‘For putting him in a coma.’
‘And for ruining his wank. Fling a brick through her front window.’
For a moment a bad-dream glaze descended on Desmond Heaf, and his brow was suddenly and minutely sequinned with sweat. After about ten seconds of steady recuperation he said, ‘… Royal comment. I think this is building quite well. Rather touchingly, the King’s enforced chastity is awakening the most profound concerns of our — and uh, I’ll be interested to hear your view, Clint, on the line we should take on the tragedy in Cold Blow Lane. So what’s the King to do? By the way, Supermaniam, I thought you overstepped the bounds of good taste with your think-piece … “Quick Mate While She’s Warm”. I thought Clint’s editorial the next day was far more sensitive and appropriate. Where is it? “Time To Pull The Plug On Pam”.’
Clint stood with his arms akimbo in the anarchical locker-room of Back Numbers. Over nine hundred Larks lay slumped in drunken stacks, in leaning heaps; and Clint’s arms were charcoal to the elbow by the time he had assembled the thirty issues of the relevant June.
Like all the other yellow-mast tabloids, the Morning Lark ran a Casebook feature opposite its problem page. Its problem page did not resemble the other problem pages, with their typical integration of the commonplace (Our Loving Is Over Too Quickly) and the phenomenal (I Came Home To Find My Husband In Bed With My Dad: all this). The Lark‘s problem page dealt not in problems but in outlandish gratifications; it was in-house pornography, much of it written by Clint Smoker. On the other hand, the Lark‘s Casebook veered close to mainstream: in a dozen photographs with added bubbles for speech and thought, it dramatised the confusions of personable young people who tended to be dressed in their underwear.
Needing delay, needing equipoise, Clint dug out his mobile and called Ainsley Car.
‘Right,’ said the troubled striker, after a prompt. ‘I do Donna, then I have Beryl.’
‘Other way round, mate.’
‘I have Beryl, then I do Donna.’
‘Jesus. You have Donna, then you do Beryl … Doesn’t have to be Donna, mind.’
‘What about that “Amfea” …’
Clint remembered ‘Anthea’. Cheesy little blonde who was, none the less, sixteen. Very popular: posing with her mum in matching thongs.
‘Nah mate. “Anthea” fell pregnant and jacked it in. Her mum’s a gran at thirty-two.’
‘Okay then. Donna’ll do. I’ll do Donna.’
‘Have Donna,’ corrected Clint.
Ah, yes—this was it: Brett, Ferdinand and Sue. And for a moment Clint turned away … When you entered an escort agency for the first time and were received by the madamic coordinatrix: she gave you the ‘brochure’ and left you alone with it — and that was power. In that plump album each smile, each cleavage, each towering beehive represented different futures which, nevertheless, and on varying pay-scales, all promised the same outcome. Now, in contemplating Kate, Clint would be taking up a humbler post. It was more like a youthful blind date, when you peeked round the corner, then moved forward or walked away … Clint peeked, squinting. His eyes jolted down on her. Then with deliberate force he smacked his head back against the wall, groaned, laughed, sighed. No glamour queen or ballroom dancer, but prettily unassertive, and of the crowd, like a poster of a missing person. And could he see it? Could he see it? Yeah, mate, he could see it. Him and her, and hand in hand: ‘Hey, I’d like you to meet a very special friend of mine. Ladies, guys. Say hi to …’
Clint went back to his workstation, where he deployed angle-lamp and magnifying glass. It was an exceptionally compelling Casebook in its own right: a triangular predicament, as so often, but one with universal reach. In its opening frames you saw Sue at home with live-in lover Brett. Sue scrubbing the kitchen lino in tears, tanktopped Brett standing over her with his fists clenched; Brett watching the football with a pair of Union Jack underpants over his head, while Sue does the ironing; then Brett, clutching cue and dufflebag, telling Sue he’s off on a road trip playing pool for his pub. Enter Ferdinand. You looked at Ferdinand and you thought — you know: Shelley. Poet and dreamer, with his flyaway hair, his flowers and his flattery: your eyes are like stars … Sue had her clothes off twice. In the first shot she is being taken from behind by a Brett showing all his teeth — but her body was almost entirely eclipsed by the thought-bubble, ‘Gaw, I wish Brett had ever heard of foreplay.’ In the second, she lay on her back with her legs apart, but her modesty was preserved by Ferdinand’s streaming locks, together with another bubble, saying: ‘Mmm. Brett reckons only gays do this, but I think it’s lovely.’ The final frame showed Sue sitting alone on the blondwood bed, with elbow on knee and palm on cheek, eyes raised ceilingward: ‘I know Brett has his faults, but Ferdinand seems too good to be true. How can I choose between them?’
Low self-image, that is, thought Clint. As an afterthought he skimmed the ‘Words of Wisdom’ with which every Casebook drew to a close. Sue was advised, by Donna Strange, to forget about Ferdinand and stick with Brett.
Plaintive little smile on its face. Of course, she was only acting. But with that roundness of eye, that philosophical underlip: you couldn’t imagine her giving you grief, undermining you, belittling you … Don’t fret: you’re up to snuff, my darling. You’re all right. Yeah, you’ll do.
3. Cold Blow Lane
‘We’ll need the army for this one, sir.’
‘The army? Don’t talk rot, Bugger.’
‘Just a light, calming presence, sir. It’s a most … thankless situation. Forgive the gloom, sir, but I can’t even imagine a positive outcome.’
‘Nor can I. But don’t ask me to reconsider. I can’t refuse Loulou anything — as she well knows. That’s the whole trouble. She’s my cousin, after all, and she didn’t get into this fix on purpose. We’ll just have to get on with it.’
‘Sir. I don’t suppose now would be a good moment to discuss the ramifications of the Sino-Russian entente?’
‘Ramification number one being that I shall have to give up He Zizhen, I suppose. And if the pair of them fall out, do you think I’ll get her beck?’
‘Just to remind Your Majesty that nothing affects the people’s mood so much as the cost of filling their cars.’
‘I’m well aware of that, thank you, Bugger. Ah.’
Love entered. The impressive wingspan of his ears was picked out by the low sun that lurked behind him. He gave an arthritic bow and said,
‘If you’re ready, sir?’
‘Coming, Love: I’ll follow. What is it today, Bugger? Brucellosis. No. Q-fever.’
‘Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis, sir.’
‘Ouch. And what’s that when it’s at home?’
‘Viral inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, sir.’
Henry IX rose and looked about himself. ‘Not much of a boudoir, is it? Now Bugger: you won’t get an attack of thrift, I hope. Have Blaise or Henri come and have a quick recce, and then spend money doing what they say. And get some decent furniture from the French Suite.’ He looked round the room through the fine drizzle of his dislike for it. ‘This place was good enough for my grandfather. But it’s not good enough for me. And Bugger.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I hesitate to tell you this because it’ll make you watch the pennies … I’ll only be using this place once. Do you take my meaning, Bugger?’