The Last King of Brighton (20 page)

‘Calm down, John – they'll hear you in Piraeus.'

‘The last sentence of the bloody book,' he said in a loud whisper, ‘is in fucking Greek!'

She laughed at that and rolled over towards him. They went for a dip and he checked out a rock for sea urchins, then he pressed Elaine against it and started to have sex with her. Suddenly she cried out as she trod on a sea urchin with the one foot that she was using to try to keep her balance.

It would have been funny if her bikini bottoms hadn't drifted away and if, as he was hoisting her out of the water, one of the Greek men from the restaurant hadn't come by.

Hathaway didn't notice him at first. He was busy examining the sole of Elaine's foot. He'd located the black dot on the fleshy pad below her big toe where the spine had broken off when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. The Greek man was standing leering at Elaine's nakedness.

Hathaway gave him a hostile look and grabbed a towel to thrust at Elaine.

‘We're not alone,' he said.

She looked over.

‘Who cares? That's Yannis – we met him last night.'

‘You met him last night,' Hathaway muttered, trying to pick at the black spot with his nails. Elaine yelped.

Yannis stepped off the road, calling something in Greek.

‘We're fine, thank you,' Hathaway called, adding under his breath: ‘so fuck off.'

‘You need to make water on it,' Yannis said, dropping down on to the patch of sand, his eyes fixed on Elaine's still naked breasts.

‘What?' Hathaway said.

‘Pee-pee? Do pee-pee.'

‘Who?'

‘You.' Yannis grinned at Elaine. ‘Or I will if you wish.'

He patted his crotch, leaving his hand there, the grin widening.

‘You're serious?'

‘Chemicals. The spine comes out.'

Hathaway looked from him to Elaine.

‘Well, are you going to do something?' she said through gritted teeth.

‘Not when he's standing there.'

‘Jesus, this is no time to worry about the size of your cock.'

‘I'm not fucking worried,' Hathaway said, ‘I just want this guy to fuck off.'

Yannis's smile disappeared.

‘You say fuck off?'

‘For God's sake, will somebody piss on my foot?'

‘Piss on your own bloody foot, you're so clever,' Hathaway said, thrusting his chin out and taking a step towards Yannis.

Yannis was in flip-flops; Hathaway was bare-footed. Hathaway knocked him down with a roundhouse kick that caught the Greek on the side of the head just above his left ear.

Yannis fell heavily. Hathaway heard the hollow clunk as his head hit rock. He stepped forward and picked up another rock, raising it to smash down into Yannis's face. Elaine screamed his name.

His father had wangled Elaine a speaking part in
Oh! What A Lovely War
but Hathaway wasn't sure whether she'd taken it as, after Greece, she wasn't speaking to him. He couldn't see her anywhere in the crowd and then he and the other Avalons joined the procession on to the pier. They did it once, twice, three times before Attenborough declared himself satisfied. It had taken five hours.

‘Well, if this is film making, you can keep it,' Charlie said. ‘I've had more fun watching paint dry.'

Hathaway sauntered off, still in his uniform, down to his father's office. Halfway there, he saw his father walking towards him, flanked by Victor Tempest, Tempest's wife, Elizabeth, and, in a very short skirt, the chief constable's wife.

‘How's the war going?' his father shouted before they all met and shook hands.

‘No action yet,' Hathaway said, giving the women his best smile and trying not to ogle the length of bare leg on show.

‘John,' Tempest said. ‘You should say hello to the scriptwriter on the film – I assume you're still reading spy thrillers?'

‘I am, Mr Tempest – Mr Watts, I mean – I don't know what I should call you.'

‘Victor Tempest is only my working name. Why not call me Donald?'

‘All right, Donald. I'm not sure this is my kind of film, really.'

‘Great cast, though,' Donald Watts said. ‘All doing it for a nominal sum. Johnny Mills was telling me he got Attenborough involved. Dickie wanted to do a film about Gandhi but said he'd have a go at this. He phoned up Olivier – you know he lives in Royal Crescent? He's not been well but he agreed to do it for peanuts, then everyone else came on board.'

‘I see,' Hathaway said. ‘But what's that got to do with thrillers?'

‘You've read
The Ipcress File
?'

‘Of course. Len Deighton. Very good.'

‘Well, he wrote the script for this film.'

Hathaway was impressed.

‘I'll look out for him.'

‘Do that. If I'm around I'll introduce you.'

Tempest turned to Hathaway's father.

‘We'd better be getting on, Dennis. Good to see you.'

‘I'll let you make your own way – I need a word with my son.'

‘And I need the toilet,' Elizabeth Watts said. ‘I'll say my goodbyes now – don't wait.'

As she disappeared into the nearby toilets and his father led him towards the office, Hathaway caught sight of Tempest and the chief constable's wife in a prop mirror leaning against the side of a stall. Presumably thinking no one was watching, Tempest had slipped his hand under the back of her mini-skirt and up between her thighs.

Hathaway was hardly listening when his father said:

‘Philip Simpson has resigned and the twins have been arrested.'

Hathaway nodded absently. He was thinking about Tempest's hand slipping up between those white thighs.

‘Is that it?' his father said, sitting back in his chair. ‘Is that all the excitement you can muster?'

Hathaway switched focus.

‘So we can let loose the dogs of war.'

Dennis Hathaway laughed and squeezed his arm.

‘Soon, sonny boy, soon.'

ELEVEN

Albatross

B
y the time Bruce Reynolds, the last Great Train Robber to be captured, was sentenced in January 1969 to twenty-five years, Hathaway was still waiting to see his father take over Brighton. Philip Simpson was no longer chief constable, though he was still visible around town and up at the racetrack. He'd become a father for the first time a year earlier but it had coincided with him coming down with cancer. He looked like a skeleton. The twins' empire had crashed. But Cuthbert was still being a pain in the arse, and Dennis Hathaway didn't seem to be doing anything about it.

Hathaway and Charlie discussed it many times but Hathaway dissuaded Charlie from bringing out the clown costumes.

There was talk of closing the West Pier down. It was rotting at the far end – Hathaway could kick a hole in the floorboards in the office. Charlie had done so. His father tended to use his office in the Laines most of the time.

Hathaway and Elaine had limped back together. They saw each other now mainly for sex. She had seen an ugly side of him and it repelled her, though at the same time he could tell by the way the sex had changed that she was also drawn to his brutal side.

She didn't know the half of it.

Elaine was doing her finals but she was also getting bit parts in Brighton-based film and TV programmes. Her one line in
Oh! What A Lovely War
got her an Equity card, though when the film came out her line had been cut. The camera was on her a bit – and on Charlie in another scene. Hathaway couldn't spot himself.

Elaine played the friend of a runaway in an episode of
Marker
, a TV series about a seedy ex-con who set up as an enquiry agent in Brighton. She flirted with Sid James on the Palace Pier in
Carry On At Your Convenience
. She played a go-go dancer alongside an actress called Susan George in a film called
Die Screaming, Marianne
, filmed in one of Dennis Hathaway's discos and at Brighton Station.

Hathaway was on the set for that. When Elaine wasn't around he tried it on with George – she was the sexiest girl he'd ever seen, even sexier than Judy Geeson – but she wasn't having any.

Bill Boal, the innocent Great Train Robber, died in prison just as Elaine was filming
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
at the Royal Pavilion.

Hathaway went on the set and reported back to Charlie over a couple of joints in a pub garden out on the Downs near the Plumpton racecourse.

‘That Barbara Streisand – God, the tits on her.'

‘What's she doing?' Charlie said.

‘Making a film with Irene Handl.'

Charlie laughed.

‘She's made it big, then.'

‘Elaine's playing one of her maidservants.'

‘You know I've never actually met Elaine?'

‘Yes, you have, but you were too out of it to remember. She's having a party at the end of finals – come to that.'

‘What, me and a room full of students? I'll be like their granddad.'

‘Nah. It'll be the usual yellow-mellow thing – music, drugs, drink, probably sex.'

‘I'd say that's guaranteed for you if it's Elaine's party.'

‘Nothing is guaranteed – and look, I'm warning you, Charlie, they're a weird lot.'

‘What kind of weird?'

‘They play mind games – makes you want to punch them – but you can't punch anybody, Charlie. That's a massive no-no.'

‘Mind games?' Charlie said.

‘OK, this guy Duncan, got the hots for Elaine, total wanker, he says to me with this supercilious smirk on his face, “What colour do you think love is, John?” I mean, what kind of bloody question is that? Then he says something like “What number is lust?”'

‘And decking him is out of the question?'

‘Totally.'

Charlie sighed.

‘Thanks for the invite.'

‘Charlie – what the fuck are you wearing?'

‘What – the hat? It's a panama.'

‘Not the hat, though that's bad enough.'

‘My highwayman's raincoat?'

‘No, mate, not the raincoat. Even though it's summer and that should be a tricorne hat to match. I'm talking about that suit. That vomit green and blue thing lurking underneath it.'

‘It's paisley. It's crimplene. What more is there to say?'

‘Well, for one thing, why the silver belt?'

‘Came with the suit.'

Hathaway looked down at Charlie's shoes.

‘Patent leather. Nice.'

Charlie looked down at Hathaway's own shoes, patent leather slip-ons.

‘Yours too.'

He looked at the long kaftan Hathaway was wearing, his trousers poking out beneath it. He indicated the high roll-neck sweater.

‘Bet you're hot in that.'

‘The price of being trendy,' Hathaway said.

When Hathaway and Charlie arrived, Duncan and his equally pretentious friend James were both engrossed in conversation with a couple of chicks sprawled on bean bags. Elaine was effusive in her greeting – she'd clearly smoked a couple of joints already – and reached up to hug Charlie. She kissed him on the mouth.

As she led them over to her room, Charlie murmured to Hathaway, giving him a quick punch in the arm:

‘She put her tongue in my mouth, you know.'

The Moody Blues were on the turntable, with a stack of other LPs above them on the spindle. Elaine plonked down on the bean bag between the bed and the old sofa. Charlie dropped on to the bed, Hathaway on to the sofa. Elaine passed Hathaway a fat joint. ‘Nights in White Satin' ended and its spaciness was replaced, with a click and a clatter of vinyl dropping on vinyl, by the lugubrious tones of Leonard Cohen. Suzanne was taking him down to a place by the river as Hathaway took a long draw on the joint and remembered Hydra.

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters, Charlie?' Elaine said. She was sitting up on the bean bag, leaning towards Charlie, who was lying on the bed, his head supported by one hand. Bob Dylan was singing about a joker asking a thief where the exit was.

‘Not living,' Charlie said. Hathaway looked over.

‘What do you mean?' Elaine said dreamily.

Charlie took another toke and passed the joint to Elaine.

‘I had a younger brother. He died.'

Elaine looked at the joint, looked at Charlie. Focused a little.

‘I'm sorry. Was it a long time ago?'

‘What difference does that make?' Charlie bridled.

‘She didn't say it made a difference,' Hathaway said, up on one elbow.

Charlie gave him a look.

‘He died about ten years ago. He was nine.'

Elaine expelled smoke with a little cough.

‘Jesus. I'm sorry. What was it?'

Hathaway looked at Charlie. Charlie looked down.

‘He was . . .'

Elaine stared at him. Hathaway could see her pupils were wildly dilated from the drug and the low lights. Here it was.

‘He was burned alive,' Hathaway said. Charlie took his time looking over at him. Hathaway dipped his head. Elaine was on her knees beside Charlie, reaching out to squeeze his arm.

‘I can't imagine.'

‘I can,' Charlie said. ‘I do. All the time.'

He looked over at Hathaway. His eyes were bleary.

‘I don't recall talking to you about it.'

‘It was in all the papers. Bill, Dan and me all knew it was your brother, but you never brought it up so we didn't say anything.'