by Phillip Rock
William made his way into the oak-paneled and leather-chaired smoking room, past the bar where a small party of visiting Americans were noisily celebrating their release from Prohibition. In 1919, in a move to keep Heppleton’s solvent, the Membership Committee had broken with tradition and spread welcoming arms to all members of the Yale, Harvard, and Princeton clubs. The Americans had responded by spreading a great deal of money around, to the satisfaction of everyone except a few diehards. To William, the Americans were anything but “a raucous intrusion of leatherstocking colonials,” as one member had put it. They had a guilt-free capacity for enjoyment, which he found enviable.
He took a chair near the fire and stretched out his bad leg toward the warmth. When one of the green-jacketed servants hurried over, he ordered a large whiskey, asked for a copy of Country Life, and requested the result of the fourth race at Ainsworth when it came over the wire.
“We’re not using the wire today, Mr. Greville,” the servant said in a whisper. “Mr. Jukes has a wireless. Think of that! Can’t get it away from him. Been sittin’ in that little cubbyhole of his behind the desk and toyin’ with it by the hour.”
“And he gets the races and the football results on it?”
“Indeed he does, sir. I understand there’s a broadcasting station at Writtle. Music mostly, but every hour or so they give the sports. Mr. Jukes has a license from the post office to listen in so it’s all quite legal, Mr. Jukes says, although Mr. Abersworth does not take too kindly to a wireless aerial being run up the side of the building, sir. To the roof, sir, and coiled about a chimney pot.”
“How curious.”
“Indeed it is, sir—and a savage waste of a man’s time, if you ask me.”
He sipped his whiskey and thumbed through the pages of the magazine. Members came and went, and eventually two of his friends arrived, complaining of the cold rain and the deathly dullness of the day.
“What’s on for tonight, Willie?” one of them asked.
“I don’t know. Thought I might try the Mardi Gras in Dean Street again.”
“Prettiest bints in London are down Chelsea way. The Palais de Dance in Beaufort Street, near the bridge. Asked a daisy of a flapper there one night if I might hold her hand. Know what she said in reply? ‘A fuck’s as good as a handshake, Johnnie!’ Would you believe it!”
“All too well,” a young man named Osbert said dourly. “It’s all part of the conspiracy I was telling you about, David. One can see it happening.”
“What conspiracy is that?” William asked.
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to Osbert.”
“You don’t have to take my word for it, old boy,” Osbert said. “You can read it for yourself in Henry Ford’s book, The International Jew.”
“That’s just Jew baiting, pure and simple.”
“Yes,” William said. “I read a copy of the Dearborn Independent when I was in New York last year. Utter rot.”
“Granted he gets a bit potty at times, but you can’t deny that Jews control the Bolshevik world revolutionary movement and are determined to undermine the entire structure of democratic society.”
“Oh, Lord,” David Hadlock moaned, “what’s that got to do with my being offered a fuck in Chelsea?”
“It shows a deterioration of moral standards—a cunningly planned erosion of social mores and codes. I saw it happen in Italy after the war, until the fascisti brought some sense of order and control back to the country.”
“Mussolini!”
“A great man, David,” Osbert said quietly. “And Umberto Pasella … D’Annunzio and the noble Serenissima—great men all.”
William yawned. “Let me stand you chaps a drink.”
Osbert checked his wristwatch. “Sorry. Promised to meet a fellow at Boodle’s. But let’s have a proper chat one evening, Greville.”
David shook his head as he watched the man leave the room. “Old Ozzie has undergone a sea change since the Eton days, I can tell you. Altogether a sensible sort. Now he’s caught up in the notion of forming the British League of Fascisti. Ever hear of such nonsense? Can you imagine an Englishman worth his salt joining something with a wop name!”
“He doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
“No. Hates Oxford like poison. No excitement to it. Misses the fun of flying over the Dolomites and dropping bombs on poor ruddy sods of Austrians.”
“Yes—must have been a lark.”
He could feel one of his depressions coming on, creeping over him the way the gray evening was creeping over the windowpanes. They rarely lasted more than a few minutes and he was incapable of doing anything about them. They came and went like a dark and dismal tide. No specific cause. What the Negro singers called “the blues.” Got the blues so bad I think I’m goin’ to die.... It was that kind of feeling. He lit a cigarette and stared fixedly ahead. David was talking, but he couldn’t hear a word. Been in that place, but I ain’t goin’ back no more.... Yes, been in that place, but I ain’t goin’ back no more.... Goin’ to pack my bags, hop the train to Baltimore.... That yearning to be someplace else, moving on—to Baltimore—to heaven or hell. Just the blues. The regrets that could find no other name. That inner bleakness of soul that the Negro jazzmen understood so well and could articulate better than an Eton “old boy.” The jazzmen would have found a voice for night sliding in across wasted days, a trombone moan for nothingness.
“You’re not smoking?”
“What?”
“Not smoking, old boy. Just holding your silly fag in front of your face.”
William turned away and dropped his smoldering cigarette into an ashtray. The servant was hurrying toward him from across the room.
“Mr. Jukes apologizes, Mr. Greville, but there was a delay in the wireless transmission. He has the fourth at Ainsworth now.” He glanced at a slip of paper in his hand. “Bonny Bell was the winner, sir, with O’Grady in the stirrups. Paid off at fourteen to one.”
“What happened between Chelsea and Leicester?” David asked.
“One goal to nought, Leicester, Mr. Hadlock.” The servant shuffled through some other slips of paper before hurrying away.
“Blast.”
“I won a lot of money,” William said dully. “Quite a bit.”
“On the horse, you mean? How much did you have on it?”
“Ten pounds to win.”
David whistled softly through his teeth. “Ten bloody quid at fourteen to one? I’d say let’s go out and have a bang-up time, but I’m down to my last dollar till next week.”
“I don’t want your five bob. My treat.” He felt shaky, but the depression was fading. He stood up and stretched his tall, powerful frame. “Let’s start off with a double whiskey at the bar.”
“It’s really not fair, old chap.”
“Oh, shut up, David. What’s money for?” He tapped his pocket. “A fiver and change. Not enough to do it up brown. I’ll give Jukes an IOU for thirty quid.”
“Thirty? We could hit every ruddy club in London with that much!”
“We jolly well will, too, or die trying.”
An’ drive those blues away … oh, yeah, drive those blues away....
Drinks at the bar with the Americans—fine fellows all—then off to Scott’s for oysters and stout followed by a smashing dinner at Rules in Maiden Lane. They were feeling in top form as they sauntered out of Rules at 10:30 full of roast beef and Burgundy. A taxi idled at the curb as they stood beside it planning the night ahead.
“I say Chelsea,” David insisted. “Pick up some girls, touch a few spots, and then go back to my digs. I have a gramophone and a few passable records.”
“There are prettier girls at the Mardi Gras, or the Apollo in Greek Street—and bloody good Negro bands. Better class of girl than Battersea Bridge, anyhow. Might find a couple with a posh little flat in Mayfair.”
“If we do, your thirty quid’ll melt like snow.”
“Don’t be daft. These days they’re more likely to pay us! And take us to the
Savoy for breakfast.”
Soho was crowded with a Saturday-night throng. As the taxi crawled along Frith Street, they could see half a dozen Black Marias parked nose-to-tail down an alleyway and what looked like a battalion of bobbies strolling two by two from Bateman Street to Soho Square and back again.
“What’s up, driver?” William asked.
“Raidin’ the Sixty-Six Club tonight, or so I ’eard.”
“Let us off at the square.”
“As you want, guv’nor.”
“Poor old dim-witted coppers,” David said as they got out of the taxi. “Look at the poor blighters, just strolling about, gazing into windows, pretending not to see the Sixty-Six Club’s sign. It’s too bloody marvelous. They’ll bust in on the stroke of midnight waving their silly warrants and there won’t be a living soul in the place.”
William was not that sure of the dim-witted quality of the Metropolitan Police. They were within pouncing distance of the discreet little sign that marked the “66” Club’s door, but their presence was too obvious to be taken seriously. DORA’s target for the night could be any one of a dozen or more after-hours drinking and dancing clubs in the cluttered maze of Soho streets and alleyways. But which one? It could be the Mardi Gras. Dean Street was only a short walk—or a bobby’s lumbering run—from where they were now congregated. Not that William cared. He had been through the inconvenience of more than one raid. Nothing much happened in them except that the customers were hustled out into the street and the owners, barmen, and any known criminals were hauled off to the police station.
The Mardi Gras was filled with girls waiting for the fun to begin. It was still a bit early for that, just a few minutes past the legal closing hour. The bandstand was empty, but a large gramophone blared out a one-step. A few girls were dancing with each other while most of the men in the place looked on in amusement. William and David checked their overcoats and strolled to the bar, leaned against the polished mahogany, ordered whiskeys, and watched the girls dancing.
“Jolly good crop tonight,” David said. “Hot little flappers all.”
There was a sameness to them, William thought, like a flock of small, excitable, flashy birds. Their hair was cropped, dresses short—garters revealed as they moved shapely silk-clad legs, bodies revealed also as they danced, buttocks and breasts wiggling under scant frocks.
Shake, honey honey, shimmy and shine....
By midnight the crowds were pressing in. Men in cutaway coats and women in furs rubbed elbows and backsides with shopgirls and typists and young men on the loose. The musicians had arrived and the throbbing, frantic notes of jazz cut through the cigarette haze like a blade.
Shake it, honey honey, show ’em your stuff....
They latched on to two devastatingly pretty girls and William bought champagne for them—inferior stuff at a pound a bottle—and then the girls, after whispering together, suggested they move on to the Paradise Club in St. Giles High Street. It was two in the morning and they bundled into a taxi, the girls climbing onto their laps. As the taxi roared off into the darkness of the street, William’s girl took his hand and placed it inside her dress, pressing his palm against a small naked breast.
“You’re full of fuck, aren’t you?” she whispered in his ear. “And I’ll do what the French girls do—I promise.”
The Paradise Club was even more crowded than the Mardi Gras had been, a smoky, jazz-throbbing cave of a room. The drinks were more expensive, too, and the champagne even worse. Anything could be bought at the Paradise and the girls wanted cocaine. “For later,” they said. “A little snow draws out the pleasure—makes it last longer.” That made another fiver. The thirty pounds were nearly gone.
“We’ll go soon,” he said thickly. He was a bit woozy from the whiskeys, champagne, and lack of fresh air. The girl sat close to him, idly stroking his thigh under the table.
“My rooms,” David said. “We’ll toss for the bed.”
“All in together,” his girl squealed. “It’s ever so much fun that way!”
“Off!” William pushed back his chair and stood up. “Forward the troops!”
He led the way toward the door, forcing a path through the crowd, people still coming into the place. A suffocating odor of wet cloth and furs, stale perfume and cigar smoke. He could see the open door, rain slashing down past the entranceway. Then dark, glistening figures popping through the doorway out of the wet—round black blobs, like seals.
“Coppers!” he yelled. “Oh, the rotters!”
The Chelsea raid had been a sham. They had patrolled Frith Street, biding their time, then had crossed Charing Cross Road into St. Giles.
“Police!” a sergeant shouted through a megaphone. “Stay where you are, if you don’t mind. No movin’ about!”
“This way!” William said. The girls and David held on to his coattails as he plunged back into the crowd and bulled his way toward the bar. There would be a door behind it leading to a cellar where they stored the beer, the crates of whiskey and wine. All clubs were the same in that respect. There would be a way up to the street from there.
“Stop that man!”
Police whistles shrilled and the girls let go of William with a scream and fell away into the crowd. David stumbled over someone’s foot and fell. A policeman jumped to avoid stepping on his back.
“Stop in the name of the law!”
William was being propelled onward by his own burst of energy. Christ, he thought gleefully, what a bloody lark! He reached the bar and was prepared to vault it when one of the pursuing policemen grabbed him from the back.
“None of that!”
William shook the smaller man off and sent him flying into a table.
“Grab the bugger, lads!”
Two panting, cursing bobbies lunged at him and held on to his arms, pinning him back against the bartop.
“Come along easy, you bastard!”
“Oh, bugger off.” Strength swelled in him, racing through nerve and muscle. A Viking—a berserker.... He was suddenly back at Eton playing the wall game in mud and rain—kicking, butting … “Bugger off, I said!” He hurled them away from him with a roar. No thought of escape now. He was drunk with the need to fight, the pure joy of performing a mindless physical act. He might run like a broken-kneed camel, but, by God, he had arms like anvils. He could fight like a lion. A sweating red face loomed up under a copper’s helmet and he drove a hammer blow into the man’s jaw—saw him reel back and drop like a wet sack of sand. He burst into laughter and was still laughing when they all came at him like dogs on a fox. A hard wet boot caught him in the stomach … a night stick rose and fell. He felt no pain. A roaring in his ears … and then silence—an odd sort of peace.
“IN ’ERE AND mind your manners.”
An elderly police sergeant led him into a cheerless office. A burly man in a badly fitting blue serge suit rose from behind a desk and pointed to a wood chair facing him.
“Sit down, Mr. Greville.” The man’s warmth matched the day. Through the barred and dingy windows a cold rain seethed into the cobblestoned inner courtyard of the Chancery Lane police station.
William sat down stiffly. His stomach ached where he had been kicked, and his head throbbed. He stared apathetically at the inspector, who was holding a small white card between his thick fingers.
“The Hon. William Greville,” the inspector intoned. “Heppleton Club, St. James’s.” He let the card slip from his fingers and gave William a baleful look. “The ‘Hon.’ stands for ‘honorable,’ I take it. You didn’t look very honorable when you were carried in here Saturday night like something the cat dragged about. No other form of identification in your wallet, so the chief inspector rang up your club. Somebody there informed us who you were, and set the wheels in motion. A club like Heppleton’s—well, they know how to look after a member who gets himself in trouble. Lord Stanmore’s son, they said.” He made a clucking sound. “Pity. Don’t know what’s happening these days when the son of an earl gets
himself netted in along with common prostitutes and spivs of every description. The lowest of the low, lad. The lowest of the low.” He turned his blue bulk in the swivel chair and gazed morosely at the rain-blackened courtyard. “And two fine chaps of mine in hospital. Broken jaw, cracked ribs. Two servants of the law used cruelly by a man they’re duty-bound to protect. Yes, lad, they’d give their very lives if need be.”
“They called me a bastard,” William said quietly, “and tried to throttle me.”
“You are a bastard,” the inspector whispered, his voice like a cold wind. “If I had my way I’d boot you into a cell and swallow the key. Packet of cocaine in your pocket—two years for that alone. Someplace terrible hard. Wormwood Scrubs picking oakum with your fucking bleeding fingers.” He turned back to the table and drew a cigarette from a tin of Navy Cut. He lit it with a match and dribbled smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“Your family solicitor was rung up. Sir Humphrey Osgood. He’ll smooth the waters, I expect. I just wanted you to know what I think of you.”
“I don’t really give much of a damn. About jail, I mean.”
“Oh, no. Wouldn’t do, would it? Just about anything short of murder. The upper classes. God help us all.”
Sir Humphrey Osgood had posted bail and done all else that needed to be done. He sat in the back of his Daimler next to William and sorted fussily through the contents of his briefcase. He was a tiny man with a head too big for his body and was referred to by his fellow lawyers—but not out of malice—as “the dwarf.” There was nothing dwarflike about his intellect or legal shrewdness.
“Monday is always the very devil of a day, William, or I’d go with you and wait for your father.”
William studied the raindrops meandering down the glass of the side window.
“You had to telephone him, I suppose.”
“I’m surprised you need ask that, William. Of course I had to call him. This is no boyish prank you’re charged with. You’re in quite serious trouble. Quite serious indeed.”
“Two years in Wormwood Scrubs,” William muttered.