I Got No Brother

  I Got No Brother

  I GOT NO BROTHER

  by

  PATRICK O’HARA

  Copyright © Patrick O’Hara 1967

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Clarke, Doble and Brendon Ltd

  for the publishers

  Neville Spearman Ltd

  112 Whitfield Street, London W1

  And fuck you, too, china.

  Patrick O’Hara

  PATRICK O’HARA

  During his childhood, Patrick O’Hara was brought up by various people and in various establishments until he was old enough to run away to sea. At fourteen his first ship was a passenger-cargo liner out of London on the Latin-America run, on board which he washed crockery and polished silverware. Later he served as Quartermaster, Seaman and Fireman with Dutch, German and Danish ships — mostly in Far Eastern and Pacific waters — an area of the world with which he has formed a romantic and lasting attachment. He was introduced to books and writing by an East End priest whose father was a director of a well-known London publishing company. He now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.

  –

  Patrick O’Hara’s other novels are: The Wake of the Gertrude Luth (The Luck of the Lonely Sea - US); God Came On Friday; The Wohldorf Shipment; The Red Sailor; and The Yangtze Run.

  One

  I am standing in this doorway on Shaftesbury Avenue. It is late night and the sun has gone down and it is getting dark and the lights are beginning to come on in the streets and in the buildings and the flashing neon lights of the signs and the lights of the traffic and the lights in the big red buses; and suddenly it is dark and everywhere there are lights. London always seems pretty good about this time and I am just standing here minding my own business and not even on the bum. That is all I am doing, just standing here giving myself a scratch and watching all these people going by on the pavements. You do that and, Jesus H Christ, you will see some strange-looking Herberts all right. You stand on Shaftesbury Avenue some night that you have nothing better to do and it will open your eyes like they have never been opened before. And you can say that again, china.

  Anyhow, here I am running the eye over all these young mices wearing summer frocks and laughing and joking and looking in the shop windows when suddenly, I see this old bag coming up from way of the Dilly. She has got on a frock that is too tight for her and she looks to me like she is thinking that she is young and good-looking again. I mean not that I know if she was good-look­ing when she was young anyway because I have never set eyes on her before in my whole life till just now. Anyhow, just to give her an elegant touch she is dragging this hound along that is wearing a pink ribbon and has got a hair-cut like maybe it wandered into one of those electric fans. Well, all the time this old bag is coming up the street she is giving the Come On to all the young fellows going by like maybe she is the easiest thing in the whole town. And that is really saying something when you know this town like I do. And you can say that again, twice.

  Anyhow, when she comes alongside I give her a grin like I know what she is looking for all right, but all she does is give me a hinge down her nose like I am something left behind by the Ark. Well that takes the steam right out of my boiler, I tell you. If I had a gun I would shoot myself. But having no gun I just stand there watching her go on up the street and thinking, there goes your supper, china. Then I think she is going to stop and come back, but no, she changes her mind again and goes on along, and after a while she has got lost in the crowd and it don’t look like she is ever going to come back; and all the time the noise of the traffic is loud and the voices are loud and the laughter is loud, and taking it all over, London seems pretty happy this night.

  Then just when I am beginning to feel like this fellow Words­worth on the Bridge, something starts giving me trouble under my shirt. Oh, I know what it is all right. I guess you can pick up almost anything in Hyde Park, if you know what I mean. That is where I have been sleeping all afternoon and I am hard, hot and hungry and a long, long way from home. But if I was not so hungry I would be feeling pretty happy standing here in this doorway on Shaftesbury watching the world going by on the pavements; but as it is I am beginning to wonder when and where I am going to eat, if ever.

  ‘Have you got a light, please?’

  Well, well, well, I am thinking, not another one. To tell you the truth I am really shocked about this shortage of matches they have got in London. It is really something, and no mistake.

  ‘I say,’ says this fellow. ‘Have you got a light?’

  ‘Me?’ I says, ‘No.’ And I am thinking this geezer is so bent he could make a corkscrew look straight.

  ‘Don’t you smoke?’ he says.

  Well that is a particularly soft question to ask somebody like me. I mean what is he expecting me to say, no? If I said, no, he would then bring out a paper bag and ask if I would like a choco­late bonbon. You see, china, I have got all this outfit taped.

  Then while he is standing there offering his cigarettes, I say, ‘Thank you very much.’

  And he says, ‘Delighted!’ And then he takes out his matches and lights up.

  Now you see what I mean about this shortage of matches. It is some racket, believe you me, china.

  ‘In a hurry?’ he says when he finally gets around to it.

  Well, I mean I have been standing in this doorway about a couple of hours now and I don’t see me in any hurry by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever.

  Then he says, ‘It’s very hot to-night.’

  Now I am thinking he is thinking I am maybe three parts gone in the head. Well, if there is anybody three parts gone in the head it is certainly not me because I know what I am talking about all right.

  So I say, ‘It gets cold during the night, china.’

  ‘So it’s like that is it?’ he says looking me up and down, but mostly down like what he has been doing the whole time.

  I just nod my head and take a hinge at the traffic roaring past.

  Then after a little cough and a quick look around he says, ‘Would you care for a beer?’

  Well now, this is one kid who never passed up anything for free in his whole life and I say, ‘That’s very kind of you.’ And he says, ‘Not at all! What are we waiting for?’

  Well that is the big question because he has got all the money. Then the next thing is he starts up the street and I start after him and he is looking at me and smiling and I am looking at him and smiling and hoping that he is going to buy me a couple of sandwiches with this beer he is going to get me. I mean not that I am a bum really, it is just that I got no money.

  This alehouse we go in is pretty near the top of the Avenue, around on a side street. I suppose I could tell you its name and the street it is on but somebody just told me that might be libel or perjury or something along those lines and I don’t want to lose any gilt I might make on this little epic to some down-at-the-heel publican who runs a dive like this but don’t want everybody to know about it. Anyhow, this dive is well-known in London and anybody on the run and looking for his bed and a dollar winds up there at one time or another. It is one of those sort of dives. If you don’t find what you are looking for there then it is not worth looking for anyway, if you know what I mean. But if you are really desperate about a hinge at this place then you hit the town around Dean Street and you will be going in the right direction. Only if you come back in a box, don’t blame me.

  When we go inside I spot a couple of fellows I know who are on the run from the Army. They are drinking with a fellow who looks like he is from the line-up at Dutch Harry’s Strip Bar. When they see me they all nod just to let me know that they are in a recognizing mood. Then this new-found friend of mine buys two pints of the best and we stand back to the middle of the floo
r to take a hinge at the rest of the place.

  ‘There’s quite a crowd here to-night,’ says my china who I think is under the misapprehension that I am dim in the lamps as well as soft in the head.

  ‘Yeah, there’s quite a few here to-night,’ I say just to let him know that I am not gone altogether.

  ‘Charming atmosphere,’ he says by way of repartee.

  ‘Yes,’ I says. ‘Charming!’

  There are four young mices sitting at the table just inside the door who seem to know what they are looking for, and there are two old bags holding each other up and sipping gin and tonics, and there are three more pieces about forty years old wearing white shirts and hairy suits and standing at the counter staring at the young mices at the table like maybe they know what they are looking for too; and across by the Gents there is a half dozen old steamers slapped up and camping around like a load of whores at a fairy’s wedding. Altogether it is a charming atmo­sphere, and no mistake.

  Then I see this young fellow staring at me from the top end of the counter and after a while he comes across and says can he buy me a beer, but I say, no, I have got one, then he says he simply must buy me a beer even if it is the last thing he does, so I say go ahead, china, because I see no sense in me arguing with him about him buying me anything. So in the long run he buys me a beer then goes back to the counter and begins staring at me all over again. If he had not bought me this beer I would go across and tell him that he has got no manners at all, but well, I am not a rude fellow really, ‘specially to somebody who has just bought me a beer.

  ‘I suppose you’re going with him now?’ says my china looking sick.

  ‘No,’ I say passing it off lightly. ‘He’s not my type.’

  ‘Oh!’ he says, and that brightens him considerably, I tell you.

  ‘Then how would you like to come home with me?’

  ‘No,’ I says. ‘I’m not going with anybody.’

  ‘But where are you going to sleep to-night?’ he says, and even a blind man can see that he has got my welfare in mind.

  ‘I’m going to meet my china. We’re doing a Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sleeping out,’ I says.

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I says. ‘I only kip with mices anyway.’

  Well he don’t know what to say to that and just looks at me disappointed-like then goes across to the counter. When he comes back he has got a glass of the hard stuff and a packet of Sweet Afton.

  ‘Here,’ he says and gives me the glass and puts the cigarettes in the pocket of this old jacket I have accidentally picked off the wall of the Blue Lamp in Edgware Road.

  Then before I am even able to say, thank you, he has gone and shot through the door. Well, I am a bit sorry about that be­ cause he did not seem such a bad spud after all. Then I see that this young fellow at the counter is still staring at me, and the young mices around the table are standing with the pieces wear­ing the white shirts and hairy suits and they are all talking low and grinning like they have walked into each other’s lives forever. Well, I am certainly glad that somebody seems to have found what they are looking for, and running my eye across them I am thinking it is going to be some daisy-chain all right. Then I finish off the whisky, nod to the young fellow, and promptly disappear before he starts getting any ideas, if you know what I mean.

  Two

  It was hot in the alehouse and even though it is pretty hot outside, I can feel the sweat on the back of my neck getting cool. With the hooch beginning to work I don’t feel so hungry any more but now I just want to go on drinking. Well, that is the trouble with me, I am always after something I got no hope in getting. But I am not too disappointed about that really because there are probably a lot of other folks around who are in the same boat.

  There are more people about now, and the neon signs are flashing off and on and the air is filled with the smells of all the different kind of scoff people are stuffing themselves with and, Jesus H Christ, am I hungry again. After a while I come out of Soho onto to Oxford Street. Now this is the street I like. Any night you are feeling a bit choked because the coalman wants his money or something, all you have got to do is take a walk along Oxford Street and look in the shop windows and see the bright lights and the traffic roaring past and you feel like you own the whole works. Well fancy that, china, O’Hara owning Oxford Street. Right now I don’t even own a pair of feet to my shoes.

  But Oxford Street is the berries all right. You even get music as well. There are three fellows standing in the gutter playing music. They are maybe not much good as far as the music goes but they are making some racket and seem happy just to be there. I am so hungry that if I had a tin whistle I would be right there in the gutter alongside them, music or no music.

  When I get to Marble Arch I go up a side street by the Cum­berland Hotel, then left along another street. This one has all the low bums and down-and-outs and wineoes laying back in the door­ ways waiting for an easy mark to batter for the price of a bottle of jake or a bed in the Sally Ann. This street always looks pretty miserable and if I don’t own Oxford Street I don’t want this place, not even if the the LCC gave it to me on a plate. Then as I go past this doorway, somebody strikes a match and there are four or five old fellows wearing long overcoats and laying back against the swill bins.

  ‘Hey! Hey, sonny!’ one of them shouts.

  I go on walking and don’t bother looking back.

  ‘Hey, you! C’mere!’

  ‘Fuck off!’ I shouts.

  Oh, this O’Hara is a brave kid when he is half way along the street. And you can say that again. Christ, you can.

  When I have stopped running, I come out by this alehouse on the corner of Edgware Road. There is a big crowd inside, but no sign of Casey, and I wonder where the hell the big Mick has got. Knowing him, I am thinking it must have been a good day for the handouts before he don’t turn up. The louse. Then I get myself real worked up thinking he has made a fortune and is now laying out someplace stewed to the fucking gills. And I tell you, if there is anybody who gets me down it is somebody who grabs all he can and don’t give a monkey’s right-hand knocker for anybody else.

  After a while I sit down in disgust on the window-ledge to wait and see if he is going to turn up. Well, you pick a right place to sit outside when you are hungry and don’t have any gilt. If you have never done that anytime, then just take my word for it. But try it, and you will soon know I am not giving you the old cob­blers. But anyhow, it is a great night and very hot and I am sit­ting here looking at the crowd of people standing on the corner by the Odeon watching the traffic roaring around Marble Arch.

  The lights are catching the trees along the park and the leaves of the trees are very green against the flood-lit buildings and hotels on Park Lane, and above the buildings the sky is dark and with stars and red from the glow of the lights of the West End. Out across the park it is dark and with no lights and the trees are black against the sky. Across the street is this big scoff-house with bright lights and people sitting inside stuffing themselves and looking out of the windows. When I first came to London this place was just another coffee shop where you sat inside out of the rain and drank cheap coffee out of cracked cups, but then along came some fellow with big ideas and cleaned it up and gave it a fancy French name, and now no bums sit inside drinking cheap coffee out of cracked cups anymore. London is always London, but it is never much the same.

  Then when I have got twice as disgusted as I was to start with, I suddenly remember the smokes the old steamer gave me. Now it is my turn to ask a match. Jesus H Christ, this match business will be the death of me yet. Well, I am just getting up to put the touch on this big Mick coming out the door, when I see a car stop. I know it is a good thing. I know it. Any bum who is a bum at all knows a good thing when he sees it. I mean you don’t really see it at all, you just feel it. There is no other way to explain.

  Wel
l I go across and what do you think? It is a her. I am in with a great chance. She is a big, well-made sort of mouse. Mices come in three sizes, big, bigger, and, Jesus H Christ!

  ‘Got a light, missus?’ I have got more front than Buckingham Palace.

  She smiles and moves across to the window on which the bold hero is leaning.

  ‘Got a light?’ I say like I am the biggest thing to hit town since this Noel Coward geezer.

  She smiles, crosses her legs, and takes a lighter out of her hand­ bag. I put my head in the window and take a light, all the time taking a close hinge at the bare legs above the top of her stockings. This is my night all right. And you can say that again, skin. All the while she is smiling, real proud that I can’t take my eyes off her legs. Really I don’t see what she has got to be so happy about because I will look at any legs, even if they are on a fucking spider.

  ‘Do you live in town?’ she says.

  ‘Sort of,’ I says. I have been at this game before, see. Then I watch her smile get bigger. I know what she is after all right.

  ‘Do you always talk that way?’ she says, and she has got dimples on her cheeks, too.

  ‘Like what?’ I says. You see, it is all really part of my natural charm.

  ‘Do you come from up North?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Liverpool?’

  ‘Used to.’

  ‘Get in,’ she says and moves back behind the wheel.

  I get in quick before I lose another supper. I knew it was a good thing all along. It is just my luck. I wonder if Casey has made as good a touch as this. He is not so particular as me though. His one leads his life for him. Of course, there are some mices built that way too. I remember one night I meet this mouse coming out of this hotel on Park Lane. She is almost wearing one of those see-through frocks that look like a night-gown and just to put the lid on it she is more than three-quarters plus plastered. My attention is eventually arrested when she stops in middle of the pavement and beckons to me with her finger. Well I mean what would you do? Then this doorman with a chestful of medals tries to give me the big boot, but she says, no, she is not going to budge till I go too, and in the end this doorman bundles me into the taxi along with her, and is he upset. I can’t figure out if he is one of those clean-living fellows loaded down with morals or if he has just got the needle because it is me and not him.