JIGS & REELS


www.booksattransworld.co.uk
Also by Joanne Harris


THE EVIL SEED
SLEEP, PALE SISTER

CHOCOLAT

BLACKBERRY WINE

FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE

COASTLINERS

HOLY FOOLS


THE FRENCH KITCHEN: A COOKBOOK


(with Fran Warde)
JIGS & REELS


Joanne Harris


Doubleday


LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO - SYDNEY - AUCKLAND
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

61-63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

a division of The Random House Group Ltd


RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA (PTY) LTD

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New South Wales 2061, Australia


RANDOM HOUSE NEW ZEALAND LTD
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand


RANDOM HOUSE SOUTH AFRICA (PTY) LTD
Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa


Published 2004 by Doubleday
a division of Trnnsworld Publishers


This collection copyright © Joanne Harris 2004


The right of Joanne Harris to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and

78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.


For more information on Joanne Harris and her books,


'Faith and Hope Go Shopping' first appeared in Woman's Weekly Fiction Special in

April/May 2000; 'Gastronomicon' in Woman and Home in April 2001; 'Breakfast at

TescoY in Good Housekeeping in July 2002; Tea with the Birds' in Salisbury's Magazine in

April 2001; 'The Ugly Sister' in the Mail on Sunday's You Magazine in December 2000;

'Class of'81' in Magic, a collection of short stories by various authors, in June 2002;

'Free Spirit1 in A Day in the Life, an anthology for Breast Cancer Awareness published by

Black Swan in September 2003; 'The Spectator' in The Big Issue in December 2002; and

'Fule's Gold' was read at the Hay on Wye festival for Radio 4 in May 2002.


All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 0385 606427


Extract from All About Eve © 1950 Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. All rights reserved.
Extract from Breakfast at Tiffany's by permission of Paramount Pictures.


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.


Typeset in 10Vi/14pt Goudy by Kestrel Data, Exeter, Devon.


Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic, Suffolk.


13579 10 8642


Papers used by Transworld Publishers are natural, recyclable products made from

wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the

environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Contents


Foreword	vii

Faith rind Hope Go Shopping	1

The Ugly Sister	16

Gastronomicon	26

Fule's Gold	40

Class of 81	50

Hello, Goodbye	69

Free Spirit	86

Auto-da-fe	91

The Spectator	103

Al and Christine's World of Leather	110

Last Train to Dogtown	124

The G-SUS Gene	140

A Place in the Sun	149

Tea with the Birds	156

Breakfast at Tesco's	166

Come in, Mr Lowry, Your Number Is Up!	187

Waiting for Gandalf	202
Any Girl Can Be a CandyKiss Girl!	226

The Little Mermaid	230

Fish	245

Never Give a Sucker . . .	259

Eau de Toilette	265

Acknowledgements	273
Foreword


IT'S WONDERFUL TO SEE THAT, AFTER A PERIOD IN THE

doldrums, the short story has finally made a comeback. A
good short story - and there are some very good short stories
out there - can stay with you for much longer than a novel.
It can startle, ignite, illuminate and move in a way that the
longer format cannot. It is often troubling, often frightening
or subversive. It provokes questions, whereas most novels
tend to try to answer them. Of all the books I have read and
loved, I find that it is the short stories I remember most
clearly, those vivid, anarchic glimpses into different worlds,
different people.

Some of them trouble me, even now. I still worry about
what happened to Ray Bradbury's Pedestrian. I still cry over
Roger Zelazny's 'Rose for Ecclesiastes'. I still get the shivers
when I remember Jerome Bixby's 'It's a Good Life'. And
every time I catch the Tube, I feel a sense of unreasonable
disquiet, which is largely due to a story called 'A Subway
Named Moebius', even though I was twelve when I read it,
and I cannot even remember the author's name.
JIGS & RFF!. S


Personally, I find short stories difficult and slow to write.
To compress an idea into such a small space, to keep
its proportions, to find the voice, is both demanding and
frustrating. Four or five thousand words, which might take
me a day to write as part of a novel, may take me two weeks
to finish as a short story. Like my grandfather's homebrewed
wine, my short stories are mostly experimental
in nature. Success is never guaranteed; sometimes a story
works, and sometimes it dies on the page, like a very long
joke with no punch-line, for no reason that I can quite
fathom. But I do enjoy them. I enjoy the possibilities; the
variety; the challenge. I have been writing them - or trying
to - tor the past ten years. This is the first time they have
been published as a collection.
JIGS & REELS
Faith and Hope Go Shopping


Four years ago, my grandmother went into an old people's home
in Barnsley. Before her death I went there often, and a lot of
stories came out of those visits. This is one of them.


IT S MONDAY, SO IT MUST BE RICE PUDDING AGAIN. IT S NOT

so much the fact that they're careful of our teeth, here
at the Meadowbank Home, rather a general lack of
imagination. As I told Claire the other day, there are lots of
things you can eat without having to chew. Oysters. Foie
gras. Avocado vinaigrette. Strawberries and cream. Creme
brulee with vanilla and nutmeg. Why then this succession
of bland puddings and gummy meats? Claire - the sulky
blonde, always chewing a wad of gum - looked at me as if I
were mad. Fancy food, they claim, upsets the stomach. God
forbid our remaining tastebuds should be overstimulated. I
saw Hope grinning round the last mouthful of ocean pie,
and I knew she'd heard me. Hope may be blind, but she's no
slouch.
JIGS ck R E E L ;s


Faith and Hope. With names like that we might be
sisters. Kelly - that's the one with the exaggerated lip liner
- thinks we're quaint. Chris sometimes sings to us when he's
cleaning out the rooms. Faith, Hope and Cha-ri-tee! He's the
best of them, I suppose. Cheery and irreverent, he's always
in trouble for talking to us. He wears tight T-shirts and an
earring. I tell him that the last thing we want is charity, and
that makes him laugh. Hinge and Brackett, he calls us.
Butch and Sundance.

I'm not saying it's a bad place here. It's just so ordinary not
the comfortable ordinariness of home, with its familiar
grime and clutter, but that of waiting-rooms and hospitals, a
pastel-detergent place with a smell of air freshener and
distant bedpans. We don't get many visits, as a rule. I'm one
of the lucky ones; my son Tom calls every fortnight with my
magazines and a bunch of chrysanths - the last ones were
yellow - and any news he thinks won't upset me. But he
isn't much of a conversationalist. Are you keeping well, then, Mam? and a comment or two about the garden is about all
he can manage, but he means well. As for Hope, she's been
here five years - even longer than me - and she hasn't had a
visitor yet. Last Christmas I gave her a box of my chocolates
and told her they were from her daughter in California. She
gave me one of her sardonic little smiles. 'If that's from
Priscilla, sweetheart,' she said primly, 'then you're Ginger
Rogers.' I laughed at that. I've been in a wheelchair for
twenty years, and the last time I did any dancing was just
before men stopped wearing hats.

We manage, though. Hope pushes me around in my
b A 1 1 H AND H O P H U O SHOPPING


chair, and I direct hen l^ot that there's much directing to
do in here; she can get around just by using the ramps. But
the nurses like to see us using our resources. It fits in with
their waste not, want not ethic. And, of course, I read to
her. Hope loves stories. In fact, she's the one who started
me reading in the first place. We've had Wuthering Heights, and Pride and Prejudice, and Doctor Zhivago. There aren't
many books here, but the library van comes round every
four weeks, and we send Lucy out to get us something nice.
Lucy's a college student on Work Experience, so she knows
what to choose. Hope was furious when she wouldn't let us
have Lolita, though. Lucy thought it wouldn't suit us.

'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century,
and you thought he wouldn't suit us!' Hope used to be a
professor at Cambridge, and still has that imperious twang
in her voice sometimes. But I could tell Lucy wasn't really
listening. They get that look - even the brighter ones - that
nursery-nurse smile which says I know better. 1 know better
because you're old. It's the rice pudding all over again, Hope
tells me. Rice pudding for the soul.

If Hope taught me to appreciate literature, it was I who
introduced her to magazines. They've been my passion for
years, fashion glossies and society pages, restaurant reviews
and film releases. I started her out on book reviews, slyly
taking her off guard with an article here or a fashion page
there. We found I had quite a talent for description, and
now we wade deliciously together through the pages of
bright ephemera, moaning over Cartier diamonds and
Chanel lipsticks and lush, impossible clothes. It's strange,
JIGS & REELS


really. When I was young those things really didn't interest
me. I think Hope was more elegant than I was - after all,
there were college balls and academy parties and summer
picnics on the Backs. Of course now we're both the same.
Nursing-home chic. Things tend to be communal here some
people forget what belongs to them, so there's a lot of
pilfering. I carry my nicest things with me, in the rack under
my wheelchair. I have my money and what's left of my
jewellery hidden in the seat cushion.

I'm not supposed to have money here. There's nothing to
spend it on, and we're not allowed out unaccompanied.
There's a combination lock on the door, and some people
try to slip out with visitors as they leave. Mrs McAllister -
ninety-two, spry, and mad as a hatter - keeps escaping. She
thinks she's going home.

It must have been the shoes that began it. Slick, patent,
candy-apple red with heels which went on for ever, I found
them in one of my magazines and cut out the picture.
Sometimes I would bring it out and look at it in private,
feeling dizzy and a little foolish, I don't know why. It wasn't
as if it were a picture of a man, or anything like that. They
were only shoes. Hope and I wear the same kind of shoes:
lumpy leatherette slip-ons in porridge beige, eminently,
indisputably suitable - but in secret we moan over Manolo
Blahniks with six-inch perspex heels, or Gina mules in
fuchsia suede, or Jimmy Choos in hand-painted silk. It's
absurd, of course. But I wanted those shoes with a fierceness
that almost frightened me. I wanted, just once, to step out
into the glossy, gleeful pages of one of my magazines. To
I- A I The H AND HOPE GO S 11 O P The I N G


taste the recipes; see the Yilms; read the books. To me the
shoes represented all of that; their cheery, brazen redness;
their frankly impossible heels. Shoes made for anything lolling,
lounging, prowling, strutting, flying - anything but
walking.

I kept the picture in my purse, occasionally taking it out
and unfolding it like a map to secret treasure. It didn't take
Hope long to find out I was hiding something.

'I know it's stupid,' I said. 'Maybe I'm going peculiar. I'll
probably end up like Mrs Banerjee, wearing ten overcoats
and stealing people's underwear.'

Hope laughed at that. 'I don't think so, Faith. I understand
you perfectly well.' She felt on the table in front of
her for her teacup. I knew better than to guide her hand.
'You want to do something unsuitable. I want a copy of Lolita. You want a pair of red shoes. Both are equally
unsuitable for people like us.' She drew a little closer,
lowering her voice. 'Is there an address on the page?' she
asked.

There was. I told her. A Knightsbridge address. It might
as well have been Australia.

'Hey! Butch and Sundance!' It was cheery Chris, who
had come to clean the windows. 'Planning a heist?'

Hope smiled. 'No, Christopher,' she said slyly. 'An
escape.'


We planned it with the furtive cunning of prisoners-of
war. We had one great advantage; the element of surprise.
We were not habitual escapees, like Mrs McAllister, but
JIG'? & RFELF


trusties, nicely lucid and safely immobile. There would have to be a diversion, I suggested. Something that would bring
the duty nurse away from the desk, leaving the entrance
unguarded. Hope took to waiting by the door, listening to
the sound of the numbers being pressed on the keypad until
she was almost certain she could duplicate the combination.
We timed it with the precision of old campaigners. At nine
minutes to nine on Friday morning I picked up one of
Mr Bannerman's cigarette butts from the common room
and hid it in the paper-filled metal bin in my room. At
eight minutes to, Hope and I were in the lobby on our way
to the breakfast-room. Ten seconds later, as I'd expected,
the sprinkler went oft. On our corridor I could hear Mrs
McAllister screaming, 'Fire! Fire!'

Kelly was on duty. Clever Lucy might have remembered
to secure the doors. Thick Claire might not have left the
desk at all. But Kelly grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher
from the wall and ran towards the noise. Hope pushed me
towards the door and felt for the keypad. It was seven
minutes to nine.

'Hurry! She'll be back any moment!'

'Shh.' Beep'beep'beep-beep. 'Got it. I knew one day I'd
find a use for those music lessons they gave me as a child.'
The door slid open. We crunched out onto sunlit gravel.

This was where Hope would need my help. No ramps
here, in the real world. I tried not to stare, mesmerized, at
the sky, at the trees. Tom hadn't taken me out of the
building for over six months.

'Straight ahead. Turn left. Stop. There's a pothole in
FAITH AND HOPE GO SHOTTING


front of us. Take it easy ."Left again.' I remembered a bus
stop just in front of the gates. The buses were like clockwork.
Five to and twenty-five past the hour. You could hear
them from the common room, honking and ratcheting
past like cranky pensioners. For a dreadful moment I was
convinced the bus stop had gone. There were roadworks
where it had once stood; bollards lined the kerb. Then I saw
it, fifty yards further down, a temporary bus stop on a
shortened metal post. The bus appeared at the brow of the
hill.

'Quick! Full speed ahead!'

Hope reacted quickly. Her legs are long and still
muscular; she did ballet as a child. I leaned forwards, clutching
my purse tightly, and held out my hand. Behind us
I heard a cry; glancing back at the windows of the
Meadowbank Home, I saw Kelly at my bedroom window,
her mouth open, yelling something. For a second I wasn't
sure the bus would even take an old lady in a wheelchair,
but it was the hospital circular, and there was a special
ramp. The driver gave us a look of indifference and waved
us aboard. Then Hope and I were on the bus, clinging
to each other like giddy schoolgirls, laughing. People looked
at us, but mostly without suspicion. A little girl smiled at
me. I realized how long ago it was since I'd seen anyone
young.

We got off at the railway station. With some of the
money from the chair cushion I bought two tickets to
London. I panicked for a moment when the ticket man
asked for my pass, but Hope told him, in her Cambridge
JIG? & REEL?


professor's voice, that we would pay the full fare. The ticket
man rubbed his head for a minute, then shrugged.

'Please yourself,' he said.

The train was long and smelt of coffee and burnt rubber. I
guided Hope along the platform to where the guard had let
down a ramp.

'Going down to the smoke, are we, ladies?' The guard
sounded a little like Chris, his cap pushed back cockily from
his forehead. 'Let me take that for you, love,' he said to
Hope, meaning the wheelchair, but Hope shook her head. 'I
can manage, thank you.'

'Straight up, old girl,' I told her. I saw the guard noticing
Hope's blind eyes, but he didn't say anything. I was glad.
Neither of us can stand that kind of thing.

The piece of paper with the Knightsbridge address was
still in my purse. As we sat in the guard's van (with coffee
and scones brought to us by the cheery guard), I unfolded it
again. Hope heard me doing it, and smiled.

'Is it ridiculous?' I asked her, looking at the shoes again,
shiny and red as Lolita lollies. 'Are we ridiculous?'

'Of course we are,' she answered serenely, sipping her
coffee. 'And isn't it/un?'

It only took three hours to get down to London. I was
expecting much longer, but trains, like everything else,
move faster nowadays. We drank coffee again, and talked to
the guard (whose name was not Chris, I learned, but Barry),
and I described what countryside I could see to Hope while
it blurred past at top speed.

'It's all right,' Hope reassured me. 'You don't have to do it
FAITH A N n HOPE CO S II O The TI N C


all now. Just see it first^-arfd we'll go over it all together, in
our own time, when we get back.'

It was nearly lunchtime when we arrived in London.
King's Cross was much bigger than I'd imagined it, all
glass and glorious grime. I tried to see it as well as I could,
whilst directing Hope through the crowds of people of all
colours and ages: for a few moments even Hope seemed disorientated,
and we dithered on the platform, wondering
where all the porters had gone. Everyone but us seemed to
know exactly where they were going, and people with
briefcases jostled against the chair as we stood trying to
work out where to go. 1 began to feel some of my courage
erode.

'Oh, Hope,' I whispered. 'I'm not sure I can do this any
more.'

But Hope was undeterred. 'Rubbish,' she said bracingly.
'There'll be taxis - over there, where the draught is coming
from.' She pointed to our left, where I did see a sign, high
above our heads, which read Way Out. 'We'll do what
everyone does here. We'll get a cab. Onwards!' And at that
we pushed right through the mass of people on the platform,
Hope saying 'Excuse me' in her Cambridge voice, me
remembering to direct her. I checked my purse again, and
Hope chuckled. This time I wasn't looking at the picture,
though. Two hundred and fifty pounds had seemed like
inexpressible riches at the Meadowbank Home, but the
train fare had taught me that prices, too, had speeded up
during our years away from the world. I wondered if we'd
have enough.
JIGS & REELS


The taxi driver was surly and reluctant, lifting the chair
into the black cab while Hope steadied me. I'm not as slim
as I was, and it was almost too much for her, but we
managed.

'How about lunch?' I suggested, too brightly, to take away
the sour taste of the driver's expression.

Hope nodded. 'Anywhere that doesn't do rice pudding,'
she said wryly.

'Is Fortnum and Mason's still there?' I asked the driver.

'Yes, darling, and the British Museum,' he said, revving
his engine impatiently. 'Best place for you two,' I thought I
heard him mutter. Unexpectedly, Hope chuckled. 'Maybe
we'll go there next,' she suggested meekly. That set me off
as well. The driver gave us both a suspicious glance and set
off, still muttering.

There are some places which can survive anything.
Fortnum's is one of these, a little antechamber of heaven,
glittering with sunken treasures. When all civilizations have
collapsed, Fortnum's will still be there, with its genteel
doormen and glass chandeliers, the last, untouchable,
legendary defender of the faith. We entered on the first
floor, through mountains of chocolates and cohorts of
candied fruits. The air was cool and creamy with vanilla and
allspice and peach. Hope turned her head gently from side
to side, breathing in the perfume. There were truffles and
caviar and foie gras in tiny tins and giant demijohns of
green plums in aged brandy and cherries the colour of my
Knightsbridge shoes. There were quails' eggs and nougatines
and langues de chat in rice-paper packets and champagne


10
i-AlIli AND HOPE GO SHOPPING


bottles in gleaming baftafions. We took the lift to the top
floor and the cafe, where Hope and I drank Earl Grey from
china cups, remembering the Meadowbank Home's plastic
tea service and giggling. I ordered recklessly for both of us,
trying not to think of my diminishing savings: smoked
salmon and scrambled eggs on muffins light as puffs of
air, tiny canapes of rolled anchovy and sundried tomatoes,
Parma ham with slices of pink melon, apricot and chocolate
parfait like a delicate caress. 'If Heaven is anything like as
nice as this,' murmured Hope, 'send me there right now.'

Even the obligatory bathroom stop was a revelation:
clean, "learning tiles, flowers, fluffy pink towels, scented
hand cream, perfume. I sprayed Hope with freesias and
looked at us both in one of the big shiny mirrors. I'd
expected us to look drab, maybe even a little foolish, in our
nursing-home cardies and sensible skirts. Maybe we did. But
to me we looked changed, gilded: for the first time I could
see Hope as she must have been; I could see myself.

We spent a long time in Fortnum's. We visited floors of
hats and scarves and handbags and dresses. I imprinted
them all into my memory, to bring out later with Hope. She
wheeled me patiently through forests of lingerie and coats
and evening frocks like a breath of summer air, letting her
thin, elegant fingers trail over silks and furs. Reluctantly we
left: the streets were marvellous, but lacked sparkle; looking
at the people rushing past us, haughty or indifferent, once
again I was almost afraid. We hailed a taxi.

I was getting nervous now; a prickle of stage fright ran up
my spine and I unfolded the paper again, its folds whitened


11
JIGS & REELS


by much handling. Once more I felt drab and old. What if
the shop assistant wouldn't let me in? What if they laughed
at me? Worse still was the suspicion - the certainty - that
the shoes would be too expensive, that already I'd overspent,
that maybe I hadn't even had enough to begin with
. . . Spotting a bookshop, glad of the diversion, I stopped the
cab and, with the help of the driver, we got out and bought
Hope a copy of Lolita.

No-one said it might be unsuitable. Hope smiled and
held the book, running her fingers over the smooth unbroken
spine. 'How good it smells,' she said softly. 'I'd
almost forgotten.'

The cab driver, a black man with long hair, grinned at us.
He was obviously enjoying himself. 'Where to now, ladies?'
he asked.

I could not answer him. My hands trembled as I handed
over the magazine page with the Knightsbridge address. If
he'd laughed I think I would have wept. I was close to it
already. But the driver just grinned again and drove off into
the blaring traffic.

It was a tiny shop, a single window with glass display
shelves and just one pair of shoes on each. Behind them, I
could see a light interior, all pale wood and glass, with tall
vases of white roses on the floor.

'Stop,' I told Hope.

'What's wrong? Is it shut?'

'No.'

The shop was empty. I could see that. There was one
assistant, a young man in black, with long, clean hair. The


12
FAITH AND HOPE GO SHOPPING
-*~ »

shoes in the window were pale green, tiny, like buds just
about to open. There were no prices on any of them.

'Onwards!' urged Hope in her Cambridge voice.

"I can't. It's--' I couldn't finish. I saw myself again, old
and colourless, untouched by magic.

'Unsuitable,' barked Hope scornfully, and wheeled me in
anyway.

For a second I thought she was going to hit the vase of
roses by the door. 'Left!' 1 yelled, and we missed them. Just.

The young man looked at us curiously. He had a clever,
handsome face, but I was relieved to see that his eyes were
smiling. I held up the picture.

'I'd like to see - a pair of these,' I told him, trying to copy
Hope's imperious tone, but sounding old and quavery instead.
'Size four.'

His eyes widened a little, but he did not comment.
Instead he turned and went into the back of the shop,
where I could see shelves of boxes waiting. I closed my eyes.

'I thought I had a pair left.'

He took them carefully out of their box, all sucked-sweet
shiny and red, red, red.

'Let me see them, please.'

They were like Christmas baubles, like rubies, like impossible
fruit.

'Would you like to try them on?'

He did not comment on my wheelchair, my old and
lumpy feet in their porridge-coloured slip-ons. Instead he
knelt in front of me, his dark hair falling around his face.
Gently he removed my shoes. I know he could see the veins


13
JIGS & REELS


worming up my ankles and smell the violet scent of the talc
that Hope rubs into my feet at bedtime. With great care he
slipped the shoes onto my feet; I felt my arches push up
alarmingly as the shoes slid into place.

'May I show you?' Carefully he stretched out my leg so
that I could see.

'Ginger Rogers,' whispered Hope.

Shoes for strutting, sashaying, striding, soaring. Anything
but walking. I looked at myself for a long time, fists
clenched, a hot fierce sweetness in my heart. I wondered
what Tom would say if he saw me now. My head was
spinning.

'How much?' I asked hoarsely.

The young man told me a price so staggering that at
first I was sure I'd misheard; more than I'd paid for my first
house. I felt the knowledge clang deep at my insides, like
something falling down a well. 'I'm sorry,' I heard myself
saying from a distance. 'That's a little too dear.'

From his expression I guessed he might have been expecting
it.

'Oh, Faith,' said Hope softly.

'It's all right,' I told them both. They didn't really suit
me.'

The young man shook his head. 'You're wrong, Madam,'
he told me, with a crooked smile. 'I think they did.'

Gently he put the shoes - Valentine, racing'Car, candy
apple red - back into their box. The room, light as it was,
seemed a little duller when they had gone.

'Are you just here for the day, Madam?'


14
FAITH AND HOPE GO SHOPPING

-*' *

I nodded. 'Yes. We've enjoyed ourselves very much. But
now it's time to go home.'

'I'm sorry.' He reached over to one of the tall vases by the
door and removed a rose. 'Perhaps you'd like one of these?'
He put it into my hand. It was perfect, highly scented,
barely open. It smelt of summer evenings and Swan Lake. In
that moment 1 forgot all about the red shoes. A man - one
who was not my son - had offered me flowers.

I still have the white rose. I put it in a paper cup of water
for the train journey home, then transferred it to a vase.
The yellow chrysanths were finished, anyway. When it fades
1 will press the petals -- which are still unusually scented -- and use them to mark the pages of Lolita, which Hope and I
are reading. Unsuitable, it may be. But I'd like to see them
try to take it away.


15
The Ugly Sister


I've always felt some degree of sympathy for Cinderella's Ugly
Sisters. And I've always felt that there was more to their tale
than the story books, cartoons and pantomime shows would have
us believe.


IT'S NOT EASY BEING AN UGLY SISTER. ESPECIALLY NOT AT

Christmas, smack in the middle of the pantomime season,
with all its glitter and fakery and hissing and booing and
tawdry old jokes and oooh yes it is, and ooooh no it isn't,
behind you, behind you. Plus being spat at by shrieking
sticky children with ice-cream all over their faces, or pelted
with flour by a girl in Prince's clothing before all going
round to Cinderella's Dance-a-Rama for pie, peas and
Happy Hour after the show.
No thanks.

Of course, it was worse in the old days. That fellow
Grimm has a lot to answer for, and so do Perrault and his
simple-minded translator. Glass slippers, my foot. Those


16
I H H UULY S1SFHR


pantoufles de verre have Been the bane of my life ever since,
and never mind that they were originally vair, as in white
ermine, which would have been much easier on the arches
(and might even have fitted, which would really have put
one over on that Prince and his little floozy). No, the old
days were savage, with crows to peck out our eyes - after the
wedding, of course; wouldn't want anything to spoil Her
Smugness's Big Day - and righteous torment for the ungodly.

Nowadays, of course, we have trial by Disney, which is
almost as bad: evil becomes ridiculous faced with so many
pratfalls and flour bombs. There's no dignity left in being a
villain. Instead it's just another Christmas crowd in BoltononDearne
or Barnsley Civic Hall, featuring third-rate
soap-opera has-beens and some bloke who once appeared on Opportunity Knocks.

But I don't complain; I'm a professional. Not like
these fairweather artistes, killing time out of season between
walk-on parts. It is a proud and lonely thing to be an Ugly
Sister, and don't you ever forget it.

We - my sister and I - were born somewhere in Europe.
Accounts differ. In any case, no-one cares much about our
history. Or, for that matter, what happens to us when the
curtain goes down. There's no ever after for an Ugly Sister,
let alone a happy.

Our father adored us; our mother had ambitions, like all
mothers, to see us settled (preferably a comfortable distance
away). Then came tragedy. A fall from his horse killed our
indulgent father. Mother remarried, to a widower with one


17
]!G ? pounds REEL?


daughter, and here the story begins in earnest. You know it,
of course. At least, you know her version: how the widower
died; how we then oppressed the daughter, a charming waif
called Cinders; how we made her skivvy for us and sew for
us and cook our enormous meals; how we callously denied
her the opportunity to be Teen Queen at the Palace All
Nite Disco; the mice, the dress, the Fairy Godmother; all
that drivel.

I said drivel. That wasn't the story at all.

Oh, she was quite pretty, in a sickly sort of way. Bottle
blonde, skinny, as pale and delicate as we were strapping.
She did it on purpose: ate nothing but raw food, always
dressed in black, exercised compulsively. You've never seen
such clean floors (apparently sweeping burns 400 calories an
hour, polishing 500). She rarely spoke to us, but listened
raptly to the minstrels who came by with their tales of
romance, and never missed the penny plays every Sunday
morning in the village square. Boys liked her (of course);
but she wanted a prince. Village boys not good enough for
Miss High and Mighty.

Of course we hated her. We were both quite ordinary
looking (they made us out to be ugly later, out of spite). Bits
of us jiggled when we ran. We had poor complexions and
bushy hair that no amount of blow-drying would straighten.
Mistress Smuggerella was toned, sleek, a perfect size eight.
Anyone would have hated her.

Of course she always dressed in rags. She was the type.
Besides, that raggy look was very in that season - designer
rags that cost a fortune. You had to be thin to carry it off;


18
THE UGLY S!?TER


with my legs I'd have^6o*ked like a pantomime cow. And
the shoes! If you'd seen the pairs of shoes she had in
her wardrobe, not just white ermine but crocodile, mink,
plexiglas, ostrich, lizard, silk; all with six-inch heels and
little straps even in winter (think what that'll do to her
arches in twenty years' time) - well, you just wouldn't have
believed it.

Have you ever noticed how history favours the lookers?
Henry VIII: bad press. Richard Lionheart: good press. Catherine
of Aragon: bad press. Anne of Cleves: good press.
Court painters have a lot to answer for, and storytellers too.
You know the end: she gets the Prince (who, by the way,
was short, fat and balding), the castle, the gold, the white
wedding, the rose petals, the whole shebang; we get the
crows. Happy Hour ever after.

But it gets worse. I've already told you; there is no ever
after for an Ugly Sister. Nobody thought to write one,
of course; they were too busy swooning over Her Royal
Smugness and her perfect tootsies. So what happened to us?
Did we just vanish? No, what happened is this: we, the
forgotten Sisters - soon to become the Ugly Sisters,
the Weird Sisters, and the Sisters of the Divine Comedy rolled
on into legend, picking up blemishes like lint along
the way. We skirmished unsuccessfully with Grimm and
Perrault, tried a bit of seduction on Tennyson, but again to
no avail. We hoped for better in the twentieth century, but,
as I said, that was when Disney came along, and by then we
were ready to sell our souls for a bit of good press.

But we're troupers. At least, I am - nowadays my sister


19
JTOS & RFFI S


plays to the gallery a bit too much for my taste - you'd
always see me here at Christmas, in one theatre or another,
face gleaming with greasepaint, in powdered wig and giant
hooped skirt. I like to think there's something noble almost
heroic - about my part; a hidden pathos, which only
the select few will ever see. Most of them aren't watching
me anyway; they're watching her, aren't they, La Smuggette,
in her flouncy dress and spangled shoes. When I speak,
my lines are usually drowned out by hissing or laughter.
But I don't care. I'm a professional. Beneath my grotesque
costume, my mask of paint, a mystery awaits. One day, I tell
myself, someone will notice me. One day, my Prince will
come.

Last night was Christmas Eve. The best night of the year.
Oh, there are shows after that - right until late January but
Christmas Eve is special. After that the magic runs out
and depression sets in; everyone feels bloated and sluggish,
playing out time at the rag-end of the season. Audiences
dwindle. People forget their lines. The show moves away,
to Blackpool maybe, or some other out-of-season resort, to
moulder quietly until next year. Costumes stored in trunks.
Lights packed into cases. But now it was Christmas Eve;
everyone was louder, brighter, screamier than usual; the
audience hissed and booed with even more vigour, the kids
were stickier, the Prince more camp; the pantomime cow
more athletic; Buttons more pathetic; and of course dear old
Cinders, the star of the show, was sweeter, prettier, daintier,
more glittery and fairy-like than ever before.

Only I felt different as the last act approached. My head


20
THE UO1 Y STSTFR


was aching. I wondered "fteetingly whether it wouldn't be a
good idea to get out of the panto business for good; to move
away, to retire somewhere out of Europe, where I wouldn't
be recognized.

Fat chance, I thought. There's no escape for an Ugly
Sister.

And still the thought persisted. What was wrong with me
tonight? I shook my head to clear it, and for the first time in
my long career, something caught me by surprise and I
almost fluffed a line.

There was a man watching me from the stalls. Sitting
close to the stage, half in shadow; a large, long-haired man,
shoulders hunched a little under a shaggy grey overcoat, his
eyes fixed upon me.

That was unusual - more than that, astonishing. It was
Cinders' scene; the one where my sister and I primp at the
mirror while she sings her mournful song and the animals sit
about blatting in sympathy. And yet there was no doubt
about it (I dared a second glance through the glass, very
darkly): he was looking at me.

Me. I felt my heart give a ridiculous lurch. He was no Prince Charming, that much was obvious; and I could see
from the grizzled look of his rough hair that he was no
longer young. But he looked strong and powerful, and his
big eyes beneath the fall of hair were bright and intent. I
felt suddenly very conscious of the ridiculous costume
I was wearing, the huge bustle, the oversized shoes, the
absurdly padded bosom. He thought me amusing, I told
myself sternly; that was all. And yet he was not smiling.


2 1
H O ^ & R F F I ^


I was conscious of his eyes on me throughout the rest of
the scene. When I came back on stage after Cinders' mawkish
duet with her prince, he was waiting for me; then again in the next. When the flour hit me in the face and the
audience screamed with mirth, he alone did not laugh.
Instead I saw him lower his head, as if in sorrow (I thought)
at a fine, proud woman brought low. My heart was beating
wildly. I raced through the final scene as if in a daze,
reciting my lines automatically, my eyes returning incessantly
to the face of the man still watching me from the
shadows. Not a handsome face, no; but there was character
there, and a kind of wild romance. His hands - so large as to
be almost paws - looked capable of gentleness. His eyes
gleamed wedding-ring gold in the darkness. I was trembling
all over.

The last scene came. Then the curtain call. Linking
hands, we all came to the front of the stage for a bow,
and as I bent down he stood up and spoke urgently in my
ear.

Meet me outside. Please.

I looked around wildly, still half-expecting to see some
other woman - some more beautiful, more deserving woman
- step forward to receive his message. But he was watching
me, his gold-ringed eyes intent. And as I stared at
him, quite forgetting the hot and foolish hand of the actor
beside me, I saw him nod, as if in answer to an unspoken
question.

Me?

Yes, you.


22
THF UP, I Y M^TFR


Then he was gone into the crowd, as quickly and silently
as a hunter.

We took fourteen curtain calls. Streamers flew past
my head, confetti fell, flowers were presented to Her
Nibs and the sham Prince Charming. I could see the
audience shouting and clapping (with a few stray boos
and hisses for you-know-who), but in my head there was a
great silence, a great astonishment. It was as if an eye
I'd never known about had just opened inside my head.
After the curtain, I flung aside my wig and hoop and
raced wildly for the stage door, certain that he'd be gone,
that it had been a joke, that he - whoever he was had
already moved on, taking a piece of my heart with
him.

He was waiting in the alley behind the theatre. Neon
light from Cinderella's Dance-a-Rama across the road
torched his hair with gaudy colours. The snow crunched
beneath my feet as I ran towards him. He stood head and
shoulders above me, though I am taller than most. For the
first time in my life, I felt small: delicate.

'I knew straightaway,' he growled, as I entered the circle
of his arms. 'As soon as I saw you up there. Just like in
the stories. Just like magic.' He was kissing me fiercely as
he spoke, nuzzling hungrily against my hair. 'Come away
with me. Come with me now. Leave everything. Take the
risk.'

The?' I whispered, hardly able to breathe. 'But I'm an
Ugly Sister.'

'I've had it with leading ladies. They're all the same.


23
JIGS & REELs


There was a girl once--' He stopped, lowering his head as if
the memory pained him. 'I know better now. I've learned to
see through their disguises.' He paused again, and looked at
me. 'Yours, too.'

I clung to him as he spoke, my face in the shaggy grey fur
of his coat. I could hear my heart pounding more wildly
than before.

'But I'm--' I began again.

'No.' Gently he ran his hand across my face, wiping off
the greasepaint with his fingers. 'You're not.'

For a moment I tried to conceive of not being an Ugly
Sister. Ugly is a word I've dragged behind me all my life; it
defines who I am. Without it, what am I? The thought
made me shiver.

The stranger saw my expression. 'These things are
just part of the roles we play,' he said. 'The Good, the
Bad, the Ugly. We're heroes too, in our way. The ones
of us who crawl away cursing when the curtain goes
down. The discarded ones. The ones with no happy ever
after. We belong together, you and I. After everything
we've endured, we have a right to something of our
own.'

'But - the story,' I said weakly.

'We'll write another story.' He sounded very certain: very
strong. I felt the last of my defences begin to crumble.
Behind us, Cinderella's Dance-a-Rama began to thump out
a disco beat. Happy Hour was beginning.

'But I don't even know you!' I protested. What I meant,
of course, was that I did not know myself; that a lifetime of


24
THE UGLY SISTER


Ugly Sisterhood had robbed me of all other identity. For the
first time in my life I felt close to tears.

The stranger grinned. He had rather large teeth, I
noticed; but his eyes were kind.

'Call me Wolfie,' he said.


25
Gastronomicon


Some people have had a hard time reconciling the author of The
Evil Seed and of Sleep, Pale Sister with that of Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. To help bridge the gulf, I wrote this
-- and because food can be frightening, too.


SOMETHING ALWAYS GOES WRONG WHEN WE HAVE GUESTS TO

dinner. Last time it was a strange smell, the sound of clanking
from somewhere within the walls and the sudden apparition
of a small and incredibly ugly homunculus, which I hastily
pushed into the garbage-disposal unit before it could step on
the newly iced batch of fairy buns. The dining-room lights
were lower than usual, and flickered with a strange reddish
tinge, but everyone thought that was something to do with
the wiring, and I got out of it easily enough by taking the
coffee and after-dinner drinks into the lounge.

No-one seemed to hear the distant slithering sounds from
behind the serving hatch; or if they did, they were too
polite to say anything.


26
C A S The R O X O M I C CX


It must have been the pudding.

Everything else was safe enough: prawn cocktail, then
roast chicken, greens, roast and mashed potatoes, garden
peas and carrots. Ernest would have had apple pie again
after that; he always wants apple pie. But I thought we
might try something a bit more exotic: a nice Black Forest
Gateau, perhaps, or a lemon torte. Of course, I'm always a
bit limited by what Ernest will eat; there's a whole section
of the cookbook I never use because he won't eat anything
too fancy or too foreign. You'd never think that he's part
foreign himself; he's so very English - always wears a tie
when he goes out, never misses The Archers, votes Conservative
and loves his Mum.

I only met her a couple of times, you know, when Ernest
and I were courting. It took me a bit by surprise. She'd
changed her name, of course, but I could tell she wasn't
from here. She had long black hair pinned back with a
silver clasp, and very dark eyes. Ernest's hair isn't quite as
dark, his eyes are hazel rather than brown and his skin
doesn't have that golden bloom, but I could still see the
resemblance between them.

She was wearing English clothes, like Ernest, though she
hadn't managed it quite as well; her dress was all right, but
she wasn't wearing any stockings, and her feet were bare in
her little golden sandals. Instead of a cardigan she had
a sort of embroidered shawl, with some kind of writing
around the edge in gold thread. I remember feeling secretly
rather embarrassed that Ernest's mother was so very foreign
looking; he seemed to feel it too, though he was clearly


27
II G S & REE L S


devoted to her. A bit too devoted, if you ask me; stroking
her hair and fussing over her as if she were old, or
sick. She was neither; she looked thirtyfive at the most
- and she was beautiful. That isn't a word 1 tend to use
about people, but there was no denying it; she was. It
made me feel a bit uncomfortable; I've always been rather
plain, and you know what they say about men and their
mothers.

I never saw Ernest's Dad. He was English, according to
his Mum, but he'd moved away a long time ago, when
Ernest was a boy. There were no photographs of him, and
she didn't seem to want to talk about it much.

'The women of our family have never had any luck with
men,' was all she would say on the subject. I guessed his
parents might have disapproved of a mixed marriage. Come
to think of it, mine would have been none too pleased, if
they'd found out.

Still, she seemed to approve of me. And after the
wedding, she moved away - the family was from Persia, or
one of those Arab countries, and although Ernest never said
so, I had the impression she'd gone back home. I tried not
to be too pleased about it, but secretly I was rather glad. I
don't know what our neighbours would have said if they'd
seen her.

The cookbook was her wedding gift to us. Ernest seemed
to know what it was as soon as he saw the big package
wrapped in scarlet paper, and he caught hold of her by the
shoulders and started talking to her very fast in a language I
didn't understand. His face was twisted with emotion, and


28
O A S The R O N O M I C O N


I think there were tears»fn»her eyes. I was relieved that there
was no-one else around to see them.

Finally Ernest took the package. I don't know why I
thought he looked reluctant to accept it. Then, with a
glance at his mother, he gave it to me.

This is a family treasure,' he told me gently. 'It has been
passed on from mother to daughter for generations. It's the
most precious thing she has. She says she knows it will be
safe with you.'

His mother nodded silently, her eyes still brimming.

I tore off the scarlet paper (not very bridal, I thought to
myself). To be honest, I couldn't really see what the fuss was
about, it was just an old book, leather-bound and worn dark
with handling. The pages were unevenly cut and covered
in tiny script. Some were stained and would have been
illegible even if I'd known the language.

The pages were all of different thicknesses, and I could
see that in some places notes had been written in the
margins and around the foreign writing. Some had been
pasted directly onto the page. At the front, extra sheets had
been stuck into the book, and on these the handwriting was
different. Some of it was in English, some in other languages
that I recognized - mostly French and German. Inside the
cover was what looked like a list of names.

'All the women of our family,' said Ernest's mother,
pointing. 'All our names are written here.'

Only the last one was in English. Sulebha Alazhred Patel. A bit of a mouthful. No wonder she changed it.

'Is it a cookbook?' From the fragments of English script in


29
IIOS & RFF!.C


the margins I could see lists of ingredients. Tm quite keen
on cooking.'

Ernest and his mother looked at each other.

'Yes, a cookbook,' she said at last. 'A very old, very
precious cookbook.'

'It's very - special - to my mother,' added Ernest. 'She
has been its custodian since her mother died.'

'Thank you,' I said politely. 'It's lovely.'

That's men for you, I thought to myself. Nothing ever
compares to their mother's cooking. I guessed that now
Ernest would want me to prepare his mother's recipes at
home, and I hoped that they wouldn't be too foreign. You
know how the smell of curry lingers on soft furnishings.
And in our neighbourhood - well, you know how people
talk. And Ernest really does look so English.

I needn't have worried. After his mother left, Ernest
seemed much calmer. He's a quiet man, really, not given to
- well, passions, I suppose you'd say. The only occasion I
ever saw him moved was that time with his mother. I would
never have said so to Ernest, of course, but I really don't
think she was good for him. He's much better without her.

I was right about the recipes, though. He's always insisted
that I use his mother's cookbook, even if I have a similar
recipe of my own. I didn't like to at first - to tell you
the truth, I wasn't sure it was all that hygienic, with those
stains and fingermarks all over it - but I got a plastic cover
made, and after that it was less of a problem. And of course
Ernest is very set in his ways. He can tell if I've added an
ingredient or changed a recipe by as much as a whisker, and


30
GASTROXOMICOX


can get quite annoyed if~I "introduce a variation. I've learned
to stick precisely to the wording (very odd wording, too, in
some cases, but that's because some of the recipes are
quite old), and not to experiment too much. He has his
favourites, all of them from the front of the book: nice,
traditional English recipes like shepherd's pie or steak and
kidney pudding. The rest of the book I never use. For a
start, most of it is in Arabic or something. And from what I
do understand, the recipes in that part are a bit too exotic
for us anyway. I have to say I'm tempted sometimes, just to
see what would happen, but I know what Ernest would say if
I tried. Too fancy for me, love. What about a nice pork chop?

So now I stick to what he likes best. Apple pie and
custard. Jam roly-poly. Bubble and squeak. Toad in the
hole. He never says so, but I can guess that his mother used
to make them for him when he was a boy. Perhaps his father
liked them. I think it's rather sweet, actually.

We've been lucky, Ernest and I. Just after we married he
got a job with a big chemical firm: regular promotion, good
hours, three weeks' holiday a year. We bought a nice house
on a new estate, and a sensible family car. We have two
children, Cheryl and Mark, both nearly grown-up now, of
course, and doing well at university. No serious illnesses,
no disasters, not even a burglary. Last month Ernest got
another promotion - he often does after one of my dinner
parties, and jokes that it must be my home cooking that
does it - to Regional Director. It isn't a fortune, of course.
But what would we want with more? I'm not a spender. I'm
not one for furs or jewellery. We've got a nice comfortable


31
JIGS & REELS


house and a new conservatory to sit in. I have my flower
arranging class and Ernest has his golf. The kids are all
right. We're safe.

Still, I sometimes wonder what happened to the man I
married. Oh, I'm not unhappy or anything like that. But
I have to admit that although I'm relieved Ernest didn't
turn out to be one of those feckless men my mother used to
warn me about, I do sometimes wonder what it would be
like if he were more - well, passionate, I suppose. Just a little
less English. I wonder what it would be like if, just once, we
went to Bombay or Marrakesh for the holidays, instead of
Skegness or Robin Hood's Bay. If we could have a little
danger, a little impulse for a change. If, just once, we could
have Gobi Saag Aloo instead of steak and kidney pud.

Last month was our anniversary. Twenty-five years,
would you believe it, our Silver Wedding, and I'd planned a
special treat. Ernest was working late - demands of the new
promotion - and I thought I might surprise him with a
celebration dinner. I brought out the cookbook, turning
automatically to the first section, transcribed almost
entirely into English and quite legible in comparison with
the rest.

In twenty-five years I've learned that anything from the
first ten pages is safe. Oh, you do get the odd noises, strange
smells, dimmed light, an impression of shifted perspectives,
of walls sliding slyly to one side, but I think that's a small
price to pay for a really light Yorkshire pudding or a really
fluffy curd tart. Even then, it's usually only the first time
you try the recipe that it happens; after that things settle


32
C, A S The R O N O MI C O N


down a bit. And they are excellent recipes; no skimping on
ingredients, no shop-bought pastry, all spices ground by
hand in the big stoneware mortar Ernest bought me for
our first anniversary. I don't begrudge a minute; cooking
should take time. And I do enjoy it. I've never been one
for these labour-saving devices - mixers and blenders and
microwaves and the rest. Ernest calls them 'flavour-saving
devices'.

But twenty-five years, I said to myself. There must have
been a thousand recipes in that old cookbook, and in
twenty-five years I'd never gone beyond the first thirty or
so. They were the most recent ones; I could tell that from
the condition of the paper. The later pages were the colour
of old baking parchment, and the writing was rusty and
faded. There were virtually no English notes beyond the
hundredth page, and even those were choppy and difficult
to read. Pound a calabash of raw commeal with Dragon's Blood
in the moon's last quarter ... I mean, really.

Still, it wasn't all as bad as that. Leafing through the
book, I found several new recipes which sounded interesting
without being too fancy. I'd already decided on roast lamb
for the main course, and peach cobbler and ice cream for
pudding, but I really wanted to make an effort with the
starters. It wasn't as if Ernest had actually told me not to go
beyond the tenth page, I thought to myself, and after all, it
was our anniversary. There are some occasions when even a
perfect prawn cocktail just doesn't fit the bill.

I found it about forty pages in. Some of the translation
was in French, but I could understand most of it, and it


33
JIO? 5; RFFI.


really sounded rather nice. Besides, I reminded myself, I
wasn't too bad at French when I was a girl. I'd manage. Entree. That meant a starter, didn't it? I squinted down the
list of ingredients. There didn't seem to he a problem there.
Some of the words were abbreviated -- I assumed yog. stood
for yoghurt - and the spellings were sometimes difficult to
make out. The cooking time, too, was unclear - something
which looked like long, which wasn't much help - but I was
sure that if I marinaded the meat with the herbs for an hour
or two there would be plenty of flavour.

At first it was easy. I ground the herbs as usual in the
mortar, then added a dash of dry sherry, the yoghurt and the
sugar. It looked a bit pale, so 1 put in a teaspoonful of
Gentleman's Relish (the translation said rapoce d'homme, which is probably the French version). The recipe just said viande, so I used a nice piece of chicken breast with the skin
off, cutting it into strips then placing it in a dish with the
marinade while I got busy with the lamb. It was getting
quite dark, but it wasn't until I was removing the skins from
the blanched peaches that I noticed the kitchen spotlights
had dimmed to tiny red pinpricks. There was a smell too;
something like dustbins left out in the sun. It must have
been coming from the neighbours' side; I wipe the kitchen
pedal-bin with bleach twice a day. Then there was the
noise: a kind of deep pounding beyond the kitchen wall.
Probably that teenage boy of theirs playing his hi-fi at full
volume again; thank God we never had that kind of trouble
with our two. I sprayed Kitchen Fresh into the air, and shut
all the windows.


34
G A S The R O N O M 1 C O X


I was making the paltry for the cobbler when I heard the
tolling; something like an underground bell repeating the
same dull note over and over. It bothered me so much that I
almost forgot to turn the marinaded chicken.

I looked at the kitchen clock. Ernest would be home at
eight; that gave me just over an hour to get everything
ready. If the lights were going to play up again, I'd have to
put a couple of candles on the table. Come to think of it,
that might make a nice change, I thought. Give the evening
a bit of romance.

The lamb was perfect. I'd done some roast parsnips, mash
and spring greens to go with it, and the peach cobbler was
under the grill for that crunchy caramel-topping effect. I
turned the chicken again in its marinade and poured myself
a small glass of red wine as a reward.

Seven-thirty. I switched off the heat over the cobbler and
left it to cool a little (it always tastes best warm rather than
hot, with vanilla ice-cream). I thought I might flash-fry the
chicken and reduce the remaining marinade into a nice
sauce. It was adventurous by Ernest's standards, but I told
myself that if he didn't like the look of it I could always put
a couple of prawn cocktails on standby.

The bell was still ringing. For a moment I considered
knocking on the wall, but decided against it. It never pays
to get into a quarrel with the neighbours. Still, I thought,
they were off my Christmas card list from now on.

I put the radio on. There's a station that plays classical
music - nothing too fancy, just the hits - and I turned up
the sound as high as I dared, so that I could hardly hear the


35
JIGS & REEL?


ringing. That was better. I poured myself another glass of
wine.

I left the oven on very low, just to keep the meat warm,
and began to set the table. The floor felt uneven, the walls
tilted slightly out of true, and the cloth kept sliding off onto
the floor. I held it in place with one of the silver-plated
candlesticks, and put a centrepiece of red carnations in
the middle. I shouldn't have had the wine, I told myself,
because now I felt dizzy, and my hand was shaking as 1 tried
to light the candle, so that the flame kept blowing out. That
smell was back, too - something hot and sweaty - and I
could hear the sound of the bell even above the radio. In
fact, there was something wrong with the radio station,
because every now and then the music cut out and gave a
great dry hiss of white noise that made me jump. The room
had got very hot - it always does when I've been cooking so
I turned the thermostat down and fanned myself with a
copy of the Radio Times.

A quarter to eight, and it was stifling. I hoped there
wasn't going to be a storm; it really had got very dark.
The radio was producing virtually nothing but white
noise now, quite useless, so I turned it off, but I could
still hear that hissing in the distance, a sort of dry, slithery
desert sound. Perhaps it was something to do with the
electrics. Behind it the bell still rang, and for the first time I
was grateful. I got the feeling that if it stopped ringing
I might hear those other sounds more clearly than I wanted
to.

I sat down. There was a draught coming from somewhere,


36
O A ^ The R O \7 O M I C O \7


but it was hot air, not -cold. I checked the kitchen to make
sure I hadn't left the oven door open. Everything looked
fine. Then I noticed that the serving hatch was open a
couple of inches. Red light shone through onto the worktop.
The kitchen door swung shut, very gently, with a small
click.

I've never been what you'd call a fanciful woman. That's
one of the things that Ernest appreciates most about me; I'm
not one to make a fuss. But when that door closed I began
to shake. The sounds coming from behind the serving hatch
were louder now: a single bell tolling; a thick dragging
sound and something which might almost have been voices;
murmuring, clotted voices, but in no language 1 knew or
could recognize. The light that fell across the worktop
didn't look like electric light at all; it was more like a kind
of daylight, but redder, darker somehow, as if it was coming
from a sun much older than ours. I could almost imagine
that there was no dining-room beyond the serving hatch
any more, but another place altogether: somewhere terribly
old, terribly barren; somewhere hissing with dust, where the
broken walls of once-fabulous cities were now no more than
hummocks in the sand; and that where the red sky met the
red earth things moved and slouched, things beyond perspective
and (thankfully) beyond imagination. I reached out my
hand slowly to close the serving hatch, but as I inched
closer I was suddenly sure that on the other side, another
hand - something grossly, unimaginably different - was also
moving ponderously towards the tiny space; that I might
feel the graze of its fingers as it met mine; and that if I


37
II n <= 5; R F F I


did I would scream and scream and never be able to stop
screaming . . .

Of course it was the wine. What else could it have been?
But I knew that if I stayed in that kitchen for another
second I'd disgrace myself completely. So 1 yanked off my
apron, picked up my handbag and was out of the door like a
shot, slamming it closed and locking it behind me. The
meal would be ruined, of course, but even that dreadful
likelihood was not enough to tempt me through the door
again.

For a second as the key turned I was sure I heard something
behind the kitchen door: a sliding, a heaving, a
distressing sound of crockery, as if something very large had
torn its way through the serving hatch, sending cups and
saucers skating across the linoleum. Of course, that was
probably my imagination. Or maybe the wine. Still, I wasn't
taking any chances. Not on our anniversary. Ernest would
understand.

I met him coming down the path, right on time as
always. 'Happy anniversary, darling,' I said, rather breathlessly,
and kissed his cheek.

He glanced briefly at the kitchen window, where a red
glow was now blooming behind the net curtains. 'Have you
been cooking something, love?' he asked in a guarded sort of
voice. 'You look a bit pink.'

I gave him my bravest smile. 'I thought we might try
something a bit different today,' I said, 'seeing that it's a
special occasion.'

He looked nervous at that, and his eyes went to the


38
window again. For a second I thought I saw the net curtains
move as a shadow - dreadfully shapeless, dreadfully large passed
behind them.

'Is anything wrong?' he asked.

'No, of course not,' I replied firmly, turning him away
from the house. 'I just thought we might like a bit of
a change. What about some fish and chips, and maybe
the pictures afterwards? There's a Clint Eastwood on at the
Majestic. Then perhaps we could go down the pub.'

'Er . . . that would be nice.' Ernest sounded relieved.
Behind us I thought I heard the kitchen door rattling, and a
tinkle of "lass. Neither of us looked back, though. 'Are you
sure everything's all right?' he repeated.

'Of course it is,' I said. 'I just had a bit of an accident in
the kitchen, that's all. It'll be fine. After all,' I said cheerily,
closing the garden gate after us, 'I can't be slaving over a
hot stove for you every day, can I?'

I'd clear up any mess when we got back, I decided, as we
started off hand-in-hand down Acacia Drive. With a bit of
luck I might even be able to save the lamb. We could have
it cold for tomorrow's lunch, with new potatoes and salad.
The cobbler, too, would be just as good cold.

I wasn't so sure about the chicken.


39
Fule's Gold


Leeds Grammar School, where I spent ten eventful years, has
been the source of many stories before and since my departure.
They are mainly set in and around St Oswald's Grammar
School for Boys, a fictional place, which has gradually become
less and less so in my mind. This is one of them. There may be
more.


THE LAST STORY IN THE WORLD WAS WRITTEN BETWEEN

seven-fifty'five and eight-thirty on Friday, 1 December
2002. Most of it over breakfast, at a guess, but in the
last two paragraphs the handwriting betrayed a telltale
shakiness, an unseemly lack of attention to capital letters
and full stops, which suggested the school bus. It came
nineteenth on a pile of twenty-two, which meant that it
was almost five o'clock before Mr Fisher got round to
marking it at all.

Mr Fisher lived alone in a small terraced house in
the centre of town. He did not own a car, and therefore


40
FULL'S GOLD


preferred to do as much 3s Re could of his weekend marking
in the form-room after school. Even so, there were usually
two or three stacks of books and papers to take home on the
bus. Mr Fisher had used the same old leather briefcase for
over forty years, and it was still good, though battered and
stretched at the seams from the weight of ten thousand - a hundred thousand - English essays, but today he had found
a hole in one corner, through which pens, rulers and other
small sly objects might finger their way and be lost. Outside
it was already dark, and a thin, wet, unromantic snow was
beginning to fall; but it was to save his briefcase any further
abuse - at least, until that hole could be mended - that Mr
Fisher decided to stay a little longer, make himself a last cup
of tea, and finish his marking.

It had been a disappointing term at St Oswald's. For most
of the boys in 3F, creative writing was on a par with country
dancing and food technology on the cosmic scale of things.
And now, with Christmas around the corner and exams
looming large, creativity in general was at its lowest ebb.
Oh, he'd tried to engage their interest. But books just didn't
seem to kindle the same enthusiasm as they had in the old
days. Mr Fisher remembered a time - surely not so long ago
- when books were golden, when imaginations soared, when
the world was filled with stories which ran like gazelles and
pounced like tigers and exploded like rockets, illuminating
minds and hearts. He had seen it happen; had seen whole
classes swept away in the fever. In those days, there were
heroes; there were dragons and dinosaurs, there were space
adventurers and soldiers of fortune and giant apes. In those


41
JIGS & REELS


days, thought Mr Fisher, we dreamed in colour, though films
were in black and white, good always triumphed in the end,
and only Americans spoke American.

Now everything was in black and white, and though Mr
Fisher continued to teach with as much devotion to duty as
he had forty years before, he was secretly aware that his
voice had begun to lack conviction. To these boys, these
sullen boys with their gelled hair and perfect teeth, everything
was boring. Shakespeare was boring. Dickens was
boring. There didn't seem to be a single story left in the
world that they hadn't heard before. And over the years,
though he had tried to stop it, a terrible lassitude had crept
over Mr Fisher, who had once dreamed so fiercely of writing
stories of his own; a terrible conviction. They had come to
the end of the seam, he understood. There were no more
stories to be written. The magic had run out.

This was an uncharacteristically gloomy train of thought.
Mr Fisher pushed it away and looked in his briefcase for
a consolatory chocolate biscuit. Not all his boys lacked
imagination. Alistair Tibbet, for instance; even though he
had obviously done part of his homework on the bus. An
amiable boy, this Tibbet, all the more pleasing for his air of
indefinable grubbiness, his sense of always being partly
elsewhere. Not a brilliant scholar, by any means: but there
was a spark in him which deserved attention.

Mr Fisher took a deep breath and looked down at
Tibbet's exercise book, trying not to think of the snow
outside and the five o'clock bus he was now almost certain
to miss. Four books to go, he told himself, and then home:


42
FULL'S COLP


dinner; bed; the comfoTtirtg small routine of a winter weekend.
And so it was that Mr Fisher took a last drink of his
cold tea and began to read the last story in the world.

It took him a few minutes to realize that it was the Last
Story. But gradually, sitting there in the warm classroom
with the smell of chalk and floor polish in his nostrils, Mr
Fisher began to experience a very strange sensation. It
began as a tightening in his diaphragm, as if a long-unused muscle had been brought into action. His breathing quickened,
stopped, quickened again. He began to sweat. And
when he reached the end of the story, Mr Fisher put down
his red pen and went back to the beginning, rereading
every word very slowly and with meticulous care.

This must be what a prospector feels when, discouraged
and bankrupt and ready to go home, he takes off his boot
and shakes out a nugget the size of his fist. He read it again,
critically this time, marking off the paragraphs with notes in
red. A hope, which at first Mr Fisher had hardly dared to
formulate, swelled in him and grew strong. He found himself
beginning to smile.

If anyone had asked him then what Tibbet's story was
about, Mr Fisher might have been hard put to reply. There
were themes he recognized, elements of plot which were
vaguely familiar: an adventure, a quest, a child, a man. But
to explain Tibbet's story in these terms was as meaningless
as trying to describe a loved one's face in terms of nose,
eyes, mouth. This was something new. Something entirely
original.

In forty years of teaching English, Mr Fisher had come to


43
HO1? & REELS


believe that nothing was new in literature. The same plots
are repeated time and time again: the tragic lovers; the
quest; the trickster; the revenge; the saviour, the coming-of
age; the struggle between good and evil. Most of these were
well-used before Shakespeare got hold of them; even the
Bible contained little that was significantly new. A change
of costume here, of location there: stories do not die, but are
simply reincarnated every generation or so into a different
time and idiom. It was this belief which had finally put an
end to Mr Fisher's own ambitions, years ago; the angry
certainty that whatever he wrote would only ever be, at
best, a pale reflection of something else.

But here was his theory disproved. Tibbet's story stood
alone. A completely original idea - perhaps the first in a
hundred years - the Holy Grail of literature, the last story in
the world.

It occurred then to Mr Fisher how many people might
have an interest in such a story. Hollywood, for instance always
at a loss for new material, now reduced to pecking
out fragments of plot from graphic novels and computer
games. Book publishers; newspapers; magazines. A new idea
could start a dynasty, generations of related stories. Whoever
copyrighted such an idea could make a man more than
famous, more than wealthy. It could make him immortal.

Once more, Mr Fisher considered Alistair Tibbet. An
amiable boy, without apparent genius. Hair slightly too
long, shirt untucked, a habitual latecomer to class. No
stylist, certainly - his spelling was atrocious - and certainly
in no position to make his case to the media. Such a waste.


44
FULE'S GOLD


Tibbet was hardly likely*to*appreciate the magnitude of this
discovery; indeed, his handwriting alone showed that his
mind had been elsewhere from the start. It seemed clear to
Mr Fisher that Tibbet's role in all this was a secondary one that
of an idiot-savant, if you like, who may accidentally
discover a mathematical principle, but has no ability to
explain its workings. No, all of this was wasted on Tibbet.
Besides, who was the boy's teacher? Who had taught him
everything he knew? Forty years' hard work had to count for
something: and in the shape of this boy, it had finally come
to fruition.

In all his years of teaching, Mr Fisher had never quite
forgotten his earliest ambitions. Through the years he had
come to think - wrongly, as it happened - that he simply
didn't have the talent or the inspiration to write. Now he
realized that only fear and uncertainty had kept him back.
At last he knew what he wanted to say: how to make his
mark upon the world. He began to see how the story could
be presented, envisaged a treatment of about three hundred
pages in novel form. And the treatment was the important
part; without it, no story, however inspired, could be anything
more than wishful thinking. After all, Shakespeare
took inspiration from Boccaccio. Mr Fisher speculated that
he could have a rough synopsis by Sunday, send copies off
in Monday's post. Of course he would have to take precautions:
a statement deposited in his bank would ensure
that his copyright remained intact. Publishing was full of
unscrupulous people - the film industry doubly so. With
luck, the offers might start coming in by Christmas.


45
JIGS & REELS


And Tibbet? In his excitement, Mr Fisher had almost
forgotten the boy. Surely he owed him something?
Obviously an acknowledgement was out of the question. In
today's litigious society, that would simply be asking for
trouble. Mr Fisher thought hard for a moment. Then he
picked up his red pen and wrote carefully at the bottom of
the essay: Good content - more care needed with presentation. B+. It was more than fair, thought Mr Fisher; the class
average rarely went higher than a C.

It was five-twenty-five. In the corridor, Mr Fisher could
hear the cleaners packing up their buckets and mops. His
next bus home left at five-thirty: if he was quick, he could
still catch it. Leaving the pile of third-form exercise books
on the corner of the desk - except for Tibbet's, which he
slipped into his briefcase next to the biscuits - he rinsed his
mug in the sink, locked his desk drawer and put on his overcoat.

Outside it was still snowing. Flakes tumbled chaotically
from a sky like white noise. Mr Fisher trudged towards the
bus stop, briefcase in hand. It was very cold. He realized that
in his haste he had left his scarf and gloves in the desk
drawer; but it was almost half past now, and he decided
against going back to fetch them. He did not want to miss
his bus.

There were few cars on the road, and a grey slush had
begun to eat up the verge. The bus was late. Mr Fisher
waited in the vandalized bus shelter, blowing into his hands
and thinking about his story. His heart was beating alarmingly
fast, but he felt a peculiar energy. He might almost


46
FULE'S GOLD


have been thirteen again, with ink on his fingers and that
metallic taste of youth in his mouth, and the certainty that
one day he would be great, that one day he too would be a


hero . . .

The lights went out in the school buildings, one by one.
It was five-fifty, and there was still no sign of the bus. Mr
Fisher decided to walk home. It was only a couple of miles
into town, after all, and it would give him more time to
think about his story.

It would be a great mistake, he told himself, to jump at
the first offer. Better to sit tight for a couple of months and
let the publishers bid against one another. Fortunately, he
already had some knowledge of the industry. His experience
would serve him well.

Mr Fisher walked quickly down the road, smiling to
himself, lost in a warm haze of fantasy. After a while he
began to feel hungry; remembering the biscuits in his briefcase,
he stopped to take one.

The biscuits were not there. Mr Fisher frowned. Had he
left them in his desk drawer? But no: he remembered taking
a biscuit and replacing the packet. He looked again, moving
closer to a street lamp to get a better view. The biscuits were
nowhere to be found, and now, in the orange light, he could
see why. The hole in the corner of his briefcase had zipped
open all along the seam, and in his excitement over the
story he had failed to notice. Mr Fisher was annoyed. He
hated losing things. In fact, such was his annoyance that
it was several seconds before he even thought to check
whether Tibbet's exercise book was still there.


47
JIG? S, REELS


It was not. Mr Fisher felt a sudden sharp sweat sting his
eyes. The book! He checked again, running his shaking
hands along the torn stitching. Here were his hard-backed
form register and his plastic file: both too bulky to escape.
Here, too, was his pencil box. But the story, the Last Story,
was gone. Mr Fisher felt a jolt of panic. He must have
dropped it somewhere along the road. But where? He was
over a mile from the school now; it could be anywhere
along that stretch. Still, it could not be helped; he would
have to retrace his footsteps until he found it.

Breathing hard, he began the walk back. But his progress
was slow: the wind was in his face, stealing his breath, and
the snow was like chips of stone. Worse still, he found that
the story itself was no longer entirely clear in his mind; that
although he could recall certain elements - a quest, a man,
a boy - it was Tibbet's misspellings he remembered most,
and the fact that the boy had done his homework on the
bus.

The verge was entirely white now, and the dark shape of
the school was just visible behind the turmoil of the snow.
Mr Fisher followed his own footsteps until they filled in
again, but found nothing. There was nothing at the bus
shelter. Mr Fisher even walked back up the drive towards
the school gate, but there was no sign of the lost schoolbook.
When the police eventually found him at eight o'clock
that evening, he was digging with his bare hands in
the snowdrift which lined the verge, wild-eyed, raw-faced,
mumbling feverishly to himself. It was lucky they found him


48
r


PULE'? COLD


when they did, SergeanfMferle reported to his duty officer;
the poor old sod was nearly gone. Took him straight to
Casualty. Turned out he was looking for some kid's homework
he'd dropped on the way. Talk about devotion to duty.
You ask me, these teachers aren't paid half enough. Still,
you got to hand it to the old fella, he was digging like the
clappers. You'd have thought there was gold under there.




49
Class <if'81


/ first wrote this story for an anthology to raise money for the
Magic Million appeal, in aid of one-parent families. ] was
supposed to write a story about magic, but it ended up being
more to do with what happens when the magic runs out . . .


THERE WERE TWELVE OF US FROM THAT CLASS OF '81. THERE

they are in the photo, from right to left as usual: Hannah
Malkin, Claire Corrigan, Anne Wyrd, Jane Beldame, Gloria
Krone, Isabella Faye. Bottom row: myself, looking impossibly
young, then Morwenna Hagge, Judith Weisz, Carole
Broome, Dizzy McKelpie, in those Coke-bottle glasses with
her messy red hair spilling over the collar of her uniform.
Far left: Paul (Chalky) Wight, perennial top of the class and
the only boy. But that's witchcraft for you: the girls outnumber
the boys to begin with, although the high-flying
jobs always seem to go to the men in the end. I wondered if
this was the case with Paul Wight, and if so, whether he was
still single.


50
class or si


Already I was feeliftg ^ little nervous. We'd made the
promise twenty years ago, an unimaginable distance away to
our eighteen-year-old selves. Since then I'd heard rumours,
read a couple of pieces in the paper, but otherwise I'd had
little contact with any of my old school friends, except
for the occasional greetings card at Lammas or Yule. On
the grapevine I'd heard that Carole had joined a coven
in Wales somewhere, that Hannah had married an astral
healer from Milton Keynes, and that Isabella was some kind
of consultant in the City. It all sounded conventional
enough. But secondhand accounts don't answer the real
questions: who got fat, who lost their magic (or worse,
dabbled with Kaos), who had a body job and lied about it
afterwards.

Dizzy was the exception, of course. Who could fail to be
familiar with Desiree McKelpie? She was practically a brand
name - her face had looked out at us for the past fifteen
years from tabloid newspapers, billboards, television screens.
She worked love spells for Royals and Hollywood film stars.
We knew her romances, her divorces; we sighed over her
frocks and speculated over her diminishing waistline.

With a frown, I considered my own. Even at school
I'd never been thin; not like Anne or Dizzy or Gloria. I'd
skipped puddings in vain, but in spite of my efforts, thinness
had always eluded me. Twenty years later, it still did. I
wondered, rather petulantly, whose stupid idea it had been
to hold our twenty-year reunion at Bella Pasta anyway.

I arrived too early. The note had said twelve-thirty and it
was barely ten past. For a few minutes I lingered in the


51
JIG? & REEL?


draughty doorway trying to look cool and confident, but
people kept pushing past me to get in and I finally decided
to take a seat at the big table at the back with the
RESERVED sign and the little place-cards. Two girls
sniggered as I squeezed past them, and I felt my face grow
red. It wasn't my fault the aisle was so narrow. I clutched at
my handbag for security and my hip brushed against a flower
vase, almost knocking it over. The girls sniggered again. It
was going to be a nightmare.

I found my place (the name spelt wrong). There were
four bottles of wine already laid out, and four of mineral
water. I poured a glass of red and drank it straightaway, then
moved the bottle to the opposite side of the table, hoping
no-one would notice. Come to think of it, it was exactly the
kind of thing a little sneak like Gloria Krone would notice,
and draw attention to. I moved the bottle back.

Twenty years. Unimaginable time. I glanced at the photo
again. There I was, demure in my little black uniform,
holding my first broom proudly in my right hand. Of course
the broom's mainly symbolic nowadays. No adult witch
would ever choose to squander their dm. on making a broom
fly. Why bother, when you can get pampered in Business
Class? Not that I ever have, of course. Alex says it's a waste
of money. He even worked it out once: how you could buy
three seats in Economy, a half-bottle of champagne, two
Pret-a-Manger sandwiches, a pashmina and a selection of
toiletries and still pay less than you would for a Business
Class ticket. Not that he ever does buy any of those things.
He thinks they're a waste of money, too. Come to think of


52
CLASS OF 'PI


it, the last time we flew "afiy where was a budget trip to the
Algarve in 1994, and he complained all the way because he
said I was taking up too much space. Maybe a broom would
have been better, after all.

I poured myself another glass of wine. It wasn't that I
was dissatisfied with my life, I told myself. Who needs
magic when you can have security? Thirty-eight; housewife;
married to a management consultant; house in Croydon;
two boys, fifteen and twelve, and a familiar (for old times'
sake). Deliriously happy. Well, happy, anyway. Well, some
of the time.

Now the bottle looked three-quarters empty. It wasn't, of
course; it's just the way bottles are made, so narrow at the
top so that the moment you pour even a small glass it looks
as if you've drunk half of it already. Now when the others
came they'd all notice, and Gloria Krone would look at me
with her long blue eyes and whisper something behind her
hand to Isabella Faye - always her best friend in the old days
- and the two of them would watch me like Siamese cats,
purring with malice and sly speculation. 'Darling, do you
think she's hitting the bottle? How grotesque!'

So I disposed of the evidence, hiding the bottle under a
chair some distance from where I was sitting. Not a moment
too soon; as I emerged from under the tablecloth I saw a
woman - a witch - making her way towards me, and was
seized with a prickly panic. Standing up, wiping my mouth
hastily with the back of my hand, I recognized Anne Wyrd.

She hadn't changed. Tall, elegant, blonde, wearing a
black trouser suit over what looked suspiciously like nothing


53
J! O S & R E H I.


at all. I'd never liked her; she'd been part of a sporty
threesome, all very well-bred and jolly broomsticks. A
second later, the other two arrived: Morwenna Hagge
and Claire Corrigan, also in elegant black. I noticed in a
moment's sly satisfaction that Morwenna had begun to
colour her hair; then, with disappointment, that it suited
her.

'Darling,' said Anne. 'You haven't changed a bit.' Her
brilliant smile did not falter as she glanced down at the
place-card in front of me. I mumbled something inane about
how stylish she looked, and sat down again. 'Well, one has
to make an effort, sweetheart,' said Anne, pouring herself a
glass of sparkling mineral water. 'We're none of us eighteen
any more, are we?'

The others were beginning to arrive now. In a burst of
embraces and exclamations I saw Gloria and Isabella, more
like Siamese cats than ever now, with matching blonde
bobs and sleepy eyes, and Carole Broome, who I greeted
with more warmth than I'd ever felt for her in the old days.
'Thank God, Carole,' I said fervently. 'I thought I was going
to be the only one of us not wearing black.'

Carole had been a studious young witch in the old days,
plump and lank-haired and earnest, more interested in herb
lore than pyrotechnics, always the last to be picked in a
game of Brooms. She was much thinner now, her hair
had been braided and coiled, and she was wearing a long
purple velvet skirt with an abundance of silver jewellery. I
remembered the rumour that Carole had joined some kind
of a radical Welsh coven, and felt suddenly uncomfortable. I


54
C! A Q S OF 'SI


hoped she wasn't going-to bend my ear all lunchtime about
pentacles and athames and going skyclad. I noticed, with a
faint sinking feeling, that her place-setting was next to
mine.

'Your aura looks terrible,' said Carole, sitting down and
pouring water into her glass. 'Ugh! This water's carbonated!
Waitress, please, some natural water, and can I talk to you
about this menu?'

The waitress, a harassed-looking girl with a ponytail,
approached with understandable reluctance. Carole's
voice was loud and flat and carrying. 'I notice there isn't a vegetarian option here,' she said accusingly.

Uh-oh. 1 flinched guiltily over the menu. I'd been thinking
about getting the steak.

'Well, you could have the mushroom omelette or the
fusilli--' began the waitress.

'I don't eat eggs,' snapped Carole, 'and neither would you
if you had any idea what it did to your karma. As for the
fusilli - ' she peered more closely at the menu, her eyes
magnified by her glasses so that they looked like big green
marbles, 'is it wheat pasta? ... I can't possibly eat wheat
pasta,' she explained to me as the waitress went off resentfully
to talk to the chef. 'It's far too yin for my body type.
Too much yin can cloud your aura. I think I'll be happier
with just fresh, unfluorinated water and an organic green
salad.'

Rather wistfully, I pushed the menu to one side. The
steak and chips seemed to be receding into the distance.
Fortunately, I could see some other witches arriving, and I


55
JIGS & REELS


greeted them with ill-concealed relief. I'd always rather
liked Hannah Malkin; and here was Jane Beldame, brisk
and rather mannish now in a tweed skirt and jacket.
'Terrific to see you, old girl!' she exclaimed, engulfing me
for a moment in a scent of wool and mothballs. 'Where's
the boozei" She plumped down in the chair next to me (it
was labelled 'Judith Weisz') and poured a hefty slug of red
wine, ignoring Carole's squeak of disapproval. 'After all
these years, eh? What larks we had!' Now Jane was here, I
remembered them: midnight feasts in the dorm, with a
glyph on the door to warn us if Matron was approaching;
broom races along the Top Corridor; the time we sneaked
Professor LeMage's pornographic Tarot cards and divined
everyone's private fetishes . . . For the first time, I began to
think that maybe this reunion wasn't such a bad idea.

Judith Weisz came next, a colourless witch with bad skin
who'd been less popular even than Carole, now looking
much older than the rest of us, and making no protest when
she found Jane occupying her place.

'Oh no, it's that creepy Weisz girl,' whispered Gloria to
Isabella. 'Quick, push up so she won't sit here.' Although
Judith must have heard, she made no comment. Instead she
made her way to the free place next to Hannah and sat
down quietly, hands folded in her lap. I felt rather sorry for
her, although we'd never been friends, and wondered why
she had come.

At a quarter to one, there were still only ten of us
at table. Jane had drunk three more glasses of red wine,
Hannah was teaching me how to separate my astral arm


56
class or 'si


from my corporeal orte,* Isabella was discussing body
jobs with Claire Corrigan ('it's not black magic any more,
sweetheart, absolutely everyone does it nowadays, there's no
stigma at all'), Gloria and Morwenna were comparing love
charms, Anne was interpreting the future from the dregs of
Jane's wineglass, Carole was arguing with the chef ('How
would you feel, if you were a tomato?') and Judith had just
discovered a half-empty bottle of red wine under her chair
when everyone fell silent as, fully conscious of the effect she
was creating, Dizzy McKelpie made her entrance.

I remembered her as a small thing, pale and rather
skinny, with quantities of red hair and ugly black-rimmed
glasses. Now the glasses were gone, revealing huge eyes and
lashes like moths' wings, the hair was artfully sleek, and her
graceful figure was barely contained in clinging black jersey
above a pair of scarlet, impossible heels. She commanded
attention immediately - the other diners gaped; Dizzy
pretended not to notice. Across the table I heard Gloria
whisper to Isabella, 'Body job.' From the corner of my eye I
saw Carole flick her fingers in the sign against evil; even
Jane was watching open-mouthed. Apparently oblivious to
all the attention, Dizzy walked to our table as if she were on
a catwalk, and folded herself elegantly into the chair next to
Judith. 'I'm so sorry I'm late,' she said sweetly. 'I had a
meeting with a very special client who's been having the
most ghastly trouble with the media.'

'Who?' said Gloria, wide-eyed.

'I couldn't possibly tell you. It's very sensitive,' purred
Dizzy. 'I know you'll understand if I don't say any more.' She


57
1IOS & REEL?


looked around the table. 'Isn't there someone missing?' she
asked.

Everyone scanned the table. 'It's Paul Wight,' said
Anne finally. 'I forgot about him completely.' Easy to do,
I suppose; Paul had been a brilliant student, completely
devoted to his work and cautious of our female exuberance.
This was generally taken to be a ploy on his part to intrigue and seduce us, but in spite of many efforts to enchant him,
no-one had ever managed. I now suspected that he'd been
genuinely ambitious; girls had played no part in his studies.
I doubted he would come today.

'Well, it's nearly one,' said Dizzy. 'If he isn't here by now,
1 think we should order. I've got a meeting at two-fifteen.'

Everyone agreed that no-one should be expected to wait
for Paul Wight, except Carole, who said that lunch, if taken
at all, should never last more than half an hour, and Judith,
who said nothing.

So we ordered. Carole had a special salad of karmically
neutral vegetables ('Roots in general are too yang, and
radishes have souls'), Gloria and Isabella had the soup
and ciabatta, Hannah the seafood tagliatelle, Claire,
Morwenna and Anne the fusilli. Jane ordered the steak,
very rare, and a double portion of chips - I looked at her
enviously, wishing I was brave enough to do the same,
though under Carole Broome's excoriating gaze I finally
opted for a vegetarian pizza, which, though potentially
dangerous ('Carbohydrates throw your chakras out of
balance'), at least had the advantage of being karmically
sound.


58
ri a s^ of 'r i


Only Jane had any dessert. Anne, Gloria and Isabella all
seemed to be on permanent diets, Dizzy kept looking at her
watch, and I suppose Carole's disapproving comments had
done the rest. Instead, we talked. Someone (I thought it was
Dizzy) made sure that the wine never quite ran out (much
to the waitress's bewilderment), and conversation, hesitant
at first, began to flow more freely. Perhaps a little too freely
- now came what I had been dreading: the questions, the
boasting, the lies. Dizzy led the conversation at first
with anecdotes of media witchcraft, soon to be rivalled by
Anne, who was a house expert specializing in cleansing
and banishing rituals ('Feng-shui's just so last millennium,
darling, shamanism's the thing now'); then Isabella, who
worked with pyramids; Claire, who was a crystal-healer,
married to an Odinist with two raven familiars and a
wolf; Gloria, who had been divorced three times and was
currently teaching a course on tantric sex and meditation at
the University of Warwick; even Hannah, who (to everyone's
disgust but mine) had given up her job to devote
herself to her husband and her little girl, already a budding
witch at the age of four, whom she obviously adored.

'You've been very quiet,' observed Carole, who had been
watching me. 'How about you? Where have your studies led
you?'

It was the moment I had feared. Explaining about Alex
and the boys was easy enough (if uninspiring), but if
she somehow discovered the real secret, the terrible, unmentionable
thing ... I said something flippant about
motherhood being a full-time job, and wished Carole would


59
IIOS & REELS


choose someone else to cross-examine. But Carole was
tenacious as bogwort. 'Your aura's very muddy,' she insisted.
'You haven't been letting your magic slip, have you?'

I muttered something about being a little out of shape.

'That doesn't sound good,' said Carole. 'Let's try a few
simple exercises, shall we? How about a basic cantrip to
begin with?'

'I don't think so,' I said, horrified, wishing she would
lower her voice.

'Go on,' insisted Carole. 'Just a little one. No-one's going
to laugh at you, for Goddess's sake.'

Now everyone was looking at me. Gloria's eyes were
narrowed and shining. 'Really, Carole,' I said feebly.

'You can manage a little one,' urged Dizzy, joining the
game. 'How about a little levitation? Or a summoning?' That was a laugh. If I could have summoned anything after all
these years, it would have been a nice, deep hole to hide in.
'All right then,' she said, taking a candlestick from the table
and pushing it towards me. 'Just light this candle. Simplest
trick in the world. It's like riding a broom. You never forget
how to do it.'

Easy for her to say. I'd never been much good at brooms,
even when I was in practice. I began to feel sweat beading
my forehead. 'Go on,' said Dizzy. 'Show us how. Light the
candle.'

'Light it. Light it.' The others continued the chant, and I
felt myself beginning to shake. The terrible secret -- the
thing no witch can ever admit - was about to be revealed. It
was Alex's fault, I told myself, taking the candlestick in my


60
CLASS OF '81


hand and frowning hard af the cold wick. Being married to
a non-witch is a bit like being married to a non-smoker; a
daily clash of interests. Eventually someone has to give.
And I was the one who gave; for the sake of our marriage
and our children. Even the familiar - a black cat called Mr
Tibbs - belongs principally to our boys (who don't have a
spark of natural magic between them, being mostly devoted
to football and cyberbabes), and spends more of his time
shedding hair on the carpets and torturing mice than contemplating
mysteries. All the same, I thought desperately,
feeling my eyes begin to water with the effort of concentration,
you'd have thought there was something left - some
little squib I could use now. I could hear Gloria whispering
to Isabella; from the corner of my eye I saw Dizzy watching
me with that hungry, amused look, like Mr Tibbs outside a
mousehole.

'Darling, I don't think she can.'

'She can't have--'

'She's lost it.'

'Shhh.'

Not even a cantrip - the smallest, most basic of spells.
My face was scarlet; my armpits prickled with nervous heat.
Not a glow, not a flame, not a spark. In desperation I looked
up, hoping to see even one sympathetic pair of eyes, but
Hannah was looking uncomfortable, Judith seemed half
asleep and Jane was far too occupied with her second slice
of chocolate cake to take any notice of my plight. Dully I
saw myself as the rest saw me: a fat, unfulfilled drone who
couldn't even light a candle.


61
JIGS & REEL<=


Then, suddenly, there was a flash between my fingers,
followed almost instantaneously by a smell of burning. I
jerked my head away just in time; flames were streaming
from the candlestick, the candle itself almost consumed in
blue and green fire. Half a second later, the candle shot
right out of the candlestick and exploded in a spray of
coloured sparks over our heads. No-one else seemed to
notice at all - someone had cast a magical shield over the
table.

Gloria, who had been leaning forward rapaciously, leapt
back with an undignified squeal. Carole stared at the blackened
candlestick in amazement. "I thought you said you
were out of shape!' she said at last.

I thought quickly and hard. Someone had helped me,
that was certain; someone who didn't want to see me
humiliated. I glanced up, but could see nothing more than
spite, curiosity, outrage or surprise in the faces around me.
Dizzy was frantically brushing sparks out of her long hair. A
cinder had fallen into Isabella's glass, splashing her with
wine. 'Golly!' said Jane, impressed. 'What happened there?'

I tried to smile. 'Joke,' I said weakly.

'Some joke,' grumbled Gloria. 'You nearly burnt my eyebrows
off.'

'More power than I thought,' I muttered.

Relieved beyond words, I poured myself a glass of wine.
For once, Carole didn't comment. I could see she was awed
in spite of herself. I spent some time evading her questions:
where had I done my advanced training; had I achieved
spiritual illumination; who had been my mentor. 'You


62
CLASS OF '81


haven't been dabbling ia-anything you shouldn't, have you?'
she asked suspiciously, when I modestly declined to answer.

'You mean Kaos? Don't be silly.' 1 almost laughed. It takes
a lot of work to become a Kaos illuminata, and I'd never
even understood the principles twenty years ago. Carole
continued to look at me suspiciously for a while, then,
to my relief, the conversation turned to other things.
Old quarrels revived, small sillinesses remembered, practical
jokes relived. The noise escalated gradually; at times I could
hardly hear what was being said on the far side of the table.
Even I, cheered by the wine and the unexpected miracle of
the rocketing candle, felt my inhibitions begin to leave me.
Maybe the wine was stronger than I'd thought. Or maybe it
was just the company.

But it was when Anne, Morwenna and Dizzy began a
violent argument about a disparaging comment Dizzy had
once supposedly made to Anne about the shape of
Morwenna's calves, Judith was apparently asleep, Isabella
was explaining the finer points of sex magic to Jane (with
the aid of diagrams drawn onto the tablecloth in biro), and
Gloria was trying to demonstrate how to change a saltcellar
into a hamster, that I realized what had happened. This was
not simply a case of good cheer gone slightly out of hand.
Someone had magically spiked the mineral water.

'It's disgusting, that's what it is,' said Carole, who seemed
the only one unaffected. 'Cavorting about like a gaggle of
goblins. I thought this was going to be a meeting of minds,
an opportunity to share the experiences of twenty years'
travel on the Path of the Wise.'


63
JIG? & REELS


'Oh, put a sock in it, Carrie,' said Anne, whose hair had
come down in the course of the argument. 'You always were
a most frightful little bleater. No wonder you ended up in a
commune full of sheep.'

'Now look here,' said Carole, losing much of her smug
self-satisfaction. 'Just because you were coven captain three
years running--'

'Girls, girls,' said Dizzy. 'Is this any way to behave?'

'You can shut up as well,' said Carole. 'You and your
media magic. And if you really believe that body job of yours
looks anything other than grotesque--'

'Body job!' squeaked Dizzy, outraged. Till have you know
my body's perfectly natural! 1 take care of myself! I work
out!'

'Come off it, darling,' said Morwenna sweetly. 'It's
nothing to be ashamed of nowadays. Lots of witches have a
little cantrip or two set by for when things begin to sag.'

'Well, it'd take a hell of a lot more than a cantrip to fix
those fat calves of yours.'

I tried to intervene. I could feel an accumulation of static
in the air which raised the hairs on my arms and made my
skin prickle. Powerful magic was building. And quickly. I
wondered what exactly had been added to the drinks. A
truth spell? Something worse?

'I say--' I began. But it was too late. They were engaged.
Morwenna made a grab for Dizzy's hair; Dizzy's hand shot
out at Morwenna, and ropes of magic were suddenly swarming
and hissing over both of them. The two witches jumped
apart like doused cats, their hair standing on end.


64
CLASS OF '81


'What did you do?' sn^rleyd Dizzy, her poise gone completely.

'Nothing!' wailed Morwenna, shaking her numbed
fingers. 'What did you do?'

I was just happy that the shield spell over our table was
still holding. Beyond it, the other diners munched on,
oblivious.

'What larks,' commented Jane happily, finishing her
second piece of chocolate cake. 'Just like the old days.'

'Precisely,' said Judith with a hint of sarcasm. I'd almost
forgotten about her; she had seemed half-asleep during most
of the meal, and as far as I knew, had hardly spoken a word.
She'd been no different twenty years before: a silent, unattractive
young witch who was excused from sports for
some medical reason; who never seemed to get any letters
from home and spent every Yuletide holiday at school. I'd
had to stay myself once; my parents had had to go to an
occult conference in New Zealand and I was left at school
feeling thoroughly miserable, in spite of the trunkful of
presents they had sent me. All my friends had gone home
for the holidays, and only Judith had remained. I'd already
known she never went home for Yule, of course, but I'd
never really thought about it before. Now I did. If she had
been more approachable, and less devoted to her studies, we
might have used the opportunity to become friends. But
I quickly found out that Judith alone was as drab and
monosyllabic as Judith in a crowd. She did not seek me
out, seeming quite content to spend her days alone in
the library, or in the herbarium or the observatory. All the


65
The F O <? & R F F f ^


same, she was the only company around, except for a tew
Masters and their familiars, and one night the two of us had
shared the last of my Yule log and a bottle of elderberry
wine. I'd almost forgotten about that until now; afterwards
we had gone on with our studies as before, and the following
year had been our last. I looked at her now. 'What did you
do after school, Judith?' I asked.

She shrugged. 'Nothing much,' she said. 'I got married.' I
hoped my surprise didn't show on my face. 'He's a psychonaut,'
went on Judith in her cool, quiet voice. 'He
lectures in Morphic Field Theory and the Chaoetheric
Paradigm.'

'Really?' 1 barely knew the terms; those theories had been
far beyond even our most advanced courses. 'How about
you?'

Judith gave a chilly smile. 'I became a metamorphosist.
A shaper, if you like. Specializing in body jobs for the
karmically unconcerned.'

'Goddess,' breathed Carole, who had been listening.
'You're a Kaoist.'

'Someone has to do it,' said Judith. 'And if people want
to pay for my services rather than studying the arts for
themselves--'

'Pay with karma taken from their next lives!'

Judith shrugged. 'Who cares?' she said. 'If Dizzy wants to
spend her next life as a radish, who am I to criticize?'
Everyone was staring at us now. Dizzy's face was white. 'You
always looked down on me,' said Judith in the same colourless
voice. 'I was always the coven joke.'


66
CLASS OF '81


'Judith--' I said uneorafortably. It had occurred to me
that with her resources it would be child's play now
for Judith to use her powers of metamorphosis to change
us all into cockroaches, if she chose to do it. Now I understood
who had helped me light the candle; my throat felt
suddenly rather dry.

'None of you have changed much since then,' went on
Judith calmly. 'Gloria's still a little sneak, Dizzy a silly
attention-grabber, Anne a snob, Carole a talentless phoney.
None of you are real witches at all.' (Carole gave a squeak at
this, but changed it hastily into a cough.) Judith turned to
me. 'Except for you,' she told me with half a smile. 'I
haven't forgotten that Yuletide when you shared your cake
with me in the dorm. Fortunately, I can keep a secret,'
said Judith, looking at Dizzy, though I felt maybe she was
speaking to me. 'And I don't believe in revenge.'

She had stood up during this little speech, and I noticed
for the first time how tall she was. I wondered, too, why I
had thought she looked old; now she looked young, clear
skinned, almost beautiful. 'Well,' she said in a lighter tone,
'I think that's all I wanted to say. My husband said he'd call
for me about now, and I don't want to keep him waiting.'

We watched her go in silence; for once, there were no
whisperings between Gloria and Isabella, and even Carole
had no comment to make. Then, when we were sure she
had gone, we all ran to the window. We saw them then
for a moment, the real witches, walking away hand-in
hand. The man was tall and fair-haired; for a second I
thought I recognized Paul Wight, though there was no way


67
JIGS & REELS


of knowing for sure. He and Judith walked slowly down the
street, and 1 wondered how it was possible for two people to
look so free and calm and so sure of themselves and the
future. 1 watched them into the distance, as around me
the other witches slunk back one by one to the table and
conversation slowly returned. 1 thought maybe the pavement
shimmered a little in their wake, but I could not be
certain of that, either.


68
Hello, Goodbye


For some reason, I have developed an unhealthy addiction to a
number of the more shallow and brittle society magazines. I find
the world they portray fascinating, sinister, often depressing,
sometimes bleakly funny. This is not a true story. But perhaps it
is only a matter of time.


MY NAME IS ANGELA K. YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD OF ME; I M A

society columnist for Goodbye! magazine. I'm twenty-nine; attractive; talented - I have an impressive CV, a degree in
media studies, a celebrity sister, rather famous in her day
(the Face of Pluviose cosmetics), perfect skin and fifteen
thousand pounds' worth of dental work. Oh yes, and my
career is over. Over. Finished. Finita. Fini.

It was last week, over champagne and canapes. The
season's most sensational Derniere - rumour had it that all the Immortals were going to be there, and I was thrilled to
have the chance to cover it. After all, it's what I joined
the paper for: glamour, travel, gossip, and the exhilarating


69
JIGS & REELS


pageant of Society at its most dazzling. I knew that if I
made a success of this there would be lots of other assignments;
this kind of venue was very now, and Goodbye! magazine all set to be the leader in the field. I was the
perfect choice: clever, well-connected, slim, blonde and
nicely inconspicuous. I could be relied upon to observe,
to set the tone, to keep it light, not to draw attention to
myself. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing would.

I chose my outfit carefully. It helps to have a fashion
model sister; you get to meet all kinds of designers, with lots
of free samples and give-aways - not to mention the once
worn cast-offs from Sis, though it rankles to accept them,
and I've had to stay so thin just to keep up with her.

Basic black, of course - that goes without saying - with a
touch of cerise (this season's new black) in the accessories.
Classic throughout; nothing too outrageous or revealing.
After all, I'm here as a reporter.

The ceremony took place at the fashionable time of
three o'clock - and the crematorium was one of the most
prestigious venues in London, with a newly refurbished
Conran interior and a six-month waiting list for nonmembers.
I turned up a little early, clutching my lavishly
black-bordered invitation with eagerness and just a hint of
nerves. Sis would have taken it all in her stride, of course;
but then, Sis had had lots of practice. She was a complete
party animal - I'd already counted three of her ex-lovers
before I'd even reached the gates - and she knew absolutely
everybody.

Press arrive first, of course; there was already a crowd of


70
HELLO. O O O P B Y F


photographers and TV -cameras waiting behind the cordon.
I recognized my arch-rival Amber D. from K.O. magazine
and Piers from Crem; someone recognized me and there was
a flash and crackle of cameras as I stepped onto the luxurious
black carpet and handed my invitation to the two
security men at the door.

It was like a dream. This was the moment my entire life
had been leading up to, and I entered the reception hall in a
kind of daze. For once I was attending an A-list venue as
myself, not as Sis's gawky younger sister, and it felt terrific.
For once in my life I'd stepped out of Sis's shadow, and
people were looking at me - men were looking at me - with
interest and admiration. 1 knew I was looking good -- the
last diet had paid off, and I was back to a size six again,
though I still needed to shed a couple of stone before I could
fit into some of Sis's latest clothes. My hair was sleek;
my skin airbrushed to pale perfection (tans are so out
nowadays), my nails (cerise, of course) buffed to a dazzling
gleam. If Sis had been there I knew that everyone would
have been looking at her - not because she's so much
better-looking, but because of that dress, that man, that scandal, that breakdown - but without her I too was an
Immortal; I was free, I was available, a fantasy guest at a
fantasy ball, and for a time I forgot myself entirely, gliding
across the lobby in my glass slippers in search of my own
version of that man . . .

In the main reception hall, it was already busy. The bar
at the far end of the hall was dispensing Black Russians (the
retro-ironic drink of the season) and liquorice Kir; waiters


71

HGS & RFFI S


passed by with Beluga and blinis, and B-list society girls
lounged on the elegant furniture, sipping mineral water,
smoking black Sobranies, and discussing the deceased.

'Well, it can't have been as quick as all that, darling,
have you seen the waiting-list for this place?'

'Any goss on the COD?'

'I heard it was some kind of an eating disorder--'

'No! Starving or hurling?'

'I don't suppose there's an official sponsor or anything -
what a bore, Tymon collects the badges, you know; he's
already got AIDS, coronary, breast cancer and terrorist
bombing--'

'Still, look on the bright side; at last she's managed that
size nought she always wanted.'

With an effort I pulled myself away from this fascinating
conversation, reminding myself that I was a professional
with a serious job to do. I pulled out my notebook (Smyth
son, black, crocodile) and began to jot down ideas.

Black was the keynote for the celebrity funeral of the summer,
with Prada and Ghost taking the lead again as more than 600
guests converged on the Black Cube Crematorium. I spotted
delicious debs Lucie and Sebastopol Ritz-Carleton sharing a jug
of Black Russians with teen heart-throb ]arry Golentz; Nicky H.
looked in, then looked out again, and conceptualist duo Grundy
and Nebb dazzled in matching cerise . . .

Outside, I heard a sudden increase in the activity of
cameras as a new influx of celebrities arrived.

Our reporter spotted Rupert, looking gorgeous in a clever take
on the classic evening jacket, Niles and Petrovka in Armani, the

72


1
II E I I O , GOODBYE


outrageous Piggy. Lalique -m top-to-toe Vivienne Westwood and
author Salman Rushdie, with a glamorous lady on his arm, looking
ultra-casual in one of Gaultier's new 'Intelligentsia' T-shirts . . .

It was like something out of one of the new 'caskets 'n'
canapes' novels - you'll be familiar with the genre. Death is
the new food - we like to read about it without actually
having to do any of it ourselves. And of course we all loved
Hugh Grant and Renee Zellwegcr in this year's classic
remake The Wrong Box . . . Even so, this was even more
wonderful than I'd hoped. All these fabulous people - and
the main cortege hadn't even arrived! I stopped to take
another blini - they really were very good - and kept on
taking notes.

Top chef Armando Pigalle astonished with a witty series of
keynote canapes on the theme of Remembrance and Loss including
light-as-air rosemary souffles, Beluga blinis, indigo
sushi, pasta negra and Proustian madeleines with lime-blossom
coulis . . .

Another wave of excitement from outside buffeted
the black-hung windows and I understood that the cortege
was arriving. Everyone moved to the doors to watch;
cameras flashed, and I stood on a marble table by the
window with my notebook in hand to see what was going
on outside.

In spite of recent predictions, headgear remained a prominent
feature, with Phillip and Cozmo leading the way as usual.
This season small is beautiful, with witty numbers from the
new 'Demise' collection. Our reporter spotted Isabella behind
a super-sculptural 'Memento Mori' cashmere piece with real


73
JIGS & REFI S


bone accessories, and Helena wore a fun vintage hat from
Moumingtown.

Hats aside, there wasn't much to see; I craned my neck
for fifteen minutes while the casket was manoeuvred into
position behind a screen (in order not to jeopardize the
News of the World's picture exclusive), and bouncers kept
the remaining photographers off-limits. Then the cortege
backtracked 100 yards to give the Channel 55 cameras
a view of the procession from both sides; mascara was
re-applied for the close-ups, then it was the turn of the
celebrity portraits.

The new generation caskets are slick, modern and very,
very sexy. The deceased chose a flamboyant open-topped Louis
Vuitton model in this season's hot new colour - cerise - flowers
from Wild at Heart and live music from top bands Brat and
Spken . . .

There was a moan from the crowd. Everyone knows
the real Immortals always come some distance behind the
cortege - there's usually a casting director or two somewhere
in the crowd, and it never hurts to shed a couple of
tears, though some people always overdo it and make a fool
of themselves. To try to combat this, I'd heard that all
eulogies were to be kept down to two minutes apiece (we
all remember Skinny McNalty's six-minute embarrassment
at the Saatchi memorial last year), and the technicians in
charge of the lights and the sound system were under strict
instructions to enforce the time limit.

It might take another hour for all the guests to negotiate
the black carpet. Individual shots are obligatory on these


74
HFTI.O. OOODBYF


occasions, and there -can be a lot of cattiness between
celebrities when photographers rush away en masse on
spotting a more interesting guest, so I helped myself to
another cocktail and watched from the window as the
celebrities filtered through one by one.

The celebrity Derniere is a wonderful opportunity for fantasy
dressing-up. Our reporter counted avant-garde outfits from
Alexander McQueen, Galliano and jean-Paul Gaultier; fun
funeral fetishwear from Virgin on the Ridiculous and key pieces
from Traccy Emms stylish new couture collection.

A slight scuffle occurred at the door as a couple
attempted to gain entry without invitation cards; but the
bouncers were onto them at once. I saw them briefly:
an elderly pair, hatless and too old for the funky style
they'd adopted (that cardigan-and-pearls look only retains
its ironic dowdiness before the age of twenty-one, and black
works best with a perfect complexion and some cheeky
accessories), looking bewildered and angry, behind a
forgettable starlet in angel-hair chiffon and vertiginous
heels. I could just hear the security man, a mobile in each
hand, explaining that no-one was allowed to enter without
an official invitation and ID - security had been stepped up
in the wake of a scandal wherein the casket of a minor
Royal had been revealed to contain four illicit grave
crashers. The old lady nodded tearfully, clinging to the old
gentleman's hand, and the two moved off the carpet flashguns
shooting all the way - and into the area cordoned
off for the convenience of the general public.

Security was predictably tight, confirms our reporter, with


75

TIGS & REELS


even the deceased submitting to the obligatory searches . . . Quite right too, I thought. The public's role was to stay well
behind the cordon and gape in admiration as the Immortals
glided past. This was what they wanted: glamour, reassurance,
dreams. The funeral industry had been quick to cash
in on this new market, offering affordable high-street copies of the fantasy caskets pictured in Rattler or Crem, and a
recent survey had shown Goodbye! magazine that some of
the more fashion-conscious of our readers were already on
waiting-lists for the newest caskets (with Chanel's quilted Ozymandias model pre-booked until 2015).

I could see the monogrammed casket clearly now, with its
sunroof open to facilitate access. Behind it, the old couple
still lingered, getting in the way of the News of the World photographers. A blonde PR girl was hovering around them,
a mobile clamped to her ear. I heard her voice above the
crowd - So sorry, darling, I'll see what I can do - then
everything was submerged under a new wave of sound as the
deceased was ushered into the building.

Derniere make-up favours statement colours, and the
deceased opted for a metallic violet by Urban Decay, with
accessories by Moriarty. Behind the casket came the PR girl,
with the bewildered old couple in tow. Security let them
through with reluctance, and I wasn't surprised - there's a
dress code to these events, for God's sake - and between
you and me, both of them could have done with a little
wardrobe advice. That make-up, for instance - who wears waterproof mascara to a funeral nowadays? And although a
few tears can be quite now on these occasions, nose-blowing


76

I
HELLO, GOODBYE


is completely out - ftnldS are really so inappropriate. I
saw the official photographer pose them for a casket shot,
though I could have told them it would never be used.
People read about these events for the glamour and
the gossip, not to see pictures of geriatric funeral-chasers
looking glum. And they were casting a shadow on the
whole party, too; I could see guests edging politely away
from them as they approached, and even the people from
elite introduction agency Creme-de-la-Crem (Putting
the Fun back into Funerals) kept their distance. Rather
tasteless, I thought, for them to be there at all.

'From the North, my dear - Yorkshire or Derbyshire or
somewhere like that--'

'God, what a bore. I wonder what brings them here; I
mean, they're not exactly the party type--'

'I suppose it's for the service; after all, she was their
daughter.'

'Darling! How morbid! Quick, quick, another cocktail!'

I gave the old couple a wide berth, and spent a pleasant
five minutes exchanging beauty tips with Cardamom
Burrows and her friend Coriander Hague, as Amber from K.O. watched with envy. The Northern couple loitered
vaguely on the edges of the group for a time, then drifted
away, refusing canapes and drinks. No-one seemed eager to
talk to them.

Goodie bags were given out to all guests, containing samples
of the new Eulogy super-streaky mascara, mini-bottles of Moe't Black Label, Penhaligon's new-season fragrance Gather


77

JIG? & REEL1?


Ye Lilacs, and a fabulous silver coffin-motif keyring from Asprey
& Garrard, all in a funky limited-edition tote . . .

At last the individual shots seemed to be over, and the
room was now getting very crowded. It was rather hot, too, and I was glad of the open windows and the ceiling-fans. In
a few minutes, I knew, it would be time for the ceremony
and the speeches - between you and me, the dullest part
of the event, but it's popular with the readers, and with
these parties there are always celebrity mourners to give
a bit of life to an otherwise lacklustre occasion. I could
see Madonna in one corner - note to self: burka chic, with
ironic minidress -- talking to Elton John over the heads of
several dozen Armani-clad bodyguards; Tom Parker-Bowles
and A.A. Gill (I wondered what he was doing there,
then remembered his new column, 'Death Warmed Up', on
funeral catering), rubbing shoulders with Hugh Grant and
Sophie Dahl.

My notebook was filling up rapidly. I had stopped writing
in complete sentences, cursing the fashion that decreed
wet notes in favour of electronic ones (the handwriting
accessories are so stylish, though), but I promised myself I
would write everything up properly on my PC that very
night.

Graham Norton: lurex and cashmere from Fake London. Julie Burchill with Tony Parsons (?) - surely some mistake??
Juicy play girl Apricot Sykes. Society's answer to johnny
Depp - Viscount Wimbourne, Speccy Von Strunckel, Zadie
Smith . . .

For a while I amused myself counting the guests that Sis


78

I
HELLO, GOODBYE


had dated. Everyone was having a marvellous time - by
now the casket had been transported to the viewing area
(tastefully shrouded in devore velvet), and the bands were
both in full swing. There was a moment of surprise as the
lights dimmed and silence fell, but when this was revealed
to be a solo 'unplugged' performance of Cage's 4:33, wittily
performed by Brat's Johnny Nuisance, the entire audience
burst into spontaneous applause.

It was the signal for the eulogies to start. Expectantly,
we moved to the sides of the room as the huge podium
swung into place. Celebrity speakers at these events are
closely guarded secrets, and even I had no idea who was
going to take the podium. There were so many celebrities
here that any choice was bound to be a spectacular one.
It depended on what image the deceased chose to project:
intellectual angst (Salman Rushdie, Jeremy Paxman,
Stephen Fry); funky (Graham Norton); dominatrix
(Madonna); girlie (Stella, Jodie, Kate); breeding (Kitty,
Piggy, India, Pakistan). This, in any case, was the magic
moment. Frocks, tears, unguarded secrets . . . anything
might happen, anything might be revealed. Last year
Elspeth Trivial-Pursuing ended up on the front page of Goodbye! after breaking down completely and thanking
everyone from God to her neighbour's budgie for helping
her survive the death of her dog, Figgis; and porn legend
Jim Grossly astonished and amused by performing his own
post-mortem eulogy via video link, and arriving at the
crematorium in a huge Porsche Condom.

But as we watched in breathless anticipation, it was the


79

JIG? & REELS


Northern couple that stepped up to the platform, still hand
in-hand, she clutching her shabby old M&S handbag (too
old even to qualify as vintage), he wearing his Sunday suit
and funeral tie, and I felt a dreadful sense of deja vu. This
was just how it had been when my grandmother died: the
same suit, the same old handbag, the same expressions of
baffled grief over the sherry and sausage rolls.

They were going to speak, I realized in horror and
growing rage; they might even say a prayer, not knowing
that in fashion terms such things were as dead as the
pashmina or the Fantasy Tan. I felt my face grow hot with
humiliation. Trust them to spoil it; trust them to make a
scene when everything was going so well and remind us that
in spite of our affectations we were here with Death, the
original casket-chaser. I couldn't bear it. The old Northern
woman was looking at me, her eyes netted in wrinkles,
her mouth turned down - no Botox for her - in a painful
little grimace of distress which would have looked great on
Gwyneth or Halle, but which on her looked too real, too
raw, like a bedsore or some other unsightly affliction you'd
never see in the movies.

'You might be wondering why we're here,' she said in
that toneless voice of hers. 'But we're her parents, after all,
and we didn't think we needed an invitation to our own
daughter's funeral.'

Not much of a speech, I thought; usually they begin with
the thank-yous, trying to keep it to two minutes whilst
dropping as many famous names as possible.

'I wouldn't have done it this way meself,' she went on,

80


I
HFU. O. GOODBYE


looking round the room»wkh a slightly pained expression,
'but this is our Maggie's day, after all, and it's only right that
all her friends be here to send her off.'

Send her off! It was downright embarrassing. I wanted to
scream, to shout at them to stop it, that they were spoiling
everything, but I was still aware of the old woman's eyes on
me (what was she staring at, for God's sake?) and I couldn't
move, I could hardly breathe under the weight of that sad,
regretful gaze. I closed my eyes, feeling sick.

'Well, I'm not one for speeches,' went on the old woman,
her voice cracking a little. 'I don't want to keep any of you
from having a good time. But what I do want to say is--' she
broke off for a moment, and the sound engineer looked at
his stopwatch - 'what I'm trying to say is that our Maggie our
Maggie--'

Funeral etiquette dictates that no-one should move
during the eulogies. It's partly for the sake of the cameras
sweeping the audience, partly out of respect for the sound
engineers; but oh God, I needed a drink. I picked up a
cocktail from a nearby table and downed half of it in one,
feeling the sickness recede a little. I could tell that some of
the guests were confused by the name of Maggie - no-one
had called her by that clunky, unfashionable name in years
- but the Press seemed happy enough, lurking at the edges
of the crowd, filling up on nibbles and drinks, and Amber
from K.O., with her unerring instinct for trouble, was
grinning at me on the sly.

'What my wife's trying to say,' said the old man in his
slow, deliberate way, 'is that Maggie was our daughter. We

UOS & REELS


didn't see much of her - being busy as she was with her
career and the rest - but we loved her all the same, as we
love both our girls. We'd have done anything for them,
anything--' God, why doesn't he just shut up? I asked
myself - 'and we allus did our best. But it's hard sometimes,
trying to keep up. We never held it against her when she
didn't come to see us, or when she didn't call, or was too
busy to answer the phone. We were proud of our Maggie,
and we still are. I remember once--'

At this point, mercifully, we reached the two-minute line
and the mike cut out. I felt a dim relief that we had been
spared the Northern man's reminiscences of Auntie Madge or Uncle Joe -- or, infinitely worse, of little Aggie and the
dressing-up box, and how she and her Sis were just like peas
in a pod, just like twins, the darlings, like two little angel
figurines. I opened my notebook again and wrote furiously: Speeches v. disappointing. Note to self - extended Generations
Gap piece (?) Keep it light, e.g.: 'The Handbaggers' or '50 Ways To Leave Your Mother'. But when I glanced up, they
were both still looking at me, she with one hand extended,
he with that hangdog look I'd always hated, as if there was
something I could give them, or something they could give
to me.

'Mother, please,' I murmured.

But the Northern woman was adamant. 'Come on, our
Aggie. Don't be shy. It's what she would have wanted.'

People were turning to look at me now; my face was
aflame. I wanted to scream with frustration - please, please don't do this, Mother - but all I could do was shrug


82

1
HELLO, GOODRYE


helplessly and smile, as-If'I were the victim of an amusing malentendu, whilst on the devore-draped podium the
Northern couple stared at me in sad surprise, then bewilderment,
then finally, understanding and resignation.

He had shrunk during his two minutes; now he seemed
no more than four feet tall, a dwarf of a man in his Sunday
suit with his dead daughter at his side, and if anything his
wife was smaller, a shrivelled old woman who might die at
any moment without ever tasting a liquorice Kir or Beluga
blini; a frightened old woman willing to face even the
terrors of a Society funeral in the hope of a glimpse of her
vanished daughters . . .

As children, we never quite forgive our loved ones their
mortality. At Gran's funeral there had been sherry and
sausage rolls, and we had cried together, Mum and Sis and I,
at the unfairness that takes away a relative without warning
at the age of fifty-nine; and afterwards we had collected all
the leftover food into some Tupperware boxes while Dad
and his mates went down the Engineers for a pint, and me
and our Maggie played fairy princesses with Gran's old
clothes and an orange lipstick from Auntie Madge, and
swore we'd live for ever. But all that was a long time ago:
things had moved on, and rightly so. I wasn't Aggie any
more - I was Angela K.: sophisticated, witty, stylish, and
above all, poised. Angela K. didn't do nostalgia, she didn't
cry, she didn't snivel; she kept it light, kept it witty and
ironic and utterly free of fluids.

'Aggie, love, please.'

'Yer Mam and me won't be here for ever, you know.'


83
JIG? & REELS


'We're worried about you. You never call.'

'And you're getting so skinny - just like your--'

'Sis.'

It was too much. I could feel it coming like an avalanche,
bringing everything down with it. The photographers could
see it too, and I felt their lenses turn hungrily towards me,
because if there's anything better than a celebrity speech at
a Derniere, it's a celebrity breakdown, and I was a celebrity
of sorts, if only by proxy. It was coming; and my eyes were
stinging, my throat squeezed shut and the cry was almost
out, almost uttered. There was no stopping it; the only question now was how much damage it would do, and as the
tears squirted from my eyes and the snot from my nose I felt
it all go with them: my poise, my prospects, my career, my
dreams.

There's no escaping it, I thought dimly: there are no
Immortals. Death was everywhere, Death was undeterred by
the black cordon or the security guards; unimpressed by the
music or the gossip or the fashionable caterers. He was in us
all; he was on the High Street and in the designer show'
room; he was an enviable size nought; a rattling good
dancer; a playboy; a wit. I cried for the unfairness of it all:
for the Immortals; for my sister; for my parents; for myself.
Because in the end it's always for yourself, isn't it? That's
the truth of it, we cry because we know that we won't live
for ever. We rage against the defective gene that makes us
mortal, and we hate the ones we love for passing it on.

The audience was watching, rapt. All cameras were now
on me. Technically speaking, I'd passed the two-minute


84
HFI.I O, OOOPPYF


cut-off point, but this was^ood, this was great, this was what
we'd all secretly come for: that little taste of the raw, the
flesh; the bloody sacrifice in the smiling presence of Death,
the ultimate party animal.

'It's not /air!' I screamed above the noise. 'I'm not readyl' And as the cameras flashed and the band struck up and
the voice of the crowd rose to a moan, I heard Amber say
quietly in my ear: 'Go for it, darling. Knock 'em dead.'


85
Free Spirit


I got the idea for this story on a Saturday morning, sitting at a
dirty table in a crowded supermarket cafe. It scared me then, and

still dues.


YOU LL NEVER TIE ME DOWN. I M A FREE SPIRIT; I GO

wherever the wind takes me. Last night it was Paris, by the
banks of the Seine. She'd been sleeping under a bridge; she
was sixteen, dog-tired, beautiful. Tinfoil and spent needles
littered the floor around her bed. I knew at once that she
was the one. Her long river-coloured hair trailed across
the greasy bricks; her eyes were closed. She made small
introspective sounds as I touched her; her skin mottled; her
eyelids flickered. Sometimes she seemed ready to speak, but
there was no need for words between us. We were already
too close for that. Her fists clenched; she clawed the air; her
neck and her pale arms blossomed. She was alight and
lovely with fever.

It was quick; that's the only drawback with these short


86
TREE SPIRIT


affairs. In less than twenty-four hours it will be over. But the
wind keeps on blowing; a scrap of tinfoil from under our
bridge escapes in a draught and is carried up over the
Pont-Neuf and over 1'Ile de la Cite to descend in a shower
of confetti on the steps of a church where a young couple
poses, smiling for a photographer.

Choices, choices. Who will it be? The bride? The groom?
More interesting to me are the guests: the teenage boy with
a scattering of herpes simplex around his sullen mouth; the
grandmother with her caved-in face and hands knotted
beneath her white gloves. They are all beautiful to me, all
equally worthy of my attention. I leave the choice to the
scrap of tinfoil; there's poetry in that. It spins, whirls. Faces
lift to the sky. For a second it brushes the lips of the balding
man, a second cousin with a flat, impassive face who stands
slightly apart from the others. Him, then. I follow him
home.

His flat is on the Marne-la-Vallee line; small and
obsessively clean, the flat of a man who has no friends.
There are no beer cans discarded beside the sofa, no dirty
dishes stacked in the sink. Instead there are books: scientific
manuals, medical dictionaries, anatomical charts. This man
gargles with Listerine four times a day and his bathroom
cabinet is filled with the paraphernalia of the hardcore
hypochondriac.

Not that I mind; in a way it appeals to me. This is a man
who does not understand the nature or the extent of his
own desires; beneath his prissy exterior, his obvious fear, I
sense his secret longings. Besides, I enjoy a challenge.


87
JIGS & REFI. S


Once again, there is no need for words. He is irrationally
afraid of me, and yet he welcomes me with something
approaching relief, as if he has been awaiting just this
moment. There is a desperation in his resistance which
gives spice to our meeting, and when finally the barriers
are broken, he responds even more quickly than the girl,
who was already weakened by hardship and encroaching
pneumonia.

But I can't be tied down. Twenty-four hours is all I can
give him, and already I sense that our wildly opposite
natures are causing problems. He wants intimacy; to stay in
bed all day with the television on and cool drinks by the
bedside. I'm a social animal; I need contact to survive. I'm
already beginning to miss the nightlife, the clubs, the busy
heat of Paris. I escape when he is asleep, the moment the
cleaning woman comes to look over the flat.

She is all unsuspecting; she peers over him cautiously (it
is past twelve) as if to check him for fever. 'D'you want me
to call a doctor?' she queries; then, when he does not
answer, she shrugs and gets on with her work. That's all I
need. I escape unnoticed, the brush of her hand the only
contact between us.

The cleaning woman is old but tough. She lives near
Pigalle. It's my favourite part of Paris; bright, ugly and
seething with life. She takes me to the Sacre Coeur, where
she prays and I prey, passing from tourist to tourist and
running voluptuously over the well-fingered stonework. The
air here is hot with incense; from here penitents will wander
down the Butte de Montmartre into Pigalle below, where


88
FREE ^PIRIT


the whores and the rent-bays congregate and the strip-clubs
are just beginning to get busy.

I'd like to stay with the cleaning woman, but life's just
too short. There are hundreds -- thousands -- of others out
there waiting for me. 1 pass quickly from one to another: a
nun gathering alms at the door of the basilica collects more
than she bargained for; the old gentleman who gives her
a hundred-franc note receives an unexpected handful of
change; later that night, a lad who swears he is fourteen will
meet us both in the dark archway of a closed Metro station,
and after that the young lad (who is really nineteen
and doing good business) will take me to a club, where I
shall mingle freely among the revellers, dipping into drinks,
sharing cigarettes, touching flesh and enjoying the warm,
damp air.

They are all equal to me: young, old, healthy or corrupt,
male or female. Twenty-four hours is all I can ever give
them; but in that time I give them my all. Who next? And
where? Will it be a needle, a kiss, a lost coin picked up from
the streets and carried home? Will it be a cube of sugar in a
crowded cafe or the gleeful tramping of a fly in a patisserie
window or the furtive hands of a pervert on the Metro or
windblown dust sticking to a child's lollipop? Whatever it
is, I'll be there. You may not see me; I won't speak a word.
But all the same, you'll be mine. We'll be closer than lovers,
you and I: tighter than DNA. Nothing will mar the perfect
physicality of our relationship: no quarrels, no seduction, no
lies. You will give me your self, and I will give you mine,
entirely. For a while.


89

U O S & R E F I ?


And afterwards, I'll take the road again. No regrets.
Maybe I'll go to America, in a crowded, air-conditioned
plane. Or to England, by the tunnel. Or maybe back to
Africa, or Asia, or Japan. I'll see the world ten times over.
I'll meet millions of people. That's why I don't stay anywhere
long. You can't tie me down. I'm a wanderer. A
traveller. A party animal. I'm a free spirit, and I go wherever
the wind takes me.

I



90
Autoda-fe


There is something terribly primitive about the way we behave in cars. Driving, we exhibit all the behaviour patterns of pack
animals: the sexual aggression; the brute triumph of strength over
weakness; the eternal struggle for dominance in the automotive
pecking order. Some call this road rage. Others prefer a more
graphic term.


I LIKE CARS. I ALWAYS HAVE; SINCE I WAS A LITTLE LAD I WE

liked the smell of them, the sound of them, the shapes and
colours and different sizes of them. That's what I played
with when I was a lad: Tonka trucks, Matchbox cars, you
name one, I had it, 1 had them all. And now I'm a driver, a
pro, a knight of the road.

A man's car defines him, you know. A reflection of the
male superego, Annie says, as she brings me my cup of tea.
An extension of a latent desire to sexually dominate other males. I think it must be those classes she goes to. All Freud and
sexual domination. I wouldn't mind if some of it ever came


91
JIGS & REELS


my way. But no. It's always Not tonight, love, I've got me
monthlies. No wonder I'd rather wax the car.

Mind you, she's a beauty. Midnight-blue BMW. Alloy
wheels, leather seats, walnut trim. Class. She's what I'd
have myself if I could afford her. But she's not mine. She
belongs to the company, and the company could take her
away tomorrow. Ask yourself how that feels. On the other
hand, don't. I've had enough of castration metaphors and
womb-traumas from Annie. Only she understands me. She
and I - a perfect unit, speeding thrice daily along the Ml between Leeds and Sheffield, bearers of the eternal flame
of Matthew McArnold & Son Ltd, soft furnishers to the
world.

In my business, you get to understand cars. Cars of all
sorts: Corsas and Golfs for student nurses called Hayley,
battered Escorts for spotty economics students at the Poly,
2CVs or reconned Beetles for cute little actressy types called
Kate, a matt-silver Lexus for her banker-made-good Dad,
Len, who's having an illicit affair with the tennis-club
secretary, Jan, a well-preserved forty-five with a Ford Ka and
a dirty mind. On my run, you get to know the regulars. That
Asian bloke in the brown Nissan Sunny who always hogs
the middle lane. That blonde in the turquoise Cinquecento,
checking her lipstick in the rear-view mirror by the exit to
Junction 37. The white van from Junction 36, with a rag
dangling from the ladder sticking out from his back end.
The red Probe - now there's one for Annie's psych group who
zooms along the fast lane at ninety mph and honks at
anything in his way. Including that unmarked white police


92
AUTODA-FE


car - hello boys, I can^ee'you in your Rover 500 - oops, too
late. You see, it pays to know your cars.

V-Man, for instance. You must have seen him: black
Volvo saloon, black spoilers, tinted windscreen, Top Gun shades. V-Man really gets up my nose. He thinks he's better
than the rest of us, with his limited-edition sunroof and his
personalized number-plate: HE 51. Fact is, he's not. But we
always have to go through it all the same, V-Man and me,
nose to nose, like gladiators, every bloody morning.

Thing is, I'm a good driver. I've had the car twelve
months - she was my Rep of the Year incentive - and I've
never even put a scratch on her; never even got a ticket. I
might bend the rules once in a while - well, speed limits
aren't made to be taken literally, and I find a couple of
drinks actually help my concentration - but I can drive, I
know the roads and the people and I can drive. It's the ones
like V-Man that are really dangerous. The ones that think
they're something and want to prove it. Me, I'm just a
driver; I mean it's a job. It's not like it's my life or anything.
That would just be too sad. But V-Man - he drives as if it's
personal; as if there was more at stake than just space; and
when he dodges between two articulated lorries into the fast
lane and pulls away at eighty-five, you can just see him
thinking: Not so smart now, are you, in your flash Beemer with
your alloy trim; take a look at what a man can do. And though
I've never actually seen his face - the tinted glass gets in the
way - I know he's a little balding twat with a trainee
moustache who gets bullied at the office and thinks he's
king of the road.


93
nos & rffi s


Not that I let it get to me; not usually, anyway. But today
started badly; woke up late, had to rush, there was a lane
closed between Junctions 36 and 37 and Annie's started
talking about taking time out to consider our options, which
probably means she's seeing another fella - or worse still,
she's getting broody - and all I really needed to make it a
totally shitty day instead of just a crap one was for V-Man to
show up, all bright and shiny in his black Volvo, and try
to put one over on me on the sly.

Of course, I usually win. Nine times out of ten I win,
because a BMW runs rings round a limited-edition Volvo
any day of the week, but this morning I had this feeling he'd
try it on, as if he sensed something was wrong and thought
he'd chance it. Well, I was right. I spotted him coming off
the slip-road from Junction 36 - bang on time as usual.
Pulled right out into the middle lane in front of me, no
indicator, no signal, no mirror. What a wanker. Of course,
he does it on purpose. He thinks it winds me up. I flashed at
him, speeded right up to his back bumper and flashed again.
Then I overtook him, nice and smooth into the fast lane,
and moved back into the middle lane in front of him, giving
him the indicator signal - twice for each side, to make sure
he got the message. You'd have thought that would have
been it. But some people just have to keep at it, don't they,
needling away, nagging at you until something in you just
snaps and you give them a good thump and before you know
it it's: You can't do that to me, you bastard, I'm off to me
Mam's, as if they hadn't asked for it in the first place and
now you're somehow to blame. Well, that's V-Man. He


94
AUTODA-FE


overtook me a minute later - never mind he couldn't beat
the red Probe just coming up behind him - just took off into
the fast lane with the Probe up his arse and gave me a little
wave as he passed. I couldn't see his face, what with the
shades he was wearing, but I did see he was wearing driving
gloves - the leather kind, with the breathable lining - and
somehow that did it for me. I'd never met this bloke
and suddenly I knew everything about him. Knew it, and
hated his guts.

He's called Keith or maybe Ken, and he works in sales.
He's forty-five and he hasn't had a shag for over a year, not
since his wife (thirty-nine, ash blonde, Honda Civic) went
off with some bloke she met in Hatha Yoga. He wears suits
from Moss Bros and shirts from Marks & Sparks; and there's
always an extra shirt on a hanger in the back of the car, just
in case he gets sweaty before an important meeting. He
chose a Volvo because they're safe, but he made sure it was
a black sporty model because to him that says young, free,
and ready for action. He wears shades even on cloudy days,
and driving gloves - as if he might get blisters - even
though he's got power steering, and he's listening to Radio
Two right now, and they're playing Dire Straits' 'Sultans of
Swing', with Terry Wogan just beginning to fade out the
long guitar solo for the eight o'clock pips (I hate it when
they do that, the solo's the best part), and he's singing
along, or maybe trying a few rim-shots on the edge of his
leather-trimmed steering wheel and thinking how he'd kill
for a Strat just like Knopfler's, he's always wanted one and
now he's free and single again, no kids, no alimony, he


95
JIOS & REEL?


might be able to afford one. For a second he imagines
himself going into one of those music shops off Boar Lane in
Leeds and idling around the guitars hanging off the walls
like trophies; perhaps turning to the grungy kid at the till
and saying in his most casual voice: I'd like to have a look at
that Fender Stratocaster. And the kid saying Sure, I'll get you
an amp, and is that a smirk on his face as he turns away, and
did he just say Grandad under his breath, so softly that only
he could hear him?

I told you, in that moment I knew it all; knew his
loneliness and his pathetic little fantasies and the way that
when he hugged himself tightly into the leather seats of the
black Volvo he could almost imagine he was someone else,
that he was V-Man, Knight of the Road, tilting bravely
at every challenge, leaving Mercs and Jags and Beemers
standing in their tracks as he surfed ahead . . .

I couldn't let him get away with it. It's not that I'm sad or
anything, but I just couldn't. It's a matter of pride. I overtook
him on the inside - he was still hogging the fast lane -- at insulting speed, giving him the wanker sign all the way.
He saw it all right: flipped me the finger and speeded up
again, but we were reaching the lane closure and fast-lane
traffic was slowing down, so I passed him again, grinning,
and kissed my middle finger to his diminishing windscreen.

It should have been over then. But it wasn't my morning;
as we reached the roadworks the middle lane slowed down
to a sudden crawl - no-one wanted to go into the slow
lane, and the fast-laners were pushing through at the
last minute, even though they'd been given an 800metre


96
A U The O - D A - F F


warning. They know thefefe always some twat going to let
them in, especially if it's a woman at the wheel. Me, I'd
let them wait. Let India or Saffron be late for her aromatherapy
class; some of us have a job to do.

But that's why V-Man overtook me again; most of the
other fast-laners had already pulled in, but not him. He
came nosing past me, eyes forward, hunched a little over the
wheel. I noticed he had a dashboard toy shaped like Kenny
out of South Park; somehow it was typical of what I knew of
him, and it set my teeth even further on edge. But I might
even have let that go if he hadn't done what he did next.
There was a girl in a white MG at the head of the line,
indicating to be let in. Red Probe was two cars ahead of me,
with a white mini-van and a green Corolla next in line. I
didn't see the Probe letting anyone in - he was in too much
of a hurry as usual - but the mini-van honked at the girl to
let her through, and she filtered into lane ahead of me. So
far, so good. V-Man was stuffed. I certainly wasn't going to
let him in; the green Corolla looked like a company car, not
doing anyone any favours, so he could indicate all he
wanted, I was going to cruise past him, wanking with both
hands this time if I could manage it, and leave him in my
exhaust. That was the plan.

But V-Man's one of those drivers who won't let go,
careless and arrogant, but just pushy enough in some cases
to get lucky. This was one of them; at a crucial moment the
mini-van stalled, and seeing his chance, V-Man pushed in
hard after the white MG. He missed her back bumper by an
inch, almost swiped the van with the other end, but lucked


97
JIOS & REELS


out all the same and swung back into the traffic towards his
exit. I might have left him to it even then, but for the little parpl he sent me as he speeded up ahead, and the casual
wave of his hand through the tinted rear window.

That did it. Suddenly I saw red. I revved up the engine,
swerved into the slow lane and began in pursuit. It wasn't
my exit, and V-Man knew it, which was why he'd dared
make such an open challenge. But this time, today of all
days, I wasn't having it. V-Man was in the slow lane, backed
up in traffic; I was five cars behind him as he entered
the slip-road. I swore, nipped off the road onto the hard
shoulder and caught him up that way - sod the cameras - so
that when he reached the lights at the main junction
roundabout I was up close and personal, jammed right up
against his back bumper and glaring at him in his rearview
mirror.

I could see that had rattled him. He was staring straight
ahead, waiting for the lights to change. I could see him
watching me in the mirror, though; every few seconds I
sensed his rabbity eyes flicking to the lights, then to the
mirror, where I was grinning fiercely at him and mouthing
insults. I took off my seat-belt, to see what he'd do, then
opened my side door a crack. By now V-Man was shitting
bricks. When I put a leg out the door, he jumped a mile and hit the lock button, glancing back at me with his shades
slipping off his nose. I pushed a little closer, flashing my
headlamps at him, then the lights changed and I slammed
the door and moved off in pursuit. It was a route I'd never
taken before. Usually it's the Ml, back and forth from


98
AUTO-PA FE


Sheffield to Leeds, but now I'd got tangled up in my quarry's
trail and I knew I was pushing it to get to work on time. It
didn't matter, though; I was going to show V-Man who was
boss once and for all; even if it meant running the little shit
off the road. We raced five or six miles along a dual
carriageway heading towards Bradford, and though he tried
to lose me, he had no chance. I stayed right up against his
bumper, right up his arse all the way, and there were
no more little parps and waves; V-Man was dead serious
now, eyes fixed straight ahead, occasionally glancing back
into the rear-view mirror in that nervous, hunted way.
He tried speeding up, dodging between lorries to lose me,
but I followed him. Then he slowed to a crawl, hoping
I'd overtake him, but I slowed as well. Finally he pulled
into a roadside services, dodged through the lorry park,
through the petrol-station and parked in front of Burger
King, engine idling, daring me to follow him there.

Showdown.

I parked opposite him and we stood for a moment,
windshield-to-windshield, observing each other. I cracked
my door open; waited. His stayed closed. I stepped out onto
the tarmac and put on my sunglasses, shielding my eyes
against the morning sun. He stayed, holed in like a terrified
rabbit, watching me as I walked slowly up to the black
Volvo.

Now I was so close I could see it wasn't quite as shiny as
I'd thought; there was a little rust on the bottom of the
passenger door, and there were signs of bodywork around
the left headlamp. Through the smoked glass I could see


99
JIO? & RFFLS


V-Man watching me with his mobile in one hand. As I
watched he held up the mobile in a weakly threatening
gesture, as if he were planning to phone the police.

'Get out,' I said quietly.

Through the glass, V-Man shook his head.

I kicked the side of the Volvo's door, hard enough to
dislodge rust. 'Get out,' I repeated.

The driver's side window opened a crack. 'I'm calling the
police,' said V-Man in a high, wavery voice. Behind it came
the faint sound of Radio Two playing 'Band of Gold' (Frieda
Payne, 1970).

'Call away, you little twat,' I said, and put my fist through
his window. Fake diamonds on everything. It hurt, but it
felt good all the same: I could feel the ratchet of small bones
in my bruised knuckles. 'Is that enough sexual domination
for you, you little twat? Does that make you feel fulfilled!'

It wasn't quite what I'd been planning to say, but I saw
his eyes widen with fear. 'I ... Look, I've got money,' he
said. 'Take it. The phone, too.' He held out a wallet, black
leather, like his driving gloves, his hand trembling so much
I could barely see it clearly. Bloody hell, what did he think I
wanted?

'You cut me off,' I said, ignoring the outstretched wallet.
'Nobody cuts me off.' It was what I should have said to
Annie this morning, I told myself. I wished Annie could see
me now. Might give her something to think about other
than that poncey psychology teacher of hers.

V-Man was looking at me in fearful incomprehension.
'C-cut you off?' he stammered.


100
AUTODA-FE


'Dead right,' I said. iTeathed through the broken window
and opened the driver's door. 'And now I'm going to cut you off, you little twat.'

V-Man was still watching me, eyes glazed. 'I'm a married
man,' he whispered. 'I've got children--'

'No you haven't,' I told him, knowing it was true.

'No, I haven't,' whispered V-Man.

'Is your name Keith or Ken?' I demanded.

'KKenny.'

That explained the dash toy. And looking inside the car
now, I could see his life: his jacket hung up on a wire
hanger, his cheap briefcase, an old picture of a blonde
woman - she'd be called Penny, or Connie, or Frannie,
some crap like that - Blu-Tacked to the glove compartment;
a Magic Tree air-freshener dangling from the
rear-view mirror; a copy of Arena - stolen from a colleague
at work - lying on the back seat to give the impression he
was young and fancy-free; and behind it all, behind the
smell of his sweat and the reek of that air-freshener and
the leather of his driving-gloves and the musty smell of car I
could smell that terrible, familiar scent - like piss, like old
takeaway meals, like unemptied ashtrays and stale underwear
- of hopelessness, despair, and decaying illusions.

'What are you going to do?' whispered V-Man.

I'd almost forgotten him in that wave of loathsome
understanding; I looked down now and saw his fat and
cheesy face, his weak eyes, his receding hair, the darkly
spreading stain at the crotch of his Moss Bros trousers.

My hand was throbbing fiercely where I'd broken the


101

JIG'? & R F F I =


window; I massaged my knuckles - bloody stupid thing to
do, punching the glass; could have broken a bone. To make
matters worse, my other hand was already bruised from
earlier this morning. My head, too, was sore; in spite of my
Ray-Bans, the morning sun always seems to get me straight
in the eyes. My mobile was ringing - I could hear it very
faintly in the distance, behind the sound of the car radio
('Band of Gold' was merging into Queen's 'We Are the
Champions') - probably work asking why I was late, or
Annie wanting to finish that discussion we started earlier //
you were a man, Benny, you wouldn't always need to prove
to yourself that you're not a loser -- what does she know, silly cow! I showed her, anyway; I showed her properly this time,
and never mind that she threatened to call the police, you
can only drive a man so far. He knows, V-Man, sitting
shivering in his mock-leather seat smelling the piss drying
on his fifty-quid Moss Bros trousers. He knows who the loser
is in this game, and it isn't me.

I showed them this time. I showed them both. No-one
cuts me up; no-one plays me for a loser. I walked back to
the car, got in, turned up the radio (Pink Floyd, 'Another
Brick in the Wall, Part II'), adjusted my dashboard mascot
(Bart Simpson), pulled on my gloves and revved off
into the sunrise, while behind me lights flashed and sirens
wailed and that phantom smell of piss, of loser, kept getting
stronger and stronger, even as I drove away.

1



102
The Spectator


Not long ago, at the height of the media paedophik frenzy, a
pensioner friend was attacked by a neighbour. The reason?
Because he liked to take his daily walk past the school playing
fields and watch the children playing football. This harmless
old man was so frightened by the attack, which was vicious
and unprovoked, that he now hardly ever leaves his house at
all. I find this more depressing than words can say. All over
the country, it seems that children are being taught to see all
strangers as potential aggressors; and more and more adults are
karning to give children a wide berth in the fear that they may
fall under suspicion. This story owes much to Ray Bradbury's haunting tale, 'The Pedestrian .


EVERY WEEKDAY MORNING AT TEN-THIRTY, MR LEONARD

Meadowes would put on his overcoat, his red scarf and his
ancient trilby and set out on his daily constitutional. Past
the corner shop, where he would buy a copy of The Times and
occasionally a quarter of Murray Mints or Yorkshire


103
JIGS & REELS


Mixture - past the deserted churchyard with its lopsided
gravestones and thick wreaths of hemlock and trailing
convolvulus, past the charity shop where he bought most
of his clothes, across a main road blaring with traffic,
through the small wood where he used to walk his dog, and
into the lane which bordered onto the school playing fields.
He wore trainers for the walk, as much for comfort as for
discretion, and if the weather was fine, he would sit on
the wall for twenty minutes or so and observe the children
at play before turning back through the wood in the direction
of Dare's cafe and his usual buttered toast and pot of
tea.

Today, in late October, the sun was shining, and there
was a smoky sweetness in the air like falling leaves. One of
those perfect days of which the English autumn has so
few, sun-warmed like an apricot, tangled with blackberries,
crunchy as cornflakes underfoot. Here by the playing fields
it was quiet; a dry-stone wall at the edge of the trees marked
the boundary, and beyond it the grass was still summer
sweet and freckled with daisies, rolling gently down a soft
incline towards a square brick building shining mellow in
the sunlight.

Ten-fifty-five. In five minutes, he told himself, it would
be break-time, and children would shoot from the school's
four doorways like fireworks - red, blue, neon-green - hair
flying, socks at half-mast, voices raised and soaring like kites
into the soft golden air. Twenty minutes of break-time: of
freedom from rules and constructions; of fights and bloody
noses, treasures lost and bartered, outlaws and heroes and


104
THE SPECTATOR


whispered rebellions and shrieking, dappled, grubby-kneed
bliss.

Once, Mr Meadowes had himself been a teacher. Thirty
years in the classroom, in the smell of chalk and cabbage
and mown grass and socks and wood-polish and life. Of
course, in this year of 2023 there were no more teachers after
all, computers were far safer and more efficient - but
the school still looked so familiar, so real in the sweet
October light that he could almost ignore the chain-link
fence that reared mightily above the little wall and ran
all the way around the playing field, the lightning-bolt
electrification symbol and the lettered warning - school


- NO UNACCOMPANIED ADU LTS - bolted to the post.

But Mr Meadowes was remembering his own classrooms;
the scarred wooden floors stained purple with ink and
polished to a lethal gloss by generations of young feet; the
passageways soft with blackboard dust; the flying staircases
of books; the graffitied desks with their furtive slogans; the
crumpled worksheets, confiscated cigarettes, copied homework,
arcane messages, and other forgotten artefacts of that
lost and long-ago state of grace.

Of course, it wasn't really like that: nowadays each pupil
had a workstation with a plastic desktop, a voice-activated
monitor, an electronic pen and a computer-generated tutor
with an ageless and intelligent face (a prototype selected
from thousands of designs by the Centre for Generational
Awareness to inspire confidence and respect). All lessons
were taken from the workstation -- even practicals were
performed under virtual conditions. In the barbaric old


105
JIGS & REEL?


days, children had been scalded by steam during poorly
supervised cookery lessons, acid-burned in chemistry, had
their bones broken in various sports, skinned their knees
in asphalt playgrounds and were bullied and victimized in
countless ways by their human teachers. Nowadays, all
children were safe. So safe, in fact, that sightings had
become quite uncommon. And yet they still looked much
the same as he remembered, thought Mr Meadowes. They
sounded the same. What, then, had changed?

Mr Meadowes was so deep in his thoughts that he did not
notice the sound of a security van approaching along the
lane, or hear the recorded alarm-signal - Children! Danger!
Children! -- as it clattered towards him. It was only when
the vehicle stopped right in front of him, its turret light
strobing, that he saw it and was startled from his thoughts.

'Don't move! Stop right there!' said a metallic voice from
inside the van.

Mr Meadowes took his hands out of his pockets so fast
that his bag of sweets spilled out, scattering across the lane
like coloured marbles. Beyond the chain-link fence, the
children were coming quietly out of the school buildings in
twos and threes, some huddled over electronic gamesets,
some glancing curiously at the security vehicle with its
illuminated turret and the old, old man in the battered
trilby with his hands raised and his palms outstretched like
an actor in one of those old films, where everyone was in
black and white, and men on horseback held up stagecoaches
and Martians stalked the barren lands with Death
Rays at the ready.


106
THE SPECTATOR


'Your name?' demanded" the vehicle stridently.

Mr Meadowes told it, keeping his hands clearly visible at
all times.

'Business or profession?'

'I'm - a teacher,' admitted Mr Meadowes.

There was a whirring sound from inside the vehicle. 'No
business or profession,' said the metallic voice. 'Marital
status?'

'Er - I'm not married,' said Mr Meadowes. 'I did have a
dog, but--'

'Unmarried,' intoned the vehicle. Though the robot
voice was completely uninflected, Mr Meadowes seemed to
hear a kind of disapproval in the word. 'Can you explain
to me, Mr Meadowes, your purpose in loitering outside a
clearly marked restricted area?'

'I was just walking,' he said.

'Walking.'

'I like to walk,' explained Mr Meadowes. 'I like to watch
the children playing.'

'And have you ever done this before?' said the machine.
'This walking and watching?'

'Every day,' he replied, 'for fifteen years.'

There was a long, hissing silence. 'And are you aware,
Mr Meadowes, that personal contact (including physical,
audiovisual, virtual or electronic) between an unsupervised
adult and a child or young person (that being defined as
any person under the age of sixteen) is strictly prohibited
under the terms of Clause 9 of the Generations Act of
2008?'


107
JIGS & REELS


'I like to hear their voices,' said Mr Meadowes. 'It makes
me feel young.'

The silence from the machine was somehow even more
damning than its toneless voice. Mr Meadowes remembered
a rumour (from the old days, before the things had become
so familiar that no-one even noticed them any more) that
the security vans were controlled remotely from a central
computer, without the input of a single human operative.
'Surely there can't be any harm in that,' he said helplessly. 'I
mean - don't we all enjoy watching children at play?'

There came a new sound from inside the vehicle and a
door opened, revealing a metal-panelled interior. 'Get in,
please,' ordered the robotic voice.

'But I haven't done anything wrong,' protested Mr
Meadowes.

'Get in, please,' repeated the voice.

Mr Meadowes hesitated for a moment, then entered the
van. It was a small, dark metal box with a tiny window of
reinforced glass, a bench in the middle and a grille set into
the back panel to protect the operating system. 'Now if
you had a child of your own--' said the voice, and Mr
Meadowes realized that, after all, there was a man in the
driver's seat on the other side of the grille; a man with a
microphone and an electronic clipboard who looked at him
with disgust and a furtive kind of pity before turning back to
the controls.

The door closed softly. The vehicle set off again along
the lane, and the light that filtered through the grille
was freckled and golden. The man in the driver's seat did


108
THE SPECTATOR


not turn round again, ev"en* when Mr Meadowes addressed
him.

'Where are we going?' asked Mr Meadowes at last.

'To the Centre for Research on Generational and Psychosexual
Maladjustment.'

They passed down the lane and through the little wood;
across the main road where his dog had been run over,
eighteen months before; past the streets of identical
terraced houses - his own among them - and the arcades of
identical trees. They drove right out of the city, along
a broad, sweeping expressway lined with multicoloured billboards
behind which, every now and then, Mr Meadowes
glimpsed the familiar and all-engulfing concrete rubble of
the wastelands.

A few minutes later, they passed a row of derelict buildings.
A church - closed now for safety reasons, like all
others; an old flat-screen cinema; a couple of bookshops; the
remains of a park with swings and a bandstand; and at
the end of the row, a large and still-lovely building of
soot-mellowed stone, bearing the faded sign: St Oswald's
Grammar School for Boys: 1890-2008.

'That's my school,' said Mr Meadowes as they passed.

In silence, the van rushed on.


109
Al and Christine's World of Leather


J wrote this out of pure mischief. Because although romance may
be dead, the beat goes on ...


CHRISTINE REACHED FOR HER CUP OF TEA, STRETCHED HER

cramped spine and sat back to examine her handiwork.
Quite a good job, though she said it herself: nice straight
seams, no puckering in spite of the difficult fabric, a
good strong line. That was going to make someone a very
nice, durable pair of work trousers: unusual, perhaps, but
hardwearing. Vaguely she wondered what the flap was
for.

Not that it mattered. Nowadays she just did what she was
told, and let Candy deal with the artistic side of things.
Doing what she was told, after all, was what Christine Jones
was best at. Imagination was Candy's department.

They had met at a WeightWatchers meeting. Candy was
ten stone three and wanted to get down to nine and a half;
Christine was thirteen-ten and, as her husband Jack put it,


110
AL AND CHRISTINE'S WORLD OF LEATHER


letting herself go. She was planning to let go of at least three
stone, anyway, but somehow had never quite made it;
instead she'd gained six pounds and a social life of sorts,
consisting of Candy, her friend Babs, and the Weight
Watchers' mascot, Big Al Maguire.

Big Al had been going to the club for over three years.
A huge man who never seemed to lose any weight, he
was tolerated only because he made even the fattest women
feel better about themselves. Christine wondered what he
got out of it, and decided that he just liked the company.
Babs worked in a shoe factory and was desperate for a man;
Candy was a divorcee, now a mature student at the local
Poly, studying textiles and design.

She had taken to Christine at once. 'What a lovely
sweater,' she had said, as Christine stepped down from the
weighing machine. 'Missoni, is it?'

Christine flushed, and admitted she'd made it herself.

Candy was impressed. She couldn't sew or knit herself,
she said, but she had lots of ideas; perhaps they could get
together some time and talk. And so the 'knitting coven', as
Jack called it, was created. Every Sunday after church,
Candy, Babs, Christine and Big Al would meet at
Christine's house and discuss yarns and designs. They were
all enthusiastic, but Christine was by far the most technically
expert, and for the first time, she found that others
looked to her for advice. Candy couldn't knit; Babs was
quick, but careless, and Big Al, though his giant fingers
were astonishingly delicate with the yarn and needles, was
too slow for anything but the simplest work.


111
JIGS & REELS


But Candy had big ideas for the knitting coven. She had
a friend, a fellow student from her course, who had opened a
little shop. Handmade knitwear could be a real earner, with
quite a simple pattern selling at sixty pounds or more.
Deducting twenty per cent for the friend, another twenty
for cost of yarn and other overheads, that still left half
to be divided equally between the designer (Candy, of
course) and the workforce -- or, in this case, as it happened,
Christine.

At first, Jack had resented it, making fun of her friends
and her little sideline. But then the money had started to
come in - only a few pounds at first, but then more, as the
patterns grew more ambitious and the yarns more unusual.
Now Candy experimented with combination yarns, with
lurex and rubber and silk fibres twisted into the wool.
They were harder to knit with, beyond the skills of Babs or
Big Al, but sometimes the results were dramatic, and a
finished garment might sell for eighty, even a hundred
pounds.

Gradually, Christine's role in the knitting coven expanded
still further. She no longer used the basic patterns,
leaving the simple designs to Babs, and the deliveries increasingly
frequent now - to Big Al. Instead she worked
with the special yarns, and, as the money continued to
come in, began to take in commissions on non-knitwear
items. Occasional pieces of modern dancewear; performance
gear; fancy dress. Some of it was quite unusual - the trousers
with the mysterious flap, for instance - but Candy assured
her that this was where the real money was, and after a


1 12
AL AiNU CHRISTINE'S WORLD OF LEATHER


single payment of over Two hundred pounds - a leather
gladiator skirt with studded harness, for a theatre
performance of Julius Caesar -- Christine found herself
having to agree. After that, Candy suggested they went
into business together, with the friend as a sleeping partner,
each owning a third share. A lawyer drew up the papers.
Christine protested that she didn't need a partnership after
all, Babs and Big Al were paid by the hour - but Candy
wanted everything to be scrupulously fair.

'It's only right, darling,' she said, when Christine had
mentioned her doubts. 'After all, you do so much of the
work.' This touched Christine, who knew herself to be
so much less intelligent or attractive than her friend, and
who often felt embarrassed at her own inadequacy. Candy
deserved better, she thought; it was proof of her sweet
nature that she never mentioned it.

It was at this point that Jack stopped complaining.
Christine had a hobby room of her own now, in which she
kept the leather-adapted industrial sewing machine for her
special work, and she spent most evenings in there, listening
to the radio as she worked, while Jack spent increasing
amounts of time at the health club; for unlike Christine,
Jack had not let himself go, and had retained an impressive
level of fitness.

This sometimes troubled Christine. It wasn't that she didn't trust her husband, she told herself; but three hours at
the health club every night did seem a little excessive. She
wondered if he was having an affair, then felt guilty for even
considering it. Jack was very much a man's man - his


1 13
JIGS & REELS


reaction to the knitting coven showed it - and he needed
male company from time to time. She was lucky, she told
herself; he was cheerful, devoted, and made no unreasonable
sexual demands (though he might try once in a while,
she thought; there was such a thing as being too chivalrous).
No, she was lucky to have him, she repeated to herself;
perhaps he deserved better.

Still, thought Christine, sometimes it was quite a relief to
know that Jack was safely out of the house when she worked
on her special commissions. He had never made any secret
of his dislike of Candy, and his contempt for Big Al, too,
was thinly veiled. Besides, he had a limited knowledge of
specialist leatherwork - you don't get much exposure to that
kind of thing in retail management - and she knew that if
he caught sight of her current order list, he would certainly
make one of his sarcastic comments. True, it was a peculiar
collection, but someone was paying over three hundred
pounds for the lot, so there had to be a market for it
somewhere.

Once more, she considered the trousers. Good-quality
leather; black; thirty-two waist; decorative insert. The
purpose of the back flap still eluded her - perhaps some
kind of a tool pocket, she thought, though honestly, you'd
think they'd want a bit more protection if they're going to
be working with equipment. She hoped she hadn't got it
wrong; but it wasn't the first pair she had made, and the
customers had never complained. Besides, she had given up
on trying to improve patterns since she had inadvertently
ruined a whole underwear commission (a conceptual dance


1 14
AL AND CHRISTINE'S WORLD OF LEATHER


company, Candy had s^id) by introducing a reinforced
gusset to the basic design. Candy had been rather nasty
about it, she remembered, saying, For God's sake, Christine,
if we'd wanted gussets we'd have bloody well asked for them, so now she did only what she was told. Perhaps dancers
need more ventilation - you know, down there - she
thought. In that case, a reinforced gusset might cause all
kinds of unexpected problems. No wonder Candy had been
annoyed.

All the same, she thought, a most unusual pair of
trousers. The black tutu was normal enough, she supposed,
and the corset seemed designed to go with it somehow,
though she couldn't work out how. It was stiffly boned
(she'd used heavy-duty nylon slats) and laced up at the
back, something like the one her grandmother used to wear,
though obviously her grandmother's wasn't made of leather.
Perhaps for someone with a slipped disc, thought Christine,
though you'd expect them to do that kind of thing on the
National Health. And what was this thing? Not a hat,
precisely; in fact from this angle it looked more like a kind
of mask, although how were you supposed to see anything
if there weren't any eye-holes? Christine shook her head
disapprovingly. These dance people could come up with
some very strange ideas nowadays. What was wrong with a
nice Swan Lake? Or a Nutcracker7.

And yet, she thought, wasn't there something rather satisfying in working with these materials? The buttery
leather; the silk; the studs; the gauze? She'd always liked
working with her hands, but recently she had given more


1 15
JIGS & REELS


time to her craft than ever before, and it wasn't just because
Jack was out of the house. No, she was enjoying the work responding
to it, somehow - far more than she ever had
with knits and sweaters. And when she was working, she
had begun to have the strangest thoughts - like waking
dreams. In these dreams she imagined herself wearing the
strange garments; feeling their fabulous textures against her
skin; maybe (she blinked at the thought) - maybe even
performing in them. And in these dreams her designs were
not for dancewear, as Candy had told her, nor for back
supports or Shakespeare or gardening, but for something
else, something thrilling and mysterious and full of power.
Hunched guiltily over her sewing machine, a tiny smile on
her face, Christine dreamed; and in her dreams she was
someone else: a tall, leather-clad someone with a purposeful
stride; someone who never did as she was told; a woman of
authority.

Some chance, she thought, as she boxed up the finished
clothing. She never so much as ordered a pizza without
consulting Jack; never took any decision regarding the
company without turning to Candy for advice. A natural
follower, was Christine Jones; a disciple; a perpetual
associate; a drone. There's no harm in that, she told herself;
we can't all be movers and shakers. Still, the thought
depressed her, as did the nagging certainty that somehow
she was missing something; something obvious, like coming
out of a bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe and
walking on, oblivious, while everyone laughs at you behind
their hands.


1 16
AL AND CHRISTINE'S WORLD OF LEATHER


It was eight o'clock whe"h Christine delivered the box to
Big Al's. As usual, he seemed to have been waiting for her
to arrive, because he opened the door at once, his round
face beaming with pleasure.

'Christine! I thought you might drop round this after'.
Come on in and have a cuppa.'

She hesitated. 'I don't know, Al. Jack might be back any
minute--' Al's face fell, and Christine felt sorry for him.
'Oh, all right, then, just a quick one.'

Big Al's house would have been small, even for a man of
normal size. For him it was tiny, and he blundered around in
it like an oversized puppy in a Victorian doll's house. He
made tea for Christine in a doll-sized china cup, holding the
teapot handle between finger and thumb. 'Biscuit?'

'Al, I shouldn't.'

'Never mind that, chuck. Skinny doesn't suit you.'

Christine smiled and took a custard cream. Al had a way
of making her feel like china herself, in spite of her fourteen
stone. And he wasn't a 'lard-bucket', as Jack so cruelly
called him; more like an overstuffed armchair, shapeless but
comfortable.

'I see you've done with that order.' He nodded towards
the box.

'Yes. You can deliver it tomorrow.'

'Right.' Christine thought Al was looking slightly uncomfortable;
she wondered if he had seen the patterns, and
if so, what he thought of them. 'Funny load of gear,' she
said. 'Still, if people want to buy it--' She noticed Al was
wearing the jumper she'd knitted for him last Christmas;


1 17
J1US is. REELS


the green one with the snowflakes. 'Suits you lovely,' she
said.

He flushed a little. 'It's me favourite.'

Christine laughed. 'Jack won't wear them. Says they're naff:

'Jack's a bloody fool.'

The reply came back so quickly that Christine could
hardly believe she had heard it. Big Al never used
'language', as he put it; and in all the time she had known
him, Christine had never heard him say a bad thing about
anyone.

He was flushing very red now, as if aware of having
overstepped a line. 'Sorry, chuck,' he said. 'Dunno what
come over me.'

But Christine was looking at him, puzzled. 'Is something
wrong?'

Al shook his head but would not meet her eyes.

'Al?'

Pause.

'Al?'

As he spoke, slowly at first, then with increasing confidence,
Christine poured them both a second cup of tea. It
was funny how it all made sense; Candy, who deserved
better; Jack, who deserved better, herself, quick of fingers
but desperately slow of mind, working on her sewing
machine while her friend earned twenty-five per cent
working on her husband. A nice living for both of them.
Jack was the sleeping partner, the third owner of the
business: there had never been a friend with a clothing


1 18
AL AND CHRISTINE'S WORLD OF LEATHER


shop, but instead, a werTsite on the Internet, where both
Jack and Candy knew Christine would never venture.

'It isn't dancewear at all, is it?' said Christine when he
had finished.

Big Al shook his head.

'Is it--' she cast about for a suitable word. 'Erotica? Is that
what we're selling? Sex toys? Fantasy wear?'

Big Al did not need to reply. His face told her everything.

Christine took another biscuit. Funny how calm she
felt; she had imagined Jack's betrayal so many times, but
had expected to feel something quite different if - or
more likely when - it happened. Instead she found herself
thinking how nice Big Al's eyes were; how nice, and how
kind.

'Where are they now?' she said at last.

'Candy's,1 said Big Al.

'All right,' said Christine. 'Let's go.'

It was almost nine when they arrived at Candy's place.
The lights were on in the top bedroom, and Christine
walked straight in without ringing the bell, knowing that
Candy never locked the doors. Big Al followed her, up the
stairs and into the bedroom.

The sheets were scarlet silk; the walls, mostly mirrors.
Christine noticed with some surprise that Candy had
cellulite on her legs, in spite of all that dieting. Jack was
lying on his front, like a man with bad stomach-ache. It
was so long since Christine had seen him undressed that he
looked like a stranger.


1 19

JIGS &. REELS


'Jesus, Christine--' He tried to sit up, but the handcuffs
stopped him - at least she assumed they were handcuffs,
under all that furry stuff. She'd always assumed that Jack
wasn't really interested in sex. Now she realized that it was
just sex with her that didn't appeal to him; the outfit he was
wearing, as well as the variety of objects lined up on the
dressing-table, spoke of an imaginative and adventurous
sexual career. 'Now listen to me--' he said.

'So that's what they're like on,' said Christine. 'Thirty
two waist, was it? I think you're more of a thirty-four.'

It was her handiwork, all right; she would have recognized
them blindfold. Black leather, decorative insert,
studded seam. And the flap, of course. Candy was staring at
her, open-mouthed, in lace-up boots and a pair of those
ventilated panties.

It was the cruellest kind of betrayal. Such a cliche -
her husband and her best friend, feigning to dislike each
other as they continued their liaison right under her
nose - but given extra zest by this final act of deception.
She thought of herself, sitting at her sewing machine,
dreaming her little dreams - Poor stupid Christine, thinks
it's dancewear, wouldn't know a dildo if she saw one - while
Jack and Candy played their games and laughed themselves
sick at the thought of their own cleverness and
perversity.

And strangely, Christine found that it was not the sexual
betrayal that angered her most, but the fact that they had
done it in her clothes - her clothes, upon which she
had lavished such care. Imagine Christine in that! Ghost

120


I
A! AMP CHRISTINE'S WOR!.r> OF I. FATHER


laughter from a darkened~r»om. And how they must have
laughed! Well, thought Christine; you know what they say. He who laughs last . . . And suddenly, unexpectedly, she
began to smile.

'Christine,' said Jack, 'I think we need to talk about
this.'

But Christine was already turning away. And only
Big Al, still standing in the doorway, could see her tiny,
dangerous smile.

She found the second pair of marabou handcuffs among
the items on the dressing-table, along with a digital camera
and a thick roll of black masking tape. It took Christine a
tew moments to figure out how to work the camera, but
after that it proved absurdly easy. She shot the pair from
various angles, occasionally stopping to readjust a fold of
fabric or to smooth out a crease in the soft leather. They
might have been professionals, she thought happily; and
they looked so right together . . .

'I'm thinking I might branch out,' she said, putting the
camera carefully into her pocket. 'My share in the company
- and half of Jack's, of course - should give me a nice little
sum to start off with.' She looked down at her husband,
red-faced and struggling on the bed. It felt quite nice - for a
change, she thought - though she still couldn't entirely
see the attraction of all that gear. Still, she thought, you
should try anything once. 'I'll probably run the business
from an Internet site,' she said thoughtfully. 'After all, it's
worked fine so far. And besides,' she levelled her smile at
Candy and Jack as she worked to remove the tape which


121

JIGS & REELS


gagged them, 'It would be such a shame to waste all these
photographs, wouldn't it?'

'You can't do this,' gasped Jack, outraged.

'I think I can,' said Christine.

'What? Alone?'

She looked at Big Al. 'Not quite,' she said.

Big Al stared at her as if he couldn't altogether grasp
what she was saying. 'What?'

'Al and Christine's World of Leather. How does that
sound to you?'

Al grinned and went scarlet. Then he hugged her, his
eyes shining. For a minute Christine was content to be
suffocated and to enjoy the luxurious sensation of being
close to someone that big; someone who outweighed her.
There was a sensuality to Al, in spite of - and perhaps
because of - his size; a sense of texture which reminded her
of nights spent in front of her patterns, but without the
loneliness. It was a kind of revelation. She looked up and
saw him looking down at her, his chocolate-brown eyes
spangled with lights. Her heart was racing like a sewing
machine. With an effort, she disentangled herself from his
embrace and turned to face the dressing-table, knowing that
they would have time later to luxuriate in each other;
conscious of one last thing, one final loose end to be
definitively tied.

'Are you two imbeciles going to let me go now?' said Jack,
trying unsuccessfully to look dignified in marabou and black
leather.

'Not just yet, dear,' said Christine, selecting an object

122


1
A L AND C i 1 R i b 1 1 N E ' 6 \V U R L D OF LEATHER


from the dressing-tableland approaching the bed with a
smile. She still wasn't quite sure what the object was, or
indeed, quite how to use it, but she was sure she'd work it
out somehow, now that she'd guessed what the trouser flap
was for.


123

1

Last Train to Dogtown


People often ask me where my ideas come from. The real
question, as far as I am concerned, is where they go to afterwards. I began this story on hotel notepaper, in a seedy motel
room in Georgia, during my last American book tour. I finished
it on a train, two weeks later. My destination was not Dogtown,
but I got there anyway.


IT HAD BEEN A BUSY NIGHT FOR NEIL K. MORE THAN A

thousand people at the awards ceremony, plus fifty at the
press conference, and after that there had still been books to
sign, hands to shake, smiles to show to cameras and fans.
Bloody public, he thought as the train bumped gently to a
halt. They never gave up until they had drained his every
drop.

Of course it was to be expected. He was thirty-two;
photogenic; published in forty countries and with a series of
awards under his belt - along with two lucrative films he
claimed not to have seen. In short he was the Holy Grail of


124
LAST TRAIN TO DOGTOWN


the publishing world; a»genuine literary phenomenon and,
at the same time, a popular hero.

Not that he hadn't worked for it. His novel, when at last
he presented it, had startled critics with its maturity, wooed
readers with its economy and charm. Checked and
rechecked so that not a single extraneous word remained;
every fanciful thought eliminated; every notebook burnt;
every piece of juvenilia relegated to the fire; every sign
of adolescent angst or awkwardness pared away. Away
with adverb and adjective; away with the conceits of
exclamation and hyperbole. His style was ultimately clean.
Groomed. Modern. As, of course, was he.

K. looked outside into semi-darkness. Wherever the train
had stopped, he thought, it certainly wasn't King's Cross. A
few yards ahead there was a railway signal, its light frozen at
red. In the dim glow he now thought he could see a
platform, trees, the vague outline of a pale wooden gable
over an absurd gingerbread trim. It was completely silent;
even the thrum of the engine had stopped; no vibration
came to him through the floor of the carriage. Then, with a
sudden and unanswerable finality, the carriage lights went
out.

His first thought was that the power had failed. There
must have been a breakdown, he thought - a short-circuit,
maybe, or a signal failure - at any moment the guard would
come in to apologize and explain. In any case, K. would have
a few cutting things to say to the guard when he finally made
his appearance; his publishers had paid for first-class travel,
not to have him sit in the dark like a piece of lost luggage.


125

JIGS & REELS


But minutes passed and no guard came. He flipped open
his mobile phone; the display told him that it was now five
to eleven, that his battery was fully charged, and that there
was no reception in the area. At last, with growing unease,
K. stood up and began to make his way to the end of the
train.

It was empty.

They must have overlooked him, he thought. Left the
loco here, in the sidings, believing all the passengers to
have gone. Quite angry now, K. opened the door onto the
deserted platform. There might not be a taxi rank in such
an out-of-the-way place, but there would be a village - a
road, at least, and somewhere he could call a cab. In any
case, he did not like the idea of walking along the rails,
which seemed like the only other realistic option - short of
spending the night in the empty train. Maybe he would
have better phone reception when he was out of the trees.

Turning, he took a final look at the signal. It was still at
red. Below it he could see a plate with the letters DTI and,
below it, a hand-lettered sign on a piece of wood which
read, faintly, but legibly, DOGTOWN.

The name seemed remotely familiar to K., but he could
not quite remember why. An old movie, perhaps? Kids must
have put up the sign, playing cowboys and Indians around
the old buildings. The gable certainly had a Western look,
and in daylight it would be a good place for kids to play the
old trains, the deserted tracks, the woods. For ordinary kids, anyway. Neil K. had been far too sophisticated to play
cowboys.


126

1
LAST TRAIN TO DOGTOWN


And then he remembered. Ten years before the birth of
Neil K., when he still had a last name and a drawerful
of notebooks, he had written a story, a Western - now what was it called? Something about trains. Big Train to-- no, Last Train--

He dismissed the thought, annoyed. What did it matter
what the story was called? There were no notebooks, and in
any case, Westerns were so over. For all the world knew,
Neil K. had been newborn at twenty-five. He had thrown
away his old life along with his surname, and everything he
had written - ghost stories, poems, space-operas, fantasy all
the embarrassing clutter of adolescence. The name was a
coincidence, that was all. Dogtoum, tor Christ's sake. I
mean, how hokey is that?

He found a path at the far side of the platform,
and followed it for a couple of hundred yards, his shadow
lurching before him over the uneven ground. The trees at
the back of the old station were pines, and smelt strong and
bitter. Small things in the undergrowth rustled and popped.
In the distance, something howled.

K. had almost made up his mind to return to the train at
least he'd be able to sleep there, and presumably someone
would collect the engine in the morning - when he saw a
light shining from just behind the pines, and wooden houses
built alongside a little track. He began to jog towards the
light, and now he could see that the buildings were part of a
village, all lined up along a single main street, with a small
pond in the middle. There was a faint smell of horses;
perhaps there was a farm nearby.


127

II O S & R E F I. S


As K. approached, he saw that the largest building was
brightly lit. Piano music filtered thinly through an open
door, and there was a sign hanging from the gable. A pub,
thought K. with sudden longing. That was more like it.

He went in. The single room was filled with people.
Some played cards at a table in one corner of the room;
others talked, drank or listened to the music. A bald man
with half-moon spectacles was playing the piano - very out
of tune, especially at the top end. Several women, with
elaborate hairstyles and low-cut dresses, were seated by the
bar. One, a flashy blonde, seemed to recognize him, and
smiled. Otherwise the drinkers were mostly men - and now
he noticed that most of these men wore chambray shirts,
leather waistcoats and cowboy boots. Western night, he
thought. Line-dancing and all that. Very popular with the
country crowd.

The barman gave K. a sour look as he ordered a pint. The
beer - a brand he'd never heard of called Lame Dog - was
weak and faintly salty, but he drank it fast and asked for
another. He was aware that people were watching him, but
did not turn round; his face was well-known enough for him
to be recognized even outside London, and the last thing he
wanted right now was to be mobbed by fans.

Instead he turned to the surly barman. 'Excuse me, what's
the name of this place?' he said, over the tinkling of the
piano.

The man shrugged and said something unintelligible.

K. repeated the question. But the barman seemed not to
hear him.

128


I
LAST TRAIN TO DOGTO\X'N


'Don't you mind Jaker,' ^aid a voice behind K. 'He's just
sore because he never got his ending.' It was the flashy
blonde he'd noticed earlier: a tired-looking lady in her
middle forties whom K. might have found (in other circumstances
and given the right lighting) quite attractive. 'Can I
buy you a drink?'

'Thanks.' She looked oddly familiar to K., but in that
costume he couldn't quite place her. A PR he'd worked
with, perhaps, a waitress, a fan . . . None of those seemed
quite right, and yet she was looking at him with that
expression of delighted recognition he'd come to dread:
the one which said; Hey Neil, it's me! Don't you remember? As if, of all the thousands of people he'd met over the
course of the past ten years, he was supposed to remember
them all.

He made his smile especially winning and said, 'You
know, I know we've met before, but I have the most terrible
memory for names

The lady looked absurdly crestfallen. 'It's Kate,' she said.
'Kate O'Grady. Surely you remember me?'

It would help, thought K., if she didn't put on that
terrible American accent. Theme night it might be, but if
he was supposed to remember her in that get-up - 'Of
course it is! Kate,' he said, showing his teeth. 'How stupid of
me! It's just that I've had a pig of a day, and you know my
memory--'

'I sure do. We all do, Neil.' She laughed as if she'd made a
joke. Then she looked at him again, and her face fell. 'You don't remember, do you?' she said. 'It's been a long time, and


129

JIGS & REELS


I wasn't sure you'd know the others, but I sure thought
you'd remember me.'

God, had he slept with her? K. didn't think he had, but
her face was crumpling and now she looked ready to cry. 'Of
course I do, Katie,' he said warmly. 'But I've had a terrible
day, and with the costume and everything--' He drank his
salty beer, hoping she would leave it at that. 'It looks great,
by the way. Really suits you. Western night, is it? Look, is
there a phone in here I could use? My mobile won't work
and I need to call a--'

K. faltered, suddenly aware that the piano had stopped
playing. He was conscious of the silence, of eyes turning
towards him, of the intent look - the hungry look - on
those faces.

'He don't know Katie,' muttered a man in a red-checked
shirt.

'Don't know Katie?' said the piano player incredulously,
and for the first time K. noticed that everyone in the pub
was wearing a gun.

'Look, is there a phone here I can use?' K. knew the guns
were not real, but there was an atmosphere in the pub - or
was it a saloon? - which made him somehow uneasy. These
little places often resented Londoners, he knew; resented
his looks and his success. More than a few of the regulars
looked ready to hurt him, and of course no-one - not his
publisher, not one of his friends - knew where he was.

'A telephone?'

'Yes. My mobile won't work and I need to call my--'

'Ain't got none,' said the man in the red shirt.


1 30


I
] AST TRAIN TO POOTOWN


'Well, maybe someone here might--'

'Ain't no call here in Dogtown.'

This was taking the Western theme a bit too far, thought
K. And the dialogue was terrible; it sounded like a budget
B-movie translated from Spanish. And yet there was something
dreadfully familiar about all of this. The train, the bar,
the woman - and yes, he did remember her, or at least now
he knew why she had seemed so familiar - Kate O'Grady,
hostess of Dogtown's only saloon, in that old and half
forgotten story.

'You may not know who I am,' said K. nervously.

'Oh, we know you,' said the man in the red shirt. 'You're
Neil Kennedy.'

'Kennedy?' That had been his name, long ago. But he'd
thrown it away with the rest of his life: with his notebooks
and stories, his films and comics. He could have sworn that
no-one knew about Neil Kennerly - but then again, no-one
knew Last Train to Dogtown.

Behind him, the regulars were coming closer. K. heard his
name whispered - in awe, curiosity, and something else
which he could not quite identify. Eagerness? Excitement?
Greed? Now, the piano player reached in his pocket and
pulled out a grubby notepad. Silently he held it out, his face
slicked with sweat, his hand trembling slightly. Then the
red-shirted man did the same; then one of the women at
the bar; then the albino, his cards falling from his hand;
then the man in the bowler hat - all holding out scraps of
paper, stubs of pencil with that look of hope, of hunger in
their flat bright eyes.


131
JIGS & REELS


'What do you want?' said K.

'Your sign, sir,' said the pianist shyly.

'Aye, your sign,' said the man in the bowler hat. 'We writ
the rest for ourselves. We've been waiting.'

'Waiting?' said K.

The barman nodded.

'Waiting?' repeated K. in a low voice.

The barman looked at him. Too long, Mr Kennedy,' he
said slowly. 'Much too long.'

In silence and in disbelief, K. looked around the saloon.
He knew them all now: Jaker at the bar; Sidewinder Sam
the piano player; Whitey Smith the albino, the red-shirted
Pasadena Kid (fastest gun in the West) . . . Could this be
some kind of a tribute by obsessive fans? Had these people
somehow managed to get hold of a copy of his old story
(with the Internet, anything was possible), and was this
some kind of convention?

He had to get out - perverse tribute, coincidence or
otherwise, this was too much. He'd take his chances with
the night - surely there would be a phone somewhere close
by. Otherwise, even sleeping in the train was better than
this.

'Coin' someplace?' It was the man in the red shirt,
the one his mind stubbornly referred to as the Pasadena
Kid.

'Look, mate, I'm not sure what's going on here--'

The Pasadena Kid put a hand to his gun. 'You ain't goin'
noplace, Mr Kennerly,' he said. 'We got business, you and
me.'


132
LAST TRAIN TO DOCTOWN


'We don't want no trouble,' said the barman hesitantly.
'Remember what the Sheriff said.'

'Keep out of this, Jaker,' said the Kid. 'I got a brother shot
in the lung. I need to know, one way or the other.'

'Sure,' said the albino. 'And I wanna know if I ever found
that abandoned goldmine.'

More voices now joined the protest. 'Yeah, Mr Kennerly,
I want to know--'

'Do I find the guys who shot my father?'

'And what about them Injuns--'

'And the train?'

K. had been besieged by fans before, but never on this
scale; never with such desperation. Their fingers plucked at
his sleeves; he could smell whisky and beer on their breath.
And now they were pressing closer, hands outstretched,
each holding a scrap of paper, a notebook, a crayon, a stick of chalk. K. was half-submerged in a sea of battered notebooks
and scraps of paper.

'Your sign, Mr Kennerly--'

'I don't usually give autographs,' said K. as he backed
away.

'Please--'

'I need it - I want it--'

'Leave me alone!' shouted K. 'I'll call the police!'
He thought that at the mention of the police, the autograph
hunters drew back just a little. But there was only
confusion, not fear, in their reddened faces. Sidewinder Sam
gaped at him, showing teeth like wooden pegs. Whitey Smith
held out a sheet torn from a notebook, looking close to tears.


133

JIG? & REELS


Kate O'Grady was watching with an expression of faint
contempt. 'You really don't know, do you?' she said. 'You
haven't guessed what this place is? What we are?'

'How should I know?' said K.

'Because you put us here, Neil,' said Kate. 'You created
us. We're your out-takes, your loose ends, the bit parts that
never made the final draft. We're the characters in the
stories you didn't finish, the minor players, the cameo roles,
the people you wrote out, or lost interest in, or gave up on
or forgot. All this - ' she gestured around her, 'this is
Dogtown, from the old Western you never quite finished.
Over there - ' indicating vaguely south, 'you'll find your Raiders from Planet 51. Back there - ' pointing now in the
opposite direction, 'you'll come to the Perilous City, and
the cannibals - all very hungry by now - that you put there
when you were nine years old. Go far enough past Dogtown
and you'll hit the Dinosaur Swamp; or the alien women
in silver loincloths from Kozmo the Rocketmaster, or you
might come across one of your discarded adverbs wandering
aimlessly through the woods, or some superfluous dialogue,
or any one of the lost players in your little games, all of us
who got passed over when it came to tying up loose ends, all
of us waiting our turn, waiting for you to remember us.'

K. stared at her. 'This can't be happening. You're all
insane.'

'Just listen to what you're saying now,' said Kate implacably.
'B-movie dialogue, from those old films you were
always watching, Neil. Can't you even recognize your own
cliches?'

34


I
LAST TRAIN TO DOG TOWN


K. thought about that for a moment. Perhaps he should
play along and humour them, he thought to himself. Crazy
they might be, but there were too many of them to fight his
way out, and besides, he'd never been a fighter. With a
hand that trembled slightly, he initialled the blank pages,
the grubby notebooks. 'Why me?' he said at last.

'Easy,' said Sidewinder Sam. 'We want to get out of
Dogtown. Sheriffs bleeding us dry here. We gotta get out.'

'But why would you need me for that?'

Kate looked impatient. 'Because you're the only one here
who outranks the Sheriff. You wrote him in, and only you
can help write him out.'

'Write him out?'

'Absolutely. We want an ending. A road home. A happy
marriage. Anything. As it stands, all Kate O'Grady
ever does is hang around the Golden Wagon, dab blood
from the hero's cut cheekbone and act as a sexual decoy
to keep the ruthless, sadistic Sheriff off his trail.' She
shrugged. 'Call me picky, but that's not how I envisaged my
future.'

'Oh.'

'As for the Sheriff, the last thing he wants is an ending.
What he wants is to maintain the status quo. He knows
there can't possibly be a happy outcome for the likes of
him.' She turned to the others, still standing around K. with
pencils at the ready. 'Come on, then. What are you waiting
for? Sheriff could be here any minute.'

K. shook his head. 'You can't really expect me to believe
all this. It's ludicrous.'


135
JIGS & REELS


'I don't care what you believe. All I wanted was your
sign.'

'But I still don't see--'

Kate made an impatient gesture. 'Because your endorsement
gives us the power. Because signing makes it--'
At that moment she seemed to catch sight of something
behind K., and she stopped, her hand clenched around her
notebook so hard that the knuckles showed white. Then she
went for her pencil and began to write.

There was a sound of thunder, and Kate fell to the
ground with a sudden, shocking splash of red across her
frilly bodice. And in the silence that followed, K. heard
slow footsteps, and he knew even without looking that
this was One-Eye Logan, the (ruthless, sadistic) Sheriff of
Dogtown.

'Well, look who it ain't. Our very own friend, the scribbler.'

Slowly, K. looked up. He saw a leathery face bearded with
grey stubble above a jacket of ancient leather on which
winked a silver star. The man's single eye - the other was
concealed beneath a leather eyepatch - was like a nugget of
rock. On a bandolier around his shoulder hung a red leather
notebook and a paperback Thesaurus. The gun in his right
hand was still smoking.

'Katie!' It was Jaker, the barman, his face now contorted
in a frenzy of rage and grief. He went for his notebook, but
his opponent was faster, and Jaker fell clutching his chest in
a drift of bloody sawdust.

At the bar, the Pasadena Kid stood hesitating, one hand
halfway to his jacket pocket.


136
LAST TRAIN TO DOOTOWN


The Sheriff patted his "notebook. 'Don't do it, Kid. I got
you covered.'

The Kid stood fast, eyeing him appraisingly.

'Drop it,' said the Sheriff. 'Nice and slow.'

The Kid lowered his eyes, as if in acceptance. Then,
almost too fast for the Sheriff to see, he drew his notebook
and pen.

For the third time, the big gun flashed, and there was a
sound of thunder.

The Sheriff turned over the body with the toe of his boot.
'You was fast, Kid,' he said, thoughtfully. 'Some said you was
the fastest draw in Dogtown. Me, I wasn't so much a draw as
a thumbnail sketch, but you makes the best with what you
got, don't you, eh?

'Game's over, boys,' he said, addressing the regulars. Tut
your hands up. And no funny stuff. So help me, if I see a
man with as much as a pencil stub in his hand I'll blow him
clean away. That clear?'

Heads nodded, and one by one and sullenly, the rebels of
Dogtown laid down their notebooks and pens. 'Good,' said
the Sheriff, keeping them covered. 'And now, Mr Kennerly,
sir - or do they call you something else nowadays? - we got
business to settle, you and me.'

But K. was staring at the bodies on the floor. There was
no doubt at all that they were dead; the air smelt of blood
and Bonfire Night, and their contorted faces and mangled
limbs had nothing in common with the corpses in the
Westerns he had watched as a boy. 'You killed them,' he
said in a dazed voice. 'You really killed them.'


137

JIGS & R F E I S


The Sheriff shrugged. 'Self-defence,' he said. 'I read
books. I done my research. I know what happens to the guy
in the black hat when the third act comes around. And I
like it here, Mr Kennerly; I like being in charge. Ain't
gonna let no two-bit scribbler write me out of the plot, no
sir.' And he turned the muzzle of his gun slowly towards
K. 'Bread and circuses, isn't that what the Roman guy
said? Keep 'em fed, and keep 'em entertained? And when
you pare away the dross, don't you agree that the circus
element has been the better part of both our businesses, Mr
Kennerly, sir?'

Weakly, K. nodded.

The Sheriff smiled. 'You see my problem,' he said. 'You
left me in charge, sir, and it plumb ain't fair to come back
twenty years on and take it all away. It ain't fair, it ain't
right, and I ain't standin' for it. Besides,' said the Sheriff,
opening his red notebook, 'ruthless and sadistic, that's what
I am, that's what I'm good at, and that's what I'm gonna
stick to.'

'And what happens to me?' said K., eyeing the Sheriffs
poised notebook.

One-Eye gave a modest smile. 'I reckon there's been
enough shooting,' he said. 'All the same, sir, you must see
how I can't risk lettin' you go. I'm not sayin' I'll do a better
job than you, mind, but I'll give it my damnedest try, you
can be sure of that.'

'I don't understand,' said K.

'Sure you do,' said One-Eye, licking the end of his pencil.
'One way or the other, sir, there's got to be an end to this

138


I
LAST TRAIN TO DOG TOWN


tale. It's what these f(5lks have been saying all along. A
wedding, a funeral, hell damn, there's a buttload of different
choices out there, sir, and I hope you'll trust me to make the
right one. In fact - ' the Sheriff looked modest, and his
rough cheeks flushed a little, 'in fact I've drafted up a bit of
something for us to try out right now, just to see what it
looks like. Run it up the flagpole, you might say, sir, and see
who salutes.'

K.'s throat was too dry for him to say anything, but he
managed another weak nod.

The Sheriff looked pleased. 'I'm glad you're being so
reasonable, sir. Besides, I think you'll like what I've got
planned.'

'What's that?' said K. in a small, small voice.

'Well,' said the Sheriff, 'call me conservative if you like,
but oldies are still goldies, ain't they? Besides, it's good for
folks to have something to look forward to.' He smirked,
and once again K. thought he flushed a little. 'Tell me what
you think, sir. Of course I respect your opinion. But this is
Dogtown, life's hard, entertainment's scarce, and I think
we'd all agree it's been a long time since we had ourselves a
good hanging.'


139

In Blackberry Wine, a character finds himself unable to live up
to the promise of his first novel, and falls back on writing
second-rate science-fiction to pay the bills. His pen name is
Jonathan Winesap, and he has never quite grown up. Neither -
I'm glad to say - have I.


every lifeform's death diminishes me, for i
The G-SUS Gene


am a part of Lifekind.

Chant 363 of the InnerSelf LifeCreed, circa 2141. Two
thousand repetitions a day for the first twenty years. Do I
remember them all? The hell I do.

The Common Good is the Only Good. There's another
one. Twenty-five thousand repetitions so far, and counting. Suffer in My Name, and Ye Shall Enter the Eternal Database of
Redemption.

They say no-one can get inside your mind.

Bullshit.

They've been inside mine so often there's nothing left


140

I
THE G-SUS GENE


that they haven't scramfeled and poached, picked apart, put
together, psychescanned and mesc-ed with and rebuilt with
cortisynth and hyperthalamus and generally fucked with. I
mean, I might even be imagining you altogether. I might
finally have gone crazy. They can do that, you know send
you crazy for a while, all part of the great InnerSelf
Experience, I guess. Who knows, it might be my turn for
that this time. What the hell, there's been worse.

You don't believe me? Man, I've been a cripple to get
in touch with my helplessness, a bondage whore to feed
my feminine side, a soldier to rid me of my distrust of
authority - and that was just the Normforms. Finforms,
zero-dwelling Aquaforms half a mile from tail to snout,
methane-breathing Xenforms, I've seen 'em, done 'em all.
And you know what?

It's all bullshit.

I guess they were trying to do me a favour. A skycycle,
driven at speed at an immovable object at three hundred
and twenty an hour, can leave a hell of a hole in a guy.
Or was that just another one of the InnerSelf programs?
There are days when I can't even remember that. No, on
reflection they'd never have done that to me. Too much
fun.

Suffer In Me. Suffer With Me. Through Suffering Alone Shall
Ye Find Redemption. The Kingdom of the Mind is the Ladder to
the Stars. Post-hippy bullshit of the purest ray serene, piped
out at a precisely calculated assimilation rate on a frequency
even my brain can't black out. Sense-enhancers to stop me
fighting it. And an authentic InnerLife program - one of


141

JIGS ck REELS

I



thousands - to verify my enlightenment ratio. Get your head
round that, sis. Or whatever.

Fact is, brain matter's in short supply around here.
Even such lowgrade matter as mine has to be refined and
recycled. Twenty years ago - inasmuch as time still matters
nowadays - we did something, don't ask me what, split
the wrong atom, shifted the wrong antigen, pressed the
wrong button, screwed with Cosmic Forces and infected	*™

the species. Result? Near-total wipeout. I was mostly out of
my skull at the time so I wasn't taking much notice, and
nowadays I'm out of my skull all the time. I was Chosen.
You too, perhaps. Yippee.

Welcome to the wonderful world of formaldehyde.

Wanna know something? I'm glad you're here. We
could put our heads together - sorry, bad taste - I don't
know, what do they call it now? interface or something -- compare notes. I like to think you're female. Not that it
matters any more - or so the InnerSelf people tell me - but
I like to think it anyway. Let me introduce myself. Oz 'Mad Dog' O'Shea, Hell's Rider, multiple rapist, murderer,
drunk, and till recently sole occupant of Booth 235479,
InnerSelf Developments (New York City). Subject Under
Surveillance Category G (Genetic Redevelopment to
you, sis), subcategory Experimental. Membership number
390992. But you, sweetheart, can call me Oz.

So, what's a nice chick like you doing in a place like
this? I assume you're a chick. Not that it matters. Been
one myself, as I was saying, so don't take offence at the
terminology. Welcome to hell.


142
THE G - S U 8 GENE


Not that I thought it was hell when they brought me
here. No way. Thought I'd struck it lucky, back then when
they pulled me out of the wreckage and stripped me down
like an old bike for parts. Hear them tell it, I was gonna be a
new man, an enlightened man . . . Hell, I was going to be the
future of the whole fucking race!

They needed a volunteer. The way they told it, I was
going to be God and Adam and the Second Coming all
rolled into one. To bring us back, they said. To put things
right. To find the part of us that went wrong - find it,
isolate it, wipe it out and begin again. A willing volunteer,
they told me, might earn himself certain privileges in exchange
for saving the race.

I was willing.

They managed to save most of my mind. First for
interrogation purposes - they wanted why, who, when, what
I was on, the same old crap. Then bye-bye, switch-off, or
worse. Oh yeah, there's worse. The City of New York State
Penitentiary houses half a million discorporate inmates on
one database - all wiped in the big Power Strikes of the
Twenties, ha ha - all awaiting InnerSelf Enlightenment and
maybe Redemption.

Oh yeah. Didn't you know? We're all gonna be Redeemed.
Leastways we would be if there was anyone left to do
the Redeeming. But it's all automated now, sweetheart; all
docbots and psychemechs and empascanners sliding little
syringes of craziness into our poor helpless cortexes, little
surprise packages from the Good Olden Times like in the days
before the world lost what few poor marbles it ever had.


143

JIGS & REELS


I always liked a chick with brains. Nowadays that's all
there is. The growth tanks are still out there, use-restricted
by the InnerSelf Corporation on moral grounds but
functional still. That's where they grow the Normforms -
minus brainstem - and the Xenforms we like to use in our
InnerSelf jaunts out of the skull. All for the purpose of
SelfDiscovery, Selflmprovement and eventual Nirvana. A
shot, a grey shift of nothingtime, a shutterclick . . . and here
we go again. What's it to be this time? A furry Felform?
A Dolphform singing weird scales under fifty million
fathoms of liquid carbon dioxide? All I know is it has to be
intelligent. The path to Nirvana is a thinking path, the
Redemption man says. Through Suffering Our Goal. Beetles,
it seems, don't suffer enough.

How long has it been?

A hundred thousand mindmovies. Every one a slice of
life. A 3-D Feel-o-matic, sense-enhanced Supasound Inner
Life Experience (registered trademark of the InnerSelf
Corporation slash company logo red-on-black ground). Cut
off when They decide. Turned on when They see fit.

Oh, they're clever. They've given me the White Room
scenario more times than I can recall. Patient waits,
restrained; taste of foamrubber gag in mouth. Kindly face in
medical mask - Ah yes, we're awake, 1 see. How are we
feeling? Loaded syringe shoots straw-coloured liquid into my
bruised arm. I like that touch. The bruise. It's the details
that count when you're going for realism.

I'll give them this: they've really tried. Makes me wonder
how many billions died, way back when the world was sane,

144


I
I H h <J - 6 U b OHNH


that they should hang oh to me the way they do. Course,
they're machines; machines just never give in. Not till
something breaks or runs down. Programmed for Nirvana,
they never let up, even though the subject will never be
Nirvana material. Every time, they scan for change. Every
time, the same sad faces, kindly reproach, regretful shaking
of heads and back to the White Room scenario, electroshock
walls and graveside manner.

Pray for Redemption, they tell me in their sweet
mechanical voices. Pray for Redemption. You die - again,
again, again and again - that Humankind should live. Find
the fault, put it right. Test, crashtest, retest. What Oz
endures he endures for your sakes, citizens. Isolate the rogue
gene, the psychopathic missing link in his fucked-up
scrambled brains, and eradicate it from the clean wholesome
battery-operated future.

Hold that thought.

Bullshit.

The problem is this: someone told them there was
something worth saving. The soul, the elusive spark no-one
has yet managed to isolate. That's what comes of trying to
bring religion into the world of electronics. I've told them
before. Told them a thousand million times. There is no
G-SUS factor. They've been looking for it for so long that
even if they found it they probably wouldn't know what to
do with it. What the hell does this G stand for, anyway?
God? Genesis? Ginelli's Pizza Emporium? General Accident
Insurance? Greetings From Hawaii? Gagging for a drink?
But a machine's faith is infinite, its patience longer than


145

JIUs 6t REELS


God's. They'll find it, they assure me. It's in there somewhere.
I just haven't suffered enough.

I've lived so long so often I've even begun to have
memories. I'm not supposed to, you know; wipe the slate
clean and make it squeal anew; if it breaks, chalk it up to
experience and wheel out a new subject - though I'm not
sure how many available subjects there are left - and begin
again. Trial and error, not necessarily in that order; trial by
mechanical jury, trial and control.

Could be that I'm just the control, and that the real
experiment is going on someplace else, maybe just down the
passage.

Could be I'm all they have left.

And yet I have a memory - or a dream, or synthscan
recall, what the hell - of a hilltop, cheering crowds, of the
lance in my side and the sun filling the whole sky with a
whiteness bigger than God . . . And in my dream it seems
like all the lives I've lived, all the part-lives, the fragments
of sensation, the fake memories come down to this one
moment, a fleeting instant of Redemption, an Xmarks-the
spot of perfect understanding where everything comes
together for just one single second before entropy drags it
back forever apart and I understand that behind all the
InnerSelf posturing and bible thumping there may have
been a core of truth . . . Take a man apart and find the
wheel that turns the human race, the mystic spiral beyond
DNA which keeps us bound together. Maybe inside that
axis there's the Redemption gene, the thing that turns bad
to good, straw to gold . . . The G-SUS factor.


146

1
THE G ?U? GENE


Is that what you're-trying for in me? Is that it? Genus messiah vulgaris, the last link in the chain of Redemption?

You Are Part of Humanity. You Are All of Humanity.

Chant 5742 of the InnerSelf LifeCreed, circa 2141. Test
the subject to destruction, rebuild, begin again. I sense that
I am a kind of challenge. Cure this, you can cure anything.
God is in your genes. Simply let him out.

The White Room coalesces around me: bright spotlights
winking against brighter needles; metal clamps tightening
around my temples as they begin the process again.

Ah, you're with us again. And how are we feeling today?

I try to bite his pixilated fingers through the rubber gag
that he forces between my teeth. He won't feel a thing, of
course, but the satisfaction remains. The look on his face is
one of polite regret.

Aggression, Mister O'Shea. Don't you know that all LifeKind is one? The needle descends towards my face in a steady,
merciless arc. Its load of salvation drips venom into my
open eyes. Through Pain My Deliverance. Chant 49900 of
the InnerSelf LifeCreed, five thousand repetitions.

However often you say it, babe, it's still bullshit.

My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

The machine with the electronic clipboard stops,
whirrs mutedly to itself for a moment, moves on. Inside the
zillion synapses of my jellied brain the sly G-SUS factor
continues to evade them, the one gleeful grain of Redemption
right at the bottom of the whole sad world's shitty
store.


147
TIOS & R F E I. S


The memory stirs again: the lance, the soldiers, the
chants and circus catcalls, my own voice ringing out in
pleading and command.

My God, why hast Thou forsaken met

My God. If only He would.


148


A Place in the Sun


There are beaches in Brazil where prospective bathers are vetted
according to age and looks, and from which the old, the ugly and
the overweight are barred . . .


I M NOT GREEDY. REALLY I M NOT. THAT S ALL I WANT, A

place in the sun: a nice patch, six by four; room for a towel,
cosmetics bag, suntan lotion, deck-chair. Hot sand, rolling
surf; designer sunglasses; that magical scent of salt and
coconut. Platinum Sands™, they call it: the Beach of
Beaches, the ultimate in solar pleasure. And it is; real palm
trees to hide the perimeter fence; filter-nets to discourage
unwanted visitors; air-purifiers for year-round freshness; and
those twin watchtowers, staffed by A-grade coastguards, to
ensure that the exacting standards of Platinum Sands™ are
upheld at all times.

The zone is completely litter-free, of course (any infraction
results in automatic downgrading). Weeds, stones
and beach-life are painstakingly screened, examined and, if


149


JIGS & REELS


necessary, removed. Authenticity is encouraged to a certain
degree, though not at the expense of aesthetics. After all,
Loveliness is both the duty and the privilege of a Platinum cardholder, and it is the responsibility of the Management
to maintain his/her exacting standards.

I appreciate all that. More than that, I approve wholeheartedly;
after all, rules are rules and it wouldn't be
Platinum Sands™ without them. I've seen the adverts, 1
know what it's like. Not in the flesh, of course - as a Silver
cardholder I only have access to Silver Sands™, quite nice
of course, but not nearly as exclusive. Not that I'm complaining.
I was on the Silver Sands™ waiting list for nearly
two years before I made the grade, and the day I first took
my place on the Silver beach was the happiest of my life.
Sure, the palms are plastic, and the aesthetic rule isn't as
strict, but most of the time you can hardly tell you're on
a Silver beach at all, except when the wind blows back
from the All-Public beach up the coast, and you get that
whiff of sweat and sewage and cheap sun lotion to remind
you. Think of it, the shame of the All-Public beach: no
filters, no coastguards, no palm trees, no fences, no nets.
Attendance is completely unmonitored, and unsightliness is
so commonplace that hardly anyone seems to notice any
more.

You get all kinds of sickness on the All-Public: fat
women; hairy women; pregnant women; women in polyester
slacks. And the men are no better: pale men; plump men;
bald men with tattoos; grizzled men with crepey skin. It's
just gruesome. Like the Third World, or something. Some


150


A PLACE IN THE SUN


try, poor things; like TStiy'a, a girl from my old neighbourhood.
Platinum blonde, nine stone four, two facelifts, boob
job, lipo, hair extensions, tummy tuck, and still waiting for
her Silver card. She knows it's touch and go; those back
street cosmetic surgeons might sound good value, but there's
always a price - in her case a baggy bum and a nasty fold of
flesh just above the bikini line that no beach inspector
would pass. On the All-Public, she can get away with a
one-piece swimsuit, but a Silver beach has a standard
to maintain. Show it or blow it, so the saying goes, and 1
think we all know Tanya's blown it for good. I reckon
it'll take her at least three years to pay for the treatments
she's already had, and by then she'll probably be too old to
qualify for a Silver pass, even if she does manage to complete
the remedial work on her Brazilian.

I'd help her if I could, of course. But I can't; I live in a
Silver flat now, and people might talk if they saw me
hanging around the All-Public. I might even be downgraded,
and I couldn't bear that. Besides, I have to pass my
Loveliness Check every day, and believe me, that takes time.
Waxing, buffing, manicure, massage; an hour at the gym
every morning and another at the hairdresser - not to
mention the beach itself. All-body tanning is mandatory at
Silver Sands™, and if you show so much as a strap-line you
can be downgraded on the spot. Then there's beach volleyball,
swimming and posture perfection - all quite tricky now
I have to wear heels. And that's just the maintenance.

Of course, it's even harder for a Gold or a Platinum.
My best friend Lucida passed her Gold last month, so of


151


II OS & REELS


course I don't get to see much of her now, but we still
talk sometimes, on the phone, now that her bandages are
off. It sounds so glamorous. Real palms, topless volleyball,
cocktails on the beach . . . Dark is out on the Gold beach,
though, with an obligatory Factor 15 for everyone and a
range of only five officially sanctioned shades (Cappuccino,
Cinnabar, Mink, Sunkissed and Peach). There's no tanning
limit on a Silver, of course (I'm a Cappuccino going on
Chocbar - so I'll have to improve on that), but in any case I
must avoid wrinkles if I'm to make the grade next time.
Lucida thinks Silver's a bit tacky now she's gone Gold; coloured swimsuits, for Heaven's sake, and oh those plastic
palms! On Golden Sands™ all swimwear has to be black,
which is chic, but (dare I say it) a bit boring; on Platinum,
everything's flesh-coloured, like ballet wear, so that any
unsightliness shows up at once.

I have to admit I'm just a little bit annoyed with Lucida.
We were such good friends on the Silver beach; we even had complementary hair extensions and little matching
bikinis. Now she's bobbed her hair and lost a stone, and
thinks blonde is tacky. I think she's been screening my calls,
too; last night I was sure I could hear laughter in the
background as the recorded message played. My God, maybe
she thinks I'm tacky, too; she always was a snobby cow,
even before her rhinoplasty.

Still, I'm sure I can make Golden Sands™ if I put in the
effort; I've got the height, thank goodness, but I do need to
get my teeth fixed, and I need to get back down to eight
stone to meet the Slenderness requirement. I could have


152


A PLACE IN THE SUN


lipo, I suppose, but it's expensive, and doesn't always work look
what happened to poor Tanya. Never mind; I can
always take up smoking as long as I don't drop stubs on
the beach, and if I cut my calorie intake by another two
hundred a day - that will bring me down to four hundred then
I reckon I should hit eight stone by the end of the
month.

The face? Last time I checked, the inspector told me my
face was almost a Platinum, except for the nose, so I can't be
due a lift for a couple of years, at least. Good. That leaves
the boobs. Well, I've been meaning to get those seen to
anyway; 32C just isn't enough, not for a Gold beach, and
definitely not for a Platinum. Besides, those teeny little
flesh-tone bikinis they wear at Platinum Sands™ don't
provide much support, and you know how droopy real boobs
can be. Ghastly. My mother's boobs could almost be Gold,
and she had them redone over a year ago, on her Loveliness
Insurance, which goes to show that it always pays to be
prepared.

Of course she thinks I'm too young for my first boob
job. There'll be plenty of time for that later, she tells me, but
then she's already too old for the beach scene, and she
doesn't understand how little time my generation has left.
After all, Mother has me; some compensation, I suppose, for
all those stretchmarks and wobbly bits. But what do we
have? Nothing but the beaches. Nothing but our three
duties of Loveliness, Aspiration and Citizenship. Don't get
me wrong; I do want to get married some day. I might even
have kids - you can get a Caesarian, boob and tuck all in


1 53



JIGS & REELS


one now, so the scar doesn't have to show. But imagine the
shame of having to marry an All-Public boy. Even a Silver
doesn't seem quite so wonderful as it once did, not when
I can look through the electric fence into the Golden
perimeter, or watch the ads for Platinum Sands™ and see
those bronzed, buffed surfers lying on their Louis Vuitton
towels and watching the girls go by.

But you're so pretty already, says Tanya in her plaintive
voice. You could have any nice boy. She doesn't understand.
Nice is not enough. Even pretty is a backhanded compliment
to one who aspires to Loveliness. It isn't just the beach,
with its real palm trees, or even the exclusive parties and
designer clothes. It's the sense of achievement: the knowledge
that you have done it all, gone all the way from
Loveliness to Perfection. A Platinum cardholder lives in a
world of perpetual pleasure; all obstacles removed; every
hint of unsightliness excised. A Platinum girl never needs
to work; her duty is to herself alone, and it takes up her
every waking moment. A Platinum girl never gets a blister,
never a blemish. A Platinum girl is sleek, groomed, plucked,
airbrushed, expensive, fabulous in her fabulous clothes. She
is infinitely sexy, ultimately desirable; she is loved and she is
lovely. How could I settle for less? How could anyone?

But time is always the enemy. In a few years I'll be too
old for the beaches, where youth and freshness are the first
and most important requirements. No-one wants to look at
old flesh, and no surgery lasts for ever. I realize now that I
was on that Silver list for far too long. Two whole years
wasted in trivia while my friends worked to earn their Gold

154


I



A PLACE IN THE SUN


cards, clocking up valuabje .hours in the gyms and salons
and lounging on the beach like young goddesses. I'll have to
work hard now if I am to catch them up. I know I can't
make up the whole time, but I'm already on the waiting list
for the Gold card (subject to the agreed remedial work); I've
ordered a new nose and I'm saving my pocket money for
that boob job. Mother doesn't like it; but after all, what
does she know? Besides, I'll be thirteen next year. I don't
want to leave it too late.


155


Tea with the Birds


Some people spend their lives without ever raising their eyes from
the ground. Others dream of flying.


THE FUNNY THING ABOUT MORTIMER STREET IS THAT

no-one really seems to know anybody else. It's one of those
places; busy without being comfortable; crowded without
being friendly. The big stucco-fronted houses at the far end
are too remote; the ones of us who live in the terraces feel
diminished by them, even though they are past their best,
like a row of wedding cakes left out in the rain.

The terraces are closer together; but the people in them
live like birds in cages, bickering over parking spaces and
pecking at each other from behind the net curtains. Gossip
is currency - the more slanderous the better - and the worst
crime of all is to be an outsider.

I should know; I'm one myself. Wrong face, wrong
clothes, wrong voice. I'm a completely different race from
my neighbours, and it makes them suspicious that I should


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TEA WITH THE BIRDS


choose to live here among them, on the second floor of a
big back-to-back terrace which has been converted into four
bedsits.

People assume, with an instinctive contempt that hides
fear, that I'm a student. In fact there are no students
in these cheap lodgings; the people for whom they were
intended prefer their own digs in Stanbury, where there is a
theatre and a cinema and a noisy row of pubs. There is
something a little cold about Mortimer Street; a reluctance
to get involved.

At first its coldness suited me. Two years in a psychiatric
hospital had given me a fierce need for privacy, for silence. I
took joy in the solitude of my little room, the quietness of
the nights, spent hours in my private bathroom, cooked
slow deliberate meals in my tiny kitchen. Some evenings I
did voluntary work for the Samaritans. It was rather dull
work; I only persevered because my therapist recommended
it. The rest of the time I earned money waitressing. Again,
my therapist approved. It kept my mind from flights of
fancy.

But at home - if Mortimer Street was home - I enjoyed
my seclusion too much to share it willingly. The gossips had
nothing on me. They watched me going to work in the
evenings, my drab coat buttoned to the neck, and concluded
that I was a student nurse. I never denied it. I gained
the reputation of being 'snobby' - possibly because I refused
to babysit the child of a neighbour I barely knew - and after
a few half-hearted attempts to breach my defences, they left
me in peace.


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JIGS & REFI. S


Then, to my dismay, someone moved into the flat opposite
mine. A Mr Juzo Tamaoki, the name on the letterbox
said; another foreigner, said the Mortimer Street grapevine,
with barely concealed disapproval. I didn't care about that. I
only hoped he would be a quiet neighbour, and that he
would leave me alone.

For a while he did. For days I did not see him. I heard
almost no sound from his flat. There were no requests to
borrow tea, no audible comings and goings, no visits from
friends. My neighbour might have been like myself: an
unperson; a vacuum; a ghost.

He had been living opposite me for a week before I finally
caught sight of Mr Tamaoki. We met on the landing; a brief
glance passed between us, a nod. I found myself studying
him with reluctant curiosity, this man who might have been
any age: small, neat, unassuming; the intruder who now
shared my silent space.

He reminded me of a bird I had once seen in a provincial
zoo. Small and drab-looking in its cage, it huddled in a
corner, barely moving, as if in apology at receiving so much
attention. Its eyes were all age and sadness. A sign beneath
the cage read: bred in captivity. I saw that expression in
Mr Tamaoki's face. By then I knew it well; I saw it every
morning in my own bathroom mirror. Sometimes - though
not so often now - I still do.

As with all newcomers on Mortimer Street, the arrival of
Mr Tamaoki aroused a certain fleeting curiosity. Someone
told me he was a vegetable chef in a restaurant in Stanbury,
though no-one seemed to know for sure. He never spoke to


158


TEA WITH THE BIRD?


anyone. When I met ktm on the landing he would nod
and smile, drawing back against the wall so that I could
pass. These meetings were frequent - after the first week 1
discovered that his movements were as regular as my own.
At night, when I collapsed into bed after an evening's
waitressing, I could occasionally hear htm moving around
his flat or talking to himself in low rapid Japanese. Most
often, though, there was nothing. No friends called on Mr
Tamaoki. No loud music played. From what I could tell he
seemed to spend hours sitting in silence, not moving at
all. Although I was always conscious of his presence (my
hearing is very sensitive), it was not as obtrusive as I had
feared. In fact, for someone of my temperament he should
have been the perfect neighbour.

But there was a problem. Every morning at five-thirty
there would be a delivery of vegetables for Juzo Tamaoki. A
red van decorated with Japanese characters would rumble
along Mortimer Street and stop outside the house, and
two men would haul covered crates out onto the pavement.
One man would ring the bell, while the other called up to
the window. On cold days they left the engine running,
and the exhaust billowed clouds of fumes which the neon
of the street lamp opposite torched a lurid orange. The
delivery men were stoically indifferent to my timid protests.
Indeed, when I tried to complain, they gave no indication
of having understood me at all. They merely hauled
their crates to the doorstep and waited for Juzo Tamaoki to
collect. Carrots, peppers, radishes, celeriac, parsnips and
glossy yellow, purple and black squash gleamed exotically


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JIGS & REELS


from crisp tissue-paper shells. Then came the thumping
of boxes against the walls, raised voices in the stairwell,
shouted instructions, laboured steps on the landing, a final
double-thump as the crates hit the floorboards and then,
blissfully, the sound of the van's departure, its exhaust
blatting rudely in the still morning air.

No-one else on the street seemed to care, or even to notice.
But I have always suffered from insomnia; the slightest
disturbance wakes me. Once awake, there is nothing to be
done; to go back to sleep is impossible. My work meant that
I was rarely in bed until the small hours of the morning. At
best I could only average five hours' sleep a night. Mr
Tamaoki's vegetable delivery reduced it to less than four.

At first I tried to reason with him, but the man politely
deflected all attempts at conversation. Notes pinned to his
door remained unanswered. My silent resentment grew. I
tried to discover its counterpart in Mr Tamaoki's mild dark
eyes as we passed each other on the stairs, but he was
impassive. His smile and my nod as we met on the landing
remained the only communication between us.

At six o'clock every night he would leave the flat,
a heavy bamboo hamper in each hand, as I set off for
work. What these hampers contained I could not imagine.
Vegetables, perhaps? Why then didn't he have them
delivered directly to the restaurant? Curiosity almost overcame
my rancour. I began to make comments as we passed
every day on the landing, growing bolder at his lack of
reaction. Mr Tamaoki continued to smile and nod with
unfaltering politeness, even when I did not.


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TEA WITH THE BIRDS


As the uneventful w^eks passed, it occurred to me that
perhaps my neighbour spoke no English, and I became
reckless at the thought, muttering insults at the meek little
man as he staggered down the stairs with his hampers.
My suspicion was confirmed when I heard him practising
English phrases with the aid of a tape recorder, laborious
words and phrases repeated endlessly and haltingly in the
night. Please . . . Esscuse me ... Thank you . . . You too
kind. Once I heard a scratchy, old-sounding record: 'Oh, for
the Wings of a Dove'.

That summer was unusually hot; the heat seemed to
bake out of the floor and shimmer dustily from the pavements.
The flat was stuffy, and I sometimes lay awake
for hours, caged by the heat, in terrible anticipation of
the morning's vegetable delivery. It became a torment. 1
flinched at every sound from Mr Tamaoki's flat, every
footstep outside my door. His presence, even silent, enraged
me. I watched his window at night, trying to catch sight
of him behind the bamboo blind. Several times I found
myself standing outside his door, my hand raised as
if to knock. It would have been better if he had had
a riotous family, I told myself in growing bitterness; if
he had played some noisy musical instrument. Anything
would have been better than this secret man and his vegetables.

One day, as I returned from a shopping trip, I found Mr
Tamaoki waiting for me on the landing. His hampers were
nowhere to be seen, and he had left his door ajar. 1 could
not prevent myself from sneaking a glance inside; through


161


JIGS & REELS
m


1

the doorway I could make out a bright, bare interior glowing
with the full light of the afternoon sun.

Juzo Tamaoki nodded and, for the first time in our	m

acquaintance, spoke.	|$

'Cha,' he said.	H

I stared at him uncomprehendingly.	|p

He nodded again. 'Please. Please.' With a gesture he
beckoned me in. The door swung wide. Bewildered,	__.

reluctant, I followed him inside.

The room was almost bare. A red lantern swung from the
ceiling. A bamboo calendar on the far wall. A futon in
the far corner. The tiny kitchen space was almost filled
by an enormous old-fashioned pink refrigerator. Beside it,
a large, heavy chopping-board on which were aligned a
number of knives. A low table in the centre of the room on
which stood a lacquer tea service. A red tatami mat on
either side. Mr Tamaoki beckoned me to sit down and, with
the ease of long practice, poured the tea.

It was an unfamiliar brew, greenish and fragrant with
a quick, sharp scent. Mr Tamaoki poured carefully into
the small bowls and used a bamboo whisk to froth the
liquid. It tasted the way cut grass smells: warm and smoky
green. From time to time, Mr Tamaoki nodded to me
and smiled. There was no conversation; I supposed his
English was not good enough to sustain Smalltalk. Motes
filled the bright air between us. For the first time in my
life I felt wholly comfortable with another person; in
silence.

Finally Mr Tamaoki stood up. Smiling, he made his way


162


TEA WITH THE BIRDS


into the kitchen and -Opened the refrigerator door. He
beckoned me to look in. I followed.

The cabinet was filled with birds. Orange, yellow, green,
scarlet. An aviary of birds of every imaginable shape, some
fan-tailed, others sleek, crested, streamlined, long-beaked,
bright-eyed, resting among flowers and leaves in tropical
abundance. All were silent and eerily still.

These were the vegetables which were delivered every
morning at five-thirty outside my window, now carved and
worked into these intricate designs. Here a radish opened
miraculous feathers, a squash became a plump water-fowl, a
carrot sprouted a feathery bird-of-paradise tail. The eyes
were small black pins; the feathers were pared away with a
tiny knife. I could see the texture of a bird's back brought to
life, the half-open beak just showing a sliver of tongue, the
delicate arch of the neck, the wing. There must have been
over a hundred vegetable carvings in there, every one
resting lovingly on the shelf, waiting to be packed into Juzo
Tamaoki's hamper and delivered as garnish for a dish of
jasmine rice or ginger prawn, perhaps to be wondered at
briefly, or more likely ignored altogether . . .

So this was Mr Tamaoki's secret. This aviary of magical
birds. Company, perhaps, for one bred in captivity. I looked
at them in amazement and delight. Dream birds, flightless,
voiceless, but riotous with colour.

'They're beautiful,' I said.

'You too kind,' answered Mr Tamaoki, his eyes gleaming.

He left soon after that. I did not see him go. The first
I knew of it was when the delivery van failed to arrive; I


163


JIGS & REEL?


awoke at seven-forty with yellow sunlight streaming thickly
through the slats in the blinds; later 1 noticed the name
written above the doorbell was gone.

I felt curiously bereft at his absence. Although I was no
longer awoken at five-thirty by the vegetable van, I slept
badly. I was restless. I found myself missing Mr Tamaoki's
comings and goings, his vegetable hampers, the sound of his
small movements in the flat opposite mine. I no longer
relished the silence around me as much as once I had; the
coldness of Mortimer Street was no longer a comfort. I
began to watch my neighbours - the Hadleighs with their
shy son; Miss Hedges from the antiques shop down the
street; the McGuires with their cheery, messy horde of
children - with a more lenient eye. Perhaps they had been
right, I told myself; perhaps I hadn't given them a chance.

For some weeks after his departure, Mr Tamaoki's rooms
remained empty. There was talk of a new tenant arriving
soon, a woman alone, but no-one seemed to know much
about her, though Miss Hedges had seen her once.

'A funny kind of woman,' she told me, her mouth pursed
with disapproval. 'Never said a word to me. Not your
friendly type at all.'

The thought did not attract me as once it might have
done.

The day before the new tenant arrived, I found the door
to Mr Tamaoki's flat open. The room smelt of dust. The
table, the lantern, the tatami were gone. The kitchen was
empty. Everything had been left neat and bare, the steel
surface of the sink carefully wiped of moisture, the cloth


164


TEA WITH THE BIRDS


left to dry on the tap. TJ\eje was a small rice-paper package
next to the sink. My name was written on it in shaky
capitals.

The thin paper was dried petals between my fingers. As I
opened the package, the scent was suddenly, startlingly
pungent in my nostrils, a smell like Bonfire Night, autumn
firewood and gunpowder. Something crumbled between my
fingers, and I recognized the contents of the packet as tea,
Japanese green tea, its shredded leaves packed with scent.

That night I prepared it, trying to recall exactly how Juzo
had done it, fanning the steam with my hand to release the
flavour. It was good; soporific somehow. I felt as if I would
sleep well after drinking it; perhaps better than I had ever
done before. In the morning I would invite my new neighbour,
the unfriendly woman who never said a word, to share
the rest of the packet with me. She might be glad of a
friendly face to welcome her to the street. As I finished the
cup, I noticed that in the semi-darkness of my room, with
the fire casting stilted red shadows on the wall, the rising
steam looked like a bird's wings fluttering, ready to fly away.


165


Breakfast at Tesco's


We all get the Mean Reds once in a while. For some
of us, however, Tiffany's will always remain slightly out of
reach . . .


'GOOD MORNING, MISS GOLIGHTLV. YOUR USUAL, IS IT?'

That's what I like about this place. That human touch.
The way Cheryl always brings me my usual and calls me by
name. I only know her as Cheryl, of course; that's only
right, as she's such a young thing. One day, maybe I'll ask
her to call me Molly.

Two rounds of white toast, strawberry jam, a currant
teacake and a pot of Earl Grey. That's my usual. Cheryl
knows always to bring it to my seat by the window, to serve
the milk in a proper jug - can't stand those little plastic tubs
- with two wrapped lumps of sugar in the saucer. There's
something so very safe about coming here every Saturday
morning and having the same breakfast, seeing the same
faces, sitting in my favourite place and watching the people


166


BREAKFAST AT TFSCO'S


go by. It's my reward for'having scrimped and worried all
week; my little treat.

Cheryl is twenty-nine. She has bleached hair and a
pierced nose, and wears those built-up trainers, like the
orthopaedic shoe Doris Craft wears down at the Meadow
bank Retirement Home. I suppose you could say she looks
cheap. But she brought the milk jug from her own house
because Tesco's don't provide them - a tiny, tiny ceramic
jug which she later admitted came from a doll's teaset - and
she always calls me Miss Golightly.

Not everyone is so polite. At the Meadowbank Home,
where I go twice a week to visit my sister, the nurses call me dearie, with that awful, vulpine coyness, as if they know that
it's simply a matter of time before I end up there too,
alongside poor Polly, who has long since ceased to care
about names at all, and rarely even remembers mine.

Perhaps that's why I always try to make an effort with my
appearance. They must think I'm rather ridiculous at the
Meadowbank Home; always so correct in my black dress - a
little shabby now, but still good - my gloves and my red
spring coat. Who do I do it for, they wonder. Surely I'm far
too old for vanity. I don't wear my pearls to visits, though;
not since Polly forgot how she'd given them to me, all those
years ago, and made a scene. I shouldn't feel guilty, I know her
mind was quite sound when she gave them to me, and
they are only cultured - yet somehow I always do.

There's a carnation here on the table, in a narrow glass
vase. Cheryl again. No-one else would bring me flowers. But
she will deny it if I mention it to her, laughing and saying


167


JIGS & REELS


that it must be a gift from one of my gentlemen admirers. I
sense that I fascinate Cheryl; to her I am a fragment from
another world, like a piece of moon rock. She finds excuses
to come and talk to me; to ask me questions.

At first she was incredibly ignorant. Two years ago she had never seen a black-and-white film. She thought
Hepburn was the name of a pop group. She had never heard
of Luis Bunuel or Jean Cocteau or even Blake Edwards. Her
favourite movie was Pretty Woman.

Two years on, she is still strangely shy of me. It comes out
in a brashness which she means to be cheery but which to
me sounds defensive and not entirely happy. She has the
dirtiest laugh, though. When she laughs she could be pretty;
perhaps even beautiful. There is a man, but no wedding ring
amongst the dozens of cheap glittery things she wears. She
seldom speaks of him. He has been through a bad patch,
she explains reluctantly. I take this to mean that he is
unemployed. I've seen him once or twice in town - usually
outside the pub or the betting shop - a big, once-handsome
man now going to seed, like an ageing Marlon Brando. He
comes into the cafe occasionally; I always know he's there
because Cheryl gives him away with her eyes. Her movements
are less free when she knows he is watching; she stabs
at the keys of the till like a chicken pecking corn. On those
days she does not come over to talk to me, but sometimes
gives me a little apologetic smile.

She knows when to expect me - half past eleven on the
dot - and she tries to take her break when I am there. We
talk about films. Since we first met, Cheryl has learned


168


BREAKFAST AT TESCO'S


more about them; last month she watched Brief Encounter and Casablanca. She knows most of my favourites by now: Funny Face, In the Heat of the Night, Roman Holiday,
Wuthering Heights (the 1939 version, with Olivier), Rebecca,
Orphee, and of course Tiffany's. She knows the difference
between John Huston's Unforgiven and Clint Eastwood's.
She watches them in the mornings before Jimmy gets up he
likes action and war movies, and she prefers him to be
out of the way - and we discuss them later. Although she
is still wary of expressing opinions, I find her comments
intelligent and interesting, in spite of her predilection for
happy endings. I sometimes wonder what a girl like Cheryl
is doing, working in the cafe at Tesco's.

She doesn't talk about herself very often. Her parents are
dead, she says, and she was raised by her grandparents, but I
gather they haven't been in touch for many years. She is
older than the other waitresses - perhaps that's why she
dresses as she does - and when she talks to them her accent
broadens and her voice becomes rougher. I can sense that
she makes more of an effort when she is with me.

'You even sound like her,' she sometimes tells me.
'You've got that way of talking they only have in old films.
No-one sounds like that any more.' Then she pesters me to
say the line again, in just that voice, and when I do she
laughs delightedly. 'I'll never be able to do it right,' she says.
'I'm just not actressy enough.' Then, with a glance at the
wall clock which marks the end of her break, she launches
into a wonderful impression of Bette Davis from AH About
Eve: 'Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.'


169


JIGS & REELS


And it's perfect; she even looks a little like Davis with her
eyes narrowed and her chin tilted at just that angle, holding
her Biro like an elegant cigarette (courtesy of the nonsmoking
policy at Tesco's). It occurs to me that she could
almost be an actress; the brashness and the short skirts and
the cheap jewellery just another device to hide the woman
beneath. She likes Bette and Audrey, of course, but secretly
she prefers the cool blondes, Grace Kelly and Catherine
Deneuve; though, like me, she dislikes Marilyn Monroe.

'I used to think she was classy,' she admitted to me one
day. 'Now she just looks like another victim to me.'

Today, however, Cheryl is less talkative. She is dressed
differently; under her Tesco's overalls she wears simple
black trousers and a rollneck sweater. The nose stud, too, is
absent. Her hair is pulled back from her face, accentuating
her cheekbones. I do not comment on this; our rules,
though unspoken, are strict. We both hate snoops.

'I'll bring your toast in a minute, Miss Golightly.'

Thank you, Cheryl.'

The tea is just as I like it. There is something very safe about tea; very civilized. When Polly has her bad days,
swearing and screaming and crying to be let out, I bring her
tea on a flowered tray she remembers from home. It always
calms her. Sometimes she clings to me and calls me Mum. I
feed her dipped biscuits between my fingers. She looks like a
baby bird.

I sometimes wonder about the other regulars here. There
are about a dozen of them, though only one ever speaks
to me. I don't know his name, but I think of him as


170


BREAKFAST AT TESCO'S


Eleven-forty, because that's when he arrives. Like me, he
has his table, close to the play area, and he often watches
the children over his meal. Scrambled eggs, four slices of
crispy bacon, two rounds of toast, marmalade and English
Breakfast tea, milk, no sugar. I have no way of knowing
whether he comes on other days, but I don't think he does.
He always wears a hat - a Homburg in winter, a Panama
in summer - and beneath it his hair is white, but still
abundant. We greet each other in passing.

The toast is perfect; neither burnt nor anaemic, and she
knows I like to butter it myself. The teacake is fresh, and
still slightly warm. Looking down, I see that Cheryl is
wearing new shoes; flat ballet pumps which make her teet
look smaller and more elegant. The rings have gone from
her fingers. Curiously, this makes her look younger.

'I'll be on my break in ten minutes,' she tells me. 'We can
have a chat then.'

'I'd like that, Cheryl.'

I hope nothing has changed between us. I don't judge
anyone, you know; nor do I think any the worse of her now.
I hope she knows that.

Her walk, in the flat shoes, is not entirely graceful. Her
back is very straight. There is a kind of fierceness in her
today, something which is not quite anger. I hope she does
not think I have been prying. Watching her, I realize that
she reminds me of someone, though I am not sure who it is.

Eleven-forty. I could set my watch by him. He stands in
line with the others - regulars, both of them; a young
couple with a child - and orders his usual. He is wearing a


171


JIGS & REELS


red carnation in his buttonhole, and I wonder whether this
is a special occasion for him. An anniversary, perhaps; a
birthday. He moves to his usual seat, but it is already taken;
a red-faced man is eating sausage, toast and fried eggs and
reading the Mirror. Eleven-forty looks around briefly, and it
occurs to me that there is a free place at my own table. On
any other day I might have asked him to join me. The cafe
is almost full. But there is Cheryl to think of. As I turn
away, my face hot, I hear him ask a woman nearby whether
the seat opposite hers is taken. She mumbles an indifferent
reply through a mouthful of scone.

I don't know what's wrong with me this morning.
Perhaps yesterday's late night, or the surprises that came
with it. I feel dull and grey, like the sky. Something is
different. Usually I feel better coming here; watching the
people, listening to their conversations, smelling bacon
and fresh coffee and scones. There's so much life here.
Tomorrow I will visit Polly at the Meadowbank Home and
breakfast time smells dead there, like sour milk and stale
cereal; almost a baby smell, but an ancient, sick baby with a
hand like a claw on the sleeve of my good red coat, and no
hope of any future.

I couldn't sleep last night. That isn't unusual at my age,
and when it happens I sometimes get up and make tea, or
read, or go for a walk around the block. It doesn't often
help, but it makes me feel that I'm using the time rather
than wasting it; almost as if I'm getting those extra hours for
free.

Polly dozes too much. Maybe she makes up for my


172


BREAKFAST AT TESCO'S


inability to sleep; but I suspect they give her something to
keep her quiet. I bring her lace nightdresses and quilted
bed-jackets, but everything gets stolen at the Meadowbank
Home, because no-one remembers what belongs to them.
One woman always wears three sets of clothes at once, to
make sure no-one takes them from her.

I try to find Polly's clothes when I visit. I go into every
room and check under the beds. Mrs McAllister is
the worst; she hides things, or wears them, which makes
retrieval very awkward, but I won't let Polly get like the
others. I make her get up and dress when I visit. I bring
clothes for her to wear: proper shoes and stockings and suits.
I have them dry-cleaned when they need it, and I sew
name-tags into the linings.

It must have been thinking about Polly that did it. In any
case, I woke up at two in the morning again, and couldn't
go back to sleep. I didn't feel like watching a film or
reading, and it was still too early for tea, so I got up, dressed,
and went out. It's usually quiet by then; the pubs are closed
and the streets are cool and deserted. It's only about a mile
to Tesco's, and sometimes I like to walk there and see the
lights above the car park and the people moving about
inside. The cafe is shut at that time, of course. But the rest
of the shop is open twenty-four hours a day. For some
reason I like that; to know that there are still people
working, stacking shelves and doing inventories and getting
the baking ready for the morning rush. They can't see me
looking in, but I can see them: floor managers and shopgirls
and cashiers and stackers and cleaners. Sometimes I see a


173


JIG? & REEL?


customer or two: a man buying milk and toilet paper; a girl
with frozen pizzas and a tub of ice-cream; an elderly man
with dogfood and bread. I wonder why they come here so
late; perhaps, like me, they can't sleep. Perhaps they are
night workers; or perhaps they enjoy looking out from those
warm yellow windows and imagining someone standing
outside.

So far, I have never actually gone into Tesco's at night as
if the magic might be broken if I did. But I do like to
watch. Sometimes I wonder what might happen if I met
someone I recognized - Eleven-forty, for instance - doing
the same thing. At two in the morning, anything seems
possible.

Last night was chilly and damp. I wore my red coat, my
gloves and a hat. I'm a good walker - I keep in practice and
in any case distance seems to follow different rules at
night, because it didn't seem long before I neared the car
park. The big red Tesco's sign looked like a sunrise above it.
Occasional cars passed slowly along the dual carriageway,
their headlamps sweeping the wet tarmac with diamonds. I
saw a young couple crossing the road at the lights opposite
me: a large man in jeans and a leather jacket, and a girl in a
short skirt, a cropped top in spite of the cold, and built-up
trainers. They seemed to be arguing. I was in shadow; as
they passed under the arc of the big lights I saw the girl's
face, dark with make-up, like a negative of herself beneath
the neon-lit hair. It was Cheryl.

Neither she nor Jimmy noticed me. They were talking
rapidly, their raised voices slapping against the deserted


174


BREAKFAST AT TESOO'?


tarmac in such a way that'I could not make out the words. I
saw Cheryl pull away as Jimmy grabbed her arm - I caught
the words No, not again, I'm not - but the sound of an
oncoming car made the rest inaudible. The car was slowing
down. Cheryl shook her head at Jimmy. I could see his
angry yellow face in the light of the street-lamp, and
his mouth working. Cheryl shook her head again, gesturing
at the road. Jimmy slapped her, once, hard. The sound
reached me a fraction of a second later - clap - like ironic
applause. I saw the man in the car, who had slowed right
down to the kerb. Cheryl put a hand to her face. The car
stopped.

I don't suppose I should have interfered. As I said, I hate
snoops. But it was her face -- her young, familiar face, so
brave and unexpected in the light of the Tesco's sign - it
was the way she does Bette Davis with a Biro instead of a
cigarette; it was her dirty laugh. Most of all it was the
realization that she had regulars other than myself; that
maybe that was the reason she valued my company so
much, minded her manners for me, and always called me
Miss Golightly.

'No, Cheryl!' I had started forward before I even knew it.
For an instant I saw her clearly - the O of her mouth, the
wideness of her eyes. Jimmy turned to see who had called
out, and when he did Cheryl pulled free and got into the
car. I heard the tyres squeal against the wet road. A last
glimpse of her, turning away, a hand pressed against the
window. Then she was gone, and I was left alone with
Jimmy.


175


1

m

I

I

s

JIGS & REELS

^K(

For a second I knew a moment of panic. Then rage surged
through me. Jimmy stared. He looked dazed and angry, his
head thrust forward like that of a big animal. I wanted to say
something that would cut him, but could think of nothing.

All my words had been blunted. I felt suddenly close to


9 tears.	jg

We watched each other for a few seconds, he and I.	'*&'<

Then he laughed. 'What're you doing here?' His voice was	'

unsteady, and I realized he was very drunk. Seen close
up, he looked less frightening somehow, like an overgrown
but overtired boy. I thought I could see confusion in his
reddened eyes as he struggled to focus. I thought of the car
and the way it had slowed down, crawling to the kerb.
I thought of poor Cheryl, who had liked Pretty Woman before she discovered Belle dujour, and who still believed in
happy endings. Some happy ending, I thought bitterly.
Some prince.

The prince leered at me drunkenly. 'So what do they call
you then, dearie?'

I think it must have been that dearie that did it for me.
My contempt for him made me feel suddenly light again,
once more certain of who I was. Tesco's, in the rosy false
dawn of its neon sign, looked like the biggest, brightest
cinema in the world. I looked Jimmy straight in the eye and
wondered how Cheryl - or anyone else - could be afraid of
him.

They call me Miss Golightly,' I said.


1 76


BREAKFAST AT TESCO'?


'Good morning, Miss Golightly.'

The voice takes me by surprise. Eleven-forty has finished
his breakfast and moves to sit opposite me, bringing his
cup of tea with him. It is the first time he has addressed me
by name. I must look startled, because he smiles apologetically.

'I hope I'm not disturbing you.'

'Disturbing me?' My voice sounds odd, wooden. 'I--' My
eyes move to where Cheryl is wiping down a table. She does
not seem to notice us, but her back looks unnaturally
squared against us, her eyes resolutely lowered. Of course
she has no way of telling whether I recognized Eleven-forty
in the car last night; no way of knowing what I have already
guessed.

As for Eleven-forty, he is unperturbed. He cannot have
seen me standing by the roadside, for his manner is as polite
and unassuming as ever. An occasional plucking of his
fingers against the red carnation in his lapel is the only
possible indication of nerves.

I butter my teacake. I don't know what to say. His
hypocrisy disgusts me.

'I'm waiting for a friend,' I say, too late.

'So am I,' replies Eleven-forty.

His eyes are blue, striking against the white hair. His
hands are square and well shaped. He wears a wedding ring
on his left hand. Behind me, Cheryl is a little too busy with
a tray of sauce bottles. I wonder how long it has been since I
last had breakfast with a man.

At the Meadowbank Home there are only half a dozen


177


JIGS & REELS


men. Most of them are quiet, though Mr Bannerman
can be abusive. The nurses can handle him; they pay
no attention to his lewd remarks. I'm glad his room is
a long way from Polly's, though; when she sees him she
sometimes gets confused and calls him Louis. I try to
explain to her that Louis died years ago, but she shakes
her head and won't believe me. I suppose that's a mercy,
really.

I know I shouldn't feel guilty. All that happened so long
ago, when we were still young. Louis was only twenty-six
when he died; almost a boy. I'm not certain now that I even
liked him. I hope I did, that it wasn't simply the jealousy of
an older sister that made me do it. He died the same
summer; in a stupid sky-diving accident near AixlesBains.
An accident, that's all it was; so many young men threaten
suicide when a girl walks out on them, and whatever people
thought, it wasn't that serious between us. But Polly was
never the same afterwards.

She still talks about him, on her good days; makes up
stories about their life. How they married; had children;
grew old together. She tells the nurses that the dress I
bought her last Christmas is an anniversary present from
him.

'Louis never forgets our anniversary,' she declares, with
an echo of the old vivacious Polly in her voice. 'He'd
be here today if his business wasn't always sending him
abroad.'

My toast has gone cold. Condensation sticks it to the
plate. I refresh my tea with hot water and pour in the milk


178



™	BREAKFAST AT TESCO'?

m

tfrom my little jug, trying not to look at Eleven-forty,
pretending he isn't even there.

H	But now Eleven-forty takes out his wallet and pulls out a

9,	small black-and-white photograph. He pushes it across the

44^*

*	table towards me.

|f	In the picture Cheryl looks about fourteen; a thin, sullen

"*9f\	looking girl with long brown hair. The woman standing

*	'	next to her is old, small, dumpy; she could be anyone. The

*	man, smiling straight at the camera, is Eleven-forty. On the

*	photograph, I can finally see the resemblance.

V>	'You're Cheryl's grandfather?' My voice hiccups stupidly,

"«|	and a couple at the next table turn and stare at me.

He nods. 'She ran away from home when she was
eighteen. I spent years trying to trace her. Since then I've
been coming here every Saturday just to see her. Hoping I
can get through.'

So that's why he comes here, I tell myself. Dressed in his
Sunday clothes, with a flower in his buttonhole, like a suitor.

'We said some stupid things, both of us. Things we were
sorry for later. Things we couldn't mend.'

'Anything can be mended,' I tell him; then, remembering
Louis, I wonder.

'I hope so.' He finishes his tea. In the background the
tannoy is playing the muzak version of a Henry Mancini
theme. 'She's changed since she met you, Miss Golightly. I
think you've done her good. Connected with her, somehow,
in a way I couldn't.'

'We just talk about films.'

'She told me all about it. Last night.' His face is a


179


JIGS & REELS



sorrowful map of lines. 'So much time wasted. So much
time.' He sighs. 'She's still with him, you know. The lad she
left us for. Jimmy.'

That surprises me. Cheryl's man never struck me as the	*

faithful type.	v

^PP

'They've split up any number of times,' explains Eleven-	~T

forty. 'She told me so. But they keep getting back together.	"P*
This time, though, I really think I've got through to her.
Last night--'

He often drives around at night when he can't sleep.	*

Absurdly, I want to tell him that I do much the same.	£_

Cheryl is watching us from behind the counter. She has	"^

taken off her Tesco's overall. I lift my hand, hoping she will	_,

come over. But just as she seems to make a decision she	*j

iy~.\

halts, and her eyes move towards the far corner of the room.	:l

Her expression becomes twisted with love and sadness. I
turn my head to see.

Jimmy is standing at the far end of the cafe. He looks
better than he did last night, in clean jeans and a white
T-shirt. His head is slightly lowered. There is a little boy with
him, seven or eight at the most, in shorts and a Pokemon
sweater. The boy is holding the big man's hand, like a trainer
leading a bear. I expect Jimmy to move, but he does not.

I see Cheryl hesitate. She looks at Jimmy and the boy.
She looks at me. She takes a step forward. Eleven-forty, who
has been watching too, makes as if to stand up. His face is
tensed.

'Cheryl!' Jimmy's voice sounds raw across the cafe
chatter, like someone stropping a razor. I am certain now


180


BREAKFAST AT IF. SCO'S


that he will walk over to'ue, but he stays where he is, his
eyes following Cheryl as she moves to our table without a
backward glance.

As she reaches us I see that her eyes are wet. She kisses
Eleven-forty on the cheek. She looks different in her black
clothes, with no make-up and her hair tied back; almost a
stranger.

'I thought I could make a new start,' she says to me.
'I've got a friend in London who says she can get me a
cleaning job at the Palladium, to tide me over for a while.
I might even be able to get onto one of those cinema
courses in the evening. Get a qualification. Make something
of myself.' She grins, and I see a little of the old brash
Cheryl again in her expression. 'I'd like to get into acting,
you know; even if it's only sweeping floors or selling popcorn.'

In the corner, Jimmy does not move. I sense rather than
see him; a big, hunched man with a defeated face. In a
piping voice, the small boy asks for a Coke.

'I would have told you, Grandad,' says Cheryl to Eleven
forty. 'I really would. But it's been so long since - I didn't
know how to start.'

'What's the lad's name?' asks Eleven-forty.

'Paul.'

He nods. 'Good name.'

She smiles a little. 'He's named after you.'

So, I tell myself, his name is Paul. I wonder what his
surname is. In all this time I haven't asked Cheryl. I hope it
is not too late now.


181


I

m

II


II OS & RFFI. S


'He's a good kid,' continues Cheryl with determined
brightness. 'Not all screwed up like his Mum and Dad. He'll	„,

like it in London. Lots of things for a kid to see. It'll work	& \

out. I know it will.'	»>

Eleven-forty - Paul - looks at her. His hand closes over	" j

hers with a tightness I can almost feel. 'You're not coming
back with me, then?'

'Oh, Grandad.' Her eyes are wet again. 'You know I can't
do that.'

'Why not? I'd help you with the boy. You don't need--'
fiercely he struggles with Jimmy's name, but is unable to
speak it aloud. 'You don't need that man any more. He's
feckless. He's violent.'

Cheryl smiles. 'I know. I've known for a long time.'

'Then why stay with him? Why bother with him?' His
eyes are blazing. I feel I ought to say something to comfort
him, but Cheryl's eyes stop me.

'He needs me,' she says gently. 'They need me. Last night
I did a lot of thinking. I was all ready to leave then, to run
away and begin again on my own. It was possible. I was
ready to do it. And then I realized something I'd never
thought of before.' She takes my hand and Eleven-forty's,
and presses them both. 'I realized that life isn't a movie. I
could spend a lifetime waiting for a Mr Right who never
turns up. Or I could use what I've got to make things
better.' Her voice, though soft, has an edge. 'Isn't that why
you made me watch all those films, Miss Golightly? To warn
me? To teach me that if I want a happy ending, I'm going to
have to write my own?'


182


BREAKFAST AT TESTO"?


I want to tell her te" nail me Molly, but somehow I
know that it is already too late. I want to tell her that wasn't
the lesson I'd meant her to learn, but she seems so sure
of herself, while I have never felt less so. Suddenly I see
myself as she does: a lonely, sad old woman, hiding myself
in movies, clinging to routine, looking in from the dark.
Surely anything must be better than that; even Jimmy
and his rages. At least Jimmy is real. And he belongs to
her.

'I think he really wants to change this time. Really make
an effort. For Paul's sake.' She smiles too brightly. 'He's not
so bad, not once you get to know him. I mean, he's no Gary
Grant, but--'

At least he's real. And she must love him, in her way.
Mustn't she?

'Can I bring you some more tea? Yours has gone cold.'

The simple kindness in her voice makes my eyes sting.
'No thanks. Maybe I'm due for a change too, don't you
think?'

She hides her surprise well. 'I'll get one of the girls.'

'Later.' That's the problem with wearing eyeliner, I
remind myself. It runs. 'I'm going to miss you, Cheryl.'

The too.'

We look at each other for a moment without speaking.
Then she gives an unexpected grin. 'Go on, Miss Golightly.
Say it for me. Say the line. One more time.' She turns to
Eleven-forty - to Paul - and hugs him. 'You'll see what I
mean, Grandad. She sounds just like her. I mean, she could be her.'


183


JIGS & REELS


I know which line she means. It's the one from Tiffany's, where Audrey Hepburn is talking about the Mean Reds:
that terrible feeling of being scared, but not knowing why. I
have it now, a frightened, lost feeling, and I wonder if that's
what Polly feels all the time, alone in her little room in the
Meadowbank Home, with the bored nurse standing at
the door and all her dreams melted away like chalk in the rain. Oh, I know that feeling. When 1 get it the only thing is
to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right
away.

'Some other time, perhaps.'

She is about to protest; but now little Paul is getting
impatient; he is bouncing up and down, waving a grubby
hand. Next to him Jimmy looks strangely humble, standing
there, waiting.

'OK.' She straightens up, pats her hair into place.
'Right.'

Eleven-forty - Paul - retains her hand a little longer.
'Are you sure, love?' he asks. 'You'll stay in touch? You'll be
all right?'

She nods. 'Sure. I'm not saying it'll be easy--' Suddenly
she is Bette Davis again, waving an imaginary cigarette
holder. 'He may be a rat,' she says airily, with the ghost of
her dirty laugh, 'but, sweetheart, he's my rat.'

Then she turns to where her men are waiting for her - a
straight, comically dignified figure in black ballet pumps
and capri trousers - and now I remember who it is she
reminds me of: Charlie Chaplin, the indomitable little
tramp; often bruised but never broken, eternally optimistic


184


BREAKFAST AT TE SCO'S


in the face of the bleak, indifferent world. Laughter surprises
me; then tears.

Eleven-forty waits in silence until I have stopped. As I
look up I see that he has brought a fresh pot of tea; Earl
Grey, with milk in the little jug and two wrapped lumps of
sugar in the saucer. I wipe my eyes carefully with my
handkerchief. It comes away black with eyeliner. I am
suddenly sure that neither of us will see Cheryl or her child
again.

The tea is just as I like it. It tastes of childhood and
home, dipped biscuits and forgiveness. Anything can be
mended, I think to myself, and then I am crying again, with
a passion I had no idea was in me. Eleven-forty waits
patiently, as if he has all the time in the world.

I wipe my eyes again. The lids feel swollen, grotesque. I
remind myself that I am old; that my vanity is not only
misplaced, but ridiculous. But Eleven-forty is smiling, and
he takes the carnation from the vase in front of us and
pushes it over the tabletop towards me.

'Better?' he asks. His smile is a little like Cheryl's, I
notice; wide, open and just a little brash. I feel a sudden
admiration for that brave smile. I take a deep breath, close
my eyes briefly, and when I open them again the Mean Reds
have receded a little. It isn't Tiffany's, of course, but there is
something very safe about Tesco's all the same: the sunlight
shining through the windows, the warmth of baking bread
and the noise of the people working. Surely nothing very
bad could happen here.

I pull off my gloves to straighten my hair; fortunately I


185


JIGS & REELS


have a compact in my handbag, and with a couple of
deft strokes I manage to repair some of the damage. I'm
no Audrey Hepburn, of course; but then again, he's no
George Peppard, and I can tell from his eyes that he
approves.

'So,' I say, smiling straight at him, 'how do I look?'


186


Come in, Mr Lowry, Your Number Is Up!


It's no secret that numbers rule our lives. Perhaps this is why I
have always hated them.


i'm A COLLECTOR. it's MY JOB AND ALSO MY HOBBY. I COLLECT

risks. I assess consequences. I assemble isolated examples
of statistical ephemera and factor them into the great equation.
The main purpose of this is quite mundane: to make
money for the large insurance company that employs me.
The secondary, existential purpose is more closely connected
with understanding and -- dare I say - enjoyment. As
I said, I'm a collector.

For instance, did you know that a male Londoner aged
twenty-five to forty-five - assuming normal health and
unimpaired vision - stands a chance of approximately one
in eleven thousand of being hit by a car every time he
crosses the road? Factor in a stressful job (missed appointment,
mobile phone) and the figure leaps to one in six
thousand. If he is hit, there is a three-in-ten likelihood


187



JIGS & REELS


that the accident will prove fatal. Interestingly, in central
London, there is also an additional five-to-one probability
that the vehicle involved will be a taxicab.

That's why I'm always very careful when crossing the
road. I'm careful about what I eat, too; and I watch what I
drink - or I did, until very recently. You never know with
statistics; like diseases, some lie dormant for years before
deciding to strike; some run at you head-on like charging
buffalo. In any case, my life has been spent avoiding the
risks I calculate: I do not travel by air; I do not indulge in
dangerous sports; I do not eat unpasteurized cheeses, red
meat or genetically modified food. Living in London, of
course, is a risk in itself; but I go for a health check every six
months, I avoid tobacco, I eat oily fish, I examine my
scrotum on a regular basis, and by doing these things, I
believe I have reduced my chance of becoming a medical
statistic without significantly reducing my quality of life.

My wife thinks statistics are dull. Perhaps she thinks I am
dull, too. In fact I have some reason to believe she does.
Then again, women lack our precision, delight in vagueness
and illogical thinking, indulge in wild spending sprees without
proper accountability, and when confronted by these
failings, are likely (nine times out of ten) to retreat to their
bathrooms in a swirl of pique and Chanel Number Five,
declaring that you never let them have any fun, that you are
to sleep in the spare bedroom again and, furthermore, that
you are a selfish beast who never thinks about anything
nowadays but your horrid numbers.

Notwithstanding my wife's disapproval, however, it is

188


1





COME IN MR LOWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP!


numbers that rule our liveS.'Whether the banal miracle of
conception (fifty thousand sperm in an epic swimathon
towards the golden egg) or the single flamboyant freakish
event (man plummeting from crippled aircraft is saved by
landing on the back of a giant eagle), every choice, every
step of the journey, from crossing the road to boarding
that fatal flight, is governed by probabilities of near-infinite
elegance and complexity.

Take this one, for example. In 1954, a Frenchman called
Joseph Dumont decided to commit suicide by leaping
from the Eiffel Tower. He stepped off the first platform and
fell fifty-seven metres, but at that moment a giant gust of
wind caught Monsieur Dumont and blew him right back
towards the tower, depositing him safely on a girder of
the infrastructure, at a risk factor, as far as I can calculate,
of something approaching a million to one against, taking
into account weight, age and general fitness, atmospheric
conditions, time of day, the velocity and angle of
the fall, and of course the X-factor - the hand of God,
that infinite (one might say imaginary) number - which is
unquantifiable, unidentifiable, ineffable and all that crap.

Others have not been quite so lucky. Of the three
hundred and sixty-nine suicide attempts from the Tower to
date, most hit the Tower as it widens on the way down.
Frequently, the bodies become entangled in the latticework
until firefighters can remove them. In 1974, in a similar
incident, a man jumped off the Tower in a high wind and,
as in the case of Monsieur Dumont, was blown off-course
towards the Tower, where he was impaled on part of a safety


189


JIGS & REELS


barrier and lay like a trussed chicken, with his femurs
sticking out from between his collarbones, for almost
an hour and a half before he finally expired, thereby
demonstrating first, that the X-factor is not always kind,
though it is not without a sense of irony, and second, that it
never pays to disregard the weather.

I never managed to find out whether Monsieur Dumont,
awed by the miracle of probability to which he had unwittingly
contributed, decided to go off in a different
direction, perhaps leading a wholly different life filled with
variety and joy, or simply elected to step off the Tower
again and finish the job he had set out to do. In any case,
the odds of that particular event happening again are so
negligible as to be virtually nonexistent - rather like those
of a single individual winning the lottery - and so Monsieur
Dumont leaves our stage for ever, undistinguished but for
this one, freakish contribution to the folklore of extreme
probabilities.

Oddly enough, no-one seems to consider this when
buying lottery tickets. I have a neighbour, Mrs Parsons, a
pensioner of limited means, who has bought a ticket every
week since the Lottery began - choosing always the same
numbers, in the mistaken belief that this way, her chances
are improved. Always the same numbers: her birth year; the
year of her marriage to the long-defunct Mr Parsons (whose
number came up in an accident at work; unfortunate,
though not particularly freakish, if we consider his history of
carelessness and the fact that he rarely observed the safety
code); and, most importantly, what she refers to as 'my


190


COME IN MR LOWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP!


lucky number', the number seven, custodian of the all
important X-factor which will one day (she believes) raise
Mrs Parsons to the ranks of those touched by God.

I consider telling her that in any random sample of
Europeans aged between eighteen and sixty-five, eighty-two
per cent will reply 'seven' when asked to name their lucky
number. But Mrs Parsons is so adamant and so hopeful that
1 really don't have the heart to tell her, or to alert her to the
fact that the chances of her - or of any particular individual
- ever winning the Lottery are so remote that actually buying a ticket barely improves the odds. The probability
of finding the winning ticket in the street, or being given
it by a friend, and thereby winning the jackpot, gives almost
the same chance at the prize as poor Mrs Parsons, who
has bought a ticket with religious commitment every week
since the Lottery started. All the same, she has not lost
hope, which is, I suppose, the whole object of the game.
After all, what else does she have? Church on Sunday, The Archers every day, seventy quid a week from the Government
(being sadly ineligible for Mr Parsons's accident-at
work benefit - protective clothing must be worn), the
hairdresser's once a fortnight (shampoo, rinse and set, four
pounds fifty, just as Mr Parsons liked it), and the enduring,
golden hope that her very own Lucky Number Seven will
one day come in, like one of the heroes of her favourite
romances.

Perhaps it will. I hope, for her sake, that it does. But
happiness is not a number. Take twenty-two, for instance.
Twenty-two years of marriage until the girl you loved --


191


JIGS & REELS


eighteen years old, 36-28-36, now reduced by Time's
terrible alchemy to a fat and joyless woman who only comes
alive for Friends and the occasional takeaway - declares that
she wants to find herself and leaves, taking with her the
children (nine, sixteen), the family home (one hundred and
twenty thousand), the dog (eighty-five, dog years), the car
(Nissan Sunny, 1988) and the mysterious X-factor - the smell of her hairspray (Elnett, 5 pounds 99 pence, the TV blaring all
hours, the sound of a house with someone in it and the
residual warmth on her side of the bed on cold mornings,
when she got up to go to work and I stayed for another five
minutes, enjoying the stretch and waiting for the smell of
coffee.

Finding herself, of course, means finding someone else. In
this case a Bloke From Work (five foot nine, thirty-one).
Loves kids, you'd really like him, we can still be friends -- in a
random sample of a hundred divorcees, ninety-one per cent
report hearing - or speaking - these very platitudes. And
here I am, the one in four; still living by numbers, but without
that mystical X-factor which Mrs Parsons still enjoys and
which launched Monsieur Dumont on his famous flight.

Here are some of the numbers that make up my life:

Forty-five thousand (pounds gross salary).

Two hundred and fifty (rent on small bedsit in Shepherd's
Bush)

Two hundred and fifty (daily hair loss, mostly at crown).

Forty-eight (age in years).

One hundred and thirty over ninety (blood pressure, at
rest).


192


COME IN MR l.OWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP!


Eight-fifteen (Tube to.Hammersmith).

Eight-thirty-five (Tube to Leicester Square).

Eight-forty-five (short walk to office).

Eight-forty-seven (random discovery of small rectangle of
paper stuck to underside of shoe).

It was a lottery ticket. I put it into my pocket. That was
three weeks ago.

Mrs Parsons seems genuinely delighted for me. I suppose
that to her it confirms her belief in the all-important
X-factor; besides, as she puts it, it means the numbers are
getting closer. Ten million pounds - ten million, at a
probability of fifteen-million-to-one against.

I have refused to speak to the newspapers. My wife -
ex-wife - has no such reservations. My soon-tobe-ex
colleagues, too, have had their say. The landlord of
my ex-flat has painted a moving picture of my ex-life - my
punctuality, my politeness, my quiet desperation - as have
my ex-neighbours, some of whom might actually have
recognized me from my photographs.

Only Mrs Parsons has stood firm. 'Leave the poor man
alone,' she shouted to the cluster of photographers that
greeted me on the way to work. 'Let him live his life in
peace!' But the more I resist them, it seems, the more
they want me. I have moved to a still-unfurnished mansion
flat in Knightsbridge; I have taken three weeks' holiday
from work in lieu of notice and shaved my moustache.
There seems little else to do. I feel like Monsieur Dumont,
unexpectedly swept off-course and forced to reassess my
trajectory. Was he grateful, I wonder? Did he stagger,


193


I

JIGS & REELS


-9 numbed and trembling, to the edge of the platform and look	m

down in awe at the drop?	j|[

The first days were a kind of euphoria. For the first time	»

in my life I went shopping - not for food or for necessary	.«.

clothing, but for the sheer and frivolous pleasure of collecting
numbers. I bought the following items:

For my wife, one Patek Philippe watch, with diamonds
(£12,500).

For my daughter, one cocktail dress, black, size ten, Miu
Miu (£800).

For my son, one electric car, Hamley's, remote controlled
(£299).

For my colleagues at work, small case Veuve Cliquot
non-vintage champagne (£150).

For Mrs Parsons, one scarf (Hermes, 150 pounds , one raincoat
(Aquascutum, 490 pounds , one bouquet roses (pink, 95 pounds , a subscription
to the magazine True Romance and a lifetime's
supply of lottery tickets (numbers specified), to be sent to	>

her address every Monday morning without fail.	\

I rather enjoyed that one; but after that I began to feel
oddly drained, like a child in a toyshop who has been told
that not only the shop, but the entire factory now belongs
to him, thereby making his fifty pence weekly pocket money
(preciously hoarded since last Christmas in expectation
of the purchase of a new Hornby train carriage) rather
ridiculous.

For a day or two I rallied; bought a sleek and lovely stereo
system from Bang & Olufsen, a bubble-gum-pink Smeg
fridge from Harrods and a small but beautiful Turkish carpet


194


COME IN MR LOWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP!


from a boutique in Knightsbridge, adding to this a selection
of silk ties, six shirts from Thomas Pink, a set of Paul Smith
cufflinks, some Lobb shoes and three suits from a bespoke
tailor on Savile Row before realizing that, as I no longer had
a job, there would be little opportunity to wear them.

After that I phoned my wife. Unsurprisingly, the elusive
X-factor has struck there, too, as she speaks of a possible
reconciliation, whilst eyeing the top pocket of my new suit
with the interested and acquisitive eye hitherto reserved
only for Friends and certain types of chocolate ice-cream.

But the intimacy she promises reveals itself quite rapidly
to be on a quid pro quo basis - several thousand of my quid,
to be exact - and I am left, a number of boutiques later,
with the growing conviction that she sees me not as a
man, or even as an ex, but as her very own Lucky Number
Seven, ready to waft her into a world of Chanel frocks and
Graff diamonds and world cruises and secret liposuction
and furtive, thrilling liaisons. The Bloke From Work, she
says, is history. I believe her - suddenly there are more
exciting worlds to discover -- but I do not flatter myself that
it is I that have changed her view. In fact, I feel more like
Monsieur Dumont than ever.

In the second week I assessed my future. Ignoring the
numerous phone calls from my wife and the friends I have
acquired during the past few days, I considered the plight of
the suicidal Frenchman. It seemed to me, as before, that
there were two options. One: take the chance, thank God
for my miraculous deliverance and go forth in gratitude and
joy. Two: defy God and step out into the unknown. Perhaps


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this is now the only freedom I can hope for. Perhaps this is my lucky number.

Mrs Parsons believes that a million pounds would change
her life. If I thought they would, I'd give them to her. But
Mrs Parsons has something that all my wealth will never
give me. She has hope. She has direction. What do I have?

This is why, near the end of the second week, I decided
to end my life. I would do it cleanly, I decided, but with
dramatic impact, after having tied up all loose ends. As a
result of my decision I experienced a time of desperate
euphoria, as I imagine Monsieur Dumont might have felt on
the morning of his long climb up the Tower. A dead man,
you see, has nothing to lose; and a man with nothing to lose
has passed beyond despair into a state almost approaching
bliss.

A week, I told myself. One week in which to do everything.
Everything I'd never dared. Every risk I'd never
taken. I realized I was freer than I had ever thought possible;
every moment was an unexpected holiday; every hour a new
round of my game of ever-increasing stakes. In a week, without assessing a single risk, without taking account of a
single figure, I:

Ordered five portions of sticky toffee pudding from the
Fortnum & Mason teashop and ate them all in a single
sitting.

Smoked several Cuban cigars.

Tried caviar (for the first time).

Took up the trampoline.

Made a very clear and legal Last Will and Testament,


196


COME IN MR I.OWRY, YOUR NUMBER (S UP!


leaving all my money -Jtt> my ex-wife - with the single
provision that she puts on four stone in weight and never
remarries.

Had unprotected sex with two leather-clad blondes in a
parked vehicle off Shaftesbury Avenue.

Got a tattoo of Monsieur Dumont, my spiritual partner,
on my left buttock.

Drank pink Laurent-Perrier champagne in the bath
whilst reading a novelette and listening to Mahler's Fifth
symphony very loudly on my new stereo.

Tried cocaine (supplied by one of the leather-clad
blondes).

Booked a one-way trip to Paris by private jet.

Consumed one very rare steak, on the bone, with extra
fries.

Bought a small handgun (from a gentleman friend,
also leather-clad, of one of the blondes), a portable mini
trampoline, a bowler hat, an umbrella and some wax
earplugs.

Crossed busy roads several times without looking in
either direction.

Shot the Bloke From Work twice in the stomach, having
concealed the small handgun in my new umbrella.

Note: the adrenaline rush is very strong in such cases,
and I found it quite invigorating. I wore the bowler hat with
one of my new suits and a very beautiful pink silk tie,
which, I fancy, gives me a rather pleasing dandy look. The
earplugs, too, were a sensible precaution (and to think my
ex-wife always described him as a quiet man).


197


J10S&RFE1.S	*


f
The flight to Paris, too, has been stimulating to a degree I	^

would not have believed possible, though that might have

been the cocaine. It seems rather a pity that it is to be my	-,

only aerial experience - unless we count my descent from

the Tower, which I imagine will be quite exciting.

This is my first encounter with foreign travel. According
to Mrs Parsons, Paris is at its most romantic in the spring,
and I am glad to be able to confirm that it is indeed very
attractive. Blue sky; light breeze; cherry trees in blossom
lining the quiet Seine. The cherry blossom is a poignant	;

symbol, I think; the wind lifts and flutters it like pink snow.
Its hue matches exactly my new pink tie. Shall I lift and
flutter, I wonder? It is certainly quite a gusty day. In a
higher wind, the top levels of the Tower are closed to
visitors. I am amused to discover (from a street vendor at	j

the Trocadero, from whom I purchased a small facsimile of
the Tower, in gilt) that the public levels of the Tower are
heavily protected by wire mesh, thereby making any attempt
to jump impossible. There is a net, too, strung across
the void between the Tower's four giant feet, but this is to
prevent litter and other impedimenta from falling onto
the heads of the people below. It is most unlikely to trouble
me.

I decide to make my climb on foot, as did Monsieur	|

Dumont. There are three hundred and forty-seven metal	^

stairs (somewhat infrequently used) to the first (and	''

in my case, last) level; and there is something intangibly
pleasant, even religious, about the ascent, as if this were	|

some pilgrimage and I a penitent. I realize as I climb that	'


198	a


COME IN MR LOWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP1


the relative freedom enjsyeid by Monsieur Dumont and his
brethren has been strictly curtailed; barbed-wire guards
prevent the climber from venturing beyond the stairway,
and as I pass the first landing I see that even here, there
are obstacles and protective barriers to prevent potential
Monsieurs Dumont from exercising their democratic right
to freefall. However, I have anticipated this. I pass the
second landing. Now the stair is even more narrow and
winding. Fifty more stairs. I am grateful for the healthy
lifestyle which permits me to climb so many stairs with
relatively little fatigue. Thirty more. Twenty.

Facts and figures on the Eiffel Tower:

1887 (date of construction).

18,038 (separate pieces).

9,700 (tonnes in weight).

31,000 (cubic metres of earth displaced).

2,500,500 (rivets).

312.27 (metres in height).

8,000,000 (price in gold francs).

57.63 (metres drop from first floor).

It doesn't sound very high, does it? Height, of course,
is relative. At six foot one I am considered rather tall,
although less than three inches taller than the average.
Already, the Champ de Mars unrolls beneath my feet like a
marvellous grey-gold carpet. I am wearing one of my new
suits, the pink tie, the bowler hat, and I am carrying my
briefcase and my umbrella. I do not know what Monsieur
Dumont wore for his great leap, but I hope he too felt the
sense of occasion and dressed accordingly. Frenchmen do


199


JIG ?£ REELS	*

i*

this well, I think; I like to think his sense of style, at least,
was undiminished.

On reaching the first landing, I am pleased to note that
visitors are few. Perhaps the wind; perhaps the early hour.
Choosing a secluded area away from the gardien in his glass
box, I rapidly take from my briefcase the portable mini
trampoline. It takes less than a minute to unfold and
assemble (I have been practising). On its light aluminium
frame it is about the size of a dustbin lid, and sits squarely
on the riveted platform. A good jump should enable me to
clear the wire barrier, and I have already planned and
calculated the angle of my intended trajectory. Of course,
there can be no accounting for the X-factor. Besides, that's
half the fun, isn't it?

I stand for a second or two, watching the panorama. Not
for long; the gardien has spotted me, and is watching me
with a look of stunned incomprehension from his fishtank
box. I would not give him odds on reaching me in time,
however. A small preparatory bounce or two on the mini
trampoline (it is a most enjoyable sensation, and I wish I
had taken it up earlier); then a larger bounce, with the Paris
skyline tilting enticingly below me.

I am bouncing quite high now, and the gardien's approaching cries tell me that it is time for me to get into
position. I must aim for the space between two of the	'

Tower's metal struts, clearing the wire barrier and launching
myself at an angle of about forty-five degrees into the air.
Paris in a spring. I'm sure Mrs Parsons would approve.	i

Of course, the likelihood of my being able to replicate


200


COME IN MR LOWRY, YOUR NUMBER IS UP:


Monsieur Dumont's epic-leap is rather remote. The wind is
quite fresh here, but perhaps not enough to displace a
weight of twelve stone six falling at a velocity of (by my
reckoning) about sixty miles an hour, and gaining every
second. Fifteen million to one, I daresay, but I have
to admit that this is a very rough estimate, and that
the chances may in fact be much, much smaller. It's a
challenge, of course. And, keeping my eye on the target as I
check my position, I have to say I do feel lucky. A leap of
faith, as Mrs Parsons might have said. Faith. Hope. You can
almost believe--

a man

can

fly.


201


Waiting for Gandalf Because sometimes, reality just doesn't satisfy.


IT'S NOT ALWAYS FUN BEING A MONSTER. I MEAN, SOMEONE

has to do it, and sometimes you can have a bit of a laugh
beating up an elf or a wizard, but let's face it, most of the
time it's all about lurking behind bushes or knee-deep in icy
water, waiting for the adventurers to stumble upon you by
accident, or, more likely, to pass you by altogether and
move on to the next encounter, leaving you to freeze your
butt off till someone remembers to tell you where they've
gone.

Of course, they don't tell you that at first. Monstering's
the best job, that's what they say. No guilt, no stress, cool
gear and the ability to come back to life on demand. What
else could you need?

Well, maybe it does have its moments. I remember my
first time: sixteen years old; bookish; skinny; desperate.
There was a girl in it: a half-elf; twenty years old; red hair


202


WAITING FOR OANDAI..F


and little latex ears. Gorgeous. In fact I'd joined the group
just to be near her, though she hardly ever noticed me
except occasionally to shoot arrows at me or to hack at
me with her sword. Still, she always killed me in an affectionate,
friendly way, or so I told myself, and in return I
always made a special effort when I was attacking her, until
she complained that she was being harassed and her boyfriend
(a pro warrior with quarterback shoulders and a bad
case of testosterone) had to warn me off.

By then, though, I was hooked. I'd been bashed, battered,
hacked, decapitated, blessed, shot, levitated, zombified,
vaporized, stabbed, turned and reduced to slime. And still
every Saturday night 1 came back, come rain, come snow, to
spend the midnight hours in combat against the forces of
light.

Such is the demonic lure of the live-action role-playing
game. You start with Tolkien - maybe your school even
encourages you - then, slowly drawn in via Steve Jackson or
Games Workshop, your habit becomes secretive: sinister.
Your parents complain that you never go out, of strange
smells coming from your room. Your friends avoid you; you
find yourself hanging around Oxfam shops; you begin to
appreciate what your little sister sees in 'Xena, Warrior
Princess; and finally you erupt triumphantly onto the scene
clad in a woolly jumper (sprayed silver to approximate
chain mail) and with your bedroom curtain pinned proudly
around your shoulders, bearing a rubber sword coated in
silver masking tape and calling yourself Scrud the Magnificent.


203


JIGS & REELS


Predictably, this outing is greeted with fear and loathing
by your loved ones. But already the seed is sown; you enter
the world of hardcore role-play, and within three weeks
you've exchanged your taped sword for one moulded from
latex, you're making your own chain mail from thousands of
split washers and you find yourself debating the relative
merits of cap or raglan sleeves with a dwarf called Snorri.

From then on, there's no turning back. Every Saturday
night, the role-playing cell - a party of adventurers, one of
monsters and a monster referee - convenes at the edge of
the woods. Throughout the night these warring factions
pursue one another through the undergrowth, armed to the
fangs and bent on murder. It's an addiction, you see;
the dark, the thrill of the hunt, the primitive weapons, the
primal fear. And for some - for the weaklings like myself,
for the desperate, for the rejects and the misfits and the
loners and the freaks - it provides much-needed relief; a
chance, for a night, to be something other than themselves.

Two weeks out of three I was a monster. The third week I
was a warrior priest by the name of Lazar, until I was shot by
a group of ores; then I was a ranger called Wayland, who
managed to reach third level before falling into an ambush
set by an evil cleric; then a wizard called Doomcaster,
unexpectedly hit by a magic missile; and finally a barbarian
called Snod who had to be abandoned on grounds of ill
health (it was January, knee-deep in snow, and barbarians
don't wear vests).

For some time I put it down to bad luck that my
characters so seldom survived the night. Other regulars


204


WAITING FOR GANDAI.F


advanced, gained levels-^tnd skills, became in fact almost
invulnerable. Thirty years later, most of the regulars are still
with us: there's Titania, the elf-maid, still red-haired and
gorgeous; Litso the thief; Beltane the warrior, who tells
everyone he's in the Territorial Army at weekends; Philbert
Silvermane the old paladin, over forty when we started and
still going strong - though he tends to go for less combat
nowadays, and more elixir from his potion flask. Snorri
the axe-man is still with us, and Jupitus the wizard, and
Veldarron the swordsman, and Morag the healer, who only
comes along because she's Veldarron's girlfriend and he's
always getting hurt. In fact he can hardly pick up a sword
without hitting himself in the face with it, but thanks to
Morag's healing skills, he's managed to achieve both virtual
immortality and a long-standing reputation as a master of
weaponry.

I'm not sure about Morag's commitment, though.
Frankly, it's rather dull being a healer. I've seen her face
when she thinks the others aren't looking, and she has this
habit of saying 'Yeah, whatever' when someone corrects her
incantations. Still, Veldarron's always had a bit of a thing
for Titania (doesn't everyone?), and I suppose Morag thinks
she's keeping an eye on the competition. And finally,
there's Spider. I have to say I'm a little worried about him; I
mean, there's fantasy, and there's real life, but I'm not sure
Spider knows the difference. For a start, I've never seen
him out of character. The others have daytime identities:
Titania runs a New Age bookshop; Veldarron's an accountant;
Litso works for the Inland Revenue. But not Spider. As


205


JIGS & REEL?


far as anyone can tell, he's Spider all the time. No-one
knows his real name; no-one has ever seen him out
of costume. The others come along in combats or jeans,
exchange pleasantries, maybe drop in at a nearby pub for a
couple of beers before they get kitted up and into the part.
But not Spider. He doesn't do small talk. Ask him if he
watched the film on TV last night and he'll just give you
one of his long stares, as if you're something he's just found
under a stone. No-one knows where he lives. You can't
imagine him living in a regular house, with a sofa or a
toaster or even a bed. He'll meet you in the pub - he'll even
have a drink if someone else is paying - but he'll always
arrive in full kit: swords, crossbow, cloak, ring mail, backpack,
tunic, potions flask, utility belt, holy symbol. And it's
good gear - professional gear. Everyone else has mostly
homemade stuff. Most of the players have one good and
fairly authentic item - usually a weapon. But all Spider's
stuff looks authentic.

Ring mail, for instance, costs a fortune; but fitted, customized
ring mail costs more. You can pay up to three
hundred pounds for a really good latex weapon, but Spider
has a whole armoury of them: long swords, bastard swords,
short swords, shields, daggers, crossbows with special bolts;
plus the real weapons he carries just for show (obviously he
can't use them in combat). Great for role-play, but it does
tend to cause a bit of a stir down the local on a Saturday
night.

Not that he cares. He's immune to mockery or funny
looks. And since that incident with the football crowd last


206


WAITING FOR GANDALF


summer, most people -givt him a wide berth, and avoid
those tempting Lord of the Rings jokes. Because unlike
Veldarron, Spider can fight; as a perpetual monster, I can
vouch for that. He practises, you see. In thirty years, I've
seen him injured less than a dozen times. And when it does
happen he takes it so seriously, with vials of fake blood and
stage-make-up scars. What's more, I suspect he has them
tattooed on afterwards - I know for a fact that he still has
the scar I gave him five years ago, from a magic missile,
when I was an evil cleric. Latex sword or not, he looked
ready to kill me for hitting him in the back, but Titania whose
turn it was to be the ref that night - decided it was a
fair shot and First Morag (one of our present Morag's
predecessors) had to heal him quick. Since then I've been a
little bit nervous of Spider.

Then, of course, we've got the monsters. Tonight there
are ten of us; mostly occasional players, not regulars like
Titania, Spider and me. The university's a good place to
look for sword-fodder; most students have plenty of time on
their hands, and they're cheerful, energetic and, for the
most part, easy to manage. Still, it's important to have an
experienced person in charge; that's why I'm here. New
monsters can sometimes get carried away: they don't declare
hits; they get over-excited. I'm here to keep them under
control. To make sure they follow the rules. To make sure
no-one really gets killed. Because in those woods anything
can happen; it's dark, you're edgy, and sometimes on a good
night you can genuinely believe it's all for real; that there
really are ores out there, or werewolves, or walking dead.


207


JIGS & REELS


Out there you can almost believe you're miles from civilization;
your only light is the moon; every shadow might be an
enemy. One false move, and you're dead; the knowledge
leaves every nerve-end sizzling, every sense aware.

On a bad night, it's raining; you've sprained your ankle;
there's dogshit on your adventuring boots and you can hear
faint karaoke from a nearby pub; then a police car draws up
to investigate a report of a disturbance and as the most
experienced member of the group, you're left trying to
explain to the duty constable precisely why you're traipsing
round the woods at one in the morning dressed as a goblin
and covered in mud. Like I said, it's not always fun being a
monster.

Tonight's a little mixed. OK, it's raining a little. But
there are raggy clouds overhead, and a quarter moon, and
it's not too cold. Atmospheric. Right now I'm sitting under
a tree with my cagoule on, going over the encounter sheets.
It's my turn to monster ref. I'm quite looking forward to
that.

The monsters are here already. You have to brief
them first, when the regular players aren't around, so that
they know more or less what's going to happen and what
costumes they have to wear. There are roles to allocate,
rules to lay down. Often there's a newbie, some spotty
student in Army gear who fancies his chances. Tonight
there are three, all a bit giggly and hyperactive. I don't
know their names - sometimes there's no point in learning
them, as turnover can be quite rapid. The others are sixth
form pupils of mine, aged seventeen or eighteen at the most:


208


WAITING FOR UANDALF


Matt, Pete, Stuart, Scot?, Jase and Andy. And me, of
course. Smithy. The perpetual monster.

Well, of course I'm aware that to them I'm a bit of a joke.
Forty-six; skinny; balding; desperate. I'm aware that out of
costume I look exactly like a geography teacher - which is
just as well, because that's what I am - and I've noticed the
embarrassed silence that sometimes falls when I come over
to the group, and seen the looks exchanged by the newbies
when they think I can't see them. Poor old Smithy, that's
what they're thinking; always three steps behind. God help
me, what a loser. God help me if I ever get that sad.

But there's a kind of glory in the old moves. They won't
understand that, being eighteen and immortal; but I do.
They think it's only a game; in a couple of weeks they'll
have found another game to play, or worse still, formed a
splinter group with kids their own age, bending the rules
and having a laugh. I try to tell them, this isn't about having
a laugh. They think we do it for the gear; that we're just a
group of fetishists and Luddites, like people who go around
in Star Trek uniforms, or live in tepees with sheep and no
central heating.

But it isn't about gear, either. It's about honour, and
rules, and good and evil. It's about death and glory. And it's
about the truth -- not the truth that dragons exist, but the
fact that they can be defeated. Because, more than ever
with the passing of time, I want to believe that they can be
defeated. Philbert knows what I mean - his wife died of
cancer twenty years ago, and we're all he has left. So does
Titania, childless and pushing fifty; and Litso, who spends


209


JIGS & RHHT.S


his whole life - bar these Saturday nights - pretending to be
straight. Those kids have no idea; no idea what it's like to
come home to my other, sad, imaginary life - two rooms, a
three-bar fire and a sleeping cat; to be known as Sad Smithy
by generations of geography students; to lie awake at night
with a knot in my stomach, looking out at the electric stars
- every one a window, every one a home. But it's what
Spider says - when he says anything, which isn't that often.
Those things are not for us, he says. House, wife, kids.
Those things are for the Mundanes. Regular people. People
with imaginary lives.
'How much longer?' That was one of the newbies, looking
at his watch. You must know the type: impatient, nervy,
scornful, cold; only here because someone (myself, perhaps)
hinted at something dangerous - something occult and
forbidden.

'Not long now.' Come to think of it, they are a little late;
it's eleven o'clock and dead quiet. 'Get your gear.'

He shoots me a contemptuous look and pulls on his
mask. It's latex and pretty realistic - I make them myself,
and they're much better than the bought ones. I find myself
hoping he gets killed first.

"Cause I could have got lucky tonight,' says the newbie
in a muffled voice. 'There's a bird down the Woolpack
keeps givin' me the eye.'

It's sad, really. We both know his life. We both know
he'll never get lucky. But there's no time to discuss it; I can
see a shadow coming out of the trees, and from the noise
he's making - and the size of the sword slung across his back


210


WAITING FOR GANDALF


- it has to be Veldarron. Morag's with him, looking tired
and displeased - they've probably been fighting again. Still,
I'm glad they arrived first; a few of the others can sometimes
come across a bit strange to newbies, and I don't want any
trouble tonight. Besides, I know these students; half of them
are only here because they think they're going to get off
with some leather-clad warrior babe, and although Morag
isn't exactly Xena material, at least she is female - and at
twenty-nine, rather closer to their generation than the rest
of us.

I greet them with the usual mantra - Today is a good day
to die,' - in the hope of getting them both into the fighting
mood. But as the couple come closer, I can see that all is
not well with Morag. Her face is set, her lips tight, and
worse still, she has come out of character, in jeans and a
parka rather than her customary robes and healer's hood.
Damn it, I think. And damn Veldarron, who is making
a point of not being with her, making showy practice
moves to a dead tree and waiting for me to sort things out,
as usual.

'What's wrong?' I ask Morag. 'Why aren't you kitted up?'

'I'm not staying, Smithy.'

'Why not?'

Morag just looks at me, and I feel my heart sink. Of
course it isn't the first time that one of Veldarron's girlfriends
has pulled out at a crucial moment (he's an
insensitive bastard, and I really don't understand what girls
see in him), but to lose a healer, our only healer, and at
eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, presents a crisis of major


21 1


JIGS & REELS


proportions. 'But we need you,' I manage at last. 'I've got an
adventure to run, and they'll be wanting a healer.'

'Can't help that,' says Morag, shrugging. 'I quit. Tell
Darren to get himself another patsy. This one's out of here.'

'But Morag--'

She turns on me then, unexpectedly. 'My name's not bloody Morag!' she yells. 'Six years I've been coming here,
Smithy, and you don't even know my sodding name!'

Well, talk about volatile. Why on earth should I know
her name, I ask myself, as I watch her stalk away across the
moonlit clearing. What's more, after six years she should
know that you never - never -- refer to an adventurer
by his real name during a session. No wonder Veldarron
looks so put out. Still - though I'm sure he'll manage to
recruit another Morag before next week - her unexpected
departure suddenly makes everything much more difficult
for me, as I have quite a challenging bunch of young
monsters lined up for tonight's adventure. In any case, it's
far too late to change anything now; all we can hope for is a
short session, good luck, orderly monsters and no more
unpleasant surprises.

I can see the rest of the party arriving now, with Philbert
in the lead. Philbert Silvermane, he calls himself, though
we all know that hair's a wig. Tonight I think he looks
smaller than usual, bent beneath the weight of his armour,
although in the moonlight he still looks rather fine. There's
a certain nobility in that proud old head, like a ruined arch
standing in the middle of a field, purposeless, but not
without grace. Of course I didn't always think so; I was


212


WAITING FOR GANDALF


young once, and I'm astrarrted to say I often sniggered - in
the days when forty seemed impossibly old.

Sure enough, I think I hear laughter from one of the
newbies. Philbert doesn't hear - he's a little deaf - but I'm
already on edge after the business with Morag, and it makes
me feel irrationally angry. I snap out a sharp command to
the monsters, lining them up behind the big bush as the
adventurers begin to assemble. There's Litso, in drag
as usual; Beltane in very un-medieval combats under his
tabard; Jupitus, slow and heavy in his long wizard's robes;
Snorri with his axe.

More laughter from the newbies. I expected it; some of
those outfits probably look quite comic to them, especially
Litso, with his laddered fishnets and leather skirt. But
tonight it galls me. Perhaps because of Morag; perhaps
because I'm in charge; perhaps because it is not entirely
kind. The newbies are in for a hard time, anyway. I don't
like their attitude. Neither does Litso. We have a rule here
that no-one comments on another player's persona, however
bizarre - Philbert (who was a psychology professor in
another life) says it's because the role-play is cathartic,
allowing the individual to act out fantasies which, if
repressed, might be damaging to the ego. During these
sessions we banish guilt, fear and mockery, emerging
cleansed and renewed. I almost say as much to the newbies,
but there isn't time; that's Spider stepping dead-silent out of
the undergrowth, and in his wake, finally, Titania.

Titania. As always, my heart does a little skip. Because
she hasn't changed; not really. Her costume has had to be


213


JIGS & REEL S


altered a few times to account for her expanding waistline,
but to me she's still lovely, her red hair loose over her
shoulders, her light sword in her hand.

Someone says something behind me. I can't quite hear
what it is, but it sounds derogatory. I look round rapidly,
but I see only blank faces. Our regular monsters - Matt,
Pete, Stuart, Scott, Jase and Andy - wear expressions of
studious unconcern; the newbie who complained of waiting
is drumming his fingers, but apart from that everyone is still.
Good. At least they have the sense not to laugh in front of
Spider.

It's raining now. Spider doesn't mind; as he steps into
the little clearing by the side of the big bush 1 can see the
droplets collecting in his braided hair. I hand him the
briefing sheet -- it's written in runes, as Spider won't read
ordinary script - and lead the monster party beyond the
clearing to set up the first encounter.

The voices of the adventurers reach me across the clearing.
They are discussing the loss of their healer, reworking
their strategy, re-allocating salves and potions.

'Right, listen,' I tell the monsters. 'Tonight you'll all have
to take especial care. We're a player down and we don't
have anyone to stand in, so it's all the more important
that we do our job properly and don't get carried away. For
this first encounter, you're all ghouls, three hits each, so
put your masks on and get into position.' I take time to
look closely at all the monsters, especially the newbies, who
are standing by looking keyed up and fidgety. 'Remember,' I
tell them, 'it's three hits each. No more. There's no healer


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WAITING FOR G A N P A L F


in this party, and 1 donk'want any fatalities on this adventure.'

Someone gives a snort of laughter - one of the newbies,
the restless one who complained of waiting.

'What is it?' I make my voice sharp.

'Nothing.' He manages to make even a single word sound
insulting.

I'd like to teach him a lesson. But there isn't time;
besides, he'll be laughing on the other side of his face in a
minute. The thought makes me feel a little better. The
ghouls are concealed in the bushes, but not well; ghouls are
relatively slow-moving, stupid creatures who should present
little challenge. A warm-up battle, that's all; something to
get the juices flowing. I blow the whistle. Time in.

This is the moment - the secret, exhilarating rush. It's
the reason we play; the reason we've always played. Far
more than just a game, it goes beyond catharsis. These
youngsters do not feel it as we do, Titania, Philbert, Spider
and I. It is intoxicating. It is magical. To be heroes, like in
the David Bowie song; to be beyond age, beyond time; to be
(for a minute, an hour, a night) one of the immortals.

Ah. Here comes the party. Beltane and Veldarron heading
the group, Spider covering the rear, Litso scouting
ahead. The monsters are ready, the restless newbie creeping
quietly around the back of the party with rather more skill
than a ghoul normally shows. Still, he's making an effort; I
can hardly penalize him for that.

One of our regulars strikes first. It's Pete, playing his part
conscientiously with arms outstretched and shambling walk.


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JIGS & REEL?


Scott joins him, then Andy, cutting off Litso from the rest
of the party and forcing him to fight them three at a time.
This is where the fighters come into their own; but Beltane
is already fighting Jase and Matt, and Veldarron -- conscious,
perhaps, of Morag's absence -- is keeping his distance.

The newbies are hanging back - rather too strategically
for ghouls - but even so, the party should be able to handle
the attack with ease. Litso takes a couple of hits to the right
arm, always a weakness in his defence, and Veldarron gets a
slash across the ribs, but for the most part the adventurers
manage to repel their attackers with ease. Thirty seconds
later, only the newbies are still standing. Their leader -- the restless one who led the attack - is fighting quite
competently against Beltane, but I find it hard to believe
that he hasn't already received his three hits, and as for the
others, they aren't responding to hits at all, but are simply
ignoring them and trying to do as much damage as they can.

'Pull your blows!' yells Titania angrily, as she gets the flat
edge of a sword smack in the face, but the three newbies do
not back off. Instead, the first one yanks off his constricting
mask and with a loud warcry launches himself right into the
centre of the party.

'Oi! No ganging up!' shouts Veldarron, now the focus of
three monsters at once. He's right, of course; it's one of the
most basic game rules, and I had explained it all very clearly
to the newbies, but in the heat of the moment they must
have forgotten. To cap it all, Veldarron is shouting so much
that his aim goes wide, and by the time Spider intervenes,
cutting down the three ghouls from behind with a series of


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W A I The IN O FOR O A N O A I F


vicious thrusts, the swordsman is on the ground with several
serious injuries.

The post-battle debriefing is loud and acrimonious. I
have no choice but to rule Veldarron out of action, which
displeases him enormously and gives rise to cheers from the
monsters. Litso, too, has suffered humiliating injury, and
Titania complains that she had to hit her ghoul at least
twenty times before he finally agreed to lie down and die. I
talk to the monsters about it, and though the regulars are
polite, I don't like the newbies' attitude at all.

'Twenty hits? She must be joking. I don't think she hit
me once.'

'Hits have got to be convincing. If I can't feel it, then I
can't count it.'

I repeat what I have already said about counting hits and
pulling blows. I'm almost sure I see the lead newbie pulling
a face. 'What?' I say, for the second time.

He shrugs. 'Whatever.'

But it has soured the game. I can feel it; a tug of revolt
from within the ranks. Two encounters on, the party runs
into a group of bandits, which puts up far more of a fight
than anticipated. Litso gets hit twice more, Philbert four
times and Titania and Beltane once each, although Jupitus
the wizard manages to put an end to the opposition with a
crafty sequence of spells. The monsters protest a little at
this, and mutter about retribution, so that once again I have
to warn them about playing to the rules.

"Sonly a game,' says one of the newbies sullenly. "Snot
life and death, is it?'


217


JIGS & REELS


Oh, but it is. I wish I could make him see that, but the
gulf between us is too wide. Life begins as a game, and ends
in a fight to the death. I try to set up the next encounter as
quickly as I can, but even so it takes time; one of the
newbies begins a chorus of Why are we waiting?, and to my
annoyance, the others join in.

By now the entire party is beginning to feel the absence
of their healer. By the fifth encounter, Litso is out of action,
Philbert is hardly any better, and Beltane is down to five
hits. Only Spider is serene and untouched, cutting a swathe
through the monsters time after time. The restless newbie
looks annoyed at this, but says nothing. Spider does have
that effect on people.

We have reached the seventh encounter. The party has
lost no further members, although morale is low, and everyone
but Spider has received some kind of injury. I feel
somehow to blame, although I know it isn't my fault; some
nights are better than others, that's all, and new players are
always a bit of a risk. Still, I don't feel entirely in control of
my little group; it makes me uneasy, as if some part of my
imaginary life has managed to infiltrate this, my real one.

During the debriefing, one of the newbies lights a
cigarette. It's against the rules, but my mood is so uncertain
that I hesitate to challenge him about it. The regular
monsters - Scott and Matt and Jase and the rest - seem
restless too, as if some kind of signal has passed between
them, and there is a great deal of murmuring and covert
laughter behind my back as I go about my business. It makes
me uneasy. As a teacher I know the danger a disruptive


218


W A I The I N O FOR O A N P A I. F


influence presents, and^-lhroughout the session I have
become more and more convinced that my newbies especially
one of them - are manifestations of that unrest.
They are testing me somehow, assessing my ability to react
to their taunts, challenging my authority.

'Right,' I tell them crisply, handing out sheets for the
next encounter. 'This time you're not hostile. You're a
group of soldiers from another camp, and you'll have healing
potions for the party if they can negotiate with you.'

I slipped that one in to try and solve the Morag problem.
The restless newbie pulls a face, and I can see he isn't
pleased at the prospect of a non-combative encounter.
'What if they attack us/' he says.

'Then you fight,' I tell him. 'But you won't instigate
anything.'

'Instigate. What's that mean?' sneers the newbie.

I give him a look. 'You got a problem?'

He shrugs.

'I said have you got a problem?

The newbie smirks in a way that manages to be both
insolent and sheepish. 'Well, it's the way you all take it so
seriously,' he says at last. 'Like it's real, or something. I
mean, it's just a fucking game, for God's sake. Look at you
all. There's that old git in the fright wig, and that weirdo in
drag, and that fat bird--'

It is at this point that something in me breaks. Oh,
people have taunted us and mocked us before; called us
saddos and freaks and mutants and all that. But to hear
him speak of Titania - of my Titania - and, even more


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JIGS & REELS


importantly, to hear him denigrate the game - I grab hold of
the first weapon that comes to hand - a long-bladed bastard
sword - and fall automatically into my fighting stance.

'I'll give you a game,' I tell him. 'You monster.'

The newbies look nervous and back away, but I am too
angry to stop now. All I can think of is the fact that this boy
- this boy! - has insulted Titania, a warrior with countless
successful campaigns behind her, a woman of legendary
grace and beauty, and that the insult - to her and to the rest
of us - cannot go unpunished.

'Time in!' I roar. 'Party, to me!'

It is cathartic. I have never gone berserker before - some
players never do, in decades of gaming, though the best ones
have done it at least once, usually in the face of insuperable
odds. I remember Spider once doing it, in a pub in
Nottingham, in the days when people still laughed about
him behind his back, and I'd tried - without success - to
imagine how it must feel: the liberation, the rush, the
joy. Now I know; and as my friends rush into battle to join
me I know that our enemy is not this boy, this newbie with
the bad manners and the foul mouth. Our enemy is something
infinitely more dangerous, hateful and formidable; a
creature with countless heads, all stamped with identical
expressions of youthful scorn and ignorant self-absorption.
For thirty years we have stalked our Adversary, without
knowing quite what it was we hunted; for thirty years
we have contented ourselves with second-rate alternatives,
when all the time the real quarry was close enough to touch.

The others sense it too; grabbing weapons left and right


220


WAITING FOR OANPAI.F


they join me, fighting back-to-back as in the old days -
Litso flinging spears into the enemy ranks; Spider with a
sword in each hand and blood running down his arm.
Philbert is cut down, but we will avenge him; I catch sight
of Titania's contorted face, screaming some incantation,
before 1 plunge once more into the enemy horde.

Veldarron falls; all around me the monsters are screaming
and striking - with clubs, swords, axes. I catch sight of Matt,
with blood on his face, but I know him now; I know them
all. They are the enemy which cannot be defeated; the
sneering armies of Youth, many-headed, indestructible.

Beltane falls; Snorri is surrounded. Left and right we hew
our way, unmoved by the pleas and cries of the monsters.
Blows rain against my back, but I can barely feel them.
Jupitus falls; then Titania, my Titania. My heart, pounding
like a hammer, feels close to breaking.

Now only Spider and I are left. Our eyes meet across the
battlefield, and I see an expression on his face that I have
never seen before, not in thirty years of fighting together:
an expression of pure and abandoned joy. For a second he
holds my gaze. In that moment I feel it too; the joy, the
ecstasy. Our comrades are down. The enemy is strong. But
we are warriors, Spider and I. And today is a good day to
die.

'No mercy!' I roar at the top of my voice, and at last I am
elated to see the enemy fleeing before me - the ones who
still can. Only the restless newbie stands his ground. I can
see him mouthing something at me, but my ears have
stopped working. His face is twisted with indecision and


22 1


JIOS & REELS


disbelief, and there is something at his feet, something soft
that whimpers and writhes.

Spider and I take him both at once. Our swords strike in
a dozen places. And it is now, as our last enemy falls and the
mist drops from my eyes, that I see the blood on Spider's
discarded sword, black in the moonlight, and I remember
the weapons he carries for show, just for show and for the
special occasions, alongside the ones so carefully built and
designed for safety.

The battleground is littered with bodies; ours and theirs.
Only one is not accounted for. But I knew that already. A
small sound in the underbrush is the only indication of his
passing; I know from experience that he will leave no trail. 1
find Titania lying to the side; she is dazed, but unhurt,
and I help her up with a little thrill of illicit enjoyment.
Beltane, too, is unhurt but for a scratch across his face; a
moment or two later Litso emerges from the bushes, looking
scared and relieved. Only Philbert hasn't made it, we
discover later; his old heart just wasn't up to all the excitement.
Still, he died in battle, as Veldarron says; and that's
what matters.

'What about these monsters?' says Titania, looking down
at the corpses. 'What a mess. Couldn't Spider have saved a
few for next time?'

'Come on, sweetheart,' I tell her. 'It was a good fight.
And we can always get a batch of fresh monsters from the
Poly. In fact, there's a fantasy club just started that looks
likely. Give me a week, and we'll have numbers back up to
normal. Now look at me, Titania,' - I wipe a smear of blood


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WAITING FOR OANDAL F


tenderly from her cheeks 'have I ever let you down? Well,
have I?'

She hesitates. 'Of course you haven't, Smithy,' she said.
'It's just--' once again she looks down at the dead monsters,
and her brow furrows. 'It's just that sometimes I wonder
what other people - you know, regular people - Mundanes would
think of all this.'

I look at her in surprise. 'Mundanes? What does it matter
what they think?'

Reluctantly she smiles. 'Perhaps I'm getting sensitive in
my old age,' she says.

'You're not old, Titania,' I tell her shyly. 'You're beautiful.'

This time her smile is more assured. She gives me a small,
soft kiss on the side of the mouth. 'You're so sweet, Smithy.'

To the victor, the spoils. Her hair is slightly smoky from
her time in the pub, and there is a salty taste on her lips. I
kiss her, while behind me, Veldarron and the others look on
with wide-open eyes and identical expressions of envy and
astonishment.

'So what happens next?' That's Snorri, looking slightly
troubled, his eye on the fallen monsters.

'I guess I'll clear up.' It's my job, after all, as referee.

Snorri is still looking troubled. 'Bloody Spider went a bit
OTT, didn't he? I mean, the newbies are expendable, but
good regulars are getting hard to come by.'

'Leave it to me,' I tell him. 'I'll have a word.'

There is a small, uncomfortable pause. 'I suppose you'll
want to start a new character now,' says Titania at last.


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TIGS & REELS


'With Philbert gone we'll need a fighter, and you've been
practising, haven't you? Some of those sword moves of yours
were pretty good.'

It's a touching - and a flattering - offer. There is a
perceptible tension amongst my friends as I consider it,
consider what it would mean. I feel a sudden affectionate
burst of warmth towards them all - their familiar faces, their
homemade costumes, their split-washer armour, their lines
and wrinkles, their faith. But what would they do without
Smithy to keep things running? It may not always be fun
being a monster, but it takes commitment to do it well;
commitment and a level head. Spider couldn't do it; neither
could any of the others. Titania awaits my decision with a
set, white face. I know how much it has cost her to suggest
this; but I know my duty, too.

'I don't think so,' I tell them, shaking my head. 'I think
I'd rather stick to what I'm best at.'

Within the party, the tension lessens. 'Good old Smithy,'
says Veldarron, slapping my back.

'Yeah. Good old Smithy.'

I look round the circle. 'Are we on for next Saturday?'

Nods all round. 'Sure.'

'Same time, same place?'

'Might as well.'

Like I said, it has its moments. As I watch my friends
walk back down the moonlit path towards the trees, I feel
a complete, almost magical, sense of peace. The enemy
has been defeated, this time at least. Who knows what
next week will bring? Even with my fastidious methods of


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WAITING FOR O AN DA IF


waste disposal, it is unlikely that the disappearance of
nine students will remain unnoticed for long. It is possible
that by next Saturday - or the next - we may have to
move on to new hunting grounds. Of course, it's partly the
uncertainty that makes it such fun. But I do know that
whatever we may face in some as-yet-unimagined future, we
will face it together, Veldarron, Spider, Titania and I. The
regular people - with their drab, mundane, imaginary lives can
never understand, I realize in sudden pity; and to my
surprise, I find myself beginning to whistle softly as I get out
my shovel and start to dig.


225


Any Girl Can Be a CandyKiss Girl!


HER FULL NAME IS DOLORES CANDYKISS. DOLLY FOR SHORT;

or Lolly; or Lo. It helps to put a name to your typical
consumer; it gives you the impression that you're designing
for a real person rather than some market-generated product
with no dreams and no personality. Because CandyKiss
(that's our fashion house) is all about personality. That's
what makes my own range so popular (I design for Dolly,
the youngest of our CandyKiss girls); it makes the consumers
identify with her, love her - maybe even envy her a
little. Of course, I'm just one of her designers, one of many
in Dolly's Summer Scandals range; but even so I feel I know
her - love her - intimately.

Her features are unclear. She could be blonde. On the
other hand, she might be a brunette or a redhead. We try
not to project too much visually; as we always say, there's a
CandyKiss outfit for every girl, whatever her shape, size
or colouring. Instead, we concentrate on Lifestyle and
Personality, the two strands that have made CandyKiss the
leading youth designer of the decade.


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ANY OIRI. CAN OF A CANDYKISS GIRL!


Dolly's an independent; feisty, modern miss. She knows
what she wants, and isn't afraid to ask for it; and the new
summer fashions reflect this. Cropped tops, sexy slogans and
audacious contrasts (leather and lace, rubber and chiffon)
are worn over pelmet skirts and hot pants in a sexy take on
urban retro.

She isn't afraid of her feelings; one moment a siren, the
next a naughty little girl, she uses her clothes to express
her innermost self. Plunging necklines get a modern twist
in burgundy leather or gold chain-mail; and this season's
new-look silver bondage boots provide a witty throwback to
the glorious days of sci-fi glamour. But Dolly has a sense of
humour, too. She enjoys original pairings (white topless
minidress with fur trim, matched with green booties with
'Lips' detail), ironic post-feminist slogans (I'm proud to say
that my very own design, the screw me, you ugly son of a
bitch T-shirt sold out in a single day), and for parties,
she likes the all-out, no-holds-barred glamour-puss look,
with its cinched waists, embroidered crotchless denims and
figure-hugging Neoprene sheaths in flesh-pink, black or
tangerine.

Of course, we have had our share of critics. But there has
always been an element of revolt in the fashion world, and
today's avant-garde is the vintage classic of tomorrow. The
popularity of the Dolly range speaks for itself; already last
year's pink rubber minidress (that was one of mine, you
know) is being hailed as a collector's piece, and the witty
range of accessories - bags, boots, scarves and panties all
sporting the CandyKiss logo (pink lips sucking on a red


227


J10S & RFFTS


lollipop) - has appeared to rave reviews in Rogue, Huzzah and GirltfUs!

But I do find the criticism of our design ethos particularly,
personally hurtful. The grotesque caricature of Dolly,
the CandyKiss mascot (said the Guardian in September) is
especially vile. A plastified, cynical little madam in her designer
wear and crippling shoes, she represents everything that is loathsome
about today's youth: the loss of innocence, the loss of
beauty, and most of all, the loss of dignity.

Now that hurts. It really does. Because I love my Dolly. I
love all our CandyKiss girls, and my great pleasure is to
imagine new and delightful things in which to allow them
to express themselves. The adult world will always be contemptuous
of the tastes of the younger generation; it feels
threatened, both sexually and emotionally, and this fever of
hate and resentment towards my poor Dolly and her siblings
shows to what extent this threat has been perceived. Of
course they think she's too young. The voice of adulthood,
seeing a lovely young thing clad in our striking designs,
yawps in alarm: You can't go out in that! The voice of envy,
repeated over generations.

At CandyKiss, however, we listen to the consumer, not
her parents. We know her frustrations, her desire for revolt.
That's why the Summer Scandals range - my own baby, and
one I'm very proud of - will revolutionize the youth market
around the world. Logo'd G-strings in lime or fuchsia,
T-shirts with our new sexy but shy slogan, trendy matching
boots and clever one-pieces in the classic CandyKiss print
will form the firm basis for a collection that will, I hope, at


228


ANY C, I R 1. CAN OF A CANPYKIS? H I R I '


last propel me into the big 4eague. Because Dolly, much as I
love her, is only the beginning. Her siblings (Lolly and Lo,
from our sister range) have far fewer restrictions in terms of
size and design, and if I can manage to get myself promoted
into Lolly - or even Lo - then I can really spread my wings.
Dolly's such fun, you know, and such a challenge; but I
really think a man like me is wasted on Babywear. Just give
me a chance at Pre-Teen or Eleven-Plus, and I'll show you
what I can really come up with.


This nasty little tale came to me as I was shopping with my
daughter. In one clothes shop, we came across a girl who was
wearing a cropped top with the printed slogan candy kisses for
little misses - sexy but shy. She couldn't have been more
than five years old.


229


The Little Mermaid I came up with this story at the gym. Not my favourite place.


EVERY TUESDAY S FREAK DAY AT THE BODY IN QUESTION. 1

guess the management doesn't want to upset the regular
customers; people come to gyms to exercise and to look at
beautiful bodies, not to he faced with a cartload of crips and
mongs and uglies flopping round the pool. So we have a
special day - every Tuesday, like I said - our special,
personal spa and fitness day at B-in-Q, when (between the
hours of eleven and two) we can flop and dribble to our
hearts' content without causing unnecessary distress to the
able-bodied.

Don't think I'm bitter about it. Hell, I wouldn't like to
look at me, either. Big barrel-organ chest, little dangly legs,
and scars you don't want to imagine; all courtesy of a
high-sided delivery van just outside Greater Manchester,
a driver on a mobile phone, and my little Kawasaki with the
hairdryer engine, from which I had to be separated with a


230


THE LITTLE MERM.MP


pair of industrial pliers, iTyou can dig that. Even so, I left a
part of myself - well, two parts, really, though I shan't go
into any more detail in case there are ladies present. Suffice
it to say that on that day I became a bona ride freak, though
I can still swim with my arms, which is more than some of
the Tuesday crowd at B-in-Q can manage, thanks a lot.

Oh yes, on Tuesdays we're out in force. The shambling
army of the unsightly, the unmentionable, the undead. I've
got my wheels, and a trainee nurse to push them; most of
the others have carers, too - some family members (they're
the worst, because they do care, and it hurts), but mostly
just professionals, with wide, professional smiles, aching
backs and ample wheelchair experience. They're not bad
people; but I can see the way they look at us - unlike some
of the feebs that come on Tuesdays, I'm quite compos
mentis, or compost mentis, as my old granddad used to say,
though whether that's a blessing or a curse I wouldn't know.
Him Up There has a pretty damn funny way of distributing
his blessings, it seems, and as far as I'm concerned - no
disrespect - I'd rather He gave it a miss.

Ironic, isn't it? I used to have quite an eye for the girls, in
the days when my appreciation was valued and sought; and
though in those days I would never have been seen dead at
a gym, I'd have given my eye teeth to be around all those
hot sweaty bodies, all flexing and treading and doing the
splits against a glass wall with a view on the pool. Of course
now all I get to see is the other crips, though I do have my
own parking space if I care to use it, and a special entrance
(at the back) for their convenience and mine.


231


JIGS & RFEI S


I've got to know some of them. It's inevitable, coming
here week in, week out, sitting together in the hydrotherapy
pool, swimming in the regular pool. You get to know them
by sight, though few ever give you their names; you learn
which ones not to swim with (take it from me, the yellow
trail's a giveaway); you learn which ones will talk to you and
which ones just sit by the poolside and cry.

Some of them are legless like me: accident victims,
freaks, amputees. The amputees are the lucky ones; some of
them have prosthetics to walk about with and most of them
are pretty decent swimmers, too. One man has three legs, all
of them boneless and vestigial, which dangle from his pelvis
like a kind of flesh skirt. I call him Squiddy, and it's a riot to
watch him swimming with his little legs wibble-wobbling
behind him.

Then there are the old people from the Meadowbank
retirement place. Some bureau-cret somewhere decided that
water therapy would be good for them, so here they are: old
ladies with curved backs and tell-tale bulges in their baggy
old one-piece swimsuits; old men with hairy noses and
blurred, bleary eyes. Alzheimer's cases, most of them; some
cry as they are lowered into the water, others take the
opportunity to fumble at their nurses with what looks to me
like real compost-mentis lust, or growl rude slogans at the
hospital cases as they limp by. I don't like them much. They
don't talk to me, and they look like exhibits you might find
in that Damien Hurst gallery - hopeless, joyless hunks of
grey flesh, like something in formaldehyde.
Then there's the Slipperman. Don't ask why. He's able232



THE The. I The TI F M F R M A I O


bodied, but too unsightly for the regular crowd, who complained
so much about his presence in the pool that he got
relegated to Tuesdays, on a substantial discount. As far as I
can tell he's the bitterest one among us - though his
infirmity is only skin-deep and totally non-contagious - and
he refuses to acknowledge the rest of us when he's in the
pool, diving in with a mighty splash and showing off with a
variety of special (and mostly useless) leg strokes, as if to
prove that he isn't one of us and really shouldn't be there.

Then there's Jessie. I've got a soft spot for her ('scuse the
pun; nowadays of course I don't have any other kind),
maybe because she's so young. I guess she's a Down's kid -- what we used to call a mong - and for sure she's a little slow
in the head, but she's sweet and she's pretty, and she talks
to me as long as 1 keep it simple and smile a lot.

Lastly, there's Flipper. That's not my name for her, you
understand; but she's been called Flipper ever since she was
born, and I guess it stuck. She's young - twenty-five, maybe
thirty - with the red hair and fleshy, flawless pallor that
might have been called Pre-Raphaelite if she'd had all her
bits. Of course she doesn't - that's why she comes on a
Tuesday - but all the same she's different from the rest of us.
Or was, anyway.

For a start, she could swim. Oh boy, could she ever. Most
of us try; I'm pretty good, too - faster than Slipperman, in
spite of his fancy moves - but Flipper was a natural. She had
no arms or legs, you see; only webby paddles, with fingernails
coming out of them, and horny, yellow soles. They
were no use to her on dry land - she was so big that there's


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no way they would take her weight - but in water that
didn't matter. In water she would come into her own, and
the paddles, which had a peculiar, jointless look on dry
land, would start to move in a circular motion rather like a
bird's wing, and she would roll from her chair, all fifteen
stone of her, into the water without a splash, and then she'd
be gone.

Call me fanciful, but time was when Flipper could have
beaten any able-bodied swimmer by a mile. She cut through
the water like a greased bullet; even a dolphin might have
had a hard time keeping up with her. Slipperman hated her;
in the water she was the one who made him look like a
cripple, and it mattered to him, you see; it mattered terribly
that he should be able to outswim the freaks. But I could
have told him he had no chance with Flipper, who would
slice, grinning, across the pool, paddles going like lazy fins,
hair trailing behind her like a comet's tail. No-one else
came close; and it was a joy to watch her, a real joy, even
for someone like me who has so few joys left, because if ever
any of us got close to putting one in the eye for Him Up
There, then Flipper did it; Flipper with her dolphin smile
and her rolling blue-white curves and her tireless, lovely
back-and-forth across the turquoise pool.

But Flipper had a secret. I guessed first, because I was the
one who watched her most, admiring more than words
can say her defiance, her grace and her joy. In the chair,
of course, she was just another freak; but in the water
she found a playground and a home, and it was almost
possible to believe that it was the other guys - the carers and


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the nurses and the smodth professionals with their pity
and their secret contempt - who were the real freaks, and
that Flipper represented something else, some new and
wonderful line of evolution that would take us all back to
the sea that had mothered us and from which - let's face it

-	we never should have crawled.

But that secret - I read it in her eyes. Not at first, but
later, as their rivalry grew stronger and more aggressive. A
game at first - with Flipper, everything seemed like a game

-	but one with mysterious, unspoken stakes, and a world of
dangerous tension between the competitors.

It was Slipperman, of course. From the neck up, he wasn't
bad'looking, 1 suppose; and his body, though lumpy as
a sackful of pebbles, was hard and strong. Maybe that
appealed to her; or maybe it was his rage, the bitter drive of
him to prove himself better than the rest of us, to outswim
his disfigurement and reach the shores of normalcy. I could
have told him it would never work, but his type never
listen, and the more I watched, the more it seemed to
me that something was going on between Slipperman and
Flipper, something that flitted between them like mercury,
some intangible bright thing, some poison.

For a start, he taunted her. It was unkind; what was more,
it was against our rules. Don't imagine that because we're
freaks we don't have rules, and No name-calling is perhaps
the foremost. But Slipperman wasn't one of us, and our rules
didn't apply. And so began the names - not just Flipper,
which she was used to, but other, crueller names. She was
sensitive about her bulk, and he sensed it, calling her


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Blubber and Whalebone and Gloober and Flopsy and other
such ugly, meaningless things.

He teased her about her hair, which was red and long and
lovely, and her clever horny paddle-feet. He made out that
she smelt - which she didn't - and would pinch his nose if
she came near, saying with bright and metallic cheeriness,
'Hey, I can smell fish, hey, I can smell blubber,' so that her
dolphin smile would turn down and her blue-grey eyes mist
over and she would swim not for joy, no, but to outswim the
pain of his words.

He even taunted her about her limbs. 'Look at it,' he
would say in his metallic voice. 'Look at the blubber whale.
I mean, what is it? A woman? A fish? Does anyone know?'

Once or twice I spoke to him about it. 'Leave off her,
man,' I said, as he began another of his tirades. 'For God's
sake, can't you leave her alone?'

He looked at me and sneered. 'Fuck you,' he said. 'What
are you, her brother?' And then he was off, swimming loud
and fast and splashy because that was the way he thought it
ought to be done, and because it showed off his legs, which
were thin but unblemished, and kicked water into the faces
of the other poor creeps who had to share their Tuesday
freak bath with him.

And so I spoke to Flipper, one day when we were all
sitting in the spa pool except Slipperman, who was doing
his laps hard and fast, like if he got fast enough some day he
might just slip his skin altogether and go back and rejoin
the human race. 'Don't let him get to you, girl,' I said. 'He's
a nasty piece of work, and no-one likes him.' It was true;


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Slipperman had wound-gvary one of us up at some time or
another; even Jessie, who was sweet as a kitten with no
claws, and whom no-one - not even some of the nastier
oldies - would have wanted to hurt.

'It isn't his fault,' she said softly, still watching the pool.
'He's hurting. Just look at the way he swims. He's damaged,
and he needs help, and the pity is that he doesn't even
know it.'

'We're all damaged here, babe,' I said tartly, 'but we don't
tear into each other the way he does. What have you ever
done to him, eh? What right does he have to call you
names?'

But Flipper just smiled in that sad-dolphin way she had,
never taking her eyes off the guy as he to-ed and fro-ed all
alone in the big pool, making waves and gasping for air as
he thrust his way through the water. And that was when I
guessed that Him Up There had got his vengeance at last;
because Flipper was head-over-tail in love with the Slipperman
- couldn't take her eyes off him, in fact -- and it hit me
in the gut like a tragedy. Why does it always happen? I
asked myself as the water boiled and bubbled around my
useless legs. Flipper, who could easily have been the missing
link between ourselves and a kinder, more advanced species,
and Slipperman - Slipperman, for Christ's sake?

'Oh no,' I said, more to myself than to her. 'Not him.' Because if ever the Slipperman found out, he wouldn't just taunt her, he would obliterate her; there's no pity in his heart
for anyone but himself, no, nor any love, either. I don't
know what she hoped for from him, but I could see that


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hope as naked as could be, and because she was sweet (and
because maybe I loved her, just a little), I hoped and prayed
that the madness would pass, that the Slipperman would
find another gym (or maybe even get cured, that's how bad
it was), and mostly, above all, that she would keep that look
out of her eyes when he was around. Because no-one keeps a
secret worse than a woman in love, and this was a secret
that never - never -- wanted to be let out.

Now it was at about this point that I stopped going
to B-in-Q for a while. The accident has left me, among
other little presents, with a partially collapsed lung and an
unusual sensitivity to infections. Perhaps I stayed too long
in the pool one day, perhaps it was a new strain of 'flu;
in any case, the resulting bout of pneumonia kept me bedridden
in hospital for six weeks, and away from the Body In
Question for another three.

I missed it; and because staring at the damp patch on the
hospital ceiling didn't have much to recommend it, I spent
much of the time speculating about Flipper and the Slipperman;
about what was happening to them, who was winning
their weird game. Not all the time - much of the rest was
spent coughing my guts out - but some; and as my lungs
began to heal, I found myself thinking with increasing
foreboding of Flipper, and the look I'd seen in her eyes, and
the way the Slipperman watched her, that expression of
calculating coldness, like a shark looking for the soft underbelly
of the dolphin he plans to bring down. I had a feeling,
if you like; a feeling that things were not well with my
friend Flipper; and as time passed, it grew into a certainty.


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My little nurse - a trainee called Sophie - isn't a bad sort,
as they go. One day I told her of my concerns, and she
agreed to drop by at B-in-Q, if it eased my mind, and give
me the dirt on what was going on. The news she brought
back was disturbing. Flipper had gone. No-one had seen her
for weeks, said Squiddy, the guy with the three little legs,
and now Slipperman was like a pig in swill, swimming and
splashing and riding the waves, for all the world like some
freak aquatic king with his court of cripples in adoration
around him.

The worst thing was, said Squiddy to the little nurse, that
before Flipper had disappeared, she had started to get very
close to the Slipperman. Not in a good way - he was still
calling her names and taunting her, just as before - but
now they had begun to sneak away alone to the sides of
the pool, or the spa bath (where hitherto Slipperman had
never ventured) or the sauna. Imagine those two making
out, Squiddy had said, with an uneasy grin; although from
what Squiddy could gather, they hadn't so much been
making out as simply talking - arguing, perhaps - in low,
passionate voices.

'It looks as if your friends might have found some
common ground,' said Sophie reassuringly as she gave me
my evening bath. But I was not reassured; Sophie hadn't
seen that shark look on Slipperman's face, or the look of
longing in Flipper's eyes. Besides, Sophie was pretty and
young and had all her limbs, and she just couldn't understand
those forces that turn and twist us, inside and out.

They sanctify us, the well-meaning able-bodied; they


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assume that we have somehow transcended our disability
through patience and understanding, praise our every
attempt at normalcy, exclaim in wonder at our most
mediocre achievements. It never occurs to them that a
cripple may be as cruel or as stupid, as deceitful or as hateful
as a person with arms, legs and heart intact.

So it was with the Slipperman. I found out the whole
story some weeks later; at least, as much of the story as
anyone could tell me. There's no-one so blind as a cripple
in love, nor as vulnerable, and Slipperman must have
guessed her secret, as I had guessed it, and turned it to his
advantage.

She never speaks of it now - never speaks at all, in fact,
though I have seen her watching the turquoise water with
longing on more than one occasion from her specially
adapted wheelchair. The prosthetics on her legs and arms
are still agonizingly painful, and will probably remain so, her
carer tells me, for the bones to which the steel posts that
secure the prostheses have been fused are freakishly soft,
more like fish cartilage than human tissue. The paddles are
gone - those strangely delicate flaps of flesh with their
webby fingers and calloused pads - and in spite of the
surgery she has undergone, the doctors see little chance
of her ever gaining any more than a very limited kind of
mobility. Her weight is only part of the problem; another is
the nature of her strange physique, the unnatural curvature
of her spine, the unusual jointing of the vestigial limbs
(most of which have had to be removed to allow for the
prosthetics). Still, she has what she wanted, I suppose: legs


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THE LITTLE MERMAID


and arms so pink and bright that they resemble those of a
child's babydoll, and a frame on which to sling herself as
she walks, slowly and with tiny, agonized, Oriental steps,
towards the side of the pool, where she spends hours just
watching the others as they limp, thrash, bludgeon and flop
their crippled ways through the bright water; and Slipper
man, smooth, bland and sharklike, swims length after
length without a glance at her or anyone.

She herself can no longer swim, of course, though she
still goes into the spa pool occasionally. It takes three nurses
to manoeuvre her into the warm pool, and they must
be vigilant, for the surgery has left her sense of balance
permanently altered, and she now runs the risk of drowning
if left alone.

Why did she do it? No-one knows. Slipperman never
speaks of it, though I've seen him watching her once or
twice, and I can tell she never will. Who knows what she's
thinking, in her special chair, that cradle of plastic and
metal? Who knows what he promised her in exchange for
her soul?

For myself, I can only guess. But there's a story that keeps
coming back to me; a story my old granddad used to tell me
in the days when we were all young and free and compost
mentis; the tale of a little mermaid who fell so badly in love
with a human prince that she would have given up everything
she had to be close to him. And because of that - and
because Him Up There likes his ironies - she made a deal;
she gave up her mermaid's voice and her lovely swimming
tail in exchange for a pair of feet, feet that hurt so much to


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use that every step was excruciating torment - though
having given up her voice, she could not even cry out - and
she left the safety and kindness of her element, the sea, to
go out and find the man she loved.

But love cannot be bought with sacrifices. The prince
found a love of his own - a fresh-faced princess of his
earthly race - and the mermaid died alone, crippled and
voiceless; unable to rejoin her people, unable even to weep
for her loss.

What did he promise her? How did he put it? Like I said,
I can only guess. All I can say for sure is that Tuesdays
aren't the same now. There's no joy left any more, no
magic; just the usual round of crips, mongs and ugli.es, and
though the water is still turquoise, and on fine days the sun
still shines through the glass wall like a benediction, we
don't seem to notice it the way we used to in the days when
Flipper was there. Because in that pool, Flipper wasn't just as good as the regular people; she was better than they were,
better by a mile. And Flipper was one of us.

Except that sometimes 1 wonder, as the nights get longer
and colder and my lungs don't seem to be able to process
the air the way they used to - I wonder whether she really was. And though I'm not normally much of a guy for the
Eternal Verities and all that crap, it seems to me that maybe
Him Up There put a deliberate flaw in His blueprint for Us
Down Here; something like a circuit-breaker that would trip
if any one of us started to get ideas too far above his station
- too much joy, for instance, or too much hope. And He
buried the mechanism in a cleft just deep enough for it to be


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THE LITTLE MERMAID


quite inoperable, and waited"for the world to take its course,
smiling a little, like a shark with a secret joke.

Every Tuesday's Freak Day at the Body In Question. But
we don't do much swimming any more. Instead, in silence,
we sit and watch the Slipperman. Length after length he
swims, using his arms and legs ferociously and making
waves. Over the last few weeks his condition has improved
considerably - in fact, the management has advised him
that he no longer needs to restrict his sessions to Tuesdays but
still he comes, as if in doing so he might somehow prove
something to himself or to the rest of us. He never speaks.
But sometimes in the aquarium hush of the long pool
I think I hear something, a sound almost like sobbing
beneath the splash and gasp of the solitary swimmer, and
sometimes I think I see runnels of water beneath his tinted
goggles that may or may not be condensation. Not that
it matters; there's something broken inside him, something
damaged, like Flipper said, that can't be fixed. Every
Tuesday he swims in the empty pool, red in the face, legs
pumping, lungs burning. But he'll never catch her now.
And every Tuesday at two o'clock, we watch him come out,
all lined up in our chairs like a firing squad, and the ones of
us that are still compost mentis all stare at him and chant
the same word over and over again in low, toneless voices,
and the ones that aren't just stare; and the Slipperman's
head goes down, just a fraction, and he walks past us
without looking to the left or the right, and his long thin
legs carry him away from the poolside and back towards the
showers.


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]IGS & RFF1. S


No-one knows why he comes; no-one knows what he is thinking as he walks out into the real world. Except Flipper,
maybe, and she's not telling; though she watches him go
through the veil of her hair (that gorgeous red hair that
might have belonged to a mermaid in another life), and it's
only then, when the rest of us have done, that she turns to
go, and with tiny, agonizing steps on her new pink feet,
hobbles silently away.


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Fish


There is a saying in Naples, which goes like this: Stay a night and
hate it; stay a week, and love it; stay longer, stay for ever. This
is a cautionary tale.


MELISSA AND JACK HAD BEEN MARRIED FOR LESS THAN A

week, and already things were not going well. The wedding
had been everything the bride had wanted: five hundred
guests; white roses and gypsophila; two carats in yellow gold;
a cake designed with rather more architectural expertise
than most office buildings; and twenty-four cases of
(budget) champagne, all paid for by the bride's parents and
lavishly photographed by the most expensive photographer
in South Kensington. Even so, three days into their honeymoon,
Jack could sense an increasing irritability in his
bride.

To be sure, it was not his fault that the hotel was so
small, or the streets so busy, or that Melissa had had her
handbag stolen during their very first outing. It was not


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JIT, ^ 6k RFFl. S


even his fault that most Neapolitan restaurants seemed
unable or unwilling to cater for - or even to understand the
importance of Melissa's vegetarian, lactose-intolerant
and, above all, wheat-free diet, with the result that although
she had eaten almost nothing during the past three days,
her stomach had already swollen painfully, and local women
(who were friendly to a fault) had taken to patting her
bump amicably and enquiring in broken English when the bambino was due.

It was, however, Jack who had chosen Naples as their
honeymoon destination, being a quarter Neapolitan on his
mother's side; he had spent three weeks there once as a
student, and had therefore had plenty of time (as Melissa
pointed out) to get to know the bloody place.

Melissa was twenty-six, with the homogenized prettiness
that comes with youth, good tailoring, expensive dentistry
and time on one's hands. She herself was not professionally
ambitious, but her people knew almost everyone: her
father owned a chain of supermarkets; her mother was the
daughter of Lord Somebody; and to Jack, a youngish but
successful financial adviser in the City, blessed with a silver
Lexus, his grandmother's dark and Latin looks, and the
beginnings of an executive paunch, their union had seemed
like the perfect mixture of business and pleasure.

In Naples, however, things were beginning to look
different. Melissa hated everything: the streets; the smells;
the urchins on their mopeds; the markets; the fishing
boats; the thieves; the shops. Jack, on the other hand, had
never been happier. Everything delighted him: the narrow


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streets; the washing strung Across the crooked balconies; the
people; the street vendors; the cafes; the wines; the food.
Especially the food; he had never really known his Italian
family, apart from his grandmother, who had died when he
was a very young boy, and his only lasting memory of
her was of a fierce, round little woman with hair scraped
back into a black headscarf, who spent most of her life in
the kitchen making grilled aubergines and fresh mushroom
ravioli and truffled tagliatelle and little anchovy pizzas that
smelt of the sea and tasted like concentrated sunshine.

Even so, he had come to Naples with a sense of relief that
even Melissa's incessant complaining failed to diminish: the
feeling that, after years in exile, he was at last returning
home. It pained him that Melissa disliked the place; it
pained him still more that she said so on every possible
occasion. 'The fact is,' he said, as they dressed glumly for
dinner, 'you never wanted to come here in the first place.'

'Too right I didn't,' said the bride. 'Bloody cheapskate.
Dizzy Flore-Harrington got a whole Pacific island to herself
for her honeymoon; India Scott-Parker and her party went
on a retreat in the Himalayas, and Humphrey PulittJones
took his girlfriend to the South Pole. What am I going to
tell my friends when we get back from our honeymoon?
That I went to Naples to have my bag snatched?'

Jack suppressed the urge to shout at her. Instead he said
in a reasonable voice, 'Come on, darling. It isn't as if you
were carrying any money, anyway.'

Melissa glared at him. 'That was a Lulu Guinness evening
bag,' she said shrilly. 'It was a collector's piece!'


247


JIGS & REELS


'Right.' There really was no point in arguing. It wasn't
even as if she'd paid for the bag herself - Melissa was like
the Queen in that respect, Jack thought bitterly, although
at least Her Majesty had money of her own, even if she
never carried any. He spread his hands in a placating
gesture. 'We'll get you another bag,' he said, trying not to
think about how much all this was going to cost him in
apologies, gifts and shopping sprees. 'Try not to shout,
darling. The walls are awfully thin in these old--'

'And don't give me all that about how bloody quaint
it is, either,' shouted Melissa, taking no notice. 'Beggars
and pickpockets on every corner, washing across every
street, no nice shops to speak of, and if I even have to (oofc
at another bloody pizzeria--' At this point there came a
pounding against the bedroom wall, as of a blunt object the
heel of a shoe, perhaps - being tapped against the
panels.

'Be fair, darling,' said Jack. 'I wasn't to know you'd
decided to go vegetarian and wheat-free virtually overnight.
If you must follow these fad diets--'

'My nutritionist said I have an intolerance!'

'Well, all I can say is you must have developed it very
fast. You were eating those things quite happily three weeks
ago.'

Melissa glared. 'In case you haven't noticed, wheat makes
me bloat. And civilized people don't eat meat. It's practically
murder.'

Jack, who enjoyed the occasional steak (had been looking
forward to one, in fact, since their arrival in Naples), felt


248


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his face grow hot. 'I didn't notice you turning down that
chicken salad you had at the reception,' he said.

'Chicken isn't meat,' said Melissa with scorn. 'It's
poultry.'

'Ah yes, how silly of me. Poultry. The famous vegetable.'

'Stop it, Jack! Just because you eat like a savage--'

'What about fish? Is that allowed? Because this is Naples,
in case you hadn't noticed, and there are any number of fish
restaurants around--'

"I can eat fish,' said Melissa. "I just don't like it much,
that's all.'

'So fish is a vegetable, now? How convenient. It's an
aphrodisiac as well, you know. Perhaps you should try some.'

Melissa was still glaring, but now her eyes were brimming
with tears. 'Sometimes I think you should have been a fish,
Jack,' she said, turning away. 'You're perfect for it. Coldblooded,
slimy and stupid.'

It was their first married quarrel. Jack was annoyed at
himself for letting it happen - he rarely lost his cool in
the boardroom, and it was unlike him to behave in such
a confrontational way. Unlike and unworthy of him, he
reflected; after all, marriage was only the first step in his
long-term plan, and much would depend upon keeping
Melissa and her family sweet. Think of it this way, he told
himself: there's no point in getting your foot in the door if
the next thing you do is stick it in your mouth. And what a
stupid thing to quarrel about! For God's sake, what did it
matter what Melissa ate? Jack himself was rather fond of
his food - a weakness he tried very hard to hide from his


249


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colleagues at work, who seemed to live on coffee and
filter-tips. But here, for some reason, it was harder to
pretend. Perhaps because of his Italian blood. Perhaps the
Naples air, smelling as it did of petrol, ash, sea salt, oil and
fried garlic (so like the smell of sex, he told himself, another
appetite Melissa did not appear to share). Still, there was no
point in taking it out on her, he thought. And in any case, the sooner they made it up, the sooner they could have
dinner.

In spite of his good intentions, however, it took him
almost an hour to restore the romantic mood. The Casa
Rosa, a small restaurant down by the harbour, was not the
Ivy, but on inspection, Melissa grudgingly accepted that
there might be things on the menu she could eat. Waving
aside the anchovy toasts, the caponata, the seafood risotto,
the calamari fritti and the pancettaandwild-mushroom
pizza, she decided at last on a small piece of grilled sea
bass (no oil, no sauces) and a green salad, dressing on the
side.

Jack, on the other hand, was feeling hungry. Perhaps
the stress; perhaps the sea air. In any case, he made short
work of a dozen oysters, a vast plate of lobster tagliolini
and a pair of red mullet with salsa verde. At eight, the
restaurant was still almost empty - the evening crowd would
begin to arrive at nine or ten - and the plump, cheery
woman who brought their meal stood attentively, if somewhat
obtrusively by, ready to offer more bread, more wine,
if needed. Her round face glowed with approval as she
removed Jack's empty dishes.


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FISH


'Was good, yes?'	..- .

'Very good.' He smiled and loosened his belt a couple of
notches. 'Buonissimo.'

'I catch the mullet this morning. All the fish - this
morning catch.'

From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Melissa frown. She
had hardly touched her meal, he saw; the salad leaves were
pushed from one side of her plate to the other. The plump
woman had seen it too, and her face, which had been so
vivid when she was speaking to Jack, took on a doughy,
expressionless look.

'I thought mine was rather dry,' said Melissa, putting her
kriite and fork together.

The doughy look wavered a little. The dark head bobbed
like a fishing-float. The plump woman - Rosa herself,
thought Jack - took the plates in a graceless scramble, head
bowed, shoulders hunched.

'You shouldn't have said that,' said Jack, watching her go.
'After all, you asked for it to be fat-free.' His own fish had
been luscious, swimming in oil and capers, and he had
mopped up the remaining sauce with the last of the olive
bread.

Melissa shot him a look. 'Just because you stuff yourself
silly, it doesn't mean I have to. I mean, look at you. You
must have put on half a stone since we arrived.'

Jack shrugged and poured more wine. Melissa had barely
touched that, either. Behind her, Rosa emerged from the
kitchen carrying two plates and a covered dish. 'Speciality,'
she said with a taut smile, and set them down on the table.


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'But we didn't order anything else,' said Melissa.

'Speciality,' repeated the plump woman, and removed the
cover from the earthenware dish. A spicy, delicious smell
emerged. Inside, Jack could see pieces of fish nestling alongside
whole tiger prawns, mussels, scallops, and fat brown
Sicilian anchovies. There was white wine, bay, olive oil,
fresh parsley; there was garlic; there was chilli; and in
the rising steam he could see Rosa's face, plain, pleasant,
slightly pink now with hope and anticipation, the hesitant
smile just wavering on her lips.

'But we didn't order--' Melissa began again.

Jack interrupted her. 'Fabulous,' he said loudly. 'I'll
definitely try some.'

Melissa watched as Rosa heaped food onto Jack's plate.

'More bread, yes?' said Rosa. 'We have olive, walnut,
anchovy--'

'Perfect,' said Jack.

As Rosa disappeared once more into the kitchen, Melissa
turned on her beloved. 'What do you think you're doing?'

'You made a complaint,' said Jack.

'So?'

'So she's a Neapolitan. Her sense of hospitality obliges
her to make it up to you.'

'How ridiculous,' said Melissa. 7 certainly shan't eat any
of it.'

'Then I shall eat it all,' said Jack. To refuse the food, he
knew from his grandmother, would be the worst kind of
insult; already Rosa had been shaken by Melissa's casual
complaint; to turn down her apology would be inexcusable.


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'Don't give me that,' _saiij Melissa with scorn. 'You just
want another excuse to pig out. We'll end up paying for it,
you'll see; you don't think she's going to let us have all that
for free, do you?'

Jack took a mouthful of fish, silken with oil, wine and
spices. 'Delicious,' he said provocatively, and Rosa, arriving
just at that moment with the bread, flushed with pleasure.
She really was large, he thought, but now he saw that she
was far from unattractive: her cafe-latte skin was perfectly
unblemished; her glossy black hair tied back in a loose
chignon, so that small tendrils fell damply around the sides
of her face. Beneath the neat white apron her breasts were
like feather pillows, and as she bent to ladle more stew into
his plate, he caught a scent of vanilla and ozone and baking
bread from her smooth brown arms.

'You should just see yourself,' said Melissa in a low voice,
as he scooped sauce into his mouth using one of the empty
mussel shells. 'Anyone would think you hadn't eaten in a
week.'

Jack shrugged and broke the head off a prawn. The flesh
was pink and succulent, steeped in wine and spiced oil.

'That's disgusting,' said Melissa, as he sucked the juice
from inside the prawn head, leaving the shell on the side of
his plate. 'You're disgusting, and I want to go back to the
hotel.'

'I haven't finished. If you want to go, then go.'

Melissa did not reply. Jack knew perfectly well that she
would not leave without him; Naples by day made her
uneasy, but by night it terrified her. She put her lips


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JIGS & REELS


together - one of her most unappealing expressions,
thought Jack as he started on a piece of monkfish; it made
her look just like her mother - and sat in martyred silence
for a couple of minutes, deliberately not looking at him,
which was fine by Jack.

In the corner of the restaurant, Rosa stood rearranging
some fruit in a large earthen dish. The heat of the kitchen
had flushed her cheeks, and the effect was sweetly exotic,
like the bloom on a ripe nectarine. She smiled at him as she
turned around (not before he had had time to appreciate
the sweeping curve of her buttocks under the tight-fitting
uniform), and he was struck by her youth. He had assumed
she was a middle-aged woman; now he could see quite
clearly that she was Melissa's age, maybe younger. In fact,
now he came to think of it, Melissa herself was looking
rather tired; her skin was dry and slightly sunburnt, and
there was an unpleasant double-crease between her plucked
eyebrows. It made her look older than she was; stringy
rather than slender, like over-roasted chicken. She had
lost weight in the weeks before the wedding, he knew;
the dress had been a size eight to her usual ten, and its
scooped neckline had revealed an unappealing expanse of
corrugated flesh, through which her breastbone was clearly
visible.

Later he had discovered that she wore gel pads in her
bra to give herself some cleavage - chicken fillets, they
called them, he reflected sourly, recalling the moment of
discovery. It had been rather a shock; Jack liked busty
women. But he had made a joke of it - a joke, as it


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FISH


happened, that Melissa tad not appreciated. Jack wondered
vaguely whether chicken fillets counted as meat or poultry,
and as he poured himself another glass of wine he noticed,
with some surprise, that he had finished the bottle.

He had finished the stew, too, and most of the bread;
when Rosa came up to clear the plates, her face shone with
delight.

'Thank you,' said Melissa in a cold voice.

'You like?'

'Very much,' said Jack.

'Maybe a dessert, yes? And cafe?'

'The bill, please,' said Melissa clearly.

Rosa looked slightly hurt. 'No dessert? We have tiramisu,
and torta della nonna, and--'

'No, thank you. Just the bill.'

That was so like her, thought Jack, feeling his face grow
warm. No thought for anyone but herself; no understanding
of the needs of those around her. It wasn't as if she
were paying the bill, either; the question of a shared bank
account had come up once, but had caused so much distress
and indignation that Jack had wisely retreated, hoping to
pursue it at some less sensitive moment.

Till have dessert, please,' he said in a loud voice. 'And
grappa, and espresso.'

Melissa's face was a white knuckle of disapproval. Behind
her, Rosa's cheeks glowed like summer wallflowers. 'The
menu?' she enquired.

He shook his head. 'Surprise me.'

Over coffee, which she would not drink, Melissa eyed


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JIGS &. REELS


him in pale and glassy fury. 'You're doing this on purpose,'
she hissed.

'What makes you say that?' said Jack between mouthfuls
of grappa.

'Damn you, Jack, you knew I wanted to leave!'

He shrugged. 'I'm hungry.'

'You're a pig.'

Her voice was shaking. In a moment she would cry. Why
was he doing this.7 Jack asked himself in sudden confusion.
He'd worked so hard to win Melissa; why was he doing this
to her, and to himself? The realization was like a nugget of
ice in the centre of a soft and melting creme brulee, and he
put down his glass, wondering vaguely whether he could
have been drugged. Melissa was watching him with hate in
her blue eyes, her mouth thinned almost to invisibility.

'OK. We'll go.' It was astonishing how ugly she really
was, he thought. The teased and processed hair. The capped
teeth. The scrawny neck, strung out like a long rope-ladder
to the chicken fillets in her expensive La Perla bra. From
out of the kitchen came Rosa, soft and bright and glowing,
with a tray between her hands. Her chocolate-amber eyes
were shining, and Jack found himself saying, almost without
meaning to, 'After dessert.'

Opposite him, Melissa went rigid. But Jack was hardly
aware of her as he watched Rosa with the tray. She had
brought him, he realized, not one dessert, but many: tiny
portions of everything on her special menu. There was
tiramisu, dusted with chocolate and lusciously, meltingly
moist; there was lemon polenta and chocolate risotto; there


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FISH


were lace-thin almond, "tiles and coconut macaroons and
pear tartlets and apricot ice-cream and spiced vanilla brulee
with almond flakes and honey.

'You have got to be kidding me,' whispered Melissa
furiously. But Jack barely heard her in the face of these new
wonders, testing this, tasting that with a growing sense of
exhilaration and abandon. Rosa watched him with that
half-maternal smile and her hands folded like angels' wings
across her breasts. Astonishing that he should ever have
thought her plain: she was stunning, he realized now; ripe as
summer strawberries; sensual as a bath of cream. He looked
at the woman sitting opposite, with her sour expression, and
tried to remember why she was there; something about
money, he seemed to recall; something about business and
prospects. It didn't seem important, though, and he soon
forgot it again as he immersed himself in the tastes and the
textures of this strange and darkly gorgeous Neapolitan
woman's confectionery.

Rosa seemed to share in his delight. Her mouth was
slightly open, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks faintly flushed.
She nodded to him, first in approval, then with a suppressed
excitement. She was trembling, he saw; her hands clenching
and unclenching against the white of her apron. He
took a mouthful of hazelnut cream; his eyes closed for a
moment, and as they did he felt sure that her eyes, too, had
closed in rapture; he heard a gasp of pleasure as he reached
once more for the spoon.

'Good! Yes!' It was almost inaudible, and yet he heard it
- the sigh of release; the tiny moan of delight. Once more,


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JIGS & REELS


he reached; once more, she sighed; fingers splayed into the
musky air. He was glutted; and yet he wanted more, if only
to see her face as he fed and fed. Dimly he recalled himself
telling someone - who was it now? - that fish was an
aphrodisiac; for a second he thought he might almost have
remembered who, but then the thought slipped quietly
away.

He was still eating when the woman with the sour face stood up, her mouth like barbed wire, and left the table. He
did not look up - though she slammed the door quite rudely
as she left - until Rosa returned with the coffee, amaretti
and little glace-fruit pastries; and then she was sitting beside
him, her hands over his; she was unfastening his belt to give
his taut belly space to expand, and, nibbling gently at his
ear, she whispered in a voice like musk and blood and dark
honey: 'Now, Carissimo. Now for my turn.'


258


Never Give a Sucker . . .


Writing my first book, The Evil Seed, it struck me that vampire
literature is really very elitist. The setting is always romantic,
the bloodsuckers themselves always attractive, aristocratic and
stylish. This of course begs the question: where are the other vampires? The plain vampires, the working-class vampires, the
ones with the bad PR?


I LL TELL YOU THIS FOR NOWT. THE VAMPIRE BUSINESS IS

dead and buried. Not just back in Whitby, though that's
where the rot started, and not from lack of public interest
- quite the opposite. They tell me it's because demand
exceeds supply. At last we've fallen prey to market forces,
given in to pressure on us to conform, to modernize, to
present the right kind of image to the customer.

Take me. Reggie Noakes. Seventy-five years in the trade
and ousted by market forces. Nothing personal, Reggie old
love, they tell me. You don't fit in any more. You're just the
wrong sort of vampire.


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JIGS & REELS


Take my face. Round and ruddy, the face of the Grimsby
fishmonger I once was. Take my short legs, and the fatal
sag of my gut. In the old days none of that would have
mattered. You were glad to go unnoticed. But these days
we've got to fit in with the image. The Victorian streets.
The fog. And with the new generation of punters walking
about in black lipstick and leather, lurking around graveyards
in the hope of a glance at one of us. You can't even
tell the difference any more between the living and the
undead. It isn't healthy. All the same, everyone can't be
poncing about in black capes and fangs, ranting about
unholy ecstasies and nameless dreads. Look bloody funny if
they did.

I'm making no apologies for going native. It's easy in this
place. Lots of people passing through. No-one asking questions.
Still, even when I retired here I sometimes wondered
whether Whitby wasn't a bit upmarket for me. It should
have been Blackpool right from the start. Noisy, jolly
Blackpool, with its arcades and fish shops (I still enjoy
a bit of breaded cod once in a while), and its pleasure
beach cram-packed with lovely warm sweating bodies all
sweltering happiness and rage and jealousy and hunger just
like mine. Well, you know, it's never been blood that really
counted for me. I've never liked it that much, to tell the
truth, and it's a bugger trying to get any when you're fat and
balding and no virgin would look at you twice. But get me
in a crowd and I'm happy. A touch here, a taste there.
Nothing much. Not enough to kill. Skimming it off gently,
like froth from a pint. Some girl screaming on the Big


260


NEVER GIVE A SUCKER . . .


Dipper. Her boyfriend, aU jtchy fingers, his mind elsewhere.
Two lads fighting outside a pub. It's all of life out here,
teeming life, and that's why I'm here now on the pier,
sipping my frothy lager and waiting for a nice warm family
to drain of their life, their energies.

I can see one coming now, a foursome. Two kids with
round, healthy faces, one eating a chip butty, the other an
ice-cream. The parents: her peeling and pink with sunburn
across plump shoulders, him in string vest and baseball cap.
They can spare a bit of that for me, I tell myself. They've
got plenty.

It's an old drill and I've got it pat. As they pass by me
near enough to touch, I half-turn, overbalance and drop
my can. The frothy lager splashes Mother's shell top and
Father's trouser turn-ups.

'Sorry, love. I'm sorry.' I make as if to pick up the can and
get in range of the two kids. I can smell them: chip-fat and
chewing-gum and life.

Mother brushes herself off. 'Yer daft bugger,' she says.

I pretend to steady one of the kids. He's warm and
squirming. I try for a bit of the old avuncular and nudge
in closer. 'Don't you fall over that rail, me lad. Sharks'll
have yer!' Spot on. I should be able to feel it now, the
rush of energy from the boy, the life racing into me through
him. Instead, nothing. I feel strange, suddenly tired. It
must be the lager. Unsteadily, I pat the lad's head, feeling
the sunny curls beneath my fingers. Concentrate. It's life I
need from him, hot life, marbles and bubblegum, conkers
and cigarette cards. Secrets whispered in alleys to his best


261


JIGS 5, REELS


friend. His first bike. His first kiss. 1 brace myself for the
rush.

Nowt.

Mother looks at me sideways. I try to smile but it comes
out lopsided and I almost fall over. It feels like drunkenness,
a drained feeling, as if the expected charge has turned
against me, sucking at my bones. The boy smiles and I
see him clearly for a moment, lit up by a red slice of neon
from a nearby arcade, his face glowing, his eyes huge and
luminous.

Mother bends over me and I can smell her scent, like
roses and frying; and the stuff she uses to keep her hair in
place all mixed up together and hot, hotter, hottest ... 1
can't help it. I reach for her, gasping, starving, breathless
and suddenly freezing cold. 'Help me,' I whisper.

'Yer daft bugger,' she says again. Her voice is light and
without sympathy. Father is coming to join her, his shoes
ringing slow, effortless strides across the pier. Her arms are
soft and scented, tiny beads of sweat caught in the peachy
hairs on her fat pink forearms. The world greys out for an
instant. Her voice is thick and treacly, like a woman speaking
through a mouthful of cake, and 1 now think I can hear
amusement in her flat tones.

'Leave him, Father,' she says. 'This un's no bloody good.'

As I watch their retreating backs the cold begins to
recede. The world brightens a little and I can sit up. I feel as
if I've been punched in the mouth. But the four of them are
shining, haloed by the pleasure-beach lights. A little girl
holding an ice-cream cone looks at me as she skips by. I can


262


is E \ E R GIVE A S U C K t R . . .


smell the same hot reek^from her skin, the same promise of
life. Looking at her from the boards, I try to reach out,
feeling my fingers tingling at her closeness. Heat bakes from
her. Life. I'm faint with the need for her. And yet I withdraw
in spite of my hunger, suddenly scared by her vitality,
her innocent greed. In my weakened state I feel she could
freeze me bloodless without even knowing it.

Punters pass me by without a glance. They are wholesome,
noisy, red-faced, parting around me to merge again
into a hot river. In my time amongst the narrow streets and
the Whitby fogs I've almost forgotten how healthy the
living can be. And yet there's something about them all, a
kind of family resemblance. Something a little too bright,
too glowing to be real. I remember the old familiar holidaymakers
in Whitby, the thin young people in black, their
sad, strained faces, their greyness, their dull expressions.
None of these people are dull, all of them touched with a
lustre I begin to recognize . . . The ruddy complexions. The
sagging waistlines. The open faces. The brimming illusion of
life. So this is where they go, the wrong sort; pushed here by
market forces. This is where they belong, among the bright
lights and the arcades, the fish shops and roller coasters.
Indistinguishable from the real thing. Better, some might
say. Never dying, never changing: cheery holidaymakers
on a trip that never ends. Slowly I pick myself up and
head back through the crowd that gluts the pier. Heads
turn to follow me. Delicate fingers flutter against my skin.
Dimly I wonder how many of them there are, by how many
they outnumber the living. Ten to one? A hundred? A


263


JIGS & REELS


thousand? Or are they now so many that they prey on each
other, bloodlessly, greedily, shoulder to shoulder in rough,
grinning comradeship?

The lights of the pleasure beach are gaudy as a fisherman's
lure skipping across the dark water. Life, they
promise. Heat and life. Too weak to wander far from that
distant hope, I make my way wearily back towards them,
trying not to meet myself along the way; just another sucker
slouching back down the long dark road to Bethlehem.


264


Eau de Toilette


In these days of Botox, body piercing and failed cosmetic surgery,
it is tempting to fantasize about other times and places, which we
think of as being more romantic than our own. Dream on.


IT WASN The UNTIL I CAME TO COURT THAT I REALIZED HOW

much rich people stink. If anything, the rich more so than
the poor; in the country, at least, we have less excuse for
not washing. Here, to have a bath is to disrupt everything.
The water must be heated, then carried up to the room
with sponges, brushes, perfumes, towels and countless other
impedimenta; not to mention the bath itself- cast-iron and
heavy - which must be brought out of storage, cleaned of
rust, then dragged by footmen up countless flights of stairs
to Madame's boudoir.

There she waits, en deshabillee. Her saque is of pink
lustring, with ribbons of the delicate coral hue so popular
this season, which ladies of fashion call soupir etouffe. Beneath it, her corsets are grey with sweat and ringed


265


J1GS & REELS


around the underarms, rings within rings, like the severed
trunk of a very old tree.

But Madame is wealthy; her household boasts so much
linen that her maids need wash it only once a year, on the
flat black stones of the laveraie, by the bank of the Seine. It
is September now, and the linen room is only half full; even
so, the growling musk of Madame's intimates carries up the
steps, across the corridor and into the morning-room, where
even four vases of cut flowers and a hanging pomander fail
to mask the stench.

Nevertheless, Madame is a famous beauty. Men have
written sonnets to her eyes, which are exceptional, so I am
told. The same cannot be said of her rotten teeth, however;
or indeed of her eyebrows, which are fashionably shaven,
being replaced by mouse-skin replicas, stuck with fish'glue
to the centre of her forehead. Fortunately the smell of the
fish-glue is slight, compared with the rest, and does not
disturb her. Why should it? Monseigneur uses the same aids
to beauty, and he is one of the most highly regarded gentlemen
of fashion of the Court. The King himself (no rose
garden, His Majesty) says so.

While Madame awaits her bathwater, she peers at herself
with some anxiety in the gilded mirror of her chamber. At
twenty-two, she is no longer young, and she has noticed a
diminution in the number of her admirers this last season.
Monseigneur de Rochefort, her favourite, has been most
distressingly absent; worse still, there have been rumours
that he has been seen twice recently in the company of La
Violette, an opera-dancer from Pigalle.


266


EAU DE TOILETTE


-»~ In the mirror, Madame scrutinizes her fading complexion.

She feels concern for her loss of bloom, and wonders
what might have caused it. Too many balls, perhaps; or a
disappointment in love; besides, it is well known that water
is dreadfully injurious to the skin. With care, she applies a
little more white lead to her dimpled cheek.

Now for the pounce-box; shaking out powder onto a goosedown huuppe, she dusts her face and cleavage. A little
rouge, perhaps - a very little, for she does not want to be
accused of trying too hard - and a patch or two. La Galante, and - yes, why not? - La Romance, applied with a fingertip
and glued with the same fish-glue that secures her mouse
skin eyebrows.

It will do. It is perhaps not perfect; Madame is too
distressingly aware of the fine lines between her eyes, and of
that area of scaly, reddened skin against her powdered
breast. Thank the Lord, she thinks, for His gift of cosmetics
- and of course, the collar of rubies she plans to wear for
tonight's ball should hide that patch of ringworm nicely.

'Jeannette!' Madame is getting impatient. 'Where is the
hot water?'

Jeannette explains that Marie is heating it in the kitchen,
and promises to have it soon. She has brought Madame's
little pug, Saphir, with her in the hope that in the meantime
he may amuse Madame, but Madame is petulant.
Where is her dress? she asks. Has it been brushed and
pressed? Is it ready for tonight's event?

Jeannette assures her that it is.

'Then bring it, bring it, you silly girl,' snaps Madame, and


267


JIGS & REELS


five minutes later the creation is brought in. Two maids
are needed to manoeuvre it through the door, for it is
heavy even without the wicker panniers over which
Madame will wear it. The skirt is made of crimson brocade,
embroidered all over with gold thread, and Madame will
wear it over a great hoop and an underskirt of dark gold.
Thanks to the panniers swinging at her hips, she will dance
with the undulating grace of an Eastern courtesan, and all
her admirers - especially Monseigneur de Rochefort - will
gasp and stare in desire and admiration.

But the confection is heavy, weighed down as it is with
fully four Uvres of gold thread, and Madame's shoes are chopines in the Venetian mode, designed more for effect
than for practicality, with platforms that raise her modest
height to an altitude verging on the queenly. Her skirt
has been made extra-long with this problem in mind; and
the ingenious stool'like device concealed inside the left
pannier allows her to sit down discreetly, on occasion, if the
platform shoes become too uncomfortable.

I know, too (for nothing is secret to one in my humble
position) that the stool device plays a double role;
suspended on a hinge mechanism that allows it to be pushed
into the pannier or pulled out as and when required, it also
harbours a chamber pot, so that Madame need not squat
ungraciously in the bushes (or worse, piss into her rolled
stockings), and may dance the night away with one of her
several lovers without anxiety.

'Jeannette, the bath!'

Poor Jeannette is working hard; the bath will take fifty or


268


EAU DE TOILETTE


-*'

more of the cans of water, and Madame likes it quite full.
But the other maids are working too; one to bring out
Madame's collection of fans for approval; the other three on
tonight's coiffure.

In the style of all truly elegant ladies, Madame's head has
been shorn bald. She will wear a wig of regal proportions
and truly original design. No dowdy Chien Couche or outmoded Venus shall adorn her head; this headpiece,
bedecked with plumes and stuffed with horsehair, is fully
three feet high. Grey powder will give it a final touch of
elegance; but although it is strongly scented with musk
and attar, beneath the perfumes it still smells noticeably of
mice. I doubt whether Madame will notice this, however.
The combined stench of stale underthings, old sweat, fish
glue, and the contents of the pisspot concealed inside the
panniers of her gown should already make for a pungent
mixture.

Still, angered now at Jeannette's lateness, she awaits the
bath. Saphir, too, is growing impatient, and yaps and growls
at the maids as they set about their business aiding Madame
in her selection of fans. She has a large collection, of ivory,
of plumes, or of cunningly painted chicken skin. These
smell particularly vile - the armoire in which Madame
keeps them stinks like a hen house. Madame seems not
to notice; on my advice, she selects a fan of crimson and
gold to match her gown, and dreams pleasantly of the
billets-doux she will receive at the ball. Perhaps young
Monseigneur de Rochefort will deliver one, in a nosegay or
a napkin; he has been so wilful of late, transferring his


269


JIGS & REELS


attention from one lady to another, but tonight, Madame
feels sure that she will conquer.

'Jeannette, the hot water!'

Such a bore; but it must be done. Once every six months
is not such a terrible burden, and besides, in a few hours the
young men will begin to call, and Madame must be ready to
receive them. She considers her legs. The blisters have
almost vanished from her last attempt at singeing, and the
hairs, though dark, are few. Madame uses a pair of tweezers
to remove them; it may well be that she will accept to stroll
in the garden with Monseigneur de Rochefort, and everyone
knows that a lady should never contemplate a gallantry
with hairy legs.

'Madame? The bath?' Poor Jeannette is sweating. It has
taken her more than forty minutes to drag the cans of water
upstairs. The bath is still warm, though by now not hot, and
I have already scented the water with stephanotis and
chypre. It takes both of us some time to immobilize Saphir,
who barks and struggles and tries to bite; but before long he
is immersed in the lukewarm water and Jeannette can begin
with the brush.

Meanwhile, Madame makes the finishing touches to her toilette, and sits rapt before her reflection in the mirror.
Surely this time Monseigneur de Rochefort will be
enamoured. Behind her, Jeannette and I struggle to envelop
Saphir in a towel. A touch of violet essence seems to
enhance, rather than mask, the reek of wet pug.

All the same, I think as I dust myself down, I must
consider myself privileged to serve such a beautiful and


270


EAU DE TOILETTE


-*.'

fashionable lady. I am more than aware that my own sensibilities
are somewhat bizarre; my sensitivity to smell verges
on the monstrous, and that combined with my country upbringing means that I cannot - however much I may wish
it - find the ladies (or gentlemen) of the Court to my taste.
One day, God willing, I may find them so. For the moment,
however, I have my duties to perform. I am Madame's parfumier: Monseigneur de Chanel, at your service.


271


Acknowledgements


Once more, as always, many thanks to the unsung heroes
who have helped to bring these stories into print: to my
agent Serafina Clarke, my foreign agent Jennifer Luithlen,
my editor Francesca Liversidge and all my other friends at
Transworld; to Brie Burkeman, my film agent, to Louise
Page, and to Anne Reeve, for keeping me in line, to Stuart
Haygarth for his jacket designs, and to Kevin, Anouchka,
Christopher and all those other people who have inspired
me and kept me wriring, even when sometimes I didn't
want to. Lastly, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who works
to keep these books on the shelves - booksellers, sales
representatives, distributors - and you, the readers, who
have followed me this far.


273