London Fields Read Free Page B

go). On the back was a colour photograph of the Queen and a crudely superimposed perfume bottle: '"Outrage" — by Ambrosio.’ On the front was a black-and-white photograph of my driver, smiling unreliably. 'KEITH TALENT,' it said:
    ★ ❋❊❊Ch✷auffeur and courier services
    ★ Casino consultant
    ★ Luxury goods and Celebrity purchases
    ★ Darts lessons given
    ★ London operative for Ambrosio of Milan, Perfumes and Furs
    There followed some more information about the perfumes, 'Scandal', 'Outrage', and minor lines called Mirage, Disguise, Duplicity and Sting, and beneath, in double quotes, accompanied by an address and telephone number, with misplaced apostrophes: Keith's the Name, Scent's the Game. The two middle pages of the brochure were blank. I folded it into my middle pocket, quite idly; but it has since proved invaluable to me.
    With sloping gait and two casual corrections of the belt, Keith came down the garden path.

    There was £143.10 on the blatting clock when the car pulled up and I awoke again. Slowly I climbed from the car's slept-in, trailer smell, as if from a second aircraft, and unbent myself in front of the house — and the house massive, like an ancient terminal.
    'The States? Love the place,' Keith was saying. 'New York? Love it. Madison Square. Park Central. Love the place.' He paused with a flinch as he lifted my bag from the trunk. 'It's a church . . .' he said wonderingly.
    'It used to be a rectory or vicarage or something.' I pointed to an engraved panel high up in the masonry. Anno Domini. 1876.
    '1876!' he said. 'So some vicar had all this.'
    It was clear from his face that Keith was now pondering the tragic decline in the demand for vicars. Well, people still wanted the goods, the stuff for which vicars of various kinds were the middlemen. But they didn't want vicars.
    Making no small display of the courtesy, Keith carried my bag in through the fenced front garden and stood there while I got my keys from the lady downstairs. Now, the speed of light doesn't come up very often in everyday life: only when lightning strikes. The speed of sound is more familiar: that man in the distance with a hammer. Anyway, a Mach-2 event is a sudden event, and that's what Keith and I were suddenly cowering from: the massed frequencies of three jetplanes ripping past over the rooftops. 'Jesus,' said Keith. And I said it too. 'What's all that about?' I asked. Keith shrugged, with equanimity, with mild hauteur. 'Cloaked in secrecy innit. All veiled in secrecy as such.'
    We entered through a second front door and climbed a broad flight of stairs. I think we were about equally impressed by the opulence and elaboration of the apartment. This is some joint, I have to admit. After a few weeks here even the great Presley would have started to pine for the elegance and simplicity of Graceland. Keith cast his bright glance around the place with a looter's cruel yet professional eye. For the second time that morning I nonchalantly reviewed the possibility that I was about to be murdered. Keith would be out of here ten minutes later, my flightbag over his shoulder, lumpy with appurtenances. Instead he asked me who owned the place and what he did.
    I told him. Keith looked sceptical. This just wasn't right. 'Mostly for theatre and television,' I said. Now all was clear. 'TV?' he said coolly. For some reason I added, 'I'm in TV too.'
    Keith nodded, much enlightened. Somewhat chastened also; and I have to say it touched me, this chastened look. Of course (he was thinking), TV people all know each other and fly to and from the great cities and borrow each other's flats. Common sense. Yes, behind all the surface activity of Keith's eyes there formed the vision of a heavenly elite, cross-hatching the troposphere like satellite TV – above it, above it all.
    'Yeah well I'm due to appear on TV myself. Hopefully. In a month or two. Darts.'
    'Darts?'
    'Darts.'
    And then it began. He stayed for three and a half hours. People