East End Angel. Kay Brellend

Kathy lifted Ruby’s nightdress, dreading to see any sign of a head just yet, before she’d even had a chance to have a scrub with carbolic. A satisfied sigh blew through her lips. ‘There’s time yet, Ruby, I know there is. You’re doing fine, promise you are …’

      Ruby’s scalp ground into the pillow. ‘Knew I should have let Ivy take care of me. She’d have let me push it out straight off. It’s all your fault … interfering bitch,’ she ranted in pain-induced hysteria. ‘Where’s Peter?’ Again, Ruby struggled to sit up. ‘Go and find your fucking father, Peter!’ she bellowed. ‘He’ll be at the Railway Tavern, the bastard. He can do his duty by me even if he don’t want the fucking kid.’

      ‘It’s way past closing time, Mrs Potter.’ Kathy glanced at Mrs Mason, who’d stopped filling pots with water to gawp at the commotion.

      ‘Nurse is doin’ her best for you, luv.’ Peggy approached the bed and patted at Ruby’s hand, while mouthing at Kathy, ‘She don’t mean nuthin’ by it, Nurse Finch. She’s just … well, you know how we women are at times like this.’

      Kathy did know. She’d had far worse abuse from women deranged by agonising labour. And poor Ruby had far more torturing her than the pain in her belly. Her thug of a husband was about to discover if the baby she had carried for eight months was his. ‘Please see to boiling the water and finding clean rags,’ Kathy ordered briskly, noticing Peggy standing idle.

      Mrs Mason sent Kathy an old-fashioned look but returned to the stove.

      ‘You are being a great help … thank you.’ Kathy felt guilty for allowing anxiety to make her snappy. The last thing she wanted was the woman going off in a huff, leaving her with just Peter to give a hand. ‘Are we able to get some more light?’ Kathy glanced up at a solitary gas lamp shedding a weak glow over the disarray in the room.

      ‘There’s an oil lamp in our bedroom,’ Peter volunteered. He’d left Pansy in there on the bed, but now trotted back to the room to get the light.

      ‘Don’t want no more fuckin’ light; want me husband,’ Ruby moaned, swiping a hand across her sweat-soaked brow.

      ‘Told you she was delirious,’ Peggy muttered sarcastically. She lived close enough to the Potters to have heard the commotion that blew up regularly between Ruby and Charlie. She’d seen the poor cow sporting her bruises too. If she’d not gleaned from local gossip why she was getting them, she’d have heard Charlie bawling out that his wife was a dirty scrubber.

      ‘Do you know where Charlie Potter might be, Mrs Mason?’ Kathy asked.

      Peggy raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips. ‘No I don’t, and I don’t want to neither. In my opinion, she’s best off with the likes of him out the way. Neither use nor ornament, that one.’ She turned back to the sink and filled more pots from the rusty cold tap, in readiness to lug them over to the stove.

      ‘You’re not an easy man to find …’

      The drawling voice had issued from a nearby alleyway and Charlie Potter spun about to squint into blackness. He’d been drinking but was not as inebriated as he might have been. He and some workmates had spent the evening being entertained by a few dockside whores, so his rolling gait was due as much to being shagged out as drunk. ‘Depends who’s looking fer me whether I get meself found,’ he snarled.

      Nick stepped under the gas lamp so Potter could see him.

      Charlie licked his lips, cocking his head to a belligerent angle.

      ‘And what d’yer reckon you’re playin’ at then, Raven?’

      ‘Reminding you of your manners around my mother,’ Nick replied smoothly. ‘Just a friendly warning: stay away from her.’

      ‘Or what?’ Charlie threw back his greasy greying head, roaring a laugh. ‘What you gonna do, son? You couldn’t even keep yer own missus satisfied. You had to let Wes see to her for you. Don’t reckon you’ll have much better luck in keeping me away from yer old mum. Not when Lottie likes me so much.’

      Charlie swaggered closer to the younger man, top lip curling. He knew that Nick Raven was going up in the world and had a reputation for being able to handle himself. But Charlie was confident his association with Wes Silver made other men give him a very wide berth. As this bloke’s wife had regularly dropped her drawers for his boss until Wes gave the silly tart the old heave-ho, he reckoned Nick was a prat showing his face, let alone confronting him.

      ‘Do yourself a favour ’n’ piss off before I get right narked.’ Charlie tried to saunter on by but found his path blocked.

      ‘Yeah … I will … as soon as you tell me you’re gonna stay well away from Lottie in future.’

      Charlie sighed, took a look to the left as though to disguise the fact his right fist was coming up.

      Nick stepped sideways and folded Charlie over with a thump in the guts before his opponent could hit him. He was an easy target: too old, too thick, too flabby. Charlie Potter was of a breed of men who thought their hard reputations, won a decade ago, protected them. But he was a nothing. In fact, Nick felt bad for having to do this to a bloke old enough to be his father. A moment later, when Charlie lumbered at him, swinging a right hook, Nick didn’t feel so bad about flooring him with a couple of swift jabs.

      Charlie collapsed onto his shoes and Nick tipped him off with faint disgust. Up close, he could smell the rank odour coming off him: stale sweat and cheap women. But he nevertheless dragged him to his vehicle and stuffed him onto the front seat. Despite it all, Potter was a family man and his mother felt sorry for Ruby, so he supposed he ought to drop him somewhere near home …

      Nick leaned across Charlie to push open the car door and was about to put his boot against his passenger’s comatose form to tip him out. He hesitated, having noticed Charlie’s front door was open and a child was on the threshold silhouetted by a weak light. The little girl appeared to be pointing at him as though she knew her father was slumped beside him. Nick glared at Charlie, wishing he’d not bothered bringing the bastard back home to dump him on his own doorstep. He should have left him where he fell in the gutter. It seemed odd at this time of night but if the kid was waiting up for her old man to come home, he could hardly kick him onto the cobbles in front of her.

      Cursing beneath his breath, Nick got out of the car and strode over, hoping to shoo her inside before offloading Charlie. She looked frozen standing there, white-faced, in just a thin cotton shift. A bloodcurdling scream met his approach as though somebody was being murdered. Nick whipped the perished child into his arms so he could get past and into the house.

      ‘You a friend of Charlie’s?’ Peggy Mason gawped at the tall stranger hovering in the doorway, holding Pansy in his arms. She didn’t think he could be pals with Charlie as he seemed flash and well-to-do. She had a brainwave. ‘You a doctor, come to help?’ Peggy was optimistically hoping to nip off home. She’d done her stint, she reckoned. She’d been at the Potters’, running herself ragged, for two hours, and still no sign of an end to it all.

      Nick shook his head, frowning. ‘What’s going on?’ He put the child down but instinctively prevented her from getting any closer to the half-naked woman squawking on the bed.

      Peggy knew an opportunity when she saw it: doctor or no doctor, friend of the family or no friend, she had a husband who had to get to work and would create merry hell unless she got him tea and toast before he left. Plus, her youngest was overdue for his feed and she could feel her breasts leaking milk.

      ‘Somebody else here to help, Nurse. I’m just popping off to see to me little ’un so Bert can do his shift. I’ll come back later if I can … all right …?

      Kathy had been crouching over Ruby, gripping her hands and calling encouragement but she straightened as her patient fell back, eyes closed. Pushing a blonde curl off her brow with the back of her wrist, Kathy gazed at the fair-haired man stationed by the door. ‘Are you a friend of Mr Potter’s?’ she asked. ‘Do you know where he is?’ Her weariness was making her feel light-headed. But she had