Bodies

by Robert Barnard

  Inside the hall the lighting was low, with lots of coloured spots and a general effect of a disco writ large. It served to camouflage the down-at-heel appearance of the venue, I suppose. If the lighting was low, the music was high—an eardrum-crushing decibel level, doubtless to get us all into apocalyptic mood for the supermen and supergirls who were going to parade before us. I was glad that my seat was well away from the amplifiers. Near would have been unbearable. I located the empty place, towards the end of a row of wooden chairs bolted together just securely enough to satisfy fire regulations, and I slipped past a row of substantial knees and calves to get to it. I sank into it, and wondered whether there had been a programme seller I’d missed seeing, and whether I’d understand the proceedings without.

  “Oh, I didn’t expect to have a friend with me for the show tonight.”

  I turned (nervously, if you’ll believe me) to my right. It was a short, birdlike man, with frizzy fair hair that looked as if it might be dyed, a sky-blue jerkin, and maroon tight trousers. His face wore a seraphic smile of greeting.

  “Good evening,” I said, being able to think of nothing better.

  “I had a friend with me, but we had a tiff outside, and off he flounced. Having got his money back from the box office, which is just so characteristic of Pete. Awfully revealing, don’t you think? Well, I’m glad he did! It just proves that not all change is for the worse.”

  I shuddered to think what I was a change for the better from.

  “Do you come . . . to these do’s often?” I asked, thinking the conversation was beginning to sound like a parody.

  “Championships? Oh yes. I love them. I was at Peebles only last month, and Dumfries and Glasgow earlier in the year. I know all the Scottish stars, and they know me! I’ll certainly be able to wise you up. You’re interested in The Body?”

  “Well . . . Bodies,” I said. I don’t think he noticed the italicization.

  “Aren’t we all? Well, we’ve got a real treat tonight. There’s a Special Exhibition spot by Denny Crabtree. He’s very good—Britain’s number four, or five, I forget which. I’ve never seen him, so I’m really looking forward to it. His picture’s been in all the mags. His pecs are striated beyond belief!”

  “That’s a bonus!” I said heartily, to hide my ignorance of the jargon. “I didn’t see his name on the posters.”

  “No. Only arranged a day or two ago, as I happen to know from a friend who’s one of the organizers. That sold a lot of tickets for tonight, I can tell you!”

  At that point the little man, like a peroxided chaffinch, leant forward and said: “I say, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but there’s a place some of us go to after the show . . . ”

  But the lights had changed to a blaring white spot on the center stage, and I was spared from telling him what I intended doing after the show. The evening’s entertainment had begun.

  Inevitably there was a compère. He was one of those big, over-the-hill men, such as I’d seen outside: an Emeritus Professor figure, I suspected—someone who had once been good. He was gabby too, and hearty, and he introduced the jury and called for a big hand for them, and he announced the Special Exhibition spot for Denzil Crabtree, and he called for a specially big hand for him, and we gave them all big hands, and somehow it was all a bit like being back at a Boy Scouts’ concert. I thought back to Charlie’s description of the musclemen as people who had never quite grown up. Someone ought to be handing round bottles of pop and slices of cherry cake.

  After a great deal of gab, the thing finally got started. The first—and longest—part of the show was the preliminary posing for the men in all the various weight classes. I gathered that some weeding out (not the happiest of metaphors, perhaps) had taken place earlier in the day, but it didn’t feel like that. In the blinding light one after another came on, to a reverent hush from the audience, to display themselves in a series of seven compulsory poses, each designed to show off a different body part (so my little friend informed me, though the body part in question was so puffed up and thrown at one that I think I could have worked it out for myself). The contestants were a pretty mixed bag, from apprentice figures very like young Anatomy Lesson at Jim’s Gym to genuine twenty-stone bone-crushers.

  “Lovely,” said my companion, of one of these latter. “But to my way of thinking he’s not really maxed-out yet. He’s not got the definition of a real champ.”

  I shuddered to think what he would look like when he was maxed out, and wondered, too, what he would look like when he was sixty-five, and presumably maxed in again. The mind had simply become numbed by all the explicit yet somehow anonymous physicality on view when round one came to an end. The sigh of relief was shortlived, however, for it was succeeded at once by round two, in which one after another they paraded again, this time in more relaxed poses. And this gave way, incredibly, to round three, in which they went through it all again in what my friend told me was the free-posing round—this time there was music, and they each chose the poses that emphasized best their strong points. Back they came, in strict order, to the triumphal march from Aida, The Merry Widow waltz, or “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” It was beginning to become a great drag.

  Except that all the swelling and undulating had by now begun to enliven the audience no end. “Show us your back, Lennie,” they would shout, and Lennie would oblige with a back like a shimmering oil-slick. “Biceps!” they would call, and up, obligingly, would swell a breakfast grapefruit. I began to judge them by all sorts of irrelevant criteria: their choice of music, whether their smiles were convincing (they very seldom were—mostly they had the strained quality of a New York waitress at the end of a very long day). My friend treated me to a running commentary, apparently believing that I was into all the jargon. “He’s just cut to ribbons!” he would whisper, or “He is ripped to the bone!” It all sounded rather nasty, like the chat of slaughterhouse men. Naturally the blonded chaffinch had his favourites.

  “Oh, it’s Andy Maclntyre,” he burbled, when we came to about No. 25 in the over 90 kilo class. “I know him from the gym. You should see him doing his cable crossovers!” I was about to ask mischievously if Andy’s hobby was knitting when Birdie went on: “And he’s marvellous at these shows. I just love him. He always looks so fit and healthy.”

  I jibbed a bit at that.

  “I should have thought you could have taken that as read.”

  “But you can’t, though. Haven’t you noticed? Look at their faces, ’specially when they’re waiting to come on. Notice how drawn they look, some of them. Positively haggard, my dear, in some cases! It’s the crazy diets they go in for, and all these steroids. But you don’t get Andy doing silly things like that. He’s a lovely clean boy!”

  After that I looked at the contestants with a new interest, and of course my rinsed birdie friend was absolutely right. (He was also, by now, resting his hand carelessly on my knee, but that’s by the by.) Quite half of them did have a strained, unhealthy look about the face which, even when they were on stage, their stretched smiles failed to hide. It was as if the anabolic steroids and the way-out diets bulked up the bodies but drained the face. Interesting.

  After the main showing of the men, it was the girls’ turn. The compère, by the way, still called them girls, which would have riled my wife no end, but they didn’t seem to mind. A new special jury was empanelled, and was duly given a great hand. There weren’t a great many contestants, and it apparently hadn’t been necessary to weed them out in advance. Apart from the particular sort of posing they went in for, I couldn’t see a great deal of difference between this and your common-or-garden Miss World contest, though I was probably missing all the finer points. We were through in no time, and titles were awarded. My friend on my left side relaxed, but his hand had crept further up my thigh. I crossed my left leg over my right. Birdie sighed.

  Now it was time for Denny Crabtree’s Exhibition. At once there was a renewed air of excitement in the hall. After the compère’s enthus
iastic Gang Show introduction Denny’s tape started, and it was clear that even his music was in a different class. For almost every pose something special was chosen, so that the March of the Gladiators merged into Mars, God of War, which in turn gave way to “Seventy-Six Trombones.” He hadn’t quite had it all reorchestrated for him, as the ice-dancers do, but it had obviously been prepared with great care.

  And Denzil himself?’ I looked first at the face. Even to the most skeptical observer there was no sign of strain or haggardness, only that rapt self-absorption that I had noticed backstage. Presumably, then, he was not knocking back the steroids. And the body under the face? It was undoubtedly splendid. Denzil was not especially tall, by today’s standards, but the body was beautifully proportioned, massive shoulders, tapering, with powerful legs and arms. I suppose you could call him a cover boy.

  “Look at those cuts!” gurgled Birdie beside me. “That man’s got definition.”

  Yet there was a sense, difficult to put into words, of that body being an assemblage of the best-quality spare parts, rather than an autonomous machine—it was glossy, it was a showpiece body, yet it was somehow blank. And that feeling was augmented by the face, smiling convincingly, yet the smile never entering the eyes, as the music changed from The Music Man to Italian Caprice, and then to the Karelia Suite. And through all that classy stuff Denzil presented us with his back, his front, his right side, his left side, his biceps and his pectorals and that curious blank wall behind his eyes.

  “His delts are just phenomenal!” breathed Birdie. “He is so superripped it’s out of this world!”

  Birdie didn’t share my doubts, then, and neither did the rest of the audience. They loved him, and to some extent that love got through to him, penetrated that wall, as perhaps it will with all performers: their love for him tickled his love for himself, and roused him from that self-absorbed dormancy. One could almost imagine that he was purring.

  “They really appreciate him coming,” said my friend. “Without him there’d have been no one top class.”

  After Denny had exhibited himself in some final poses—somewhat anticlimatically, I thought, to “I Know I’ll Never Find Another You”—we got on to the judging. The long line of hopefuls and hopelesses in the first part had been reduced to five, who paraded again. Finally titles were awarded, including an overall title which went to a local worker in the oil industry—an enormous black who looked as if he could hold up an oil rig without any problems. It was a very popular win with the Aberdonians (the aficionados seemed to have very little colour prejudice, unlike our own dear English football fans), and since he looked the sort of guy who might lift his old mum’s sewing machine without making too much fuss about it, it was popular with me too. And so it was with my birdlike friend.

  “It’s his first major title,” he said. “Though of course he’s well known to those of us who potter round the gyms. He’s a lovely chap. He once refused me, but ever so gently. Now, as I was saying earlier, there’s this little place—sort of bistro—where some of us go after the contests . . . ”

  “Sorry,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing, “but I’ve got this date backstage—”

  “Lucky old you!”

  “—with Denzil Crabtree.”

  His face lighted up as some people’s will when you tell them that you’ve shaken hands with royalty.

  “You haven’t! Oh, I say, you couldn’t introduce, could you? I do so admire—”

  “Sorry,” I said. “This is strictly à deux.”

  “Oh, I do understand.”

  And I left him sighing, but sympathetic. He knew all about assignations à deux. Personally I didn’t quite know what to expect from mine. By the time I had pushed and jostled my way through the good-humoured crowd it was quite ten minutes since the contest had finished. After the atmosphere of sweat and oil it was good to breathe fresh air again. By the back door that had previously been unguarded, there was now a contest official, keeping at bay a little knot of fans. I flashed my identification at him, and he nodded, curious but hiding it well. I passed through into the cramped corridors and little rooms. The muted self-contemplation of the pre-contest visit had now given way to some good-humoured but sober celebration of the local man’s victory. He was drinking carrot-juice, and grinning, and propping up the ceiling. But my man was not among the well-wishers.

  My man, in fact, was back in the little room that had been made available to him by the contest organizers. And he was back in the same routine of flexing and posing. On he went: calf and thighs; double biceps to the front; side chest, all done with the same silent perfection that he had shown on stage. And all with that same withdrawn, rapt expression on his face, as if he were practising the disciplines of some Eastern religion. One can take so much of that kind of thing, but by now it had become just too much for me. I walked quietly down the corridor, stood in the little doorway, and thrust my identification before his unseeing eyes.

  “Police.”

  The body began the process of relaxing, and the eyes contracted and stared at my little square of plastic.

  “Sorry?”

  “Police.”

  His mouth opened, and I was quite sure that the blood drained from his face beneath the beautifully even tan.

  “Well, Mr. Crabtree,” I said. “What have you been doing?”

  Chapter 9

  DENNY LOOKED for a moment as if he was going to faint. He sank down on to a bench by the far wall. I closed the door, hoping for revelations while he was in a state of shock. The little room seemed hardly bigger than both of us. I remained standing, hoping that this would give me an advantage. Because after a moment or two Denzil seemed to collect his wits slightly, and decide to make a fight of it. Mentally, I mean. Denny would never, I felt sure, commit his precious body to any physical fray.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I haven’t done anything.”

  His accent was a careful, classless one, middling in pitch, and slightly anonymous, like his bodily perfection. His mother would have said “I ain’t done nothing,” as no doubt Denny did in boyhood, and still might when his back was against the wall. But now it was that neutral “I haven’t done anything.” Self-improvement, I thought, cut both ways. At least if he had said “I ain’t done nothing” it would have been more truthful. One thing that was clear from his behaviour was that he hadn’t done nothing.

  “Well,” I said, “you react remarkably guiltily for someone who has nothing on his conscience.”

  “That was shock,” he said eagerly. “Coming while I was still keyed up for the Exhibition. And I’ve never had anything to do with the police.”

  “Really? Grew up in the East End, hang around Soho, and yet you’ve never had anything to do with the police? That’s a remarkable virginity to have maintained that long.”

  “Who says I hang around Soho? I train in Battersea.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly been to the Bodies office, to be photographed by Bob Cordle.”

  “What if I have? Most of us have been photographed for Bodies. It’s no different from being photographed for Bodybuilding Monthly, or any of those mags.”

  “I didn’t say it was. I think you were one of Cordle’s favourite models, weren’t you?”

  He sat thinking, wondering what the best answer would be. It was as if this was a new pose he was holding.

  “I posed for him a few times . . . sometimes alone, sometimes with a bird . . . a girl . . . It was all above board. I don’t take on anything my agent doesn’t recommend.”

  “So you never did anything . . . a bit way out? Bob Cordle, just to juggle with one possibility, didn’t go in for the small cinema club quickies? Video naughties? Nothing like that?”

  “No, he did not. You obviously don’t know anything about Bob Cordle. He wouldn’t have touched that stuff. Bob was a real gent.”

  “I’m getting just that bit tired of hearing that Bob Cordle was a real gent. Every time someone says it to me, I get that b
it more suspicious.”

  “Well, that’s your problem, mate, because it’s the bleeding truth.” He drew back as if he had blasphemed before a Sunday School class. “Sorry.”

  “So all you ever did for Bob Cordle was pose for him for Bodies magazine?”

  “Right. Clothed. Decent, anyway.”

  “But there is, I suppose, other work around, unclothed, indecent?”

  Here Denzil patently became more uneasy. It was interesting to see how much more difficult his lack of clothing made it to hide that unease. It was a matter of tensing muscles, which I could not fail to register, but which shirt and trousers would have covered.

  “O’ course there is. You know that as well as I do, if you’re in the police. Doesn’t mean I went in for it.”

  “Then you didn’t?”

  “No . . . Doesn’t pay to do that stuff . . . Well, I mean, it pays . . . so I’m told . . . but it doesn’t pay professionally, which is all I care about. Anything a bit off gets you in bad odour with the powers that be in the sport.”

  “Tel me a bit about how you earn your money, then? What sort of thing do you do?”

  “I don’t really earn that much money. It’s a simple life, really. You get sort of devoted to the sport.”

  “And of course your mother earns.”

  “That’s right, she does.”

  “Still, what about training equipment, special diets, all those pills and medical aids?”

  “Oh yes, sure—those things can cost money . . . Well, apart from the posing, I do advertisements.”

  “Your mum says you’ve never been on television.”

  “No, I haven’t, but there’s plenty of other kinds . . . ” He started up. “Here, have you been round badgering my old mum?”

  Quick, this Denzil. I summoned up the courage to push him back on to the bench.

  “She was in when I called on you,” I said, which was not strictly truthful. “So you’ve been on posters, pictured in ads in the newspapers, and that kind of thing?”