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WARNING! This story contains London Cockney Rhyming Slang.
Back on my own manor, I sometimes have a word with myself about it and cringe. I mean it wasn't exactly emigrating, just a temporary change of scene. A short shufti at how the other half earns a crust that's all. And I have to tell you there's some really weird people out there.
I used to do a scam down Pettycoat Lane, nothing leery. You know, the bloke who shouts things like "Not thirty quid, not twenty-five, not even twenty..." - that old Jackson Pollocks. I sold iffy gear from the back of a van with the engine running, before I found an up-market patch off Oxford Street. Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding my hands up and saying it's a mug's game, I've joined the Jehovah's, or any such pony and trap, I'm just saying. You know how the media rabbit on about the Old Bill being bent? Do me a favour! Take corruption out of the filth and you might as well make London a no-go area. It's about knowing the enemy, being one move ahead; trust me. That's how I cottoned on to gorgeous Gina's nifty little earner.
The law was having a laugh, giving me a hard time. They were doing a purge on enterprising street sellers like me. All those clueless but
unbribable, smart-ass Hendon Police College graduates, cleaning up the West End in time for their vegetarian lunch. It was doing my head in. Feeling the heat, I went to ground by joining London Transport: just by way of keeping my nose clean for a while, you understand.
Now, if you think churning out phony designer tat in a Whitechapel Sweatshop might be boring, then try driving a London bus. You start on the old Routemasters, where someone else collects the fares, then graduate to the newer Titans and such that are one-person-operated.
I didn't quite make it as a driver. I have this thing about roads you see; I get hypnotised by the boring yellow lines along the kerb and don't notice obvious landmarks like bus stops and queues of punters. The low bridge incident all but finished me.
But you have to hand it to LT; they know how to suss a worker's hidden talents. They let me be a conductor for a while, issuing tickets, handling money even. It was the old Gibson ticket machine then, where you crank a handle and a paper voucher comes out. Pretty basic stuff, but tealeaf
proof - well just about. I had one or two little fiddles going too, selling dodgy gear in the rest room, that kinda thing, but they ran a pretty tight ship. Using the 'set a thief' principle, management marked my card and made me up to Revenue Inspector.
It goes without saying I was good at it, I just had to use lateral thinking, my speciality you might say. And it amazed me how thick those fare dodgers are. I even caught a thirteen-year-old school kid with a staff pass, can you Adam and Eve it? But you can't blame the conductors or the
drivers. I mean checking an ID photo, even just to make sure the person is the same sex or colour as the one on the card, isn't Open University and might make a dull day interesting. But you have to think that such devotion to duty can lead to a punch-up, and being a hero is little consolation as you count your
remaining teeth.
As with the coppers' blitz on West End petty crime, I became a marked man, but the irony escaped me then. I wasn't going soft, just getting
carried away with the challenge. In a matter of months I produced so many reports that the paperwork jammed the system. Sure I worked in plain clothes, but on the city's bus routes I was as notorious as the Kray brothers. When they saw me boarding, crowds of passengers would disembark at the next stop.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no boss's man and I have nothing against unions. I realise they're the only resort a worker has against
management taking the piss. But in those days they were so strong that if the union said "jump," management would ask "high, long or bungee?" I was rocking the boat, simple as that. But who was getting their knickers in a twist? Probably the Garage admin staff who filed all my reports or maybe my Revenue mates who didn't have my flare for ferreting out fraud. Who knows? Anyway, when the shop steward, who had the build of a bus breakdown-wagon, leaned on me, I knew it was time to have it away on my toes from that billet.
While the guvnors argued about my next placement, they gave me a cushy number in personnel as Invigilator, supervising entrance exams for conductors. Believe me, if you can't answer the questions in those tests, even in half the allotted time, well, you shouldn't be allowed out, even in daylight. You'd have to be a right tosser. That's where I met the lovely Laura.
One afternoon, after all the other candidates had handed in their quiz sheets, I was getting my coat when I noticed this doll, still at her desk. It was already knocking off time, yet, stone the crows, she'd only answered half of the banal quiz. But her big brown minces seduced me. Against my better judgement I leaned forward, oggling her cleavage, and whispered the correct answers in her ear. She was hardly going to be London Transport
material - even by their slack standards. In writing that was barely legible, she still managed to get two of them wrong. But Laura's lovemaking skills were in a class of their own, on my mother's life.
They moved me upstairs after that. My new job title was something they conjured up at short notice and escapes me now, but I was still with
Revenue. Sod them, I thought, and argued another pay rise. To put it simply, they wanted me to watch the watchers. Like those conductors whose takings never seemed to square with their hours on duty. In the run up to privatisation the public sector was coming to grips with that alien word 'profit' and the X Files idea of 'worker evaluation' as well.
From the heap of stats they buried me under, I selected Gina for my first case study. OK, she looked great, even in the passport size personnel
mugshot, but that aside she had, over the year, paid in only about half what was average for a conductor on that route. The challenge had the adrenaline rushing through me like a psyched-up sprinter.
She worked the 159s, Thornton Heath to West Hampstead. Based at Streatham Hill Garage, she lived near Tooting Bec Common, which, even then, was a classy address. On Monday I went to the garage and had a butcher's hook at her recent waybills and returns. Her daily pay-ins would barely cover the expense of the bus, herself and the driver, but her paperwork was kosher and accurate to the last penny. Her time-keeping record was flawless and her vehicle was hardly ever the victim of mechanical failure, a popular crew-induced malady favoured by those who milked the system. Copying Gina's duty schedule and bus running numbers for the rest of the week, I opted for an early night, fancying my chances in what promised to be a genuine challenge.
At Nine on the Brixton Town Hall clock next morning I was at the bus stop, in my commuter suit, holding my commuter newspaper, with my commuter briefcase containing my commuter sandwich. OK, I'd been fantasising over what this chick would look like and how I'd handle it when I'd figured what she was up to. Yeah, OK, and what was in it for me.
She was better than my best dream image, so help me. More leggy than lanky, she made that normally tatty uniform look like the suits those
slinky city girls wear. Then she had this friendly but firm voice like a tour guide as she ushered the punters aboard, pressed the bell and straight away
started punching out tickets as if on piece work - or self employed even.
On top of that she had this your-bed-or-mine quizzical smile which I tried hard to ignore to protect my cover. God it was hard. I bought a ticket for Trafalgar Square then tried to watch her every move on the lower deck without looking like a prawn. She was so efficient and courteous it was like watching an LT promotional video. She even pointed out tourist landmarks as we passed them. The Japanese and Yanks with their cameras lapped it up. I went back to my office, but no way could I concentrate on any work. I caught her bus again for the return journey but noticed nothing dodgy. I went home and 'phoned the garage manager later to check on her returns for the duty. Figures accurate, money spot on, takings still like a miners' whip round for Margaret Thatcher. Well, a thousand times better than that, naturally, but still about fifty per cent light for the shift.
If there's one thing worse than being a driver or a conductor on a Routemaster bus, it's being a passenger, especially in the rush hour. I stuck it out for the rest of the week but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about Gina's routine. By Friday I had to admit defeat - and it hurt. So I decided on the cards-on-the-table approach. Anyway, I fancied her so much that every time I looked at her my brain went walkies. She was ahead of me.
"Can I ask you a question, sir?" The bus was stuck in traffic near Brixton Station and I had moved to the entrance ready to get off when we reached the kerb. In the milling of bodies I found myself pressed against her on the rear platform, acutely aware of her firm figure, her body scent.
"Do what love?" I said, waiting for the grey matter to function.
"Revenue or stalker?" Matter-of-fact, as if I was a disorientated punter - which I was for a minute.
"Well both, as it happens." You don't lose it for long do you? I was relieved, almost euphoric. Which one would she prefer I wondered?
"So! One of you keeps watching me when he thinks I'm not looking. Is that the jobsworth or the voyeur?"
"The Revenue Inspector thinks you're in big trouble, but the other fella wants to take you for a drink,"
The red bus spewed out most of its passengers at the station while I clung on to chrome rail, breathing deeply from the crushing effect of stampeding bodies and the thrill of her closeness. When the last one had gone I nodded for her to bell the driver. As the old workhorse picked up speed we shared a rear seat. She crossed her slender, model-length legs and I became aware of all my London Transport ethics vanishing through the small sliding window.
On our first night out together I realised how smart Gina was. I also knew she was playing me at my own game, but it wasn't too painful. One half of me wanted to get inside her mind to find a clue to the missing money, while the other half just wanted to get inside her knickers. Both halves were disappointed.
On our second date she told me she was a single parent with a one-year-old daughter. Relaxing over our second bottle of Chianti, I went for it and mentioned the company's quandary over her low ticket sales. But she only flashed that luscious smile and suggested an incentive scheme might help. As for the other, well, there was none of that.
Next time I pushed a little harder. Her little girl, she told me, was the outcome of a drunken one-night-stand following a garage booze-up. The father, a married work mate called Hugo, opted for instant denial, then persistent amnesia. When she got stroppy he started a whispering campaign that forced her to leave her job. After the birth she was reinstated. She maintained that the experience had traumatised her so much that the next man she would ever sleep with would be her husband.
"Right," I said, removing my hand, which had unconsciously strayed under the table and on to her thigh. "In that case..." It was the cue for violins and soft focus, but something I can't explain made me stop in mid-sentence, like I had quinsy. There would be other nights I reckoned. I needed to think it through. So the Revenue man took over, but his subtle questioning failed to solve the mystery of the short-changing clippie. This one was good.
Meanwhile my basic instincts were being sorted in my cosy relationship with Laura. It was a sort of teacher exchange thing. She'd call at my flat twice a week and I'd try to bring her maths up to speed. You see I still felt guilty about helping her through the conductors' exams. By now she was making so many waybill errors that she was on three verbals and a written warning. In return she continued to surprise me with fresh and exquisite
lovemaking techniques that made the Kama Sutra seem missionary. She was rounded, sensuous and generous, whereas Gina was willowy and chaste.
Then came the breakthrough. I had tackled and solved a few cases of simple internal fraud at various garages around Greater London. All the while my mind was on the enigmatic Gina. One night I was settling down with some extra strength cans and a video when Laura arrived in a right two and eight. When I saw the Gibson machine in her Tesco carrier bag, I knew it would be more lager than video. I handed her the glass I had already poured, sat her down on the sofa and waited for her latest tale of misadventure. As usual with Laura, you couldn't invent it.
In Regent Street her bus had been stuck in traffic coming down towards Piccadilly Circus. Frustrated passengers reckoned walking was quicker, drivers got bored with hooting and swearing and Laura was looking at Hamleys Toy Shop front, remembering she needed a birthday present for her little brother. After a while, with traffic still stacked up, she put her machine in the cupboard, told the driver her plan and rushed into the shop. He promised to wait at the next bus stop if, or when, the river of traffic started flowing again.
The purchase took only a couple of minutes. She emerged from the toy store, spotted the red Routemaster and dived on board. In less than a
minute she had opened the cupboard using the steel T piece common to all LT vehicles. She deposited the young man's present in there, strapped on the Gibson and went about collecting fares on the lower deck. As the bus started moving as she returned to the platform - just as another conductor was descending the stairs from the upper saloon.
"What the hell are you doing on my bus?" she asked.
As the penny dropped Laura panicked, jumped on to the road and ran like hell to the next bus stop, where a load of puzzled passengers and an angry driver were waiting. She collected her own ticket machine and completed her shift pretending the whole thing never happened. But she still had the Gibson she had taken from the other bus. Being in possession of such a piece of equipment, I reckoned, must be the legal equivalent of having a gadget for printing fivers. We slept on it. I told Laura that if she went to work as usual and stayed shtoom, I would get it sorted.
The reason I felt cocksure was the description she gave me of the conductor on the other vehicle. I just knew it was Gina. Laura's bus was from another garage that shared the 159 route. I just couldn't figure out why Gina hadn't chased after her to grab back her property. Well, not immediately I couldn't, but a 'phone call to her garage put me completely in the picture. When I tracked her down I relished being in charge of the situation for the very first time.
"Your place tonight at seven Gina." I said, "It's important. Trust me."
I was confused at first because when I searched the garage records I expected to find the machine booked out to Gina. Instead I discovered that, while his vehicle was parked up at a bus stand about a year previously, a male conductor had gone to buy cigarettes. When he returned he found that his Gibson was missing. The fact that the cupboard was only accessible to bus crews meant that it had been an inside job. The investigation drew a blank. The conductor's Christian name was Hugo. I was holding all the aces.
Gina was ready for me. She had taken her daughter to stay overnight with her parents, prepared an Italian candlelit meal with wine and changed into a long midnight-blue satin robe that turned her into a Goddess. I turned into warm putty. Later I proposed an early night and Gina trumped that by proposing marriage. Mellowed by Chianti that went down singing Italian love songs, my brain was on autopilot as I murmured a grovelling acceptance. This image of elegance would be all mine, for life, but only after the ceremony. Ever fancied a nun? I slept on her couch that night, the frustration driving me bananas.
In the cold light of day I fronted her with my up to date case notes. She cursed Laura as a prime example of the brainless bimbo LT was
recruiting these days. But without losing her cool she went on to describe the callous way Hugo had treated her, following the revelation of her pregnancy. She told how he applied pressure on her to have an abortion, adoption, whatever. When she refused, he spread nasty gossip about her until she was almost excluded from works social events, even canteen gossip. Months before the birth, management forced her to give up her job on medical grounds. The company doctor had diagnosed prenatal depression, but she knew management and Hugo's union mates were behind it.
After the birth she took her case to a brief, then a works tribunal. She was reinstated, but without compensation. Her plan for revenge, she told me, was formed over months of pain and resentment. She calmly described how she decided to work only half a day for the company and half a day for herself. In her mind, the acquisition of Hugo's ticket machine legitimised the fraud. She could implicate him if anyone ever sussed it out and her conniving bosses were getting their just deserts for the way they'd treated her. I bought it.
The marriage was in a registry office, with a quiet reception in my local boozer down the East End. We moved into hers. I'd like to tell you that the union was blissful, but I might as well be up front about it. The thing about ethereal is that you can't make love to it. Well you can, but you usually feel bad about it after, know what I mean? Like a mermaid, I imagine - nice status symbol to have on your yacht, but how do you...? Gina is
class, I could tell that from the outset. I ran out of words to describe her beauty when we went out together all dressed up and that. But heavenly bodies, trust me, are a no-no in bed. The lady was still out of my reach. I couldn't handle it. I think I'd used up all my brain cells figuring out her scam. Maybe it was her subtle way of telling me I was the loser. So, I done a runner.
The old Gibson is my only souvenir of that cockeyed career move. Now I just think of it as a trophy from a Sherlock Holmes-style, five-pipe
problem. I often wonder if I should nick a bus from a garage for an evening; they never take the ignition keys out, you know. I could do a night run to
Trafalgar square, with Laura collecting topped-up fares from club ravers stoned out of their skulls. Then I could return it in early hours all warmed up for the 'milk run' driver.
It's in the genes I suppose. But then again, maybe I'll just stick to the old ducking and diving. It's what I do best and it's gotta be less grief.
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