by John Gardner
Boysie pursed his lips and looked at Mostyn. “Your idea?”
“Naturally.”
“That figures. And Air Apparent is an airline?”
“In a way. To start up an airline would be costly and not of great profit. Expensive things, aeroplanes.”
“I can imagine.”
“Then there’s all that red tape about schedules and getting landing permits and routes. Very boring. Board of Trade regulations. Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.”
“You don’t want to bother with them?”
“Not if we can help it.” Mostyn spoke slowly, clipping the words. “But we rather want to transport people across the world at a maximum profit with a minimum outlay and at the most attractive terms.”
Boysie’s brain was working slowly but steadily. “You mean that the people who want to travel have to be charged as little as possible?”
“In a nutshell, old Boysie. E for effort.”
“I thought there was some regulation about that. All the airlines have to charge the same prices or something.”
“Yes,” Mostyn drawled unpleasantly. “That’s another fly in the ointment. IATA.”
“IATA?”
“International Air Transport Association.”
“Who are they?”
“Top brass. Issue all regulations concerning commercial air transport. They’re like a kind of governing body for the scheduled airlines. They also tell the scheduled airlines how much they must charge passengers.”
“But there’s a way round that?”
“Amazing.” Mostyn beamed. “You catch on with great speed, laddie. Proud of you. Let me explain finances.”
“Do. Do. Please do.”
“If a scheduled airline is granted permission to fly a service to, say, Johannesburg in South Africa they have to charge a one-way fare, tourist class, of one hundred and fifty-nine pounds seventeen shillings.” He sighed and shook his head. “Now a Boeing 707 carries around two hundred passengers, so, on a full one-way trip, there can be a passenger commitment of around fifty-two thousand pounds.”
Boysie whistled long, low and in awe. “Some bread.”
“Would it surprise you, my dear old laddie, if I told you we could charter a 707 to South Africa for around seven thousand pounds?”
“One way?”
“One way. With crew, handling, fuel, hostesses the lot. Seven thousand green ones.”
“That means …”
“That means, laddie, that as long as we have a landing permit, and as long as we charter the aeroplane purely for the use of some club or organisation, we are home and dried.”
Boysie was not quite with him, but nearly. “More,” he said in the flat tone which Oliver Twist must have used.
Mostyn leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion. “Air Apparent takes out a discreet advertisement offering a one-way trip to South Africa at sixty-nine pounds a head. We then charter an aeroplane telling the charter firm that members of the South African Free Swinging Polo Fanciers would like to return to their native shores. Each ticket we sell also provides instant membership of the SAFSPF back-dated six months to make it legal. If we sell all two hundred seats we take thirteen thousand eight hundred pounds. Deduct seven thousand for the hire of the aeroplane. Another eight hundred for our own running expenses, your salary, the secretaries, and we have a round profit of six thousand pounds.” He paused to let it sink in. “If we have a similar operation running at the other end we make a total of twelve thousand pounds. One trip a month and a bonus for you of two-and-a-half grand a month. What do you say?”
“It’s against the bloody law and you’ll never get landing permits in South Africa.”
“No? What about landing somewhere in Angola? Luanda has a good airport. Our passengers could catch regular scheduled flights from there to Jo’burg. No problem. Angola still belongs to Portugal. I know a man in Lisbon …”
“I’ll bet you know a man in Lisbon. It’s still against the law. It’s bloody piracy.”
“Yo-ho-ho and a magnum of Bollinger.” Mostyn raised his glass. “Fifty quid a week and a quiet two-and-a-half grand a month just for running an office. Can’t be bad.”
“It’s still piracy. How many regulations will you be breaking?”
“Around fifty-two. But don’t let that worry your little head. Nobody’s going to denounce us in Whitehall. Some of the best companies work this racket. We’re only running a super travel agency after all.”
“You mean I’ll be running it. What happens if something goes wrong?”
Mostyn spread his hands wide. “What on earth can go wrong?”
“Hundreds of things. The whole idea’s unpatriotic. I always thought you were a government man.”
There was a spurt of aircraft noise from outside and above. As it died away the small man answered. “I’ve evolved a new philosophy, Boysie. Yes, I was a government man until they chucked me. Then Wilson’s lot got to sniffing round my private concerns. I have ceased to trust all governments. They haven’t done you much good either.”
The past shrieked into Boysie’s guts leaving an unpleasant tingle behind. Not just the immediate past of Special Security but the long past which he had managed to hide for decades. “What do you mean they haven’t done me much good?”
Mostyn smirked. A man who knew much but was not going to talk. “What do you think? They chucked you, old son. There are other factors as well, aren’t there?”
Boysie, hammered down his emotions, closed his mouth and took a deep breath through his nose.
“Come on, Boysie . It would be a caper.”
“What,” began Boysie loudly, “would happen if we were caught infringing regulations?”
“Infringing regulations? You sound like some probationary constable. Been reading too many mediocre thrillers, lad. What would happen? A small fine, I should imagine. But let the Chief and I take care of all that. After all it’s the Chief’s money and my brains. I set it up: you do the front work, with the help of some scrumptious dollies of course.”
It was a long time since Boysie had been near enough to a scrumptious dolly for him to tell if it mattered any more. Christ, he thought, I have gone stale: sour. He also needed the money. There was the other thing as well. The chance to hit back. The swift, sure kick right up the arse of bureaucracy. The pay-off for the death-rattling years while he had been a paid killer for the government, and the final screw for that buried debt never to be brought into the light.
Slowly he nodded. “All right. I’ll be your man.”
“Here’s to the managing director of Air Apparent (London) Limited.” Mostyn appeared transmogrified in Boysie’s eyes. A rodent shining with health, eyes bright, teeth flashing as though he had just observed his favourite prey asleep and very vulnerable.
*
“Here’s to Air Apparent and its London director.” This time the beverage was champagne and it was the Chief who proposed the toast. He had changed little. The same florid complexion and bombast. “By Nefertiti’s titties it’s good to feel oneself back on the bridge. Bleedin’ clever idea of Mostyn’s, eh Oakes?”
Boysie woke from a small dream. He had been eyeing the photographs on the wall by the Chief’s desk. The Chief with royal personages and officers under his command back in the past when Britannia ruled the waves and gunboat diplomacy was in vogue. Boysie had last seen those photographs at Special Security headquarters. Somehow they were out of place here in the mews flat in which the Chief lived out his retirement. So were the three telephones the old boy sported on his desk. One was a scrambler. The Chief still had contact with power.
“Yes, bleedin’ clever idea,” Boysie replied without much enthusiasm.
“I don’t know about that, Chief. It should bring in a few new pence, though.”
“Way of the bloody world,” puffed the Chief. “Everything changin’, even the old adages. Take care of the new pounds and the new pence will take care of themselves. Damn politicians. Too much arse
and no balls. Always said it would come to this. Need Navy men at the top instead of schoolgirl politicians. Never trust a bloody politician, Mostyn.”
“No, Chief.”
“Have another snort? All this claptrap about freedom. You have to control people properly. Keep ’em under. Discipline. Obedience. People got to know their place. Society’s gone queer and we’ve got to get back to basics.”
The Chief poured with a quavering hand and then they got down to what Mostyn called “the incidental routine legal matters”. Boysie signed a number of documents most of which were unread. Three large brandies with Mostyn and several snorts of champagne at the Chief’s had done their work.
Finally, with all things completed and a cheque for five hundred pounds handed to Boysie for grooming, they all grinned stupidly.
“I think,” said Mostyn, “that you’d better come on down and inspect the office.”
The office was in Knightsbridge but did not live up to Boysie’s expectations. There was a large reception, a roomy office for the secretary, and his own den, yet the furnishings were mundane, without the expected flair. He voiced a protest to Mostyn.
“Can’t have everything at once, old son. Got to provide you with three dollies to double as secretaries, receptionists and ground hostesses. Going to cost a pretty penny. Uniforms as well. Not cheap, sport, not cheap.”
“Going to look a bit out of place against this tatty back ground,” observed Boysie.
“Up to you, son. Set ’em to work. Amazing what the right girls will do if you instil enough loyalty into them. Lick of paint here and there. Boyfriends in the trade. Flash furnishings at cheap rates. You’ll see. There’ll be an office float, of course. We’ll be generous.”
Their advertisement appeared in the Standard on the following evening:
Three exceptionally well-polished girls required to do secretarial and other duties. Work will bring them into close contact with the general public. Must have bright swinging personalities and ability to deal with horrific situations. Great prospects including dress allowance and travel.
“Dress allowance sounds better than ‘uniform’,” said Mostyn.
“What about ‘travel’?” asked Boysie.
“Ah.” Mostyn tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. “They’ll be going to Gatwick and Heathrow, places like that. That’s travelling, isn’t it?”
It seemed that many young women were in need of employment. The office was flooded with calls and, by the following morning, when they got around to interviewing the applicants, the place began to resemble open night in the harem.
The ladies came in great variety. Reception blossomed with maxis, minis, pant suits, chain belts, beads, fright wigs, the weird and the wonderful. Breasts peeped bare from lattice work and thighs strained leaping from high-hitched hems. Black, white, coffee, yellow, strained grey: the whole range of skin tones were on show, together with a spectrum of scents, from Patou’s Joy to natural unwashed armpit and worse.
Boysie regarded the herd with hungry eyes.
“We are not here, old lad, to find you a soul bird but to choose three choice morsels who will work hard and make the office a shade easier to bear.” Mostyn had now adopted a manner which was totally authoritarian, his voice flowing on a stream of golden syrup sprinkled with sand.
In the process of weeding the ewes from nannies, during the first interviews, Mostyn had one trick question: “How long were you in your last job?” If the applicant answered in figures amounting to more than three weeks he would smile his dangerous smile and hiss, “Prove it.”
The dolly ladies came and the dolly ladies went.
At last they were left with the final trio, splendid specimens, each the proud possessor of almost identical statistics around 36-24-35.
Miss Eutropia Evesham-Bonnard stood five feet eleven inches in her bare feet, had skin the colour and texture of the proverbial creamed peaches, blonde hair, shoulder length and as unruly as silk in a wind tunnel.
“Eutropia,” mused Boysie. “Unusual name.”
“She was a saint.” Miss Evesham-Bonnard’s voice came with a thousand strings and the throaty cry of profound sensuality. It lit the day for both men. “A saint,” she repeated. “Saint Eutropia, virgin and martyr.”
“A paradox,” said Mostyn.
Miss Lollo Merry N’Boffs was an inch shorter than Eutropia. Her skin was a glistening shade of milk chocolate. Lollo Merry came from Ghana and her laugh held the bubbling promise of all things bright and feminine.
Miss Jenny Ho Ching Ye was tall for a Chinese girl. She came from Hong Kong and carried herself with the careless assurance of youth. Her hair was jet, her colour golden and to look into her eyes was to see through one hundred fathoms of warmth.
Mostyn explained the operations of Air Apparent and gave the girls a brief outline of their duties. He introduced Boysie and turned to a more difficult aspect.
“I’m sure you’ll all agree to my next suggestion. Here at Air Apparent we look for individuality, but we like the customer to feel that while he is travelling with us he is part of the organisation.”
You had to admit it, Mostyn’s guile was unbeatable. “You must be easily identifiable, so, during working hours I would like each of you to assume a new identity, a new name. Lollo Merry will be known as Aida; Jenny as Alma; and Eutropia as Ada.”
“As long as you pronounce it ardour,” pouted the newly-christened Ada.
Mostyn had the grace to smile.
“You will also wear the Air Apparent hostess uniform. If you go straight away to the address which I shall give to Ada, Mister Gotlieb, who has designed the uniform for us, will measure you and see that your every want is supplied. Report here for duty on Monday at ten.”
“Lashing it around with specially designed uniforms, aren’t we?” Boysie looked quizzically at Mostyn once the girls had departed. Mostyn flapped a hand for silence and went on dialling, his index finger prodding at the telephone like a small urchin on a private delousing quest. Eventually he got through and spoke. “Solly? … Good. Jimmy Mostyn here, the girls are on their way. They’re all around the six foot mark like you said, so you shouldn’t have any trouble. Just don’t forget what I said, don’t maul the merchandise … Right … Fine Solly … No, I promise you’ll have no more trouble after this … Good … Goodbye.” He looked up at Boysie, grinning. “Old mate, Solly Gotlieb, got landed with a load of hot material, red gaberdine. Been very worried about it until I showed him the way to the paths of righteousness.”
“You’re a proper bastard, aren’t you?”
“Absolute, Boysie. Gold-plated. Well I’m off to Lisbon and then sunny black Africa. Mind the store and look after the girls. You shouldn’t have any trouble with Old Portnoy’s complaint now. I’ll be in touch.” With a light snarl Mostyn was gone: a magician’s exit.
Boysie, now left with the best part of a week to set himself up as a man about Air Apparent, went out into the world of Mr Fish and Pierre Cardin, Liberty, Simpsons and every trendy male boutique in town. New clothes made him feel brighter and sharper than he had done for the months of his lazing. A fresh hair style appeared to inject liberal supplies of hormones into his flagging body.
On Monday morning, making his first official appearance at the office, Boysie admitted, even to himself, that he had begun to feel respectably horny.
The condition was advanced with speed when he set eyes on the three girls identically clad in warm scarlet micro dresses: tunics with short sleeves, roll collars and set off with wide buckle belts. Each had her name embroidered on the left breast in gold. Together they sent Boysie’s imagination boggling down the slopes of permissiveness. The girls lost their poise momentarily as they crowded into Boysie’s office chattering about how much they liked their uniforms.
“We have pants to wear with the tunics while doing hostess duties. Beautiful flared bottoms,” enthused Aida.
“And we’ve all bought matching knickers,” drawled Ada.
&
nbsp; “Scarlet Sin they are called,” commented Alma.
“Yes.” Boysie felt suddenly rather parental. He leaned forward, hands on the desk. “Well, here we all are. There isn’t really any specific work to do as yet, but …”
“Oh, isn’t there?” Mostyn stood in the doorway. “No work and all play makes Jack a very dull boy.” He advanced towards the desk nodding at the girls. “And Jill an extremely dull girl. We are now operational. The first flight goes out from Gatwick at twenty-three hundred hours on the twentieth of the month. You have ten days to fill it.” Briefcase onto the desk and snapped open revealing bundles of green ticket forms. “The advertisement goes in tonight’s Standard and the charter is with Excelsior Airways. All passengers will automatically become members of the Johannesburg Society of Architectural Admiration. Back-dated six months. Onward and upward, my dear children.”
3
He was a tall, very thin man of about fifty. The few strands of preserved hair were slicked close onto his scalp giving the effect of hard dark ridges cut into the tight pink skin.
He was not a tidy man: his suit needed cleaning and the tie, which had seen better times, was carelessly knotted. It was cold in the office and the cold always made his nose run. He presumed this had something to do with his affliction. The thin man had a cleft palate.
The gas fire also had an affliction: two broken bars. It popped uneasily and did not function with maximum efficiency. The thin man looked at it as a nervous person will stare at dangerous creeping insects at the zoo. He then turned his gaze in a melancholy manner to the desk burgeoned with papers. He often told people that the office was inadequate. Just the two small rooms above the undertaker’s shop (a window cleaned twice weekly; a black curtained backdrop and one single vase of plastic flowers). You entered straight from the street and up the steep uncarpeted stairs that were so difficult for Pesterlicker’s chair.
Pesterlicker was not in this morning so they did not have the drama with the chair. But the size of the office was always a drama.
