‘ANGIE, IF YOU don’t get yourself in there. This minute. I’m going to start screaming.’
Angie, wide-eyed with fear, stared at her friend, knowing she was easily capable of doing something as embarrassing as screeching out loud in public, but still unable to force herself to go through the door and into the seriously posh-looking interior. ‘I can’t.’
‘I told you, it’s only a bloody hairdresser’s.’
‘But look at them.’ Angie jabbed her thumb at the stylish young women sitting on the other side of the huge plate-glass window. ‘And look at me.’
Jackie shrugged. ‘You look all right.’
‘I’d have looked a sight better, if you’d have got up in time and helped me get ready, like you said you would.’
‘It’s too late to worry about that now. Let’s just get in there and get on with it.’
As Jackie urged her friend forward, herding her like a sheep reluctant to enter the dip, a petite, expensively dressed blonde in her thirties pushed straight past them, pulling off her linen coat as though she was in a hurry to be dealt with.
‘See,’ hissed Angie. ‘She’s like something out of a magazine.’
‘A ten-year-old magazine,’ sneered Jackie, giving Angie a shove. ‘Now just get in there.’
As Jackie corralled her friend between her and the desk, she leaned forward – she hoped, casually – to listen to what the heavily made-up receptionist was saying to the haughty-looking blonde. It needed a bit of effort, as she was competing with the salon’s sound system that was belting out Sandie Shaw’s ‘Long Live Love’.
‘Welcome to Michaelton’s,’ she made out the receptionist growling, in a not altogether perfected version of the Mockney accent that had become quite the thing amongst nice young ladies from the Home Counties. ‘I’m Dusty. Do you have an appointment?’
Angie, Jackie and ‘Dusty’ watched – respectively alarmed, fascinated and bored – as the woman’s smile slipped from her lips as fast as raspberry sauce dripping off a 99 cornet in a summer heatwave and was replaced with a hard-faced scowl.
‘Are you a Saturday girl?’
Dusty studied her blue-painted nails. ‘Yeah.’
‘I see. That’s why you don’t know me.’
Slowly, Dusty raised her glance to meet the woman’s. ‘Can’t say as I do.’
‘I’m Mrs Fuller. Sonia Fuller. Terry sees to me personally. I don’t usually come in at the weekend, I—’
‘You mean you haven’t got an appointment.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Sonia sucked in her cheeks, stared about her as if she were about to explode, then leaned close to Dusty and spat through her even white teeth: ‘Call Terry. Tell him I’m here.’ Then she straightened up, and flicked her hair over her shoulder. ‘Now.’
‘Sorry, Terry’s in the New York salon all this week. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’ With that, she looked straight past Sonia and flashed a friendly smile at Jackie. Angie might as well have been invisible. ‘Welcome to Michaelton’s. I’m Dusty. Do you have an appointment?’
Before Angie could object, Dusty and Jackie had whisked her past the now puce-faced blonde to the basins for her consultation with a stylist, who was described as a junior, but whose skills would have set her apart as positively senior in the place where Angie had her usual twice-yearly trim.
But this was Michaelton’s, hairdressers to the trendy, the famous, and the absolutely gorgeous; the place where Dusty worked on Saturdays for a pittance – after a full week’s slog in an office in the Tottenham Court Road – all in the hope that she would get spotted by a photographer collecting one of his girlfriends. And then she would start appearing in her rightful place: the front cover of every fashion magazine in Europe. It had happened to at least two girls already. Maybe three. Everyone knew that.
Dusty loved Michaelton’s, and she loved having one over on rich, snooty old cows like Sonia Fuller, who couldn’t cope with not being nineteen any more. And what a neat revenge this was: a little girl coming up to Kensington for the day from the suburbs being seen immediately, while she, Sonia Fuller, got a knock back. Dusty only wished she could have made a real show by taking the boring-looking kid straight over to Terry. That would have been perfect.
‘Terry left a note that Miss Knight here was to be made a special fuss of,’ Dusty had lied loudly over her shoulder in the direction of Marcie, the junior stylist, making sure that Sonia, who was struggling back into her linen coat, could hear every word. ‘And do your very best to squeeze her friend in as well, will you? As a favour to Terry.’
That showed the old bag.
Unaware that Angie was at that very moment about to be shampooed, conditioned and set about with scissors by an expert in stylish shaping and cutting, Sarah Pearson was fretting about her family. Despite being in her fifties, she, Sarah, prided herself in keeping up a smart, clean appearance, and could only wonder about how her daughter and granddaughter lived.
They were both lovely, of course, but the last time Sarah had seen Violet, she was painting herself like a cheap tart and wearing skirts that showed most of what she had, and as for young Angie, she didn’t seem interested in how she looked at all. It was such a shame. She could have really made something of herself.
Deep down, Sarah knew why Angie was the way she was: her thoughtless, self-regarding daughter, Violet, had knocked all the confidence out of the poor little love. She kept her as little more than a skivvy, so that she didn’t have to soil her own lazy hands either doing stuff indoors or, God forbid, going out and finding a job somewhere.
Sarah just hoped that Vi hadn’t conned Angie out of the ten pounds she’d given her for her birthday. She was such a soft touch. It made Sarah weep.
To take her mind off things, Sarah was popping along to see her friend Doris Barker for a chat. She only lived a few flats away, just along the balcony, but Sarah only saw her once or twice a week. Unlike many of the women in Lancaster Buildings, Sarah Pearson liked to keep herself to herself. She was friendly, of course, but she was a proud woman and liked her privacy, just as she liked to keep herself looking nice.
She rapped on the door, as she called through the letterbox. ‘Only me, Doris.’
Going into Doris Barker’s flat was like entering a department store. Apart from the kitchen, which was kept ‘clean’ for unexpected visitors, it was crammed with everything from lacy underwear to overcoats, all the things from the West End that she fenced for the group of hoisters – shoplifters – who lived on and around the estate.
Doris’s was a profitable business, which she spoke of as if it were some kind of community service; her view being that it provided gainful employment for local women, who would otherwise not be able to care for their broods of kids, who, regardless of their mothers’ circumstances, still needed new shoes and bigger-sized jackets for school.
Apart from her almost tangerine, dyed hair, which was teased and lacquered into a bouf of high, swirling curls, Doris was a plainly presented, middle-aged woman who opted for rather matronly Crimplene frocks in shades of muted blue or beige to cover her ample sideboard of a figure. She thought that her subdued wardrobe afforded her some sort of invisibility, the protection of anonymity, but she might just as well have dressed in pink lurex tops, leopardskin capri pants and matching stilettoes. Everyone in the area knew about Doris’s entrepreneurial activities.
Not only did most of the neighbourhood do business with her – if they weren’t selling, they were buying – but most of the older members of the local police force had, over the years, happily accepted ‘gifts’ for their wives and children from her. Their justification being that while the business was kept at a domestic level in Doris Barker’s flat in Lancaster Buildings, then it was all OK. It wasn’t as if she was involved in the rapidly escalating drugs business that was now taking a hold outside the once almost exclusively West End market, and that was the talk of police stations throughout the country. And, anyway, most of them had relatives, aunties, mothers even, who were as good as employed by the old girl.
The door was opened by a thin, pasty-faced woman in her sixties. ‘Morning,’ she said, letting Sarah into the hall. ‘She’s through in the kitchen.’
Doris was sitting at a blue Formica table dipping a Marie biscuit into her tea. ‘Morning, Sarah. Nice out again,’ she said, pulling out the chair next to her. ‘Another cup before you go, Val?’
The woman who had opened the door shook her head. ‘No thanks, Doris. I’m working this morning and I don’t want to have to find a lav when I’ve got me drawers full of gear.’
The three women laughed at the vision of Val being caught short with her hoister’s drawers, the specially designed shoplifter’s underwear, stuffed full of swag.
‘You’d better spend a penny before you go,’ Doris said good-naturedly. ‘Give the street door a good slam after you.’
‘Will do. Bye, Sarah. Bye, Doris. I’ll be round later.’
Doris raised her hand in a little wave. ‘See you, love. Mind how you go.’
‘Now, you’ll have a cup won’t you, Sal?’
‘Please.’ Sarah dipped into her apron pocket and pulled out the crocheted flying helmet that had so humiliated her poor little Angie. ‘You ain’t got these in a bigger size have you, Doris?’
‘I told you they were knock-off copies for little ones.’
‘I know, I just thought it might do her. She’s been a bit … you know.’
‘Sal.’ She hesitated, knowing how touchy her old friend Sarah could be about her family. ‘Have you thought about going round to see your Violet about her?’
Sarah looked levelly at her neighbour. ‘No business of your own to worry about, Doris?’
Mikey Tilson bashed on the door of the Canvas Club with the flat of his hand, and kept bashing until Jeff let him in. ‘I want a word with you.’
Jeff had been expecting this particular visit. He stood well back and let Mikey in at arm’s length. With his sore nose still bothering him, he was buggered if he was going to put himself in the range of any more slammed doors.
He ushered Mikey through, with a lift of his chin. ‘Drink?’
Mikey settled himself at the bar. The Canvas Club was surprisingly stylish for a discothèque, even in the harsh reality of natural daylight. Unlike most similar clubs, that were little more than matt-black-painted spaces with tiny makeshift stages, this one had been decorated to an exceptionally high standard. It had imported, mosaic-style mirror tiles on the walls, a properly sprung dance floor, professional-grade sound systems, two bars with high stools and plenty of sofas and low tables. Before she had grown bored with it, Sonia had made the Canvas one of her projects and, for once, she had been right about spending so much money. The club raked in a weekly fortune. But the takings were suddenly down five per cent, and Mikey had the hump. It meant he wasn’t able to rake his usual cream off the top – the cream that he had been emboldened to scoop since he had started seeing Sonia – without it all looking like it had gone boss-eyed, when it so obviously hadn’t.
Mikey missed that cream; it had kept him in the manner to which he had recently become very agreeably accustomed. And Sonia wasn’t a cheap hobby either.
‘What’s going on here? Eh?’ He picked up the large vodka and ice that Jeff had pushed across the bar to him. ‘I’ve been collecting five per cent less every night this week. How am I mean to rake me bit of bunce off that?’ He tossed back almost the whole glassful, and continued with barely a pause. ‘Have you been opening that big, ugly gob of yours? Or have you got yourself some little scheme going with one of your black bastard mates? I know how you lot stick together.’
Jeff pulled himself up to his full six foot three. He would take crap from David Fuller, he was his guvnor and he treated him a lot more fairly than anyone else he’d ever worked for. But being expected to take crap, especially crap like that, from a stupid prick like Mikey Tilson who kept his brains in his underpants?
‘Do you want to think again about what you just said, Tilson?’ Slowly, he took the long serrated knife from under the bar that, in a raid, could just about pass for a lemon slicer, and slapped it down – whack! – on the shiny wooden surface. ‘I don’t think I like your tone.’
Mikey drained the rest of his drink. ‘Don’t be so fucking touchy.’
Jeff raised the blade and touched it to Mikey’s pale, smooth throat. ‘Tell me, do you whiteys bleed the same colour as us black bastards?’
‘Jeff.’ Mikey put his hands up in surrender. ‘Don’t get aerated, mate. I’m upset, that’s all. Take no notice of me.’
‘No notice?’
‘I’m sorry. All right?’
‘You make me sick. Now clear off. If you’ve got any questions about the takings, you ask Mr Fuller.’
Mikey stood up to leave.
‘Only I don’t think you will ask him, will you, Mikey boy? And let’s face it, you won’t exactly be going without, will you? Knowing your past form, you’ve got some rich old tart keeping you. Paying you for your services.’ Jeff stared at Mikey’s groin. ‘Ain’t there a name for blokes who do that?’
Mikey shrugged down into his expensive tonic mohair jacket and sneered his derision. ‘You want to mind your own business, then perhaps you won’t get that nose of yours bashed in no more than it already is.’ He swaggered over to the door. ‘See you tonight.’ He turned and looked the other man up and down with slow contempt. ‘Jeffrey.’
Angie felt like a star as she stepped out of the hairdresser’s with her glossy, conker-brown hair shaped into the very latest geometric cut.
Dusty’s words were ringing in her ears. Her hair was a ‘perfect frame for her lovely green eyes’, and her ‘really pretty face’. Pretty!
Jackie followed her out of the salon, with her shoulder-length fair wavy locks frosted to a pale, Nordic blonde and relaxed into a dead-straight, centre-parted style with a heavy fringe. Marcie’s colleague, Mojo, had achieved the look with the help of up-to-the-minute smoothing tongs and a styling brush, a bit different from the iron-and-brown-paper job that Jackie used at home.
Mojo had insisted that it made her look just like Julie Christie.
Marcie, the bemused junior stylist, had taken real care with Angie, and had made sure that Jackie was fitted in as well – as a favour to Terry – and kept insisting that everything was absolutely ‘no trouble at all’. Typical Terry, she had thought, as she had smilingly asked Mojo to help her out, he was always meeting these little girls and promising them the earth. She just wished he could actually carry out the promises himself sometimes. Mind you, she’d been a bit shocked at first, when she’d seen the state of the dark-haired one, but once she’d taken a closer look she realized the potential that Terry had seen in her. With a bit of know-how, she could be quite a stunner, far more attractive than her more obviously pretty friend. Terry had taste all right. But then that was probably why he owned a string of top salons around the world and why she was only a junior stylist.
Jackie would never have admitted it to her friend, but she had been as terrified as Angie about going into the celebrated hairdresser’s. She had never met people called Dusty, or Mojo, or Marcie before, and they scared the life out of her. It was only because she had casually tossed the name Michaelton around in their conversation in the Wimpy, when she and Angie were planning her transformation, that she hadn’t been able to back out.
She just hoped her nerve held out, now that they were going clothes shopping in Kensington Church Street, and that she would find the courage to actually go inside the trendy boutiques she had been frantically reading up about since she had rashly made all these promises to Angie.
While Jackie took a deep breath, lifted her chin in the air, and prepared to hustle Angie into a terrifyingly trendy shop, with black-painted windows, a pulsating light show and throbbing music, Sonia was climbing into the taxi she had flagged down outside a boutique just a few doors away.
She had stood there, seething, while the driver – who was thinking that this arrogant mare had better come up with a decent tip – stuffed the back of his cab with all her glossy carrier bags. But despite having spent the entire morning venting her anger on the world, and on ‘Dusty’ in particular, by seeing just how much of David’s money she could manage to get rid of before lunchtime, Sonia was still in a bad mood. A very bad mood indeed.
‘Let’s have a look, then.’ Jackie emptied the bags on to her bed and held up a navy chiffon, A-line, sleeveless shift, covered with tiny white dots. ‘See, it didn’t matter we couldn’t afford West End prices,’ she said airily. ‘This is smashing. Romford market’s always got the latest styles. And you don’t get taken on like a mug.’
‘I think it’s smashing too.’ Angie held it against her and looked into the full-length mirror on Jackie’s dressing unit. The dress finished a clear four inches above her knee. ‘And I think it was definitely worth blowing all that on the haircut.’
‘So do I, Ange. Now let’s see. With the navy one you’ve got there.’ She rubbed her hand thoughtfully over her chin. ‘The two I got. A few of my other bits and pieces you can borrow. Then there’s all the material we bought – I’ll show you how to make that up later. Yeah, I reckon you’ll be able to get by for a good couple of weeks. Till you’ve saved up enough to buy something else.’
‘I’ll have to get some shoes.’
Jackie jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the see-through plastic racks hanging on the back of her door. ‘There are more shoes in there, Ange, than there are in the Oxford Street Dolcis. Everything from black patent Mary Janes to a purple suede tap style – thank you, Mum’s catalogue – and I’m only half a size bigger than you.’ She picked up the lime-green dress she had bought earlier. ‘I might wear this tonight.’ Then she picked up the other one, which was almost the same, but with a pattern of bold psychedelic swirls. ‘Mind you, this is nice as well. What do you think?’
This was novel; Jackie never asked Angie’s opinion about anything to do with fashion or appearance. ‘I …’ She hesitated.
‘Yeah?’
Here goes, she thought. ‘I think the bright colours in the patterned one show off your hair really well, and the lime-green one would look really good with my eyes.’
‘Right. That’s what we’ll wear tonight.’ She tossed the dresses on to the bed. ‘Now, let’s have a good look at that material we got.’ Jackie studied the lengths of fake Pucci cloth bought from a remnants stall in Romford market. ‘We’ll have to use the pattern I had to make my maroon halter-neck. This’d look great in that style.’
‘When shall we do it?’
‘Tell you what, instead of us doing it, I’ll be nice to Mum and get her to run it up for us.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘It’ll be a bit of a nuisance. We’ll have to re-sew the hems. She won’t make anything shorter than mid-knee. But it doesn’t matter what our sewing’s like, we’ll only wear them once or twice.’
Angie carefully folded the navy and lime-green dresses. ‘I’d better get home now, Jack. By the time I have a bath it’ll be almost time to go out. And you said you wouldn’t mind—’
‘—doing your make-up. Course I don’t. I’m just pleased you’re actually coming out with me for once.’ She raised her shoulders and grinned. ‘This is like playing dressing up.’ She gave Angie a big kiss on the forehead. ‘With a great big, real-life doll.’
Angie grinned back.
They were both still grinning as Jackie saw Angie to the street door.
‘Watcha, Squirt.’
Angie spun round to see Martin, with just a bath towel wrapped around his waist and a smaller towel draped round his neck, appearing from the bathroom.
‘Hello, Martin.’
‘Look at you,’ he said appreciatively. ‘With your hair all pretty like that, you’re going to make me jealous.’
‘You’re right there, Martin.’ It was Tilly Murray, red-faced from doing yet another batch of baking. ‘Doesn’t she look a picture? But it’s a shame about your hair, Jackie. If you’re not careful you’re really going to spoil it. Other girls’d love having all them waves you keep getting rid of.’
As Jackie rolled her eyes at Angie, sharing the knowledge that Mrs Murray was such a square, Angie could not remember feeling happier in her entire life, until that was, Martin winked broadly at her, grabbed the banister rail and raced up the stairs two at a time.
‘See you, Squirt,’ he called down to her. ‘Or should I say, see you, gorgeous?’
Almost swooning, Angie just about managed to find her way down the front path and back along the terrace to her own house.
Martin, who was whistling like a canary as he considered his freshly shaved reflection from every angle in his bedroom mirror, was almost as ecstatic. He was getting ready to go to Jill Walker’s.
To Jill Walker’s flat.
‘And where do you think you’ve been?’ Vi, still in her dressing gown despite it being nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, was sitting in the little back kitchen drinking a mug of coffee. ‘And what have you done to your hair?’
‘I’ve been out shopping with Jackie and I’ve been to the hairdresser’s, and,’ she added before she lost her nerve, ‘now I’m going dancing.’
‘What?’
‘Me and Jackie. We’re going to the Wyckham Hall. In Romford.’
‘If you think you’re going out till all hours …’
‘No, Mum, I don’t. Jackie has to be in by eleven, and we’ll be together. Mrs Murray gives her the money for a minicab.’
‘Typical of that Tilly, lets them kids get away with murder.’
Angie refused to be drawn. She had heard what her mum had said to Chas about her. She knew what she really thought of her, her own daughter. But she wouldn’t let her mum spoil things. Not tonight. She wouldn’t let her mum spoil anything for her ever again.
‘You can’t go out and leave this place like this.’ She waved her cigarette about to indicate the supposed squalor she was sitting in. ‘Chas is coming round later.’
‘Why don’t you do it?’
‘I don’t think I heard you right.’
‘Yes you did, Mum. And I can’t do it. I’m getting ready to go out.’
‘You’d leave me to do all this with my condition?’
‘Mum, I don’t want to be unkind, but I don’t think you’ve actually got a condition.’
‘If only you knew what I went through when I had you.’
Angie stared down at her feet. ‘Women have babies all the time. All over the world. And they don’t make their kids feel guilty just for being born. Every single day of their lives.’ She raised her eyes. ‘You can be so cruel to me. Do you know that?’
Violet gulped. ‘Don’t be soft. I’m not cruel. You know how much I think of you.’
‘I know exactly what you think of me. That I’m pathetic. A timid little rabbit. Well, I’m not. Not any more.’
‘I don’t understand how you can treat me like this, Angela. Not after all I’ve done for you. When your dad got killed down the Mile End Road …’ She paused to sniff loudly. ‘They tried to take you off me. But I wouldn’t let them. I said to them, I said, you’re not taking my baby.’ She fussed around, digging out a hankie from her pocket. ‘Any other woman would have let them. But me, I wouldn’t. I kept you. Despite everything.’
Angie had heard it all so many times before, yet somehow it still worked.
‘I’ll do the kitchen, but you’ll have to sort the rest out yourself.’
‘Thanks, love, you know how much I appreciate it.’
‘Yeah.’ Angie walked over to the door. ‘I’ll just hang up my coat.’
‘Wait a minute, darling. Just come up and help Mummy make the bed before you start in here.’
‘Peter, I’d like you to meet my wife.’ David grabbed Sonia’s arm as she glided through the crowd of chattering strangers who were filling her drawing-room. He held her arm so tightly that she couldn’t do anything but meet her husband’s fat, slimy-looking, business associate.
‘Sonia, this is Peter.’
‘Peter? Peter who?’ she asked, the boredom clear in her voice.
‘Peter Burman, but just Peter will be fine,’ he replied graciously in a heavy, middle European accent. As he smiled, he showed a mouth almost full of gold teeth. He inclined his head in a short bow from the neck, and took Sonia’s slim, manicured hand in his large, plump paw. ‘Charmed,’ he said, and touched her fingers to his lips.
She was about to mutter some further inane pleasantry, but Peter’s interest in her was apparently at an end. He turned from her and continued his conversation with David as though she was no longer there.
Sonia was momentarily furious at such treatment. What was going on? First that little madam at Michaelton’s this morning, then the cab driver acting as if he were doing her a favour carrying a few parcels into the flat, and now this boor. But she was glad not to have to make any more ridiculous small talk with such a dull person. Peter, whatever his name was, was obviously in charge and if he wanted to talk business, then that, apparently, was what they’d all do.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Anyway, Sonia had other things on her mind. Well, one thing, and that was how many hours it would be before she would be back in Mikey Tilson’s arms.
‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she said sarcastically, and disappeared into the corner where she feigned a solitary fascination with her husband’s vulgar popular record collection.
Burman accepted a light for his cigar from a passing drinks waiter and, while he was taking a moment to appreciate the flavour, David signalled for Bobby to go and keep an eye on Sonia. As if nothing had happened, Burman continued: ‘Going legit, as our American associates might say, it’s the only way forward, David. The only way. There are too many complications nowadays with all these amateurs becoming involved. Do as I have suggested, expand the property side. I have no interest outside of west and south London, so you won’t be treading on my toes.’ He studied the glowing end of his cigar. ‘And it would be comforting to know that east London is under the control of a friend and not one of these Maltese or West Indians who are trying to muscle in all over the place.’ He pointed his finger directly at David’s face, something not many men could get away with. ‘You, I know I can trust. That is right, isn’t it, David? I can trust you?’
‘Of course, Peter.’
‘Good. And property has a very useful side benefit. Perfect for, shall we say, processing all those lovely profits from any other enterprises you might be involved in. I understand that pharmaceuticals are becoming a very rewarding area of business in the clubs. And the wholesalers are doing particularly well.’
‘Can’t complain,’ David answered bluntly. This bloke knew even more about him than David had realized.
‘Good. We are leaving now, but we will talk again soon.’ With a barely discernible gesture, Peter brought all his associates, and all their very young female companions, to attention.
‘Still chilly out there of an evening,’ David said, as one of the men draped a fine black cashmere topcoat over Peter’s shoulders. ‘And we all thought it was nearly summer. Still, the weather should be improving soon, eh?’
Peter inclined his head and a humourless chuckle rose from somewhere deep in his chest. ‘There is no such thing as bad weather, David.’ He scanned the room until his gaze fell upon Sonia, who was standing stiffly by the records under the unblinking gaze of Bobby Sykes. ‘Only unsuitable clothing.’ He gave another of his strange little bows. ‘I very much enjoyed meeting your beautiful wife. And I very much hope you will accept my invitation to have dinner with me one evening.’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. I would very much like to meet her again.’ With that he turned and made his way to the door without another word.
*
When David returned to the drawing-room after seeing out his guests, and instructing Bobby to go home and fetch the dogs ready for work, he strode over to Sonia and jabbed his finger at her. ‘You. In the spare room.’
‘I’ll join you in the study,’ she said pointedly, ‘after I have spoken to the caterers.’
‘Fuck the caterers,’ hollered David, glaring at the young waiter who, while clearing the buffet table, had foolishly raised his eyes to look at him. ‘Get in there. Now.’
‘How dare you show me up like that? You acted like you’ve never been to a cocktail party before.’
‘A cocktail party? Is that what it was?’ Sonia didn’t even bother to answer his accusations.
‘Why? Why act like that? Don’t you know nothing about …’ He hesitated, looking for the right word. ‘Fucking circulating?’
Sonia didn’t blink. ‘You know I hate meeting people like him.’
‘People like him? Who do you think you are? Fucking Princess Margaret? That man is my passport to going legit.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, David, and I won’t be shouted at. I’m going to have a bath.’
David grabbed her by the shoulders. He was shaking with temper. He could so easily have given her a real slapping there and then, and have thrown her out on to the streets where she belonged, just as he could have arranged for Mikey Tilson to disappear like the piece of shit he was, but the days of him being the sort of man who hit out first and then thought things through were over. David was learning from Peter Burman, the most successful slum landlord in the whole of London, that the only way forward was to look respectable. To mix with the right types and be seen in the right places. All those little hoodlums setting up all over London, they had no style, no idea about how to act in public or how to carry on a business. He was going to get away from all that, he was too old to spend his days always having to look over his shoulder. He was going to deal with Mikey Tilson, of course, but he would do it right. With a bit of style. A bit of class. And he’d do Sonia as well if she didn’t mind herself. For now, she was hanging on by the skin of her teeth. She should just think herself lucky she had impressed Burman.
He let go of her and snatched up the elegant pigskin briefcase that Peter Burman had given him as a present at their first meeting. It had contained press cuttings covering just about every scam and blag that David had ever been involved in, but for which there had never been even the slightest whiff of his involvement. David had been shocked, but impressed. It had shown he was mixing with the really big boys.
‘I’m going to work.’
Angie shivered as she and Jackie shuffled forward in the queue of teenagers making their way towards the double doors of the slightly dilapidated hall that stood next to the church in Romford market. ‘I wish I’d put a cardigan on.’
‘What, and make yourself look like a schoolgirl?’ Jackie inspected Angie’s face under the single lamp that shone down from a bracket high on the wall, and smoothed a streak of the Sheer Genius foundation that she hadn’t blended properly into her friend’s jawbone. ‘You’re going to have to give me more than five minutes to make you up next time, Angela Knight. Good job it’s so dark in there.’
‘I’m sorry I was late.’
‘It’s not me you should be saying sorry to, it’s yourself.’
‘What?’
‘You know what I mean.’
They filed forward, knowing they were being scrutizined by all the boys – the huddles of preening peacocks, dressed in their checked Ben Sherman shirts and mohair trousers, with short cropped, mod haircuts, or in high-collared, plain white shirts, under chain-store versions of collarless Beatles’ suits, with thick, floppy, mop-top fringes.
‘I’d better warn you, Ange, this place has got a bit of a reputation as a meat market.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The fellers who are not actually dancing, they sort of, well, go round the floor trying their luck at pinching and touching up the girls.’
‘They what?’
‘You know, they try it on. Like when we were at school, and if the boys who fancied you were with their mates, when they saw you up the shops or at the bus stop. They used to punch you in the arm and call you names. A more grown-up version of that. They all try it on here, but it’s so crowded they can’t take too many liberties. And, if they do, just tell them you’ll scream the place down. That’ll soon stop them. The bouncers here are bigger and uglier than that old teddy boy up Gale Street.’
Angie didn’t know exactly what Jackie was going on about. She had an idea, of course, but she had never been one of those popular girls who boys tried it on with at bus stops, so wasn’t sure of all the details. It was different reading about stuff in magazines from actually experiencing them, no matter how carefully you studied them. Angie didn’t say anything though. It would have spoiled things.
It was as if she was entering another world, a world she had previously been excluded from, and to which she was at last being granted entry. But, as she took the raffle ticket that proved she had paid her admission and stepped over the threshold into the pitch-dark, cave-like interior, with ‘The Last Time’, the latest Stones record, belting out at ear-splitting full volume, and a boy immediately brushed past her with a whispered ‘Nice knockers’, Angie wondered what on earth she was letting herself in for.
‘Are those for me?’ Jill smiled broadly, as she took the bunch of windswept, almost petal-free tulips, and let Martin into the flat.
‘Sorry, I had them buckled on to the back of the scooter.’
‘Don’t apologize, they’re lovely. And it was a very kind thought. Thank you.’ She went over to the sink in the corner that officially made the little basement room into a ‘kitchen-cum-diner’ and put them on the draining board, while she rinsed out a scummy-looking milk bottle to use as a vase.
‘Throw your jacket on the bed.’ She looked over her shoulder and nodded towards a door. ‘Through there. Loo’s upstairs on the first landing if you need it. Ignore the biology students if they’re wandering about up there. They’re foul. Then you can open the wine while I sort out these flowers.’
Martin opened the door and nervously entered Jill’s bedroom. It was a small, dingy room – there was less light at the back because of the high walls that surrounded the tiny yard – but she had made it as cosy as she could. Most of the miserable beige wallpaper had been hidden by LP covers and there were three pink-shaded lamps that added a warmish glow to the old, heavy furniture but clashed horribly with the yellow candlewick bedspread on the narrow, ancient-looking bed, and, on a shelf made from a plank and two piles of bricks, she had a Dansette record player and a wobbling stack of 45s.
As Martin put down his parka he noticed the pile of textbooks and a pad and pen on the rickety kitchen chair that served as her bedside table. He looked at the pages of closely written notes. Martin grinned to himself. She really had decided to catch up. She must be planning to stay.
‘Not exactly swinging London, is it?’
He turned round to see Jill standing in the bedroom doorway with a straw-covered bottle in one hand and a corkscrew in the other.
‘I was just looking,’ he said guiltily, dropping the pad on to the books as though it were a hot coal.
‘I didn’t think there was much to look at.’
‘At your books,’ he explained. ‘You’re catching up. I’m glad.’
‘Good. So am I.’ She held out the wine. ‘Here, open this. I’m about to serve the spaghetti.’ She went back through to the other room. ‘But don’t expect too much, this gas ring thing is hopeless.’
‘The records have finished,’ Martin said.
Jill stood up. She looked decidedly unhappy. ‘I’m really sorry, Martin.’
‘You can always put on another one. My record changer’s the same, only plays six at a time. And I have to use this special gadget and knock all the centres out.’
‘It’s not the records I’m sorry about. There’s no room at this stupid little table. I should have cooked something not quite so messy.’
Martin didn’t understand at first, then he looked down in the direction of Jill’s gaze. It was then, mortified, that he realized he had managed to eat only slightly more of the food than he had dropped on to his lap and the table.
He rose clumsily to his feet, just stopping the stool on which he’d been perched from crashing back into one of the battered utility armchairs that stood either side of the little fireplace.
‘I can’t believe I’ve made all this mess. I’m so sorry.’ It was then that it occurred to him: he had probably managed to cover his face with a good dollop of the bloody stuff as well. ‘I’ve never had this sort of spaghetti before. I’ve only ever had it from tins. And that’s sort of short.’
Jill bit hard on her bottom lip. She genuinely wasn’t sure whether she was about to laugh or cry. ‘Here,’ she managed to splutter, and she advanced on him with her napkin. ‘It’s me who’s sorry.’ As she reached up to wipe his mouth, Martin put his hands on her shoulders and, instead of dabbing his lips with the gingham cloth, she kissed them instead.
The kiss was tentative at first, shy, with their lips pressed softly, almost innocently, together, but then it became more urgent, with their tongues deep and searching.
Martin held her tighter, pulling her towards him, his hands moving down her back, lower and lower. She could feel him hard against her, and heard his breathing quicken as he grasped the flesh of her buttocks.
She pulled away, and looked at him, directly, steadily, straight into his eyes. ‘You taste great,’ she said, wiping her finger on a smear of bolognese on his chin. She was panting slightly and her voice was huskier, lower than before. ‘Really great. And I don’t mean the sauce.’
‘And?’
‘Don’t let’s take things too quickly, Martin.’
He dropped his chin. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think we’ve said sorry too many times tonight.’ She put her arms round his neck. ‘Don’t you?’
He looked at her, trying to understand what she wanted.
‘I’d like this to go further, Martin. I really would. But not too soon. Not tonight.’
‘Can I at least kiss you again?’
She pushed him gently backwards on to one of the armchairs. ‘You don’t have to ask me that,’ she whispered as she fell on top of him.
Since Martin had seen a scratch on his precious scooter just two days after taking possession of it, he had never been quite so close to bursting into tears of frustration in all his young adult life, but he could no more have dragged himself away and made his excuses to leave than he could have tackled that plate of spaghetti without plastering himself with the stuff.
As Angie felt the boy’s breath, warm and damp on her neck, and listened to the sweet Tamla Motown sounds of the Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ wafting over her, she didn’t notice Jackie manoeuvring herself and her own leech-like partner so that they were dancing right next to her. But she felt the tap on her shoulder.
‘What?’ she mouthed.
‘All right, Ange?’ she mouthed back, rolling her eyes and indicating, with a bored glance, the blond six-footer who was trying – unsuccessfully – to get his hand up her skirt.
Ange surprised herself by smiling and nodding.
She hadn’t been sure about what to do at first, when the nice-enough-looking boy with the light brown hair had asked her to dance, but she had said yes when he had smiled at her so gently. Then, as he held her close to him in the dark, and the music filled her head, and it was obvious that every couple that shuffled by was snogging, Angie closed her eyes tight, lifted her chin, and let him kiss her.
It was strange, frightening in a way, kissing a stranger – and she had had to be very clear that she would not let him touch her like that – but she liked being kissed. It felt good. And so very different from the chaste, lips tight together, experiences she had had when she was about thirteen, her only other experience of such things. Whether it was the music, the atmosphere, or just that she had grown up, this made her feel sort of buzzy and tingly. It was hard to describe, but it felt good. Really good.
But what felt best of all was, at last, being desired. Being desirable.
She was no longer an outsider, someone who just read about what it would be like to be held in someone’s arms. She was now one of the in-crowd, one of those girls who boys wanted to try it on with.
And Angie was going to make the most of every single minute of it.