by Pip Granger
Bandy’s looks were as striking as her wit. She had a strong, bony face, pale but full of character. It was the kind of face ‘that sank a thousand ships’, according to Bert – who was, luckily, a good friend of Bandy. She used to scare me to death, before I got to know her better and realized that beneath her hard, often cruel outer shell was a rather decent person.
‘Ah, Elizabeth, good of you to help us out at such short notice. It will stop that damned Sugar from grumbling about being worked like a Singapore coolie.’ Bandy took a sip of her drink, a long drag on her cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring into the air.
‘Hello Bandy,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Never better, Lizzie dear, never better. When Malcolm turns up, we’re off to some ghastly poetry reading above the Coach and Horses. As I was saying to Sugar, at least there’s a well-stocked boozer to numb the pain.’
I smiled. ‘Why go if you hate it so?’ It seemed a reasonable enough question.
‘To keep the little man happy,’ she answered promptly. ‘You know how it is. I have to let the poor chap up for air from time to time and that’s what he likes to do, read his poems out loud to a load of dreary people. I go occasionally, to show the flag.’
I was astonished. I couldn’t imagine Bandy in the middle of a group of bohemians; they always looked so drab in their black clothes, so humourless too and more than a tad depressed. Whereas Bandy wasn’t any of those things. She was a passionate person who prided herself on taking life ‘by the balls’ and not simply allowing life to happen to her.
Her worldly enthusiasm for the good things in life was partly what made people flock to her bar. She sat on her bar stool, with a Passing Cloud smouldering in a long, slender cigarette-holder in one hand and a large gin in the other, and dispensed pithy stories, observations about life and insults to anyone within reach of her hoarse but plummy voice. The customers lapped it up.
The other half of the successful team was Sugar. He was the one who mopped up the bleeding egos that Bandy’s sharp tongue had managed to wound. He remarked on new hairdos or clever makeup, noticed men’s triumphs and glossed over their disasters. As fast as Bandy knocked them down, Sugar picked them up, dusted them off and sent them back into the world thinking they were the bee’s knees. It was a winning combination and Bandy’s Place was rarely empty unless it was closed.
The club itself had two separate identities. The daytime one began rather shabby and faded as Bobby Bristowe, the only male cleaner I had ever met, whipped around the threadbare, red-patterned carpet with a vacuum cleaner. Bandy and Sugar swore by their ‘little treasure’ who was, in fact, far from little. Bobby had been an all-in wrestler in his day, and still looked the part, having one of those necks that seemed just as wide as his bald head. Every morning, bright and early, Bobby flicked a large duster around the red and gilt chairs and stools scattered about the room. He emptied the ashtrays, wiped down tables and dusted the huge, gilt mirrors with a feather duster on the end of a long, slender pole. Finally, he polished the bar carefully. It was his pride and joy, and he liked the mellow wood to gleam in the lamplight. Once Bobby had finished, the place had the air of an ageing sleeping beauty who was way past her best, but who still waited with quiet dignity for her admirers to return and bring her back to sparkling life.
And of course, they did. At night the club took on a vibrancy as the lamps beneath their ruby glass shades were reflected back into the room by the mirrors. Then, the place glowed invitingly. All you noticed was the glitter of bottles and glasses, the blue swirls of smoke, the hum of talk and much laughter. Bandy was always threatening to close the place for a week and have it repainted, but she never did. The truth was, people liked it that way. It radiated warmth, companionship and good cheer even on the coldest and foggiest of winter nights.
My heart lightened as soon as I walked through the doors. I certainly lived a more colourful life now. When I was young, we’d all crept about trying hard not to be noticed for anything other than the perfection of our front step, the crispness of our curtains and our devotion to a wrathful God on the sabbath – and on every other day. Men who loved men, women who loved women, anyone who loved anyone outside of holy matrimony – or sometimes even within it – and men who wore dresses, or women who wore trousers, were hardly to be imagined; and if they were, they were damned to everlasting Hell, no doubt about that.
I was brought up to believe that a state of grace required dull cheerlessness at the very least, but abject misery was better. That way, a body went to meet their angry and vengeful Maker with some semblance of the enthusiasm that would have been missing if life had been a jolly affair. It had, therefore, come as a bit of surprise to me when Sid and I moved to Soho after the war to find brightly clad men and women engaged in the enjoyment of all sorts of unusual activities with one another, and more or less getting away with it. At least, they got away with it without bringing down the wrath of God; no bolts of lightning, no pillars of salt, nothing like that. True, it did end in court sometimes, with knuckles rapped and fines to pay, but in Soho nobody seemed to mind that much. They didn’t worry about what the neighbours thought, largely because they were pretty sure their neighbours were at it too.
Besides Bandy in her corner and Sugar behind the bar, the only other people in were regulars. Bobby and his wife, Pansy, had a table by the door. Madame Zelda sat with them, nursing a port and lemon. Anyone less like a pansy than Pansy Bristowe was hard to imagine. When she’d first introduced herself to me, she’d stuck out a beefy, red hand and said, ‘I know, I know, more of a small brick khazi than a Pansy.’ She’d laughed. ‘I put it down to wishful thinking meself. Me mum was praying I’d look more like me dad than her, but it wasn’t to be. There was no mistaking whose little blossom I was.’
‘Well, you’re my little blossom now,’ Bobby had interjected gallantly, and I swear that Pansy blushed.
‘All right Lizzie?’ they smiled as I walked past their table. I nodded, smiled back at them, and left them to continue their quiet conversation.
Freddy and Antony sat in a corner, discussing business over a bottle of their favourite ‘Poo’. When I’d asked Freddy why they called it ‘Poo’ he’d explained, ‘Champagne, shampoo, get it?’ I continued to look blank. ‘Oh, please yourself. It’s what we call it anyway.’
Sharky Finn, a local lawyer and Madame Zelda’s landlord, sat with T.C., an ex-policeman who was Rosie’s father. T.C. was a nice man, fairly recently widowed, his wife Pat having finally succumbed to a long illness. It was during that illness that T.C. had fathered Rosie, but Pat was not her mother. That was Cassandra – Cassie to her friends. T.C. and Cassie had met in the war and had a passionate, on-off love affair for many years.
I have often wondered if T.C.’s wife knew about it, but if she did, she’d kept quiet on the subject – in public, anyway. She had certainly always been very sweet to Rosie when she saw her and, if not exactly matey with Cassie, then certainly cordial. Rosie looked a lot like her father. She had his curly hair, slightly stocky frame and blue, blue eyes.
At the table next to them was another regular, Dominic, who worked for the BBC, and his brother Brendan, who was fresh from Dublin and looking for a good ‘crack’, as he called it. What he meant was, plenty of talk while the booze flowed and possibly a good-natured brawl at the end of it. A visit from Brendan always made for fireworks, and poor Dominic was often left to put out the flames.
I straightened my shoulders. It was likely to be a lively night. Brendan could talk the hind leg off a giraffe – and that is some leg. The Irish that came to the club were able to drum up a party atmosphere in the most unlikely and unpromising of company. They could even tempt a smile out of Bandy when she was in one of her moods, and that took a real gift.
Sugar’s face softened with relief as I joined him at the bar. He was wearing a smart, three-piece suit in navy blue, with the thinnest of stripes; a white silk shirt that could almost have been a blouse, but wasn’t quite; and a flo
wing, multicoloured silk tie that was almost a scarf, but wasn’t quite either. I noticed that his nails were the colour of seashells, the palest of pinks, and polished to a shine, while his lashes were suspiciously black. I looked down. Sure enough, he was wearing his sultan’s slippers – maroon leather, tooled in gold, with the toes hugely elongated and turned back upon themselves, like puppies’ tails.
‘Not that many in so far, Lizzie. As long as you keep the Guinness flowing, Brendan will be happy. If he kicks up, just give us a shout and I’ll rush to your aid.’ Sugar paused, then brightened as a new idea struck him. ‘Or ask him about his latest work, that gets him back from the brink, usually. Even Brendan finds it hard to fight and quote his plays at one and the same time.’
Sugar sketched a little wave as he disappeared into the stockroom, but was back in a second, brow creased with concern. ‘And if he threatens the mirrors, kill him first and ask questions later. At least hurl him to the ground before he can throw anything or thrust yourself into the firing line. Anything, but don’t let him smash the mirrors whatever you do.’ And on that worrying note, he was gone.
‘T.C., dahling!’ I heard a woman screech as she made her entrance into the bar. ‘Cassie’s on her way. She’ll be here in just a moment.’ Her heavily painted face took on a troubled look. ‘Although perhaps I should warn you that she’s bringing a friend. Sharky, dahling, get me a little drinky, there’s a good boy. Sylvie will love you for it later.’ She dropped into a chair alongside the man I assumed was her latest lover.
Sharky nodded and raised a finger at me. He made a little circle in the air, to indicate another round for himself and T.C. at the same time. I smiled, nodded in my turn and shoved a glass under the vodka optic, once, twice. Sylvia didn’t trouble with singles. I poured a brandy for Sharky – he rarely drank anything else – while T.C. usually drank beer or the very occasional malt whisky.
T.C. still carried carried a bit of a torch for Cassie, anyone could see that. She was the mother of his only child, after all. I noticed the poor man wincing as Sylvia prattled on about Cassie’s new friend.
‘The man’s loaded, stinking rich, name of Harry,’ she gushed, oblivious to T.C.’s bowed head as he stared into the dregs of his beer. I hurried to finish the order so that I could interrupt Sylvia’s tactless flow, but you can’t hurry a pint of brown ale through the pump. I arrived at the table to hear the end of the story. ‘Met him gambling,’ she continued. ‘Saw the size of his wallet and took him home for the experience of a lifetime. Hasn’t let him out since. It’s been three days since they last surfaced.’
Bandy barked with laughter. ‘Sounds like a gal after my own heart,’ she roared, and slapped Malcolm’s backside as if he were a horse. ‘Drink up. It’s time we shook a leg.’ She slipped from her bar stool. He’d arrived in time for a quick one before the poetry reading.
‘Right you are, Bandy my dear.’ Malcolm threw back his shaggy head and poured his drink down his throat in one go. ‘Let’s be having you.’ He put an enormous arm around her shoulder and they left, laughing about something as they went. Despite Sugar’s dislike of Malcolm, he seemed to make Bandy happy.
I was back behind the bar, filling another order of Guinness for the Behan brothers, when Cassie arrived with a slim, bespectacled, well-tailored man in tow. She made her way to the table where Sylvia, Sharky and T.C. were sitting, and introduced everyone.
Sharky and T.C. had stood at Cassie’s approach, so it didn’t take long for T.C. to shake Harry’s hand and murmur an excuse I didn’t hear. He began to walk away and I heard Cassie cry, ‘Don’t be silly T.C. Do stay, we don’t want to break up your evening.’
The look of pain that shot across his face made me want to help him.
‘It’s all right, Cassie,’ I sang out. ‘T.C. said he’d help me reach down the Teacher’s and fix it to the optic.’
‘Thanks, Lizzie,’ he whispered as he approached. ‘You saved me from a dreary evening. I couldn’t think of a single polite excuse for not joining them. Now, where’s this Scotch that’s out of reach?’ he asked loudly. He had his back to the table and didn’t see Harry move closer to Cassie and put his arm possessively around her waist as if sensing he had a rival. I delivered Cassie’s gin and it to the table, along with Harry’s whisky sour.
For a while all seemed to be going swimmingly. Brendan, Dominic and pals were in an unusually quiet, reflective mood, and had shown no signs of evil designs on Sugar’s precious mirrors. Cassie’s party had grown by another couple, a toothy, rather florid man and a brassy blonde I’d never seen before. Although noisy, they were too busy drinking and flirting among themselves to trouble anyone outside of their golden circle. All the while T.C. seemed content to help me serve a slow, but steady trickle of customers. We knew things would pick up once the theatres and the pubs had chucked out, and we were enjoying the relative peace and quiet while we had it.
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ I asked, nodding towards Cassie’s back, which appeared to be shaking with laughter. She had looked so lovely as she walked across the room. Her cornflower blue, heavy silk two-piece hugged her tiny waist and matched her large eyes. She wore it with a crisp, white blouse, the collar starched and turned up to frame her elfin chin. Her blond hair was swept up in a French pleat. The silk of her suit had swished expensively as she walked and sat elegantly, as only the best tailoring does.
The long pencil skirt reached to her shins and tapered from the waist and hips in an elegant line. The sweet little jacket flared slightly as her hips swelled and it had a neat belt in the same silk as a finishing touch. Cassie wore black stiletto-heel shoes and clutched a bag made from the same leather. Over her suit, she had worn a mink coat I had never seen before, and that I had safely stowed in the cloakroom. She’d obviously allowed Harry out of bed long enough to go shopping, I’d thought rather nastily as I stroked it and put it on its hanger.
T.C. smiled sadly. ‘Yes, she’s very beautiful. I’ll always care for her, naturally, but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since she and I … No, no, it’s the drinking that worries me. She always winds up in tricky company and bad situations when she hits the bottle.’
I didn’t say anything. Another rush of customers had come in and T.C. and I worked our way through them in a companionable silence. Then, towards midnight, a fight broke out. Thank God the Behans had moved on to pastures new before it started, as they wouldn’t have been able to resist joining in.
It began as I cleared the glasses from Cassie’s table. Only Cassie, Harry, Toothy and the blond woman were left at the table, Sharky and Sylvia having left with Freddy and Antony an hour or so before. Bobby, Pansy and Madame Zelda had also left much earlier in the evening, to get something to eat. Toothy was well-oiled and was slurring badly as he spoke to me. I leaned forward to hear him better and his hand snaked up my skirt. I shrieked and jumped back, startled.
A voice from behind me said, ‘I don’t think so, chummy!’ It was T.C., who’d vaulted the bar and landed close to the offending party. His hand shot out and he grabbed Toothy’s arm. ‘Out!’ he roared into the astonished silence that followed.
‘Fuck off!’ slurred Toothy. ‘S’only a bit of fun.’
‘I say,’ said Harry. ‘Have a care. You almost had the drinks over then, old chap.’
‘OUT!’ T.C.’s finger was rigid and his expression unflinching as he showed Cassie’s friend the exit. Toothy picked up a heavy-bottomed whisky glass from the table and swung it threateningly at T.C., as if he was about to bowl a cricket ball, but it slipped from his grasp and crashed to the floor. Blondie screamed and lurched to her feet, her dress ruined by flying glass, whisky and Toothy, who had tripped over his own feet and fallen against her. Blondie shoved him hard, sent him reeling into T.C. who stepped smartly aside so that he stumbled into a couple of Bobby’s wrestling pals, unwinding after a show. Before I knew it, there was a full-scale fight going on between Toothy, Harry and the wrestlers. Needless to say, the wrestlers wo
n and Toothy, Harry and Blondie were cast into the night.
Cassie hung back just long enough to collect her mink. Her blue eyes flashed with fury as she confronted T.C. ‘My hero!’ she spat. ‘Now who is going to pay for the supper? Not to mention the damned rent! Not you, Sir Galahad, that’s for certain.’ She swept out, calling, ‘Harry, Nigel, Mary, wait, wait for little old me. We can still salvage the evening. Perhaps you’d all like a drink back at my place …’
‘Did I miss something, sweeties?’ came a voice from behind us. Sugar was standing in the doorway to the stockroom.
‘Just a bloke taking liberties with Lizzie,’ T.C. told him. ‘It was soon sorted out by our friends here.’ He nodded towards the two wrestlers, who nodded back.
‘A quiet night then,’ Sugar observed. ‘I’ll get you a drink for your trouble. Gentlemen, T.C. what’ll you have?’
‘Do you know,’ T.C. grinned, ‘I think I fancy a nice cup of tea.’
‘You’re on,’ Sugar chuckled. ‘Lizzie, do the honours will you, and join us if you like? I want to put a proposition to T.C. Get our two friends whatever they fancy.’
When I brought the tea to the bar, the men were deep in conversation. ‘Yep, I’m short on all the spirits, by at least a bottle, sometimes two. And Bandy and I have both noticed the takings are down. Not by much, say a tenner every now and then, but it mounts up.’ Sugar smiled his thanks to me and patted the seat beside him. ‘I want you to look into it, T.C.’
T.C. held his hand up. ‘Bandy could be being particularly vague at the moment,’ he pointed out. ‘Or it could be someone else altogether. Who else has access to the club when it’s quiet? There’s Bobby for starters.’
Sugar shook his head. ‘Nope, we’ve had Bobby for years and the man’s straight. I know that swine Malodorous is stealing from her – I just need to prove it, that’s all. Until then, I’ll keep my suspicions between you, me and Lizzie here. I want you to keep your eyes peeled too, Lizzie. These thefts are getting serious.’