The Fabrications

by Baret Magarian

  ‘Well, that wasn’t very sensible; it’s always best to keep one’s cool...’

  ‘Mark Redhill will never make another film, and he’ll probably go down for GBH...’

  ‘He looked like he was going to explode; I wish I’d had a camera...’

  ‘I think it’s refreshing; I would have done the same if I’d thought of it...’

  ‘What about Ruby’s remarks about how we should stick together?

  Do you think she had a point?’

  ‘Who cares? The important thing is that it was entertaining...and we have Babel to thank for that, even if nobody has ever heard of the little prick.’

  These remarks and many others poured out for several minutes, in a cacophonous whirl. The emcee had long ago given up the attempt to restore order and he just looked sadly at Oscar, with an expression that, infinitely more eloquently than words, spoke of equal parts despair and futility. Oscar tried to smile back, filled with baroque levels of guilt.

  The uproar that had had its origins in Oscar’s speech now gave everyone an opportunity to express opinions they would normally have shied away from. Muckraking and the unbridled expression of disgust had a context which made them permissible. All the pent-up fury, jealousy and dissatisfaction that normally remained repressed found various outlets and the unsayable was said:

  ‘Mark Redhill’s film was so bad I heard even the projectionists were refusing to run it.’

  ‘Pebald War’s spaghetti coat hangers are about as interesting as my mother-in-law’s dandruff. I think he should leave his brain to science – before he dies.’

  ‘Philip Crumb has soiled his nappy. Get Vixen to squeeze in a few shots.’

  ‘That reminds me: Twitter should be called Shitter.’

  ‘If I get a showing at the Earl, I naturally expect an offer from the Norbury because they both like that kind of soulful stuff that I do...and I am a genius. My work drips with derelict luminosity.’

  Alastair Layor looked on dispassionately.

  Willy Nargall, still seated at his table, stared into the remains of his cappuccino in disbelief. He examined the rim of the cup. An incredible concoction, he mused. The frothed-up milk, the encrusted edges of the cup that are revealed as the coffee is depleted, a moon’s surface of contours, a dinosaur...He was lost in abstractions. He glanced back at the platform.

  That was good, he thought, that was really fucking good.

  Photographers were blinding Oscar with flashes.

  In between flashes Oscar looked ahead dumbly. To the right, near the stage, a man was fondling a woman’s breasts. To his left, toward the exit, a woman was feeding a Labrador some quiche lorraine. Oscar’s eyes rolled from side to side. The emcee spluttered into the microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen...’

  Then the PA went dead.

  At that instant Ryan Rees, who had been watching the whole thing on CCTV, rubbing his hands together, entered the function room, accompanied by a stocky henchman in his employ named Edwin. Oscar was retrieved from the stage and marched off. Everything was suddenly very confusing: the continuing camera flashes, Ryan Rees at his side babbling incessantly in his ear (when does he ever switch off, thought Oscar; is it that, at the end of his busyness, there is nothing?), the presence of Edwin, his flaccid face looking on stupidly, the floor splattered with food and wine, the bawling voices. But in another moment Oscar was gone, safely ensconced in the toilets.

  While Oscar emptied his bladder, Rada Bhat and someone else were in the middle of a heated exchange:

  ‘He’s obviously a nut job. What pretentious steaming duckshit. Did you understand a word? Who the hell is he? Has anybody ever heard of him? No. Has anybody ever seen his work? No. I’ll turn him into taramasalata.’

  ‘He’s a buffoon, a dolt. What was he trying to say? It was so... boring! So...what’s the word? Boring, that’s it. Who the hell invited him? Is there any more of that grappa?’

  Others spoke more positively of Oscar, among them Anna, dwarfed by Ernst, the lover of horses. She was with some journalists.

  ‘I got talking to him before the meal. I thought he was very nice. I didn’t expect that performance, though. I’d heard of him, seen him on TV. But I liked what he said. It woke all the fat cats up. It was unexpected. I think we should give him a marzipan medal. He’s either a loony or a genius.’

  Willy Nargall was holding forth magisterially.

  ‘I suggested that he do a bit of lashing out and I have to take credit for that, but I can’t deny he did a very good job. And allied to some mystical tish-tosh that was rather effective, under the circumstances. The man obviously thinks he’s some kind of messiah. Let him. At least he wasn’t a bore. The same can’t be said for the rest. Cuban cigar?’

  (Willy Nargall’s version of events not only exaggerated the importance of his role, it also left out the fact that he had been asked by Ryan Rees to sit next to Oscar, to befriend him, and – finally – spur him on into rubbishing the whole evening, in accordance with Rees’s wishes. Rees had been worried Oscar might get cold feet and he knew that Willy Nargall’s remarks would help to keep Oscar on course. Nargall and Rees were bosom acquaintances.)

  The debate about Oscar raged on.

  He was eventually whisked away in a stretch limousine to a party in Hampstead. The banquet broke up at two in the morning, the photographers drifted away, pleased with the evening’s harvest, the celebrities continued to drink at nearby clubs, and the waiters were left to clean up the mess. By the end everything had fused into a bloated, drunken quiescence. Eventually this dissipated into sleep. The journalists submitted their copy to their editors, and London promptly heard about Oscar’s performance in the morning. And pictures of him were plastered all over the papers and the Internet. Some of the phone footage was posted online and clever people re-edited the footage in clever ways and the wrestling match was slowed down and speeded up and fragmented into repeating loops of ever-increasing manic energy, accompanied by the configurations of demented drum machines and screamed lyrics about dismemberment.

  The most controversial artist of the year did indeed turn out to be Cyril Vixen. He eventually used his prize money to pay for his hospital expenses.

  *

  Alastair Layor, the disillusioned theater director, left the Hilton feeling disappointed. He would have liked to have spoken to Oscar personally. A feeling of futility enveloped him as he climbed into a taxi. During the ride to his house, in Kentish Town, the feeling deepened and settled. He couldn’t seem to shift it. When he got out of the taxi he walked off without paying. The driver caught up with him as Layor fumbled with the keys to his semi-detached house, and demanded his fare. Layor gave him a fifty-pound note, murmured, ‘Keep the change,’ and walked off, as if in a trance.

  Once inside his house, a house filled to bursting point with possessions, saturated with echoes from the past, existing, as it were, more in the past than in the present, loaded down by objects and books and letters and papers and photographs and dust – a house that was already a museum – he felt significantly worse. Oscar’s speech was very much on his mind as he sat down in his armchair and lit a cigarette. This man Babel, he thought, is right. It is time to cut through the pretense, the gimmicks, the absence of soul, the marketing tricks. What we need is some chastity, some order, sober mathematics, some Bach. Men like me, he reflected, have added to the confusion, creating visions of nihilism in theaters, unwittingly making suffering glamorous. Enough of this impurity; it’s time for a change, some simplicity, the simplicity of a corpse in a living room, with a halo of seedy light around it, the light cast from a suburban lamp.

  He sat very quietly in his chair, the smoke stirring around him like a slowly spreading cancer. He inhaled on his cigarette, got up and walked toward a mirror. He stared into it, studying his face: a pair of sunken eyes, like grapes sinking into cream on a hot day, a slightly anaemic complexion, wiry locks of perpetually unkempt hair, a long, thin nose whose nostrils were disproporti
onately large. In his face a constant war was waging between alertness and lethargy.

  After staring for a few more moments into the mirror he began to ask himself if he really knew his face, its contours, creases, curves, patterns. Does this face embody me? Does it represent me, the caverns inside containing the past and the inscrutable workings of my life? How I hate this house. How I hate the dungeon that this place has turned into. It used to teem with life and people and talk of changing the world, dreams and plans for revolution, for an artistic nucleus of like-minded spirits. Now every night, when I walk through that door, I feel stale air shooting down into my lungs.

  He sat down in his chair again. He stayed there, his brain misting over, his thoughts amorphous and meaningless. But when he eventually crawled out of this cavity of time a solution came to him, or an act of desperation masquerading as a solution.

  He got up, roused himself, and, moving quickly, started gathering a few things – scraps, photographs, books, papers – and bundled them into a suitcase barely large enough to contain everything. What was it that Babel had said? Perhaps we have lost the wonder that must accompany our acts of love, our prayers.

  He began writing a note to himself full of dark eloquence.

  Dear Ali,

  The time has come to jettison the past. If your eye bothers you, pluck it out; if your past bothers you, pluck it out; if your house bothers you, burn it down. Conventional morality dictates that pyromania is wrong; my morality dictates that this house is wrong. This house is a prison of memories and past brilliance that now hounds and tortures me. Isn’t psychoanalysis always trying to make us come to terms with our past? Isn’t it always the past that causes our present problems; it mangles new relationships, new projects. If we are scarred we are scarred not by the future but by the past, so we must disengage. I want my innocence back; I want my wonder back. The wonder that accompanies acts of love, as Babel said. A taste of wine. A voice singing in a chapel. A new beginning. That’s what I want.

  When I was at the Gate doing The Balcony, doing The Nursery, I was happy recreating emotion, but wasn’t it ultimately just synthetic, unreal? Who cares about improvisation if the performance is solid without it? Why build up histories for fictitious characters? Why have fictitious characters in the first place?

  It’s time to do something honorable: Pick up litter, save a whale, feed and clothe a child, plant a tree. I can no longer see the value of making people stagger to the bar in the interval because they have been moved and need a whiskey. Why do people cry when they watch Hamlet and not when they see a man dying in the street? Why this readiness to respond to art and not life? Let the critics pursue their trainspotting; let the academics pursue their learning; let the actors pursue each others’ orifices. I can’t do it anymore, take part in this. I’ve had enough. And in order to make a clean break, I must shrug off conventional morality. No one will be hurt I promise. I’ll call the fire brigade as soon as the flames are up and running. As for the damage, nature will take care of it, reinvent itself; it always does. I’ll keep a few fragments for myself. Then take to the road. I have no strings to hold me back.

  Finally I wish to make it clear that if I set this place on fire I do it out of self-preservation. I want to kill the demons; who doesn’t, except all those who live off them in some capacity.

  Yours fondly,

  Ali.

  He found some old newspapers. He found a box of matches. He lit one shakily, dropped the flame into the papers, grabbed his case and moved off. As he was stepping over the threshold into the corridor, the telephone rang. It was coming up to three in the morning. He was suddenly in a panic, not knowing what to do. Should he answer it? Why not? The fire would take a little time to get going. Very calmly, he walked down the hallway to the little table where the phone sat and picked it up.

  ‘Ali? It’s Nero. What did you make of this man Babel?’

  ‘I liked him. He was different...different.’

  ‘We’re over at this place called “Baby Go-Go.” Want to join us? I’m with some of the models.’

  ‘Which models? The models of temperance and virtue?’

  ‘Can you drop by?’

  ‘Must go, something’s burning.’

  Smoke was gathering in the corridor.

  He stepped outside, walked some paces down the street and watched the house in horrible fascination. Was there still time to save it? As he was considering the full temerity of what he had done he glanced up at the sky. A few stars were twinkling. The expanse of the sky was otherworldly and serene; an extraordinary silence reigned. The silhouettes of the houses reminded him of backdrops in Balinese theater.

  There was a loud explosion, the sound of breaking glass and the first eruption of the fire had happened. Smoke seeped out of the shattered windows of the living room like liquid from a cracked bottle. Layor took out the hastily written note and cast an eye over it, reassessing its strange logic. He threw it aside and walked back inside the house. Inside, from the corridor, he peered into the living room, now a spectacle of swirling brilliance. He was coughing violently, his lungs felt as if they’d been dipped in soot. He watched the fire for a few more morbidly alive moments. The generated heat was fantastic, causing everything in turn to ignite even though the flames had direct contact with only a part of the room’s contents. A chair became a ball of light, his bookcase dissolved in a golden blur. A marionette, delicately made and grasping some flowers, succumbed to the flames and Layor watched as its face perished in the blaze. He grasped the wooden door handle and yelped – it was scorchingly hot. Yanking out a handkerchief he pulled the door to with its assistance, then dialed 999.

  An age went by until he was finally able to say, ‘My house is burning.’

  ‘Address, sir?’

  ‘32 Montpelier Grove, NW5. That’s Kentish Town. Please come quickly.’

  ‘And your name, sir?’

  ‘Why do you need that? My house is burning down.’

  ‘Your name sir?’

  ‘Ali Layor. L. A. Y....’

  ‘That’s all right sir. The fire engines will be with you as soon as possible.’

  Layor slammed the phone down. He rushed into the kitchen and filled a bucket with water. Spilling most of it, he hurried back. As he opened the door he was confronted with flames of a different cast, stronger and wilder. His eyes were stinging and streaming. He couldn’t believe the speed with which the flames had spread. He poured the water into the inferno, and it had precisely no effect; he slammed the door, from under which blackened smoke oozed upwards. Hacking violently he staggered out into the street again. He drew an agonized breath of air. In the seconds it had taken him to shut the door and get out, the fire, as glimpsed through the broken glass, revealed its true, infernal dominion over matter. Panic hurtled through him, sabotaging his brain, turning his body hollow.

  A few people had congregated and were watching the display excitedly. They approached him.

  ‘What happened?’ someone asked.

  Layor kept his mouth shut. In another moment the whole of the ground floor was in its insane billowing grip. He thought he had it all under control. This was not what he’d intended. He would have been miles away, having phoned the fire brigade from a safe distance. Now here he was, at the scene of his own crime, splintered by shame and remorse. All he wanted now was to save his house. He had made an awful, mind-boggling mistake. How could he have lit that match? He found it hard to believe that something so terrible could have had its origins in a single safety match. Suddenly he realized that the note he had written to himself had to be found. After all, what it said was incriminating. He scrambled around for it.

  More and more people had emerged out of their sleep. Layor hated them – they were so inconsiderate, so vulgar and prying. He reflected – bitterly – that even now he had created a piece of epic theater for the masses. He had laid on a glamorous spectacle for them, non-paying customers. At last a fire engine came into view. At the sight of it he reg
ained some calm. There was still time to save his house; they could do it. He looked around again for the note but couldn’t see it. In his turmoil he thought someone had picked it up and would shortly use it as evidence against him. My beautiful house, my lovely house, what was I thinking? There was another loud shattering as the first floor became a swirling pulse of light. Black smoke swept upwards, with swaggering power. Even then, when his life was being redefined in front of his eyes, when he was confronted directly with the fragility of things, Layor could not overlook the awe and beauty of this natural force, towering above infinitesimal (as he thought) men like himself. He felt humbled. He felt scared. He felt alive. He felt he could work again. He felt innocent before the sight of destruction. He felt a million things.

  The firemen got out and set up with remarkable speed and soon their hoses were spewing thick jets of water into the fluttering pit ahead of them. One of them came up to Layor and looked into his eyes.

  ‘Any idea how it started?’

  ‘No, no. I was upstairs and I smeled something burning, and I wanted...I came down and the front room was already in flames, I only just managed to phone.’

  ‘No one inside?’

  ‘No, no. I live on my own. You can put it out?’

  ‘It’s already pretty far advanced; that doesn’t help. We can stop it, but we may not be able to limit the damage much. The other problem is that by the looks of it, there’s a lot of wood in the house. We should be getting some back-up in a moment.’