London Folk Tales

by Helen East

  There were some differences in livestock too. Chickens, dogs, cats and rats of all sorts on both islands, but the dazzling sweet salt fish of the Indian nation were a million miles away from a nice bit of pale plaice. D knew about that, because her father had come to England to bring tropical sea creatures and reptiles for display. His speciality was snakes, although he had problems flying them over after they escaped in the hold. So, occasionally he slipped some into his hand luggage, although that almost caused him trouble too. It was all because he was offered a meal, and thinking of his hungry pets he chose steak tartar, ‘as rare as can be’.

  ‘Ooh,’ said the lady sitting next to him, ‘I love really rare steaks, too.’

  ‘Like my snake?’ he said, assuming she was a kindred spirit, and opened up his bag.

  It turned out she didn’t like it at all, but fortunately by the time the air hostess responded to the loud screams, the snake was safely stowed away in the luggage racks, the lady too incoherent to explain, and D’s father all baffled innocence.

  He simply didn’t understand why there should be any difference perceived between reptiles and other lovely creatures. ‘I’m just an exporter of Sri Lankan natural beauty,’ he’d explain. This included, presumably, his daughter. Although D probably found the move smoother, and her charms were certainly more immediately appreciated in the new world and lifestyle of London. Especially when she went to college. But though her parents might have seemed unusual in some ways, there were other things that were the same as most Asian families in England then. An embargo on certain kinds of fun. For the daughters of the house at least, particularly if you were, like D, the only one. She couldn’t go out with boys, like other girls did, or go to parties, and to make it worse she had to find excuses to save face.

  Oddly enough the snakes helped her out in the end. For she met someone she liked, and he thought it was great that her dad kept snakes, because he had one himself! So D brought him home, and he and her dad looked in all the tanks and oohed and aahed about reptiles, and the boyfriend was established as the perfect young man. Even having a car now counted as a plus! He could drive her home much quicker than waiting for a bus.

  And take them both on outings too. So what he and she used to do then, mainly at weekends, was to get together with some friends, and drive around, especially South London, discovering new pubs and clubs and out of the way venues to go to. He lived in Forest Hill, so quite often they’d start by heading out that direction, along the main road, Bromley or Eltham way maybe. It was all very leafy then, spacious too, and quiet after the city mayhem.

  On this particular evening only one friend could come, a girlfriend of D’s, and they were going roughly the Bromley route, although they’d turned off somewhere different from usual. They had been driving for a fair while, and both D and her friend needed to go to the loo, so they were watching out for somewhere they could stop. It was getting a bit dark, so they were looking quite hard, beginning to get a bit desperate, you know how it is. Finally they got to a Y junction, and then the boyfriend spotted a pub, so of course he pulled over, and they all piled out.

  It was quite a grand place they’d found, one of those really old pubs, whitewashed, with big black beams. And they’d obviously gone to town on the old-style theme because they had lamps as well – great atmosphere. So the three of them went in and found what seemed to be the main bar. It was only then that they realised they must have walked into somebody’s party, because everyone in there was wearing fancy dress.

  Anyway, D’s boyfriend went up to get some drinks and the two girls headed off to the toilet. There weren’t any signs saying ‘Ladies’, but that wasn’t as common then as it is now. So they just headed towards the back, looking for a likely door. They soon saw one, but when they went through they found themselves in a long back room. And it was absolutely full of hats! They were all along the walls, rows of them – hats of all sorts. There was a fur one with a tail hanging down that D rather fancied, and a lovely big one with a feather.

  D and her friend went straight on through, because they were in a hurry to get to the loo. And by now they were beginning to feel rather embarrassed, because everyone here was also dressed up to the nines. One woman had a floor-length gown with all her hair done in ringlets. And two men were in total cavalier style, with flowing sleeves and high boots and everything. It was really glorious to see, but poor D and her friend were just in jeans and t-shirts. They wished they’d known in advance!

  At least they’d spotted another door which had to be the toilet because it was very small, so they pushed that open with a sigh of relief and hurried in. Only it wasn’t what they were expecting at all. It was more a sort of corridor which seemed to be running in both directions but it was hard to see because it was so dark. There were two of the lantern-type lamps, one on either side, but they obviously had faulty bulbs or something because they were flickering really badly.

  At this point D and her friend looked at each other, and agreed they’d had enough, and maybe they didn’t need the toilet all that much! It was just too dark and odd to go on – almost spooky. So they backtracked quickly.

  D was ahead, and just as she got to the door a gentleman appeared – and he really was a gentleman, because he opened the door for her with a real flourish and a bow! She noticed the lace flutter at his wrist as he moved. He was obviously well practised at it. And he was very good looking too. So, while she was taking all this in, and enjoying being back into the light again, she forgot all about her poor friend. And so did the dashing gentleman, apparently, because far from giving her the same treatment too, he slammed the door right in her face! She was shut out in the dark and naturally felt most put out. ‘It’s bad enough that you are prettier than I am,’ she said when she caught up with D again, ‘but honestly, he treated me as if I was completely invisible! I don’t think I like this place at all!’

  Anyway, they went back into the bar, and there was D’s boyfriend looking rather pleased with himself, with three drinks in front of him. ‘We should tell everyone about this place,’ he said, ‘because they wouldn’t take my money when I tried to buy a drink.’

  ‘There you are,’ said D’s friend. ‘It must be a private party. I don’t think we should stay. No one’s talking to us anyway.’ It was true, although D hadn’t noticed until then. It wasn’t that everyone was being rude. It was just that they obviously didn’t really belong to that crowd. So they drank up quickly and left.

  But of course, when they got back and told their friends, everyone wanted to go to this place where the drinks might be free, and the people were wonderfully weird. So they all drove out the following week, ready to make a night of it. This time they were all dressed up as well. D’s boyfriend was driving, obviously, and D and her friend were helping to direct him, and they got to the place where they thought they’d stopped before, but there was no building there. So they drove up and down, and looked around, and they ended up back in the same spot again. ‘I really thought it was here,’ D’s boyfriend said, but he didn’t seem so sure any more. It was just after a Y junction, but there was nothing there, only the road and a space on the side. And fields and trees, of course, but not a single building.

  Naturally their friends assumed it was a trick, and not a very funny one either, since they were the ones who’d been fooled. And since they were all dressed up now, they made D and her boyfriend take them to a pub on the way back, and pay for everyone’s drinks too. And they were stared at by everyone in there for wearing fancy dress. It was a bit of a difficult evening all round. By the end of it, if there hadn’t been three of them who’d seen it, even D would have thought she’d imagined it all.

  It took a long time to live it down. If ever one of them happened to say, ‘Let’s go somewhere new,’ someone would be bound to bring it up again. ‘Oh yes, do let’s – how about that pub that wasn’t even there?’

  Anyway, time passed. They finished at college. D and her boyfriend split up, and more or l
ess lost touch. And that might have been the end of the story. But many, many years later when D was working, she was looking for a school not far from Bromley. Only she got lost. She was driving along – you know the way you do, hoping you’ll just find yourself by pure fluke – when she came to a place that somehow seemed familiar. It was a Y junction, and just past it was a space like an unofficial lay-by. Down beyond that was a petrol station, so she pulled in there to ask the way. It was an old man serving at the counter, and she told him that she was lost, and he was very helpful and gave her easy directions to the school. Then, just as she was going – it was an afterthought really – she asked him about the open area up the road. ‘Wasn’t there a building once, a sort of pub just there?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised you know. I thought you said you weren’t familiar with this area? There did used to be a pub there. Well it was a coaching inn really. Very old it was, maybe seventeenth century or so. I’m only going on what I was told, mind. I never saw it myself. They say that it burnt down 200 years ago.’

  ‘I know it sounds funny,’ D said to me. ‘It’s hard to believe it myself. But I know what I saw. And remember, I didn’t grow up here. I don’t know much about history and what people wore. I knew even less back then. So how could I dream it all up and yet get all the details right? And how could three of us dream the same thing all on the same night?’

  28

  BIKE HIKERS

  Standing at the bus stop outside Bromley-by-Bow tube station, just up from the Blackwall Tunnel, freezing cold wind blowing one way, and the blast of exhausts from traffic thundering past the other, I counted every kind of lorry I’d ever seen, apparently all heading for Stratford, but not a bus amongst them.

  Meanwhile, the bus queue had been growing steadily longer ever since I’d arrived, and I was asking anxiously if it was the right stop. Most of the people there were old timers, knew all the routes, and were ready to take me under their wing. ‘They are like birds of a feather, buses are,’ said one man to nobody in particular but with an eye on me because I seemed most interested in chatting.

  ‘Why is that?’ I asked, happy to hear the same old joke. ‘Because they always stick together,’ he says, and everyone nods and begins to complain all at once.

  ‘I saw four together last week,’ claimed one woman with a pram.

  We go on waiting. The line gets longer, ‘I only want to get to Stratford; maybe I should try hitching.’

  ‘You don’t want to do that,’ the queue agrees. ‘They’d knock you down soon as stop.’

  ‘It’s not safe now, for a woman anyway,’ the old man added.

  ‘Not for a young man, neither,’ says a lad, who has been pretending he wasn’t listening.

  ‘Really?’ Several people look hopeful. ‘We’ve been standing around for a long time, and we could all do with a story, preferably gory.’

  ‘Well, my friend,’ he hesitated, obviously a scrupulously honest young man. ‘Well he’s a friend of a friend, really,’ he admitted. ‘But I’ve met him and I know it’s true. He is a biker, lives in Stratford, but thinks nothing of popping up to Scotland, or down to Brighton or somewhere just for a cup of tea. Him and his girlfriend they’re always off; they go everywhere. But this time, he’d just gone down to Blackheath to see a mate, he was on his own. It was quite a while back, maybe even twenty years ago. Anyway, he was on his way back home, late afternoon, and he saw someone standing next to a lay-by with a sign on a bit of card saying “Stratford please”. Young bloke, didn’t look like he was a lorry driver, broken down or anything, and you don’t usually get people hitching in London do you?’

  ‘So anyway it caught my friend’s eye, and I suppose he was a bit surprised so he’d slowed right down, and then, because the bloke was looking after him, he stopped. And he asked him where exactly he was going, and it was some address in Stratford which my friend knew, so he said he could give him a lift all the way home if he’d be up for a ride on the back of a motorbike. My friend had his girlfriend’s helmet with him, you see, in the box on the back.’

  ‘Well, the bloke was delighted. “Yes please,” he said. “I’m used to motorbikes, anyway, although I’m usually riding in front. But I did go pillion once.” So he put on the helmet – bit small but it was just about alright – and hopped on the back and off they went.’

  ‘Well, my friend went a bit easy at first, because, although he was used to having someone ride pillion behind him, you always have to adjust balance with each new person, depending on weight. But this bloke was very light, and didn’t wriggle about, so there was no problem, and my friend could more or less forget about him and concentrate on the road. Which he really had to do then because there were a lot of new speed limits on that bit of the road, and you had to keep an eye out for police cars. But anyway, it wasn’t that long before they came up to the Blackwall Tunnel and the bloke on the back shouted something about them having made good time. It was about teatime by then, I suppose. But it was really getting busy. So, when they went into the tunnel, my friend just kept a steady pace, sticking on the inside lane, concentrating. Some drivers are so crazy in there, you have to watch out in you are on a bike.’

  ‘When he came out on the other side, it had started to drizzle. Funny that isn’t it? It can sometimes be a different kind of weather on one side from the other. So anyway, he just half-glanced over his shoulder to see if the other bloke was alright and blow me! He got such a fright! He couldn’t see anyone there.’

  ‘So as soon as he could, of course, he pulled off and it was true. There was no one on the back. The poor bloke must have fallen off! Well you can imagine how my friend felt; he was gutted and couldn’t think what to do at first. No mobiles then you see. It’s hard to remember how we managed without them! But anyway, of course he had to. He thought he’d go on to one of those emergency phones that they had by the side of the road, but the last one he’d passed was quite a way back’.

  ‘So then he decided it would probably be quicker if he went back himself to try and see what had happened. But, of course, he couldn’t just turn around. He had to get off the northbound road and over onto the southbound approach and back through the tunnel. And then, of course, cross over again, and head back up northwards the way he’d just come.’

  ‘It was all a bit of palaver and the traffic was getting worse, moment by moment, and of course my friend was beside himself worrying about this bloke. But there was no sign of an accident when he finally approached that northbound bit of the tunnel again, and he was trying to hope that was a good sign.’

  ‘This time, going through, he really crawled along on the inside line again, and he was driving that slow, he ended up with a line of bikers stuck behind him. And they started hooting, and when he still didn’t get a move on at all, they were all shouting and trying to overtake and all that.’

  ‘But my friend just kept on as he was, trying to stay calm, and shining his light as best he could to the wall side, to see if there was anyone lying there, or even just a scarf or something that might have blown off. Or anything at all. But there was absolutely nothing. Which in a way was a relief but on the other hand, it was completely impossible.’

  ‘When he got through he pulled off at the first transport café he passed and had a cup of tea with three sugars just to steady himself. Then he started to think maybe he was going mad and he’d just imagined it all. So he went back out to the bike to see if his girlfriend’s helmet was there. But it wasn’t, and the way it was fixed on there was no way it could have fallen off by itself.’

  ‘He went on home in a bit of a daze and it was only when he saw the signs to Stratford that he remembered the guy he had given a lift to had been going to Stratford as well, and he’d even mentioned an address, which rang a bell. My friend had to rack his brains, but then it came back to him. So, of course, he went straight there.’

  ‘It was a little semi-detached house. Quite nice. Nothing odd about it at all. So he went up and rang the b
ell, but there was no answer. He was just about to go when he thought he heard a sound from inside the house, and then out of the corner of his eye he caught somebody twitching a curtain back. Well, maybe whoever it was might not want to open the door to a stranger, but by then there was no stopping him, he just had to speak to somebody, and normal behaviour didn’t seem to matter anymore. So he leant on the bell until he heard them coming, and the moment the door started to open he jammed the end of his boot into the crack, and began trying to explain why he was there. Then he saw a woman looking out at him, and he stopped. Because, although she must’ve been in her fifties or so, and she had clearly seen better days, there was something about her face – her eyes, mostly – that my friend said were the dead-spit likeness of that bloke who’d been on his bike.’

  “‘I’m sorry,” he said, and it all came tumbling out in a rush and as soon as he said “Blackwall Tunnel”, it was like a light bulb went on in the woman’s head. She flung open the door and caught hold of my friend by the arm.’

  “‘Did this boy look like me?” And almost before she heard the answer she started to cry.’

  ‘Well, of course my friend felt awful. He didn’t know what to say or how to comfort her, because he still didn’t have a clue what was going on. But after a while she calmed down a bit. “You’d better come in,” she said. They went into the kitchen, and she even made some tea. And then she told him.’