‘Is there anything you don’t hear and see?’
‘Not much,’ he said.
‘You know, Smog, I think I like you.’
‘I like you,’ he said.
‘So will you go to bed now? Bridgitte will be cross if she finds you here.’
‘Are you going to dance tonight?’
‘Your daddy wouldn’t like it.’
‘That’s because he can’t dance.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said I, ‘give us a kiss and go back to your room.’
He sat beside me on the bed. ‘It’s so boring there. I like to smell smoke. But not cigars. They make me choke.’
‘Go and see where Bridgitte is.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘Daddy will see me. He said he’d destroy me if he saw me out of bed, but he was only being funny.’
‘Wait here till I come back then. Don’t move an inch.’
I went out along the corridor, looking into every open door. Bridgitte stood by the kitchen stove waiting for coffee to boil. I went by without her seeing me. The next room was lined with books, and a man sat writing at a desk. He had a round, pale, irritable face, with a bald head and a small moustache. Wearing a bow-tie and no jacket, he looked sober and studious, as if set for an all-night stint. By his arm was a tray with teapot and cup on it. I was about to move when he looked up and saw me: ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Just passing by.’
‘Well bloody-well pass out or I’ll call the police.’
‘I’m Bridgitte’s boyfriend.’
‘Oh, are you? Well I suppose that’s different. You’d better say goodnight then and be on your way.’
‘Is it in order,’ I said, ‘if I finish my cup of coffee in the kitchen?’
‘Do what the hell you like. Only close my door. I’m busy.’
I shut it, and went back to Bridgitte’s room. ‘You shouldn’t wander around,’ she said. ‘The doctor might see you.’
‘Never. I walk too quietly.’ There was salami and cheese, pickles and jam, black bread and coffee, as well as a cigar she’d brought out of the living-room. Smog joined us in the feast: ‘Are you going to get married?’
‘We are married,’ I said. Bridgitte blushed, as she might always have done in front of Smog, but didn’t.
‘You aren’t,’ he said. ‘But you make babies, though.’
I lit my cigar. ‘Let me know when you’ve finished, then we can tuck you up nicely in a coal scuttle. Not this one, either. Go on, get down.’ He grumbled, so I sat him on my knee till Bridgitte had done with her supper.
She came back from putting him to sleep: ‘I don’t think there’s going to be any big peril from the doctor tonight, so you can go to your mother if you wish.’ This wasn’t much to my liking, for it meant kipping down in June’s flat under a perfumed gas stove.
‘No. I’ll stay. You never know. I took a peep at him just now, and he seemed in a very agitated state. Unless of course you don’t mind taking a chance on being all alone with that brain butcher.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Please! You can stay.’
Paul Dent was right. Life at the stripperama wasn’t all whisky and kickshins. I went at two in the afternoon, and left about one the next morning, with a couple of hours off about tea-time. There was no saying how long I’d stick it, possibly as long as I didn’t get used to it. There was an occasional punch-up, which was the part I liked least. Not that I was afraid, though any sane person might have been. I just didn’t fancy ploughing like a charge of lightning into some stupid bastard who was either so insane or drunk that he could also get fleeced for ten quid because of non-existent damages. Yet that’s what some of them wanted when they came into the place, a punch in the gob, a knee in the groin, and then the added jolt of paying actual money for the underground pleasure they’d gone through. In that way they didn’t lose on the deal. Their next move after leaving the club was to go to a prostitute and have the job finished off. I made up my mind to quit as soon as something equally aimless came along.
After a while I stayed with Bridgitte all night again, and told her the sort of work I was doing. The doctor had gone out, to see his mistress, and Smog was sleeping soundly after an exhausting day at school, and five tantrums since teatime. ‘I parted company with my mother today,’ I said, lighting up a Havana, ‘and I feel good about it. I’ve given up everything, my fortune and all connexion with the family. She wanted me to sign papers but I flung them in her face. I couldn’t ponce on the working class for ever, live off land and property. For, my one and only heart, it just wouldn’t do. Of course, Mother was furious, because it went against everything she stood for. It was unprecedented. No one had ever done it so blithely before. Even poor Alfred had gone mad rather than do a thing like that. She threw that in my face as well. It was hell while it lasted, but I stood my ground. The upshot of all this is that I’m suddenly without a roof over my head, without money. But luckily I got work this afternoon helping out at an entertainment club that an old friend of mine is running. It isn’t much, and it’s long hours, but I’ll be able to keep my independence and that’s all that matters to me now. In actual fact I know I could get a couple of thousand a year off Mother whenever I liked, with no strings attached what-so-absolutely, but even that I don’t want to dirty myself with.’
I was beginning to feel that Bridgitte must be a bit mentally deficient because she believed everything I said, until it occurred to me that perhaps I was a good liar. But I was only a good liar to her, and maybe this meant that we had fallen just a little in love for them to be so effective. It was that feeling of trust we had in each other that made the lies I told so unimportant.
I went to the club every day, but got more time off the longer I worked there, and this bettering of my conditions made me less keen to give the job up, though I was still determined to. The other bouncer was Kenny Dukes, who’d been a middleweight boxer in his younger days. But now he was gone to fat and viciousness, with pink skin and half-bald fair hair, smelling of scent and immaculately dressed. The girls who worked there were afraid of him, though he had an air of gentleness, almost tenderness, about him. I could imagine he kept canaries, reared them with great love, but only for the pleasure of breaking their necks when he was in a temper about something he thought the world was trying to do to him. Then he could have a good cry and feel a new man after it. June said he was afraid of nobody but Claud Moggerhanger, but then, she added, everyone was afraid of him, though she personally didn’t know why because he was always charming and courteous as far as she was concerned.
‘He was the man who tried to run my car into the wall when I was coming into London,’ I said. We sat in a pub when some of our time-off coincided, both of us with a brandy.
She laughed. ‘I know. I knew it then, but didn’t say anything. He was only trying to run you off the road as a bit of a joke because he saw me in the car.’
‘Christ,’ I gasped, ‘what’s he to you?’
‘He’s my boyfriend.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not afraid of him, I’ll tell you that. If I see him on the road again and I’m in a good-sized car I’ll try to do the same to him.’
‘It was his idea of a bit of fun,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Anyway, he’s the man you’re working for now. He’s a good person, even though he has got a bit of a name in this area.’ Since he was her boyfriend I couldn’t say much more against him, so I shut my trap on that topic.
‘You remember Bill Straw?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘Well, when we left you a broken man at Hendon, he came to the Tube with me, and insisted on seeing me back to my flat in Camden Town. I told him not to, but he wouldn’t take no as a warning, and when we got there, Claud was already waiting, sitting inside. Bill tried to kiss me at the door, and when I told him not to be so stupid he pushed his way in. Claud stood up and came towards him. Bill’s face turned into a whited sepulchre when he recognized him. He stood gaping, still holding my valise that he’d kindly carried for me. Claud took out a couple of half-crowns and gave them to him as if he was a porter, then pushed him gently through the door so that he fell on his back. I haven’t seen him since.’