Written in Dead Wax (10 page)

She turned up at my house looking like something out of
Vogue
. French
Vogue
at that. She was wearing a sleeveless black dress, stockings that glistened like dew on a spider web, and a sort of elegant long black wool coat that reached down almost to her ankles. At her throat she wore a grey silk scarf and under it I could see the glint of pearls. Her jaw-dropping beauty, to which I thought I had become immune, was commended to me anew with a clarity that was almost painful; I particularly liked the stockings.

She was carrying a parcel wrapped in dark blue paper. “Here,” she said, “this is for you. You need to open it before you go. And put it on.”

Our taxi drove us to Putney where we picked up Tinkler, who had also insisted on coming. On one memorable occasion Jerry had sold him a spectacular collection of blues LPs—original black label pressings of Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley on Chess—at a very reasonable price. And Tinkler had never forgotten this. Actually I think memories of the occasion still brought tears to his eyes.

I waited impatiently for him by his front door as he finished getting ready. Tinkler’s place was even more of a shambles than usual. I pointed this out to him, shouting up the stairs, and he shouted back in reply, “My sister is coming to visit.”

“So you messed your place up specially?”

“My place is in the
process
of becoming
tidy
.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. I checked the time. “Come on, Tinkler.” I could hear tentative squirts of cologne, then the thunder of his footsteps. “Don’t run down the stairs,” I called. “One funeral this week is all I can handle.”

He loomed into view, wearing a navy blue suit and tie; the nearest thing he had to black, I guess.

He was halfway down when he froze on the stairs and stood staring at me. I have to admit, it was quite gratifying.

“Great Scott,” he said. “What happened to you?”

“It’s an Ozwald Boateng black wool suit with a silk tie from Woodhouse and, let me see, the shirt is a Ralph Lauren linen cutaway, whatever that is. Nevada made sure I was thoroughly apprised of all of this.”

Tinkler stared at me. “She bought you that stuff?”

“She apparently went on an epic adventure combing the shops for them. The charity shops, that is.”

“Charity shops? She goes into charity shops?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I’ve created a monster.”

“Holy shit.”

“Then, Nevada being Nevada, she had everything laundered.”

“She did one hell of a job of choosing your size. Did she measure your inside leg?” Tinkler patted me on the shoulder. “Sorry. My mouth’s just an open sewer.”

“Come on, we’d better get a move on. I wouldn’t want to be late.”

As he opened the door, he said, “We look like something out of
Reservoir Dogs
.”

I said, “We look like something out of
The Blues Brothers
.”

Both Nevada and Clean Head shot us looks of impatient reproof as we finally emerged onto the street. Clean Head had obviously been briefed by Nevada about the day’s destination. She was dressed sombrely but stylishly in a chic black single-breasted jacket and a white silk blouse with a plunging neckline. I saw Tinkler give her a hastily suppressed double-take. He had even greater difficulty concealing his reaction to Nevada when we climbed into the back of the cab.

“Could you have been any slower?” she demanded. “We’re liable to be late.” Not much chance of that, I thought. The taxi was already in motion, sweeping towards the main street in a high-speed turn before I could even close the door behind me.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tinkler,” said Nevada. She leaned forward and straightened his tie, then set to work adjusting his collar. I thought for a moment she might take out a comb and have a go at his hair, or spit onto a handkerchief and clean his face.

But she contented herself with merely working on tie and collar, with a final bit of brisk lapel-straightening to conclude.

All the while she was doing this, Tinkler was having trouble not staring at her legs. I didn’t blame him.

* * *

We buried Jerry Muscutt in a vast cemetery in Waltham Abbey beside a particularly busy stretch of motorway, with the endless and unremitting drone of traffic in the distance suggesting that eternal peace might be a big ask around here, or indeed anywhere these days.

After the coffin went into the ground the assembled mourners clustered together, all of us staring at the fresh mound of earth, suddenly at a loss and perhaps experiencing a shared sense of emptiness.

That’s what I felt, anyway.

A little black and white dog came bounding towards us and darted in and out of our group, frisking happily. The owner, a small worried-looking man in a yellow windbreaker, hurried after it. He caught the dog. “Come on, Dolly,” he said. “No one wants to make a fuss of you here.”

He smiled apologetically, not quite looking anyone in the eye, clipped a lead to Dolly’s collar and led the dog away.

We left Jerry’s graveside and the funeral party began to break up. Nevada and Tinkler and I wandered among the headstones. There seemed to be no end to them. Row after row of markers for the dead. Nevada drifted closer to Tinkler and said in a low voice, “Did you bring the stuff?”

“Oh yes,” chortled Tinkler, patting the breast pocket of his jacket.

“What stuff?” I said, although I already had my suspicions.

Nevada turned and looked at me blandly. “I asked your friend Tinkler to help me out with some of that spectacular inflammable contraband he had.”

“Inflammable contraband?”

“Just for personal consumption.”

I looked at Tinkler, who had the good grace to hang his head sheepishly. “Now
you’ve
created a monster,” I said. I felt a hand on my arm and turned around, a little startled, to see Glenallen Brown and Kempton from the shop standing there.

Kempton, looking a bit embarrassed, handed me a small square of pale blue paper. “See you soon,” said Glenallen, and they both hurried off. I glanced at the paper. It was a flyer announcing the reopening of Styli. I remembered hearing that Glenallen had raised the money from somewhere to take over the shop. I was glad it wouldn’t be closing. Jerry would have been pleased. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket.

“What now?” said Tinkler.

“We can go back to my place,” I said. To my surprise, they both eagerly agreed. The taxi made good time getting back and in just over an hour we were getting out in front of my bungalow. I headed for the front door, taking out my keys and shaking them so the cats would hear and know we were home.

Nevada was behind me and, for some reason, Tinkler was still back at the taxi talking to Clean Head.

Nevada called to him, “It’s all right, Tinkler. I’ve already paid.” After a moment he caught up with us. “What were you doing?” said Nevada.

“Just asking her if she wanted to join us.”

“What?” I said. “Clean Head? You did what?”

“I invited her in, to join us.”

Nevada gave a low, admiring whistle. “You asked her out?”

“I asked her in,” said Tinkler, blushing furiously.

“You old dog.” Nevada dug an elbow into his side and winked at him. He looked as pleased as Punch.

“What did she say?” I said.

“What?”

“When you asked her.”

“She said she’d love to but she’s got a job on.”

“She’s a busy girl,” said Nevada. I opened the front door for her, and the cats came streaking in to join us.

“She said perhaps another time,” added Tinkler.

I stood holding the door for Nevada and the cats and then Tinkler to go in. He paused beside me, grinning. He punched my arm jubilantly. “Perhaps another time!”

Nevada was already pouring biscuits for Fanny and Turk by the time I got into the kitchen. She tended to overdo it and spoil them. A fat cat is not a healthy cat. But it wouldn’t do them any harm this once. Turk stuck her head into her brimming bowl, unable to believe her luck, and began to eat like a machine. Fanny made a few coy feints, passing her bowl in little trotting semi-circles, and then, protocol observed, settled down to the serious business of crunching away at the brown pile.

Nevada watched them fondly as I went through to find Tinkler sprawled on the sofa in my front room. He smiled at me. “I switched your amps on,” he said. “To warm up.”

“Good idea.”

“And while they’re warming up, I’ll
skin
up.”

Oh Christ
, I thought,
why can’t they just drink coffee like me?

Tinkler began to expertly assemble a joint. “Good job old Dolly wasn’t a dope-sniffing dog,” I said. “Or she would have torn your throat out.”

“What?” said Tinkler absently, as he licked the joint to seal it.

“Nothing.”

He tucked the joint behind his ear at a rakish angle. “Did you hear what Clean Head said?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Another time!” I noticed that in his mind this had moved from the provisional to the definite.

Nevada came in from the kitchen. “I’m famished,” she said.

I recognised my cue. I went into the kitchen and took some pasta sauce out of the fridge. I’d made it the previous night: plum tomatoes baked in olive oil and garlic with basil and thyme. I warmed it up and cooked some orecchiette, little ears of dried pasta, in boiling water. I drained the pasta and stirred in the sauce. I didn’t have any parmesan but there was a wedge of very good Cornish cheddar languishing in the refrigerator.

I grated pale yellow crescents of cheese over three plates of pasta mounded under the rich red sauce, waited for it to melt, decorated it with bright green dashes of fresh basil, and carried them through to the sitting room.

All this had taken almost twenty minutes, during which time Tinkler had somehow mustered enough restraint not to light the joint, which still jutted jauntily above his ear. It dropped into his pasta while he was eating, though, and Nevada fished it out, scolding him as she wiped it with a paper towel. “I’d better look after this,” she said, confiscating it.

“Were those the tomatoes I gave you?” said Tinkler. “In that sauce?”

“Which was delicious, by the way,” said Nevada.

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you.”

“It was largely due to my donation of the tomatoes,” said Tinkler. “He insisted on taking them all from me. Several kilos.”

Nevada looked at him. “What was a devoted junk-food fan like you doing with several kilos of fresh vegetables, Tinkler?”

I said, “Our friend in Wales grows them along with that loco weed you like so much. He thinks it helps to conceal the true nature of his agricultural endeavours.”

Tinkler nodded. “And he grows so many of them he always has a problem getting rid of them. So he encloses some tomatoes with each shipment.”

“Speaking of the loco weed,” said Nevada. She produced the joint, still stained pinkly with tomato sauce and a bit sorry-looking. “Shall we ignite it?”

Tinkler waved his hands in the air. “No, no, not yet. Let me put some music on first.”

“While you’re still able to move,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“What shall we listen to?” said Nevada.

“What else?” Tinkler held up the copy of
Easy Come, Easy Go
we’d found at the jumble sale. The Japanese reissue.

“I don’t know if I can stand the pain,” I said.

“Now, now.” Tinkler slipped the record out of the cover. “It will be good for you. Therapeutic.”

“I’d like to hear what all the fuss is about,” said Nevada.

I took it from Tinkler, slipped the LP out of the inner sleeve. The black vinyl gleamed as I put it on the turntable. I switched on the motor and lowered the arm. The complex insect head of the cartridge kissed the playing surface, the diamond-tipped stylus finding the run-in groove and riding smoothly towards the music. I looked at Tinkler. He was grinning at me.

“Listen to that,” he said.

“What?” said Nevada. “I can’t hear anything. It’s completely silent.”

“That’s the point,” I said. “It means it’s a good pressing. On virgin vinyl.”

“I’m glad someone around here can lay claim to being a virgin,” said Nevada.

Then the music started. It reminded me of those late fifties sessions by Monk and Coltrane with the piano and the saxophone seeming to come from the same place and speak in the same voice, with a perfect shared language. But this had more structural complexity, more apparently unplanned design, like Mingus. It was beautifully recorded.

“It doesn’t sound any better than my iPod,” said Nevada.

She was still sitting at the table where we’d eaten our lunch. “Come over here,” I said impatiently. “Sit on the sofa.” She got up and approached, a little warily.

“Where do you want me?”

“Exactly where this opportunistic buffoon has planted himself.” I nudged Tinkler and shoved him over so that the spot in the middle of the sofa was free. “Sit here.”

“All right.”

Nevada sat between us. Her perfume distracted me for a moment and then I said, “Here, lean forward a bit.”

“What am I doing?”

“Looking for the sweet spot,” said Tinkler. “The perfect place to hear the music. From the point of view of imaging.”

“From the point of view of imaging. I see.”

“These speakers, his Quad electrostatics, aren’t really designed for use as near-field monitors,” explained Tinkler.

“No, of course not,” said Nevada. “Everyone knows that. Near-field monitors, hah!”

“But if you get just the right placement the imaging is fantastic.” This was true.

“Put your head here,” I said.

“This is like being at a rather highly regimented orgy,” said Nevada. But she leaned forward. “Not that I’d know.” She sat patiently yet sceptically listening. “I don’t think I can hear anything special,” she said.

Tinkler leaned impatiently towards her. “Light that thing, take a few hits and then see if you can’t hear anything special.”

She duly lit it. After a few moments, and much puffing, Nevada said, “Good lord.”

“There? You see?”

“My sweet lord.” She moved her head out of the sweet spot, then back in. She let out a low whistle, then turned to give me a sidelong look. Her pupils were dark and enormous. “But you know what,” she said. “I think it’s just the drugs.”