“Spread the jam, Sir?” Feigning ignorance: where would I be without it?
“Spill the beans,” he persists.
But I’m not about to spill anything. I know the deal. It starts with secrets and ends with intestines. And to Malmot? Well, I’d rather slit myself open in a shark enclosure – for all the compassionate treatment I’d get.
“Ah, your hesitancy does you credit,” he says at last. “It’s a fool who talks about himself too readily. A great man has admirers to do so for him.”
I don’t ask him where he stands on the autobiographies of famous dictators, because, at this point in the proceedings, I’d no notion I’d end up as one. I just shuffle my feet a bit.
It’s a bitterly cold night. It’s not a fact worth remarking upon, but there’s an awkward silence and I need something anodyne to fill it. So the temperature gets mentioned and he turns to me with a funny look on his bony face.
“I often get the impression that what you’re saying is different from what you’re telling me.”
It’s an accurate enough observation. So I leave it to pass without comment.
“I, myself,” he continues, “I, myself, never discuss myself –except to state that my wisdom and benevolence is but a counterpoint to my intrinsic sense of place and purpose.” And he stops in his tracks to ask: “Is that clear?”
“As crystal, Sir,” I say, although I mean ‘mud’.
“A moment ago I asked about ambitions. I was wondering where you saw yourself in the scheme of things. Where you wanted to be. And how you saw yourself getting there. And whilst I have no doubt that you’d misuse power if given it, I don’t think you seek it in itself. Because I suspect that you resent it. Because, for all your amoral posturing, you have an innate sense of fair play and arbitrary authority goes against that.”
Am I being condemned or complimented? I wait for the summation.
“You see, I like to get the measure of my employees and there’s something of the perpetual dissenter about you, Jupiter.”
“I wouldn’t know, Sir.”
“I think you do. I think you do know but you’re not letting on. You’re disturbingly well behaved for an artist and that’s not usual. It worries me. I can see the anger seething beneath the surface, but it’s not going anywhere productive. Or even destructive.”
“I did hang someone, Sir.”
“But you didn’t enjoy it.”
“I, er, might have, Sir.”
“No, Jupiter, you’re lying. Calamari was there and he says you seemed pretty indifferent to the whole business. So where is all this boiling rage going to, I wondered, what’s he channelling it all into?”
“I’m luke-warm on cats, Sir.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I dislike touching other people’s shoes.”
“No, no, no. Stop toying with me. I know you’re your problem is, boy, and it’s God. You hate God. You want to destroy Him.”
“I, er… Well…” I stammer. But what can you say when someone’s sussed your most degenerate desire? “Er… It’s an idea that had…”
“Had occurred to you at some point. I understand. You’re trying to phrase it in a manner that doesn’t make you sound like a complete lunatic.”
“Er…”
“And you’re wondering how I know. After all, it’s not the kind of thing you let slip in common conversation.”
“It had crossed my mind, Sir.”
“Well, it’s simple really. You see, you talk in your sleep. And I have a woman who writes it down.”
“But?”
“Like Calamari said, we’ve had unpleasant things implanted under your skin. We record your every utterance, Jupiter. Which is how we know about your little chats with Calamine.”
“Oh.” Is that the bottom falling out of my world or the world falling out of my bottom?
“Yes. Oh, indeed. But let’s not worry about Calamine for now. It suits my purpose to leave him at his liberty. But this killing God business…”
Well, if he’s expecting me to elaborate unprompted, he’ll be in for a very long wait. And it’s some time and an awful lot of awkward silence before he takes up the reins again:
“You’ve offloaded all responsibility for your actions on God and now you’re so busy plotting some childish form of revenge you’ve forgotten to engage with your day to day existence. You behave, not because you chose to, but because you’ve exhausted your anger screaming at the heavens.”
I suppose he’s half-right. The half-wrong bit he’ll learn about later. But why am I so prevalent in his thoughts?
He attempts a friendly tone when remarking:
“Certainly knocks the old Oedipus complex into a cocked hat, doesn’t it?! Killing God, I mean. There must be a name for it?”
“‘Deicide’, Sir.”
“I knew you’d know it. Rather discredits your ‘quietly ambitious’ pen portrait though. I’d say ‘vaulting psychotic’ might be a more accurate and to the point description.”
“I’m not mad, Sir.”
“Don’t worry, Jupiter, it wouldn’t matter to me if you were. I’m not here to judge you. In fact, I might be in a position to turn your fevered dreams into a reality. You see, I also harbour a dislike for The Almighty and whilst I won’t be rubberstamping intergalactic butterfly nets or deity-sized stunguns, I would be prepared to fund you – should you choose to crush religion here on Earth. I can’t say the money’s great, not when weighed against your immortal soul, but you might find it an enjoyable diversion.”
Well, I’m warming to the idea. My mind is awash with ideas.
“We could run a food-distribution project, a kind-of ‘The Lord doesn’t provide, the State does!’ thing?”
“Yes! Now you’re talking!” he says with a forced enthusiasm – before contributing his true thoughts. “Or something similar… only without the food distribution and featuring sex, perhaps?! You know: like deconsecrating the churches and turning them into bordellos.”
“I feel my solution has more theocratic legitimacy, Sir.”
“Yes. But mine’s more fun.”
Well, you can’t really argue with that. So I don’t. And whilst Malmot’s thinking about rolling around in baptismal pools filled with honey and prostitutes, I’m figuring the practicalities of my new commission.
“Would this be more of a desk-based job?” I ask. Malmot looks at me strangely.
There’s that moment in an earthquake, where the soil rears up like the ridges of the ocean and tears forward like a tidal wave. I like to think of it as a mass grave running down its prey. Imagine those same seismic motions occurring in my stomach. But is it tanks, tectonic plates or the fear of my guaranteed damnation that troubles my gastric tracts? Who knows? Well, God does, but it’s no longer in His interests to tell me.
Malmot takes me aside, his clammy claw on my shoulder. He’s not something you’d want in your personal space and now he’s wrapped round me like a cape.
“You know, Jupiter, as I look at you, I find myself changing my mind. I can’t help thinking you’d be wasted in some propaganda ministry, scribing ‘Ten Good Reasons to Hate Thy God’. I think the future has brighter things in store. You’re not entirely repellent. You have a contrary charisma, rather like a donkey. You owned a donkey, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Sir.” And I take a step back, fearing a lurching fumble. But Destiny has an even crueller fate waiting than a clumsy seduction attempt.
“But I wouldn’t say you look like one. No, you’re more like a weasel. Or, perhaps… Yes, thinking about it, there’s something vulpine about you, something of the fox.”
I could thank him for what I presume are meant to be compliments but I don’t want to encourage him. Whatever he’s getting at, he can get to without my assistance.