Angel Touch (4 page)

Werewolf laughed again.

‘I'm terrible aren't I? Some days –' he was being philosophical; I could tell, because he'd put his feet up on the glass partition behind my head – ‘I just shouldn't be let out of the house.'

 

 

 

 

 

Salome's birthday bash was held in a pub called the Pavilion End, because it had been done out like a cricket pavilion. Apart from the cricket bores from the City who haunt it during the summer, it's not a bad boozer. It's just behind St Paul's, on Watling Street, the old Roman road that connected the Kent coast with St Albans, though it beats me why anyone should want to go to St Albans.

There was a downstairs room for parties and where the pub occasionally had a jazz trio or quartet, but there was little space, so I'd limited our ensemble to five: me and my horn, Werewolf and Tiger Tim's banjo, a BBC producer called Martin who would take his trombone anywhere to get in a gig, and my regular co-conspirators Dod and Trippy. Dod is not only a passable drummer but he also has a van big enough to transport us all, and Trippy, when he's straight, is a passable pianist. (Actually, Trippy is a very good pianist, but only passably straight most of the time. He's not called Trippy because he falls over his bootlaces.)

Martin was there first, partly because he was keen – ‘Jolly decent of you to let me jam with you' – and partly because the rest of us had arrived in Dod's van, which is never reliable at the best of times and certainly not in the City at rush hour.

I introduced Werewolf to Martin – he already knew Dod and Trippy – and we managed to set up Dod's drum kit and tune up before the pub started to fill. Well, I say tune up. Trippy opened the lid of the upright piano, estimated that there were at least 70 keys there and then headed for the bar. Werewolf took Tiger Tim's banjo out of its case, murmured, ‘A man after me own thirst,' and followed him.

‘It'll end in tears,' I said to Dod.

‘Yer probably right,' he said. Then he tightened the last butterfly nut on his high hat and went to join them.

‘Er … can I get you a pint in?' Martin asked nervously.

‘Might as well,' I said resignedly. ‘Make it two.'

‘Two? Each?'

‘It gets very crowded in here.'

 

By the time Salome appeared, there were so many red-striped shirts so close together that I thought my vertical hold needed adjusting. The place had filled so much that the next champagne cork would probably constitute assault and battery.

You get the picture already. The
jeunesse-dorée
-ever-so-slightly-blue (as Werewolf once described them) were there on mass. The young City slickers had taken off their double-breasted suit jackets and were flashing the shirts they'd bought at Next before it went downmarket, which they probably got their mums to wash. I wondered if it was true that they bought suits with an extra jacket so they could leave it over the backs of their chairs in front of their screens when they went to lunch. Not that many of them ever ate lunch. Just think, they might miss a couple of million between Mars bars.

We'd done a W C Handy selection, and I was quite pleased with my solo on ‘Hesitation Blues',
though I fluffed some of the fast high ones on ‘Atlanta Blues'
trying to do a Satchmo. Well, I get carried away. Then we'd done ‘Tiger Rag',
partly because Martin wanted to show off, and I've always thought it was a bone player's piece anyway, and then ‘And the Angels Sing', which was a bit of a private joke between me and Werewolf involving distant memories of three Aer Lingus hostesses (and, yes, I know
all
the jokes) in the days way back when there was safe sex, or what we thought was.

Then I saw Salome's legs coming downstairs and we slid into ‘Happy Birthday',
which could be my theme tune I seem to play it so often.

Salome was wearing a blue jersey dress I hadn't seen before, a red leather belt about a foot wide with a buckle no bigger than a portcullis, long red evening gloves up to the elbows and really dangerous red high heels. It was enough to impress an atheist.

There was a general increase in the hubbub at her arrival. She seemed to be known by most of the crowd, and a fresh volley of champagne corks went off at the bar. I was
beginning to know how Rommel felt at El Alamein.

It seemed a good time for the band to take five – which Werewolf deliberately misconstrued as meaning pints of stout – and mingle with the throng.

Salome was surrounded by people pushing presents at her and saying ‘Darling' or ‘‘Ello, darlin',' depending on which side of the river they lived. I blew her a kiss when our eyes met, and she smiled back, but even at a distance, I could tell she was going through the motions rather than letting her hair down.

Werewolf and I made our way to the bar by different circular routes – an old U-boat tactic when hunting in packs. I kept an ear open and picked up the City chat.

‘… saw it coming a mile off. Got out of dollars and into yen nearly a year ago …'

‘… but it's basically bid-proof because of the two-tier voting structure ...'

‘... so I said orwite, son, you can ‘ave what I can get but there'll be a premium that'll make your nuts ache, and ‘e said ...'

‘... and as I have never exactly wet myself over the trade figures, I don't see why my clients should ...'

You know the sort of stuff; well, you would if you'd ever been in a bar within a mile of Bishopsgate after 5.00 pm, or after 4.00 since they changed the pub hours. There was one thing I caught, though, that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

‘... the spade bitch deserves the stick whether she's doing it or not.'

I turned as much as the crowd would allow, but it was impossible to tell where the voice had come from. It could have been any one of six pairs of large tortoiseshell glasses or about a dozen pale yellow ties. I'd remember it, though.

Werewolf had reached the bar about six feet away, and he sidled along until he was at my elbow, mouthing the words ‘Pint o' stout,' and I realised I could lip-read Irish accents.

‘So these are what yer call Yuppies, are they?' he asked between sips.

‘Some are,' I said, after ordering a bottle of Pils.

We turned and rested our backs on the bar, like Alan Ladd used to do, except we weren't standing on boxes.

‘Now he –' I pointed with my glass – ‘probably is, because he's had time to go to his squash club or somewhere like Cannon's gym after work and break into just enough sweat to justify a shower and a change into his country casuals. His work suit's probably in the Porsche parked round in Finsbury Square.' The tall blond guy I meant was wearing enough designer labels to account for the GNP of, say, Andorra.

‘But he, on the other hand, –' I swung my Pils to the right – ‘that's probably a Puppy.'

Werewolf squinted his eyes in curiosity, but I knew he wouldn't come out and ask.

‘A Previously Upwardly-mobile etc,' I explained. ‘Did very well out of the Big Bang but has found it very hard going a year on. Probably been demoted when his brokers got taken over by a bank or similar. You can tell, because he's still wearing Mr Harry suits even though they've been naff for – ooh – six months now.'

‘I've heard of them, but I never thought I'd actually see one. It makes me feel like David-fucking-Attenborough.'

‘And there –' I noticed my glass was nearly empty – ‘is the future. The one drinking Coke from the bottle and trying to eat a pound of peanuts because he's heard protein is good for you. Looks like he hasn't taken O-Levels yet, and he probably hasn't, and now he won't ‘cos he's earning too much.'

‘As what?'

‘They call them market-makers now. It used to be jobbers, you know, on the Stock Exchange floor. Before the Big Bang, the best he could have hoped for was a tick-tack man's assistant on a race course.'

Werewolf pushed his tongue into his right cheek until his beard bristled. It was his way of looking thoughtful.

‘And the public school hangers-on?' he asked.

‘Lombards.'

‘Lots Of Money But Are Right Dickheads?'

‘Correct. Your round.'

Werewolf turned to the bar and noticed a couple of double-breasted suits using mobile phones. I could now sense the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

‘Watch this,' he whispered, and edged along the bar as if trying to get to the barman. As he moved, he sneaked up behind the two mobile users and gently nudged each one on the elbow.

I tried to assume my never-seen-him-before-in-my-life (‘your Honour') expression as the two suits turned angrily on him, but Werewolf just smiled and said ‘Sorry, sur' in his best bog Irish, and they let it go at that, moving away from the bar before trying to redial.

‘They're very badly designed, those BT mobiles, yer know. The “Off” button is so close to the ear-piece that it's ever so easy to cut yerself off, just putting them up close.'

‘How do you know stuff like that, Werewolf?'

‘It's always happening with mine.' He handed me a pint.

‘I never had you down as a slave to modern technology.'

‘That's rich, coming from somebody who drives a black cab and smokes Gold Flake and probably still hasn't worked out how to open a Swiss army penknife.'

‘And I refuse to own a Filofax, don't forget, on religious grounds.'

‘What religious grounds?'

‘For the love of God, I can't think what I'd put in one.'

He narrowed his eyes.

‘Shall we resume and get the joint jumping?'

‘They won't appreciate it,' I said.

‘I know, but the sooner we do another set, the sooner we can get down to some serious drinking. This is supposed to be a party.'

There's no peace for the wicked.

 

I had to scout around for Trippy, and found him in the upstairs bar conversing with an Australian barman. Now there was a deal going down if ever I saw one.

Dod hadn't moved from behind his drum kit – he trusted nobody – and Martin was where we'd left him, raring to go for the second set. We put together a fair enough selection, from ‘Indiana'
to ‘St James's Infirmary' with ‘Perdido' and ‘Avalon'
in there somewhere. Werewolf managed his Django impersonation of ‘Moppin' the Bride'
(a bebop version of the Wedding March), which actually drew a smattering of applause. Then Martin did a solo version of
‘Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me',
which was really very good, and we all clapped even if the revellers ignored it.

Not to be outdone, Trippy offered to fill in a few numbers, so we let him take over, although Martin looked a bit put out as he was on a roll and could have gone on all night. But he'll learn.

I looked around the party. It had thinned out some and the composition had changed. A few of the City slickers had slunk off either to their wives or to Cannon's health club or similar to work off the tonic water or Perrier they had been punishing their bodies with. The younger, brasher market-maker crowd were sitting tight and knocking back the lager like there was no tomorrow. For them, maybe there wasn't.

A posse of Salome's female friends had arrived to slightly redress the sex ratio but, like most things in the City, it was still weighted heavily towards the male. It was the sort of situation that makes me feel uncomfortable normally and one of the reasons I always avoid pubs that discriminate, however tactfully, against women. (Rule of Life No 13: as women form more than 50 percent of the population, they should be taken into account in all things. Don't be a General Custer – know when you're outnumbered.)

Trippy had started his potted history of jazz, a flexible medley that is really wicked when he remembers it all and could go on all night if you let him. He was somewhere between late cakewalk and early ragtime when I indicated to the rest of the band that we should pack up and, making the international tipping-wrist signal, head for the bar.

I waited for the crowd to rush us and demand an encore like they do in the Miller and Goodman biopics of the ‘50s, but nobody moved. To be fair, Salome did. She pushed her way through the crowd and put her hands above her head in the sort of clapping motion footballers make to the crowd at the end of a match. She mouthed ‘Thank you' a couple of times before being dragged away by a new arrival, a stunning young black girl wearing a suede mini that Tina Turner would have turned down as too rude.

Werewolf made a low growling noise. He'd seen her too.

‘Down, boy,' I said in his ear. ‘Let's get the instruments away first.'

‘Aye, yer right,' he said, and packed up Tiger Tim's banjo, giving the case a double pat to show he'd approved.