by Jay Rayner
Paying for all of this was not a problem. I had become a wealthy man, even if at first it had not seemed the likely outcome. The first settlement arising out of my apologies was the one for American slavery, and just as Lewis Jeffries had predicted, our careful words had not influenced the final reckoning at all. The US government awarded the African-American Slavery Reparations Committee every last cent they asked for, in billions of dollars of direct personal, business, and educational grants and endowments to African-American banks and community organizations, to be paid out over the next twenty-five years. There was no Schenke differential for me to take a thousandth percent of, a disappointment I accepted manfully. Then came the slavery settlement with the African Union and everything cheered up remarkably. The AU were offered and accepted a full twenty-five percent less than the predicted sum, a differential of billions, one thousandth of which came my way. This constituted the vast majority of my earnings, but there were also smaller amounts from the settlements in Ireland and Vietnam, on the Indian subcontinent, and with Australia’s Aborigines, all of which helped.
One day Max telephoned me and asked how it felt to be rich.
“To be honest, it’s a little unreal,” I said. “I know the money is there but I don’t quite know what to do with it, beyond buying a few good suits.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t think I’ve worked out how to be rich.”
“Let me sort you out,” he said.
He sent me a man with prospectuses and computer-generated income forecasts who talked about tax-free environments and sustainable investments and who used my first name an awful lot in conversation. He suggested gilt-edged bonds for stability, new technology for growth, and natural mineral exploitation for adventure. All of this sounded like the kind of stuff a rich man should do, so when the documents came my way, I signed them.
Still, I tried not to wallow in ostentation. On Luke’s first night in New York, for example, I avoided the wood-and-leather-trim American bistros down in the Gramercy district and introduced him instead to the simple pleasures of the Matterhorn Café. We ordered a fondue des Mosses and talked about the past, but I didn’t eat much.
“You not hungry?”
“I’ve eaten it before.”
“When’s that ever made a difference to you? Remember that Italian place in Swiss Cottage? You ordered the same pasta thing there six nights in a row. What was the dish …?”
“Tagliatelle with pancetta and artichokes.”
“That’s it. Pancetta and artichokes.”
“It was an experiment. I was checking out the consistency of the kitchen.”
“No you weren’t. You just liked eating it.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
“Maybe you have. Mum told me to take you out and get some proper food inside you because she thinks you’ve changed too much. She says you look ill. She phones me up every time you’re on TV”
“Terrific. I lose a bit of weight and you two want to call in the doctors.”
He spooled some molten cheese onto a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. Without looking at me he said, “Remember Dad.”
“Blimey, Luke. All I’ve done is lost a bit of what I didn’t need.”
“I’m just saying, that was how we knew Dad was ill, wasn’t it? When he started losing the weight.”
“I have not got an inoperable cancer.”
“I’m only telling you what Mum was saying.”
“Well, you can tell her I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you tell her yourself?”
“I will.”
“You know she doesn’t call you because she thinks you’re too busy.”
“That’s crazy.”
“But you have been busy.”
“Sure. It’s one of the reasons I’ve thinned down a bit.”
“A bit?”
“But I’ve not been too busy to talk to my own mother. I’m never too busy for that.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll tell her myself.”
“Are you sure you won’t eat some more?”
“My appetite’s gone. It’s probably the bowel cancer.”
“Shut up, Marc.”
Jennie was away for the weekend so together we toured the heavy redbrick bars of the East Village and the Bowery. I wanted Luke to see that I had purchase on the city; that I was comfortable here amid the late-night hum and the expectant rattle of cocktail shakers. “You’ll love the next place,” I would say as we clambered out of the cab. “They mix the best martinis in town” or “At this one they have forty-eight different flavored vodkas.”
And yes, maybe I was a little too insistent about him enjoying himself. But he was so determined not to be impressed by anything I was doing or anywhere we went that I couldn’t help myself, particularly after the third killer cocktail. I’m not trying to blame him for what happened. It was all my own doing. But let’s just say that he made it easier for me to behave in the way I did.
We were in a bar on Union Square, slugging beer, when I was approached by a couple of young women, one hiding shyly behind the lightly tanned, bare shoulder of the other. Both of them were blonde, and as I recall, both had names which could end in a y but ended instead in an i, the dot on the top doubtless drawn as a heart when they signed their names. They were called Mandi and Traci or Suzi and Kirsti. Something like that. Luke and I were leaning back against the bar, our conversation having all but trickled away to resentful grunts and nods.
One of the girls said, “I’m sorry to bother you but are you …?”
I was accustomed to this kind of thing by now. I was on television a lot and it was natural that people should recognize me and wish to speak to me. I smiled and said, “Marc Basset, yes.”
Beside me I heard Luke sigh with irritation. The girls giggled. “We were wondering,” said the bolder of the two, “if you would …”
“Yes?”
“Say it to us.”
“Say what?”
She looked coyly at me from under her bangs. “You know. It.” Her friend giggled again.
I leaned in toward her, and as I did so she pulled her hair back behind her ear and presented her long neck to me as if it were an expanse of smooth upper thigh. “You mean …,” I dropped my voice to a whisper, “… I’m sorry.” I heard her gasp and she exhaled damply against my cheek.
She said quietly, as if she had all the time in the world, “Again.”
“I’m. So. Sorry.” I looked up over her shoulder at her friend watching us, her eyes wide.
I said, “Would you like a go, too?” She nodded but said nothing, her lips just slightly parted. Now she pulled back her hair and I whispered into her ear and I could feel her shiver. The two girls looked at each other and laughed again.
The first one said, “It’s so hot.”
“In here?”
“No. You. Whispering like that. It’s … you know?”
“Oh.”
“Do you live far from here?”
I turned to Luke. “You can find your own way home, can’t you?”
Let’s freeze the image there for a moment and review the situation. Remember, Jennie and I had only been a couple for a month or two. It wasn’t as if we were married or living together. There were no kids involved. We didn’t even own a dog. It was just a gentle friendship that had grown into something more in the pressure cooker environment of the job. Anyway, Jennie wasn’t there and Mandi and Traci were, and they were offering something which even had I been sober—which I fully accept I wasn’t—would have proved an attractive proposition. For years I had whined on about my failures with women and my inability to seize the opportunities when they came my way. But I was a new Marc Basset now. The old excuses didn’t work anymore. I had a suit by Paul Smith and a shirt by Kenzo and two very attractive blondes from somewhere big and wide and flat (Nebraska? Iowa?) who wanted to go to bed with me. Just where, exactly, was it written that I
had to say no? Where? Nowhere, that’s where.
I was woken by the sound of the bedroom door opening but I didn’t raise my head from underneath the covers. I focused on the unexpected feeling of the smooth, warm bodies on either side of me and on the dull throb behind my eyes, cruel reward for the night just gone. Next I heard her calling my name quietly, as if hesitant about waking me.
“Marc?”
Initially I was overcome by panic. I could see this might not be the best of situations. But almost immediately that feeling was swept away by a wave of something more intimately associated with anger. She was meant to be away for the weekend. She was meant to be doing her own thing, and surely, so was I. Wasn’t I allowed a secret life? Wasn’t I allowed to do the things that other people got away with?
I heard her flick on the overhead light and then imagined her surveying the tangle of discarded clothes on the floor at the end of the bed; threaded through it, the little straps and lacy panels that had proved so endlessly fascinating to me the night before.
She said, “Marc?”
I pulled myself up from under the covers and so did the girls.
“Hello, Jennie.”
“Hi there.”
“Hiya.”
She stared at me. She stared at Mandi. (Or Traci.) She stared at Traci. (It may have been Mandi.) She looked at me again and said, in a thin, overwhelmed voice, “Aren’t you going to say something?”
I yawned and rubbed one sleep-crusted eye with the ball of my hand. “What were you thinking of, darling? An apology?”
“I just …”
“Dream on, Jennie. It’s my day off.”
Behold: a monster is born.
After Jennie had run from the apartment and the girls had scooped up their clothes and dressed and said their perky good-byes, I went to the kitchen to make coffee. I found Luke in there.
He said, “So tell me, when exactly did you become such an arsehole?”
“I’ll make it right.”
“Will you?”
“It’s my thing. It’s what I do. I make things good again.”
“Looks to me like what you do is fuck things up.”
“Stuff happens.”
“Oh, right. Two airhead blondes in your bed is just one of those things that happens.”
“They were very smart girls, actually.”
“Really? What have they got? A masters degree each in fellatio and frottage?”
“I know what this is.”
“What what is?”
“This. It’s the green-eyed monster.”
“You think I’m jealous?”
“It’s like I said last night. I’ve changed. I’ve moved on, and you don’t like it.”
“You’re right about that. I don’t like what you’ve become.”
“What? Successful, rich, famous—”
“At the risk of repeating myself, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘arsehole.’”
“You’re going to have to get over this, Luke.”
“What you did to your girlfriend this morning—”
“What I did to my girlfriend this morning was stupid and insensitive and clumsy. I know that. But the thing is, Luke, I can deal with it. I can make it right. I’m a professional. I can make anything right.”
Behold: the monster is now only on nodding terms with reality.
Twenty-eight
Jennie announced the end of our coupling in a memo circulated to senior members of the staff. It said, “The relationship between the Chief Apologist and his chief of staff has concluded. This will in no way interfere with the running of his office.” I was in awe. She had dispatched our affair in just twenty-five words, and not one of them was an adjective. It wasn’t a “close” relationship or a “personal” relationship or even, heaven forfend, both. The word “sadly” would have sat neatly at the front of the statement, but she had chosen to do without it. She could have written, “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Really,” at the end. But she didn’t. She stuck to the essentials. We were. Now we aren’t. That is all. Carry on.
This was all the more awful for me because I really did feel guilty. It wasn’t just the offense, although that was bad enough. It was the familiarity of the victim. In my role as Chief Apologist I had performed the same apology to a number of different people, but I had never needed to apologize twice to the same person for different things. I felt guilty for being in a position to feel guilty again. Unfortunately a surfeit of guilt is no help in the apology business, particularly when adjectives are so scarce. Doggedly I had a crack at it anyway, at the end of one of our morning meetings.
“Jennie, I just wanted to say, about what happened in my—”
“There is nothing to say, Marc.”
“No, but really, Jennie, I think I owe you—”
“I’m not interested.”
“But—”
“Nope.”
“Really, I—”
She was already on her feet. Glumly, I watched her leave, her files held tight against her chest. It was all terribly discouraging. Nobody had ever refused one of my apologies before. I found myself examining the possible reasons for this failure. Jennie had mistaken my personal feelings of guilt for the kind of professional guilt I exercised as Chief Apologist; that it really had been just another day at the office. I could see how such a mistake could be made. This made me feel better about the rejection, but it didn’t deal with the guilt itself which was still there, gnawing away at me. I knew what I had to do, though. I had to find someone else to say sorry to. That would cure it. That would be my magic bullet. Of this I was certain, if nothing else.
The very same day I went into a department store and, instead of holding the door open for the elderly lady coming in behind me, let it swing back. I spun about eagerly to say sorry, but she scowled at me and backed away as if I were a crazy person. I had forgotten I was in New York, where unexpected acts of kindness to little old ladies are regarded as an overture to some con or ruse, which, in my case, I suppose it was.
I tried my hand at petty larceny by stealing a copy of the New York Times from a newsstand at Grand Central Station, but I had failed to consider the impact my notoriety might have on the adventure. When I returned fifteen minutes later to admit my guilt, not only did the news vendor refuse to accept my apology, he also refused to accept my money.
“I know who you are,” he said. “You’re doing great work. Have this one on me. Come by any time. Be my guest.”
I had been too modest. I needed to do something which would actively disrupt and inconvenience. While traveling across the city in a cab, I noticed a NO FOOD OR DRINK sign stuck to the greasy plastic barrier that separates driver from passenger. I offered him an extra ten bucks to stop at the next coffee shop and wait for me while I purchased a large cup of coffee, which I promised to hold carefully. I brought it back to the cab, this bucket-cup of full-fat foam and mud-colored liquor, and as we moved off, spilled it all over the backseat. When I attempted to make amends, the driver told me not to worry and asked, instead, for my autograph.
I even tried hanging around a pathway junction in Central Park I knew to be popular with joggers in the hope that I might be able to trip some of them up, but I just got kicked in the shins. I went home feeling sorry only for myself, which wasn’t the plan at all. Willy Brandt would not have been proud.
It was another week before I found someone who would let me say sorry to them, and that was at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. They could hardly refuse; it was what we were all there for. We were attending the First Close-Proximity Apology Round, a new forum designed to bring together, in a neutral environment, sets of nations which held various grievances against each other. They would meet in neighboring rooms within the cool, echoing interior of the United Nations headquarters in Switzerland and make their apologies in sequence. This first session had been timed to coincide with Germany’s monthly apology to Israel for the crimes of the Second World War. Taking my plausible apo
logibility from my father, I would be saying sorry on behalf of Switzerland to both Israel and the World Jewish Congress for the Swiss banks’ mishandling of monies belonging to Jews murdered in the Holocaust and for the refusal by the authorities to grant asylum to those fleeing persecution by the Third Reich.
The plan was that Israel would then apologize to representatives of the Palestinian people who would be waiting in the next room. The Israelis had agreed to do so as long as the Palestinians in turn apologized back to Israel for the violent acts that had been committed against them by various Palestinian terrorist organizations.
By chance, outside one of the meeting rooms, I met Max, who was there on temporary assignment to the German delegation. The expected cigarette was there between his yellowing fingers, and as he spoke, he exhaled a long gray mist.
“Have you heard?” he said. “The Israelis and the World Jewish Congress have laid on food.”
“It’s a catered apology?”
“And how! Chopped liver, bagels, some great new green pickles. It’s like Katz’s Deli in there.”
“How do you think it will go?”
“It should go fine as long as we don’t have too many people going down with indigestion.” He laughed at his own joke, the sound soon dissolving into a ripe, bubbling cough from somewhere deep at the bottom of his lungs. We agreed to meet later for dinner.