Ruby by Marie Maxwell

taken her a while to figure out why Ray hated Johnnie so much. Now she knew: it was because he was jealous; because he really wanted to be a part of those activities himself but he didn’t have a quick enough brain to think things up for himself.
    Ruby wondered if she could find a way to make that work in her favour, and as she finally dozed off a plan was coming together in her head.
    ‘You know what, Roger, I’m gonna have to sort this out right now. I’ve got no choice. I can’t let those pricks get away with it any longer, not now they’re messing around close to home – to my home. If I roll over and let them carry on taking the mick like this then every upstart in Walthamstow and beyond will be trying to get his foot in the door – my door, on my turf.’
    His irritation bubbling away, Johnnie Riordan slammed his fist down hard on the table, making the teacups rattle in their saucers and his brother-in-law jump nervously.
    ‘But how’s it your turf?’ the other man frowned. ‘You don’t own Walthamstow, and anyway, what do you reckon you can do to stop them?’
    ‘That’s what I’ve got to decide. Any ideas?’ Johnnie asked out of kindness more than anything. He didn’t really expect a workable answer.
    ‘I’m new at this lark so I don’t know nothing; I’m not like you. It’s hard for me after what’s happened and I just don’t bloody well understand any of it. I can’t do it.’
    The man sitting opposite Johnnie was so bewildered he looked as if he was about to burst into tears. Johnnie tried hard to keep himself in control. He was fuming at having found out that Ray Blakeley had apparently got his hands on some black-market alcohol to sell on. It wasn’t that Johnnie didn’t have enough of his own, it was that Ray even thought he could try to encroach on his territory.
    ‘Don’t whine, mate. I know it’s hard for you to get your head round it, but when needs must and all that … It’s not your fault you’re a cripple now, and I feel bad for you, I really do, but your family still need providing for. I’ve given you a good way of doing that so you’ve just got to get on with it. You help me and I’ll help you, but you’ve got to be committed.’
    ‘But committed to what? What you do’s dishonest. I was never clever, and I’m even dafter now, but that don’t make me bent. I’ve never been bent.’
    ‘It isn’t dishonest, it isn’t bent and you’re not daft, just a war victim.’ Johnnie struggled to keep his anger down. ‘Well, yeah, OK, it is a bit dodgy but, like I said, when needs must; and right now needs must. I’ve got a living to earn and you’ve got a family to take care of.’
    Johnnie was sitting in his sister’s kitchen along with his brother-in-law, Roger Dalton. After they’d got home from the local pub Betty had made them a huge pot of tea, put it in front of them with a couple of home-made biscuits, while at the same time threatening them with their lives if they woke the two sleeping children upstairs.
    Johnnie adored his elder sister and her children, and he even liked her husband, which was lucky, as he lived with them and contributed more than his fair share to the family budget.
    Johnnie had been living with their widowed mother until the year before when, with very little notice, she had told him she was going off to be a live-in housekeeper in central London for a very wealthy elderly gentleman she’d met while working in the menswear department in Selfridges.
    It had been a surprise but neither he nor Betty had been upset. Betty was pleased that her mother was enjoying her life again and had persuaded her beloved little brother to leave the temporary accommodation where he and their mother had been living since being bombed out of the old family home, and come to lodge with her instead. Johnnie was also pleased for his mother but, with an eye always on a chance, he had viewed his mother’s change of circumstances more cynically and could see