. . . With a flinch I looked up: still no weather. Sometimes, when the sky is as grey as this — impeccably grey, a denial, really, of the very concept of colour— and the stooped millions lift their heads, it's hard to tell the air from the impurities in our human eyes, as if the sinking climbing paisley curlicues of grit were part of the element itself, rain, spores, tears, film, dirt. Perhaps, at such moments, the sky is no more than the sum of the dirt that lives in our human eyes.
——————
All set. I'm back at my flat now. The sheets have been changed, the socks coralled, the mags stashed. I myself am scrubbed and primped. Soon the bell will ring and Selina will be here with Persian eyes, overnight bag, hot throat, omniscient underwear, scarred wrists, boudoir odours and, quite possibly, the odours of other men. Under the auspices of pornography, however, this is all right, this is okay. This'll do. I ought to wait until I know you a bit better before I reveal what I get up to with Selina in the sack. But I'll probably tell you anyway. Who cares? I don't. Is she an infidel? Does she go to bed with men for money? No, not my Selina. She simply makes blue films while I'm out of town, for private screening in this old head of mine. Tonight I get the lot. I can't say I'm too much bothered now that pornography is on its way in a cab.
While the champagne cooled in my small but powerful refrigerator, I uncapped a tube of beer and swallowed ten capsules of Vitamin E. I am a vitamin addict, I am a penicillin addict, I am a painkiller addict. Painkillers, now they're some good shit... Numb, groaning, restless, helpless, I paced the flat. I stood still. I sat down. Using the remote-control console I activated the television. With a premonitory crackle the Prince of Wales surged on to the hired screen. Hi, Prince, I said to myself. When did you get back? This guy is getting married in a month or so. He's pulled a little darling called Lady Diana. She doesn't look as though she'll give him any trouble— not like my Selina gives me, anyway... In a series of clips, the Prince played polo, climbed mountains, flew fighters, bossed battleships. He sat before a fireplace, quietly chatting with his mother, the Chick. Full face to camera, the Prince then answered questions about his childhood and youth. He was, he said, profoundly grateful that he had been taught self-discipline at an early stage in life. Self-discipline, said the Prince, seemed to him absolutely essential to any kind of civilized existence .. . Boy, I wish someone had taught me self-discipline— when I was young, when you learn things without really trying. They could have taught me pride, dignity, and French too, while they were at it. I wouldn't have had to lift a finger. But no one ever did teach me all that stuff. I've endeavoured to teach it to myself. I sit around trying to teach myself self-discipline. I can't be doing with it, though (it just isn't enough fun, self-discipline), and I always end up going out for a good time instead.
The door-buzzer sounded and I climbed to my feet, hands busy in my pockets with the money.
'Got laid recently?'
The evening, at last, has reached its promised, its destined stage. We've just got back from dinner at Kreutzer's. This was traditional, a matter of convention. Kreutzer's provides the costly setting of our reunions, our foreplay and our lies. There have been rich meat and bloody wine. There have been brandies, and thick puddings. There has already been some dirty talk. Selina is in high spirits, and as for me, I'm a gurgling wizard of calorific excess.
'Yeah,' she said, after a pause, and sipped her champagne.
'Who? Anyone I know?'
'... Yeah.'
'You'd better tell me about it.'
'I was in my room. I was kneeling on the window-seat looking at the common. It's so lovely now. Then this big fat black car pulled up outside the hotel. It was made of chrome and gold. The window went down and a hand with twelve rings appeared and beckoned to me.'
'What were you wearing?' She was wearing an extended black bodice that clasped between her thighs, and chrome stockings, and golden shoes.
'I was wearing a little white frock that belonged to me when I was small. It only comes down to here. I hadn't put on my panties yet because I was just getting dressed from my bath.'
'What did you do then?' She crossed the room and knelt on the bed beside me. With both hands she drew back her hair, disclosing the changeable throat.
'I crossed the room and tiptoed down the stairs. I got into the big fat car.'
'What did he do?' I laid her on her back. The black bodice had forty black buttons, fastened with eye-shaped loops of corded silk. Now it had thirty-nine. Now it had thirty-eight.
'He lifted me on top of him. It was like sitting on a capstan or a water hydrant. He put his hands on my shoulders, and pressed. I thought: he'll never get in, I'll never get round him. But he was so strong, his hands were unbelievable, as heavy as gold. It hurt but I was wet and the hurt was runny and sweet. I thought: I'm a cock, I'm just a cock.'
Later, with her resting body spread out beside me on the satin, I smoked a cigar and finished the champagne and thought about the good life. In a way, in a sense, I think 1 really do want to live well.
But how is it done?
——————
Deep down, I'm a pretty happy guy. Happiness is the relief of pain, they say, and so I guess I'm a pretty happy guy. The relief of pain happens to me pretty frequently. But then so does pain. That's why I get lots of that relief they talk about, and all that happiness.
'You know what I wish?' said Roger Frift. 'I wish you'd take it easy the nights before you see me.'
'What's the matter now?'
I'd better add that Roger is a dinky, twenty-six-year-old, and a hyperactive homosexual.
'Your tongue, it's all... I mean, it's a question of common good manners. It makes the whole thing so much more unpleasant for me.'
'It's not meant to be pleasant for you. Just do it. Christ, you charge enough.'
'Lie back then. And relax . .. God!'
You wouldn't be too relaxed if you were reclining on Roger's electric chair. Roger is my hygienist, my gum-coach. Four times a year with his beaked pincers, skewers and arrow-headed bodkins he goes squeaking and splitting through the roots of my head. We call this deep scaling, or plaque control. What the fuck is this plaque crap anyway? Why can't plaque go and pick on somebody else? It doesn't bother my father. Plaque didn't bother my mother either, so far as I know. My mother died when I was very young. She died when she was very young too, now I come to think about it, which I don't much. .. That tooth on my upper west side, the one that brought me so much pain — it calmed down a few days ago, bringing me happiness instead, oh such happiness. But yesterday it started bringing me pain again. It never really calmed down: I could feel it humming, purring, braiding beneath the skin, planning its comeback. Now Roger, I hope, will fix it, will relieve that pain and bring me happiness again. Selina has this knack also. She brings me pain. She relieves it. Am I happy? I'm not sure. I'm certainly relieved, now she's back. At least, when she's with me, she's not with anyone else. Apparently I denounced and banished her that night, the night before I left for New York. I can't remember. Apparently I called her a whore, cursed her for a gold-digging fuckbag, and kicked her out. She shuffled off into the blackness without a farthing. Convincing, yes? Or not? I can't remember. We don't talk about it much. We talk about money. She wants a joint bank account. What do you reckon?
'Ooh,' said Roger, whose own breath isn't too hot either, if you want to know the truth.
By this time I already had a trio of gurgling gimmicks in my mouth. 'Ow,' I said as best I could. 'Easy.'
'Have you had any discomfort there?'
Tain, you mean? Pain? Yeah, lots. That's why I'm here.'
'Yes, well you would. Hello, seems to be some mobility there.'
He made mobility sound as if it were a pretty encouraging thing to have, like social mobility, upward mobility. 'Loose, you mean?' I gargled.
'I might just check the vitality of that one.' Roger reached for the robot tendon of the drill fixture. 'Can you feel anything?'
'
What sort of thing?'
'Pressure?'
'On the tooth? No.'
'Discomfort? ... Minimal vitality,' he murmured.
At this I coughed out the braces and sprays and jerked myself upright. 'What are you talking about? Talk right, okay? It's loose and it's dead and it's coming out. Yes? No?'
'I don't do extractions,' he said primly. 'You'll have to see Mrs McGilchrist about that.'
'Then just clean them,' I said.
Roger replaced the nozzles and clips. He hummed while he cleaned. His instruments did their beaky work, their painful fine-tuning. The steel lingered on the trouble spot, the wasted block on my upper west side.
'Mm,' he said when the polishing was done. Daintily he plucked the gadgetry from my mouth. 'The gum's been traumatized by the shape of the root,' he mused. 'Rinse.'
'Traumatized?' I sipped the fizzy liquid and expelled its tactful pink. 'Now you're talking.'
'Well the shape of the root is very unusual.'
'And the gum can't cope with this? The gum has a trauma about it?'
'The tooth is still viable,' he said.
I picked up my coat in the hot floral waiting room — two people there, indistinct and self-sufficient, like all ghosts in waiting rooms. I paid the chick who lurks with knitting in her windowless stall: fifteen pounds, cash, and a video cassette. No receipt. Black economy. I run Selina on the black economy. We don't keep any books: there is nothing, no letter, no notes. There is no gentleman's agreement. There isn't even a handshake. But we both understand.
'Selina,' I had said, two days after her return,'— Alec told me a funny thing on the way to the airport.' Selina hesitated as she took off her coat.
'What? Don't I even get a kiss then?'
'He said you were fucking someone — a lot, all the time.' I sipped my drink and lit another cigarette.
'He's an English aristocrat,' said Selina intently. 'He doubled the family fortune on Wall Street. His servants come round to get me in a—'
'No. This is serious. This is real. He said you'd got someone on the side. Someone I know.'
'Oh you stupid sod. Don't listen. You know he made a pass at me once.'
'Did he? Son of a bitch.'
'He kissed my tits. Then he put my hand on his cock. Then he —'
'Christ. Where were you at the time? In bed together?'
'Here, in the kitchen. He came round when you were out.'
I refreshed my drink and said calmly, 'Everyone makes passes at you, Selina. Waiters in restaurants make passes at you. Men in the street make passes at you.'
She shut her eyes and laughed. Then she sobered quickly and said, 'But he's supposed to be your friend.'
'All my friends make passes at you too.'
'You haven't got any friends.'
'Terry's made a pass at you. Keith's made a pass at you. My dad's made a pass at you — and he's family.'
'Just don't listen to him. Don't you know how jealous Alec is of you? He's trying to destroy our love.'
This struck me as a novel notion, in all senses. While unscrewing the second bottle of scotch, I thought suddenly, Something else is missing. What is it? But all I said was — 'You really think so?'
'You're spilling it! Bloody hell, take it easy. It's hardly six o'clock. Listen. Have you got those forms from the bank yet? How long have you been in here drinking?'
'What forms?'
'You know what forms. I've got to have some independence.'
'Yeah yeah.'
'I'm twenty-eight.'
'Twenty-eight? Well you don't look it.'
'Thank you, darling. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Gregory gives Debby an allowance. Why are you so frightened of it? You're quite generous over little things, I'll give you that. But as soon as it comes to —'
'Yeah yeah.'
The trouble is, the whole trouble is, Selina's too clever for me. I tried to change the subject. In my experience, with Selina, the only way to change the subject is to go down the Butcher's Arms. How can you change the subject when there's only one subject? Oh yeah — violence. That'll change it. That'll do the trick, for a while. But of course violence is no longer an option. I didn't even consider it for more than a few seconds. I'm serious about this new self-improvement course I've put myself on—very serious. Self-discipline. A more civilized existence.
So I just got out of bed, told her to shut up, and went down the Butcher's Arms.
Tonguing my tooth and twisting my neck for taxis, I now stroll the length of the dental belt, through the stucco of the plaqued streets and carious squares, past railings, embossed porches, pricey clinics, tranquillized Arabs, groggy mouth-sufferers in their Sunday best, their women wearing fur coats and Harlem lacquer, their spruced kids either pained or happy — across the bus-torn slum of Oxford Street into Soho, the huddled land of sex and food and film, down narrowing alleys until I reached the glass preserve of Carburton, Linex & Self.
For me, now, Carburton, Linex & Self is another kind of waiting room. But what a place! You should see how much money we pay each other, how little work we do, and how thick and talentless many of us are. You should see the expenses claims, the air-tickets that lie around in here, and the girls. C. L. & S. was a breakthrough when we established the company five years ago. It still is. A lot of outfits tried to do what we did. None of them made it. C. L. & S. is an advertising agency which produces its own television commercials. Sounds easy. You try it. I myself was the key figure in all this, with my controversial TV ads for smoking, drinking, junk food and nude magazines. Remember the stir in the flaming summer of '76? My nihilistic commercials attracted prizes and writs. The one on nude mags was never shown, except in court. The publicity and its attendant heft empowered us to make our breakthrough, our breakaway, and we never looked back. Our moneyman Nigel Trotts, down in the basement with a chick, a xerox and a bushel of instant coffee, is the only guy here who works a full whack. And Nigel is a moneyman who does it all for love.
'Nigel has gimmicked a bag-carrier for the Dutch Antilles,' people will say to me at my desk.
'Beautiful,' I'll whisper back, as you're bound to do.
We all seem to make lots of money. Man, do we seem to be coining it here. Even the chicks live like kings. The car is free. The car is on the house. The house is on the mortgage. The mortgage is on the firm — without interest. The interesting thing is: how long can this last? For me, that question carries an awful lot of anxiety — compound interest. It can't be legal, surely. You can't legally treat money in such a way. But we do. Are we greedy! Are we shameless! I once saw Terry Linex, that fat madman, take a grand out of petty cash for a weekend in Dieppe, He got his wife's hysterectomy on X's — and his daughter's orthodontic work. He even gets the family poodle shampooed against tax: security expenses, with Fifi doubling as a guard-dog. We estimate that Keith Carburton spent £17,000 on lunch in fiscal '80, service and VAT non compris. You should see their freehold townhouses and bijou Cotswold cottages. You should see their cars—the Tomahawks, the Farragos, and Boomerangs. I've been ripping off the firm and the government too, for five years now, and what have I got? A hired sock, a Fiasco, and the prohibitive Selina. What did I ever do with it, the money? Pissed it away, I just pissed it away. And somehow I still have lots of money.
'I told my wife,' said Terry Linex, parking half his heavy can on my desk,' "you can have any domestic appliance you want. But when it goes wrong, don't come running to me. Do we understand each other?" I come home Friday night. I go into the kitchen — I said, "What's this, a horror film?" There's a brand-new washing-up machine and all this fucking black gunge all over the floor. "Get on the fucking phone," she says. "Fix it!" So what did I do.'
'What did you do.'
'I sued them. I rang Curtis & Curtis, got Mr Benson at home. Ten minutes later I walk into the kitchen — there's a Pakki on his back with his tongue up the funnel. No charge. No grief. It's brilliant. I do it all the time now. Took the motor in for a service. Four hun
dred quid. So what did I do.'
'You sued them.'
'I sued them. Fucking right. "How would you like to pay, sir?" he asked me. "Cash or cheque or credit card?" I said, "I'm not paying. You are. I'm fucking suing you, mate." They go all pale. Thirty-six quid I ended up paying. I sued the tax-inspector last week.'
'Beautiful,' I said.
'Don't you love it?'
I said I did, and returned to the sorry-looking chaos of my desk. I'm supposed to be tying things up here, sorting things out. The antique desk-drawers are buckled stiff with ripped paperwork: five years without paying any tax — that's why I've got all this money. . . The feeling in the office is that I am moving on to better things. Sometimes I wish they had consulted me about this. But they just roll their eyes and whistle and rub their hands encouragingly. I have been interviewed in Box Office, featured in Turnover, profiled in Market Forces. My thirty-five-minute short, Dean Street, won the guest critics' special-mention award at the Siena Film Festival last year. I am a headliner, a highroller. Peter Sennet did it. Freddie Giles and Ronnie Templeton did it. Jack Conn — he did it. They all live in California now. They have all bled out of the ordinary world. They all have new houses, new wives, new tans, new rugs. In V8 Hyenas and haunchy drophead Acapulcos they cruise the road-margined seas, gunning to the medical zone for their daily DNA boosters and plasma rethinks. Twice or three times a month they wing out for a long weekend on Thousand Island, a world that time forgot, down in the sea of joy. Everyone thinks that this will soon happen to me. Me, I don't see it somehow. I have a sharp sense of my life being in the balance. I may never look back, or I may never recover. I tell you, I am terrified, I am fucking terrified. 'Just give me the fucking money okay!' I want to shout this all the time. And if you fail they don't take you back ... I was in Cal myself this January — Los Angeles. I did cool deals there and it all looked possible. On the leisure side, though, things didn't go so well, and I got into some seriously bad business. Let me tell you about it sometime. It's a good one... I met Fielding on the flight back to New York. We both happened to be travelling first class.