by Will Self
‘What the fuck is that?’ Baz was genuinely distressed; the others were authentically indifferent.
‘Quilty. It’s a bar-mat with the names of everyone I would like to get AIDS sewn on to it. Everyone else has an AIDS quilt – why the hell shouldn’t I?’
‘Let me have a look, Henry…’ Wotton passed it to Dorian ‘… ooh, you’ve put her on, I didn’t know the little bitch was in such disfavour.’
‘Well, of all the people who gossip about me she’s the worst, because everything she says can be verified.’
Alan Campbell broke in on this badinage. ‘Let’s move round a place,’ he slurred; ‘my glass has got dregs in it and there’s a clean one over there.’ They all rose to move round a place, even Baz, who had no need of anything clean save his personal cordon sanitaire. ‘No, Bluejay,’ Campbell admonished the fake Rasta, ‘don’t take that spliff with ya, it goes to the man who takes yer place.’ He duly acquired it and began puffing expansively, his Adam’s apple bobbing up sharply from behind his cravat as he gulped down the smoke. Baz saw the lesions he’d suspected.
Dorian resumed. ‘And you’ve put him on, as well – mind you, there’s not much chance of him getting it, he hasn’t shot up in his life; he isn’t even a switch-hitter.’
Baz could stand it no longer. He raised his voice to get the attention of all of them. ‘A report this week says forty million people will have the virus by the end of the century, and heterosexual transmission is an established fact, so there’s every chance –’
‘Oh Baz, must you be so prosaic?’ Wotton cried.
‘Oh Henry, must you be so brainless?’
‘To live life with true artistry is to perform a successful brain-bypass operation – on yourself.’
‘Anyway, Baz,’ Dorian drawled, ‘what’s happened to your artistry? Surely you’d claim to be the only true artist among us, or has your clean-up campaign erased your talent as well as your sense of humour, hmm?’
But Baz didn’t get to reply immediately, because the Ferret piped up at this point in a strangled little disembodied voice, ‘So sorry, so sleepy, so very sleepy…‘ then slumped face down into some leftover tarte Tatin.
Wotton, who was sitting next to the Ferret, reached over and peeled back one of the little man’s eyelids. He released it and it rolled down like a roller blind. The sight was cartoonish in the extreme. ‘Give the Ferret some crack, will you Bluejay?’ Wotton said. ‘Best take him into the lavatory to do it; we don’t want to upset my wife and her ministerial friend.’
‘You payin’, Henry, so you call the shots, man,’ said the fundamentalist impostor, before adding ominously, ‘fe now.’ Then he did as he’d been requested, prising the Ferret from his chair, and manhandling him out of the room.
‘Well, Baz?’ Dorian queried again.
‘That’s part of the reason I’m in London, Dorian. The Walker Museum in St Paul is considering a retrospective of my work.’
‘St Paul?’ Wotton appeared to be considering the physical unlikeliness of a museum’s being lodged inside a saint.
‘Minneapolis’s twin city.’
‘Minneapolis?’ Wotton was still incredulous. ‘Do they have art there?’
‘Presumably they’ll have some when Baz’s retrospective is mounted’ – Dorian put himself in an unusual, speculative role – ‘or should one say “switched on” when referring to video installations?’
‘It could be a real springboard for me, Dorian,’ Baz said earnestly. ‘If there’s interest in the stuff I did in the past I can begin looking for a new gallery, finding a studio, working again…’
He paused. Bluejay and the Ferret had reappeared, the latter moving with the intense, studied calm of someone who has had an enormous hit of crack cocaine. The little man resumed his place and began to toy with the dessert he’d so recently head-butted. ‘Oh,’ he squeaked, regarding his spoon critically, ‘is that treacle?’
‘No,’ Wotton said witheringly, ‘I believe it’s some of that goo you use to stick down your hair.’
‘I miss your work, Baz,’ Dorian went on, ‘or is it simply that I dislike the untenanted space it used to occupy?’
‘What are you saying?!’ Baz was appalled. ‘Have you destroyed Cathode Narcissus?’
‘Oh, that – your little home movie of me shaking my tush. No… I’ve still got that.’
‘Good, because I need to take some photographs of it; it’s gonna be the centrepiece of the show.’
‘I’m not sure…’ Dorian said this with some thoughtfulness ‘… if that will be possible, Baz.’
‘Why?’ Baz pleaded. Everyone around the table stiffened; none of them liked pleading. They’d all done a great deal of pleading in their time and they all knew how undignified it could get. ‘Surely you won’t deny me this opportunity?’ he continued squeakily.
‘No, it’s only that the thing’s packed away in boxes in my attic. It’ll be a fucking drag getting it all out.’
‘I can do that! I don’t mind doing that! Jesus, Dorian, that’s a ludicrous reason – I need to see it! I need to photograph it!’
‘And I,’ Wotton said with magisterial unconcern, ‘need a hit. Pass me your stem, Bluejay.’
‘Wha’ ’bout yer old lady, Henry?’
‘Oh, she’s still pinned down in the Balkans. Just fill it up in your hand and pass it over, man – she’ll think I’m smoking a glass cigar.’ Bluejay performed the fiddly little task and passed a three-inch length of Pyrex tubing across to Wotton, who put the stem casually to his lips and ignited it with a lighter. He exhaled, and a big cloud of crack smoke boiled across the table.
After disappearing for some seconds inside this thundercloud of derangement, Dorian emerged with a change of heart: ‘All right then, Baz, what the fuck. You can come and see it now.’
‘Now?’
‘Yeah, now – any objection?’
‘It’s late –’
‘I don’t think any sleep will make a beauty of you now, Baz,’ Dorian snorted. ‘Besides, where’re you staying? I can run you back.’
‘Well, actually, Batface has very kindly offered me a bed.’
‘Bring your bag, then – you can crash at my place.’
‘Your place?’
‘Oh, come now, Baz.’ Wotton sought to still this irritating vacillation. ‘First you want to see the thing, then you don’t. I think Dorian is making you a very handsome offer indeed – why are you making such a bloody fuss?’
Baz looked around the table at the shining, bleary eyes of Wotton and his remaining partners in health crime. Why was he prevaricating? This was a very dangerous place for him indeed, he knew that – could Dorian’s be any worse? True, Dorian had a nasty streak in him, but at least he wasn’t an addict like Henry. Baz made up his mind. ‘OK then, let’s split. I’ll get my bag.’
Baz left the room and Dorian made the valedictory round, as urbane and unruffled as when he’d arrived. In truth, the group at the other end of the table weren’t so much in the Balkans as in their cups, and Batface merely slurred a farewell, while the others waved him off. By the time Baz returned, everyone at the table had already accommodated to his loss, assuming that Dorian had done the necessary parting for them both. Baz hovered for a few instants, half-hoping that Wotton or Batface would take notice of him – call him back, even, and ask him to rejoin the party. But they seemed not to heed him at all, and after a while he put on his coat and headed up the stairs after Dorian. The last thing he saw, before the long room, lit by the dying candles, disappeared from view below him, was that the Ferret had fallen asleep again, and Wotton – with Bluejay’s assistance – was forcing him to smoke a joint while in the depths of unconsciousness.
12
Once they were in the street Baz wanted to make conversation, the way normal people do when they leave a dinner party, but Dorian was having none of this. He tucked Baz into the supine passenger seat of his MG sports car, while he busied himself removing the canvas top and stashing it away. In
the immediate vicinity the night-time city was quiescent, but over towards the King’s Road, Baz could hear the rev and bray and hooray of wealthy fun. He felt tired, so very tired. He’d had no time for his routines today, his meditation, his infusions. He didn’t place much faith in any of these procedures singly; it was the combination that let him know that he was looking after himself, that he cared about Baz. And what could this signify, this spontaneous decision to stay at Dorian’s? Nothing good. Nothing healthy. Baz’s life was now one of sobriety, of sticking to the straight and narrow. Now, for the first time in five years, he found himself cannoning on to the cold hard shoulder of existence.
This wasn’t even a metaphor, because when Dorian flung himself down in the driver’s seat and goaded the little car until it bucked, then flew off down the road, Baz discovered that by comparison with his protégé, Wotton was a considerate and careful driver. As the little skateboard of a car skidded around the first corner, Baz reached behind to check that his bag was shoved down tightly behind the seat; as they screeched to a halt at the next junction he fumbled to tighten his seat belt. For fuck’s sake, Dorian, he shouted above the wind, slow down!
—Why?
—Because you’re gonna fucking kill us, that’s why.
—You’re going to die anyway, Baz, but your spiritual convictions will ensure that there’s always a soupçon of Bazness around in the atmosphere to make everyone else sneeze.
—You’re a cruel bastard, Dorian.
—Cruel maybe, but I’m very much alive, Baz – you know that better than most.
Next they were at the lights beside Harrods. It was curious how so many important exchanges between these men transpired in the shadow of this opulent mart, which now loomed out of the darkness, its lineaments picked out with glow globes. One possible explanation was that the god of Dorian and Baz and Wotton’s world was a somnolent deity, who, like the Ferret, slumbered while his creations revolved in ever diminishing circles, tangling themselves up in still tighter conga lines of buggery. In the dark confines of the little car, Dorian’s hand, like a pale tarantula, had crept into Baz’s crotch. What’s this about, Dorian? he said, capturing it with his own.
—This is about sex, Baz – you remember that? Or have the two serpents of AIDS and faith twined themselves around your cock and turned it into a useless caduceus? The lights changed, the car pulled away, the hand remained. Dorian piloted with the other. You should let me look after you, Baz, he said.
—Whaddya mean? Baz was incredulous.
—I have the money, I have the time. I’m only so nasty to you because I feel guilty about what happened in New York. It’s that, and Henry’s influence as well – y’know what he’s like.
—He’s bitter because he’s hurting and he’s lived a lie. I think there’s a good man buried inside Henry somewhere.
—And you believe you can dig him up before Henry himself is buried?
— No, I don’t, it’s up to Henry.
—And it’s up to me to apologise for the way I behaved in New York.
—No, Dorian, I was as much to blame as you; my arrogance, my envy, all my character defects were in full play – I was a using addict.
—So… Dorian employed the rocking of the car to draw still closer… will you let me look after you?
—I dunno, Dorian… I’ve been kept by rich people for too much of my life.
—You’re an artist – I’m a patron. What you do can be astonishing, but it’s hardly likely to support you – especially if you’re ill. Perhaps I’m the last man in London who’s honourable enough to lose money backing art.
—Yeah, maybe… Dorian?
—What?
—Can I ask you something?
—Ask me anything.
Baz shooed the tarantula away; this was serious. You remember that night at the Mineshaft in ’83?
—How could I forget it! Dorian chuckled. It was pretty much my first landfall on the wilder shores of love.
—Y’know, Dorian, people in Manhattan… people on the scene… they say you killed a guy that night. Did you?
They’d stopped at the lights by the junction of Gloucester Road. Dorian flicked the indicator, then turned to face Baz before answering. Do I look like a murderer, Baz?
Of course he didn’t look like anything of the sort; he looked innocent to the point of virginal. He seemed to Baz like some cricketing wizard of the First XI, psychically swaddled in creamy flannels, with the golden sunlight of a perpetual adolescent afternoon playing about his roseate lips.
Any part of anyone is only so strong. If the correct pressure is applied in the right places, even the toughest character will crumple up like an aluminium can. We should try to remember what poor Baz had been through, shouldn’t we? We should try to maintain a certain sympathy for him as he buckles.
Baz thought to himself, why resist when the love you have yearned for for so long is at last reciprocated? He cupped Dorian’s beautiful young face in his ugly old hands, and he kissed those lips. Oh, so sweet, so very sweet. The taste and the feel of him – Baz ate and drank and even tried to inhale as much of the Adonis as he could. The lights changed, the cars behind began hooting, and this attracted the attention of some late-night skulkers on the pavement outside the Kentucky Fried Chicken takeaway, who began to shout, Fucking queers! and, Bum boys! One bold fellow made a little dash forward and smote the wing of the MG with his own greasy one. How suitable. It was only on hearing this oleaginous impact that the lovers broke from their clinch. Dorian grabbed the wheel, and laughing like a loon he wrenched the car across three lanes of oncoming traffic and off to the north.
Hardly anyone ever got to see Dorian Gray’s mews house, and if they did they invariably arrived alone – save for the owner – and at night. Dorian was not, exactly, a homebody. Those who did happen to be invited back for a nightcap, and to have their body toyed with as if it were an anatomical model, found a domicile with all the posed artificiality of a small but expensive hotel, or the stage-set for an antiquated play. The furniture was of mahogany and leather, the standard lamps were of brass. Mirrors were bevelled, invitations were propped on the mantelpiece. There was the occasional piece of chinoiserie. The prevailing colours were russets, maroons and browns. The floor coverings were Persian kilims on top of carpet, which, as is invariably the case, imparted an overstuffed atmosphere – and this despite the fact that the whole of the ground floor was one single room. Fustiness was of the order of things and revival was the style, without there being any real indication of what it was that was to be revived.
Until those farceurs – Dorian and his guest – entered stage centre, or rather, Dorian tumbled backwards down a couple of stairs, because Baz was attached like a lamprey to the front of his face. They fetched up by the mantelpiece, Baz still sucking and chomping and flailing, while Dorian remained sufficiently pliant to give the impression of compliance.
Coming up for air and seeing his own contorted face in the mirror acted on Baz like a cold douche. He straightened up and rubbed his face with his hands. Have you got a cigarette? he asked and, on receiving one, lit up and inhaled big drags of bromide. He looked about him at the little house full of Little England, and his nostrils flared with the scent of rat. Dorian, he began, Henry told me about a girl on the Côte d’Azur… there was one, wasn’t there?
—Isn’t there always? Baz’s host was, preposterously, pouring himself a small glass of sherry from a decanter on a sideboard.
—Henry… er… implied that you gave her the virus – apparently she died of pneumonia.
—That’s absurd. It would merely be a coincidence, even if I had in fact – rather than Henry’s fancy – done the deed with her.
—But you’re positive, right?
—Absolutely certain. Sherry?
—No, no. Baz waved him off and threw himself down in an armchair. You know I don’t drink any more – why d’you go on about it?
—Sorry.
—And you know full wel
l what I mean by positive. C’mon, Dorian, get real.
—Ha ha. That’s rich, Baz, priceless. Get real – it should be the Gray family motto. Yes, I know what you mean, and look, believe me, I feel for you and Henry and Alan, I do. All the more, I sometimes think, because I don’t have the virus myself. What do they call it – survivor guilt?
—B-but how…? How was it possible? Baz got up and began to pace. You had sex with Herman, you shared the works with us all… and yet you –
—Look, Baz, what is this? It just happened that way. It’s almost as if you want me to be ill.
—No no, of course not, that would be disgusting! Baz had fetched up back by Dorian, and simply because he knew he could he cupped a cheek and rubbed the side of that perfect nose with his thumb. I’m sorry, he said, sorry for accusing you – it’s only that there have been so many rumours over the years.
—Baz, has it ever occurred to you that most of them are a function of jealousy? After all, given the opportunity, you can feel pretty possessive about me…
—Yes, yes, I s’pose that’s true. I’m sorry. And feeling the need to be still more shriven, Baz sought again the lips of his confessor. They took off each other’s jackets and unbuttoned their shirts. Baz would have gone further, but Dorian reached for a wooden box on the mantelpiece. I’m going to have a hit, he said.
—What? Baz was appalled, incredulous.
—I’m going to have a hit, a speedball, and then I’m going to give you a blowjob like you’ve never had before; watch me.
—Oh Jesus, oh no, Dorian… I can’t cope with this… I’ve been clean for years, I don’t need this… I don’t want this…
Dorian withdrew a glistening thing of smoked glass and steel from the box. Look at this, he said, it’s an antique works, it’s so finely calibrated that your blood pressure alone will flush the thing – beautiful, isn’t it.
—Oh God, oh no, grant me the courage… Baz muttered.
—And I’ve got pure stuff, amps, pure coke, pure smack, just the thing.