STUCK FOR BUSINESS

Dominique Jackson on how

recession has hit the oldest profession

AT THREE THIRTY on a sunny after- noon only the distant rattle of the District line disturbs the tranquillity of Brompton Cemetery. Behind a particularly fine mar- ble mausoleum, a financial ritual is taking place. Deftly folding a £20 note, 'Candy' repairs her make-up and voluminous blonde coiffure, smoothes her skirt and brushes the grass from implausibly high patent heels in preparation for the next punter. It could be some time before he comes along but she has only turned two tricks today. `I hadn't worked Saturday afternoon for years but business is bad. My bloke lost his job and there's the mortgage to pay. I haven't even had a holiday this year.' Business is bad. The recession which has brought mighty corporate giants to their knees has floored several self-employed businesswomen like Candy. The oldest profession has few safeguards and is as vulnerable to the chill wind of market forces as any other. There are more girls looking for business and far fewer punters seeking their services. Ergo, the price of vice is down and the Game has become a bitch-eat-bitch battle for survival.

Gauging the depth of any slump is always difficult and the girls are certainly determined to put a brave face on things. But I soon began to suspect that I was hearing more lines than were once spun me by Eurobond traders talking up the size of their deals in the days when I was a reporter for the Financial Times. 'Business is positively booming,' tinkled the cultured voice on the phone at Aristocats, London's premiere agency for 'sophisticated' and :discreet' companions. 'In fact, I would say it's better than ever,' she positively purred. It's still £50 introduction fee and then the girls make their own arrangements.' A little further down the sleaze scale, however, and the mechanics of supply and demand are more obvious. A session of sin with 'Sexy Samantha' — whose tasteful green calling cards are to be found in any number of Paddington phone boxes - would have set you back £80 only 12 months ago. Now the going rate is £40, and you get even more for your money. More what is not specified, but Sam seems to think the punters are getting kinkier. Many of her punters are still regulars — it's just that they are not quite as regular as they use to be.

`Whereas you'd have one that came, say, once a week — just for a quickie — well, now perhaps they'll only make it once a month,' confided Lindi St Clair, whose 7,500 member Corrective Party will be fielding 50 candidates at the next election, campaigning for the legalisation of pros- titution and safer sex education.

Unable to rely on regulars, prostitutes are now more desperate than ever to attract casual trade, even if that means using some ill-gotten gains for promotion and marketing purposes. Positioning is the key and this usually means making sure cards and stickers are well distributed. British Telecom is now removing more than 11,000 stickers a week from 3,500 public phone boxes in Central London. `We are as opposed to unsightly stickers as we are to fly-posters on junction boxes.

There's a legal loophole, you see,' said Robert Davis, chairman of Westminster council's environment sub-committee.

`Sticking stickers is criminal damage, so that is an offence, but they get around that one by using cards. We are now promoting a bill to make the littering of phone boxes an offence.' Well quite, but hardly guaran- teed to be efficacious against the sinister sticker mafia — a posse of East End gangsters' women who employ gangs of kids to keep the stickers of the girls in their protection firmly stuck.

Only the stickers of the core group of 'We won't have to see "Aspects of Love". girls are permitted in any one box. New- comers will be swiftly removed and the boxes can be full again as little as 20 minutes after the visit of a BT sticker squad. Working girls who don't want the `protection' of the sticker mafia need some other way of advertising. Local papers have been the surprise beneficiaries of a mini-boom in advertising massage services and all manner of language lessons.

Yet another effective service comes again courtesy of BT — Yellow Pages, where prospective punters can let their fingers do the walking over scores of likely . ladies listed conveniently and often graphi- cally between Elevators and Estate Agents.

It seems that all the equipment a girl needs to go on the Game is that symbol of the enterprise Eighties — a mobile phone. But the yuppie years are over and more than a few of the numbers listed are unsurprisingly — no longer in service.

The marvels of modern communication at least do mean that although more women have resorted to selling sex, there are not necessarily more walking the street. Increased police patrols, a higher proportion of prosecutions and fines keep all but a hardened few off the street.

The prostitutes who still prowl in Soho, Mayfair and around King's Cross and the other main line stations are usually the ones with expensive habits like heroin, or with drug-addicted pimps to support. At least half the street-walking population is thought to be HIV positive. The going rate for a trick at £10, or even as low as £5, may not even be enough for the next fix.

The economic fact of a reduced demand for an increasing supply of prostitutes means inevitably that 'nicer' girls make do with nastier and nastier clients. Earlier this month, Lucy Christopher, a 'nice girl' from a nice upstanding Scilly Isles family who turned to vice to support her London life-style, was attacked in her flat, bludgeoned with a blunt instrument and almost strangled by a 'client'. Sharon Hoare, another call girl, did not survive a similar attack.

Sheer economic necessity is still the main reason women resort to selling sex. WPC Lynn 'Madame Butterfly' Goodchild, whose double life as police officer by day, prostitute by night, was exposed this month in the tabloid press, was motivated by the need for a new carpet. Yet girls on the Game are hardly likely to get rich quick on the wages of sin today. In the current climate, I would have to work day and night to as much as dent my overdraft.

The Chancellor, who came up against the sexual services sector not long ago, assures the electorate that the recession has bottomed out and a rosy recovery is on the way. Candy, tripping off in the direc- tion of a likely client, is not convinced. `Heard it all before, love. Be nice though, wouldn't it? Wouldn't have to work these weekends no more.'