London Blues

by Anthony Frewin

  ‘You live here with Sonny?’

  ‘Yes. Me and Susanna. We live here. Work for Sonny.’

  ‘Business good?’

  ‘We’re busy. You want some business?’

  ‘Another time, perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘You want cup of tea?’

  ‘No. No thanks. I better be going.’

  ‘You come and see me again some time?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You let me know about Sonny?’

  ‘If I find out I will.’

  Sonny, that dumb fucker.

  ‘Has anyone else been around asking about Sonny?’ This question just came out, popped out straight from my unconscious. The first thing I knew about it was when it was on my lips. Why did I ask it? Indeed, why didn’t I ask it earlier?

  ‘Few days ago gentleman come here and ask about Sonny. Nice gentleman.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Just a gentleman.’

  ‘A copper?’

  ‘Not policeman.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Didn’t ask name. He not say. He same age as your father be. He say Sonny not show up. Sonny supposed to.’

  ‘Show up where?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Beginning of week he call here. Monday.’

  ‘You’d never seen him before?’

  ‘No.’

  Who was this? Could have been anyone. Sonny knows all sorts of people. Some upper-class dope fiend? Anybody.

  ‘If Sonny turns up here will you tell him I called?’

  ‘Yes. What your name?’

  ‘Tim.’

  ‘Yes, Tim.’

  ‘See you about.’

  I walked out and then south down Ladbroke Grove. I’ll head for home, see what’s been going on there. Catch up with a few things. I turned into Elgin Crescent and then across Portobello Road and along Colville whatever-it-is-called to Westbourne Grove. I got some bread and cheese and sausages in the grocer’s shop just past Hereford Road and a Telegraph from the newsagent’s next door. I was walking along with my brown carrier bag when my eye caught Veronica’s salon across the road. She had been so out of mind I’d forgotten she was here. I crossed and peered in the window. Veronica was giving some old dear a cut. I went in and caught Veronica’s eye. She nodded for me to go out back to the staff room. I waited there, idly flicking through an old Vogue.

  ‘I can’t stop. I’m in the middle of a client. Where have you been? I came around a couple of times. Nobody had seen you.’

  ‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you next time you come around. But listen, have you been visited at all by the police or by anyone making inquiries about me?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When? This week … any time, I mean.’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘No one at all?’

  ‘No. I’d tell you if I had.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Are the police going to come around and see me then? What about? Why?’

  ‘It’s something to do with Stephen, but they won’t be coming to see you. It’s all blown over.’

  ‘I better get back. I’ll come around on Friday.’

  ‘Good idea. Yeah.’

  I followed Veronica out and waved goodbye. I started walking quickly back to the flat. I was getting apprehensive about what I’d find. I didn’t have good feelings. Something was amiss.

  Just by the Royal Oak I turned into Porchester Road and stopped. I looked up at my window. It was there still and it wasn’t broken. The house looked the same. So did the terrace. And the road, for that matter. What had I expected to find? A police cordon? Press and TV crews?

  I let myself in the front door and closed it. I leant against it and listened. Silence. Then an old Scottish lady who has a room at the back on the ground floor shuffled across the hall. She saw me and said hello. I smiled back at her. She always knows what’s going on here. If anything had happened she would have known about it and said something to me. I begin to relax. I take some deep breaths and start up the stairs, counting them as I go, some interesting anxiety-induced bit of obsessive behaviour.

  I stop as the door of my room comes into view. It’s there still. There are no axe marks on it. The hinges are intact. I approach it and take out the key. I put it in the lock and slowly turn it. The door swings open. I look around. Exactly as I left it. Nothing moved or changed. But there’s an icy feeling I get. Someone has been here. Someone has carefully gone through everything. There’s a vestige of a presence here. In the stillness there’s a suggestion of somebody. They’ve done the job very carefully. I wouldn’t ever know, would I?

  I put the carrier bag on the side by the sink and hunt about for the old Ever Ready torch. I find it on the floor on the other side of the sofa. I switch it on. There’s a faint light. The batteries are going but the dim, yellowy glow is enough.

  I walk out of the room and up the flight of stairs that leads to the roof. I fiddle with the lock on the landlord’s store room and ease it off the hasp. I shine the torch into the darkness. All the crap and clutter is still there much as I remember it. I get on my knees and crawl along the duckboard that leads to the eaves and – when I get there – it’s gone.

  Gone.

  The case has gone.

  Stephen’s case has been taken. They’ve got it.

  Once they had it, of course, there was no need to keep me in the nick. They found it and I was released. Free to go.

  But just what was in it? What was I looking after?

  What about Stephen?

  Do I tell him it’s gone? His trial begins at the Old Bailey on Monday. He’s got enough to worry about. Perhaps I’ll give that a miss.

  Is there anyone I should tell? Is there anyone I can tell? I better keep my mouth shut. That’s always good advice in any situation. Keep it shut. Good advice.

  But do I tell Stephen? Do I? Does this missing case have any bearing on what’s going to happen at the Old Bailey? A dumb question. How would I know the answer to that? So why don’t I tell Stephen? Am I afraid to? Do I feel I’ve let him down … even if it was through no fault of my own?

  I was really stupid not to find out what was in the case. I should have asked Stephen when he gave it to me. No, not just asked what was in it, but asked to see what was in it.

  What are they charging Stephen with at the trial? Living off Christine Keeler’s and Mandy Rice-Davies’s immoral earnings (huh!) and then something about procuring a young girl or two. Pretty small beer you’d think for the Old Bailey, eh? Pretty fucking small beer. The whole thing is a fix, but who’s fixing for whom?

  7

  Misterioso

  Mystery is merely knowledge displaced.

  – Robert Porpentine Arrene: A Romance (1926)

  LIFE HAS TO CONTINUE, and continue it does.

  As Stephen stood in the dock at the Old Bailey this morning at the beginning of his trial having the charges against him read out I was serving the umpteenth cup of espresso at Modern Snax and doing my best to block out the events of the last week. I’d spent most of the weekend trying to understand what had happened and got absolutely nowhere. I was trying to make sense of things without having a full hand of cards. I could only guess, and one guess is much the same as another in a situation like this. It was a waste of time. Different people know different parts. It’s like the blind men and the elephant: they’re all saying contradictory things and they’re all speaking the truth.

  I was reading an old Penguin Special a few weeks ago. I found it on a barrow in the Portobello Road. Germany Puts the Clock Back by Edgar Mowrer. Published about 1938. In the Introduction Mowrer says things have changed this century – it’s fundamentally different from other centuries – the state’s means of control and suppression are so vast it has meant the death of that old liberal belief that The Truth Will Out. Not true any more, says Mowrer. And he’s right.

  Mr Calabrese was very understanding about my fe
w days off. I said I had to go down to Rochester on urgent family business. I didn’t like telling a lie to him but in the circumstances (that is, self-interest) this appeared the best thing to do. He said that if I needed to borrow some money he’d help me. I said it wasn’t necessary. I felt a real heel in the face of his kindness. I think what I should have said to him is that I had to go away for a few days and left it at that. No colour. No detail.

  I’m on the bed smoking a joint with Veronica. She couldn’t make it the other evening so she came around tonight instead. I made her a paella. We split a bottle of claret. I told her about last week. She was incredulous. Then we made love … but perhaps screwed is a better word. It was good. It always is with her. I like staring into her fiery little eyes while I’m thrusting into her. Fucking her. Fucking her hard. The only time she really ever opens up to me is when I’m inside her. Then she has a look of vulnerability. Then there’s an expression on her face that says Don’t Hurt Me, Be Kind to Me and it lasts until she comes and then it evaporates instantly.

  ‘Why don’t you move back in, Veronica?’

  ‘What, me?’

  ‘Who else do you think I’m talking to?’

  ‘Let me have that joint.’

  She thinks it’s a silly suggestion. One not even worthy of a reply. I watch her taking some hits on the joint. A glassy look in her eyes. She coughs and hands it back to me.

  ‘You’re still at the Snax Bar, aren’t you?’

  An accusation posed as a question.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I say guiltily.

  ‘Isn’t it time you did something. I mean go out and do something with your life? Huh?’

  What a loaded question. If I answer Yes it means I’m not doing anything and should do something. If I answer No it means I’m not doing anything and don’t want to either.

  ‘You got anything in mind for me?’ I ask.

  ‘Haven’t you got anything in mind for yourself? Don’t you want to do anything? You want to be serving teas and coffees all your life? Waiting on tables? Pissing about like some cretin?’

  Pissing about like some cretin!? Boy, you really get it from your friends.

  How long have I been in London now? I came up in June 1959. How long’s that? 59, 60, 61, 62, 63. Four years and … and a bit.

  It’s gone quickly. So quickly. So fucking quickly. You think of how long four years is when you are a kid. An eternity. A passage of time stretching to infinity. But now, a twinkling. It just zips by. Four years ago I was living and working in Rochester. I thought that little cathedral town on the Medway was the last word in civilisation, that it had just about everything to offer any city could have.

  Four years in London and what have I got to show for it? What have I done? I’ve held a job down in a café. Kept myself together. Taken some photos. Made some blue films. Put a little money away in the bank. Loved Veronica. And what else? I know where I’ve come from but where am I going? What’s going to happen in the next four years? What am I going to be doing in 1967? And four years after that, in 1971?

  The seventies – another decade!

  ‘Do you really think I’m pissing about like some cretin?’

  ‘Yes, I do. You’ve got some talent … you should use it.’

  ‘Yeah. I always put off answering big questions … making big decisions. There always seem to be other things occupying me.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen it in you.’

  I’ll get my head screwed on first thing in the morning.’

  Veronica takes the joint from me, has a couple of last drags and stubs it out in the ashtray.

  ‘You got any films planned?’

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘Things have changed. New faces on the scene. All this stuff is coming in from Scandinavia now. Beautifully made. Nobody’s making the stuff over here now. It’s cheaper to import films from abroad, and they’re better.’

  ‘You’re going to feel the economic pinch.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll supplement my wages with a bit of dealing.’

  ‘You’ll get banged up. Spend some time inside. I’ll visit you once a month. A good ending to a not-so-promising career, huh?’

  ‘We’ll get married while I’m inside.’

  ‘Everything is one big fucking joke to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘You want me to be heavy and serious like all those fuck-ups we see out there every day?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, Timmy, it’s too late in the day for me to explain.’

  ‘Tell me in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not staying over. I’ve got to go. Jesus! It’s eleven o’clock already. I’ve got to be running.’

  ‘Stay.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  I lay there and watched her dress.

  I’ve always liked seeing her dress, seeing her nakedness disappear a bit at a time as she puts on her clothes. It’s like a formalised ritual. Women seem oblivious to you when they are dressing, they’re so preoccupied.

  ‘You going to see me down?’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  I pulled my cord trousers on while still on the bed and then hunted around for my lumberjack shirt. It was over by the sink.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’m with you.’

  I followed Veronica down the stairs with my hand up her miniskirt. She felt warm and damp. On the last landing I pulled her towards me and kissed her. She struggled so I held her tighter. She started pushing her hips into me. I got a hard-on. She noticed this and pushed me away and laughed.

  ‘You’ll have to take care of that yourself!’

  We walked down the last flight of stairs and across the hall holding hands. I opened the door for her. She turned and gave me a quick kiss on the lips while rubbing the palm of her hand against my now semi-stiff dick.

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘Come around for dinner again later this week.’

  ‘Yeah. How about Friday?’ she shouted from the pavement.

  ‘Fine. Good. Yes.’

  I watched her cross the road and disappear from sight past the Royal Oak. She has an elegant walk. More a glide. She moves just from the hips downwards. A slide almost.

  It was a cool, clear night. The sky was a rich, dark blue littered with diamonds of light, all glistening. Somebody or other further up the terrace had their window open and I could hear a version of Duke Ellington’s Mood Indigo drifting down the street above the noise of the few cars and taxis. I took out my cigarettes and matches from my shirt pocket and lit up. It was a gorgeous evening and I felt especially good having seen Ronnie … I mean Veronica. It’s as exciting fucking her now as it was when we first met. More so, actually. I get a thrill just thinking about her. But we’re so different in other ways. Poles apart.

  What’s going to happen to us?

  I’ll tell you. We’ll carry on like this until she meets some guy who has a few shekels and he’ll cart her off. Wooed in the city. Married in the suburbs. I’ll become a non-person. Get the big kiss-off.

  When she says I’m a cretin pissing about it really gets through to me because I know she’s telling the truth. But I’m going to have to start getting myself organised and back on the tracks. I just hope that this side of my 26th birthday ain’t too late to start doing it. I’ll get a decent 35mm camera. Start doing some serious photography ….

  I flick the cigarette end into next door’s garden and wander back into the house. As I shut the front door I see a white envelope in the letter cage that’s fixed to the back of the door. I take it out, glance at it and go to put it on the shelf where the mail sits. I didn’t think it was for me but I glance at it again.

  My name is handwritten on the envelope in black ink in a beautiful italic. Not Tim Purdom or Timmy Purdom, but Eric Purdom. Who other than my mother and a couple of other people ever called me Eric? My given name, yes, but not one an
ybody else has ever used. Curious. I look over the envelope. The envelope is square, about 6 by 6 inches. Odd shape. Expensive laid paper. The sort of thing you buy at Harrods. Nothing else is on the envelope. Just my name. No address. No stamp. It must have been delivered by hand. I open the envelope and take out a folded sheet of paper. It feels expensive all right. It’s got crinkly edges. The letter says:

  Eric

  Please phone me when you have a moment.

  AMBassador 6532.

  Vicky Stafford.

  It’s written in the same italic hand as the envelope … which figures.

  Who’s Vicky Stafford, and why is she calling me Eric? She doesn’t know me … or does she?

  I tried this Vicky Stafford number several times the next day from the bar but there was never any answer (as, indeed, there wasn’t on Monday night). The phone just rang and rang. Wednesday it didn’t answer either and by Thursday I was convinced the whole thing was some fool’s errand or a case of mistaken identity.

  Friday night I was at home alone watching the news on the TV (and waiting for an overdue Veronica). There was a news report from some BBC journalist outside the Old Bailey talking about Stephen’s trial – it’s been hard to get away from it. The papers are full of nothing else. Then one of the guys who lives on the ground floor knocked on the door and said there was someone on the phone for me, that it was important.

  I nearly said I never have important phone calls but I thought better of it. I thanked him and followed him down the stairs. Who was this going to be? Veronica saying she couldn’t make it? Charlie saying he needed to sleep over again for the night? Mr Calabrese saying the burglar alarm had gone off again and could I go over and take care of things?