a good night and… ’
‘And I spoilt it.’ Jack finished her sentence, staring over her shoulder down the dimly lit hall. Loud laughter could be heard now coming from the parlour. His face tightened and he stepped into the street, his eyes darting down the narrow road to where two shadowy figures were leaning up against the wall of the end house. Buchannon’s flunkeys. He might have known they’d be hanging about somewhere, eager to protect their master.
Rose made to close the door, then stopped. ‘All right,’ she flung at him. ‘Yes! If you want the truth, you did. I don’t know what you hoped to gain by stopping on where you clearly weren’t wanted, but all you did was upset my aunt. And, like I’ve told you before, Jack, my Aunt Mary comes first with me, and always will.’
‘And not just your aunt, eh, Rose? We mustn’t upset dear Frankie either, must we? Oh, dear me, no. Not Mr Wonderful who—’
‘Ooh, go to hell, Jack!’ Rose gave the door a mighty shove and it slammed shut with a bang.
She hadn’t gone more than a few feet when a furious hammering started on the door. She went back and yanked it open, glaring at the figure on the doorstep, then gasped in shock as he stormed past her and into the parlour. Hurrying after him, she stopped in the doorway, her mouth hanging open as she listened to his calm voice, directed at the two figures sitting by the open fireplace.
‘You’ve got your way this time, Buchannon. I’m going. But not because you’ve driven me away – it would take a bigger man than you to do that – but because I don’t want to cause any more upset for Mary or Rose. But I’ll tell you this, Buchannon, and I’m only going to say it once, so you’d better listen hard.’ Jack paused, his heart thumping wildly in his chest at the import of what he was about to say. Then, keeping his eyes firmly on the other man, he said, slowly and deliberately, ‘I love Rose, and if she’ll have me, I’d marry her tomorrow – and even if she doesn’t feel the same way I’m still gonna be around, until Rose tells me differently. So you’d better get used to the idea. Both of you.’ His eyes flashed to Mary. ‘’Cos I ain’t going nowhere.’
This time Rose didn’t follow him out, and when the door banged noisily, she dropped shakily on to one of the two hard-backed chairs by the table, clasping her trembling hands in her lap.
Mary was the first to break the silence. She craned her neck towards her niece and demanded fiercely, ‘What’s all this malarkey about getting married? You ain’t mentioned it before, or don’t you confide in your auntie any more? If there was any wedding plans in the offing, I’d’ve thought I’d be the first to know, instead of hearing it from that snotty-nosed little bleeder.’
‘Auntie!’ Rose roused herself from the initial shock of hearing Jack’s proposal. She’d been expecting it, yes, but not like this, not in front of others – and definitely not in anger. Raising her head she looked hard at Mary, and when she spoke, there was a steeliness in her voice that neither Mary or Frank had heard before. ‘Don’t speak about Jack like that, Auntie. I thought you liked him. You’ve never said anything before. But you were horrible tonight, nasty, and there was no need, no need at all. Jack didn’t deserve to be treated like that. No one does.’ That she should jump to Jack’s defence so readily was evidence of her feelings, and as Frank watched the lovely face set in defiance against her aunt, he experienced first an alarming sensation in the pit of his stomach, then surprise at the intensity of his reaction to her outburst. Afraid that his feelings were written on his face, he glanced up warily at the women, but they seemed to have forgotten his presence as they faced each other in their first serious altercation.
Twisting her large body further round in the chair, Mary frowned at her niece. ‘No need! No need? Well, let me tell you, girl, there was a bleeding need. If he hadn’t shouted his big mouth off, then I wouldn’t have had the need to tell him what I thought of him. Anyways…’ Mary took a swig of the port Frank had poured for her and swallowed it noisily. ‘I didn’t say anything before ’cos I didn’t think there was anything serious going on. But Gawd blimey, girl, I didn’t spend all of me savings to educate you just so’s you could marry a bleeding copper, especially one that insults me in me own home. Oh, no, me girl. You can do a lot better than the likes of Jack Adams, so the sooner you tell him he’s wasting his time the better. And if you ain’t got the guts to tell him, then I will.’
For the first time in her life, Rose disliked her aunt. Then her gaze shifted to the watching Frank. She realised that it wasn’t Aunt Mary’s fault she was acting like this: the whole charade was being acted out for Frank’s benefit. It seemed that the two of them were living in a private little world of their own where outsiders weren’t welcomed. Suddenly she had no desire to join them in it.
An image of Jack’s hurt face swam before her eyes, and a lump came into her throat. Poor Jack. She shifted on the chair, conscious of the four eyes staring at her, willing her to join them and close ranks against the outside world… a world where Jack lived. Suddenly she couldn’t do it. As much as she loved these two people, she still had a life of her own to live, and if she wanted to prove it, she must make a stand now. Before she had a chance to change her mind, she rose to her feet and announced, ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Mary, but if Jack isn’t welcome in this house any more, then I’ll have to go to his.’
Mary looked balefully at her determined niece, and in that brief, tense moment, she saw not Rose but her sister Ruth, and knew that if she wasn’t careful, history might repeat itself. But the stubbornness that had been a trait since childhood reared its head once more. Mary drew her chin into her neck and waved her arms shouting, wildly, ‘If that’s what you want, then I ain’t stopping you, girl. You do what you want, you always do. But if you’re thinking of getting married, then you’ll have a bloody long wait ’cos you’re under age. You need my permission before you marry anyone, so don’t hold your breath.’ Mary’s large breasts were heaving in agitation while the stubby fingers holding the glass of port shook violently, spilling the blood-red wine on to the front of her blouse. ‘But I’ll tell you this for nothing. If you do marry that copper, don’t expect me to be sitting in church giving me blessing ’cos I won’t be there. I never thought you could be so sneaky, me own flesh and blood. Planning to get wed, with not so much as a by-your-leave to the very person what brought you up… Still, you’re just like your mother, only I never noticed it till now.’
‘That’s not fair, Aunt Mary,’ Rose said hotly. ‘I didn’t make any plans behind your back. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you when Jack started talking about getting married and—’
‘So, you’re not gonna marry him, then! Well, that’s all right.’ Mary, mollified, beamed magnanimously. She hauled herself round in the chair, nodded towards the silent figure in the armchair opposite, and crowed, ‘Well, this has been a night and a half, eh, Frankie? Gawd blimey, I thought for a while we was gonna have a copper in the family.’ With that she threw back her head and let out a roar of laughter. ‘That’d be a turn-up for the books, wouldn’t it, lad?’ Then she leaned forward and tapped Frankie’s knee soundly. ‘Mind you, if there had been a wedding, you’d most likely have known all of his friends. That would’ve been a knees-up to remember, eh, Frankie?’
Frankie smiled. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. And those same forbidding eyes looked at Rose, who was holding on to the edge of the table, her face pale. He said quietly, ‘Yeah, it certainly would, Mary. But that’s not gonna happen – is it, Princess?’
Rose met his gaze, the ominously silent command, and lifted her head defiantly. ‘I don’t know, Frankie, I’ll have to give it some thought. Like I said, Jack’s proposal took me by surprise. But you never know, there just might be that knees-up in the future.’ Rose walked swiftly across the room to Mary, bent down, pecked the elderly woman’s cheek and said, over-brightly, ‘I’m going out, Aunt Mary. I won’t be long but don’t wait up if I’m a bit late. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘What? It’s gone ten. Where’re you going at this time of night?’ Mary started to rise from her chair, only to be pushed gently down by a restraining hand.
When the front door closed softly behind her niece, Mary was astonished to discover that her eyes were filled with hot tears.
‘Leave her, Mary. Let her go, she’ll be back,’ Frankie said, reassuringly. ‘You know she doesn’t like being told what to do. Now, who d’yer really suppose she takes after?’ He grinned into the stricken face.
‘But, Frankie,’ Mary wailed, ‘what if she’s gone after him? I said some rotten things about the lad but he’s decent enough. He’s just not good enough for my Rose. Ooh, Frankie—’ She grabbed frenziedly at his hands. ‘What if she goes and marries him just to spite us? Oh, it’d break me heart, Frankie, it would, it’d break me heart.’
‘Don’t worry, old girl. Our Rosie wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. She thinks the world of you. I tell you, she’s just showing us she can’t be ordered about. She’ll be back soon. And I promise you she ain’t gonna marry that copper. You have me word on that.’
Mary gazed tearfully into the compelling brown eyes. What she saw there sent a chill up her spine. ‘Frankie! You ain’t gonna hurt the lad, are you? I mean, just ’cos I don’t want him to carry on seeing Rose, it don’t mean I’d want any harm to come to him.’
Frankie chuckled. ‘Who me? Hurt someone! Now, Mary, you know me better than that. I wouldn’t hurt a fly, me. And anyhow she can’t do anything without your say-so. You’re still her legal guardian, and until she comes of age she’s gonna have to do what you tell her. Besides, there’s more than one way of skinning a cat. Now, then, you sit there, drink your port, an’ stop worrying. I’ve said I’ll fix things, and I always keep me word, don’t I, Mary?’
Mary didn’t hear him. A sudden worrying thought had entered her mind. She had never formally applied to be named as Rose’s legal guardian. She had just brought her home and brought her up. Rose had been registered at school under her father’s surname, and when anyone had queried Mary’s relationship to the child, Mary had simply told the truth: that Rose was her dead sister’s child and that she was looking after her niece as the father couldn’t be found and she had no other living relative.
A chill closed around Mary’s heart. She had no legal hold over Rose. But, then, she had never imagined she would need one.