Lunchtime in the Marquis of Queensbury, Imperial Gardens,
Hackney, was usually dead, but not on this occasion, and Jules Jewell,
the landlord of the old, Victorian, black-and-white boozer, picked up an
empty wine glass, and looked through it.
“Something wrong with drain, Mr Jules,” said a smiling new customer
called Suki Chen.
Jules Jewell saw that Suki was wearing her pale-blue overall, as
though she’d just popped out of Hong Kong Garden, next door, which
was unheard of. Jules had never seen her outside Hong Kong Garden.
“Drains,” he said, seeing purple paintwork through the glass. “Not
my problem.”
In front of him, on the Marquis of Queensbury bar, he saw a towel
draped over the hand pumps, like a shroud over a crucifix at Easter. The
hand pumps no longer worked, and that was a problem. He set the
empty glass down in front of another new customer, Damian Bones, and
filled the glass from the bottle.
“Gentlemanly conduct throughout,” he said.
Damian struck a boxer’s pose with his fists raised.
“No gouging, biting or kicking,” he added, his thick, brown Astrakhan
coat flapping open. “The Marquis of Queensbury rules for boxing. Let
battle commence.”
“Let’s fight for the Marquis,” Jules said. “Together.”
“Very lucky name Marquis of Queensbury,” said Suki. “Drain no
problem.”
She ordered another glass of wine, and smiled at Jules. Warmth
surged through him, and it couldn’t have been the radiators. They
hadn’t worked for years.
“One for road, Mr Jules,” said Suki, knocking it back, and nearly
toppling off the barstool. “We all in this together, but now we go.”
“Who’s going to fight for the Marquis?” Jules asked.
“Girls!” interrupted Damian Bones, his arms outstretched.
Jules hated it when Damian referred to women as ‘girls’. He wasn’t
the only one annoyed by the interruption. Another new face in the
Marquis, Macy May, was pushing her shoulders back, and straightening
her neck. Her bright-red sunglasses slid off the top of her head.
“You mean women!” Macy May shouted. “And I’m as ready as I ever
been.”
“Good,” said Jules. “Because I have a bad feeling.”
Jules had never seen Macy in the Marquis of Queensbury before. She
was another neighbour, a tattooist who ran Snapdragon, and she was
usually hard at work, instead of sitting at the bar in the Marquis of
Queensbury, with a glass of red wine.
Damian hugged Macy and Suki, and kissed their cheeks.
“Glad you could make it,” he said. “Now let’s not hang around.”
“So no one’s staying,” said Jules. “No one’s going to fight for the
Marquis.”
Macy leant forward, and felt the worn carpet for her sunglasses.
“Too right, Suki,” she said. “We are all in this together. This place
sucks.”
“Ancient history,” added Suki, drawing attention to the bulging
ceiling. “No more lucky money plant.”
“No more,” Damian repeated, nodding in agreement. “No lucky
money plant where we’re going.”
Jules knew that Jade plants were also called money plants, and that
every Chinese takeaway in London had a lucky money plant.
“So who’ll take on the man?” he asked.
Damian thumped the Marquis of Queensbury panelling.
“You could kiss in the corners,” he said.
“Long time since anyone kissed in the Marquis of Queensbury,”
Macy added, sitting up, and putting her sunglasses on.
“Molly loved the Marquis,” said Damian. “Molly Madrigali? Do you
know Molly?”
“Get over her,” Macy replied, finishing a rum and coke. “She ain’t
going nowhere I’m going.”
“Molly no good for business,” added Suki, twisting her hair round her
little finger.
But Jules wasn’t concerned about a woman called, Molly Madrigali.
He was concerned about another customer stretched out on a bench
under the window. Monty Blomqvist wasn’t moving, and that wasn’t
good for business. There was a long groan from Monty, and then there
was silence.
“Time to go, big fellah!” Damian shouted, without looking round.
“Man, he’s drunk,” said Macy, fanning her face with her hand.
“As skunk,” Suki added, pinching her nose.
“But Monty will fight the man,” said Jules. “He’ll stick up for the
Marquis.”
Another customer, a large man with long, straggly hair, emerged
from under the bar, alongside Jules.
“Lucky money plant,” announced Gripper, washing his hands in the
sink. “Made of plastic! Made by machines!”
Gripper was what Jules called, a long-term resident in the Marquis of
Queensbury.
“Gripper will back me up,” said Jules. “Gripper will fight him!”
Jules watched Gripper wipe his hands on jeans that appeared to be
held together by engine oil. Then he watched Gripper scratch his
backside and duck down to run the tap again. He knew that Gripper
wasn’t good for business.
“Knock it off, Gripper,” he said. “And get out from under my bar.”
“Personal hygiene,” Gripper replied, spitting into his palms. “Is my
forte.”
Gripper gathered his hair into a pony-tail.
“And I’ll be honest,” he added, stretching an elastic band over the
pony-tail. “I won’t miss this dump.”
It wasn’t what Jules wanted to hear.
Gripper resumed his hand-washing cycle, and no one could stop him,
not even Macy, who leant over the bar, and pushed his hands away.
“Knock it off, big man,” she shouted, but Gripper kept on like a
surgeon preparing to operate.
Monty, the customer on the bench under the window, sat up,
revealing a shaved head, and pumpkin-like face. He reached out into
thin air, as though he saw a fly, his bin lid hands wafting into nowhere.
Two huge feet were planted on the worn carpet, and then he found what
he was looking for—a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles. He pushed them
on, and blinked.
“That’s better,” said Monty, the giant.
He pointed at Jules, “I live here, don’t I?”
“Nobody lives here,” Jules replied.
“That’s right,” added Damian, his Astrakhan coat swinging open.
“And now we’re all assembled, I have an announcement to make.”
Damian cleared his throat and stretched his neck.
“We’re going to pick up the ball,” he said, chopping his palm. “And
we’re going to run with it!”
Jules moved the glasses off the bar, because Damian was prone to
getting carried away.
Damian put his hands on Suki’s shoulders.
“We’re going to push the envelope,” he said. “We’re going the extra
mile. We’re going to make like a tree. We’re going where no man, or
woman, has been before. Now get your things.”
Jules shrugged, “One small step for man.”
“I mean now!” shouted Damian, closing every curtain. “So don’t just
stand there looking stupid!”
Damian pushed open the front door, and stuck his head into Imperial
Gardens, Hackney.
“Wagons roll!” he said, giving the thumbs-up.
Macy and Suki looked at each other, then they slid off their bar
stools, and followed Damian, hairy Gripper, and Monty the giant, out of
the Marquis of Queensbury, apparently for good.
“So long!” said Jules. “And good luck! Giant leap for mankind, and all
that. I’ll fight for the Marquis. Don’t worry about me.”
Alone again, Jules collected the empty glasses, and stared at the
vacated stools. He shrugged and smiled to himself. At least one thing
made sense.
“Idiots!” he said.
But then he saw one customer still seated in the corner, his face
hidden by the peak of a white baseball cap, which stuck out under a
hood. It wasn’t anyone Jules recognised.
“Can I help you?” Jules asked.
The man jerked, and stood up. He lurched across the bar with his
head down, and stopped in front of Jules, looking up from under the
peak of his baseball cap.
“Don’t rightly know,” the man replied. “Can you?”
Jules leaned back, and the man held his palms up to Jules’s face.
“Won’t beat about the bush,” said the man, his knees buckling as
though he was jogging on the spot. “I’m here in my full capacity.”
“What capacity?” asked Jules.
“The capacity what says this place ain’t fit for human consumption,”
he replied, leaning closer.
Jules was alone with a man he didn’t know, who had filthy hands,
and, he condemned the Marquis of Queensbury outright. A police siren
passed, and the man looked over his shoulder.
“Nervous?” asked Jules.
The man drew his sleeve under his nose, and jabbed a finger.
“New establishments,” he said, making a circular movement under
Jules’s nose. “Yours ain’t one of them.”
The man was right. New bars were being knocked up in a week out
of plywood, and given a single coat of paint. Jules knew the old Marquis
could never compete.
“Can’t do much about that,” Jules said, shrugging. “The Marquis is
preserved. A second grade listed building.”
The man inched around the bar, the finger trained on Jules.
“A second-rate dustbin, more like,” the man added. “This dump is
putting the clientele right off.”
“Shame,” said Jules, feeling for some kind of blunt instrument to
defend himself with.
“It is!”
“But we have a whole lot to offer,” Jules added. “We’ve got that je
ne sais quoi!”
“Well Mr Bamber don’t want your je ne sais quoi round here,” said
the man. “But he’s prepared to negotiate. Here’s our ultimatum.”
“Ultimatum?” asked Jules, putting his hands up, knowing that Roland
Bamber, the man who ran everything in Hackney, was onto him.
“Issued by our solicitors,” the man replied.
He twisted his neck, and cleared his throat.
“Either you pay up,” he continued. “Or Bamber’s bulldozer comes
right through here to make some essential alterations.”
Jules knew only too well, that Roland Bamber was quite capable of
bulldozing the Marquis flat. He looked round at the pitiful state of walls
covered with Anaglypta, a sort of heavy-duty wallpaper no longer
holding the flaking plaster back. He saw the columns and pipes of the
cream-coloured radiators, as old as Battersea power station, and no
longer warming anyone.
“Where is it?” Jules asked, holding out his hand.
“Where’s what?”
“The ultimatum,” Jules replied. “Has to be in writing.”
The man chopped the till with the side of his hand.
“It’s verbal.”
The till opened, and the man looked inside the empty drawer.
“I’ll be round tomorrow,” he said. “An introductory offer. A straight
grand for a month … then we’ll see.”
“A grand?” asked Jules, his hands raised. “In Hackney?”
“After all,” the man added. “The Marquis is made of money?”
“Made of money?” Jules repeated, wondering what the man meant
by made of money.
“I got things to be doing,” the man said, his legs constantly
moving against a fast-running tide. “People to be seeing.”
“Well tell Bamber,” added Jules. “I’m ready for him. I’m fighting for
the Marquis”
The man backed out through the door, pointing and clicking, as
though he was firing a gun.