“‘You’re the second biggest prat in Soho.’”
“Go on, ruin the fackin tale. He goes, ‘Gawd, you’re a prat, Jakie. Shall I tell you sunnink? You’re the second biggest prat in Soho.’ So Jakie goes —”
“‘If I’m such a prat, why ain’t I the first biggest prat in Soho?’” recited the second flyman.
“’Cause you’re a prat,’” supplied the first flyman.
“Am I telling this fackin story or are you two? So that’s when Old Jakie put one on him, tried to, anyway, but Charlie grabs his wrist. ‘Leave it out, you silly old prat,’ he goes. I says, ‘Right, that’s it, Charlie, you’re barred.’ He goes, ‘What you barring me for? He’s the one that’s doing all the aggro.’ I says, ‘Winding the poor bastard up, you know he’s too thick to know what you’re doing. Go on, out,’ I says.”
Second biggest prat in Soho. Good one, that. He could use that, could Alex. “Do you know what you are? You’re the second biggest prat in Leeds Metro.”
“Poor old Jakie, everybody used to wind the poor bugger up. Didn’t we, Jakie? Member when somebody bet him the next person through that door would be a one-legged Chinaman?”
“It was Charlie Fish again. And Jakie couldn’t work out that he could see the bugger coming in, through that window there.”
Brendan Barton knocked back his gin, causing Alex to suppose ruefully that it was about to be his round now. He could be skint by closing time at this rate. But Barton took his elbow — they seemed to go in for a lot of elbow grabbing down here — and propelled him to the door, murmuring: “I fear we’re in for a long night’s journey down Memory Lane, if we stay here.” With an all-embracing wave: “’Bye, chaps.”
“Cheers, Brendan.”
At the door, Barton blew a kiss to the body of Old Jakie lying along the bar counter as on a slab. “Sweet dreams, Jakie.”
Out in Frith Street the human traffic had swelled. Dusk was coming up and the people sauntering or in some cases bustling to and fro, mostly young and half of them clutching mobile phones, seemed drawn to the semi-darkness cushioning the pools of white light from the bars and cafés as moths were supposed to be towards the candle. Out to get their wings singed, some of them looked to be.
Three drifters greeted Brendan Barton who responded affably, clearly used to being addressed by complete strangers as they seemed to be. Alex was quite flattered that the telly star seemed to have adopted him. Course, it had to be said that he was pissed.
“The night is too young for wining and dining, so where to now?” asked Brendan, as if he regarded himself as Alex’s host. “But don’t suggest the French, because I’m barred.”
“What’s the French, then — wunner these clubs you hear about?”
“No, but it might as well be.”
Alex was still trying to work out the West End club scene. They had a different idea of what a club was down here. True, they had clubbing clubs with a disco and that, same as in Leeds — they were already queuing for one, the Limelight on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue, when he passed it a few minutes ago — and then there were these clip joints, bed shows or whatever, that he was so wary of. They had the odd strip club in Leeds but no bed shows, he didn’t even know what a bed show was. But there were these other clubs that you heard about or read about. The Garrick’s, that was one. And what was that club Selby and Vicky had got themselves taken to?
“Why do you ask, my friend? Do you fancy a club rather than a pub?” asked Brendan.
“Leave it to you. Isn’t there a place called the Groucho?”
“There is indeed a place called the Groucho, but unfortunately I’m non persona grata there at the moment, for the mortal sin of pissing on a friend from a first floor window. Had I pissed on an enemy,” continued Brendan Barton, “they might have been more lenient. But if you want to see something of what now passes for club life around here, why don’t we go across to the Losers?”
Funny name for a club. Maybe it was a gaming club, though you would’ve thought the Winners a better name for it. Alex hoped not, he wasn’t getting lured into playing fookin blackjack or roulette or any of these poncy gambling games to please anybody. But when Brendan led him up Frith Street and he saw the brass nameplate on the wall of what looked like an old house, Georgian or something, same as you got in Park Square in Leeds where all the solicitors hung out, it turned out to be called not the Losers but the Choosers. They all seemed to have nicknames, these clubs. The Groucho, Selby had told him, was known as the Grouch.
While Brendan signed him in at a desk manned by two what the Sun would’ve called stunnahs, and so would Alex if Selby hadn’t been on his mind, he examined a revolving display of free picture postcards. Yeh yeh, you could get them in Leeds, but there were some here he didn’t know, the majority in fact. Advert for Eurostar, punter snogging bird: “What do you recommend?” Waiter: “A cold shower.” Londonnet.com.clubline: “Arsey bouncers, get to know them before you go.” That’d go down well in Leeds. He pocketed a few.
They passed through into what was like somebody’s big drawing room, or so Alex would have said, not having much acquaintance with drawing rooms. Fireplace, bookshelves, sofas, easy chairs, antique-looking tables, oil paintings on the walls. They sure had spent some dosh on this place. The only thing that separated it from being someone’s home was that every single person in the room, and there were about twenty of them, was, with the exception of the two snazzy-looking waitresses, yammering into a mobile phone, like half the punters out in the street. All right, so everyone you saw in Leeds had a mobile, Alex had one himself, but they didn’t make a religion out of it. It was like being in a fookin call centre.
Nodding and waving to everyone in sight — they knew how to make an entrance, these telly folk, say that for them — Brendan sank heavily into a leather sofa and beckoned Alex to join him. On the sofa’s twin at the other side of a butler’s tray table sat one of the mobile jabberers. “I’m talking Gwyneth Paltrow opposite Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson directing. Unless David Beckham can act, because the two of them, Posh and Becks, could be magic” Must be a film producer. Christ, he only looked Alex’s age. Could be a wannabe, of course. So could moster the others in the room, them and their Filofaxes, now that he had them sussed out. They didn’t half fancy themselves.
“Haven’t seen you for a while, Brendan, what can I get you?” asked the snazzier of the two waitresses. Actress, she could’ve been. Maybe she was one. Resting. They did a lotter this kinder job.
It was the kinder job Selby might’ve taken, waitressing. Kinder job where you can get taken on by the day, it would just suit her, the way she was placed just at pres. He would have to keep his eyes open.
Well, she wasn’t working at the Choosers, Losers, whatever they wanted to call it, so that was one place he could strike off his list. But he would have to do the rounds of as many of these clubs as he could, because they were a likely bet. Blag his way in, if need be. He was a good blagger, was Alex. He had blagged his way into half the clubs in Leeds.
“Yes, I’ve been staying with a friend in Somerset,” Brendan was saying. “Or at least he’d become a friend by the time I left. I still have the scars to prove it.”
“You should be more careful who you choose as your friends, Brendan. You’ll get yourself killed one of these days.”
“If only. Now this young man is harmless enough. What would you like, Alex? I’m minded to give my guts a chance and switch to white wine for a while.”
“Same for me, ta.” He couldn’t be doing with any more of that catpiss he’d been supping and no way was he going on to shorts, the prices they charged down here.