Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“James,” said James.

“James here, that I’m thinking of cross-fertilising the financing with my other product, Walk On By . Every hundred-pound unit of Walk On By , once it’s in profit, gives you a seed-money cut of Kill Me Nicely . Now you heard me talking to Brendan Barton about Walk On By . What did you think, speaking frankly?”

Alex took his critical judgement from Brendan. “Speaking frankly, it sounds like shite to me. But what do I know?”

“Fuck all,” said Ellis Hugo Bell.

“Talking of funding, any more news from the National Lottery?” asked James diplomatically.

Bad-tempered now, Bell snapped: “Listen, man, if I’d any news from the National Lottery, would I be standing about with this bunch of arseholes drinking horsepiss? I’d be sloshing down the champagne with Brendan. Where is he, anyway?”

“Pissed, I imagine.”

“We know that, but what’s keeping him?”

“This very puritan publishing house operates a strict no-drunks policy. They wouldn’t even let the author through the doors.”

Feeling far from sober himself, and wilting under the gimlet eye of the black-clad, lapel-badged young woman who had sold him the book, Alex commandeered two glasses of wine and meandered off to rejoin Else. Not only was it horsepiss as Bell had described it — he would convey the term back to Leeds, as a more graphic synonym for catpiss — but it was warm horsepiss by now.

“So very kind of you,” said Else, when he at last located her, for she had now found herself a chair some distance from the book table, where she was browsing through the Augustus John biography, with particular reference to her own quarter-page portrait. “And now I really must meet the author. Where is the author? He must be here, surely.”

“Rat-arsed.” This was James Flood, who had taken the opportunity to detach himself from the company of Ellis Hugo Bell and follow Alex.

“Inebriated, I should say, Else.” James politely corrected himself for the old lady’s benefit.

“Oh, you mean blotto. That’s what we used.to say when any of us got stinking.”

“Stinking blotto, Else. Apparently he began on the sauce at seven this morning in the Waiters Club. By the time he got to Frith Street this evening he was crawling along on his hands and knees. The law turns up and asks him what he thinks he’s doing. ‘Oh, it’sh all right, oshiffer,’ he says, ‘I’m just looking for my car keys.’ They wouldn’t let him in.”

Soddin hell, what a tale he had to tell. He ought to be keeping a blow-by-blow blurry diary. “… So the next thing, right, I’m at this book-launch bash, right, and there’s this old biddy, famous model she was, posed for all the great artists, August John you name it, and she’s like, I’ve got to meet the author. Turns out he was so pissed they wouldn’t let him in. To his own fookin party, can you believe …!”

Yes, but could you believe?

“Is that really true, James?”

“I didn’t say that, Alex, couldn’t swear to it, otherwise I’d print it. But it ought to be, the state he was in when last seen.”

A velvet-scabbarded sheath-knife voice said: “Then if it isn’t true, don’t spread it, otherwise it’ll finish up in a diary column and you’ll find yourself — or more to the point the Examiner will find itself, because who gives a fuck about you, Flood — the star witness in a libel action.”

Familiar face — bossy, youngish woman in granny glasses, dressed all in black like every other female around here, who had detached herself from a knot of vaguely well-known-looking people to join James Flood, while at the same time contriving to look as if he were not important enough to join and that she was just passing by.

Yeh yeh, got her in one. Always on some chat-show or other, Any Questions , that kinder crap, not that Alex ever watched it but you were supposed to take the odd glance if you were doing media studies. Fuller herself, she was. Right cow. So who the fook was she?

Suddenly nervous, James Flood stammered introductions. “I don’t think you know Alex Singer, Jane. Alex, this is Jane Rich, my editor.”

Jane gave Alex a swift up and down look, half incredulous, half contemptuous, as if he were in need of a good wash the same as Else, before she detachedly asked of James Flood, as one asks the price of an object in a shop: “Who he?”

Since James was clearly lost for an answer, Alex spoke for himself: “Nobody.”

Plainly, he should’ve said: “A famous sculptor,” or “An actor out of Coronation Street ,” or “Him on the Quaker Oats box, whojer think?” For if Jane had been ignoring him before, she had now, as with the wave of a wand, rendered him completely non-existent. In a low voice to James, not so much to escape being overheard as to ensure that he caught the full force of her venom: “Without even turning my head an inch in either direction, James, I can spot at least fifteen celebs, every one of whom must have a story for the Examiner . So why are you wasting company time chatting up Mr fucking Cellophane?”

Jesus Christ, if this was how women bosses talked to you down in London, and Alex got launched on that media career he was angling for, you definitely would not get him south of the river Aire.

Flushing, James protested: “Actually, Jane, Alex hasn’t got a bad little tale. He’s come down from Yorkshire looking for his missing girl-friend.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-one,” volunteered Alex.

“Is he taking the piss, Flood?”

Hurriedly, James changed tack: “And Old Jakie the dead news-vendor being taken for a last pub crawl, that’s not a bad yarn.”

“It was in the Evening Standard last edition — don’t you ever read the papers? Besides, I didn’t post you to Soho to write about dead news-vendors. Names — that’s what makes news, James. Old Fleet Street saying.”

“How about Ellis Hugo Bell?”

“That wanker?” At least she and Alex agreed about something.

“He’s getting a new project together, set right here in Soho. Could be interesting.”

“Did I hear my name?” asked the sole proprietor of Bell Famous Productions, drifting across.

Without even favouring him with one of her viperish looks, Jane said: “The prat couldn’t set up a Punch and Judy show in Soho Square. Now listen to me, James, I’m being very serious. You’re here to get stories about modern, vibrant, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art Soho, not wankers, dead newspaper-sellers or —” here Jane flashed a glance of disgust at Else, who was still engrossed in her book, or more particularly the quarter-page sketch of herself when young “— old crones who were artists’ models in the year dot. Her Soho’s dead, gone, finito . Get on the case, Flood, or get off the pot. Never forget you’re on three months’ trial, now move. I’m off to the Grouch.”

And off she — it was the only word for it — flounced. But no, looking after her retreating figure — good class bum, that, thought Alex — there was a better word, marched. Off she marched, head held high, swinging her arms from side to side, as if accompanied by the band of the Coldstream Guards.

Alex whistled under his breath. “You’ve got a right goer there, James old lad.”

“You can say that again.”

“Does she — er — give a turn?”

“Not with me she doesn’t.”

“Only she looks as if she’s up for it. Needs one too, ask me. Calm her down a bit.”

“Swallow you for breakfast and spit the pips out,” said Ellis Hugo Bell.

James Flood, who had been looking pensive, piped up, out of a separate conversation he was holding with himself, “I never knew that.”