Smiling, she decided that she, Cathy Connor, would have her cake and eat it too.
As she scrubbed, she sang along happily with the Crystals.
‘What on earth is
that
sitting at the end of my bar!’
Jessie Houston’s voice was scandalised and Madge’s face hardened as the words intended for her rang out over the small bar.
‘Are you off your fucking head, Ron? I’ve seen better-looking things in bombed-out houses!’
He wiped a hand across his sweating face and tried to placate his sister-in-law. ‘Leave it out, Jess.’
Jessie, eight stone of pure malevolence, looked into his face and shrieked: ‘Leave
her
out, more like! Outside with the bleeding rubbish. I know some of our girls are a bit long in the tooth, but at least they’re not dock dollies. And she’s a dock dolly from head to foot. I smelt the fucker before her beak came round the door.’ She looked along the bar to Madge and said in a quieter voice: ‘No disrespect, love, but I can’t have you here, sorry. The other girls will be here soon and they’ll go spare.’
Madge swallowed down her humiliation and stared challengingly at Ron.
‘She stays and that’s my final word,’ he put in.
Jessie thumped the bar. Turning on Ron, she screamed, ‘Then you run this place yourself! I ain’t being made a laughing stock. Even if we employed her, who’d have her? Look at her, Ron, for Christ’s sakes.’
Ron, used to letting the fierce little woman in front of him have her own way, said through gritted teeth, ‘She stays, Jessie - all right? I own half this club and you’d better remember that.’
Jessie’s face was white with fury. Since the death of her husband, she had come into the whoring business, and both she and Ron had been relieved to find that she had a natural aptitude for it. With no children and no real scruples, Jessie had found her vocation in life. The only bugbear was the fact that she had ruled her husband, and now she ruled Ron and the little empire they had created.
Even the bigger boys were wary of Jessie. Just looking at her you could see she was capable of literally anything. She could evict a fifteen-stone man with the minimum of fuss, pour the drinks and head count the girls without thinking. Ron’s brother Danny had once been the brains of the business. Jessie had effortlessly taken over where he had left off.
This was the first time Ron had tried to assert himself, and in all honesty it wasn’t so much Madge herself as the fact that he was trying to take a decision on his own that bothered Jessie. She had to be in charge. It was just her way.
‘Come on, Jess, do the honours, love.’ Ron’s voice was cajoling now, tinged with desperation.
Jessie took a deep breath. Pulling herself up to her full five foot two, she said, ‘On your own head be it, Ron. It’s half yours as you point out, but if you done a bit of collar here now and then I’d be more inclined to take your point of view like . . .’
She droned on and he smiled at Madge, raising his eyebrows in triumph.
Madge looked from him to Jessie and stored the insults away for future reference. Jessie should have known better than to pull down a dock dolly because dock girls never forgot nothing.
Jessie went into the back room where the gambling would take place and Ron poured Madge a stiff drink of rum.
‘She’s all right, Madge. Don’t take any notice of her. She’s always the same, don’t mean anything by it. Once the other girls arrive, you’ll see I’m right. The main job here is getting the punters to bet. It’s more a gambling club than a clippie really. Remember always to keep your paper with you when you score a lump. Because Jessie will head count you all and she don’t miss a trick, but if you don’t know your score, she won’t tell you. Understand me?’
Madge nodded. ‘I thought you said it was your club?’
Ron stared down into her face and sighed heavily. ‘It is. Half mine anyway. Look, Madge, if you don’t like the set up, fuck off, love. There’s plenty more where you came from.’
Madge licked her bright orange lips and attempted a smile. ‘Don’t be like that, Ron. I thought me and you was mates.’
He relented and smiled thinly at her. ‘We are, providing you do as I say.’
Before she had a chance to answer the door burst open and two of the other hostesses arrived. Looking at them, Madge saw that they weren’t really very different from her.
Her dreams of the big time were shattered in seconds. Instead of ripping off sailors, she’d be ripping off local men. Who, unlike the sailors, could easily track her down. Knocking back her drink, she looked at the hubbub around her and sighed.
Well, it was a step up in its own way, and if nothing else she had Ron. Because a man in her bed was worth two in her hand, any day of the week.
It was just after eleven when the boys made their way along Upper Thames Street. They looked like trouble, which was exactly the impression they wished to create. Some were walking, others were on Vespas, the engines humming in the darkness. All were alert and ready for the trouble they were to cause.
‘Show us your gun again, Eamonn. Go on.’ Doughal Feenan was fascinated by the weapon and Eamonn handed it to him, laughing at the boy’s incredulity.
Doughal, all red hair and freckles, looked at his friend and said seriously: ‘You wouldn’t really shoot someone dead, would you?’
Eamonn could hear fear tinged with awe in the boy’s voice and shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Watch me. Those bastards need to be taught a lesson and a bullet up their arses should achieve that much at least!’
He laughed and the others laughed with him, all thinking this was just a frightener for the South London boys. At the end of the day, with the eldest there just sixteen, they weren’t like the big timers, though all of them wanted to be seen that way. By their peer group at least.
Eamonn took the gun and put it back in his jacket pocket. He loved the attention it created. Loved the feeling of being in charge of them all, being the main man. Eamonn Docherty craved the limelight. Craved the feeling of being someone important, and the gun guaranteed him that.
No one would dare disrespect him with a gun aimed at their heads. No one.
Looking at his gang he felt a moment’s intense happiness. He loved to lead people, loved to be the one telling them all what they were to do, where they were to go. They all looked up to him as if he were something special. He had made up his mind that one day soon everyone would know him, would understand he was a dangerous man, a force to be reckoned with.
The gun, and his natural leadership abilities, would guarantee him that. After tonight his name would be known everywhere in London while simultaneously his East End cronies would retreat behind a wall of silence and he would, in effect, get away with murder.
He had been living for this night for too long. All he wanted now was to get it and his dirty work over with. Then he could start his career, his real life.
The Krays would give him a job; they liked a face with bottle and he had plenty of it. No more listening to his father’s old crap, no more living in a two up, two down with an Irish drunk and a houseproud bitch. No more scraping along, doing a little bit here and a little bit there.
If everything went to plan, he’d finally hit the big one. Payola. He would be a real villain now, and that meant the fast track to money, cars and prestige.
Tonight was to be his watershed, his blooding. He couldn’t wait to get started.
He didn’t have to wait long. The South London firm was waiting for them at the top of the Embankment.
James Carter was a Bermondsey boy through and through. Of Irish descent, he had a lot in common with Eamonn Docherty though neither of them would admit that.
He watched the other gang’s arrival with cold green eyes. Taking out his steel comb, he pulled it through his hair, fastidiously pushing his quiff into place and replacing the comb in his pocket. His full-lipped mouth was set in a cruel smile and inside his jacket was a cut-throat razor. Eamonn Docherty was to get the biggest shock of his life tonight and James Carter was going to be the man to give it to him.
Behind him his gang stood stock still. Every face was hard. Every hand was shaking. Not with fear, but with excitement.
As the East Enders drew close, they stopped and the two gangs stared each other out. Then, as if all of one mind, they pulled out their weapons.
A car driving past speeded up, rattling towards Westminster. Gang fights were common, but it was unusual to see one on a common thoroughfare.
The Embankment was quiet at eleven-thirty at night; most revellers had gone on to other places or were already home. The only sound now was of the Thames lapping gently against the green-slimed wall.
Eamonn touched the bicycle chain around his neck, his cosh down the back of his trousers. They waited patiently for everyone to arm themselves. This was the unwritten rule. When the streetlamp glinted on the gun pulled from Eamonn’s pocket there was a collective exhalation of shock from the South Londoners.
James Carter’s voice was deep, resonant with an Irish inflection. ‘Fuck off, Docherty. No one uses guns.’ Even though his voice was heavy with menace, everyone sensed the underlying fear there.
They were all experiencing it too.
Eamonn smiled lazily, his voice matter-of-fact and terrifyingly normal. ‘You should have thought of that when you beat up poor Harry. Eight to one, I heard. So I thought I’d even the odds up like - for him.’
The flash that came from the gun was a surprise to all there. The East London boys closed their eyes in fright and the South Londoners opened theirs to see if the bullet was aimed at them.
James Carter seemed to fall to the pavement in slow motion. Half his face flew into the air, bits of skin and eyeball spraying his friends and causing them to step back involuntarily.
Eamonn’s low laughter was clearly heard by them all. A stunned silence reigned, the sense of shock almost tangible.
Looking at the boy on the ground, Eamonn felt as if the bullet had hit him. There was a tight feeling in his chest, he was fighting for breath. Shock at what he’d done ballooned up inside him.
One of the South London boys knelt by his friend. Seeing the single staring eye and the position of the boy’s body, he looked at Eamonn. With tears in his voice, he said hysterically: ‘You’re fucking mad, Docherty! He’s an Irish like you. You don’t shoot people, don’t kill people . . .’ His voice trailed off as they heard the sound of police cars in the distance.
Everyone began running away, fear lending wings to their feet.
Titchy pulled on Eamonn’s jacket. ‘Come on, Eamonn, the Old Bill will be here any second. Come on, man, for fuck’s sake.’
Eamonn heard the anguish in the other boy’s voice. After one last look at James Carter, he turned away and began running. His heart was hammering in his chest and his blood ran cold.
He’d done it.
Jesus help me
, he thought.
I’ve actually done it. I’ve killed someone
.
Madge was in her element. A drunken gambler had won a game and given her ten pounds. After telling her she was his lucky mascot, he had then offered her another ten to ‘do the business’ for him. So in less than an hour she had earned herself twenty pounds and had actually enjoyed herself.
She loved the heady atmosphere of the gambling room, and also the unaccustomed comfort of the ‘business’ room. To ply her trade with a mattress under her back seemed the height of sophistication so far as she was concerned.
After deciding she would live with Jessie’s taunts in order to keep this job, she sipped a large rum and Coke, staring around the gambling room.
It was relatively small and windowless. Police raids made that inevitable. You got into the club through the one narrow door and if ever there were a fire, the chances were you’d burn to death in the stampede to get back out the same way. Anyway, gamblers didn’t need natural light. Electric was fine, they needed no reminder of the time of day. People had been known to come in on a Thursday and leave on a Saturday morning, wondering where Friday had gone. From Thursday to Sunday the club was open literally all day and all night.
It was a good earner, and Jessie made sure that it reached its full potential. Most of the police force was paid off, except for the die-hards, the punters were happy and the drink was never watered - three good reasons to use the place.
The girls were all of a certain age, guaranteeing no trouble with the men. Young girls wrought havoc in gambling clubs, their youth distracting the men from the serious business of gambling. Jessie knew that the punters who frequented her club would sleep with the Pope if the lighting was right. It was gambling that brought on their sexual rush, not a pretty face or a shapely leg. Sex was just another high, another bit of fun.
As Madge listened to the noise and breathed in the foetid air of the place, she felt a moment’s exhilaration. After a bad start the night was turning out better than she’d expected. One of the other girls smiled at her and she nodded in a friendly fashion. At the end of the day, whatever Jessie had said, whores all looked out for one another.
They had to.
As a man sidled up to her and offered to buy her a drink, she grinned at him coquettishly and stifled a yawn. The drink, the sex, the excitement and the heat had all made her tired. Grinning, she accepted the drink, and told herself to liven up. This could be a lucrative little earner and she needed to keep her wits about her.
Cathy was sitting on the settee, listening to the radio, when she heard a low call through the letter box.
‘Is that you, Eamonn?’ As she walked into the hallway she heard his voice again.
‘Open the door, you silly cow! Don’t let anyone know I’m here, Cathy. Keep your voice down.’