Playing Around (33 page)

‘Sure they might meet, they might even have a dance, might even have a screw. But they all still know their place. This trendy, swinging scene, Angel, is as unfair and as unequal as the rest of the world. You can change the way you speak and dress, but the really posh ones, they know the difference. They might pretend they’re your friend – to do business with you, or to lay you – but really they despise you. But knowing that means you can use it to your advantage. It’s when you start believing the lies that you’re in trouble.’

She was barely listening to him now, all she could focus on was that she had to say something. She had to.

‘Take my Sonia.’

That had her listening again.

‘She comes from Birmingham. Dudley.’

‘What, your housekeeper?’

‘Yeah. That’s right.’ He took a gulp of whisky. Nearly, you silly sod.

This was it. Her opportunity. ‘Your friend. Salvo.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He said.’ She paused, finding it hard to say the name. ‘Sonia was your wife.’

David puffed out his cheeks, picked up a bottle of champagne from a side table and led Angie through to the main bedroom and out on to the balcony.

‘So you really are divorced?’ Angie was standing among the flower pots and troughs, holding on to the white-painted railing, staring unseeingly at the pretty Chelsea street down below.

‘Yup. I really am.’ He lit two cigarettes and handed her one.

Angie no longer held a cigarette as if she were an actress playing the part of a smoker, but did so automatically, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs.

‘And it’s all over. At last. But for a long time she just wouldn’t give up hope. Kept thinking we had a chance to get back together. It was a bit pathetic. She’d turn up at the Mayfair gaff at all hours, fill the vases and that. Do what she could to try and make it all homely. Act like she was still my wife. She was a liar even to herself. Pitiful really.’

‘That’s sad. How did you finally persuade her?’

David took her by the shoulders, turned her to face him and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I told her all about you, Angel, and she knew she had no chance. Poor old Sonia’s not very attractive, see.’

Angie remembered Salvo mentioning something about her looks, and how angry she would be about being mistaken for a housekeeper. She felt almost sorry for her. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I’ve looked after her as far as money’s concerned, but she hated giving up all this. The parties and that. She loved all this. That’s what was hardest for her, losing the people she’d thought were her friends. But, of course, they were here because of me, not her.’

Angie dropped her chin. ‘Whatever must they think of me?’

‘You? They think you’re great. You act yourself. Natural. But you have to remember, in the end, they’re just amusing themselves, mixing with the likes of us. They think going to the Krays’ gaffs or the West Indian clubs is all one big laugh, and that when they’ve had their fun, or done their bit of business, they can go back to their
better
lives and leave the likes of me behind. But
–
and this is another lesson for you – the truth of the matter is, they are no different from anyone else. No one. They can set themselves up as being better, but I know the truth. In fact,’ he raised his glass at the French doors, ‘I know more about the people in that room than you’d credit. Kinky or crooked, or both, most of them.’ He pointed to a man, familiar to Angie from the television news. ‘Politician, right?’

Angie nodded.

‘I went to a party over at his drum once. Coked out of his brain, he was.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Cocaine.’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway, he had this one-way mirror where you could see him having it away with—’

‘What?
See
him?’

‘Yeah. See everything, you could. He was going with this young girl.’

‘But he must be at least fifty.’

‘Nearer sixty. And the kid was no more than what, fourteen, fifteen.’

‘That’s—’

‘The way of the world. So don’t you ever feel inferior to anyone. They probably act a lot worse than you ever would, and, if you knew the truth of it, with a lot less scruples than you would ever dream of, in all their so-called superior lives. Here, see that bloke just coming in?’

Angie turned round and found herself staring through the glass doors at a bronzed, muscle-bound actor, famed for his good works in his foundation for deprived children. Up until now, he had been no more to Angie than an heroic image on one of the posters given away with
My Guy
that had adorned her
bedroom
wall in Dagenham. Now she was practically in the same room with him.

As David, in a tone more suited to discussing whether it was getting a bit nippy for her out on the balcony, gave Angie details of the hunky actor’s very particular private interests – involving being treated like a baby, with nappy-changing and regular feeding thrown in – her mouth gaped open like the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel. She really did have a lot to learn about the world.

‘Before I forget, Angel,’ David added casually, draining the last of the champagne into her glass. ‘A good friend of mine, Albert; he’s going to be staying in the spare room here for a few days. He won’t be no trouble.’

Vi reached under the table and squeezed Craig’s thigh. God he was sexy. ‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ she purred at him. ‘The hotel was lovely, and this restaurant is just beautiful.’

‘I’m glad.’

And that Scottish accent! It made Vi’s toes curl.

‘I’ve been thinking about moving down south.’

‘Have you?’ Vi’s mind started whirring. ‘Any reason?’

‘Most of my business is down here now, so why not?’

She considered her words carefully. ‘How about your family? Won’t you miss them?’

Craig clicked his tongue at her. ‘Very subtle, Vi.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘My wife, who I believe you are referring to, has decided that what she wants from life is a house in the country – somewhere full of children, dogs and home-cooking – and a husband who never leaves her side. I’m afraid it’s not how I see myself.’

‘So …’

‘So she’s found someone who does.’

‘See himself in the country, with …’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well.’ Vi fiddled with her wine glass. ‘Fancy that.’

‘And you know I enjoy your company.’

‘Thank you, Craig,’ she breathed, thrusting her bosom across the table at him. ‘And I enjoy yours.’ Where was all this leading?

‘You’re so uncomplicated.’

That didn’t sound so good. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes. And I’d like to think we’ll be spending more time together.’

This was better. ‘So would I.’

‘But—’

Definitely not good. ‘There’s a but?’ There’s always a but.

‘I don’t want you seeing anyone else.’

Vi lit up as if someone had put a shilling in her meter. ‘Craig, you are so sweet.’

‘Not really. I just don’t fancy getting the clap. And if I’m going to be seeing more of you, I don’t want to push my luck.’

Rather than being put out by such bluntness, Vi simply nodded. ‘Right, fair enough, Craig. You’re on. And there’s no time like the present, as they say. So I’m going to let you order me a glass of brandy to have with my coffee, while I go to make a phone call.’

Rather than using the restaurant phone – she wasn’t keen on being within earshot of Craig as she wasn’t sure how the call was going to go – Vi dashed out of the restaurant and ducked into the greasy spoon along the road, which had a payphone hanging on the grimy, tiled wall by the serving hatch.

She dialled the number of the shop, knowing that Sam would be cashing up for the night, standing there in his overalls, hoping that she might pay him an unexpected evening visit to give him the only thrill he had to look forward to in life.

The phone began ringing.

This really couldn’t have come at a better time. She was past letting a bloke she didn’t fancy have it away with her on a grotty sofa in a box-filled store-room, just for the sake of a steak dinner and a few gin and tonics. Even if he had been good to her.

God, what a terrible thought. She had been going with someone because he was
good to her
. Not because he was handsome, or exciting, or just because he was a bloody good lay like Craig. But because he was
good to her
. Christ, that made her feel old.

The connection was made. ‘Hello. Sam Clarke here.’

‘Sammy, it’s me.’ The sob Vi managed to catch in her voice, made her sound pitiful – overcome with emotion. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Violet. My dear. Whatever is it?’

‘Sam, it’s … I … I don’t think I can see you any more. My conscience won’t let me.’

‘But I’ve told you,’ Sam sounded desperate, ‘I’ll leave her. You’ve only got to say the word and—’

‘No. I can’t do this to you, Sam. Or to Cissie. It’s going to break my heart, but this is goodbye.’

With that, Vi slammed down the receiver, gave the grubby-looking man serving in the café a wink of thanks for the use of his phone – he had stumped up the sixpence when, surprise, she had not had the right change – and hurried back along the street to her coffee and brandy, thinking about what she and Craig could get up to in his big hotel bed by way of celebration.

*

No more than a few stairs up from the greasy spoon, Christina, the overripe tom, sat on her bed staring forlornly out of the window.

‘Look at them,’ she muttered spitefully, her dark lipstick bleeding into the spider-web cracks around her dry, thin lips. ‘Bloody kids. No more than twenty years of age, most of them.’

She watched as they queued in the street below, in a long, winding snake, laughing and joking, waiting to get in to the Canvas Club.

Discothèques. What use were they to her? She blamed the likes of David Fuller. Why couldn’t he stick to the businesses he had always been in? The snooker halls, the spielers, the strip shows, the clip joints, the all-day private drinking clubs. They made sense to Christina. They brought in decent trade, the genuine punters with a few quid to put in her direction, not kids rushing to spend every penny they had on pills and all that other crap they took.

Christina and her friend Marie had been talking about it all that very afternoon, after Christina had told her about what she saw happen outside the Canvas last night.

Marie had agreed with her, of course: it was a disgrace what was happening in Soho. The place was going downhill fast. And the working girls were losing money because of it. But then so were the likes of Dave Fuller, in the long run, because brasses like her and Christina wouldn’t be able to find his bloody rent for him, would they? Then what would they all do? It didn’t make sense to Marie. None of it.

As Christina remembered their increasingly agitated conversation, an idea slowly formed in her drink-sozzled brain. Maybe Dave Fuller could earn her a few bob after all. Maybe if she told someone other than
Marie
about what she had seen outside the Canvas …

Despite the warm evening, Christina pulled on her astrakhan swagger coat – she couldn’t seem to get warm lately, it was as if her bones themselves were frozen – and tottered down the rickety stairway to the payphone in the greasy spoon downstairs.

‘Mr Jameson,’ she said, shielding the mouthpiece with her hand, ‘it’s gonna cost, mind, but I think I might have a bit of information that might interest you.’

DORIS BARKER FOLDED
her arms as far as they would reach across her substantial shelf of a bosom, and moved back – just a little – to let the man into her flat.

‘Not so quick,’ she said to him, blocking the hallway. ‘In the kitchen, if you don’t mind. The front room’s kept for best.’

The man did as he was told. He knew full well the other rooms in the flat would be full of knocked-off gear, but he wasn’t interested in the old bat’s fencing, not this morning he wasn’t. He could pop round another day to sort all that out, or he might just file the thought away and fetch it out when he needed to. Storing useful information was, after all, a mainstay of Detective Constable Jameson’s policing methods.

‘And you are?’ Jameson asked a middle-aged woman, who was sitting on a high stool at the breakfast bar, in the tidy, spotlessly clean kitchen. He knew very well who she was, but he liked to play his hand carefully.

‘This is Mrs Pearson. My neighbour.’ Doris waved at a chair, indicating he could sit at the little fold-down table.

‘Pearson? That would be Sarah Pearson, would it?’

Doris and Sarah flashed a look at one another.

‘That’s right,’ said Doris, speaking for her stunned-looking friend.

‘I thought so.’

‘At the door, you said you were based up the West End,’ Doris went on.

‘I am.’

‘So what are you doing round here then? Wasting our Monday morning. You might not have anything better to do, young man, but me and Mrs Pearson have got washing and ironing to get done. Laundry don’t do itself, you know.’

Jameson looked cynically at the two mugs of tea and the plate of biscuits that the women had obviously been enjoying before he arrived. ‘I can see for myself how busy you are, ladies. We learn to sniff out those sorts of clues during basic training.’

Doris bristled. ‘If you’re going to get sarcastic …’

‘My apologies, Mrs Barker.’ His tone was as arrogant as his sneering expression. ‘But I’m here to follow up a lead.’

Doris narrowed her eyes. ‘Down from the West End? And by yourself? That’s not very usual, is it? Not that I’d know very much about police comings and goings, of course.’

Jameson allowed himself the pleasure of a mocking smile. ‘Let’s call this a courtesy visit. I tell you a few things, and you – I hope – tell me a few.’ He studied his fastidiously clean nails, before concluding smugly: ‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’

Doris went over to the stove, looked over her shoulder at the police officer, and lifted up the kettle by way of a question. She didn’t like this one little bit, but she had to keep steady. Not do or say anything silly.

‘Thank you, Mrs Barker,’ Jameson said very formally. ‘Two and a half sugars, not too strong, and just a splash of milk. And I prefer a cup and saucer to a mug, if you don’t mind.’