That's right, William,' said Keith. 'But I've worked on my power. It's an improved Keith Talent you're looking at tonight. A more complete darter. Still, you know what they say. Trebles for show, doubles for dough. You can get all the máximums and ton-forties in the world but if you can't kill them off, if you can't stick it in at the death -'
Keith coughed for a few minutes. He wasn't on TV or anything. Far from it: the garage, the dusty morning light. He was sitting slumped on a cardboard box, in a posture of weary meditation. Just now on the phone Dean had given him some chastening news. Guess who was in the other half of the draw for the Sparrow Masters. Chick Purchase, whom Keith hated. Chick, whose very name tasted in Keith's mouth like hospital food. To tell the truth, Keith was looking and feeling distinctly seedy. In fact he had a wall-eyed hangover . . .Not that he'd tarried overlong at Trish Shirt's. Clive was still sniffing about the stockroom, looking for a good place to lie down, when Keith reeled back out of there. But then he had stopped by at the Golgotha for a pensive glass of porno. And later, around five, he had gone back to Trish Shirt's. On the other hand - as against that - you wouldn't catch him going there again. No way.
Seedily he peered round the garage, feeling its dust in his throat. He lit another cigarette. The bottles of drink on the workbench he now viewed with contempt. He generally found a vodka or two quite refreshing at this hour (it was ten in the morning), but he wouldn't be touching a drop, not now. No danger. It would be Lucozade until Friday. He had his darts match coming up — an away fixture at the Foaming Quart in Brixton, at Brixton's Foaming Quart — and he found, as he got older (and like the planet he was getting older at a peculiar rate), that darts was a stern mistress. Take this morning. Throw a dart? He couldn't even hold one. He couldn't even lift one. And Dean Pleat was expected with the van at ten-thirty.
As they peered seedily about, Keith's eyes registered certain items scattered among the debris and the contraband. They lay where he had
first hurled them; vacuum-cleaner, coffee-grinder, ironing-board,
iron. What were his plans for these appliances? When feeling at his most rancorous he thought that on a Wednesday or a Saturday, if he happened to be passing, he might dump them for ten quid on the tinker in Golborne Road. Now he reconsidered. Maybe that was just more short-end money, just more small thought. That time in her flat, when he gashed his thumb, with that screwdriver. She dressed his wound, while he stared into the brown sluice between her breasts. TV, Keith speculated. Brings them closer together innit. Like a bond. He remembered the taste of her money in his mouth and the way she put it there. A nauseous gust ruffled his head and seemed to clear it; he bent forward and whispered, with certainty, 'She . . . she has need of me.' Yes she did. In a way that went beyond his known parameters, she — she had need of him.
Keith stood up, and began to pace the floor, his hands clasped behind his back. In this matter of posh birds Keith was, after all, by no means inexperienced. There had been the odd housewife in his window-cleaning and petty-theft period (Keith with ladder, bucket, and unreliable smile), the odd daughter too when he was on stake-outs for the local firm, appearing at the front door with some choice plausibility or other. Keith knew that some of these rich ladies liked a bit of rough; but they didn't all like it, not by any means. A lot of people had difficulty with this point. Try drumming some sense into Norvis and Thelonius. They thought that all white women liked black men; they thought that the only ones who didn't, or pretended not to, were racist. Misguided, sadly misguided, thought Keith sadly. Some women didn't like otherness; they didn't like the other, when it came to the other. Hope Clinch, now: there was a perfect example of a rich lady who didn't like a bit of rough. They looked right through you and out the other side; for them you were nothing, not even animal — you were nothing. And Keith knew very well that he was a bit of rough, relatively speaking, at least for the time being.
On the whole he found posh skirt shockingly arrogant in bed, always wanting to get on top and other rubbish, and often drawing the line, if you please, at some of Keith's most favoured stunts. There was, for instance, that mad bitch in South Ken. Miranda. She was at least forty, and a wild one. Single in those days, Keith had spent many a night in her mews bedroom being oiled and teased and clawed. It went on all summer and Keith nursed high hopes of the relationship: a car, maybe, a cash gift or at least a loan. But he went off her, right off her, after she got the police round that time, when Keith paid a call on her one night, with some pals. All right, it was late (he remembered switching the car lights off on the way there), and - okay - things were taken (namely goods, drink and liberties) and it looked bad for a minute there when they formed that queue behind him. But to scream so loud the neighbours called the filth in: that wis betrayal. Soon after that she changed her phone number and went away for a while. Keith was still in a state of high indignation when he showed up with the van and the boys (the same boys) and started bitterly stripping the house.
Keith sighed. Tomorrow he would take Nicola's stuff to GoodFicks in Cathcart Road. They would, of course, cheat Keith, and, having brought it all home, he would have to take it all back again. The original faults would perhaps be corrected, but new ones would also be introduced. You had to do everything, and pay for everything, at least twice; that was the way it was. Raising a yellow finger to his lower lip, Keith pondered the whole future of cheating. Cheating was his life. Cheating was all he knew. Few people had that much money any more but it was quite clear that they had never been stupider. The old desire for a bargain had survived into a world where there weren't any; there weren't any bargains. Unquestionably you could still earn a decent living at it, at cheating. Yet no one seemed to have thought through the implications of a world in which everyone cheated. The other morning Keith had bought five hundred vanity sachets of Outrage, his staple perfume. At lunchtime he discovered that they all contained water, a substance not much less expensive than Outrage, but harder to sell. Keith was relieved that he had already unloaded half the consignment on Damián Noble in the Portobello Road. Then he held Damian's tenners up to the light: they were crude forgeries. He passed on the notes without much trouble, in return for twenty-four bottles of vodka which, it turned out, contained a misty, faintly scented liquid. Outrage! The incident struck Keith as a sign of the times. Everyone was cheating. Everyone was cheating — because everyone was cheating. Poor Keith, and the tragedy of the commons ... In such times the thoughtful man looked elsewhere: to his darts. Meanwhile, and always accepting that he might taste defeat on the oché (that was darts after all, making the game what it was), the cheating situation called for readjustment, for daring, for vision. Keith would have to cheat more, cheat sooner and cheat harder than the next guy, and generally expand the whole concept of cheating.
He picked up the darts and threw. Hah! a 20, a 5 and a I: 26 - the joke throw. As he plucked the darts from the board Keith rehearsed his sneer of incredulous amusement and acknowledged the jeers of the crowd: even Keith was human. That was the only thing wrong with darts. That was the only thing wrong with cheating. You couldn't cheat at darts. No way.
There was the sound of a van outside. He recognized the faulty silencer.
'Keith!' yelled Dean.
'Dean!' yelled Keith. 'Okay. Let's go to workl'
The days passed. Though making himself no stranger to pub or club Keith drank nothing and worked hard because of the life that was in him. He sensed the pulse and body of the street-trade and heard the cars lowing in the furrows. Like new corn the young Swedes and Danes formed lines at his stall, and were reaped. He walked dog and burped baby and drew the keening of wife after his will. The hot macadam pulled on his shoes, like desire, and he had the surety a man knows when there is a sickly Saudi granny in the back of the Cavalier. He harkened to the chirrup of fruit-machine and the tolling of pinball table, humped the dodgy goods and defrayed life's pleasures with sweat of brow and groin and armpit, knew also the firm clasp of Analiese's ankles around
his neck, the coarse reassurance of Trish Shirt's hair in his fist. And ever dazed from staring at the sun, the source of all generation. Heaven and earth was teeming around him. And how should this cease?
Keith drove up the dead-end street and braked with needless violence. He didn't park, although a space was available. He doubleparked. Then he emerged — in flared toreador pants, halfsmock shortsleeved darts shirt, oxblood cowboy boots.
The door buzzed open for him. Keith lugged the stuff up the stairs. Despite the heat, the journey seemed a lot shorter than it had the time before. Just goes to show: peak fitness. He climbed the final flight, dropped his cargo in the hall, and moved through . . . and moved through the intoxicating emptiness of the four large rooms. It reminded him of something. What? Oh yeah. Burgling. He called her name — the trisyllable this time. Then he returned to the hall and saw the stepladder, the tipped skylight. He ascended slowly into the brilliant photosphere. As the colours dripped from his vision, he saw a brown elbow, and a brown shoulder, and the rest of her, lying there in white underwear.
'Hello,' said Nicola Six.
Hello, thought Keith Talent.
Incarnacion is melting to me, but very slowly, on some glacial time scale. I am appreciably less frightened of her now. It's funny who has the power to frighten, and who has not.
Tall, broad, handsome, queenly, Incarnacion wears black at all times. Some of her outfits have been recently purchased; others are silvery-grey with use. There is probably enough steady death in the hills of her native Andalucía to keep Incarnacion in black for the rest of her life. How old are these Spanish ladies, when they make the big switch to black?
She is coming round to me. The hiring of Auxiliadora - that disgraceful solecism — we have started to put behind us. I am deferential. I spring-clean the apartment before she gets here. I give face. Christ, as if I need to spend more time kissing ass than I do already.
Incarnacion gives the odd smile now. She isn't exactly communicative yet; but on occasion she can be induced to discuss, or haughtily enumerate, the achievements of Mark Asprey.
Like Kath Talent, who is a worried woman, I have been consulting the proper papers. A great deal of comment (most of it stodgily Pharisaical), some analysis (jovial stuff about the verification procedures) — and no news, not of a geopolitical nature anyway. The Gulf, Israel of course, Germany of course, Hungary, Cambodia and so on. But no news. I'll have to go to Queensway for a Trib.
The television is even worse. Those glamorous ladies read out the bulletins as if they're fronting Blue Peter or Jackanory. The bright smile of kindergarten kindnesses. Endless human-interest pieces about the weather. Soap and sitcom. Oh, and a quite incredible amount of darts. There's practically a whole channel of it, a whole network of darts.
The weather is certainly playing along and doing its bit. Yesterday I went for a walk with Guy in the park. Above, the clouds were moving with preternatural speed; you felt as if larger units of weather were passing overhead like meteorological discs on a chart — months, entire seasons sweeping by in less than thirty seconds. And great heat. The clouds sped, and not just laterally either. They seemed to bounce and romp and tumble. Yes, there was definitely something puppyish, something almost faggy, going on up there, when like plays with like.
At one point as I walked under a tree I felt the warm kiss of a voluptuous dewdrop on my crown. Gratefully I ran a hand through my hair - and what do I find? Birdshit. Pigeonshit. I'm feeling okay for once, I'm feeling medium cool, and a London pigeon goes and takes a dump on my head. It had this effect on me: despair. I swore and stumbled around, bedraggled, helpless, the diet of a London pigeon being something that really doesn't bear thinking about. I mean, what the digestive system of a London pigeon considers as waste . . . Guy laughed briefly, then fell silent and produced a skyblue handkerchief (used but clean: in bold contradistinction to a London pigeon, Guy's wastes would be clean). From his height he dabbed at the quick-drying matter. He did this unsqueamishly, and with delicacy. 'Hold still,' he told me. I tried. I put an arm around his waist to steady myself. But the top of my head doesn't really bear thinking about either, what with the writing I now find on my pillow at dawn, and the daddylonglegs that come and gather in my brush.
Later we sat at a sidewalk table and drank coffee. Around us young Arab husbands grumbled while their wives shopped. That mustache grumbled at this mustache. This mustache grumbled at that mustache.
'Written anything recently?' I asked him.
Guy paused and smiled and flinched. 'Yes, I have actually, Sam, Poetry,' he said.
'Sorry. I don't handle poetry,' I said daringly (and who does these days?). But I offered to take a look at it anyway. I know what his poetry will be about. What poetry is always about. The cruelty of the poet's mistress.
I myself attempt a call to Missy Harter at Hornig Ultrason. Barbro McCambridge's secretary Olivia eventually puts me through to Barbro. Next, Janit Slotnick's secretary Rosalind puts me through to Janit. At this point I am a mere secretary away from Missy herself; but that's as far as it goes.
I negotiate with Janit and her infuriating voice. She wants a sample. I offer to Fed-Ex - or even Thrufax - the first three chapters to her. Janit says okay, but she also wants a treatment. I try to conceal the difficulties this would involve me in. I suggest a 'projection'. We compromise on an outline.
I could stall, but for how long? Money anxieties are starting to smirk and gibber at me - and an artist shouldn't have to work under that kind of pressure. I want patronage. True, I get some free meals at the Clinches', and Lizzyboo, I hope, will insist on going Dutch when I take her to the movies. But Keith's darts lessons, rounds of drinks at the Black Cross, little presents for Kim — I have overheads.
I guess I could just wing it. But all I know for sure is the very last scene. The car, the car-tool, the murderer waiting in his car, the murderee, ticking towards him on her heels. I don't know how to get to the dead-end street. I close my eyes, trying to see a way — how do writers dare do what they do? — and there's just chaos. It seems to me that writing brings trouble with it, moral trouble, unexamined trouble. Even to the best.
I know. I'll ask Nicola. She already has an outline. She can damn well do it.
No news, but plenty of rumour. Where do they come from, all the rumours? A kind of inverse scepticism takes over, when there's no news.
An Apollo object, ripped loose from the asteroid belt, is heading toward us at ten miles per second. It's so big that when its leading edge hits, if it hits, its trailing edge will be up there where the aeroplanes fly.
A unique configuration of earth, moon and sun will cause hemispherical flooding. There will be sunquakes, and superbolt lightning.
A nearby supernova will presently drench the planet in cosmic rays, causing another Great Extinction.
Oh, and nuclear weapons: those dinosaurs.
The supernova stuff strikes me as a pure definition of rumour. How do we know about the supernova until we can see it? Nothing, no information, can reach us faster than cosmic light. There's a speed limit up there. The universe is full of signs, circled in red, saying 186,287.
And let's not forget the Second Coming, also awaited, in quiet confidence. Or not so quiet. On the street the poor rock and sway, like burying parties. All their eyes are ice.
'Call it off, Nicola,' I said (I felt 1 had to say it some time). 'So far, there's absolutely nothing inevitable about what you've entrained. Forget it. Do something else. Live.'
'It's funny, isn't it,' she said, 'that there's nothing more boring, in any kind of narrative, than someone vacillating over something you know they're going to do. I keep noticing it in the trash I watch and read. Will the spy come out of retirement for one last big mission. Will the gangster heed his wife's warnings or go for the clinching bank job. It's a nightmare sitting through that stuff. It's dead, dead.'
'Is it necessarily such a drag?' I said, sparing a protective thought for my paragraph about Guy and the telep
hone call. 'Sexual vacillation is okay, surely.'
'Oh yes. Will the priest succumb to the Jezebel? Will the gypsy seduce the virgin? These are questions that deserve question marks. They are the story. With the other stuff there's no story until they're out of the way.'
I said uneasily, 'But you're not in a story. This isn't some hired video, Nicola.'
She shrugged. 'It's always felt like a story,' she said.
Nicola was sitting opposite me, by the table and the telephone, in her white dressing-gown. The dressing-gown had been washed recently, and now it was the elderly wicker chair that looked used and intimate and Nicola-steeped. She folded her legs up beneath her. She had sat curled that way for many, many hours of her life here: introspections, piercing boredoms, incensed outwaitings. But with me she can let her hair down.
'Has Guy been here yet?"
'No. Soon. It's the next but one thing. I'm going to speed things up. Massive escalation.'
'Do you really need Guy? Couldn't you just edit him out?' I felt I had to say this too. For a moment I also felt real alarm that she might accede. If she did, I was looking at a very grim novella. Besides, I'd already Fed-Exed the first three chapters to Janit Slotnick.
'I agree it's a drag in a way but I do need him. Keith can't go it alone. There's not enough in him. Of course it could be managed. Easy. A bungled rape, strangulation. I could have managed that on the first date. The time he followed me home I could have managed that. But what do you think I'm after? A "senseless killing" ? Anyway events are moving now. I just let the next thing happen.'
'Oh yeah. Nicola the determinist. "The next thing." Well how's it going to go? Could you — could you outline it for me?'
She exhaled, in weariness and irritation. I felt the same with Janit. She said, 'Clearly things will progress along two broad fronts. There'll be some intermeshing. I don't like . . . Why am I telling you all this?'