The Bells of Bow by Gilda O'Neill Page B

her anger. ‘’Cos he’s a crook and he pulls all kinds o’ dodgy strokes that you don’t wanna get mixed up with. That’s why.’
    ‘Aw yeah, and what kind o’ dodgy strokes are they then? Seeing as you know so much about it all.’
    ‘You know as well as I do, Eve.’ Babs turned to her sister and began counting on her wet fingers. ‘There’s the flapping, for a start. Then there’s his dad, he’s a bookie, and his old girl’s a moneylender. And then there’s the talk that he’s involved in the protection racket.’
    ‘Well,’ answered Eve pertly. ‘I should do all right for meself then, shouldn’t I? What with all that dough coming in.’
    ‘Evie! I don’t believe this. What the bloody hell’s got into you?’
    ‘Don’t be such a hypocrite, Babs. I never saw you complaining when we was in that club last night.’ Evie narrowed her eyes. ‘I know. How about you coming along with us tonight? Shall I tell him to bring Chas along for yer?’
    ‘You are kidding, ain’t yer? It was all right for one night, just for a laugh, but what would I wanna get mixed up with the likes of them two lairy bleeders for? Chas is a bleed’n ape and that Albie … Reckons he’s George Raft, how he struts about.’ Babs turned back to the washing up. ‘It’s just asking for trouble going around with that pair.’
    ‘Suit yerself.’ Evie shrugged dismissively and slipped down from the table onto the lino-covered floor. Very deliberately she went over and turned off the gas. ‘I’m going up to get ready.’
    This was too much for Babs. ‘How ’bout the tea, yer lazy cow?’ she screamed. ‘Can’t yer even do
that
?’
    ‘How ’
bout
the tea?’ Evie screamed back at her. ‘Make it yerself. I ain’t got the time.’
    Babs slapped the flat of her hand down into the washing-up bowl, sending a greasy spray of lukewarm water jetting across the floor. ‘Well, if yer want yer dinner things washed up, yer gonna have to tell that no good Albie Denham to get yer a bleed’n maid, ain’t yer?’
    ‘Oi, what’s all this row about?’
    The sound of their father’s voice silenced both girls immediately; they knew better than to upset him after he’d been drinking. He stood in the kitchen doorway, his shirt hanging out of his trousers, his braces dangling round his knees.
    ‘Can’t a bloke even have a kip in his own front room of a Sunday afternoon without you pair shouting and hollering like a pair o’ bloody fishwives?’
    ‘It’s her,’ snapped Babs. ‘She’s a rotten, lazy cow.’
    ‘Me? You was the one what started it,’ Eve shrieked back at her.
    ‘Shut up!’ Georgie hollered above both their voices. ‘Now, what’s all this yer was shouting about Albie Denham?’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Babs, staring down at her feet.
    Evie lifted her chin haughtily in the air. ‘If yer must know,’ she said, ‘I’m going out with him tonight.’
    ‘Aw no you ain’t, my girl.’
    ‘And why’s that then, Dad? You gonna stop me?’
    ‘If I have to.’
    ‘Don’t make me laugh.’ Evie folded her arms and tapped her toe impatiently on the thin, dull red lino that covered the kitchen floor. ‘Anyway,’ she demanded, flapping her hand in the air, ‘what you got against Albie Denham?’
    ‘As if you don’t know.’ Georgie hooked his braces up over his shoulders. ‘As if the whole of the bleed’n East End don’t know. They’re no-goods, the lot of ’em. Him with his flash clothes and his shiny motors, and his old girl with all her diamond rings. Never done a stroke o’ work in their life. None of ’em. Crooked bastards. And his old man’s just as monkey as his mother. If they X-rayed the whole lot o’ that family they wouldn’t find a stroke of work in any one of ’em.’
    Evie strode furiously across the little kitchen and stood right in front of her father, her face like thunder as she glowered up at him. ‘Just hark who’s talking.’ She paused, hardly able to form the words. ‘I know what