Fortunately, however, it didn’t turn out like that. He was as nice as pie, the driver, all concerned – and even drove me to the hospital. Except that as soon as he dropped me off, I ran like fuck away out of there when it occurred to me they would probably ask me lots of questions like: ‘Where do you work?’ For somehow I just don’t think: ‘The Meat Rack, Piccadilly Circus’ was the sort of thing they liked to hear!
As it happened, my injuries turned out not to be all that serious – except for the shock, I have to say! Why, for days after it, I didn’t know whether my legs were made of string or straw or what. One thing for sure – they were not made of flesh! I felt so high I could have reached up and popped a planet or two in my pocket. My feet – one minute twelve inches long, the next expanding half the length of the street, for heaven’s sake! I’d be walking along, just whistling to myself and all of a sudden I’d see him – Silky! Like some eerie version of Robert Redford, standing staring into a shop window or checking his watch before jumping into a taxi. I’d have been running for over half an hour before it would occur to me: ‘Perhaps it wasn’t Silky after all!’ I would really like to be able to say that, like everything else, time began to pass and eventually my wounds they healed. But, I’m afraid, getting throttled by the likes of Silky is not something you get over quite so easy. Particularly when you have to go on earning your living and are afraid every time some tootle-merchant puts his lips to your ear or says, ‘I love you!’ it’s just a pretext and very shortly you will find yourself lying on a dump somewhere. To give you some idea – before I took up my position at the railings opposite Eros, I was a little over nine stone in weight – and by the time two months’ hard work at my post had elapsed, I was barely over seven! I began to give serious consideration to the possibility that one day I might at those very railings simply expire and that the end of it all would be! Much of this I attribute to police harassment, of course – not forgetting my old friends the IRA. I was really beginning to get fed up with them and their antics. For now, a night never seemed to pass without: ‘Clear the area! We would appeal to you to clear the area!’ And then – ‘Do you have ID? Let’s ’ave a look at you, Pat!’ Look you up and down then, winking at their mates, giving you the old mince mince, hand-on-the-hip routine. ‘Lots of little fairy boys like you back home then, Pat? Not just murdering bombers then, after all!’
With which you could not remonstrate, otherwise lose your job!
P. BRADEN, PICCADILLY ESCORT SERVICES CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
But it was sad. There could be no doubt about it. Once, an hour’s tootling in a parked car in Great Portland Street just about ended, again it came a-crackling: ‘Clear the area! Please clear the area!’ But it was too late, and although I arrived just for the end of it, it still was very like what you’d imagine the end of the world to be. A beacon on an ambulance revolving blue as the trollied dead were ferried out and a woman in some tattered rags kept laughing at a joke. Except nobody was telling her one. ‘Look at me! Look at me in my rags!’ she kept saying. Radios were spitting like fat in a frier and on the telly we could see ourselves. The end of the world starring P. Pussy and all of England. How many bodies, I really couldn’t say. ‘String ’em up, the Irish cants, each and every farking one of ’em!’, I heard a voice beside me say.
I liked to sit in the all-night cafés because it would keep you warm and with luck you might find business. On nights like that, you couldn’t taste the coffee. You’d just be feeling like dog’s dirt upon a pavement, with well-dressed people standing over it and going: ‘Who on earth left that horrible mess there?’
Some weeks after the business with Silky, I was sitting there in my usual place, staring out into the night with its Clockwork Orange gangs and skinheads and hippy dealers falling in and out of Ward’s pub and the theatres disgorging themselves and the SKOL sign flashing on and off when all of a sudden I realized that I could smell myself! And it wasn’t just the smell of dog dirt – it was the smell of a dysentery-ridden mongrel. No matter how I tried to dispel it, it still kept getting stronger. It became so foul it utterly swamped me. ‘You’re going to spill that coffee, mate,’ the owner said to me and it was only then I realized there was a little puddle of it all over the formica, ticking in small drops on to my stinky, balding velvet loons.
Chapter Twenty
Where the Fuck is my Mammy?
It was in there I met my darling Berts – O yummy Bertie, I love you so, do it to me again! – although what took him in there only God in His heaven will ever know! I mean, it was the type of place where all sorts of night-time flotsam and jetsam made their way – including many countrymen of my own, but most definitely not chiffon-sporting Pussies! – who would while away the hours crushing cans of Holsten and alternating between blowing up England and vowing that they didn’t agree with the deaths of civilians. Then they’d start crying when Philomena Begley or Larry Cunningham came on the jukebox telling stories about orphans and teddy bears. Sometimes they even danced with each other and one would most definitely be prompted to consider: ‘Perhaps there are more pussies who frequent this estabishment than might at first appear!’ Although it must be said and firmly insisted upon that tootles did not truly attend with interest of any depth until yum yum Mama songs they lit the night. ‘One has hair of silvery grey, the other has hair of gold. One is my mother, God rest her, I love her, and the other is my sweetheart.’ Tears down all those ruddy cheeks now coursing! ‘I love my mammy!’ Of course you do, my darling dear, but then do not we all? But we don’t break up an entire café over it! As Donegal Danny did once. ‘I’ll break this fucking place in two! I’ll bury it in rubble if you say that I don’t love her! I loved her more than anyone that ever walked this earth! You hear me? You fucking hear me?’
And then in the plate of chips go sob sob sob. Poor Donegal Danny. Poor lonely man. His mama but bare bones upon the mountain!
As there I sat, the same thing thinking! But not to Mrs Begley listening! To Hawkwind and ‘Silver Machine’, the very same tears my own cheeks streaking as I thought of my old friends, on coffee-soaked paper scribbling letters: ‘Write to me – this place is fucking crazy! Sometimes, I’m afraid, I don’t feel so good! I love you Charlie, Irwin!’ and if not that, then once more thinking of her I’d give my life to find the one-and-only Eily Bergin. ‘Where are you, Mammy?’ I might often be heard to choke. ‘Where are you?’
For how long already had one been searching? Since the very day of arrival, to be honest! Once – can you believe it! – a pallid face observed in a passing tube: ‘It’s her! I swear it’s her!’, for Mitzi she did, in truth, resemble! Mitzi as she might be now in 1973! How many people in this teeming city? Ten million? More? How long to find one’s mammy? Has anyone seen my mammy?
Look – there she is in the empty church. Turning her head to greet you.
‘Hello, Paddy. Why did you leave it so long?’
As ‘Ah’ goes, thorned head upturned: ‘Ah! Did you think it was your mammy?’
And in a café too, of course! From the street you saw her as you passed, sitting there, pale hands curled around a cup.
‘Mammy!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
How many times did that one happen? Why, hundreds, dearest, hundreds!
Now is it any wonder that a bitterness would begin to grip, as through the small hours you sat there glass-eyed, gazing, while on the portable TV the Israeli tanks moved across the Sinai desert, their guns rat-tatting and repeating in your head.
Quite what I would have done without old Bertie Wooster and his baldy chap, I really do not know!
Chapter Twenty-One
Welcome Home!
It must straight away be acknowledged – for what is the point of deception – that poor old Bertie bore absolutely no resemblance to Marlon Brando (Some hope! Mr Magoo might have been more like it!) who was up to his margarine tricks in France in the Odeon, Leicester Square, the billboard for which you could clearly see through
the window of the café where Berts, man-about-town was sitting now, daffodil-coloured (the outfits!) in his lambswool V-neck and matching slacks, with her eminence P. Pussy, who thanks to a temporary change in her fortunes was looking, it had to be admitted, quite desirable, in her brightly coloured suede patchwork jacket and a dinky little T-shirt with a scarlet baby heart over the left breast. Not to mention trousers most exceptionally delicious, of velvet once again and big-buckled belt of patent black. With her eyeshadow laden and hair again dyed: boy with the swirling, shiny hair – could it be Pussy? Methinks it is! – did she perhaps resemble Miss Lynsey de Paul? She certainly did, let there be no doubt! Indeed often swinging her hips while working Piccadilly, to the tune of ‘Sugar Me!’ – for services rendered, of course!
And now she sits there facing dearest Berts! Marlon Margarine definitely not – but everyone’s favourite uncle perhaps. The one who always arrives with prezzies and is never done trying to amuse everyone – squirting you with his novelty trick flower and going: ‘Ha ha! Only joking!’, flopping down in his favourite armchair – the one he sits in every year – and ruffling the heads of kiddies all around as he says: ‘Well! Wot’s been ’appening then? Any stories for your Uncle Bertie?’ As they all say: ‘Oh, Uncle Berts! How O how we love him!’
Except when he gets too drunk of course, and starts blubbering in the corner and wilting like a great big daffodil (he just loved yellow!), saying nobody loved him and that his life had come to nothing. Uncle Bertie plastered across the table at every single wedding, everyone mortified with shame.
And now, here he was at it again in front of a complete stranger! Oh, Bertie Bertie Berts – what a sight to behold after practically a crate of beer! Holsten Pils like dribbly teeth going plok! as his spidery eyes they liquidized upon the table.
But waking up – eureka! – just as his favourite song came on the jukebox! How he adored them, Peters and Lee! As he did not fail to inform the entire company!
‘I can’t believe it! It’s on! My favourite song! What a coincidence! Astonishing, in fact!’
It was unlikely, as a general rule old Berts deciding at the drop of a hat to entertain crowded cafés to renditions of ‘Welcome Home’ or indeed any other popular numbers, but right at that very moment, at 3 a.m. on the 11th of August 1973, there would have been very little that anyone who took the notion could have done to stop him! He even insisted on his new companion – moi, of course! – accompanying him on a waltz around the floor, much to the amusement of the assorted Irish, Turkish and other immigrant workers who cried: ‘Drop the hand!’, ‘Pair of Hoors!’ and ‘Get them off ya!’
As Berts crooned in Puss’s tender ear: ‘Welcome Home! Welcome! Come on in and close the door!’
Later – much later! (already the tubes were groaning into life), over a very appreciable number of Pils, it transpired that Berts had a theory. ‘Gasp!’ I counterfeited admirably. Yes, Berts went on, he had no doubt whatsoever that this particular song, as written, told only half the story.
I nodded feverishly as he stared into my eyes with something, if you didn’t know better, you might be inclined to consider very close indeed to complete and utter madness, of a firmly pathological and obsessive kind, and not been in the slightest bit surprised if they had stormed the café and carted him off for good never to be seen again. Especially when he poked his finger into your chest and plaintively cried: ‘What about the inside of the house? Eh? The tables and chairs and sideboards and that? You don’t hear about them, do you? Oh no!’ Out of nowhere he began to sing (And what a performer! I kid you not!), twirling in and out among the tables.
Welcome Home Welcome
You’ve been gone too long
I nearly fell off the chair as stalk-eyed he leaned right in to me and continued:
Come on in you’re home once more!
He slapped his perfectly manicured hand down on the formica.
‘You’ve got to hear about the inside, don’t you understand! And I’m going to see to it that we do! Oh, yes! I’ve got my own band you know! Been in showbusiness all my life! I’ve written it already, actually! Yes! Welcome Home Part 2, I suppose you could call it. You want to hear it, my young friend?’
Before I could open my mouth, he beamed and drained his bottle, coughing politely as he began to sing to the waking city:
Tables and chairs, pictures on the walls
Come on in, right in through the hall!
It’s hard to know what to say about him, old Berts, sitting there with his drinky and swaying from side to side, like a supperclub crooner lost in space.
‘Every Sunday morning down the Wheatsheaf – it’s how I earn my living! Just me and the jolly old keyboard, Patrick, my friend!’
Then Bertie – all of a sudden getting naughty! Almost breathless, as he squeezed my arm.
‘Please! Please you’ll come and stay with me!’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that now! A girl’s got to think of her future, Bertie, darling!’
‘I’ll give you anything you want!’
‘You will . . .?’
Naughty Pussy, gold-digging girl!
‘Please say you will – Louise won’t mind!’
‘Louise!’ I gasp. ‘Louise?’
‘Yes! You can be my nephew!’
Much thought then given to it – approximately fifteen seconds worth that is! After all, I really did think I had had quite enough of Paddy Braden’s High Class Escort Service, The Railings, Piccadilly Circus, London W1, for quite some time, thank you very much!
Some Information about Charlie and Irwin, Gleaned From Charlie’s Letters
Charlie and Irwin walk down the street. Irwin is sullen with his hands in his pockets and from the petrol pumps to the chickenhouse not so much as a word passes between them.
‘Don’t lie to me!’ says Charlie then. ‘I’m not a fucking idiot! I don’t believe your fucking stories!’
‘I told you – I’m not going on any operations,’ says Irwin. ‘I sell Republican News – big deal!’
‘You’re a fucking liar and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll finish with you!’
Which she won’t, of course, no matter when he says. But he is going on operations. In fact only the night before this conversation had helped two volunteers prepare a booby-trap bomb.
‘I don’t care what you believe!’ cried Charlie. ‘It’s not in you to kill someone!’
‘What do you know? What the fuck do you know, Charlie?’
A lot more – certainly about ‘Volunteer’ Irwin Kerr than he would – or could – care to admit!
As was plainly evident only some nights later (not long after the young McCarville fellow came sailing down the river roped to a mattress with a six-inch nail hammered into his head and it had been decided something needed to be done) when the Horse Kinnane and Jackie Timlin called for him and they drove off to stiff old Anderson and his son. Who both conveniently happened to be in the library spraying food onto some exotic plant or other when the three masked desperadoes burst in. Nutting the old chap proved no problem but his son (albeit he was fifty years of age) fought tooth and nail. Almost escaped, indeed, before the Horse managed to get between him and the door, knocking him to his knees and shouting: ‘Do him! Do him, Kerr, you bollocks you!’
As Irwin stood there pissing himself – he really did, as anyone with an eye in their head could see from the gathering map on the crotch of his trousers, and being so far away in some other place that eventually Jackie had to push him out of the way, snatch the gun from his hand and put three in your man’s head. ‘You stupid fucker, Kerr! You stupid dithering little fuck! What do you think this is? What do you think it is?’
Irwin wasn’t quite sure what it was. All he knew was that from that night on, things were never going to be quite the same again. As indeed they weren’t. It didn’t take the cops long to figure out who was involved and after that any time Irwin crossed the border, they pulled him in. At first he was just about as tou
gh and resilient as you could get. But that didn’t last long. And when they said that they were going to see that Charlie was set up and busted for dope, then things began to take a different turn. Especially when they did stop her and mysteriously find a tiny bit of grass in her pocket. It was nothing but when word got out, her old pair were mortified. ‘Next time,’ the cops said, ‘she’s fucked, Kerr. Unless you start seeing some sense.’
He knew enough to know that if he started seeing some sense he was fucked. But which he did – partly because he wasn’t sleeping anymore and couldn’t think straight. Half the time he didn’t even know what he was doing. Clearly it was only a matter of time before he started singing like a canary. ‘I can’t lose Charlie,’ he kept repeating to himself. ‘If anything happened to her . . .’
Which, fortunately, because of his ultimately tragic cooperation nothing did, apart from the fact that she looked like having a fantastic career in the National College of Art and Design.
Chapter Twenty-Two
At Last I Get to Paint Them!
About which she told me everything the day I rang her!
‘At last, Patrick! At last I get to paint the fuckers! Two thousand dead ones on a big black background!’
‘I got you the Yes albums,’ I told her. ‘They’re on the way.’
‘You fucking beauty,’ she said. ‘How are they treating you over there? Things any better yet?’
‘They have the arse rode off me,’ I said.
‘You fucking slut,’ she said and down the mouthpiece blew a kiss.
‘Good luck,’ I said and by the surging throng once more was swallowed up.