Rock a Bye Baby Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Growing up in a small seaside town, Marcie Brooks dreams of owning a Mary Quant mini-skirt, the Beatles, and escape. Instead she’s stuck in a dead-end job selling candy floss to tourists and with a crazy family. Her grandmother sees ghosts, her step-mother is unable to control her growing family and Marcie’s father is usually in and out of prison or away ‘working’ for East End gangsters.

  Despite it all, Marcie adores her father, but Tony’s light fingers and hard man reputation mean most people give the Brooks family a wide birth. Sometimes Marcie wishes she had a respectable dad like her friend Rita; well-groomed, wealthy by local standards and surprisingly attentive to a teenage girl. But when she discovers Tony may have had something to do with her real mother’s death, Marcie finds her friend’s father is more than just a shoulder to cry on ...

  Mia Dolan’s debut novel is a gripping family saga that combines true to life characters with realistic drama and a ’60s setting.

  About the Author

  Mia Dolan is the star of ITV’s Haunted Homes and the bestselling author of The Gift, Mia’s World, and Haunted Homes. Her work spans from live shows in front of hundreds of people to helping the police. She also runs a psychic school which helps others develop their own gifts. In 2007, Mia also won the paranormal celebrity edition of The Weakest Link.

  Rock a Bye Baby is her first novel and is set largely on the Isle of Sheppey where Mia grew up and still lives.

  Rock a Bye Baby

  Mia Dolan

  For my mum, Pat Dolan.

  My hero, my rock, my best friend.

  Chapter One

  1965

  The woman in the cockle booth sniffed a pinch of snuff from the back of her hand. Once the small tin was tucked away, she turned back to face the promenade. ‘Get yer cockles ’ere,’ she bellowed. Pulling up a corner of the sack she wore as an apron, she swiped dismissively at a few stray specks beneath her nostril.

  Marcie sat with her legs bunched beneath her, her back against the warmth of the old stone wall. She was staring at the cockle woman and wondering, but not about buying cockles – that was the last thing she’d want to do. She was wondering about how the woman had got to being what she was – fat, old, not caring too much about standards. So how had she come to be like that? A deeper thought hovered behind that one: would she herself end up like this woman? She shivered at the harrowing vision. No one wanted to end up like that.

  The pungent aroma of malt vinegar and hot food wafted up Marcie’s nostrils.

  ‘Chips!’ Rita was back. ‘Yum, yum.’

  Marcie made her self comfortable against the stone wall separating the beach from the promenade and opened up her packet of sandwiches.

  Rita slumped down beside her.

  Rita licked the Rimmel Pan Stick from her lips and popped a chip in her mouth. She pulled a face. ‘Hmm. Needs a little something extra. Think I’ll get myself some cockles.’ She got to her feet. ‘Coming?’

  Marcie made a face. ‘I can’t stand cockles. They look like fishes’ eyes.’

  ‘Aw, come on. Keep me company. You don’t have to buy any yourself.’

  Rita didn’t like doing anything by herself. Bloody nuisance at times. But they were best mates, so Marcie did as requested. Holding on to the hem of her skirt, she got up as elegantly as she could. Her mini skirt was mid thigh and if she wasn’t careful everyone would be treated to a glimpse of white knickers. As it was, she only flashed her stocking tops and a glimpse of suspenders. Just as well. One of her suspenders was missing a button and a farthing was doing the honours.

  Rita was trying to cadge a few more cockles.

  ‘Come on, Gran. Be generous.’

  The woman screwed up her eyes and placed hands as speckled as hens’ eggs on the counter.

  ‘Cheeky bugger. You’ll ’ave what you get. An’ don’t call me Gran. I’m not your bloody Gran.’

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ said Rita with a cheeky grin.

  ‘You’re Rita Taylor,’ said the old girl.

  ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Rita giggled, giving Marcie a nudge. ‘I’m famous. What do you think of that then?’

  ‘I knew your mother. Used to go up town a lot during the war. Famous for doing war work she was.’

  Rita ignored the toothless grin and didn’t catch on to what the old girl was saying – really saying.

  ‘What about me? Know my name as well?’ said Marcie, determined not to be outdone and nudging Rita as hard as she’d been nudged.

  The woman’s toothless smile faltered. ‘Oh, aye. That I do. I know yer grandmother. Who don’t know Rosa Brooks? Famous she is. Knew your mother too, though she’s famous for a different reason.’

  Marcie swallowed. The woman’s comment made her feel uncomfortable. Her mother had disappeared somewhere around Marcie’s fifth birthday. She hadn’t heard from her since, and her grandmother had made it clear that her mother’s name was never to be mentioned. Not questioning why and not saying had become a habit. Her grandmother’s words, still flavoured with her Maltese origins, echoed in her brain.

  ‘Gone away with a man. Left me and your father to look after you. Not a good mother to go away and leave her child. Wrong! Very wrong!’

  Oh yes, her grandmother was famous alright.

  Thank God for friends, Marcie thought to herself.

  Rita bubbled like a hot stew on a gas ring. At this moment in time her best and oldest friend had got the old girl to pour the cockles over her chips and added generous splashes of vinegar.

  Marcie pretended to vomit. ‘Christ, Rita. Don’t know how you could.’

  ‘Cockles are lovely.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like them. I think they’re disgusting!’

  ‘Fab,’ said Rita between salty mouthfuls. ‘Here,’ she said, lowering her voice while her eyes slid sidelong to the cockle seller. ‘What was that she was on about? Her reckoning she knew your mother. Must have been a while ago. You
r mother’s been gone for a long time, ain’t she?’

  ‘Yeah. A long time.’

  ‘So you don’t remember what she was like?’

  Marcie shook her head and turned her face to the breeze sweeping in from the Thames Estuary. She didn’t want Rita to see her face just in case she guessed she was lying. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d never heard from her mother in ten years or more. She might be dead. On the other hand she might be alive and living the life of Riley.

  Rita glanced at her watch.

  ‘Bloody hell! Late again.’

  Marcie finished her sandwich, screwed up the brown paper bag her lunch had been wrapped in and tossed it into a bin. Determined to eat every chip and every cockle, Rita re-wrapped hers. ‘I’ll eat it this afternoon. Not wasting good food for nobody.’

  Not long out of school, both girls had been taken on selling rock and candy floss in adjoining booths on the edge of the beach at Leysdown. Out of sight in their clapperboard booths, they chatted all afternoon or sang snatches of the latest pop songs.

  Marcie had acquired a transistor radio – a present from her father sent via a friend of a friend. At first she’d tuned into Radio Luxembourg, but that didn’t come on air until after six. It was only since the arrival last year of the pirate radio station Radio Caroline that they’d had daytime pop songs.

  Since the advent of a radio channel that understood the tastes of the younger generation, Marcie had got into the habit of bringing the transistor into work. All in all work wasn’t turning out so bad. On a warm day it was pleasant. On a bad day – depending on wind direction – she got soaked through.

  They finished at six.

  Rita burst into song. ‘Hi ho, hi ho …’ She always sang the tune from Snow White at this time of the day.

  Marcie interrupted her. ‘Coming for a coffee later?’

  The off-key singing came to a halt. Rita winked. ‘Now which café would we be going to?’

  Marcie was good at hiding a guilty expression – she’d had years of practice living with her grandmother.

  ‘I fancy the Lucky Seven.’

  Rita chortled. ‘I know what you fancy, and coffee and a bottle of coke got nothing to do with it! Leather jacket and tight denim jeans that shows all a bloke’s got – that’s what you got in mind. Your gran going to let you out?’

  Marcie grinned in a meaningful fashion that Rita knew well. ‘If she says no, I’m going to bed early.’

  ‘Out the window and down the drainpipe, you mean.’ They both laughed.

  A girl they knew from school waved to them from the pavement. She was pushing a pram.

  Marcie waved back. ‘Hello, Nancy.’

  Rita mutely waved. ‘Crikey. Look at her. Dropped a kid the minute she got out of school.’

  ‘She’s married now, though,’ said Marcie who liked Nancy and felt sorry for her. ‘She married Gary Champion. Her dad gave him a hiding to make sure he did the right thing. Couldn’t have a bastard in the family, he said.’

  ‘Gary Champion? I don’t know him,’ said Rita. She frowned as she said it. Rita liked to think that she knew everybody.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to know him. I saw Nancy close up the other day. She had a massive bruise on her arm, all purple in the middle and yellow around the edges. According to Nancy he drinks a lot more since they got married. He works on the docks. Mind you, she reckoned she was used to it. Her dad used to hit her about anyway. Half the time he mistook her for her mother. Swine!’

  ‘Glad he’s not my dad,’ said Rita.

  ‘Glad he’s not mine,’ Marcie echoed.

  Hearing what Nancy’s dad was like made her feel grateful that hers was away in London. Every once in a while he sent her a present. Therefore he must care about her, though he’d never actually gone out of his way to show affection. Things would have been really great if he hadn’t married Barbara.

  If it hadn’t been for Barbara with her peroxide hair and her Bridget Bardot lips, she would have been an only child. Barbara had presented Tony Brooks with two sons, two brothers that Marcie would have preferred not to have, and a baby daughter, Annie. All the same, her dad was still a gent compared with Fred Tucker, Nancy’s old man.

  ‘My dad’s not like that,’ said Rita with a tinge of pride in her voice. ‘He’s a diamond, my dad.’

  It was nothing but the truth. Alan Taylor was well off, let her do anything she liked and bought her anything she wanted. Rita probably didn’t need to work but for some reason her dad had thought it would be good for her. Though he would have liked her to have a better job than she did and to have done better at school, but as long as she was happy that was alright by him. Rita’s dad owned businesses, and they lived in a nice bungalow with a garage and a gravel drive. He was also a mate of Marcie’s dad. But Marcie couldn’t let her dad be outdone.

  ‘My dad’s great too. I can’t fault him.’

  ‘That’s because he’s never home. You’d find a difference then,’ Rita pointed out.

  Marcie felt her face turning hot. ‘Well, he can’t help having to work in London. That’s where the money is. He does a lot of work up there. That’s how come he’s able to send me nice things.’ Using just one finger, she swung the transistor radio on its pink leather carrying strap. ‘I mean, wouldn’t send me presents like this if he was anything else, would he?’

  Rita gave a quick nod that could be interpreted as acquiescence. If that was what Marcie believed, it was fine by her. But Sheerness was a small place. The Isle of Sheppey itself was a small place. Word got round, and the word Rita had heard was that her best mate’s old man was in Wandsworth, London – the prison. But she wouldn’t voice what she’d heard was the truth and upset her best pal. Best friends don’t do that. Not unless they fell out, then she’d probably tell all and sundry. If they didn’t know already.

  Back in the booth and halfway through the afternoon, Rita spread out her newspaper-wrapped chips and swiftly ate the lot.

  ‘All gone,’ she said, licking her lips and wiping her greasy fingers down her generous thighs.

  The chips were wrapped in two sheets from an upmarket daily. Rita threw the crumpled up top piece into the bin. Marcie began reading the sheet that was left.

  ‘Shame Nancy Tucker didn’t read this,’ said Marcie.

  Rita glanced over her shoulder. ‘What’s that then?’

  Marcie pointed at the headline. ‘Government Votes on Abortion’. Rita not being much for reading anything, Marcie contracted the subject matter for her benefit.

  ‘They’d already voted but were asked to think again. If it passes it’ll mean if you get knocked up and don’t want to marry the bloke, you can get rid of it legally.’

  ‘That’s handy,’ said Rita blithely.

  Marcie frowned. ‘That depends.’

  Rita shrugged. ‘On what?’

  Sometimes Rita was great fun to be with. At other times her shallow attitude to serious matters made Marcie wonder whether they should be friends at all.

  ‘It’s a baby, Rita. A human being. It can’t be that easy.’

  ‘Well, I would if I had to. And so would you.’

  The sheet of newspaper was suddenly taken off by a breeze and sent tumbling and fluttering along the beach.

  A young couple with four small children came to the booth to buy penny shrimps made from sickly pink rock. Four excited faces turned upwards to choose their wares and hand over their pennies.

  ‘Looks as though you’ve got your hands full,’ Marcie said to their parents, who looked to be still in their twenties. It was obvious from their appearance that they didn’t have much money.

  Mum and Dad smiled. Mum shook her head. ‘At times it’s hard to make ends meet, but there, I wouldn’t be without them. Not for all the world.’

  Chapter Two

  Marcie pushed open the front door of the small terraced cottage she shared with the rest of her family. The Brooks family consisted of Gran, her stepmother Barbara, called Babs, half-brothers Arc
hie and Arnold, and baby half-sister Annie. Dad didn’t really count because he was seldom there, ‘working’ in London for a stretch at a time.

  The door bounced back against the mass of coats hanging from hooks in the tiny hallway. The smell of her grandmother’s version of shepherd’s pie wafted out from the kitchen. Gran’s shepherd’s pie was a little spicier than the English version thanks to the addition of tomato sauce and chopped herbs that she grew in a pot outside the kitchen door.

  Her gran’s voice sounded from the kitchen. ‘That you, Marcie?’

  Of course it bloody well was. Who else was it likely to be? But she answered yes anyway, and certainly didn’t swear. Most people minded their language in front of Gran. They wouldn’t dare otherwise.

  ‘Get our Archie from out the back yard, would you, love?’ Babs’s voice, throaty with smoking, wheedled with just the right hint of menace. Marcie gritted her teeth.

  Her dad had taken up with Barbara – Babs – only a few months after her mother had gone off. Babs had presented him with three kids – Archie was the eldest, nine years old and a right chip off the old block; Arnold was a year younger.

  There was a larger gap between the birth of the boys and that of baby Annie. Tony Brooks had been away for quite a while and had been absent again between Annie’s conception and her birth. He’d only seen her once since she was born when Babs had gone on a prison visit.

  Marcie went out into the kitchen. An old black range squatted like a fat spider in the fireplace. Two armchairs were placed either side of the fireplace and a dark-green dresser ran the length of one wall. The middle of the room was occupied by a scrubbed pine table and six mismatched chairs.

  Gran was smothered in richly smelling steam rising from cabbage, carrots and the giant dish of pie she’d just fetched out of the oven. She looked over her shoulder.

  ‘Wash your hands, Marcie. Your supper’s nearly ready.’

  Babs was sitting at the table smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine – True Romance. She had bleached blonde hair lacquered into a French pleat at the back of her head. Two kiss curls, stiff with hair lacquer, appeared glued to her cheeks. Her fringe was a series of equally stiff curls hanging like dead caterpillars on her forehead. She seldom offered to help her mother-in-law with getting any meal ready.