Chapter Twenty-Two
GEORGINA
He sat there like a flump before Hyde Park’s bandstand, head down, cigarette balancing between his crinkled, unappealing lips, feeling about his leather jacket for a lighter – she guessed that’s what he was looking for, anyway. As she walked closer to him, and the amateur trombonists began to practice their tooting, while a bigger throng of Sunday afternoon strollers deposited themselves on stripy Victorian repro deckchairs, Lennie located a shiny silver rectangle, unclipped it, lit his fuse and drew in a large puff.
She’d suggested they meet here for purely selfish reasons – collaboration aside; it was a shorter distance from The Esmeralda and its world of pomposity, saving another taxi fare and Georgina’s legs. Yes, she should have returned immediately after her lunch break to complete the final quarter of the poncy weekend ‘Brunswick Mixology Course’, but the opportunity to meet with Lennie was now or never. The Hooray Henry running the show was sure to understand when she explained she’d “been mugged, had had to call in to the local police station…” and then of course he’d probably feel sorry for her, lend her a few notes which she’d ‘forget’ to reimburse… or River could just put it down on expenses.
The thing was, in a couple of days Lennie would be back in Los Angeles, his touting for new band members in London had been a full-blown disaster, he’d admitted via his text message, with Bear and Alex loafing about in Camden’s bars and pubs as opposed to putting any feelers out. All of which had only bolstered Georgina’s confidence, further loading a weapon whose trigger Lennie would surely be only too obliging to pull.
Plus the fact, there was only so much exhibitionism anyone could take from that pair of Manchester-band-hair-cut plonkers from Up North, who thought they were God’s Gift at everything and, seemingly delighted in showing her up at any and every opportunity at the training bar. It had hit her for six, this shocking revelation that she wasn’t quite hip enough for this city and the idiots it attracted when they’d pulled out the ultimate trump card: sniggering at her attempt to serve them Cosmopolitans during the role play exercise, causing her to spill the contents of the tray all over the hotel’s pristinely cream carpeted floor, regardless of the fact she could normally handle such a trivial part of her job day in and day out with ease in Glastonbury. Here she was a small fish in a very large pond, and the moment when she could hop aboard that coach headed for Somerset at six-thirty pm could not come quickly enough.
“Georgina, sweetheart, you’re looking ravishing… if I may say so, my dear, how lovely to see you again.”
Lennie dive-bombed in for a highly unsophisticated kiss – thankfully on just the one cheek – as the French horn hit a bottom F, and the stench of stale tobacco, fresh smoke and last night’s booze joined in. Any brownie points for using her full name went straight out the window and into the Thames.
“Hello again, Lennie.” She accepted his offer to occupy the deckchair next to him, grateful for the breathing space and narrow passage of air. They were right at the front of the semicircle, hence him standing out like the Great Wall of China. A traditional ice cream cart trundled past them, peddling its wares, flattening Georgina’s carefully pre-planned choice of words with its squeaky wheels, igniting a momentary panic.
“Got rum n raisin?” Lennie shouted as the vendor whizzed past.
Surely he couldn’t be serious, food and a fag in the same mouthful? His vulgarity strangely soothed her immediately; she could more than handle a man like this.
“And for you, princess?” He turned to look at her with tender eyes, whose fake intensity made her snatched Subway baguette of half an hour ago do a loop the loop in her stomach.
“No… thank you, not for me.” She hoped, in both senses of her reply, that he’d read between the confectionery lines there.
“So then, what can I do for you?” he asked as he dropped his coins in the vendor’s open hand.
“Two things,” she said, determined to keep this business-like. “Just two things: your time and your money.”
Lennie took a lengthy drag on his Malboro, exhaled at a leisurely pace, and then switched to the ice, his mouth sucking the top off as would an over-eager child, making for quite a revolting sight. Any minute now she was sure he’d go in for the kill; chomp the end off of the cornet, tilt his head back and let the juices dribble.
“My time and my money, she says, hmm…” He returned to his glow stick, as if that might help him decide if he was in for the ride. “Yeah, all right, I’m listening, doll. Talk to Uncle Len.”
***
Hours later, as the coach was finally able to put the miles between the fume-filled capital and Georgina, Windsor Castle popping up and back down again in the distance like a Jack in a box tormenting the working classes, she ran over the outlines of the plan in her head.
October.
Although any day but the thirty-first. Even she wasn’t cruel enough to take things that far. Lennie would need picking up from Castle Cary train station. Well, that was easily sorted; Blake could do the honours courtesy of Dad’s car. The Guinevere would make the perfect ‘HQ’ for the before and after party, River and Airhead Alice (her new nickname, well, she was a blonde, she’d asked for it) never likely to set foot inside again. Zara had also confirmed that October was perfect for her, just before the Christmas cake orders and mince pies piled up. As for the skills and the resources, the cover up; those things could be organised nearer the time.
And then the coach driver made a surprise announcement over the tannoy system.
“Right… um ladies and gentleman: can I just have your attention please? A bit of an urgent situation has come up and we’ll be making a very brief detour to the next service station…” He broke up for several seconds as the passengers exchanged puzzled glances with one another, and a murmur which threatened to become a ruckus briefly took over the slow lane of the M4.
The coach driver let out a hearty cough and then resumed his patter.
“Nothing to be concerned about, folks, the coach isn’t about to break down or anything… I promise.” And now he substituted words for a string of unconvincing chuckles, “just an unscheduled mini-break to pass on a message to my… err… to my colleague.”
The murmur and confusion reduced to a simmer and soon the driver pulled over to the coach bays of Reading services, where a racing green Bentley was somewhat cheekily hogging two entire parking spaces. Georgina watched, amused, as its driver with her concave Miss Piggy-style snout, and her lengthy frame, emerged from behind the wheel. She slammed the door shut, designer looking clutch bag in her posh piano-fingered hands, and then appeared to climb up the steps to talk to him. But this was no cardboard cut-out of your bog standard coach driving colleague. Maybe she ran the entire fleet?
“Thank you, thank you so very much,” her Queen’s speech filtered down the aisle to where Georgina and her bags occupied the left hand side of row fourteen. The woman then turned to stride brusquely, proprietorially, eyes locking with Georgina, who began to shift uncomfortably in her seat, no idea what was going on.
“This is for you, darling.” She produced an envelope which blatantly looked like it carried a wodge of bank notes inside it, pressed it into Georgina’s palms and whispered, “from Lennie, via moi, for the uh… well, let’s just call it Operation Payback, shall we?”