Chapter One

 

I never really knew my parents, hence fond memories are scant. Father, for what I recall, was a lumbering ox of an Irishman who shirked as a navvy by day, metamorphosing into a drunken brawling eejit by night. Oh and he was 'an over sexed fuck who could never satisfy his end', or so my mother screamed at him regularly. She, I remember, failed to give a shit about anyone other than herself. Even now the sound of an Italian jabbering on ninety to the dozen does my head in. She took in washing, and cooked at a local cafe. The only bloody English she liked to recite was 'lovely Napoli. Why did I ever come to this sheet hole? And a marry the theek plank that is forever hard.' For years I thought she spoke of his character.

If I had brothers or sisters then I am unaware of it. It comforts to think that no other offspring may have been hurled at the outer defences of literacy, numeracy and becoming a useful citizen. Unlike some, I have never wished to reinvent my relationship with parents that are now hopefully long gone. Though my patriarch did have one redeeming feature; he taught me from an early age that pain isn't always the devil it's made out to be. His belt on my arse, and in front of anybody the drunken bastard brought home, instilled in me a deep understanding of maso-aftermath. That rather ingenious creation by the Almighty, that once we have not been spared the rod, we might immerse ourselves in a glorious afterglow, one that insidiously melts the libido.

At a quite tender age I deposited myself on the authorities telling a thin rakish woman with a large nose, that I no longer wished to live with a man that desecrated the basic ideals of childhood. She failed to understand the level I pitched at, and I had to indulge in a earthier tale of woe. To wit I could no longer suffer the man's woeful vocabulary, misplaced notions of privacy, and moral slide into debauched turpitude.

"Ah," she said at length. "Your father probably hasn't had the fortune you have enjoyed, in his education. And privacy in a tenement is always difficult, if not impossible. Er." She re-read her notes. "What exactly do we mean by slide into debauched turpitude?"

The lady failed to comprehend even the simplest linguistics, so I had to tell her how it was at street level. "I'm a young lady," I told her. "Not a fucking little cunt who should be shoved head first down the shit pan, and have the cheek flushed from her worthless body arse first." I smiled sweetly at that point, her face redder than my backside had ever been.

"Oh." She broke her pencil lead on the notepaper.

"And when he turns me ma upside down and pierces her fanny with his rock hard shaft, her knickers tossed to the armchair and her bra hanging from the light bulb, I wanna throw up."

"Yes." She had melted. Maybe even her heart had stopped. Oh, and she had gone from crimson to a sickly grey.

"When he tucks me up in bed with eighteen feet of rope for my insomnia, and a piece of rag for my sleep talk, it makes both a great deal worse."

It was as I described the quantities of ale and spirit, and the kind of people that moved through Dada's life and my home, she decided that perhaps it wasn't the place for a child.

Rook's Perch was a marked improvement. After that is, several attempts at lodging me with charming, if ineffectual foster carers failed. Council run, most there at least tried to do a job. I had no need of love, nor a great penchant for comfort as I had not known otherwise. An education, a full stomach at least once a day, and an element of freedom is all that I required. And Dulcie Waters worked hard and got by as they say.

So what went wrong? Why did I end up on the wild side? Two people, both men, influenced the young Dulcie; Eddy when the girl was not a far cry from the recent throes of puberty, the girl with a wild streak just waiting to be let loose. And after she was let loose, there was Ray.

Magically, early in the fifties I transformed overnight. I went to bed a girl and woke up a woman. It was time to emerge from my chrysalis, air my wings and get ready for a maiden flight. And yes, miraculously I was still a maiden, and fairly proud of that, though there had been a few investigated within the periphery of my bra, and one who had delved deep inside my pants, and indeed me.

They opened the front door of Rook's Perch and said arrivederci because of my mother's nationality. Suitcase in hand and five pounds in my purse, I marched out onto the pavement. Steady Eddy waited, a ghoul in the morning mist with dark glasses, American flying jacket and black shirt. He even wore dog tags with 'The Boss' engraved on them. "Got somewhere to go?" he hailed from a black Ford Pilot - the only boy in the area to be able to afford anything like.

He was twenty three. Ready Eddy Abbot, the slickest 'American' boy in Enfield, North London. And when he wasn't Eddy he was steady. Or so the shit went. I knew him well, Eddy Abbot, loud, sharp, and cheap. I stuck a finger up and told him to go fuck himself.

"Sooner fuck you," he sang, combing his Brylcreem slicked black hair. "Legal today ain't it?" he persisted. "Could be a marvellous coming of age present."

"Yeah," I said. "If you ever come close to becoming a human being, my fanny will be all yours."

He frowned, obviously struggling with rejection. "Can't wait," he finally crooned, licking his lips in that deliberate, I'll lick yours if you lick mine fashion.

"Put it away Eddy," I told him adding. "And the tongue."

"So where're you kipping tonight, Dulcie doll?" he crowed.

God, he was so transparent, he was embarrassing.

"Not in your bed," I told him, looking skyward.

"They find you a place did they?"

I walked. He curb crawled.

"Yeah. A room on Eton Street."

"Number twenty eight," he asked, poorly concealing a smirk. "They always bed leavers with Lil. That'll be a bundle of laughs."

"Better than the streets, or you, Ted Abbot." A girl could hope.

"You know where to find me when you've had enough." He pulled away, and then as an afterthought stopped, and tossed me a pack of Players Weights. "Don't let her catch you, Dulcie. You think you've left all that strictness behind eh? Light one of them up in front of the battle-axe and you'll see the sparks fly."

As he drove away he laughed and shouted back. "Off that nicely rounded backside, that is."

I won't say I wasn't tempted. Ted was a laugh even if he was a dip. He'd been nicked half a dozen times, but the police never pinned anything on him. Only one went to court, and that was dismissed through lack of evidence.

If Lily Jones was what Ted reckoned, then the sparks would be flying, because there was no way I was taking the slaps anymore, especially from her. When I say slaps I mean spanked with a plimsoll. We all got it at Rook's from time to time, boy or girl. But there again the comprehensive and grammar still dished it out, so why shouldn't the council home. Thing was, I was then of age, and no way was that ever going to happen to me again, unless I wanted it to.

Lil was a barrel chested, squat lump with builder's biceps. She opened the door, and stared at me, waiting for me to speak, her face a tumble of ugliness stacked on fat jowls. Beady eyes held me in their gun sights.

"Dulcie Waters," I told her.

She leaned forward, reached out and took the cigarette from my fingers. Tossing it out onto the road she nodded for me to go in.

"I hadn't finished that," I objected, sliding through the narrow gap between her and the wall.

"You have," she assured me. "You don't smoke in this house, and if you do, you see what you get."

We were off to a good start.

"You got a job?" she asked.

"Have I?" I deliberately misconstrued.

"I'm asking, not tellin'," she said pushing me along the corridor into the back room come kitchen. "Your room is five bob a week, and your keep three bob. Course, if you want to sort out your own food and washing then I can knock two bob off your keep. The shilling is for your heat and light."

She waited. I nodded.

"Week in advance luvvy."

She smelt. She stank of stale pee and sweat. The thought of her cooking my food made me gag. I gave her a ten bob note, those black piss holes in the snow ogling the rest of my meagre stash.

"I got your change in the front room. Which, by the way you never go in. My private domain that is."

She continued. "If you can't manage any week, I might be able to help. I knows some people who would pay for certain services."

"I ain't whoring," I told her straight.

"Never suggested you do." She seemed affronted. "There's one of them college places down Gresham Way. They pay for posing. Drawing and painting like. Not much. But when you ain't got no choice."

"Thanks," I half apologised.

"Sometimes they pay a bit extra for a girl that'll take her togs off. And you looks a pretty thing that they might be interested in."

"Course, all the time you burn your money with them cigarettes, you'll get no help from me."

"A lad gave me them."

She cocked her head back and to one side, those massive hams of arms folding. "You be careful with them lads. What they think ten fags is worth is something I would never pay."

I nearly died there and then. I could not imagine anyone paying Lil for sex. "My room?" I asked turning to the door, stuffing knuckles between my teeth, stifling the onset of nerve ladled hysterics.

She led me upstairs. "There's three bedrooms up here. Two single and one double. I've got a married couple in the double, and Monique is in a single. She's a French girl sent here during the war. Her family were killed in forty-four. She's stayed and don't reckon on going back no time soon."

"Where do you sleep?" I asked, doing the maths.

"Front room. My domain," she reinforced. "Needs must. I have to let the rooms to pay my way. That's why you have to be on time with your keep."

She opened the door. A single bed pressed against the wall of a box room, nine by seven, a dull paper parting company with the wall due to a layer of damp, and the ceiling with a hole in it. A small square of knackered carpet by the bed partly hid otherwise bare boards.

"There's a set of drawers for your bits and pieces, but there ain't no room for no wardrobe. Still, you can hang your coat on the peg in the hallway."

She waddled toward the stairs. "We eat at six."

"Washing?" I asked.

"Uh. Bog's out back. You can scrub up in the kitchen sink once we're done eating. There's a zinc bath and copper, what we heat up weekends. Either Saturday evening, or Sunday morning. Whichever you prefers. Give me your dirty clothes and I'll put them in with the weekly laundering."

"Is it private? Where I'll wash."

I think she very nearly laughed in my face. "Private?" she shrieked. "Eight bob a week don't buy you no luxuries like privacy. But the bog has got a bolt on the inside. If you're using the copper you have to let people know, so they don't walk in on you. But don't bank on it."

Rook's Perch at that moment seemed a far better place, and Eddy's offer just peachy.

People jabber on about the 50's, like what a wonderful place England was then. All bloody thatched cottages and pretty villages. In 1952 London was still a bombed out shit hole, with rationing, a massive deficit of men, and most households without two half pennies to rub together. There was no telly. No proper sanitation. No fridges or freezers. No washing machines and few electric goodies such as vacuum cleaners. A night out was either the pub, the Palais, or the flicks. Clothes cost a bomb, but you could drink and smoke yourself to death for next to nothing.

I had my grant from the council and worked out if I was very, very careful I might survive five weeks. I had no job, and no idea how to go about getting one. That night I lay in my room staring at the damp patches, wondering when and if something unsavoury might look or drop through the hole.

Out of sheer boredom I at last threw open the window and lit one of the Weights, careful to blow the smoke out into the night air. The exhausted butt I flicked into the darkness and pulled the sash window back down.

She must have had a nose like a fucking bloodhound. Or else I dropped my fag end down the back of her neck. She came into my room, face a mask of anger. The offending tip she held up. "Yours?"

Not thinking for one minute she would back her threats with any action, I smiled and nodded. Teenagers can be such arrogant fucks, and I was no different.

"I told you I wouldn't have it."

"I didn't offer you it."

"Yours?" she persisted.

"Summon Sexton Blake of the yard." I said in a dramatic Saturday morning matinee voice.

Lil exploded. "You saucy cow," she balled, reaching for my throat. Her huge mitt closed about my shirt collar, podgy fingers screwing the cloth, her muscled arm lifting me effortlessly. I rose rapidly, hung on the end of her fist, as she landed her wide bum on my bed. I followed seconds later and a little too quickly, landing on thick thighs squeezed by a grey flannel skirt. She knocked the wind from me, all my fight gone, as if there was any in the first place. Gobby Waters they used to call me in the home. A ham settled over the small of my back whilst the other human paddle lifted and came back with devastating effect.

It was like being hit with a cricket bat. Nicely rounded was an apt description, and my hips were none too wide then. So her mauler sprawled across half a cheek each time she struck. Course I fought back. I kicked and wriggled and pushed my torso away from her lap, but none of it had any effect, and I suffered until she let me go.

Thirty seconds, that's all it was. And this is what I can do, now do you want more next time sort of deal. I sprang up and backed to the window my hands belatedly protecting my burning bum. "You can't do that to me!" I protested after she obviously had and could.

I will explain here that life back then was more liberal believe it or not. Lil could do that, and if I complained the coppers would just laugh, or offer to hold me down for another salvo. Blokes could have a punch up outside a pub and the plods would just keep them apart. It rarely came down to arrests. And more so, I would have never even considered complaining. I pushed it. I suffered the consequences. And I would try and get even. That was the way things were then.

"Just seventeen," she mocked. "And you know so much?"

"Seventeen today. You bitch! And I know enough."

"Today eh? Let's just say I lit your candles then. Bum hot is it?"

As if it wasn't enough to assault and mock me, she expected despatches on the injuries to boot. "You ever..." I warned jabbing a finger at her face.

God, I wished I hadn't. For a lumbering walrus out of water, she could move. Finger twisted and feeling like it had been broken I wound up face down over her knees for round two.

"You'll learn," she said calmly as she provided me with an example of rudeness and deterrent, her hand reigniting that which had just begun to calm.

Again, thirty seconds and I was on my feet, fingers diving beneath the skirt. Tips found red hot bum cheeks, the sort that warned of a restless night - if only they hadn't been fired by such an ugly, smelly - but there the lesson stood. Did that matter? She had triggered an inexplicable uncertainty. One that hung in an intangible mist just out of reach.

"You can take your rent and keep elsewhere, if you ain't happy," she offered as if I was thinking that, and perhaps I was. "But you won't get a room of your own for eight bob anywhere. God only knows who you might have to mix with, even share a bed with."

I stared with the most intense hurt feelings possible, not that it had any effect on Lil.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Dulcie Waters, half the city is in ruins. Bed and board are at a premium. And if you think I am going to suffer you burning to the ground my home, you got another one coming. This is my house. My rules. And I say what you can and can't do."

"And you can keep your fucking hands to yourself!" I told her with an uncontrollable flare of temper.

"Obey my few rules and I will."

God! She was being so bloody reasonable. I felt utterly humiliated, had been spanked like a child, and she was being fair.

With that she left saying one last. "No more smoking. Go outside if you must cremate your lungs."

Pacing, the window glass reflected Dulcie Waters, the girl who was going to take on the world, the girl that had Ted Abbot figured, the girl who had studied and had a bundle of certificates to prove it. Dulcie Waters, seventeen, survivor of a few hours before the world showed her how insignificant she was. Spanked. Spanked! I couldn't get over it. Imagine if that went back to Rook's Perch. I could hear the titters, the laughing, the cat calls and abuse. I would never live it down.

I leant on the sill and stared out into the smog laden night, a tale of freedom gained at a terrible price. Seven years and the mad, mad world had just begun to right itself. There was work out there. Plenty of work. I just had to find it, and beyond, rent a far, far better place than Lil's.