Inconceivable

by Ben Elton

  So now we all know the score. One room. One fucking room.

  We’re going in one at a time in a slow, agonizing tosser chain.

  Each of us realizes that the amount of time that we’re going to have to spend in that hellhole is entirely dependent on those in front of us in the queue. The chain moves at the speed of the slowest wanker.

  After about ten minutes the door at the end of the corridor opened and the first man hurried out. He dropped his pot off at a little hatch in the wall, handed some kind of plastic-coated form back to the nurse and he was out, lucky swine. After what I considered an unnecessary minute or two of faffing about, the nurse called out the next name and up got another man, picked up his pot and the plastic-coated form and trundled down the corridor to the masturbation chamber. I must say I found this plastic-coated form a bit disconcerting. What was it? Wanking instructions? Surely most men were up to speed on that one?

  And plastic-coated. That was a bit of a gross touch, I must say.

  It’s always struck me as a strange thing about instructions in general, the way people feel the need to give them out whatever the circumstances. Perhaps it makes us feel more in control, like the way we still give all the details on an outgoing answerphone message: ‘If you’d like to leave a message please speak clearly after the tone.’ I mean, we all know that, don’t we? Perhaps we should add, ‘Oh, and don’t forget to put the receiver back afterwards or your phone will be rendered useless.’ Lucy and I had a frozen pie last night and on the box it said ‘Remove cardboard box before putting in the oven.’ I mean I suppose some people might make a mistake with that, but surely it’s better to let them learn by experience or else one day they’ll be near a fire with some cardboard and no instructions and hurt themselves.

  The ballpoint pens they give us at work have a warning embossed on the plastic tops advising us not to put them in our mouths as choking might ensue. That is a fact. I’m not making it up. Surely the same thing could be said for eggcups or toilet roll tubes or carpets? The world is definitely going mad.

  Anyway, back to the tosser queue. The next bloke in took nearly fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to have a wank! I mean I’ve pulled them off in fifteen seconds in my time! I could see I was not the only one who thought this. Everybody was shuffling their feet a bit and looking at their watches. Eventually, of course, he emerged, and nearly ran past us to get out of the place, and so the long day wore on. There was a coffee machine available. I say coffee but what I mean is hot water with little brown islands floating in it. Worse than useless, really. Strange, I mean we all knew the machine served liquid shit but because it said it served coffee we drank the stuff. If it had said ‘Liquid Shit’ machine I suppose we would have left it alone. Instructions, you see, we’re all caught in the headlights.

  Finally at gone quarter to ten, my number came up. ‘Mr Bell,’ the lady said. It had to be a woman, of course. Like when you’re a kid buying condoms at Boots, you could wait for hours for a lad to take over the till but he never did and you had to buy them off a teenage girl your own age. Anyway, the nurse gave me my pot and the plastic-coated instructions, and when I say plastic- coated, I don’t mean neatly laminated, no, I mean a twenty-year- old form in an old plastic bag. That form has seen some sights, I bet.

  ‘Last room on the left,’ said the nurse. ‘When you’ve finished leave your pot at the lab hatch and return the form to me.’

  Well, I must say I’ve masturbated in more pleasant environments. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think that the NHS should be consuming its precious resources providing sensually lit boudoirs draped in red velvet and reeking of sultry scents for sad acts like me to wank in. I’m just saying it was all a bit depressing.

  There was a chair, a magazine rack, a handbasin and a waste- paper basket in the room. That was it. Apart from that it was completely bare. The plastic-coated instructions informed me that I should carefully wash my hands and knob before getting down to the business of the morning. Already in the wastebasket were the crumpled paper handtowels of the previous tossers on which they had no doubt dried not only their hands but also their knobs. Strange to think that only moments before I had entered the room another man had been…I decided not to think about it.

  So I scrubbed up and viewed the chair. It was a municipal easy- chair consisting of an upright and a horizontal cushion. The sort of chair you would have found in the teachers’ common room of a secondary modern school in about 1970. I regret to have to report that it was stained, not in a truly horrid way, but just with age. There was a dark triangle on the front of the seat, left where a million men’s legs had worn the material around it. In the magazine rack were some old dirty mags. It’s a long time since I’ve seen the inside of a dirty mag and for a moment I thought, ‘Hello, bonus,’ but really, you just couldn’t get into them at all, they were so old. I don’t mean interestingly old, like 1960 or something. Just old; about three years or so. On the wall there was a sign saying, and I kid you not, that any donations of spare ‘reading material’ would be welcomed. Reading! We live in a world where five-year-olds can dial up snuff movies on the Internet and yet a hospital calls wank mags ‘reading material’.

  I don’t know why they don’t just write to Penthouse. I’m sure the publishers would be delighted to make a donation to assist all those men in making their donations.

  Then suddenly I became aware of the time!

  Oh my God, I must have been in that room for two or three minutes already! Instantly I had a vision of all the men outside, shuffling their feet, looking at their watches, thinking to themselves, ‘How long does it take to toss yourself off, for fuck’s sake!’ Just as I had been cruelly thinking myself only moments before. Suddenly I was convinced that they were all out there gnashing their teeth and muttering, ‘He’s reading the articles in the magazines, I’m sure of it.’

  Must get down to it! Must get down to it! Don’t want to hold up the queue. But how do you get down to it under that kind of pressure? It’s impossible. I sat on the chair, I stood up, I glanced at a magazine. Panic rose within me and panic was the only thing that was rising!

  In the end, by a supreme effort I managed to calm myself down a little. I did it by telling myself that the door was locked, that I would never have to see any of those men outside again and that I would take as long as I damn well liked.

  So I sat down on the horrible, worn-out old chair and resolutely concentrated on the job. With, I might add, the added pressure of knowing that I must get the first bit in! They make this clear in all the literature, and the plastic-coated instructions were also very very firm on the subject. The first bit is the best bit, of that there seems to be no doubt. All the rest is rubbish, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  Well, I did it. Sort of. I think there was enough. I hope so, anyway. Only time will tell. Looking at my watch I realized that I had been in there for over twenty minutes. I could feel the wave of resentment greet me as I emerged and walked past them all to hand in my pot. I was so embarrassed and flustered that I tried to walk out of the building still holding the plastic-coated form and had to be called back, which was humiliating.

  Like I say, I’ve had better mornings.

  Personally, I think it’s possible that I’d rather have dye inserted into my cervix, but I’m not going to say that to Lucy, of course.

  , ’No,

  Dear Penny,

  Hysterosalpingogram today. It’s not supposed to hurt much, but they say you should take along someone to drive you home just in case you’re upset or in discomfort. Sam, of course, had a very important meeting, which he did offer to cancel but I said

  don’t bother, I’m fine.’ Drusilla came along, which was nice of her, except she seems to view all hospitals, especially the women’s-only parts, as places of unnatural torture and intrusion where nature is excluded and man insults the gods. This is slightly embarrassing when she talks about it loudly in the waiting room.

  ‘You know half the
problems they deal with here can be treated herbally,’ she said so that everyone could hear. ‘There’s very little in life that a rose and lilac enema won’t go some way towards curing.’

  The hysterosalpingogram itself was all right. Legs up as per. Quick prod about, as per. Bunch of spotty students staring up me in an intense manner, as per. Then in goes the dye, they tilt it back so that the dye can flow through the tubes. Actually, it was very interesting, because you can watch the progress of the dye on a little television screen. I thought I’d be too squeamish to look, but it was fine, as it turned out. Then they took a few X-rays and that was that. The doctor was in and out in ten minutes and I was in and out in twenty. It was all right, although I did feel a bit sick and faint afterwards. Apparently some women find it more painful. Perhaps my insides are getting desensitized.

  Drusilla and I went for a coffee afterwards and I told her about Carl. Amazingly she’s of the same opinion as Melinda was when I talked to her about it. She thinks I should ‘put the poor boy out of his misery and shag him’! I had no idea all my friends were so cavalier about the concept of fidelity. I think with Drusilla it’s actually because she’s sex obsessed and believes that anything and everything should be shagged whenever the opportunity arises. Preferably in groups and at Stonehenge.

  I said to Drusilla, Hang on, perhaps we’re jumping the gun here, perhaps poor old Carl doesn’t particularly want to shag me anyway. I mean I know we kissed, but I was upset and he was comforting me. Perhaps he really is just a very nice guy who just wants to be my friend.

  ’Ha!’ said Drusilla and she said it so loudly that other ladies spilt their coffee. Drusilla never minds about being noticed. I do.

  I must say that whatever Carl’s intentions may or may not be towards me, I’m a bit sad about the way all my pals seem to view Sam. I mean obviously as far as they’re concerned I’m married to a sort of sexless, emotion-free geek whom one can betray with impunity. I put this to Drusilla and she replied, ‘Well, you said it, babes,’ which I thought was bloody mean.

  Dear Sam,

  Lucy had her pingowhatsit today. She wanted me to go with her but for heaven’s sake I have a job. The BBC pays me to sit twiddling my fingers at Broadcasting House, not at Spannerfield Hospital. Besides which, today I actually had something to do, believe it or not.

  The Prince’s Trust are putting on a big concert in Manchester.

  Radio 1 is going to broadcast it live and the whole concert has been designated a Light Entertainment Brief, i.e. my responsibility. There are two reasons for this. Firstly there will be comedians on the bill (comedy of course being the new rock ‘n’ roll. Like hell). Secondly, the bill will mainly be made up of ageing old rockers, and nobody at Radio 1 who’s into music wants to touch it with a bargepole. They all think that because some of the artists who are to perform have committed the cardinal sin of being over forty (and doing music that has tunes) the whole thing is terminally uncool and should be on Radio 2 anyway.

  So there we are. It turns out that it is to be me who’s heading up the BBC Radio side of the operation, which is why today I found myself back in Quark in Soho having lunch with Joe London. Yes, the Joe London, as in lead singer of The Muvvers, a man who bestrode the late sixties and early seventies rock scene like a colossus. They might sneer, back at the office, all those shaven- headed boys wearing yellow sunglasses indoors and girls with little tattoos of dragons on their midriffs, but I was bloody excited to meet Joe London. This was my history. Joe was big when I was at school. I can remember him when he didn’t have a courgette to put in his trousers. Bloody hell, that man couldn’t half rock in the old days.

  ‘We’re all absolutely delighted at Radio 1 that you can do this show for us, Joe,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yeah, tasty, nice one, as it ‘appens, no problem, geezer.’

  ‘And of course the Prince’s Trust are very grateful too.’

  ‘Diamond geezer, the Prince of fahkin’ Wales. Lahvly bloke, know what I fahkin’ mean? Likes ‘is rock does Charlie, big Supremes fan, and so good with the boys.’

  Joe quaffed an alcohol-free lager.

  ‘What’s it in aid of, ven, vis concert?’ he said.

  ‘Well, Joe, principally helping young kids with drug abuse.’

  Suddenly Joe’s amiable manner changed.

  ‘Well, I fink vat is fahkin’ disgahstin’, vat is,’ he sneered. ‘Lazy little sods! When we was young we ‘ad to go aht and get our fahkin’ drugs ourselves.’

  I was just clearing up this misunderstanding and explaining that the point of the show was to help underprivileged youth when we were joined by Joe’s manager, a huge, spherical man with a cropped head and a cropped beard and no neck. His head just seemed to develop out of his shoulders like the top of an egg. He wore a black silk Nehru suit and silver slippers and he was bedecked in what must have been two or three kilos’ worth of gold jewellery. His name was Woody Monk and he greeted me with a nod before turning to whistle with approval at our waitress whose skirt was even shorter than on the last occasion I’d seen it. I imagine it had shrunk before the gaze of a thousand middle- aged media leerers who stare at it each lunchtime.

  ‘I remember this place in the sixties when it was a knocking shop,’ said Woody Monk. ‘The birds working ‘ere didn’t look much different actcherly.’

  I really was dining with the old school. Joe and Woody were rock ‘n’ roll as it used to be, and it made me feel like a kid again.

  These days most pop managers look like Tintin with sunglasses.

  I asked Woody Monk if it might be too much to hope that Joe would do some interviews to promote the show.

  ‘He’ll do as many as you like, we need the profile,’ Monk replied, and then, as if to quell any protests that Joe might have, he showed Joe a copy of the Sun featuring an article about the current Rolling Stones tour.

  ‘Look at that, Joe!’ Monk said. ‘Just look at it. I mean, it’s obscene, disgusting. That is just a totally ridiculous figure, out of all proportion.’

  Joe took off his sunglasses and had a look. ‘I don’t know, Woody, I like a bit of silicone myself.’

  Monk tried to be patient. ‘I am not talking about the bird, you divvy! I’m talking about this new Stones tour, one hundred million, they reckon! And the Eagles got the same. It’s the arenas and the stadiums,’ Monk explained to me, ‘megabucks, these places gross in humungous proportions. In the old days when people talked about gross on tour they meant waking up with a mouthful of sick and a strange rash on your naughties. But nobody tours for the shagging any more. They do it for the gelt.

  Every gig is worth millions of dollars. Can’t stop for a bit of the other, accountant won’t let you.’

  Basically, Monk’s point was that Joe needed to tour again in the near future. His latest greatest hits album would be out for Christmas and it needed supporting.

  ‘Are we releasing another greatest ‘its album, then?’ said Joe.

  ‘Yeah, but a prestige one. Nice classy cover, all in gold, the Gold Collection…’

  ‘We done the Gold Collection.’

  ‘Orlright. The Ultimate Collection.’

  ‘Done vat too, and the Definitive Collection and the Classic, and the Unforgettable…’

  ‘Look, Joe!’ Monk snapped. I could see that he was a volatile chap. ‘We’ll call it The Same Old Crap in a Different Cover Collection if you like, it don’t matter. What we have got here is the Prince of Wales flogging your comeback.’

  There, it was out, and Woody Monk did not care who knew it. As far as he was concerned this concert was a marketing exercise for Joe London and that was it. I didn’t mind. It meant Joe would promote it for us which was more than any of the modern stars would do these days (‘I’m not doing any fooking press, all right?!’). Joe, however, seemed a little embarrassed, though not, as it turned out, about the charity angle.

  ‘Vis ain’t a fahkin’ comeback! To ‘ave a comeback you ‘ave to ‘ave bin away and I ‘ave not bin. So vis is n
ot a fahkin’ comeback.’

  ‘Orlright,’ said Monk. ‘It’s a fahkin ‘still here’ tour, then.’

  ‘Vat’s right.’

  ‘You can go on stage and everyone can shout…Fahk me! Are you still here, then?’

  I honestly cannot remember when I have had a funnier lunch, and to think I wasted all those years lunching with comedians.

  ‘Anyway, I gotta go,’ said Monk, turning to me. ‘We’re all sorted, aren’t we?’

  I said that as far as I knew we were extremely sorted.

  ‘Good, ‘cos we don’t want no fahk-ups. Vis gig is very important.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘What with the underprivileged kiddies and all vat.’

  ‘Bollocks to the underprivileged kids,’ said Monk, hauling his massive bulk to his feet. ‘They should get a bloody job, bleeding scroungers. Fahk ‘em.’

  So that was that.

  Anyway, enough of my day job, time to get down to my script.

  Lucy is sitting opposite on the bed, looking lovely as she always does. She’s very pleased with me at the moment because I seem to be doing so much writing. She thinks it’s all for my book. I’ll have to tell her soon because things are really progressing with the film. I’ve called it Inconceivable and I’ve been in to see Nigel to admit that the writer is none other than my despised self. He was a bit taken aback at first but then he laughed and was actually very nice about it. He congratulated me and said that sacking me was the best thing he ever did and that when I picked up my Oscar I was to remember to thank him. It’s interesting.

  Ever since he commissioned my movie script I’ve been warming to Nigel and now consider him to be a thoroughly good bloke. Is that desperately shallow of me or evidence of my generous and forgiving nature?