A Clergyman's Daughter Read online

loving, Michael was. Tender an' true. . . . Never looked at

  another man since dat evenin' when I met'm outside Kronk's

  slaughter-house an' he gimme de two pound o' sausage as he'd

  bummed off de International Stores for his own supper. . . .

  MRS BENDIGO: Well, I suppose we'll get that bloody tea this time

  tomorrow.

  MR TALLBOYS [chanting, reminiscently]: By the waters of Babylon we

  sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion! . . .

  DOROTHY: Oh, this cold, this cold!

  SNOUTER: Well, I don't do no more ---- starries this side of

  Christmas. I'll 'ave my kip tomorrow if I 'ave to cut it out of

  their bowels.

  NOSY WATSON: Detective, is he? Smith of the Flying Squad! Flying

  Judas more likely! All they can bloody do--copping the old

  offenders what no beak won't give a fair chance.

  GINGER: Well, I'm off for the fiddlede-dee. 'Oo's got a couple of

  clods for the water?

  MRS MCELLIGOT [waking]: Oh dear, oh dear! If my back ain't fair

  broke! Oh holy Jesus, if dis bench don't catch you across de

  kidneys! An' dere was me dreamin' I was warm in kip wid a nice cup

  a' tea an' two o' buttered toast waitin' by me bedside. Well, dere

  goes me last wink o' sleep till I gets into Lambeth public lib'ry

  tomorrow.

  DADDY [his head emerging from within his overcoat like a tortoise's

  from within its shell]: Wassat you said, boy? Paying money for

  water! How long've you bin on the road, you ignorant young scut?

  Money for bloody water? Bum it, boy, bum it! Don't buy what you

  can bum and don't bum what you can steal. That's my word--fifty

  year on the road, man and boy. [Retires within his coat.]

  MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: O all ye works of the Lord--

  DEAFIE [singing]: WITH my willy willy--

  CHARLIE: 'Oo was it copped you, Nosy?

  THE KIKE: Oh Je-e-e-EEZE!

  MRS BENDIGO: Shove up, shove up! Seems to me some folks think

  they've took a mortgage on this bloody seat.

  MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: O all ye works of the Lord, curse ye the

  Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!

  MRS MCELLIGOT: What I always says is, it's always us poor bloody

  Catholics dat's down in de bloody dumps.

  NOSY WATSON: Smithy. Flying Squad--flying sod! Give us the plans

  of the house and everything, and then had a van full of coppers

  waiting and nipped the lot of us. I wrote it up in the Black

  Maria:

  'Detective Smith knows how to gee;

  Tell him he's a ---- from me.'

  SNOUTER: 'Ere, what about our ---- tea? Go on, Kikie, you're a

  young 'un; shut that ---- noise and take the drums. Don't you pay

  nothing. Worm it out of the old tart. Snivel. Do the doleful.

  MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: O all ye children of men, curse ye the

  Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!

  CHARLIE: What, is Smithy crooked too?

  MRS BENDIGO: I tell you what, girls, I tell you what gets ME down,

  and that's to think of my bloody husband snoring under four

  blankets and me freezing in this bloody Square. That's what _I_

  can't stomach. The unnatural sod!

  GINGER [singing]: THERE they go--IN their joy--Don't take that

  there drum with the cold sausage in it, Kikie.

  NOSY WATSON: Crooked? CROOKED? Why, a corkscrew 'ud look like a

  bloody bradawl beside of him! There isn't one of them double ----

  sons of whores in the Flying Squad but 'ud sell his grandmother to

  the knackers for two pound ten and then sit on her gravestone

  eating potato crisps. The geeing, narking toe rag!

  CHARLIE: Perishing tough. 'Ow many convictions you got?

  GINGER [singing]:

  THERE they go--IN their joy--

  'APpy girl--LUcky boy--

  NOSY WATSON: Fourteen. You don't stand no chance with that lot

  against you.

  MRS WAYNE: What, don't he keep you, then?

  MRS BENDIGO: No, I'm married to this one, sod 'im!

  CHARLIE: I got perishing nine myself.

  MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: O Ananias, Azarias and Misael, curse ye

  the Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!

  GINGER [singing]:

  THERE they go--IN their joy--

  'APpy girl--LUcky boy--

  But 'ere am _I-I-I_--

  Broken--'A-A-AARted!

  God, I ain't 'ad a dig in the grave for three days. 'Ow long since

  you washed your face, Snouter?

  MRS MCELLIGOT: Oh dear, oh dear! If dat boy don't come soon wid

  de tea me insides'll dry up like a bloody kippered herring.

  CHARLIE: YOU can't sing, none of you. Ought to 'ear Snouter and

  me 'long towards Christmas time when we pipe up 'Good King

  Wenceslas' outside the boozers. 'Ymns, too. Blokes in the bar

  weep their perishing eyes out to 'ear us. 'Member when we tapped

  twice at the same 'ouse by mistake, Snouter? Old tart fair tore

  the innards out of us.

  MR TALLBOYS [marching up and down behind an imaginary drum and

  singing]:

  All things vile and damnable,

  All creatures great and small--

  [Big Ben strikes half past ten.]

  SNOUTER [mimicking the clock]: Ding dong, ding dong! Six and a

  ---- half hours of it! Cripes!

  GINGER: Kikie and me knocked off four of them safety-razor blades

  in Woolworth's 's afternoon. I'll 'ave a dig in the bleeding

  fountains tomorrow if I can bum a bit of soap.

  DEAFIE: When I was a stooard in the P. & O., we used to meet them

  black Indians two days out at sea, in them there great canoes as

  they call catamarans, catching sea-turtles the size of dinner

  tables.

  MRS WAYNE: Did yoo used to be a clergyman, then, sir?

  MR TALLBOYS [halting]: After the order of Melchizedec. There is

  no question of 'used to be', Madam. Once a priest always a priest.

  Hoc est corpus hocus-pocus. Even though unfrocked--un-Crocked, we

  call it--and dog-collar publicly torn off by the bishop of the

  diocese.

  GINGER [singing]: THERE they go--IN their joy--Thank Christ! 'Ere

  comes Kikie. Now for the consultation-free!

  MRS BENDIGO: Not before it's bloody needed.

  CHARLIE: 'Ow come they give you the sack, mate? Usual story?

  Choirgirls in the family way?

  MRS MCELLIGOT: You've took your time, ain't you, young man? But

  come on, let's have a sup of it before me tongue falls out o' me

  bloody mouth.

  MRS BENDIGO: Shove up, Daddy! You're sitting on my packet of

  bloody sugar.

  MR TALLBOYS: Girls is a euphemism. Only the usual flannel-

  bloomered hunters of the unmarried clergy. Church hens--altar-

  dressers and brass-polishers--spinsters growing bony and desperate.

  There is a demon that enters into them at thirty-five.

  THE KIKE: The old bitch wouldn't give me the hot water. Had to

  tap a toff in the street and pay a penny for it.

  SNOUTER: ---- likely story! Bin swigging it on the way more

  likely.

  DADDY [emerging from his overcoat]: Drum o' tea, eh? I could sup

  a drum o' tea. [Belches slightly.]

  CHARLIE: When their bubs get like perishing razor stops? _I_

  know.
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  NOSY WATSON: Tea--bloody catlap. Better'n that cocoa in the stir,

  though. Lend's your cup, matie.

  GINGER: Jest wait'll I knock a 'ole in this tin of milk. Shy us a

  money or your life, someone.

  MRS BENDIGO: Easy with that bloody sugar! 'Oo paid for it, I sh'd

  like to know?

  MR TALLBOYS: When their bubs get like razor stops. I thank thee

  for that humour. Pippin's Weekly made quite a feature of the case.

  'Missing Canon's Sub Rosa Romance. Intimate Revelations.' And

  also an Open Letter in John Bull: 'To a Skunk in Shepherd's

  Clothing'. A pity--I was marked out for preferment. [To Dorothy]

  Gaiters in the family, if you understand me. You would not think,

  would you, that the time has been when this unworthy backside

  dented the plush cushions of a cathedral stall?

  CHARLIE: 'Ere comes Florry. Thought she'd be along soon as we got

  the tea going. Got a nose like a perishing vulture for tea, that

  girl 'as.

  SNOUTER: Ay, always on the tap. [Singing]

  Tap, tap, tappety tap,

  I'm a perfec' devil at that--

  MRS MCELLIGOT: De poor kid, she ain't got no sense. Why don't she

  go up to Piccadilly Circus where she'd get her five bob reg'lar?

  She won't do herself no good bummin' round de Square wid a set of

  miserable ole Tobies.

  DOROTHY: Is that milk all right?

  GINGER: All right? [Applies his mouth to one of the holes in the

  tin and blows. A sticky greyish stream dribbles from the other.]

  CHARLIE: What luck, Florry? 'Ow 'bout that perishing toff as I

  see you get off with just now?

  DOROTHY: It's got 'Not fit for babies' on it.

  MRS BENDIGO: Well, you ain't a bloody baby, are you? You can drop

  your Buckingham Palace manners, 'ere, dearie.

  FLORRY: Stood me a coffee and a fag--mingy bastard! That tea you

  got there, Ginger? You always WAS my favourite, Ginger dear.

  MRS WAYNE: There's jest thirteen of us.

  MR TALLBOYS: As we are not going to have any dinner you need not

  disturb yourself.

  GINGER: What-o, ladies and gents! Tea is served. Cups forward,

  please!

  THE KIKE: Oh Jeez! You ain't filled my bloody cup half full!

  MRS MCELLIGOT: Well, here's luck to us all, an' a better bloody

  kip tomorrow. I'd ha' took shelter in one o' dem dere churches

  meself, only de b--s won't let you in if so be as dey t'ink you got

  de chats on you. [Drinks.]

  MRS WAYNE: Well, I can't say as this is exactly the way as I've

  been ACCUSTOMED to drinking a cup of tea--but still--[Drinks.]

  CHARLIE: Perishing good cup of tea. [Drinks.]

  DEAFIE: And there was flocks of them there green parakeets in the

  coco-nut palms, too. [Drinks.]

  MR TALLBOYS:

  What potions have I drunk of siren tears,

  Distilled from limbecs foul as Hell within!

  [Drinks.]

  SNOUTER: Last we'll get till five in the ---- morning. [Drinks.]

  [Florry produces a broken shop-made cigarette from her stocking,

  and cadges a match. The men, except Daddy, Deafie, and Mr

  Tallboys, roll cigarettes from picked-up fag-ends. The red ends

  glow through the misty twilight, like a crooked constellation, as

  the smokers sprawl on the bench, the ground, or the slope of the

  parapet.]

  MRS WAYNE: Well, there now! A nice cup of tea do seem to warm you

  up, don't it, now? Not but what I don't feel it a bit different,

  as you might say, not having no nice clean table-cloth like I've

  been accustomed to, and the beautiful china tea service as our

  mother used to have; and always, of course, the very best tea as

  money could buy--real Pekoe Points at two and nine a pound. . . .

  GINGER [singing]:

  THERE they go--IN their joy--

  'APPY girl--LUCKY boy--

  MR TALLBOYS [singing, to the tune of 'Deutschland, Deutschland uber

  alles']: Keep the aspidistra flying--

  CHARLIE: 'Ow long you two kids been in Smoke?

  SNOUTER: I'm going to give them boozers such a doing tomorrow as

  they won't know if theyr'e on their 'eads or their ---- 'eels.

  I'll 'ave my 'alf dollar if I 'ave to 'old them upside down and

  ---- shake 'em.

  GINGER: Three days. We come down from York--skippering 'alf the

  way. God, wasn't it jest about bleeding nine carat gold, too!

  FLORRY: Got any more tea there, Ginger dear? Well, so long,

  folks. See you all at Wilkins's tomorrow morning.

  MRS BENDIGO: Thieving little tart! Swallers 'er tea and then

  jacks off without so much as a thank you. Can't waste a bloody

  moment.

  MRS MCELLIGOT: Cold? Ay, I b'lieve you. Skipperin' in de long

  grass wid no blanket an' de bloody dew fit to drown you, an' den

  can't get your bloody fire going' in de mornin', an' got to tap de

  milkman 'fore you can make yourself a drum o' tea. I've had some'v

  it when me and Michael was on de toby.

  MRS BENDIGO: Even go with blackies and Chinamen she will, the

  dirty little cow.

  DOROTHY: How much does she get each time?

  SNOUTER: Tanner.

  DOROTHY: SIXPENCE?

  CHARLIE: Bet your life. Do it for a perishing fag along towards

  morning.

  MRS MCELLIGOT: I never took less'n a shilling, never.

  GINGER: Kikie and me skippered in a boneyard one night. Woke up

  in the morning and found I was lying on a bleeding gravestone.

  THE KIKE: She ain't half got the crabs on her, too.

  MRS MCELLIGOT: Michael an' me skippered in a pigsty once. We was

  just a-creepin' in, when, 'Holy Mary!' says Michael, 'dere's a pig

  in here!' 'Pig be ----!' I says, 'he'll keep us warm anyway.' So

  in we goes, an' dere was an old sow lay on her side snorin' like a

  traction engine. I creeps up agen her an' puts me arms round her,

  an' begod she kept me warm all night. I've skippered worse.

  DEAFIE [singing]: WITH my willy willy--

  CHARLIE: Don't ole Deafie keep it up? Sets up a kind of a 'umming

  inside of 'im, 'e says.

  DADDY: When I was a boy we didn't live on this 'ere bread and marg

  and tea and suchlike trash. Good solid tommy we 'ad in them days.

  Beef stoo. Black pudden. Bacon dumpling. Pig's 'ead. Fed like a

  fighting-cock on a tanner a day. And now fifty year I've 'ad of it

  on the toby. Spud-grabbing, pea-picking, lambing, turnip-topping--

  everythink. And sleeping in wet straw and not once in a year you

  don't fill your guts right full. Well--! [Retires within his coat.]

  MRS MCELLIGOT: But he was real bold, Michael was. He'd go in

  anywhere. Many's de time we've broke into an empty house an kipped

  in de best bed. 'Other people got homes,' he'd say. 'Why shouln't

  we have'm too!'

  GINGER [singing]: But I'm dan--cing with tears--in my eyes--

  MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Absumet haeres Caecuba dignior! To

  think that there were twenty-one bottles of Clos St Jacques 1911 in

  my cellar still, that night when the baby was born and I left for

  London on the milk train! . . .

  MRS WAYNE: And as for the WREATHS we 'as sent us when our mother
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  died--well, you wouldn't believe! 'Uge, they was. . . .

  MRS BENDIGO: If I 'ad my time over again I'd marry for bloody

  money.

  GINGER [singing]:

  But I'm dan--cing with tears--in my eyes--

  'Cos the girl--in my arms--isn't you-o-ou!

  NOSY WATSON: Some of you lot think you got a bloody lot to howl

  about, don't you? What about a poor sod like me? You wasn't

  narked into the stir when you was eighteen year old, was you?

  THE KIKE: Oh Je-e-eEEZE!

  CHARLIE: Ginger, you can't sing no more'n a perishing tomcat with

  the guts-ache. Just you listen to me. I'll give y'a treat.

  [Singing]: Jesu, lover OF my soul--

  MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Et ego in Crockford. . . . With Bishops

  and Archbishops and with all the Company of Heaven. . . .

  NOSY WATSON: D'you know how I got in the stir the first time?

  Narked by my own sister--yes, my own bloody sister! My sister's a

  cow if ever there was one. She got married to a religious maniac--

  he's so bloody religious that she's got fifteen kids now--well, it

  was him put her up to narking me. But I got back on 'em, _I_ can

  tell you. First thing, I done when I come out of the stir, I buys

  a hammer and goes round to my sister's house, and smashed her piano

  to bloody matchwood. 'There!' I says, 'that's what you get for

  narking ME! You nosing mare!' I says.

  DOROTHY: This cold, this cold! I don't know whether my feet are

  there or not.

  MRS MCELLIGOT: Bloody tea don't warm you for long, do it? I'm

  fair froze myself.

  MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: My curate days, my curate days! My

  fancywork bazaars and morris-dancers in aid of on the village

  green, my lectures to the Mothers' Union-missionary work in Western

  China with fourteen magic lantern slides! My Boys' Cricket Club,

  teetotallers only, my Confirmation classes--purity lecture once

  monthly in the Parish Hall--my Boy Scout orgies! The Wolf Cubs

  will deliver the Grand Howl. Household Hints for the Parish

  Magazine, 'Discarded fountain-pen fillers can be used as enemas for

  canaries. . . .'

  CHARLIE [singing]: Jesu, lover OF my soul--

  GINGER: 'Ere comes the bleeding flattie! Get up off the ground,

  all of you. [Daddy emerges from his overcoat.]

  THE POLICEMAN [shaking the sleepers on the next bench]: Now then,

  wake up, wake up! Rouse up, you! Got to go home if you want to

  sleep. This isn't a common lodging house. Get up, there! [etc.,

  etc.]

  MRS BENDIGO: It's that nosy young sod as wants promotion.

  Wouldn't let you bloody breathe if 'e 'ad 'is way.

  CHARLIE [singing]:

  Jesu, lover of my soul,

  Let me TO Thy bosom fly--

  THE POLICEMAN: Now then, YOU! What you think THIS is? Baptist

  prayer meeting? [To the Kike] Up you get, and look sharp about

  it!

  CHARLIE: I can't 'elp it, sergeant. It's my toonful nature. It

  comes out of me natural-like.

  THE POLICEMAN [shaking Mrs Bendigo]: Wake up, mother, wake up!

  MRS BENDIGO: Mother? MOTHER, is it? Well, if I am a mother,

  thank God I ain't got a bloody son like you! And I'll tell you

  another little secret, constable. Next time I want a man's fat

  'ands feeling round the back of my neck, I won't ask YOU to do it.

  I'll 'ave someone with a bit more sex-appeal.

  THE POLICEMAN: Now then, now then! No call to get abusive, you

  know. We got our orders to carry out. [Exit majestically.]

  SNOUTER [sotto voce]: ---- off, you ---- son of a ----!

  CHARLIE [singing]:

  While the gathering waters roll,

  While the tempest still is 'igh!

  Sung bass in the choir my last two years in Dartmoor, I did.