Snuff Fiction

  Had I been outside in the world to enjoy the Seventies, I would have given them the full fifty pages that I gave to each of the previous decades. But I wasn’t, so I won’t.

  I was not released from prison until 1984, by which time most of those who had lived through the Seventies had forgotten about them anyway.

  I regret, of course, that I missed out on the fashion. When I see old episodes of Jason King and The Sweeney, I get a glimpse of an era when style was king. Those big lapels, those kipper ties, those stack-soled shoes. They’re all the fashion now, I know, but imagine what it must have been like to have worn that stuff back then and have nobody call you an utter twat!

  On your very last day in prison, especially if you have served a long sentence, they make a bit of a fuss of you. Your cell-mates give you little presents: bits of string, or old lumps of soap. And if they are lifers with nothing to lose, you pay for these with whatever money you have been able to save up over the years.

  You don’t have to pay, but then I suppose that you don’t have to be able to walk.

  I paid.

  The governor invites you up to his office. He gives you a cup of tea, a biscuit and a pep talk. He tells you how you must behave in the outside world. And also how you must not behave. To encourage moral rectitude and discourage recalcitrance, two screws then enter the office and beat the holy bejasus out of you. You then receive a pack of five Woodbines, the price of a short-distance bus fare and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. The gift of crisps is symbolic of course, as you have to hand them back.

  And if, like me, you are released from Poonudger, which is right in the middle of a bloody great moor, the price of a short-distance bus fare is also symbolic. And if you have five Woodbines, but no matches to light them with, this makes the gift of cigarettes similarly so.

  The screws relieved me of money and fags and hurled me onto the moor.

  When the door had slammed and the laughter died away, I rose slowly to my feet and breathed in freedom. It smelled of moorland and donkey doings. It smelled very heaven.

  On the previous day a limousine had arrived at Purbeck to collect the Doveston Archive. I confess to being somewhat surprised that it had not returned for me.

  I set out along the single track road, expecting any minute to see it appear on the distant horizon. But it didn’t.

  I should have been down-hearted, but I wasn’t. I was free. I marched along, my prison sandals scuffing up the dust. It was a shame that the prison laundry had mislaid my street clothes. I’d been quite looking forward to getting back into my kaftan. But, as the chap who ran the prison laundry told me, these things happen and it’s always best to make a completely fresh start. As it happened, he was wearing a kaftan just like mine when he told me this, and I must say that he looked a bit of a twat.

  I would make a fresh start. I just knew it. And, of course, I knew that I would, because I had glimpsed the future. It was a great pity though that I hadn’t glimpsed all of the future. Because if I had, I would never have stepped into quite so much donkey dung.

  But to Hell with it all. I was free. I was free. I was free. I marched and I grinned and I sang and I whistled and I stepped in more dung and I didn’t give a toss.

  I was just so happy.

  I don’t know how I came to wander off the track. But in a way it was lucky that I did. If I hadn’t wandered off the track, I would never have come across the little farmstead that nestled all but hidden in the shallow valley. And if I hadn’t found the farmstead, I would never have found the scarecrow. And if I hadn’t found the scarecrow—

  Well, I did find the scarecrow and he provided me with a change of clothes. I crept down to the farmhouse and had a bit of a peep through the windows. I didn’t want to bother anybody, but it did occur to me that I might ask whether I could use their telephone.

  There was just one little old lady at home, no-one else, and as I was feeling in so jolly a mood, I thought I would play a harmless prank on her. I returned to the scarecrow and put on his big pumpkin head and then I went up and knocked at the door.

  ‘Boo!’ I said as the old lady opened it.

  Well, I didn’t know that she had a heart condition. But in a way it was lucky that she did. Because if she hadn’t had the heart condition, she would never have had the heart attack.

  And if she hadn’t had the heart attack, I’ll bet she would never have let me borrow her car to drive off to the nearest telephone.

  The nearest telephone was in a pub, some twenty-five miles distant from the farmhouse. The landlord there gave me the warmest of welcomes. I had thought that my appearance might put people off, but no, the landlord was all smiles.

  ‘The last time I saw a hat, coat and trousers like that,’ said the landlord, ‘my dear old dad was wearing them. He was a farmer in these parts all his life, God rest his soul.’

  I asked whether I might use the telephone and the landlord asked me why.

  I explained to him that an old lady of my acquaintance had had a heart attack and I wanted to call for an ambulance.

  The landlord shook his head sadly. There was no nearby hospital, he said, and no doctor who would come out at night. His dear old dad had died of a heart attack and he felt certain that his dear old mum, who lived some twenty-five miles distant, alone on a farm and suffered herself with a heart condition, would, in all probability, go the same way.

  ‘It’s God’s will,’ said the landlord. ‘Let Him sort it out.’

  I sighed and said, ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Would you care for a pint on the house?’

  I had a pint on the house and then another and when I had finished this, I told the landlord that I really should be on my way. The landlord, still chuckling about how much my coat looked like the one his father used to wear and which his mum now apparently used on her scarecrow, slipped a ten-pound note into its top pocket.

  ‘You look like you could use that,’ he said. ‘Be lucky.’

  As I drove away into the night, I felt certain that I would be. I just knew that I would be. And I would.

  15

  A long-legged woman and a fine cigar. You got those things. You’re happy.

  Al Capone (1899—1947)

  I had no home to go to. My parents had disowned me when sentence was passed. My mother wept the tears that mothers weep and my father took it like the man he was and said that he’d never cared much for me anyway. As I drove down to London, I had but one destination in mind and that was the House of Doveston.

  The House of Doveston was no longer in Brentford, but then the House of Doveston wasn’t a house. It was a very swish tobacconist’s in Covent Garden.

  I knew that the Doveston had sold his penthouse flat in Hawtrey House. He’d sent me a press cutting, all about how the council were selling off the flats and how fortunes were being made. Another cutting covered the trial and conviction of Councillor McMurdo, who had apparently siphoned away millions from the borough coffers. I never met up with McMurdo when I was inside, I think he went off to one of the rather luxurious open prisons, where people who have behaved badly but have good connections are sent.

  Now, I was impressed by the House of Doveston. It was right on the central plaza, next door to Brown’s Restaurant. And it was big.

  The style was Bauhaus: the German school of architecture and allied arts that was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius (1883-1969). The experimental principles of functionalism that he applied to materials influenced the likes of Klee, Kandinsky and notably Le Corbusier. Although the Nazis closed down the Bauhaus in 1933, its influence remains amongst us to this day.

  I gazed up at the building’s façade, all black glass and chrome. The name was picked out in tall slim Art Deco lettering, which, along with the triple tadpole logo, was in polished chrome on polished black. It was austere, yet grandiloquent. Understated, yet overblown. Unadorned, yet ostentatious. Vernacular, yet vainglorious.

  I hated it.

  I’d never given
a monkey’s member for the Bauhaus movement. Give me the Victorians any day. And one thing I had learned in prison was that running gags which involve esoteric knowledge and the use of Roget’s Thesaurus earn for the teller a well-deserved kick in the balls.

  I pushed open the black glass door and swaggered into the shop.

  And someone kicked me in the balls.

  I toppled backwards, out into the street, passed by a shopper or two and sank to my knees in the road.

  ‘Oooooh,’ I went. ‘That hurts.’

  A large and well-knit chap in a natty uniform stepped out from the shop and glared down at me. ‘Move on, sniffer,’ he said. ‘No place for your type in there.’

  ‘Sniffer?’ I went. ‘Sniffer? How dare you?’

  ‘Sniff your glue pot down the road. Go on now, or I’ll kick your ass.’

  I eased myself with care into the vertical plane. ‘Now just you see here,’ I said.

  He raised his fist.

  ‘I am a friend of the Doveston,’ I said.

  The knuckles of the fist made crackling noises.

  ‘I have a letter here of introduction.’

  My left hand moved towards my left coat pocket. He watched it carefully. I made rummaging motions with my fingers. His head leaned forward, just enough.

  I brought him down with a right cross and put the boot in.

  I mean, come on now, I’d just spent seventeen years in prison. Did you not think I’d learned how to fight?

  I squared up my shoulders and marched back into the House of Doveston. I was not in the bestest of moods.

  The shop interior was something to see and once inside I saw it. It was like a museum, everything displayed behind glass. A staggering selection of imported tobaccos and the largest variety of cigarettes I have ever laid my boggling eyes upon.

  I have never been much of a poet, but standing there amongst the wonder of it all, I was almost moved to verse.

  There were showcases glittering with pipes and snuff boxes.

  Cabinets of match-holders, ashtrays and cigars.

  There were tall glazed cupboards of rare tobacco pouches.

  There was snuff of every blending in a thousand tiny jars.

  I wandered and wondered and gaped and gazed. There were items here that were clearly not for sale. These were rare collectors’ pieces. The pouches, for instance. And surely here was the famous calabash smoked by the magician Crowley. And there the now-legendary Slingsby snuff-pistol, fashioned to resemble a Derringer. And that was not Lincoln’s corn-cob, was it? And that was not one of Churchill’s half-smoked Coronas?

  ‘It bloody is too,’ said a familiar voice.

  I turned around and saw him. He stood there, large as life, bigger than life. I looked at him and he looked at me and each one saw the other.

  He saw an ex-convict, dressed in the garb of a scarecrow. The ex-convict’s hands were crudely tattooed, as were other body parts, but these were hidden from view. The ex-convict’s head was shaven, his cheeks scarred and shadowed by a two-day growth of beard. The ex-convict’s frame was lean and hard and muscled. The ex-convict looked far older than his years, but had about him somehow the look of a survivor.

  I saw a businessman. A successful businessman. Dressed in the garb of a successful businessman. A Paul Smith suit of linen that crumpled where it should. A gold watch by Piaget, that clenched the tanned left wrist. Brogues by Hobbs and haircut by Michael. Another two-day growth of beard, but this ‘designer stubble’. The successful businessman’s frame was going on podgy, but he looked far younger than his years.

  And the look of a survivor? Yes, I think so.

  ‘Edwin,’ said the Doveston.

  ‘Bastard,’ I replied.

  The Doveston grinned and I saw a gold tooth winking. ‘You made short work of my door supervisor,’ he said.

  ‘And I shall make short work of you too. It is payback time.’

  ‘Pardon me?’ The Doveston stepped back a pace.

  ‘Seventeen long years I served for you.’

  ‘I did my best to get you out.’

  ‘I must have missed the explosions.’

  ‘Crude stuff,’ said the Doveston. ‘I couldn’t bust you out. You’d have had to spend the rest of your life on the run. But I set you up in prison, didn’t I? Always kept you well supplied with money and snout.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Five hundred cigarettes a week.’

  ‘I never got any such thing.’

  ‘But you must have got them. I sent them with the press cuttings and I know you got all those, I’ve seen the archive. Very nice work you did on that. Well put together.’

  ‘Just hold on, hold on.’ I raised a fist and saw him flinch. ‘You sent me cigarettes? With the press cuttings?’

  ‘Of course I did. Are you saying that you never got them?’

  ‘Never.’ I shook my head.

  ‘And I suppose you never got the Christmas hampers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Doveston. ‘But you must have got the fresh salmon I sent every month.’ ‘No fresh salmon.’

  ‘No fresh salmon.’ The Doveston now shook his head. ‘And why are you dressed like that, anyway? You’ll be telling me next that you never received the suit of clothes and the wristwatch my chauffeur delivered to the prison when he picked up the archive. And where were you when he came to pick you up? Did nobody tell you what time he was coming?’

  I shook my head once again. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards,’ I shouted. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’

  The Doveston made the face that says ‘poor little sod’.

  ‘I shall have to write a very stern note to the prison governor,’ he said.

  ‘A stern note? No.’ I gave my head another shake. “Why don’t you send him a nice box of candles instead?’

  ‘A nice box of candles.’ The Doveston winked. ‘I think that can be arranged.’

  He led me upstairs to his flat. I will not bore the reader with a description. Let us just say that it was bloody posh and leave it at that.

  ‘Drink?’ asked the Doveston

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘Smoke?’ asked the Doveston.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘Canapé?’ the Doveston asked.

  ‘What the fig is that?’

  ‘Just something left over from the party I’d organized for you last night. It’s a pity you missed it, I’d set up a couple of really cracking women with lovely long legs. Gorgeous Herberts they had on them too.’

  ‘Herberts? What are Herberts?’

  ‘Bums, of course. Fifth generation Brentford rhyming slang. Herbert rhymes with sherbert. Sherbert dips, fish and chips. Chip off the block, sound as a rock. Rock’n’roll, bless my soul. Sole and turbot rhymes with Herbert. It’s simple when you have the knack.’

  ‘Have you seen much of Norman lately?’ I asked.

  ‘Once in a while. He keeps himself busy. Very into inventing he is, nowadays. Last year he invented a machine based on Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. He teleported the Great Pyramid of Cheops into Brentford Football Ground.’

  ‘How very interesting.’

  The Doveston handed me a drink, a fag and a canapé. ‘Tell me this,’ he said. ‘If you thought I’d stitched you up, why did you continue to work on the Doveston Archive?’

  I shrugged. ‘Hobby?’ I suggested.

  ‘Then tell me this also. Is there any chance of you taking a bath? You really pong.’

  I took a bath. I shaved and I dressed in one of the Doveston’s suits. I had to clench the belt in a bit around the waist. But the Doveston said it looked trendy. His shoes also fitted and by the time I was all togged up, I looked the business.

  Emerging from the bathroom I found myself gawping at one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

  She was tall and slim and svelte. Her skin was clear and tanned; her legs were long and lovely. She wore one of those ‘power-dressing’ suits that were so p
opular in the Eighties. Short black skirt and jacket with the Dan Dare shoulders. She balanced herself upon five-inch stilettos and her mouth was so wide that you could easily have got your whole hand in there, even if you were wearing a boxing glove.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, exposing more ivory than a big-game hunter’s holdall.

  ‘Hello to you,’ I said and my voice echoed from the back of her throat.

  ‘Are you a friend of Mr Doveston?’

  ‘The bestest friend he ever had.’

  ‘You’re not Edwin, are you?’

  ‘That is the name he likes to call me.’

  ‘Well well well.’ She looked me up and down. Then up and down again. And then she looked me halfway up. ‘You’ve got a hard-on there,’ she said.

  I grinned painfully. ‘I have no wish to offend you,’ I said, ‘but I don’t suppose you’re a prostitute?’

  She smiled and shook her head, showering me with pheromones. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’m shamelessly immoral. There’s not much I won’t do for a man in a Paul Smith suit.’

  I made small gagging sounds.

  ‘Aha,’ said the Doveston, striding up. ‘I see you’ve met Jackie.’

  ‘Ggggmph. Mmmmph,’ said I.

  ‘Jackie’s my PA.’

  I nodded in a manner suggestive of comprehension.

  ‘You don’t know what a PA is, do you?’

  I shook my head in a manner suggestive of the fact that I did not.

  ‘Pert arse,’ said the Doveston. ‘Let’s have some drink and fags and all get acquainted.’

  I grinned a bit more. ‘I’ll just pop back into the bathroom and change my underpants,’ I said. Suavely.

  I got on very well with Jackie. She showed me some tricks that she could do with canapés and I showed her a trick I’d learned in prison.

  ‘Don’t ever do that in front of a woman again,’ said the Doveston when he’d brought Jackie out of her faint.

  Jackie took me all around London. The Doveston gave her something called a credit card and with this magical piece of plastic she bought me many things. Suits of clothes and shirts and ties and underpants and shoes. She also bought me a Filofax.