pointing at the olive-skinned girl opposite me.
‘Um, hello everybody, my name is Gabi and I’m from Brazil,’ she said in a lilting accent. ‘Back home I loved to dance the samba so I have good rhythm. I want to work at Pearl to earn money to pay for my study. I learn English and study law.’
‘OK, thanks, Gabi – I’ll be tapping you up for free legal advice,’ laughed Jackie. ‘Next, please.’
‘Good afternoon. My name is Irena and I am from Poland.’
‘Speak up,’ said Jackie. ‘There’s no room for shyness in this business. Be loud and proud.’
‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Irena, notching the volume up. ‘Sorry, Poland. I want work at Pearl to pay my bills and also send money home to my parents. I also love to dance.’
‘Thank you, Irena, no need to apologise,’ said Jackie. ‘But you need to toughen up. OK, next please.’
A long-limbed black girl with a great-looking Afro stepped up to the plate. ‘Hi everybody, my name is Makani. My family is originally from Ghana but I was born in London. I want to dance at the Pearl in the evenings so that I can spend my days painting.’
‘Thanks, Makani, good luck. Let’s move on … OK, you with the spiky black hair,’ said Jackie, pointing at me. ‘What’s your story?’
I had to think on my feet; there was no way I could tell the truth.
‘Hi guys, I’m Geri,’ I said. ‘I’m from Surrey. I work as a temp secretary in the City but the pay’s not great. I want to work at the Pearl so I can buy some Jimmy Choos!’
That broke the ice a little and everyone laughed, except Jackie.
‘Well, Geri, I hope you’re not the kind of girl who’s a slave to her credit card. What makes you want to be a lap dancer?’
‘I’m reasonably fit and I’ve been told I’m a sexy mover,’ I answered. ‘So I thought I’d try my hand at lap dancing because it beats working behind a bar.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Jackie, but I could see my joke hadn’t gone down well with her.
The other girls said their piece and Jackie moved to the CD player and put on some relaxing music.
‘OK ladies, listen up. Welcome to Jackie’s Boot Camp. You don’t do the talking here, you do the listening. If you screw around I won’t ask you to drop and give me twenty, I’ll just get some friends of mine to very politely escort you from the building. When I’m here, you take your orders from me. If I say “any questions” then you can ask questions, otherwise shut up and listen. If you need to pee do it in your own time.
‘Now before we begin, everyone is always curious to know how we get into a business like this. Well, you’ve told me a little of your stories so I’ll tell you a little of mine.’
Chapter Six
JACKIE’S STORY
I’ve always wanted to dance. When I was a girl I dreamed of being a ballerina. And yeah, yeah I’m sure you all dreamed that. But I was good. I auditioned at 15 and won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet. Surprised? Well don’t be. There’s more. My mother didn’t want me to be a ballet dancer, she didn’t think there was money in it. She wanted me to be a hairdresser. So I ran away from home when I was 16.
I studied at Barons Court for a year or so. The course was tough, but I could handle it. The reasons I left … well. Let’s just say it involved a well-hung ballet teacher called Guy, a bottle of gin and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Guy and I woke up naked on a mat on the floor of studio two surrounded by twelve teenage ballerinas and a furious Madame. The teacher was fired and I was asked to not come back after the summer break.
I was gutted of course. But I had more immediate concerns than losing the love of my life. I had nowhere to live for a start. I couldn’t go home. Mum wouldn’t return my calls. I had no idea where my brothers were. My father was long gone and all my grandparents were either dead or senile. I was 17 and faced with a life of poverty and despair. Then I remembered my Aunty Linda. The only woman in our family who wouldn’t judge me. She was a black sheep herself, you see. Aunty Linda ran a lapdancing club in Whitechapel.
Suffice to say my Aunty Linda made a better mum than my real one ever did. I came out the other end still alive but it could have been a lot worse. Plenty of homeless girls end up on the streets as hookers, thieves or both. I was still determined to make it as a dancer. I knew I had the talent, and I was young. I just needed a place to put down some roots while I sorted out my life.
When I was reasonably straight in the head Linda put me to work behind the bar, mixing drinks, keeping an eye on things. I took tips from the punters but wasn’t allowed to dance. Aunty Linda wouldn’t let me. I was desperate to do it though. I wanted to keep in practice for a start. Dancing takes a lot of strength and the best way to keep your muscles trim is to dance. It’s not a coincidence that pole dancing has been taken over by the fitness clubs these days, though back then respectable women wouldn’t be seen dead near a pole.
I’ve never been respectable and don’t want to start. I didn’t mind taking my clothes off. In Auntie Linda’s the girls stripped down to nothing on stage and in the private rooms – Lord knows what else they got up to in there, but officially they weren’t supposed to fuck the punters. I was proud of my body. There’s not that much between a sheer pair of tights and a snatch open to the elements. I’d watch the other girls dance. Twisting, spinning, sliding up and down. Wrapping their beautiful bodies around the golden poles. I saw the boozy lads, or the quiet single men tucking notes into the g-strings or between a couple of pressed-together tits. I wanted it all.
I liked it there. I lived in a little flat above the club with one of the girls, a shy type called Melinda, or Marinda – I could never remember – and she was hardly ever there to talk to. I would sleep late, then make myself a coffee and look out the windows across the sea of chimney-pots and TV aerials that made up the East End skyline. I liked it behind the bar too. It felt safe. I was cut off from the action, the fights and the slaps when the punters got too fresh. I was immune from the drunken brawls that occasionally broke out. I watched it all, soaked it up, took it all in. I felt at home.
Linda didn’t own the place, that was some shady guy called Col who we hardly ever saw. He had ‘interests’ all over London so left the day-to-day running to Linda.
The clients we had were a mixed bunch. This was the East End and there were office blocks nearby but we weren’t close enough to the City to attract the really high rollers, though that was just as well for me. We all know how lairy they can get around bonus time. We got a lot of stag-dos, market vendors and even a few students from the college up the road. But the group I saw the most was Fat Desmond’s crew, a gang of middling-violent gangsters. They were apparently ‘associates’ of Col’s, which is why they were basically allowed free run of the place. They paid up, usually, but refused to tip, and often tried to cheat the girls. Linda had had to pay them out of her own pocket from time to time when they were left short by some crooked-nosed gangster.
Fat Desmond took a shine to me soon after I started working there and he was forever pestering Linda to let me dance for him. For once I was grateful for her refusals. I didn’t want to dance for that fat slug. ‘Her mother’d never forgive me,’ she’d say. I shrugged at Desmond’s raised eyebrows.
Now Desmond wasn’t the
