Cull

by Tanvir Bush

  It may not be very fair, but it is very satisfying. Robin’s jaw drops and he appears to be about to faint. ‘Yes, that’s how I felt when I saw the bill,’ says Alex and, picking up Chris’s harness, she bashes open the door with her elbow and heads out into the night.

  Night of the Drunken Poet

  The Poet, real name Gunter Gorski, is drunk. He is also sulking, and really, who could blame him? Yet another dinner party with his wife’s tedious friends and her terrifying father. He wants to be writing, alone, somewhere cold and harsh and open to the skies. He has been working through an idea, a dream he had following that extraordinary encounter with the blind woman, Alex, whom he can’t seem to get out of his head. He has been trying to weave a poem around illusion, blurring, obfuscation.

  He knows in his heart that his writing is wilting beneath the weight of his marriage. His wife is very attractive, extremely intelligent – and as compassionless as a dry glass. And the sex is boring. Her ambition vaults high over his head and his hard-on. They had sex this morning. Or rather, she jerked him off with one hand while talking to her office on her mobile phone. He had playfully tried to pull the handset from her grasp, and she had scowled at him, then pushed him down flat on the bed and finished him off as if milking an upended goat, all without pausing in her conversation about Prime Minister’s Questions. Then, still talking on the phone, she had walked with her sullied hand held out to one side across to the en suite bathroom. He had heard her flick his spunk into the toilet. Someone down the line said something funny, and she had laughed like a girl.

  He sucks up another warm, kind throb of brandy, direct from the bottle, and closes his eyes. They have been married for nearly eight years, both on their second marriages. He has a teenage daughter in Australia, Mandy, whom he hasn’t seen for nearly two years now. His current wife, Stella, can’t have children, but the Poet thinks she has never been the broody type. Stella Binding MP, daughter of the internationally renowned Dr Barnabas Binding, is on the rise. It would, as a politician, have been an excellent PR coup to have children to parade around like the prime minister does, but Stella has instead opted for the ‘triumph of spirit over adversity’ media angle. ‘Her blue eyes are perfectly complemented by her elegant aquamarine shirt dress,’ writes the interviewer from Her! magazine, ‘but she won’t be drawn when I ask about children. She merely takes a sip of coffee and gives me a courageous smile.’

  ‘Gunter?’ Her shout comes from downstairs. There is an edge of irritation in it. ‘Hurry up. Daddy will be here in a minute.’

  Ahhh, thinks Gunter, The Good Doctor Binding. An interesting case of endearing psychopathy. Gunter’s own father and grandfather had both been academics in the field of medicine. His father had worked as a consultant to the Jagiellonian University’s neuroscience unit. For his grandfather, however, there had been another, darker story.

  Gunter’s grandfather had been based in Lwów University in the late 1930s. Very bad timing for an ambitious Jew. One dark June night in 1941, Gunter’s grandfather and his then pregnant grandmother had been woken up by loud noises in the corridors of their halls of residence. His grandfather had just enough time to push his wife under a large pile of dirty laundry before men in SS uniforms battered the doors down and took him away. He, along with several other professors and their families, never reappeared, and were assumed to have been tortured and killed. Gunter’s grandmother had survived, but not unscathed. During the day she had been the sweetest, funniest old thing, and Gunter had spent many happy hours with her cooking, reading, doing jigsaws, walking, even dancing to the radio. But not at night. At night she succumbed to terrible night terrors and would wander around the house reliving the arrest over and over again, and in particular, the face of the man she and the other wives had gone to begging for their husbands’ lives. He had been a middle-aged soldier with a wide moustache, blue eyes and a bloody bayonet hanging casually from his hand.

  ‘He smiles at me!’ Gunter’s grandmother would shriek, tearing out clumps of her hair in terror. ‘He smiles at me and puts the point of the bayonet into my stomach! He says he will eat the baby …’

  For some reason, Gunter would be reminded of the ‘smiling man’ whenever he was with Dr Binding. It was odd because Binding was a hugely affable, generous fellow and had been since they had first met. He had held nothing against Gunter for being artistic, foreign or even a bit of a cad to his precious daughter. In fact, in the first few years of this marriage, Gunter had been in awe of the man.

  No longer. Not since stumbling across the horrors of the Clearance, Disinfection and Disposal file.

  ‘Gunter, for heaven’s sake!’ Stella howls up the stairs. ‘They are almost here!’ He hears her telling Gina, the maid, to answer the doorbell.

  Gunter takes another deep chug on the bottle of brandy and smiles at himself in the mirror. Handsome dog, he thinks, and for a second the blind woman’s guide dog springs into his mind. Damn, that was a lovely animal! And that thought leads immediately to another … the dog’s owner. Alex. She had said she was a journalist, he seems to remember. He wonders if he has read any of her work. In his mind’s eye he reaches out and touches her neck, pulls her forward into his embrace. What breasts that woman had. And the things she could do with her … He sighs. ‘Down, boy,’ he tells the rising lump in his trousers. ‘Down!’

  It has been another blazing day, and the evening is uncomfortably humid. Inside, the dining room is elegantly decorated but a little too warm even with the wide sash windows open. The table flower display is wilting, odd petals curling, edged with brown. Muted traffic noise booms like distant thunder.

  The Good Doctor Binding is sitting where he always does at the top of the large dark oak table. One would expect his daughter’s husband to be head of the table, given this is his daughter’s house, but no, Stella always puts Daddy there. In fact, Binding can’t remember her ever asking Gunter where he’d like to sit. She always places people herself, thinking carefully about her table planning.

  This evening she has seated the chubby MP, Amelia Baker, next to him. Binding finds the woman a ghastly bore, overtly racist and an uninhibited prig. Tonight, he decides he can put up with her inane, faintly fascist twittering because of her plunging cleavage. He looks up and catches Stella’s raised eyebrows. His daughter knows how to keep him amused. Opposite Amelia – who is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, no less, and in addition (and how does she do it?) Minister for Women and Equality – is her husband, a small spidery person wearing a suit that entirely blends into the furniture. The Good Doctor can’t quite remember his name, although he comes to supper at least twice a month. Gordon or Gerald or something.

  ‘Darling … where’s Gunter?’ Binding’s wife Gloria calls over to Stella, who is showing a short, dark-haired man to his seat. Gloria is a decent old thing, but Binding can’t help but wince at her indiscretion.

  ‘He’s coming down, Mummy. He was immersed in his writing.’

  In a bottle more like, thinks Binding.

  ‘Mummy, I’d like you to meet Henri Rennes.’

  ‘Bonsoir, madame.’ The man’s voice is liquid amber. ‘I must apologise for being so late. Work … c’est … what’s the word? “A bit bloody” as you English say?’ He gives a Gallic shrug and gallantly reaches over to kiss Mrs Binding’s knobbly, jewel- encrusted paw. ‘Enchanté,’ he says.

  Bloody hell, thinks Binding. The old dear is blushing! He, of course, already knows Henri, the CEO of TOSA, and his young wife Krystal. They do ‘business’ together, oui.

  ‘Krystal, umm … I hope you don’t mind, darling, but I am separating girls from their husbands tonight. You are over here.’ Stella takes the limp hand of the six-foot blonde with the enhanced front and the remarkable behind. Krystal models for Ms Frisky, Vague and Titlar. Binding is a little sorry to see her sway her way down to the far end of the oak table. She may be almost half silicone by now, but she is still a gorgeous creature.

  ‘Stella tell
s me that you are working on a new project, Dr Binding.’ Amelia’s eyes narrow slightly and she jigs forward in her seat. The silver pendant of her necklace falls into the grotto between her breasts, and Binding watches it disappear.

  ‘Yes,’ he says slowly. ‘And please call me Barney, Amelia.’ He is aware that many within the current government are acquainted with the work he is doing in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. However, almost no one but Henri and the rest of the working group know the full details of the Homeless Action! experiment and the progression of the CDD programme. Amelia, for all her chubby charm, is as ambitious as his daughter, more so perhaps. She has the twinkling eyes of a mongoose baiting a snake, a medicated mongoose but one with teeth, nonetheless. The Good Doctor hesitates and is rescued, as so often, by his daughter.

  ‘Oh Daddy … could you start the wine?’ Stella sings out. ‘Gina is still in the kitchen.’

  ‘Of course! Here, let me,’ says The Good Doctor, picking up a bottle from the table and filling Amelia’s glass with a delectable Pinot Grigio. His wife next, and then he is up and moving around the table to offer the others.

  At which point, Gunter emerges from the hallway, handsome, dark hair tousled, shirt undone at the neck. He could be on the set of an aftershave advert.

  ‘Evening, Doc,’ he says and his breath is a brandy-and-self-pity cocktail.

  ‘Jesus, Gunter,’ hisses Stella coming up behind them. ‘We are about to serve starters!’

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ Gunter growls and turns sharply, kissing her neck. It is almost a vampiric gesture, and Stella sways and can’t help but throw back her head, exposing more of that long white throat. Dr Binding moves off with the bottle of wine, a little irked by the show. Stella is wearing a silver sleeveless shift dress and her hair is up in a carefully messy knot. She looks exquisite, and next to Gunter with his wolfish smile and lean physique, they make an almost Hollywood pairing. All faces around the table are turned to them. Binding catches the glint of envy, lust and more in the eyes of the guests. Fascinating, he thinks.

  Gunter wishes he could smoke. He has been ‘placed’ by Stella at the bottom of the table with his back to the kitchen and next to a living Barbie doll. The starter is a blood-red borscht. Stella calls it ‘botch’, thinking she has the Polish pronunciation right. It makes Gunter flinch every time. The soup is clear and light with a delicate whirl of sour cream in the centre. Cold, of course. As a child, Gunter’s borscht was full of lumps of potato and beetroot, thick and salted, hot and filling. He despises cold soup.

  Luckily, Gina serves an icy shot of Bison Grass vodka with each portion. Gunter winks, and without a word she waits while he drinks and refills his shot glass. On top of the brandy and the wine, it is a little much. He wonders what his vomit will look like on the white tablecloth. He feels a poem in his gullet.

  Red bile

  The grass of the Steppes

  Opens my throat and …

  ‘OMG!’ The Barbie doll is speaking. ‘Did you see that show last night? Scumbag Street?’ Krystal has fiddled with but not eaten her soup. Even soup is too calorific for her to trust. Now her eyes, framed with long black lashes (false), are wide. ‘I just couldn’t, you know, like, believe it.’

  ‘Scumbag Street?’ asks Amelia Baker’s husband, Whatshisname. Krystal doesn’t reply. Maybe Whatshisname is invisible to her, thinks Gunter.

  ‘You mean the show on Fourth Dimension?’ asks Gloria Binding.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Krystal nods. ‘That actual street, yah, it’s only near where my stepfather lives! I just couldn’t believe it, you know, the people cheating and like, you know, skiving. And they were so skanky … That whole place looks like hell now.’

  Amelia is nodding. ‘Actually, one of the media companies we support is producing that series.’ She winks at Stella. ‘Stell even got to contribute to the scripts. A little friendly advice about being “on message”, right, Stell?’

  ‘Scripts … oh no. I don’t think that’s right.’ Krystal seems a bit dazed. ‘It’s a documentary. Aren’t documentaries, like, for real?’

  ‘Yes, my dove.’ The delicious low tenor timbre of Monsieur Rennes floats across the table. ‘Documentaries are “for real”, mais sometimes they like to give the people they are filming an idea of what to talk about.’

  ‘Really? Like, why?’

  ‘So that the people watching don’t get bored.’

  ‘If you could imagine,’ Dr Binding interjects, ‘that there was a film crew recording this dinner party—’

  Krystal lights up, giggling and flings back her mane of hair as if mid-photo shoot. ‘Aw, I’d love that, Dr Binding.’

  ‘Barney, my dear, call me Barney. Well, think how bored people watching at home would be. They wouldn’t want to watch old Gloria here drinking soup and talking about her cats for twenty minutes.’

  ‘Well, actually, I was enjoying your wife’s …’ Amelia’s spidery husband Whatshisname is leaping to Mrs Binding’s defence, but no one notices, least of all Mrs Binding.

  ‘No, I s’pose not,’ Krystal pouts.

  ‘So they would cut out all the bits of real life – the eating and drinking and small talk that are of no interest, and stick together all the bits where there is excitement, action.’

  ‘Oui,’ Monsieur Rennes again. ‘And then they might ask us to debate some big issues, things that the people at home are also interested in.’

  ‘Oh, right. So, you mean like when the scumbags were talking about how much money they can get off of benefits, yeah, for having children, and how it would cost them more to be in work than to be a scumbag … ?’ Krystal bites her lip as if taking a test.

  ‘Yes, exactly.’ Amelia claps.

  ‘There was also a man who was pretending to be sick, right, so he could get off work and we …’ She pauses to get the phrase right. Amelia mouths it with her: ‘The Hardworking British Taxpayer.’ Amelia nods. Krystal continues, ‘… would all be paying for his rent. He and his girlfriend, they didn’t even care. They were proud of themselves. I mean, there wasn’t one of them who wasn’t cheating the system and loving it. They were hateful.’ Krystal’s brow would have wrinkled if it wasn’t so full of cow jelly.

  ‘Oh, ma petite, you were so upset,’ Monsieur Rennes can’t help but wink at Stella. Binding sees the wink fly through the air and Stella’s little smile in response. Monsieur Rennes continues teasing Krystal. ‘And yet you also know of people who live like this.’

  ‘Are you getting at my stepdad, Henri? That’s completely different, right. I’ve told you he can’t work because of his back.’

  ‘And how is that different?’ pipes up Gunter, who is awake, it seems.

  ‘It’s totally different, right! Those people on your show, Stella, they were flaunting it. They loved being scumbags.’ Krystal’s voice is rising.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gunter leans forward. ‘Remember what Barney said about editing bits together? You sure they didn’t just stick bits together to make the people on the show appear hateful?’

  ‘Oh right. I get it. You wanted us to hate them, yeah? Err … is that right?’ Krystal is asking Stella and Amelia.

  ‘Now, why would Stella and her producers want you to hate the unemployed people on Scumbag Street?’ Monsieur Rennes sounds as if he is talking to a child.

  Krystal reddens ever so slightly. She wishes she had never spoken at all. ‘I dunno … maybe …’

  ‘Krystal.’ Gunter has placed his warm, slightly sweaty hand over hers. He gives her an encouraging squeeze. ‘Do you remember that show from a couple of years back, same channel? It was a big deal, and called Immigration Infestation?’

  ‘Oh yeah!’ Krystal lights up again. ‘That was really bad … I mean …’

  ‘Shut up, Gunter.’ Stella’s voice is low and as chilly as the soup.

  He doesn’t. ‘It was another one produced by Stell’s “friends”. Can you remember how it made you feel?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Immigration Infestation! Yeah, right … I was re
ally scared! I didn’t know that there were so many illegals and how nasty—’

  ‘It’s called “propaganda”.’

  ‘Shut up, Gunter!’ Stella is frantically signalling Gina to clear the table.

  ‘Proper what?’

  ‘Do you remember what happened just after that show?’

  ‘You mean in real life?’

  ‘Yes, Krystal, in real life.’

  ‘Ummm.’ Krystal sees her husband’s stern shake of non. ‘No, I don’t remember.’

  ‘I do, however.’ The voice of Whatshisname, Amelia’s husband, comes from the other end of the table. He has pushed his chair back to allow Gina to take his plate and now stands and projects his voice loudly and clearly. Everyone sees him now. Amelia watches him, shocked, open-mouthed, as if he is the madman on a bus who has just taken off his trousers. ‘I remember exactly,’ he is saying, ‘because Amelia was on the working group that used that very show to get the Immigration Bill through Parliament. Then it was the vans—’

  ‘The vans?’ Krystal looks flummoxed.

  ‘“Got an Immigrant Infestation near you? Call 08090 and we will bring it under control,”’ adds Gunter dryly. ‘It wasn’t enough, though—’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, was it, Amelia?’ Whatshisname sits down again and straightens his side plate. His little rebellion is over.

  There is a small silence, a clatter of cutlery from the kitchen and Gunter hears his own voice again. He just won’t let this lie. ‘A few months after that, the government opened the first asylum-holding platform on an old oil rig off Aberdeen. One of the first TOSA initiatives.’

  ‘Oh wow … yeah! The Suicide Rigs, right? Where all those illegals died jumping into the sea?’ Krystal looks as if she has just won Mastermind.

  ‘That’s right, Krystal! Well done.’

  Gunter looks over to Whatshisname for validation, but Whatshisname just carries on wiping crumbs off the tablecloth and won’t make eye contact with him. Stella is glaring at Gunter, though.