The Bells of Bow (4 page)

‘I can see that for meself,’ Albie answered, looking down at her appreciatively. Then, much to Evie’s surprise, he suddenly stopped dancing, took her by the wrist, and led her through the crowd towards the stage. ‘Matter o’ fact …’ he said. ‘Come on, come with me.’

Evie let herself be led through the packed dance floor. Babs caught her eye as Albie swept past her and Chas. ‘Don’t ask me,’ Evie called over her shoulder and shrugged.

When they reached the stage, Albie tapped the pianist, who was also the band leader, on the back and, leaning forward, said something to him that Evie couldn’t make out. The piano player raised his hand and the music stopped. Everyone in the club turned to look towards the stage to see what was going on.

‘What’s it to be?’ the band leader asked Evie with a questioning raising of his eyebrows.

Evie frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘What are you going to sing for us?’

‘What, me?’

He nodded.

Evie’s already big blue eyes widened and she held out her hand to him and stepped up onto the stage. ‘D’yer know “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”? It’s the latest. From that new American film. I learnt it off the wireless.’

The band leader nodded again. ‘Sure, I know it.’

A single spotlight was turned on her, the music began and, with her lovely, clear, strong voice, Evie began singing. After only a few bars there was no other sound in the club save for Evie and the piano. All conversation had stopped, the audience was enchanted.

Before the final note had died away, the clapping began. Her face glowing with success, Evie reached down to her sister who was standing by the stage between Albie and Chas. ‘Come on, Babs,’ she encouraged her, shouting over the applause. ‘Let’s give ’em a treat.’

Babs shook her head. ‘No fear! You ain’t getting me up there.’

‘Go on,’ Albie insisted, and, before Babs knew what was happening, he had lifted her right off her feet and onto the stage.

‘Yer rotten cow,’ Babs hissed but, as she knew she would, she was soon joining in with her twin’s irresistible giggles. ‘Right then,’ she said, shading her eyes from the bright spotlight. ‘Let’s get this over with. What we gonna give ’em?’

‘“Cheek to Cheek?”’ suggested Evie, looking across to the piano player.

‘What else?’ he replied, gazing with wonder at the sight of the two beautiful girls standing before him who, apart from their contrasting hair colours, were identical.

By the time the audience eventually let the girls get down from the stage and return to their seats for a much-needed drink, Babs was as excited as Evie and the Bell twins knew that they had scored a hit. They also knew that, as usual, they had made a particular impression on all the men present.

Albie and Chas beamed with pleasure as they swaggered back to their table, guiding ‘their’ girls before them.

‘I love it,’ smirked Chas as he sat down without pulling Babs’s chair out for her. ‘Everyone’s looking at me,’ and he straightened the lapels of his already immaculate jacket. ‘Makes yer feel great, don’t it, being so popular?’

On hearing Chas’s totally misplaced boast, Evie and Babs both spluttered into their drinks, nearly choking themselves.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of music, drinking and dancing, and after what seemed like only a few more turns round the dance floor, it was getting on for three o’clock, way past the time that the club should have closed.

‘Time we was off,’ said Albie and nodded to one of the waiting staff to fetch their things. ‘If it’s still not raining out, I think we’ll have a little walk in the fresh air,’ he announced as he stood up. ‘Before we get back in the car.’

The four of them walked through the pre-dawn chill of the West End streets still busy despite the late hour. Albie, with Evie clinging to him, led the way, and Babs, her shoulder roughly encircled by Chas’s huge tree trunk of an arm, followed along behind them.

‘Where we going?’ asked Evie coquettishly, glancing up at Albie through her lashes as she tottered along beside him on her high heels.

‘Nowhere, I just like to get a bit of air in me lungs, that’s all, like to look after meself,’ he answered.

‘In that case,’ Evie quipped back, quick as a flash, ‘yer won’t mind if we have a little breather then.’ And with that she pulled Albie into a shop doorway, threw her arms round his neck and kissed him smartly on the mouth.

Before Babs had a chance to protest, Chas followed suit and bent his head down and hurriedly planted a smacker right on her tightly shut lips, almost knocking her hat over her eyes in his haste. He might have been a fast mover, but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the flat of Babs’s hand as she slapped him firmly round the face.

‘Ow,’ he winced, rubbing his stinging cheek with his great wide paw of a hand. ‘That bloody hurt.’

‘Good,’ Babs snapped at him, straightening her hat and patting her hair into place. ‘It was meant to. Yer might be twice as big as me, but don’t push yer luck, moosh.’

Babs sounded brave but it was only when she heard the sound of Albie’s laughter and him saying, ‘Ne’mind, Chas,’ that she felt
she
hadn’t pushed her luck too far.

‘Yer ready, gels?’ Albie asked and held out his cigarette case to Chas by way of compensation. ‘I think it’s time we was getting you two home.’

For the journey back to Bow, Evie consented to get in the front seat with Albie, but Babs wasn’t so amenable. She made Chas promise to keep his hands to himself before she would agree to sit alongside him in the back. The pathetic expression which spread across his face was like a cross between that of a naughty pup that had been caught weeing on the front parlour carpet and a little boy who’d just broken his new toy train. It was enough to have both girls laughing out loud and Babs chummily shifting over right next to Chas and linking her arm through his. She even let him have a little bit of a kiss and cuddle to cheer him up.

Chas was just getting into his stride when Babs suddenly pushed him away and sat up straight. ‘Right,’ she announced determinedly. ‘The Aberdeen, this’ll do us. Thanks, Albie.’

‘But we’re only at the top of the Roman.’ Chas sounded very disappointed.

‘I know, but, like I said, we’re getting out here by the pub.’

Evie turned round in her seat. ‘Babs?’

‘It’s nearly daylight, Eve, we don’t wanna get Dad all worked up, hearing a car outside.’

Evie reluctantly agreed and, with a shrug at Albie, she reached for the door handle.

‘Not so fast,’ Albie said and grabbed her into his arms. They were soon locked in a passionate and very noisy embrace.

Chas took the action in the front seat to be a signal for him to do the same, and almost smothered Babs in his enthusiastic determination to have another kiss.

‘We really had better be going,’ croaked Babs hoarsely when she’d finally manage to extricate herself from his grip. ‘Come on, Evie.’

The girls stood on the pavement outside the Earl of Aberdeen, watching the Riley draw away in the early morning light.

Evie blew a kiss in the direction of the departing car. ‘What a feller,’ she sighed and, taking her sister’s arm, began to walk along Grove Road, back to Darnfield Street. ‘And you was getting on all right with that Chas and all,’ she added with a sideways glance at Babs.

‘Huh!’ sniffed Babs. ‘What a cheek. Thinks he’s God’s gift, that one.’

‘Good-looking.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Babs agreed grudgingly. ‘Ain’t a bad kisser neither, but he’s a right cloth head. He ain’t got a thing between his ears.’

Evie widened her eyes in mock disapproval. ‘Do what? Well, that’s a new one on me. I’ve never seen a bloke what
did
have a thing between his ears.’

‘Dirty mare!’ laughed Babs.

As they turned into Darnfield Street, the twins were shaking with laughter.

‘Ssshhh,’ gasped Babs, trying desperately to control herself. ‘Yer’ll wake everyone up.’ She jerked her head in the direction of number five, the Clarkes’s house. ‘The old curtain twitcher’s at it.’

‘Good,’ Evie shouted. ‘Let ’em all wake up. I don’t care. I want everyone to know I’m happy.’

By the time they’d reached their front door, Babs no longer had any trouble with sounding serious. She was in deadly earnest as she warned her sister, ‘Be careful, Evie, we’ve had a laugh but he’s still Albie Denham, yer know.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Evie answered her wearily as she rooted round in her handbag for the latch key.

‘You ain’t thinking of seeing him again, are yer?’

‘Matter o’ fact I am,’ she said, echoing one of Albie’s phrases. She turned her bag towards the dim glow of the street light. ‘When you was busy with old Charlie boy in the back seat, Albie asked me to go flapping with him.’

‘Flapping?’

‘Yeah, yer know,’ Evie said, with a satisfied grin as she at last produced the door key from the messy depths of her bag. ‘Dog racing, over the Hackney Marshes.’

‘I do know, Evie. And
you
know it ain’t legal, don’t yer?’

‘Course I know.’

‘So. Are yer going?’

‘Yer kidding, ain’t yer? Him and Chas was going over there right now. I told him. I said, what, on a Sunday morning? I have to have me lay-in of a Sunday. I like to get me beauty sleep.’

‘Yeah, yer need it and all, you ugly cow.’ Babs’s tone sounded light and easy, but her expression was worried, strained even.

‘Talking about yerself again?’ Evie cracked back, elbowing Babs out of the way so she could open the door.

‘No, I was talking about
you
. I said ugly cow, not gorgeous creature. You ain’t gone mutton as well as stupid have yer?’ Babs still spoke with a straight face, but as soon as Evie turned to look at her, it was hopeless and the pair of them were almost helpless with laughter as they tried to push one another out of the way, fighting to be the first to get inside the narrow doorway of number six. Evie got inside first and, like a stubborn cork being released from a bottle, Babs went tumbling in after her along the passage. When she’d managed to steady herself, she turned round to shut the street door, but Evie reached out and stopped her.

‘Hold up, Babs,’ she said, slipping past her sister. ‘If Dad ain’t awake after all that, nothing’ll wake him.’

‘What?’

‘You listen.’ Evie stepped outside onto the pavement, put her hands either side of her mouth to concentrate the sound, and called out loudly across the street, ‘Oi, Alice. Yer wanna get Nobby to get his cloth and pail out for yer. Yer dunno what yer might be missing with all that muck on yer windows.’ Then, with a haughty flick of her blonde hair and a wink at her sister, Evie strutted back inside number six. But this time it was she who wasn’t allowed to shut the street door behind her.

Babs stood on tiptoes and called out over her sister’s shoulder, ‘Yer can go off duty now, Alice, we’re home. Night night, sleep tight!’

Albie got out of the Riley and shivered. Although it was not even the end of August yet, an early morning mist lay over the Hackney Marshes bringing an autumn chill to the air. Albie sank his hands deep into his pockets.

‘Could do with them two twins to come and keep us warm,’ smirked Chas, shrugging his huge shoulders down into his jacket as they set off across the damp grass. ‘I reckon we’re well in there, Albie. I tell yer what, yer should have asked ’em to come over here with us.’

‘Yer a daft sod. Don’t you know nothing? I couldn’t have asked ’em to come over here,’ lied Albie. ‘This flapping lark don’t do for girls. Yer know what they’re like. They don’t like getting their little shoes dirty or nothing, do they? And they have to get their heads down after a night out. Need their beauty kip, see. Not like us.’

‘Aw, yeah, course,’ agreed Chas. He spoke with a confidence that implied that the female psyche held no secrets for him. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

Albie suppressed a smile as he and Chas walked over the dew-covered ground towards a group of half a dozen men who were standing around stamping their feet and sharing the contents of a leather-covered hip flask.

‘All right, Dad?’ Albie called out as they got near them.

The man who had just had his turn at taking a swig wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave the hip flask to one of the others in the circle. ‘Where you two been?’ he growled, swaggering over to Albie and Chas. ‘I expected you here over half an hour ago.’ He was in his late fifties, not quite as tall as Albie, but still a big man and still more than handsome for his age.

‘Morning, Bernie,’ said Chas respectfully.

‘I asked you a question, boy,’ Bernie said coldly, jabbing a finger towards Albie’s chest and ignoring Chas’s attempts to be polite. ‘Been birding it again, I suppose,’ he sneered.

‘Hark who’s talking,’ muttered Albie indignantly. His jaw was rigid from the effort of keeping his temper.

‘What did you say?’ Bernie demanded. His tone and expression were menacing.

Chas shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Albie stared at his father for what was nearly a moment too long, but then said flatly, ‘Nothing, Dad. I never said nothing.’

‘Well, yer better not have,’ snapped Bernie. ‘And yer’d better not have spent all that dough yer collected last night neither, ’cos yer know I’m meant to be running the book here this morning. Or did yer get too pissed last night to remember?’ He leant forward and said in an ominously quiet voice, ‘I’ve got some big players here, over from Bermondsey way they are, and if you muck it up, boy …’

Albie’s reply was to reach inside his jacket and produce the still fat roll of banknotes; it was only slightly depleted by the cost of entertaining the Bell sisters. He handed the money over.

Bernie snatched the roll from his son, licked his thumb and began counting. Next he made rapid calculations about how much his son had actually given him, how much of it he could use to stand for bets and how much of it he would have to account for to his wife, Queenie.

Albie watched, knowing full well what his dad was up to – calculating how to con his wife out of as much as possible.

‘As if I’d ever spend Mum’s money,’ Albie said with a sad shake of his head. His face was a picture of hurt innocence, but it didn’t last long; he could never resist saying what was in his head or needling anyone when he had the opportunity. ‘I leave you to do that, you greedy old bastard,’ he added under his breath.