Half Plus Seven (24 page)

‘But what about you, Pete? You work in PR. It's hardly
Where Eagles Dare,
is it?

‘There was my great-grandfather Algernon White, who took direction from Sir Douglas Haig at the Battle of Passchendaele…

‘But what about you, Pete?

‘And his son, my grandfather that is, Reginald White, spearheaded Operation Compass against the Italians in North Africa…

‘But what about you, Pete?

‘And his son, my father that is, Derek White, sailed on HMS
Invincible
in the Falklands. Or Las Malvinas, as the Argentinians would call it…

‘But what about you, Pete?' My questioning was obviously falling on deaf ears during his army incest-a-thon.

‘…PETE?'

‘Sorry, what, Bill?'

‘Enough about your heroic ancestors, what about your career in camo?'

‘Ahhh.' He looked wistfully into the middle distance. I couldn't help thinking the filing cabinet in his line of sight may have detracted from the moment somewhat. ‘I had a promising career in the TA's back in my youth.
Those were the days. Manoeuvres in the rolling hills of the countryside…'
His glasses started to mist up a little.

‘Not quite a war-zone though, hey, Pete?'

‘As near as damn it, Bill. The team spirit and the camaraderie we had was above and beyond anything I've known in this place.' If Miles heard Pete say that, he'd be better off at Abu Gharaib with a horny redneck.

‘So why are you here bending truths instead of playing toy soldiers?' I asked. Pete looked the closest I've ever seen him to cursing. There was something particularly pleasing to the provocateur in me in pushing a puritan towards profanity.

‘Firstly, Bill, I don't bend truths here.'

‘Oh come on, we all do.'

‘Well I don't. And secondly, it was to do with my eyesight… and the shin-splints…'

‘Shin-splints?!'

‘Yes, Bill. They can be treacherous if relied upon in a life or death situation.'

‘I can imagine. So the great White military lineage comes to an end…'

‘Not strictly, Bill. I make a pilgrimage every spring, as you know, to the war graves of northern France, and I retain a keen interest in the history of the great battles.' He looked like a toddler admiring a turd in a training pant.

‘Algernon would be proud,' I said.

‘You know what, Bill,' Pete said, ‘I think he would.'

There had been no death of course. No tours of duty, no insurgents, no mentions in dispatches, no Gulf War syndrome or post-conflict traumatic stress. There had been a permanent homelessness, of sorts, and there certainly had been liver damage, debilitating if not fatal. There had been no valour. There would be no funeral. No triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off, no awkwardness between second cousins, none of the obligatory platitudes about the pleasantness of the service. No ashes to ashes. No dust to dust. Sometimes it helped having influence with the media. Sometimes you could get them to print whatever the hell you liked.

Twenty-nine years ago on a Friday afternoon I'd sprung punching and shouting from my poor mother's slender loins, bringing resignation and stretchmarks. I was four days late. The behaviour of the following three decades make it pretty fucking likely I'd been waiting for the weekend. The Buddhists amongst your number will profess (placidly, granted) that when my bloody umbilical was being cut by my half-drunk father against the self-sepia-tinged backdrop of a paint-peeling maternity ward, someone, somewhere was being read the last rites. One in, one out. Balance was restored. Over the weekends that followed my first, a private eulogy was made each Sunday for the sins of the Saturday and Friday. The weekend was the carrot to my carthorse. The social sniff which dragged me through the grey days to the restrictive freedom of the 48 hours. But like a hungry baby, two sucks was not enough. Thursday became the new Friday. Wednesday the new Thursday. Monday the old Saturday. The weekend invaded the week much as if Monaco marched across the border into France. Decadent but ill-equipped. Before you knew it there was going to be a dead princess. When every day was a discotheque, the anticipation for the elevation from the daily grind couldn't change gear. There was nowhere to go. Alcohol was scratching an itch, not the treat at the end of a stretch of slog. For boozers, the weekend was dead. Today, I was going to revive it for my old drinking buddies. Long live the weekend.

I switched my email to out of office, made a barely audible assertion about an afternoon of briefings with key media targets, shot Christy a wink on reception and rode the twelve floors down to the sparkling lobby. I could see my two o'clock through the floor-to-ceiling one-way windows of the building. But these were no members of the fourth estate, even if some of their personal hygiene standards were on a level with some unmentionables I knew on newsdesks. My date was with my old drinking buddies. It had been a while.

The bums had been there for me when I wasn't all there. When I needed wingmen to bounce off, someone to share stories with, crack jokes at, or simply to stand there and say nothing, together in our silent suffering. They signposted an ominous parable that although I may well be down, I was not out. Yet.

To break the booze cycle, I'd had to bin the balaclava. Today, it was time to give a little back. A personal CSR project for McDare Inc.

Walking over to the bench they'd colonised with cider and roll-up cigarettes, I felt like a phoney, no longer a disguised desert rat. A reverse
Stars In Their Eyes
. ‘Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be… me'. Well, to an extent. Today's task called for a little method acting too. As I got closer, the stench of the old days hit me like a heavyweight. Just like at school, it was always the smell that got you first.

It was Spider who turned to face me first. His dirty jeans and ripped tracksuit top almost sneered at the merino wool suit I'd once stuffed into a rucksack just yards away from where we stood. The rest of his merry men turned slowly towards me, drunk on daylight and indecision. It wasn't every day their crowd was approached by an outsider who wasn't carrying a truncheon.

‘Spider?' I asked.

‘How'd you know that?'

‘Well,' I rocked on the heels of my handmade shoes, ‘you've got a web tattooed around your right eye…' He clocked my smarts with the reaction of a man who had made corporeal violation his major. Which gave me time to explain.

‘It was my uncle… who told me who you were…'
I handed him the newspaper. He took it, unsure why. ‘Here, look here…'
I pointed to the story about the dead war hero. Spider pulled the pages up close to his face and studied the print, like a skinhead detective who'd lost his magnifying glass.

‘I… I… don't get it… what does it mean…?'

‘Oh, give it here, Spider.' A hand reached over and snatched the paper from his blackened hands. ‘He can't fucking read, can he.' It was him. The one with the knowing eyes. He traced his grubby finger under the headline.

‘Sad… end… for… home… less… war… hero. So. What has that got do with us?' he accused.

‘Read on.'

Those eyes watched me cautiously.

‘…found dead by a Hackney cab driver… David Jenkinson…' The rest of the dropouts clamoured for more information, like T-Birds to his Danny Zuko, just with less leather and more grease.

‘You're going to have to explain a bit more than that, I'm afraid.' You really did have to spell it out for this lot.

‘I think you knew him as Dave…'

‘Dave?' Realisation came into those dark eyes of his. ‘Dave…'

‘What's he saying about Dave?' asked Spider.

‘Dave is dead,' I said.

‘Dead?'

‘Dead.' The reader took a flagon of cider from Spider's hand and took a long swig. For a second, his eyes tinged a touch sadder than they already were, which, if you'd seen his eyes, you'd realise was the equivalent of the holocaust being more horrific, say.

‘So, who's he, then?' said Spider.

‘Like I said.' They really didn't pay attention. ‘Dave was my uncle. Now, listen up…' The six or seven drunks lurched around me. ‘…my uncle left very specific instructions in his will regarding you lot. Now, don't get your hopes up too much because he hasn't left you a mansion, which is probably for the best as in all honesty I don't think any of you are house-trained. But what he did do is leave a small sum of money for me to take you out for a slap-up meal and drinks. So, who's in?'

A collective grunt shot up.

‘Yeeeeehaaaa!' shouted Spider.

Good lord, the expenses account was going to take a battering today.

‘I don't suppose any of you need to get the afternoon off work or go home and get spruced up, so let's do it…' I wanted to vacate the area before a Morgan & Schwarzer came outside for a crafty fag or clandestine phone call.

‘Hold on,' said Spider. He limped up the alleyway and rustled around behind one of the wheelie bins. He returned a minute or so later with a bunch of on-the-turn flowers in his hand.

‘Here, have one each and fix it on your top somehow. They're not lilies, like, but it's a mark of respect, innit? Dave would have liked that.' Behind his tough exterior lay a childlike beauty. Best get them all out of here before he shouted ‘minge' at Carol again.

My working knowledge of the city's gastronomic palaces would have been second to none had there not been a thousand others like me stuck in the same career gutter. Encyclopedic recall of where to get the freshest Kobe beef in town, or the in-spots to catch the rollmop herring craze that was sweeping kitchens before it jumped the shark and the platinum-card carrying patsies started ingesting badgers' gall bladders because it was the
plat du jour
and as essential a weapon in the PR man's arsenal as an eye for a headline and a questionable moral compass. Now, I knew my dinner dates for today would give no credence to the whims of the taste-makers and would probably have much preferred to go large in Nando's, but the final decision on destination didn't rest with them. Instead, I knew just the place.

Écouter was currently
the
place, blazing through the blogosphere and bidding snooty cuisine critics to kneel in devotion at the majesty of its malevolent Michelin-starred chef Franck Papin. His daring re-imaginings of French staples had the chattering classlesses clamouring for a table every morning, noon and night for the past three months. Which, believe me, for a restaurant in this town was a fucking eternity. Personally it got my vote because the maître d' turned a blind eye to blow in the bathroom, but when like Morgan & Schwarz you spent the equivalent of a West African republic's GDP in the joint, you could probably get away with curling a turd out on the
bienvenue
mat. Very occasionally, it was good to be part of the club.

Walking through the city streets with my current company was like herding cats on heroin. One minute ‘Psycho' Sid was panhandling some Kodak-carrying tourists, the next Spider was following a yummy mummy in the opposite direction. The only one who retained an air of calm authority was the one with the dark eyes, the Reader. He'd seen it all before. He was the Doc to their Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy and Sex Pest.

‘Where we going then, Dave?'

‘I'm not Dave, Spider. Dave is dead, remember?'

‘But where are we going?'

‘Look, trust me, you're going to love it.'

‘You have to understand,' said the Reader, taking me away from the others, ‘that it is very hard for these men to trust anyone or anything. That stopped a long time ago. They've been through too much.'

‘And what about you…?' I paused three beats for him to fill in his name. Large black pupils weighed me up.

‘Your name?' I pushed. His pupils dilated.

‘Names aren't important out here.'

‘But what's yours?'

‘Well,' he swallowed, ‘if you must know, I used to be called Michael.' The wind picked up and blew his not quite shoulder length hair around his face. ‘But that was a long time ago.'

‘What happened to you?'

Fuck ceremony, I went straight for the jugular. I was buying lunch after all.

‘That's a long story…' It felt like I was in a buddy session, although my subject this time was unquestionably less fuckable than Christy. More fucked though. Silence stagnated in the air. Time for some old PR 101: the reciprocation rule. Now, if my skills didn't escape me, social convention meant a smile sent Michael's way would make it difficult for him not to mirror me.

‘Look, it's okay if it's a long story. I've got all afternoon…' And beam. The poor fucker couldn't resist.

‘Okay… buy me a drink and I might just tell you…' He smiled a smile I'd seen some place before. The science of spin worked again. Another one bites the dust.