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.
‘You’ll need a car,’ said Jackie. ‘What kind would you like?’
‘A Morris Minor.’
‘A what?’
‘One like that.’ I pointed to a car across the road.
‘A Porsche.’
‘That would be the kiddie.’ And it was.
The Doveston set me up in a little flat just off the Portobello Road. ‘This area is coming up,’ he told me.
I viewed the greasy limo and the broken window panes. ‘It would perhaps do better for puffing down,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t like it here.’
‘You will not be here for long. Only until you have decorated the place.’
‘What?’
‘Once it has been decorated, we will sell it for double the price.’
‘And then what?’
‘I will move you into a larger flat in another area that is coming up. You will decorate that one and we will sell it once again for double the price.’
‘Is this strictly legal?’
‘Mark well my words, my friend,’ said the Doveston. ‘There is a boom going on in this country at the moment. It will not last for ever and many will go down when the plug is pulled. In the meantime, it is up to us, and those like us’ — he raised his Filofax, as if it were a sword — ‘to grab whatever can be grabbed. These are the 1980s, after all.’
‘And tomorrow belongs to those who can see it coming.’
‘Exactly. I’m not into property. Buying and selling houses holds no excitement for me. I want to make my mark on the world and I shall do that through my expertise in my chosen field of endeavour.’
‘Tobacco,’ I said.
‘God’s favourite weed.’
‘I have no wish to share another Brentstock moment.’
‘Ah, Brentstock,’ said the Doveston. ‘Those were the days, my friend.’
‘They bloody weren’t. Well, some of them were. But do you know what happened to me when I smoked that stuff of yours?’
‘You talked to the trees.’
‘More than that. I saw the future.’
‘All of the future?’
‘Not all. Although it seemed like all at the time. I saw glimpses. It’s like déjà vu now. I get that all the time and sometimes I know when something bad is going to happen. But I can’t do anything about it. It’s pretty horrible. You did that to me.
The Doveston went over to the tiny window and peered out through the broken pane. Turning back towards me he said, ‘I am truly sorry for what happened to you at Brentstock. It was all a terrible mistake on my part. I worked from Uncle Jon Peru’s notes and I thought that the genetic modifications I’d made to the tobacco would only help it to grow in the English climate. I had no idea the cigarettes would have the effect they did. I’ve learned a great deal more about that drug since then and I will tell you all about it when the time is right. But for now I can only ask that you accept my apologies for the awful wrong that I’ve done you and ask that you don’t ever speak of these things to other people. You can never be certain just who is who.’
‘Who is who?’
‘I am followed,’ said the Doveston. ‘They follow me everywhere. They watch my every move and they make their reports. They know I’m on to them and that makes them all the more dangerous.
‘This wouldn’t be the secret police again, would it?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doveston, grave, in the face. ‘Uncle Jon Peru Joans knew exacdy what he was talking about. You experienced the effects of the drug. You know it’s
‘Yes, but all that secret police stuff. I remember you saying that they would be in the crowd at Brentstock. But I thought you were only winding me up.’
‘They were there and they’re out there now. At some time in the future, when I consider it safe, I will show you my laboratory. You will see then how the Great Work is progressing.’