by Edward Docx
Will civilization ever find the words, the phrases, the stomach to describe the true nature of taxi drivers? Where do they come from, these creatures of the swamp, these strange deformed mutants, sent out into the world to sap mankind of its will to live? I assume that their evil masters must kidnap them young: ‘Hey, you, kid?– hate your fellow man?– baseless sense of grievance and injustice?– boy oh boy, have we got just the job for you!– get right in line – don’t worry about a thing – everything’s gonna be taken care of – you’re gonna be a cab driver. Whoa yeah. Sorted.’ And with that first cruel deception these ugly fledglings are whisked away to some distant marshland camp, cut off from the rest of the world, where they are caged in the semi-darkness with only steering wheels and rearview mirrors for solace until, little by little, they lose all hope, all heart, all soul … And then begins their long, slow tutelage in the ways of the ancient fellowship.
Even so, I’ll wager that some of them don’t make it. Because it’s not just a mental or spiritual thing – there’s the physical side to be taken into consideration too. The state-of-mind stuff is demanding but it can be taught: any would-be taxi driver has got to hate driving, that’s obvious; and certainly he’s also going to have to hate traffic; and, yes, he’s going to have to hate the city in which he works; and of course he’s really going to have to hate the people who live there, his passengers in particular. Such basics are taken for granted – or can be easily worked upon, given time. But beyond the straightforward character-building stuff, what the taxi masters are really looking for is someone who is also physically repulsive from the back. Someone who is instantly, biologically, repugnant when looked at from the rear. Aaahhh … now that’s special, that’s flair. Because to look unusually revolting from behind takes real talent. There’s no bald forehead, no stomach, no piggy eyes, no moustache, no loose, sagging lower lips to fall back on. None of that. It’s all got to happen in a fairly small and little-considered area of the body which is almost impossible to cultivate. And not everyone is born with the right gifts: the roll of fat squatting at the bottom of the back of the skull; the pock-marked neck with that hard-to-fake, melted-then-set-again look, like solidified lava; or the grey-brown, grease-caked hair.
‘So what’s your line of work?’ he asked, his voice somehow a perfect blend of pre-emptive sarcasm and aggrieved indignation.
‘I am a calligrapher.’
The brakes squealed and I was thrown forward, almost to the floor.
‘Right. That’s it. Out. Get out of my bloody cab.’
‘What?’
‘Out.’
Three seconds of bruised anger from me: ‘What?’
‘You heard. This is not an ambulance, mate, and I’m not cleaning up after you. You can spew your guts elsewhere.’
In other centuries, I might have slit him open with my sword and fed his still-pulsing heart to the eager rats, but instead, I climbed out, feeling for the pavement with my foot. For a second, I thought he was going to do the unthinkable and just pull off without getting his fare. But oh no: he waited, staring dead ahead, his jowls quivering to the vibrations of the idling engine. I could not face so miserable a fight.
‘And how much will that be?’ I enquired.
‘Eight sixty.’
‘Please, have ten … No, I insist, keep the change. It was an excellent ride. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. You’re quite a driver.’
‘Fuck off.’
Spat out by the Hyde Park railings beneath the thinning cerulean. Hardly the fate of the ancient heroes, I know. But do not forget that this particular Saturday was my very lowest ebb. Even so, I probably should have turned straight for home there and then. Faced up to things, maybe. Fallen into a deep and regenerative sleep. Forged some new and better self in the cleansing fires of self-denial. But I did not. Instead, I stood for a moment and watched the pigeons tick-tocking about their business like fat privy councillors pretending pressing errands. I was going to be late. I took a deep breath and hurried down the Bayswater Road towards Notting Hill.
Of the many centres of self-delusion around the world, the ludicrous area of Notting Hill can confidently assert its position as number one. Not only is there an impressive depth to the claim – in the very core of their souls, the inhabitants firmly believe that they are in some way chosen – but there is also real breadth insofar as the curious self-satisfaction which goes with residency affects all types of person, from banker to artisan. Of course there are notorious and well-attested districts of self-deception all over Europe – Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Berlin, even my beloved Heidelberg – and it is true these are well stocked with a significant range of pomposity and pretension. But nowhere else is there quite such a formidable discrepancy between the opinion that the residents have of themselves and that which the visitor must inevitably form.
In the normal run of things, a low-slung evening sun will wash even the bleakest of cityscapes with a lush ochre light, which will lend a building, however dismal, a softening and sympathetic splendour of sorts. Not so Notting Hill. Even in the very best atmospheric conditions, as you approach the epicentre of the farce – a miserable, traffic-vexed little junction – you become increasingly aware that you are walking along one of the shabbiest, least inspiring and most consistently unappealing thoroughfares in the modern world. Distended with estate agents and bloated with burger bars, architecturally tedious and commercially humdrum, Notting Hill, you soon discover, is just one more tiresome trunk road that has come into money.
I say farce but perhaps I mean burlesque. In a farce, the emphasis falls on the preposterousness of plot rather than the ridiculousness of the characters. Whereas, in a burlesque, the audience is invited to laugh and cry at the fakery and self-deceit of the people themselves … the white guys trying to be black, the black guys pretending to be white, the rich pretending to be poor, the poor pretending to be rich, the old pretending to be young, and the young pretending to be old. Notting Hill. Don’t even go there.
William and I had agreed to share a pre-party drink in one of the pubs on Campden Hill Road – a dark, autumnal place, full of awkward wooden cubicles and undercover fund managers eating gourmet sausages.
He turned just as I came up to the bar: ‘Jasper – at last. My God, you look awful. Have you just been sick? Are you OK?’
‘Mutiny,’ I croaked, melodramatically.
‘Here, I’ve got you some sherry. It’s bleak stuff but the best they had. You’d better drink it down in one – you need to regain your equilibrium. Then we can get you a drink.’
‘Thanks.’ I eyed the chalice suspiciously for a moment and then drank deeply.
William ordered himself a vodka straight (one ice cube) followed by two vodka tonics. When the bar tender had turned his back, he leaned over and whispered in confidential tones: ‘I’m afraid the party may turn out to be a horror show … please don’t look at me like that … it seems to have broadened out since I last spoke to Stephanie – whose birthday it is, by the way, in case you run into her. The whole of London now seems to be coming. But anyway it will take your mind off the other business and we can always cab ourselves to Le Fromage if we really hate it. Or whisk you to hospital.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I have been hatching the beginnings of a failsafe plan, by the way, about the other business, I mean. How is the other business?’
‘It’s hopeless –’
‘No, no, no.’ He held up his hand. ‘I will not permit you to talk in such tones. And you cannot allow yourself to think in that way. In years to come you will look back on this evening of lachrymose woe and laugh the gay laughter of someone looking back gaily on an evening of lachrymose woe.’
‘It’s hopeless,’ I rasped, ‘she likes me – as a friend.’
‘So you said.’ He exhaled a deep breath to indicate that he understood afresh the gravity of the pronouncement.
Best-friend syndrome: that terrible canker of the male heart, which leaves its victims sallow-browed and slowly wasting away u
ntil all power of speech is lost and all that remains is hallucinations and a withered, febrile lust.
William rubbed his hands slowly as though attempting cheer after a recent bereavement. ‘It is my birthday soon.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘I know it isn’t, actually. But it will be.’ He accepted his change and, in a single draught, drained his straight before setting the empty tumbler down slowly on the bar. A woman with a matching handbag and scarf in garish checks ordered a glass of white wine. William swallowed hard and shook his head. ‘Please, I know things look bad at this stage but worry not, young Jasper: William Lacey has everything under tightest reign and all will be well in the best of all possible worlds.’ He raised a fist halfway and pressed on further back into the picaresque. ‘We two knight-errants must huddle our steeds together in times of maidenly revolt and we must prepare ourselves for the trials ahead – courage, mon chevalier, the ways of ancient chivalry wi—’
‘William, will you please try and talk normally? Everyone is starting to think you are a tool.’
He made a hurt face. ‘I was only trying to cheer you up.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I meant it.
‘That’s quite all right.’ He sipped his other drink and looked at me with only half-exaggerated concern. ‘Do you want to talk about your … difficulties now or shall we wait until later?’
‘Later. I feel awful.’
‘OK, then I suggest you drink your vodka and tonic – it will do you good – and then I think we had better try a Laphroiag and see if we can’t get you looking a little less ghostly.’
I took a sip.
He smoothed a non-existent moustache. ‘One thing, though, old man: can you tell me – briefly – and just so that I can factor the information into my devilish plan: is there someone else – Madeleine-wise?’
‘Yes.’
‘Name?’
‘Phil.’
‘Phil?’
‘I know.’
‘A penis?’
‘Out and out.’
‘How bad?’
‘A complete arsehole of the worst sort.’
‘Are you just saying that? Would other – more regular – people like him?’
‘Probably. But that doesn’t change it.’
‘Handsome?’
‘Not really. Looks like a sort of … well, yes, I suppose, good-looking in a tiresome nice-guy, sandy-haired Australian-soap-star sort of a way.’
‘I see. Goatee?’
‘Of course.’
‘Job?’
‘Some kind of Government special adviser. On Europe.’
William winced.
I nodded. ‘Although, needless to say, deep down he’s an ignorant capitalist pig with deeply conservative instincts twitching through every nerve in his body.’
William tutted. ‘Well, we can’t all be straightforwardly anti-social, hypocritical, medievalist Marxists hell-bent on debauchery, Jasper. Some of us have contradictions to cope with.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Has she … are they … do you … ?’
‘I don’t know. Will, I don’t know. I left before I could –’
‘OK. Well. It doesn’t really matter. I’m sure he has very little in the trouser department – advisers rarely do. All we need to manage is to get you alone with her in a neutral environment and then let you work your sinister magic.’
‘It’s not like that any more. I’ve fucked it up.’
‘Ah, but as you used to say to me, “There is always a way.” And I just know you will find it, given more quality time with her. You always do. I believe in you absolutely. Does she drink?’
‘Like a bitchy alcoholic.’
‘Then we have nothing to worry about.’ He put his arm around my shoulders. ‘A picnic, I think. Yes: a picnic. Consider it repayment for all your clever intercessions on my behalf over the years.’
‘Will, you are not going to solve anything by holding a picnic.’
‘Oh, but I think I am.’
Having been greeted at the door by Stephanie, we were somehow stalled in the hall for a moment or two as she returned to answer a second knock. The party was well underway: the bass boom of anti-music coming from somewhere like the basement, the alto drone of human chatter, even the odd falsetto-filled helium balloon, with its ribbon tail trailing from the ceiling.
‘That’s him,’ I whispered.
‘Who is who?’ William frowned.
‘Over there.’
‘Over where?’
‘On the stairs.’
‘I can see the stairs, Jasper, actually, but I still have no idea to whom you are referring. I’m afraid you’ll –’
‘Phil. He’s here.’
‘Our Phil?’
I grimaced. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, we must say hello.’
Phil was indeed standing halfway up the staircase amid a group of people, who were also leaning against the banisters or the opposite wall or sitting down on the stairs themselves. Judging by the unanimity with which they had misinterpreted the prevailing fashions, I guessed that they all belonged to the political scene: junior researchers, special advisers, secretaries, lobbyists, image consultants, bag carriers. As a group, they were, of course, revoltingly ugly, but it was only when the eye picked out an individual that the real wretchedness struck home – each person a living embodiment of some hitherto unimagined contortion of the human physique.
‘Let’s not,’ I said in a low voice, soberly mindful that the conversation of such creatures when collected together – even if casually overheard – can send a grown man shrieking into the night in paroxysms of despair. ‘Let’s go and find some women. There must be some women we can talk to. I need to relax. I can’t face Phil just yet. Not until I have worked out what to say. I’m too ill for this.’
William shrugged. ‘Okey-dokey. All the same, I think I may corner him myself later on, if you don’t mind. Gather some intelligence et cetera. He seems like a very pleasant young man to me. He’s certainly the best looking of his peers.’
‘Oh fuck off.’ I sucked my teeth. ‘Shit! Will, maybe she’s here too. With him, I mean. I have to –’
‘Jasper, mate!’ came the voice from the stairs. ‘What are you doing here? How’s it going?’
William hissed under his breath: ‘Too late. He’s seen you. And now he wants you.’
There was no time to do anything but turn and pretend surprise. ‘Oh, hello Phil, I didn’t notice you there.’
Phil addressed me from the banisters. ‘Hang on a sec, mate. I’m coming down. I’ve got to get a drink.’ He began to make his way past people on the stairs.
A sick fascination for the man Madeleine favoured was forming in some dissident part of my mind. Perversion by any other name.
Phil came towards us. ‘Have you lads only just got here?’
‘Yes, we’ve just arrived,’ William said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t get to London all that much and I made Jasper come and visit my aunt so we’re a little on the late side. But it looks like it’s going to be a terrific party. It’s just a pity we don’t know anyone.’
I turned a sickened face to William – but already he was impervious, intent on his twisted entertainment.
‘No worries. I’m Phil by the way.’ He offered his hand – a firm, certain, regular guy’s handshake.
(What is there to be so certain about?)
‘Very pleased to meet you. My name is William. William Lacey.’ William tendered his, deliberately limp.
Phil was momentarily wrong-footed. He turned to me: ‘Good time at Mad’s?’
‘Yes, I …’
Phil seemed to realise that I could not finish the sentence. ‘I really enjoyed it,’ he said helpfully. ‘Lovely food. And Mad’s a star. I was trying to persuade her to come out and she said –’
‘Oh, I get it.’ William had now slipped completely into his favourite persona: searingly thick but well-meaning, over-compensating, second son of a high-
ranking army officer. Or something like that. ‘You must be the politics chap. Jasper told me all about you. Very interesting. In charge of the anti-capitalism protests, I understand. Must be odd coming from the left and having to –’
I stepped in. ‘Phil is Europe, Will, not … whatever. Phil, where are the drinks, any ideas?’
‘Yep. In the kitchen. Follow me.’
Aside from all my other problems, I was also cross with William for interrupting. I urgently needed to know what Madeleine had said about coming out. Very urgently indeed. As soon as non-embarrassingly possible in fact.
In the kitchen – a long room, poking out at the back of the house in which the serried ridges of bottle tops congested every spare surface not taken up by plates of half-consumed, unappetizing appetizers, which likewise clogged up the tables or teetered suicidally on shelves – in the kitchen, everyone was bald. For a moment it appeared as though we had surprised a cue ball convention. Of the dozen or so men on view, all but one or two had either shaved back to the scalp à la mode or they were so naturally depleted that such measures were unnecessary. For the most part, they were standing in circles, propped up against cupboards or leaning with their backs to the wall. Here and there a woman could be seen among them – tragic minarets of beauty among the bulbous domes. The most recalcitrant cluster – a dense knot of three fairly tall pug-faced individuals – was gathered around the fridge, as if guarding the main gate to the drinks supply. By the looks of things, they were attempting multilaterally to seduce a red-haired girl who had fallen into their midst.
Phil grinned his irresistible grin. ‘Dave, Steve, Mike and …’
‘Angie,’ the girl smiled.
Another grin. Phil had great teeth, I noticed. ‘Dave, Steve, Mike, Angie this is Jasper and –’
‘William! Very pleased to meet you all.’ The three tensed invisibly, nervous eggs waiting to learn the size of the intended omelette. But William was only just beginning. ‘Is everyone in politics? I am in pork myself. Well, pigs, I should say. Bacon actually. Just up for the weekend. Glad to get away from all the muck, to be honest. Which is not to say this isn’t a boom time for pigs – not at all – what with all the dead sheep and burning cows …’