Blame It on the Bossa Nova (16 page)

The three of them were well on the way to being pissed as they stepped over my humble threshold and Frank had been drinking steadily in the manner that a substitute at football jogs along the touchline, just in case his fitness is urgently required.

I had been in touch with Forsythe in the weeks since the party. His blatant and crude threats had produced the desired change in my attitude and I had taken to telephoning him occasionally with snippets of pseudo news - “Chris seems pre-occupied... Sandie will go on a long journey...” - the sort of ambiguous data you can pick up equally easily by reading a horoscope, any horoscope of the sort that are to be found in the popular papers. It had apparently satisfied him for although I had received no payments from him, neither had I received any unpleasant surprises. That night such matters were far from Ronnie’s thoughts, or so it seemed. Where they had been, they didn’t say but he had already established his role as superman. He was bouncing with confidence and wit, everything he said was funny, even at first to me. He was on the sort of high you get when the drink hits your metabolism in just the right way. When I say I found him funny I mean that when he dropped the pearls somewhere in my brain I recognised that this was wit, I didn’t actually laugh or smile. Sandie and Jenny crumpled at the knees and started groping him or leaning on him for support in a manner that seriously threatened to leave the three of them sprawling on the floor. Frank actually jumped up and slapped him on the back.

Forsythe was not too pissed to realize that this was all hyperbole but he was in no mood to disclaim it, frequently egging them on to further paeans of praise with small addenda to his blockbusters - ripples that swelled the merrymaking to new excesses. Apart from me only Pascale was untouched. Sure, she joined in, but that was the professional in her, she never went quite as far as the others.

From a point somewhere behind the sofa a Bossa Nova beat told me that Sandie had discovered my landlord’s record player and his limited selection of records: Up to that date ‘The Best of Barber and Bilk’, ‘The Enigma Variations’ and the Ian Allen production ‘The Age of Steam’, had been the extent of my excavations. But here was something daringly cosmopolitan. Sandie stood up and began to move to the music on her own. She was wearing a tight dress that showed off her body. Forsythe, regarding this as merely part of the supporting bill, had embarked on a series of anecdotes about cabinet meetings and more specifically, the personality of Macmillan. To many people such elevated gossip would probably have an orgasmic effect, but I got the impression that for different reasons it was largely wasted on his audience of that evening... but they listened, each for their own reasons, they listened. Macmillan at the time wasn’t a hard person to satirise and Forsythe blasted away at his sitting duck producing imitations of unbelievable unoriginality that added nothing to one’s knowledge of the man. I like to think that Frank and Pascale were encouraging him for ulterior motives, but Sandie and Jenny managed to simulate genuine amusement, Sandie producing a ‘vivacious’ tinkle of laughter in almost uninterrupted accompaniment as she slowly swayed to the beat, looking out over the black hole of Battersea Park. Another tale came to its sad end. The imitation had now blurred to the extent that it could have been Churchill if you hadn’t known. It was well enough received though.

“Ronnie, tell them about the time Strauss took you to that Munich nightclub,” blurted Sandie. Frank’s face snapped off its bleary glaze and was suddenly one hundred and ten percent attentive to the conversation. Suddenly Forsythe wasn’t enjoying himself quite so much. I saw him try to send a coded message of a glance to Sandie to shut up, but she was far too pissed to decipher it.

“... You know. That time you made that terrible cock up and promised them nuclear warheads. Tell them what Mac said - it’s so funny.”

“What nuclear warheads are these, Ronnie?” said Frank.

“You’re pissed Sandie - shut up,” said Forsythe. Sandie took this as an insult. It became a point of honour to prove she wasn’t pissed, or at least not pissed out of her mind.

“Pissed am I? Not too pissed to remember you told me it was top secret and I wasn’t to breathe a word.”

“Shut up, Sandie,” said Forsythe through tightly clenched teeth. The Bossa Nova beat surfaced to fill all the awkward gaps that were now appearing in the conversation.

“Top secret eh, Sandie?” said Frank with a chuckle born in the depths of some remote forest.

“Sandie, didn’t you realize, I was kidding you along,” said Forsythe.

“Kidding me were you? Taking me for an idiot?”

“Not exactly.” Forsythe had abandoned menaces and was now attempting a sycophantic grin calculated to charm her into silence. It only aroused contempt, or anger, I’m not sure which - either was a dangerous emotion in one so volatile as Sandie.

“Don’t take me for a fuckin’ berk, Ronnie. I wasn’t born yesterday. I can even remember the stupid name of the rockets - bloody stupid name - Honest John. There!.... How would I know that if you hadn’t told me? I never read the papers. How would I even know who Strauss was?..... Don’t take me for an idiot Ronnie, I don’t like it.”

“Honest Johns, you say, Sandie,” Frank pounced.

“Yeah,” said Sandie, slightly deflated after her triumph, perhaps even then beaming aboard the glimmerings of awareness that she had put her foot in it. Forsythe wriggled. I spoke: “I thought it was NATO policy not to give West Germany nuclear warheads.” This was re-imbursement in full, if in a different currency, for his hospitality at Westminster earlier in the autumn.

“That’s right, Alex. That’s too damned right. But it seems our friend here has some kind of authority to override NATO decisions. I’d like you to tell me about that fucking authority Ronnie.” The tail end of Frank’s final sentence rose in volume giving a fearful intimation of barely suppressed violence. As I’ve said, he was a big man.

“Frank, it was a joke. Tell them Sandie, it was a joke. Tell them what Mac said.” To others Forsythe might have been pitiful but I felt no pity, only a wish for remorseless, relentless retribution. Sandie had reached the limit.

“For fuck’s sake leave off,” she half screamed, half shouted, her voice dropping another three or four rungs down the social ladder. “... I can’t take any more.” Even in that moment of crisis as Sandie broke down crying and Jenny too began to sob violently in sympathy, even as Frank shaped up to pin Forsythe to the wall in order to speed up the communication process, even then as I glanced across at Pascale, quivering with tension, taking it all in, trying to commit every second of it to memory, I couldn’t help laughing inwardly when I compared the differing fortunes of the two rival femmes fatales, unknowing rivals as far as Sandie was concerned. For all Pascale’s sophistication it had been Sandie who had brought home the bacon, such as it was. She’d just lay drunkenly back one night and received it, she hadn’t even known what to do with it. Here before me, I sensed, was one of those lessons life has to give us at strategic intervals during our stay here. Sometimes we miss them - don’t even see them as they hurtle by. But sometimes we stick out a hand and catch them, and who knows, if we catch enough, sometimes we even gain wisdom, or just a little of it.

“You asshole,” Frank said as he pushed Forsythe to the wall. “... You Motherfuckin’...” But for once words failed him. “... You fuckin’ Limeys... Fuchs...Burgess, Maclean... The Krogers.... Now Vassall - What is it with you guys?.... You Mother-fuckers.”

“You’ve got it all wrong Frank. I never said a word, I never ….”

“I know you didn’t. How do I know? Because you know nothing. Anything you know, everyone knows. That’s why, buddy, I’m fucking glad you know nothing... You guys just can’t keep your fucking mouths closed can you.... Jesus, who needs the Russians with you around.”... Somewhere inside Sandie another fuse blew.

“Fuckin lay off him, Frank,” she screamed, ineffectually trying to pull him away from Forsythe. “... Lay off him.”

“Not you too, little baby?” Frank turned his attention to her and grabbing her by the waist hoisted her high into the air. Forsythe exhaled, coughing, released from the spotlight of attention.

“What have we here?” said Frank examining Sandie with a collector’s eye. “... Another of Christopher Bryant’s little girls, sent out to spy on poor defenceless little politicians. But honey, tell me true, he was too easy, wasn’t he?” He nodded back at Forsythe. “... There aint no fun in shootin fish in a barrel... Why didn’t you take me on? That would have been more fun - For both of us.”

“You’re a nutter, Frank,” was Sandie’s reply. She was surprisingly calm now considering she was being held two feet above her normal height. Perhaps she was enjoying it.

“You’ve said it, Frank,” said Forsythe. “... Her and that bent friend of Bryant’s.” He pointed at me. “.... And who was it introduced the French tart into the set?” This was too much for French tart.

“But Frank, Honey,” drawled Pascale in a very plausible Southern Belle persona, “... d’you mean to tell me you was only joshin when you told me about that lil’ole secret deal you set up on the side with those Krauts when they came over to the U.S. last year. Why I do declare it was you yourself who promised Herr Strauss electro percussive firing mechanisms for those warheads you gave him to go on top of those lil ole Pershing missiles they bought to help the good ole U.S. out of its balance of payments problems.” By the time she had finished Frank had dropped Sandie and was looking at Pascale in revolted fascination. She approached him and caressed his face with loving care. “... Why, call me a liar if you dare, Frank Hough.”

Pascale had a certain style in the way she chose to show two fingers to the world. “... and you, Ronnie Forsythe, fancy letting this poor young country, whose supposed to be your .... ally... fall so far behind those awful Soviets in the field of long range ballistic missiles... If we was waiting for Blue Streak we’d all be communist by now - Shame on you.”

“Goddamit woman. Hold your tongue.”

“Oh Frankie, don’t sulk. We all know there aint no point in giving anyone Mace missiles if you aint gonna give em a bomb to put on the top of it... Why even a child knows that... Frank Honey, you yourself told me the Pentagon has projected that in fifteen years every two bit little banana republic is gonna be shoppin down at the local drug store for their very own personalised crude nuclear tactical weapons. And you yourself said a medium range ballistic missile fired from West Germany, or even the UK, could take out Moscow before the Ruskies could say Test Ban Treaty? Call me a liar... You said that as soon as you got rid of those uppity Kennedy brothers and their nigger-loving college sidekicks you could keep the whole shootin match tactical and no need to bother anyone outside of Europe... Didn’t you say that?...”

She had finally touched the raw nerve. Frank had been looking at her in a strange way as she spoke, coldly, dispassionately. Now that she was finished, and was seen to have finished by the way she stood there breathing heavily and emotionally, spent but with so much inside choking her, trying to get out. Now that she had finished he drew back his hand and with one mighty blow knocked her across the room with a cruel swipe to the face. Even as she fell Pascale gave a cry of surprise and fear at the hatred the blow had revealed. Something - her nose or her mouth - started bleeding profusely. She struggled to get up but her legs gave way under the tension of the moment, and she fell back again and sent the stylus of the record player skidding across the record. The neighbours, at last woken from their slumbers, started bashing on the walls in protest. And I said and did nothing.

*****

I had wandered down to the Tate. I was idly looking at some examples of the Camden Town Group and wondering why such instant visual appeal is almost inevitably certification of lack of content, when I heard heavy breathing behind me and turned to find Frank. I passed a lingering glance of regret at a woman I had been eying up who was pretending to be engrossed in a Sickert. Now we would never meet. I wondered if perhaps she was the Chosen One, the female on the planet most in accord with all my moods and senses.

“What d’you want Frank?”

“Come for a walk Alex.”

“Sure, let’s get a coffee.”

“Not here. Let’s get outside. This place is probably bugged.”

“This is the Tate, Frank.”

“Exactly,” he said meaningfully.

Outside the Embankment was uninviting, but we crossed the road and walked alongside the river in the direction of Vauxhall Bridge. The afternoon traffic roared by. As we walked my eye took in the riverscape, on that day a monochrome of greys to the extent that it could have been imagined as a black and white photograph if it wasn’t for the moving red blob of a bus on the Albert Embankment opposite - as crudely applied as the lips on Warhol’s silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe.

“D’you know who I work for Alex?”

I really didn’t want to know. I hesitated.

“You ever heard of The Company?” he asked.

“What company?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He tried another tack. “.. Look Alex. I want to put you on the payroll. I want to give you an agent’s monthly salary.”

“Agent?”

“That’s right... Agent. Don’t give me all that bullshit that you don’t know what I’m talking about.... You’re right in the middle of it all, I’ve checked you out.... With your contacts you can really earn if you play everything cool. What d’you say to five hundred dollars a month?”