Driving to the ‘souk’ for the Friday night hand-in. It’s a Lebanese restaurant in Kensington Court Place, across Kensington High Street from the famous Kensington Garden Hotel. A favourite haunt of rockstars. This abrupt change of evening arrangement was sprung on the four graduates by Dom Patel this morning in Hollywood Road. No explanation. When Larry queries this sudden swerve, he’s told to ask Ali or Christophe tonight. The clue is in the mention of their names, which is I guess what Larry was after. So far in the first month they have kept their distance and not noticeably interfered in any tangible way. But you just know they are pulling all the strings. Viewing all the daily sales figures, constantly. Discussing their four trainee managers and their respective merits. You could drive yourself silly thinking about all of it. Hidden motives. Weighing the exact meaning of words. Of course, it’s important to take into account that Christophe is part French, part Algerian. Ali Saudi Arabian. Bernard half Lebanese, half French and Christophe’s younger brother Jean-Paul who is also part French, part Algerian like his brother. None of them speak English as their first language. They could all read Albert Camus’ The Plague in the original French without any problem. This is exactly why Scott has to be very careful not to read too much into what they say to him. You could take it too far. Swap The Plague for Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. We are only attempting to sell art to the masses. Carry the creative urge over the doorstep and into lounges, living rooms, front rooms, parlours, kitchen tables. Studios, the back garden. Next door with a neighbour Jean, she said she’s interested as well. Do you mind showing me your art folder in the bedroom, Scott? Well, okay. Having to be very careful on the doorstep. My son’s got a cold by way of explanation. The new veranda and how they are so very proud of it. Faces east you know. One woman had converted a spare bedroom into a mini gym and insisted on riding an exercise bike while Scott produced George Harrison. He was going to say Charles Manson, but he didn’t want her to fall off the exercise bike while pedalling furiously …

Now, all these sales positions and failed attempts could be itemized into office politics. The way that we do. Nothing is simple. The plainest job can be made complicated and produce much brow furrowing. Some people seem to delight in being cleverly deceitful. Unscrupulous. Devious. It is their daily food and drink. Christophe is like that and, you suspect, that under his air of reserved charm, Ali is the same. Dom goes along with it. He is learning from them. Young Jean-Paul and Bernard the accountant, are both totally open and it shows on their faces. Their beautiful smiles. The freshness and earnestness of young, very good-looking, Jean-Paul. Just how can he and Christophe be brothers? Even the ten-year disparity in their ages doesn’t explain it. Bernard is just a lovely person and how on earth he allowed himself to get mixed-up in this shady racket is beyond Scott. He must have been really desperate for money.

Misunderstood the nature of the enterprise. His wife is not a relative of Christophe’s or Ali’s. He’s too open and smiles too often to be someone who is being blackmailed, bullied, threatened, even cajoled. A complete mystery. He’s originally from Beirut. Maybe all the businessmen there are like the Advanced Art directors. The terrible twosome. Bernard is always so open and friendly towards Scott …

No, he doesn’t know the people who run the ‘souk’. Smiles. Shakes his head. He hadn’t been recommended it, just one of those coincidences. Christophe’s favourite place. His home from home … Of course, Christophe, Ali, Bernard and Jean-Paul speak Arabic as their native tongue. The Plague in Arabic circling over the city of Oran.

It’s raining on a Friday night. Motoring along Kensington High Street having dropped Eric off last. He has a room on the top floor of a house in Phillimore Gardens. Some nights, Scott goes up on the roof with Eric. A view over Holland Park. In fact, a marvellous view of twinkling electric lights over the city when it’s hot. Smoking a spliff and listening to Eric getting very animated about chilblained pinks, heavy violets, Claude Monet, democratic hedonism. He’s in thrall to the grandiose, bourgeois, pleasure-seekers of the Belle Epoch. That time in Paris before the First World War which changed the face of art forever … Parking in the rain in Young Street. The one next to Kensington Court Place and the ‘souk’. Remembering this small street from many years ago. In fact, a Remembrance Sunday. The second Sunday in November. As a thirteen-year-old-boy carrying the flag for one of the oldest Scout troops in Kensington. We meet up at a quarter-to-eleven in Young Street and take orders from ‘Boss’, the Scout Master. Ten of us in Boy Scouts’ uniform … We march from Young Street to the war memorial on the corner of Kensington High Street and Church Street. Scott carrying the flag and feeling uncomfortable. Wearing shorts which expose his knees. Surrogate Uncle Ben called them housemaid’s knees. And that green beret.

All those wonderful, grainy, brown-tinted photographs of Baden-Powell in that wide-brimmed, famous Scouting hat. The Boy Scouts’ Association outlawed the wide-brimmed hat, and now all Scouts have to wear one of these green berets. Makes them appear as young cadets training for the armed forces. It makes Scott’s face look like a squashed tomato … Stood in the rain on a wet Sunday morning in November. The eleven o’clock minute's silence. The different represented organizations all standing to attention. The last children of the Empire getting wet in the rain. The service. Barker’s department store standing imposingly opposite. Scott knowing that his mother is across the street watching on. Eyes in the back of his head to see the quiet, slow trickle of tears appear on her lovely face as she cried for her lost brothers …

‘Boss’ fought in the Great War. Face and hands like leather. Knew Baden-Powell personally. Still maintains over a campfire at summer Scout camp, that he took part in the last cavalry charge of the British Army. It is usually credited to Lord Kitchener’s Army at the famous Battle of Omdurman, in which Kitchener’s forces defeated the mad Mahdi’s successor near Khartoum in the Sudan … ‘Boss’ will lean forward in the twilight and snake out a leathery hand to lift a hot dixie off the campfire. One of his favourite tricks. He tells us, again, how his small cavalry troop of some eighty-odd horsemen, charged in France, nineteen-fifteen, First World War, the argument continues like a war. The children of the Empire breathe in the life of the past …

All these years later, walking slowly towards the ‘souk’ in the rain … Pushing the glass door. It’s quite small and discreetly lit, some fifteen tables maybe. No need to ask any questions or directions. Scott can hear Larry’s New Yorker tones on entering the the estashblishment. They're all there over in the far corner, sitting below what looks like a large-framed, colour photoshot of a city. Hard to tell in this soft lighting. Might be Beirut … Nobody waves to Scott or motions to him. Just sit down on a spare chair on the edge of the group. Christophe is at the centre of it all. He’s taking the money tonight and asking questions. Expecting satisfactory answers. Ali sits silently at his left shoulder. Dom by turns effusive and aggressive, to his right. Larry is in the hot seat. They seem to be interrogating him about the sales figures of his crew. His methods. Choice of property. Training style or lack of it. His desire and his manner. Scott watches as Larry defends himself adroitly. He must have handled similar, perhaps familiar, meetings like this with his banking superiors in New York. He seems to Scott to be enjoying it. More than capable of getting the better of Christophe and taking pleasure in upsetting Dom, who keeps rising to that New Yorker bait. James is nowhere to be seen. Nicky is eating a meal and drinking a beer at an adjoining table. Nobody has even acknowledged Scott’s presence, such is the heated tension surrounding Larry.

A waiter appears at Scott’s left shoulder, he orders a coffee … Christophe, out of the blue, stands upright across from Larry. They are both tall men, but Christophe is a dominating physical presence. He leans right over the table and offers Scott a Gitane cigarette from his gold cigarette case. Simple movements to distract and intimidate. The first rule of encounter, continually throw your opponent or the opposition, off-guard. Keep them on edge. When tense, people make errors. Agree to points they know nothing about and under extreme pressure lie … Scott refuses with a polite no. He was just being used in their little political game. Why smoke cigarettes when you can puff on a spliff?

They’re arguing over missing paintings now. Dom Patel didn’t know until tonight, but Christophe and Ali insist on a weekly stock check … Already feeling slightly guilty and haven't done anything. Now having to turn down a meal. Refuse a beer or a glass of wine. All intended mind games, political offers to make you out. Success obviously isn’t enough. These Advanced Art Directors want more. They intend that you play their game. Sing to their Arab refrains … Nicky eating his Lebanese sorbet fits the role perfectly. Scott is made aware without anything being said, that he may be by a short head the most successful of the Graduates by dint of his constantly having the highest scoring crew, yet he is viewed with some suspicion. Too druggy, too much at one with his crew. Too caught up in the story and art. This is a business and you have to be hard to succeed long term. Christophe is suspicious. He doesn’t trust long haired, blond graduates who espouse New Age ideals and swim on the tide of the times. That very fact is what leads to Scott’s ongoing success. But it is questioned secretly behind closed doors. He feels it tonight in ‘The Souk’. They get Larry, but Scott is too much of what they hope to project. You have to try to fit in. Directors don’t like success when it doesn't conform, pay lip service, kiss arse, play the game, seek approval. Artistic types with pretensions are suspect.

Larry is still under the pump, but he handles it well. Doesn’t really give a damn. A permanent sneer seems on the edge of his voice and around his lips. If he had been born twenty years earlier, Patricia Highsmith would have modelled her character Ripley on him … Scott looking around, drinking his delicious coffee. His eyes have gradually become accustomed to the dim lighting. Brown-fringed lampshades covering red light bulbs … There must be at least seven staff working in here, but not one sign of a woman. They like to keep them hidden, concealed. Veiled in purdah … If this was an English greasy spoon cafe there would be a waitress.
‘What do you want then, lover?’
‘Well, besides the obvious, egg and chips.’
‘Enough of your cheek! Do you want peas with them?’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Don’t tempt me!’
‘Mushy?’
‘No, ordinary.’
‘I’ll have peas then.’
‘Don’t change your mind! We’re busy, see.’ She wiggles her way across the cafe floor to the counter, with fifteen pairs of eyes trained on her high-cheeked hips and she knows it. Leans on the counter near the service hatch and bawls,
‘One egg, chips and peas!’ Turns fully around and looks contemptuously across the tops of fifteen pairs of half-glancing eyes. Greasy spoon men with greasy spoon ideas … English repartee. Sexual innuendo laced with cutting remarks …

Christophe and Ali haven’t quite finished with Larry yet. They’ve given him a real grilling. Partly, Scott suspects, for the benefit of Nicky, Dom Patel and himself. They perform as if acting out a scene from an Algerian new wave movie shot in an Oran, free from French colonization … Larry abruptly stands up. Waves his hands in the air. Laughs with a sneer, turns about and navigates his way out of the dimly lit ‘souk’... He’s gone in a flash. Christophe has stood up and is shaking Nicky by the hand. Congratulating him on his week so far. Dom looks away … Nicky is in and out in the blink of an eye. Goes past Scott placing his right hand on Scott’s blue velvet jacket and smiles at him …
‘No James tonight then?’ offers Scott by way of an opening.
‘We don't know where he’s got to,’ laments Dom. Quite obviously pleased that Nicky has left. Christophe leans back against the back wall and Ali takes over. Probably still miffed that Scott dared refuse one of his black-caped, magician-scoped Gitanes.
‘Your crew have already sold over eighty points this week, Scott, and you're selling well yourself.’
‘Just beginner's luck, Ali.’ Scott’s been careful not to mention his previous sales experiences. You have to secure an edge from somewhere. The phantom head of Niccolo Machiavelli inclines the merest nod somewhere out there in the great expansive universe.

Nobody stands up and shakes Scott’s hand or congratulates him. He hands over thirty-six pounds for the fifteen-and-a-half points and Dom logs the details in his blue ledger … Time to leave. Scott stands up scraping his chair on the ‘souk’ floor which appears to be a crime hereabouts. Nervous. Making his way past the dimly lit tables. Going out through the glass door and into the damp, wet air of Kensington Court Place … It’s a relief to be out in the light, night rain. Scott knows they're already talking about him before he has even reached the pavement. Picking him to pieces no doubt. Sliding into Young Street in the persistent light rain. The sort that soaks you to the skin quietly over fifteen minutes … stripping off all your clothes and running naked across lush green fields in the summer rain … Must concentrate. So easy to get carried away. That experience at The Souk restaurant was enough to drive anyone into their furtive imagination for cheery comfort.

Must remember, Eric is going to an art exhibition tomorrow. He’s polite. He asked Scott’s permission. Sweet-natured. Wanted Scott to go with him. Sorely tempted. But once caught in this self-perpetuating web of Advanced Art there’s just no letting up. Mustn’t forget. Collect sleepy-headed Steve from Battersea. Arrive early and drag him along to the office in Hollywood Road. Make up the crew numbers. Always start an hour earlier on a Saturday. Sell in the late afternoon before Saturday night’s events kick in and take hold. Dom Patel likes to be out of the office from the hand-in by nine o’clock at the latest. Crew members going to parties, clubs, music gigs, visiting friends, family; spending the rest of what’s left of the weekend for them in bed with their preferred sex partner. Who knows what they get up to? They could very well rob, steal, thieve and plunder, and Scott would be none the wiser. That’s what happens with compulsive jobs like this. You get taken up by it body and soul. Hence those office politics and the importance they attain because of your involvement. Total commitment.

My, but that art exhibition does look inviting. If only. But it’s no good sticking your head around the gallery door for ten minutes. You’ll never want to leave. It’s a twentieth century exhibition of watercolours, drawings and graphics by Eugene Boudin, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Georges Rouault and Gustav Klimt. It’s being held at the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery. Scott’s never been there. It’s a shame but there it is … Smoking a single skin spliff and watching all the drops of rain on the car windscreen slowly trickle down. Next to Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall is Eric’s favourite artist. Sat here now in the night-time drizzle in this quiet side street. Scott feels like the population of Oran must have felt during The Plague. We are all under sentence of death …

The following Tuesday after the evening session at The Souk, Jean-Paul is in the Hollywood Road office when Scott arrives. He seemed to be waiting patiently for him. He follows as the trainee manager carries the replacement paintings out to the Cortina. Scott has taken to parking the car around the corner from the office in Cathcart Road. There have been complaints by local residents about noise, disturbance, undesirables. Fortunately for Advanced Art at the moment, all the celebrities and clientele dining at Keaton’s restaurant help to obscure matters. Famous faces get people talking. Adds glamour to the location. But Scott is well aware that if the complaints persist it won’t be long before they get a visit from the police. The Old Bill. Jean-Paul is standing watching Scott replace the velvet paintings in the red and black edged art folders. It can’t be that fascinating.
‘Would you like to see the operation one morning, Scott?’ An approach.
‘You mean how these paintings are produced?’ Jean-Paul inclines his beautiful dark head with a soft smile. Surely the brothers had different mothers.
‘I would love to. When?’
‘Say tomorrow morning ten o’clock. You don’t have to stay long. Just so you can see how it is done. The process. It may be of interest to you.’
‘Well, yes, indeed … Where shall I meet you then?’
‘Come to Hugh Mews in Victoria. It’s off Belgravia Road. I will be waiting outside for you in the Mews.’
‘Great! I’ll be there.’ Jean-Paul smiles that soft look of his and drifts off … Is it a coincidence that Scott is approached only four days after the evening at The Souk? Maybe Christophe and Jean-Paul do have the same mother after all ... was he under instructions from big brother? Why do they want Scott to see the mechanics of the operation? Might well spoil the illusion and Scott will never sell again.

A lovely clear, bright sunny morning. Not too hot. The sound of someone practicing the piano on the far side of Milner Square. Love that. Memories from childhood. Always the resonating tinkle and scales of the Steinway piano. This Hugh Mews isn’t that far away from where Scott drops off Annabelle at night by Chester Row. There is Jean-Paul waiting patiently in the Mews. Hands in trouser pockets, leaning casually against a garage door … Parking the car. Exchanging pleasantries, the way that you do. And right here now in this hive of production. The source of those paintings on velvet dotting across southern England. Conversation pieces and hasty explanations. Here is the fabled artists commune in a semi tucked away Mews not that far from Victoria station … Scott is taken by surprise. He imagined it would be some kind of production line operation. But there are just three guys. Varying in ages, who all nod in Scott’s direction and say, ‘good morning’. Jean-Paul produces a cup of real French coffee and Scott can see that the different coloured velvets are glued to a board in preparation. Jean-Paul must get the nightly sales figures for the paintings so as to know what they need to concentrate on. The surprise is that these three artists can produce by hand, using acrylics, the exact same velvet paintings with matching dimensions. One, Don, is working on ‘The Audience’ right now. That is a special skill to be able to replicate over and over again the exact same paintings by hand. Heh, Don knocks out an ‘Audience’ in the time it takes for Scott to drink his hot French cup of coffee. Allowing for the gluing of the velvet to board, the whole process is very quick. Each one of these art production guys could achieve say fifteen paintings a day without any trouble … Jean-Paul takes Scott behind a large orange curtain and shows him all the stockpile of velvet paintings. Neatly lined up in readiness to be displayed for the public at large in the privacy of their own homes … This is just a lock up garage. Large though. You could probably park six big cars in here. Clever. An out of the way Mews garage masquerading as an art studio. The sort of expensive Mews where residents keep to themselves. Many may well have country residences. Other local goings-on are none of their concern.

Thanking Jean-Paul and heading off to Hollywood Road. Drove out the wrong way and had to navigate around the streets of Victoria rail and tube stations. Thinking too much about the Mews production studio. That’s when you make mistakes which can lead to costly errors. Paranoia can lead you astray. Take you down dark alleys of clandestine imagination … Noticing that the film The Music Lovers is showing at the Victoria Odeon. Always try to see Glenda Jackson movies. She is such a compelling actress. But Doctor Kildaire as Tchaikovsky! Swapping a stethoscope for musical notes … Scott is never going to get the chance to find out. Missing all these good-looking films on release. Just a chance of a Saturday late-night showing at the Paris Pullman or perhaps a Sunday afternoon … The answer is to forget everything that’s happened in the last few days. Since the evening at The Souk in fact. People that employ you like to take some kind of control over you, influence your life. Working hard and being successful is just never enough. It’s all about power and control. People want to own you, body and soul … all the old ways are gradually being lost. Organizations and big businesses are taking over the world. Hell, they already have! The Children of the Empire will simply be swallowed up wholesale. Sold on dreams of riches and greed and all will be lost. That’s what Christophe and Ali are trying to do with Advanced Art. Why the hell they used Jean-Paul to show Scott the art production studio at Hugh Mews he has no idea. Perhaps they think that Scott will be appalled at what he saw and leave the company immediately. You can drive yourself silly trying to second guess their insidious games. The Prince can lead you into dark, shadowy places. Confusion and scrambled time …

Just pleased to get back to the crew. Switch the car radio on. Change your head space.
‘Bernadette Devlin, the Northern Ireland member of parliament has today announced that she is pregnant. … more office politics ...