Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo (11 page)

Varley caused nothing but trouble from the start for, as was to be expected, he was the sort of human being who was only interested in having the bat in his hand. Stage centre or nothing.

He insisted on batting first for his team, worked his way round the bases and joined the end of the line of boys waiting to follow him. He kept glancing at me furtively and I knew he intended to jump the queue as soon as he thought he could get away with it. I gave him a little rope, allowed him to bully his way up three places, but made no sign.

God, how I loathed him, and the things I had learned about him since our first meeting hardly improved matters. A vicious, mindless lout who had used that belt of his as a weapon on more than one occasion in gang fights. He had appeared in juvenile court twice and was at present on probation for breaking into the local youth club leader’s flat, smashing everything in sight and defecating on the doormat as a grand finale. On top of everything else, he and his gang terrorized the entire district.
And Carter didn’t want any trouble.

Varley reached for the bat. I called, ‘Get back to the end of the queue and wait your turn, Varley.’

‘Who, me, sir?’ There was outrage in his voice at the perceived injustice of the suggestion.

‘Yes, you,’ I told him firmly. ‘Get back to your proper place.’

He threw the bat a good fifteen or twenty feet from him, turned, and slouched towards the end of the queue.

‘Go and wait for me in the corridor outside the classroom,’ I told him.

He glanced uncertainly from me to the class, realizing, I think for the first time, that when the chips were really down in any kind of public confrontation, he was on his own.

Perhaps I had pushed him too hard. One should always leave people a way out, some possibility of a retreat, but I was too young to be aware of that particular rule of life. He walked past me very slowly, insolence and defiance in every step. A yard or two away he started to whistle, then produced a comb and pulled it through his hair.

The class waited silently, not even a titter. There was an unnatural stillness. Somewhere thunder rumbled on the horizon of things and the swollen, grey belly of the clouds seemed ready to split wide open at any moment. I was hot, I was sweating and I’d very definitely had enough.

‘Two seconds, Varley, to get through that door,’ I called. ‘That’s all you’ve got.’

The end of things for him, too, I suppose, and he spun to face me, snarling like a trapped animal. ‘Just you fucking well try to make me!’

I started to run at him, he turned and made for the door, too late. The flat of my hand caught him between the shoulder blades, sending him headfirst through the doorway, to fall on his hands and knees by the steps.

I stood just inside the door, breathing hard. ‘Now get upstairs.’

I was aware of the woodwork room door opening, and Wally appeared. Varley crouched there for a moment then came up suddenly, that belt of his free in his hand, the badges glinting. I managed to grab hold of the end before he could strike a blow, and threw it into the corner.

I can see his white, pinched face now as he rushed at me in the gloom, the hatred blazing in his eyes, for me, for the whole world. There was a flurry of ineffectual blows, one landing on my cheek rather unpleasantly, then he tried to put his knee into my groin. There seemed to be only one thing to do after that, and I punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

He doubled over in pain, and Wally grabbed him by the collar and ran him into the woodwork room, which was empty, for, by chance, he was enjoying a free period before taking my class.

I stayed by the door, panting for breath, hands shaking. Wally shoved Varley down into a chair, came back, and offered me a cigarette from an old battered silver case with some sort of regimental badge on the cover.

‘What should I do?’ I said as he gave me a light.

‘No use going to Carter,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to handle it yourself. Unless you want to make a police job of it.’ He picked up the belt. They wouldn’t have much difficulty in describing this as an offensive weapon.’

‘But you don’t think I should?’

‘Not unless you want them to do the job for you.’ He took out his pipe and filled it methodically. ‘I’ll back you all the way, whatever you decide.’

He had placed the belt over the end of the banister. I picked it up and nodded. ‘All right, give me five minutes with him, then you can bring the rest of the class in.’

He went out into the yard without further comment and I entered the woodwork room and closed the door.

Varley still sat in the chair Wally had pushed him into. I went behind the desk and stood looking down at him for a long moment. Then I threw the belt down with a crash.

‘Assault with an offensive weapon. Borstal this time, Varley. A year, perhaps more. After all, you’re on probation already. The bench won’t like that.’

‘No, sir, please sir! Don’t get the police, sir! I didn’t mean it!’

‘Mr Oldroyd should make an excellent witness,’ I went on relentlessly.

He broke then, came apart at the seams and started to sob, a harsh, ugly sound, tears oozing from his eyes. There are those who would say that he was not responsible for what he was. That I should be sorry for him. Instead, I felt sickened by the very sight of him. He had given me hell for weeks and I was determined to have him off my back at all costs.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘No police. You leave at Easter, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right, then you’re on probation as far as I’m concerned. The slightest hint of trouble and Mr Oldroyd and I will take the whole story to the headmaster, which means no letter of recommendation when you leave. You try getting a job without one.’

There was a knock at the door and Wally poked his head in. I nodded and he opened it further to allow the rest of the class to file past him solemnly. They stood behind their benches and waited expectantly.

‘Varley has something to say,’ I told them. ‘Haven’t you, Leonard?’

He ran his nose along his sleeve and stood up to face his final humiliation. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said in a muffled tone. ‘For the way I behaved. It won’t happen again, sir.’

I walked out then, nodding briefly to Wally, and left him to it. My legs felt weak as I climbed the stairs, no strength in them at all. The staffroom was empty, which was a blessing, and I went into the lavatory and was promptly sick in the bowl.

My hands were still shaking and I felt degraded by the whole wretched business. I lit a cigarette and sat in a chair by the staffroom window. Thunder rumbled again and it started to rain. I looked out over the mean roofs below and at the squalor around me. It was enough. There had to be something better than this, and I knew that I must get out at all costs.

In a sense, all I really did was follow Imogene’s advice, and I returned to my writing with renewed vigour, into the small hours on occasion, sitting up there in the turret room at my table by the window, the whole world quiet outside.

I discovered I had a gift, if that is the correct term for it, for hard, sustained, creative work. Twenty thousand words in a week and all good stuff.

I decided to try something entirely different, and as remote from Khyber Street and my general surroundings as possible. Looking for a subject, I returned to my old parody, however unintentional, of a Hemingway novel, and I discovered that, whatever else it lacked of the great man’s genius, it was in its essentials a good story.

I read each chapter through then re-wrote it, without any of its previous pretentiousness, as an honest and straightforward novel of adventure, reducing the original eighty thousand words to fifty thousand. Finally, I rounded it off with four new chapters.

Four weeks of incredibly hard work, mostly late at night as I have said, but I still attended the Trocadero a couple of times a week for I felt the need for relaxation and female companionship more than ever.

During this period I formed no new attachment, certainly nothing that lasted more than the particular evening involved. I saw several girls home after the dance, often travelling considerable distances by trams, and frequently to no particular purpose. A kiss at the gate or perhaps, to use one of Jake’s favourite phrases, a little mild erotic by-play, was my only reward, and usually I found myself faced with a long trudge back to Ladywood Park afterwards, the last tram having gone.

I seriously wondered whether I was losing my touch, but decided, during some of those long walks home, that the fault very probably lay in my own attitude. I hadn’t really got over Imogene and, I suspect, did not have the heart for another such liaison as yet.

The only unusual incident during those weeks concerned a young, rather plain, blonde girl who claimed to be seventeen, but who, on reflection, was probably younger.

She lived in an area of pleasant old houses near the university, high walls and lots of trees. It was raining, as I recall, and we had walked some considerable distance, discussing nothing more exciting than the latest films on show in the city.

I hadn’t as much as put an arm around her waist, but when we stopped in a doorway and I kissed her, she started to tremble violently, then moaned a little and slid down the wall.

I grabbed her in alarm, thinking she was having an attack of some description, but to my amazement she opened her eyes, teeth chattering, and demanded to know, quite plainly, when I was going to do it to her. Such naivety had a certain charm, but it filled me with considerable panic. I disentangled myself at the earliest possible moment and was away.

Jake, as usual, had some sort of explanation. ‘Nobody likes to have it offered on a plate, do they?’ he said cheerfully. ‘I mean to say, where’s the mystery? The adventure?’

‘Maybe so,’ I said gloomily, ‘but the fact remains that I turned down a dead cert. What’s wrong with me?’

‘Maybe you liked Imogene more than you realized, old sport.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, spring will come again and you’ll be standing up on end as well as you ever did!’

I wrote the last chapter of the novel in a final burst of energy one Saturday afternoon, starring just after lunch and finishing at five minutes to seven. There still remained a certain amount of cleaning up to do and the finals to type, but to all intents and purposes it was finished.

I was tremendously elated and hurried round to see Jake. As it happened he’d gone out for the evening, which in a sense left me with no one to tell, for Aunt Alice and Uncle Herbert were having tea with friends and she’d warned me not to expect them back till late.

Some sort of celebration was obviously in order so I got a couple of pounds from the tin box at the bottom of the wardrobe where I kept my mad money, walked to the park gates and caught a tram to The Tall Man.

By the time I arrived at the Trocadero, I was pretty tight, full of a fierce nervous energy which, I suspect, was not simply the booze talking, but some sort of reactive process.

I hadn’t been on a Saturday for some time, had forgotten how crowded it could be. It was as rowdy as a fairground, with a hell of a lot of people on the floor for Ballin’ the Jack. I leaned against a pillar smoking a cigarette, waiting for them to finish, and for a while the noise seemed to recede, leaving me washed up on some quiet shore, on the periphery of things.

What on earth was I doing here? I asked myself. Who were these people? Faces. Looking back on all this, I believe that finishing the book had altered me in some fundamental way, an important step forward in the growth process if you like, although I was not aware of it at the time and believed myself to be sinking into some quite unjustified depression.

I was pulled back to reality by an interesting little scene which was being enacted in front of me as the dance ended. A young woman was trying to pull away from a rather rough-looking specimen in a tight-waisted, chalk-stripe suit, who seemed to be refusing to let go of her hand. He had long, black sideboards reaching to his jawline, in those days an infallible sign of the street-corner boy and spiv.

She had a nice voice and was trying to be cheerful as she argued with him, a plain, round-faced girl with rather frizzy hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As Jake used to say, all women are lovely in some way or other, and Lucy had superb legs and a delightful bottom, nicely tight in a tweed skirt.

The trouble seemed to be that he was insisting she stay with him and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Under normal circumstances I’d have minded my own business, but I’d had a drink or two remember, and I’d seen Alan Ladd handle a similar situation with his usual competence in a film only the weekend before.

I moved in fast and took her free hand. ‘Oh, there you are! Sorry I’ve been so long.’

She stayed surprisingly calm, the eyes behind the rather thick lenses of the glasses widening slightly, and then she smiled. ‘I’m dying for a coffee.’

Sideboards glanced uncertainly at me. I gave him my best Alan Ladd deadpan look, cold, hard, a dangerous man to provoke, or so I hoped. It worked, or perhaps he just couldn’t be bothered. In any event, he turned and faded into the crowd.

Whether he had believed in me as Alan Ladd was a moot point, but Lucy certainly did, for it became instantly plain that I had achieved a place of heroic stature in her eyes. From the expression on her face I thought she might ask me for my autograph at any moment.

‘I just can’t think what to say.’

‘Don’t try,’ I said, at my most courtly, and led her onto the floor.

Where appearances are concerned, women are the most deceptive of all living things, and Lucy was an excellent example, for this plain, well-spoken, quiet young woman had a physical effect that left nothing to be desired. She had a sensuous body, that’s what it mainly came down to, and delighted in close contact, rubbing against me constantly, her cheek against mine.

It was completely unexpected, but that if anything only added to the excitement. I took her for coffee, we sat in a quiet corner table, and she leaned across to kiss me, one knee crossed over the other. I allowed my hand to rest on her thigh. She kissed me even more passionately, then excused herself, picked up her handbag and went to the cloakroom.