I somnambulated down the escalator wondering whether I’d stay in the real world long enough to change at Holborn for Knightsbridge, and not inadvertently end up at London Heathrow, buying a ticket on a Jumbo to New Zealand, like Doris who I’d met when she was fleeing to Stansted, and never come back. Sister, my arse!
I stayed on the Central Line, and got off at Marble Arch, wanting the enjoyment of a walk down Park Lane. A drizzle began, but my mac and trilby kept it off. On crossing the lights at Mount Street I spotted the familiar contraption of Delphick’s panda wagon being trundled along in the bus lane.
A flat-capped copper marched by Delphick’s side, shaking his head at what daft tale he was hearing. A couple of foreign tourists snapped the apparition for their album, and Delphick called pettishly that they owed him ten quid for the privilege of the photograph which, though they might own it, shouldn’t forget that the copyright belonged to him.
“Now you just turn round this corner,” the policeman said, not unkindly, I thought, “and leave the tourists alone. And don’t give me any more lip, either. If I see you in a bus lane again you’ll be in trouble.”
“I’m only trying to advertise my poems, officer. I’m a poet, and it’s my living.” I was unlucky in his spotting me at that moment, because if there’s one thing I dislike, for obvious reasons, it was being brought to the attention of the law. “He’ll vouch for me, officer,” he cried. “Hey, Michael! Michael Cullen!”
The policeman ignored him, and when he’d gone I said to Delphick: “If you shout my name in the street like that again I’ll pull the straw from your panda, throw it in the gutter, piss on it, and make you eat every bit. I thought you were in Cambridge, anyway?”
He lit a cigarette. “I was, until last night. Today I’m pulling my pet panda around the West End, to let everybody know I’m giving a reading in Covent Garden tonight. Why don’t you come and hear me? It’s only five quid entrance. Four, if you pay me now.”
I ignored the human extortion machine. “Your panda looks fatter than a couple of days ago. What do you feed it on? Looks like it’s been to the cleaners as well.”
He puffed smoke at my face. “Not everybody notices that.”
Wasn’t it Einstein who said that imagination was worth more than intelligence? Being so brilliant, he must have been right, but mine was equal, because I had enough intelligence at times to make my imagination work, and it laboured now to come up with a startling deduction concerning Ronald Delphick. “I don’t suppose they do,” I said. “But what I think is that you emptied your panda in Cambridge of all those little packets of drugs, and took delivery of another load to hawk in London. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, whoever your contact was had a new panda costume waiting for you.”
All through this startling accusation his features under their mask of hair turned every colour from purple to back again. “Fucking wrong, mate. Do you think I’d get myself escorted down Park Lane by the fuzz if I was carrying stuff like that?”
“Frankly, yes I do. It’s just what a cunning fuckface like you would revel in. Another thing is that a further cover for your one-man drugs transport service is to convince people you haven’t got two ha’pennies for a penny, while all the time spending pots of cash extending and beautifying your property at Doggerel Bank. I’ve had my eyes on you for some time, my lad, and if I was Inspector Knacker-of-the-Yard I’d have sent you down for life five years ago, but I was never one to shop anybody, so you’re safe with me. On the other hand, if ever you try to cadge anything from me again, or come to Upper Mayhem expecting a free doss down, I’ll get you run in.”
A laugh proved him fully incorrigible. “Oh what a story! Me a drug-running millionaire! I’ll do a poem about that.”
“And dedicate it to Oscar Cross of the Green Toe Gang while you’re at it,” I said. “That’s who you’re working for, isn’t it?”
He put on a very nasty look. “You can bollocks, you can.”
For years he had been pushing his poxed-up panda up and down the Great North Road, and sooner or later Oscar Cross had got the idea of using him as a way of shifting consignments of dope from one place to another. The method was slow, of course, but it got there in the end, and was no less welcome. I hoped that in not too long the police would smell a panda-rat and pull Delphick in, though at the same time I couldn’t begrudge the rogue his earnings, since I had taken advantage of the same trade often enough, which luckily he didn’t know about, otherwise he would certainly have shopped me.
He spat on his palms like a workman about to start building a block of flats on the Isle of Dogs, and adjusted the panda into a straight-backed position, and put himself between the shafts. “I don’t like you, Cullen.”
“Not after all the kindnesses I’ve done for you? But you can stop worrying. I don’t come from the sort of close knit family that tips off the coppers. You must be popular in Cambridge though. I’ll bet every student there is so high after your delivery they’re tripping across the glittering spires like bats on their birthday. They might not even be able to come down in time for their exams. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
My jibe went into his heavily fleshed ribs like the nail file of a Swiss Army knife. He came to me at the edge of the pavement. I’d really rattled him, which gave me a certain amount of satisfaction. “Ashamed of hopping up those wankers? Those spoiled pampered three-year skivers from privileged homes? They’re all idle nonces from public schools who’ll be earning a million a year on the stock exchange as soon as they’ve graduated.”
“Steady on,” I said, at the froth on his lips. “A lot are from ordinary homes. They’ll have a struggle to get their degrees. A few weeks ago I gave a lift to a youth who was working in the carrot fields earning a bob or two to make ends meet. He told me he was your cousin, and said you’d taken his last twelve quid and never given it back, when he was a kid and saving to buy an electronic calculator. Now that you’re making a fortune on drug running why don’t you send him a cheque? He could do with it. The poor sod was on his uppers.”
A man carrying a rolled umbrella dropped a pound in a tin below the panda’s chin. “Thank you, sir,” Delphick called. “That’s another one for poetry!” He put the coin in his pocket and came back to me. “I don’t have a cousin. I never did have, and if I did I don’t have one now. So many dropouts go around saying they’re my cousin, or son, or brother, or daughter, but it’s just because they’ve read about me in the press and want to claim kinship. So tell me no more about all the stray Delphicks in the world.” Back at his panda pram, he was about to push it away. “I come from an ancient and noble family, and don’t you forget it. I’m the last of the Delphicks. No more Delphicks left but me.”
I watched his progress towards Grosvenor Square, and then, having been so engrossed in our altercation that I hadn’t noticed the drizzle soaking into my blotting paper Burberry, I walked quickly to the underpass and across to Knightsbridge.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mabel answered the buzzer at Dumbell Mansions, and held the door to the flat open as I stepped from the lift. “Oh, Michael, I’m so glad to see you. Do come in. I’ll put your coat on a hanger to dry.”
It was unusual to be treated so like one of the family, but she wore a tie to her pearl buttoned blouse, which may have inspired her to pay more attention to the hierarchy. Blaskin’s voice boomed from the living room: “Michael, do come in, dear boy, and meet your long-lost sister.”
I was alarmed on hearing he still inhabited the batty hayloft of the novelist, knowing his moods to be as contagious as the flu on a tube train.