Alfie

by Bill Naughton

  I’m crossing Lambeth Bridge when I suddenly have an idea, and I go down Horseferry Road instead of turning along the Embankment, and as I pass Westminster Hospital there’s this woman outside selling flowers from a barrow, as I knew there would be. Now here’s a handy tip, if ever you want to buy flowers on a Sunday in London; keep away from Victoria or the Marble Arch, they’ll fiddle you for sure. Make for a hospital, there’s always somebody selling flowers outside and they won’t gyp you. A fair profit but no more. Mind you, I think flowers are nearly all profit. I bought her one dozen lovely yellow roses. I was going to buy red, but then I felt I’d better not come it too strong. I got the woman to put lots of paper round them, the very best she’d got, and pin the wrapping down at the top. She even offered me a Cellophane wrapper she’d got hold of, but somehow that stuff reminds me of funerals, so I turned it down.

  But fancy Malcolm not recognising me! I couldn’t get over that. Same as I say, he didn’t know me from Adam. Or could it have been he did and thought he’d better say nothing? Or perhaps he recognised me but couldn’t place me. They’ve got funny memories have kids. Here, a mate of mine called Danny had come into a few quid one time – pools I think it was, or it might have been the dogs – and he let his old woman persuade him that she was near a breakdown and that she needed a fortnight’s rest without the kid. Danny’s own Mum only brought twelve of them up, and never had a holiday in her life, but same as they say, other times other customs. He’s a youngster of three this kid, so they put him into a private nursery for the time – very expensive place it was, about twelve quid a week. Course it rained all the fortnight – I think it was Brighton they went to – and old Danny was dead miserable all the time longing to see the kid, see. Then they nipped over to pick him up on the Sunday evening – only two weeks later – and know what, that kid made out he didn’t know them! He screamed his head off, and clung tight to the Matron, and he begged of her to send them away. It gave old Danny the biggest shock he’d ever had. That kid was his sun and moon, and here he is after a fortnight and he don’t want to know. Well finally they had to pull him off – and the Matron didn’t want him to go, for after all Matrons are human as well. Anyway this kid screamed and cried all the way back home in the car. So Danny’s old woman threatened what she’d do to him if he didn’t belt up. Then Danny blew his top proper: ‘If you so much as lay a finger on him,’ he warned her, ‘I’ll chop your bleeding head off your shoulders.’

  And he told me he would have done too, he was that upset himself. He reckoned it took months for the kid to come round. So there you are.

  * * *

  As I’m driving along towards Dolphin Square I find I start planning my future in my mind. Very unusual for me, because I mostly like to live a day at a time, but I feel the time has come round for me to settle down. I think I must have had a bit of a shaking up during the course of the day, see. Yes, I’m definitely going to settle down with this Ruby, I decide. Thinking it over, I’ve had enough of being on the move; somehow I find I’m not stalking these young birds any more. I mean I’m going in more for comfort. Well, after all, comfort is something you can enjoy when you’re ninety. (I’m telling myself all this, see.) You get a young bird and you can bet certain for sure she’ll keep bringing up love. But Ruby hardly ever mentions the word. Perhaps it’ll slip out at just the rare moment instead of one of the other short words. Same as I say, she knows what she wants. You get the same with most older birds, you’ll hear ’em say: Aren’t we having a good time! They don’t keep going on about love and getting engaged. They know the score. Here, I’d one mature woman one time, a grave digger’s widow, see, I was in digs with her – never charged me except for my laundry, and she used to say: ‘Go with who you want, Alfie, and enjoy yourself. But come home to me at night – that’s all I ask.’ They’re more appreciative, and same as I say, some of them can’t half go to town!

  Where was I? Oh yes – Ruby. Another thing – she always had plenty of food and drink in, gins, whiskies, you name it and she has it – except perhaps Dimple Haig, but who wants that – whilst these young chicks can’t even offer you a glass of Lucozade. Comfort never enters a young bird’s mind. Not unless she’s a real fat lazy dope. And Ruby’s got some beautiful clobber. She goes in mostly for what you call ‘model’ coats, and she’s got some lovely fur coats as well, a real Persian Lamb, she’s even got a Wild Mink Jacket for evenings. And you should see all the fashion cards she’s got on her mantelpiece: Hardy Amies Ltd request the pleasure of your company at the showing of their Spring Collection. Then you get Worth requests it, Paquin, Norman Hartnell – I don’t know how many of those fashion geezers request the pleasure of Ruby’s company.

  I must say like any other normal man, I love a woman you can take out and show off. It’s half the pleasure. I mean it don’t half make these other geezers envy you. I once took her to the club where Sharpey and Perce were, and you should have seen their faces. And getting back to domestic things, there’s this marvellous big bath she had put in. It’s out of this world with all its mirrors. I love it when she gets it all full up, not too hot, but frothy and scented, and we can sit there, splashing and whatnot, and rubbing one another’s backs down and having fun. I bet they can hear us laughing in the next flat’s bathroom. They must wonder at times what we’re up to. I find it very relaxing that sort of thing. It means you can have a lot of fun without absolutely knocking yourself out, if you see what I mean. Well, why extend yourself on every occasion. You’ve got your health to think of. And of course I always finish off with the old cold shower. Same as I say, it tightens you handsome. But these young birds, why, they can’t even offer you a bowl of water to wash your hands in. I’ll bet if you got one of them in a bath like Ruby’s they’d be lost. Like as not they’d start scrubbing themselves or something of that sort, and make the water all scummy. Same with this bidet she’s had specially put in. They wouldn’t even know what one of them was for. Although you could hardly make it more obvious. Mind you, they are a bit overfacing for a start – I mean the way they shout it out. It’s not the sort of thing you could have in a family house, of course, not with youngsters around. Still, same as old Ruby says: ‘It takes the French to think of a thing like this.’ They seem to have thought of quite a lot of things.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I parked my car alongside one of these big squares you get about parts of London with grass and flowers in the middle and trees all round and people walking their dogs around in it – St George’s Square or something they call it. There were two young nuts racing along on these Italian scooters, and they were making a hell of a din, filling the square it was, and I thought how it must have been, say about sixty years before, with only these horse-drawn carriages rolling along, and the nice clop-clop of hooves, and no smells except from the odd pile of steaming horse droppings. One old boy I once worked with told me how at one time he used to put the straw down in the streets if any famous man was ill, so that the sound of the carriages going by wouldn’t disturb him. They wouldn’t do that for anybody in these days. They’d stop outside your front door and blow their bloody horns to hasten you on. I think people must have lost all respect. That’s what makes their lives so empty. If they’ve no respect for others they can’t have any for themselves.

  Anyway, I nipped round the corner to this Dolphin Square. Course I’m keeping the roses well out of sight. I mean somebody has only to spot you walking into a block of flats on a Sunday afternoon with a bunch of flowers and not only do you look a right lemon, but unless they’re dead dim they must know for certain what you’re after. And you don’t want your private intentions open to everybody along the street. I mean, I’ve often seen one of these civil servant types with his bowler hat and umbrella, taking his old woman a bunch of flowers home of a Friday, and I’ve spotted from the look in his eyes what’s on his mind. I suppose it’s the five-day week has done it – he knows he don’t have to get up early Saturday morning. Not that I want to run ci
vil servants down. In some ways I think they’re the backbone of this country – well, perhaps not the backbone, the coalminers are that, but they’re definitely a steadying influence.

  I rang the lift bell. There must have been a couple of these old dames using it – one holding the lift door whilst the other was having a good rabbit. The world could come to an end but they’ll never cut short a chat. I had a thought cross my mind about the funny thing that happened to me on my very first visit to Ruby’s flat.

  Now I can’t say whether it was it being across the river off my usual manor, or the uniformed porters around the block, or poncing about her flat with the thick carpets under my feet, and perfumes I wasn’t used to – I don’t know what it was – but I didn’t feel up to her, if you see what I mean. I’d never struck that high socially. Mind you, we hadn’t got cracking, but I had a strong suspicion I would what they call not rise to the occasion.

  Of course, that was not the first time it had ever happened to me. I suppose it happens to every normal man some time or other. In fact, on my mind at that very moment – when I could sense things going wrong on my very first visit to Ruby’s flat – was a memory of a cracking bit of nukky I came across down at Hastings. Leastways it looked so to me at the time. It’s about twenty-two, see, and it’s gone there with its aunt, and old Auntie goes off on these mystery coach trips in the afternoon, and this bird goes sunbathing on the beach. Its figure is near dead perfect – it’s tall, flat-stomached, light-chested, and long and lean in the leg, hair on the short side. Not really my type, come to that, but I’m always prepared to make an adjustment. If I’m having it off with a short bandy-legged bint I keep telling myself how marvellous bow legs are and asking myself why I don’t go in for them more. Same with great big fat birds. Whoever I’m with at the time is my favourite type, if you see what I mean. It’s the same as I say, that’s what we’re here for to make one another happy.

  Now I got the impression it was a bit on the sulky side for a start, but it turns out it’s only stone deaf in the left ear. It would answer some things I asked it and not others. It had to do with whether it was watching my lips when the tide was making this grunting sound it does over the pebbles.

  Anyway, once I’d found out about the left side I took good care I played it up on the right side. I even got it talking, and it went on about a visit it had made to a sewage works somewhere, a long rigmarole it was, all about filter beds, and what it called an activated sludge process. It must have gone on for three or four hours, giving me all the fascinating details of sewage disposal, from the moment you flush the chain on it to how it ends up as dried sludge and is sold so much a ton as fertilizer. During the course of this I slipped from starboard side to port a few times and told it what I thought about it, and its powers of conversation, in no uncertain terms, as they say.

  Anyway, come Thursday (I’d been working hard on it since Monday, double Neapolitans, Coca-cola, lollies, the lot) and I have it out in my car, miles from anywhere, up a disused cart track hidden away on the Sussex Downs.

  Now it’s been my experience with these shy, dim, stuffy birds, that they can be very much like one of these old pre-war cars, real old bangers, that you can be swinging until your arm nearly drops off, when suddenly they spark, and the engine jumps to life and the whole body starts throbbing and vibrating from the rear light to the front bumper. And it turns out exactly like that with this bird. It wouldn’t let me hold its hand one minute – and the next it’s all over me. I’ve never known anything like. Course it’s marvellous air up there.

  Know what, believe it or not, I wasn’t a blind bit of use!

  Imagine, something that has plagued you nearly every minute of the day and night since you were twelve, has never let you down once, is as regular as Big Ben, and now you suddenly put it to use in what seems ideal circumstances, and it doesn’t want to know. I couldn’t believe it at first. Then I didn’t know what to do about it. Naturally I kept playing up the hot passion as though I was bursting for it – at the same time underneath I’m racking my brains as to what I should do about it. I kept praying the law would turn up and save the situation. It only goes to show what these poor geezers who are half bent must go through when they ain’t sure which way they ought to turn. I would have turned the heater on because a hot draught of engine air up the trouser legs is quite helpful (that’s really why these lorry drivers are such a randy lot, it’s the hot fumey air rising from the floorboards up their legs, but take them out of their cabs onto the wet grass and they’re often useless), but, of course, the heater doesn’t work unless you’re moving.

  Next I tried thinking up all the dirty things I could bring my mind to, filthy postcards and What the Butler saw, but none of that don’t work, they just didn’t seem filthy any more – bloody comic if anything. So it decides to start trying to help out, but it only makes things far worse. It had a very heavy clumsy, uncertain touch – it turns out it’s one of these physiotherapists in a hospital, so you can imagine what they’re like. I mean whilst I don’t want to say anything against that end of the medical profession, it’s a well-known fact that any pain a woman physiotherapist relieves in a man she’ll leave two in its place. Finally, there was nothing for it but admit defeat. I mean the way these hard therapist’s mitts of her kept groping about my person I was scared stiff that she might do me an injury. Course I had to make an excuse, and I swore it was the lime juice the barman had put into my light ale caused it. I explained how they gave it to our troops in hot countries abroad to quieten them down; and to the US navy as well. I said I’d go on Mackeson or something next night and there’d be no stopping me. Somehow I couldn’t even strike the right level in my chat.

  So then I had to drive it home and drop it back at its guesthouse where Auntie was waiting for it. And it didn’t half give me a dodgy look when I said good night. But at least I was able to stare Auntie in the face. So then I drive back, not on speaking terms no more with the old man for having let me down.

  I was the last in at the digs, and the landlady, whose husband had run off with one of the washers-up, opened her miserable heart and gave me a crafty cup of cocoa in the kitchen. She wasn’t all that much to look at – given to warts in fact, one on the chin and one on the side of her nose – and she had a horrible personality, dead mean – if she’d a couple of gumboils she wouldn’t give you one – and yet suddenly I conceived a fantastic passion for her. I don’t know how it was, I mean we’re sitting in this kitchen, well, it was more of a scullery in fact than a kitchen, and there was this smell of soapsuds and burnt fat hanging about the place, and she was wearing a greasy blouse, an old black shiny skirt, a tattered pinny and an old pair of her husband’s slippers and, as I remember, had no stockings on. And yet to me she was like the most sexy young piece on earth, far out beyond any rotten little film star, as she rabbited away about an Autumn holiday she’d once had in Guernsey, Channel Isles, with two lady friends, and she got out an album, showed me about seven million snapshots they’d taken. The funny thing was I wasn’t the least bit bored. Perhaps that was because I never seemed to hear a word she said, I was that infatuated by her. I took my jacket off – after asking permission in this husky voice that had come over me – and rolled up my shirtsleeves, just so I could rub the skin of my arms against hers as I was looking at the photographs, and asking questions about them all as though they were long-lost relatives.

  Anyway, I’ll skip the gory bit, except to say I was really terrific, once I’d got her to talk herself into it. No simple job, I can tell you. It restored all my confidence in myself at one go, you could say. I couldn’t help thinking of all the young birds who’d give anything to be in her shoes. Especially one who was back home with Auntie. And I must say she came up to scratch on the last lap. I had to get her to tone down her noises – I was afraid we’d have all the boarders coming down. I mean the moans that came off of her lips were out of this world. Guess what she came out with when it was all over: ‘Not the first t
ime you’ve done that,’ she said. Then she told me a sweet little fact – she told me it was the first time in all her life it had ‘gone right for her’ – as she put it. ‘At least I’ll not go to my grave,’ she said, ‘wondering what it must be like.’ So there.

  Here, why am I going on about her when I had this physiotherapist bint in mind?

  I kept thinking it over, about that evening on the Downs, going over details closely, and this is the conclusion I came to. I decided she must have been a bit bent and didn’t know it. And that it was that had put me off – because I’m very sensitive to any strong masculine touches in a woman. Some men like them, but to me they are out of place. After all, I had to think up something wrong with her – there couldn’t be anything wrong with me, could there?

  Now where was I? I seem to have side-tracked myself all over the show, and gone on to things not pertaining to what I had in mind to tell. Oh yes, I’m waiting for the lift in Dolphin Square and I’m telling about remembering the first time I visited Ruby. I never finished that bit.

  Something, I don’t know what, had put me off my stroke. I mean before I’d even got started. I’d got myself invited into her flat and now I was failing to make any impression at all. And I had this feeling that things were not well with me down below. I felt I’d got above myself, if you see what I mean, and I could see that she sensed what I was sensing about myself. I mean, I suddenly got a strong notion that she was dead uninterested in me, and had decided she’d been overseen in me at the start. Matter of fact, now that I’m beginning to think of it again, I do believe I’ve struck on what it was caused the mishap of feeling (if you’ll only keep rooting round a thing the facts underneath it will usually come to the surface).