Pretend We're Dead

by Mark Timlin

  She clung to me tightly, and I could feel her sobbing. Then she stopped and looked up at me, and smiled through the tears. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Bad moment. Of course you must do it.’

  ‘You know that I won’t do a thing except what I’m being paid for.’

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ she said. ‘Now go and get yourself some evening clothes. And, Nick.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No frills on the shirt.’

  ‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘Help me choose.’

  ‘What? Get you all tarted up for that… Tart.’

  ‘It’s not for her. It’s for us. Another honeymoon. Hastings. Remember?’

  She smiled again, then said, ‘What about that thing on the TV? One of us should keep working on the Harrison case.’

  ‘Sod it. It’s twenty years old. What does one more day matter, more or less? Come on. Come out with me now. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘Course I do. You’re my baby, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Course you are. I’ll buy you lunch in Covent Garden, and we can moan how it ain’t like it used to be.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But I’ll go round to Tracey’s tonight and catch the show. I’ll video it and you can see it tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re superb, babe,’ I said.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Twenty-four carat. Now are we going out or what?’

  She nodded, dried her eyes, put on some fresh make-up and off we went. And we had the best day I can remember for years.

  17

  The limo was dead on time. It was a black stretch Ford LTD with a whole load of aerials sticking out of the boot. It must have been twenty-five feet long and it made the Chevy look small. It probably wouldn’t start tomorrow after that. Some cars have souls, you know.

  I’d chosen black silk for my suit. The most expensive that Young’s had for hire. It was double-breasted with plain-bottomed trousers. I’d teamed it with a red cummerbund, a gleaming white shirt with French cuffs, a real bow tie that Dawn had to tie for me, and shiny black patent leather shoes. Dawn checked the tie for me one last time, when the limo driver sounded his horn outside.

  ‘You look so handsome tonight,’ she said. ‘You’re making me dead jealous. That bitch better leave you alone.’

  ‘She will, believe me,’ I replied.

  ‘Will you be late?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t know. The damn thing doesn’t start ’til after eleven. So I suppose I shall.’

  Dawn brushed off my shoulders with the palms of her hands, then came up and kissed me on the side of the mouth. ‘Be as late as you’ve got to be,’ she said. ‘Just don’t let me down.’

  ‘Never,’ I said. And ‘never’ I meant.

  She smiled at me and I smiled back.

  ‘Enjoy the show on TV,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ she replied. ‘I always enjoy watching religious programmes while my husband’s out partying with lovely young models.’

  I was going to say, ‘Then you’re in for a treat tonight’, but I thought better of it.

  I went down to the car, and the driver, dressed in something that closely resembled what I was wearing except that he was sporting a black peaked cap as an accessory and no cummerbund, jumped out of his seat and opened the back door of the car for me.

  The limo was like a perfumed leather and wood coffin inside. The windows were tinted as dark as an autumn evening, and I could stretch my legs right out without touching the bulkhead. As soon as I was seated the driver pulled away, did a tight three-point turn and headed north.

  Angela lived in Clapham, so we were there within twenty minutes. Her address was a row of villas at the east side of the common. I rang her doorbell. She answered via an intercom mounted at the side of the door, and when I told her who it was, she buzzed me up. She was waiting in her flat doorway when I reached the top of the stairs. She was as tall and slim as I remembered, and that night she was almost wearing a dress of red silk that was so small I bet I could have crushed it into the palm of one hand. Her make-up was flawless, and when I got close she sort of kissed the air about six inches to the right and left of my face. In the heels she was wearing she was exactly the same height as me, which seemed strange as I normally have to look down on people. Especially women.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘We’ve got plenty of time. You’re very punctual.’

  ‘The chauffeur was right on the button,’ I said. ‘And besides, that’s what I’m being paid for.’ Trying to get the relationship on the right footing from the off.

  ‘Don’t talk like that. You’re my escort tonight. Chris and his damned family business. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘A glass of wine.’

  ‘Make it two.’

  She vanished through a door into what I assumed to be the kitchen, and I took the opportunity to look round the place. Her flat was big. The whole top storey of the house. It was minimally furnished and the floors were polished wood. I went over to the huge uncurtained window which had a view of the common beneath.

  She came back carrying two large goblets of white wine, and gave me one. ‘Do you like the view?’ she asked.

  I didn’t know if she meant her, or what was outside the window. I assumed it to be the latter. ‘Yes. Have you lived here long?’

  ‘About a year.’

  ‘And before?’

  ‘With my parents.’

  We were drinking standing up, as I couldn’t actually see anywhere to sit in the room, and I didn’t want to ask.

  ‘You’re looking very handsome,’ said Angela. ‘I like your suit.’

  ‘You’re the second person to say that to me tonight,’ I replied.

  ‘Who else?’ she asked.

  ‘My wife.’

  ‘Oh her.’

  ‘Yes her,’ I said. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  I took out my Silk Cut and offered her one. She took it and I lit it for her and she blew out a long stream of grey smoke.

  ‘Do you like my outfit?’ she asked, and gave me a twirl, making sure not to spill her wine.

  It was so short and low-cut, front and back, that I felt like saying, ‘It’ll be all right when it’s finished’, but didn’t.

  ‘Very attractive,’ I said instead.

  ‘Do you really think so? Good. Versace.’

  Which meant it had a price tag in the low thousands.

  ‘I hope you don’t spill any gravy on it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I do. I did some work for them last winter, and they’ve loaned it to me for tonight.’

  ‘Nice work,’ I said.

  She shrugged, drained her glass, and said, ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

  She collected an evening coat that matched her dress from another room, and locked up securely behind us. We went down to the limo, which was sitting at the kerb with its exhaust pipe burbling to keep the air-conditioning going. I helped Angela into the back, averting my eyes from the flash of underwear she gave me, and sat next to her. She picked up the phone that went through to the driver’s compartment and said, ‘Any champagne?’

  He said something in reply and she put down the receiver and said, ‘Open the fridge.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked, looking round.

  ‘There.’ She pointed to a chrome handle and when I pulled it, a small door opened, and inside was a mini-bar stocked to the gills with booze, including a couple of bottles of vintage bubbly. As the car drew away from the kerb, I took out a couple of cold champagne flu
tes from their mounts inside the door, gave them to Angela, rescued a bottle of champagne, undid the foil, took off the latticework, and popped the cork without spilling a drop. She held up the glasses and I filled them both to the brim.

  We spent the drive up to the Savoy finishing the bottle and looking out through the tinted windows at the poor unfortunates who had to take buses. It doesn’t take much of this kind of treatment to turn anyone into a lousy snob.

  The driver swung into the little street in front of the hotel, and the commissionaire leapt into action, and opened the door of the car for us. After I’d told the driver to collect us again at ten-thirty, we were ushered into the foyer, a fiver was transferred from my hand to the commissionaire’s pocket, and we headed for the grill room where we were met by the maître d’ who showed us to a table by the window with a view of the Embankment and the river beyond.

  We ordered a pair of vodka martini cocktails and were left with the menus and the breadsticks, and Angela hauled out a packet of Marlboros and gave one to me.

  ‘You’re very good,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going like clockwork.’

  ‘It’s easy when you’ve got a flashy car and driver, a pocket full of small-denomination notes and your absent host has an account at the place. If I tried getting in here as a regular punter, it might be a different story.’

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ she said. And who was I to argue?

  The martinis arrived, and Angela ordered lobster and I chose rack of lamb. The wine waiter boogied on over and Angela wanted white wine, and I couldn’t have cared less, and said I’d have white too, and the waiter recommended something that cost an arm, a dick and a leg, and I just shrugged and told him to bring it along.

  We skipped dessert and ordered coffees and brandy and chatted away like we’d known each other for years, and before I knew it, it was time to go, and I signed for the meal, helped Angela on with her coat and went back out front to the motor which was parked in a no-waiting zone with its engine running again.

  The driver headed down the Strand to Trafalgar Square and up Charing Cross Road to the Astoria which was under siege from about a thousand fans of The Virgin Mary. They were twenty deep at the front door, spilling out into the road, and holding up the traffic, and a score of dark-suited bouncers aided by about a dozen coppers were doing their best to keep a pathway open through the crowd to let the guests inside.

  We joined the queue of expensive cars outside the theatre and the fans peered through the dark glass to try to see who was inside. Now I knew what a goldfish felt like.

  Angela had a handful of invitations in her bag. Three in all. A silver one to get us into the building, a gold one to get us into the VIP enclosure, and a platinum one to get us into the real party, backstage after the show, she explained. When our car was at the front of the queue, one of the bouncers fought his way over to it, and she stuck the silver one against the glass, and he wrestled the door open and three of his mates, and a couple of uniformed policemen, formed a flying wedge to get us to the door, and inside to the foyer. As we made our way up the steps flashbulbs went off all around us like an artillery barrage. Well at least parts one and two of my job had been fulfilled. I’d got Angela to the gig, and she was getting her photo taken.

  Once inside the place, Angela told me she had to go to the loo to freshen up, and I waited in the foyer and took a look round. Even though it was still early, the place was crawling with people. And what a feature they were. It looked like every mini-celeb and star-fucking roach in town had crawled out from under the gas stove, put on their best, caring nineties grunge gear and come looking for a good time in the name of charity. So what or who the hell were we saving tonight, I wondered. I looked around for inspiration and caught the eye of someone who looked as if he’d be at home in a re-make of Night of the Living Dead. The geezer was about fifty, very tall, stick thin, shaved bald except for a hank of purple, green and black hair over one eye, with a dead-white face, save for a thick coating of black eye-liner and matching lipstick. He sported three nose studs and his ears were pierced so many times, and held so many rings, that the lobes almost brushed the shoulders of his black lamé boilersuit, worn with wedge-heeled suede slingbacks.

  He grinned, exposing a ruby mounted in one canine tooth, and lurched towards me in his ridiculous shoes.

  ‘Hi,’ he gushed as he got close. His voice was breathy and high pitched. ‘Have we met?’

  I shook my head, and he reached out one long, black, nail-polished, skeletal hand thick with rings. ‘I’m Caspian,’ he said.

  I took the proffered mitten, which was cold and dry, in my right hand and shook it briefly. ‘I’m Nick,’ I replied.

  ‘Delighted you could make it. Are you alone?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m with a friend. She’s in the ladies’ room.’

  ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘What do you get up to with her?’

  ‘Her usual escort couldn’t make it tonight. I stepped into the breach,’ I said. Cheeky bugger.

  As I spoke I saw Angela heading our way.

  ‘Here she is now,’ I said.

  Caspian turned and his face lit up. ‘Angela darling,’ he cried. ‘Where have you been?’

  He knew exactly where she’d been, but we were into freakspeak by then, and Angela replied, ‘Working, Caspian. I see you’ve met Nick.’

  ‘Such a nice boy,’ he said. Boy. Well it’s been a while.

  They embraced without seeming to touch, and kissed each other’s cheeks the same way.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ said Caspian. ‘Are you staying for the party?’

  Angela waved her invitations, and Caspian rolled his shoulders and shimmied his hips with pleasure. ‘Wonderful,’ he gushed. ‘We can keep each other company.’

  ‘Where’s Sterling tonight?’ asked Angela.

  ‘Oh, he’s off on location,’ said Caspian. ‘It’s so tiresome. He’s doing something for Peter Greenaway in Peru or Chile, or somewhere else equally unspeakable on the South American continent. I spoke to him on the phone on Sunday. It’s all mosquitoes, tequila and guacamole from what I can gather, and some seriously unspeakable rough trade down by the docks.’

  ‘I do hope he’s being careful,’ said Angela.

  ‘It’s a full-body condom job I believe,’ said Caspian, lifting his plucked eyebrows at me. ‘But boys will be boys.’

  If he expected some comment from me on the subject he was going to be disappointed. Instead I just smiled and allowed myself to be led into the auditorium of the place, and through a barrier of red-velvet rope into the VIP area, courtesy of Angela and Caspian’s gold invitations.

  A waiter led us to a table in one corner. He was tall, bronzed, heavily muscled and lightly oiled, wearing just a suede loin-cloth and sandals. When we were seated he took our order for drinks. Angela asked for a spritzer, Caspian went for a Bloody Mary, and I asked for a whiskey sour. When Caspian finished admiring the waiter’s bare behind as he went to the bar, he jumped up and said, ‘I’ve just seen someone I simply must speak to. I’ll be back directly, darlings. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’

  Which was giving us a long rope from what I could gather so far, but I just smiled again, as he vanished into the crowd towards another table.

  ‘Who the fuck is he?’ I asked.

  ‘A designer. He’s very good. A sweetie in fact.’

  ‘You’ve convinced me,’ I said. ‘And Sterling?’

  ‘His lover. An actor. Sterling Rush. He had a part in EastEnders about a year ago. He had a market stall. Sold flowers I think. Had an affair with, what’s her name?, in the pub. The fat one. You must have seen him.’

  ‘The name doesn’t ring a bell, but I’m sure I’d recognize the face,’ I said. ‘By the way, what is this all about tonight? I feel I should know in case I get into light conversation with anyone.’

  ‘Save the Swordfish
,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Save the Swordfish,’ she repeated slowly, as if I was hard of hearing, or partly brain dead.

  ‘I didn’t know the swordfish needed saving.’

  ‘Everything needs saving these days,’ she said seriously.

  ‘And all this is for some poor bloody fish that doesn’t even know it’s endangered.’

  ‘Of course. Do you know that if we go the way we’re going, by the year twenty thirty there’ll be no swordfishes in the world? Not one.’

  ‘Really. Well you learn something new every day.’

  She nodded in agreement.

  ‘And all these beautiful people really care about the fate of the swordfish?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘And nothing about the fact that their faces will be all over the papers tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t be cynical.’

  ‘As if,’ I replied. ‘I can just see this crew getting sleepless nights over their pals, the gentle little swordfishes.’

  ‘Someone’s got to,’ said Angela.

  I sighed, and spotted our waiter returning through the gathering throng. When he arrived I did my whiskey sour in one, and ordered another three refills. I could tell it was going to be a very long night.

  And I wasn’t far wrong.

  The show itself was taking place in the auditorium next to where we were sitting, and people kept wandering in and out waiting for the action to begin. The men wore anything from full evening dress to full rodeo gear, and the women for the most part were minimally dressed and maximally obvious. Angela and I stayed at the table where we were sitting for the next half hour or so, and she greeted a stream of her friends and acquaintances to whom I was introduced but whom I immediately forgot, as I’m sure they did me. Our waiter kept bringing the whiskey sours and I was as happy as a pig in shit. Caspian rejoined us and kept up a constant snidy monologue on the other guests, their state of fashion victimness and their sexual and drug predilections. I saw two Rolling Stones, one ex-Beatle, one half of Bros and the geezer who used to mess around with the synthesizers in Roxy Music. I was also informed that Suede and Blur were in the building, plus Charles and Eddie and LA Fishbone, but I was none the wiser. Old age creeps up on all of us. There was also a bunch of soap opera stars, who all seemed to know Caspian, plus some very dodgy trannies who looked like bags of old bones wrapped up in taffeta and lace. So much for the glitterati, I thought, and had another whiskey sour.