Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (15 page)

Sid hasn’t got many clothes, none of us have much that is acceptable to be seen in, no shops sell what we like except Sex, and it’s so expensive we only have one or two things from there. Sid has two pairs of trousers: holey, faded jeans and a pair of red pegs – they’re wool and have a little silver thread running through them, zoot-suitish, pleated at the waist, wide-legged, tapering in quite narrow at the bottom. He wears them with brothel creepers, a bit David Bowie and a bit 1950s. Some of the boys still have this look, Malcolm McLaren and John Rotten wear it sometimes too – it’s left over from Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, the teddy-boy shop Malcolm and Vivienne Westwood had before Sex. I never went there, didn’t know about it.

One day Sid turns up in the peg trousers and they’re in ribbons. He’d sliced them up with a razor blade because he hated them so much but he couldn’t find his jeans so when he wanted to go out he had to stick them back together. He joined the rips with loads of safety pins, all the way down his legs, hundreds of them. That’s how the ‘loads of safety pins’ thing started amongst people in clubs: they copied it, but he only did it because he couldn’t be bothered to sew his trousers up.

A while later Sid came round to Davis Road in a new pair of black bondage trousers, said he’d gone into Sex and Vivienne told him she couldn’t bear looking at him in those disgusting trousers a minute longer, she made him take them off, gave him a pair of bondage trousers for free and threw the red ones away. I’m really jealous, Vivienne must really like him to do that. She doesn’t usually give stuff away.

Whenever Sid gets his dole money he treats me to a Wimpy burger and chips. He never has anything to do and wants to tag along to art school with me, but I say no because I know he’ll embarrass me. I love Wimpy burgers and I’m always hungry so when he says, ‘I’ll buy you Wimpy and chips on the way in, if you let me come with you,’ I can’t resist. It’s such a treat and we can’t usually afford it – everyone has their price I suppose. So we get burger and chips for breakfast and then he lumbers along next to me up Shepherd’s Bush Road to art college.

He sits in on the lectures, they’re about warp and weft, knitting machines and pattern cutting, things like that. Sid slouches so low in the chair he almost slides off, long arms dangling by his sides, skinny legs stretched way out in front of him, foot shaking like he’s on speed. Not a discreet presence at all. Then he picks his nose and farts and burps loudly all through the talk. After this happens a couple of times, he’s banned from the college and I’m told by the head of year not to bring him in any more. This is actually a relief for me. Not that Sid will take no for an answer – I have to be very firm with him to make sure he doesn’t come to college again. Whenever we’re together, even if I’m a bit fed up with him and ask him to give me a bit of space, he won’t go away. He doesn’t care, he’s not hurt, he just does what he wants. He thinks it’s funny.

I never see Sid with a girl. There’s a very young girl we call Wiggy, she wears a grey shaggy wig and has a sweet face, looks about fourteen years old and I think they fiddle about together sometimes. I think Soo Catwoman and him had a tryst, and that’s it. No flirting, no talking about girls, no interest shown. I think he’s shy and inexperienced: unless a girl grabs hold of him, he never makes a move.

Often when Sid turns up at my place he rushes past me at the front door, races upstairs to the bathroom and looks for stray pubic hairs. I know it’s childish and shouldn’t matter, but it makes me want to die if he finds one in the bath or on the loo seat. If he does, he laughs hysterically and teases me about it for hours. That’s what it’s like with him: find a weak point in someone, then pull them to pieces. To help me stay cool and cope with the embarrassment I imagine it’s Alan’s pube, I act like it couldn’t possibly be mine and I don’t know what he’s talking about. There are times when the doorbell rings and I think with dread about the bathroom and sometimes I even run in there to check it before opening the front door. You never know who’s going to be at the door – if someone comes over it’s spontaneous, because we don’t have a telephone.

The worst situation Sid ever gets me into is when we go to meet some aristocrat he’s come across somewhere. Sid thinks it’s amusing that this toff wants to hang out with us and buy us drinks at his private club in Kensington Church Street. We often get invited to things like this, as if we’re a couple of freaks to be paraded around.

We meet Posh Boy and his posh mate at a pub on Kensington Church Street and I don’t know how it happens, but an argument starts. I’ve got a feeling I started it because I feel safe with Sid here; if I were on my own I’d be more cautious. I say something provocative to Posh Boy, he threatens me with violence, and the next thing I know, Sid’s whipped off his studded belt, wrapped it around his fist and smashed Posh Boy over the head with the buckle end. Splits his head open. (
Sid taught me this move: wrap the tongue of the belt round your hand, use the buckle as the weapon, it’s important to lock your arm straight whilst you wield the belt, and do the worst thing you can think of first. That’s the only chance you’ve got
.) We all leap up from the table, Sid legs it up the road and I’m left with Posh Boy, blood pouring out of his face.

Posh Boy grabs me by the hair – a clump of it in his fist, like I’m an animal – and drags me up the road looking for Sid, to kill him. I’m a hostage. I am so humiliated: I’ve never been treated like such a piece of dirt before. No doubt Posh Boy feels the same after being smashed across the head by Sid.

The three of us – Posh Boy fuming and covered in blood, holding me by my hair, me bent over and hobbling along in a subservient position next to him, and Posh Boy’s mate, scurrying to keep up – go raging up and down Kensington Church Street. No sign of Sid. Posh Boy lets go of my hair for a second and I dash into a boutique and ask the shop assistants to protect me. They aren’t too happy about it, but I refuse to go back outside. I hide at the back of the shop for ages until the posh boys go away.

When I poke my head out into the street to check the coast is clear, there’s Sid, looking for me. I’m quite touched because most of the time he has no code of conduct. I apologise to him for putting him in a situation where he felt he had to defend me. I’ve learnt my lesson; from now on I’ll keep my mouth shut and not invite trouble. Things can get out of hand so quickly, especially with Sid around. I also decide never to wear heels again when I’m out with him. I go to Holt’s in Camden Town and buy a pair of black Dr Martens. (You can get them in black, brown or maroon, the skinhead boys at school used to buy the brown ones and polish them with Kiwi Oxblood shoe polish – this gives them a deep reddish brown colour, much subtler than the flat red of the originals. They also kept them pristinely clean and polished at all times.) I wear my new boots with everything – dresses, tutus – it’s a great feeling to be able to run again. No other girls wear DMs with dresses, so I get a lot of funny looks. (Skinhead girls only wear DMs with Sta-Prest trousers. With their boring grey skirts, they wear plain white or holey ecru tights and black patent brogues.) But as I wear them all the time to clubs and pubs, it eventually catches on with other girls and I don’t look so odd.

Sid always says he isn’t a violent person, that he’s a useless fighter, he’d rather run away from a fight than confront someone, violence is a last resort. But ‘Sid Vicious’ is becoming a persona he can’t shake off, and he lets the myth build, plays up to it. After a while, because of his name and reputation, he’s getting attacked everywhere he goes: guys want to take him on. He doesn’t care. Everything he does he takes as far as he can. He detaches himself from fear, remorse, caring about his safety or his looks and just becomes a vessel for other people’s fantasies about him, like Paul Newman in
Cool Hand Luke
. His attitude is,
Let’s see how far this thing goes. Test it to destruction
.

34 THE SHOP

1976–1977

We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that.

Buenaventura Durruti

I’ve got so used to my life being challenging and fraught with danger that I don’t question it any more. Whether I’m knocking on the door of a hardcore sex shop, walking through suburban streets being verbally abused and spat on, or being threatened on the tube, I don’t give in. I don’t dress normally to have an easy life. The pilgrimage down the King’s Road to get to the Shop (Sex: everyone calls it ‘the Shop’), the place I want to hang out and buy stuff, is one of the scariest things I do – running the gauntlet of teds who want to kill people like me – but nothing will stop me looking the way I want. It’s a commitment.

I usually go with Sid or Rory, they know everyone in there, which makes it easier. We walk all the way down the King’s Road from Sloane Square tube station, but as we get closer to the Shop, Rory gets a bit agitated and says things like, ‘Do your bag up, Viv, there’s stuff spilling out of it. Looks messy.’ That’s from someone who hangs out with Malcolm a lot, he still gets nervous. If we make it without seeing any teds, we’re lucky, otherwise we have to dodge in and out of the shops all along the King’s Road and it takes ages to get to the World’s End, which is what the end of the King’s Road is called and feels like.

As soon as you round the bend and see the word ‘SEX’ in giant pink plastic letters, you know you’re safe.

I push open the door and am hit by the cloying, sickly-sweet smell of latex; it’s funny how you never smell it anywhere but here. The long thin shop floor is empty except for the assistants, Debbie and Jordan. Jordan is a work of art. Her look is so extreme and yet she isn’t scary or threatening at all. She has a soft voice, gentle manner and is calm and centred. Sometimes Jordan doesn’t wear a skirt, just fishnet tights or stockings, high-waisted satin knickers, a leather or rubber bodice and bondage shoes. She paints two black slashes across her eyelids, looks like a robber’s mask, a cross between Zorro and Catwoman, her face is dusted with white face powder and her lips are pillar-box red. Her hair is piled high, ash blonde and sculpted into a huge wave dipping down over one eye. Jordan travels on the train from Sussex all the way into London dressed like this. Every day. She doesn’t go into the loos at Charing Cross Station and change her clothes once she’s arrived. Her attitude filters through to all of us. You have to live it.

Now I’m inside, I can’t wait to look at the clothes, there aren’t many, not much to choose from, but that just makes everything more special. High up on the shelves are rows of white, pink or black patent ankle boots, scallop-topped, stiletto-heeled. I wish I could buy a pair in every colour, they’re like something out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue (fetish underwear makers in LA), which I think has influenced Vivienne Westwood.

Vivienne’s scary, for the reason any truthful, plain-talking person is scary – she exposes you. If you haven’t been honest with yourself, this makes you feel extremely uncomfortable, and if you are a con merchant the game is up. She’s uncompromising in every way: what she says, what she stands for, what she expects from you and how she dresses. She’s direct and judgemental with a strong northern accent that accentuates her sincerity. She has a confidence I haven’t seen in any other woman. She’s strong, opinionated and very smart. She can’t bear complacency. She’s the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. Sid told me, ‘Vivienne says you’re talented but lazy.’ I’ve worked at everything twice as hard since he said that.

I’m very influenced by how Vivienne looks. She gets it just right. Black lines drawn around her eyes, dark lipstick, pale face. Her hair is dyed white blonde, with an inch of dark roots showing and clumpy spikes sticking out in all directions. I’ve no idea where she got the look from, it doesn’t reference anything I’m aware of, no films or art. I think she’s very feminine in her own way. I do my version of Vivienne but it comes out a bit different and looks like my own style. I love changing my hair, you can’t get hair wrong, I’ve spent money on it from a young age. I stopped going to hairdressers after I copied Vivienne though, they didn’t get it. Keith Levene hacks at it and dyes it for me now.

Vivienne has a good figure, she can carry off anything, usually she wears a rubber knee-length skirt and calf-length black boots, not sexy boots, they’re flat, slightly baggy, or a see-through rubber top with bondage trousers and lots of tartan. She makes everyone else on the street look irrelevant. Although the clothes she wears are daring, there’s something about her that’s quite puritan and austere. She’s also very private. There are rumours that she has a child but I’ve never seen one or heard her mention it. Vivienne’s a vegetarian and very strict about it, she gives anyone who eats meat a hard time. One day Chrissie Hynde – who’s also a vegetarian – saw Vivienne backstage at the Roundhouse eating a ham sandwich. Chrissie confronted Vivienne about it and Vivienne replied, ‘Well, it’s dead now.’ (Once when Vivienne asked Chrissie a question, Chrissie replied, ‘Oh, I just go with the flow.’ Vivienne thought that was unacceptable and wouldn’t speak to her again for a year.) We’re all very judgemental about everything, including each other, but if you state your position boldly enough, or just don’t give a shit, you can do what the hell you want. In some ways to be too passionate or attached to anything is considered weak; you don’t stick to things just for the sake of it or on a matter of principle, that’s rigid behaviour.

Malcolm isn’t in the Shop so often – when he is, he’s always friendly and charming, I’ve never heard him be rude or confrontational to anyone. Although they’re often together, you never see Vivienne and Malcolm touch or kiss and I think that’s set the tone for how we all behave in relationships. Hardly anyone in Malcolm and Vivienne’s circle is in a couple; only Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie is part of the Bromley Contingent, followers of the Sex Pistols from the very beginning), who’s with Steve Severin, and sometimes Paul Cook has a steady girlfriend. I’ve heard rumours that some of the girls who hang around the Shop do hand jobs on Park Lane for money, which fits in with the way everyone views sex: as a commodity, no emotional involvement needed. Maybe things go on behind the scenes. Sometimes, when the Roxy or our other haunt, Louise’s, closes (Louise’s is a lesbian club in Poland Street, with a little hatch in the red door at eye height so the doorman can look you over before deciding to let you in), a group of people start whispering and arranging something, then they all disappear off together. I can’t imagine what they do. I wonder if they all go off and have an orgy somewhere. I don’t know, I’m not part of it. I don’t quite fit into that side of things, I’m a bit too straight, like Mick. I dress in fetish and bondage gear, rubber and studs, and give off sexual signals with my clothes but don’t act on them in real life.