West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and Its Working Girls (17 page)

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.

Companionship aside, the major function of the maid’s role gave me a real sense of unease. Being the only tenants in the house, we were very vulnerable and, after the shops closed, extremely isolated. As bodyguards go, I was small, and in any case, I flinched from any form of violence. In readiness for any ‘happenings’, Mae flanked her dressing table mirror with two reproduction Staffordshire cats. These, she explained, made admirable weapons if grasped round their elongated necks. She said they were as good as bottles but more ornamental. Apart from this main purpose, they also served as stress levellers when the irritations of the job got to Mae: if a client changed his mind at the last minute, the unfortunate cats would be dropped from the upper window as he left the front door. She always aimed to miss him by an inch or two and was generally successful. While I was with Mae, I swept up no end of defunct cats; fortunately, the supplier was nearby and was always well stocked with replacements.

Taking a leaf out of Mae’s book, I kept the hammer with the broken shaft concealed but handy. It was a far more lethal weapon than a Staffordshire cat, though I had no intention of actually using it; I just hoped that the sight of it in my hand would daunt any passing maniac. My only other aid to the quelling of riots was the few bits of judo I’d picked up from Fred – Mae’s rejected suitor – but I couldn’t be sure of an assailant being obliging enough to fall into the right position to enable me to use those.

So there I was, talking to the strange men I had been warned about, laughing and joking my way through days and nights of sin and scandal. The flippancy disguised an ever-present, real fear that each client might be the last. Every prostitute, every maid, knew this all too well; the newspapers frequently told of prostitutes murdered in or on their beds. All the customers who came up those stairs would see our self-confident front but would rarely appreciate the isolation and danger we also felt. We would joke and flirt but all the time keeping one eye on the cash and the other on where our weapons lay. And remembering never to turn our backs on them.

As the one who dealt with the money, the maid was, in some ways, a more valuable target than the girl. I met several really neurotic maids who were clearly terrified of the job they were doing, and were always taking tranquillisers to keep their nerves under control. These I considered a terrible danger too, as men are a bit like horses, I think, and smell fear and uncertainty; and if the maid was nervous, then the girl usually became nervous too.

One girl had a maid who was well over eighty. She was frail and wizened, and as the girl said: ‘The poor old sod can’t doing nothing but make the tea, and then most of it ends up in the bleeding saucer. If ever I get any bother, I don’t think she’s even strong enough to open the window to shout for help.’

Just as useless was the near-narcoleptic Italian woman whose girl was obliged to serve her cup after cup of black coffee and poke her with a loud ‘Wakey, wakey!’ The Italian would drink the coffee, fold her arms over her ample bosom and nod off again. ‘She goes with the flat,’ said the girl gloomily, nodding towards the sleeping form. ‘I s’pose they couldn’t keep her awake long enough to get her out of it after the last girl left.’

There were motherly maids who were always cooking and serving up meals: wholesome shepherd’s pies, stews and thick soups. They would see the clients as obstacles to proper digestion. One of these considerate souls combined her culinary obsession with a running commentary on her hot flushes. She claimed she couldn’t bear a bra on account of her heat and was happy to discuss the matter further with everyone – including the clients – if given half a chance in between stirring the gravy.

Older maids were often of a different calibre from the girls they worked for. They would read books in between chores, show an interest in world affairs; they would embroider, make lace and tackle a crossword puzzle. Generally, younger maids seemed to be sullen, moody creatures, married to small-time crooks who always seemed to be ‘inside’. The older type were more usual, and many of them could play ‘Mum’, some even having the credentials of a wholesome background and a husband in a well-paid, responsible job. In these cases, maiding was just to provide the ‘bunce’ to give their children a good schooling.

But not all the maids were quite so maternal. Others were tough customers who squeezed their girls for ever-larger tips. They would want paying for everything they contributed, however small an item. Despite – or maybe because of – this penny-pinching, some of the girls really needed them around.

One might have thought that maids were often prostitutes who had become too old for the game, but this was hardly ever the case. It occasionally happened in dire emergencies, but only for minimal periods; however old a convicted prostitute was, in the eyes of the law she was still considered capable of prostitution, and therefore the two of them together could constitute a brothel. I knew only one maid who was an ex-pro; she, being French, had received her convictions in France, and so all was well.

One maid stands out above all the others as worth her weight in gold. The aptly named Prudence knew all the laws concerning prostitution – and knew them as well as any lawyer. She was polite, smart, tactful and a great psychologist. She knew every quirky aberration in existence and how it should be handled, and could quickly calculate the correct rate for the job. She could prepare light, appetising snacks and could converse on practically anything. When she trusted a person, she was warm-hearted and kind; when she did not, she was as cold as ice. Only once did she ever work for a girl who was worthy of her. That particular person listened and learned and retired a very wealthy woman.

I often wondered how Mae and Rabbits had got along with each other for as long as they had. But in the end a girl and her maid were working towards the same end.

I remember one incident, round at one of the other girls’ flats. The ponce had been sent for – an almost unheard-of occurrence – as a result of the maid being threatened by some thug with a knife. She had promptly handed over twenty-five pounds – too promptly, the girl was arguing. The ponce remained in the background, moodily chewing his nails. When I arrived, the maid was making a big show of collecting her belongings and getting her coat on. But within half an hour we were all – minus the ponce, who had left – sitting down amicably to the usual pot of tea. The scene had been engineered so the girl could prove to her boyfriend that she had a legitimate excuse for taking home less than usual that evening.

Everyone generously conceded that it was harder work being Mae’s maid than anyone else’s. We, the maids, were a little clique of our own – ‘partners in persecution’. One day, I met a maid in the street who was breathing fire because her girl had been counting the used rubbers to check the number against the maid’s written total.

‘After all the time I’ve been with her, she starts not trusting me! But I’ve got even with her, haven’t I? Now, every night I go in and whip a few out of the bin before she counts ’em.’ Then, with typical loyal protectiveness, she added, ‘’Course, I don’t really blame her –
he
must have put her up to it.’

And so the weeks went on and my expertise increased. It was autumn now. Cold winds blew down those inhospitable alleys, bringing tides of brown leaves, which were caught in puddles of water, there to rot down into a black mat, lethal to the unwary foot.

I thought less and less of my previous life, much as I expect angels have little reason to think of their time on earth once they’ve passed through the Pearly Gates to the life beyond. Even if I had thought of my former life, what would I have done with the memories? My grandmother had cursed me and was hardly a woman to let go of a grudge. My mother had been fast enough to flee when I was a child, and would be no more delighted to see me now that I was an independent adult. The only school friend with whom I’d enjoyed a real bond had moved off to South Africa, half a world away.

My little bed-sit, with its gas fire burning in its nest of fireclay, and its other small comforts, was still my home. Although sometimes when I got home I recalled uneasily how I’d arrived there vowing to become an artist. I’d had visions, once, of earning enough money to buy art materials with which to practise relentlessly at my craft, in the hope one day of painting that perfect painting.

Foolish hopes! My artistic ambitions had been entirely mute since meeting Mae. For six days a week I was simply too busy to lift a paintbrush. On the seventh, I had my domestic chores to attend to. I was tired – and besides, my attention had strayed. I was now fast becoming a Soho expert and a genuine Soho native. The police officers’ concerns were confirmed: I had become inured to depravity and no longer saw it as anything other than normal life. As the old Rabbits Regime fell into almost total decay, the corruption – and the sheer pace of life – increased to a level I could never have guessed at in my old, sheltered existence.

Sixteen