September Song

by Colin Murray

We mooched around the shabby little garden in the centre of Leicester Square silently eating our cod and chips, not quite oblivious to either the pinched-faced people in their Sunday clothes loudly making the most of their afternoon off or the bright lights of the giant picture houses. Sunday clothes on a Saturday afternoon? Maman would not have approved. The, according to Les, quite risqué film The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe was playing. I thought I’d wait for it to come to the Gaumont. Though I supposed I might have to take the bus up Lea Bridge Road to the Bakers’ Alms to the Ritz or the Plaza.

  In fact, we were not entirely silent – Malcolm chomped quite noisily on his crisp wally – but we didn’t speak. Malcolm was right. It was a good chippie. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t come across it before.

  Malcolm smacked his lips when he finished and then licked some of the grease off his fingers, balled up the newspaper wrapping and dropped it by a sad stunted bush, on the bare earth, among a group of mean-eyed and ill-favoured pigeons. I rather pointedly sought out one of the rubbish bins so thoughtfully provided by the municipal authorities. Sometimes there’s something of my severe, rather proper mother about me. The bin was, of course, full to overflowing.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘Good fish and chips, yeah?’ he said, running his tongue around his back teeth.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘thanks.’

  He was a big man, but his dark-brown suit hung well on him, and his shoes were nicely polished, his brown trilby recently brushed.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea last night.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘when I said I’d like to shake you by the hand for thumping Ricky.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How could I have got the wrong idea?’

  He shrugged and scuffed the ground with one of his expensive shoes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You might have thought I didn’t like young Ricky.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t get the impression that you were best mates,’ I said.

  He looked at his watch. ‘I could murder a pint,’ he said. ‘We’ve got time. What about it?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘but I don’t really like beer.’

  He looked worried. ‘Well, if you don’t want a drink, you can always have lemonade or something.’

  ‘I said I didn’t like beer,’ I said. ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like a drink.’ After the horrible Greek wine that Fitzgerald had forced on me, I needed something. ‘Come on, I know somewhere.’ And I led the way out of the scruffy little park, past the foul-smelling toilets, to the French.

  As always, there was a thin crowd at dinner time on a Saturday, and we had half an hour to closing so there was plenty of time for a couple of drinks. Which was just as well, as the bottle of dark beer I bought for Malcolm went down in one great glug. The ‘decent little Burgundy’ recommended by Gaston turned out to be rather better than decent, and it completely washed away the unpleasant memory of the wine at the Acropolis. I sipped at it and looked around the little bar while Malcolm went back to the counter ‘for the other half’. Gaston, his big soup-strainer moustache suggesting that he was more French than was really the case, efficiently poured him another glass. Malcolm brought me another glass as well which was very decent of him.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what’s on your mind?’

  He leaned in closer, conspiratorially. ‘What you have to understand,’ he said, ‘is that I’ve been with Mr Fitz for a long time now. I’ve worked hard to get where I’ve got.’ He looked around to make sure that no one was listening. ‘And so it’s only natural that I’m worried about where I stand when he brings in the youngsters. Isn’t it?’

  I shrugged. I really didn’t know.

  ‘The thing is, though, I wouldn’t want Mr Fitz hearing that I’m cheesed off or anything.’

  ‘Your name didn’t come up, Malcolm,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you know, what with what occurred,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t want any suspicions being raised.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘Mr Fitz, he has an odd way of running things. He likes to keep us all on our toes, you know. So, every so often, he brings new people in.’

  I nodded. Les had explained something similar to me. He called it the ‘cats in a bag’ approach. When things in the sack quieten down, you open it up, chuck another cat in and see what happens. ‘Supposed to stop the hired help becoming complacent,’ Les had said. He didn’t approve. ‘Life’s aggravating enough as it is,’ he’d explained, which seemed true to me.

  I sipped some wine and looked around the little bar. It was emptying rapidly, and, Gaston and Malcolm apart, there wasn’t a soul in there who I knew.

  Malcolm glugged down his second beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He pulled a pack of Woodbines and a box of matches out of his suit pocket and lit up.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what’s going to happen now? To the distribution network that Mr Fitzgerald’s Young Turks ran.’

  Malcolm took the cigarette out of his mouth, still cupped inside his big hand, and shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Ricky’s still running things, I guess.’

  I nodded, but I didn’t see Ricky running anything, except scared, for a week or two.

  ‘Do you know what happened last night?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Course not.’

  He looked at me so honestly and frankly that I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe him. I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked Malcolm Booth. I certainly didn’t like the man he worked for, and I knew I wouldn’t like what he did for a living.

  ‘The piano player,’ I said, ‘the Yank. Where did you find him?’

  He took a long drag from his cigarette and looked at me through eyes half closed against the rising smoke.

  ‘We was on our rounds,’ he said, ‘collecting the rent, you know, from the girls. One of them asked us to help her with him. She’d dumped him on her sofa the night before.’

  I raised my eyebrows, and he shrugged.

  ‘Feeling sorry for him, I guess,’ he said. ‘She’s always been a soft touch, Viv.’

  I sipped at my second glass of wine. ‘Where’s her gaff?’ I said.

  ‘Just round the corner. Why?’

  ‘I thought I’d have a word with her. She might know where he went when he left the club last night.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ he said. ‘She’s a working girl. In any case, we know where he went, don’t we?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘All the same, I wouldn’t mind a little chat with her.’

  He picked up his glass, drained it, put it back on the counter, sucked cigarette smoke deep into his lungs and sighed. ‘Sure, I can take you there, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  I sipped some more wine and watched Gaston busy himself behind the bar as closing time approached. The pot boy shuffled over and collected our empties. There was none of the ‘time, gennulmen, please’ nonsense from Gaston.

  The photograph of a rugged, handsome Robert Rieux in his black beret and bulky leather jacket in a field in Normandy, brandishing a captured German Luger, was lost in shadow to the right of the bar. But I knew that I was still there, in the background, looking impossibly young and callow, with Big Luc towering over me and the Blier brother who was picked up in Caen a few days later standing to my right, looking like an overgrown schoolboy playing soldiers.

  I sipped some more wine, the words from the original French version of ‘Autumn Leaves’, the ones about life gently separating those who love without making a noise, whispering in my head, and I thought of Paris in the summer: clear, blue skies, warm sunshine, the smell of drains and strong cigarettes, crusty bread and café crème. And I wondered if Ghislaine had, as she’d said in her letter, gone back to Robert.

  She probably had.

  T
hen I wondered if I really cared.

  I probably did.

  NINE

  Malcolm Booth and I ambled out of the French, looking for all the world like we were bosom friends, and strolled along Old Compton Street for a little while.

  He stopped outside a seedy bookshop that probably stocked the sort of title that Foyle’s didn’t, and he nodded towards a beaten-up old black door suffering from what looked like an advanced case of eczema.

  ‘Top floor,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother to ring. The door’s always open.’

  Sure enough, pinned to the panel above the little buttons for the bells was a handwritten card. ‘Artist’s model, top floor.’

  I nodded to Malcolm. ‘What’s her name?’ I said.

  ‘Viv,’ he said.

  ‘Viv what?’ I said.

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘I don’t know. Viv.’ He snapped his fingers and nodded vigorously. ‘Laurence. That’s it. With a “u”.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘For the fish and chips as well.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘And thanks for keeping me straight with the gaffer.’ He paused and looked uneasy. ‘I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve got to get back to Mr Fitz. He’ll be wondering where I am as it is.’ He raised his eyes to the top floor. ‘You’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.

  He nodded thoughtfully and looked down at the pavement. ‘Be seeing you then,’ he said but didn’t move.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘be seeing you.’

  ‘Do you think she knows something?’ he said.

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘And I won’t until I speak to her.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘of course. Well, I won’t keep you. If she does know something, I’d appreciate you getting in touch. Just leave word at the Acropolis. They’ll know where I am.’

  ‘Right,’ I said and stepped to the door, aware that Malcolm Booth was still standing there, still watching me.

  I pushed with a fingertip, and little flecks of black paint, like tiny, sooty snowflakes, drifted slowly to the ground as the door swung open. I turned to Malcolm and held up my hand in final farewell, hoping that he’d take the hint, and then I walked into the narrow, dingy hallway, sidling past the two solid bicycles leaning against the right-hand wall without barking a shin, and reached the staircase.

  The stairs must once have had a carpet because the central eighteen inches of each was paler than the outer six inches or so, but it had long since been ripped up and thrown away. Still, that was probably for the best as, although the place didn’t exactly smell sweet, at least it didn’t fill the nose with the fragrance of rotting Axminster, and the steep steps may have creaked alarmingly but there was no treacherous frayed fabric to catch at the heels and trip you up.

  It was quite a climb to the top, but I eventually arrived at the final landing. I had a choice of two doors, but one was open and showed a stained WC and a sink so I opted for the other one and knocked. It was a flimsy affair with just a plywood face which gave alarmingly when I rapped on it. Nothing happened, and I knocked again.

  I was about to give the door some more grief when I heard sounds of movement inside and then a pleasant, sleepy voice that I assumed belonged to Viv.

  ‘All right, all right, keep your hair on. I’m coming.’

  The door opened, Viv peered around it and I was assailed by masses of brown, curly hair, about a gallon of cheap scent and a cleavage that Jane Russell would have been proud of.

  ‘I’m not open for business yet, dear,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to come back later.’

  ‘I’m not here for business,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter what you call it, dear – business or pleasure – I’m still not open for it.’

  I laughed, and she chuckled.

  ‘You must be Miss Laurence,’ I said.

  She nodded, and then looked at me suspiciously. ‘You a copper?’ she said. ‘Only, I heard about them boys last night, but I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not a copper.’ I reached into my wallet and took out one of the posh cards that Hoxton Films had supplied me with and handed it to her. ‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Tony Gérard.’

  She held the card delicately between her forefinger and her thumb, narrowed her eyes and peered at it myopically.

  I took the opportunity to peer at her.

  She was still quite pretty in a tired, worn sort of way, with a longish nose, neat little mouth and a pointed chin, and she could have been anything from twenty-five to thirty-five, but I settled on late twenties.

  She looked up from the card and frowned at me. ‘Films?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I work for a film company but—’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head violently, and her hair flew about and the impressive bosom heaved. ‘I don’t do stags.’

  I held up my hands to calm her down. ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’m not here for anything to do with the company. It’s a private matter. You helped out an acquaintance of mine the other night.’

  She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Yes, dear, that sounds like me. Heart of gold. The original tart with a heart.’ She paused and chuckled again. ‘Well, not the original. That would have been that Nancy in Oliver Twist, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t studied the matter.’

  She sighed. ‘I have,’ she said sadly. ‘So, what do you want?’

  ‘Like I said. I wanted to say thanks for what you did for Lee, the American bloke you brought here the other night.’

  ‘Oh, him. Poor lamb.’ She shook her head dismissively. ‘Anyone would have done it. He was helpless, and those horrible little oiks were just taking advantage.’ She paused. ‘I don’t like to see anyone being bullied. And that Ricky . . . I really don’t like him. Just seeing him gives me the willies.’ She paused again, looking thoughtful, then she shook her impressive tresses and laughed. ‘I gave them a right mouthful, I can tell you, sent them off with a flea in their ear. Couldn’t leave him there, could I? They’d be back and start again. So I brought him here.’

  ‘I don’t know that anyone would have done it,’ I said. ‘And Lee is really very grateful.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘He came back last night to tell me.’

  ‘Did he?’ I said. ‘Is he still here?’

  She avoided my eyes and looked down at the worn wooden boards. ‘No, he left a couple of hours ago,’ she said.

  ‘Pity,’ I said. ‘You don’t know where he went, I suppose. People are keen to find him.’

  She shook her head. ‘He didn’t say where he was going,’ she said.

  We stood on that cramped, dark landing in silence for a few seconds. Viv Laurence stared at the floor. I stared at a patch of damp on the discoloured ceiling by the bare light-bulb.

  ‘Are you really his friend?’ she said very quietly.

  ‘No, I’m just an acquaintance, like I said. But people who are his friends have asked me to find him.’

  She looked at the card that was still in her hand. ‘Is there really a film studio in Leyton?’ she said.

  ‘No, that’s just where I live,’ I said. ‘There used to be one in Walthamstow, though. My grandfather worked there.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said.

  We stood in another awkward silence. My mother wouldn’t have approved of her, but Viv Laurence seemed to me to be a fundamentally decent sort. I found that I wanted her to like and trust me.

  ‘I’m really sorry to have bothered you,’ I said. ‘If you do hear from Lee or see him, perhaps you could call the number on the card. There are people who are very worried about him.’ I don’t know why, but I decided not to mention that one of them was his wife.

  She tapped the card against the door jamb. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up,’ she said. ‘He’s like a bad penny, that one.’

  I smiled at her as reassuringly as I could and turned to go.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she
said and slipped back into the flat. She emerged a moment later holding the tie Lee had found somewhere before last night’s performance. It was a very sudden pea-green. ‘He forgot this,’ she said, holding it out.

  I took it, and her warm, soft hand briefly brushed mine, and then she shut the flimsy door.

  I stuffed the tie into my jacket pocket, where the other one still lurked, and I realized that if I didn’t find him soon, I’d have quite a collection of the ghastly things.

  There was a little welcoming committee waiting for me when I emerged on to the pavement on that dull afternoon. Malcolm Booth hadn’t taken the hint and shoved off and was now accompanied by the bloke he’d been with the night before and by Dave Mountjoy and two other little Mountjoys. Well, not so little, really.

  They were huddled together to the left of the doorway, all puffing away furiously, giving off smoke like the Flying Scotsman at full pelt.

  Malcolm saw me and shrugged apologetically, as if to say that it was nothing to do with him. I smiled back an ‘of course not, how could you think that such a thing had entered my head?’

  I then nodded brusquely to Mountjoy and strode off to the right, in the direction of Wardour Street, in a decisive, ‘important things to do’ sort of way. I had no great desire to talk to Dave Mountjoy. I strongly suspected that a little tête-à-tête would do nothing for my joie de vivre.

  I must have surprised them because I’d gone about ten yards before the first, ‘Oi,’ reached my shell-likes, twenty before I heard the sound of pursuit and thirty before a meaty hand dropped on my shoulder and Mountjoy’s large, out-of-breath henchman, as I’d come to think of him, came alongside me.

  I stopped, smiled sweetly at him and then looked meaningfully at his hand, which rested on my shoulder like a pound of pork sausages. It took him a few seconds to cotton on, but then he lifted it off gratifyingly speedily.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said. ‘Only, I’m expected, and I’m late already.’

  ‘Dave,’ he said, still panting, ‘would like a quick word. It won’t take a minute.’

  I shrugged. He was woefully unfit, but then cigarettes aren’t called gaspers for no reason. However, he was a very big man and I didn’t want him to take umbrage so I waited for Dave Mountjoy to saunter up.