London Blues (31 page)

I held her head in my hands and gave her a long lingering kiss. I could taste the champagne on her lips.

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘And me you!’

I shut the door and the cabby pulled off. Flavia appeared in the back window waving and blowing kisses in a funny exaggerated way. I stood there until she disappeared from sight towards the Royal Court.

The turning was Bourne Street all right. There was the sign. One on each side of the road. I noticed on an old street map that I have that it used to be called Westbourne Street years ago after that lost river that runs underground now (you can see it in a culvert above the platforms of Sloane
Street station). But, I suppose, as there were so many Westbourne
this
and Westbourne
that
, they shortened it. Now it’s just Bourne Street.

And there’s the restaurant ahead of me. Jasper’s Eating House. Tiny and like a bistro. Real Chelsea-ish.

I push the glass-panelled door open and enter. The place is small but packed with spindly tables and chairs. It’s crowded with young Chelsea-ites, talking loudly, laughing. I can smell a faint trace of dope in the air.

This isn’t his sort of place at all.

A young waiter dressed in something like a
costermonger
’s costume (you know, striped waistcoat, collarless shirt) thrusts a large menu in my hand.

‘I’m meeting someone here, actually.’

I describe Desmond as I can’t readily see him.

The waiter frown. ‘Oh,
that
gentleman,’ and his eyes look up: ‘we’ve put
him
in the far
corner
.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ I say, distancing myself swiftly from my dining companion.

The waiter waves me through to the back of the restaurant where, in a little alcove, sits Mr Grease. Desmond. Sitting there like a big self-satisfied spider. His fat sweaty
nicotine-stained
fingers waving a Player’s Navy Cut in the air.

‘Timmy, old man. Good to see you! Grab a pew.’

He’s put on a lot of weight since I saw him last. His face is redder. His nose more bulbous. His hair is greasier than ever. Beads of sweat are regimented along his hairline.

That photograph they use of him in the Sunday paper must have been taken twenty or more years ago.

‘Sit down. Sit down. Have a drink. Make that another large gin and tonic, waiter. No, make it another
two
large gin and tonics. I’m ready for another one. Make yourself comfortable, Tim, old man. Make yourself comfortable. The food here is supposed to be very good, or so that slut who edits our woman’s page says. What would you like? The oyster and mushroom pie is supposed to be worth a nibble. We’ll each have that. We’ll start with that. So what
have you been doing lately? What new villainies have you been getting yourself into? You know you can tell Uncle Desmond. Mum’s the word if you say so. I’m the one chap on the Street of Adventure you know you can trust, aren’t I? I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Me, old Desmond!’

I’m being reminded of a part of my life I’d sooner not remember. My stomach is churning.

Desmond offers me a Player. I shake my head.

‘Suit yourself. They’re the only things that keep me going. Them and the gin!’

The waiter returns with the drinks. Desmond reaches forward like a child who thinks someone’s going to steal his food. He takes the glass, pours the same again of tonic in it and downs it in one.

I sip my drink slowly. It makes me feel a little better.

‘So,’ says Desmond, ‘the Olympic Games started in Tokyo today. I suppose you’ll be following that?’

‘What am I here for?’

‘No need to get shirty, old man. We can get to that all in good time. Let’s order first. Waiter! Two starving buggers over here. We want to order! And two more large gins – pronto! You only get decent service when you show them who’s boss. Always works.’

‘What am I here for?’

‘Let me order first.’

I light one of my Benson & Hedges as Desmond orders the pie. I tell the waiter I’d just like a couple of bread rolls and some butter.

‘I’ve got something to show you.’

‘Show me then.’

‘I can’t across the table. Somebody might look over your shoulder. Come and sit here next to me for a minute.’

I move round to the empty chair next to Desmond. He smells almost like old French Joe used to smell – drink, sweat, fags, cabbage.

‘I’ve got something rather special here, Timmy, old man. Rather special indeed.’

He produces a large stiff-backed manila envelope. Printed on the front of it at the bottom in red are the words
PHOTO
GRAPHS
–
DO NOT BEND
. All the photographers use them.

‘Collecting photos, Desmond?’

‘I suppose you could say that.’

He takes out a couple of dozen black-and-white 10 x 8s. He hands the top one to me. It’s a grainy print of a blonde girl sitting on the edge of a bed. She’s naked. Her legs are wide apart. There’s another girl kneeling in front of her holding a dildo in her vagina. The kneeling girl is being fucked from behind by a spade.

‘So what, Desmond?’

There’s a maniacal grin on his face. He knows something I don’t know. He hands me another photograph.

A brunette, late teens with large breasts, is lying on her back on a bed. She’s wearing stockings and nothing else. A bloke is crouched by her head with his dick in her mouth. Another guy is kneeling between her legs fucking her. There’s something very familiar here.

The third photograph is a close-up of another brunette. She’s got a black cock in her mouth. Come has run out of her mouth, down her chin and over her breasts. The girl’s looking into camera quizzically, as if to say: is this all right?

I recognise the photographs. Or, to be accurate, I
recognise
the models.

I take the rest of the pictures from Desmond and flick through them. They’re familiar to me all right. They are frame enlargements from some of the films I made. I hand them back to Desmond, who is still sporting this shit-eating grin.

I go back to the seat opposite the fat bastard. What does he expect me to say? What’s his angle? What’s the reason for all this? Where’s it leading?

I’ll be nonchalant. Let him make the running. I light another cigarette, sip the gin and listen to the Supremes singing
Baby
Love
,
blasting out from two big black speakers at the front of the restaurant.

‘Had a couple of other pictures to show you, lad, but I seem to have left that envelope back in the office. I’ll tell you about those later. Now, charming set of photographs, aren’t they? You certainly knew how to get a good
performance
out of those girls, didn’t you? I suppose you got your own end away after the filming was over, eh? Director’s perks?’

‘Where’s all this leading?’

‘General election next week, Tim. General election. Who do you suppose is going to win?’

What’s he going off on a tangent for? He’ll answer his own question if I say nothing. And he does.

‘I’ll tell you who’ll win. The fucking Communists! The fucking Communists will be moving into number 10 Downing Street!’

‘The fucking Communists!? You’re out of your mind! They only field a few candidates. They even lose their deposits!’

‘I’m not talking about the Communist Party of Great Britain, you ass! I’m talking about the real communists – Harold Wilson and all those reds in the Labour Party. Wake up, son. Those are the
real
communists!’

Harold Wilson a communist? What a joke. I don’t even know anyone who considers him a socialist, let alone a communist! This is laughable. Totally fucking laughable. But then we’re not dealing with reason here, are we? This is Desmond and the extreme right wing of the Tory Party. Reds-under-the-beds. McCarthy. Hot warriors in the Cold War. This is the politics of paranoia. Desmond finishes his gin and shouts to the waiter for another one. His face has got even redder now. His breathing is laboured. He waves his finger at me.

‘You walk around with your head up your arse. You need a course in political reality, you do!’

‘Yeah, Desmond.’

‘You fucking do. It’s people like you who let the communists trample all over us.’

The young waiter appears and places Desmond’s oyster and mushroom pie in front of him. I get some rolls.

‘Will sir be requiring the wine list?’

‘No sir will not. Sir requires another gin and tonic. Sir ordered it from your
boyfriend
– go and sort him out and see what he’s doing with it.’

‘Wiping the Vaseline off the bottle neck, I dare say,’ says the waiter.

But the line went over Desmond’s head. He was too busy stuffing into the pie and spluttering mouthfuls of food over the table.

‘Now, Timmy, lad. Where was I?’

‘Labour Party Communists. Gin and tonics.’

‘Right. Now those photographs. You recognise the girls, don’t you?’

‘Carry on.’

‘They’ve all got a couple of things in common, they have. They all came to you through your good friend, the late Dr Stephen Ward who may God rest in peace. All came through him, those ones. And do you know what else they’ve got in common, eh? Most of them anyway … and we’re working on the others.’

‘Tell me.’

‘They’ve all got connections with the Labour Party – in one way or another! But I’m not going to go into all that right now. Just take my word for it.’

‘So what does this all mean?’

‘I want your story for the paper.’

‘My
story?’

‘Yes. I want a photograph of you on the front page and the headline:
I RAN THE LABOUR PARTY BLUE FILM RACKET.
You’ll be paid well for your story. Give you enough to disappear off to Spain or somewhere for a few years. We’ll run that for two or three weeks and then we’ll drop the bombshell.’

The bombshell? What bombshell? What’s he for fucking Chrissakes talking about?

‘We’ll save the strongest stuff for last. The bombshell will rock them. How you photographed two big buck niggers working their way through the
Kama
Sutra
on Caroline Callaway … shagging the arse off it! Great photographs. I’ve got them back in the office. You couldn’t print them in a family newspaper though, more’s the pity.’

So she had a name after all – Caroline Callaway. But who is she? Where did Desmond get the pictures from? I’m wondering how all this came together.

‘Who’s Caroline Callaway, then?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No I don’t fucking know.’

‘She’s the wife of Dick Callaway, the Labour MP. He’s aptly named, I tell you – always getting his dick away. He’s always flitting over to Moscow on so-called trade deals. All a front. He had an affair with this Russian woman
interpreter
back in 1958. The KGB photographed him and they’ve been blackmailing him ever since. His wife has had a few bits on the side too. She’s never been afraid of giving it away. She’s seen as a security risk all right. Probably in league with him. But doing it with a couple of
niggers
… that’s a bit thick, isn’t it? In more ways than one!’

I broke a roll in half and started buttering it. There would be no point in arguing anything with Desmond. No point in telling him about the circumstances of the Caroline Callaway shoot. No point at all. So what if my finger wasn’t actually on the button of the camera? It seemed academic. I took the two spades around there. I organised that. Who’d listen to me with my track record if I said Stephen suckered me into it? Nobody. I’m wasting my time thinking about any of this. Let it be.

‘Anyway, lad, you stand to make a lot of money for your full and frank story.’

‘I haven’t got a story.’

‘Don’t start getting tetchy. You’ll do very nicely out of this. You’ve got a duty to tell it.’

‘I haven’t got any fucking duty.’

‘You’re an Englishman. You’ve got a patriotic duty to the Crown!’

Crown? What a strange choice of word. Who’s he been speaking to? The Crown? Don’t people say the Queen? Or the Country? Why the Crown? Odd.

‘Timmy – are you going to fucking sit there and do nothing while the Communists in the Labour Party take over? There’s a fucking election next week. You’re just going to sit back? Wisen up. You can be patriotic and make a packet. It’s here on the plate for you.’

‘Stuff it, Desmond.’

‘Listen, son. I’ve been very nice about this. The story can run without you just as well. You can be left out in the cold without a penny!’

I broke another roll in half and began buttering it. Desmond was getting a little bit desperate. The story couldn’t run just as well without me. With me on the inside saying this and that the story would run pretty smoothly. There’d be nobody about to contradict me. I could virtually say what I like. But with me on the outside Desmond would be trying to make bricks without straw. I’d be sniping at him … another paper would take the story up. Desmond and his allegations would be investigated. No, Desmond needs my co-operation … or my silence.

‘You’ve got to come in on it, Timmy, for your own good. For your country’s good. For the world’s good.’

The world’s good? Let’s not be stinting – why not the universe’s good?

‘These are difficult times we’re living in. The Cold War could blow up any minute. How do you think President Johnson’s going to feel when he’s going it alone in a big way in Vietnam and he reads in the papers that the people he’s fighting are now running his closest ally, Britain?’

‘Harold Wilson the communist?’

‘Yes. He’s been a communist for years. He’s been to Moscow more times than any other politician in this country!’

‘That makes him a commie?’

‘No that doesn’t. But they’ve got files on him. They know all about him. He’s a communist all right.’

‘They have, have they?’

‘Yes, they have.’

‘They. I’m interested in
they.
’

‘Believe me.’

‘Let me ask you something, Desmond. Let me ask you a question. And let me see if you can give me a straight answer.’

‘Just ask it.’

I knew full well I wouldn’t get a straight answer but I was just curious what he’d say. Idly curious.