Baron's Court, All Change

by Terry Taylor

  I helped them on the last minute rush on Saturday morning, while Liz conveniently stayed in bed out of the way. They both got panicky and neurotic while they buzzed around the place in case they left behind their money or raincoats or contraceptives or something. And then they finally left. “Cheerio, Mum and Dad. Have a good time and get plenty of rest. Don’t forget to send us a card. Cheerio!”

  I lounged in the chair thinking about the day ahead. Dusty and I had to go over to the gazelle-like Spade’s pad, whose name we’d found out was Ayo, that evening, to collect that bag of happiness in exchange for the necessary loot. Ayo was giving a party for a girl friend he wanted to impress and he invited us. We couldn’t refuse an invitation like that one; I mean, the man’s a dealer so you’d be barmy if you did.

  The house seemed very strange without mum and dad ligging about in it. Empty rooms and a quietness I’d never noticed before. I felt it was my house for a whole fortnight, and I put my feet on the mantelpiece which I would never have dared do with my houseproud mother about. I put on my noisiest Stan Kenton record, turned the volume full on, and his fabulous brass section echoed through the house. The intricate web of sounds were too much for only two ears to listen to, you need a dozen at least because so much is happening.

  The garden outside looked great. Better than I’d ever seen it. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d ever really seen it before. The sunshine and flowers and even dad’s tall ladders looked all right. Rinty, our Alsatian dog, was having a ball catching wasps in his mouth. He’s marvellous at it. Quick as lightning he snaps them up. before they know where they are. Then he gets stung and rubs his nose on the grass like mad, but he don’t care. He’s off again to a minute, looking for the next unfortunate wasp to come his way.

  Dusty came over at half past ten. Very pleased with himself he was as he came through the door. He had his best clothes on and he looked quietly sharp; he didn’t look as if he’d dressed himself up but he looked good.

  “Good morning. How’s it feel to be independent?” he asked, going straight to the gram and putting on the M.J.Q. Then, “Got the loot?” he asked, lounging back in my dad’s armchair.

  “I picked it up from the post office yesterday. I hope we’re doing the right thing. This is the most money I’ve ever had in my life, so I don’t want to goof with it.”

  Dusty looked hurt. “Goof? How can we goof? I tell you, man, this is the surest thing I’ve seen for a very long time. I only wish I’d had the money myself. I don’t mind telling you, I wouldn’t have cut you in if I had.”

  “You’re such a friendly friend,” I said.

  “You just relax. I’ve brought a little present for you.”

  “I’ve been dying for a smoke all the morning,” I said, taking it from him. “I’ve got the skins in the drawer.”

  I took the cigarette papers out of the drawer and made a nice long but thinnish spliff with three skins. Not too much tobacco mixed with the Charge, but with the end of a straight cigarette as a filter.

  “This is the position,” Dusty said, inhaling as much air with the smoke as he could so that it went right down to where it would do most good. “I think we’ll get rid of the first pound weight in a couple of days, because at the start we’ll only sell in ounces. We’ll get eight quid an ounce easy while this drought is on, and this’ll give us a good start to get a bit of bread in our pockets. I’ve got all Danny’s musical contacts lined up, I know them all. I’ve been on the blower this morning to about half a dozen of them and they’re all dying to pick up. I tell you, man, there’s good times ahead.”

  I found a half-full bottle of sherry which had been left over from last Christmas, so I poured the two of us a drink while Dusty kept himself busy by making another spliff.

  “Ayo phoned me this morning,” Dusty said without taking his eyes from the papers he was sticking together. “He wants us to bring our own chicks. I’ve already phoned Ruby — she’s crazy about coming.”

  “Trust her if there’s plenty of Pot on the scene, nothing would keep her away.”

  “That’s what I like about her. She’s really hip to the happenings. Who are you bringing? Miss Roach?”

  I told him I didn’t know whether to take her or not. I’d taken her out a few times since our first meeting, and I liked her, mind you, I’m not saying I didn’t. She was great in a crazy drunken way. I use the word drunken because that’s how she was most of the time. She wasn’t content with the Charge on its own — oh no, she’d want the lush as well. As you know, lush is intoxicating, so may I add is Charge, perhaps even more so; so you can guess that Miss Roach wasn’t the ideal type to take to a party where you want to relax and enjoy yourself, without having to worry about the possibility of having to carry a drunk home. She was like that cat I read about once, who kept changing his personality and now and again he’d go all ugly. Mr Hyde, I think, his name was. Well, anyway, she was like that. One minute she’d be all serious and the next she’d be as high as a kite. She could be serious too if she wanted. She was an artist even. Painting it was what she was having a go at. The most abstract abstracts you’ve ever seen. She’s not the Chelsea type of art student. The one with baggy skirts and sandals and dirty feet, and on this, I want to be weird one. No, she’s cool. Cool in the nicest way to be, that is, not realising you are. To make matters perfect for her, her old man who lives in Yorkshire, sends her down a nice monthly allowance, but that’s to keep her out of the way, I’m sure.

  “I don’t know whether I should bring her,” I told Dusty. “She can become a number one drag at times, and could easily nause it all up.”

  “She’s the only one. You must bring her. I tell you, man, she’d be a big hit at this jollity tonight.”

  So I phoned her.

  “Hellou,” came her dreamy voice at the other end.

  “Hello.”

  “Oh, it’s you. How are you, precious one? Hold on, I’ll turn the sounds down. There, that’s better. Well, what’s been happening?”

  “Everything,” I said in my coolest voice. “A friend of mine’s having a little get-together tonight. I wondered if you’d like to come.”

  “Like to? I’d love to. I’d never refuse a little get-together with you. Where shall we meet?”

  “I’ll pick you up at your pad. Look, Ruby’s going with Dusty. Why don’t you bell her and tell her to be at your place at eight? We’ll all meet there, and don’t be too stoned, else I shall leave you at home. See you then.”

  “See you.”

  Dusty was looking really comfortable by now. He’d pulled another chair up to put his feet on, he had a pillow to support his head, and his foot was going up and down like a baton beating time to the music.

  The M.J.Q. sound came out as if it was solid, forming shapes around the room; first one shape and then another, and like it was one man making it, not four.

  Dusty raved on, “That’s the great thing about Mother Charge, you never know which way she’s going to take you. You think after a time you know all the different paths you can travel on, but you soon find out there are others. Monday, a laughing one. Tuesday, a serious one. Wednesday, a working one. Thursday, a lazy one. Oh man, isn’t it exciting? A thousand paths to travel on and each one different. But it’s rather frightening at first. I remember the first time I was turned on, you can’t forget it really, can you? It’s like having sex for the first time, stays in your memory forever. It’s the feeling of not knowing what to expect that’s the drag. And when it creeps up on your brain and starts to perform, it’s a bit frightening because you don’t know where it’s going to take you. But when you know, it’s great. You can sit back and go along with it and you’re not scared at all. I remember a little Greek cat I turned on for the first time. An intellectual type he was; a poet or something. Worried me for months to turn him on, he did, wouldn’t give me any peace at all. So one night when I’d just come into a bit of loot and bought half an ounce of that very stone-making brown Rangoon stuff, I took him alo
ng to the pad and made him a nice fat zeppelin-shaped spliff all to himself. What a raver he turned out to be! He stood in the middle of the room and described all of his sensations to me as they came to him, one by one. ‘A golden band is going over my forehead and pulling tighter and tighter,’ he said. Then he saw the scene flicker like a television does when it goes wonky, and he raved on for at least an hour, and I had the whole episode taped on my Grundig. It’s a gas, man, it really is. I’ll have to play it for you sometime. He wasn’t sure of himself after that. He couldn’t make out if the Charge had wigged him or not, but I told him that the first time is usually a bit dodgey so he tried again. And, man, it became his best friend. But to top everything, guess what happened? He asked me where this stuff comes from and I told him it grows in quite a few countries but the best brand comes from the Belgian Congo. Believe me man, this is what he did: he packed a haversack or something, and decided there and then that he’d hitch-hike all the way to the Congo! Honest. And no one’s heard of him since!”

  I managed to get a word in. “I bet he’s having a ball now.”

  “You telling me! I can just see him now. Sitting under those ten feet Charge plants just picking it off and making a dirty great spliff one after the other, and cuddling a fourteen-year-old Spade chick. What a life, man! I only wish I had his courage!”

  I suppose we got carried away a bit talking about the kind of life we’d have if we were in this Greek cat’s position. We built it up until we were practically convinced ourselves that we were there. Showing conjuring tricks to this crazy tribe that hadn’t even seen a pink man before and really knocking them out with all this magic of ours. Yes, they’d make us some sort of Gods and wait on us hand and foot and we’d live the ideal life. Nothing but one big ligging, smoking and fucking session. What more could anyone ask for? And we’d send all our friends a postcard and tell them all about it, the news would soon travel and we’d be the talk of the town. We’d even grow into a legend and be discussed in all the hip circles, and after a few years we’d return and they’d hold parties in our honour, and we’d tell them that we couldn’t stay long as we’d have to be off again back to where we came from, and they’d ask us thousands of questions and want us to take them back with us, but we wouldn’t. But why not? Yes, we would take a few characters back with us, only a very selected few, though — serious smokers only — no junkies, we couldn’t stand that carry on in our little jungle. Miss Roach would be at the top of the list, she’d be very welcome. She could get as block-up as she liked there. A few home-grown Spades must be taken also. They would get the natives really at it, seeing their country men dressed up sharp and speaking in a Cockney accent and everything. We’d all have our own little jobs. I’d be entertainments manager and organise the orgies, Dusty could be the Charge Inspector and see that the larder’s always full, Miss Roach would be the official taster, and Buttercup could be chief roller because there’s no one that can make such perfect spliffs as him. He can make them to look like genuine Pall Malls, or if there’s plenty of pot going, a full size Corona Corona; eight skins he uses sometimes. Africa would soon get their independence if we were there, and when they did, who’d be in Government? Right, first time! The laws of the land would be changed, of course. Hemp smoking would become compulsory, and if anyone broke that law they’d be liable to a heavy fine or imprisonment or both. We’d soon deport the die-hard British imperialists and set up the friendliest government the world has ever known. After the population had heard something about our plans for their country they wouldn’t even want an opposition. We’d have to be very careful about immigrants. They’d have to pass a very sticky test to see if they were hip enough to gain citizenship to our country.

  “It would soon become one big Ventree,” said Dusty, looking as relaxed as Dean Martin singing a slow pop.

  “Ventree? What’s that?” I asked my semi-stoned friend, who was obviously on a talking one.

  “You’ve never heard of Ventree? Oh man, what a place! It’s an institution which caters for a selected few that are in need of mental readjustment,” he said, sounding terribly educated.

  “You mean it’s a nut-house?”

  “No, not in the true sense of the word. It’s an establishment that uses highly modern methods for mental recuperation with the accent on group therapy.”

  “Where did you learn all those long words?”

  “Stop butting in,” Dusty said, helping himself to one of my straight cigarettes. “Well, anyway in this place all the inmates sit around in a large circle and tell each other what sent them mad. That’s supposed to cure them. But the important thing is that they can do as they damn well please. They’re given a warm, comfortable bed, good food, if they want to paint or write or sculpt they’re given all the necessary jaba juntz, and even if they want to come to Town they’re welcome. Now, man, as you can imagine a large number of layabouts, who are fed up with doing skippers and living rough, are only too pleased to spend a few months there, until the head-shrinker realises that they’re not really mentally unbalanced, but just plain lazy. I took Buttercup there once to visit Charlie the Chargehand — I don’t think you know him — he’s a bit older than the usual crowd, but very young in heart and a right raver. So much so that he convinced the headshrinker that he was an Indian Hemp addict. It was the big laugh everywhere we went. This cat had pulled the biggest con trick of the century, because they even allowed him to smoke in there.”

  I butted in. “This cat must have been a right one to get away with a stroke like that.”

  Dusty wasn’t pleased with the interruption. The Charge was making him talk as much as old Mother Manley. “You telling me? Well, anyway, he messed himself up at the death because he started to turn this chick on who was supposed to be an Indian princess or something impossible like that. The Charge made her even more mad than she really was, because she went around the gaff telling everyone that she visited a strange new world every night with the aid of Harry the Hare, the patron saint of Indian Hemp. Then they finally caught them in bed together and told them that that wasn’t included in the group therapy, so they must go.”

  “Where is this place, anyway?” I asked getting interested.

  “It’s in Surrey, man. I never forget the first time I went there. Snowing like mad it was, and as Buttercup and me was approaching the main entrance, we saw this cat in shirt sleeves outside in all the snow, everything so very white, tearing chunks of scarlet red jelly from the packet, holding them high above his head offering them to the seagulls. He was a junkie and went in there for a genuine cure and I think they helped him no end. He was the one that wrote a series of articles in a Sunday rag about two years ago, entitled “I Am A Drug Addict And Have A Monkey On My Back,” etc etc, or some crap like that. We met this Indian princess just as we were leaving and she took set on us, asking if we’d got any of that naughty tobacco on us, and it was up to us to spread the gospel of Indian Hemp among our fellow men. It all ended in Drama. Buttercup goofed like mad because he asked this nut case if she’d care to meet him when she was let out on parole, and she went berserk, shouting out aloud that she wasn’t a prostitute or an easy woman, and how dare he suggest that she should climb into bed with him, which the poor fellow hadn’t done at all.”

  We finished off the bottle of sherry. “Where are we going to keep the Charge after we’ve collected it from Ayo’s tonight?” I asked Dusty.

  “That’s up to you,” he answered quietly. “It’s your bread we’re buying it with so you’ve every right to keep it. But I shouldn’t have it here if I were you. Number one, it’s dangerous, because mothers have a gift for finding things in their own house. And number two, we must have it handy where we can get at it any time we want.”

  “So where do you suggest?”

  “I don’t particular want it in my pad. I’d have a lot of explaining to do if Mr Law found a pound weight in my little home.”

  “Well, if I’m not going to keep it and you aren’t, where t
he hell’s it going to go?”

  Dusty looked very wise. “In someone else’s pad,” he said.

  “What?” I shouted. “They’d nick it. I don’t know one person in this whole wide world that could be that honest. Honest.”

  He gave me a sly smile. “They couldn’t nick it if they didn’t know it was there.”

  “What d’y mean?”

  “Come now, use your imagination. Suppose we hid it in someone else’s pad and they didn’t know anything about it. Then, if anything unfortunate did happen, we’d be laughing. It’s a foolproof scheme. A Dusty Miller special.”

  “Just a minute — wooow, back there. Let’s get this straight. Are you suggesting that we stash it in someone else’s pad so that if anything did happen they’d take the can back for us?”

  Dusty dug that I wasn’t keen on his idea. “Let’s put it this way: if someone else minds it for us, without knowing of course, then the chances are ten million to one that the law would ever find it.”

  “And whose pad do you suggest we use as a storehouse?”

  “I think the lucky person will be — Miss Roach.”

  I didn’t like it one tiny little bit. “Oh, no, not her. She’s out. I like her too much to pull a dirty trick like that on her. Think of someone else.”

  “But it’s the ideal place. Bayswater’s very handy to get to if we want it in a hurry. And remember, friend, that it mustn’t appear strange when we keep showing up on the scene. Someone else might sus something, but not her. She’s very sweet on you, so it’s up to you to return the amours. Play up to her and start going steady, then she’ll expect you to spend a lot of time around there. I’ve found the ideal place to stash it away as well. Her toilet has a lovely cupboard in it that houses a hot water tank which was made for the job.”

  “Are you sure there’s no risk involved — her getting caught with it, I mean?”

  “None at all. I tell you, man, it can’t fail.”

  Liz came downstairs shortly after that. She came into the room fully dressed but I don’t think she’d washed; there wasn’t a trace of lipstick on her chalk-white face and her hair looked like a bird’s nest. She sat down without saying a word, holding a cup of cold coffee in her hand, then she sniffed the air suspiciously.