Just Another Angel (8 page)

When times have been hard and the cash-flow not flowing, I have been known (though not by my friends) to take orchestra-pit work in some of the provincial theatres not too hot on Musicians' Union membership. But in all the tacky pantomime transformation scenes I'd witnessed, and you get a pretty good view from the pit, none had anything on Emma. The make-up and black nail polish could all come off easily, of course, and the clothes made an enormous difference, but it was the hair that she had worked wonders with. The salmon-pink colouring could have been just vegetable dye and easily washed out, but where had the Mohican cut gone? It took me a few seconds to work out that she'd shaved the sides of her head but had left enough length in her mousy locks to be able to comb it flat and round and into a short pony tail held at the back with an elastic band. As both schoolgirl and punk she must get through a gallon of hair gel a week to keep it in place.

‘Yes?' she said before I could think of anything remotely amusing.

Even then, all I got out was, ‘Er, hi! I'm from the Mimosa …' before she cut in.

‘If you're another one of Stubbly's goons, you can just piss off back to that dungheap of his. I had more than enough of that place the other night. I wondered how long it would be before he tried a shakedown.' She looked me in the eye. ‘Tell him to get off my case.'

She began to close the door, so I put my right foot in the way, and when she saw that she pulled the door back, but only to get a better swing and more weight behind it.

‘Hang about, darling, I was in the band with you. I'm Angel, the trumpet man.'

The door stopped an inch from my trainers.

‘Shouldn't that be Gabriel?' she said.

‘Oh, very sharp, get in the knife drawer.' The door moved again. ‘It really is my name. And anyway, Stubbly doesn't employ goons,' I finished quickly, to give her something to think about.

‘Well, he bloody well had a tame gorilla in tow the other night. You might have gone by then, though. Yeah, you had.'

‘So, what was the problem?'

‘Oh, just Stubbly being an old fart. He came into the back room late on. I was waiting for Geoff to take me home. He's the one who went off to find our so-called manager Lloyd with that sex-starved saxophone player. He's a friend of yours, isn't he?'

I admitted that the description might just fit somebody I knew called Bunny, but I hadn't seen him in years. Well, Tuesday.

‘Do you think we could go inside?' I asked. ‘I think I'm upsetting the au-pair-owning classes. I could have sworn I heard a net curtain twitch.'

‘Don't be daft,' said Emma, not smiling. ‘You could set off a bomb round here and not wake the zombies, but try clamping a car and it's Return of the Living Dead.'

I knew what she meant. London had just lived through its first summer of wheel-clamping illegally parked cars, and fear and paranoia now stalked the double yellow lines. Businessmen had hired chauffeurs by the herd to keep fleets of limos constantly on the move going round the one-way systems while they were at meetings. I put it down to a conspiracy between the oil companies and the Government to keep petrol sales up and create jobs at the same time.

‘Well, you can come in and watch me eat lunch,' she relented. ‘But another slagging-off from the older generation I don't need.'

I didn't move and must have looked hurt.

‘Oh, be fair,' she said, ‘you are old enough to be my father, aren't you?'

‘Was your mother in Norwich in the spring of 1971?'

‘Not that I know of.'

‘Then I think we're safe.'

She led me down a hallway I could have driven Armstrong through and into a kitchen bigger than my flat. It had a long pine table around which you could have sat a platoon of hungry infantrymen, and two pine Welsh dressers made from reconditioned tea-chests (which are gold dust these days), groaning with Le Creuset ovenware and Jocelyn Dimbleby cookbooks.

Emma produced a granary loaf and a bread knife, then a jar of peanut butter. Another bloody vegan.

‘Got to eat,' she said, ‘I've got an exam this afternoon. Got an oily on yer?'

‘Oily' – oily rag – fag – cigarette. The exam was obviously English O-level. I produced one.

‘They ain't got roaches,' she complained. Maybe it was A-level.

‘Life's like that.' I offered a light. ‘So what was the aggro at the Mimosa? Stubbly catch you dropping something?'

‘Sort of.' She stood at the table spreading peanut butter with the bread knife on a slice of wholemeal the shape of one of those chocks you stick under a barrel of beer. The cigarette drooped from the corner of her mouth as if it had all the cares of the world bearing down on it.

‘Bill doesn't like drugs, you know. Somebody should have told you.'

Ever since she'd said ‘shakedown' I'd guessed it was drugs. It had to be either drugs or sex, and in her after-dark punk persona, she was pretty passé for Soho these days. Not, mind you, that she couldn't have done a good trade in Shepherd's Market on the telephone circuits run from the bank of call-boxes at King's Cross. (You must have seen the adverts on white adhesive labels that have gone up all over town. ‘Tall black model needs discipline'; ‘Young and petite interested in clothing exchange'; and so on.)

‘Yeah, well, that became bloody obvious.'

‘So what were you doing?' I tried not to make it a father's Oh-not-again-Emma sort of voice.

‘I was just about to snort a line, if you must know. Just a small line of low-grade. Well, I was pissed off waiting with only the toilet for company. Stubbly came in and went ape-shit, but it wasn't so much that – that I can handle – but it was the other guy with him being mad at him. Like he was very disappointed with Stubbly, you know, a quiet sort of mad that means you're going to get it in the neck at some future date.'

‘Who was this guy?'

‘Like I said, he was a goon. A gorilla, regular Management. A bouncer, you know, somebody who breaks Tonka toys for a living.'

‘Big guy?'

‘Like a brick shithouse. Blocked out the natural light for miles.'

‘Have a name?'

‘Would you believe Nevil? Bit of a poncy name for a thug that size. Yeah, Nevil. Well, that's what Stubbly kept calling him. And all he kept saying was: “This isn't good enough, he won't like it” – saying it to Stubbly, that is.'

‘What did he say to you?'

‘Just “Out” and pointed to the door, but Stubbly was a right pair of nun's knickers.'

‘Pardon?'

‘Nun's knickers – always on. And on and on. Never darken door again, all that stuff. Sod him. That's why I thought you were coming to put the squeeze on Daddy.'

I saw her bite her tongue as ‘Daddy' slipped out.

‘As if I looked the sort,' I said, trying to work out how to put the squeeze on Stubbly. ‘No, I came for a favour.'

‘Here we go,' sighed Emma, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

‘No, straight up. I'm looking for Carol, your mate.'

‘Flaxperson?' I must have looked dumb. ‘Carol's surname is Flaxman, you wally, but she's a feminist. Daddy doesn't like her.'

‘So she's not staying here?' I asked quickly to help her gloss over the second ‘Daddy'.

‘No, she's gone back to university.'

‘When?'

‘Yesterday morning. She rang me about 6.00 am. She was well pissed. Said she'd loved the band and was sorry she hadn't seen me after the set. Said she had to get back to the “front line” now the weather was getting better, and was catching the first train from Liverpool Street. Typical Carol. Six o'clock in the bleeding morning. I'd only just got in. Woke the whole house.'

‘I know the feeling,' I muttered. ‘What did she mean by front line?'

Emma shrugged. ‘University? Going back to her lectures or something? I'm going to have to get back to school myself.'

‘Can I give you a lift?'

She looked me up and down, and I could tell she was trying to work out the kudos value of arriving with me in front of her friends.

‘Okay, it's not far.' She picked up a pencil case made out of a soft toy and a zip. It resembled a wombat that had been in a car accident.

‘What did you want with Flaxperson anyway?'

Well, I think that's what she said but it was difficult to tell as she had pushed the last of the peanut butter into her mouth. She chewed and wiggled her pleats down the hallway in front of me.

‘She borrowed some tapes from a friend of mine and I need them,' I mumbled, and fortunately she didn't seem interested.

‘She'll have flogged them by now, knowing her,' said Emma sagely. ‘I once caught her negotiating to sell my drum kit.'

‘Do you ever need to get in touch with her?' I asked innocently.

‘Nah, no chance. Flaxperson finds you. Usually when you least want her to.'

We were out on the steps now.

‘Though I suppose Essex University would know where she hangs out. Bet she owes them money.'

‘Who doesn't?' I made to unlock Armstrong.

‘You drive that?' shrieked Emma, taking a pace back.

‘My Porsche is having its ashtrays emptied,' I said, getting upset. After all, Armstrong had been insulted by professionals.

‘Well, I'm not turning up at school in that thing. People will think I'm only allowed out under guard. They'll think Daddy sent you. I'll walk.'

She primped past me down the pavement.

‘I hope the skinheads get yer!' I yelled after her. But I hoped for their sake they didn't.

 

 

 

 

 

I pointed Armstrong towards Regent's Park, but after Chalk Farm I cut through to Islington and down York Way to the Waterside Inn.

I decided on the Waterside because it had a phone, beer you couldn't get anywhere else in London and a very interesting turnover in young French female chefs. (The French, being Socialist, have to train girls to cook, but being chauvinists, only let males do it for real. Hence considerable numbers of chefesses willing to come over here and work for peanuts just for the experience. Some of them get to cook as well.)

There was another advantage late on a lunch-time in that there were always a few city slickers who had ventured north by north-west (of the Barbican) to try the Hoskin's or the Holden's bitter and found it had got the better of them, so needed a taxi back to civilization.

It was young and shy Nadine on duty, so I got a large portion of chicken in white wine sauce with rice (how is it that the French can cook rice that never sticks?) and a bottle of Pils for next to nothing. As I made inroads into both, I sussed the other punters, and though the place was fairly quiet, there were a couple of city gents in suits talking earnestly and drinking fast. Just the sort who didn't work locally and who would need a ride back to the office, come chucking-out time at three. It was a good hunting ground in the summer, as the front of the pub overlooked the basin that served as the headquarters of London's trendy and ever-growing population of canal boats. It was only a matter of time, though, before the pub won the
Standard
Pub of the Year Award, and after that it would be all downhill.

I risked another Pils. I'm usually quite abstemious during daylight hours if I have any driving to do. After all, I don't want to lose any of my licences, do I? Then I sorted out some ten ps for the phone and rifled through my diary (
The Sex Maniac's Diary
– it was a Christmas present, not my idea) for Jo's number.

She must have been sitting over the phone.

‘Yes?'

‘It's me, Angel.'

‘Oh hello, Celia,' she said, and I knew instantly that something was wrong. I'm quick like that.

‘There's somebody with you, isn't there?'

‘That's absolutely right, Celia, I never could fool you. Now tell me all your news.'

It was a good act and almost convinced me, but in situations like this, there's nothing to do except play along.

‘I'll be brief,' I said, businesslike. ‘Carol's split town and gone back to university as far as anyone knows. Last reported early yesterday morning, high as a kite, heading for a train. Sorry.'

‘Well, why don't you go too, Celia?' she came back, totally unfazed. ‘After all, if it's worth so much to you, you could be there and back in a day easily.'

Just like that. Some nerve, and of course I went for it.

‘If I did, how the hell do I find her and how do I make her part with your pendant?' From what I'd heard of La Flaxperson, a crowbar might help. Jo certainly wasn't going to.

‘Well, you could always try one of those women's groups, dear. I hear they're very popular. And don't worry about the child. They always see sense in the end. I don't think you'll have any trouble.'