by Peter Rimmer
Byron was not a natural scholar and used every minute of the hour after chapel forcing himself to concentrate and learn, conscious of his school certificate examination at the end of the term. What Byron lacked in his brain he made up for in hard work, the goal of wealth and power ever conscious in his mind. Byron had found a seam of gold in his French master who explained that some boys were good at writing exams and why. He knew the piece of paper was only a building block that controlled his upward movement. The mark on the paper indicated how clever he was, how much he had learnt.
“Young man, always think through the question before writing your answer so if you find you don’t really know what to say you can tackle another question instead of crossing out ten minutes of precious time and starting again. For weeks beforehand, condition your nerves so the examination room will not feel hostile and impinge on your concentration. And, Langton, if you don’t know the correct meaning for the word ‘impinge’ look it up in the dictionary. When you read French prose, or English for that matter, always read with a dictionary close at hand and use it if you don’t know a word. Confidence, Langton, is the key to examination success. Confidence.” The French master went away muttering ‘confidence’, leaving Byron with a point well understood.
Carefully, Byron worked on the system, trying to understand how the examiners thought, how their logic worked for setting the papers, ensuring that his efforts were channelled in the direction most likely to succeed, avoiding the parts of the curriculum he enjoyed if he felt the examiners would not be so interested.
That year, Byron made the second fifteen for two matches, both away, and wrote his school certificate, knowing instinctively his research into the way of examinations had paid rich dividends. To no one’s surprise including Byron’s, the Oxford and Cambridge Board gave him a pass that suggested a county, if not a state scholarship to tertiary learning was well within his grasp. In the spring term, Byron had his first meeting with the headmaster of Stanmore School in the headmaster’s house next to the Speech Hall. A servant answered the knock on the elaborate wooden front door and Byron was shown into the great man’s study where he was told to sit down and take tea. Nothing bad ever came Byron’s way, so the summons to the presence had left no fear of reprisal and the pit of his stomach was perfectly at ease. The headmaster opened the conversation.
“Now you are in the sixth form and permitted to put your hands in your pockets we consider you an excellent prospect, Langton, for a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge which will bring us due credit at Stanmore.”
Byron took the servant’s proffered cup of tea and wondered if the ‘we’ and ‘us’ were royal plurals or a reference to the teaching staff as a whole. The cup did not rattle in the saucer nor did a smile come to the surface as Byron waited for the pedantic old bachelor to get to his point. The man had taught him divinity from form four and Byron, inwardly, very inwardly and hidden, considered the man a pompous fool who allowed the senior boys to run the school and terrorise any poor junior who stepped out of line, the head being above the daily routine of running a boarding school for five hundred boys; the great man aspired to loftier things including a bishopric when he retired from teaching which would lead him on to the See at Canterbury. Scholarships were the key to his future, the predominantly clerical board of governors basking in the glory of Stanmore’s success.
Byron looked down at his delicate cup and saucer, trying to give the impression he was embarrassed at the thought of such an accolade, meanwhile scheming how he could avoid wasting three years of his life that would not make him money.
“The problem, sir, is money. I don’t think my father would be able to afford the extra costs of a son at university. During the war, my father’s tail gunner was killed and the man’s wife died in the Blitz and we sort of took on Hilary and he’s now part of the family and you have him down for Stanmore. And then there’s William. William, I’m afraid, sir, is a problem. He can’t even read properly.”
“How old is the boy?”
“Nine, sir.”
“Nine and the boy can’t read? Must be something wrong with him.”
Byron left the problem hanging in the air and dutifully drank his tea. After one year in the sixth form Byron wanted to be out of school, out of Langton Manor and in a position to start learning a profession that would make him money. Time was of the essence as he had no wish to become rich when he was too old to enjoy the rewards.
“My father had to sell my mother’s few shares to send me here, sir. If they want Hilary and William to have a proper education, I’ll have to sacrifice my last year in the sixth and find a job in the City to start paying my way. We just can’t afford it, sir, and I’m by no means sure I would win a scholarship and the one year’s fees would have been wasted, better spent on Hilary who doesn’t even have a mother or father.”
Byron looked up from a bowed head and hoped the last bit had not gone too far but the old fool had swallowed it hook, line and sinker. There was moisture at the corners of the head’s eyes. The interview was at an end.
“I’ll have a word with your father.”
“You can try, sir.”
There was even a frog in the old man’s throat. Obsequiously, Byron allowed himself to be led away by the manservant and was not surprised to find himself the youngest house prefect in the school a week later, which gave him a pleasant study and the solitude to plan the next stage in his career.
Lionel Marjoribanks, which he insisted be pronounced Marchbanks, was not the type of boy a school prefect with school colours in rugby and cricket would befriend but Byron Langton had his reasons. Lionel wore glasses, was round of face and round of stomach, loathed sport and work and was most happy in the tuck shop. They were in different houses but had gone to school in the same year and Byron had made it his business to befriend the school Billy Bunter. Lionel’s father was a partner in the firm of Logan, Smith and Marjoribanks, stockbrokers in the City of London.
When Byron left Stanmore at the end of his last summer term, he was seventeen and a half with a job waiting for him in the City of London at five pounds, seven and sixpence a week. Daily travelling to Langton Manor was out of the question so Stanmore’s brightest prospect for 1948 set up home in Kensington with a fat boy the school had already forgotten. Byron insisted he pay for his room, making a big show of his independence each week, and set about learning the trade of money, other people’s money and the power of controlling it. All day long he asked questions. He was as happy surrounded by stocks and shares as Lionel was surrounded by food.
Maxwell Marjoribanks, senior partner in the firm founded by his grandfather, was of the opinion that the only good thing his son brought out of Stanmore was Byron Langton, the school fees otherwise having been wasted. When Byron’s call-up papers arrived for his two-year national service, the senior Marjoribanks was as concerned as Byron. The boy would obviously be given a commission and a lifestyle that would make it difficult to return to the lowly position of a clerk. He himself had spent seven years with the firm before he was paid a salary that could afford to take out a girl.
In Soho, there were jazz clubs every second street, with the likes of Humphrey Lyttelton and Ronnie Scott mostly playing traditional New Orleans jazz. The clubs were hot, sweaty basements that smelt of chlorine to suppress the body odour. Best of all they were cheap and every Friday and Saturday, leaving Lionel to eat his fill, Byron took the Tube into Soho. Twice during the intervals he was able to come out for fresh air and half a pint of beer in a Greek Street pub frequented by people with the same aim in life as himself, had he known it. Their accents were strange and interesting and Byron stuck out like a pork chop in a synagogue. The Friday after he received his call-up papers found him lingering in the pub, ordering a second half-pint in succession and thinking through his problem. Down one length of the bar the locals were having drinking competitions, downing half-pints of beer, the slowest drinker paying for the round: harmless fun that Byron ignored, sitting tightl
y in his corner. The idea of wasting two precious years in uniform for no other purpose than to be ready to fight some politician’s war appalled him more as he faced the imminent reality. Jazz and jiving were far from his mind. A half-pint of beer arrived in front of him without being ordered and the barman pointed at the beer-drinking competition.
“Better join in, mate, or get out. Likes of you don’t drink here, see. Wrong bleedin’ accent.”
“What do I have to do?”
“When I shout go, drink it fast and when yer finished bang the bleedin’ glass on the bar and if yer last yer pay the bleedin’ round. That, or get out. Mr Pike’s orders.”
“And who may I ask is Mr Pike?”
“You don’t know Jack Pike?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Then get out.”
“What about my new beer?”
The barman with a nose that had been broken many times gave him a look which said it all, and Byron knew the right thing to do was leave immediately. He was out of his depth and out of his element and the five men down the bar poised to drink were sneering at him. Byron’s arsehole began to tighten and he could not move off the bar stool. The pot-bellied barman shouted “One!” And Byron found his right hand going out to the half-pint glass. On “Two!” he took a grip and on the word “Go!” he lifted the glass without spilling a drop and poured the contents down his throat, thumping the bar counter with his empty glass, followed by a good pause and later five more thumps on the bar. The episode was followed by a heavy silence with everyone looking at Byron.
“Worth a bleedin’ fortune,” said the man next to him into the silence.
“Bugger’s got an open gullet.”
“He’s a kid.”
“Open gullet.”
Miraculously, another half pint was put in front of Byron and the schooner race was off again with Byron first back on the counter. He was forced to repeat the exercise three more times with the same result which put three and a half pints of best draught bitter into a belly more used to tea and milk. The barman’s face had split into two and a young man about his own age was talking to him in a broad cockney accent he would have found difficult to understand had he been sober.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he slurred and a large tin bowl was put under his chin at exactly the right moment.
“Not used to the booze?”
“’Fraid not,” said Byron who had gone white in the face.
“Come back next week when you’re sober, cock. Then you and I’ll talk.”
“What about?” managed Byron as he half fell off his bar stool.
“Yer open gullet… Friday next. Name’s Johnny Pike.”
“Byron Langton. So pleased to meet you.”
Amid general laughter, Byron staggered out into the street where he was sick for the second time. He managed to go back into the jazz club and retrieve his overcoat and was sick once more at the Tube station. He was never able to remember how he got back to the flat in Kensington but when he cleaned out his tweed jacket on the Monday to go to work in his one and only suit, he found a piece of paper.
Friday night, 28th January 1949. Don’t forget. Johnny Pike.
The handwriting was remarkably legible, the work of an educated man.
“You ever heard of Jack Pike?” he asked Lionel as they walked to the Tube station on their way to work. “Has a pub in Soho.”
“And every clip joint and peep show in the West End. Tried to do business with the old firm once, but Pater said he would never invest hot money. Man’s a crook but a rich crook… Why you ask?”
“No real reason. One of the girls I was jiving with mentioned his name.”
“Don’t tell Pater you slum it weekends.”
“I won’t if you won’t.”
Friday came with the prospect of reporting to RAF Cardington in eight weeks’ time, the unseen mind of the state having decided that Byron Langton would follow his father into the Royal Air Force. The two-year period of national service was to start for all but the very few to learn to fly. The only way to get his wings was to sign on for a three-year short service commission: he was totally frustrated. Lionel had been conscripted into the army.
“You must want to laugh, Byron,” said Lionel. “Imagine all this flesh wobbling around on a parade ground; and the rules, the glorious rules saying everyone, cooks, cleaners and future tank commanders, shall complete their ten weeks of square-bashing. Even my father mumbled something good had to come out of my obsessive eating. The medical board will reject me, you see. When is your medical?”
“The week before I go. At the Air Ministry.”
“They’ll pass you A1 with flying colours, sorry for the pun, old boy… You want a ham sandwich?”
“I’m going out… Got a date, sort of.”
“With a girl?”
“I can’t afford to even think of girls. Anyway, almost eighteen-year-old girls go out with almost twenty-five-year-old men.”
Byron had an idea that someone was going to make money out of him as in his short experience of life, no one did anything without an ulterior motive. People did not slip pieces of paper into pockets unless they wanted something and if busting his nose had been the reason, they would have bashed him up the last time. All evening watching Lionel stuff his face again was more than he could take and the meagre weekend spending money had been put aside for a new pair of shoes. Keeping the holes in the soles of his only black pair that went with his black suit from trumpeting his poverty was a full-time exercise and, with the Langton farm sliding backwards to disaster, the barley harvest having failed the previous year through lack of sun to ripen the crop, he knew better than to embarrass his father. The only advantage he could see in joining the RAF was the uniform and shoes that would come with the job but, somehow, Byron was going to fail his medical. Wearing his gym shoes he walked from Kensington to Hyde Park and down Piccadilly to Greek Street. Putting on a face for the likes of Johnny Pike did not seem necessary and if there were no free drinks coming his way, he would simply walk home again and be none the poorer.
Johnny Pike was waiting for him at the bar and seemed pleased to see him.
“By now, my china, you will have asked about my dad. This is how it goes down. My old man has a rival, see. Business opposition, you could say. Well, this bloke thinks he drinks quicker than anyone in London. So you, with all your nice accent, are going to go up against Fred the Miller and we, that’s you and us like, are going to stick it to our Fred. You plump up your accent real good when he’s had a couple and beaten the likes of me for a tenner and bet him ten quid you can down a half-pint of our best bitter quicker than Fred the Miller.”
“Just because I have this accent doesn’t mean I’m rich.”
“Can see that. Canvas shoes in this weather! Walked to save the Tube fare?”
“Exactly. The family has quite a few assets but no cash. Farming isn’t the way to make money.”
“Right… Wrong business. Go the way they tell you in this life and you get nowhere. Got to go round the corner, so my dad says.”
“What if I lose?”
“Here’s the ten quid to pay ’im.”
“You trust me with your money?”
“Likes of you are too bloody stupid to be dishonest. Don’t know how, see. ’Ad it drummed into you, like… You drink our Fred down three times and you keep the ten quid, I keep the twenty and the side bets.”
“Nothing much I can lose.”
“Don’t throw up again. Barman don’t like the smell of puke; neither do I. Now, while we wait for Fred and his hangers-on, tell me a bit about yourself, Byron, and first how you got a bleedin’ name like Byron. Don’t look the serf, poet or ponce.”
Ten minutes before Fred the Miller came into the pub, Byron had reached the problem uppermost in his mind.
“Here you go again, see,” said Johnny, smiling. “Your lot always conform. Do what you’re told. Look, my lot fight when there’s a war on but
no one’s goin’ to give it another bash for a long time my dad says and he’s right. Two wars like that in less than thirty years knocks out the stuffing, see. Small wars, there’ll be colonial wars, things like that, but no one’s goin’ to have a big go despite the Russkies and their bleedin’ communism. And that won’t work, my dad says. Can’t ’ave everyone gettin’ the same. No one works for nothin’. Their way everyone slows up, see, and in the end come to a bleedin’ ’alt what my dad says. No, clever buggers or buggers as want to work ’ard make more than anyone else, see. So they all do as little as possible. You beat Fred the Miller and I will give you somethin’ worked for me. Army doctor said me ’eart was workin’ so fast I’d be dead before I was thirty. Blood pressure terrible. ’Eart beat ten to the bleedin’ dozen, and yours truly is out of the army before ’e got in, see.”
“Are you sick?” asked Byron surprised as the man looked at the peak of his health.
“Course not. Took a lot of LSD, didn’t I? Just before I went in, I was flyin’ ten feet above the doctor when he listened to my chest. Nice trip, too. Well, not bad. Don’t do it no more. Bleedin’ stuff’s dangerous. Once or twice, just to try like, otherwise stick to beer. No one got ’urt by beer, my dad says, and what my dad says is always right… Now, you know the drill as ’ere comes Fred the bleedin’ Miller, over there talkin’ to my dad.”
Byron sat in his corner on his own, drinking what looked like gin and tonic. Every time he ordered, he put on his plummiest accent and ignored the stares. The barman poured water for him out of the gin bottle and filled the glass up with tonic. Byron could feel the ten pounds in his pocket, two big, white fivers. Fred the Miller began challenging all and sundry to drink a half-pint of beer and when the stakes reached half a crown, Byron lurched up from his bar stool and deliberately bumped into Fred the Miller who was halfway towards being drunk.
“Aren’t you in the wrong place?” said big Fred, pushing Byron back onto his bar stool.
