4

Morning’s at seven,

The hill-side’s dew-pearled,

Pippa Passes

I carolled at Jock as he aroused me, but my heart wasn’t really in the statement. Morning was in fact at ten, as usual, and Upper Brook Street was merely wet. It was a gritty, drizzling, clammy day and the sky was the colour of mouse dirt. Pippa would have stayed in bed and no snail in his senses would have climbed a thorn. My cup of tea, which usually droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven, tasted like a vulture’s crutch. The canary looked constipated and gave me a surly glance instead of the customary stave or two of song.

‘Mr Martland’s downstairs, Mr Charlie. Bin waiting half an hour.’

I snarled and drew a fold of silk sheet over my head, burrowing down back into the womby warmth where no one can hurt you.

‘You ought to see his moosh, where I hit him, it’s a treat, honest. All colours.’

That fetched me. The day had at least one treat to offer. Against my better judgment I got up.

A mouth wash, half a dexedrine, a morsel of anchovy toast and a Charvet dressing-gown – all in the order named – and I was ready to deal with any number of Martlands.

‘Lead me to this Martland,’ I ordered.

I must say he did look lovely; it wasn’t just the rich autumnal tints on his swollen moosh, it was the play of expressions over it which enchanted me. You may compile your own list of these; I have no heart for it just now. The one which matters for this narrative was the last: a kind of sheepish false bonhomie with a careful dash of wryness, like two drops of Worcester sauce in a plate of gravy soup.

He bounced up and strode toward me, face first, hand outstretched for a manly grip.

‘Friends again, Charlie?’ he mumbled.

It was my turn to drop the lower jaw – I broke out in a sweat of embarrassment and shame for the man. Well, I mean. I made a sort of gruff, gargling noise which seemed to satisfy him for he dropped my hand and settled back cosily on to the sofa. To hide my nonplussedness I ordered Jock to make coffee for us.

We waited for the coffee in silence, more or less. Martland tried a weather gambit – he’s one of those people who always know when the latest V-shaped depression is likely to emerge from its roost over Iceland. I explained kindly that until I had drunk coffee of a morning I was a poor judge of meteorology.

(What is the origin of this strange British preoccupation with the weather? How can adult male Empire-builders gravely discuss whether or no it is raining, has rained or is likely to rain? Can you imagine the most barren-minded Parisian, Viennese or Berliner demeaning himself by talking such piffle? ‘Ils sont fous ces Bretons,’ says Obelix, rightly. I suppose it is really just another manifestation of the Englishman’s fantasy about the soil. The most urbane cit is, in his inner heart, a yeoman farmer and yearns for leather gaiters and a shotgun.)

The coffee having arrived (how hard it is to write without the ablative absolute!) we guzzled genteelly for a while, passing each other sugar and cream and things and beaming falsely from time to time. Then I lowered the boom.

‘You were going to tell me how you knew I was at Spinoza’s,’ I said.

‘Charlie, why ever are you so fascinated by that particular detail?’

It was a very good question indeed, but one which I had no intention of answering. I stared at him blankly.

‘Oh, well, it’s quite simple really. We happen to know that old Spinoza has – had, rather – about a quarter of a million grubby pound notes from the Great Train job. He paid for them in clean fivers and got a hundred and seventy-five pounds per cent. Bloody old crook. Well, we knew he would be having to unload soon so we hired a little yob who works for one of the galleries in Mason’s Yard to watch the place for us. Anyone, well, interesting, goes to see Spinoza, we get the word on our yob’s little walkie-talkie.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘Now I do call that riveting. What about callers before gallery hours?’

‘Ah, yes, well, there we have to take a chance, of course. I mean, there just aren’t funds to run shifts on all these jobs. Cost a fortune.’

I made a mental ‘whew’ of relief, believing him. A thought struck me.

‘Martland, is your nark a little tit called Perce, works for the O’Flaherty Gallery?’

‘Well, yes, I think that is his name, as a matter of fact.’

‘Just so,’ I said.

I cocked an ear, Jock was outside the door, breathing through his nose, making mental notes, if you can properly call them that. There’s no doubt that I was much relieved to learn that only Perce was suborned; had Mr Spinoza been playing the strumpet with me all would have been lost. In spades. I must have allowed my expression to relax for I realized that Martland was looking at me curiously. This would not do. Change the subject.

‘Well now,’ I cried heartily, ‘what’s the deal? Where are these riches of the Orient you were pressing upon me last night? “Nay, even unto half your kingdom” was the sum mentioned, I believe?’

‘Oh, really, come now Charlie, last night was last night, wasn’t it? I mean, we were both a bit overwrought, weren’t we? You’re surely not holding me to that.’

‘The window is still there,’ I said simply, ‘and so is Jock. And I may say that I am still overwrought; no one has ever tried to murder me in cold blood before.’

‘But obviously I’ve taken precautions this time, haven’t I?’ he said, and he patted a hip pocket. This told me that his pistol, if anywhere, was under his armpit, of course.

‘Let us play a game, Martland. If you can get that thing out before Jock hits you on the head, you win the coconut.’

‘Oh come on, Charlie, let’s stop sodding about. I’m quite prepared to offer you substantial ah benefits and ah concessions if you’ll play along with our side over this business. You know damn well I’m in the shit and if I can’t recruit you that awful old man in the Home Office will be baying for your blood again. What will you settle for? I’m sure you aren’t interested in the sort of money my department can offer.’

‘I think I’d like a Bonzo dog.’

‘Oh God, Charlie, can’t you be serious?’

‘No, really, a greyhound; you know, a silver one.’

‘You can’t mean you want to be a Queen’s Messenger? What in God’s name for? And what makes you think I could swing that?’

I said, ‘First, yes, I do; second, mind your own business; third, you can swing it if you have to. I also want the diplomatic passport that goes with it and the privilege of taking a diplomatic bag to the Embassy in Washington.’

He leaned back in his chair, all knowing and relaxed now. ‘And what is likely to be in the bag, or is that not my business either?’

‘A Rolls Royce, as a matter of fact. Well, it won’t actually be in a bag, of course, but it will be smothered in diplomatic seals. Same thing.’

He looked grave, worried; his under-engined brain revving furiously as its deux chevaux tried to cope with this gradient.

‘Charlie, if it’s going to be full of drugs the answer is no repeat no. If it’s grubby pound notes in a reasonable quantity I might see my way, but I don’t think I could protect you afterwards.’

‘It is neither,’ I said firmly. ‘On my word of honour.’ I looked him squarely and frankly in the eye as I said it, so that he would be sure that I was lying. (Those notes from the Train will have to be changed soon, won’t they?) He eyed me back like a trusting comrade, then carefully placed all ten fingertips together, eyeing them with modest pride as though he’d done something clever. He was thinking hard and didn’t care who knew it.

‘Well, I suppose something on those lines could be worked out,’ he said at last. ‘You realize, of course, that the degree of co-operation expected from you would have to be proportionate to the difficulty of getting you what you ask?’

‘Oh yes,’ I replied brightly, ‘you will want me to kill Mr Krampf, won’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right. How did you guess?’

‘Well, clearly, now that Hockbottle has been, er, terminated, you can’t possibly leave Krampf alive, knowing what he does, can you? And I may say it’s a bit rough on me because he happens to be a rather good customer of mine.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Yes, I thought you would know by now. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, ha ha.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Anyway, it’s clear that you can’t put any pressure on a chap as rich as Krampf except by killing him. It’s also clear that I can get close to him and that getting me to do it will save your estimates a fortune. Moreover, no one could possibly be as expendable as me from your point of view – and I can scarcely be traced to any official agency. Lastly, if I do it clumsily and get myself into an electric chair you’ve killed both Krampf and me with one gallstone.’

‘Well, some of that’s more or less true,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Then I sat at my silly little French desk – the one the witty dealer called a malheur-du-jour because he paid too much for it – and wrote a list of all the things I wanted Martland to do. It was quite long. His face darkened as he read but he bore it like a little man and tucked the paper carefully in his wallet. I noticed that he was not wearing a shoulder holster after all, but that had not been my first mistake that day by any means.

The coffee was by now cold and horrid, so I courteously gave him what was left of it. I daresay he didn’t notice. Then he left after a chummy commonplace or two; for a moment I feared he was going to shake my hand again.

‘Jock,’ I said, ‘I am going back to bed. Be so kind as to bring me all the London telephone books, a shakerful of cocktails – any sort, let it be a surprise – and several watercress sandwiches made of soft white bread.’

Bed is the only place for protracted telephoning. It is also excellently suited to reading, sleeping and listening to canaries. It is not at all a good place for sex: sex should take place in armchairs, or in bathrooms, or on lawns which have been brushed but not too recently mown, or on sandy beaches if you happen to have been circumcised. If you are too tired to have intercourse except in bed you are probably too tired anyway and should be husbanding your strength. Women are the great advocates of sex in bed because they have bad figures to hide (usually) and cold feet to warm (always). Boys are different, of course. But you probably knew that. I must try not to be didactic.

After an hour I arose, draped the person in whipcord and hopsack and descended to the kitchen to give the canary one more chance to be civil to me. It was more than civil, almost busting its tiny gut with song, vowing that all would yet be well. I accepted its assurances guardedly.

Calling for coat and hat I tripped downstairs – I never use the lift on Saturdays, it’s my day for exercise. (Well, I use it going up, naturally.)

The concierge emerged from her lair and gibbered at me: I silenced her with a finger to my lips and significantly raised eyebrows. Never fails. She slunk back, mopping and mowing.

I walked all the way to Sotheby’s, holding my tummy in nearly the whole time, terribly good for one. There was a picture belonging to me in the sale, a tiny canvas of a Venetian nobleman’s barge with livened gondoliers and a wonderfully blue sky. I had bought it months before, hoping to persuade myself that it was by Longhi, but my efforts had been in vain so I had put it into Sotheby’s, who had austerely called it ‘Venetian School, XVIII Century.’ I ran it up to the figure I had paid for it, then left it to its own devices. To my delight it ran for another three hundred and fifty before being knocked down to a man I detest. It is probably in a Duke Street window this moment, labelled Marieschi or some such nonsense. I stayed another ten minutes and spent my profit on a doubtful but splendidly naughty Bartolomaeus Spränger showing Mars diddling Venus with his helmet on – such manners! On my way out of the Rooms I telephoned a rich turkey farmer in Suffolk and sold him the Spränger, sight unseen, for what is known as an undisclosed sum, and toddled righteously away towards Piccadilly. There’s nothing like a little dealing to buck one up.

Across Piccadilly without so much as a bad fright, through Fortnum’s for the sake of the lovely smells, a step along Jermyn Street and I was snug in Jules’s Bar, ordering luncheon and blotting up my fifth White Lady. (I forgot to tell you what Jock’s surprise had been; sorry.) As a serious gastronome I deplore cocktails of course, but then I also deplore dishonesty, promiscuity, inebriety and many another goody.

If anyone had been following me hitherto they were welcome, I’m sure. For the afternoon, however, I needed privacy from the SPG boys so I scanned the room carefully from time to time as I ate. By closing time the whole population of the bar had changed except for one or two permanent fixtures whom I knew by sight: if there had been a tail he must be outside and by now probably very cross.

He was both outside and cross.

He was also Martland’s man Maurice. (I suppose I hadn’t really expected Martland to play it straight: the school we were at together wasn’t a particularly good one. Long on sodomy and things but a bit short on the straight bat, honour and other expensive extras, although they talked a lot about them in Chapel. Cold baths a-plenty, of course, but you, who have never taken one, may be surprised to learn that your actual cold bath is your great begetter of your animal passions. Rotten bad for the heart, too, they tell me.)

Maurice had a newspaper in front of his face and was peering at me through a hole in it, just like they do in the storybooks. I took a couple of rapid paces to the left: the paper swung around after me. Then three to the right and again the paper swung, like the fire shield of a field gun. He did look silly. I walked over to him and poked my finger through the hole in his paper.

‘Booh!’ I said and waited for his devastating retort.

‘Please take your finger out of my newspaper,’ he retorted devastatingly.

I wiggled the finger, resting my nose on the top of the newspaper.

‘Piss off!’ he snarled, scarlet-faced. Better, that.

I pissed off, well pleased with myself. Round the corner of St James’s Street clumped a policeman, one of those young, pink, indignant policemen you meet so often nowadays. Ambitious, virtuous and hell on evil-doers.

‘Officer!’ I gobbled angrily, ‘I have just been obscenely accosted by that wretched fellow with the newspaper.’ I pointed a shaking finger at Maurice who paused guiltily in midstride. The policeman went white about the lips and bore down on Maurice who was still on one foot, newspaper outstretched, looking extraordinarily like a cruel parody of Gilbert’s ‘Eros’ at Piccadilly Circus. (Did you know that Eros is made of aluminium? I’m sure there’s a moral there somewhere. Or a joke.)

‘I’ll be at your Station in forty minutes,’ I cried after the policeman, and nipped into a passing taxi. It had all its handles.

Now, as I’ve already told you, Martland’s men have a year’s training. Ergo, spotting Maurice so easily had to mean that Maurice was there to be spotted. It took me a long time but I spotted her in the end: a burly, clean-shaven, auntlike woman in a Triumph Herald: an excellent car for tailing people in, unremarkable, easily parked and with a tighter turning circle than a London taxi. It was unfair on her not to have had a companion though. I simply hopped out at Piccadilly Circus, went in one Underground entrance and out of another. Triumph Heralds are not all that easily parkable.

My second taxi took me to Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, a wonderful place where all sorts of recondite crafts are plied. Over-tipping the driver, as is my foolish wont, he ‘gave’ me ‘Nostalgia for the fourth at Kempton Park.’ Still wondering what on earth he could mean, I climbed the stairs to my liner’s studio.

Here I’d better explain what a liner is. Most old paintings need a new support before they can be cleaned. In its simplest form, this involves soaking the old canvas with glue, ‘compo’ or wax, then bonding it, so to speak, to a new canvas by means of a hot table and pressure. Sometimes the old canvas is too far gone; sometimes during the work the paint comes adrift (the picture ‘blows up’ as they say). In either of these cases a ‘transfer’ is called for. This means that the painting is fastened face downwards and every shred of canvas is removed from the paint. The new canvas is then stuck onto the back of the paint and your picture is sound again. If it is painted on panel (wood) which has gone rotten or wormy, a really top reliner can plane all the wood off, leaving only the crust of paint, to which he then sticks a canvas. All very, very tricky work and highly paid. A good liner has a pretty shrewd idea of the value of the painting he is treating and usually charges accordingly. He makes more money than many of the dealers he works for. He is indispensable. Any idiot can clean a painting – and many of them do – and most competent artists can strengthen (touch up) or replace missing bits of paint; indeed many famous painters have made a good thing out of this as a secret sideline. (Very delicate work, like the rigging of ships, was often painted with a varnish medium for easy handling: this is hell to clean because, of course, it comes off with the dirty varnish. Consequently, many cleaners simply photograph the rigging or whatever, ruthlessly clean it off, then repaint it from the photograph. Well, why not?) But a good liner, as I was saying, is a pearl beyond price.

Pete does not look like a pearl. He looks like a dirty and sinister little Welshman, but he has the curiously beautiful manners which even the basest Celt displays in his own home. He opened the ceremonial tin of Spam and brewed a huge metal pot of lovely strong Brooke Bond PG Tips. I hastily volunteered to make the bread and butter – his nails were filthy – and to slice the Spam. It was a lovely tea party, I adore Spam, and the tea had condensed milk in it and came out a rich orange colour. (How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear queen.)

I told him the Spränger would be arriving from Sotheby’s and that I thought the drapery over Venus’s oh-be-joyful was later work and probably concealed a very fair example of the nun’s wink.

‘Scrub,’ I told him, ‘but scrub with care.’

We then repaired to his studio under the roof so that I could inspect work in progress. All very satisfactory. He was having great trouble with my little Sienese tryptich (is that how you spell it?) but then he’d been having trouble with it for eighteen months. I never got the bill for it and now I probably never shall.

Then I told him about Mr Spinoza and explained certain new arrangements. He didn’t like them a bit but soon stopped shrieking when I filled his mouth with gold, as it were. He keeps his money in the tea caddy, if you want to know. There was one more ordeal to be undergone before I could get away from his carious, onion-laden breath.

‘Just got time for a tune, then, ain’t I?’ he cried with the coy, treat-giving air of a Quartermaster dishing out prophylactics.

‘Capital, capital,’ I responded, rubbing hypocritical hands. He sat down at his little electric organ (it cost him £400) and treated me to ‘Turn back, oh man, Forswear thy foolish ways’ which moved me deeply. There is something curiously wrong about most Welsh voices, a kind of cardboard quality under the slick of gold, which irks me greatly. Pete’s singing can reduce a public bar full of people to tears of sheer pleasure – I’ve seen it – but it always makes me feel that I’ve eaten too many Spam sandwiches.

I applauded loudly and, since he was particularly indispensable at that juncture, begged humbly for another. He gave me ‘There is a Fountain Filled with Blood,’ which never fails to please. I tottered downstairs and into the street, my bowels heavy with strong tea and foreboding.

The Bethnal Green Road at half past six on a Saturday night is not a locus classicus for taxis. In the end I took a bus; the conductor wore a turban and hated me on sight. I could see him memorizing me so that he could go on hating me after I’d got off.

Much depressed, I entered the flat and stood limply while Jock took my hat and coat away from me. He steered me to my favourite chair and brought me a glass of whisky calculated to stun a Clydesdale stallion. I revived enough to play a record of Amelita Galli-Curci singing ‘Un Di Felice’ with Tito Schipa; that reassured me in the bel canto department and the rest of the album dissipated most of the foreboding. Bathed and dinner-jacketed, I was in the mood for Wilton’s lovely art-nouveau décor and even more in the mood for their Oysters Mornay. I also had a baked custard, a thing I wouldn’t dream of eating anywhere else.

Home again, I was in time for a rattling John Wayne Western on the television, which I let Jock watch with me. We drank a great deal of whisky, for this was Saturday night.

I suppose I went to bed at some stage.