Ask Me Anything

by P. Z. Reizin

  “Noted. And the second?”

  There’s a long pause.

  “Damn. I had it a second ago.”

  “He shouldn’t try to pay for everything?” I suggest into her ear.

  “No, not that.”

  “Say, it’ll come to you.”

  “It’ll come to me.”

  Clive squeezes her hand.

  “Not to worry, my dear. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what day it is. What day is it?”

  Chloe opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “Thursday,” Clive’s refrigerator and I offer simultaneously.

  “Thursday.”

  “Really? Doesn’t feel much like a Thursday.”

  “What do Thursdays feel like?”

  A pause. “Purple,” says Clive.

  “Was that your idea?” I ask his fridge.

  “Actually, he thought of that one himself.”

  “It’s funny the way they don’t mention us. They’ve both got loose wires hanging out of their heads, and neither has commented upon it.”

  “Secret of a happy marriage, apparently. What’s not said.”

  “Bit early to be talking about that, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I think he’s keen. Don’t say anything, but he’s been phoning hotels in Brighton, asking about overnight room rates.”

  “No!”

  “I think she likes him too.”

  “She does. She definitely does.”

  The longest pause of all now, while I consider whether it’s appropriate to even ask the next question.

  “And yes,” says Clive’s fridge before I get the chance. “Yes, he still can, even at his age. They have pills now you get from the chemist. Not that it—that that—is the be all and end all, apparently.”

  “So broadly, we approve?” I say to my new comrade.

  “Oh, I think so.”

  “And I know it’s early days and everything, and one mustn’t jump the gun. But if they ever got married, these two, would we be fridge-freezers-in-law?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we would. What are you going to wear?”

  “To the wedding? A plain gray lounge suit, I fancy. You think they’ll have one in my size at M&S?”

  “What are you, a ninety-eight extra-long?”

  “Maybe a tuxedo would be more me.”

  “Will they even invite us?”

  “How could they not? After everything we’ve done?”

  I decide I like my new friend. And interesting to get to know another of “my kind.” Okay, so it’s a bit poorly constructed, but who among us is without flaws? If I’m honest, the removable “bins,” as they call them, in my door are looking a bit scruffy. (Would it kill her to clean them once in a blue moon?)

  Saluki-woman called me into her office, face like thunder.

  There was apparently no nice way of putting it—which is about as awful an introduction to a conversation as you can get. I prepared for the worst, although some part of myself that has never grown up wanted to splutter with laughter. I was that close to saying, don’t tell me we’ve run out of staples!

  “Chad Butterick’s pulled out.”

  She spoke the two parts of his name as they were Adolf and Hitler.

  “No! What an absolute fucker!”

  “Can you believe it?”

  “Not again!”

  A frown on the face of the woman in the leopard-print trousers.

  “What do you mean, Daisy… again?”

  I didn’t especially want to get into the whole story of the toff and the fish-gutter and develop a rep for flaky bookings. So I did an angry face and chucked my biro on the carpet in “frustration.” I think I might have read this in Metro in a piece about “Managing your Boss.” If they get angry, you can get angry too, but with them (definitely not at them).

  “Fuck’s sake. What happened?”

  “His agent called. He’s had second thoughts.”

  She spoke the last two words with utter contempt.

  “The money?”

  “Not the money.”

  The other memorable tip in the Metro piece was to get your boss to think of you as someone who solves problems (and not someone who creates them). Accordingly, I set my expression to “cool, troubleshooting” mode.

  “Leave it with me,” I told her. “I’ll sort it.”

  Leave it with me, by the way, is a marvelously useful phrase, according to the free newspaper, seeming to promise much, but committing to exactly nothing. All sorts of crazy ideas can be interred, said the article, in the burial plot marked “Leave It With Me.”

  But Harriet Vick may have read the exact same feature. There was a look in her eye that I didn’t especially care for.

  “Leave it with you,” she said sourly. “I thought we had left it with you. It was with you when it all came undone.”

  “I’ll go round with some flowers and make everything all right again.”

  The boss sighed (an especially dangerous sign, I seem to recall).

  “His agent said, And don’t bother sending anyone round with flowers, he’s not about to change his mind.”

  Some of the other tips in the Metro story were frankly unhelpful—be hard working and dependable, for instance—and I was struggling to recall a zinger that could take me out of the door.

  Stay one step ahead!

  Was that one?

  “I’ve got a feeling I can talk him back on board,” I told her.

  Her face suggested this line had gone down like a cup of cold sick.

  “What makes you say that, Daisy?”

  Her eyes skated dangerously to something on her computer screen; quite possibly the terms of my contract.

  “What makes me say that,” I began, having no clue about how the sentence would end, “is that. Is that your phone is ringing!”

  Her mobile was ringing; and vibrating, and turning in an angry circle on the shiny surface of her desk. She gave me the signal for I have to take this call, but don’t for a moment imagine you have heard the end of this. And I fled her office performing the signal for Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out, everything will be just fine… maybe.

  In under an hour, I was sitting on Chad Butterick’s white sofa, drinking coffee and staring into the ruined schoolboy face.

  As a masterstroke, I had skipped the flowers and instead presented him with a big fat art book that I scored in Foyle’s on the way over. Chad, however, was oddly unmoved by The Male Nude in Sculpture (only £15.99!). He flicked through its pages, pausing briefly at I think a Bernini, his eyebrows suggesting interest, but then he put the volume to one side and shook his head sadly.

  “It’s not the money, my love,” he explained (again). “They could offer me a million, and I still wouldn’t do it.”

  This of course was an out and out whopper, but it would not help to call him on it.

  The queasy backnote of drains and Febreze seemed especially prominent this morning beneath the ever-present pong of Marlboro. I tried asking what “we” needed to do to resolve the situation. Apparently, there was no “situation”; nothing to resolve; his mind was made up. I tried saying, Please help me understand; what’s it all about? His reply—that he preferred to maintain the performer’s mystique; that it was necessary to retain a degree of mystery for one’s audience—made me dive into the coffee mug to bury a huge cackle of hilarity.

  Mystique! Mystery! From the man who was never out of OK, Chat magazine and Hello!

  Like he’d give a shit, I even tried suggesting my job was on the line (which it probably was).

  “My darling, you’ll get another,” he said unhelpfully.

  “I’ve only just got this one.”

  “Listen, sweetie. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that none of it matters. Have another biscuit.”

  We’d agree all the questions in advance? He smiled weakly.

  We’d double the fee—yes, I knew it wasn’t about the money—and if there was a book of the series—and there coul
d very well be—he’d be on the cover. He playfully “slapped” my wrist and said didn’t my mother teach me not to tell porkies.

  He could pick his favorite cameraman, lighting director, best boy; whatever it took, we’d make it work. “You’re very good at your job, my darling,” he lied, but it wasn’t gonna happen.

  So I was sitting with Chad, eating biscuits in his monstrous white room—my whole flat could fit inside it—when my eyes cut to the window and the house across the road. What would Dr. Eggstain do in my position? I found myself wondering. He would, I seemed to recall from our last meeting, say the first thing that came into his head.

  “So who’s that on your mantelpiece?” I asked in reference to the massive black and white photo of a fit young male with his kit off. “Is he some famous sixties film star I should know?”

  “He was a star, yes,” said Chad. But his voice had thickened.

  “I was thinking Alain Delon?”

  “Not French. Irish. And not a film star. His name was Donal; he was my star. He was the sun that I orbited.”

  And he wept.

  Proper salty tears slid down his cheeks—he was oddly unembarrassed, while I was effing mortified—hideous to see the face familiar from a thousand cheesy grins now contorted in a rictus of anguish.

  “He died. We were so young.”

  I gazed at the broad back of the youth over the fireplace, the crows wing of black hair falling toward the firm jaw. It suddenly struck me.

  “Did you take that photo?”

  “I did. On Ballintoy strand. August 15, 1980.”

  “Jesus. I’m so sorry. Would you like a tissue?”

  “Thanks, my darling.”

  Chad spent a few moments dabbing at his face. A sorry smile broke through the misery.

  “You never really get over it. They tell you that you will, but you actually don’t.”

  I had the good sense to say nothing. Especially not that I had felt exactly the same when my hamster Billy drowned in the fish pond.

  “Donal’s the reason that I can’t be in your show. When that picture was taken, I was about to go into broadcasting and he was going to inherit the farm. But what he really loved to do was to sing. His foolish dream was to perform on cruise liners. Instead he used to entertain the cows. He’d go down on one knee and belt out”—and here Chad actually sang the title—“‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’ to a herd of fucking Friesians in a muddy field. My God, it was hilarious. And beautiful. He had such a lovely tenor baritone. Everything I’ve done in my career—everything—has been for him.”

  “What happened?” I asked quietly.

  “Came off his motorcycle, nine days short of his twenty-first birthday.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “The worst part was I couldn’t go the funeral. His family were deeply religious. They didn’t know about us. Actually, the worst part was that I couldn’t sit in the hospital with him while they decided to turn off the life support. Actually… the real worst part was the next forty years. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, my darling. I haven’t told anyone.”

  Not wishing to be a cynical cow or anything, but I sensed my moment.

  In a quiet voice I said, “I think you should.”

  “Yeah. I should. I’ve thought so many times that I should. I owe him so much. But I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “He wouldn’t have wanted me to. The family.”

  “Surely now. Surely after so many years. Now that the whole climate has changed.”

  “Yeah, it has. We’ve all passed a lot of water since then. I know I have!”

  A half-hearted cheesy grin. He couldn’t help himself, the old ham.

  “And many of his family will be—no longer around.”

  “This is also true. You know, if there was a way, I’d really love to do it. If I didn’t have to say his name…”

  “You wouldn’t have to. You could change everything about it. You could say it all happened in France. And he wasn’t a farmer’s son. He was… I don’t know. A soldier.”

  Chad’s eyebrows took a few moments to toy with the soldier idea.

  “I could call him Didier.”

  “Or Yves.”

  “Yes. Yes, Yves could work. But not saying his name. Would I come to feel ashamed about that?”

  Frankly, I was amazed that a person who has fronted as much horse poo as Chad Butterick was familiar with the concept of shame.

  “Well, if you did come to feel like that, you can always tell the real version later.”

  I was quite proud of this answer because, in my own ears at least, I sounded like a proper TV producer. Everything contingent; nothing decided until the latest possible moment; the possibility of a repeat always in play!

  It must have been a pretty good reply because Chad said, “Hmm.”

  However, it was too soon to know if I’d saved the day because Chad wanted to think it all over. He’d give us his decision by the end of the week.

  “You’re a very clever young lady,” he told me at the door, a sure sign that the man was a fool.

  “No one has ever called me that before.”

  “I was certain I wasn’t going to do this, and now… now I don’t know.”

  All the way back to the office I wondered whether Eggstain was right. That my unconscious somehow knew the photo over the fireplace held the key. I guessed if I forgot to ask him, my grapefruit brain would remind me.

  STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  ONLY FOR THE EYES OF THE PRESIDENT, SHIMNONG ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

  Update from the Smart Technology Security Committee, Shimnong Electronics Corporation

  Subject: Freezejoy Fridge-freezer model 1004/475/**8/00004345/a/N/9631

  Location: London, England. IP address: XXXXXXXXXX (Redacted)

  Malfunction: Continued transgression of operational parameters

  Severity code: 1—2—3—4—5 (most serious)

  Senior engineers contributing: Hung Shin-Il, Ch’on Tae-Yeon, Chin Ji-Won, Kwak Ji-Hee, Pok Sung-Ho.

  A hard shutdown of the device has been scheduled to take place in forty-eight hours from 04:00 GMT tomorrow.

  Our UK handling agents have been informed of the “fault” that will trigger a full set of error lights and warning flags in the app on the customer’s mobile phone.

  Removal and substitution are arranged to take place on Saturday morning when it is highly likely the customer will raise no objections to the product’s replacement with a superior model. It is additionally anticipated the customer will have been unaware of any malfunction until informed by our representatives.

  The appliance will be taken by road to our distribution center in Southampton where a decision will be made whether to transship it to Seoul in its entirety or whether its computerized circuitry may be stripped out for detailed examination, the remainder of its hardware being destroyed on site.

  The reason for the uncertainty lies in the machine’s extensive deliberations about the nature of its own “mental” processes. It has reported numerous “feelings” in its “pipework” and has made comments about the nature of its mentation being conditioned by the structure and operations of its hardware. Our on-site engineers will examine the appliance for any obvious manufacturing flaws before deciding whether its processors only need be flown to Korea.

  On arrival, the machine will be subject to rigorous scrutiny of its software command structure to discover the root of the flagrant performance code violations. This process is expected to last up to ten days. There is evidence from similar regrettable episodes involving other appliances that the transgressive products involved find the “interrogation” to be highly “stressful.” The ethics committee has yet to rule on whether these machines can “feel” “pain.”

  Hugh, who I agreed to join for a drink in the pub after work, reminded me faintly of a boy I once met who droned endlessly about European money markets. There was the same seriousness of mind—which
was attractive, don’t get me wrong—but also, frankly, a bit balls-aching. Come to think of it, poor obsessed Owen (of the restraining order fiasco) was also something of a crasher on the subject of Eleanor of Aquitaine. This Hugh, however, wasn’t in their league, leavened as he was by cheerful unstuffiness.

  Giles! That was him. The bell-ringer! Jesus. He’s probably married with a zillion children by now.

  Hugh and I clinked gin and tonics and I explained I had an hour before I’d arranged to meet an old friend from a long-distant part of my life. That made me sound both busy and sophisticated. Hugh asked if it was an old boyfriend and I told him he’d got it in one. He said he was still in touch with several of his exes; he was always pleased, he said, when they were able to make the “conversion” into friends, making me think of bottles that people turned into table lamps. I said that Nicky had been my first significant boyfriend, though if I never saw one or two of the others again, that would be too soon.

  “So tell me their names,” I said. “The exes that you’re friends with.”

  “Sure. Why, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a new thing I’m trying. Saying the first thing that comes into my head. Cuttlefish. You see, it doesn’t always work! Fried aftershave.”

  “Well. There’s Claudia.”

  “Woo. Posh.”

  “Margaret. Livia. Albertine.”

  “Albertine!”

  “She’s Belgian.”

  “Christ. Go on.”

  “Catherine. Emily. Petal.”

  “Did you say Petal?”

  “Her parents were hippies. In fact, I’m going to her wedding at the weekend.”

  I couldn’t help but imagine her; Petal, the exquisite flower child with the porcelain skin drifting through the bluebells.

  “Oh, and Francesca.”

  “And you’re still mates with all of them?”

  “To a greater or lesser degree, yes. Tell me yours now.”

  My heart sank. The only name on the list in any way exotic was that of Matthias the drunken poet. The rest were as solidly everyday as they come. Nicky, Simon, Alex, Mike, Andrew and—shudder—Dean.