Scarlet Women

Chapter 18

Next day Tony drove her over to Dolly’s place. Ross was already at his station by the door. Tall dark Sharlene and cute blonde Rosie were in the kitchen helping Dolly get the buffet organized. Ellie was in there too, polishing the top of the stove and wearing her pale blue overall that bulged open over her curvy torso in all the wrong places.

‘Hi, all,’ said Annie.

There were muttered greetings from all around. Ellie was slumped at the kitchen table, looking unhappy and doing what she always did in times of crisis—digging into the biscuit tin.

Dolly, who had been leafing through her notebook and having an increasingly heated conversation about who was going out tomorrow night and who was not with Sharlene and Rosie, paused and looked across at Annie. Then she went on: ‘Look, nobody’s taking the fucking booking, don’t go getting all antsy about it, either of you. After what just happened to poor bloody Aretha? No escort jobs, not now. I mean it.’

‘But Rosie’s already taken the damned booking,’ whined Sharlene, who was always up for an argument about anything.

‘Well, she shouldn’t have,’ said Dolly. ‘Even if she did, she should have got a contact number. Don’t I always tell her to get a contact number so that we can call the client if we need to? Did you in fact do that small thing, Rosie?’

Rosie looked petulant. ‘No,’ she admitted.

‘Oh for God’s sake. Then we’re going to have to let the punter down. And that’s an end to it, okay?’

They both nodded.

‘And Ellie,’ said Dolly, ‘put your bloody face straight, will you? And will you stop eating those fucking things? I know you’re upset about Chris, but you’re just going to have to accept it. I know you like Chris, but it looks as if he did it.’

Dolly’s easy acceptance of the situation irritated the hell out of Annie. She would never understand it. She frowned as she thought of the mess Chris was in. He was banged up right now, awaiting trial. And her conversations with Jerry hadn’t filled her with optimism for Chris’s chances of escaping a substantial stretch.

And Dolly’s ready to just accept all this shit? she thought angrily.

‘Look, his brief’s on it,’ Annie told Ellie, trying to give the poor mare some comfort. She didn’t look at Dolly; she was bewildered and offended by Dolly’s attitude towards the shit-load of trouble that was hitting poor Chris right between the eyes. ‘And he’s a bloody good man, Jerry Peters—the best.’

Sharlene and Rosie were still bitching cheerfully over who would have taken the booking up West tomorrow night.

‘I told you,’ said Dolly sharply. ‘Neither of you’s going to take it, so pipe down the pair of you.’

And then a black tornado came bursting in the front door, barging through into the hall, nearly knocking Ross clean off his feet before he recovered and got to grips with this spitting mad apparition.

It was a stocky black woman of middle years, all heaving chest and huge arms and mad-crazy eyes. Ross grabbed hold of her, and she kicked and lunged, and then she spotted Annie watching slack-jawed with surprise from the open kitchen doorway.

‘You!’ she yelled, and struggled afresh. Ross was half grinning now, tickled by this demented woman’s mad efforts to break free of his grip. His amusement was making the woman even madder.

‘Ross!’ Annie called out.

Ross looked up, almost laughing.

‘Let her go. It’s okay.’

Ross released Louella. She straightened her clothes and put her hat back on from where it had been knocked askew. Like a bull approaching a matador, she charged on along the hall. All the women in the kitchen except Annie drew back a bit. Louella came thundering into the kitchen.

Aunt Louella was holding a wad of fivers in her hand. When she got up close to Annie, she threw the notes into her face. Annie flinched. Notes fluttered. Rosie and Sharlene restrained themselves admirably and didn’t make a dive for them.

‘Hey!’ shrieked Louella. ‘Here’s what I think of your dirty money, girl. I tol’ you I wanted nothing from you people. You think I’m not serious; you think I don’t mean what I say? You think I frightened by those boys of yours, comin’ around my house tellin’ me to be grateful, to take this, to do that, that I oughtta show respect, that I oughtta take it and shut up?’

Annie stood there and let Louella get it all out. One of the boys had obviously got over-zealous in his efforts to help her out and had forced money on her. Annie guessed at Deaf Derek, the silly fucker.

‘Excuse me,’ said Dolly, getting steamed up on Annie’s behalf. ‘Don’t go coming in here shouting the odds…’

‘And you.’ Louella turned, glaring, to Dolly. Her eyes swept with disdain over the neatly dressed madam, then over the thinly clad pair of girls standing there, open-mouthed, enjoying the fight. ‘You think I don’t know what happens here, what bad people you are? You should be ashamed.’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ Now Dolly was good and mad too. ‘I don’t have to take this. Ross!’

Ross came along the hall to the kitchen. Annie held up a hand and he stopped in the doorway, giving her a look that was half sneer, half question.

‘Hey, you and your trained ape don’t frighten me,’ said Louella. ‘It’s because of people like you that my little girl’s gone from me. It’s people like you caused all this, luring her with your filthy money into this bad life.’

Louella’s eyes were suddenly full of tears. She stepped up close to Annie and yelled full in her face: ‘You want to have your boys work me over ‘cos I’ve refused to take your dirty stinking money? Well, go ahead! They can’t hurt me any more than I hurt already.’

The tears spilled over and now she was sobbing.

‘My little girl, she was all I had and I lost her early on. I know I should have tried harder to stop her going to the bad but I didn’t and that guilt I just gotta live with,’ she cried. ‘You think I afraid of what you’ll do to me? I ain’t afraid. God’s my only judge, Annie Carter, not you.’

Louella raised her meaty fist and waved it in Annie’s face.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ wailed Louella suddenly. ‘Vengeance is for the Lord, not for me. Yet I feel this anger. I want to hurt someone, beat someone, and that ain’t right.’

Annie thought back to how she had felt when someone had snatched her whole life out from under her nose. She had wanted to lash out, to hurt, to maim.

‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘I know, Louella.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ Louella repeated hopelessly, her shoulders shaking with great, grief-stricken sobs.

Annie took a breath. After a moment’s hesitation she moved a step forward. Tentatively, she put her arms around Louella’s shoulders. The big woman stiffened for a second, then all at once she relaxed and cried hard. Annie hugged her, rocked her like a mother with a sick baby.

‘I know, Louella,’ she murmured, holding the shaking woman tight. Her eyes met Dolly’s over Louella’s head.

Dolly was nearly crying too. She’d loved Aretha. They all had; they were all hurting.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Dolly. ‘Ellie, get Louella a seat.’

In the kitchen it was warm, cosy and safe. Out there, a killer lurked. Annie knew it. She and Ellie settled Aretha’s Aunt Louella at the kitchen table, brought her tissues, biscuits, tea. Rosie and Sharlene made themselves scarce. Ellie and Dolly joined Annie and Louella at the table.