Now Eddie is a different person from the one Lenny has known for so many years. His hands tremble and little twitches can be seen in the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t look kind. His voice is tired.
‘Then… then you can do what the hell you want. I’ll get back the rights to my manuscript and you can do what you want. I’m not going to say a word. I keep my promises if you keep yours. Everything will be as usual. Give me the fags.’
Perhaps he is right. Hope so, thinks Lenny, and slides the cigarette packet across the table top.
‘O-okay.’
‘Aaaaahhhh!
Titus has really worked himself up in his enforced loneliness. He must bring about a change. He must interrupt his thoughts and push Eddie X out of his brain. Away with the evil, away with the energy. Empty out, down to zero. He is Titus Jensen and nobody else. He hasn’t drained anybody. He refuses to accept that his willpower has been stolen from Eddie. If that power is not his own, then it isn’t worth anything. The thoughts whirl around at a crazy speed.
Titus screams as loudly as he can. His voice cracks.
But the whirling thoughts don’t stop. They just get worse.
‘Aaaahhh!’
He lies on the mattress and bangs his hands on the floor. The despair has settled over his chest and whips him hard on his face, drooling its cold sweat over his forehead. The pressure is colossal, it is hard for him to breathe. His ribs will break first, then his lungs will puncture, his heart will explode. It is only a matter of seconds now, then he’ll be dead.
He uses the last of his adrenalin to break his way free. He gets up and stands with his legs apart and his arms stretched up towards the cellar ceiling. Scrapes with his nails on the cold and loose mortar. He can break this off. He must get away. Now there is only one way out left.
‘Aaaahhh!’ he roars as loud as he can and goes up to the shelf. ‘It is me who is Lagavulin! I am intense, smoky and dry, full of richness and a salt flavour. But there have been women who have said that I have sweet undertones. I remember them all.’
He turns to the walkie-talkie and yells:
‘My heart is coloured by amber! I have a slight aroma of tar and seaweed. Stored best at an even temperature! Year after year. Do you hear me – I am Titus Lagavulin Jensen!’
He stamps his feet on the stone floor, rapidly and heavily, like an anonymous execution patrol being rushed to their posts to fire their superiors’ deadly shots.
‘Can you see me? Do you hear me?’
He pulls the cork out of a bottle with a plop and throws it at the cellar door.
‘AAAAaaaahhh!’
Puts the bottle to his mouth. The gulps run down his gullet. A lot of the whisky ends up outside his mouth and runs down his chin and neck. He drinks almost a fifth of the bottle before stopping.
‘Aahh, Jesus that was good!’
Another large gulp and then he puts the bottle on the table with a crash.
‘Now it’s party time!’
He rips open a bag of cheese puffs and tips the contents onto the table. He takes a fistful and puts them in his mouth, chews wildly and laughs out loud. Yellow flakes of cheese fly around him. He wipes his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He isn’t quite so sweaty any longer. His fluid balance is returning to a normal level.
‘Hahaha! At last. The cognitive picture therapy can go take a running jump. It might suit everyday problems. But not earth-cellar torture! Farewell reward images! Goodbye threat images! When it comes down to it, no therapy in the world can prevent a person’s true driving forces. Cheers, Titus Jensen! Welcome back to life! Where have you been? I’ve missed you. Hahaha!’
Before the whisky has even started its journey from his stomach and out into the bloodstream, he uncorks a dusty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from 1998. He gulps that down too, in a hurry as he is. Gulp, gulp, gulp. He wipes his mouth with his jacket sleeve.
‘Bienvenue, Titus Jensen.’
He lights a cigarette and inhales greedily a few times before releasing it from his lips. He leans his head back and shuts his eyes, balances on the two rear legs of the chair and rocks slightly back and forth. Smoke blows out through his nose. He inhales deeply again and puffs out two perfect smoke rings.
‘Oh, how delightful.’
He means what he says.
The intoxication is now charging through his body. The nicotine gives him a few minutes of inner softness and rest while the alcohol makes every cell in his body wake and tremble with expectation. There’s a party going on. There’s a good time on the way. Soon everything will be much better.
It is a liberating feeling. The anxiety about his relapse and failure lets go of him, and Titus smiles widely to himself. He picks up a large beer glass and some cans of beer.
‘Silence. Take one. Listen to this.’
Titus opens can after can slowly and solemnly. He quivers with pleasure when he hears the wonderful tiny fizzing sounds. Pjui. Pfff. Pssff.
‘Cheers.’
Titus pours out a cold beer, letting it run down the side of the glass to limit the froth. He doesn’t want to have to wait unnecessary long seconds for the froth to settle before the drink can reach his thirsty throat. Jesus, an ice-cold beer tastes so good! After having gone through a hard and sober working period, you must surely be allowed to be human again? Yes, right on, that’s the least you can ask for. He is going to get through this.
Titus’ body has lived a comparatively long time without alcohol, which means that the first intoxication quickly turns into a severe drunken state. Had he been his old self, he might well have coped with such a tough start to the party. Now he gets sloshed in just a few minutes, lightning drunk in fifteen and unruly after thirty.
He cheers and yells and gulps and smokes like nobody’s business. There is a very crazy one-man party taking place in the earth cellar.
Now and then he takes a few unsteady dance steps with an imagined party princess by his side. He bows, curtsies and gesticulates wildly. Now and then he shadow-boxes: a clumsy punch here and there, roughly like he thinks boxers do it, ducking and dancing around.
But then he gets a grand idea. There isn’t enough singing in this cellar.
‘But hello there! Isn’t there going to be any schnapps at this party?’
He collapses like a heavy sack of potatoes onto the chair and starts singing the Swedish drinking song Helan går at the top of his voice while unscrewing the cork of a quarter-litre bottle of Norwegian Linjeakvavit.
‘…And the one who doesn’t take the whole / Doesn’t get the half either / The whole gooooooooes / Sing hup fol-de-rol la la!’
Gulp, gulp, gulp.
Bang, crash, thud.
Bottoms up.
CHAPTER 36
On the Road
There are relationships between people where the bond has crystallised. Such ‘cement’ formations arise both in families and between friends. When these people get together, there is only room for predictable information and expected events. You are who you always have been. You think what you always have thought. And should perchance anything actually occur that transgresses the boundaries, then it is best for all concerned to pretend that nothing has happened, otherwise the roles and the friendship start vibrating dangerously and the foundations can crack. Cement people socialise regularly and serve each other nicely packaged, boasting and completely predictable successes and failure. When they later slowly crumble away, they do so in controlled harmony.