LITMIR.BIZ

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like that—like that. You get the massage’—written on a fez? No, thought Sid, Aye Sho Yu.

      As he started his walk up three flights of stairs, he thought, Of course—the reason I’m doing this is in case I get a good idea for some gags or a sketch for the club, or maybe even TV. He knew that what he had just said to himself was a complete excuse and really about the weakest he could have thought of. No way would he be able to use one line, one thought or one iota of an idea in his professional work. I’ll turn back. I’ll leave. Why? Because I am right. It’s wrong. But suppose somebody actually saw you coming into the building. So? So. I’ll tell you so. If you leave now and he’s still there outside, he’s going to look at you and say to himself, ‘Good God. He didn’t last long’, isn’t he? That’s true. Yes, it is, isn’t it? Yes. Then keep going. Okay.

      He had one flight to go, past a man coming down the stairs. Sid stopped and looked towards the wall as the man passed him and then turned his head to watch the man as he staggered down the stairs. Sid thought, he’s either drunk or exhausted.

      On the landing of the third flight were four doors, numbered 68, 70 and 71. Where was 69? Oh—there. 69 was printed on its side. Clever. Sid took a deep breath and knocked on the door, softly, so softly in fact that had there been woodworm in the door they would not have heard him. Door 70 opened and a man’s face furtively looked out. Sid turned, but only just in time to see the door close quickly. From the fourth floor a fat man appeared. He continued his way downstairs. He was about eighteen stone. If he had forgotten anything on the fourth floor it would have to remain there as it would have killed him to go back up those stairs. Sid knocked harder. Number 69 opened and he came face to face with a pretty Chinese girl.

      ‘Yes?’ she asked.

      ‘I … er … saw your … er … advert in the frame downstairs.’

      ‘Massage?’

      ‘Er … please … yes.’

      ‘Would you please enter. I will ask Miss Yu if she can help you.’ She put both hands together and bowed her head. ‘Please to wait.’ She pointed to a small couch. ‘Please to sit.’

      Sid sat. The wall at the back of the couch was decorated with a red dragon that looked as if it had been painted by the PG Tips monkeys. The girl was dressed in a long black nightgown as far as Sid could tell. She left the tiny hall and, after one knock on a door, went through into another room. On the back of her nightgown was embroidered a golden dragon. Instead of fire there was a number 69.

      Sid looked round the tiny hall. On the door that Miss Takeaway had gone through was a full-sized poster of Bruce Lee kicking the Eartha Kitt out of about thirty Chinamen, all armed with guns, knives and hatchets. Bruce had only his bare hands and his bare feet. He suddenly disappeared as the door opened and in his place stood Miss Takeaway.

      ‘Miss Yu will see you please.’

      Sid stood up and hit his head on the swinging paper lantern. He walked past Bruce Lee and Miss Takeaway into a room with a bed in the middle of it that was very reminiscent of an operating table. It was covered with a white towel. Everything looked clean and the air was pleasantly perfumed. The square room was completely painted in willow-pattern style and looked like some of the plates his grandma used to have.

      Sid thought, If I stripped off and lay on that table, I’d look like a chip.

      A door opened and in came Miss Yu. She also had the look of an Oriental and was wearing a long dress that was split down one side from the floor to just under her left arm. She looked an old twenty-six, about thirty-two, but she looked good. Well—good enough, when money’s burning a hole in your pocket.

      ‘You would likee massage?’ she asked in the phoniest accent he had ever heard.

      ‘Well, yes. You know—just to get rid of a few aches and pains.’

      ‘You wantee normal or special massage?’

      ‘What’s the difference?’

      ‘A tenner,’ she replied in perfect English.

      ‘How much is a normal massage?’

      ‘A tenner.’

      ‘And what would I get for a normal massage?’

      ‘The same as a special massage only quicker.’

      ‘American Express?’

      ‘Balls!’

      ‘Okay then.’

      ‘I take it honourable gentleman would likee special?’

      Sid expected Edward G. Robinson to walk in at any moment and the whole thing to develop into a Tong war.

      ‘I will leave you to get undressed,’ she went on. ‘If you would let me have the twenty qui … pounds, I will not embarrass you by remaining. Of course, if honourable gentleman pays twenty-five pounds, my beautiful younger, virgin sister helps me to makee you relax more in longer time.’

      ‘Twenty-five?’

      ‘Only if you wishee complete relaxation, but if master only desire … er … quickee … er … I alone am willing to accommodate.’

      Sid said to himself, That fella going downstairs wasn’t drunk or exhausted. At twenty-five quid he was probably broke. However, after the win he had the cash to spare and the urge to spend it. ‘What’s your sister’s name?’ he asked.

      ‘Why.’

      ‘Well, I think for twenty-five quid I’d just like to …’

      ‘Her name is Why.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Yes, Why.’

      ‘Not Why Aye Sho Yu?’

      ‘All is arranged.’ She crossed herself. Sid looked slightly surprised at a Chinese Roman Catholic, but in Soho …?

      ‘Were you recommended?’ she asked demurely.

      ‘No, no, no. I would put myself down as a one-off.’

      Miss Yu waddled over to a small gong on a pair of wedges. If she had any wish to commit suicide, she could have jumped off them. She hit the gong with an object that a book like Family Planning or Getting Married would have called a phallic symbol. What Miss Yu called it she kept to herself.

      ‘Please undress and lie on table,’ she said. She started to walk away from him, then turned round to add, ‘Face upwards.’ She smiled.

      ‘I thought Chinese people didn’t laugh.’

      ‘It all depends on who they are with, oh great one!’

      She threw Sid what Carrie would have called a face flannel, with which to save himself any embarrassment. She then left the room, walking through a river in the willow pattern. Sid began to undress. Through a loud speaker, which was painted so as to blend in with the willow pattern, and rested on a Chinaman’s head, came a noise that made Sid almost jump out of his pants. It was very loud and sounded like what a Cockney would call in rhyming slang ‘a jam tart’. Then, as it settled down and the sound was lowered, it became some sort of Oriental music, although quite modern, it was to Sid’s mind Japanese. A Japanese group was singing songs like ‘The girl from Okayama’ and ‘Oh Yokahama, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain’.

      Sid was now in his Y-fronts. The small towel Miss Yu had given him was laughable. He hoped there was a shower for later and also a bigger towel with which to dry himself. He kept on his Y-fronts and also his socks, as, although the white carpet looked clean, he was more than a tiny bit afraid of verrucas. He sat on the edge of the white, towelled mattress and swung his legs. It might make a good sketch, he mused. Lies, all lies, Sidney, and you know it. That’s true, he murmured back to himself. How about Carrie, you rotten sod? Have you no conscience? He smiled. Ah, he answered, conscience doesn’t stop you from doing it. It just stops you from enjoying it. He started to swing his legs from side to side. Does

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