band was worse than usual. Discordant wails and amateurish guitar-playing escaped in bursts between shouts of laughter, roars of disapproval and the occasional crash of broken glass. All the usual sounds associated with The Rose, in fact. Despite what you might expect, serious trouble there is rare. The landlord pays a couple of bruisers disguised as bar staff to see things stay that way. They don’t have women behind the bar at The Rose.
Another thing they don’t do at The Rose is sell food, unless you want peanuts or potato crisps. They’re a boozer, for Gawd’s sake, and not a naffin’ restaurant, as the landlord likes to explain if some stranger asks to see the bar menu. Anticipating the nightly exit of unfed but well-watered patrons, a van selling hot dogs had taken up position nearby. Puffs of acrid-smelling smoke wafted towards us. The proprietor was setting up a placard by his mobile eatery. It read: ‘Three Hot Dogs for the Price of Two. Unbeatable value.’
I privately thought the mental gymnastics required to work that out were probably beyond the patrons of The Rose by the time they reeled out into what passes for fresh air around there.
‘Hi there, Dilip,’ Ganesh hailed the cook. ‘How’s it going?’
He straightened up. He was remarkable for being about as broad as he was tall, solid as a brick wall, with a walrus moustache. ‘See that?’ He pointed to the placard.
We duly admired it, Ganesh asking tentatively, ‘What’s with the special offer?’
‘You gotta let ’em think they’re getting something for nothing,’ said Dilip. ‘That’s the only way you do any business these days.’
They fell to discussing the general slowness of business, whatever its nature. To illustrate the point, a couple of amateur-looking streetwalkers had appeared, both seeming depressed as if business had vanished altogether. One wore tight red leggings, not a good choice on spindly pins that lacked any discernible thighs or calves and were as sexy as two matchsticks. The other wore a short skirt revealing lace tights on legs that contrasted startlingly with her mate’s, being bulbous about the calf and tapering to disproportionally narrow ankles. They looked like a couple of upturned beer bottles. She wore a silver blouson jacket. At a guess I put Red Leggings’ age at thirteen and her chum in the silver jacket’s at fourteen.
They stationed themselves by the wall and Red Leggings took out a pocket mirror and began to examine a zit on her chin.
‘Lookit that !’ she moaned. ‘They bloody know when I’m goin’ to work!’
‘You want to try that green make-up,’ advised Silver Jacket.
‘Who wants a green face?’ retorted Red Leggings, offended.
‘Honest, it’s foundation, but it’s green. You put your other make-up on top and it don’t look green, not when you’ve finished.’
‘You’re havin’ me on,’ said the spotty one, still disbelieving.
I could’ve told them both a thing or two about stage make-up, but Silver Jacket was giving me a funny look. She thought I was on the game, too, and had strayed on to their pitch.
I wandered off a little way out of their range and out of earshot of the strangled sounds made by the musical group in the bar. There were cars parked here. Perhaps they belonged to people living in the flats above nearby shops, or perhaps to patrons of The Rose. Among them was a blue Cortina with a long white-ish scratch along one side. I wandered over to it
There were probably dozens of them. But not all in this one corner of London. I stooped to peer through the window and met Garfield’s eyes peering back at me. Avoiding his outstretched paws, I made out what appeared to be a hole where there ought to have been a car radio. That wasn’t unusual for city life anywhere. Windscreen wipers, aerials, chrome manufacturers’ logos, radios . . . the absence, not the presence of these things, counts as
Another thing they don’t do at The Rose is sell food, unless you want peanuts or potato crisps. They’re a boozer, for Gawd’s sake, and not a naffin’ restaurant, as the landlord likes to explain if some stranger asks to see the bar menu. Anticipating the nightly exit of unfed but well-watered patrons, a van selling hot dogs had taken up position nearby. Puffs of acrid-smelling smoke wafted towards us. The proprietor was setting up a placard by his mobile eatery. It read: ‘Three Hot Dogs for the Price of Two. Unbeatable value.’
I privately thought the mental gymnastics required to work that out were probably beyond the patrons of The Rose by the time they reeled out into what passes for fresh air around there.
‘Hi there, Dilip,’ Ganesh hailed the cook. ‘How’s it going?’
He straightened up. He was remarkable for being about as broad as he was tall, solid as a brick wall, with a walrus moustache. ‘See that?’ He pointed to the placard.
We duly admired it, Ganesh asking tentatively, ‘What’s with the special offer?’
‘You gotta let ’em think they’re getting something for nothing,’ said Dilip. ‘That’s the only way you do any business these days.’
They fell to discussing the general slowness of business, whatever its nature. To illustrate the point, a couple of amateur-looking streetwalkers had appeared, both seeming depressed as if business had vanished altogether. One wore tight red leggings, not a good choice on spindly pins that lacked any discernible thighs or calves and were as sexy as two matchsticks. The other wore a short skirt revealing lace tights on legs that contrasted startlingly with her mate’s, being bulbous about the calf and tapering to disproportionally narrow ankles. They looked like a couple of upturned beer bottles. She wore a silver blouson jacket. At a guess I put Red Leggings’ age at thirteen and her chum in the silver jacket’s at fourteen.
They stationed themselves by the wall and Red Leggings took out a pocket mirror and began to examine a zit on her chin.
‘Lookit that !’ she moaned. ‘They bloody know when I’m goin’ to work!’
‘You want to try that green make-up,’ advised Silver Jacket.
‘Who wants a green face?’ retorted Red Leggings, offended.
‘Honest, it’s foundation, but it’s green. You put your other make-up on top and it don’t look green, not when you’ve finished.’
‘You’re havin’ me on,’ said the spotty one, still disbelieving.
I could’ve told them both a thing or two about stage make-up, but Silver Jacket was giving me a funny look. She thought I was on the game, too, and had strayed on to their pitch.
I wandered off a little way out of their range and out of earshot of the strangled sounds made by the musical group in the bar. There were cars parked here. Perhaps they belonged to people living in the flats above nearby shops, or perhaps to patrons of The Rose. Among them was a blue Cortina with a long white-ish scratch along one side. I wandered over to it
There were probably dozens of them. But not all in this one corner of London. I stooped to peer through the window and met Garfield’s eyes peering back at me. Avoiding his outstretched paws, I made out what appeared to be a hole where there ought to have been a car radio. That wasn’t unusual for city life anywhere. Windscreen wipers, aerials, chrome manufacturers’ logos, radios . . . the absence, not the presence of these things, counts as
Similar Books
