Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“You’re with Mr Barton, aren’t you, sir?” asked the receptionist.

“That’s right.” Must be still here, then. Stroker luck, could be. Casher cheque, give him the lend of a few quid — he looked like the type who would, if he felt in the right mood.

“G’night, sweetie.” As Jenny spun herself through the revolving doors, so Kim Grizzard, as if choreographed for a duet, propelled himself towards the reception desk.

“Is that cunt Ellis Hugo Bell still here?”

“Could you watch your language, please, Mr Grizzard? No, he left some time ago, I was told. By the rooftop fire escape, for some strange reason.”

“If he comes back, would you tell him I’m going to strangle him?”

“I’ll see that he gets the message.”

As Grizzard shambled out, Alex passed through into the drawing-room sort of lounge which now, with the exception of Brendan Barton, seemed entirely repopulated with young women in black suits or black dresses, all clutching their Filofaxes with their mobiles tinkling like ice-cream vans, and all giving off the impression that they had just been or were on their way off to somewhere exciting, such as wunner these book-launch parties you sometimes read about. Alex wondered what they were like, these bashes they all went to down here. He wouldn’t mind gatecrashing one. Blag his way in.

Brendan Barton was sitting, or rather slumped, exactly where Alex had left him when sneaking off, although by now clutching a glass of gin rather than the white wine he’d switched to. He was snoring gently.

Alex sat down opposite him, hoping that no waitress would approach before Brendan woke up, which he did almost immediately. Focusing blurred eyes on Alex he said: “That must’ve been the longest shit in the entire history of defecation. If you happened to time it, you should write to the Guinness Book of Records .”

“Yeh yeh yeh, I got talking,” lied Alex.

“Did you say talking or snorting?”

This was a way in for Alex: “Talking, I can’t afford to snort. Listen, Brendan, I know this is a bit of a cheek, but I don’t suppose you could lend me a tenner so I can buy the next rounder drinks?”

Brendan garumphed. “In this establishment, my fine northern friend, a tenner wouldn’t even buy you a round of salted peanuts.”

“So call it twenty,” said Alex recklessly.

“Further to which, this is a club. You’re not allowed to buy drinks, you’re a guest.” Raising a stiff arm, Brendan summoned his waitress. “Give this gentleman a glass of your fifty pee Chardonnay.”

“Yes, Brendan, we’ve had that joke.”

“It bears repetition. And an equally large gin, no ice, no tonic.”

Alex doggedly ploughed on. “I’ve started so I’ll finish. The thing is, I set off down here with fifty quid, reckoning it should be enough for just an overnight stay. But you must have roaring inflation in London because, what with one thing and another, it’s gone. Blown, Christ knows where.” He thought he wouldn’t mention Jenny and the thirty quid’s worth of champagne.

“My dear, fifty pounds would just about buy you supper for one at a half-decent restaurant, provided you skipped the pudding and stayed with the house wine. Don’t you have a cheque card?”

Another lie: “Didn’t think I’d need it.”

Brendan pondered briefly. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I carry very little money in readies about with me, certainly not in the amount you’ll need. But” — he lowered his voice conspiratorially — “I do keep a certain amount of spot cash back at my flat in case of burglars.”

This had Alex puzzled. Brendan explained.

“You see, if you give them a fistful of used twenties, they’ll beat you up but then leave in an orderly manner. Otherwise they trash the flat and take your valuables.”

“Sounds like you lose either way,” said Alex.

“Depends how one looks at it,” said Brendan cryptically. “Now what do you say? Finish our drinkie-poos and all round to my place. I’m only up the street.”

With the uneasy feeling that he might be wandering into something of a honeytrap here, yet nevertheless realising that with barely the price of a hamburger about his person he didn’t have much option, Alex dealt with the glass of wine that had just been set before him. How many glasses had he had so far? If Brendan really did mean to make him solvent for the night, he really ought to start keeping count.

It was only a few doors up Frith Street to Brendan’s flat. A touch up-market from Jenny’s place — four-storey, black-painted brick, bristling with solicitors’ brass plates — Georgian, would it be? It seemed to Alex that everything around here earlier than the fifties and sixties was fookin Georgian. Historic, anyway, for around the threshold clustered a semi-circle of respectful Japanese tourists, submitting themselves to the lecturing of Len Gates: “… Now Frith Street, ladies and gentlemen, was formerly Thrift Street, and in this residence the composer George Frederick Handel is believed to have taken lodgings while his oratorios were being performed farther along the street at the house then belonging to His Excellency the Venetian Ambassador. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was also no stranger to Frith Street, where at the age of nine he lodged at the home of a stay-maker and performed at Caldwell’s Assembly Rooms in Dean Street, alas like much else no longer standing …”

Seamlessly, as Brendan and Alex crossed the street and threaded their way through the throng of Japanese, Len Gates continued: “Coming to the present day, ladies and gentlemen, this is also the residence of Mr Brendan Barton, the well-known television personality. Doubtless you are familiar with his programme in Tokyo. Good evening, Mr Barton.”

A polite twittering from the Japs as Brendan put his Yale key in the lock. Several of the tourists bowed. Some took his photograph. Brendan addressed a few words to them in what was presumably Japanese, clever sod that he was. Another for the lads. Alex would be a walking scrapbook by the time he got back.

If the hall with its black and white chequered tile floor, antique console table surmounted by equally antique mirror supported by gold angels or cupids or whatever they were was anything to go by, Brendan must have forked out a few bob for this pad. Didn’t own it all, obviously. A trellis-doored lift rattled them up to the fourth floor, where it opened directly into the hallway of Brendan’s flat. Snazzy or what?

Piles of new books in the hall, some still in their Jiffy-bags. Two cases of wine. Unopened letters, bills they looked like. And a curious item — a long riding crop in the umbrella stand. Maybe he went horse-riding on Rotten Row or somewhere. They did in that class.

Brendan led the way into what you could only call the drawing room, although he chose to call it the sitting room. Christ, the cost of the floor-length drapes alone could’ve put Alex through the Metro, and as for the furniture — not one but two sofas the bugger owned, chandelier, old prints on the walls, gilt all over the shop, it was like Templefookinnewsam Museum up in Leeds. For himself, Alex would have settled for the drinks cabinet, Chinese black lacquered, which when opened proved to be refrigerated, and from which Brendan extracted a bottle of champagne. Lanson, this one was. Alex was becoming quite a connoisseur.

Brendan carefully poured two flute glasses, cut glass like the Losers Club’s but a better cut with it, or Alex was no judge. “Make yourself at home, I just have to make a couple of calls,” said Brendan, and left the room, taking his champagne glass with him but leaving the bottle. Pity Alex didn’t go much on it.

He wandered about the room. Like Jenny, Brendan went in for photographs, but his were properly framed, and all of them of himself with this or that celebrity. Authors, mainly, or anyway celebs who’d written books, and unlike Jenny’s photographic friends, mostly still living. Well, they would be — they would all have been on Brendan Barton’s programme, back in the days when he had a programme. There were two awards for it on the mantelpiece, a bronze-looking mask and an engraved what looked like a goldfish bowl. Arts Programme of the Year — three years ago. History. So why did publishers still send him books, then, when he could no longer plug them on telly? Maybe they thought he’d make a comeback. Maybe they were just big mates. Maybe — oh, Jesus.