by Barbara Tate
‘The works’ was exactly what Hilda got – from cleansing cream onwards. Doing this I had a queasy premonition of things to come. It struck me vividly that one day my own face would have this loose, crêpe-like texture. I carried on applying the make-up, pulling Hilda’s skin to get it taut enough for the eye pencil to make a straight line, then letting go and finding it crooked. Eventually the eyelashes were stuck on and I did her hair – putting on a bandeau and coaxing a wispy fringe forward to cover the wrinkles on her forehead – then stood back to survey my handiwork. I complimented myself enough to say that she looked quite nice – at least she’d been groomed; in street lighting, she would probably look quite good. She had sat all the way through the renovations with an eager docility, expecting magic to be wrought; I was thankful that when finally I gave her the mirror, she was thrilled.
‘Who’d have thought it? You’ve made a new woman of me!’
With growing confidence, she examined herself from different angles. Remembering some of Mae’s psychology, I fished about in my handbag and gave her a broken key ring shaped like a palette.
‘Here, take this. It’s lucky – you’ll see. Now, you pop off and make some money.’
She made her exit wearing a beatific smile and holding herself as though she were balancing books on her head.
Mae, coming up with another client, had passed her in the street. ‘Looks much better, don’t she?’ she said as she passed. Then she stopped and added absent-mindedly, ‘Poor old cow.’
Half an hour later, Hilda hurried up the stairs again, all smiles and good cheer.
‘I got off! That was so good of you, dear. I won’t forget it; you’re an angel! But right now, I’m going to have a drink to celebrate!’
Eleven o’clock was Pearl’s calling time. She was a very beautiful black girl who was extremely haughty. She would sit drumming her fingers impatiently until Mae was free, then go with her into the bedroom, departing after only two minutes. She didn’t speak – even to Mae – beyond a few syllables. After her first visit, when I’d realised her preference for silence, I just said hello when she arrived and carried on with whatever I was doing. I asked Mae to explain.
‘There’s this lovely queer I know,’ she said. ‘He’s got this pretty bed-sitter near Goodge Street. He’s a night valet at a hotel, so, ’course, he doesn’t use his room in the evening. Pearl had got nowhere to work so I told her about Rodney. He jumped at the extra cash but he doesn’t want to get done for poncing, so...’
... So he’d added the condition that he should never see the girl and that Mae must collect the rent nightly and get it to him somehow. With the addition of a screen for the maid to sit behind, this worked out very nicely; hence Pearl’s nightly appearance at our place for several weeks. The arrangement lasted until Rodney’s alleged nervousness of ‘the law’ caused him to see police officers in every dark doorway and he called a halt to it. But we heard later that on learning of the big money involved, he’d chucked his hotel job to become Pearl’s maid himself. Mae just grinned at the news and said, ‘What a sod!’
All the girls that Mae and I visited repaid the compliment. As well as French-corseted Fiona and Benzy Nell (when she could force her feet further than the groove she’d made in her own bit of pavement), there was aristocratic Anne, Cindy, a lanky Scottish girl who I grew very fond of, and Meg, a short and plump Scottish girl, who I was not so fond of. There was also the fiery and nigh-on psychopathic Tina and the sadistic Sadie, who was making a fortune.
There were a number of other girls who merely rushed in and out once or twice, and an even greater number of maids, who came to borrow or return items of clothing, bits of jewellery or small sums of money. The most common call was for condoms, because ‘the cut-price shop is closed and we’ve had a rush on’. In the fug of cigarette smoke that shrouded us, there was a sisterhood and a knowledge that we would sink or swim together. Even clients were not allowed to interrupt a particularly juicy bit of scandal; I would be sent to banish them. It was huge fun.
When I took up with Mae, I had made the first true friend of my life, and it was in Soho and through Soho that I first came to feel a sense of belonging to a broader circle, a group of friends who included me among their number. I was still an outcast, perhaps, but if so, I was an outcast among outcasts, an exile among her fellows. It was as though life had begun anew for me; or more accurately, as though life had begun properly for the first time. In my crummy room and in Mae’s chaotic flat, I had found freedom. Freedom, friends and happiness.
Fourteen
Although being sisters in sin welded these girls together, there was also a tremendous amount of cattiness between them, and this became apparent as I listened to their gossiping. According to them, every girl in Soho – present company always excepted – earned her money by ‘not using rubbers’, ‘taking it in the mouth’ or ‘going with chocolate’ (at that time such racism was accepted without question).
The other standard indictment was that a girl handed over all her earnings to her ponce to do just what he liked with. None of the girls ever recognised their own boyfriend as a ponce; rather, he was a man with ambitions that she was helping him attain. In the beginning, it had been Mae alone who introduced me to Soho’s underworld, but after a while I found I could place more reliance on what the other maids told me. They gave me straight facts and – almost – unbiased views. They weren’t so personally involved as their mistresses, and although no paragons of virtue, they were not as scatty. The prostitutes were inclined to embroider their stories or recount things differently according to their mood.
And so it was from the maids that I first learned of this creature: the ‘ponce’. This was the ‘business man’ behind practically every ‘business girl’ and, as I came to realise, it was the job Tony had successfully applied for.
Many people may think that ‘ponce’ is synonymous with ‘pimp’, but in those days a pimp was a go-between who prowled the streets on the lookout for wandering customers. As such, he actually earned his living, which was something no self-respecting ponce would have dreamt of doing. But in Soho, where the girls introduced themselves to potential customers direct, there was no scope whatever for the pimp, and in fact that very word was unknown in West End jargon.
I had quickly learned that there were several distinct areas of prostitution in the West End. There was Mayfair, with its focus in Shepherd Market, which was considered the classy area, and which the more wealthy and elite men patronised. This select group of flats in Mayfair, where the best pickings were to be had, was controlled by a powerful Mafia-like syndicate who specialised in organised prostitution, and they used strong-arm methods whenever necessary, and without hesitation. They were themselves the landlords of these flats, and they financed the girls, setting them up with smart clothes and the like. As far as I could gather, they specialised in bringing over French girls; obtaining British nationality for them by paying a hundred pounds to anyone willing to marry them and disappear off the scene. These were truly business girls, and reckoned to work hard for two years, then return to France as respectable women and set themselves up in business there.
There was a northward sprawl of professional flats from Mayfair too, and other isolated but very small pockets of prostitution, run discreetly in various parts of the West End, which depended on carefully worded, ambiguous cards on display in newsagents’ windows, with just a phone number to ring. These girls were the vanguard of what came to be generally known as ‘call girls’.
There was also a parade of girls along the Bayswater Road, from Marble Arch down as far as Queensway. They’d walk the pavement where the railings ran along the northern end of Hyde Park, and get picked up by passing drivers. Some took these clients back to flats around the nearby Lancaster Gate area, and further afield as far as Paddington; but most had only bed-sits and couldn’t take clients back with them. Instead, the girls would be taken back to the punter’s own flat or some accommodating hotel, or, most often,
to some quieter spot for action in the car.
Quite a lot of girls also stood along the Broad Walk which ran through Hyde Park, alongside the bright lights of Park Lane, from Speakers’ Corner at Marble Arch down to Hyde Park Corner. These girls came from everywhere, and generally worked in dark corners of the park on the grass under the trees.
Then there were the ‘mysteries’, who surreptitiously used the same beats as the established prostitutes – which led to many a fracas. Once they had hooked their man, they let him pay the cab fare to where their homes were situated, sometimes miles away. As often as not, these women were ordinary housewives who only worked when they were a bit short of money. They were known as mysteries simply because so little was known about them.
There were local centres in all the other London boroughs, but they were negligible; and of the major centres mentioned, our little patch of Soho was the most concentrated and best known. After all, wasn’t the statue of Eros our cornerstone?
Here in Soho proper, the prostitutes were the real, genuine, well-known thing: reasonably priced, clean and honest, and their overall earnings were enormous. In the cheaper districts, the girls couldn’t afford to look glamorous, and so didn’t feel or act it. In the more dignified districts, they had to appear to be sedate and normal ladies, or their high-status clients wouldn’t dare to be seen in their company; so those girls, too, didn’t act enticingly. No, for real whoopee, most people preferred Soho.
But behind the bonhomie of the women was the pernicious influence of their men. I was sad when I learned from the other maids that, beyond any doubt, Tony was a ponce. Sad that my suspicions of him had been confirmed; and sadder still to realise that there was nothing at all I could do about it. You cannot tell a woman that the man she’s in love with is only after her money – she wouldn’t believe you anyway. I felt that all I could do was to be around for Mae when she needed me, as I felt sure she would in time.
The ponces had perfected the art of luring and trapping the girls. They’d choose a target: a prostitute already set up in a flat and working, but without a regular boyfriend. Then a bribed maid or friend would begin the process by telling the chosen victim about a handsome young man who is pining away with love for her but too shy to make himself known. The girl would be moved by the fact that in spite of her profession, someone has put her on a pedestal. A meeting would be engineered – and the whole thing beautifully staged. In fact, no expense would be spared to show her that the very last thing he needs from her is her money. As the relationship develops, he will buy her presents, but she will buy him many more, and her gifts to him will be of a far more costly nature. Apart from wishing to please him, it gives her the opportunity to show her world how well she is doing. So the girl will deck out her ponce in expensive suits and all the trimmings, and buy him the most expensive car she can afford.
Then, the requests for money start. A gambling debt, perhaps, or something to keep the police quiet. The ponce now has a regular income. The habit of giving is gradually acquired by the girl; and before she becomes aware of it, she is giving him all she earns. The ultimate argument of the ponce is that he, as a businessman, should be the one to take charge of all the cash, in order to save and invest it and procure an early and comfortable retirement for them both. The tables are now turned, and she is the one waiting for handouts and pocket money.
Up to this point, Mae and Tony were still in the honeymoon period of their relationship – the time of enchantment when, like a snake, he was drawing her closer into his coils. He was asking her not to work so hard, and she, taking him at his word, indulged in her flitting around the streets of Soho with me. But it was destined to be short-lived.
Mae was not the only girl falling into the trap. The ponces were evil men, hard and often dangerous. One girl, Treesa, was owned – and I do mean owned – by a monster called Dino whose vices were not counterbalanced by a single virtue.
Treesa was a big, doll-like woman with an oval olive face and long dark hair cut in a straight fringe. She had a gentle and tractable nature and her maid – a nice woman named Connie – was so heartbroken on Treesa’s behalf that she was permanently on tranquillisers. When I first knew Treesa, she was going home to Dino one night every week. She said it was because the police were keeping a particularly strict watch on him and he daren’t take risks. She loved Dino with a desperation I’ve seldom seen equalled and she lived for that one night when she could be with him. In gratitude for it, she spent half of the next day cleaning their love nest – until it was time to go to work. As time passed, even this minuscule joy was prohibited: according to Dino, it had become too dangerous. Thence-forth, for weeks at a time, Treesa’s only link with him was when he chose to ring her.
Connie was given the job of calling on him on her way home every night. Dino took the wad of notes that represented the day’s earnings and shucked off the pound note that was all Treesa was to be left with. Treesa put up with all this, believing in the fantasy of a growing retirement fund for them both. It was fortunate she actually liked buns and buttered rolls, because along with the bits and pieces Connie brought in from home, that was mostly what she lived on. Connie was a true friend, and knowing Treesa could never resist taking anything left lying about, she would ‘forgetfully’ leave small sums of money in the kitchen so Treesa could afford an occasional cheese or ham roll.
Then Treesa found a lump in her armpit and another in one of her breasts. She showed them to all the girls she knew, but none of them said what was in their minds. Instead, they urged her to see a doctor.
‘Oh, I can’t take the time off just yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll be retiring soon and then there’ll be plenty of time.’
The other girls nodded in agreement, but they knew that Dino would never allow her to retire. They also knew the reason that Dino never let her go home was because she would find there the glamorous and bright sixteen-year-old he was buttering up. It was policy to say nothing and that was how it would have been had not someone let it slip one day. Treesa was frantic enough to confront Dino. and with an amazing bit of quick thinking, he admitted it – sort of.
His story was that, although he was indeed ‘messing’ with someone, he had been hoping to keep it as a surprise for Treesa and she was wrong to be cross with him. Far from being a young girl, the ‘someone’ was a woman in her mid-thirties who had an enormous bank account. It was all in aid of Treesa’s early retirement. Once the woman’s savings had gone, so would the rival be. Treesa was instantly reassured and went around happily telling everyone of Dino’s clever plot. Everybody pretended to accept it.
Dino couldn’t be certain that Treesa had no suspicions left, so he and his brother sent the brother’s girl, Pam, to stay with Treesa every night, claiming it would be company for her. In this way, each girl would keep an eye on the other. It couldn’t have been much fun for Treesa, who only had a single bed and was not, of course, provided with another. Unusually amongst the girls, Pam’s standard of bodily hygiene was terrible. Every time she reached a point where she was unbearable to live with, her maid would have to positively drag her to the bath and scrub her.
Although everybody agreed that Treesa must be as gullible as a child, we felt that surely, some day, the scales would fall from her eyes. We almost made bets about what would happen when they did. The general opinion was that she had two choices, either to shop Dino to the police or to commit suicide. Eventually she confounded us all by doing both. For the first time in her life, she had used logic and decided there wasn’t much point in doing one without the other.
The more I heard these stories, the less I liked Mae’s alliance with Tony. These women were now my life. I was happy and becoming very good at my job. Mae’s world had become my world and it was one I embraced with eagerness. The subtleties of my role took time to seep into my consciousness, but my three main functions were clear from the start: I was companion, bodyguard and housekeeper (this last trailing far behind the other two in order of importance
). From the companionship angle, the need was great and I found it touchingly so. The life of a prostitute was not a frivolous one where every night was a party, awash with champagne. On the contrary, the ponces ensured that the conveyer-belt process of making money continued. I was slow to understand just how calculating these ponces were, but had I been swifter on the uptake, I would have been even more wary of Tony. He certainly remained wary of me. I was too devoted to Mae and her happiness for his peace of mind. If I’d had purely financial motives, I would have had his interests at heart. I would have kept him informed how much Mae earned, how much she ‘weeded’, who she talked to, what she said and whether she worked conscientiously enough. I couldn’t have been more different from his ideal, or more determined to be so.
For the moment, however, I was in a position of strength. Tony was still fairly new on the scene. Mae was still in love, or thought she was, and at the same time I was her friend, her confidante, the person in whose company she spent nearly every waking hour. Tony couldn’t move against me yet, and I had not thought of moving against him. Even if I had, I would probably have failed, given the weight of Mae’s wilful naïvety. All the same, and even if I was largely unaware of them, the battle lines had been drawn and would become dangerously clear before too long.
Fifteen
All the girls had a similar routine. They rose late in the morning, drank a few cups of tea or coffee, travelled to their flats in Soho, worked until about midnight, then returned home to their bed-sitters in Paddington, Brixton or Notting Hill. For some, where the ponce wanted to keep closer control by actually living with the girl, home could be as far out as Romford or Slough, where their arrangements were less likely to be noticed. And so, after what might be a considerable journey from the West End, the girls would arrive home, have a bath, eat – the cohabitees having to cook for their men – and finally fall into bed at about four in the morning. Without much time for other friends, the maid, therefore, became the surrogate best friend, confidante and mother figure. Maids were mostly too canny to have sponging boyfriends and so could be better off than the women they worked for. They would often provide the only real home comforts the girls ever had.
