Nirvana Bites (3 page)

What could I do? I leapt from the chair and seized the brush from the tin of Sunburst Yellow sitting on the floor outside the kitchen. Paint began flying in all directions, magnificent sprays, drools and splatters liberally patterning the walls. There was an extended battle before the tins and our energy had run out. We sank to the floor, breathing heavily and dripping with what looked like egg yolk and gore. I love my hall now.

I took off the suit I had borrowed for the BBC interview and hung it on a hook on my bedroom door before changing into jeans and a T-shirt. Then I made coffee in the tiny kitchen and carried it through to the front room, where I sank on to the floor cushions. Everything in this room was at floor level – an essential health and safety precaution when you're around people who drink and smoke as much as my friends: not so far to fall. I picked up a notepad and pen and opened to a clean page. I wrote
STAN – AREAS TO INVESTIGATE
in bold letters and triple-underlined it. Then I sank back on to the cushions and gazed out of the window.

One of the best things about my home is that it overlooks the railway line. This means I don't have to worry about people looking in; I have a view of trees, rising moons and fox families running along the track; and I feel a connectedness to the rest of the world. On the other hand, it can sometimes be tiresome to have every conversation, TV programme and reverie punctuated by the roar of passing trains. But that's OK. You know, yin and yang and karmic balance and stuff.

I noticed the light on my answer-machine winking at me. I leaned over and punched the button. The voice of my sister-in-law, Kate filled the room. ‘Straight Kate' as she was known by the rest of the family.

‘Hello, Jenny. Just wondered how the interview went. Oh – and you have hung my suit up properly, haven't you? Not on a wire hanger, I hope.'

‘End of final message,' my machine cooed in honey tones as I struggled guiltily to my feet to search for a padded hanger.

Ten minutes of displacement activity later (I took off my earrings, dropped a stud, found it nestled cosily between the floorboards and extricated it with a screwdriver together with a long-lost pound coin, having first failed with a key then a fingernail – now broken) I collapsed back on to the cushions and picked up the notepad again. Perhaps I'd better give Kate a ring first.

After forty minutes listening to Kate moaning on about something I seemed to have blocked out, I was on the point of a Stan-related revelation when I realised I was hungry. I couldn't expect to concentrate without a small snack. I knocked up a lentil and vegetable soup thickened with coconut cream, which I had to go out and buy with the pound coin, and then decided to make just a very small loaf of bread to dip into it. While I was cooking, the phone rang but I was at a crucial kneading point and let the machine pick it up.

Full-bellied and satisfied, I returned to my cushions and punched the button on the machine again. My stomach gave a guilty lurch as I heard Stan's voice, sounding shaky and subdued.

‘Jen. I'm home. I've taken a long hot bath. And even though I had to get a new set of staples out of the sponge and the soap, I'm actually feeling a lot better. I just wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am for your help. I don't know why, but I just somehow feel that with you on my side, I can come through this thing. I spoke to the others and they've all promised to keep shtum. I told them I'm having a breakdown and you're my therapist. And they believed me! Amazing, huh? Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing how you're planning on going about sorting this thing out. Speak to you soon.'

I felt the burden of responsibility weighing heavily on my shoulders. Too heavily. What had I taken on? I needed help. And, wonder of wonders, I
could get some. At one time or another, we had all called on the other co-op members to help with some crisis, either personal or political. As far as I knew, no one had ever before asked for help to trace a psychopathic blackmailer with a penchant for office stationery, but I was sure if we worked together we would be up to the challenge.

I trotted back down the stairs and pounded on Maggot's door loudly enough to be heard over the sound of Lauryn Hill pounding out of her stereo. The door opened and the frame filled with Maggot's massive bulk – five feet ten and fifteen stone of solid muscle which strained at the seams of her black T-shirt and African-print trousers. When I first met her, five years ago, she had grown tired of attempting to make her hair ‘flap like a white girl's', as she put it. She'd given up on straighteners, curly perms and chemicals and concoctions of all kinds and taken to shaving her head. Six months later, she'd grown equally sick of the way people backed away from her wherever she went, so she'd started to grow locks. The effect was only marginally less intimidating, but at least now it was only the white folks who felt threatened. Which was fine by Maggot. Mags is a counsellor in a drugs project in Brixton, which also makes her the only member of the co-op who holds down a steady job.

I filled her in briefly on Stan's – and my – problem, and she reacted with decisive energy, as I'd known she would.

‘Right. Emergency meeting,' she said grimly and reached in for the phone. It never ceased to amaze me that out of a bunch of supposedly politically aware, environmentally conscious radicals, not one of us ever questioned this reliance on the phone to call someone a few yards away on the other side of the wall. We could communicate as easily – and certainly more cheaply – by just knocking on the wall or opening the window and yelling, but we never did. I might bring it up. One day.

I left the organisation to Mags and returned upstairs to switch the kettle on. Half an hour later an emergency meeting of the Nirvana Housing Co-op convened in my front room. It was customary on such occasions for everyone to bring something, on the grounds that, if it was an emergency, some or all of us may well be in need of comfort.

I provided the venue, the tea and the crisis. Maggot brought a spliff the size of a leg, but I didn't get too excited: I knew from bitter experience that she would consume over two-thirds of it in a couple of almighty, lung-blasting drags. The people on either side of her would jostle closer in the hope that what was left would be passed their way. I retreated from the action and sat on the other side of the room, knowing the tension would kill the high anyway. Frank brought a battered pack of digestives, and I wondered fleetingly if Mrs V had started selling biscuits. Nick's contribution was Robin – which was cheating a bit, but we let it slide. Ali, from the third house, placed a large bowl of unhusked sunflower seeds in the centre of the room like an offering. My heart sank at the thought of the debris that would be the aftermath of their consumption. He nodded silently round the room before folding himself on to the floor in a full lotus that would have made his parents proud – if they ever saw him again. Their patience with their wayward son, who seemed so intent on subverting every value they held dear, had finally run out a couple of years ago when he'd arrived at their house during Ramadan wearing a ripped black T-shirt and jeans and sporting a tattoo of an anarchist symbol on his forehead.

The only one not there was Gaia, who lived downstairs from Ali, with her seven cats, two rabbits and a hamster. Gaia was our resident earth mother. Her parents were hippies – the first time round. They were into peace and love, but by all accounts were too stoned to lavish much of the latter on Gaia. They were retired now and lived in a croft in the Outer Hebrides. Gaia had taken on many of their ideals and updated them by immersing herself into all things New Age. She and Mags often clashed over what Mags described as Gaia's ‘pick ‘n' mix spirituality' (when she was feeling generous) and her ‘cultural imperialism' (when she wasn't). Anyway, Gaia was apparently out at some moon-worship, world-healing event involving crystals, herbs, ancient Chinese mysticism and Native American rituals.

I had the floor, and told Stan's story in full Technicolor detail. We had a no-interruption rule, so apart from my voice there was complete silence in the room – with the exception of packet-rustling, biscuit-chewing, tea-slurping, spliff-sucking, sunflower-seed-husking and train roaring. I was pleased to see Mags had picked up my notepad and was making notes on the virgin page.

I finished and looked round the room expectantly.

‘Right,' said Mags with characteristic energy. ‘This is what we've got.' She took another huge drag on the spliff, peered at the roach between her fingertips and then tossed it into my date palm – much to the despair of Frank and Nick on either side of her. ‘Whoever is messing with Stan is using his S&M persona to put the pressure on his straight life. In other words, they know his identity in both worlds. OK. So what do they want? There have been no demands. No threats. I'd have thought if they were softening him up for blackmail they'd have made their move by now.'

‘That's right,' I interjected, unwilling to let Mags take over too far on the super-sleuth front. ‘So, the way I see it, that leaves two possibilities. Either this is personal, someone from the Scene that he really pissed off. And you have to admit the harassment has some obvious sadistic hallmarks.'

Everyone winced. The fish episode had really got to them.

‘Only if that was so, I would've expected Stan to have worked that out himself. Or, someone is trying to push Stan to the edge – and succeeded today. But why? Who would have something to gain from Stan cracking up?'

‘Further to that,' Robin interrupted eagerly, ‘It may be pertinent to consider whether the intended victim is Stanley, or Catherine.'

Robin and Nick might look like a pair of crusty old hippies, but their origins betray them whenever they open their mouths. Those accents – the plummiest this side of Dulwich Village – could only be the result of a public-school education. But no one controls the situation they're born into, so we are all kind enough not to draw attention to it. Not too often anyway.

Robin lowered his head and peered with great intensity at the toe protruding from his dilapidated right trainer. ‘Actually, I just might be in a position to do a spot of research on that front,' he mumbled. ‘My mother happens to be the chair of the local Conservative association in Catherine Highshore's constituency. They're good friends.' He hunched his bony shoulders in an apologetic shrug. ‘Sorry, folks,' he murmured. ‘But it just might be useful, you know?'

‘Thanks, Robin,' I said brightly. ‘We know that was hard for you and we appreciate it. That may well be something we have to follow up. Anyone got any other ideas?'

There was a short silence, which was broken by an unexpected sound.

‘Eco-warriors.'

We all looked up and turned to gaze at Ali. It was rare that he spoke and when he did it was usually in monosyllables and often, as now, appeared to be a confusing non sequitur. In fact, I've always suspected he has a superb brain and rarely speaks to others because he gets far more satisfaction – and stimulation – from internal conversations. What appears to be a contribution from the nether regions of Planet Ali – and thus completely incomprehensible to our humanoid species – often turns out to be incredibly apposite.

We all narrowed our eyes, furrowed our brows and tried to look intelligent. It was Mags who got there first.

‘Are you suggesting there may be a link between the trashing of the production suite and what's happening to Stan?'

Ali raised an eyebrow in response.

Frank looked up from the date palm, which he had been gazing at wistfully. ‘I heard something about that. I met Slug the other day down the pub. He said it was shite.'

‘What was shite, Frank?' I asked, careful not to freak him out by sounding impatient.

From the age of five, Frank had boarded at a college on the Galway coast. He never talks about his education, but whatever it consisted of was enough to result in him being physically sick whenever he sees a Catholic priest. He left when he was sixteen and hit the streets of London with as much experience as a fish has of an aviary and as ripe for exploitation as a Vietnamese worker in a Nike factory. In quick and easy stages he developed pubic lice, scabies, herpes, a taste for Tennants Extra and a major drugs habit. He's off the smack now, but it's no surprise that his brain is still scrambled.

‘That BBC stuff. He said it was set up to look like an eco-job, but no one knows anyone involved. He reckons it was well dodgy.'

‘Can we talk to Slug about it?' I asked.

‘Dunno where he is,' shrugged Frank.

‘We can't go and see him?' enquired Mags.

‘He lives up a fucking tree,' Frank protested.

‘So?' chorused Mags and I in unison.

‘So it's never the same fucking tree,' Frank explained, like it was obvious.

We slumped.

‘Um. There is another way of pursuing that angle actually,' interjected Nick. ‘We could check out the eco-sites on the Web.'

‘Yeah. Just one small flaw, Nick,' I said. I knew I sounded a bit nasty. This wasn't providing the results I'd hoped for. ‘Who do we know who has access to the internet?'

‘Um. Er. Well.' Nick shuffled uncomfortably. We all looked at him with curiosity. ‘I do, actually.'

Several pairs of eyes widened simultaneously.

‘Birthday present from The Parents.' He looked round the room wild-eyed. I don't have any iffy games,' he said, forced on to the defensive.

‘Is that running down our phone line?' growled Frank.

‘No,' protested Nick, but then realised quite how deep a hole he had dug. ‘I – I run it through my mobile,' he stammered.

‘Techno-turd,' muttered Frank. ‘Fucking laptops and mobiles. Yuppie scum.'

It needed to be said, but I think we all felt a frisson of excitement at the potential. Now that we knew about it, we could trade on Nick's middle-class guilt and have a new toy.