Climbing up the steep stairs up from the office basement in Hollywood Road. Immediately hit by the rush of warm night air. Under the streetlight outside a busy Keaton’s, two beautiful lemon-haired ladies are talking animatedly. As if they are deciding over which of them will take the man sat waiting for them back in the restaurant. Scott is so caught up with watching these lemon-haired ladies that he allows himself to be blindsided. Before he knows it, a beautiful woman in a dark blue evening dress, dark glasses and black high-heeled, sling-back shoes, has put her arms around him. Kissed him quite passionately. Said goodbye and walked briskly on her high heels back to a sports car with the engine humming softly across Hollywood Road. Somehow manages to ease her body into the low-slung front passenger seat. Like a double-jointed super doll, folding herself into the space. The revving of the sleek sports car engine. Whoosh! And the silver-blue Lamborghini roars off down Hollywood Road. It’s all over in a flash of a Friday night moment. Scott belatedly realizes it was mystery girl Annabelle saying her goodbyes. Thanking him and speeding off to new destinations … So that’s why she never showed today. Never answered her doorbell. Other prospects to detain her …

Hollywood Road is exactly where you would expect to see a sleek, low-slung Lamborghini and Annabelle is just the mystery girl to ride in one … Brief second of sadness. Will miss her. She’s made for higher expectations. There’s something beautiful about driving through a city late at night. Easing along the Embankment, thinking about mystery girl and re-adjusting the rear-view mirror to prevent bright headlights from dazzling the eyes. Scott has always admired the French for insisting that cars and motorbikes use yellow headlamps rather than bright, white ones that can blind you in that vital half-second of judgement … Along the Victoria Embankment and turning left past Temple and cutting up through Farringdon Street. The muted sense of the night brings a peace and calm with it, when you would think that the streets would be ablaze with lights, noises, and cars. People thronging the pavements, celebrating whatever the excuse for an occasion.

Remembering as a seven-year-old boy. A fragment of time. Having been sat on the backseat of a Hillman Minx car all day as we drove across the hazardous roads of the Pyrenees. Sharp inclines. Steepling mountain roads, twisting bends and curves. Night was upon us. It must have been around nine o’clock at night. If you wound down a car window, it seemed as if the whole world was alive to the sound of cicadas. Their high-pitched drones thrumming through the lemon-scented air of the black evening. We reach a city, Gerona, and are immediately engulfed in a blaze of light and noise. The daily hustle and bustle of a city day at night. All the shops were wide open. Coloured lights blazing. The streets packed with shoppers, onlookers, drifters, musicians, sellers, thieves, bargain hunters, predatory cars, animals, motorbikes, scooters everywhere. A cacophony of celebration of life. Scott had never, ever seen so much wondrous activity at night. In England, the streets would be locked-up tight for another advancing day of business. Here in Gerona, the whole of Spain was celebrating life at night in a glorious blaze of colour and music. So, to Scott, this was paradise, if only for that fragment of time it took to motor slowly through that thriving throng. The heat of the day clung to the houses and streets, and everybody seemed truly alive and active. That tremendous tempo of Latin existence dictated by the heat. All the gaudy colours and the laughing, flirting women. To Scott’s amazed eyes, children of all ages could be seen running around everywhere. Crying, laughing, screaming, demanding, imploring, beseeching. All the fun of the fair. Children that age in sleepy old England would be tucked-up tight in bed and ordered to sleep. Rest time for the adults. These adults here in Gerona, on this balmy night, want their children up with them. They don’t want any rest from them. Don’t wish to be exclusive. These children are part of them and must coexist alongside, not to be excluded …

Scott rubs his eyes with wonderment at the sheer thrill of it all. A street band playing gypsy music. He’s sure he saw a large grey rat run across the road. A little, poorly dressed girl sat crying in the gutter as they crawl past in the Hillman Minx. A slightly older boy, perhaps her brother, sits down next to her and puts his arm around her to comfort her. Appears to give her some kind of sweet …

Milner Square is deadly silent, just a few lights on, and it’s only ten past midnight … You wouldn’t think from the outside that number seven was a squat. It all looks so normal. No piles of rubbish, strewn shards of glass and metal, turned over dustbins with missing lids. Weeds growing up through the paving stones. Confident rats scuttling to and fro on the forage. None of it. What passes for quite plain and ordinary. Once inside though, you can see straight away that the house is slowly falling apart. In need of urgent repairs … Going past Francois’ door on the ground floor. His light is still showing in the gap at the bottom of the door … Up the creaking, slightly rickety stairs. Past an empty, as yet unsquatted room … Back to base and the day is at rest. This is halfway to paradise and make no mistake … Making a cup of real coffee. Cannot get mystery girl out of the mind. Rolling a spliff. Time to relax …

Just about to take a sip of coffee, and the door bursts wide open and Patricia comes prancing in stark naked. A repeat of the other week. Becoming a regular occurrence. Can’t she just cuddle and kiss Sheila for pleasure. Dispensing altogether with any formality of clothing. Declaring her intention to be fucked. One thing Scott does admire her for, though perhaps admire is not the right word, is her sheer disregard for convention. But of course, only at night when the sun has gone down. Vampira cravings. Sexual lust and depravity. She would strip off and do it in the middle of the road with cars swerving all around her, honking their horns, pouring forth lewd, unprintable comments and she wouldn’t give a monkeys, wouldn’t give a fuck. She just doesn’t care. Wanton. And of course, in doing so, ignores other people’s feelings, intentions, space. During the daytime she is a highly respected personal secretary working for a very rich, powerful, and fabulously wealthy Greek shipping magnate. She has shorthand of over one hundred words per minute and accurate typing above sixty. Trained as a legal secretary. Can organize and run the tightest of ships with complete efficiency. Seems well-spoken. Dresses in a two-piece grey suit with the skirt below the knee … This nightly transformation is truly amazing. If only they could see her now on the midnight prowl …

Handing her the spliff by way of deflecting her intentions. She’s not the landlady here but hell, you try telling her that. It’s one way of halting her in her naked tracks, getting her to talk about this house and her family. She chatters, meandering along. Partly the gin talking. She does like a drink or two. She has fat thighs which seem to be squeezing out as she sat down abruptly, almost collapsed on Scott’s mattress on the floor. She has a baggy bottom whose wholesome cheeks are bigger than her breasts. Plump arms, fat starting to run down to her wrists. It’s all the booze. She puffs away, discussing some dead aunt of hers whose name has changed at least three times in the rambling telling. But she won’t be put off for long. Her reddish eyes are now looking at Scott as if he’s prime red meat ready to be devoured. Any protestations of a long hard day, tired out from all the sales and spieling, the driving, wish to write further on the novel The Children of the Empire, read The Plague. Of course, Patricia quotes what everyone else has started saying already.
‘You’re always reading that book! I thought you’d be a fast reader, but you’re very slow.’

Pointless stating you’re reading it for the third consecutive time. Nobody ever believes you.
‘I’m making you a leading character in The Children of the Empire.”
‘Then fuck me! You can put that in your bloody novel if you ever finish it!’ Haven’t the heart to tell her she’s too old to be a child of the Empire. She might claim landlady’s privilege and throw Scott out on his ear. Her girlfriend Sheila resembles nothing so much as a blonde all-in wrestler. She could be a member of a two-girl tag team … Nothing for it. Produce the silver foil. Get out the test tube. Get Patricia talking about her Greek shipping tycoon, while you cook up cocaine and bicarbonate of soda with just the right amount of water in the test tube. Not too long. Drain the water leaving the base to cool in a cloth on the floor for a good ten minutes. Patricia half watching the process, not really taking it in. Scott saw her shiver when he laid the base down in the cloth. Went and fetched the spare blanket taken from Melanie’s, a red-and-white checked offering. A Clapham blanket no less, placing it around Patricia’s shoulders. Careful not to get too close in case she springs at Scott. Anything is possible. Gave her another spliff and discussed exactly how many ships this Athenian magnate has tied up in the Port of Piraeus and sailing the worlds’ oceans right at this very moment. Patricia knows every one of them. But her mind is becoming hazy. Unfocused. She’s put her knees together, which is some kind of relief. Will Scott come and watch her and Sheila in action. He can film them if he likes …
‘Hang on a minute, I’ll just get the base, it should have cooled and be ready by now ...’ Scott having to run the coke for her. Freebasing down silver valleys encased in electric dreams. Silver mountains of the moon beckon. Making her keep her eyes closed. Once they start to look, they misjudge it and the brown running bubble-strain rushes past them …
‘You know what this is, Patricia?’ She stares vaguely at him. Lost on a cocaine high.
‘This is the best smell in all the world.’
‘Smell?’
‘The smell of basing cocaine. The champagne of all drugs.’ All her energy seems to have dissipated … Taking pity on her. She wants to go to bed now, her bed. Helping her up. Keeping that red-and-white checked blanket around her … staggering together out of the door. Somehow managing to get her up the rickety stairs. This house in Milner Square could soon become a rats’ paradise. Sheila must have heard the noise of the shuffling footsteps. Patricia’s huffing and puffing. She’s certainly out of condition. Only fit for fucking. Blonde Sheila standing in the doorway. Glaring. Hard to tell really with so little light around. Maybe she’s really smiling and it’s got lost in the shadows …

Sheila half-drags Patricia into the flat. The red-and-white checkered blanket falls away from her. Scott catches it up and can’t suppress a grin. Floppy, naked buttocks disappearing through the door. He goes back down the dangerous stairs hearing blonde Sheila scolding Patricia like a child. Shouting at her. Calling her a cheap whore … Scott gets a surprise when he reaches his door. Who should be stood there waiting for him but Francois. Looking so handsome and debonair in the half-light. Dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and a blue and red striped tie. Black slip-on shoes. Immaculate at one o’clock in the morning … would Scott like to join him in his room for a cup of tea? Why not? Never spurn a genuine invitation or reject a contact made with real effort … Why yes, only too pleased to …

Totally stunned by Francois’ room. He has at least three large carpets. Two fluffy white, one brown. A beautiful overhead Japanese lampshade. A white lamp standard with the lampshade matching the overhead. A proper bed with a cream duvet and pillows. A mahogany coffee table. Two tubular chairs of chrome without arms. Francois has his own special rocking chair in the style of art nouveau - the sort that Liberties used to produce. Posters and prints on the wall. A record player on which he has placed a record. A China tea service. A white wardrobe … Scott sits down on one of the tubular chrome chairs. Surprisingly comfortable. They don’t look it. Imagining that the ‘Ideal Home’ magazine could do a piece on Francois. Send a reporter with a photographer. Fashionable chic and squatting in style in London in the nineteen seventies. The three million readers of this glossy magazine will be astonished at the fashionable chic and voguish look of this room. Truly the art of squatting has attained new levels of modern comfort and design …

Francois looking astonishingly handsome in the three soft, sixty-watt bulb lights. Produces a tray complete with teapot, cups and saucers. Smiles that look that could increase the monthly circulation of ‘Ideal Home’ magazine by half a million copies if he ever got to go on the front cover. Of course, all the exposure would probably result in us all being evicted out on our ears at six o’clock in the morning by belligerent Blue Filth deprived of sleep. Blonde Sheila arrested for grappling a young policeman to the floor and using a Boston crab on him … probably safer to be publicity shy.
‘Do you take sugar with your tea, Scott?’
‘No, thanks. I weaned myself from the habit a few years back ... It smells sort of smoky. What is it?’
‘Lapsang souchong … you like?’
‘Very refreshing … Don’t think me rude, Francois, but I just have to ask you ...’ He smiles that look of oriental charm that has melted a billion hearts across the ages. Shredded love of previous fragments caught in time.
‘How did you manage to furnish your room like this? It’s like something out of Vogue or Tatler. I couldn’t believe it when I first walked in. I thought I was dreaming and had walked into another house. A show home for the glossy magazines. He smiles like a bashful boy caught out in the act of indulgence.
‘You know, Scott, I work for Roche Bobois in Baker Street. Yes?’ Scott nods, sipping his Lapsang souchong.
‘Very famous. All household furnishings and furniture …’
‘You mean you’ve stolen, say acquired, all of these items. The bed, wardrobe, chairs, tables, lamp standard, carpets. Everything?’ Francois quickly shakes his very beautiful head.
‘No, no, no … ’ As if it could never be. Some kind of dreadful mistake. Why I would never …
‘This’ ... He waves his right arm around to indicate the whole room … ‘Is reject. That is the correct word, yes?’
‘You’re saying that all this furniture, furnishings, other items, are rejects from Roche Bobois? But how exactly can they afford so many inferior pieces? I know they are a very rich French furniture and design company. But so much!’
‘When it is Roche Bobois, it has to be the very best. A bed, for example, that has wooden splinters on the frame is dangerous, no. A child could get a splinter in a finger or leg. An infection sets in. Voila! Roche Bobois sued for damages. Many items get damaged being transported from Paris to London. The carriers are never careful enough. Roche’s own people, but careless. So yes, everything you see here has been rejected as unfit to sell. The staff are allowed to take so many pieces each and sign for them. It is how you would say Scott, all legal and above board.’ God, his English is so good.
‘How did you get it all here?’
‘They delivered for me in a Roche Bobois van, of course.’ Scott laughs at the sheer cheek of it all. Not wholly convinced by the reject story. Why, staff could simply declare any item as unfit to sell. Sign a reject-slip and give it to a deserving member of staff. Drinking another cup of this refreshing Lapsang Souchong tea, getting used to the smoky flavour. The bone China cups have a Japanese lady on them. Maybe a Geisha Girl. She’s holding a closed grey fan and has a pink-red bow tied behind her long, luscious black hair …
‘Would you like a cigarette?’ Francois proffers a silver cigarette case. Thick oval shaped, expensive looking cigarettes.
‘What are these?’
‘Passing Cloud.’
‘I’ve never had one. I don’t usually smoke cigarettes. I’ll have one just for fun. Turkish?’
‘Why, yes. Very famous.’ China tea, Japanese Geisha Girls, the perfumed smell of Passing Cloud cigarettes. The tangy, smoked flavour of Lapsang on the tongue. Francois has put a record on. Having to ask a question of everything. Feel like a child in a mysterious Aladdin’s cave of oriental delights. The record is Jacques Brel singing Ne me quitte pas. Francois plays it over and over again. It’s quietly haunting this room.
‘I’m not that well up on French singers.’
‘He is from Belgium.’
‘Oh well, that shows what I know. I guess there must have been many famous Belgians mistaken for French by the rest of the world. Probably drives them crazy … who's that poster of the beautiful blonde lady?’
‘Sylvie Vartan. A singer and sometime actress.’
‘Isn’t she married to that French rock and roll star, Johnny Hallyday?’
‘So, you do know something of French singers after all. Yes, I believe so. I adore her voice and look ...’ Now that Scott's eyes are truly accustomed to this room, he can see that there are at least three posters of Sylvie Vartan up on the white painted walls … Jacques Brel and If You Go Away is now continuously in the background. The constant refrain to our night-time experience.
‘How did you get here, Francois?’
‘You mean this evening from Baker Street?’ Scott laughs. Puts out the Passing Cloud which is making him feel a little dizzy.
‘I think you really understood the question but played a joke on me. The first time you opened the front door to me here, I thought you were Japanese.’ A look of surprise crosses the expressive face.
‘I am half-French and half-Vietnamese. Would you like some more Lapsang tea? Another Passing Cloud cigarette perhaps?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve had my fill. I don’t really smoke cigarettes though I enjoyed the tea. Very refreshing. Uplifting. Would you mind if I smoked a joint? You see, I’m really a peasant at heart.’ He nods and smiles obligingly. Something tells me we are in for a long night. It’s already well past two o’clock.
‘How did I get to this moment? Let me see … Well, my father was an officer in the French army in Vietnam. He was stationed in Saigon whilst Vietnam was still under French rule. He met my mother, who was much younger than him. She comes from a very good Vietnamese family. They were introduced formally through mutual friends. That was the way that people were supposed to meet in the past. It afforded some kind of protection. You understood to some degree who you were being introduced to. I think the word in English is vetted. Is that right?’
‘Your English is better than most of the people who come out in the crew with me. Yes …’
‘Crew?’
‘I take young people out on the road to sell paintings to the public. Gives them a thrill … Here you just walk in a dance hall, club, pub, disco, and meet someone. You could be getting together with Lucrezia Borgia or Charles Manson and you wouldn’t know. Such are our modern methods of introduction in this country.’ Francois nods that gorgeous head of his wisely.
‘It is changing everywhere. All of the old ways are gradually being lost.’
‘So, you were born in Vietnam then?’ Francois sighs as if the question is an intrusion upon his train of thought. Stubs out his Passing Cloud in a glass ashtray and settles to talk on …
‘No, I was born in Algeria.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, you have to remember that Vietnam was occupied and under Japanese rule from nineteen-forty to nineteen-forty-five. My father and mother had married a few weeks before the Japanese invasion. My father's military status enabled him to take his wife with him when he, like most of the French, were forced to leave. France, as you know Scott, was under German control with a Vichy government. So, my father went to Algeria …’ Scott can’t help interrupting with excitement even at a quarter to three in the morning of what seems like a never-ending day.
‘You were born in Oran in the time of the plague!’ Francois smiles and slightly shakes his angelic head.
‘I am sorry to disappoint you Scott, but I was born in Algiers. My father took a civilian job in a French bank as a clerk but was secretly working for the Free French Forces gathering in Morocco under Charles De Gaulle …’ He continues, having lit yet another Passing Cloud cigarette. Maybe remembrance makes him nervous. We don’t forget precious time; we blank it out to protect fragile emotions …
‘At the end of the Second World War, my father resumed his career in the French army, promoted to the rank of a major. We sailed back via two ships to Saigon. I was three and my sister was just a baby. My father was reassigned a post in Saigon and most of my mother’s family lived close by. But, of course, by then the resistance movement, the Vietcong under Ho Chi Minh, or the Vietminh. They were the resistance force set up to fight the Japanese and carried on after the Second World War to resist the French Occupation and fight for independence. It was not an easy time for my father. The French power and authority were ebbing away. The country was split into two in nineteen-fifty-four with the Vietcong in North Vietnam. Of course, as a boy, I took little interest until I was about thirteen. I felt torn, you understand. And even though my father was a French officer and I spoke both French and Vietnamese as first languages, I gradually came to see myself as Vietnamese. I knew I would never be fully accepted as French. I then secretly began to think that Vietnam should be a free country and cast off the French yoke. But of course, nothing is ever so simple is it. Already Chinese communism was gaining control of hearts and minds in the north. We might become independent but at a price to our individual freedom …’ Francois breaks off as if to settle his memories down.
‘I have something to ask you Scott.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘This room, the walls, are quite bare except for Sylvie Vartan. I wonder, could you suggest something English that could go on the walls. You deal in paintings, art, no?’ Scott laughs, sets about rolling yet another spliff.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. I’m learning a little as I go along. We are selling mass-produced popular art on a modern theme. Some might say experimental. But I know what I like. You want something that would be quintessentially English … well … I love Art Nouveau, that I do know. My favourite drawing, painting, is J’ai Baisé ta Bouche, which you will know all too well, Francois, means ‘I kissed your mouth’. It’s by Aubrey Beardsley. A floating, demonic Salome holding the dripping Medusa-like head of John the Baptist. Produced in collaboration with Oscar Wilde. I’m sure if you telephone a few art shops they would tell you where you could purchase a print … Maybe something modern, of the moment, to fit in with all these French pieces and designs. A poster of Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn dancing Romeo and Juliet or Giselle, perhaps Swan Lake. They would look sensational on your walls. You could try contacting Sadlers Wells, or the Royal Ballet Company. They will put you in touch with outlets who can supply you with a poster. Voila!‘

Scott giggles, lighting the newly rolled joint. Through the curling blue smoke,
‘You see, Francois, I’m learning. Slowly maybe, but I’m getting there.’
‘Thank you, Scott. Most interesting choices. I will try and buy them. Will you write down the names for me and who to contact?’
‘Sure thing. I have paper and a pen, I like to be prepared for when the The Children of the Empire might strike. I keep a small pad and biro in the front pocket of my jeans. Last time I washed them the biro seemed to be colouring my jeans a deeper blue and the pad resembled an ink blotter. I forget, sat in a car all day… No matter, it shall be done …‘ Francois sighs again.
‘My father died when I was twenty. After the French left, he stayed on in Saigon and worked for the South Vietnamese government as a glorified clerk at a much-reduced salary. He contracted typhoid fever and died within days. I was at university in Saigon studying fashion design and English. I had to leave abruptly. My father left little money. We rented our house and my sister was still at school. At first, I took a part-time job in a store selling groceries. It was all I could find. With the French gone it left a big hole in the local economy. War was upon us. We were forced to move to cheaper accommodation in a poorer quarter of Saigon. Most of my mother’s relatives had died as I was growing up, and we had never had any contact of any kind with my father’s family. Then I lost my job. Cutbacks. What can I do? I am responsible for my mother and my sister. I am the man. Big responsibility no? You start to feel anxious and then ashamed if you cannot provide for those you love. The evening soup becomes very watery and the slice of bread thinner. I was friendly with a boy from university. I ran into him on the street. He offered me a job. Said I would be perfect. I spoke pretty good English. All these American troops just posted to Vietnam. Saigon the centre of their operations.’

He stops to light a Passing Cloud as if thinking whether he should tell Scott …
‘Don’t keep me in suspense! What did you have to do?’
‘I am not proud of it, Scott, but needs must, you understand.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘I was a connection to sell heroin to American soldiers.’ Scott lets out a low whistle which sounds off-key at a quarter-past-three in the morning.
‘But straight away the money was very good. No argument. I never told my mother or sister what exactly I did. Just described the heroin as goods. The GIs liked me. Named me Saigon Joe and started giving me presents of chocolate, cigarettes, clothes, food parcels. With the money and the regular supplies, I could now move my mother and sister to a bigger apartment in a better district of Saigon. I started saving money as well. I made myself a promise. If I ever got through this and didn’t get apprehended by the American military police or the local Saigon police, I would get myself to college in France. Of course, my contact was paying money to bribe the local Saigon police officers. The traffic in heroin to American soldiers was a major source of income for the city. Right along with prostitution, black-marketing, bars and nightclubs with strippers and sex ads and plenty of alcohol everywhere. Cross-dressing young boys to excite the American GIs. Uncle Sam’s boys never stood a chance out in Vietnam. In the end, they will be defeated or forced to sign a peace treaty and retreat without honour. They will lose face. I told myself that in my own little way, I was doing my bit for Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong, by corrupting the American soldiers before they went into battle …’

Francois suddenly stops talking as if that was enough memory time for one night. Maybe he feels he’s said too much. But now we are no longer strangers. Scott has seen into his life.
‘Would you like a futon, Scott?’
‘A Japanese mattress.’
‘Yes. Complete with a wooden base.’
‘I read somewhere that futons were special mattresses that the Japanese use to sleep on the floor. Very good for the spine. Is that right?’
‘I’m not an expert on all matters Japanese, though you thought I was one when you first met me …’ He smiles that engaging smile and the world becomes a friendlier place.
‘We have developed wooden bases at Roche Bobois. Possibly to cater for Western tastes.’
‘You mean I can have a Roche Bobois futon? That’s brilliant, but they must be expensive.’
‘It will cost you nothing. We have two rejects waiting to be disposed of. I will have it delivered later today. Do you have a spare key to your room?’
‘I don’t keep it locked. Nothing worth stealing up until now. I keep all my money on me. The Children of the Empire travels with me. What little possessions I have a thief can steal if they so have the mind to.‘
‘Good. You will sleep better with this futon. But now you must lock your door. There is something of value to be stolen.’
‘What is wrong with this promised futon of mine? Why was it rejected?’ A faint laugh creeps around Francois’ perfectly shaped lips. The rest of his face maintains an enigmatic expression.
‘Why, nothing of course.’
‘Oh, this will be marvellous, Francois. I will no longer have to live on the floor with the animals. No grey rats scuttling by my feet. No flea-ridden mattress and scratching away. Not to wake up with a cheeky young mouse sat on my pillow. Aware of hordes of termites in the room above trying to eat their way through the very floorboards. The spiders will have to weave larger webs. A spider’s net above your head to catch your nightly dreams … Thank you.’

Jacques Brel has stopped haunting this Roche Bobois designed room with Ne me quitte pas, so Scott guesses it’s time to leave. Thanking Francois and slowly climbing up the rickety stairs. Bone tired. It’s now four o’clock in the morning. If Scott’s lucky he’ll get five hours sleep. Stood expectantly at the beckoning gate of dreams ...