City of Spades

11

The Moonbeam club


Strange girl, Theodora! When I’d taken a quick bath and changed once more (sober dark grey, this time) I came downstairs to find she was resplendently got up: she looked like a lively rector’s daughter’s notion of a sinner.

‘Theodora!’

‘Well?’

‘You look bewitching, but bizarre.’

‘You’ve seen me in evening dress before.’

‘But this! Where did you get it?’

Though I’d not thought she had it in her, her chiselled face now looked almost demure. ‘In Italy, last holidays,’ she said.

‘You continually amaze me.’

‘Come!’ she said determinedly, and took me by the arm. I trembled, and we walked out once again into the unpredictable London night.

Soon we reached the outskirts of Soho; and being already, as I imagined, one of the freemasonry of the secret coloured underground, I did not hesitate to ask the way to the Moonbeam club from any dark face I saw. Apparently some recognised me, for they gave knowing grins and said they’d seen me earlier at the Moorhen. But I, as yet, could hardly distinguish their faces one from another, and even less whether the brown eyes were baleful or benevolent. Thereby I gave offence to the Bushman, who waylaid me quite close to our final destination.

‘Yous no mo’ remembers me, then, mister?’ he said. ‘Earlier time I sell you cigaleks.’

‘Oh, but of course. How are you and your instrument, my dear chap? And can you show me to the Moonbeam?’

‘You dunno that ways? Come, and your lady too.’ He led us down a street where, curiously enough, I’d often visited a little Italian restaurant that wasn’t. But never had I thought that the bombed site across the way contained, by night, in its entrails, the Moonbeam club.

The whole street was transformed: the horrid little restaurant was dark and shuttered, and the bombed site alive with awnings, naked lights, and throngs of coloured men. Cars were parked thick outside.

‘What you does,’ said the Bushman, ‘is spik with Mr Bumper Woodman about how he makes you a members. But take care! All those Moonbeam owners is not Asfricans, like me, but is Wess Indians.’

I thanked him, and we crossed and joined a queue of trollops and GIs.

Mr Bumper Woodman was a coloured giant in a belted mackintosh, somewhat run to seed. His chest protruded even farther than his belly, and his face wore an impersonal scowl. He asked my name, and who had recommended me. I said Johnny Fortune had.

‘Is no such man a member here.’

On the impulse of the moment I said, ‘Mr Billy Whispers, then.’

‘He is inside,’ said Mr Woodman. ‘Please now you wait, I go see.’

We watched the GIs streaming in, all gracefully dressed like chorus boys in a coloured revue. They moved slowly, but persistently, as men of a race which knows that, come what may, it will go on for ever.

Billy Whispers came upstairs with Mr Woodman and a third coloured man of oriental appearance.

‘I am Mr Cochrane,’ this third man said, in singsong Jamaican, falsetto and lilting, so like transatlantic Welsh. ‘I am the resident manager of this establishment, and will wish to know your qualifications for entering, since Mr Whispers tells me your identity is quite unknown to him.’

‘Good evening, Mr Whispers,’ I said. ‘I expect you remember me from the Moorhen earlier on.’

The African looked at me coolly, and made no reply.

‘I’m to meet Johnny Fortune here, I don’t know if he’s turned up yet, so I thought you’d kindly sign us in.’

‘You know Johnny Fortune?’

‘I should say I do.’

‘He’s new arrived in this country.’

‘I met him only this morning, but we’re already quite great friends.’

‘Yes? Is it? Then I shall sign you in till Johnny come, and check with him later on about you.’

‘Now just a minute,’ said Mr Cochrane. ‘If there’s a doubt about the sponsorship of this gentleman and lady, nothing can be determined that would prejudice the issue.’

‘How beautifully you speak,’ said Theodora, with conviction. ‘You must have gone to a university like me.’

‘Though not college trained, lady, I have a pretty reasonable acquaintance with general knowledge of all descriptions.’

‘You sign him in, man, like I say,’ said Billy, and he turned and went downstairs.

Mr Cochrane opened a huge ledger, and charged us ten shillings each. ‘Our club rules are strict about introducing liquor,’ he said, ‘and Mr Woodman must examine you for any portable bottles.’

Mr Woodman frisked me, and asked to see in Theodora’s handbag.

‘You must have been a policeman once,’ I said.

‘Not so, man. Me boxer. Me once fight Joe Louis, but me did not altogether defeat him.’

Then we were allowed downstairs – two long floors down (can London be so deep?), past coloured photographs of American Negro singers and white starlets, all blonde hair and breasts, till we reached a little entrance hall. Nobody was about, but there was a public call-box to the outside world, embossed with a thousand pencilled phone numbers. The sound of throbbing music came from beyond the door.

‘Should I dial for ambulance or fire, Theodora?’

‘They always come when they’re needed,’ she said, and opened the Moonbeam club’s inner door.

It was a long, low room like the hold of a ship, no windows and only walls. At one end, in front of a huge portrait of the rising moon, was a seven-piece orchestra, only whose eyes, teeth and shirt fronts were visible at this distance. At the other, just behind us, was a soft-drink bar, with Coca-Cola advertisements and packets of assorted nuts, where teas and coffees were also being served. Among the square columns that held up the low roof were tables, some set in sombre alcoves. And between them a small floor where couples jived gently, turning continually like water-beetles making changing patterns on a pond.

By the bar, I saw Mr Karl Marx Bo. ‘You’re taking time off from your studies?’ I asked him.

‘Man, even the greatest brains must occasionally relax.’

‘Please meet my friend Theodora Pace. Theodora, Mr Karl Marx Bo.’

‘Good early morning to you, lady. You like I find you a table? But the drinks is much more expensive when you sit.’

He led us, without waiting for a reply, to a little gallery I hadn’t seen: up six steps, and overlooking the larger trough of the dancers and the tight-packed tables.

‘Theodora,’ I said, ‘is, like you, a student of social phenomena.’

‘Is that why you bring her to this interesting GI knock-shop?’

‘Is that what happens here, then?’

‘Everything happens here, lady. But mostly it is a spot where fine young American coloureds can destroy themselves with female white trash peddled to them by West Indians and by my fellow countrymen, who collect these women’s earnings and usually the GI’s pocket-book as well.’

‘Then why do you come here, Mr Bo?’ said Theodora.

‘Lady, it is a weakness, but serious individual as I am, I cannot always resist the lure of a little imitation joy.’

‘You found more joy in your own homeland?’

‘Oh, naturally. We Africans, you see, are not a people who deposit our days in a savings bank, like you do. Our notion is that the life is given us to be enjoyed.’

Theodora fixed him firmly with her spectacles. ‘But one must build,’ she said. ‘To build a civilisation requires effort, sacrifice. If you find the English mournful, it is because we turn the easy joys into parliaments, and penicillin.’ I began to think Theodora had also been at the gin. ‘You will find that out,’ she continued, ‘when you put on shoes and come out of the easy jungle. The new African nations will have to learn to sing less, smile less, and work.’

‘Theodora, you’re being priggish, tactless and a bore.’

‘Is all right, Mr Pew. I have no objection to this lady’s open personal statements.’

‘Thank you, Karl Marx,’ said Theodora. ‘Well, then. If your countrymen find life so enjoyable at home, why do they flock here to England?’

‘Always these white people who ask us why we come here! Do we ever ask you, lady, why your people came to our country long ago?’

‘Don’t be so sensitive, Mr Bo. I’m not saying you oughtn’t to come here …’

‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’

‘… but only asking why you do.’

‘I came here to study, as you know.’

‘You, yes. But all the others. All the hundred thousand others, or whatever the figure is, because nobody knows.’

‘Your statistics are illogical, lady, if you speak of Africans. Most of that number are West Indians, and you know very well why they come here – it is to eat. Their little islands will not hold their bursting populations, and America, where they wish much more to travel, has denied them the open door. So they come here.’

Theodora leant forward and tapped the table four times with her finger.

‘Please don’t be so elusive, Mr Bo,’ she said. ‘Do stick to the point. West Africa is prosperous, expanding, filled with opportunity. Why come here?’

‘To study: law, and nursing, and et cetera …’

‘Yes, yes, you said so.’

‘Or in show business. You like the wild illusion of our African drummers.’

‘Nonsense. How many Africans are there in show business in London? Fifty at most? And anyway, you know you can’t compete in that with American Negroes, or even with West Indians, because your music isn’t entertainment as we understand it. In fact, it’s not “show business” at all.’

‘Oh, no? Not entertaining to you?’

‘You know very well, Mr Bo, that African music is too real, too obsessive, too wonderfully monotonous, too religious, for Europeans ever to put up with it. We like something much less authentic.’

‘I see you are a serious student of our art.’

‘Of course I am. I don’t speak of what I don’t know about.’

‘Theodora, your conceit’s repulsive.’

‘Be quiet, Montgomery. Go on, Mr Bo. Why do you all come here?’

Beneath her fierce onslaught, Mr Bo looked dreamy, seeming to retire within himself. ‘Some boys are afraid of curses,’ he said softly.

‘Of spells? Of witchcraft?’

‘I see you smile, Miss Pace. You should not smile. I could show to you boys here, even scientific students, who believe that family of theirs have died from spells, and fear the same themselves if they return.’

‘And you: you surely don’t believe such nonsense yourself?’

‘Anything many people believe is not exactly nonsense, Miss Theodora. You are, of course, superior to such superstitions, but then perhaps you have no wonderful sense of magic and mystery any more.’

A shrewd thrust, I thought, and Theodora clearly didn’t like it. She hitched her Italian gown, and returned to the attack. ‘That might account for a few dozen who stay here,’ she said, ‘but not for thousands.’

Mr Bo looked at her through veiled eyes, ironically. ‘Others,’ he said, ‘come here to flee their families’ great love. A family in Africa, you see, is not like here. Our whole life and business belong to every second cousin. A family only loves you and gives you some peace when you let it eat you.’ Mr Bo chuckled warmly, and flung up his hands. ‘Some boys are here who wish to escape those circumstances. Here you can live out your own life, even if it is miserably.’

Theodora, in the realm of the mind, is like a huntress who’s not satisfied until she’s bagged her lion. ‘That can’t be the only reason,’ she said, stabbing her coffee cup with a spoon quite viciously.

Mr Bo lit two cigarettes in his lips, and passed her one.

‘You seem so obstinately inclined,’ he said, ‘that I shall tell you the real reason for your satisfaction. It is this.’ He gazed at her, and said: ‘The world has broken suddenly into my country: and we are determined to break out equally into the world.’

‘Go on.’

‘At home there is reasonable happiness, yes, and comfort. But when in a cinema we see the London streets shining, gleaming and beckoning, we stop and think, “Here am I, shut in my prison, cut out from where there is creation, and riches, and power in the modern world. There, in that distant place, the life is bigger, wider, more significant. That is something I must see, and show I can be master of it.” So we come wandering here, like the country boys back home who dream to visit the big town.’

Theodora gazed back, visibly entranced. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘you all come here. And what do you find?’

‘Find almost always great deception. Hard times, or else, like these children you see in this club here, living prosperously for a while with little crimes. In either case, it is failure for us here.’

‘Then why don’t you go back?’

‘Because of shame. The country boy can’t go back home from the city until he makes some fortune. But opportunity for this is denied to us by you.’

‘Because there’s a colour bar, you mean?’

‘Is there a colour bar in England, Miss Theodora?’

‘You know there is.’

‘If you say so, then, I say it too. Universal politeness, and universal coldness. Few love us, few hate us, but everybody wish we are not here, and shows this to us by the correct, stand-away behaviour that is your great English secret of public action.’

‘And you resent it.’

‘No, I do not resent it. Me, I laugh. For very soon this colour bar will die away.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do. When we have African prime minister, who will say: “Mr England, I have a million pounds to spend in Birmingham with you, but perhaps I go spend them in Germany, or in Tokyo, Japan.” This speech by our prime minister will change more hearts of yours in half a day than nice-thinking people among you fail to do in all these years. All else is useless propaganda: I mean all statements of clergymen about brothers under the skin, all efforts you make to banish your shame at ancient conduct to us by being kind to us, and condescensious.’

‘I am never condescending, and not particularly kind.’

‘No, lady. Perhaps you are just civilised. But if you wish for an intelligence test of your true persuasions, answer please truthfully these two questions. You also, Mr Pew.’

He pointed a finger at her, then one at me. Theodora smiled (her nose twitching, however, slightly).

‘Number one. Do you agree to total political freedom for coloured races without any restrictions whatever? Miss Theodora?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Pew?’

‘Yes.’

‘Second question. Would you yourself marry a coloured man – or woman?’

‘Yes,’ said Theodora; and added, ‘If I loved him, of course.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Why not, Mr Pew?’

‘For the child’s sake.’

‘It would be racially degenerate?’

‘It would be miserable.’

‘Subject to social pressures? Excluded by both races?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Bo glared at us.

‘That is the familiar argument. But why should such a half-caste race not serve as spearhead for enlightenment? Be necessary victims in the victorious struggle?’

‘Perhaps,’ I could not forbear to say, ‘you should ask the half-caste child what he thinks of that.’

The band stopped, and we all sipped coffee in the silence of misunderstanding. Mr Karl Marx Bo, suddenly, looked bitter.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you are both nice people, I am sure, but I think you also are what we despise even more than we do those who hate us – you are full-time professional admirers of the coloured peoples, who like us as you like pet animals. Miss Theodora, do you wish to dance?’

‘Alas, Mr Bo! My friend Theodora is unable to.’

‘Speak for yourself, Montgomery. Karl Marx, shall we take the floor?’

And she did, and twirled with him quite creditably. Admirable Theodora!

I looked round the cavern, which had a warm coloured fug and stuffiness – sticky, promiscuous and cloying, a hot grass hut in the centre of our town. The men lounged and watched, languid and attentive, the white girls sat up chattering, playing hard to get. How sad there were no coloured girls there of equal dignity and beauty to the men.

Mr Ronson Lighter came over. He handed me my Ronson lighter. He looked very cross.

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said.

‘Billy say I to give you that.’

‘Much obliged.’

‘Also that you come over to speak with him.’

‘I’m here with a friend.’

‘That you bring her over too. He offers you both coffee.’

Billy was sitting among his henchmen in so dark a corner as to be doubly invisible. He reached up a hand, took mine, and pulled me gently down.

‘Johnny, he still not come here yet?’ he said.

‘No. What can have happened to him?’

‘Perhaps he change his mind. He was with Hamilton Ashinowo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then perhaps Hamilton will offer him some special entertainment. So he change his mind and stay back home.’ Mr Whispers softly laughed.

This was mysterious. So, ‘Good evening, Mr Cannibal,’ I said. ‘I hope you had no trouble at the police station.’

There was a loud silence.

‘You were in police station tonight, Jimmy?’ Billy Whispers asked him.

‘No.’

Billy looked at me. So did Mr Cannibal: he seemed angry and alarmed.

I said: ‘Perhaps I made a mistake.’

‘I hope you do,’ said Billy Whispers.

The silence continued till the coffee came. ‘You get this your lighter?’ Whispers said to me.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Accidents do happen. My boy did not know you was a friend of Johnny Fortune’s. He is a nice boy, Johnny. Too nice for this city, I expect. I hope he may soon go back home.’ He turned to a half-caste girl upon the bench. ‘This is Barbara,’ he said. ‘She likes to dance with you.’

‘I don’t dance.’

‘She teach you. Barbara, go with this man on to the floor.’

We went. The girl said, ‘Why did you tell him you saw Jimmy at the station?’

‘Why not? Wasn’t he caught up in that raid like everybody else?’

‘He can’t have told Billy he was there … I can see Billy suspects him of something. It looks like trouble to me.’

‘But Mr Cannibal’s his friend.’

‘Cannibal’s slippery. We all know that.’

She spoke with a Cardiff accent. It came oddly out of her half-African face, the sound so ill assorted with a physical beauty that had reached her from thousands of miles away.

‘You come here often?’ I said.

‘I’m a hostess here.’

‘You work for the management?’

‘No. For Billy Whispers. He controls most of the hostesses here.’

‘The management let him?’

‘These West Indians are frightened of the Africans. They don’t interfere. Can’t you dance any better than that?’

‘No. You were going to teach me.’

‘Just hold on to me, then. Bring your body close and don’t think of your feet. You like coloured girls?’

‘I think so.’

‘You ever been with one?’

‘No.’

Barbara glanced up at me with mild surprise. We passed Theodora and Mr Karl Marx Bo. ‘Come and sit down,’ I said to Barbara, ‘and meet my friend Theodora.’

‘That fish-face woman? Isn’t she a copper?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Are you one, by the way?’

‘Heaven forfend.’

‘Eh?’

‘What difference does it make what I say, Barbara? Just think what you like about us. Time alone will show.’

‘Tell your friends to come to Billy’s table, then. I have to get back to him.’ She stepped across the floor, professionally swinging her magnificent bottom.

I said to Theodora as we followed, ‘Where did you learn to dance so well? You’re a perpetual revelation.’

Lowering her voice, she said, ‘I was at one time in the Wrens, and lived a rather rackety life. It’s a period I prefer to forget about, and I’ll thank you not to refer to it again.’

Billy waved us into his corner with a comprehensive smile. With him now there was an enormous coloured GI, and holding both the GI’s hands a lovely, harsh-faced white girl.

‘Is Dorothy,’ said Billy, ‘and her good friend Larry.’

‘Hi, man. You American or British?’ Larry asked me.

‘British.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’

‘Larry doesn’t like Americans,’ Dorothy explained.

‘But isn’t he one?’

‘Oh, yes, but not an American, if you see what I mean.’

She hugged him, then let out a sudden shriek. ‘Look there!’ she cried. ‘It’s my brother Arthur!’

A tall gold-skinned boy came gangling gracefully across the floor, grinning with imbecile guile, his lower lip pendent, his eyes flashing dubious charm. He kissed Dorothy, shook hands with everyone, sat down and put his arms round several shoulders.

‘I come out this morning,’ he told everybody. ‘An’ hitch-hiked up to town. An’ I called at back home and found Muriel. An’ she told me about our new brother Johnny. Have you seen him, Dorothy?’

‘Johnny? Yes, I seen him. He’s a fresh boy, just like you.’

‘Ma wouldn’t take me in, I’ve no place I can go, and I’d like to ask my new brother Johnny to help me with some loot until I can get settled. Unless you can help me, Billy, or you, Dorothy, or someone.’

He gazed lazily around, exuding animal magnetism and anxiety.

‘Larry,’ said Dorothy, ‘you won’t mind if I have this dance with my little brother?’

But Mr Cochrane, the resident manager, who’d been standing by like a janizary, stepped up. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, and ladies too,’ he said, ‘but I cannot permit your wife, Billy, to take the floor in slacks.’

Billy said nothing. Larry the GI took Mr Cochrane’s arm.

‘Listen man,’ he said. ‘Let me instruct you about clothing. All you West Indians go about dressed in zoot-suit styles we’ve thrown away ten years ago, and we don’t complain about you.’

‘It is not a question of styles, but of being costumed respectably for my club.’

‘This girl, man, is smart as any film star. They all of them wear slacks in their off-duty hours.’

‘Flim star or no flim star,’ said Mr Cochrane (and he did say ‘flim’), ‘she must please attire herself in a proper skirt.’

‘Oh, blow, man,’ said Ronson Lighter. ‘Twist now – you dig?’

Mr Cochrane stood his ground. ‘I refuse all permission. I shall stop the orchestra.’

Mr Bumper Woodman arrived with several companions. All the men stood up. I saw Theodora reaching for her handbag.

‘Why, oh why,’ said Mr Karl Marx Bo to Mr Cochrane, ‘do you stir up trouble with your African cousins? If you want to make some trouble, why you not go and fight with Dr Malan?’

‘Me tell you insults is quite ineffectual, Mr Student,’ said Mr Woodman.

‘Oh-ho! Listen to this veteran Caribbean pugilist!’

‘Listen to these Ras Tafaris, all long hair and dirty fingernails.’

‘These sugar-cane suckers! These calypso-singing slaves.’

‘Slave? My ancestor had the wisdom to leave your jungle country.’

‘You ancestor was so no good, my ancestor he go sell him to Jumble slave-ship.’

‘You ras-clot man – you’s wasted.’

‘These bumble-clot men – these p-ssy-clots.’

‘Come to your home in Africa, man, and we teach you some good behaviour.’

At this moment of clenched fists and hands slipping inside pockets, a very tall slim man, with a piece bitten out of one ear, approached. ‘Now come,’ he said. ‘Come, come, come, come, come.’

‘Mr Jasper!’ cried Dorothy. ‘Are you the boss here, or aren’t you? Tell your men to see reason!’

Mr Jasper listened to several explanations, then said in a high, smooth voice, ‘Miss Dorothy, I lend you a skirt from out of our cabaret costumes. I hope you will accept this solution, Mr Whispers.’

‘No.’

‘Yes, man.’

‘No, man, no.’

‘Come,’ I whispered to Theodora. ‘This is our cue to leave.’