The Yellow Glass (12 page)

“Uncle Reg, man!”
 
I stood up to shake his hand.

“Who’s your lady friend, lad, and may I have the
honour of buying her some more crisps?”
 

Rosa got up, swaying a fraction.

“That’d be lovely, thanks so much.
 
I’m Rosa, by the way,” she reached for his
hand and held onto it for support.
 
“I
say, have we met before?”

He bent his head over her hand and kissed the back of
it.

“I don’t think so, Rosa.
 
I reckon I’d have remembered
you
, love.”
 

He picked up our glasses and headed off to the bar.

“Isn’t that
funny
!”
 
She exclaimed.
 
“Uncles coming out of the woodwork all over
the place!
 
He’s quite ‘hail fellow well
met’, isn’t he?”

She made me laugh.
 
Rosa was a treasure trove of archaic expressions.

“He’s harmless,” I replied.
 
“I didn’t see much of him when I was growing
up in Hull, but we’ve caught up over a pint once or twice, since.
 
He’s a businessman; can’t remember exactly
what he does, but he’s done alright for himself and his family, has Uncle
Reg.
 
Lives in a big house in
Cricklewood.
 
He’s got a little brat of a
son I’m not that keen on, though.
 
Bit of
a Johnny Ray
[26]
fan, if you get me.”

“Do you know . .” Rosa laid her palm on top of mine, like
she had summat of great import to communicate,
 
“I quite
like
Johnny Ray.
 
Even when he cries.
 
In fact, Magnus . . I think I
prefer
him when he cries.”

Blimey she was drunk.

“Well I’m not sure we can be friends any more, Rosa,”
I said.

 
Uncle Reg was making his way back to us
through the crowd, bearing two pints held well above his head and with a packet
of crisps stuck under his armpit.

“I don’t know how jazz fans can
see
in those dark glasses,” Rosa remarked.
 
“Not in a basement in gloomy, old London, at
any rate.”

“Their eyes adjust, I reckon,” I said.
 
“But Uncle Reg always wears them.
 
He’s got trouble with his eyes.
 
Some industrial injury the Trades Unions
should’ve come down hard on, only the Unions in this country’ve got no
teeth.
 
Ta for that!”
 
My pint had arrived.
 
“Not supping, yourself?”

“Not tonight, son.
 
There you are, Rosa,” he flung the crisps on the table.
 
“Mind if I join you?
 
Be honest; I wouldn’t want to break up a
tête-à-tête.”
 

“Please do.
 
You’re not breaking up anything,” Rosa looked puzzled.
 
“We can budge up, can’t we, Magnus?”

We certainly could.
 
My leg was jammed up against Rosa’s and I caught a whiff of her
scent.
 
She smelt of lilacs in the park
after the rain.
 
I took a swift gulp of
my pint and tried to concentrate on the music.

“What d’you reckon to this, Uncle Reg?”
 
I cocked my head at the trio, who were
attempting a driving, hard bop sound done streets better by Art Blakey
[27]
.
 
It was acceptable, but it lacked the blues
edge it should’ve had.

“I’m a trad man, me,” he said.
 
“Give me a bit of Acker Bilk
[28]
and I’m happy.”

“Fair enough.
 
He’s not half bad, is Acker.”

“I suppose you
like
the low lighting down here, Uncle Reg?”
 
Rosa broke in, with that avid look on her face.
 
“I suppose it’s soothing for you?”
 

The lass couldn’t help herself, of course, but the
lack of tact could throw people who didn’t know her that well.

“Soothing?”
 
He
looked surprised for a moment.
 
“Ah, he’s
told you about my eyes, has he?”

“Yes.
 
How did
it happen?”
 
She had no shame.

“My, my,” he stared, “what a nosy little parker you
are, Rosa.”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she said, plain and simple.
 

Did she mind?
 
That he’d said that to her?
 
I
couldn’t tell.
 
It didn’t look like she
was taking it amiss.
 
But I did.

“Hey man,” I said, “she didn’t mean anything by
it.
 
Rosa’s just . . interested.
 
She’s
dead
interested in everything.”

He ignored me and carried on sizing her up.

“Well, you know what happened to the cat, don’t
you?”
 

“What?”
 
Rosa
was as fascinated as ever.
 
“Oh,
do
tell me.
 
What happened to the cat?”

“Curiosity killed it, love.”

And that’s when I realised I’d gone off my Uncle Reg.

 
The trouble with pubs - and clubs - is that
it’s hard not to take root.
 
You slip in
for a quick drink and, next thing you know, you’re standing on the table, singing
the Red Flag.
 
Well, maybe that’s just
me.
 
The third pint had taken Rosa quite
differently.
 
She’d emptied the contents
of her carpet bag all over the table and was scrabbling about for a lipstick,
which she proceeded to stab at arbitrary parts of her face; taking pot luck as
to where her mouth had landed up.
 
However, if anything, her speech had become
more
precise and she was busy rattling off a comprehensive list of
lipstick shades.

“Now,
this
is Fire and Ice by Revlon of course, but I
also
like Radiant Peony.
 
And Blush Rose,
Heart Red and Pink Violet.
 
Also
Promises Pink, Jeopardy Red, Kiss
and Make up, Divine Mastery, Coral Seas, Puckery, Sonnet In Mauve, Fleur du
Jour . .”

“Give it a rest, sweetheart,” I said.
 
“You are the cleverest girl I’ve ever met,
Rosa Stone -
and
the most beautiful,
by the way - but you don’t need to clog up your brain with all that fluff, you
know?
 
Save it for the fluff . . I mean
stuff
that matters, eh?”

“Has she got total recall?”
 
A familiar voice cut through the beer
fumes.
 
Was it my Uncle Reg?
 
Was that saddo Acker Bilk fan still with us?
 
He’d been sarky to my girlfriend.
 
Well, I wasn’t having that!

“What if she
has
?
 
Wanna make summat of it?”
 
I stumbled to my feet and rolled up my
sleeves.

“Now, now, that’s the drink talking.
 
There’s no need for any of that, son.
 
Let’s get you two young people home.
 
Can I offer you a lift?”

“No!”
 
It came
out louder than intended.
 
“We’re getting
the night bus, thanks.”

“The car’s only parked down the road.”

Rosa looked up from her lipsticks and focussed on my
uncle.

“You could take me to Charing Cross station if you
really
don’t mind, Uncle Reg.”

“No he couldn’t!”
 

What was she thinking of?
 
Sitting in the station all night to wait for
the early morning train to Kent?
 
It was
vital
that she came home with me.
 
(Yeah, yeah – I know what you’re thinking;
but it wasn’t
all
that.
 
I honestly felt like I’d got to grab onto her
coat tails, or she’d be up and off, and then who knew what might happen to her?)

“Of course I could,” said Uncle Reg.
 
“Have you got a train to catch, Rosa, love?”

“I’m going home to my parents in Kent.
 
I’ll just get the Dover Priory train and ring
from there.”

She’d rammed all her belongings back in her bag and
was tying her peculiar purple cape around her shoulders, like her mind was made
up.

“Dover?
 
What a
coincidence.
 
I’ve a factory down there,
would you believe?
 
I’m heading that way
tomorrow - first thing - for business.
 
Now
I come to think about it, it wouldn’t hurt to go down tonight; set the ball
rolling.
 
Why don’t I give you a lift all
the way, Rosa?”

She was all smiles.
 
“Well, I wouldn’t say no!
 
How
wonderful!
 
That’s frightfully kind,
Uncle Reg.
 
I say . . I can’t keep
calling you Uncle Reg, can I?
 
What’s
your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, just call me Reg,” he stuck out a gallant hand to
help her up and made a decisive skip for the door, like he wanted her all to
himself and I’d just hand the goods over and scoot.
 

What was going on?
 
I was drunk, of course - that was one thing that was going on - but,
even so, I was knocked sideways by a genuine sense of loss.
 
I felt like she was slipping out to sea before
I’d even found the beach.
 

I pushed through the crowd after the two of them,
shouting to make myself heard above the music:

“You can blooming well call him
Mr Arkonnen
!”
 
I shouted.
 

I didn’t mean much by it; I’ve gone over and over it since
that evening and, yes, there
may
have
been a touch of jealousy involved, but - more than anything - I was just trying
to catch her attention, to say:

“Hey, Rosa!
 
I’m
still here!”

Never, in a million years, could I have predicted the
effect it had.

“
Arkonnen
?”
 

She froze on the bottom step of the stairs to the
exit.
 
When she turned round, I could see
her face had bleached to the colour of quality stock typing paper, those brown
eyes gaping out of this paper mask.
 

“Arkonnen,” she said - straight at me - like she’d
just come up with the answer to a sum.

“What’s up, Rosa man?”

She didn’t reply, just gurgled out a weird, gasping
sound and flung her arms out wide,
 
substantial bag and all.
 
Uncle Reg - who’d been welded to her side, about
to escort her up the Black Box steps - got the full force of that bag in the
stomach, before Rosa shoved him out of her way and made a run for it up the
stairs.

“Rosa?” I cried, belting after her.

It was the dead of night and that miserable backstreet
was poorly lit.
 
Opposite the club, a
striped barber’s pole revolved under a wan light-bulb and, further down the
road, a single lamp-post smouldered with an orange, sodium glow, but it was
properly black.
  
I couldn’t see her, at
first.
 
But then, when a figure ran out
between two parked cars, it dawned on me that it could only be Rosa.
 
She veered into the middle of the road and,
as she passed beneath the lamp-post, I recognised her long hair and her cape
and the heavy bag that dragged over the ground, so that she ran all lopsided
and awkward; there was something about the way she ran that snagged at the
heart.
 

I was so preoccupied, I nearly missed him; no more
than a shadow splitting from the deeper shade of a doorway.
 
Then he came nearer and I realised who it
was; with his pipe-cleaner legs and bouffant hair - not unlike the splurge of
ice-cream on top of the type of cornet you get from an ice-cream van - it could
only
be my least favourite cousin,
Terry Arkonnen, Uncle Reg’s son.
 
We
stared each other down.

“After her, Terry!”
 
Uncle Reg came storming out of the club, behind me.
 
“After that girl!”

Now I really was flummoxed.
 
I gawped from one of them to the other, out
of my depth.
 
It was the way that he’d
said it:
 

“After that girl!”
 

It just wasn’t how you’d expect any uncle of yours to
speak; the tone was downright
vicious
.
 
I expect the booze wasn’t helping, but I
honestly felt like my brains were scattered all over the pavement.
 
What was happening here?
 
What’d made Rosa scarper again and why was my
uncle setting his little tyke of a son on her?

“Eh?
 
Leave her
alone, man.
 
She can run if she wants
to,” I shouted.

But nobody paid me a bloody bit of attention.
 
Terry bolted after her, running hell for
leather and I stared after him in disbelief, none too steady on my feet.
 
It felt like an age passed while I got myself
under control and sobered up, but it was probably no more than a heartbeat.

“Pull yourself together, Arkonnen,” was the general
theme.
 
“You don’t need to know the
details, all you need to know is Rosa’s in some kind of danger.
 
The girl needs your help.”
 

Not before time, I got going.
 
Given that Rosa was in heels, she was a
surprisingly quick mover, but my cousin was gaining on her, fast.
 
He was a skinny, agile, little bastard, that
boy, and there was no way she’d manage to escape him on her own.
 
However, Terry had me to reckon with and, even
with four pints inside me, I could
also
run.

She was heading north toward the railway line, past
the sort of neglected patch you find all over this country from slum clearance,
or old bomb damage, or both.
 
A sharp
wind had got up and weeds that had grown into trees waved, head-height.
 
Few people were about, just a couple of
working girls taking a shortcut home and a cloth-capped man pushing a barrow
top-heavy with coal, up ahead.
 
He
reached her long before Terry or I did; the barrow took an unexpected turn
across Rosa’s path and there was nearly a collision, but she jumped out of the
way, while he pulled up to collect the lumps of good coal that were rolling all
over the street.
 
This was a lucky break
because he made an excellent job of blocking the pavement while he picked them
up, and he managed to slow Terry down for a precious few seconds; just enough
for me to catch up with him, leap onto his back and pummel him, good and proper,
with my fists.