He fought loose, won a moment of clarity. Directory Enquiries, he thought. He dialled 192. A woman answered.
‘Please can you help me?’ he began.
The woman laughed. ‘I’ll try.’
‘I’m looking for the number of a club in Covent Garden,’ he said. ‘It’s called The Blue something.’
‘That’s a funny name.’
‘I mean — ’
‘It’s all right, love. I know what you mean. Now, let me see. The Blue something — ’
He could hear her humming.
‘I suppose people don’t usually talk to you,’ he said.
‘Oh, you get the odd one or two.’
It sounded snug on the other end of the phone. It was like talking to somebody who was in bed. Somebody who had just woken up and was still drowsy and smothered in blankets. Warm as warm skin. He could’ve listened to her talk for ages. He could’ve fallen asleep in her voice.
‘There’s one man,’ she was saying, ‘he rings me up and he asks me what I’m wearing — ’
‘What do you tell him?’
‘Sometimes I tell him the truth. You know, white blouse, black skirt, shoes that leak. Other times I make things up. Once I told him I was wearing a ballgown — ’
Moses laughed. ‘You don’t mind him asking?’
‘No, I don’t mind. If it keeps him happy. We laugh a bit. You know. You get on faster if you make people laugh.’
‘It’s funny, but I like listening to your voice.’
‘Thank you. You’re not going to ask me what I’m wearing, are you?’
‘Not tonight.’
A soft laugh. ‘Here you go, love. How does The Blue Diamond sound?’
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You are clever.’
‘Don’t. It’ll go to my head.’
She gave him the number and he scribbled it down.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’d better ring off now.’
That made her laugh again.
‘It’s been very nice talking to you,’ he said. ‘It really has.’
‘The Blue Diamond,’ she said. ‘You take care now. Those nightclubs — ’
‘I will. Speak to you again sometime.’
‘Goodbye.’ She hung up.
He suddenly regretted not having asked for her number. There were millions of operators and he would probably never get her again. But imagine asking for the number of someone who works for Directory Enquiries!
He smiled as he dialled The Blue Diamond. The first four times he got the engagement ring or whatever it’s called. The fifth time he got through.
‘Blue Diamond.’ A male voice this time.
‘I want to speak to Gloria, please,’ Moses said. ‘She’s singing at your place tonight.’
‘She isn’t here yet.’
‘OK, can I leave a — ’ Bip bip bip. Moses felt his pockets for change. He fed another two lops into the slot. ‘Hello? I’d like to leave a message please.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘My name’s Moses. I’ve had a breakdown — ’
‘Is that nervous or mechanical?’
Moses smiled. ‘Mechanical. Listen, my car’s broken down in the middle of nowhere so I’m not going to be able to make it tonight, OK?’
‘Sounds a bit lame, Moses.’
‘Well, it’s true. Oh, and could you send her my — ’ Bip bip bip. He felt his pockets again. No more coins. He slowly replaced the receiver.
Love, he thought. Send her my love.
*
Placing his hands on the table, Moses lowered himself towards his chair, missed by six inches and sat down rather heavily on the floor. He peered at Mary through a blur of condiments. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I think I’m a bit drunk.’
‘You took for ever,’ she laughed. ‘What happened?’
‘Been in different worlds. Talked to,’ and he hauled himself up on to his chair, ‘very nice operator.’
‘Did you get through?’
‘Through?’
‘Your call, Moses. To your ladyfriend.’
‘No, not really. Nobody there.’
‘I’m going to try Alan one more time.’
While Mary was away, Moses tried to establish an upright position for himself, using, as reference points, the blue china cabbage on the mantelpiece, the distant figure of Red Blouse (a suggestive fleck of whipped cream just to one side of her lips — Blue Blazer gazing, sighing, fantasising), and a picture of a white horse cantering through peppermint surf, but every time he focused on something it multiplied, had twins, triplets, quadruplets, who began to run away as soon as they were born. He couldn’t keep up. He had lost this one. The entire room suddenly took off on a victory lap.
A rush of blackness, but it was only Mary sitting down.
‘Any luck?’ he said.
She shook her head.
He thought he saw traces of abandonment on her face. Smooth damp places. Sand abandoned by an outgoing tide. Some kind of ebbing.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
She downed her brandy. ‘I’m going upstairs.’
He stayed at the table for a moment, then moved off jerkily in Mary’s wake, as if attached to her by a long and invisible rope that had only tightened, taken effect, when she was twenty feet away. Umbilical, she would’ve called it. He fetched up at her side in an upright heap. Eyes vacant with alcohol. One arm held away from his body like a wing. For balance. Staring at the carpet, he wondered why anyone in their right mind would take vomit as a design motif. If he was sick, he thought, and he was sick carefully enough, maybe he could fit his sick into one of those obscene recurring patterns and nobody would ever notice.
‘You go on,’ he said. ‘Just got to ask something.’
He found their waitress in the lobby. She stood below him gazing upwards. She was very small. Tiny balls of light (reflections of the electric chandelier above) rolled about on the lenses of her glasses. He wanted to take her head in his two hands and tilt it until the silver balls stopped on the two black centres of her eyes. Instead he asked her for a local telephone directory. She produced one from behind the reception desk.
‘And two more brandies, please,’ he said.
She rolled the silver balls that were her eyes and moved off down the corridor.
He thumbed through the directory until he reached H. The same old routine, with one crucial difference: this time there had to be a Highness — Highness G, 14 Caution Lane, New Egypt. He read the names out loud to himself — ‘Hardware, Haseldine, Havana, Head — ’ he skipped a couple of pages — ‘Hick, Higgins, Hilton — ’ He must’ve missed it. He began again. Using his finger because the names were jumping. But no. No Highness. He straightened up, wrapped his hand round the lower half of his face. It could only mean one thing. His father didn’t have a phone.
On a whim, he looked up Peach. There were three Peaches, but none of them were Chief Inspectors. None of them lived in New Egypt either. Curious. Unless Peach was ex-directory, of course. He nodded to himself. Peach was cunning on two legs. Peach would be ex-directory.
The waitress returned with the brandies. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’
He shook his head. He had wanted to ask his father an urgent question. He had wanted to know how Peach could possibly have discovered his identity. But now he had no way of reaching his father, not without returning to the village, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk that. Now he would never know. He began to walk towards the stairs.
‘Sir?’ the waitress called out. ‘Your brandies.’
*
Wallpaper like warfare. Salvoes of red roses exploding round his ears. Two brandies balanced in one hand, he ran up the corridor and burst into the wrong room. Red Blouse had changed into Pink Slip. Blue Blazer was no longer Blue Blazer; Blue Blazer hung over the back of a chair.