Bourbon Creams and Tattered Dreams Page 37

  ***

  She noticed the maroon and black Austin parked outside the town hall in Spa Road. It was a popular model, the type D.M. drove, and she thought it was his. If he was still here, then there was a good chance Tom was too. She ran up the steps and bumped into Plum, who was finishing for the day. He looked surprised to see her.

  ‘Matty! How’s your aunt?’

  ‘My aunt?’

  ‘Tom told us you’d be up north looking after her at least another week.’

  ‘Oh, she’s better,’ she explained, and asked Plum if Tom was still in his office.

  Plum looked even more surprised. ‘No, he’s taken the day off. It was his father’s funeral.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  Plum apologized for having to rush off, wishing her goodnight, leaving her there on the town hall steps, feeling utterly empty because she’d not been with Tom to bury his father. She wanted to run across the road to Sam and Nellie’s in Vauban Street, but with tears blinding her, she realized that their old house no longer existed. It was rubble dust, along with every other house in the street. In a daze, she’d almost stumbled down the steps.

  It happened so quickly. She hadn’t registered the two men in dark suits and fedoras sitting in the front of the Austin. One of them flung open the car door into her path, knocking her backwards, the other ran round the car, grabbing her from behind, covering her face with a cloth that made her retch and choke as the light failed and she was lost in darkness.

  *

  Matty shivered. Her teeth buzzed with the cold. Surrounded by impenetrable blackness, she put out both hands and felt freezing metal. Her fingers followed the chill curved womb that enclosed her till they reached a sharp protrusion. It was a lock. She pushed against it, straining every muscle to force open whatever door was confining her, but it was immovable. Panicking, she opened her mouth to scream, but instead an icy terror grabbed at her throat, preventing any sound from escaping. Then she became aware of pain tearing through her spine and legs as she tried to stretch out. She couldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. Her wrists and ankles throbbed in protest at the rope ties that burned into her skin. Her head felt clamped in an iron vice, with the heavy weight of Queenie’s fedora, still jammed on to her head.

  Images surfaced, playing out on the flickering screen of her memory, but she couldn’t make sense of them. It was the smell of ether, in her nostrils, on her lips, permeating the confining space, which brought her back with a jolt. She didn’t remember it, but they must have bundled her into the boot of their car. It was a small car and a tiny boot. No wonder her very bones were screaming.

  She’d once seen the strong man on Tower Hill lock himself inside a trunk not much smaller than this. He was able to dislocate every joint in his body, but she couldn’t, and her long limbs had been tortured into impossible angles in order to stuff her inside. Now it occurred to her that she might have been left here to die. The car wasn’t in motion, so they must have arrived at their destination, wherever that was. A whimper escaped from her throat as she understood what was happening. She hadn’t been left to die. It was much worse than that. There was only one possible place she could be and only one possible person who would be coming to let her out.

  Fear coursed along her veins, pounding in her temples, throbbing in her stomach, seeming to replace her lifeblood, robbing her of consciousness. She blacked out, though for how long she didn’t know. When she surfaced she remembered having dreamed of her mother, Lizzie Gilbie. It was an old recurring dream, of her mother’s last day on earth. Matty, still only a child, had never left her side. She’d been the only one home, keeping vigil over the person who meant most to her in all the world, praying that one laboured breath would be followed by another, and knowing with a certainty beyond her years that when her mother had asked Matty to sing ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’, this beloved person would leave her. But this time the dream had changed subtly and Eliza’s face replaced Lizzie’s, looking up from her deathbed, saying, ‘Goodnight, my angel’. And then in the dream Nellie’s arms were round her, warming her in this freezing place, and finally Queenie’s voice, brash and bold and disembodied, echoed out of the dream: ‘All your mothers are with ya, little Canary, but it’s time to get up off yer arse and look after yourself...’

  Matty awoke from the dream with a sob, which was interrupted by the click of the lock turning. A harsh electric light flooded her prison and she blinked against the blinding glare.

  ‘Why the hell d’ya shove her in here? Did I tell you to damage the merchandise? Get her outta there.’

  Two men lifted her like a trussed chicken and dropped her on to a stone floor. Her face grazed the gritty surface and she smelled petrol and oil.

  ‘Sit her up, sit her up!’ the voice ordered, and she found herself dumped on to a wooden chair.

  The man dropped to his haunches in front of her and hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her to look into his coal-black eyes. The stare was unblinking and his expression unreadable.

  ‘Didn’t I always say you were mine? Why don’t you never believe me, Matty? You can’t run out on me and expect nothing to happen. There ain’t no one out there for you. Nobody’s coming to get you. Understand?’

  Frank’s finger forced her head up.

  ‘Got nothin’ to say to me?’ He shook his head almost indulgently. ‘Was a time I couldn’t get you to shut up, chattering away in that cute accent, telling me how much you loved me.’ Again his face was inches from hers. ‘Remember? Are you telling me now it wasn’t true?’

  He made a quick gesture to his two henchman, the ones from the maroon and black Austin. As they came closer, their bad teeth and inferior suits betrayed them; they weren’t Americans. They must be the Sabinis’ men, in which case she was probably somewhere in Clerkenwell. They untied her hands and feet, which was more torture than relief as her muscles went into spasm. Frank jerked his head to dismiss the men, and when they were alone he straddled a chair opposite her. He sat just out of range of the single unshaded light. All she could see of him was the occasional glint from his white teeth and black eyes as he spoke to her in low, reasonable tones.

  ‘What do you want me to do, eh? You know I can’t let you go. These English guys, how’ll they ever respect me if I let a broad give me the run around? So, here’s the thing, Matty – I’ll take you back.’ He slapped his thigh. ‘What, you think I would’ve tossed you in the damn Thames? Why would I do that to the mother of my child, Matty?’

  The breath was sucked from her body as if he’d thrown a punch, deep into her gut.

  He sat silently, waiting for her to recover.

  ‘Why would I do that, il mio piccolo canarino?’ He lunged forward, grabbing her chin. ‘You’re mine, but you got something else that’s mine, and I want both back. It’s family, you understand?’

  She heard a fly buzzing and burning on the electric light above them. She tossed her head, trying to shake off his hand. ‘There is no child,’ she gasped finally, and then with what felt like her last breath spat out, ‘You killed it!’ Her head fell to her chest. She sobbed and the words rasped in her throat. ‘You killed my baby.’

  She didn’t see his swift hand shoot out, but she felt the crack of his fist smash into her jaw.

  ‘Liar! My bitch of a sister told Mamma. You think I don’t know you ran away with my kid in your belly?’

  Matty tasted blood and leaning forward saw it splash scarlet on to her skirt. She resisted the agonizing memory of that other day on the ship coming home, when she’d woken to the telltale bloodstain on the sheet. The memory of the excruciating pain had faded, unlike the intensity of grief that had filled her as she held her little girl, so tiny that Matty could cradle her in one hand, and whose perfect minute fingers she could still sometimes feel, gripping one of her own. That secret pain had never faded and every night when she closed her eyes, she saw the tiny heart, visible through translucent skin, beating like a fluttering bird until it fina
lly faded away.

  ‘I lost the baby.’ Her voice sounded like a cracked bell. ‘I lost it... on the boat home.’ She lifted her head, bitter bile rising to mix with the blood in her mouth. ‘It was your parting gift to me, Frank. Don’t you remember? That last kick in my stomach? That’s what killed your child.’

  ‘You lying to me?’ He slapped her softly across the cheek. ‘You think you can keep my kid from me?’ He slapped again, harder, and as she pulled back he stood up, kicking his chair aside.

  ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Matty. But you gotta tell me where the kid is and then we can be a family. I got plans for you, like I said. You were always a good investment with that body of yours...’ He whistled slowly through his white teeth.

  He came up behind her, his hands running over her breasts down to her stomach. But his touch there fired her anger. She said nothing, but let it burn, picturing the tiny baby who’d never even opened her eyes to look upon the world. She summoned all the nights she’d mourned her lost child, all the times she’d held other people’s babies and imagined they were hers. She had rebuilt her own life, while silently mourning all the landmarks of her child’s life, all those stolen birthdays, all those unseen first steps, unheard first words, all the missed days of motherhood.

  What was it Queenie had said in her dream? Your mothers are all here, but it’s time to get off yer arse... Perhaps it was the dream that prompted her, perhaps it was sheer survival instinct, but she had been given an idea. She imagined her body strong, stronger than Queenie’s. She saw herself as she had once been with Frank in the early days, confident in her power to dazzle him. She must look a mess now, but she knew that a part of him meant it. He really did want her back.

  She let her head fall back on to him as he stood there behind her.

  ‘All right, Frank. I can’t give you the child, but you can have me instead. I’ll come back. I’ll come back with you to America.’

  He walked round to face her, and gave her a long look, suspicion vying with vanity, his deep weakness – born of an over-indulgent mother – the conviction that he was irresistible. She matched his stare, willing adoration to appear in her eyes. She made herself think of Tom and some flicker of devotion must have flared in her gaze.

  He nodded, reaching out to stroke her cheek. ‘Of course you will, il mio piccolo canarino.’ A slow, smug smile curled on his lips, creasing his inky eyes into a travesty of love.

  He reached down to untie her bonds, kneeling before her as he fought with the tight knots until she was free. She yelped as blood pulsed back into her hands and feet, then, before he could rise, she grabbed her hat, bringing it down in a side-swipe to his temple. The momentum knocked him sideways and before he could recover, she stood over him, slashing the brim with its concealed blade across his heavy-lashed eyes, so that he seemed to cry tears of blood. Unsteady on her swollen feet, she knew her survival depended on making sure he couldn’t follow. She smashed her fist, still adorned with Queenie’s rings, into Frank’s face and dropped to her knees at his side. Drawing the small feather from the hatband, she whispered, ‘This is for my baby,’ and she plunged the steel deep into his neck.

  25

  The Modern Woman and Murder

  July–August 1932

  There was blood, a lot of it, coating Frank’s face and neck, but she wasn’t hanging around to see the effects of her handiwork. She ran to the garage door, swung it wide open and glanced back at the Austin. Lupe Velez, her fiery Mexican film-star friend, had taught her more than how to roller-skate in those days on the studio lot. Lupe’s red sports car had been lying as idle as the two young women and had beckoned to the mischievous starlet, who insisted on giving Matty driving lessons. Matty remembered that giddy afternoon, propelling the car around in jerky circles, learning to drive – after a fashion.

  She hesitated. The choice was stark: either run out into a Clerkenwell full of Sabinis or chance that she’d remember her brief driving lesson. She turned back, taking heart from the fact that she’d been able to get back on the penny-farthing without a wobble and cycle all the way to Winchester. A sickening gurgle of blood bubbling from Frank’s throat decided her. She wrenched open the car door, turned the key and prayed.

  But the engine coughed, spluttered and died. Turning the key again, she despaired at the prolonged wheeze and final cough. If it didn’t work this time, she would have to run. She put her foot down on the pedal and held her breath. The engine bucked suddenly to life and the car shot forward into the street. Frank’s men would soon realize what had happened, so she would have to move fast. She stamped on the accelerator, sending the car slewing round in a circle, spinning back the steering wheel, then aimed the Austin towards the main road at the end of this little side street. Speeding up to the junction, she swerved on to the main road, searching for a street sign. It was the Farringdon Road, which she knew would take her straight to Blackfriars Bridge and south across the Thames to Bermondsey. It was then that she saw a bus in front of her heading for Islington Green. Frank’s henchmen would no doubt expect her to drive south to the nearest river crossing and the safety of home, but it occurred to her there was somewhere else she could go. In fact, if she thought about it, she had homes all over London, and Collins Music Hall on Islington Green had been as much a home to her as anywhere during the early days of her career. Week after week she’d played there alongside the likes of Tommy and Timmy Turner or the Naughty Nightingales, a risqué trio of singing sisters whose lack of vocal ability was offset by the large amount of flesh they revealed each night. She yanked the steering wheel and nestled the car in behind the bus, following it all the way up St John’s Road. It was a straight road and the traffic was light, for which she was grateful, for she was unsure what she’d do if she was required to change gear. As it was, the engine was roaring like a caged lion, but so long as she was heading away from Clerkenwell, she didn’t care.

  When she arrived at Islington Green she recognized the familiar old music hall but drove straight past it, pulling up in Essex Road by the stage door. She wrenched the handbrake and sat very still, gripping the wheel, her breath coming in shallow gasps. This street was one still illuminated with gaslight and in the flickering orange glow from a street lamp, she examined her bruised hands, noticing how Queenie’s rings were now painted with Frank’s blood. She wiped the rings on the car seat, then, spitting on her fingers, scrubbed as much of Frank off her as she could. She checked her face in the rear-view mirror. Bruises already bloomed around her neck and cheeks where the Sabini thugs had grabbed her. There was not much she could do about that. She wiped spatters of blood from her face and tucked her hair under the black fedora, now battered out of shape and minus its feather.

  Matty got out of the car and walked on unsteady legs to the stage door. She judged it must be just before the end of the second show, for through the open stage door she could hear laughter rippling down from the auditorium. She stopped outside for a moment, getting up her courage, and noticed the playbill. A familiar name, low down and in small type, jumped out at her. The Collins had been a lovely place to play. It welcomed anyone who wanted to put on a show – you didn’t necessarily have to be much good, but anyone who wanted to be an entertainer and spend their lives making other people happy for a few short hours was given a chance here. And it seemed that their policy hadn’t changed over the years.

  ‘Percy?’ she called, sticking her head through the window to the stage doorkeeper’s little cubby-hole. ‘Have you got that kettle on?’

  She flashed Percy the doorman a stage smile and hoped he would remember her.

  A red-faced, elderly man with a military moustache, wearing a smart brass-buttoned coat, stuck his head out of the window.

  ‘Well, stone me, if it’s not the Cockney Canary!’ he said, his accent betraying his origins in Kerry. ‘Who let you out yer cage?’ She leaned through the window to kiss the old man on the cheek.

  ‘Where’s your manners, Perce, I’m gasping.�
��

  He threw open the door of his cubby-hole, which contained two chairs and a shelf on which was a gas ring and a kettle, boiling its contents away, just as it had when she’d last been in Percy’s ‘office’ as he liked to call it. A cup of tea had always been on offer while he telephoned for a taxi home or saw off unwanted stage-door Johnnies for her.

  ‘Jeezus, Matty, it must be what, five years since I seen ya? You done well for yerself. I took the missus to see yer talkie. Very good ’twas too.’

  He poured her a brown brew, thick with condensed milk, which she put to her lips, shaking so much that she dribbled some down her chin.

  ‘Sit down, God love ya, you’re all of a tremble. State o’ them knuckles. Been in the wars?’

  This was Percy’s euphemism for a night on the tiles.

  ‘Something like that, Percy. I was passing this way and I had to come and have a look at the old place. I thought you’d still be here...’

  ‘’Course! Place’d fall apart without me.’

  The old man’s expression turned serious. ‘You know me, darlin’, soul o’ discretion, stage-door secrets don’t go no further than this room.’ He tapped the bench with a thick, ridged nail. But word’s out in the business you might be in a spot o’ trouble, and anythin’ I can do to help – you just tell old Perce.’

  She covered the old man’s leathery hand with her own. ‘Thanks, Percy, there is something. Can you get a message backstage for me? Could you tell Wally I’m here?’

  For the name Matty had recognized on the playbill was none other than Winnie’s husband, Walter. Wally the Wonder Wheel was obviously a filler act, judging by the minsicule typesize of his name on the playbill, but Matty was surprised to see him there at all. As far as she knew he’d last ridden a unicycle at his wedding, and after that spectacle Winnie had ordered him to make it his final appearance. She’d told Matty he’d given in and was happily pursuing his career as an insurance salesman.