A Family Scandal (7 page)

‘Cheeky.’

‘True, though.’ He tapped his beer glass against hers. ‘To wild times.’

She tossed her hair, now it was free of the coat collar. She’d put on new earrings and they swung around her neck. ‘Wild times,’ she echoed.

Gary took a gulp and sighed. ‘That’s better. Sorry to keep you waiting like that, I really mean it. I kept thinking you wouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t have blamed you, a cold night like this, being stuck there on your own, and you hardly know me.’

‘Got to know you quite well on Sunday though, didn’t I?’ Rhona said, with a little smile at the memory. If she had her way that would be just the start. She’d been very restrained, not jumping into bed with him at his first suggestion. Didn’t hurt to make them wait a little bit, but it had taken all her willpower to say no.

‘You did,’ he breathed, waving away the smoke from her cigarette that was drifting between them. ‘We could do that again. How about coming back to my place after the bar? We can be as wild as you like.’

Rhona sighed wistfully. ‘I’d love to, Gary, I really would. But I’ve got work tomorrow morning and my boss has got it in for me at the moment – don’t know why, he’s a mean old sod. I can’t get away with being one minute late. So I’ll need to get back to Peckham.’ She paused. ‘And as I live with Mum and Dad I don’t think I can sneak you in. That wouldn’t be right.’

‘Pity.’ Gary took another gulp of beer. ‘I don’t want to get you in trouble …’

‘No, I can do that well enough on my own,’ Rhona assured him.

‘I bet you can.’

‘So not tonight.’ She gazed at him and her eyes sparkled. ‘Maybe another time.’

‘Soon?’

‘I’d like that,’ she said, looking down in an attempt at modesty.

‘I know what I’ll put on,’ Gary said suddenly. ‘Marianne Faithfull. I bet you like her. And it’s because it’s just come to me who you look like. You’re a dead ringer for Marianne Faithfull.’

‘Me?’ Rhona hadn’t heard that one before, but she could hardly object. The sexy, sultry young singer was high in the charts and was drop-dead gorgeous. For a moment she suspected Gary was spinning her a line but then she told herself to relax. She’d just been given a huge compliment by a very attractive man. She gripped the table top. ‘Yes, go on, see if they’ve got her new single.’ She watched him as he sauntered across the floor towards the jukebox, and a thrill went through her. He was special. She’d never met anyone quite like him, and she was a bit scared, knowing that no man had ever affected her in exactly this way before. ‘To wild times,’ she said quietly to herself.

Mavis proudly put away the last of the crockery from the evening meal in her kitchen, pleased with the way she’d organised everything now it was all unpacked. The smart cupboard doors were a pale green, which she’d picked out when Pete gave her the choice. She thought it would remind her of parks and gardens. Now she could look into their own garden from her kitchen window on the first floor and imagine how it would be in summer, with tubs of flowers and vegetables. She sighed contentedly.

‘So you’re settled in?’ asked Tommy, who was sitting at the kitchen table, his elbows on the grass-green Formica surface. ‘It feels like home now?’

‘It does. The children love it, and Grace has stopped worrying about monsters,’ Mavis said with a note of relief. Of course she should have expected that Grace, having complained solidly about sharing with her brother for two years, would then kick up a fuss when she finally had a room of her own. But it had only lasted a couple of nights.

‘It’s a big improvement on Harwood Street, or Wandsworth for that matter,’ said Tommy. ‘You’ll never want to come over to my flat again.’

Mavis laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. We won’t see less of each other now I’m in here, will we? It’s no further away from your place than the old house.’

‘No, only teasing. Anyway, now that the babysitters are right downstairs, if anything, this set-up means we can see more of each other. Or I bet you could get Rhona over. Grace would love that, she can play with those false eyelashes.’

‘Of course,’ said Mavis, but her mind was wandering to what had happened at the weekend. ‘You’ll never guess what,’ she began. ‘The other day, Saturday it must have been, I was down Choumert Street market and I thought I saw a face from the past.’ She grimaced. ‘Larry Barnet, but surely it couldn’t have been him?’

‘Larry?’ Tommy kept his face expressionless. He didn’t want to give anything away about the incident in his office. Had Larry seen her too? Had he sought him out deliberately to wind him up, rather than just walking past the yard and recognising him? ‘You sure?’

‘Well, not totally, but it did look like him, though he had less hair and was bigger than I remember,’ Mavis said nervously. ‘I really hope he hasn’t moved to this area. You know he made my life a total misery for a while and I know you were part of it, but he was the ringleader.’

Tommy rubbed his chin and looked away from her. It sounded like Larry all right. Should he tell her what had happened? No, she’d be more worried than ever and he could tell she was getting herself all worked up. That wasn’t fair, not when she’d been so happy earlier in the evening.

‘Forget about it,’ he advised her. ‘Larry Barnet’s been gone from South London for years and good riddance to him and his family, bunch of criminals that they are. You don’t want to be thinking about him. He’s in the past, love. Why would he show himself round here? He never had anything to do with Peckham. It must have been someone else. Like you said, you could have made a mistake. People change a lot in, what is it? Ten or twelve years?’

‘Yes, I know.’ Mavis bit her lip.

‘Come here,’ Tommy said, opening his arms to her. She went across to him and sat on his lap, resting her head against his. ‘Forget about it,’ said Tommy, stroking her back. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about on that score. I love you and won’t let anything happen to you.’ His face set in determination. ‘I will never, ever let anyone hurt you ever again. Trust me. Nobody is ever going to harm you. I’ll see to that.’

Chapter Seven

‘You sure you don’t mind me tagging along?’ asked Penny, battling along the street against the driving wind that Saturday evening. ‘Oh, this is ruining my hair. I don’t know why I bothered. You got any hairspray on you?’

‘No.’ Rhona wasn’t managing much better. ‘Let’s go to the ladies as soon as we get inside and we can fix ourselves up all over again. I can’t have Gary seeing me like this.’

She gave a sigh of relief as they finally approached the door of the Talisman club. This time it was easier to make out the layout in the dim lighting and they both pushed their way across to the ladies, only to find that everyone else had had the same idea. The small room was full of young women bemoaning the state of their appearance and jostling for a view in the steamed-up mirror. Rhona and Penny ended up doing each other’s make-up and hair in a corner, but eventually they were satisfied that the damage had been repaired and that they were ready to do battle on the dance floor.

Gary was waiting by the bar and Penny nudged Rhona. ‘There he is. Oh, I like his shirt.’

Rhona nodded in agreement. Gary’s dress sense was one of the things that had made him so attractive in the first place. He’d pulled out all the stops tonight, looking better than ever. She eyed him hungrily.

‘Hello, beautiful.’ He smiled when he saw her and pulled her close to him. ‘Hi, Penny. What can I get you both?’

‘Babycham please,’ said Penny.

‘I’ll have rum and blackcurrant,’ said Rhona, giving him a conspiratorial glance.

Penny looked at her with suspicion. ‘What’s this? Rum? You don’t usually drink rum.’

‘It’s my new thing,’ Rhona told her, as Gary nodded in acknowledgement and turned to buy them what they wanted. ‘The Beatles love it. I’ll let you have a sip if you like.’

‘Yeah, I’ll give it a try,’ said Penny dubiously.

Gary returned with their drinks and Rhona offered her a sip of the new favourite. Penny tried it. It was disgusting, thick, sweet, and far too strong. ‘Nah, you can keep it,’ she said, grimacing. ‘I don’t care who likes it, I’m not having that again. Give me Babycham any time. Thanks, Gary.’ She raised her glass to him.

‘My pleasure, doll.’ Gary grinned broadly, knowing he was getting some envious looks for having a blonde on either side. He edged them away from the crowded bar to a vacant table. Sandie Shaw blasted through the speakers and Rhona hummed along.

‘I really like her,’ she said as they took their seats. ‘I wonder if she writes her own songs?’

Gary stared at her for a moment and then laughed. ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not big hits like she’s had. You need a man to write music like that. Women aren’t much use at the serious stuff.’

‘Why not?’ Rhona asked. She hadn’t thought she’d said anything out of the ordinary and wondered if Gary was winding her up. ‘I mean, it’s not that hard, is it? You just need to be good at music.’

‘It takes more than that,’ Gary said with an edge to his voice. ‘I’ve been playing the guitar since I was seven, and you’ve got to be really good to get noticed by the right people to get anywhere. You need talent and luck. Girls are all right to sing the songs and look good at the front of the band, you get the right sort of attention that way, but you don’t want them behind the scenes. They don’t take it seriously. Take it from me.’

Rhona didn’t know what to say to that. She’d obviously touched a nerve. What was so strange about a girl wanting to write music or play the guitar?

‘Are you a musician, then, Gary?’ Penny breathed, stepping into the gap. ‘I hadn’t realised.’

‘Yeah, I’ve played with several bands but I don’t have a regular one at the moment,’ he said, relaxing again. ‘There are a couple who want me to play with them but I’ll have to see. They got to be doing music that I’m into. I don’t want to play any old thing just to be popular. I need to be doing interesting stuff, new stuff.’

‘That sounds exciting,’ said Rhona, moving her chair closer to his. ‘I bet anyone can play the boring old songs. It takes something special to play the sort that nobody’s done before.’

‘Exactly,’ said Gary, lifting his beer. ‘You got to be one step ahead all the time if you really want to make it. It ain’t easy at all, let me tell you.’

Rhona’s eyes shone with expectation. ‘Would you teach me to play, Gary? I’d love to have a go. I’ve never had the chance before.’ Suddenly she was seized with the desire to try it out for herself. What harm could it do to see if she was any good?

Gary laughed and patted her knee. ‘Sure, why not. You can have a go when you come to my place. Just don’t go getting your hopes up ’cos it takes a long time to learn how to play the guitar really well. But you can have a bit of a play around.’ He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

‘You’re on,’ said Rhona eagerly. Gary just got better and better. A gorgeous man who’d teach her the guitar – things didn’t come more perfect than that. ‘I can’t wait.’

Jenny had just checked that ten-year-old Greg had put his light out. He was staying up later and later and if she didn’t put her foot down he’d be reading comics all night. She suspected he had smuggled a torch into his room so he could read under the bedclothes, but short of bursting in on him every now and again she couldn’t very well stop him, and besides it wasn’t a school day tomorrow.

She came back down to the living room and collapsed on to the sofa beside Stan with a big sigh. ‘That boy of ours is changing by the minute. I bet he’s not gone to sleep and was just pretending a moment ago. He’ll ruin his eyesight if he keeps on reading under the blankets like that.’

Stan put down the letter he’d been holding. ‘He’ll be all right, stop worrying. He’s getting older, it’s only natural his interests are changing. You can’t wrap him in cotton wool.’

‘I know.’ She glanced at the piece of paper he’d set aside. ‘What’s that?’

‘Ah.’ Stan paused. ‘I was going to talk to you about it.’

‘What?’ Jenny’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s all right, no need to panic.’ Stan took a deep breath. ‘The boss called me in yesterday to talk about my new territory. This is just a letter confirming the changes. I’ll still be covering parts of London, but also the southwest.’

‘Do you mean southwest England?’ Jenny gasped. ‘They don’t expect you to go down as far as Land’s End, do they?’

Stan laughed, ‘No, love, that’s Cornwall, but it’ll include Dorset, Somerset and maybe parts of Devon.’

‘Devon, but that’s still miles away. You’ll be gone for ages if you have to drive that far.’ She folded her arms. ‘Oh, Stan, I know you’ve got to do it, but honestly, it’s not what I want. I hate the thought of you going away. I really hate it.’

Stan put his arm around her. ‘It won’t be so bad,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It could be much worse. What if I had to go to Scotland?’

She turned and stared at him.

‘No, no, I won’t have to do that,’ Stan said hastily. ‘There’s a whole different team covering the north of England and Scotland. And it won’t take me too long, I’ll go down the A303 and be there in next to no time. It’s meant to be beautiful.’

Jenny shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.’

Stan waved the letter. ‘Well, here’s the thing. Would you like to?’

‘What, go to work with you?’ Jenny asked, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so, Stan.’

Stan shut his eyes briefly, wondering if she’d deliberately got the wrong end of the stick. He was trying to see this as a positive change and knew his life would be easier if he could talk Jenny round. He hoped what he had to say next would do it. ‘Not to work, no. But obviously if I have to stay over for a few nights then I’ll put up in a hotel or somewhere that does bed and breakfast. There may be occasions when you could come too and we can turn it into a nice weekend away. How do you fancy that?’

‘What about Greg?’ Jenny asked at once. ‘We can’t leave him on his own.’

Stan sighed. ‘Nobody said anything about leaving him on his own. He could stay with Mavis, couldn’t he? Or Tommy. Or my mum would have him.’

Jenny thought for a moment. ‘He’d rather stay with Mavis. Not being funny or anything but your mum will make him go to bed at seven o’clock and won’t let him watch telly. And now that James has got his own room, Mavis could have him easily …’