Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

one of the black gentlemen in All Saints Road, but do not, under any circumstances, go there at night. Their grass is no match for Humboldt County’s finest, but it does the job nicely if you lace it with hashish.
The gas cooker in the kitchen shouldn’t present any problems. Trash is kept under the sink-basin, as is furniture polish, buckets, dustpan, etc. There is also a stopcock for the water. If there is ever any kind of flood, just turn that off (clockwise) and the water supply is blocked.
The launderette (service-wash) and dry cleaners are round the corner at the junction of Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road. The Electric Cinema in Portobello Road has good old movies, if you like things like Glen or Glenda (my personal favorite) and Jessie Matthews retrospectives.
A certain Miss Treves (Nanny Treves to me) will be popping in from time to time to keep an eye on things. Please introduce yourself and tell her you are a friend of mine. When she asks you about my ship-jumping caper (and she will, I assure you), feel free to tell her what you know and say I’ll be home just after Easter. I’ll give her the gory details in a letter. Miss Treves is a manicurist now, but she was my nanny for many years. She’s fretted over me ever since I got away from her in the British Museum II was six), so she’s likely to be a bit distraught. That’s all you need to know about her except the obvious, which I’m sure you’ll handle with your usual grace and gallantry. London is yours.
S IMON
The note, rendered on flimsy blue paper in a spidery handwriting, gave Michael the soothing sensation of another human presence in the apartment with him. He could almost hear Simon’s voice as he read it. When you came right down to it, the place wasn’t t hat awful, he decided. All he really needed was a base camp from which to explore the city.
But what was the “obvious” thing he was soon to discover about Simon’s former nanny?
And what the hell was a duvet?
To answer the simpler question, he checked the contents of the bottom drawer of the bedroom cupboard. There he found a threadbare quilt, faded from many washings. He held it against his cheek for a moment, like a housewife in a fabric softener commercial, feeling a rush of inexplicable tenderness toward this common household item. So what if the heat didn’t work? He had his duvet to keep him warm.
He finished his unpacking, took inventory of his strange new money, and headed out into the night. It was roughly nine o’clock. The rain had stopped, but the fruit stalls in Portobello Road—empty and skeletal—were still beaded with moisture. As he left Colville Crescent and entered Colville Terrace, a corner pub beckoned him with yellow lights and the voice of Boy George.
Inside, he ordered a cider, the alcoholic English variety that had served him so well as a teenager in Hampstead. The other patrons were decidedly working-class. Two pudding-faced men in tweed caps argued jovially at the bar, while a stately Rastafarian in dreadlocks nursed a dark ale at a table near the video games.
His cider was gone in a flash, so he ordered a second one to wash down a couple of Scotch eggs. By the time he had quaffed his third, he was winking playfully at a plump woman who sat across from him under a gilt-lettered mirror. She was well past forty and her makeup had been applied with a trowel, but there was something almost valiant about her cheerfulness as she drank alone, jiggling her large calves to the beat of “Abracadabra.” She reminded him of one of those jolly barflies from Andy Capp.
He paid up at the bar and ordered an ale to be sent to the lady’s table. Then, brimming with goodwill, he gave one last wink to his brave sister and stumbled out into the street to make his peace with London.
    Time on His Hands
T HE LUNCHTIME MOB AT PERRY’S HAD BEEN EVEN ROWDIER than usual, but Brian managed to cope with it by reminding himself that his weekend getaway to Oakland was less than four hours away. He was returning an order for a picky diner (“Surely you don’t call that rare?”) when Jerry of the Jordache Look sidled up to him with a greasy smirk on his face.
“Your wife is at my station, Hawkins.”
“Make sure the goddamn thing is bleeding,” Brian told the cook.
“You hear me, Hawkins?”
“I heard you. Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.” He checked two plates to see if they matched his orders, then shouted over his shoulder at the departing Jerry. “Tell her