The House of Correction was a proper whorehouse. Well kept and properly run. You had to take your shoes off when you went in and you weren’t allowed to jump on the furniture or tease the cat.
The House of Correction was semi-detached in a leafy Brentford side street. Those who remember the final shaming of America’s last president would recognize it from the pictures posted on the internet at the time.
Chico’s aunty, who ran it throughout the 1960s, was one of those big-bosomed Diana Dors kind of bodies, the like of which sadly we don’t see anymore.
The front door was open and Chico took me in. His aunty was seated in what was appropriately named the sitting room. She was on the telephone.
I thought I caught the words ‘President who?’ but given the law of diminishing returns this was probably not the case.
I was greatly impressed by the scale of Chico’s aunty and by just how so much flesh could be contained within so little clothes. She glanced down at our stockinged feet and then up at our stockinged faces.
‘Why are you wearing those?’ she asked.
Chico shrugged. ‘It was the gringo’s idea,’ he said.
‘You lying bastard.’ I pulled off my stocking. ‘You said we had to come in disguise.’ ‘Only if you’re famous,’ said Chico’s aunty. ‘Are you famous?’
I shook my head.
‘Don’t get nits on my carpet.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And you’ve got lard in your hair.’
‘The gringo wants a long-legged woman,’ said Chico.
‘I’ve just reached puberty this morning,’ I explained. ‘I don’t want to waste any time.’
Chico’s aunty smiled the kind of smile that you normally see only on the face of a road-kill. ‘Can’t wait to try out your pecker,’ said she. ‘Think that the entire female species is nothing more than walking pussy, gagging for you to ram it right in.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way,’ I said.
‘But, in essence, I’m correct?’
‘Oh yeah. In essence.’
‘You’d better open an account then. How much money have you got?’
I dug about in my shorts. ‘About half a crown,’ I said.
Chico’s aunty tut-tut-tutted. ‘You won’t get much for half a crown,’ she said between the tuts. ‘Let me have a look at the tariff.’ She took up a clipboard and examined it with care. I noticed how her finger ran from top down to the bottom. ‘Chicken,’ she said, finally. ‘For half a crown, a chicken.’
‘A chicken?’ I said in horror.
‘It’s not just any old chicken. It’s a Swedish chicken. Specially trained in those arts which amuse men.
‘I don’t want to have it away with a chicken,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I’ve heard that joke.’
‘What joke is this?’
‘The one where the bloke walks into a brothel and he doesn’t have much money and the fellow in charge talks him into having it away with a chicken and the bloke is desperate and so he does, but the next day he’s walking along the street and he thinks, Hang about, I’ve been done here, I could have got a chicken cheaper in Sainsbury’s. So he goes back to complain and the fellow says to him, “All right, I’ll let you have something for free to make up,” and he’s shown to this darkened room where there’s all these other blokes looking through a one-way mirror at this incredible orgy going on. And he has a good look too and then after it’s all finished he says to this other bloke there, “That was incredible, wasn’t it?” And the other bloke says, “If you think that was incredible you should have been here yesterday—”’
‘There was a bloke in there with a chicken,’ said Chico’s aunty.
‘Oh, you’ve heard it too.’
‘No, I was only guessing.’
‘Well, I’m not having sex with a chicken,’ I said. ‘And that’s that.’
Chico’s aunty grinned another cadaverous grin and set her clip-board aside. ‘I was only testing,’ she said. ‘Just to see whether there was any decency in you. I’m pleased to see that there is. Would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘That would be very nice, thank you.’
Chico’s aunty called for tea and this was presently brought. I was quite amazed by the teapot. All sheathed in leather it was, with spikes on the handle and studs all round the top.
‘For very special clients,’ she explained.
Chico swaggered off to the Laundromat to watch the socks go round and I spent a pleasant hour in his aunty’s company. She told me a lot about women and put me right on a great many things. Women are not sex objects, she told me. They are people too and must be respected. No does not mean yes, even if you’ve had ten pints of beer. You should never fart in front of women. Always wait until they’ve had their turn. And countless other things, which I must say have helped me a lot over the years in what dealings I’ve had with the opposite sex. I do not believe that I’ve ever been a selfish lover, nor have I ever been disloyal. I have not elevated women, but neither have I degraded them. I have treated them as people and I have Chico’s aunt to thank for that.
She charged me half a crown for the consultation and I considered it cheap at the price. She kissed me on the cheek and I left the House of Correction never to return.
I lounged about outside for a while, wondering just how I would spend the balance of the day. I had just made up my mind that I would go and join Chico and watch the socks go round and round when the door of his aunty’s opened and the Doveston came out.
‘Hello,’ I said, ‘what have you been up to?’
‘Business.’ The Doveston winked.
‘Business with a woman?’
‘Yep,’ said the Doveston, straightening his tie.
I sighed and looked him up and down. ‘What are all those chicken feathers on your trousers there?’ I asked.
7
What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to America.
Arthur Helps (1813—75)
The Doveston did not say ‘President who?’ He knew all about America. It was his ambition to own a tobacco plantation in Virginia. An ambition he would one day realize.
‘It was probably the secret police who killed him,’ was the Doveston’s opinion.
‘The secret who?’ I asked.
‘The secret police. Don’t you remember that time I took you to visit my uncle Jon Peru Joans? He said the secret police were after him.’
‘But he was a stone bonker.’
‘Maybe. But I was never able to find out what happened to him. They supposedly took him off to St Bernard’s and banged him up with the earwig victims. But I couldn’t get in to visit him and you’re not going to tell me that it was just a coincidence that his conservatory burned to the ground.’
‘So you think there’s some kind of world-wide organization of secret policemen who do this kind of stuff?’
‘Bound to be. It’s what’s called a conspiracy theory. There’s a great deal more going on in this world than we get to read about in the papers. There are secrets everywhere.’
‘Did you really have sex with a chicken?’ I asked. But the Doveston didn’t reply.
We shuffled down Brentford High Street, pausing now and then to admire the beautiful displays of fruit and veg and viands that filled the shop windows and spilled onto the pavement in baskets and barrels and buckets. We were greatly taken with the meat at Mr Beefheart’s.
‘That butcher really knows his stuff,’ said the Doveston, pointing to this cut, that cut and the other. ‘Wildebeest, I see’s on special offer.’
‘And the wild boar.’
‘And the wolverine.’
‘And the white tiger too.’
‘I might buy some of those wallaby burgers, I’m having a party on Friday.’
‘A party?’ I said, much impressed. ‘But I thought only rich toffs had parties.’
‘Things have changed,’ said the Doveston, eyeing up the walrus steaks. ‘We’re in the Sixties now. No
more ration books and powdered egg. The Prime Minister says that we’ve never had it so good.’
‘I’ve never had it at all.’
‘Well, you must come to my party. You never know your luck. Oh, and bring your friend Lopez, I want to have a little word with him.
‘Lopez isn’t with us any more. He pulled a knife and someone shot him dead.’
The Doveston shook his head and viewed the rack of water buffalo. ‘You know, if this keeps up,’ he said, ‘the Chicanos are going to blast themselves to extinction and then Brentford won’t have a Mexican quarter any more.
‘I find that rather hard to believe. Brentford’s always had a Mexican quarter.’
‘Mark well my words, my friend. It’s happened before. Do you remember the Street of the August Moon?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’
‘That’s because it’s now called Moby Dick Terrace. It used to be Chinatown. But they all wiped themselves out during the great Brentford tong wars of ‘fifty-three.’
‘I think my dad once mentioned those.’
‘And when did you last see a pygmy around here?’
‘I don’t think I ever have.’
‘Well, there used to be a whole tribe of them living in Mafeking Avenue until they fell out with the Zulus of Sprite Street. And you know the Memorial Park?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘That was once an Indian reservation. The Navajo lived there for hundreds of years until they fell out with the council, back in Victorian times.’
‘Why was that?’
‘The council wanted to put up a slide and some swings. The Navajo said that the land was sacred to their ancestors.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The council sent some chaps to parley with the chief. Heated words were exchanged and scalps were taken.’
‘Blimey,’ I said.
‘The council called in the cavalry. The Third Brentford Mounted Foot and Mouth. They made short work of the Navajo.’
‘I’ve never seen that in a history book.’
‘And you won’t. A shameful hour in Brentford’s noble history. Kept secret, you see. The only reason I know about it is because my great-grandfather was there.’
‘Did he kill many Navajo?’
‘Er, no,’ said the Doveston. ‘He wasn’t fighting on that side.’
I opened my mouth to ask further questions, but the Doveston drew my attention to a display of wolf-cub sausages. ‘I’ll get some of those for my party,’ he said.
We shuffled away from the butcher’s and passed the Laundromat just in time to see Chico being forcibly ejected.
‘You sons of bitches,’ cried the ganglord from the gutter. ‘Since when is sniffing socks against the law?’
‘Bring him,’ said the Doveston. ‘He sounds like fun.’
We left Chico to it and shuffled off to the Plume Café. Here the Doveston talked me into borrowing half a crown from him to buy two frothy coffees so that we could sit in the window with them and look cool.
‘So what’s this party all about?’ I asked as I spooned in sugar.
‘It’s a coming-of-age thing really. To celebrate puberty.’
‘I’ve done that twice already. And you’ve er . . .’ I made chicken motions with my elbows.
‘You’ll get a smack’, the Doveston said, ‘if you ever mention that again.’
‘So are there going to be balloons at this party and jelly and games?’
‘You haven’t quite got to grips with puberty yet, have you? And do you really still fancy jelly?’
I thought about this. ‘No, I don’t. I really fancy beer.’
‘Then you’re getting there.’
‘Are you going to have girls at this party?’
‘Girls and beer and a record player.’
‘A record player?’ I whistled. ‘But I thought only rich toffs—’
The Doveston raised his eyebrows to me.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘The Sixties, I know.’
‘And it’s going to be a fancy dress party, so you’ll have to come in a costume. Make it something trendy and don’t come as a policeman.’
The Doveston brought out cigarettes and we sat, taking smoke and sipping froth and watching as the Brentford day went by.
About an hour after his forcible ejection, Chico returned at the wheel of a stolen Morris Minor in the company of several Pachucos. This he drove through the Laundromat’s front window.
The Laundromat staff were Ashanti and they replied to the assault upon their premises with the hurling of assegais. It seems clear that they must have had some long-standing feud with the Kalahari Bushmen next door who owned the dry cleaner’s, because these lads were soon out on the street and siding up with Choco.
With all this fuss and bother going on, it wasn’t long before the volatile Incas from the chemist shop were in it, lobbing soap at the Spaniards who ran the haberdasher’s next to the Mongolian cheese boutique.
The Doveston took a stick of dynamite from his pocket and placed it on the table before me. ‘Now should I, or shouldn’t I?’ he asked.
I don’t think he should have really. But on this particular occasion it seemed to have the desired effect. The mob had been turning rather ugly and the explosion certainly calmed them all down. We felt it prudent to take our leave before the bomb smoke cleared and the appliances arrived to battle the fires that were starting up.
We had done our good deed for the day and did not need any pats upon the back.
I record this incident only because it was one of the rare occasions when the Doveston’s dynamite brought peace instead of mayhem. I mentioned in the opening chapter his love for what he called the ‘Big Aaah-choo!’. But, other than for a brief allusion to the infamous episode of the detonating dog, I took the matter no further. This is not because I fear the consequences that disclosure of his childhood bombings might incur. After all, most of the buildings that went up in smoke have long since been rebuilt and all the survivors rehoused.
The way I see it is this. We all make mistakes when we’re young and do things we later regret. Children behave badly, they shouldn’t but they do, and it is far better just to forgive and forget.
Of course what they get up to when they’re older is another matter and I have no hesitation whatsoever in putting that down upon paper.
Especially as it was my bloody dog that he blew up.
Bastard!
We parted company at the allotment gates and the Doveston shuffled off to see how his tobacco crop was coming along on his ‘uncle’ Old Pete’s plot.
I went shufffing homeward bound, my head already full of plans for the costume I might wear to impress the girls at the party. Something trendy, the Doveston had said, and not a policeman. Not a policeman narrowed it down quite a bit. Whatever could you dress up as that wasn’t a policeman? A pirate, perhaps, or a parrot at a push. Or a parsnip, or a pimple, or Parnell.
I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Parnell. Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91), that is, who led the Irish Home Rule movement in Parliament with his calculated policy of obstruction. He won Gladstone over in the end, but his career was sadly ruined through the scandal of his adultery with Mrs O’Shea.
Still, these things happen and Parnell was probably too obvious a choice. And I didn’t want to make myself look silly by turning up as Parnell to find three other Parnells already there and only one Mrs O’Shea to go round between the four of us.
I had plans for something clever. Clever and trendy with it.
The next day at school I told Chico all about the party and asked him if he wanted to come. Chico looked a might battered and somewhat charred about the edges. I had to speak quite loudly to him, as he said that one of his eardrums had been perforated due to an unexpected explosion. What did he think he would come as? I asked him.
I awaited the inevitable reply and was actually quite surprised when he passed over Parnell in favour of a chap called Che Guevara who was s
ome kind of revolutionary, of all things. Outrageous!
Chico asked whether it would be all right for him to bring along a couple of new gang members. I said I felt sure that it would be, as long as he promised that they wouldn’t shoot anybody. Since it wasn’t my party.
He agreed to this and then asked whether there would be balloons at this party and jelly and games. Kids, eh!
By the time Friday evening came around, there seemed to be quite a big buzz in the neighbourhood. Everyone was talking about the Doveston’s party. Everyone seemed to be going.
I must say that I was really looking forward to it. For one thing I had quite lost touch with all my old friends from the Grange. When they went on to the Grammar and I went on to St Argent’s, it was almost as if they hadn’t wanted to speak to me any more, although I can’t imagine why that would have been.
The only one who remained close to me was the Doveston. But then he was my bestest friend and I was to be his biographer.
One thing about the party did have me baffled and that was how everyone was going to fit into the Doveston’s house. It was, after all, just a bog-standard two up and two down terraced affair, with an outdoor privy and six feet of yard. It was six doors down from my own, on the sunny side of the street.
Still, I was confident that he knew what he was doing. And, of course, he did.
Looking back now, across the wide expanse of years, it seems incredible to me that I did not see what was coming. All the clues were there. The unexpected envelope, delivered to my parents, containing two free tickets for the Black and White Minstrel Show on Friday night, along with vouchers for a steak dinner at a Piccadilly restaurant. The fact that the Doveston had borrowed the keys to our shed, to ‘store a few crates of beer’. The ‘printer’s error’ on the invitations he was giving out, which had the number of my house down as where the party was to be held.
These were all significant clues, but they somehow slipped by me. At six o’clock on the Friday night my parents went off to the show. They told me not to wait up for them, as they wouldn’t be home before midnight. We bade our farewells and I went up to my room to proceed with getting ready. Five minutes later the front-door bell rang.