The Dazzle of the Light

Chapter 5

12

Thursday evening

Maggs nurses her pint of brown stout, trying to cup it in hands that won’t keep still. Alice was her friend, as well as a member of her cell. She won’t say it, but she feels responsible for her arrest.

They sit around a table in the Crown and talk about nothing in particular. No one wants to speak about Alice; no one wants to upset Maggs.

‘It’s quiet in here tonight.’ Grace Bartlett picks at a blister in the varnish of the tabletop as she surveys the saloon. ‘Not many of the men about.’

‘There won’t be.’ Maggs looks up from her drink, her eyes heavy and red-rimmed. ‘Alf told me they’re going to the fight. They’re getting themselves ready.’

The boxing match that they have been talking about for days is taking place tonight. Ruby knows that the Elephants will be arming themselves for the inevitable skirmish. Maggs knows it, too, but for a woman who has no problem with fighting – as long as she’s the one throwing the punches, twisting the arms and causing the actual bodily harm – Maggs is surprisingly protective of her husband. It’s not only the loss of Alice that’s playing on her mind.

Ruby says nothing. Billy is standing at the bar, talking with Clara, downing a pint. He doesn’t look like he’s going out in search of trouble: he’s wearing a decent suit and his favourite tie.

‘What’s this about a fight?’ Edith leans into Maggs. ‘You mean the boxing match?’

‘I mean the fight after the match. I saw him packing a knife and his razor blades,’ says Maggs, pushing her away with a scowl. ‘Could be worse; he’s got a g*n he keeps in a drawer he doesn’t think I know about. It’s still there. I checked.’

Alf had spent most of the war as a prisoner in Belgium. He was fed and watered and missed most of the action. Like many of the Elephants, he’d brought a g*n home and failed to hand it into the authorities. There are plenty such weapons around London.

‘They’re going over to Clerkenwell,’ Maggs continues. ‘Boxing match at the back of Frank Parsons’ billiards hall, but there’s going to be trouble.’

‘What’s new? There’s always trouble after a match,’ Grace rolls her eyes. ‘Or during.’

Grace views all men with a degree of disdain. They fight too readily when they’ve had a beer, and they’re haphazard about it, not being as organised as the Forties.

‘This is different. Planned.’

Edith gives a little shiver. ‘Why? Why are they fighting?’

Edith detests fighting. Every man she’s stepped out with has had to put up with her whining about it. She was sweet on Billy for a while when he returned from the war, but she clung to him like a barnacle, trying to suppress his natural instincts for brawling with a combination of neediness and over-protection. Billy chose to move on, preferring to cling instead to an uncomplicated blonde with enormous breasts two streets away. And, lately, to Ruby.

‘Alf said that someone took all the flowers off our roll of honour,’ Maggs says. ‘Couple of MacCarthy’s boys, he says. Clerkenwell gang.’

Grace spits on the ground. ‘The bastards. Why on earth would anyone do that? I hope they chop their hands off.’

The roll of honour began as a sheet of paper during the war, updated weekly and hung on a board on the railings of St Mary’s Church. The vicar had started it. He had been a lively young man, desperate to volunteer for the war himself. He had written down the names of any lad in the parish who had signed up, so everyone could see them and pray for them. Then a second sheet had begun, noting those who had died or were missing in action. The vicar had gone out to France as a chaplain, and his parishioners had added to the list by themselves while he was away and laid piles of flowers on the pavement underneath the names. The vicar had returned, sombre, paler. The inked sheets of paper had been removed and a painted board had been put up in its place, with containers for the flowers either side. He had paid for it himself. The board was always covered with flowers, and everyone who passed it whispered the names they knew, touched their hats or pressed a hand to their heart.

‘How do they know it was the MacCarthys?’ Edith asks.

‘It wouldn’t be anyone from around here, would it?’ Maggs growls. ‘People here have more respect.’

Most of them do. Some people will nick anything that isn’t nailed down, but no one steals from their own. And no one from the Borough would disturb so sacred a site.

Gertrude Squires, the seamstress, wanders over, a dainty glass of sherry in her hand.

‘We’re talking about the fight, Gert,’ Edith says, pushing out a seat for her. She raises her voice a little because Gert is hard of hearing. She spent too much time in the mills, years ago, surrounded by the noise of the machines. ‘Not the boxing match, the other fight.’

‘I heard about the match,’ Gert says, sitting down and making room for herself. ‘Mad MacCarthy’s fighting – he’s one of their own, so all the Clerkenwell boys will be there. Ronnie and Bert Richmond have gathered our lads together to go and sort them out. Teach them a lesson.’ She takes a sip of her sherry and shrugs. ‘He’s a good fighter, Mad MacCarthy. I’ve seen him myself once or twice. I hope the Richmonds let him go a few rounds before they start…’

‘The coppers’ll be all over it, if they get wind of it,’ Grace says wryly.

They will. The combination of an illegal boxing match, betting and a fight between two notorious London gangs will be too much to resist, and the police will probably stir up extra trouble so they can make a few arrests.

A draught whistles across the pub floor as the door opens. Annie Richmond marches in, shaking the evening’s rain from her shoulders.

Maggs stiffens as she approaches. Annie hasn’t even bothered to stop and collect a stout on her way to their table.

‘I heard about Alice.’ Annie won’t worry about upsetting Maggs.

Maggs’s shoulders droop. ‘That bad hip was slowing her down. She was unlucky, though. Tripped over and dropped half her goods on the floor.’

‘Shame to lose a good hoister like Alice,’ Annie says, sitting down in the gap on the bench that Ruby and Edith have made for her. She sniffs and reaches into her handbag for her cigarettes. ‘She’s been solid for years. Loyal. Reliable.’ She moves small bundles of bank notes around to find the smokes. She is carrying a lot of cash in her bag, but no one will touch her so it’s all safe. ‘I said you should have rested her. You should have listened to me.’

The cigarettes are right at the bottom.

‘Where are the others?’ She looks around as she lays the packet on the table and rummages again for matches. ‘Daisy, Florrie? Don’t tell me you lost them as well, Maggs.’

Maggs bristles. ‘I can manage my cell, Annie,’ she says tersely. ‘You know that. Florrie’s home with her ma and Daisy’s home on her own, as far as I know.’

‘Alright. Alright. We’ll keep quiet for a day or two. I can’t afford to lose any more girls after Mabel, and now Alice.’

They are all quiet. No one says anything while Annie lights up.

Little Alfie, Clara’s boy, arrives at the table with her drink. He ducks away when she ruffles his hair and runs back to the bar.

Billy is standing at the counter, draining his pint and talking to his sister. As Alfie crashes into him, he cuffs the boy on the head and looks over to where the Forties are sitting. His face is expressionless, but Ruby takes this as enough of an excuse to leave the tense atmosphere of the table, her gin half-finished, and wanders over.

‘I hear there’s a boxing match at Frank Parsons’ tonight,’ she says, running her fingers down the lapels of Billy’s jacket. ‘You’ll take care of yourself, yeah?’ She slides her hands inside, trying to find whatever it is he is carrying. Her hand nudges the g*n that’s strapped under his left armpit. ‘Yeah?’

He pulls away. ‘Course I will.’

There’s uncertainty in his voice. She squints at him and again wonders why he is wearing his best suit. He smells good, too. Something’s not right.

‘The other men have gone already. Where are you going? What’s going on?’

‘I’m going to Frank’s, like the others.’ He hands his beer glass to his sister.

‘You’re too smart for a fight. It’s not like you to ruin a good jacket.’

‘I’ve got some business to attend to first.’ He picks at a well-scrubbed fingernail, running another nail under it to clean out imagined grime.

‘What business? Can I come?’

‘No. I told you, this has nothing to do with you.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Leave it, Ruby.’ He gives his sister a curt nod before walking off, out of the pub.

Clara watches him disappear through the door, wearing the strained expression of a woman who has lost too many men to violence.

‘Where’s he going, Clara?’ Ruby asks. ‘He won’t say.’

Clara shakes her head. ‘He wouldn’t tell me either.’ She wipes the bar with a damp cloth. ‘I expect he’s acting for Freddy Moss.’

Ruby returns to her abandoned glass and sits considering its contents as the conversation grows more light-hearted again. Annie, like Ruby, has decided that Alice will, at least, have some peace in Holloway. She’s been there before, so she might find herself inside for four or five months. But she will be away from George.

‘Food’s not so bad, as I recall,’ Maggs agrees. ‘She won’t starve. And she can pick up some useful information while she’s there.’

The floor is sticky under Ruby’s feet.

She could spend her whole life sitting in the Crown, waiting for Billy or waiting for Annie Richmond to tell her what to do and where to go. She could spend the rest of her days living in her small room at Solly’s, tidying up his shop, hiding his stolen goods and shipping them to Ray. Eventually, the coppers will catch up with her and she’ll take her turn in Holloway for a month or two, just like Alice.

The future, like the gin, is beginning to sour. Her shoulder still aches from where Maggs wrenched it earlier.

She closes her eyes, listening to the Forties chatting and cackling, trying to lose herself in her dreams, in a world where she is living on her wits, picking up jewels, dazzling with life.

She opens her eyes and makes a point of yawning.

‘I’d better go back to Solly,’ she says. ‘Help him close up. I could do with an early night.’

Maggs nods her approval. ‘Goodnight, Ruby. You did well today, with the letters and with the cash you lifted. Pay day on Saturday, don’t forget.’

‘I never forget pay day.’

Annie pats her handbag. She doesn’t believe in banks. She doesn’t leave the money in her house either. No one on her street would ever take it, but her brothers would happily borrow from the Forties’ fund if they could get their hands on it, so Ruby imagines Annie takes the bag to bed with her and uses it as a pillow.

‘It’s all here,’ Annie says. ‘Even the score that Maggs prised out of you.’

Ruby stands, pretending not to have heard. Annie reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing it so tightly that her rings press hard on Ruby’s fingers, crushing them between the bands of metal.

‘I don’t want to have to remind you again, Ruby. We share everything in the Forties. We don’t keep money back for ourselves – or diamond brooches.’

She drops the hand.

There is no answer to this except grovelling agreement, so Ruby makes none. Instead, she drains the gin, holding the glass as if her fingers are not pulsing with pain. The filthy liquor swills against the back of her mouth.

‘Goodnight, Annie.’

She picks up her old brown coat and her new umbrella and walks home to Solly’s.

She’ll hand the umbrella over to Grace Bartlett eventually.