I gripped her wrist as her fist came flying. She would put up with anything but that kind of accusation, and yet who else could be eating me out of home and gardens? It wasn’t the cost that worried me as much as the mystery I couldn’t solve. If Drudge hadn’t eaten it I couldn’t think who had.
I splashed around in the bath for a while with my plastic battleships, then scented myself up and changed into a clean suit, throwing the other onto the floor for Mrs Drudge to send to the cleaners. Dismal rummaged amongst it for something to eat – or was it smoke? Maybe I wouldn’t send him to the dogs’ home after all.
I took some money from my desk, and checked that all credit and club cards were in order. Drudge was having a rather satisfying weep, so I kissed her through the tears till she stopped, then went out, pleased at having given her something to live for, even if only me.
It was a chilly spring evening and I sloped along in boots, a long fawn overcoat, a hat and gloves, towards Piccadilly, afraid to cross busy roads after such a scene with Mrs Drudge in case I got run over. She was too highborn and civilised to send maledictions, but I took no chances on negotiating Hyde Park Corner.
After a single bullet of fire in The Hair of the Dog, I went along Shaftesbury Avenue and slipped into The Black Crikey, where the first person I spotted was Margery Doldrum, who I hadn’t seen for a week. She was talking to Wayland Smith, a part-time sculptor who did something to the news at the BBC – one of those left wing intellectuals of the sixties who, unable to grow up, went into the media. Margery, who also worked at the BBC, had been my girlfriend up to a few months ago. She was thirty-eight, a willowy sort of woman, who only straightened up in a wind. At the wendigo sound of the gale she pursed her lips as if to give it some competition. She laid on make-up to improve the look of her skin, but only succeeded in showing an orange face to the world. Her disturbed eyes were probably the result of her experiences with me.
I met her when my last novel came out and she wanted to do something for it on the wireless. She flattered me, in a professional kind of way, so I did a bit of homework and peppered my talk with pallid witticisms trawled from old notebooks, and memorised them so that it wouldn’t look too deliberate when I brought them out.
‘The trouble with me,’ I remember saying, ‘is that I’ve got the sort of mind that considers clear thinking to be the death of intellectual speculation. Consequently I write the best parts of my novels when I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Other things, either stale or meaningless, were said in such a way as to make her think she had said them.
‘How does a writer like you live as well as write?’ she wanted to know.
‘As you get older,’ I said, ‘your unconscious comes more to the surface. You’re in the lexicographical fire service beating out words with a damp cloth. You realise that guilt is recognising your sins, and you haven’t got much time left, so you write rather than live. A novelist has to forget about what the novel is or should be while he’s writing one. It’s none of his business. That’s the only condition in which his art, if that’s what it is, can move on.’
And a lot more such bilge. But she loved it – or so she led me to believe by the serious cut of her lips and her stare at the little black tape recorder. Straight into the horse’s mouth, they put it on the overseas programme as well. I invited her to lunch at my club and, two nights later, put on my topee and set out for dinner at her house on Grapevine Terrace in Richmond. The dugout canoe nearly sank crossing the Thames, so I was a bit late. I didn’t even want to make love when I got there, but I did, as always, because I knew of no other way of getting to know women. But after making love I was never any nearer to knowing them than I had been before, except in a few cases where the uninhibited response of the woman not too long afterwards was one of absolute rancour. Then the relationship had the virtue of becoming lively. Margery Doldrum had made the first move, something which always disconcerts me, though it rarely happens. I had long made it a rule that if a woman makes the first move I don’t follow up, because it means she has problems. But experience has shown that all women have problems, and so have all men, so the rule (as with every rule) seemed rather unnecessary and when Margery made the first move I was not slow in making the second.
From the bar stool in The Black Crikey she pinpointed me with that basilisk eye now so full of healthy hatred. ‘Why are you looking at me so hatefully, Gilbert?’ she asked with a smile. ‘Are you going to drop us a few pearls of wisdom from your tired old snakepit?’
‘I’m not playing that game tonight.’
Wayland Smith wore a beard, that National Service uniform of those in early middle age who had just missed the real thing – unless they were young and had a Jesus complex and wanted to be crucified by the Third World, which couldn’t afford to do it anyway because wood was too expensive. They would just tie him on an anthill for reminding them of their poverty. If you liked Wayland you could say there was a benign twinkle in his blue eyes. If you didn’t you could say he had a malevolent glitter. I was inclined to leave him alone, but since I was in the same pub I was obliged to buy him a drink. ‘You have one too, my love,’ I said to Margery.
‘I’ll have a double brandy. Wayland’s driving.’
He put his pudgy hand on her thin thigh and opted for a pint of best bitter. Ugh!
If this is living, I thought, I would rather write. ‘Have you concocted any good documentaries lately?’
His smile showed a tooth missing, presumably from when he’d asked one question too many. ‘I’m doing something on the vulnerability of the British coastline, and I don’t mean geological erosion.’
I downed my double whisky-and-dash. ‘You mean drugs and gold, and illegal immigrants? I was talking to a waiter about that the other day. Or was it the man from the gas board who came to fix my boiler? My latest novel is about smuggling. I’m on the third draft, so maybe it’ll be out before your documentary. And if your documentary’s out first it’ll help to sell my book. In any case,’ I went on, ‘how can an island like ours exist without smuggling? The English are a nation of sailors, as well as traders, and that’s an unbeatable combination for making money. What luck that the radar coverage around our coast isn’t as perfect as it’s cracked up to be. Boats come in and out all the time, not to mention light aircraft flying under the radar screen and landing on one of those disused airfields in East Anglia. They don’t even need to land. They just lob out a parachute with an attached radio bleeper when they see the beam of car headlights, then fly away back to Belgium. So if you want to interview me for your programme I’ll tell you all I know – providing you buy me a drink. It’s your round.’
I don’t know why he didn’t like me. Margery didn’t know whether she liked me or not, which was much to her credit. I didn’t know whether I liked myself or not, which was slightly less credit to me. When in the presence of some people destruction is the only form of creation. He swallowed another pint. ‘I know something you don’t know. There’s someone at the middle of the smuggling ring who’s in the House of …’
Margery stopped him. Maybe she was working on the documentary too. House of Lords, my arse. I tried to persuade everybody I met who was in press, radio or television that they should become a novelist. I told them how easy it was to write a novel, though not too easy, and then I flattered them by saying that they had talent, that they were wasting their time in press, radio or television. Many agreed with me, though none gave up their lucrative jobs to test out the truth of my idiotic assertion. I always hoped that one would, but the odds were so great against their having a go that perhaps I was not being malicious after all. I thought that if I tried to persuade Margery to do it, in front of Wayland Smith, who I patently wouldn’t try to persuade, I may at least sow discord between them. I lifted my glass. ‘You’re far too talented to be working for the BBC.’
Wayland jutted his chin.
‘No, Margery. I’ve heard her commentaries, and seen them printed in the Listener.’
She blushed under her Damart vest. ‘I just knocked them off.’
‘They read as if they’ve been very well polished. That piece about the old lady who was evicted during slum clearance in Richmond was damned good. I’m sure you could write a fine novel.’
‘Stop it, Gilbert.’
‘Or you could write your memoirs. Why don’t you?’ Wayland turned to studying the beer pumps. ‘That kind of reportage would be just right for you. Your memoirs would be fascinating, the way you’d write them. You’d be certain to get them published by The Harridan Press, or Crone Books. They publish anything these days, as long as it’s written by a woman. Surely you can drum up something about a poor little Richmond girl from Eel Pie Island who inherits a fortune and gives nine-sixteenths of it to the Third World? I’m sure you could. In fact the Harridan Press is doing so well that the last time I saw my publisher he said, “Blaskin, old chap, you’ll have to write your stuff under a woman’s name. You do quite well, but you’d do far better, and so would I. We’ll publish any drivel as long as you find a woman’s name.”’
I always spoiled it by going too far, but at least Margery was amused, and gave a wonderful and uninhibited laugh that you couldn’t imagine her having when you looked at her face in repose. ‘You’re such a male chauvinist pig I almost think I love you, Gilbert. It’s terrible, I know. Yet I don’t think you really hate women. You’re far too amusing for that.’
The only answer was silence, so I ordered more drinks and Wayland came out of his trance with a scowl. Everyone has to live, and he had a car and a cottage to keep up, and a flat in West Kensington to pay for. I understood that perfectly, but what I disliked was that he confused earning a living with doing a public service, which would have been unforgivable if it hadn’t been so amusing. ‘He’s calling at my place to pick up some papers,’ Margery said. ‘Why don’t you come as well, Gilbert, and have something to eat?’
I was feeling guilty, and a tiny bit disgusted with myself, so thought it a fit mood to go back and do some writing with a high moral tone. ‘I’ll eat at home – if I can find anything. My charlady’s got half a dozen tapeworms, because no sooner do I fill the flat with food than she eats it all up. My whisky’s been going, as well.’
Margery dropped me there on her way to Richmond. On unlocking my door, it seemed I’d made a mistake. Absent-minded, but by no means drunk, I’d gone to the wrong flat. There was the sound of music, for one thing, and my place was supposed to be empty. I could tell ‘The Nutcracker Suite’ anywhere, though I hadn’t played it for twenty years. When I looked into the living room I saw this chap sitting at a low table with a feast spread before him of the sort I hadn’t partaken of for a month. His jacket was on a chair, and he sat with shirt open and sleeves rolled up, a man with a brazen look and a thin face, hard grey eyes and short hair. Dismal sat nearby, and it was obvious that they were as thick as thieves. The man smiled at me, then threw the dog a goodly chunk of Hungarian sausage, followed by a piece of rye bread which he had shorn off with a carving knife.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I could ask the same about you, my old duck. Bring the bottle of milk in from outside the door, or they’ll think the place hasn’t been burgled yet and break the door down.’
‘I’m asking you.’
He smiled. ‘Shall I explain, or would you like me to run you through with this kukri-type bread-knife?’
I took off my hat and coat. ‘If you’re a burglar I’d rather you emptied your pockets and got out.’
He stood and, to my surprise, offered his hand to shake, after he’d wiped it up and down his trousers. ‘You’ve got a lot of nice gew-gaws in here, but I wouldn’t touch anything, because I think you must be Michael’s father.’
‘And you,’ I said, ‘have been helping yourself to my food. It’s a good thing I caught you. I’d intended smearing it with poison.’
‘You wouldn’t do that to Dismal, would you? Listen, I owe you an explanation.’ He poured a glass of Nuits St Georges and went on eating. ‘Why don’t you get a plate, a glass and some eating-irons and join me?’
It’s no use saying I wasn’t intrigued.
‘My name’s Bill Straw, late staff sergeant, Sherwood Foresters. I’m here because I’m a friend of your son’s. I told him that the Green Toe Gang was out to cut my throat. So is Moggerhanger’s outfit, and Michael hid me in your rafters. It’s bloody cold up there, and a bit lonely at night, though your whisky was a help.’
‘Why didn’t you order half a ton of coal?’
He laughed, in such a way that I couldn’t doubt his good nature. ‘Next time I will. But seriously, my life’s not worth a light at the moment.’
‘And I thought I had bats in the belfry, hearing all that to-ing and fro-ing in the roof.’ The food was very good as well. He had boiled potatoes, cooked cannelloni, opened ham, laid out sausage, hacked various breads, and made a delicious salad. I was enjoying it more than any food for a long time. ‘You certainly know how to look after yourself.’
He rolled up a sheet of ham and threw it at Dismal. ‘I’d have made a special effort if I’d known you were coming back.’
‘And the wine’s good.’
‘Best I could find.’ He winked. ‘They didn’t call us the Sherwood Foragers for nothing. I was only going to stay a few more days. I didn’t want to impose on you.’
‘I’m glad I was made to help.’
‘As soon as I step outside I’m a goner. Though you never know: I might beat ’em yet. Life’s full of unpleasant surprises. I wouldn’t mind if only one gang was after me, but to have Moggerhanger’s Angels on my back as well is a bit rough.’
I poured a second tumbler of wine, and at his resentful glance put another out for him. ‘What do you know about Moggerhanger?’
He drained his glass. ‘Everything.’
‘Yes, but how much is everything?’
He crammed a potato into his mouth, but his speech was clear. ‘Let me put it this way: I’ve been involved in all his enterprises for the last fifteen years. There’s nothing I don’t know about Claud. I’m familiar with all his girlfriends, for a start. I’ve met his wife and daughter, and his son called Parkhurst who’s an even harder case than his father, except that he’s bone idle. I know all his clubs – and I mean all. You’d be surprised where some of ’em are.’ He leaned forward as if walls had ears: ‘Moggerhanger has houses from Carlisle to Thanet, from Berwick-on-Tweed to Black Torrington. I expect he’ll be training Michael to know where they are at the moment, making him a chauffeur-guide on how to get from one to another by minor roads so that anyone following would be lost within five miles – and there’s no such thing as traffic jams. All the places tend to be hidden and somewhat humble from the outside, and often they actually are, though one or two have concealed fall-out shelters, because Moggerhanger has contingency plans in case of a nuclear war to establish a regional seat of gangsterdom.’
As he talked, my pencil went over the paper like a hovercraft back and forth across the Channel on Bank Holiday.
‘These hide-outs are places he picked up for a few thousand in the sixties, before property shot up. At his London headquarters he’s got a map on his office wall with pins indicating their locations. I have a copy of it. But if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go now.’
He put on his jacket, and belched. ‘Thanks for everything. I’m glad to know that Michael’s got such a toff for a father, though we did meet briefly at Upper Mayhem, remember?’
‘What’s the hurry?’ I said. ‘You haven’t had your coffee yet. Nor your brandy. Or Cointreau, if you like. And I have some delicious Jamaican cigars. I had a box of Havanas, but you seem to have finished them. I think we ought to have a long talk about Lord Moggerhanger. I’d like to know what else you have to say on the matter. You strike me as being an observant and self-reliant kind of chap. I’d hate you to get killed when you go out on the street. Moggerhanger’s got stalkers everywhere. He’d be bound to know if you sked
addled from this well-stocked haven of refuge.’
I detected a waft of fear over his face as he caught my threat to betray him if he left. He was an unusual kind of chap. With a bit of polish he could pass himself off as a gentleman ranker. ‘I see what you mean.’ He reached for a box of handmade chocolates. ‘Dessert!’ he grinned. ‘You forgot that. Well, go and sort out your tape recorder, or whatever you use, and I’ll put the kettle on for coffee.’
I rubbed my hands. He would as good as write the Moggerhanger book for me, or a big slice of it.
Fourteen
I drove at dusk through the main gate of the Villa Moggerhanger, and didn’t feel very good when I looked in the mirror and saw it firmly shut behind me by the garage hand. I had left Dismal at Blaskin’s flat and Bill Straw wasn’t happy at having a competitor at the trough but, being man’s faithful friend, Dismal took obligingly to the parade-ground voice shouting for him to get down. I offered Bill the scraps of food left over from the journey, but he threw them into the trash can with a look of disgust, saying he was taking care of himself quite well, thank you very much, and in the meantime would I like another helping of Parma ham and melon?
On the way from Peppercorn Cottage I had mentally rehearsed leaping from the Rolls-Royce a score of times and fighting for my life, but once out of the car I knew I didn’t have a chance of saving myself. I was convinced the yard was empty, but no sooner did I open the car door than Jericho Jim, Kenny Dukes, Cottapilly and Pindarry came towards me. Lights shone from the house, and a set of more callous and incompetent faces I had never seen. And yet, apprehensive as I was, at least I had come back to base and knew I would a million times rather be there than in rat-infested Peppercorn Cottage. ‘I hope you’ve been good lads during my absence,’ I said.