‘Yeah, Frank. Sure.’

Dickie started the engine.

11

They travelled in silence over to a place in Stockwell and then went down steps into a tiny basement flat. The minute they were down there, Dora found the atmosphere thick with danger and excitement. A big curvy woman who was wearing a tight sky-blue cocktail dress and had a huge mass of bouffant blonde hair was loading a record player. Soon Kitty Kallen’s clear voice rang out, crooning ‘Little Things Mean a Lot’. Then Rosemary Clooney was on, singing ‘Hey There’. Then Frank Sinatra was giving his all to ‘Young at Heart’.

Dora felt like she’d landed on another planet. It was hot in the basement, and a smog of cigarette smoke hung over the packed-in people, eight or ten of them, some of them lying around on sofas kissing and chatting and laughing, some dancing smoochily along to the tracks as they played. Liquor was flowing like water. On the far side of the room, food was set out, but nobody was eating.

‘All right, Dickie?’ asked a big man with a broken nose.

‘Yeah, Fred.’

‘Brought along some company then,’ said the man, eyeing up Dora in a way she didn’t like.

‘This is Dora.’

The man shook her hand. His grip was excruciating.

‘She sound then?’ he asked, his eyes on her face.

‘She’s a diamond, Dora,’ said Dickie.

Dora felt like she wanted to go home. Plain and poor though it was, she wanted suddenly to be back there in that humble little terraced house with self-satisfied Lil and sneaky June and Mum who fawned over her and even Dad, who always treated her like she was nothing but a nuisance, she wanted to be away from all this noise and these people who seemed somehow alien and threatening.

‘Let’s dance,’ said Dickie, who didn’t seem able to keep still. He did look ill today. He was pale and when she touched his hand it was clammy.

Reluctantly Dora let him lead her in among the smooching couples on the hectically patterned carpet, people who seemed to dance too closely together, the male partners with their hands on the girls’ buttocks, the girls with their heads thrown back and their arms around their partners’ neck. She suddenly thought that these girls weren’t what her parents would call nice girls. They were heavily made up, their expressions louche, their movements openly suggestive. And the men looked like rogues. They . . . well, it struck her then that they looked like Dickie, only more so. These men were him in ten years’ time. Hardened. Brutal. Yes – dangerous.

Time passed. Then as Tony Bennett started in on ‘Stranger in Paradise’, Dora noticed that some more heavies had come down the stairs with a man wearing a brown Trilby hat. They were all standing over there, looking around. Squat Frank – still wearing his camel-hair coat, he must be red-hot in here – stood up. She felt Dickie stiffen. He stopped dancing. His face was a white sweat-sheened mask now, his eyes bulging dark pits.