The Next Big One

by Derek Des Anges

  “Aren’t I supposed to nag you to do your end of term assignment?” Ben asked, looking for his wallet.

  “Already done it,” Tasneen said. “It’s way easier to concentrate when no one’s punching the walls.”

  “Uh,” said Ben, as they queued up. “Listen, about your brother…”

  “The thing is,” said Tasneen, who clearly wasn’t done, “I don’t think it’s just girls now either. I mean, he’s not bragging about that, but I definitely heard…I know it sounds great, doesn’t it, all homophobes are closet gays or whatever, but the thing is, he’s not.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Ben said, as the queue inched onward with the urgency of a snail, “A…a friend…a friend of mine had a sister who um, who kind of …turned into a bit…well, a bit of a…like your brother…”

  “A bit of a slag,” Tasneen supplied.

  “Right,” Ben said, feeling his legs tense up. “Had a sister who basically…seemed like she’d had a personality transplant. Lots of…bad moods and…weird violent outbursts and…lots of shagging around.”

  He’d thought at the time it was just the natural progression of her increasing departure from the rails when they’d been teenagers, but Stella had said it, had said the words ‘personality transplant’ when he emailed her to tell her how the picnic had gone. And Stella had never fallen out of contact with her.

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Tasneen said, picking up a jelly pot.

  “Nor do I,” said Ben. “I just. Maybe you should get him to have a blood test.”

  Tasneen put the bright red jelly pot back down and said in a very loud voice, “Did I tell you my mum’s going to pay for me to go to MCM next year? I’m going to meet Peter Jackson. If he doesn’t pull out. He pulled out last time.”

  “No,” said Ben, staring straight ahead of him at the coffee price board. “No, you didn’t mention that.”

  “They were doing it on special,” Kingsley explained, putting a bottle of After Eight Special Edition Bailey’s in front of Ben. “Buy one, get one free. My mum likes it.”

  “Doesn’t she like it enough for two bottles?” Ben asked, trying to give it back.

  “No one likes it that much.” Kingsley dragged two carrier bags into the kitchen. “I’m making a roof-burner tonight ‘cos my sinuses are full of clay.”

  “There’s a raffle thing at Gareth’s stupid charity gig,” said Ben, “can I give it away at that?”

  “Do you want you want, man,” said Kingsley, unpacking things. “Shit the bed it’s cold out there.”

  Ben, who’d been ignoring Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam for the umpteenth time from under a duvet and the thickest cable-knit he owned, was of the opinion that it wasn’t exactly warm in here, either, and that he was coming close to kidnapping Minnie for hot water bottle duty.

  “Turnin’ up the thermostat,” said Kingsley, presently. “Happy Christmas, we’re having nineteen degrees now.

  “You are or I am?”

  “These chillies ain’t chopping themselves,” Kingsley pointed out.

  Reluctantly, Ben got off the futon and opened the door to Kingsley’s bedroom, which had once been his own. The walls, blue-painted, had changed their selection of posters, and the duvet cover had changed, on the double bed which fitted so squarely into the tiny space that Ben was never sure how their landlord had managed to get it in there, but there were very few differences since Ben had occupied it a couple of years ago.

  “Mrrp,” said Minnie, from the centre of the bed.

  Ben climbed onto the bed, walked across to the thermostat, and tweaked it.

  Ben climbed off the bed, left the door ajar for Minnie’s convenience, and returned to his pre-warmed perch on the futon.

  “You’re in the paper again,” Kingsley said.

  “You could have pretended that was what the Bailey’s was for,” Ben said, picking up his Macbook.

  “Eh, I’m meant to reward the creative endeavours of idiot children,” said Kingsley, poking his head back out of the kitchen. “Not punish them.”

  Ben politely gave him the finger, and began wading through Facebook notifications.

  “That,” he said, after a while, “is a shit of a lot of Christmas parties.”

  “Could take it to any one of those,” Kingsley recommended.

  “I want to keep my friends,” Ben said, nudging the bottle with his foot. “They’re not trapped in a rental contract with me?”

  “There’s gotta be someone at those things you don’t like.”

  “Loads of people,” Ben admitted, thinking of Gareth, “but I can’t let them know.”

  “Wait until they’re drunk.”

  “Kingsley, that’s a violation of their human right not to drink mint Bailey’s.”

  There was a snort of laughter from the kitchen. “Hey, my mum likes it.”

  “I’m refraining from comment,” said Ben, reaching the end of his notifications, which were at least 65% party. “Really hard.”

  He turned to his inbox.

  To: Ben M

  From: Khoo, Daniel

  Subj: crhistmsa!

  Happy season of talky tacky ffs ornaments and hawkish mawkish autocorrect why would I say hawkish TV specials! It is now December and you are required by law to spend all your waking hours drank drunk drinking oh come on in the company of people you usually cannot stand, which is what I’ve been doing since lunchtime and I can’t feel my feel no my feet. Hello.

  Literally nothing is going to happen this month except varying degrees of drunk. You should join in at some point. Only don’t through throw up this time. Or kiss any drunk diseased girls. The point of being drinking drunk is very bad dancing, you should do more of the that. That is what I am doing right this minute, while wrote writing this. Look. Well, you can’t see it. But I’m doing the marscapone Macbook the fucking Macarena with one arm.

  Oh that was it. Am I still invited to the charity thing in Bethnal Green or did you uninvited me? Uninvited. Uninvite. Stupid phone. The Samsung has been drinking, not me. That’s Tom Waits. Didn’t know I liked Tom Waits did you.

  Also contemplate. Congratulations on retaining an article, it still seems to be on the webbing website, I just made Jenny check. She says hello she doesn’t know you but is sick of the sound of your name. Ignore her she’s drink.

  Ben snorted into the neck of his jumper.

  To: Khoo, Daniel

  From: Ben M

  Subj: re: shitscram

  I didn’t uninvite you.

  Drink water.

  “That,” Sherazi said, “was your last assignment for this term, you’ll be pleased to hear.”

  There was a cautious cheer from the remaining class.

  “I can’t be arsed making a lesson plan for this week,” said Sherazi, sitting back on the front desk, “so we’re not going to do anything particularly taxing. We’re not even going to sit here and glare in unison at Ben Martin for once again treating ‘Publish And Be Damned’ like holy writ, although he is currently winning the crown of Reckless Endangerment of His Own Career from Chantelle, which I never thought I’d say. Chantelle however is winning the ‘highest number of police cautions’ prize this term, so well done, Chantelle, you win the no-prize, please stop annoying the police.”

  There was a collective snort, and Ben felt his cheeks growing hot even after the attention had been moved onto Chantelle.

  “Now the question is,” Sherazi asked, with one of her less merciful smiles, “Do I force you to write an op-ed about the secularisation of Christmas, a huffy tabloid piece about Winterval that’s been recycled from every other piece about Winterval since that never actually happened, or do we play McNae’s Trivial Pursuit on the whiteboard?”

  “M—er, Sherazi,” asked Olivia, who had by some mystery made it to the end of term without dropping out, despite her palpable boredom with absolutely everything she’d been asked to do. “Should you be doing stuff about Christmas at all, isn’t it against your religion?”
r />   There was an immediate hush, which was somewhat spoiled by Tasneen braying with laugher.

  “Shh,” Ben muttered. “I want to hear this.”

  Sherazi raised both her eyebrows and her coffee cup, which in deference to the season had been decorated with a tiny snippet of gold tinsel and some sellotape.

  “Because…I’m an atheist?” she suggested, and took a questioning sip.

  “Er,” said Olivia, plainly confused. “Aren’t you a Muslim though?”

  Tasneen did another loud donkey laugh, stifled it with both hands, and collapsed over her desk.

  “Because…” Sherazi asked, slowly, “I’m Iranian? Is that it?”

  “Yeah?” said Olivia, who seemed certain she was better-informed on this topic than, say, Sherazi herself.

  “Oh,” said Sherazi, with a smile Ben recognised as dangerous. “Well now the class plan for today is an informative lecture about the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the theocracy, and about who had to leave the country when it became a theocracy, and it will include lengthy definitions like ‘Christians’ and ‘Socialists’ and how Papa Sherazi was both of those things.” Sherazi took another sip of her coffee and glanced at the ceiling. “Or,” she offered, “you can accept that you are being incredibly stupid, and instead of some much-needed education on the subject of 20th Century Middle-Eastern politics, we can all watch the slideshow of sea otters that Tasneen put together for us as part of her research project.”

  “Sea otters,” Ifeoma said, “please, sea otters. Sea otters.”

  “Shh,” said Sherazi, holding up a finger. “Olivia has to make this decision herself. She has the power to determine your futures.”

  “Just fucking do it, man,” Chantelle said under her breath, “I want the sea otters and I’m gonna fucking fuck you up if I don’t get them, come on, Oh-live-yah.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I don’t see why—” began Olivia, sullenly.

  “That much is very evident,” said Sherazi, putting down her coffee. “But since you’ve found it in yourself to make personal matters the subject of a classroom question, and since you don’t feel much like accepting when you’ve asked something ignorant which you could have avoided by doing a little research before opening your face, now you’re in a position where you can choose between being momentarily humble, or making everyone in the room hate you.”

  Ben thought how little he wanted to ever, ever be on Sherazi’s bad side.

  “Sea otters, Olivia!” Tasneen called, from the back of the room. “Do it for the sea otters! I spent ages on this!”

  “I don’t have to do this,” Olivia said, abruptly. “My dad’s not paying for this course for you to do this.” She picked up her bag and breezed out of the room, her face already a deep shade of red.

  “Sea otters?” Ifeoma said desperately, when Olivia had slammed the door behind her.

  “Sea otters,” Sherazi.

  To: Ben M

  From: DJ Molly Doll

  Subj: Live Through This @ Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club

  Don’t forget that’s this Saturday! Don’t put anything depressing on the playlist! Don’t get freaked out! Are you still bringing a plus one? I found a plus one! He’s called Steve!

  To: Ben M

  From: Khoo, Daniel

  Subj: Don’t freak out but I’m guessing this isn’t a good sign.

  I got a phone call at work today put through from someone in another country. Guess which one.

  They got the reception number from the website and made a big enough fuss that I said I’d take it, and it’s not every day you get called from Uzbekistan.

  So the thing is, the guy we talked to has a wife, unsurprisingly, because people get married. She wants to know who we are and why he was talking to us. She knows he was talking to us because she’s been through his work email account — she’s not supposed to, but he gave her the password a while back and her English is better than his, so he said she should correct his drafts. Not, apparently, of the one we got — he didn’t want to tell her about that in case she panicked.

  As you’ve guessed by now, the reason she called and the reason she’s been going through his work emails — and as far as I can tell, through a list of everyone he’s emailed that she can get hold of — is because he’s missing.

  Oh and he’s been missing since, which gave me a nasty shock and is going to give you a worse one, the 2nd. The day after your article came out.

  I know what you’re going to say but it seems like “was too ill to participate in the trial” is enough for someone to be able to identify him to someone else. At any rate, it’s been two weeks and no one knows where he’s gone. His wife’s completely freaking out. I’ve emailed Bill but he doesn’t have any clue what we should do here at all.

  Ben lay back down on the futon with his laptop on his chest and hyperventilated. When his lungs had decided they’d reached peak horror, he realised he was effectively having some kind of out of body experience, as he couldn’t feel any part of himself. He felt weirdly calm.

  He stood up, carried the laptop into the bathroom, and stared at the toilet until he could remember what it was called.

  “Fucking shit,” said Ben, aloud.

  He closed his Macbook and laid it on the closed toilet seat.

  He climbed into the shower tray, sat on the damp plastic, and put his head between his knees.

  About three hours later the light faded completely and he was left sitting in the dark.

  An unknown length of time after that, Minnie came in and yowled indignantly about not being fed, and tried to put her backside into his face.

  Ben got up, picked up the Macbook and retreated to the futon.

  To: Sherazi, M A

  From: Ben M

  Subj: Badly need advice

  One of my sources has gone missing and I don’t know what’s happened to him but he went missing directly after my article was put up and I don’t think I was thorough enough at making him anonymous and he’s not in this country so I don’t know if I should call the police or if that makes it worse please help

  He stared at his inbox, willing it to come up with an answer.

  To: Ben M

  From: Sherazi, M A

  Subj: Out of Office Autoreply

  “Shit fuck,” said Ben, putting his hands on his head. “Shitty, shitting, shit fuck.”

  He remained in this uncomfortable position until Kingsley returned, only hauled out of his frantic paralysis by the clump-bang-bang-clump of a bicycle being yanked up the stairs.

  The door burst open, bounced off the wall, hit Kingsley’s bike, bounced off that, and swung to a halt. Kingsley, accompanied by cold air and blowing like a surfacing whale, slammed his bike into place, slammed the door shut, pulled off his beanie, and said in a voice of strained casualness, “So, you’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

  “Nuh,” said Ben, still staring at “Out of Office Autoreply” and willing it to change into something helpful.

  “I said,” Kingsley said peevishly, “you’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

  “What,” said Ben in a faint voice. Maybe it was something to do with Cate; there was absolutely nothing he could think of to say to Kingsley’s ill-advised and apparently unreciprocated attempts at an office romance right now.

  “Well,” said Kingsley, leaning on the back of the folded up futon next to Ben’s head. He smelled of leaf mould and winter, but just underneath was the slightly more comforting smell of cooking spices and beeswax. “I was in the office trying to avoid filling out a whole selection of relocation forms, right…”

  “Uh huh,” said Ben, trying to focus the power of his mind on making both the Out of Office and Daniel’s horrifying email not have happened.

  “…And I got a phone call, right?”

  “Was it from Uzbekistan,” Ben muttered.

  “What? No it was not from Uzbekistan, why the fuck would it—” Kingsley slapped the b
ack of his head. “Anyway. You’re spoiling my story. I took the call, and what do you know? It’s this posh-sounding woman wants to talk to me about you.”

  Ben turned to stare at him, which from this close proximity had an unfortunate side effect of making it look like he was trying to kiss Kingsley on the nose.

  “Oh no,” Kingsley put his hand over Ben’s mouth. “You smell like sick.”

  Ben turned back to the laptop with a muttered apology.

  “She asked me,” said Kingsley, keeping his hand over Ben’s mouth — it was very cold and smelled of the rubber grips on his bike, “to keep an eye on you. Now I thought it was one of your — what’s her name?”

  “Melinda?”

  “Yeah, your step-mum was trying to make sure you hadn’t…well, what you clearly have,” said Kingsley, closing his fingers. “But she goes, ‘don’t let him put out any more silly stories in the papers. Just…keep him concentrating on his studies, perhaps, or the DJ work’. And then she says, ‘just let us know if he has any more urges towards publication’, and offers me, you’ll like this, Ben, she offered me fifteen grand to make sure you don’t happen to fall over and interview any more people.”

  Ben turned again, Kingsley’s hand on his mouth. “What?”

  “See, I said,” Kingsley said, with an air of triumph, “I told her you’d cleaned your shelf in the fridge so I have no motivation to dob you in for anything.” He beamed down at Ben. “Don’t make a liar of me.”

  “Where’s the kitchen spray?” Ben asked Kingsley’s palm.

  “Cupboard under the sink. You wanna brush your teeth again as well.”

  During a set at the Princess, in which Molly informed him that he seemed preoccupied about forty times, Ben busied himself handing out Gareth’s fliers, and trying to concentrate on whether or not his fingers were so noticeably reddened that he should consider buying some of the thing Ina had suggested for concealing bad skin. Derma-something.

  When it was over, he went for a walk.

  It was 3am. It was, according to his phone, one degree above freezing, although it felt some way below that. He could see every cubic millitre of every breath he took, e-shisha or no e-shisha. He went through a whole cartridge.