Language in the Blood

by Angela Lockwood

  Chapter 17: George the Younger

  I finally got to England in 1950. Crossing the channel was a challenge, but in those days security wasn’t as tight and for the right price you could get a fisherman to take you over in a boat at night. Paris had become too complicated. I kept bumping into people I had known for many years and the baffled looks at my youthful appearance had become awkward to deal with. I sold my apartment and was suddenly wealthy. I found that where large sums of money are involved you can get people to work to your hours and so we had the deal signed and notarised at night.

  I wasn’t going to risk travelling with a suitcase full of francs, so I converted most of the money into gold and gemstones, sure that they would allow me to introduce myself nicely into the London underworld. Once in London, I got a room in Soho and told the landlady I worked nightshifts so she wouldn’t disturb me during the day.

  The London underworld after the war and during rationing was thriving. Walking at night in the East End I quickly found out who the big boys and the little guys were, I had come to recognise their type in Paris. I found out where one of the gangs hung out and walked into their pub one night, wearing my most flamboyant Parisian suit. I got some looks as I started to make enquiries, pretending to be a hard man from Scotland looking to be a hired hand.

  I was soon confronted with an ‘Oi! Outside you baby-faced Scottish wanker!’ and found myself facing two heavies with flick knives. I jumped on the largest and twisted his arm behind his back. He cried out in pain and let go of the knife. I cut his face with it and slowly licked the blood off his cheek and the knife. I asked the other one if he wanted some too. He stared at me in absolute horror and told me he didn’t.

  The big boss quickly realised he could use someone like me and hired me for a few jobs. Robbing warehouses and trading in pubs got me a new wardrobe and the contacts I built up allowed me to convert some of the gold into cash and papers. I found the role of violent thug rather amusing. I wasn’t afraid of any of these London wide boys with their little knives, and getting paid for being violent was hilarious.

  I started carrying a razor, as that drew more blood. My party-piece was to lick the bloodied razor which got me a lot of respect as a complete psycho. I made contacts quickly and settled into life in a new town. I enjoyed the role of mad Scottish gangster, it even let me get away with biting someone once, but it was an act. I didn’t like any of my new ‘friends’, most were absolute philistines who couldn’t tell the difference between a Mondriaan and a van Gogh. I didn’t like the women much either. I do like a platinum blonde in a fur coat, but I prefer the coat to be real and the collar to match the cuffs.

  There was one girl I did like: a beautiful Jamaican who sang in one of the clubs. Shirley had gorgeous dark skin, sultry eyes and a voice that would melt even a vampire’s heart. Unfortunately, she was the girl of fellow gang member, Jimmy, and hence very much off limits while he was around. So Jimmy Webster would have to go. By all accounts he was a nasty piece of work and not particularly kind to Shirley, so I had no hesitation whatsoever in following him home one night and stabbing him several times in a dark alley before feasting on him until he ceased to be.

  The following night I waited for Shirley at the stage door and offered to walk her home. She looked terrified, but I assured her Jimmy had gone up north for a job and he wanted his girl to be safe. Jimmy was found and the story hit the newspapers. Everyone thought it had been the other gang and things escalated nicely over the following week. I think Shirley had her suspicions, but she let me into her bed one night anyway. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea – you only get Cameron for one night so I made sure she saw me getting very friendly with one of the platinum blondes the night after and after a slap and a drink in my face she was safely out of my life.

  For the most part, I didn’t enjoy hanging out with the gangsters and would often head to Soho for a more genuine woman and better conversation. It was on one of those nights in Soho that I had a rather unsettling experience. As I was entering a bar, a fat man in his late fifties was coming out. When he saw me, he went white as a sheet, grabbed me by the lapels and stared long and hard at me.

  ‘No! It couldn’t be… it couldn’t...’ he said, looking at me intently.

  ‘Are you alright, sir?’ I said in my best English accent. I was intrigued. Did this man know me?

  ‘You’re just the spitting image of I chap I once knew,’ he said to me, slowly letting go of my coat.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ I said ‘you seem much shaken up.’ He let me guide him back in and we got two halves of ale and took a seat.

  ‘I knew a chap before the war who looked just like you… before the Great War,’ he told me and I was pleased it wasn’t one of my brothers. This must have been someone I’d known.

  ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m Eugene Banks,’ I said.

  ‘Ian Malcolm. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.’

  Fat Malckie! I screamed inside. He must have made it out of there alive after all! I wanted to ask him so many questions, but knew I couldn’t. I think he’d have had a heart attack there and then if I told him I really was Blairy. Fat Malckie! My word! He never did manage to shift those pounds.

  ‘So how did you end up in London, Mr Malcolm? You are Scottish are you not?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aye, now that was all because I was wounded in the Great War. I was shot in the shoulder during my first battle, Battle of the Loos. A lot of the boys didn’t survive that day, but I was lucky and just ended up with a hole in my shoulder. I got sent to a hospital in London to recuperate and that’s where I met this charming English nurse, Harriet. When I was well enough, I went back to Edinburgh until the doctors thought I was ready to go back to the front. Harriet and I had been writing to each other, but after April 1918 I never received another letter,’ he told me.

  ‘Oh dear. Not the influenza I hope?’ I asked, concerned.

  ‘I was daft about that lassie, so like a right twat I went down to London looking for her after the war.’

  ‘Did you find her? I asked him.

  ‘Yes. She’d married another soldier a few months earlier, so I was heartbroken and didn’t fancy going back to Edinburgh with my tail between my legs.’ He sighed heavily.

  ‘Did you ever get married?’ I enquired.

  ‘Ach, yes. After the war there were more women than men, so even a fat bastard like me didn’t have too much trouble finding a nice girl. June and I will have been married 30 years next year and we have four wonderful kids,’ he told me happily.

  It was good to see Malckie. I was happy he had survived and that he had a good life, but I started to get uneasy. Soon he might tell me something I didn’t want to hear. He was looking at me very closely again.

  ‘Cameron Blair. That was his name. It’s spooky how much like him you look.’

  ‘Well, I’d love to chat to you all night, Mr Malcolm, but I have to go and meet someone,’ I said, putting on my coat.

  ‘He deserted, that boy. Never thought Blairy would run away from a fight,’ Malkie said, mostly to himself, shaking his head.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to dash,’ and with that I almost ran from the pub.

  I walked and walked that night, pacing along the embankment until Big Ben struck five o’clock. No. Cameron wouldn’t ever have walked away from a fight. I don’t think he’d have hurt anyone either, but he wasn’t me anymore. A train would have taken me back to Edinburgh overnight, and it was tempting. Seeing Fat Malckie had been as pleasant as it had been disturbing, but he had got so old! I realised I couldn’t go back to Edinburgh, not until everyone was dead and buried.

  A few weeks later, I started to look for George’s wife, but I didn’t find Gail Edwards at the address he had given me. One of the neighbours told me that Gail had remarried in 1948 and moved with her new husband to Weybridge. Gail Edwards was now called Gail Baxter and I found her living in a semi-detached house with a nice shiny new Rover in the driveway. Gail was an a
ttractive woman and obviously not the type to play the grieving widow for long. I didn’t think she’d ever need my help; she had done quite alright for herself and young Thomas.

  I met Thomas’s new dad in the local pub, where he went every Friday for a couple of pints and straight home. He seemed the sensible, boring type who’d keep the same job for his entire working life. I struck up a conversation with him, pretending I was a family man too. He talked about Thomas as if he were his own son, proudly telling me about the boy’s aptitude for maths and science. He had bought him a microscope for Christmas and was sure the boy was going to be a famous scientist.

  I looked in on George’s family from time to time, making enquiries in the pub or the local shop and trying not to draw attention to myself. Things seemed to be going well until about 1962. By that time, Gail was still living in Weybridge but Thomas had moved out. In the local pub I found out that he had gone to London to study physics. So I followed him back to London and hung around the university campus and student bars until I spotted him.

  Thomas was now a tall, shy young man without much of a social life. He preferred staying in and studying rather than sampling the delights that London in the 1960s had to offer.

  I, on the other hand, enjoyed the London party scene to the fullest, loving the new miniskirts and the fun-loving girls that came in them. I decided to stay in London for a while longer and got myself an apartment near the King’s Road which seemed to be the place all the hip and groovy young things were flocking to.

  Since my days with Charley in Paris, I had been a sharp dresser, following the latest trends. Now, in London, I knew I looked good in my tailored Italian suits. I even got myself a Vespa scooter to get around town on. One night, I got a rather sozzled lovely back to my place. She had shiny, black hair cut in a Mary Quant-style bob and had on a very short suede skirt and white go-go boots. I just loved the fashion in those days! I’d never seen that much leg on display in public before!

  ‘Do you smoke, Cameron?’ she asked me, pulling out a funny-looking wee pipe.

  ‘I don’t care much for marijuana,’ I told her. When I had tried it in Paris it had left me paranoid for hours, thinking a vampire hunter was on my trail. I was halfway to Marseille before the fog in my head started to clear and I realised I was getting myself in a tizzy over nothing.

  ‘Do you want to try something stronger?’ she asked, rummaging around in her bag.

  ‘No, not really, Jane. If a weed like marijuana leaves me paranoid for days I definitely shouldn’t do stronger stuff,’ I said.

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’ She had taken out a box and lit one of my candles. I told her I didn’t. ‘Heroin. Man it is good!’ she said, preparing some drug paraphernalia. She started to cook up a mixture above the candle flame then prepared a syringe and tied off her arm to find a vein. I eyed up her pale arm jealously, all those little marks! Had someone got there before me?

  ‘Sure you don’t want a hit,’ she asked, offering me the syringe.

  ‘Quite sure,’ I said, observing her with interest.

  She injected herself and fell back on the sofa with a content smile on her lips. She was completely out of it in no time and didn’t feel my fangs opening up the vein again.

  Uh oh! Bad mistake I thought, as the heroin-infused blood went into my system. I felt the room turn and an amazing feeling of warmth and well-being came over me.

  Then it went black.