Eddie and Dave. Ch 3.

Chapter 3

East London. 1973.

Seven years later, Eddie and his girlfriend, Anne, walked into the crowded bar of The Two Puddings in Stratford. They had arrived in a demolition company's works Mini Van and as usual Anne was not happy with their mode of transport. Despite telling her he would buy a car he didn't seem at all interested in getting one. This was the main bone of contention in their close loving relationship.

         Eddie's workmate, Dave, was already in there and although the place was packed with young people, he spotted them straight away and began to make his way over to meet them. He waved to Anne and she waved back before turning to Eddie.

         "Look," Anne said. "We're in luck, here's your mate Demo Dave." She paused as if pondering on something. "Why is it they call him Demo Dave, but they don't call you Demo Eddie?"

         "Because he's a prick."

         Anne gave a feeble push on his shoulder. "Oy, that's not nice, is it," she said but gave a laugh.

         Dave struggled through the crowd and as he reached the couple he put an arm around Anne's shoulders causing a bit of noticeable resentment from Eddie. "Hello, still looking after the girl of my dreams?" he said.

         "Yeah, something like that," Eddie said.

         "I thought you would be working at the restaurant tonight, Anne?" Dave said.

         "No, Dave, we don't have to do many Saturdays. Toni's girls are students and they work weekends to earn some cash."

         "You should complain," Dave said. "Taking your jobs."

         "And why would I want to work on a Saturday night, Dave?" She looked at Eddie. "Go on, ask him then,"

         "You ask him. It was your idea," Eddie said,

         "Ask me what?" Dave said.

         Anne smiled at him. "We want to borrow your car."

         "Having a laugh, ain't ya?" Dave moved his arm from Anne's shoulders as the friendly grin left his face. "Anyway, Lesley is meeting me here later and she might want to go to The Lacy Lady disco'."

         "Or she might not," Anne said. "Who would of thought that the tomboy, Scouse Les, would turn into the lovely, Lesley."

         "Like a chrysalis tuning into a beautiful butterfly, " Eddie said.

         "How romantic, Eddie," Anne said. "It's almost poetic. Anyway, Dave, you can take the Mini Van to the Lacy Lady, it's parked outside."

         "I don't think I will, Anne."

         "Oh, come on, Dave, do us this little favour, just for me." She linked her fingers behind his neck and nestled her head on his shoulder. "Umm, Brut," she said, almost overcome by Dave's excessive use of his aftershave, but pretending to be captivated.

         "Sounds about right," Eddie said, not happy about Anne's familiarity with his friend, and feeling that over the weeks their flirting was getting steadily more outrageous.

         Dave laughed. "Hark at him, mister Old Spice Burley."

         "Nothing wrong with that," Eddie said.

         "Come on, Dave." Anne nibbled teasingly on Dave's earlobe while breathing heavily into his ear. She only did it for a few seconds, just long enough to send his pulse rate haywire. "I know deep down you secretly love me." As she whispered the words one of her hands gently rubbed on the nape of his neck.

         "What do you want the car for anyway?" Dave said. The smile returning to his face as he was noticeably delighted by her attention.

         "We're going over The Apollo for a romantic meal."

         "Sounds nice; I might come with you."

         "No, Dave," Eddie said. "A romantic meal is for two people, not three.

         "I suppose you're right." He looked directly into Anne's eyes. "Another time then, maybe."

         "And you said you are meeting Lesley in here later," Anne said.

         "She might not turn up," Dave said.

         "And why wouldn't she turn up?" Anne said.

         "I tried it on with her in the back of the car last night. She was not best pleased but I think I smoothed it over."

         "Maybe she's just waiting for the right man to come along, Dave," Eddie said," and it's obviously not you."

         Dave chose to ignore Eddie's comment and he looked back at Anne. "Anyway, you can walk from here; it's only down the road."

         She glanced back at him, flashing her mascara-laden lashes. "Oh, Dave, you can't let me walk all the way over there with these heels on and we'll look a right pair of prats turning up in the Mini Van, won't we? Come on, Dave, please, please, pleeeease. You are our special friend and I promise I'll make it up to you one way or the other." She spoke softly while drawing her hand slowly up and down the inside of his thigh.

         "Hold on a minute, Anne, aren't we going a bit over the top now?" Eddie said.

         Dave and Anne were gazing at each other and taking no notice of Eddie as if he were not there. "All right," Dave said. "But only for tonight and I'll meet you and Eddie in The Jug House tomorrow lunch and swap back. I don't want to be stuck with the van all weekend."

         "You're a right diamond, Dave, you really are. I won't forget this." She reached across and kissed him fully on his lips.

         Dave looked as if he were in heaven, but Eddie was getting noticeably angrier. "Will you bloody well turn it in, Anne," Eddie said.

         She grinned. "Wow, you're not jealous are you, Eddie? " she said, but moved away from Dave leaving a huge grin on his face.

         Dave swapped keys with Eddie and looked across to the crowded bar. "Who's going for the drinks then?" he said, hoping that Eddie would volunteer leaving him alone with Anne for a while.

         "We don't want a drink we're going now," Anne said.

         "What?" both men said together.

         "He don't want a lot to drink if he's driving your car, does he, what with them breathalyser thingy's going on? Anyway, I'm right hungry. Come on let's get going."

         "Be seeing you then," Eddie said and gave a laugh before they walked off leaving Dave looking slightly cheated.

         They got into Dave's car and Eddie turned to Anne. "I didn't know you wanted to go for a steak tonight," he said.

         "I'm hungry, Eddie, but not for food. Sod the steakhouse, let's get over to our secret place in Millwall near The Ferry Inn."

         Eddie looked at her and laughed. "I don't know, Anne, all that bull about the steakhouse. Sometimes you're like a bitch on heat."

         Anne howled like a baying wolf. "We haven't had it off for ages, have we? And I feel so frustrated I could rip your clothes off right now. So, to Millwall driver, and don't spare the horses."

         "Maybe you should change your name to Lady, or Sheba or something?"

         "Just shut up, Rover, and drive."

* * * * *

         Eddie met Dave at the Jug House Bar Sunday lunchtime as planned.

         “So, did you get it last night?” Dave asked.

         “Get what. What do you mean?”

         “The steak, only I didn’t see my car outside the restaurant when I went past.”

         “Oh yeah, we decided to go for a meal at The Londoner instead. But how did you get on with Lesley?” Eddie asked, eager to change the subject.

         “She didn’t turn up.”

         Eddie didn’t comment. He took a drink and looked around the bar. He was not surprised that Lesley had not met with Dave. Since she had taken on her serious feminine role all those year ago she became very popular with the local lads and many tried to become her boyfriend. He had to admit, she was something special. It was a surprise to him when he saw her smiling at him from the other end of the barroom. He smiled back and gave a wave. She waved back before turning back to the man she was with. Eddie turned to Dave. “There’s Lesley over there.”

         Dave looked over. “What’s she doing with him. She told me she had finished with him.”

         Lesley walked over to them as her companion left the bar. “Hello, Eddie, “ she said. “It’s good to see you again. How is Anne?”

         “She’s okay. Keeps asking if I have seen you and she will be sorry that she didn’t come with me today so she has missed you.”

         Dave seemed to be a bit disappointed that she spoke to Eddie first and not to him. “I thought you had finished with him,” he said, referring to her companion.

         “I have, but he keeps pestering me.”

         “Well, Lesley I'm sorry about the other night. Maybe I can take you out for a nice meal and make it up to you.”

         “I’d like that,” she said. “Tomorrow night is good for me.”

         “That’s settled then,” Dave said.

         “Well, I have things to do so I’ll have to leave you two. I’ll see you in here about seven tomorrow night, Dave.” They said their goodbyes and Lesley left the bar.

         "I knew she couldn’t refuse me, Eddie. We go back a long way.”

         “Yeah, but she has come a long way since her Scouse Les days. Don’t you think you might be punching above your weight now?”

         “What do you mean?”

         “Well, it’s like she is a peach and you are a potato.”

         Although Dave gave a laugh, he was not happy with the remark and he changed the subject.

         “So, it’s Joy’s party on Friday,” Dave said. “Will Anne let you go on your own?”

         “She knows I go out Friday nights with the lads.”

         “But does she know you’re going to a party afterwards?”

         “Not unless someone tells her.”

         "Should be okay then,” Dave said.



         The next day Dave met Lesley in the Jug House and they spent the night reliving the adventures of their younger days. The trip to the steak house was not mentioned and the time soon passed. Dave took Lesley home in his car and they sat in the car outside her house.

         “We never did kiss when we were young, did we,” Dave said.

         “No, but it didn’t seem to matter at the time.”

         “We did show each other our private parts in the camp once, though.”

         “We were kids and that was just a bit of fun. A sort of exploration and nothing serious. You should keep that to yourself, or even forget it altogether.”

         “How can I?” Dave said. “He reached over to kiss her.”

         Lesley responded until he put his hand on her right breast. “You can pack that in, Dave. I told you last time”

         “Spoilsport,” he said and began to kiss her again but then he tried to get his hand up under her skirt.

         “All right, that’s enough,” she said.

         “What’s up, there nothing up there that I haven’t seen and touched before when we were kids.”

         Lesley shoved him hard across the car and got out. “This could have been a good date, Dave, but you have ruined it. Don’t you ever ask me out again,” she said and walked off.

* * * * *

         Tuesday evening, Anne finished work and had to rush to get dressed up ready to meet Eddie. He was always punctual and he pulled up outside her house dead on seven o'clock in his firm's Mini Van. Anne walked out of her house and looked into the van. "I think you must wait around the corner till it's time to pick me up."

         "Can't keep a good girl waiting."

         She struggled to get into the van avoiding a pair of boots and a fireman's axe on the floor. "Nothing wrong with getting here a few minutes early though and coming in to wait for me, is there? Save me rushing about as if I had to catch a train or something." She turned and looked in the back of the van as Eddie pulled away. There was a heap of tools: shovels, mattocks, sledgehammers and brooms. At the back was a pile of burnt copper wire filling the van with the smell of the burnt plastic. She turned to the front again and looked at the axe and working boots on the floor. "And why didn't you throw that crap in the back with the rest?"

         "Sorry, I forgot," he said and he made an attempt to move the items, but she pushed him away.

         "Too bloody late now. Just drive, we don't want a crash in this heap, do we. I'd get speared to death by all the flying tools."

         He smiled at her, but it was clear Anne was not in the best of moods.

         "So, are you going out again on Friday, or not?" she said.

         "Why do we have to go through all this again? You know I go out with the lads every Friday night; always have done and always will do."

         "Well, what's good for the goose is good for the, for the duck."

         "Nearly right."

         "No, it's not nearly right, Eddie. It bloody well is right." Eddie looked at her and laughed. "It's not funny, if you're gonna carry on going out with your mates on Friday nights then I'm gonna start going to the Ilford Palais with the girls on Thursday nights."

         "I've never said you couldn't, have I?"

         "So Thursday and Friday is sorted, Monday and Wednesday you're at the bloody karate club, sometimes I work on Saturday nights, and Sunday I have to go up The Prince Alfred with my family. That leaves us with Tuesday. Hardly a steady relationship is it, Eddie?"

         "We both know you hardly ever work Saturdays, and you often work Friday nights anyway. Sundays, you're twenty-one now, why do you still have to spend Sunday nights with your parents?"

         "Because I bloody well want to, all right. You could make an effort and come with me more often, and you know it's always a good night in there on Sundays?"

         "They don't like me."

         "Don't be so bloody stupid."

         "I'm not being stupid. Everything I do they criticise. Everything I've done, they've done better."

         Anne moved her feet forward and caught her tights on the spike of the fireman's axe. "Shit, what the hell's that doing there anyway?"

         "Dave left it there when I dropped him off from work."

         "Yeah, Dave. He's driving about in a Hillman Hunter, so why are you still using the works' Mini Van? I feel like one of the bloody Beverley Hillbillies when we pull up at The Jug House.

         "While I've got the firm's van I can save up. Tax and insurance is paid and I even get money for petrol."

         "And I get covered in crap. It's like a tip in here."

         "Well, it is a demolition company van." Eddie screeched the gears and then crunched a gear change.

         "We won't be going anywhere if you blow up the bloody gearbox. I don't suppose you go out on Fridays in this, do you? Ponced up and posing in Dave's Hunter." Anne looked down at her strappy sandals. "Bollocks, Dave's chopper thingy has made a great hole in my tights. I'll have to take them off. Good job I did my toenails."

         "I don't know why you don't wear those boots you, had to have, when we went down the Roman Road market, or the shoes for that matter."

         "They're platforms. I don't like wearing platforms much."

         "Well, why the hell did we buy them?"

         "Oh, don't be so stupid, Eddie. They're in fashion, ain't they?"

         "I'm blowed if I know where the logic to that is."

         Anne pulled at the hole in her tights. "I've got to get these off."

         Eddie grinned. "I'll pull in somewhere, and then I'll give you a hand to get them off."

         "Forget it, we're not getting up to anything in this heap. I'm not a contortionist you know. If you'd have borrowed Dave's car again it would have been different." She put her hands up under her skirt while leaning back and raising her pelvis as she tried to roll down her tights. "Monica saw us the other night getting out the van near The Two Puddings. She said she bloody rolled up."

         "Who's Monica?"

         "She's a mate from work. She does karate you know like you do."

         "Does she, what style?"

         "How should I know? Kicking and chopping and breaking sticks the same as you do I suppose." Anne was still struggling to get out of her tights in the confines of the van. "Stop grinning you prat and watch where you're going."

         Eddie looked away still grinning. "It's good for girls to learn to defend themselves. I don't know why you don't join our club."

         "No thanks. Anyway, It's good for boys to learn to defend themselves as well. Like you joined a karate club not long after Mr Lambretta beat you up."

         "Don't remind me. I've had better days."

         "Monica does need the tuition though. She's being pestered, you know. A right nutter apparently." Anne put her strappy sandals back on and threw her tights into the back of the van. She suddenly reached back, retrieved them, rolled them up, and put them into her handbag. "Don't want Demo Dave perving over them in the morning, do I?" Eddie started laughing; Anne looked at him straight-faced, but then she began laughing with him. "I can just picture him with them wrapped around his face." She had trouble getting the words out as her laughter interrupted her speech. "Like a cowboy's mask."

         "He's more likely to wear them over his head," Eddie said.

         Anne's laughter was almost bringing her to tears as she pulled her legs together and crossed her hands below her stomach. "Shut up, Eddie, shut up before I bloody wet myself."

         They were soon pulling up near The Jug House and Anne turned and looked into the back of the van again. "Look, full of crap, we can't even go over Millwall later for a bit of the other. It's a shit-heap."

         "I'll tell you what, on Sunday night we'll call in The Regent for a couple, then…"

         "No, Eddie, what have I just been saying? If you want to go out with me on Sunday it'll have to be The Alfred."

         "No, listen, will you? A couple in The Regent and by that time all your family will be over The Alfred. Then we can call at your house and if the brat's at home I'll bung her a quid to piss off somewhere."

         "Oy, don't call my sister a brat."

         "Well, what would you call her?"

         "Vicki, that's her name and that's what you'll bloody well call her. Even if she is a brat."

         "All right. If Vicki's at home, I'll bung her a quid to piss off, then we can spend a bit of time alone up in your bedroom, and we'll still get over the Alfred for an hour or two with your parents. What do you say?" He had a huge grin across his face as he winked at her.

         She smiled back at him. "Sounds all right to me, I suppose. We haven't done it in a proper bed since your folks went away and that was months ago. Do you remember that night?" She gave a laugh as she stared at him. "You bloody super-stud you."

         "How could I forget? My bed was soaking wet with the sweat running off us and I nearly phoned for an ambulance; I thought you were having a fit or something."

         "Just the thought of it is making me randy." She glanced in the back of the van again. "Sod this poxy Mini Van."

         "We could always go for a knee-trembler somewhere."

         "Sod that Eddie, I'm used to quality now."

         Eddie smiled vainly. "So Sunday night then, will your mum moan about you going out?"

         "Who cares if she does. I am twenty-one, you know."

Eddie and Dave. Ch 4.  (18+) Party night. #2294771 by Bruce.