Ecstasy (7 page)

– Gentlemen! Harcourt raised his voice with his glass, – Gentlemen! As one who has little time for the parlour controversies of idle theorists, an interesting social point has surely been proved here! Let our friends in the legal profession take note! Buggery is buggery!

The farmhands sang in a lusty chorus:

Some men they loikes wimmin

some men they loikes boys

but moi sheep’s warm and beautiful

an makes a barrin noise
.

Perks let the manuscript fall through his fingers onto the floor of the study. He picked up the phone and got straight onto Rebecca’s publishers. – Giles, I think you should come over here. Straight away.

Giles recognised the panic in Perky’s voice. – What’s wrong? Is it Rebecca? Is she all right?

– No, Perks sneered, – she’s not fucking well all right. She’s very fucking far from all right.

– I’ll be straight over, Giles said.

15 Perks Is Upset

Giles wasted no time in arriving at Perky and Rebecca’s Kensington home. He read the manuscript with horror. It got worse and worse. Rebecca returned later that afternoon and came upon them in the study.

– Giles! Darling! How are you? Oh, I see you’ve been looking at the manuscript. What do you think?

Giles, in spite of his anger and anxiety, had been preparing to soft-soap Rebecca. He detested writers; they were invariably tedious, self-righteous, fucked-up bores. The ones who had artistic pretensions were by far the most unbearable. That’s what had happened to the silly cow, he considered, far too much time to think in that hospital, and she’d gone and got fucking art! Confronted by her illness with the prospect of mortality, she wanted to make her mark and she wanted to do it at the expense of his profit margins! However, nothing could be gained by irritating her. She had to be seduced, to be wooed into seeing the error of her ways. Giles was just about to launch into an ‘interesting new direction, darling, but …’ speech, when Perky, seething with anger, got in first.

– Becca, darling, Perks said through gritted teeth, – I don’t know what you’re trying to give us here …

– Don’t you like it, Perky? Don’t you find it more racy, more … raw?

– It’s hardly a Miss May Romance, darling, Giles lisped.

– Now, Giles, it’s full of realism. One can’t, how should I put it, live with one’s head stuck up one’s fanny forever, can one?

It’s the medication, Perks thought. The old girl’s finally lost her marbles.

– Darling Rebecca, Giles implored, – Do try to see reason. He
started
pacing up and down, moving his hands expansively. – Who reads your books? Mumsie-Wumsie, of course, she who doth hold the entire fabric of our great society together. She who does all the essential maintenance on the chappie who goes out to work, she who rears the kiddies. You know her, you see her all the time on the washing-powder adverts. Yes, she works ever so hard; and like the slaves in the field she does it with a smile on her face and, yes, a song in her heart! It’s a dull, thankless life of drudgery, so she needs a little escape hatch. Oh, yes, afternoon telly helps, of course, but what is the real sweet little pill that makes it all bearable? It’s getting out Rebecca Navarro’s Miss May novels and escaping into that beautiful world of romance and gaiety you so passionately re-create. All the mumsies and the young mumsies-to-be need that.

– Precisely, Perky nodded sternly, – you go introducing buggery and revolution into things and those valium-headed bovine tarts will be throwing down their books in horror – and then where will we be?

– Do tell me, darling? Rebecca teased.

– On the fucking street selling
The Big Issue
, that’s where! Perky roared.

16 A Bugger In The Scrum

Nick Armitage-Welsby picked up a loose ball on the edge of the scrum and accelerated, weaving deep into opposition territory, deftly swivelling past two desperate tackles. The small crowd at Richmond experienced a tingling of anticipation, as Armitage-Welsby had the pace and power to go all the way to the line. However, with the opposition rearguard in disarray, Armitage-Welsby weakly passed to a colleague then collapsed onto the mud.

He was dead on arrival at St Hubbin’s Hospital, the victim of a massive cardio-vascular accident.

The body lay on a trolley in the hospital morgue and was eagerly inspected by Freddy Royle. – Oooh ar, that’s been a good un! Ung loike an ars boi the looks of things … He prepared to take a closer look.

– Eh, Freddy, Glen said warily, – we got this new pathologist geezer, this fellow called Clements, and he … eh, hasn’t really sussed out the way we do things here. He’s on duty later on, and he’ll want to see our friend, so sort of go easy on him.

– Yeah, aal be noice n gentle wif you, won’t oi me ol vlower? Freddy smiled and winked at the corpse. He turned to Glen, – now are you goin to be a lad and look out zum noice ztring vor Vreddy?

Glen huffed and puffed but rummaged in a drawer and produced a ball of string. Let Freddy do what he wanted, Glen thought. He was going out with Yvonne tonight. The cinema, then out clubbing. He would buy her something nice with Freddy’s cash. Perfume. Expensive perfume, he thought. To see her face when he gave it to her. That would do him.

Freddy took two splints and tied them around the corpse’s flaccid
penis
. He then stuck a rectangular biscuit tin between the dead man’s legs, balancing the splinted cock on top.

– Just wait vor this little beauty to go n zet, with that there rigour martiz, then we’ll have ourzelves zum praber vun! Freddy smiled.

Glen made his excuses and went into the ante-room.

17 Lorraine And Love

Lorraine had been spending a lot of time at Rebecca’s. She had helped her with the manuscript. They had been to the British Museum, to Cardboard City, through the Underground stations where mothers begged, holding up malnourished children. – I saw them do that in Mexico City about ten years ago, Rebecca sighed, – and I always thought: that could never happen here, never in England. You want to look the other way all the time. You want to believe everything, that it’s all a con, a fake; you want to believe everything but the truth.

– Which is that they’ve no money to feed their kids and the Government don’t give a fuck, Lorraine sneered, – they’d rather make sure that the rich have got miles more than enough.

Lorraine was so hard sometimes, Rebecca thought. It wasn’t good. If you allowed those who would brutalise you to make you hard, then surely you’ve lost to them. They had achieved their goal. Romance was more than her creative imagination. Surely there had to be room for romance, for true romance? Romance for everyone, and not just from the pages of a book.

These thoughts pounded through Rebecca’s head as Lorraine went back to the nurses’ home. She too had concerns. She hadn’t really talked properly to Yvonne for ages. She had been avoiding her since that night at the club. She was now going out with that Glen guy, and she seemed so happy. When she got back to the home, Lorraine heard some house music coming from Yvonne’s room. It was that Slam tape she’d given her ages ago.

Bracing herself, she knocked on the door. – It’s open, Yvonne said.

She was alone when Lorraine entered. – Hiya, Lorraine said.

– Hi, Yvonne replied.

– Listen, Yvonne, Lorraine began, then started talking quickly, – I came to apologise about how I was in the club that time. It’s really weird, but I was so E’d up and emotional and you just looked so fucking cool and gorgeous and you’re my best pal and you’re the only person who never gives me a hard time …

– Yeah, that’s all good and well, but I ain’t, you know, like that …

– The thing is, Lorraine laughed, – I don’t know if I am either. I was just going through a downer on men … oh, I don’t know … maybe I am, I don’t know where the fuck I’m coming from! When I kissed you, I was treating you like guys treat me … it was out of order. It was weird, but I wanted to see what they felt. I wanted to feel how they felt. I wanted to fancy you, but I didn’t. I thought that if I was a dyke, then it would be easier, at least I’d know something about myself. But I couldn’t get aroused by you.

– I don’t know whether to be pleased or insulted, Yvonne smiled.

– Thing is, I don’t seem to really fancy guys either. Every time with one of them has been a disappointment. Nobody does it for me like I do it for myself… Lorraine put her hand to her mouth, – what a fuckin weird cow, eh.

– Just ain’t found the right one yet, Lorraine. It don’t matter who it is, a bloke or a bird, you just gotta find the right one.

– Voice of experience, eh?

– I think so, Yvonne smiled. – why don’t you come out with us to the club tonight?

– Naw, I’m gaunny keep off the Es for a bit, it’s fucking my head up. I think I love everyone, then I think I’m incapable of loving anyone. The comedowns are getting pretty bad.

– Yeah, I think you’re wise, you’ve put in a fair old bit over the last couple of years. You’ve well paid your dues, gel, ya know? Yvonne laughed then she stood up and embraced Lorraine in a hug which meant more to each woman than either could ever have told each other.

As she left, Lorraine reflected on Yvonne’s love for Glen. No, she
wouldn
’t be going to the club with them. When two people were in love you had to leave them to it. Especially when you weren’t in love and wished that you were. That could embarrass. That could hurt.

18 Untitled – Work In Progress

Page
99

The decline of the Earl of Denby continued apace. Servants complained that Flossie, the sheep, made a mess of the quarters, yet he insisted that she would be waited on by a team of hand-maidens, who would keep the animal in luxury and contentment, particularly ensuring that the beast’s fleece was well-groomed and spotless
.

– Flossie, my darling angel, Denby said, rubbing his erect penis against his beloved blackface’s fleece, – you have rescued me from a life of emptiness and despondency since the untimely demise of my wonderful wife … ah, Flossie, please do not mind me talking of that divine lady. I do wish that the two of you could have met! That would have been wonderful. Alas, it can never be, it is just the two of us now, my darling. How you arouse and tantalise me! I am bewitched … The Earl felt himself sliding into the sheep. – … what bliss …

19 The Pathologist’s Report

The Trust Manager, Alan Sweet, had that sinking feeling he’d anticipated for some time. Someone had to be the bearer of bad news. Sweet had a bad feeling about the bumptious Geoffrey Clements, the new pathologist, right from the start. Clements came into his office, without making an appointment, sat down, and thrust a typed report in front of him. After letting Sweet glance through it, he started to speak in deep, stern tones. – … and I have to conclude that the body of Mr Armitage-Welsby has been interfered with in the way I described, since it came into our possession, here at St Hubbin’s.

– Listen, Mr Clements …, Sweet said, looking at the report, – … eh, Geoffrey … we have to be quite sure about this.

– I am quite sure. Hence the report, Clements gruffly observed.

– But surely there are other factors to consider …

– Such as?

– I mean to say, Sweet began, adding a matey wink which he immediately knew was a bad move before Clements’ bearded face could register a disapproving scowl, – Nick Armitage-Welsby attended an English public school and played rugby at all levels. These two factors should be enough to ensure that he was no stranger to these kind of, eh, attentions …

Clements looked astonished.

– I mean, Sweet continued – could the stretching and contusions around the sphincter and the traces of semen not perhaps be the result of some dressing-room pranks and frolics, perhaps at half-time, shortly before the poor unfortunate fellow was brought to us?

– Not in my professional opinion, Clements retorted frostily. – And incidentally, I would like you to know that I attended an
English
public school and I play rugby with great enthusiasm, though at nowhere near the same level as Nick Armitage-Welsby used to. I have certainly never encountered those practices you talk about and I take great offence at the bland recital of such an offensive stereotype.

– I apologise for any offence caused, Geoffrey. However, as Trust Manager, you appreciate that I have a responsibility to the Trustees who are accountable for any alleged malpractice …

– What about your responsibility to the patients and their relatives?

– Why, that goes without saying, surely. I regard the two as synonymous. But the point is that I can’t go around accusing members of staff of necrophiliac practices. If the press got hold of it, they would have a field day! Public confidence in the hospital and its management would be severely undermined. The Trust relies to a great extent for some of its innovative practices, like the state-of-the-art screening equipment in the new preventative medicine unit, on the goodwill, expressed through charitable donations, of its many wealthy benefactors. Why, if I started pushing needless panic buttons …

– As manager, you and your team also have a duty to the public to investigate this, Clements snapped.

Sweet decided that Clements stood for almost everything he detested, perhaps even more than the working classes he himself sprang from. That arrogant public-school assumption of in-bred superior morality. Bastards like that could afford it; no money worries there. Sweet, though, had staked everything on purchasing that large property on the Thames at Richmond, no more than a shell when he bought it. Now the bills had to be repaid, and things were coming along nicely, thanks to Freddy’s patronage. Now all that was being threatened, his very livelihood, by an arrogant little fuss-pot with a silver spoon in his mouth!

Taking a deep breath, Sweet tried to resume his air of detached professionalism. – Of course, a full investigation will take place …

– See that it does, Clements barked, – and see also that I’m kept informed.

– Of course … Geoffrey … Sweet simpered through gritted teeth.