Кейт Уотерхаус: Soho or Alex in Wonderland

“And why do you say she gave you the Spanish fiddle?”

“Come again?”

“Spanish fiddle. El bow. That’s what your Cockneys call it. The Big E. The elbow.”

Good one, that. El bow. He’d remember it.

“I didn’t say why, Dave, but if you must know, it was the culmination of a lotter things. She says we’re not compatible. Could be right.”

Could be at that. She wanted to live down south — came from it, near enough, Peterborough — where he didn’t.

“And what makes you so sure she’s buggered off to London, Alex? Is that where she said she was off to?”

“Didn’t tell me nothing, Dave. Just said she had to think things out, switched off her mobile and pissed off into the night, like I said. No, it’s just my intuition sorter thing. If she was going anywhere, and she was because she’s taken most of her gear according to her mate, she’ll have gone to London.”

“She coulder gone to Peterborough, if you say that’s where she comes from. Gone home to Mum.”

“She came up to Leeds to get away from blurry Peterborough, didn’t she? Couldn’t stand the dump. No, I’m telling you, Dave, she’s in London, and I’ve a good idea where.”

“So have I, kidder. I don’t want to worry nobody, but King’s Cross, that’s where she’ll have landed up.”

“Not Selby, mate,” said Alex, with the quiet smug confidence of the twenty-one-year-old in love.

“I’m telling you.”

“You don’t know her, Dave, never met her. She’s not that type.”

“Once they’re over the river Trent, kid, they’re all that type. I’m not out of order, I’m saying nowt against the lass, it’s just that once they’re down there, they get sucked in. It’s crawling with pimps and ponces is London, they get sucked in. Can’t help themselves.”

“Not my Selby.” Alex knew all about King’s Cross. Had never been there, never been south of the river Trent himself, matter of fact. Donny — Doncaster — that they’d just by-passed, that was as far south as Alex had ever been, or wanted to go. By road, that was. Muster passed over whatever all them places south of Donny were, Newark, Retford, time he flew Leeds-Bradford to Barcelona with a buncher mates for the World Cup game, and what shite that turned out to be. Then there was that weekend in Jersey with Selby, coupon offer in the Yorkshire Evening Post , first time they’d ever had it away together. Christ on crutches, was she up for it or was she up for it? If only he could get her in Jersey now, tonight, tripette down Memory Lane, it would be all sorted, no probs.

But the only time Alex had set foot in Donny itself was when he and a crowder the lads from the Metro had rented a mini-bus and come down clubbing one Friday night. Coupler them had heard that this venue called the Glue Works, other side of Donny getting on for Newark, was where it was all going on. Going on up Alex’s arse, it was crap.

“Ever heard of a dive called the Glue Works, somewhere round here?” he asked Dave. They were back on the road.

For a casual question, designed to get Dave off his insistence that Selby could only be working the streets of King’s Cross, it evoked a curiously cautious answer.

“I mighter done, why?”

“Just went there one time with summer the lads, that’s all. Didn’t reckon it. Is it a drag joint, Dave? Because if it isn’t, there’s a lorrer talent round Donny haven’t half gotter five o’clock shadder problem.”

“I wouldn’t know, Alex. When I’m on the road I’m on the road, most exotic place I ever see is the Happy Eater where we just was.”

At least this pointless exchange had had its desired effect. Or so Alex was hoping, in vain as it turned out. As they passed a grassed-over slag heap with the windowless shed that was the Glue Works, a former working-men’s club, perched on the side of it, Dave added: “Not that I’ve ever been in it since it was the old Colliers’ Institute, but if as you say it’s turned into a drag joint, you’re not gunner find her in there, are you?”

“I never said I would, Dave. She’s not left Leeds juster finish up outside Donny. No, I know where she’ll be all right.”

“So do I, lad. Take it from me, King’s Cross.”

“Can we drop it about maring King’s Cross?”

“So where else might she have headed for, you tell me?”

“No might about it, Dave. I’m telling you, I know. So-oh.”

“So-oh? What would she be doing in fookin So-oh? There’s nowt there for a lass on the run in this day and age, kidder. It’s all changed, has So-oh. They’ve cleaned it up. It’s all caffies and coffee bars these days, hardly any red light district to speak of at all. So you’d be wasting your time there.”

“How many more times, Dave? She’s not a maring hooker, she’s a maring nurse. Be told!”

“There’s a lorrer lasses nowadays is both, Alex, lad. Nurse by day, streetwalker by night. Or t’other way round if they’re on night shift. It’s not their fault, poor kids, they just don’t get paid enough. And besides, the punters like the uniform, they go mad for it. So I’ve been told,” added Dave virtuously.

Alex, deciding that Dave was either insensitive or incorrigible or both, or perhaps plain dim, again tried to get off on a different tack.

“When will you be going back up to Higginshaw, Dave?”

“Tomorrer dinner, soon as I’m loaded up with some seedless grapes for Leeds Market. Why, you don’t want a lift back, do you?”

“Wouldn’t mind, if it’s no trouble.”

“You’ve not even got there yet. You’re never gunner find this lasser yours in twenty-four hours, you know.”

“I’ve got to, Dave, otherwise she’s had it. I’ve gorrer job interview day after tomorrer.”

“Oh aye, who with?”

“I’m saying job interview, it’s with what they call a head hunter. Sorting out applicants for jobs on Radio Metropole.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You won’t’ve done, Dave, it’s not started up yet. Only they’re recruiting nearly everybody from scratch, so I’m in with a better chance than I would be with the Beeb or Radio Aire, where they won’t even look at you if you’ve got no experience.”

“Experience at what, ladder?”

“DJ. I’d be good at it, I know I would. I’ve done a coupler discos at the Metro Union, standing in forrer mater mine, and from what everybody says it seems I’ve got what it takes.”

“And what does this Selby reckon to it?”

“Norrer lot, Dave. She thinks I’m reaching for the moon styler thing. But as I’ve said to her, a lorrer people’ve reached for the moon, and summer them have got to run with it.”

Another subject for a row, could have been, but he’d refused to rise to it. “Anyway, we’ll see. All I want is a foot in the door and then it’s up to me, innit?”

“Nonner my business, Alex,” said Dave. “But are you sure, deep down, you really want to find this lasser yours? I mean to say, from all you’ve said, you don’t exactly seem to see eye to eye.”

They were bypassing Peterborough. Sod Peterborough.

“I know it sounds like that but as I say, Dave, you don’t know her,” said Alex doggedly. But he took Dave’s point, he had to admit it.

What he didn’t tell Dave, and what he hadn’t told Selby, was that this head hunter story had got a bit out of hand. True, a bloke from Radio Metropole was coming to talk to the media studies course, but no way could he be described as a head hunter, he was just marking their card on job prospects in radio and that. But Selby, for the sake of picking a row, had chosen to believe he was a head hunter, and Alex, for the sake of preventing a row, had gone along with it, to the point at which he now more or less believed it himself.