Alfie (3 page)

‘But I’d still be as happy with you, Alfie, if you had no car.’

‘Look here, gal,’ I said, ‘if you say you’re happy once more I’ll begin to doubt it. Straight up, I will. This world is divided into two kinds of people – those who’ve got a car an’ those who ain’t. And they hate each other like poison. It’s a terrible thing what you’re saying, Gilda, that you’re content with being as you are. It’s people like you get the country upside-down.’

‘But money isn’t everything, Alfie.’

You nit, I thought, you’re as dim as a box of a’soles. Of course money is everything – but people won’t admit it openly. I mean if you’ve got money you can have everything – beautiful hand-tailored suits, your own car, lap up as many birds as you want, and eat and drink what you fancy – what more can any man ask for.

Course I didn’t tell her all that – all I said was, ‘It’s only people who ain’t got none talk like that.’

‘I’m not ashamed, Alfie, I owe nothing.’

‘But you should be ashamed, Gilda,’ I said, putting an arm around her. ‘What you gotta get in that little head of your’n, gal, is that nobody don’t ’elp you in this life – you gotta ’elp yourself!’

I was thinking as I lay there in bed in my T-shirt cotton vest beside Gilda sometime later that same night, about the first job I had when I left school, working as an errand boy at one of these sweat shops over the East End where they make boys’ suits. If I don’t drop off to sleep straightaway after it, I find I’m wakeful and I often go over little thoughts in my mind and memories and that sort of thing. I don’t like lying there in the raw with a bird – I seem to come over clammy and sticky. Now what I used to do on that job was to knock off one of these suits when nobody was looking, nip into the lavatory with it, then I’d slip my own off, put the suit on next to my skin, and then put my own back on top. I wore a nice big jacket specially for the job. Then I’d nip home as quick as I could on one of my errands and slip off the suit. Alice, my step-mum, used to flog it in the pub of a night. She used to get as much as twenty-five bob a time for those suits, and she’d give me a dollar out of it.

Now I found that little fiddle gave me a real interest in the work, and it’s my firm belief everybody should take an interest in their work. I was always willing and cheerful, and popular with everybody around the place. I could afford to be, couldn’t I? Mind you, I wouldn’t have been so cheerful if I’d known what I know now. It makes a guv’nor suspicious. Never be cheerful on a job if you’re working a fiddle. Here, I had a nice little fiddle going a short time back, driving a lorry for one of these supermarket firms, and when we were loading up, I’d got this one special loader who would always slip me in an extra crate of canned salmon and put it down to the larking. I mean I’d flog it to one of the branch managers, see, and he’d pay me half what it was worth and I’d share the bunce with the loader. There’s a special way when you’re loading of slipping one in so that even when they check your load they can’t count it. If done properly it’s all an art.

Now one day I was loading up and whistling away when I spots the guv’nor with his eye on me. ‘You sound cheerful, Elkins,’ he says. I tumbled at once I should never have whistled. So I says, ‘Yeh, some mornings I feel chirpy.’ So he says, ‘You can’t be feeling all that chirpy on what I’m paying you. You must be working a nice little fiddle.’ So I says, ‘That’s deformation of character, mate. I’ll have to see my union.’ And he says, ‘Don’t come it – ’ow do you think I got where I am? I’m satisfied,’ he says, ‘so long as you do your job well and don’t get too greedy, else you’ll kill the goose.’ I was quite glad of that little tip because we had been overdoing it.

Now where was I with my little life as a boy – oh yes, knocking off these suits. This one day I gets one a bit on the large side. I go into the lavatory with it, strip down, put it on and put my other one over the top of it. I only just managed to get myself all fastened up. Now when I come out, there was the guv’nor standing there. A nice bloke he was – with a sad face that always made me feel sorry for him. ‘How are you liking this little job, Alfie?’ he said. ‘It ain’t bad, sir,’ I said, ‘to be quite frank, I like it. I mean, you’re kept on the go, but I don’t mind that. Matter of fact, I’m just dashing off this minute.’ Then he pats me on the shoulder and he says, ‘You seem to have grown a lot lately, Alfie, you’re getting quite a size.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I says, ‘that’s what my mum says.’ ‘Look at your chest and your shoulders, Alfie,’ he says, ‘I can hardly believe it,’ and at the same time he keeps tapping and feeling around my back, shoulders and chest. ‘Have you anything to tell me, Alfie?’ he says. ‘I’m in a hurry, sir,’ I says. ‘Alfie, you shouldn’t have done it,’ he says. ‘Now go in there and take it off again.’ ‘Take what off?’ I says. ‘Take this off,’ he says and he opens my shirt at the front. ‘Blimey,’ he says, ‘That’s out of my top range. Now go on in and take it off before I get annoyed.’

Now one thing I’d learnt even at that age was that you must destroy the evidence, so I thought to myself, there’s only one thing for it – down the hole it goes, and I’ll flush the chain. He was standing outside and he must have read my thoughts. ‘Don’t shove it down the hole, Alfie,’ he says, ‘you’ll only block the plumbing up. The lad before you did that. Just bring the suit out as it is.’ 
I expected him to send for the police or give me a good rucking, but all he did was to take me to his office and give me my week’s wages. ‘Sorry, Alfie,’ he says, ‘I don’t think you’re suitable for this job. Let me know if you want a reference.’ A nice bloke he was, but when I told my step-mum and my dad about what had happened, they said what a horrible thing it was for a chap to look under a lad’s shirt to find his suit. Funny thing, but once you get a taste for that lark, it’s surprising how it sticks with you.

I’m going to call on Gilda this night and I’ve stopped my car at the corner of the street and I’ve seen this Humphrey hanging around.

‘Oh, how go there,’ he said. ‘Is that you?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘I was hoping I might see you,’ he said. He’d only been waiting for me.

‘What about?’

‘It’s about Gilda.’

‘What about her?’

‘Would you like to come for a drink?’ he said.

‘I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ I said. I can’t bear to be with a bloke whose only to do with me is that we both know the same bird.

‘I’ll tell you what I wanted to ask you,’ he said, coming straight out with it at last. ‘Do you intend to marry her?’

He can’t know she’s up the club, I thought. ‘What’s 
that got to do with you?’ I said.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. I’m sorry. I know that’s something between you and her. But I’ve always had a hope she might marry me one day.’

Come to that, I thought, that might be a handy little way out of the whole business. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ I said. ‘You never know your luck.’

‘I have,’ he said. ‘She’s very kind, but she doesn’t want to know. Not that I blame her.’

‘But you felt with me out of the way—’ I said.

‘I suppose you could say that. With the coast clear you never knew what would happen. And I felt if you were only passing the time—’

‘Know what,’ I said, ‘I might be able to put a good word in for you.’

‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I can put my own good words in – once I know I’m in the running.’

‘If she won’t marry you now, mate,’ I said, ‘she’ll never marry you.’ Yet I had to admit to myself there was more to him than I’d thought.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about that, I don’t know at all.’

‘I do,’ I said, ‘so long.’

As I was going off he looked at me and said, ‘Never is a long time.’ I couldn’t make out quite what he meant but he had a funny way of looking. I went into Gilda’s.

Somehow she looked different to me.

‘Hallo, Alfie,’ she said. I gave her a kiss. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ she said.

‘Never shove things at me as soon as I get in, gal,’ I 
said. ‘I always like to get my bearings first.’

‘The kettle’s nearly boiling.’

‘Never mind the kettle,’ I said. ‘Is there any news? Any reports from the front?’

‘What? Oh! No, not yet.’

‘We’ll definitely have to do something about this little lot,’ I said.

‘I’ve tried everything, Alfie,’ she said. I looked at her. ‘I mean everything you hear about, Epsom’s salts, gin, and some pills a girl got me.’

‘You mean you’ve been taking stuff on the quiet?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ she said.

‘You worry me all the more,’ I said. ‘I wondered why you were looking so ropey. You don’t want to make yourself ill, gal.’ I looked at her little face, it looked so white and pinched, I felt a little spasm of sympathy or something come over me. I put my arms round her just to comfort her a bit. She presses close up to me, must be thinking I wanted to make love to her, but to be quite frank it’s the last thing on my mind at that moment.

‘You’re getting very cooey lately, Gilda,’ I said.

She had a hurt look in her eyes and I was sorry I’d spoke. ‘I don’t mind,’ I said, ‘except I don’t like things to be sprung on me, if you see what I mean. I might not be in the mood. Love’s like dancing, Gilda, always take your move from the man, but be quick to follow.’

‘Do you love me, Alfie?’ she said.

‘What have I told you about asking questions like that at awkward times?’ I said. ‘You know. I’ll always 
tell you when I feel like it.’ I was sorry I’d spoke to her like that so I gave her a kiss. ‘Here, you wouldn’t fancy marrying old Humphrey would you?’ I said.

‘Alfie!’ she said.

‘Now don’t get me wrong, gal,’ I said. ‘I just like to see everybody happy.’ The thought went through my mind that they could have made each other happy. ‘It’s regular work, you know.’

‘What is?’

‘Inspecting on the buses,’ I said. ‘They work shifts mostly, so it wouldn’t interfere too much between you and me, except nights would be out.’

She took it quite calmly: ‘When I get married,’ she said, ‘that’s one worry my husband won’t have. It doesn’t matter who he is.’

I could see she meant it. I didn’t know what to say, so I gave her a kiss. Her lips felt very full, juicy and warm. In fact her whole body felt good. ‘I think I will have that coffee after all,’ I said.

‘I’ll not be a minute,’ she said.

I sometimes give way to the quick impulse, but generally speaking it pays to pick the time not let it pick you. She went in to the kitchen and I began to walk about thinking what a mess I’d got myself into. The funny thing was I could remember exactly when it had happened. It was one Sunday tea-time when I hadn’t felt a bit like it and somehow not having my mind on the job I’d been careless. She comes in with the coffee and a big cake on a tray. ‘Where’d you get that from?’ I said.

‘I baked it,’ she said. ‘It’s an old-fashioned fruit cake.’ 
You can say that again, I thought. It seemed like my heart sank. I had a feeling I was being drawn into something all domestified. Funny, but when I took a bite of the cake it tasted quite good.

‘I’ve been thinking, Alfie,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeh,’ I said, not listening to her. I mean what bloke wants to know what a bird has been thinking – what they say is bad enough.

‘Could we go through with it?’ she said.

I’d had a feeling she was going to say something like that and yet it gave me a shock when she said it.

‘Go through with it!’ I said, ‘Blimey, what an ’orrible thought!’ It was too. I hate it when a woman’s got something wrong with her.

‘Don’t worry, Alfie,’ she said.

‘You can talk,’ I said. ‘I ain’t gone through with anything in all my life. I mean I ain’t in no condition for getting hitched up.’

‘You wouldn’t need to,’ she said.

‘I mean if I was to marry you, gal, you might gain a husband,’ I said, ‘but you’d lose a bleedin’ good friend.’

‘I’ve got it all worked out, Alfie.’

‘You ask any
married
woman which she values most,’ I said. ‘They’ve all got husbands, but how many have got good friends? You can turn to a friend, but not to a husband. I don’t know what you’ve got worked out, gal, but you gotta think twice before you turn a little creature out into this world.’

‘I wouldn’t turn him out, Alfie.’

‘I don’t mean
that
turn him out – I mean bring him in.’

‘I’d get him adopted,’ she said.

‘Adopted,’ I said, ‘adopted! Wot are you talking about – adopted?’

‘By a rich woman, see. You can read about it in the papers – how they’re always on the look-out for children to adopt.’

‘A rich woman, yeh, I see wot you mean.’ I’d never thought of that. It suddenly struck me that these rich film stars were often after babies to adopt. I quite fancied the idea of a kid of mine having his own swimming-pool. Not that he could ask me round but you never know.

‘I’d like to do that much for him. I know he’d have a good life then,’ she said.

‘But you can’t be certain there’s something there yet,’ I said, and I patted her little round stomach.

‘In bed last night, Alfie,’ she said, ‘I thought I felt him kick.’

That gave me a right shock. I mean you’re standing there talking to a bird and she’s trying to tell you there’s a kid inside her kicking or something. ‘Kick!’ I said – ‘how the ’ell can they kick? It won’t be the size of my thumbnail.’

‘That’s what they say, Alfie. I don’t know if it’s true. I’ll tell you next time it happens and you can feel.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ I told her. ‘And listen, if you’re going to come out with that sort of chat, I’m off.’

‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Alfie,’ she said. ‘Mrs Artoni used to call her husband when she was like that and it moved.’

‘Mrs Artoni can call who she wants,’ I said, ‘so long as she don’t call me.’ I’m very sensitive about such things. ‘D’you remember that big bird I used to dance with at the Locarno?’

‘You mean the ugly one?’

‘She wasn’t all that ugly, and she was a beautiful dancer. I remember one Sunday night she showed me ’er operation scar what they made when she was a kid. A long scar it was with all white skin round it. Know what – I got straight out of bed, I did, an’ put my clobber on. “What’s up with you?” she says. “I’d sooner go out an’ see a bleedin’ horror film,” I says, “than a thing like that.” It don’t half put me off, it do.’

‘Alfie,’ she said, ‘can I – can I go through with it – and have the baby?’

I looked at her and saw she was near tears and was begging of me as though I could give her the earth. Now at times like that it seems as if the mind in my head turns itself inside-out and I begin to see things in a new light. After all, why should she ask me for anything. I mean, she was nearly making me feel ashamed of myself. ‘What are you asking me for,’ I said. ‘It’s
your’n
, ain’t it. If you set your mind on something you go through with it. I always do. And there’s nobody in the world can stop you.’ She came into my arms and starts sobbing fit to break her heart. ‘Steady on, gal,’ I said.

I could feel her shaking from top to toe. Now if there’s one thing I hate, it’s a bird getting all weepy on me. I mean, what with her face all wet and hot from tears, and the feel of those wet eyelashes on your skin, and the 
funny sounds they make in their throats – I mean short of giving them a swipe across the kisser and telling them to belt up you’ve got to feel with them. And if I once give way to my feelings I get tears come into my eyes, straight up I do, and I get a funny swallowy lump around my adam’s apple. So if a bird hasn’t caught you one way she’s caught you another.

And there she is a-sobbing against me and I know for certain she’s going to mess up the lapel of my jacket but what can you do? Anyway, I pull my jacket out and let her do it against my shirt and pat her back at the same time. Then suddenly, another thought crossed my mind. ‘Here, you ain’t corning it on me, Gilda, are you – trying to swing it?’

‘Swing what?’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘once he’s born swing the old ’filiation order – two nicker a week until he’s sixteen.’

I could see by the way she looked at me the thought had never even entered her head.

‘I think you know me better than that, Alfie,’ she said. I was sorry I’d spoke. That’s my trouble. I no sooner think something than out it comes. I can’t keep anything to myself.