Peter Guttridge - The Last King of Brighton

‘This is it,’ Charlie said. ‘The centre of the fucking universe.’

‘I thought that was Worthing,’ Hathaway said.

‘You look a twat,’ Dennis Hathaway said now. ‘You know that?’

Dennis Hathaway was peering at his son, screwing up his eyes against the sun. There was a splash of white on his forehead. Suntan lotion he hadn’t rubbed in properly. The sun flickered on the water behind him.

‘It’s the fashion, Dad,’ Hathaway said, still a little stoned from his breakfast joint.

‘To look a twat? And what are those things on your feet?’

‘Plimsolls.’

‘Very useful on route marches.’

‘Handy for boats, though.’ He swung himself out on the ladder. ‘Coming aboard, Cap’n Birdseye.’

Dennis Hathaway came up close to him once he was on deck.

‘I’m worried about you, son. I hope you’re not using our own bloody product.’

‘You know I’m not.’

Hathaway sniffed.

‘Well, you’re smelling of something illegal.’

‘That’s patchouli, Dad.’

‘Patchouli? What the fuck is patchouli.’

‘Elaine got it for me.’

Dennis Hathaway tilted his head as if listening for something.

‘Elaine? New one on me. She’s your latest quim, is she?’

‘She’s special, Dad.’

‘Is she, Sergeant Pratt? Is she? I’ve got some news for you. Come below.’

Reilly was sitting behind the small table in the cabin of the boat. He blinked when he saw Hathaway.

‘John hasn’t got long for this meeting, Sean,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘He’s off to fight the Zulus.’

Dennis and his son both sat down at the small table.

‘We got a problem in Milldean,’ Dennis Hathaway said. ‘Gerald Cuthbert is trying it on. The twins pushing him, of course. Not only that, he’s trying to muscle in on some of our other business further west. He knows Worthing is ours but he’s had his lads down there.’

‘I haven’t noticed anything,’ Hathaway said, frowning. ‘I would have seen.’

‘That’s what I would have hoped,’ his father said quietly. ‘But when were you last in Worthing?’

‘Of my own volition?’

‘You don’t need to say any more. Charlie looks after it, doesn’t he?’

‘He does.’

Hathaway saw his father and Reilly exchange a glance.

‘Right, we’ll have a word with him,’ Dennis said.

‘I can do that-’

‘He’s your friend.’

‘I can do that.’

After a moment his father nodded.

‘What about Cuthbert?’ Hathaway said.

Reilly coughed.

‘We’ll take care of him.’

‘Are we done, then?’ Hathaway said.

‘Not yet. The chief constable has summoned us to a meeting.’

‘What kind of meeting?’

‘The it-never-happened kind. On the Palace Pier. Next week. He wants peace and harmony in the town.’

‘Is that what we want?’ Hathaway said.

His father rubbed his cheek.

‘Once we run it, sure.’

Hathaway had met Elaine at a poetry reading in The Ship. It was part of the first Brighton Arts Festival. Yehudi Menuhin was playing his violin. Flora Robson was in A Man For All Seasons at the Theatre Royal. Pink Floyd were performing in the West Pier ballroom. And there was poetry. Concrete Poetry, whatever that was. And The Scaffold with Paul McCartney’s brother. Billy was keen to see them. Charlie opted out but the rest of The Avalons went along because of The Beatles connection.

It took place in an oak-panelled old room at the rear of The Ship. There were no chairs. Everybody sat on the floor. Even with cushions scattered around it was uncomfortable. Hathaway became aware of a girl sitting just behind him and not just because of the exotic perfume that wafted over him.

‘Am I in your way?’ he said, half-turning, trying not to look up her skirt. She had good legs and an impish smile.

‘What is my way?’

He blushed.

‘I mean, can you see?’

‘You? Perfectly. What about you? Have you seen enough?’

She had seen his eyes flick down between her legs.

‘Not nearly enough,’ he said.

She stayed with him that night but at dawn insisted on walking barefoot on the beach. On sand, Hathaway could understand. But Brighton was all pebbles and stones. He grimaced at every step.

She was doing American Studies at Sussex. She sprang unfamiliar names on him. Bellow and Updike, and people she called ‘the hipsters’: Kerouac, Burroughs, Tom Robbins, Thomas Pynchon. A man called Noam Chomsky featured at the heavy end of discussions. Hathaway was out of his depth but she didn’t patronize and he was interested in the things she said.

They saw each other every night for a week. She had a fierce appetite. He didn’t know what she saw in him, although he knew he was OK at sex, thanks to Barbara long ago. He thought it was perhaps also a class thing. She was middle class. She liked roughing it. She called him Mellors once, then laughed. He didn’t get it at the time.

On the first night he’d asked her what her heady perfume was.

‘Patchouli.’

‘What’s patchouli?’

‘A musk-based perfume. Perfumes are either musk or flower-based. Musk smells of shit, essentially.’

‘Lovely.’

‘James Joyce was a bicycle-seat sniffer, you know.’

‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Hathaway said, not knowing who James Joyce was.

‘Musk and ambergris are low-down dirty smells, hence the link with excrement. Then, during the eighteenth century, when aristocratic women had to pretend to be modest, perfume makers developed sweeter floral scents. Then it changed again during the French Revolution. Am I boring you?’

‘No, why?’ Hathaway said, his voice muffled.

‘You seem more interested in my left nipple.’

‘A man can do two things at once.’

Elaine laughed.

‘Not in my experience.’

Hathaway lifted his head.

‘Go on.’

‘Under the Terror, what perfume you wore indicated your allegiance. You could get the guillotine if your handkerchief smelt of royal perfumes – lily or eau de la reine, water of the queen. The Directory, Consulate and Empire marked the return of strong perfumes with an animal base. Josephine liked musk, ambergris and civet.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘I’m at Sussex. That’s the kind of history they teach.’

When Hathaway next saw his father, he was holding court in the back room of the Bath Arms.

‘And I’m telling you, Mr Reilly, that I want these scumbags found. I want them teaching a lesson.’

A schoolboy had been found sexually assaulted then strangled up Roedean way.

‘And the police?’ Reilly said.

‘I don’t think there’ll be anything left for the police.’

‘Since when did we start doing a copper’s work for him?’ Reilly said.

‘Since we started getting protection money from people. They pay for protection, we provide it.’

Reilly smiled thinly.

‘Didn’t realize we actually fulfilled those obligations.’

‘I thought that was protection from us,’ Charlie said with a laugh.

Dennis Hathaway looked from one to the other.

‘Well, you’re both wrong. You think we’re all take and no give? These people rely on us. Some nonces kill a young lad, a schoolkid with his future all ahead of him. On my patch. On my patch. Somebody is taking the Michael. And I won’t stand for that. Not for an instant. So I want these men found and I want them bringing to the pier, and then we’ll see what’s what.’

‘What’s in it for us?’ Reilly insisted.

‘Reputation. I told you – nobody is going to take the Michael on our turf. If we’re not in control, then it’s anarchy and we don’t want to go back to that. That’s what we fought a war for.’