West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and Its Working Girls (14 page)

Actually, it took months for me to recognise these things, but this first time, sitting amongst these affable and friendly people, I saw no further than the smiling faces, I heard no more than the jokes and I understood nothing except that Mae – all sparkling eyes and bouncing curls as she held court – was in her element.

Having been taken to The Little Cabin, I started to feel like I was really at home in Soho. The final seal on my acceptance came one evening after dark, when Mae and I were walking along Old Compton Street on our way back to the flat after visiting one of her friends. A group of men were walking towards us. Mae, who had been holding my arm, quickly dropped it and gave an apprehensive gasp.

‘It’s Vince! He’s going to want to have a look at you: he always likes to get new people sized up. Mind your Ps and Qs, for goodness’ sake!’

I had heard of Vince before; everybody who read the Sunday papers had heard of him and his notorious brother. He was the overlord of Soho, at the top of the league and always several jumps ahead of the law. He could afford very smart, struck-off solicitors, and although it was known he was the brains and organiser of every big Soho racket – and much that went on further afield – nothing was ever provable.

The approaching group consisted of six men. As they came close, they spread out across the pavement and halted, facing us. Five of them formed a semicircle round Vince. All six were utterly devoid of expression. They all wore dinner jackets and boiled shirts, and Vince had a gardenia in his buttonhole. He said something quietly to the man on his right, who then turned to Mae.

‘Who’s she?’ he demanded.

Mae told him who I was and he in turn told Vince, who must have heard Mae’s answer but, like some Eastern potentate, preferred to have no direct communication with his subjects. A few more questions about my background followed; all the while Vince remained completely impassive and said not a word.

I was puzzled as to why an important man like this should bother with someone so far down the ladder. He had probably heard that I was an oddity, and about my interview with the police.

After the interrogation was over, there was absolute silence, during which he stared at me for a full five minutes while his bodyguard gazed over our heads and beyond. Then instinct seemed to tell me he was waiting for a sign of submission on my part, and much as I detested the idea, I thought I’d better comply – so I lowered my eyes humbly. For perhaps thirty seconds more, I felt his continued gaze. Then, still without a word, they closed ranks and we stepped aside for them to pass.

‘Phew! I’m glad that’s over,’ said Mae. ‘Scares me stiff, that man.’

I felt more annoyed than scared after having this silly psychology practised on me, but I realised Vince was not a man to be angered.

Not all the Soho characters were so daunting. Every so often a character called Matilda would come round to Mae’s. She was a thin, elderly lady, and the moment I first met her took me straight back to something I’d learnt in art school. She was somehow in the Perpendicular Gothic style. Everything about her ran in straight vertical lines, except round the mouth, where the flesh of her face was gathered into little pleats like the drawn-up opening of a handbag. This and her glasses gave her a prim and disapproving expression – like some impoverished gentle-woman who found her surroundings impossibly sordid and distasteful. She was shabby, but very neat, and she always brought with her her Pekinese, who, strangely enough, was also Perpendicular Gothic.

Matilda would perch on the edge of a hard chair, very upright, with the Peke sitting beside her, also bolt upright, with its lead still attached to her like a flying buttress. At her other side, as though to keep the symmetry of the Gothic image going, she would place the two ancient cretonne carrier-bags she always brought with her.

Automatically I would give her a cup of tea, and while clients came and went and Mae ran around wearing practically nothing, she would sit genteelly sipping it, her gloved little finger extended, looking for all the world as though she were taking tea at the Savoy. I feel sure everything she wore, especially her hats, had worked its way through at least six rummage sales on the journey towards her skinny frame.

The Peke would sit staring fixedly at the uncouth antics of our two poodles, who, after a period of anxiousness, would retire, unnerved, to the safety of a chair and pretend to sleep. Every now and again, one would open an eye, look at the Peke, shiver slightly and close it again.

When Matilda had finished her tea, she would readjust her crumpled little eye-veil and, if Mae were free, clear her throat delicately and say faintly, ‘I have a few little things which just might interest you, dear.’

Mae, far less timid than her poodles, would say, ‘Right. What you got, Till? Let’s have a dekko.’

Then the contents of the cretonne bags would be carefully unpacked with a show of great ceremony. Never was such rubbish so carefully wrapped: a yard of tissue paper and several rubber bands enclosing a cheap glass necklace, brown paper and string wrapping an old scarf. One parcel was opened with a flourish to reveal a fox fur that Matilda shook to show its lustre, filling the kitchen with flying hairs.

Mae invariably bought some of this tat. The prices were in keeping with Matilda’s delusion, though Mae and I always wondered if she really was a dotty old lady or whether it was a con trick: as with most of the con tricks in Soho, you could never be quite sure. Mae could never bear to think of the Peke going hungry and would frequently fork out three pounds for an almost-new hot-water-bottle cover or twelve inches of moulting marabou.

‘Chuck it in the dustbin,’ she would say after Matilda’s departure. ‘Half an hour with a punter will pay for it.’

There was a continuous stream of people who saw fit to lift Mae’s hard-earned cash from her – and even some of mine. Apart from the straight ‘Lend us a nicker, love’, there were other women who, for example, offered to clean the stairs for a couple of quid. After doing two steps, they would come up for their money, claiming they were hungry and needed a meal to get their strength up to do the rest. We wouldn’t see them again until several weeks later, when they’d return seeking a re-engagement. Their excuses would be many and varied but usually dramatic:

‘I got taken off with acute appendicitis.’

‘I tripped over the bucket and broke my ankle.’

‘On my baby’s life – my father came round to tell me my mother had just died.’

‘On my baby’s life’ was an oft-repeated assurance. At first I thought that no one would make such a solemn affirmation and not mean it, but I soon discovered that while at least half of them had never had a baby to swear about, the other half had got rid of so many they’d lost count.

And it wasn’t just the women who were on the make. There were plenty of gay men about who would pop up to see if there were any odd jobs to be done. Even the smallest errand would warrant at least a pound in payment. There was one gorgeous boy, known as Angel, who did charring as a speciality. He was beautiful, with long curly hair – not at all the thing for men in those days. He wore jangling earrings, bracelets and flimsy Hungarian blouses. Unlike the queens who haunted many of the Soho cafés, he wore no make-up – but then he didn’t have to: he had a face to match his name.

There was a little Greek shoemaker too, who would come around taking orders. Unusually, he was conscientious and earned his money. I think he lived close by, because I only ever saw him in shirtsleeves; he wore an extremely dirty trilby and his skin was like the old worn-in leather he worked with. Mae had tiny feet and took only a size one shoe. She was very proud of her shoes and spent a lot of money enhancing them. The shoemaker’s name was Nick, and every time he came, he brought the pair of shoes from the last order and went away with a list of instructions for the next. His shoes cost about sixteen pounds a pair: at that time, a small fortune to spend.

Mae invented platform heels – or rather, in her case, platform soles – long before they became popular in the seventies. She maintained that increased length below the knee made for a more elegant leg. I recognised the technique from a trick that artists used in fashion drawing. It certainly had the right effect, and it impressed the other girls so much that they began to have platforms heels made as well. This offended Mae’s sense of individuality, so when everyone else was eventually wearing a single platform, Mae ordered a double; when the rest of the girls cottoned on to that, Mae ordered trebles. And so it might have gone had not Mae been the only one who could walk in a quadruple.

Oddly enough, I don’t recall that I ever heard the shoemaker speak. Even when asked how much he wanted for his finished work, he would merely indicate the price by holding up the appropriate number of fingers. When Mae roughly pencilled out new ideas for her next pair of shoes, he would become strangely moved, his dark eyes snapping, his fingers curling round invisible pieces of leather and his skinny little body a-tremble with eagerness, but still he never uttered a word. To me, he was an unsung genius.

Then there were the men who came round selling pornographic photographs – just like the ones I’d found in Mae’s room when I first started. These pictures, usually in sets of eight, were quite necessary equipment for anyone on the game. Not only did they make a girl’s work much easier by exciting the clients to the point of no return, but they were essential erectile aids for a great number of men. Whenever the photograph vendors came, Mae would flip through their wares with the cool, appraising air of a woman glancing through a fashion magazine. Now and again she would remark, ‘Pity you haven’t got any of queers’, or ‘I saw most of these last time. Haven’t you got any with two fellas and a girl?’ She always bought some; she needed to, because her stock was always mysteriously dwindling.

Our various essentials were not all brought so obligingly to the flat, and I had to get some things from neighbouring shops. The most regular errands were for tissues and condoms, which I got from a little place known as the ‘cutprice shop’, where the counters were always loaded with all sorts of products. On one side were expensive perfumes, false eyelashes and a fantastic range of cosmetics, and, on the other, an equivalent range of men’s toiletries. Behind the counter was shelf upon shelf of every kind of hair preparation, skin lotion and cream, as well as hormone and vitamin pills and vitality tonics. There was a professional hair bleach amongst the hair preparations with special appeal to Mae: ‘as used by hairdressers – not available to the general public’.

Here, Durex (all condoms in those days were made by Durex) were sold to the ‘trade’ for one pound per gross box, and we needed a fresh box every few days. The first time I was sent, I walked past the shop half a dozen times trying to pluck up enough courage to go in. Although it was to become a frequent errand, I never felt comfortable with it.

The shop was run by two pleasant middle-aged men: one short, dapper and slim and the other short, dapper and stocky. That first time, as on every subsequent one, as I reached over the counter to take my plainly wrapped parcel, a great blast of perfume caught me full in the face. This ‘gift’ was both complimentary and obligatory and was intended to secure my loyalty. The ladies’ magazines maintained that a refined girl perfumed herself so discreetly as to be almost unnoticeable and heavy scent was the sign of a woman of easy virtue. I would walk back to the flat trailing great clouds of sickly perfume behind me and hoping I wouldn’t be knocked down and have the contents of my parcel revealed.

I soon learnt from Mae that all girls who were safe to go with would take care of the rubber for the client. Although this had a titillating effect, in reality it was done for two quite different reasons. One was to make sure that it was
her
rubber and not one that had been sabotaged with holes; the other was that it gave her an opportunity for a quick but knowledgeable examination of the man for any signs of disease. It was Mae’s rare negligence in this that once resulted in my being sent on yet another embarrassing mission.

‘Here, Babs. Ever seen crabs before?’ she called out from the bedroom.

I was puzzled, wondering what had brought this on. ‘Well of course I have,’ I called back.

‘I bet you haven’t seen these sort. Come here.’

I went in and found her sitting on the edge of the bed, nearly bent double.

‘That dirty bugger I just had. I had me suspicions when I first saw him and then forgot to look when I got him up here. Just you look.’

I got down on my hands and knees and peered.

‘You’ll have to get closer than that, mate,’ she said.

‘Charming,’ I said.

‘I don’t know what people would say if they could see us now,’ she chortled, and we both went into fits of giggles. ‘No, seriously, though,’ she said eventually, ‘have a look, ’cos I hope you won’t have the chance to see them again.’

I peered hard and eventually saw little creatures exactly the shape of normal crabs and scuttling sideways.

‘Good heavens! Fascinating!’ I exclaimed, glued to the spot. ‘Never seen anything like it before. What are you going to do about it?’

‘Well it’s what you’ve got to do first,’ she said. ‘And that’s to go round to the chemist’s and get me some Blue Unction. Of course, you can use camphorated oil if you’re careful not to burn yourself, but you smell to high heaven of the stuff afterwards.’

So off I went to the chemist, getting more nervous with every step. I presumed that Blue Unction existed solely for the treatment of crabs; I wasn’t aware that lice could crop up on the head as well and, in any case, could be caught by means other than sex. To my horror, I found the shop brimful with customers. When it was my turn to be served, I held back, letting several people go ahead of me. More kept coming in and the shop showed no sign of emptying. I knew I daren’t be away from Mae for too long, so I forced myself towards the counter.

‘May I have some Blue Unction, please?’ I said, as near to a whisper as I thought I could get away with.