‘Hello, sweetheart. How long you been working here?’ Queenie asked Shirley.
Pretending to read the paper, Mary carried on ear-wigging. It soon became obvious to her that Shirley knew Queenie and Vivian very well. Furious when somebody gave little Lenny money to put in the jukebox because it left her unable to hear the conversation properly, Mary scuttled out the kitchen to tell Donald the latest.
When Judy Preston got a bee in her bonnet, she found it very hard to shift it and the more she thought about Vinny and Roy Butler turning up at her house and barging their way in, the more irate she became. Her brother Johnny had been livid when she had told him and he was going to sort out Vinny and Roy for her. That wasn’t enough for Judy though, which is why she had decided to pay Albie a visit in hospital and give him a piece of her mind as well.
‘Come on, Mark. Get in your pushchair,’ Judy urged her son.
‘We going Nanna’s house?’ Mark asked excitedly.
‘No, we are going to see the cowardly tosser who has impregnated me.’
After having lunch in the café, Queenie and Vivian went to visit their mum in nearby Bow Cemetery, then parted company on the way back because Queenie felt it was her duty to visit Albie.
‘I would say give the old bastard my regards, but you know I don’t mean it,’ Vivian said, putting her headscarf on to stop the drizzle getting to her hair.
After telling her sister that if she hadn’t have suffered the misfortune of marrying Albie, she wouldn’t be visiting the old bastard herself, Queenie waved goodbye, then made her way into the London Hospital. As she reached her husband’s ward, she heard his name mentioned and her ears pricked up. Pretending to go through her shopping bag as though she was searching for something, Queenie surreptitiously looked out of the corner of her eye. There was a young blonde girl with a child in a pushchair, asking the nurse for directions to Albie’s bed. Wondering who on earth the tart could be, Queenie cautiously followed her into the ward.
As usual, being the miserable old bastard that he was, Albie had the curtains drawn around his bed. Queenie crept up to the neighbouring bed and put her forefinger to her lips to warn the senile old Mr Perry not to say anything. Surely her Albie hadn’t found himself a young bit of fluff? Queenie hadn’t fancied the dirty, disgusting old drunk for years, so how could anybody else?
Albie had been fast asleep until he felt a violent prodding on his right arm. Expecting it to be Queenie, Albie nearly had a cardiac arrest when he locked eyes with Judy Preston. ‘You can’t come here! What do you want? My Queenie’ll be here soon. You’re gonna have to leave,’ he said, his face twitching with anxiety.
‘Well, you should have thought of that before you got me pregnant, then sent your sons round my house to threaten me in front of Marky,’ Judy spat.
Unable to stop her legs from buckling, Queenie took a tumble and fell on top of old Mr Perry.
‘Get your hands off me chopper! Nurse, nurse,’ the stick-thin fragile ninety-four-year-old wailed, as he put his right hand on his private parts to protect them.
Pulling herself together, Queenie took a couple of deep breaths, picked up her umbrella and flew through Albie’s curtain like a bat out of hell. ‘You dirty fucking old bastard,’ she screamed, as she began to smash her brolly over her cheating husband’s head.
Judy stood rooted to the spot. Queenie was a typical, no-nonsense, hard-faced East Ender and just by taking one look at her, Judy knew she would rather fight Vinny and Roy together than her.
‘Get off me, woman. You’re hurting me. I’m sorry. I’m a weak man and I made a silly mistake. It’s you I love,’ Albie swore, covering his already throbbing head with his hands. If he hadn’t had two broken legs, he would have bolted out of the ward as fast as a greyhound coming out of its trap at Walthamstow.
‘A silly mistake! I’ll give you silly mistake, you dirty, disgusting old toad,’ Queenie yelled, continuing her violent assault.
Old Mr Perry clapped his hands on his knees with joy when the nurse pulled back the curtain. He hadn’t had this much excitement for years. ‘Yee-haw,’ he shouted in glee.
‘Whatever’s going on?’ asked the appalled nurse, as she tried to stop Queenie hitting Albie with her umbrella.
Realizing that her son was screaming blue murder and not wanting to be Queenie’s next brolly victim, Judy decided to make her getaway.
Queenie had eyes like a hawk and immediately clocked Judy slyly trying to depart the fracas. ‘And where do you think you’re going? You brazen little hussy. I ain’t even fucking started with you yet,’ Queenie said, chasing Judy up the ward.
‘Yee-haw,’ Mr Perry yelled again.
‘Look, I’m really sorry, but please don’t hit me in front of my son. He’s frightened enough as it is. I know I shouldn’t have got involved with Albie, what with him being a married man and all that, but I swear to you it is all over between us,’ Judy said, with tears in her eyes.
Queenie put her brolly and bag on a nearby chair, then stood with her hands on her hips and studied Judy Preston. She was bit tarty-looking, but was certainly not ugly, and how she could ever fancy Albie, Queenie would never know. ‘Oh, you’re welcome to him, darlin’. I’ve had years of putting up with the drunken, potless bum. But what’s all this about you being pregnant and my sons paying you a visit? And don’t fucking lie to me, ’cause I’ll smash you all around Whitechapel with this brolly if you do.’
Judy lowered her eyes through guilt. She had never once given Queenie a thought when she had been screwing the arse off Albie, but now his wife was standing in front of her, Judy felt terrible about the whole thing. ‘It is true that I’m pregnant and your sons Vinny and Roy did pay me a visit. They ordered me to get rid of my baby and even left me money to pay for an abortion, but I can’t do it. I am willing to bring the child up with the help of my mum and brother. I don’t want your Albie or anything from him. I just want to keep my child and my Marky to have a little brother or sister.’
The thought of Vinny and Roy knowing about their father’s deceit and keeping it secret from her made Queenie feel more sick than Albie’s affair itself. She had never really loved her husband, not in the way she had loved her precious children, and she couldn’t believe her two eldest sons had betrayed her in such a way.
‘Are you OK? Shall I get you some water?’ Judy asked, when Queenie all but fainted onto a nearby chair. The woman looked deathly white and Judy was suddenly scared that she might die on her.
Lip curling into a snarl, Queenie managed to find the strength to stand up again and point her scrawny forefinger in Judy’s face. ‘You can have Albie. When he is discharged from here, he can live with you, but I forbid you to have that baby. I will not have my sons and daughter having no half-brother or -sister. You get rid of that unborn brat, or else. Now fuck off. Go on, fuck off.’
Petrified by the deranged look on Queenie’s face, Judy grabbed the handles of her screaming son’s pushchair, and legged it down the corridor.
Unable to relax all day, Mary Walker was relieved when Nancy and Christopher came home from school with beaming smiles on their faces. ‘Donald, they’re home,’ Mary shouted out.
‘Well, how did you get on?’ Donald asked, wiping his hands on a
