Dead Air (19 page)

‘Wow, you really
must
be nice,’ Craig said. ‘You missed out the one that’s worse than, Tough shit, loser.’

‘I did? There is one?’

‘Yes; it’s, Hmm, how can I exploit this already down-and-out and therefore usefully vulnerable person for my own ends?’

‘Fuck,’ I breathed, abashed by my own lack of sufficient cynicism. ‘So I did.’ I shook my head. ‘God, there are some
real
bastards around.’

‘Never more than ten feet from a rat,’ Ed said. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Specially round ere.’

‘Ten feet?’ I said. ‘I thought it was ten metres.’

‘Twenty feet,’ Craig offered, possibly as a compromise.

‘Wotever.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Soho. I suppose there just might be the odd tad of exploitation going on here.’

Ed made a show of spluttering into his drink. ‘Fuckin Exploitation City here, mate.’

‘The girls are all slaves,’ Craig said, nodding wisely.

‘Who? What girls?’

‘The prossies,’ Craig said.

‘The girls wif their cards in the phone boxes,’ Ed said.

‘Oh. Yeah. Of course.’

‘Yeah,
you
try findin a ho wot can speak English round ere.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Yeah; they’re all from Eastern Europe or somewhere now, aren’t they?’

‘Slaves,’ Craig repeated. ‘Take their passports, tell them they’ve got to work off some ludicrous amount of debt. The girls think once they’ve done that they can start earning some for themselves and sending money back home but of course they never do.’ He nodded. ‘Read about it.
Observer
, I think.’

‘And the police are out, I suppose,’ I said, ‘because then they’ll just get deported, or slung into a detention centre or something.’

‘Not to mention what’ll appen to their family back ome.’ Ed clicked his fingers. ‘Nuvvir fing your Mr Merrial’s involved in, come to fink of it. Im an is Albanian chums.’

‘Who?’ Craig said, looking mystified.

I had a sudden fit of hull-breach-category paranoia, and waved one hand with what I hoped looked like airily casual dismissiveness.

‘Woops!’ Ed said, catching the glass before it fell all the way to the floor. ‘Nuffing in it anyway.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘Um, ah, yeah; too complicated,’ I told the still mystified-looking Craig. I turned to Ed.

‘Ed,’ I said. ‘What do you believe in?’

‘I believe it’s time for anuvver drink, mate.’

‘I wasn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t say half the things I was supposed to have said.’

‘Ya. So, like, what did you say?’

‘Three things. Two of them simple, unarguable road safety points. One: estimable and thoroughly civilised city though it is, it was something close to criminal neglect on the part of the Parisian authorities that a piece of road like that had massive, square concrete pillars unprotected by crash barriers. It couldn’t have been much more intrinsically dangerous if they’d attached giant iron spikes angled to face into the traffic stream. Two: this is supposed to be a mature, responsible adult, mother of two, beloved by millions, so she might have done the first thing that any rational human being does when they get into a car, especially one that might be going to travel quickly and even if you haven’t guessed the driver is quietly pissed, and
put on a fucking seat belt
. Three, and this is the one that really caused the trouble: my conscience was clear. But a lot of the people who turned up to watch the procession and throw flowers onto the hearse,
if
they blamed the photographers chasing the Merc on their motorbikes - which a lot of people did - then they were hypocrites, because by their own logic they’d helped kill her.’

‘Ya. Right. Ya. How?’

‘Because why were the snappers bothering to stay up late outside a flash Parisian hotel in the first place? Because the photographs they might get could be worth something. Why might the photographs be worth something? Because the papers would pay good money for them. Why would the papers pay good money for them? Because those photos sold newspapers and magazines.

‘My point was that
if
any of the people that blamed the photographers - a profession I have no great love for, believe me - ever bought newspapers that regularly featured the royals in general and Princess Di in particular, and
especially
if they had ever changed from whichever newspaper they usually bought, or bought an extra one, because it contained or might contain a photograph of Diana, then they should blame themselves for her death, too, because their interest, their worship, their need for celebrity gossip, their money, had put those snappers at the door of the Ritz that night and set them off on the chase that ended with a black Merc totalled round an underground chunk of reinforced concrete and three people dead.

‘Me, I’m a republican; nothing—’

‘What, like the IRA? Right.’

‘No, not the fucking IRA. I mean I’m a republican rather than a monarchist. Nothing against her madge or the rest personally … well, anyway … but as an institution I want the monarchy dumped. I wouldn’t buy a piece of shit like the
Sun
or the
Mail
or the
Express
in the first place, but even if for some bizarre reason I’d ever been tempted, I’d have been less, not more likely to do so if there had been a photo of Princess Di on the cover. So I hadn’t helped kill her. My question to whoever might have been listening was, How about you?’

‘Right, I see.’

‘Right. Do you?’

‘So they sacked you. Bummer.’

I shrugged. ‘The papers got a little upset. Personally I think the
Express
and the
Mail
just didn’t like being called tabloids.’

‘But you found something else, right, ya?’

‘Oh, ya.’

‘Oh, you’re making fun of me. You’re terrible.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, I’m a big fan. You shouldn’t insult me. I thought I was doing quite well.’

‘What? You thought
you
were doing quite well?’

‘Amn’t I?’

I looked her down and up. ‘You’re funny.’

‘You think?’

‘Definitely. Another drink?’

‘Okay. No; you sit. I’ll get them. You haven’t let me buy anything yet. Please.’

‘If you insist, Raine.’

‘I do. Same again?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t go away,’ Raine said, touching me on the arm again. She’d done this a lot over the last hour or so. I liked it.

‘Oh, okay then,’ I said.

Raine slid out from behind our table and insinuated her lithe, size six body into the crowd, towards the bar. Phil leaned over. ‘I think you’re in there, mate.’

‘Yeah, I think I might be, too,’ I agreed. ‘Who’d a thunk it?’ Shit, I was a bit drunk. I’d actually knocked back that last whisky. Mistake. I turned to Phil. ‘Can I have some of your water?’

‘Yep. There you go.’

I drank from his bottle of Evian.

We were in Clout on Shaftesbury Avenue, a big, coolly swish, third-generation pleasure complex designed for the discerning older clubber who might equally favour Home or be found in FOBAR (Fucking Old Beyond All Recognition, age-profile successor to FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).

Phil and I were sitting in a booth in the Retox Bar, on Level Tepid. If you listened carefully you could just make out the thud-thud-thud from the main dance area on the floor above. From downstairs, where the main chill spaces were and quiet, relaxing sounds were the ambient noisescape, there was what sounded like silence. Well, maybe just the occasional quiet pop of yet another fried brain cell departing this world.

Above, you could hardly hear the person next to you if you hollered in their ear. Below, it felt wrong to do much more than whisper. Here, music played but normal conversation was perfectly possible. I must be getting old, because I preferred it here. Fucking right I did! Here was where you obviously got to meet pieces of class ass like Raine! Fucking yee-ha!

Calm down, calm down, I told myself. I tried breathing deeply. ‘I’ve been on a real fucking roll recently,’ I told Phil, shaking my head. Jo, Ceel - ah, Ceel, who was really in another category altogether, who was a whole world in herself, but who I saw so horribly seldom - … I’d lost track. Start again: Jo, Ceel … that Argentinian girl in Brighton, one or two others, Tanya - well, not Tanya, who’d baled out on me - but I still reckoned I was green-light with Amy if I wanted to take things further down that next-on-personal-playlist route, and … and now this Raine girl. A total fucking stunner with a Sloane accent and
she
seemed to be after
my
body! I loved London. I loved even the modest morsel of fame that I had. ‘I have, haven’t I?’

‘Yeah,’ Phil said, nodding wisely. ‘Don’t know what they see in you, myself.’

‘Me either,’ I agreed. I drank some more water and studied the floor at my feet. The floor of the Retox was some blond Scandinavian-looking wood. Pouring a whisky away straight onto it might cause unseemly dribbling, splashing noises, like you’d pissed yourself or something. Ah-hah; Phil had put his jacket down on the floor when Raine had slipped in beside us. Perfect. I hooked his jacket closer underneath me with one foot while he wasn’t looking.

‘Here you go,’ Raine said, setting my whisky down in front of me. It was a double. ‘Here; I got you some more water, ah, Paul.’

‘Phil,’ said Phil.

‘Ya. Sorry. Phil.’ Raine smiled at me and raised her glass; it looked like a G&T. I raised mine. ‘Down the hatch,’ Raine said, and drank deep. I put my glass to my lips and made a big show of drinking, but didn’t, keeping my lips tightly closed. I sniffed it, instead. I was getting paranoid about this, thinking that Raine was watching me drink. I made my Adam’s apple bob, like I was swallowing. I put the glass down on the table, keeping it covered by my fingers so the level wasn’t obvious.

‘Nice. Bit peaty. Is it an Islay?’

‘Ah, ya,’ Raine said. ‘Ya, that’s right.’ She wore tight leather pants, a couple of layers of pink and white chiffon blouse, and shades with a faint yellow-tint that made her look a bit like Anastacia. Mid-twenties, like her waist. Awfully good cheek-bones and a jaw line like David Coulthard’s, except smoother, obviously. Her nipples were kind of obvious through the chiffon - was it fashionable again? Looked good on her, anyway - and something about her bare shoulders reminded me of Ceel. Raine’s hair was blond and thick and she kept flicking it back off her face.

‘So, Raine,’ Phil said. ‘Ever sky-dived in La Mancha?’ He grinned inanely at her, then at me. I got the impression he was at least as drunk as me. We’d started mob-handed in the pub, gone on to the Groucho, then the Soho House, and ended up here, losing co-workers en route to pathetic excuses like food, prior engagements, life-partners, children; that sort of thing. I had the vague impression we’d had a good talk about the show during some part of this and come up with some new ideas and stuff for me to rant about, but I couldn’t recall any of the details at all. Luckily Phil usually did, and he normally took notes in tiny writing in the Useful Diary he always carried with him.

It was a Friday, so we didn’t have a show tomorrow; we were allowed to go out to play, dammit. Jo was absent for the weekend, with the Addicta boys in Stockholm and Helsinki. Also, it had been three weeks since I’d seen Celia and I’d been hoping there would be a couriered package for me immediately after the show and an Anonymous call on my mobile; in fact I’d spent the show, the day since I woke up, even the week, if I was being honest, looking forward to signing my name on a dispatch rider’s acknowledgment form; received in good condition, sign here, print here, insert time here … But there had been nothing, just an empty feeling.

I’d decided it was time for a jolly good drink.

‘Sorry?’ the girl said.

Phil waved a hand woozily. ‘Nothing. Ignore me.’

‘Ya.’ Raine looked rather meanly at my producer, I thought. Bit cheeky, I thought. This man was one of my best friends and a very fine producer, too. Who did she think she was, looking at him with a just-fuck-off expression? How dare she? This man deserved respect, for Christ’s sake. While she was distracted, I took the opportunity to pour about half my whisky over Phil’s jacket, then brought the whisky glass up and did the pretend drinking thing again, just as Raine switched her attention back to me, and a smile reappeared on her face. She clinked glasses once more. I thought I could smell the whisky fumes evaporating from the dark surface of Phil’s old but still serviceably stylish Paul Smith. I swirled my whisky round in the glass. Raine was watching.

‘You trying to get me drunk?’ I asked her in a sort of kooky, role-reversal kinda stylee.

She lowered her eyelids a little and slid up to me on the seat until I could feel the warmth of her through my shirt. ‘I’m trying to get you to come home with me,’ she murmured.

‘Ha!’ I laughed. I slapped my thigh. ‘You
shall
go to the ball, Cinders!’

Phil was snorting with laughter on the other side of me. Raine gave him a dirty look. I took her chin in my hand and brought her mouth towards mine, but she put her hand on my forearm and gently pushed my hand down. ‘Finish your drink and let’s go, okay?’

I’d already disposed of most of the rest of the whisky and could happily have slugged the rest because it wasn’t enough to make any real difference, but by now it had become something between a game and a point of honour to dispose of the whole lot without a drop passing my lips, so I looked over Raine’s shiningly blond head and said, ‘Okay … Shit, is that Madders and Guy Ritchie?’

She looked. I dumped the last of the whisky onto Phil’s jacket and stood up, lowering the whisky glass from my mouth as Raine turned back again. ‘Guess not,’ I said. I felt fine, I thought. The prospect of sex with somebody new, especially somebody new who looked as good as Raine, was a profoundly sobering influence all by itself. Still, I felt myself sway as we edged out of the booth.

‘Phil, got to go.’

‘Fine. Have fun,’ he said.

‘That’s the intention. You take care.’

‘And you precautions.’ He sniggered.

‘See you Monday.’