The man turned his glowering eyes on us, and his face softened. “It’s yourself, Eve. Nice piece today. We’ll run with that. But a wee bit too much alliteration.
We’re not a poetry magazine. Who’s this?” he demanded scrutinising me.
“Jim, this is the man who’s been helping me with those scoops. This is Danny McRae. Danny, this is my boss, the editor, James Hutcheson.”
“You’ve been costing me a wee fortune, Mr McRae. But so far it’s been worth it.
Any more adventures like that warehouse job in the offing?” He raised one of his huge grey eyebrows in inquiry and reached out a hand to shake mine.
“Not this week, Mr Hutcheson.”
“In that case my expenses will be lower, eh?”
There was more than a hint of seriousness in his comment, but he suddenly softened.
“Look, come on, Danny. Call me Jim. You’re an interesting character. Come and have a dram. You’ll take a malt, I trust.” His back was already retreating into his den as he said this. Eve shrugged and smiled, and we followed him into his nicotine cave. He cleared a two-foot pile of old papers off a chair and dumped them on an already tottering stalagmite of newsprint. He unearthed another chair and dipped into the top drawer of a dented filing cabinet and triumphantly hooked out a whisky bottle. His desk drawer yielded tumblers of uncertain cleanliness and we were off.
It was an entertaining half hour punctuated by bellows at his staff and splashings of Scotch. But no matter how much he drank, it didn’t seem to affect his ability to scan a draft. He flourished his blue pencil with deadly skill and loud scorn for the English education system.
The rest of Eve’s tour was thankfully less whisky-fuelled. My head was already buzzing by the time we reached the bedlam in the foundry. It was like a blacksmiths’ convention: benches lined with men hammering lead type on to metal sheets and feeding discarded slugs back into the melting pot for re-use. I wondered what it did to your brain to be writing backwards and upside down all the time.
In the next room, they slid the still-hot plates into the presses, and inked the typefaces before feeding through the first of the sheets from the giant rolls.
Eve handed me the first edition, still hot and wet. I glanced at the headlines and the cartoons, then up and around at this Vulcan choreography. I shook my head – metaphorically; I didn’t want to hurt Eve’s feelings; such industry and effort for something so slight.
NINE
Eve announced she wanted to move upmarket. In the three weeks we’d been working together she’d written about warehouse theft and dog doping at White City. Now she wanted to tackle corruption among the toffs, bearding them in their fancy gambling dens.
“The one in Mayfair,” she said. We were walking in her lunch hour through Lincoln’s Inn, sidestepping blokes in wigs and winged collars. It was like the movie set for David Copperfield.
“Carlyle’s? Start at the top, why don’t you? How do you know about that?”
“Danny, it may be illegal but any cabbie will take you. All I need is an escort.” She took my hand and gave me her most winning smile. She knew that I knew she was conning me. She also knew I was a sucker for her smile.
I tried to be practical. “You also need a sponsor. It’s a very private club. No coppers, no press. Especially no press.”
“Jimmie Hutcheson has it all arranged,” she said gaily. “A friend of a friend who didn’t want her name in the papers. Divorce can be so messy.”
“You folk have the morals of an alley cat.”
She waved the notion away. “As Jimmie says, it’s all bread and circuses. The baying crowds want blood. And if it’s the blood of wealthy spivs or the ruling class so much the better. It makes our fellow citizens feel less guilty about buying that extra sausage without a coupon.”
I laughed and agreed we’d put on the glad rags and enter the den of iniquity on Thursday night.
In honour of the occasion I spent an hour at the slipper baths in Camberwell and came back glowing and gleaming. As I scraped my face with my razor I thought of the night ahead with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The fact that everyone had heard of Carlyle’s should have meant the place was closed down years ago. But everyone also knew of the existence of two laws in this country: one for folk who take the bus and one for those who ride in the back seat of a Rolls. Places like Carlyle’s existed in a parallel universe in which the police wore blinkers and the judges were kindly old men with unlimited reserves of tolerance and compassion. But only for the weak and foolish members of the moneyed class. Or blokes they went to school with. Usually the same thing.
It was also said that in the case of Carlyle’s, illegal didn’t have to mean squalid. Behind the reinforced doors was a set-up as lavish as anything this side of Monte Carlo. Which meant we had to dress the part. I was renting a tux for the first time in my life. I plastered my hair down, crammed my neck into a winged collar, and spent ten minutes wrestling a bow-tie into submission. I felt both an idiot and a prince as I sauntered into the American Bar at the Savoy where we’d agreed to meet. It would put us in the right mood, Eve said.
My mood was controlled panic. This was a different species of watering hole from the George. The floors had carpets, not sawdust. Smart waiters in white gloves served you, not a fat-chested blonde with black roots and a fag in her mouth.
The pianist was playing Irving Berlin, not Knees up Mother Brown. And I was supping a Tom Collins, not a pint with a chaser. If my dad could see me now, or his pals from the working men’s club.
As the alcohol hit and my panic subsided, I began to speculate how I could live like this on a permanent basis. Then a vision walked in and stole a dozen men’s hearts. Mine had been purloined weeks ago. I got to my feet, collar suddenly too tight, as she walked down the four stairs into the lounge bar. Two flunkeys were at her side in a flash, taking her cape and throwing rose petals in her path.
The dress was silver and ankle length. It clung to every curve like the skin of a salmon. Her neck and shoulders were bare except for a silver chain with a small amulet pointing into the magnetic groove of her bosom. Fine white gloves clothed her hands and arms up to above her elbows. How does a reporter afford such finery? Her jungle of russet curls had been twisted and tamed into a soft crown of red and gold. For a second I was jealous; other men’s eyes could make out the lines I had grown to love so well. Then I felt fear; how could someone this beautiful and smart want someone like me? Then she was with me and I could tell the flunkeys were disappointed in her choice. Her eyes – wider than I ever remembered them – looked hesitant and anxious.
“Is it all right? Do I look all right? Not too…?”
“… lovely? Absolutely. You are far too lovely for this shabby place and this poor suitor.”
Her face broke its serious mask and she grinned. “And you look very distinguished.”
“I feel a prat. What will you drink?”
“Same as you, darling.”
My insides melted at the word. I nearly called for the bill and a cab to whisk us straight back to my hovel, but this lady deserved to be on show. We took our cues from the other smartly dressed drinkers and reclined gracefully in our chairs, pecking at our drinks and smoking, as though we did this for a living. I tried not to look too smug, or to catch the eyes of the men that kept staring at her.
“The Trumpet pays better than I thought.” I indicated her ears. “Are those real pearls?”
She touched the little clusters that hung from her lobes. Her neck coloured again.
“Family heirlooms. My mother’s. I’m sure they’re artificial.”
“And the dress? A jumble stall in Petticoat Lane?”
“Mum again. I had it taken in.”
“I hope Carlyle’s has polished the silver.”
We left after our second drink and before our heads became too fuddled. I need to approach gambling sober, before I start believing a three-legged nag is a sure-fire bet just because it’s called Scottish Warrior or Highland Miracle. The flunkeys grovelled all the way to the door and into the cab.
As we moved off into the Strand I glanced casually around. I let my eyes slide off him. He was reading a
