by Joe Stretch
Instinctively, Joe reaches into the travel seat and grabs Dolly. He holds her up for the little man to see, forgetting that Dolly is dead, is not quite the little lady that the little man recalls. The little man stares with ever narrowing eyes at Dolly’s fixed, dead expression, at her withered and naked body. Only when the man begins to weep does Joe realise his mistake. He sees the pinprick tears falling from the little man’s eyes and realises he should have made up an excuse, a story. He should have said that Dolly was waiting for him somewhere. But he did not think.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joe whispers.
The little man nods. He’s trying to say something through the tears. His lips attempt to make a word but they’re quivering too much, they lack the strength and they give in. For a few seconds, the man just nods his little head, his eyes looking into Joe’s wearing a sad expression, but an understanding one. His ribcage rises and falls in an ever more laboured way, until, after a short time, Joe notices that it has stopped moving altogether and that the little man’s eyes have turned to look through the window at the vast winter sky, and have completely drained of life.
‘He’s dead,’ says Joe, ‘We’ll call him Sam, as in, Sam the Man.’
‘Who’s dead?’ shouts Alan, his face twisted towards Joe but his eyes fixed painfully on the motorway. ‘Sean, could you tell me who’s dead?’
Sean doesn’t hear his dad’s question. He has put headphones into his ears and he’s staring out the window, his head turned away from Joe, from Sally and Beak, from the dead bodies of Dolly and Sam the Man. Sean does not hear his mother speak either. His mother who has never spoken once during his lifetime, who gave birth without making a sound and who, some years ago, failed to alert anyone when Sean fell from Brighton pier while under her supervision. But she speaks now. She brings a sledgehammer crashing down on nearly twenty years of silence.
‘It’s quick,’ she says, in a voice in need of repair. ‘And it doesn’t matter.’
A silence follows. A newer, lighter, fresher-smelling silence. Sean stares out the window, oblivious to it all. Cradling the corpses of Dolly and Sam the Man, Joe shakes his head and wonders how he ended up in a car with a baby, with two little corpses, with a kitten. For once a Southerner is right, he decides, as the people carrier joins the A1.
It’s quick. And it doesn’t matter.
21
BY THE TIME Life was brought on board to organise the launch party, those involved in the Wild World were rapidly losing faith and less willing to tell others what they did for a living. They spoke vaguely of corporate marketing, never mentioning the Wild World by name. They got drunk a lot instead of doing their work. They spent their days exchanging junk email or chatting on Facebook or fucking each other in Wow-Bang. Paper piled up on desks. Plans were left half made. Designs were rushed. Very little, if anything, got organised. In fact, as the date for the launch party grew closer, it became clear that no one was working at all. If ever employees of the Wild World bumped into each other in Soho or Shoreditch or Bethnal Green they would nervously say ‘hello’ and then, having composed themselves a little they would say, ‘Dear me, you look fantastic, you’ve got genuine guts and your soul’s elastic. And Jesus, that can’t be an original Roxy Music T-shirt, surely?’ And then silence would prevail and the sounds of London streets would amplify in the ears of both people and in the eyes of the other each would suddenly recognise the same questions and thoughts: What the fuck was Wild World? It was just hype, right? It was literally nothing. It was irony, yeah, I get it, it was pretty cool, pretty funny, pretty clever. But it didn’t mean anything, did it?
Only Life, who had been taught as a child not to give up, continued to make any effort at all. For her, it didn’t matter that she didn’t know quite what the Wild World was. If she’d been hired and paid to help, then help she would. With a couple of days to go before the scheduled launch of the Wild World, it was Life who picked up the telephone and booked the banqueting suite at Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea Football Club.
Her efforts didn’t end there. She spent whole nights in Wow-Bang, trying desperately but failing miserably to motivate people and gather advice. She spent hours glued to her mobile phone, calling caterers, celebrities, scientists, musicians, sword swallowers, politicians, athletes, billionaires, every latest sensation. Anyone who she thought might conceivably have something to do with the Wild World. She even called Asa Gunn’s agent and offered Gunn the chance to quickly relaunch his pop career at the Wild World launch event. He accepted. A small victory. Mostly, though, Life became more and more nervous. She called the people who she had once considered her superiors in the organisation. She called Bossbitch. No answer. She called the bald guy who had asked her if she knew anyone in the North who could be entrusted with a very special child. He answered, he said he was out of the Wild World, ‘far too fucking vague’.
So Life Moberg got her wish, she found herself at the forefront of events management, and, as I say, rather than give up, she got cracking. She had hoped to find a better venue than the banqueting suite that overlooks the pitch at Stamford Bridge. But she struggled. So it’s all going to take place here. The Wild World will be launched in a football stadium.
It’s a large room, as long as the football pitch is wide. It’s incredibly beige. The walls are beige and so is the carpet and the tablecloths. Even the chairs are covered in thick beige fabric. When the guests arrive, few will have ever seen such a beige place in all their lives. Only Life breaks up the beigeness. She’s walking between the tables in a red silk dress. Her golden hair is tied back with a red ribbon. She looks beautiful. She has made a special effort. She straightens pieces of cutlery and rearranges some of the flowers that decorate each of the large circular tables. She climbs up onto the stage and nervously tests the microphone. ‘One two,’ she says, flinching as her voice echoes loudly around the room. ‘One two, Wild World, testing.’ Above her, a large banner reads ‘WELCOME TO THE WILD WORLD’. Getting down from the stage, Life checks the place names on the table nearest the front. Everything is in place. ‘Janek Freeman’ next to ‘Joe Aspen’ next to ‘Anka Kudolski’ next to ‘Roger Hart’ next to ‘Life’. Life picks up her own place name and stares at it, reading it in her head, over and over again. ‘Life.’ ‘Life.’
Satisfied that the room is ready, she decides she ought to go and check on the photographers outside. She places her name card back onto the table. She turns towards the door to find ten straight and fashionable faces staring right at her. She recoils in shock. She even gasps. For a second she can’t think straight at all and can’t make sense of this group of people who must have entered and gathered around her without making a sound. They stand, these people, closed-mouthed and with trendy, blinkless eyes, staring at her. They are dressed, all of them, in crisp and muscularly ironic fluorescent shellsuits. They’re in their mid-twenties with dyed and challenging hair but Life doesn’t recognise any of them. Eventually she’s able to compose herself and construct an ingratiating smile. These people must be here to help. Thank God, thinks Life. She’s about to say hello and offer them each her hand when she notices that some of these bright and shellsuited young people have started to smirk. They are eyeing Life’s pretty red dress, the ribbon in her hair, the special effort she has made, and they are laughing.
‘We’ll take it from here, Life Moberg.’
22
ROGER AND ANKA are first to arrive at Stamford Bridge. The only problem is, they’re too nervous to go in. The entrance is surrounded by photographers. There’s a red carpet. Every now and then, cars pull up and elderly men and women in formal dress get out, pause to be photographed, then enter the stadium. Anka and Roger are watching proceedings from an outdoor stall selling Chelsea FC memorabilia.
On the train down here, Anka had been forced to gag Roger with a spare pair of her knickers. He wouldn’t stop describing things, banging on about the countryside, the various stations, the sound of the train, his feelings, his sitting position, his
inability to make love, the technology inside him. He wouldn’t shut up. When two incredibly fat ladies sat down opposite them at Stoke, Anka thought it best to gag him. He still mumbled, and tried to move the knickers with his tongue. But he couldn’t really express himself.
‘What are we gonna do?’ says Anka.
Roger looks up from his wheelchair, his jaw straining on the knickers, eyes pleading.
‘All right,’ Anka says, ungagging him, ‘but try to keep the bullshit to a minimum, yeah, Roger?’
Roger splutters. A string of saliva clings to the knickers as they’re pulled from his mouth. ‘Do you really think it’s a good idea, this?’ he says, pointing at the crowded entrance. ‘Maybe you’re used to being photographed, Anka, but I’m not. And they’ll probably ask loads of embarrassing questions about why my body’s plastic and why I’ve got a mouse lodged in my head and wires in my ears. What if my belly starts beeping? I know what these kinds of people are like, Anka. They’re vultures. They can be cruel.’
Anka doesn’t reply. Roger watches as she stares over at the photographers, twisting the knickers tightly round an outstretched finger, deep in thought.
‘I don’t want to be just another anorexic posing in a magazine,’ Anka says finally, turning to Roger. ‘And what does the Wild World matter anyway? We’ve found each other. We want to help each other, right? We’re sort of above culture, aren’t we?’
Roger nods.
‘Why do you like me, Roger?’ says Anka keenly, kneeling down beside Roger’s chair and forcing him to hold her eyes.
Roger’s not sure what to say. Why? he wonders. Why Anka? Because she’s fit? Thin, but beautiful. Because she’s weird? Because she beats herself up in eating disorder clinic toilets? Because she’s on TV? Because when a bra pushes her tits together a pleasing shadow falls between them?
‘Because I’m desperate,’ says Roger. ‘I’m desperate not to be alone. And you’re the only person I’ve properly met in years.’
‘I hope you realise that’s a bad answer.’
Roger tries some other words: ‘Whatever humanity I have left,’ he says, ‘I’m willing to give to you.’
Anka smiles. ‘Better. Do you want to go to the cinema with me?’
‘What about the launch, the Wild World?’
‘Fuck it,’ says Anka, standing up and taking hold of Roger’s chair. ‘Fuck the Wild World. Let’s just go. We’ll get jobs. We’ll get a flat. You can monitor my eating. We can go InterRailing. Let’s just be normal. It’ll be great.’
‘Fine, but what about my body?’ says Roger. ‘We’ll never be able to make love.’
‘You can finger me. I’ll teach you how to find my clit.’
At the mention of her clit Roger turns round and looks nervously at Anka. She’s above him, pushing his chair along, laughing. She is light-hearted. She’s saying, ‘What do you fancy seeing? I reckon something with Johnny Depp. Once we’re settled down, Roger, I’m going to eat food and watch films that have got Johnny Depp in them. I may even start fancying him a little.’
‘Personally,’ says Roger, turning to regard the street he’s being pushed down; a grey, buildinged, peopled, weathered strip. ‘Personally, I’d rather we went to a musical, maybe Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Something fun.’
‘Fine,’ says Anka. ‘Whatever you want, Roger.’
From nowhere a figure steps out in front of the wheelchair. Anka tuts and tries to move round.
‘Oh no you don’t.’
It’s a man. He’s tall, dressed in a shellsuit. Fluorescent pink. Likeable clumps of facial hair float unevenly around his mouth and cheeks.
‘You two,’ he says. ‘You’re both late as it is, and now I find you striding off in the wrong direction. What’s going on?’
‘We’re going to watch a film with Johnny Depp in it,’ says Anka, causing Roger to perform a large and deliberate cough. She corrects herself: ‘I mean, we’re going to see a musical.’
The man starts laughing. He grabs the handles of Roger’s wheelchair and then continues to laugh his head off. ‘Very funny,’ he’s saying, pushing Roger back in the direction of the football stadium, the red carpet and the photographers. ‘Very, very funny.’
‘Get off him,’ shouts Anka, trying to stop the guy but succeeding only in trotting alongside the wheelchair. ‘You’re pushing him too fast.’
The man is still chuckling to himself, muttering, ‘Johnny Depp. That’s a classic. Imagine. Johnny Depp. That’s an absolute classic.’
23
WHERE THE RED carpet meets with the pavement, a cameraman bends down onto one knee. He allows the autofocus to do its thing and a second later the camera clicks and flashes. You could take the camera off this guy. You could hook it up to a laptop via a USB. You could stare at the photo. You could stare at this split second.
You’d see Anka Kudolski being dragged by one of her thin arms onto the red carpet. You’d see her head bent down in struggle, a swathe of blonde hair shielding her face from the lens. It’s the guy in the pink shellsuit dragging her. He’s pushing Roger Hart’s wheelchair aggressively with his other hand. You’d see Roger’s face frozen, his head turned and staring with wide objecting eyes. Roger’s large, round head, with the computer mouse stuck in the top of it and the thick black wires coming from his ears. You would see all of this. All of this would be in foreground.
Zooming in a little, beyond Roger and Anka, you’d see cameramen going mental, frantically pointing lenses in the direction of the two of them, shouting at them, gesturing to them with mad hands, faces begging them to stand still and be photographed. Beyond the cameramen, you’d see Janek Freeman. He’d be a little blurred, I expect, but instantly recognisable in his black beanie, pulled down to his defined eyebrows, his navy blue tank top, his handsome face, his ears; red wires pouring from both of them. He’s getting out of a black cab and being greeted enthusiastically by a green shellsuited blonde. She’d have one hand on Janek’s shoulder, gesturing that he should walk the red carpet and pause to be photographed. You’d notice in the photograph that Janek looks scared, that he’s trying desperately to touch fists with the girl but that she is having none of it. Beyond Janek’s taxi, at the very back of the photograph, is a Mitsubishi people carrier. The young man you’d see getting out of this people carrier has perfectly white hair. You’d recognise him straight away as Joe Aspen. You’d see he’s wearing a billowing white shirt, the cuffs and collar undone. You’d think that his face looked hot, that Joe looked tense. Perhaps he’s tired from carrying that travel seat, you might think. You can’t make out much of what is inside the seat; just grey fur, dead yellow skin and a pair of shining black eyes. You’d see that Joe, too, is being greeted by a shellsuited twenty-something. You’d see her excruciatingly precise red fringe. You’d see how she tries to snatch the travel seat from Joe and how he prevents this by clenching his fist.
24
ONCE INSIDE THE stadium, Anka, Roger, Janek and Joe are ushered into a cramped, windowless room next to the banqueting suite.
Joe recognised Janek the moment the two of them were dragged from their respective cars. He looks a lot like his Wow-Bang avatar, what with the beanie. The two take seats at opposite sides of the tight, grey-lit room; Joe sees to Sally while Janek covers his eyes with his fingers.
Anka steers Roger’s wheelchair next to her seat. She straightens his various wires affectionately, running the back of her hand against his cheek. ‘What the fuck –’ she says. She was going to say ‘– are we doing here?’ but she can’t be bothered. ‘What the fuck are we doing here?’ is not a question Anka can be arsed asking any more.
The four people sit in silence.
After a while, the door unlocks with a click. A young man is pushed into the room. The door is slammed and locked once more. Joe recognises the young man straight away as former pop star Asa Gunn. He smiles at him, recalling their recent meeting in Manchester, but the celebrity’s face contains only anxiety and nerves. No recognition at all.
‘Hello,’ says Asa Gunn, addressing the floor, or perhaps the briefcase that he holds timidly with both hands.
‘All right, mate,’ says Joe, placing Sally into the travel seat and rising to shake the ex-pop star’s hand.
‘Your wrist!’ Asa Gunn exclaims as he takes Joe’s hand. ‘You’re not wearing one of my bracelets. In fact,’ he quickly scans the room, ‘none of you are!’
Asa Gunn drops to the floor and opens his suitcase. Within seconds he’s standing up, carefully offering a wet-looking, red-and-yellow bracelet to Joe. It’s shining under the strip light, it’s glistening.
‘I make them out of my veins,’ says Gunn, gesturing that Joe take the bracelet from him. ‘Since I accidentally retired from the world of pop, this is what I do. I make jewellery out of myself. I sell it on the Internet. But today is my comeback. That’s what’s so great, I think. We make comebacks.’
Having handed the vein bracelet to Joe, Asa Gunn lifts up his pink T-shirt a little to reveal several large scars, jet black and barely healed, just below his ribs. He turns round to show them to Roger and Anka but he gets distracted. ‘You’ve got wires coming out of your head. Are you like me?’
Roger glances up at Asa Gunn. Roger is desperate not to speak. Words are gathering round his brain like nails round Semtex. He succeeds in saying nothing. He just hunches his shoulders and blinks.
‘What do you mean?’ says Anka, bluntly. ‘What are you on about?’
‘You,’ replies Asa Gunn solemnly. ‘You are so very thin. When I was a pop star, my friends were very thin like you. And late at night in posh hotels they liked to flash their limbs at me. One time, a girl removed her pretty green dress for me, and she completely disappeared. Or rather, she was just a sad grey face that floated round the room.’
Janek Freeman jumps to his feet and screams in rhyme: ‘I was a normal boy with a bass guitar, I played on a stage with American stars. I fell in love with a girl called Life. I stuck it in and it felt so nice. What the fuck are we doing here?’