Rock a Bye Baby (22 page)

She exchanged a wave with Mr Ellis as she passed his back gate. The smell of turned earth was strong in the air. No big surprise really. Mr Ellis, his bald pate gleaming with sweat, was leaning on his shovel. He was dwarfed by a mountain of earth excavated from his nuclear fallout shelter. She wondered whether the shelter would ever be completed in time for the Third World War that everyone insisted was coming.

The back garden of number ten, Endeavour Terrace, was a lot quieter than it used to be since the demise of the chickens. Tony Brooks was now using their shed for storage and his new lawnmower. Marcie
had never known him do any gardening whatsoever before and certainly not mowing a lawn.

The old wooden gate gave its customary squeal as she pushed it open. Raindrops trickled from the shed roof and brushed onto her skirt from the rough grass growing against the fence.

On a fine night her grandmother would be sitting outside knitting, popping peas or shredding cabbage. The rain had kept her inside this evening.

Marcie wondered what she would say about her going up to London – not that she was quite so keen on going now that she had no money to spend. She had to consider telling Rita that she wouldn’t be able to go. Somehow she didn’t think she’d be that disappointed. Her father, Alan Taylor, would spoil her rotten. He doted on her, as her gran would say. She only wished her father was like that. At least Rita knew for certain that her mother had died of an illness. She must have been as lovely a mother as Alan was a father, she decided. Just like her mother. From what everyone said she was lovely too.

A sound from the chicken house made her slow her steps. There was giggling coming from inside. Resting her hand on the rough wood, her ear close to the felt-covered roof, she heard the giggling again plus low, boyish laughter.

Archie and Arnold were in the shed. They’d been talking about making a den out of it – that’s
if their father couldn’t be persuaded into digging a nuclear fallout shelter. Tony Brooks was of the opinion that the Russians were
never
coming; the Kennedys had scuppered their game, he reckoned. Besides, they’d probably bypass the Isle of Sheppey. In fact it was likely they didn’t even know it existed.

Marcie smiled. The boys hadn’t heard her approach so she decided to surprise them.

The hen house roof had a flap that could be opened. Carefully, so they didn’t hear, she undid the catch, counted to three and snapped the flap open.

‘BOO!’

Two startled boys nearly jumped out of their skin. Two sticky faces – two very sticky faces – looked up at her. Each was holding a lollipop. A few more lay in a small box on the ground between them. The situation was plain as day.

Marcie pointed an accusing finger at the evidence. ‘Archie! You little thief! I know where you got those.’

‘Don’t tell, Marcie! Please don’t tell!’

The wire enclosure leading off the chicken coup had been removed. Marcie went round to the front of the hen house and opened the door. Leaning forward, she snatched the box from between them.

‘We’re not the only ones,’ Arnold protested. ‘All the kids have got some.’

Marcie slapped each of their faces. ‘That’s for stealing.’

‘We didn’t steal them,’ said Archie, his eyes misting over as he rubbed the red spot her hand had left on his cheek.

‘Don’t lie to me. A big box of lollipops just like these were stolen from where I work. What am I to think?’

‘All the kids have got some. Bully Price said to come quickly and take what we wanted.’

Bully Price lived up to his nickname. His real name was William so he should have been called Billy, but Bully suited him better.

‘Right,’ said Marcie, heading back towards the gate. ‘I’m going to have a word with Bully Price and then I’m taking him to see his parents. If they don’t sort him out I’ll leave it to the police!’

She could hardly believe what she’d just said. Bully was not easily intimidated – he was best avoided. At thirteen he was the size of an eighteen-year-old.

The boys were impressed.

‘Great! I’ve got to see this.’ Archie scrambled to his feet.

Equally thrilled to watch his sister face the local answer to Al Capone, Arnold followed.

Marcie was full of trepidation. She didn’t like confrontation and Bully Price had a reputation. As well as being big for his age, he swore like a trooper. His parents were as offensive as he was. But she couldn’t back down now. Her brothers were expecting
some drama and her being brave. She had to go through with it.

Bully Price was smoking a cigarette when she found him hanging around in the bus shelter. The tips of three more cigarettes peeked from a grubby-edged breast pocket. Four other boys accompanied him.

‘Hey, Bully. You got a bit of skirt come to see you.’

Marcie cuffed the speaker’s ear. ‘Less of your cheek! I’m not a bit of skirt. I’m a young lady!’

The others gasped and looked at Bully for a lead.

A slight movement crimped the corners of Bully’s mouth.

Marcie tensed. Would he lash out at her, set his gang on her? Archie and Arnold, bless their cotton socks, stood firmly close to her side. Although Arnold must be quivering in his boots, he braved voicing a warning.

‘This is our Marcie. Touch her and you’re for it.’

The gang members laughed – all except Bully. He eyed her far too brazenly for a thirteen-year-old. He was so big for a lad of his age. Determined not to be intimidated she folded her arms and held her head high.

‘Touch me if you dare.’

Bully’s square chin seemed to bristle for a moment before his small mouth cracked into a grin.

‘You’ve got spirit! You can be my girlfriend if you want.’

‘I don’t want,’ snapped Marcie, blushing profusely despite herself. ‘I don’t go out with schoolboys and this isn’t a social call. I work for Mr Tytherington. We had a box of lollipops go missing. We’ve reported the theft to the police and the damage done to the stall. Now I come home to find my brothers eating the evidence. They tell me you were the thieving little sods who stole them. Oh, and besides not going out with schoolboys, I do not associate with common thieves.’

Bully eyed her through the smoke he’d exhaled. His eyes narrowed and he certainly wasn’t looking at her like a thirteen-year-old should, the cocky little sod!

She waited.

He flicked a dog-end into a stained corner of the bus shelter. ‘You got it wrong. I’m no thief. I’m just the distributor, if you know what I mean. Got it?’

Marcie knew Bully mostly by reputation; he was younger than her so wasn’t a kid she’d had much to do with. He was the sort she mostly avoided, but still she knew better than to show fear. On the contrary, she had to do the opposite. It wasn’t easy.

He looked shocked when she snatched the three cigarettes from his pocket.

‘So tell me who did pinch them and you can have your fags back. Tell me now or I’m off to the coppers. Got it?’

She could see by his face that she’d taken him off guard. A lazy eyelid flickered. His smile was slow to spread over his face and once in place was more like a sneer.

‘The dope,’ he snapped. ‘Dopey Davies.’

Now it was Marcie who was taken aback. ‘Garth Davies?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t do something like that. And how would he get there? On the bus?’

Bully grinned. ‘He would if we were holding his cat hostage. And no problem getting there and back. Not if I was driving my old man’s van. We wouldn’t let him have his cat back until he did the job.’

‘You’re too young to drive!’

‘So?’

The gang members laughed along with him and stopped when he stopped.

‘Now give me my fags back.’

He wasn’t smiling now, but Marcie didn’t care. Her fingers tightened around the three cigarettes. He’d probably stolen them from his parents. It might not be so easy to get any more. I hope not, she thought, I really hope not!

She purposely crushed them in her hand. Bits and pieces of tobacco and cigarette paper crumbled to the floor. She ground the bigger pieces into the ground with her toe and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

Bully’s face turned from pasty white to purple. He
was furious and like all bullies he targeted the weakest. Rather than threaten her, he turned to her brothers. ‘Me and my mates will get you, Brookses. We’ll get you in school, you just see if we don’t!’

His threat was ended abruptly with a swift right hook from Marcie. She wasn’t easily roused to violence, but unluckily for Bully Price he was a softer target than her father.

Bully looked at her in amazement. ‘I like a girl with spirit,’ he repeated as he rubbed his chin.

‘But I don’t like bullies,’ she said, purposely stamping on his foot.

‘None of them will be bothering either of you two,’ she said to Archie and Arnold as they marched smartly away. ‘Head up. Chin up. Start as you mean to go on.’

Marcie added that her half-brothers should not look back. ‘They’ll think you’re a coward if you do and the Brookses are never cowards!’

Testing her courage against someone like Bully Price was bound to flood her with feelings of triumph. However, that triumph was tempered with surprise and sadness. Poor Garth had been bullied into doing what they wanted. She knew he had a cat and that he was fond of it. Sometimes he could be seen sitting on the steps leading up to the miserable flat he called home, the cat lounging across his lap. There had to be a way of keeping Bully and his mates off Garth’s
back for good. She could tell his mother but doubted that would do any good. Despite her age she went around dressed like Marilyn Monroe; mutton dressed as lamb according to Rosa Brooks. Not that her grandmother condemned her for that. ‘She’s had a difficult life,’ she’d said.

No, it needed a man to sort Bully Price out, a man who knew how to handle himself. She was unwilling to approach her father for obvious reasons. Even if she didn’t still harbour suspicions that he had done something to her real mother, or had, at the very least, driven her away, he was hardly the sort to ensure justice was done for Garth. Despite what he was, she’d still been brought up to respect him. However, she couldn’t help believing that he’d probably started out stealing sweets himself, before graduating on to bigger and more valuable property.

Marcie thought about the coming Thursday and the weekend to follow. The fact that she was seeing Johnnie at the weekend made up for the fact that Rita was taking her hard-earned savings in exchange for the course of birth control pills. The prized pills outweighed the cost – what was a new dress and shoes in comparison to a weekend of bliss with Johnnie?

As work was out of the question at the moment due to the renovations needed to the stall, she and Rita met for a coffee on a day out at Leysdown.

Marcie had expected her to bring the pills with her.

‘I’ll give you them when we go up to London.’

Marcie had no choice but to agree. It seemed that Rita was going to relish spending money, including her five pounds. She looked more cheerful than she had for days except when Marcie attempted to mention Johnnie. Rita turned curt when she did that, cutting across with her views that boys who rode motorbikes were disgusting and that she’d made her mind up to ‘get with it’.

Rita’s father was driving them up in his sleek Jaguar. Apparently he had business to attend to. Her father was fine with that.

‘Alan knows how to handle himself. He’ll take care of you.’

In more ways than you think, she thought to herself. He’s the one who can take care of Bully Price. If anyone was going to set the little sod to rights it was him.

They were in Rita’s bedroom, a pink and white concoction of laminate furniture, sheepskin rugs and white plastic chairs, when the deed was done. A three-legged tubular standard lamp sat in one corner. Marcie had always envied her friend having a bedroom all to herself. Now the pink and white surroundings made her feel quite sick.

Alan Taylor knocked on the door before coming in.

‘Won’t be long, girls. Are you both ready to go?’

They both said that they were.

‘Marcie’s buying my birth control pills,’ said Rita without an iota of embarrassment. She waved the five pound note in front of her father’s face.

Marcie went scarlet.

Alan noticed the container. ‘What happened to them? Why are they in an old jar?’

‘Marcie’s gran won’t like it if she found them – so I disguised them for her.’

Marcie didn’t care what sort of container the pills came in as long as they worked. Rita’s idea had been a good one, though – heaven knows what sort of
trouble she’d get in if her gran or even her dad found out she was on the pill.

She shoved the jar to the bottom of her handbag, still sporting a bright-red complexion. Whatever would Rita’s father think of her? Rita telling her father about their deal was the last thing she’d expected. Nobody told their parents things like that – not normally.

Alan Taylor gave no sign of being shocked or embarrassed by his daughter’s statement; only interested. His deep-blue eyes narrowed when he looked at her. ‘Is that right, Marcie, girl? Must be someone special.’

A smile creased the corners of his mouth. Marcie half wondered if he were making fun of her – a silly little girl who thought she was in love.

Rita bulldozed the information to him.

‘She’s in love with a leather boy named Johnnie. He’s a rocker. Rockers ride motorbikes, wear leather and are always tinkering with engines and oil.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Actually they stink. I’ve gone off them myself. I prefer my boyfriends to be well dressed and drive a car or a Vespa.’

Marcie couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt at Rita’s tone. She was saying that Johnnie was downmarket and so Marcie was too. It was hard not to retaliate. She consoled herself by thinking of the weekend – she wanted to go away with Johnnie and needed Rita to cover for her.

Alan raised his eyebrows
in a knowing way and grinned at his daughter. ‘Trust you to want the best. But if that’s what you want, then that’s what you shall have. Please yourself in this life, my girl. It’s a pound to a penny that no one else will.’