Blame It on the Bossa Nova

by James Brodie

  He chewed on it.

  “What the hell are they?”

  “COSEC? - Co-ordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students...”

  “And WAY?”

  “World Assembly of Youth.” He said it absently, distantly. He was now deep in thought miles away, hatching his plans.” ... they’re both student organisations set up by The Company in the forties to combat the student fronted Soviet organisations like WFDY... World Federation of Democratic Youth... Wherever we could we infiltrated WFDY. Otherwise we used our own front organisations to brand it as a Soviet stooge set-up... We got their HQ expelled from Paris in ‘51. Had to set up in Budapest... They do a lot of good work - travel, culture, breaking up anti-nuclear rallies..... That kind of thing...” He thought some more. “Yeah, maybe we should get you enrolled onto some kind of course at the L.S.E., so you can stay with this guy... monitor him closely. What d’you say?”

  “... Yeah, well. Don’t rush me. He’s not even a SMARTARSE yet.”

  We spoke for a bit more after that, but he wasn’t going to deliver on names alone. The money would come in exchange for hard facts and those would be harder.

  “Better be off then, Alex.”

  “What here? Don’t I get a lift back?”

  “Come on. Shape up. You’re a professional.”‘

  Grudgingly I got out and slammed the door. I hadn’t got a clue where I was. Opposite a footpath insinuated itself between two houses and led up a slight slope to another street beyond. I crossed the road and made my way up the footpath but at the top it discharged into what looked like a cul-de-sac of nineteen thirties semi-detached houses, a small enclave in an otherwise Victorian area. I trudged back down the path but as I neared its end I was arrested by the sound of Frank’s voice speaking in authoritative tones. I sneaked to the edge of the side wall of the house flanking the alley and peered round. Two heavy looking guys in belted raincoats like they used in the Strand Ads. were standing next to the driver’s door. Frank was giving them orders. They weren’t talking, just listening. He finished at that moment and his car pulled away instantly. He was obviously used to being understood and not questioned. The two guys were left standing in the middle of the street. They turned to look at the alleyway where I was concealed. I too understood - instinct, something malignant in my make up. Something told me they had just been ordered to get me, that there was evil abroad. They started walking towards the alley and as I turned and fled I heard the footsteps behind me start running - That Bastard Frank. That Scheming Cunt. Something whistled high and wide and smacked ricocheting against a wall - A bullet. I could hardly believe what was going on. Five minutes ago I had been sitting in the front passenger seat of Frank’s car chatting amicably about my proposed role as agent provocateur. Now he had loosed a couple of hired killers on me. I reached the top of the alley in a faster time than I would previously have imagined possible. It couldn’t be a cul-de-sac, it couldn’t. Then I saw it. At the end of the short road, in a corner, a black and white striped bollard stopped kids cycling two abreast down another gap between houses. I ran to it bending double behind parked cars. A guy doing some repair work to the sidecar of a lambretta stopped and watched me in casual amazement. I didn’t stop to register his disbelief rating on seeing the two hoods. I skidded to a halt and raced up the alley as another bullet was loosed off in my direction and I heard the sound of flaking masonry not too far distant. Thus far I had made the front page of the South London Press, and I could see the story getting bigger by the second. The alley was short - another mere gap between houses that terminated at its end at the entrance to some allotment patches. It was at the top of one of the many rises in South London that give superb and unexpected panoramas of the city. Below were The Houses of Parliament, St Pauls, Tower Bridge, the Thames and the Tower. But I was too busy to look. The allotments were not well tended, many were completely neglected and overgrown, some were only partially cleared for the planting of a few uninspired winter vegetables. There was no one around. I jumped over some chestnut fencing that had already sagged inwards, encroaching on the boundary it was meant to protect.

  My superior motivation had distanced me from my pursuers over the course of the chase. I plunged across three or four plots and dived headlong into the beginnings of an overgrown section that extended to the perimeter on the other side. Thistles or the like tore at my skin through my trousers. I heard the two guys arrive. They stopped, panting for breath. They were talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I didn’t move. I could hear the sounds of movement, of search. In front of me through the grass I could see the roofs of the houses going down the hill towards London. Between me and the first house was about fifty yards of overgrown allotment of that dull green hue into which the London sky transforms all foliage. I saw one of them picking his way across it, a gun in his hand. He looked swarthy, could have been American, French, English...anything. He was met by his mate who had gone round the other way. They leaned against a broken down greenhouse whose panes had been smashed long ago. Together they looked back towards me and around me. I wasn’t certain they couldn’t see me. My arse felt like it was sticking up like a reference point on an Ordinance Survey map. My heart was still pounding, reverberating through my body. I felt the first drops of rain fall tentatively from the sky and then felt the rhythm quicken as a drizzle set in. I saw one of them stretch out his hand to examine the changed conditions more closely. The way they were looking I could see they didn’t relish the thought of coming back and examining every square yard in detail. Every profession has its malingerers - even murder. They spoke a bit more and leaned back on the greenhouse in a way that suggested they considered their exertions for the day over. After a while they lit up cigarettes and, after surveying the scene with obvious contempt, set off on what must be a path leading out on the other side.

  I phoned Frank the next day and told him what had happened. I wanted to get a reaction.

  “It’s a dirty game Alex, a dirty game. I never did feel secure in that street.... Something about it.” He made a few cryptic comments about there being no such thing as over-caution and that people who didn’t take precautions could get hurt. He also emphasised the need for absolute trust and how necessary it was for people to feel they weren’t being conned. He didn’t sound like the sort of guy who set up gigs for homicidal maniacs.

  “So you don’t think I should worry then?”

  “Search your soul SMARTARSE. Only you know what’s inside.”

  This wasn’t the reassurance I’d been seeking and the encoding procedure did nothing to improve it. But it was the best I was going to get. I decided to take the episode as a warning from Frank not to fuck him about and I also decided to think very carefully before fucking him about any further. I think that it was about this time that I began to wonder if it was all really worth the effort.

  *****

  Meanwhile life went on. Frank started talking about getting me and Chris together every time I saw him over the next few weeks. He acted as if he never had hit Pascale across the mouth, never had made me his agent then hunted me down like a dog, that nothing had happened in the weeks since the Cuba crisis had reached its climax.

  “You two boys shouldn’t be like this. You should be buddies.”

  That was alright as a premise, but did a ‘buddy’ smash his ‘buddy’ in the mouth and then nick and smash up his car? Was that a ‘buddy-like act?’ Would a ‘buddy’ do such a thing to another ‘buddy’? I thought not. But Frank persisted in his theory. Frank kept setting up venues where Chris and I could heal the rift and I kept not turning up to them. After a while I ran out of excuses. There was a gang of them, including Chris, meeting at a restaurant in Beauchamp Place. I asked the taxi to drop me off half way along Pont Street so I could grab a bit of air on the five minute walk to the restaurant. I was glad to let the cold blast of the wind hit my face.

  It was a new restaurant in a basement, and I’d walked past it three times before I
saw the coyly concealed sign that indicated its presence. Downstairs it was as if the director had clapped his hands and the extras had all gone straight into their instant party routine; the noisy hubbub of waiters shouting and pushing their way through to tables, the feel of anarchy and flexibility as diners walked about, holding conversations at tables other than their own or else merely shouted across the restaurant. I picked out Frank’s huge back at the far end and made my way across to it. He was at the centre of a big party at a table symbolically separated from the others by two structurally gratuitous stone columns.

  Once seated, I had the opportunity to have a look at my companions. Round the table I could see a fair sprinkling of fun people, people I’d met on previous sorties with either Chris or Frank - the second-hand racing driver, the interior designer, a couple of models, an antique dealer, a property developer- the dregs of society. Also there were Sandie and Jenny, their good looks alone separating them from the others. Sandie was chatting earnestly with Chris and didn’t notice me. Forsythe and Pascale weren’t there. Frank made a few desultory introductions but his main sport seemed to be to try to attract Chris’s attention and engage him in friendly, in-crowd badinage.

  “Hey Chris, I heard tell the guy from William Hickey was outside looking for you, yuk, yuk...” “Hey Chris, why are you still wearing dark glasses, that bruise has gone down now... Yuk, Yuk.” However well intentioned it was serving to amuse no one but Frank himself and Chris didn’t even interrupt his conversation to reply. But all round the table I caught the mood of self-congratulatory smugness in chinks of conversation about the rumours. By then the press were going frantic, hounding down every source of information and buying up all the bit players - even though they daren’t print a word. They were squirrels mindlessly hoarding nuts. I had heard that Sandie had received an undisclosed fee for her insights into the Bryant Set, as we were now called. Not that any of these nonentities were involved. They were just enjoying the reflected glory of being in a crowd that was heading for notoriety, as the word had it.

  We left and Frank unceremoniously swept me, Sandie, Jenny and Chris into a taxi and climbed in after us as we pulled away from the kerb. I waved majestically to the lesser breeds without the law as we disappeared into the night. The girls squeezed in next to me and I got to appreciate yet again Sandie’s classy good looks.

  Back at Pavilion Road, I scrounged a cigarette off Sandie, took a couple of deep drags, then set off in search of Chris to do my penance. Frank was explaining what hominy grits were to Jenny and Chris and I didn’t find it hard to detach him, we had all of us heard Frank explain what hominy grits were at least three times before. Chris deflected his body slightly to one side, as if by its juxtaposition with armchairs and other furniture he was creating a new zone in his living room. He had a receptive air of one about to be interviewed.

  “How’s it going then, Chris?”

  “Fine Alex, fine. Luckily taxis are no problem in central London.”

  “You were insured weren’t you?”

  “Insured?”

  “Against theft... joy riders, that sort of thing.”

  “Is that what you were Alex? - A joy rider? It’s a consolation to know you were enjoying yourself. I wouldn’t like to see you in a bad mood.”

  My abject apology wasn’t coming out right. I could think up the sentences easily enough. I just couldn’t force them through my teeth and between my lips.

  “Look, I’m sorry. It wasn’t personal.” And that was the closest I got to it. To a lesser man it would have been insufficient. I doubt if I would have found it recompense if the roles had been reversed. But Chris had the class that I lacked. By the time we returned to the others we weren’t yet the best of mates but some sort of band-aid had been dressed over the wound. Frank beamed as he saw the outcome, for once his hominy grits lecture had served a useful purpose.

  Coffee was served and Chris started engaging Frank in some heavy conversation about the purpose of the talks that were coming up in the Bahamas between Macmillan and Kennedy. Frank obviously knew what it was all about and we all had a pretty good idea. By that time the news had broken on the Skybolt failures and Kennedy was as embarrassed as Macmillan - You should never make promises to children if you can’t keep them. Frank, for once, was taciturn, and all of us except Chris sensed it was his awkward position over Pascale, who had been as prominent as anyone in the rumours. But Chris was oblivious. The conversation eventually ground to a halt as Chris at last got the message, but by then a gloom had settled on the proceedings.

  Frank couldn’t rouse himself, he moped. Jenny tried to flirt with him but he wasn’t having any, he was becoming a bore. Chris and Sandie continued their running battle over a range of subjects. It seemed to be their way of confirming their relationship. Then suddenly Frank broke his silence.

  “That’s it,” he shouted. “... We’ve got to get her out of the country. Right out... of the country. All the time she’s here the press are gonna be on her back - And my back. Once she’s outta the way they’ll forget about her.”

  This sounded very optimistic to me, but then I couldn’t understand his predicament anyway. He’d known the situation before he’d got involved. His handling of Pascale at my flat had shown no uncertainties. Surely such ruthlessness had been born of confidence in his ability to handle her, not desperation. What had happened since then? But the more he repeated the proposition the more attractive it became to him.

  “You’re close to her Alex, you could get her out,” said Frank.

  “Where to?”

  “France. That’s where she comes from isn’t it. Why, she could go back and visit her folks for Christmas. All families should be together at Christmas.”

  “How do I make her go?”

  “You go with her.”

  “Love to old boy, but I haven’t got a bean. Nor has she, come to think of it.” This was a lie, a calculated one. I was sure Pascale had money.

  “Is that the only problem? How much d’you need?”

  I thought hard. “... Five hundred.” Before the words were out of my mouth he had started reaching for his wallet, “... each.”

  “You greedy bastard, Alex. Here Chris, have you got a chequebook? I’ll cover you in the morning.” Chris looked pissed off but he got up and took a chequebook from a drawer.

  “There’ll be a cheque in your bank tomorrow – a.m. Chris... Alex, don’t cash this ‘til tomorrow afternoon.” He handed me a cheque for seven hundred and fifty pounds. Suddenly his laugh erupted and enveloped the room: “Aint that what they call British Compromise!”

  *****

  The icy gusts of wind had driven most of our fellow passengers below decks but Pascale and I remained huddled together on one of those timber benches that can be converted into a life raft, watching the cliffs of Dover slip slowly by and then watching them recede. I was reminded of Maddox Brown’s painting of Woolner and his wife, The Last of England. Due to the cold our looks matched the melodramatic mood of the picture.

  We’d been meaning to get an early boat and had slept together at the flat and arranged for the operator to give us a five o’clock call - alarm clocks have always been anathema to me, the tension and fear of being jarred from sleep by them generally leads me to wake at ten minute intervals. This time I thanked the operator politely, put the phone back on the hook, and then went back to sleep. We didn’t arrive at Victoria until half past twelve, and by the time the boat cast off from Dover the light was fast fading. Still, we had no deadlines, no one to meet us, just a destination to arrive at, preferably by Christmas Day.

  An amplified voice announced that duty free cigarettes and alcohol were now on sale somewhere in the soul of the ship, and a handful of travellers walked purposefully to the door that led below leaving Pascale and I alone. At last, I felt, I was leaving all the shit of the past few months behind. I looked up at a star that had just appeared in the sky and nodded to it in relaxed recognition. I felt good. And this was the way to get awa
y - by boat. The only way to experience the true sensations of quitting an island. From an aeroplane, land and sea take on the homogeneous texture they have on a paper map. At eye level, with the ship rolling and the waves sending advance scouts over the bows and then retrieving them instantly, you know something’s happening. The anachronistic rituals involved in pulling alongside the quay, the old customs houses, lugging one’s cases to the guy with the green chalk, all this is the mood music of travel. I was glad to be on a boat, wiping spray from my face. It told me I was still alive, and I had begun to doubt that.

  By the time we docked in Calais the rain had set in; a steady self-confident rain that didn’t have to prove anything by chucking it down in buckets. It knew it was going to be around for a long time, there was no hurry. At the station bar I started drinking calvados. I had decided to make it the theme drink of the trip and to start the moment we set foot in France. I watched Pascale speaking French to the guy behind the bar and it hit me like a shock wave to be reminded that English was not her native tongue. Sure, she had an accent, but I’d got so used to it that it didn’t register any more. I let my imagination off the leash to explore the mythical empathy she was experiencing with the guy, the linguistic structures that released charges that no superficial fluency in a foreign tongue could generate. They spoke and he looked at me briefly: the alien, the unknowing one. And this was just Calais.

  We took a taxi from the Gare Du Nord to Austerlitz. The rain was persisting and it was freezing cold. She was wearing the black corduroy slacks that she’d worn that first time at Toby’s flat, and a white raincoat. I realized now just how specifically French were her looks. She was of a kind with the beautiful Parisian girls I’d been noticing since we arrived in the city; in my imagination, their thoughts were full of Sartre, existentialism, and sex.