I said, 'What?'
"I bet it even suits them that you and me are doing this.'
'What are you talking about?'
'So I won't want to move on again, you neither. So we'll have to show 'em, together. We'll have to stay put and scarper at the same time.'
I said, 'How do you do that?'
He said, 'Motors.'
It felt safe in that camper, like a hiding-place.
I said, 'What are you talking about?'
He rolled me over and shoved into me and I lifted my knees and gripped him.
He said, 'They haven't told you, have they? Course they haven't. You don't know the half yet, do you?'
It's never how you picture it. Mrs Vincent Dodds, Mrs Dodds Autos. A husband in the motor trade, a daughter on the hustle.
The bright lights of London. There were bright lights all right. There were these rows of long, tall buildings, each of them lit up like a fairground, each of them full of meat and men and din, as if the men were shouting at the meat and the meat was shouting back. And outside it was still dark, extra dark because of the brightness inside, the air full of wet murk. There were lorries throbbing and reversing, the drizzle like sparks in their lights, and doors being swung open and puddles shining red and white, and more meat, on barrows, on shoulders, being lugged into the brightness, the men doing the lugging all streaked and smeared with blood, their faces red and glistening as the loads they were carrying. I thought, Jesus Christ, Mandy Black, where have you come to? And the noise like some mad language, as if it might as well have been the meat still yelling and protesting, still kicking, except that coming out of it I heard that voice, sounding unreal because I'd heard it before on the telly, on the radio, like a voice no one ever really used, but here they were all using it, natural as breathing, as if this was the very spot it came out of, the very spot. Cockney. Cockneys. Cock. Knees. Why do men from London get stiff in the legs?
He said, 'Smithfield Market, love. All meat and mouth, all beef and grief. I've got work to do but see up there,' and he pointed, leaning across the cab, leaning across me, putting an arm behind me. 'Kenny's caff. Good cuppa, good bacon sandwich. Stick around, I'll see you there,' and he winked.
The noise changed as I clambered down. It drew back then closed in on me like waves. Slop, slap, slurp, look what Mick brought in. Like wading out at Morecambe, trying to keep your fanny dry till the last moment. I walked towards the caff, pushing my way through meat and men and noise, and if I'm honest, what I was thinking then, in the middle of my great adventure, was: I'll wait for him, my driver Mick. I'll cadge a breakfast off him, I'll go along with whatever nudgings, noddings and pretendings he wants to fit me into. Then I'll say, quietly, with a flash or two of the eyelashes, 'Can you take me back? Can you take me as far north as you're going?'
I never thought that an hour from then I'd be carried off to my future, to the rest of my life, in a butcher's van. By a big, round-armed, round-edged, big-voiced man who was like some uncle I never knew I had, who was like some man on the spot who'd been waiting specially for me to arrive. 'You come to the right place, sweetheart. 'Eart of London, Smithfield, life and death, Smithfield. See that over there? That's the Old Bailey. I'll take you by the scenic route, since you aint never seen none of it before. 'Op in.'
St Paul's, London Bridge, the Tower, like things that weren't ever real. The grey, wet light it all seemed made for. He slowed down, crossing the bridge. He said, 'You live in it all your life, then one day you notice it.' Then he said, 'Want a job in a butcher's shop? Quid a day, plus board and lodging.'
I said, 'My name's not Judy.'
He looked at me long and hard. 'And mine aint mud.'
And my breakfast date never showed up anyhow, or if he did, I never saw him, he never tried to come between Jack Dodds and me.
The smell, that had you trapped, of frying bacon. Steam and smoke and gab and cackle. Heads turning, smirking.
All pork and talk. I thought, This is worse than outside. All with that look on their faces like you were a sight for sore eyes but at the same time you'd invaded their precious territory. All chomping and guzzling and big and blood-smeared and butchery. Except one. Except for this odd little feller in a grey raincoat, a collar and tie showing underneath, who looked as out of his way as I did, who sat stirring and stirring his tea and peered up at me as if his thoughts were far away but I might have just stepped out of them. I thought, Buy me a breakfast, little man, buy me a breakfast. You look as though I could handle you. You look sad and safe enough to buy me breakfast, as if you don't use food yourself.
So I sat down opposite him, at the table he seemed to be saving for someone else, and he was just about to say something, still stirring his tea like it would set solid if he didn't, when in came these other three he seemed to know. And one of them was bigger than the others, even bigger, and put himself to the front like a sergeant, and I thought, I don't know why but you know these things when you see them, I could be taken in hand by this man. He looked at me, then at the little man, then he looked at me again, like I can remember men of a certain age looking at me once, but not any more, Mandy Dodds, like they wished they were ten years younger but they're facing the fact that they're old enough to be your father. Then he looked again, smiling, slyly, at the little man, who said, clearing his throat, flustered, 'This is—' So I said, 'I'm Judy. From Blackburn.'
I saw the little pause in the big one's face. Then he spoke, in that too loud, too bold voice, that didn't know, that had never learned and never would and wouldn't care if it did, that it was too loud and too bold, that wouldn't ever be afraid of being heard: "This is Ted. This is Joe. I'm Jack Dodds. And you've met Ray. You're all right with Ray. Ray's in insurance, Ray's lucky, small but lucky. He needs a good feeding up an' all.'
Vince
I'll duff Hussein over too, same as Lenny, if he don't come good. I'll get him by his brown bollocks. One for the Merc and one for going cold on Kath.
The price of the motor and a thousand over, then we're all clean.
I've got to pay for this suit, this poxed-up suit.
Otherwise it's fist-in-the-face time, I hope he understands that. And I won't just go soft and easy on him, I won't just go through the motions, like with old left-hook Lenny here, old jam-face Tate. We aren't talking fruit and vegetables.
I don't even have to do it myself. There's people.
And anyhow I think he knows I hate his guts. That's half the pleasure of it for him. It aint just cars and pussy It's that he knows I've got to smile and lay it on thick and act like I'm his humble servant when what I'm thinking is, You towel-head toe-rag, we used to shoot your lot when we was in Aden. And your lot used to take off squaddies' heads.
The sergeant said> 'We do engines, we don't do bodywork'
It's that he knows he's got me where he wants me. It's that he knows somehow just by looking - because I aint ever told him, but I suppose Kath has, I suppose she would have gone and done - that there I was once, showing the flag, oiling the rag, in that stinking, flyblown heat-trap he'd be at home in, and now here he is at the bottom end of Bermondsey Street, slipping across from his City glasshouse, getting me to find him fancy cars, getting me to say.
'Right you are, Mr Hussein, yes sir, Mr Hussein,' at a wave of his wallet.
Oil for oil, that's what I call it, oil for bleeding oil. And all it is is his kind of fun.
There goes Vince Dodds who sold his daughter to an Ayrab.
He comes in, that first time, with his coat draped over his shoulders and his shades tucked in his top pocket and I can see he don't have to slum it. They're feeling the squeeze in the City, so I'm going up-market while they're going down, but that aint this one's caper. He don't have to deal with Dodds Autos, he could buy motors in Berkeley Square. Except he's got what they've all got, if you ask me. Haggle fever, call of the old bazaar.