Dangerous (20 page)

The smoky air was frantic with the shouts and cries of patrons and hostesses. Marcus leaned in to Fulton Sears’s great ugly face and said: ‘We’ve done the Paradise too. And the Heart of Oak. And listen: if you persist in being a troublesome cunt, I’ll gut every one of Cotton’s clubs and then, Sears, believe me – I will gut
you
.’

45

Clara and Toby arrived home from Venice to a blissful English summer. Clara surveyed her new kingdom and was well pleased. Toby’s house was very grand, a spacious Kensington town house with an elegantly drooping wisteria blooming on its back wall and old cabbage roses growing in the grounds, all tended by gardeners. Living here, Toby might almost be a merchant banker or a wealthy entrepreneur, but he was a Soho nightclub owner. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.

‘Clara!’ Bernie was there to welcome her home, hugging her delightedly as she and Toby came in the door. ‘This place is
wonderful
. Did you have a lovely time?’

‘Yeah, terrific,’ lied Clara, smiling and embracing her sister.

Toby only stopped to freshen up, then he was out again, checking up on business. Clara and Bernie sat in the drawing room overlooking the gardens while tea was brought in by a maid. Clara sat down gingerly. She was still sore. But she ignored the discomfort and looked around her. Her home. She had achieved this by
her
efforts. So she had suffered for it. But so what?

‘When I think of where we came from . . . ’ said Bernie, when the girl left the room. ‘When I think of the fleas and the cockroaches, and the mould on the walls . . . ’

‘Don’t,’ said Clara with a shudder. She looked at this beautiful place,
her
lovely home, and let out a sigh of contentment. ‘How are you, Bernie? Still caring for the great unwashed?’

‘Don’t talk about them like that!’ Bernie was half-smiling. ‘Yes, I still go down Houndsditch with David, and the soup kitchen’s doing very well.’

‘Oh, so it’s still “with David”,’ mocked Clara.

Bernie went red in the face. ‘Of course! He’s such a nice man. So kind.’

‘So long as that’s
all
he is.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the bloody obvious. The wife of a photographer can only look forward to a starvation diet and an impoverished old age.’

‘You’re such a cynic.’

‘Yeah? Well, it pays to be,’ Clara said, sharply enough to wipe Bernie’s smile away. ‘Seriously – don’t even think of getting involved with him, Bern. It won’t do.’

‘Perhaps it would do for me,’ said Bernie obstinately, gnawing her lips to ribbons. It
would
do for her. She didn’t like the sex part much, but she liked
him
. She
loved
him.

Clara rolled her eyes and quickly dropped the subject. ‘So how’s Henry? Have you heard from him?’

‘Ah.’ Bernie looked awkward, evasive.

‘Bernie?’

‘He phoned and said he’d had a gutful of boarding school.’

‘What?’

‘He left, Clara. Just cleared out. No explanation, nothing.’

‘Well . . . where is he? Is he here?’ Truth be told – and she wasn’t proud of it – Clara didn’t honestly care
where
Henry was, so long as he was nowhere near her.

Bernie shook her head. ‘He did phone though. He said he’s staying in town.’

Clara was frowning. Would that boy never settle, never do as he was supposed to? Never be the brother he
should
be?

‘So, is he working in London then? Looking for a job?’

‘He didn’t say.’

An hour after Bernie departed to do good deeds, Toby came back in. His face was white as milk.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Three of the clubs have been wrecked. Sears said it was Redmayne and his thugs.’

‘Wait a minute. I thought you hired Sears to
stop
things like that happening.’
Marcus Redmayne. Again.
Sometimes, she felt like he was haunting her.

‘So did I. The Paradise and the Heart of Oak were hit, and I’m just off to the Starlight to see what the damage is there.’

Clara stood up. ‘I’ll get my jacket,’ she said.

46

It was even worse than they’d thought: the Starlight was a wreck. Toby walked around, broken glass crunching beneath his feet.

‘Bloody vandals,’ said the manager, his eyes shifting away from Clara’s when she introduced herself as Mrs Cotton and asked him what the hell had happened. Toby went on up to the office while Clara surveyed the smashed tables, broken bottles, shattered chairs. All the mirrors behind the bar had been destroyed, only jagged shards remaining in the frames.

That’s an awful lot of bad luck
, she thought.

A couple of the waiters in white aprons were languidly sweeping up the debris, chatting, cigarettes hanging from the corners of their mouths. They looked at her without interest.

‘When did this happen?’ she asked the manager.

‘Few days ago,’ he said, and shrugged as if this was the natural order of things.

‘Hey! You!’ said Clara sharply. One of the young waiters paused and stared at her. ‘Yeah, you. Put your back into it, will you? Every day from here on in, if this club’s closed up with damages it’s a day of your wages lost.’

The manager’s attention sharpened at that. ‘Here, we can’t have that. You got to pay the staff—’

‘When they’re leaning on their bloody brooms like that? I don’t think so,’ said Clara. ‘And that goes for you too. Get this show on the sodding road by the weekend’s trade, or you’re out the door.’

Soho was a whole new experience for Clara, but business was business and she had a feeling for it, a sure touch. From the Starlight she went with Toby on a tour of the other damaged clubs, rallying the troops, getting things moving.

‘Let’s hope to Christ Sears has tightened up on the doors,’ said Toby as they sat in the office over the Heart of Oak a week later.

Clara blew out her lips in exasperation. Talking to Fulton Sears was like addressing a slab of rock. The lights were on but the dogs weren’t barking, that was the impression she got of Fulton Sears. He was a gormless idiot. He’d been bruised and battered but unapologetic when they’d queried him about the damage to the clubs. She wondered if he had the intelligence to run doors. She wondered if Toby had made a big mistake in hiring him. And that manager at the Starlight! His casual attitude had enraged her and she wasn’t about to overlook it.

‘That Starlight manager’s a lazy bastard,’ she said. ‘And the staff are taking it easy, knowing he doesn’t give a stuff.’

‘What do you advise?’

‘Sack him. And those two no-hopers he’s got there – Flash and Lightning, the so-called waiters. Get someone in who’ll have the job done fast. This rate, you’ll be losing money until Doomsday.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ said Toby, eyeing his wife with a new respect. He’d been reluctant to wed, but it had become a necessity. He’d been stung a couple of times by chancers thinking to ‘out’ him or milk him of money to keep the secret of his shameful homosexuality. Marriage had been his solution, but initially it was a resented one, a
hated
one. Now, he could see that there might be advantages to it: he and Clara could work together, and it could prove beneficial to both of them.

‘Why don’t you have a good look around the other clubs?’ said Toby. ‘See what you think.’

‘OK,’ said Clara.

Clara hated to see inefficiency. It galled her. And if it was allowed to go on in Toby’s clubs it would cost her, and Bernie too. She couldn’t forget that. So she carried on touring the clubs, reporting back, working hard.

She was both fascinated and appalled by the things she heard on the streets of Soho: slavers and chinks and Eyeties and all kinds of sex for sale. It was all new to her. But it was exciting too, exhilarating. She relished the chance to make her mark.

She called in at the Juniper, where the clientele was mostly of the ‘queer’ variety and all the hosts were pretty young boys with lavishly made-up eyes. This, she guessed, was where Toby would spend his evenings, given the choice. But could he? Probably not. He had a reputation on the streets to protect, and she was part of that. His wife.

She felt sorry for Toby, protective of him. He was a bender and couldn’t help it; but the situation was fraught with risk. He could easily get caught in one of these ‘badger traps’ so common in Soho, where people – even pillars of the community – were lured into compromising positions with young men and then blackmailed for the rest of their days or reported to the police and prosecuted for acts of gross indecency between male persons.

All the beautiful boys in the Juniper eyed her with scorn and she felt that they probably knew, all too well, that her marriage was a lie, that her husband preferred the company of men. She was what they called a ‘queen’s moll’ or a ‘fag hag’. But she had to maintain the deception, live it every day; just like Toby.

In the Heart of Oak, she couldn’t fail to notice the poor quality of the ‘hostesses’. The Juniper’s array of young male beauty, probably having been personally chosen by her husband, was of a much higher quality. These girls looked like exactly what they were: part-time low-end brasses.

She continued her tour of inspection, determined that none of the clubs should escape her attention. She had promised Toby that she would do the rounds, and suggest things – if he didn’t mind? He didn’t. All in all, Toby seemed very happy to have her on board as part of the firm’s management, was clearly content with their sexless ‘marriage’ – and he was obviously relieved that she didn’t bear a grudge over Venice.

A few more clubs, and she had seen and assessed them all. She reported back to Toby one evening in the office over the Carmelo Club. He was behind his desk, puffing on a thin cheroot, flicking through
Today
magazine. He looked every inch a ruler of the streets in a bespoke toffee-beige suit and dark-blue watered silk waistcoat.

There was a malacca cane leaning against the desk that Toby sometimes carried with him. It looked like an affectation, but Clara knew it concealed a long, vicious steel blade. Toby had meant it when he told her about the booby traps. When they left this room tonight, she knew he would not only lock the office door but also set up tripwire so that anyone trying to get in there would go arse over tit straight down to the bottom of the stairs.

‘Paul Raymond’s in the shit again,’ said Toby.

‘For what?’ asked Clara, sitting down.

‘He’s been up in Marlborough Street Magistrate’s Court, charged with keeping a disorderly house. He’s appealing against the verdict.’

Clara shrugged. She’d fast become anaesthetized against the shock of Soho life. All the journalists called it ‘the Square Mile of Vice’, and they were right. The sheer diversity of the people on these streets – Italians, French, Cockney barrow-boys, Chinese, Caribbean islanders – was staggering. Tarts chatted on street corners, espresso machines hissed in overheated cafés, bookies loitered to take illegal off-course bets, teenagers clustered in coffee bars, tapping their feet to rock’n’roll, touts enticed suckers into clip joints. And clubs like Toby’s, like Marcus Redmayne’s, like Paul Raymond’s, walked an uneasy line between lawlessness and keeping the authorities sweet.

‘Well, what do you think, now that you’ve seen the lot of them?’ asked Toby.

Clara got out her notebook. She thumbed through the pages. ‘You’re right, the takings in some of the clubs don’t seem that good. And I can see why. The girls are rough. When a man comes into a club where he’s going to be fleeced for a lot of money, does he really want to see a collection of unwashed whorebags lounging about the place? I don’t think so.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Toby, ‘why don’t you start taking the girls in hand? Would that suit you?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Clara.

Then Toby frowned. ‘Actually,’ he said, stubbing out his cheroot in a green marble ashtray, ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something, Clara. Marcus Redmayne has made me an offer on the clubs.’

‘Well . . . ’ she paused, absorbing this bombshell. ‘Is it a good offer? Would you accept?’

‘No! Fuck him. Sears says Redmayne was behind the clubs being vandalized. He saw him in the Oak while it was going on. I asked Redmayne about it. He denies it, of course, but Sears was certain. There’s a grudge thing going on between those two, so I don’t know
who
to believe. What I think is that Redmayne is trying to intimidate me and he’s put in a very low offer. I don’t want to accept, and I’ve told him so.’

Clara let out a breath. She felt relieved. She was starting to enjoy the club work, she didn’t want to lose it quite yet. Bloody Marcus Redmayne! She didn’t like the idea of him damaging their livelihoods, their clubs – and she thought he would make a dangerous enemy. Would he accept a refusal? She had a feeling he wouldn’t.

‘So that’s that, then,’ she said, but she felt uneasy.

Toby’s mouth jerked upward in a smile. ‘Yeah. Let’s hope so.’

They went home together – the separate-bedroom situation had been sorted out to their satisfaction right from the outset – and they were sitting chatting into the night, sharing a brandy, when Bernie arrived home.

‘Oh – I didn’t think you’d still be up,’ she said, blushing when she peeked into the drawing room and found them there.

Clara was aware of some other presence out in the hall, someone standing behind her sister. She stood up; so did Toby.

‘Come in, Bernie, don’t stand there like a lemon,’ said Clara.

Bernie came reluctantly into the room; and behind her came David Bennett, the photographer. Clara bit her lip and out of politeness stepped forward to be introduced to the man who seemed to be always tagging along behind her sister like a bad odour.

‘Mrs Cotton? Nice to meet you,’ he said.

Clara shook his hand. He was too tall, too pale, too thin. He looked like he needed mothering, and she thought that probably appealed to Bernie.

‘This is my husband, Toby,’ she said, and the two men shook hands.

Clara could see that Toby wasn’t immune to David’s charms either.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Will you have a drink?’

And so the evening passed pleasantly, with Toby and Bernie happily chatting away to David while Clara watched, smiled, listened – and thought that she was going to have to find a way to nip this relationship of Bernie’s in the bud.