' Postcards from Pimlico' Taster

POSTCARDS FROM PIMLICO
BY Ben Bushby

In memory of John Armstrong 1961- 2010

Chapter 1
Present Day

The phone call came out of the blue. As I picked up the receiver I was totally unprepared for the voice I heard on the other end. It was Charles. There was little small talk. Then came the bombshell.
‘ John’s dead.’
Silence.
‘When? How?’ A million questions I wanted to ask, but not now.
‘Two weeks ago.’
Long pause.
‘The funeral is in two weeks, l’ll send you details of how to get to the church. It’s down South . Its near to where my parents used to live in New Malden. I’ve just spoken to Monty. I want you to be there Ben, it’s been too long.’
‘Monty!’ I exclaimed. Excitement involuntarily replacing the grief in my voice.
‘We should all meet up beforehand. ’ It was all said very matter –of –factly..
I was in shock. I thought it was a sick joke. Surely Charles wouldn’t joke about something as serious as this? But with Charles you never knew.
‘Ben are you still there?’ Charles said.
I stood looking at the small handset in my hand. Memories came flooding back. I was on the verge of tears(tears pricked my eyes). I didn’t even know his twin that well but then I always was the emotional one.
It wasn’t a joke. Not by a long shot.
‘Of course, where shall we meet.’ I replied, trying not to let Charles hear the tremor in my voice.

So I find myself waiting downstairs in a busy/trendy wine bar in Alderley Edge. Waiting for two men I haven’t seen since we left College in the Summer of 1984. As I remember it, the two men I spent the best three years of my life with. Back then, the two people I felt closest to.

It’s a pity we are not meeting under more cheerful circumstances, I think to myself.
I wonder who will be at the funeral? For a fleeting second I imagine a gaudy affair like that of Paula Yates’s; a gathering of eighties survivors, a final hurrah. Ray Bans and dark Issy Miyake suits for the boys. Girls in stilletoes, and tailored coats. Other thoughts float to the surface. How had Charles got my number? How had he tracked me down? And why now? Would I be tracking them down if it had been my sister that had died. They knew her. They knew her really well. But would I have called them? None of us had ever made any effort before. So probably not was the answer. But then this wasn’t the same. How could it be. This was Charles calling, and Charles usually got what he wanted. Sitting in a corner booth where I can watch the Cheshire set come and go, I nervously lit another cigarette. My future and past suddenly inextricably entwined.

I gaze across at two women perched like exotic birds on their chrome stools, preening themselves in the smoked glass mirrors. How different from another basement bar in West London that the three of us used to frequent. A shabby, smoky, cocktail bar called ‘Baz and Annie’s’ in the New Kings Road.’ That was our place. Our hangout.

I can still hear the laughter and music drifting up the narrow, wooden stairs. Endless evenings of hedonistic pleasure drenched in the sweet tang of exotic liqueuers and tobacco, but one submerged memory still rankles/ troubles me from those halceyon days……
.
Lit by a solitary wax laden candle, two girls with blond, back combed hair and thick black eyeliner, sat at a heavily pock- marked wooden table, discussing who they would like to shag. In the candlelight they could be mistaken for the female duo of Bucks Fizz. One girl a red scarf tied in her hair, leaned forward stripping the label from the nearly empty bottle of cheap Italian white wine. In a silver foil ashtray, smoke drifted upwards from two cigarettes, smeared with red lipstick. The juke box by the stairs, started up the telltale Celtic style fiddle, and rasping drum beat, of ‘Come on Eileen ’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

I stood nearby, eavesdropping on the girls’ conversation. All too aware of their interest in me, I lit a Marlboro cigarette, exhaling perfectly formed smoke rings that hung in the air like the opening credits from the puppet show, ‘ Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons.’ In fact sometimes I felt like the villainous Captain Black, watching in the shadows, all brooding looks and dark stubble. I raised the collar on my black leather jacket and thrust a hand deep into the pocket of my ripped, stone washed jeans.

For just a moment I considered joining the two girls, but I had another more pressing engagement across town that guaranteed that I wouldn’t spend the night alone. I always did back then.
The girl with the red scarf in her hair, eyed me over her shoulder.
‘ He’s got ‘come to bed eyes!’’ she mouthed silently to her friend.
She had no idea I was an expert lip reader courtesy of years spent with my partially deaf sister, a talent I was finding more and more useful. Unbeknown to them’ this was a phrase I had heard on a regular basis over the last few years, as I flitted from one sexual coupling to another. Flattered but dismissive of their advances, I stubbed out my cigarette on the wooden floor. I glanced at my watch, the latest red Swatch I had seen Holly Johnson wearing on Top of the Pops. It was already 10.30 pm. I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Why hadn’t they turned up? I tried to convince myself that any second now they would appear on the stairs, laughing and joking. They always had. But tonight they didn’t. Why? So was that it? After three years of being physically and emotionally joined at the hip, sharing our secret hopes and fears, we just drift away into the night never to see each other again? This wasn’t how I imagined it ending.

I left the bar, the rousing chorus of the pop song following me up the metal stairs to the night air and my destiny beyond.
‘Come on, Eileen. To-loo-ra yeh. Come on, Eileen.’

I’m jolted back to reality by raised ‘Scouse’ accents. There’s a commotion, a drink spilt over someone at the bar. Men jostling, the barman trys to diffuse the situation. The two women, their faces heavily reliant on make up, get up to leave.

I check my watch, I wonder if the bastards will come tonight? I wonder why they didn’t come on that final night at ‘Baz and Annies’. I wonder if they remember? I wonder if they remember, like I do