by Will Self
He thought about his nemesis, he-who-should-not-be-named, he of the capitalised definite article. Was he back? Perhaps this was the elective affinity he had always spoken of, always promised to Ian? Ian hadn't felt so safe in his attraction to anyone for a long time. Not since The Fat Controller had snapped his cigar in two, all those years before at Cliff Top. And even if this isn't arranged by him, thought Ian, why should I hold back now? What if what Gyggle says is true – he never really existed. I can't go on like this any longer, I can't go on feeling this way. If I don't get another person's hands on my body soon, I'm going to cease to exist. He had a vivid sensation of this, his body, like a giant continent, unmapped, unsurveyed, its further portions starting to fade away.
Back in the restaurant, Jane Carter was imagining what it might be like to have Ian Wharton's hands surveying her, touching her intimately. What would it feel like to have that big blocky body lying on hers? Could she tolerate it? She decided that she could – just about.
They drank too much saki, which tasted like hot sweat. And, after Ian had insisted on paying the bill, they walked out into the close night and went to a bar. Here there was an outsized television screen, which was so sited that the American footballing gladiators who were projected on to it looked as though they were dancing on the patrons’ heads.
They drank some more. The way that they began to laugh at each other's jokes was tenderness itself, as were the numerous glances, the manifold shared references. These were shy pointers to the evening's conclusion but they were hedged with some maturity, some acceptance that things might not work out after all.
Jane couldn't really say that she wanted Ian to fuck her. Her lust was a diffuse longing that boiled into being in the wake of sex, not in its anticipation. She knew that she could bear Ian's body, bear its weight on hers, bouncing, but what about the morning? She winced into the glass she was sipping from, remembering what it was like to have an unwanted man in her flat. Naked men were like great white spiders in the morning, caught by the taps in the glare of the bathroom light, their limbs flailing as they washed themselves down the emotional plug hole.
‘Where do you live?’ He sounded nervous.
‘Up in West Hampstead.’
‘Let's get a cab, I'll drop you off.’
‘Is it on your way?’
‘Not exactly.’
In the street they were gripped by the delirium of people who feel certain they are on the verge of full genitality. Delirious, because no one can ever know such a thing, no one can ever know what another thinks. They cleaved unto one another in Old Compton Street. Her belly was like unto a heap of meat, or so he thought. She was that animal, that immediate. A piss head, purple cleft actually hammered into his brow, suppurating, of course, begged from them. Ian gave him a pound for his troubles, thinking: If they're only worth a quid, a Mayfair town house should retail for 50p.
In the cab they started snogging. She's my diesel dyke – oh BurgerLand! thought Ian, restraining himself. Her lips were so tacky and soft, they excluded the draught from his mouth, the afflatus from his mind. At the junction with the Euston Road an old finned Ford Zephyr cut them up as the lights changed. Two lads, dark like gypsies, whooping and hollering. Ian didn't even notice.
Actually, Jane wasn't finding the kissing that unpleasant either: Then perhaps I'm drunk? She was. She didn't even notice the Lurie Foundation Hospital for Dipsomaniacs as the cab cruised by. Ian did. Was Gyggle in there, pacing about? Ian thought he saw a light and imagined Gyggle, doing what? Reading an academic paper? Or putting another patient under for DST, sending another sucker to the Land of Children's Jokes? It would have been so much better if Jane had seen they were passing the hospital, because she would have said brightly, ‘That's where I went for my assessment for voluntary service this afternoon – ’ And then some shit would have come down. Better then than later.
The cab rocked off the Finchley Road by Habitat, tipped behind the big block, then stuttered to a halt outside Jane's flat. Ian paid the cabby off.
In the small vestibule Ian smelt the tang of the lime in the fresh plaster. Jane fumbled with the key, resting her pounding heart against the entryphone. She felt his body press against her from behind. She yielded. She could feel his penis, hard in the small of her back. His hand pushed up the thick denim of her dress, smoothed up her thigh, came to catch and pull at the thin elastic lip of her pants. She sighed as his sodden face came down to nuzzle at her neck and his other hand moved up from her waist, to the carapace of her shy breast.
In counterpoint now, his two hands unbuttoned the heavy brass buttons that ran up the front of her dress. He felt her stomach, the tops of her thighs, the crinkly embroidery of her brassière. His face was coming around the corner of her cheek; their tongues touched awkwardly as they tried to enter each other's mouths from the side.
Then they stopped feeling one another out as they felt each other up and went looking for climax.
Before going up on the figurative pedals, so as to run into her at a sprint, Ian paused. He looked her in the eye and mentally apologised for the horror he might be about to inflict. Then he pushed on in – expecting the worst.
There's no better psychological check against premature ejaculation than the fear that your penis might break off inside someone.
A while later he was really fucking her. Fucking her in the way that men do when they have lost all sensation, when their cocks have been battering away for so long that they've abandoned conscience and created a battle zone of frightening ignorance from which no intelligence is available. When at last they came it was with a thin-lipped finality, as if they were a put-upon company secretary winding up a pointless board meeting.
Yet afterwards, when they lay, she face down, he with his big leg pinioning her buttocks, they both thought: This could be love.
Steve Souvanis stood awkwardly by the reception desk at Brown's Hotel. He knew he looked conspicuous and down-at-heel in his cheap suiting. He was sweating in the heat and his belly was distended, uncomfortable. Outside, through the swing doors, he could see the winking hazard lights of his car. It was impossible to find a meter in this part of town – if a traffic warden or a rogue clamping crew came along he was screwed. He tried not to look too flustered, too ill at ease. He was feigning interest in some flyers for Barries’, the posh King's Road menswear boutique, that had been deposited on the reception desk.
‘Yes?’ The concierge took him for a cabby.
‘I've come to see one of your guests.’
‘Yes?’
‘A Mr Northcliffe.’
‘And you are?’
‘Mr Souvanis.’
‘Ah yes, Mr Souvanis, I have a message from Mr Northcliffe for you. He's at Davidoff's. Do you know where that is?’
‘Yes, I know.’ Souvanis broke away and headed to the door. The concierge called after him, ‘Left along Piccadilly and then right by the Ritz.’ It was insulting, a calculated snub, implying that Steve was pretending or something.
He left the car, a large estate, in the underground car-park on the Piccadilly side of Berkeley Square. He was so preoccupied that he didn't even notice the red-and-yellow tape stretched everywhere and the signs reading ‘Crime Scene Keep Out’. Back up at ground level he ploughed along the pavements, perspiring and fulminating. It was so sunny, the glare bit right into him. In the heat and haze the architecture of London looked Byzantine, immemorial. His eyes were drawn upwards to the pinnacled and domed tops of the buildings. He turned right past the Ritz and saw Davidoff the cigar merchant's across the road.
The shop was lilac-carpeted and humming cool. The smell of tobacco was as muted as expensive perfume. Steve Souvanis knew he was conspicuous once again, poor and oikish. The sales assistant was a duplicate of the concierge at Brown's.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have a Mr Northcliffe with you?’
‘Yes, he's in the humidor room. Can I tell him who's calling?’ Souvanis told him and he glided off.
<
br /> ‘Who's calling, who's calling’ – Souvanis was incredulous. ‘Christ! How ridiculous. It's not as if he's staying here, he hasn't rented out the humidor room – ’
‘Sir?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘This way.’ The sales assistant directed Souvanis to the corner of the room, where there was a large glassed-in cabinet. ‘You'll pardon the formality, sir,’ he said. ‘Mr Northcliffe has rented the humidor room for the day and he's very particular about his privacy.’
The glass door swung open and with it came a pungent tropical blast of strongly vegetative tobacco smell. The Fat Controller was sitting on a large reproduction-Empire armchair. He was surrounded by cigars and cheroots, shelf upon shelf of open boxes. The cigars were of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the automatic clips of small-calibre Brazilian cheroots, through the bandoliers of Honduran panatellas, to the big ones, the bazookas and groud-to-air missiles of Cuban full coronas, each one housed in its aluminium launcher.
In his hand The Fat Controller held an Upmann number one the size of a baby's arm. He was dressed formally, like an old-fashioned British civil servant, in black-and-white needle-striped trousers and a black frock coat. The Windsor collar made his immense head appear, more than ever, like a football placed for kick-off. On the floor next to his chair there was a top hat.
‘Is that you, Souvanis? Come in, man! Don't hover like that, you're letting all the goodness escape.’ The door swung shut and the two of them were left alone together, in close damp proximity. The Fat Controller immediately grabbed a fold of Souvanis's belly, quickly and adroitly, the way that any other man might snatch up a poker card. ‘Getting a little tubby, aren't we,’ he snarled. ‘Have you heard me talking to you?’
‘Ow! Yes.’
‘Good. Talking to you through your fat – that's the ticket, eh? Splendid, splendid. And have you tendered for the D.F. & L. job?’
‘Yes, I have. Please let go.’
The Fat Controller released him and fell to examining his cigar. ‘Big, isn't it?’ he said at length.
‘Yes, it is rather – look, what's this all about, sir?’
‘Don't call me “sir”, Souvanis, you're not at school now. We're colleagues. You can call me “Master” if it makes you feel more comfortable.’
He put the Upmann back in its box and pulled a small cardboard packet of Toscanelli cheroots from the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He stuck one in his mouth. It was dwarfed by the smooth expanse of his face, rendered as tiny as a toothpick.
‘Match me, Sidney,’ said The Fat Controller.
‘But, Master,’ said Souvanis without quite knowing why he dared, ‘I thought connoisseurs always lit their own cigars.’
‘Harumph! Well, I suppose strictly speaking that is true. However, it's a mistake to assume that sensual experiences are merely enjoyable; they can have wider importance, a political significance even. In this case you are not simply lighting my cigar, you are paying homage. Now do it, match me!’ He did so. The Fat Controller inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out hard, strafing the room. He watched it billow about the discreet strip lights set into the top of the cigar shelves. Watched it critically, rapt, as if in the throes of some profound aesthetic rumination.
‘I'll tell you what this is all about, Souvanis,’ he resumed. ‘It's about a man's soul, a man's moral faculties, a man's inbuilt reason, his intuition, his sensibility and his self-esteem. In short, it's about his fate.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘No, you don't see, Souvanis, and you never will. For twenty years now I have cultivated this man, pruned and shaped him, submitted him to a kind of metaphysical topiary. Now it is time to take stock, to, as it were, tie up some loose ends.’
‘So how has D.F. & L. got anything to do with this? What's with this “Yum-Yum” and these standing booths – ?’
‘Booby! You know I cannot abide a booby. It's not for you to speculate on my methods, my little playlets, my masques and contrivances and conceits. You are nothing but a familiar, a fat little cat.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘I have need of you, Souvanis, to be my bag man, my button. So, you had better get that brother-in-law of yours in to run Dyeline. I'll be needing you for the next few days. And now’ – he stood up – ‘I've booked a table at the Gay Hussar – let's eat.’
Souvanis didn't really want to eat at the Gay Hussar. The very thought of all that paprika made him feel dyspeptic. He tried framing a statement of the form: ‘Actually, I'm not really that hungry, why don't I have a cheese sandwich somewhere and join you later?’ but looking at The Fat Controller gnashing his black fang of a cigar, Souvanis thought better of it.
At the end of that week, when Ian went for his next DST session, Dr Gyggle found him much changed. The marketing man had a sloppy grin on his face and he was lying sensuously on the examination couch in the little cubicle as Gyggle swept in, hypo in hand.
‘Well, lan, you look very comfortable.’
‘I am.’
‘Not worried about the DST? About going back to the Land of Children's Jokes?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, and why's that?’ Gyggle supported the axle of his pelvis on the couch and peered down at Ian.
‘Because I don't think I'm going back. I think I've cracked it. You see’ – he blushed – ‘I met this girl – woman – and well, you see, we made love. And it didn't happen. It didn't come off.’
‘I do see,’ said the shrink, a smirk oozing out from behind the beard. ‘That is interesting. But there's a lot more to achieving full genitality, Ian, than the one apparently successful roll in the hay. You appreciate that, don't you?’
‘Yes, of course, that's why I'm here. I've got something to live for now, something other than products. I want to be one hundred per cent fit – ’
‘Rid of all the old bugaboos?’
‘Exactly,’ said Ian, grinning at Gyggle's use of language.
‘Good. I'll give you the pre-med then.’
There are many different ways of using drugs, many giddy variations on the basic theme of intoxication. Who can doubt that a vicar sipping a gin and tonic in the rectory garden isn't a million miles away from the urban crack head, searing his flesh with flaming acetone? Or that the psychotropic trances of the Sibundoy Valley shamans are not separated by many worlds of possibility from the monoxide-promoted drone of those who take the Silk Cut challenge? That being noted, The Fat Controller used drugs in the only way that really matters, to manipulate and distort, to retard and stunt, to cajole and control. He had a kind of drug-thing going in London. It was useful to him and it involved Richard Whittle, Beetle Billy and all the other no-hopers who hung around Gyggle's DDU. They were unruly participants, unsurprisingly. But that wasn't a problem, for he had one of his most trusted confrères in situ.
As Ian lay on the couch feeling Gyggle's Omnipom flood into him, Richard Whittle and Beetle Billy were coming out of the Tube at King's Cross. They found themselves bang in the middle of the wide-paved apron that runs in front of the station and along the Euston Road. It was covered in people, paper sellers, commuters, art students, immigrants, refugees, justices of the peace, articled clerks, nutritionists, cricket fans, loss-adjusters, cooks and junkies. Junkies singly and in huddles, junkies walking briskly on serious business and junkies idling, mooching along trying to appear relaxed, interested in their surroundings like ideal tourists.
Within twenty yards Richard and Beetle Billy were accosted by a short Italian with a knife-slash on his cheek and an English brass on his arm.
‘You lookin'?’ asked the Italian out of the corner of his mouth. He had the occupational skill of street junkies the world over, an ability to project his voice into another junky's ear from some distance, whilst remaining inaudible to the general public. Richard looked at Beetle Billy – the stupid car-repair man was wise to at least one event. His conjunctival eyes looked at Richard and filmed over still further.
‘Nah,’ said Richard.
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bsp; ‘Whassermatter!?’ the brass screeched after them. ‘Iss reely good gear an’ that.’ But they were already too far off.
They strode towards the corner. The Pentonville Road ski-jumped away from them, lifting off towards the Angel. On the other side of the road in front of the bookie's, there was a mêlée of low-life. Even so, the junkies were holding themselves aloof from the dossers. The dossers had no pride. They built lean-tos out of plastic milk crates, right on the pavement. Then they got inside and pissed themselves. No, those dossers had no pride. But those junkies, on the other hand, what a fine upstanding bunch. There they all were, wavering in a line, necks craned to catch the junk messages from the hot ether. A dosser stands out a mile but a junky is a member of the plainclothes division of debauchery. Officers in this elite echelon are trained to recognise one another by eye-contact alone.
Beetle Billy pointed at a figure in the line. ‘Thass Lena, man, she steers for one of those black geezers from the East End, less give her a try.’
‘You lookin'?’ asked the smallish blackish girl.
‘Yo’ where y’ at, girl? Don’ recognise me nor nuffin’. Iss me, Beetle Billy.’ The girl sighed. ‘Leroy ‘bout, girl?’
From nowhere – or so it seemed to Richard – an immaculately dressed, coal-black young man appeared. Without saying anything, just by little jerks and nods of his flat-topped head, he piloted them across the road and towards the Midland City Line Station. They turned right past the Scala Cinema, crossed the Gray's Inn Road and then dived down a side street.
The coal-black man started to talk. ‘Less get a ways off,’ he said. ‘There's a lot of bother an’ that around an’ I don’ hold wiv it. No, man, no way, no, sir.’ He turned to Richard flicking a penetrating stare. ‘I'm Leroy, man, I'm Leroy, Le-roy. Remember that name, man, because I am the original Leroy, man – don’ ‘cept no substitute an’ that – ‘ cause others may imitate but I o-rig-in-ate. Me come fe’ mash up de area – ’