I wanted to correct the old bastard in a way he wouldn’t like, and promised myself to do it as soon as the chance turned up. “I know you’re never wrong, Lord Moggerhanger, but my intelligence suggested that the route through the Balkans would be dangerous, in which case you might never see the Roller and its contents again, or the driver. In the meantime I’m absolutely done for, and need some sleep. You can stop worrying, though, because I’ll be back in a couple of days.”
The long pause tempted me to hang up, but before I could do so more cloth-footed words came into my ear from the shit pit of his mind. “Michael, you’re close to my heart. From what you tell me it sounds as if you’ve done a remarkably efficient job. I always knew I could rely on you to bring things off. I’ll be sure to coordinate your reentry through the English customs.” It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. “Phone me again tomorrow, that’s all I ask.”
I took a short walk to the nearby stream, water scummy and still because the tide was out. Back inside I found Bill in the dining room being served the equivalent of two dinners, one of which I knew couldn’t be mine. “You might have waited,” I said.
He had changed his suit, and with a tie looked like a smart but unscrupulous British businessman, who everyone in the world would recognise as such and see through. “Wait isn’t a word in my vocabulary, and I’d be ashamed if I knew it to be in yours. The only time I ever waited was when our platoon got to a farmhouse in Normandy, and the farmer was so happy to see British soldiers he told us to queue up for a glass of Calvados each. He took it from a barrel because, such a generous bloke, it was worth waiting for. Funnily enough, I even remember his name—Yvard, it was, Monsieur Yvard—and he had a great big smile on seeing us knock it back. But why wait in this splendid hotel, Michael, when the kitchen is so full of provisions that by not having waited I’m in no way robbing you. So sit down and tell me whether that cross-chopping swine Moggerhanger threatened to kill you, or otherwise do you an injury, or even have you on the carpet, because if there’s to be any of that, I’m your man in a tight corner. I’m beginning to think you’re right, and that we should kill him first.”
“Which reminds me,” I said, “get rid of that pistol you filched from the hatchback. I’m not having it in the car. If they find it at the French border it’ll be Devil’s Island for both of us.”
His platter of hors d’oeuvres had been as big as the Battersea helipad, and now he shovelled so much spaghetti into his maw he could barely talk. “You can stop worrying, because before the hunger pangs struck at my vitals I chucked it into the river outside the hotel. Now let me chop up this delicious escalope from Milan.”
We had a long way to travel before getting home, and though I recalled Frances telling me of the famous mosaics in Ravenna, there wasn’t time to stop and see them. We steamed by Bologna, Parma and Turin, and got over the Alps into France without a look at the car’s insides. At six we were close to Lyons, where the food in our hotel was superb but the beds lumpy. I informed Moggerhanger of my position, and after another night on the Channel coast we had a smooth passage across, nearly a fortnight after I had set out. It seemed like fourteen years by the time we rattled off the boat and showed our passports in Blighty.
At the customs shed Lanthorn came towards us with his clipboard. “Back, then, are you, Mr Cullen? I’ve been anticipating the pleasure very much.”
Would he search the car, tip out the powders, call his mates over for a laugh, then nick me? I’d get at least ten years. “I see you have a passenger. You went out alone, as I recall.”
“A hitchhiker,” I said. “I couldn’t leave a fellow Englishman to die in foreign parts, could I? It’s not in my nature.”
“Fine sentiments, Mr Cullen. But he’s very smartly togged up for a hitchhiker. He must earn at least a hundred thousand a year, and I wonder where he gets it from?”
When his father had arrested me at Heathrow I’d been loaded with gold about to be smuggled out, and he had the same sneering and self-satisfied expression as now shifted across his son’s pallid mug, the same tone as well, as if the father had come out of his grave to encourage the son who had in any case been practicing the role since he was four.
“Oh, I see, Mr Straw, is it? Part of the old firm again, are we?”
He put his long thin head close, hair in his nostrils—unforgivable in any man. “I’ve heard about you, on the grapevine.”
Bill, fingers drumming against the glove box, didn’t look anywhere near as downcast as Lanthorn wanted both of us to be. I hoped it was true that the handgun was no longer in the car. “Can I ask both of you, then, if you have anything to declare?”
Being in Moggerhanger’s pay meant little to him when it came to a spot of cruel badinage. If he took the two of us in he could still ask a price for the next consignment going through. “All I have,” I said, “is a one-armed statue of a woman with no left tit, and a few more of the Elgin Marbles.”
“Don’t be cheeky. What’s in the boot?”
I switched off the engine at this serious question, and got out of the car. “Our luggage. Do you want a look?”
“No illegal immigrants? You could get half a dozen darkies in there. Small ones, of course.”
No future in talking. Let him have his fun, then we would be all right.
“No little dogs, or kittens? Not thinking of saving quarantine expenses, are we?”
I prayed for the day when Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals was one place, and the Channel was filled in so solidly with all the bullshit that had smothered the British Isles for hundreds of years that you’d be able to drive across without paying tolls. Passports and customs would be abolished, and bastards like him on the dole. “I don’t keep animals. I don’t even like them. They shit all over the place.”
“Not even a dog, though? Man’s best friend? And you call yourself an Englishman.”
“Actually,” I said, “I’ve got Irish blood in me, and I’m proud of it.”
“Oh, one of them, are you? Any jelly, in that case, from Czecho? I have to ask you this, you realise. And what about detonators?”
“Sorry to say, I haven’t.” If I did I’d be glad to blow such a fuckface to smithereens, even if the explosion took me as well.
“I don’t suppose even the Irish would be so daft as to let someone like you try bringing it in.” He stepped back. “All I have to say to you, then, Mr Cullen, is this: make sure you don’t come this way too often.”
Bill, understandably, loathed the bastard’s repartee even more than I did. I hadn’t heard him swear before, but did now: “Fuck off, Lanthorn, and leave us alone, you big long link of prime crap. I’m a bona fide hitchhiker, and if you want to search my kit you’re welcome. But I warn you, as soon as you open the case there’s a six-foot pit viper waiting to shoot up your arse and have a four-minute feed on your guts.”
That’s done it. He’ll have us banged up for sure. A pink spot flickered across his face, then faded at someone giving even better than he had got. “Keep your hair on, Mr Straw. But I’ll remember that.” He waved us forward. “Off you go. Give my compliments to Lord Moggerhanger.”
I felt so fond of Bill as we belted out of town that even before he got to the counter of the first truckstop I’d ordered him a vast plate of bacon, sausages, chips, three eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, fried bread, black pudding, mushrooms, toast, coffee and, for good measure, butter, marmalade, two pots of tea and a Danish pastry.
To save slogging my guts out through hold ups along the Old Kent Road and the Elephant I forked onto the M25, and tackled the soft underbelly of the drab metropolis by Ewell, Tolworth Towers, Kingston, Kew and New Brentford, then on to Ealing.
“If ever you get hard up you’d make a good taxi driver,” he said.
“Too much like hard work,” I reminded him. “I’ll drop you off at Ealing Broadway.”
I dragged his t
rankelments out of the car when we got there, and it didn’t surprise me when he took his shooter from the glove box: “Don’t have kittens, Michael. I didn’t have the heart to throw it away. You never know when it might come in handy.”
“Sling it off Hungerford Bridge.”
“I will. I promise.”
He wouldn’t. Loot was forever precious to him. “Take this twenty quid. It’s all the cash I’ve got left.”
“You’re a gentleman, Michael. I might be able to do the same for you one day.”
“I hope not. Where do you go now?”
Traffic was honking for us to vacate the double yellow line. “I’ll report back to Major Blaskin, then I might do a spot of begging, to keep my hand in. It’s a very exhilarating occupation. Interesting, as well.”
A few minutes later I blasted the horn outside Festung Moggerhanger, knowing that overspending his coin of the realm (any realm) would have to be accounted for and wondering, as the gate opened, not when I would depart again, but whether. I decided to take a leaf out of Bill’s book, and give as good as I got, feeling foolish now at letting him walk away with the handgun. I should have had it with me till I was in the clear, not to use, of course, but to feel more secure with its weight in my pocket.
Chapter Fourteen.
Early one morning—yes, it’s Blaskin again—Mabel Drudge-Perkins’ resplendent body took up most of the bath, twin orbs floating in the steam like Jacky Fisher’s dreadnoughts. She may have hoped I would come in with her for a—shall I call it?—a more exciting way of getting into congress, but I had a better idea, my usual recalcitrant member (and it wasn’t an MP) so much in its rigid pose that she would not be able afterwards to deny that it had been efficacious.
She hummed a little 1920s tune, while I stood in the living room to don a shabby mackintosh (Bill Straw had taken my best), lap a scarf around my neck, and put on my most battered hat and a large pair of black rimmed spectacles. I stepped back into the bathroom, hoping she couldn’t see clearly enough through the steam to know that the moment of truth was on its way.
I yelped with surprise on seeing her, and said in a mock foreign accent: “Excuse me, miss. So sorry, so sorry”—knocking the stool for six as I backed away.
She screamed, feebly. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”
I clattered various of her unguents around the sink. “Me looking for Portobello Road. Got lost on street. Busy traffic. Bus near run me over. Can you tell me right way?”
“No, I can’t,” she cried in her powerful headmistressy tone. “This is the wrong place. It’s not in here. How did you find your way into my bathroom?”
“Don’t know, missis. Me see doors. Come up steps. Portobello Road—where is, please?”
“Go away. You shouldn’t be here. This is private property. You’re trespassing.”
I leaned closer, and lasciviously peered. “You got lovely tits, missis.”
She shrieked. “Who are you? I’ll call a constable.”
“Me constable once, in Turkey. Then lose job. Now I illegal immigrant.”
“I don’t care where you come from. I’ll scream the house down.”
“Missis, please. I only ask for Portobello Road.”
“I don’t know how to direct you. It’s far too complicated from here. So out you go. Out, I say. If you don’t go this minute I shall call the police, and then you’ll be sent to prison.”
“Prison in England better than Turkey,” I put on an appreciative leer. “You lovely. We marry. You come Turkey.”
“Oh, go away,” she wailed. “For God’s sake go!”
I pulled her hair, but only hard enough for her to realise the peril more fully. Now was the time to simulate nastiness. “Portobello Road go blazes,” I shouted. “All rubbish for much money. Me fuck you instead, for nothing.”
“No, no, please, I’m a respectable married woman.”
“Me only like them. No catch clap.” I latched my lips onto a nipple standing out of a rosy breast like the conning tower of a submarine. “Me love soap. You smell pretty nice. Dirty foreigner eat soap to get hard on.”
“Don’t you dare touch me.” She tried to hide under the water, but the displacement was such that it couldn’t be done without washing us out of the flat and into the Serpentine. I pulled the plug to be on the safe side and, to show I meant business, gave a slap on her magnificent behind while struggling to pull her upright.
Her scream was full blooded. “You filthy beast! Leave me alone.” She stayed firmly in the bath to fight back, but her effort to keep me off weakened, till I had her up to face a fate which would make death seem like a vicarage tea party. “Get out of bath, missis. Big lovely tits, nice bum, blue eyes. Ah, blue eyes. Sky in Turkey.”
“Leave me alone.” She whined like a little girl, so it was time to get on: “Me love you. Love, love, love.”
“Please don’t rape me. Oh, please. No, not that.” Her long wavering note of despair would have mellowed the heart of any man, but not mine.
We had played this theatre a number of times, which never failed as a preliminary to the sort of coupling she couldn’t resist. I slapped her a time or two on the arse, more to stimulate than hurt and, her protestations at full steam, I forced her onto the fluffy pink bath mat she liked so much, and opened myself to get right in, her lovely china-blue eyes flickering open and closed like the most intricate Ukrainian doll in Hamley’s window at Christmas.
She came with such cries as would have frightened me had I not been too concerned with my own pleasure. It wasn’t often I indulged in the kind of acting she called for, but the reward of having her in extremis made the farce worthwhile.
When the ecstasy came to a stop, as it always had to, alas, she stood by the sink and covered her breasts, tears of recovered dignity scintillating on her eyelids. “My husband will be in any minute. He’ll give you a sound thrashing, then no doubt kill you.”
I shook with fear, and disgust at myself, and began to cry. “So sorry, missis. Me only want Portobello Road. I no like husband. Bye-bye.”
I slipped away as befitted a ravishing cur, and went to my room, where I replaced the wet clothes for pyjamas and dressing gown. She came out, all warm and pink in her towelled covering. “Have a good bath, darling?” I said.
Her smile was worth a dozen performances at the Royal Court Upstairs, though the time had come to pull a few rugs from under her. “You’re late this morning. Get my breakfast on the table. I’m tired of you lolling in the back masturbating.”
“That’s something I never do.”
An ugly mood was coming on. “No? I often wonder why the flat’s shaking. Sometimes it’s at least force six on the Richter Scale. I’m so terrified, I brace myself in the doorway, in case the whole building goes down. A picture dropped off my wall the other day. I’ve seen two dildoes under your nicely ironed bloomers in the underwear drawer.”
I was going too far, but what was the point of doing otherwise? She gave no sign of taking herself off to get dressed, so obviously hadn’t had enough. She stood up straight, so as to try looking tragic. “Gilbert, I was raped just now in the bathroom.”
“How do you expect me to know? I didn’t hear screams of protest. All I ask is that you go into your bedroom and don your pretty knickers.”
“What would be the point of that?”
“Well, you could come back and sit on my knee, couldn’t you? And I could very gently take them off.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk such stuff and nonsense.” She placed herself on the arm of the sofa. “In any case, I have an announcement to make.”
“Isn’t the toilet the place for that?”
“Oh please do stop talking such rubbish. I’ve been waiting to tell you about my plan for some time.”
“What is it, then, darling?”
“I’m seriously thinking of beco
ming an Anglican priest. Women can train for it nowadays.”
“What a wonderful idea. I can fuck the vicar.”
“Don’t be so foul, and listen to me for once. I was talking to one by the Albert Memorial last week. She was a very sweet person, and told me all about it.”
I was stunned by her creative originality in having devised a new fantasy to keep us going, and stop me having a heart attack. “That would be the perfect occupation. A sky pilot no less. I can imagine you pouring hellfire from the pulpit, and when you’d done I could have you over the hassock in your cassock, in the vestry, of course. But if you were a priest you could still live with me. We’d have a different hymn every day after breakfast, and a sermon on the Mount of Venus for the Sabbath.”
“You appal me. I’m deadly serious.”
“No you’re not. If your plan is anything at all it’s a diabolical manoeuvre to get me into church. Surely you wouldn’t go to such trouble. And if you did get the job who’d be here to make my breakfast?”
Her smirk was hard to bear. “You’d have to find some other little handmaiden, wouldn’t you?”
“I prefer a big handmaiden, such as yourself. But I’m sick and tired of all this. Your perversity wears me out. How can a virtuous man like me cope with it? If my breakfast isn’t on the table in ten minutes I’ll, I’ll. …” I started to cry. “I don’t know what I’ll do.” I knelt at her feet, and wiped my mock tears on her bath towel.
“My dear Gilbert, try not to cry, darling. You know I love you.” She laid a gentle hand on my head, like a Christess about to bless me. “You’re out of sorts, my love. Let me take care of you.”
I jumped up, and pulled her towel off. “Get dressed, you slut, or I’ll beat the hell out of you.” I’d never laid a hand on her, or not very often, which she well knew and, I hoped, esteemed me for, but my threat had the right effect, for in not too long several dainty dishes were laid out in the dining room.
Her ponytail of blonde hair swayed left and right as she walked in and out, wearing a white blouse buttoned to the throat, a navy blue skirt (corset underneath) and laced up schoolgirl shoes, as formal as she dared be in my presence. “Before you sit down, sweetheart,” I said, “may I ask you to do a kindness and carry in the mail?”