Christ, it’s a raid.
Bright lights on in the street outside, and rat-tat-tat on the door. Gotta be the police.
Dinky is already in the bathroom, flushing. Shame to lose that dynamite grass, genetically enhanced to reach all the right places in the shortest possible time. (If you’re a baby-boomer who last smoked dope in the seventies, you don’t know what you’re missing.) But what else can he do? Of course anyone can always say ‘only personal use, officer’, but there’s no telling who’ll get away with it and who won’t.
Meanwhile Rupa has put her knickers back on; now she’s reaching for her baggiest jumper. Down to her knees. Another knock: wham, bam. Hold on, mate, she’s coming. Half-way downstairs, already.
Instinctively she ties her hair up as she walks the six, seven feet from the bottom step along the hall to the front door. ‘Who is it?’, she calls out.
Pointless, really: only the authorities knock on doors in that peremptory manner.
‘Rupa, I’ve come back for you’, comes back the oh-so-familiar voice of her talent show mentor. ‘Please open the door...I couldn’t bear to leave here without you.’
Can it, could it be? With one hand she’s opening the door, the other hand already half-over her mouth, perfectly positioned to perform a gasp of surprise.
It is, it is, it is. Was never going to be the police, was it? Not without Boris Johnson (or will it be Ken going out with them on raids?). And anyway, they come at dawn not in the middle of the night.
Camera’s onto her immediately. Lapping up her bare legs. Beatnik jumper: breasts curving and pointing through all that shapelessness. TV lighting brings out the best. Thank God she pulled her hair up on the way downstairs. Looks like she’s straight out of bed. With her boyfriend, but only if you want to think of her that way.
‘Rupa, you’re my wild card. I’d like you to come back to the show.’ Her mentor’s arms are outstretched, ready for the required embrace. Not before the camera has caught Rupa, scrunched-up face crumbling with happiness, speechless (no need to say
‘gobsmacked’ nowadays), nodding absolute assent.
Then they fall into each others’ arms and Rupa's mentor whispers instructions into her ear:
‘Get in the car just as you are. You can come back for your stuff later, or we’ll send someone.’
Out of shot, the director’s already waving them towards the limousine. They’re arm-in-arm, bosom buddies, friends forever – or until Rupa’s knocked out of the competition again. Bare feet, she’s careful what she’s walking on out there. At the car door, held open by a chauffeur, Rupa turns back to see Dinky, framed in the doorway. She guesses he hasn’t been seen on camera, though, so doesn’t blow him a kiss or anything that would specify their boy-girl relationship. Just a brief wave, a wave in general, then she bows her head, bends at the knee (knickers not showing – good girl), and she’s in.
Into the cream leather interior. And exiting from all that Dinkyness. Surely for the best.
Going to see my parents, I said to him, let them make a fuss of me. Blah blah blah. But this, all this, is a much better way out.
Part 3. Fear and Self-Loathing in East London