by Mike Ripley
‘Well, not everything, Binky.’ She went from red to scarlet. On my other side, Lisabeth snorted loudly. ‘Anyway, who’s your friend?’
The guy who had been chatting her up came over with a glass of wine for her.
‘Angel, this is Alec Reynolds. He’s in the City.’
I nodded to him and poured myself another glass. I realised I was well down the bottle and I still hadn’t got to Beeby yet. I wondered if anybody fancied an exhibition of orange-juggling.
‘Did I ever tell you my plan for making my fortune in the City?’ I asked Fenella, ignoring Alec.
‘Which one?’
‘The Fish and Chips empire.’ She frowned and Alec leaned forward, so I pressed on. ‘It’s easy, really. You just work on the basis that everybody in the City has more money than sense, novelty commands a premium price, and they all get hungry. So, what I plan to do is start up a fish and chip shop – or better still, a mobile one in a van – that serves cod and chips wrapped in the Financial Times. You could do a deal with the paper and get over-run copies cheap in the morning after the main deliveries have gone, and you could even specialise. Say, rock salmon comes in the commodities page, plaice is wrapped in the oil section.’
‘You could do afternoon fry-ups in the Racing Post,’ said Alec, catching on. ‘And take-home suppers in the TV pages of the last edition of the Standard.’
‘Exactly, and you could charge ten pounds a go in the City and get away with it. And you’d get tons of publicity, and within six months some restaurant or pub would offer to buy you out.’
‘And would you sell?’ asked Alec.
‘Of course, just before the novelty wore off. Remember, there are 13 million mugs in London and they all need to come just the once to make my fortune.’
Alec laughed, and Fenella smiled uncertainly, not sure if I was serious. Lisabeth snorted again. Obviously Alec was getting too friendly.
‘What would you do with your millions then, eh? I’m sure my firm could put together an attractive portfolio for you,’ Alec offered.
I waved him away magnanimously and poured myself another drink. The bottle seemed empty.
‘I have my own sources, old boy. I’d do some short term trading, keep my ear to the ground for good buys. Maybe I’ll dabble in something like – ooh, say, Capricorn Travel. You know, buy when it’s cheap and then ...’
I had been showing off, and honestly didn’t expect the reaction I got.
It wasn’t so much that Alec’s expression changed from amusement to one akin to chronic indigestion, or that his fingers whitened around his glass so that I felt sure he would snap it in half. What really threw me was Salome’s scream.
She had been standing right behind me and obviously listening in.
‘What did you say?’ she’d yelled.
‘Eh? What ...?’
She’d almost given me a heart attack, but she was the one clutching her hands to her mouth.
‘How did you know?’ she shouted. ‘How?’
Then she ran from the room into the kitchen, and the door slammed behind her. Frank charged after her, looking daggers at me as he passed.
‘What have I said?’ I asked nobody in particular, and nobody answered.
Me and my big mouth. I should have kept it well zippered.
It would have avoided a lot of aggro for Salome and Alec and several others, notably me.
It also meant I never got to find out why Beeby was called Beeby.
Chapter Three
I surfaced next morning with a really Gothic hangover. All the classic symptoms were there: the overflowing ashtray mouth, the dreaded Whirling Pits where the sense of balance ought to be and the steam-hammer thumping behind the eyes as if somebody was pounding my head against the wall.
I opened an eye and saw that Lisabeth had me by the hair and was pounding my head against the wall.
‘Oi! Florence Nightingale! Take it easy will you!’
‘Wake up, Angel!’
‘Leave it out. Just go easy on the violence, okay? Christ, I think you’ve loosened my brain.’
‘So that’s what was rattling. Now will you wake up?’
I opened one eye again. She was still there. If she’d handed me the Temperance Pledge I’d have signed it on the spot. Lisabeth could collect a lot of signatures this way.
‘Orwight, orwight. I’m awake.’
‘Both eyes, please.’
‘Happy now?’ She didn’t look any better in stereo.
‘Good. Now get out of that pit and come and talk to Salome.’
‘Who? What? What for?’
‘Get up.’ Thump. ‘And talk to Salome.’ Thump. ‘Before she goes to work.’ Thump.
I caught her wrist with both hands. God, she was strong. It didn’t even slow her down. Thump. God, I was weak.
‘Okay, okay, I’m up.’
I flung back the duvet and swung my legs out of bed. Lisabeth saw I was naked and dropped me like a hot brick. She didn’t actually scream but there was a definite sharp intake of breath.
‘We’ll be in the living-room until you’re decent,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster while fixing her eyes on the ceiling.
‘You could have a long wait,’ I yelled after her.
I padded into the bathroom to soak my head under the bath taps, hitting myself this time, but by now I was probably punch drunk. I brushed my teeth – carefully – and although they felt loose, they all seemed to be there.
I remembered that after Salome had thrown her wobbler at the party, I’d been taken out to sit on the stairs with Lisabeth acting as my minder. I must have slipped away from her at some point as I distinctly remember nipping downstairs to my flatlet to get the bottle of poteen Werewolf had brought me from Ireland. I even remember laughing about the label – a piece of lined paper stuck on with Sellotape on which was written ‘Kerry Dew’ in green crayon. They probably didn’t allow sharp objects in the place it was made.
To be honest, that was about all I remembered. I just hoped I had managed to put down a couple of pints of water before I fell into my pit, to combat dehydration, otherwise I was going to feel terrible later on. (Getting drunk costs me a fortune in bottled mineral water ever since I found out that tap water in London has been recycled five times.)
I put a towel around my stomach – I don’t possess a dressing-gown – and jogged from the bathroom to the kitchenette. Two-and-a-half seconds. Good, my times were improving.
I found an unopened tetrapack of orange juice in the fridge, hiding behind a stick of celery. It took me a few more seconds to bite the corner off and drink. Aagh, lifesaver. The man who put OJ into those things deserves a medal, but if he hasn’t got one, he’s probably rich enough not to worry about it.
There was nothing else I could think of to delay me. Breakfast was out of the question in my state, not that I’ve ever been wild about celery. So I hitched my towel tighter and clutched my OJ like a gunslinger’s .45 as I strode into the living-room.
‘Hi there, Sal, my love, popped home for lunch?’ I breezed in and parked myself on the sofa next to her.
I’d just assumed she was back from the office because she had her city slicker gear on: a suit jacket in grey and red squares so wide at the shoulder that Robert Mitchum could have acted in it; short, tight matching skirt; black stockings with red seams; and really high-heeled black shoes with a single silver star on the back of just the left one.
‘I haven’t gone to work yet, Angel. I was worried, and Lisabeth said you wouldn’t mind a chat.’
I looked at my watch. Jesus Christ, but it wasn’t even seven o’clock. Never mind, stay charming and make sure the towel doesn’t slip.
‘Anytime, Sal, as long as you let me say how smart you’re looking, and I particularly like the really dangerous shoes.’
Salome tugged th
e hem of her skirt down a micron or two.
‘Well ... thank you. But the shoes aren’t dangerous.’
‘You don’t know what I’m thinking,’ I leered.
‘That’s enough of that,’ said Lisabeth. If I’d been wearing trousers she would probably have smacked the backs of my legs. ‘Salome is worried.’
‘Then tell all, Salome. You know what they say, A Trouble Shared ... is two people losing sleep.’ I buried my face in the OJ carton.
Salome licked her lips and leaned forward. I wished she wouldn’t do that when I was wearing only a towel.
‘Do you remember what you said about Capricorn Travel last night, when you were talking to Alec?’ Her eyes widened in hope. Lisabeth’s widened out of sheer nosiness.
‘To be honest, Sal darling, I can’t remember last night, let alone Capricorn Travel or Alec. Alec who? Do I owe him money?’
‘Angel!’ snapped Lisabeth. ‘Be serious.’
I shook my head to clear some of the pebbles in there. They just moved position a bit.
‘Okay, okay, it’s all coming back to me now. Yes, there was this guy at the party ... no, earlier, at the pub. He had a particularly nasty turn of phrase that I didn’t want ... Beeby. What happened to Beeby?’
‘She left with one of Frank’s friends,’ said Salome, almost apologetically.
‘A musician?’ I must have sounded worried, because it startled her.
‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Although Wallace has done some contract work for CBS and EMI. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. Skip it.’ Wallace, eh? I wonder what his friends called him.
‘Well, get on with it,’ Lisabeth shouted angrily. She probably wasn’t shouting, but it felt like it.
As quickly as I could, I told them about the Chinless Wonder and the guy he called Simon or Si and how I’d noticed him because of his mouthy attitude and devotion to the Eichmann school of racial harmony.
‘I just remembered that stuff about Capricorn Travel. They talked about the shit hitting the fan today and tipping somebody off to pull out his stake. Later on, when we got back here, I was just being lippy and showing off. I don’t know what it means, for Christ’s sake. Is it serious? Don’t tell me, it’s serious, isn’t it?’
Salome reached out and put a hand on mine. Lisabeth scowled.
‘We could be talking unemployment, Angel. I work with Alec, and he knows you know something only I or he could have known.’
‘But ...’
‘He’s got to mention it today at the office and yours truly gets it in the neck. Then it’s goodbye yellow brick road.’
‘And goodbye new place in Limehouse?’
‘‘Fraid so. We couldn’t afford it just on Frank’s salary. Yet.’
‘Does he know?’
‘He knows something’s wrong, but not what exactly, and not how bad it is. You see, Capricorn Travel is one of mine. One of my companies. I’m the sector analyst and they’re my particular tip – or they were – and our company are their brokers and ...’
Her big eyes misted over and she swallowed hard to lock off the tears.
There was only one thing for it.
‘Listen, love, is there anything I can do to help?’
As soon as I’d said it I wished I’d bitten my tongue.
‘Well, actually, there could be.’
Bitten clean through.
So I had to go to lunch with Salome; what’s so bad about that? Normally, of course, absolutely nothing. Normally an honour worth lying, cheating and maybe even wearing a tie for.
But this was lunch at the office. A working lunch, a real finger-tap table-top session. And I had a nasty feeling that I was being served up as dessert.
Come and have lunch in our Directors’ Room, she’d said, with Alec and their section boss. Have a shave and put on a suit and find some black shoes, she’d thought.
Well, the suit was out for a start, as I don’t possess one, or at least not at the moment. I’d had one once, but a lot of my possessions had formed a lengthy insurance claim after a previous residence of mine down in Southwark had sort of blown up one day. I’d learnt a lot from the experience: travel light and rent north of the river.
I settled for a dark blue blazer that I hadn’t spilt much down, a baggy, grey-wool shirt with buttoned down collar and some black slacks that would have been pressed if I’d remembered to put them under the mattress.
That was going to have to do. I didn’t really care what impression I made in the City; for Hackney I was sharp as a pistol.
I took a bus, not Armstrong, into the dirty old heart of the City. For a start, I was probably still over the limit from the pub and the party, and it would really peeve me to get breathalysed for a piss-up where I’d made a conscious decision not to drink and drive. You see, I can be socially responsible. And anyway, my hands were still shaking and I had trouble focusing – hence the dark glasses – and I couldn’t remember where I’d left Armstrong’s keys.
Salome’s office wasn’t actually in the Stock Exchange, but I didn’t think it was my place to complain. It was round on Gresham Street on the third floor of a building occupied by, among others, a Japanese bank, a Malaysian bank and an Australian investment trust. I didn’t have accounts with any of them, and I wondered if that meant I was deprived. Certainly, from the look he gave me, the doorman of the building thought I was.
I don’t suppose they called him a doorman, mind you, even though he was wearing enough gold braid on the shoulders of his uniform to settle the balance of payments.
I told him I was there on business with a luncheon (note that: luncheon) appointment with Prior, Keen, Baldwin, and eventually he had to believe me.
In the lift, I allowed myself a significant thought. Why are there no ‘ands’ in the names of City firms? For example, Sal’s firm: Prior, Keen, Baldwin, not ‘and Baldwin.’ Maybe Baldwin objected. He probably would if he knew the firm was referred to as Pretty Keen Bastards among the financial press, although knowing a fair cross-section of City half-life, Baldwin was probably secretly pleased.
If he’d done what most of the old brokers had done and sold out to the meganationals, he was probably in Switzerland teaching the gnomes to fish. In fact, Prior, Keen, Baldwin was almost certainly called something like Durban Kuwait Broken Hill Den Haag Prior Keen Baldwin Suisse nowadays. But as the switchboard operators could never get that out before the pips went, they stuck to their old name.
At the third floor, the lift doors opened on to a sort of lobby area with a big oaken desk and another uniformed ex-SAS man in residence. I trudged across a carpet that really exercised the ankles to get to him.
‘Yes, sir? Can we help you, sir?’
There was nobody else around, so it must have been me he was growling at. He’d probably never seen anybody not in a suit before.
‘I’m here for lunch with Ms Asmoyah and a Mr Reynolds. Which way’s the canteen?’
‘One moment, sir.’
He was impervious to my best charmer smile, but his eyes never left me as he picked up a phone and pressed a button or two. I couldn’t understand it. There was nothing nickable around except his desk.
‘There’s a visitor for you, Mr Reynolds.’ Then to me, with a smirk: ‘Mr Angel, is it?’
‘Yes,’ I said seriously, ‘of Fitzroy, Maclean, Angel, Dealer and Bonk.’
‘Mr Reynolds will be out directly, sir. Have a seat.’
I noticed one single, straight-backed chair near the lift doors, so I pulled it over to his desk, turned it round and straddled it, folding my arms on the back. I tried another smile on him and struck up a conversation.
‘So what do you think of Arsenal’s chances in the Cup, then?’
He turned red and made a strangled sobbing sound.
‘No,’ I agreed, ‘I don’t rate them this season either.�
��
Alec Reynolds appeared and rescued me before the porter could get to me across the desk.
He was wearing a double-breasted suit probably the equivalent in value to, say, the 19th Century cloth trade with India. His shoes had probably removed the crocodile menace from a grateful Third World country.
‘Hello, there,’ he said as we shook hands. ‘Thanks for coming. It’s Roy, isn’t it?’
‘Sure.’ Among other things.
‘I’ve already got quite a few punters interested in your fish and chips in newspapers ideas, you know. Hope you don’t mind.’
I fumbled through the memory banks to remember what I’d told him the previous night.
‘No, that’s fine.’ I smiled. Was he joking? ‘I’ll take ten percent.’
‘Excellent.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘Come on through.’
He held open a pair of swing doors – the sort you get on kitchens in hotel restaurants, with round windows in them – and ushered me down a corridor. To one side, the offices had all been knocked into a single, open-plan unit with double banks of computer terminals and phones, including the sort of phone where you just touch a name on the video screen and it gets the number for you.
‘This is our main dealing room,’ Alec was saying. ‘Though most of the real business is done before 9.00 am. That’s the bread-and-butter stuff. The jam comes when the market opens.’
Only about half the swivel chairs in front of the consoles were occupied, and some of them only had jackets draped over them. No-one turned to look at us. Every five feet or so, there was a monitor tuned in to Extel or Ceefax or Topic, the Stock Exchange’s private network, or a fax machine or a telex, and there was a teleprinter receiving Press Association copy.
Littered in between were sandwich wrappers, empty fruit juice cartons, glucose drink bottles and Mars bar papers, as well as a couple of hundred coffee cartons. A woman in an apron was working her way down the far side with a plastic dustbin liner collecting the junk. By the time she got to the end she could start again.
