THE PIE SHOP Chapter Five Roy's Jinx

I found it one morning on my way to school. It was in the gutter, near to a couple of pieces of jagged, dull looking shrapnel. There had been another air raid of particularly savage ferocity the night before, East London had taken another pasting, so everyone went to school that morning with their eyes fixed firmly on the floor. Shrapnel had a real value, if not always for cash certainly as a bargaining factor. A good piece would be worth at least a couple of marbles or several cigarette cards. But the object that caught and held my attention most was bright, horseshoe shaped and with ends painted bright red. It was only about two inches long and half as wide but no nine-year old boy worthy of the name would have been able to resist the opportunity to acquire a horseshoe shaped magnet! I was no exception.

Mind you I was careful to look at it very closely first. Warnings from my parents that the Germans were dropping booby traps that looked like ordinary every day items had registered with me. Who knows, it might explode or infect me with some awful disease or something. It looked harmless enough though, so I picked it up and hurried on, war or no war you were not allowed to be late for school.

Later in the science lesson our teacher showed what happens when you put iron filings onto a piece of paper and place the magnet underneath. Fantastic patterns form around the ends. North repels North on another magnet and forms even more fantastic patterns and likewise when South is presented to South. When North end is put to South end an entirely different pattern forms. All very interesting to an enquiring mind like mine. And it was my magnet! It became my treasured possession and all these years later I still have it. What's it got to do with The Pie Shop? well, I'll tell you. It reminds me of a bloke called Roy Lockhart, he was one of our lot that went to The Pie Shop on Saturday nights.

Roy was in the same class as me at school. He was what would now be called 'accident prone'. Then he was regarded by adults as clumsy and by his peers as just plain unlucky! For example; on the day I found the magnet and the teacher demonstrated it's hidden properties, it was he who straining to get a better view of the experiment, tripped and fell against the table. The table collapsed, iron filings flew everywhere and several somehow lodged themselves in Roy's hand and one in his right eye. The science lesson was abandoned so that he could receive medical attention. It set the pattern for his future. That was the first time I saw what became known as Roy's Jinx.

He grew up to be become something of a loner moving around with a number of different groups but never really being a part of any of them, a sort of loose cannon. It wasn't that he was unattractive or unpleasant in any way, quite the reverse. He was just above medium height, stocky build, close curly dark brown hair, an open sort of face with grey eyes and a wide mouth that frequently broke into an engaging smile. He dressed well and had an easy way with him that enabled him to fit seamlessly into any group he joined, for the most part he got along well with everyone. He desperately wanted to play for The Casuals and had a couple of trial games, the team lost on both occasions and his reputation for being unlucky was reinforced. Still, he turned up every week to the training sessions but he never again played for either the first or second team. To save his face he was always referred to as first reserve.

His mother had died when he was very young, perhaps that accounted for the somewhat sad expression that seemed a permanent feature of his face. Still that mournful 'I've been abandoned' look had it's rewards…every girl he met seemed to want to mother him. The girls who came to watch us play, all insisted he was being 'picked on' by the blokes around him. He wasn't of course, being picked on, that is. No! We all regarded him as a Jonah. An OK Jonah, but a Jonah nevertheless. Broadly though despite his shortcomings we all liked him well enough, but wished he'd stop moaning about everything. In any discussion you could bet he would take a singular view, usually based on facts that had nothing to do with the subject in hand. It could be very irritating.

I've mentioned before that we all went to The Pie Shop on Saturday nights after the dance, he rarely came and when he did he complained about everything from the game that afternoon through to the dance that evening, on to the stuffy atmosphere of The Pie Shop. Naturally he didn't complain about the food; that would have brought him into opposition with Lil, even his nerve jibbed at that! All that, we came to expect and accept, but the one thing about him that couldn't be ignored was that wherever he went, and whoever he was with, trouble followed him and attached itself to him and those about him, like north and south on my magnet. Even when he wasn't there any problem that manifested itself for no apparent reason could usually be tracked back to him. You find that difficult to believe? Well, what about the Butlins fiasco? You haven't heard about that? OK, Well I can't vouch for the truth of it all because I wasn't there but according to Roy and Tommy Molton this is what happened.

Late one Saturday night in The Pie Shop someone, I think it was Larry Baines, came up with the idea that we should all go to Butlins Holiday Camp for a week. This was regarded as the new way to go on holiday, a week by the sea, swimming in the pool, all meals found, buckets of booze, plenty of big-name entertainment and films, and of course, girls. Lots of girls…all reported to be the sort that do! And it didn't cost the earth! Tommy Molton had been the year before and his stories of what went on could fill a book on their own. Most of the blokes boasted of their exploits with the girls but we all knew that very few had had any real experiences with them. Girls were, for the most part, regarded as mysterious creatures, totally unpredictable, who, with a single look could destroy your self-confidence and make you look a right twit in front of your friends. Yes! They had to be treated with extreme caution at all times, but Butlins offered the chance to turn fantasy into fact.

Roy was there that night and got swept along on the tide of enthusiasm. After a short discussion it was decided that they would go to the Holiday Camp at Clacton the first week in July. Not too many kids around the pool then you understand. Roy of course, wanted to go elsewhere but was outvoted. No one had a car in those days so when the time came, hair freshly styled into a sharp DA (Duck's Arse), newly pressed suits neatly packed into suitcases and loaded down with bags of all descriptions, they all took the number six bus to Liverpool Street Station. Their luggage filled the space under the stairs and they almost filled the top deck, it was regarded as cissy to go inside. As far as they were concerned, the holiday had begun. and a great time was to be had by all.

I have mentioned that wasn't there, I had other plans, but by all accounts up to the Wednesday they were having a great time. The weather had been perfect and they had all quickly found themselves a bird, there was much discussion about that for months afterwards, who did what with whom, that sort of thing. But inevitably Roy's Jinx struck…on the fourth day…Well if you want to be precise it was three-thirty in the morning. Butlins was quiet, the excitement of the evening's entertainment already forgotten, even the famous "Red Coats" had gone off duty. The only sound was that of the sea gently washing up onto the sandy shore a couple of hundred yards away. Err!…it wasn't quite the only sound, those with more acute hearing may have heard other sounds coming from some of the chalets.

In the doorway of Tommy Molton's chalet a shadowy figure crouched tapping and scratching urgently on the flat blue surface of the door. Tommy eventually opened it and Roy rushed past him into the room beyond. Tommy turned to him, tying a knot in the cord of his pyjama trousers, his upper half still bare. Having glanced over his shoulder to make sure the bedroom door was closed he rounded on Roy and hissed. "What the bloody hell d'you want at this time o' night," He wasn't the easiest person to get out of bed in the mornings, to disturb him at this time of the night was positively dangerous. Roy had seen the look at the bedroom door and said quietly but in a voice full of tension.
"I'm in dead lumber Tom, real trouble. What'm I going to do? If she tells her brother I'm a dead man!" The sweat on Roy's face spoke volumes, he was genuinely scared.

"What's happened?" Tommy asked, softening a bit in the face of his friend's distress.
"I don't know how to tell you Tom." Roy spread his hands and looked so doleful that Tom struggled to keep a straight face.
"Try!" he said grimly. "It can't be that bad, you were fine earlier on. You can't have been out of the camp so, what's happened?
"Alice, it's Alice." Roy said the name with the same reverence as he would have used if he had been talking about the Madonna. "Alice is what's the matter."
"Who the bloody hell is Alice." Tom demanded.
"She's the girl I met on Tuesday. She's the most wonderful girl I have ever met." Roy told him breathlessly. "She's fantastic. But I don't want to marry her!"
"Marry her. Christ! You only met her yesterday." Talk of marriage was always guaranteed to arouse seriously grave aggro in Tom's mind.
"You'd better tell me what's happened," he said, and flopped down into a rather rickety chair. Roy couldn't stand still let alone sit down. He paced up and down the room and pulled a packet of Woodbines out of his pocket.
"Don't smoke those bleeding things in here." Tommy said. "If you must smoke, have one of these." and he threw a tin of Benson and Hedges Red Box cigarettes across the room. He could do with out the smell of cheap fags in his chalet. Roy lit one gratefully and put the tin on the nearby table.

Roy ceased his pacing and stood in front of Tommy and still keeping his voice low said. "Me an' Eric met Alice and her mate Wendy at the dance on Tuesday. Tonight we decided that Wendy would move in with Eric and Alice would move in with me." Tommy nodded, that sounded OK so far, he'd made similar arrangements with a stunning blonde himself within two hours of their arrival. "Go on," he said.
"Well…look Tom I haven't done this sort of thing before. It's my first time…you know…It's embarrassing." He put on his best pathetic look and held his hands up in front of him. Tommy fixed him with a stare.
"You didn't get me out of bed at this time of night to tell me you're embarrassed," he growled. "Get on with it."
"Well…Alice and I did…It. You know…It." Roy simply couldn't say the words. Not many blokes could in those days, unless of course they hadn't done anything, then they could and often did talk about …It…all day. Tommy had no such hang up. "You're telling me you got your leg over? Is that what you woke me up to tell me? Are you out of your bloody mind?" Tommy's voice lifted half an octave and his face suddenly matched the colour of his hair.

Roy backed away from him. "No! No! Tom, that's not it. It all went wrong afterwards."
"Afterwards!" Tommy repeated the word and raised his eyebrows. "How can things go wrong afterwards? Even for you!"
"We lost it. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I s'pose I'll have to marry her." That word again. Tommy was now getting worried. Things had a habit of getting out of hand when Roy was involved.
"What did you loose?" he asked gently, "come on Roy stop sodding about and tell me. What did you loose?"
"The Durex! The Rubber Johnnie!" Roy spat the words out as if he had a bad taste in his mouth and a fart for a tie-pin. Tommy looked at him in disbelief. "Lost what?" he said. "How can even you do that? It must be there somewhere."
"It ain't. We've looked. Tipped the bed upside-down and looked everywhere. It's just not there."
"You did use one, didn't you?" Tommy looked at him suspiciously, he was finding this difficult to believe; his considerable experience in these matters didn't allow for such things to happen. But Roy was involved so anything was possible.
"O' course I did. I'm not stupid!" Roy said indignantly. "I bought a packet of three at Manny's when we all went to have our hair cut last Saturday." Tommy raised an eyebrow but said nothing, it rang true, he knew Manny's whispered. "Anything for the weekend Sir?" accompanied by a sly smile, very well. "We searched everywhere, it's not there." Roy ended.

Tommy's patience was beginning to wear thin. "Look at it this way Roy," he said his voice still low but now hardening as he spelled it out slowly. "It's not in the bed or mixed up amongst the bedclothes, it's not on the floor. It's not stuck to your pyjams or her nightie, it's not still dangling on the end of your JT, so unless you've both been to the carsey and dropped it there, there's only one other place it can be. Have you looked there?" Roy didn't quite understand him for a moment, then what Tommy had said gradually dawned on him. His face went the colour of beetroot…"I…I…I couldn't look there Tom….I just couldn't. She'd never let me even if I could. She's not that sort of girl."
"She's the sort of girl that jumps into bed with a bloke she's only just met." Tommy said acidly. "She'll know where the bloody thing is, so go back there and sort it out. You're being lined up for wedding bells my old son!"

Roy of course couldn't sort it out and immediately after breakfast was back at Tommy's chalet asking what he should do now. Tommy knew exactly what was to be done. Roy and Eric were on the next train back to London! Later that day Alice's brother, a heavily built Geordie and some of his mates came over to our blokes when they were lazing around the swimming pool and asked where they were. Tommy said he didn't know, they weren't with his group, they had got on the train at Shenfield and just latched onto them for a couple days. Lived in Essex somewhere he thought.

You may think that that would be the end of the story…you'd be wrong! Roy's Jinx as if in a fury at having a carefully laid plan destroyed by Tommy's action, struck again, this time at Tommy himself. As I mentioned earlier, he had found a girlfriend, Mary, within hours of arriving at the Holiday Camp. She soon agreed to move into his chalet and spend the week with him. He immediately arranged somehow to stay on another week and paid for her as well as himself. That's when Roy's Jinx struck. Tommy had arranged with the Spanish waiter to make sure that his table was always well served in the evenings. Tommy was never short of money and some of it changed hands! The table was never without service of one sort or another. Unfortunately the service offered by the waiter exceeded his expectation. On the Saturday, his bird, Mary, ran off with the Spaniard. Just vanished without a word. Tommy was furious, he did stay on for the extra week, but what happened we know nothing about.

A few Saturdays afterwards we were all in the Pie Shop and Roy was yet again telling his tale of woe and how helpful Tommy had been when the heavy old doors of the Pie Shop opened and Tommy walked in. I don't know who started it but a single voice in the back of the room sang the beginning of the old Music Hall song. "Listen to me and I’ll tell ya" the entire room joined in the chorus "Of the Spaniard that blighted my life….tra…la…laa." Tom turned around and walked out. He didn't return for weeks.

Roy's Jinx didn't finish with the Butlins incident. it took a very nasty, and I learned much later, even tragic turn. He went into the Army on National Service and every platoon he was in found themselves terrorised by a Sergeant Majors who made their lives difficult and uncomfortable But he got through it and returned to civvy street a wiser, stronger and more experienced man.

He finally married one of twin sisters and everyone thought that the Jinx had finally burnt itself out. It hadn't! Years later I was at my mother's house with my wife for Sunday Tea when she asked me if I had heard about Roy Lockhart. I told her that I hadn't heard of him for years and asked why she mentioned him particularly. He was never one of my closest friends even though he had lived just down the road from me. "Terrible thing," she said sadly. "His wife died you know." I didn't know and reflected on how much bad luck one man could stand in a lifetime. "Yes," she went on, "about a year ago it was." The sound of her voice made me look up, I sensed there was more to come. "Let's hope he has a happier time now though eh?" The voice….it was speaking volumes by saying nothing. I waited…I knew my mother, there was more to come. "He buried all her jewellery with her you know," she said, then added "A strange lad Roy, don't you think?" I did think so but kept quiet. "He got married again last month," she said. "That's nice!" I said more for something to say than anything else. My wife had a bit more sense and asked the right question. "Who did he marry?" My mother's voice hardened and her eyebrows raised as she replied. "His first wife's twin sister, Sheila!!!"