And they adore him for it.
An overhead shot reveals that the crowd in Trafalgar Square has swollen to capacity. A polite riot looms. Shoving, swaying, jostling for position—the better to see the man in white—the crowd gets slightly out of hand. Police link arms to push and contain the besotted. In a touching echo of bygone times, Christians are thrown to the bronze lions.
Next, a slow song breaks out like a four-minute itchy rash, causing much gazing at the sky, hands on hearts during the chorus, and some serious shoe-considering during the instrumental. Cliff emotes, mums swoon, grown men mist up and run their fingers morosely through their sideburns.
Flowers dot the stage and have been landing like God’s grenades since Cliff’s arrival. When the song stumbles to a halt he bows from the waist, and while he’s down there he flicks a rose petal off the toe of his white platform shoe.
Cliff says one more number and then he has to go. Cue the cheers from the back row of the cinema. It’s a singalong and everybody else is on their feet, swaying and baying. Afterward, Cliff exits, blowing kisses, touching outstretched fingers and gratefully accepting bouquets.
Are there Christian groupies? I wonder. Tarty little Mary Magdalenes with kneepads and a backstage pass?
Roll credits. Time-lapse long shot of dispersing crowd. We don’t need no stinkin’ time-lapse long shot, we’re out of here. In the lobby we stand, an island unto ourselves, Christians eddying around us. We snicker and shake our skulls. Then along comes Slats, full of chat, millipede eyebrows jumping on his forehead.
“So, what did you think, lads? Cliff? Still got it, right? Palm of his hands and all that? Eating out of it, they were. I heard you, lads—naughty comments. Never mind that, though. Let’s get moving.” He herds us through the believers, out the door and into the night.
Our limo is parked beside a newsagent. In we climb and Slats presses a button to lower the glass partition that separates us from the driver. “All right, Edgy . . . Edgerton? Good, lovely. Onward, squire.”
“Righty-ho,” says the driver. “Don’t forget, you’ve got the eleven o’clock run to Gatwick. I’m off at ten and . . .” but feverish button pressing raises the partition and cuts the driver off mid-gaffe.
The car zooms off, and we are just about to start criticizing the film when Slats pokes a finger into the upholstery and—presto!—out pops a bar. As Fluff Freeman would say, “Way-hey, not ’arf.” First round gets served and disappears down our respective hatches. Two whiskeys, a gin, and a couple of cognacs. Big ones. Second round, and we’re helping ourselves.
Slats Silverstein is nervous, twitchy. “Steady, lads, steady. Plenty of evening left. Best behavior, mind. Powerful people you’ll meet. Best not to say much. Leave it to me, yeah?”
Alcohol doesn’t waste time going straight to your cerebral cortex when you haven’t eaten a crumb. I’ve no idea where we are or where we’re going. There goes Lancaster Gate, Bayswater, but I’m not sure. Before I can ask for my third drink we are delivered to an address in what appears to be Holland Park. A chap wearing white gloves disturbs the peace by opening our door and, by gesturing ludicrously like an escaped mime, indicates that we should exit. Reluctantly, we do, tumbling out, drinks in hand.
Once inside, whew, what a joint. Whopping great rooms, ceilings way up there, chandeliers dripping with sparkling crystal, gleaming wooden floors dotted here and there with expensive-looking Arab ruggery. Dark wood, knobbly-kneed tables, chairs, desks, Art Deco lamps, huge oil paintings of humorously unattractive people—this world bears no relation to our existence in the boondocks of Bushey.
But the main attraction for us is a long table piled high with glorious food in tureens, bowls, on trays, platters, and gilt-edged plates. Naturally, we head straight for it. Where to start?
Frogified squares of pâté on cross sections of baguette, cheeses, smoked salmon, oysters, leg of lamb, Cornish game hens, roast beef and tons of it. We pounce on the feast and eat, and eat some more, until we are sated. Maybe. This is light years removed from a box of eels or a packet of stuffing.
Waiters keep showing up and forcing glasses of champagne into our hands. We are far too well-mannered to decline. The bubbly goes down nicely and sits well on top of the three large cognacs I guzzled in the limo.
Down the other end of this aircraft carrier of a table is the dessert section, featuring treats as varied and succulent as the victuals up this end: cakes, tarts, tortes, trifle, custard, cream, pastries, puddings, and more.
An extremely wide woman, wearing a black spangled pup tent suspended about her girth by spaghetti straps so sunk into her blubbery shoulders as to appear to be emerging straight from her flesh, pushes a cream-filled éclair into her gaping mouth. While chewing, she licks the fingernails of one hand while the other gropes for more. She’s like a five-car collision. I just can’t look away.
Annoyingly, Slats shows up. “All right, lads? Nice food? Leave some for others. I want you to meet some people. Best behavior. And mind the language, for fuck’s sake.”
I take in the rest of the crowd. Same bunch as back at the cinema, bolstered by a couple of dozen upmarket liggers. A bit short on the Pinewood starlets, though. I spy a bow tie here, a floor-length gown there, a monocle, which I covet, by the way.
A few men of the cloth are in evidence, local vicar types, recognizable not only by the white collars and puff-pastry pallor, but also by the lascivious looks on their faces as they stare down the fronts of ladies’ dresses or, alternately, gaze longingly at the departing bums of the waiters.
There are knots of people here and there. Perhaps Cliff is in the midst of one, surrounded by a coterie of fawning sycophants. We are led to one such gathering, in the center of which stands a large man with a black coat draped theatrically over his shoulders. Underneath, he is wearing a beige safari suit. A shock of unruly white hair flops forward into his eyes, only to be flicked back with a jerk of his head at thirty-second intervals. His face is very animated, especially the mouth part, out of which comes . . .
“And so I say, ‘At least Larry didn’t desert the stage the minute Louis B. snapped his fingers,’ and Liz shrieks—she’d had a snootful—‘Richard did not desert the stage, you . . .’ and then she called me a ten-letter word beginning with ‘C.’”
The ladies surrounding him do the arithmetic and the spelling, and giggle on cue. Slats elbows through the throng. “Jack, Jack. How are you, Jack? Loved the film, the movie.” The man looks at Slats Silverstein, impresario extraordinaire, as though he can’t quite place him but nonetheless finds him distasteful. Undeterred, Slats presses on. “I’d like you to meet these chaps. Jack, I give you the Hollywood Brats.”
Jack turns his attention our way, looks us up and down, and says with a plummy voice, “Lovely plumage. Is this your manager?”
Slats blurts in. “Ah yes, well, in negotiations, many a slip twixt and all that. We’re toing, we’re froing—feeling each other . . . out, you know. Boys, this is Jack Swackhammer.”
Jack Swack sticks out a hand and proceeds to crush all of ours. “Hey, boys, pleased to meet you. Hollywood, huh? Wild stuff, wild stuff. I see you’ve been enjoying the hospitality.” He gestures at the front of Eunan’s black velvet jacket, covered in pastry crumbs. “Were you at the premiere?”
We nod. At this point it strikes me that I am actually quite drunk. The room has gone a bit dream-sequence, as in a psychedelic film—The Trip, for instance. Jack continues, “So, tell me, from your perspective, as musicians, what did you think of our little celluloid adventure?”
Little celluloid adventure? Where does he get this stuff? I grab another glass of champers from a passing waiter. It occurs to me that the other lads are waiting for me to answer the man’s question. Drat. I drain half the glass and give it a go. “Well, sorry but we don’t think your little celluloid adventure was all that good, actually.”
There is a col
lective gasp.
“Indeed,” says Jack, flicking his hair back with a vengeance.
“Well, yeah. If anything, it did suggest that the devil does indeed have the best jukebox.” Jack goes pink and does another hair flick.
“Oh, it did, did it? Is that what it proved?” He looks back at his retinue and gives them a slight shake of the head.
As I drain my glass of champagne I can’t help reflecting that, according to the biography I recently read, Napoleon is reputed to have designed the champagne glass to perfectly fit the dimensions of the Empress Josephine’s breast. Must have had a bit of time on his hands that week, saucy tyrant. Though it must be said, on this evidence the girl had modest jugs. I continue, “Yeah, well, I mean in terms of Cliff’s career it’s no Expresso Bongo now, is it?”
Aside from general unrest and sputtering from the Swackman, things go all awkward and quiet. Silence is not as golden as the Tremeloes would have us believe. Right here, right now, it’s just the tiniest bit leaden and uncomfortable. Slats looks like he wants to disappear, immediately after murdering me.
All is decidedly not well. I don’t want us to be turfed from this Aladdin’s cave at such an early juncture. I snatch another glass of champagne as it tries to sneak by unnoticed on a tray. I’m lost, adrift—can’t think of a mollifying something to murmur.
From over my right shoulder a voice comes to my rescue. “I think I can answer that.”
The impact of these words on the people surrounding me is immediate and galvanizing. They gasp, they fawn, they go all leg-before-wicket, for the speaker is none other than the great Bongo Herbert himself. The man whose very name invites you to run to the edge and throw yourself off: Cliff.
He sticks out his hand and shakes mine. He stretches his lips over his incisors, the better to display his two-story pearly smile. He is tanned, coiffed, and resplendent in appalling garb. He says, no he really does, “I applaud the opinions of this young man, refreshingly candid, I say. And to answer . . . hello, Jack . . . to address the point, what was it, Expresso Bongo? Cheeky. You remember that one? I participated in Jack’s film for the simple reason that I believe in the cause.”
The people in the room applaud. A scrum ensues. We are engulfed by Christians, and Cliff and I are parted by the throng. That was wild. I am feeling a bit queasy. P’raps one last glass of champagne to settle things down.
I must have a slash. In fact, it’s beyond that. I’m bursting. I just noticed. This is desperate. Off in search of a loo. Waiter points down that way. Down that way I go, and within thirty seconds I’m lost in a leafy hallway with ferns and other jungle greenery. Half expect to see a chimp come swinging along. In the bladder department this is getting perilously close to the point of no return. Try this door, no, a cloakroom. Try this one. No. And another. No. I’m unashamedly holding my knob through my trousers now, throttling the bastard. Squeezing it round the throat. Don’t you dare, mate.
Try yet another door: locked, but with watery sounds within. Two hands on Percy, choking him to death. Bouncing up and down, cross-legged, bending at the waist, pogoing back and forth in the hall, squealing quietly. Tears in my eyes. Niagara Falls at the end of my penis, held back only by a two-fisted tourniquet. I can’t do it. I just can’t hold out.
Whip elegant vase off small table, look around, coast is clear, yank forth engorged penis, point it in, and let it go. Ahhh . . . blessed, blessed relief. The vase is deep and beautiful, white with blue Oriental nonsense all over it. There I stand, slightly bent at the knee, prick deep in the thing, staring at the ceiling, urinating like a racehorse, when the toilet door opens and out steps the fat lady in the black spangled pup tent.
Her hand flies up to her mouth, her eyes widen, she staggers back. Has she never been taught that it is impolite to stare? Despite her lapse in manners I can’t help but feel I am the one at a social disadvantage. I summon a degree of dignity.
“Good evening, madam.” Remarkably, I am still urinating. She, meanwhile, seems to have lost the ability to form coherent phrases.
“Well . . . I never . . . I should . . . oh, Lord.”
“Run along now, madam. As you can see, since you are not averting your gaze, all is well in hand.”
She backs, then waddles, off, thighs rubbing together like wet inner tubes. I have some privacy at last and, though perilously close to the brim, I finish with a one-spurt flourish and a quarter of an inch to spare. Ah, the relief of it all, indignities aside. I carefully place the vase back on the table, and while I am reholstering the love pistol and zipping up, another woman enters the loo, locking the door behind her.
Heading unsteadily back to the party zone, I am about to ambush a mime carrying a trayful when I feel a tug at the sleeve. Gadzooks, it’s Bongo himself.
“Excuse me. I was quite interested in what you were saying earlier. Your turn of phrase. Would you care for a cognac in the library?”
Cognac in the library? I’ve been waiting for invitations of this ilk my entire life, and now here it is. And with Bongo Herbert, no less. Lead on.
Back down the hall with the ferny foliage and the incriminating vase now steaming slightly in the cool air. Through this door and, wow, an actual library. Completely and utterly Basil Rathbone, with leather-bound volumes shelved to the ceiling, beautiful desk, fireplace with elbow-high mantel perfect for leaning, pipe in mouth, smoking jacket . . . Be still, my beating aspirations.
On one side there is an oxblood leather sofa, where I sit on its circular furry cushion, which turns out, yelpingly, to be an elderly dachshund.
“Oh sorry, sorry. Excuse me, I didn’t . . .”
“Not to worry, not to worry. I don’t think he’s supposed to be on the furniture anyway. Let’s just get a splash, eh?”
Bongo canters over to the liquor cabinet. He pours himself a small frothy green drink then tilts a crystal decanter and pours me three fingers’ worth of cognac into a snifter the size of a goldfish bowl. I am collapsed, spread-legged on the now-dachshundless sofa, with the room spinning before my eyes. I sit up straight and try to focus on Bongo as he approaches across the mile or so of floor space and hands me the fishbowl. This will straighten me out. Wow, it’s big. I could almost stick my whole head in.
Bongo chats away and I must concentrate. I walk that well-trodden line between not appearing overly chummy and yet still having my drink replenished at regular intervals. He asks about religion; I mention Ray Davies. He tilts his head back and laughs. Truth be told, even through the bleariest of double-visioned eyes, Bongo does appear to be in exceptional nick. Maybe he’s got an oil painting of George Sanders up in the attic.
He’s a conversational marvel, zipping here and there, offering opinions, asking questions, while at the same time remaining ever-attentive to my rapidly drained goldfish bowl. He really does have lovely teeth. And my front one broken and chipped at a time like this. Inquiries take a personal turn. I drain another fish tank while he asks me about my home life. All right, Bongo. You want it? You got it.
I describe our slum and I do not skimp on the adjectives. I chat about mice and lice, brackish tap water, raw sewage, Rattus norvegicus, and more. Then through the alcoholic haze I begin to consider that there may be the possibility of an outlay of Christian charity, and I begin to lay it on thicker. No food, no medicine, coppers at the door, Fairy Liquid shampoo . . . Lou would be better at this, but I forge ahead.
Bugs in the rugs, rickets, frozen feces, anything I can think of. Persecuting landlord, no toothpaste . . . this is worthy of a UNICEF campaign. I couldn’t have done better had I been a teary young black child covered in flies.
Bongo backs away, turns reflective, contemplative. He strokes his chin and drums his fingers on his knee. He comes up with something.
“I’m thinking. Would you boys like to get away from it all? I’ve got a place in the country. You guys could come and stay, relax, recharge the old b
atteries. How about it? You could rehearse, even. Bring your gear. Loads of room. Do you good. What do you say?”
I can’t believe my lugholes. What did he say?
“Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire. Not far. Fair-sized place. Rehearse, relax—do you the world of good.”
Bloody hell. I’m drunk but my ears do not deceive. Moments later I follow Bongo back toward the main room. The floor is uneven. Didn’t notice it before but it definitely slants this way and that. Makes it difficult to affect any semblance of a nonchalant stroll. In the hallway a small, old sausage mutt scratches his claws on the spindly leg of a table, sniffing at the vase on top.
In the main room, over by a pair of big, fat red lips fashioned by some recent escapee from an institute for the psychotically hilarious into a two-seater sofa, stands Stein with Chathammer. The other three lads lounge nearby and I head toward them. It is not easy to walk. Some strange geophysical force is making me veer to starboard. I lean my torso to port in a counterbalancing maneuver and bump into a couple of idiots who can’t seem to stay out of the way. I lurch up to the boys like Quasimodo. “Hey, lads. Guess what? We’re going to spend next weekend at Cliff’s joint in the country.”
They look back at me with uncomprehending, strange, twisted faces. Somewhere far off there is a crash of porcelain, a strangled bark.
And a scream.
VI
Twentieth of February dawns slate gray and bollocks freezing as usual. Another day in Bushey. Frost covers everything. This is court day. Lou and I get up early and dress as conservatively as possible. I dress in black: black trousers and shoes, black turtleneck, black overcoat, black scarf. If I had a top hat I’d look like a Victorian undertaker. We set out on the walk, teeth chattering and nervous all the way to Watford.
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