Lucius the Club | Page 3

on the fringes of Mayfair, but it's really just Soho. Naughty, dirty, dangerous Soho. It was the perfect place for us, really, because, as Mama never ceased to point out, we were not a respectable family. We came from a long line of thieves, brothel-keepers and publicans.
So off I went, wrapped up against the cold.
There were no longer any prostitutes lining the street, as there had been until recently. But the Street Offences Act of 1959 had driven them indoors. I rather regretted that. When I was younger I knew them all, and they knew me.
'Wotcher, Luce,' they would say. 'Fancy a free one?'
'Just had one, darling,' I would say. 'Down the road.' And they would laugh.
Mama and I, you see, knew everyone in Soho. All the residents, that is, and many of those who just came to work. We'd both been born there. Mama's family probably went back a couple of hundred years or more.
In the Berwick Street market I bought a few things that we didn't really need, and chatted to those who served me. Off to the east lay Old Compton Street, which contained a number of pornographic bookshops, in one of which worked Billy Marwell - when he wasn't out taking photographs, to be sold in the private room at the back. I didn't look down that street.
And then I went back home.
I was calmer now. And a little amused. I wondered how many other Oxford undergraduates, at the end of their first term - or any term for that matter - had been forced to face up to the fact that they were going to have to a kill a man.
*
When I arrived home I told Mama what I had decided.
Perhaps I had thought that she might tell me not to be so silly. But she didn't. Her eyes shone and her expression lit up, and she kissed me rather passionately.
'Oh, Lucius,' she said. 'I'm so proud of you.'
Then she sat me down with a drink and reminded me of a few things I already knew. Plus a few new ones.
'You're making the right decision,' she said, 'and I'll tell you why. I've never really had a protector, Lucius - I've never been anyone's bird. Lots of the girls I grew up with, they found themselves a tough guy to look after them. But I never did. I've always lived on my wits and my looks. And I've done pretty well. For a while of course there was Jack. But Jack wasn't a hard man. He always lived among gentlemen who behave like gentlemen. They may do some insider dealing, but they don't go in for razor slashing and acid in your face. But in any case, Jack was just an interval, to make us look respectable. You and me Lucius, we've always lived among thieves and cheats and liars. Our family were villains from way back. And I was a tart for a while, in the war. There were so many Americans around, with so much money, it seemed a pity not to take it off them. It's in our blood, Lucius. And violence is never far away.'
She took a drink and settled back in her chair.
'While he was alive, my father was my protector - your Grandad. Officially he was a publican, but his real business was robbery. Smash and grab mostly, and banks. Not round here, of course. Usually south London. One of his principles was, you never hurt a member of the public. But do you know why he never went to prison? Because everyone knew that if you grassed on Jimmy Johnson you ended up dead, that's why.'
She looked at me and grinned. 'He killed two men that tried it. Two that I know of, anyway. One of them was killed right here, in this house, and I helped Dad get rid of the body. I won't tell you where it happened, because it might make you nervous.'
She smiled at me from across the room.
'And now that you've grown up, you've got to be my protector. But that's not the way people think of you. People think of you as Carol's kid. The cripple. The posh kid who goes to Oxford. And that won't do, darling. Not for the future. In the future you've got to be my protector. Otherwise we shall lose everything.
'Billy Marwell you see, with his naughty pictures, he's just the first. If we let him get away with it, we'll be paying him for ever, and there'll be others. And they'll take everything we have. So we've got to put a stop to it, Lucius. We've got to send out a message, loud and clear. And the message is, Don't fuck around with Carol and Lucius, because they bloody well won't put up with it.'
And there