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We met outside Selfridges. I was in high spirits. God Squad Steve had bestowed upon me three Prét A Manger sandwiches, and I’d just bagged myself a premium spot to bed down. The Great British public never bother a man sleeping rough outside a luxury department store. Lower down the scale, Debenhams offers protection from physical harm but you can expect some verbal. Choose Primark and you’re guaranteed a good kicking.
The empty sleeping bag next to me turned out to be full. Its sunken-eyed occupant watched as I ate one of my two egg mayonnaise rolls. I handed him the other one, not mentioning the crayfish claw and rocket I’d earmarked for breakfast. He unzipped his padded pad and fumbled around in his trousers. He said he wanted to show me something. I choked on some cress. He pulled out a bottle of bubbly and then, from his battered satchel, a walnut veneer box. Inside were two Champagne flutes.
“A gift from Lady Charlotte Claremont,” he said, his one-tooth smile overflowing with pride. I faked vague recollection and he obligingly filled in the blanks. She’d been best pals with Princess Margaret. Together they’d got up to a lot of mischief and were rarely out of the tabloids in the swinging sixties. The old goat said he’d been her butler once upon a time.
He told me about one of Lady Charlotte’s party tricks. If she saw someone she took a fancy to, she’d drop a Champagne cork into his drink to signal her interest. Everyone in the in-crowd knew of the tradition. And it rarely failed. Recipients of the invitation felt obliged to succumb simply because it was the polite thing to do. One always did the right thing in those days, he said.
A ruckus from a nearby doorway interrupted the story. A drunken city boy was phlegming up abuse at two Eastern Europeans. One of the men lobbed a half-full can of Tennent’s Super at his assailant; crawling unsteadily to retrieve it when the suit disappeared down the back of High and Mighty to liberate his expenses-paid supper. The drama caused the wrinkly to shrink back into his sleeping bag like a salted snail. After the threat had passed he slithered out and resumed his anecdote.
At one celebrity-sprinkled soiree, a handsome, up-and-coming photographer from the East End caught Lady Charlotte’s eye. To the amusement of fellow guest the Shah of Iran, she made a great show of plopping the Champagne cork into the young man’s Martini glass. But the gaiety was short-lived. Her would-be suitor turned, smiled and toasted her with a bottle of Belgian beer. The Martini belonged to an octogenarian theatre critic delighted at what he’d found floating in his cocktail. Lady Charlotte had no choice but to see through her side of the agreement. It would be very poor etiquette not to.
As the old boy finished his tale he uncorked the warm fizz and offered me a glass. I took one sip and woke up nine hours later, the early-morning sun burning my eyes. He’d cleaned me out. No backpack. No crayfish sandwich. I reached down and felt my ankle. No money. The twenty-pound note I’d tucked inside my sock had gone. In its place was a cork: Tesco’s own-brand Cava.
Ian Humphreys‘ work has been published or is forthcoming in Ambit, the Guardian and various anthologies. He won the PENfro Poetry Competition 2013, and his fiction has been shortlisted three times for the Bridport Prize and once for the Fish Prize.