Eddie grinned. He doubted that very much. ‘I’m sure we’ll get on like a house on fire, Mrs Smith. Now, is there any chance of having another piece of that wonderful fruit cake?’
Joyce beamed as she handed him a slice. What a charming chap, she thought.
Stanley sat in the shed and tried his best to compose himself. Canning Town had a notorious reputation for producing villainous families and they didn’t come much worse than the Mitchells. Bootlegging, pub protection, illegal boxing. Rumour had it that over the years the bastards had had a finger in every pie going.
Stanley remembered Harry Mitchell as though it were yesterday. He’d been standing in a pub in East Ham having a drink with Roger Dodds, his old school pal. All of a sudden the door had burst open and the pub had fallen silent. A man in a suit and trilby hat walked towards them.
‘Which one of you is Roger Dodds?’ he’d asked menacingly.
Crapping himself, Stan had nodded towards his friend. Seconds later, Roger Dodds had his face slashed and his right eye taken out with a broken bottle.
The man in the trilby hat had then ordered a Scotch, downed it in one, apologised for any inconvenience and casually strolled out of the pub.
That man in the trilby was Harry Mitchell. Apparently, Dodds’s father had fucked him over for a load of money and that was payback time.
Deep in thought, Stanley didn’t hear the shed door creak open. It was Eddie. Stanley leaped up. ‘What’s going on? What do you want?’ he asked nervously.
Eddie stared at him. ‘Calm down, you’ll give yourself a cardiac. The girls were worried about you. They said you’d be in the shed, so I thought I’d check you were OK.’
Stan nodded. ‘I’m fine now. It took me a while to catch me breath, so I came out here for a sit down.’
Desperate for some fresh air, Stanley led Eddie away from the shed. He locked the door, then was horrified as he felt a massive arm go round his shoulder.
Eddie smiled. He could almost smell the old man’s fright. ‘Actually, I wanted to have a quiet word with you, man to man, like.’
Stan looked at him in horror. He’d only been dating Jessica for a month; surely he wasn’t going to ask his permission to marry her.
Eddie stood in front of him and looked him straight in the eye. ‘The thing is, Mr Smith, I think you should know that I’m really serious about your Jessica, so I wanna get a few things straight. I’m not twenty-five like Jess told you, I’m actually thirty years old. I’ve also been married in the past and I’ve got two little boys, Gary and Ricky, who I dote on. Obviously, they don’t live with me – they live with my ex-wife, Beverley. I’ve been straight with Jess from the start and I think it’s only right I do the same with you. As I said, things are moving pretty quickly between me and your Jess, so I just wanna know that you approve of our relationship.’
Dumbstruck, Stanley stood with his mouth open and was horrified as a fly flew in and hit the back of his throat. Half choking, he spat it out and ended up on his knees for the second time that day.
Eddie helped him up. ‘So, are you OK about me and Jess?’ he asked again.
Stanley nodded. ‘No problem, Eddie, and thanks for telling me,’ he mumbled.
‘There you are,’ Joyce said, as Stanley returned, ashen-faced.
The polite conversation carried on for another hour or so and was only stopped by Eddie giving Jessica a secret nudge. Jessica looked at her watch and stood up. ‘God, is that the time! Mum, Dad, we best be going now. Eddie is taking me to the pictures tonight. We’re going to see that new film, Love Story. All the girls at work reckon it’s brilliant. I’ve been dying to see it and we don’t want to miss the start.’
Eddie stood up and put his arm around his young girlfriend’s shoulders. ‘Mrs Smith, Mr Smith, thank you so much for your hospitality. It’s been a pleasure to meet you both. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your Jessica and I promise to have her home by a reasonable hour.’
Overcome by the romance of it all, Joyce stood at the door waving them off. ‘No snogging in the back row,’ she giggled.
‘Stop it, Mum,’ Jessica said embarrassed.
Joyce shut the front door and sighed a happy sigh. What an attractive, polite chap. He was like one of them Mills & Boon men, sophisticated and handsome. Thrilled for her daughter, Joyce decided to have a G&T to celebrate.
‘Well, what did you think?’ she asked Stanley, as she sat back down.
Stanley said nothing. He was too frightened to voice his opinions, in case Joyce told Jessica and it got back to Eddie.
Joyce kicked off her shoes and put her slippers on. ‘Did you see his shoes? He’s definitely worth money. Look, I know it’s hard for you, Stan, but Jess isn’t a little baby any more. Most of my friends were married at her age. I want her to have the best in life and that Eddie’s got class stamped all over him. He’s got lovely manners and he’ll take good care of her, I know he will.’
Stanley cracked open another beer. He’d had the day from hell and all he wanted to do now was watch Ironside. ‘Do you mind if I watch the telly now? And if you’re gonna keep on about it, no, I wasn’t overkeen. In my opinion, Eddie’s far too old for our Jess, and, no, I didn’t notice his bloody shoes.’
Joyce laughed. ‘I knew you had a hangup about him. I know he’s a bit older than her, but you’re such an old fuddy-duddy. I bet if she’d have brought Prince Charles home, you’d have found fault with him. You just won’t let go of her, will you, Stan?’
For the next hour, Joyce wouldn’t shut up. It was Eddie this and Eddie that.
Unusually for Stanley, he completely lost his rag. ‘For Christ’s sake, Joycie, I’m no man’s fool. The bloke’s a wrong ’un and I know it. He’s thirty years old, a divorcee with two bloody kids. As for them going to the pictures, I don’t believe a word of it. Jessica’s probably round his flat as we speak with her knickers around her ankles. They’re probably right in the middle of creating more kids for the smarmy, villainous bastard.’
Furious, Joyce stood up and hit him with the broom. ‘How dare you talk about our daughter like that? She’s got morals, our Jessica. What are you, some bloody pervert?’
Seething, Stanley jumped out of his chair. He rarely gave an opinion in this house and when he did he got called a bloody nonce. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to pick up Joycie’s broom and smash her right over the head with it. Maybe that would make the stupid, naive woman see sense. Filled with self-loathing, Stanley ran to the serenity of his shed. Once inside, he sat on his wooden bench, put his head in his hands and cried.
His old mum had mapped out his life for him at a very early age. ‘Stanley, always remember son, it’s better to be a live coward than a dead hero.’
Stanley wiped his eyes with his hanky. He feared for his Jessica. That Eddie was cold and calculating. He had those horrible dark eyes, dead man’s eyes. There was sod all he could do about it though. He was far too weak a man. What the Mitchells wanted, the Mitchells got, and who was he to stop them?
