A Kind of Hush by Richard A. Johnson Page B

it, new people around, making new friends, I was getting on well. I still saw the lads occasionally but I had cut down on the amount of business I joined them on. Mick seemed to understand that I had a lot of thinking to do, so he got into the habit of expecting me only when he saw me.
    Everything seemed to be going fine. Then Chef died.
    I was gutted, destroyed. I loved that bloke, more than he would ever know and the bastard upped and died on me. How could he do that? Didn’t he know how much I needed him?
    He had just finished preparing a sea bass for serving. It was all tarted up with brightly coloured vegetables, Nouvelle Cuisine he called it. He stood back to admire his work and lit another cigarette. I noticed that he had placed a piece of asparagus in such a way that at first glance it looked like the fish had a giant penis. I pointed it out to him and he started laughing, then he started coughing and then he went. It was as quick as that.
    Liz, the kitchen hand, dropped-to her knees beside him and started to thump his chest and give him mouth to mouth. It seems that she learned it at one of her Red Cross days. It did no good. As she lifted her head I could see the smoke from his cigarette rising slowly from his nose and mouth.
    I stood frozen to the spot, a smile still on my face from the fish joke. I didn't know what was going on, couldn't take it in.
    'Call an ambulance!' barked Liz.
    I just stood there.
    'Stu, call a bloody ambulance!' she screamed again.
    I clicked into gear and rushed to the phone.
    The ambulance arrived ten minutes later. Liz was still pounding on Chef's chest. One of the ambulancemen gently moved her to one side, while the other checked Chef for a pulse. On finding nothing he began to do all of the things that I guess they do at times like that, then he looked up and said, 'I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do, he's gone.'
    Liz cracked up then and had to be led away by one of the other women. I was numb. I helped them to pick him up then took hold of his hand. He was still clutching his lighter. I gently prized it from his grasp and slipped it in my pocket, I've still got it, it's only a grotty old Clipper but it's my most prized possession. Then they took him away.
    I didn't go to the funeral, I couldn't face it. I sent the biggest bunch of roses that I could afford with a card that said, TO DAD, IF ONLY. LOVE STU'.
    I went to see Beryl some time later, she gave me a hug and cried a lot, she remembered the roses and understood  the card. I didn't know then that I'd be seeing her more often, for different reasons.
    That weekend I went out with the lads and did some business.
     
     

Chapter Nine

      
     
    We’ve got a new chef now, he’s okay, but it can never be the same.
    It’s one o’clock in the morning, it’s very hot and I was sitting just outside the window of my room looking through the railings that run all the way around the roof of the hotel.
    I’m watching the ‘toms’ at work in the square below. Toms are prostitutes, for those that don’t know, but I haven’t quite worked out yet how cockney rhyming slang turns prostitute into tom; I’ll let you know if I do.
    She was back again, wearing a tight-fitting red dress that shows all of her legs and sets off her long blonde hair a treat. She doesn’t seem to be like the other girls. She doesn’t walk to the cars that cruise by, or laugh and joke the way that the others do. If someone wants her, she’s always taken to them by one of the other girls. She never seems to smile and rarely talks. If she gets into a car, she’s always back within the hour. There was something about her that was bugging me.
    I watched for another hour or so until I saw a long dark car pull up and take her away. It was the same car that brings her when she works the square, so I assume it’s her pimp. I went to bed.
    The following night I started watching earlier. She arrived in the car at about eight o'clock, same red dress, same quiet,