‘Did you tell Jimmy? And Mr Travis?’
‘Yeah; saw Mr Travis first thing and he sends you his best wishes and says not to worry at all about getting into work. Then I caught up with Jimmy at Steve’s.’ Rob slipped off his jacket as he approached Faye.
She’d flown out of the sitting room and into the hall when she’d heard his key in the lock, and now stood close to him, trying to read in his face what had occurred when he’d confronted his father over his vile behaviour. Rob drew her into his arms and rocked her against him, closing his eyes contentedly as she immediately pressed closer and clung.
‘How’ve the boys been?’
‘Crying. Michael’s not stopped and he’s set Adam off ’cos he can’t understand what’s wrong. And I’m nearly as bad,’ she admitted. Just a mention of her own grief brought fresh tears to blur her vision. ‘I had a lie down on the bed with Adam to get him off to sleep. He’ll wake up soon though, ’cos he’ll be hungry.’ She paused to let out a sigh. ‘He keeps asking, “Where’s Mum?” I don’t know what to say. What shall I say?’
Rob understood the rawness in her voice and comforted her by nuzzling kisses against her cheek. ‘We’ll think of something. Got to give him a few nice things for a while. Then, when the time’s right … Are you hungry?’ he asked, hoping to distract her and keep the moisture in her eyes from spilling. ‘Do you want to go out this evening and get something to eat?’
‘I’ve cooked something,’ Faye admitted with a shy smile. She freed herself from his embrace and pulled him towards the kitchen. She’d found a bag of potatoes and a couple of pieces of beef steak in his pantry. Not knowing how to properly cook steak – she had never tasted such rich fare – she’d cut the meat up into little pieces. She’d often watched her mother make a shepherd’s pie out of leftover meat scraps and any vegetables she’d had to hand. She knew that such a meal stretched to feed a family.
‘Smells good,’ Rob said as they entered the neat kitchen filled with a savoury aroma. ‘What is it?’
‘Shepherd’s pie.’
‘Yeah?’ He sounded surprised and impressed and opened the cooking-range door to peer in. ‘Me mum would make that.’ He grimaced. ‘Not often, of course, ’cos that git always kept her short. It’d end up more spud ’n’ bacon bits than anything else, but still it were a treat and a change from our regular bread ’n’ scrape after school.’ He spun the pie dish with a finger and sucked his scorched skin. ‘What’s in this?’
‘Your steak and some onions I found in the pantry too … What did he say when you told him?’ Faye blurted. She knew they couldn’t avoid talking about Jimmy and the grim business of the funeral arrangements. She’d sooner get it over with. In a short while Michael would come downstairs and interrogate her again, if he could stop sobbing for long enough. Her brother had been inconsolable since he’d heard the dreadful news about their mother’s death. He’d spent almost the whole day upstairs on his bed, only appearing at intervals to ask more unanswerable questions.
‘He lied, as he always does.’ Rob closed the oven door and straightened. ‘He said he didn’t know anything about Edie falling pregnant. He knew, all right; could see it in his eyes.’ He leaned back against the sink, facing her, resigned to a serious talk. ‘I went to see the woman he knocks about with and she confirmed what we’d already guessed: he’d taken off ’cos something had spooked him. She told me he’d probably be found at Stephen’s, as he was after his job back. She felt bad about him doing the dirty on your mum. Edie’d been to see her and she’d offered yer mum some money. I imagine it was her told Edie where to go in King’s Cross. She seemed genuinely worried Edie’d go to Maggie in The Bunk for an abortion and get hurt …’ His explanation tailed off into a sigh. ‘I think she was just trying to help.’
‘Me mum went to see Jimmy’s fancy woman?’ Faye sounded shocked.
‘Yeah; she was probably desperate to find Jimmy by then. I suppose his tart’s lodgings was the first place she thought to look for him.’ Rob’s look turned penetrative. He’d had enough experience with women to know how their minds worked. She’d moved on from thinking about Jimmy’s tart and was concentrating on his. He knew he had some explaining to do. ‘Something I need to say to you, Faye …’
‘Doesn’t matter …’ She turned away.
‘Yeah, it does, if things are going to be good between us.’
‘It’s all right; I guessed you said you loved me to be kind ’cos I was hysterical and upset.’
He choked a laugh. He hadn’t been expecting that. ‘I said I love you ’cos I meant it; but I know I should have waited and chosen a better time to tell you.’ He self-consciously pressed the bridge of his nose. ‘I’ve never wanted to say it to anyone before. But that’s no excuse and I should’ve had the guts to tell you a while ago.’ He paused. ‘What I wanted to say: the other women, the ones you heard Stephen mention at Christmas – that’s all done with. There’s been no one else for a while now.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets, gazing earnestly at her. ‘I haven’t wanted to be with anyone else … only you. I was going to come round to see you before all this happened, swear I was. You said you wished you hadn’t been so proud and had come to see me … well, I was feeling the same way. I’d wanted to come and say I’d acted like a moody prat refusing to help your brother out like that.’
Faye approached him to prop her forehead against his shoulder. ‘Perhaps you were right about Michael. Perhaps he should learn the hard way. And I didn’t just want to come and see you to get help with Michael. I wanted to tell you I was sorry for acting like … a moody prat …’ She smiled as she used his phrase. ‘But most of all … I wanted to say … I’m sure I’d like it if I slept with you.’ She finished with a bright blush on her cheeks that had little to do with the heat wafting up from the oven.
‘Yeah? Well, believe me, I’m gonna make sure you do like it,’ he promised fiercely, and tilted up her face to kiss her. His lips swerved aside before touching as a little face appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Where’s Mum?’
Faye twisted about to see Adam gazing up at her, rubbing his eyes.
‘You hungry, mate?’ Rob asked.
Adam nodded his small fair head.
‘Have tea soon, shall we?’
Again Adam nodded at Rob.
‘Shall we sit in here to eat tea?’ Faye suggested. She knew there was a posh dining room with shiny mahogany furniture as well as the kitchen table to choose from. She’d explored the house from top to bottom while waiting for him to come home. She’d walked from one spotless room to the other with tears dripping from the end of her nose, thinking how relieved her mum would be to know she had Rob’s protection and that Michael and Adam were benefiting from his generosity too. The saddest thing was knowing her death had prompted their luck. But Faye clung to the belief that her mother was close by and contented by how things had turned out.
‘Come in with you?’ Adam piped up, and ran to cling to Faye’s legs.
She picked him up, shushing him.
‘Come in with you?’ Adam repeated.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He wants to come in my bed with me later,’ Faye explained. ‘When he’s upset, he always climbs in bed with me for a cuddle. Might as well let him or he’ll grizzle all night.’ After a moment she asked, ‘Do you mind?’
‘’Course not …’
A comical facial expression had denied the sincerity of that remark. It made her chuckle and protest, ‘He’s not three yet; he’s just a baby still. It might be like this for years.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘And?’
‘I’ll hire a nursemaid and take you on a long honeymoon.’
Faye stared at him, a lump wedged in her throat before a desperate need to know abruptly dissolved it. ‘Is that a proposal, Rob?’ she breathed.
‘Yeah … it is.’
‘You said you didn’t want to get married for a long while.’
‘So did you.’
Her melting, blue-eyed gaze made him add huskily, ‘Something else I should have owned up to a while back, sweetheart.’
Jimmy’s expression turned spiteful as he spied Nellie coming out of the tobacconist’s. Having immediately torn open the new pack, she lit a cigarette then crossed the road. From the direction she was taking, he reckoned she was on her way home.
Something had been niggling at the back of his mind since he’d left Stevie’s, and the sight of her had just helped him work out what it was. She alone had been told the tale he’d concocted about helping out a pal in Kent, yet Bobbie had thrown it back at him less than an hour ago. Bobbie had gone looking for Nellie for the same reason Edie had gone after her: they’d both wanted to track him down and had ended up poisoning her mind against him.
For an old prossie, Nellie had always been a soft touch for a hard-luck story, even though lately she wouldn’t swallow any of his. And Edie, damn her, had gone complaining to Nellie about him. Even before he’d gone missing, Jimmy had guessed Nellie was again trying to separate him from her earnings. She’d left him high and dry once before, when Saul Bateman had taken over looking out for her. But that had been years ago when she was quite a looker. Now she was a blowsy old brass, and no regular pimp would embarrass himself by taking her on. Jimmy had been relieved to know it, and had felt reassured that Nellie needed him as much as he needed her. Only now it seemed she didn’t, and it seemed she didn’t give a toss any more whether he knew it.
When he’d turned up at The Bunk a little while ago and found their rooms empty – everything gone; even Edie’s old crockery and cutlery had been cleared out – Jimmy had realised straight away there was only one place the kids would be. As he’d emerged into the street he’d bumped into Margaret Lovat, and she’d confirmed what he’d already guessed. The woman had passed on her condolences, and the information that she’d seen the kids going off in Rob’s car early that morning. Jimmy had wondered how much worse his luck might get. He’d been relying on finding Faye at home, or perhaps taking refuge with the boys at a neighbour’s. He’d judged she’d be too upset to be working at the bakery. And he was in desperate need of cadging a few bob as he was skint.
As Jimmy trudged along in Nellie’s wake he realised, with Edie gone and her daughter now out of reach, Nellie was all he had left. He was determined to make sure she understood he was keeping hold of her.
‘Seen Greavesie about, have yer?’
Tim Lovat stared coldly at Donald Bateman. He hadn’t forgotten the humiliation of being beaten up by this thug and his gang. They’d not spoken since. Having given him a full blast of his filthy look, he turned around without answering, and strolled on down Campbell Road towards home.
‘’Ere … you deaf or summat? I was speakin’ to you.’ Donald caught up with him and yanked one of his arms to spin him around.
Last time they’d clashed, Donald had had back-up; now he was alone and it was obvious he was lacking his brash confidence as well as his mates. His eyes looked shifty and he was fidgeting.
‘Get lost.’ Tim shoved him, sending him skittering backwards.
‘Look, no hard feelings, pal,’ Donald whined, swaggering back towards him. ‘You only got a little smack ’cos you was interfering when I was chattin’ up the girl I’m after. Now, if you like her ’n’ all, that can’t be helped, but it’s best man wins, ain’t it?’
Tim looked him up and down and sneered a smile. ‘Yeah, it is, pal. And you’ve lost, ’cos she’s chosen who she wants.’
‘You walkin’ out with her?’ Donald barked.
‘Not me,’ Tim answered with a hint of bitterness. His smug delight in having deflated the arrogant prick melted his ill feeling. ‘Rob Wild’s her sweetheart,’ he announced. ‘Now you know that, I don’t reckon you’re gonna be chatting her up no more, are you?’ With that he walked on, a grin on his face.
Tim hadn’t been happy to discover from his mum that Faye Greaves, and her brothers, had moved in with Rob Wild and it looked like a romance might be on the cards. But he liked Faye a lot and, after the recent tragedy that had befallen the family, only a wrong ’un would hold a grudge. Ruefully, Tim realised that the turn of events had decided his future for him. He’d been holding back on taking up the offer of the job at Lockley Grange, not only so his parents would get used to the idea of doing without him, but also because, after their day out in Essex, he’d been optimistic he and Faye might become closer, and she might be persuaded to go with him. If she’d agreed to become his sweetheart, but had preferred to stay in North London, Tim would have continued working at Milligan’s outfitters just to be with her. But it wasn’t to be, and deep in his heart he’d known all along that he’d been kidding himself; Faye would only ever consider him a friend.
Tim took a look over his shoulder at Bateman. He got the impression that the creep didn’t even know what had happened to Edie Greaves, or that her funeral was later today. Miffed as Tim was not even to have had a chance to take Faye out again to the flicks, he graciously allowed Rob Wild his victory. He was glad Faye, and her brother, Michael, would now be protected from Bateman’s bullying.
Donald stomped off furiously in the opposite direction. He’d not even realised the cow had been attracting the likes of Wild. He’d thought Tim bloody Lovat was his main rival. Added to that, he’d never have believed Wild would be interested in a girl who acted like she’d not yet been broken in. Everyone knew he had a couple of sophisticated sorts on the go. There wasn’t a man who entered the Duke and copped an eyeful of Gloria who didn’t reckon Rob Wild was a lucky bastard. Of course, he knew Faye’s stepfather was Rob’s old man, so they were bound to have known each other quite well, but … His intense brooding was suddenly interrupted.
‘Got a minute, have you?’
Donald swung about, startled. ‘No, I haven’t, you manky old tart. Now piss off.’ He shot a look right and left as though embarrassed by Nellie’s company and worried somebody might see them together.
Nellie’s lips tightened into a knot of crimson lipstick. ‘Got yer father’s charm, I see,’ she muttered sourly.
Donald stuck two fingers up at her and set off again.
Nellie put a spurt on and caught up with him. ‘Might just as well tell me what I want to know, then I will piss off. Don’t worry, son, ain’t any keener ’n you are to be seen together. Bleedin’ hell, cradle snatchin’ ain’t my thing. What are yer? Fifteen?’ She smirked as she saw his cheeks glow red.
‘Just need to know where I can find your dad. Need to speak to him. It’s important.’
‘He won’t have nuthin’ to say to you.’ Donald slung her a sideways look. ‘You go botherin’ ’im, all you’ll get is a black eye to match the one you already got.’ He tipped his forehead at Nellie’s bruised face.
‘He’ll want to hear what I’ve got to say all right. And when he finds out he could’ve known about it all a bit sooner if you hadn’t put yer spoke in …’
That brought Donald to a stop. He knew that years ago his father and this woman had been involved together. Once, when he’d been this side of the water, his father had mentioned catching up with Old Nellie. Donald definitely didn’t want to rub his father up the wrong way. He desperately needed a sub off him now it looked like getting Greavesie to pay up soon was a non-starter. He wasn’t up to crossing Rob Wild on his own and he knew his mates would never back him up there.
‘He lives Peckham way,’ he mumbled at Nellie.
‘Yeah … know he do … but it’s a big place, Peckham,’ Nellie drawled sarcastically.
When she’d got exactly what she wanted, Nellie rested back against the wall of a shop and dug in her handbag. She fished out a pencil and an old envelope and carefully wrote down the address she’d memorised. She then took out her powder compact and flicked it open. She stared at bloodshot eyes and deep crow’s feet then doggedly pressed make-up on purple skin to try to disguise the worst of it. She winced as the pain needled into her head. The bastard hadn’t even had the guts to whack her while she was conscious. He’d waited until she was getting off to sleep and too befuddled to land him one back before setting about her. If she’d been in two minds before about staying loyal to Jimmy Wild, she wasn’t any more. She snapped the compact shut and set off in the direction of the bus stop.