‘Well, might see you again . . . when you come back for your compensation,’ Connie added slyly.
‘Ready to go then, are we?’ Twitch asked with a very old-fashioned look lifting his brows beneath his helmet. ‘Able to march back to the station, are you, with your balls on fire?’ he added with acid amusement as they plodded on towards the corner that turned into Seven Sisters Road.
Franks scowled and said nothing but his restless hands plunged a little deeper into his pockets.
‘So . . . found something desirable about the place, have you?’
‘She’s probably on the game . . . hard to know with any of that lot what they get up to.’ Ralph frowned into space.
‘If she was on the game, son, she wouldn’t be hanging around here on a Saturday night. She’d be up west somewhere earning a fortune with those looks.’
‘Are they trouble?’
‘Who, the Keivers? I wouldn’t mess with them for no reason.’
‘Nah. The Whittons.’
‘The Whittons.’ Twitch grunted a laugh. ‘Now let me see. What you’ve got there is one mad old mother, a father who’s had sense enough to have it away on his toes before he goes crackers too, a son dead of disease and three daughters. Lenny died of something or other when he was just about old enough to go to work. I think that’s what sent the mother into a decline . . . the thought of his lost wages. As for the girls . . . you’ve got a fat ugly one, a skinny schoolgirl and the novice tart you just spoke to. So, all in all, I suppose you’d have to say they’re a pretty average mob for around here.’
‘Come ‘n’ play us a tune, Al,’ Jack called to Alice as she tried to slip past him in the crowded room. Jack pulled her onto the stool beside him and affectionately ruffled her dark hair.
‘Don’t know any tunes, Dad,’ Alice said with a grin but she plinked and plonked up and down on the ivories, making some inharmonious noise while her dad took a break from performing. He flexed his fingers then supped from the pint glass on top of the piano. The other men might drink straight from the bottle but her dad liked to take his ale with a bit more style.
‘Come on, Jack, get goin’ again while I’m in the mood,’ Jimmy Wild yelled before swigging from the bottle in his fist.
Alice swivelled on the seat to look about. Her eyes met Jimmy’s and he gave her a wink. Not so long ago she would have shared the private moment and winked right back. But now, since he’d got her in to trouble with her mum over that half a crown, she felt differently about him. She was beginning to understand that Uncle Jimmy wasn’t as nice and friendly as he liked people to think. She was coming to believe that perhaps it wasn’t half a dozen of one, six of the other when he and Aunt Fran were going at it hammer and tongs. And perhaps Bobbie and Stevie hadn’t misbehaved enough to deserve the bruises she’d seen on them at school. She suspected that her uncle just needed to be in a bad mood over something to act mean.
He’d been mean to her. He must have known that she’d get a wallop off her mum for taking his half a crown. She’d thought that a little secret existed between them yet he’d told on her straight away. His wink and that secret stare now made an odd feeling squirm in her stomach. She half-smiled at him but looked away quickly, her eyes flitting about the cramped room.
She’d left Sarah on the pavement and only come in to get them a drink of pop . . . if any was left in the bottle. If not she was going to ask her dad for a bit of money so they could get some from the shop. Since her dad had got a good job with Basher Payne money hadn’t been so tight and being cheeky and asking for a few coppers didn’t naturally get you a clip round the ear. Her dad had waylaid her and she’d stopped where she was rather than slipping back outside because she enjoyed having his attention.
‘Come on, give us a little tune, Monkey,’ her dad fondly invited her, using the pet nickname he had for her.
‘Alright, Freckles,’ she teased him back and rubbed a tickling finger over the speckled skin on his jaw. ‘Glad I’m not a Freckles,’ she said provocatively.
Jack touched the mark. ‘It’s me beauty spot,’ he said, as he always did when ribbed over the blemish. ‘I know you’d like one just like it really.’
Alice chuckled and picked out a simple chord that he’d taught her when they’d first got the piano. Her dad accompanied her lightly, encouraging her to try again when she hit a wrong note. Finally Alice gestured she’d had enough and looked around for her mum. She was squashed up against the mantelpiece with Aunt Fran. Both of them drinking whiskey by the look of it. Aunt Fran’s best skirt barely outlined the little mound of her pregnant belly. Most of the people who had lodgings in the house were either crammed into the room or were out on the landing. Even old Mr Prewett from the landing below – who was known to be a bit of a misery guts – was sitting on the bed edge, tapping his good foot in anticipation of her dad soon starting to play a new tune.
Margaret Lovat bent her head close to Alice’s and shouted over the rollicking din, ‘You seen my Danny, Alice?’
‘He’s just outside on the pavement with all of us,’ Alice answered.
‘Tell him to nip next door ‘n’ see to the little ’uns, will you, in case Geoff’s gone out.’
Alice got up from beside her dad and slipped out and into the back room. Mrs Lovat had just reminded her that her baby sister might need her attention. It was usually her job to make sure that Bethany and Lucy were taken care of while the adults enjoyed themselves and got drunk. Not that her mum asked her to do it. She was probably too under the influence to even remember she had kids some of the time. She just assumed Alice would look out for the younger ones.
By the light of a tiny flame in an oil lamp balanced precariously on the seat of a chair Alice could see Bethany was dozing on the bed next to Lucy. The room stank and the unmistakeable sound of flies could be heard buzzing. Alice turned up the flame. She looked down at Lucy. She was awake and smiled at her despite the fact that a fly crawled in the milky sick on her chin.
Alice flicked it away and found what she needed to clean her up. She wiped her face with a rag then attended to her bottom end. Alice felt herself gag as the stench intensified. Quickly she bundled the filthy nappy onto the floor and cleaned Lucy’s bottom. She then put a clean scrap of cotton on her and picked her up.
‘When I go . . . I’ll take you with me,’ she promised her. ‘I’ll always be around if you need me,’ she whispered against her soft, musky cheek. She put her back down on the bed close to Bethany then, picking up the stinking nappy, she took it out, hoping that most of the flies would follow.
‘Lucy’s nappy,’ Alice said by way of explanation as Sophy wrinkled her nose at her. Alice had tried to rinse her hands under the tap on the landing but the place was so packed it was hard to get to the water and wash properly. She felt a little embarrassed and annoyed at Sophy for miming she stank in front of Danny. ‘Anyhow, your mum said you’ve got to go ‘n’ check on the little ’uns,’ she told Danny.
Danny muttered beneath his breath but got to his feet.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sophy immediately volunteered.
A significant look seemed to pass between the two of them. ‘Nah . . . ’s’alright,’ Danny mumbled. ‘Geoff might be in there. Not seen him go out. Not that he’s any bleedin’ use with the kids. He’s probably akip.’
‘You two been making plans then?’ Alice asked when they were alone. Sarah had gone off to the shop with her sister Connie to get some sherbert.
Alice knew that Danny had just started a new job down the market helping on a costermonger’s stall. Despite having boasted months ago he wouldn’t be taking dead-end errand-boy jobs, that was what he’d started off with. To save face he said he’d taken it because he got a bike to use for deliveries. He’d bring the bike home at dinnertime and give the Keiver kids and his brothers