Blame It on the Bossa Nova (12 page)

“Hello,” I said. “... How are you?”

“Great,” she said and I saw her give Pauline the once over.

“Where are the drinks?” I asked.

“Everywhere,” she replied and when I looked I saw that there were bottles full of drink nearly all over the room - literally hundreds.

“Better than Long Life,” I said and she emitted a humourless chuckle to show that she appreciated the reference. I could sense that this was doing no good to the TV man’s ego so I hung around for a minute or two making more esoteric conversation before pushing off with Pauline to get some drink.

“What d’you want?” I asked her.

“I dunno. Anything.”

“Try this.”

“What is it?”

“Twelve year old malt whisky.”

She sipped it. “Is it supposed to be special?”

By this time one or two more faces had lit up tiny light bulbs in my mind, and some had lit up bigger ones. A familiar figure loomed in front of me. Frank Hough, another refugee from the Earls Court party, and more recent acquaintance. If I’d been doing my job I would have kept Pascale close to me. I remembered I was there to get them together…..Fuck it. He hadn’t appeared to recognise me, anyway.

It was gone ten by now and Pauline and I wandered slowly, drinks in hand, through the inter-connecting rooms. In one of them I saw Sandie, the dark haired girl with the beautiful legs, who I had also met at the Earls Court do. She was chatting to a well-known member of the House of Lords, one of the self-publicist variety who is never averse to doing something stupid to get his picture in the Daily Express. I wondered whether her black boyfriend Winston would approve of the liaison and if not whether he would saw off the lord’s head with a butcher’s knife and chuck it out of the window - that would be worth a column and a photo. She too recognised me and I enquired if Ronnie Forsythe was at the party. She looked at me archly as if to say I shouldn’t ask such questions. She asked if Chris was there. I told her we had come together and she said it was all right for some. But as Pauline and I continued our progression there was no sign of Chris to be seen. Pauline was continuously pulling on my arm pointing out ageing American film stars and rising hopes of the British film industry. I tried to tell her to cool it, that it wasn’t the sort of party where you got out your autograph book, but there was no way of stopping her. I decided to lose Pauline and told her I was going to have a piss. I stayed in the lavatory for an inordinate length of time, amusing myself by looking at the gallery of past members of the family and the notes relating their individual performances in the Eton v Harrow match at Lords. It was immaculately presented, each oval photograph was accompanied by a short report: “First innings, 37 not out. Second innings, 92, caught on boundary going for a six.” Know your enemy. I wondered what Pascale would have made of them.

When I cautiously emerged Pauline wasn’t there and I quickly slipped into another room, a library. Again groups of people chatting, one group laughing loudly and vulgarly. Framed by a couple of pilasters I espied Pascale in the centre of that group which also included Frank. ‘Job Done’, as they say in the Boy Scouts. I started chatting to a girl who said she’d been a Rank Starlet. She could talk all the studio jargon and was so boring I felt it must be true. I detached myself from her and found myself hovering on the edge of Pascale’s group. I was surprised that Frank was even at the party, the way things were going over Cuba, but his thoughts were a million miles from that.

“I tell you it’s the greatest sport on earth. You should see the drinking that gets done the night of the Army-Navy game. Wow!”

“... Could you please be ever so kind and pass me that bottle.” It was Pascale. “This one here?” I heaved it over.

“Isn’t this a lovely party?” she said in a naive voice.

“It’s OK.”

“Why the fuck aren’t you keeping an eye on Bryant? Where is he, do you know?” - all this in a tense whisper.

“No.”

“Find him. See what he’s up to.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Find him......”

Screams on the stairs announced that things were beginning to warm up. Those of us who rushed out were just in time to see the girl of genus ‘Rank Starlet’ being dragged upstairs by some Hooray Henrys in evening dress. She was protesting but it was the sort of performance that made you realize why Rank went to the wall. She disappeared from view shrieking and kicking and leaving her shoes halfway down the stairs. Simultaneously a P.A. system of gigantic power began blasting out music. But it was only Mike Sarne inviting us to ‘Come Outside’. I followed the sound to see what sort of action was going. The amplification had its source back in one of the rooms I’d already been through. It wasn’t a good dance record and anyway in that year dancing had been all wiped out by the twist. It wasn’t even a good twist record, but the milord wasn’t to know and he had set about making a fool of himself with a will that was heart-warming. Sarne’s painfully pseudo-working class tones faded into oblivion and were replaced by the ‘instrumental’ Telstar, which I had always thought had a more appropriate role as background music for an afternoon session at Streatham Ice Rink. It certainly wasn’t conducive for co-ordination of bodily movement, but he tried, how he tried, bless him. I could see Sandie getting distinctly bored by his lack of style, not that it was causing general amusement. I let him perspire his way to the bitter end and then stepped in neatly as I recognised the exhilarating opening chords of ‘The Locomotion’, a great dance record by any standards. It was a nice feeling, giving him the old Saturday Night at the Palais brush off and seeing his surprised angry face.

“Take a breather, granddad,” I commented as if in fun and, taking a leaf out of Christopher’s book, slapped him on the back, two sailors on shore leave - Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. I don’t think he got the joke. It was then I started to enjoy the party. A couple of crypto rockers, ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’ and ‘It’ll Be Me - the Cliff Richard version, were followed by a whole series of smooch numbers – ‘Sealed With A Kiss’, ‘Stranger On The Shore’, ‘She’s Not You’ - the lights went low, the drink kept pumping round my body and Sandie and I just moulded together. But Old Bones wasn’t dead yet. As Sandie and I broke, as I thought reluctantly and temporarily, in he stepped and before I knew what had happened he was doing some completely new variations on the twist to ‘She Taught Me How to Yodel’. I looked at Sandie to exchange glances of exasperation but she had eyes only for the aged one, eyes that told me I was booked to play Donald O’Connor. But it didn’t bother me, I went and filled my glass, I was flying, there wasn’t anybody going to bring me down. A voice speaking at tongue length range into my left ear brought me to a temporary ceiling and postponed further ascent for a few moments.

“Hey. Palomine... Buddy-Boy. Where is he?”

“I take it you mean Bryant.”

“Hole in one Buddy-Boy.”

“It’s OK. It’s all under control. I know just where he is. There’s nothing doing.”

“Just as long as you keep him covered.”

“He can’t move without me knowing it.”

“I’m glad to hear it... Where is he?”

“Relax Frank. If anything breaks you’ll be the first to know. I promise.....” It irritated me to think that sooner or later I would have to start looking for Chris. I hoped it wouldn’t cramp my style.

Things were shaking. I saw new guests who had not been present when I made my first inventory. A couple of gorgeous black girls, dressed up to look like twins, in tight satin trousers gave the scene cosmopolitan sophistication. They had the look of very westernised African princesses though the effect was slightly tarnished by them being pissed out of their minds and trying to pull the trousers off a guy who someone told me was our host, the Belted Earl himself. He was an Earl anyway. There seemed to be no immediate password to integrate me into their merry-making so I walked off, not enjoying the spectacle of such beautiful bodies so freely available, but not to me..... The music kept crashing through, some of it great sounds. The Isley Brothers ‘Twist and Shout’, its backbeat and arrangement so crude to our protected ears it sounded as if it had been produced by cavemen. Ray Charles’ syrupy ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’, which seemed appropriately to go on and on, The Crystals – ‘He’s a Rebel’. The combination of music and alcohol is a potent one; soon we were all up there at different levels. The Rank Starlet came back into my life for ten minutes. She too was, as they say, fuckable, but I had this wonderful feeling that it was a night when there would be prizes for everybody - it wasn’t necessary to grab at the first opportunity, far better to savour the developments. One development was the arrival of Forsythe. I didn’t see him arrive but once when I looked up I saw him in earnest conversation with Sandie by a table full of drinks. It didn’t look like he was asking her how she liked her Amaretto di Saronno.

The music jarred abruptly to a halt as a group of adolescents dressed up as middle aged men in dinner jackets knocked over the amplification system with a bit of horseplay. No one had told them it wasn’t a fancy dress party. It temporarily broke the spell for me, so that by the time things got back underway with ‘Twisting the Night Away’ I had wandered outside into the hall and was leaning against the wall while I lit another cigarette. As I did so I noticed Pascale and Frank sitting together at the foot of the main stairs. They had somehow lost the rest of the crowd and were engaged in earnest conversation. I couldn’t catch what Frank was saying but he appeared to take it very seriously. He was frowning in concentration and emphasising certain points, I could tell by the undulation in his voice. Pascale was not doing much talking, but she was doing a lot of significant looking straight into the eyes and a great deal of sympathetic head nodding at critical junctures of Frank’s monologue. She had also slipped her arm round his shoulders and was fondling his chin and jaw and upper neck with a method that was impressive. She noticed me standing there but gave no flicker of recognition. I walked up to them and past them and up the stairs. I was curious on my own account to discover what Christopher was up to, I was sure it would be something unhealthy. I tried a closed door but it was locked. I heard a voice say, “There’s someone outside,” and footsteps coming towards the door. I ran silently up the corridor and round a corner before the door was opened. The same voice said “He’s gone, whoever he is,” and the door closed. From downstairs rose the monotonously familiar Bossa Nova beat of Stan Getz’s ‘Girl From Ipanema’.... ‘.. Tall and tanned and lean and lovely....’ Next to where I had flattened myself against the wall was another door, not locked. I turned the handle and stepped inside.

‘At Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.’ There to me a wonderland was revealed. In a large room of the piano nobile a parallel party was warming up. Things up here were in a state of disarray, ties and other articles of clothing had been discarded and the process of letting go had reached a more advanced stage. There were plenty of young girls in the room and they had the goods. I normally only saw photos of them in the William Hickey column, or draped over cars at the Motor Show. There was a lot of pill-popping going on, bennies, uppers, French blues, purple hearts, were being freely passed around as if in some utopian dream of Aneurin Bevan. I sat down next to a girl with long blonde hair who gave me a handful. A guy with a bishop’s mitre and crozier was leaning up against the wall on the other side of the room. He looked well out of it. I pointed him out to the girl and asked why he was so attired. She told me he was the Bishop of Grantham. It seemed logical. The dream-like quality was enhanced by a gang of old guys, one of them the quizzical T.V. reporter, who were assisting one of the more ‘vivacious’ young things into the bottom half of a suit of armour. The ruling classes at play, it all seemed harmless enough. The girl who had given me the pills kept telling me that it was a beautiful party and that we were all wonderful people. She kept telling me that, with a profundity that made her a pain in the arse. I didn’t respond and after a while she started telling the girl on the other side of her. I stayed in that room for quite a while, I would have been bored if I hadn’t been getting stoned.... They succeeded in getting the girl into the suit of armour and tried walking her about without much success. A few couples, both hetero and homo started to enact hazy impressions of Weimar decadence and in a corner I saw a middle aged guy pull a Mars Bar out of his pocket and give a knowing wink to his chum. I wasn’t sure whether they had Mars Bars in Weimar Germany.

I became aware that the guy slumped in a stupor next to me was Forsythe. I looked around for Sandie but she wasn’t there. Wise girl, I thought and wondered whether I might get my hands on her. I decided against speaking to Forsythe and was about to make a discreet move to get away from him when his voice arrested me. His eyes were closed and he was lying in a drunken posture so this trick of co-ordinated speech was quite surprising, and quite disquieting.

“You’re letting me down..... You’re annoying Adrian.”

“Who’s Adrian?”

“Adrian remembers you even if you don’t remember him. He wants to pay you a visit. I told him you were working hard for us.... I hope I didn’t mislead him. He gets upset if he thinks he’s been misled.”

“Messengers always get blamed for bad news. It was wise of you not to upset him.”

“Don’t fuck me about Marshall. If you don’t deliver soon on Bryant, people will be giving up their seats to you on buses....” Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to find out Chris’s whereabouts. I got up and walked to a door in the corner, which I had only just noticed, on seeing a guy slip furtively through it while Forsythe was busy motivating me. Perhaps this was how Alice felt on the other side of the looking glass. I entered the cosier atmosphere of a smaller room, a bedroom. There were about ten blokes in it. A large double bed took up much of the room, it had brass rails at the head and foot and to these a girl was being tied, quite willingly. Her wrists had already been secured to the head-rails and she was now being arranged in a kneeling position so that her arse stuck up in the air facing the audience. Her skirt was off so that we were confronted by a pair of mauve panties. The hushed reverent nature of the proceedings gave the feel of a sacred ritual being performed in the small side chapel of a great cathedral, a very small side chapel - The Peruzzi in Santa Croce perhaps. As her companions went about their business of binding her she kept on her face a look of supreme patience that suggested she was practised in the exercise and knew just how much longer it would take. I knew the face, it was the Rank Starlet. By her side the Bishop of Grantham added dignity and authority to the occasion, he had hung her bra on his crozier. Another guy was preparing a gag to put over her mouth, a very sensible idea, I thought. When that was done another guy slipped her pants down to round her knees, it was my cabinet minister friend. Mitre and gown, sceptre and orb, bra and panties..... Church and State in perfect unison. The minister carried out the act with a perfect sense of ceremony; he could have been unveiling a plaque at a new public library. He stepped back and admired his handiwork, a beautiful pair of buttocks suspended in mid air. This was no spontaneous orgy, it was Masonic in its ritual and there seemed to be a long way to go before consummation, whatever form that would take. The holy atmosphere was broken by the sound of screams and shouts coming from down the corridor. I recognised Pauline’s voice. I was stoned on drink not drugs, stoned in a kind of way that makes you deeply philosophical, that opens the doors of perception, the way that makes it really evil for anyone in your company who is not stoned. I was not physically incapable, if anything the opposite. I was liberated to act spontaneously. On hearing the shouting I pushed past all the blokes in the room to the door.