SIXTEEN
‘What’s the time?’ Freddie asked impatiently.
Ignoring the butterflies leaping about in his
stomach, Tommy glanced at his watch.
‘Half bloody two. I told yer we should have waited
a bit.’
Freddie didn’t answer. Tommy always got like this
before a job; his nerves got the better of him and he’d do nothing
but moan in the lead-up to it.
Glancing towards the betting shop, Tommy could feel
the sweat running down the back of his neck. So far, him and
Freddie had been thoroughly successful in their promising new
career. They always worked alone, were careful not to show off any
wealth and studied thoroughly any job they chose to do. In reality,
today’s little number should be a doddle.
An independent bookmakers owned by a simple old
boy. They’d been watching the gaff for weeks and, apart from the
owner and some drippy bird behind the counter, there were no other
staff. The place itself was a goldmine. The old boy prided himself
on giving good odds and, seeing it was situated in the heart of
Whitechapel, it was always packed with piss-heads and losers who
had nothing better to do than spunk their money up the wall. Tommy
and Freddie had been in there the last couple of Fridays. All
suited and booted, they’d quietly placed a couple of bets while
watching the old boy’s movements. Three o’clock on the dot the
owner would count the takings, place the dough in an old blue
sports bag and take a nice slow walk towards the bank.
‘I can’t believe the lack of security. I mean,
Whitechapel’s full of tramps, junkies and winos. How the fuck don’t
he get done every week?’ Freddie said.
Tommy agreed. They didn’t want to hurt the old boy,
just planned to teach him a lesson. At three o’clock exactly, the
door opened and the man appeared with his blue sports bag.
As cool as a cucumber, Freddie jumped off the back
of the bike, threatened the old boy with a replica gun and made a
grab for the bag. The old boy clung to his takings for dear life. A
war veteran, he wasn’t going to be frightened by a bit of a kid and
a fake shooter.
‘Help, thief!’ he screamed as he fell to the
ground.
Aware of passers-by, and a have-a-go hero heading
his way, Freddie had no alternative but to leg it empty-handed.
Leaping on the back of the stolen motorbike, he grabbed hold of
Tommy.
‘Go, go, go.’
Blissfully ignorant of her son’s activities,
Maureen was busy preparing dinner. ‘Do yer want me to give yer a
hand, Mum? I can peel the potatoes or chop the carrots up if yer
want.’
Maureen shook her head. ‘You sit there and rest,
love, I’ve got everything under control.’
As she listened to Susan gabble on endlessly about
baby names, Maureen couldn’t help but smile. Truth be known, she
was just as excited as her daughter by the news that she was
expecting her first baby. Susan had only found out a fortnight
earlier that she was pregnant and since then they’d spoken about
little else. She was already eating Maureen out of house and
home.
‘You sure you’re not having twins?’ Maureen asked
jokingly.
‘Shut up, Mum. Kevin’ll be too frightened to come
to me first scan if yer tell him that.’
James and Tommy were both excited by the prospect
of becoming uncles. Even Ethel was overjoyed by the thought of
being a great-gran.
‘Be nice to have a nipper in the family again,
won’t it, Maur? Shame it’s Kevin’s, though.’
‘Don’t say that in front of Susan. She’s ever so
happy with him now and you’ll only upset her if yer open your big
mouth,’ Maureen said.
Trust Ethel. She always had to say bloody
something.
Kevin seemed a changed man since he’d learned he
was to become a father. He’d even got a job painting and decorating
for a local company. Maureen now allowed him to stay most nights;
she even referred to him as her ‘son-in-law to be’.
‘So whaddya think, Mum? I like Krystal for a
girl.’
Putting the lamb stew in the oven, Maureen sat down
and smiled. ‘What about poor Kevin? Doesn’t he get a say?’
Susan giggled. ‘We couldn’t agree on anything, so
what we’ve decided is that if we have a girl, I choose the name and
if we have a boy, Kev picks it.’
‘What does he wanna call a boy then?’
‘He likes all the old-fashioned names. he wants to
call it Sid or Harry.’
Maureen laughed. ‘Let’s hope it’s a boy then, so
the poor little mite ain’t called Krystal. You know what your
gran’s like, she’ll have a heart attack if yer name it that.’
Hearing the bell go, Maureen went to answer the
door.
‘Where’s Susan?’ Kevin screamed excitedly. Waving a
letter in his hand, he ran into the kitchen. ‘Guess what this
is?’
Susan shook her head.
‘We’ve been offered a flat, Suze. Mum opened it and
brought it to me at work. They let me have the rest of the
afternoon off, so I shot up the council and got the keys.’
Susan leaped off her seat. ‘Where is it, Kev? Where
is it?’
Handing her the letter, Kevin waited for her
reaction. It wasn’t perfect because it was in a tower block, but it
was only ten minutes from her mum’s.
‘I know it’s in a tower block, Suze, but it’s one
of the low numbers, so it can only be on the third or fourth floor.
I think it’s in the same block where Robert King lives. I’ve been
inside his flat and it’s well big. He’s only got a one bed and
they’ve offered us a two.’
Susan’s eyes shone, ‘Let’s go and look at it now
and if it’s not falling to pieces, we’ll take it.’
James breathed a sigh of relief when Mr Jones
called time and collected the papers. Social Studies was his final
exam and he was thrilled that his school days had finally come to
an end. His mother had been well and truly on his case for the last
few weeks. Lectures, revision, early nights – she’d driven him mad.
Now it was time for him to enjoy himself, spend some quality time
with his brother before he started full-time work with Harold next
month. Laughing and joking with his pals, he felt incredibly happy
as he left the building for the very last time.
Outside the school gates, he saw Maria climb into
the blue cabriolet. Since they’d fallen out, she’d regularly been
picked up from school by different blokes. His brother insisted she
was doing it on purpose because she always seemed to hang about
until she spotted him. They hadn’t spoken since the day she’d
slammed the door on him. At first he’d been really upset, but he’d
since got his head around it. At least now he was leaving school
she couldn’t rub her conquests in his face any more. Living next
door to her wasn’t a problem either, because whenever he heard her
door slam, he now refused to look out of the window. His brother
had come up with that idea, insisting that what James didn’t know
couldn’t hurt him. It had sort of worked and now he felt he had a
grip on the whole Maria situation.
‘So, James, we’re gonna meet in Kate Odder’s at
seven. We’ll have a couple there and, once everyone’s arrived,
we’ll go on a pub crawl.’
James nodded, said goodbye to his pals and headed
off home.
Tommy and Freddie sat in a pub they weren’t
familiar with in Bromley by Bow. They needed to be alone,
anonymous, and discuss what the fuck had gone so very wrong.
‘I’m telling yer, Tom, the old cunt knew it was a
replica gun. That’s where we came unstuck.’
‘You sure? He looked a simple old fucker to
me.’
Freddie knocked back his lager. ‘I’m positive. I
bet he’s some gun expert or something. I swear I saw him clocking
the shooter and he knew it wasn’t real.’
Tommy lit a fag for both of them. ‘I dunno about
you, mate, but we were so close to getting caught, it gave me the
willies. Maybe we should have a rethink about what we’re doing. I’m
enjoying me freedom and I really don’t wanna go back inside.’
Freddie shook his head. ‘Don’t fuckin’ back out on
me now, Tom. We had a deal, remember? Look, we ballsed up today,
’cause we didn’t have a proper gun. Do you honestly think if I’d
have fired a shot in the air, Mr Have-A-Go Hero would have chased
me?’
Tommy shrugged. ‘Probably not, but what happens if
we get caught with a firearm? Do we really wanna take that
chance?’
Freddie smiled. ‘Life’s all about taking chances,
Tommy. Think positive, we’re not gonna get caught. All right, I
admit today was a close shave, but that was due to our own naivety.
A, we never had the right tools for the job and B, we never thought
in a million years that the old boy would put up a fight. We’ve
gotta learn by this and in future be properly prepared.’
Tommy spoke nervously. ‘Where we gonna get a gun
from? We’ve gotta be careful, it can only be off someone we
trust.’
Freddie moved closer to him. ‘Me uncle Bobby’s the
man for that. I’ll set up a meet, we’ll go and see him
together.’
Tommy was worried. ‘I dunno, Fred. It sounds a bit
heavy to me.’
Annoyed, Freddie looked him straight in the eye.
‘Look, Tom, yer can’t let me down, mate. If yer don’t work with me,
what else yer gonna do? Serve silly cunts in Tesco? Or knock your
plums out on a shitty building site?’
Tommy knew his mate was talking sense. He’d loved
larging it lately with plenty of money in his pocket and there was
sod all else he could do. Desperate to redeem himself, he stood up,
full of confidence.
‘I’m no quitter Fred. Give yer uncle a bell to
arrange the meet. Now, whaddya want to drink?’
Susan couldn’t believe her luck as she ran from
room to room. The third-floor flat they’d been offered was not only
big, but also immaculate. Her mum and nan had accompanied her and
Kevin to view the place and even they were impressed.
‘I can get yer a bit of material from the market
and run you up some curtains,’ said Maureen.
‘And you can have my old table and chairs, I don’t
bleedin’ entertain any more,’ Ethel chipped in.
Susan clapped her hands excitedly at the size of
the smaller bedroom. ‘I can’t believe it doesn’t even need
decorating, and won’t this make a wonderful nursery?’ she
exclaimed.
Kevin put an arm around her shoulder. ‘I’ll
decorate the nursery properly. We can have the cot over there in
that corner, a little wardrobe over there. We’ll make it look the
bollocks for our little chavvy.’
Seeing her daughter and Kevin kissing, Maureen
pushed Ethel out of the room. Dragging her into the kitchen, she
turned to her.
‘I’ve never seen our Susan so happy, have you,
Mum?’
Ethel pursed her lips, ‘Let’s hope it lasts,
eh?’
‘Of course it will. They’ve got a baby on the way,
Kevin’s working hard, why shouldn’t it last?’
Ethel shrugged her shoulders. ‘You know the luck
the women in our family have, and, don’t forget, it was less than
six months ago that he was knocking seven colours of shit
out . . .’
‘Ssh,’ Maureen said, as she heard her daughter’s
footsteps. Ethel was such a pessimist, she could never look on the
bright side of life.
Susan’s eyes were shining, ‘Well, Mum, Nan, whaddya
think?’
‘We love it, darling, don’t we?’ Maureen said,
nudging her mother-in-law.
‘It’s very nice, dear,’ Ethel said politely.
Kevin beamed as he entered the kitchen. His
painting job paid cash in hand, so with his earnings, and him and
Susan’s dole money, they’d be fairly well off. ‘We can move in next
week if you like, the social will pay the rent for us. The council
will be shut now, but if we go down there first thing Monday
morning, we can sign the papers.’
Susan threw her arms around his neck, ‘I don’t arf
love you, Kevin.’
‘I love you too, Suze,’ Kevin replied, and for the
first time in his life, he actually meant it.
James had bathed and was scoffing his dinner on the
sofa when his brother arrived home.
‘Where is everybody?’ Tommy asked.
James shrugged his shoulders. ‘Mum left a note
about going to look at a flat with Susan or something.’
Tommy opened two beers, handed one to James and sat
down next to him.
‘Well, how did your last exam go?’
James smiled. ‘All right I think, but I’m so glad
they’re all over. Are you and Freddie still coming out with me
tonight?’
Tommy shook his head. ‘I am, but Freddie can’t make
it. We had a bit of agg today with a job we were on, and Freddie’s
got a bit of running around to do.’
James nodded. His brother usually told him
everything – between them they had no secrets. ‘I’m really glad
you’re gonna come with us, Tom. Me mates’ll love you.’
Tommy ruffled his hair. He didn’t fancy going out
tonight at all. Weeks ago he’d promised Jimmy boy that he’d go out
with him at the end of his exams and he didn’t want to let him
down.
James put his plate on the table. ‘So what happened
today, then?’
Tommy got to the bit where they were sitting
opposite the betting shop on the stolen bike, but was interrupted
by his family returning.
‘Keep schtum and I’ll tell you later,’ he
whispered.
With Kevin up the pub, Susan went for a lie down on
the bed. She was tired, but far too excited to sleep. To say she
was happy was an understatement. The funny thing was, she had never
expected happiness to come to her. Up until now, life had confused
her. At school she’d never fitted in, she’d always felt inferior to
the other girls. She wasn’t slim or pretty, so she’d become a
bully, just to get herself noticed. At home, she had always felt
that her mum and nan had favoured her brothers, and even though she
had been shown plenty of love, she’d never been able to return it.
Now things were different. She had spent years hating the world and
its inhabitants, but finally she felt part of it. A loving
boyfriend, a baby on the way; she now had a future to look forward
to. All she’d ever wanted was love and security, and at long last
she had found it. Picturing the flat, Susan smiled. She had just
found the last piece of her jigsaw.
Maureen dished up the lamb stew and listened
happily while Ethel rabbited on about Gladys. The boys had already
eaten and were now upstairs getting spruced up.
‘Oh, look at yous two,’ she said as they came down
the stairs. ‘Don’t they look mint in their posh suits, Mum?’ she
crowed proudly.
Ethel agreed, but inside she was shocked. James had
always been her favourite, but for the first time tonight, he no
longer looked like a little boy. Standing next to Tommy all suited
and booted, the pair of them reminded her of somebody from the
past. She racked her brains. Suddenly, it came to her. They looked
like a young Ron and Reg. Not wanting to spoil Maureen’s happy
mood, Ethel, for once, kept her thoughts to herself.