more than an hour, he longed to put his fist in her mouth – was because he’d watched his own father beat the shit out of his mother on a daily basis.
Living with Alfie Senior had eventually become too much for Annabel Jennings, and Alfie had come home from school one day to discover her lifeless body in the outhouse at the bottom of the garden, lying in a pool of blood, still clutching the garden shears she’d used to stab herself in the neck with.
Alfie had sat with his mother until the next morning holding her cold hand, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying silently; hoping a miracle would bring her back to life.
As soon as his father had come home and the doctor had been called, Alfie had gone out and battered senseless the first kid he’d come across.
Alfie couldn’t remember how many diets his wife had been on and none of them ever seemed to work; if anything, with each coming year she’d got bigger, though ironically, her tits, the part of her body he’d been most drawn to, were the one part of her body that’d lost weight. Now they were sagging, empty sacks and when she lay on her back in bed, they’d hang over each side of her body, almost touching the mattress.
‘Why don’t you touch me any more?’ Janine would complain. ‘I bet you’ve got some skinny tart up Soho and that’s why you don’t want me to come up.’
Most of the time Alfie was able to convince his wife there was no one else and his lack of sexual interest in her was down to tiredness, but sometimes words didn’t cut it, and he was forced to show her with actions. Shagging his wife was like shagging the Mersey Tunnel Alfie thought – large, cold and passionless.
When he did fuck her, he always struggled just to get semi-erect, which Alfie thought said a lot about his wife; even with the oldest and ugliest of old brasses he’d no problem getting a boner, but Janine Jennings, with her big fat mouth and her just as big fat pussy, had a flaccid effect on his poor penis.
Alfie had kept the black sign of the club for nostalgia and as a reminder not to allow himself to fail. The fear of failure was a legacy from his father who had constantly told him he’d never make it; that he’d amount to nothing. So each day when he went into the club and put the key in the imposing door, it was his vindication to himself he’d proved those words wrong.
He’d had the club since he was twenty-three and had given it a facelift, renaming it Annabel’s Whispers, though everyone called it Whispers Comedy Club or Whispers for short; but to Alfie it would always be Annabel’s Whispers – named after his gently spoken mother. Having her name there was a way of keeping his mother alive to him – it was important to Alfie because he couldn’t remember her face any longer, causing him to feel a deep sense of shame and sadness. When he tried to remember, all he could see was the blood, and all he could hear were his childhood screams.
Whispers had evolved over time and it’d become useful for his other businesses. It was a place where he could hold his meetings with the biggest faces in London, a place he stored the countless numbers of stolen goods which came in and out of his possession and a place to launder money, but for all Alfie felt he had achieved, the one thing he was proudest of was the public face of Whispers. He’d turned it from just a drinking bar into a successful comedy and nightclub. He regularly attracted the biggest acts in the business; sometimes pulling in favours from the cigar-smoking promoters and sometimes resorting to what he knew worked best; bribery and threats. Whatever it took, Alfie made sure Whispers was the place to be.
Often Alfie took to the stage himself, supporting the acts but securing the biggest laughs; it was one of the perks to being him, being a face, being someone everyone was scared of; even if he wasn’t funny, they were all too damn scared of him not to laugh.
Not that he wanted it to be that way. He longed for the applause and laughter to be genuine; he really did love doing stand-up, but his problem was the nerves.
‘You’re all wound up and tight like an Irish nun’s fanny. What you need to do is relax, Alf – enjoy it instead of bleeding worrying about what everyone else will think and being terrified you’ll be crap,’ Janine would say to him constantly.
‘Thank you bleeding Oprah. When I want your flipping input, Janine, I’ll ask for it – until then, keep your big fat mush shut.’
Annoyed, he’d storm off, slamming the front door behind him because what she said always hit a nerve. It was true he worried about what people would think of him and it was true the word failure loomed large in his head. And the more he worried about it, the worse it got; moments before he was due to go on stage with the solitary spotlight hitting down on him as the audience looked up in anticipation, the nerves would get the better of him; his palms and brow would begin to sweat, the well-rehearsed lines would disappear from his mind, leaving only panic and dread in their wake.
He wished he could confide in his friends but he knew he could never admit it to anyone; he’d a reputation to keep and it wouldn’t do for people to know that the great Alfie Jennings, the man so many men had feared, was crippled with stage fright. He’d be a laughing stock, and the fear of that was nearly as great as his nerves. He’d secretly gone to a hypnotherapist in Harley Street and paid through the fucking nose to try to conquer his fear but it hadn’t helped, nothing seemed to.
Up until five years ago Alfie’s hideaway flat had been above his foundling club, but when he’d started branching out into other business he’d decided to buy the penthouse across the road and it was now his second home. Not that the penthouse had been for sale – the owners had no intention of moving out until Alfie had sent round three of his henchmen with a stark warning and an offer. Six months later, he’d moved in.
The club had survived the nail bomb in Old Compton Street, though The Admiral Duncan, a pub a few doors along, hadn’t been so lucky, and neither had some of its punters. But Whispers Comedy Club had survived and as Alfie looked out at the club opposite, he felt a pride in his chest like the one he’d felt when he’d seen Emmie for the first time.
His thoughts were interrupted by banging on the bathroom door.
‘Alfie, let me in love. I need a wee.’
Alfie Jennings could feel his temper rising. Not only was she a mouthy brass, but she also expected to go for a piss in his expensive marbled bathroom. Swinging open the door, Alfie took in the state of the woman in front of him who an hour ago had been giving him a blow job and sticking her tongue in his arse. She stood naked, jigging about with her huge tits uncovered, pulling her face into a scowl.
‘Christ, about bleedin’ time. I’m going to burst like a dam.’
The scream from the young woman’s mouth was one of shock as Alfie picked her up and carried her through the doorway of his bedroom and out of his flat.
‘Put me down yer fucker.’
‘You want a piss? Piss here where the dogs do, it should be like home from home for you.’
Ignoring her effing and blinding, Alfie unceremoniously dumped the naked woman outside in the street before catching sight of a stunning looking woman across the other side, reading the board outside his club. He took in her curvaceous yet slim body, her long auburn hair and full red lips and for a moment he just stood there, forgetting about the tom he’d just thrown out, forgetting about the show later on that night; for one of the first times in his life, Alfie Jennings was mesmerised. He willed the woman to go into the club, but she turned away in the other direction. He contemplated going after her, turning on the Jennings charm, but he needed to get showered first and wash off the brass; it wouldn’t go down very well if he had the smell of another
