dddk 4 - plums and bums

‘I like it here, by the tennis courts, real sun trap. And nobody ever uses them, to play tennis that is. The skinheads meet up the far end sometimes, but their noses are so deep in their golden wonder glue bags they don’t usually give me gyp. There are some kids today, on the green in front of St. Nicks. Looks like a birthday party. One of them, in the middle - I reckon it’s her birthday - she’s wearing a light pink tutu. And I think I must have been about her age when I got it. Silly thing to remember really, but I do, like it was yesterday. All red velvet that made you want to stroke and stroke; you opened the golden edged lid and up she rose, turning and whirling, all fine and pale, spinning to the tinkling tune . She was there, but she was not. Ephemeral I think the word is. My god I wanted to be her.

I kept that music box under my pillow and every night she would dance away my shadows and send me to a sleeping world of heavy dark curtains and spotlights, and applause.

Aunty Joyce said the music was ‘The Nutcracker Suite’, so I borrowed the record from the library and got dad to tape it for me. I spun away my strangeness in a tight corner, between the bottom of the bed and the Hygena wardrobe. I was the sugar plum fairy.

Of course, our sort of people don’t do ballet lessons. We do typing and get nice little jobs and hope to marry the boss, and have nice children and nice cars and nice fitted kitchens. And like the nice girl that I was, two weeks after my sixteenth birthday I became a clerical assistant at the head office of a chain of betting shops. It sounded grander than it was. Head office turned out to be the back room of the smoke fugged, special brew tinged Deptford branch. But they did have shops up west and as Jeff said, I had promise. And Jeff seemed like a man who knew things.

Jeff was sharp. Hatchet sharp. Italian shoes and hamlet cigar sharp. He’d waltz in and I’d zing. He’d slide into the safe room and I’d hold open a smooth pigskin holdall as he packed the wads of notes, tightly. And just as tightly take my chin in his tanned, black haired hand and press his lips to mine. When dad hit the roof , seeing me leave for work in the dress Jeff had given me the day before, it was Jeff who got me the little room in a Praed Street bed and breakfast.

I took my box with me, and as I waited for my man to come, or not, she and I would spin out my fragile dreams. I was supposed to marry the boss.

‘Carry on.’ He coughed one evening, crashing in on my solitary whirling. The chiffon scarf slipped from my naked shoulders as I hovered , my secret world splayed on a board at his impeccably clad feet. ‘Dance.’

‘Contacts,’ he’d said. ‘Contacts in the business.’ …It’s a short cab ride from Paddington to The Windmill Men’s Club, Wardour Street. Even shorter from there to The Venus Rooms.

My poky bedsit grew like me, to fit my new world. Costumes hanging lushly from nails on every wall, silks and feathers. Gauzy swathes of colour draping from every jarring fold of wall and body. Jeff said I was special, even Frank, the angular, scarred Scot that ran The Candybox agreed. ‘She’s class.’ He’d told Jeff as he tapped contentedly on the rim of a threadbare velour seatback, keeping time, or thereabouts to the strains of The Moonlight Sonata.

The whole classical thing became my mark. Seriously and steadily I swanned and swayed on the back of Brahms and Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. I was the biggest earner on the circuit. It sometimes occurred to me that I could maybe get myself a flat, big enough to really practice in, but there was never quite enough cash. Jeff always seemed to have another big deal that needed backing. And costumes and cabs and cocaine don’t come cheap.

It’s a shock at first, when the clubs start saying no. When you start noticing how young the other girls look. When the hum of an audience grows to a bored chatter as you stalk through another once timeless classic. When Jeff stopped coming by.

And suddenly there’s just no money left and Mr.Papadopolos wants his rent. And you don’t know where to find it… That’s when the girl down the landing told me about the pubs on The Old Kent Road. ‘They do lunchtime and six o’clock shows,’ she says… The strippers graveyard she called it; a five minute turn, then round the punters with a beer mug.

Everything starts to sort of roll, snowball like and before you know it you’ve gotton off the bus and are standing there, fiddling with the strap of your handbag in the pub doorway.

Terry, the greying, gutsy geezer that runs the place looks me up and down, gives me a tired smile and says he’ll give me a tryout. He shows me the back room where a girl sits smoking in greying knickers. I hand him my tape and he tells me I’ll be on in five minutes. The girl doesn’t look up. I slip a hand into my bag and pull out a tightly rolled envelope from which I extract two shiny, tiny yellow ovals, the last of the rainy day Dexedrine. I swallow them dry and start getting changed.

I thought it went okay, the blokes had shouted and laughed and called for more. I wasn’t used to getting down from the stage, and being that close, and getting touched and pulled about, but there was at least thirty quid in the glass and I was buzzing. Terry said I could hang out in the back if it was too far to go home between shows, so I put my coat on and curled up in a peeling vinyl armchair to wait it out. I must have dozed off, when I woke my throat was dry welded. Parched. I wandered into the bar. A group of lads were milling about on the stage, ever so young, with gothic gelled hairdos and thick black eyeliner. They were one-two-ing into microphones, plugging in amplifiers and rolling onto the front of the stage three huge paper maché boulders, scrawled with graffiti. Scream Teen Machine I made out as they re-shuffled the rocks into position. Terry appeared, ‘you’ll have to do your best around the bands gear love, they won’t have time to sound check after the six o’clock rush.’ He passed me a bottle of coke and went back to restocking the shelves behind the bar. I remember thinking I could have done with a vodka or two to go in it. The dexys were wearing off and I could feel my head folding in on itself.

The after work mob wasn’t the same as the lunchtime crowd, they were louder, drinking faster, harder. My buzz had been subbed, by a throbbing, eye-scrunching downer. I must have looked scared because the other girl looked over her shoulder as she walked out onto the stage, ‘the more pissed they are, the more they put in the pot love.’ she shouted, winking theatrically. The roars swelled as Tina Turner blared over the sound system. Fifteen minutes later she was back, tipping a mountain of notes and shining pound coins onto the table, expertly sliding, clinking and piling, mouth working, tongue flicking in wordless addition. ‘You’re up love,’ Terry shouted. Pressing play as I squeezed past the sound desk onto the packed stage, I raised the gossamer scarf in front of my face and closed my eyes.

Silence fell on the seething room as Tchaikovskys tiny bells tapped the intro notes of the dance. I turned my back, weaving patterns with the chiffon, swaying. ‘Get on with it!’ someone hollered, I turned, in on myself, my eyes tight tight shut, I spun. I whirled. I was the sugar plum fairy. I could feel the heat of the spotlight, smell the heavy velvet, I spun, the applause…I whirled, my nose cheeks jaws running, hot and wet. I wheeled into the first boulder; Teen rolled and teetered - Ricocheted into the second; Machine, flipped - I fell to my knees cannoning Scream into the now jeering mess of beery leery faces. ‘Get her off.’…‘Silly old tart.’…’My fucking gran could do better.’….

I don’t dance any more, well I say that, but they’re a silly bunch of old buggers up the arches and a little waltz has been known when the Thunderbird is flowing. I’d be up there now if some stupid sod hadn’t fallen asleep on an old sofa with a fag in his mouth. Set the thing alight he did, and himself. The place has been crawling with helpful souls all afternoon... I wonder if they’ll be gone by the time it gets dark?