Lucius the Club | Page 4

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 was more in the same vein.
After we'd finished our drinks, she took me upstairs to bed.
*
Mama and I were very close. You've probably gathered that by now.
But our relationship was also somewhat unorthodox, in that we had sex
together, regularly, from my puberty onwards.
'You're never going to be God's gift to the ladies, Lucius.' That's what
she told me. 'You may have a club foot and a funny face, but there's
nothing wrong with your willy, and I'm going to teach you how to use
it.'
She did too. And although I find it passing strange now, I never
complained at the time.
After Mama had broken me in, so to speak, taught me the basics of sex,
she found other women for me. By that time she was really quite a
famous actress. She was never a Deborah Kerr or Julie Andrews. She
wasn't that kind of star. But she got lots of parts in films, playing the
ordinary girl next door - glamorous when she needed to be, a bit plain
if the part required it. Not huge parts, but regular. She was popular. She
was cheerful. She was no threat to anyone.
And so, by the time I was fifteen or so, there were always young
actresses who had figured out that Mama might be able to put in a good

word for them with people who made important decisions. And Mama
probably pointed out to them that she would appreciate it if they would
give Lucius a little entertainment. Which, gritting their teeth, they did.
But some of them got a pleasant surprise, and said so. Because I'd had a
very good mentor.
Mama always took the view that it was contemptible for a man to just
shove it in, finish it off, and then go to sleep. I was taught to do things
the proper way. And I must say it is a skill that has made me a few
friends, over the years.
*
The next day I started to give some thought as to how I was actually
going to do the job. Killing Billy Marwell, that is. But Mama was
ahead of me.
'Come,' she said, and led me downstairs to the cellar. There, after
moving a few old trunks and suitcases, she pulled out a couple of loose
bricks in the wall and produced something wrapped in a filthy old
towel. It was a sawn-off shotgun.
'Your Grandad's,' she said proudly. 'Very powerful, Lucius. Stop a
charging bull, this would.'
I took it from her, because actually I knew quite a bit about shotguns.
Much more than she did.
We had a weekend cottage in the country, a place we called The Farm,
though there wasn't a farm attached - just a small wood. And friends in
the country had arranged for me to be taught how to shoot by a
gamekeeper, some years earlier.
I checked the gun over. It seemed to be in good order, though I was a
little nervous about that short barrel. Saw it off too short and the shot
will come back at you and do you a serious mischief. Or so I'd been
told - and that was by people who looked as if they knew what they
were talking about.

While I examined the gun, Mama chattered.
'This is stage two, Lucius.'
I looked at her. 'Stage two of?'
'Giving you a reputation as a man who knows what he's doing.'
'Stage one being?'
'Stage one was when you sacked the accountant.'
Ah. Yes. The accountant.
When I reached the advanced age of sixteen, Mama decided that I must
become head of the household in terms of handling the money. Mama
had divorced Jack by then - perfectly amicably, and he kept in touch -
but Jack wanted out. He was, in truth, a rather peculiar man, driven by
some strange needs; but whatever the matter of that, the divorce meant
that he was no longer there to pay the bills and do all the other things
that needed care and attention. So Mama put me in charge.
After about six months, I discovered that our accountant, or business
manager I think he called himself,