Mr Lonely

Sid sat down on the stage close to the table where the woman was and helped himself to a glass of her wine. ‘A girl hippy said to another girl hippy, “Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz?” The other girl hippy says, “No, but I bet it must be painful!” Now, listen. A poem. I know you like poems …

A lovely young girl called Lavern

Was so great she had lovers to burn.

She got into bed with Arthur and Fred,

But didn’t know which way to turn.

Now, listen. Don’t get carried away … You’ll like this one, sir. May I ask? Is this your wife? Is she your wife, sir?’

The man nods.

‘I took my wife to the doctor’s this morning and he said to her, “Open your mouth and say moo.” You’ll like this one, sir. This could be you. A handsome husband … Why is your wife laughing, sir? A handsome husband, whose wife was a raver. I said you’d like this one, sir. “I’ve found a new position,” he tells her. “Great,” his wife says, “which way?” He says, “Back to back.” She says, “Back to back? How can that be done?” The husband says, “I bring home another couple.” I knew you’d like it. I have to go now. One more poem before I go and lie down. Poem …

A ballerina with very big feet

Would give all the stagehands a treat.

But if they asked for a ride,

She’d blush and she cried,

“It would ruin my nutcracker suite.”

See you later, folks.’

The music would start and Sid would run off to a fairly good response. They would not go mad for him because they realized he was coming back throughout the evening.

Twenty minutes later, Sid was back on stage, and happy. ‘Always happy when I’m out there working.’ He had been on for maybe ten or twelve minutes, handing out bouquets of flowers to the silver weddings, the twenty-firsts, the eighteenths, newly-weds and the engagements. As a matter of fact, Sid could present a bouquet to anyone. He was good at that. He’d been at it now for almost two years, night after night. He knew his audience, but more important, his audience knew him. They accepted him. It had been said that Sid could present a bouquet to a dead body and have the body go off smiling. The hard part was getting the body to come on, there being very few places on that small stage for it to lean against.

Perspiration was beginning to dampen his shirt collar. He undid his tie and opened his top shirt-button. It gave the impression he was working hard. He walked about the stage in the spotlight that followed him like the light of the top tower in a jail break at Sing Sing. The mike was almost glued to his lips. He never stopped talking. He was never at a loss for a word or an ad lib. His style was fast and full of energy. Nothing subtle and no fear. If he saw a woman in the audience with a large bust, he would go straight to her, look directly into her eyes and say, ‘We have our own bouncers here, lady. But I see you’ve brought your own, or are you just breaking them in for a friend?’ The table she was on would erupt into gales of laughter, the tables closeby would look and laugh, while the rest of the audience would carry on eating and talking, but Sid would walk around and within a second would come out with, ‘Here … no … listen. Have you heard the one about the Irishman?’ Then he would go into his latest Irish joke, this being the one he had heard from the petrol attendant on his way to the club that night.

‘I do POWER comedy,’ he used to say. ‘Never give the punters time to think.’ He would walk, talk, ask, beg and shout at the punters to help him get a laugh.

On stage with him were a young couple.

‘So, Sharon, your name is Sharon, isn’t it, Sharon?’ Sid put his mike to her mouth and Sharon nodded. He put the mike back to his own lips, ‘And your name, sir?’

‘Mar’in.’

‘Martin. Well, it’s nice to have you both with us. Sharon and Martin.’

The young couple shuffled about, Sharon on her six-inch wedges and Martin on his size-twelve Kickers.

Sid looked into the blackness of the moving, eating, talking noise. ‘Because tonight, ladiesandgennelmen, Sharon and Martin are here to celebrate their engagement. So how about a round of applause for Sharon and Martin?’

A table thirty or forty feet away from the stage whistled and applauded.

‘How old are you, Martin?’

‘Nine’een.’

‘Nineteen,’ Sid bellowed. ‘And Sharon, how old are you?’ he asked in a much softer voice.

‘Seveneenanaalf,’ she giggled.

‘Seventeen and a half.’

Sharon tried to hold Martin’s hand. Martin, embarrassed, slimed out of her grasp.

‘So what are you going to do with these lovely flowers, Sharon?’

‘Give’m to me mum.’

e’Give them to her mother,’ Sid told everyone. ‘What do you say to that, Martin?’

‘Sawrye.’

‘Well, we hope you’ll both be very happy. How about a big hand, ladiesandgennelman, for The Two Ronnies?’ Sid handed Sharon the bouquet. ‘Sharon and Martin, ladiesandgennelmen.’

The young couple headed towards the dark safety of the audience. Martin, in front of his future wife, suddenly stopped, while still on the edge of the bright circle of spotlight, and put both arms above his head and thumped the empty air in the same way he had seen football players do after scoring the only goal of the game with no more than thirty seconds left for play, including time added on for stoppages. He seemed to realize that this was probably the last time so many people would be watching him at one given moment. Then Sharon and Martin were enveloped by the blackness and the nothingness of the future.

‘Here, now listen,’ Sid said. ‘Have you heard about the Arab and the Jew shopping in Golders Green?’ He told his latest Arab and Jew joke. It got its quota of laughs. ‘And now, ladiesandgennelman …’ Without turning round, Sid pointed to the drummer, who gave a cymbal crash followed by three rim shots like a machine gun that only had three bullets left. Sid then changed his voice to a much lower and more serious tone, as if he was going to introduce Dean Martin at the Sands in Las Vegas. ‘The management of the Starlight Rooms, East Finchley, would now like to present …’ A slight pause; an attention-getter, an old pro’s trick to make the audience think maybe the star is coming on. A few heads turned towards him, still chewing their chicken-in-a-basket. ‘A special bouquet,’ Sid smarmed. ‘The last bouquet.’

The few heads turned back and tried to find their food.

‘I know it’s the last bouquet because it’s eleven-thirty and the cemetery across the road closes at eleven.’

The noise was getting louder because the punters were getting bored with bouquets. The bar at the back was packed with people trying to get all their drinks to take back to their tables to swim in while the star was on, because in the star’s contract there was a clause forbidding the bar to remain open while the said star was performing. The punters knew this. They even knew how much the star was getting and, in some cases, how much in ‘readies’.

Sid carried on, ‘To someone you all know and love. The ex-resident singer of the Starlight Rooms—Miss Shelley Grange. How about a big round of applause for Shelley ladies and gennelmen?’

Sid’s delivery was now getting louder and faster. It was almost like Kermit the Frog. He knew nobody out there was interested in Shelley Grange. Hell fire—she even talked off-key! He was now having to battle, but the management, Manny and Al Keppleman, had insisted he did this because Manny, unknown to Al, and Al, unknown to Manny, had both been having naughties with Shelley, known to everyone. So tonight she was being thanked publicly. Even the group was smiling, all except the drummer, as he’d joined after Shelley had left.

‘Come on up, Shelley,’ Sid said, putting his hands together as if in prayer.

Shelley made her way up from one of the front tables looking completely surprised, which made Sid think, She’s a good little actress as well, seeing that it was all planned yesterday.

The group was playing one of her songs, ‘I Did It my Way’. Shelley—her real name was Minnie Schoenberg—glided on to the small stage, her candy-floss hair so lacquered, it almost cracked as she walked. She had a good figure, leaning slightly towards plumpness. Her dress was a mass of silver flashing sequins, and as she made her way towards the stage she reminded Sid of a very pretty Brillo pad.

She was now on stage with Sid and the dutiful applause faded very quickly. A few voices from the area of the bar shouted incoherent ruderies, followed by loud guffaws of beer-brave laughter.

Sid boomed, ‘Welcome back, Shelley. It’s great to see you again.’

Shelley smiled at Sid and the audience. Her blonde hair crackled in the spotlight. She turned to the group, the Viv Dane Stompers, affectionately known as the V-Ds. The boys grinned back. In the wings, another blonde in a tight blue flashing dress watched Shelley. She was Serina, the new resident singer. They looked at each other with exposed teeth and four dead eyes.

Sid shouted, ‘Ladiesandgennelmen, we’ve invited Shelley back to the Starlight Rooms tonight because a little bird has told us that Shelley is getting married next month to a—’

‘Next week,’ Shelley said.

‘Why? Can’t you wait?’ Sid spurted out. He went on, ‘—next week to a friend of all of us, our own bar manager, Giorgio Richetti. How about a round of applause for Giorgio-Richettiladiesandgennelmen?’ Apart from Shelley’s own table, the loudest applause for Giorgio came from just outside the office door—Al and Manny.

‘Come on up, Giorgio,’ Sid shouted.

Giorgio was guided by his eight friends at his table, all men, all Italian, all in tuxedo suits, all applauding, all looking as if they were waiting for Jimmy Cagney to walk in and say, ‘Okay, you dirty rats.’ Giorgio was up there with Shelley and Sid. Six foot two inches, black shiny hair, black dress-suit, a full black moustache and a large black bowtie. He stood there looking like a rolled umbrella.

For all the audience cared, Shelley and Giorgio could be in Manchester. Waiters were trying to clear the plates off the tables, waitresses, in their bunny-type costumes, were leaning forward showing cleavage at the front and white, tailed bums up in the air at the back.

‘What was that, sir?’ one of them asked.

‘Four pints of lager, two large whiskies, one with American Dry, one without, both with ice. A dry martini and lemonade and … What’s yours having, Bert?’

‘A snowball.’

‘And a snowball for the lady.’

‘We haven’t got any snowballs, sir.’

‘No snowballs, Bert.’

‘What? Right—a Babycham.’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can, sir.’

‘Good girl.’

Sid was now sweating. He welcomed Giorgio aboard.

‘Thatsa very nice.’

‘Where are you going for your honeymoon, Shelley?’

‘Give her one for me, Giorgio,’ echoed around the club, followed by laughter from an understanding friend.

‘Well, actually, we were thinking of going …’

‘We go to Italy to asee ma Mamma,’ Giorgio told the microphone. ‘Then we’re staying ina Rome to open the restaurant.’

Yes, with oneze twoze money you’ve stolen from the club. Sixty for the till and forty fora the pocket, Sid thought to himself. He said, ‘How wonderful. Will you be singing for the customers in your restaurant, Shelley?’

‘Shella have no time for the singing. Shella be helping Mamma with the cooking.’

‘So … er … yes, how about tonight, Shelley? How about doing a song for us tonight?’

The front table jumped up as if they had been given a command and started to applaud. The group went into the intro of ‘Blue Moon’. Serina almost stood on the stage to see Shelley work. Sid gave two bouquets of flowers to Giorgio, one from Al and one from Manny. Giorgio returned to gangland and Sid walked off backwards to the protection of the curtains, where he downed an already-waiting cold lager. In twenty minutes he would have to be out there again to introduce a star, the new recording sensation from America—Loose Benton. One hit record in the States and now struggling. That’s why he was in England. He couldn’t get himself arrested in the States. His gimmick was a gravel voice and every few bars he would drop to his knees and move around the floor singing like a doped-up limbo dancer.

Shelley finished her last note of ‘Blue Moon’ and the punters moved around talking to each other. Shelley did very well for applause, mostly from the eight Italians. Serina walked away thinking, She won’t be hard to follow!

Shelley returned to the mafia. A waitress said, ‘I got a snowball for you.’ The group were already on their second beer before the echo of the last note of ‘Blue Moon’ had died away. The stage was empty.

Sid had gone to say hello to Loose Benton in his dressing-room and ask him if there was anything special he would like him to say when he was being introduced. He walked past his own room towards the star’s dressing-room. In the Starlight Rooms, like most of the other clubs up and down the country, there were four or five dressing-rooms for the artists and the band, group, etc, but there was always one star dressing-room. The other rooms had the look of broom cupboards. In the Starlight Rooms there were four. One for Sid, one for the singer, and a third for the group, but usually they came to the club already dressed for the show so theirs had become more of a pub than a dressing-room. It was the room in which everyone stubbed out their cigarettes and left their half-empty and empty tins of beer. If you happened to get cornered by anyone in that room for any length of time you came out smelling like a very old Guinness.

Sid had reached the star’s room. This room was large, beautifully decorated, private toilet, changing room, lounge, drinks cabinet with drinks, including champagne, fridge, mirrors with lights all the way round them, colour television, wall-to-wall carpeting, very comfortable settee and easy chairs. Sid knocked on the highly polished door just below an enormous star with ‘Loose Benton’ written in the centre of it.

‘Yeh?’

‘Sid Lewis.’

‘What?’

‘Sid Lewis.’

The door opened about two inches and a big, male, brown eye looked into Sid’s pale blue one.

‘Huh?’

‘I’m Sid Lewis, the compère, you know—the MC. May I ask someone what Mr Benton wants me to say about him to the audience before he goes on, or will he leave it to …?’

The eye left Sid’s eye and the door closed. Sid heard a muffled version of what he had just said. The door opened wider this time. ‘Come in,’ said Old Brown Eye.

The door was closed behind him. Everyone in the room was black, with the exception of a white waiter dispensing drinks. They all turned their faces towards Sid.

Sid smiled. ‘Good evening, gentlemen. I’m Sid. Sid Lewis. I’m the MC.’

A man walked towards him. ‘Hi, Sid. I’m Loose Benton.’ They shook hands.

Loose, as his name implied, was loose. He moved like a sack of coke, tall, elegant, an easy smile, and teeth as white as half the keys of a new Steinway. He was wearing a white three-piece suit, black open-necked shirt, black crocodile shoes and a large brim-down-at-the-back-style white hat, with a black headband. Bloody hell, Sid said to himself. He looks like a negative.

Aloud he said, ‘Er, is there anything you would like me to tell the audience while I’m introducing you?’

‘Anything you wanna say, man.’

‘Just get the name right, kid,’ a black manager said.

‘He’ll get the name right, Irving.’ Loose grinned Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. ‘How about a drink, Sid?’

‘That’s very kind. I’ll have … er … a Scotch on the … er … rocks, please.’

‘Waiter, get our guest a drink.’

Loose left him and went to join the others. Sid was given his drink by the most miserable looking man he had ever seen. He said his ‘Cheers’ and began to sip his whiskey and ice. He tried to figure out who the other people in the room were, whilst, at the same time, trying to hold polite conversation with anyone who would look at him and answer. The big fella with the pink, frilly dress-shirt—he must be about sixteen stone. He’s walking about tidying things—he’ll be his minder, Sid said to himself. To no one in particular he said, ‘Terrible weather.’

‘Pouring down when I came in,’ the waiter replied.

‘Yeh,’ muttered Sid into his drink.

‘Waiter, fill up the glasses!’ This command came from a middle-sized man wearing thin checked pants of bright red tartan, brown and white two-tone shoes, a thin blue tartan jacket and a pink T-shirt with ‘I’m a fairy’ written on it. Obviously his dresser, thought Sid.

The waiter unhappily refilled the drinks. Sid said, ‘No thanks.’

The waiter whispered, ‘I hope it’s stopped raining.’ He looked even more miserable. ‘I hate that bloody moped when it’s raining.’

Sid nodded.

There were two more left to figure out. The first one; dress-suit, smart, middle-aged, hardly smiles, hardly speaks. Sid had a bet with himself—musical director. Got to be. The other one; day-suit, talks in a whisper—manager/ agent.

The waiter slid over to Sid. ‘If you go to the toilet, look out of the window and see if it’s still raining,’ he whispered.

‘You worked here long, Sid?’ Loose asked. The waiter scuttled away.

‘Two years now.’

‘Good audience tonight?’

‘It’s packed,’ said the day-suit.

I was right, Sid smiled to himself. He’s the manager. Aloud he said, ‘Yes, they’re great and just waiting for you. Anyway, I’ll go and stand by so I’ll see you in about five minutes. Oh … and thanks for the drink.’

‘Any time, man. Come back after the show.’

Loose put his hands out to be slapped. Sid was slightly confused. He had only ever seen that done on television so he played safe. He put his own hands out to be slapped. Loose looked at them, then back to Sid, smiled the Emperor Concerto, slapped his hands and went in to the toilet.

Sid walked towards the door. As he opened it he came face to face with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen—black is beautiful—and very tall. He was at a loss for words.

Someone said, ‘Hi, baby.’

The waiter walked over to her and said, ‘Is it still raining, miss?’

‘It’s pissing down, turkey,’ she smiled.

CHAPTER FOUR

June, 1976

Sid walked past Serina’s open dressing-room door. Serina had been with the club for a few weeks or thereabouts. As Sid glanced in, he saw twenty-five years of body, forty-five years of experience and thirty-eight inches of bust. He said his usual evening ‘Hello’.

Her answer was usually, and without looking up, ‘Hi.’ But tonight it was, ‘Hello, Sid. Good audience. You did well. Got some enormous laughs.’

The sentence was long enough to make him stop and answer back, ‘Yes, they are good. A lot of coach parties. Have you settled in?’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s a great place to work. Al and Manny are a couple of nice guys and, if you’re on time, easy to work for.’

Sid was blocking the narrow corridor. Two or three people were trying to squeeze by. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to a ventriloquist.

‘That’s okay,’ said the ventriloquist. ‘Just greathe in and we’ll all ge agle to get kassed,’ said the ventriloquist’s dummy.

‘You’d better come in,’ Serina smiled. He did. ‘And close the door. I’m sorry. The room isn’t really big enough for two people. If you sit here, Sid, I’ll be able to take my make-up off.’

‘Thanks.’ He sat down.

‘You put a few different ones in tonight,’ she said. ‘What was that one about “together at last”?’

‘Oh, that’s the prostitute one. You know, about the scrubber who dies, and on her gravestone she had written “Together at last”, and someone asks if she has been buried with her husband, and the scrubber’s friend says, “No, dearie, she means her legs!” ‘

Serina laughed out loud. It was one of the dirtiest laughs Sid could remember. It sounded like the last quarter of an inch of a squirting soda-siphon bottle. ‘That’s funny. Oh, yes, I like that one,’ she coughed. ‘I thought you worked well tonight.’

‘That’s very kind, Serina,’ he said, slightly embarrassed.

‘Could you pass those tissues?’ He did as asked. ‘Thank you. Do you like my work?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, a shade too quickly.

‘I’ve never seen you watching me.’

‘You wouldn’t. I always go out front to watch you,’ he lied.

‘Drink?’

‘What have you got?’

‘I’ve got half a bottle of whiskey, or a full bottle of Scotch.’

‘And you?’ Sid asked.

‘Maybe.’ A slight pause. ‘Later.’

Nudge, nudge, hint, hint went through Sid’s mind.

‘I have to change. Please help yourself.’

‘To what?’ Sid smiled.

‘You’ll find all you want under my slip, the one on the table,’ she said slowly. ‘You have to hide the drinks in this place.’

‘Don’t I know. Mine’s under the sink in a locked suitcase and the suitcase is chained to the wall.’

Serina made her way to the corner of the room. ‘Turn round while I change. No, darling, not towards me, the other way, and don’t look in the mirror. It could steam up.’

Sid poured his drink, turned his back and relaxed. No way was he going to look in the mirror, when, if he played his cards right, he’d be able to see the real thing. After a few audible tugs and pulls, sounds of opening and closing zips, followed by clicking of wire hangers, Serina said, ‘Pour me a small one, Sid angel. I’m almost dressed.’ Sid did as he was asked, never once looking in the mirror.

‘Okay to turn round?’

‘Didn’t you even peek?’

‘You told me not to.’

‘Do you always do as you’re told?’

‘It depends how big the bed is.’ He gave her the drink.

‘There isn’t room for one here. That’s for sure.’ She sipped the drink. ‘Well, I’m through for the night. How about you?’

‘Yes, if I want to, or I could go on and thank them after Frank’s finished but I don’t have to. Al and Manny like me to do it. They say it’s good policy.’

‘They’re not here tonight,’ Serina said. ‘They’re in Stoke. They’ve gone to Jollees and they’re staying overnight.’

‘Oh.’ A slight pause. ‘How do you know?’

‘You’ll have to take my word for it,’ she smiled.

‘You going home now?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘Er … yes,’ answered Sid.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Not far—Friern Barnet. You?’ He stood up.

‘Ballards Lane,’ she said.

‘Ballards Lane. I go past there every night—near the Gaumont, North Finchley.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Good God.’

‘Pass me that umbrella, sweetheart.’

Come on, Sid, think quicker, she’s almost leaving, he thought. Aloud he said, ‘You live there with your folks?’

‘No.’

‘Husband?’

‘No. I’m not married.’

‘I am.’ Might as well get that part straight.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Oh.’

‘So?’

‘Fella? You live with your fella, then?’ He tried to be casual, as if he asked all women that question every day, even his mother.

‘I like too much freedom for anything like that.’

‘Right!’

‘I have a flat in Ballards Lane and it’s mine.’

‘Maybe I could drop you off?’

‘I have a car, Sid.’

‘Oh.’ He was losing ground rapidly and she knew it. ‘Oh, well. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow and I’ll supply the booze.’

‘What time do you normally get home?’ She was fastening her coat. ‘If you stay and do your bit at the end?’

‘Any time. Two, three, three-thirty. Any time,’ he said.

‘What’s the time now?’

Sid looked at his watch. It said eleven-forty-five. ‘Eleven-thirty.’

‘Do you fancy a drink?’

‘At your place?’

‘Where else? Unless you think your wife wouldn’t mind you bringing me home to have a drink at your place and, of course, we could keep very quiet and only have a soft drink.’ She laughed again. This time the laugh was like a set of poker dice being shaken in a pewter tankard.