Goodnight Lady (58 page)

If only she could be made to go to America where her records sold like hot cakes, they would be set. But nothing he or anyone else said would get her there. She’d go to France, anywhere in Europe, but never to the States. Jonathan la Billière had tried to talk her into going over to Hollywood for a holiday, but she had flatly refused. That had fazed even Victor. Jonathan la Billière, the biggest movie star in the whole world, and Kerry had turned him down! Even a pretend romance would have hit all the papers, Victor would have made sure of it. He’d have personally written the copy! La Billière was an old family friend; they went back years apparently. Unlike most women who would have shouted this fact out straight away, he had found it out through a mutual friend. But the fact remained, Kerry would not go anywhere near America and if you wanted a fight with her, you just tried to force that issue. They had been offered a staggering fifty thousand pounds for her to appear at Madison Square Garden and she had coolly declined. Victor could have cried.

He had even tried to speak to that sister of hers, the one who ran the whorehouses, but she had politely told him to get on his bike. Oh, in nicer words than that, but that had been the general drift.

Still, he consoled himself, Kerry was being good at the moment, she was turning up at the right places at the right time and she wasn’t always plastered. Her daughter played a big part in that. She watched her mother like a hawk. Between them they’d see her all right, and maybe get her overseas one day.

 

Dickie Lawson found the twins in Soho. It was early-evening and they were having a drink in Tommy Lane’s club, The Bolthole. Dickie looked at the two of them and took a deep swallow as he plucked up courage to go over to them.

The club was small and select and it cost a fiver to get in. The people who used The Bolthole wanted to be somewhere where the police, wives, girlfriends, or even Military Police during the war, couldn’t get to them. Dickie had paid over his fiver, signed himself in and now he had to walk into the lion’s den.

He could have kicked himself for trying to tuck the twins up with the bets. He felt faint every time he thought about it. Everywhere he went they were being talked about. Anyone who’d shoot a McNee in the legs and blow up Kenny Riley was guaranteed to frighten Old Nick himself, let alone a small-time hustler like Dickie Lawson. Plucking up courage, he went over to them. Boysie and Danny watched him approach them in the bar mirror. He stood behind them uncertainly for a few seconds before he spoke.

‘All right, lads?’ His voice was strangled-sounding, as if one of the twins already had a hand around his throat.

Both of them turned around at once.

‘Well, well, well, if it ain’t Dickie Lawson. Come to buy us a drink and pay over our winnings, have you?’ Boysie’s voice was loud, jocular, and Dickie took heart.

‘That’s right, lads, what you having?’

He took a brown envelope out of his jacket pocket and slipped it on to the counter. Danny picked it up and opened it, counting the money.

‘There’s only a hundred quid in here, Dickie boy.’

He bit his lip and then licked his lips which had dried in record time with fear.

‘That’s what I owed you, lads ... hundred quid.’

Boysie snapped his fingers and the barmaid sloped over and smiled at them.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Two very large scotches, my love, a half of bitter for me little mate, and whatever you want of course.’

The barmaid set about getting the drinks and Boysie turned back to Dickie who was now a deathly shade of white.

Danny laughed.

‘What we want, Dickie, is our rents. As you probably know, poor Kenny Riley is well out of the ball game now, through explosives like. He left us everything he owned. And that, I think, includes yourself.’

Dickie, seeing the light, the crystal clear, plain as day kind of light, nodded his head furiously.

‘Of course ... Of course, lads.’

He slapped his sweaty forehead with a sweaty palm and, taking out a roll of money, paid up without a murmur.

Boysie poked Dickie in the chest none too gently.

‘A word in your shell-like. We ain’t your lads, see? We are Mr Cavanagh to you. Do you think you can remember that?’

Dickie was once more nodding, harder now.

‘Yes, lad ... I mean, yes, Mr Cavanagh!’

Boysie and Danny laughed out loud.

‘Good lad! Now pay for the drinks like a good boy and then piss off. You’re beginning to annoy us. We’ll see you next week, Dickie. You won’t have to look for us, we’ll find you. All right?’

Half an hour later they were on their way to meet two girls, both good Catholics, both definitely virgins. Both waiting to be plucked like nice ripe gooseberries.

All in all, life couldn’t be better for the Cavanagh twins.

 

Liselle sat in The New Yorker, Briony’s latest club, with her mother and watched her get roaring drunk. She was the life and soul of the place, as usual, and eventually got up and sang a few numbers to the delight of the audience. Bessie, who now sang there with the Velvetones despite periodic threats to go home to the States, stood in the wings and smiled. Until she turned and saw the black man standing by the stage door. Then her heart began to hammer in her ears and she closed her eyes tightly.

When she opened them again the man was gone.

It was the lights playing tricks on her, that was all, but for one moment she could have sworn she saw Evander Dorsey standing there. Fatter, greyer, but Evander all the same. As Kerry called her out on stage she put a smile on her face and stepped into the lights, but the niggling thought that she had seen Evander spoilt her evening.

As they sang together, that old favourite ‘Summertime’, she looked at Liselle sitting at the table, drinking soda and looking dead on her feet, and felt foreboding wash over her.

That girl wasn’t a child any more and soon, very soon, she’d need to be told the truth. She didn’t look Negro at all, at least she didn’t to the British, but in the South she would be known immediately for what she was, and Bessie knew from experience that the girl could give birth to children as black as the African slaves who were her forefathers.

Oh, the girl needed to be told all right, and Kerry wouldn’t be the one to do it. Kerry had enough difficulty just getting through an average day. Someone else would have to tell her, but who?

As the song finished she bowed and held on to a rather drunken Kerry, stopping her from falling over.

It was seeing that black guy that made her think these morbid things, that was all.

A little later Liselle helped her mother from the club and got a taxi to take them home. Tired out as she was, she didn’t notice the black man standing in the doorway at the side of the club. If she had, she wouldn’t have realised he was the man from earlier in the day.

Evander watched his daughter get into the taxi. He walked to the Roadster once more, and the three white men sitting in it.

‘Yeah, that’s her all right. I had to be sure.’ He lit himself a cheroot with crooked and deformed fingers. ‘Tha’s my girl, no mistakin’. Looks jes like my sister.’

The three white men in the car nodded.

Evander smoked his cheroot and nodded to himself as if carrying on a conversation. Only no one was interested in what he had to say. He pulled out a hip flask and took a deep draught of cheap brandy.

He laughed softly to himself. Liselle! That bitch had named her for his mama.

It was two months since the twins had taken over the East End of London. Briony had adjusted to the fact that the boys were now men, that she had very little say in what they did or, worse still, how they did it. Instead, she threw herself into the re-opening of Berwick Manor. The Manor represented a lot to her, it was the pinnacle of her achievements. She had had just about everyone who was anyone in there, and wanted it like that once more. She wanted it lit up like a beacon, with all the old crowd, and some new faces.

As she stood alone looking over the place she felt a tiny thrill of anticipation. The damage wasn’t too bad when you got used to it. Mainly the carpeting and the wall coverings. Most of the original mouldings were still in perfect condition. In the top bedroom, where prominent cabinet ministers had spent many a sleepless night, she found a letter wedged between the windowsill and a walnut dresser. Briony picked it up and glanced at it.

It was for a Flying Officer Byron, from his wife Juliette. She smiled as she read the endearments from her. The longing for her husband’s return home. The little anecdotes about the children. It was a lovely letter written in graceful handwriting by a woman whom Briony visualised as neat in body, mind and home. She hoped that Flying Officer Byron had made it home, she really did.

She sat on the bare mattress, clutching the letter. Trying to imagine what it must be like to love a man like that. To have his children and look after his home and just dedicate your life to that one person and their progeny. It was a strange thing to her, this being married. It was something she couldn’t for the life of her imagine. Bernadette had married her Marcus and overnight she’d turned into a household drudge. Oh, she enjoyed it, Briony knew and respected that. But there was no real reason for it. She had had the girls and now took care of them, Marcus and the home. Bernadette was happy just overseeing her family. Making sure meals were prepared on time, that the house ran smoothly.

Well, Cissy did all that for Briony, and before her Mrs H had done it. If she had had to stagnate in a house just waiting for a man to breeze in and out as it suited him she’d have gone mad. Stark staring mad.

She glanced down at the letter again. The sender’s address was in Northumberland. She pushed the letter into her pocket. She’d mail it to this Juliette Byron, whoever she was. Maybe she’d want it back. Especially if Flying Officer Byron hadn’t made it home.

She wandered out of the room and looked out of the window at the greying skies. The view from the Manor had always entranced her. From one side of the house were wide sweeping fields that in the summer glowed yellow with corn. From the front of the house the view was of Rainham marshes, and from the top window you could see right up Upminster Road North to the church with its clocktower.

She heard a noise and turned from the window. Standing at the top of the stairs was a man. In the dimness brought on by the overcast skies she couldn’t make out his face. As he walked towards her she put her hand to her chest in momentary fright.

‘My God! It’s you.’ Her voice was a whisper.

‘Surprised to see me?’ His voice was the same as always and Briony was transported back over the years to her first sight of a young boy in a new suit that looked too big, with a voice that had just broken properly.

‘Tommy. Tommy Lane. You’re the last person I expected to see.’

He smiled then, that easy smile that she remembered so well. Even though they had spoken by phone over the years, they had met only twice, by accident. Then they had been chillingly polite to one another. Now he was here, in the Manor, and she knew it was for a good reason.

‘They don’t call me Bad Penny Lane for nothing, you know!’

Briony smiled. ‘Come down to the kitchen and I’ll make us some coffee.’

They walked down the stairs in silence, both aware of the attraction still between them. The gathering storm overhead served to make the atmosphere even more charged.

Briony put the kettle on the range and turned to face him. ‘Black coffee, I’m afraid, there’s no milk.’

Tommy sat down at the scrubbed table and looked at her as if drinking her in. Despite herself, Briony blushed at his scrutiny and Tommy laughed out loud.

‘Now I’ve seen everything. Briony Cavanagh blushing? That’s a turn up for the book, I must say!’

She grinned.

‘It’s the shock of seeing you, I think, Tommy, after all this time. I take it this is a friendly visit?’

His face sobered at her words. Standing up, he went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Looking down into the deep, green depths of her eyes, he said, ‘As friendly as you want it, Briony.’

She felt the confusion in him, in herself. Suddenly she wanted Tommy Lane like she had never wanted anyone or anything before. He was here, a reminder of her past, her youth, her old life. He was like a big present, waiting to be opened. All she had to do was tear away the wrappings.

A new feeling swamped her body as the first slap of thunder trembled overhead. It started in her groin and its warmth spread gradually up into her stomach and breasts. She found, for the first time ever, that she couldn’t even talk, couldn’t speak to make her feelings known.

As she parted her lips, Tommy took her into his arms and kissed her hard. Bruising her mouth, he forced his tongue into her mouth, exploring her with it. Briony felt the feeling swamp her then, and she kissed him back, hard kisses, as they rubbed against one another’s bodies, discovering each other for the first time in over twenty years. They finally came together up against the scrubbed pine table, Briony hooking her slim legs around his waist and grinding her hips into him as she finally felt the sensations that had always been denied to her. Never had she expected to feel this passion in her lifetime.

She ground into him, crying out into the silent kitchen. A flash of lightning lit up the kitchen and they saw each other properly then. The feeling was enveloping her now, she was dying to capture it properly, and he was carried along with the want in her, now in him. She heard him groan and her heart raced. Don’t let this stop, she thought. Don’t cheat me now. And it didn’t. She felt the first tentative throes of orgasm, felt the hardness of Tommy inside her, and it was enough then. It was finally enough. Clutching at his hair she jerked in his arms, pulling him deeper and deeper inside her until there was nothing. No thunder, no storm, only the two of them. Together they shuddered and moaned and finally were spent. Briony felt the sweat on her brow, the dampness of her body. He held her to him, gently, firmly, and they felt the thundering of each other’s hearts.