London Blues (11 page)

‘Thanks.’

‘Yeah. You got ten bob I could borrow to the weekend?’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean,
no
?’

‘I mean I haven’t got ten bob to lend you.’

‘I’ll remember that if you ever want to borrow a few bob
off me. Don’t ever come to me on the earhole when you’re skint.’

Joe’s policy of asking everyone all the time for money probably results in a few shillings here and there but as he never pays any of it back he could never put the arm on someone a second time, except, of course, if they were real mugs.

Joe’s explanation for inviting me along was untrue. I could not figure it out. The probable reason came out in a conversation with Desmond the journalist: Joe was very nervous about black guys and thought at any moment they could ‘go jungle’, revert to type, that is, and start acting like cannibals. He always wanted another white guy about to act as his minder. Joe is certainly a coward and a blinkered, ignorant one at that so I suppose I could buy this
explanation
, but how come he was alone when he picked up Clarence in Notting Hill Gate?

Joe came in the following day and the business of the ten bob was not mentioned. It was early evening and quiet so I took my coffee over to Joe’s table and he told me the following:

‘First job I had when I left school was with Cox & Harris over on Long Acre. Commercial and industrial
photographers
. Worked there for a few years up until about 1926. Got a grounding in photography there. Worked for some other photographers too later on. Never came to much. In the 1930s I used to do the odd bit of glamour photography as they now call it. Only then it was hot stuff and sold only in certain places. You never saw anything more than bare tits and arses.

‘There was this French geezer up in Camden Town, on Delancey Street, who used to publish little pocket-size magazines with titles like
Spicy
Ladies
,
Parisian
Nights.
I used to make a few bob doing photos for him.

‘The only dirty photos you saw in those days was brought in from abroad. You know, sailors and people who
went abroad brought them back. They came from France … or Egypt, I think. I mean there might have been somebody doing this stuff over here but I never saw it.

‘Then it all started to change during the war. Troops were coming and going through London like nobody’s business and they were bringing these dirty photos over from the countries they had been stationed in. So there was a big demand for the stuff. They didn’t just want to see foreign women and niggers and that, they wanted girls who looked like Vera Lynn. You know, English girls.

‘There was this fella over on Greek Street called Wally Gulliver who was originally a Highbury lad but he bought this shop there near the Pillars and was a photographic sundries man, a bit of this and a bit of that. He asked me to do some photographs and he sold them under the counter in his shop. We did a roaring trade! First off, all we sold was photos of single girls with their legs open but then the punters wanted to know why we didn’t have any lezzy stuff and fucking stuff. So we obliged.

‘The girls never asked for masks or anything. Sometimes one or two might have worn a wig but you could still see who they were.

‘So that’s how I got going during the war. After the war, in the late 1940s, things started getting back to normal but I stopped doing pictures. Then about 1948 … yeah, it was 1948 because it was the year Freddie Mills became the world light-heavyweight champion, this Maltese geezer, Franco Messalino, comes up to me and says would I like to do some business for him? He’s opened this shop selling Yank mags and pin-up mags and he wants some pictures for “out back”. Stronger stuff for the punters. So I say what’s in it for me and we work it out. I been taking pictures for him ever since.

‘There are a couple of other geezers doing the photos too but most of the stuff you’ll see about was done by me. And I’ve shot it all on my old Rolleicord. The box has never let me down.

‘When I began the stuff I shot was always the same. Just a boy and a girl. Just simple fuck and suck stuff. You never saw the bloke coming or anything like that. That came much later. Then it moved on to group stuff with two men and a woman, or two women and a bloke, and even two couples. Later on you got the jigaboos, the niggers in the pictures. There was a black girl I used a lot in the 1950s from Shepherd’s Bush called Nancy. She did a lot of photographs with white blokes, usually two at a time. She used to love it.

‘About six or seven years ago the stuff started getting pervy. The punters wanted pictures of girls getting it up the arse and stuff like that. Also, the flage stuff. I used to draw whip-marks on their arses with lipstick. Leather and rubber gear. That came along too.

‘I don’t do as many pictures as I used to now. Just two or three sessions a year. All my old stuff gets reprinted but I don’t get paid for it. Sometimes Mr Messalino might bung me a drink for old times’ sake but there’s no money there, not for me.’

There’s never much trade on Saturday mornings so I left Charlie in charge of the bar and wandered over to the Fox for a quick drink. The place was almost empty. I got a pint of light ale and sat down and started reading the
Telegraph.
About ten minutes later Veronica appeared. She gave me a light kiss on the cheek and told me she’d like a gin and tonic which I instantly and dutifully got for her. She knocked half of it back in one gulp.

‘Shopping always makes me thirsty.’

‘You’re always thirsty.’

‘I’m always shopping.’

‘I thought you were coming by this evening?’

‘I was. But we can go to the pictures another evening. My friend Babs is having a party tonight so we can go there instead. I’ll be around at your place about eight.’

And with that she finished the drink and was up and
away. I returned to the paper and the light ale.

Half of the
Telegraph
later as the pub was getting crowded I heard my name being called and looked up to see French Joe striding across the floor towards me.

‘What you going to buy an old soldier, son?’

‘Hello, Joe.’

‘What you going to get me then? A gold watch? Huh?’

‘You can have what I’m having.’

‘What, the light stuff? That’s for nancy boys and women!’

‘And you can even sit here, but let me get on with the paper, eh?’

‘Sure. You keep your nose in the paper. I’ll sit here quiet.’

I got Joe a pint instead of a Scotch and returned to the paper.

‘Amazes me what you find to read in that paper.’

Joe could not sit still and quiet for five minutes to save his life. He’s looking around the room, drumming his fingers on the table, sighing and murmuring to himself, rubbing his nose, blowing his nose, picking his nose, inspecting the wax he has extracted from his ear with his little finger and then wiping it on the lapels of his jacket, belching, farting, clearing his throat and slurping his drink. I persevered with an article on Monday’s Budget which, amongst other things, had put twopence on a packet of cigarettes. I didn’t smoke that many, perhaps a dozen a day, but the twopences would add up. The cost of living was rising. Inflation had averaged out at about 5 per cent over the last three years if I understood the diagram correctly. People hadn’t noticed this because weekly
earnings
had gone up about 14 per cent in the same period while salaries over the same stretch were now up around 17 per cent. The pound had held strong against the dollar throughout the 1950s at $2.80. But this is the sixties now and I wonder how we’ll be at the end of it. As the article says, more and more foreign competition is challenging our traditional overseas markets …. Still, I can’t ever
imagine our heavy and light industries going under. Who else could build a ship, a motorbike, or a television set so well?

‘Joe. How are you?’

A quiet well-spoken voice with the trace of a foreign accent. Who was it? I looked up and saw this man standing by our table. He was only about 5ft. 4in. and was sharply dressed in an expensive grey suit and a silk shirt that must have cost him a good few guineas. He had a silk tie too. Short grey hair greased and plastered back and a thin taz. He wore glasses and was carrying a walking stick thing more like a cane. His skin was olivey in colour and he didn’t look English. His smile showed a couple of gold teeth. He looked like Adolphe Menjou.

Joe immediately stands up out of deference and respect.

‘I’m all right, Mr Messalino. And how are you and the family?’

‘We’re good, Joe. Everything is good.’

‘Oh, I’m very pleased to hear that. Very pleased indeed, Mr Messalino.’

‘I see you already have a drink, Joe.’

Joe has social graces like the Sahara has lakes. He must always angle for something and he does:

‘Yeah, that’s true. But it’ll be gone in a minute.’

Joe says this in a joky fashion and when there is no response from his sometime patron his face contorts in embarrassment and he fidgets and shuffles. So even poor old Joe has some vestigial sense of the niceties of
behaviour
. Mr Messalino turns to me and smiles. Joe jumps into the breach.

‘Yeah, Mr Messalino. This is my friend Timmy. He runs Modern Snax across the road.’

‘Ah, you work for Emilio?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I have known Emilio well for many years. He is a good man … as were his brothers.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘You will please give him my best wishes.’

‘I will.’

‘Joe … Mr Timmy.’

And with that Mr Messalino bowed towards us and went off to join some cronies on the other side of the pub.

‘Important man, Mr Messalino. Very important.’

‘Seems pleasant enough.’

‘I know all the important people. Know ’em all.’

That night Veronica didn’t show up until nine o’clock. It was too late to go to the party so we stayed at Porchester Road. She was wearing a pair of knee-length leather fashion boots she had bought in Oxford Street that day. I’d never known a girl with boots like that before. I told her I thought it was only Russian princesses who wore them. Later we made love and I told her she had to keep them on. She says I am ‘kinky’. Afterwards I walked her down to the bus stop. On Saturdays she can stay out till 11.30 p.m. She said she’d had enough of her parents’ domination and wanted to get out. In fact she was going to move out this week and in with me.

‘After all, it’s only a couple of minutes’ walk from your place to the salon.’

She said this so I didn’t get any wrong ideas about why she was moving in. I told her it would be good to have someone to share the housework with and she said she’d clear up the mess she makes but not the mess I make. I told her she had a deal and gave her a big kiss as the bus drew up.

I walked back to the flat feeling dead chuffed. I put my
Chet
Baker
Sings
LP on and sat back on the bed with a full tumbler of cheap red wine. I lit a cigarette and thought that perhaps the 1960s were going to be good to me yet.

I was walking up Charing Cross Road the following Wednesday afternoon with Charlie when we bump into Joe dragging a sack along the ground out of Manette Street, by Foyle’s. He’s hot and sweaty and out of breath.

‘You two, ‘ere! I need a hand.’

‘Not from me you old Richard!’ shouts Charlie.

‘You’re a fucking tosser, Charlie. Just like every other soddin’ Eyetie.’

A Richard is a turd, a word that rhymes with Richard the Third. No wonder Joe felt socially humiliated. Hence his witty rejoinder.

Charlie whispers to me: ‘What’s he got in that sack then?’

‘No idea. His dirty washing?’

‘Looks heavy enough to be a stiff.’

‘But not big enough.’

‘You sort him out. I’m going to Brighton [Brighton Pier = disappear] down the arcade. See you. I’m gone.’

I walked over to Joe who was now sitting on the kerb mopping his face with a black handkerchief.

‘Gimme a hand getting this lot in a taxi.’

‘What is it?’

‘Old glazed tiles. Picture ones. I nicked them from the demolition site back there. These will be worth a fortune down in Chelsea. I’ll get a cab down there and flog ‘em.’

I went across the pavement and soon got Joe a cab. The cabby didn’t mind having the sack in the luggage space up front so I dragged it across. It occurred to me that Joe
probably
didn’t have the money to pay the fare at the other end so I gave the cabby a few bob to cover it.

Just as the cab is about to pull off Joe winds the window down and hands me a grubby bit of paper.

‘Phone her. She wants to speak to you. Important. Vera. You met her the other night.’

The cab pulls away and I wave Joe off in relief. I look down at the scrap and written on it in pencil is:

It looked as though it was written by a child. The
characters
were different sizes and at odd angles. Presumably the fair hand of Joe.

There was a telephone kiosk just down Manette Street behind the Pillars of Hercules. I looked in my pocket and found I had four pennies so I shuffled down. The kiosk, like all kiosks in the West End, stank of urine. I lifted the receiver, put the four pennies in and let it ring. It was answered and I pushed Button A.

‘Hello? Vera?’

‘This is Vera. Can I help you?’

‘It’s Tim. Timmy Purdom.’

There was a silence.

‘I thought you would have phoned me sooner, dear.’

‘I only …’

‘I can’t talk now because I’ve got a gentleman visitor who has a train to catch. Phone me this evening … about nine-ish.’

And she hung up.

What did she want to speak to me about?

I didn’t get to phone her that evening because Veronica had decided to move in earlier than planned and this involved borrowing a bubble car off Charlie’s cousin and going over to her parents’ place while they were out and grabbing all her stuff.

It was good having her there when I arrived home in the evening and even better going to sleep with her and knowing she would still be next to me when I awoke in the morning. We’d watch telly together, listen to my music, listen to her music, get drunk and argue. It wasn’t a
relationship
that was going to be long term and lasting but then I don’t suppose either of us were prepared to commit ourselves like that anyhow. It was a relationship of the present, pro tem, and none the worse for that.