Rebuilding Coventry (16 page)

‘How
old are you?’ asked Caroline, when I was bathed and dressed and brushing my
hair.

‘I’m
forty tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Are
you? Shit!’

I
replaced the hairbrush on the crowded dressing-table, where you needed an A
level in French to find your way around the little pots and perfume bottles.

‘Do
help yourself, Jaffa. They’re all duty-free pongs. Not terribly romantic, is
it? My old man, late for his plane, goes roaring like a bull into duty-free and
grabs a bottle, any bottle, from the perfumery counter. “Got to keep the wife
happy,” he’s thinking. “Take her a little prezzy.”‘

She
looked sharply at my face.

‘You’re
not wearing any slobby-dosh?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Meek-up,
no meek-up?’

‘No.’

‘Shit!
You mean that’s just your face?’

‘Yes.’

She
ushered me out of the room and down the stairs. She laid her white hand on my
arm.

‘By the
way, Jaffa, don’t be offended, but never, never, say “pardon”. “Pardon” is what
belching business men say in bistros in Birmingham.’

Dodo
joined us on the stairs. She was transformed, as I was. Her black hair was
scraped back and twisted into a bun. Her dress was velvet and had no back to
it. Her neck was clean. Caroline disapproved.

‘Black
again, Dodo?’

‘Oh I
couldn’t wear a
colour,
Caroline. I’m not nearly happy enough.’

‘It’s
time you got over Geoff now, Do. He’s been mouldering in his coffin for three
years.’

Dodo
said to me, ‘We’ll go and see Geoff tomorrow. It is Sunday, isn’t it … ? Yes,
we’ll take Geoff some flowers.’

‘I’m
meeting my brother’s plane tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Time
to do both.’ Dodo squeezed my hand and we went into the dining-room.

Throughout
dinner the company forced Dodo to tell amusing anecdotes about Cardboard City.
Hardly anything she said was true. I didn’t join in the laughter much.
Cardboard City isn’t funny. It’s a real place.

The
famous politician asked Dodo the question I’d been wanting to ask her myself,
ever since we’d met.

‘Why do
I live in Cardboard City, instead of in this house? Well, let’s see.’

She
kept us waiting for her answer but eventually said: ‘I
couldn’t stand
to
live in this house; Caroline wears rubber gloves when she wipes her bum, don’t
you, Caroline?’

‘I fail
to …’ Caroline clamped her lips together.

Dodo
went on. ‘Anyway, I’m still officially loony; the police are looking for me.’

Nick
said: ‘She’s compromising us
all
by her presence, especially you,
Podger. If the press …

Podger
leaned forward over the table; one elbow made contact with a slice of Kiwi
fruit left abandoned on a hexagonal plate, but nobody alerted him; he was too
important.

‘Why
are you wanted by the police, Dodo?’

‘Because
I’m a murderer.’

The
communal gasp almost put the candles out.

‘I
murdered Geoff’

‘Stop
showing off, Dodo. Geoff’s death was an accident, the coroner said… . God!
Who’d have a sister like
her?’

Nick
appealed round the table but everyone was looking at Dodo, hoping for more
revelations. Caroline drawled: ‘That poxy cat killed Geoff. That cat lived so
that Geoff might die.’ Dodo sipped on her champagne and said, ‘Yes, I really
should have killed the cat. I made the wrong decision.’

After
this, everyone, apart from me, relaxed. I was still tense from working out the
cutlery. And the artichokes and the finger bowls. And the jokes. And the
references. I felt suffocated by my awful, awful proximity to the famous
politician. I did hear some interesting talk, though. It was most enlightening.
Scandal with a capital S. According to the table, all bishops and chief
constables were buffoons; a member of the Royal Family was snorting cocaine;
judges were ‘senile old sods’; the Army, Airforce and Navy top brass were
respectively ‘gaga’, ‘psychopathic’ and ‘a snivelling sycophant’; and Podger’s
mistress was in Los Angeles having the fat sucked out of her thighs and knees,
thus enabling her to wear the new short skirts.

Over
coffee one of the guests, Amanda, said, ‘Podgie, when are you and your mates
going to be
sensible
about the unemployed?’

I
breathed more easily.

‘You’re
spoiling
them, darling, doling out all this cash
into their grimy little hands. It’s no wonder they don’t want to work. Who
would?’

‘Balls!’
It was Dodo.

‘I
think
not
balls, Dodo.’ Amanda was smiling. ‘One only has to read the
jobs columns in
The Times.
There’s plenty of work for those who want it.
Aren’t I right, Podger?’

Podger
lifted his famous face reluctantly. He didn’t quite catch Amanda’s eye, as he
said: ‘In the main you’re right, of course, though …’

‘You
see, Dodo. The minister agrees with me.’

Caroline
was lurching around the table taking photographs of her birthday guests with a polaroid
camera. Podger pulled my head towards his and draped his hand casually over my
bare shoulder. His index finger was a quarter of an inch from the swelling of
my left breast. When the flash went off he opened his mouth, faking bonhomie;
obviously he was used to having his photograph taken, and had developed good
timing.

At
twelve o’clock Caroline announced the end of her birthday, and the beginning of
mine.

Heppy
birthday to you,

Heppy birthday to you,

Heppy birthday dear Jaffa,

Heppy birthday tu-u-yew.

Dodo fell asleep with her
head on the table, and everyone said, ‘God is that the time? We
must
go.’
But nobody did, they stayed on to talk.

AMANDA:     
You can say what you like about Hitler, but he knew a thing or two.
He knew how to
prioritize.

CAROLINE:
Have you noticed, there’s not a single yid around this
table. Isn’t it wonderful?

Laughter

PODGER:        I
say, we’re being awfully Third Reich.
Loud laughter

ANNA
[journalist]:
I’m sick
of seeing black faces in Harrods — either side of the counters.

Baying
agreeing noises

DODO:
           I can’t live in this house because I’m a communist. My dearest wish
is that one day I shall see your grisly heads on the end of pikestaffs. Paraded
… where shall we parade them, Jaffa?

ME:                  On
Westminster Bridge.

Silence

Caroline said, ‘OK Dodo, I
thought you might amuse us for a few hours, but you’re getting tiresome now. I’ll
order the car for you. Cardboard City, isn’t it? You may have to direct the
driver.’

We went
upstairs to change our clothes, but Caroline followed and said to me: ‘Keep the
green frock, you stupid northern oik. Do you rally think
I’d
wear it
after your nasty sweaty prole body has been in it?’ Dodo grabbed Caroline’s
fingers and bent them back. Caroline screamed like a schoolgirl. Nick bounded
up the stairs two at a time. He reached the two women and grappled them apart.
His face was horribly contorted. ‘Git owt of my harse, you detty little commie,
and nivver, nivver come back!’

The
dinner guests mobbed about on the landing, separating brother from sister, but
not before Dodo had scratched Nick’s face, and had drawn blood. Similar scenes
can be seen and heard on the Grey Paths Estate any night of the week. The
slight difference here was that the people screaming, fighting and bleeding had
money, power and status — and knew they wouldn’t be arrested for breaching the
peace of Flood Street. Even though there was a policeman sitting in the
kitchen.

We were burdened down with
packages and suitcases as we left the house. Dodo had taken all of her clothes
and some of Caroline’s. We jammed everything into the boot of the big black car,
then got in and settled down in the back seat. The car moved off.

‘Driver,
please put the interior light on. Jaffa, look what I nicked off the dining-room
table.’ Dodo showed me the polaroid photograph of myself — looking half naked
— and the famous politician looking fully debauched, with his hand appearing to
be holding firmly onto my left breast.

‘Where
are we going, madam?’ asked the driver.

‘The
Ritz.’

‘Thank
you, madam.’

Dodo
had stolen a thousand pounds from her brother’s sock drawer. She justified this
by saying that her brother was thoroughly corrupt, and that anyway half of the
Flood Street house belonged to her; but Nick wouldn’t sell until the Arabs
started moving West. It all seemed quite fair to me.

The
porters at the Ritz were very kind about the unwieldy luggage and within half
an hour Dodo and I were exploring a suite of rooms. A laconic Italian waiter
brought us champagne and hot buttered toast and told us that we were beautiful.
Ten minutes later he was back with a basket of Norwegian wild flowers.

‘Somebody
die; shame to waste.’

In the
bath I asked Dodo if she really was a communist. She got out of the foam and
rummaged through her luggage and came back into the bathroom
(one
of the
bathrooms) carrying a small card. She was a card-carrier all right.

There
were four beds to choose from. We chose two and sank down to sleep. In the
drowsy minutes before my eyes closed I told Dodo that my name was Coventry
Dakin and that I had murdered Gerald Fox.

‘I
know,’ said Dodo. ‘Your face was plastered all over the papers last Saturday.
True,
now
you don’t look anything like your photograph in the papers,
but I twigged. Clever, aren’t I?’

In the
morning Dodo felt guilty about staying at the Ritz so she overtipped the waiter
who brought us our breakfast trolley and newspapers. I didn’t feel a bit
guilty; I loved everything. The thick bathrobes, the soap, the freshly squeezed
orange juice, the warm croissants, the bacon, the gold furniture, the pink
walls, the triple glazing, the hot water and the misty view across the park
(Green Park, Dodo said).

Nick
telephoned before we’d finished eating.

‘You
bloody little thief.’

‘You
bloody big thief’

‘I want
my money back, and Caroline wants her Jean Muirs. I’ll give you until midday
and then I’m calling the police
and
the loony bin.’

We
checked out of the Ritz at 11.55. We took a taxi to Cardboard City and stowed all
the luggage inside our freezer-box house. James Spittlehouse was threatened
into guarding our possessions.

‘If you
take your eyes off our house for one moment, Spittlehouse, we’ll expose that
virginal pink winkle of yours,’ said Dodo.

Unfair,
but effective. We left him eating the remains of our Ritz breakfast. He had a
pink linen napkin tucked into the top of his greasy, buttoned-up overcoat. A
croissant crumbled down his chest. He asked what time we’d be back. We said we
didn’t know.

We were
busy women. We had things to do. Visit a grave and meet a plane.

29
Sunday Morning

Tennis Ball and Bread
Knife looked across the breakfast table at each other. The BBC had just
informed them that their daughter, Coventry, was in London, of all places.

‘What’s
she doing in
London?’
said Coventry’s father, as he rolled his little
fat body away from the table.

Coventry’s
mother crinkled her lips together in cartoon style and said nothing. She
disapproved of London. The popular press had informed her that London was
entirely populated with dirty, drug-crazed pop stars and filthy communist
councillors. True, the Queen lived there, but she was protected from the scum
by a high wall and security patrols.

She
cleared the breakfast table and then began the laborious task of washing up.
Every bowl, plate, cup, saucer, knife, fork, spoon and eggcup was washed,
rinsed three times and then polished with a sterilized tea towel before being
put away into a daily disinfected cupboard.

Coventry’s
parents had not discussed the murder of Gerald Fox and their daughter’s
involvement in his death. They had told a baffled policewoman sent to interview
them that they were ‘clean people’, who changed their bed sheets and towels
every
day,
‘not weekly, like some dirty people’. When Coventry’s mother was asked
if her daughter had been having an affair with Gerald Fox, she had replied, ‘I
get through five bottles of disinfectant a week, don’t I, father?’