Susie and Ing Reg

(c) 2016 Stevie White

London, 1996.

"No, mate, I won't be drinking tonight—I can guarantee it," I told Solomon. "Anyway, I've done with all that, now. You know I have."

It was 10pm on a pitch-black night; dark and bullied by the cold. No bigbrother Moon to stick up for it. It'd stopped raining, but the world was still groping black and oilywet.

Bring someone, Susie had said. So I'd brought blind Solomon, even though he'd taken some coaxing and he'd expressed his determination to definitely not enjoy himself. We climbed Susie's steps and I leaned the big wrapped-up canvas against the my leg, swapped the roses to the other arm, and rang the doorbell.

"You brought flowers," Solomon said. He could smell them.

"So what? For her birthday."

"And the painting."

"Yeah, painted with her paints on her paper. Didn't cost me anything, did it?"

"And she's not a project?"

"I've told you mate. No."

It wasn't Susie who answered the door. A girl in her twenties did. In her twenties but baby-faced and dressed in smart, functional, black-and-white. And an uncompromisingly South London girl when she opened her mouth.

"Er, hi?" she said and frowned at us out of the corner of her eyes. This girl could answer the door of Buckingham Palace to the Queen and make her feel that she had the wrong address.

"Is, er, Susie in?"

"You 'ere for the party? You're a bit early, it's not supposed to start till after closing-time. Everyone's round the Mulberry Bush."

A couple of beats later I was up to speed. I'd better explain. "No, I'm working for Susie tonight. She asked me to come early."

"Oh. I think she left a note for you. Is your name Everiss?"

I said it was and the girl, in her twenties, let us into the hall where Solomon managed not to knock over the video camera that was standing there pointing at the doorway. It wasn't running, just lurking in the corner.

"An' who's this gentleman, then?" the girl said, shutting the door and regarding Solomon who was doing his best to get his eyes pointing in her direction. "Is 'e Everiss as well?"

"Er... Susie said I could—"

"I'm only windin' yer up!" she laughed all over her soft-focus face. "Go on, read yer note."

It was at the bottom of a page of handwritten instructions about the catering and it said:

Everiss, have a shower and get into your suit (back of the door in my bedroom, Clare will show you where). Remember. You, and only you, are to answer the door—don't let the girls answer it, even if you're busy. Let it ring; they'll wait. We'll be there after eleven. Kisses, Susie.

"Clare's me," the girl said when I looked up from the note. "Bedroom? The one next to the kitchen. On your right. The bathroom's just here, see? Me and Dionne'll be upstairs in the big room, okay?"

I felt a bit dead-on-arrival getting into that bedroom, and I bunged the painting down on her bed, all swaddled up in carrier-bags and a bit of newspaper taped on with

Happy Birthday Susie

on it. Another camera in here, too; mounted on the wall, this one. It'd kind of pissed on my bonfire, Susie's not being there. What'd happen is—I knew it—she'd get back from the pub and assume I'd taken a shower here and then she'd never know I'd already made the effort to be scrubbed-up and clean-behind-the-ears for her. On top of that, my big yellow roses would be limp as Methuselah's dick if I left them on the kitchen table in their plastic and paper, and they'd be glanced at and forgotten if I bunged them in a vase. And I never got to say, when she answered the door,

you shouldn't be answering the door yourself, Susie; what you need is a butler

like some kind of off-the-cuff coolpatter that'd melt her. Mind you, why beat myself up? Like I told Solomon, she's not a project. No, sir.

So: Susie's bedroom. It's a big one, for sure. There's one huge window, curtainless, looking out over the backs of the houses. It had its own en-suite. Seriously cool gaff, this. Course we hadn't seen upstairs by then, but wait for that.

Anyway I got on and checked out the glad rags Susie had hired for me; tails, black pants and a totally mad waistcoat. It didn't turn me into the peacock my Army dress uniform had done way back, but it was kind of cool to be a penguin instead. In its own way. Except the trousers were too big and I had to hunt in the wardrobes for a black belt. Rows of suits, piles of trousers but there, at last, a black belt that pulled the too-big waistband tight over my skinny belly shrunken for want of the attention of food.

I had a shufti at the man-of-the-house's jackets, too, and a good job it was that Susie hadn't depended on stretching them over my skeleton, because the one I tried didn't. I hadn't kept my weight since Belfast, and I'd lost even more since being on the skids, but these togs were like Woolworth's Ladybird range on me. The swish hired clawhammer didn't hang at all bad, though and, once I was all set and smart, Solomon and me sloped off to join the other domestics. We found them upstairs in a room you couldn't miss; it was like discovering a new continent.

Solomon walked into the living-room beside me and said, "Shit, are we still indoors?"

True, you could land an airplane in the room, but I wanted to know how he knew that; so I asked him.

"Echoes," he said. "You prob'ly cain't hear 'em. What's in here? I know there's a lot o' glass dead ahead but a long ways off."

"Yeah, that's the windows all along the front looking out onto the road."

"Is there a table? Real big table?"

"Yep. Up against the wall on your left with enough grub on it to sink a ship."

"Don't belong there, anyhow. They usually have it in the centre of the room."

He was right. There were the marks to prove it. Just like the ones on my grey rug and here, making it look even more like a movie set, was another of Huban's cameras.

"Over there to your right's a fireplace," I told Solomon. "Sofa and two armchairs in front of it about ten feet back. But here in the middle's plenty of room." I turned to complete the scan of the room. "And that must be where I'm supposed to be working: they've got a bar back near the door piled with liquor. You're gonna have fun, mate."

"Do you want to help yourselves?" Clare said. She was right beside us, flash, like a genie. "They won't be back for another half hour, and she said you can go ahead and 'elp yourself if you like."

"You wanna get some practice pouring beer, then, Frank?" Solomon said. "I gotta cotton mouth here."

About half-eleven, the doorbell rang itself five-square loud and clear and slapped a full-stop on the room. I looked at Dionne and Clare who reminded me I was supposed to be answering the door but when I did go down and answer it, I just let more questions in.

Everyone fell indoors all at once and woke up the hallway with a living art stampede of jackets and ties and cocktail dresses and high-heels and chatter-laughter whiffing of Dolce & Gabbana and stinky-breath Fosters. And it talked to me as it filed past "Whoops-a-daisy! (giggles) Hello! Are we late?" "Is this right? Is this Susie's house?" "Hello, who are you?" "No, Ben, it's Hu's house" "Look, Susie's got an admirable Crichton!" "Where is the dizzy cow, anyway, is she behind us?" "It's her fancy man!" "Where do we go? Upstairs?" "Alison, there's even one here, look, I told you there's no hiding from Hu's cameras." "Get a bloody wiggle on everyone, the zinfandel's losing its chill!"

Whatever it was I'd let in it looked like money. And up the stairs it migrated, the cash-caravan, and I was about to shut the door because that looked like the lot when Susie and Marcia came through the gate with the dog stretching the leash ahead of them as if it wanted to chew my pants and the job really couldn't wait. I didn't notice what the microscopic Marcia looked like, but Susie came like a dream in long legs and a short black slip dress, flimsy as a nymph's gauze; God, and transparent or was it the fumes of my lust making me hallucinate? And a knobbly, black rubber handbag an accessory to the crime. The girl. Pretty. Her face so delightful to look at, and yet what other mysteries are whispered by her, by those forms under her clothes, by her tastes in the air?

"Hello, Everiss. Reg! Stoppit, Reg, for God's sake!"—she smacked the dog hard on its arse and it quit tugging right away and sulked around Susie's legs instead. "Everiss, you look smart, doesn't he Marsh?"

I looked down at myself. "Just standard butler issue, you know."

"Well, go on upstairs for now, Everiss. There are more to come, though. People. Lots more."

Back in the party room, the catering girls had dimmed the lights and I was about to make a bee-line for my bar to serve the Liberace-likes with liquor when I clocked Dionne already there cracking open the tinnies and pulling bungs out of the zinfandel. Behind the long food table stood Clare as wooden as a cigar-store Indian, face stiff as her starched blouse, ready to sling out the canapés to anyone who came close enough.

And the dog found Solomon before I did. Sol was lurking within falling-over distance of the bar, and the woofer started to pick on him big-time, leaping up and pawing him and tasting his face with its licky tongue probably before trying to eat him. Susie was on it with a smack—"Reg, you bloody beast! Come here you stupid animal!"—and she hauled the mutt back by the saggy, skinny scruff of its neck. "He's always like this until he settles down."

It was incredible the way she manhandled that dog, cos it must have weighed twice what she did.

"Who's this, Everiss," she said. "Is this the friend you've brought?"

"Susie, this is Solomon. A very good friend of mine."

"His name's what? Simon?"

Solomon chuckled deeply. "Close," he grinned, "but no cigar. Solomon, Ma'am. Glad to meet you."

She practiced the sound: "Solomon. Hello, Solomon. You're American."

Solomon couldn't see Susie's hand, but he held forward one of his own, and Susie obliged by making for it and grasping it as briefly as good taste allowed.

"Clare—" Susie said, waving the sultry baby-girl over and grabbing me by the nearest arm. "Clare, I want you to remember that only Everiss is to answer the door, okay? Even if he's busy serving drinks or something, don't answer it—let the buggers wait. Thank you, Possum, carry on what you were doing. I'm going to lock Reg in the kitchen, Everiss, I don't think he wants to leave your friend alone. He likes you," she told Solomon. "If, erm... what is it? Solomon. If Solomon is hungry give him some food, and give him a drink, anyway. Everiss, that spot on your nose has gone!"

And that was it. She was gone, leaving Solomon and me in charge of the wildlife that came charging at the watering-hole every few minutes. "Could I have... do you think...? and one of... Cheers, old chap, jolly good of you" Then they'd try to go off carrying armfuls of wine glasses or beers. Or they'd come in pairs chattering endlessly "No—probation, isn't it—she's a probation officer I could swear it—what are you having? red?—yes I will, too, could we have two glasses of red?—oh, I do know, yes, West Ealing and you ought to see the size of it: couldn't swing a gerbil, and miles to the tube."

Susie came back with a big grin, dangling my painting of the dog from one arm, and she kissed my cheek.

"You darling! I love it. Come on!" she grabbed my arm again. "I'm going to show you off to everyone."

And so she did, giggling to all her mates and telling them that this butler was her birthday present to herself, like I was some new pet. I had to behave myself, too, or else I'd end up in the kitchen with King Reg. So I was taken on the rounds from backbench MP to BBC radio producer; from fashion models' agent to architect; from barrister to hack (both a Farringdon Road and a Wapping one). Then there was a proper writer, too, and a psychiatrist, and a juggler, and this one:

"Everiss, this is my stand-up comedienne friend, aren't you, Alison?"

"No, I fucking well am not your friend if you keep calling me a comedienne, you bag, and I don't care if it is your birthday!"

"Oh, sorry, Ally, I mean comic. Do I?"

"Yes you bloody do."

"That's Alison," a little guy with nose-hair said. "She'd only be nice if there was a law."

"Make the most of it, buster," she said. "I'm not usually even this charming."

"Now look at this, everyone!" Susie told them and stood the painting up over the fireplace. She told them that Everiss was, believe it or not, talented. He painted. And this was what he'd painted for her birthday.

"It's King Reg!" Marcia noticed.

"Isn't it sweet?" Susie gushed.

And everyone gushed along with her. It was sweet alright. It was better than that. It was super. So, I'd done my bit, I'd performed for her like a good monkey and before she set me free again she whispered to me and slipped forty quid into my hand.

"Wages. Is that enough? Forty?"

I said (trying to catch my breath) it was plenty and I thanked her energetically. "Do you like the flowers?" I asked.

"The yellow roses? Were they from you?"

So I got another kiss on the cheek before I slipped back behind the bar and watched Susie, the only one I could see, floating about bright like a spirit among the pale others. Watched her brilliant green eyes in a head bobbing in conversation with some painted and preened girlfriend. I remembered her eyes, even after that first meeting. I could've told you then what color they were. Someone once said, after the first date turn your back and ask what color are my eyes. If they don't know, they aren't the one. Well, there she was—green-peepered, gorgeous, happy, and out of reach. And all the while I worked, I thought fond thoughts of her.

While I served, I observed the herd of guests orbiting the room, drinking and grazing, and they made me hungry so I sent Solomon to bring me a plate of food back to the bar. Maybe I've done wiser things than send a blind man to the buffet table, but I relaxed when I saw he wasn't bringing me twenty sausage rolls. And I think it must've been serving that jug of sangria that was to blame for the circus that followed.

The party spread out beyond the flung-open balcony doors and the dog came back on the scene and bunged its face in Solomon's right away. But it was hardly less well-behaved than the guests; they were up and down the stairs, in and out of the front door, and leaning on the doorbell every two minutes. They were driving me nuts, and I persuaded myself there wasn't any harm in the odd sip of punch for myself even if I was on duty. And in the Albert Hall living room, the pillowsoft, narcotic Sade and Enya came off the stereo and the barbiturates went on. Bowie, Soundgarden, Sugar Bullet, Oasis, and briefly Erasure before someone indignantly changed it for Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison and Johnny wouldn't be pushed off the stage for the rest of the evening. And there was juggling, joketelling, sangria-guzzling, arm and tongue-wrestling, man-to-man tangoing and woman-to-woman also and thrown in with it all, the dog, the big wrinkly, slobbery hound-dog King Reg. But nothing like in the photos of Marcia's party.

I was in front of the bar by now, no longer so obviously a skivvy, and I couldn't believe how many women were coming up and clocking me and hanging until I spoke to them. Some of them Susie'd introduced me to, but not all. Had I metamorphosed into something beautiful, or what? No, the fact was this was a different night from the ones in Belfast and Bayswater, in pubs or clubs all over the city where you can't even approach a girl to talk to without her reaching for her rape alarm. Girl kids are told not to speak to strangers and some of 'em have long memories. But the blokes at that party were vetted and guaranteed safe. Otherwise they wouldn't be there, would they? And guess what? Some girls really do say

fax me

. Craziest thing was, their boyfriends or husbands or whatever were right there, close enough to hit with a bread roll, and these birds were simpering and flirting and bunging me phone numbers on cards all over the gaff.

They were a casual, libertine kind of bunch were Susie's mates. So Sixties-revival-Nineties, you know what I mean? All of them identical, factory-produced, shrink-wrapped fashionable unconventionals. The sort of people who mummify their razor-blades and seal the cat in a cardboard pyramid overnight if the Sunday supplements say it's the latest thing. If I showed them Solomon, they'd build a cemetery in the extension and sit cross-legged to watch Sky Sports. If only they'd known how easily I could've outdone the lot of 'em for sheer bloody-minded bohemianism had the smelly, derelict, street-tramping truth be told.

It was warm in there, though; it was heaven. Better than being frozen bollockless in the wide outside, or being shot at in Newry. This was a safe, cosy womb and around me, pressing in on all sides, were the most gorgeous wombs West Eleven had to offer. This is it, I remember thinking at the time through the beer-giggle haze. A middle-class adventure playground. I'm definitely at it. This is the party for Susie's thirty-third birthday and no mistake.

Marcia was getting chatted up by the little guy with nose-hair who'd been standing next to the charming comic Alison earlier. What a little wreck, though, with thin hair on his fat head. And yep, he sure could've used a few sessions of electrolysis up his hooter. What chance did he stand with her, mmm? Bugger all. They came within spitting distance of the bar and he was asking Marcia what her poison was.

"Oh, go on, why not. I think I need another drink, I've had such a stressful day. This morning I poured orange juice on the top of my fridge and in the supermarket I smashed a big bottle of passata on the floor. Talk about theatre of the absurd!"

I felt sorry for the guy, choosing his two glasses of red from the table. He looked like Homer Simpson, too, like the guy on the tube that time with Biddy. In his probably late forties, he was, real academic type, glasses on.

"Hi, I'm Cour de Comte."

I was dead impressed. "You're what?" I said.

"My name. Cour de Comte."

This little jerk was either someone important or he thought he was.

"Right," I nodded.

"And you're Everiss. The fellow Susie has put up in her artist's garret? She's trying to turn you into the next Francis Bacon, eh?"

"Frank Everiss, actually. And tonight I'm the butler."

He found this hugely funny. "Are you?" he said. "Jolly good. Well, we'll leave you to it."

He had loose, flappy lips that preferred to reveal the lower teeth rather than the upper ones when he smiled. I hate mouths like that. At least I do since I met that one. A skull-toothy grin, it was; not a grin, really, no humor in that mouth nor any to be found in the rest of the face and staring miserable little eyes. That was one dull guy. He had a dullness that made me reappraise my opinion of dishwater.

"What did you make of him?" I asked Solomon.

"Didn't get anything. Wasn't trying."

Anyway it was gonna be party of the absurd for Marcia the rest of the night cos she was ushered off by the little guy with nose-hair to sit on the couch with him till daybreak. And my own absurdity was just beginning. I let Susie and Alison the stand-up comic drag me off to the big bathroom (there was another loo across the hall and, with Susie's en-suite, that made three bogs) where they practiced their make-up on me till I looked dafter than Eddie Izzard. Susie was so good she nearly bunged as much eyeshadow around my eyes as she bunged in them, and she cursed my streaming eyes while I cursed her fumblethumb cack-handedness.

But that bathroom was something else. There was a corner bath and shower with the curtain rail sweeping around it and full-length mirrors up the wall behind so Susie could admire herself, or herself and any number of other people in there while they soaped up. I liked the taps. RED HOT it said on one and ICE COLD on the other. There was even a camera in here. High up on the wall like security cameras in stores. I went to it.