[Phoenix Court 04] - Fancy Man

by Paul Magrs

  “I’m in a hotel,” he smiled. “She needn’t worry.”

  “It’s lovely to see you,” said Wendy, and meant it.

  “I’ve left the flat empty,” he said, twinkling at her. “Belinda will have a fit. I’m meant to be looking after plants and making sure burglars don’t get in. But, to tell you the truth, I couldn’t stick the Royal Circus with everyone gone. I had nowhere to go! No pals to visit!”

  “I know,” said Wendy.

  “So I made some plans of my own.”

  Anne appeared in the doorway. “Don’t let him go begging after any of your money.”

  “Don’t be so foul,” said Wendy.

  “The old devil.”

  Captain Simon shook his head at her, whistling. “You’re a terrible woman, Anne.”

  “I know.”

  “I heard about your good fortune, of course. Pat told me something about his plans.”

  “Don’t go expecting…”

  “I certainly don’t,” he said, with some dignity. “I don’t need anything. He left me a little gift, but I was never after money from him. He was the best pal a fella could want.”

  Anne came down the few steps into the kitchen. “He was, wasn’t he?”

  “Here,” said Simon. “Let me see you.”

  They hugged hard under the new strip lighting.

  When they stepped apart, Wendy had slipped away upstairs.

  I thought maybe romance was in the air for the two of them. I’ve always had that sentimental streak. Next morning, though, Captain Simon had gone. I never saw him until years after that. He flew to Africa on safari, and went to look at things in their natural habitats.

  “I was quite harsh on him before,” Aunty Anne said.

  “You were,” I said as I saw to our breakfast.

  “He’s a simple, loyal man.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I don’t need a man hanging round me. I’ve had enough of all that.”

  “Serena says you have to involve yourself in the world of men, only if you have no other choice.”

  “That sounds like her. And it’s true. Now I’m gladly beyond the pale.” She eyed me. “But you’re not.”

  “If it does anything, the money means I never have to be dependent.”

  Aunty Anne shrugged. She looked at her still unpotted herbs. “There are all sorts of thing to be dependent on somebody for.”

  This was the morning Timon and Belinda were due to arrive and I was queasy with excitement. Timon had become a distant figure again. All I got were his irregular few lines in the post. Nowadays Belinda had a hand in them, and his letters and cards read differently. It must be love, I thought, if she’s effecting his prose style.

  Aunty Anne and I listened to the February rain plop down and rattle on her backyard. Her courtyard, she called it, and had installed a statuette of a cupid, tottering on one chubby foot. It was festooned in fairy lights which had already fused.

  THIRTY-TWO

  During their time together in the Western Isles they had discovered the gently erotic art of bickering. Now on the Central Line and heading for the BBC, Timon and Belinda were nervous and they indulged themselves in an edgy ribbing that was starting to get on Wendy’s nerves. She was going along with them for moral support, while they did their live interview.

  “I hope my sneezes stop,” said a red, wheezing Belinda. She was in an armless, backless silver dress, clutching a handkerchief. She had been in this state ever since they arrived at Serena’s house (Aunty Anne wouldn’t have them staying at the Putney house) and she had decided that she was allergic to the goose down in the heavy duvet and the luxury pillows.

  “Might be the pollution, hon,” said Timon. “You would have to have a special reaction, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hm?”

  “Anyone ordinary would get allergic to duck down or nylon, something common like that.”

  She rallied. “I can’t help it! And I suppose you’re allergic to even more exotic things?”

  “Yeah?” he laughed.

  “I bet you’re allergic to peacock feathers. You’d have to have a duvet woven from a peacock’s fan tail, just so you could suffer exquisitely and get everyone’s sympathy.”

  “Well,” he said. “You’d have a duvet knitted out of old hair.”

  “Hair!” she cried. “You’d have hair pulled out of a baboon’s red backside and you’d love that.”

  “I wish the two of you would calm down,” said Wendy. At this rate they would both be hysterical by the time they got them to the stage. They wouldn’t be able to talk sensibly at all.

  Their tape, their priceless footage, had gone on ahead of them. It was waiting to be unspooled live on television, unleashed upon a late night audience. The viewing figures for Strange Matter were growing weekly. It was a fairly jokey show that came out live, with the brief to astonish, perplex and outrage the millions-strong public. From Argyle Timon and Belinda had posted a copy of their magic tape and the invite had come almost by return of post. They already knew what they had was hot. And they wouldn’t let Wendy watch it until she came to see the show.

  Serena was watching at home with Aunty Anne. They sat on high stools with the portable in her kitchen.

  “They’re going to make fools of themselves,” muttered Aunty Anne.

  They were watching Beyond The Poseidon Adventure which starred Telly Savalas, and which had to end before Strange Matter came on. The film showed no sign of ending yet.

  “Maybe there’s something in it,” said Serena. “Let’s face it, if there was such a thing as visitors from outer space, Belinda and Timon would be exactly the kind to bump into them.” She laughed. “You’re just jealous because it’s you that wants to be on the telly, Anne.”

  “I’ve been on the telly.”

  “Oh, yes.” Serena remembered Anne’s autumn of TV appearances, a few years ago. She got herself into the studio audience of all the daytime discussion shows. By phoning in and claiming to be the victim of bad holiday insurance, of a mad dog, of a house fire, of a serial killer, of a polygamous rat and finally ‘a woman who can’t say no’. She had managed to get herself onto three Kilroys, two Esthers, four Vanessas and only once on The Time, The Place. Eventually the producers cottoned on and saw through Anne’s disguise of dying her hair for each appearance.

  One producer said to her, “You must be the most afflicted woman in the country.”

  “I am!” she cried, and left the green room in high dudgeon. Yet she had slaked her thirst for getting on the telly. For the last one, about ‘women who can’t say no’, she was among a number of women claiming to be in their sixties and that they were miraculous grandmothers. One woman wore a very short dress and closed the show lip-synching to Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’. Anne thought it should have been her, flashing her marvellous legs all over the credits. The sight of this other woman sickened her.

  “I don’t need the publicity anymore,” said Anne sniffily.

  “Timon does,” said Serena. “He’s trying to get on the television, by making a fuss about Belinda and the visitors, just so he can cash in with his book.”

  “His book,” tutted Anne. On her way to the loo upstairs at Serena’s she had pushed into the guest room and, after minimal poking around, found the bound manuscript. It seemed complete. A neatly-written slim hardcover with the title page spelled out in a childish hand.

  Pieces of Belinda

  By Timon.

  Aunt Anne flicked through. It began:

  ‘My name is Belinda. I haven’t moved much in my life, but the things I’ve seen!

  It is true, though, that I like a view, but I like to sit with my back turned to it.’

  Anne’s hands were damp and she found herself blotting and wrinkling pages. She flicked.

  ‘I have met a genius only twice in my life and both times it was like a bell rang in my head.

  I met Marlene Dietrich, and I met Timon, my lover.’

  Anne rolled h
er eyes. Who would read this?

  Then she found what she called to herself, in her own mind, the dirty bits.

  Pieces of Belinda, indeed.

  With shaking fingers she put the book down, where she was sure she had found it.

  She returned to the kitchen, the telly and Serena and tried to put the thing out of her mind. Nothing got her adrenalin going like poking around in other people’s belongings.

  As Telly Savalas came to the end of his struggle to find the survivors of the Poseidon wreck, Anne said: “I could fetch his book from upstairs… and we could have a little read, if you like.”

  “Anne…” purred Serena. She pursed her lips. “If you must you must. I won’t read a word of it.” She smiled. “So you will have to read aloud to me.”

  “This is where the TV license money goes,” said Wendy while they were waiting in the BBC reception. It was a new glass walled edifice with a vast, clean floor. The ceiling high above was white and scalloped. It looked like the inverted hull of a cruise liner. They were called through the bleeping turnstiles and given passes. Belinda had to find the toilet and didn’t listen properly to their directions. Timon studied the map. They were to sit in the studio audience until called down. There were no rehearsals: there wasn’t time. They were expected to be spontaneous. Strange Matter had the reputation of being spontaneous and that was its special attraction. The show didn’t like to flatten its guests’ oddities by making them do anything mundane like rehearse. Belinda went to the ladies’ to throw up.

  “I’ve just seen Astrology Annie!” she gushed when she emerged. “When I said what I as doing here she wished me luck. And then she put a blessing on me for the lottery.”

  “Oh, boy,” said Wendy.

  “And she gave me a go with her lippy.” Belinda’s lips were bilberry blue.

  “I hope she hasn’t got herpes,” said Wendy.

  “As if!” said Belinda. Then they fell quiet as Astrology Annie swept out of the toilets, her cape brushing the walls of the corridor. Instinctively they shrunk back.

  “Good luck again, Belinda,” she said in her dire Transylvanian accent. “And you must be Timon.”

  Timon gave a little bow.

  “I shall be watching,” said Astrology Annie, and glided off down the passageway.

  Belinda had a soppy grin on her face. “Captain Simon will be madly jealous,” she hissed. “He’s crazy about her.”

  “This,” Serena said, “is strong stuff.”

  “I don’t understand the woman. Letting him put filthy words in her mouth like this.”

  They pored over the pages.

  “I thought she looked like a very naïve woman,” Serena whispered.

  “Look at this!” Anne pointed to the phrase ‘moist cleft’.

  They both drew in a breath.

  Anne said, “Do you think she’s read this?”

  Serena shrugged.

  The book fell open at Chapter Seventeen. ‘Love at the Royal Circus’. “I’m in this!” shrilled Anne. “Listen! ‘Her legs were like monuments—they were her twin monuments—her podiums on which she displayed herself—they were her pride—she existed only for her podiums—she strutted them—she strode about—she wore boots which made her amble and roll along—she was her monument to herself.’ What kind of compliment is that?”

  “I’m not sure that it is.”

  “Chapter Six. ‘My Brother is Replaced’. Chapter Ten. ‘An Orphan Comes to Stay’. This is outrageous! She, I mean he, has turned our lives into some kind of… sex comedy.”

  “A farce,” said Serena.

  “I’m keeping hold of this.” Anne looked around. “Shall we burn it?”

  “No!” Serena made a grab for the book.

  Anne was on her feet. “It’s scurrilous. I’m going to destroy it.”

  “It looks like his single copy.”

  Anne was standing at the gas stove, clicking the ignition. “Good!”

  “I can’t let you do this, Anne,” said Serena, advancing on her. “Give me the book.”

  “He’ll publish it and I’ll be a laughing stock. The woman with huge fat legs.”

  “He won’t publish it. It’s low-grade pornography, written in dreadful stream of consciousness. No one will touch this.”

  “Stream of lies!” She couldn’t get the ring to light.

  “Give me it and I’ll keep it safe.”

  “Will you?”

  “You can’t burn a book, Anne.”

  Serena reached out one of her large, perfect hands and took the volume off her friend. She would keep it till later, and examine it carefully in private.

  One of the many things Joshua collected was erotic works of fiction. They had to be hand-written, the pages sweated over. The value for him was lessened the wider the readership had been. He liked no one to come between himself and the author’s presence. She would phone him and perhaps insinuate herself back into his life. When she went back to him, it would have to be with a present, since she seemed to be out of favour just now. The book went into the knife drawer.

  “The film’s finished,” said Anne, sitting herself disgruntled on her stool again.

  They watched an advert for a hospital series, then a murder series, and one about firemen. Then the credits for Strange Matter began.

  They sat Belinda and Timon right on the gangway so that, when the time came, they could have easy access to the stage area. There was a whole barrage of cameras, cables, technicians and floor managers for them to get through before they would reach the brightly-lit podium and science fiction backdrop and, as they were instructed in the art of whooping, Belinda began to fret.

  “I’ll get all out of breath going down there,” she hissed. “I’ll arrive at the bottom looking like a sweating pig.” She was already frayed around the edges. She’d been wise, Wendy thought, not to wear a top that would show perspiration.

  Timon was clutching her hand and patting it. “You’ll be fine, hon.” His eyes were avid, staring at the set, which featured large photographic blow-ups of UFOs and unnameable creatures.

  The warm-up man was goading the audience, making the first few rows laugh with his Kenneth Williams impressions. Then they all had to do Mexican waves, back and forth, to get into the party spirit. Still chatting, Wendy and the others absent-mindedly stood when the wave hit them, then they flomped back down again.

  “We’re going to look like fools, aren’t we?” said Belinda.

  “No hon, we’re not.”

  “Now we need some more whooping,” the warm-up man said. “Whenever I hold up this card during broadcast, I want you all to whoop. Whenever someone new comes on, or there’s a joke. I shall signal the jokes, and when you have to laugh. Apart from that—be spontaneous. Now, altogether—Whoop!”

  They whooped.

  Beside Wendy there was an excitable woman who kept coming in too fast with her whoops. She couldn’t quite believe that she was in a TV studio, actually seeing Strange Matter. She gabbled to Wendy that she had the last two seasons of the show taped on video and knew them virtually off by heart. She wore a black T shirt with a silver unicorn on the front, its horn appliqued diamante. The woman saw Wendy staring. “I’m a member of the Church of the Silver Unicorn? Have you heard of us?”

  “Never,” said Wendy.

  “Perhaps I can tell you about it afterwards?” said the woman hurriedly, because the floor manager had started to count them down from twenty, to going live into the credits. They had to be ready to give on almighty whoop. Wendy found herself taking a deep breath in preparation. The unicorn woman said quickly, as an afterthought, “We aren’t a cult, you know?”

  Then the show began in earnest.

  From the dawn of time the mind of man has been asking himself the big, big questions. Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I begin? And he has to find his own answers. There are other mysteries, too, that the mind of man has worried at. About magic, religion, extraterrestrial life, and the inner world. Perhaps we can shed s
ome light, some tiny chink of light on our profoundly dark darkness as tonight we consider once more… the world of Strange Matter.

  The audience whooped.

  For me, at any rate, their appearance, their debut, passed in a blur. First we had the carrot-haired, obnoxious host Julian, coming on and cracking wiseguy jokes at the expense of those credulous enough to watch his show. A drummer underlined his punchlines, and he waggled his glasses like Eric Morecambe to make the crowd, who weren’t offended by his ribbing, laugh even louder. Justin the host drew the cameras’ attention to the section of the audience populated by those who had come dressed as aliens from Babylon 5 and Blake’s 7. We looked (and whooped) at the monitor screens showing people seeming embarrassed in their tin foil and painted bubble wrap. Then there was a short film about a Christ who wept coke in Venezuela (it was boring) and then, before we knew it, Timon and Belinda were yanked out of their seats, paraded down the stairs and onto the stage. In all the clapping and yelling (as if they’d won something) the woman from the Church of the Silver Unicorn kept nudging me and saying, “It’s your friends! Look, it’s your friends!”

  Justin introduced them briefly. “Timon what?”

  “Just Timon.”

  Justin pulled a ‘get him!’ expression at the camera. But the camera was busy loving Timon. He looked absolutely calm and assured as he sat on the overlarge settee. He really had the air of someone who had witnessed the extraordinary.

  “Now,” said Justin chummily. “Tell us all about your film.”

  Belinda became earnest. “You mustn’t treat it like a silly thing. It isn’t a funny home movie clip like someone falling on a cake at a wedding, or being attacked by a cat. What we’ve filmed is… well, it’s…”

  “All right,” waved Justin crossly. “Roll VT.” He sat back heavily as the lights dimmed.

  We all stared at the vast back projection.

  “That was telling him!” Serena smiled.

  “He’s an arrogant ginger gobshite,” said Aunty Anne. “I’m glad his wife walked out on him.”