Three Cheers for Base, Page 2
THEODORE HALLIDAY
Base
It was one of those lazy spring days in Sloane Square. Having chased the morning mists away, the sun beamed down cheerfully through the new leaves of the trees, bringing with it just a touch of warmth and a hint of the promise of the summer to come. People opened their windows wide in their red bricked tenements, welcoming in the new airs and beating out the dusts of their houses. They gazed down on black cabs and red buses, pigeons, Chelsea Pensioners and London life, or perhaps bronzed themselves a little, or read a newspaper, or exchanged a tentative word or two with neighbours quietly, reservedly, in that very English way. It was a day when nobody seemed to be in a rush to do anything in particular or to be anywhere especially. There was none of the usual bickering between hurried pedestrians and racing motorists, dumb struck tourists and duty bound shop workers. There were no queues in the cafes or at the newsstands. And for once, it was possible to stroll in leisure on pavements without the risk of being shoved off by gangs of boisterous youths or child-carting mothers five abreast. There was no pressure from pairs of smartly turned out salesman clipping along behind one, to get a move on, nor the frustration at the dawdling slowness of a pair of verbose pensioners in front of one, who keep on stopping for one another. Fashionistas had time to peer into expensive shop windows at stylish bangles and rings, watches and necklaces, squinting so hard in their efforts to make out the cunningly obscured prices that they well-nigh did themselves an injury; they had time to be lured in and parleyed with by someone so very genteel and clearly up at heel and with whom they would feign complete indifference to the price, being interested only in the look; they had time to compare, time to picture, time to talk, time even to buy from time to time. Friends had space to coffee together - finally, to talk a little too loudly, to make expansive gestures and in leisure, smoke in and breathe out from cigars and cigarettes and tobaccos of all kinds without some self-righteous, puritanical non-smoker spluttering protests out over the rumble of a passing bus and through a cloud of thick exhaust fumes. Beautiful people could strut and preen about and perform that ‘accidentally-here’ look they had so practised in their bedsits in South London, while other expensive-looking types flitted discretely from home to shop to shop and back to home: butterflies of every hue, trying here, buying there and quick away before the sun goes in. Youngsters in love, oldsters in habit, singles a-looking, and all those shades of people in between, a-mingling with the greatest of ease.
Drade made his way through it all with some speed. He had never been a great athlete, but during these last few years in London he had increasingly turned to his bicycle and, given a decent stretch of road, he could get up quite a head of speed. He knew these roads well and darted gaily between the King’s Road and the little passageways on either side. In and out he flew, the Chelsea Barracks on his left, on towards Cheyne, then back towards the town hall, past the bluebird on his right, through the World’s End Estate, across the double zebra crossing here and there and into Lots Road.
The Base Clef or rather The Clef side of it, is a subterranean jazz bistro affair that lies between World’s End and Putney Bridge. It is one of those places you only find out about when you end up getting dragged there at the end of a raucous night by some guys you barely know but who know someone you do, who perhaps you’d rather forget. At such time, it lacks the grit of a real jazz bar, the music is tame and the food domestic, so instead it serves as a late night drinking hole for those unable, unwilling or frankly too shagged out, to go to a real club.
The nightclub is in fact located amongst the rambling cellars of a large imposing Georgian house, in which a private club misleadingly called Base, or ‘The Base’ for the uninitiated, is situated. Founded almost two hundred years ago, in part as a suburban retreat for wealthy men to take their mistresses, it now boasts a small library and a couple of reading rooms on the ground floor, a large first floor bar and restaurant which has an uninterrupted view over the Thames, and six nice bedrooms on the third floor. Staff accommodation is to be found at the top of the building. From the road it might appear to be the house of a well-to-do doctor or some such, surrounded by high red-brick walls in which a large well-cared-for garden could be glimpsed. There are naturally no signs advertising the presence of Base (or, for that matter, The Clef below) and the garden gate is almost always kept closed and locked. The only other access point is via a rickety old wooden door in the outer wall, hidden-away to the side of the building. This is never locked, and so unexpected it is never sought, out and, when opened, one enters a large vine-covered courtyard from where the building proper can be accessed.
Thus there is nothing to stop the curious passer-by from wandering into the club and getting himself a meal, though it never had and probably never would occur to anybody to do so.
There was no parking, as most of the members lived very locally and walked or used bicycles (or perhaps buses) to get there.
Drade had never been into The Clef, but had frequented Base since his mid-twenties, assuming the membership from his uncle George, who used to use it as a place away from his Place in The Boltons. George had worked for a while for his own father’s maritime brokerage, had married extremely well, and spent the last fifty years of his life shuffling between his house in Chelsea, his barge in the Harbour, and his club. He ate rarely, smoked mild Dutch cigars, drank black coffee during the day and Islay whisky at night, and lived to be 94, dying in the library, with a still smoking cigar clamped between his fingers. It was he who, in addition to the membership, had left Drade the duck’s bill backscratcher.
Base was a club in its most traditional sense, which is to say, not strictly speaking, a club at all. Firstly, it did not welcome new members; rather membership was passed on from one generation to another and only very rarely was new blood admitted. Secondly, Base was not a clubhouse but a private dwelling, sustained by a discretionary trust, which owned a number of properties in the Chelsea area and was run by a live-in staff headed up by a ‘Governor’ appointed or reappointed annually by the members. Thirdly, its members were not really members but Trustees and referred to one another as ‘residents’; and the club itself had no direct employees, as all the staff who worked there were contractors. There were no club accounts, and never had been; the Trustees had all known one another pretty much since birth and were, in any case, closely connected. There was no constitution, merely a set of ‘understandings’ which may or may not have been written down at some point, but nobody really knew for sure. The Trustees themselves were all men over the age of 25, and if one happened to inherit a residency before that age, one had to wait until the age of 25 before being appointed a Trustee.
And if you happened to be a woman, or at any rate not a man, well, there was no legal bar – but the fact remained that a woman could be neither a Trustees nor a resident, and although there was nothing to prevent a woman from being invited as a guest, woman tended to keep their distance, Base’s boyish charms being generally not to their tastes.
‘Base is to women and young men as the Woman’s Institute is to men and young women,’ joked one resident.
Being a club which was not really a club, or rather not being a club but posing as one, did lend Base many advantages. For a start, it was exempt from almost all the petty and unnecessary battery of legislation which had been introduced to regulate society since Britain’s law-makers became infected by the continental obsession with codification. There were no useless fire doors, ugly signage, or adherence to building regulations which would have turned an otherwise beautiful abode into something that looked like some charity hospital or a clinic in long-forgotten Bangladesh. Being a private house, there were no mysterious rules about whether one could drink alcohol, or when one could drink it, how strong it had to be and how it should be measured; neither were there similar prohibitions on gambling or gaming or smoking or playing music for that matter, and frankly doing all the things that make a life Life and not some dreary obstacle course one had to complete befo
re shuffling along. That whole lawyers’ banquet of anti-discriminatory laws pushed upon the free Brit by those awful odd-dogging types was left at the old green door at the front of the building, as in truth they served no purpose anywhere other than to complicate the lives of the many and victimize the lives of the few.
The Trustees knew and respected one another and did not need to be forced on pain of imprisonment to do something obvious.
‘Would I dream of smoking in front of somebody who didn’t smoke themselves?’ asked Rufus of Drade one evening out on the terrace.
Rufus was a theatrical type, who always spoke as though he were addressing an unseen audience, was continually fidgeting and glancing around and over one’s shoulder, making large expansive gestures and lots of side-noises when one was trying to answer him and occasionally clearing his throat by way of regaining control of the conversational flow.
Drade had paused to give the question serious consideration. For occasionally there could be found a speck of wisdom amongst Rufus’s many words.
Rufus had plucked another cigarette from a packet he had found lying on the balustrade – he inclined toward kleptophilia – dipped the filter into Drade’s wine – to moisten the smoke apparently – and continued.
‘Would anybody?’
‘Well you were, in there a couple of minutes ago’ Drade had said.
‘No I wasn’t’ Rufus, who was also a fearful liar, had replied.
‘Yes, you were,’ had said Drade stoutly, ‘you were sitting smoking in the big armchair and then, when you saw me, you said, “I think I’ll finish this outside.”’
Rufus had been silent for a moment as if trying to recall the conversation and then, backhanding the faux-pas dismissively, had gone on despairingly.
‘Oh, you know what I mean, Hamish,’ he had turned towards the Thames grandly, ‘Where’s the sincerity these days, where’s the gentility, where’s it all gone, Hamish? What has happened to this blessed plot…to this England of…ours?’
Aside from the fact that Rufus was half Russian and a quarter Greek, and of course a huge pilferer of lines into the bargain, the sheer force of his delivery and the earnestness with which he gazed seaward had struck a chord deep within Drade who had remained silent.
It was a quarter past two by the time Drade sailed in on his bicycle and propped it up against some delivery boxes in the courtyard.
‘Saw you whipping along the Embankment the other day,’ came a voice from behind him. ‘Mighty fast. Been in training?’
Drade, who was in the process of removing his bicycle clips, glanced around. It was Harris, new to Base, or newish. His father had been an occasional visitor to Base, have been an out of towner, or rather an out of countrier – Irish in fact – and Drade had never met him, but had heard that he was of good pedigree. But for some reason Harris bothered him; he was nice enough of course, but perhaps a tad precocious for Drade’s delicate tastes, a little too keen to make new acquaintances, a little too friendly, actually a little over-familiar all round.
And all this was disrespectful.
Friendships should be indiscernible at first, maturing slowly over time, until suddenly one became aware of their existence. In that way they were truly tested; and should they fail the test, they could be dissolved without either party being offended.
‘Quick-quack friends do not last,’ Drade had concluded some time ago, and once discovered, he had carefully filed the rule away in his great encyclopaedic mind for future consultation.
Harris beamed toothily at him from across the courtyard. His jolly round face flushed red as it often did, and exuded a playful honesty.
‘Perhaps,’ reflected Drade, ‘I have been a little unfair. After all, Harris has only just qualified for residency and it’s always a little tricky to find one’s place at first.’
‘And he can be very witty.’
Drade smiled to himself when he remembered how Harris had hidden another resident’s bicycle in full view in garden, disguising it as a snow-covered bush, complete with little pieces of foliage poking out a few weeks ago, during some rare winter weather.
‘No. God no!’ said Drade, ‘That would slow me down. But I can say that I made it from Sloane Square to here in about …’
Drade glanced at his watch and then realised that he had no idea at what time he had left. He decided to improvise.
‘…In less time than it would take a boil an averagely sized egg.’
Harris looked slightly confused.
‘Must dash,’ said Drade, patting Harris on the shoulder and turning towards the entrance.
‘That’ll teach him,’ thought Drade smugly. He slipped in through a side door and thence up the scullery steps into the restaurant.
Belter was already in position; his hefty rear was perched somewhat improbably and indeed, to tell the truth a little perilously on the most delicately contrived of Chippendale dining chairs. Being very much a front-and-centre kind of a person, he had chosen to dine at the Kendrick table – named after Arthur Kendrick Sr, a transatlantic resident (now deceased) – which lay in the middle of the room facing the main entrance, and one which might easily have played host to a floral display in the front hall of a country house, or indeed dignified an open coffin at a wake had it not been seconded into the dining business some years before. From this seat, Belter commanded a view of all who came in and all who left, such that at any particular moment he was precisely aware with whom he was in company. Added to which, as the large double doors which guarded the entrance were always open, he could keep a similar tally upon all the other rooms on the floor. And, as if that were not enough, a long gilded mirror ran along the wall which faced Belter, thus affording him the ability to watch every dish which left the kitchen as well as note which leftovers were returned – information he always found especially valuable.
In fact Belter spent much of his life ‘in position’, for he was one of those who liked to know. To know, at any given time, who or what was where and why and with whom, as well as how they got to be there. And to ascertain these things one had to be ‘in position’.
Thus would Belter frequent City watering holes and muscle in with drunken brokers during their lunch hours, leading the general debauched charge on Friday nights, before he made any major investments. His schoolboy blasé, natural confidence, and air of unassailable wealth allowed him to assume the role of a ‘known-face’ with ease; and he had no difficulty winkling out gems of information from the smashed innocents who confided in him during the small hours. When the market crashed through the floor, who would just happen to be sitting on a big pile of gold bullion? And once confidence began to seep back, who was there offering to sell back the shares he had swept up for nothing a few months before? At the races he would position himself some way away from the heaving mob of professional speculators that squeezed itself up against the stable doors, hoping to glean a speck of information which might improve their chances with the bookies, and instead Belter would chat causally to the trailer drivers, grounds men, locals in the village and the like, and then, when he had decided on a race’s likely outcome would tell the bookies what odds he would offer them – if they were lucky – rather than wait like a chump to hear what they might offer him. Belter did not queue at the cinema nor wait for a table at a restaurant – that, he would, 'consider ‘bad positioning’. Rather he would ring ahead, feigning to be the owner of this hotel or that travel agency, who was only calling to make sure that his tickets or table would be waiting for him when he arrived as they always were, and often complementary at that. Such savvy came to be relied upon by the few remaining grocers, fishmongers, butchers and bakers in Knightsbridge and Chelsea, who sought out the very best for him, certain as they were that within minutes of a fresh shipment of, say, sausages from Lincolnshire, Norfolk rhubarb, Somerset Cheddar or, for that matter, truffles from Tuscany arriving, that the esteemed Mr. Trelawney would somehow know about it and roll up to make a p
urchase.
Drade approached the Kendrick.
Belter barely looked up, busy as he was sieving off with his fork the pine nuts from a plate of salad and knowing, as he did, that Drade was about to enter, having spied his reflection a couple of minutes earlier in the glass of one of the ajar bay windows.
‘It all started when people began adding nuts to salad,’ said Belter, continuing to sift. ‘You never quite know where you are with a nut.’
‘What, you mean looks like a good one, turns out to be bad?’ ventured Drade.
Belter had a particular way about him, where in the middle of a conversation, he would go completely silent and remain thus, often for a minute at a time, impervious to whatever was going on around him, only to re-join the conversation at some later point. If you didn’t know Belter, this could be somewhat disconcerting and might even seem a little rude or off-hand, especially if you had come to him for advice.
In the mirror behind Drade, Belter eyed with suspicion a handful of half-eaten Brussels sprouts making their way back towards the kitchen, and made a mental note to avoid them for at least a week.
‘The flavour, Drade, nuts and lettuce contradict one another like peaches and grass, or Asparagus and Barley – same thing.’
Since there was no doubting the former, Drade gave the benefit of the doubt to the later, and was silent.
‘Sorry for having the entree without you Drade, it’s this diet Doctor’s put me on. It’s called chromalavage. You see, a food’s native colour reflects its atomic makeup – what you need to do is choose colours that naturally complement each other and eat them in the same meal. The complementary foodstuffs then pair up and simply pass through the system.’
‘Like magnets?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But how do you know which foods colours go together?’
‘Well, that’s the clever bit, Hamish. It varies according to each person’s corpocolonic aptitude, which itself changes on an almost a daily basis.’
‘So, you have a chart or something?’
‘No, no, much better. Each week, I go to Doctor and he does a test which reveals my aptitude for the coming week, and then I know what I can eat. Today is Wednesday, so I have to eat a rich salad appetizer followed by a small meat course and then a pudding - which must,’ Belter jabbed his fork authoritatively in Drade’s direction, ‘have cream or another dairy product in it, which is primarily white in hue.’
‘Like…?’
‘Well, like eggs for example.’
‘So, lemon meringue would be okay?’
Belter hesitated.
‘Lemon meringue would be fine,’ he said slowly.
Drade glanced down at Belter’s enormous girth and then, sensing Belter’s gaze, allowed his eyes to drift sideways towards the open terrace windows and then back innocently to Belter’s face.
‘So anyway, where’s Barney?’ said Drade.
Belter eyes settled once more upon his heap of salad and cheese.
‘On his way,’ he muttered.
The words had barely made their way through the mouthful of leaves being chomped by Belter’s capacious jaws, when Barney announced his arrival with a palmed drum-roll upon Drade’s shoulders and a healthy slap on the back for Belter.
‘Oh, bloody hell, Barney! Do you have to attack a man while he’s eating?’ spluttered Belter.
The truth of the matter was that Barney had much too much energy, which caused him to bound around like a border collie caught in a cage match with a dozen sheep.
‘Boys,’ said Barney, pulling out, twirling and straddling a chair in one smooth movement, ‘all good here? See you’ve started without me,’ he nodded towards Belter.
‘It’s this new diet...’ began Belter.
‘Is that the one where you have to start eating ten minutes before and finish at least twenty minutes after everyone else?’ asked Barney with a laugh.
Drade flew to Belter’s support. ‘Doctor’s put him on it,’ Belter nodded.
‘A real doctor?’ asked Barney.
‘Course he’s a real doctor,’ Belter snapped, ‘what do you take me for? He’s got more letters after his name than Hawton’s grandfather.’
‘Any in front of it?’ ventured Barney, his suspicions highly aroused.
Belter ignored him. ‘So, what’s new Barney, shot anyone recently?’ he asked dryly.
‘Umm funny,’ said Barney, motioning the waiter over. ‘It wasn’t even a flesh wound – don’t know what everyone is making such a fuss about.’
Belter had been alluding to an unlucky incident the previous week involving Barney, a tube full of buckshot and Anthea Gordon, a nonagenarian gardener who happened to be dead-heading a rosebush at the precise moment Barney was taking careful aim at a passing pigeon, and seconds before his arm was wrenched groundwards by one of his playful nephews. The gardener had taken the full force of the shot, albeit it at 20 metres, in the back; but fortunately, as it has been a cold morning (and she was prone to feel the cold), the combinations of duffel coats, triple linings, thermal underwear and a hefty wax jacket had absorbed most of the impact. Somehow the ninety-three year old had survived this clumsy attempt at assassination – something her grandfather, who had been a general, had not.
‘I’ll have the same as him – but less of it,’ said Barney to the waiter.
Drade joined him, and soon the three of them were chomping away on their chromalavagically correct dishes as contentedly as a small herd of cattle, who had stumbled upon a field filled with grass and dandelions.
It was one of those lazy spring days in Sloane Square. Having chased the morning mists away, the sun beamed down cheerfully through the new leaves of the trees, bringing with it just a touch of warmth and a hint of the promise of the summer to come. People opened their windows wide in their red bricked tenements, welcoming in the new airs and beating out the dusts of their houses. They gazed down on black cabs and red buses, pigeons, Chelsea Pensioners and London life, or perhaps bronzed themselves a little, or read a newspaper, or exchanged a tentative word or two with neighbours quietly, reservedly, in that very English way. It was a day when nobody seemed to be in a rush to do anything in particular or to be anywhere especially. There was none of the usual bickering between hurried pedestrians and racing motorists, dumb struck tourists and duty bound shop workers. There were no queues in the cafes or at the newsstands. And for once, it was possible to stroll in leisure on pavements without the risk of being shoved off by gangs of boisterous youths or child-carting mothers five abreast. There was no pressure from pairs of smartly turned out salesman clipping along behind one, to get a move on, nor the frustration at the dawdling slowness of a pair of verbose pensioners in front of one, who keep on stopping for one another. Fashionistas had time to peer into expensive shop windows at stylish bangles and rings, watches and necklaces, squinting so hard in their efforts to make out the cunningly obscured prices that they well-nigh did themselves an injury; they had time to be lured in and parleyed with by someone so very genteel and clearly up at heel and with whom they would feign complete indifference to the price, being interested only in the look; they had time to compare, time to picture, time to talk, time even to buy from time to time. Friends had space to coffee together - finally, to talk a little too loudly, to make expansive gestures and in leisure, smoke in and breathe out from cigars and cigarettes and tobaccos of all kinds without some self-righteous, puritanical non-smoker spluttering protests out over the rumble of a passing bus and through a cloud of thick exhaust fumes. Beautiful people could strut and preen about and perform that ‘accidentally-here’ look they had so practised in their bedsits in South London, while other expensive-looking types flitted discretely from home to shop to shop and back to home: butterflies of every hue, trying here, buying there and quick away before the sun goes in. Youngsters in love, oldsters in habit, singles a-looking, and all those shades of people in between, a-mingling with the greatest of ease.
Drade made his way through it all with some speed. He had never been a great athlete, but during these last few years in London he had increasingly turned to his bicycle and, given a decent stretch of road, he could get up quite a head of speed. He knew these roads well and darted gaily between the King’s Road and the little passageways on either side. In and out he flew, the Chelsea Barracks on his left, on towards Cheyne, then back towards the town hall, past the bluebird on his right, through the World’s End Estate, across the double zebra crossing here and there and into Lots Road.
The Base Clef or rather The Clef side of it, is a subterranean jazz bistro affair that lies between World’s End and Putney Bridge. It is one of those places you only find out about when you end up getting dragged there at the end of a raucous night by some guys you barely know but who know someone you do, who perhaps you’d rather forget. At such time, it lacks the grit of a real jazz bar, the music is tame and the food domestic, so instead it serves as a late night drinking hole for those unable, unwilling or frankly too shagged out, to go to a real club.
The nightclub is in fact located amongst the rambling cellars of a large imposing Georgian house, in which a private club misleadingly called Base, or ‘The Base’ for the uninitiated, is situated. Founded almost two hundred years ago, in part as a suburban retreat for wealthy men to take their mistresses, it now boasts a small library and a couple of reading rooms on the ground floor, a large first floor bar and restaurant which has an uninterrupted view over the Thames, and six nice bedrooms on the third floor. Staff accommodation is to be found at the top of the building. From the road it might appear to be the house of a well-to-do doctor or some such, surrounded by high red-brick walls in which a large well-cared-for garden could be glimpsed. There are naturally no signs advertising the presence of Base (or, for that matter, The Clef below) and the garden gate is almost always kept closed and locked. The only other access point is via a rickety old wooden door in the outer wall, hidden-away to the side of the building. This is never locked, and so unexpected it is never sought, out and, when opened, one enters a large vine-covered courtyard from where the building proper can be accessed.
Thus there is nothing to stop the curious passer-by from wandering into the club and getting himself a meal, though it never had and probably never would occur to anybody to do so.
There was no parking, as most of the members lived very locally and walked or used bicycles (or perhaps buses) to get there.
Drade had never been into The Clef, but had frequented Base since his mid-twenties, assuming the membership from his uncle George, who used to use it as a place away from his Place in The Boltons. George had worked for a while for his own father’s maritime brokerage, had married extremely well, and spent the last fifty years of his life shuffling between his house in Chelsea, his barge in the Harbour, and his club. He ate rarely, smoked mild Dutch cigars, drank black coffee during the day and Islay whisky at night, and lived to be 94, dying in the library, with a still smoking cigar clamped between his fingers. It was he who, in addition to the membership, had left Drade the duck’s bill backscratcher.
Base was a club in its most traditional sense, which is to say, not strictly speaking, a club at all. Firstly, it did not welcome new members; rather membership was passed on from one generation to another and only very rarely was new blood admitted. Secondly, Base was not a clubhouse but a private dwelling, sustained by a discretionary trust, which owned a number of properties in the Chelsea area and was run by a live-in staff headed up by a ‘Governor’ appointed or reappointed annually by the members. Thirdly, its members were not really members but Trustees and referred to one another as ‘residents’; and the club itself had no direct employees, as all the staff who worked there were contractors. There were no club accounts, and never had been; the Trustees had all known one another pretty much since birth and were, in any case, closely connected. There was no constitution, merely a set of ‘understandings’ which may or may not have been written down at some point, but nobody really knew for sure. The Trustees themselves were all men over the age of 25, and if one happened to inherit a residency before that age, one had to wait until the age of 25 before being appointed a Trustee.
And if you happened to be a woman, or at any rate not a man, well, there was no legal bar – but the fact remained that a woman could be neither a Trustees nor a resident, and although there was nothing to prevent a woman from being invited as a guest, woman tended to keep their distance, Base’s boyish charms being generally not to their tastes.
‘Base is to women and young men as the Woman’s Institute is to men and young women,’ joked one resident.
Being a club which was not really a club, or rather not being a club but posing as one, did lend Base many advantages. For a start, it was exempt from almost all the petty and unnecessary battery of legislation which had been introduced to regulate society since Britain’s law-makers became infected by the continental obsession with codification. There were no useless fire doors, ugly signage, or adherence to building regulations which would have turned an otherwise beautiful abode into something that looked like some charity hospital or a clinic in long-forgotten Bangladesh. Being a private house, there were no mysterious rules about whether one could drink alcohol, or when one could drink it, how strong it had to be and how it should be measured; neither were there similar prohibitions on gambling or gaming or smoking or playing music for that matter, and frankly doing all the things that make a life Life and not some dreary obstacle course one had to complete befo
re shuffling along. That whole lawyers’ banquet of anti-discriminatory laws pushed upon the free Brit by those awful odd-dogging types was left at the old green door at the front of the building, as in truth they served no purpose anywhere other than to complicate the lives of the many and victimize the lives of the few.
The Trustees knew and respected one another and did not need to be forced on pain of imprisonment to do something obvious.
‘Would I dream of smoking in front of somebody who didn’t smoke themselves?’ asked Rufus of Drade one evening out on the terrace.
Rufus was a theatrical type, who always spoke as though he were addressing an unseen audience, was continually fidgeting and glancing around and over one’s shoulder, making large expansive gestures and lots of side-noises when one was trying to answer him and occasionally clearing his throat by way of regaining control of the conversational flow.
Drade had paused to give the question serious consideration. For occasionally there could be found a speck of wisdom amongst Rufus’s many words.
Rufus had plucked another cigarette from a packet he had found lying on the balustrade – he inclined toward kleptophilia – dipped the filter into Drade’s wine – to moisten the smoke apparently – and continued.
‘Would anybody?’
‘Well you were, in there a couple of minutes ago’ Drade had said.
‘No I wasn’t’ Rufus, who was also a fearful liar, had replied.
‘Yes, you were,’ had said Drade stoutly, ‘you were sitting smoking in the big armchair and then, when you saw me, you said, “I think I’ll finish this outside.”’
Rufus had been silent for a moment as if trying to recall the conversation and then, backhanding the faux-pas dismissively, had gone on despairingly.
‘Oh, you know what I mean, Hamish,’ he had turned towards the Thames grandly, ‘Where’s the sincerity these days, where’s the gentility, where’s it all gone, Hamish? What has happened to this blessed plot…to this England of…ours?’
Aside from the fact that Rufus was half Russian and a quarter Greek, and of course a huge pilferer of lines into the bargain, the sheer force of his delivery and the earnestness with which he gazed seaward had struck a chord deep within Drade who had remained silent.
It was a quarter past two by the time Drade sailed in on his bicycle and propped it up against some delivery boxes in the courtyard.
‘Saw you whipping along the Embankment the other day,’ came a voice from behind him. ‘Mighty fast. Been in training?’
Drade, who was in the process of removing his bicycle clips, glanced around. It was Harris, new to Base, or newish. His father had been an occasional visitor to Base, have been an out of towner, or rather an out of countrier – Irish in fact – and Drade had never met him, but had heard that he was of good pedigree. But for some reason Harris bothered him; he was nice enough of course, but perhaps a tad precocious for Drade’s delicate tastes, a little too keen to make new acquaintances, a little too friendly, actually a little over-familiar all round.
And all this was disrespectful.
Friendships should be indiscernible at first, maturing slowly over time, until suddenly one became aware of their existence. In that way they were truly tested; and should they fail the test, they could be dissolved without either party being offended.
‘Quick-quack friends do not last,’ Drade had concluded some time ago, and once discovered, he had carefully filed the rule away in his great encyclopaedic mind for future consultation.
Harris beamed toothily at him from across the courtyard. His jolly round face flushed red as it often did, and exuded a playful honesty.
‘Perhaps,’ reflected Drade, ‘I have been a little unfair. After all, Harris has only just qualified for residency and it’s always a little tricky to find one’s place at first.’
‘And he can be very witty.’
Drade smiled to himself when he remembered how Harris had hidden another resident’s bicycle in full view in garden, disguising it as a snow-covered bush, complete with little pieces of foliage poking out a few weeks ago, during some rare winter weather.
‘No. God no!’ said Drade, ‘That would slow me down. But I can say that I made it from Sloane Square to here in about …’
Drade glanced at his watch and then realised that he had no idea at what time he had left. He decided to improvise.
‘…In less time than it would take a boil an averagely sized egg.’
Harris looked slightly confused.
‘Must dash,’ said Drade, patting Harris on the shoulder and turning towards the entrance.
‘That’ll teach him,’ thought Drade smugly. He slipped in through a side door and thence up the scullery steps into the restaurant.
Belter was already in position; his hefty rear was perched somewhat improbably and indeed, to tell the truth a little perilously on the most delicately contrived of Chippendale dining chairs. Being very much a front-and-centre kind of a person, he had chosen to dine at the Kendrick table – named after Arthur Kendrick Sr, a transatlantic resident (now deceased) – which lay in the middle of the room facing the main entrance, and one which might easily have played host to a floral display in the front hall of a country house, or indeed dignified an open coffin at a wake had it not been seconded into the dining business some years before. From this seat, Belter commanded a view of all who came in and all who left, such that at any particular moment he was precisely aware with whom he was in company. Added to which, as the large double doors which guarded the entrance were always open, he could keep a similar tally upon all the other rooms on the floor. And, as if that were not enough, a long gilded mirror ran along the wall which faced Belter, thus affording him the ability to watch every dish which left the kitchen as well as note which leftovers were returned – information he always found especially valuable.
In fact Belter spent much of his life ‘in position’, for he was one of those who liked to know. To know, at any given time, who or what was where and why and with whom, as well as how they got to be there. And to ascertain these things one had to be ‘in position’.
Thus would Belter frequent City watering holes and muscle in with drunken brokers during their lunch hours, leading the general debauched charge on Friday nights, before he made any major investments. His schoolboy blasé, natural confidence, and air of unassailable wealth allowed him to assume the role of a ‘known-face’ with ease; and he had no difficulty winkling out gems of information from the smashed innocents who confided in him during the small hours. When the market crashed through the floor, who would just happen to be sitting on a big pile of gold bullion? And once confidence began to seep back, who was there offering to sell back the shares he had swept up for nothing a few months before? At the races he would position himself some way away from the heaving mob of professional speculators that squeezed itself up against the stable doors, hoping to glean a speck of information which might improve their chances with the bookies, and instead Belter would chat causally to the trailer drivers, grounds men, locals in the village and the like, and then, when he had decided on a race’s likely outcome would tell the bookies what odds he would offer them – if they were lucky – rather than wait like a chump to hear what they might offer him. Belter did not queue at the cinema nor wait for a table at a restaurant – that, he would, 'consider ‘bad positioning’. Rather he would ring ahead, feigning to be the owner of this hotel or that travel agency, who was only calling to make sure that his tickets or table would be waiting for him when he arrived as they always were, and often complementary at that. Such savvy came to be relied upon by the few remaining grocers, fishmongers, butchers and bakers in Knightsbridge and Chelsea, who sought out the very best for him, certain as they were that within minutes of a fresh shipment of, say, sausages from Lincolnshire, Norfolk rhubarb, Somerset Cheddar or, for that matter, truffles from Tuscany arriving, that the esteemed Mr. Trelawney would somehow know about it and roll up to make a p
urchase.
Drade approached the Kendrick.
Belter barely looked up, busy as he was sieving off with his fork the pine nuts from a plate of salad and knowing, as he did, that Drade was about to enter, having spied his reflection a couple of minutes earlier in the glass of one of the ajar bay windows.
‘It all started when people began adding nuts to salad,’ said Belter, continuing to sift. ‘You never quite know where you are with a nut.’
‘What, you mean looks like a good one, turns out to be bad?’ ventured Drade.
Belter had a particular way about him, where in the middle of a conversation, he would go completely silent and remain thus, often for a minute at a time, impervious to whatever was going on around him, only to re-join the conversation at some later point. If you didn’t know Belter, this could be somewhat disconcerting and might even seem a little rude or off-hand, especially if you had come to him for advice.
In the mirror behind Drade, Belter eyed with suspicion a handful of half-eaten Brussels sprouts making their way back towards the kitchen, and made a mental note to avoid them for at least a week.
‘The flavour, Drade, nuts and lettuce contradict one another like peaches and grass, or Asparagus and Barley – same thing.’
Since there was no doubting the former, Drade gave the benefit of the doubt to the later, and was silent.
‘Sorry for having the entree without you Drade, it’s this diet Doctor’s put me on. It’s called chromalavage. You see, a food’s native colour reflects its atomic makeup – what you need to do is choose colours that naturally complement each other and eat them in the same meal. The complementary foodstuffs then pair up and simply pass through the system.’
‘Like magnets?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But how do you know which foods colours go together?’
‘Well, that’s the clever bit, Hamish. It varies according to each person’s corpocolonic aptitude, which itself changes on an almost a daily basis.’
‘So, you have a chart or something?’
‘No, no, much better. Each week, I go to Doctor and he does a test which reveals my aptitude for the coming week, and then I know what I can eat. Today is Wednesday, so I have to eat a rich salad appetizer followed by a small meat course and then a pudding - which must,’ Belter jabbed his fork authoritatively in Drade’s direction, ‘have cream or another dairy product in it, which is primarily white in hue.’
‘Like…?’
‘Well, like eggs for example.’
‘So, lemon meringue would be okay?’
Belter hesitated.
‘Lemon meringue would be fine,’ he said slowly.
Drade glanced down at Belter’s enormous girth and then, sensing Belter’s gaze, allowed his eyes to drift sideways towards the open terrace windows and then back innocently to Belter’s face.
‘So anyway, where’s Barney?’ said Drade.
Belter eyes settled once more upon his heap of salad and cheese.
‘On his way,’ he muttered.
The words had barely made their way through the mouthful of leaves being chomped by Belter’s capacious jaws, when Barney announced his arrival with a palmed drum-roll upon Drade’s shoulders and a healthy slap on the back for Belter.
‘Oh, bloody hell, Barney! Do you have to attack a man while he’s eating?’ spluttered Belter.
The truth of the matter was that Barney had much too much energy, which caused him to bound around like a border collie caught in a cage match with a dozen sheep.
‘Boys,’ said Barney, pulling out, twirling and straddling a chair in one smooth movement, ‘all good here? See you’ve started without me,’ he nodded towards Belter.
‘It’s this new diet...’ began Belter.
‘Is that the one where you have to start eating ten minutes before and finish at least twenty minutes after everyone else?’ asked Barney with a laugh.
Drade flew to Belter’s support. ‘Doctor’s put him on it,’ Belter nodded.
‘A real doctor?’ asked Barney.
‘Course he’s a real doctor,’ Belter snapped, ‘what do you take me for? He’s got more letters after his name than Hawton’s grandfather.’
‘Any in front of it?’ ventured Barney, his suspicions highly aroused.
Belter ignored him. ‘So, what’s new Barney, shot anyone recently?’ he asked dryly.
‘Umm funny,’ said Barney, motioning the waiter over. ‘It wasn’t even a flesh wound – don’t know what everyone is making such a fuss about.’
Belter had been alluding to an unlucky incident the previous week involving Barney, a tube full of buckshot and Anthea Gordon, a nonagenarian gardener who happened to be dead-heading a rosebush at the precise moment Barney was taking careful aim at a passing pigeon, and seconds before his arm was wrenched groundwards by one of his playful nephews. The gardener had taken the full force of the shot, albeit it at 20 metres, in the back; but fortunately, as it has been a cold morning (and she was prone to feel the cold), the combinations of duffel coats, triple linings, thermal underwear and a hefty wax jacket had absorbed most of the impact. Somehow the ninety-three year old had survived this clumsy attempt at assassination – something her grandfather, who had been a general, had not.
‘I’ll have the same as him – but less of it,’ said Barney to the waiter.
Drade joined him, and soon the three of them were chomping away on their chromalavagically correct dishes as contentedly as a small herd of cattle, who had stumbled upon a field filled with grass and dandelions.
