The Gilded Ones

by Brooke Fieldhouse

  In the hot beery fug of the saloon there was a crazy mix of people; black leather, mangled denim, and parti-coloured hair, while in the lounge I glimpsed a conglobation of club blazers, and the glimmer of white hair.

  ‘I’m having a pint of Fullers ESP!’ She spoke loudly. One or two heads turned.

  ‘Of course…’ I acknowledged.

  ‘No, I’ll get them, you find a quiet corner – near the stairs is best.’

  ‘… I’ll have the same,’ I answered feeling a bit useless.

  ‘Grab hold of this!’ She was carrying two shoulder bags, one stuffed inside the other. She removed the inner bag, draped it over her right shoulder and handed me the larger bag with her left. I noticed she was wearing an impressive ring – a huge chunk of amber in a silver setting with a tiny fly which had been trapped within the resin, perhaps millions of years ago.

  I took the bag and wove my way through the talking heads. She was right, the crowd was thinner nearer the stairs and I found two seats on a banquette – no stools nearby so no fear of anyone wanting to come and join us. I was familiar with Fullers Extra Special Pride but as I had spent at least some part of every day over the last month wondering as to whether I possessed powers of clairvoyance the ESP bit was making me feel apprehensive.

  As I placed Lauren’s bag on the banquette next to me I caught sight of white headed notepaper protruding an inch; I couldn’t resist giving it a tug; The Rt Hon Lauren… there was a printed coat of arms; shield, two rampant lions, basinet, and at least two curly mottos – all I had time to look at before she hove into view with two glasses each containing the shining gold translucent liquid, not a bubble in sight. I smiled, not at the beer but at what I’d seen in the bag.

  ‘You like the décor, I see?’

  ‘Oh… yes.’

  The walls had been painted in faux Aberdeen granite, and the staircase looked as if every woodcarver in Edwardian London had worked on it. Mounted – in rows one above the other – against the ‘granite’ were a hundred stags’ heads; the largest in the top row and each with full antlers. Someone had taped a handwritten notice to the bulging balustrade. It read – This evening’s meeting of the Loyal Order of Moose has been cancelled. I was surprised at their loyalty in booking such a place, given the overwhelming evidence of the cervine massacre which had taken place.

  Lauren sat down.

  ‘Patrick isn’t all shit.’

  ‘Sure…’

  ‘He’s a good designer, hmm…’ I knew that, but why the sudden directness?

  ‘He likes to think of himself as an aesthetic voluptuary of the highest order, a Rococo apogee, yes.’

  I wasn’t at all ready for this florid character study of Patrick. For one thing I was struggling to adjust to the odd surroundings.

  ‘… But when it comes to ancestral pedigree you may as well know right now that he’s all fake hmm.’ It didn’t surprise me – the thespian accent, the patronising manner.

  ‘The Welsh/Irish aristocracy bit is total crap as well. His father was Felt, hmm…’

  My face must have looked as if she’d just put her hand on my knee. ‘…Phil Felt from Feltham – Veldt probably… Dutch refugees in the sixteenth century.’ I took this with a pinch of salt; she made him sound like a character out of an Ian Dury song. I decided not to ask how she knew this.

  ‘Has he any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘Della.’

  ‘Della,’ I repeated stupidly.

  ‘… Lives in Canada… older, couldn’t wait to clear off from the family. They loathe one another’s guts but she comes… every three years, yes… Stays in her room all the time under the pretence of being ill – being brought Rennies, nail varnish, and the Daily Mail by Al, Patrick’s son. As soon as she gets an invite up she gets, out she goes.’

  ‘Della Felt?’

  ‘Della Duckworth, Duckworth’s deceased. It’s hilarious that he chose Lloyd Lewis, it’s sooo very like Lloyd Loom – you know – the chairs, yes… He’s got them on his roof terrace… He doesn’t make a penny out of design, nobody can, that’s one of the long list of myths of the world… Makes it on property – and a few other things of course, hmm – owns several places in London, villa in the Ca-naries…’ she was counting on her fingers, ‘… and France of course.’

  ‘Oh yes, Martinique?’

  ‘No, it’s his. Martinique didn’t have a thing – zero.’ She made an ‘O’ sign with her finger and thumb. ‘… Rags to riches… Father was a coal miner in northern France; mine closed, family moved to Toulouse, dad eked out an existence repairing furniture, yes. Martinique… bright, married a uni lecturer – marriage went bust when she met Patrick. Adultery, so he got custody of Laurie now seventeen – neither she nor the husband Catholic. Laurie lives with his dad in Marseilles, obviously loves his mum – in fact if you want to know the two of them are as thick as thieves, he’s always at the house, hmm!’

  ‘… Really? So… now she’s at the UN?’

  ‘Ohh ye-yes… She bright cookie – far brighter than ’Is Nibs. The annual performance prize, she won it… Up on the podium giving her little speech, Patrick was there of course, and what does he do? He has to chip in with, “I refer to that certain phrase, well known even before it appeared in the Port Arthur News in 1946… ‘…they say that behind every great man there is a woman…’ what the journalist forgot to add is that behind every great woman there is a great man.” You can imagine everybody laughed but that’s what he actually believes.’ I didn’t ask her how she knew all that either.

  ‘How about you?’ At last she asked.

  ‘Well, I’ve been working…’

  ‘It’s not all plain sailing with Martinique either,’ she cut in. ‘Not her, she hasn’t the time; it’s him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Put it this way, “lady’s man” isn’t a term that Patrick would approve of, hmm. He’d prefer you to think of him as the possessor of a deep and rich understanding of women; rather like his deep and rich understanding of wine – you’ve got all that bit to come… So, you’ve been working where? Patrick didn’t say.’

  ‘I’ve been working…’

  ‘Have you noticed how he can waggle each of his ears separately? He’s particularly proud of his eyebrows, hmm. Leonine, he thinks they are, except if you look closely at a lion’s eyebrows they’re practically non-existent. So are those of a bull… So, all this stuff about him being “like a bull” is complete bull. Even a Scottish Highland bull doesn’t have any eyebrows that you can tell – from the mass of growth on its head that is. Most men of his age have started to trim their eyebrows. His principle idea is to try and compensate for his lack of height. He’s always drawing breath, exhales with reluctance, have you spotted it yet? … Knows that it’ll affect his stature, you know, makes him look rather like a cock pheasant after it’s been rained on.’

  It was as if Lauren was a hazardous gas that had to be kept under pressure all day in a steel cylinder, until now, when the valve was opened. I ran my eye up and down one of the columns of dead stags. The mention of the word pheasant made me conscious that I couldn’t smell that smell any more – just the odour of ale with the slightest notes of vomit and disinfectant.

  ‘… So, when Patrick says “I’m feeling rather bullish”, his mind is focussing principally on the animal’s pizzle. The kind of pizzle he would like others to think that he possesses…’ I glanced around me to see if anybody was listening.

  ‘Sooner or later he’ll be telling you just how many words there are in the French language to describe food and wine, but the chattering heads will tell you that the Lloyd Lewis vocabulary for words to describe the male sexual organ are as numerous as the number of women he’s shagged.’

  I began to long for a third party. It seemed that there was nothing else for it but to let her flow of garrulous chatter pour over me.

  ‘
… Patrick would never use a term like cock or willie. He believes that through the use of classical terms – and showing respect for his own body – he’ll continue to be endowed with a kind of mystical power… Fancy another, hmm?’

  The flick-ups of her bobbed hair fell back against her pale neck as she tilted her head back to drain her glass. In spite of the fact I’d barely said a word I was only halfway through mine.

  ‘Yeh… okay…’ I rose, held out my hand to take her glass.

  ‘No, I’ll get them.’ She was on her feet. ‘You’re the new boy, remember, yes?’ I felt even more useless. As she disappeared from view I became aware of the din that was coming from the saloon and lounge. The space around the foot of the stairs had thinned and for a brief moment I had an uninterrupted sight line, through the open front door. The sun had at last made an appearance and I could see it enlivening the back of a red-headed male wearing a sleeveless blue denim trucker. He was standing facing the red-brick wall on the other side of the road, both hands hidden somewhere in front of him. There was an ever-so-faint breeze passing through the house and I could smell a strange but not unpleasant scent of earth and moss which I’d noticed in the butler’s pantry that day a month ago. I thought of the canal which ran deep under the hill, the airliner passing in front of the sun, the sparkling tumbler of chilled water, and I was sure that I’d made the right decision. Whether I possessed powers of extra sensory perception or not I would have to wait and see what the Higher Masters held in store for me, if anything.

  Lauren seemed to be back in no more than a split second carrying two more glasses of the clear gold-hued liquid. She had the knack of getting served at crowded bars. I didn’t.

  ‘Thanks.’ I tried hard not to say ‘cheers’.

  ‘Phallus yes…’ she was still on about Lloyd Lewis’s sexual prowess, ‘… lingam yes, vingle yes, he uses the word member, but Americanisms like womb broom, beaver-basher, Bob Dole, or Little Elvis he’d never utter, hmm. A Spanish-ism such as chorizo might pass muster, but the term Old Man – redolent of an English “musn’t grumble” kind of Daily Mirror-reading Joe Public of the 1960s is to Patrick the language of the gutter.’ She sat back, rested her bob against the moquette upholstery and looked at me, a trace of a smile on her just-slightly-painted lips.

  ‘What about Patrick’s marriage? What about Freia?’ Her expression switched dramatically, as if I’d just called her a cow.

  ‘How did you know her name?’ She pronounced the words as if she was snapping my scale rule over her knee.

  ‘I asked him,’ I said with a peffy kind of cough. ‘It was clumsy I know.’

  ‘…All before my time.’ She said it while exhaling, as if she was calming.

  Actually, I knew it wasn’t. I’d been asking round, again. The consensus of opinion was that Freia had died about two years ago. I’d also gleaned that Lloyd Lewis had had a succession of administrators, always female, always of a certain social type. None of them had lasted long, and I could see why not, but it appeared that competition for the position was high – fierce in the sense that each of them seemed to have been actively ousted by their successor.

  Freia Lloyd Lewis was no secret, she was a name herself in the design world – not as big as His Nibs so, of course I knew what her name was. Lauren was being ultra touchy.

  ‘Actually, I have to go.’ She drained her glass. I’d barely started my second but I’d no intention of staying on my own. I had an early start tomorrow. She read my thoughts.

  ‘I’ve a taxi coming in five minutes, where do you live?’

  ‘W4.’

  ‘I’m in Belgravia, I could drop you at Victoria for the District Line, yes.’ I had a clear view through the bar and again I caught sight of the blue-denim-clad red-headed man standing with his back to us. Out of the corner of my eye Lauren was a flurry of grey-cotton-clad arms, press-studding leather purse into floppy leather bag concealed within basket-weave holdall. A pug dog of a man wearing black shirt and black silk tie stood in the doorway and raised his arm.

  Conversation in the black cab was limited to local geography. As we left the Westway at Shepherd’s Bush she smiled again.

  ‘Sorry to give you the bum’s rush.’ She meant about the beer, I’d obviously overstepped the mark asking about Freia, and she still hadn’t forgiven me.

  ‘Sorry not to buy you one. I’ll get the next,’ I said lamely. I opened my wallet to pay my share of the cab.

  ‘Absolutely not! It’s not every day we have a new office manager starting, but I don’t want you to think I get taxis everywhere. Patrick pays me peanuts of course, this is trust money for special occasions, yes.’

  As the taxi indicated for turning into Terminal Place I leaned forward.

  ‘Actually, can you drop me on Buckingham Palace Road… yeh, here’s fine.’ I wanted to go into Victoria through the Eccleston Bridge entrance so I could walk back through the new shopping arcade. I also wanted to see which way the taxi went after that.

  The taxi paused on the main road and I heard the twitch of the door locks being released. I opened, stepped onto the pavement, and closed behind me. I watched the driver deftly cross into the right lane. The column of traffic was held by a red light. As I walked parallel with the cab I was about to wave but Lauren was looking at something she was holding up in her hand. The light changed and the cab turned right into Eccleston Road in the direction of Eaton Square.

  Eight

  You look familiar.

  The head in front of me is resting, tilted back on the train seat headrest… Ears plugged with pearl-like speakers, eyes closed. The hands appear to be at prayer, and between the palms is a silver Walkman.

  I’m still trying to place you as the train moves forward, slowly, silently and giving me that curious impression that my carriage is motionless and it’s the one on the neighbouring track which is going backwards… Frustrating feeling – illusion of movement, and sensation of recognition without context. Like that weird experience of seeing the spitting image of someone you know and being forced to suppress the urge to go up to them and ask, ‘… do you know Zav Baines by any chance?’ Knowing very well that when they say ‘No’ that you’ll have to fight the compulsion to say ‘… it’s just that you look like him so I thought you might know him.’ As if… Shit what a blunder! Except this guy doesn’t look like anybody I know, I’ve just seen him before, that’s all.

  Now I’ve got you. Hair fashionably short at back and sides, billowing at the front, like an amber plume of smoke. You’ve still got the cassette with the Fantin-Latour painting on the cover and you’re loading another – the cover a sepia-tinted photo of a youth naked to the waist, shot from above so you can’t make out the face… I think it’s male although it could be a young woman with very small breasts… except I recognize it now, it’s Joe Dallesandro from Andy Warhol’s Flesh… funny what we remember and what we can’t.

  You open your eyes, and there, you’ve got me straight away. You speak.

  ‘Going north this time?’ You smile, state the obvious. I nod.

  ‘First project… new job.’ No harm in saying it.

  If I didn’t want to talk, this would be the point at which to stop but there’s something about you… the two strangers sitting next to us are talking so… ‘How about you?’

  ‘… Meeting up with friends – get a flat sorted ready for college start in October…’

  ‘College – doing…?’ We appear to be heading for the same city.

  ‘… Spatial Design.’

  How weird, ‘That’s what I did. Do a Foundation course?’

  ‘… Brighton.’

  ‘Of course…’ That’s what you were doing on the south coast train.

  ‘Enjoy it?’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Spot-welding, vinyl moulds, spaceframes, grids, permutations, human chess. Lewis Carroll?’

 
You nod.

  ‘Barcelona trip? Get mugged?’

  ‘And the rest…’

  Hilarious, we both laugh.

  ‘Brighton, that’s where I wanted to go… Had to do mine at the college closest to home – to get the grant, you know.’

  ‘My parents paid the fees,’ you say, ‘I was fortunate – had free digs with my Auntie. I’m doing the degree course closer to home because my dad’s not well. I won’t be living at home but I can help out.’ I smile.

  Funny, you sound like me; no siblings, ill father… Could be what I was fifteen years ago – seeking the bubble reputation. Could be everything I’m not, or what I wanted to be.

  I leave you to your music.

  Nine

  The briefing at GI Group had gone well. I’d been surprised to find that they had a woman CEO… A new broom. I’d rather cheekily asked her opinion on yesterday’s first ever space walk by a woman. She replied with a guarded, ‘Women are empowering themselves and beginning to fully engage in society…’

  Nevertheless, I’d managed to ingratiate myself and we’d decided that out would go the mahogany panelling, the mustard-coloured deep-buttoned chesterfields and in would come an industrial look. We were pondering a glass product called Reglit to achieve maximum daylight throughout the office; all that remained was to check its fireproof credentials. Strange how a company wanting to lose its ‘metal-bashing’ image was so keen to adopt an industrial one! Patrick would be pleased at my progress.

  I left the thirty-seven-storey glass tower block and made my way in the direction of the railway station; up King Street, along Spring Gardens; up Market Street and into the square where I paused for a moment to listen to the racket of starlings in the trees. I stood staring at the be-robed and overblown grubby marble effigy of Queen Victoria spreading her form under a comparatively pint-sized arch. Out of sheer curiosity I ventured to the other side of the monument – which had been ceremoniously daubed with red letters MUFC – where there was a further female marble figure also be-robed but bare-breasted and in the act of giving succour to no less than three infants.