by Dan Tyte
To break the booze cycle, I’d had to bin the balaclava. Today, it was time to give a little back. A personal CSR project for McDare Inc.
Walking over to the bench they’d colonised with cider and roll-up cigarettes, I felt like a phoney, no longer a disguised desert rat. A reverse Stars In Their Eyes. ‘Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be… me’. Well, to an extent. Today’s task called for a little method acting too. As I got closer, the stench of the old days hit me like a heavyweight. Just like at school, it was always the smell that got you first.
It was Spider who turned to face me first. His dirty jeans and ripped tracksuit top almost sneered at the merino wool suit I’d once stuffed into a rucksack just yards away from where we stood. The rest of his merry men turned slowly towards me, drunk on daylight and indecision. It wasn’t every day their crowd was approached by an outsider who wasn’t carrying a truncheon.
‘Spider?’ I asked.
‘How’d you know that?’
‘Well,’ I rocked on the heels of my handmade shoes, ‘you’ve got a web tattooed around your right eye…’ He clocked my smarts with the reaction of a man who had made corporeal violation his major. Which gave me time to explain.
‘It was my uncle… who told me who you were…’ I handed him the newspaper. He took it, unsure why. ‘Here, look here…’ I pointed to the story about the dead war hero. Spider pulled the pages up close to his face and studied the print, like a skinhead detective who’d lost his magnifying glass.
‘I… I… don’t get it… what does it mean…?’
‘Oh, give it here, Spider.’ A hand reached over and snatched the paper from his blackened hands. ‘He can’t fucking read, can he.’ It was him. The one with the knowing eyes. He traced his grubby finger under the headline.
‘Sad… end… for… home… less… war… hero. So. What has that got do with us?’ he accused.
‘Read on.’
Those eyes watched me cautiously.
‘…found dead by a Hackney cab driver… David Jenkinson…’ The rest of the dropouts clamoured for more information, like T-Birds to his Danny Zuko, just with less leather and more grease.
‘You’re going to have to explain a bit more than that, I’m afraid.’ You really did have to spell it out for this lot.
‘I think you knew him as Dave…’
‘Dave?’ Realisation came into those dark eyes of his. ‘Dave…’
‘What’s he saying about Dave?’ asked Spider.
‘Dave is dead,’ I said.
‘Dead?’
‘Dead.’ The reader took a flagon of cider from Spider’s hand and took a long swig. For a second, his eyes tinged a touch sadder than they already were, which, if you’d seen his eyes, you’d realise was the equivalent of the holocaust being more horrific, say.
‘So, who’s he, then?’ said Spider.
‘Like I said.’ They really didn’t pay attention. ‘Dave was my uncle. Now, listen up…’ The six or seven drunks lurched around me. ‘…my uncle left very specific instructions in his will regarding you lot. Now, don’t get your hopes up too much because he hasn’t left you a mansion, which is probably for the best as in all honesty I don’t think any of you are house-trained. But what he did do is leave a small sum of money for me to take you out for a slap-up meal and drinks. So, who’s in?’
A collective grunt shot up.
‘Yeeeeehaaaa!’ shouted Spider.
Good lord, the expenses account was going to take a battering today.
‘I don’t suppose any of you need to get the afternoon off work or go home and get spruced up, so let’s do it…’ I wanted to vacate the area before a Morgan & Schwarzer came outside for a crafty fag or clandestine phone call.
‘Hold on,’ said Spider. He limped up the alleyway and rustled around behind one of the wheelie bins. He returned a minute or so later with a bunch of on-the-turn flowers in his hand.
‘Here, have one each and fix it on your top somehow. They’re not lilies, like, but it’s a mark of respect, innit? Dave would have liked that.’ Behind his tough exterior lay a childlike beauty. Best get them all out of here before he shouted ‘minge’ at Carol again.
My working knowledge of the city’s gastronomic palaces would have been second to none had there not been a thousand others like me stuck in the same career gutter. Encyclopedic recall of where to get the freshest Kobe beef in town, or the in-spots to catch the rollmop herring craze that was sweeping kitchens before it jumped the shark and the platinum-card carrying patsies started ingesting badgers’ gall bladders because it was the plat du jour and as essential a weapon in the PR man’s arsenal as an eye for a headline and a questionable moral compass. Now, I knew my dinner dates for today would give no credence to the whims of the taste-makers and would probably have much preferred to go large in Nando’s, but the final decision on destination didn’t rest with them. Instead, I knew just the place.
Écouter was currently the place, blazing through the blogosphere and bidding snooty cuisine critics to kneel in devotion at the majesty of its malevolent Michelin-starred chef Franck Papin. His daring re-imaginings of French staples had the chattering classlesses clamouring for a table every morning, noon and night for the past three months. Which, believe me, for a restaurant in this town was a fucking eternity. Personally it got my vote because the maître d’ turned a blind eye to blow in the bathroom, but when like Morgan & Schwarz you spent the equivalent of a West African republic’s GDP in the joint, you could probably get away with curling a turd out on the bienvenue mat. Very occasionally, it was good to be part of the club.
Walking through the city streets with my current company was like herding cats on heroin. One minute ‘Psycho’ Sid was panhandling some Kodak-carrying tourists, the next Spider was following a yummy mummy in the opposite direction. The only one who retained an air of calm authority was the one with the dark eyes, the Reader. He’d seen it all before. He was the Doc to their Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy and Sex Pest.
‘Where we going then, Dave?’
‘I’m not Dave, Spider. Dave is dead, remember?’
‘But where are we going?’
‘Look, trust me, you’re going to love it.’
‘You have to understand,’ said the Reader, taking me away from the others, ‘that it is very hard for these men to trust anyone or anything. That stopped a long time ago. They’ve been through too much.’
‘And what about you…?’ I paused three beats for him to fill in his name. Large black pupils weighed me up.
‘Your name?’ I pushed. His pupils dilated.
‘Names aren’t important out here.’
‘But what’s yours?’
‘Well,’ he swallowed, ‘if you must know, I used to be called Michael.’ The wind picked up and blew his not quite shoulder length hair around his face. ‘But that was a long time ago.’
‘What happened to you?’
Fuck ceremony, I went straight for the jugular. I was buying lunch after all.
‘That’s a long story…’ It felt like I was in a buddy session, although my subject this time was unquestionably less fuckable than Christy. More fucked though. Silence stagnated in the air. Time for some old PR 101: the reciprocation rule. Now, if my skills didn’t escape me, social convention meant a smile sent Michael’s way would make it difficult for him not to mirror me.
‘Look, it’s okay if it’s a long story. I’ve got all afternoon…’ And beam. The poor fucker couldn’t resist.
‘Okay… buy me a drink and I might just tell you…’ He smiled a smile I’d seen some place before. The science of spin worked again. Another one bites the dust.
‘… and anyway, you might want to fill me in on your story.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen you some place before, haven’t I?’
FUCK.
He’d rumbled me. I was Dave, Dave wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t really Dave.
FUCK.
‘Have you?’
‘That was a hell of a left hook you clocked that fella with…’
The SoupMobile Station.
Of course.
‘Well, he was asking for it. What can I say; some of my uncle’s training must have rubbed off on me.’
Dave was dead, long live Dave.
The entrance to Écouter, like all of the most pretentious places on God’s greedy earth, was guarded by a rope, a man, and a clipboard. Ordinarily, these kinds of situations were not conducive to being accompanied by homeless drug addicts. The man recognised me as I approached.
‘Mr…’ He wouldn’t remember my name and blow my cover. They never remembered your name. I was just a walking AmEx.
‘Good day to you,’ I said. His phoney smile broke when he clocked my company.
‘Sir, as you know, we have a strict dress…’
‘And,’ I checked his name badge and slipped two crisp fifties from the petty cash tin into his top pocket, ‘as you know, Bradley, Morgan & Schwarz is a faithful and generous patron of this establishment. I’d hate us to have to take our custom some other place.’ A lifetime of minimum-wage jobs flashed through his mind. He swallowed hard and looked up and down the street.
‘Very well, sir. Your usual table?’
‘Indeed. Follow me, chaps.’
Money didn’t just talk, it screamed.
We’d probably have drawn less of a reaction from our fellow diners if we’d dressed in full Klan robes and spat Public Enemy lyrics through megaphones. Not that I’d have trusted my companions in anything brilliant white, the menace of the pointy hat diluted somewhat by the inevitable blim holes and booze stains. Our entrance must have been what Jesus felt like when entering Nazareth, just with open-mouthed stares replacing adulation. No palms were laid to soften our path. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an ex-client, a ghastly Greek shipping magnate who had sat across from me at a dozen of these tables, gorging himself on the richest food in town and daring me not to laugh at his sexist jokes. His face now was reminiscent of mine when I took the toilet cubicle next to him and heard the desperate chokes of an Eastern European whore. I shot him a wink and a smile. His gaping pie hole mouthed a ‘hello’ back my way. He didn’t have a fucking clue what to think.
Having been paid to manage perception for the past forever, it was almost as liberating for me to toy with this restaurant’s reputation, a nihilistic cat with a ball of social string, as it was for my guests to have a hot meal in their bread baskets. Which was exactly the receptacle they demolished when our bemused waiter seated us at our table. The finest, freshest French bread, artisan-made, piss-artist-devoured. They wolfed it down quicker than the Eucharist amongst a bunch of brainwashed believers.
‘Can I get you any drinks?’ Seven pairs of eyes lit up like Christmas trees. I didn’t need to peruse the menu.
‘Seven of your finest bottles of champagne please, my good man. One for each of my companions.’ The waiter’s threaded eyebrows arched.
‘Very well, sir.’
‘And a sparkling mineral water for me.’
‘Very well, sir.’
‘As you were.’ I had no idea why I addressed the waiting staff like a member of the 19th century landed gentry, but I rather liked it.
‘Is all that plonk for us?’ asked Spider.
‘It most certainly is,’ I replied. He smiled a toothless grin.
The waiter returned, this time with company, expertly balancing the ice buckets and overpriced bubbles.
‘If you’d be so kind as to leave the bottles unopened, my good man. It’s a rather special occasion and I fancy my companions might rather like to pop the corks themselves.’ Wheezing laughter and mistimed clapping broke out around the table. It was like feeding time for a herd of heavily asthmatic seals. Cut-glass flutes magically appeared at their right hands.
‘Right, after three, boys…’ Their faces, blotchy red now from the laughter if not yet the booze, looked at me for further instruction. I caught on.
‘Okay, I’ll lead,’ said Michael, and proceeded to show and tell the others how to get to the booze. As a rule, bums weren’t big Bollinger drinkers. I knew he’d known another life. Seconds later, the troops were locked and loaded. What was the saying? Show me and I’ll forget, tell me and I’ll remember, tell me there’s a drink resting on it and I’ll nail a Rubix cube one-handed in 10 seconds flat.
‘1… 2… 3!’ Champagne shot through the air. Shell-suited arms flailed after corks. Shaggy heads lapped at spillages on the table. Coats were called for at nearby tables. Glasses were ignored and bottles raised to lips before being raised high like victors in a boxcar Grand Prix.
‘TO DAVE. It’s what he would have wanted,’ I shouted, probably a little too loud for our surroundings.
‘To Dave,’ in chorus.
The diners who hadn’t scarpered at the sight of Spider giving a frighteningly realistic impression of fellatio on a champagne bottle, did their best to ignore our party. The way you did a head-scarfed Romanian on the tube, blocking out the sound of her out-of-tune two-stringed banjo, looking straight ahead at the reflection of your detached robotic gaze. I couldn’t blame these people. I’d done it myself a million times. They said you were only ever 6 ft away from a rat in this city, but that didn’t mean you wanted them asking you for bus fare every 5 minutes.
The AmExodus had caused our waiter to try and hurry us along with our menu selection. We weren’t helped by the fact we only counted two readers amongst our number.
‘What about navarin d’agneu?’ I asked the group with, if I say so myself, almost passable Gallic arrogance.
‘What the hell’s that?’ asked Sid.
‘Well, it’s a lamb dish…’ I’d eaten my way through this menu twice already.
‘Does it come with chips?’ asked Sid.
‘No, sir, it doesn’t come with chips,’ the waiter stepped in.
‘What about French fries? They’re French, aren’t they?’ said Spider. He wore the look of a dog who’d earned a treat.
‘Well, sir, yes they are.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘we’ll keep this very simple. Just bring us eight steaks, eight French fries, and eight side salads.’ They needed at least some vegetable intake to fight off the scurvy.
‘Very well, sir. How would sirs like them cooked?’
‘As long as it’s not with petrol,’ said Michael, ‘down a dark alley, I don’t think these men really care.’
The behaviour of my charges continued unabashed over the course of the next half hour or so, but like the patient parent of a toddler with Tourettes, I grew accustomed to and unphased by their outbursts. The joy I felt seeing their blackened teeth chew through the best beef on the block was, I imagined, akin to that felt by Mother Teresa when out helping the poor and infirm of Calcutta, or Bill Gates after making a tax-deductible donation to a Kenyan orphanage. Warm inside in a way only the stimulants had managed before. I don’t know if I’d learned to love myself, or the world, but either way, I wanted more. But what of these men? Of Michael? One bad decision, some misplaced aggression or another red utility bill away from me. The former me.
‘When were they last in this situation?’
‘In a restaurant?’ asked Michael.
‘Yes. You looked like you knew what you were doing there…’ I said.
‘Well,’ he paused and forked the last bit of red meat up to his mouth, ‘we used to eat out all the time, if you must know…’
‘I did buy you that drink…’
‘Yes, I suppose you did. Or Dave did.’
Christ, I was slipping up.
‘Yes, you’re right, Dave did. But I could buy you one after we’re done here?’
‘To be honest, it’s probably the last thing I need.’ He bit the meat from the fork. ‘Anyway, I need to look after this lot.’
Keep at him, Bill.
‘Who was “we”?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said “we used to eat out”?’
‘Oh.’ His dark eyes narrowed. ‘I meant my family. Every Saturday afternoon. We’d ride the bus to parts of town we’d never explored before, hop off at a random stop and stroll through the streets and happen upon somewhere at chance. Italian, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, Turkish, Vietnamese, French not so much. You know how fussy kids can be. It was like going on holiday without going on a plane…’
His dark eyes started to mist over.
‘We’d always share a dessert, three-ways. Just the three of…’
Michael was cut off by a god-awful bang from the other side of the restaurant.
‘Quick quick, Mr Dave! You need to help!’ Sid flung me around from the huddle Michael and I had formed. He was out of breath.
‘What’s going on?’ I’d ignore the Mr Dave. Like Michael said, maybe names weren’t important.
‘It’s Spider. He’s just showed his knob to an old lady. She fainted and now the chef’s got him in a headlock!’
What was the saying? You could take a tramp to water, but you couldn’t force him to keep his dick in his pants. This situation called for some crisis comms of the highest order.
Chapter 24
‘Why?’
‘Because some people don’t eat meat all the time…’
‘Why?’
‘Because some people don’t want to…’
‘Why?’
‘Because some people think it’s wrong to eat animals…’
‘Why?’
‘Because they have faces and feelings…’
‘Why?’
‘Where the hell is your mother?!’
I was sat at a sticky table in a Wacky Warehouse with a 5-year-old walking, talking Jeopardy! game show. Now, I hadn’t turned all Humbert Humbert. Don’t fret. Instead I was meeting up with Deborah. And she’d brought a date. The road to redemption was beset on all sides by inequity.
And the content of the conversation wasn’t revealing a new-found vegetarianism. Fuck that. I’d knocked the fags and booze on the head, there’s no way chicken and chops were joining the list of banned substances. Rather, I’d chosen a vegetarian pasta dish from a menu characterised by transfats. Okay, I’d often eat at the best joints on the block, but my bugle intake barely left an appetite and last time I checked squashed grapes didn’t count towards your five-a-day. So now, on occasion, I’d swerve the sow in favour of a vitamin-filled veggie feast. Fortunately I didn’t always have to explain my decision to the Junior Spanish inquisition.