Dream On (29 page)

As she looked at his handsome, smiling face, while he sat there at the table as though he had just finished his supper and was telling her little stories about his day, her old optimism bubbled up around her like water from a spring. With her earning decent money, maybe she could help him start a different sort of life, just as she had done. One they could share. A proper life. With children . . .

‘Are you gonna stand there gawping at me with your gob open?' he asked, reaching out his hand to her. ‘Or are you gonna give us a kiss?'

Almost before Ginny realised what was happening, Ted had bent her back over the table, had pulled her skirt up over her thighs, her knickers down to her ankles and was pushing himself into her.

It was all over very quickly. Within minutes Ted was back on his chair and the only sign of anything having happened between them was a rip in Ginny's stocking and a flush covering her face and throat.

‘You're looking good,' he said, running his fingers through his thick, dark quiff. ‘All this austerity shit everyone's going on about obviously ain't affecting you.' He sniffed noisily. ‘How about a drink then?'

Ginny, torn between feelings of near elation that her husband obviously still desired her and an absurd shyness after their moment of what she refused to acknowledge was a brief, brutal intimacy for Ted's purely physical relief, averted her eyes from his easy, direct gaze and turned to the kettle on the stove. ‘I'll make a fresh pot,' she said in a girlish whisper.

‘No. I mean a proper drink. Ain't Mum got no whisky?'

Ginny turned off the tap. ‘Since you ain't been bringing her stuff home, she don't really keep anything in the house no more.'

Ted frowned. ‘What d'you mean by that?'

‘Nothing,' Ginny hurriedly assured him. ‘I just meant that I think she drank it 'cos it was there.'

‘Leave off. She used to knock the stuff back like it was water.'

‘No, really. I reckon the only reason she goes down the Albert is for a bit of company. It's a terrible thing being lonely.' Ginny thought guiltily of how easily she had got into the routine of leaving Nellie alone each evening. ‘To be honest, Ted, I feel a bit sorry for her.'

Ted snorted and shook his head. ‘You always have to see the bloody good side of everyone, don't you? She drinks like a fish and you feel sorry for her.'

Ginny hoped he'd meant it as a compliment. Checking her hair in the glass by the sink, she grabbed her bag from the door handle and smiled broadly. ‘Tell you what, I'll nip over the Albert and get us a bottle.'

Bob, the landlord of the Albert, folded his arms across his big barrel chest and whistled appreciatively. ‘Ain't seen you for a while, darling, but just look at your hair and everything. You're looking a right little cracker. Here, come and have a butcher's at this little lady, Martha,' he called to his wife who was through in the other bar, serving. He leaned across the counter and winked. ‘Tell us your secret before the old woman comes through and I'll see if it works on her.'

Ginny glowed with pleasure. ‘I'm happy, Bob, that's all.'

‘Are you, babe? Good. You deserve it. And I tell you what, I know you always had a lovely head of hair on you, but you look like a film star with it all blonded up like that. I'll have to get Martha to do hers that colour.'

‘Do my what, what colour, you cheeky bugger?' Martha asked, giving Bob a flick with her glass cloth.

Not bothering to wait for her husband's answer, which Martha knew was bound to be saucy, she turned her attention to Ginny. ‘Hello, love. Well just look at you all prettied up. You're a real sight for sore eyes.'

‘Ta, Martha.' Ginny couldn't stop grinning.

‘Come looking for Nellie, have you?' She turned to her husband. ‘Don't think she's been in tonight, has she Bob?'

Ginny shook her head. ‘No, she's round Florrie's. I was after some scotch actually. You ain't got a spare one to sell us, have you?'

While Bob went out the back to fetch the whisky, she chatted to Martha, who was as surprised as Bob had been by the transformation of Ginny from down-trodden drudge back to the vibrant young woman she had once been.

As Bob rang the one pound and fifteen shillings into the till, and Ginny practically skipped out of the pub, Martha stood next him with a worried frown clouding her face.

‘What's that look for?' Bob asked. ‘I know I only charged her—'

‘I didn't expect you to make a mark-up on her, you great daft sod,' Martha said affectionately. ‘I just hope she knows what she's doing, that's all.'

‘What you on about?'

‘Think about it, Bob. Nellie's out round Florrie's and that scotch ain't for Ginny, now is it? That conniving bastard, Ted bloody Martin, must be sniffing round again.'

Ginny poured Ted a generous measure and sat opposite him at the table, nervously nibbling her bottom lip. ‘Ted, there's something I wanna tell you.'

He took a big gulp from his glass, swallowed, then drew in a sharp breath, stretching his lips tight across his teeth. ‘Yeah?'

‘It's about me job.' She paused, trying to gauge how he would react, whether his mood had suddenly changed in the way she knew from experience that it could. ‘See, it's like this, I don't work at the factory no more.'

‘I know, Mum told me.'

‘But—'

Ted tossed back the rest of the scotch and held out his glass for a refill. ‘She might be a wicked old fucker at times, but she ain't stupid.'

She unscrewed the cap ‘and, with a shaking hand, poured the drink. ‘So you know where I'm working?'

He nodded.

‘Do you mind?' Another pause, then, in a rush, it all came out. ‘Because if you do, I'd give it up like a shot. I'd give it up tomorrow. 'Cos I really want us to try and get our lives sorted out, Ted. And I'd do anything for the chance to make a go of it. Anything.'

For a moment Ted said nothing, he just gulped at his drink and looked fixedly at her, then he burst into loud, coarse laughter, tossing back his head as though she had just told him the funniest joke he had every heard.

Ginny stared back at him in uncomprehending bewilderment.

‘Why would I care where you work?' he finally managed to ask, as his laughter subsided. ‘Unless you wasn't earning much, o' course.'

‘But—'

‘But
what
?' His face creased into a contemptuous sneer. ‘The only reason I'm here is 'cos I need some dough.'

‘No.' She dropped her chin. ‘You're just saying—'

He reached out and grabbed her face, sinking his fingers deep into her cheeks and jerking her head up so that she had to look at him.

Despite the pain, Ginny knew she mustn't let out the smallest whimper or let a single tear drop on to her cheek.

‘Let me tell you, once and for all, you dozy cow, what the real world's about.'

Ginny didn't want to listen, didn't want to hear any of it, but she had little choice. She sat there, gripped by the cruelty of his hand and his words as he gave her a variously censored and exaggerated version of the life he lead when he wasn't with her. Censored to hide what he considered his failures and exaggerated to brag about his self-perceived successes. It was only as he got on to more recent times that his tone changed from one of sneering bravado to barely suppressed anger.

‘So,' he murmured, finally releasing his grip on her and reaching for the bottle which was now almost half empty, ‘there's been this silly tart what's been going out hoisting for me. But she's another fucking useless cow.' He was talking to Ginny as though she was some bloke in a pub he was complaining to about his missus not ironing his shirts the way he liked them. ‘Know what she had the cheek to tell me tonight? She's going off with some posh old bastard – one of the prats what get a thrill from buying bent gear off us. Makes 'em feel like they're bastard gangsters. And her flat's been bought by some property bloke. I ain't even got that no more.'

Ginny, no longer even noticing the throbbing pain in her cheeks, couldn't stop herself from asking the question: ‘Why did you have a woman stealing for you?'

Ted slowly raised one of his dark, sculpted eyebrows. ‘I ain't been able to work, have I. I needed money.'

‘You could have come to me.'

Ted shook his head in wonder at her stupidity. ‘I have, ain't I? But anyway, I ain't talking about needing a couple o' bob. I'm talking proper money.' His voice was beginning to slur and he seemed to be having trouble focusing on her face. ‘I nearly had it an' all. I had a blag all set up. Sweet as a nut. We was gonna turn over a bank in the Mile End Road. Had all the tools organised and everything. Sawn-off jobs that couldn't be traced. Right pukka.' He smacked the side of his fist on the table, making Ginny flinch. ‘Then some bastard grassed us up. We had to call off the job and now we've all gotta keep our heads down.'

He poured himself another drink, spilling most of it on the table. ‘Now I ain't got a pot.'

‘They're always going on about needing workers in the papers and on the wireless lately,' she said warily, as she screwed the lid back on the bottle for him. ‘You could always try and get a regular sort of job.'

‘What, like you? In some knocking shop?'

Ginny winced at the injustice of his words. She hadn't done anything wrong. All she was doing was trying to pay off some bills, make ends meet, keep his mother in food and earn a bit extra for some of the things that other people took for granted, that
she
had once taken for granted. Admittedly she was enjoying the job, but there was no getting away from the fact that she was working bloody long hours, which was a damned sight more than either Ted or Nellie had ever done.

Ted was staring into the middle distance. ‘You know what it is, don't you?' he asked, his drunken speculation losing Ginny completely. ‘It's since that bastard's had it in for me. If I ever get the chance to get my hands round that whoreson's throat . . .'

‘Who? Who's got it in for you?'

‘Him. The one who's been haunting me.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘The arsehole's ruined my business, ruined my life and
you
don't understand?'

Ginny looked blank.

‘The bastard who grassed me to the law, you silly bitch.'

‘What, over the bank job?'

He hesitated for a moment, as Ginny's words worked their way into his mind. ‘Yeah,' he said with a nod. ‘You're probably right. The same bloke. The one who stopped all the dockers trading with me, the one who—'

Now Ginny had tuned in to the corkscrew logic of his thinking, it was all she could do to stop herself laughing. ‘You ain't talking about that feller from all that time back, surely? The one who had the police round here. I can't even remember his name it was so long ago.'

‘Can't even remember his name?'

The low menace in his voice had Ginny wishing she had kept her mouth shut.

And as all his hatred and bile spewed out – as he slammed the truth about him and Dilys at her, and about Susan being his, and how he thought Ginny was just about the stupidest bitch he had ever laid eyes on, let alone fucked – Ginny wished she had never been born.

‘Why Ted?' she whispered into her chest. ‘Why?'

‘Why not?'

She couldn't think of an answer.

‘Be honest with yourself for once, instead of floating around like a bleed'n' idiot with your head in the clouds. You must have known.' He laughed cruelly. ‘I mean, every other bugger seems to.'

Ted set about refilling his glass. ‘You got any money?'

Ginny handed him her purse, turned her back on him and walked slowly from the room.

Upstairs, she packed her belongings into the suitcase that had once held packets of silk stockings, French perfume and chocolates. Things of which Dilys had no doubt had more than her share. Ginny vowed to herself that she too would have those things. But she would buy them for herself.

She'd been a mug for long enough. What did she have to lose?

Less than an hour later, Ginny walked into the club just as Carmen was fixing the cigarette tray around her neck.

‘Innit your night off?'

‘Yeah, it is,' Ginny said, striding past her without a glance. ‘I've come in to see Leila.'

By the time Leila arrived, the club was about to close and the girls were almost bursting with curiosity.

What was going on? Why was Ginny sitting out the back with a face like a fiddle, bruises on her cheeks, a suitcase by her side and no explanation? That's what they wanted to know. But as they rushed to follow Leila into the dressing-room to find out, they were disappointed.

‘Do me a tiny favour, girls,' she purred over her shoulder, ‘get back to your customers and leave me alone with Ginny for a few moments.'

There was a general mutter of frustration.

‘Please,' said Leila, her smile still in place, but her voice and eyes hardening.

The girls obeyed and Leila lowered herself elegantly on to one of the shabby little chairs. ‘Now, what's all this about? Gloria said—'

‘I want to do what they do,' Ginny interrupted her.

‘Hostessing?' Leila suppressed a much broader smile. She'd been right about her all along. She could always tell, no matter what Shirley said.

Ginny nodded. ‘I want to earn more money.'

‘You'll certainly be able to do that.'

‘And there's something else. I need somewhere to stay.'

‘That shouldn't be a problem.' Leila draped her emerald-silk-clad arm around Ginny's trembling shoulder, her mind working overtime as she considered which of Saunders's properties might have a bedsit that wouldn't frighten her off completely. Ginny had something about her that men went for and Leila wasn't about to miss the opportunity of pleasing the governor by getting her to cash in on it.