East End Angel
Kay Brellend

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014

Copyright © Kay Brellend 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Cover photographs © Colin Thomas (woman); Culver Pictures/Superstock (girl); Topfoto (children).

Kay Brellend asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007464197

Ebook Edition © February 2014 ISBN: 9780007464203

Version: 2015-07-10

For Mum and Dad, with everlasting love and gratitude for your hard work and sacrifice.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

Q&A with the Author, Kay Brellend

Read on for an extract from The Street

Keep Reading – The Windmill Girls

About the Author

Also by Kay Brellend

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE
February 1936

‘Have you killed her?’

‘Don’t care if I have,’ the big man growled. ‘The slag deserves to be six feet under for what she’s done.’

‘What could she have done to deserve this?’ the young woman bellowed.

Kathy Finch weighed seven and a half stone and stood five foot three in her shoes, but she was trying to wrestle the brute away from the prone bloodied body of his young wife. He swatted her aside as easily as he would an irritating moth.

Kathy regained her breath and balance, then launched herself at the stevedore again. This time when she grabbed his hairy forearm he allowed her to pull him back, having delivered a final lazy stamp to the figure on the floor.

Ruby Potter had curled into a foetal position in a vain attempt to protect herself and her unborn baby from her husband’s boots. But whereas moments ago she had been gamely fighting back – punching and slapping at his thick shins – now she was motionless, her face fallen away to the wall.

Satisfied with the punishment he’d inflicted, Charlie Potter sauntered off to get his donkey jacket from a filthy armchair. The child sitting on it barely flinched as the coat was whipped from under her.

‘I think you know right enough what she’s done, miss,’ Charlie finally answered Kathy. ‘Don’t come the innocent with me. Ruby talks to you about all sorts of stuff. I’ve heard her.’

‘She talks to me ’cos I’m her midwife!’ Kathy yelled. She’d dropped down beside Ruby and was feeling her limp wrist for a pulse. She swivelled on her knees, aware that at any time the vicious bastard could again let loose his temper and she might be on the receiving end. She felt ire well up inside. She’d go down fighting, like Ruby had.

She’d no idea what had led up to this beating, having arrived after it had started. At the sound of the blood-curdling commotion, she had raced down the passageway and burst into the room, but by then her patient was already on her knees. The punch she’d seen Charlie deliver had looked savage enough to fell a horse. It had certainly put Ruby out like a light.

Kathy’s eyes slewed to the chalk-faced child sucking her thumb and watching everything with unblinking intensity. She knew she herself was relatively safe, but a maniac such as Potter, who believed his family were his chattels to do with as he liked, wouldn’t think twice about laying into his small daughter if he thought she was being insolent.

‘You’d better get out of here! I’m warning you … I’m calling for an ambulance and then I’m getting the police.’ Kathy’s fear was subdued by fury.

Charlie Potter swooped on Kathy, pinching her chin between his calloused fingers. Her neck strained as he hauled her up using just those remorseless digits until she was on her feet and gritting her teeth in agony. When standing in front of him she tried to jerk back from his leery gaze but the pain increased so she settled for despising him with china-blue eyes.

‘If she’s a goner, I’ve got friends who’ll say I was with them. I’ve got other friends who’ll turn things bad fer you.’ He patted her cap and gave her a tobacco-stained grin, making her recoil from his stinking breath. ‘Just ’cos you’re friendly with the coppers don’t mean nuthin’. My friends have got mates in the constabulary ’n’ all, if you get my drift. So you think on, miss. You’ve been about long enough now to know how we do things round here.’ His crafty eyes slipped over her slender figure beneath her gabardine mac. ‘We don’t need you comin’ round, interfering. I’ve told you that before. Ruby’s got all the help she needs with friends ’n’ family.’

‘Leave her be!’ The weak command came from behind and Kathy spun around so quickly and violently that Charlie’s fingernails scored her skin.

‘Are you all right?’ Kathy crouched, her roving hand immediately testing Ruby Potter’s distended belly. A tiny undulation beneath her fingertips made her whisper a relieved prayer. She turned to glare at the thug behind. There was no flicker of remorse or thankfulness at this sign that his beating hadn’t proved fatal. He simply scowled, pointing a menacing finger at his battered wife that promised more was to come. A moment later, he swaggered out of the room.

‘Help me up, will you, Miss Finch?’ Ruby asked wearily once she’d heard the front door crash shut.

‘You stay there. I’m just going out to call an ambulance for you, Mrs Potter,’ Kathy blurted.

‘No! Don’t do that. It’ll just make things worse if busybodies get to hear what’s gone on.’

‘But … your face needs stitching,’ Kathy said gently, not wanting to upset the woman. The gash on her cheek was sure to leave a nasty scar if left unattended. Ruby looked a dreadful state, and the shame of it was that she’d probably been quite a pretty woman in her time. Kathy glanced at her patient’s tangled dark brown hair and pallid complexion. From Ruby Potter’s medical notes, Kathy had gleaned that the woman was only six years older than herself. Had she not read her age as twenty-six she’d have guessed her to be in her mid-thirties.

The child jumped down from her seat now she knew the coast was clear. As Kathy gripped under Ruby’s arms and strained to lift her, little Pansy shoved her mother on the posterior, trying to do her bit to help.

There was an iron bed set against one wall and, settling Ruby on the edge of the grimy mattress, Kathy gently tilted her chin to get a better look at the damage Charlie had inflicted. ‘You should get yourself seen to at the hospital,’ she urged.

‘Can’t you do it, miss?’ Ruby pleaded.

‘I can’t stitch you up.’ Kathy had guessed that might come. She was a qualified nurse, but had not been trained to close wounds.

Kathy did her rounds in this poverty-riddled quarter of London, where slum conditions and rough people made the job unpredictable. But she was determined to continue in her vocation, no matter how unpleasant it was at times. For every vile brute like Charlie Potter there were twice as many salts of the earth around Whitechapel who were terribly grateful for the work she did.

‘Don’t care how it looks. Just don’t want no germs getting in. I’d be grateful if you’d do what you can.’ Ruby attempted a smile but it simply made blood leak again from the corner of her mouth. ‘Don’t want to get you into no trouble, of course, Nurse Finch,’ she mumbled, lifting a corner of her pinafore to dab her face.

Kathy shook her head to herself, delving into her nurse’s bag to find something with which to clean up her patient. ‘I don’t carry any equipment for stitches … sorry …’ Kathy knew if she did she’d probably flout rules and risk her job for Ruby Potter’s sake. As she looked at the pathetic spectacle sitting with hunched shoulders on the bed, she felt tempted to run after Charlie Potter and let fly with her fists, even though she knew it would make her no better than he.

‘Make Nurse a cup of tea, Pansy.’ Ruby’s fat lips made the words sound slurred, as did the muffling edge of the pinafore she was again pressing to her face to stanch the bleeding.

The little girl shook the dented kettle and, satisfied it had water in it, set it on the hob grate, then squatted down in front of the fire to wait for it to boil.

‘Probably got no bloody milk. Suppose that selfish git’s used it all in his tea,’ Ruby muttered. ‘Christ, me head aches …’ She clutched at her forehead and closed her eyes.

Pansy jumped up and found a milk bottle. She swung it to and fro to let her mother see there was a little bit sploshing about at the bottom.

Kathy wetted some lint under the tap and dabbed it on Ruby’s face, rinsing and repeating the process. She drew from her bag a clean piece of wadding.

‘Suppose you’re wondering what set him off this time,’ Ruby mumbled.

‘Your husband seems to think I know all about it. He thinks you confide in me.’ Kathy’s clear blue gaze drifted from the split cheek she was tending to Ruby’s brown eyes.

‘He’s jealous.’

‘Even so, he has no right to beat you unconscious.’

‘He’s got a right to be jealous, though,’ Ruby replied sheepishly.

‘I know he has,’ Kathy sighed. Gossip was going around the neighbourhood that Ruby Potter was a shameless baggage. In Kathy’s opinion, the woman was a fool not to have run off with the other fellow rather than stick with a brute like Charlie. But young and single as Kathy was, she realised life wasn’t that simple for the likes of Ruby: the woman’s boyfriend was quite likely to be married too, possibly with a brood of children and no money and no job. Charlie Potter was considered one of the lucky ones to be working at the docks, and Kathy had heard him loudly impressing that on Ruby on previous occasions when she’d visited.

But Kathy couldn’t condemn Ruby for wanting a man – any man – to show her some love and tenderness.

‘All the men round here would’ve done the same,’ Ruby volunteered in her queer voice, breaking into Kathy’s brooding. ‘Sal Turpin got a fractured skull off her old man when he caught her with a fancy man. Ended in hospital, she did, and her kids got took away.’ She raised her eyes and gave Kathy a meaningful look.

‘There’s no excuse for any of them to act like savages,’ Kathy replied. ‘What are you waiting for, the pair of you? Pine boxes to leave in?’

‘Where shall I go with no money and three kids?’ Ruby grunted an astonished laugh. ‘Got one under me feet, one at school and one in me belly.’ She shook her head. ‘Ain’t that easy, Nurse Finch, fer the likes of us. You take it from me, ’cos you’ll never know, will you? Nice clever gel like you’ll have a doctor or someone posh like that walking you up the aisle.’

Kathy felt a flush warm her cheeks. Ruby was being either sarcastic or diplomatic. She liked the woman, so gave her the benefit of the doubt and decided Ruby probably didn’t want to accuse her of being a copper’s nark to her face, as some folk did. It had soon got around in the district that Nurse Finch was walking out with a local constable. And nobody liked him: it was David Goldstein’s job rather than his character or his Jewish roots they took exception to. East End working-class people roundly despised the police.

‘Go on, just do it … start on me cheek, if you like,’ Ruby suggested gamely.

Kathy continued working as gently as she could on Ruby’s face, wiping blood and pressing together edges of skin. She knew the woman was trying not to flinch. She knew too that Pansy had come closer to watch her tending to her mother. When Kathy allowed her eyes to dart quickly to the child, she noticed Pansy’s eyes were bright with curiosity rather than fright.

‘Got that tea made, Pansy?’ her mother asked, grimacing against the pain in her face. ‘Can hear the kettle steaming.’

The girl trotted off and splashed hot water onto tea leaves. She put milk into chipped cups a drop at a time so as not to waste any, just the way she’d been told.

‘Don’t forget to give it a good stir, Pansy. And don’t spill none in the saucer fer the nurse.’ The curt warning made the child turn large eyes on the adults.

‘She’s always very quiet,’ Kathy remarked without looking away from her delicate work of patching up Ruby.

‘She natters sometimes,’ Ruby said, flinching at the sting in her lip.

Kathy had done what she could and started packing away her things.

‘She keeps shtoom when strangers are around.’ Ruby gingerly touched her face, feeling for the damage. ‘Then when Peter gets in from school he never stops, so poor Pansy don’t get a word in edgeways, even if she wants to.’

‘When is she going to school?’

‘No rush …’ Ruby said, sounding defiant.

Kathy guessed that Pansy was already of an age to attend school. She was small and slight from under nourishment – as were most of the local children – but Kathy suspected she was over five years old. She bent to smile into Pansy’s face. ‘Is that my tea?’ Kathy tipped her cap at a chipped cup and saucer with an unappetisingly weak brew in it.

Pansy nodded.

‘Thank you.’

The little girl’s response to unwanted attention was to shuffle towards her mother and press against her.

‘If you lie down, Mrs Potter, I’ll listen to the baby’s heart before I go and make sure there’s nothing amiss.’

‘Ain’t no need, Miss Finch; I can tell you the little blighter’s strong as an ox. Lays into me almost as hard as its father does …’ Her words faded away.

Ruby knew for sure, even if Nurse Finch did not, that Charlie Potter wasn’t this baby’s father. Charlie knew, of course, and that was what was making him nastier than usual. He could count months as well as she could and knew he’d been away courtesy of His Majesty when the baby was conceived. He’d been lucky to get back his old job at the docks following six months behind bars. Anyhow, her husband would know for certain when it was born; Ruby feared the child would look foreign, being as the man who’d knocked her up was Chinese.

‘You promise me you won’t say nuthin’ about this commotion?’ Ruby pleaded, eyes widening. ‘You won’t tell Dr Worth, will you? The authorities will poke into me business. Then what’ve I got left if I lose me kids?’

Kathy could see Ruby was close to crying. The woman had taken a beating off her husband without shedding a tear, yet might weep now but for having her vow of silence. Around here, the disgrace of interference from the hated authorities was deemed worse than being married to a brute. Kathy sighed agreement. ‘Now I’m here, I’ll just take a look at you and make sure everything’s all right with the baby,’ she insisted.

‘Never had none of this fuss and bother with me other two,’ Ruby muttered, easing herself back gingerly on the bed. ‘Me mum’s friend Ivy from across the street took care o’ me before when I was due with Peter and Pansy.’

‘Things have changed, Mrs Potter, and people like Ivy Tiller mustn’t deliver babies unless they want to get into trouble.’

Kathy was used to coming up against resistance from women – and their husbands – who had been used to calling in local handywomen to care for them during labour. Rather than risk arrest, most of the unofficial midwives adhered to the ruling, if grudgingly. Kathy sympathised with those women: their livelihood had been bound up in their unofficial profession. Times were hard for everybody and jobs not easy to find.

Kathy listened to the strong heartbeat, amazed at how resilient these working-class wives were. Her own father had been a bully, yet, absurd as she knew it to be, Kathy considered him better than Charlie Potter because his brutality had been controlled. Potter didn’t give a damn about the consequences of beating his wife. He believed his criminal acquaintances protected him from trouble. Eddie Finch had not risked drawing attention to himself, or his career fencing stolen goods in Islington, with a charge of wife battering.

He’d floored Winifred with his punches but had refrained from following them up with a kicking while she sprawled defenceless. Like Ruby Potter, Kathy’s mother had no intention of allowing outsiders to know her business. Winifred Finch’s greatest terror had been giving the neighbours a reason to gossip about her, so she’d hide indoors until her bruises had healed rather than go out and face knowing looks.

Dwelling on her family prompted Kathy to glance at her watch. She’d told her sister, Jennifer, she might call in and see her later on, but time was short and she had a postnatal visit to make to a woman still confined to her bed in the Lolesworth tenements. Besides, after the disturbance with the Potters, Kathy didn’t think she could face going into Jennifer’s and bumping into the unsavoury characters she kept company with.

‘Baby seems fine, surprisingly enough,’ Kathy said, having concentrated for some time on the rhythmic thud in her ear. ‘There’s a nice strong heartbeat.’

‘Hear that, Pansy?’ Ruby turned to her daughter, standing by the side of the bed. ‘Your little sister is doing right as rain.’

Pansy wagged her small dark head.

‘You want a girl, do you?’ Kathy asked, picking up her bag in readiness to leave.

‘Don’t want no more men about the place, that’s fer sure,’ Ruby said. ‘Peter’s already getting his father’s swagger about him … he’s only eight ’n’ all.’

‘Will you come to the antenatal clinic next time for a checkup at the surgery? It’s on Wednesday afternoons at two o’clock.’

‘If I can,’ Ruby said, as she always did.

Kathy knew that she wouldn’t turn up. If the pregnant women in the dilapidated cottages around Fairclough Street would just attend the local clinic for a quick checkup, it would save her the job of home visits.

Kathy gave Pansy a wave as she went towards the door. Glancing over a shoulder, she saw that Ruby was, head in hands, sipping the weak cup of tea that had been left untouched on the table. She felt a surge of hatred for Charlie Potter and all his like. It was wasted passion. The women would never leave. As Ruby had pointed out, they had no choice but to stay with the brutes and take a bit of happiness where they could with other men.

CHAPTER TWO

‘What have you done to your hair?’

Blanche Raven turned her head, inspecting her new hairstyle in the hallway mirror. She was pleased with the permanent wave she’d had put in, even if her mother wasn’t, and she guessed from the tone of her voice that Gladys didn’t like it. But then her mother could find fault with anything, and sound sour when discussing the weather on a fine day.

‘Is Dad in?’ Blanche asked, ignoring her mother’s question. She was after a sub off her father, having just spent all her wages at the hairdresser’s. She knew asking her mother for a few bob would be a dead loss, even though Gladys was flush, having just got paid for her job as a machinist.

‘Your father’s gone out. I think he’s meeting Nick, ’cos he heard he might have a job for him, but of course, I don’t get told all of it.’

The mention of her estranged husband made Blanche prick up her ears. She’d only been in minutes but she buttoned her coat ready to leave the house again.

Gladys Scott eyed her daughter grimly. ‘Thinking of going chasing after Nick again, are you? Won’t do you no good, my girl. He still won’t take you back, and you know it.’

‘Oh, shut up, Mum,’ Blanche muttered, crashing the front door shut behind her. She hunched her shoulders against a sense of dejection and the bitter February wind. She feared her mother was right. Nick had given her the brush-off earlier in the week when she’d turned up at his place with seduction on her mind. She’d felt humiliated when he’d practically bundled her out of the door and told her to go home. He hadn’t even offered her a lift in his flash car and she’d had to catch the bus.

Hearing a bus wheezing to a stop at the corner of Bethnal Green Road, Blanche trotted towards it and managed to jump on just before it pulled off. She settled down on a seat next to a fat woman with a basket on her lap. The woman gave her a glare, even though she was taking up most of the seat with her porky backside.

When it reached her stop, Blanche got off the bus and walked briskly in the direction of the Grave Maurice pub. She was hoping that Nick would be in his local, as he usually was at dinnertime, and that her dad would be with him. Nick was more tolerant of her company when her father was around because the two men liked one another. If only she’d listened to her father’s advice rather than her mother’s, she’d never have let Nick Raven slip through her fingers.

Blanche dawdled outside, peering through the pub windows. She was itching to creep inside and see if Nick and her father were propping up the bar, but she had been brought up right – as her mother would term it – and knew it wasn’t nice for a young woman to enter such a rough house on her own. Besides, Nick didn’t like pushy women – he’d never got on with her mother – and wouldn’t appreciate Blanche marching in on him now if he was with pals. But Blanche didn’t fancy loitering outside freezing to death so she had a decision to make.

‘Who you after, then?’ A burly fellow had just emerged from the pub and seen her on tiptoe, trying to peer into the saloon bar over the frosted-glass pane. He gave Blanche an appreciative top-to-toe look. She was a pretty brunette, and her ample bust and curvy hips were undisguised by the heavy winter coat she wore. He thought she seemed familiar but couldn’t bring to mind where he’d met her before.

‘Me dad and me husband, Nick Raven,’ Blanche answered. She was always proud to let people know who she’d married. ‘I think they might be having a drink inside.’ Despite the fact he looked like a low-life navvy, Blanche preened beneath the fellow’s leer, unconsciously patting her crisp dark waves.

‘Yeah … they are in there.’ Charlie Potter gave her a grin. Now he knew why he’d not immediately recognised her. Blanche Raven had cut her long hair short and put on a bit of weight since the days when she’d been Wes Silver’s bit on the side. ‘Well, depending on which old man you’re after, could be you turned up just in time, luv. Nick’s got an admirer moving in on him.’

‘Oh, has he!’ Blanche snapped and, chin high, stormed past, bristling as she heard laughter following her.

She pushed open the pub door and, once her eyes adjusted to the smoky interior, spied the men she was after. Her husband was leaning on the bar just yards away. The place was crowded but his height and fair hair made him easily recognisable. Her short, balding father wasn’t quite so quickly located at his side. Blanche heard his gravelly laugh before she spotted him perched on a stool. She was relieved to see that there didn’t appear to be any women with them. Not that she’d have been surprised to see Nick with somebody else. He made no secret of the fact that he’d had affairs since they’d split up.

Blanche pursed her lips indignantly. Perhaps the navvy had thought he was being funny trying to rile her. She reckoned he’d known her identity even before she told him she was Nick’s wife, although she couldn’t place him. Nondescript old scruffs like him were ten a penny round these parts. Blanche was glad people knew of her association with Nick, despite the fact they’d been separated now for over three years.

Her father had turned and spotted her. He gave her a frown but raised a hand in greeting. The movement drew Nick’s attention. Blanche noticed he didn’t seem so pleased to see her; nevertheless, she weaved through the crowd to join them.

‘What’ll you have, Blanche?’ Nick asked mildly.

Blanche had to give it to her husband: even though she’d done the dirty on him, he’d always remained generous and polite to her. In fact, she knew if she had an opportunity to ask him for money before they parted, he’d probably hand over a note to her.

‘Gin ’n’ orange, thanks.’ Blanche gave him a coy smile.

‘What you doin’ here?’ her father demanded in a whisper when Nick turned away to get her drink.

‘Mum said you was with Nick … getting a job … so I thought I’d come and see you both,’ Blanche muttered defiantly.

‘Well, I’m more likely to get me job if you ain’t around,’ Tony Scott retorted, but not too unkindly. He knew his daughter had a renewed hankering for Nick, and he knew why that was. He feared she was wasting her time, but nevertheless wished the couple would get back together. At least then he’d have a bit of a peaceful home life.

Nick Raven was doing all right for himself now. He might not have been when he did the decent thing and married Blanche, having got her pregnant. Then Nick had been driving a lorry for a pittance and his son-in-law’s lack of cash and prospects had been the problem where Tony’s wife and daughter were concerned. Blanche had acted as though she was doing Nick a favour by agreeing to marry him rather than the other way around.

Nick was now on his way up and Blanche would have been going places with him but for her greed and her mother’s influence. Tony knew that it had been with his wife’s encouragement that their daughter had started an affair with Wes Silver. Wes was an important fellow around this manor, with a haulage company and gambling clubs, and a reputation for putting people out of business or in hospital if they crossed him. Wes also had a wife and a couple of kids and, when push had come to shove, he’d chosen to stay put. May Silver was too useful to him to be dumped for a younger woman. A lot of people, Tony included, believed May ran the show where Wes’s business was concerned and he merely provided a bit of bought-in muscle and credibility.

Tony knew it was sticking in Blanche’s craw that her husband’s lack of emotion made it seem Wes Silver had actually done him a favour by sleeping with his wife and breaking up his marriage.

‘There you go …’ Nick slid a glass of gin and orange towards Blanche.

She pouted him a thank-you kiss.

‘Done something different to your hair, ain’t you?’ Tony asked, to break the silence that had settled on them since his daughter’s arrival. He could tell Nick was pissed off by Blanche’s presence, and he knew why. A young blonde seated at a window table had been quite obviously giving his son-in-law the eye, and Nick had been encouraging her with subtle glances. Tony knew her name was Joyce Groves and that she worked in the café up the road. For a moment, Tony had thought trouble might start. Then he’d realised that the fellow sitting with Joyce was her older brother rather than a boyfriend. He recognised Kenny Groves from way back, when he’d been in the same class at school as Blanche.

‘What job you getting then, Dad?’ Blanche asked, her tongue loosened by a few quick gulps of gin.

‘Ain’t really spoke about that just yet,’ her father answered, glaring from beneath his brows. ‘Ain’t long been in here so not had a chance.’

‘Well … I’ve gotta be off in a minute,’ Nick said, looking at a fancy wristwatch. ‘Got to see some bloke in Shoreditch.’

‘No, stay and have another. My round …’ Tony Scott knew if Nick went off without offering him a job, he’d swing for Blanche for turning up and ruining his chances.

‘Can you start on a house in Commercial Street in the morning?’ Nick asked. ‘It needs decorating from top to bottom, interior and exterior. I know the weather’s a bit against us for outside work but—’

‘Course I can,’ Tony snapped at the offer of employment. He was a painter and decorator by trade but, lately, he had been picking up any sort of work he could find just to keep some wages rolling in. Although Gladys did piecework, sewing coats for a Jew boy, she never let him forget it was her regular money keeping them all afloat. ‘Be glad to start this afternoon on the preparing, if yer like,’ Tony burbled, keen to get his foot in the door.

‘Be obliged if you’d get going straight away, as I’ve got tenants lined up ready and waiting to move in.’ Nick took a notebook from an inside pocket and ripped out a page. Having written down the site address, he handed it over, upending his glass and draining it in a swallow. ‘Gonna get off now …’ He started towards the door.

He’d only managed a yard or two when Blanche rushed up to hang on his arm.

Nick kept going, trying to curb his impatience when his wife wouldn’t take the hint and leave him alone.

Outside the pub, he turned up his coat collar, then removed Blanche’s hand from his arm. ‘What do you want?’

‘Thought you might like to go to the flicks tonight?’

‘No, I don’t want to go to the flicks with you tonight or any other night,’ he said mildly. ‘We’ve been through this. We ain’t married now, Blanche … well, we are,’ he corrected himself, ‘but it’s over between us and has been for a long time.’

‘Don’t need to be.’ Blanche moved closer, rubbing her hip against his thigh. ‘I’ll come over yours ’n’ show you it can be like it was between us.’

‘Right …’ Nick drawled. ‘Well, I’d need to be some sort of demented mug to want to go back to that, wouldn’t I?’

Blanche slid her arms about his neck, gazing up into his lean sarcastic face. ‘Be better this time, Nick, promise …’ She turned her head as she noticed she’d lost his attention. A young blonde woman was on her way out of the pub with a man Blanche thought she recognised. She’d been at school with Kenny Groves but she realised the years hadn’t treated him kindly. In her opinion, he looked a good decade older than she did. Blanche could see that the petite blonde was more interested in Nick than the fellow she was with, and after a second she realised it was little Joyce, Kenny’s younger sister. She felt like flying across and slapping the little cow’s face because it was obvious she was giving Nick the come-on. Blanche understood why that was: at twenty-seven, her husband was only two years older than she and Kenny, but he had an air of confidence that made him seem mature and powerful. Nick Raven was also tall and good-looking, and able to afford quality clothes to show off his muscular frame.

‘Know her, do you?’ Blanche snapped. Her female intuition was telling her that Nick was not immune to Joyce’s charms.

‘Not as well as I’d like to.’ He removed her arms from his shoulders. A moment later, he was heading off towards his Alvis parked at the kerb.

Suddenly Nick halted and strolled back towards Blanche, hands thrust into his pockets. Now he ignored Joyce giving him a come-hither glance over her shoulder, concentrating on his estranged wife. ‘We need to talk about the divorce, Blanche.’ He gazed into the distance, hoping she wasn’t about to get hysterical as she usually did when he mentioned putting an official end to their marriage. In the past he’d backed down rather than upset her and her family. But enough time had passed and he knew he would never again love her or want to live with her. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he ever had loved her or wanted to live with her. But four years ago he’d been determined to do the right thing by their unborn child and meet his responsibilities. Not that he could be certain it had been his child … and he never would know, as she’d miscarried the little mite at about five months. They’d been married when that happened. The booking at the town hall had been just six weeks premature because Blanche had insisted she wanted to have a ring on her finger before she got a pot belly. In the event she never did get fat but she got her ring and Nick had wondered, once they were all over the turmoil of losing the baby, what the hell he’d done.

Now Blanche shot backwards, clearly not going to listen to any talk of divorces. She knew if she could just get Nick to sleep with her, make her pregnant again, he’d never leave her. He’d stood by her before when she’d been carrying his child and she reckoned he’d do so again.

Nick smiled acidly as he saw her stumbling towards the pub. He’d learned that if there was one sure way to shake Blanche off it was mentioning putting their divorce into motion.

‘Ain’t talking about it. You know how I feel.’ Blanche pointed a shaking finger at him. ‘When I took me vows they was for keeps.’

‘Yeah? Which ones exactly?’ Nick asked sarcastically, following her to the pub door to prevent her entering. ‘Weren’t the vow of fidelity, was it?’ He pulled her roughly to one side so people could exit the pub. ‘Now I’ve told you I can get a divorce on the grounds of adultery – come to think of it, so can you now. But it’d be best if we keep it all nice and friendly, for everybody’s sake.’

‘We can make a go of it. Why you being horrible?’ Blanche gazed up at him, bottom lip wobbling. ‘I’ve said sorry. So I made a mistake – we all make mistakes, don’t we?’

‘Right ’n’ all … I made one when I married you,’ Nick said, but not nastily. ‘It weren’t ever right between us and you know it. It ain’t ever going to be right between us, and you need to accept that, Blanche. Find yourself somebody else,’ he added quite gently. ‘Don’t pin your hopes on me changing me mind, ’cos I never will.’

Blanche ripped her arm out of his clasp. ‘You’re me husband.’ Her mouth was set stubbornly as she whipped past him, diving into the pub to find her father before Nick could say anything else to upset her.

Tony sighed as he saw his daughter storming towards him. ‘Ain’t having any of it, is he?’

Blanche ignored her father’s pessimism, polishing off her gin and orange, sniffing back angry tears.

‘Anyhow, why aren’t you at work?’ Tony asked. ‘Ain’t your afternoon off.’

‘Old Emo gave me the day off ’cos I had bellyache.’ Blanche worked in a dress shop in Whitechapel High Street and her boss was the Jew who employed her mother as a machinist.

‘Yeah, you had bellyache all right,’ her father mocked. ‘You think that crafty old git ain’t gonna know you got yer fancy hairdo on his time?’

Blanche shrugged. ‘Don’t see it matters anyhow. Emo never pays me if I don’t turn up and do me shift.’

‘You’ll lose that job,’ Tony warned. ‘Then your mother’ll have something to say.’ He hopped off the stool, having drained his glass, and thumped it down on the bar. ‘She’s already warned you you’re out of the door the moment you stop paying your way. I ain’t going to argue with that. You were lucky we had you back home when Nick kicked you out, considering what you done.’

‘Don’t care if Emo does sack me,’ Blanche said. ‘Don’t care if Mum throws me out neither. It’s me husband’s job to keep me. So I’m gonna make sure that’s what Nick does,’ she muttered defiantly beneath her breath as she followed her father to the door of the pub.

Once he’d got in his car Nick pulled a packet of Weights from his pocket and lit one. While dragging deeply on the cigarette he made a mental note to see his lawyer about starting divorce proceedings. He drove off round the corner and noticed Joyce Groves standing at a bus stop. Her brother had disappeared. She stepped closer to the kerb as she spotted Nick’s Alvis approaching so he couldn’t miss her.

Nick drove on and didn’t bother looking in his rear-view mirror to see how she took that. He’d seen her about for a while and fancied her enough to give her reason to think he’d do something about it. But this afternoon he’d lost the urge for a woman following his talk with Blanche. He knew he could be a hard-nosed bastard when dealing with business matters, and just wished he could find the same attitude when dealing with his estranged wife. He wasn’t sure why he felt lethargic about the divorce process. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t find the money for the lawyer. He liked his father-in-law but not enough to want to keep hearing Tony call him ‘son’, and as for that dragon Tony was married to, he’d happily never clap eyes on Gladys again.

In his mind Nick cancelled the meeting with his lawyer. What did it matter if he remained married to the silly cow? He’d already made up his mind he wasn’t ever taking on a wife again, and at least the women he slept with knew not to expect too much of him while Blanche was hanging about in the background …

CHAPTER THREE

‘For goodness’ sake, Jennifer! Can’t you clean this place up, once in a while?’

‘Why?’ Jennifer Finch was in the process of rinsing out her stockings and underwear. Turning from the sink she sent her sister a sullen look while listlessly dunking the smalls in a metal bowl. ‘This dump won’t look no better without the dust, you know.’ Lethargically, she glanced about.

‘It’s not a bit of dust that’s the problem, Jen, is it?’ Kathy retorted.

Jennifer had a couple of ground-floor rooms in a converted house just off Mare Street in Bethnal Green. The upstairs was unoccupied as the landlord had refused to mend the leaking roof and make it close to habitable. On arrival today, Kathy had found her sister’s flat in a state, as usual. Jennifer was always promising to have a spring clean, but never did. The only place that ever seemed slightly tidier was Jennifer’s bedroom, and Kathy reckoned that was to impress her scummy punters.

Jennifer’s sitting room had once been separated from the kitchenette by a partition wall. The landlord had knocked it down to a low level so now a few old cupboards, a small cooker and a butler sink with wooden draining board were on view.

The faded wallpaper had come unstuck where rain had penetrated through the ceiling and bay window, and now drooped, exposing cracked plaster beneath. The furniture wasn’t ancient but Jennifer didn’t take care of it and in the year since she’d moved in the upholstery had become stained. The square oak dining table was covered in odds and ends, and there was crockery on the floor. On top of a small radiogram was a smeary glass standing in an overflowing ashtray. The air inside the flat was heavy with the mingled odours of tobacco smoke and mildew. Jennifer rarely opened the windows in case Dot Pearson, who lived next door, was snooping on her, so there was a perpetual unpleasant fug clinging to everything.

Kathy shrugged out of her coat and, rather than lay it on the dirty sofa, hung it over a fiddle-back chair. She picked up the stack of dirty plates from the rug. The top one had remnants of newspaper and a fish supper stuck to it. She plonked the crockery on the draining board. Her sister ignored the angry crash and continued wringing out her washing.

‘I’ve told you before, you’ll end up with food poisoning, you daft ha’p’orth, if you don’t keep things clean.’

‘Good … hope I get raging bellyache and die. It’ll save me sticking me head in the gas oven,’ Jenny snarled.

Kathy grabbed Jennifer’s arm, spinning her round. ‘Don’t talk stupid.’ She stepped back as she smelled the alcohol on her sister’s breath. Immediately, her eyes slewed to the tumbler balanced on top of the radiogram. ‘You’ve been boozing again.’ She sounded more upset than angry, and Jennifer had the grace to blush.

‘So what if I have?’

‘You promised you’d lay off it.’ Kathy swooped on the dirty glass and gave it a sniff, recognising whisky.

‘Did I now?’ Jennifer narrowed her crusty eyelids. ‘Well, if you had my fuckin’ life you’d need a drink ’n’ all.’ She grabbed up the bowl and went outside to peg the washing on the line in the misty backyard. When the few scraps of cotton and silk were hanging limp in the still March air, she turned back to her sister. ‘Oh, just leave it. I’ll do it when you’ve gone.’ Jennifer seemed irked that Kathy had begun washing up the plates in the stained butler sink.

‘Have you been bathing your eyelids with warm salt water, like I said?’

‘If I remember, I do it.’ Jennifer still sounded irritated.

Kathy raised her eyes heavenward at her sister’s attitude.

‘You said you’d bring me some stuff over to clear it up.’ Jennifer came in, shutting the back door. She was constantly conscious of eavesdroppers the other side of the fence. She was sure Dot Pearson and her cronies thought they were better than she was. Jennifer grudgingly admitted to herself that on the whole they were better than she was, but she didn’t want anybody rubbing it in.

Kathy pulled a small brown bottle and a pack of lint from her bag. Having unscrewed the top, she upended the antiseptic onto a scrap of lint then wiped it over her sister’s closed eyelashes. She handed over the jollop. ‘Do it morning and evening till it clears up. And boil your flannels and towels and your bed linen or the infection won’t go.’ Kathy rubbed together her hands under the icy running tap and flicked them dry rather than risk using the length of frayed greyish cotton hanging on a hook. She knew she was wasting her breath with Jennifer. Her twin regularly promised to alter her way of life, but nothing changed.

Filthy sheets remained on the bed for months on end before seeing the inside of the copper situated outside in the ramshackle washhouse. Considering her twin’s profession, Kathy felt sick, knowing Jennifer slept on the detritus shed by strangers’ bodies …

‘Seen anything of Mum and Dad?’ Jennifer asked.

‘I haven’t been over to Islington for weeks.’

Despite Jennifer having been banished from darkening Eddie and Winnie Finch’s doorstep many years ago, she still asked after her family with poignant regularity.

‘Wonder how Tom’s doing?’ Jenny mentioned their younger brother.

‘Last time I spoke to Mum, she was on the warpath with him ’cos he’s good pals with the lads who live round in Campbell Road.’

‘Perhaps I won’t be the only bleedin’ disgrace in the family after all.’ Jenny’s giggle held a hint of malice.

‘It’s not a joke, Jen, is it, if he gets himself in bad trouble? Tom’s got to find a job soon and he won’t have any luck if he keeps larking about. Work’s hard to come by.’

‘Oh, pipe down, Miss Goody Two-Shoes.’ Jennifer’s complaint was tinged with amusement. Hearing about their brother’s bad behaviour seemed to have brightened her mood.

‘Did Mum mention me at all when you last saw her?’ she asked hopefully.

‘She never does, you know that.’ Kathy knew her brusque reply had hurt her sister but Jennifer seemed unwilling to change her seedy life in an attempt to win back her parents’ trust.

‘Don’t want no tea, do you, Kath? ’Spect you’ve got to be off.’

‘Trying to get rid of me already?’ Kathy raised her eyebrows. Jennifer didn’t look in a fit state to be receiving punters and that was the usual reason she’d tell her to go. Even dockers might expect a brass to make some effort with her appearance. Jennifer’s fair hair was matted and the old dress and cardigan she had on didn’t look as though they’d seen an iron in a long while. Kathy reckoned her sister hadn’t washed, or combed her hair, since she’d climbed out of bed. In fact, she looked as though she could do with a hot bath and Kathy told her so.

‘Better get meself tidied up.’ Jennifer tried to separate the tangles in her hair with her fingers. ‘Bill’s coming over this afternoon.’

‘Well, in that case, I am going.’ Kathy hated Bill Black and had done so since he had corrupted her sister when she was just fifteen and set her on the road to ruin.

‘Got any money before you go?’ Jennifer wheedled as Kathy picked up her coat. ‘I could do with getting a bit of grub in …’

‘If I thought you’d buy food with it, I’d lend you a couple of shillings.’ Kathy gave her twin a challenging stare. ‘But you’ll spend it on fags or booze or drugs, won’t you?’

‘I won’t, I swear. I’ll buy meself some chips and a loaf of bread.’ Jennifer blinked her diseased eyelids, giving her sister a winning smile.

Kathy had been treated to such solemn vows in the past. ‘Ask Bill to get you some shopping when he turns up.’ It twisted her guts to be hard-hearted but she’d lost count of the times her sister had pleaded for money because she was hungry, then spent it on one of her addictions.

‘He won’t give me nuthin’,’ Jenny spat. ‘He’s probably expecting me to give him something. But I’ve not had no work. Who’s gonna want me looking like this?’ She scratched at the crusts clumping together her eyelashes.

‘Leave it alone! You’ll make it worse.’ Kathy yanked at her sister’s elbow, dragging away her hand.

Kathy’s bubbling exasperation was threatening to explode. Her sister had been on the game for years, yet Kathy could never quite relinquish the hope that Jennifer would make a fresh start. ‘Why don’t you clean the place up, and yourself too while you’re at it?’ Kathy thundered. ‘Look for a proper job and stop wallowing in self-pity!’

‘Oh, fuck off!’ Jennifer flung herself down on the sofa. ‘Bleedin’ sick of you and your holier-than-thou crap. Go on, piss off. I know you want to. You only ever come here to crow and look down yer nose at me. If you really wanted to help, you’d give me a few bob so I don’t starve. You can see I can’t work looking like this.’

‘If you didn’t associate with scum, you wouldn’t look like that, would you?’ Kathy bellowed. ‘Where d’you think you get the germs from?’

‘Oi, oi. What’s going on? You gels having a bit of a barney then?’

Kathy spun on her heel to see a flashily dressed stocky man letting himself in with the key that hung through Jenny’s letter box on a bit of string. She picked up her coat and immediately shrugged into it.

‘Don’t go on my account, darlin’,’ Bill Black said with a foxy smile. His eyes lowered to look her over beneath the brim of a fedora shading his swarthy features.

Bill was well aware Kathy Finch despised him. Whereas he thought she was very comely, especially in her nurse’s uniform. He’d fantasised many times about ripping that off her. But he realised it must be her afternoon off as she was dressed in civvies. Jennifer had told him that her sister often came round, nagging at her to reform her ways. Bill didn’t want Jennifer doing that; she might be a pain in the arse with her constant whining, but she had her uses. That was why he’d stopped by …

‘I’ll see you in a week or two,’ Kathy told Jennifer. She stared coldly at Bill, until he shifted away from the doorway. She’d been at Jennifer’s before when he’d turned up and brushed against her to cop a feel. He wasn’t doing that again!

‘You come to see me or her?’ Jennifer barked, surging up out of the armchair in a fit of pique on noticing Bill giving her sister the eye.

Bill removed his hat and sauntered over to smooth Jenny’s dark blond hair. It felt greasy beneath his palm. ‘Don’t be a stranger now …’ he called out, riling Kathy, who banged the door shut.

Bill glanced at Jennifer with distaste. At the best of times she looked a mess but next to her pretty sister it was even more obvious. ‘Fuck’s sake, Jen, what you done to yerself?’ He stared at her mucky lashes, nose wrinkled.

‘Got fassy eye, ain’t I,’ Jennifer snapped. ‘Probably caught it off that last punter you brought me in. He stank to high heaven.’

‘Get the bath in, shall I?’ Bill suggested. He had a hole in his finances and could do with some money. A deal on some stolen goods he’d fenced had gone sour on him and he’d lost twenty quid.

‘Got a few bob to lend me?’ Jennifer asked sullenly.

‘You must be joking, gel.’ Bill snorted in disbelief. ‘I was going to ask you for a sub.’ He gave her rump a playful slap. ‘Once you’re done up to the nines, we’ll go out and see if we can find you a punter who’s two parts pissed and won’t notice you look a bleedin’ sight under the war paint. Then we’ll roll him.’

Jennifer huffed dispiritedly, but she’d sooner risk fleecing a customer than have to service him, the way she felt. She’d taken laudanum on top of the whisky she’d drunk earlier and reckoned she might throw up.

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