Briony’s radiant face had paled. ‘Tommy Lane, the voice of reason.’ The words were bitter.
‘Yeah, well. I’m only trying to do what’s best for that boy. Think with your head, Bri, not your heart. Now then, let’s get ourselves suited and booted and off out! I’ll treat you to a nice Jewish breakfast in Brick Lane before we go to Regents Park, how’s that? I ain’t had no lox or bagels for ages. What do you say?’
‘Who you got to see at Brick Lane?’
Tommy laughed.
‘You always outthink me, don’t you? I have to see Solly Goldstern. He owes me a whacking great sum of money and today I collect.’
‘All right then, Tommy. I’ll get Cissy to run the bath.’
As she busied herself getting ready, she daydreamed of having her son back home with her. Of her dressed in her best walking him to school. Dreams were free, and no one could stop you having them.
That was why, for Briony, they always had the edge over real life.
Solly Goldstern was thin to the point of emaciation. He was sixty-seven years old and was a gold merchant. A gold merchant in the East End bought for peanuts from the Jewish immigrants who were trying to get a start and a new life, and sold for a small fortune to the wealthier jewellers in Hatton Garden and roundabouts.
Solly had borrowed a large amount of money off Tommy to buy a ruby tiara from an old Russian woman. She was shrewd, knew her tiara’s worth and stuck out for fifty per cent of its real value. Solly had borrowed the money from Tommy, made the purchase and then sold it on for a huge profit. All was good, until his daughter’s husband, Isaac, had taken the money, left his forty-year-old wife and five children, and run off with a little cockney girl called Daisy. The funny thing was, Solly was more annoyed about Daisy than anything. Isaac had run off with a goy, an English girl. His daughter’s shame was worse because of this fact.
He had tried to locate the errant husband without any success whatsoever, and now Tommy Lane was coming for his money and soon it would be common knowledge. His daughter and grandchildren would be shamed, he would lose the respect of his usual clientele. People would think he was old, foolish, that if his son-in-law could rob him, he was easy prey. He knew exactly the East End mentality. It was what had shaped him from his first arrival in this country, when he still spoke Yiddish and had only his quick brain and business acumen to help him along.
He felt the sting of tears in his watery blue eyes and hastily blinked them away. He caressed the handle of the gun before him and bit his lip ’til it bled, licking at the salty droplets of blood. He tasted his own misfortune and felt the urge to cry again.
He had borrowed a lot of money for that tiara, and now he was expected to pay it back. He had nowhere near the amount Tommy would want. With the ten per cent interest and the five per cent handling charge Tommy had insisted on, Solly was just about broke already. Like a cornered rat, he was thinking in terms of death.
Vita, his daughter, came into the room with a glass of tea, her harassed face more deeply lined than usual. She had wanted Isaac desperately as a young girl. She had got him, thanks to her father and a good sum of money, had borne his children and loved him. Now he had betrayed her, and not only her but his children and her father. She felt responsible for her husband’s actions and as she looked at her father’s grave countenance her heart constricted. She had brought him this low. Had been the instrument of his downfall. He owed money everywhere now, and it galled him. Soon the talk would start, and in the Jewish community that was fatal. If you had no money, you had no power.
‘Drink your tea, Father. Tommy Lane will be here soon. He’s a reasonable man, a decent man. He’ll understand.’
‘So, my daughter, you want me to beg to a street urchin, is that it? Me, the chief gold merchant in the East End, whose credit was always the best?’
‘If he was good enough for you to borrow his money, the least you can do is give him the benefit of your honesty, Father. Who knows? Maybe he’ll take an offer of so much a week until you’re better fixed.’
Solly laughed nastily.
‘Tommy Lane isn’t a tally man. He won’t want his five thousand pounds back at a rate of fifty pounds a week, for God knows how long! He’ll want the lump sum, plus the ten per cent interest and the five per cent handling charge! Now leave me alone, for the love of God. Take your wittering somewhere else.’
Vita stared stonily at the gun in front of her father. He was still touching it and she shook her head.
‘As if we haven’t enough troubles, you want to give us more! Isaac has gone, your money’s gone. We have to try and sort this thing out.’
‘If he was here now I’d shoot him like a dog.’
She snarled through clenched teeth: ‘If he was here now, I’d shoot him myself!’
The shop bell rang and Tommy’s deep booming voice followed it into the back room.
‘Hello, Solly me old mate!’ As he walked into the room with Briony behind him he stopped dead. ‘What’s going on here then?’
Briony’s eyes opened wide at the sight of Solly Goldstern waving an antiquated gun in front of him.
‘Have you gone mad, Solly?’ Tommy’s voice was low now. He put his hand behind him and pushed Briony gently away. She stood in the tiny shop front, her hand to her mouth. She heard Tommy’s voice as he tried to reason with the old man.
‘Give me the gun, Solly.’
Solly’s hand was shaking and Vita walked over to him and took the gun gently from his fingers.
Tommy said dryly, ‘I take it you ain’t got me money then? Or do you always try and top people as they come in here?’
Vita gave Tommy the gun. ‘He’s out of his mind with worry. We’ve had a lot of trouble...’
‘Don’t tell them anything, Vita! Let Tommy do his worst. You can’t get blood out of a stone.’
The old man’s voice, full of dignity, made Briony intervene. ‘Look, Mr Goldstern, you remember me, don’t you?’
His face softened. ‘Of course I do. Every Monday regular you brought in your mother’s wedding ring to pop. I gave you seven shillings and you brought back nine shillings on the Saturday. Briony Cavanagh ... my wife Etta thought you were the most beautiful child she had ever seen.’
Briony sat beside the old man. Smiling at him she said to Vita, ‘Make a cuppa, girl, we’ll all have a little chat.’
Vita went to make the tea and Tommy pulled out a chair and straddled it, the old silver-handled gun still in his hand.
‘By rights, Solly, I should knock you from here to Kingdom come for the stunt you pulled on me.’
Solly’s face was grey. His skin seemed to become baggier by the second. Briony had thought of him as an old man all her life, it was the way when you knew people from children, but he seemed to be ageing in front of her eyes.
‘Shut up, Tommy, let him talk.’
Solly shrugged his shoulders and held out his hands helplessly.
‘Vita’s husband Isaac, he worked for me. I borrowed the five grand off you, Tommy, to buy a particularly nice tiara from an old lady. Beautiful workmanship, white and yellow gold, with diamonds and rubies. It was one of the finest pieces I’ve ever seen.’
‘All right, Solly, we get the picture. What happened?’
‘Well, Isaac, he has five children by my daughter Vita. I had him work for me because he couldn’t keep a job down. Here I could watch him. Make sure the children were fed. You know the score.’
Briony and Tommy nodded.
‘He waited ’til I resold the tiara to a jeweller up West who had a buyer for it. Then in the night he came and took the money, also every bit of the cash I’d saved over the years, and - even Vita doesn’t know this - all my Etta’s jewels. They were to be hers one day, Vita’s. He had taken up with a young girl, a slut of the first water, a goy! We haven’t seen him since.’
Briony laid her hand gently on the old man’s arm, her heart going out to him.
Tommy on the other hand said waspishly: ‘You was gon
na top me over that ponce Isaac!’
Briony shook her head at him. ‘Look, Mr Goldstern, listen to me. We’ll sort something out, all right?’
‘Huh! What, my little love? I am finished. I can’t even scrape up enough to start my business again. I’m at rock bottom. I have Vita and her children to look after. Her eldest son is fifteen now. I have so much responsibility and I haven’t the capital. I’m even behind on the rent for this place!’
Vita walked into the room with the tea as her father broke down crying. Placing the tray on his desk, she went to him, taking him into her arms.
‘It’s pointless beating him. He can’t pull your money out of thin air. It’s been preying on his mind for days.’
Briony began to pour out the tea. Giving everyone a cup, she smiled at Vita. ‘Sit down and let’s try and make some sense out of this. We’ll look for Isaac, see if we can recoup any of your money, right? He’s the main holder of the debt now so if he’s still in the smoke, he’s as good as crippled. I’ll arrange for three hundred quid to be delivered here first thing in the morning. You owe me then, Mr Goldstern, not Tommy. You pay me back at a pony a week, restart your business from scratch. I’ll want a twenty per cent return on me dosh. What about that?’
Solly looked at the girl in front of him and had a sudden vivid memory of her father. Paddy Cavanagh had even brought in his children’s boots to pawn for a drink. He was a waster, a schmuck, yet he had bred this beautiful girl with a kind heart. She had known only poverty and hardship. His own daughter, who had had everything a girl could want, had taken up with Isaac. Solly had bought and paid for him so she would once more have everything she wanted. It was a strange world when the girl with the least became more of a woman than the girl with everything.
His eyes were wet again. Unable to talk, he grabbed her small hand in his and kissed it.
Vita sipped her tea, her eyes watching the changing expressions on Tommy Lane’s face. She guessed, shrewdly, that Tommy wasn’t at all pleased at having his five grand scrubbed in such a cavalier fashion by Briony Cavanagh. But she also guessed that Briony generally got what she wanted, regardless of who she upset in the process.
Twenty minutes later, in Tommy’s car on their way to Regents Park, Briony took the brunt of his tongue.
‘I don’t fucking believe you! Why didn’t you offer to put him in your Christmas club? Five poxy grand down the crapper, and the old bastard had a gun! You’ve no right to countermand me like that, Briony, you was out of order.’
She smiled to herself. ‘Shall I tell you something, Tommy Lane. When I was a kid I hated having to pawn me mother’s wedding ring. I hated it. That “old bastard”, as you call him, never once made me feel like the dirt I was. He always called me Miss Cavanagh, as young as I was, and he always gave me a sweet.’
Tommy stopped at a junction and shouted to a barrow boy: ‘Oi, got any hearts and flowers on there?’
With a laugh, the boy watched him turn the corner.
‘Very funny, Tommy. Why don’t you do a turn at the club? I’ll tell you something now, for nothing. It hurt me seeing him brought so low. Even when he was on top-and he was, Tommy, he was the business as far as fucking gold was concerned - he still had the decency to treat me with a bit of respect. I owe him for that. After years of being treated like Irish shite, it was a welcome change!’
Tommy shook his head, and Briony watched him battle it out with himself. She knew exactly how he was feeling. She knew him better than she knew herself. Every mood swing, every nuance of his personality. He was fighting within himself now, because one half of him wanted to muller her where she sat, and the other half of him understood what she was saying, because being treated with respect was what they’d both fought so hard for. If you had money you automatically had that respect, even if only for the fact you were well heeled. To be treated with respect when you were no one, with nothing and no visible means of ever getting anything, counted for a lot.
‘So old Goldstern gave you a sweet, and because of that you let him get away with pulling a gun on me? It’s nice to know you care so much!’
‘Oh, balls! That gun was so old it was positively ancient, it would have backfired and killed him, not you!’
‘Oh, so now you’re a firearms expert as well?’
Briony started to laugh then, a rollicking boisterous sound. ‘Give it a rest, Tommy, you would have done the same.’
‘Yeah, maybe. But I didn’t get the chance, did I?’ This was said seriously and Briony kept her peace. He was five grand down, and she knew when she had pushed her luck to its extreme.
Sally sat in Regents Park watching Benedict as he played with Nipper, rolling around the grass in his good trousers and shrieking with suppressed energy. She would spend the best part of the evening sponging his clothes down so all the tell-tale evidence of his supposedly sedate walk would be cleaned away. She didn’t care, she loved him. Only with her could he be a boy, a real little boy who jumped and played. Even Isabel, who loved him dearly, Sally conceded that, tried to make him into a little gentleman. Well, in Sally’s opinion, there was plenty of time for that.
She saw Briony walking towards her with Tommy Lane and signalled with her head towards Benedict.
Briony and Tommy settled themselves on the wrought-iron bench beside Sally and started chatting. To passersby it looked innocent enough, their subject matter would be unheard and their interest in the little boy was cleverly disguised.
‘Hello, Sal. You know Tommy, of course?’
She nodded.
‘How’s me boy?’
‘You can see for yourself, Miss Cavanagh. Healthy as hell, eating like a horse, and more energy than a lightning bolt!’
Briony laughed. This was what she wanted to hear. ‘How’s things at the house?’
Sally looked her straight in the eye. ‘Well, that’s a funny thing, Miss Cavanagh. It’s been strange since the master was attacked.’
Tommy pushed his face towards Sally and said, ‘What do you mean?’
Sally shrugged.
‘Well, lately he’s took to playing with the boy like. Taking him out and that. The master wouldn’t leave the house for weeks, then all of a sudden it’s “let me take you here, let me take you there”.’
‘And how’s the boy responding to it all?’
‘Well, Mr Lane, he loves it. They play chess together, and you want to hear them laughing! It’s like someone’s switched masters in the night like. One day he was a miserable old fucker, the next all sweetness and light. It was strange, I can tell you, and the mistress ain’t happy with the change. She don’t like it one bit!’
Briony nodded, thinking. ‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she?’ She wasn’t sure she liked it herself. But hadn’t she told him to be nice to the boy? Was this his way of doing what she’d said? ‘Benedict’s happy enough, though?’
‘Oh, bugger me, yes! Never seen him so happy. He’s been a little darling. Not that he was ever any trouble before, mind, but now he’s got his old man behind him, it’s put the icing on his cake if you see what I mean.’
Benedict ran and Nipper jumped up, sending him sprawling on to the grass. Briony nearly got out of her seat, thinking he was hurt, when high-pitched laughter floated over to them.
Sally grinned. ‘He’s a hard little sod, Miss Cavanagh, take more’n a tumble to set his waterworks off!’
Benedict ran over to Sally, holding out his sleeve. ‘Oh Sal, Sally! Look what I’ve done to my jacket!’
‘Come here, let me look.’
Briony felt the tightening in her chest as he approached. He smiled at her and Tommy before he held out the offending arm to Sally.
‘Mama’s going to trounce me, Sally.’
Briony and Tommy’s eyes both opened wide at the expression.
‘Now, young man, don’t you be using those words in front of your parents! Your mother would have my guts for garters if she thought I was teaching you words like that!’
Benedict smiled c
raftily. ‘As if I would, Sal! But look at it, it’s covered in mud.’
‘It’ll clean, lad. You go and play with your dog.’
Nipper, deciding he liked the look of Briony, jumped up at her, putting his muddy paws on her coat.
‘Nipper! Get down! I’m sorry about that ...’
As Benedict looked into the lady’s face his words dried in his throat. It was like looking in a mirror.
‘Hello, Benedict. Your nanny was just telling me all about you. What a wonderful dog.’ Briony’s voice was quavering with emotion. It took every ounce of her willpower not to grab hold of him and crush him to her chest.
Benedict stared into the green eyes so like his own and said, ‘Yes, he is a wonderful dog. Excuse me, but do I know you?’
Briony shook her head and answered, ‘No, you don’t know me.’
‘How strange. I feel as if I know you from somewhere.’
Briony and Benedict locked eyes. Tommy watched them as they sized each other up. Benedict was so like her it was uncanny. The same heart-shaped face, the same high cheekbones, and the same green eyes. Benedict was like the spit out of her mouth, as his mother would have said. He was going to be handsome, and if he had his mother’s nature as well as her looks he would be one hell of a man. Looking at Briony and Benedict together, he felt the pull that Briony must experience and understood then exactly what kept her going in life. She looked after everyone, even old Solly Goldstern, but the one person she really wanted to take care of was out of her jurisdiction. She couldn’t put him to bed, wipe away his tears, or hold him in her arms. No wonder she had gone for Dumas as she had. At the end of the day, he had got everything and she had got nothing.
‘Would you like an ice cream, son?’ Tommy’s voice broke the momentary closeness.
‘Oh, yes please.’ Benedict’s eyes were bright.
‘You take him, Bri, I’ll chat to Sally for a while.’
Briony stood up and walked with Benedict to get the ice cream. He held on to her arm and they chatted together. Sally watched them go with fear in her heart.