Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

Brendan Barton had returned to the drawing room. He was wearing a silk ankle-length dressing gown, more of a robe really, Chinese like his lacquered cabinet, and carrying in one hand the now vicious-looking riding crop from the umbrella stand in the hall, and in the other a packet of Walker’s Chocolate Chip Shortbread.

Experimentally swishing the riding crop as if he had never encountered it before, Brendan said conversationally: “Usually I accept two dozen, but if you took the view that more would be appropriate, I’m entirely in your hands.”

Wunner them, eh. S & M. Yeh yeh yeh yeh yeh, they haddem in Leeds too. Vicar, there was, ended up in the News of the Screws . Used to make his wife tie him to the copper and thrash him with a garden cane, poor bastard had to emigrate to New Zealand after the divorce had brought it all out.

Play this cool and careful, sunshine. They could be dangerous, summer these buggers, what he’d heard. “Sorry, Brendan, wrong wavelength. This is where I get off. Makes an excuse and leaves, as they say.”

Brendan looked both pained and astonished. “So after all you don’t feel the need for a hundred pounds?”

What? “A hundred what?”

“Smackeroos. In readies. In your back sky-rocket as we say south of Watford.”

Yeh yeh yeh, Alex had watched EastEnders . Loader crap, but he’d watched it.

A hundred. A ton as he’d heard it called, also on EastEnders . He said cautiously: “That could just make a difference.”

“I’m sure it could. It could even be a hundred and fifty, if the service was up to scratch, if you take my meaning.”

Handing the riding crop almost ceremoniously to Alex, he peeled off the Chinese silk robe. To Alex’s distress he revealed himself as revoltingly naked with folds of sagging white flesh, and wearing laddered fishnet stockings and twisted suspenders.

Oh, Christ. But a hundred was a hundred. Hundred and fifty, could be, so he’d said. Just so long as what he’d asked for was all he wanted.

“But on your perambulations through Soho, my stern young friend, I don’t want this little adventure to get about.”

“You and me both, mate,” said Alex with feeling. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

As he led the way through the hallway into his bedroom, Brendan Barton was still clutching his packet of chocolate chip shortbread. The hideous possibility flashed through Alex’s mind that he might be required to do something unspeakable with them.

Stopping in his tracks in the bedroom doorway, where an antique four-poster loomed with black silken cords dangling from each carved post, he asked: “What’s with the packeter biscuits, then?”

Brendan pouted. “I like to nibble a chocky bicky while it’s all happening. Call me kinky if you like.”

As Alex Singer emerged from the house where George Frederick Handel had once lodged and Brendan Barton now lived, the two flymen were proceeding up Frith Street carrying the late Old Jakie on a makeshift bier consisting of an old door from a demolished building which they had requisitioned from a builders’ skip.

Recognising Alex, the first flyman said: “We’ve just tried to get him down the Blue Note.” Yeh yeh, famous jazz joint, even Alex had heard of it.

“Not that he was a member, fact he’d no interest in jazz as such, but he used to go down there one in the morning and sell the Sun and The Times first editions,” said the second flyman.

“But when we tried to get him down he slid off of the door, didn’t he? Very steep staircase that, very.”

“So now we thought we’d double back to Dean Street and try the Crown and Two Chairmen. He often had the one in there.”

“You’ve lost what’s-his-name, young bloke from the Examiner , James,” said Alex.

“Gone down Silhouettes, hasn’t he? Sunnink about a book launch, sunnink.”

Alex moved on along Frith Street. As he neared the Choosers Club he thought for a moment that there must have been a fire alarm, for a stream of young women dressed all in black, sunglasses clamped over their heads, clutching their Filofaxes and still gabbling into their mobiles, was scuttering out of the club and into a building across the street, arms folded and shoulders hunched against the evening chill. If the two flymen had still been here with Old Jakie they could have passed as a funeral procession.

At this distance one, no two, no three of them could at an outside guess be Selby. Not that she ever wore black but down here in London you never knew, it made people do funny things, did London, as he for one could testify.

It was a flash-looking restaurant they were flocking into, brightly lit under a hanging sign, like a pub sign, of a silhouetted Regency buck and a crinolined lady. Silhouettes, then. Alex had assumed it would be another club but this should make it easier to get in. Some of the young women were carrying invitation cards but fook that, he would blag his way through.

Beyond the glass doors he could see that the greeter, who in her smart black suit could have been one of the Choosers contingent, was engaged in an altercation with a grubby old woman smoking a panatella. Could’ve been a bag lady if she had any bags other than the ancient tapestry handbag, its handle broken, repaired, broken again, which she clutched under her arm. Could be a good time to gatecrash.

“I’m sorry, Else,” the greeter was saying, as the young women in black streamed past her and up the stairs to the party. None of them was Selby. “I’ve strict instructions not to admit you.”

“Yes, but why, my dear, surely you can tell me why?”

“Policy.”

“But you don’t understand, I’m more entitled to be here than any of you young people. I tell you I knew him. I sat for him. I’ve been told even there’s a pastel drawing of me in the book.”

“I’m very sorry, Else.”

She didn’t sound it. Alex, on the other hand, did feel sorry for the poor old cow. In her way she was a similar case to Jenny Wise. Has-been. Down on her luck. Educated voice. Seen better days.

“Is that cunt Ellis Hugo Bell in here? He is, isn’t he?” The slurring — for he had had a few since last encountered — yet still unmistakable voice of Kim Grizzard, as he slapped the tattered manuscript of Freeze When You Say That down on the greeter’s podium.

As the greeter darted forward to bar Grizzard’s progress and to deal with him in much the same manner as the receptionist at the Choosers had dealt with him (“He’s not expected so far as I know, sir, but if you’d like to leave a name …”), Alex swiftly seized his chance. Taking Else’s elbow, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might cast suspicious glances, and mouthing inanities such as “And tell me, missus, do you come here often?” he steered her up towards the top-floor restaurant. Done this before, hadn’t he? Bag o’ Nails Club in Leeds with Selby, when neither of them had been a member, one of the few clubs up there where you had to be. Always some trouble on the doors at the Bagger Nails. You waited your chance and sailed in. Doddle.

There was a second greeter at the top of the stairs, clutching a little stack of invitation cards.

“Could I see your invitation, sir?”

“Er — ah. In fact I’m with James Flood of the Examiner . Just been out to get some fags.” He’d worked this one in Leeds too. Never failed, unless the person you claimed to be with either wasn’t there or had already gone.

“All right, but I’m afraid we can’t allow this lady in.”

“It’s OK, luv, she’s with me.”

“Yes, but you see, you’re Mr James Flood’s guest. I’m afraid you can’t take your own guest in, sir.”