“You’ll get too clever for your boots one day.”
“Michael, a man’s got to live, and I’ve had a lot of good times in my life. I often recall though what a comfortable time I had when I was allowed to stay in Major Blaskin’s flat. What a gentleman he was — though I found it a bit hard living with that farting dog called Dismal always trying to jump on my knees. I hope the Major’s well. The world don’t know how lucky it is having an author like him to write so many books. Thank God for all writers, which I have to say in my present circumstances, because if authors hadn’t turned out so many books no libraries would have been built, and then where would the likes of me go in winter to keep warm, and read the newspapers to find out how the other half of the world was living? Otherwise I’m just waiting for things to come my way. Life is all ups and downs, though nothing can be as bad as when I was in Normandy with the good old Sherwood Foresters. So where is it you’re going this morning?”
“I’d better bring you up to press on my life before telling you that.”
“Michael,” he said when I had finished my tale, “you’re lucky to have got rid of such encumbrances. Who needs a wife and a job?”
I explained the gist of my phone call from Moggerhanger, noticing that every word seemed to taste as sweet to him as the cakes he was still stuffing into his insatiable feedbox. “You lucky dog,” he said when the plates were empty. “You’ll soon be back in funds. Moggerhanger pays well. But don’t get anymore funny ideas about having him pulled in and sent to the Old Bailey. Just do whatever he says, and smile.”
“If it’s crooked I don’t want to end up in Dartmoor.”
“Crooked? Moggerhanger do anything crooked? There’s no straighter man in the House of Lords. He’s just got a lot of businesses to run, and like a sensible man he wants your cooperation. I must say, though, you’ll do very well working for him, because under my expert tuition in the past you’ve acquired a goodly syllabus of skill in taking care of yourself.”
I stood, unable to take anymore of his character assessments, or cock-eyed summing-up of my capabilities. “Let’s walk a bit.”
We headed through the City towards Holborn. “Just a minute, Michael. I feel untidy in a posh area and walking with a smartly turned out chap like you.”
He stopped by a shop window and worked a battery operated Braun shaver over his jaws, which gave as much of a grooming as could be got from the sharpest of cutthroat razors. A short comb from his lapel pocket smoothed his hair, and a shine came onto his toecaps by a few rubs up and down the back of his trousers. He came to me at the kerb, a fair improvement to the old crock at the ticket machine an hour ago. “How’s that, then?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“So let’s go!” he bawled, like the sergeant he claimed to have been: “Chin up, chest out, back straight, and the best foot forward!”
“Shut up, you daft prick,” I said when a couple of City men turned to stare.
“Ah, Michael, you don’t realise what a smart soldier I was, though I often had a scab on my lip, as befitted one of the footloose and fancy free.” He walked along, head angled towards the skyline, sharply swinging this way and that, till I asked what he was looking out for.
“It’s my instinct for self-preservation clicking in,” he said. “All those high windows and rooftops might have a sniper with a telescopic rifle waiting to pick me off, and if I spot him first I’ll know which way to jump.”
“You’re mad,” I said.
“These days? I’m as sane as a plum pudding at Christmas. A man with my expertise wouldn’t like to get picked off.”
“Every second’s high noon with you,” I said, “but your gait gives you away.” It was all I could do to keep up.
“You’ve got to look out for number one,” he said, along London Wall, “so if I was you I’d take the Tube straight to Ealing Broadway. Not that I dislike a route march, but if we go on much longer like this it’ll be time for lunch.”
“There’s a place in Covent Garden.” I wanted to get rid of him. “It’s called Breadline, a vegetarian establishment that serves grit-cake, nut rissoles and nettle tea. You’ll love it.”
He took hold of my arm. “I know I’m strong, and going to live forever, but don’t say things like that. My heart won’t stand it. You can live off grass at your country place if you like, but I’m a meat man. If you’re still alive and present at my funeral just tell everybody I died with a chop in my mouth. What a Steven Meagrim you are, suggesting a vegetarian trough-house. I can only think that the reason we’ve stuck together all these years is your sense of humour.”
“I might as well jump on the train at St Paul’s and make westing,” I said. “Get my meeting with Moggerhanger over with. You can always contact me there. Or at Blaskin’s, if Mogg doesn’t put me up in the garage flat.”
He drew me close, chin jutting at my ear. “Michael, old lad, put in a good word for me with Lord Moggerhanger. He won’t like to know I’m on my uppers. Tell him I can do anything — driving, extortion, violence — you name it and it’s in my blood.”
“I thought you liked the down and out life? You seem to be thriving on it.”
He drew away. “All right, don’t ask him then. You’ll want me to do you a favour one day. Think of all the help I’ve given you in the past.”
I slipped him a tenner, and we shook hands. “There’s nothing else I’ll do for you except any favour I can think of.”
“Go to it, then,” he called after me. “Never accept a third match when the fags are passed around!”
I stood behind a young brunette on the escalator, a mass of hair bouncing almost to her bum. Unluckily she went in the eastern direction before I could get a look at her face, though it was my experience that such luxurious homegrown thatch too often meant mediocre features. As if to make up for my disappointment a girl walked up and down kissing a large white teddy bear. She was slim and neat, a short pony tail swaying as she went along the platform. “Excuse me, miss,” I said, “that’s a very handsome teddy. What do you call him?”
“Freddy,” she said with a smile, a sufficiently upper class accent for me to hear more from her. “Now fuck off, or I’ll call the police.”
Here I was, far off from forty, six feet odd and well dressed, and being treated like a dirty old man. “Call the cops then, if you like, but I grew up with a teddy bear like yours. His name was Jack, and he came from Russia, a real ruffian he was, but lovable. My sister used to push us up and down the street in a big pram, and Jack was a terror, always tipping his cushions over the pavement, while I was well behaved, calmly observing the outside world with disdain.”
I thought she was going to say I should be in the loony bin but: “What happened to Jack?” The train came, and I walked in. She followed, and sat by me. “I asked a question.”
“I don’t want to make you cry,” I said.
“I want to know, don’t I?”
“I feel awful, on thinking about it.” The lapel handkerchief went to my left eye. “Our father was Gilbert Blaskin the famous novelist. He had us down for Eton, but I was the only one to take advantage of it. Jack had a fatal accident. To cut a long story short, he ran after a young girl with a pony tail and lovely grey eyes — straight into the path of a fifty-ton lorry. Death was instantaneous. I called out to stop him, but it was too late. It nearly finished my father.” I blew my nose. “He only recovered because he wrote a story for children called The Death of Poor Jack. Did you ever read it?”