The Street by Kay Brellend

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    ‘If she was on the game, son, she wouldn’t be hanging around here on a Saturday night. She’d be up west somewhere earning a fortune with those looks.’
    ‘Are they trouble?’
    ‘Who, the Keivers? I wouldn’t mess with them for no reason.’
    ‘Nah. The Whittons.’
    ‘The Whittons.’ Twitch grunted a laugh. ‘Now let me see. What you’ve got there is one mad old mother, a father who’s had sense enough to have it away on his toes before he goes crackers too, a son dead of disease and three daughters. Lenny died of something or other when he was just about old enough to go to work. I think that’s what sent the mother into a decline . . . the thought of his lost wages. As for the girls . . . you’ve got a fat ugly one, a skinny schoolgirl and the novice tart you just spoke to. So, all in all, I suppose you’d have to say they’re a pretty average mob for around here.’
    ‘Come ‘n’ play us a tune, Al,’ Jack called to Alice as she tried to slip past him in the crowded room. Jack pulled her onto the stool beside him and affectionately ruffled her dark hair.
    ‘Don’t know any tunes, Dad,’ Alice said with a grin but she plinked and plonked up and down on the ivories, making some inharmonious noise while her dad took a break from performing. He flexed his fingers then supped from the pint glass on top of the piano. The other men might drink straight from the bottle but her dad liked to take his ale with a bit more style.
    ‘Come on, Jack, get goin’ again while I’m in the mood,’ Jimmy Wild yelled before swigging from the bottle in his fist.
    Alice swivelled on the seat to look about. Her eyes met Jimmy’s and he gave her a wink. Not so long ago she would have shared the private moment and winked right back. But now, since he’d got her in to trouble with her mum over that half a crown, she felt differently about him. She was beginning to understand that Uncle Jimmy wasn’t as nice and friendly as he liked people to think. She was coming to believe that perhaps it wasn’t half a dozen of one, six of the other when he and Aunt Fran were going at it hammer and tongs. And perhaps Bobbie and Stevie hadn’t misbehaved enough to deserve the bruises she’d seen on them at school. She suspected that her uncle just needed to be in a bad mood over something to act mean.
    He’d been mean to her. He must have known that she’d get a wallop off her mum for taking his half a crown. She’d thought that a little secret existed between them yet he’d told on her straight away. His wink and that secret stare now made an odd feeling squirm in her stomach. She half-smiled at him but looked away quickly, her eyes flitting about the cramped room.
    She’d left Sarah on the pavement and only come in to get them a drink of pop . . . if any was left in the bottle. If not she was going to ask her dad for a bit of money so they could get some from the shop. Since her dad had got a good job with Basher Payne money hadn’t been so tight and being cheeky and asking for a few coppers didn’t naturally get you a clip round the ear. Her dad had waylaid her and she’d stopped where she was rather than slipping back outside because she enjoyed having his attention.
    ‘Come on, give us a little tune, Monkey,’ her dad fondly invited her, using the pet nickname he had for her.
    ‘Alright, Freckles,’ she teased him back and rubbed a tickling finger over the speckled skin on his jaw. ‘Glad I’m not a Freckles,’ she said provocatively.
    Jack touched the mark. ‘It’s me beauty spot,’ he said, as he always did when ribbed over the blemish. ‘I know you’d like one just like it really.’
    Alice chuckled and picked out a simple chord that he’d taught her when they’d first got the piano. Her dad accompanied her lightly, encouraging her to try again when she hit a wrong note. Finally Alice gestured she’d had enough and looked around for her mum. She was squashed up against the mantelpiece with