Rough Justice (13 page)

Stephen walked into the Hope and Anchor, completely ignoring Sylvia who was busy serving the lunchtime rush, and made his way to the back of the pub where Bernie was leaning, studying the newspaper he had spread out on the bar in front of him.

‘All right, Bernard?’

‘Not so shabby.’ Bernie winked at Stephen, closed his newspaper and nodded towards the corner table, which the regulars knew was for the landlord’s exclusive use. ‘Stephen, would you care to join me in my office?’

Sylvia watched as they sat down, and Stephen, with his back carefully set towards her, handed a canvas bag to her husband, which Bernie then secreted in the folds of his newspaper. They exchanged a few words and Bernie turned his head towards the bar. Sylvia hurriedly looked away.

‘Couple of light and bitters over here, Sylv,’ Bernie called across to her.

Sylvia filled the glasses and took them over to the corner table.

‘Hello Stephen, how’re things doing down the market?’

‘Good.’

‘Glad to hear it. And how about Nell, how’s she?’

Stephen took a sip of his drink, giving himself a moment to think. The last thing he wanted was this nosy cow sticking her beak in and threatening to cause any friction or unpleasantness between him and Bernie. ‘Not too well as it happens. But thanks for asking.’

Sylvia frowned. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Just a bit under the weather. I told her to go back to bed,’ he lied.

‘Give her my love, won’t you,’ said Sylvia, glancing at the bulging newspaper. ‘And tell her to pop in and see me when she’s feeling better.’

‘Course I will.’

Bernie jerked his thumb towards the bar. ‘There’s people waiting to be served over there, Sylv.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said with a mocking curtsey, and planted a lipsticky kiss on his bald head.

Surely Bernie must have realised by now that she’d known what he was up to practically from the day she’d started working in the pub as a barmaid – never mind the things she’d found out about him since they’d been married – and lately Stephen’s involvement in matters had become too obvious to ignore. That’s why Bernie was so irritable whenever Nell was around. He knew she wasn’t like Sylvia. She was so naive Bernie was
scared she would open her mouth all innocently and ruin everything.

It was a good job Sylvia loved the daft old sod – and, she had to admit, all the fancy trimmings his dodgy dealings brought her – or who knows what mischief she could have caused him. She smiled at the line of customers.

‘Right chaps, who’s next then?’

As she looked at the men standing before her, she wondered what sort of secrets they were hiding from their wives – everyone said women were the last to know what their husbands were up to. But Sylvia wasn’t like most women, and neither did she have any qualms about sticking up for a friend if she thought she was in trouble. Maybe this afternoon, once they’d closed, she might cheer up Nell by taking her one of the sugary doughnuts from the baker’s next door to the pub. She used to love them, especially when the jam squelched out from the doughy middle. She smiled to herself as she remembered the two of them laughing until their sides ached when they had competitions to see who could eat a whole one of the sugar-covered things without licking their lips.

Now barely smiling, Sylvia’s eyes stung as she blinked back the tears, missing Nell, missing her so very much, and feeling so very sorry that she had let her friend get involved with Stephen Flanagan.

Sylvia had hardly an ounce of spare flesh on her tiny frame, but she wasn’t used to climbing so many stairs on a regular basis, and by the time she’d got to the Flanagans’ flat on the top floor of Turnbury Buildings she was puffing like a steam train.

She took a moment to catch her breath, hand leaning against the wall, head bowed, before she knocked on the door, but she’d wasted her time. No one answered.

‘Bugger, Nell must be asleep. Have I really done all them rotten stairs for flipping nothing?’

‘What did you say?’

Sylvia turned round to see Ada Tanner, arms folded, looking her up and down as if she’d never seen the like before.

‘Nothing to concern you; just talking to myself.’

Ada pointed at the paper baker’s bag in Sylvia’s hand. ‘So what you got in there then?’

‘A tube of nose ointment.’ Sylvia held out the bag. ‘Here, do you want a dab? Cos that nose of yours must be right sore from sticking it in other people’s business all the time.’

‘That’s a nice way to talk to a woman old enough to be your mother.’

‘Grandmother more like,’ muttered Sylvia.

‘What did you say?’

Sylvia mocked up a smile. ‘I said – have you got a pencil I can borrow, please?’

‘What for?’

Sylvia was about to say
To stick up your arse, you
nosy old cow
, but she needed a pencil. ‘I thought I’d leave a note for Nell. Let her know I came round to see her.’

Ada narrowed her eyes. ‘You wait there and I’ll fetch the one my Albert uses.’ She hesitated. ‘I said wait. Get me?’

‘Thank you,’ said Sylvia, who had absolutely no intention of going anywhere near the horrible old woman’s front room. It was probably full of broomsticks and black cats, and her Albert probably used the pencil to write down her spells for her.

Sylvia tore off a bit of the baker’s bag and just stopped herself from licking the end of the pencil – goodness only knew where it had been or what it had really been used for – and then she wrote:

Dear Nell, sorry I missed seeing you, darling. Hope you had a good sleep and that you’ll be feeling better soon. Come and see me when you do. Love from your friend, Sylvia.

She put the note in the bag, rolled the top over and set about shoving it through the letter box. It took a bit of squashing, but she managed.

‘That’ll be nice for her to come home to,’ said Ada, taking back the pencil.

Sylvia’s pleasantly surprised smile at what she first thought were Ada’s kind words didn’t last long when it quickly dawned on her what the woman actually meant – she was saying that Nell wasn’t at home. But she had to be wrong; Nell was poorly – in bed asleep, getting better.

While Sylvia’s mind churned over these confusing thoughts, Ada was warming to her subject.

‘You know what’ll happen, don’t you? She’ll be bound to step on it and then she’ll get jam all over the hall runner, and then she’ll have to get down on her hands and knees and scrub off all the mess.’

‘I think you’re wrong there, because if you must know, the poor girl’s in there in bed. She’s not well.’

‘If you say so, but I reckon I know better. I’m telling you, that girl was in the shop.’ Ada didn’t give Sylvia the chance to reply, she just shut the door firmly in her face.

Sylvia didn’t know what to think any more, and as she made her way down the stairs – so much easier than climbing the buggers – she was even more concerned for her friend.

It was only a pity that she didn’t notice Nell, with her hand covering her bruised and swollen face, as she pressed herself flat against the wall in the shadows by the rubbish chute, the place where she’d been hiding ever since she’d heard Sylvia’s voice and had been too ashamed to show herself. Not only ashamed, but too scared to show herself to her dearest friend in the whole world for fear of what she might do.

As she heard Sylvia’s footsteps echoing and fading away down the stairs, Nell thought about her precious brooch hidden under the pile of handkerchiefs in the bedside cabinet, and wondered how she could make sure that if something
really bad happened to her it would become Sylvia’s. Because, the way she felt now, Nell honestly wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to be able to last in this world.

‘Get that boy away from me, or you’ll both be sorry.’ Stephen was threatening Nell but concentrating on his food.

‘But I only want the leftover bits.’

Nell raised her eyebrows and shook her head urgently at her now almost eight-year-old Tommy as he hovered around the table, staring at the thick glossy brown rind that Stephen had cut off a fat slice of gammon, which almost filled his plate.

Tommy’s mouth watered as he twiddled his thick dark fringe around his finger. He
loved
the smell of fried bacon.

‘Tommy, don’t bother your dad while he’s having his tea, there’s a good boy. I know, why don’t you go down and play in the courtyard? Go on. And why don’t you take Dolly down there with you?’

Dolly – Nell and Stephen’s six-year-old, the blonde curly-haired image of her mother – was hanging on Nell’s apron as Nell stood at the sink washing up the pots and pans. Dolly stared at her father’s back, her thumb plugged in her mouth.

Nell turned to look out of the window. ‘It’s
lovely out there. I bet the kids’ll all be playing Olympics again. Go on. Go and join in.’

‘That was last week,’ said Tommy, taking a last lingering look at his father’s bacon, but, as usual, he did as his mother told him, judging – correctly – from the tone of her voice that she wasn’t actually asking him if he fancied going down to play, she was most definitely telling him to make himself scarce.

‘Well, whatever they’re up to, they’ll all be out in this lovely sunshine.’ Nell ruffled her children’s hair, and shooed them out of the door with a smile. ‘And Tommy, make sure you keep hold of Dolly’s hand when you’re going down the stairs,’ she called. ‘You know how steep they are for her.’

She turned her attention back to the sink. Cooking and clearing up after everyone took more hours than there seemed to be in the day lately. It wouldn’t be so bad if Lily and George would just wait an hour or so to eat until the little ones came in for their tea. But that would be too easy, too kind for those two even to think of doing. Oh no, they had to have their meal waiting for them ready to be put on the table as soon as they got back from the market, and if that was just after three, then it was Nell’s bad luck.

The twins might have reached twenty-eight years of age but they were still showing no sign of leaving home, or of even going out with anyone on any sort of regular basis. Whether there would ever be anyone stupid enough to have a long-term
interest in either of the spiteful pair was anybody’s guess. Nell certainly couldn’t think of anyone. There had been one or two that she had found out about over the years – involving maybe a couple of evening trips to the pictures, or a few visits to the pub – with various young women and young men whom the twins had met down the market, but nothing had ever come to much, or had ever lasted beyond that. But why would it? No one in their right mind would be prepared to put up with their tempers or their selfishness. No one but Nell, and that was only because she had little choice in the matter, especially now she had her beloved children and wouldn’t jeopardise their security by upsetting the twins – this, however much she hated it, was Tommy and Dolly’s home. She would just have to put up with Lily and George, and Stephen. She thought, as she often did, about Joe and Martin Lovell, and how they did so many little things for Mary – carrying her bags up the stairs, taking the rubbish out to the chute, calling out to her over the balcony to make sure she was OK when she was down in the courtyard. And, as usual, she felt ashamed that she was jealous of a woman just because she had the good fortune to be living with two such kind men.

But at least Nell didn’t have to eat with the twins as she had been forced to when she had first moved into Turnbury Buildings. Since having the children, she had sat down at the table each afternoon to have her tea with Tommy and Dolly,
who, so long as Lily and George weren’t hanging around in the kitchen, would chatter away happily, telling their mum about all the things they’d done while they’d been out playing or at school that day. Nell was so proud that she could help them with their numbers and letters – the home had given her those skills and a roof over her head, if not very much else.

Then Stephen would arrive home expecting his meal, and sit and eat in silence just as he was doing now. It was the time of day she had learned to fear in a way that she would never have thought possible before the children had come along, as anything they did or said was capable of incensing him.

She flinched as Stephen took a loud slurp of tea and then belched loudly without so much as an excuse me, the sounds jolting her back to the present and the dirty pan in her hands. She could only imagine what Matron Sully would have thought of him and his crude ways, but, more importantly, she wondered how long he would be hanging around the kitchen.

Nell no longer bothered herself with the mystery of what Stephen got up to all day while the twins were running the stalls, or that he spent most evenings at the Hope, she was just glad when he wasn’t there. In the meantime, she carried on keeping the flat looking nice, cooking, cleaning, and being his and the twins’ skivvy; and – except when he had more drink in him than usual – he seemed, thank goodness, to have lost
interest in her. Maybe he’d found someone else who was willing to put up with him, and that was where he spent his days. Wherever he went, Nell just wished he’d spend even more time there, because what else had changed over the years was that she had become increasingly frightened of him losing his temper. She wasn’t scared for herself – she had learned to put up with that; being attacked by Stephen and abused by the twins had become her way of life, just as it had been in the home with the matron. What really terrified her was that Stephen might one day direct his anger at her children.

Nell snatched a quick look at him as he sprinkled more vinegar over the last of his bacon.

OK, for now he kept his beatings for her, but she had to be so careful with the little ones, making sure that they didn’t upset him and start him off on one of his rages. But if he did one day decide to turn on them, if he laid just one finger on either of them, then she’d . . .

What? What would she do? She could never think beyond the horror of them being hurt.

His power over her was a weapon that hung in the air between them, one that Stephen used as a silent, forbidding threat if Nell didn’t do exactly as he wanted, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he might actually be capable of, what he might do to the children. Yet in spite of her fears for Tommy and Dolly, she still felt herself completely blessed to have them. The children were the loves of her life, her very own family.
When the nurse had first put Tommy into her arms in the lying-in hospital she had been overwhelmed – it had been the first time she had ever knowingly held someone who shared her own blood. If she could only find a way for them to have a home of their own, just the three of them, with a little bedroom each instead of the children having to sleep in the front room, she would have had perfect happiness. But she knew she shouldn’t be greedy. She was so lucky in other ways. She hadn’t realised until she had the children what it was to feel such total love for another human being.