Hated Men: A Charlie Silver Novel

By Nicholas A. Price

Charlie Silver must decide if the ugly crime business is a path he is prepared to inherit and if he can keep hidden the dark secrets of his father's past and of his underworld dealings or set himself free from the burdens of his father's expectations and steely will for him to become the next King of Soho.
A tale of family and society, the skin game and shady deals, law and order, obedience and rebellion, Nicholas A. Price reveals the dark passions of human nature played out against a backdrop of the criminal underworld of Soho London. In the bloody fights between father and son, rival gangs and crime lords, who will be crowned the next King of Soho?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas A. Price
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781946522177

Nicholas A. Price

Having gained success as an entrepreneur in the world of international finance, Nicholas' journey in this field involved dealing with the most unusual clientele hailing from all walks of life in numerous countries - he crossed paths with the real-life characters involved with international politics, the intelligence community and other larger than life characters within a host of Emerging Markets. Nicholas Price is a modern-day renaissance man; as he returned to the relative peace of his creative endeavors in fiction writing, poetry and as a visual artist specializing in the fields of fine art photography, sculpture and public art - with an impressive list of commissions and public acquisitions. His poetry and photography has been published through a series of bespoke and mainstream publications and books. After several years in the visual arts, Nicholas A. Price is a full-time writer having completed a series of fiction books in the genres of crime thrillers, a work of comedy and a series of children’s short stories, where to use his own words -“I want my children’s stories to stimulate the imagination and open the door to exploration, both within and beyond the scope of the day. I long to play a small part in fostering a culture of thinkers rather than followers.” Nicholas, along with his wife and children, is an avid traveler and conservationist when he's not enjoying his private writer's retreat or taking care of the family's number of various rescued and exotic pets.

Book preview

HATED MEN

A Charlie Silver Novel

Nicholas A. Price

Bulldog Publications, Est. 1980

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT

Hated Men is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.

HATED MEN: A CHARLIE SILVER NOVEL

Copyright © 2018 Nicholas A. Price

All rights reserved.

Published by Bulldog Publications, Est. 1980 an imprint of Tough Tribe Publishing, New York.

Cover design:

Winnie & Brutus| for Bulldog Publications, Est.1980

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Department, at the following email address

[e-mail]

2nd English Edition eBook

ISBN 978-1-946522—17-7

Library of Congress Control Number held on record

Produced in NEW YORK

Published in the United States.

Dedicated to the girl in the doorway

There is a time when you think you are the only soul at the wheel to the world and then before you know it, some speeding upstart has overtaken you!

Table of Contents

COVER

BOOKTITLE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

QUOTE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

END

CHARLIE SILVER RETURNS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR

Chapter 1

Growing Pains

If there was gold in the gutter would you reach for it too?

Albert ‘Albie’ Silver was certainly unique, a promoter of sorts, hated and profitable, the two went hand in hand, the jealousy of others probably accounted for ninety-eight percent of that hatred. Silver was a tough and cruel operator, with a ruddy face and a pointless wiry moustache. His booming and obstinate tone still smacked of his disadvantaged East End origins. Albie forever sported a smouldering cigar and when combined with the bulky belly and bluster, he might well have passed as a ‘roll-up–roll-up’ style ringmaster. To look at him you might easily assume that his pockets were brimming with handfuls of stereotypical dirty postcards or something equally sordid, yet in reality he was in the thick of the flesh business.

Silver rarely offered a smile and only when he was blind drunk, before long even that drooped back towards ugliness; it was also the one time when his greasy fast thinning comb-over was out of place. Away from the pointless strands on top and despite thirty odd years of close shaves, his face did not possess a single scar, more than could be said for those who crossed him. On the other hand the promoter looked closer to fifty; perhaps a result of his lifestyle and a childhood spent in the grips of the dire poverty, prevalent in the London slums of the nineteen thirties and early forties. He was brusque by nature and away from simple money gathering, he lacked time for the human race; most people were treated like something he had stepped in on the pavement. Men were viewed with the idea of squeezing every last penny out of them and he maimed those who stood in his way. Women were a simple deduction; he studied them with their knickers around their ankles and handfuls of cash pouring out of the same place most men spent a lifetime trying to enter. In one breath he might have been a dedicated philogynist, yet he lacked an iota of consideration for their woes, feelings or safety. They were basically the stock on the shelves of Albie the grocer and on sale twenty-four hours a day, like tin cans in a range of sizes and flavours, marked up at a healthy profit as he actively built a business in London’s busy Soho, running the numerous tricks of the trade as if he were a honed magician.

On a particularly dull Monday afternoon towards the closing days of nineteen sixty, a young woman approached him on the corner of Windmill and Brewer Street just outside the Duke of Argyll pub. She was asking for directions to Leicester Square. Albert Silver was not the kind of person familiar with such an undertaking. Every one of his rotten pennies had been ploughed into the walk-up business; a series of room’s where everything was on special offer at a price. Whilst brothels had been illegal for many years, individual women offering private services were not and like a hungry serpent Silver viewed every morsel of fresh flesh as a prospective meal. So he decided to befriend the young woman and after winning her over in his unique style, took her to dinner at a cheap Italian restaurant on Dean Street.

Rose Walters hailed from a pleasant well-to-do family in Kent, the Garden of England, where they owned a fruit growing business close to Tenterden. You could picture Rose growing beside the other flowers in a picturesque cottage garden, long before Albie planned on forcing her into the confines of a cramped and airless city window box. Rose was gentle, carefree and stood at about five-four. Her hazel brown eyes were still pure; her cheeks full, lightly freckled and downy like a ripe peach. A natural figure offered the gentle curves of a real woman, although unlike Albert Silver’s usual gaggle of girls, it was not on obvious public display. Retrospectively it was tricky to decide how the naïve girl from a spring orchard ended up with Albie Silver, yet at one time or another even the purest of virgins wander around a big city with scant knowledge of what might lurk in the overflowing gutter or hide in the next ominous doorway. Undeniably matters would have been quite different if she had taken the right turn that day and headed away from Soho.

Following a trivial period of courtship and much against her parent’s wishes, Rose and Albie headed to a snappy registry office wedding at the Old Marylebone Town Hall. Afterwards the new Missus Silver settled into Albie’s diminutive Soho flat, way up in a claustrophobic Old Compton Street loft. Each week and again on a Monday they stopped for dinner at their favourite and perhaps sentimental restaurant. The recently married couple ordered familiar dishes and a bottle of rather trite Chianti. It was as if a week of survival in Soho was worth celebrating. Away from the customary feast, Rose Silver spent most days in the confines of a hovel awaiting the return of the often-elusive Old Man. Invariably in an era of constant ducking and diving, that was at any hour of the day or night and he was usually worse for the booze. If Rose was lucky, once a month he showed up with a bunch of flowers snapped off a Berwick Street barrow, possibly even Albert Silver could suffer guilt a dozen times a year.

Considering Albie’s stock in trade, it was almost bizarre to imagine Rose’s traditional upbringing and cautious manner; she avoided tight fitting clothes or anything that offered excessive cleavage or thigh. A few months later they were hardly in a state of marital bliss, yet survived intact for another few months until Teresa Jane arrived; she was a typical born at home bouncing baby. Perhaps the undersized loft became too much to tolerate, because the new father became even more of an absentee. On the other hand he must have put it at least one more appearance, since at the end of nineteen-sixty-two I showed up. Having seen the same midwife calling on a neighbour a few years later it was hard to imagine the hefty woman making it up the eight flights of narrow stairs. They named me Charles, I suppose with a chance and lacking my mother’s rational intervention, the Old Man might have opted for Gladstone, Winston or Monty, something steadfastly British with echoes of wartime, but then again every Winston or Gladstone I have met to date has origins in Jamaica or Barbados! Sometimes Charles can be equally annoying, people are fond of shortening it to Chas, though most of the time it was simply Charlie.

We soon left an existence as Soho sardines when the Old Man tucked us out of the way, in what my mother once described as a crumby flat just off the Kennington Road in Lambeth. South of the river we might well have been a million miles away and forgotten. My father carried on much as before and we rarely saw him, except for the odd mealtimes or when he came home to thrash me on my mother’s instructions. By then the alleged crime had vanished from my mind and I learnt nothing from the experience. Of course as children we rarely challenged our elders, it was only much later when I realized the error of their Victorian spare the rod and spoil the child attitude. Home life was an unremitting challenge and we seldom saw our parents together, when they did get close enough it was usually during a heated quarrel. My mother no longer visited Soho and for us children life became a tedious steady routine, we never did anything special or travelled far from home. We dwelled at our local Lambeth primary school, learning the basics and nothing more, time and everything in-between seemed to slip away as if it were a single summer afternoon. Then about two months after Teresa’s ninth birthday we moved to a much better place, Randolph Avenue W9. It was a healthy distance from Soho, although the road offered a series of beautiful old mansion flats, with a Tube station roughly at each end. We were closer to the pretty canal and narrowboats; yet part of Maida Vale - after the confines of South London it was close to another world.

In the background the Old Man struggled along, business appeared to be an uphill battle as well as a continual dance with the law, though by now he was making considerable gains. We had our own television, bought and paid for, not a rented set. The first thing I watched was the news and the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson puffing on his famous pipe, all in black and white of course. On the odd occasions when my father did come home, he continually complained about the unhappy, tough existence he was forced to endure. He was often drunk, stinking of cheap perfume and with the clichéd lipstick stains on his white shirt collar. The cheaper brands came from Woolworth’s; I thought the entire place had a weird smell to it, so I was never sure whether he was playing with his Soho women or the staff in the department store.

We rarely got to see our neighbours, most were part-time Londoners. There was one exception though Missus Betty Parker, the nosey kind! She was a sort of lonely soul and the only visitors she received were her son, daughter in law and granddaughter Claire who was about my age, although I rarely paid much attention to girls at the time. Betty Parker regularly gossiped my mother into next week and soon pried enough out of her to discover the grimy details of my Old Man’s business - maybe his inside leg measurement too. I marvelled at the way she talked constantly and managed to simultaneously hold a cigarette between her lips, not unusual in some ways but it always sported an ash column of an inch a more in the process, I waited for it drop to the floor, yet before it gained a chance, Missus Parker removed it slowly and tapped it off with involuntary precision. Strangely after learning how my father made his money she stayed away from us, when forced into a corner she offered a gratuitous good morning to my mother or Teresa but avoided eye contact with the Old Man and me. This was my first glimpse at prejudice by association; it was hard to understand when our mother naïvely brought us up with the apparently flawed notion of seeing the best in all people, so perhaps with equal prejudice I learned to loathe Betty Parker.

Six months or so after moving to W9 my mother arrived with a surprise - a brand new Smartie-red MGB with a black convertible top, a present from her parents. I imagine their aim was to mend fences after disproving of the Old Man or maybe they hoped to give the three of us some well-deserved freedom. Teresa and I took turns in the front seat whilst the other one of us squeezed in the cramped bench like space in the back. In the rain with the top up it was close to living in a plastic tent and on the fine days the wind tussled our hair. My mother went everywhere in that little car, she behaved like a once stifled and caged bird, finally able to make use of her clipped wings. The entire freedom thing did not impress the Old Man one bit, particularly when my mother began making the Monday trips to Soho again, it was seven stops on The Underground from Warwick Avenue, but she preferred to drive. It was the only time my parents were seen together in public; a couple of hours at a small restaurant were the limit. Routinely my father handed her a measly allowance for the rest of the week, he kept her, and as consequence us, on a tight leash, almost like employees on the lowest permissible wage. If it were not for the odd envelope arriving from our grandfather in Kent, we would have definitely missed out on countless things. The Old Man generally ate out and lived an entirely separate life from the rest of us - We ate things like Heinz beans on medium sliced white Mother’s Pride toast whilst he was at his favourite eatery on Shaftesbury Avenue, chomping through a pound of rare rump steak and piles of greasy chips. For lunch it was everything he could eat at the Wimpy Bar or a trip to a plain old-fashioned beef burger place next to a sex cinema on Berwick Street. In the afternoons he stocked up on exotic snacks and provisions at the Lina Stores delicatessen on Brewer Street.

Soon Albert Silver Esquire had succeeded in cultivating his own brand of image and whilst the so-called men about town, in his world at least, rolled around in big left hand drive American cars, the size of the average British living room, my Old Man remained patriotic to the core and stuck with Bill Lyons and an Old-English white nineteen sixty-six Mark II Jaguar. On numerous occasions he drove me around but never Teresa or my mother. Naturally the Jag was a fast notorious villain’s car, if there ever was one; it easily out accelerated the average police car at the time. My father claimed great presence, as the car arrived with fat cigars, highly polished lace-up shoes and a tailored suit, not quite Saville Row, more like a skilful Jewish tailor from Bethnal Green, but sharp enough to pass. I sat up front in the red leather passenger seat, it made me feel rather important too.

The first time I managed to survey my father’s world, was on one of those early trips into Soho. As we crawled through the streets he paused every few seconds like a kerb-crawling John, with no regard for the other road users. He chatted to everyone he knew, men and women alike but mostly the girls. We passed the typical signs of the day, with an over subscription of the letter X, non-stop striptease, sex cinemas and promises of unique European treats, in amongst those stood the timeless Soho shops, restaurants and cafés. Finally we paused close to a sheltered doorway, framed with thin pink and red neon, a woman was standing just out of sight; once the Old Man stopped the car he spoke. You stay in the car son, I’m just gonna ‘ave a quick word with Mary ok?

Mary? I asked.

Yeah she works for me son.

All right Dad.

Wait right ‘ere and don’t talk to no one get it?

Yes Dad.

Good boy, cause there’s a lot of funny people around ‘ere, y’know?

Yes Dad.

Good boy, I won’t be a tick.

With that he removed the keys from the dash, climbed out of the car and approached the mysterious entrance. As I peered from the open window I could see it was a four storey brick faced building, the woman, obviously Mary, emerged and embraced my father. They stood and chatted perhaps only ten feet away from me, Mary’s place was a walk-up with upstairs rooms and a separate basement affair; her job was to pull the punters off the street with endless promises. She was a cruel looking redhead, with the angular features of a cubist painting, incredibly slim, close to scrawny and her general features leaned towards the Irish. I could not see the colour of her eyes; perhaps I imagined they were olive green, yet from a distance they appeared to belie some grave inner tragedy. Her long hair was dyed to an extremely unnatural hue and scraped back into a tight ponytail, held in place by a colourful elasticated band, the kind with small glass beads. Mary was a gypsy in a G-string, although my father was unlikely to lend her one of his crystal balls. From the car I could hear Mary’s rolling singsong accent, which stemmed from somewhere in The Midlands. A tattooed snake crossed her exposed midriff, this vanished into her black satin hot pants and I hate to think where the head of the serpent ended up, however I assumed it was not the only thing with fangs. Then again I would have never visited in the first place; the zoo was the only spot for things like that - snakes of course, not Mary! I watched my father flirting with her, she was the complete opposite of my mother, vulgar, loud and doubtless the reason we saw little of him. I soon learned that he preferred the more blatant kind of woman, as he detested disappointment. After sharing an all too affectionate kiss Mary returned to her seedy doorway on Brewer Street, as my father used his handkerchief to wipe off a heavy helping of lipstick from his lips and face. He then climbed into the car and slammed the door. All right are ya son?

Yes thanks Dad.

He offered a rare smile. Yeah, that’s Mary Squires, she’s one of me best workers, brings in the cash ya see, one day when you take over you’ll know ‘ow important that is.

Of course I smiled at the time, but could never see Albie Silver handing over his ultimate standing as paterfamilias; nevertheless sooner or later I was destined to become second fiddle in the nefarious firm. Why’s that Dad?

He removed a fresh cigar from his jacket pocket, nipped it and lit it up. Well son, to ‘ave good reliable people around ya, anyway I put the girls upfront ya see, they’ll bring ‘em son, come rain or shine, just watch the suckers!

I smiled. Oh I see.

Yeah let that be a lesson for ya son and mark my words, never let any of ‘em leave until their pockets are empty and when they are, try bilking ‘em for a bit more! he said roaring with laughter.

Can you do that then Dad?

Oh yeah, we never play it straight son, we don’t need to, we just make a bloody mint out of people and their stupid little weaknesses. Always remember ya old man grew up poor; me old mum spent ‘er life scrapin’ pennies from takin’ in other people's dirty washin’. I never wanna go back to livin’ in a bloody back-to-back ‘ouse in the East End!

With that he drew back a lungful of cigar smoke, started up the Mark Two and sped off. The wonderful thing about spending time with the Old Man was getting out, seeing real people and the way they actually lived - the warts and all approach. Added to that he was a good old-fashioned three-course man and loved to eat, so I never went hungry either.

From there onwards he began to play a more fatherly role, but only with me, Teresa remained confined to the realms of the home with my mother. His obviously misogynistic perspective placed me next in line to inherit the reins of the Silver Empire, as he groomed me like a blind puppy with a seriously bunged up nose. At least once a week, sometimes twice, he drove me into Soho for another glimpse, I never got to see beyond the street level point of view and my introduction was closer to casual window shopping, where I was guided to some extent by all those obvious signs everywhere, describing what might actually be on offer away from the dirty pavement. The goings-on behind closed doors were a mystery, that of the great impresario Albert Silver. You might laugh when I tell you that my ambition was to be in a band; not the chart topping rock or pop type, but a military band. I wanted to be upfront just behind the standard bearer with one of those huge impossible thumping drums – now there was true responsibility - one missed beat and they all fell over, brass and all – my Old Man would have hit the roof!

As expected my father spent most of his life around women in general, on later visits I realized it was not only Mary Squires who was benefiting from time with the boss. I noticed the bottom pinching, the odd spank or a hand inside a bra; in his line of business it seemed to be par for the course. I never pictured him faithful to my mother, Albert Silver was a greedy man and there were far too many opportunities away from home.

Absent from the rigors of the school timetable, the holidays slipped past like the vibrant narrowboats on the Grand Union Canal. Then out of the blue one afternoon a nervous policeman in a tall hat showed up at our door with dreadful news. My mother had been seriously injured in a car crash. Her MGB had left the road and crashed into a metal and concrete barrier near Chiswick, apparently the brakes had failed. She was in hospital and my father was somewhere in Soho. Teresa and I raided the emergency money tin, found our way on The Underground to Piccadilly and went looking for the Old Man. Teresa had no clue, whilst I had the advantage of knowing my way around. Sure enough we discovered him with Mary Squires, upstairs in the midst of a heated meeting, once the Old Man struggled back into his trousers we drove to the hospital. Our mum was in a serious condition and according to the muttering doctor, lucky to be alive. We were not allowed to see her, but the Old Man was. He followed the doctor through to the intensive care ward, emerged only five minutes later and said nothing. On the way home he was silent until I asked him for news. How’s mum then dad?

A real two and eight son, I don’t wanna to talk about it right now.

All right dad.

Want some fish and chips kids?

We both answered yes and he paused at a place he seemed to know well and within a few minutes we were eating them from newspaper in the back of the car. The Old Man watched the road and fed himself from the empty passenger seat. It was a rare treat and by the time we reached Randolph Road the car reeked of malt vinegar and grease soaked paper.

Once indoors reality returned, we were so familiar with our mother’s homely presence, only now the place offered an eerie emptiness, just like a hollow shell. Citing some urgent business in Soho, the Old Man could not wait to leave us. He handed me the telephone number of his Old Compton Street office and a crisp five-pound note.

If it’s urgent son call the office and they’ll find me, make sure it’s urgent though, take care of your sister too. If ya need anything from the shops, grub or whatever, use the fiver all right?

Yes dad.

Good boy, now remember I’ve got the bloody business to run, we can’t do nothin’ for ya old mum, so as I said take care of things.

Yes dad.

All right see ya in the mornin’.

With those words he left me in charge of my older sister and our home. After dragging blankets and pillows into the living room, Teresa and I spent the night huddled up on the settee; we watched the television for a while and soon dozed off. The Old Man woke us at six in the morning; his breath was stale with the scent of smoke and whisky. He stumbled through the place, grunted something, collapsed into an armchair and then began to snore in a matter of seconds. Over the next few days he was frequently absent, so I learned to look after Teresa and take care of us both. Two days later we were out of most things so I ventured out to the closest shop with that until then unbroken fiver, they must have assumed it was stolen! Naturally we were soon surviving on sliced bread, biscuits, cereals and canned stuff - it was pretty dismal.

We did not get to visit our mother in hospital at all and she finally arrived home three weeks later a changed woman, practically bed ridden and a slave to a concoction of brain numbing painkillers. It was as if her body was there and her personality was out shopping. The Old Man arranged for a series of temporary home helps to stop by over the coming weeks, the majority were older nurse-like women from one of the West End agencies, efficient and rather impersonal. During that time the police had apparently concluded their investigation into the car crash and they believed that the brakes had been tampered with, however once my father learned of the enquiry it hit a wall of its own and we heard nothing more about it.

During my mother’s convalescence, the Old Man began to drive me into Soho on a more frequent basis and usually after school; he seemed desperate to introduce me to his world despite my young age. This often meant hours waiting around in his stuffy office where I studied the wheels in motion and the scrawled notes on his desk. The business operated from a few locations, in Soho there were Old Compton, Wardour, Meard and Brewer Streets, added to those there was a shop on Tottenham Court Road and something as far away as Praed Street, near Paddington Station. Some days we drove door to door and en route the Old Man groaned on about his past. His focus was on how making money took first place over everything else in life.

One wet Tuesday there was some kind of snarl up near Cambridge Circus and we were stuck in heavy nose to tail traffic on Shaftesbury Avenue, the inside of the Jag was steaming up and I used the sleeve of my school jumper to clear the condensation and watch the world from the passenger side window. The heater was working hard on the windscreen and the Old Man’s smoke was not helping my lungs. So I gently tipped open the quarter-light window in the hope of sucking in some damp West End oxygen. Suddenly he began to speak in a much lower tone than usual. Ya know son, I never met my old dad, left me mum before I was born.

Really what happened to him then?

No one bloody knows the old swine just disappeared and me old mum was left with me and nothin’. I’d take all sorts of part-time jobs, even when I was your age, liftin’ crates of beer in the local boozer, sweepin’ up at a barber’s place; I even did a bit of runnin’ around for a few dodgy old East End firm’s!

Firm’s dad?

He smirked and gently edged the car forward. Yeah, ya know the type the Old Bill’s always chasin’ around!

Oh I see.

Yeah I learned a lot from ‘em, they might ‘ave been bent but they weren’t strugglin’ to put a bit of grub on the bleedin’ table like the rest of us, I soon got a taste for it son!

So what did your mum think?

"They used to call ‘er old Mable y’know, she was old all right, before ‘er bloody time too with a stoop like an old dear. She sort of turned a blind eye to what I got up to, she ‘ad to really, we’d ‘ave starved otherwise."

Didn’t you get any help from anyone?

Nope, ya gotta remember son, in those days, there were the do-gooders of course and the bible mob, but the government never bothered much.

Oh I see, so what happened to your mum then?

Well just after I did me National Service in the Army, the poor old soul was clipped by a motor at the junction of Cambridge ‘eath Road, she copped it a few days after.

So what did you do then?

I ‘ate this bloody traffic it’s gettin’ worse every day. Well I moved into this dump on Sydney Street above an old tailor shop and then spent a while as a market trader on the Whitechapel Road. It was ‘ard graft, I knocked-out ‘ousewares for about a year, but I soon got fed up with scratchin’ pennies from an handful of sorry punters and in all bloody weathers too!

The traffic began to move again, the Old Man cut across to Charing Cross Road and soon after we stopped at an odd shop next to a café on Tottenham Court Road. So what did you do after that dad?

A few naughty things to be honest son, I’ll tell ya one day. Go and get some grub son, I’ll be with ya in a mo, tell the bloke in there that Albie, your old man’s payin’.

Ok dad.

I wandered towards the café and noticed him slipping through the door of the adjoining shop; the words ‘marital aids’ were displayed over the door. As I ordered I imagined my Old Man sitting down one day and telling me the entire story or then again maybe the next instalment might arrive during another traffic jam, I was never sure with him.

◊◊

Within another six weeks or so mum was walking around again, although still suffering from severe back pain, her use of the potent painkillers continued, often she said things that made little sense and when we questioned her, acted as if she were living in another world. For a week or so our home was upside-down when the Old Man’s Soho handyman Bill Lawrence was putting in a new kitchen and bathroom suite, then eight weeks later Edward Heath was the new Prime Minister.

On an overcast morning in December my mother wandered around slowly, smiling and muttering about how Christmas had come early this year. She had not smiled for months and was waving around a cheque from the insurance company for her written-off MG. Later that day in an elated state she headed out in a taxi and returned four hours later with a brand new red Triumph Herald 13/60, it offered more space than the cramped sports car. She took us for a drive around town, although Teresa and I soon noticed the erratic traits and near misses, the cocktail of pills was busy with her brain. Fortunately we arrived home without a scratch and as she parked the car I witnessed another highlight. The gossiping Betty Parker was moving out, I recalled reading about a far flung place called Timbuktu at school, although I doubted we were going to be that lucky.

The following Monday mum made the trip to Soho alone for dinner with the Old Man. Later they parted ways and doubtless after a gauche display of affection on my father’s part, considering the rare interactions at home were practically scripted and staged for our benefit. Apparently he went to check on the slow Monday stream at the first of his notorious chiselling clip joints, whilst mum walked back to her new car. The facts became quite muddy beyond there, as she never returned home again. Unofficially we began to hear the rumours - mum had jumped from the top floor window of the art deco multi-storey car park and former Lex Garage in Soho. Apparently a weighty overdose of those painkillers was to blame, either way the following day I discovered a new word – suicide. Naturally I headed for my trusty Oxford English dictionary and knew immediately it was impossible, more so when considering the pain in her back and those struggles with just a handful of stairs at home. There was no way she could have climbed up or through one of the swing windows unaided.

The death of my mother was a shock, perhaps more so when it was shrouded in a set of such perplexing circumstances. Death is a weird and unusual phenomenon to begin with, particularly for those of us left behind, whilst a child’s perspective tends to rely on limited knowledge and those present at the time. I was rapidly surrounded by unfamiliar adults who continually bandied around pointless, evasive words like, she’s passed-on, passed-away and worst of all - lost. They made it sound closer to misplacing some personal item on a number twenty-six bus during rush hour. Have you lost your wallet sonny? No I’ve lost my mum. Oh I’m sorry to hear that, I hope she turns up sooner or later. One day my mother was smiling and offering us ice cream or a bar of chocolate and the next day she was neatly boxed up and ready for a subterranean existence. It was all so incredible and made worse by the fact that we never got to have a quick look at her in that expected and accepted peaceful state, even if only check to see if she was actually inside the packing crate. A brief memorial service was staged in London for our benefit and we arrived early. Teresa and I wanted to see mum for one last time and as I stared at the light oak coffin with a colourful wreath on top, I asked the Old Man if we could. Can’t we have a look at her dad?

No way son, it’s just not done.

Why not dad?

It’s just not done in our family son, layin’ in state is somethin’ for kings and queens not ya old Mum, anyhow she’d stink the bleedin’ place out, don’t ya know a dead body smells like a disgusting fart?

No dad.

Well it does, so don’t ask again, he said whilst forcing one out in the hope of convincing me, it echoed unpleasantly around the small chapel. Of course when you are a child there is little you can say to something like that. I regretted asking him in the first place, besides he was never recognized for possessing even a modicum of tact or compassion. Anyway after the accident she was a bit of a two and eight son, not exactly ‘andsome like ya old dad! he said chuckling.

With that the other mourners began to arrive and perhaps if they shared my father’s knowledge, they might have assumed the corpse was to blame for the unpleasant pong. I decided to leave it at that, my Old Man’s decisions were customarily engraved in stone. In my young mind it was all too mysterious and clandestine; to this day I am not sure if she was actually on the inside.

Following the London event they whisked her away to Kent and as a result of an age-old Walters’s family ritual my mother was buried in Sevenoaks with her ancestors. We never followed as the Old Man said it was too far a drive for us kids – about thirty miles by car - to a place called St. Nicholas Parish Church. I have never wanted to visit the boneyard since, starting a conversation with a headstone coated with lichen and moss or a grave covered with crushed marble, was not my thing. I know it sounds rather abrupt and yet it was, like a heavy red ink line, the kind an angry teacher might well have etched underneath a frequent spelling mistake. I began to develop far-fetched ideas, suspicions and theories, yet time soon passed and as things changed, history merged awkwardly with the present to such a degree it became impractical to separate fact from fiction. From then on and despite my frequent musings, I viewed everything, everyone and even my father with outright cynicism, as a result my life changed forever.

Although not forgotten, I rapidly adapted my thoughts, mum was no longer part of our daily existence or future and the Old Man behaved as if she never existed to begin with. Subsequently life changed rapidly, it seemed the marriage ultimately resulted in a rather suspiciously propitious union for him, as a few weeks later he benefited from an insurance policy and a fixed inheritance. The surprising upshot was an exponential business expansion and the aptly named Albert Silver Enterprises (London) Limited was born; after all, the capital city was the heart of his operations. The man on the company letterhead continued to amuse himself with the women in his employ; naturally after spending time in Soho I often witnessed a fair number of his dubious conquests. Nevertheless least desirable, the redheaded Mary Squires, was about to become pivotal in a new dilemma. Long before my mother’s death, the Old Man and Mary were extremely active and also careless. Behind the scenes and unbeknown to the rest of us Mary Squire’s otherwise lean frame guaranteed her bump rapidly become all too evident. The Old Man admitted responsibility and decided to give her a job taking care of a peep show in the back street darkness of Tisbury Court. There she remained out of sight, making the tea, counting the change and sweeping up the soggy tissues.

Vincent Silver, our new half-brother arrived exactly two months to the day after mum’s funeral. Then shortly after giving birth Mary Squires vanished and this was another of my father’s dark mysteries. We rarely saw little Vincent, as although my father took custody on the occasional weekend or public holiday, our half-brother was fostered out to a series of well-paid nannies.

After giving up the Mk II the Old Man invested in a brand-new red Jaguar XJ6 and continued to drive me into Soho once a week, only now Teresa occupied the backseat for some of the journey. He dropped her off at a dance and theatre class on Marylebone Road and we continued on to the Crooked Square Mile together. He chatted away as if I were a worldly adult, occasionally he ventured into the past and described nineteen fifties Soho, on other occasions he revisited his tough East End upbringing. After a while many of the stories became rather repetitive and upon seeing my distracted eyes he returned to the present and griped about the business or the women in his life. One thing he reiterated on every one of those trips was how in true once-bitten style he would never remarry, added to that after the mistake with Mary, a new set of rules was carved in commercial stone – following a compulsory visit to the local clap clinic and a clean bill of sexual health, all of the birds had to be on the pill – company policy!

One of those infamous birds was not an employee; Fiona Thurloe drove a red Mercedes 230 SL and was unlike any other woman my father knew. She was a businessperson in her own right, in her mid-forties with plenty of bleached-blonde hair and a weighty display of war paint. Everything was upfront and on display, you could have quite easily propped up your bicycle in her cleavage and she was ample through the hips too. Fiona had money and plenty of it; she dripped with enough gold to start a modest jewellery shop and visited the Old Man once a week. She was married to an elderly city property developer who never seemed to notice his wife at play and simply assumed she was collecting the rent for a couple of shops my Old Man leased in Soho. I was never sure whether he was looking for a discount but they invariably spent a lot of time in his back office negotiating something. The downside was her drinking; in fact she easily competed with the great Albie Silver. I often met her halfway down the stairs or in stumbling distance of the office. After a few