Tara (42 page)

'I couldn't be your manageress and your designer.' She sipped her drink and looked innocent. She saw the startled look, guessed he'd thought he could go on putting on her for ever. 'I can't do both jobs efficiently, Josh. It's got to be one or the other. With two shops and more planned I'd be run ragged.'

'I was only thinking of you carrying on like we've always done.' He slapped on his most beguiling smile. 'I'd do the bulk of the designs.'

That meant he was going to steal ideas from others, just the way he had before she came. She had never dared allude to that for fear of making him angry, but now she knew it was time to put her cards on the table.

'You can't design,' she blurted out. 'You haven't made one sketch in two years that was workable. You can't go on copying other people's clothes either, Josh, not if you want to stay in business.'

She saw anger rise in his face and she wondered if she'd blown it.

'I'm sorry to be so blunt,' she added quickly. 'I'm only saying this now because you wanted to know how committed I am. I'll be your designer, Josh. I'll work some of the time in the new shop, but I'm not prepared to go on as we have been any longer.'

Josh was stunned, he'd underestimated the girl. He had thought offering her a carrot would turn this drink into a date. He hadn't expected an ultimatum.

'So what else would you like?' His lip curled petulantly.

'More money,' she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. 'And a proper workroom. I'm not working at night for nothing any longer.'

'You seem to be running away with yourself.' He wanted to wipe away all that confidence. 'I've got other designers lined up.'

Tara's heart sank. She was fairly certain he was bluffing, but she couldn't be entirely sure.

'If you get other designers in, then I'll be off.' She spoke gently but with a hint of steel in her voice. 'I haven't worked hard for you for two years just to be pushed back behind the till.'

He was stuck. He had approached other designers, but every one of them who was any good had merely laughed at the deal he put to them. Something told him Tara didn't know how to play poker; what she said was what she meant. He couldn't take the risk of her stalking off now.

'OK.' He sighed. 'But until the new shop gets on its feet I'd expect you to be there.'

'When are you opening it?' she asked, inwardly reminding herself how slippery he was.

'The middle of September.'

'How much room has the shop got above it?' she asked.

'Two floors. I suppose we could put a workshop there.' Josh had stopped trying to be cunning.

'Let me have a flat there and we're in business,' she said. 'Kensington's a long way from Bethnal Green, Josh.'

Josh's mouth dropped open. The quickness of her mind amazed him.

'I was thinking of letting it,' he shot back. But even as the words came out he could see this was to his advantage. In one fell swoop he could remove her from Harry's influence and Angie's, she would be available whenever he dropped round and doubtless she'd work doubly hard without distractions.

'But what will Harry think about you leaving home?'

'It's nothing to do with Harry.' She looked at him with scorn. 'I love living with Queenie and George, they're the kindest people in the world. But I'm not crazy about the East End, Josh. I want a bit of style.'

For months now she'd been aware she was on the outside looking in. Kensington and Chelsea were where it was happening for young people. She wanted to mix with people who were free spirits, be a part of the swinging scene she read about in the newspapers.

'You'll get it, babe.' Josh felt a smile stealing over him. 'You and me, Tara, we're going places.'

'I get to be your designer, with a workshop, a flat and more money?' She went over it to make sure he'd fully understood her. 'And I only work full-time in the shop until it's up and running?'

He hesitated for only a second. Excitement had turned her cheeks pink, her golden hair shone in the evening sun and those strange, beautiful eyes were making his heart turn somersaults.

'It's a deal.' He grinned. 'Now let's have another drink to celebrate.'

Chapter 18

September 1965

'Are you sure about this, Tara?' Queenie looked up anxiously from packing a box with china. 'You're so young to be living alone!'

'I'll be OK, Queenie. It's a big adventure moving into your first flat, isn't it?' Tara replied, her voice quivering.

'Of course it's an adventure.' Queenie's usual smile switched back on. 'Anyone would think you was being shipped off to the salt mines of Siberia. You'll only be a bus-ride away and, anyway, you'll have more fun round there.'

'Will you come and see it once I've got it all straight?' Tara threw her arms round Queenie's plump neck and held her tightly. 'I've got this one big room and Josh got a man to paint it all white for me. I'm going to have big posters, huge plants and floor cushions.'

'I'd better bring my own chair, then,' Queenie joked, returning the hug. 'I'm too fat and stiff to sit on the floor. Just mind you don't invite any of those Bohemians round who take that pot stuff.'

'What do you know about pot, Queenie?' Tara giggled.

'Nuffin', worse luck.' Queenie chuckled and her chins quivered. 'I do know about fellas, though. So don't invite anyone in for coffee unless you intend to go to bed with them. In my experience men assume sex is on the menu at just the mention of coffee. They can't help it, love. Their brains and their John Thomases are very closely connected.'

'Uncle George was lucky finding you.' Tara moved away to pack the rest of the cutlery and glasses Queenie had insisted on giving her. 'It was just a shame you didn't get together years ago while there was still time to have a family.'

'We've got Harry.' Queenie smiled and reached for the clothes she'd just finished ironing for Tara. 'And you. Who knows, in a few years we might get grandchildren.'

'I won't get married for years.'

'I hope not, love,' said Queenie. 'I was your age when I got hitched the first time, and it ain't all it's cracked up to be, I can tell you. Mind you, years ago we got married so we could sleep with our chaps, if the truth was known. Now you can get that pill and get stuck in without any of the boring bit.'

Tara bit back laughter. She knew Queenie was trying to instruct her on birth control, not enthusing about free love.

'I do know about it.' She dropped her eyes, slightly embarrassed. 'Don't worry, I won't get into trouble.'

Queenie understood Tara. Not because they were alike, but just the opposite. Tara kept her distance from people and things which might bring her down. She'd heard so many horror stories from both her mother and grandmother that she was determined not to go the same way. But Queenie sensed Tara's way was more dangerous. Avoidance didn't give you experience, in fact it just held closed floodgates which could be opened by a person with the right key. In Kensington she was likely to meet plenty of handsome charmers. Would Tara be able to see beyond a fat wallet and an expensive suit?

'That man hurt you, didn't he?' Queenie sat down on the settee, the ironing still in her arms.

'It could have been worse.' Tara shrugged her shoulders. 'At least it was a clean break.'

'You must try and trust men again, sweetheart.' Queenie's blue eyes looked misty. Unlike Harry and George she had never seen Tara's
cool
approach to men as mere ambition. 'Don't lock your heart away. God put us on this earth to love and be loved. It's more important than money.'

It was late when Tara got to bed on her last night in George's house. Mentally she ticked off all the things she would miss about Paradise Row, and the list seemed endless. The small but cosy bedroom, Harry's room which she had used as a workroom soon after she arrived. Clothes miraculously washed and ironed, the wonderful meals. Yet somehow she knew it would be the small touches she'd miss most. Queenie coming in to tuck her in. George bringing her a cup of tea in the morning and the way he always cleaned her shoes. The gleaming brass on the front door and welcoming smells of dinner cooking.

Lying in the darkness thinking about all the happy times here made her question her own family. Amy's sweet gentleness could be every bit as aggravating as Gran's stubborn and prickly nature. They didn't laugh much. Life for them revolved round work and keeping things going, enjoying life wasn't a priority.

There were a great many things still left unsaid about her running away to London, even two years on. She sensed her mother felt abandoned somehow. Gran sniped all the time, about Josh being Jewish, how he came from Cable Street. Then she'd have a go at Harry – he was a thug, a waster, a drinker and a gambler. With her mother it was more subtle; a frown, a sigh and always the same remark about how little they saw of her.

Up till now Gran's barbed comments about Josh hadn't mattered, he was just her boss after all. But a change had come about in their relationship since that night in Highgate. There'd been no touching, no suggestive words or even looks to show her how he felt; just a glint in his eye and a certain softness in his voice.

Deep down inside she knew she was aching for a love affair. Not a grope in a car with someone she had nothing in common with, but a deep, meaningful relationship. Her dreams were becoming more and more erotic, visions of the things Simon did to her came crowding back, making her hot and damp. Josh figured in these dreams and she had an instinct that he felt the same way.

Harry pulled up outside the shop in Kensington Church Street and turned to smile at Tara.

'Pretty posh,' he said. 'A different league from Beth-nal Green.'

It was seven in the evening, but although the shoppers and office workers had gone home the street was still busy. Restaurants, wine bars and pubs were crowded, people strolled up and down on the warm summer evening, the traffic was still heavy.

'Doesn't it look wonderful?' Tara waved her hand towards the new shop front. It was the same maroon as the one in Bethnal Green, but instead of circles painted on the glass this double-fronted shop had round windows and wide double doors with brass fittings. Inside it was still chaos; clothes-rails erected but as yet unfilled, boxes of stock strewn all over the newly fitted carpet.

'It's a nice place to live.' Harry looked across to Barker's, the big department store down opposite the crossroads. This part of Kensington had all the big stores and countless elegant small shops. 'I'm glad for you, sweetheart, but Paradise Row won't be the same without you.'

Harry had told George the truth about what had happened that night of the robbery, but they had kept it from Tara. At George's suggestion he'd kept away from both the house and the market and taken a job on a building site out at Ealing.

Ginger had disappeared. If anyone knew where he was, they weren't talking, but leather coats were appearing all over the place, and just about everyone had been taken in for questioning.

Harry had been pulled, as had both Needles and Tony soon after the old man died. They had all stuck to the same story about drinking in the Regency, and been released. But he knew the case was far from closed.

Time and again Harry had been on the point of going into the nick and admitting to his part in the robbery. Each time he thought of that old man, he felt lower than a slug. But he shouldn't feel guilty, he hadn't used the gun. Until he could find Ginger and force him to own up, he wasn't going to put his head on the block.

Tonight was his last night in London. First he wanted to see Tara settled in her new home, then he was going to find that slag once and for all. The police were closing in now the coats were being pushed out, and it was only a matter of time before Harry's face was in the frame.

'Come on, then!' Tara slapped at his arm. 'Heaven only knows where your mind is tonight, but I want my stuff moved in.'

'Slave driver.' Harry pulled himself together. It had been hard enough driving here with Tara firing questions about where he'd been, why he wasn't helping George any more, whether he had a new girl. He didn't want her prising a confession out of him.

She unlocked the shop door and together they unloaded everything from the van. She had a great deal more than the small rucksack she'd arrived with two years ago – a record player, her own electric sewing machine, a dressmaker's dummy and four huge cardboard boxes of clothes. On top of this was all the stuff Queenie had given her – lamps, bedding, china and saucepans.

'It's up two flights of stairs,' she warned him as she re-locked the shop door behind them. 'Wait till you see it, Harry! It's so big!'

Harry smiled. She was like a puppy, gambolling around full of excitement. In jeans and an old T-shirt, with her hair tied up in a pony-tail and no make-up, she looked just the way she had at fourteen.

They took a box each and Tara led the way out through the back of the shop.

'That's the stockroom.' She waved one foot towards an empty room, behind a curtained doorway. 'That's the staff room.'

This part of the building was neglected compared with the shop, with dirty
cream
walls and bare wood stairs leading up to a square landing with three rooms off it.

'That's going to be my workroom.' She nodded towards the first empty room right across the front of the shop. 'The other two I don't know about. But upstairs is my place.'

The stairs from then on were carpeted and the walls marginally cleaner, and sunshine flooded in through the front windows.

'This is my room!' She ran forward into the front room, dropped her box and flung her arms wide. 'Isn't it wonderful?'

Harry put his box down and as he stood up arranged his face into the sort of gleeful expression she expected.

'Yeah, it's wonderful,' he agreed.

It was a big room, just like the one beneath it, but the ceiling was lower and the two sash windows smaller. It looked very bare to Harry, who was used to cluttered places. It contained just a single divan, a fitted grey carpet, a small table and two upright chairs, but it was newly painted white.