Tiger Men by Judy Nunn Page A

her face. It was an action so uninhibited he felt he was peeping through a keyhole observing a lady at her toilette.
    Then in one swift movement she deftly twisted her tresses into a knot at the back of her head and turned to Ma. ‘I won’t leave it so long between visits next time, Ma,’ she said. The sensual act for his benefit was obviously over. ‘I can’t promise when I’ll be back though.’ Pinioning her hair with one hand, she picked up her bonnet with the other. ‘I don’t get out the way I used to these days.’
    ‘So I’ve gathered,’ Ma replied drily, and Mick could only wonder at her meaning.
    Having anchored her hair with the bonnet, Red tended to the ribbon and, within only seconds (despite the impediment of gloves) a perfect bow rested at the left side of her throat. ‘It’s been grand meeting you, Mick,’ she said with a smile, ‘particularly grand, you being a fellow countryman and all.’
    She offered her hand and they shook.
    ‘Yes,’ Mick said, ‘it’s been grand indeed.’ He was lost in admiration. With not a hair out of place she was once again the impeccably attired young lady he’d bumped into at the baker’s shop.
    ‘I’ll see you when I can, Ma.’ Red kissed Ma on the cheek and, with a wave to them both, she was gone.
    ‘My, my, but she’s a flirt, that one.’ Ma stared affectionately at the closed door before turning to flash him a yellow-toothed grin. ‘She had you going there, didn’t she, Mick? You fancied her something rotten and don’t you try denying it.’
    ‘Oh I certainly did, Ma, I’ll not deny it for a moment.’
    ‘Mind you,’ Ma said in all fairness, for Mick’s honesty won her over every time, ‘Red took a bit of a fancy to you too, I could sense it.’
    ‘Did she really, Ma?’ Of course she did, Mick thought. God in heaven, a blind man could have sensed it. ‘Do you think so indeed?’
    ‘Oh yes, she wouldn’t have flirted with you like she did if she hadn’t found you fanciable. She wouldn’t have wasted her energy.’
    ‘So you think I’m in with a chance, do you Ma?’
    His smile was roguishly confident and his question light-hearted, but Ma recognised the underlying seriousness of his intent, and the answer that came back at Mick was totally unexpected.
    ‘Not for one minute. You don’t stand a chance in hell.’ Knowing her brutal response had come as something of a surprise, Ma patted the chair beside her. She’d wanted to have a personal chat with him for some time, but she’d been wondering how to broach the subject. Red now seemed to have provided the perfect opening. ‘Sit down, lad,’ she said. ‘Come on, sit down and have a drink with me.’
    He sat and she poured him a tot of rum in the mug Red had used then topped up her own.
    ‘You won’t score a win with that one, Mick,’ she said, ‘you won’t even score a place. You need money for a woman like Red. She’s way out of your price range.’
    Mick didn’t like being talked down to by the likes of Ma Tebbutt. ‘There are other ways to win women, Ma,’ he scoffed. ‘I’ve not needed money to find favour in the past, and I’m not about to start paying for the privilege now.’
    Ma, in turn, did not like being scorned. Oh, she thought, so I’ve punctured his ego – poor young buck’s pride is wounded – well, too fucking bad. ‘I’m telling you here and now, boy, if you don’t have the money, you won’t make it with that one, so don’t bother bleedin’ well trying.’ She knocked back her rum in one hit. Damn his hide, she’d only been offering a word of advice.
    Realising that his pride had got the better of him and that the old woman actually did know what she was talking about, Mick tried to make amends.
    ‘Will you tell me why then, Ma?’ He appealed to her with all the boyish earnestness he knew charmed her, but with a genuine desire for the answer ‘Will you tell me why, if Red had no interest in me, why on God’s earth she flirted with me