Alfie (13 page)

I’d done a couple of weddings one Saturday morning and I’m through about two o’clock. So I go into the pub and start pinting it with Sharpey and Perce. I had a feeling not to go in in the first place – it came over me as I’m going in the door – because I’ve told Annie I’d be back for lunch. I’d never been one for eating much in the middle of the day, or if I did then I wouldn’t want much at night, but somehow she’s got me into the habit of eating at both times. Know what, I’ve come round to thinking that if there’s one thing worse than never having a meal put in front of you, it’s keep having food put in front of you all day long. She was a one for her cups of tea and bits of cake. They seem to have a notion up North that if you ain’t eating every five minutes you’ll drop dead. Course, I must admit I’d never been as well looked after in all my life as with that little bird in the home. And it’s one thing to eat little when you’ve only got little to eat and it’s quite another to eat little when you’ve got a lot.

Anyway, I’m bevying away with these two, and Perce is telling us about a driver called Little Benny. Now it seems this Benny is off on his night run up to Liverpool, and whilst he’s having a cup of tea in a caff at Barnet he gets his wagon and load knocked off. So he telephones for the police. Of course, the police naturally think he’s in on the job. Oddly enough he ain’t. So it’s well past midnight when they let him go. He gets a lift back to Peckham, and when he creeps in home so’s not to disturb his wife, he only finds her in bed with his shunter. In case you don’t know, that’s the bloke who’s handed him the wagon and papers over at the depot.

‘What did Benny do?’ said Sharpey.

‘What can he do?’ said Perce. ‘This geezer’s twice his size, and Benny’s missis must be all of twelve stone.’

‘I’d have smashed their bleedin’ heads in with a hammer,’ said Sharpey.

‘Now what good would that have done – a couple of dead bodies on his hands? He’d have ruined the bedclothes into the bargain,’ said Perce. ‘Anyway, he’s got these five kids and they’ve got to be looked after.’

‘What did he do?’ I said. It’s a funny situation. He wouldn’t have minded her having it off so much – although it’s not a nice thing with five kids in the next room, and the bloke your shunter, so that the chat is sure to spread – but what is definitely wrong is for her to let him catch her at it. It don’t give a geezer any proper way out.

‘Benny said that when this bloke gets out of bed,’ said Perce, ‘he gets in beside her. He didn’t fancy it all that 
much, one on top of the other, you could say, but same as he said, when you come to weigh it up, what else could he do?’

‘He was in what you call a dilemma,’ I said, ‘and in one of them it’s often best to take the simplest way out.’

‘I tell you I’d have smashed their bleedin’ heads in with a hammer,’ said Sharpey. ‘That would have been the simplest way for me.’

‘Then you do it,’ I said.

‘It’s time,’ said Vi, the barmaid, ‘it’s nearly three.’

‘Same again,’ said Sharpey, ‘three pints.’

‘Just top my pint up with a light ale, Vi,’ I said. I didn’t want another pint, in fact I didn’t want any more ale at all.

Perce turned to me. ‘You got your car outside, Alfie? You could run us round to the club.’

Suddenly I became aware of this little man that comes on to my shoulder at times. He likes whispering into my ear. I suppose everybody’s got one.
She’ll have your dinner all ready now, Alfie
, he whispered,
and she’ll be waiting for you – you’d better get going
.

‘I don’t think I’ll bother going round to the club,’ I said.
She’ll have a nice clean pinny to greet you with
, he said.

‘You’ll enjoy an hour or two at the club,’ said Sharpey, ‘it’ll make a change.’

‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ I said.

After all, why run them round to the club, I thought, I’m not their hired chauffeur. At the same time this little man had another rabbit:
When you go indoors, Alfie
, 
he said,
she’ll have everything clean and spotless, and as soon as you take your things off, she’ll start washing them. As soon as you wipe your nose, she’ll take that hanky out of your pocket and boil it. And you’ll no sooner have your socks off than she’ll be kneading and squeezing them in Surf
.

‘What’s come over you lately, Alfie?’ said Perce.

‘Come over me?’ I said, ‘nothing. Why? Good health.’

‘Well, why don’t you come round?’ said Sharpey.

There was something telling me not to tell them – not this little man, something else. I’ve usually got one or two little voices going on in my head. I don’t think it’s that I’m a nutter or anything of that sort, I think it’s just that I’m open-minded. I thought, I’ll just let them see how well off I am compared with them.

‘I’ve got this little kid called Annie staying at my gaff,’ I said. ‘She’s from the North and she can’t half cook.’

‘What’s cooking got to do with it?’ said Perce.

‘She don’t like it if he ain’t home for his meals on time,’ said Vi. ‘That so, Alfie?’

This Vi ain’t a bad-looker, and she can never make it out why I don’t play up to her like most of the other blokes do. Now the reason for that is this: I used to have it off with a woman who served in a transport caff – in fact I’ve had it off with more than one in that line – and right enough she was good for the odd packet of cigarettes, cup of tea, bacon sandwich, and so on, was this woman, but somehow she always seemed to be hovering about near me so that I never felt free. It ain’t worth it 
for your freedom of mind – the odd sandwich or cup of tea. I’ve tried it as well with one or two landladies, and sometimes with their daughters, but somehow it don’t never work out satisfactorily in the long run. It seems they get familiar or something. You’ve given it to them once so they begin to take it for granted. I don’t like anything like that. I like to keep my place so let them keep theirs. Now by playing it dead cool with Vi I’ve found I get far better service, and after all that’s what you go to a pub for. Not to chat up some soppy blonde behind the counter. The blokes who fuss round her get no thanks.

‘She doesn’t mind what time I get home,’ I said, ‘and she makes some real ’andsome nosh-ups she do.’

‘Vi,’ said Perce, taking a last swig at his pint, ‘giss three more quick pints.’

‘Too late,’ she said.

‘Not for me,’ I said.

‘Not like you, Alfie,’ said Vi, ‘heel tapping.’

‘Draw us two quick pints, Vi,’ said Perce. Vi starts drawing them.

‘What was you saying about this little bird?’ said Sharpey.

‘I was just saying she makes a marvellous steak-
and-kidney
pie,’ I said.

‘I hate the taste of kidneys,’ said Perce. ‘They’ve got a sort of dead flavour about ’em.’

‘Offal,’ said Sharpey. He looked at me. ‘I thought you was looking a bit blown out. What do you say, Vi?’

‘What do you mean
blown out
?’ I said, and I give 
myself a thump in the stomach. To be quite frank, I was feeling a bit duff in the guts, but I wasn’t going to let them see it. I mean you can’t be well fed without filling up.

‘I was only saying you looked blown out. Don’t you think so, Vi?’ said Sharpey.

‘He’s certainly put some fat on,’ said Vi, and she began to look me up and down.

‘Fat!
Me
!’ I said. ‘What are you talking about – fat?’

‘Don’t take offence, Alfie,’ said Perce, ‘it’s just the appearance.’

‘What appearance?’ I said.

Now Sharpey and Perce looked me up and down from tip to toe and then turned away and said nothing. Then I can hear this little man break in again:
You know what, Alfie, that little gaff ain’t your’n any more, it’s her’n
. Come to think of it he wasn’t far out. It meant more to her than it did to me, and I suppose that’s
one
way of something belonging to you.

‘Here’s the
two
pints,’ said Vi, putting them on the counter.

‘Make it three,’ I said, putting down a quid. ‘It’s my turn anyway.’ I had to force my beer down, and there was nothing said for a minute or two, only you could feel some thinking was going on, then Perce turned to me, looking very sympathetic and said: ‘It don’t really suit you, you know, Alfie.’

‘What don’t suit me?’ I said.

‘This
poncified
look you got,’ he said.

‘What
poncified
look?’ I said. 

‘You look all puffed out,’ said Sharpey, and he tried to get hold of my cheeks with his fingers.

‘Turn it in,’ I said, ‘and stop mouthing about it. I tell you I’ve never felt fitter in all my life.’ I picked up the new pint and downed half of it at one go. My guts were feeling all swelled out.
It’s the way she keeps feeding you, Alfie
, said this little man.
She’s getting you all fattened out
.

‘Don’t misunderstand him – he wasn’t saying you wasn’t fit, was you, Sharpey?’ said Perce. ‘All he was saying was what with your collar looking so tight on you, and your trousers like they are, and that jacket gripping you tight under the armpits you were looking a bit—’

‘Poncified,’ said Sharpey, ‘in other words blown out.’

‘That’s it,’ said Perce, ‘blown out sort of.’

I turned to him. ‘Are you going to go on making a mouth of it, Sharpey?’ I said.

‘Now don’t get excited,’ said Perce.

‘Know what, Alfie?’ said Sharpey, ‘I reckon that Annie of your’n must be putting the block on you and you can’t see it. What do you say, Perce?’

‘The kid’s only looking after me,’ I said.

‘Don’t be a nit,’ said Perce, ‘that’s the way every bint puts the block on a bloke, by looking after him. Getting him dependent, see. Isn’t that so, Vi?’

‘It’s one of the ways,’ said Vi.

‘In twelve months’ time you won’t recognise yourself,’ said Sharpey, ‘you’ll be stuffed to the ears with all that bleedin’ hotpot.’ 

‘I tell you she’s only looking after me,’ I said.

‘She’s softening you up, mate, ready for the kill,’ said Perce.

They’re jealous that’s what they are, I kept telling myself. What man isn’t who can see a mate being better looked after by a bird than he is. Men detest that sort of thing, they all want to be in the same boat. If there’s one thing a drunk can’t stand is seeing somebody else sober. But at the time I couldn’t see all these things because I’ve got this little man as well to contend with. I don’t know whether we’ve each got what they call an evil thing in us – I shouldn’t be at all surprised – that whispers and tells us things that go against our better understanding. But same as I say, I definitely do hear this little man and other things, and the funny thing is this – if I don’t do what he tells me it nearly always turns out wrong. It might come right for the start but it’ll be wrong for the finish.
If you have her around much longer, Alfie
he kept saying,
she’ll change you that much that you won’t be able to recognise yourself
. He must have known that the one thing I detest is the idea of having a woman change me.

‘I’ll run you round to the club after all,’ I said.

‘That’s my boy,’ said Sharpey, ‘good old Alfie.’

‘I knew you’d see the light,’ said Perce.

Vi kept on wiping the glasses and looking at me.

I could never understand Sharpey and Perce that day. I don’t know how it was I didn’t tumble they were needling me, but there was something else behind it. They came out with a very funny stroke in that club. They’re standing side by side, and you can see there’s something going on between them, and Sharpey said to me: ‘Are you still doing a line with that big bird, Alfie?’

‘What big bird?’ I said.

‘The hairdresser bint,’ said Perce. ‘The one you once brought round here.’

‘She ain’t a hairdresser,’ I said, ‘anyway who told you?’

‘It owns some hairdresser’s shops,’ said Sharpey, ‘and it lives in that big block across the river.’

‘Well, what about it?’ I said.

‘Well, you want to look out,’ said Sharpey, ‘a mate of your’n is after it.’

‘What mate?’ I said. 

‘Never mind what mate. You want to keep an eye on it. What d’you say, Perce?’

‘Say nothing,’ said Perce. ‘He’s after you as well, Alfie.’

I couldn’t make out head or tail what they were talking about and they wouldn’t tell me any more, but I could see there was
something
behind it. Who could be after me?

Anyway, I dropped them off and then went round to my own gaff. I wasn’t drunk. Somehow their chat had sobered me, but sobered me nasty, if you see what I mean. On top of it I’d had this little man on my shoulder. Ain’t it funny how when life seems to be going on beautiful it can suddenly turn rotten on you. Then I’d gone on
gin-and
-tonics in the club and I find them sobering up after beer. In fact, the more I drank the more dead sober I went. Gin does that up to a point. I started thinking how it used to be before I met Annie, how I could go out with a free mind, all my troubles under my hat, as they say, and drink and do what I wanted without ever a thought of someone waiting for me. I find I don’t care for that feeling of having somebody waiting for me at home. It’s like you’re plagued with something behind your mind all the time. I know some blokes who love the feeling, but I do like leaving a room empty and feeling it’ll still be empty when I get back. Well it’s nice to get away from human beings now and again. And another funny thing is this – it’s a bigger burden for you to have some nice bird waiting for you than a real bitchy piece – because you won’t mind how long you keep a bitch waiting, if you follow me.

I was definitely getting fatter. That was a certainty. I’d 
never been used to regular meals and I think I felt more myself when I didn’t have them. All any man needs is one good meal a day. He don’t want a woman keep shoving cups of tea and bits of cake on him. Course they only do that because they want some themselves. The idea behind
Feed the brute
is that you can be feeding yourself at the same time. A man can go on nearly all day without ever thinking of food, but food, cooking, shopping, never seem to be out of a woman’s mind. Know what, a man’s wits are not nearly as sharp if he’s being well fed. I’ll bet if you put two rats in a cage, one well fed and the other kept hungry, that hungry one will run rings round the other. It’s the same with the other – if you’re getting it regular you seem to come over half blind, and many a nice piece of crumpet will escape you, just for the want of you taking notice. I’m always working things like that out in my little mind and I always end up with the same question: what’s the bleeding answer?

I could smell old Annie’s cooking along the landing before I came to the door. She came out of the kitchen as I went in. ‘Is that you, Alfie?’ she said.

What a question to ask, I thought, I’m only standing in front of her. ‘Yeh, it’s me. I’m only about five hours late, ain’t I. Start rucking me.’ I half wished in my mind that she’d have had that rotten song on the record-player about the geezer who’s supposed to want the bird when she no longer wants him. I’d have smashed the thing up if she had, but she hadn’t.

‘Your dinner’s ready,’ she said. She didn’t look the least put out. In a way I wish she had. She looked surprised that 
I should expect her to be peeved. They’ve got you every way. She went to the top of the oven and brought out something in a pie-dish with a crust on the top. I looked at it. ‘You ain’t made another bleedin’ hot-pot!’ I said.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s a steak-and-kidney pie.’

‘It’s the same thing, ain’t it,’ I said.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘There’s all the difference in the world between a hot-pot and a steak-and-kidney pie.’

‘Well, don’t bother to tell me,’ I said.

She picked up a knife and she cut a slice out of this thick brown crust on the top, and all this juicy meaty smell came out as the steam came off it. It’s the sort of thing that smells good if you’re hungry, but don’t mean a thing if you ain’t. I pointed my finger into the pie, where I could see all these pieces of meat in this brown juicy gravy. ‘It’s the same as all them North Country dishes,’ I said. ‘It’s a bleedin’ blower-out.’

I could see she didn’t know which way to turn. She had no definite pointer about whether she should start serving it or put it away. I expect she thought that given a bit of time she could ride it. ‘Why can’t we have something out of a can for a change?’ I said. ‘I used to get some lovely meals out of cans. Spam, Libby’s corned beef, baked beans and pork, John West’s salmon, sardines – handsome grub all that was. I mean you don’t taste those meals until you begin to eat them, but these hot dishes you can already taste coming along the landing. You feel you’ve had enough when you sit down. They overface a bloke.’

‘But you always said you like my steak-and-kidney pie, Alfie,’ she said. 

‘Listen,’ I said, to her, ‘if I get that lot on top of a skinful of ale I’ll hardly be able to draw my breath. I’ll get a horrible feeling of being full up, blown out – poncified.’ And to suit my words a great long burping rift of wind cane out of me that would have blown up a set of bagpipes.

She looked at me, and she looked at the pie on the table, and she shook out the little kitchen cloth she’s brought it in with her, and she turns her head on one side and she says, ‘You used to say once that you loved that feeling of being really full up. You said you’d never had it in all your life until you met me.’ They’re always quick to remind you of what you didn’t have before you met them. It never seems to strike them that in the long run what a bloke didn’t have might suit him far better than what he did have.

‘What I loved once,’ I said, ‘and what I love now are two different things.’

‘Have you been out with that man Sharpey?’ she said.

‘What about it if I have?’ I said.

‘He’s no friend of yours,’ she said.

‘I’ll decide who’re my friends and who ain’t,’ I said, and began to strip off my clothes. ‘Where’s my American shirt?’

‘Are you going out again, Alfie?’ she said.

‘I asked you where my American shirt was,’ I said.

‘The blue one?’ she said. ‘It’s in the drawer.’

‘Nah, not the blue, the pink.’

‘Oh I washed it whilst you were out,’ she said. ‘It’ll soon be dry. I could iron it then.’ 

‘What did you have to wash it for?’ I said, ‘I only wore it a couple of hours.’

‘I thought it would feel fresher for you,’ she said.

The idea behind my mind was that she might have thought that any shirt needed washing after I’d worn it for a couple of hours. I didn’t say it because I had a feeling it might be true. I don’t just mean that she might think it needed washing – but that it did need washing. I mean you let any sensitive bloke smell his own dried-out sweaty shirt and he’s in for a shock.

‘Know what, Annie,’ I said, ‘I do believe you only wash to fill in your bleedin’ time.’

‘Why should I?’ she said.

‘So that you won’t have a spare empty minute on your hands,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to keep yourself on the go.’ Her face came over guilty – I spotted it.

‘Why should I keep on the go?’ she said.

‘To get
him
out of your mind,’ I said.

‘To get who out of my mind?’ she said. She looked upset. She’s very pale all of a sudden. I could feel this little man egging me on. Of course I’m not making excuses for myself. You’ve got to do what you have to do. I went up to her: ‘That bloody Tony, or whatever you call him,’ I said, ‘what you’ve been writing about in your little diary.’

‘Have you been reading my diary?’ she said.

‘You say you can’t get him out of your mind,’ I said, ‘no matter how much you try. “
Tony was on my mind all day long
”.’

‘Alfie,’ she said, ‘have you been in my bag and read my diary?’ She’s only trying to make out it’s a crime. I 
mean the first thing you do with any bird is go through its handbag – if you get the chance. I mean that can tell you a lot more than a face can. It’s an eye-opener sometimes.

‘And why shouldn’t I?’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Those are my secret thoughts.’

‘You’re not entitled to any secret thoughts,’ I said, ‘if you’re living with me.’ I knew I was wrong when I said it. Not that that’s ever stopped me from saying a thing. I mean if you ain’t entitled to your thoughts, and all thoughts are a secret in some way, then you’re entitled to nothing. On the other hand, you don’t want a bird around that keeps harbouring thoughts, if you see what I mean.

‘You can’t help having thoughts,’ she said.

‘No, but you can help writing the bleedin’ things down and lettin’ me see ’em,’ I said.

She seemed to see the logic of that.

‘I only wrote them down,’ she said, ‘to get them out of me.’

What does she want to think about a bloke called Tony for when I’m around? It’s like there’s three people living in the one room, sharing the one bed, come to that, and one of ’em you can’t see and you can’t get hold of. I mean nobody has any right to inflict somebody they happen to love on somebody else they happen to be living with. I mean if I’m in bed with one bird, and I’m thinking of another, it means in fact I’m having neither of ’em, if you see what I mean. Of course I could be wrong. Though it’s not often I am.

Well there’s Annie standing so innocent beside the 
table, rabbiting away about her secret thoughts, and there’s me and I can’t do a thing about them. Don’t think I was jealous – I wasn’t. I’ve trained myself too well – I never think about things I can’t do anything about. Well, very seldom. So on the impulse of the moment I grab hold of her steak-and-kidney pie from where it’s standing on the table – and nearly burnt my hands into the bargain, though I didn’t notice it at the time – and I said to her:

‘Well I’ll just show you what I think about you – your secret thoughts and your effin’ steak-and-kidney pie!’ And with that I flung that dish as hard as I could against the wall.

To be quite frank, I shocked myself when I saw what I’d let myself do. I don’t mean when I threw it, I mean when it hit the wall. It was a clean shot – it could hardly be anything else at that range – and the crust and the rim of the dish made a solid hit. It wasn’t as loud as you might expect, but it made a horrible thud. Then it let out a loud, ugly sucking noise, and some of the dish dropped in pieces, and the gravy splashed a bit, but mainly it all began to crawl in a thick brown stream down the wall.

Annie looked at it quite calmly. I’d given her one shock, so that might have put her beyond reach of another. She looked at me then. Know what – there was no hate in it. It was just a look, if you see what I mean. I’ll tell you what I felt like. I felt like it served her bleeding right. Just as easy, I suppose, I could have felt like leaning against her breast and saying how sorry I was and what a rotten horrible mean thing it was, and what a shit I was, and would she forgive me. 

I said nothing and did nothing, but just stood there. She moved first. She walked very quietly across to the bed, and bent down and felt underneath, and brought out her little suitcase. Then she went to the drawer that I’d allowed her in the chest of drawers and began to take out her bits of things. It didn’t take her long, not more than a minute or two to collect all her belongings.

‘Don’t take nothing that don’t belong to you,’ I said, when I saw what she was about. She didn’t say anything to that – she just got her little raincoat off of the nail behind the door and put it over her arm and picked up her suitcase. She did it all so quiet like, as if in the end she had expected nothing better. Or it may have been the explosion of the pie-dish that made it all sound so quiet after. Just then, as she was going out of the door, she turned and said to me in this funny flat North Country voice she’s got: ‘Don’t let your custard spoil – it’s in the oven.’ Then she closed the door very gently behind her and went off.

For a second or two I stood there a bit dazed. I hadn’t expected she’d go off. What a stroke to come out with though:
Don’t let your custard spoil
. I went and opened the oven door.

Sure enough there was something inside. I’ve put my hands in to take it out, see, but the dish is hot, so I pick up a cloth and I take it out with that. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was the handsomest custard you ever saw. It was a lovely golden egg brown, with a nice little nutmeggy smell. For a second I felt choked, I did straight. I thought: whilst you’ve been thinking bad of her, Alfie, she’s been thinking good of you. It gives you a shock, see, 
when you’ve been putting the poison in for somebody in your mind, and you find out they’ve been putting the honey in for you.

I walked to the table with the custard, whispering to myself,
Annie, Annie, Annie
. It suddenly seemed like it was a lovely name. Looking down on that custard it seemed as if I could see in it all the kind and thoughtful little things she’d done for me. All the shirts, socks and other things she’d washed for me, all the little buttons she’s sewed on my clothes without me having to tell her, all the times when I’d come home and found she’d cleaned all my shoes for me, and the marvellous way she had of ironing my hankies, and the way she’d once undressed me and put me to bed and cleaned up all my clobber when I’d come home drunk one time. All these little thoughts got together and flooded my mind. I never go after anybody, but I ran to the door, and raced down the stairs after her, calling out ‘
Annie!
’