Madame Sossi
I was doing a little shopping in Berwick Street market. Bobby, who sells exotic fruits, called out, ‘Madame Sossi, where’s that blonde bombshell you promised me last week?’
‘Be patient,’ I said. ‘Wait for Jupiter to enter Capricorn next week, that’ll do the trick.’
Scallops for my supper tonight. Of course, I’m long retired, though I still do a few séances for -favoured clients, but it’s only pocket money. I’m well provided for. But Soho isn’t what it was.
Last week, who should I see in the mirror but Dylan, Dylan Thomas. He’s always sober these days, -radiant: ‘Hello, my petalled rosebud.’ (What a voice); ‘How is my angel of the eternal valleys?’
Poor Dylan. He was up here in January 1953. I was at my peak then. ‘Mademoiselle Sossi Predicts’ had just begun in the Daily Sketch; lovely figure, auburn hair, long Diana Dors dresses, a bust that hypnotised. I said to Dylan, (we’d all been out to dinner at the Eiffel Tower), ‘Don’t go to America, Dylan. Don’t go!’ He roared, ‘Will it be my ruin, you mermaid of the deeps?’ His hands lurched round me, ‘Give me the strength, you lissom temptress. You are my ruin, you, you – come to me!’
I never... with Dylan. You wouldn’t have known where he’d been. He had a place in Redcliffe Street then, Earl’s Court, but he stayed with anyone who would accommodate him, and many did. Poor Dylan. I couldn’t sleep while he was in America. My calling is not an easy one.
I was born in Ladbroke Grove in 1925, if you can believe it, and ‘ruined’ in 1941 on a summer’s day in a boat on the Thames at Cookham. It was the making of me. My mother, Betty Turpin, was red with rage. She knew the moment I walked in: ‘You bloody trollop, who you been with?’ I licked my lips.
On the boat with Luigi I saw an aura round his head like flowing silk scarves. I had been touched by the gift. Luigi encouraged my calling. He had a revue bar in Brewer Street and gave me a job as a receptionist, as well as finding me a flat at the top of a house near Golden Square.
The mirror is going misty, always a sign I’ll be visited later.
I moved in to Golden Square on the 17th April 1942. There was an old medium and astrologer living in Lexington Street, Miss Veronica Hanson. She’d been a friend of Annie Besant. (I’ll put those scallops in the frying pan, with a little oil, lemon, and parsley.) I studied with ‘Miss Veronica’ for two years. One day she said, ‘You need a name, darling – “Rosie Turpin” lacks refinement, perhaps? – and El-O-Cu-Tion lessons. Does bloody wonders for business.’
Luigi arranged for Sybil Merchant to give me voice lessons. (I love the smell of scallops cooking, and the colour, like eating jewels of the sea.) Luigi was so kind and I called myself ‘Mademoiselle Sossi’ (It was the Daily Sketch that introduced the ‘Madame’). He was Luigi Rossi but his wife would have been unhappy if I’d called myself ‘Rossi’. One of my early clients, a Polish cavalry officer, used to say to me, ‘My special angel, my darling, you’re so saucy, saucy,’ which sounded like ‘sossi’. So Sossi it was.
As my voice became more refined it was marvellous not sounding like mother. But she found out where I was living. One evening she waited until Luigi arrived, then jumped on him, kicking and screaming wildly. It was very bad for business.
Darling Luigi had troubles with the taxman and a gang of Maltese thugs – he fled home to Sicily with his wife and children. That was in January 1944. I never heard from him again. There have been no sightings from the other side.
Soho is not what it was, though: lots of young men with firm bottoms and girls with badly applied make-up. As my old friend Don Lawson used to say, ‘They’re just designer bohos, sweetie.’ I won’t bother with the curlers tonight.
One night towards the end of the war, December 1944, mother stood drunk outside my flat for three hours. I pretended I wasn’t in. All associations between us were over. She was shouting some quite horrible things about poor Luigi, and what a slut I was. I’d had enough. The next morning an old acquaintance gave me an introduction to a disciple of Aleister Crowley.
So, in January 1945, I travelled into deepest Surrey to meet one of Mr Crowley’s protégés. I handed him a large fee and a brooch of mother’s that she’d given me years ago. We went into the woods and in a most potent ceremony a curse was placed on mother. A tension began to leave me at once.
On the 21st February 1945 a handsome policeman came to my flat and told me that mother had dropped dead waiting for the 43 bus (they found my address in her handbag). I could have kissed him.
It’s lovely lying in bed, watching telly. I’m never lonely. Jeffrey Bernard still visits me, ‘Hello, lover, time for a vodka?’ – and could he drink vodka! I hope you’re happy on the astral plane, Jeffrey. He gave me a tip last week, ‘Running Wild’ in the 2.30 at Catterick – came in last. Some things never change.
I think I’ll go to sleep in a minute. General de Gaulle loved Soho, virtually set up his headquarters at the French House – a most attractive man considering he was so ugly. I did his astrological chart – but I mustn’t go into this; I’m probably still bound by the Official Secrets Act. I love these soft pillows. Never economise on pillows.
And duck feather duvets, what an invention! I never married, not that I was short of offers. It’s funny being so popular at my age...
