Dark Fires Shall Burn (13 page)

‘So, Jackie …' Annie begins again.

‘In trouble, is he?' Dolly turns her head sharply.

‘Would it be Jack Tooth you're after?' Errol twists around from his card game to face them, suddenly interested.

‘Do you know where he is?' Annie asks.

‘Bob Newham's out of Long Bay. You might have heard,' Dot says. ‘They had a bit of a run-in the other night. Bob took a couple of shots driving by.'

‘Bob Newham? That'd be Robert Newham's boy.' Errol, putting down his cards, claps his hands on his chest and leans back in his chair. ‘Wouldn't think Jackie would want to get mixed up with that lot. Bob senior and me were kept for nearly a month in a bloody dog-pound when we got back from France. Then we had to be seen by a reffo doctor to get coupons for tobacco and deferred pay.
Mister
Boyd he called me. Some bloody Balt or Eyetie, swarthy as an Arab. We liberated your country, you know mate? Mister Boyd! That's me dad, I said. You can call me Lance Corporal Boyd.'

‘Pack of bastards,' Snowy says, and heaves a boot up on the table.

Templeton swallows and wonders why Dolly is looking at Annie so intently. Dot is standing near the bureau, blinking into her brandy, not saying anything, while Sally shifts from foot to foot. Templeton sees Annie frown, and knows she is choosing her words carefully. ‘So Jackie needs to take off. Get out of the city for a while till it blows over. I've got to get a bit of cash together to give him, help him out.'

‘Well, ain't you sweet?' Dolly looks as though the pieces are locking together. ‘That's why his boys was in me ear about getting a car then.'

‘Bob Newham's not likely to forget he's got one light out thanks to Jackie,' Snowy says with a snort. He downs his glass and gestures to Dolly for a refill.

‘Get it yourself, you big lump,' she barks at him.

He heaves himself up, muttering, and rattles the bottles, splashing the liquor about in filling his glass. Then he sits back down heavily to resume his conversation with Errol about yesterday's horses. He flicks open a newspaper to the back page to study the race results.

Dolly empties her pipe out in a half-eaten plate of sausage and mash, and the ash slides like slag down the hillock of potato. ‘Alright. Here's how it is. I can help you out.' Dolly stretches her plump stockinged legs. ‘Make you some money and leave you a few pounds more to put back in the pot for a rainy day, hey? I know how it is, love. Jackie's been telling everyone that you lot is in deep for a load of snow.' She purses her lips at Dot. ‘Especially you, dark eyes.'

‘What are you suggesting?' Dot asks.

‘What say I buy you out of your debt and then you work it off. Here, for me.' She gestures broadly and smiles, and Templeton thinks of the tinker who used to come to the back door once a year offering his mother once-in-a-lifetime bargains.

‘That's kind of you, but it's alright. I —' Annie hesitates. ‘Well, um, no disrespect meant, but we just came here to see if you'd seen him. We can come up with the money on our own.'

Errol is gazing at Annie, attention diverted from his conversation on fillies, his bottom lip hanging open in a way that makes him look slow and shows his cluttered, greyish teeth. Templeton suppresses a shudder.

‘We heard Bob down the Tradesman's Arms just yesterday, telling everyone who'd listen that Jackie is a dead man.' Snowy smiles.

‘What I'm saying,' Dolly says, slowly and clearly, ‘is that I can make the problem go away. And you can make a piece for yourselves at the same time. Think about it, sugar. Jackie's not a man to mess with.' The loose skin of Dolly's sunspot-peppered arms wobbles as she lights another bowl and sucks deeply. The smoke is pungent, brackish. ‘Don't get caught in the crossfire of his blue with Bob.'

Annie looks torn but Templeton's blood rises. ‘We've been taking care of ourselves up till now just fine, thank you.'

‘Hello. I'm sorry — I didn't realise Annie had a younger sister!' Errol grins.

‘Leave him alone.' Annie's eyes flare. ‘Why do you care? Fancy him, do you? Thought you said you was a lance-corporal, not a rear-gunner in the war.'

Errol leaps to his feet and knocks the drinks over, spilling brandy down the front of his trousers.

‘Sit down, melonhead,' Dolly orders.

‘Get this bitch out of here.' Errol curses at Annie and wipes at his crotch with a cloth. ‘She's got a tongue on her. Why doesn't she get over here and put it to use?'

‘Errol, that's enough,' Dolly says impatiently.

‘Mate, Blind Freddie could see she's just tryin' to rile you up.' Snowy chuckles and claps Errol on the back. Errol slides back into his seat, scowling.

‘For how long? How long do we need to work for you?' Annie asks Dolly at last.

‘Ah, now you're talking.' Dolly claps, delighted. Her pipe punctuates her sentences with little puckered sounds. ‘Hmm. This is what will happen. I want you girls here for one month. Working in my house. The pretty boy can stay too.' Dolly looks over at Templeton. ‘I'll find a way to make some use of him.' She stretches out her hand as if to a shy dog. ‘I'll keep you in food and drink. And I'll see that no one else hassles you. But that's it until you've paid off your debt. After that, we can talk.'

Would Annie go for it? It
would
solve their problems, but Templeton doesn't like the thought of hanging around Errol. His heart beats faster.

Dot and Annie look at each other in silent consultation. Sally looks at Annie and shrugs. ‘Alright.' Annie offers her hand. Dolly thumps her hefty rings against the tabletop and reaches out to shake it.

Snowy refills everybody's glass. ‘Your good health,' he toasts.

‘You'll start now, tonight,' Dolly announces after they have taken a sip. ‘My two upstairs will show you how things work. I —' Her sentence is obscured by a convulsive cough, and she draws from her pocket a handsome handkerchief and wipes away a speck of blood.

‘Must be TB,' Dot tells Templeton under her breath. Templeton swallows.

‘On you go.' Dolly motions them away up the stairs. Errol watches them pass, tossing the deck of cards from hand to hand with violence, grinning, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy.

A month here: unthinkable! Templeton wishes to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He follows the others up the airless stairs.

In the upstairs parlour, with its many doors leading off to shadowy, functional rooms (each containing — at a glance — nothing more than a single bed, a small table and a sink), one girl snags Templeton's gaze immediately. She wears a cream dress, like an old-fashioned bride, and has black curls. Her pink tongue darts to the corners of her mouth after she sips from her glass, as if the mere act of drinking were indecent. She smoothes the wrinkles of her frock, and his gaze follows her fingers down to where they fuss in her lap. Then she shakes her head, and her knotty ringlets, unbrushed, fall over her face. She tosses them back in a studied manoeuver. He glances at Dot, who is watching too.

‘Roberta,' the girl says.

‘Pardon?' Dot seems ruffled.

‘It's Roberta,' she repeats with a lopsided smile. ‘My name. Roberta French. How d'you do?'

‘Nice to meet you — uh, I'm Dot,' she offers her hand, wiping her palm first on her thigh. ‘Dorothea Kaczmarek. But Dot, if you like.'

‘Annie,' Annie introduces herself with an affected boredom in her voice.

‘Pleased to meet you,' Roberta says.

‘What kind of a name is Kaczmarek?' demands the other girl.

Templeton has barely noticed her, even though she occupies the other end of the couch from Roberta, but now he looks her over. She has a large gap between her two front teeth, which he imagines some men might find a fetching peculiarity. She sports elaborately rolled hair, a narrow waist and narrower eyes.

‘Watch your manners, Lorraine,' Roberta tells her.

‘We're not staying long,' Annie offers. ‘This is a …' she searches for the right word. ‘A temporary arrangement.'

‘I see.' Roberta nods amiably.

‘How temporary?' Lorraine asks.

Templeton fiddles with his shirt cuffs in disagreeable silence. He chews on a ragged nail as he sees Lorraine regarding him as he had her moments before. ‘Your brother?' Lorraine jerks her thumb at him, looking at Annie.

‘Yeah,' says Annie. ‘So what?'

‘Is he workin' here too?'

‘Didn't think this was that
kind of establishment.' Annie's fingers crush the butt of her cigarette against the side of a tin ashtray.

‘Why's he here then? Don't he have a mother? How old is he anyway, thirteen?'

‘I'll be sixteen this year,' Templeton blurts. He knows he has embarrassed himself and feels his cheeks turn red.

‘Lorraine doesn't mean to be impolite,' Roberta says, smiling at him. ‘Sorry. Raised in a barn, and all that.'

Lorraine snorts. ‘Well, what does Dolly want with him then?'

‘I'm going to do jobs and earn my keep,' Templeton insists.

‘If I wanted to work in a molly-house, I'd go over to Elsie Tipper's,' Lorraine hisses. ‘Once you start letting that sort of punter in, those
perverts
, there's no telling what's next.'

‘Leave him alone,' Dot warns.

‘Dolly doesn't do anything for anyone unless she thinks there's something in it for her, that much is for sure,' Lorraine answers nastily.

‘He's here 'cause I'm here. Dolly's barely even looked twice at him,' Annie says.

‘Young meat like that could fetch a high price in certain circles.' Lorraine laughs. There is something vicious in her eyes, Templeton thinks.

‘He's quiet as a mouse,' Roberta says. ‘Have off him. He's not causing trouble.'

Templeton toys with the packet of cigarettes in his pocket. Lorraine is still appraising him. He wishes they'd all talk about something else; he feels uncomfortably warm. He's never heard of a molly-house.

‘We had a girl here once, not that long ago, name of Edith,' Lorraine says after a pause, shifting her gaze from Templeton. ‘Well, Dolly got wind that she was lifting from the till.'

‘Was she?' asks Sally.

‘Don't know. Might have been. Any case, that's not important. Thing was that Dolly thought she was getting swindled,' Lorraine says.

‘Lorraine, you don't know what really happened,' Roberta says tartly.

‘Yes I do, and you do too!' Lorraine raises her voice. ‘Now Edie was a vain little bitch, pretty as anything and didn't she know it. And the blokes did too, right?'

‘Yeah? And?' Annie asks impatiently. She doesn't think much of Lorraine, Templeton can tell.

‘So one evening Edie comes in and Dolly's fixing drinks.' Lorraine slows down, settling in for the story now she commands everyone's attention. ‘Dolly started saying that Edie had been taking her for granted and that she oughta know better and so on and so forth. Well, Edie tries to stick up for herself, makes up some piss-poor excuse about getting in a bother and needing the money to sort it out down on Murphy Street.' She winks. ‘But Dolly knows that for a girl in a bother she needs ten pounds to get it fixed, right? As well you all would know.' Lorraine sniggers.

Templeton sees the glance slung between Dot and Annie.

‘And Dolly also knows that we'd go to her if we were in a sticky situation and she'd see we got taken care of and all that jazz.' Lorraine pauses. ‘Or you could do it yourself with a bit of tube, some hot gin and half a cup of mustard. Everyone has tried that before, eh?'

‘Tell the damn story,' snaps Dot. ‘What did Dolly do to Edith?'

‘So it seems that Dolly isn't buying a word of this and so without wasting another second she's got Edie by the throat and put her in a headlock,' Lorraine says with relish. ‘Next thing you know she's smashed a bottle on the counter, knocked the bottom off and given the sharp end to Edie right in the face. Goes open slather on her. Blood everywhere. All over the wall, all over Dolly. From here to Sunday, it was like Iwo Jima.'

Sally squeals and covers her mouth with her hands. Templeton can see Dot's jaw muscles clench.

‘And Dolly's yelling, “I'll cut her fucking tits off, the bitch!
”
'
Lorraine half-whispers, realising she should lower her voice. ‘She says, “Hold her there, Snowy, while I get my gat.” '

‘What's a gat?' Templeton asks.

‘A big fuck-off gun, that's what! A gatling. Jesus, haven't you seen the newsreels?' Lorraine lets out something akin to a guffaw. ‘So off runs Edie — she gets clear of Snowy somehow — and off she runs with a busted-up face, out into the street. And Dolly's screaming from the house, “I'll put a hole in you if you ever come back here!” '

‘Golly.' Sally's face is pale.