Frankie Styne & the Silver Man (11 page)

‘IMPOTENT?' asked a small advertisement on the page opposite.

A few days ago, Frank thought, I was perfectly happy. The present was tolerable, even good, the past was more or less in its place, the future was easy to ignore. Why are they doing this to me? Why am I letting them? The girl next door, he noted, had a visitor, knocking very loud. ‘For God's sake, answer it!' he shouted, flinging the magazine across the table.

It was Alice.

‘Sorry to bother you . . . Tom's late. Here.' She thrust a baking tray into Liz's hands. ‘Whenever that happens, I think the worst. I'm afraid of being left. I'm so afraid of it all coming to nothing. I put such an effort in. I really try—look at me dressed up like this. We're supposed to be trying again tonight. I admire you, I really do, but I never could manage on my own. I can remember, clear as day, how it all started out so perfect. How could he spoil it, expect me to put up with this? And then I think maybe he did it on purpose, so that I'd leave him and he wouldn't need to make his mind up . . . But I never will.

‘And I hate the thought of her being better than me. What's she got? I used to ask. Now she's got the pregnancy, hasn't she? One day she'll go to hospital to have Tom's baby. I don't even know when! I can't beat her to it, however hard I try. And he's probably there right now, whispering sweet nothings. Feeling it kick, making promises. Slipping inside her extra gently, one more fuck for luck, and then another one and another one and another one and another bloody one—might as well, mightn't he? We're supposed to be doing it tonight . . . Please, would you just come round and sit with me?'

Liz swallowed. Without Jim strapped to her it was more difficult. She couldn't look down at him, adjust the straps, wipe his face. She was going to have to look Alice in the eyes and say very clearly,
Sorry, no,
but she was saved when headlights streaked across them and the soft purr of an engine cut dead. Alice reached out and touched Liz on the arm. ‘Must go. Thanks. I expect everything's okay.'

Tom emerged from the car, carrying his jacket over his arm. His shirt looked yellow in the street-lamp. He waved at the two women, then hesitated. Liz closed her door, scooped Jim up from the mat on the floor and carried him upstairs. She lay on the bed beside him.

‘Wake and sleep at the same times,' she murmured. ‘Even eat the same things, more or less: porridge, milkshakes, soup. Only do things you can't do when absolutely necessary for self-preservation.' She practised matching her breath to his. Even so, while his mind might not be as blank as it seemed, hers was crammed with half thoughts and longings . . . How the television would come on a stand that could be wheeled about; how it would fill the room with pictures, playing their shadows over the walls and touching their faces as they watched. With the gas fire on full they'd sprawl naked on the cushions, for days on end, feasting like the emperors of Rome while they were entertained, seeing and hearing the same things at once. Perhaps one day they would get a satellite dish.

‘Tonight,' she announced an hour or so later when the light switch next door clicked on, ‘little do they know they are in a time warp and that whatever they do in the next few hours they will have to go on doing for the next three thousand years . . . She is wearing a negligee made out of the Other Woman's skin. He's been making it for her secretly these past weeks—that's why he's been late home—in order to prove his love.'

But more likely Alice was wearing the set of slate silk underwear trimmed with cream lace—‘Must have cost at least fifty pounds'—which she'd told Liz that Tom had given her to make up for a row. She groaned as he eased the garments off. To do this, she had to undo a huge knot inside her by imagining, hard, that it was the first time they'd ever done such a thing, and that she had a body more magnificent than her own, such as no man could resist, much less consider deserting. And so did Tom, for he too had knots inside—not thick and ropy like hers, but a fine network of small ones pulled very tight. So they both closed their eyes and made their heads into cinemas, running, despite it all, more or less the same film from almost the same point of view.

‘I love you,' Tom muttered.

‘But,' Liz, listening hard, whispered to Jim, ‘that's just
words.'

Alice had once read in a magazine that it was common for people to have fantasies while making love. Women, it said, imagined themselves naked on the top of pillars or in the middle of restaurants or being raped or with several people at once or with total strangers or in ancient Egypt—there was nothing wrong with it, the article said, at all—in fact it was a jolly good thing, and perhaps people who didn't, it said, should be worried, because they were boring and inhibited. So Alice thrust her imaginary body towards Tom's; she decided to make him so desperate for her that he'd lock her in the house—she thrust faster and faster until suddenly she thought: perhaps he is pretending too. Perhaps he is pretending that I am
her.
She froze and opened her eyes. Tom's face was furrowed. His tongue poked between his lips as it always did at this point. He grunted, thrust deep—and coldly, utterly herself, Alice squeezed him tight, fitting with his rhythm. She judged the moment, tensed, threw back her head and groaned.

Jim twitched and turned his head slightly in the direction of the sound.

‘Don't worry,' said Liz, moving onto her side to whisper into his ear. ‘It's very easy to avoid sexual intercourse . . .

‘Which is another Lining really,' she reassured him. ‘You'll never get all tangled up about it. You'll avoid being in a state like they are. She doesn't enjoy it, but she doesn't want him to do it with anyone else. Sexual intercourse can be almost as bad as talking. . .

‘Do they have it in the Zone?' she wondered. ‘I bet not. Not as such. Maybe it's the same as talking? Something in it somewhere, but lost?'

Suddenly she laughed, forgetting completely to be quiet. And in 125 Frank Styne, snatched from the edge of sleep by the ghost of the sound, buried his face in his pillow, fully awake. The place where he'd cut himself shaving burned and seeped into the linen. He clenched his fists in rage. He had never in his whole life felt so angry. And then, suddenly, the way a cat appears in a room, the idea was there.

Downstairs, he equipped himself with a glass of water and the magazine. He returned to bed and found the page he had been looking at before. ‘This common problem,' the advertisement said, ‘can be solved by simple surgical techniques at our modern and luxurious clinic in London's Harley Street. Why suffer when there is a solution? Top consultants, well-trained and sensitive staff, reasonable fees.' And next to it was the picture. Frank reached for his notepad.

Washing Line,
he wrote. Washing line was purchasable at any hardware store, and with it he would truss Katie Rumbold naked, faceless, like a chicken. Then he would find out if a monster could really make a woman say please—though that was incidental.

Clinic,
he wrote. Frank Styne would have sexual intercourse. It would involve surgery, and money, but why not, if it worked? And afterwards, when he'd ejaculated inside her—maybe made her, even temporarily, pregnant—he would be in control of what happened to him and he would avoid the shame of having had to use such extraordinary means.

Pills,
he wrote. After the sexual intercourse he would take them, and leave her there, conscious, tied up, as he slowly became his own corpse. He would make sure that she knew exactly what she had done to him and why he had done what he'd done to her. Afterwards, someone might find her in time. Or they might not.

The plan was conditional. It hinged on the verdict of the Hanslett judges. The effort of preparing for it might be wasted should he not win, but the project would in any case occupy the non-writing time between now and the judgement, so enabling him to continue unaffected. The element of chance was no bad thing. It would give him a personal interest in the whole business. He had made himself into a character and it was a plot worthy of a Cougar book, to be lived out instead of written. Or, at least, not written by him.

‘Sex with other people,' Liz whispered to Jim, whom she could tell was awake even though his eyes were shut. ‘It's what Grammy used to call a tie that binds.' There was silence on Alice and Tom's side of the wall, though that didn't mean that someone wasn't awake, staring at the darkness. Outside, in the distance, a siren wailed. Jim coughed. She touched his face, brushing it clear of the fine hair that she was reluctant to cut, wiped his upper lip with the sheet; there was a small blister on it, in the middle. She turned on her side.

‘You can do it yourself,' she whispered, slipping her hand inside the briefs she had made a point of wearing in bed since the phone-man called. ‘You can do it anytime you want, in a minute or so, there's no need to make such a fuss. See,' she said, feeling herself open. ‘Easy—very easy—nothing to it.' She hadn't done it for a while, and the sensation was absorbing. She fingered her breast with the other hand: Henry Kay used to do that, but she didn't think of him, or of anything at all. She grew wetter. The sound of it was like Jim's sucking. Sweat broke out on her back and legs.

Where was the harm, in the case of a child that won't think or speak or understand? One who quite possibly erased one impression with the next, beginning always afresh? It was different. She and Jim could do exactly as they pleased, so long as they hid well enough. Perhaps, she thought sleepily, being endowed with little in the way of brain, Jim's true vocation would be as a lover. Every cell sensitised, every nerve a taut thread singing like the strings of silver violins; people would envy him if only they knew.

True, you could do it on your own, but it did feel better to have someone else in there at the end. She pushed her finger inside.

‘Sleeping through it, are you?' she whispered. The necessary, she thought, is what I make it. When he's grown, why not? I could. It's possible. There would be no complications. Something shared without language, without a trolleyfull of
emotional equipment.
On his part, nothing learned. ‘It'd be different from the way it is between ordinary people. Perhaps it'd be a way to the Zone, if I haven't already made it by then . . . You have to do it with a Zone-being, but of course they hide often in the bodies of people you wouldn't think to do it with . . . like relatives. That's part of it, see, to take the risk.' Of course, she thought, Purvis would disapprove.

Getting TV

‘We have thousands of satisfied customers every year,' said the receptionist at the Davidson Clinic. He had a very even voice with just a trace of cockney in it. ‘It really is a very simple and safe procedure. It causes less disturbance than having a tooth out. Dr Davidson is known internationally for his work in the field. He was on television a couple of months ago . . .' Frank would have to wait a little for the initial consultation, but after that it would be very quick. ‘Please let us know if you wish to cancel, because we receive many enquiries every day.'

Frank wrote the appointment and the clinic's address in his diary. Then he cut the photograph of the trussed woman from the magazine. He considered it: the
labia majora
parted, the cushion of crimson flesh folding in on itself, there. He fixed it with Blu Tack to the wall next to the telephone, which rang again as he did so: ‘Zelda here from Cougar publicity. Please get in touch urgently.'

There was only one call he intended to make. It was only fair to give Katie Rumbold a chance, and a warning, even though now he more than half wanted her to ignore it.

‘Hi!' He sat quite calmly in his grey leather sofa and looked at the picture as she spoke. It was as impossible to imagine her walking around with one of those between her legs as it was to imagine himself growing hard and slipping inside one, but then, the whole point of the exercise was in the end to make the unimaginable real, or the other way round. The procedure, as the clinic receptionist had reassured him, was very simple.

‘Lovely to hear from you, John,' she said. ‘And, of course, congratulations on the shortlist! Actually, I've been trying to get you—more good news: they're going to cover the judging ceremony on BBC, and . . .'

‘I want to clear something up,' Frank interrupted. His voice was controlled, almost a monotone. ‘I think I should've been asked whether I wanted to be entered for this prize or not,' there was a tinkle of laughter at the other end, ‘because if I had been asked, I'd've most definitely said no.'

‘John—I thought I made it clear. You weren't entered. Frankly, no one would'd've thought you stood a chance. Your book was
requested
—'

‘I still should've been asked. I want it withdrawn.'

‘Please calm down, John.'

‘I am calm.'

‘The point is, there's no other writer on
earth—'

‘I don't care about that.'

‘And as far as Cougar are concerned, I think they'd be perfectly within their rights, in any case, to override—'

‘Listen. I'm telling you this: if I win that thing, I'll never write another book. And you will be sorry. Very sorry.'

‘What on earth do you mean?' Frank reached for the remote control of his sound system where a silver disc spun silently, nudged it until the music became audible. Brandenburg, not that she'd know.

Then he said, ‘Exactly what I say.' The ‘c' and the ‘t' snipped precisely at the air. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

‘I'm sure you'll feel differently when it actually happens. I know you will.'

‘I thought I should
warn
you, Katie.' He hung up.

The answering machine whirred into action again. ‘John—what has got into you—' He turned the volume of the music up.

It had gone well. Very well. It could easily have gone wrong. It could have backfired completely. ‘Katie, I—' he could have begun, his voice thin, his hands sticky with sweat, and then a flap of skin in his throat could have turned an audible somersault. ‘I—ah—'

‘John?' His face twisting like burning plastic, nothing but a terrible clicking sound from his mouth, however hard he formed the proper shapes with his lips. Gripping the handset . . . And all he could do would be to nod and gasp . . . It could have gone like that, but it hadn't. Already his plan was giving him strength.

He moved to the window and drew the blind, which was the same silver-grey as the upholstery. It was raining, and people passing the window were hunched, their faces screwed tight. He was glad to be inside.

He stretched himself along the sofa with his ankles crossed. His belly rose up in front of him, heaving with the effort. He sighed, closed his eyes and gave himself to the music. At first his hand beat time gently beside his thigh, but it soon fell still. This is how it'll be, he thought; afterwards, when I've done it,
if 
. . . It felt as if the music were stripping him bare. It was a gentle caustic, that had dissolved his oatmeal crew-necked sweater, the jeans that cut him around the middle, his yellow T-shirt, blue-and-white striped underpants, the oatmeal socks that matched his sweater . . . Now it began very softly to devour his skin; it ached, but it didn't hurt—far from it. The music just wanted to get close. It had no eyes, no squeamishness. It revealed him and covered him with a kind of benign indifference. He lay very still so that it could touch him and enter him how it wanted. He felt very vulnerable and very safe. He had not known a lover's touch, but he was quite sure, now, that nothing could ever be as tender as this. See how I shine, he thought, how I glisten, how my pulses throb in time and in tune—he uncrossed his ankles—this perfect rawness, as the music washes me all away . . .

He heaved himself upright and rubbed his hands over his face. He examined his front room, where it would all take place: the judgement on television, the sexual intercourse, the death—adding up to revenge, and also the exact fitting completion of all that had gone before, the proper end to a story such as his.
If.

Here, she would be seated on the sofa, and he could reach down from behind, the washing line already cut into short and convenient lengths . . .

‘Hello, John, this is Katie again. I am trying to set up a meeting with Azure Books to discuss a new edition of
To the Slaughter.
And money, of course! Wednesday or Friday? Call me back please.'

Perhaps it would be easier to acquire a weapon of some kind and threaten her so that she allowed him to do it without a struggle?

‘Hello, Mr Styne. Susan Gilcrest from the
New Review.
I'd love to interview you about your work. Please call me back.'

He enjoyed the thought of it happening there, in this room, with its pale grey walls, the darker grey chairs, and the muted red of the woodwork. He was proud of the room—the way the rug picked the colours up and played with them; the way light fell in pools and the way the rubber plant by the window thrived. He liked the way it was clean, but soft; that the things in it were beautiful without being antique. He felt calm. The telephone was doing overtime, but the documentary crew had gone away.

‘I sent the form,' said Liz to the Bettahire man, ‘but I haven't heard.' He wrote her name in a random mixture of capital and lower-case letters, mouthing them as he did so: Mrs M-e-r-e-d-i-t-h. He bent awkwardly to reach the counter, being very tall as well as thin. There was a finger-wide gap between his collar and his neck. A badge with ANDREW MYERS printed on it—the letters large and raised, as if it were to be read by touch—was pinned to his lapel.

Perhaps, Liz thought good-humouredly at Jim, he has a huge brain and understands all the printed circuits and things inside televisions. Perhaps he's come from a planet where this stuff's Stone Age compared to other things they've invented. (Like perhaps they've got mental television where the station transmits some way, but the receiving equipment's the mind, its natural capacities refined and trained. You just go on a course and then it's yours forever—but then, how would you turn it off?) And once upon a time these aliens made far too many ordinary television sets, and they've come here to flog them all off on Earth. Perhaps Andrew Myers was an alien . . . But more likely he was on some kind of stupid back-to-work scheme.

‘I'll see if I can find the application,' he said. Liz grinned. It was possible that Jim understood what she thought at him. It was possible, in that it could never be disproved.

‘Come on then,' she said aloud. ‘Let's have a look at it.'

Andrew Myers' smile seemed too big for his face as he nodded in Jim's direction—and that's because he's
learned
how to do it, see? So as to get on with the people on Earth and establish a good business relationship. But where he comes from, of course, they don't smile to be friendly; they stick their tongues out (which are white), or fart, or something like that . . .

‘Lost to the world,' Andrew Myers said and blushed.

The carpet in the shop was very soft; the air tingled with static and sung in a high-pitched hum. ‘Like the sound bats make,' Liz whispered, ‘so they can avoid things. Or find them. Where's ours?' All around, colour screens large and small showed people mouthing words, their flesh tints varying from sepia to salmon according to the set, their backgrounds waterlogged green, lemony yellow, studio red. There were cowboys, lovers, a cookery demonstration, a man walking around a cathedral, a busload of children on a school trip. Liz wandered from screen to screen, testing the controls. There was no doubt that the one she'd picked was the best: the colours looked just a little brighter than life, and its enormous screen was a huge window to another world. On top, a cardboard sign announced that one year's TV licence came free with the set. She turned up the sound and crouched down in front of it.

‘Look,' she said to Jim, her lips brushing his ear. She wished the lights in the shop were dimmer, but still . . . The cowboy film was reaching a climax. At such low volume the whine of the shootout sounded strangely benign. She noticed suddenly that she was feeling a warm, melting kind of happiness.

It seemed to her that the most intimate thing that could be was to sit together with someone while the same pictures and words poured through four eyes and four ears into two previously separate minds; like sharing blood from the same heart, like being Siamese twins. She'd done it with Grammy, and a little with Henry Kay, and now she and Jim would share the biggest set available. It would stand in the front room, and they'd set the cushions in a heap before it; hour after hour, year after year, they'd watch together. There was talking but it didn't matter because they weren't talking to you. And if it broke down Bettahire would exchange or fix it, guaranteed . . . She stroked Jim's head, glanced at his face: he
was
watching too, as a troupe of riders swooped triumphant down the side of a hill, dust flying in the desert air, their horses snickering and rolling their eyes.

‘Mrs Meredith?' She looked up at the alien and smiled. ‘Please come to the desk.' He smoothed a form flat. ‘This is a bit awkward. I'm afraid we can't hire you a set,' he said.

‘Why?'

‘I can't really say: it's not in my hands.' He raised them briefly, puppet-like, as if to prove what he'd said, and the cuffs of his shirt slipped down his wrists. ‘But if you look at the application . . .' He turned it the right way up for her to read. ‘You've chosen our most expensive model. At the same time—you see—' He pointed at the boxes with his pen, one by one, leaving a red dot by the side of each. Bank account: no. Credit card: no. Employment: none. House owner: no. Income: less than five thousand per annum. Previous address: none. Method of payment: cash, weekly. ‘From our point of view . . . For instance, if you'd remained at your previous address for over a year—'

‘I can afford it. I don't spend much on anything else. And I did,' said Liz. ‘I did live at the same place for two years.' The shop seemed suddenly very hot. The whine of the television sets grew louder; it was a microscopic drill, boring slow but sure through the membranes that made ears into drums.

‘Well, that might make a difference, and it might help if you applied for a
smaller
set.' He gestured at a row of them. ‘They're less than half the rental and less than half the risk for us. Write a personal letter to the manager, explaining the circumstances.'

‘Can't I see the manager now?'

Someone waiting behind Liz sighed irritably. Andrew Myers shrugged, indicating with the movement of his eyes that the gesture was supposed to appease both of them.

‘Writing would be best.'

‘Come on,' Liz said. The words were intended for Jim, but she was still looking at Andrew Myers. ‘Risk? What do they think I'm going to do with it? Leave the country? Piss on it?' Her voice, habitually a mumble, grew loud and hard, shocked her. She had no control over it. The words forced themselves out like bullets. And a slow whimper rose from Jim, whose face was turned inwards and down so that she could see only the top of his head. He held his pitch for a while, then let it tail slowly and erratically down the scale. It had a hopeless persistence about it that seemed almost inhuman.

With a new breath he began again—seeking the lost sound, overshooting it, finding it briefly, then running out of breath again. Like a siren going wrong; as if the batteries powering it were dying spasmodically, cutting out, flaring up. It was her fault for losing control of her words.

Halfway to the door Liz stopped. She rocked Jim and pushed the damp hair from his face. His eyes glittered. He was still crying, but fainter now. ‘There's no reason why we shouldn't stay a bit,' she thought, ‘if you want.' She turned back.

The programmes had changed. There was a general knowledge quiz for schoolchildren. All six of them, Liz noted through the distraction of her misery, were wearing glasses and ties.

‘Stupid parrots,' she said, still too loudly. A man was digging a hole in the middle of a lawn. Other men were playing rugby. The pictures seemed suddenly grainy and unrealistic. ‘These are crap,' she muttered, striding past them. ‘People are crap. I hate everyone. Except for you.'