landing. She climbed off the bed and prepared herself for the coming confrontation.
Florrie’s make-up was smudged, and she was drunk. ‘What you doing in ’ere?’ She shut the door none too quietly, kicked off her shoes and slung the handbag onto the bed.
‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Sally, ‘or you’ll have the whole house awake.’
‘I asked wot you was doin’ in ’ere,’ mumbled Florrie.
‘Looking for the stuff you nicked from other people’s rooms.’
Florrie’s bleary gaze settled unsteadily on the things Sally had placed on the dressing-table stool. ‘I was only gunna borrow them for a bit,’ she muttered. ‘What’s all the bleedin’ fuss about?’ She staggered to the bed and sat down.
‘You didn’t borrow ’em,’ Sally hissed. ‘You bleedin’ well stole ’em, and I won’t ’ave it. These are good people.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me ’eart bleeds.’ Florrie took a whisky flask out of her handbag and took a swig. ‘So, whatya gunna do about it, then, Miss Goody Two-shoes? Miss Mealy-mouth-butter-wouldn’t-melt? Call the rozzers?’
‘I’d bloody well like to,’ she growled, ‘but it’s shame enough me mother can’t keep ’er thieving ’ands to ’erself, let alone have the rozzers all over the gaff.’
Florrie snorted and tried to focus on Sally. ‘You ain’t so posh now, are yer?’
Sally was beyond caring what she sounded like. ‘Where you been all day?’
‘None of your bleedin’ business,’ she slurred, taking another drink from the flask.
Sally grabbed it, screwed the lid tight, and tossed it under the bed. ‘It is my flamin’ business when Simmons starts asking me questions about ya – insinuating you and me got something special going on with Solomon and Goldman.’
‘Well, I ’ave, ain’t I? Solly and me, we’re gunna get married.’
‘In yer dreams. Solomon’s married to ’is wife’s money. He ain’t gunna look at you twice once she finds out what he’s been up to.’
‘And who’s gunna tell ’er?’ Florrie’s expression was belligerent as she struggled to get off the bed, found she couldn’t keep her balance and fell back again. ‘If I ’ear you been flapping your gob about me and Solly, it’ll be yer eyes, girl. And that ain’t no threat, it’s a bleedin’ promise.’
Sally regarded her with the coolness of someone who had long since stopped caring. Florrie’s mascara and eye-shadow were streaking down her face to mingle with the smudged lipstick. Her blouse was buttoned up wrongly and the bra it revealed was grey and grubby. Florrie was thirty-five, but she looked a decade older.
‘You disgust me, do you know that?’ she murmured without emotion. ‘Take a long, hard look in that mirror before you pass out, and try for once to see what I see.’
Florrie tried to focus on her reflection in the dressing-table mirror, but soon gave up. ‘You ain’t no bleedin’ oil painting yerself,’ she spat. ‘No wonder you ain’t got no bloke.’
‘I’m not like you,’ Sally whispered furiously. ‘I don’t need some bloke to leech off – some chancer to buy me drinks, and take me to bleedin’ ’otels.’ She jabbed Florrie hard in the shoulder, making her almost topple over. ‘You ’ad a decent man, but you treated ’im like dirt – and now it’s too late. Dad won’t never want you again.’
Florrie’s face crumpled and she began to sob, the large tears making an even worse mess on her face. ‘I only married ’im cos you was on the bleedin’ way. That’s the story of me life,’ she wailed. ‘I never ’ad no chance of nothing.’
‘Shush,’ hissed Sally. ‘Keep it down.’
Florrie eyed her mournfully, but at least she’d stopped wailing. ‘I ain’t ’ad a proper life,’ she sobbed. ‘Bleedin’ tied down with a man I couldn’t bleedin’ stand, and a flaming kid wot never shut up crying.’ She swiped the back of her hand under her nose and sniffed hard. ‘You was a pain in the arse as a kid – and then, just to put the tin lid right on it, I ’ad Ernie.’ She gave a harsh cough of laughter through her tears. ‘What a bleedin’ joke that was.’
‘I didn’t find it funny,’ replied Sally coldly. ‘And neither did Ernie, or Dad.’ Florrie was getting maudlin, as she always did after drinking too much, and Sally was bankrupt of patience. If Florrie thought she could wring one morsel of pity out of her with this act, then she was very much mistaken.
‘But I only wanted a bit of fun, Sal – don’t yer see? Surely there ain’t no ’arm in that?’ She collapsed on to the pillows and howled.
Sally