Two Women (28 page)

Wendy had cried since birth.

The doctor said it was colic, Susan thought it was colic, Barry was convinced the child had been given to them by the Devil himself and was not pleased at all. To make matters worse, if Wendy did quieten, all she needed to see was Barry’s face looking into her cot and the Third World War started up again.

Wendy Kathryn Dalston did not like her father. Susan did not think she was a bad judge.

But Barry was becoming increasingly annoyed with his daughter’s nocturnal screaming fits and made a point of letting everyone know. Susan often wondered who was the loudest, Wendy or him. Either way their voices were all she heard.

Unlike Barry, Wendy was Susan’s heart’s delight. She only had to look into those big blue eyes and she melted. She was convinced this child was destined to become a great beauty and adored her without reservation. In short, Wendy meant the world to her. Barry, guessing this, had felt from the moment the child was born a jealousy he knew he should suppress. But he could not help it.

Wendy took up all of Susan’s time, her patience and her love.

Getting out of the bed, he went into the next-door bedroom and practically dragged the child from Susan’s arms.

‘Put the spoiled little fucker back in her cot. Let her cry. For fuck’s sake, Sue, let’s get one night of fucking peace!’

His screaming made Wendy even more upset and she began really to yell, feeling the tension in the room and the fear in her mother’s body.

Susan held the child closer still, pressing her into her breasts.

‘She’s due a feed anyway, Bal. Give the kid a break. She’s four months old, she can’t tell the fucking time.’

Susan was hanging on to the child for dear life and Barry was once more trying to drag her from her mother’s arms.

‘I’m warning you, Barry, you’ll hurt her if you keep this up and then you’ll know all about it, boy.’

The words were out before Susan realised what she had said. They were instinctive, just a mother’s way of defending her baby. Barry looked at her for long moments and she felt the icy grip of fear around her heart.

‘Bal, listen to me - Barry, please . . .’

The fist when it hit her was so unexpected she staggered back against the cot, nearly letting go of the baby and dropping her on to the floor.

Susan felt her eyebrow split, felt the flow of blood and the onset of stinging tears. Barry watched as if in slow motion. He knew as soon as he made contact with her that he had hit her hard, as he would have hit another man. He knew, from the split second he raised his arm, that what he was doing was wrong.

Wendy fell quiet, deadly quiet, and both Susan and Barry looked down at her. Susan’s blood had dripped on to the baby’s face and both thought she had been injured.

‘You fucking bastard, Bal, what have you done?’

It was the quietness that made Susan scared, the child’s unnatural quietness. Then Wendy smiled, a big beatific smile, and Susan felt the hand around her heart ease its grip.

Barry looked down at his daughter, and there was no mistaking she was his. She looked so like him it was unnerving. He saw the smile, and the blood and mucus from her nose, and felt the relief only a guilty person can feel. He’d thought for a moment he had harmed her and that to Barry was the worst thing he could have done. Not so much because it was wrong but because in their world anyone who hurt a child was banished, abused, treated with public contempt. You could batter them black and blue once they were old enough to start school and became real people, but a baby . . . well, a baby was a thing of joy to everyone. Except, a lot of the time, to their parents.

Barry was sick of people praising Susan and her gift for motherhood. Even Davey Davidson had remarked on what a diamond she was, telling him how his own wife was always talking about their lovely daughter and spotless house. Susan, it seemed, was born and bred for mothering, though how no one understood considering June and her track record. It seemed to be a knack she was born with.

Even his mother loved Susan. Thought she was the bee’s knees, the dog’s bollocks. Looking at her now, plain-faced and with a fat belly in her old nightie, he felt nothing but revulsion. Her breasts were still full of milk, she was always leaking all over the place, the child was clamped there morning, noon and night. ‘Feeding on demand’ Susan called it; he called it ruining the fucking baby from the off, but would she listen to him?

What Wendy Dalston wanted, Wendy Dalston got. Whether it was cuddles, food, attention or even a fag, if the child wanted it, she got it.

Susan was making a rod for her own back as far as he was concerned, but the fright was still in him and taking the child from her mother he rocked her in his arms. Wendy for once was docile, as if the shock and the noise had knocked the stuffing from her. Staring up at her father she smiled again, a big gummy baby smile that defied anyone not to love her.

Barry jiggled her up and down for a few minutes, marvelling at the feeling her little body created nestled in his arms. He loved her then. When she wanted him, when she was close to him, he adored her.

Susan watched them, feeling the blood clot above her eye and telling herself it didn’t matter. Babies put a strain on most relationships. And a relationship already strained was bound to split at the seams.

Walking from the room, now she was sure Barry could cope, she went to the bathroom and wiped her face. There was blood everywhere but she was too tired to care. The wound looked worse than it was, a split over the eyebrow. She wondered briefly if she should get herself down the London, have a couple of stitches, but she was bone weary.

Instead she placed a plaster over it and cleaned herself up. It would do until the morning, then she would have to explain it away to Barry’s mother.

What she would have done without Kate she didn’t know. The woman had become her staunchest ally. Since Jason’s death Kate had been like a mother to Susan. So far as Barry went, she was less convinced. She had not spoken to him for over a year until Wendy was born. Then Susan persuaded her to bury the hatchet. But she knew her marked face would only make matters worse again between mother and son.

Kate, it turned out, had a mouth that was worse than June’s in some ways. Although she didn’t swear and holler, she spoke with such conviction that her every word carried the full weight of her disgust behind it. Barry was the recipient of this opprobrium so often that in some ways Susan wished his mother would stay away from them. It would certainly make life easier.

Clearing away the medical kit, she went back into the bedroom. Barry was asleep in bed with Wendy cradled on his chest. She was sleeping too. Smiling slightly at this picture of father and daughter, Susan settled herself in a white-painted wicker chair. She would doze until Wendy woke then take her and give her a feed.

She was tired, so tired.

 

Doreen walked into the kitchen carrying a large apple pie. It was eight-thirty in the morning and she was already in full make up with her hair newly styled. She would not bother to change out of her housecoat, though, unless she was going somewhere.

‘How’s my little angel then?’

Her voice was jocular until Susan turned from the sink and faced her.

‘What’s he done now?’ hissed her friend. ‘I heard him ranting and raving, Sue. I never heard him clump you one or else I would have been in. I’d phone Old Bill, mate, if I thought he’d touched you or that child.’

Susan sighed.

‘He lost it, couldn’t help it. Wendy was kicking up, we were both tired, I mouthed off to him . . .’

Doreen’s eyes widened to their utmost.

‘What did you say?’

She blushed.

‘Never you mind, but it was enough to get me this.’ She pointed at the swollen eye and its plaster.

‘Anyway he was sorry as fuck this morning. You’ll never guess what, Dor? He actually slept with Wendy on his chest all night. You should have seen the two of them. Then this morning, when he woke up and saw her there, he smiled, really smiled at her for the first time. She was so comfy she didn’t even wake up for her night feed.’

Doreen smiled grimly.

‘So he’s finally realised that she’s his responsibility an’ all? A real person, not a doll.’

They both heard Barry coming down the stairs then.

‘He’s just given her a feed.’ Susan put a finger to her lips and smiled.

Barry walked into the kitchen with Wendy in his arms. He looked at Doreen as he might a cockroach he had just found in his salad and exclaimed, ‘She took five ounces, bless her. That’s because
I
fed her and she didn’t have to labour her poor little gob round your big fat tits. In future express the milk and bottle feed her.’

It was a command.

Susan nodded absently. ‘She takes enough from the breast, it’s just you can’t actually see how much because they ain’t got measures on.’

She was deliberately sunny, trying her hardest to make light of everything.

‘With the stretch marks you’ve fucking got, if there
was
bloody measures you wouldn’t see them anyway. Do what I told you and I’ll feed the little fucker of a night, keep her sweet. You spoil her.’

He placed the child carefully into the Moses basket in the kitchen. Wendy kicked up her feet with pleasure and smiled again. Barry smiled down at her and felt again the sensation of power she gave him. To make her love him seemed like the most exciting thing in the world, better than a love affair.

She
would
prefer him to her mother, he was certain of that. He walked from the house without another word. Doreen felt the tension ease as soon as he closed the back gate.

‘He’s a wanker, Sue, I wish you’d see it like everyone else.’

She laughed and poured them both some tea.

‘I do, Doreen, I just know how to handle him.’

The words made her sound much more confident than she actually was. But Barry was gone for the day, and hopefully the night, and she had Wendy all to herself now which was exactly how she liked it.

 

Barry was regaling everyone in the pub with his story of the ‘night feed’. As the men listened to him pontificating on the best way to bring up children he felt all powerful. Susan was under the impression she was the only one in the house who could make the child happy. Well, he had proved her wrong, very wrong. Barry was in his element as he told everyone they should all have babies to make them more aware of the easy life their wives led.

Most of the men laughed and agreed with him, a couple laughed without conviction, and one man, a hard docker called Freddie McPherson, did not find it in the least amusing.

‘You’re wrong, Barry, women have it hard. My Jeanette had nine of them and it killed her. Forty-one when she had a fucking heart attack. You’re talking out of your arse, boy. Just because you fed the child once you think you’re fucking Doctor Spock. I had the nine of them to care for until my Lee-Anne was old enough to take over from me. Don’t denigrate the women, boy, they do a good job.’

Barry was annoyed but he had to take the flak because everyone knew that Freddie was a marvel, undisputed king of the kids.

Feeling foolish now, he made light of it.

‘It must have been hard with nine. But as they say, Freddie, you never fired a blank in your life. Probably shagged the old woman to death!’

Everyone laughed now, even Freddie who had found out the hard way just what a job bringing up nine children on no money really was.

‘I shagged her all right. Miss it in fact. A bit of strange don’t make up for the comfort a real woman can give you, one who knows all your secrets and loves you anyway. From your smelly plates to your sweaty armpits.’

His voice was filled with longing for his wife and the comfort she’d given him. Then Joey came into the pub and as soon as Barry saw him he knew they were in for trouble.

Nodding at everyone he ordered a large Scotch and pulled Barry into a quiet corner, forcing two men from their seats so they could have total privacy.

‘What’s the matter, Joey?’

He shook his head in anger.

‘It’s that fucking ponce Derby. He really is asking for a fucking clump and I’m just the man to give it to him.’

Barry ran a hand through his hair in agitated fashion.

‘What’s he done now?’

Joey swallowed his drink down and sighed.

‘He won’t pay, tipped me bollocks. Told me he wasn’t frightened of me
or
Davey
or
Bannerman. Apparently he now works for a little firm over the water in Bermondsey. You’ll never guess whose?’

Barry felt ice in the pit of his stomach.

‘Not the Winter brothers?’

‘The very same. He’s employed by them as a debt collector so all of a sudden he thinks he’s the main man.’ Joey spoke through his teeth, the words almost forced out of him so great was his anger.

They were in a quandary now.

The Winter brothers were well known and had formed an uneasy alliance with Bannerman. This was common knowledge and no one wanted another war. Since the Krays had departed for their thirty-year sojourn courtesy of Her Majesty firms all over London had carved out their own turfs and defended them in any way they could. The guns were put away for now but an event of this magnitude could set them blazing again.

‘I’ll have to talk to Bannerman, see what he says.’

Barry nodded absently. Then, leaning forward in his chair, he grinned.

‘Why don’t we teach him a right fucking lesson and see what happens? I bet the Winter brothers wouldn’t say a dickey bird if they thought he owed wedge. After all, they’d probably do the same, or expect him to at least.’

Joey shook his head.

‘This is too big, Bal, we don’t want to start any wars. Not without Bannerman’s say-so anyway.’