Singing along in a quavering falsetto voice
I won’t say, I need you, I want you, yes I do
The blues have got me down on the street
No girl next door, just a feckless whore to meet
I know that I feel sore, no girl next door
I want you, I need you, I love you, oh those blues
Oh yes, I have this street moll, need her special loving
How can I call her, how can I crawl, sprawling yes
Cold drink in my hand, a ciggie between my lips
I sigh, I pine, I’m collapsing not doing fine
‘Cause I got the I want you, I need you, do me (please)
I love you, I love you (oh I love you) blues.
Balga’s head continued to be in a swirl from Jeannie’s treatment. He felt like the Elvis song: I want you, I need you, I love you. The lad had to see Jeannie even in the daytime when business usually wasn’t conducted and so the next afternoon as he came towards her flat, he looked at his watch. It was already after two. The day was overcast with a cold breeze from the south. It looked like rain and already smelt damp. He really wanted his warm coat and vowed again that he would get it on pay day. He reached the picture palace. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” with Marilyn Monroe was playing. There was a matinee that day, and Jeannie might want to go, though as always it depended on what time hubby came off shift.
The lad reached her flat and knocked. There was a stirring inside, but no one came to open the door. He thought the husband may have stayed home taking a sickie, but that didn’t deter him. He knocked again and finally Jeannie poked her head out of her bedroom window to see who it was and yelled: ‘Hey, Sweetie, glad to see you. Hang on a sec until I get decent. Been entertaining a fella and she made a circle with her mouth and her head disappeared. ‘I hope you got paid for it,’ Balga whispered. He sat down on the door step and waited for what seemed ages. Finally, the door opened and he had to jump to his feet as a heavy set bloke came out, brushed past him and went on his way. Balga stared after him. He saw cop!
‘He’s a good bloke to know,’ Jeannie said about the man.
‘He didn’t pay,’ Balga stated in his best Fast Eddy manner.
‘No, he didn’t. I went to the pub for a drink and met him there. It wasn’t business, it was a social call. Now you want a cuppa or not?’
‘Yeah and a bite to eat while you’re at it, so please please me for just this once.’
‘Say “pretty please” and you can have a couple of snags.’
‘Well a double whatever as long as you throw in a couple of slices of bread and a kiss or two.’ Balga said with a rueful smile.
Jeannie bustled about fixing the food and Balga looked her over. She was a bit bedraggled and he knew why. The woman glanced up at him and smiled and it hit him that what draw him to her were her grey-green eyes. She kept them wide open as if she was an innocent like one of the characters played by Marilyn Monroe. This reminded him and he said: ‘Eh there’s a good flick playing in that picture palace. There’s No Business Like Show Business with the one and only Marilyn in it as well as the one and only Johnny Ray, you must remember his song Cry it mightn’t have been rock, but it was good as was his The Little White Cloud That Cried. We can make the matinee show if we hurry.’
‘I don’t know about that, there’s hubby to consider, he’s on the afternoon shift and gets off at six.’
‘The show finishes about half past five so you’ll be back cooking dinner for him by the time he arrives.’
‘We’ll see,’ was her only comment as she turned the snaggers and then herself onto her favourite topic, though this time her planning had gone further. ‘I’ve just about, no I’ve had it with hubby up to here,’ she said pushing a hand right over her head. ‘I’m ready to move out and that bloke I was with told that there is a house going in Middle Park, the next suburb along and it’s not all that much, though’ (and here she gave her giggle) ‘I can’t manage it on my own yet. I know that bungalow of yours is down- right awful and so move in with me, huh, Sweetie?’
The way she said this made him agree and he might have mortgaged his very next pay to her without a thought except he wanted that coat and so he cheated a bit and said that she would have to wait a fortnight unless they made the money from the night trade.
‘That’ll be fine. It’ll give me time to get out from under,’ she agreed, coming to him and brushing her body against his. ‘Now you must promise, double promise so that you won’t go back on your word. This is final you know, goodbye to hubby forever and a day,’ and she did a little jig.
‘Yeah, it’s fine, I promise,’ the lad said without hesitation and this made her happy enough to hum some square song as she dished up the sausages and then poured out the tea. By the time he had finished eating it was too late to catch the matinee and by the time she had finished dawdling over the dishes and a few drinks there was no time for anything else except to skedaddle before hubby arrived.
‘We never have time to ourselves, do we love,’ she said giving him a kiss before ushering him out.
As he turned into the street Balga was confronted by a short dark bloke. The husband! The lad raised his fists ready to defend himself. No need! The wronged husband merely stood there trembling with what Balga took to be fury. Whatever it was, it didn’t drive the bloke into a fight and so the lad stepped around him and went on his way.
Balga shrugged any thoughts aside and grinned as the image of the coat came into his mind. Man, he wanted that coat! Tomorrow was pay day and he would get it, even take an hour off from work so that he could get there before the shop closed and after that go and have a yarn with Tommy Cooper. His birthday was next week and he wanted to celebrate it with someone who had known him for many birthdays.
Next day when the lad received his pay envelope, he went to Jonesy and requested that he be allowed to go an hour earlier to see the doctor. Mr. Jones passed him the requisite form. He filled it out, signed it and passed it in and was free. He rushed off to Fitzroy Street and dashed to the shop and hesitated at the window. His coat was no longer on display. He went inside and the man who he supposed was the owner looked at him and then stared. My God, Balga recognised the bloke he had diddled on the beach. What to do, but brazen it out.
‘Eh,’ he said, ‘remember me? Sorry about that, I was skint, you know, and hungry. Now I’m fixed up and ready to return the loan.’
Balga pulled out his pay packet and took out three one pound notes and put them on the counter. The man looked down at them then up at the lad with a quizzical expression on his face. Balga relaxed and smiled nicely as he said: ‘No hard feelings mate. I’ve also come to put a bit of business your way. That car coat you had in the window for the last few weeks, you still got it?’
The bloke was also smiling and he replied ‘Yes, I took it out as it is not exactly your summer wear and new stock is coming in.
‘May I look at it?’
‘Of course, of course,’ and the man went to a rack and took off the coat. He held it up and Balga slipped into it. The material felt nice and soft, but it hung on him like a tent.
‘It’s a bit big,’ he cried in dismay.
‘It’s meant to be, it’s a car coat after all,’ the bloke replied snidely.
‘I know that, but I want a tighter fit.’
‘We all would, dearie, we all would; but then you do want a car coat, don’t you?’
‘Not exactly, it’s the length I like. It is just the length for a great drape coat.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps and it is your dough — now there’s a tailor next door, perhaps we’ll go and ask him. It’s just about closing time after all.’
‘Yeah, we’ll just do that.’
Balga watched as the bloke took whatever cash he had out of the till then switched on a burglar alarm before closing the front door. ‘It’s activated by the key turning in the lock,’ he warned him.
Keep the crooks out,’ Balga grinned knowing that if he wanted too he could go for the bloke and relieve him of his dough. He was big and tough after all, though the bloke didn’t seem to be in awe of him.
The tailor was on the first floor. He looked at the coat, pulled it this way and that, tugged at the lapels, the sleeves and buttoned up the front, then pronounced: ‘Rubbish!’
‘You mean it’s no good,’ Balga exclaimed.
‘No the tailoring, that’s rubbish, but I can redo, make it what you want?’
‘A drape coat, like Bodgies wear.’
‘Ah, yes, like that Fast Eddy used to wear before he went Italian and stylish.’
‘Not Italian,’ Balga snapped, ‘Ivy League.’
‘Whatever, it does not matter. The style it is Italian, but you don’t want that, you want outdated American style, yes?’
‘You know it; you do it,’ snapped Balga unable to accept that he was outdated.
‘Know it, this is Home of the Saints after all,’ the tailor said immediately cheering him up.
‘Yeah, and I’m here,’ Balga sneered in his best Bodgie style lifting up the corner of his mouth just like Elvis Presley.
‘Yes. Put on please.’
Balga did so and the tailor began pulling and pinning. ‘There,’ he said, ‘I do like that if you give me the nod as they say. You just look in mirror please. Is this what you call Bodgie style?’
‘Yeah, it is, right there.’
‘It is what you want?’
‘Yeah, man, what else?’
‘It must be right for you. I can only cut it once. Look again and tell me please.’
‘Man, it’s the works so do your cutting and sewing,’ Balga said then had to ask ‘How much will it cost?’
‘For you, for Eddy’s friend, I do it all for five.’
‘That’s a lot!’
‘That’s it, yes, or take it away.’
Reluctantly Balga forked over the fiver and as he did so felt the store keeper touch him on his arm. He left his hand there as he said coyly, ‘My, aren’t we forgetting something?’
‘Oh’ and Balga repeated ‘Oh’ again as it hit me that he still had to pay for the coat. ‘What did you say the price was?’
‘I said “sixty” but as it is off season I’ll bring it down to “twenty five”, below that I won’t go, unless of course, we can come to some amicable arrangement.’
Balga looked at the leering face and thought it over. ‘No way is that piece of shit worth fifty. Who’s going to buy a shapeless bit of sack cloth for that — make it twenty.’
‘But the tailor vouched for the quality of the material,’ the shop keeper retorted.
‘Ah, he needs the work, give you twenty one,’ Balga sneered, looking tough though a bit limp wristed at the same time. With a smirk he counted out the money. Not much was left in his pay pack, but he wanted that coat. He needed it!
The shop keeper touched his palm suggestively as he took the money. ‘Enough,’ Balga smiled at him and then turned his attention to the tailor: ‘When will it be ready?’
‘The day after tomorrow...’
‘It’s a Saturday.’
‘So what I still open.’
Balga turned and left. The store keeper came closely after him. ‘You ready for a beer before it hits six,’ he asked at the bottom of the stairs.
‘You mean you’re going to shout me,’ Balga asked coarsely.
‘Of course, I’d like to get to know you. I like rough trade, but I’m meeting a friend there and want to make him jealous.’
‘Well, okay, but only one mind,’ Balga agreed, knowing that he had made a conquest, a bloke with a shop on the street with some good gear he might get cheaply.
Balga was into his second free beer when the friend cut in, a younger man, and friendly too, but he excused himself to go and look for Tommy. He was at his desk and wouldn’t get off until after nine. The lad arranged for his mate to make time to celebrate his birthday and then went home to feel sad about using most of his pay on a single coat though he loved it. This perked him up and he went to pay his rent with the rest of his money. He would have to rely on night trade earnings to keep him solvent through the next fortnight; but the rent came first. Balga always paid special attention to keeping up to date with his rent. He always regarded his room as a hidey hole and the bungalow certainly was a hole. This made him think of Jeannie’s offer and her place would be a regular house. He paid Bonny, accepted a drink, then some stew as he watched television then went back to his hole to lie there thinking of his birthday and the gift he had got himself: a nice warm coat with finger length drape.