—when he mentioned condoms to Lynn, she said, ‘I hate them,’ and fucked him just like that, towards the end of a party, both of them drunk. He discovered that being drunk meant he could go on a long time without coming. On a later occasion, he discovered that the correlation and the benefit did not increase exponentially. His parents considered Lynn a bad influence, which she certainly was, and why he liked her. He would do anything for her, which is why she quickly tired of him.
—after he broke up with Christine, there were semi-encounters, near-misses, yearnings which disappeared into self-contempt, liaisons he wanted to get out of before he’d got into them. Women who looked at him as if to say: you’ll do for now. Others who took him firmly by the arm from the moment of the first kiss, and who made him feel, as their fingers squirmed in the crook of his arm, that he was being marched first to the altar and then to the grave. He began to look at other men with envy and incomprehension. None but the brave deserved the fair, according to some stupid old poet. Real life wasn’t like that. Who got what they deserved? Shits and philanderers and horrible pushy bastards nabbed the fair while the brave were away at battle. Then the brave came home and got second pick. People like Paul had to make do with the leftovers. They were meant to come to terms with this, to settle down and breed foot-soldiers for the brave, or innocent daughters for the shits and philanderers to despoil.
—he went back to Christine for several hours, which was clearly a mistake.
—but Paul resisted his tacit destiny, both in a general sense, and in the person of Christine. He didn’t believe in justice where sex and the heart were concerned: there was no system whereby your merits as a human being, companion, lover, husband or whatever could be fairly assessed. People – specifically women – gave you a quick look and passed on. You couldn’t very well protest, try handing over a list of your hidden selling points. But if there was no system, that logically meant there was luck, and Paul was a tenacious believer in luck. One minute you’re a mid-ranking Pitco employee, the next you’re standing beside Sir Jack in the gents and he happens to be whistling the right tune.
—when he first set eyes on Martha, with her sculpted bob, blue suit, and calm yet disconcerting silences, when he found himself thinking, You’ve a dark brown voice to match your dark brown hair and you can’t possibly be forty, when he watched her turn elegantly and dance her cape in the nose of the pawing, snorting Sir Jack, he thought: She seems very nice. He realized that this was rather an inadequate response, and probably not one he should ever confide in her. Or if he did, without the following annotation: after he’d left home and gone back to buying magazines for a while, he increasingly found, as he gazed at a double-page woman laid out for him as the personification of availability, that sidling into his head would come the thought, She seems very nice. Perhaps he wasn’t really cut out for magazine sex. Fuck me, the women were meant to urge, and he kept replying, ‘Well, I’d really like to get to know you better first.’
—in the past he had noticed how being with a woman changed your sense of time: how lightly poised the present could be, how trudging the past, how elastic, how metamorphic the future. He knew even better how not being with a woman changed your sense of time.
—so when Martha asked him what he’d thought of her when they first met, he wanted to say: I felt you would change my sense of time irrevocably, that future and past were going to be packed into present, that a new and indivisible holy trinity of time was about to be formed, as never before in the history of the created universe. But this wasn’t completely true, so instead he cited the clear feeling he had in Sir Jack’s double-cube office and later as he sat across from her in the wine lodge and realized she was slightly guiding the conversation. ‘I thought you were very nice,’ he said, all too aware that it was not the sort of hyperbole employed by shits and philanderers and assorted horrible pushy bastards. Yet it appeared to have been the right thing to say, or to have thought, or both.
—Martha made him feel more intelligent, more grown-up, funnier. Christine had laughed abidingly at his jokes, which in the end made him suspect she had no sense of humour. Later, he knew the humiliation of the raised eyebrow and the implicit Don’t-try-unless-you-know-how-to-tell-them. For a while, he gave up making jokes except under his breath. With Martha he started again, and she laughed when she found something funny, and not when she didn’t. This seemed extraordinary and wonderful to Paul. Also symbolic: he had previously been living his life under his breath, not daring to voice it. Thanks to Sir Jack, he had a proper job; thanks to Martha he had a proper life, a life out loud.
—he couldn’t believe how falling in love with Martha made things simpler. No, that wasn’t the right word, unless ‘simpler’ also included the sense of richer, denser, more complicated, with focus and echo. Half his brain pulsed with gawping incredulity at his luck; the other half was filled with a sense of long-sought, flaming reality. That was the word: falling in love with Martha made things real.
TWO
SIR JACK’S CHOICE of the Island had not been a matter of cartographical serendipity. Even his whims had costing behind them. In the present instance, relevant factors had been: the size, location, and accessibility of the Island, plus the extreme unlikelihood of it being spot-listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Access to labour pool, elasticity of planning regulations, malleability of locals. Sir Jack did not anticipate too much trouble getting the Wighters on board: his experience in the developing world had taught him how to exploit historical resentment, even how to engender it. He also had the Island’s MP in his pocket. A series of well-publicized inward investments to the constituency, plus the signed affidavits of three London rent-boys in a solicitor’s safe near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, would ensure that Sir Percy Nutting QC MP would continue to show the correct enthusiasms. Carrot and stick – it always worked; while stick and carrot worked even better.
At first he had planned simply to buy the Island. Several thousand acres of farmland had been acquired from pension funds and the Church Commissioners in exchange for bonds in his new venture; the next step was to persuade Westminster to sell him sovereignty. It did not seem an improbable idea. The last bits of Empire were currently being disposed of in this – to Sir Jack – entirely rational way. Earlier colonies had departed in a flurry of sudden principle hastened by guerrilla warfare. With the final outposts, sensible economic criteria applied: Gibraltar was sold to Spain, the Falkland Islands to Argentina. Of course, this was not how the handovers were presented, by either vendor or purchaser; but Sir Jack had his sources.
These sources also reported, disappointingly, that Westminster had hardened its position on selling the Isle of Wight to a private individual. Specious objections of national integrity had been adduced. Despite pressure from Sir Jack’s loyal group of backbenchers, the Government simply refused to put a price on sovereignty. Not for sale, they said. This had made Sir Jack a little huffy at first, but he soon regained his humour. There was something inherently unsatisfactory about the straight deal, after all. You wanted to buy something, the owner fixed a price, and you eventually got it for less. Where was the fun in that?
Indeed, wasn’t there something old-fashioned about the whole concept of ownership, or rather its acquisition by formal contract, in which title is received in exchange for consideration given? Sir Jack preferred to rethink the whole notion. It was certainly true that ownership was irrelevant as long as you had control: and yes, for the moment he had all the land options and planning concessions he needed. He had the banks, the pension funds, and the insurance companies onside; his debt-equity ratio was uncontroversial. Naturally, none of his own capital had been ventured, beyond seed-corn level; Sir Jack believed in putting other people’s money where his own mouth was. And yet, beyond and beneath all this legitimate buccaneering, there lay a more primal urge, an atavistic yearning to cut through the red tape of contemporary life. It would have been unfair to call Sir Jack Pitman a barbarian, though some did; b
ut there stirred within him a longing to revisit pre-classical, pre-bureaucratic methods of acquiring ownership. Methods such as theft, conquest, and pillage, for example.
‘Peasants,’ said Martha Cochrane. ‘You’re going to need peasants.’
‘Low-cost labour, we call it nowadays, Martha. Not a problem.’
‘No, I mean peasants. As in straw-chewing yokels. Men in smocks, village idiots. Fellows with scythes over their shoulders winnowing chaff, if that’s what you winnow. Flailing and threshing.’
‘Agriculture,’ replied Sir Jack, ‘is certainly catered for both as Backdrop and as a secondary-visit option. You country girls will not be forgotten.’ His smile mixed impatience and insincerity.
‘I’m not talking about agriculture. I’m talking about people. We spend our time discussing product placement, Visitor profiling, showtime structures, throughput and leisure theory, but we seem to be forgetting that one of the oldest lures in this business is to advertise the people. The warm, friendly, natural people. Irish eyes are smiling, we’ll keep a welcome in the hillsides and all that stuff.’
‘Fine,’ said Sir Jack, a little suspiciously. ‘We can focus on it. A very positive suggestion. But your manner implies that you foresee a problem.’
‘Two, actually. First, you don’t have any raw material. That’s to say, none of your low-cost labour on the Island has ever set eyes on corn except in flake form in a bowl.’
‘Then they will take to flailing, or whatever you said, with the enthusiasm of a new generation making a fresh start.’
‘And the traditional warm-hearted hospitality?’
‘That too can be learned,’ replied Sir Jack. ‘And by being learned, it will be the more authentic. Or is that too cynical a notion for you, Martha?’
‘I can live with it. But there’s a second problem. It’s really, how do we advertise the English? Come and meet representatives of a people widely perceived, even according to our own survey, as cold, snobbish, emotionally retarded, and xenophobic. As well as perfidious and hypocritical, of course. I mean, I know you guys like a challenge …’
‘Good, Martha,’ said Sir Jack. ‘Excellent. I was for a moment afraid that you were being helpful and constructive. So, you guys, earn your corn, hand-winnowed or industrially-processed as it might be. Jeff?’
Martha, watching the Concept Developer pause for thought, realized that Jeff was the odd man out on the Co-ordinating Committee. He seemed to have no private agenda; he seemed devoted to the Project; he seemed to approach problems as if they needed solutions; he also seemed to be a married man who hadn’t made a pass at her. It was all very strange.
‘Well,’ said Jeff, ‘off the top of my head I’d say the best approach is to flatter the client rather than the product. As in: sip your pint of Jolly Jack ale in The Old Bull and Bush, meet the colourful regulars, and see how that fabled English reserve just fades away. As in: they don’t give their hearts easily, but once given, their friendship is good for life and will throw a girdle round the earth.’
‘Bit threatening, that one, isn’t it?’ said Mark. ‘People don’t go on holiday to make friends.’
‘I think you’re wrong there, actually. All the surveys we’ve done suggest that other people, that’s to say non-English people, frequently regard making friends on holiday as a bonus – dare I say it, an enrichment of their lives.’
‘How quaint.’ Mark gave a disbelieving laugh and danced his eyes over Sir Jack’s impassive bulk, looking for clues. ‘Is that what they’ll be coming to the Island for? All this top dollar and long yen is going to chummy up to our low-cost labour, exchange Polaroids and addresses and all that. “This is Worzel from Freshwater demonstrating the old English custom of downing a pint of Old Skullsplitter with a twiglet up each nostril …” No, I’m sorry, I can’t handle it.’ Mark offered a blurry eye to the Committee and quietly snorted to himself.
‘Mark is usefully displaying those very English characteristics I was just describing,’ commented Martha.
‘Well, why not,’ said Mark between snorts. ‘After all, I am English.’
‘To business,’ said Sir Jack. ‘We might or might not have a problem. Let’s solve it anyway.’
They got down to work. It was mainly a question of focus and perception. They had already established that agriculture would be represented by true-life dioramas clearly visible to passing traffic, whether it be London taxi, double-decker bus, or pony and trap. Shepherds lolling beneath wind-angled trees would point their crooks and whistle falsetto to old English sheepdogs hustling their flocks; smocked rustics with wooden pitchforks would toss hay onto stacks sculpted like topiary; gamekeeper would arrest poacher outside a Morland cottage and place him in the stocks beside the wishing-well. What they needed was merely a conceptual leap from decorative status to bonding possibilities. The lolling shepherd must later be discovered in The Old Bull and Bush, where he would gaily accompany the pipe-playing gamekeeper in a selection of authentic country airs, some collected by Cecil Sharp and Percy Grainger, others written half a century back by Donovan. The haymakers would leave off their tourney of skittles to make menu suggestions, the poacher would explain his dodges, whereupon Old Meg crouching in the inglenook would lay down her clay pipe and disburse the wisdom of the generations. It was, they decided, all about foregrounding the background. Technical stuff, really.
‘On the other hand,’ said Mark.
‘Yes, Marco. Another unpatriotic outburst about to fall upon us?’
‘No. Maybe yes. I seem to be taking over from Martha today. It’s just that … don’t you think we should be wary of the Californian Waiter Syndrome?’
‘Enlighten a parochial mind,’ said Sir Jack.
‘The guy who instead of standing there with a notepad writing down what you want to eat and shutting the fuck up,’ said Mark violently, ‘takes the next chair to you and talks about the non-violent way they cracked the hazel nuts and wants to share with you about your allergies.’
Sir Jack affected astonishment. ‘Marco, is this a common experience for you? Are you choosing the right sort of restaurant? I confess, my experience is so narrow that I have yet to meet a waiter enquiring about my allergies.’
‘But you get the general point? You go into a pub for a quiet pint and find some foul-smelling old skittle-player spilling his beer over you and chatting up your wife?’
‘Well, it’s an authentically English experience,’ Martha remarked.
Jeff coughed. ‘Look, this is all quite improbable. Our hygiene requirements and sexual harassment rules preclude such a scenario. In any case, they have chosen to go to a pub, haven’t they? There are many other dining options being developed. They can have anything from Country House Weekend Banquet to room service.’
‘It’s just … I’m not being snobbish,’ said Mark. ‘Well, maybe I am. You’re asking some guy who’s worked in a sock factory or something to stand around all day threshing and then go down to the pub and instead of talking about sex and football with his mates as he wants to, you’re going to make him work even harder at being a yokel with visitors who are, dare I whisper it, quite possibly a little more intelligent, and fragrant, than our trusty employee?’
‘Then they can have dinner with Dr Johnson at The Cheshire Cheese,’ said Jeff.
‘No, it’s not that. It’s more like … have you ever been to a play and when it’s over the actors come off the stage and walk through the audience shaking hands with you – like, hey, we were only figments of your imagination up there but now we’re showing how we’re flesh and blood the same as you? It just makes me uneasy.’
‘That’s because you’re English,’ said Martha. ‘You think being touched is invasive.’
‘No, it’s about keeping reality and illusion separate.’
‘That’s very English too.’
‘I fucking am English,’ said Mark.
‘Our Visitors won’t be.’
‘Children,’ said Sir Jack chidingly. ‘Gentlemen. L
ady. A modest proposal from the chair. How about an Island espresso bar, as I believe they’re known, to be called The Filthy Cappuccino. Proprietor, Signor Marco?’
The obligatory communal guffaw brought the meeting to a close.
‘TELL WOODIE IT’S TIME,’ said Sir Jack. He was wearing his Académie Française braces that afternoon, which in retrospect he judged fully appropriate: the meeting had been studded with Pitmanesque bons mots and aperçus. The Committee had been treated to a tour d’horizon of exceptional girth.
The current Susie was a new Susie, and at times he couldn’t remember why he had appointed her. The surname, of course, and her father, and her father’s money, and so on, and her somewhat cheeky smile, and a sort of ductile sexuality he suspected beneath those crisp outfits … But those were all the usual reasons for such appointments. What you also wanted from a Susie was a touch of subcutaneous instinct, of ESP, of je ne sais quoi. Anyone would think the job consisted merely of relaying accurate information in a polite fashion.
‘Oh,’ said Susie into the phone, and then, with an inappropriate smile, ‘I’m afraid Woodie’s had to go home, Sir Jack. I think his back’s been playing up.’
He’d correct her on another occasion about ‘Woodie.’ Sir Jack called him Woodie. She should know to call him Wood. ‘Get one of the others.’
A further murmuring in quite the wrong tone: that of bright factuality rather than gross distress at her employer’s inconvenience. ‘They’re all out, Sir Jack. The Outreach Conference. I could call you a cab.’
‘A cab, girl? A cab?’ This was so wide of the mark it almost amused Sir Jack. ‘Can you imagine how the market would react if I were photographed getting into a cab? Fifty points? Two hundred points? You must be off your tiny head, woman. A cab! Get me a limo, a limousine’ – he gave it a French twirl, to show that incredulous disapproval and humour could cohabit. ‘No.’ He pondered briefly. ‘No, Paul will drive me. Won’t you, Paul?’
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