VT Coughtrey - more cotton wool and Toni

NOTES There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me.	The spell of work at Maw's had lasted for about 10 months and it was shortly before my 20th birthday when I walked out. Once again I failed to tell my mother and returned to the deception of leaving the house at the usual time, then exploring London or hanging about in parks, pubs and libraries or on Hampstead Heath convinced that an introducer to some sort of mysterious clique that I could sponge off would make himself or herself known to me. However, this time I embarked on the period of wandering with very little money. Largely due to overtime, I had certainly been earning much more than previously - as much as £8 some weeks - but I had also been spending more, mostly on records, jazz clubs and clothes. That was the only time in my life when I have owned a suit !
	What little money I had ran out very quickly and it was the wrong time of year to be wandering about without any. There was also the problem, as before, of having to continue to pay my mother for board and lodging every week. After a few weeks I came to the conclusion that the only answer was to go back to Maw's and ask for my job back. I didn't expect to be turned down, even though I had walked out without giving notice. You took it for granted in those days that employers were desperate for workers. Sure enough, the Personnel Officer was very keen to have me back. The foreman just had to swallow his pride.
	I had just enough money left to pay my mother one more week's board and lodging before starting back at Maw's. I had to give a week in hand, of course, meaning no pay for the first week, but I simply told my mother my pay packet had been stolen. She believed it because I was coming home with cotton dust in my hair. She obviously hadn't noticed the few weeks' absence of this sign of honest toil.
	Maw's had not been able to find another lap-carrier, so the men of the carding room had had to take turns at it. They hadn't done it well, so the women on piece-work had lost a lot of money and were very happy to see me back. Life at Maw's resumed as before: the wasps, the round of jazz clubs and concerts in the company of John the mechanic, together with the banjo & clarinet duets in his bedroom, the vicious crudities of Geoff and the ever-present ghost of the man torn apart by the drive belts. The twins were still perched in isolation on either side of their towering sanitary towel machine, but my eyes no longer kept straying towards them. It was a new girl who now captured my attention. Toni was a mixed-race Scouser living alone in a bedsit. She operated another sanitary towel machine - horizontal, this one. To my eyes she was unbearably sexy, and this outweighed her other attributes, such as being coarse and cynical and openly flirting with every male in sight. "You'd get a right dose off that", the foreman opined. She was about as different as you could get from the virginal twins. In fact the perceived likelihood that practically any male would suffice no doubt added considerably to her value in my estimation.
	But before I could summon up the courage to ask for a date, Christmas got in the way. It was a pretty grim Christmas, actually, as a result of going on the carding room's annual pub crawl. It was the very first time that I got really seriously plastered. In the last pub we visited - the Alexandra in East Barnet Road (it's still there), I eventually went round all the tables finishing up the discarded beer, wine and spirits. Suddenly, I was draped over the garden fence of a house opposite screaming obscenities at everybody and nobody. After a while I became aware that two or more men were bundling me into the back of a van, but I had no interest in who they were or where they might be taking me. However, I must somehow have told them my address, or they searched my pockets, because I was suddenly being held upright at the open door of 4 Connaught Road, and my grandmother was shrieking that I was a filthy drunken beast. She was also shouting abuse at the samaritans who had rescued me, presumably in the belief that it was they who had got me so drunk. I somehow got into bed, and when my mother came home from work (she still worked full time in the Co-op) I became dimly aware of a lot of high pitched ranting and raving going on at close quarters, but was in no state to take any interest in it.
	It took the whole of the Christmas break to recover from this excess. I was still too ill on Christmas day to partake of much of the Christmas fare (which was anyway meagre by the old standards), and on top of this there was the inevitable frosty atmosphere. I was no doubt glad to get back to work in the new year, especially as I very much had Toni on my mind.
	I have no recollection how far into 1963 we had got before my lust eventually compelled me to ask Toni for a date. When she agreed, I firstly couldn't believe my ears, then was terrified and elated at the same time. The other women were concerned and warned me to be very careful (of what, I'm not sure). But I had worked myself into a state of mind wherein Toni, despite all appearances and opinions to the contrary, was a poor misunderstood waif. I even wrote and privately performed, using my newly acquired guitar, a blues number entitled My Poor Toni. I thank the gods the tape recording I made of it has long since disappeared.
	By the time the Saturday evening of the date came round, I was in a high state of trepidation. I spent so long grooming myself (very uncharacteristically) that I turned up at New Barnet station, where we had arranged to meet, about fifteen minutes late. This had put Toni in a very ratty mood. It was not a good start. We got a train to King's Cross, where she got into an even worse mood because we couldn't find any source of her favourite cigarettes.
	I had been doing a lot of overtime, this time saving money quite rapidly. The pocket of my green suit acted as my only bank, so I happened to have my entire wealth - about £40 - on me. This was a lot of cash to be walking about with in those days, representing about 5 weeks' wages. The fact that I had all this money on me prompted me to act extravagantly in a desperate bid to lift Toni out of her sulkiness. I hailed a cab to the West End and embarked on a tour of smart pubs, in which Toni asked for a succession of exotic and very expensive drinks. Of course, it was understood that I paid for everything. Whatever she had, I had the same, but her insistence on flirting outrageously with every male within range (except me), induced me to sneak extra drinks while her attention was distracted.
	Eventually we were thrown out of a pub because I was "upsetting the customers". This surprised me greatly because I thought I had merely been simmering quietly in a corner watching Toni flirt, but outside the pub she started crying and yelled "You're making a show of me!" I insisted on dragging her into another pub or two, but eventually she persuaded some hefty types to order me to take her to a restaurant. The next thing I knew was that we were being thrown out of some scruffy little cafe. There followed a prolonged interlude in Hyde Park where I was stumbling along about ten yards behind her in the dark, screaming insults and obscenities. Some time after this I spent a while hanging over railings vomiting into a basement. Then I was being kicked hard in the ribs as I lay on the floor. The floor turned out to be that of Ken Colyer's Jazz Club in Great Newport Street, where lying asleep on the floor was perfectly acceptable. God knows how I found my way there. The kicks were being administered by Toni who was also shouting angrily at me to get up. I was very surprised to see her there, as my impression was that the events of earlier in the evening had taken place several days before. She continued to kick me until I managed, with the help of some amused bystanders, to get to my feet.
	Next, we were in a taxi, somewhere near St Albans! Apparently, Toni had hailed a cab outside Colyer's and asked the driver for New Barnet, about 12 miles. He had got hopelessly lost and I had failed to respond meaningfully to requests for directions until we had gone about 20 miles. He warned me that this was going to cost a fortune, but I assured him that I had plenty of money on me. When I had eventually set the driver on course for the Barnets, I actually grabbed Toni and tried to kiss her, but she quite understandably regarded this idea as a most revolting prospect and defended herself vigorously. She somehow contrived to arrange with the cabbie that he should stop near her bedsit for just long enough for her to jump out, then drive quickly on for a mile or so before letting me out. The cabbie demanded £6 - a vast amount, but I assumed I had it until I fished around in my pockets and could only come up with £4. He was furious and yelled insults before driving off. When I got home my mother and grandmother were already asleep, so my inebriation escaped outright detection. The next day I had the second terrible hangover of my drinking career. I told my mother I'd got gastric flu, but she suspected alcohol was to blame. I strongly denied it.
	By Monday, I had just about recovered enough to return to work. The matter of how the best part of £40 could have disappeared during the course of Saturday evening excercised me greatly. I strongly suspected Toni. From one point of view I was quite pleased about it, because I could now go boldly into work and accuse her of villainy instead of having to face the embarassment of her accusations against me. I went straight up to her in front of her fellow workers and accused her of the theft of my money. She looked genuinely dumbfounded, rummaged in her handbag and threw all the money it contained - a couple of pounds I think - at me, then burst into tears and repeated the complaint that I had made a show of her. I was surprised and very gratified by what I sensed to be the general reaction to this. In the end, people seemed to be thinking, it was not I who was the innocent one needing to be warned about her - it was the other way round! I had risen a few notches in their estimation. Geoff looked at me knowingly and made sexual gestures. I certainly didn't attempt to disabuse him.