Gracie's Sin (7 page)

Unfortunately, Dexter Mulligan also enjoyed a good game of poker, a skill Eddie lacked, for all he’d been persuaded into playing long into the night on numerous occasions. He’d enjoyed some good wins in the past but recently had suffered a run of bad luck. He’d hoped today to turn the tide.

Mulligan stood up and declared his intention of taking a breath of fresh air.

‘Good idea,’ Eddie agreed. ‘Do us all good.’ By the time they got back, Rose might have arrived and be able to rustle up something decent for them to eat. ‘I’ll lead the way, shall I?’

‘No, Eddie. You stay here and look after my boys. Syd and Bob’ll come with me. Gertie can show us round, can’t you, doll? When we get back, we can have a nice little chat about that bit of business I mentioned the other day. All right, mate?’ His sharp little eyes flickered from one of his henchmen to the other, causing Eddie to sweat all the more.

‘Yeah, right,’ he agreed, and swallowed.

Even Gertie looked less than enthusiastic about her role for once, and cast him an anguished glance as she rose from her seat. Eddie followed her to the door, all easy smiles and bonhomie. Uncharacteristically, he helped her on with her coat, simply in order to quietly instruct her to take Mulligan up to the summer house. ‘And keep him happy, for all our sakes.
Excel yourself
! Give him whatever he asks for. Or he’ll have my head on a soddin’ platter.’

After they’d gone, Eddie eagerly offered the grim-faced Pursey brothers a glass of port each but, instead, found himself pinned to the wall with the prick of a knife at his gullet. ‘’ere, what the hell…?’

‘You do what Mr Mulligan asks, if’n you know what’s good fer yer. Right?’

Eddie decided against nodding since he could feel a thin trickle of warm liquid which must be blood, running down his neck. ‘Course. What you think I am, stupid?’

‘Mr Mulligan wants his money. OK? All you has to do, is pay up.’

‘But I ain’t got...’ The rest of Eddie’s words were choked into silence by the grip Syd had on his throat.

Lou and Gracie insisted, in view of her injuries and their part in them, that Rose join them in a substantial, if not particularly exciting, lunch of corned beef hash and pickled onions. Since she could barely walk, Rose decided she might as well. It tasted delicious, all washed down with a glass or two of cider. They were only permitted in the bar parlour because the publican’s wife took pity on them, women not usually being allowed in there at all, WTC uniform or no. Tizz sneaked under the table in the hope of picking up the odd titbit, dropped for her benefit.

It was a wonder that any of them tasted the food, excellent though it undoubtedly was, as they barely stopped talking throughout the meal.

Lou promised faithfully to fix the damaged bicycle, somehow or other. ‘I’m a whizz with bikes. I’ve one of me own back home. Don’t know how I could have got to work otherwise. Wish I'd fetched it with me.’

‘I thought all you Lancastrians walked to t’mill in clogs, so you can spark them on the cobbles,’ Rose teased, mocking her accent.

Lou grinned, not taking the least offence at the ribbing. ‘Nay, a bike’s better but clog clasps allus gets fast in t’chain. Anyroad up, we youngsters don’t wear clogs so much nowadays. We’re a bit more fashion conscious than our mams were.’

‘Yes, I can see that you are,’ Rose said, blue eyes dancing as they travelled up and down Lou’s muddy dungarees, turned up socks and heavy boots.

They were, all three, instant friends, comparing notes and anecdotes, likes and dislikes as well as mutual moans about parents and brothers, not forgetting their opinions on men in general, of course. Rose said nothing about Eddie’s tendency to bully her. She told them what a marvellous brother he was, though she did admit to how tight-fisted he could be with his own money, while happily enjoying the advantages of his position.

‘He’s forever involved in some scheme or other to make more, though what exactly that might be, I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Perhaps its the black market,’ Lou suggested. ‘You know, selling things like ladies’ nylons, nails and rivets, tea and sugar.’

Rose giggled. ‘More likely to be a bit of old fashioned Cornish smuggling, baccy and brandy. I’m sure there’s still plenty of that goes on. Course, he could be trading in diamonds or working as a spy, for all I know.’ She laughed again, to make it clear that she was only joking. Rose would hate these two to think of her brother as a criminal. He wasn’t like that at all.

Anxious to put the record straight she went on to explain how for the past seven years he’d brought her up virtually single handed. ‘When our mother, Elizabeth, died as a result of contracting scarlet fever caught from me, poor Papa was far too wrapped up in his own grief to pay much attention to mine. I blamed myself, you see, for having brought the infection into the house.’

‘Nay, it weren’t your fault,’ Lou intervened. ‘How could you be held responsible?’

‘For a while Eddie did imply that I was but I don’t know what I would’ve done without him because in the end, Papa died too. From a broken heart they said.’

‘Oh, how terribly sad.’ Gracie looked near to tears.

‘It was a difficult time for Eddie and me. It took a while before we got over it, well - learned to live with it anyway; to adjust and get along.’ Memories of times when his rage and resentment had frightened her, came almost spontaneously into her mind: of endless weeks of furious silence when he would communicate with her only by leaving notes on the dresser; of days when he’d have her washing the windows over and over by way of punishment, even waking her up during the night to do them all over again. And almost worse than all of this, certainly to the child she had once been, was to make her stand up to eat her dinner, as if she were unclean in some way, and not fit to sit at table with him. The harder she strove to please him, the more she seemed to fail.

Rose blinked away the tears, took a swig of cider and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, just as her mother had once taught her. ‘Enough of me, let’s talk about something more cheerful.’ His behaviour had been caused by grief, of course. Nothing more. Not for one moment did she ever allow herself to forget how much she owed him. She would have been quite alone in the world without Eddie.

 
So Lou told the tale of her wedding with suitable embellishments about the antics of three drunken sailors let loose on the Barbican. ‘It’s a wonder they weren’t arrested. Then Gordon and me went dancing on the Hoe, just the two of us, where Drake played bowls when the Spanish Armada was coming. Nowadays the people of Plymouth dance while they wait for the invasion, hoping and praying that it won’t ever come.’

She explained how she’d joined the Timber Corps to be near to her beloved Gordon, and how she was hoping he’d get leave any day now and come to see her. Lou wept a few tears of her own since she ached for him so, admitting that she prayed day and night that he’d be kept safe, working at Devonport Royal Dockyard and not sent anywhere dangerous.

Rose said, ‘Plymouth isn’t all that safe, not with all the bombings they’ve had. And isn’t Devonport Dockyard the main naval repair establishment? A number one target, I should think.’

‘Oh hecky thump! I thought he’d be safe there.’

‘Nowhere is safe, Lou. Anyway, don’t think about it. Change the subject. What about children? Don’t you want a family? I mean, you might get pregnant, what would you do about the Timber Corps then?’

Lou shook her head. ‘I’m making sure that won’t happen. Not yet. Oh aye, we do want a family, one day. There’s nothing me and Gordon would like better. But I’m in no hurry to have a kid, not till the war’s over.

The two younger girls exchanged glances, as if silently agreeing that this was eminently sensible and yet curious to know how she could be certain that she’d keep herself safe. Neither of them quite summoned up the courage to ask.

‘Go on,’ Rose said, turning to Gracie. ‘Now it’s your turn.

‘Heavens, my life has been dull and boring from start to finish. No excitement in it at all beyond whether Mrs Fishwick would buy Peak Frean biscuits or Rich Tea. Though at least she was prepared to pay full price. Mrs Catchpole, on the other hand, always bought the broken ones, because they were cheaper. She liked to pick them herself out of the tin and Dad, fool that he was, would let her. Not that she ever got away with that trick when I was serving, because I knew she always chose the biggest bits. Wasn’t above breaking the odd biscuit either, if it was one of her favourites. What a cheat.’ Chuckling at the memory, Gracie went on to explain about her parent’s differing ambitions for her. ‘They always disagree on everything, on principal, I think.’

‘Yes but what did
you
want to do?’ Rose asked.

‘I hadn’t the first idea, not till I saw that poster offering freedom. Though I think I fell in love with the uniform as much as the job.’

‘You can see why, can’t you?’ Lou quipped, flapping a hand at her friend’s equally bedraggled state.

‘You should have seen me when I turned up for my interview. Dressed to kill, I was, thinking to make a good impression. Fancy hat, silk stockings, high heels, the lot. I could see all these worthy women eyeing me as if I was a complete fool. It’s a miracle they let me in since I looked as if I were applying for a job on
Picture Post,
not the Women’s Timber Corps. I hope that by the time this war is over, I’ll have made up my mind what I want to do with the rest of my life. Who knows? It’ll be exciting to find out.’

This set them all off dreaming. Lou predicting that she and Gordon would have gone to live up north by then, and started the family they both longed for.

‘What about you?’ Gracie gently enquired.

Rose said, ‘Heavens, I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll find myself a husband. Preferably someone excruciatingly rich and with acres and acres of lush green pastures for me to ride my beautiful chestnut mare.’

‘Have you got a beautiful chestnut mare?’

‘No, my rich husband can buy me one. Mind you, I’ll probably get somebody old and crabby, not a penny to his name, and who picks his teeth,’ and they all fell about laughing, taking great delight in describing what would make the worst husband imaginable.

‘Someone who snores.’

‘Or gets drunk every night.’

‘Reads the paper at breakfast and smokes in bed.’

‘Or has a bald head, like Tom-Tom.’

This last suggestion brought them back to reality with a jerk. Gracie glanced at her watch and leapt to her feet. ‘My godfathers, look at the time. It’s nearly three o’clock. We’ll be for it.’

Rose’s face went white. ‘Not half so much as I will be. Eddie’ll kill me,’ and she hastily explained about the lunch she’d been preparing. ‘I only wanted a bit of cheese to liven up the Woolton Pie.’

‘By heck,’ said Lou. ‘If I’d known, I’d’ve fetched you any amount. That’s the one thing we’re not short of, cheese.’

Eddie had hoped to set up the tables and rig the cards in his own favour before Mulligan and Gertie returned, but by the time he’d calmed down the Pursey brothers with the aid of an extra large port, they were back. Secreting the odd card up his sleeve was the best he could manage in the time he had available. Unlikely to get him out of the quagmire of debt he was in but the best he could manage in the circumstances.

Gertie was oddly silent and, not meeting his enquiring gaze, went to sit in the farthest corner of the room, her face ashen. Mulligan’s expression was as benign and inscrutable as ever. Eddie didn’t care to think what had taken place up at the summer house but Syd and Bob were certainly looking pleased with themselves, like the proverbial cat who’d swallowed the cream.

Eddie hastily offered Mulligan a brandy and prayed for the luck to run his way for once. The party of six divested themselves of jackets and ties, made huge inroads into Lord Clovellan’s best Havanahs, opened a second bottle of port and the air in the library, which was where they were now happily ensconced, soon reeked of alcohol, cigar smoke and bad breath. But sadly, Eddie’s prayers went unanswered. Much to his growing dismay, as the afternoon wore on every bluff was countered, every card he picked up was the wrong one. The Pursey brothers were operating on a closed shop principle as usual, and Bob and Syd had more sense than to risk offending anyone as dangerously powerful as Dexter Mulligan by helping Eddie out. As so often these days, the fellow seemed to hold all the aces.

Mulligan smoothed down his oil-slick black hair, leaned back in his chair and rolled the cigar between his teeth. A swathe of blue smoke wreathed his head and, to Eddie’s eyes at least, he could easily have been a dragon breathing fire. The black beady gaze, fixed so tightly upon him, gave the impression that he only had to snap his fingers and a huge pair of jaws would appear out of nowhere and gobble Eddie up.

‘So where’s that recalcitrant sister of yours, Eddie m’boy?’ he blithely enquired. ‘Did you not tell her that I'd a fancy to have her sit by me at table today?’

‘Course I did, Mr Mulligan.’ Eddie always addressed him in a proper fashion, never risked using Dexter’s given name as he hadn’t been given permission to do so. ‘I made your instructions very plain.’

‘You can’t have much control over this household, Eddie boy, if you allow a young girl to flout your wishes quite so blatantly. Women should be trained with a firm hand, I’ve always found. Don’t you agree, boys?’ Sniggers and murmurs of agreement all round. Gertie shrank further back into the corner, almost disappearing behind a Victorian scrap screen.