333 That Street could never be described as a boring dwelling, in fact it was continuously flowing with every kind of kooky character bouncing in and out of its blue door. A blue door seemingly… this magnet, this lighthouse; this pied piper calling in the weird and wonderful from every dark corner of the globe. And mostly they came for the tea, served in bone china, with fresh cake on a trolley, alongside their dark business of course.
‘That’s Lady De Bora’ I nodded to Embla, looking through the double doors of the ground floor mini Ritz Tea Room as we continued the tour of 333 That Street. ‘This is her corner of the world and she commands it like a true Lady of the Aristocracy.’
Now there’s a lot of back story and a lot of history between Lady D and I, Billy Bugle.
NB Yes I am prone to switch between first and third person without any warning, just as I will definitely switch between fact and fiction, so its your responsibility to filter out the bits of interest to you. I am not a nanny state, I’m a very lazy story teller. In my defence a lot of the scene I am setting will become clear in later chapters. Proper chapters. Not this scribble nonsense you are reading now. Maybe in a year or two we will get to the heart of the story, so just remember what you can for now. You can always read back over this when it becomes more exciting. Should it ever become more exciting.
So both Lady De Bora and Billy Bugle have so much in common they could be twins or maybe they are the next best thing; soul mates; though neither would describe their relationship this way as those kind of cliché phrases are on the cringe list, soap opera punchlines they call them.
But one example of a commonality is that neither keep in touch with anyone for too long, rarely an interest in ‘relationship of a close kind’ building. It’s not for lack of charisma because they both have this in abundance, a magnetic charisma that draws people to them, however they rarely maintain relationships.
They are each others longest contact, each others closest ally and that is possibly due to an unwritten yet mutual understanding, of knowing when its best to leave each other alone and importantly for how long.
Decades it has been since Billy met Lady D and despite the name suggesting it may have been at some Royal Gala Dinner it was a far less glamorous stench of a night in some anonymous back street spit and saw dust bar, in their 20s, around the time they were both starting out as captains of their exciting new worlds.
‘Lady De Bora’ I emphasised ( back in first person – there’s a reason for this trust me. It’s not just a click bait and tacky page turning process) ‘ Lady De Bora is the magpie of our little universe here because what ever shiny thing or glittery person you need, she will go find and bring back for you. No questions asked. Happy to Help’ I continued with more than a glow of pride for my friend.
‘She looks so glamorous, a true Lady of the Realm,’ gushed Embla admiring through the double doors as if it were the wardrobe entrance to Narnia.
‘Technically she isn’t a Lady of the Realm, in fact in real life she is Deborah from up North.’ I smiled with a matter of fact tone.
‘Of course,’ replied Embla, ‘how could anything have been that straight forward in this place.’ She looked up grinning, waiting for some sort of explanation from me.
‘Far be it for me to give away a Lady’s secrets and dispel the myth of our very own aristocratic Fagin but she has simply morphed into the role of Lady D over the decades. And it all started with a spotty dog.’ I said, literally frustrating Embla with my lack of useful answers, one of the strongest tools in my skill box.
‘Do you ever give a straight answer?’ Embla laughed, a polite laugh failing to hide her not being amused. She genuinely couldn’t take her eyes off the Lady through the gap in the doors, strolling with a grace that surely you had to be born with.
Eccentric would be one way to describe Lady D, and this alone wouldn’t be enough to throw doubters off the scent of her being actual Royalty. You wouldn’t necessarily question her accent either as she was a woman of very few words publicly, maybe with the exception of my company.
I remember we once had a conversation, as friends do when they are bored or drunk, about who we thought would play us in a movie about our life. Looking at her there is no doubt in my mind. It would have to be Helena Bonham Carter. The Sweeney Todd version. And she liked this. She liked this a lot.
For some reason she thought a young Cameron Diaz would play her which couldn’t be any farther from the truth. In fact there would be more chance of Diaz playing me, that’s how far off this self delusion was. She, on the other hand, insultingly, pictured me as a black and white silent movie actor. I’m not even going to tell you which one.
In fact take Helena and mix in a few splashes of Debbie Harry, the late 70s druggy eyed messy hair version and a few drops of one of the witches from Macbeth, the middle one and voila. Lady De Bora.
Close your eyes a moment and put all that in an image – now you can see what Embla sees at this moment.
‘It’s not the exciting story you may imagine’ I smiled at Embla, ‘We had a night out, a dark murky ale house, shallow noisy men, drunken and up to every kind of mischief imaginable. She on the other hand was beautifully dressed, and with the subtlety of a nuclear missile in a teddy bear shop, but did she care? No. She sat amongst the flying bottles and tables as if she was on her throne and then randomly for a brief moment, the dog of the ale house, a Dalmatian, sniffing the floor for scraps, probably tobacco scraps, came and sat beside her.’
Embla smiled and then rolled her eyes. ‘For real? Or Skips real?’ she laughed already understanding the cut of the jib at 333.
‘For real’ I assured her with a serious frown and static eyebrows to enhance the authenticity of my words. ‘I would have taken a photo if I could but your new-fangled phones didn’t exist in that form back them. If you had a mobile phone in those days you would need two people helping you to carry the battery, the word mobile being used very loosely. Just calls in or out. Sometimes. So no instant snaps and selfie wasn’t a word. Of course no one would carry a roll of film and camera around with them either aside from one or two ahead-of-their-time upskirters. Flash bulbs made discretion more challenging in those days.’
‘I don’t know her but I can sense things just happen around her’ Embla said with a slight fan girl sigh.
‘Oh that is certainly the case.’ I answered assuredly, ‘It was just one of a billion memorable moments. Sat there, spotty little dog at her feet, regal and sipping a pink drink with drunken men fighting and howling all around her, like a scene by the ship docks; pirates and sailors oohing and arrrhing until they collapse into a comatose pile before waking up on a strange boat in the middle of the ocean the next day. She looked at home oddly enough, Cruella de Vil is all I could see. I still can’t unsee it. And so in my eyes Deborah, a kind of lady, became THE Lady De Bora.’
Embla carried on watching through the gap in the double doors, smiling at the story ‘I like that very much’ she whispered ‘I love her very much already.’
‘Well you will be seeing plenty of her most days as your office is opposite The Crown and she will be in an out exploring you too,’ I smiled.
‘The Crown?’ asked Embla without removing her gaze.
‘That’s what we call her place. The Crown. Rather fitting for a lady of her stature.’ I smiled again realising the depth of this world I had created. Even Lady D had bought into it and had shed the skin of the old Deborah, donning the skin of arm length gloves and a fake mole that could never remember from day to day which side of the face it should be shown.
Lady De Bora of the Crown. The Ritz behind the blue door at 333 That Street. No set menu but every day a special. The décor unique and the clientele discreet. What happens at the Crown stays in the Crown.
I have often sat at one of the tables in the Crown, late at night, in the corner, with a builders tea in a bone china cup on a saucer and smiled reflecting from where we came. Looking around at the other seated characters, all mysteriously at the top of their game, choosing to conduct their conversations on the hallowed turf of 333.
Not so much a speak-easy from prohibition times or a National Embassy exempt from the laws of the land, just a world of its own. Coffee and fresh bread smells, cute triangle cucumber sandwiches and Battenberg cake at afternoon tea, free Wi-Fi for all, free hot drink and snack for the homeless. And all manner of dark characters shaking hands on agreements you really need to know nothing about. Romantic.
It wasn’t long before Lady De Bora made her way to us at the crack of the double doors. She had a 7th instinct for the shadows.
‘You must be Embla’ she said softly with an air of sophistication, holding out her hand to be shaken at arch level as any good Royal would.
I smiled as they shook hands. I had an image in my head of Embla wanting to curtsey and certainly her body language looked as if she was fighting the urge, but she was already in fan girl mode you could tell. I whispered to Embla, in full ear shot of Lady D, ‘that’s her posh introduction voice you won’t hear that again’ and received the expected snarl through gritted teeth from her Majesty.
‘Pleasure to meet you Embla’ she continued, ‘we will catch up for tea and gossip soon. Let’s say 11 am each day. Elevenses.’ She continued with a voice of authority but the warm smile of a loving aunt towards Embla.
‘I look forward to it’ Embla replied with her own curious new posh accent and slight bow of the head.
‘And I will see you at 6pm on the fourth floor’ she turned, glaring at me with the eyes of de Vil before vanishing into the depths of The Crown.
