London Fields (50 page)

'You sort of fainted,' she said again. 'Oh, I see I've made another mess of things.'

'No no — it was heavenly.'

As she was showing him out, or, rather, helping him to the stairs (he had an eczema seminar to attend), she held him back and said,

'You know, you needn't have stopped. I was prepared — for your swoon to death,' she quoted prettily, though she thought she had timed it beautifully — that tiny reminder of her teeth. 'I mean the other swoon. In fact I was longing for you to fill my mouth. Because I'm prepared for everything now. I want you to make me,' she said, and gave him the Grand-A-Night Hooker. 'There's only one thing you'll have to do first.'

Guy wiped his dripping chin and said, 'What's that? Leave my wife?'

She started back. How could he be so wide of the mark? How could you! Guy had begun to apologize for his flippancy when she said,

'Oh no. I don't want you to leave her. What kind of person do you think I am?' And this was asked, not in reproach, but in a spirit of pure inquiry. 'I don't want you to leave her. I just want you to tell her.'

In the bedroom Keith was taking the liberty of savouring a well-earned cigarette. Technically, smoking was banned in the bedroom, although Nicola, a heavy smoker, smoked heavily in the bedroom all the time. Now she stood leaning on the door frame with her arms folded.

'Smoking-jacket innit.'

She gave him a slow appraisal, one of fascinated, inch-by-inch detestation, from the feet (red-soled and faintly quivering) to the face, which looked ruminative, grand, prime-ministerial.

'That smoking-jacket looks great on you, Keith. And you look great in
it
.'

'Yeah cheers.'

'I do hope you're not going to be spooked by this TV business,' she said, and watched his face instantly collapse. Keith's tongue now seemed to be trying to sort things out inside his mouth. 'Isn't this what you've worked for? What we've worked for? Well, Keith?'

'Invasion of privacy like.'

'Or darts stardom . . . TV isn't true, Keith, as you've just seen. Or not necessarily so. Darling, you must put all this out of your mind and leave everything to me. Let me translate you. I'll not fail you, Keith. You know that.'

'I appreciate it.'

'I've made a new video for you. But in a sense you've already seen one. And I can tell by the mischievous expression on your face that you — that you did it already.'

'Yeah,' said Keith perplexedly, averting his eyes. 'I did it already.'

Keith came down the passage and out through the front door whistling 'Welcome to My World'. As he passed he happened to glance at her name on the bell. 6:
SIX.
Six. 6! thought Keith. Double 3! . . . Nasty, that. Worst double on the board. Never go near it less you've fucked double 12 and then come inside on double 6. Murder. 3's the double all the darters dread. Right down the bottom like that, at six o'clock, you're sort of
dropping
it in. And if you come inside it's 1, double 1. Pressure darts. Old Nick. Double 3. 6. 6. 6. Nasty, that. Very nasty. Ooh wicked . . .

An old woman with hair like coconut fibre limped past whipping herself with a home-made switch. For a moment Keith stood there listening to or at any rate hearing the cries of the city, like the cries of dogs or babies, answering, pre-verbal, the inheritors of the millennium, awaiting their inheritance.

In tortoiseshell spectacles and grey silk dressing-gown Guy knelt poised over the Novac, his long back curved in a perfect semicircle, like a protractor, his curious nose inches from the board (this difficult position seemed to ease his nether pain, his tubed heart, which hurt a lot all the time): six moves in and he was only one pawn down, and half-expecting to survive into what used to be called the middle game. He wanted to survive as long as possible, because when he lost he would have to go to Hope with the truth.

Every few minutes without turning round Guy would take a wrapped toy from the straw tub and toss it back over his shoulder to Marmaduke. Thus, before he could wreck it, Marmaduke first had to unwrap it, and this took him a little while. Guy could hear his snarled breathing and the tear of paper; then the grunts of effort as the toy began to snap and give.

One of the troubles was that chess was over, chess was dead. The World Champion would now have no chance against Guy's Novac, which cost £145. As a human construct chess had challenged computers for a creditable period; but not any more. Once a useful sparring partner, chess now jumped off the stool, snorting and ducking in its trunks, and was explosively decked in the very first round. Games
between
the computers were unfollowably oblique and long-armed, a knight's jump away from human understanding, with all the pieces continually realigning on the first rank (as if there were an infinity of previous ranks, the minus one, the minus two, the minus nth rank), invariably drawing through elaborate move-repetition after many days, with hardly a piece being captured. When programmed for win-only the computers played like suicides . . . Guy's nose twitched as he saw that one of Novac's bishops was unprotected. This wasn't unusual: it was always lobbing minor pieces at him, and even the computer Queen was regularly
en prise.
He could capture, but then what? He captured. Novac replied sharply.

'Yes. Brilliant,' Guy whispered.

Four moves later (how pitiless the silicon was) he stared blinking at his wedged king. At that moment Marmaduke, who must have held his breath as he approached, sank his teeth into the Achilles tendon of Guy's right heel. And by the time his wits returned the child had forced the busby end of a toy guardsman down his own throat and was turning an ominous colour as he fell backwards on to a bulky personnel-carrier. Luckily Petra was near by, as well as Hjordis, and together they were able (Marie-Claire was also at hand) to straighten things out with Paquita's help and the ever-calming presence of Melba and Phoenix.

Guy showered, and swabbed and dressed his heel. Later, in the kitchen, he inspected the guarantees on the lamb cutlets — the staggered dates, the fine print — and readied them for the grill. 'It must be true, all that,' he said to the room in general, 'you know, about food and love. Have you come across the idea?' He waited, with his back turned. 'When food gets too far from love . . .The preparation of food has to do with love. Mother's milk. And when food gets too far from love there's a breakdown, like a breakdown in communication. And we all get sick. When it gets too far from love.' He looked over his shoulder. The sisters were listening, Lizzyboo with full attention (she had even stopped eating), Hope with patient suspicion. As Guy addressed himself to the cooker he felt his wife's eyes busying themselves on the breadth of his back, on his hair, on the very prickles of his neck. How strong were their scrutiny and grip ? What held them? With a few bags of pitta bread and an institutional tub of taramasalata, Lizzyboo repaired to her room. Now was the time: the time was now. Guy felt powers move in him but his face, with its rinsed blue eyes, looked especially weak — the weakness that was inevitable in him, the weakness he weakly cleaved to. How beautiful the truth is, he was thinking. Because it never goes away. Because it's always there, just the same, whatever you try to do to it. Hope was talking to him intermittently about various chores he hadn't done (domestic, social, fiscal); during her next breather he said intelligently, with his back aimed at her,

'I've got something to say.' And already he was on the other side. 'It'll sound more dramatic than it really is, I expect. I think you've got something to say too.' Here he turned. Here, of course, he was about to introduce the gravamen that Nicola herself had recently stressed: the fact that Hope had, 'rather sordidly', taken a lover in Dink. But one look at the solar hatred in Hope's eyes and Guy thought: poor Dink! He's gone — he was never here. He's been unpersoned. He isn't even history. 'I mean, for quite a long time it seems to me there's been a need to . . . redefine our . . . All I'm proposing really is an adjustment. And I do think it's important, very important, vital, really, to be as honest as one can be. And I don't see why we can't just work this out like two reasonable human beings. With the minimum of disruptions all round. There's someone else.'

Guy experienced a certain amount of difficulty, as he checked into the hotel on the Bayswater Road. It was the fifth hotel he had tried. Although the injuries to his face would turn out to be mainly superficial, he must have cut an unreassuring (and unprosperous) figure at the reception desk, with his fat lip, swelling eye, and the dramatic lateral gash across his forehead. Then, too, the top five buttons of his steaming, rain-soaked shirt were missing; and all he had in the way of luggage was a plastic bag with a bit of wet Y-front hanging over the brim of it. But finally his osmium credit card prevailed.

In his room he cleaned himself up and called Nicola. There was no answer. He unpacked his belongings — two shirts and the few undergarments he had managed to pick up off the front lawn — and tried again. No answer: not even her disembodied voice, on the soft machine. He went out and plunged through the cabless streets, through the diagonal arrowshowers of reeking rain, through the desperate maelstroms of Queensway and Westbourne Grove: the inspired hordes of the poor. He splashed his way up the dead-end street and climbed her porch and rang her bell and then leaned on it. There was no answer. In the bright heat of the Black Cross he drank brandy, and talked to Dean and Fucker, who informed him that Keith was on the town up west with his sugarmummy, a dark bitch called Nick who gave him cash gifts and who, moreover to recommend her, could suck a lawnmower through thirty feet of garden hose. Guy heard them out with heavily rattled scepticism, and returned to her door, where he remained for the next two hours.

. . . On his way back to the hotel he went past Lansdowne Crescent. It seemed to him that the house, his house, was already unbearably lit, from within, like a house of death, a house where a child had chillingly died. On the other hand he found two drenched pairs of socks in the rosebed, and all his silk ties. He stopped in Queensway and purchased toiletries at the all-night chemist. Again he had some pleading to do at the reception desk before they delivered up his key. He called her, and went on calling, in between trips to the minibar. No answer. And there's nothing to be done when people can't be reached. When there is no answer, no answer.

Bright and early next morning (you got to be quick) Keith stood flapping his arms on the stone stairway to Windsor House.

Jesus, talk about a night out: dinner at the Pink Tuxedo, drinks in the Hilton, the special club with the models up on the ramp, and then back to her place for a couple of videos, to round the evening off. Keith spared a bitter thought for Guy, who had tarnished this last chapter with his incessant phoning. Still. Now Keith removed the souvenir menu from his inside pocket: he'd had
faisan à la mode de champagne
or some such nonsense. Refused the wine, mind, and stuck with lager. Can't go far wrong with lager. Lager's
kegged.
All the same, Keith wasn't fully convinced that rich food agreed with him; his suspicion rested on the five-hour visit he had made to the bathroom on his return. At such times you really felt the inconvenience of so compact an apartment. In that kind of spot, in that kind of groaning extremity, the last thing a man wants to hear is the wife and kid scuttling about and creating all night long.

A chauffeur-driven two-door saloon pulled up, followed by a van marked with the famed darts logo. Slightly dizzy from his first cigarette of the day enjoyed in an upright posture, Keith stepped forward to greet Tony de Taunton, executive producer, and Ned von Newton, the man with the mike himself. Shaking his head, Keith contemplated Ned von Newton, for a moment unable to believe his eyes. Ned von Newton. Mr Darts.

'A true honour,' said Keith. 'Listen, lads: slight change of plan.'

'We got the address right, didn't we Keith?' asked Tony de Taunton, lifting his rippled face to the tower block, which burned in the low sun as if at every moment all its glass were being hammered out of the clear sky.

'Moved, innit. Why don't I lead the way in the Cavalier?’

We can't stop. She can't stop.

Oh the dolorology of my face, with pains moving into positions like sentries, like soldiers who hate my life. This nuked feeling, the kind of ache you get from a vaccination — when the syringe is six feet long. And not in the arm or the ass. In the head, the head. The pain can't stop.

Christ, even that prick of a wasp prospecting for dust on the glass of the half-open window . . . It waddles up the pane, then drops and heavily hovers, then climbs again, and won't fly clear. Getting in and out of windows ought to be one of its main skills. What else is it any good at, apart from stinging people when it's scared? Just as the pigeon that Guy saw, that I saw, that we all see, faces a narrow repertoire of decisions: to go for pizza
now
,
and risk becoming pizza itself, or flap uglily in the air for a second or two and go for the pizza
then.

I find I have spent the last ten minutes looking out of the window, watching a twelve-year-old boy wearily stealing a car. While he accomplished this, a very old man limped by in running-shoes. It wasn't my car. It wasn't Mark's car. He phones me to say that he is coming over for a party on Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night as he calls it. He is full of praise for the Concorde. I'm not to worry — he'll find a warm bed elsewhere; but maybe we'll meet. After last night, I don't hate him any more. I can feel some new emotion waiting to form. What? Asprey asks if I enjoyed
Crossbone Waters.
I lied, and said I didn't. The book gave rise to some enjoyable scandal, he tells me: there's something about it among the magazines on his bathroom floor . . . This morning, Incarnacion came. Rather than sit around listening to her, rather than sit about listening to Incarnacion murdering the human experience, I went out. But I soon came back. Too many people denying themselves the pleasure, or sparing themselves the bother, of beating me up. When I see the fights I resolve to be incredibly polite to big young strong people. Incarnacion was in the study. She seemed to be looking at my notebook. Another thing. The toaster-like photocopier — I thought it didn't work, but there it was with its light on. It hummed warmly . . . Sometimes (I don't know) I take a knight's jump out of my head and I think I'm in a book written by somebody else.

The wasp is gone. But not out the window. I can hear it bumping into things. It'll be back. It will turn toward me. Insects and death always turn toward you. Gesture them away, and they turn toward you. All the awful things in the end turn toward you.

Now here's a revelation.

Dink doesn't do it. Lizzyboo told me. I wormed it out of her at Fatty's. I plied her with fudge sundaes and creme brulées until she finally came across. The food is sweet like chainstore romance, like happy-ever-after. The food is yuck. She hates what she's doing to herself but she can't stop, can't stop. (Nobody can. I can't.) Tears run down her cheek — sauce runs down her chin. We must have looked like the couple in the postcard joke. In the seaside café. Jack Sprat would eat no fat. Which is the cruel one?

Dink doesn't do it. Dink didn't do it to Lizzyboo and he hasn't done it to Hope either: so Hope's clean, more or less (though I won't use it. I don't need it). Dink'll roll around and everything, and neck and pet. You can see him in the nude if you really insist. But he doesn't do it. He fears for his tennis — his rollover backhands, his whorfing smashes. Dink hasn't come for thirteen years. And the hairy bastard is still only the world ninety-nine.

There's also the fatal-disease consideration. If Dink caught one of
them
,
he'd stop being the world ninety-nine. And start being the world five-and-a-half billion. Dink's smart. Dink's hip. He knows that dead men don't play tennis. That's how come he has this rule.

The poor sisters, surrounded by these dud males with these dud rules. Even masturbation is too many for them. Guy, Dink; and now I'm at it. Yes, I've quit too. Actually I have nothing against the activity. I always thought I'd babywalk into the bathroom with my pants around my ankles
maybe just one more time.
But recently, with these new lesions on my hands and everything, I've put all that behind me. I'm frightened of catching a venereal disease from myself. Is this a first? And why do
I
care?

Kath claims that Keith is cheerful around the house, when he's there. But not quite cheerful enough, evidently, to refrain from giving her a new bruise on her chin. All the women in the street suddenly seem black and blue and scarlet — violet eyes, crimson lips. Some of these cruelty instructions come from upstairs. Cruelty is being delegated.

E=mc
²
is a nice equation. But what is the theodicy of uranium? Ferocious physics. And the everyday medium-sized Newtonian stuff, the deckchair and map-folding and meter-feeding physics of ordinary life: all that has it in for you too. Babies are finding out about physics the whole time (how they slip and stagger) in their school of hard knocks.

A new bruise also on the little ass with its precocious nobility of curve, and three new cigarette burns, again in a triangle. The left buttock said
therefore
;
the right buttock says
because.
I try, but I can't see Keith doing this. His eyes lit by the cigarette's coal.

It must be like an addiction, and addiction I can understand — as I surf on the crest of something irresistible and unholy. The heavy calm the ungratified addict feels, awaking to the sound of the voice that says today will be the day: the day of indulgence and an end to struggle — pleasureday. And the morning will pass so sweetly, with sin so secure.

'Nor her choo.'

I moaned with fright: the baby was awake, and staring, and naked. From the floor came Clive's growl, ticking over in warning.

'Nor her choo.'

'What?' I said (I was astonished). 'No. Not hurt you. Not hurt you. No, of course not, my darling.'

Is there someone else coming in here I don't know about? A social worker like Nicola in disguise? A smiling uncle, like me, myself. Is it me? I rub my face. Outside, the hell, the torment, the murder of the low sun, and its cruel hilarity. I say nothing. Kath says nothing. And Kim can't tell me. Kim can't tell. And somebody can't stop.

The life isn't over, not quite. But the love life is. I might as well get the love stuff wrapped up. 'Please. My darling,' I said, ninety-some days ago now, elsewhere. 'Do this one big last thing for me. Do it, Missy. Not here. Christ, no. We'll take an attractive little condo somewhere — say in Palm Springs, or Aspen. Do it, Missy. I'll be the dream patient. I promise. Do this one big last thing for me.'

Even nature was telling me I'd lost, that love had lost. She was hating everything, herself, me, contemporary circumstances. The second and final act of love had taken place that morning, and I had heard or felt (I believed) the fateful pop or pang of conception. She was hating everything, but most of all she was hating nature, the trees in their postures of injury and recoil, the spongy froth along the shore, that log on the path in the shape of a seal tragically or just pathetically overturned in death. She had loved it here.

I hid in plain sight. I took the boat out on the water. At first, the sky looked like one of Darwin's warm little pools, sugary blue, where life would ineluctably form; but the pond itself was tired. It didn't have too long to go now, with the ocean smashing at the dunes to the east and getting yards closer every week. The oars slid through the surface tracery of dead waterskaters. I gave a shout as I saw that the clan of snapping-turtles was still in occupation, huddled up among the reeds. In their heyday, when they had discipline and esprit, they looked like the ranked helmets of Korean riot police. Now these survivalists wallowed loose and exhausted: soiled bowls in the soup kitchen. And myself the old kitchen stiff with his sleeves rolled up. For an hour the sky was Cape Cod true blue, with solid clouds grandly gleaming like statuary. After that, just heat, with the sun and the sky slowly turning the same colour.

Nothing much was said. Nature continued to do most of the talking. The LimoRover came for her at dusk. It was driven by one of Sick's sidekicks, Mirv Lensor, another kind of Washington wretch. 'Mirv Lensor: Expeditor', said the card he flicked out of the window at me when I disobeyed orders and staggered out on to the drive — in preposterous defiance. Sheridan Sick has a ventilation system in his apartment which removes all nitrates from the air he and Missy breathe. The ageing process is thus measurably retarded. Time goes slower there, slower than it goes with me.

After she'd gone, night fell, and I worked on the fire. I spent the evening staring at the lamplit back window. It held me, it included me, it said everything: my reflected face, and then, a couple of millimetres beyond, the outer surface like a glass-bottomed boat, only deep-sea, heavy-water, with all kinds of terrible little creations out there, tendrilled, dumbbelled, gravity-warped; or like a preparation for the crazy scientist's microscope, disgraceful cultures in compound opposition, the ambitious maggot with its antennae rolling like radar sweeps, the gangly moth briefly clearing the decks with its continental wing-frenzy, the no-account midges, the haunchy ants and grimly ambling spiders, the occasional innocuous white butterfly fainting away from the glass, all of them seeking the atomic brightness, the nuclear sun of the lamp's bulb. And all the wrong things prosper.

It's happening.

At last, late at night, the cries of the city are coming together and turning into something, with the eclipse so close now — the city is finally finding its voice, like the thud of a sullen heart, saying, 'No . . . No . . . No . . .' It can't stop. And a mile from my window someone else is listening. And she can't stop saying, 'Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . .'

I'm helpless against these forces. You can't stop them — the century says you can't stop them. I must become the tubercular toreador, whom Hemingway knew. The bull weighs half a ton. You let him have the strength.

Manolito, was it? Dead in the sawdust of Madrid.