City of Spades

PART II

Johnny Fortune, and his casual days





1

Pew becomes a freelance


An autumn day, some three months later, found me sitting in a coffee shop frequented by BBC executives, face to face with Theodora and profoundly dejected.

‘You’re out?’ she said.

‘Sacked. My interview was a disaster.’

And it had been.

My chief was one of those who think it best to be kind to be cruel. With the air of sharing a great joke, he said to me, ‘Well, Pew, the blow’s falling, I dare say you expected it,’ and gave me a ghastly grin.

‘Sir?’

‘We’re not taking up our option on you, Pew. I expect you’d like some reasons. I’ll give you three. The police have been making enquiries about you, and we don’t like that. You’ve visited our hostel frequently without authority and behaved oddly, so it seems. And then, Pew, in a general way, we think you’ve been a little too familiar with the coloured races. Oh, don’t interrupt, I know we’re the Welfare Office, and we’re in duty bound to help these people in their hour of need. But remote control’s the best, we’ve found. Not matiness. Not going native, if I may so express myself.’

‘May I make an observation, chief?’ I said, when I saw the game was lost.

‘You may indeed, if it will ease your feelings.’

‘I’m not surprised the coloured races hate us.’

He wasn’t a bit disconcerted.

‘But they don’t, Pew, that’s where you make your second big mistake. They don’t like us, certainly, but they don’t hate us. They just accept us as, I suppose, a necessary evil.’

Determined to have the last word, I said: ‘Nothing could be worse than to be neither loved nor hated. It puts one on a level with the Swiss.’

Theodora didn’t congratulate me on this rejoinder. ‘It’s always best,’ she said, ‘in tricky interviews, to say one word for every six the other person says.’

‘But did I in fact say more! And, anyway, my dear Theodora, you yourself have not always been, of recent months, a model of discretion.’

‘Oh, have I not?’ she said, glancing round at the coffee-swilling executives.

‘This series of talks of yours on the colour question has seemed to call for an awful lot of planning.’

‘All BBC series must be meticulously planned for months ahead.’

‘No doubt, though I can’t think why. But I mean you’ve been bringing Johnny Fortune and his pals against their wills into your flat on far too many occasions.’

‘Against their wills? They’ve been delighted.’

‘They’re so polite.’

‘In any case, I’ve not seen Johnny now for a month.’

‘Nor I. He’s disappeared mysteriously from his usual haunts.’

The waitress disgustedly put down the check. I reached for it. ‘No,’ said Theodora. ‘You must economise.’

‘I have in my pocket a month’s salary in lieu of notice.’

‘And then?’

‘Then? Only Australia remains.’

Theodora snatched the check away. ‘Perhaps you could freelance for the Corporation,’ she said. ‘So many mediocrities get away with it.’

‘Thanks, Theodora,’ I said quite bitterly, and arose. She called me back, but not until I was halfway down the stairs. Her face, from that distance, looked agonised and proud. I crossly returned, and she said in a throaty whisper, ‘Find him, Montgomery!’ Then swirled to some raw-boned feminine executives at the adjacent table.

I went out bemused into the chilly morning and, passing despondently by one of the many dilapidated subsidiary buildings near Portland Place that house the detritus of the BBC, who should I see emerging but a resplendent figure whose fortunes, it seemed, had risen as my own had fallen: none other than Mr Lord Alexander in a rose suit – yes, rose – and carrying a guitar case. I hailed him, and was mortified that at first he didn’t recognise me.

‘You sang for me,’ I reminded him, ‘at the hostel some months ago.’

‘Oh yes – oh yes, indeed, man. Before my unfortunate arrest, which luckily ended only in seven days.’

‘And since then, my lord, since then?’

‘Well, man, I’ve swum into the glory. Radio programmes and cabaret work, and even a number of gramophone recordings.’

‘Congratulations, my dear chap. You’ve written some good new songs?’

‘All my songs is good, but ’specially enjoyed are those on British institutions: “Toad-in-hole and Guinness stout”, and “Please, Mr Attlee, don’t steal my majority”, and “Why do I thirst between three and five?” …’

‘Let us thirst no more, Lord Alexander. The pub’s nearby.’

‘Me, I will buy you something.’

Over two light ales, I asked him if he had news of Johnny Fortune. He lowered his voice. ‘They say,’ he told me, ‘that little boy has turned out not too good.’

‘But where is he? I’ve been up to Holloway, I’ve been round all the bars, and he’s nowhere to be found.’

‘The boy’s moved down East End, they tell me, which is a bad, bad sign.’

‘Why so?’

‘There’s East End Spades and West End Spades. West End are perhaps wickeder, but more prosperous and reliable.’

‘Do you know where I can find him in the East End?’

‘Myself I don’t know, but anyone would tell you at Mahomed’s café in the Immigration Road. That is a central spot for all East End activities.’

I bought Alexander a return drink, thanked him heartily, and leapt into a cab.