A Lesser Evil
But Yvette didn’t know any of that back in the late forties. She learned it gradually as her understanding of English improved and the gossip from the street began to filter through to her. Sadly, by then she had already become trapped in Molly’s web.
Yvette could still remember the day the woman boasted that she and Alfie frequently had other sexual partners. Yvette was so shocked she listened in silence as her neighbour gleefully described the thrill they got out of watching each other with someone else. Her language was graphic, intended to upset and disgust Yvette. Molly was in fact doing to Yvette what she so often did to Alfie – trying to provoke a fight.
Yvette had made so many excuses for Molly up until that point. But that day she suddenly realized that this wasn’t a woman who was merely overstretched and unable to cope. She actually thrived on chaos and she had a black heart. She was also trying her best to recruit Yvette into her sordid games.
It was only then that Yvette attempted to distance herself from the entire Muckle family. She didn’t answer the door to the children, and ignored Molly calling to her over the back fence. Even when Angela, the last child, was born, she didn’t weaken and offer any help. But living in such close proximity, she couldn’t block out what went on next door.
In the Muckle household bodies were shared like food and drink. Molly had sex with two of Alfie’s brothers while he looked on, and Alfie regularly used Dora, Molly’s backward sister. Recently, Mike, Alfie’s young nephew, had come to live with them, and now it was he who had laid claim to Dora. But Yvette had heard Mike rutting noisily out in the backyard with Molly on several occasions since then, when the children were watching television in the front room. The four oldest children had left home: the two boys were always in and out of prison, and the two girls left when they were heavily pregnant, never to return.
Yvette had no illusions left about Molly or Alfie now. They were totally amoral in every aspect of their lives; they would steal anything from anyone, intimidate anyone who opposed them, neglected and hurt their children and lived in utter squalor. Each time the police came to the house Yvette prayed that whatever their latest crime was, it would be serious enough for them to be sent to prison for a long stretch. Yet this never happened. Somehow they always seemed to wriggle out of it, and they were getting worse as the years went by.
Yvette was stuck now with having to be on her guard all the time. She had to remember not just to keep the back door locked so one of the children couldn’t jump the back fence and steal something from the kitchen, but also never to confront or upset Molly in any way.
Back in the early years she had foolishly told Molly a little of what happened to her during the war. She knew that if she were ever to cross her, Molly would use this against her, and she just couldn’t take that risk.
This was why she didn’t dare go to the social workers and report Molly and Alfie for what they did to their children. She hadn’t even found enough courage to warn Dan that she’d overheard Alfie saying he’d get even with him for threatening him about Angela.
Yvette sighed deeply as she slipped the bodice of the dress she was making on to her dressmaker’s dummy. It was too hot to sew any more tonight, her sweaty hands might mark the fabric. She would turn up her radio a little louder and try to blot out the sounds from next door. Perhaps if she had a little brandy she’d fall asleep before things got really nasty.
Frank Ubley shut his window as the music blared out, picked up a book and went into the bedroom at the back of the house. He had only to see Molly and he got angry, but when he saw her dancing around to music, drinking, laughing and shouting, he felt murderous.
The bedroom was just as it was when June died. He hadn’t even had the heart to get rid of her clothes. They had bought the new divan in 1953, the day before Coronation Day, and they were so thrilled finally to get rid of the old one they’d inherited from June’s mother that they joked they were going to spend all day in it.
June was a real home-maker. With a pot of paint and a few yards of material she could transform any room, however dismal, into a little palace. She found this place when Frank was waiting to be demobbed from the Army. He came home briefly on a twenty-four hour pass, took one look at it and wanted to run out the door, just the way young Fifi upstairs said she had.
But June insisted she could make it nice, and by the time he got his demob three months later, she had. She’d painted and papered everywhere, even though no one else could get decorating materials for love or money. Green and white stripes in the front room, the bedroom pale pink, and the kitchen all yellow and white. But it wasn’t just decorating she was good at, she made things so comfortable and nice. A little table with a lamp on by his chair, a pouffe to put his feet on, and within ten minutes of getting home his dinner was always on the table.
If she hadn’t been such a perfect wife in every way, maybe he would have been able to admit what had happened with Molly. But he couldn’t hurt her that way, it would have broken her heart.
If only he hadn’t made out he was on guard duty at the camp that weekend when he was really in Soho. But all his mates wanted to celebrate the end of the war, and if he’d come home drunk in the early hours June wouldn’t have liked it. He didn’t think much of himself for having sex in an alley with the blonde who talked dirty; as soon as he sobered up he was ashamed. But all the lads got up to much the same, it was the combination of the drink and the thrill of the war ending.
He had been back with June three days before he discovered that the blonde also lived in Dale Street, right opposite them.
As he walked down the street to the shop, she’d come out of her door. It was so strange that he thought he had no recollection of what the woman in the alley looked like, but the moment they came face to face, he knew it was her. But what was worse, she recognized him too.
Of all the women in London, why did that one have to be living right across the street? And why did she have to turn out to be the most evil bitch in God’s creation?
At first he thought his secret was safe as Molly was married too. But by the time she demanded money for her silence, Frank had been told by dozens of people that Alfie actively encouraged his wife to go with other men. He might give a man a kicking for doing so, but that was just part of the sport.
Frank was forty-nine in 1945. He landed a job as a mechanic at the bus station right after his demob, and he thought he and June were sitting pretty. Their only daughter Wendy was married to an electrician, and the couple had a home of their own and a baby on the way. Frank believed the years until he retired were going to be the best years yet for him and June.
Molly ruined all that.
It was like living with an unexploded bomb. A few weeks, sometimes months, passed between her demands for money, and he’d begin to think it was all over. Then she’d sidle up to him in the street and once again she was threatening to tell June. He wanted to move away, he tried desperately to find another flat, but with thousands of people homeless after the war, there was nothing. And June didn’t want to leave anyway; Dale Street suited her as Wendy and her husband Ted were only down the road in Elephant and Castle and of course she wanted to see John, their little grandson, frequently.
John was quickly followed by Martin and then Susan, and in 1953, Wendy and Ted decided to emigrate to Australia. Frank and June intended to follow them out there, but June must have told someone in the street and it got back to Molly. This time she demanded fifty pounds to keep quiet.
Frank boiled over every time he thought about it. June was already upset that her daughter and grandchildren were leaving England, and she was living on her nerves because she was afraid she and Frank wouldn’t be allowed to go too because of their ages. If Molly dropped her bombshell, Frank knew that would be catastrophic.
He had about a hundred pounds saved up, but they’d need that in Australia until he found a job and somewhere to live.
He tried to be tough with Molly, saying he didn’t have the money an
d that he’d go to the police if she persisted. But she just laughed at him and said he’d be sorry if he did. A couple of days later, while Frank was at work and June out shopping, they were burgled. They didn’t have much of value for anyone to take, just a few bits of silver that had belonged to June’s grandmother’s, and some odd bits of jewellery, but it was all gone when June got home.
Everyone suspected the Muckles. Who else but them would see June leave the house and know there was no one else about? But this was confirmed as far as Frank was concerned when June showed him that his Post Office savings book had been taken out of the drawer in their bedroom and left on the chest of drawers. He knew that was Molly’s way of telling him that she knew how much money he’d got and she intended to go ahead with her threat unless he paid up.
Nothing could be proved. The police searched the Muckles’ house and found nothing. Frank had to pay Molly, and it wasn’t long after that June became ill. They found she had cancer while performing a hysterectomy.
In the two years before June finally died, Molly slowly bled their savings dry, yet he had to keep her silence. He couldn’t bear the thought of June passing away knowing he’d been unfaithful.
He had to give up his job to nurse June towards the end. Too old now to apply for an assisted passage to Australia, and with no money left to pay his fare, through that evil bitch of a woman he’d never see his daughter and grand-children again. He hated Molly Muckle so much he would happily kill her and her brats, and never mind if he had to swing for it.
‘Get up to bed, you little shits,’ Molly yelled at her children because they were arguing. Angela had crept off the minute she’d come in from the street, but the three older ones had ignored her previous order.
‘I wanna see Quatermass,’ Alan, the fourteen-year-old, said belligerently. ‘I always watch it.’
‘I’ll give you Quatermass with the back of my hand if you don’t fuck off,’ Molly retorted, rising somewhat unsteadily out of her chair.
The three children shuffled nervously backwards towards the door.
They were all remarkably alike, with the same dirty, straw-coloured hair, pinched pale faces, light brown eyes and sharp features. Alan, the eldest, had a squint. Mary, though only thirteen, had big breasts which were stretching her grubby blouse to bursting point. Joan, who was ten, had large buck teeth.
‘Go on, piss off.’ Molly took a threatening step towards them. ‘Mike and I want a bit of peace.’
‘You said we could ’ave some chips,’ Alan said, trying to look tough and eyeing Mike, his father’s nephew, with deep suspicion. ‘And where’s our Dora?’
‘If you don’t sodding well fuck off I’ll brain you,’ Molly screamed out. ‘And tell that half-wit upstairs to have a piss. If she wets the bed again I’ll belt ’er so ’ard she won’t be able to sit on ’er arse for a week.’
Realizing their luck had run out, the two younger ones fled. Alan hung on a second or two longer, but as his mother stepped threateningly towards him, he backed away and scampered upstairs.
‘That’s more like it.’ Molly slammed the door shut and returned to the couch. ‘Get us another drink, Mike.’
Mike got up, picked up her glass and walked towards the kitchen. He had an identical build to Alfie and all his brothers; five feet eight, bull-necked, broad-shouldered and muscular. His sandy hair was already receding, and he had the start of a beer gut. He was what his mother called ‘homely’, which he took to mean he was no Cary Grant.
Stopping in the kitchen doorway, he looked back. ‘Where’s Dora?’ he asked.
‘Gone to the flicks.’
‘Who wiv?’
‘On ’er tod.’
‘She don’t like going nowhere on ’er tod!’
‘She does if I tell ’er to,’ Molly retorted. ‘Now get us a beer.’
Mike was twenty-five and had lived with his Aunt Molly and Uncle Alfie since coming out of prison two years ago. He’d only got six months for breaking into a sweet shop, but his mother wouldn’t let him back in the house again. Within a few weeks he’d realized that there were some serious drawbacks to living here; it was like a madhouse most of the time, but he’d got nowhere else to go.
He was pretty certain Molly had got rid of Dora and the kids tonight because she was feeling randy, and just the thought of that turned his stomach.
It wasn’t very smart of him to start having it off with Dora. She was ugly, thirty-five and backward to boot, but getting his leg over was his first priority when he got out of the nick, and Dora was there, like a bitch on heat. To be fair to her she was kind of sweet, always eager and grateful, idolizing him and prepared to do anything he asked. But it was a bit sickening to know Alfie screwed her too whenever he felt like it.
It might not have been clever to get involved with Dora, but it was total insanity giving Molly one too. She was old, fat and as vicious as a rabid dog, and he never knew when she was going to pounce next. Weeks could go by and she wouldn’t come near him, then out of the blue she’d start touching him up, coming on strong. And she even did it in front of Dora and Alfie.
Mike stood for a moment in the kitchen, looking at the mess. It wasn’t any worse than usual, but perhaps because he knew what Molly had in mind tonight, he suddenly saw how filthy it really was.
The sink was full of dirty dishes that had been there for days, the table was strewn with more, along with sauce and beer bottles, chip papers and other bits of rubbish. The floor, never washed, was so dirty he couldn’t make out the pattern on the worn lino. Empty bottles, rubbish, dirty clothes and even engine parts were strewn around. A dead mouse in a trap had been there so long it was putrefying. The smell was sickening, worse than a sewer.
His mum had always said Molly was a dirty slut. She used to say other stuff too, until his dad gave her a back-hander to shut her up. But his mum didn’t know the half of it and she’d have fifty fits if she was to find out.
Mike picked up the bottle of beer from the floor and filled Molly’s glass. He wondered if he dared just give it to her and then go on out.
As he hesitated, Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ suddenly blared out on the gramophone.
Molly’s usual taste in music when she was randy was Bobby Vee or Billy Fury. Bill Haley was Alfie’s favourite. Mike looked round the door to see what she was doing, and found she’d turned the sound down on the telly and was gyrating around to the music. She looked disgusting; he could see her belly and tits wobbling around under her tight yellow dress.
‘I’ve got to go and see me mate,’ he shouted over the music as he handed her the beer.
He was halfway to the front door when she caught hold of his arm. ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ she said. ‘We gotta make a lot of noise. Make out Alfie’s in ’ere too.’
Mike was confused now. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Cos he’s up to summat.’ She tapped her nose to imply it was a secret. ‘Come on, dance wiv me fer a bit, then we’ll start shouting and bawling. If them nosy bastards across the street look out their winders they’ll think you’re ’im.’
‘You mean like an alibi?’ Mike shouted over the deafening music. He had often looked at the window from outside, and knew that the thin cloth tacked up inside became opaque when the light was on. It wouldn’t give anyone a clear view, but they’d get a pretty good idea of what was going on inside. And he and Alfie were very close in size and height.
‘’E finally got it!’ she said sarcastically, and grabbing his hand she made him jive with her.
Alfie and Molly often danced together when they were drunk. When Mike first moved in he’d thought it was kind of nice. But he’d soon found out it was usually the first step towards a fight, and their fights were bloody ones, neither giving in till one of them went down.
In two years he’d seen them breaking bottles over each other’s heads, punching each other like heavyweight boxers. Alfie once pushed Molly’s head right through the glass in the window. But even more sickening w
as what came after. Violence turned them on, they could be bleeding like stuck pigs, then all of a sudden they’d be fucking. They didn’t care who else was there. Alfie would push Molly down over the back of the couch or doggy-fashion on the floor, and the noise they’d make was unbelievable.
So Mike was very apprehensive as he danced with Molly, assuming she would expect him to run through the usual ritual completely. As the first record finished and the second, Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’, fell down on to the turntable, she turned up the volume.
‘We’ll start fighting as this one ends,’ she said in his ear because the music was so loud. ‘You start pushing me about, I’ll scream and throw stuff at you, then you pick up the poker and make out you’re hitting me wiv it. We gotta make a lot of noise. We want everyone in the street to know we’re ’aving a ding-dong and we gotta make it look real.’
Mike sincerely hoped that a pretend fight wouldn’t have the same effect on her as a real one usually did, but he went along with it anyway. As the record ended he began pushing her, and she wrestled with him while shouting out obscenities.
‘What if Alan comes down?’ he asked, as he pushed her down on to the couch and rained punches down on to the cushion beside her.
‘’E won’t do that,’ she said between a couple of ear-piercing screams. ‘The kid’s a fuckin’ coward.’E’d be scared ’e’d cop it an’ all.’
Mike found there was something profoundly satisfying about whacking a poker down on the couch, yelling out the kind of insults he had always wanted to throw at Molly. He overturned the coffee table in just the way he’d seen Alfie do, hurled an empty beer bottle at the hearth and got Molly in a half-Nelson. He was actually enjoying it.
‘You fuckin’ fat bitch,’ he yelled at her, for a moment tempted to hit her for real. ‘You’re a slag, a fuckin’ slag, and I’m gonna kill you.’
He had to admit Molly played a blinder. She screamed, shouted, swore, then got away from him and ran up and down the stairs. At one point she was clawing at the front door as if trying to get out. She was so good it would fool anyone into thinking she was being murdered. Yet the fact that no one came banging on the door spoke volumes. Mike reckoned the neighbours would love it if she was to be found dead.