Essex Poison. Ian Sansom

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СКАЧАТЬ we made our way down Becontree Avenue I was struck first of all not by the buildings but by the extraordinary sight of what seemed like never-ending rows of privet hedges leading off in every direction, all short and trimmed at regulation waist height and which made it look as though the actual buildings of Becontree were some kind of a weird garden planted in behind the hedges, almost as an afterthought, square, overgrown red brick flowers and shrubs. The Becontree hedges, perhaps more than anything else, sum up that dream of another England that Morley so admired and cherished, a perfect, planted petit-bourgeois green and pleasant land.

      ‘Ghastly,’ said Miriam.

       A brightened, whitened East End

      It was certainly strange – like a brightened, whitened East End, as though having been boil-washed and run through the mangle. There were tramways and cheap cars and uniform shopfronts all with identical awnings. There were long monotonous rows of houses, each with a handkerchief patch of garden out front, all equivalent in size and shape, except for those few homes set further back from the road around miniature greens, and odd corner sites that had young trees planted, and fresh, ugly churches. It all looked terribly clean and also rather Dutch; something to do with the pitch of the roofs, perhaps, and also the fact that everywhere one looked there were men and women on bicycles, furiously pedalling, as if the life of the nation itself depended on the men and women of Essex getting to work on time. And yet somehow, for all it looked longingly towards Europe for its architectural inspiration, it also seemed inevitably and undeniably American: the wide streets clearly built not for boulevardiers and bicycles but for cars and trucks and lorries, and the low-rise buildings not the stuff of the Low Countries but rather of the New World, the only ornament and interest the advertising hoardings that glued the streets together with Parkinson’s Biscuits, Eno’s Fruit Salts, Lavvo and Pumphrey’s Lemon Curd. We pulled over beneath a sign for Bile Beans, in a spot designated by another sign for ‘PARKING’, in front of a shop called Clifford’s, at the corner of Becontree Avenue and Valence Avenue. A convoy of lorries piled high with sand and gravel came thundering past, spraying fine dust and diesel fumes in their wake.

      ‘What on earth is this place?’ asked Miriam.

      ‘This,’ I said, ‘is the modern world. I’ll maybe get a few photographs,’ I said, ‘and then we can be on our way.’

      ‘Well, if this is the modern world, Sefton,’ said Miriam, ‘I want no part of it.’ Which of course is what made Miriam so thoroughly modern.

      As I was carefully framing a shot for Morley, featuring the dusty boulevards of Becontree, and while Miriam sat smiling regally at the passers-by ogling both her and the Lagonda – not an everyday sight in south Essex, either of them – a man came sauntering proprietorially along the pavement towards us. His hat was pulled down tight on his head, his hands deep in the pockets of his double-breasted overcoat, and he had the kind of bullying walk that suggested he was prepared to pick a fight with anyone, at any time, and preferably now. It was Willy Mann, Mr Klein’s business agent and fixer. The last time I’d seen him was just the night before, when he was all shiny and naked in the Turkish baths: now, thank goodness, he was cooled off and dressed, though no less menacing.

      ‘Well, well,’ said Willy. He was the very definition of shifty, with a habit of moving and shrugging inside his clothes, as though avoiding a punch, or calculating his next blow. ‘Sefton, again.’ He nodded towards my cuts and bruises. ‘Trouble?’

      ‘Hello, Willy,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on.’

      ‘A joke, presumably?’

      ‘Don’t encourage him,’ said Miriam, lighting a cigarette.

      ‘Hello, hello,’ said Willy, removing his hat and going to shake Miriam’s hand. ‘You’re not with him, surely, a fine young lady like yourself?’

      Fortunately Miriam was accustomed to compliments from men far more accomplished than Willy and was more than ready with a put-down.

      ‘“With him” in the strict sense of being accompanied by him, sir, yes.’ She paused and took a long thoughtful drag on her cigarette, effectively establishing her dominance over the conversation, over the cigarette, and of course over Willy. ‘But certainly not “with him” in the broader sense of having, possessing and thus, crudely and colloquially speaking, being in a relationship “with him”, if that’s what you’re asking, certainly not, no.’ She took another long draw on her cigarette and raised an eyebrow at Willy. ‘So it rather depends in what sense you were using the term, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Goodness me. Lively one,’ said Willy to me. ‘Not her who roughed you up, was it?’

      ‘I haven’t laid a finger on him,’ said Miriam.

      ‘More’s the pity, eh?’ said Willy, nudging me.

      Miriam gave a furious little growl at this and flashed her ruby-red fingernails at Willy, cigarette aloft, one of her more alarming gestures, suggesting a panther – or some blonde equivalent thereof – about to pounce. ‘I suppose you’d better introduce me to your witty little friend here, Sefton,’ she said wearily to me. ‘Since you are “with” me, though only in the strict and obvious sense.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘This is Willy Mann, Miriam. Willy, this is Miriam Morley.’

      ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ said Willy, with, I thought, rather too much feeling in his ‘very’: Miriam tended to have an instant mesmerising effect on men. I recall there being one or two chaps in fact who proposed marriage within an hour of meeting her. I hoped Willy wasn’t going to embarrass himself.

      ‘And where do you boys know each other from?’ asked Miriam.

      ‘Sefton and I—’

      ‘Have a lot of mutual friends,’ I interrupted.

      ‘I didn’t know you had any friends,’ said Miriam, blowing smoke, as she liked to, as though in an aside.

      ‘Sefton always likes to play his cards close to his chest,’ said Willy. ‘I didn’t have you down as a man to be driving a Lagonda, for example.’

      ‘I think you’ll note that I’m driving the Lagonda, actually,’ said Miriam, from the driver’s seat. ‘Sefton is my passenger.’

      ‘Indeed,’ said Willy. ‘All the more remarkable, Sefton.’

      ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘what are you doing up around these parts, Willy?’

      ‘I might have asked you the same thing, old chap. Not your usual stomping ground, is it?’

      ‘Not exactly,’ said Miriam, on my behalf. ‘But here we are. And why are you here, Willy?’

      ‘Mr Klein has business interests up here,’ said Willy.

      ‘Ah, yes,’ I said, vaguely remembering what Willy had explained to me the night before.

      ‘And who is this Mr Klein when he’s at home?’ asked Miriam.

      ‘He’s a businessman,’ said Willy. СКАЧАТЬ