Absolute Beginners (9 page)

‘No longer,’ I said, firmly.

‘Why no longer?’ she asked me, coming into focus.

‘The hitch thing’s out. We’re tired of being molested, and arriving at destinations we didn’t mean to. We pay our own fares now, like everybody else, in fact a lot of the new travel panders depend on teenage travellers.’

‘So you’ve been in all those Continental places?’

Now, it’s a funny thing … why should I be ashamed that I’ve never left our island yet? Why should I? because the reason is, although I’ve had opportunities enough (well, only last summer, the Marxists tried to ship me to a Youth thing in Bulgaria – think of that!), I’ve just not wanted to … Or rather … Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t even ever yet left London, except for once, of which I have the vaguest recollection, when I was trundled down to Brighton for the day, beside the sea, in connection with one of my Ma’s manoeuvres, and all I remember of it is being parked here and there, upon the beach and up on bar stools with ginger beer, while she disappeared to mess about with the easy-
money-boy
who was her escort. As for the country, that great green thing that hangs around outside the capital, with animals, I’ve never seen it, because even when the bombs
fell thickest in war-time, my old Ma refused to leave her manor, and refused to have Vern and me evacuated, come what may. And all I remember of that journey up and down to Brighton, is getting into trains and getting out – the rest was lying rocking on the hot and smelly seat, or vomiting.

Yet I must get away some day, and see the world. Not just that Continent they speak of – Paris and Rome, and all that crap – but the great wide one, like Brazil, say, or Japan, and that is why I
must
be sensible and save some loot, boy, hustle up some big stuff and depart in peace aboard some jet. So,

‘No,’ I replied, ‘not all of them. I’m happiest in my manor, taking sunbathes in the Hyde, or doing swallows from the top board at the Hampstead ponds.’

She peered at me, her eyes swimming with the lush that she’d consumed. ‘You’re a poet, infant, in your way,’ she said.

‘Oh, I dunno about that,’ I answered her.

While this ridiculous conversation of the ex-Deb and myself was still proceeding, some musicians there in the Dubious had begun to have a blow, because apparently a character called Two-Thumbs Tumbril, who plays bass, was holding some auditions for an out-of-city gig he thought might happen, if he could recruit a combo. There in the Dubious which, as I think I’ve said, is in a cellar, the instruments resounded with a thunderous effect, and as I listened to the sweet and soothing sound I once again reflected, thank the Lord I was born into the jazz age, what on earth could it have been when all they
had to listen to was ballad tunes and waltzes? Because jazz music is a thing that, as few things do, makes you feel really at home in the world here, as if it’s an okay notion to be born a human animal, or so.

A cat at the counter said, ‘Nice, but they’ll not make Bewley-Ooley.’ Another answered, ‘Well, who cares? That, garden party’s for the ooblies and the Hooray Henries, anyway.’ A third just said, ‘Great,’ with a soft dream in his eyes – but that may have been because he’d just been dragging on a splif inside the toilet.

From that same toilet, not quite yet fully adjusted before leaving, now reappeared the dinkum Call-
me-Cobber
number, who eyed the performers as if he was Mr Granz in person, like all these telly personalities do, acting the universal impresario to mankind. And after the bliss of hearing the boys blow in the proper company, the sight of the dinkum wrought me down a bit, because in the jazz thing, the audience is half the battle, even more than half.

‘Nice,’ he decided, ‘but it falls between two stools. They’re neither pop nor prestige-worthy.’

‘That’s two good stools,’ I said, ‘to fall between,’ and slid off my own to leave them.

The ex-Deb-of-Last-Year grabbed me by the port pocket of my strides. ‘Are you going to Miss Lament’s?’ she asked me.

‘Yes, maybe I catch you there,’ I told her, as I unhooked her vermilion claws.

‘You leaving us?’

‘Just for a moment, Knightsbridge girl,’ I said.

Because I’d seen the Wiz come in the place, and wanted a swift word with my blood brother.

The Wiz was wearing a gladiator Lonsdale belt with studs on it, and this he unbuckled as he came into the Dubious, like a soldier that’s been relieved from guard. But still he looked wary, as he always did, and no doubt in his sleep as well, as if the world was in the other corner of the ring where he did battle, and himself a lonesome hunter on the London jungle trail. ‘Come over behind the music,’ I said to him, and we got on the other side of the performers, so that their sound made a barrier that hedged us from the lush-swilling visitors around the counter.

‘What’s new?’ I asked the Wiz.

A nice thing about Wizard is that he forgets a quarrel absolutely. A battle, with the Wiz, is always for a purpose, like a meal, and once it’s over, he just doesn’t seem to think of it any more at all. He eyed me with approval, and I could see that once again I was his old reliable, perhaps the only one he had outside eternity.

‘I’ve news for you,’ he said.

I must admit at feeling anxious, because the Wiz’s bits of news are apt to sweep you out to sea until you can get adjusted to them.

‘I’m thinking,’ he said, ‘of going into business with a chick.’

‘Oh, are you. Clever boy. I’ll visit you at Brixton,’ I said, disgusted.

‘You don’t approve?’

‘How can I? You’re not that kind of hustler.’

‘Try anything once …’

‘Oh, sure. Oh sure, oh sure. Next thing is breaking and entering.’

I got up to fetch some drinks, and also to have time to think of this. Because I’d always imagined one day Wiz might go that way, but always decided he had brains enough to do better than that, and not get himself into some bower-bird’s clutches. Because say what you like, in that set-up it’s the female party who controls the situation, even if she gives the male one all her earnings, and he crunches her on Sunday evenings after the weekly visit to the Odeon. The simple reason being that her own activity, whatever you may think of it, is legal, and the boy’s is not, and all she has to do if there’s an argument is dial Detective Sergeant Someone round the corner.

‘Health, wealth and happiness,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Happiness! You should talk!’

There was a silence. Then,

‘Go on,’ said Wiz. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘What use, if you’ve decided?’

‘Let’s have it all the same.’

I groaned, I really did.

‘It’s just, Wiz, that it’s not your kind of thing. Tell me one ponce you know who’s got real brains.’

‘I know of several.’

‘I don’t mean craft or cunning, I mean
brains
. Constructive brains.’

The Wiz said, ‘I could introduce you to several bookies, club owners, car-hire proprietors, who’ve built
up their business by loot they made when on the game before retirement.’

I said, ‘I could introduce you to several
Saturday-midnight
-at-the-chemist’s, and several in-and-out boys, and several corpses, who’ve had just the same idea.’

‘Ah. Well, we disagree.’

I said to the lunatic, ‘It may be all right for creatures who are young in
mind
, as well as age, but, let’s face it, Wiz, you’re too mature already. You
know
too much what you’d be doing.’

The Wizard smiled, if you can call it that. ‘And this,’ he said gently, ‘comes from a kiddo known around the town for flogging pornographic photos.’

Oh well, hell!

‘In the first place,’ I said …

‘And don’t forget the second – and the third …’

‘In the first place,’ I continued, ‘you know very well only
some
of my snaps are pornographic, and I’m on that kick for giggles as much as loot. In the second, as you say, you know I’m pulling out of that activity as soon as ever – as I’ve often told you. And in the third, yes, as you also say, are you really comparing poncing with what I do?’

‘Not really,’ the Wizard said, ‘because it’s more straightforward, and it’s better paid.’

‘Oh, if you say so, Sporting Life.’

There was another pause for refreshments between rounds.

‘And who’s the lucky chick?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, girl I know. Of course,’ he said, ‘you’ll
understand it’s not wise to say
who
, specially to anyone who disapproves.’

‘How right you are, young Wizard. Anyway, whoever it is, I pity her. You’ll have a dozen on the game before you’re nicked.’

‘I’d not be surprised,’ the Wizard said.

I drained my non-alcoholic beverage.

‘Well, let me tell you, genius,’ I said, ‘two things, and do just listen. The first is, cute little number though you may be, you’re really not the fixer type, the hustler type, because you’re too damn delighted by the sport of it to take it seriously enough. The other, which you know full well, and should be ashamed of yourself for, is that you really have got brains, and if you’d had even a fragment of education, you’d have done big things, boy, and it’s not too late. It’s really not too late: why don’t you study?’

‘The school of life,’ Wiz answered.

‘Brixton class.’

‘So what? Each occupation has its risks.’

‘Fool.’

‘Yeah? Oh, well …’

The Wizard looked up at the ceiling, because the combo had stopped its operations for a moment. And me, I really felt I must say
something
to stop this thing: not because I disapproved of it (although I did), but because I knew that, if the Wizard did it, then I’d lose him.

But he got in first, now. ‘I’ll tell you something,’ the Wizard said to me. ‘I’ve thought it over carefully – and I’m safe as houses. Look!’ And I looked at him. ‘Imagine me in the dock! What mug – even a magistrate, let alone
a jury – is going to believe a baby-face like me could be a ponce?’

I waited, then said, ‘If you could see yourself in a mirror now, this very moment, you’d realise you don’t look young at all. Not at all, Wiz, you don’t – you look damn old.’

‘Oh, I do?’ said Wiz. ‘Well, then, let me tell you something else. This is an old, old thing, this whore, and ponce, and client business. Since A. and Eve, there’s always been the woman, and the visitor, and the local male.’

‘Be the visitor, then.’

‘Nobody likes the easy-money boy, there I agree. But the reasons he’s disliked for, kiddo, are all very hypocritical. The client shifts his shame on to the ponce, see, and the ponce is willing to carry it for him – give him a clear, social, respectable alibi. Then, no man likes paying for what the ponce is paid for. And most of all, boy, the world is jealous of the ponce! Well, kid, and rightly!’ And he smiled a great big aren’t-I-clever smile.

‘Fine, fine,’ I cried. ‘We’ll have to get you testifying before those Wolfenden creations.’

‘Oh,
them
’ said the Wizard. ‘The last person they’d ever want to ask about the game is anyone who
knows
about it … a whore, a ponce, even a client. You know what the Wolfenden is for?’ he went on, leaning across and grinning at me. ‘It’s so as to play down the queer thing in our country, and hide it behind the kosher game. It’s so as to confuse the two, and get all the mugs muddled, so that if they call down fire and brimstone, they don’t know on what.’

‘Not so loud, Wiz,’ I cried, because the combo had broken up, and someone hadn’t yet put on the pick-up once again.

So there it was. Already, I was speaking
secretly
to the Wiz, like I had never done before, becoming a part of his squalid little plot, and, believe me, I was revolted.

‘Christ!’ I exclaimed. ‘What’s happening to me? My girl, I’ve lost her to the Spades and queers, and now my friend, I’m losing him to the girls.’

‘Don’t compare me with Spades,’ said Wiz.

‘Now, be intelligent, I wasn’t. I was comparing Suze with you.’

‘Nice! Perhaps it’s you who’s worrying most about all this, little latchkey kid.’

‘Oh, perhaps!’

‘Well,’ said the Wizard, making as if to rise, ‘when the cowboys start to fill me in, I’ll have you buzzed immediately for bail.’

‘Don’t talk to me like that, Wiz,
please
!’

‘Oh, I know you’ll come running … you adore me!’

This was evidently it, and I reached up and slapped the Wiz real hard. Real hard, I did. He didn’t look all that surprised, and he didn’t retaliate at all. He just rubbed his cheek and walked off over to the bar, so that I realised this was how he wanted it to be. Oh, fuck, I thought.

So I went out of the Dubious to catch the summer evening breeze. The night was glorious, out there. The air was sweet as a cool bath, the stars were peeping nosily beyond the neons, and the citizens of the Queendom,
in their jeans and separates, were floating down the Shaftesbury Avenue canals, like gondolas. Everyone had loot to spend, everyone a bath with verbena salts behind them, and nobody had broken hearts, because they all were all ripe for the easy summer evening. The rubber plants in the espressos had been dusted, and the smooth white lights of the new-style Chinese restaurants – not the old Mah Jongg categories, but the latest thing with broad glass fronts, and dacron curtaining, and a beige carpet over the interiors – were shining a dazzle, like some monster telly screens. Even those horrible old
Anglo-Saxon
public-houses – all potato crisps and flat, stale ale, and puddles on the counter bar, and spittle – looked quite alluring, provided you didn’t push those two-ton doors that pinch your arse, and wander in. In fact, the capital was a night-horse dream. And I thought, ‘My lord, one thing is certain, and that’s that they’ll make musicals one day about the glamour-studded 1950s.’ And I thought, my heaven, one thing is certain too, I’m miserable.

And then, who should I see, wandering along the Soho thoroughfare, but the Kid-from-Outer-Space, who doesn’t know that is his name, because I haven’t told him so. This kid, who is extremely nice and that, and who I know from school days and even from the Baden-Powell contraption, belongs entirely to the Other World, i.e. as I’ve explained, the outer world that doesn’t dig the scene, although, in many ways, they keep the whole scene going. This Outer-Space kid works for the municipal, doing whatever he does, and somehow I meet him every year or so, just once, by accident, like this, when sometimes he
strays out of his four-square manor into mine, or I do, vice versa. And then we meet like travellers, and I tell him of the wonders of my section of the capital, real and fabled, and he tells me of his sports activities, and of his saving for a motor scooter, and of which side of the books a debit item goes in at the municipal, or a credit does. He’s sweet, but rather dull, though not a drag, exactly.