“I don’t think I’d want to.”
“Nor did I, but I found it moving when I did. He dedicated the book to Jack.” In the opposite window at Chancery Lane her mouth opened in wonder, or maybe disbelief. “The lorry driver sobbed his socks off in court. It wasn’t his fault, but he got sent down for two years. The beak said he had a teddy bear as well, that he loved it with all his heart, and that the slaughter of them on the roads was a disgrace. He hoped they’d be made a protected species one day, because the wellbeing of the country depended on them.”
She hugged Freddie to her nicely shaped bosom, in case the train jolted it to the floor and a passenger trod on him. “At least you know how to tell good lies.”
“That’s something I never do. I had a very pious upbringing. What’s your name?”
“Sybil, for all the good it’ll do you.”
“I’m Michael. Where do you work?” She named one of Moggerhanger’s strip clubs in Soho. “I’ll call there for a drink one day.” Should he give me a job as a bouncer again I’d have free entry to all his dives. “I’ll tell you about how Jack met your Freddie and they picked up a couple of girl teddy bears in Hampstead. You’d be surprised what they got up to.”
“I wouldn’t. But what a funny chap you are.” She got out at Tottenham Court Road. “I like your stories, though.”
Mabel had a finger to her lips as she opened the door. “Take care not to antagonise him, Mr Cullen. Your father is in a very friable state today.”
I pushed by. “He always is.”
He looked up from the coffee table, a tear in his left eye. “I had a demand from the income tax this morning for fifteen thousand pounds, and I thought you were them, coming for their cash. I don’t mind paying tax, but it’s as if I’ve lost a libel case.”
“You’ll find the money somehow,” Mabel warbled, always at her best when the great man was in trouble, though how she dodged the well aimed hand I’ll never know. He appealed to both of us: “What’s worse, to feel as sick as a dog or as sick as a parrot? All I know is that sick as a Blaskin is worse. Or it was till I pushed my head under the cold tap this morning. I must write a novel in ten days and get fifteen thousand pounds, or I’ll be sitting on the floor of an empty flat with the typewriter on my knees.”
“I’m sorry things are going badly,” was the least I could say.
“So am I, therefore join me in a vodka.” He poured half a glass, neat. “And tell me what it is you want this time.”
He could be quite considerate when at bay, so I told him about Kenny Dukes who had read every one of his Sidney Bloods, and wanted to meet the great author. Would it be all right if I brought him along some time?
“Michael, I’d say that if it was a delightful young girl you could bring her right now.”
“I know, and would have done, but Kenneth Dukes is one of Moggerhanger’s blokes, who worships the name of Sidney Blood. I’ve never known anything like it. He thinks you’re a genius.”
He lay back under such praise. “Ah, genius! What a clever chap he must be to see it. Genius is energy, if nothing else.” He reached for a pad, and vigorously scratched out a comma which had not, after all, done him any harm. After a particularly long winded fart he threw the pad aside. “I’m bored. Do you fancy a drink at Jollop’s? We could go to Molar’s later for a bite or two.”
“I must report to Moggerhanger.”
“That gangster? No good will come of it.”
How prescient he was. “He’s my only hope of employment.”
“Be idle, like me. I never work. I only write. Perhaps you could help by doing a Sidney Blood for me some time, like now.”
“As soon as I get a couple of days off I will. But when can I bring Kenneth Dukes to see you?”
“Can’t you introduce him to Ronald Delphick? He once did a couple of Sidney Bloods.”
“Kenny wants to meet the real thing. And if he saw somebody like Delphick he might end up kicking him to death. I don’t want blood on my hands.”
“We’ve had a bottle of vodka between us,” he said to Mabel dusting the glass-topped coffee table, “and we don’t feel any different. You’ve been watering it again.”
She smirked from the doorway. “I wondered when you’d tumble to it. I’ve been doing it for months.”
“So that’s why I’m still alive.”
“Unfortunately, I suppose it is. What worries me is that I’ll never know why I did it.”
“You mean you put poison in as well.”
“I’ve nothing against Mr Cullen, have I? As for you, I want you to live forever so that you’ll suffer more.”
“And it’s not working, is it, you wicked old bitch? A publisher has asked me to write A Short History of the Smile, and if you don’t behave I shan’t put you in it.” He turned to me. “Do you know, Michael, the smile came to this country from Italy in the sixteenth century. They invented it there. It hadn’t been known in England before, and even after several hundred years the English still haven’t got it off like the gay and friendly Italians. Our countrymen and women can laugh at other peoples’ misfortunes, but a plain good humoured sympathetic smile of humane amusement is still beyond them. I only hope that after I do the book they’ll start giving it a try. Certainly I’ll smile if its sales release me from the clutches of the tax gatherers. I’ll be going out soon,” he said to Mabel, “so you’ll have a few hours to practice the smile.” He stood, only to sit down again. “I don’t know whether to go back to bed with a good book, or get myself a rocket polishing in the upstairs room of the Black Crikey. Trouble is, it’s a very expensive club. You have to order three bottles of champagne at seventy pounds each before they let you sit down.”
“None of Moggerhanger’s places come cheap,” I said, as Mabel huffed herself off into the kitchen. “When would it be convenient for Kenny Dukes to come and see you?”
“Any time, dear boy, but phone first, say in a fortnight.”
Satisfied with that, and having had a bellyful of their company, I left him trying to teach Mabel how to smile.
Kenny Dukes opened the gate of Moggerhanger’s establishment a second after I’d pressed the buzzer, as if he’d looked through the spyhole and seen me coming up the avenue. “I thought you were in the furniture factory?” I said.
“Was.” He clicked the gate into place with his shoe, too dim after twenty years to know it shut by itself. “I had a message to get back to headquarters, didn’t I?” He gripped my arm, beamed his bloodshot grey eyes onto my face. “Have you seen him?”
“Who do you mean?”
“Mr Blood, you daft fucker.”
I pushed him away. “Look, dunghead, don’t fucker me. If you use such language in front of Sidney Blood he’ll chiv your face so much that when it goes back to normal nobody will know you anymore.”
“I know how to behave. I was in St. Onan’s choir as a lad. Sang like an angel, to please my mum.”
“Give her my best regards when you see her,” I said, to calm him. “She must be proud of you.”
“Oh, she is. I take her flowers and chocs every week, so I’ll tell her what you said. But did you see him?”
“On my way here. I told him you were his greatest fan. I’ve never seen him so pleased. He said I was to phone him in two weeks, and he would be delighted to see you. The thing is, though, his name’s Gilbert Blaskin. So many people want to cut his throat for what he’s said about them in his books, that he uses that name instead of Sidney Blood. He’s already got a long scar down the middle of his head where somebody went for him with a chopper.”
Kenny frothed with rage. “I’ll kill the cunts who hurt him. Don’t he have minders?”
“He doesn’t need them. Won’t have any. He’s as hard as nails, tough as his left boot, which he uses to kick the arses of whoever he doesn’t like. He can take care of himself, so don’t go rubbing him up the wrong way.”