The Planner(65)

‘This wine isn’t bad at all,’ said Felix.

Carl grunted. ‘I didn’t come here for the wine.’

‘What do you think of the place?’ said Felix, turning to James.

James wasn’t sure what to say. It was telling how quickly his excitement and fear had evaporated. There didn’t seem anything here to get worked up about. Even Rachel probably wouldn’t have minded: it wasn’t exciting and it wasn’t frightening, and it certainly wasn’t erotic. It was much like anywhere and everything else – not all that good and too expensive. It was a shame: it was actually mildly gratifying how disappointing everything was. Perhaps it was a sign that he was growing up.

Another girl came onstage. She had cropped black hair, and was dressed in a dark pinstripe suit, with an umbrella and bowler hat, which, after a minute or so, she elaborately removed. She had a button nose and was undeniably pretty, but to no discernible purpose. She might as well have been an award-winning piece of contemporary fiction. James and Carl both turned to look at Felix to see if he could explain it to them.

‘What you need to realise,’ said Felix, ‘is that there is an art to eroticism. And, like all the arts, greater study and understanding leads to richer appreciation and enjoyment.’

James turned back to the stage and tried again. It occurred to him that the girl’s act must contain some kind of satirical content, and that she was parodying the international banking system. Maybe she was going to do something horrendous and symbolic with a roll of bank notes. She started to loosen her tie. She did, James noted, have very pretty bare feet, but that didn’t compensate for the black moustache that was pencilled above her lip, or her straight hips and short legs or the fact that she was wearing a suit.

It needed Carl to get them out of this mess. Like the parable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, somebody had to point out to everyone else that they weren’t the only person to have noticed that the woman they were all looking at wasn’t actually naked.

‘What the fuck is this dogshit?’ he said. ‘We’ve been here for almost an hour and I haven’t even seen any tits yet. We urgently need to go somewhere else.’

‘I’m in total agreement,’ said James.

‘I’m actually enjoying this,’ said Felix. ‘But very well, come on. I’ve got somewhere else for us to go.’

They didn’t have to go very far. Felix led them out and they turned into Berwick Street, and then into a poorly lit lane, where there was a micro-cluster of strip bars, flamboyant specialist retailers and two more sombre wholesalers, both claiming to export across Europe and the Middle East. Between these was the ‘XXX.com Club’ in white plastic lettering on a black plastic board with a half-hearted ring of red and yellow light bulbs around the doorway. Its name was senseless, and presumably dated from a time when website addresses were considered exotic. Little attempt was being made to attract customers, and the principal function of the stout man standing outside the door seemed to be to stop people coming in rather than to entice them. But maybe that was a good thing – it was hard to be sure how the market signals worked in this industry.

Carl wavered. ‘Are you sure this place is any good?’

‘It’s the sex industry,’ said Felix. ‘Nobody knows anything, and competitive pressures are weak. But last time I came here it was excellent.’

They went in, and Felix led the negotiations with an undernourished woman behind the counter. The strange thing was, this place was even more expensive: the relationship between class, quality of service and money had broken down. There were no application forms or membership cards – instead they paid twenty-five pounds each to be allowed in for the night, and had to order at least one drink every hour.

Felix and James sat in a leather booth in the corner of a room that didn’t seem to have been refurbished since the economic boom before last. The lighting was eccentric, and the mirrored walls were speckled and blackened and incapable of reflecting anything other than ghosts and psychic disturbances. Carl came back from the bar with a bottle of white wine, perplexed and bad-tempered.

‘This just cost me a hundred pounds. It was all they had. And do you know – I’m not even sure if it’s got any alcohol in it. I think it might be fucking grape juice or something.’

‘Yes,’ said Felix. ‘I was afraid something like that might happen.’

Carl slumped down next to them. The smell was familiar and unpleasant, like a small house where a big dog lived. There was a pinball machine in the corner, maybe the last one in Westminster, but it had been discarded rather than curated, and James knew that it wouldn’t work. There were no women in the audience here, and while that was to be welcomed, it was troubling how few men there were either. But it wasn’t completely empty – at a table nearby sat a group of East Asian businessmen. Almost certainly, though you could never be sure, they were Chinese.