City of Spades

5

Encounter with Billy Whispers


This Brixton house stood all by itself among ruins of what I suppose was wartime damages, much like one tooth left sticking in an old man’s jaw.

Now what was curious to me was this. As I approached it, I could clearly see persons standing by the upper windows, and even hear voices and the sound of a radiogram. But when I knocked on the front door of it, no one came down however long I continued on. So I walked all round this building and looked over the very broken garden wall.

There I saw a quite surprising sight: which was a tall Spade – very tall – standing in a broken greenhouse, watering plants. Now Spades do garden – it wasn’t that – but not ones dressed up like he was, fit to kill: pink slacks, tartan silk outside-hanging shirt, all freshly pressed and laundered.

‘What say, man?’ I called out to him. ‘Do you know Billy Whispers?’

Here he spun round.

‘Who you?’

‘Fortune from Lagos, mister. A friend of Mr Whispers’ lady’s family.’

As this man came out of the greenhouse, wiping his hands, I saw by the weaving, sliding way he walked towards me that he was a boxer. Round about his neck he wore a silver chain, another on each wrist, and his face had a ‘better be careful or I slap you down’ expression.

I waited smiling for him.

‘Mr Whispers,’ he said, ‘is not at home to strangers.’

‘His lady is?’

‘What’s she mean to you?’

‘I have a message for her.’

At this I vaulted, like in gymnasium, over the wall, and went leisurely across to meet him.

‘Haven’t I seen,’ I said to him, ‘your photo in the newspapers?’

Now he looked proud and pleased, and said to me, ‘I’m Jimmy Cannibal.’

‘I thought you was. Light-heavy champion till they stole your legitimate title just a year ago?’ (But as is well known, this Jimmy Cannibal lost it on a foul.)

‘That’s me.’

‘You growing tomatoes?’ I asked him, pointing to his greenhouse.

But he looked fierce again and shook his head.

‘What, then?’ and I started over.

He gripped me by my shoulder and spun me round. But not before I’d seen what plant it was in flower-pots inside there.

‘Keep your nose out, Mr Nigeria,’ he said.

So strong was he, I saw I’d better fight him with my brains.

‘It’s smoking weed,’ I said. ‘You give me some perhaps?’

‘You blow your top too much, Mr Stranger.’

We stood there on the very edge of combat. But just then I heard a window scraping and, looking up, I saw a face there staring down at us: a mask of ebony, it seemed to me from there. This face talked to Jimmy Cannibal in some Gambian tongue, and then said to me, ‘You may come up.’

As we both climbed the stairs (this Cannibal behind me breathing hot upon my neck), I got the feeling every room was occupied by hearing voices, men’s and women’s, and sometimes the click of dice.

On a landing Cannibal edged past me, put his head round the door, then waved me in. He didn’t come inside himself, but stood out there on the landing, lurking.

This Billy Whispers was a short man with broad shoulders and longer arms than even is usual with us. Elegantly dressed but quite respectable, as if on Sundays, and with a cool, cold face that gazed at me without fear or favour.

‘You come inside?’ he said. ‘Or do you prefer to stand there encouraging draughts?’

‘I’m Fortune,’ I said, ‘from Lagos.’

‘I know a lot of Lagos boys.’

‘You’re Gambian, they tell me. Bathurst?’

He nodded at me and said, ‘My friend was telling me of your interest in my greenhouse.’

‘I saw you grew charge out there …’

‘You want to smoke some?’

‘Well, I don’t mind. I used up all I had on the trip over …’

‘I’ll roll you a stick,’ this Billy Whispers said.

I sat on the bed, feeling pleased at the chance of blowing hay once more. For much as I care for alcoholic drinks of many kinds, my greatest enjoyment, ever since when a boy, is in charging with weed. Because without it, however good I feel, I’m never really on the top of my inspiration.

Meanwhile this Billy took out two cigarette-papers, and joined them together by the tongue. He peeled and broke down a piece of the ordinary fag he held between his lips, and then, from a brown-paper pack in a jar above the fireplace (a large pack, I noticed), he sprinkled a generous dose of the weed in the papers and began rolling and licking, easing the two ends of the stick into position with a match.

‘But tell me,’ I said, ‘if it’s not enquiring. You didn’t grow all that hemp you have from outside in your greenhouse?’

‘No, no. Is an experiment I’m making, to grow it myself from seed.’

‘Otherwise you buy it?’

He nodded.

‘You can get that stuff easy here?’

‘It can be got … Most things can be got in London when you know your way around.’

He gave the weed a final tender lick and roll, and handed it me by the thin inhaling end.

‘And the Law,’ I said. ‘What do they have to say about consuming weed?’

‘What they say is fifteen- or twenty-pound fine if you’re caught. Jail on the second occasion.’

‘Man! Why, these Jumbles have no pity!’

At which I lit up, took a deep drag, well down past the throat, holding the smoke in my lungs with little sharp sniffs to stop the valuable gust escaping. When I blew out, after a heavy interval, I said to him, ‘Good stuff. And what do they make you pay for a stick here?’

‘Retail, in small sticks, half a crown.’

‘And wholesale?’

‘Wholesale? For that you have to find your own supplier and make your personal arrangement.’

I took one more deep drag.

‘You know such a supplier?’ I enquired.

‘Of course … I know of several …’

‘You don’t deal in this stuff personal, by any possible chance?’

Here Billy Whispers joined his two hands, wearing on each one a big coloured jewel.

‘Mister,’ he said, ‘I think these are questions that you don’t ask on so early an acquaintance.’

Which was true, so I smiled at him and handed him over the weed for his turn to take his drag on it.

He did this, and after some time in silence he blew on the smouldering end of the weed and said to me, ‘And what is it, Fortune, I can do for you here?’

‘I’m Dorothy’s half-half-brother.’

‘What say?’

‘Arthur, her brother, is my brother too.’ And I explained.

‘But Dorothy she not know you,’ he said to me. ‘Never she’s spoken to me about you.’

Then I explained some more.

‘If that old lady or her sister’s worried about Dorothy,’ he said at last, ‘just tell them to stop worrying because she’s happy here with me, and will do just what I tell her.’

‘Could I speak with her, perhaps?’

‘No, man. You could not.’

At this state of our interview, the door was opened and into the room came a short little fattish boy, all smiles and gesticulation, of a type that beats my time: that is, the Spade who’s always acting Spadish, so as to make the Jumbles think we’re more cool crazy than we are, but usually for some darker purpose to deceive them. But why play this game of his with me?

‘Hullo, hullo, man,’ he cried to me, grasping at both my hands. ‘I ain’t seen you around before … Shake hands with me, my name is Mr Ronson Lighter.’ And he let off his silly sambo laugh.

I said, ‘What say?’ unsmilingly, and freed my hands. ‘What say, Mr Ronson Lighter. Did your own mother give you that peculiar name?’

He giggled like a crazy girl.

‘No, no, no, mister, is my London name, on account of my well-known strong desire to own these things.’

And out of each side coat pocket he took a lighter, and sparkled the pair of them underneath my eyes.

Still not smiling, I got up on my feet.

And as I did – smack! Up in my head I got a very powerful kick from that hot weed which I’d been smoking. A kick like you get from superior Congo stuff, that takes your brain and wraps it up and throws it all away, and yet leaves your thoughts inside it sharp and clear: that makes all your legs and arms and body seem like if jet propelled without any tiring effort whatsoever.

But I watched these two, Billy Whispers and this Mr Ronson Lighter, as they talked in their barbarian Gambian language. I didn’t understand no word, but sometimes I heard the name of ‘Dorothy’.

So I broke in.

‘I’d like to speak to her, Billy, just a moment, if you really wouldn’t mind.’

They both looked up, and this Mr Ronson Lighter came dancing across and laid his hand upon my head.

‘Mister,’ he said, ‘that’s a real Bushman hair-style that you’ve got. Right out of the Africa jungle.’

‘You got any suggestions for improving it?’ I said, not moving much.

‘Why, yes. Why don’t you have it beautifully cut like mine?’

His own was brushed flat and low across his forehead, sticking out far in front of his eyes as if it was a cap that he had on.

‘I’ll tell you of my own personal hairdresser,’ he said. ‘The only man in town who cuts our fine hair quite properly. He’ll take off your Bushman’s head-dress,’ and he messed up my hair again.

‘But possibly your hair’s so elegant because you wear a wig,’ I said to him. And taking two handfuls of his hair, I lifted him one foot off the floor.

He yelled, and in came Jimmy Cannibal, making a sandwich of me between the two of them.

‘Mr Whispers,’ I said, easing out as best I could, ‘I don’t like familiarity from strangers. Can you tell that, please, to these two countrymen of yours?’

Billy was smiling for the first time. He had some broad gaps between all his short teeth, I saw, and pale blue gums.

I was planning perhaps to leap out through the window when the door opened yet once more, and there stood a girl that by her body’s shape and looks was quite likely to be Muriel’s sister. But what a difference from the little chick! Smart clothes – or what she thought was smart – bleached hair, and a look on her face like a bar-fly seeking everywhere hard for trade.

‘What’s all the commotion?’ she enquired.

‘Get out to work, Dorothy,’ said Billy Whispers.

‘Oh, I’m going, Billy.’

‘Then move.’

She leant on one hip, and held out her crimson hand.

‘I want a taxi fare,’ she said. ‘And money to buy some you-know-whats.’

Whispers threw her a folded note and said, ‘Now go.’

Still she stood looking what she thought was glamorous, and it’s true that, in a way, it was. And me still between these two bodyguards, both of them waiting to eliminate me.

‘You’re a nice boy,’ she said to me. ‘Where you from – Gambia too?’

Billy got up, strolled over and slapped her. She screamed out louder than the blow was worth, and he slapped her again harder, so she stopped. ‘Now go,’ he said to her again. ‘And see that your evening’s profitable.’

She disappeared out with a high-heel clatter. I slipped away from among the two bad boys and took Mr Billy by the arm.

‘Billy Whispers,’ I said, ‘do you want a scene with me too here in your bedroom?’

He looked at my eyes and through beyond them, adding up, I suppose, what damage I’d do to any life, limb or furniture, before I was myself destroyed.

‘Is not necessary,’ he said, ‘unless you think it is.’

‘By nature I’m peaceable. I like my life.’

‘Then shoot off, Mr Fortune, now …’

The two started muttering and limbering, but he frowned at them only, and they heaved away from me.

‘Goodbye, Mr Whispers,’ I said. ‘I dare say we’ll meet soon once again, when I’ll offer you some hospitality of mine at that future time.’

‘Is always possible, man,’ he answered, ‘that you and I might cross our paths some more in this big city.’