Andrew Loog Oldham
The sun blazed down on Nice and the French Riviera was at play. The summer furniture (light cane) replaced the winter furniture (heavy, comfortable chairs, carpets and armchairs) in the Ruhl hotel, but the bars were empty. The only shade in the early afternoon was in the back streets behind the grand hotels of the Promenade des Anglais, named for the rich English who had gone there in the winter months (never in summer, they would have missed Ascot) in the days when Lord Brougham's private train had been forced to stop before enterng Nice because of a plague, and he "discovered" Cannes. Now it was filled with tourists -- French families, foreigners, the rich and famous and more than two thousand prostitutes, many of them on a "working" holiday from Paris, acquiring a sun tan by day and haunting the bars and clubs by night.
Quote, from: Don't Tell My Mother I'm a Newspaperman (Chapter 12)
"Afternoon, sir", a voice called me from the doorway of a back-street bar. "Special price for drinks today. Care to come in for a drink, sir?" said the pale, skinny youth of about nineteen, with drainpipe trousers and gingerish hair.
The voice was full of confidence. He had Chelsea written all over him: a minor public school boy gone broke on holiday, perhaps?
"I know you" I said, sounding tough.
"Do you, sir?"
"Yeah -- Sartortuga coffee bar, King's Road, Chelsea."
"Jesus! How did you know that, sir?"
"You got a work permit for spieling here?"
"I didn't know you needed one."
"Well you do. You need a permit for working and with an official stamp on it which you have to buy. As a colleague of mine says: 'The only thing you can do for free in this country is fart."
The young man laughed. "You're not the Law, are you?" he asked, his sudden laughter dying as he became thoughtful.
"No. Newspaperman, as a matter of fact."
"A reporter? If I get any stories will you pay for them?"
"What about this drink you mentioned?"
"Oh, yeah -- but they're not cheap."
"Come on" I said, having taken a liking to this cheeky whelp. I'll buy you one in here to save your job, and then we'll have one round the corner in a real bar."
"How are you living?" I asked him in the darkened bar, having been served two expensive Kronenbourgs by a shifty, furtive barman who then disappeared into the nether regions of the bar.
"Begging and sleeping aboard yachts, at the moment. I go up to British tourists and spin a yarn about my mother's money order not having arrived, and being hungry, to get a few bob. At night I leave my gear on a beach and swim out to a yacht and kip on deck, or in the cabin if it's open."
"What's your name?"
"Andy Oldham."
"Hampstead, are you?"
"You know, you're pretty good. Sherlock Holmes stuff. You're dead right. My mother lives there. My name is Andrew Loog Oldham and I intend to be a millionaire before I'm twenty-five."
"How do you intend to accomplish that?"
"The music business. I'm going to form a group and manage it and build them up so big they'll be getting golden discs. What about you? Are you going to stay a reporter?"
"Hope to write a book one day when I can support myself."
"I've got a good title for a book. Three Cheers for Nothing. You can have it. I'll be too busy to write it."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"Oh, I like it. Two Cheers for Democracy. Three Cheers for Nothing."
"I say, you are good, aren't you. Do you have a house here?"
"Share a villa with my colleague and his missus, up on the hill, but we're all moving to Vence, a little village near St. Paul de Vence. Keep on the move is my policy; a rolling stone gathers no moss, as they say."
"What do you think that means? That someone who is always on the move never accumulates a fortune?"
"No. Someone who keeps on the move doesn't get bogged down with possessions -- doesn't let the moss grow on him."
"Right."
"And you'll be a millionaire by the time you're twenty-five?"
"Absolutely certain to be."
"And you'll give me a ride in your Rolls Royce?"
"You think I'm kidding, don't you? A fantasist?"
I looked closely at him once again: the confidence of youth, the self assurance; the aplomb; the wordly-wise young eyes, the belief in his own ambition.
"No, I don't, mate. And don't ever let any bastard put you off. You go ahead. Don't let the knockers put you off -- especially the ones in the mini-kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, cos they're the worst."
"By the way -- you guessed I came from Hampstead but you said I hang out in the Sartortuga. How did you know I wasn't from Chelsea?"
"Brains, Andy, my boy. The brains are in Hampstead."
He laughed. "Sorry I can't buy you a drink back."
"Don't worry about it. Buy me one when you get the first golden disc. I'm off. Give us a ring if you get anything."
He rang a few days later. "Do you know Philip Townsend?" he asked. "There's a possible story about a missing debutante..."