Кейт Уотерхаус - Soho or Alex in Wonderland

But nobody did.

There was something of a commotion around the Wellington Arms as Alex reached the pub. The doors of the Shaftesbury Avenue corner entrance had been thrown wide open and Alex had to push his way through a knot of spectators who were watching Ellis Hugo Bell of Bell Famous Productions Ltd mounting a camcorder on a tripod in the doorway.

“Dress rehearsal,” Bell explained. “Snag number one is that these silly sods won’t walk on by. They’re just standing there like spare parts.”

The handlebar-moustached landlord, who seemed to have taken on the role of Bell’s assistant or best boy, stepped out on to the pavement and attempted to chivvy the crowd of onlookers along. “Come along, ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see and you’re obstructing my doorway.” Fortunately for Bell, a policeman sauntering past took the same view, and the bystanders suffered themselves to be moved on.

“This is just a dry run,” continued Bell, fiddling with his camcorder. “I haven’t decided yet whether to shoot here or in the doorway of the New Kismet Club.”

“Here,” said the landlord firmly. “We get a better class of passers-by.”

The equipment having been set up to Bell’s satisfaction he turned back to Alex: “Now. I seem to recall your describing the whole idea of Walk On By as shite. I’m going to ask you to squint into this for a couple of minutes and if you’re not absolutely captivated I might even buy you a drink.”

As Bell switched on the camcorder Alex reluctantly peered into the little monitor screen or viewfinder or whatever the fookin thing called itself. So there were people walking past the doorway, so what? Bloke carrying a big parcel. Another bloke, carrying bugger all. Another bloke. Woman with a posh carrier-bag, string handles. Coupler office girl types, why weren’t they at work? A nun, who paused, and seemed for a moment as if she were set on outstaring the camcorder. A traffic warden who looked wistfully at the machine as if he would like to slap a ticket on it.

“Well?” asked Bell after two or three minutes.

“It’s only an opinion,” volunteered Alex, “but I’ve been more on the edge of my seat watching grass grow.” An opinion he had once passed on the efforts of a member of the Leeds Metro Film Society, so he had it well polished by now.

Scowling, Bell said: “Get out of the way, you ignoramus. You’ve got no soul.”

“You owe me a drink.”

“Buy your own fucking drink. Move.”

“No,” said Alex sharply. “Wait a minute. Hang on.”

Into view had swarmed a chattering bevy of American girlie students they looked like, with big tight-trousered bums and chipmunk faces. And in their midst was being swept along a giggling Len Gates, glasses askew, forehead shiny, gait unsteady. Now this really was funny. It was one for the lads. After a morning on the free whisky at the New Kismet, Len was what Alex would have called totally out of his skull. Legless. Rat-arsed.

“This is better,” he conceded.

“What did I tell you?” crowed Bell triumphantly. “All human life is there. So I don’t owe you a drink, in fact I’d say you owe me one.”

Eyes fixed on the tiny monitor screen, Alex was concentrating on the figure fetching up the rear of the mob of students, chatting on her mobile. While tight-trousered like theirs, this was not an American bum, it was an English bum, in fact an authentic Leeds bum, low-slung, a duck’s arse of an arse. He would recognise it a mile off.

Christ on crutches, it was her.

This time it really was. It was Selby.

As she edged past the pack of American students, Alex, calling her name, charged after her — or tried to, but found himself impeded by the camera tripod. His foot entangled in the thing, he shook it free, and down crashed camcorder and tripod as he ran out of the pub, with the landlord observing to a gaping Ellis Hugo Bell: “Clumsy young man, that. I’ve noticed it. I’ve a mind to bar him.”

Out in Shaftesbury Avenue the swaying Len Gates had abruptly brought his flock to a halt at the corner of Wardour Street. “Now, ladies, this what known as Wardle Street, I beg its pardon, Wardour Street, where many of the great film companies have their officers. Now Wardle Street, laze gennelmen, as you were, no gennelmen present, Warble Street is named after Sir Henry Oxenden, no it isn’t, named after Sir Edward Wardour …”

Muttering “’Scuse me, ’scuse me!” when what he really wanted to exclaim was, “Get outer my fookin way!”, Alex barged through the swarm of American students, leaving them protesting and addressing him as “Sir!” in aggrieved tones.

No sign of Selby. No sign of that duck’s-arse bum. Lost already. She could have gone up Wardour Street, down Wardour Street, along Shaftesbury Avenue, across to Dean Street, in any one of half a dozen opposite directions.

Alex shuttled aimlessly this way and that. It was useless. There were six Selbys around every corner.

But wait. Her mobile. She was speaking on her mobile. With any luck at all, she would keep it activated after finishing her call. She wouldn’t be expecting him to ring at this timer day, anyway. Night was the time for not being able to get in touch with Selby.

He would go back to the Wellington Arms, have a quiet jar with James Flood if he was there, a farewell drink with Ellis Hugo Bell even, and call Selby from his own mobile every ten minutes. All right, then, five. Worth a try, wasn’t it?

His own mobile — now where the fook was it? Left it in the pub? Hadn’t used it in the pub. Hadn’t used it since –

It was in the upstairs stockroom of Stephan Dance’s porn emporium, that’s where it was. He had made one last effort to get through to Selby before trying to get some kip, and he had put the mobile on a shelfer mucky books because it was digging into his thigh.

Nothing for it but to go back for it, then. Risky, but the chance of talking to Selby was worth a risk. With some difficulty he found his way to Compton’s Yard. The white Roller was not parked outside Eve’s Erotica but that did not signify: its owner could have left it in a car stack. But he had three other establishments in Soho, so Alex had learned, so there was a three to one chance that he was not at present in the Compton’s Yard one. Or he could be finishing a late lunch. Or he could be out on the piss with Brendan Barton. On the designer water, rather, far as he was concerned — sinister, that. Or he could be staring out at Alex through the blurry window.

Did he really want to speak to Selby? What had he got to say to her, anyway? That starting tomorrow it was all going to be different? He could hear her saying, sarky little cow that she was, “You mean starting from tomorrow it’ll all be the same.”

But he wanted that mobile back, come what may. They cost good money, mobiles did, and by the time he got back to Leeds Selby wouldn’t be the only one he wanted to talk to on it, not by a long chalk.

He made his way around the derelict building next to Stephan Dance’s porn shop and into the narrow alley. He pushed, as, what was the bugger’s name again? Barry Chilton had pushed the middle of the five railway sleepers guarding the doorway, which obligingly swung ajar. He picked his way across the joists that were all that was left of the floor, and up the rickety stairs.

They creaked. He hadn’t noticed that on his earlier visit. What he had noticed was a faint smell of gas. Now it seemed stronger. Faulty pipes, most likely. There was a lot that stank in So-oh, because the buggers were too stingy to get things fixed, or their landlords were.

He opened the padlocked metal fire door without any trouble and found himself in Stephan Dance’s stockroom. The mobile would be on that shelf there, on topper that piler mags. Grab it and scarper. Shite. The floor creaked even worse than the stairs.