The Exciting Life (3 page)

‘
Honestly,’ Alice sighed. ‘The pair of you need your heads
knocking together. Anyway, talking of legacies. I have a little
something for you for your birthday.’

‘
You didn’t have to Aunt Alice, I wasn’t expecting
anything.’

Alice
ignored her, and from her handbag pulled out a set of keys with a
paper tag attached to them. She then passed them to
Annie.

‘
Happy Birthday Annie,’ she said.

‘
What’s this?’

‘
It’s the keys to The Fortune Hotel on Regent
Street.’

‘
I don’t understand,’ Annie frowned. ‘Why are you giving me a
hotel?’

‘
Villiers Hotels has become a millstone around my neck since
your Uncle James died,’ Alice replied. ‘Max has no interest in
running it. Bloomberg Foods takes up all his time. Dirk’s bought up
some of the American hotels, but I’m stuck with the others. I’m an
actress Annie, I’m not interested in running hotels. So I’ve
decided to offload as much of it as I possibly can. I’m leaving
Kenneth The Randolph in Edgware Road in my will. No doubt he’ll
sell it to reinvest in Tanner Beresford. Max is getting the rest of
the hotels, to sell off.’

‘
So why are you giving this to me now?’

‘
Because I know Mario cleaned you out and you’re too proud to
come to me for help. I doubt your Uncle Michael’s trust-fund will
give you much of a monthly return.’

Annie
had completely forgotten that Michael had left her and Kenneth a
trust fund each, that started on their twenty-fifth birthdays. But
poor Michael had lost so much money in the years after the war, she
doubted it amounted to much. Certainly not enough to keep her in
the manner Mario had.

‘
Do you want me to run it then?’ she asked.

‘
Darling it’s been closed since 1957! It’s just standing there
vacant. But Regent Street is a prime area and I reckon you could
sell it for a decent amount.’

‘
Thank you Aunt Alice,’ Annie gasped. ‘I don’t know what to
say.’

‘
Just use the money wisely,’ Alice smiled. ‘Do something you’ve
always wanted to do.’

‘
Shall I tell you what I always wanted? I wanted to make shoes.
Does that sound strange to you?’

‘
Not at all. Perhaps you could use the money to set yourself up
somewhere.’ ‘Yes, perhaps I could. I’m so grateful for this Aunt
Alice. I’m not even family.’

‘
Of course you’re family,’ Alice said firmly, reaching across
the table and grasping Annie’s arm. ‘Just because we’re not blood,
it doesn’t matter. I’ve known you since you were five years old and
watched you grow into the beautiful girl you are. I never kept in
touch with my proper brothers and sisters, so you and Kenny are the
nearest I’ve got to a niece and nephew, and I want to spoil
you.’

Annie
made her way back to the club in much higher spirits. Not only did
she have a belly filled with gin and delicious food; she was also
now the owner of a building in Regent Street. Alice promised to
meet again soon with her solicitor so the papers could be signed,
and from then on it was Annie’s to do whatever she liked. She
promised herself that as soon as she’d finished up at Bruno’s, she
would head over to The Fortune and take a look at it.

As she
descended the steps to the club, she looked through the window and
immediately recognised the man standing in the middle of the floor,
chatting to Eric. It was Patrick Collins, and the sight of him
struck a strange mixture of lust and fear into Annie. She couldn’t
deny that she found him wildly attractive; but everything he stood
for terrified her.

‘
What’s going on here?’ she asked, as she entered the club.
Patrick turned around and looked at her, tipping his trilby hat and
giving her a brief glimpse of that shiny auburn hair.

‘
Annie, hello,’ he smiled. ‘I thought I’d drop in and invite
you for dinner.’

‘
I’ve already told you, I’m not interested,’ she said, taking
off her coat. She looked at Eric, who stood holding on tightly to a
crate, his face white as a sheet in terror. ‘Eric can you see Mr
Collins out please?’

‘
Er, yeah, alright,’ he uttered, putting the crate
down.

‘
That’s not necessary,’ Patrick said, and in a move that made
Annie gasp with horror, he took hold of her arm with one hand,
picked up her coat with the other and practically frog-marched her
out of the club. Annie’s heart raced in fear, wondering where he
was going to take her. She’d heard so many stories about the sort
of punishments these gangsters meted out to their
enemies.

‘
Let go of me!’ she cried as he manoeuvred her up the steps.
‘You’ve no right to be doing this.’

Ignoring
her, he pulled her across the road, and into Dino’s, the little
café that was always frequented at night by prostitutes and their
pimps. During the day the clientele were shop girls from Oxford
Street, and as Annie and Patrick entered, she noticed a couple of
the little dollies look up and smile in appreciation at him -
paying no attention at how roughly he was treating her.

He
pushed her down onto a chair at an empty table and went to the
counter. Annie wondered if she should run, but decided against it.
He would no doubt come after her if she tried to escape. It was
easier to sit and listen to what he had to say.

He got
them two cups of over-brewed tea and sat before her, removing his
hat and running his hand through his hair to flatten it
down.

‘
By God you’re a hard one to handle aren’t you?’ he hissed.
‘All I want to do is talk to you.’

‘
No!’ she hissed. ‘All you want to do is take my club back off
me to give to Daddy. Why should I give it to you?’

‘
Dad doesn’t want to take it off you. He wants to take it
over.’

‘
Same difference.’

‘
No it isn’t. You’d still get a cut of the profits. But you’d
get no say in what happened.’

‘
I’m not going into business with a gangster.’

‘
Dad’s methods may be a little unorthodox, but essentially he’s
a businessman. Being a lady, you’d have no idea about this, but
back in the war, people needed men like my dad to supply them with
things. Not that you’d understand what it’s like to be
poor.’

‘
Don’t make assumptions about me. Me and my brother lived in
poverty until we were five and seven and taken in by Michael and
Nesta Holland. I can still remember that smelly slum behind Nine
Elms Lane where we used to live.’

‘
So you landed on your feet then?’ he smiled, teasing
her.

‘
Maybe I did. But I’ve never forgotten where I came
from.’

‘
In that case, you shouldn’t be so against my dad.’

‘
What’s so special about my club? Can’t he take over another
one?’

‘
No.’ Patrick’s face hardened and he sipped his tea, drawing a
line under the conversation, but Annie wasn’t willing to be fobbed
off so easily.

‘
Well, why not?’ she asked.

‘
He’s got business interests around here,’ he said curtly.
‘There are rival gangs operating in the area and Dad thinks it
would be good to fill the club with his men. To stop any trouble
happening.’

‘
So would your dad be running it?’

‘
No, I would. I’d be your business partner.’

Just
briefly, the proposition seemed attractive to Annie. She’d have
none of the hassle of running the club, and there was the added
bonus of seeing Patrick regularly. But there was no getting away
from the fact that his father wanted to use it for criminal
activities, and if the police got involved, she’d get dragged into
it too.

‘
I’m going to have to think about it,’ she said. ‘I can’t make
a decision like that in a couple of minutes. Mario cleaned me out
completely. I’m renting a shitty flat in Fulham and haven’t any
other income. If I lose Bruno’s, I’m destitute.’

‘
I thought you were adopted by those rich people.’

‘
My Aunt Nesta had a stroke two years ago and is in a nursing
home in Geneva. My Uncle Michael died in 1954. My brother runs my
Aunt’s housing association, but he ploughs every penny he makes
back into the company, and that’s it. My aunt by marriage is Alicia
Bloom..’

‘
The actress?’

‘
Yes. And she’s rich, but I’m not willing to scrounge off her.
I want to make my own way.’

‘
If you say so love. If it was me, I’d be living it up in
Hollywood with her.’

‘
She doesn’t live in Hollywood. She lives in New York. My
cousins Max and Alana live in Los Angeles.’

‘
That must be
the
Alana!’ he gasped, laughing loudly. ‘She’s Alicia Bloom’s
daughter. She was my pin-up girl when I was a boy.’

‘
Well there you have it, you’ve met her adopted cousin by
marriage. Not much, but something.’

‘
Oh I don’t know,’ he smiled. ‘It’s pretty good
compensation.’

‘
Trixie wouldn’t like to hear you talking like that,’ she
replied.

‘
Trixie and me aren’t serious,’ he said with a wave of the
hand. ‘She’s a laugh, nothing else.’

‘
How come she thinks you can help her become an
actress?’

‘
I’ve been running Dad’s clubs since I was twenty-one, and I’ve
met a lot of actors. It’s amazing what you can persuade them to do
when you know so many secrets about them. I’m hoping I can put it
to good use and become a film producer.’

She
laughed.

‘
So you don’t want to stay a villain all your life?’

‘
I’m not a villain,’ he smiled. ‘I’m a businessman. And
speaking of which, are we now business partners?’

‘
No.’

‘
Why not?’

Annie
glanced around and lowered her head, coming closer to
him.

‘
I’m not being associated with anything criminal. For one, I’ve
nothing else other than Bruno’s, and two, my brother hates me
enough as it is. If I got embroiled in some sort of scandal, he’d
never speak to me again.’

‘
Why does your brother hate you?’

‘
Oh lots of reasons,’ she sighed. ‘We’re very different people.
When Kenneth was about ten, he decided he wanted to be a priest. He
even started a theology degree at Oxford when he was eighteen. But
my Aunt Nesta was seventy by then and she was finding running
Tanner Beresford too much, so she asked Kenneth to help out. It
suits him fine. He gets to help the sort of people we were when we
were children. I think Kenneth feels guilty for being taken out of
the gutter and that he has to give something back.’

‘
But you were different?’

‘
I was only five when I went to live with Aunt Nesta and Uncle
Michael. I never went back to Battersea, and by the time I was
seven they’d legally changed our names to Holland. I don’t remember
my dad at all. I have very vague memories of my mum, but she was
ill most of the time. Aunt Nesta’s been like a mother to me. I went
to a good prep school, then St Agnes’s in Kingston. I didn’t see
the point of repaying some big debt to society and I enjoyed the
good life. Kenneth didn’t approve when I married Mario because he
saw our lifestyle as frivolous.’

‘
So what was your surname before you were adopted?’

‘
Brady.’

‘
Irish?’ he smiled.

‘
I presume so. But as I said, I’ve no recollection of my
father. My mother wasn’t Irish.’

‘
We had neighbours called Brady back in Kilburn.’

‘
Are you Irish then? I know Kilburn is a very Irish
area.’

‘
Dad’s from Dublin. He came over when he was a boy though, so
he’s got no memories of it.’

‘
That's like me. What matters is the life Kenneth and I had
once Nesta and Michael took us in - nothing else. But on saying
that I don't want to upset him any further, so I can't go into
business with you. I’m sorry.’

‘
Okay okay. How about I just put a couple of men on the door?
Nothing else. There's trouble coming Annie. The Maltese are after
our blood. So are some of the East End boys. If you don’t get
protection, they’ll still try and take over Bruno’s. I’d never be
violent with you, but I can’t promise that they won’t be. They
don’t have much respect for women.’

Annie
felt confused and backed into a corner. She couldn’t deny that over
the years she’d met starlets who’d dated Maltese gangsters and had
been on the receiving end of their beatings. But how did she even
know Patrick was telling the truth? It may have just been a ploy to
get her to hand power over to him.

‘
Okay,’ she sighed. ‘A couple of men on the door. Nothing else.
And I don’t want my regulars turned away. This isn’t a take
over.’

‘
Thanks Annie,’ he said, offering his hand, which she shook.
‘You’ll hardly notice any difference, I promise you.’

‘
We’ll see. I hope I’m not jumping into bed with the
devil.’

‘
You can jump into bed with me any time you like.’