austerely called it ‘Venetian School, XVIII Century.’ I ran it up to the figure I had paid for it, then left it to its own devices. To my delight it ran for another three hundred and fifty before being knocked down to a man I detest. It is probably in a Duke Street window this moment, labelled Marieschi or some such nonsense. I stayed another ten minutes and spent my profit on a doubtful but splendidly naughty Bartolomaeus Spränger showing Mars diddling Venus with his helmet on – such
manners
! On my way out of the Rooms I telephoned a rich turkey farmer in Suffolk and sold him the Spränger, sight unseen, for what is known as an undisclosed sum, and toddled righteously away towards Piccadilly. There’s nothing like a little dealing to buck one up.
Across Piccadilly without so much as a bad fright, through Fortnum’s for the sake of the lovely smells, a step along Jermyn Street and I was snug in Jules’s Bar, ordering luncheon and blotting up my fifth White Lady. (I forgot to tell you what Jock’s surprise had been; sorry.) As a serious gastronome I deplore cocktails ofcourse, but then I also deplore dishonesty, promiscuity, inebriety and many another goody.
If anyone had been following me hitherto they were welcome, I’m sure. For the afternoon, however, I needed privacy from the SPG boys so I scanned the room carefully from time to time as I ate. By closing time the whole population of the bar had changed except for one or two permanent fixtures whom I knew by sight: if there had been a tail he must be outside and by now probably very cross.
He was both outside and cross.
He was also Martland’s man Maurice. (I suppose I hadn’t really expected Martland to play it straight: the school we were at together wasn’t a particularly good one. Long on sodomy and things but a bit short on the straight bat, honour and other expensive extras, although they talked a lot about them in Chapel. Cold baths a-plenty, of course, but you, who have never taken one, may be surprised to learn that your actual cold bath is your great begetter of your animal passions. Rotten bad for the heart, too, they tell me.)
Maurice had a newspaper in front of his face and was peering at me through a hole in it, just like they do in the storybooks. I took a couple of rapid paces to the left: the paper swung around after me. Then three to the right and again the paper swung, like the fire shield of a field gun. He did look silly. I walked over to him and poked my finger through the hole in his paper.
‘Booh!’ I said and waited for his devastating retort.
‘Please take your finger out of my newspaper,’ he retorted devastatingly.
I wiggled the finger, resting my nose on the top of the newspaper.
‘Piss off!’ he snarled, scarlet-faced. Better, that.
I pissed off, well pleased with myself. Round the corner of St James’s Street clumped a policeman, one of those young, pink, indignant policemen you meet so often nowadays. Ambitious, virtuous and hell on evil-doers.
‘Officer!’ I gobbled angrily, ‘I have just been obscenely accosted by that wretched fellow with the newspaper.’ I pointed a shaking finger at Maurice who paused guiltily in midstride. The policeman went white about the lips and bore down on Maurice who was still on one foot, newspaper outstretched, looking extraordinarily like a cruel parody of Gilbert’s ‘Eros’ at Piccadilly Circus. (Did youknow that Eros is made of aluminium? I’m sure there’s a moral there somewhere. Or a joke.)
‘I’ll be at your Station in forty minutes,’ I cried after the policeman, and nipped into a passing taxi. It had all its handles.
Now, as I’ve already told you, Martland’s men have a year’s training. Ergo, spotting Maurice so easily had to mean that Maurice was there to be spotted. It took me a long time but I spotted her in the end: a burly, clean-shaven, auntlike woman in a Triumph Herald: an excellent car for tailing people in, unremarkable, easily parked and
manners
! On my way out of the Rooms I telephoned a rich turkey farmer in Suffolk and sold him the Spränger, sight unseen, for what is known as an undisclosed sum, and toddled righteously away towards Piccadilly. There’s nothing like a little dealing to buck one up.
Across Piccadilly without so much as a bad fright, through Fortnum’s for the sake of the lovely smells, a step along Jermyn Street and I was snug in Jules’s Bar, ordering luncheon and blotting up my fifth White Lady. (I forgot to tell you what Jock’s surprise had been; sorry.) As a serious gastronome I deplore cocktails ofcourse, but then I also deplore dishonesty, promiscuity, inebriety and many another goody.
If anyone had been following me hitherto they were welcome, I’m sure. For the afternoon, however, I needed privacy from the SPG boys so I scanned the room carefully from time to time as I ate. By closing time the whole population of the bar had changed except for one or two permanent fixtures whom I knew by sight: if there had been a tail he must be outside and by now probably very cross.
He was both outside and cross.
He was also Martland’s man Maurice. (I suppose I hadn’t really expected Martland to play it straight: the school we were at together wasn’t a particularly good one. Long on sodomy and things but a bit short on the straight bat, honour and other expensive extras, although they talked a lot about them in Chapel. Cold baths a-plenty, of course, but you, who have never taken one, may be surprised to learn that your actual cold bath is your great begetter of your animal passions. Rotten bad for the heart, too, they tell me.)
Maurice had a newspaper in front of his face and was peering at me through a hole in it, just like they do in the storybooks. I took a couple of rapid paces to the left: the paper swung around after me. Then three to the right and again the paper swung, like the fire shield of a field gun. He did look silly. I walked over to him and poked my finger through the hole in his paper.
‘Booh!’ I said and waited for his devastating retort.
‘Please take your finger out of my newspaper,’ he retorted devastatingly.
I wiggled the finger, resting my nose on the top of the newspaper.
‘Piss off!’ he snarled, scarlet-faced. Better, that.
I pissed off, well pleased with myself. Round the corner of St James’s Street clumped a policeman, one of those young, pink, indignant policemen you meet so often nowadays. Ambitious, virtuous and hell on evil-doers.
‘Officer!’ I gobbled angrily, ‘I have just been obscenely accosted by that wretched fellow with the newspaper.’ I pointed a shaking finger at Maurice who paused guiltily in midstride. The policeman went white about the lips and bore down on Maurice who was still on one foot, newspaper outstretched, looking extraordinarily like a cruel parody of Gilbert’s ‘Eros’ at Piccadilly Circus. (Did youknow that Eros is made of aluminium? I’m sure there’s a moral there somewhere. Or a joke.)
‘I’ll be at your Station in forty minutes,’ I cried after the policeman, and nipped into a passing taxi. It had all its handles.
Now, as I’ve already told you, Martland’s men have a year’s training. Ergo, spotting Maurice so easily had to mean that Maurice was there to be spotted. It took me a long time but I spotted her in the end: a burly, clean-shaven, auntlike woman in a Triumph Herald: an excellent car for tailing people in, unremarkable, easily parked and
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