Tales from Soho

by David Barry

  I knew then this was a hoax. It was obvious by the way an interval had been left after spelling the first letter of his name in order to build the suspense.

  ‘Fuck me!’ Den gasped. ‘What does Auf Wiedersehen mean anyway? Goodbye, isn’t it?’

  Josh stared at him, eyes like the barroom baddie in a B-western. ‘You know fuckin’ well what it means. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  Josh slammed an angry fist onto the table. ‘I’m on about you, you cheating bastard. Remember that talk we had months ago about Joe?’

  ‘How am I supposed to remember... ’ Den began, but was stopped by the séance tumbler smashing into the wall where Josh had suddenly thrown it.

  Terry and I froze, wondering what would happen next. Maybe, I thought, the smashed glass would be enough to quell Josh’s temper, and when I saw him point an accusing finger at Den I guessed the worst was over. But I was wrong.

  ‘You don’t remember, you lying wanker, the conversation we had about Joe’s work he did as a recording engineer with singers like Anne Shelton. You’ve fucking forgotten, have you, how you asked if he’d ever done any Vera Lynn and you suddenly burst into song? Auf wiedersehen, we’ll meet again. You lying, dirty, rotten, cheating bastard.’

  And that might have been that. It might have blown over at that point had Den not laughed and said, ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, man. I thought you might like Joe’s little message. He meant to say ‘so long, suckers’.’

  The rim of the table hit me in the stomach as Josh jumped up, taking the table with him. He barged between Terry and the overturned table and grabbed a cowering Den by the throat, drawing back his fist ready to pound him to a pulp.

  ‘Josh!’ Terry screamed. ‘Hey, man! Calm down!’

  I leapt up and grabbed Josh’s elbow to stop him slamming Den, but couldn’t make contact and I heard the dull smack as fist met face. Den yelled, ‘Ah! You crazy bastard.’

  By now, Terry was restraining Josh with both arms wrapped around him. Blood streamed from our lead guitarist’s nose. The scene was surreal, like we were overactive zombies in a lava-lit aquarium. At the same time, as Josh apologised to Den - ‘Hey, man! I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ - I began to find the commotion amusing, as I observed the bizarre scene of the three long-haired musicians weaving and swaying in their military costumes. I can remember collapsing with laughter, doubling-up while Den admonished me and complaining that his nose must be broken. It wasn’t. When the bleeding stopped, and after close examination, he admitted there was no lasting damage. Then came recriminations, Josh weeping with guilt, cuddling Den and swearing undying love. More drinks were poured. Another joint was rolled. And then, lying back in a stupefied state we talked softly about Joe Meek and his legacy. The night passed in a haze, and I don’t remember much about the early hours as I half dozed, resurfacing every so often to smoke and drink.

  What happened after that was inevitable. With Joe Meek dead, and unable to find another record producer our band eventually split up. We all went our separate ways

  and I never discovered what became of Terry, Den and Josh. As the years passed, and the pages flew off the calendar, I thought I might hear of at least one of them playing in another group somewhere. But I never heard a dickey-bird, so I guessed they must have done the same as me - settled down, got a proper job and got married.

  It was like my rock ‘n’ roll years happened to someone else in another life. And if I’m honest a band with a cruddy name like ours would have become nothing but a joke as the years wore on. Marvin and the Movers. I ask you.

  Marvin and the Movers. R.I.P.

  Imagination

  Erica Smith got off the Central Line at Oxford Circus, walked past the London Palladium, and turned left into Great Marlborough Street. The building, she’d been told, was not far beyond the Magistrates’ Court. She tried to picture the premises, wondering in her naïve mind’s eye whether it might be like a film setting, the disturbing ones with dream sequences full of strange angles and shadows.

  To her surprise, the building was nothing how she imagined it. It was modern, glass and chrome, with a huge advertisement in the window for what appeared to be something obscure and incomprehensible, so she rejected it with a clean wipe from her mind. It was like that with anything she didn’t understand. She was never stimulated by questions and conundrums and was unencumbered by an enquiring mind.

  She walked past the gaping glass and found the entrance just the other side of the baffling display, and stood small before a looming black door. A lump like sickly dough rose in her throat and she suddenly felt nervous, twitchy. What if she failed the test? It was only a game of pretend she told herself, using a soft silky voice to turn them on. And the man - what was his name? - Terry, that was it. Terry had told her she had to use the dirtiest imagination she had, the dirtier the better, which was what they liked.

  Stomach fluttering, breath tremulous as she exhaled, she rang the bell, expecting a voice to speak to her. Instead, she heard a buzz and click. She pushed open the door and entered the darkness of the hall. Nothing on the ground floor, just a staircase leading up to a door marked ‘Toilet’ on the first floor landing. Wooden groans came from beneath the thin carpet as she climbed the stairs, breathing heavily, discomfited by the thoughts of giving a convincing performance. As she rounded the top of the stairs, she saw the other door with a bold red name on a long grey plastic strip. She had arrived at Intercourse Enterprises.

  She tapped the door lightly and entered, thinking she might find something seedy and sordid on the other side, although she hadn’t a clue what that might be. She was surprised to discover an office, pretty ordinary and much like other offices, with two sofas, a receptionist’s desk, and a water cooler. The blonde receptionist flashed her a smile and introduced herself.

  ‘Hello. I’m Tina. You must be Erica.’

  ‘Hello,’ she replied, her voice husky with nerves. She hoped it made her sound sexy instead of scared witless. ‘I’ve come for the telephone test.’

  The receptionist giggled and nodded knowingly, as if they already shared secrets together. Another door opened near her desk and two men entered. One of them was dark and swarthy, dressed in a suit of shiny blue, with a slim tie and button-down collar. The other wore black jeans and a brown leather jacket.

  ‘I’m Terry,’ said the man in the suit. ‘And this is Colin. We’ll show you around, Erica, so you can see how it all works. The first phone call will be from a real punter and we’ll be monitoring the call. This’ll be your audition and we’ll be listening in to see how you do. Sometimes it’s best to introduce yourself and go for a slow build up before starting on the real dirty talk.’

  The man in leather laughed and exchanged a knowing look with his business partner before he turned to her and said, ‘That way the phone call lasts longer and we all make more money, because you get twenty per cent of all your calls, and some of the punters can run up a bill of ten quid in just ten minutes.’

  ‘Think you can do that?’ Terry said, staring at her intensely.

  She nodded and swallowed, already feeling dry and thirsty. ‘I’ll give it a go,’ she replied, hoping she sounded reasonably enthusiastic.

  ‘Good girl. If you’d like to follow us.’

  As Terry opened the door, an enormous middle-aged woman waddled through. ‘Where you off to, Sheila?’

  ‘Need the loo, sweetheart.’

  Terry laughed. ‘Well, don’t be long. You’ve got a load of horny punters clamouring for your services.’

  Erica watched open-mouthed as the obese woman shuffled across the office. Then she followed Terry through the door into another room, followed by Colin. The room had a long desk, L-shaped and built into the wall, with many computers and telephones stacked neatly along it, their monitors glistening like rows of eyes
peering at Erica like aliens.

  Terry sniggered. ‘The look on your face just then. When you saw how fat Sheila is.’

  Erica felt sudden heat from a blush. ‘No... I... ’ she started to protest.

  ‘Sheila’s one of our best employees,’ Colin explained. ‘It’s all in the voice performance, you see. Because she’s awesome on the phone, men imagine she’s sexy and stunning. Little do they know.’ He laughed as a thought struck him. ‘Worth her weight in gold, she is.’

  Terry rolled his eyes, and Erica got the impression that the two men’s banter was always the same, feeding off each other like a double-act. At least it made her feel at ease. First impression of Terry worried her, the way he looked forbiddingly like a gangster in a film, but as soon as he smiled she felt reassured. Although the thoughts of what lay ahead with her test was like a grinding in her chest. She tried to imagine her own voice talking to her about sex, but the voice ground to a finish before it got going.

  ‘So! Shall we give it a crack?’ Terry said, pointing to another door in the room where the desk ended. Through there are six rooms - you’ll be in Number Four for your test. We’ll divert one of the calls to that room and then we can hear what you’re made of.’

  ‘Something you ought to know,’ Colin added. ‘We call them rooms but really they’re just cubicles with doors, and the sound-proofing’s not perfect, so try not to yell “yes, yes, yes” when a geezer’s on the short strokes. Always keep the voice low and sexy. And we would sooner you use your imagination when you speak to the bloke. Really go for it. But just in case you dry up, there’s a script in front of you with a few phrases you can use. But use the script as a last resort. It’s really an aide-memoire.’

  Erica looked at him blankly. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘An aid to the memory. Right, Terry, d’you want to take Erica through to Number Four, and I’ll divert the next call to her.’

  Terry ushered her through to the next room and showed her into one of the small cubicles, which was nothing more than a claustrophobic cell with a blank wall, a desk and a telephone and two pages of script. Terry wished her luck, told her to imagine the meagre room was her bedroom and she was dressed in erotic clothes. Then he shut the door and she was left staring tensely at the telephone. She had never really been good on the telephone, even talking to her friends. And staring at the silent telephone in the coffin of the room, made it even more of an instrument of pain. She was reminded of those agonizing days at school when she was forced to read something out loud, and they all laughed. She had enough self-awareness to recognise the fault, sensing her voice lacked the light and shade of emotion, yet she was still incapable of attuning it to her own ear. .

  Suddenly, the jarring buzz of the telephone made her jump. Instead of letting it ring for a bit to give herself time to think, she snatched it up hurriedly and spoke in a nervous monotone without a space.

  ‘Hello my name is Erica how can I help you?’

  There was brief pause at the other end, perhaps the caller thought he had dialled a wrong number.

  In the computer room, Terry looked at Colin, raised his eyebrows and shook his head. As they listened intently, they began snorting and giggling as they heard her reading badly from the script. But when they discovered three minutes had gone by, and the caller was still on the line listening to her pathetic attempts at dirty talk, and then it ran to four minutes, they exchanged puzzled looks, wondering if this was some sort of anti-erotic conversation that might turn some men on. The call went to just over five minutes and they thought she might have hit on a novel way of arousal. They didn’t really care one way or the other. As long as she could average five minute conversations, she would make them money.

  ***

  My wife and I split up six months ago. I was feeling lonely one night, turned a page of the free newspaper I’d picked up at the station, and happened to see the adverts for erotic phone calls. They were premium line numbers, and I knew it would add a lot to my phone bill, but I was in need of an erotic conversation, something to help me relax and forget about my loneliness and frustration for a little while. So I dialled the number. It rang once before she answered. After the preliminaries she began her act. It was not good. In fact, it was terrible. And then I felt sorry for her. She was clearly someone who hadn’t a clue how to go about holding any sort of conversation, let alone an erotic one. And I suspected she was probably reading from a script. I faked interest, listened politely for five minutes, then groaned.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked.

  ‘Great,’ I lied, not wanting to hurt her feelings

  ***

  That evening in the Shakespeare’s Head, Terry stared into his empty glass, frowning as he tried to work out what had happened with that first phone call.

  Colin came over to their table with fresh pints. ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said, carrying on the conversation from before he went to replenish their drinks. ‘That first phone call, the guy was turned on by it. Turned on! What’s happening, Terry?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘Ain’t got a clue, mate. Maybe he thought she would get better instead of worse.’

  ‘That can’t have been it. We heard him groan. She did the job for him.’

  ‘I must admit it was very odd. Her dirty talk wouldn’t have aroused someone who’s been marooned on a desert island for twenty years. They’d have been glad of their own company.’

  Colin sighed hugely, blowing out his lips. ‘We should never have given her another three attempts. We should have got rid of her after the second call. That lasted less than a minute. The poor bastard couldn’t take that expressionless voice and told her to fuck off. We should have got rid of her then.’

  Terry laughed in spite of the loss of custom which he knew they’d never get back. ‘Well, let’s face it, we thought she must have had something going for her after the first one. Though just what that was is anybody’s guess.’

  Colin took a large swig of beer then banged his glass on to the table. ‘One thing’s for sure. I’m glad we kicked her into touch. I think we might have learnt a few lessons from her though.’

  Terry tilted his head and looked at his partner dubiously. ‘Oh yeah? And what have we learnt?’

  ‘Don’t judge by appearances for a start. She was quite attractive, but give me Sheila any day. Built like a brickie but the punters imagine she’s the most seductive thing on the planet. Voice like an angel of eroticism, you see.’

  ‘It’s not just the voice, Colin. It’s how fired up her imagination is once she gets going. And that’s what it’s all about. Imagination. Imagination’s what made Mozart write operas, and how Van Goth painted those sunflowers they way he did, and the way Agatha Christie invented all them mysteries.’

  Colin spluttered into his drink. ‘Don’t get all philosophical on me. All the phone calls require is dirty sex talk. That’s all it is. Dirty talk.’

  Terry jabbed an index finger on the table to emphasise his point. ‘Ah, but for that you need imagination. And what we’ve been through this afternoon proves it. She never had no imagination. End of story.’

  ***

  As it was a reasonably warm day, she walked through Soho and found a coffee and sandwich shop with chairs outside on the pavement. She bought herself a large cappuccino and sat gazing listlessly at the passers-by. Her brain had been numbed by her experience of trying to arouse strangers on the telephone. She knew she wasn’t cut out for it. It was embarrassing having to delve into thoughts that were private and then having to reveal them. And as for that script... she could feel herself blushing as she stirred her sweetened coffee and thought about it. But the worst part of it was the dismissive way that Terry had brushed her off as if she was an irritating insect, telling her she had as much imagination as a lump of lard. She felt like crying then, but managed to control it. She didn’t want to give those men the satisfaction.,
so she pouted and shrugged instead as she crossed the reception, and felt the receptionist’s eyes following her as she dwindled away, feeling smaller with every step she took. As soon as she reached the street, she took a deep breath, and the smell of taxi diesel felt comforting and real after the neutral office smell.

  Anyway, she told herself as she sipped her coffee, it had nothing to do with imagination. It was talking dirty, a completely different thing. Of course she had imagination. She looked across the street at a telephone box where a man was talking on the telephone, which caused her to wonder why people still used phone boxes when everyone had mobiles these days. He seemed to have been talking for a long time. Not just a quick call. Her gaze went up from the telephone box to the high building opposite and she imagined there was a man there with a gun trained on the man in the phone box, and he didn’t dare leave otherwise he’d be shot, just like that film with Colin Farrell. But then she saw the man leaving the box unscathed and walking down the street close to where she sat, so that signalled the end of the drama in her head.

  Moments later she watched a young woman in a red miniskirt pass the coffee bar, wearing high, high heels and showing a lot of cleavage. Her eyes followed the woman down the street to the busier corner, where she expected to see a limousine open its windows with Richard Gere offering her a lift. But when the woman rounded the corner, the dream disappeared with her.

  Erica suddenly felt at ease and breathed in contentedly, smelling the different café smells of fresh bread, coffee and garlic. She would worry about the search for another job tomorrow. Today she would walk to Tottenham Court Road Tube station and catch the Central Line back to Stratford and go and see a film. She liked films, all kinds of films. She wasn’t fussy. She could get lost in all those different worlds.

  And who was he to tell her she had no imagination? Films gave her all the imagination she needed.