by Barbara Tate
I was now wearing an apron: not exactly a typical frilly one, but enough to prevent the clients from being confused about my role. Furthermore, I wore my hair primly wound in a tight bun, high on the back of my head. I had reverted to the Sunlight-soap-and-no-make-up image, hoping that this might also help to make me appear just a little forbidding.
I finally felt I had things under control. By arriving earlier than Mae each day, I could maintain things in reasonable order. By now, I had begun to turn out the drawers in her bedroom, and had mended a mass of various garments. I had also jettisoned about a hundred laddered stockings and was at last able to close the drawers properly.
Now that I’d tidied up, I had more time to think during Mae’s frequent absences. This wasn’t altogether a good thing. I began to realise just how nerve-racking it was to be alone in that building – especially if Mae was out for longer than usual. The street door was always left open after she’d started work, and there was always the possibility of Rabbits coming up to vent her spite on me. Rabbits, though, was at least a known quantity; what I feared most was the unknown. Whenever I heard the slither of a man’s raincoat brushing against the sides of the narrow staircase when I was alone, I felt a mounting terror, rising to panic the moment before the customer came into view. When they had actually appeared and I could get a look at them and see that they were far more nervous than I was, my fears would subside.
I had to make sure I listened out for anyone who came up, because, if someone did manage to get past our landing unheard, he could hide round the bend of the stairs above us, listening for Mae to go out, and get me on my own with the cash. There was a lot of money in the place, and the danger grew greater as the evening wore on into darkness and even more accumulated. The clients I had to be most wary of were the first-timers. Some were potentially nasty, and I often prayed that Mae would return before they became unpleasant.
My anxiety didn’t end when the men disappeared into the bedroom with Mae. Though she always closed the bedroom door, it was left unlocked so that I could rush in if violence erupted.
What I had come to regard as the ‘Rabbits Regime’ was still in full force, and I was getting used to the constant stream of men in and out. That is not to say I didn’t get the odd jolt. For example, Mae was closeted in the bedroom with a client one afternoon when I heard a tap on the entrance door. There had been no sound of footsteps and I looked up, startled, to see a vicar standing there, smiling benevolently. He looked so pure in contrast to the surroundings, with his honest, open face, fair hair and brilliant white dog collar. I was filled with confusion and felt pangs of guilt.
‘Is Mae in?’ he asked with a smile.
So he knew her! Mae had never mentioned that she had any religious convictions: if she had, it was odd but not impossible. I stammered out that she was engaged for the moment. My hopes that he would go away were soon dashed.
‘Well in that case I’ll sit and wait for her, if you don’t mind,’ he said serenely. After a while he added: ‘I haven’t seen you here before, have I?’
‘No,’ I agreed in a small voice. ‘I’ve only just started.’
I busied myself at the sink and hoped that Mae wouldn’t be long. I supposed the man to be the saintly sort who was willing to risk censure by calling on a prostitute to give counsel or advice. Perhaps Mae was in his parish and he was determined to make no distinction between the members of his flock.
At last Mae released her previous client and greeted the vicar cordially, before taking him into the bedroom. Considering this to be a parochial visit, I didn’t bother to stand outside the door as usual. When Mae opened it a few minutes later, I thought it was to summon me in to share the vicar’s words of comfort. But when I left the kitchen and turned towards the partly opened door, there was Mae’s arm, rising up like a beautiful swan’s neck with money in its beak.
I felt cheated and strangely angry. Who could you trust if not a vicar? I couldn’t look at him when he left . . . but then who was I to throw stones? I stood there deliberating; perhaps he was an actor – this was, after all, the centre of Theatreland. As soon as he had gone, I ran in to Mae to ask if he was real.
‘Is he a real vicar, do you mean? Course he is! They are men like all the rest. True, I do get kinks who come dressed up like vicars, but you know them straight away. They act all sanctimonious and start preaching while they’re on the job. I’ve got several real ones – they never say a word about religion.’
I resolved never to be surprised by anything ever again. It was to be my saving grace.
The speed with which Mae worked had worried me right from the beginning, and I soon talked her into slowing down a bit. Consequently, our life became noticeably more leisurely, and we spent a little more of our time in chatter and, more often than not, helpless laughter. Whenever a client left, Mae’s voice would sing out from the bedroom, ‘Where are you, y’sod? Come and talk to me!’ Then she would begin rummaging through drawers and cupboards, looking for a dress or suit to show me, or ask if I thought she looked better in the blue earrings or the gold. Or she might be in a reminiscing mood and recount some childhood anecdote, or a yarn concerning some ‘geezer’ she’d known.
Often during these interludes, while we were still sitting in the bedroom with our heads together – she clad in only a bra, suspender belt and stockings – a client would venture upstairs. ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ she would say to me under her breath. ‘Now I won’t have to get dressed.’ Then to the new arrival she would give a joyous ‘Hello, love! You’re just the one I was hoping to see. I’ve been talking about you to Babs. Haven’t I, Babs? You haven’t met my new maid yet, have you? Now don’t you forget, any time I’m busy, you come up and Babs’ll make you a nice cup of tea – won’t you, Babs?’
Smiling, I would then stand up to go. Often the men would grin wolfishly and suggest that there was no need for me to rush off. Mae would scold them fondly: ‘Cheeky bugger. Want two for the price of one, do you?’ As I returned to the kitchen, I would hear her demanding to know why whoever it was hadn’t been to see her for such a long while and saying she’d missed him and he mustn’t leave it so long again or she’d think he didn’t love her.
It was this sort of treatment that made her so successful. Each one of her clients thought he was someone special, and she had a long list of regulars. The grocer hadn’t exaggerated after all: she was a queen indeed.
Though she never said much about her background – and I quickly learnt that it wasn’t the done thing to ask – it was during our many tête-à-têtes that she told me that she’d been married very young, and that at eighteen, her husband had gone off, leaving her with a baby to support.
‘So that’s what really started me on this life,’ she said.
She had eventually allowed a couple to foster the baby while she found work. Gradually she discovered that she was good at the profession she’d chosen, and even enjoyed it at times. Eventually the couple had adopted her child and Mae had made this new life her own.
She told me bits about her love life – which she kept completely apart from her work. Apparently she was ‘almost between lovers’ at the present time.
‘What do you mean, almost?’ I asked.
‘Well, it’s difficult to say,’ she mused. ‘I’m sort of finished with Alphonse and I haven’t really got started with Tony. Fact is, I don’t know whether I ever will. Tony’s a Malt, you see, and I don’t trust the Maltese. Haven’t had one yet, and, from what I hear of them, it’s just as well. But he says he loves me. Oh, Babs, if you could hear the way he says it!’
I didn’t pursue it. I have always been of the opinion that if somebody wants me to know something, they’ll tell me. Perhaps this is down to my upbringing, or perhaps some instinct told me to leave the subject alone. If instinct it was, it was an accurate one. Tony was to prove to be bad news.
Eight
Saturday came, and I felt like an old hand. Finding it hard to believe I’d been working at The
Mousehole and the studio only one week ago, I walked to the flat through the late July sunshine. I found it even harder to credit that it was less than two months since I’d left home. I had learnt so much in that short time that it seemed incredible. And to crown it all, I’d finally discovered all about sex.
My carnal education had mainly come about by accident. During my assault on the chaos in the bedroom and waiting room, I had unearthed a massive quantity of photographs. It was from these that, in the crudest way possible, I was enlightened about the birds and the bees and finally learnt what lay beneath the statues’ fig leaves and the models’ posing pouches. I also found out – graphically – the number of uses to which it could be put.
Some of the photographs were extremely old. I recall one in particular, in which he wore a striped pyjama jacket and socks, fastened up with garters and suspenders, and she wore stockings, rolled down to below her knee. He had a Hitler-like moustache, and his hair, parted in the middle, was plastered down on each side, his face bearing a ferocious scowl. She, obviously a flower of dutiful Victorian womanhood, was simpering compliantly. She must have needed considerable fortitude, because they were performing on a very jagged lump of rock.
Some of the photographs, though, included such a mass of people and such a complicated plaiting of limbs that I found it impossible to make either head or tail of them. I resolved to decipher these later when I had more time. Amongst this biological bonanza, there was a fair sprinkling of studies of ladies’ torsos. Again, there is one in particular that comes back to me clearly over the years. It was an upward shot of a lady smiling lasciviously down at the camera from between two of the most enormous bosoms I have ever seen – and still don’t believe.
Further finds under the bed and in the cupboard above it were a huge assortment of canes and leather straps that quite mystified me. Nevertheless, in my zeal for tidying and making things look pretty, I put all the canes into an old vase and stood it in a corner of the bedroom. It looked rather arty, I thought, and was almost as effective as the pot of beech leaves in my bed-sitter. One morning, while brewing our first cup of the day, I asked Mae what the canes were for.
‘Well, whacking ’em, of course!’
I stopped what I was doing and stared at her.
‘The men?’ I asked. ‘Don’t they mind?’
‘I never hear them complain – only when I don’t hit ’em hard enough. Haven’t you heard me at it?’
Thinking about it, my mind went back to my first day and the strange cracking noises I’d heard coming from the bedroom. I’d heard them again often enough but hadn’t really paid any attention, supposing them to be caused by the bed springs. I sat down weakly on the other chair.
‘Oh you are funny,’ she giggled. ‘Come on, where’s that cup of tea?’
Despite occasional revelations, like the canes, I was beginning to feel as though I knew what I was doing. I was the mistress of my trade; at last I could look this Soho in the eye.
Later that day, waiting for Mae to return from one of her sorties, I peered out of the front window at a man with a crowd around him. He was making a lucrative living with a folding table and a pack of cards, while his gullible audience attempted to ‘find the lady’. I watched until there was a shrill whistle from his confederate further along the alley, who’d spotted a policeman approaching. Then he and the crowd melted away as though they had never existed.
I tried to settle down to read a book. I was just beginning to worry, when I heard Mae’s steps on the stairs. As they got nearer, I could hear that they were accompanied by a funny scrabbling noise and the sound of panting. I shot out on to the landing just as, round the bend of the stairs, two eager half-grown poodles appeared. Behind their jewelled collars and taut leads they were tugging a breathless Mae. Her face was flushed and excited.
‘Look what I’ve got for us,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘Aren’t they gorgeous? I just couldn’t help it, they looked so sweet in the shop!’
One was black and the other white, and being still too young to be clipped, they were a mass of curls. She had already named them – Mimi and Fifi.
‘I thought that, what with the place looking so nice now, they’d add the finishing touch!’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s nice to have animals about the place.’
I loved animals too, and we had a happy half-hour watching them while they cautiously explored. But they soon started to feel at home, and all their natural joie de vivre became apparent as they scudded about everywhere, shooting rugs from under them and jumping on to everything they could reach. Then one of them made a neat little puddle on the polished floor, and a measure of gloom stole over me as I realised the place wouldn’t be looking nice for much longer.
While we drank our tea and they continued dealing out destruction to every object they encountered, I wondered how Rabbits would have taken to this invasion. I guessed she wouldn’t have taken to it at all. In fact I had a feeling the ‘Rabbits Regime’ was rapidly coming to an end.
Thinking of this prompted me to ask Mae if she had had any more trouble from Rabbits.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ she replied, pausing in applying her lipstick. ‘She’s gone. Dead.’
I went cold. I remembered the knife in Mae’s handbag and my chest felt tight.
‘What did she die of?’ I asked, trying to sound casual but finding it difficult to speak.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said with complete indifference. She smoothed her lower lip with a finger. ‘Heart attack, I shouldn’t wonder.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Good riddance anyway.’
I never did find out what had actually happened to Rabbits. In the back of my mind I debated for a second or two whether Mae could really have had anything to do with her demise. It wasn’t likely, and besides, I was under Mae’s spell and could think no ill of her. Protected by my growing love for her, and her irresistible charisma, Mae probably knew that as far I was concerned, she could – metaphorically, if not literally – get away with murder.
If Mimi, Fifi and the coldly rendered death of Rabbits were the first signs that I was not, in fact, as in control as I thought, then much worse was to come. Even now I shudder at the recollection of that hectic first Saturday. There were other days like it, and many far worse, I suppose, but that one remains in my memory as a day of utter chaos. A combination of reasons made it so: the arrival of the dogs, the uneasy feelings about Rabbits’ death and the fact that I’d only just been congratulating myself that I could now handle my new job with efficiency, if not verve. Nevertheless, even without these considerations, Saturdays, I was to find, were always overwhelming, and the first one of them to hit me seemed like a tidal wave.
In the hurly-burly, my worries about my predecessor were forgotten, but my new-found confidence had taken an awful pasting. Had it not been for the dogs, things wouldn’t have been quite so bad, but with them, the tempo was beyond belief and I felt myself inwardly becoming a gibbering wreck.
We decided that for the time being, the only place for our new pets was the bedroom; that being the only door that could be more or less kept shut. Mae made them a bed with one of her fur coats in the corner. As it was mink, it should have been very comfortable, but the two dogs seemed to have a yen to get back to the pet shop (I can’t say I really blamed them). Every time someone opened the door, they shot out in a blur. I must have gone down those stairs to retrieve them as often as Mae did in the course of her business.
They created havoc in the bedroom, and after only a couple of hours, it looked as bad as it had on my first day there. The only thing to be said in the dogs’ favour was that they didn’t like men. When one arrived, they nearly always slunk back to their mink. There were exceptions to this rule: sometimes they disliked a man so much that they attacked his ankles while he was getting his money’s worth, which didn’t go down well.
Mimi, the black one, was always the ringleader.
‘Who’s my limb of Satan then? Who is?’ Mae would coo, holding her hig
h in the air like a child. Mimi, getting a nice aerial view of the wreckage she had caused, would wag her tail happily.
Had anyone had the time to train them, they could have been turned into perfect pets, but we hadn’t the time. They were – and remained – completely untamed.
As I grew to know her better, I discovered that Mae thrived on chaos. It was characteristic of her that she should buy her two canine hoodlums on a Saturday, the busiest day of the week. It was the day on which every worker was keen to spend his hard-earned wages. It seemed that the whole of Soho’s male population was making its way up to Mae’s flat. The tramp of feet on the stairs was endless. When Mae picked up a man, others would watch where she went and follow. It was incredible. No time for tea breaks on a Saturday! There was a slight lull between five and six o’clock, when the afternoon crowds began to go back to the suburbs and the evening ones had not yet arrived. Even so, business went on at a steady gallop, the only difference being that for an hour or so, the waiting room was empty.
At other times, every chair was occupied. It looked like a doctor’s surgery, although the thick pall of smoke from nervously puffed cigarettes marred the effect. I felt more like a nurse than a maid as I stood courageously in the doorway saying, ‘Next, please.’ There was no time to feel embarrassed by this sea of strange faces; it was all far too brisk and clinical. By nine o’clock it was standing room only, and I began to wonder if some of the straps and belts I‘d found couldn’t be fixed to the ceiling for the men’s benefit as they jostled past each other.
Around ten thirty, Mae shouted to me from the bedroom, ‘Babs, quick! Run down and shut the front door, there’s a load of drunks coming along!’
With the desperate knowledge that I couldn’t handle a load of drunks lending wings to my feet, I flew down the two flights of stairs at top speed. I skidded in a large puddle halfway along the hall, grabbing the edge of the front door as I fell and ramming it shut a fraction of a second before the rowdy, singing mob came level. They began to kick the door and call me colourful names. Although I had heard the click of the Yale, I thought I’d better slip the bolt in at the bottom as well. As I straightened up from doing this, the flap of the letterbox was pushed open and two beady eyes peered in at me.
