By Flower and Dean Street Page 8

  She sat in the bath with Matthew, her long black hair hanging among the lemon bubbles, her big breasts floating on the water. She soaped Matthew’s hair and drank some coffee. ‘Head under, love.’

  The phone rang. She heaved herself out and walked floppily into the living room.

  ‘Pat! Hang on! Just get a fag. I’m feeling a bit shaky. Well, I should know better at my age. Broke all the rules, especially the golden one: I mixed them. Had two hours sleep. He’s very happy. Just landed something incredible. I’d better not say yet. Hang on! They’re on!’ She reached over and turned up the adverts. ‘Let’s have lunch. Thursday’s the only free day. Lovely. Bye.’ She put the receiver down, and the phone rang again immediately.

  ‘Jane! Fancy hearing from you. Everything’s incredible. Ken has just got — what? I don’t know much about them. I knew someone who sold refrigerators cheap but not deep freezes. They fell off the back of a lorry. You know, wink wink! Ken’s got — what? I didn’t think you wore make-up. Well, there was a girl selling French products half-price but she seems to have gone off the scene. I’m very busy at the present because Ken’s — O.K. Bye.’ She smacked the receiver down hard. She’d got between the kitchen and living room and was almost in the bathroom when it rang again.

  ‘Wendy! Fantastic! I thought you’d never come back. I don’t go to the clubs any more. Ken doesn’t dance. I’d rather not ... I don’t think he’d like it.’ She leaned over and turned the schools programme down. ‘I’ve only had one dress this autumn. Ken’s had to have clothes. All the money’s gone into the studio. I didn’t have a coat till the second day it snowed. I don’t seem to feel the cold. Yes, I did lose a bit of weight after Matthew but I’ve put it on again. Ken likes it. No. He never was one for the skinny birds.’ She laughed. Her teeth were stained with nicotine. ‘I must go. Matt’s in the bath. He’s only 19 months and he can talk. Isn’t it incredible? Bye.’

  Wearing a black silk bikini and a miniscule bra, she writhed on the green woolly floor. ‘29, 30, 31. Just a minute, Matt. Must get to 40, 33, 34.’ She flopped, exhausted, and then stretched her legs straight into the air. Matthew was eating his cornflakes in front of the silent television. He croaked — the ads were on. She sat upright and got into a shaky lotus, sweat trickled, her heart raced. There seemed no earthly chance of her thighs ever lying flat against the floor. She pushed them disgustedly and stood up.

  She was painting her toenails gold when it rang again.

  ‘Liz, it was a marvellous evening. He’s preoccupied at the moment. Lots of work, things happening. He’s so clever ... Yes, people are always telling me I should model. I haven’t the time. Anyway, Ken wouldn’t allow it. I wore a midnight-blue dress, boobs hanging out. No I wore it up. A great big old fashioned bun. People were knocked out. See you soon.’

  She washed her face-pack off and quickly smeared on a gold glowing make-up. She curled her lashes and then got side-tracked by a faint line between her eyebrows. She massaged it, patted it; she didn’t like it. Her mouth was wide, full and sensual. She painted it pink. Her eyes were large, beautifully shaped and soft. She surrounded them with silver eye liner and green and brown shadows and put a small red dot in the corner of each to bring out their colour. She talked gently, coaxingly to her son. ‘Bye baby Bunting. Daddy’s gone a hunting.’

  She dressed him in his sheepskin coat, put him in his puschair and gave him an apple. She caught the dog and put him on a lead. She shook her only winter jacket, put it on and turned up the collar. She looked at herself quickly, unsatisfactorily, in the short mirror and they left the flat.

  *

  In the wet light the bright-green carpet flowed through the rooms like a lush meadow. The cat pretended to graze but watched the corners with a wicked eye. The short mirror reflected the arctic bed, with all its rumpled, coiled sheets clean and sharp like a mountain range. It reflected Ken’s long beaver-coat and one of his knee-length, hand-made, soft-leather boots, but could only catch half his rail of shirts. The mirror seemed starved. The rough mauve curtains flapped a little and the cat sat by the loud clock purring competitively. Everything was stylish, clean, admirable, but there was a solemn lonely air that wasn’t allowed to exist when the rooms were occupied.

  Then the phone started ringing.

  2

  ‘The media is the best way of reaching people.’ It wasn’t till half-way through the evening that Ken realised that Bunty was talking about television and not an opera.

  Joel hurt his finger trying to crack nuts. In one hand he placed three Brazils and two cob nuts, but after several minutes of hard squeezing they stayed the same — firmly in their shells.

  Bunty pushed over a saucer of peanuts. The enormous television was active in one corner, its sound turned down. Joel’s face, a crafty oval in which everything sloped downwards, was unnaturally smooth. Ken suspected that he took hormones. He had long sensual lips. His currant eyes were too close to his nose and made him look dishonest. His hair was luxuriant black and styled to make up for the rest of him.

  He flung two nuts into the air, caught them both and they disappeared into the podgy flesh of his right hand. He squeezed; his face became contorted; sweat covered his cheeks like dew. ‘Goddam!’ His manful act a failure, he reached for the nutcrackers and sat down.

  ‘Television is where it’s all happening. You can do so much. Also it’s where the money is.’ Her voice was innocent, light and full of laughter; it had nothing to do with the house, her husband or what she was saying. Despite her Grecian hairstyle and sophisticated clothes she was healthy and fresh and with her red cheeks she reminded him of a milkmaid in a child’s picture-book.

  Ken sat nonchalantly upright in an armchair facing the television. The way he lit his cigarette thrilled Bunty — all his movements precise and skilful. Ken was in command of himself and the situation. Joel was worried. He wasn’t prepared for this intelligent, quick-thinking young man with a background. Dim, over-emotional types were what he liked.

  Bunty nudged Joel and indicated the television. The ads were starting and he turned up the sound.

  Ken leaned forward and watched intently. ‘That’s one of mine. The 95-second-cough-mixture is also mine but it comes on later.’

  The ads over, Joel lowered the volume and wobbled silently across the room on his short legs. He drank a tumbler of orange crush and hit a nut spitefully with the end of a spoon. Then he started talking.

  ‘It’s like this, son. You work with me. I work with you.’

  Ken moved a finger quickly, lightly, across his lips. It seemed to unsettle Bunty. She leaned forward, and for a moment it looked as though she was going to kiss him.

  ‘The agency says you’re a good guy. I like your cut-rate holidays. Bunty thinks you’d make anything appealing and she’s got a good ear for a jingle. But you’ve a way to go yet. Your tune for breakfast cereals — too slow. You don’t wake anyone up. I own three national food-packaging companies, a slice of two of the biggest recording companies, a string of hairdressing saloons —’

  ‘Salons,’ murmured Bunty.

  ‘And a nursing agency.’

  Ken caught sight of the emerald television grass and longed to escape — to be alone in a field, to smell real grass.

  ‘You think, what the heck is a guy like Joel fooling around with nurses for. You say it’s not a realistic idea: I gross over 100 percent.’

  Ken lifted his eyebrows. He managed to satisfy even Joel without losing his dignity.

  ‘What the hospitals pay in a week wouldn’t cover a full treatment in my saloons. The girls get fed up and come to my agency. The hospitals are therefore understaffed. They’ve got to have nurses.’ He spread his arms wide, leered and managed to look like the singing climax of a family musical. ‘So where do they get them? I give their girls back for four times the original cost. The girls are happy. They also get tokens for a once-a-week hair-set-and-facial at any one of my saloons. This dog food is gonna be big, because everything I do is big.’


  Ken looked at Joel’s stomach bulging behind the pale green suit and tried not to laugh.

  Joel swallowed another mouthful of orange crush. ‘I know over here it’s usual for the client to go to an agency and dump the whole project in their lap and let them get on with it. But I’ve got big by not being usual. Look at her!’ He pinched Bunty’s cheek. ‘She could tell you a thing or two. She could tell you what she was before I found her and made her what she is now. Look at her. Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘Very,’ murmured Ken.

  Bunty’s delight satisfied Joel and he padded back to his crush.

  She turned to Ken, her expression quite different and said, ‘I was a nurse in a geriatric ward.’

  Ken smiled. He wondered whether it was there that she’d met her husband.

  ‘I like to come in on the ground floor. Then when I see everything’s Gung Ho I move on to something else. Now, what have you got up your sleeve for our lucky doggie amigos?’

  ‘One or two things. I’m against a vocal.’

  Joel nodded, his currant eyes full of sly assessments.

  ‘Quick, they’re on.’ Bunty stood by the television in all her full-blown shapeliness.

  ‘Put your ideas on tape and bring them straight up.’

  ‘I think the agency would feel a bit left out.’

  ‘Let them feel left out. He who calls the piper. You’ll get percentage of the brand image —’

  ‘Repeat money?’

  ‘The usual percentage. Contract negotiable after nine months. It’ll take six to get it going. After two years, if it goes, a new ad. Plus’ — he lifted a cautionary hand — ‘a percentage of the foreign market.’

  ‘What length?’

  ‘75 second. I aim to push it. Maximum exposure. A hundred-piece orchestra, a set of African bongowallas — whatever you want for your jingle you’ll have it. I’m not mean. You stick with me, Kenneth, and I’ll get you to Venice. Stick with me and you’ll get the Golden Lion.’

  He celebrated Ken’s perfunctory nod with a further glass of crush.

  Bunty poured Ken another Scotch and looked with yearning at the silent horror movie. Joel, his long flat feet splayed at a sensational angle, shuffled business papers on top of the grand piano. He held up a blue flimsy sheet covered with figures. Ken wondered what his legs were stuffed with.

  ‘There’s lots of dog-foods. Ours has to be different.’

  ‘Where’d you go to school, son?’ Joel’s voice was sharp.

  Ken named a well-known public school. It was lost on Joel. ‘After that?’

  ‘Oxford.’

  ‘What degree did you get?’ All his questions quick as gunfire.

  ‘A second.’

  ‘What in?’

  ‘History.’

  ‘You wrote the music for a revue?’

  ‘No, I wrote an opera. It was performed at Glyndebourne and —’

  ‘Only child?’

  ‘It was based on Kafka’s The Castle.’ He lit a cigarette. Through the smoke, his eyes were hard. ‘I am an only child, yes.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many times?’

  A slight hesitation. ‘Three.’

  ‘Think this one’ll stick?’

  ‘I mean it to.’

  ‘What went wrong with the others?’

  ‘I walked out.’

  ‘Bored?’

  ‘I felt like it. That’s why.’ He was furious.

  ‘Joel! Look at his eyes. Aren’t they something?’

  A laugh escaped from Joel and didn’t get far. ‘You should have been in movies.’

  Ken managed to smile. Actors bored him to death, but he didn’t feel it appropriate to say so.

  ‘Any kids?’

  ‘I’ve got —’

  ‘D’you play around or stick with the wife?’ He looked at Bunty.

  ‘I write background music reasonably well. You know that. My private life is my own.’

  Joel stroked Bunty’s ringlets. ‘You’re beautiful.’

  She flushed and didn’t deny it.

  Joel bent lower and his face bulged — it frightened Ken. Bunty was used to it.

  Joel was swollen with crush and looked about to burst, but he still managed to swill down another half-tumbler. ‘Have another, boy,’ he said, and waddled over with the scotch.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Come on, come on.’

  ‘No really.’

  The bottle still pushed towards him and he put a hand over his glass, quickly. ‘I don’t want one!’ All his consonants snapping.

  Defeated, Joel stood the bottle on the piano. ‘Not a big drinker?’

  ‘Now and then.’

  ‘The agency said you’re 32.’

  ‘They don’t usually lie.’

  ‘You play a close hand, son.’

  ‘Look at that muck you drink! Sugary muck! There’s no oranges in it, that you can be sure,’ said Bunty.

  ‘Where do you come from?’ Ken asked her.

  ‘I was brought up in the country. Somerset.’ Her voice soothed his hangover. She was fresh, clean, full of delight. He’d rarely seen delight, except in children.

  ‘It’s slimming, honey. Joel’s eyes grew round, looked hurt.

  ‘Slimming! It’s all white sugar, saccharine and flavouring. It’ll kill him one day.’

  Ken smiled at her, his first real smile.

  ‘Now let’s get on with the graft,’ said Joel. ‘Name, image, presentation, price.’

  ‘Isn’t that the copy writer’s problem?’

  ‘Poop!’

  ‘Good name,’ said Bunty. ‘That’s about what it’ll be too.’

  ‘Rover. I’m in favour of Rover.’

  Bunty and Ken looked at him. Their mouths didn’t quite hang open.

  ‘Well, come on. I throw it at you. Throw something back. How about Rover, son?’

  ‘How about Munch?’

  ‘Or Crunch?’ said Bunty.

  ‘Brunch!’ Joel’s little eyes shone. Steam rose from his amphibious body. ‘Brunch it is.’

  ‘That’s a good one, Bunty,’ and Ken winked at her.

  ‘Dangerous,’ she murmured and then said loudly: ‘Not everyone has telly. I mean some ignorant human being might just miss your 75-second ad and eat it himself.’

  ‘There’ll be a dog on the tin, presumably,’ said Ken. ‘Why not call it “Doggy Brunch”, just to make sure there’s no confusion?’

  ‘Mongrel or pedigree?’ asked Joel.

  ‘Pedigree on the expensive version, mongrel on the cheap. Market two brands,’ said Ken.

  ‘We’re getting there.’

  ‘Champ!’ said Bunty, softly. ‘I like an evocative name.’

  ‘Give a dog a challenge,’ said Ken. ‘Not the usual wet slop. Real bones and gristle. Do it in grades. Get them to grade the congealed rats or whatever they use.’

  ‘I like it,’ breathed Joel.

  ‘Champ. Only if your dog’s really a dog! Gives a dog staying power.’ Bunty looked at Ken. ‘Champ for the dog who knows his business.’

  ‘What about Tramp?’ asked Joel, his voice icy.

  ‘Come on. You can’t have that in dog-food,’ said Ken.

  ‘Or Lash,’ said Joel.

  Bunty did not look pleased. Ken thought Joel must be touching on some unsavoury conjugal twist.

  ‘What’s your wife like, Kenneth?’ asked Joel. ‘I bet she’s beautiful and petite.’

  ‘What about Potent?’ murmured Bunty. ‘For the dog who can’t make it.’

  Joel made a nasty growling noise and it looked as though he’d hit her.

  ‘Snap!’ said Ken quickly. ‘Call it Snap! What d’you think, Joel?’

  ‘I like Brunch. It’s wholesome.’

  ‘Gay dog,’ said Bunty, giggling.

  ‘Is your dog big enough for Snap?’ said Ken, suddenly fed up. ‘Is your dog dog enough for Snap? Fill it with bones and dead cats. In a flap get Snap. Gives a dog balls.
No crap with Snap. Market several brands. Crapping Snap, Lullaby Snap, Action Snap. You can subtitle that one “Charver”. Is your dog aroused? Does your dog get it?’

  Bunty gazed at him, her mouth open.

  Joel, uncertain how to take this, murmured, ‘Quick bite.’

  ‘You could have a slimming one,’ said Ken, thinking he’d please him.

  ‘I still like —’

  ‘Snap with the built-in laxative. Snap makes them crap. Or alternatively, No crap get Snap. Snap cures clap.’

  Uncontrollably silly, he stood up. ‘That’s it. Snap cures clap: 20p. Charver for the dog who likes oats: 35p.’ He went to the front door, which had enough stained-glass for a small church.

  ‘The street will be littered with canine sex maniacs,’ said Joel miserably. ‘It’s bad enough with the crap.’ He followed Ken, his hands flapping, ‘Stay. Stay.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s only nine.’

  Ken opened the door.

  ‘Once I’ve done the ground work, you’re on your own,’ Joel threatened.

  Ken hurried down the steps. ‘Just this one then I’ll stop,’ he said to himself. He jumped into his car and drove away fast, without looking back.

  Snap cures clap. He couldn’t get it out of his mind.

  3

  Meanwhile Christine, wearing a sensational make-up and long black evening gown, sat on the bumptious black couch watching the silent television. Beside her a bottle of cheap wine, almost empty, and a saucer overflowing with cigarette ends. She removed her gold choker — it was too tight — and looked again at the clock. Her full mouth was hard and determined.

  Matthew hurtled, out of control, after the fleeing cat. The phone rang. Christine sighed enormously and her flesh quivered. She picked up the receiver and nonchalantly said, ‘Yes? — Wendy! — Oh!’ Her voice dropped and died. Disappointment forced her to drink straight from the bottle as she sat, silent, morose, not listening, the phone pressed against her ear. ‘Do you have the right time?’ she asked suddenly. ‘No. It’s just that he’s seeing some business people — really important — and I thought he’d ring or something. I thought he’d book a table somewhere to celebrate. I suppose now we’ll have to go for a late supper. Just a minute.’ She grappled with the phone and the bottle and managed to turn up the ads without leaving the couch. ‘No nothing wrong. Bye.’