Jammy Dodger (12 page)

Most days would find at least two of the residents semi-deranged on ill-advised combinations of banned substances as the commune drank, smoked, popped and snorted its way towards a vision of the infinite. To be fair though, artistic experimentation was much in evidence: on the obvious spaces, of course – floors, walls and ceilings – but also on more unlikely surfaces such as the television screen, on which had been painted a convincing approximation of Munch's
The Scream
, and the lavatory bowl in the first-floor bathroom which had been transformed with ceramic pigments and cunning use of perspective into the ravenously open mouth of Margaret Thatcher. The ‘happening', as advertised by Mick the Artist, was simply the final drive by the house-mates to fill any unused ‘canvas' with their genius, and to this end they were busy perpetrating ‘live art' throughout the building.

It was already past pub closing time when I arrived with Rosie and her friend (a pleasant but withdrawn pharmacist who was drinking a lot without showing it and whose name I didn't catch because she mumbled). Several genres of music were pulsing through the foundations, most immediately Prince's
U Got The Look
from the first doorway we passed. Inside the room what seemed like two or three hundred people were dancing, their movements accelerated to insane speed every few seconds by bursts of stroboscopic light. We pushed on towards the kitchen. In the next chamber, The Pogues'
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
was careering out of the sound system and a number of amorous refugees from the Prince room were arrayed around the furniture.

Once through to the back of the house I managed to fish some bottles of beer out of a bathtub full of ice and the three of us huddled at the side of the fridge. Despite the presence of Mumbles I was making good progress with Rosie, who seemed delighted to be out for the evening and had so far appeared to find most of my jokes amusing.

After Betjeman's we had moved on to a packed Kavanagh's where a folk-rock band called Puckoon performed right beside us, forcing Rosie and I to put our lips almost directly to each other's ears to make ourselves heard. During this strangely erotic parody of kissing I contrived to brush my mouth against the side of hers several times and to bury my nose repeatedly in her hair, which smelled of coconut oil and tobacco. (
Quand je mordille tes cheveux élastiques et rebelles, il me semble que je mange des souvenirs.
) The ease I felt in her company encouraged me to believe that real kissing was only a matter of time.

The kitchen, free of a music source, was fully abuzz with urgent, inebriated chatter, and skeins of smoke were making the air seem three-dimensional. We were discussing with some other guests the merits of
Magnum, P.I
. over
Remington Steele
and arguing about whether there was actually a TV detective called
The Liquidiser
when we were interrupted by one of the artists thrusting his head in through the open window above the sink. His hair had been soaped up into cockatrice-style spikes and he was wearing eye liner. He regarded the assembled drinkers as though he had just discovered us under a rock. We, in turn, stared back at him.

‘I am The Walrus,' he announced, and at that moment I knew it was going to be a long night.

‘I'm going to see if I can find any food,' I informed the girls. (Counter-intuitively, the kitchen had failed to yield anything edible; not even the fridge, whose contents, while almost certainly organic, were not immediately identifiable as being of earthly origin.)

‘Bring some back,' Rosie commanded.

The next floor was just as thickly populated, with most of the landing taken up by party-goers waiting in line to defile the prime minister. I opened a door to a bedroom and shut it again instantly, startled by a volley of angry shouts from low down in the darkness. In the next room, a large group of people were slumped on sofas or sitting around cross-legged while slow-moving, fantastically coloured shapes were projected around the walls and ceiling to the sounds of Brian Eno's
Apollo
. No sign of snacks.

As access to the largest room, the one I felt held the most promise comestible-wise, was temporarily blocked by two artists crashing a set of stepladders through the doorway, I progressed to the next level. Here, the atmosphere was altogether more rarefied; quieter, less frenetic, fewer people. The artwork, however, was more obsessively executed than down below, the entire stairwell being covered in swirling tempera, mixing Renaissance-style scenes of hellish torment and spiritual ecstasy with portraits of popstars and politicians, interweaving depictions of nymph-draped idylls with friezes of bombed-out cities and their scurrying, blighted citizens. It was impressive, if only in terms of the time and labour that had gone into it, but I couldn't see Sanderson adding it to their wallpaper range any time soon.

The first door I tried revealed a bathroom, complete with a bath-full of rubber snakes; the second a tiny room occupied, more or less entirely, by a double bed in which a lavender-haired lady of advanced years was sitting up with the covers drawn about her, sipping something from a white mug. Curiosity got the better of me.

‘Who are you?' I enquired.

‘I'm the landlady,' she replied. ‘Who are you?'

I moved on.

A sign over the architrave at the entrance to the master bedroom warned visitors to
Abandon all hope
… This, I guessed, was Devine's room. As I turned to make my descent the door opened and Mick the Artist appeared, wearing a horrid fawn kaftan.

‘Conville, you made it,' he said, clutching at my sleeve. ‘Good man. Come and say hello to Johnny.'

The room, which ran the full width of the house, was illuminated by a dozen candles and a large lava lamp, the impression of smoky gloom intensified by light-absorbing tapestries and dark daubings on most of the walls. Human figures were sprawled around in various stages of toxicity. The opening chords of a Talking Heads' song I recognised as
Psycho Killer
were emanating from a speaker somewhere. Marty Pollocks was lying under a rug on a chaise longue beside the window, staring stark-eyed at the ceiling. ‘My life in front of me … My life in front of me …' he moaned as I passed.

Devine, dark, muscular, naked except for a pair of crimson Speedos, was propped against a leather beanbag beside the fireplace, presiding over a water pipe of alarming size and complexity. Two companions lay unconscious on the floor nearby.

‘Johnny, Conville's here to say hello,' Mick told him.

‘Who?'

‘Conville? From
Lyre
?'

Aromatic fumes drifted from his ears.

‘My
lawyer's
here to see me?'

‘No Johnny. Look, it's Artie. From the literature magazine. You remember.'

He looked up. All the circuits in his eyes had blown. He resembled a spent bloodhound being roused for a final push down the trail.

‘Hi Johnny.' I held my open hand up and kept it there until I thought I detected a pulse of recognition. He patted the air in front of him, inviting me to sit.

‘Dawamesk?'

‘Pardon?'

He proffered one of the hookah's tentacles.

‘I'm fine thanks, I – '

He wagged the mouthpiece at me.

‘Well, okay, but I'm trying to …' The smoke went down more smoothly than expected. I exhaled without coughing. Mick receded.

‘Dawamesk?' Johnny repeated.

‘Pardon?'

He gestured to a tray of what looked like Turkish Delight beside him, small, sugar-dusted cubes of some kind of paste in varying hues of coffee and caramel. I took one. It was sweet and almondy, with the texture of gritty fudge. I put a few in my pocket for later.

Devine cleared his throat as though about to speak, and then didn't. I waited. He seemed quite comfortable for us to sit without talking. Fair enough. I listened to the ambient hum of the room: mumble of voices, clink of glass, grumble of bass guitar. The remains of a fire ticked and sighed in the grate. My eyelids felt slightly swollen.

He held out the smoke-tube again and the pipe made its subterranean bubbling sound. He shifted on his haunches so he was facing me square-on. He had, I noticed, surprisingly hairy legs, given the smoothness of his upper body.

‘So you're a lawyer.'

Christ, he was out of it.

‘Far from it. I edit a poetry magazine,' I enunciated. ‘We had some of your pictures in our last issue.'

Devine was nodding his head and smiling.

‘Poetry magazine.' The concept was amusing to him. I watched for a while as his skull attempted to untangle a myriad of thought processes. To stave off boredom I had another go on the pipe and this time a mischievous genie entered my body and began in business-like fashion to tinker with my fine tuning. (What did Baudelaire say?
Wine exalts the will; hashish annihilates it.)

‘How is poetry?' he asked at last.

Right. Yep. You said it Johnny boy. How
was
poetry? Picture of health? A bit peaky? On life support? I suddenly had no idea whatsoever. Why don't we try
why
was poetry?

‘It's a bit slow at the moment, Johnny. To be honest. The good stuff anyway.'

Was it just my imagination or was Devine wearing a wig? His hair seemed to be moving. In fact, was it moving to the beat? Surely the smoke wasn't
that
strong?

‘Make it faster.' He touched his hair and it appeared to stop.

‘Pardon?'

He massaged his jaw.

‘Seize the carp.'

‘Right. Yes.' A fishing metaphor. Excellent …

Devine was definitely off his head. And then it occurred to me:
hang on, maybe he's right.
Is he saying that I,
me
, have got to get into the river? Myself? I think he is. He's saying I've got to get my waders on and get off this dry bank and into the water. And get wet. Get the fish myself. (I registered another change of background music. Jazz. Horace Silver.) That's what he means! Why am I sorting other people's fish? I could pluck my own from the flux. (
Somewhere a god waits, rod in hand, to add you to their number …
) Carp, perch, trout, salmon. The Salmon of Knowledge. (One taste and the scales fall from your eyes?) Why be confined to the river though? Why not push beyond fresh water … out into the salty … open sea.
By a high star our course is set
 …

I had a sudden vision of zig-zagging clouds of silver fish seen from below, a sky of aquamarine light above them, a fat, writhing net hauled from the seething swell onto a drenched deck. A memory came back to me of fishing with my grandfather in a rowing boat, with hooks and twine and a toy bucket, looking back at the blurred blue, pink and yellow watermarks of a northern seaside town in the rain. How the herrings, when they came aboard, went frantic trying to swim in air. The smell of brine and seaweed. The gull's cry, piercing the years.
By a high star
… Starfish. Sea stars. Asteroidea … Pisces. (My birth sign.) Twin fish. The heavenly twins. The constellation of Gemini, Castor and Pollux (protectors of shipwrecked sailors) its brightest stars. The whitefish pollock. (‘My life in front of me,' Pollocks lowed at that moment from back down the room, as though from the depths of a dream.) He's saying ‘take control'. He's right. He's saying … Actually, what
was
he saying?

‘I want my money.'

‘You what?'

‘Pay. You pay. Me.'

Bugger. He'd remembered.

‘No problem Johnny. S'in the post, should be here any day.'

‘Pay.'

‘What …
now
?' I made perfunctory pocket patting motions. ‘I'm afraid I …'

The subject of cash was making me nervous and Devine was beginning to look menacing.

‘Now. Very now.'

‘Johnny, there are no shops open, why don't I drop it round next – '

‘You want me to call my lawyer?'

Call his lawyer? Devine had a
lawyer?
This was confusing.

‘But Johnny,' I parried. ‘
I'm
your lawyer.' (I was pretty sure I wasn't, but then again, I couldn't think of any immediate reason why I shouldn't be.)

This stopped him in his tracks.

He gazed wonderingly at me while he nibbled a cube of drug-fudge. He was all at sea. I adopted a lawyerly expression, a challenging mixture of fond avuncularity and cold self-assurance. It succeeded. Whichever islet of reality he was trying to reach, he wasn't going to make it.

‘Well, okay then,' he said finally. ‘You take care of it.'

‘Leave it with me,' I assured him.

I
would
take care of it. I would carry out my jurisprudent duty. Unleash the power of the law. Its pound-per-square-inch force. I would make me pay.

‘We work in the dark,' Devine said abruptly, his chin jerking upwards.

We were off again. Who? Who worked in the dark? The artists? It
was
pretty dark in here.

I nodded sympathetically.

‘Yeah,' he continued. ‘We do what we can.' His eyes were actually spiralling, like that snake in the film of
The Jungle Book
.

‘Right.' Do what you can for who? Was someone dying? The old lady?

He muttered something I couldn't make out. Something about passion? Or
fishing
?

‘What was that Johnny?'

‘The rest,' he said, leaning forward to reignite the blackened lumps of space rock in his pipebowl. ‘Is – ' His angular, unlined features were lit up by match flare. ‘The madness … of art …'

He slumped back against his beanbag, exhaling as he did so, the longest plume of smoke I had ever seen emerge from a human being.

I guessed that was about it from Johnny. The final turn of the screw. I climbed to my feet (a surprising distance).

‘Listen, I'll catch you later, yeah? Thanks for … everything,' I said, and began picking my way among the casualties. I looked back. In the half-light Devine had fused with his gorgon-haired water pipe.