A Mother's Trust (2 page)

‘Are you all right, cara?’ Fabio asked, frowning. ‘You look pale.’

‘I’m fine, Nonno.’ Phoebe sat down on the chair recently vacated by Ethel Sykes. Only now she realised that her knees were trembling. Her grandfather was right. Minnie Fowler was not the sort of woman to cross, and if he had not arrived on the scene at that moment matters might have got completely out of hand. Ma was playing a dangerous game when she took on the denizens of the back alleys and courts in Clerkenwell, not to mention the members of the street gangs with whom she consorted in the pubs. Ma was a good woman at heart, but she had a weakness for strong drink. Right now she would be heading for the Three Bells or some other public house with the money from the séance in her purse. It would not remain there long. Annie would roll home the worse for liquor and
fall
into a drunken stupor in the room they shared at the top of the house, and Phoebe would be left to do her mother’s chores as well as her own. Grandmother Giamatti was a hard taskmistress. She ruled the house in Saffron Hill with a rod of iron. Her two remaining sons, Lorenzo and Julio, were big muscular men who, like their father before them, earned their living making and selling ice cream on the streets of London, but they were patently in awe of their indomitable mother.

Fabio pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. ‘You should not allow your mamma to ruin your life, Phoebe. I keep her under my roof for the sake of my dead son and for your sake too, but not for hers. It is a bad thing that she does. She no more speaks to the dead than I am the king of England.’ He patted Phoebe’s hands as they lay clasped on her lap. ‘You’re a good girl. Find yourself a worthy man. Get married and have lots of bambini. That is a woman’s real destiny, my flower.’

Phoebe smiled and squeezed his fingers. ‘Perhaps, Nonno. But not yet.’

‘Gino would make a good husband, and he is very fond of you.’

‘And I like him, but not enough to spend the rest of my life with him.’ Rising to her feet, she smoothed the worried lines from his forehead with the tip of her forefinger and dropped a kiss on the top of his silver-streaked hair. He smelt of cream and melted sugar, lemon zest and strawberries; all the good things that went into Giamatti’s ice cream and water ices. Not for him were the cheap tricks used by some of
their
neighbours, who used cochineal to colour water and called it raspberry ice, or milk diluted with water and even worse water coloured with chalk to manufacture the product they sold as penny licks. Fresh unadulterated milk, eggs and sugar were the ingredients of Giamatti’s ice cream. Crushed raspberries or strawberries bought in Covent Garden market with the dew still on them were used to make the refreshing water ices for which people queued on days when the heat in the city would fell an ox.

Phoebe was proud to be a part of a family with a long tradition of honest trading, but she could not abandon her emotionally fragile mother to the fate that must befall a woman with a weakness for strong drink. She gave her grandfather an affectionate hug. She loved every line and wrinkle, and the craggy contour of his face that had the strength of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb. She would do nothing to hurt him, but she must make her own way in the world and that did not include marrying Gino Argento or any of the young Italian men she knew who were involved in the ice cream trade in Saffron Hill. ‘I must go and find Ma before she spends the whole shilling on gin or she’ll be dead drunk by nightfall.’

He patted her hand. ‘Go, then. But think about what I said, cara. It will soon be autumn and Mamma and I will be heading south to Italy for the winter months with Lorenzo and Julio. I want you to come with us, little one. Leave Annie to look after herself, I beg of you.’

‘I’ll think about it, Nonno.’ Phoebe hurried from the
room
before he had a chance to press her further on the subject. It came up every year at the end of the summer season, when those families in the community who had made a handsome profit from their labours and saved every penny of it set off for their homeland to spend the winter. Each year since she was considered old enough to have an opinion of her own, Phoebe had chosen to remain in London with her mother. Sometimes it was tempting to escape from the mud and filth of the city and head for the sweet clean air of the Italian mountains and lakes, but to leave her mother to cope alone would be like abandoning a small child to her fate. In the close-knit Italian community, blonde, blue-eyed Annie was still a foreigner despite having married into an old-established family, and Saffron Hill, belying its colourful rural-sounding name, was in reality a mean street lined with a higgledy-piggledy mixture of overcrowded tenements, pubs and small dirty shops selling everything from milk to articles lifted from the pockets of the unwary by street urchins. Phoebe could speak the language of her father’s family like a native, but Annie still stumbled over the words and pronunciation, especially when her brain was addled with jigger gin.

It was to the Three Bells that Phoebe hurried, making her way through the piles of rotting vegetables, horse dung and drifts of straw that covered the cobblestones. She was used to the stench of overflowing sewers and the putrid flotsam washed up on the banks of the Thames at high tide, but today it was hot and clouds of bluebottles feasted on the detritus. She held a
handkerchief
soaked in some of her grandmother’s lavender cologne to her nose as she stepped over a dead rat in the gutter. Overhead a couple of carrion crows circled hopefully, waiting their chance to alight in the busy street and tear at the rotting flesh.

‘Phoebe, wait for me.’

Recognising Gino’s voice, Phoebe stopped, turning her head to look at him in surprise. ‘Gino. What are you doing here? I thought you would be out selling hokey-pokey.’

He grinned, displaying a row of even white teeth. ‘Sold out, cara. It’s a hot day and I got nothing left to sell, so I come looking for my bella Phoebe.’

‘That’s nice, Gino. But I can’t stop.’ She continued walking at a brisk pace but he fell into step beside her, seemingly regardless of the fact that he was trampling ankle-deep through rubbish.

‘It’s your mamma, again, isn’t it? What has she done this time, cara? Is it an angry wife or a cheated client who chases her?’

‘Neither.’ Phoebe stopped outside the pub door. ‘She has money.’

He pulled a face. ‘Not for long, eh?’

‘No.’ Phoebe pushed the door open, grimacing as a gust of hot smoky air billowed out of the taproom. She stepped inside, peering through the haze of tobacco smoke, but it was the sound of her mother’s laughter that directed her to a corner of the ingle nook where she found Annie seated beside a rotund gentleman dressed in sombre black with a white stock at his neck over which his several chins wobbled when he
chuckled
. His chubby fingers, mottled like pink pork sausages, toyed with the buttons on Annie’s cotton blouse.

‘It’s time to go home, Ma,’ Phoebe said firmly.

Annie looked up at her and her eyes widened, but the smile remained fixed on her face. She lifted her glass to her lips in a defiant gesture and drained its contents in one gulp. ‘Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy?’

Phoebe squared her thin shoulders. ‘You’re wanted at home, Ma. I’d like you to come now.’

Annie’s companion cleared his throat. ‘You heard what your mother said, young lady. Show some respect for your elders and do as she bids you.’

Phoebe recognised him as Amos Snape, a clerk who worked at Nicholson’s Distillery in St John Street. She had seen him in her mother’s company on several occasions, and although he was preferable to some of Annie’s other gentlemen friends he had a somewhat dubious reputation and it was rumoured that his late wife’s death was not as accidental as he claimed. Annie might think she was subtly gleaning details about his domestic affairs in order to lure him into a mock séance, but Phoebe suspected that Amos had designs on her mother that did not include paying a penny or twopence in order to contact his dear departed; in fact the very reverse was probably true. If it were at all possible for the dead to speak, Nellie Snape might have something to say that would wipe the smile off her husband’s face forever. If she closed her eyes, Phoebe could visualise a hangman’s noose dangling over his
head
. She did not need a crystal ball to predict Snape’s future, and from the lascivious gleam in his small piggy eyes when he glanced at the swell of Annie’s breast, she could tell that his intentions were far from honourable. The large glass of gin that stood untouched as yet next to the tot that her mother had just consumed was evidence enough of his desire to get Ma swipey. Not that Annie needed much encouragement. Phoebe leaned closer. ‘Come along, Ma. Please.’

Annie giggled, shaking her head. ‘I done me bit this morning, love. Give a girl the chance to have some fun.’

Phoebe was about to insist when Gino laid his hand on her shoulder. She glanced up into his face and he winked at her before turning his full attention on Amos. ‘I don’t want to worry you, cully. But I think I see your boss walking down the street in this direction. Maybe he looks for you, maybe not. It’s a mystery. Yes?’

Amos leapt to his feet, his prominent belly straining against the buttons on his waistcoat. ‘Are you certain? Or are you spinning me a tale, you stupid macaroni.’

Gino held his hands palm upwards with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. ‘Do you want to take a chance on it, signore? I maybe a stupid macaroni, but I ain’t the one who’ll look foolish when his boss finds him in the pub.’

‘Get out of my way, Eyetie.’

With a bow and a smile, Gino moved aside. ‘Signore.’

Amos shot him a malevolent glance as he barged past and hurried out into the street.

‘What did you do that for?’ Annie demanded angrily. ‘We was just having a bit of a giggle, and I was close to finding out how poor Nellie come to a sticky end.’

Phoebe helped her mother to her feet. ‘Never mind that now, Ma. Let’s go home, shall we?’

‘What are you grinning at?’ Annie said, glaring at Gino. ‘You should be at work, young man.’

Gino shook his head. ‘I’ve sold my share of hokey-pokey for today, Signora Giamatti.’

‘That’s as maybe, but my girl has things to do. You’ll have Mamma Giamatti to deal with if you keep Phoebe from her chores.’ Annie picked up the glass of gin and downed it in one swallow. She gave a sigh of satisfaction. ‘That was good Hollands, none of your jigger gin for Amos; I’ll say that for him. But thanks to you two I’ll have me work cut out now to persuade him to contact his dear Nellie.’ She tossed her head, eyeing Phoebe defiantly. ‘I ain’t coming, girl. So don’t look at me like that.’ Her expression changed on an instant from sullen to one of delight.

Realising that she had lost her mother’s attention, Phoebe turned her head and her heart sank as she realised who it was that had wrought the change in her mother’s mood. Burly costermongers and porters from the nearby markets moved swiftly out of his path as Rogue Paxman crossed the floor to join them. Phoebe glanced anxiously at the man who was known to be the leader of a notorious mob. If her father had not become embroiled in their nefarious doings he might still be alive this day. She felt suffocated by his presence and when she swallowed there was a bitter taste
in
her mouth, but to her horror she realised that her mother was smiling a welcome to the man who had brought tragedy to their family. ‘Mother,’ Phoebe said in a low voice. ‘Come with me, please.’

‘Oh, Lord, don’t be such a spoilsport,’ Annie said without looking at her. ‘I think Rogue wants a word or two with me.’

Gino made a move towards Annie, as if to protect her, but Paxman, still smiling, barred his way. ‘Excuse us, mate.’ There was a hidden threat in his words, and Phoebe was alarmed to see his hands fisted at his side. Rogue Paxman was not a man to take no for an answer. His shrewd sea-green eyes set beneath straight fair eyebrows and a thatch of corn-gold hair were at odds with his powerful physique and the strong set of his jaw. He stood a good head and shoulders taller than Gino and he was not the sort of man with whom any sane person would pick a quarrel. Sending a pleading look to her mother, Phoebe clutched Gino’s arm. ‘I think we’d best leave now. Come along, Ma.’

Annie shook her head. ‘I’ll be along when I’m ready, ducks. Right now I’ve got business with Rogue. Private business.’ She tapped the side of her nose, winking at Paxman as she resumed her seat. She held up her empty glass. ‘A glass of Hollands would go down a treat.’

He took it from her with slight inclination of his head. ‘I’m happy to oblige, ma’am.’ With a smile directed at Phoebe he made his way to the bar.

She turned on her mother, bending down to speak in an urgent undertone. ‘Ma, have you lost your senses?
Rogue
Paxman is a villain. Pa might be here now if he hadn’t got mixed up with the mobs. Don’t have anything to do with him, I beg of you.’

Annie gave her a tipsy smile. ‘Don’t fuss, girl. I’m not a muggins. I can think for myself. Rogue and his brother Ned have money. I ain’t going to live in Mamma Giamatti’s attic for the rest of me life. At last I can see a way out for you and me, Phoebe. I’m sick of the smell of bloody ice cream and that Italian woman telling me what to do. I’m tired of pretending to conjure up spirits when the only one that interests me comes in a stone bottle. The Paxmans owe us, and they’re our ticket out of Saffron Hill.’

Phoebe glanced anxiously over her shoulder. She could see Paxman making his way back to the table. ‘The only place he’ll lead us to is the cemetery, Ma. He’s nothing but trouble and his brother is even worse.’

Annie threw back her head and laughed. ‘Got your own crystal ball now, have you, ducks?’ She looked up at Paxman as he passed her a fresh drink. ‘Ta, Rogue. Come and sit beside me and we’ll have a nice cosy chat. My girl’s just leaving.’

Phoebe hesitated, meeting his amused gaze with a stubborn tilt of her chin. She hated this man with a passion, and his worthless brother too. It was rumoured that the Paxman family had been involved in criminal activities for generations, and they lived in some style in a large house overlooking Charterhouse Gardens. Rogue had been born to the life and although there was a degree of respect for his gang locally, this was tempered by fear. The only thing that could be said of
the
Paxman mob was that they kept the other high mobs at bay. Their rule was absolute and their code was law to those who lived by it. Phoebe had heard her grandfather complaining that if the police had as much control of the streets as the Paxman brothers, this part of London would be a safer place. Phoebe could not agree. The law was there to protect honest citizens, and must be upheld without resorting to the bullying tactics adopted by the Paxmans. That’s what her father had taught her and she clung to that belief.