Angel City

by Mike Ripley

  A man of many talents; most of them hidden. I decided not to argue with him and thought instead of the sun roof I had always meant to have fitted into Armstrong. It would have been dead handy at the time, as Mr Goodson’s Grand Vizier’s hat could have jutted out into space instead of having the top five inches bent out of shape. Of course, he could have taken it off, or I could have suggested that he did, but I was beginning to hurt and suddenly felt an overwhelming desire for drugs. Any drugs.

  I usually keep a quarter bottle of vodka in the glove compartment for emergencies, but I couldn’t remember seeing it there earlier. I thought about asking Mr Goodson to check, but I knew he wouldn’t approve of drinking and driving. Sod it, I wasn’t driving.

  ‘Can you reach into the glove compartment?’ I asked quite succinctly. ‘There should be some booze there, for medical purposes, of course.’

  ‘It’s getting on for six o’clock, but I wouldn’t worry about that now.’

  What was the man talking about? Didn’t he understand plain English?

  I gave up and slumped back in the seat. We were in a built-up area and I was awake enough to take in a passing sign saying HOSPITAL. Actually it just said ‘H’, but I’m fairly streetwise. I hoped the people in the hospital were, because dressed as we were and me in my condition, it could take some explaining. But as no-one seemed to be able to understand a word I said, I decided to go with the flow.

  As it turned out, the costumes saved us any difficult questions and got me seen pretty quickly. A bossy matron in Casualty (you ever seen a docile one?) wearing a face the colour of her uniform took one look at us as Mr Goodson half carried me in, and then exploded.

  ‘Give me strength. It’s that bloody Dungeons and Dragons place again. As if we didn’t have enough normal people wanting medical attention for perfectly reasonable illnesses and complaints that are no fault of their own, we have to have these loonies paying good money to try to cripple each other. And it’s not as if they’re not old enough to know better.’

  This last remark was aimed at Mr Goodson. Well, I was pretty sure it was, but I wasn’t going to argue. If I’d tried it would probably have come out as a telephone order for a Chinese take-away, so I kept quiet. Mr Goodson held his ground while holding me up, but quite wisely let the old bat run on until she had got her indignation out of her system and called the duty doctor to see me.

  I remember lying down on a trolley and I remember a dark-haired, dark-eyed nurse (who later turned out to be called Mab, as in Queen of the Fairies, and who claimed she could do amazing things with a tube of lubricating jelly and a lot of imagination), but that was about it.

  There was one other thing, an overheard conversation between Mr Goodson and whichever junior doctor was in the process of peeling off my stocking mask along with generous portions of skin.

  The doctor was asking what sort of accident I’d had, and Mr Goodson was being very diplomatic – you don’t get to be a Grand Vizier for nothing – and bullshitting like fury. It was unheard of, he said. No it wasn’t, said the young doctor, it was like Beirut on a busy day some Sundays in here. But all the weapons are harmless, Mr Goodson tried. They’re all made of plastic or foam rubber.

  He was right, of course. But then again, the Armoury down in Nether World didn’t get much call for woollen socks packed tight with coarse builder’s sand and bits of broken brick.

  I remember the nurse, Mab, was the one who took my clothes off and put me into a smock for the operating theatre.

  I remember feeling hungry and complaining that they hadn’t fed me, though no-one could understand me. The matron snarled orders that I should be given a notebook and pencil if I was going to continue to cause trouble by remaining conscious. Fortunately she couldn’t understand when I asked her what it had been like in the Waffen SS either.

  I remember being wheeled down a corridor and into a lift and I remember somebody tagging my wrist with a clear plastic badge that just said ‘Angel’. Now I didn’t think that would inspire much confidence in the other patients, or visiting relatives, but nobody asked my opinion.

  As I was about to be wheeled into surgery, another white coat (there had been about six by this time) leaned over me to look in my face, turning my chin in his hand and saying, ‘Tch, tch, oh dear,’ to himself.

  Then he said: ‘Well, we’ll soon have you fixed up. We can do wonders these days.’

  I signalled for the notebook and pencil, and a male nurse offered them, but matron grabbed his wrist and peered down at me.

  ‘No more obscene drawings, eh, Mr Angel?’

  I shook my head and mumbled, ‘No.’

  ‘Now, we promise, do we?’ she asked icily.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I slurred, nodding as vigorously as I could. She released the nurse’s hand and I took the notebook.

  As I wrote, I heard her say: ‘I knew this one would be trouble,’ to no-one in particular.

  I wrote: Will I be able to play the trumpet after the operation?

  ‘Ignore him,’ said matron. And when somebody asked why, she said: ‘It’s the oldest one in the book. You tell him yes, of course he’ll be able to play the trumpet after surgery. Then he writes back that that must be a miracle because he couldn’t play going in. I’ve seen his type before. Anything for a cheap laugh.’

  No, really. Wait.

  Of course it looked much worse than it actually was. Everyone said so, so it must have been true, but they should have seen it from the inside.

  There was a gash deep enough to have exposed the cheekbone, which is probably what Mr Goodson had seen. My teeth were all there, but some of them were smaller than they had been. Nothing about a thousand quid’s worth of cosmetic dentistry couldn’t put right, as one of the nurses quipped cheerily.

  Talking was a problem for a couple of days, as the whole of the right side of my face had ballooned out like a pregnant chipmunk on an eating binge. It was also blue. And black. And there were cute streaks of red in there too.

  Because they were worried about a hairline fracture of something or other, the doctors made me wear a plastic protective shield that was supposed to be flesh-coloured, except my flesh there wasn’t pink any more. I just knew what people would say when they saw it.

  To give him his due, Mr Goodson was the only one who did not state the grotesquely obvious when he visited me on the Sunday afternoon. Then again, he had been designated to visit by his fellow Grand Viziers to see if I was likely to sue them for what had happened.

  I wrote copious notes assuring him that I wouldn’t, but I made no attempt to elaborate on exactly what had happened. He was relieved by that and I was pretty sure Nether World would be. The hospital didn’t think they had to ask me any more questions. And to be honest, they hadn’t much liked the answers I had given them so far on the mundane stuff about diet or bedpans, so I doubted if they would call the cops or even think of doing so.

  ‘I drove down in Armstrong,’ Mr Goodson said nervously. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I filled up with diesel and I’m insured and everything.’

  I mumbled that it was okay and wrote out a thank you for him driving me to the hospital.

  ‘I didn’t know whether to call the police or not,’ he said. ‘Not so much about you but about your friend:

  What friend? I wrote.

  ‘I presumed it was. The one who seemed to be being pushed into that red Alfa Romeo. He didn’t want to go and was shouting at the top of his voice. But then you came staggering out and …’ His voice tailed off as he saw me scribbling on my notepad. He read the message.

  ‘Yes I am sure it was a red Alfa. I’ve been a member of the Civil Service Motorists’ Association for 15 years. Why?’

  I shook my head – gently – to indicate it was nothing. But it made sense of something at the back of my brain. When the Beast from the East had told me Bassotti was waiting for me in the McDonald’s, he’d
mentioned a red Alfa. Every time I had seen Bassotti, he’d been driving an old Sierra. My guess was that weasel-faced Sammy and his big friend had been waiting for me to lead them to Nether World and Tigger. I had been set up to set up Tigger.

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?’ Mr Goodson asked.

  How do you feel about giving somebody a driving lesson or two?

  Duncan and his wife Doreen were my next visitors, and they took one look at the plastic face mask and said together: ‘It’s the Phantom of the Opera.’ I counted that as two.

  Duncan came again on the Monday, bringing Bunny with him.

  I hadn’t seen Bunny since we’d done the Meringue gig together in the club off Oxford Street. He said that he had only come to offer me some more playing dates, but in fact Bunny would go anywhere there were nurses. ‘They all wear black stockings and suspenders,’ he told me enthusiastically.

  No they don’t, I wrote. None of them. Trust me on this one.

  He took it badly.

  Doogie and Miranda turned up once, made the obligatory Phantom observation (26 by this time) and ate the fruit they had brought.

  Why was it always fruit for hospital visits? If you’re in hospital you need a stiff drink or a smoke, not fruit. There are people there paid to keep you healthy; amateurs shouldn’t meddle.

  I had cards from people I didn’t know knew my address let alone which hospital I was in. And I had cards from people I know I had deliberately not told my address. I had phone messages from a ‘Mr Springsteen’ saying that he was eating well, which I guessed was Fenella, and one from Nassim, our beloved landlord, saying this week’s rent could wait given the special circumstances. Big of him.

  I could more or less articulate again; in fact I was demanding a discharge on the basis that ‘Surely you need the bed’, when I had a visit from Crimson. It was not that I wasn’t pleased to see him, just surprised.

  ‘I was on a job in the area,’ he said to prove it was no big deal. ‘Just thought I’d drop in. My God, man, you look like–’ One hundred and thirty-four.

  ‘Cut the sweet-talk, what’re you after?’

  ‘Hey, man, can’t I do the full hospital visit for a friend? I thought you were supposed to sit by the bed and look at your watch every five minutes. I had it all planned.’

  ‘Did you bring any booze?’

  ‘Nope:

  ‘Any drugs?’

  ‘What? Into a hospital? You concussed, man?’

  ‘Any grapes?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Bananas, pineapples, kiwi fruit, those ugly little horned melons you get down the supermarket that nobody knows what to do with?’

  ‘No, man, no fruit.’

  ‘Then you are naff-all use as a hospital visitor. I’m out of here tomorrow or next day, tops. Don’t prolong the agony.’

  He smiled nervously and reached inside his leather biker’s jacket.

  ‘I brought you a newspaper, man.’

  Suddenly, he wasn’t kidding around.

  It was the Evening Standard from the day before, an early afternoon edition, not that that mattered. Crimson had opened it at page five and he pointed to the column of news-in-brief stories just in case I missed the point.

  An inquest had opened (and adjourned immediately pending further investigation) on one Christopher Robin O’Neil, whose naked body had been found butting up against Blackfriars Bridge on an incoming tide on Saturday night. That was the gist of it, although there was a ‘See page 14’ tag line.

  Page 14 was a feature article about the perils of London’s homeless drug abusers, written by a minor academic who found that broad-brush-stroke analysis paid better than actual research. The article gave the impression that all London’s homeless were (a) drug crazed, and (b) simply queuing up to take their clothes off and jump in the Thames.

  I read as much as I could stomach, which wasn’t much. The key bit was in the intro where it said that ‘in a week when’ the body of a 16-year-old boy could be fished from the river and be identified because he was a registered drug abuser and had a police record, wasn’t it about time somebody did something? Well, hell yes, it probably was.

  I looked at Crimson and he met my stare.

  ‘So this guy is Tigger? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Can’t be two, man,’ said Crimson. ‘And I figured what with you asking around after him, and you being the bloodest of blood brothers, you might know what happened to him.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘But I think I know a man who does.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Miss Binkworthy really has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few days,’ said Mr Goodson.

  ‘Only because Mr Goodson is such a patient teacher,’ said Fenella smugly.

  ‘Pass the sick bag,’ I said from the back seat of the dual-control Metro, but they didn’t hear me.

  When I had seen Fenella with Mr Goodson as they arrived to collect me on my discharge, I had automatically assumed that he had brought Armstrong back and I was to be driven home in style, with Fenella cradling my head to her bosom while I sipped vodka and orange through a straw. Not only had they forgotten the vodka, but Fenella had pleaded illness and left her office early in order to squeeze in an extra driving lesson. Never mind my state of health and the need to avoid nasty shocks or nervous stress. I just had to sit there, eyes closed, and suffer. Dead selfish, some people.

  I made them stop once on the pretext that I had a prescription for some painkillers and needed a pharmacy. The fact that there was an off-licence next door was purely coincidental. While Fenella tried, without notable success, to park the Metro roughly parallel to the kerb, I staggered into the pharmacy to start negotiations over the prescription. As I had guessed, the pills prescribed by the doctor who discharged me were simply double-strength versions of a commercial brand that cost one-fifth the price of the prescription. I bought a hundred of the proprietary brand and tore the prescription up, even though I knew I could have made a few quid on it in certain circles. I also bought a packet of children’s bendy straws, which helped me drink the can of Special Brew I picked up at the off-licence. Double the dose of pills and a few slurps of lager and I was far better equipped to cope with the journey back to Hackney. Keeping my eyes closed helped too.

  To be fair, we made it back without incident, unless you count the close encounter with a bus near Blackfriars Bridge, but as Fenella didn’t even see it, I didn’t count it.

  At Stuart Street, they hadn’t exactly put out flags to mark my return, but somebody had cleaned up the flat and bought in a pint of milk and half a dozen cans of soup, all approved by the Vegetarian Society. Not a smoke or a decent drink in the place. And no sign of Springsteen, though that was a relief. He would only have howled at me. Not because there was anything wrong as such, he just liked howling at me and had five days of moaning stored up. And he would have laughed at the flesh-coloured plastic cheek mask I had been advised to wear for another week.

  The mask still made it difficult for me to talk; or, rather, I could talk perfectly well but people somehow didn’t hear me properly.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ Fenella said from the kitchen where she was battling with the can opener. ‘It’s in there, in the cupboard.’

  I was in the bathroom, easing off my face mask and, in the cupboard mirror, checking all the places I’d missed while trying to shave over the last few days.

  I grunted something to her and opened the cupboard door to find a plastic jar that rattled with pills and had a handwritten label saying ‘Arnica’. There was a leaflet with the jar printed by a company called Pain Relief From Plants Ltd, which told me all about the healing properties of arnica, a natural plant extract. I touched my cheek and jaw and felt like ordering a fieldful. The leaflet said it was ideal for the reduction of bruising and had no harmful si
de effects or hallucinogenic qualities. What a waste of time.

  ‘Soup’s on,’ yelled Fenella, ‘and I’ve put some more stuff down for Springsteen.’

  ‘Meat,’ I mumbled, ‘it’s called meat.’

  ‘No, I can’t stop to eat. Anyway, there’s only enough for one. Mr Goodson is doing three-point turns with me tonight, so I’ve got to get ready. See you.’

  Now if ever anything needed a smart-mouth answer, that did, but although I thought it, my mouth let me down. It also almost refused to accept the three bean and chive soup she had left for me, but somehow I slurped some down, knowing I would need all my strength to do the really difficult things I had to do, like use the phone.

  As it turned out, it was a brief call.

  ‘H B Builders. Please leave a message after the tone.’

  I probably shouldn’t have driven after all the painkillers I had chewed that afternoon, but there are lots of things I probably shouldn’t do. (Rule of Life No. 11: A ‘probably shouldn’t’ has approximately half the risk factor of a ‘Why did I?’ and 30 per cent of that of a ‘Why the hell not?’)

  It didn’t take me long to get over to Stratford Marsh, despite the rush hour traffic, though there was one sticky moment when two young lads in a Thames van advertising their window-cleaning business pulled up alongside Armstrong at some lights. Even above the sound of Armstrong’s diesel and their idling engine and the Bryan Ferry tape played at full whack, I could lip-read one saying to the other that I looked just like the Phantom of the Opera. Two hundred and three.

  I turned into the Navigation Road Industrial Estate and did a drive-by of H B Builders to scout the lie of the land. The gates were closed and there was no sign of life. Not unusual. It was a little after 6.00 pm and few builders’ yards stayed open that late. What was unusual was that a big CLOSED sign had been hung on the padlock and chain that bound the gates together.