Orderly at first, my packing became brutal and chaotic. Under the couch I found an unopened pint of rum — hidden there by Felix, probably — and started tackling that too. I jumped up and down on the suitcase after I had seriously gouged my thumb in its catch. At some stage I flopped on to the bed and must have dozed off for a few minutes. The telephone woke me. Suavely I took a slug of rum and lit a cigarette in my own good time.
'Oh Christ. You again.'
'You fuck-up,' said the voice. 'Running back home. Wreck some more lives there. What happened? You skip a day? I saw you bawling out on the street. You're finished. It's all over.'
Now this was a break. He'd really caught me in the mood. With a case like this you have to reach down for the language. It's never far away from me. Drink brings it nearer. I took the phone by the throat, leaned forward, and said, 'Okay, blowjob, your turn to listen. Get some help, all right? Go down to your neighbourhood whacko project or sicko facility or scumbag programme and turn yourself in. You're one sick fuck. It's not your fault. It's your chemicals' fault. It's money's fault. They'll give you some nice free pills and you'll feel all right for a little while.'
'More,'he said. 'I like your style. Big man.. .We'll meet one day.'
'Oh I hope so. And when I get through with you, sunshine, there'll be nothing left but a hank of hair and teeth.'
'We'll meet —'
'We'll meet one day. And when that day comes I'll fucking kill you.'
I cracked the receiver down and sat there panting on the bed. I needed to spit. Uch, I hate making these threatening telephone calls. I looked at my watch ... Jesus. I must have gone to sleep for an hour or more — though sleep might be pitching it a bit high. Sleep is rather an exalted term for what I get up to nowadays. These are blackouts, bub. I upended the rum bottle over my mouth, finished my packing in the sourly twanging light, marshalled my travel documents and buzzed down for the boy.
——————
In the end I had ample time for my farewell to New York. First off, I gave Felix a fifty. He seemed strangely agitated or concerned and for some reason kept trying to make me lie down on the bed. But he was pleased, I hope, by the dough. I love giving money away. If you were here now, I'd probably slip you some cash, twenty, thirty, maybe more. How much do you want? What are you having? What would you give me, sister, brother? Would you put an arm round my shoulder and tell me I was your kind of guy? I'd pay. I'd give you good money for it.
Leaving my bag in the lobby I marched straight off to the House of the Big One, where I ate seven Fastfurters. They were so delicious that tears filled my eyes as I bolted them down. Next I bought a joint, a popper, a phial of cocaine and a plug of opium from a fat spade in Times Square and snuffled it all up in a gogo bar toilet. This is a dumb move, they say, because the spades mix in strong stuff like devil dust with the dope. But where's the economics in that? What they really do is mix in weak stuff with the dope, so that in effect you're only buying a roll-up, a dime-store thermometer, some ground aspirin and a dog turd. Anyway, I snuffled it all up, as I say— and felt a distinct rush, I think, as I came bullocking out of the can.
Urged on by the cars and their brass, I crossed the road and hit the porno emporium on Forty-Third and Broadway. How to describe it? It is a men's room. These 25-cent loop cubicles are toilets, really: you enter your trap, putting money in the slot, you sit down and do what you need to do. The graffiti is written in black magic-marker on yellow cards, to which curious pin-ups are attached. This bitch has a gash so big. Watch the fuckpigs frolic in torrents of scum. Juanita del Pablo gets it in the ass. Who writes these things? Clearly someone on exceptionally cool terms with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, the black janitorial stroll with jinking moneybags . . . First I sampled an S/M item in booth 4A. They got the chick on her back, bent her triple, and wedged a baseball bat in the tuck behind her knees. Then they gave her electric shocks. It was realistic. Was it real? You saw a writhing line of white static, and the girl certainly screamed and bounced. I split before they gave her an enema, which they were billed to do in the scabrous hate-sheet tacked to the door. If the girl had been a bit better-looking, a bit more my type, I might have stuck around. In the next booth along I caught a quarter's worth of film with a sylvan setting: the romantic interest of the piece focused on the love that flowers between a girl and a donkey. There she was, smiling, as she prepared to go down on this beast of burden. Ay! The donkey didn't look too thrilled about it either. 'I hope you're getting good money, sis,' I mumbled on my way out. She wasn't bad, too... Finally I devoted twenty-eight tokens' worth of my time to a relatively straight item, in which a slack-jawed cowboy got the lot, everything from soup to nuts, at the expense of the talented Juanita del Pablo. Just before the male's climax the couple separated with jittery haste. Then she knelt in front of him. One thing was clear: the cowboy must have spent at least six chaste months on a yoghurt ranch eating nothing but icecream and buttermilk, and with a watertight no-handjob clause in his contract. By the time he was through, Juanita looked like the patsy in the custard-pie joke, which I suppose is what she was. The camera proudly lingered as she spat and blinked and coughed... Hard to tell, really, who was the biggest loser in this complicated transaction — her, him, them, me.
Now I come jerking and burping up the portalled steps of Fielding's club, having stopped off for a drink or two on the way. You'd think I'd be in pretty terminal shape by now, what with the rum and the dope and all. But not me. No sir, not this baby. You recognize the type by now? Some people get sleepy when they drink a lot, but not us. When we drink a lot, we want to go out and do things... Never do anything is the rule I try and stick to when I'm drunk. But I'm always doing things. I'm drunk. 'Never do anything': that's a good rule. The world might be a better place — and a lot safer for me — if nobody ever did anything.. . So, as I say, I was in capital fettle when the revolving doors hurled me into the hall — to meet Fielding Goodney, and Butch Beausoleil, the real Butch Beausoleil.
There was a white-haired old robot at the desk, and we shot the breeze for a while as he checked me out on the intercom. I told him a joke. How does it go now? There's this guy and his car breaks down and he—No, hang on. There's this farmer who keeps his wife locked up in the — Wait, let's start again... Anyway, we had a good laugh over this joke when I'd finished or abandoned it, and I was told where to go. Then I got lost for a bit. I went into a room where a lot of people in evening dress were sitting at square tables playing cards or backgammon. I left quickly and knocked over a lamp by the door. The lamp should never have been there in the first place, with its plinth sticking out like that. For a while I thrashed around in some kind of cupboard, but fought my way out in the end. Skipping down the stairs again, I fell heavily on my back. It didn't hurt that much, funnily enough, and I waved away the appalled footman who tried to help me to my feet. I then had a few pretty stern words with the old prong at the desk. He made sure I got there this time all right, personally escorting me to the door of the Pluto Room and saying with a bow, 'This okay now, sir?'
'Fabulous,' I said. 'Look, take this.'
'No thank you, sir.'
'Come on. What's a five?'
'We have a no-tips policy here, sir.'
'Just this once won't harm anyone. No one's looking — come on ... Okay then — fuck off!'
Well that sorted him out. I chugged into the Pluto Room loosening my tie and craning my neck. Boy, was it dark and hot in here. The bent backs of women and the attentive angles of their men stretched down the bar away from me. I took a bit of a toss on a stool-leg and sprinted face-first into a pillar, but stumbled on until I made out my friend Fielding down at the far end. Dressed in a white tux, he was whispering into the nimbus cast by a miraculously glamorous girl. She wore a low-cut silk dress in a razzy grey — it rippled like television. Her ferociously tanned hair hung in solid curves over the vulnerable valves of her throat and its buzzing body-tone. Giving Fielding no time to intercept me, I swanned st
raight up to the girl and kissed her lightly on the neck.
'Hi, Butch,' I said. 'How you doing?'
'Well hi. John Self. An honour,' said Butch Beausoleil.
'How goes it, old sport,' said Fielding. 'Hey, Slick, you look really lit. Now before I forget, here's a present for you.'
He handed me an envelope. It contained an air ticket, New York-London, first class.
The flight's at nine,' said Fielding, 'but you'll catch your plane—I guarantee it. Now, John, you look like you could use a drink.' The kids were on champagne and I soon hollered for another bottle. I spilt a lot of that and hollered for another. Butch was a million laughs — and an obvious goer: you should have seen the way she helped me dab her lap with the napkin, and the way she playfully retrieved the ice-cubes I kept dropping down her front. Whew, the stuff that hot fox was giving out, all miming so fluently with the pornography still fresh in my head. Heat, money, sex and fever — this is it, this is New York, this is first class, this is the sharp end. I was one happy yob up there in the Pluto Room, and then another bottle appeared, and my nose was fizzing with the stuff, and there was another room and terrible confusion, and someone turned me by the shoulder and I felt wetness and could see Fielding's face saying ...
——————
The yellow cab shouldered its way through the streets of New York, a caged van taking this mad dog home. The driver with his flexed brown arm gouged the car through the lights on amber and gunned us out on to the straight. Never do anything, never do anything. I watched his brown arm, the skin puckered and punctured by its lancing black hairs. I watched unfamiliar city acres surge past in their squares. Eventually the flat signs and white lights of the airport began to swish by my face.
'Wha you fly,' said the driver, and I told him.
I was lying. So far as I could tell — from my watch, and from the red streamers of the ticket-books — both my flights had flown. But a squad of surprises awaited me in the expo aviary of the terminal. The departure of the nine o'clock flight had been delayed, thanks to a timely bomb hoax. They had just started reloading the baggage, and expected to be in the air by eleven. I strolled to the first-class check-in bay. First class, they treat you right. 'How many bags, sir?' asked the chick. 'Just the one,'I said, and turned with an obliging flourish. 'Oh, you poor fucking moron.' 'Sir?' 'No, no bags. Just me,' I said with a dreadful smile ... I rang Felix at the Ashbery. He would store my stuff with no sweat. I'd be back ... Under the hot dental lights I traversed the building in search of a bar, having developed the idea of toasting my deliverance from New York. Far and wide did I roam. Ten o'clock and you're closed?' I heard myself yelling. This is fucking JFK, pal!' By that time I had a couple of navy-blue serge lapels in my fists. The guy reopened the duty-free counter and sold me a pint. I sat drinking it in the departure lounge. Boarding began, first class first. I stood up and entered the tube.
And continued to travel deeper into the tubed night — to travel through the night as the night came the other way, making its violent sweep across the earth. I drank champagne in the wide red throne, friendless in the plane's eye, tastefully curtained off from the coughing, snoring, shrieking, weeping, birth-giving innards of Business, Trimmer and Economy. How I hate my life. I called for divining cards. I've got to stop being young. Why ? It's killing me, being young is fucking killing me. I ate my dinner. I watched the film — they gave me a choice and I caught Pookie: it was terrible, and old Lorne looked like shit. What happened out there, with Fielding and Butch? Ay, keep it away! Don't let it touch me. I can't give it headroom. I've got to grow up. It's time
2
come on, john, what's it feel like? You're one of the top commercial directors in the country, you're only thirty-five, you're about to make your first feature, you're working with people like Lorne Guyland and Butch Beausoleil. Come on, John — what's it feel like?'
Actually it didn't feel like anything. It just felt like I was in London again, dumped out of the sky into nothing weather. It didn't feel like anything, but I sipped my beer, smiled at the microphone, and said, 'Well, fantastic, Bill, obviously. Making your first film, it's never easy, but I've got a really good feeling about this project. Things are looking really good.'
'You're telling me. You must feel bloody marvellous.'
'The future certainly looks bright.'
Bill is the London stringer of Box Office, the Hollywood trade — hence his celebratory tone. I don't think Bill was feeling very celebratory this morning, though. Exulting in my success looked like pretty hard work. But that's what they paid him for.
'Fill us in a little. Will you be writing the script?'
'Me? Are you kidding? No, the idea is mine, but we'll be using a, the American writer Doris Arthur' — Bill nodded — 'to develop the screenplay. Originally the film was set in London. Now it's New York, so we need a writer who can speak American.'
Tell me, how do you feel about the prospect of working with Lorne Guyland? Excited?'
No doubt there was irony here, but I said, 'Very excited. Really thrilled. I'm looking to Lorne to help me over this hurdle — Lorne, with his years of experience and his—Hang on. You'd better not put that. Try this. Uh, Lorne is a true professional, one of the old school. Wait. You'd better not put that either. Just say he's a true professional, okay?'
'What about Butch Beausoleil?'
'The big thing about Butch is that she's not just a dumb blonde.
She looks like a million dollars but she's also a very intelligent and sensitive young woman. I think she's got a great future in our industry.'
'Last question. Money.'
'Well, as I said, Fielding Goodney is the money genius. This is his first feature too, but he's had a lot of experience in, in money. We're going to bypass the big studios until the distribution stage. We've got this quorum of medium-sized investors. Some of the money will be coming from California, some from Germany and Japan. As you know, this is the new thing in funding.'
'That's right. What's the budget? Six?'
'Twelve.'
'Christ. It's all right for some, isn't it.'
'Yup.'
Bill then buggered off, thank God, and I strolled back to the bar with my empty mug. Eleven-thirty, Sunday morning, the Shakespeare. In the booze-lined defile under the bendy mirror, Fat Vince and Fat Paul, two generations of handyman-and-bouncer talent, assembled beer crates with simian stoop. Fat Paul straightened up and I looked into his colourless, moistureless face.
'Same again?' he said.
'Yeah,' I said. 'Hey, and — Fat Paul. Give us a scotch and all.'
'Big one?'
'Nah, just a double'll do.'
Fat Paul placed the drinks on the bar. He folded his arms and leaned forward. He nodded pensively. 'There's a new stripper on today,' he offered. 'Veronica. Jesus. Beautiful.'
'I'll stick around.'
'Here, that — Selina. Still giving her one, are you?'
'Don't ask me, pal.'
We heard the sounds of chains shaking. We turned: a small shadow bided its time behind the locked glass doors.
'Fuck off out of it!' said Fat Paul, in his youthful way.
'No, it's all right,' I said. 'This must be my writer.' ——————
Five days of London time, and still no fix on Selina.
Twenty-four hours ago I ran Alec Llewellyn to ground, but then the trail went cold. Alec, that liar. He was holed up in a service-flat block off Marble Arch — a high-priced dosshouse for middle-management loners and transients, with the strict feel of the ward or the lab: fifty units of downward mobility, observable under controlled conditions. Alec sees himself as one of life's deep divers. Crime, debt, dope — these are the fathoms through which he swims. The pinch of his long fingers over bookmatch and cigarette packet corresponds to the lines of his handsome, nervous, nutcracker face. Yes, he's nervous. He is much weaker than he was a year ago. He could do it all then. He is not sure he can do it all now.
'Where's Selina?'<
br />
'I don't know,' said Alec. 'Lying in a pile of cocks somewhere. Wiggling her bum in some penthouse. Take your pick.'
'Who's she fucking?'
'How should I know?'
'You told me it was someone I knew well. Who is it. Who.'
'Doesn't matter who. Think about it, man. I can't believe I've got to sit here telling you this. She's a gold-digger pushing thirty, right? In other words, an exhausted sack artist with shrinking assets. She can't stop digging, she has to keep digging until she strikes. There's nothing else she can do. Okay, marry her. Or try another kind of girl: freckles and A-levels, career woman, divorcee with two kids, fat nurse —'
'Oh you're such a liar. You just don't care what you say. What's it like, being a liar?'
'Not too bad. What's it like being a moron? Where do you think she is. Summer school? Walking in the Lake District?'
I looked round the room, at the churned bed, the hairbrush, at the splayed, eviscerated suitcase. Lean Alec, at thirty-six, a father of two, with his education, his privilege — what's he doing in this hired coop? We were drinking pernod, or paranoid, from a litre bottle with Heathrow tab.
'You know,' I said, 'what you told me at the airport, it fucked up my whole trip. Thanks. You really gave me a bad time.'
'That was just a precaution.'
'Uh?'
'She wants all your money.'
This really got me going. 'So what?' I said. 'God damn it, what's that got to do with you?'
'...I want all your money.' He laughed, but the laugh had a lot of wince in it. 'Look, John, this is serious. I hate to ask you this.'
'And I hate to hear it. How much?'
He named the figure — a consternating sum. I said, 'You already owe me money. What's it for? A drug deal? Gambling debt?'
'Alimony! She's got the law batting for her now. We have a disagreement, I get a squad car full of rozzers coming round here to put her side of it.'