Provender Gleed

by James Lovegrove

  The very first person he encountered on his travels was the tramp Jack Holloway. Holloway was to become Guy's boon companion during his adventures. It could be said that without Holloway Guy would not have seen and experienced half the things he did. Sancho Panza to Guy's Don Quixote, Holloway was guide, governor, guardian and goad all rolled into one.

  Reading the lines now, and rereading them, she recognised nothing other than the qualities she habitually divined and derided in the novel: the lugubriousness of the prose and the shallowness with which the two central characters were sketched. Perhaps in the parts of the book she had never got to, Guy Godwin and Jack Holloway were better fleshed out and became more believable, but she doubted it. Holloway, in particular, she found a hopelessly far-fetched figure, an idea of a tramp dreamed up by someone who had never actually met a tramp. Is knew tramps. They turned up in Accident and Emergency all the time. Not one of them was anything like Holloway. Holloway wasn't mad or methylated or both. He didn't reek of piss. He didn't mutter constantly and profanely. He wasn't prone to dropping his trousers and aggressively masturbating. He was an untarnished angel-of-the-road, there to steer the hero through his exploration of the book's fictional Family-less world, offering tips and sage observations along the way.

  Is was close to resenting Provender for making her re-immerse herself in The Meritocrats. It really was - and she was surer than ever about this now - a bad book.

  Then she saw it. On perhaps her seventh perusal of the four paragraphs, the answer suddenly blossomed. There it was, plain as day. She was stunned by the overtness, the sheer nerve of it.

  It must be a hoax, she thought. Somebody having a laugh.

  But it wasn't. It was as clear and unambiguous a statement of copyright as could be imagined.

  The first letter of each sentence.

  Each paragraph denoting a separate word.

  PROVENDER

  GLEED

  WROTE

  THIS

  28

  The journey to the Island had been made under favourable conditions, a smooth flight. The journey home saw the Gleed dirigible bumping and buffeting through the air. It didn't help that the captain was under orders to make all speed and that they were running into a headwind. Instead of letting itself be buoyed and caressed by the air currents, the dirigible was hammering through. It also didn't help - at least in Prosper's view - that for the first couple of hundred miles they were following hard on the tail of the Black Dirigible.

  'The Kuczinskis have something,' he insisted, gripping the viewing gallery handrail. 'Some kind of device that makes their wake choppier than normal.'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' said Fortune. 'It's just bad weather.'

  'Then why do they keep veering in front of us? Every time we turn to port, they turn to port. Every time starboard, the same.'

  'They're mucking around with us, that's why, Prosp. Don't you remember when we were lads, you, me and Acquire, and we'd take the cars out on the speedway circuit and Ack would always pull ahead and then stay dead in front, cutting us up so neither of us could overtake him?'

  'Bloody annoying it was.'

  'Same principle here. Dog-in-the-manger tactics. They're angry and they're showing it.'

  Tutting in disgust, Prosper trod a staggering, swaying course aftward to the armchairs. His brother joined him, moving carefully so as not to spill a drop of his glass of single-malt.

  'So, you picked a fight,' he said. 'And you got one. What now? Wait for them to make the next move?'

  'Hell no. Keep the pressure on. Turn it up, if possible.'

  'Prosp, has it occurred to you that Kuczinski might not have been lying? He might have been on the level when he said he didn't know anything about Provender?'

  'Et tu, Fort?'

  'Whoa, hold on there, big bro. Don't get all 'Judas!' with me. Someone has to say these things to you.'

  'Someone already did.' Prosper rubbed his cheek. 'My face still hurts from it.'

  'Yes, well, hell hath no fury, blah-di-blah. That slap was long overdue, if you ask me.' Fortune swilled his whisky around and drank a slug of it. 'No, what I'm getting at is, it could be that your loathing of the Kuczinskis is muddying your thought processes. You might not be seeing quite straight here. You want them to be the villains of the piece so badly, you refuse even to consider the possibility that they aren't.'

  'You saw how they behaved. He blustered. She chucked blood at me. Blood!' The first thing Prosper had done after returning to the dirigible was go to his cabin, scrub his face clean and dig out a new shirt. He had rid himself of all physical traces of the blood, but he could not so easily erase the memory of having the wine goblet hurled at him and feeling the warm wet spatter of someone else's lifestuff on his skin. Even to think about it now left him nauseated.

  'It might be argued that you provoked them.'

  'Or it might be argued that I called their bluff and they tipped their hand.'

  'Poker analogies don't seem proper somehow, under the circumstances.'

  'Why not? Life is a gamble.'

  'Oh what rot! Gambling's a gamble. Everything else is a matter of careful analysis and proportionate response.'

  'Says the man who nearly ended up with a spire up his arse the night before last. Says the man whose idea of proportion is "three parts vermouth, one part gin, that's how you make a martini".'

  Fortune gave a slow, forbearing blink. 'You know I love and respect you, big bro. You know also that I'm one of the few people who can talk straight with you.'

  'Straight? You haven't been straight since you were seventeen.'

  'You know what I mean. I'm the one who can tell you to your face when I think you might be on the wrong track, and I'm doing so now. Tread cautiously, Prosp. It's probably a bit late for that but do it anyway. I dislike the Kuczinskis as much as you. But just because they're white-skinned blood-sucking bastards, that doesn't automatically make them evil. Remember that.'

  A few hours later, the Black Dirigible changed tack, heading off due east while the Gleed vessel continued on its north-eastward course. Progress was no calmer, even with the Black Dirigible gone. Objects rattled in the passenger lounge. The whole aircraft shuddered and strained. The bracing wires between the gas cells within the balloon sang and twanged distantly, like an Aeolian harp.

  Alone, Fortune having retired to his cabin for a nap, Prosper brooded.

  His brother did not understand. Could not. He had no children of his own. Provender was not his son. Fortune didn't see that a father must do certain things when the life of an offspring was at stake. It was primal. An alpha-male instinct. An enemy threatened; one must bark and snap back.

  And Prosper was right about the Kuczinskis. He knew it in his bones. Fortune would soon be eating several helpings of humble pie. He would concede with good grace, Prosper was sure. When the Kuczinskis surrendered Provender up. When, as the screws were tightened on them, those ersatz vampires caved in. Fortune would admit his older brother had played a masterful game. His strategy had been flawless. Well done. Bravo.

  Prosper looked forward to that. More, he looked forward to seeing Cynthia grovel in apology. He loved his wife but knew she didn't think much of him as a husband and father. Well, he'd be showing her, wouldn't he.

  Ahead, through the windows of the viewing gallery, the coast of Spain was now visible on the far horizon, a faint brown blur beneath the misty purple of oncoming dusk. The dirigible was close enough to the landmass of Europe for Prosper to start making phone calls, via radio relay. He picked up the handset of the private line and began dialling.

  It did not take long. A handful of calls, each as brief as the next. A word or two in the right ears - ears belonging to people who owed the Gleeds for their positions, who were in some way indebted or obligated to the Family. It wasn't so much what was said as what was left unsaid. His implication was quite clear. Do this for me. I am Prosper Gleed.

  That, when you were Family, was how easy it was to spark off a
war.

  29

  Is waited till Damien next went out. He hated to be housebound for too long. He said he began to feel like a caged tiger, and like a caged tiger he would pace and pace, endlessly circling. Is herself was feeling cooped-up and claustrophobic. The flat was not large, and seemed smaller still with one room effectively off-limits. But she was reluctant to leave. In Needle Grove a woman out on her own had to be careful, especially after dark. She also wasn't happy at the thought of Damien alone with Provender. And she herself wanted to be alone with Provender. So when Damien said he couldn't stand it in here any more, he had to stretch his legs, she encouraged him to. She watched him strap on his sheath knife - his 'necessary precaution', he called it. She chivvied him out of the door. He told her he wouldn't be gone long and threw a meaningful glance towards the bathroom. 'Don't let him give you any bullshit.'

  'I won't go near him, I swear.'

  'Family try and twist people around their fingers. They can't help it.'

  'I'm going to sit and read.' She pointed to The Meritocrats, on the table.

  'Good. That's fine by me.'

  No sooner had his footsteps faded down the hallway than Is grabbed the book and strode into the bathroom.

  'Tell me this isn't true.'

  Provender raised his head to peer at her, as if there were no blindfold. 'I take it you mean --'

  'This.' She waggled the book so that he could hear the pages flopping against one another. 'You're not the author.'

  'I think pretty clearly I am. Who else would do that? Stick my name and a claim of authorship right at the beginning?'

  'It could be, I don't know, someone's idea of a joke.'

  'Kind of a pointless joke, if you ask me. Especially as no one is likely even to notice it.'

  'But how?'

  'Don't you mean why?'

  'No, I mean how. We'll come to why later. How did you write it? Get it out there?'

  'I wrote it the way I imagine anyone writes a book: one word at a time. It took the best part of two years. I started when I was nineteen. I finished when I was just gone twenty-one. I have a lot of spare time. A lot of privacy too, if I want it. All in all, it was reasonably straightforward. Those first four paragraphs were the tricky part. The rest just sort of came out. Do you like it?'

  'As a matter of fact, since you ask, no.'

  'Oh.'

  'It's almost unreadable.'

  'Ah.'

  'But I'm in a minority. I can think of one person who treats it pretty much like the Bible.'

  'Him.'

  'Him.'

  Provender almost laughed. 'That's almost funny.'

  'No, it isn't,' Is snapped. 'It's sick. It's twisted. Where do you get off doing that? What kind of perverted pleasure do you get from fooling all those people?'

  'Fooling? I didn't write The Meritocrats to fool anyone. I wrote it because I had to, and I sent it out because I wanted to. It wasn't something I did on a whim. I printed off three manuscript copies and posted them to three radical anti-Family groups. Anonymously, of course. The addresses weren't hard to find. They're listed in the phone book under Political Organisations. I went for the three with the most colourful names. Kin Dread, that was my favourite. And then I just left it to them to do what they liked with the book. I thought, I hoped, it would get circulated. There was no copyright indicia, so they'd realise, if they had any sense, that they could run off pirated editions without getting sued. It was in the lap of the gods. The manuscripts might well have ended up being tossed in the bin. Instead...'

  'Instead, anti-Family activists have taken the book to their hearts, little suspecting it was written by a Family member.'

  'Actually, I did worry that I'd be rumbled. Sticking my imprimatur in at the beginning like that - it was an arrogant thing to do. But I couldn't help myself. And nobody's spotted it so far, it seems.'

  'Unless you know to look for it, you'd never see it.'

  'I suppose. Or else, if somebody did spot it, they'd assume it was a joke, just as you did.'

  Is lowered the toilet lid and slumped down into it. 'So now the why.'

  'Why write it? I told you. I had to.'

  'It was some sort of posh-boy challenge you set yourself, then. You were bored so you thought you'd write a subversive novel, see how well it did.'

  'No.' Provender sounded offended. 'It wasn't like that at all.'

  'But no one in your Family knows.'

  'Is, as far as I'm aware only two people in the world know I wrote it - you and me.'

  'So it's your amusing little secret. You've staked a claim on a little bit of independence from your upbringing.'

  'You've got me there,' he conceded. 'That is why I did it, partly. Late-teen rebellion.'

  'Not much of a rebellion, if nobody knows about it.'

  'Well, quite. Then again, the book's out there, I hope inspiring people to imagine a world without the Families. What do they say - a million copies doing the rounds? That's a pretty effective piece of propaganda, by anyone's standards. So why should I worry that my own blood-relations think I'm just lazy old Provender, loner, oddball, dragging his feet about getting married, confirmed dilettante? Doesn't bother me when I know my magnum opus is a success. It's worming its way through the public consciousness. It's gnawing away at the foundations of Family-run society. It's doing its bit to help bring about the Families' downfall.'

  'I don't believe I'm hearing this,' Is said. 'Provender Gleed, talking like an ardent anti-Familial.'

  'And meaning it. Every word.'

  Is stared at The Meritocrats in her lap with its monochrome cover and its dog-eared, thumb-marked pages - Damien's holy text. If only Damien knew. If only everyone knew.

  She returned her gaze to Provender. Something about his posture had altered, although perhaps she was imagining it. He seemed to be sitting up straighter, looking less hunched and humbled.

  'If the Families were overthrown, and I don't think it very likely, but if --'

  'They did it in China,' Provender pointed out.

  'Yes, and everybody looks at the mess they're in now and says, "Let's pray it never happens here."'

  'But it's possible.'

  'Anything's possible. But if it did happen, what about you? What would you do? The Chinese Families, after all, the Wings, the Cheungs, the Lees, they were either killed in the uprising or they had to go into exile with barely any of their wealth left.'

  'I know. I think most of the Wings are in Australia now, living on handouts from the Jacksons and the McIntyres. Rather ignominious. And the Lees, haven't they set up a restaurant chain in San Francisco or something?'

  'Could you do that?'

  'Go into catering? Doubt it. I'm a lousy cook.'

  'No, go from having everything to having next to nothing. What I'm saying is, have you really thought this through? You might want an end to the Families, but do you want an end to your lifestyle? The luxury. The not needing a job. The parties, for heaven's sake.'

  'The parties I could happily do without. You saw me the other night. Did I look like I was having fun? As for the rest - it depends.'

  'On?'

  'The Families wouldn't have to be got rid of as violently as they were in China. That was mob hysteria. It needn't be like that anywhere else. There could be a quiet transition. We could be slowly edged out. We'd have our assets stripped from us bit by bit but we'd be allowed to hang on to the rump of our money. We'd have enough to keep going. We just wouldn't have the power and influence any more. Politicians wouldn't jump through hoops for us. We wouldn't be able to make or break a career with a single word. Lives wouldn't depend on our whims and whimsies.'

  'You want to get rid of your cake and eat it, that's what you mean.'

  'You make it sound like I'm being unrealistic. I think I'm being ultra-realistic. There's that bit in Chapter Thirty-Nine of The Meritocrats where I talk about, or rather Jack Holloway talks about, capitalism and responsibility. Basically, are they mutually exclusive. You kn
ow the section I'm talking about?'

  'Provender, I've never got beyond Chapter Six.'

  'You really hate my book, don't you.'

  'Don't be hurt.'

  'I'm not hurt. Well, yes I am. You have to understand, you're the first person I've met with a copy of it and you don't like it. That's not good for my author's ego. But I guess I can live with it. Your friend, after all, he loves it. Which is ironic, as I get the impression he'd happily stove my head in if I wasn't so valuable to him financially. That reminds me - how is the ransoming going? Have my Family agreed to cough up yet? How much am I worth?'

  'I can't really talk about that.'

  'Can't or won't?'

  'Can't. There's a lot to do with this business that I'm being kept in the dark about.'

  'What on earth for?'

  'To protect me. The less I know, the safer I'll be if things go wrong.'

  'Your friend's idea? How chivalrous of him. Or maybe he doesn't trust you. Maybe he has an inferiority complex and can't bear the thought of you, a woman, being on an equal footing with him.'

  'Clumsy, Provender.'

  'What?'

  Is stood up. 'You were doing OK. This Meritocrats thing. That was working. A trump card, and you played it nicely. You almost had me on your side. But then you overstepped the mark. I can't blame you for that. You're Family, and Family members don't know when enough's enough. But if you're going to win me over completely, you'll have to be a whole lot subtler and a whole lot smarter.'

  She exited the bathroom, slamming the door harder than she intended to. In the main room, she flung The Meritocrats down and stomped over to the window. It was a full-length window that gave onto a small balcony. To open it took some effort; the runners were warped and rusty; it rolled grudgingly. Is forced it sideways till there was a gap large enough for her to slide through. On the balcony she stood and gazed down on Needle Grove. In the twilight, the shadows were growing. The hum of the surrounding city was abating and the estate's own cacophony was becoming more audible. Shouts echoed, ricocheting upwards between walls. Music blared from windows. Televisions jabbered. Down at the lowest, most lightless levels the gang-tribes were starting to gather for their after-dark wilding. Is could see them at their regular meeting-places, tiny figures. She knew they would be sharing bottles of cheap strong cider, shots of Tinct, and pugnacious jokes. Soon Needle Grove would be theirs again. All decent folk would stay locked in their flats till daybreak.