The Best Place to Hide

The Best Place to Hide

by Robert Howard

Preface

Sitting in a hotel lounge is one of life’s small pleasures and this story was prompted by one such memory. My friend suggested that we meet for coffee in a Nottingham hotel, so I took along a short story I called Ted and Wendy, much like the beginning of this one.

It was our conversation over coffee which led to the story acquiring a darker side, as we exchanged stories. I once worked with a young woman in Liverpool who, by accident, was paid for sex. She saw the man again, then others he recommended. She only went with married men staying in up-market hotels, and told me she stopped when she was able buy a a semi near where we worked. 

I don’t know what happened to her because I never took the job in Liverpool and returned to Birmingham after six months.

In the seventies whilst a Birmingham city councillor I knew a group of women in a ‘collective’ and what I remember most about them was their ordinariness, nearly all good company and seemingly happy. 

Robert Howard,  September 2015.

List of  characters (in order)

Wendy Mason. The woman.

Ted Banks. The man.

Sabrina. Wendy’s friend.

Maureen. Wendy’s friend.

Mark. Sabrina’s husband.

Erica. Wendy’s daughter.

Peter. Ted’s son.

Graham. Peter’s partner.

Jack. A working friend.

Lenny Hennessy. A working friend.

Beth. Jack’s wife.

No Name. Policeman

Sue. Wendy’s aunt in Brownhills.

Molly. Wendy’s cousin in Brownhills.

Brian. Maureen’s husband.

Brian Mason Wendy’s dead husband.

Chas. Sabrina’s first husband.

I

Wendy and Ted met in The Savoy. He heard her voice first. There were three of them, having morning coffee. Maureen and Sabrina met Wendy off the 10.07am from Beeston as always. Their days together always began with catch-up. Sabrina, newly married, was the centre of attention.

Ted came in with time to kill. It was beginning to rain and he had an hour. Somewhere quiet. The Savoy fitted the bill perfectly. The last thing he expected was to hear female laughter. ‘Now you know why I wear trousers’. The voice reminded him of raspberry ripple ice cream.

He looked across the hotel lounge and saw them bent double, as if sharing state secrets. All was now hush-hush. They did not notice him. At the bar he ordered coffee and found a table away from the ladies, but with them in view, Only one was wearing trousers. 

When she spoke he was sure. Until now Ted’s love life had been all about opportunity. He had taken advantage of situations. To his shame, sometimes one drink too many on the part of the girl in question. Others a clear invitation, but not nearly enough for him to be happy.

Here he was, fifty-nine, drawn to a woman about his own age. Not a beauty, but what a voice! How was he going to speak to her? Her two companions went off to the toilet, leaving she with the voice to guard the coats. She stood up and stretched, arching her back as she did. Just a hint of pelvic thrust. Stocky, about five foot five with the hint of a belly filling the front of her jeans and a large, round, bottom. Her pale grey jumper, Angora Ted guessed, hinted at small, but still well-formed breasts. Her hair was short, raven black. Pale skin. Lips full and wide. No wedding ring or jewellery of any kind.

There would never be another chance. Ted rose and pulled himself up to his full five foot nine and drew his paunch in as best he could.

‘Excuse me, I couldn’t but help notice your slight accent. Not Brummie or Wolverhampton, but somewhere thereabouts’.

‘Brownhills’ came Wendy’s reply, adding ‘After all these years. It was a long time ago’.

‘Walmley, me’ countered Ted. ‘Came to work at Raleigh’s when I left school and stayed. I had an aunt and uncle in Lenton’. For a moment he thought about how people talk about places. A few more miles and he would have said ‘Nottingham’.

Wendy picked up the conversation. ‘My husband got a job here in 1968’. A man talking to her uninvited was a new experience. Not for years anyway.

In the absence of a wedding ring, despite the mention of a husband, Ted decided to continue. 

‘Now?’ he asked and Wendy could hear the urgency of his question and see it in his eyes.

‘Retired’.

‘You?’

‘I came in to escape the rain and have a job interview around the corner in twenty minutes’.

‘Doing what?’ asked Wendy as her friends reappeared, giggling like teenagers. Their conversation was at end. Touching Ted’s arm she said ‘Meet me here at four and tell me how you got on’.

They were Wendy’s last words before Sabrina charged in. ‘Introduce me then Wendy. I may have married the wrong man’. Maureen laughed nervously. 

She saw they were interrupting.

Wendy looked at Ted. Her face asked the question again. He nodded and she smiled back. Ted turned and walked away. He couldn’t cope with three women.

‘Who’s the man then?’ asked Sabrina, determined to get an answer this time.

‘I’ll tell  you the next time I see you. Right now I don’t know’.

‘And you are meeting him?‘  This time it was Maureen, who had the annoying habit of accentuating every word. Always the more timid. She enjoyed hearing intimate details of Sabrina’s love life. Wendy had nothing to tell and, fortunately for her, Sabrina loved to shock.

Wendy would have liked the chance, in a measured sort of way,  but wasn’t sure she could trust herself to behave as expected. She listened to Sabrina’s account of her honeymoon. From what Sabrina said, she and her new husband Mark did not venture far from their seafront cottage in Norfolk. After several months bringing their two homes together and then a small family wedding, they had spent most of the fortnight sleeping.

Wendy liked Mark. A few years older than her, his then wife had been a regular customer at her shop and, towards the end, he would come too. After his wife died (of cancer) she saw nothing of him until he had seen her and ‘the girls’, as she liked to call them, in the John Lewis Restaurant. He came across to say ‘Hello’, so Wendy introduced him and he ended up joining them for lunch. It transpired a few months later that this otherwise unassuming man was a demon in the bedroom. The next day he had called at Wendy’s house and asked for Sabrina’s telephone number, after establishing for sure that she was single.

Sabrina loved the attention and, physically, lived up to her name in every respect. Maureen looked on with envy, saying once, ‘Brian says I’m “sex mad” if I try to get his attention more than once a month’.

Wendy was different to her two friends. She liked to be in charge — whatever she was doing.

II

When Wendy returned to The Savoy she saw the man with no name standing in the hotel’s reception area. In the background, a combo played softly. He immediately walked across to her, extending his hand as he did. ‘I’ m Ted Banks. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself properly this morning, but I’m really pleased you’ve come back’.

‘I’m Wendy, Wendy Mason. I’d forgotten about the tea dances. Perhaps we can find somewhere else for tea?’, then adding before Ted could say a word, ‘I know just the place, down by the station. Hopkinsons. Do you know it?’

‘Used to be a builders merchant’.

‘That’s the place’.

It was like they had known one another for ever. Ted lived in Basford and divorced. During their second cup of tea, Ted looked at her and said ‘This morning when I heard your voice I just wanted to hear you speaking to me and no one else. Is there anyone?’

‘At sixty-something I don’t have many admirers, No I tell a lie. I don’t have any’.

‘You do now’

‘I’m flattered, but you should know I am a control freak’.

‘Should I be so lucky’, at which they both laughed.

Ted walked the few yards with Wendy to the station and went down onto the platform with her, where the 8.58pm to Birmingham was waiting, but just one stop for Wendy to Beeston, then a short walk home. He had taken her hand as they left Hopkinson’s and held it as they turned to face one another before Wendy boarded the train. Ted kissed her on the cheek as he let go of her hand, She was smiling.

‘Ted. it’s been a lovely’ and with those words Wendy kissed him full on the lips. Her parting words, above the tannoy announcing the train’s imminent departure, were ‘Ring me tomorrow’.

Ted actually rang her an hour later to thank her again for having tea with him and Wendy invited him to lunch. ‘Say twelve o’clock for one?’.

‘Thank you. See you then’.

‘By the way, any dislikes foodwise?’

‘Not keen of chicken, but I do it eat it. Otherwise I eat what I’m given’.

Not that they could see one another, but both Ted and Wendy were grinning as they put their telephones down. She made a mental note to ask about the chicken thing.

Ted arrived a few minutes early, a large bouquet of cornflowers in one hand and a carrier bag in the other, containing a bottle of homemade elderflower cordial and two bottles of sparkling spring water.

Wendy opened her front door and kissed Ted full on the lips again. ‘For me?’

‘Of course’.

‘The flowers look lovely. What are they? I should know’.

Wendy walked through her hall and into her narrow kitchen, which had been extended into the garden to create a small dining area, together with what looked like a  small work area, if Ted was not mistaken. He had followed her uninvited, but it seemed the natural thing to do, and he placed the carrier bag on the kitchen worktop, then removed the cordial and water.

‘The cordial comes from the banks of the Leen and the cornflowers from my garden’ said Ted, quickly adding, ‘I’ve been making cordial for years and only grow four things — alliums, cornflowers, runner beans and beetroot, plus coriander between the beans to keep away the greenfly’.

‘That’s five things if I’m not mistaken’ said Wendy, then ‘Aren’t alliums onions?’

‘Sort of, but I grow the flower variety’,

Wendy found talking with Ted as easy as it had been the day before. Most of it seemingly inconsequential, but she liked that. She guessed from passing remarks that, like her, he leaned to the left politically and was not afraid to make clear his distaste of smoking or the Daily Mail. She made fish pie followed by crumble and custard and they sat beside one another at the table, not opposite. A small thing but it hinted at a desire on Ted’s part to be as near to her as possible.

When they took their coffee into the living room, she invited Ted to sit on the sofa, then sat down beside him saying ‘This is lovely’.

Ted didn’t reply. Instead he leaned over and kissed her, slowly, as if waiting… Wendy’s arm moved across and her hand held his arm in place so that he could not pull away without an effort. He didn’t. Their lips parted in unison and they each tasted of custard and coffee. His hand was resting on her hip and slowly climbed until it stopped a little short of her left breast.

Wendy signalled that she would like Ted to continue by resting her fingers on the nape of his neck and stroking. She  then pulled away just slightly and said 

‘Ted, I haven’t done this in a very long time and I would feel more comfortable upstairs’. Rising to her feet, she took his hand in hers and said ‘Are you coming?’

At that moment Ted was rooted to the sofa. He looked at Wendy and said  ‘I think it might have already happened’. He was amazed at how calm she appeared.

‘Not to worry, we’ve got as long as it takes. After all this time, I’m in no hurry. I just like the thought of being in bed with a naked man’. Wendy gave Ted’s hand a double tug and repeated herself. ‘Come on, you’ll be alright I promise’. This time he looked at her and said ‘Your voice reminds me of raspberry ripple ice cream. It’s so smooth and creamy. I could listen to you forever’.

Ted could not remember the last time he had been invited into a woman’s bedroom. Never in fact, not even his ex. before they were married.

In the end it seemed like an age. Wendy teased him back to life and guided him in ways which made them both more than happy. 

Wendy looked at Ted looking at her. ‘Well, that was a first. I have never had a man grinning at me the whole time before. Look at you. I’ve never seen a man so happy’. She went on ‘When Brian finished it was always the same, He would roll off and sit on his side of the bed stroking himself’. What Wendy didn’t say was that she had known too many men like that — all too self-satisfied after a fuck to care about the woman or who she was.  Instead she said ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just had fantastic sex and I start talking about how it was with Brian’. 

Ted was away in a world of his own. Just him and Wendy. She watched him purse his lips and exhale, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he did. ‘You were something else. The second best moment in my life so far’.

‘Cheeky. What was the first?’

‘Hearing your voice yesterday, before I even saw you, then when I saw it was you, I just thought you were beautiful’.

‘You have a way with words Ted Banks’. It was first time Wendy had said Ted’s surname. ‘I want you to tell me all the things you like about me so far’.

‘Well, number three is being a “hands on” person and I like that. What about me?’

‘I liked the way you looked at me when you came over to me yesterday and when the girls came back, I could see how you kept looking at me. Most men would have been distracted by Sabrina’s cleavage’.

‘I’ll have to look next time’ interrupted Ted, still grinning.

‘Go on holiday with her and she will get them out for you. If you stay around, it will be my treat to arrange it for you’ purred Wendy, as she began to work her lips down his chest to where a hand was already giving Ted attention.

‘I have never been with a woman like you Wendy and that’s the honest truth’, as he placed his hands on her head, pushing her down with a sense of urgency. 

‘Where did you learn to do this?’

Wendy stopped, raised her head, grinned, and said 

‘Evening classes’. 

They both laughed, then Wendy said ‘Please be quiet my lovely man. I need to concentrate. It’s been such a long time that I may need to go to classes again. Ted did not say another word for ages. 

Some time later Ted’s first words were ‘I don’t want to go home… ever’. He said them as softly as he could.

“I might prefer your house’ said Wendy. ‘You can take me tomorrow, then we will decide’.

It was that quick and easy. Ted moved to Beeston and put his house in Basford up for sale. All their friends, except Sabrina, thought they were mad. Maureen just wanted to hear every detail of how and why it had all happened so quickly. What doubts Wendy had evaporated on seeing Ted’s orderly and clean house, with its well-managed garden, the borders with their runner beans in full bloom. She did consider moving in with Ted, but he said a smaller garden, fewer runner beans and beetroots would suit him fine because, instead of getting up at seven every morning, he would rather stay in bed with Wendy, given that she had told him early on that one of the joys of being retired was she could stay in bed, although at eight, or thereabouts, she did  have tea, toast and honey, before going back to bed and reading for a couple of hours. Meeting the girls once a month was one of the few exceptions she made to her routine.

Ted took over making morning tea and toast and even arranged to start work at ten o’clock in his new three day a week job, albeit it meant he wasn’t home until six o’clock in the evening. 

Wendy’s routine was, for the most part, unchanged. Cooking for two presented no problems and Ted was a good cook, which helped. She spent time in her workroom making throws and cushions for sale at craft fairs and seasonal markets, and saw personal friends on the days that Ted worked, including the girls. She still had her own life and in no way felt threatened. When first asked by the girls about her relationship with Ted, she grinned and said ‘Uninhibited’. Adding ‘I’ve never known a man like him’. It wasn’t quite true, but Ted was top of her list now.

Their children appeared genuinely pleased and, at first, they saw more of them. Wendy’s daughter Erica confided in Ted that her mum ‘used to be a control freak’ and always seemed to be ‘on guard against something’, adding ‘For years she used to jump out of her skin every time there was a knock at the door, especially after Dad died’. As she left after her second visit, Erica’s kissed Ted for the first time and said ‘Thanks Ted. I have have never seen Mum this relaxed before’.

Ted didn’t tell Erica that whilst he may have made the first move, her Mum was very much in charge and he liked the way she managed things’.

Ted’s son, Peter and his partner Graham, had quickly got them into the habit of having a monthly ‘family’ Sunday lunch. 

It was Graham who told Wendy that until she had arrived on the scene, Pete had thought his Dad might be gay, as he had always been so accepting of him being gay and had welcomed Graham with open arms. 

Ted told Wendy that his ex-wife was upset that, because Peter was gay, there would be no grandchildren. When Peter pointed out that there may have been no children even if he was in a relationship with a woman, she cried even more. Shrugging his shoulders, it was Peter who told Wendy that the last thing he had said to his mother over a year ago was ‘Get a life, you’ve got a husband and two lovely step-daughters, so there’ll be some one day’. She had then slammed her front door in his face, shouting as she did ‘But they won’t be yours’.

Erica lived in Withernsea, where she owned a small gallery and now she was happy that her mum and Ted were settled, she was expecting them to visit her. Wendy suspected that if and when Erica decided to have a baby, it would be without a man in tow. She had not set her daughter a good example and she was sorry for that, but it was not for her to say. The best way to show love was to be supportive whatever happens. It was what Ted had said about Peter the first day they talked and she had agreed.

III

‘You really can’t remember the first time you had sex?’ was a question Ted asked more than once, but he never pushed her for an answer. ‘Just three women‘  he had volunteered. ‘Nothing like you. My ex used to tell me to “hurry up” and turn away as soon as we finished. Always’. 

Wendy believed him. Ted told Wendy about his life as and when something came along to prompt a story, but she was always vague about some things, especially her teenage years. She told Ted that her mother did not marry until she was ten. Wendy never knew who her father was. She lived with her Nanna until in her teens, then she went to stay with her mother’ s sister, Sue. At fifteen she got a job in a Birmingham city centre laundry renewing collars and cuffs on shirts and blouses, as she was always good at sewing, thanks to her Nanna. She was paid piece-rates and by the time she was sixteen was earning enough to rent a room in the home of an elderly widow in Saltley, on the edge of the city centre. 

There are things you do not tell your partner, however much you love them. She did not think Ted would leave her even if she told him. But even if she told him that much, it would only be part of the truth. Lovers share intimacies and secrets, partly to test one another, to shock even. It is part of the bonding process. 

Ted was so different and having waited until she was sixty-two to find such a man, she was going to keep him.

There had been a few men, but in the end she scared them all off and here she was, a year with Ted. He was very special and she loved him.

Her story about the policeman was partially true. That they went out for a few months before having sex was not. How could she tell Ted that she was raped by one in Digbeth Police Station after she had been arrested for soliciting, nor could Wendy tell Ted that by then she was already having sex regularly with older men who gave her money — business men with a hotel room who she met on recommendation in hotel bars on the Hagley Road. Her landlady never asked why she stayed out some nights. She was glad to have someone who was about weekends, who helped with chores, and paid her thirty shillings rent every week.

Ted would never know that for four years she was a working girl — for that it what she was, even though it was an accident and quite innocent at first. On her sixteenth birthday a group of girls from the laundry took her out for her first drink. She looked older than she was and in those days landlords and bar staff were relaxed about such things, especially if you were in the company of an older person. They took her to the Calthorpe Hotel, where the six of them attracted the attention of some men at the bar. After a few drinks, one of the men came over and asked if they would like a drink. One thing led to another and at the end of the evening Wendy found herself tiddly and alone with a man called Jack. He was old by her standards, but good looking and was nice, said all the right things. The bar closed at ten-thirty, so Jack invited Wendy back to his room for one last drink before he got her a taxi.  It was ‘a taxi’  that hooked Wendy. She had never been in a taxi. Jack had to be well-off if he could afford a taxi. She remembered feeling good and, later, was glad that her aunt Sue had got her using tampons. It was the only explanation she had for the fact that losing her virginity was not a painful experience and, in the morning, when they did it again, it had been beautiful. He kissed her all over (really all over). No one told her it would be as good as it was with Jack. 

Afterwards, she went to sleep again and woke a couple of hours later. It was nine o’clock! What would her boss say. She had never been late before. As she washed and dressed she noticed a note saying ‘Wendy’. It read ‘See you tonight. 7pm. The Hagley Arms’ and beneath it was four £5 notes.

She went to a telephone box and called the laundry and spoke to her boss. Wendy remembered starting to explain about drinking a lot the night before when her boss stopped her. ‘I know all about it. Make sure you are on time tomorrow. Take it easy and no more drinking on a work day. OK?’ then Wendy’s boss hung up. 

Wendy met Jack in The Hagley Arms. ‘That was something else last night Wendy. You’re a natural. Are you sure it was your first time?’.

‘Did I say that?’

‘Aye, and a lot more besides. You wanted it, so I was happy to oblige. Am I forgiven?’

‘Yes, but I’m not drinking tonight. I have to go to work in the morning and I have to be there for seven o’clock’.

‘I’ll take you I promise. You are coming with me after?’

‘Well…’ but Wendy didn’t finish. Jack’s hand was talking under the table and she was sliding down her chair.

‘Not here Jack, please… God, that is nice… Can we go now please?’

Jack paid and they left there and then. When Jack dropped her off at the laundry the next morning he put £25 into her free hand as he kissed her goodbye.

‘I’ll see you next Monday, same place and time’ and, with those words, Jack was gone.

And that was how it all started. Gradually, Jack introduced Wendy to his ‘friends’, all married, like Jack. On the second night he had given her some Durex to ‘look after’. ‘I don’t want my Beth asking questions’. Quite quickly she was saving £50–£60 a week.

One evening while waiting in the Calthorpe Hotel, the bar manager came across to where she was sitting and introduced himself. He was Irish. ‘You’re new aren’t you’. It wasn’t a question. Lenny continued ‘I’m Lenny, you seem a bit young for this, but if you just sit at your table and do nothing else, then no one is going to say anything. Do you understand?’

Wendy nodded. It was all new to her. The men who came to her table all knew her name.

‘What about me?’ asked Lenny, ‘Do I get it for free or would you rather pay a table reservation fee?’

Wendy quickly did her sums. ‘£10’.

‘Good girl Wendy. That’s more than I expected. You and I are going to get along just fine’ and as he got up from the table he asked ‘What do you when you’re not here?’

‘I go to work, read, help my landlady, make clothes, sew, that kind of thing’.

‘You don’t work anywhere else then?’

‘No. I just meet men who know me’.

Lenny then volunteered that he had a bedsit at the back of the hotel and had just bought a ‘narrow boat’, moored in Gas Street Basin, which he doing up on his days off. ‘Come round about twelve o’clock on Sunday and I’ll show you ‘Mayflower’ and we’ll take her down to Kings Norton. Would you like that?’

How could Wendy refuse, given their new arrangement, and, in the event, Lenny was even better than Jack when it came to smooth talking or sex. He made it quite clear that, at most, he was offering her protection in the Calthorpe and ‘someone to talk to’. ‘I won’t bring you any punters because that would be illegal. I can’t afford to get a record being Irish’.

It was all very discreet. Wendy relied on Jack. If she didn’t like someone she politely found an excuse to say ‘no’ the second time. A couple of times a man got annoyed, but Lenny quickly sorted the problem out. ‘Married men are best Wendy. They have most to lose. Avoid the single ones’. It was good advice. She even had a couple of women regulars. One, amazingly, was Jack’s wife, Beth, and Wendy even went on holiday with them. They treated her like she was their daughter. They never took her home. They always picked her up in their large estate car and rented a cottage somewhere.

Working at the laundry quickly became a nuisance, so she left and paid her landlady for an extra room, which she  turned into a workshop, where she started to make her own clothes, cushions and throws, which she sold to shops and by word of mouth. It was a good cover for what she was doing. At twenty she had lots of money in her National Savings book, enough to buy a small house when she was twenty-one. Jack recommended an accountant and said she should start paying tax as it was a good way of getting a National Insurance Stamp each week. ‘The best investment you’ll ever make’ he said.

Lenny was true to his word. He never ‘pimped’, despite what some of the regulars at the Calthorpe were saying. Afterall, he was making £30–£40 a week watching Wendy’s back. It was easy money and helped pay for his boat — which had changed from being his floating home to a private club of sorts. 

Lenny and Wendy always had sex on the boat and, sometimes, she worked on the boat too. She was good and it was inevitable that, as her reputation grew, Wendy would get noticed by those engaged in similar activities. It was Lenny these ‘interests’ approached and he was immediately out of his depth. He was an innocent, just like Wendy, when it came to the real hard world of prostitution. Lenny told them Wendy sold cushions and paid her taxes, as if that made her different.

The first Wendy knew of all this was when she was dragged off the boat late one afternoon. Caught in the act, the poor sod with her was thrown into the Grand Union Canal, along with his clothes. Two men took her dress from beside the bed and pulled it over her head before pulling her through the boat, across the yard and into the back of a police car. Meanwhile, the boat being trashed by two other men, one of whom was kicking Lenny, who had his arms wrapped around his head and screaming ‘No, no, what have I done?’

One of the men shouted ‘Get your fucking shag factory out of here now and don’t come back, otherwise it and you will be torched. Understand?’

Lenny screaming ‘Yes yes’ were the last words Wendy heard as a man sat on her head, put his fingers inside her and yanked her onto the floor of the car.

At the police station Wendy was taken to a cell, one side of her face pushed the wall and raped. Ted would never know this, nor about Lenny. The one who put his fingers inside her, held her from behind, put his mouth to her right ear and said ‘With your small tits and large arse I don’t see the attraction myself. I’m just doing this for a friend who wants you gone. No fuss, You understand?’ As he shoved and pulled her legs further apart, the policeman pulled back her head and said again ‘You understand?’ adding ‘This is the way real men do it. You like?’ pulling her hair again as he did.

Wendy heard herself saying ‘Yeesss’ as she gritted her teeth and waited for him to finish what he was doing. They  left her alone in the cell for what seemed at age before a policeman in uniform and came said ‘You can go’. She hobbled out of what she realised was Digbeth Police Station into the night and stood on the pavement, just in her black dress and a pair of ill-fitting toe-post sandals the uniformed policeman had given her. Wendy was finished. This was never going to happen to her again.

Not that Wendy knew at the time, but Lenny had already left his mooring and was heading south along the canal. When she got to Gas Street, someone saw her looking at the empty mooring and said, pointing, ‘He went that way’. There was nothing Wendy could do, so she returned to her rooms, bathed and went to bed. She would look for Lenny tomorrow. He couldn’t get far.

The next morning she borrowed a bike and went in search of Lenny. By the time she reached the edge of Kings Norton she still had not found him. She knew that he had Irish friends in Stratford. It had to be there he was going. She found him about three miles on, moored. She had to knock on the windows more than once calling ‘Lenny’ before he opened up.

‘Why didn’t you wait?’ Wendy shouted the moment she saw Lenny’s face. Like a parent, determined to be kind to a child who gets lost and is found, she immediately blamed Lenny for what had happened to her. Lenny shouted back, clearly on edge, ‘I wasn’t hanging around to be torched that’s why, but I’ll get those bastards if it’s the last thing I do. I have friends they don’t know about who will take them out. Fucking police. I’m going to blow their brains out personally. No one does this to Lenny Hennessy’ pointing to his bruised and battered face.

Then she saw it. The revolver, close by his right hand. ‘Lenny, don’t be so stupid. It isn’t worth it. We can start again, you and me, somewhere else. I’m finished and I’ve got money’.

‘If only it was that simple’ came Lenny’s reply. At that moment he sounded as defeated as Wendy, but then he pulled himself up and said ‘Christ Wendy, it was bloody close back there. Had they torched the boat they would have taken half of Gas Street out, given the stuff here’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there are more of these’, nodding at the revolver, ‘and other packets’. Lenny saw Wendy looking, still puzzled. ‘They belong to a friend. I have to get us somewhere safe’.

‘Suppose the police had found the gun?’

‘The best way to hide something is in plain sight. You should know that — which is why I must keep going until I can moor up with a load of other boats again. The men back there  were from Vice. Someone wanted us out and I was too stupid to listen, so they came down heavy’.

‘You know what they did to me?’ heard herself screaming, wondering where the outburst came from. ‘They buggered me that’s what. I finished Lenny, I‘m out’.

Lenny pulled her into the boat and closed the door behind her and just looked at Wendy. He then took a frankfurter from an open tin she had not noticed before and began to eat, as if contemplating what to say next.

Lenny didn’t seem to understand that she was finished. She had money in her savings account and there would always be Jack and Beth. She wouldn’t stop seeing them. Until then Wendy had thought they could become an ordinary couple, buy a house, have kids, she could open a shop. Lenny had been part of her for nearly four years and, now, the man standing before her was so different. He was a criminal, storing explosives for God knows who, but his being from Sligo, with his Irish friends, she was putting two and two together fast.

‘Got to get you working’ were the first words Lenny said. Wendy looked at him in amazement. ‘Me? I can hardly stand after what those bastards did to me. I’m finished Lenny. Hear me. I’m finished’.

It was then that Lenny made his fatal mistake. Almost under his breath, he said ‘We’ll see about that’ and from the corner of an eye Wendy saw his arm go back and she knew, instinctively, what was about to happen, but she was quicker. She picked up the revolver, momentarily realising the gun was heavy, pulled back the hammer, squeezed the trigger and fired. The recoil knocked her over and, as she came too, dazed from her fall, Wendy expected to see Lenny standing over her. He wasn’t. The back of her head felt sore and touching it, she could feel the lump. She must have knocked herself out when she fell. Where was Lenny?

As Wendy staggered to her feet she got her answer, he was sprawled out, blood everywhere, across the built-in bed at one end of the narrow boat cabin. He was dead. Very dead. She could see that. Then it came back… Lenny backing away and into the bedroom, trying to close the door, half of its hinges from the police raid the day before. He fell across the bed as he lost his balance and got angry again. 

‘When I get that gun I am going to fuck your arse so sore you’ll wish you were back with your friends in blue’.

Wendy was surprised at how relieved she was feeling. Elated, on a high almost, at having not to worry about Lenny anymore. He was dead and she was responsible. She found her work bag in a drawer under the bed. The Vice-Squad men had come to trash the boat and scare them off. They hadn’t been looking for anything else. Neither of them did drugs, nor did they smoke. She picked up the gun. It was too big and heavy to carry far. She closed all the curtains and took the padlock to the door from its hook and fastened the door, putting the key in her pocket. 

Wendy peddled the bike back towards Birmingham as fast as she could. There was a large pond beside the canal, just past one of the locks. That would be a good place to dump the gun and key. She saw no one for miles until she had to stop for an angler, whose rod was blocking the towpath, which he moved without a word, before waving her on. She said ‘Thank you’ with the best smile she could muster. How soon Lenny would be found she had no idea, but Wendy wanted to be as far away as possible. The first place she recognised was where the canal joined the Worcester Canal, near Kings Norton. Not long after she took up with Lenny and he had got the Mayflower, they had gone to Stratford, where he had some work done on the boat by one of his Irish friends, who had a small boatyard repairing and fitting out river boats and barges. It was there, Wendy guessed, that the work Lenny had mentioned was done. Not that she cared, the further away she got.

She arrived at the Basin exhausted and returned the bike. She wasn’t even going to risk another night in her lodgings — just a quick visit to collect the things she needed and to say she was off to stay with a friend for a few days. As far as the police were concerned, Wendy lived with Lenny on the Mayflower. She would send her landlady four weeks rent in the post and tell her to keep everything in the workroom.

She would go to Derby for a couple of nights and stay in the Station Hotel. If they didn’t have a room, they would find somewhere for her. With her work bag, a suitcase and another shoulder bag, she caught the train a train from New Street to Derby, where the elderly receptionist welcomed her. ‘Not with your mother this time?’ 

‘No’ was all Wendy said, as she took the key to her room. Thanks to Jack she serviced a select group of men (and women) and quite, early on began travelling to other cities to meet them, all expenses paid. Using the boat had been a silly move on her part. What had she been thinking?

Deep down she knew the answer. She had told Jack and Beth that, at twenty-one, she wanted to stop. At first going with older men and getting money had actually excited her, then going places she would never have gone otherwise was something she enjoyed. At twenty she had £14,000 in her savings book and would have £20,000 by the time she was twenty-one — more than enough to buy a house and open a small shop selling fabrics and cushions. The nearer she got to the day she was going to stop the more money she wanted to make. It was as stupid as that.

On the second day of her stay in Derby Wendy found a second-hand clothes shop and bought a few items. She did not want to arrive too well dressed when she reached Brownhills. At the last moment she decided to keep her workbag minus the condoms and toys, From now on it would be a make-up bag.

Wendy arrived at her Aunt Sue’s just as she was making a cup of soup from a packet and buttering a small roll. ‘Well I never, stranger, what brings you back here. A man?’

‘Got it in one’.

‘Get your coat off and put your bags down, I’ll make you some soup and you can tell me all about it’.

Wendy had not seen her aunt for a year and only written one letter, posted from Bournemouth of all places. She had gone there to spend a week with a well-known actor on tour and in need of company. Jack had arranged it and paid her £500. They didn’t have sex. He just got her to undress and watch him every might before he went to sleep. He said more than once that he didn’t want to be unfaithful to his wife, but having her there kneeling over him was better than porn, but all that was now in the past. Never again, except for Jack and Beth.

Wendy told her aunt that she had been saving and would look for a small flat in a day or two, once she walked around Brownhills to see what had changed in the last twelve months. ‘I thought you could tell me how things are’.

Sue knew what Wendy was asking. ‘Your mum and lover boy have gone.’ After a pause she continued ‘To Aberdeen of all places. He’s got a job on the oil rigs going up in the North Sea with plenty of money. He’s a trained maintenance engineer. Did you know that?’

‘No’ replied Wendy. Nor did she care, but she was relieved to know her mother was a long way away. She didn’t even go to her mother’s funeral a few years later, after she was killed crossing a road.

For the rest of day, Wendy’s Aunt Sue hugged her at every opportunity. ‘Dave will be surprised when he gets back. He’s fitting a boiler somewhere in Lancashire this week. Has been for a fortnight. Says he should be back at the end of the week’.

Sue put Wendy in her cousin Molly’s old room, left just as it was when she got married and left home, a few months before Wendy went to Birmingham. She had been a bridesmaid. The one and only time. Sue saw Wendy looking at the room. ‘Still no sign of them having a baby. I’ll get Dave to change the room when we know what it is, you know, a boy or a girl’. They never had children and, over the years, this upset Sue far more than Molly and her husband, who once resigned to the inevitable, lived their life accordingly. Wendy had last seen them all at Molly’s 6oth birthday party. She looked ten years younger and was comfortably off, living in Llandudno.

The next day Wendy saw a job in the Co-op for a Bakery Assistant. She was interviewed on the spot by the manager and master baker and started the next day. Very un-co-op like, but the job had been vacant for weeks. No one wanted to work the hours. In the end she stayed with her Aunt Sue and Uncle Dave, who was quite often away, until she got married — to Brian, the master baker and her boss. He asked Wendy out after he got a job running a large bakery in Nottingham. He took her to Shugborough Hall for afternoon tea and proposed whilst pouring Wendy a second cup of tea. A big man, gruff at first, he relaxed as the months went by. It was then he said more to Wendy than he ever would again. 

‘Wendy, I know I’m twice your age and gangly, but there is something about you which makes me feel good about myself. When I was having the job interview in Nottingham I was thinking about you. Nearly twice as much pay and a car, I’ll be able to buy a bigger house, but I won’t have anyone to share these things with. I think I could make you happy. I don’t know what brought you back to Brownhills, but I’m glad you did come back and ended up with me. I won’t miss Brownhills, but I will miss you. Would you come to Nottingham with me? I can get you a job’.

‘Are you proposing Brian?’

‘I suppose I am’.

‘I’d like to sleep on it’.

‘You’ll tell me in the morning?’

‘Over breakfast if you like. I don’t want to do anything on the rebound. It was a year ago and I am twenty-one, but I couldn’t marry you without us making love first. I hope I haven’t shocked you Brian, but that’s the way I am. I need to be sure’. There was a long pause, so Wendy risked taking the initiative by stretching a hand across the table and placing it on top of his. ‘It will be alright I promise. I am not a virgin’.

Back at Brian’s small house later Wendy undressed and lay on his bed naked as he watched her. Then it was his turn. For a few moments he kept his back to her. ‘I’m sorry Wendy, it’s just happened’.

‘Come on let me see. I’m a big girl’.

Brian turned to face her, hands clasped across his erection.

‘Come here’ Wendy said, as she raised herself up onto her left elbow, and Brian shuffled forward. It may have been a lifetime for Brian, but twelve months seemed like eternity to Wendy if she forgot the three weekends with Jack and Beth. She was sure that her need was greater than Brian’s, but she was going to control the situation. It was like going to work again. Putting her legs over the side of Brian’s bed, she placed her hands on his hips and kissed his belly, brushing against him as she did. It was enough. Forty-three years discharged itself in a moment. He tried to turn away, clearly embarrassed, but Wendy did not let him. She was going to need all her skills. She looked up at Brian, stood on tiptoe and kissed him full on the mouth, unleashing more urgency as he clasped her tight and nearly crushing her in the process. ‘I love you Wendy, old fool that I am. I should be going with someone my own age’.

Wendy placed the fingers of her left hand on his lips and with her right hand began to work a miracle as far as Brian was concerned. It was clear to her that, at best, this was going to be a no nonsense relationship. Brian was never going to make a great lover, but he she would get a new surname and that really appealed.

She fell for Erica that night by her calculations. Their marriage came as a surprise to everyone, but her Aunt Sue was over the moon when Wendy told her she was pregnant and her cousin Molly said at her 60th that her mum had only lived as long as she had because of Erica.

When Erica started school, Wendy told Brian that she was thinking of finding a small shop where she could sell her cushions and throws, instead of just word-of-mouth and the occasional craft market. It would mean people no longer calling at the house. ‘I have some savings I could use to pay six months rent. Then we could review things’. Brian reply was ‘If you think you can manage everything, then go ahead’. 

The business started slowly and one of her first customers was Sabrina, who quickly joined Wendy in the shop. She was a tip-top seamstress and a far better sales person than Wendy. The ‘six months’ ended up being thirty years. Brian never asked how she bought the shop. All he suggested was that she found herself a book-keeper — which is how she got to know Maureen, who could handle a calculator and a page of numbers with great skill. She made Wendy money by reducing the profits so that she paid less tax. Nothing dodgy. 

Not long after they became friends, Sabrina described herself to Wendy as ‘a shag-bag, that’s what I am. He doesn’t know, or care, what I want’. Wendy can still see the scene in the snug of the pub a few doors down from the shop, as Sabrina sniffled into her Chablis. ‘Just one good fuck is what I want. A man to go down on me and to stay there for a long time’. She then lifted her head, giggled, then belched and followed on with a very loud fart. ‘Get a whiff of that’ were the last words Sabrina said that night. That was the first time she met Chas. He opened the front door, looked at the pair of them, and said ‘Not again’ before reaching across and taking the weight of Sabrina from Wendy. It was a few steps into an open plan room with a long sofa and easy chairs at one end. ‘Put her there’ said Chas, gesturing with his head towards the sofa. Sabrina was out cold. ‘She shouldn’t drink. I don’t know how many times I’ve told her. What was is? Chablis? How many bottles this time?’. He stopped and looked at Wendy. ‘Are you her new boss?’

‘I wouldn’t say that’ replied Wendy. ‘I don’t drink.  Sabrina had four glasses. Next time I’ll keep a close eye on her’.

Chas didn’t reply. He just stood there, hands on hips, looking down at Sabrina and shaking his head side to side. ‘She’ll be alright in the morning. Won’t remember a thing and wonders why I end up shouting at her’.

‘I’ll have to go, my husband will wonder where I’ve got to’ and with those words Wendy excused herself. 

As she walked home, she thought Chas seemed caring enough. A quiet man if she guessed right. She could imagine Sabrina picking him out, then smothering him. Overwhelmed at first, he had little say in how their relationship developed. One day Sabrina was going to lose him, almost certainly to another woman. There was a big difference being managing a man and dominating a man. The latter, in most cases, led to resentment and disloyalty.

Wendy was right. A year later Chas was gone. Moved in with a  widow and her three teenage boys across town. Sabrina did not know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Little with no tits or arse. What does he see in the cow? I’ve seen her you know’. Being with Wendy saved the day and before long Sabrina had a couple of  ‘boyfriends’. ‘Every girl’s dream’ was how she described it, but in the end Sabrina came to the conclusion ‘Sex isn’t what it used to be’. She also stopped drinking. ‘From now on it’s sober sex in the slow lane’ and that’s how it remained until she met Mark.

Wendy saw Jack every few weeks. She would leave Sabrina in charge of the shop whilst she went off  ‘visiting the competition’, always making sure she was home by late-afternoon. It was no longer about money. Even at seventy-five, the last time she saw him, he was still good. The perfect confidante. When Beth ‘phoned it came as a shock. Wendy had last seen him two weeks before. ‘A massive stroke. He didn’t know a thing. He was sitting in his chair watching cricket and was trying to say something, but never even finished the first word’. Wendy had known Jack thirty-two years. Beth died five years later and left Erica £50,000, saying in her will that she knew Wendy would not accept money for being such a dear close friend, so she wanted Erica to have the bequest instead. 

With the passing of Beth, no one, no one, knew of Brenda. Maybe a very old man or two remembered her in their fantasies. Wendy could, at long last, concentrate on being herself.

A  FOOTNOTE

It was three weeks before the Warwickshire police found Lenny’s body after being alerted to something unusual on the Stratford Canal near Wythall. It was children enjoying their summer holiday who first noticed the flies covering the windows of the narrow boat. One boy told his granddad who, in turn, mentioned it to the local beat bobby. The children had passed the narrow boat several times before and seen nothing unusual.

The police assumed that it was Lenny from the boat registration and only gave the case some urgency because it was clear that the boat’s cabin had been badly damaged and the door to the bedroom was half off its hinges, but it still took ten days for the autopsy report to arrive, by which time they had found the remains of .45 bullet in the bed. Lenny had been shot in the throat from the front. This, they concluded, suggested a professional killing. No one at Gas Street Basin volunteered any information other than the fact that Lenny had left at short notice and a young woman called Brenda sometimes stayed with him. 

The police went to the Calthorpe Hotel, where he had been Bar Manager. Good at his job, no complaints, well liked and friendly with a girl called Brenda, descriptions of whom varied considerably. As the detective in charge said, she could be ‘Any of half-a-dozen girls’. Their Birmingham colleagues said nothing. After all, they did not want to reveal their ‘unofficial’ link with Lenny and, as far as they were concerned, it was aWarwickshire problem. The boat was full of partial fingerprints, but given it was a floating bar this came as no surprise. They identified a few and followed up with interviews. Everyone could account for their movements around the time the police thought Lenny had been killed. Most of the prints were for individuals without police records. DNA did not exist in 1967. It didn’t take long for the case to slip down the list of priorities. After four weeks, the police asked a Stratford boatyard to collect the narrow boat and hold it in their secure moorings. Lenny’s Irish friends could not believe their luck. After six months the boat became the property of Lenny’s mother, who signed it over to the boatyard for scrap.

Wendy knew none of this. For a long time she lived in constant fear that the police would find her. What hope she had of not being found was in the fact that the world she had left behind knew her as Brenda. Only Jack shared her secret. She didn’t lie. She just didn’t say. Above all, who was going to look for her in Brownhills? Nottingham and a new surname reduced her fear to the point where she had days, weeks, when she never thought of Lenny or Digbeth Police Station. 

Chronology

1947. Born 4 April to a single mother in Brownhills. Father unknown.

1959. Goes to live with Aunt Sue (born 1924), Uncle Dave and cousin Molly (born 1942).

1962. Leaves school and goes to work in a Birmingham laundry.

1963. On 16th birthday meets Jack (born 1920) and, a few weeks later, Lenny Hennessy (born 1939). Also meets Beth (born 1932), Jack’s wife.

1967. Lenny dies (aged 28). Returns to Brownshills and goes to work in a bakery.

1968. Marries Brian Mason (born 1925) and moves to Nottingham.

1969. Daughter Erica born 29 June.

1975. Opens shop and meets Sabrina (born 1946)

1977. Maureen (born 1947) becomes shop’s accountant.

1995. Jack dies (aged 75).

1997. Brian dies (aged 72).

2000. Beth dies (aged 68).

2002 Cousin Molly’s 60th birthday party.

2007. Sells shop.

2009. Meets Ted (born 1950) and begin living together.