The Afterparty
Page 11
‘That one’s nearly as bad as you, Malc.’ Pete nodded in their direction with studied unconcern. ‘She can’t wait ten fucking minutes.’
Mellody said nothing. She had her chin on Calvin’s shoulder and still sat on his lap. Cold night roared through the open window, battering his face with her fragrant hair.
‘What’s so bad about me?’ Malcolm was indignant.
‘Not much,’ Pete said, closing the window. ‘Except you’ll screw anything that stands still long enough.’
‘Will I fuck!’ Malcolm protested.
Mellody’s hand settled casually on Calvin’s leg. Without giving himself time to think about it, he put his own on top.
‘Malcolm!’ Pete was laughing ever harder, spilling much of the cocaine that he was trying to arrange on the seat. ‘You had sex with Anton’s fucking dog!’
This made Mellody turn her head.
‘You fucked a fucking dog, Malcolm?’ she shrieked.
‘Yeah,’ Pete replied. ‘Anton’s old English sheepdog. At a party in his house last summer.’
Mellody gaped, her attention utterly diverted.
Malcolm shrugged. ‘Someone said I wouldn’t do it.’
‘Is that legal?’ Calvin said, and instantly felt very stupid.
‘Dunno,’ said Malcolm. ‘It’s not cruel.’
Pete cackled, rolling up a note. Tapered locks of hair hung in fangs around his face.
‘It is rape though, Malc,’ he managed to say eventually. ‘You’re a dog-rapist, mate. You can’t tell me a dog can consent.’
‘Yeah it can,’ said Malcolm. ‘It just sort of goes along with it.’
Mellody’s laughing body shook gently in Calvin’s lap. Her other hand, to his delight, relocated to his waist.
‘Is that what Anton’s did?’ Pete sniggered, passing Malcolm the note.
‘Yeah. Pretty much.’
‘And it was a female dog?’
‘Of course it fucking was! I wouldn’t fuck a boy dog, man!’
‘No, obviously.’
Pete paused.
‘But he could lap you off.’
Calvin slid a hand across Mellody’s right buttock, which was packaged tightly in a soft, expensive denim.
‘So this …’ Pete started up again, ‘… this encounter, Malcolm. It definitely wasn’t up the arse, then?’
‘No!’ Malcolm answered angrily.
‘I mean anyone could make that mistake. You were pretty wasted.’
‘It was a female fucking dog, man! Anton said she’d had puppies.’
‘How sweet.’ Pete said this tenderly. ‘Did she have a name?’
‘I don’t fucking know.’
They stopped at lights beside a crowded patch of pavement. A line of black clubbers was queuing up to enter a tiny shopfront venue. The girls’ complicated hairstyles shook in conversation.
‘So you think gay sex with dogs is unnatural, Malcolm? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Too right.’
And suddenly, ‘Come here,’ whispered Mellody with a smile, leaning quickly into Calvin until her lips were on his. He kissed back, and now there were no thoughts. The chalky taste of make-up. Alcohol’s sweet scent. Urgent breaths, taken haphazardly in gasps between their muddled tongues. Wet sounds. Human insides meeting.
‘But sex with girl dogs is OK, is it?’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Don’t you think that’s homophobic, Malcolm?’
‘No.’
‘So would you expect a gay guy to fuck male dogs?’
‘He can do what he likes.’
Mellody swivelled now to straddle him, breasts pressing with intent. Her hands were round his waist, up his back, under his shirt, sliding desperately across his skin, as if searching for a way inside.
He was stiff as iron. She wriggled avidly on top.
The wild release of so much guessed at and unsaid.
And dimly, as though from somewhere far away, Calvin heard a London accent whooping.
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Rescheduling
Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009 11:31:08
Certainly. Any time that suits you is fine. It would just be good to put a face to a name! Read the new chap this morning, by the way. Splendid stuff, especially the dog sex. I think that’s safely excised you from Richard and Judy’s list …
Vx
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To:valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Re: Rescheduling
Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2009 15:42:03
Thanks Val – I’ll admit I was/am a bit unsure about the ketamine sequence. How on earth do you represent an experience like that? I wanted to do something different to suggest how completely the drug distorts Mell’s sense of reality, but I also have mixed feelings about playing typographical games. The Raw Shark Texts was bloody pompous about it, I thought. Although a black page in Tristram Shandy can be quite fun. Would I be allowed a black page, do you reckon? How much is the ink? Don DeLillo has them everywhere in Underworld, just marking chapters if you please. But then he’s Don DeLillo. He leaves out words, too, you know. Just plain them out altogether. The clever.
Anyway, I’m in a good mood today, so I don’t care. Because I’ve just had one of my brainwaves! Hugo Marks is … wait for it … diabetic!!! I just saw this guy Elliot something (or something Elliot?) talking about it on TV, and it’s perfect for my story! I’ll have to go back and put in an early establishing passage (perhaps Hugo should be injecting himself when Michael first looks up and sees him on the balcony?) but for now I’ll just weave some insulin into the re-writes. You’ll have to wait a bit while I sort that out in the next section.
Cheerio,
W
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To:valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Why you are waiting
Date: Tuesday, 29 September 2009 19:53:08
Hi Val,
Just wanted to say a quick sorry about how long this next chapter is taking. I’m nearly there, but I’ve had some problems. And money is a bit tight at the moment, so I’m having to spend all my time working, or looking for work. Bloody credit crunch.
Should be just another week or so.
William
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Why you are waiting
Date: Wednesday, 30 September 2009 08:17:18
Good to hear from you, William, but pls don’t hurry on my account. If money is a problem, you could always give the Arts Council a whirl. They give grants to writers.
Or, of course… Look, I’m breaking a lot of my own rules by saying this, but this is a really fantastic proposition we’ve got here. Seriously. And the story is clearly coming together now too. So I think that what you’ve already written should be good enough to sell as a partial. Obviously this does mean more risk; publishers prefer finished books, so if you can wait that’s better. But if you need the money now, well, it’s worth considering. I’m not promising anything of course, but believe me I wouldn’t suggest this if I wasn’t confident. (Though we would need to submit the rest of what you have, or at least a synopsis, to explain where the story is going…)
Totally your call of course, but think it over, and let me know if the idea appeals.
Val
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To:valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: All right, go for it
Date: Saturday, 3 October 2009 19:42:30
Thanks Val – I’ve had a look at the Arts Council website, and sadly I don’t think I’d qualify for a grant. I do need the money, though, so I have also had a think about your other proposal. And on balance, if you reckon i
t would work, I am happy for you to try selling the book based on the manuscript as it stands.
I cannot let anyone see the rest in its present state, however, so I suppose I will have to write a synopsis giving the story away. It really is a pity, because I was hoping that you and the publisher would be able to enjoy Publicity***** properly, especially as the pivotal event is coming up in the chapter after next. But then if I don’t get some money soon, the book might never be finished at all. And I suppose that would be worse. Anyway, I’ll just work as hard as I can. Then when you’re about to send it off (and if you think a synopsis really is necessary) I’ll do one. Oh well.
William
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: All right, go for it
Date: Monday, 5 October 2009 10:11:05
William, sweetie, please don’t make yourself unhappy over this. Lord knows I wouldn’t have the soupiest how to write a book myself, but listen: I do know when a chap can write, and I also know when something rather splendid lands on my desk. Otherwise I simply wouldn’t mention showing this around. If you’d like me to sit on it, then say so, and I’ll do it gladly. But if you do need the cash enough to take a punt, I promise I’ll give it everything I’ve got. Remember, I will only send your manuscript to a selection of editors, with a back-up selection in case we need to resubmit the complete book in future. Yes, a synopsis of some kind will be essential, but write a vague one, if that makes you any happier, and I’ll explain that you’re an artist … blah, blah, blah … They need good writers, honestly they do, and they’re used to reading bits of books, so when they see Publicity***** I just don’t think they’ll want you to get away.
How about I buy you lunch sometime soon and we can talk about it? I can’t believe we still haven’t met!
Affectionately,
Valerie x
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To:valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Re: All right, go for it
Date: Thursday, 8 October 2009 05:01:32
Thank you for your reassurance, Val. Go ahead and submit the book then. I have made up my mind.
I suppose I just lose confidence sometimes. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried writing a novel yourself? One minute you’re the best writer in the world and you’ve got more great ideas than you know what to do with… and then you look back at what you’ve done and you want to weep. Maybe I just shouldn’t look. No one asked me to write this fucking thing, did they? No one actually *wants* it. There’s already enough unread literary fiction in the world to keep humanity going until we finally wipe ourselves out. Why can’t people just leave their shit on the internet where it belongs? Sometimes I certainly think that’s what I should have done.
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Out of Office Autoreply: Re: All right, go for it
Date: Thursday, 8 October 2009 05:01:58
I will be out of the office from Wednesday October 7 until Monday October 19. If your message is urgent, please contact my assistant Carly McBride at carly.mcbride@nortonmorrell.co.uk. Otherwise I will reply on my return.
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To:valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject:
Date: Saturday, 10 October 2009 03:21:26
Chapter 5 – Home
Saturday, April 2 2005
01:23
THE CROWD STOOD in silence, holding candles. There were so many of them, even at this time, that they filled the square with quivering droplets of light. Camera flashes (photographing what exactly?) fired off at intervals like sparks of malfunction in a dying machine.
Then in close-up: the vigil-keepers. A large African family, or small church, singing and swaying. A group of teenage girls bundled round a burning mass of wax that flickered dangerously beside their handmade sign. Notre Père, it said, inside a coil of felt-tip decorations, displaying depth of feeling, as the young do, with the proof of hours spent. Seen from the side: a solitary man, casually handsome in the Italian way, gazing through an upward stream of cigarette smoke.
Gaudy effigies of Mary.
Tears being mopped. Nuns.
And underneath, the sliding flotsam of the news:
SERENE … POPE’S CONDITION ‘NOTABLY COMPROMISED’ … HEART AND KIDNEYS NOW FAILING – VATICAN … FAITHFUL GATHER TO
It was the largest television that Michael had ever seen. Black, and yards across, installed among a suite of minion electronics in the basement wall.
This, then, had been the destination of his journey back from Cuzco. This the reason Hugo sent him, with a minder, through funnelled squads of cheek-kissers and coat-getters, to wait patiently in the big black car out front. He remembered how he sat there, silent, as the hubbub of the paparazzi cooled. And how he took to worrying: had he become a nuisance? And been cruelly despatched? The driver kept the engine running, though, which gave him hope. And then in a redeeming instant Hugo had appeared, apologising, framed inside an aperture of shouts and light. He had brought some others for the ride. Guy, a theatre director, and Someone at the BBC. They talked of ‘PFD’ and ‘crossover’ and ‘a season at the Court’, while Michael watched the driver get them, with a maze route made of halts and thrusts, through brimming clubtime to the other side of Regent Street. Thence, they ground an edge off Grosvenor Square to meet Park Lane, before accelerating up past Speakers’ Corner to the open greenside straight of Bayswater Road. There had been a rise and fall of human density through Notting Hill, and then a right. To Hugo’s big white house in Holland Park from Soho: fifteen minutes. How much money people paid for buildings so a journey should be short.
And this was Hugo’s home. He was in Hugo Marks’s home! With another busy gang of snappers clamped on to its pavement wall. (They knew where all the big stars lived, of course; everyone but Michael knew.) At the steel front gate, Hugo had paused politely with the theatre man in smiling pose, and then proceeded onwards through the garden to his door. A large thick thing beneath a columned portico it was. Someone swung it in as they arrived, revealing a real old hatstand in a wide, resounding hall. People in front of him, and people on the generously shallow stairs. A long oak rail that terminated in a lustrous swirl. And then, it seemed belatedly, there had been a cheer of welcome, started by four people in the hall and soon augmented by a larger chorus from the distant kitchen. Michael thought that he had spotted Stephen Fry in there, joining loudly. With hands and smiles, Hugo toured them all and offered thanks, while Michael chugged on shamefully behind. The rooms were neither sparsely filled nor crowded, though the grand front salon space sat empty, as was the odd geography of parties. Eventually Hugo led him downwards on a humbler staircase he had missed before – to what was, grinning backwards at him, called ‘the media room’. It was a swanky modern hollow, windowless besides its big glass garden wall, where a group of men and women disparately lounged. And there was the television, off, hazing back a rough reflection of the talk. Nothing could prevent Hugo – not the standing smiles, not the congratulating gambits – from powering the mighty portal up. ‘Just to check how the Holy Father’s doing,’ he had said, and then did not stop checking.
Now, having passed through periods of interest, polite interest, other business, silence, all the former occupants had left. New legs sporadically stepped downwards into sight, inquiring where ‘Mark’ was, or someone else, before shrinking up the stairs again with speed. But Hugo and Michael did not move. Two men slumped quietly around their scotches: it must seem the very picture of a moment on which no one should intrude.
‘I can’t believe he’s still hanging on, though,’ Hugo said, despite saying it before. ‘The news said he was almost finished when I got up this morning.’
‘He’s been almost finished all week.
’ Michael shrugged. Then he added, ‘Old people always take longer than you think.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Mmm.’ Pause. ‘My gran took five months.’
‘What, without kidneys?’
Michael had to think about this. ‘I dunno,’ he said, mimicking Hugo’s slurred and laid-back manner. ‘But she had cancer of most things by the end.’
Sky News were back in the studio now. A serious-looking man, who might have been modelling golf equipment on another day, sat next to a young woman, who was beautiful and just as serious, though more studiously ironed. Behind them both, dominating the screen, was a gigantic image of a healthy and avuncular John Paul II, to which somebody had added a glowing yellow perimeter, suggestive both of recent death and supernatural power.
… which began with a urinary tract infection, the man was saying. Italian media reported that the Pope’s cardiograph had flattened, but this was quickly denied by Vatican officials. Although the 84-year-old pontiff is understood to have lost consciousness shortly after asking aides to read him a passage from the Bible describing Christ’s body being taken down from the Cross.
The Vicar of Rome, the woman took over, described the Pope as ‘extremely serene’. ‘He has completely left himself in God’s hands,’ said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, adding that the Holy Father is now ‘seeing and touching the Lord’.
As she spoke, the man glowered fixedly at the camera, confirming everything with sad, agreeing little nods.
‘I’ve got a bet on with Sally.’ Michael spoke suddenly. ‘Did I tell you?’
From inside his glass, Hugo mumbled that he hadn’t.
‘She reckons he’ll die in the morning: 8:03 a.m., she said.’