“I’ll stop those dead bastards!” he’s been heard to say. On numerous occasions.
Tristram Shelley-Tewks is a semi-professional launch party guest and incorrigible ponce. He spends his mornings ‘rebranding’ companies and his afternoons trying not to hate himself. To ‘rebrand’ you pick some random words from the dictionary, splice them together in a pseudo-logical fashion and then add a couple of vowels to the end. The resulting guff is then sold to a stupid person who needs a new name for their unfashionable business.
But times are hard for Shelley-Tewks. With hyperinflation to worry about, the last thing a manufacturer needs is a big sign with a nonsense word on it. This reflects the uselessness of his creativity and, in turn, the complete pointlessness of his existence. No one else seems to mind, though. They love his garish neckties.
Amidst these people and countless other blights on the face of the Earth, you’ll see me. I’m scowling at something, I expect. I’ll be in a bad mood. Because I’ve never liked Knightsbridge. I’ve never liked anywhere in central London. I can’t stand the crowds and their constituent components: the Sweaty Blockers, the Random Gropers and the Terminal Fuckwits; not to mention rogue priests, perverts and psychiatric patients with blades – sometimes all three in one convenient package.
I hate the Beautiful People; the headless chickens in their black-market designer labels. And I truly despise the wannabes in their counterfeit designer labels, topped off with ridiculous baseball caps. I don’t understand why they choose clothes over their children’s food.
This whole circus… it’s all artifice, the illusion of status. The fact we’re here to celebrate Industry is beyond laughable, beyond contempt. There’s cash to be had machining poor quality firearms, but that’s about it. The last new product manufactured in this country was Bactrian. And I made him.
Well, we’ve got a fantastic stage for today’s events: a massive, raised platform nestled into the bombed-out ruins of a twelve-story department store. The whole front face of the building is missing, the upper floors long since collapsed and the roof open to the heavens like some square Coliseum. The blank, glassless windows on the back and side walls glow like bloodshot eyes, streaming light from the poisonous red sky. At weekends, they use this place for hangings.
Today’s Bactrian’s big test, and we’re making things easier for the big, dead lummox by getting the press absolutely blind drunk. Because the last thing we need are sober photographers.
I’ve avoided the hospitality tent, trying desperately not to avail myself of the free drinks. Instead, I station security there to push people back in if they look anywhere near sober – kind of reverse bouncers.
Now back to that big stage: I can see Dordogne, Bunnyfroth; and there’s Shelley-Tewks, wringing his hands and weeping silently into a handkerchief. I’m in position, way up in an opposite building, clutching binoculars and a radio control handset. Calamari, stationed at the sound desk on the other side of the street, turns and gives me the thumbs up. We’re live in five. I flick on my switches, push the twin control sticks forward and Bactrian’s distant body stiffens. I inch his wheelchair forward. He ascends via a ramp, flanked by the goons from my car journey. And then it occurs to me: the platform’s so high and the goons so big that the audience can barely see the former Prime Minister. Clever Malmot, I think to myself. And what’s this I can hear? It’s one of those mass-produced public relations women I mentioned a while back, the ones with a clipboard instead of a left nipple, briefing the hammered reporters:
“Before we start, guys, they’re not gonna tell you this officially, but Bactrian’s had a stroke. It’s no biggy. We don’t want you to make a big fuss of it, guys. But that’s the deal. That’s why he’s in the chair, guys. He’s still all there, up top, but you might find him a little, kind of…immobile. So don’t you go too hard on him, guys, because you won’t win friends picking on cripples.”
I hear Malmot’s lies on the tip of her tongue and it makes me laugh. Only this morning he told me:
“The wheelchair? Why, it’s an absolute godsend. It’s a politically correct bullet-proof vest.”
As I might have mentioned, we’re a cynical, cynical organisation. Is two ‘cynicals’ enough? No? Well, add a third. Then add a fourth when you discover Malmot’s added further distractions in the form of a number of Z-list celebrities. We’ve got Dougal ‘Pretty Boy’ Hamstrung, the hunky presenter of a house makeover programme; Patty Rankle, who once played a busty barmaid in a long forgotten soap opera, and Dave Cosmos. God knows what Dave Cosmos does.
Bactrian starts to talk. I’m not sure what he’s going to say because Malmot edited the tape from previous speeches. And how’s he going to pre-empt the questions? Where’s he been? South America? Why’s he come back? The Ceesal hoax? Then back to South America again. How were Elvis and Hitler?
Well, we’ve been smart enough to scramble the public address system, treating the audience to a chorus of static hum and feedback. And it seems we have someone else on our side: God. For once.
I’ve been willing the sky to crack open for some time. Now it’s happening. And what kind of downpour will we get today? Acidic, that’s for sure. But will it be Nitric, Carbolic or our old friend, Sulphuric? Well, whadaya know? It’s Sulphuric! And I figure it’s time for this young gentleman to find some cover. And I watch the heavens open from the shelter of a doorway with no room attached. And I see the rain sluice the streets of suits. Acid rain: the disinfectant man created to wipe out his own bacterial presence.
“God pisses on all of us,” says a kindly faced squatter, white bearded and trying to relieve me of my wallet.
“Especially you,” I say, as his fingers find the fishhooks in my pocket.
Rain pours down and down, forcing herds of human cattle into the indoor market and the reassuring arms of consumerism. But I’m happy just watching.
The individuals who brave the storm, threading their way through the caustic raindrops – where are they going? And why challenge the rain to do it? I frame them with my fingers. With the purring water to silence their words, they lose their place in time and the mundane scheme of things. They become iconic. Knightsbridge in the rain is beautiful, a sea of rippling reflections; wet, kinetic and dangerous, like the sex you always dreamed of. It’s a place of little mysteries; commonplace intrigues lent myth by the rain’s filter. I could learn to love it.
Well, the questions did come up but Calamari had the fantastic idea of shoving a walkie-talkie under the dead man’s shirt and answering them himself. So, no doubt, there was a degree of political ranting with a violent sexual subtext. But, do you know what? Nobody cared. They all were too busy thrusting out their jaws and presenting their best sides to where they thought the photographers were. I guess it must’ve been hard to tell from way up on stage, but the entire press contingent were busy vomiting in a ditch, stricken with alcohol poisoning. You see, you give me a job and I do it well.
So the mission’s been a complete success. We’ve passed off a carcass as a living dignitary. Now for Stage Two: the destruction of democracy.