by Pip Granger
There were small groups of people scattered about in corners and at tables, chatting, drinking and watching the dancers. Old Mrs Roberts from the paper shop was playing the piano and had been for some time, judging by the number of empty stout bottles that littered its battered top.
From time to time Uncle Bert took over, and so did Madame Zelda. There was never any shortage of pianists at our parties, and they all had their own style. Mrs Roberts was good for all the old tunes like ‘Daisy, Daisy’ and ‘Roll Out the Barrel’. Madame Zelda did comic songs from the music hall, and Uncle Bert did too, only different ones. With all the theatres and clubs around us, there were plenty of volunteers to play the very latest offerings from films, shows and the clubs.
Way over in the corner, I caught sight of Paulette’s Dave crawling over some person I had never seen before. He’d brought another girl to our party, knowing full well he was only invited because everyone liked Paulette. No wonder she was fed up – it was humiliating!
Feeling indignant on Paulette’s behalf, I turned back to her and took her hand. ‘Will you dance with me, Paulette?’
She laughed and said she’d be honoured, and we were off. I danced with everyone that night – Uncle Bert, Auntie Maggie, Luigi, Papa Campanini, Madame Zelda, everyone, except that toe-rag Dave, of course. No one even spoke to him – well, no one who mattered anyhow.
11
The party went on until the early hours of the morning but I missed the last knockings. I was out for the count by midnight; I just couldn’t keep my eyes open a second longer, which meant I missed the big fight. I was deeply cheesed off. It was between Dave and T.C. and must have been some barney as everyone was talking about it for days.
It seems that Dave got bored when he realized that Paulette was not going to scratch her rival’s eyes out. There had been scenes before and Dave thrived on a bit of conflict as long as it didn’t directly include him. In fact there was nothing he liked better than to see two women fighting over him. Anyway, he had laid on a few bets as to who would win his company for the rest of the night and, when there was no fight, he cut his losses by offloading Theresa on some bloke who was willing to pay. Dave was never one to let sentiment get in the way of making a few quid.
Once Theresa had left with her punter, Dave was at a loose end. Paulette wasn’t having any when he made a play for her, so he lost his rag and said if she wouldn’t come across for him, then she should get her arse out there and hustle. She told him to piss off. She said that she would never work for him again, and that she’d had it – and that was when he hit her. Thrown backwards, she stumbled into T.C.’s missis, Pat, and knocked her clear off her walking sticks.
Well, all hell broke loose! Uncle Bert and Luigi got jammed in the kitchen doorway as they both rushed to help poor Pat up and drag Dave off Paulette. By the time they’d untangled themselves, T.C. had arrived, made sure Pat was all right, settled her in her wheelchair and retrieved her sticks. Then he turned his attention to Dave.
‘That’s it, out!’ T.C.’s crinkly blue eyes no longer had their usual friendly twinkle and he was shaking with rage. Uncle Bert said it was shocking in a funny way, T.C. always being such a mild, even-tempered bloke. I suppose he had to be, being the law and everything.
Dave showed his usual grasp of situations and decided to make something of it.
‘Very unwise, that,’ Uncle Bert told me the next day. ‘Any fool could see that T.C. was not in the mood for any argument. He’s very protective of his Pat, is T.C. No one upsets her and gets away with it. Still, if Dave’s brains were gunpowder, his hat’d be in no danger.’
I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t flattering. Heated words were exchanged, but still Dave didn’t leave. The next anyone knew, Dave had lost his marbles completely, bared his teeth and took a great lump out of T.C.’s arm. That’s when T.C. finally let go of the temper nobody knew he had and proceeded to give Dave what Uncle Bert called ‘a very thorough and very satisfying pasting, thank you very much!’
He grabbed Dave around the neck in a headlock and swung him round and round, before suddenly letting him go. Dave staggered into tables and onlookers and finally came to rest against a wall, winded and dizzy. Not one soul made a move to help him. Usually there would have been a stampede to defend one of our own, especially against the burly arm of the law, but as everyone liked T.C. they shoved the loathsome Dave back into the arena and urged the copper to get on with it, whistling and yelling their encouragement.
Only Uncle Bert intervened and that was merely to suggest – or insist – that they carry on in the street to cut down on the damage. It was no contest really. Fry-ups, fags and booze had left Dave a bit flabby when it came to fighting an actual man. Women were more his mark. T.C., on the other hand, was in much better shape and had the benefit of getting plenty of practice in his line of work. Later, everyone said that T.C. could have slaughtered Dave if he’d wanted to and they were a bit disappointed that he hadn’t. Dave was bounced off walls and the pavement until he had to beg for mercy, and then T.C. hauled him back into the cafe by the scruff of his neck. Auntie Maggie said by this time he looked just like a rag doll, only bloodier. Dave was dumped on the floor in front of Pat’s wheelchair, and T.C.’s toecaps ensured that he grovelled in apology for knocking her over. But this didn’t end his humiliation. Once Pat had graciously accepted his apology, he was made to go through the whole thing again with Paulette. Only when he’d done this to everyone’s satisfaction did T.C. allow him to stagger off to the Middlesex Hospital to be sewn up. He’d split his lip while cracking his front teeth against T.C.’s boots and eventually had to have them capped, which cost him a fortune.
The party went a bit quiet after the fight. Nobody could top it, apparently, and it was generally considered a good note to finish on. Pat was escorted home in Maltese Joe’s Roller. The Perfumed Lady appeared from ‘Gawd knew where’ just in time to hail a cab and whisk T.C. off to the same hospital as Dave to have his bite treated. She said later that they’d said the human bite, especially Dave’s, was so filthy that poor T.C. had to have loads of injections and had to stay in for a couple of days for observation.
‘Humph!’ was Uncle Bert’s verdict. ‘Probably looking for signs of rabies.’
‘More like he went AWOL for a bit, poor wretch,’ Auntie Maggie interjected. ‘Can’t be easy now, can it? He obviously dotes on her, but still …’ Then she saw me earwigging and shut up.
Years later, I was to discover that the crowning of the Queen and the fight were not the only things of note to happen on that day. Strictly speaking, of course, the fight took place the day after the Coronation, but that’s splitting hairs. The other big event, the one that in many ways was of more immediate importance to us, was the fact that Paulette never did go back to Dave or brassing either.
We never quite understood what made it possible for her to break away, but we were grateful for it. There had been other fights, other women and certainly a good few batterings, but Paulette had always gone back for more. Course, there is a school of thought that says some women enjoy being knocked about and exploited by the Daves of this world. As I grew older, I kept trying to understand why people like Paulette and my mum let men treat them like that. There was a lot of it around our way, with the brasses and their pimps. I needed to understand this because every time my mum turned up covered in bruises, swearing that she’d never let a man do it to her again, I got a little harder, a bit more contemptuous. It was all so different from home where Uncle Bert always treated Auntie Maggie and me with gentleness and respect.
12
We were late getting up on Wednesday but as the morning wore on, various people came in to help tidy the place up ready for opening. Mamma Campanini sent in a selection of daughters and daughters-in-law armed with scrubbing brushes, brooms and floor polish, old Mrs Roberts came and so did Ronnie’s missis, Sally. There was a mountain of washing up to do, floors to scrub and tables and chairs to
put back where they belonged. Things had got a touch out of hand before Dave and T.C.’s fight was relocated to the street. Varying degrees of hangover made progress slow but steady. I was given a bucket and a wet rag and told to empty the ashtrays, then wipe them round. No wonder no one else was rushing to do it. The smell of wet fag ash – yuk! Everyone else felt too queasy to handle it.
We were all still hard at it when Paulette and Madame Zelda tottered in looking like death warmed up. Everyone was a bit quiet as they worked, so it took me a while to notice that there was something funny going on. They weren’t looking at each other, or chatting away as usual. In fact they were distinctly sheepish as they doled out the salt and pepper shakers. What’s more, they would start as if they had been electrocuted every time their hands met over the pepper pots or they brushed up against each other in the aisles. You’d think that one of them was plugged into the mains or diseased or something. It was all very weird.
I was busy watching them when Uncle Bert yelled from his kitchen that I could do the honours and open the door for the dinner-time punters. There were plenty of them as people had hung around the pubs and clubs all night, reluctant to stop celebrating. We did a roaring trade in teas and coffees although the punters were a bit leery of actual food, due partly to their hangovers and partly to the fact that they’d blown all their money. It was probably just as well, as Uncle Bert wasn’t feeling much like wielding a frying pan anyway.
We were half expecting Charlie Fluck’s ugly mug to put in an appearance but he didn’t show. Maybe he was still poncing about in Brighton. It wouldn’t have mattered a lot even if he had turned up, as it happened, because the Perfumed Lady had disappeared in the early hours with the battered but victorious T.C. in tow. So we couldn’t have told him where she’d gone after she’d taken T.C. to hospital even if we’d wanted to, which we didn’t.
It didn’t take long for life to get back on its well-oiled track once the cafe had reopened. I went back to school on Thursday morning, grumbling every step of the way, but I was all right once I was there. It was always a toss-up. I loved skiving and hanging around with Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert at the cafe but, on the other hand, all my mates were at school.
We had already flogged the Coronation almost to death in class during the weeks before the big day. The aftermath could have been a bit flat but, as luck would have it, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing had made it up Everest, which gave us something else to think about, much to the relief of our teachers. We spent a productive time copying sentences, maps and diagrams from the blackboard into our rough books and then we did it all again in our best books. Maybe I’m a bit thick, but I never could work out why we always had to write things out twice like that. I suppose the theory was that if you managed to get it right the first time, chances were you’d get it right and, more importantly, neat the second time.
Trust me to show up the flaw in this plan. My second efforts were rarely as good, let alone better, than my first. I’d be bored with whatever it was by the best-book stage and would rush to get it over with so I could begin something more interesting, or at least new. I was always in trouble for scruffy work.
Anyway, Miss Small could tell a good yarn when she felt like it and she managed to get us quite excited about the conquest of Everest. We heard all about previous expeditions being driven back by blizzards, avalanches and lack of oxygen. We oohed and aahed over the poor sods who’d frozen to death in snowdrifts or had stumbled into crevasses, and it seemed only right and proper that Everest should finally be beaten as we entered the New Elizabethan Age. The trouble was, the more I learned about it, the more confused I became. I couldn’t quite make out how a New Zealander and a Sherpa who had reached the longed-for summit managed to become our brave heroes. Of course, New Zealand was in the Commonwealth, so that probably explained Mr Hillary’s honorary status as a true Brit – but what about Mr Tensing? And if Mr Tensing was a Sherpa, where the hell was Sherp? I looked hard at my atlas. In the end I had to ask and, in case it’s been troubling you too, I can tell you that Sherpas come from a spot on the borders of Nepal and Tibet which is nowhere near either New Zealand or the British Isles.
Still, we all found it wildly exciting and me and my mates spent many happy hours scaling the table tombs in St Anne’s Square pretending that they were Everest. The paths were transformed into glaciers and the grass was snow. For some reason, I always wanted to be Sherpa Tensing. One of the Chinese kids might have been more convincing, but they all wanted to be Edmund Hillary.
We got bolder as time went on, and used the shed in the corner of the square as our Everest. That idea didn’t last long. Enie Smales fell off and broke her leg, the twerp, and ruined it for everybody, and Auntie Maggie threatened to have my guts for garters if she ever heard that I’d been seen prancing about on it again.
The only other thing of note that happened during that time was that Dave came round shooting his mouth off about Paulette getting out of her flat or going back to work. This set the cat among the pigeons. Paulette was desperate to stay on, but she really had had it with Dave and brassing for a living. There were several anxious days with Dave threatening and Paulette getting upset.
It finally came to a showdown about ten days after the Coronation. Dave turned up in a filthy temper, having just come from the dentist. He hated spending his own money, did Dave, and it seems his new crowns had cost him a pretty penny, so he decided that Paulette could pay, one way or another. He had somehow managed to convince himself that the fight was all her fault.
Anyway, there he was trying to get into Paulette’s building but Paulette and Madame Zelda had changed the lock on the street door. Dave was standing on the pavement, yelling fit to bust, when Sharky Finn ambled into view. I just happened to be staring out of the cafe window, so I saw it all.
Sharky stopped some distance away and weighed up the situation in a leisurely manner, his head cocked to one side, one eye closed against the smoke from his ever-present, evil-smelling cigar.
As he surveyed the scene, a small smile appeared around the butt in his gob. Then he strolled over to Dave, laid his hand on his shoulder and said something. After a moment or two, Dave shrugged and allowed himself to be led into the cafe by the still-smiling Sharky.
If I had been Dave, I think I would have noticed that smile and it would have worried me as there was something mildly sinister about it. I didn’t know the word then but I do now: Sharky’s smile was predatory. It was probably how he came to be known as ‘Sharky’, let’s face it, and it was probably what made him a sharp lawyer and an accomplished gambler. As they came through the door, Dave was so busy hooting and hollering, he had no idea at all that he was about to be shafted.
Sharky listened quietly as Dave told us what an ungrateful bitch Paulette was and that if she wasn’t planning to go back to work then she could just get the hell out of the flat. Then he got started on how his teeth had cost him an arm and a leg. He was waving both arms about as he ranted, so I checked under the table and sure enough, he still had two legs, so the toe-rag was lying. He went on and on, saying that as far as he was concerned Paulette owed him, he’d sue her to get the money and what did Sharky think?
Sharky took a minute or two to lean back in his chair and consider. Then, eyeing Dave as if he was something he’d found on his salad, he began to speak. ‘Don’t be a prat, Dave. The girl owes you nothing. You lived off of her for years, remember, or are you confusing being a ponce with working for a living?’
Dave began to rise, spluttering that he didn’t have to listen to this crap and that if Sharky didn’t have anything useful to say, he, Dave, was leaving.
Casually, Sharky hooked his foot around the leg of Dave’s chair and gave it a sharp tug. It hit the back of Dave’s knees and he sat down again, smartish. By this time I had alerted Uncle Bert to the drama and he was making his way towards their table. Luigi rose quietly from his seat and strolled over to stand in front of the door.
Auntie Maggie mu
ttered in my ear that it might be an idea to get Paulette and Madame Zelda. ‘Nip next door, love. Ring Zelda’s bell and then stand on the pavement across the road so they can see it’s you. Ask ’em to come in here quick. This is going to be good.’
I headed towards the door and Luigi swayed sideways to let me through. Moments later I was back, Paulette and Madame Zelda hot on my heels. Sharky was speaking and Uncle Bert was looming behind the hapless Dave.
‘As I was saying, she owes you nothing and if you tried to sue her you’d get nowhere. Chances are, you’d end up being charged with living off immoral earnings before you could spit. In fact, I’ll make certain of it if you get up my nose any more.’
‘What do you mean, ‘‘get up your nose’’? What have I ever done to you?’
Sharky smiled that sinister smile of his and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I’ll tell you, Dave, my boy. You’ve been coming round at all hours of the day and night, upsetting my neighbours and getting on my tits by yelling, threatening and being a general pain in the proverbial. That’s what you’ve done to me – and it stops, right now!’
Dave began to stand up again. ‘What makes you think you can stop me?’ he sneered. ‘If I wanna come round, I’ll come round. I’m going to get Paulette out of there and put my Theresa in instead.’
Uncle Bert moved forward slightly, grabbed the chair Dave had pushed back and shoved it hard into the back of his knees. Once again, he went down with a thud. Sharky leaned over the table, eyes glittering and his smile even more sharklike.