Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

Charlie saw the deep sorrow in her friend’s eyes and hugged her again. ‘He’ll come back to you when he’s older.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Rita said, and for the first time a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘But he doesn’t seem to like me much now. Last time I visited him he totally ignored me. I’d bought him some new football boots and he wouldn’t even try them on to make sure they fitted.’

  ‘Have you got a picture of him?’ Charlie asked.

  Rita pulled open the drawer of her bedside cabinet and drew out a thin album. She handed it to Charlie without saying a word.

  Charlie felt a lump come up in her throat as she looked. There was just one picture for every year, marking his progress from a big, bald smiling baby of perhaps five or six months, right up to a somewhat gawky-looking teenager with straggly hair. They were all poor-quality black and white snaps, probably taken with an old-fashioned box camera. Charlie got the distinct impression that Rita’s parents had begrudgingly given her these pictures, they looked suspiciously like ones they’d rejected.

  ‘Is his hair red like yours?’ she asked. She could see no similarity to Rita in Paul; his hair looked dark, he was skinny and foxy-faced.

  ‘No, fortunately for him it’s brown, he’s a lot like my dad, tall, thin and wiry. I favour my mum, I suppose – her hair is red too, though more chestnut than mine. All Paul got from his real father was his nose, you can’t see in any of those pictures, but it’s kind of snub, like a boxer’s.’

  Charlie found the pictures too sad to look at any longer. They underlined the bleakness of her friend’s life and her parents’ lack of compassion. She closed it up and put it back in the drawer. ‘Did you ever see that woman again?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t ever see her, thank God, but then I haven’t been to any of the old haunts or kept in touch with anyone from then. But I did read something in the papers about her. She owned some clubs in Soho during the late Sixties, the sort of places that cropped up like mushrooms when Flower Power was all the rage. One of them was raided by the police and she was charged with supplying drugs.’

  Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did she go to prison?’

  ‘Did she hell!’ Rita said scornfully. ‘She wriggled out of it somehow. Her sort always does.’

  ‘Do you think she’s still around Soho?’

  ‘I doubt it, she’s probably moved on to somewhere with richer pickings.’ Rita looked hard at Charlie. ‘You wondered last night what I had on my mind. Well, it was this. You see, the last thing Andrew said to me yesterday was that he was going to find out about your father, with or without you. I’m afraid for him going around that area asking questions.’

  ‘You don’t have to be. He’ll be careful,’ Charlie said lightly.

  Rita didn’t reply. She was looking off into space as if deep in thought.

  ‘What is it? Do you know something?’ Charlie’s heart quickened, suddenly realizing that during Rita’s time in the West End she might very well have known people who did know her father.

  Rita turned towards Charlie, saw that glimmer of excitement in her eyes and guessed its source. Her heart plummeted. She knew she must warn the girl and try to dissuade her from digging around. She caught hold of Charlie’s hands. ‘Did I tell you what the woman’s name was?’

  ‘Yes, Daphne.’ Charlie frowned. She wondered why Rita should ask that.

  ‘Daphne Dexter,’ Rita said slowly and deliberately. ‘Her initials are D.D.’

  Charlie’s mouth fell open. ‘You mean that woman was my dad’s mistress?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rita said in a very low voice. ‘It might be just a wild coincidence, but she’s the right age, I believe she was once a stripper, and she had interests in several clubs. I hope for your sake that I’m letting my imagination run away with me.’

  Charlie didn’t speak for a moment, her mind whirling with all the fragments of information she had about DeeDee, and she tried to match it with what Rita had said about Daphne. She couldn’t really believe her father could love someone capable of maiming another woman, yet Sylvia, who had known DeeDee well, was scared of her; she almost certainly knew who the two men were who attacked her too. Could they have been those two brothers?

  She shook her head. ‘She can’t be the same person.’

  ‘I hope she isn’t,’ Rita said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Because if the woman I know got your dad away from your mother, and you or Andrew cross her path, heaven only knows what might happen.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Andrew felt very self-conscious as he walked up Wardour Street. It was only six-thirty, he thought far too early in the evening for Soho’s night life to start, but there were girls and women watching him from almost every doorway.

  It was the Monday after he’d seen Rita, and as he’d been given the whole day off he’d decided to make a start on finding out something about Jin Weish. He was very disappointed that there had been no telephone call from Rita over the weekend. On Friday evening he’d been so certain he’d won her round, but maybe Charlie hadn’t contacted her yet.

  Over the weekend he’d borrowed the pub typewriter and made a kind of handout, presenting himself as a freelance researcher requiring assistance in compiling information about Soho’s characters during the Fifties. He’d used his friend John’s Hampstead address as a temporary measure as he didn’t have a permanent one of his own.

  His first stop this morning had been at a small printer’s where he had a hundred photocopies run off. Since then he’d been calling on every small business, cafés and shops, talking to people and leaving one of the handouts where they expressed any interest.

  Andrew was elated by the response. Many of the older shopkeepers had been keen to chat to him, if only to pour out their complaints about the changing face of Soho. They were concerned by a rising tide of violence in the streets at night, the blatant prostitution and how decent shopkeepers like themselves were being squeezed out in favour of people selling pornography. They described Soho during the Fifties as glamorous, and spoke with some nostalgia of gentlemen frequenting the clubs, rather than the seedy riffraff who came here now.

  Two sixty-plus market traders in Berwick Street had been a great deal more specific. They had reminisced eagerly about the Maltese Messina brothers who ran most of the prostitution, the Sabina brothers who specialized in ‘protecting’ bookmakers, Billy Hill and Jack ‘Spot’ Comer who were undisputed gang leaders at that time, until they were ousted by the Kray twins.

  Andrew found it quite amusing that these two garrulous old chaps were quite prepared to natter on about these thugs who had run Soho in those days, indeed to speak of people having their faces slashed with razors, kneecapping and other atrocities, yet when he asked if there were any major players at that time who were Chinese, they looked askance at him and said, ‘Those Chinks are dangerous, son, you don’t want to be messing with them.’

  But one of the old men had given him the name of a man he thought might prove invaluable to Andrew, and he was on his way to the Black and White Café in Carlisle Street now, in the hopes of catching ‘Spud’ having his evening meal.

  ‘Oih, son! Got time for a quickie?’

  Andrew’s head jerked round at the bawled question. It came from a grinning peroxide blonde in a short red dress with a low neck. She was standing in a doorway he’d just passed. She was over the hill, at least thirty-five, and he had a feeling it wasn’t a serious attempt at soliciting, but more of a joke.

  Andrew stopped, looked back at her and smiled. ‘I can’t do quick ones,’ he said with a comic shrug. ‘And I’m just off to meet someone.’

  She laughed, and despite her somewhat desperate appearance – she had thick pink makeup, her dress was unbecomingly tight – it was a nice, jolly laugh. ‘Story of me life,’ she said. ‘I spots a real tasty one and they’re always in a ’urry’.

  Andrew hadn’t dared even think of speaking to any prostitutes, they scared him witless. But now this one had approached him, and seemed to h
ave a sense of humour, he thought it might be worth his while to be friendly. ‘I’ll be back,’ he grinned. ‘Not for your body but to talk to you. I’m collecting information for a book, you see.’

  ‘What about? Working girls?’ She took a few steps closer to him, her face was alight with interest.

  ‘Not just that, everything about Soho, you know, the characters, strippers, villains and stuff,’ he said.

  She looked at him appraisingly. Andrew guessed she’d been very pretty when she was younger, it was kind of still there, but camouflaged by extra weight and the awful thick makeup. ‘I could tell you enough stuff to fill a suitcase, let alone a book,’ she said. ‘But you go careful, son, Soho ain’t the kind of place to ’ang around when you’re a bit green. Know what I mean?’

  Andrew did. He’d been kind of aware all day that he was slightly out of his depth. ‘Will you talk to me then?’ he asked impulsively. ‘I could meet you one afternoon and take you somewhere for tea?’

  She smiled; one of her front teeth was broken, and it gave her mouth a slightly lopsided look. ‘You sweet talker,’ she said. ‘Take me to Lyons Corner ’Ouse and buy me a Knickerbocker Glory and you’re on!’

  ‘Okay,’ Andrew agreed. If she’d suggested taking him up to her room he would have been daunted, but a public place sounded safe enough. ‘What about tomorrow afternoon at half past four?’

  ‘Okay,’ she grinned.

  ‘I’ll meet you outside,’ he said. ‘You’re a diamond!’

  Andrew was halfway up the street before he remembered he hadn’t asked her name. He wondered if she really would come.

  The Black and White Café would have been more aptly named Grey and Greasy. It was like a narrow corridor, stools along the counter; at the far end it opened up wider with half a dozen or so small tables. There were three men in total in there, two together at one table, the other alone. All three were middle-aged working men, so Andrew asked the woman behind the counter for a glass of milk and asked her if any of the men was known as ‘Spud’.

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to the one alone. ‘He’s just about to have his dinner.’

  Andrew made his way over to the man, apologized for disturbing him and explained who had directed him to him and why.

  Spud was as strange-looking as his name. His nose was more like a huge growth, purple in colour and with lumps everywhere. His eyebrows were like an overgrown hedge, and he had extremely thick, wet lips, hardly any teeth and a bald head. He smelled of sweat and his shirt was filthy, but he was friendly, and insisted Andrew was welcome to sit down and ask whatever he liked.

  ‘I used to be a boxer,’ he said without waiting to be asked. ‘My nose weren’t too pretty before that, but it weren’t as bad as this. That’s why they call me Spud. When I gave up on boxing I worked for a time in the market, someone said it looked like a spud and the name stuck. Me real one is John Joe O’Neill. Me mam and dad were Irish.’

  His meal arrived at that point, a gigantic cottage pie with chips, swimming in gravy. Attacking it with a spoon, he carried on talking as he ate. ‘’Course Soho ain’t what it used to be,’ he said, giving Andrew a disgusting view of his mouthful of food. ‘It’s all foreigners now and bleedin’ tourists. The Fifties was its heyday. I used to stroll down through St Anne’s Court in me flash suit, and I was cock of the walk. No one messed with me. They’d all seen me fight, and I could walk in any bar or club and get a drink on the ’ouse. I knew all the working girls by name, and most of them,’ he paused to wink suggestively, ‘well, you know, I knew ’em a bit better.’

  Spud then went on to speak of the same people his two friends in the market had mentioned. Andrew listened politely to repeats of violent stories, and a list of celebrities he’d known well. He held up two fingers and claimed to have ‘been like that’ with the Kray twins. The boxer Freddie Mills was one of his mates and he said how Freddie had opened a Chinese restaurant, then later changed it into a night-club where he was subsequently found dead in his car in 1965.

  ‘They said it were suicide,’ he said, leaning closer to Andrew conspiratorially. ‘That was tosh, he were a ’appy man, and ’appy blokes don’t shoot themselves. I reckon it were the Chinks what done it, because he moved in on their territory.’

  Andrew was very glad Spud had brought the Chinese into the conversation, even if he was talking about an event long after the time Andrew was interested in. ‘Do you remember a club called the Lotus?’ he asked hesitantly. ‘I heard that was owned by a Chinese.’

  ‘Yeah. It were just along the street ’ere,’ Spud said. ‘I ’ad some good times there. They always ’ad big girls.’ He cupped his hands to his chest to show he meant big breasts.

  Andrew wanted to laugh. He had never met anyone as odd as this man. His appearance might be utterly repellent, but there was a liveliness in his speech and facial expressions which made him fascinating. ‘Someone told me there was something dodgy going on there. Would you know anything about that?’ He was fishing in the dark, hoping to catch anything, however irrelevant.

  ‘There was something dodgy going on in all the clubs,’ Spud laughed cheerfully. ‘They weren’t like bleedin’ Sunday schools. They was all smoking those reefers long before it was even illegal. There was gambling and God knows what else.’

  ‘Was the owner Chinese?’ Andrew said.

  ‘Yeah, he was, decent bloke for a Chink. ’E ’ad a nice wife an’ all. Blonde woman, pretty as a May morning.’

  A tingle of excitement went down Andrew’s spine. ‘Any idea if he’s still around?’ he asked. ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

  ‘’E’s long gone,’ Spud said. ‘I ain’t seen ’im in ten, maybe twelve years. I ’eard he went to live in the country. Funny you should ask about him, though, the boys in blue came around a couple of years ago asking questions. Seemed ’e’d disappeared.’

  Andrew felt he ought to be pleased to have it confirmed the police really had looked around here; Charlie was of the opinion they hadn’t really bothered. But if the police had made inquiries and found nothing, then he was hardly likely to do any better.

  ‘Did you ever hear any more about him, you know, on the grapevine?’ Andrew asked tentatively.

  ‘A story went round that he was done in over in Holland. But then you ’ear all sorts round ’ere.’

  ‘Well, I hope that’s not true,’ Andrew laughed. ‘So when this man went off to live in the country, who took over his club?’

  Spud frowned as if thinking hard. ‘A woman that run the place for him kept it going, she might even ’ave bought it off him,’ he said. ‘I didn’t go in there much then. Didn’t like her. She ’ad a face like a bag of arrows.’

  ‘Plain was she?’ Andrew asked. ‘And no tits?’

  Spud burst into throaty laughter. ‘No, she weren’t plain, best-looking woman you ever saw in fact, and well stacked. No, what I meant about ’er was that one look from ’er was enough to send you running. She didn’t want men like me in ’er precious club, she wanted big-spending toffs.’

  ‘She sounds interesting,’ Andrew said. ‘What was her name?’

  Spud said he couldn’t remember, but Andrew was certain he could.

  ‘It wasn’t DeeDee, was it? That was a name someone told me.’

  For the first time in their conversation Spud looked nervous. His eyes narrowed and he didn’t answer.

  ‘Well, was it?’ Andrew persisted.

  ‘’Ow d’you expect me to remember someone’s name that long ago?’ he snapped. ‘Whatcha want to know about that poxy place for anyway? It weren’t famous.’

  ‘Well, every book needs a bit of intrigue to make it more exciting,’ Andrew retorted, wondering why the man should suddenly get needled by that question. ‘Besides, all the better-known places have already been written about. I wanted a new slant.’

  Spud finished up his vast meal in silence, belched, then downed a mug of tea in one. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree, son,’ he said eventually. ‘If you wants
a good story you’d be better off taking a trip out to Spain and talking to Billy ’Ill, ’e cleared off out there once the Krays took over the West End. But ’e was the governor round ’ere for a long time, and a nicer bloke you couldn’t wish to meet.’

  Andrew thought that meant Spud was trying to get rid of him. Whether that was because of his line of questioning, or just that the man had a low concentration span, he didn’t know. Either way he thought he’d better leave him in peace. ‘Well, thanks for your time. You’ve been very helpful,’ he said. ‘Can I pay for your dinner?’

  ‘That’s decent of you, son.’ The man beamed again. ‘It were nice to chat to you about the old times. I’m always in ’ere at this time of day if you want to talk some more.’

  As Andrew was still wandering around Soho looking closely at all the clubs, and wondering if he dared go into any of them, Charlie was trying to telephone him.

  ‘He’s gone out. It’s his day off,’ she said glumly as she put the receiver down.

  Rita sniggered. ‘Friday night you said you wouldn’t ever speak to him again, and now you’re cross because he doesn’t happen to be there when you want him. What a contrary person you are.’

  ‘You know why I need to speak to him. I want to warn him to be careful in Soho.’

  Rita raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Charlie was very Chinese in her need to keep face. She’d spent most of the previous day writing a letter to Andrew, then tore it up because she said she was afraid it would give him the wrong signals. Now she’d changed tactics and was pretending her only interest in him was warning him of danger.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to go to that course tomorrow,’ Charlie said after a few moments of reflective silence. ‘In fact I wish I’d turned the Hag down. I ought to be getting out and finding a better job, not learning something which will force me to stay there.’

  ‘Learning something new is always worthwhile,’ Rita said firmly. ‘Besides, York is supposed to be a beautiful place, so it’ll be a bit like a holiday. While you’re there you can think about what you’d really like as a career. But to put your mind at rest about Andrew, I’ll phone him tomorrow morning if you like.’