London Blues

by Anthony Frewin

I took the big black phone in my hand and sat down on the stairs.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was silence, just static.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, hello.’

  A woman’s voice. Educated. Youngish.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, is that Eric Purdom?’

  ‘Tim Purdom, you mean. Nobody has called me Eric for years.’

  ‘Tim then. I’m so glad I’ve got hold of you … Tim.’

  First-name terms already. She sounds OK. Affectionate. There’s an eagerness about her voice. Charlie would say that she sounds like she’s been about.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Vicky Stafford.’

  ‘The note.’

  ‘Yes, the note.’

  ‘I phoned you a good few times. I never got any reply.’

  ‘I am sorry, Tim. I had to go down to the country after I had the note delivered. I’ve only just got back.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Look, we need to meet … soon.’

  Do we? Why? I’ve never heard of her. Why do we need to meet?

  ‘Sure,’ I say, ‘but why?’

  ‘I’d prefer not to say on the telephone, Tim. If I say we met some time ago through Stephen perhaps you’ll understand?’

  ‘We did?’

  ‘Yes. You may not remember it, but we did.’

  ‘I’m sorry … I don’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Where do we meet then?’

  ‘I’ve got a studio in the East End. It might be safer there than at the flat here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next Wednesday is the earliest I can do.’

  ‘I think that’s OK with me. What time?’

  ‘Say about nine?’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘No, Tim. The evening.’

  ‘That’s a bit late, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s easier for me at that time.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Where do I come to then?’

  ‘Caroline House, Caroline Street.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Get an underground to Shadwell. About twenty minutes’ walk.’

  ‘Shadwell? I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘In the East End, between Whitechapel and Stepney.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘A railway goes across Caroline Street. Caroline House is right there … next to the railway.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Until Wednesday, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good-night.’

  ‘Good-night.’

  I hung up. I can’t remember meeting her. The name doesn’t ring a bell. Did Stephen give her my number? My address? But Stephen doesn’t know I was christened Eric … does he? I suppose I could ring him and ask about this Vicky. He’s probably sitting at home right now having a relaxing evening watching the TV after a long day at the Old Bailey just waiting for me to call: Tim, dear boy. So very glad you’ve called. I wanted to ask you about my suitcase. You know the one. The one you’re guarding for me.

  Slack Tuesday, all right. And I’m sitting here in the room smoking a fat joint. I’m holding it about a foot or so in front of me. Just gazing at it. Fascinated. If I close my left eye it is on the left of the TV, and if I close my right eye it is on the right. It flicks backwards and forth as fast as I can open and close my eyes … just like that scene with the kid and the knife in Knife in the Water. Exactly the same.

  As I take another hit on the joint my eyes focus on the television screen. There’s a news reporter talking straight into camera. He’s standing outside some building. There are crowds of people. Then there’s a photograph of Stephen wearing a suit and an open-necked white shirt. He’s got a cigarette in his hand and a smile on his face like he’s won the football pools. Then there’s a not very flattering photograph of Christine Keeler and then we’re back to Lunchtime O’Booze outside the court, the Old Bailey. I wonder what he’s saying. I can’t hear. The volume is turned down. All I can hear is Sonny Stitt on the record player.

  I take another hit and stare back at the TV screen. I’m looking at one thing and listening to something else. The reporter is still rabbiting on about Stephen’s trial. I think the Standard said this evening that the judge begins his summing up tomorrow, though fuck knows what he’s got to sum up – the percolated ‘evidence’ of a whole stream of dubious, dodgy and suspect prosecution witnesses leant on by the police, all with something to lose and gain. Justice always triumphs, said H. L. Mencken … seven times out of ten. I flick the remains of the joint into the sink and then I go over to the bed and lie down. The record has finished but the arm hasn’t lifted. There’s a continual click as the LP turns endlessly. I’ll have to fix that some time but not right now. Not right now … I’ve slipped my moorings and I’m drifting out into the ocean of sleep.

  A peal of bells. No. A siren? No. A fire bell? No. Something. What is it? And again. There it is again. A bell. The bell. The one outside the room door. Why is it ringing? What’s happening? Yes. There must be someone downstairs.

  I push myself to the side of the bed and swing my legs over on to the floor. I push myself up with the palms of my hands and topple across the room.

  Now I’m going down the stairs real careful. One at a time. Negotiating my way with all due diligence. Down and down. Up above me I hear the bell again, ringing with muted immediacy. Down still further and then across the hall.

  I open the front door.

  ‘Hello, admiral. Mind if I kip down for the night?’

  It’s Charlie. He’s got a new suede jacket on and a hat with a band round it and he’s smoking a cigar and looking like a male model in Town magazine.

  ‘Timmy. What have you been up to, son? You look like you’ve been going in for some mental self-abuse with the substances.’

  ‘Yeah. Something like that. Come in.’

  ‘Any left? I ain’t got any.’

  ‘All gone up in smoke.’

  ‘Anything to drink then?’

  ‘Just that half-bottle of sherry from Christmas.’

  ‘Fancy going out and scoring something?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘OK, then.’

  Charlie followed me up the stairs whistling and humming Big Girls Don’t Cry and I tell him to keep it quiet as he’ll wake the residents. He ignores me and I realise he’s more loaded than I am. But pills, not dope. Those little purple hearts and black bombers are his taste. He likes Pharmaceuticals.

  ‘What’s there to eat?’

  ‘Nothing I don’t think. Some stale bread … some cream crackers. Look over there.’

  Charlie rummages about amongst the used plates and dirty milk bottles.

  ‘Nothing here, squire. We’ll find Sonny before we find anything worth eating here.’

  Sonny. I’d almost forgotten about Sonny in the last few days.

  ‘You heard anything about him lately?’ I ask casually so as not to let on about anything.

  ‘He’s vanished. He’s one stupid nigger who’s got himself totally lost all right. One of his girls has reported him missing … to the police.’

  ‘You fancy a drive up to Hitchin at the weekend?’

  ‘Hitchin, Tim? What’s up there?’

  ‘I want to have a look round a wood.’

  ‘Sounds a rave. I’m starving. I’m going down the Grove to grab something. Gimme me your key and I’ll let myself back in.’

  ‘It’s on the hook on the back of the door.’

  ‘Great.’

  And Charlie slams the door shut with such force the walls seem to wobble. The sound echoes down the stairwell. The remains of the joint in the sink are sodden. I carefully flush it away. I then gather up three or four ashtrays and go through the ash and fag-ends looking for the remains of any other joints. I find a couple and flush those away too.

  There’s a thump on the door and somebody calls my name. It’s Charlie. There’s another thump. The door opens.


  ‘Some geezer downstairs on the phone for you.’

  I nod to Charlie and follow him out.

  ‘You want me to bring you back anything to eat?’

  ‘No. No thanks.’

  He takes the steps two at a time and disappears ahead of me. I take the steps a little more cautiously and wonder who’s calling me at … if my watch is right … 11.30 p.m. Veronica, probably. Or Mr Calabrese about the burglar alarm?

  I see the phone ahead of me at the bottom of the stairs. The receiver is dangling just above the floor.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Timmy, dear boy.’

  A soft, warm resonant voice. Stephen’s. I’m a bit taken aback. Why’s he phoning me? Not that it isn’t good to hear from him, but I’m surprised he’s calling me. Timmy, dear boy – said in a bouncy manic-depressive on the upswing way.

  ‘Stephen. Fancy hearing from you!’

  ‘I thought I’d give you a quick call. See how you are.’

  ‘I’m fine, but what about you?’

  ‘Fine, Timmy. Just fine.’

  ‘What about the trial?’

  ‘Oh, that. Well, I don’t think that’s anything to worry about. Just a little sideshow, really. All blow over, you know.’

  All blow over? I’m reading in the papers that he could be sent to the slammer for a few years and he says it’ll all blow over? I seem to be more worried about it than he is.

  ‘Is it all going to blow over?’

  ‘It will all blow over … yes.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  ‘Uh-huh. I just wanted to make sure everything is … uh, safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  I stupidly repeat the word in order to give myself time to think. Safe? He means the case. Is the case safe? What do I tell him?

  I then get a paranoid shiver, a feeling that I’m being suckered into something. Whatever answer I give is letting me in for something.

  Stephen puts his hand over the receiver. He’s talking to someone else. There’s another person with him. Who? I can hear some strangled whispering.

  ‘Safe, Stephen? Everything is always safe.’

  There’s a silence at the other end of the phone. An uncharacteristic silence.

  Stephen bounces in with ‘I see, Timmy. Good.’

  ‘Let me ask you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Does the name Vicky Stafford mean anything to you?’

  ‘Vicky Stafford? Vaguely rings a bell. One meets so many people. Why?’

  There’s a weariness about the way he says ‘Why?’

  He’s got more important things to think about. A weariness over the question that contrasts with the studied way he says ‘One meets so many people.’ That alerts me to something, though I don’t know what.

  ‘Somebody I met … Stephen.’

  ‘I must be toodling off now. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Yeah, take care, Stephen.’

  ‘I certainly will … and you too. And we must get together soon. We really must.’

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  I slump down on the stairs and try to figure out what that call was all about.

  First and most importantly, I guess, it was about the case being safe. But why?

  What a fucking idiot I was never to see what was inside it! A dumb fucking idiot. Then again, perhaps it was better that I didn’t know.

  But why was I entrusted with it?

  Why’s Stephen so bouncy and bright?

  Does he know something I don’t about the trial? He must do.

  And Vicky Stafford?

  He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.

  ‘One meets so many people.’ A nice neat noncommittal answer.

  The way he said it, though. Does he or doesn’t he know her?

  I think maybe he does. But why wasn’t he saying?

  Charlie was fast asleep on the sofa when I got up the following morning. I reheated last night’s percolated coffee, had a couple of cigarettes and did some tidying up. I went across the landing and had a quick bath (the Ascot only produces tepid water now. I’ll have to tell the landlord) and then got dressed. Charlie was still snoring. I tried to wake him but he was really gone. He can wake up in his own time. I’ll see him later.

  I left the house, walked down Queensway at a fair old clip, picked up a Telegraph and caught the bus down to work. There was a lengthy report in the paper about Stephen’s trial, mainly detailing the prosecution summing up of Mervyn Griffith-Jones, the bloke who prosecuted in the Lady Chatterley trial and who asked the jury then if it was the sort of book they would leave around for their servants to find?

  Stephen had been painted pretty black at the trial. But what did it all amount to? It amounted to this. He had some pretty girls around him who introduced him to other pretty girls and a few of his friends got laid. A couple of prostitutes talked nonsense, and what if money had changed hands? Big fucking deal! Who really cares?

  I hoped Stephen’s optimism was based on something sound. It sure didn’t look good to me.

  I got into the Snax Bar about ten minutes early and opened up. Charlie eventually wandered in just after 9 a.m. muttering apologies and blaming me for not waking him.

  Business as usual here.

  About 9.30 I was out the back making some corned beef sandwiches when the music on the radio was interrupted by a newsflash. I didn’t pay much attention until I heard Stephen’s name. Apparently he had been rushed to a hospital in Fulham – St Stephen’s, funnily enough. He was unconscious. Why? They didn’t say, or if they did I hadn’t heard. Something was going on. If this had only just happened I’d have to keep my ears glued to the radio. But, the newsreader announced, the trial has continued without him. The judge is doing his summing up.

  I wondered about this. Doesn’t the defendant have to be there for a trial? Perhaps he only has to be there for the prosecution and defence cases, not the summing up.

  About midday on the radio in the main news it was announced that Stephen had taken an overdose of barbiturates. An empty bottle of pills was found at his side by the guy whose flat he was staying in. Down in Chelsea somewhere. They reckoned it was a suicide attempt. The doctors weren’t too sure whether he would pull through but they’d given him a stomach pump and moved him to a ward. He was under close observation.

  I kept thinking that when I spoke to him last night he sounded bright and optimistic. The trial didn’t seem to worry him. It would all blow over. Nothing to worry about, he said.

  What had happened to change him?

  Had he, indeed, attempted suicide?

  I needed to talk to Nick Esdaille, find out what he knew and what was really going on. Hear what the gossip was down in Fleet Street, but Nick wasn’t in the office and they didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t at home either. I tried him all afternoon.

  I thought I could trawl around the bars in the evening looking for him but then I remembered I was supposed to go way down east and see this Vicky Stafford and see what she wanted. Fuck it. I tried the number I had for her half a dozen times but there was never any answer. Damn it.

  EMBANKMENT. TEMPLE. BLACKFRIARS. MANSION HOUSE. CANNON STREET. MONUMENT FOR BANK. TOWER HILL. ALDGATE EAST. WHITECHAPEL.

  The names fascinated me. This was terra incognita to me. I’d never been further east than Fleet Street before and here were all these station names on an underground line I’d never travelled before. I wondered where their names came from and what these places looked like. They were names I’d only ever seen in street atlases and books on the history of London and on the underground and tube maps. This was part of the metropolis I knew nothing about.

  At Whitechapel I had to change trains. Goodbye District Line and hello Metropolitan. Shadwell was the first stop out of Whitechapel. Just a few minutes down the tunnel.

  I supposed I should start wondering about Vicky Stafford and why I’m here. I couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm, however. I just kept thinking o
f Stephen and this ‘suicide’ attempt and contrasting it with how he was on the phone last night.

  None of it quite added up. But then a lot of things lately haven’t. It shouldn’t come as any surprise.

  Shadwell. There’s a big black ticket collector sitting on a high stool reading the Mirror. I’m the only person who gets off the train. He looks at me and indicates with his eyes that I’m to leave the ticket in a wooden box in front of him, and then he returns to his paper.

  Outside the station I look at my watch. Twenty to nine. I’ve got twenty minutes. Should be there right on time.

  It’s been raining. There’s that musty smell of cold rain on the hot pavements. Big rain clouds up in the heavens. Dark. Night time. Blocks of flats built in the 1930s. High brick walls. Narrow shops in a Victorian terrace. A dingy corner shop with ageing, chipped signs strewn all over the side wall. Enamel signs that must have been put up at the time of the First World War, certainly not much later:

  ICED DRINKS by the glass

  And here something adrift with the grammar and sense:

  SEND A

  GREETINGS CARD

  FOR ALL OCCASIONS

  Next door is a tailor’s. A sign swings in the wind above the pavement:

  S. GRONOFSKY

  Suits Made to Measure

  Misfits a Speciality

  What, making misfits is a speciality, or correcting them?

  There’s no traffic here, no people. Just some dirty-faced kids on the other side of the road kicking a football over the cobbles. This is the famous Cable Street, no less. This is where the people of the East End turned out on a Sunday in 1936 and saw off the hordes of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts who wanted to march through the East End. The Battle of Cable Street.

  That’s thirty years ago and, perhaps, on a quiet night you can still hear the clamour borne on the breeze. Perhaps.

  There’s a different feeling to this part of London. I try and figure out what it is. It’s not just that it’s new to me. No. There’s a different and distinct tenor in the air. I think it’s maybe that people live here. This is their home. People don’t live where I live. They’re just passing through. This, however, is home. This is the patch where you’re born and where you stay.