Lunching at Laura's

by Claire Rayner

  The show started with a girl in a frilly pinny and nothing else but satin high heeled slippers playing at being a Bored Little Housewife with her vacuum cleaner and after ten minutes of tired gyrations during which the vacuum hose worked harder than she did, went off the stage to a spatter of applause that died almost before she disappeared behind the side curtains. And then the music changed to become a sprightly version of ‘Three Little Girls from School’ from The Mikado and Malplackett leaned forwards and said quietly, ‘Now, this is why I brought you here for our meeting. All work and no play, you know, not to be thought of!’

  The three girls in skimpy old-fashioned school uniforms who came in looked sulky at first, but as they went into their routine the automatic smiles flashed on and they wriggled and gyrated and offered each other skipping ropes with obscene handles and whips and tops that were even more graphically designed and, pretending to argue, pulled each other’s clothes off. The audience clearly loved them and shouted their approval loudly, together with a great deal of advice on what to do next, but Edward Malplackett never looked at the stage. He was watching the man opposite him, not moving as he stared at him.

  At first, the man kept his head turned away from the stage, concentrating on drinking his beer, but then, slowly, his head turned as unwillingly as though someone had tied a rope to his ear and was pulling on it. His eyes seemed to darken in the light thrown from the little stage as he looked and his face went blank of all expression.

  Once or twice he tried to turn his eyes away, but the invisible rope seemed to twitch again and his eyes fastened on the smallest of the three girls almost greedily. She was a skinny little creature with no breasts at all to speak of, and the rest of the audience were shouting hoarse insults at her, wanting to know why she had dimples instead of pimples, and telling her to turn around so that they could see the back – maybe she’d be better equipped there. But Hersh stared at her with his mouth partly open and an eagerness in his eyes that was so intense it made them water a little, and Malplackett’s own mouth curved into a grin as he watched him. This was going to work out fine, he told himself. There’d be no trouble here at all.

  He knew when the other man arrived, even though he was sitting with his back to the entrance. He turned and raised one hand and Hersh was so intent on what he was watching that he didn’t even notice.

  ‘Over here!’ Malplackett called over the noise of the music, now reaching a crescendo and the other man gave the briefest of nods and came quickly to slide into the last chair at the table.

  The music stopped and a new record was put on; a sixties Tango and a girl in leopard skin with a live snake draped around her neck came on to the stage as the three now completely naked schoolgirls left it, trailing their discarded clothes behind them. Malplackett leaned forwards and said quietly, ‘Mr. Hersh!’

  The man turned his head and stared at him. The pupils of his eyes were dilated and as he looked at Malplackett and the new arrival they saw them shrink and almost felt the excitement drain out of him; his shoulders resumed their drooping posture which they had lost when he was watching the schoolgirl act, and his mouth drooped.

  ‘Mr. Hersh, here is my friend. The man I explained wants a word with you.’

  ‘How do you do,’ Hersh said automatically and after a moment the newcomer smiled at him and said quietly, ‘How do you do.’

  There was another little silence, and Hersh glanced nervously at the stage once or twice and then, very deliberately, pulled his chair round so that his back was presented to it. He looked for all the world like an affronted citizen being forced to demean himself by being somewhere to which he strongly objected. The tense alive man of a few moments ago might never have existed.

  ‘Mr. Hersh has been having a lovely time,’ Malplackett said, still keeping his eyes fixed on him. ‘The “Three Little Girls from School” number really appealed to him.’

  ‘I know,’ the newcomer said at the same time that Hersh cried loudly, ‘No it didn’t!’ and a man at the neighbouring table turned and stared.

  ‘It didn’t,’ Hersh said more quietly. ‘I was just – I was amazed. It’s disgusting, it really is. Not what I’m – I’ve never been to such a place and I never will again, I can tell you. I wouldn’t be here now if –’ He shot a glance at Malplackett. ‘Mr. – Mr. – he wrote me this letter and I didn’t like it. It’s stupid, it really is. I don’t actually belong or anything to this lot, you know! It’s just that – my hobby, you see. Pictures. I like photography. Got a little Nikon camera, you see, take a few pictures, dabble in the development and printing – that’s all it is. I’m just a hobbyist and it helps to have the chance to see other people’s work. But I’m not a member. Not an active member, you see. I just – it was the only way to get the pictures and –’ His voice trickled to a standstill as the men sat and watched him and said nothing.

  There was a long pause this time and then the other man leaned forwards. ‘Mr. Hersh, I don’t give a sod about you. I want you to understand that.’

  Hersh blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t care if your hobby is peeing up lamp posts. I don’t care if it’s stuffing tigers. I don’t care what you do. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Someone with a job to be done. That’s all. A job to be done. And you’re the man to do it, so I want to tell you exactly what you have to do so that you can get on with it. But as for what you do with your private life, I don’t give a sod.’

  ‘Then what –’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better listen, Mr. Hersh,’ Malplacket said kindly.

  ‘I’m damned if I do,’ Hersh said with a sudden little spurt of passion. ‘I’m not sitting here in this sordid place and listening to men I don’t know talking like that! I’m not looking for any jobs! I’ve got a job – who is this man?’

  ‘You’re an inspector from the Department of Environmental Health.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘You cover this area.’

  ‘So what if I do? What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘There’s a restaurant I want you to turn over very thoroughly. You’re to find all sorts of problems there. I don’t have to spell it out. I want you to make sure that the place needs a lot of money spending on it, if it’s to avoid being closed down. Do you understand?’

  ‘You must be mad,’ Hersh said and tried to push his chair back to stand up, but Malplackett leaned forwards and gently pushed him down again. ‘I can’t do that if it isn’t true. Why should I? What restaurant? Why do you want me to –’

  The other man sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re really being very stupid, Mr. Hersh,’ he said. ‘Let’s spell it out, shall we? I belong to the same – let’s call it a club – that you do. I’m not a hobbyist, I’m not a photographer, I don’t pretend to be anything but what I am, which is a very sophisticated man with very sophisticated tastes in sex. I like what I like – which is all sorts. You’ll find my name on that list that yours is on – as well as on a great many others which are much more interesting – but the difference between us is I don’t mind. I have nothing to lose, you see. I don’t work for people who’d chuck me out on my arse, even take me to court if they found out. Also, I’m a lot cleverer than you are. I make sure no one, but no one, ever knows what use I make of the club’s facilities or of anything else. Not like you. You aren’t at all clever, are you? There was that evening last month down at Cookham, do you remember? A lovely waterside picnic with such lovely children – oh, good, I thought you’d remember. I’ve got photographs of you enjoying yourself there in case you’d forgotten. And then there was that party over at Wimbledon – I’ve got those pictures too somewhere –’

  He reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat and brought out an envelope, and a small flashlight and he leaned over and handed them to the other man who, without taking his eyes from his face, reached for them and took them. ‘No need to worry – I’ve got plen
ty of copies. If those get damaged it’s not important. I can get you another set. As many as you like.’

  The Tango number was over and the stage had been covered again, and the waitresses were bustling about, breasts swinging, to serve more drinks. Malplackett gestured and the girl Jenny brought three more beers as Hersh slowly opened the envelope, and, gingerly, switched on the little flashlight.

  ‘Watch out,’ Malplackett said suddenly and reached out and took Hersh’s lapel and held on to it. He’d gone a sick white and his eyes had seemed to roll up for a moment as he had looked down on the glossy photographs the envelope contained.

  ‘Don’t bother with them any more, now,’ the other man said kindly. ‘They’ll only get you worked up one way or another.’ He laughed then, an odd little sound. ‘Look at them, as they say, in the privacy of your own home. Let’s talk about the work that has to be done. That you have to do.’

  Hersh looked up at him, his eyes wide and staring. ‘If I do it, whatever it is – what happens then?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s the whole point. Nothing at all. If you don’t do it, of course – ah, then that’s different. A set of those photographs might find their way to the department offices, mightn’t they?’

  Hersh nodded miserably and then, amazingly, tried to grin. ‘I never thought anything like this could happen to me,’ he said and looked down at the envelope again. ‘I’m so ordinary –’

  ‘You have a far from ordinary job. You inspect restaurant kitchens and exert control over the way they’re run. That’s not ordinary.’

  ‘Which restaurant?’ Hersh said and picked up the envelope with fingers that were still shaking but which seemed to be stronger now.

  ‘Laura’s. Hallash’s, you know? In Little Vinegar Yard.’

  Hersh stared and then, incredibly, burst into laughter. ‘Laura’s? Angie’s kitchen? You must be potty! That place – it’s one of the ones I use as an example to others! It’s the cleanest –’

  ‘No doubt,’ the other man said sharply. ‘But the building’s old. I’m not talking about such tuppenny ha’penny things as inadequate washing up or snotty-nosed vegetable cooks with the runs. I’m talking about real problems. Money problems. Dilapidations. Cracked walls. Cockroaches and worse getting in. Drains and rats and so forth. That is what you’re going to find there. The sort of work that’s going to take a lot of cash to put right. A lot of cash. A lot of work, the sort of things that’ll mean she had to shut down for a few weeks to get it done. You know exactly the sort of things I mean. It can’t be that unusual.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Hersh said and then shook his head. ‘Old Angie! Known him for ever, I have. He’s a good friend. He’ll never believe it –’

  ‘He’ll have to believe it,’ the other man said shortly. ‘Strip the tiles from the walls, check the state of the floors, I don’t have to tell you – but do it. And soon –’

  ‘I’m not due there for another month,’ Hersh said. ‘I’ve got a routine, you know –’

  ‘Then change it,’ the other said curtly and got to his feet. ‘I’ve work to be done and I’m an efficient man, so I want it done as soon as possible. And that means right away, Mr. Hersh. No messing about. I give you a week. After that, the double of that envelope and its contents lands on Mr. Beeton’s desk. Oh, yes, Mr. Hersh. I know his name, your head of department. I told you I’m an efficient type. And now I must be going.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I’ve a date with a rather nice lady.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Hersh said again and peered up at him. The lights had changed again, dipping lower, ready for another show. ‘I’ve a right to know that much. I can always check the list of club members for myself, after all.’

  ‘As if you could work it out from that!’ The man laughed and leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘My dear chap, you’d never do it! But I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I just do as I do, and as long as I stay within the law I’m all right. And I’m well within the law, I see to that. And unlike you, Mr. Hersh, I don’t care who knows who I am. My name is Philip Cord. Good evening!’ And he turned and went, disappearing into the crowd by the doorway as the curtains parted and once again the Bored Little Housewife appeared.

  24

  Three days of hard work and he’d done it. There was just one last shot to get in the can and he ought to have that in the next couple of hours even though it was a tricky one. He had to line it up so that the graphics boys could pull in the image of the Thrust bottle and bring it sweeping up between the market stalls and the people, and they had to be gathered round it to sing the final jingle – which Joel regarded as quite the worst he’d ever heard, which was saying quite something – in a shot that pulled back to take in the whole of the street, and which could be used as the ten second special; not easy. But so far, he’d enjoyed himself and, he felt, had made a thoroughly craftsmanlike job of some very unpromising material. In spite of all his coaxing and soothing the client had insisted on a massive packshot – his wife, it turned out, had designed the dreadful bottle – and all Joel could do now was follow his brief. But all the same, he wasn’t ashamed of the work he’d done.

  Now, as the tension eased up, and his assistant was busy lining up the preliminary shots he could lean back against a strut of one of the stalls and watch the people around him; and the one he watched most was Paul Balog.

  He’d been agreeably surprised by him; he’d cast him out of embarrassment and his own obsession with Laura more than anything else, and had had small hope of getting much more out of him than the effect of a walking tailor’s dummy, but Paul had actually managed to make an excellent little performance out of what he had to do. Just walking into shot, stopping to buy a carnation for his buttonhole, looking at camera and strolling off; but he’d done it with style, casting at the camera a look so genuinely droll that the cameraman had chuckled appreciatively from behind his lens, and that had made Joel sit up and take notice. To make a cameraman laugh was a very rare achievement indeed.

  But it was clear Paul wasn’t happy, even though he was working well, and late in the morning when they had been hard at work for several hours Joel had discovered why. He had seen Philip Cord again.

  The morning had been tedious in the extreme, with the real market men making it as difficult as possible for him and the actors who were playing their parts, egged on by Sam Price who jeered and, accidentally on purpose, came strolling into shot just at the wrong moment or shouted something outrageous as soon as the sound was rolling, but by lunchtime the novelty had worn off. They paid no more attention to what he was doing and got on with dealing with their customers and grumbling to each other about the way these bleedin’ telly people got in the way and never paid no one a penny for the trouble they was causing. And Joel registered their irritation and ordered a small cask of beer for them to be brought out at lunch time.

  It was during the lunchbreak that Philip appeared. There wasn’t enough going on with this shoot to justify hiring a location caterer, and there were plenty of cafés and sandwich bars around, so most of the crew and cast had scattered. Joel was sitting on the kerb between Sam Price’s stall and his neighbour’s, eating a salt beef sandwich and enjoying the cool of the shadows there and the comfortable awareness of a job going well. He wasn’t precisely hiding, but at the same time he wasn’t easily seen and when he saw Paul Balog across the street, standing beside a fruit stall and looking at the raspberries, he considered calling out to him to come and join him. To talk about Laura perhaps – and set the idea firmly aside. He was here to work, not to indulge his own interests, even during the lunch break.

  He didn’t actually see the other man arrive, but suddenly there he was, standing next to Paul, and talking to him, looking very cool and relaxed. He was wearing a grey linen safari suit and looking pleased with himself, as though he was aware of being more fashionable than anyone else within sight, and again Joel felt that great wash of loathing. It wasn’t a feeling he disliked any more, though; to feel like that abou
t so unpleasant a man was positively exhilarating, he decided, and considered getting to his feet and calling the crew and cast together to start work again, thus sending the bastard packing. But it was still ten minutes to the end of the official break and less than half of his people were around; he’d only make a fool of himself if he tried that –

  That Paul was distressed was soon obvious. His back, which was all that Joel could see of him at first, was rigid, and his head seemed to shake a little, and Joel stared and frowned. Dammit, what was it with these men? It was none of his business but he was fascinated all the same.

  And then to his intense embarrassment they turned away from the stall on the other side of the street and came towards him, and he shrank back further into the shadows of the tarpaulin on Sam Price’s stall feeling passionately that it was extremely important that he shouldn’t be seen. He hadn’t been spying on them, not deliberately, yet he felt as though he had and the thought of being flushed out and stared at by that cool and hateful man was more than he could bear.

  But they didn’t see him. They stopped on the other side of Sam’s stall, which was being looked after by his neighbour because Sam had nipped off for a sandwich, and Joel heard Cord’s voice clearly above the hubbub of the market.

  ‘These look better,’ he was saying. ‘Much less tired. I’ll have three punnets of those. When the man’s here to take some money that is. Then you can give them to Anya Zsuzske with my love –’

  ‘I will not,’ Balog said in a low voice, but it was a tense one, and full of – what? Joel couldn’t be sure though it was clear that the man was in the grip of a good deal of very strong feeling. ‘She doesn’t need your damned –’