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Authors: Ben Aaronovitch
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two.
I stepped forward to head off the inevitable violence and as I did I caught a flash of “Body and Soul.” The
vestigium
was subtle but against the Soho ambience it stood out like a cool breeze on a hot night. And it was definitely coming from the club.
“Are you his friend?” asked the bouncer.
I could have shown my warrant card but once that’s out in the open all the useful witnesses have a tendency to melt away into the darkness and develop impressively detailed alibis.
“Go and tell Stan and Don that Lord Grant’s son is waiting outside,” I said.
The bouncer scrutinized my face. “Do I know you?” he asked.
No, I thought, but you might remember me from such Saturday-night hits as “Would you please put that punter down I’d like to arrest him,” “You can stop kicking him now, the ambulance has arrived,” and the classic “If you don’t back off right now I’m going to nick you as well.”
“Lord Grant’s son,” I repeated.
I heard James whisper behind me, “What the fuck did he say?”
When my dad was twelve his music teacher gave him a secondhand trumpet and paid, out of his own pocket, for Dad to have lessons. By the time he was fifteen he’d left school, gotten himself a job as a delivery boy in Soho, and was spending his spare time hungrily looking for gigs. When he was eighteen Ray Charles heard him playing at the Flamingo and said—loud enough for anyone who was important enough to hear—“Lord but that boy can play.” Tubby Hayes called my dad Lord Grant as a joke and the nickname stuck from then on.
The bouncer tapped his Bluetooth and asked to speak to Stan and told him what I said. When he got a reply I was impressed by the way his expression didn’t change as he stepped aside and ushered us in.
“You never said your dad was Lord Grant,” said James.
“It’s not the sort of thing you just drop into a conversation, is it?”
“I don’t know,” said James. “If my dad was a jazz legend I think I’d at least bring it up just a wee bit.”
“We’re not worthy,” said Max as we descended into the club.
“You remember that,” I said.
If the Spice of Life was old wood and polished brass, the Mysterioso was cement floors and the kind of flocked wallpaper that curry houses stripped off their walls in the late 1990s. As advertised, it was dark, crowded, and surprisingly smoky. The Management in its quest for authenticity was obviously turning a blind eye to the smoking of tobacco contrary to the provisions of the Health Act (2006). Not just tobacco either, judging by the fruity tang drifting over the bobbing heads of the punters—my dad would have loved this place even though the acoustics were rubbish. All it needed was an animatronic Charlie Parker shooting up in the corner and it would be a perfect theme-park re-creation.
James and the boys, in the grand tradition of musicians everywhere, headed straight for the bar. I let them go and moved closer to the band who—according to the front of thebass drum—were called the Funk Mechanics. True to their name they were playing jazz funk on a stage that was barely raised above the floor. It was two white guys with a black guy on bass and a redheaded drummer with a pound of silver attached to various parts of her face. As I worked my way toward the stage I realized that they were doing a funked-up version of “Get Out of Town,” but they’d given it a completely spurious Latin rhythm that pissed me off. Which struck me as strange even then.
There were booths, upholstered in tatty red velvet, lining the walls, and people staring out onto the dance floor. Bottles crowded the tables and faces, mostly pale, nodded in time to the Funk Mechanics’ butchering of a classic. There was a white couple snogging in a booth at the end. The man’s hand was shoved down the front of the woman’s dress, the outline of his fingers squeezing obscenely through the material. The sight made me feel sick and outraged and
I stepped forward to head off the inevitable violence and as I did I caught a flash of “Body and Soul.” The
vestigium
was subtle but against the Soho ambience it stood out like a cool breeze on a hot night. And it was definitely coming from the club.
“Are you his friend?” asked the bouncer.
I could have shown my warrant card but once that’s out in the open all the useful witnesses have a tendency to melt away into the darkness and develop impressively detailed alibis.
“Go and tell Stan and Don that Lord Grant’s son is waiting outside,” I said.
The bouncer scrutinized my face. “Do I know you?” he asked.
No, I thought, but you might remember me from such Saturday-night hits as “Would you please put that punter down I’d like to arrest him,” “You can stop kicking him now, the ambulance has arrived,” and the classic “If you don’t back off right now I’m going to nick you as well.”
“Lord Grant’s son,” I repeated.
I heard James whisper behind me, “What the fuck did he say?”
When my dad was twelve his music teacher gave him a secondhand trumpet and paid, out of his own pocket, for Dad to have lessons. By the time he was fifteen he’d left school, gotten himself a job as a delivery boy in Soho, and was spending his spare time hungrily looking for gigs. When he was eighteen Ray Charles heard him playing at the Flamingo and said—loud enough for anyone who was important enough to hear—“Lord but that boy can play.” Tubby Hayes called my dad Lord Grant as a joke and the nickname stuck from then on.
The bouncer tapped his Bluetooth and asked to speak to Stan and told him what I said. When he got a reply I was impressed by the way his expression didn’t change as he stepped aside and ushered us in.
“You never said your dad was Lord Grant,” said James.
“It’s not the sort of thing you just drop into a conversation, is it?”
“I don’t know,” said James. “If my dad was a jazz legend I think I’d at least bring it up just a wee bit.”
“We’re not worthy,” said Max as we descended into the club.
“You remember that,” I said.
If the Spice of Life was old wood and polished brass, the Mysterioso was cement floors and the kind of flocked wallpaper that curry houses stripped off their walls in the late 1990s. As advertised, it was dark, crowded, and surprisingly smoky. The Management in its quest for authenticity was obviously turning a blind eye to the smoking of tobacco contrary to the provisions of the Health Act (2006). Not just tobacco either, judging by the fruity tang drifting over the bobbing heads of the punters—my dad would have loved this place even though the acoustics were rubbish. All it needed was an animatronic Charlie Parker shooting up in the corner and it would be a perfect theme-park re-creation.
James and the boys, in the grand tradition of musicians everywhere, headed straight for the bar. I let them go and moved closer to the band who—according to the front of thebass drum—were called the Funk Mechanics. True to their name they were playing jazz funk on a stage that was barely raised above the floor. It was two white guys with a black guy on bass and a redheaded drummer with a pound of silver attached to various parts of her face. As I worked my way toward the stage I realized that they were doing a funked-up version of “Get Out of Town,” but they’d given it a completely spurious Latin rhythm that pissed me off. Which struck me as strange even then.
There were booths, upholstered in tatty red velvet, lining the walls, and people staring out onto the dance floor. Bottles crowded the tables and faces, mostly pale, nodded in time to the Funk Mechanics’ butchering of a classic. There was a white couple snogging in a booth at the end. The man’s hand was shoved down the front of the woman’s dress, the outline of his fingers squeezing obscenely through the material. The sight made me feel sick and outraged and
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