'Most decidedly not. It's restoring reputations. Let's see what it can do for yours.'
A Triumph has pulled up on the forecourt. Like every customer for petrol, the driver ignores the sign that asks him to pay first. He waves the metal nozzle at me, and I step behind the counter to push the button that starts the pump. 'I'll leave you to your duties,' Rufus says and extends a hand across the ageing headlines of the newspapers on the counter.
His hand feels very little less plump than it did in its glove. As I lock the door behind him he leaves me a grin that's by no means negated by its hairy frame, and mouths 'You'll be hearing from me.' I return behind the counter and don my widest smile as the Triumph driver saunters to the window. I'm going to enjoy my shift. My only regret is that it's too late to tell Natalie my news tonight, but tomorrow's on the way. It can be the first day of my real life.
FOUR - LISTS
Tubby Thackeray
Date of birth (location)
1880?
England
Date of death (details)
?
Mini biography
Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he (show more)
Actor – filmography
1. Leave 'Em Laughing (1928) (uncredited) ... Driver in traffic jam
2. Tubby Tells the Truth (1920, unreleased)
3. Tubby's Trick Tricycle (1919)
At once I realise something is wrong, though not with the Internet Movie Database. I scroll down the list and try to ignore my neighbour at the adjacent terminal, who is humming under his breath a bunch of notes with which a pianist might accompany a chase in a silent film.
4. Tubby's Tremendous Teeth (1919)
5. Tubby's Tiny Tubbies (1919)
6. Tubby's Telephonic Travails (1919)
7. Tubby Turns Turtle (1918)
8. Tubby Takes the Train (1918)
9. Tubby's Terrible Triplets (1918)
10. Tubby Tackles Tennis (1917)
11. Tubby's Table Talk (1917)
12. Tubby Tattle-Tale (1917)
13. Tubby Tastes the Tart (1916)
14. Tubby's Telepathic Tricks (1916)
15. Tubby's Telescopic Thrill (1916)
16. Tubby's Tinseled Tree (1915)
17. Tubby's Trojan Task (1915)
18. Tubby's Troublesome Trousers (1915)
19. Tubby Turns the Tables (1915)
20. Tubby Tries It On (1914)
21. Tubby the Troll (1914)
22. Tubby's Twentieth-Century Tincture (1914)
23. Just for a Laugh (1914) ... Avoirdupois the Apothecary
24. The Best Medicine (1914) ... Pholly the Pharmacist
Writer – filmography
Leave 'Em Laughing (uncredited gag writer)
Archive footage
Those Golden Years of Fun (1985)
The biography button on the sidebar brings me a reference to Surréalistes Malgré Eux (Éditions Nouvelle Année, 1971). That's all, and in one sense it's more than enough, because the dates in the list are wrong. Whatever ended Thackeray's career, it couldn't have been the Arbuckle scandal. The party at which Fatty caused Virginia Rappe's death began on Labor Day in 1921, the year after Tubby last starred in a film.
Where did I get the idea that the events are connected? From somewhere on the Internet or here in the harsh light of the British Film Institute's reading room? It surely doesn't matter, though I'm irritated that so recent a memory is stored beyond retrieval. I click on the biography link to be shown more. Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he put on so much weight that a stage collapsed beneath him – after he was banned from theatres for making suggestive jokes about telescopes and tarts – after he turned out to be incapable of uttering a sentence that didn't contain at least a trio of Ts – For all I know, any of these could be the case, because the link doesn't work. I abandon it and search the web for Thackeray Lane.
It's at least two places in England. The name also belonged to a professor of mediaeval history whose papers are archived at Manchester University, but I can find no reference to a comedian. A search for Tubby Thackeray brings me no results at all, and he isn't listed in the library catalogue. The Institute's Summary of Information on Film and Television database lists his films, but the National Film and Television Archive has none of them, not even Those Golden Years of Fun.
I can't quite restrain a sigh, which apparently draws the man who was humming an old tune. He keeps his breath and its burden to himself as he leans over my shoulder. When I glance up, sunlight through the blinds behind him sears my vision. I have the impression that his face is very pale, at least in part, and unnecessarily large, perhaps because he's looming so close. As I blink like an unearthed mole he shuffles out of view beyond the only bookcase, and I head for the counter, above which a screen announces that a copy of Silent Secrets is awaiting a reader called Moore. 'Did you find what you wanted?' the librarian says.
'I was hoping for more, to be honest.' When she tilts her long face up as though her interrogative smile has lifted it I say 'You won't have heard of Tubby Thackeray, by any chance?'
'He does seem to ring a bell.' She ponders and then shakes her head, displacing her smile. 'I must have someone else in mind. I don't think I've heard of him.'
'Some of us have.'
I turn but can't identify the speaker. None of the readers at the tables is looking at me, nor at anyone else for having spoken. I'm not even sure how close the man's voice was. 'What was that?' I ask the librarian.
'I said I haven't heard of him.'
'Not you, the other person.' When she looks perplexed I murmur 'The one who just spoke.'
'I'm afraid I'm not able to help you there.'
How could she have been unaware that someone was talking so loud? I'm about to wonder when I realise that every time I've addressed her she has gazed straight at my lips. 'Sorry, you're, I see,' I babble and swing around to question our audience. 'Tubby Thackeray, anybody?'
Do they think I'm inviting someone to reveal he's the comedian? Nobody betrays the least hint of having spoken earlier. Was it the man who craned over my shoulder? He isn't behind the shelves now. He must have made the comment on his way out. I sprint past the security gate, which holds its peace, into Stephen Street. He isn't there, nor can I see him from the junction with Tottenham Court Road. He should be easily identifiable; he was bulky enough, or his clothes were. Once I tire of gazing at the lunchtime crowds I retrace my frustrated steps. It's the quickest route to meeting Natalie for lunch.
As I turn corner after narrow corner the wind blows away my misty breath. An awning flaps beyond an alley, a sound like footsteps keeping pace with me, except that they would be absurdly large. I dodge across Oxford Street behind a bus full of children with painted faces and sidle through the parade of early Christmas shoppers to Soho Square. In the central garden, around which the railings look darkened by rain that the pendulous sky has yet to release, a loosely overcoated man is opening and closing his wide mouth in a silent soliloquy or a tic.
The Choice Cuts restaurant is across the square, next door to the film censor's offices. Three steps up lead directly into the bar, which is decorated with photographs of people who have had problems with the censor, a signed portrait of Ken Russell beside one of an equally fat-faced Michael Winner. Natalie is at a table in a semicircular booth halfway down the darkly panelled room, under a poster that repeats IT'S ONLY A MOVIE. As soon as she sees me she slides off the padded bench. 'Simon, I tried to call you.'