The Lover's Children novel Chapter 73

KLEMPNER

I do recall that he and the equally glaze-eyed little tart he brought with him pretty much cleared the table by themselves. And that they kept whispering and muttering and giggling to each other, making a show of excluding Bech from the conversation.

Could have been whatever they’d been smoking of course. Certainly, when they lit up, whatever sauna they’d been growing the weed in would have had no space for bathing facilities.

Make an appointment?

No…

Element of surprise…

Just show up…

*****

Schauder’s club goes by the name of ‘Noir Blue’. I’ve never been inside and, on the strength of the name and my brief previous encounters with Schauder, was expecting to find something on the seedy side of sleaze.

Instead, fresh paint tangs the air in the foyer. Underfoot, the carpets are clean. And the desk is manned by a middle-aged matron who, differently dressed, would appear more suited to a school or a library.

However…

What is she wearing?

Her outfit looks to have been hired from some costumier to Bollywood. A startling shade of pink, edged with tassels, sequins and…

I peer closer…

Yup…

… and small bells, it might suit a young woman, if she had the hair, eyes and skin tone, not to mention the physique, of the Bollywood starlet for whom it was intended. However, the costume’s occupant was apparently moulded from dough by a baker on a bad day.

And he had plenty of dough to work with.

She stabs at a ticket dispenser. “Entrance fee is fifty. One drink included. Give the token to the barman to claim the drink.”

“I’m here to see Emilio Schauder.”

“Still fifty to go inside.”

“I’m not here to use your facilities. I said, I want to see Schauder. Is he here?”

“Got an appointment?”

“No.”

“Gimme a name then. And I’ll ring through.”

Schauder won’t know who Lars Waterman is. That name won’t get me inside. ‘Klempner’ probably will, but I’m not about to spread it around the place.

From my wallet, I slip out a twenty, offer it to the old hag. “For you. Let me through. I simply want to talk to Schauder.”

She eyes the note. “That’s a twenty. Entrance is fifty.”

Fuck this…

“I’ll find him myself, shall I.”

A sharp left and I march through the swing doors. Behind me, a voice babbles. “Security. Right now.”

*****

Inside, I discover that Old Hag’s ensemble is part of the themed joys of Noir Blue. The interior is set out as a kind of bastard copy of an Indian temple. Decorated in eye-watering colours, it looks as though a five-year-old loose with a paint palette.

Walls and ceiling are draped in tomato-red, frog-green and that gaudy shade of gold that make knocked-off designer watches look counterfeit. To call it a ‘riot’ of colour is inadequate. This verges on full-scale insurrection. But the explosion-in-a-paint-factory decor is a mere background for brass lamps, burners sprouting incense sticks, statues of that cross-legged, elephant-headed deity, and goddesses with more limbs than a millipede.

The music would be okay if you enjoy listening to the sitar, or at least, the genuine article. But this sounds like something aired across the reception area of the cheaper kind of psychologist’s office.

Or is it psychiatrist?

In fact, I’ve visited India in the course of my business, and I enjoyed it. I took my time, doing the tourist round of the Ellora Caves, the Taj Mahal, the Golden Temple and the rest.

The country impressed me, although I passed on the opportunity to immerse myself in the life-giving waters of ‘Mother Ganges’. A sacred river brimming with raw sewage, industrial metals and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, seemed to me to be an opportunity to wash away my sins that I’m happy to push back until the last possible moment. Nonetheless, India left me with the urge to read my way, cover-to-cover, through Kipling’s works.

No, I’ve no problem with India and its heritage. But I can’t say the same for this second-hand, badly plagiarised, derivative of the original.

And the musak-ified twanging of the ‘sitar’ plucks at my last nerve.

This is a sex club?

Who the fuck would want to get it up in here?

Apparently, my opinions are not shared. Whores and their clients lounge, or display, or fuck on cushions in the same mind-etching, psychedelic colours; or on beds and loungers with throws and tapestries to match.

The whole place stinks. And not just of the incense suggested by the burners. The flowery musk of hashish overlays the sour acidity of heroin. The burnt plastic stench of meth competes with…

??