The money came relatively easy, easy enough for me to feel compensated ... easy enough for me to close my eyes to what I was doing to myself.
But another factor crept in. More confident with the job, apparent.... a great deal of time to think. The fractured faces, the different places, all mechanical. Hardly aware of driving the monster ... even that submerged, the pain of it swallowed in my sub-conscious.
Times when I became aware of being spoken to. Most of the people who did speak, wanted reassurance, even from a ‘cab driver’.
They always look such solid, independent types ... !!
During daylight, the words were never much, a shouted contact with another human being, above the heavy cacophony of the traffic. But at night, people change. The darkness arouses other feelings ... feelings that are hidden in the bright Sunlight.
Dutifully, the wives, mistresses, are taken to the theatre, even before they arrive, they are worried, asking the possibilities of getting back. "No problem Guvnor, Captain, Mate, Chief .. or even 'Sir' ... Just wave your hand long enough, little yellow light 'on' or 'off', keep waving.
From the theatre it's, "Do you know a 'nice' little restaurant driver ......."
Hardly knew why they bothered with the rigmarole. Sitting in a theatre for a couple of hours would, in itself, have freaked me out. When they had eaten, when I had returned them safely to their own particular hiding place, when they had tipped me more than they ever would have during daylight, when they had waved as I drove away into the unassailable darkness, leaving them to fumble at the door, to find their way up the stairs ... to finally lay uneasily with each other, it became time for me then, to become conscious, traffic gone, possible to hear your own thoughts, diesel engine swallowed up in the night air, just a soft throb, right at the back of the head.
The women, girls, be there waiting, would find them in the most unlikely places, where they had been dumped, abandoned, or just left, for whatever reason, subdued, tears poised in the corners of their eyes, they would slump in the corner of the cab, reality, hard upon them.
The creaking motion through the cool, early morning air would, perhaps, give them some degree of reassurance ... 'did I have a cigarette'.
Waiting for what I considered the appropriate moment, start up with my usual ... "Orlright Darlin" ... My best Cockney vernacular ... "Been 'avin a bit of bovver?" ... Never rise above your station in life. Speak as expected.
A faint smile ... all very much of a gamble at this stage. "My boy friend ... Husband ... Lover ... What bastards men were".
"What!" ... incredulously ... "Just slung you aht!" ... As if I didn't know ... was on their side, wasn't I?
Played a pair of Jacks ... "Like some coffee?" ... This, always 'the' question. A smile, one thing ... actually associating, something else. The hesitant "Yes" always broke the atmosphere.
Invariably trundled my way to Commercial Street, the very end of the world,. the end of accepted society. Once you step from that incredibly ugly thoroughfare, away from the bright lights of the Golden Gloves 'coffee stall', into the shadows behind the church, into the twisted darkness of Brick Lane and its myriads of small broken down back waters, then you are 'lost'.
Men, women slumped against the railings, bodies buried in newspapers, bottles beside them. They never move.
To my knowledge, my 'guests' never saw this aspect ... propped up in the back seat, thick, heavy, hot cup in one hand, cigarette in the other, forgot their own troubles momentarily, intent on watching their sisters parading nonchalantly up and down filthy pavements, climbing into the cars, climbing into the lorries, huge monsters, lurking in black shadows, ready, waiting for the dawn.
Should have left the trade the moment I realised how very mundane it would all be, how it could never be anything else. The very last thing I needed was time to think, to think on what had been, or was going to be. Nevertheless.. masochistic about it. I had chiseled a slot in society and would not budge.
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