Flaming Sussex

IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED. Frankly, if you can’t get exactly what you need in the East End on a Saturday night, there must be something wrong with you – something seriously wrong with you.

After the relaxation and rigours of the vapour bath, I had adjourned to a pub nearby for light refreshments and to enjoy the company of people who certainly looked like, but who may or may not have been, thieves, prostitutes and ponces. One should never judge by appearances, of course, according to Morley. One should be open-minded. One should take people as you find them. The only problem is, when you take people as you find them, you’ll often find that they’ll already have taken you – in every sense – for everything. After a couple of hours of drinking and singing around the piano, I somehow found myself taking up the generous offer of hospitality and a bed for the night by a sharp-suited Limehouse chap I’d never met before and a couple of his lovely female companions. I did not judge them by appearances, being entirely incapable of doing so – and it turned out, alas, contra-Morley, that this sharp-suited individual with his female companions was indeed a ponce with his prostitutes, but I was determined I was not going to allow them to prove themselves also as thieves.

I awoke early after our long and largely sleepless night, having eventually fallen into an unsettling dream in which I was sitting with a man at a large glass table, drinking champagne, him wearing a silk suit and brightly polished shoes, and with a set of scales before him and saying he had a special present for me. At least, I think it was a dream. What woke me was the sound of birds.

At St George’s, in the cottage that Morley had provided for me in the grounds of the estate, I would often wake to the sound of birdsong. All else there was silence, though if you listened carefully you could hear not only the sound of water bubbling and swirling in the faraway streams and in the cottage well, you could actually hear your blood coursing through your veins. It was unsettling, the country.

But in London: birdsong?

I remember being momentarily confused. I lay gazing at a crack in the ceiling above me, through which it would have been possible to insert my fist.

Was that the sound of birds?

Was I in Norfolk?

Or was I back in Spain?

Was I dreaming?

It was definitely the sound of birds. Lots of birds.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see empty beer bottles and cigarette butts piled in a saucer. The place, wherever it was, seemed dirty and unloved. I raised myself up on my elbow. There was a woman lying asleep beside me.

And then I remembered.

It had been a very long night.

I turned my head. My clothes lay discarded on the floor. The Limehouse chap and another woman lay sleeping in a bed opposite. There was a lighted cigarette smouldering in an ashtray on an upturned case by the bed, and what looked like a fresh glass of whisky perched precariously next to it.

I took some deep breaths and then coughed quietly in order to gauge any response.

Nothing.

Having thus determined to my satisfaction that my new friends were either fast asleep or at least innocently dozing, I rose quickly and quietly, intent on hanging on to whatever remained of my dignity and in my wallet, gathered up my clothes and fled from the room, down a dark stairway and along a corridor towards a door.

It was precisely at that moment, cold and ashamed, and the previous evening’s activities returning clearly to my mind, that I determined that I should no longer live my life as a slave to my whims and desires, or indeed as a slave to the whims and desires of others, but that I should once again attempt to master myself and my destiny. It was then that I determined that I had had enough of being used by life, by London, and by everyone. Morley believed that on our grand tour we were surveying one of the great wonders of the world – Great Britain – and London of course, as it always has, believed it was the great city in this Great Britain, but at that time, in those years, it felt nothing like great and I felt nothing but forever lost and losing, a man condemned to life on a slowly sinking ship.

Stumbling as I reached the door, I thought I heard movement from my companions up above, and so fled from this latest prison of my temporary lodgings with new resolve – and into a scene of utter chaos.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_1bd7b917-07b5-5038-8da3-82f59b0f5ea5)

IT WAS THE SOUND OF BIRDS, and it was the sound as much as the sight that struck me, a cacophony of whistles and trills, accompanied by the bass-soprano of the voices of men and women, and the deeply disturbing sound of whimpering animals.

‘Pretty foreign birds! Pretty foreign birds!’

Out on the street, as far as the eye could see, piled one upon the other, there were cages full of birds: larks, thrushes, canaries, pigeons and parrots. There were also dogs and cats in boxes, and chickens and snakes and gerbils and guinea pigs and weasels and tortoises, and goodness knows what else, animals of every kind everywhere. Here, a new-born litter of puppies tumbling over each other in a child’s cot being used as a makeshift pen. There, a raggedy black rooster peering out of an old laundry basket. And endlessly, everywhere you looked, there were bulldogs and boxers and pit bulls straining at their leashes, restrained by men who looked like bulldogs, boxers and pit bulls straining at their leashes. It was a Noah’s Ark, with flat caps and cobbles.

I’d forgotten about the market.

On Sundays, in those days, the centre of London shifted; it went east to Bethnal Green and its environs, from the junction with Bethnal Green Road and Shoreditch High Street, onto Sclater Street and Chance Street and Cheshire Street: here, on Sundays, you could buy and sell just about anything. Petticoat Lane, down by Aldgate, became the people’s Piccadilly, the mecca for cheap, cheerful and ‘unofficial’ goods: on Sundays, the East End became the dirty, cracked dark mirror of the West.

And here I was, in the midst of it, Club Row Market – the place where the working men and women of London came for their animals. A nightmare of containment and enclosure.

As I shut the door behind me and entered the chaos, I remember looking up and noting that opposite, across the road, there was a wet fish shop with the traditional, unnecessary sign outside, ‘Fresh Fish Sold Here’. (This sort of signage was one of Morley’s many bugbears, addressed in one of his popular, hectoring Some Dos and Don’ts pamphlets, Shop Signage: Some Dos and Don’ts. ‘We know it’s “Here”, because it’s here, we know it is being “Sold” because it is a shop, and if not “Fresh”, then, frankly, what? So “Fish”, in short, for a fish shop, will suffice.’) A man in a white apron stood outside the ‘Fish’ shop, scooping jet-black, chopped, gelatinous jellied eels into white enamel bowls: the mere sight of it made me want to retch; I had to struggle to contain myself. Pausing mid-scoop, as if having sensed my dis-ease, the man in the apron looked across at me and scowled in disapproval. Gagging rather, I glanced away to see standing directly in front of me an elderly gentleman in a fez selling hot roasted nuts from a pan heated over a metal drum of embers set upon a simple wooden trolley. I could feel the heat on my skin. This man too looked directly at me and shook his head, acknowledging and also somehow regretting my very presence.

Which was when I realised I was naked.

Fortunately there were so many people jamming the street – it could have been a medieval fair, or a football crowd – that no one paid much attention as I huddled in the doorway and frantically pulled on my trousers, shirt, jacket and shoes. The problem was not that I was getting dressed, but that I was getting in people’s way.

‘Oi, oi,’ came one cry.

‘Oy, oy,’ came another.

‘Mind out the pave!’

‘You on the bash, mate, or what?’

‘Shove over!’

Hastily dressed, I looked back towards the hot-nut man, who nodded at my newly clothed state with calm approval. I put my shoulders back, took a deep breath, turned left and set off quickly down the street.

It was good to be back in the city.

People used to say that you could enter Club Row Market at one end leading a dog, lose it halfway down the street, and then buy it back at the other end. Certainly, it was a place where the usual rules of commerce did not necessarily apply: bruised and beaten dogs were covered in boot polish; cats were dyed; exotic singing birds turned out to be voiceless creatures, their song merrily whistled by their merry vendors as they merrily bagged them up and merrily took your money. Fortunately, it was a place where a man might easily get lost in a crowd.

It was a crisp, bright morning, though dark clouds on the horizon suggested that some cold grey London rain was soon to arrive and turn crisp and bright into dull and damp. I barged my way along the street, continually checking over my shoulder for sight of the Limehouse chap and his ladies – sight of whom, thank goodness, there was none. I barged past men and women hawking animals, bicycles, knives, tea-sets, stockings, second-hand suits and the day’s papers, all at half-price, fresh from outside newsagents in the West End. There were high-value goods at rock-bottom prices, ‘genuine’ articles almost as good as the real thing, and on every street corner urgent men and their accomplices were conducting Dutch auctions that left their customers with half of what they bid for, or nothing at all.

‘Brand new, madam. Never seen daylight or moonlight, or Fanny by gaslight.’

‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll even give you a bag to carry it away in.’

‘Pretty foreign birds! Pretty foreign birds!’

It was as good as a trip to the circus, or a day at the seaside. Traders were dressed to attract attention. There was a man singing ‘Cohen the Crooner’; a tall black man with a walking stick yelling, ‘I gotta horse! I gotta horse!’; and ye olde traditional English organ grinder with ye olde traditional English monkey. There was kosher restaurant after kosher restaurant: Felv’s, Strongwaters, Barnett’s. Entertaining and enticing as it all was, my only aim was to get away and to clear my head. Buying a dog, bagels or placing a bet were most definitely not part of the plan. Other people had other plans.

‘Hey! Hey! Hey, mate! Hey, hey! Buy a dog to keep you warm?’ offered a man with a couple of shivering puppies nestling under his overcoat. He thrust the pups towards me. They were either extremely friendly or more than a little starved, licking frantically at my fingers in the hope of finding some trace of food there, their tails wagging.

‘Look at that! They like you, mate. I could ’ave sold ’em ten times over this morning, but I want ’em to ’ave a good ’ome, see.’

‘No, thank you,’ I said, handing the puppies back and going to step round him.

‘For you, because they like you, I’ll do a special price.’

‘No, thank you,’ I said.

‘What, what’s the matter, mate? Not good enough for you?’ he said, blocking my way.

‘No, I just—’