London Blues (18 page)

We are still waiting. Stephen knocks hard again. Twice in rapid succession. The door opens and there is a guy in his late twenties in an Italian-style suit and striped Cecil Gee shirt sporting a Perry Como haircut. The guy doesn’t say anything. He stares at Stephen and then at me and then at the spades. His face is expressionless. Stephen mumbles something to him. I can’t make out what it is. The guy’s eyes look up and back to me and then back to Stephen. Everything seems to be in order. This bloke has seen too many B-films. Petty hoods behave in real life in the way petty hoods do in cheap films. They need to. They need a reference for their manner. By themselves they wouldn’t know what to do. I stare at the guy’s face. Motionless still. It fascinates me. There’s something borderline about him. Borderline psychotic, that is. There’s a slight movement in his head which Stephen recognises as an indication that we can go in. We follow Stephen, who seems to know where he is going because he walks straight down a long bare corridor, through a door and across an open yard and into
the back of another building that faces on to a parallel street. Another bare corridor.

I’m wondering where we are going. The two spades are just passing a joint back and forth.

‘What’s this all about, then?’ whispers Anton, the
ganja
fresh on his breath.

‘Ask Stephen,’ I whisper. ‘You know what I’ve told you and that’s all I know.’

But Stephen is a man on a mission. He has a purpose. Ahead, he stops, opens a door and waves us in. This is a decrepit old bedroom that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the Armistice. There’s a smell of cheap musky perfume and mustiness and cigarette smoke. The curtains are faded with some Edwardian flower pattern on them. There’s a massive old wardrobe with a door hanging off. A dressing table with a cracked mirror. The remains of a coal fire in the grate.

The focal point of the room is a double bed with
monumental
wooden head-and footboards that looks like
something
out of a cemetery.

On the bed is a woman in, I’d guess, her mid-thirties. She’s dressed in an expensively tailored black suit with a white silk blouse. Her long blonde straight hair stretches out on the pillows. She has pearl earrings and a pearl
necklace
. On her fingers are several rings, diamond I would think, including a wedding one. Her skirt is halfway up her thighs and reveals part of her stocking tops. Stephen points at her and says, ‘Let me introduce you, boys. This is Elizabeth.’

Nelson and Anton are smiling the biggest smiles of their lives. They’ve only ever seen class white pussy like this on the cinema screen. They can’t believe their luck. This is what they’ve been dreaming about since they were kids.

‘Elizabeth’, for that cannot be her real name, continues to stare ahead. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t react. I then realise why. She’s neither conscious nor unconscious. She’s hovering between the two not knowing where she is.
She’s been drugged. She tries to say something but the words die in her throat. As I approach the bed I can smell the perfume she is wearing, a more subtle fragrance than the one that pervades the room. She isn’t here out of choice. It’s one thing photographing, say, some randy deb who likes the West Indian brothers; it’s another thing altogether photographing somebody who is coerced into it, who isn’t aware of what’s happening. I don’t want any part of this. I turn to Stephen.

‘What’s all this about? She doesn’t know what’s
happening
to her.’

‘Of course she does. She takes a few pills so she can relax. She likes to be used. She’s a masochist.’

‘And her husband?’

‘He gets his kicks looking at pictures of her getting her kicks.’

Am I being told the truth? She could be some sort of masochist I suppose, but …. Good old
plausible
Stephen.

There’s a young tart in slacks sitting in a worn red armchair on the other side of the bed. I hadn’t noticed her. Mid-twenties. Beehive hairdo. Chewing gum. Slim. Hard lips. She goes to say something to Stephen who smiles at her and lays a forefinger over his lips. Her words freeze in her throat. She remains silent. I want to know who the woman on the bed is. I’m not going to let Stephen off the hook so easily.

‘Before we go any further, Stephen, I want to know who this is. Do you understand that?’

Stephen looks at me and his lips part briefly in a forced smile. He says nothing. I repeat the question.

‘I really don’t think you should trouble yourself about that.’

‘I’m not troubling myself. I just want to know, OK?’

‘If I were just to say that she was a friend of a friend … could we leave it at that?’

That old disarming plausibility. There’s a strained atmosphere here now, even the tart senses it. The spades
don’t. They are still having difficulty believing their luck. They are rarin’ to go.

‘My,’ says Stephen, looking at his watch and feigning agitated concern, ‘look at the time. We really must get a move on!’

Curious phrasing. The statement hangs in the air. Anton and Nelson look at each other – they know what to do but they need someone to say Ready, Steady,
Go
!

‘We must undress her,’ says Stephen to Nelson and Anton. They don’t need telling a second time. They’re on the bed and undoing buttons and belts with a delicate dexterity you would scarcely think possible. ‘But do leave her stockings and suspender belt on.’

‘Sure, governor,’ says one of them.

I watch the spades as they sit the woman up and remove her jacket and blouse. I watch Stephen watching them, his lower lip quivering. This excites him. This is his sexuality. The sexuality of a voyeur. He’s really going to enjoy this evening. I’m not. And if I were to hang around I’d wake up in the morning hating myself. I don’t want any part of this. This is Stephen’s sick scene. He can keep it.

‘I’m off, Stephen. This isn’t for me.’

Stephen stares at me and nods. He understands. He isn’t going to argue. Very well, then.

‘Rosie, could you show Mr Purdom out?’

‘Yes, Dr Ward,’ says the tart as she languidly pushes herself up from the chair.

‘Well then, Tim, I’ll just have to take some amateur snaps with my own little camera … won’t I?’

‘Yeah, happy snapping.’

‘Don’t be long, Rosie. We’ll need you to lend a hand.’

I followed Rosie out and down the corridor and across the yard. Standing in the shadows was the guy in the Cecil Gee shirt smoking a cigarette. He said nothing. He just stared at us as we walked across. Who was he? Was he Rosie’s boyfriend? No, Rosie doesn’t have boyfriends. Rosie only has gentlemen friends.

‘Was that your boyfriend?’

‘Was who my boyfriend?’

‘The bloke in the yard in the suit.’

‘What bloke?’

It was raining again as I walked up St George’s Square and into Lupus Street. I held my camera under my jacket and legged it down to Belgrave Road for a cab. I stood in a doorway of a shop and waited. There were no cabs or buses about. In fact there was hardly any traffic at all. The rain was falling harder now and there was distant thunder.

I thought back to the bedroom and what was going on there now. Who was the guy in the suit? What did he do when he wasn’t keeping an eye on a photographic session like this? Who was the tart? Why was she there? How did Stephen know her? Who was the woman on the bed? Was the story Stephen told me true? It could have been … knowing the sort of people he knows … then, again, there was an equal possibility that it wasn’t … in which case … in which case what? What could I do? What
should
I do? Go to the police and tell them that some woman is being photographed with a couple of West Indians against her will? Yes, sir, and how do you know this? I’d be digging my own grave.

And why had Stephen been so understanding, so very understanding, when I said I was going? Why so obliging? Why couldn’t he take the photos in the first place? He was just too obliging … but perhaps by then he could afford to be. I’d delivered the spades, hadn’t I? I guess that was what it was all about. I don’t know.

Fourth
8mm:

BLACK BUGGERY

150
feet
(
12
minutes
),
black
and
white,
mute.

This was shot at the beginning of June 1962 in Sonny’s basement and features him and a couple of girls from around the corner who I think are both on the game
part-time
. One of them certainly is. I shot it after seeing Jeanne Moreau in
Les
Liaisons
Dangereuses
at the Columbia earlier in the day, which I’d watched just to remind myself what cinema was really all about.

Ronnie had said he wanted a fuck film: ‘Some black guy giving it up the arse to a couple of white mysteries … would be very popular … particularly with the German tourists. They’re always asking for stuff like that.’

I wanted to call it
Zulu
Frolics
but that was overruled. Ronnie said nobody would understand what it was all about with a title like that. Anyway, he came up with
Black
Buggery.
He thought it a gem, and original.

One of the girls – her name was Treena Ellis – was doped up on pills and had needle marks all over her arms. Sonny paid her in pills and told me that he would have to give her ten quid for her daddy (whoever he was). I didn’t argue. Treena was attractive but disintegrating fast.

Mary, the other girl, was from Northern Ireland and
worked as a receptionist in some no-luggage hotel in Leinster Square. She said if I ever wanted to shoot in one of the rooms there she could arrange it. I said I’d bear it in mind. While I was setting up the camera she asked me if she had time to do some knitting before we began? Sonny had been passing a joint around and I just found her
question
so funny, I cracked up. I decided to incorporate this in the action.
Black
Buggery
must be the only blue film showing a girl being buggered while she knits.

When I was talking to Sonny about Eichmann’s hanging a couple of days before, Mary said it was only because he murdered Jews and that if he had killed anyone else they wouldn’t have bothered. She said that next to Catholics the Jews are the most godless and evil race. They should be wiped off the face of the earth. I guess this is the authentic voice of the Ulster Protestant.

Veronica thought the film was shot without any thought or feeling. And she was right. Ronnie thought it was my best yet. He said he’s even going to make some stills from the frames. I asked him if this means I would get a few quid more.

‘No, but I owe you a drink.’

How about increasing my rate anyway?

‘Not the money about right now, son.’

Fifth
8mm:

SCHOOLGIRL FROLICS

125
feet
(
10
minutes
),
black
and
white,
mute.

This was shot in Frank’s new room over on Harrow Road on a Saturday night in the middle of August.

I got there early and found Frank cutting out pictures of Marilyn Monroe and sticking them on the wall. He was always a big fan of Marilyn’s and still couldn’t believe she had just committed suicide. Frank always liked them big, busty and glamorous.

He was pretty sloshed and had been drinking most of the day. He said he had to rush off and meet someone down
in Paddington and could I pay him for the use of the room now? Sure. I gave him the fiver and he buzzed off, but not before saying to me, ‘I don’t want your slags messing up the bathroom or the bed and I don’t want come stains all over the mirror.’ I told him this was an all-girl film and I think he wished he could have stayed.

About twenty minutes later the bell went and it was a girl Stephen had sent along, Maureen. She was tall, about 5ft. 6in., and slim without any noticeable tits. She was about nineteen or twenty years of age. Her black hair was long and straight, almost down to her waist. She was wearing a white dress with white stiletto shoes and carrying a white handbag. I was smoking some charge which she didn’t want so I made her a gin and tonic (not Frank’s, I had brought a bottle along myself).

I asked her what she did.

‘I’m a secretary but I want to be a model. Stephen said he is going to help me. He knows all the people in modelling. He can get me on a modelling course.’

She had emptied the glass in about two gulps and she held it out to me for another one. I filled her up and asked her how long she had known Stephen, knowing what the answer would be. ‘Just a couple of weeks. I met him at a friend’s. Then I met him again at a party.’

‘How come you’re here?’

‘Here? This was the address he gave me.’

‘I don’t mean
here
… I mean doing this. I mean why are you going to do … appear … in this?’

‘Something to do … a bit of a laugh.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. That’s all.’

‘Have you ever been in any other blue films?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been in any photographs?’

‘Photographs?’

‘Yes, blue photographs?’

Maureen was silent. She stared at her drink like it wasn’t
there and then she quickly raised the glass and took a long, slow mouthful. Her eloquent silence hung heavily in the room.

‘Were these with Stephen?’

After a pause: ‘Stephen was there.’

Stephen was there. Not with Stephen, but Stephen was
there.
What was Stephen doing, a spot of dusting in the background? Making the cheese sandwiches in the kitchen while the boys and girls enjoyed themselves? I wanted to ask her and yet I didn’t want to know. I changed tack.

‘What did Stephen say to you about tonight?’

‘Nothing much really.’

‘He must have said something.’

‘Just would I like to appear in a film.’

‘And you said yes?’

‘I did.’

‘So Stephen just sidles up to you at a party, asks you how you are, and then says would you like to appear in a film? You instinctively know what sort of film and, Bob’s your uncle, you’re here?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. Now what did he say?’

‘He asked me if I’d like to appear in a film.’

‘How did he describe the film?’

‘He said it was with some other girls … that’s all.’

‘Stephen thought it would be a good idea for you to appear in it?’

‘Yes. He thought it might be good … good experience.’

There was something Maureen wasn’t telling me and wouldn’t tell me. This cyclical cross-examination was spiralling away from what I wanted to know. But I didn’t know what I wanted to know. And was Maureen aware of it anyway? Did she know something that she knew I shouldn’t know?

‘Stand up, Maureen.’

‘Why?’

‘Please, just stand up.’

Maureen put her glass down on the carpet and stood up in front of me. She placed her hands just below her breasts and brushed the folds out of her dress. She stood
motionless
, her lower lip pouting slightly. I stared into her eyes and then looked her up and down.

‘Turn round.’

Maureen did as she was told.

I stood up. I parted her hair and kissed her on the nape of the neck. She neither moved nor said anything. I then began unbuttoning the back of her dress.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Undoing your dress.’

‘If you want to make love we better be quick … before the others arrive.’

And exactly then the bell went. The others had arrived. Damn and fuck! Maureen turned and held my face in her hands and kissed me lightly on the lips.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Me too … and I want you to go now.’

‘Why? You haven’t done the film yet.’

‘I know. I don’t want you in the film and I don’t want you to see Stephen again … ever.’

‘He’ll be very angry with me.’

‘Fuck him. So what? He can’t do anything to you, can he?’

The bell rang again several times.

‘Don’t see him. He’ll never help you. It’s all talk with him. Nothing more. He’ll just get you involved in all sorts of crazy scenes.’

Maureen followed me down the stairs and disappeared into the Saturday night crowds as Valerie and Christine, two contacts of Veronica’s from the salon, tumbled in.

‘Not disturbing anything, are we?’

‘We’re only doing this if we can wear masks.’

I’m quite sure that Maureen ignored my advice. I’ll never know, but I’d bet a pound to a pinch of shit it went in one ear and out the other.

As for the masks, Ronnie thought they added a bit of mystery to the movie. ‘A bit of tantalising intrigue, son.’

When I got back to the room that evening Veronica was propped up in bed reading some glossy magazine.

‘How did it go?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Uh-huh. I want a cuddle.’

‘I’ll give you a cuddle and that’s all. You know I never feel like it after a session. It puts me off a bit. It really does.’

‘Oh, yeah. Stephen phoned. Important. Can you call him.’

‘What,
now
?’

‘Whenever you got in,’ he said.

I sorted out some pennies and walked down the stairs to the hall. I put the pennies in the box, dialled his number and waited. I only had to wait about ten seconds until it was answered. I pushed the button.

‘Stephen?’

‘A real raver, isn’t she?’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Maureen. The girl I sent round. A real raver.’

‘Maureen, yeah.’

‘Well, isn’t she?’

‘She wasn’t suitable.’

‘What do you mean she wasn’t suitable? All the girls I send you are suitable.’

‘This one wasn’t.’

‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

‘Just what I say. She wasn’t suitable.’

‘You didn’t use her?’

‘Right. I didn’t use her. She wasn’t suitable.’

‘I went to great trouble …’

‘Don’t tell me you went to great trouble. That ain’t my problem. I have who I want in my films. Got that?’

‘It was important that …’

Stephen never finished the sentence. What was
important
?
What did he start to say that he didn’t complete? I was now too tired to worry. Another day perhaps, but not now.

‘Don’t you ever do this again to me, Timmy.’

‘Get lost!’

‘I wanted her in that film!’

‘You’ll have to be satisfied with the photos you’ve already got … OK?’

Stephen went silent. I kicked myself for letting him know that I knew about them. I kicked myself again for betraying Maureen’s confidence. I shouldn’t have said it. Damn. Stephen was still silent. I was too angry with myself to say anything.

‘Did Maureen say anything … else?’

‘Nothing else.’

‘Perhaps we had both better get some sleep.’

‘Yes.’

I hung up and punched the coinbox. Can’t I keep a secret? OK then, so I let that slip. What’s the worst that’s going to happen to Maureen? Stephen doesn’t invite her around any more? Isn’t that what I wanted anyway?

Sixth
8mm:

THE RANDY FRENCH MAID 

150
feet
(12
minutes),
black
and
white,
mute.

October 1962. Three days into the countdown for the start of World War III wasn’t the best time to shoot a blue film. In fact, it wasn’t the best time to do anything, I thought. My actor and actresses in this little epic didn’t read
newspapers
, watch TV or listen to the radio and were deliriously ignorant about what was going on in Castro’s principality. President Kennedy had said there were Russian nuclear missile sites in Cuba and that he was imposing an arms blockade on the country. Russian ships were sailing out there and God knows what would happen when they came upon the patrolling US vessels. This time next week we could be atomised, a billion zillion fragmented bits of
matter in deep space. Nothing at all surviving. Not even a memory. Armageddon in spades. The Twilight of the Gods.

I sometimes felt I was the only person out on the street who took this Cuba crisis seriously. People’s perceptions of nuclear weapons are so uninformed. Veronica said that if push came to shove and a couple of nuclear bombs went off it would only mean a few large craters here and there. Nothing to worry about. Pamela, the girl in the film, the randy French maid herself, said fallout wasn’t at all dangerous, the wind just blew it away in any case (!). I sometimes feel I am surrounded by idiots, and wilful idiots at that.

The
Randy
French
Maid
was shot in the Hotel Exquisite on the north side of Leinster Square just down the road from me in Bayswater. This is the hotel Mary, the Ulster Protestant, works in and she had fixed me up with one of their bigger rooms for the evening. I gave her a fiver for the favour in addition to the tenner she got for performing.

Trevor, a minicab bloke I know from Notting Hill, plays a businessman. He checks into a hotel at night and tries to get some sleep. He can’t, he’s too restless. Then the French maid walks in to do the room. She’s played by a buxom girl Stephen sent round named Pamela Page, another erstwhile model who currently works for a dress manufacturer down in Margaret Street. She turned up with her own French maid costume in a carrier bag.

The maid is all tits and thighs and soon she and Trevor are at it and then Mary walks in, surprises them, and joins in for a Chelsea sandwich. The story is shit and I didn’t even attempt to explain Mary’s presence.

Ronnie thought the film was pretty good and paid me on the spot. He said he had never seen a girl suck with the enthusiasm that Mary showed. Where could he contact her? I told him to phone the Hotel Exquisite.

There was an eeriness about in London as the Cuba crisis progressed. I think the facts had finally got through even to
the idiots. If this was going to be the end it was going to be the End for all time. And even if there were any survivors they would soon be, in that grim phrase of Herman Kahn’s, envying the dead.