September Song

by Colin Murray

  I shrugged. ‘Haircut, shave. Might pop in to the Antelope.’

  Downstairs, the telephone in the shop started to ring, but its shrill insistence was dulled by distance. I looked at Jerry. He made a little moue. It stopped ringing. We both knew it was too early for the call to be about shop business, and neither of us had much of a social life so we knew it was most likely Les Jackson ringing to ask me how his current matinee idol had behaved on his night on the town. I didn’t much want to tell him. Les was the unfortunate managing director who had the wayward Philip Graham under contract. And I was the unfortunate minder who Les was currently paying quite well to ensure that young Philip didn’t get into too much trouble when he went on the town.

  ‘When I was in Paris . . .’ I began.

  Jerry held up his hand. ‘Tony, my friend, I love you dearly, but I do know that you spent the first two weeks of August in Paris. You really don’t need to preface every statement with those words.’

  ‘Sorry if I’m boring you,’ I said. ‘If you don’t like the conversation, you can always risk Enzo’s tea and bacon sandwiches.’

  ‘Don’t get tetchy,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said. But I was. ‘All I was going to say was that I went to a jazz club you would have liked. There was a saxophonist, Bobby Jasper, played your kind of stuff.’

  ‘You know your problem?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘What’s my problem?’

  ‘You’ve got the post-holiday blues. You’ve been away. It was exotic and different. Now you’re dissatisfied with your lot. Well, get used to it, my friend. This particular lot –’ he looked around the dusty bare room with something close to disdain flickering around his lips – ‘is all you’ve got.’

  He was, of course, right.

  I, too, looked around the room and shared his almost-disdain. It wasn’t much to show for nearly thirty-three years of life.

  And I was getting boring about Paris.

  Downstairs, the phone started ringing again. Jerry and I stared at each other gloomily. The sharp lines of his pale, lean face were accentuated by the black stubble and the dark circles under his eyes. Even so, he still looked very young to me, without his goatee. I remembered why he’d shaved it off, and my thoughts drifted back to Paris and Ghislaine.

  ‘We’ll have to answer that damned phone eventually,’ Jerry said, getting to his feet. ‘It might as well be sooner rather than later.’ He paused at the door. ‘Thanks for the tea, Tony. No offence intended.’

  I shook my head. ‘None taken,’ I said, which wasn’t strictly speaking true.

  I sat slumped at the table, listening to him thump his way down the stairs and then waited to hear what music he’d play. It was usually Charlie Parker these days, but he occasionally surprised me.

  This morning was one of those occasions. The joyous sound of Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Lil Armstrong and Baby Dodds launching exuberantly into ‘Muskrat Ramble’ bounced up the stairs.

  I smiled. It’s simply impossible not to when you hear that. Anyway, it was Jerry’s way of apologizing for any upset his uncharacteristic, early-morning crankiness may have caused, and, as an apology, it was completely acceptable.

  I stirred myself and drifted back into my other room. It was time to prepare for the day.

  I was just leaving my flat when the phone rang again and Jerry answered it.

  He poked his head out of the door that led from the passageway at the foot of the stairs into the shop and saw me. ‘It’s Les,’ he said.

  I nodded and ran down and into the shop. The big, black phone was on the counter by the cash register on top of an unstable pile of invoices. I picked up the receiver. ‘Les,’ I said, ‘how are you?’

  ‘I’ll be honest, Tony, I’ve been better. The thing is, I’m missing a leading man.’

  ‘Les,’ I said, ‘the last time I saw him, he was heading out of a jazz club with specific instructions to go home. He wasn’t happy about it, but I couldn’t force the issue because I was tidying up after him. In short, doing what you pay me to do.’

  There was a long silence that sounded very like a sigh.

  ‘I’m not blaming you, Tony. There’s only so much you can do with some of them. But he wasn’t answering at his flat when the car went to collect him this morning. He’s not picking up the phone, and he hasn’t shown up at the studio. It’s costing money. Serious money. And most of it is mine. Find him, Tony. Please. You will not be out of pocket.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, Les,’ I said. ‘But I’m not promising anything. If he’s decided to take a little holiday, he could be anywhere.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Just give it your best shot. You’ve never let me down yet.’

  Oddly enough, that was more or less true.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘By the way, can you come over to the office later?’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s something a bit personal I’d like to discuss.’ He sounded a bit hesitant, almost embarrassed. That wasn’t at all like Les.

  ‘Will half two be OK?’ I said.

  ‘Fine. And if you’ve got the Brylcreem queen in tow, so much the better.’

  ‘He’s not a queen, Les,’ I started to say, but he’d already hung up.

  I put the receiver back on the cradle and sniffed.

  Jerry wandered into the shop. ‘Trouble?’ he said.

  ‘My boy’s gone AWOL,’ I said.

  ‘Hardly your fault,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘no one, not even Les – surprisingly – is suggesting that I could have done much about it. But, all the same, it is my problem. Les has asked me to find him.’

  ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Where are you going to start?’

  ‘Where I was always going to start,’ I said. ‘With a haircut and a shave at Vic’s.’

  ‘Well, good luck with that too. I hope the DTs are under control this morning.’

  ‘Vic doesn’t have the DTs,’ I said. ‘It’s just a slight tremor . . .’

  Jerry laughed and patted my shoulder condescendingly. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘just like the slight tremor that reduced San Francisco to rubble back in 1906.’

  Jerry had received the rudiments of a good education back when I was fighting for king and country, but I don’t hold that against him. Much.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘there’s a terrific singer at Pete’s Place. Jeannie Summers. Fancy going there tonight?’

  ‘Not heard of her,’ he said, shaking his head.

  I wasn’t sure whether that meant that he was open to the experience or if he was dismissing the idea. I shrugged and left the shop. He’d probably come.

  TWO

  It was another lovely morning, and I walked in bright sunshine along Church Road, past the green-grassed slope that led to the London Electrical Wire Company, past the dull brick of Church Road School where the low buzz of dull rote-learning sighed from open windows, past Etloe House, behind the tall walls and solid gates of which the grey-robed Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary discreetly cared for destitute girls, and past the looming presence of the big Caribonum factory, with the wonderful sound of The Hot Five still bouncing around in my bonce, until I arrived at the little row of shops where Victor Cardew snipped hair – and, just occasionally, ear lobes.

  I walked a little further and stood in among the cracked concrete bristling with stinging nettles, dandelions and dusty convolvulus of one bomb-site and looked across at another, the one where my parents’ house had stood. I thought of Mama, Papa and Grand-père for a moment or two. I’d been in France when they died, drinking vin baptisé in sufficient quantities to be very drunk, celebrating the liberation of Paris, and I hadn’t seen them in nearly two years. Like so many others, we’d never had the chance to say goodbye. I’d thought that the pain of missing them would have dimmed after eleven years. It hadn’t. But then neither had the memories. It seemed that in order to keep the one, I had to keep the other.<
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  Having paid my respects, I retraced my steps back to Vic’s.

  I was sweating slightly, but the harsh, nose-wrinkling smells of the lotions and powders Vic applied to hair, faces and necks would mask any odours emanating from me.

  Vic was a sour, dapper, little man whose accounts I’d look over for him, to make sure they would make sense to Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes. Vic didn’t like me knowing that much about his business affairs, but I was cheaper than a legit accountant.

  He looked up from the neatly trimmed grey head he was fastidiously pecking at with the scissors. ‘Hello, Tony,’ he said. ‘Is it that time of year already?’

  ‘Don’t come it, Vic,’ I said. ‘I was in here not three weeks ago.’ I remembered what Jerry had said and bit off the ‘after I got back from Paris’.

  He gave me a bleak smile. ‘It was just, from the state of your hair, I thought it must have been longer,’ he said.

  I ignored him and took a seat next to the thin-faced young man who was idly flicking through an elderly copy of Reveille, paying particular attention to the pictures of young starlets that graced its grubby and torn pages. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place him. He probably just reminded me of someone.

  Vic stepped back from the chair, appraised the haircut he had just wrought and, seeing that it was good, swished his razor up and down the leather strop a few times. He stepped back to the haircut and carefully stroked the razor along the back of the man’s neck. Then, in a cloud of magical barber’s powder, he flourished a mirror so the customer could see the back of his head and nod appreciatively.

  The old boy stood up and pressed silver into Vic’s hand. Vic took a clothes brush to the man’s suit jacket and trousered the money. Clearly, he couldn’t see any point in troubling his till.

  After the ritual pleasantries had been grunted and the pensioner marched briskly out of the shop, the young man settled noisily into Vic’s creaking and complaining red leatherette and chrome chair, waiting for the white cloth that Vic was flourishing to cocoon him.

  As my thoughts drifted back to the night before and Jeannie Summers, I was dimly aware of the hollow-cheeked, pasty-faced youth waving his left hand at Vic and sniggering.

  ‘Blimey,’ Vic said, ‘that’s a wedding ring, ain’t it? So, you’re getting it regular now, you randy little devil.’

  The youth sniggered again. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘she loves it.’

  ‘Mind you, that’ll cramp your style with all the others,’ Vic said.

  ‘Nah,’ the boy said, ‘I’m wearing it on me finger, not me prick. And, anyway, it’s good to have a reserve at home.’ He paused. ‘Especially one who’s always ready to play – in any position.’

  Something about the way they both laughed, in an unpleasant, sleazy, conspiratorial way, really cheesed me off, and I stood up. ‘You know what, Vic?’ I said, aware that I was about to sound like a complete prig. ‘I think I’ll find somewhere else to get my hair cut.’

  He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘Just for now?’ he said.

  ‘No, something more long term,’ I said.

  ‘Any particular reason?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t much care for the conversation,’ I said.

  He looked puzzled and then shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I can probably stand the loss of your custom. Sling your hook.’ And he jerked his thumb at the door. The boy sniggered again.

  I took one step towards the chair and stared down at the lad. ‘You,’ I said, ‘should show some respect to your wife.’

  The boy’s mouth turned down in an ugly sneer. ‘Bugger off, mush,’ he said. ‘How I talk about my wife is my business.’

  ‘Not when you do it in front of me,’ I said. ‘In front of me, you show her some respect.’ And I turned and left, feeling a little bit foolish but, when I thought of Ghislaine, of Mrs Williams, the widow I’d been spending pleasant Saturday evenings with for a few years, and, finally, of Jeannie Summers, unrepentant. In fact, I almost wished he’d given me cause to wallop him. It occurred to me that, for someone who liked the quiet life, I hadn’t been keeping my head down anything like enough over the past twelve hours. Philip Graham would have blood in his eye the next time he saw me, and I’d just seriously cheesed off Vic, and a kid I didn’t know, for no good reason.

  I felt better out in the sunshine – although I still needed a shave, badly, and a haircut, less urgently – and I started walking briskly towards the tube station. Then I remembered who the boy reminded me of and some of the spring left my step.

  I’d come across Dave Mountjoy before the war. I’d just left school, so it must have been the summer of 1937, when I was fourteen. My dad’s painting and decorating business was a one man and a dog affair, and, for a month or two, I’d been the dog, mixing plaster, stirring paint, preparing walls, making tea and carrying ladders.

  Mountjoy was a scrap-metal merchant with a biggish house in Woodford Green, and for four weeks Papa and I had cycled there at eight o’clock in the morning and stayed until six o’clock in the evening, except on Saturday when we knocked off at four. We decorated the kitchen, lounge, dining room, hall, bathroom and three bedrooms and never got paid a penny. Mountjoy found fault with the plastering, with the colour of the paint, the quality of the paper-hanging and so on. In fact, about the only thing he didn’t object to was my tea-making. Of course, he’d never tasted my tea. But his reasons for not ponying up had little to do with the job we’d done and more to do with deep-seated and strongly held beliefs.

  Mountjoy didn’t believe in paying for anything, unless he could help it, and, because he was a villain, and a fairly nasty one, he could be very unpleasant. My dad reckoned that we’d done the work and bought the paint so we ought to be recompensed. And Papa, unfortunately, could be very obdurate. He finally went to confront Mountjoy at the scrapyard off Temple Mills Lane, thinking to embarrass him in front of his father, uncle and brothers. As a tactic, it didn’t work out too well. It turned out that not only was Mountjoy unembarrassable but the entire clan held the same basic philosophy on paying bills. It could have been worse. They knocked Papa about a bit, but he was only laid up for a couple of weeks.

  It must have been about then that my mother decided I should be articled to a small accountancy firm, where my experience as a qualified tea-maker really came into its own.

  Now that I thought about it, Mountjoy had a couple of boys roaring about the house at the time. The younger one had been a toddler, which would make him about twenty now, so it could have been him. He had the same thin face as his father, the same lank dark hair, a similar wiry build – though he was slightly taller and heavier – and he certainly seemed to be every bit as charmless. It occurred to me that he might have been away, either doing time or his National Service. I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t thumped him.

  I found a barber close to Hoxton Films’ office in Wardour Street, and he only charged me twice as much as Vic would have done. Still, the shave was a good one and the haircut more than passable. And my ears and cheeks escaped unscathed, without so much as a nick. I didn’t even smell quite as poncey as I would have done emerging from Vic’s. All in all, apart from the odd shilling or two, it wasn’t a bad result. I didn’t even mind losing the fiver Vic slipped me for cooking his books for him. In fact, I wasn’t altogether sure that I had. When he discovered what a legit accountant would charge him, he’d probably remember that he was a thoroughly unprincipled individual and suggest that bygones be bygones. Whether I’d agree was, of course, a different matter.

  I strode up Wardour Street, signally failing to turn any heads. Still, I felt better about my appearance.

  The dingy reception area of Hoxton Films was unusually quiet. One scrawny messenger lad tapped his foot on the worn carpet and took long, greedy drags on his cigarette while he waited for someone to notice he was there.

  I slumped down on the lumpy, brown sofa, content to sit for a few minutes until Daphne reappeared from h
er trip to the Ladies. I shouldn’t have been there anyway. I was more than two hours early for my two thirty appointment with Les. But, of course, I wasn’t there for that. I wanted to hear what Daphne made of the summons. As Les’s ex-wife and in-house nemesis, she made it her job to know what he was up to and she’d happily tell me what it was all about. She’d also know if Philip Graham had appeared on the set yet and so save me a trip to his flat and a whole lot of unnecessary grief if he had.

  After about ten minutes, the messenger was getting decidedly antsy. The drags on his second cigarette were shorter, and the rhythm of his tapping was faster and erratic. He’d never make a decent drummer. I decided to put him out of his misery and stood up.

  ‘If you’re in a hurry,’ I said, ‘I’ll sign for that. Who’s it for?’

  ‘Er . . .’ He looked down at the package. ‘Mr Leslie Jackson,’ he said. He looked at me. ‘You work here then?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said, picking a pen off Daff’s desk and advancing on him with malice aforethought.

  He thought about it for a few seconds and then put the package on the desk and thrust a crumpled docket at me. I scrawled my name, and he snatched the scrap of paper from me, murmured, ‘Cheers,’ and was gone.

  I stood by the desk for a minute or two and then picked up the package, negotiated my way through the door that led to the offices and strolled down the corridor, whistling ‘Let’s Face the Music’.

  Les heard me coming and was standing by his door when I arrived. He looked anxious and was rubbing his eyes which were a little bloodshot.

  ‘Tony,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said, handing over the package.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘no. I meant about the other thing. I just got the call. Phil Graham arrived on the set ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said. ‘Good.’