I was a kiddy, I shut my digits in a car door. When Gretchen folds her mit around mine and applies ‘pleased to meet you’ pressure, the sensation is about the same. Strong? This girl could play centre back for Moscow Dynamo and only your shin bones would know the difference.
‘Pleased to do you,’ she grunts. ‘How do you meet?’
‘Gretchen is learning English at Clapham Junction College of Commerce,’ says Sid, chattily.
I nod agreeably while I try and rub the circulation back into my pinkies and Sid explains about us nipping out for a few jars.
Funny how first impressions can be misleading sometimes.
‘Must be a strain to control yourself, when you’ve got that about,’ I say as we scamper down the steps.
‘Yeah. I nearly swung for her a couple of times,’ says Sid. ‘She cooked us a stew once. I think she made it from old shaving brushes. Talk about diabolical. The cat took one look at it and ran up the chimney. We had a fire in the grate at the time, too.’
Sid still has his Rover 2000 and I feel like Lord Muck as I settle back against the leather and watch the Thames twinkling away like the froth on a pool of piss.
‘We should have time to catch Rambling Jack and have a decko at one of Rosie’s places,’ says Sid. ‘You know the East End at all, do you?’
I don’t really and it doesn’t look as if I am going to get the chance because they seem to be pulling it down even faster than the part of London I am living in.
‘Some right villains hang out around here,’ says Sid. ‘Mind how you go when you get the first round in.’
I reckon if Sid made a million you would still think he had fish hooks sewn to the insides of his pockets.
The Prospect of Ruin is packed out with everyone from candidates for ‘The Upper Class Twit Of The Year’ award to blokes who look as if they taught Bill Sykes how to scowl. You would think that two different dubs had booked on the same night.
‘The toffs come here because they fancy a bit of slumming,’ says Sid. ‘It’s the nearest most of them ever get to villainy until they join the stock exchange.’
‘Creme de menthe frappé and a packet of crisps?’ I say as I push my way into the crowd round the bar. Sid’s reply is not the kind of thing I would like to quote in a book that might find its way into the hands of minors – or even miners for that matter, and does not stay in my mind long. The reason? I find myself face to face with a really knock-out bint. She is dead class. You can tell that by the string of pearls round her neck and the little pink flushes that light up her alabaster shoulder blades.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say as I go out of my way to brush past her. ‘There’s a bit of a crush in here.’
‘That’s quite all right.’ Her voice goes up like the cost of living and she turns a few shades pinker.
‘Are you on your tod?’ I say. I mean, it’s favourable to ask, isn’t it? You don’t want to lash out on a babycham and find that there is some geezer with her.
‘I’m with friends,’ she says, very dainty like. I take a gander and see another filly and a couple of blokes who look as if their stiff white collars do up on their adam’s apples.
‘Be presumptuous of me to offer you a drink then, wouldn’t it?’ I often chuck in a long word like that because it shows an upper class bird that there is more to me than meets the thigh. I may not speak very proper but I have a way with me – I have it away with me too, sometimes, but that is another story.
‘Are you a waterman?’ says the bird, with a trace of interest.
‘Only when all the beer has run out,’ I say, wondering what she is on about.
‘Eewh.’ I don’t know if that is how you spell it but it sounds something like that. It is the kind of noise the Queen Mother would make if she found you wiping the front of your jeans with one of the corgis.
‘Daffers!’
The voice belongs to a herbert with a mug built round his hooter. Daffers makes another uncomfortable noise and pads off.
I get the beers in and join Sid.
‘You’ll never get anywhere with her, mate,’ he says gloomily. ‘Apart from the fact that she probably finds you repulsive, she’s not going to blot her meal ticket.’
‘I don’t know so much.’ Daffers keeps shooting glances at me and experience has taught me that where there is life there is poke. ‘When are we going to see old Rumbling Tum?’ I ask.
Sid does not have to answer because a bloke with a red velvet jacket appears on a small stage and grabs a microphone.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Doom. Tonight we’re very fortunate to have a return visit from that popular son of the sod–’
His voice drones on but I find myself concentrating on a geezer with a big black beard who is clearly pissed out of his mind. He is barging into tables and cursing and muttering fit to kit out a TV comedy series. I don’t know why they haven’t chucked him out.
‘Do us a favour, Timmo. I don’t want to miss any of this.’ Sid shoves his empty glass into my hand and I am fighting my way back to the bar again. Blooming marvellous, isn’t it? Working with Sid is always the same. The outlay is more guaranteed than the return.
Daffers has not pressed forward with the rest of her mates and I can see her trying to think of something to say. That makes two of us.
‘You look like an ’ore,’ she says.
For a moment I cannot believe my ears. She looks such a nice girl too. What a thing to say. No bird has ever spoken to me like that before.
‘Nobody’s perfect,’ I say. Maybe it is the diamante on the lapels of my shirt. Mum thought it was a bit much.
‘I thought Thames Tradesmen were awfully unlucky at Henley,’
Now she has really lost me. What is she on about?
‘I’m in the entertainment business,’ I say. ‘Do you fancy something?’
‘I think I’ve had enough already.’
‘Force yourself.’
‘Well, a glass of white wine, please.’
Sidney must be right. They are all at it. And it costs as much as a pint of bitter, too. Diabolical!
‘ “And the brave young sons of Eireann came pouring through the door. And the snivelling British Tommies fell grovelling on the floor.” ’ I turn round and – blooming heck! The bearded git must be Rambling Jack Snorter. His accent is as thick as an upright shillelah and the first three rows are reeling under a hail of spittle.
I tear myself from Daffers’ side and return to Sid.
‘What do you think?’ he says.
‘He’s all right if you’ve got an umbrella,’ I say. ‘Does he always go in for this anti-British stuff?’
‘He’s very committed,’ says Sid.
‘And frequently, too, I should reckon,’ I venture. ‘I think he comes on a bit strong, myself.’
‘He’s controversial, I’ll grant you,’ says Sid. ‘But that’s a good thing these days. He can create a dialogue between himself and the audience.’
‘You mean, like that bloke who just threw a bottle at him and told him to piss off back to Ireland?’
‘That kind of thing, Timmo.’ Sid grabs me by the arm and steers me away from the stage. ‘I think we might see if his voice carries.’
‘Good thinking, Sid.’
‘ “So here’s to all