Jello Salad

by Nicholas Blincoe

  Frankie walked ahead of him, setting the pace. Cardiff could not understand why Frankie would want to get into the life again. He had made his fortune. He’d got it fucking taped. Cardiff didn’t even want to begin to make sense of it, he had enough trouble struggling through the airport terminal with four heavy bags. If Frankie wanted to sink back into gangster stuff, Cardiff would shut up and tag along. If anyone asked him though, anyone he trusted, what he’d say was: You got to have a fucking screw loose to put your faith in Callum Ball, letting that dickhead put together a monster coke deal.

  Ten yards from the departure gates, Cardiff caught sight of Viv and Gloria again. He might have tried hurrying a little, if he could. You never knew, maybe Frankie would be interested. It’d be worth impressing him, showing him that old Cardiff could still pick up the tarts. That way, Frankie might put him on pimping duty. It was better than getting involved in any heavy stuff.

  He was surprised to find the girls sat in front on the plane. It turned out they had the right kind of coin after all. All the way to London, he kept them talking. He even helped out with their luggage. Frankie sat there scowling, keeping the stewardesses running but never even looking at either of the two birds.

  *

  At Heathrow, Gloria left Viv watching the luggage carousel and went walking down the mall. She was looking for presents but all she found were socks and chocolates. Waiting at a check-out with a tie for her Manny and a pair of tights for Jools, she got caught behind the same obnoxious cockney that had been sat behind her on the flight. His back was turned but she recognised the camel hair coat. When he started waving his hands about, she saw his gold rings. He was passing his time at the check-out desk by playing with his mobile phone.

  She heard him say, “Where’s my boy? …You were the ones supposed to be doing business with him. It’s what I’m saying, just get off your arses and find my fucking boy.”

  Gloria didn’t know how long Vivien would be collecting the luggage. Neither of them had flown first class before. If they had, they would have known about the extra hand luggage allowance and kept their bags by their side. Hogie had insisted on the first class five—star treatment, telling her on the phone she didn’t have to worry about anything, he’d put it all on AmEx.

  He had sounded weird but it was weird hearing from him at all—it was heart-stopping. He had rung at nine in the morning to say he wanted his party to be a real family affair. Mannie, Jools, Cheb. Everyone’s mother. Gloria wouldn’t have accepted the too-strange invitation but the next call came from Viv Beddoes. Gloria decided it would look even stranger if Hogie’s and Cheb’s mums went to the party and she refused. It wasn’t until she reached the airport she began wondering where Hogie’s mum might be—she definitely wasn’t on the flight list.

  Frank was still hammering away into his cell phone. Every call he made was about his son. Saying, “Why haven’t you seen him? You were his contact, you were supposed to look after him… Well find out, then.”

  There were two cockneys on the flight. This one, Frank, who had terrorised the stewardesses all through the flight and Cardiff, who had terrorised them. He seemed to have disappeared but Gloria supposed he was at the baggage carousel. She had heard Frank tell him to get their cases.

  Frank reached the head of the queue and slapped a fist of pesetas onto the counter with a handful of ties. The boy at the till zapped them one by one with his code-gun. Frank carried on talking. Gloria noticed a sign that read: Payment will be accepted in all EC currencies, change will be given in sterling.

  Cardiff and Viv Beddoes came wobbling across the concourse together. Everyone’s bags were loaded onto the same trolley, but Cardiff had chosen one with a lame wheel. Gloria could hear his voice when they were still only a speck at the end of a long walkway. As they drew closer, he shouted, “Both my Club Eighteen-to—Thirties, together again. How about it, gals?”

  Frank had already stomped off towards the car hire stall by the time they rolled up with the trolley. Gloria walked over, nodding towards Frankie’s back “You’ll have to put your shoulder into it, if you’re going to catch your boss.”

  She pulled her small case off the trolley. Viv did the same. They left Cardiff to struggle alone, giving him a wave but nothing like a decent goodbye.

  Cardiff creaked across the rubberised tiles, trying to keep up. Frankie was well ahead, striding out in his English threads, taken out of the wardrobe and dusted down for this trip back home. It was easy to forget, if you saw someone in swimming trunks and a T—shirt everyday, how they used to be. Wearing a Pringle sweater in the evening, sporting golf Casuals and Italian moccasins, it had been easy to forget how things used to be. There was something very wrong with Frankie’s clothes, today. They were so far out of date, it looked as though he’d finished a ten-stretch and been released into the clothes he’d worn on the day he entered prison. The clothes definitely made him scarier. Cardiff would have preferred to just turn his trolley around, even if he had to push it all the way to Spain.

  When an old dear stepped out in front of him, he tried to haul his trolley to a stop but it only sent him spinning to the side. By the time he’d straightened up, both Frankie and the girls were fifty yards ahead.

  The women had run up against a queue, stretching so far across the terminal that Cardiff couldn’t see where it began or ended. They were caught, struggling to create an opening, standing right by Frankie’s elbow. Normally, Frankie would have pushed through without even slowing but he had stopped to wait for Cardiff to catch up.

  As he wobbled over, Cardiff said, “Alright ladies, having a spot of bother?”

  Frankie looked at Viv and Gloria as if he’d never seen them before. He read the situation and helped out, even giving the pair a wink. All he had to do was put a hand on this old geezer’s shoulder and say, “You ain’t going nowhere.” He got his message across. Fifteen yards worth of people, all of them waiting in a turgid line, just dribbled away.

  Frankie ushered the girls through, one of his hands falling on Gloria’s shoulder. Viv, always the chattier one, said, “Ta, love.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Cardiff saw what was happening, Viv was one of those date-finder types, ready to line her miserable friend up with just about anyone. Frankie was already smiling genially.

  Viv Beddoes touched Cardiff on his arm, “Maybe see you at the restaurant, then?” Then she looked over to Frankie to say, “Both of you.”

  Frankie nodded again, giving them a smile. “You were on the plane, weren’t you. I’m sorry if I was a bit ignorant. I was worried about my boy.”

  Viv gave him a comforting look, “Family problems?”

  “Something like that. He’s just started working for himself, so I guess I’m being over-protective.”

  Cardiff couldn’t believe it, Frankie was nothing but charm. The story about Callum was going down big with both girls. After the way he acted on the plane, you would have thought they’d have been put right off. Perhaps it was because they were northern birds, they were used to obnoxious men dressed fifteen years out of date. They’d probably been impressed by the tan, as well.

  Frankie was jangling his rent-a-car keys in his hand, now. He turned to the women and said, “We’re going up West. What about we give you ladies a lift?”

  SEVENTEEN

  Susan took a look at the fringed lamps, the splashy nylon bedding and the full range of air fresheners and mail order perfumes on the dressing-table. George had opened the window in an attempt to dilute the sugary tart stench with something breathable. Before the room completely filled with flies and the noise of fucking above and below, he’d excused himself and gone looking for the bathroom. If he found it, she was willing to bet the air was sweeter there than in this whore’s boudoir, courtesy of Maltese Rosa. When George helped her move in, he’d played it up, laughing that it was just her style. But he’d made her accept it anyway.

  This was how Rosa had invested her life savings: pouring it into a shaki
ng fuck shack on Manchester Street. George said she had another three houses spread across Marylebone. It was a good business, the rent was paid by the day, maid and phone included in the price. Susan told him she didn’t need a maid. What she would have liked was her own bathroom, rather than a communal lavatory, shared with another six rooms. That was the only unusual thing about the place, although it was typical of Rosa The way she’d see it, she’d earned her money the hard way and no one starting the same life could expect it any easier.

  The funny thing was, as she got out of the taxi Susan had thought it seemed okay. It was so close to Marks & Spencer’s head office, she assumed it had to be respectable. Then she walked inside.

  George returned and took a seat on the bed: there was nowhere else and the bed all but filled the room. He was already dressed for the evening. Wearing a tuxedo, he looked imposing; queer yet gravelly, definitely not a queen. He could have stepped out of The Godfather, if it had been re—made by Pedro Almodovar. He had his primer glass of cognac in his hand, the bottle close by on the edge of the dressing table. When he opened it, he’d told her it was a moving in present but he was on his third glass and she was still on her first.

  She said, “I can’t stay here, George. Frankie doesn’t know anything about the other place so why don’t I move back.”

  “You can’t be certain Callum didn’t tell him.”

  George patted the pockets of his tuxedo until he found his pack of cigarettes. He had been glad to hear Frankie had taken the bait and flown to Manchester. But he wouldn’t stay there long once he discovered his boy was missing. He wondered how he‘d broach that one with Susan. As he lit a Gauloise, he said, “There’s another thing. Apparently Callum’s gone walkabout.”

  “How? I mean how do you know?”

  Because he‘d seen the body. He didn’t say that, though. “It’s just a whisper.”

  Susan didn’t seem worried. She just took a cigarette and said, “He’ll have gone to a rave or something, somewhere. Now he’s probably comatose on some girl’s floor, trying to remember where he left his cocaine.”

  She had the suitcase with her, the five remaining bags inside and the best of her clothes spread out over the bed She hadn’t yet chosen what she’d wear. As she held up a dress in front of her, one-handed with her cigarette in the other, she asked George what he thought.

  “Maybe the cream dress.”

  She held it up, turning to look at herself in the tiny mirror. “I can’t tell. I can hardly see myself. How should I dress, you tell me.”

  He’d already explained they were meeting a few media types at a club first. Just a few magazine editors and food critics that George hoped would help publicise the restaurant.

  Susan said, “How do you want me to look, when I’m meeting the press.”

  George said, “I don’t know. But something quiet. Let’s keep the focus on the restaurant, not the gangster’s wife.”

  Susan held up a red dress. “I don’t know. Maybe if I was famous, it would scare him. I could dazzle him with my celebrity.”

  George said, “Don’t even joke about it. I don’t want Frankie turning up at the restaurant.”

  Susan wasn’t listening, she was stretching the red dress across her breasts and stomach. She thought of Frankie, standing dazzled in a pair of headlights or blinded by the Spanish sun. It reminded her of something. She said, “We once took a trip to the desert to visit the set of an old spaghetti western. Frankie was so excited, he bought a video camera before the trip. When we arrived this old gypsy-peasant walked up and told us filming was forbidden unless we paid him. Frankie told him to wait a moment then went back to the car for his shotgun. The old man ran away and we didn’t see him again. Frankie stood out in the street, holding his gun and trying to do a Clint while I filmed him. He was saying: ‘Have you got a horse for me?’”

  “I don’t think that was Clint Eastwood. I think it was Charles Bronson.”

  “If it was, he never said it like Frankie. The only impression he can do is Michael Caine and he hams that. He was standing in the middle of the desert with these two dimensional film sets all around him, waving his gun and shouting out any bits of cowboy films he could think of in this atrocious Harry Palmer accent. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a posing pouch and nothing else. I started laughing He was already laughing, thinking what a great guy he was, but there must have been something about the way I was laughing because he stopped and began saying What’s So Fucking Funny.

  “I had my back partly to the sun, because I was working the video camera. When he started shouting at me, I moved. I was nervous. But as I moved, he turned so that he was always facing me. And he was still waving the shotgun. When the sun was directly behind me, he was blinded. His face changed. It wasn’t just screwed up because of the sun but really screwed up, you know, like his mind had gone white. I was still videoing him. I’ve kept the tape and it’s a shocker. Something went wrong with him and he spent two, three minutes opening and closing his mouth as though he was choking. Then he turned around and walked quietly back to the car. I was scared to follow him at first but the way he walked, he looked like a beaten dog so I went after him. He didn’t really come right for hours, until the evening when he was back in his local.”

  George said, “Frankie was always more of a night-time person. But weren’t we all?”

  Susan kept turning the image over and over. Later, in the taxi, she said: “Maybe publicity isn’t such a good idea.”

  George could have wept with relief. “We’ve got to keep your connection quiet. Let the press focus on the decor and the chef.”

  He shouldn’t have worried so much. He always knew he could do business with Susan. She had hard edges but a soft interior. She nailed him on the accounts but let him know that she trusted him. She would back him, however he chose to run things.

  The cab pulled off Oxford Street, turning at Dean Street to plunge into Soho. George had membership of six Soho clubs, which covered just about every eventuality. He might have taken Susan to any of them—a strip joint for old times sake, the Colony Rooms for gin and colour, the casino for a flutter or to one of the heavier bars for a fag hag trip. Tonight they were going to the Sohovian, La La Land for media tarts. He stepped out of the taxi ahead of her and gave the driver his account number while he pointed Susan towards the entrance.

  The main bar was done in chrome and leather, scattered with geometric patterns. The windows were covered with a bamboo blind. It would have looked sophisticated, if this was the Costa and it was still 1985. Susan wasn’t impressed but followed behind George. He was nodding over to a girl in a corner. Out the side of his mouth he said she was called Annabel and worked on the Evening Standard’s gossip column. He thought a girl in the same crowd was something in television and another worked for a broadsheet. He forgot which exactly. He shone them both a small-talking smile. They broke off mid mad social whirl and shouted ‘George!’

  He signalled that he’d come over and took another periscope look around. A dumpy blonde was waving energetically and hauling herself upright from a low seat. He thought she might be the editor of a newspaper’s weekend section or a magazine, something with a foodie column anyway. She joined them as everyone else shifted to make room. George introduced Susan around but didn’t mention her connection to the restaurant. The hack Annabel began talking about the chef, saying he was such a Babe, he was just a total Babe.

  Another one said, “It’s going to be a great success. All my girlfriends, they gave him rave reviews at his last place.”

  Susan said she hoped so. She had a picture of the tall Asian. He seemed competent, he knew how to use a cleaver anyway.

  “You’ve never tried his food?”

  She shook her head, “I’ve spent the past few years abroad.”

  Someone said, “Travelling?”

  She turned to face the question. “No. Just sitting around. I retired young.”

  It was an old man, hunched over a whisky paunch,
wearing an ash-face and food-stained tie. Out of everyone in the place, he looked closer to her idea of a journalist. He certainly had the most questions, all of them delivered in a fruity accent she’d long ago learnt to mistrust: faux Guards. “You’re retired. From what, sweetie?”

  George butted in quickly. “Susan was a model.”

  She nodded. That was right.

  “And do you still live abroad?”

  “No. I’m staying in a tart’s boudoir, over in Marylebone.” She shot George a sharp look but he didn’t flinch. He just took her arm and steered her round to meet someone new. As he did, he whispered, “Keep away from him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because any minute he’s going to work out who you are. He’s practically lived in Soho, the past thirty years.”

  Susan looked over her shoulder. The old guy was still staring at her. She wondered if she recognised him. Now George had reminded her, she certainly knew his circle: a couple of artists, a couple more writers, one old Etonian who’d carried bags for the Kray twins. At least half of them gay and all of them alcoholics.

  She said, “He’s still staring. Maybe we’d better go.‘

  *

  Along the short walk up Dean Street, Susan tried to keep pace with George but he was lagging too far behind, still schmoozing his pack of girl journalists. She was the first to reach the restaurant and stood for a moment, wondering why the huge window had been blacked out. As she reached for the handle, the door swung away from her. Cheb stood there, erect and alive, smiling in greeting. His face pinkishly flushed to the top of his throbbing crown. His white tuxedo etched with baroque swirls. The cravat at his neck flopped open like an obscene flower, a white goat’s tooth, brilliantly bleached, pierced the centre of its rosette. His strides were brown velvet and his high-heeled boots gave him the extra three inches he’d probably always needed. His cocktail hand was crooked at chest height, his ambulatory hand waved her through into the heart of the restaurant.