Blame It on the Bossa Nova (26 page)

I nearly missed it. There were no secrets to be learnt from my file - not this one anyway. I was just closing it up with a feeling of relief that I had apparently not been rumbled despite the fact that Ronnie was a fellow agent, thankfulness that I had dared to open it and not left it unopened preferring not to know the truth. As I say I was just turning the cover back when it dropped out, this very unofficial looking scrap of paper, ruled foolscap, folded roughly, not strictly symmetrically. I picked it up from the floor. Its corners were dog-eared. Unfolding it I could see immediately the draft of a letter, a very rough draft, odd words crossed out and then replaced, then their replacements effaced. Whole sentences and paragraphs ruthlessly eliminated, sometimes with alternative passages written in tiny lettering in the spaces between the tops of the original letters. It was a document that had been worked on over a period of time by the looks of it. In one place there was even the brown ring of a stain from a cup. Much thought and trouble had gone into it.

“Alex..... Darling, Dearest Alex...... Alex you beautiful tight assed boy..... You’re beautiful, beautiful..... I guess you think I must be crazy to write to you this way. I guess I must be crazy. I feel crazy. I think I’ve been crazy ever since the first day I met you, way back last fall.... Alex, don’t get mad at me for writing to you like this...... I know you must despise me, I deserve it. I’m nothing. But please Alex, I beg you, please read what I’ve got to say, because it’s so important to me...... Perhaps one day it could be important to you too. The first time I set eyes on you I got so shook up - You set things moving inside me I’d never felt before.... Then when I found out you were running with that filthy dog Bryant I couldn’t believe it. I hated you for a while, then I came round. I could see your position.... I guess you must have been pretty insecure all alone in a big city.... and he gave you friendship and comfort.... I began to see the reasons you could get yourself involved in a relationship with a guy like Chris... But I hated him for it... I wanted him - on the end of a skewer. And now I’ve got him.... He’s finished, Alex, he can’t hurt you anymore. He’s so fucked up now by British security his whistling days are all through. I admit it. I stuck the knife in him, they weren’t even looking at him before I pointed them in his direction. I guess you knew it was me who tried to kill you that day.... That day I felt so black. I saw you were through with Chris, that he’d dropped you like a rag-doll...... then I began to see the crush you had on Pascale. I couldn’t believe it. I liked her right enough. She was good for the bodily functions... but she couldn’t hold a candle to you Alex. You were so beautiful, your body... it was like one of those statues they have in Florence... I knew it must be -.... To see you so struck on a little commie tramp. I couldn’t stand it. I’d rather you were dead than have you debase yourself like that.... It was stupid, and thoughtless, I can see that now.... You must be allowed to live. You have the right to that..... whoever you want, whoever you like.... But Alex, whatever you think of me, I want you to know one thing.... Whatever I did..... To Bryant, to Pascale.... to you...... I did it because I love you..... I guess I always will.”

That was the essence of the coherent passages, cutting through all the revisions. There were a couple of attempts at an ending, but neither fully worked up and both struck through in biro. I put the piece of paper back in the file, which I detached from the other three, then I went to the bar and got myself another large Jamesons. I sat there a long while. Jesus Christ, I was scared. To get out of London suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

At closing time I walked up to Knightsbridge Underground and handed two of the files to the booking office to be collected by London Transport Lost Property. Then I went back to Pavilion Road. The next time Chris went out I took the opportunity to burn the other two files and all their contents.

*****

It was harder to get a car than I had expected. The first guy I tried suddenly remembered that I owed him twenty pounds half way through the conversation. When I tried to make light of it he turned uncooperative and in the end asked me to leave. I had a telephone number for someone else but nobody answered the phone.

By four o’clock I was desperate. I’d got so low I’d even taken a 137 across the river to Battersea to ask the landlord of a pub I’d patronised when I was living on the park. But he pretended not to remember me, a poor thanks, I thought, for so many hours invested in his company, or at least in his pub. I was low, night was coming on fast, the pavements were treacherous as ever. As I walked past the end of a grimy mews on my way back to the bus stop I saw the interior of a garage, its doors fixed open. Like a tableau of the Holy Crib the light from within beckoned welcomingly in the cold night air. I shuffled up to the doors. A bald headed guy was underneath a jacked-up car inside and a young kid was fiddling about under the bonnet of a Riley parked in the mews. It wasn’t residential, all the other units looked to be taken up by commerce of some sort. At the end, some guys in white overalls were masking up a car for a re-spray. The guy under the car slid out and stood up, wiped his hands on an oily rag and looked at me with the hostile frankness that Cockneys unconsciously give to all, looks intended as neutral. Behind him a yellow, blue and white metal Michelin chart gave the recommended tyre pressures for all cars known to man, and a green and white Castrol chart did a similar job for lubricants.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a manner which de-coded read: “Fuck off”.

Over the years my deportment has become aimless and this seems to communicate instantly. It says: “This man has no money and will waste your time if you let him.” Confronted like that I was obliged to answer.

“Yes, I’d like to hire a car. I don’t suppose you could help me.”

“Don’t hire cars,” he addressed himself to the gearbox of a transverse engine which was stripped down on a workbench next to him.

“I can pay in advance. I really need it for this weekend. It’s quite urgent.”

He continued to look at the gearbox and picking up a large screwdriver prodded it with a rough gentility.

“Ask the boy,” he said without looking up. “... He might need the money.”

Thus dismissed I turned and approached the kid. He heard me coming and looked up. His face although lacking in warmth had an angelic radiance after the old guy.

“I hear you might be able to hire me a car this weekend,” I said.

“Couldn’t hire a car...... a van.”

“Great,” I said.”

“Here, have you been in a punch-up?” he asked as we walked out of the mews towards a dark green Austin A35 van that was parked in the road. “I want it back Monday.”

“No problem,” I said. He led me back inside and I showed him my driving licence and an old Cambridge membership card which didn’t impress him.

“You a student?”

“No.” I gave him ten pounds and he checked the mileage and told me that if anything went wrong he took no responsibility and that he’d take my word I was insured and if the police found out he’d say I nicked it. I agreed to all these onerous terms and in addition agreed to give him another tenner on Monday which I had no intention of doing. He was finally satisfied of my identity and address by production of my national insurance card, a dubious credential since it also certified my unemployed status. It gave my address as being Albert Bridge Road, which reassured him. An hour after I had first entered the mews I got in the van and started it up. “It’s out of petrol” were his parting words.

I parked in a side street near Victoria station, just behind the Roman Catholic cathedral, and took the circle line to Sloane Square.

Chris was in an almost hysterical state.

“Did you get it?” he asked as soon as he saw me.

“I got a van.”

“A van!”

“Yes. A van.” I was irritated by his petulance. “... Perhaps you’d prefer a police Wolsley.”

“No, no, of course not. I’m sorry, Alex.”

Christopher walked to the window, looked out at the coppers, shivered and walked away.

“They’ve been particularly offensive today,” he said. “... Making no effort to conceal that they’re watching me. Pulling up with a screech of brakes, looking openly across at the flat. They even got out and leaned against the car at one time.”

I agreed that it wasn’t a good sign. On the radio a news item reported Wilson’s sarcastic taunting of Macmillan in the defence debate. It was a good time for him to make a showing if he was seriously after the leadership.

“When shall we go?” said Chris.

“Have you been to the bank?”

He nodded.

“How much have you got?”

He showed me the inside of his wallet. It was sufficient.

“If we go tonight, they’ll get worried when you don’t get back….Set up roadblocks.” I conjectured wildly. “..... If you go tomorrow - Saturday - It gives us longer. It would be natural to be out all day.”

He thought about it.

“You’re right. Let’s go tomorrow - You didn’t bring it here did you?”

“It’s in a side street in Victoria.”

He looked relieved and almost relaxed.

“You know, Alex, I do believe you’re beginning to get into the spirit of it.”

The next morning as previously arranged Chris and I left the flat at different times and set off in different directions. In classic spy story tradition we had agreed to carry out a number of manoeuvres to throw off any possible tails. The first of these involved entering large department stores on one side and leaving on another. Chris went to Peter Jones, I to Harrods. I bought some Callard and Bowser’s nougat in rice paper in the food halls and left, forgetting to take a different door. I decided to leave out the bit about leaping from one passing bus to another as they waited at traffic lights. Instead I caught a taxi direct to the Cardinal pub from which I could see the parked vehicle. I was due to pick up Chris from the back of the Army and Navy stores at half past one. I had an hour to kill.

At half past one precisely I was waiting at the appointed spot when he emerged from the store carrying a couple of Peter Jones’s bags and an Army and Navy bag. I leaned across and opened the door.

“Been shopping?”

“Only essentials.” He threw them in the back of the van and his eyes simultaneously took in the scene. A couple of bald tyres, a jack, a load of oily rags and carpeting and an array of tools and spare parts. Meanwhile his nose had been inhaling the first pungent draughts of grease, grime and general squalor that complimented the decor.

“Is this the best you could do, Alex?”

“This is the best I could do, Chris.”

“Have you eaten?” he said.

“Not much.”

“Neither have I. Shall we stop for a bite?”

“Let’s wait until we’re clear of the Smoke,” I said grimly, “... there’s coppers everywhere.”

We pulled into Victoria Street and headed down towards the Abbey.

“Which way are we going?” said Chris.

“Through the City and up through Enfield.”

“Can’t you go past Chester Square?”

“Why?”

“I said we’d pick up Pascale.”

“You what?”

“I phoned up Pascale and told her we were going. She said she’d like to come. I said we’d pick her up.”

“You berk. You fucking berk..... Why her? When did you phone her up?”

“This morning, from Peter Jones. Really, Alex, I think you’re slightly over-reacting.”

We went round Parliament Square and headed back down Victoria Street.

“Do you trust her?”

“Of course, Alex, you introduced us. What higher recommendation do I need?”

“Supposing she’s being watched.”

“She’s not. She told me.”

“And she’s an expert, is she?” Even as I said it I acknowledged to myself that she was an expert.

“I...... don’t know.”

“You don’t know...” I snorted contemptuously. We pulled into Chester Square, the scruffy end. Chris got out and rang on a doorbell. The door opened and he disappeared inside. I’d never got that far, I was obviously everybody’s poor relation. Five minutes passed, my fingers drummed an irritated rhythm on the steering wheel. They came out. Pascale looked well wrapped up for a cold weekend in the country. She was carrying a travelling bag. I got out of the van.

“Hello,” I said aggressively.

“Hello Alex. You don’t mind if I come along too, do you?” she asked with transparent lack of concern.

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Chris.

“I don’t mind. I wonder if Chris minds slumming it in the back. You didn’t buy a set of denims as part of your survival kit did you, Chris?”

He looked pissed off as I held the passenger seat forward so that he could clamber into his gloomy den.

Pascale got in next to me. Chris put one tyre on top of another and leaned against the side of the van.

“Where are we going?” said Pascale.

“You really don’t know?” I said.

“Alex, have you been in a fight of some kind?” she said.

We travelled up through the depression that is the unremitting bleakness of the East End, north of Liverpool Street station, past the inaptly named Green of Bethnal, Heath of Cambridge, and Fields of London. Beyond lay Enfield with its false optimism born of improved material conditions. In its way it was more depressing; at least in the slums there can be hope for the future - Here was the future, or yesterday’s version of it. And it didn’t work. The gloom of the super-proles’ final destiny was relieved by the frequent watercourses of the Lea Valley, all now frozen solid - Fertile ground for some budding subtopian Constable. I pulled into a garage along an isolated stretch of the road to fill up the tank and check the tyre pressures and oil. Pascale got out and said she was going for a piss. If we wanted we could now keep going all the way to Norfolk without stopping. It was a cosy feeling. Even the oily atmosphere of the van was acceptable when heated up, it gave a feeling of survival. Eskimos have polar bear fat, Western Man, twenty/fifty multigrade. Chris and Pascale chatted as if they were on their way to a private viewing and I was the chauffeur.