Blame It on the Bossa Nova (13 page)

“Hey, watch it,” someone said. The door was locked. It would have led to the hallway. I ploughed back through them again and through the adjacent room where the drugs scene was arriving at new levels of experience. Again I scattered autumn wasps in the final stages of expiration. I got to the door and found myself out in the corridor where I had hidden earlier in the night. I ran towards the shouting and screaming which was now incessant and coming from the room I had tried when I first came up the stairs. It was still locked but the screams came through it powerfully. People downstairs were looking up casually to see what was going on. I threw myself at the door but it was heavy and solid and I bounced off.

“What’s going on?” said a voice inside through the screams. I tried again without any luck, then I moved along to another door, this was unlocked. It led to an empty salon lit by a chandelier. From here the screaming came at me again, this time through a side door. I put my hand to it and burst into the room. They’d got her down on the floor, three blokes. She was kicking and fighting and her face was full of hate and fear and humiliation. Most of her clothes were off and her big tits were flopping down towards the carpet and then jumping back up as she moved in the struggle - It wasn’t a turn on. The mascara and eye shadow she’d put on in the car had run with her tears down her face, her shoes were kicked off and lost and they’d got her skirt up. One guy was kneeling above her head holding her arms down, as best he could, above her elbows. There was a guy on each leg, stretching them outwards, and standing above her, his trousers now voluntarily removed, was our genial host. They turned and looked at me for a second, an unwelcoming glance but they would have ignored me if I’d said nothing and just watched. Then a sudden flash of light made me blink and I saw Christopher crouching on the edge of an armchair. He’d just taken a picture of Pauline stretched out. He started fiddling with the camera. I ran at him and kicked it out of his hands. It was hard edged and metallic and even though I was smashed I felt the pain in my foot.

“You arsehole... you fucking arsehole.” I put my face next to his and collected as much saliva as possible at the back of my throat and ejected it into his eyes and face. No one did anything so I picked up the camera and threw it at the window. On impact the flash attachment broke off and fell back inside, but the camera broke the glass and disappeared into the blackness. The guy who had been holding her arms got up to face me but as he did so I kicked him in the balls. He was an oldish guy and I like to think he was unused to violence. Certainly an expression of shock as well as pain came to his face as he sank back down to the floor. Pauline had started to kick and scream again and the guys holding her legs were now much more on the defensive and, being unsure of themselves, weren’t doing so well. But I hadn’t finished with Chris yet. I put my face next to his.

“You shitbag.” I bought my elbow down on his head and smacked him in the face with my other fist, by now I was almost berserk - A terrible sight to behold. To prove my irrational state I picked up a bottle and threw it into the centre of a large mirror in a rococo frame. I was making up for months of it, months of being fucked around, being made to hike across Richmond Park, being told I didn’t understand the wider implications, being part of a game where they never told you the rules. And now these stumbling aristocratic nonentities and geriatrics were paying the price, being visited by the full fury of an embittered opportunist. And what a beautifully ennobling cause I served. Pauline was up on her feet now, still screaming and lashing out, kicking and spitting. She went for me in her unselecting hatred and I got a deep scratch across my face before I ducked out of range.

“You silly cow,” I shouted. “... I’m on your side, let’s go.” By now there were noises coming from behind the locked door; we had attracted curiosity. For a second I had a wonderful vision of bashing the other two guys’ heads together and doing something pretty unpleasant to His Lordship, but I wasn’t so far gone not to have the sense to quit while I was still ahead. I grabbed Pauline by the arm and dragged her across the floor to the door. The key was in the lock. I opened it and we pushed our way quickly through a little throng, hesitant and deferential, aware that the great events of history are always destined to take place in their absence. Pauline was more clued up now about what was going on and I didn’t have to exert force to get her to run down the stairs and out of the house with me. As we ran across the gravel we were suddenly thrown into stark illumination by the headlights of a car.

“Hey Alex, you wildcat, what’s your game boy?”

I looked up blinking and pulled Pauline so that we moved out of the main glare of the lights. Frank was behind the wheel of a Bentley, next to him I saw Pascale’s impassive face.

“Nothing special Frank baby.... nothing special.”

“You young bastard! I bet you’re up to no good. Bruh-huh-huh.”

It didn’t greatly concern me whether or not he found it an amusing diversion from his blissful solitude with Pascale. Her opinion didn’t concern me either. I grabbed hold of Pauline and pulled her over to Chris’s car. I knew he kept a spare set of keys in the glove compartment, I just had to get into the car. I left her for a second and searched on the ground for a stone. Amazingly I couldn’t find one, couldn’t find a fucking stone in a fucking garden. I couldn’t believe it. …..Lights were going on in the house and I sensed an atmosphere of retribution in rapid preparation. In frustration I kicked at the side edging coping to a flowerbed and it deflected. I bent down and yanked it out of the ground with a hard tug. By now I could hear voices raised in anger inside. I brought the coping down hard against the quarter-light and the glass crumpled and shattered into a dense frosty spider’s web but still remained intact. I put my elbow to it and the glass fell into the car. I shoved my hand through the hole and cut it on a jagged edge of glass, but I could reach down and open the door. I reached across and opened the passenger door and told Pauline to get in. She stood there, she must have been in a state of shock by then. I got out of the car and ran round and bundled her in. She offered no resistance, it was like handling an alienated but co-operative sack of potatoes. I’d just got back inside the car when the Praetorian Guard of the party arrived on the portico. They’d taken their time, but of course it couldn’t have been an easy story to relate or comprehend, let alone act upon having comprehended. They didn’t know we were in the car of course so I felt safe as I fiddled and searched blind in the glove box. My hand closed on the keys and brought them out. Pauline had started to sob in great heaves, with long distance between sobs, as if they came from a long way down. I put the key in the ignition and pulled the choke. I had driven the car once before when Chris had been more pissed than me.... They were fanning out onto the drive now, a lot of them, some in dinner jackets, not knowing where to look. But I knew if I waited much longer they couldn’t help but see us. I turned the ignition, the engine gave a bleat of dissent and then died. They all looked up and the guy nearest to me pointed and started running towards us. I tried again and this time the engine caught. I pumped the gas hard and screamed out towards them in second gear. I turned the headlights on just as I saw a guy’s face loom up at the side window and disappear again. I’d fucked up the turn, running out of gravel and into flowerbed so I reversed at speed, smashing into a parked car. When I tried to go forward I could feel this terrible restraint, but then the bumpers uncoupled as they deformed under pressure and we roared off down the drive sending our pursuers dancing back, waving and shaking their fists, antagonistic night insects.

The gravel surged towards me in the cone of light and Pauline shivered and sobbed next to me. I reached behind me to feel for the blanket I knew was on the back seat; my hand didn’t make contact. I moved it about then turned to look. As I did so the car made explosive impact with something on the passenger wing. I instantly thought we’d been hit by an artillery shell fired at long range from the house. We were thrown forward and the car stalled. We’d hit a stone gatepost on the boundary of the estate. I jumped out. The wing was bashed badly, the headlight was broken and had gone out.... We were nearly a mile from the house now and there was no noise except for my swearing and Pauline’s crying. I started the car and reversed up and then turned right down a small meandering B road. I was going slowly now. I looked in the back and got hold of the blanket which had fallen on the floor between the seats. I gave it to Pauline but it remained the crumpled bundle that I put in her hands so as I drove I draped it over and round her with my free hand. She clutched at its edges and drew it across her. We drove slowly through a couple of villages - smug, well-heeled places with antique shops and delicatessens - essentials of life for the agricultural labourer. I fiddled with the radio but could get nothing. My watch had stopped and Chris never bothered to keep the car clock going, I’d no idea what time it was. I flipped to long wave and got a French station. We’d just gone through the second village when I saw the lights in front of us. At first I thought it was an oncoming car but then I realised it was stationary, then as we got up close I saw it was a police Wolsley with two policemen standing by it. They signalled me to pull over and I wound the window down as one of them came across and the other started walking round the car. He stopped when he saw the smashed wing and started examining it.

“Good morning sir,” said the copper who had approached the window with the heavy sarcasm that is some coppers’ only mode of speech. I turned off the engine and we could all hear the voice of the singing female frog much clearer.

“Where are we off to then sir?”

“London.”

“Where have we been then sir?”

“Visiting friends.”

“This your wife is it sir?”

“No.”

The other copper finished looking at the wing and continued his walk. I heard an involuntary gasp as he saw the back bumper.

“This your car is it sir?”

“Yes, it is actually.”

“You couldn’t tell me its number could you sir?”

“568 EV” Chris had the number written on a piece of paper stuck to the dashboard. He was always getting stopped late at night at times when the memory is not always at its best. The other copper came round from the back of the car and I heard him muttering to his mate.

“Been in a bit of an accident have we sir?”

“No.”

“Seem to have a bit of damage sir”

“Car went into me the other day at lights, knocked me into the car in front, bashed in the wing a bit. Going to get it fixed, needed it for the week-end.” I was stone cold sober, once they’d got me down the station I’d had it. My mind was racing. Was this a roadblock? Had they called out the cops? Did they know anything? I could see they thought they’d got me.

“Would you mind turning the radio off sir?”

I flicked it off. The cocky bugger. I had to act fast, I took a chance.

“Look here, I know you’ve got a job to do, but how long will all this take? I’ve just come from the Kemps at Cathcart House and it’s essential I get to town in a couple of hours.”

“Cathcart House sir? You’ve been to his lordship’s party then?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry sir, you didn’t say....” he was still hesitating, looking across at Pauline, wondering what a little scrubber like her was doing at Cathcart House and why she was draped in a blanket and whether she had anything on underneath. I could have told him all the answers... But the more he hesitated the more I knew he knew nothing, the more I knew we were going to be alright. He turned and spoke to his mate, the one who had seen the damage to the car and who knew instinctively that something was very wrong. But perhaps he was only the junior or perhaps the call of centuries of forelock tugging came flooding back to them, perhaps the Big House still had its powerful hold.

“Best be on your way then sir. Be careful a mile or two ahead, there’s some roadworks going on.”

“Thank you.” I let the arrogance come flooding through; it would convince them they had made the right decision. “.... Oh, and can you tell me the best way back to town?”

For a while after that, because it aroused the sense of cautious superstition in me, I kept to small roads, zig-zagging across country in order to throw off imagined pursuers and police forces not under direct feudal rule. After a while we hit a more important road that seemed to go in a roughly straight line and I pointed us in the direction I thought would lead eventually to London. Pauline was quiet most of the time apart from occasional sobs and one period when she went berserk and attacked me and I had to stop the car and pin her arms down and smack her in the mouth. Then she was quiet again and soon after that we passed through Midhurst and I saw a sign that said London 53 miles. The French radio station chattered away, Francoise Hardy, and then a girl singing the Everley’s ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’. Only she sang ‘Pendant les Vacances’ instead of ‘Dream, Dream, Dream’. It sounded alright and had me singing along in English just as the first drops of rain hit the windscreen and I smeared it all over by trying to wash them off. By the time we got through Haslemere it was drizzling consistently, the French radio station had lost contact and I could see the sky lightening very slightly in preparation for the coming day. We drove on in silence except when the wipers cleared the rain too efficiently and started to make a noise on the dry surface. As we went through Leatherhead I made my plans for dumping Pauline and when we approached the pub where we had picked her up the day before I said to her gruffly, “D’you live near here?”