Babycakes

  Simon turned to her with a rueful little smile.

  “It isn’t you,” she said.

  “I hope not.”

  “He’s been … I don’t know … not himself lately.”

  “Mmm.”

  The joint had gone out, so she lit it again and offered it to Simon. He shook his head. She took a short drag and extinguished it. “So … you’re a runner, huh?”

  He nodded. “Second generation.”

  “Really?”

  “My father and I both ran at Cambridge.”

  “How Chariots of Fire,” she said.

  He laughed. “We weren’t quite that competitive. It was mostly to keep fit. Ill health was considered very poor form in the Bardill family.”

  “Was?”

  “Well.” His eyes were twinkling again. “There’s not that much left of the family, is there?”

  44 Colville Crescent

  THE RAIN SEEMED TO FOLLOW MICHAEL TO LONDON. IT clattered like spilled gravel against the great vaulting roof of Victoria Station as he grabbed his suitcase and scrambled toward the first available black cab. His driver, a sixtyish man the color of corned beef, touched the bill of his cap.

  “Where to, mate?”

  “Uh … Nottingham Gate.”

  “Eh?”

  “Nottingham Gate.” He said it with more authority this time.

  “Sorry, mate. No such place. Now, there’s a Notting Hill Gate….”

  “The address is Forty-four Colville Crescent.”

  The driver nodded. “That’s Notting Hill Gate.”

  “Great,” said Michael, sinking down into burnished leather. “Thank God for that.”

  The flight had been a living nightmare. Despite the effects of the Queen Mother dope and the ministrations of a chummy gay flight attendant, he had been completely unable to sleep. When he arrived at Gatwick Airport, cotton-mouthed and cranky, he was detained for almost two hours while customs officials ransacked the luggage of three hundred African nationals who had landed at the same time.

  After losing another hour as he waited to change money, he had boarded a packed London-bound shuttle train, where he shared litter-strewn compartment with a brassy couple from Texarkana who insisted on talking about the Forty-Niners, despite his fearless display of indifference to the subject.

  His driver glanced toward the back seat. “A Yank, eh?”

  “Uh … right.”

  “See what we done to them Argies?”

  RGs? A soccer team, maybe? “Oh, yeah … that was some-thin’.”

  A wheezy chuckle. “And we did it without the help of your bloody President.”

  It wasn’t sports, then. It was politics.

  “Mind you, you Yanks always come in late on the big wars. You come in late, or you don’t come at all. Nothin’ personal,”

  The light dawned. The Falklands war. The Argies were Argentines. Americans didn’t call them that, because Americans had never cared. You had to start killing people before you took the trouble to give them nicknames. Japs, Krauts, Commies, Cooks … Argies. He had no intention of prolonging the war by arguing with this man. “I like your battle hymn,” he said.

  “Eh?” The driver looked at him as if he were crazy.

  “ ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.’ Isn’t that what the troops sang, or something?”

  The driver grunted, apparently convinced that Michael was crazy. What did a bloody song have to do with anything? He stopped talking altogether, and Michael breathed a secret sigh of relief as the cab sped past the pale green blur of Hyde Park.

  He had been away from this city for sixteen years, the longest time he’d been away from any spot on earth. He had lost his innocence here—or, more accurately, found it—at a lime when mod was in flower and the streets were swarming with legions of while-lipped, black-lashed “birds,” He had met a corduroy-clad bricklayer on Hampstead Heath and gone home with him and learned in an instant just how simple and comforting and beautiful real life could actually be.

  The bricklayer had resembled a younger, leaner Oliver Reed, and Michael could recall every detail of that distant afternoon: the statue of David next to his bed, the brown sugar crystals he used in his coffee, the physique magazines he left lying around where anyone could see them, the silken feel of his hairless scrotum. Your first stranger, it seemed, is the one you remember for the rest of your life.

  Where was he now? How old would he be? Forty-five? Fifty?

  The cab veered left at Marble Arch, a landmark he recognized, then they appeared to follow the Bayswater Road along the edge of a large public garden. Which one? He couldn’t remember. He was punch-drunk with fatigue and depressed by the rain, so he seized upon passing English icons to bolster his morale:

  A shiny red mailbox.

  A zebra crossing like the one on the Abbey Road album.

  A pub sign banging in the wind.

  The game became tougher when the cab moved into a region of plastic Pizza Huts and tawdry ethnic restaurants. It wasn’t an unpleasant district, really, just surprisingly un-English—more akin to the Haight-Ashbury than anything he had experienced during his earlier visit.

  Then the landscape became residential again. He caught glimpses of tree-lined streets and oversized Victorian row houses with crumbling plaster facades. Black children romped in the rain beside a yellow brick wall on which someone had spray-painted: STUFF THE ROYAL WEDDING.

  He spotted a street sign that said COLVILLE. “Isn’t this it?” he asked the driver.

  “That’s Colville Terrace, mate. You want the Crescent. It’s just up the way a bit.”

  Three minutes later, the cab came to a stop. Michael peered out the window with mounting dread. “Is this it?” he asked.

  The driver looked peeved. “You wanted Number Forty-four, didn’t you?”

  “Right.”

  “Then that’s it, mate.”

  Michael checked the meter (a modern digital one that looked odd in the classic cab) and handed the driver a five-pound note with instructions to keep the change. He was overtipping, but he wanted to prove that a man who knew nothing about wars and streets could be generous just the same.

  The driver thanked him and drove off.

  Michael stood on the street and gaped at Simon’s house. Its plaster facade, apparently a victim of dry rot, was riddled with huge leprous scabs which had fallen away completely in places to expose the nineteenth-century brick beneath. For some reason, this disfigurement went straight to the pit of his stomach, like bone glimpsed through a bloodless wound.

  He dismissed a flickering hope that there might really be a Nottingham Gate and headed past overturned garbage cans (dust bins, the English insisted on calling them) to the front door of the three-story building. His dread became palpable when he found the name BARDILL printed on a card by the door buzzers.

  He set his suitcase by the door, found the designated key, and wiggled it into the lock. A dark corridor confronted him. He located the light switch—a circular push thing—on a water-stained wail papered with purple roses. The door to Simon’s ground-floor flat was at the end of the corridor on the right. By the time he had found the right key and slipped it into an obstinate lock, he was engulfed in darkness so complete that he thought for a moment he’d gone blind.

  The light switch. Of course. It was on a timer. He recalled this sensible oddity of British engineering from his last visit. It had charmed him at the time, like electric towel warmers and teakettles that shut off automatically as soon as they whistled.

  He turned the knob and pushed against the door with his shoulder, causing light to spill into the corridor from Simon’s flat. A vile odor, like the halitosis of an old dog, rolled over him in waves. He held his breath and lunged for the nearest window, cracking it enough to let in a gush of rain-scented air.

  As Simon had promised, the living room had fourteen-foot ceilings, which did lend it a certain aura of seedy elegance. Tatty was the word he had used, and that was a fair enough des
cription for the lumpy, junkshop furniture grouped around the room’s nonfunctioning fireplace. The pale green walls were dotted with tin engravings from Victorian times, the only visible concession to interior decoration. Simon’s stereo and a stack of records completed the grim tableau.

  Michael followed a narrow hallway in search of the bedroom. Once there, he dropped his suitcase and sank numbly to the edge of the bed, ordering himself not to jump to conclusions. He was bone tired from the ten-hour flight, so his mounting despair could well be a function of fatigue, not to mention the airlines Danish that flopped about in his stomach like a dying rodent.

  It was noon now, he supposed. What he needed was a hot bath and a good sleep. When he awoke, the old wonderment would be back again, bringing with it his invaluable capacity for finding quaintness in hardship. What had he expected, anyway? Some sanitized, Disney-like version of English charm?

  Yes, he decided, when he saw the bathroom. He had expected something along the lines of the cozy town house in 101 Dalmatians. Something with roses in the garden and mellow paneling and—yes, goddamnit—towel warmers in the bathroom. What he found instead was a cramped room smelling of stale pee and painted to simulate blue sky and clouds. Like the ceiling of an organic bakery in Berkeley.

  The tub had legs, which scored a few points for quaintness, but the hot water ran out as soon as it reached the top of his knees. He lay there immobile, racked with disillusionment, and chastised himself for ever agreeing to swap apartments with a heterosexual he didn’t know.

  Moments later, he collapsed into bed, but he didn’t fall asleep for at least an hour. As he finally drifted off, he had a vague impression of rain pounding on the packed earth of his “garden” and another, more rhythmic sound. Was it … drums?

  It was dark when he awoke. He stumbled about in search of a light switch, then went into the kitchen to take stock of the stuff he would need. There was no food, of course—except for some moldy noodles and a can of herring—and eating utensils were in sparse supply.

  For starters, he would buy some cereal and milk, some bread and peanut butter. But that would be tomorrow. Tonight, he would find a neighborhood pub that served Scotch eggs and Cornish pasties and get just as shit-faced as the situation required.

  Returning to the bedroom, he decided to make things official by unpacking his suitcase. He was almost done when he remembered the note from Simon stashed in the side pocket. He sat down on the bed and read it:

  Michael—

  I thought you might be able to use a few words of advice about the many enigmas of 44 Colville Crescent: The hot water (or lack thereof) is a bit of a nuisance, I’m afraid. You’ll find the tank in the nook between the lav and the kitchen, should you have any serious problems with it. (Truly serious problems should be referred to Mr. Nigel Pearl, a plumber in Shepherd’s Bush. His number is posted on the door of the fridge.)

  The automatic turn-off whatsit on the stereo does not turn off automatically. The central heating has been shut off for the season; I doubt you’ll need it. There’s an extra duvet in the bottom drawer of the cupboard in the bedroom. The bed, as you must have noticed by now, is propped up at one corner by my vast collection of Tatlers, which is quite the best place for them to be.

  Foe basic, foodstuffs, I recommend Europa foods in Notting Hill Gate. For toiletries, try Boots the Chemist (a “drug store” in your quaint colonial parlance). For real drugs, try one of the black gentlemen in All Saints Road, but do not, under any circumstances, go there at night. Their grass is no match for Humboldt County’s finest, but it does the job nicely if you lace it with hashish.

  The gas cooker in the kitchen shouldn’t present any problems. Trash is kept under the sink-basin, as is furniture polish, buckets, dustpan, etc. There is also a stopcock for the water. If there is ever any kind of flood, just turn that off (clockwise) and the water supply is blocked.

  The launderette (service-wash) and dry cleaners are round the corner at the junction of Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road. The Electric Cinema in Portobello Road has good old movies, if you like things like Glen or Glenda (my personal favorite) and Jessie Matthews retrospectives.

  A certain Miss Treves (Nanny Treves to me) will be popping in from time to time to keep an eye on things. Please introduce yourself and tell her you are a friend of mine. When she asks you about my ship-jumping caper (and she will, I assure you), feel free to tell her what you know and say I’ll be home just after Easter. I’ll give her the gory details in a letter. Miss Treves is a manicurist now, but she was my nanny for many years. She’s fretted over me ever since I got away from her in the British Museum II was six), so she’s likely to be a bit distraught. That’s all you need to know about her except the obvious, which I’m sure you’ll handle with your usual grace and gallantry. London is yours.

  SIMON

  The note, rendered on flimsy blue paper in a spidery handwriting, gave Michael the soothing sensation of another human presence in the apartment with him. He could almost hear Simon’s voice as he read it. When you came right down to it, the place wasn’t that awful, he decided. All he really needed was a base camp from which to explore the city.

  But what was the “obvious” thing he was soon to discover about Simon’s former nanny?

  And what the hell was a duvet?

  To answer the simpler question, he checked the contents of the bottom drawer of the bedroom cupboard. There he found a threadbare quilt, faded from many washings. He held it against his cheek for a moment, like a housewife in a fabric softener commercial, feeling a rush of inexplicable tenderness toward this common household item. So what if the heat didn’t work? He had his duvet to keep him warm.

  He finished his unpacking, took inventory of his strange new money, and headed out into the night. It was roughly nine o’clock. The rain had stopped, but the fruit stalls in Portobello Road—empty and skeletal—were still beaded with moisture. As he left Colville Crescent and entered Colville Terrace, a corner pub beckoned him with yellow lights and the voice of Boy George.

  Inside, he ordered a cider, the alcoholic English variety that had served him so well as a teenager in Hampstead. The other patrons were decidedly working-class. Two pudding-faced men in tweed caps argued jovially at the bar, while a stately Rastafarian in dreadlocks nursed a dark ale at a table near the video games.

  His cider was gone in a flash, so he ordered a second one to wash down a couple of Scotch eggs. By the time he had quaffed his third, he was winking playfully at a plump woman who sat across from him under a gilt-lettered mirror. She was well past forty and her makeup had been applied with a trowel, but there was something almost valiant about her cheerfulness as she drank alone, jiggling her large calves to the beat of “Abracadabra.” She reminded him of one of those jolly barflies from Andy Capp.

  He paid up at the bar and ordered an ale to be sent to the lady’s table. Then, brimming with goodwill, he gave one last wink to his brave sister and stumbled out into the street to make his peace with London.

  Time on His Hands

  THE LUNCHTIME MOB AT PERRY’S HAD BEEN EVEN ROWDIER than usual, but Brian managed to cope with it by reminding himself that his weekend getaway to Oakland was less than four hours away. He was returning an order for a picky diner (“Surely you don’t call that rare?”) when Jerry of the Jordache Look sidled up to him with a greasy smirk on his face.

  “Your wife is at my station, Hawkins.”

  “Make sure the goddamn thing is bleeding,” Brian told the cook.

  “You hear me, Hawkins?”

  “I heard you. Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.” He checked two plates to see if they matched his orders, then shouted over his shoulder at the departing Jerry. “Tell her I’m up to my ass in customers.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jerry yelled back. “She’s up to her ass in Englishmen.”

  He was still fuming over the remark when he stopped by Mary Ann’s table ten minutes later. As reported, Simon was with her. She was autographing a men
u for a fat woman at the next table, so she didn’t notice him until Simon signaled her by clearing his throat.

  “Oh, hi. Is this a bad time?”

  “Busy.” he replied. “I really can’t talk.”

  “No problem.” She gave him her secret Be Cool smile. “I just wanted Simon to see the place.”

  He addressed the lieutenant. “So what do you think?”

  “It’s … very jolly.”

  He nodded. “Like a Japanese subway.”

  Mary Ann and the lieutenant both laughed, but not much. She looked strangely ill-at-ease, and he was beginning to think she had every reason to be. What the fuck was she doing, anyway, bringing this guy here?

  He turned to her. “Are we still on for tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  “My wife breaks dates,” he told Simon.

  “Now wait just a damn minute!” she piped.

  “There’s always a good reason, of course. Earthquakes, queens, polar bears …”

  “Excuse me …” The fat woman was back, this time tugging on Simon’s arm. “I got so excited I completely forgot to get your autograph too.”

  Simon looked grossly uncomfortable. “Really, madam, that’s awfully kind of you, but I don’t see what possible …”

  “Oh, please…. My daughter will be livid if I don’t bring her some proof that I met you!”

  The lieutenant cast an apologetic glance at Mary Ann, then scrawled his name hastily across the menu. His face was bright red.

  “Oh, thank you.” The woman’s upper lip was sweating as she added in a stage whisper: “My daughter is just gaga over men with hairy chests.” Giggling to herself, she waddled back to her seat.

  Simon shook his head slowly.

  “The price of exposure,” said Mary Ann.

  “What does she have?” Brian couldn’t help asking. “X-ray vision?”

  Mary Ann laughed uneasily. “I did a little profile on Simon that aired this morning.”

  “Ghastly,” mugged the lieutenant.

  “With your shirt off?” asked Brian.