No Peace for the Wicked Page 4

  I finished my tea, bade the two men goodnight and walked up the stairs to my empty flat. I had enjoyed working with T.C., and was relieved he’d rushed to my aid when that awful Toothy had taken a liberty. It had been nice to know there was someone watching my back. Drunks could be a tricky lot; OK one minute, seriously hostile the next.

  I got ready for bed in double-quick time. I was exhausted after my full day at work and my evening shift at Bandy’s and was glad about that, because it promised a decent sleep for once. I hadn’t really slept well since Jenny got ill. Usually the awful emptiness of my nest kept me awake. I had never lived alone in my entire life before and I still wasn’t used to it. I sometimes wondered if a person ever got used to it.

  4

  Peace arrived a few days later on the coldest day of the year.

  She was beautiful in a delicate and small-boned way. Although technically Anglo-Chinese, Peace looked more Chinese than Anglo, with her glossy black hair, pretty brown eyes and tiny build. She was a boarder at a girls’ school somewhere in Essex. Before that, she’d lived in Hong Kong, where she had been born sixteen years before. She’d flitted in and out of our lives like an exotic little bird for a good couple of years, arriving each school holiday and disappearing again when term began, leaving absolutely no trace behind her.

  ‘I have run away, Mrs Robbins,’ she said to me, standing miserably in front of the counter of the shop. ‘And I am never going back. Never!’ It’s hard to be convincingly defiant when your teeth are chattering like typewriter keys in a typing pool, but Peace did her best, poor little scrap.

  ‘Ooh, ducky, sit by the two-bar, do,’ clucked Freddy as he guided her towards the electric fire that warmed the area behind the counter.

  ‘Lizzie, get the kettle on. We’ll all have a cuppa and try to thaw the poor thing out.’

  Freddy’s tone of distressed concern brought Antony out of the workshop to see what was going on. ‘I’ve got just the thing,’ he said, having assessed the situation in a moment. He dived into the stockroom and returned with a length of the black and white furry fabric that we’d used to make Dick Whittington’s cat. He wrapped it around Peace’s shoulders and found a remnant of pantomime horse for her legs. He tucked her in as tenderly as you would a baby. ‘There, you’ll soon be as warm as toast, young lady.’

  I handed out cups of tea, Freddy found more chairs and we were soon seated in a circle around the fire as we stared at Peace. She, in turn, stared back at us as she sipped her drink.

  After much silent prompting from Freddy, in the form of nods towards Peace and furiously waggled eyebrows, I finally broached the subject.

  ‘So, when you say you’ve run away, Peace, we presume you mean run away from school?’

  She nodded in answer to my question, but said nothing.

  Bandy had become Peace’s guardian while she was being educated at St Matilda’s, and that’s roughly all any of us knew about her, except that she always referred to Bandy as Aunt. Just who had given Bandy the responsibility for the girl, and why she had taken it, were matters of speculation.

  ‘When you say you’re never going back, does never really mean never?’ I asked. ‘And does your aunt know?’

  Peace’s face set in stubborn lines and her eyes narrowed. ‘Never,’ she hissed, ‘I will never go back and she can’t make me.’ She raised her chin slightly. ‘And no, Aunt does not know because I have not seen her. I went to the flat, but there was no answer. So I came here.’

  ‘And quite right too. You could’ve frozen to death hanging about on the streets today,’ Freddy reassured her. ‘Have you eaten?’

  Peace shook her head and took another sip of her tea.

  ‘Righto. Well, we’ll soon see about that. You come upstairs with your Uncle Freddy and I’ll whip you up some scrambled eggs on toast. You come as well, Lizzie. You and Peace can have a nice little chat while I’m cooking.’ Freddy turned to Antony. ‘You can hold the fort for ten minutes, can’t you, Ant?’

  Antony agreed that he could. The three of us went out into St Anne’s Court and Freddy slipped his key into the anonymous green door beside the shop. He ushered us into the kitchen and turned on the gas oven full blast, leaving its door open so that the heat would soon fill the small space. Then he set to, beating eggs and pouring milk into the bowl, while he chattered on about nothing in particular, putting Peace at her ease. ‘Sit,’ he ordered, motioning us to the table by the window, ‘while I cook.’

  I took my cue. ‘So, can you fill us in with a little more detail?’ I asked as gently as I could. I could see that the girl was badly rattled, by the way her eyes darted about. ‘Like why you’ve run away and are never going back? That’s a good place to start.’

  ‘I hate it there, Mrs Robbins, I really hate it there,’ Peace whispered in a voice so quiet, I could barely hear her.

  I could understand this. Chilly old Essex was a far cry from Hong Kong, I imagined, and life in a cheerless English boarding-school was probably anything but cosy. ‘I can see how you could hate it, but what happened to make you run away now? There must be a reason.’

  Her eyes began to dart about again, as if she expected someone to jump out of the walls at her, but she said nothing.

  Freddy handed me a cup of coffee, put a plate of scrambled eggs on toast in front of Peace and sat down beside her. ‘Well ducky, looks like you’re in hot water all right. Still, chin up, I’m sure Bandy can sort the school out if anyone can,’ he said in a cheerful voice as he patted her hand tenderly. ‘Don’t you worry, Peace, things have a way of working out in the end, you’ll see. Meanwhile, you scoff your breakfast and Lizzie’ll take you home to see if she can track down that aunt of yours. How about that?’

  He smiled at me. ‘Take as long as you need, Lizzie, just make sure she’s safely tucked up before you come back to work, that’s the main thing.’ He walked to the door, then turned. ‘Just pull the doors to when you leave, and remember to turn off the oven.’ He sketched a little wave, ‘Toodlepip old things,’ and he was gone.

  Once Peace had mopped up every crumb of her meal, I put down my coffee cup and asked her again what had happened. To my astonishment, she burst into tears. Peace, who had solemnly taken in her stride all the strange events and people life had thrown at her, never showing anything other than polite interest, was weeping buckets.

  ‘Oh dear! What on earth is it, you poor girl? I didn’t mean to upset you.’ I got up and put my arm about her skinny little shoulders. I was reminded, suddenly and painfully, of Jenny, the last child I’d held in my arms.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it, sweetheart?’ I asked as I rocked her gently and looked down at the dark head now burrowed into my midriff. At last, with great shuddering gulps, Peace was able to stop crying and lift her head to look up at me. ‘They call me the Chink or the Yellow Peril or the slanted-eyed swot. They laugh at me. And they call me “Bunions” too.

  ‘I have no friends, not any more, not since Sally left. Sally N’kozi was my friend and she was big and strong and no one bullied her or called her jungle bunny to her face, never! Some of the bigger girls bully anyone who is friendly with me and call them names as well. It is very hard, Mrs Robbins. It is very hard indeed to bear it.’

  The tears welled up again and I found myself joining in. She sounded terribly lonely, and felt so small and frail in my arms. ‘Have you told Bandy all this?’ I asked.

  ‘I did not want to tell Aunt about it. I was told before I came to England that I must not be troublesome to Aunt. I thought it would get better and it did. Sally saw to it that no one was nasty to me.’

  Peace took a deep breath. ‘But Sally has gone. She did not return after the Christmas holiday. I miss my friend very much.’ If Sally N’kozi was all that stood between Peace and total isolation and insults at school, I thought, then this had to be the understatement of the century.

  How could children be so cruel? But they are, I could vouch for that from my own schooldays. It didn’t do to be differen
t, I knew that only too well. Being different was an invitation to the bullies to pick on you, and however hard you tried to fit in, they wouldn’t let you. Bullies always need a target and if there isn’t one handy, then it’s their job to set about making one. A stranger from a strange land was a gift to any bully because, by definition, they had few if any allies handy to help out.

  ‘Did you ever tell the headmistress, the matron or any of the mistresses about your troubles with the other girls?’ I asked, knowing the answer. You didn’t tell the authorities anything if you wanted to survive. That was as true of girls at English public schools as it was of any children at any school – and indeed, of the citizens of Soho, or what the racier Sunday papers referred to as ‘the denizens of the underworld’.

  Peace shook her head. She was a bright girl, and knew about survival in strange set-ups. ‘Watch and learn’ was her motto, I’d noticed that. She would know that sneaks did not prosper. Sneaks got beaten up at worst, and even more backs turned upon them at best.

  ‘So, if Sally left before you got back to school, what happened yesterday to make you run away?’

  Peace hung her head. ‘I hit someone,’ she whispered. ‘I hit someone and threw her on to the compost heap that the gardener keeps behind the bicycle sheds.’

  I raised my eyebrows. I could see that running away could appear to be the best option in the circumstances, but I was blowed if I could see how such a tiny little thing had managed to throw anything bigger than potato peelings on the compost. ‘What did the headmistress have to say about that?’ I asked. ‘Or did you run away before she could say anything at all?’

  Peace nodded silently, and squeezed her eyes shut tight in an attempt to keep the big tears from oozing from beneath her eyelids.

  I felt helpless. ‘I think we’d better tell Bandy what’s happened, dear. She may be able to help,’ I said, although for the life of me I couldn’t see how.

  5

  Peace and I could hear Bandy yelling into the telephone in the bar as we entered the building. ‘What do you mean, missing? How the hell can she be missing? Shouldn’t she be in maths or something ghastly like that?’ There was a pause as she listened to a reply. ‘Don’t take that tone with me, madam. You’re paid to care for and educate the gal, not to bloody well mislay her.’

  There was another, more lengthy pause, then a throaty chuckle. ‘The compost heap you say? I expect the little madam deserved it. It’s not like Peace to rear up over a trifle. Peace by name and peaceable by nature, that’s the gal I know.’

  Another silence, then a bellow of pure outrage. ‘If she has turned into a thug, then you, madam, are responsible for this miraculous transformation, because we put you in charge of her moral and social development as well as her education. That’s what fucking boarding-schools are for, dammit!’

  Then, ‘I’ll use any language I choose because I am not one of your damned gals, thank God. You’re the one who lost her. It is your moral duty to bloody well find her. Keep me informed. Good day to you.’

  There was a crash as the receiver hit the telephone, and I felt Peace shrink against the wall in alarm. I gave her the key to my flat and whispered to her to go up while I told Bandy she was safe and well. Peace looked grateful and scuttled up the stairs. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the bar.

  ‘Hello Bandy,’ I said as casually as I could manage. I wished like mad that Sugar was there, but he wasn’t. The only other person in the bar was Bobby Bristowe, who was flitting about with a feather duster as far away from Bandy as he could get and still be in the room. He may have been an all-in wrestler once upon a time, but he also knew when to keep his head well down.

  ‘Piss off, Lizzie, there’s a good gal. I’ve got a crisis on my hands,’ said Bandy as she lit up a Passing Cloud.

  ‘And I’ve got her upstairs in my flat,’ I answered, standing my ground. ‘She’s very upset. She’s had a rough time at that school and now her only friend’s gone and she’s on her own.’

  Bandy looked surprised. Her Brillo-pad hair was sticking out at all angles as if she’d been plugged into the mains. Her gold silk dressing gown was pulled tightly around her and tied with a wide, black, fringed sash. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on Bandy, ‘apart from her hooter, that is’, as Freddy had once rather unkindly pointed out. It was true that Bandy’s was a nose to be reckoned with. When she was cross, it looked like the prow of a Viking ship bearing down on a cowering enemy. I’d tried to tell Freddy that it gave her face character; ‘Yes,’ he’d agreed, ‘and plenty of it. It scares the hell out of me, ducky, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Well, thank God she’s safe,’ said Bandy, recovering her composure. ‘And what’s all this about chinning the hockey captain and slinging her on the dung heap?’

  It was my turn to look surprised. I knew nothing of any ‘chinning’.

  ‘She threw someone called Penelope Smedley on the compost, or so I am informed by Peace’s form mistress. Apparently, Miss Smedley made some remark to which Peace took exception and Peace lifted her bodily and dumped her on the steaming mound. The crime is not at issue; there were witnesses. The burning issue is why? The Smedley girl denies provocation, and swears Peace simply went berserk.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I think the girl said something about Peace being a slant-eyed, yellow swot and Peace took exception.’

  Bandy thought about it for a moment. ‘I see. Then it seems that the hockey captain got her just deserts. You can’t insult a Bunyan, whatever its colour and studying habits, and expect to get away with it.’ There was a pause as Bandy gave the matter some more thought before she pronounced judgement. ‘The gal did well in defending her corner. Take me to her.’

  Peace’s unexpected arrival was the main topic of conversation when I had the first of my sewing lessons with Sugar that Sunday. We were sitting at the kitchen table at Sugar and Bandy’s flat upstairs from mine. ‘You could have knocked me down with a bat of your eyelashes, sweetie,’ he said. ‘She’s supposed to be safely tucked up at school.’

  He paused and fingered a piece of fabric he had in his hand. ‘If you do titchy running stitches, you can thread a seed pearl on every few stitches to make a fetching little detail, or you can ruffle it up a bit – that can be a good touch, specially if you get it nice and even and do several rows of it; it’s like tiny pleats. Then you add the trimmings after.’ He ran the fabric through his fingers, to show me the effect. ‘If you press it, it looks better, neater.’ He moved his work this way and that so that I could appreciate the play of light on the gathered fabric. His stitches were minute and even, and the ivory-coloured scrap of silk shone in the weak sunshine by the window.

  ‘You can do it on cuffs too. Add some pearl trim top and bottom and it’d look smashing on a wedding gown. You could use sequins for stage work, or maybe a nice bit of your genuine paste diamonds, if the punter can run to them.’ He paused for breath at last. ‘Now, what was I talking about?’

  A husky voice from the kitchen doorway answered for me. ‘Peace.’ Bandy coughed. ‘Any coffee in that pot?’

  ‘No, but if you park yourself, I’ll make another.’ Sugar stood up as Bandy sat down beside me at the kitchen table. It was cluttered with several pairs of scissors, pieces of bright material, spools of thread and a plump pincushion made of a patchwork of velvets in jewel-like colours, trimmed with thin gold braid and with a tiny tarnished-gold tassel at each corner.

  There was a small chest on the table. It could have been Chinese; it certainly looked it to my untrained eye. It was mainly black, with birds, butterflies and flowers picked out in slivers of carnelian, beryl, jasper and other semi-precious stones. Abalone and mother-of-pearl shone here and there, softly reflecting daylight back at us. The lovely chest had many narrow drawers, each one filled with skeins of embroidery silks. There was a drawer full of blues, from the palest sky to the darkest midnight shade of indigo; another held the yellows, right through to burnt orange; a third held pinks from s
ugar ice to puce, and so it went on, through the rainbow hues and beyond. It was a treasure trove and, judging by the way Sugar’s hand often strayed towards it to give it a little stroke, he loved it. So did I. It was a wonderful object, full of delicate detail, and it filled me with sheer delight whenever I saw it.

  ‘What’s this, the Sunday sewing circle?’ Bandy fished about in her dressing-gown pocket and, finding a pink packet of Passing Clouds and her gold lighter, lit up. Then she fitted her cigarette into a holder, took a deep drag, coughed again and raised her slender, arched eyebrows in enquiry.

  ‘You could call it that, if you can form a circle with just two people,’ I answered. ‘Sugar’s teaching me some fancy stitchery. How are you, Bandy?’

  ‘In fine fettle, thanks Liz, despite the Peace problem. The girl’s refusing to go back to school. Sugar suggested we let her get her breath back, allow her time for mature reflection, that kind of thing, then boot her back to school and the dorm, where she belongs, but I have an awful feeling it’s not going to be as simple as that. Meanwhile, we’re stuffed to the rafters up here, barely room to move. Ah, here comes Malcolm.’

  I could have sworn I heard Sugar groan as the door burst open and a large, hairy figure padded across the floor to catch Bandy in a massive hug.

  ‘Put me down, you idiot,’ wheezed Bandy, but she sounded pleased all the same.

  ‘Ah, fair Hope, the morning light glimmers palely beside the glory of your exquisite radiance,’ Malcolm’s voice boomed. I swear that beneath it I heard Sugar mutter ‘Prat!’ – which summed up my sentiments exactly. I may have opted for something more polite, like ‘Phoney’, but it amounted to the same thing.

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s afternoon, around three,’ Sugar announced as he delivered a pot of coffee to the table. ‘Coffee for everyone?’