Briony nodded. ‘I’m going to visit me family.’
Tom nodded and looked her over from head to toe. A nice-looking piece, he thought, but too well dressed for service. She was on the bash or his name wasn’t Tom Lane. He had two sisters and a mother on the game and neither of them had hit the big money like this one. But he didn’t tell her his thoughts. He liked her, he liked her a lot, especially for saving his neck.
‘How old are you then?’
Briony tossed her head and looked out at the passing road. ‘Old enough. You?’
Tommy grinned again. ‘Older than that, girl.’ He glanced outside and saw that they were at the Longbridge Road. ‘You can let me down here.’ He banged on the wooden side and the driver slowed the horse.
‘Tara then, Briony Cavanagh.’
‘’Bye, Tommy Lane.’
He hopped from the cab, and before shutting the door he winked at her. Briony watched him cross the wide road and make his way inside The Royal Oak. She saw him disappear inside the doorway and felt a moment’s sadness that he had gone. For some funny reason she liked him.
Tommy walked into the public house and ordered himself a pint of beer. His eyes travelled round the crowded bar looking for a face he knew. He saw a friend called Willy Gushing and walked over to him.
‘Hello, Willy, you’re looking well.’ And indeed Willy was looking well. He was wearing a suit more fitted to a lawyer than a petty criminal.
‘He looks like a pox doctor’s clerk, if you ask me.’
Willy smiled good-naturedly at the little boy sitting on the seat beside his friend.
‘Me bruwer james.’
Tommy nodded at the little boy.
‘He’s got some trap, ain’t he, Willy?’
Willy, a small dumpy boy with sandy hair and non-existent eyebrows, nodded his head vigorously.
‘More front than Southend, mate, and he’s only seven. Sit down, Tommy, I ain’t seen you for a while.’
He sat on the wooden bench beside his friend and admired him openly.
‘You’re looking really prosperous, Willy, what’s the scam?’
Willy took a large drink of beer and smiled. ‘I’m in with Dobson’s lot now. I tell you, Tommy, all the stories about him are true, but he’s a good bloke if you don’t cross him.’
Tommy nodded. Davie Dobson was the local hard man. He was good to people hereabouts in a lot of ways. It was known he would give money to women whose husbands had gone down before the beak, but he was also known to break a few bones when things weren’t going his way. He ran most of the girls on the streets hereabouts, as far as Stratford and some up West.
‘So what you doing for him then?’
‘I sort out deals for him. Little deals that he ain’t got the time or the inclination to bother with.’
What he actually meant was little girls. Willy procured them from the poorer families and then delivered them to Nellie Deakins’ house and other establishments all over the smoke. Dobson, who was trying to make himself look respectable in certain circles, needed stooges like Willy who’d go down if they got caught and do their time without a whimper, coming home to a good few quid and a steady job. Willy was to progress soon to delivering girls to the homes of certain prominent people whom Davie Dobson would then blackmail. It was the most lucrative business, because once they paid, they paid forever.
‘Could you get me in with him like, Willy? I could do with a regular job, and you don’t look like you’re starving from it.’
Willy swaggered in his seat.
‘I’ll have a word with him for you. Me and Dobson’s like that.’
‘You do that for me, Willy, and I’ll owe you one. Now seeing as how you’re in the dosh, you can get the next round in.’
Willy got up and went to the bar.
‘What do you do, young man?’ Tommy addressed James, who looked at him as if he was so much dirt.
‘Mind your own business, you nosy bastard!’
Tommy laughed and James frowned at him. He was only three feet six inches tall and already he was a hard man. That’s what life on the streets did for you.
Briony swept into the house in Oxlow Lane in a cloud of cold air and perfume. Molly went outside and picked up the hamper, dragging it through the door. Briony helped her get it on the table.
‘Where’s the girls?’
‘All gone up the Lane for some last-minute shopping. Eileen’s been promising them she’ll take them all week. Rosalee’s asleep upstairs.’
Briony removed her coat and hung it carefully on the nail behind the front door.
‘How are you, Mum?’
She and Molly had had a truce for nearly a year now. It was a truce that suited them both. Molly needed Briony’s wages, as they were called, and Briony had no intention of ever coming back to her mother’s house. Molly had resigned herself to Briony’s choice of career and now the two got on quite well.
‘I wanted to talk to you, Mum, I’m glad we’re alone.’
Briony put the kettle on the fire and started to make a fresh pot of tea while Molly unpacked the hamper.
‘It’s Henry - Mr Dumas. He’s losing interest in me.’
Molly pushed back her faded blonde hair and stared across at her daughter’s beautiful face. Every time she looked at Briony she marvelled where she could have come from. With that red hair and white skin, she was unlike any of the others. Unlike her parents or grandparents, though the Irish were often red-headed.
‘What you going to do then?’
Briony sighed. ‘I don’t know, Mum, but if I get me marching orders, the wages go with me.’
Molly knew this already and it scared her.
‘Have you got anything down below yet?’
‘I did have, but Cissy plucked them out for me.’Briony bit on her bottom lip. ‘He can’t stand it, see, Mum. Once I start to develop properly, he won’t want me any more. I had a show last week. The curse is on its way, I just know it.’
Molly nodded. Briony made the tea and took the steaming pot over to the table.
‘What am I going to do?’
Molly sighed. ‘I don’t know, girl. We’ll put our thinking caps on and maybe something will come up.’
Rosalee started to cry and Briony went up the stairs and brought her down to the kitchen. ‘Bri ... Bri ...’
Briony hugged her close and kissed her. ‘Yes, it’s Bri Bri, and she’s got a lovely present for you for Christmas.’
Molly watched the red head and the blonde together and felt a sadness in herself. Both were tainted but in different ways. Of the two she’d rather have Rosalee any day.
Paddy was drunk; not his usual boisterous drunk but a sullen, melancholic mood. He staggered out of The Bull at twenty past ten. He would have stayed longer except he’d run out of money and his friends, on whom he had spent over a pound, were now preparing to leave as well. Paddy stumbled home.
The long walk, instead of sobering him up, only made him more peevish with every freezing step he took. In his mind he conjured up all the wrongs done to him by his wife. First and foremost in his mind was the fact she’d have no sexual relations with him. He’d get the priest round to talk to her about that. Then there was the fact that she doled out the money to him. He knew she had a good wad stashed away and, on the rare occasions that he was alone in the house, had searched for it fruitlessly. Then there was her attitude with the girls. By Christ, they were grown up now, except for Rosalee who would never grow up.
He felt his eyes mist up at the thought of her. In his drunken mind, Rosalee was the fault of his wife as well. He knew she’d tried to get rid of her, he knew everything about the bitch he lived with. Then the naked white body of his infant son came into his thoughts. It was the night Eileen left to work for Mr Dumas, and somehow, in his drink-fuddled mind, he decided that Molly had got rid of his son as well. The thought induced a rage so violent he felt he could choke on it. A man was judged by his sons. Splitarses - as girls were referred to - were a slur
on a man’s manhood. They were no good for anything except the begetting of more sons.
As he passed by the empty streets he thought of all the setbacks he’d experienced in his life: never enough money, never anywhere decent to live. And somehow, all the blame was laid at Molly’s door.
She’d never worked like other women. She used to clean doorsteps when he met her, had specialised in that. She’d been a tweenie since seven and at fourteen had begun specialising in her damned doorsteps! For a split second he saw her as she had been when he met her. High-breasted and tall, she had looked a fit mate for the big handsome Irishman he’d been. But marriage and the bearing of children had changed all that. Her and her fancy ideas about the girls going to school. Not working, oh no. Or even doing adecent day’s housework until they were twelve. He gnashed his teeth in temper. With the four girls working they could have lived the life of Riley, but oh no. Not good enough for Molly Cavanagh. Her children, her girl children, were too good to slave fourteen hours a day in a sweat shop to earn their brass.
As he neared home Paddy’s rage was reaching astounding proportions. He even began to blame his wife for his own drinking and gambling. If she had treated him as a wife should, he wouldn’t stay out like he did, he justified it to himself. He omitted the fact he had always led the life of a single man even when married.
He opened the front door. His face was blue with the cold, but one look at his eyes and the girls saw their father was in the mood for a fight. Dressed in their Sunday best, they waited patiently for their mother to braid their hair ready for Midnight Mass at St Vincent’s where Kerry had been asked to sing a solo.
Molly was busy buttoning Rosalee’s dress. Hearing her husband enter, she cried: ‘Where the hell have you been? You know Kerry’s singing at the Mass. You promised me you’d be home early.’
She looked up into his face and her heart froze in her chest. He was drunk, roaring drunk. He wouldn’t miss Midnight Mass, though. He’d stumble up to Communion like he did every Sunday, oblivious to the staring faces around him. Most of the Irishmen left it to their wives to attend church for them. It was no sin for them to sit in the pub all day Sunday, but let an Irishman’s wife miss Mass with the children and she would be ostracised by all and sundry. Not for the first time the divide between men and women irritated Molly Cavanagh. Maybe it was this that prompted her to fight with him instead of ushering the children from the house to Mother Jones next door and then letting Paddy do his worst ’til he fell asleep in front of the fire. She resigned herself to a black eye for Christmas and decided that this time she’d get it for a good reason.
‘I’ll not walk in the church with a drunk, Paddy. You can either go alone, or sleep the drink off and go in the morning.’
He pushed Kerry and Bernadette out of the way. ‘What did you say to me, woman?’
Molly pulled Rosalee into her skirts and glared at her husband.
‘You heard me!’
Paddy stared first at his wife then at each of the four girls in turn. Eileen gathered her three younger sisters together and, slipping past her father, took them to Mother Jones. Knocking gently on the window, she held the three white-faced girls to her. Mother Jones was in the process of tying a large bonnet of dark green taffeta on to her wiry grey hair. She opened the front door with a wide grin on her face, thinking they were all ready to go to Mass. One look at Eileen’s face told her otherwise.
‘It’s me dad, he’s drunk as a lord and about to go at me mum. Can I leave these three here?’
‘Of course you can, lovie.’ She pulled Eileen inside her door, closing it against the bitter wind. As they settled the children round the fire they heard Molly’s scream, and a sound like splintering wood. Rosalee whimpered and the old woman pulled her on to her lap.
‘There now, me pet. Everything’s fine.’
Eileen stood up. ‘I’ve got to go in there. He’ll knock her from here to next week if someone doesn’t stop him.’
‘Stay here, child. Abel will be here soon with the cart to take us all to Mass. He’ll go in.’
Eileen wiped her hand across her face.
‘I’ve got to get their coats anyway. I’ll go in.’
She left the cottage and went back inside her own home.
Molly was crying, harsh racking sobs. Eileen saw her mother’s eye already swelling and the blood from a cut on her lip. Paddy had punched her to the ground and one of the wooden chairs was lying broken on the floor. It was what her father was doing now that made Eileen pick up the iron from the fire.
He was pulling up her mother’s skirts and dragging at her underclothes. Eileen knew what he was going to do because it brought back painful memories of Mr Dumas. She knew how much it hurt, and how sick and ill it made you afterwards.
Molly was staring at her daughter, beseeching her with her eyes and crying over Paddy’s shoulder softly.
‘No, Paddy, not like this, man! Not like this!’
Bringing back her arm, Eileen swung the iron down on the side of her father’s head with all her strength. The spray of blood that shot up into the air covered both mother and daughter. Paddy slumped down over his wife, his legs twitching for a few seconds before death took him completely.
Eileen put her hand over her mouth to stem the tide of vomit rushing up inside her. Molly, with a strength born of desperation, pushed the lifeless form from her. Dragging herself upright, she put her hand to her mouth in shock. The two stood there like statues until Abel, who had arrived with the cart, was sent in by his mother.
He took one look at Paddy lying spreadeagled on the floor, his head a mush of blood and brains, and swore under his breath.
‘Jesus sodding Christ! What happened here?’
Eileen began to shake. It started in her hands and travelled through her cold body until even her teeth were chattering. Abel dragged Paddy over on to his back. The unbuttoned trousers told him the whole story.
‘Was he at the girl? Was he at Eileen?’
He assumed that Molly had taken the iron to him. She shook her head, and as he heard Eileen moan, Abel saw the iron still in her hand.
‘He was at you, Moll?’
She nodded. Her blonde hair was in disarray and her clothes were ripped. A strand of saliva was hanging from her top lip as she tried to speak.
Abel took the iron from Eileen and put it into the sink. Then he went outside to the pump and filled a bucket with icy water. He washed the iron clean of blood, talking over his shoulder as he did so.
‘First I want you to get some sheets to wrap him in. Come on, you two!’ His voice was urgent. ‘We have to get rid of him, girls, or else one or the other of you will be before the beak in the morning.’
Molly felt his words penetrate her brain and forced herself into action. Going up the stairs, she pulled the sheets from her bed and brought them back down to the kitchen.
Abel had put Eileen in the easy chair and was pouring out a cup of hot sweet tea for her.
‘We’ll wrap him up tight and I’ll dump him somewhere. We’ll think of a story later, let’s just get rid of the ... of Paddy’s ... of his body.’ There, it was said.
‘Oh, Abel, what are we going to do?’ Molly’s voice had risen now as the shock wore off and he went to her and put his arms around her.
‘Listen to me, Molly. We must get rid of him now, before anyone finds out what’s happened. I’ll take him down to the docks, dump him in the water. Plenty of people turn up there dead. You report him missing tomorrow and the police will assume he was set upon for his wages.’
The words were tumbling out of him. One thing was sure, he had to help Molly. Since she had moved in next-door he had grown to care for her deeply. Many was the night he’d heard Paddy going for her and had wanted to do exactly what the girl had just done. As far as he was concerned, his main priority now was to get rid of Paddy’s body and keep the girls safe.
He began to wrap Paddy in the sheets, covering the broken head as best he could.
‘What about Midnight Mass? Kerry’s to sing there tonight!’
‘The Mass has started, Moll. We’ll say you was waiting for Paddy to come home. Yes, that’s what we’ll say. Now help me to wrap him tight, and then I’ll put him on the cart and you and Eileen can get this floor scrubbed clean of blood. Come on now, Moll, or we’ll all be done for.’
Eileen watched as Abel and her mother wrapped up her father’s body. She felt nothing as she saw Abel put the blood-stained bundle over his shoulder and take him out to the cart.
Molly put the kettle on for more hot water and drank her tea standing up by the fire, waiting for the kettle to boil. She was suspended between two feelings. One of shock at what had happened, and the other a drive for self-preservation. The world now consisted of herself, Eileen and Abel Jones. Because Abel had involved himself for her, and she knew why. Though Paddy’s passing was shocking, it was also a passport to a better life for her and this thought kept her going through the gruelling night ahead.
Abel went in to his mother before he took Paddy’s body off in the cart. She had put the children to bed in her own room and he explained what had taken place to her in hushed tones. Being a sensible woman she didn’t moan or wail, but nodded at her big handsome son and then began to talk.
‘Take him to Dagenham Docks, son, but don’t put him in the water wrapped in the sheets. Bring them back and I’ll burn them. Empty his pockets. Street thieves take everything, even a good coat, remember that. If his boots are in good nick, take them off and we’ll get rid of them too.’ She racked her brains for what else she should tell him.
Abel kissed her on the forehead and tried to wink at her.
‘You know you’ll hang if this is found out?’
He nodded. ‘I know that, Mum. But if you could see those two in there...’ His voice trailed off.
‘You’re a good boy, Abel. Too good sometimes, I think.’
On this he left the kitchen and, taking the blanket off the horse, covered the body with it and clip-clopped down Oxlow Lane in a light flurry of snow.