Baron's Court, All Change

by Terry Taylor

  “Listen, Squire, don’t sound too sure of yourself. You know how people can smell a copper from a mile off? Well, it’s the same for me as far as would-be junkies go,” Popper said, wiping the cream moustache that he had around his mouth.

  “Now we’re on the junk. Who mentioned that? I thought you were talking about girls’ tablets. Man, don’t ever associate the white stuff with me. That’s completely out as far as I’m concerned. I’m scared stiff of needles anyway.”

  “I used to be as well — petrified of the damn things I was. It’s fine now — since I’ve had a bit of practice.”

  “What’s it really like, being a junkie, Pops?” I asked him.

  “Don’t you start. You sound like one of those poxy journalists. Every time you meet one they’re on you like a ton of bricks asking a thousand questions. I couldn’t even answer them if I tried.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t remember what it was like before I was hooked. They ask you stupid bloody questions like, ‘How’s your sex life?’ And I tell them, fine — when I lay off the junk. They get me so mad that I offer to sell them a fix so that they can see what it’s all about for themselves. That soon gets rid of them.”

  By the way, we were in a coffee bar. A dirty Soho one called The Liggery, where the strangest mixture of human beings gathered together to fix up deals that never materialise, to talk about their painting and writing and a whole gang of other things, but I’m afraid they talk more than they create. Dusty had me promise never to pass its broken doors, as a high percentage of the inmates would sell their own crippled Granny for a night’s kip or a glass of Merrydown. There was a feeling of suicide every time you went into the place, and something unsafe and frightening to those that weren’t on the skippers kick.

  “But if I really let them in on the junkie world,” Popper continued, “they’d be terribly disappointed. Do you know I even feel that they think it’s romantic, I mean the ones that don’t take in the ‘confessions’ rubbish. They see it as one long kick, a swinging life of pops and happiness and escapism. It knocks me out, that does. Really, it’s nothing more than one big waiting in a quack’s waiting-room, and when you get inside, a constant battle for keeping your script. To try and fanny someone that’s cuter than you are, who’s had years of your type and knows exactly how to deal with them. At first you think you can throw any old cobblers at them, but they know you, man, they know more about the thing than you ever will. And they’ve got just the right answers for you, too. The head shrinker’s your enemy, not the junk. The means of getting it, not when you’ve got it. And when the horrors poke their ugly face around the corner, they’re always associated with that so-called understanding person that writes on those sexy pieces of paper that you take to John Bell and Croyden.”

  “It must be a drag,” I sympathised, offering him a snout.

  “No, it’s not, I don’t mind. I don’t like my doctor, that’s true, but that’s only because she’s so big-headed about everything, and tells me how fortunate I am to live in such an understanding country such as England, where they don’t throw their junkies in a padded cell to have a cold turkey, and I ought to kiss her smelly feet for her kindness in letting me have some horse to poison myself with. Apart from that, it’s fine. I look upon myself as a missionary or a monk or something like that, except my monastery is a little more attractive than theirs.”

  “It’s different to what you read about junkies,” I said.

  “I thought you had more sense than to believe all that crap that’s written about us. The same kind of shit is written about your Charge scene as well. It’s not so bad when a doctor or trickcyclist does it, but when the poxy thing’s written by someone that’s supposed to have indulged, then it’s a bloody sight worse. You believe them because they make it sound authentic. And even worse still are the writers that do write truth about a lot of things that they know about, but add Charge or the junk into their tale to give it a bit of variety.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said. By this time I was really interested.

  “Like I read a book once, called ‘I Have Never Had A Minute’s Peace Since I Became A Drug Fiend Eighty Years Ago.’ Well, it was called something like that, anyway. It was all about this fellow that was to be a preacher, but he managed to get himself mixed up in bad company, and before you could say pop, he was well and truly hooked on about thirty killer drugs. He stole, lied, and cheated, and even sold his best friend’s cat for a fix, and in the end, his girl friend, who reminded me very much of the Angel Gabriel minus the wings, locked him into a room for twenty-four hours. When she eventually opened up the door he emerged completely cured and a thoroughly respectable citizen. I ask you. You might as well buy a Mickey Mouse annual.”

  I’d never heard him speak like this before. I’d not had much conversation with him in the past as Dusty didn’t like me to mix with addicts, but the few times I had been in his company I’d never heard him speak about his habit much, except that now and again he’d boast that the junk had never stopped him eating or sleeping or waking or walking, like it did to most of his clan. He had it under control he told everyone, not the heroin but his life. He wasn’t one of those sick people that locked themselves in their pad twenty-four hours a day, or spewed every five minutes, or didn’t wash for a week. No, the junk was the master of him, but he was the master of his life.

  The Liggery was quite crowded by now, and the smell of sweaty bodies was really strong, I’m not kidding either. Quite horrible, in fact. Anyone wearing a clean shirt was stared at very unfriendly like by the rest who seemed to object to the person’s presence even. The female section was as bad as their opposites. A cat must be very kinky to want to climb into bed with those dirty dolls. They were hitch-hiking across the continent, pep tablets and trad-dogs, with a uniform of dirty jeans, overgrown sweater, I’m-from-Soho sandals and ballet make-up to prove it. They all had the best of intentions to start with, I’m sure, but we have to understand that all great artists are never successful, so how can they afford to change their underclothes every week?

  Popper’s black pin-head eyes darted quickly around the smoky, smelly scene before him, giving everyone a hostile look. “This place stinks!” he suddenly shouted out so all could hear. “Why don’t they install some sanitation in this layabouts’ lodging house?” Everyone returned his hostile looks but didn’t take offence as it was too much bother for them to do that. “People make me laugh,” he said, like he was talking to himself. “They call me sick. That’s funny, that is. If I’m sick I don’t know what you’d call these species of animal life. They’re not even human. I’d put my name down for the suicide stakes express post, if their bug found it’s way in me. I wouldn’t mind if they did anything, but they don’t. At least I hustle with my prescription and work the poor helpless drug addict one on a few kinky old ladies, but they’re static, man, stopped and finished.”

  It was getting dusk, so the disher-up of tea came from behind the counter bringing his bright ginger beard and heavy body with him and started to put a match to the candles on the plain wooden un-scrubbed tables, so that the customers (I’m referring to about half the people in the place) could try and read their books that I’m sure most of them couldn’t understand a word of. I couldn’t understand the titles of most of them. Dig this. This will slaughter you. They even had their own astrologer in the place! A grey-haired cat, tall and slim, who if he appeared in What’s My Line? would be guessed straight away without the panel having to ask him any questions. He does nothing but write in books all the time, looking very busy and wise, checking on charts and looking quite gone, but I’m sorry to have to tell you that I’ve never yet seen him have a client. Perhaps he’s working out where he’s going to sleep that night!

  “What are you doing here?” I heard a voice behind me say.

  I spun around and much to my surprise it was none other than my partner in crime, Dusty Miller.

  “I’ve been trying to get you on t
he phone all afternoon, where have you been?” he asked me all in one breath.

  “To Battersea,” I answered him.

  “Since when have you been interested in gas works and dogs’ homes?” he asked critically.

  “Never. Fun Fairs. I’ve had a ball on the roundabouts and they’ve the biggest Big Wheel that I’ve seen in my life.”

  He seated himself down between Popper and myself and took his best and only shortie overcoat off and threw it on a vacant seat. “I know it’s your money and all that,” he went on, “but don’t come the big rich business tycoon with me. You’ve got to do your share of the graft as well, you know.”

  “But I didn’t know that we were going to start today,” I told him.

  “He didn’t know that you were going to start today,” joined in Popper, who didn’t have the faintest idea what we were talking about.

  “Start today? We’ve finished,” Dusty said to me, ignoring Popper.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “I’ve sold the lot! The whole pound weight’s been got rid of, thanks to me and my efforts on your behalf. Come into the carzy.” I followed him into the place that they call a toilet, which would have been a sanitary inspector’s delight if he was in a bad mood, and Dusty straight away pulled a very sexy wad of crisp pound notes out of his pocket. I don’t think I’d ever seen so much money, except perhaps when I’d been to the bank for some change for the shop, and seen a clerk counting out lots of luscious lolly in a Charlie Chaplin way.

  “Is that ours?” I asked, not being able to take my eyes off that wonderfully inspiring sight.

  “Thanks to me, yes. One hundred and twenty-eight pounds, minus seventeen and fourpence expenses. Eight quid an ounce, that’s what I got. It went like water in the Sahara Desert as there’s been this drought on since Danny quit the scene. Don’t think this is going to happen every day because it’s not. But the important thing is that we’re established. From now on it’ll be sure and steady.”

  “But that’s just great. I can hardly believe it,” I said, with my mind full of thoughts about how I was going to spend this fortune.

  “I had to go over to Miss Roach’s pad myself today to pick up, and I didn’t appreciate it, I can assure you. If I have to go alone again she’s sure to tumble.”

  “It won’t happen again, Dusty. You can count on that,” I assured him.

  He then counted out thirty-eight pounds which was my share of the profit, giving himself the same and keeping back another fifty to buy a pound weight with so that we could start all over again. He told me that he’d already fixed everything up with Ayo and that he was collecting from him the next day at noon.

  I felt like a millionaire. I wanted to go to Cecil Gee and buy half their stock up or something crazy like that. This was two months’ wages from Down & Co, Mr Cage, look out! If I meet you now I’m sure to land myself in nick on an assault charge. Oh wonderful, sexy, healthy, handy money! I knew we were always meant for each other. Let’s stay friends forever and keep turning each other on to the other’s company. I’m happy with you if you feel the same about me. Let’s wander through life together and comfort each other. There’ll never be another friend like you.

  “What do you want? A tea or something?” I asked Dusty as we returned to Popper.

  I treated us all to a tea and two cream cakes for Popper, who thanked me no end and asked if I’d come into a fortune or something. I wanted to tell him everything, to brag about it, to flash my dirty great roll of spondoolix to the whole coffee bar, and tell them that you have to be a real hustler to earn loot like this, and to pay for everyone’s kip at Rowton House that night. But I restrained myself.

  The only thing that is to be recommended at The Liggery is the juke box, I mean the records on the juke box. It has its fair share of razamataz and even a few pops, but it also brags a number of discs that are musical. Popper put on a Parker who was playing a swinging Dancing in the Dark with a whole line of violins and harps and things. Blowing mad — wriggling in and out of the strings like an eel — saying to the square lady violinist, “I’m technical too and I swing like crazy!” Echoes of the Bird in flight — high in the heavens — telling the world...

  “What’s happening tonight?” Dusty asked me, admiring the new shirt he’d bought himself from C Gee’s.

  “Bunty’s happening tonight,” I told him.

  “You’re becoming quite a little Romeo in your own quiet way, aren’t you? Whatever happened between you and Miss Roach the other night certainly impressed her. She talked about nothing else but you when I visited her today. How’s Bunty and the Spiritualist lark getting on?”

  “Spiritualism, did I hear you say? Are you in that game, too?” Popper asked me with his voice full of interest.

  “It’s not a game. It’s a very serious thing,” I said.

  “A friend of mine’s in it as well. He makes a bomb out of it. He even has a black mass every month. Perhaps I can introduce you to him sometime. He’s a very good contact as far as the spook one’s concerned.”

  “I’m not interested in black masses,” I told my addicted acquaintance.

  “I see,” he said, “you’re only interested in the straight stuff. I bet you get those merry widows really at it when you perform. How’s trade?”

  “There isn’t any trade. I’m not even a practising medium. In fact, the novelty has worn off a bit now. I hardly ever go to a meeting these days.”

  “Silly boy. Keep it up. There’s a fortune to be made in it if you play your cards right.”

  The buzz of conversation around us was working itself up to quite a noise. The crowd could relax now — the day was falling into night, which was definitely more them. Gone was the sun with all its harshness and squint-making. Night was the time for artists to tap the fountain of inspiration — but all these seemed to be doing was sip black coffee. But they could talk better, and talk they did. Discussions on painting and politics and poetry and Jazz were being thrashed out amongst the bare floorboards and filthy cups by bearded children with their minds crammed with being different from the rest.

  “Don’t give me all that Yankee stars and stripes nonsense,” I overheard one angry young man say to another. “They’re invading our soil and we’re their forty-ninth state. America the unbeatable, that’s what’s planted in your distorted mind. Just because a musician is a Yank he’s great, according to you. If a few of our boys were born in the States they’d be classed as first-grade Jazzists, but because they’ve a Cockney accent it’s taken for granted that they’re nothing more than poor imitators. Fuck America, that’s what I say!”

  A tall, lean youth, with spectacles in front of his shifty eyes, and a pair of suede Cossack boots on his enormous feet, came through the door and surveyed the scene with interest. It looked as if his dowdy, dark duffle-coat that he had slung around him like a shawl, had acted as a blanket on many a park bench, and the dirt on his shirt was caused not by crawling under a car, but he’d forgotten he had to take it off occasionally and wash it; that it was a permanent part of him that was unremovable, like his arms and legs.

  He spotted Popper and pushed his way through the maze of tables and chairs and people’s long legs. When he reached our table he leaned over me and whispered something in Popper’s ear. The junkie’s face was expressionless, then suddenly it came to life. He didn’t look pleased.

  “Narcotics you say your friend wants?” he shouted out aloud. “Narcotics? What are they? Go and tell your friend to do his grassing elsewhere, or I’ll punch your friend’s friend right out of this smelly place!”

  The booted youth didn’t need telling twice. He was out of the coffee bar before you could say ‘Copper’s nark.’

  “It’s just occurred to me that there’s one very nice thing about being a registered junkie,” said Popper, with a smile across his sickly white face.

  “What’s that?” Dusty said.

  “When it’s time to pick up the ration, I walk up to a uniformed
bogey and ask him the way to the nearest chemist shop as I want to purchase my heroin and other dangerous drugs. The poor fellow just don’t know what to do, and I’ve been whipped along to the station more than once, I can tell you. And when I get there, is that poor bastard policeman’s face red when I show the desk sergeant my script? I suggest to the constable that I’m a naughty law breaker, and he falls for it like a ton of bricks.”

  This really wigged Dusty. He gave out a laugh that made even the most disinterested face look around at him. “What I wouldn’t do to be able to make that one,” he said in amongst his laughter. That’s what I call crazyotic!”

  “Rumour has it that you two have started pushing,” Popper said to Dusty and myself quite casually.

  “Rumour has it right,” Dusty said, sounding very business-like. “We’ve the music world tied up already, but that’s just the start. I have plans to move in properly soon. We’ll have the whole town under control before long. We’ve the Charge and we’ve the ambition. What more do we want?”

  “Tact,” Popper replied.

  “What do you mean?” Dusty asked, sounding slightly concerned.

  “I should keep your ambitions restricted to the musicians if I were you. Don’t try and conquer too many fields. Jumbo over there knows about you already, and he’s not the sort of cat that will stand by and watch you take any of his business away from him.”

  Popper was referring to a just about young, nearly old cat sitting in the corner, who was reading a Superman comic. He had a clean shirt on and a tie as well, but his hair was long and cut in a Boston style, which by the way went out with Dixieland Jazz. His clothes were of the post-war American style, all flash and larey, ice-blue gabardine, twenty-inch bottom slacks as well. Every now and again he’d glance up from his comic and stare at us in a corny movie way, like he was a spy from a nonexisting country. He looked a right villain.