I used to get called out at all hours to help members with their problems. I might get a call at three o’clock in the morning when a bloke had been kicked out of the house because his old lady had found a phone number in his vest. Knuckles was a serial offender. He got caught with numbers by his old lady, Wendy, about five times. He always kept them in his boot. The same boot. I rigged up a story that he was keeping the numbers for me and that it was my sheila on the side; that Knuckles was doing me the favour. She sort of went along with it for a while, but then she called me over one night at the clubhouse and said, ‘Nah, there’s no way you’re cheatin’ on Donna. I know he’s playin’ up.’
I knew it could be a bit hard on some of the sheilas who were new to the biker lifestyle. They might be a nurse or a secretary and get picked up by a Como, never having had anything to do with clubs. They’d join up and wouldn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Some of the older members, when they got a new girlfriend, would bring them round to our place and ask Donna to explain how an old lady should act around the club. It was a big show of respect for Donna and she appreciated it. She’d make the new girlfriend a cuppa and spend some time going through the club rules for old ladies.
‘The main thing to understand, right,’ she’d tell them, ‘is that the club belongs to the men. We are being invited along but it’s not our club. We’re only guests. Even though we might be married to ’em or whatever. You gotta get that into your head. Once you understand that, it’ll go a long way to you understanding how the club runs.
‘Now when you get to the club, the first thing you gotta do is work out who the proper old ladies are. Because sometimes the men leave their proper old ladies at home and bring in, you know, the odd stray here and there. They might have them tucked away for a couple of months at a time, or it might be just for that night. But you’ve got to learn to remember which is which and, most important, never to say anything. You can’t open your mouth and tell his old lady. That’s the hard part on ya.’
As sergeant it was my job to discipline the sheilas as well as the blokes. So if an old lady did something she shouldn’t – like telling another member’s old lady that she saw such and such down the street with this little blonde – I had to deal with her. If she was new to the club I’d give her a bit of leeway, and maybe just sit her down with Donna for a talking-to. But if she should’ve known better, I might suspend her for anything from two weeks to six months.
When an old lady got suspended it meant she couldn’t come to the clubhouse or any club do. She could still ride with her old man, and if her old man was going to the pub and two members wanted to go with said member, she could go. But if it was ten or fifteen members going to the pub, she wasn’t allowed to attend. And she was definitely excluded from club nights and club barbecues.
I had to enforce those sorts of suspensions a few times. We had one member whose old lady turned up one day and got into a blue with him. She was a real feisty little piece, and they both had hold of each other by the hair and were whacking into each other. She ended up tripping her old man and when he fell on the floor she jumped on top of him and started punching the shit out of him. Then he rolled her over and was punching the shit out of her. They rolled out the front door, down the steps, onto the concrete path, and she was back on top, giving it to him. I thought, This is getting really embarrassing here, so I grabbed her round the waist and carried her off. I banned her for six weeks.
There was another incident where the McElwaines’ father, Big Bad Bob, was putting on a barbecue for the club one Sunday afternoon at the Terminus. It was a get-together for the blokes, no old ladies. Back in those days he still had the topless barmaids, so this one old lady got it into her head that there were going to be hookers and strippers at the barbecue. She started ringing round all the old ladies spreading the story. Well, blokes were getting home and getting trashed by their old ladies. I was getting phone calls all Sunday night.
I tracked it all back to this one sheila, Jenny, and banned her for six months. It didn’t go down well with her old man. He was going to leave the club over it.
‘Well if that’s all the club means to ya . . .’ I said to him. ‘Anyway, you know she was in the wrong.’
‘Yeah, but cantcha give her a bit of a break?’
‘No, that nearly broke up some blokes’ marriages.’
Egged on by Jock, the member didn’t speak to me much after that, but I tell you, if it had been Donna in the wrong, I’d have banned her for twelve months.
Despite all that, ninety-eight per cent of the old ladies liked the way the club was run and enjoyed the perks that came with it. Whenever we got a new nom to the club I’d explain to his old lady that if her old man was lucky enough to become a member, they would always be looked after. Any time they went out and there was a member of the club there, they would be protected. If anything happened to her bloke, if he got hurt or if they needed money, the club would look after them.
The best example of how a woman should be in an outlaw club was, of course, Donna. She would arrange to have girls’ nights on our meeting nights, so that the old ladies would have something to do while we were at the meeting. Most of the old ladies would go round to our place and Donna would put on some videos or music and have food and drinks for the girls.
I remember arriving home from a meeting one night and there were still quite a few old ladies there. I went into the bedroom to let Donna and them carry on, and I got a phone call from Shadow’s old lady, who’d left earlier. She was wondering where Shadow was, because he normally went straight home after a meeting.
‘Give it a couple of hours and if you haven’t heard nothing then ring me back,’ I told her.
Which she did. So I rang the clubhouse but Shadow wasn’t there and neither was Chop. Once I heard that, I had a good idea where they’d be. I headed off to Westmead where Shadow and Chop had a garden flat. I pulled up to find Shadow and this sheila standing outside the flat laughing their heads off.
‘What’s going on?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ Shadow said.
‘Try me.’
‘Come in here.’
I went inside and there was Chop sitting on the lounge with an icepack down the front of his undies. Shadow told me that not long before I’d arrived, Chop had been in bed screwing this sheila. He wanted to go up her arse but she was too tight so he went into the bathroom and grabbed a jar of Vaseline. He took it into the bedroom, smeared it on his cock and around her arse, and rammed it in. Shadow said you could hear the sheila scream for a mile. Turned out it wasn’t Vaseline but Vicks VapoRub. The camphor in it burnt like buggery, literally. He said Chop was running round the bedroom, jumping up and down all over the place. Shadow had to grab the both of them and throw them in a cold shower. They were in there rubbing themselves, the sheila trying to get the Vicks out of her arse. I could hear her still in the shower. Shadow said it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen.
I cracked up too. Chop was indignant. ‘D’ya think it’s funny? You oughta try it.’
‘I’m not that stupid.’
I told Shadow about his old lady ringing up wanting to know where he was.
‘She’s really pissing me off, Ceese. If it wasn’t for the kids I’d be outta there like a flash.’
‘So whaddya want me to tell her?’
‘What do you reckon?’
I knew Snoddy was out near my place visiting an old lady of his that he had on the side, so I said, ‘What if I ring Snoddy up and tell him that he took you with him to do some business? That way if your old lady checks with him in the morning he’ll know.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
So I rang Snoddy and told him the go.
‘No sweat, Caesar. Anything for you and Shadow.’
When I got home, Donna must have heard me putting the bike away. As usual she was up waiting for me and walked out topless to ask me if I wanted anything to eat.
‘A coupla toasted sandwiches would be good,’ I said.
I sat down and put on some music while she went out to the kitchen to make my snack, and it struck me how Donna still turned me on just by walking out without her top like she did that morning. With that thought, I was straight into the kitchen, toaster off, picked her up and carried her off into the bedroom.