Terms & Conditions (26 page)

But it triggered something – an idea so simple that it arrived like a beautiful gift. Old Frank had already laid the groundwork for me – the trap was set – I just needed to make it go snap.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF REVENGE

It's best served cold (with a side order of humiliation).

Revenge reinvigorated me.

It's a satisfying dish. Don't care what Christians say about turning the other cheek, I'd run out of cheeks to turn.

I've spent my entire existence on this planet mitigating – mitigating risk, mitigating responsibility, mitigating experience, mitigating life, mitigating mitigation. I've mitigated for clients and for myself. I've mitigated and made excuses for the world around me, and finally, I'm all mitigated out, I've mitigated myself into a corner and I can't breathe.

No more mitigation, no more avoidance of responsibility and risk. I now know that those things – the balance of risk and the bravery of taking responsibility – are the bones of life, the flesh of existence. I figured it out. Revenge was risky, exciting and sweet. Like a child with a secret – I plotted and schemed my final moves – I radiated that small glee of having something that was all mine. It was so out of character that I found myself drunk on the covert thrill of it all. That was how happy I was. But when Sandra called, my happiness took a hit, my revenge stalled, and life got in the way of my plot.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF MOLLY

Sometimes the good die old.

‘Frank, Molly passed away last night.'

‘Oh, Sandra, I'm so sorry,' I said automatically.

‘It was for the best. She really was in an awful lot of pain at the end, and she drifted off during the night, which is probably the best thing. Being Molly, she spent the entire time on her deathbed organising every detail of her funeral. I'd love to see you there.'

‘Of course I'll be there,' I said. ‘Do you want me to bring Alice?'

‘Um,' she left a long pause before she said, ‘I'll leave that up to you, Frank. I don't care either way. Sorry if that sounds rude but Alice wasn't there for Molly near the end so I'm not sure if she should be there at the end.'

When I told Alice she looked sad and she acted sad but when I mentioned the funeral date she said, ‘Oh bugger, I can't do it, I'm in Scotland for a big meeting I can't get out of.'

I didn't react or even try and talk her out of going to the meeting, I just nodded and said, ‘Don't worry, I'll go for both of us. I told Sandra you were crazy-busy at the moment.'

My wife, realising what a crappy thing this was to do, said, ‘I'll be sure to send Sandra a beautiful bunch of flowers.'

Slicing all sarcasm from my tone, I said, ‘She'll really appreciate that, Alice.'

‘Good,' said my wife, ‘then I'll do that straight away. Yes, poor Molly, she was a wonderful woman. She really took care of me when I needed it. She was a great woman.'

‘So great a woman that you can't even be bothered to go to her funeral, you selfish pathetic excuse for a human being!' I screamed.*

* No, no, of course, I didn't.

In fact, I did everything I could to make my wife feel that not going
to the funeral wasn't that big a deal. I didn't want her there to ruin the day; I didn't want her anywhere near Molly or Sandra, or even me for that matter.

Molly's funeral was far from a sad affair.*

* Looking at the big colourful turnout of people, I thought: if those who attend your funeral are representative of the sort of person you were in life, then Molly did just fine.

The room was one of those dull crematorium chapels, but against its generic backdrop Molly's mourners were dressed in bright, fabulous clothes. Rows of dull brown pews held powdered ladies whose purple hair and nail polish competed with the vibrant colours of their scarves and hats.

A photograph of Molly on the stage showed her smiling, with a fag in her hand, looking into the audience as if to say,
What you lot so glum about?

It wasn't long before people started smiling as the speeches detailed some of Molly's more outrageous moments; and by the time Molly's coffin was lowered into the ground, I felt happy. She had lived a life I could only dream of. One of those free spirits who scared and impressed me. Walking back to the reception, Sandra caught up with me and I gave her a hug.

‘Thanks for coming, Frank,' she said.

‘Of course. I think it was one of the funniest funerals I've ever been to,' I said.

‘Mum would love that you said that.'

People were gently touching Sandra's back as they walked past us or whispering, ‘Lovely service, dear.'

I watched Sandra for a moment, the way the sun caught the amazing angles of her nose, her eyes washed so clear and blue by tears.

She said, ‘What are your plans?'

‘I thought I might go travelling.'

‘Oh,' said Sandra and, with a sad smile, added, ‘Off to find yourself?'

‘Definitely not. I've done quite enough of that for one lifetime, thank you very much. I actually thought I might try the exact opposite – and try as hard as possible to lose myself.'

She said, ‘Do you think you might need some help losing yourself, Frank?'

‘Luckily I have Malcolm for that. I was going to go and join him.'

‘No, I meant . . .' Sandra looked tired as she snapped, ‘Oh never-fucking-mind.'

‘Hey. What's up?'

‘For someone who specialises in fine print you're astronomically crap at picking up signals. Here: Molly wanted me to give you this. See you at the reception.'

She walked off and joined a group of ladies who rubbed her back and took her into the building.

In my hand was a sealed envelope that had on the front in red pen –
For Frank's Eyes Only!

Recipe for Mushroom Soup

Frank – you can't get the mushroom out of mushroom soup, it's in the broth.

So, without getting all bloody ‘soup for the soul' on you – but I'm on my deathbed so cut me some slack! – I'll give you this last Molly pearl:

If you don't like something – don't take it, Frank.

I have found that death has really tightened my thoughts and I hope that I'm not being too blunt but frankly (ha!) – Stop eating shit you hate!

And remember to kick Alice in the shins for me from time to time. I loved the girl but she got lost in the mix.

Oh, and just one last thing – I know you have rather a lot on your plate at the moment (but that's life, so stop bitching and harden up).

I'll add just one thing, which you can do with what you will (which in your case, let's face it, Frank, will probably be sweet fuck-all).

My Sandra is in love with you and always has been from the moment you appeared in my kitchen that night so long ago.

She, like you, is too submissive to tell the world how she feels, so I thought I'd help you two along.

Love & mushrooms,

Molly x

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF SNAIL MAIL

It's slower yet more meaningful than email.

After a few days of playing the part of the amnesiac retard – which wasn't too much of a stretch for me – I came across a small parcel on the doormat.

Inside was a matchbox with Thai writing and it had a label attached:

‘Might need a new one of these. Love Malc.'

I slid the matchbox open and there inside was a plastic brain from one of my anatomical figurines. The missing brain.

Under the brain was a note:

Frank – fuck!

Got your email!

But before I could reply the internet went off here, hence old-school snail mail.

Hold on – I'm coming home.

Might take a few weeks as I'm in the middle of the middle of the middle of sweet fuck-all. But I'm coming, Frank, don't worry.

My advice – run for your life and by the time you catch up with it I'll be there to help. In the meantime know this much – I fucking love you.

Love and love,

Malc

PS You're wrong about Oscar – he's not so much a twat – he's more of a cunt.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF TENSES

Sometimes the future masquerades as the past.

In the final days, in order to keep control of my rage – to stop myself blurting to Oscar and Alice that I remembered everything – and to buy time, I took to running.* In training for the finish, I needed to hold off my anger just long enough to complete my plan of attack.

* When I say
running
, that is a considerable exaggeration. I tried to jog but it was more of a lumbering limp with brief jags of jogging and occasionally ill-advised sprinting spurts. For the most part, at the top end of my performance I was attempting a sort of running-walk –
ralking
, if you will – and down at the low end of my performance, I was doing a sort of running-stroll – I was
rolling
. And though I accept that I looked like an asthmatic cripple, nonetheless this ralking and rolling made me feel like magic.

Every morning I got up early, when the world was still grey – not yet coloured in – and went for a jog in the woods.

The simple sensation of moving through time and space was bliss.

My organs winced if I moved too fast. My ribs remained a little loose, jangling like wind chimes suspended in blood. If I exerted myself, the blood whipped up currents that rushed through them releasing a sharp twinge – warning me to slow down before something popped.

But even at an old man's pace I soon began to feel immortal, running down thin paths bracketed by trees that gave me an artificial sense of speed, a tunnel down which I slipped, branches whipping past, my face cutting through spider webs like a hundred finely spun finish lines driving me on and on.

After a few days of running I felt the change; my body rewarded me with fresh squirts of endorphins, dazzling spells of joy. I smiled as I ran, exhausted and sore as I was, feeling my mind, my body, even my soul, reaching an accord. My organs were no longer battered and dysfunctional, no longer anchors dragging me down. Now they were working together, environmental conditions harmonising with hereditary terms in a silent pact which, for the first time in a long time, meant that I was ready.

One morning I was jogging over the pine needles, feeling good, when suddenly I experienced an extreme memory. Unrevealing and not necessarily nice, it was like being poked in the eye. I stopped and grabbed my knees to gather my breath. The image was hard to grasp, slippery, unclear: a door, a safe door possibly, so thick it seemed like a submarine hatch opening slowly into a hazy landscape with a terrifying plunge, and before I could identify anything, the heat and light burnt the image like celluloid melting to a frazzled black.

Showering after my run, all the good endorphins washed away to reveal the neurosis below and I decided that my body might be giving in on me, that this sharp vision was a preview to a sudden death.

Was it my body signalling to me that I was about to die? Just as I smelt the clean scent of hope, my body collapses and dies. Just my bloody luck.

I wondered if these visions were my final memories worming their way out. All the others had squirted out all over the place and now this was the final one, squeezed out of my exhausted, deflated brain like the measly smears of toothpaste wrestled from an abused tube.

But what was I remembering?

The next day on my run, the world again grey and silent and mine, only a few friendly sparrows and frightened squirrels as companions, and again, just as I hit a comfortable speed, just as my body flushed with that warm sense of runner's joy, I was hit by the vision.

I leaned forward and grabbed my knees as I tried to capture my breath, and as I did I muttered a prayer, not to God, or anything like that, but to my organs, to my body I prayed, I appealed, I begged, I asked it not to give up just yet, not when I was so close to the end, not when my lungs and my blood were full of hope and freedom and I muttered, ‘Not yet, not yet, not yet, sorry brain for filling you with nothing but confusion, sorry bladder and bowel for all the bad piss and shit I put you through, sorry lungs for all my safe, shallow breaths, sorry heart for the endless sludge of processed foods and dread, and to my long-lost spleen, well, I was never sure what you did, but sorry anyway, I miss your sweet silent ways.'

I didn't want any more memories. I didn't want to remember any more of me. (I'd remembered enough of me to know that I didn't want to remember all of me.) But the vision persisted: the thick door opening, pressure released around me as if escaping a tight hug, but this time an angel with the perfect smile and starched wings – or were those wings simply collars? – and all around me smiling people pointing for me to walk out the door, to drop to my certain death – and I prayed that I would survive this heart attack, this blood clot or whatever it was – and this time the moment didn't pass, it simply clarified itself and I saw what it was.

It was me with Sandra, who was holding my hand, and a smiling air hostess directing me out of an aeroplane door into the warmth of tropical paradise.

It was not the past, and it was not organ failure. I stood up straight, stared up through the canopy of trees, the morning light finding its way in like thousands of flickering fingers, and I understood. It was simply my mind, which had for so long traded only in bleak memories, suddenly shunting to a stop, twisting 180 degrees, and considering something it hadn't dared to for many months –
a bright future
.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Subject: Catching up . . .

Malcolm,