Playing Around (2 page)

‘Hello, love. How are you, then?’ She stepped aside to let Angie Knight into the hallway. Like a lot of other homes on the estate, the Murrays’ house had a front room, kitchen and bathroom leading off the passage downstairs, and two main bedrooms and a box room leading off the tiny landing above. Being on the other end of the five-house terrace to the Knights’, the layout was a perfect mirror image of Angie’s own, but there the similarities ended: the Murrays grafted long and hard to make sure their house was warm, comfortable and full of the tantalizing smells of cooking, with Stan working all hours to pay the bills, and Tilly doing all the domestic chores, so they could make a decent home for their kids, while the Knight house offered none of those things, not unless Angie herself did something about them when she got in from work. Violet Knight was not a bad woman, in fact she could be a loving, lovable, warm and funny person to be around, it was just that men, rather than her daughter’s comfort and future opportunities were her priority, and when one of them was in her life, which was most of the time, she was definitely above such banal matters as home-making.

‘Hello, Mrs Murray. Is Jackie around?’

Tilly jerked her head towards the stairs. ‘She’s not out of bed yet, but go on up. I know she’s awake.’ She
smiled
warmly at Angie. ‘I don’t know how you youngsters manage to spend so much time laying about doing nothing. You’re like little dormice in hibernation.’ Immediately wishing she hadn’t said something so stupid to a kid who spent just about every waking hour either at work or slaving to keep her idle, no-good mother’s house in some sort of order, Tilly put her hand on Angie’s shoulder. ‘Stay for dinner if you like, love. I’m doing a nice shoulder of lamb with all the trimmings, and I’m making a jam roly-poly for afters, with loads of custard. It’ll be no trouble, I’ll just peel a few more spuds.’ She nodded encouragingly. ‘You know how Mr Murray likes his Sunday roast. And he deserves it, how hard he works.’

‘Thanks all the same, but I’m going round to see Nan.’

Good for you, thought Tilly, you leave that lazy mare to sort herself out. ‘Well, you’re more than welcome if you change your mind, you know that.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Murray, I know.’ Angie grabbed hold of the banister and swung herself up the stairs.

‘So much energy.’ Tilly shook her head in affectionate wonder as she took herself back to the kitchen and the monumental task of cooking the Sunday dinner.

‘It’s only me, Jack. Can I come in?’

‘Course.’

Going into Jackie’s room always made Angie feel happy; no matter how often it was decorated, or changed round, it was just the way Angie would have chosen – if she had had the chance. The latest look involved the walls being emulsioned in white with a big red, white and blue target painted on the wall facing the door: the handiwork of Jackie’s older brother, Martin. The carpet was plain navy – terrible to keep clean, according to Mrs Murray, but as beautiful as the finest
velvet
according to Angie – and had a thick, sheepskin rug by the bedside to warm Jackie’s toes. The bed itself stood along the length of one wall, and was covered in a Union Jack bedspread, with matching pillowcases; opposite was the ‘dressing unit’, as Jackie called the combination white melamine dressing-table and wardrobe. Reflected in the mirrored wardrobe door was a much-kissed poster of the Beatles, which showed the Fab Four walking along a beach dressed in jokey, old-fashioned stripy swimsuits and straw hats; strange outfits, but, as Jackie said, they looked gear in whatever they wore, and Paul especially could get away with anything.

The only concession to the pink, girlie bedroom that it had been up until just a month before was the crinoline lady bedside lamp, with its deep rose, nylon skirts, through which the bulb glowed warmly: an altogether feminine accessory, and a match with Angie’s own. Angie’s nan had bought them for the girls from Doris Barker, a woman who lived in her buildings in Poplar, and who, considering she didn’t go to work, seemed to spend all day, every day, at home being visited by people and always seemed to have a whole flat full of stuff to sell. Where it all came from was a mystery to Angie, but, as her nan told her, it wasn’t polite to ask people about their private business; it was like a code in the East End, she had said.

Angie settled herself at the foot of Jackie’s bed with her back leaning against the wall.

‘You look so miserable, Ange.’ Jackie made herself comfortable in her nest of pillows and blankets. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Not really. Mum’s new boyfriend said something horrible.’

‘How do you mean?’ Jackie first frowned, then her
mouth
and eyes widened. ‘Here, he didn’t try it on or nothing, did he? Didn’t try and get a feel up your kilt?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ Angie closed her eyes and rubbed her hands roughly over her cheeks, refusing to let the tears come. ‘I heard him say to Mum’, she said, her voice catching, ‘that I was ugly, and stupid, and useless, that no one would ever fancy me, and that …’ Too late. Her bottom lip began to tremble, and her eyes watered.

Jackie threw back the covers and scrambled to the other end of the bed to be close to her friend. Tugging down the hem of her blue-and-white striped, granddad-collared nightshirt that had recently usurped her pink baby dolls, she screwed up her face in anger. ‘The buggery, rotten old sod. What did your mum say?’

All Angie could do was shake her head as the tears flowed.

‘Was this last night?’

She nodded.

‘Drunk, I suppose.’

Another nod.

‘I told you, you should have come with me to the Palais.’

‘I couldn’t. You know I don’t …’

‘Angie, it’s only the Ilford Palais we’re talking about, not the Scotch of flipping St James or the Canvas Club.’

‘I wouldn’t fit in with your friends,’ wailed Angie. ‘You know I can’t …’

‘Angie,
you
are my friend. And you know I’d love you to come out with me. It’s only because you won’t that I still knock around with that lot from school.’ Jackie put her arm round Angie’s shoulder and gave her a little shake, in the mistaken belief that it would cheer her up. ‘We had a right laugh.’

The door opened and a male voice asked, ‘Who did?
What
have you pair been up to?’

Angie and Jackie looked round to see Martin Murray, Jackie’s big brother, standing in the doorway.

‘Hello, Squirt,’ he said, smiling at Angie, ‘you look pissed off. My little sister’s not been upsetting you, has she? If she has I’ll take her teddy off her. She still cuddles that ratty old bear every night, you know.’

Angie managed to wring out a feeble smile in reply. Last October, Martin had become an economics student at London University, but he didn’t have a duffel coat or a scruffy beard. Martin was a mod, with a parka, a tonic mohair suit and a chrome-covered Lambretta, and, during the past couple of years, had grown into just about the most beautiful thing that Angie had set eyes on.

‘Ignore him, Ange,’ Jackie said haughtily. ‘Being the first one in the family to go to college has gone to that fat head of his. But what he doesn’t realize is, being clever doesn’t mean he’s got any sense.’ She pointed to the box of tissues on her bedside table. ‘Why don’t you make yourself useful and give Angie a paper hankie, then go down and brew up so me and Angie can have a cup of tea?’

Martin handed the tissues to Angie. ‘Actually, I was going to offer to put the kettle on, sis, but, now you’ve asked, I think I’ve changed my mind.’

He ducked just in time to avoid the tissue box, expertly aimed by Jackie, from hitting him on the head.

‘That was one sugar, wasn’t it, Squirt?’ he called as he ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

‘Listen, you two.’ Martin held out a tin tray bearing two cups of tea and a plate of Jammy Dodgers. ‘Mum’s bending my ear about persuading Angie to stay for lunch.’

‘
Lunch
? Ooh, lah-dee-flaming-dah!’ Jackie jeered at her brother in a high, mock-posh voice. ‘Don’t they have Sunday dinner at your toffee-nosed college, then? Too common for the likes of them?’

Martin did not rise to the bait. He had sworn he would never wind up in a job like his dad’s: ruining his lungs as he cleaned out the crud from the boilers in the local car factory, with only a nightly pint of mild and bitter in the Fanshawe Tavern and a fortnight in a chalet in Leysdown to look forward to. He wanted more from life, a better life, but that hadn’t stopped him being as scared as hell about going to university. Jackie knew all about his anxieties, and, despite being at times boastfully proud of her big brother, it didn’t stop her exploiting them whenever she wanted to jerk his chain around.

‘How about it, Squirt?’ he went on, ignoring Jackie. ‘How about helping us all out by giving Mum the chance to cook an extra mountain of food?’

Angie took one of the cups and handed it to Jackie, then took the other one for herself. ‘It’s really kind, but I already promised Nan I’d go over to see her.’

Jackie blew across the top of her steaming cup, while helping herself to the plate of biscuits. ‘Go later.’

‘I can’t. Once I’ve got the underground to Mile End, I have to get the bus down Burdett Road, and you know what they’re like on a Sunday.’

Angie sipped at her tea, agonizing over the choice of missing the chance of sitting down to eat with Martin or of letting down her beloved Nan. And even if she did stay, she would probably be too embarrassed to say anything much to him. It was so different trying to talk to him lately, not like it had been when they were kids. But she really liked him. Not like that, of course, but it was just …

‘Come on, Squirt.’

‘I suppose if I missed the bus, I could walk from Mile End.’

‘Tell you what,’ Martin slapped the empty tray with his hand as though it were a tambourine, ‘I’m meant to be seeing someone from college about borrowing some books. I could go up there this afternoon and give you a lift on the Lambretta at the same time.’

Angie’s mouth went dry. Was this like being asked out on a date or something?

‘I couldn’t let you do that, Martin.’
Oh yes she could
.

‘Why not? They live in Mile End. Bancroft Road. Right along by the college. I could drop you at your nan’s, then go on. And I do need the books today. I’ve got to finish some work I’m meant to be handing in by the end of the week.’

Jackie pulled a Jammy Dodger apart, separating the biscuit into two, and thoughtfully licked at the filling. What was this all about then?

Angie could hardly breathe. Her world had just turned upside down: misery to pure joy in a matter of moments.

‘You’d have to make your own way home, though. I don’t know how long I’m going to be.’ He paused. ‘So? What d’you reckon?’

Angie stared up at him from the bed.

‘It means you’ll be doing us all a favour: keeping Mum happy by staying and having –’ he paused and looked pointedly at his sister ‘–
lunch
with us first, means she’ll be able to cook even more grub than usual.’

‘If it makes Mrs Murray happy,’ Angie finally managed to gasp.

‘Great.’ He smiled and winked at the poor little thing. What a life that kid had. He felt really sorry for her. She was so grateful for everything. If only she realized what
a
real favour she was doing him, giving him the excuse to get out for the afternoon. Living at home was driving Martin Murray stark, raving bonkers.

‘Busy last night, David?’ Sonia Fuller put down her cigarette and sipped her orange juice, as she flicked lazily through the
Sunday Times
colour supplement. Her attention was suddenly focused. She really had to have her hair done like that. An asymmetric cut would look wonderful with her jaw line, and would take at least five off her thirty-two – off her twenty-nine – years.

‘Actually, I came home around half ten.’ David, a look and soundalike for Michael Caine – the first thing, apart from all his money, that had attracted Sonia to him – calmly continued with his breakfast, despite knowing he had just dropped a bombshell right in the middle of the bizarre kitchen table that Sonia had ‘found’ in some ‘wonderful little shop in Chelsea’. Until he’d met Sonia, David had had no idea that ‘finding’ things could be so expensive.

He shook another dollop of ketchup on to his plate. Regardless of his wife’s attempts to get him to eat muesli – trendy, overpriced hamster food, in his opinion – and to drink orange juice, David was still a resolutely fry-up and dark brown tea man, especially on a Sunday, and even more especially when he’d had his appetite whetted by anger.

Sonia was no longer concerned with the shiny pages and their drooling displays of the latest, overpriced fashions.

‘Half past ten?’

‘Yeah, where were you?’ He dipped his toast into the yolk of his fried egg, knowing how much she hated such ‘common habits’.

‘I popped out for cigarettes.’ Sonia waved her hand
breezily
, as though the gold-tipped menthol she was currently smoking was proof of her story, a king-sized, Virginia alibi.

‘Why didn’t you send the doorman out for some? Or a cab?’

David was beginning to enjoy this, maybe even more than the crisply fried bacon that he had speared on his fork with half a grilled tomato. Sonia might have been a crappy liar – in fact, as a wife, she had proved to be a major let-down in most areas – but she could make a very tasty breakfast, and it had been a while since anything else about the little tart had interested him. But being made a mug of by people, that interested David Fuller, that interested David Fuller very much indeed. That guaranteed his full attention. And it made him think of all sorts of nasty things he wanted to do to people. Very nasty things. Things that would make Sonia’s dainty little lips curl right up.

His appetite – for food – satisfied, David shoved the plate away from him.

‘Enjoy your breakfast?’ Sonia could have hit her husband right over the head with his nasty, greasy, egg-stained plate. God, she hated him. Why wouldn’t the pig just say if he had seen her and Mikey together in the car park?

‘Handsome, darling.’ David belched into his fist, and then scratched his bare chest under the lapels of his navy silk robe.