“Pépé! Pépé…” I call out. “Pépé Rodiencourt!…”
I knock… pound… This is taking for ever!… Go back to knocking… I can hear voices inside… Nobody’s in any hurry to open up! Finally somebody gets to the door… It’s her!… Hair spilling over her face… she’s spitting, wheezing, all smeared with lipstick… she’s just walked off a battlefield!… Hitching up her petticoat… her dressing gown, the flaps of her rags… Ah! What a pretty sight!
“Madame…” I go to her. “Madame!… Your husband’s got a big message for you!…”
“Ah! So that good-for-nothing’s sent you? Quick, give me his address!… Where’s he holed up?…”
She gets her wits back in a snap.
“Madame!… Madame!… That’s impossible!…”
With that she flies off the handle.
“I can see what’s going on! I can see what’s going on! He wants to drive me to my grave with a broken heart!”
And she starts blubbering, sobbing something awful… Writhing in pain against the door… And here I came to patch things up between the pair…
“Madame! Madame! Please! Don’t get angry! It’s just that, you know, it’s a secret!”
Ah! Hell! Why’d I go and say that!… She starts bellowing ten times louder…
“He wants to drive me to my grave! I get it now!… He wants to see me dead!… I know that crook!”
She reeks of booze, and how, blowing it right into my face…
Just then: “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!”… A voice calling me. A man’s voice from back somewhere behind her… can’t see the guy.
She’s making like she can’t hear a thing… A drunk’s voice… “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!”… starting again…
Ah! Just wait a second… Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!… It rings a bell!… Reminds me of something… I’d like a look at the joker…
“Who’s back there?…”
“Oh! A friend!…”
No chance she quits her blubbering through all this…
“Your friend have a name?”
“Nelson…”
“Nelson who?” I ask… “Nelson the painter? Trafalgar Nelson?…”
I can see my questions are bugging the hell out of her… but she’s got me real curious… I want answers… repeat my question… she positions herself crosswise… blocking the door… I want to pass… She pulls the door shut behind her until it’s just open a crack… on her guard now… All right! I’m not budging… We’re locked eyeball to eyeball… She’s one sly little slut…
You’d better believe I knew Nelson! If he was the chromo clown… the open-air artist… doing his thing right on the steps of the National Gallery… a nasty customer if you ask my opinion… deformed like Ten-Paw, just as ornery, crippled from birth, and a spiteful, rotten snitch… everybody at the Leicester was wary of him… Despite his short leg he could really tear along at an unbelievable clip… he circled sidewise like a crab around his sketches… a real-life spinning top on the pavement… fidgeting non-stop, pirouetting… without let-up… giving the rundown to all the dainty dames about the Pyramids, Niagara Falls… plus every monument the world over… all for his clientele… the Eiffel Tower, the Crystal Palace! Plus a square-rigged six-master and the waterfalls of the Epsom River… plus a Roman orgy scene with eighteen women in peplums… Couldn’t argue with his facts… He put his work on display all over London, in trains, in Charing Cross, in Chelsea, but his main gallery was on the flagstones of Trafalgar Square, just under the monument… that’s where you could usually find him between the pigeons and the basin… which is how he got nicknamed Nelson… From the very first that swindler had turned my stomach… he advertised himself as a wounded vet… a total sham! “Ex-serviceman” his sign read… absolutely bogus!… He was born a cripple, full stop… Couldn’t fail to disgust me, since I had credentials, and real ones at that… He didn’t scrape by just on his art, by being a pavement hack, he had other irons in the fire. At the museum exit the ladies often stop for a break and to admire the beautiful view, leaving their things behind on a bench – unbelievable how ditzy they are, especially the young ones… Nelson kept himself busy, on the alert, eyes always peeled… his speciality of sorts was handbags… not that he swiped them, he just subtracted his modest fee, a couple of shillings, with his light fingers, and nobody was any the wiser… I wouldn’t have trusted him. But he really came into his own when the fog rolled in, blanketing all London in one swoop, smack in the middle of the afternoon… like a feather comforter settling over the traffic… He had no peer when it came to guiding people back to their hotels… often in groups of ten, or twenty, all in single file… people left stranded in the thick of the fog, stricken and petrified… Have to give credit where credit’s due, he was a virtuoso in the department of rescuing tourists… Whenever the clouds dropped in the middle of a stroll his dough came rolling in… The whole Empire passes through Trafalgar Square… inevitably… one day sooner or later, all the dominions roving around, gawkers from three continents… When the mist blows in from the river and the gusts kick up hard, the whole square is smothered, blotted solid white in a blink, the confusion’s just out of this world, people can’t see the shoes on their feet, need to be led back to their places like blind men… Sweeping down the broad stretch of Whitehall Road, the fog blankets the whole city in five seconds flat… anytime from October on you could be avalanched in white… And that’s when business boomed! The fever nicknamed Nelson on his tiny pegs, bolting after tourists, little misses lost in the mist… he’d catch them groping their way into the gas lamps… collect the dodderers, the distraught or alarmed, those strollers wobbly on their feet, hobbling along every which way only to crash into each other… He’d assemble, hail his whole crew, rallying, chugging around from one group to another, leading them all by the hand and then at his cry – “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” – just like that to the next Tube station and even right to their door if they were still afraid… As soon as the world went white, and you couldn’t see to save your life, he’d let out his “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!”, his foghorn, in every direction… he’d make himself useful, got to admit that, loads of people were grateful to him, it’s no joke when traffic stops dead, you could find yourself going around in circles for hours on end when the fog’s so thick everybody’s afraid to put a foot forward and the city grinds to a halt, even the small taxis, even the horse-drawn cabs, it’s a disaster on the Strand, and the coaches desert the streets, the whole crowd stumbles down the pavements, knocking into the walls… The Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! hunchback had a nose for threading his way through fog, a special knack for finding his bearings through the thick gauzy layers, by dead reckoning, like a navigator, never a second guess or a zigzag, even those times it was so thick that it smothered the Bengal lights, the soldering flares roaring at theatre exits, raging forges, but no matter: you couldn’t make them out any more, the fog conquers all! It feels like the entire mist is going to seize hold of the city. Nobody but Nelson could find his bearings in such weather… No matter whereabouts in London, whatever the lost soul, whatever the destination, he never landed at the wrong address, in the wrong square, the wrong dead end, he could have spotted a ghost from one mist hidden in another… And yet London streets are real killers, a fuck-you layout, their street numbers all cockeyed and ass-backwards… Yet never once did he get fouled up, he’d hit the bull’s-eye every time, the doorbell – gentlemen, there you see! The missus is home! And with a “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” he’d charge off to scrounge up new clients. He’d bring in five, six pounds easy just like that in one afternoon… From the peristyle he’d draw his whole pack of wanderers: “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Any direction! Follow me!” He’d lead them off just as he found them, people of every stripe to all corners of London, skinny misses, fat slobs, characters from Afghanistan, Peru, China, Panama, plus plain old ordinary folk from the country… gatherings of those struck dumb, alarmed by the sudden fogs. He’d sort of use the confusion to his advantage, the fact help
less people would blank out about their belongings… Even given that he didn’t get out of hand… As a guide, beyond reproach! He’d bring them all into home port, to the exact address! He’d really up his take on days the fog rolled in. He’d stash away his chromos at the first wisp of cotton stuffing… Actually he had a great location for his racket, his kind of place, Trafalgar Square: it’s a real circus, a genuine rendezvous for the clouds… the mists come pouring in from every direction in thick cushions, gigantic whirls… the customers had every reason in the world to fly into a panic, especially since it’s slimy and slippery. He had to walk them across the street hand in hand, plus keep crying “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” over and over again, single-filing along the shop windows… “Lady, watch your step!”… He was a born joker, with a great sense of humour… always horsing around to set people’s minds at ease… All that on top of his “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!”
Ah! It all comes back once I start thinking… Ah! It’s him! I guessed right! That face of his! I did hear him, I wasn’t dreaming! Right in front of Pépé it was all coming back to me… The oddball in person!
“Pépé!” I go. “Nelson’s here! You’ve got to let me see him!”
I’m sure he’s a stoolie… I want to look him square in the eye…
“No,” she answers back, “you’re not coming in!…”
“But I know your visitor!”
She moans again, but so loud, acting like a Little Miss Innocent offended by the likes of me.
“You know him?” she asks.
“Sure do! Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Right! Sure do!… Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” I call him just like that…
“Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” he answers me back from inside.
“You’re not going to talk about anything?…”
Now she’s the one who’s scared.
“No! No! That’s a promise… But how’d he wind up here?”
“He was looking for you…” she whispers… selling him out already…
“How’d he find you?”
Yet another riddle.
So, anyway, at least I enter, walk inside, find him on the bed. “Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep!” he greets me raised glass in hand, tickled pink, sprawled out. He’s made himself at home…
“Hi! Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! You’re sloshed, how’s it going?”
I light into him, he disgusts me.
“You can see for yourself, pal!… You can see for yourself!”
He doesn’t get sore.
“What the hell are you doing around here?”
I’m finding out a few things.
“Having a good time, wouldn’t you say? Don’t you have eyes? I’m having a good time! Plus I’m looking for you, you brat! Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Old pal! Ah! How glad I am to find you!”
He wants to get up and give me a hug.
“Why’re you so happy?”
“Cos you’re going to give me my two pounds!”
“Two pounds of what?”
“For me to keep my trap shut!”
We needed to hash this out.
He rearranged himself on the bed. He breaks into a serenade:
Hello, my beautiful stranger!
Hello! Hello!
Then he flops back down, stretches out.
“A drink! A drink, darling!”
He’s placing an order. They’re on the best of terms, I can see that right away… She comes back with a bottle… Rum… she pours… for my benefit she acts like this really bothers her… putting on airs… then he grabs her… sits her down… oh! Man, what a tramp! He starts feeling her up, turning her upside down… she protests…
“Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Quit it now!” she squeals.
He kisses her… they tumble back together. Such guffaws!
“Darling! Darling! I love you!”
She warms to him… digs out the flask from under the bedstead… they serve each other, and they’re not stingy either!… Using the same glass to drink to my good health!… The floor’s all scattered with rose leaves, petals, sprinkled down from the baskets… She pulled the same trick on him! Ah! I know how she works! The come-on! Her little scam with the photos!… So it’s working like a charm, not one false move, and I show up right for the grand finale!… Pépé’s one of a kind! He slips me an obscene comment, along the lines of whether I wouldn’t say he was hung like a horse. And his father was a groom at the racetracks at Maisons-Laffitte!… Now that’s a laugh! Absolutely hysterical! The pair of them doubling over with laughter!… She needs to forget all her woes!… And right then the memory hits her again hard… and she’s back blubbering something horrible…
“Shut up! Shut up!” he cuts her off… won’t have any tears around him! He starts cuddling back on her lap… they’re hugging again!… Ah! Jesus! Enough already! I’d like to have a chat with him! I tug him by the feet!…
“Who’s looking for me, huh? Out with it, Nelson!”
Seeing as how he’s in a good mood now… Maybe he’ll feel like flapping his gums!
“Hold on, bub! Just wait! I’m going to tell you…”
He’s all eager to tell me about it. He lifts Pépé back onto his lap…
“There you go! There you go!”
Big loud burps, he feels better…
“Here goes! Here goes!” he starts telling me… “So then, Angèle shows up this one night, his old lady Angèle! You know her! Madame Cascade to be more precise!… She nabs me right in the middle of one of my performances… chalk in hand, can you picture it!… A mob scene… and she starts yapping at me!… She goes: ‘Not a minute to lose! Nelson! Nelson! Big emergency!’ That’s a quote. ‘Cascade’s asking for you! Quick, get yourself over to the Leicester! Shake a leg, move it!…’ You know me, right, obliging, helpful and quick, despite being the invalid I am… but all the same this was a disaster… I had people crammed in on top of my doodles! Tourists, respectable types!… In fact I was just finishing an Eiffel Tower… she insists… begs… I give in… drop everything… Very good! You know Cascade! Always ready to go off the deep end! I don’t want any hard feelings! Don’t want to rub him the wrong way for anything in the world!… I owe him too many favours… Plus you know that I never lose one cent with Cascade!… But his old lady’s another story!… First things first, so I ask Angèle: ‘So this is for your husband, right? Not you?’ ‘It’s for him, at two pounds an hour!’ Ah! I was hooked! ‘It’s a very tricky manhunt…’ Oh! As soon as I hear that I’m ready to go! I’m always interested in hunts!… So you can see how it happened!… Oh! Oh! Oh!…”
And he’s laughing again at the memory of how this had fallen into his hands… how he had snapped into action… and Angèle, and hustle, hustle, hustle! And then he and Pépé are back billing and cooing… I witness their little romance blossom into sloppy kisses and tiny squeals… they don’t notice me any more…
“Come on! Come on!…” I pull them apart… “Come on! Out with it then, you lousy creep!”
“Here goes! Here goes! As I was telling you, she’s saying to me: ‘Cascade’s in on this! It’ll be worth more than your finger paintings… Get a move on!…’ I race over… here I am… you get what I’m saying… Soon as I get there he lights into me: ‘My dear Nelson! What about the Chinaman! Have you seen the Chinaman on that Trafalgar Square of yours? Did you catch a glimpse of him? The Chinaman! The Chinaman in his dressing gown?’ That’s how he lays into me. I laugh. ‘Chinaman… Chinaman… it depends!… There’re lots of Chinamen around…’ I’d seen loads… no exaggeration… Chinamen of all shapes and stripes! I don’t know whether he was one of them! Whole battalions in front of my pictures! Little ones, big ones, in-between ones… ‘You’ll have to be more precise!… A Chinaman’s not some seven-day wonder!’ So he starts filling in the details… In a nutshell his Chinaman’s a phoney… according to what I could make out… in reality he was a Frenchman, camouflaged in a gown… a wild get-up… green gown with a yellow dragon over his ass… a guy in disguise, incognito… he gave me a quick sketch… the way he talked… h
is mannerisms… his face… I know the fellow! Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Ah! The weirdo!… Always clinging to his umbrella… plus that frock of his stuffed with rolls of paper… always on the move… strutting all over the centre of town practically, but especially out around Dover… Bond Street… ‘Tuhwheep! Tuhwheep! Got it!… I’ll catch him for you in no time!…’ ‘He’s always tomcatting around girls… hurting them… pinches their bottoms till they bleed!…’ Say! That rings a bell!… A sex pervert!… Finette’d mentioned him… A Chinaman, right… Just hold on one second, I’m trying to remember!… Ah! Then all at once it comes back to me!… She’d even spotted him with you!… You can see what I’m getting at… ‘He some fairy?’ I ask… I meant you… I could see he was looking for you too… ‘No, he’s not the type,’ he answers back… ‘The whole business is fishy, a con in the works!…’ Ah! So that was bad news then… I understood that he was hot and bothered. That you and this Chinaman were pulling some rotten trick on him… that you’d left his digs with a few schemes in your head… ‘A little squirt I’d picked up off the street!… who didn’t pan out… and is double-crossing me now! Catch that Chink! You’re the eagle eye! Get your ass moving! I got to have him! And the kid too!’ ‘All right! All right! No problem, Cascade!…’ No bargaining with that guy, I know the way he operates… I tear out of there!… He doesn’t like hemming and hawing!…”
London Bridge Page 6