“Tiddley pip.”
“That too,” I said.
Brian was something in electronics, or was that the other way round. Who gave a rat’s arse?
He was desperate to suss out our relationship and figured he was already halfway to first base with Bonny.
... figured wrong.
He was chewing nuts. Bonny said, “You want a definition of hell?”
“Sure.”
“Englishmen in shorts.”
Brian turned quickly to me.
“And your field is?”
“Thuggery.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m a thug. I beat up people... for money. But sometimes I just do it for the hell of it... you know how it is Bri, when you love your work, you just can’t leave it alone.”
All the time I was smiling. Good ole boy version, like Merle Haggard on the album cover. Felt good too. The thought skittled across my mind that I was more like Dex than I wanted to admit.
Brian turned to Bonny. “He’s pulling my leg... isn’t he Bon?”
She gave him her most sincere look.
“No... that’s what he does. But tonight is his night off. Isn’t it darlin’... or was that yesterday... oh and Bri, don’t call me Bon... OK?”
Her lipstick had snagged on her top tooth. Nothing makes a woman look more vulnerable than that. I could have loved her then.
“Well,” I said, “tonight I don’t expect to be paid... but who’s counting... eh?”
Brian suddenly remembered the car parked on the old double yellow and had to rush. Most used getaway line in the business but effective.
“Hurry back,” I said.
Bonny rested her hand on my knee.
“You’re in mighty form.”
“And the night is young, let’s get some serious Scotch flowing. Yo’, bar-keep!”
Rilke never crossed my mind.
Bonny said, “See when you lighten up, you’re almost a fun guy.”
“Not so dark eh... less black in fact. Thing is Bonny, you’re a woman and an attractive one. If you live to be a hundred, you’ll never know what it’s like not to be a good-looking guy. Fun ain’t it. I placed an ad in those personal columns once. The end result was I was to meet this woman outside Burger King in Leicester Square. She never showed up. But I think she did, had a look from a safe distance and then fucked off. I pinned her letter to the glass, all her details. Who knows, mebbe she got lucky.”
Later we hit a new club in the West End called the Deep South. They play some mean low-down Cajun and play it live. A fiddle player, he was bewitched in his artistry. Dance to that the devil said. We did and for as long as they dished it out.
All the while I was hammerin’ down these boiler makers. I can’t dance... need I say more about the state I was in. With a woman who made me feel I could dance. That’s the rarest kind. The awful thing is... you get the knowledge after you let ’em go and you’re not ever going to dance again.
Not like that anyway.
She looks at you with shining eyes and you’re the guy you always wanted to be. You feel almost tanned! Then, you get to thinking, she’s just the music, the accompaniment... not the creator. The magic’s gone. Once... mebbe once, you get that lucky and let it skip away. The first time it’s a free gift... ever after, you have to earn it... and it isn’t ever worth it. Elvis has left the building and you weren’t looking.
There’s a huge Boots in Piccadilly Circus. With plate-glass windows. Before going to the club, I stood at the end of the window and raised my arm and leg. Bonny was treated to the optical illusion of me with multi limbs. Harry Worth used to open his show with this. Back when I was a kid.
“Who’s Harry fucking Worth?” the kids ask.
My old man would have been in their corner. As soon as the show began, he’d roar, “Not that four-eyed wanker.”
Which, if you were to take his words literally, would indeed have been some optician effect. I think old Harry was held in such affection by others, as he reflected a safe cosy England when Morris Minors ruled the road. The only drugs were aspirin and smoking was a social requirement.
No one had learnt of calories, carbohydrates, polyunsaturates or ozone. You could eat what you liked. Dex said they called anorexia poverty then. Harry was a hybrid of Frank Spencer and yer dotty uncle. The Krays loved their old mum and there was no breakfast TV.
Bonny and I ate tacos under Eros and I told her the rules of behaviour as outlined by James Crumley.
He says there are rules of conduct in America that can change your luck in a country based on the rules of luck. After forty, never go any place you’ve never been before. Except on somebody else’s cash. Never go out at night unless you’re wearing black. And never go anywhere without a gun.
I dunno where we’d got the thunderbird but it was washing down the food a treat. Also, alas, seriously affecting my judgement. I took Bonny back to the house in Clapham.
I surfaced around eight the next morning. A manic thirst chanting
Water
Water
Water
I got out of bed quickly and wow was that ever a mistake. A roaring headache nigh split me and the sickness in my stomach was biblical. A hazy series of memories bounced around. The remembrance of tacos past drove me to my knees. Then I looked for Bonny. Her black dress was crumpled at the end of the bed, plus my clothes. Twisted round each other like a weak petition.
In the bathroom, I spewed up a few times, checked my face in the mirror. God-on-a-tandem, it looked like something died a horrible death. Dragged myself downstairs. Bonny was sitting at the kitchen table, in one of my old shirts. Dex was seated opposite, his arms folded. Seeing me he said, The dead arose and appeared to... two. What news from Jerusalem?”
I put my hand on Sonny’s head, asked, “Alright honey?”
She didn’t answer. Dex answered benignly...
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Dex said, “I thought I’d look in on our guest early. Make sure he hadn’t croaked. See if he’d specific newspaper preference. Have him down as the Daily Telegraph type. Know what I mean, he leaks notions. But I digress. Bejapered Seamus, who do I meet coming up the stairs... but the bold Bonny. She looked at me as if I were Fred West or something.”
He waited for my comment. I had none so he continued, “Well Nico old pal, you could have blown me down with the proverbial feather. Did somebody... somehow neglect to tell the Dexter we’d a new player. So what I thought we’d do, Bonny and I, was wait quietly here. Grab a little quality time and then see what Nick would suggest.”
I laid my hand on Benny’s shoulder, said, “Go upstairs, get dressed.”
She looked to Dex who said, “Thank you for attending the interview. Naturally I can’t tell if you’ve been successful as there are others for me to see. However, I do like the cut of your jib, by jove I do. Send in the next applicant.”
He waved his hand in a gesture of busy dismissal.
I eased myself into her chair.
“So what have we got Dex?”
“What we’ve got is a problem.”
“She won’t talk.”
“Tut-tut Nicky, lesson one. All women talk, it’s their nature.”
“You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”
A wave of nausea walloped me. I got shakily to my feet and went to the front room. I located some brandy and, with shaking hands, took a hefty belt. Like petrol with a vicious side. It hit my stomach hard, hard as truth. But stayed. Dex had naturally followed, he said, “Nice going, Nick. Bad sign is the old morning pick-me-up. Hair of the dog I guess. Thing is, you’ll want the whole animal before noon. Maybe later, you could introduce Baldwin to the rest of the neighbourhood. Let’s see, we could have a car boot sale instead of the ransom.”