And the look of a survivor?
Yes, I think so.
‘Edwin,’ said the Doveston.
‘Bastard,’ I replied.
The Doveston grinned and I saw a gold tooth winking. ‘You made short work of my door supervisor,’ he said.
‘And I shall make short work of you too. It is payback time.’
‘Pardon me?’ The Doveston stepped back a pace.
‘Seventeen long years I served for you.’
‘I did my best to get you out.’
‘I must have missed the explosions.’
‘Crude stuff,’ said the Doveston. ‘I couldn’t bust you out. You’d have had to spend the rest of your life on the run. But I set you up in prison, didn’t I? Always kept you well supplied with money and snout.’
‘You did what?’
‘Five hundred cigarettes a week.’
‘I never got any such thing.’
‘But you must have got them. I sent them with the press cuttings and I know you got all those, I’ve seen the archive. Very nice work you did on that. Well put together.’
‘Just hold on, hold on.’ I raised a fist and saw him flinch. ‘You sent me cigarettes? With the press cuttings?’
‘Of course I did. Are you saying that you never got them?’
‘Never.’ I shook my head.
‘And I suppose you never got the Christmas hampers?’
‘No.’
‘Oh,’ said the Doveston. ‘But you must have got the fresh salmon I sent every month.’
‘No fresh salmon.’
‘No fresh salmon.’ The Doveston now shook his head. ‘And why are you dressed like that, anyway? You’ll be telling me next that you never received the suit of clothes and the wristwatch my chauffeur delivered to the prison when he picked up the archive. And where were you when he came to pick you up? Did nobody tell you what time he was coming?’
I shook my head once again. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards,’ I shouted. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’
The Doveston made the face that says ‘poor little sod’.
‘I shall have to write a very stern note to the prison governor,’ he said.
‘A stern note? No.’ I gave my head another shake. “Why don’t you send him a nice box of candles instead?’
‘A nice box of candles.’ The Doveston winked. ‘I think that can be arranged.’
He led me upstairs to his flat. I will not bore the reader with a description. Let us just say that it was bloody posh and leave it at that.
‘Drink?’ asked the Doveston. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Smoke?’ asked the Doveston. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’ ‘Canapé?’ the Doveston asked. ‘What the fig is that?’
‘Just something left over from the party I’d organized for you last night. It’s a pity you missed it, I’d set up a couple of really cracking women with lovely long legs. Gorgeous Herberts they had on them too.’
‘Herberts? What are Herberts?’
‘Bums, of course. Fifth generation Brentford rhyming slang. Herbert rhymes with sherbert. Sherbert dips, fish and chips. Chip off the block, sound as a rock. Rock’n’roll, bless my soul. Sole and turbot rhymes with Herbert. It’s simple when you have the knack.’
‘Have you seen much of Norman lately?’ I asked.
‘Once in a while. He keeps himself busy. Very into inventing he is, nowadays. Last year he invented a machine based on Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. He teleported the Great Pyramid of Cheops into Brentford Football Ground.’
‘How very interesting.’
The Doveston handed me a drink, a fag and a canapé. ‘Tell me this,’ he said. ‘If you thought I’d stitched you up, why did you continue to work on the Doveston Archive?’
I shrugged. ‘Hobby?’ I suggested.
‘Then tell me this also. Is there any chance of you taking a bath? You really pong.’
I took a bath. I shaved and I dressed in one of the Doveston’s suits. I had to clench the belt in a bit around the waist. But the Doveston said it looked trendy. His shoes also fitted and by the time
I was all togged up, I looked the business.
Emerging from the bathroom I found myself gawping at one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.
She was tall and slim and svelte. Her skin was clear and tanned; her legs were long and lovely. She wore one of those ‘power-dressing’ suits that were so popular in the Eighties. Short black skirt and jacket with the Dan Dare’ shoulders. She balanced herself upon five-inch stilettos and her mouth was so wide that you could easily have got your whole hand in there, even if you were wearing a boxing glove.
‘Hello,’ she said, exposing more ivory than a big-game hunter’s holdall.
‘Hello to you,’ I said and my voice echoed from the back of her throat.
‘Are you a friend of Mr Doveston?’
‘The bestest friend he ever had.’
‘You’re not Edwin, are you?’
‘That is the name he likes to call me.’
‘Well well well.’ She looked me up and down. Then up and down again. And then she looked me halfway up. ‘You’ve got a hard-on there,’ she said.
I grinned painfully. ‘I have no wish to offend you,’ I said, ‘but I don’t suppose you’re a prostitute?’
She smiled and shook her head, showering me with pheromones. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I’m shamelessly immoral. There’s not much I won’t do for a man in a Paul Smith suit.’
I made small gagging sounds.
‘Aha,’ said the Doveston, striding up. ‘I see you’ve met Jackie.’
‘Ggggmph. Mmmmph,’ said I.
‘Jackie’s my PA.’
‘Flash Gordon, actually. But then I had been in prison.
I nodded in a manner suggestive of comprehension.
‘You don’t know what a PA is, do you?’
I shook my head in a manner suggestive of the fact that I did not.
‘Pert arse,’ said the Doveston. ‘Let’s have some drink and fags and all get acquainted.’
I grinned a bit more. ‘I’ll just pop back into the bathroom and change my underpants,’ I said.
Suavely.
I got on very well with Jackie. She showed me some tricks that she could do with canapés and I showed her a trick I’d learned in prison.
‘Don’t ever do that in front of a woman again,’ said the Doveston when he’d brought Jackie out of her faint.
Jackie took me all around London. The Doveston gave her something called a credit card and with this magical piece of plastic she bought me many things. Suits of clothes and shirts and ties and underpants and shoes. She also bought me a Filofax.
I stared helplessly at this. ‘It’s an address book,’ I said.
‘And a diary. It’s a personal organizer.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘It’s fashionable. You carry it everywhere with you and always put it on the table when you’re having lunch.’
I shook my head. ‘But it’s an address book. Only woosies have address books.’
‘There are pouches in the back for putting your credit cards in and a totally useless map of the world.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘These are the 1980s,’ said Jackie. ‘And in the 1980s there are only two types of people. Those who have Filofaxes and those who don’t. Believe me, it is far better to be a have than a have-not.’
‘But look at the size of the bloody thing.’ ‘I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to put it.’ ‘Where do you keep yours?’ Jackie pointed.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Of course. Silly question. I’m sorry. And I did get a watch. Watches were a big number in the Eighties.
And none of that digital nonsense. Real watches with two hands and Roman numerals and clockwork motors. I still have the watch Jackie bought for me. And it still keeps perfect time. And it didn’t explode at midnight before the dawn of the year two thousand. Curiously, I have no idea whatever became of my Filofax.