Vivian put her arms around her distraught sister and held her close to her chest. ‘Your boys adore the ground you walk on, Queenie, and the only reason they would have kept this from you was to save you the hurt. I mean, if they went round and threatened Albie’s little whore then they were obviously dealing with things in their own way. ’Ere, something’s just occurred to me. What’s the betting that Albie never got jumped on by a gang of youths? I’d put money on it that his injuries are down to your Vinny and Roy, you know.’
For the first time since she had found out the mindblowing news, Queenie managed a smile. She had smelt something fishy about Albie getting jumped from the beginning. ‘I reckon you might be right, Viv, and if the boys did break Albie’s ribs and legs, I shall thank ’em rather than telling them off. I don’t want that tart having the baby though. No way do I want my kids to have to suffer that embarrassment.’
‘Don’t you worry. Vinny and Roy will make sure that kid goes down the khazi.’
Christopher was bowled over when he learned that Nancy’s new friend Brenda just happened to be Vinny Butler’s sister. ‘Do you think one day your brother will let us see inside his club?’ he asked, in a star-struck voice.
Thrilled that she had a new best friend and desperate to impress Nancy and her brother, Brenda nodded. ‘I’ll take you there now if you like. I pop in there all the time,’ she boasted.
‘I’d better go home for my tea now. Shall I meet you outside the café and walk to school with you in the morning?’ Tommy asked Christopher.
‘Yeah, see you tomorrow,’ Christopher said to his new pal.
The club was only a couple of minutes away and praying that her brothers were inside so she wouldn’t make herself look a fool, Brenda was relieved when Vinny answered the door.
‘You OK, sweetheart?’ he asked, noticing his sister had a grazed knee and dirty hands.
‘I fell over playing hopscotch and I want to wash my hands and knee. Can my friends come in?’
Poking his head around the door, Vinny was surprised to see Nancy and Christopher standing there. He had no idea they even knew his little sister. ‘Come on then. One glass of Coke and a bag of crisps each, then you’ll have to go. I’ve got some business to sort out in a bit,’ he said. The bent Chief Inspector was popping in to pick up his money for the alcohol licence and Vinny didn’t want him to clock the kids inside the club in case he tried to sting him for even more dosh.
‘What you doing here, trouble?’ Roy said, as Brenda ran towards him and Michael.
‘This is my new best friend, Nancy,’ Brenda said proudly.
‘Hello,’ Nancy mumbled.
‘Well, ain’t you a pretty little thing,’ Michael said, winking at her.
‘Yep, she’ll break some hearts one day, like they all do,’ Vinny said, half-joking, half-serious, as he put the Coke and crisps on a table.
‘You all right, boy?’ Roy asked Christopher. The lad looked as if he was in a trance and was gazing around the club with his mouth wide open.
‘That’s my brother,’ Nancy said, smiling at Michael. She found Roy and Vinny a bit scary, but had immediately taken to Michael because he had such a kind face.
‘I really like your club,’ Christopher said, looking at Vinny in awe.
‘Cheers, boy,’ Vinny chuckled.
‘You been home from school yet, Bren? Is Mum and Auntie Viv OK?’ Roy asked.
‘Yeah, I’ve been home, but Mum was upset and she went to sit in Auntie Viv’s house.’
Vinny was immediately alarmed. ‘What do you mean, upset? What was wrong with her?’
‘Dunno. She was sitting on Auntie Viv’s sofa drinking brandy and she looked like she’d been crying.’
‘Why didn’t you bleedin’ well tell me that when you knocked on the door?’ Vinny asked, suddenly agitated.
‘Don’t have a go at her, Vin,’ Roy urged. His brother’s mouth could run away with him at times.
‘Shall I pop round there and make sure everything’s OK?’ Michael offered. Since Vinny had had a go at him, he was trying to do his best to please.
Vinny and Roy glanced at one another. Both were thinking the same thing. Their mother was a tough old East End bird, she never cried, so she had either found out that Vinny had attacked their father, or she knew about his affair.
‘I’ve gotta wait here for Geary, so you pop round home, Roy. You, Michael, can have the night off.’
‘Do you want me to go home to Mum as well?’ Brenda didn’t understand what the hell was going on.
Vinny handed his sister a pound note. ‘No. You take that, buy your friends some sweets and split the change equally between yous. Don’t go home just yet, Bren.’
When Michael opened the door of the club, ruffled her hair and called her sweetheart, Nancy couldn’t look him in the eyes. For the first time ever she had a crush on somebody, but unfortunately for Nancy, he was five years her senior.
‘I’m really sorry, Mum. I was going to tell you in front of Dad at Michael’s birthday lunch, but when I found out about the baby, I decided to sort it meself. Please forgive me,’ Vinny said, staring at his expensive black leather shoes in shame. Vinny loved his mother more than anybody else in the world. If it wasn’t for her sound advice, he wouldn’t be the man he was today. ‘Vinny, you do whatever it takes to make something of your life. It’s better to be a somebody than a nobody, son, and if that means stealing and stamping out people along the way, then so be it. Don’t ever knock or ill-treat your own kind though. You look after them,’ his mum had told him on the day he’d left school.
Aware that her son looked distraught, Queenie put her arms around him and gave him a motherly hug. Vinny was genuinely sorry, she knew that, and she was also thrilled when he had admitted to her that it was him who had put his father in hospital. ‘Let’s put all this behind us now. Your father ain’t worth the salt in our tears, boy. And thanks for giving him such a good going-over. You did me proud.’
Thrilled that his beloved mother was no longer angry with him, Vinny hugged her tightly to his chest.
Johnny Preston was parked up in his Triumph Herald approximately fifty yards from Queenie Butler’s house. Johnny loved his new set of wheels. It was a white convertible and a real babe magnet, just like himself.
With his strawberry-blond hair, six-foot frame, and Adonis-like physique, Johnny Preston was a handsome bastard and he knew it.
‘Cor, it’s fucking taters sitting here. Run the engine, so we can warm ourselves up a bit,’ Dave said to Johnny.
Johnny turned to his pal and shook his head in mock disbelief. Dave Phillips was his best mate. They had been as thick as thieves since the age of six and Dave was one of the toughest bastards that Johnny knew. Until it came to the weather, that was. As soon as the temperature fell below five degrees, Dave had a terrible habit of turning into a big girl’s blouse.
‘You’re such a tart, Phillips,’ Johnny said, starting the ignition. He turned up the volume of the radio. The Kinks were one of Johnny’s favourite bands and as he sang along to ‘Tired of Waiting for You’, he thought how very apt the song was. The reason being, he was getting fucking sick of waiting for mummy’s boy Vinny Butler to reappear from Queenie’s house.
Vinny still being tied to his mother’s apron strings was well-known amongst the criminal fraternity in London. As far as Johnny knew, nobody had ever said anything to Vinny’s face, but Johnny was well aware that many people laughed at Vinny’s almost incestuous relationship with her. He had even heard Mad Frankie Fraser joke about it once or twice.
It was because of his desperation to worm his way in with Mad Frankie and, in particular, Eddie Richardson, that Johnny had decided to confront Vinny Butler with only Dave as back-up. Their other pal Graeme was currently banged-up. You had to earn your kudos to be accepted by such people as the Richardsons and Mad Frankie and Johnny knew that to show such bravery as taking on the Butlers would win him a massive mark of respect. At the moment Mad Frankie and Eddie Richardson were keeping him at arm’s length, but Johnny was determined to change his idol’s opinion of him. Now twenty-seven, he had been forced to marry his wife, Deborah, several years ago after putting her in the family way and even though he still fucked anything with a pulse, he adored his two children, Joanna and Johnny Junior. He wanted to enrol them in the best schools and lavish them with untold wealth and he would do anything to make that happen, even if that did mean snuffing out Vinny and Roy Butler nigh-on singlehandedly.
‘Here he is now,’ Dave said, his voice full of adrenaline. The plan was to give Vinny Butler the pasting of his life and warn him if he or Roy ever went near Judy again, they would both be shot to smithereens.
Johnny punched his steering wheel with frustration. ‘Bollocks! The big fucking Mary-Ann is obviously going out on a family outing. What a waste of an afternoon.’
‘Can’t we just follow ’em and jump Vinny wherever he goes? His brothers ain’t with him,’ Dave suggested.
‘Nah, I don’t mind giving him a good hiding in front of his mother and aunt, but we can’t touch him in front of that backward nephew,’ Johnny replied sensibly.
‘Why not?’
‘Use your loaf, Dave. If we wanna move in the right circles we can’t be involving little ’uns, especially simple ones. It ain’t the done thing, mate.’
‘What we gonna do now then?’ Dave asked.
Johnny released the handbrake and put his foot on the accelerator. ‘Call it a day and come back tomorrow. Don’t worry, Davey Boy. Vinny Butler will get his comeuppance in the not-too-distant future. Nobody threatens my sister and gets away with it and I mean that with all my fucking heart.’
Albie Butler felt almost suicidal. Not only did he have two broken legs and three broken ribs, he was now homeless, and had a wife and a pregnant ex-girlfriend who both hated him with a passion.
‘Hitler in a German tank, parlez vous. Hitler in a German tank, parlez vous. Hitler in a German tank, reading the
Beano
and having a wank. Inky pinky parlez vous,’ sang old Mr Perry in the next bed.
Albie put his bruised head in his hands. Old Mr Perry had done nothing but sing war songs all day and if his legs hadn’t been in traction, Albie would have leapt out of the bed and throttled him by his scrawny neck.
‘Dad.’
Albie looked up and was thrilled to see Roy and Michael standing there. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you, boys. That old goat in the next bed has been doing my bleedin’ head in all day. You ain’t bought your old dad a bottle of brandy by any chance?’ Albie said, directing the question towards his youngest son. Unlike that sadistic bastard Vinny, Michael was a good kid and had visited him every day with an alcoholic gift. They say you shouldn’t have a favourite son, but Michael had always been Albie’s. They had a special bond between them, which Albie had never experienced with Roy or Vinny.
For the first time in his life, Michael looked at his father with hatred in his eyes. Learning his dad had betrayed his mum in such an awful manner had been like having a light switched on in his brain, and he now saw his father just as his brothers did. ‘All we’ve bought you is your clothes from Mum’s house. They’re in two binliners and we gave them to the nurse. I never thought I would hear myself say this, but you are fucking scum, Dad, and I no longer consider myself to be your son.’
‘Yee-haw,’ old Mr Perry shouted with glee.
Roy looked at his brother in astonishment. Michael had always been the soft-as-shit pleasant one out of the three of them, yet within two days of working with him and Vinny, he seemed to have grown bollocks and turned from a boy into a man.
‘And don’t you ever contact us or our mum again,’ Roy threatened, waving a finger in the direction of his father’s shocked face.
‘Don’t go, boys. Please don’t go,’ Albie begged, near to tears.
When Roy and Michael ignored their father’s plea and stomped out of the ward, old Mr Perry broke into song again. Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ was one of his all-time favourites.
Over at the café, Mary and Shirley were singing along to Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ as they buttered a loaf of bread between them. ‘Christ, I totally forgot to ask you how the kids got on at school. No more tears from Nancy, I hope?’ Shirley asked.
Mary chuckled. ‘Nope, no more tears. Both of them absolutely loved their new schools and they’ve made friends already. Nancy has met a mate called Brenda and Christopher has palled up with a lad called Tommy.’
‘Ah, bless ’em. I wonder if Nancy’s mate is my friend Queenie’s daughter. Her name is Brenda and she’s about the same age as your Nancy.’
Realizing that Shirley was referring to the Butler family, Mary stopped buttering her bread and turned to her employee. ‘I’ll have to ask Nancy what her friend’s surname is. What are they like, that Butler family? Queenie and her sister have been in here a couple of times and they seem nice enough. One of the sons came in as well. My Donald wasn’t happy because he gave our Christopher some money. Donald doesn’t like the children taking money off strangers, so he made Christopher give it back to him.’
‘Queenie and Vivian are diamonds, Mary. Both got lovely houses that are spotlessly clean and their doorsteps are gleaming. Young Brenda’s a good kid and so are the three boys. You don’t mess with them though, if you know what I mean? Especially the eldest lad, Vinny. He has a bit of a reputation around here for being more than a handful, but he’s different again with his mum. Worships the ground Queenie walks on, that boy does.’
A customer who wanted serving ended the conversation and as Mary wrote down the order, she said a silent prayer for Nancy’s new friend not to be Brenda Butler. If she was and Donald found out, all hell was sure to break loose.
Under strict instructions from their father, Nancy and Christopher arrived home with their two new friends in tow.
‘This is Brenda,’ Nancy announced.
‘And this is Tommy,’ Christopher said, proudly.
The café was virtually empty and seeing as he and Mary now closed at four, Donald ordered the children to sit down at a table.
‘I know both your mums are probably cooking for you, but we’ve some chips left over in the kitchen. Shall I put them on a plate so you can all share them? There’s not that many so I doubt it will spoil your dinner,’ Mary said.