Me and My Brothers. Robin Mcgibbon

But I’d rather throw a party. That’s why people called me Champagne Charlie. And that’s how I’d like to be remembered.

       I spent my life trying to distance myself from the twins’ way of life, and a gangster’s funeral would associate me with all they stood for. And that wouldn’t be right.

       When my time comes, I want to be carried to the flat I shared with the woman I adored, then be buried the next day, with the minimum of fuss – and certainly no TV cameras – next to my lovely son who died tragically young.

       Reggie will want to stage a showy spectacular, like the one he laid on for Ronnie that brought the East End to a standstill.

       But I don’t want that and I’m sure that, despite the differences we’ve had all our lives, Reggie will respect my wishes.

       Chapter One

      The ringing of the phone brought me out of a deep sleep. Through half-closed eyes I squinted at my watch on the bedside table: 5.15 A.M. I took the phone from its cradle. ‘Hello,’ I muttered, husky from tiredness. An unfamiliar woman’s voice apologized for waking me, then spoke quietly in an abrupt, businesslike manner. I heard what she said, but I couldn’t take it in. Didn’t want to. I thought I must be still asleep. Numb with shock, I passed the phone to Diana, lying next to me. She listened for a few moments, thanked the caller, then stretched past me to put the phone down. She looked at me and shook her head, sadly. ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Charlie.’

      In a daze, I got out of bed and shuffled, zombie-like, downstairs into the lounge. I took a bottle of Remy Martin from the cocktail cabinet and filled a long tumbler, then I gulped the brandy fast, again and again, until it was gone. Diana came into the room in her dressing gown. We stared at each other in shock. I went to say something but no words came out. And then she moved towards me and put her arms round me and I started to sob.

      That morning at my home in South-East London was the worst moment of my life. Worse than the day I was jailed for ten years for a crime I didn’t commit. Worse than being charged with a murder I knew nothing about. But my tears that morning of 5 August 1982 were not only for myself; they were for my twin brothers, Ronnie and Reggie, too. And for our old man.

      How on earth were they going to take it when I told them that the woman we all worshipped, the lovely lady we thought would live for ever, was dead?

      

      She had gone into hospital just three days earlier. We all thought it was just a check-up for pneumonia: a week or two and she’d be out as fit as ever. I’d gone in to see her that day. She was the same old Mum, bright and cheerful, full of life. She wasn’t in two minutes and the nurses loved her. It was coming up to her birthday and she had all her cards by her bedside. She looked as good as gold.

      Then she had the test she had gone in for and when I went in the next day she was hot and flustered. I’d never seen her like that before. She said she could never have anything like that again. I think the test embarrassed her, apart from the pain.

      The next day she was lying there, her eyes closed. She wouldn’t open them; perhaps she couldn’t. Softly, I told her I was there. She didn’t answer. One of the old ladies in another bed, who had made friends with Mum, called me over and said there was something wrong: Mum hadn’t been at all well. I went back to Mum and spoke to her again and she answered me. She was hot. I put a damp cloth on her forehead. But she began to get delirious. I called a nurse who said Mum had pneumonia. I didn’t believe her; she had been all right the day before. But the nurse shook her head. Then she said the doctor wanted to see me.

      He broke the news as gently as he could. Mum did have pneumonia. But she had cancer, too. Bad. He wanted to operate, but he needed to clear the pneumonia first.

      Hearing the dreaded word ‘cancer’ knocked me bandy. I’d thought we’d get over the pneumonia, then take her away somewhere nice to get well again. She had many years to live yet. All her family lived on: she had a brother of 88, an aunt of 102. My mum was one of the fittest. She was going to live for ever.

      I gave the doctor my phone number ‘in case of an emergency’. I didn’t expect it to come to anything. Then Diana and I left the hospital. I was in a daze.

      Early the next morning, that phone call came. The cancer had taken my mum on her seventy-third birthday.

      

      The brandy must have done me good. I didn’t feel it at the time, but it must have helped me pull myself together, helped me to be strong. I had no choice. There would be a lot to do, and with my brothers in prison and our father ill I was the only one to do it. To begin with, they each had to be told. But who first? As usual, I found myself in the middle. From the moment the twins were born, they had dominated the household and, eventually, my whole life. But on that August morning they came second. It would break him, I knew, but my old man had to be the first to know.

      An hour or so later, at about seven o’clock, Diana and I arrived at Braithwaite House, my parents’ council flat in Bunhill Row, in the City of London.

      ‘What’s going on at this time in the morning?’ the old man wanted to know.

      I’d decided there was no point in mucking about. I told him to sit down, then I took a deep breath and said, ‘Unfortunately, she’s just died.’

      Almost before I’d got the words out he began to scream. I’d never seen him show so much emotion. It just knocked him over. He was very ill and after those first shock waves, he found it difficult to breathe. He kept panting, saying, ‘I can’t believe it. How can she die before me? I won’t be long. It’s just a matter of time. I’m waiting for it now.’

      My old man, bless him, didn’t have to wait long to join his beloved Violet. That morning he lost the will to live and was dead eight months later.

      

      I decided to tell Ronnie next. Wednesday was not a normal visiting day at Broadmoor, but I could be there in little over an hour if I was allowed to see him; the train –boat – taxi journey to Reggie on the Isle of Wight would take about five. Broadmoor’s director told me to come immediately and agreed to say nothing to Ron. But I wasn’t thinking straight when I asked Parkhurst to keep the news from Reggie until I got there the next day.

      ‘That’s not going to be easy, Charlie,’ said a prison officer I knew from previous visits. ‘He’s got his radio in his cell. We can’t take that away. Anyway, someone else will hear.’

      I didn’t say anything. The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

      ‘Charlie,’ the welfare officer said, ‘if you can trust me…I’ve been with Reggie for years. I’ll take him somewhere quietly and tell him myself.’

      I thought hard. I knew the officer quite well; I felt I could trust him. He was right. If Reggie heard on the radio…

      ‘Would you do that for me, please?’ I said.

      

      Diana and I got to Broadmoor at about eleven o’clock. The authorities were very kind: they took us into the hospital wing, where visitors aren’t usually allowed. They had got a little room for us. A few moments later Ronnie came in, looking concerned. He said later he thought it was odd, us being in that room. When he sat down I looked at him and said gently, ‘Ron, our mother’s passed away.’

      He just broke down, as I knew he would. He leaned forward, put his head in his hands and burst out crying. I’d had a bit of time to get over the shock, but Ronnie started me off again.

      Finally he said in his quiet voice, ‘I thought you were going to say our father had died.’ Then a few moments later: ‘We expected that. But never in a million years, Mum. Why did it happen to her?’

      The three of us sat there for about an hour, remembering how lovely she