by Terry Taylor
I sat there listening to my mother go on and on and I wanted to run, run like mad out of the room and keep on running until I dropped to the ground so tired that all I could do is sleep. Sleep for years and years and perhaps never wake up.
It was no use talking, because if I did I knew there would be a scene. My mother wanted a scene so that she could get all her nasty frustrations out of her. She wanted my father to say something — anything that she could have a go at, but he was too cute, he’d lived with her for years and knew her, or perhaps knew people, and then I realised that he wasn’t a lunatic after all. At that moment I admired him but I didn’t respect him. I admired him because he wasn’t saying anything, and the mere fact of his silence told me that he didn’t think Liz was a prostitute. (I hate to admit this but that was the feeling I had in my mother’s case.) But I didn’t respect him because of his silence. I wanted him to stand up to my mother, to shout back, to punch her, even, to knock her to the ground and kick her in the teeth, to inform her that he’d snatched a bit before they were married and to ask her if she didn’t enjoy it. But my dad remained silent.
Liz was in hospital a fortnight but I didn’t get a chance to see her on her own during that time because mum was at the hospital during every visiting period. I went along with her a couple of times but it was always a very huge dragging-down session. I had the feeling we were visiting her not in a hospital — but a prison for dangerous women criminals. Little was said at these little scenes. Just a few, ‘How are you feeling?’ from mum, a cold, guilty stare from Liz, and an embarrassed look from me. Horrible, it was.
Then she came out, and it was me that met her, on my own as well, and I pushed her into a cab and stopped it at the first pub and brought her a brandy because she wasn’t allowed to drink but I told her that brandy was a medicine so stop worrying. It was great to have her on my own again.
“Well, I really did it this time,” she said when I got her seated.
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a sip of my cider.
“All this. The silly mess I got myself in. Those neighbours have really got themselves something to talk about now.”
As you can guess, I felt like punching her on the nose for saying that. But I restrained myself. I just said, “Don’t mention the neighbours to me. You know how I feel about them.”
“You’ve got to,” she said. “For mum’s sake.” She looked a little guilty.
“You’ll find out different one day.”
She sat up higher in her chair, then started to run her finger around the top of her glass in a nervous manner. “I’ve been out of the hospital for twenty minutes,” she said in a low voice, “just twenty minutes,” glancing at her watch, “so I’m not in the mood for rows. Let’s change the subject.” She looked up at me. “I read once,” she went on, “that everyone in prison spends the whole of their time in there thinking about themselves. Their lives, their mistakes, their loves. Hospital’s something like prison, you know. Not so bad, of course. I thought about a lot of things — including you. Do you know something?”
“What’s that?”
“You’re my only pal. The only real person in my life.”
And I felt embarrassed.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Mum’ll be waiting.”
When we reached home everyone was coldly polite to everyone else, not like a family somehow, like a meeting between Churchill and Stalin. Mum and dad tried to act natural, but never put in a very good performance. Liz didn’t help things: she had this Joan-of-Arc expression, which changed now and again to a defeated channel swimmer’s. I sat there like a silent referee. Everything considered, the evening didn’t go off too badly, and in a week things swung back to normal.
But, believe it or not, there was another happening that caused more tears and rows than even Liz’s efforts did. That was when I left home. Yes, I packed my bag and made it out of that house once and for all. Don’t let me kid you, it wasn’t as easy as that by a very long way, but I had put in weeks of planning and preparing, then I whipped it on them.
Firstly I told them I’d left my job. That was as soon as they arrived back from the peasants’ paradise, Canvey Island. They were even pleased about it as I told them that I’d managed to secure a very sought-after position as a junior sales rep for a firm of typewriter manufacturers in the city. So every day mum got me off for ‘work’ and I caught the train and met Dusty in Soho.
The “Dusty Miller Indian Hemp Company Limited” had been doing quite well on the Soho stock exchange, so we’d been picking up a sexy score a week each on the average, pushing ounce weights mostly and leaving the tiny packet trade to the other firms, as that branch of the business is very unhealthy if you want to stay around long and not have porridge for breakfast every morning. We had a nice little round worked up and we were responsible for a lot of the very swinging sounds that were being heard around the Jazz clubs, as we had practically all the musicians’ trade to ourselves, thanks to our dear friend Ayo, who was still showing up with that Congo Brand No 1, and never once had he guzumped us with a mixture of bitter leaf, asthma cure and canary seed.
The big drag was getting up so early for ‘work’ and having to make an appearance again in the evening to tell my mum how many typewriters I’d sold and to eat my din-din up like a good little boy. I kept phoning her up at five-thirty to tell her that because I was saving up for a new suit I would be doing a spot of overtime, and she told all the neighbours that at last I’d found a job that I was interested in. Of course, she was perfectly right. But, man, I wanted to be free. Really free, I mean. To have a pad of my own and do as I pleased. I had loot now, so I could afford it, but I was determined not to rush things for a change and to goof as far as my old lady was concerned.
Then I put the second part of my plan into operation. I told her that I’d met a very nice chappy at work who lived by himself because he was an orphan (I knew that this would appeal to my mother’s sympathetic nature), and I felt really sorry for him as he was so lonely. She nearly messed things up by offering him a home with us so that she could take over the mothering nonsense, but I quickly told her that he wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing as he was ever so happy where he was, and anyway it was much handier for him to live where he did.
“As a matter of fact,” I told her, “it’s ridiculous to live this far out if you work in London. I travel three hours every day on that stuffy tube and it gets me down. Dusty, that’s my friend’s name, has asked me to share his room with him.”
“That’s a silly name for a man,” she said.
“I suppose it is. He’s asked me to share his room, you know.”
“Has he?” my mother asked. Then there was silence.
“Yes, he has. I’m thinking seriously about it, too. It would save all that unnecessary travelling.”
My mum carried on with her knitting without saying a word.
“Don’t you think it’s a good idea, mum?” I persisted.
“What?” she asked.
“Sharing a room with my friend in town.”
“Don’t be so silly,” she just said.
“But I’m going to. I’ve promised him.”
She found it all very amusing. “I’d dread to see that room after you’ve been living in it a week. Why don’t you get all those silly ideas out of your head? You’re only a baby yet.”
“But I’m going to, Mum. I’ve made up my mind.”
She looked slowly up from her knitting and I could see that for the first time she was taking all this seriously. She tried to laugh it off again but when she realised that I meant it she went fucking mad. She did her hysterics act on me and for the first time in my life I heard her use bad language. I don’t like remembering this so I won’t go into all the morbid details but I can assure you that although I’d prepared myself for the onslaught it was a harder battle than I ever imagined it would be. She tried everything except violence to make me change my mind, but I was determined that whatever happened
I’d go through with it. If I goofed this chance, I’d never get another. It wasn’t easy, mind you. Seeing your own mother crying and breaking her heart in front of you isn’t the best of sights, especially when you know that by just saying a few simple words would make her stop. But I did it. I held on for all I was worth and once I very nearly gave in, but I pulled through it somehow.
The next morning I left. It was like a funeral. There was I, struggling to carry my heavy suitcase through the door, with mum and Liz shedding tears like rain, dad remaining silent in the background and our dog Rinty howling like the Hound of the Baskervilles. Just as I was leaving, Liz called me into the front room without even getting permission.
“Keep in touch,” she said in a tear-drenched voice.
“I’m not going to Australia, Liz, old girl. I’ll see you every week.”
“Thanks for everything,” she said, as though she’d never see me again. Then she grabbed me and put a wet kiss on my lips which so surprised me I lost my balance.
So that was that. Although I felt thoroughly miserable, I couldn’t help feeling relieved and happy as well. Relieved because it was all over and I was past the door, and happy because I was free from it all. I noticed that Old Mother Manley was peeping out of her curtain at me, and thinking what a horror of a son I’d turned out to be, leaving home and all. Nothing like her darling Young George who’d be ligging around her pad for ever and ever if she has her way. But Mrs Manley can go to hell now — so can all the other Mrs Manleys in the Kingdom of Suburbia. I was immigrating to a new and exciting land where things happen and people are individuals, not just a tribe like you are in prison. But one day I would return driving a modern Yank car that looked like something from Outer Space, with a bank roll so big I’d have to have an accountant to look after it for me, and I’d buy my family a cottage by the sea like they’ve always dreamed about, and they’d tell me that they knew I’d make it one day, and then I’d go across and see Young George. He’d be going through his month’s bills trying to figure out how he’d manage till the next pay cheque came along, and I’d throw some loose notes on the table that I had in my pocket and tell him to keep them as I had too much money anyway.
Two days previously to this, I’d found myself (with the help of Dusty) a gass of a pad just off Warren Street. For those of you who are not privileged to live in London, Warren Street is about twenty minutes’ journey by your own two legs from Soho, and I don’t have to tell you how handy that is if you miss the last tube or bus and don’t feel obliged to wait for the very convenient all-night transport that is provided for night workers, but is used by late night party-goers. I won’t exaggerate and tell you that my pad was a palace or anything like that, but it was cosy and looked lived in and not the sort of place that you’re eager to get out of, like a lot of bed-sitters that some people are forced to live in. Just a largish room with a bed and the usual furniture, but I had a tiny kitchen and a carzy as well. There was no bath but the public ones were just around the corner. The big advantage was that I was the only person living there as it is above some offices and a tailor’s workroom, so after six in the evening I could do as I damn well pleased. The prize thing about it was the roof, which was easily got at and provided a crazy landscape of other people’s roofs which you could feast your eyes on for hours and discover untold things of interest, as long as you have enough Pot to notice them. I bought a few pots of paint, the whitest I could find, and poured into them a dash of tinned strawberry juice to give it just the slightest shade of pink, and then had a ball with the paint brush. The next thing was a threespeakered Hi-Fi which put you slap bang into the middle of the rhythm section and enabled you to catch the real high ones that Maynard Ferguson blew out, and Miss Roach presented me with a couple of her weirdest paintings, which on the day that she gave them me I goofed very badly with by hanging them upside down. I even invested in a fitted carpet that cost me a pound a square yard to put the finishing touches to this very swinging paddery. I was all set up.
Miss Roach took up the position as my regular chick, acting, unpaid. I didn’t let her smother me, but I’d make a habit of going around to her pad nearly every lunchtime to share her spaghetti and VP and to pick up the necessary Charge, and about once a week I’d take her to a Jazzery to listen to sounds and make a hell of a fuss of her in repayment of using her toilet as a warehouse, which she still didn’t know anything about. She had the most valuable carzy in the whole of London!
It was on a Saturday evening some months after I’d established myself in Warren Street that I went down into her bargain basement and found her looking as worried as a junkie who’d just had her prescription scratched. “Thank goodness you’ve come,” she said, pouring me out a large glass of Merrydown and VP mixed. “Dusty’s just ran into some trouble. He’s in a terrible state. Someone gave him a bitch of a punch-up so he’s popped into the chemist to buy some plasters.”
Ten minutes later DM came through the door looking very sorry for himself. He had a prize-winning black eye, whose bruise hadn’t turned out properly yet, and it promised to be a green one and a yellow one before it was finished, also a cut over the other eye and his face was covered with lumps and bumps and abstract scratches.
“What happened to you?” I said, concerned over the state my old pal was in.
“Don’t ask such bloody stupid questions! Can’t you see what’s happened?” he shouted.
“But who did it, for heaven’s sake?” Miss Roach chimed in.
“Jumbo did it,” he said quietly.
“Oh fuck!” I said.
“Don’t you start,” he spitted out at me. “I’ve enough worries without you having a go at me.”
I knew it would have to happen sooner or later, but it proved to be sooner. I’d kept on at Dusty not to get involved with him, but you can’t tell Dusty anything. If he makes up his mind to do something there’s very little you can say or do that will alter it. He had this thing about getting in on the half a Tea trade, which is without doubt the uncoolest thing that anyone could do, and not worth it really because we weren’t exactly starving serving up the bigger weights, but he just wasn’t satisfied. The only places that you could have it off with the little brown packets were a couple of shady clubs that had never appealed to me, where a mixed bag of smokers ligged, but these places were always served by Jumbo or one of his slaves that were always on the skint one but were always very kindly turned on to a good smoke for risking their neck pushing there. Greedy Dusty Miller had decided that it was about time that he gave Jumbo some clean competition, so having had a good blow to give himself the necessary confidence, he’d gone down to these two dives and spread the good word around that he was holding some Matadi that was twice as high-making as that glorified cow shit that Jolly Jumbo was dealing. His new business venture soon came to an abrupt end. Before he knew what had happened he’d been dragged into the carzy and set about, and the one who’d handed out this sentence was none other than Jumbo himself.
“I don’t like the look of it,” Dusty said, sticking plasters all over his face so that it made him look like a patchwork quilt.
“Don’t worry. It’s finished with now. He’s given you a good hiding so he’ll leave it at that,” Miss Roach said in her most sympathetic voice.
“That’s what you think,” Dusty mumbled. “Jumbo doesn’t let things go as easy as that. I’m expecting trouble.”
“Perhaps we’d better cool it for a few days,” I suggested.
“What sort of partner have I got, for fuck sake? You’re the sort of cat that would stand around and let someone piss on you. You’d better get some new ideas into your head double quick. We’re not going to get pushed around, d’y hear? Not by Jumbo or anyone. If we back out we’re finished. So don’t give me any more of that yellow talk.”
I was scared stiff. I don’t mind admitting it either. It’s all very well to put the VC one on now and again, but when you’re up against a ruffian like Jumbo, it’s no use landing yours
elf in men’s surgical for nothing.
I tried my best to sound brave in front of Miss Roach.
“I’m not scared. It’s just that things are swinging as they stand and I don’t want to go and nause things up by getting mixed up with a cunt like Jumbo.”
Miss Roach came to my rescue. “I agree with him,” she told Dusty. “Lay off Jumbo and he’ll leave you alone. What’s the use of unnecessary heroics?”
“I think now’s the time to turn the children on,” I said, bringing out my personal, private Hemp ration. “We’ll have it in the match box. If it don’t take us places that way, it never will.”
I made the spliff, three skins, and drilled a hole in the match box just big enough for the end to fit in. I then put my hand over one end of the box and puffed at the other end so that the valuable smoke went straight down, nonstop express, to my feet.
I’m pleased to report what I expected to report. After a few good puffs things were a lot more swinging than a few minutes previously. We started to laugh at Dusty’s busted face and he looked at himself in the mirror and he couldn’t help having a little giggle as well. He told us that all good hustlers get beat up now and again, so who cares? It suited him in a way, we all decided. He looked far more rugged, and there was toughness, which was unnoticeable before, hidden behind those battle-scarred eyes?
We put on a Jelly Roll Morton record (I’d ceased to think of him as a square) and listened a while very quietly and afterwards told each other how much we’d been missing when we thought of him as unhip as Karl Marx. Then Dusty let Diz have a blow on the gram, and he blew nice, having a right go at the drummer, hurrying him along, never letting him rest for a moment. Then his stable companion Charlie Parker gave him a rest and took over, knowing that these sounds were going to be played years and years and years later by cats who still thought of him as the Daddy of them all.
“Listen what Harry did for the Bird,” Miss Roach said, smoking the spliff right down to the roach. “Man, you’re a gass!” she shouted to the record. “That’s it! Whip it on me! Oh fuck — that’s it!” ”