“In your place, Jen, that would have been the first thing I thought of.”
As the two women, Mabel still perched up on her swaying bar stool like a squawking parrot on top of its cage, continued to exchange these intimacies as uninhibitedly as if they were talking privately over a cup of tea, Alex began to feel acutely embarrassed. He had only the sketchiest idea what they were rabbiting on about but it seemed to him that it was nonner his business. He shoved his way along the bar to where Ellis Hugo Bell was flourishing his Arts Council letter at Brendan Barton. In passing he brushed against Len Gates who, clutching an unaccustomed large Scotch, was holding forth to the two flymen on the history of Soho’s contribution to the West End theatre, in the mistaken belief that they would be remotely interested.
“Now with the demolition of the slums in the late 1880s to create Shaftesbury Avenue, no fewer than five new theatres were to be built between Great Windmill Street and Cambridge Circus. The first of these was the Lyric, constructed in 1888 …”
“Wossat pub backer the Lyric?” the first flyman asked the second flyman. “Stage doorkeeper goes in there.”
“Dunno, mate, never use it. Lyric Tavern would it be?”
“Nah, that’s in Great Windmill Street. Lyric Tavern you’re thinking of, we shudder taken Old Jakie in there, he sometimes went in the Lyric Tavern.”
“Now the Lyric Tavern,” said Len Gates, effortlessly resuming control of the reins, “retains its very fine original Victorian tiling …”
Alex found Ellis Hugo Bell of Bell Famous Productions still crowing to a sceptical Brendan Barton. He had taken a gamble on Brendan Barton having forgotten the little matter of the fifty pounds he owed him. So it proved. There was no signal, indeed, that Brendan had any idea who he was. Soho’s collective amnesia had a lot to be said for it.
“If the idea was such a bummer,” Bell was bragging, “would the Arts Council cough up twelve and a half grand?”
“Of course they would. The Arts Council would cough up twelve and a half grand for a barrowload of horse manure. Indeed, I believe they’ve been known to do so.”
“You’ll see,” said Bell complacently. “Once Walk On By gets its own website it’ll become a cult thing.”
“Yes, well, don’t be a cult all your life,” quipped Brendan.
A stranger to Alex, a civilian as James Flood would have described him, that is, not one of the Soho faction, had been listening inquisitively to these exchanges. Guzzling whisky, he was already, so Alex judged, three parts cut.
“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation,” he began.
“Yes you could,” returned Brendan Barton. “You could have positioned yourself five feet away. Or for preference, in the next parish.”
The stranger smiled weakly, uncertain whether to take offence or not. He ploughed on: “Only I recognise your voice. You’re him, aren’t you? That Brendan Barton?”
“Not necessarily,” said Brendan warily.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question, Brendan?” said the intruder with offensive familiarity. “Where did it all go wrong?”
Brendan shook his head regretfully. “You’re in the wrong joke, sir. That story goes better with George Best in it.”
The stranger turned to Alex and Bell and jerked his head towards Brendan Barton. “To say he’s a has-been, he’s a cocky bugger, your mate, isn’t he?”
Both Alex and Bell wisely elected to ignore the question, but Brendan said evenly: “Better a cocky bugger than a cunt.”
The stranger scowled, then knocked back his drink in an aggressively determined manner. “What was that you just called me?”
“Hearing bad too, is it? You are mortally afflicted.”
“Do you want to come outside and repeat it?”
“Why — are the acoustics better out there?”
Pleased with his rejoinder, Brendan Barton raised his glass high, signalling to Jenny behind the bar the need for a refill. His day was shaping up nicely. But then, reflected Alex enviously, every day must be an adventure for this bugger.
While the civilian, as Alex now thought of him, struggled for something cutting to say, Mabel had been helped down from her bar stool by James Flood. Taking possession of her commodious handbag, she now reached out and removed the stranger’s empty glass from his grasp.
“You’re barred. You’re so fucking barred you must’ve been born fucking barred. Go on. Out.”
“That wouldn’t be a subtle hint, would it, Mabel?” blustered the civilian. “I’ll just have the one and then I’ll be on my merry way.”
“You’ve already had the one, and that was one too many. And don’t be so fucking familiar. Piss off out of it, I shan’t tell you again.”
“Curiously enough, Mabel,” said Brendan, “this gentleman was only just now inviting me to join him outside for a little alfresco tête-à-tête. I should be only too happy to oblige, if that would help.”
“You stay where you are, Brendan, I’ll see the toerag off myself. Take care, one and all, and don’t set the fucking place on fire.”
Shepherding the civilian ahead of her, evidently prepared to frogmarch him out if necessary, Mabel made for the stairs to a chorus, instigated by Brendan Barton, of “For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow”.
As the singing died raggedly away, Mabel’s strident voice could be heard from the doorway above: “Yes, madam, what can I do you for?”
“Would you move out of my way, please?”
“No, I fucking will not. This is a private club, members only.”
“Yes, I know it’s a private club, and I’ve got enough on you to have it closed down tomorrow. Don’t you know who I am?”
Oh, fook. Her. Alex knew that voice, and more particularly so did James. He had gone white.
“If I were you, mate, I’d duck into the bog and stay there,” advised Alex.
“Can’t. Else is in there.”
In any case, it was too late. Jane Rich, the editor of the Examiner, was fast gaining ground.
“I have to speak urgently to James Flood of the Examiner. I’m his editor.”
“He’s not here.”
“I happen to know he is, and there must be about seventy witnesses to the fact down there. Since you’re only supposed to accommodate a maximum of forty, I suggest you stop fucking me about and let me pass.”
It was, Alex judged, Jane’s command of four-letter words that won the day for her. At any rate, she was soon bounding down the stairs, brandishing a copy of the Evening Standard first edition.
CROSS-DRESS KILLING IN SOHO. By James Flood. This was it, then. Alex Singer was very glad he was not James Flood.
Yet despite some trembling and nervous swallowing, James seemed comparatively unfazed as Jane Rich, cutting a swathe through the crowded room, bore down on him.
“I am going to sue you for breach of contract and the Evening Standard for breach of copyright,” she announced at the top of her voice. “The same goes for Metro. Also I hope you have some other string to your bow, James Flood, because I shall see to it personally that you never work in Fleet Street again. Now just what the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”
“Bit late for all that, Jane,” said James with controlled smugness. “I’ve joined the Evening Standard.”
“You’re in no position to join the Evening Standard. You haven’t worked out your notice.”
“I don’t have to give notice, Jane. I was on three months’ trial, remember?”
“You’re still on three months’ trial. And when it’s up, you’re fired.”