It was early afternoon and I had nothing in particular to do. In those days, I never did have anything in particular to do. Write a bit here and there. Read, in the hope of filling up the tank for the next piece of writing. Engage in a noble quest to watch all the movies ever made in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. And, most importantly in the short-term, attempt to extract every possible benefit that the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was unwise enough to offer.

Somehow, this led me to be in Wallington, Surrey. A town whose only claim to fame was that it had absolutely no claim to fame. As far as I could determine, from my limited acquaintance with the place, it was utterly nondescript and inoffensive. Nothing happened there, or was likely to happen there. It had a railway station, and that station could take you quickly and easily to London (and for free too, as it was a cinch to dodge the ticket inspectors). That was pretty much its main attraction: the fact that it was easily and happily exited.

So I’d find myself stuck there at times. In Wallington. Bloody Wallington. Just to sign the occasional form and maintain the semblance that I was living in a place I wasn’t. And as the bloke I was pulling the benefits scam with was at work during the day, it was even more barren. So what do you do? You go to the pub, right? There were a couple. Maybe three. The details are hazy now. The preferred one was by the station. Perhaps because of that whole exit thing. Or because it was a bit of a walk from his place, and a walk meant the extinction of a few extra minutes.

I can’t even remember the name of the place. Probably something complicated like the Railway. I could Google it, but I can’t be bothered. Half a chance it’s not even standing any more.

I knew what it was like at that hour—one or two o’clock—which was basically moribund. And I knew what kind of jokers would usually be in there at that time. A couple of old blokes who always drank next to the counter, one of whom had a large circle of pink skin in the back of his head and who would start off his drinking session guffawing and end up braying. Nobody took any notice of him because, in their own way, they were just as hopeless as he was. There were certainly very few young people in there at that time. Maybe three or four who came in at 12ish on their lunchbreak from one of the local offices, but I was comfortably the youngest on the odd afternoons I found myself marooned.

Sometimes I stood at the bar with my pint. Sometimes I sat at a table. Almost always I took a newspaper in there with me—mostly as a prop, I have to confess. Something to pose with, or to peer over when I was studying someone. Or as a defence mechanism in case I needed to avoid an unwanted conversation or deflect the attention of one of the local nutters. It was a tactic I’d used in pubs from before the time I was even legally entitled to be there. And it worked. Put your head in The Sun. Put The Daily Mail over your face. Nobody bothered you.

That’s not to say I didn’t occasionally have a chat with another punter. If we fell into conversation accidentally, or if he seemed sound. When I was 19 or so, I met an old bloke in Grays who recounted his experiences from World War Two. He said he’d killed people and he didn’t regret it and he’d do it again. It sounded kosher, though there’s always the chance that you’ve met the town fantasist. He said his name was John Thomas. John Thomas…

But he wasn’t Dirty John. Heroic John. Forthright John. The kind of John you can’t meet in a pub anymore. Or maybe just Liar John. But not Dirty John.

Because I met Dirty John in that pub in Wallington on that afternoon. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. But I did.

I don’t know why, but the place was unusually busy when I came in. I got my pint of John Smith’s and looked for a seat. There was only one, at a table where a rather feeble old man was sitting. Normally, I would have given it a miss and stood, but I must have caught his eye and he nodded at me to sit down. Not wishing to offend him, I did so. I think we raised our glasses and said “Cheers!” or some such banality. I then went through the motions of excluding him by putting my paper on the table and opening it up. He was either going to let me get on with it, or interrupt the process with some small talk. He chose the latter.

The best way in, if you were him, would be to pick an item from the news and expound on that. It worked. We both had some trivial opinions on whatever it was, and he was away. A bit of banter followed and then he mentioned that he was a retired chauffeur. At least he wasn’t boasting about offing Germans. Or was it the Japanese? Or both?

“Used to work in London. My boss, he was a rich fella. Up to all sorts, he was. I knew as not to ask any questions.”

“Sometimes it’s better not to.” But I didn’t follow my own advice. I knew the paper was not an option now and I was going to have to listen to this codger’s life story for the duration of my pint. I just hoped it was going to be a good one. Or at least a good bad one.

“Sometimes I used to pick up stuff for him.” I had no option but to ask what. “Well, of course, it was more than my job was worth to go nosing around. I’d just take some bag, some case, somewhere and then someone would give me a case in return and then I’d bring it back. The boss was happy. He’d give me a bonus, and it was all hunky dory as far as I was concerned.” And you could see from the glint that was still in his eye that it must have been. Slight as he was, he was starting to become invigorated by this opportunity to reanimate the old days.

“And that wasn’t all that I transported around.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Oh no. Also, women.”

“Women?” Well, what could you say?

“The boss had his finger in a number of pies.”

Now we were on to women and fingers. I was beginning to feel nostalgic for the good, old-fashioned desire to spill Teutonic blood.

“He used to tell me where to take them. I dropped them off. Waited outside and then took them wherever else they needed to go.”

“Must have been quite a responsibility.” I was trying to inject a lighter note, but he was too deep into his recollections to notice.

“Too right! He told me, ‘Just take ’em. Bring ’em back. Don’t touch ’em.’ And I told him, ‘Of course not. I swear to God.’ And he believed me, the stupid cunt!” He roared at his own punchline. “And that’s how I got my nickname. Dirty John, they call me. On account of all the birds I fucked.” And if you wanted an example of an evil grin, there it was, stretching right across his papery face. “On the backseat. Down side streets. Handsome, it was. Handsome!” He looked particularly pleased at the memory.

“Ladies of the night,” he went on, rather dramatically in my view, “… adies of the night, they’re nothing new to me.”

I must have raised my eyebrows, or said “oh,” or smiled slightly, in readiness for the next instalment. Because I knew there was going to be another instalment. And here it was.

“My mother was a prostitute.” A question, I thought, might be indecorous. So I just waited. I didn’t have to wait long. “Yes, she was on the game all through the war.” I thought of how her contribution to the war effort might have been different, though no less valuable, to that of the aforementioned John Thomas. “I never knew my father. Just assumed he must have been one of her customers.” He seemed cheerful enough about it all.

He noticed that my glass was almost drained. “Here, lad. Have a pint on Dirty John. And get me one as well.”

I didn’t want to go against my principles of cadging off the state. He was a pensioner. The government paid him. Now they were buying me a beer. What could be better? “Very kind.” I knew I was going to be in it until what they call “the bitter end.”

I wasn’t in a particular hurry to get back to the table. I dawdled at the bar. Allowed surprised and suspicious boozers to order ahead of me. I really didn’t know how this story was going to end, but I knew it was leading to something. And I knew from the calibre of the man who was sitting behind me that the epithet “Dirty John” wasn’t undeserved.

“Here you go!”

“Cheers, son!” He took a glug. “Oh yeah. Handsome!” He collected his thoughts. “Now, where was I?”

Basically prostitutes? But I preferred to think of this as a rhetorical question. Fortunately, I was correct.

“Oh, right. My mother. She was popular with the blokes was Mother.” He cackled. “Times were tough, what with the war and all. But we got by alright, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t. I honestly didn’t. And I was glad that I didn’t.

“Well, one day—after I’d grown up—she said to me, ‘Do you want to meet your father?’ And I said, ‘Course I do.’ Because I did. You can’t help wondering, can you?”

“No. I guess you can’t.”

“She said, ‘Because I know where he is.’ I said, ‘You do?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. She said, ‘He runs a pub in Southampton. He’s got a lot of money. He’s not a bad bloke. I reckon he’d give you some, seeing as you’re his son.’ Well, I didn’t need to think about it twice. I decided there and then to go and see him.”

“You did?”

“Yep. I drove all the way from London to Southampton and I found his pub. I knew his name and I walked into the pub and I asked for Alf. Someone said there he is, behind the bar. I said thank you very much and walked up to the counter. ‘Are you Alf?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said. I opened up my arms and said ‘I’m John. Violet’s boy. I’m your son.’ He said, ‘Fuck off, you bastard!’” There was a long pause as he studied his pint. Then he smiled. “Never saw him again.”

How can you follow that?

We finished our beers, barely speaking. I shook his hand, not daring to think where it might have been. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

I think I left him the paper.

And that was that, and then was then. In the absence of any profound conclusion, I’ll just say this: whatever else they were, those old blokes, they were quite a generation…