Take the A-Train

by Mark Timlin

  ‘He’ll be along,’ said Phil. ‘With his box of records, just in time for the show. You know he likes to make a big entrance.’

  I got the feeling Phil thought that Johnny Smoke had an overinflated reputation, especially with young women, especially the type who wore lavender lace teddies.

  ‘Don’t be bitchy, Phil,’ said Fiona. ‘He is the star of the show.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Phil. ‘I’d better get on with setting up the gear.’ He climbed to his feet and and went back to tinkering with leads and amps.

  ‘Happy little soul,’ I said.

  ‘He wants to be a star,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Don’t we all?’

  As if on cue the door to the pub burst open and an apparition in a yellow, hooded T-shirt with an Italian flag printed across the front, purple-flowered tight Bermudas, white-framed Ray-Bans and orange baseball boots leapt through the gap and into the light.

  ‘Heeeeere’s Johnny,’ said Fiona.

  ‘I never would have guessed.’

  Johnny was a star all right, and he loved it. He ran from one group of his fans to another, shaking hands, touching shoulders, generally being a right pain in the arse. Eventually he turkey trotted over to our table. ‘Fiona, sweety poopy! So glad you could make it.’ He pushed the Ray Bans over the top of his gelled hair. ‘And you must be Nicky Baby. Heard a lot about you kid, all good.’

  I thought if he called me Nicky Baby again I’d plant the toe of my Shelley’s special loafers right up the crack of his fat backside, bad leg or no bad leg. Fiona made a placating face behind his back. I gave in. What the hell? If it made her happy I guessed I could take Johnny Smoke like bad medicine and smile all the time.

  ‘Hi, Johnny,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. He raised a finger and an acolyte attended with a bottle of Grolsch. Johnny went through a big production of flicking the top one-handed and everyone in the room admired his style. He drank from the bottle, how else? I half hoped the china top that was still attached to the bottle by a clever little metal contraption would put his eye out. After giving his full attention to the temperature of the beer for a second, he turned his charm on Fiona. ‘How’s the career, poopy baby?’ he asked with all the sincerity of a life insurance salesman on Mogadon.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ she said. ‘How’s yours?’

  This was the question he had been waiting for. He flicked his head forward so the shades dropped back on to his nose and was away like the favourite at Harringay. ‘C’est magnifique, baybee,’ he said. ‘Might be going to Marbella, get away from the weather.’

  I felt like telling him he might be slightly warmer if he dressed for a British December rather than a Hawaiian June, but what the hell?

  ‘Nice,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been offered a residency at a big nightclub over there. One and a half K a week and all the puss I can handle.’ Which from where I sat was precisely zip, but maybe I was jealous, just like Phil.

  ‘Fuck off, Johnny,’ said Fiona, bringing a welcome air of reality to the proceedings. ‘You don’t have to impress me, we’re not at Stringfellow’s now. I get that sort of bullshit all day at work. Lighten up and get some drinks in.’

  Johnny pushed his Ray-Bans up over his forehead again and grinned. He held up his hands. ‘I give in,’ he said. ‘You always could see through the old bollocks.’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t let her go, Nick. She’s as good as gold. Better than gold, in fact. What are you drinking?’

  ‘I’ll have a pint.’

  ‘Cold Becks,’ said Fiona.

  Johnny was passing the order over to the bar when the front door swung open again. A swarthy-looking geezer in a long tweed overcoat over jeans tucked into polished riding boots crept through the doorway carrying a cardboard box under his arm. He had a mass of thick curly hair that he pushed back from his face as he sized up the crowd. He saw Johnny and made for him like he was on a piece of elastic.

  ‘Fran-ches-co,’ screamed Johnny, going straight back to being a jerk again.

  ‘Hello, John,’ the swarthy geezer said.

  ‘My man,’ said Johnny. ‘Meet some friends. Francis, this is Fiona and Nick. Fiona and Nick this is Francis.’

  There was no way you could fault the guy for manners.

  ‘Call me Frank,’ said the swarthy geezer.

  ‘Hello, Frank,’ I said.

  ‘Frank,’ echoed Fiona.

  Our drinks arrived over the bar. Frank looked thirsty but no one offered to buy him a drink. He kept looking at me and I toasted him with my glass. It wasn’t my round. He looked harder and when he spoke I knew it wasn’t a drink he was after, not from me at any rate.

  ‘You Babylon?’ he demanded in pure Kingston, JA.

  Shit, I thought, another half lemonade giving me fucking grief.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘Do I look like bleeding Babylon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Private,’ I said. ‘And I’m on my holidays, so relax. I ain’t going to nick you.’

  Frank still looked unhappy.

  Johnny cut in, ‘He’s all right, Francis. A diamond. He’s with Fiona.’

  Frank seemed happy with the explanation. ‘Want to buy some gear then?’ he asked.

  ‘What you got?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘A new steam iron and six Filofaxes, great for presents.’

  ‘How much?’ asked Johnny.

  Frank pretended to do some mental sums, although I knew he had the price fixed before he’d lifted the stuff. ‘Fifteen for the iron and a tenner each for the Filofaxes. There’s more than a tenner’s worth of filling in each one.’

  Johnny shook his head sadly. ‘No chance.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Frank.

  Johnny dug in the box. ‘Take forty?’ he asked.

  Frank sighed deeply. ‘Give us a break,’ he said. ‘Fifty, the lot.’

  Johnny rotated his head like a turtle. ‘All right, you got it.’ He pulled out a roll of cash and peeled off five tens. Frank’s hand ate the money like a snake swallowing a small mouse.

  Mickey Lipman slid from his perch on the bar stool and on to the floor. He must have stood at least four feet nine. I swear he was taller sitting down. He pushed through the crowd. ‘Hello, my loves,’ he said. ‘Hello, Frank.’

  ‘Hello, Mickey,’ said Frank. The rest of us didn’t respond.

  ‘Give,’ said Mickey.

  ‘What?’ asked Frank.

  ‘Don’t fuck around. The dough.’

  ‘Jesus, Mickey, do us a favour.’ He looked around as if for divine intervention.

  ‘Give.’

  Frank reluctantly handed over the cash. Mickey counted it in less than a second. ‘I’ll take it off your bill,’ he said.

  ‘No, not all of it, I’m short. Give us some spends.’

  ‘I’m short too,’ said Mickey. He was right about that. There weren’t many shorter in the room.

  ‘Please,’ begged Frank.

  Mickey pulled a face. ‘A tenner,’ he said.

  ‘Sweet.’

  Mickey peeled off a single note and handed it back, then split.

  Frank smiled. ‘Want a drink?’ he asked the gathering. Johnny nodded, Fiona nodded, Frank looked at me.

  ‘Not if you’re skint,’ I said. He looked at Mickey’s retreating back and grinned.

  ‘ ’S’all right,’ he said. ‘I got a couple of watches in here.’ He patted his coat pocket. ‘I’ll knock them out later. If Mickey don’t see me, I’ll be cool.’

  I shrugged. ‘You talked me into it.’ I said. ‘I’ll have a beer.’

  Frank went to the bar and Johnny Smoke took his box of bent gear out to his car.

  ‘Nice boozer,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll do. You see life.’

  ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘Don’t go all copperish on me. You Babylon?’ she mimicked Frank. ‘I thought you were going to have kittens.’

  Frank came back with the beer
s and Johnny came into the pub with two big boxes of records. He unloaded them on to Phil and boogied round the pub some more.

  At ten o’clock the overhead lights in the pub dimmed which left only the bar, Christmas tree, juke box, pool table and a spot over the stage lit, and Johnny got to work. He was good, I’ll give him that. Noisy, but good. I looked around the pub, through the gloom, and saw an amazing amount of traffic in and out of the Gents. It looked as if the boys were powdering their noses with a vengeance. And the girls? The girls were rolling joints on the tables and getting bombed on marijuana and Pernod until their brains cooked.

  The big guy who ran the place could finally stand no more. He ran round the bar during a particularly frantic Led Zep/Public Enemy segue and confiscated a joint, then ran into the Gents to reappear with a crop-headed B-boy under each arm and summarily eject same from the pub.

  Johnny bopped to the chaos. He soundtracked the swaying crew with tough black music from Chicago, jazz from the West Coast circa 1959, rare groove from Philly and Detroit, and pure pop from just about everywhere else. The place had filled to the extent that it was SRO, the punters were ten deep at the bar and the staff had run out of glasses. I blessed the foresight of being a couple of rounds in front.

  The air in the room was as thick as soup and stank of dope and hairspray. The temperature was in the low nineties and still climbing. Moisture had condensed on the ceiling and was dripping down like acid rain that stained clothes and burnt skin. Johnny closed his first set with a T-Rex classic. The lights came up and the juke-box ground back into life in the middle of Little Red Corvette.

  I was looking down Fiona’s cleavage where the lavender silk stained her breasts with colour. She saw me looking and grinned. I leant close to her and blew in her ear. ‘Fancy making a move soon?’

  ‘Sure.’ she said. ‘Shall we go and eat?’

  ‘I can think of better things.’

  ‘Later, Sharman,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so impatient. I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too.’ But not for food, I thought.

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘How about a Chinese back at my place?’

  ‘You’re not getting away that easy.’

  ‘It’s late.’

  ‘There’ll be something open in Covent.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘Come on, miserable. Treat me to some fancy food and I’ll show you a good time.’

  ‘Lawdy, Mizz Scarlett,’ I said back, ‘you have a tongue like silver.’

  She ran her tongue suggestively over her lips. ‘And you, sonny, might just get lucky and find out how like silver it is.’

  ‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘I’m getting a hard on just thinking about it.’

  We pulled on our coats and made our various goodbyes, which took me about ten seconds and Fiona about ten minutes, and left the pub.

  9

  The night outside was sodium bright and getting colder. The breeze was stiffening and the wind chill factor pushing the temperature way down. The streets were beginning to crystallise with ice that caught the reflections of the street lights and kicked them back through 180 degrees until the tarmac appeared to be as polished as a black mirror.

  We drove across the river and down Tower Hill and Lower and Upper Thames Street and the Victoria Embankment as far as Blackfriars, then right to High Holborn and left towards Covent Garden. It was perishing cold and the slipstream of the car nearly froze my ears off. But Fiona kept the heater going so that at least our feet were warm.

  The streets were lined with parked cars so Fiona drove into a multi-storey NCP on the corner of Endell Street and Shorts Gardens. Even though it was quite late, being the time of year with the festive season almost upon us, the place was still busy. We had to join a queue of cars still trying to get in, and a couple of other cars were waiting behind us when Fiona collected our ticket. There were no free spaces on the lower floors and a little convoy drove to the top floor before we found any room. We parked between an Audi and a VW Beetle that had seen better days.

  The pavement was wet from the moisture that filtered down through the porous concrete of the roof and dripped with the beat of a fugue on to the concrete floor. We parked as far from the drips as space would allow. Our feet were noisy on the bare concrete as we followed the illuminated signs that pointed to the lift. There were already four or five people waiting when we got there. It took so long to arrive that I thought it was out of order or switched off, but I heard some movement in the shaft and eventually the single door slid open to reveal an empty cage which stank like all public utility lifts stink.

  I shivered as we entered the box. It was getting colder by the minute and the metal walls refrigerated the lift still further. The single stark white bulb recessed into the roof didn’t help. One of the geezers in front of us said, ‘Ground?’ And everyone nodded, and he pushed the button, and the doors shut and the lift dropped, vibrating so much that every ten seconds or so the sides of the cage clipped something in the shaft with a screech that threatened to bring on a stress headache. Eventually, after what seemed like a life sentence, the lift clanged to a halt and the door squealed open. Another foyer, another dim light, another expanse of cold concrete.

  We went out into Endell Street and found a bistro about five minutes’ walk away. That’s what it said over the door: BISTRO, in pink neon on a green background. The sign flashed like a strobe and made me feel giddy. We pushed through a glass door made opaque with condensation, and warm air laced with kitchen smells embraced us.

  I could almost see Fiona’s mouth start to water. She looked at me and her eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she said. ‘Let’s get to it.’

  ‘Remember your figure.’

  She winked. ‘Metabolism, Sharman,’ she said. ‘It’s all down to metabolism.’

  I felt for my credit cards. As soon as Fiona mentioned metabolism, I knew that Access was in for a caning.

  The head waiter, an effete gent in a floor-length white apron, rounded us up like a collie with two recalcitrant sheep. When we asked for a table he checked his watch, looked to the heavens and herded us to a table for two between the kitchen and the Ladies. I pointed to another table, laid for four, quietly situated into a niche in the white-painted walls. He told us it was already set for lunch. I told him we’d eat lunch and made a break for it.

  He cut me off like a full back but he should have concentrated on Fiona. She’d wrong-footed him and was already sitting, coat on the back of a chair, hat and scarf neatly sitting on the next, glomming the menu before he realised he’d been faked out. I took off my coat and neatly folded it over the seat of the third chair at the table and sat down opposite her. He capitulated. His little pigtail bobbed up and down as he inquired: ‘Drinks?’

  ‘Martini cocktail,’ said Fiona without lifting her head out of the menu.

  ‘Two,’ I said.

  ‘Lemon twist or olive?’

  ‘Olive,’ I said.

  ‘Lemon,’ said Fiona simultaneously.

  That was cool. He wouldn’t get our drinks mixed up at least. The head waiter split and I picked up my menu. ‘What’s the recipe today?’ I asked.

  ‘Nouvelle, sweetheart, pure nouvelle.’

  ‘Any chips?’ I asked.

  Our waitress was a chunky American girl wearing a white body shirt and a black skirt, so miniscule as to be almost non-existent. Fiona saw me looking and smacked me with her eyes. Under the white shirt the waitress was wearing a string bra that kept my mind on her measurements and off the prices on the menu which were top of the range and then some.

  It was one of those establishments where the staff joined you at the table to discuss the merits of the food. I wasn’t fussy but I think Fiona resented the intrusion. The menu was in French and the waitress was from Oklahoma, which caused some confusion, as did the fact that her nipples were erect during the entire conversation.

  In retaliation Fiona slid out of her leather jacket like a snake she
dding its skin and even the waitress was impressed by her shoulders.

  ‘Sharman, you’re scum,’ said Fiona when the drinks were in and the waitress had sashayed through the kitchen door, rolling her buttocks as if her behind was chewing a piece of gum. The two guys sitting at a very bad table in the middle of the floor, and making the best of a bad job by ostentatiously calling everyone in their address books on a portable telephone, checked the action and started taking their own pulses. Then, when one looked over and saw Fiona’s décolletage, he nudged his pal and I swear they called a code and laid back to wait for the crash cart to arrive.

  ‘Naughty,’ I said, looking at the lavender silk flowing like water over her breasts. ‘The teddy.’

  ‘If I’d known how you’d look at our table person’s chest, I’d’ve worn my old school uniform.’

  ‘It would have worked too.’

  ‘You’re a sexist shit.’

  ‘Her bra strap was twisted.’

  ‘Your neck will be twisted, son, if you keep on.’

  We clinked glasses and drank. ‘I hope you fucking choke,’ she whispered as the waitress came back with the first course. I kept my gaze so averted that Fiona almost choked herself.

  I don’t know exactly what we had ordered but what we got was cold soup, warm duck salad and chocolate pudding. It hadn’t sounded like that when the waitress had fluttered her eyelashes at me and taken the order. Serves me right, I suppose. It was OK, not brilliant, but OK. I didn’t complain. The company would have made bread and water taste good. With the cocktails, a bottle of wine, two cups of froth without much coffee and six liqueurs, the bill left my credit limit in ashes and we hit the pebbles as warm inside as the night was cold.

  When we got back to the car park, it had emptied out and we were alone waiting for the lift. Eventually it arrived and I pushed the button for the top floor. The lift ground and squealed and shimmied its way slowly upwards. The doors opened and we started across the concrete, empty now except for the Spitfire and a green Daimler Sovereign that I remembered had come into the car park immediately after us. I might have been full of food and booze and on a promise and complacent, but I wasn’t so complacent that I didn’t see the puff of exhaust from the car’s idling engine and that there were a number of people inside the car. I stopped short and grabbed Fiona and the two back doors of the Daimler opened as one. The lift doors were just closing behind us and I swung her round and pushed her through the narrowing gap. She shouted something in surprise but I didn’t hear what.