Father Unknown

by Lesley Pearse

  At the end of the two weeks Ellen still didn’t know whether it had been a mistake to come home, or a good thing. Violet had never let up in her spite. Her father seemed suddenly old and weary and had little to say to her. None of Josie’s old friends had heard from her, all they did was repeat the same story that her father had been told by the police, that she’d got a lift up to London with two men.

  But it had been good to talk to Mavis Peters. Ellen found she could tell her all the things she hadn’t been able to say even to Dr Fordham. It was good to be entirely alone too, taking long walks along the coastal path and sitting for hours down at the cove looking at the sea. She thought she understood what the doctor had meant now. She had to come back here again, if only to see for herself how little the place had to offer her.

  While she would always love Cornwall, the farm no longer lured her. She thought she would like to have a career working with children, perhaps in a school or a home. Maybe she’d stay another year with Shirley and Roger, till Simon started school, and then she’d move on.

  Dr Fordham was right, she was stronger now. She was sure nothing life could throw at her would ever hurt half as much as losing Catherine. As for Josie, she was certain she would get in touch soon. She had to be doing all right or she would have slunk home again by now.

  Chapter Eleven

  Two weeks after she arrived in London, Josie was still living in the room at 42 Westbourne Park Road, and hating it like she’d never hated anything before. No air seemed to come in through the tiny window and when she looked out she could see nothing but rooftops. The other tenants, and there seemed to be dozens of them, cooked things which smelled disgusting, and it all wafted up to her room and remained trapped there.

  But it was the bathroom that revolted her most. It stank, no one ever cleaned it, the lavatory was disgusting, and there was black mould growing up all over the walls. When she did pluck up the nerve to have a bath, she had to scrub it out first and stay in the bathroom while it ran. She made the mistake of leaving it to run once, and someone else took it, and used the shilling she’d put into the gas meter.

  She supposed that the room itself wasn’t any worse than her one back home, the same kind of rickety old furniture, worn sheets on the bed, a lack of any comforts. But there she’d had the view, the breeze and the silence. There was never a really quiet time at number 42, people shouted and bawled till the early hours of the morning, televisions and radios blared out. Tow-haired children played on the stairs, and there was always a baby crying. The other tenants seemed to be either black or Irish, and she could see that they were all desperately poor.

  Josie felt she was trapped there. She had gone to several employment agencies on the first Monday, but she was hardly through the door when they asked her for her card, without which she couldn’t be given a job. This card, she found out, was her National Insurance Card, which everyone had to have, and she could only get one from the National Insurance Office. But she was afraid to go there, thinking it would be the first place the police would check to trace her.

  Then someone told her she could get work in the smaller restaurants or cafés without a card. She found a job that very day, in a cafe in James Street, close to Selfridges in Oxford Street. She saw an advertisement for a waitress stuck in the window, and they were so short-staffed that they took her on immediately. But after just a few days she’d wished she’d turned tail and gone home the minute she found out about the insurance card she needed. It was a horrible job, on her feet all day scraping half-eaten food off people’s plates, with everyone, the customers and the owner of the cafe, complaining all the time that she wasn’t quick enough.

  But she couldn’t go home now, not without losing face completely and getting a good hiding into the bargain. One of the first things she’d done on the Sunday she left Will’s flat was to write a postcard home. She had apologized for running off without telling them, but said that London was where she wanted to be and she was safe and happy. She’d stuck a postcard through Will’s letterbox too, explaining that she hadn’t told him the truth, and if anyone came looking for her he was to show them this card so they’d know he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Maybe she could stand the good hiding and her parents keeping her under lock and key in future, but the whole of Mawnan Smith and Falmouth would know about it by now. She couldn’t stand the humiliation of having failed, so there really was no choice but to stay here and try to make good before even thinking of going back.

  The waitressing job was as bad as her room. The cafe was busy all day, for apart from shoppers popping in for tea or coffee, the people who worked in offices around there came in for lunch. The owners were Greek and barked at Josie every time a table needed clearing; she got nine pounds a week and some days she got a few shillings extra in tips. But she soon found out that the money she had left after paying the rent didn’t go very far.

  The loneliness was the worst thing though. No one really spoke to her during the day; it was as though she was so low down the scale they didn’t notice her. When she left the café at half past five, her feet were so swollen with the heat and standing all day that she could barely hobble to the underground. But once back in her room there was absolutely nothing to do other than wash her underclothes and lie on the bed listening to the noise from all the different rooms in the house.

  She wanted a radio, an iron, a pair of flat shoes to wear to work, some sort of jacket or coat for when it rained, and more clothes. All she had with her was what she’d packed for the weekend with Rosemary. But she had so little money left once she’d paid her rent and fares to work that she couldn’t see how she was ever going to be able to buy anything, let alone save something to be able to move somewhere better.

  Luckily they allowed her to eat anything she wanted at work, which was just as well as all she had in her room was a single gas ring, a washbasin, one cup, one plate and a knife, a fork and a spoon, not even a saucepan.

  Oxford Street was so tantalizing too, so many wonderful shops stuffed with beautiful clothes, and she saw hundreds of girls of her age swinging along in their miniskirts looking chic and happy. She wondered how it was that they were doing all right and she had gone so wrong.

  One rainy Friday afternoon after she had worked at the café for nearly three weeks, two girls came in. Mostly older people used the café, as the food was standard English fare, and the decor dull. So these two girls, one in a shiny white mac and tight knee-length boots, the other in a similar red outfit, stood out. Josie looked at them enviously, for their clothes looked very expensive and they were both extraordinarily pretty.

  Archie, the café owner, went over to them and kissed their hands, making a big fuss of them, but as Josie was working at the back and he showed the girls to a table right down by the street door, she couldn’t hear what was being said.

  They stayed for ages, having one cup of coffee after another, and finally Josie had to go up to their table as the other waitress had left. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ she asked, changing the overflowing ashtray for a clean one and removing their empty cups.

  ‘You could get us a bit of sunshine,’ one of them said. ‘It’s been pissing down all bloody day.’

  Josie giggled. It was the first time anyone had said anything in the cafe that had amused her. ‘I can’t even work a miracle for myself,’ she replied, ‘let alone anyone else.’

  ‘You’re from Cornwall!’ the dark girl in the white mac said in some surprise. ‘What on earth made you leave there for stinking London?’

  No one had recognized Josie’s accent since she’d been in London and she was delighted.

  ‘Madness,’ Josie said with a grin. ‘I came on an impulse and have been regretting it ever since.’

  ‘Crummy room and a crummy job?’ the girl in red asked sympathetically. She was blonde with large green eyes.

  Josie nodded. Just that little bit of sympathy made tears well up in her eyes.

  ‘Come on, love, do
n’t cry,’ the dark one said quickly, patting Josie’s hand. ‘You’ll have old Archie there wanting to give you a cuddle, and you don’t need that.’

  ‘When do you finish work?’ the other girl said.

  ‘At half five.’ Josie sniffed back the tears and tried to smile.

  ‘Right, meet us in the pub a couple of doors down when you get off,’ the girl said. ‘You can tell us all about it then. What’s your name?’

  ‘Josie,’ she said feebly, feeling a little silly now. ‘Thanks, but you don’t have to be nice, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘We do have to be nice,’ the dark one said, and laughed. ‘We’ve been where you are, love. I’m Candy, that’s Tina, and we’ll be waiting for you in the pub.’

  Josie was so down that she really didn’t think the girls would be there, but they were. As she walked into the pub they greeted her warmly and insisted on buying her a brandy and Coke to lift her spirits.

  It wasn’t very busy in the pub, just a few businessmen having a quick drink before going home, and the girls led her over to a table in a corner, sat down and began quizzing her. Candy told her she came from Bude in Cornwall, and once she’d heard the gist of what was troubling Josie, she admitted she’d been through much the same.

  ‘I was so miserable I felt like topping myself,’ she said in sympathy. ‘I was only fifteen too, and the rent for my room in Earls Court was nearly as much as I earned. But I couldn’t go home, I didn’t have enough money for the fare, and my folks wouldn’t have sent any if I’d asked.’

  ‘Me too,’ Tina said with a grin. ‘I ran away with a man, and he ditched me after a couple of weeks. I got a job cleaning offices. But we’re both evidence you don’t have to stay in a rat-hole and work in some crummy café. London’s a great place once you know the score.’

  ‘I wanted to be a model,’ Josie admitted sheepishly. ‘I know it sounds stupid but I really thought that someone would flag me down to photograph me the minute I set foot in London. Some chance of that. No one even looks at me here.’

  The two girls smiled and exchanged glances. ‘We’re models,’ Candy said. ‘Not fashion models, but we get real good money.’

  Josie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Really! How did you get into it?’ she asked.

  ‘We both answered an ad in the Evening News,’ Candy replied. ‘It just said, “Pretty girls wanted for glamour pictures, good rates of pay”. The ad’s in there most weeks, they are always looking for new girls. You could do it too if you want.’

  ‘I could?’ Josie downed a huge gulp of the brandy, even though she didn’t like the taste. ‘Are you serious?’ she added, holding on to her throat because it felt as though it was burning.

  Candy shrugged. ‘It’s not us that has to be serious, but you, if you want to do it. You have to be prepared to wear very little, like we said, it isn’t fashion modelling, it’s pinups.’

  Josie knew what a pin-up was; she’d seen them in magazines like Tit-Bits. The girls wore tight, low-cut sweaters, or a swim-suit. She could do that!

  ‘I want to,’ she said eagerly, leaning forward. ‘Tell me how to go about it.’

  For the next hour Josie sat entranced as Candy and Tina told her all about it. They were quick to point out it was a bit more daring than the pictures she’d seen in Tit-Bits, and if she was bashful she wouldn’t last a day. But they also said they didn’t go in for nude modelling or pornography, though they might go nude if they were offered enough money. They said they got paid by the session. That was four hours at a time and the fee was fifteen pounds. Most weeks they did up to six sessions, which they said was more than enough to live well and buy the kind of outfits they needed to be in constant demand.

  ‘We were working this morning,’ Tina said. She opened her red mac to show a black dress beneath it. ‘The pictures he took were of me in this, with just me undies underneath. That’s what they mean by glamour shots. I’ve got a few skimpy baby-doll nighties, shorts that come half-way up my bum. Lacy stuff, stockings and suspenders, all that sort of thing. You know what I mean?’

  Josie nodded. She certainly hadn’t known anything about any of this before, but she was cottoning on fast.

  When the girls found she didn’t have to work on Saturdays, they said she could go with them tomorrow and have a trial session.

  ‘If you can’t do it, you’ve lost nothing,’ Candy said reassuringly. ‘You can go back to work in the café on Monday and forget about it. But if you’re good, and Beetle likes you, then you’re made.’

  ‘Beetle’ was the boss of ‘Glamour Pics Inc.’. The girls laughingly said they didn’t know why he was called that, but it suited him. He did the entire organization, arranged the photo shoots, and sold the pictures on to magazines all over the world. They also admitted he gave them a bonus when they introduced a new girl.

  ‘But that isn’t why we invited you for a drink,’ Tina was quick to add. ‘We both could see by your face how down you were. Yeah, we noticed you were pretty and had a good body, but it takes more than that. You’ve got to be tough and hungry to make a glamour model. I’m not sure you’re tough enough, but we’ll soon see.’

  Josie’s feet didn’t hurt that night as she went home. Maybe it was just the brandy, but she felt as though she was walking on marshmallows. She was tough enough, and she was hungry for a nice place to live, lovely clothes and fun too. Maybe London wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Josie was washing her hair at seven the following morning, and she was determined she was going to surprise Tina and Candy. They had only seen her with her hair tied back, no makeup, and a nasty nylon overall over a cheap cotton dress. If they thought she looked pretty like that, wait till they saw her in the black and white mini with her hair all loose!

  The studio where she had to meet Beetle and the girls was conveniently in Paddington, just a short walk from her room. Tina had said she wasn’t to worry about clothes, because Beetle had a selection of outfits for new girls at the studio. Although she wouldn’t be paid anything for this first session, if she was any good he’d book her up for five or six next week, and she’d get paid in cash each time. The only thing that really worried Josie was her underwear. She had only one bra and two pairs of knickers, and they were very shabby and grey. She wouldn’t want anyone to see her in those, not even another girl. Should she spend some of her week’s wages on a new set, before going to the studio?

  As she sat by the open window letting her hair dry, she counted her money. She hadn’t touched a penny of her week’s wages yet, the girls had bought all the drinks yesterday, and she had three pounds too, which she’d managed to hang on to from her birthday money. Once she’d paid her rent for the week that left eight pounds.

  A short while ago she would have thought that was a fortune, but she knew better now. Was it wise to blow some of it on new underwear, before she found out whether Beetle would take her on? She decided it was. She would be much more confident today if she knew her underwear was pretty.

  At five to eleven, Josie was in Porchester Mews, looking for the studio. The mews was a horribly squalid little place, mostly panel-beating garages, printers and other small businesses, with junk piled outside most of them, and from the street the rooms above what had once been stables looked to be as nasty as the place she lived in.

  But she had learned since she came to the city that this part of London, Westbourne Grove, Ladbroke Grove and Paddington, was one of the worst areas of all to live in. While Westbourne and Ladbroke Groves were virtually slum areas, populated by immigrants who were exploited by unscrupulous landlords, Paddington was home to hundreds of prostitutes. Having no real idea what prostitutes looked like, she felt nervous just walking around in case people took her for one.

  ‘Yoo-hoo,’ someone called out behind her, and she turned to see Tina and Candy coming into the mews.

  It was sunny again today and the girls wore sleeveless mini-dresses. But the skirts were at least two inches shorter than Josie’s and she felt a stab of pa
nic that she looked old-fashioned.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ Candy said with a sincere wide smile. ‘Beetle is going to be pleased with us. Are you nervous?’

  Josie nodded. She hadn’t eaten anything because she felt sick with fright, and if she’d had to hang around on her own for much longer, she might just have taken off.

  ‘Remember the first time is the worst,’ Tina said, and put her arm around Josie’s shoulders. ‘A few sessions later and you’ll be laughing about how you felt today. Imagine you’re an actress, that’s all it is really, acting sexy.’

  Beetle was aptly named. He was short, squat, with shiny black hair cut in a similar mop-top to the Beatles. He was around forty and his hair looked suspiciously like a wig, yet he had a curious kind of charm that put Josie at her ease. After Tina and Candy had introduced her, they went off to get changed for their session, and Beetle made Josie a cup of coffee and gave her a cigarette.

  ‘You are beautiful, Jojo,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hair and twiddling a curl around his finger. ‘I find a girl as lovely as you only once in a blue moon. Tina told me about you on the phone last night, and I want to reassure you I won’t make you do anything you don’t like. I don’t try and get my girls to go to bed with me. I pay them for each session, and I look after them. You can trust me.’

  The office they were in was tiny, a partitioned-off part of the main studio, but it was very clean and neat, holding little more than a desk, a filing cabinet and a couple of chairs. The walls were covered with photographs of girls in everything from bikinis and negligees to fur coats. Although many of them had a blouse or a coat undone to reveal they were wearing nothing beneath, there wasn’t one picture of anyone completely naked.

  The studio beyond, through which Josie had entered, was large. It appeared to run right across the top of two garages beneath. The floor was shiny plain lino, the walls neutral, but it was divided into what Josie imagined film sets looked like. One had a couch covered in a fur rug, there was a beach scene with sand on the floor in another, and a bed piled high with cushions in the third.