West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and Its Working Girls (3 page)

I got rid of him as pleasantly as possible, but inside I was raging. There I was, practically running his business for him, and on top of that, he wanted me as his . . . the word ‘doxy’ sprang to my mind (I was reading Georgian literature at the time). On the heels of my anger came the fear that I might lose my job if I kept saying no to him, and then where would I be? After not too much thought, I realised I needed an evening job. I had already worked out that on my wages I was going to be able to do little more than scrape by, and that to save up to prettify the room or to buy my own paints would take years. If I could get a second job, I would be able to buy things for the flat as well as the art materials I wanted, and best of all, it would be a backup if I got sacked.

A few days later, during my lunch break, I saw a news-agent pinning new advertisement cards in his glass-fronted display case. Almost instantly, my eye lighted on one that read:

Bright girl needed for evening work in small club.
No previous experience necessary.

This was followed by a phone number. It seemed the very thing: I reckoned I was fairly bright, and I certainly had no previous experience. I copied the telephone number and rushed to the nearest underground station, where there was a phone box. I dialled and a man’s voice answered. I explained what I had rung about.

‘When can you come and see me?’ the voice asked.

‘Well, I finish work at five.’ I told him where I worked.

‘If you took a taxi, you could be here in five minutes,’ he said. He gave me the name and address of the club, which I jotted down. ‘When you get here, ask for Jim. See you!’ and he put the phone down.

I was in a fever of nerves all afternoon. At five o’clock, I tentatively applied the powder and pale lipstick that so far I’d only had the nerve to experiment with in the privacy of my little room.

It was the first taxi I had ever been in, and once I’d given the address, I sat perched uneasily on the edge of the seat, hoping very much that something would come of the interview. We were travelling along Oxford Street when the cab suddenly turned. I hadn’t had a chance to find out exactly where the club was, but I realised I was actually being driven into Soho. I was paralysed. The taxi made a few tortuous turns through those mysterious streets and finally stopped. When I got out and paid the driver, I found that my knees were shaking.

I’m what you would call a ‘brave coward’, so when the cab had driven away, I firmly told my knees to behave and reread the bit of paper with the address and name of the club on it. Sure enough, painted on a small board just where I was standing were the words The Mousehole. Beyond stretched a long, narrow passage, lit by one heavily shaded bulb. At the end, I found a staircase leading down, above which was another board – also reading The Mousehole – this time with an arrow pointing downwards. I giggled nervously: there was nowhere else you could go but down.

I went through a bamboo curtain at the bottom and was immediately in a pleasant, very dimly lit room. There was a bar at one end and a man in a white jacket moving around behind it against a glitter of glasses and bottles. Except for this, and two men who were sitting at a table near the middle, the room was empty. The men’s conversation was interrupted by the clicking noise the curtain made as I pushed it aside, and the barman gave me an enquiring look.

‘I was told to ask for Jim,’ I said.

‘That’s him, over there,’ he answered laconically, nodding in the direction of the two men.

I thanked him and went towards them. I got a similar enquiring look from one, so I guessed he must be Jim. I said that I had phoned about the job at lunchtime.

‘Wages fifteen bob a night and your cab fare home – that’s if you don’t live too far off.’

‘No, not far,’ I assured him.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Barbara.’

‘That’s a nice name. You ready to start?’

‘What, now?’ I gasped.

‘As good a time as any!’

I turned, feeling slightly dazed by the speed of it all. He broke into a grin.

‘Ronnie there’ – he motioned towards the barman – ‘will fix you up with an apron. Oh, and by the way,’ he added, ‘no need to come till six after tonight.’

Never again would I have such a quick interview. I murmured my thanks and went to the bar. Without seeming to be bothered whether I heard or not, the man sitting with Jim remarked, ‘Bit different from your usual type, isn’t she?’

I heard Jim reply, ‘Might be a change to have a bit of class.’

That surprised me too; I’d never thought of myself as having what could be termed ‘class’. I began to feel a bit more confident.

Ronnie gave me a friendly smile and handed me an apron. He was a dapper little man with a thin, bird-like face and could have been any age between forty and sixty.

‘Ever done this work before?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I replied nervously. I didn’t dare tell him that I’d never even been inside a pub before, and that my grandmother considered anything stronger than cider shandy to be devil’s brew.

‘Not to worry, ducks,’ he said kindly, as I tied on the apron. ‘It’s mostly just collecting glasses and ashtrays and things like that, and washing them – and being friendly with people. You’ll be all right. When I get a minute here and there, I’ll show you what to do about drinks.’ He paused and studied my face as I watched him gravely. ‘Cheer up, love, it may never happen!’

I laughed and, all at once, felt much more at ease.

‘S’better,’ he said approvingly. ‘Now cop hold of this cloth and get cracking with them glasses.’

Later on, the club became crowded and noisy, and we were all kept busy. I could quite see why they needed someone to deal with the glasses. I passed the evening in a sort of dream, now and again recalling with amazement that at last I was actually in Soho. It seemed incredible. After everything I’d been told, I was surprised to find that everyone here seemed warm and friendly and I didn’t feel wicked at all: just happy.

Jim had asked a cab driver who’d been in for a drink to come and pick me up at the end of the evening. He arrived soon after the final customer had left. I hurriedly washed a few last things and took off my apron.

Jim complimented me with what appeared to be genuine satisfaction.

‘You’ve done very well, love. See you tomorrow then?’

‘Thanks,’ I replied, and calling good night to Ronnie, I followed the driver up the stairs.

At the front doorway, with the security of the club left behind me, I took a quick glance up and down the dark street. There was no doubt Soho could be a frightening place – although for no reason I could actually specify. There was a slight breeze that carried pieces of litter before it. Here and there I saw solitary, aimless figures in the dim lamplight. It was very quiet – not the quietness of peace, but rather that of waiting and listening. I would never have had the courage to find my way out of here on foot, and was more than glad that only a few paces away was the faintly glowing refuge of the taxi.

‘All aboard the Skylark!’ came the cheery voice of the cabby, and I hurried across to get in.

Soho is not a large place, and it wasn’t long before we reached the brightly lit streets I was familiar with. All the same, I couldn’t dispel my impression that the place we’d left behind was brooding and sinister, and that anything could happen there at any time. And what were those human-looking bundles huddled in some of the doorways we’d flashed past?

Now that we were covering ground that I recognised, I discovered just how weary I really was, and settled back on to the comfortable seat. At the same time, I realised I was absolutely ravenous and I couldn’t wait to get home.

Suddenly I recalled the memory of Uncle Henry’s dining in Soho and smiled to myself. Dining indeed ! I was working there!

Three

At the end of a month at The Mousehole, I had benefited in several ways. My money worries were over, my room was much more comfortable and I’d lost about a stone in weight from all the running around.

My fears about losing my position at the studio had not materialised, but my boss had become curt and sometimes downright unpleasant. I longed to find a way of leaving. Ronnie suggested I should chuck the daytime job, go on the dole and take things a bit easier. But having been brought up to regard receiving dole as tantamount to ‘going on the parish’, I refused his advice. My early reluctance to accept charity had not lessened with the passing years.

Life was exhausting. My alarm would rouse me from my few hours of sleep at seven thirty, when I had to get ready to rush to work. We painted without pause, even during our tea break. I would only have time for a sandwich at the end of the day before dashing off to the club. I was never home before midnight, by which time I barely had the energy to wind the alarm. By midnight on Fridays, my energy was beginning to flag somewhat. Fortunately the studio was closed at weekends, giving me the chance to keep my little room spick and span, but the club stayed open, so work still beckoned in the evening.

I often wished I liked alcohol, as it certainly seemed to have an invigorating effect on the customers at the club. I was often treated to a drink, and changed my choice each time in my hunt for one that did not taste like medicine. I ran the gamut without success, and eventually reverted to lemonade, but in a small glass, trusting that to an onlooker it would pass for gin and tonic.

I was soon quite enjoying my evening work. As more faces became familiar, I could join in with the quips and jokes. The women were brilliantly blonde, wore ankle-strapped shoes, loose bracelets and pretended to be dumb, which was very much the in thing at the time. Their men were the pencil-moustachioed, two-tone-shoed, chalk-stripe-suited sort, with cheap rings and cufflinks. These ‘wide boys’ or ‘spivs’ comprised most of our membership. Their conversation was always about racing, betting systems and where scarce commodities could be obtained on the black market. They were all showy, noisy and self-assured – but they were kind.

One Saturday night, my shift had just begun and I was keeping my fingers crossed that the evening would be free of the scuffles that invariably happened at weekends. I was not to know that this particular evening was going to mark a change in my life I would never forget.

In the lull before the rush, Jim and Ronnie had gone over to Benito’s for a meal. From there they could keep an eye on who went into the club and judge when I would begin to need help. They’d worked all through the afternoon trade and had left a pile of glassware for me to wash, fresh ice to break for the lager bucket and four already settled customers to look after.

A burly, smiling man entered, wearing the look of slight desperation that I had come to recognise on all our male customers. He needed urgently to get within ordering distance of a bar. Whilst waiting, his anxious expression remained firmly in place, as though he feared everything might be sold out at any moment. Only when I had taken his order could he relax and burst into bloom, acknowledging me with a ‘How’s tricks?’ This was Syd: a staunch regular, along with all his pals, fellow meat porters at Smithfield Market.

I turned back to the washing-up; I could see that, as usual, Syd was settling down for a chat, but I wanted to get the work done first or I’d never catch up. I’d been caught like that by him once before.

The jukebox was on automatic, as it always was when there were too few people in to feed it with coins. I surveyed the room while I polished glasses. It was strange to see how nice it could look with the lights dim, knowing how tatty it really was when the bright overhead lighting was switched on for cleaning.

The other four customers consisted of a young couple huddled over a table in a far corner of the room – who, under cover of the music, were engaged in deep and private conversation – and two women who were sitting together on stools at the end of the bar furthest from Syd. One of them was a young and spectacular blonde, while her companion was a stout, frowsy woman in her fifties. Neither spoke to the other, and although the blonde occasionally ordered gin and bitters for the other woman, she had barely touched her own. The stout woman grimaced whenever she caught my eye, communicating her silent dislike of her partner.

My chores done, I noticed Syd waving his glass again. As I refilled it, he gave a mock scowl.

‘Talk about a bluebottle!’ he complained, ‘You never stand still, do you?’

‘I’m standing still now,’ I said, plonking my elbows on the counter.

He started talking about work. Meat was still on ration after the war, and his work as a porter meant he was full of stories.

‘What an interesting job you’ve got,’ I remarked.

‘Not half as interesting as hers, I shouldn’t think,’ he said, lowering his voice and giving a sort of jerk of his head in the direction of the two women.

‘Which one, the young one?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Why, what does she do?’ I asked, getting interested.

‘She’s on the game!’

‘What game?’ I asked innocently.

Looking back, I find it hard to credit that I was ever so naïve. Syd obviously did as well, because he gazed at me incredulously for a while, clearly wondering if I was trying to tease him. Having decided that I wasn’t, he leaned forward with a slightly reddened face and whispered hoarsely, ‘She’s one of the ladies, and that’s her maid!’