Read The Devil Rides Out Online
Authors: Paul O'Grady
Tags: #Humor, #Form, #Anecdotes, #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #General, #Personal Memoirs, #Biography & Autobiography, #Fiction
Next on the agenda was a ciggy. My packet of Cadets was empty, which meant there was nothing for it but to go through the ashtrays and bins for a respectable-sized stump. A search of Chris and Billy’s bedroom proved fruitless as
every single butt in there had been smoked right down to the filter. The miserable bastards, I cursed, going through every coat pocket, scouring the living room, kitchen and bathroom and then searching again, driven like a mad thing by my craving for nicotine. Eventually I got dressed and ran over the street to Alistair’s to see if either he or Tony Page could ‘give us the loan of a fag’. I hated asking as I’d not known them that long and was loath to reinforce the stereotypical image of residents of Merseyside as scrounging scallies, constantly bumming cigs. As for borrowing money from them, forget it, I’d sooner starve than ask for a loan and it seemed that in my current predicament I was about to find out just what that felt like.
Neither Alistair nor Tony Page was at home. Oh Lord, I’d have sold a kidney for ten Cadets, both of them for a pack of twenty, and as I was putting my key in the door a woman came out of the newsagent’s and lit a cigarette. The whiff of smoke that assailed my nostrils as she strolled past made my craving for the dreaded weed unbearable. I had to have a fag, just had to and if it meant swallowing my pride and asking for a packet on tick from the newsagent that we lived above then so be it.
‘Hello, I’ve just moved into the flat above with Chris and Billy.’
‘Oh yes, you mean the two pouffes?’
‘I don’t know about that, I’m just the lodger.’
‘And?’
‘I was wondering if it would possible to get ten Cadets on tick? I can pay you back tonight.’ God knows how but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
‘Sorry, mate, no can do. I don’t give credit and you know what they say.’
‘If you can’t afford to buy’em then you can’t afford to smoke’em.’
‘Do you know a woman called Molly O’Grady by any chance?’
‘Who?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
Feeling very sorry, for myself I went back up to the flat and sat on the stairs to have a think, not very easy when your mind is fixed on ciggies and food. Was this what living in London was all about? Sat on a staircase surrounded by pictures of Betty Grable and June Haver, starving and skint?
Even if I’d wanted to give up and go back home, which at this moment I did, how was I going to find the money for the fare? Plus there was the added worry of not being able to keep up the dreaded maintenance payments. Did this mean the worry over food, fags and a roof over my head would soon be taken care of by HM Prisons? A job would bail me out of this mess but it seemed no one wanted to give me one. Even though I’d scoured the Situations Vacant section of the
Evening Standard
each evening, I’d been unsuccessful with every job I’d applied for.
I’d been fairly confident that I’d get the job at the Coleherne, a gay pub in Earls Court that had always been our first port of call when my friend Tony and I took the weekend saver down from Liverpool. It was predominantly a leather bar and at first glance the clientele, with their shaved heads, walrus moustaches and leather outfits, could be quite intimidating. But when I eavesdropped on their conversations it seemed they were more interested in opera than beating me up. The queens who carried crash helmets around with them, leading prospective trade to believe that there might be a
Harley Davidson parked on the pavement outside, invariably went home on the tube. The helmets were more a fashion accessory than of any practical use.
I reckoned I was just what the Coleherne needed – a tasty young bit of Birkenhead fluff in among all that ageing leather – and felt sure the job was in the bag. What I hadn’t reckoned with was the landlord, an Irishman called Pat McConnon, who took one look at me and turned me down flat. He was a surly bugger and dismissed me with a grunt and a wave of his hand. ‘Nuttin’ here for you,’ he muttered, showing me the door. ‘Stick your job,’ I shouted over my shoulder, ‘I wouldn’t work for a narky old bastard like you in a million years.’ I got that one badly wrong, as time will reveal.
The phone rang, causing me to leap out of my skin. Jesus, nicotine withdrawal makes you jumpy.
‘I hope you’re up and out of that bed, dear, and giving the flat a good clean.’ It was Billy. ‘I don’t want to come home to a mess.’
‘Yes, yes, I was just cleaning the kitchen when you rang,’ I lied. ‘What time will you be home?’
‘And why do you need to know?’
Because I want to get my hands on your ciggies, French or not, and smoke my bloody head off
.
‘No reason. Just wondered, that’s all.’
‘Aye, dear, you may well wonder. I’ll be home to find a clean flat, that’s when I’ll be home. And don’t forget to clean out the cat-litter tray. The Baby won’t use it if it’s full.’
The prospect of picking out the Baby’s turds from sodden cat litter on an empty stomach didn’t appeal to me in the least, but then maybe a bit of housework would take my mind off the hunger pains and the craving for a cig. It would also get Chris and Billy off my back and put me in their good
books. Perhaps they’d even bring food home and cook something to eat? No, that was going too far.
Starting in the bathroom and making my way down to the kitchen, I became rather over-zealous in my quest for cleanliness as I hoovered the staircase and thought it’d be a good idea to give the posters on the wall a bit of a light run-over as well. They were coated in a film of dust, particularly a faded old thing for a movie called
The Women
. I watched in horror as Joan Crawford vanished down the nozzle, followed closely by Norma Shearer and Paulette Goddard. Instead of switching the Hoover off, I stood transfixed as I saw
The Women
, one of Chris and Billy’s all-time favourite films and, I dare say, posters, crumble and tear like ancient parchment and disappear into the machine. Snapping out of my trance, I managed to turn the damn thing off just in time to see a large strip bearing the words ‘All Star Female Cast’ get sucked away. What the bloody hell was I going to do now? They’d kill me.
I carted the Hoover up the stairs and flung it into their bedroom, narrowly missing the Baby, who leaped on the bed and spat at me. How was I going to tell them that I’d destroyed, albeit accidentally, one of their prized movie posters?
‘Hello, you two. Had a nice day at work? If you’re wondering why there’s a big gap on the staircase wall, it’s because the poster that used to be there is now in the belly of the Hoover. OK? Good. I just knew you wouldn’t mind.’ Rearranging the other posters on the wall in an attempt to fill the gap left empty by
The Women
, of which all that now remained was the letter N and a half of Rosalind Russell’s face, I quickly tore this evidence down and buried it along with the contents of the cat-litter tray at the bottom of the kitchen bin. I hated that litter tray, its acrid stench always hit
the back of my throat and made me retch. Chris and Billy were immune to the smell but it was always the first thing that hit me whenever I came in the front door.
The craving for a cigarette had lessened; it was hunger that gnawed away at me now. Cleaning the kitchen I prayed that I’d come across a morsel of something fairly edible that I might have missed on my cupboard search earlier. I did. It was a bag of oats, only trouble was they were for the rabbit. Sitting on the kitchen floor I thought about my mother and her daily bowl of muesli. Rabbit oats never harmed her. Following her heart attack my ma seriously changed her diet. From information she’d gleaned in the
Reader’s Digest
, the
Nursing Mirror
and books about coronary heart disease in the reference library, she took to eating muesli to lower her cholesterol. She’d buy a large bag of oats from the health food shop on Argyle Street and, mixing some with a little water or fruit juice and leaving it overnight in the fridge, she’d make a bowl of muesli for her breakfast, adding apple or prunes depending on her mood and the state of her bowels.
‘Paul! Pop down and get us some oats from the health food shop, will you?’
It was a bit of a schlep to trail all the way down Birkenhead just for a bag of oats, so I used to buy them from the pet shop on Church Road instead. It was a lot nearer and they looked exactly the same as the oats in the health food shop, the rabbits seemed to thrive on them, so why not my mother? It was a while before she found out and that was only after the pet shop changed their bags. Whereas they’d once been plain brown-paper bags, they now had a jolly rabbit on the front proclaiming ‘Oats! Bunnies Love’Em’. I think the only suitable word to describe my mother’s reaction after she’d uncovered my deception is ‘ape-shit’.
Going back upstairs, I cleared a load of junk mail from the lid of the record player and put a record on. I tackled their bedroom while I waited for my lunch to turn to mush, and lifting the end of the mattress up off the floor to tuck the bed-sheet in I spotted it. Half a smoked Gauloise stuck to the side of a well-used tube of KY Jelly. This was no time to be fussy, I told myself, peeling the stump off the tube, refusing to consider how long it had lain there or what condition it might be in. Instead I took the precious, lovely little stump and lit it off the gas stove. French cigarettes didn’t taste like a real ciggy, they were too strong for a start and I found it impossible to inhale the smelly things without coughing and inevitably dry-retching. This time I wasn’t so particular and took a long drag and inhaled deeply to the bottom of my lungs, feeling instantly light-headed and blinded by a blaze of colored lights as my legs buckled under me and I slid down the side of the gas stove and hit the floor in a dead faint.
When I came to, it took me a little while to work out what, who and where I was. Hauling myself up from the floor, the first sight to greet me was the Baby. She’d jumped on to the work surface and was eyeing my muesli, sniffing it suspiciously and giving it little dabs with her paw. ‘You’re welcome to it,’ I said, reeling over to the sink to get myself a glass of water. Upstairs, the phone was ringing. I ignored it. Let it bloody ring. It was probably Billy checking to see if I was ‘hard at it, dear’. I was now past caring and taking myself off upstairs I lay on the front-room floor to recover. The phone started ringing again. Bollocks. I crawled along the floor and picked it up.
‘Is that any way to answer a phone?’ It was my mother. ‘I don’t know what kind of manners you’re picking up down there. You’re not on drugs, are you?’
‘No, Mam, I’m not.’
‘And I certainly hope you’re not hanging around those amusement arcades in Piccadilly Circus either. I’ve read about them. They’re magnets for dirty old men who are looking for lads.’
At that moment in time if I could’ve found a dirty old man I’d have done it for the price of a bag of chips and a ciggy.
‘You’ve had a tax refund,’ she chirped down the line. I could imagine her in the hall looking through the nets on the front-door window to see if there was any activity outside. ‘Forty-seven pound.’
The words were music to my ears.
‘I paid it into my bank account as I can imagine what state yours is in. You probably owe them a fortune, don’t you? Anyway, I’ve sent the money down to you, well wrapped up inside a card. There’s two twenties and a ten. You owe me three pounds, by the way.’
‘Fifty quid! When? When did you post it?’ I was as happy as a sandboy, whatever one of those is.
‘On Thursday afternoon. I meant to ring you but I had the kids down to give our Sheila a break, not that they’re any trouble, God love them, but it should have arrived by now. Mind you, the post is probably different down there. Are you sure you haven’t had it? Oh, don’t tell me it’s gone missing, you can’t trust any bugger these days.’
I could hear the rising panic in her voice. This could go on all afternoon if she started dreaming up the various fates that could have befallen the missing fifty quid.
I phoned Chris at work. He’d left before the post had arrived. Then I rang Billy.
‘I hope you’re not running up the phone bill, Sadie. What do you want?’
‘Did a letter come for me this morning?’
‘Aye, I put it on top of the record turntable before I left for my work. Is that all you’re ringing for?’
There was no sign of the bloody letter. Maybe it was amongst the junk mail I’d swept off the lid earlier. I pulled the cabinet out and looked down the back of it, praying that the letter containing fifty beautiful smackers was there. It was.
Hallelujah! I danced around the room, unable to believe my luck. God bless the Inland Revenue and my wonderful mother! I rang her back.
‘Sex ett dabble tu.’ She always answered the phone by giving the number out in her telephone voice.
‘I’ve got it, Mam.’
‘Thank Christ for that. I was sweating cobs there worrying in case it had gone missing.’
‘Thanks for cashing it in for me.’
‘I signed the back of the cheque for you. Do you think they’ll find out that I forged your signature? They used to boil forgers alive in Elizabethan times, you know, and poisoners.’
‘Stop worrying,’ I said, itching to get off the phone so I could run downstairs and buy twenty cigs and something to eat. ‘I’d better go, Mum, they don’t like me using the phone in the day as it’s so expensive.’
‘Quite right as well, the price of it. I’m off to the library. Make sure you pay your maintenance before you go squandering all that money, you don’t want to end up in nick. Behave yourself. Ta-ra.’