East End Angel. Kay Brellend

live well, so I’m well built.’ Wes used both hands to pat his girth. ‘People get jealous. You jealous of me, Cyril?’ Wes’s humour had evaporated as quickly as it had fomented. He seemed keen to have an answer and the air of menace in the shop strengthened.

      Charlie knew his boss liked nothing better than to be envied. If the fellow on the floor didn’t come up with the right answer, he’d have to stamp on his privates again.

      ‘You must be joking.’ Cyril managed a sneer. He might have been down but he wasn’t yet out. ‘Never in me life want to be anything like you …’

      Charlie sighed. He didn’t even have to look at his boss for confirmation, he just swung his boot.

      Wes nodded at the two lads dodging to and fro to peer in through the drapery display in the window. ‘Nice kids.’ He raised his voice to be heard over the coughing groan coming from Cyril Butler, rolling on the floor. ‘You look after them now, won’t you …?’

      Charlie Potter nodded sagely, endorsing his boss’s advice, crossing his arms over his chest.

      ‘Well, come on, Charlie … places to go … people to see,’ Wes chivvied playfully. He picked up his hat from the counter, tipping it at Mabel Butler before plonking it back on his sleek black head.

      ‘How’s your missus?’ Wes asked as they walked off towards the greengrocer’s shop on the corner. Within the premises was another local merchant who had felt disinclined to hand over his contribution to fund party politics, thus necessitating Wes arriving in person to explain to him the gravity of the situation. ‘Saw your Ruby not so long ago and she looked a bit peaky, I thought. Hope everything’s all right at home, son.’ Wes gazed up at his sidekick’s tense profile, noticing the lines on his face and the grey at his temples. Charlie was some four inches taller than he was and six years older. Nevertheless, Wes liked to think he was his superior in every way.

      ‘She’s dropped the nipper already,’ Charlie muttered, keeping his eyes on passing traffic.

      ‘Yeah?’ Wes waited expectantly.

      ‘Bleedin’ kids …’ Charlie grunted, stuffing his hands in his pockets. ‘Fuckin’ pain in the arse …’

      ‘Well, that’s one way to make sure you don’t get her up the duff in future, Charlie.’ Wes smirked. ‘Either that or take your business elsewhere when you’re horny, son.’

      Charlie tightened his lips. It wasn’t the first time his boss had implied his wife was a brass. Although Charlie knew Ruby had been on the game before they met, he liked to think she’d laid off the profession since.

      The fact that there was a little bastard at home who had yellow skin and slitted eyes naturally knocked sideways that fond notion. Charlie had knocked Ruby sideways when he’d first found out she was expecting. He could work out easily enough that he’d been locked up when she’d got herself in the family way again. What he couldn’t understand was why she hadn’t got rid of it. Soon after Pansy’s birth his wife had got pregnant. She’d not told him how she’d stopped her belly bloating but he’d guessed she’d done a job on herself. This time she’d kept the kid, yet she must have known that when he got out of prison he’d go berserk. The idea that Ruby might not be as frightened of him as he liked to believe had enraged Charlie almost as much as the image of her opening her legs for a Chinaman while he’d been wanking on a prison bunk.

      She’d wailed at him she’d been so skint without his wages coming in that she’d had to do whatever she could to earn a few bob to feed them all. It was probably true, but the excuse cut no ice with Charlie. He’d simply clumped her again and would’ve kept on but for Peter getting in from school and jumping on his back, howling. So he’d had to chastise his son with his fists as well. And that was a shame because he liked the boy. Peter sometimes reminded him of himself at that age: mouthy and brave …

      ‘So … what is it, then? Boy or gel? Look like you, do it?’

      His boss’s jolly questions interrupted Charlie’s thoughts, putting his teeth on edge.

      Wes already knew the answers to his questions, but he liked to wind Charlie up. Ruby’s new kid looked Chinese, so he’d heard. Wes was relishing the irony of it all. They were out and about canvassing to collect for the Fascist Party and rid the country of immigrants and there was Charlie with a Chinese baby under his roof. In a couple of years’ time, it would be calling him Dad. Wes slanted a contemptuous look at his henchman but felt quite sorry for him. Charlie would be a laughing stock amongst his workmates on the dock if he let the cow get away with it.

      ‘Up ’n’ about again, is she, Charlie?’ Wes prodded. ‘Don’t do to let women get away with shirking for too long. I had my May back on her feet as soon as the midwife walked out the front door. Get lazy, see, don’t they, if you don’t watch ’em …’

      It was Charlie’s turn to hide a snigger. He knew that Wes’s old woman ran rings round him. If May wanted to sit on her fat arse all day long then that’s what she did. Wes was just happy his wife had a brain on her so the two of them could share it.

      ‘In we go then …’ Wes lilted out as they came abreast of the greengrocery display piled up outside the shop. ‘Another nonce, Charlie, who needs telling that all the immigrants are taking our jobs and our women. What bloke’s gonna put up with a foreigner humping his wife … eh?’ Wes’s crafty glance revealed that he’d successfully touched a nerve about Ruby’s Chinaman. Sometimes, Wes felt bad about tormenting his sidekick but he had to carry on because it made Charlie so much better at doing his job.

      Charlie burst in through the doorway, sending boxes of apples flying, making the greengrocer spin about at the commotion. The last thing the fellow saw before his face was rammed onto the wooden counter was Charlie’s snarl.

      Joyce Groves raised herself by digging an elbow into the feather pillow, while twirling her champagne flute by its stem. ‘What you doin’?’ she asked. She eyed the broad back of the man sitting on the edge of the bed. Reaching out lazy fingers, she trailed them to and fro over ridges of muscle.

      ‘Making sure you don’t get pregnant,’ Nick said as he took the French letter out of the packet and put it on. Joyce put her glass of champagne down on the bedside table and flopped onto her back. Nick turned, sinking back onto the mattress, then rolled to drag her into his arms. He covered her in a swift precise movement and kissed her. Immediately, Joyce wound her arms around his neck, hooking her calves over his.

      ‘Looking after you, see,’ Nick growled against her hot eager mouth. ‘You want to show me how grateful you are for that?’

      Joyce wasn’t grateful but she bucked and squirmed as he started to arouse her and soon she forgot to feel annoyed that he might have rumbled her little game.

      Afterwards, she lay back, luxuriating in sensual lethargy, and thought she could grow used to this life … expensive hotels and fancy food and drink. Nick had treated her to a night in a West End hotel and they’d seen a show and had a fantastic dinner of lobster and fillet steak. She glanced at the breakfast tray that held the remnants of their meal of eggs and smoked haddock, and another half-empty bottle of champagne. She felt quite like a princess, and she wanted her prince to make it a permanent state of affairs. She didn’t want to go back to working in a greasy-spoon café that catered for workmen in overalls who pinched her backside every time she walked past.

      She watched Nick through half-closed eyelids as he strolled to the window to stare at the street scene while fixing his tie. He’d been up and about as soon as his passion was again spent. The strength of his lovemaking this morning had left a pleasant ache throbbing at the apex of her thighs and she stretched in cat-like contentment against the silky sheets, thinking.

      She knew the reason Nick used johnnies was to protect himself rather than her. She’d heard that his wife had used the trick of getting herself pregnant to get a ring on her finger. Joyce had hoped to use the same ploy. But it seemed he wasn’t going to fall for it second time around – more was the pity.

      She’d