3. Car-sweat
The two-storeyed Avenger lay in wait under the Esso sign. Welcome Break. Stop and Shop. Smoker consistently drove out here and just sat in the car or did his e’s on the laptop. You have 124 new messages. People coming and going: it’s more cheerful. You fill her up, grab a bay by the cash machine. And stroll inside if you want, for a pizza or whatever. At the Esso you often also get carpools. And women on mobile phones, women waiting alone under the lights in the forecourt with that waiting posture — doing nothing but waiting; they stand like that in the parks and recs with a leather lead in their hand: waiting for the dog to do its business. You could lower your window, saying, ‘Lost your lift then, love? Hop in.’ But the age of the random ride was over. Mobile phones: increased backup. You can have a brief exchange, there on the kerbside. Pass the time. Feel the confinement lift a little bit. It’s funny. They must think: I climb into that car, I pass through that glass, then I’m in his mirrorworld — he’ll have power, with its warp and distortion. He can turn. Every man sits on an anti-man. And the weathered saloon, ticking over in the suburban sidestreet, has its oil and coolant, its dark engine, beneath the windshield’s reflection of the leaves and the branches.
In Clint’s evening paper there was an ‘artist’s impression’ of the Princess in her bath. You know: like in a court case. The artist was not a very good artist; the impression was not a very good impression. Idealised (and, as it were, self-bowdlerised by the placement of her limbs), the image of the Princess might have graced the greetings cards sent by a suburban madam to selected members of her clientele. Reduced to an artist’s impression, on account of the shielding order. Bit late now, thought Clint: a case of bolting the stable door after the graniverous quadruped has gone AWOL. Everyone on earth was gawping at the stills, on the Net, in the foreign press — and, of course, in the Morning Lark, which, that morning, had consisted of nothing else. The official line, from above, was that the material was all faked anyway: software, pseudofilm, ‘without ontology’. Either that, or some snapper hides in the toilet for a month … What Clint couldn’t work out was who benefited. Cui bono? — apart from the Lark, with its triple print-run … Clint: never gone that big on the younger bird. But virgins had their points. Bet they felt you more. And they couldn’t tell you were crap at it, having nothing to compare.
You have 125 new messages. About 120 of them would be from commercial concerns: invitations to Clint to shower money on his genitalia — by various means and for various purposes. Three or four would be chat-room flirtations with indistinguishable career-girls, all of them apparently chasing the next leg-up or leg-over. Clint visualised a succession of fierce little hussies, with lips crimped in ceaseless calculation. But of course they could be anyone: these were rigged-up identities, summoned out of the ether. It was said of the Web that its contents were (on average) about 60 per cent true. And you, mate, he said to himself: can you swear any better? … And then it came, the voice that seemed to penetrate his solitude:
clint: how r u, dear man? i detected a note of melancholy in your most recent e, so i thought i’d cheer u up with some verbal 4play. u have asked 4 my views on anal 6 & related?s. well, i’m all 4 it if it gets the job done quicker. i said be4 th@ the best prix r small & soft, & i’m aware th@ anal 6 demands gr8er 10sion. so it’s 6 of 1 & 1/2 a dozen of the other! i’m very happy to per4m oral 6 @ any time. what’s my style? i no th@ some girls r merely rather affection8 2 the man’s 2l. i consider this ‘cock-i’d’! u should go @ it 40ssimo. rule: never kiss your man after fell8io — by god, u’d be calling him a bumb&it! as 4 cunnilingus, th@’s strictly verbo10.
Blimey: she’s ideal. Talk about taking the pressure off. With this bird, expectation’s reduced to nil … But that’s all very well, that is. That’s all very fine and large. Because the wound’s in you, my son. There ain’t anyone else who can sort this out: it’s down to you, mate. You yourself.
Before driving back to his Foulness semi, Clint topped up the Avenger at the pumps. They talked their heads off about sex and cars, but look at this: look at the mechanised brothel of the forecourt. In every bay, in every trap, there was a man with a hulking nozzle in his mitt; you lifted the cover, and there was the sliding aperture; then you poured in the power while the digits flickered.
Fat splats of water fell unevenly from the ribbed roof. Not rain: just drops of car-sweat.
‘So what was in this “dirty bomb”?’
‘Radioactive medical waste, Chief, plus ringworm, West Nile virus, liquid gangrene, and a cladding of mad cow.’
‘And what do this lot call themselves?’
‘Uh, the Legion of the Pure.’
Clint thought: what’s funny? Is it still funny? Was it ever funny?
‘And they blew themselves up on purpose.’
‘No, Chief. By accident. It went off in the airport carpark.’
‘And who were they followers of?’
‘Uh, you know: the bloke with no tackle.’
‘Actually, Chief, he has got tackle,’ said Clint. ‘Records show. It’s funny, that. Like Hitler’s only got one ball.’
‘Was he the one that went to the stripclub?’
‘That wasn’t true either.’
Heaf seemed disappointed. ‘Well we certainly spent enough space on it. Did he go near the stripclub? … Anyway, we can only keep hammering on about racial profiling at airports. This is Clint in today’s: “And at the security checkpoints, what do we see? Some gimp of a granny being fisted in half, while the dunerat called Zui’zide al Bomba sails past with a J-cloth on his bonce and a flamethrower over his shoulder. And followed by his three best friends, Hijaq, Kydnap and Drugrun.” ‘Heaf slapped the page with his fingernails. ‘That’s what I call an editorial. Anyone who looks remotely Arab should have their lives made an absolute torment for the rest of the century.’
‘What happened to “Bints in Burkas”?’ said Donna Strange, who was sitting in. ‘I did one and you never ran it.’
‘Yes. Whatever happened to “Bints in Burkas”?’
‘“Bints in Burkas”? We backed off on that one, Chief.’
Mackelyne read from the minutes: ‘“… reached the decision not to go ahead, out of deference to the deepest personal convictions of our wankers.”’
‘And we thought they might dirty-bomb us.’
‘Mm. And what about the royal angle? The list of demands. It didn’t actually reach the King, did it?’
‘No. They found it floating around in the carpark.’
‘But the tone of it. Completely outrageous. How did it begin?’
‘“Greetings, Slave. God, who controls the clouds, who —”’
‘Yes yes. But “slave”! I mean, I find that quite unbelievable. Apart from the Vatican there’s not an institution on earth that’s older than the monarchy. And along comes some little snake-charmer, some casbah cutthroat …’
‘Well this is it, Chief. That’s what unbelievers are, in their eyes. According to them,’ said Clint with a shrug, ‘we’re shit.’
‘But to say the King’s shit,’ said Heaf, who seldom swore. ‘I mean, if he’s shit, if our king’s shit, then what are we? We ought to … Ah, but religion’s a very curious thing, you know, and that’s why we’ve always steered clear of it. I’m Catholic myself, of course, though partly lapsed. I don’t think we’ve ever pinned it down, have we, Mack? We know everything there is to know about our typical wanker, but what he believes remains a mystery.’