Two Women (29 page)

He seemed uneasy and this bothered Barry. It was unusual to see Joey worried like this.

‘Come on, have a few drinks and forget it, eh? Think about it tomorrow.’

Joey picked up his empty glass, his expression angry and defeated.

‘I hate that cunt for putting me in this position. If you’d seen him, Bal, a great big gorilla standing beside him, another one in his car - I felt a right fucking greebo. But I’ll have me day with him, you see if I don’t.’

Barry knew he had to say something to bring Joey back down.

‘As I was standing there, right, he was laughing at me, really laughing, and there was nothing I could do. I tell you, Bal, it’s a good job I weren’t tooled up. I’d have shot the ponce right through the fucking head.’

Barry could see his point. Being mugged off in their chosen profession was like the Queen being asked if she could provide a quick blow-job.

It was especially galling from someone like Georgie Derby, a big aggressive man with a mouth that could cut through steel and a vindictive manner to match. He was a hard man to press for money at the best of times, but a job in the debts game would make him even more of an arsehole than he already was.

Getting up, Joey picked up his empty glass and sighed heavily.

‘Let’s have another drink. Christ knows, I could do with one.’

As they walked towards the bar Barry was trying to think of something to say that would make Joey feel better.

‘By the way, Bal, how’s the baby? Still screaming the fucking place down?’

Everyone laughed and Freddie shouted out, ‘Ain’t you heard? He’s got healing fucking hands.’

Everyone cracked up laughing. Glad as Barry was for the light relief he still felt an urge to give Freddie a dig. After all, he was taking the piss. But he let it go. He started to tell Joey all about Wendy and how she’d stopped screaming as soon as he held her. How he had told Susan not to spoil the child with constant picking up.

‘At the end of the day, Joey, kids are like women. They have to know who’s in charge, same as birds do. It makes them feel safe like. I mean, you can’t have the old woman doing what she wants, can you?’

Joey laughed wearily and turned to his cronies at the bar before answering.

‘You tell that to June. The last time she did as she was told was by the clap doctor up the Old London.’

Everyone laughed right on cue and Barry, realising he had made a faux-pas, laughed sheepishly.

‘Well, June’s in a league of her own, ain’t she?’

Joey nodded sagely.

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘Let’s order some food and get some serious drinking in, eh? It’s still only half-one and we have the whole day ahead of us.’

Joey nodded but was still preoccupied and everyone noticed. He was belligerent by three o’clock and in a murderous rage by four-thirty. Georgie Derby had upset him more than he’d realised, but Barry knew the score and wound Joey up accordingly. As far as he was concerned, if they wiped Derby out they would publicly prove a point.

The point being that anyone mad enough to take them on would be obliterated, no matter who they were or worked for.

Susan’s eye was sore and she knew it should have been stitched. Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt depressed. In the nude she looked awful. Her face, never her best point, looked grotesque, her swollen eye and brow almost comical. The bruising coming out all over made her look even plainer than she was.

‘Sod you, Barry Dalston,’ she said into the empty room.

The bedroom was lovely. Susan had spent a lot of time on it, imagining Barry and herself wrapped in each other’s arms loving one another in the bed or playing with the kids in there on Sunday mornings.

‘You read too many books and didn’t think things through.’

She had taken to talking to herself. It eased the unhappiness inside. Wendy was lying on the bed gurgling away happily.

‘You talking to yourself and all, girl?’

She peered down at the child and received an answering gurgle of pleasure. Susan adored the baby, absolutely adored her.

As usual when she approached Wendy she felt the rush of milk. Barry and his bottle-feeding . . . she smiled as she thought about it.

Lifting Wendy, she placed her gently on the breast, feeling the softness of her lips as she sought her food, then the clamping down of her gums on the sore nipple. Susan held her gently, letting her feed in her own time, giving her downy head caresses, kissing the little fingers and feet.

Satisfied with her treatment, Wendy relaxed into her mother’s billowing softness, reassured by the familiar smells and tastes, the enveloping love that accompanied her feeds all part of the process.

Susan sang to her softly, crooning gently as the child drank and gradually relaxed against her mother’s body.

As Susan was kissing her and debating whether to change her nappy or leave her to sleep, she heard Barry come rolling in. He slammed the kitchen door, stamped up the stairs and was in the doorway before she could move.

He stared at them both for a few seconds. His eyes were like slits in his face so great was his anger.

‘I waited for you, Bal, but I had to give her her feed, she was hungry.’

He stared once more, not saying a word.

Getting up, Susan placed the baby in the Moses basket by the bed. Straightening up, she turned to face her husband.

‘You do it deliberately, don’t you? I tell you to do something and you never fucking listen.’

His voice was angry but resigned, as if he’d known exactly what he would find when he came home.

‘I left work to come and feed my daughter, but you had to fucking do it, didn’t you? You couldn’t wait a second . . .’

‘Barry, for fuck’s sake, it’s two in the morning. You’ve been out since eight-thirty yesterday. What was I supposed to do - let her starve?’

The words were out but they were said in an apologetic tone.

He looked her over.

‘Look at you, Sue, you’re like a fucking great cow, all udders and stretch marks. You think I want to come home to that, do you? A big, fat, smelly, fucking hag like you. You think I look forward to coming home here? Well, I don’t. The thought of you makes me puke.’

Susan closed her eyes in distress. Wendy was crying again, building up to her big crescendo. Susan automatically began to bend down towards the basket on the floor.

‘Leave the baby alone. She’s fucking spoiled enough as it is.’

Susan straightened and beseeched him with her eyes.

‘Don’t start, Bal, please. Not tonight, mate.’

He looked her over, his gaze staying on her belly and breasts. The breasts he had loved so much. She felt the milk trickling from being close to the child once more, felt it rushing in again, the heat and the uncomfortable sensation of knowing she was in for more trouble because of it.

‘Christ, Sue, but you’re an ugly bitch and no mistake.’

She looked down at the screaming baby and Barry slapped her hard across the face, an open-palmed slap that was even noisier than the baby’s screaming. Walking over to her, he forced her face down on the bed. Shoving a pillow underneath her belly, he knelt behind her.

‘I can’t look at your boatrace or I’d lose the fucking horn.’ He pulled out his penis, already swollen and rigid. Thrusting it inside her, he heard her grunt.

‘Go on then, you fucking fat pig. Grunt away, you cunt.’

He was riding her hard now. She could feel his fingers digging into her buttocks and felt the thrusts as if they were knife wounds. Turning her face to the side she saw their reflection in the mirror of the dressing table, Barry with his trousers and shirt still on, his face a red ball of concentration as he pumped away. Her breasts were hanging down by the pillow, still heavy with milk. She could feel it leaking out.

Barry was talking, his words ragged now as he neared his climax. She felt the rhythm change and sighed with relief. The child was reaching a screaming pitch so loud as to be deafening. Susan wanted to kill him so she could comfort her baby in peace.

Barry was shouting above the noise as he rode her, voice deep with emotion and hatred.

‘You’re a fat, ugly whore and you should think yourself lucky I married you, girl. Who else would have you, eh? Who else would give you children?’

He was pulling on her hair now, dragging her head backwards and hurting her even more.

‘You’re like me mother. Think your shit doesn’t stink, you do. Well, you stink all right, you stink, you’re a fucking . . .’

He was coming; she felt his body shudder, felt him relax his hold on her hair, thanked God it was all over.

She rolled away from him, her body aching and tired. Wendy was still crying and automatically she went to pick her up, thinking that now he had had what he wanted he would leave her alone.

She was wrong.

The blows were heavy at first but nothing Susan couldn’t handle. She was sitting on the side of the bed, her hands over her face, trying to deflect the worst of them. Barry’s fists were clenched until he was all white knuckles and gritted teeth, his handsome face stretched into a horrific mask of disgust. This more than anything made Susan frightened.

He had reached the point where he didn’t care anymore. Anyone could be hurt now, even the child.

She ran into the smaller bedroom and crouched down by Wendy’s cot, covering herself as best she could with her arms. He kicked her, punched and abused her until he was tired and Susan was a bloody crumpled mess. Finally the anger left him and Wendy’s cries penetrated his rage. He could hear a banging noise and thought for a split second that the sound was coming from Susan, that she was banging her feet on the floor.

Then he realised it was coming from the back door. His mind registered that fact and he relaxed. If it was Old Bill they would have come to the front.

He looked down at his young wife. She was in a mess, he realised. Going to the window of his own bedroom he looked out and cursed softly under his breath. It was Doreen, in her nightie and holding a large frying pan.

‘I know you’re in there, you bastard. Leave that girl alone and come out here now. I’ll fucking fight you, you gutless ponce!’

Wendy’s cries were echoing in his head. As he walked past the baby basket he felt an urge to kick it, kick it across the room and down the stairs and finally shut the little fucker up.

Instead he pushed it hard with his foot, making it slide about two feet. Wendy was not impressed. She cried harder and louder.

Doreen was screaming now at the top of her voice.

‘You give me that baby, you bastard. I can hear her. Where’s Susan? What you done to her? I’ve phoned Old Bill, mate, they’ll be here in no time.’

He went back to Susan. She was still on the floor and he saw for the first time that she wasn’t moving. Suddenly fear crept into him. He thought for a moment he had killed her.

He ran down the stairs and opened the back door. Pushing Doreen out of the way he rushed out into the night, Doreen’s voice following him as he ran down the alley at the back of the houses. Fear lent his feet wings.

He saw that lights were on in all the houses and cursed Doreen for waking everyone up. It never occurred to him that it might have been him who’d woken them all. Him shouting, the baby screaming, and it was all Susan’s fault.

Doreen rushed into the bedroom and picked up Wendy. She checked the child over gently as she tried to calm her. Sue’s bedroom was next to her own so she’d heard everything as clearly as if she was in the room. She knew what had happened and was frightened for her friend. Once she had sorted out the child and calmed her she went to look for Susan.

When Doreen saw her on the floor, her face unrecognisable and blood sprayed all over the child’s cot and the walls, she felt a moment’s hatred so intense she was glad Barry had gone. She did not know what she might have been capable of doing to him at that moment.

Susan was conscious but obviously concussed. She was trying to grope her way to the wall to lever herself to her feet. She was covered in blood, some of it rust-coloured where it had dried, other cuts still bleeding.

‘Oh, Susan, Susan love. What’s he done this time?’

Doreen’s voice was shocked.

Placing the baby on the floor by the door, she attempted to get Susan up, help her through to the bedroom, get her lying down on something soft. It took her what seemed like hours. Susan couldn’t co-ordinate her movements; she was walking as if she was wearing astronaut’s boots, lead-lined and heavy as a car.

Doreen picked up a now quiet Wendy. She put her in the basket by the bed then glanced fearfully back at her friend. Susan’s body was one big bruise, from her face down to her feet. Doreen knew she needed a doctor, needed hospital treatment. She wished she had phoned the police now. They would have got help, maybe stopped the worst of the beating by arriving.

But that inbred East End rule had stopped her. You don’t call Old Bill in for
anything
. It just isn’t done. People sorted things out for themselves. Though how Susan was to sort this out she had no idea.

Going to the phone, Doreen picked it up and rang Kate and then June, though why she bothered with her she didn’t know. But she felt that, seeing her daughter, June might just feel pity enough to get Joey to sort Barry out. Though Doreen did not hold out much hope.

Then she phoned a moody doctor from her days on the game. He was there within the hour.

 

Barry had stolen a car. It was a flash one, a pale blue Zephyr with a radio and an eight-track cassette. He drove around for a while, listening to Elvis singing ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ and feeling sorry for himself.

Then he had an idea. He stopped at a phone box and rang Joey. The phone was answered immediately.

‘What you done to my Susan now?’