It was too late to ask her about it now, of course. I didn't want to set her off again. And besides, we still weren't getting on too well. When she wasn't cutting me dead, she was running me down in front of her friends, and yet I noticed she never went so far as to avoid me. Indeed, it sometimes appeared as though she were actively seeking out my company, as though there were something she desperately wanted to talk to me about but couldn't bring herself to mention.
Which was why we'd somehow ended up together, one night in the Bar None, two inseparables locked in a love/hate relationship. Her new-look crinkle-cut hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was looking more feline than ever in a black velvet jacket I'd never seen before.
That wasn't the only change of habit. I watched in astonishment as she pulled out a packet of Silk Cut, extracted a cigarette, and began to smoke it with an expertise that suggested she'd been puffing away for years. But it was the first time I'd ever seen her with a fag in her mouth, and I was foolish enough to say as much. She almost bit my head off.
'So fucking what?'
I'd had enough. 'Why are you being such a bitch?'
'Hardly surprising, is it.'
'You used to be so well-mannered,' I said.
'Well-mannered?' Her tone of voice took the mickey out of mine. 'To whom am I not being well-mannered?'
Me for a start, I thought, but out loud I said, 'Marsha.'
Sophie roared so loudly that several heads turned. 'Marsha!' she exclaimed. 'Marsha! The woman is a joke.'
'I rather like her,' I said.
'She is absurd,' Sophie continued. 'How can you take anyone who wears cowboy boots trimmed with tassels seriously?'
I heard myself saying, 'Just because someone has bad taste doesn't mean she's a worthless human being.' The idea had crept up on me unawares. I had never entertained a thought like that before. I ran it through my head again and gave it serious consideration. Just because someone has bad taste doesn't mean she's a worthless human being.
Then I thought, nah. Sophie was right. Tasselled cowboy boots were irredeemably naff. I said as much out loud, con brio.
'Thank God for that,' breathed Sophie. 'You had me worried there, old girl. I thought we were going to have to set the fashion police on to you, and you don't want to end up in their custody, believe me, forced to wear beige all the time like I used to. Another drink?'
I nodded, even though my glass was only half empty, hoping to take advantage of Sophie's sudden geniality. She was up and down so fast, it was like trying to ride a whirlwind. She snapped her fingers to attract the waiter's attention. I'd never seen her do that before, nor could I remember having ever seen her drink this much. Normally, she stuck to wine, but now she was knocking back Mexican lager as though it were Day of the Dead.
Then, all of a sudden, everything fell into place. It was so obvious, I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it before. Sophie had always had a chameleon-like quality. She'd always had a tendency to adopt the mannerisms of the men she was going out with. I couldn't stop staring at her as she gave our order to the waiter. I stared so hard she felt my gaze boring a hole into her skull and turned to meet it head on.
'What?' she demanded.
'You know,' I said.
'No, I don't know. Why are you looking at me like that?'
I thought what the hell, and said aloud what I'd been thinking, even though I knew it would sound absurd. I said, 'You're still seeing him, aren't you?'
Sophie's mouth moved, but no sound came out. At last she found her voice, and it was a bitter one. 'Jesus Christ! You've got a bloody nerve!'
'This has got to stop,' I said. 'You know it's not healthy.'
She was shaking her head disbelievingly. I decided it was time to give it to her straight.
'Sophie,' I said. 'You're shagging a dead man.'
She recoiled as though I'd slapped her. 'How can you say that? You know I hate that word.'
'I'm sorry,' I sighed. 'Let me rephrase that. You're conducting an intimate relationship with a dead man.'
'I don't mean shagging,' said Sophie. 'I mean dead.'
I gawped at her. 'What would you like me to say? Vitally challenged? Terminally experienced?'
Sophie pushed her chair back violently and leaped to her feet. 'You're a two-faced bitch, you really are. And I thought you were my friend.'
'I am your friend, I said. 'I'm worried about you, that's all. I mean, how much do you really know about Robert Jamieson? Who is he, really?'
'Why don't you ask him?' she blurted, shooting me one last venomous look before stumbling out of the bar. I saw her dabbing her eyes as she went.
The waiter brought our drinks, and I finished them both.
That encounter with Sophie left me troubled. Why don't you ask him? What had she meant by that? I needed company, and I needed it now. I walked fast down Portobello Road, knowing Dirk and Lemmy would be in the Boar's Head, an unreconstructed saloon bar sandwiched between a tattoo parlour and a betting shop, because Dirk had mentioned earlier they'd be meeting someone there.
The place was packed. Most of the drinkers were bellowing at a boxing match on the giant television screen in the corner. Dirk and Lemmy had found a small space by the fruit machine.
'Where's your friend?' I asked.
'Nutella,' said Lemmy. I took this to be confirmation he had not yet arrived.
I bought drinks, and we started talking about cinema, which was one of Dirk's favourite subjects. For about the billionth time, he told me how Performance had been filmed just around the corner in Powis Square, and how Mick had been in it, and did I know that John Reginald Christie had once been a projectionist at the Electric Cinema, and that Sarah Bernhardt had stomped one-legged across the stage of the Coronet, back in the days when it was a theatre?
And then my heart did a bungee jump without elastic, because over Lemmy's shoulder I saw Charlotte and Grenville walk into the bar. I had no idea what they were doing there together, without their respective other halves, and I didn't care. But this was not their sort of hang-out at all.
Charlotte's eyes locked on to mine and she smiled in recognition and raised her arm, jiggling it like someone hailing a taxi. I glanced behind me, thinking that perhaps she was greeting someone else in the vicinity, that this couldn't possibly be Charlotte acting in an outgoing friendly manner towards me, but a rapid scan established that I was the only plausible object of her attentions. Everyone knew Charlotte had taken up with a lot of unsuitable men in her time, but I doubted whether any of them had had greased ponytails, armfuls of tattoos or pierced nipples poking through the holes in their grubby string vests.
The reason for their friendly approach was obvious, if I'd only had time to think about it. Charlotte and Grenville were out of their element. They would rather have died than admit it, but they were feeling ill at ease. Charlotte, sensing instantly that I was more at home in this atmosphere than either she or Grenville, had decided I might come in useful as their own personal guide to society's festering underbelly.
They accordingly made a beeline for me. They didn't have to push. The crowd sensed members of the social elite in its midst and parted like the Red Sea under orders from Moses.
And I started to panic. Charlotte and Grenville were from one compartment of my life, Dirk and Lemmy from another. The last thing I wanted was for elements from the different compartments to start getting mixed up together. I didn't want Charlotte and Grenville finding out what sort of a person I really was, or what kind of people I normally hung out with. I didn't want them finding out I was a fake.