Absolute Beginners (2 page)

So now you can see why, from time to time, I pay a call on Suze. For Suze, in the course of business at her fashion house, meets lots of kinky characters, usually among the daddies of the chicks who dress there, and acts as agent for me getting orders from them for my pornographic photos, drawing commission from me at the rate of twenty-five per cent. So you realise Suze is
a sharp gal, and no doubt this is because she’s not only English, but part Gibraltarian, partly Scotch and partly Jewish, which is perhaps why I get along with her, as I’m supposed to have a bit of Jewish blood from my mother’s veins as well – at any rate, I know I’m circumcised.

I found Suze in her Belgravia coffee bar, just near her work, which was one of the weirdie varieties, called The Last Days of Pompeii, and done up to represent just that, with stone seats in dim nooks, and a ruined well as the centrepiece, and a mummified Roman let into a hole in one of the walls just for kicks, I dare say. Suze was allowing her cappuccino to grow cold, and nibbling at a cream cheese and gherkin sandwich, for Suze never eats middays, as she’s inclined to plumpness, which I rather like, but makes up for it at evening time with huge plates of chicken and peas she cooks for her Spade visitors.

‘Hi, darl,’ she said.

‘Hi, hon,’ I answered.

That’s how we heard two movie stars address each other at a film we went to ages ago that rather sent us, in the days when Suze and I were steady.

‘How are the boys?’ I asked her, sitting down opposite, and under that tiny table putting my knees to hers.

‘The boys,’ she said, ‘are quite all right. Quite, quite okay.’

‘Have you had your hundredth yet?’ I asked her.

‘Not yet a hundred,’ Suze replied, ‘not yet, no, I don’t think so, not a hundred.’

I ordered my striped cassata. ‘You ever think of marrying with one of them?’ I asked her edgily, as usual
slipping into that groove of nastiness that affects me whenever I talk to Suze of her love life.

She looked dreamy, and actually flipped her eyelashes in the Italian starlet manner. ‘If ever I marry,’ she said, ‘it will be exclusively for distinction. I mean to make a very
distinguished
marriage.’

‘Not with a Spade, then.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ She blew a little brown nest in the white froth of her cappuccino. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I’ve had an offer. Or what amounts to an offer.’

She stopped, and gazed at me. ‘Go on,’ I said.

‘From Henley.’

‘No!’

She nodded, and lowered her eyes.

‘That horrible old poof!’ I cried.

I should explain that Henley is the fashion designer Suzette works for, and old enough to be her aunt, quite apart from anything else.

Suze looked severe and sore at me. ‘Henley,’ she said, ‘may be an invert, but he has distinction.’

‘He’s certainly got that!’ I cried. ‘Oh, he’s certainly got that all right!’

She paused. ‘Our marriage,’ she continued, ‘would of course be sexless.’

‘You bet it would!’ I yelled. I glared at her, seeking the killer phrase. ‘And what will Miss Henley say,’ I shouted, ‘when the Spades come tramping in their thousands into his distinguished bridal chamber?’

She smiled with pity, and was silent. I could have smacked her down.

‘I don’t dig this, Suze,’ I cried. ‘You’re a secretary in that place, you’re not even a glamorous model. Why should he want
you
, of all people, as his front woman alibi?’

‘I think he admires me.’

I glowered her ‘You’re marrying for loot,’ I shouted out. ‘With the Spades you were just a strumpet, now you’re going to be a whore!’

She poked her determined, obstinate little face at mine. ‘I’m marrying for distinction,’ she replied, ‘and that’s a thing that you could never give me.’

‘No, that I couldn’t,’ I said, very bitterly indeed.

I got up under pretext of spinning a record, pressed my three buttons wildly, and luckily got Ella, who would soothe even a volcano. I walked just a moment to the door, and really, the heat was beginning to saturate the air and hit you. ‘This summer can’t last,’ said the yobbo behind the Gaggia, mopping his sweaty brow with his sweaty arm.

‘Oh yes it can, daddy-o,’ I answered. ‘It can last till the calendar says stop.’

‘No …’ said the yobbo, gazing meanly up at the black-blue of that succulent June sky.

‘It can shine on forever,’ I hissed at him, leaning across and mingling with the steam out of his Gaggia. Then I turned away to go back and talk business with Suze. ‘Tell me about this client,’ I asked her, sitting down. ‘Tell me the who, the when, and even, if you know it, the why.’

Suze was quite nice to me, now she’d planted her little
arrow in my lungs. ‘He’s a diplomat,’ she answered, ‘or so he says.’

‘Does he represent any special country?’

‘Not exactly, no, he’s over here for some conference, so she told me.’

‘She who?’

‘His woman, who came in with him to see Henley and buy dresses.’

I gazed at Suzette. ‘Please tell me a thing I’ve always wanted to know. How do you go about raising the matter?’

‘What matter?’

‘That you’re an agent for my camera studies.’

Suze smiled.

‘Oh, it’s quite simple, really. Sometimes, of course, they know of me, I mean recommended by other clients. Or else, if not, I just size them up and show them some from my collection.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Henley, does he know?’

‘I never do it if he’s there,’ said Suze, ‘but I expect he knows.’

‘I see,’ I said, not pleased somehow by this. ‘I see. And what of this diplomat? How do I fix the deal?’

‘
Do you mind
?’ was all Suzette answered, the reason being that by now I had one of her knees caught between my two. I let go, and said, ‘Well, how?’

She opened her square-sac, and handed me a
shop-soiled
card, which said:

The address part was in printed copperplate, but the name was written in by hand.

‘Oh,’ I said, fingering this thing. ‘Have you any idea what sort of snap he’ll need?’

‘I didn’t go into any details.’

‘Don’t sound so scornful, Suze. You’re taking my twenty-five per cent, aren’t you?’

‘Have you got it for me in advance?’

‘No. Don’t come the acid drop.’

‘Well, then.’

I got up to leave. She came rather slowly after.

‘I’ll go out looking for this character,’ I said. ‘Shall I walk you back first to your emporium?’

‘Better not,’ she said. ‘We’re not supposed to bring our boyfriends near the building.’

‘But I’m not,’ I said, ‘your boyfriend any longer.’

‘No,’ said Suzette. She kissed me quickly on my lips and ran. Then stopped running, and disappeared at walking pace.

I started off across Belgravia, in search of Mr Mickey P.

And I must say that, in its way, I rather dig Belgravia: not because of what the daddies who live there think of it, that is, the giddy summit of a mad sophistication, but because I see it as an Olde Englishe product like Changing the Guard, or Savile Row suits, or Stilton cheese in big brown china jars, or any of those things
they advertise in
Esquire
to make the Americans want to visit picturesque Great Britain. I mean, in Belgravia, the flower boxes, and the awnings over doors, and the front walls painted different shades of cream. The gracious living in the red with huge green squares outside the window, and purring hired and diplomatic vehicles, and everything delivered at the door and on the slate, and little restaurants where camp creatures in cotton skintight slacks serve half an avocado pear at five bob, cover charge exclusive. All that seems missing from the scene is good King Ted himself. And I never cross this area without thinking it’s a great white-and-green theatre with a cast of actors in a comedy I rather admire, however sad it may be to think of.

So there was I, in fact, crossing it in my new Roman suit, which was a pioneering exploit in Belgravia, where they still wore jackets hanging down over what the tailors call the seat. And around my neck hung my Rolleiflex, which I always keep at the ready, night and day, because you never know, a disaster might occur, like a plane crashing in Trafalgar Square, which I could sell to the fish-and-chip wrapper dailies, or else a scandal, like a personage seen with the wrong kind of man or woman, which little Mr Wiz would certainly know how to merchandise.

This brought me to Wayne Mews West, which, like often in these London backwaters, was quite rural, with cobbles and flowers and silence and a sort of a sniff of horse manure around, when I saw a Vespa cycle with a CD plate on it parked nearby a recently built white
mews flat, and crouching beside a wooden tub outside a chrome front door, a figure in a mauve Thai silk summer suit who was, would you believe it, watering a fig tree growing in the tub.

I snapped him.

‘Hullo there,’ he said, looking up and smiling at me. ‘You like me to pose for you beside my Vespa?’

‘Can’t they allot you anything with four wheels?’ I said. ‘You must come from one of those very corrupt, small countries.’

Mr Mickey P. was naturally not pleased. ‘I smashed it up,’ he said. ‘It was a Pontiac convertible.’

‘This rule of the left we have,’ I said, ‘is so confusing.’

‘I understand the rules,’ said Mr P., ‘but got run into, just.’

‘You always do,’ I said.

‘Do what?’

‘Keep still, please, and smile if you like that kind of snap.’ I clicked a few. He stood by his motor scooter as if it was an Arab pony. ‘You always get run into,’ I explained. ‘It’s always the other feller.’

Mr Pondoroso leant his scooter against the Wayne Mews wall.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but there are a lot of very bad drivers in your country.’

I wound my spool. ‘And what are they like in yours?’ I asked him.

‘In mine,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter, because the roads are wide, and there are fewer autos.’

I looked up at him. I was curious to find where he came from, but didn’t like asking direct questions, which seems to me a crude way of finding out things that, with a little patience, they’ll tell you anyway. Besides, we were still at the sparring stage that always seems necessary with the seniors, whatever their race may be.

‘You’re a Latin American?’ I asked him.

‘I come from these parts, yes, but I live in the United States.’

‘Oh, yes. You’re representing both?’

He smiled his diplomatic smile. ‘I’m in a UNO job,’ he said, ‘attached. Press officer to the delegation.’

I didn’t ask which one it was. ‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘if I could step inside out of this glare to change my spool?’

‘To …?’

‘Recharge my camera. As a matter of fact,’ I said, eyeing him under the portico, ‘I believe I have to talk about photography to you. Suzette sent me, you met her at Henley’s place.’

He looked cautious and blank a moment, then turned on the diplomatic grin again and battered me on the shoulder. ‘Come right in,’ he cried, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

Inside it looked cool and costly – you know, with glass-topped white metal furniture, oatmeal-stained woodwork, Yank mags and indoor plants and siphons, but as if none of it belonged to him, as in fact I don’t suppose it did. ‘You have a drink?’ he said.

‘Thank you, no, I won’t,’ I told him.

‘You don’t drink?’

‘No, sir, never.’

He stared at me, holding a bottle and a glass, and genuinely interested in me for the first time, so it seemed. ‘Then how do you get by?’ he asked me.

I’ve had to explain this so often before to elder brethren, that it’s now almost a routine. ‘I don’t use the liquor kick,’ I said, ‘because I get all the kicks I need from me.’

‘You don’t drink at all?’

‘Either you drink a lot,’ I told him, ‘or else, like me, you don’t drink anything at all. Liquor’s not made for zips, but for orgies or total abstinence. Those are the only wise weddings between man and bottle.’

He shook his head, and poured himself some deadly brew. ‘So you’re the photographer,’ he said.

I saw I’d have to be very patient with this character. ‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘What kind of print might you be needing?’ I went on, not sure yet what kinkiness I had to cater for.

He drew himself up and flexed his torso. ‘Oh, I would want you to photograph me.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. Is that unusual?’

‘Well, it is, a-bit-a-little. My clients usually want photographs of models doing this and that …’

I was trying to make it easier for the cat. But he said, ‘Me, I want no models – only me.’

‘Yes, I see. And you doing exactly what?’

‘In athletic poses,’ he replied.

‘Just you alone?’

‘Of course.’ He saw I was still puzzled. ‘In my gymnastic uniform,’ he explained.

He put down his glass and bottle, and stepped into the next room while I flicked Yank mags and had a tonic water. Then out he came wearing – and I swear I’m not inventing this – a white-laced pair of navy-blue basketball shoes, black ballet rehearsal tights, a nude chest thatched like a Christmas card, and, on his head, a small, round, racing-swimmer’s cap.

‘You can begin,’ he said.

‘How many poses do you want?’

‘About a hundred.’

‘Seriously? It’ll cost you quite a lot … You want to be
doing
anything particular, or just poses?’

‘I leave this to your inspiration.’

‘Okay. Just walk about, then. Do whatever comes naturally to you.’

As I clicked away, I worked out what the most was I could ask him: and I wondered if he was perhaps insolvent, or a lunatic, or in trouble with the law, like so many in the capital these days. This crazy
Latin-American
number was lumbering all over the furniture of his apartment, striking narcissistic poses, as if he was already gloating over the prints I’d give him of such a glorious big hunk of man.

After a while of this in silence, he perspiring, I chasing him round clicking like a professor with a bug-net, he grabbed a drink, collapsed into a white shining leather chair, and said, ‘Perhaps you can help me.’