The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(3)

For nearly an hour Jock and I regaled ourselves – and the SPG tape recorders – with the grunts and brays of the catchweight kings and the astonishingly lucid commentary of Mr Kent Walton, the only man I can think of who is wholly good at his job.

‘That man is astonishingly lucid, etc.,’ I said to Jock.

‘Yeah. For a minute back there I thought he’d have had the other bugger’s ear off.’

‘No, Jock, not Pallo. Kent Walton.’

‘Well, it looks like Pallo to me.’

‘Never mind, Jock.’

‘O.K., Mr Charlie.’

It was a splendid programme: all the baddies cheated shamefully, the referee never quite caught them at it, but the good guys always won by a folding press at the last minute. Except in the Pallo bout, naturally. So satisfactory. It was satisfactory, too, to think of all the clever young career bobbies who would, even then, be checking every Turner in the National Gallery. There are a great many Turners in the National Gallery. Martland was smart enough to know that I wouldn’t have made a feeble joke just to tease him: every Turner would be checked. Tucked behind one of them, no doubt, his men would find an envelope. Inside – again, no doubt – would be one of those photographs.

When the last bout had ended – with a dramatic Boston Crab this time – Jock and I drank some whisky together, as is our custom on wrestling nights. Red Hackle de Luxe for me and Johnny Walker for Jock. He prefers it; also, he knows his station in life. We had by then, of course, unstuck the little microphone that Martland had carelessly left behind under the seat of the fauteuil. (Jock had been sitting there, so the recorder had doubtless picked up rude noises as well as the wrestling.) Jock, with rare imagination, dropped the little bug into a tumbler, adding water and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Then he got the giggles, a horrid sight and sound.

‘Calm yourself, Jock,’ I said, ‘for there is work to be done. Que hodie non est, eras erit, which means that tomorrow, at about noon, I expect to be arrested. This must take place in the Park if possible, so that I can make a scene if I think fit. Immediately afterwards this flat will be searched. You must not be here, nor must you-know-what. Put it in the headcloth of the hardtop as before, put the hardtop on the MGB and take it to Spinoza’s for service. Make sure that you see Mr Spinoza himself. Be there at eight sharp. Got that?’

‘Yes, Mr Charlie.’

With that he toddled off to his bedroom down the hall, where I could hear him still giggling and farting happily. His bedroom is neat, simply furnished, full of fresh air: just what you would wish your Rover Scout son’s room to be. On the wall hangs a chart of the Badges and Ranks of the British Army; on the bedside table is a framed photograph of Shirley Temple; on the chest of drawers stands a model galleon, not quite finished, and a tidy pile of Motor Cycle magazines. I think he used to use pine disinfectant as an after-shave lotion.

My own bedroom is a pretty faithful reconstruction of the business premises of an expensive whore of the Directoire period. For me it is full of charming memories but it would probably make you – manly British reader – vomit. But there.

I sank into a happy, dream-free sleep, for there is nothing like your catchweight wrestling for purging the mind with pity and terror; it is the only mental catharsis worth the name. Nor is there any sleep so sweet as that of the unjust.

That was Wednesday night and nobody woke me up.





2





I am the man you see here plain enough:

Grant I’m a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts’ lives!

Suppose I own at once to tail and claws;

The tailless man exceeds me: but being tailed

I’ll lash out lion-fashion, and leave apes

To dock their stump and dress their haunches up,

My business is not to remake myself,

But make the absolute best of what God made ….



And as this cabin gets upholstery,

That hutch should rustle with sufficient straw.





Bishop Blougram’s Apology





Nobody woke me up until ten o’clock of a beautiful summer’s morning, when Jock came in with my tea and the canary, which was singing its little heart out, as ever. I bade them both good morning: Jock prefers me to greet the canary and it costs nothing to accommodate him in so small a matter.

‘Ah’ I added, ‘the good old soothing Oolong or Lapsang!’

‘Eh?’

‘Bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg,’ I quoted on. ‘I am going into the Park to do pastoral dances.’

‘Eh?’

‘Oh, never mind, Jock. Bertram Wooster speaking, not I.’

‘O.K., Mr Charlie.’

I often think that Jock should take up squash. He’d have made a splendid wall.

‘Did you take the MGB in, Jock?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Everything O.K.?’ A silly question, of course, and of course I paid for it.

‘Yeah. Well, uh, the you-know-what was a bit too big to go under the headcloth so I had to cut a bit off the edge, you know.’

‘You cut a you what you didn’t Jock …’

‘All right Mr Charlie, just having my joke.’

‘Yes, all right Jock. Jolly good. Did Mr Spinoza say anything?’