‘And I shall not miss being part of a species lamentably ready to resort to torture, rape and mass-murder just because some other poor fucker or fuckers is or are slightly different from those intent upon doing such harm, be it because they happen to worship a very slightly different set of superstitious idiocies, possess skin occupying a non-identical position on a Pantone racial colour wheel, or had the fucking temerity to pop out of a womb on the other side of a river, ocean, mountain range, other major geographical feature, or, indeed, just a straight line drawn across the desert by some bored and ignorant bureaucrat umpteen thousand miles away and a century ago.
‘None of these things shall I miss. Frankly it’s a relief to be getting shot of the necessity of watching such bollocks play out. I would still rather have the choice, mark you, but, as this would appear to be being denied me, I am making the best of a bad job and looking on the bright side: I shall be free, at last, of that nagging, persistent sensation that I am, for the most part, surrounded by fucking idiots.’
Paul points and clicks. The picture judders to a stop again.
‘I fast-forwarded from about here, Guy,’ Paul tells him. ‘Didn’t catch much else you said.’ He looks round at the rest. ‘Okay to do the same now?’
‘There anything at the end?’ Rob asks. ‘Of what was originally on there?’
‘Nah,’ Guy says. ‘I said my piece then left it running to the end of the tape. Though what I had to say still filled most of it.’
‘Almost all,’ Paul agrees.
‘I assume the next line was something about present company excepted?’ Rob says, swigging his wine. He nods at the screen with its frozen image of a slightly younger Guy poised like he’s about to open his mouth and start talking again. ‘That – this whole tape – was meant for us, for us here, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ Guy says, glancing round everybody else in the room. ‘Basically for you lot.’
‘So when you say “surrounded by fucking idiots” you mean other people, not us.’
Guy looks at Rob for a moment. ‘Partly,’ he says eventually. ‘Though the next couple of minutes might not make particularly … ego-boosting …’ He looks angry, waves one hand. ‘The next couple of minutes might not be particularly edifying for any of you.’ He grins. ‘I spend the time detailing the personal inadequacies of each of you and listing the many ways you’ve failed to live up to your early promise and your own ambitions, however preposterous and pathetic. So, I wouldn’t advise watching any further. Not now we’ve reached the watershed.’
‘Well, I want to hear what you said,’ Ali says.
Rob looks at her. ‘About you, or me?’
She only glances at him. ‘Both,’ she says. ‘All of us.’
Guy shakes his head. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Yeah,’ Paul says. ‘I wouldn’t.’
We all look at him. He shrugs. ‘I said I stopped about here,’ he explains, nodding at the screen. He looks at Guy for a moment, and Guy looks back at him. Paul nods, ‘Thank you for your comments, old friend. All grist to the mill, even the negative feedback.’
‘Fucking welcome, mate.’ Guy grins. ‘My pleasure.’
‘Were you actually as … forthright about the others?’ Paul asks, glancing around.
Guy grimaces. ‘Only to the extent that I could be,’ he says. ‘With your higher public profile and potential for doing harm through high … or even medium or low office, I felt you required singling out for special attention.’ He holds one hand up to Paul. ‘No need to thank me, lad. Just doing my bit as a public-spirited citizen.’
Ali opens her mouth, but Guy is already saying, ‘Anyway, my tape, my house, my rules. Fast-forward from here,’ he tells Paul. ‘If you’d be so kind, my good fellow.’
‘I think we each have a right—’ Ali is saying.
Paul clicks the remote and the image jerks into motion, plays enough tape at something close to normal play speed for one garbled, squeaky word from Guy, then goes into fast-forward. Not a very fast fast-forward, but enough to make Guy look comedic as he sits there, hands jerking about as he scratches one ear, the other ear, his nose, the back of his head, and does so repeatedly. He crosses and uncrosses his legs almost too fast to see, waves his arms like he’s having a fit.
Something in me winces at the idea of the tape physically having to race past the read/record heads, wearing itself away for our convenience. I’ve felt the same way listening to a diamond stylus scratching and twitching its way through the groove moulded into a vinyl record. Compared to digital it just all feels so crude, so ancient, so damaging.
‘You’re a lawyer, Paul,’ Guy says, watching his own twitchy image on the screen.
‘Yes, I am,’ Paul confirms, not looking at Guy.
‘Then would I be right in thinking that this tape is still my property?’
‘I think you would have a case,’ Paul says. ‘I seem to recall you bought the relevant batch of tapes, and while the original film might, arguably, though without the benefit of a formal, written contract, of course, have been our joint intellectual property – especially given the rubric about the Partnership at the beginning – this would look like it’s all yours.’
‘Then would you be good enough to furnish me with the aforesaid heretofore fucking mentioned tape when we’re finished staring at this haunting from my slightly younger and marginally less-decrepit and despairing self, if you’d be so kind?’
‘Why certainly,’ Paul says.
The rain must have gone off, or the wind’s switched direction.
Then suddenly the Guy on the TV screen is up and bounding out of his seat and across the room, right up to the camera so it goes dark, then the darkness wipes away and we’re looking at almost the same scene but not quite – the angle’s changed, slightly to the right, slightly up – and we’re watching Guy tearing across the room to the hall door and then the screen goes almost black until you realise all he’s done is put out the room light and it must be night outside because apart from a little sliver of light from the hall showing round the edge of the not fully closed door, that’s all there is.
In less than a minute, the screen changes to a sort of different, more complete darkness, then there’s a quite audible clunk from the tape player under the telly, and the TV defaults to its standard black standby screen with the letters AV2 glowing at the top left corner. It sounds like the tape has started rewinding itself automatically.
‘And that’s all, folks,’ Paul says.
‘So that’s it?’ Hol says, glowering at Guy. ‘You recorded some sort of living will over it?’
‘As I say, more a series of rants, really,’ Guy says. ‘Best you don’t hear the rest of it until I’m safely gone and that thing about suddenly thinking hypocritically well of the recently deceased has kicked in. Cheers.’ He drinks from his can of Brown.
‘What about the bit where you portion out your worldly goods to your best pals?’ Haze asks, sort of laughing.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Guy says, nodding, eyes wide. ‘Except that’s in the disappointingly but predictably inferior Hollywood remake,’ he says. ‘And in a different universe.’
‘So you still have the video camera?’ Hol says.
‘Yeah,’ Guy tells her. ‘But it only works off the mains adaptor, and I can’t connect it up to the screen; lost the lead.’
‘You sure there’s nothing else on there apart from that bit at the beginning?’ Ali asks Paul.
‘Checked it twice, staring intently all the way,’ Paul tells her. ‘Then ran it normal speed with the sound down. Nothing. That’s four times now. It’s one smooth continuous take, apart from the bit where Guy stops talking and – I assume – checks it’s all worked, then switches it back on to record the empty room over the rest.’
‘Spot on, old bean,’ Guy says.
‘I’ve heard there can sometimes be traces of earlier stuff on these old tapes,’ Ali says. ‘Even after they’re recorded over.’
‘Oh, don’t fucking worry,??
? Guy says, as the tape clunks to a stop inside the machine. ‘That was my fourth or fifth take, recorded on top of different versions of roughly the same rant going back several years. I just updated it a little each time. Took me a while to perfect my …’ Guy looks at me. ‘What’s the word I’m looking for? Jesus. Not peroration. Angrier. Like … invective!’ he says, looking relieved. ‘Took me a while to perfect my invective.’ He shakes his head, mutters, ‘Fuck.’
‘I think you’re tired,’ Pris tells him.
‘Tired of hearing excuses for my brain letting me down,’ Guy mutters. Paul goes to kneel in front of the VHS player.
‘Better yet, our Paul,’ Guy says to him, ‘just record over it. All of it. Record BBC fucking One over the entirety of the fucker; anything, but bury what’s on there.’
‘You sure?’ Paul asks him.
‘Much as it goes against my nature to spare any of you fuckers the pain, yes. What’s on there is just embarrassing; I devote far more time to tearing you all apart than any of you remotely deserves. Scrub it. BBC1; might catch Antiques Roadshow or something, some pablum almost worth watching.’
‘I protest,’ Ali says. ‘We have a right—’
‘No you don’t,’ Guy tells her. To Paul he says, ‘Press the red dot button now, if you would.’
Paul says nothing. He uses the controls on the player itself. The appropriate red light starts winking, indicating it’s recording. Paul sits again.
‘So how come the tape was in the quarry?’ Ali says. She’s looking at Guy. ‘Did you try to throw it away?’
‘I have no idea how it got there,’ Guy says, not looking at her.
‘Well,’ Ali says, frowning, ‘somebody—’
‘So, are we happy, now?’ Guy asks.
‘You’re sure there are no copies?’ Paul asks him.
‘None I fucking made.’
‘And you had it, all the time, yeah?’ Rob says.
‘Suppose,’ Guy says.
‘“Suppose”?’ Ali says. ‘What does that—’
‘It means it was here,’ Guy tells her. ‘In my possession, through-fucking-out. Even when I didn’t know exactly where the fuck it was, it was always in the house.’
‘Except when it was in the quarry,’ Haze points out.
‘I think we should get to the bottom of why it was in the quarry at all,’ Ali says, crossing her arms.
‘You’ve seen your fucking tape, there’s nothing on it to get your knickers in a twist about any longer,’ Guy tells her. ‘It’s getting recorded over, again, and there’s no copies of it. Is that not fucking enough?’
‘No,’ Ali says, frowning. ‘I think—’
‘Just leave it, Ali,’ Rob sighs.
‘I don’t see that we can leave—’
‘Let’s take a vote, shall we?’ Hol suggests. ‘All those who think we should pursue this topic, please raise your hand.’
Ali raises her hand. She’s the only one. She looks around, her gaze settling on Rob. ‘Thanks for the support,’ she tells him.
Rob shrugs, grins. ‘Any time.’
‘Right. Fuck it,’ Paul says, clapping his hands once and rubbing them. ‘Obviously we’re still sticking with the not-drinking-too-much thing, but I think this calls for a celebration. I just happen to have a case of some of Madame Bollinger’s finest … well, some of her finest non-vintage, in the car.’ He looks round at them all, appearing poised to get to his feet. ‘Shall I?’
‘Fucking yeah,’ Guy says, licking his lips. ‘Bring on the fucking bubbly.’
Pris claps her hands. ‘Woo-hoo!’
‘’Twould be churlish to refuse,’ Rob agrees.
‘Hmm,’ Ali says, uncrossing her arms. ‘Well, this still isn’t over. But I suppose …’
‘Here we go,’ Hol breathes. Again, I’m not sure anybody else can hear her.
‘Way to go,’ Haze says. ‘Twelve bottles of Bolly! You beauty!’
‘Well, six,’ Paul says, standing. ‘Champagne bottles tend to come by the half-dozen. Cos they’re heavier, I suppose.’
‘Yeah,’ Haze says, slapping his forehead. ‘Of course!’
‘I’ll get some glasses,’ I say, following Paul to the door.
‘You got flutes?’ Paul calls as he heads down the hall to the front door. ‘I’ve brought some, if not. Enough for all.’
‘Better bring them,’ I tell him. ‘We may be down to jam jars.’
‘Oh, I made good use of it, on consecutive occasions on consecutive nights over consecutive weeks,’ Guy says. ‘Thank you very much.’ He raises his glass.
‘Jesus,’ Hol says. She glances at me, but I pretend not to see. Nobody’s used the terms ‘sex tape’ or ‘porn’, but otherwise they’ve become a bit less coy about the whole subject.
‘Oh, you mean – oh,’ Pris says, then pretends to gag.
‘What?’ Guy says, as though innocently. ‘What else are these things for?’
‘Thanks for sharing,’ Ali says.
Guy leers. ‘It was my pleasure, darlin.’
The tape inside the VHS player did a final clonk a minute ago and rewound automatically again. Paul’s just checked the start; looks like we’ve recorded half an hour of Holby City.
Guy holds out one hand to Paul, who is kneeling in front of the TV, extracting the tape from the machine, then the mini-tape from the carrier cassette. ‘May I have my tape, please?’ Paul hands him the chunky little mini-cassette. He stuffs it into an inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Thank you.’
‘Welcome,’ Paul murmurs.
Guy sighs, wheezing a little. ‘Thank fuck that’s done.’ He looks round at all of us. ‘Actually, the really fucking embarrassing thing on there was that I spent a minute or two telling you, despite all the foregoing, how much I loved you all and how it had been a privilege to know you and I hoped you’d think well of me and miss me.’ He drinks his champagne.
‘Aaw,’ Pris says, smiling broadly, and puts a hand on Guy’s arm.
Hol is looking at Guy. ‘Seriously?’
Paul is frowning. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Seriously?’
Ali just snorts. Rob looks on, breathing a little heavily. Haze is lighting the next joint, humming.
Guy shrugs as best he can, drinks some more, grinning. ‘Never fucking know now, will you?’
‘You’re holding it wrong,’ Paul tells me.
I look at him. ‘It’s a glass,’ I tell him. Actually maybe it’s not a glass, not technically, as it feels a bit heavy and I think these thick, tall flute things Paul brought in from the car might be crystal, whatever the difference is. Maybe even lead crystal, though that sounds vaguely poisonous. Either way, it’s not like I’m holding it by the rim, or upside down or something.
‘Yes, but it’s got champagne in it,’ Paul says. ‘Same with white wine.’ He holds his glass up in front of my face to show me how he’s holding his glass. ‘With both, you’re supposed to drink them while they’re still cold, or at least cool. So you hold them by the stem, and that way less of the heat from your hand transfers to the glass and the wine. With red wine it’s okay to hold the bowl, because red has more of a bouquet and that benefits from being gently warmed.’
We’re all standing in the kitchen, where we’ve been clearing stuff away in a sudden fit of communal enterprise. Then people started feeling hungry again and so we warmed over some of the starters in the microwave, though they go a bit soggy when you do that.
‘Or you just get it down your neck so quick you don’t need to worry about all this pretentious bollocks,’ Guy says. He’s the only one not standing as we snack, sitting at the head of the kitchen table with a couple of untouched samosas on a plate in front of him.
Paul glances at him, sighs. ‘Yes. Or you can guzzle White Lightning down the local park, piss against the trees and shit in the bushes, as your father points out.’
‘How you doing?’ I ask Hol, sort of sauntering up to her as she stands looking across the kitchen sink, through the window towards where the fire was.
Her champagne glass lies on the draining surface, at an angle. I’m holding my glass by the stem. The champagne is a bit dry and if Paul hadn’t looked appalled when I suggested mixing it fifty-fifty with a nice sweet white wine, I might have done just that. He wouldn’t even compromise on medium-sweet. On the other hand, it’s giving me a very nice warm glow.
‘I’m fine,’ Hol says, not looking at me. I glance at the sink in front of her and think about showing her the laminar flow trick with the tap, but decide that might appear a bit childish. I gaze out the window too, searching for any sign of the fire, but it’s pitch out there. There’s no rain hitting the window though I can hear a medley of steady drippings.
Then I realise Hol is looking at me, but via the window. She’s looking at my reflection.
She does a sort of half-glance behind her, drops her voice and says, ‘I am sorry, Kit. I’ll make it up to you. It’ll all be there. I just need some time. I just hope you’re not as disappointed with me as I am with myself.’
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her, via this V of photons apexed on the window glass. Though it’s not really okay. Not properly, completely okay. It might never be absolutely okay ever again. But it’s sort of okay, because I still mostly trust her and I think she means what she says. I’ll feel better once the initial cheque for the two thousand has cleared, I suppose. Then it’ll be a bit better, a bit closer to properly okay. In the meantime there’s no point me haranguing her or blanking her. She’s still my friend. ‘We’re okay,’ I tell her.
I put my arm round her shoulders, squeeze in a chummy sort of way, then let go.
I think she relaxes a bit. ‘You’re sweet,’ she says quietly. ‘I never thought I’d let anyone down like this. Least of all you.’
‘Seriously. It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I trust you.’
‘More than I deserve,’ she mutters. She breaks eye contact, finishes her glass, turns round and leans her bum against the sink front. ‘Any more bubbly?’
I take her glass. By the stem. ‘Allow me, ma’am.’
‘I meant every fucking word,’ Guy is telling Pris and Hol. ‘I think you’re all fucking berserk; we’re all fucking berserk, except I’m not going to be around much longer to take responsibility for the fucking mess we’re in, so I’m fucking absolving myself. I used to think we were a bit lame, our generation, a bit wimpish and conformist compared to students from ten years before us, but we were the fucking Angry Brigade compared to the little twats running around the campus these days. They occupied the Old Quad for a week with a dozen tents and sat completing their latest essay on their tablets to make sure they’d be in on time and then seemed genuinely fucking surprised the bankers didn’t all hand their bonuses back and reform the entire international banking system just on the strength of that. They should be manning the fucking barricades, stashing petrol bombs and standing shoulder to fucking shoulder with the workers, such as are left; there should have been a general fucking strike when the banks weren’t all straight-out nationalised.’