Tara Page 31

  'She must be a great lay.' Solly sniffed.

  'I wouldn't know. She doesn't put it about,' Josh retorted. 'I wish you'd just give the kid credit. She's worked like a slave for me, always on time, reliable, trustworthy and creative. I know she's only eighteen with no qualifications, but that cuts both ways. She doesn't make any demands, she doesn't throw her weight around. Tara just gets an idea and goes for it. Her designs are what's selling.'

  Solly lapsed into silence, irritated by his son's cockiness. The reason he had money now was by sheer hard work and attention to detail. Every suit and coat that went out of his factory was checked by him. If they were short-staffed there wasn't one job he couldn't do himself. He was aware that times had changed, that the youngsters had money and didn't give a damn about quality, but Josh was building his business on shifting sand.

  He delegated everything. For all those years at art school Josh didn't know how to cut a suit, or even press a seam. He got that slip of a girl to patch together designs and two-bit sweat-shops to make them up, then crammed the dress racks with them and raked in the money. But at the end of the day he was leaving himself wide open. The day Josh got tired of sitting at the top telling others what to do, the whole thing would crumble. He should be investing the profits, be here overseeing everything, not swanning around town in a flashy car with an empty-headed dolly-bird on his arm.

  'I'm sorry, son.' Solly shook his head. 'I can't put money into such a risky venture. Wait until you've raised the capital yourself; plough back the profits instead of spending them.'

  'You'll be sorry, Dad.' Josh forced himself to smile even though he felt as if someone had stuck a pin in his balloon. 'I wanted you to be a shareholder, do the whole thing properly. You'll be the loser.'

  'I hope I am.' Solly took' his walking stick in his hand and got up. His arthritis was playing him up. 'If you do well no-one will be more pleased than me and your mother, but it was a long hard road making our money, and we can't risk losing it now.'

  Josh merely smiled.

  'Give Mum my love,' he said dismissively, and watched as his father made his way cautiously down the stairs.

  Solly took his time going out through the shop, stopping to look at the clothes, but watching Tara out the corner of his eye. She was helping a customer choose between two dresses.

  'I thought the black one looked a bit ordinary,' he heard her say. Tara was standing by the changing rooms, talking to an unseen woman. She was wearing a black and white skirt that was at least two inches above her knees and a tight white top, her hair loose over her shoulders. He had to admit she was very pretty.

  "The red one is sensational,' Tara went on. 'If you're going to a party you want to stand out.'

  'You don't think it makes me look fat?' a voice called out.

  'How can anyone size ten look fat?' Tara laughed. 'Honestly, it looked super.'

  'OK, I'll have the red one,' he heard as both dresses appeared across the door of the cubicle. 'No, on second thoughts I'll have both. The black one will be good for work.'

  He saw the pleasure on Tara's face as she came back to the counter with both dresses over her arm.

  'Hullo, Mr Bergman.' She looked a bit startled. 'How are you?'

  'Fine,' he said, wishing he could have concealed himself to make sure she rang up both dresses. 'I must be off now. Goodbye!'

  He wondered about Tara. Why did a girl as pretty and talented as her want to work in Bethnal Green? Why hadn't she gone to art school, or into one of the big fashion houses? She must be after Josh, worming her way in because she knew his family had money.

  She said her family had a farm in Somerset. Well, how come she was so street-wise? OK, she spoke nice, didn't have a Cockney accent, yet he could swear she'd been born and bred in these streets. She had the soul of an East-Ender.

  'Time will tell,' he muttered as he made his way out to his car. 'Rachael ought to find him a nice Jewish girl, maybe he'd lose a few of his wild ideas then.'

  It was quiet in the shop after Mr Bergman left. Angie was out in the stockroom pressing a few dresses and Tara busied herself sewing on a button that had come off a jacket.

  She was disturbed by Mr Bergman. She sensed he didn't like her and she didn't understand why. In two years she'd been late perhaps three times, and never been off sick. She looked after the shop as carefully as if it was her own and she'd made a great deal of money for Josh. Why didn't he pick on Angie? She was the one who was always taking liberties, borrowing clothes from the shop, taking time off, not to mention sleeping with Josh.

  The two years had flown by and she was a great deal wiser now. So maybe with hindsight she should have gone to art school, but then she wouldn't have got the experience she had now.

  Living with George and Queenie was comfortable. She enjoyed the good food, the warmth and the convenience, but also their uncritical attitude. She didn't have to guard her words, or hide emotion. There was no suspicion, no frosty silences. If Queenie and George had something to say, they said it, cleared the air and moved on.

  Tara had lots of friends now, mainly through Angie, and all the things she'd expected of London were there for the taking. Dancing at the Empire on Saturday nights, Sunday lunch-times down at the Blind Beggar, then often in the week she went to the Rising Sun in Bethnal Green with Queenie and George to see the music-hall acts they put on there.

  Since making that first summer dress for Josh she'd put her heart and soul into fashion. Some of her wilder ideas didn't work, but she was learning every day, by listening to the customers and watching what the West End shops were doing. Soon she intended to make a stand with Josh and insist she got some of the credit for all her work.

  'You're looking a bit glum!' Angie said as she came out from the back with an armful of dresses. 'What's up?'

  In two years Angie had matured from a naive, giggly girl to a confident and glamorous woman. Her blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders in pre-Raphaelite curls, false eyelashes accentuated her green eyes and she made up for a her lack of height with four-inch heels. Although she had many boyfriends, it was Josh she'd set her heart on, even though he treated her badly.

  'Nothing much. Old Solly was in here giving me the evil eye.' Tara grinned, getting up off her stool to help. 'He doesn't like me.'

  'Can't figure you out, that's all.' Angie smiled. 'Neither can I, sometimes. But I like you anyway.'

  They had become close friends, but they had entirely different outlooks. Angie lived for the minute, lurching from one emotional crisis to the next, her only ambition to find a wealthy husband who would whisk her away from work. Tara's reticence to get involved with any man puzzled Angie, nor did she understand the fierce ambition that kept her friend home at night slaving over a sewing machine.

  'I ought to go home this weekend.' Tara sighed. 'Mum was on the phone last night and she had that tone in her voice.'

  'The "you've forgotten all about me" tone?' Angie winced in sympathy.

  Tara nodded.

  'I get that all the time, and I've got a darned sight less excuse not going to visit than you. Somerset's such a long way.' Angie held on to the heap of dresses while Tara put them on the rail.

  'I love it when I get there,' Tara said thoughtfully. 'Mum always gives me such good ideas, Gran feeds me up and makes a fuss of me. But I always feel I've disappointed them somehow.'

  'Because you're still in Bethnal Green?'

  'Yeah. They worry I'm going to get corrupted.'

  Tara hadn't revealed her past even to Angie. Mostly she'd put it so far behind her she believed Anne Mac-Donald and all that went with her was just a dream. But sometimes, when she let slip about some of Harry's friends, she saw her mother's lips tighten and her eyes cloud with anxiety. Gran was even worse; not only was she convinced Harry was becoming a gangster, but she implied Josh was some kind of Jewish white slaver.

  'How's your mum's romance with the doctor going?' Angie asked.

  'Hotting up, I think.' Tara's eyes danced. She
liked Greg, he was kind, funny and so good for her mother. In every phone-call home she asked her mother about him, hoping there'd be news of an engagement. 'She told me he took her to the theatre last Saturday, and supper in a posh restaurant in Bath. I suspect they're having it off now, though how they get around to it with Gran watching like a hawk I'll never know.'

  'Maybe they'll get married soon. That'll take the heat off you.' Angie put the last few dresses on the rail and stretched her arms. 'My God, it's hot in here. No wonder it's so quiet.'

  'How's things?' Josh's voice behind made them both turn.

  'Not too bad,' Tara said. 'But like last year and the one before we're running out of summer clothes.'

  'Any bright ideas?' Josh asked, ringing up a reading on the till. He smiled when he saw they'd taken two hundred pounds. One would have pleased him.

  'What about that white broderie anglaise you've got upstairs? A sweetheart neckline, thin straps, maybe button-through?' Tara suggested.

  She had made a sketch, but she didn't bother to show it to him as he took her description on trust now.

  'Make one up.' He nodded. 'Can you do it tonight? I've got a new manufacturer lined up. I'm going there tomorrow morning.'

  'Well, I was going out.' She frowned, wondering whether she really liked David Gates enough to bother. He was another Cockney spiv who tried hard to be like Harry, but somehow missed out on the warmth and entertainment factor. 'But I could put it off.'

  'I'd appreciate it,' Josh said. 'Go at five today. Angie can handle the last-minute stragglers.'

  Josh went back to his office and sat down. He was no longer surprised by Tara's drive. He expected the sample the next morning because she never let him down. She seemed to have her finger right on the pulse of what the under twenty-fives would buy.

  She was a dream employee, and hardly a day passed without him being afraid someone would poach her. To think he'd almost fired her when he found out her connection with Harry Collins!

  She'd been with him for four months and in that time she'd designed six or seven garments that were all sell-outs, including a classic velvet jacket which he still kept in stock. She was happy with her tiny percentage and samples, his customers were delighted and Josh was rubbing his hands in glee at the effortless profit he was making.

  Tara said little about her home life. Occasionally she'd mention the farm, her gran and widowed mother. When she confided in him that they wanted her back at school in September he wrote them a letter to confirm that he wanted to keep her on permanently, and praised her to the skies.

  Her aunt and uncle she spoke of more often, but the names Queenie and George didn't ring any warning bells. If she had ever spoken of Harry, he didn't remember.

  One evening in early December it was belting down with rain and Harry Collins ran into the shop with a coat over his head, just on closing time. Tara was out in the stockroom and he was alone in the shop, so there was nothing to warn him of their connection.

  'Long time no see, Josh.' Harry grinned, slung the coat over a stool and held out his hand.

  They were the same age, born within streets of one another, and until the Bergmans moved up in the world they had been playmates. Harry had once broken another boy's nose for calling Josh a dustbin, the Cockney rhyming slang for yid, and forcing him to pull down his trousers to show his lack of foreskin. They were six years old, and Josh idolised Harry from then on, not just for being tough but for his compassion for a weak Jewish kid.

  'Harry Collins!' Josh came round the counter and gave him a slap on the shoulder. 'How the hell are you?'

  Even though Josh moved in a different circle now, he kept his finger in local affairs. Everyone had a great deal of respect for Harry, he was tough, shrewd and fair, but he could be a nasty bastard when someone upset him. Josh had seen him fighting often enough to know few men would get up and walk away after Harry had set about them. Then there were the girls! Harry had to be doing something right, because girls hung around him like wasps in a pub garden.

  'Nice to see you doing well, Josh.' Harry's smile was sweet sincerity.

  They made a few jokes about the past, about girls they both knew, then Josh made his boastful blunder.

  'You should see the little darling I've got tucked away, Harry. A dream walking, and she's making me a mint.'

  'I didn't know you went in for pimping.' Harry grinned.

  'No, nothing like that.' Josh swaggered a little because he saw he had the man's full attention. 'She designs clothes for me and I hardly pay a penny for it. Since she joined me I reckon I've made hundreds in clear profit from her.'

  The next moment Harry had him pinned against the wall, holding him by his throat.

  'That little darling is our Tara,' he spat into Josh's face, blue eyes turning almost black. 'You thieving bastard!'

  'Your Tara?' Josh croaked. He knew Harry was an only child like himself, and he didn't remember a cousin or other close relative.

  'You got it.' Harry's mouth was a thin angry line and Josh thought he was going to kill him. 'It's bad enough gettin' a kid to spend all her spare time making frocks for you, but when you don't bleedin' pay 'er properly and boast about it behind 'er back, that's fuckin' disgustin'.'

  'I'm sorry, mate,' Josh stammered out as best he could with a hand at his throat. 'If I'd known who she was ...'

  'You shouldn't treat any girl like that,' Harry thundered. 'You bloody yids are all the same, sell yer own grandmother for tuppence. But I'm marking your card now, Josh. Pay her what she's due, or else.'

  He let go of Josh suddenly as Tara came bounding into the shop from the stockroom with an armful of dresses.

  'Hullo, Harry. What brought – ' She stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly aware she had interrupted something. She looked from one to the other, her eyes narrowing as Josh rubbed his throat.

  'What's going on?'

  'Nothing, sweetheart.' Harry smirked. 'Just been havin' a chat about how late at night you work. Josh was saying he was goin' to give you a bonus, weren't you, Josh?'

  'Er, yes.' Josh gulped hard. 'We'll have to work out some commission or something.'

  'That will be nice.' Tara still looked anxious.

  'It certainly will.' Harry picked up his coat from the stool and waved his car keys. 'Come on, now, it's tippin' down outside. I'll be in touch, Josh. Good to see you again.'

  That night he'd made up his mind to sack her. He didn't want Harry on his back or poking around in his affairs. But reason got the better of him in the small hours. He weighed up the money Tara had made him, and the money she'd continue to make him, and decided that a slightly higher commission on every garment she designed and a rise in salary wouldn't break him.

  But it rankled. It cramped his style knowing Harry was watching him. At Christmas he might have been able to seduce her when she'd had too much to drink. He was frightened to ask her out, even to kiss her under the mistletoe in case it got reported back. He made up his mind he would get his own back one day.

  The trouble was everything about Tara was desirable. He could sense she shared the same hunger as himself for money and position, a sure sign of a childhood pitted with deprivation. But her cool front excited him more than anything. She didn't giggle with the other girls about men, he'd never seen her flirting. Yet this wasn't the timidity of a virgin; rather a girl that knew about men and was biding her time until she met someone special.

  One day all the care and attention he'd paid her would pay off. He intended to have her.

  'You look pleased with yourself,' Angie said as Josh came into the shop a few days later. He practically bounced through the door, flashing a brilliant smile at the customers.

  'I am,' he said, and swept through the shop up to his office.

  'I wonder what's got into him?' Angie asked Tara.

  'He had his dark suit on,' Tara mused. 'And his briefcase. Maybe he's done some deal?'

  The phone in the shop pinged a few minutes later, which always meant he wanted someone to
go up.

  'I'll go,' Tara said. 'I expect it's about a design, anyway.'

  Josh was sitting in his chair when she reached the office, his feet up on the desk, looking smug.

  'I've got a new shop,' he said. 'I want to discuss it with you, but not here and now. How about coming out with me for a drink after work?'

  Tara's heart leaped. This could be the opportunity to get what she wanted.

  'OK.' She looked down at her dress, considering the image she needed to portray. 'I'll have to nip home first to change and leave a message.'

  'Don't mention this to Angie.' Josh's brown eyes flashed a warning. 'You can leave half an hour early. I'll use that time to tell her everything.'

  Tara wasn't sure if it was the drink part he didn't want getting out, or all of it. Something told her not to ask.

  'All right,' she said. 'What shall I say you wanted me for?'

  'To look at some trimmings.' He put his feet back on the floor. 'Off you go. I've got a lot of phone calls to make. I'll pick you up outside the library at six.'

  Josh smirked with delight. Everything was coming together. Two days ago he'd seen the perfect shop in Kensington Church Street; today he'd got the finance from a merchant bank. But best of all was the whisper he'd heard last night.

  Harry Collins was in trouble. He didn't know the details yet, but his source had said it was serious stuff, some blag that had gone wrong. When whispers like mat were going around it meant the police wouldn't be far behind. Soon he'd be able to make a move on Tara.

  Planning seduction was so pleasurable, like a snake luring a rat into its mouth. Tonight he'd just leave the bait and, if he was right about that ambitious little girl, she'd snatch it right up.

  Josh waited until Tara had left the shop, then went downstairs, closed and locked the door.

  'It's only five,' Angie reminded him.

  She was wearing a short, tight red skirt, a clingy black blouse and very high heels. As always her makeup was a touch overdone, especially the false eyelashes, but her blonde curly hair gleamed as a spotlight caught it.