by Mike Ripley
I didn’t call any female friends, for the idea was to take Jo out. Yet the options seemed limited. Maybe I should socialise more. I settled for the party in Fulham on Bunny’s recommendation, arranging to meet him in a trendy pub in Covent Garden beforehand. Then I rang Jo, prepared to hang up if a man answered.
‘Hello, Celia,’ she said when she heard my voice. ‘How did you make out?’
‘Just fine. Mission accomplished. How would you like to reclaim your property? I take it I can’t call round.’
‘Quite right, Celia.’
‘So you’ll have to come to me. Can you sneak out tonight?’
‘Maybe later.’
I told her I’d be in the Maple Leaf in Covent Garden until about 9.00, then down in Fulham, and I gave her the address of the party and told her to ask for Louise.
‘Who’s Louise?’ she asked.
‘Damned if I know,’ I said truthfully, and she said Okay and See Ya and hung up.
I thought it a bit off that she’d never asked how I’d got her pendant back. I mean, I might have had to shove the split match heads under Carol’s fingernails, or tie her to a tree and subject her to psychological warfare by, say, reading Hemingway aloud to her.
Knowing Carol, of course, it would have made more sense to ask if I’d come out of things in one piece – the piece in question being in the genitalia region. But Jo had done neither. There’s gratitude for you.
Duncan had not returned Armstrong by 6.00, so I presumed it would be the next morning. I had no intention of taking the Transit up West – I’d had enough trouble round the launderette, which doubles as a common room for the junior branch of the Hackney National Front – so I left it parked outside the front door in exactly the spot where Frank and Salome usually plug in the nightlight for their VW Golf. (One day they’ll knit it a pullover.)
Anyway, that meant I could have a decent drink and trust to luck not to have to need a lift back.
Whenever possible, I try and make a point of taking something special to a party. Now I know what you’re thinking, but I mean to drink; something more appealing to women than the Carlsberg Special Brew brigade, something more interesting than Piesporter Michelsberg.
Stan at the local off-licence is my guide on this, though I think it’s really his way of getting rid of old stock. That night, it was Kummel, a fresh packet of Gold Flake and about 40 quid (30 drinking money, ten in another pocket for emergency taxi home or suchlike), and, dressed in my Who Bears Wins sweatshirt and long brown leather jacket, I was ready to roll. I wrapped Jo’s pendant in some soft toilet paper and lodged it in the jacket’s inside pocket. And I picked up a pack of contraceptives. I mean, it’s not that I’m scared by the Government’s advertising campaign on safe sex, I’m just very socially responsible.
I hopped on a bus to King’s Cross and then took a tube round to Leicester Square, missing out Covent Garden station as the lifts were out of action again. (There are prizes for anyone who can remember them working.)
The streets were full of theatregoers, tourists and buskers and ticket touts looking for the tourist theatregoer. I dropped some change to a lone mandolin player doing a slow-tempo ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’, partly because he was good and partly because he might do the same for me someday. Then I called in at the Vecchio Reccione near Stringfellows for a glass of Valpolicella and a bread stick. ‘The Vetch’ is a really good restaurant; so good, I can’t afford to eat there, but I have played there on occasions and most of the staff know me well enough to stop for a drink and a chat. Their trademark is anarchy. The waiters don’t have menus, they come and shout at you, and if you’re sitting ‘upstairs’ on the ground floor, as opposed to the much more plebby basement, then they turn the lights off every 20 minutes or so and all the diners have to dance by candlelight for two minutes whether they want to or not.
It was about 8.30 when I got to the Maple Leaf, London’s only Canadian pub. Thank God. When it first opened, it sold Molson Ale on draught, which is not a bad drink at all. Not an ale, but not bad. Nowadays it sells bottled lager, which the trendies drink from the bottle because it’s what they think Canadians do, and Watneys bitter at a leg-and-an-arm a pint. You can tell it’s a Canadian pub, because it has a lot of pine. Otherwise its only distinguishing feature is that the staff chalk up the latest Canadian baseball and ice hockey scores on a blackboard, genuinely believing that people are interested.
Bunny was already there, sitting with a couple of young girls straight out of what the advertising men call the Sharon and Mandy market, and a tall, thin, angular guy with close-cropped blond hair.
‘Just in time,’ said Bunny. ‘Two Pils and two halves of Snakebite. This is Dosh and Freddie.’ He pointed to the girls. ‘And this is Chase. Meet Angel.’
‘Angel? I wouldn’t mind him sitting on top of my Christmas tree,’ said either Dosh or Freddie. I made a note to find out which. If they were on Snakebite, I’d better do it quickly.
I got the drinks in and discovered that Dosh and Freddie were flat-sharing in Willesden and were both typists up from darkest Bedfordshire a mere three months before in search of bright lights, word-processor experience and more than six grand a year. God knows where Bunny had found them.
Chase turned out to be a tuba player, of all things, though I would have put him down as backing vocals for the Communards on appearances alone. While it’s always good to know the odd tuba player (and let’s face it, most of them are), Chase unfortunately was a fanatic, believing that there had been no good jazz since the King Oliver band. Because I said I liked the immortal Bix Biederbecke, he obviously thought I was avant garde and beyond redemption. Then I mentioned that I had a Lawson Buford tuba solo from 1927 somewhere in my record collection and I was back in favour. Which was a bad move, as I hate jazz bores and usually much prefer the company of bored typists from Willesden.
By 9.30 there was no sign of Jo, so I suggested we headed off to Fulham. Dosh and Freddie didn’t take much persuading, but Chase thankfully declined, saying that parties didn’t like him.
Bunny drove an old Vauxhall, probably older than himself, because it had a bench front seat and column change and gear levers got in the way. He made sure that Dosh – or Freddie – sat next to him, so I ended up with Freddie – or Dosh – in the back seat, and she was getting very friendly by the time we got to Knightsbridge.
The party was in a big house on Fulham Palace Road, and in full swing when we got there. In other words, the lights were off in the living-room except for the strobes around the disco where a lonely DJ was pumping out Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and all the guests at the party were in the kitchen cluttering up the fake-oak work-surfaces and obscuring the Neff oven.
Over by the spice rack, a George Michael lookalike was arguing with a Jimmy Sommerville doppelganger. They’d probably end up the best of friends. By the coffee machine, a real Medallion Man was boring two women with the ‘Lucky Harry’ joke. It wasn’t that they were prudish; I could tell they’d heard it before. A pair of nattily suited yuppie executives, complete with red-and-black braces, were sharing a bottle of lime-flavoured Perrier by the sink and discussing futures in the zinc market in between swapping Porsche stories. All in all, standard fare.
Bunny introduced me to a big redhead (the Fergie look) wearing a flimsy black party frock slit up both sides to reveal large expanses of lace-patterned black tights. You know, the sort that make thick calves look even thicker and are worn only by women with thick calves. Her name was Louise, she said, as she grabbed me and planted a long kiss, tongue first.
‘They told me trumpet-players could kiss,’ she said, breaking free.
‘Oh, and you thought they meant on the mouth?’ I said innocently.
Louise turned on her three-inch heels and clicked away. So much for our hostess.
‘I can see why you don’t get invited to many parties,’ said Bunny.
‘Bu
t I’ll survive as long as I can sponge off urbane socialites like you, Bunny.’
He ripped a couple of ring-pulls and offered me a lukewarm Fosters.
‘But I always voted Conservative.’
‘Let’s find Dosh and Freddie. I fancy some intellectual stimulation.’
Bunny raised no more than an eyebrow, and we shouldered our way through to the hall where Dosh and Freddie were discovering that they could really get to like Kummel.
Just after 11.00, more people began to arrive as the pubs chucked out, and so Dosh (or maybe it was Freddie) and I moved upstairs, where we’d found another front room that had been stripped of furniture and somebody had run a pair of extra speakers off the disco in the lounge. Again, the light level was subterranean, but there were no curtains, so a fair amount of yellow light came in from the streetlamps outside.
Dosh – I was pretty sure it was Dosh – and I danced some, and she finished off the Kummel, which meant we then had to sit down for a while near the window, where some scatter cushions had been laid. She told me how much more exciting Willesden was than rural Bedfordshire, despite the once-a-year trips to Milton Keynes. I also got to hear how she intended to jack in her job at the insurance brokers just as soon as they’d taught her how to use the word-processor, and go and work somewhere interesting like in an ad agency or for a travel agent. She confirmed my suspicions that the majority of office computers in London contain nothing more vital than the personal CVs of thousands of job-hunting junior staff. Maybe Bunny could learn to moonlight on a mainframe somewhere and tap into a whole new reference work of nubile young ladies. I’ll put it to him one of these days.
I was standing up, offering to go downstairs to get more drinks, and glancing out of the window when I saw Jo.
She arrived in a big BMW of the type the East End villains drive now that all the old Jags have been bought up by the TV stations to make cops and robbers series. And she got out of the passenger side, which meant somebody else was driving. (That was good thinking, I thought. Obviously I hadn’t had enough to drink.)
Sure enough, Jo leaned over to the driver’s window and said something to someone before she ran up the steps to the house.
‘Lemme get us some drinks,’ I said to Dosh.
‘Okay,’ she smiled. ‘Make mine a white swine.’
I found Jo in the hall trying to get through the scrum of people to the kitchen. What is it about kitchens at parties that brings out the homing pigeon in everybody? She’d been waylaid within ten feet of the front door, which didn’t surprise me, by a chinless wonder in a baggy suit and powder blue trainers. (Nobody wears trainers with a suit any more.) He was saying, would you believe, ‘And where have you been all my life?’
‘She wasn’t born for most of it,’ I interrupted, putting an arm round her and drawing her away.
Jo slipped an arm around my waist as we stood at the foot of the stairs.
‘You’ve got it?’
I produced the emerald pendant wrapped in the toilet paper. She covered it with her hand immediately as if she was trying to hide it from prying eyes. Actually, nobody gave us a second look, as they must have presumed I was trying to get her upstairs to get inside her knickers.
She crammed it, tissue and all, into the left pocket of her fur coat, which I hoped was either fake or farmed, without looking at it. Then she delved into an inside pocket and produced a brown paper bag, the sort you get at off-licences.
‘This is for you. It’s as much as I could get so quickly. I thought it would take you longer.’ She looked me in the eyes, not smiling.
‘One quick raid into enemy territory was all it took. I’d like to say it was nothing, but I’d be lying.’
I peeked in the bag. There was a half-bottle of vodka – ‘For the party,’ Jo whispered – and a bundle of £20 notes wrapped with an elastic band.
‘There’s two hundred there. It was all I could get out of the hole-in-the-wall this evening. I owe you another 50, as we agreed.’
‘I owe you something too,’ I said, mentally kicking myself.
‘What?’ Her eyes opened just that little bit too wide.
‘Your credit cards. I retrieved them too, but I’ve left them in my flat.’
‘You’re not holding out deliberately, are you? Trying to up the price?’ She took a step backwards, which was about as far as she could go in that hallway. Some more guests arrived and pushed by me, pushing me on to her.
‘Hey, now look ...’ I started.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking over my shoulder at the open front door. ‘I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I’ll get the money to you. Don’t worry about the cards, I’ll say I lost them or got mugged. Just get rid of them. I’ll send you the cash.’
She pulled the fur around her. ‘I must go.’
‘Hey, it’s no hassle. I can drop the cards round anytime.’
‘No.’ Emphatic. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t ring either. I’ll send you your money. Just stay clear.’ She touched me on the arm. ‘Please.’
Then she was gone, just like that, pulling the door closed.
I moved into the front room, where the disco had moved on to heavier metal (New Model Army, I think – a band to watch, despite their fans), but still nobody was dancing. From the front window, I saw Jo climb into the BMW and, as the interior light went on, I could make out the shape of the man driving. But only the shape. Still, what the hell business was it of mine?
I took the wad of twenties out of the bag and stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans. I decided to take the vodka up to Dosh and tell her it was white wine.
I screwed up the brown bag and flipped it behind one of the disco’s speakers. Jo must have at least four bankers’ cards to get £200 out of the hole-in-the-wall bank machines, I figured, as £50 is usually the limit. Curious. And even more curious – they don’t usually dispense £20 notes.
Still, mine not to reason why. It would pay the rent and keep the nice Mr Nassim Nassim off my back for another month. I pushed by a couple of drunks who had just appeared bearing the same bottle of Hirondelle they’d been using to get into parties all year and made my way upstairs.
I took it all philosophically. Never let women get you down. Well, not mentally. And anyway, Willesden isn’t such a bad place to wake up in, even with a hangover.
Chapter Eight
I found Bunny in the girls’ kitchen the next morning trying to find something to eat that wasn’t raw carrot, muesli or Ryvita, and something to drink other than herbal tea.
‘Sleep well?’ he said, straight-faced.
‘Fine. I think.’ My mouth felt as if I’d swallowed a cheese-grater, and my scalp had suddenly acquired radioactive dandruff. ‘How’s Freddie?’
‘How do I know? You slept with her.’
Oh Christ. That’ll teach me to look in future. I decided to bluff it out.
‘No, I was with Dosh.’
‘Yeah, until we got in the car to come here.’ He sniffed at a half-empty carton of goat’s milk yoghurt. There appeared to be nothing else in the small fridge. ‘Where did you get that bottle of tequila?’
‘It was vodka, wasn’t it?’
‘No, the one after the vodka. You spent half an hour looking for lemons and salt.’
Oh no.
I went to the sink and turned the cold tap on for a long drink to combat the dehydration. With my head turned sideways, I could see out of the window and through the house to Willesden Sports Centre, where a Sunday league football team was working out. Just watching them made me feel ill.
‘Do you wanna get out of here?’ I asked, straightening up gently.
‘Might as well, there’s nothing to eat.’
‘They must be on the F-Plan diet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You get fuck-all to eat.’
Bunny curled
a lip. ‘Oh, very quick. Not funny, but very quick. Come on, the pubs’ll be open in five minutes.’
Oh, you bastard, Bunny.
Funnily enough, I felt better after a couple of pints at a pub in Maida Vale; you know, the trendy one among Guardian readers that has the really stupid long name and brews its own beer in the cellar. Not that the hair of the dog remedy actually works; it just makes you forget how bad you feel for a while.
I lunched on a cheese roll and a packet of crisps while Bunny – no day is wasted – chatted up the sulking wife or girlfriend of one of the lunchtime real ale bores who was drinking his way round the hand-pumps with a group of mates. At one point, I saw Bunny write something, probably her phone number, on a drip mat and slip it into the back pocket of his jeans. Like a flash, I thought to check my pockets.
All my cash was accounted for and Jo’s ten crispy twenties were in place. My, but they’re honest in Willesden, and the rent would get paid in Hackney.
I got Bunny out of the pub just before chucking-out time, and with a bit of persuasion he agreed to take me as far as Hackney, dropping me off at the end of Stuart Street. The first thing I noticed was that the Transit had gone and Armstrong was back in his place of honour outside No 9.
I did a quick walk-round check. Yes, there were still four wheels (well, you never know these days) and, just as I’d thought, the interior was littered with sodding confetti. I patted Armstrong’s stubbly radiator and promised him a good clean-out. A pensioner walking his dog on the other side of the street quickened his pace, obviously not wanting to be there when the men in white coats came for me. Silly old buffer. I’ll bet he talks to his dog.