by Tom Hourie
“Here Bob,” Percy said, holding a flask to my mouth. “This will help with the pain.”
I took a swallow of what had to be one hundred and fifty proof rum. Never mind dulling the pain, my whole body felt numb.
Sarah patched me up as best she could, but a piece of my cheek must still have been lying somewhere out on
Gable Street. As a result, the skin flaps didn’t exactly line up and the right corner of my mouth was pulled slightly upwards giving me a permanent Elvis sneer. Good thing she didn’t do both sides or I would have ended up looking like Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker. “Go home at once,” Sarah said when she was done. “And do try not to get into any more trouble.”
“Bugger going home,” Percy whispered, as soon as she had gone. “The lads are having a huge pissup at the Lascar’s. We’d best get down before the taps run dry.”
Chapter XXXVI:
The Lascar’s Head – Edith’s Advice
I knew I should go home, but The Lascar’s Head was high on my list of favorite places in the east end. From its grimy windows, to its scarred wooden tables, it was everything a dive bar should be.
The party was in full swing when we got there. We had to step over a large pool of vomit just to get in the door. Once inside, we were forced against the wall by ring of people dancing the Hokey Cokey.
You put your right hand in,
You put your right hand out,
You give your hand a shake, shake ,shake
And turn yourself about
Two sweating men in butcher’s aprons were arm wrestling at a corner table; a slip of a girl in a white pinafore had just beaten the local blacksmith in a chugging contest; a big-breasted barmaid pushed her way through the crowd holding pints of beer above her head; the air was thick with the smells of sweat, spilled beer and pipe tobacco.
The evening’s musical accompaniment was provided courtesy of a pair of dust-covered navies with their two-part harmony version of ‘You're My Heart's Desire, I Love You Nellie Dean.’
All the world seems sad and lonely, Nellie Dean
For I love you and you only, Nellie Dean
And I wonder if on high
You still love me, if you sigh
For the happy days gone by, Nellie Dean
I was starting to think Sarah might have been right about going straight home. Every table was full and there was no way I would be able to stand the whole evening. I was just about to make my excuses to Percy when Willie Fitzgerald spotted us.
“It’s themselves, Percy and Bob,” he shouted in his best Irish brogue. “Make way for the cobblestone crew.”
A cheer went up and we were surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers who showed every sign of wanting to hoist us up on their shoulders until Percy talked them out of it.
“Don’t be manhandling our Bob,” he said. “Any rough stuff and his cheek will split open and how’s he going to drink then?”
“Cor, would you look at that?” said a man with an eye patch as he inspected my stitches with his remaining eyeball. “Looks like they ran the Whitechapel and Bow Railway down the side of his head.”
Several pints later, the ache in the side of my face had subsided enough that I was able to give a lecture on the Seattle Seahawks to a group of bemused teamsters. I told them about the disastrous off-season trade of Elvis Wilkins for an unproven quarterback , the weaknesses on the line, the too-frequent changes in the linebacking corps.
“But most of all, they lack three things. They lack enthusiasm.” I said, pounding right hand over my heart for emphasis. “They lack willpower.” Again with the heart pound. “They lack heart.”
One of the teamsters, a grizzled man with a Yosemite Sam moustache spat and looked at me. “This Elvis Wilkins you been going on about,” he asked. “Would he be any relation to Bert Wilkins as runs the chippy over on Leek Street?”
Somewhere along the line, Percy and I hooked up with two sisters named Marge and Lucy, or maybe it was Louise. I got Marge and at first I thought I was getting the better of the deal. Marge had bigger breasts and nicer teeth. But she turned out to be a chronic kvetcher.
“It’s all well and good for you men,” she said, offering her views on the afternoon’s clash with the BLF. “You get to go out and play at soldiers in the street. But who’s got to clean up the mess afterwards? Us women, that’s who.” She drained her mug in two swallows and slammed it to the table to emphasize the depths of male perfidy.
Percy’s girl, Louise or Lucy, was more accommodating. She sat on his lap with her arm around his neck, the better to whisper in his ear. Most of her murmured comments were inaudible but the words “me mum’s not home” made their way across the table in one of the rare breaks in her sister’s relentless assault on the world.
“Just you keep them knees together girl,” Marge said, glaring at her. “Last thing our lot needs is another mouth to feed.”
Just then an odd mixture of resentment and guilt came over Percy’s face. I thought at first Marge had embarrassed him, but I realized the cause was more serious when I felt someone slap the back of my head.
“This isn’t what I meant when I told you to take out the rubbish,” said Edith Cowan.
“Who the bleeding hell are you?” said belligerent Marge.
“Someone who’s going to sort you out if you don’t shove off.”
Marge seemed about to protest but changed her mind when she saw the look in Edith’s eye. “C’mon Luce,” she said to her sister. “It’s getting stuffy in here.” She and her sister drained their pints, rose unsteadily from the table and lurched off into the crowd.
Percy reached for his glass but his mother took it away and poured its contents onto the floor. “Oy.” he said. “You always told me not to be wasteful.”
“I also told you not to be a right berk, but that didn’t stop you did it? You get yourself off home. Bob and I have matters to discuss.” She pulled her son up by the collar and propelled him toward the door before taking the seat facing me. “What have you got to say for yourself then?” she said.
“About what?”
“About hanging about with tarts while our Sarah sits at home.”
“What’s Sarah got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know how things are in America, but around here they’ve got a name for a man who two-times his woman.”
“What are you talking about? Sarah’s not my woman.”
“Then what have the two of you been up to, riding about together all over the country? Are you saying you don’t fancy her?”
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. She thinks she’s too good for me.”
“She might have done once, but she’s come down off her high horse long since.”
I took another sip of my beer while I pondered this new information. “What’s she been saying to you?” I asked finally.
“Never you mind. Anyhow it doesn’t matter. I could tell how she feels even if she hadn’t said nothing at all.” Now it was Edith’s turn to think things over. “I am a proper woman and I wouldn’t normally say this but you need to strike while the iron is hot.”
“What iron?”
“God’s truth you’re thick. You need to have her the way a man has a woman. You can make her respectable later.”
“You mean marry her? No need. We already are.”
“What are you on about now?”
“Well funny story,” I said, before telling her about our escape in handcuffs and our registry office wedding. Edith’s lips grew thinner and thinner as she listened.
“So you’re already married?” she said.
“Pretty much.”
“Finish that pint and get yourself off home in five minutes,” she said, rising to her feet. “And not a minute longer mind.”
Chapter XXXVII:
Back In Schrödinger’s Van – A Rude Awakening
I considered whether or not I needed to puke before climbing the fold-down steps at the back of Schrödinger’s Van. Pr
obably not, I decided. A night’s sleep would have me right as rain.
I had just settled into the daybed when the rear doors opened and a shadowy figure entered.
“Who’s that?” I tried to say, but thanks to The Lascar’s Best Bitter it came out more like “Oo at?”
There was the sound of a match being struck and a moment later the flickering light of a wall-mounted gas lamp revealed Sarah’s elongated features. I noticed for the first time that a fine network of crow’s feet had begun to develop at the corners of her eyes. I liked the change. It made her look less forbidding.
“Edith said I should check in and make sure you’re alright,” Sarah said. “Let’s have a look at that cut on your cheek.” She turned my head toward her and examined her handiwork. “You’ll have a scar for the rest of your life. Still, you can take comfort in the fact that some women find that sort of thing attractive. Undo your shirt.”
“What’s that got to do with my cheek?” I asked.
“Who knows what other injuries you might have?”
So I undid my shirt. At first Sarah’s probing hands moved professionally, accompanied by the usual queries. “Does this hurt? How about there?” But then they began to stroke my torso in a way they don’t teach you in nursing school. What is going on here? I thought. I got my answer a moment later when Sarah brought her face down to mine and undid my belt buckle.
“You better stay on top,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to bleed on you.”
As you have probably gathered, my experience of women is limited. That fact, combined with my still-inebriated state made the next half-hour a ‘damned close-run thing.’ I said as much to Sarah who kissed me and told me she was ‘sure we would improve with practice.’
“Did Edith really tell you to look in on me?” I asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Sarah said. “I think her exact words were ‘you get in there and take what’s yours or I’m going to kick you up the arse.’”
I had a fair-sized hangover when I woke next morning, but I didn’t mind. Sarah was still nestled beside me and I felt an unfamiliar sense of contentment. For once in my life things were going right. The moment vanished when I heard someone rattling the back door and a voice shouting “Oy, wake up in there.”
Chapter XXXVIII:
More Kinematic Adventures – New Friends – Time For My Close Up
“You better have a damned good reason for this, Percy,” I said, when I opened the door. I would have said more but the stitches on my cheek were caked with blood and it hurt to talk.
“Get your clothes on mate,” Percy said. “The new bill at the kinescope’s got a talking newsreel. No more reading titles. But that isn’t all…”
“Percy, not to be a spoilsport, but I have seen pictures with sound before,” I interrupted.
“But that’s not all, we’re in it.”
“What do you mean we’re in it?”
“Us. You and me. I haven’t seen it yet but some of my mates say you can see us clear as day.”
“Just give me a second,” I said, stepping back into the van.
“And bring our Sarah too,” he said, as I closed the door.
There was no permanent kinescope in our part of the East End. Instead, a travelling projectionist set up his equipment in the Bakers’ Hall on Saturday afternoons.
The first showing had just finished when Sarah, Percy and I joined the queue. There was the usual banter between the people waiting and the people getting out. “Save your money, load of rubbish,” and so forth. But the joshing died down as the departing patrons came abreast of Percy and me. Some of the people turned their eyes away. Others, most of them local hard cases, slapped us on the shoulders and said things like ‘well done’ and ‘good on yer.’ A man with several gold teeth took my hand in his two large hairy paws, looked me in the eye and said, “Come see me after the show. We’ll have a bit of a natter.”
“Who was that?” I whispered to Percy after gold tooth had gone.
“That’s Bennie Sherman,” Percy whispered back. “You want to watch out for him. He’s one of the dodgiest blokes around here.”
The lights dimmed shortly after we had found a place on one of the hard wooden benches that provided seating in the hall. The projector whirred in the background, a shaft of light appeared overhead and a Roman-Helmeted woman appeared on screen holding a trident in one hand and a shield embossed with the union flag in the other. The accompanying soundtrack began with a drumroll leading into the opening bars of ‘Rule Britannia.’
Most of the audience had never seen a sound film before and their reactions ranged from excitement to distress although in the latter case, the sufferers were all young women who used their supposed fear as an excuse to snuggle closer to their young men.
‘Rule Britannia’ was followed by a trumpet fanfare introducing block-lettered titles reading:
Empire Films Present
NEWS OF THE DAY
The first item was a follow up to one I had seen at the Brompton Road Kinescope. City workers were hanging bunting around the doors of the House of Commons in preparation for Her Majesty’s upcoming visit. “No expense will be spared to ensure Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee is the highlight of the season,” boasted a voice-over commentator in crisp Home Counties tones.
“A less welcome series of events had taken place in East End London’s Gable Street,” the narration continued over a shot of a black-clad Osgood Wellesley riding a chestnut horse at the head of a column of fascists. “Shown here is Minister of Defense, Sir Osgood Wellesley leading his five thousand fascist followers on their much advertised march through London’s East End.”
The picture cut to a group of east-enders overturning a double-decker bus. “Having failed to persuade the Home Office to ban the march, Communists, laborites and Jews block the fascist route, resisting the peaceful efforts of the outnumbered police to clear the way.”
Next was the arrival of the two armored cars. “Armored vehicles attempt to use water cannon to disburse the crowd ,” Cut to Percy and me running out to jam the treads of the cars with our cobblestones, “ But they are soon disabled.”
And guess what they showed next. Me.
“One of the men seen damaging the vehicles is believed to be Robert Liddel, an American, shown in this photograph. In addition to taking part in the Gable Street riots, Mister Liddel is suspected of causing the death of Home Office employee Arthur Flowers. A substantial reward has been offered for information leading to the capture of this wanted fugitive.”
I stood up and grabbed Percy by his collar and Sarah by her sleeve. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Chapter XXXIX:
Teary Farewells – A Hasty Departure
“I’m surprised the police aren’t already here,” I said, as Sarah and I followed Percy through a series of back lanes to his mother’s house.
“The police?” Sarah said. “How would they know where to find you?”
“Benny Sherman, that’s how,” Percy answered her. “He’d sell his own mother for a quid that one.”
As if in answer to my fears we heard the sound of clanging bells in the distance.
“Not a moment too soon,” I said, as Percy directed us through the back yard of a tannery that sat at the foot of the street where the Cowans lived.
“Bob,” Percy asked, as we reached the back door of Cowans’ house, “Is that true what they said on the newsreel? That you did in a bloke from the Home Office?”
“I had no choice.”
“How did you do it?”
“Shot him.”
“With a six shooter? Like in the old west?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well bloody hell.”
I could tell I had just risen six notches in Percy’s estimation. People would buy him drinks at the Lascar’s Head just to hear about his friend Bob, the American Desperado. “Cool as a cucumber he was. Fired from the waist and killed the bugger with one shot throu
gh the heart.”
“Don’t worry about packing,” I told Sarah when we got to the Cowan’s. “Just grab what you can. I’ll get the van fired up.”
It took me about ten minutes for me to build up pressure in the boiler. Time enough for Percy to shake my hand and tell me we I was the best mate he’d ever had and to come right back ‘as soon as all this lot blows over.’ Time enough for me to stop and wipe something from my eye. Time enough for Max the Cat to get found, run away and get found again. Time enough for Edith Cowan to tell me that if I let anything happen to our Sarah she would hunt me down and geld me. Time enough for Edith and Sarah to cry into each other’s shoulders.
And finally we were off.
It was getting dark by the time we reached the outskirts of London. I parked the van in the loading dock of an abandoned brewery. We both fell asleep with our clothing on.
Chapter XXXX:
What Now? – A Timely Rescue – Romani Music – An Audition