Surrender to Mr. X (13 page)

“It looks slightly skew-whiff to me,” I said, before I could stop myself. I ought to have bowed down and worshipped, as artists expect you to, in the face of their hard-won creativity.

“It's meant to be,” he said proudly, not seeming to mind. “You have a good eye.”

“I told you she had, Ray,” said Alden, and I felt wanted and needed: couldn't help it.

Ray said the eccentricity was achieved by the uneven number of squares; there were ninety-three of them.

“Why ninety-three?” asked Vanessa, her mind racing off again. Ninety-three is the holy number of Thelema, the Outer Order of the Ancient Mysteries, founded as a religious system by Aleister Crowley in 1903, after much astral attack and infighting amongst its advocates. The number is obtained by the combining
of the geomantic value of the word thelema—Greek for will—and agape—Greek for love. Geomantic value is a term used in numerology, the occult science of numbers. “Ninety-Three” is a sign of greeting and recognition between Thelemites. Even Vanessa gives up on Crowley's greatest work, the Commentaries of Al—arguably a crock of ponderous tosh replete with cutely-used language tendentiously self-bootstrapped to convey substance where none belongs. The eidetic memory is not performing to concert standard: there are dark patches, lacunae; though I do recall Section 20 being headed: “Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.” And further down the page, “Compassion is the vice of kings. Stamp down the wretched of the earth; this is the law of the strong. This is the law and the joy of the world.” Not exactly politically correct.

So Ray is a Thelemite and I suspect Alden may be too. Alden's probably aiming to employ ninety-three hertz in his messianic, “N”-for-narcissist bid to take over the world through BBC Radio 3. At Joan's expense. Joan is Plymouth Brethren. Actually so was Crowley—there's a coincidence: or at least his parents were, particularly rigid and disciplinarian they were too, which some commentators claim may have driven young Aleister to react by choosing a path of voluptuary excess.

If this evening does not end in some kind of fulfilled voluptuary excess on Alden's part, I think I will go mad.

Fortunately Ray produced some pasta to help subdue my bipolar anxieties. There clearly wasn't going to be much sexual excess from his direction, despite his ninety-three fixation. Sex, shopping—and food: all tranquilizers to still the restless mind, which may be why 57% of bipolars are classified as obese.

The table being too cluttered to use, we ate from plates on our laps. Ray and I sat on the edge of the big blue sofa which was pulled up in front of one of those kitsch electric fires with false flames, Alden opposite us in a chair, behind it. Ray had used lots of garlic, good lean mince and plum tomatoes—not purée which can give everything a rather metallic taste. A good Chilean wine: 1997 Almeviva with a Rothschild label. Nothing
en primeur
about this one. I had the feeling Ray was not short of money: he just didn't have any interest in spending it for the sake of it. Alden, on the contrary, though having all the outer show of wealth, agonized endlessly, though sporadically, about what he spent.

All through supper Alden wouldn't let it go. What would happen if Ray's painting, which they called
The Blue Box
, was not ready in time? Lady O might be disinclined to pay what she had promised. She would argue about breach of contract. Ray had to get his fucking finger out of his backside, get on with it. Ray winced at the language, but I think that was for my benefit. Arts-Intrinsick's lease was coming to an end. Alden would in all likelihood have to pay out even more, either on renewal or for somewhere else, and
turnover was up by only 5% over last year. There were some good new commissions in view but nothing was finalized. “The other business,” whatever that was, was more cut-throat and competitive than ever. As readily accessible communication technology improved, the margin between what Alden could produce and others did was diminishing. The easy days were over.

But whatever Alden thought he was really talking about, to me his words seemed to refer to his problems completing the act of sex: the initial débâcle with me, no doubt a reprise of many, many times since the accident, was still very much with him.

I suggested that Ray try hypnosis for his block: so long as he actually wanted to get over it, hypnosis would work. Ray said he didn't approve of it: it was too facile a solution, like magic. Alden laughed and said Ray was a fine one to talk—easy solutions were just practical ones, except for those who were perverse enough to be attached to their problems, players of Wooden Leg and Ain't It Awful out of
Games People Play
. Why did he hesitate? Especially since power and domination were apparently now at Ray's fingertips, he being on the Fourth Path. If, that is, you were to put your trust in the Southgate people, which he, Alden, frankly didn't. Southgate were renegades. They didn't know what they were doing, and why belong to what was a mere Outer Order anyway?

“It's the real OTO for me, or bust,” said Alden. They were talking over my head, rudely, but then Joan could
expect no better. Man's talk. The Ordo Templi Orientis, the Inner Order. Founded by Kellner and Reuss, Rosicrucians, 33rd Degree Masons, in 1910, only to be taken over by the egregious Crowley. Southgate OTO: it was as though Alden and Ray were talking about competing Boy Scout troops. My brother Robert went to one for a time and it was all in-fighting, noble talk and, I suspected, child molestation. I helped myself to more spaghetti.

“I have the powers,” said Ray, stubbornly. “I just don't mean to use them selfishly, or lightly.” Alden said that since so much was at stake and it was obvious to everyone that all Ray needed to shake off his artist's block was a good shag, surely there were enough girls down there in Southgate struggling with Paths One and Two, who'd be only too grateful for a bit of domination?

“Don't even think of it—” said Ray, evidently shocked.

“Not follow in the footsteps of the master?” Alden continued. “Mind you I wouldn't fancy it myself—bad skin and flat hair are the mark of the dedicated female Thelemite. Excuses. There're plenty of other seas to fish in, girls anywhere you look.”

And they both looked at my rather wild and plentiful hair, totally loose by now from its Greek curls. I wished I had a comb.

“No Thelemite she,” said Alden.

“She has tomato sauce round her mouth,” said Ray,
as if this was rather a wonderful thing. It is nice to be appreciated.

Supper over, Alden played his CD to us, or rather Lam did. Alden pressed his touchpad and lo, enter Lam. It seemed he was never off duty. Surely Alden could have used his touch pad to play it himself? He made the usual propitiatory cries of the nervous creative: only a first attempt, the next would be more complete, it was only a relatively wild, rough mix, he needed a couple more sessions with Joan—my heart leapt: it was not going to end here: there was time for me yet to solve his problems and firm-in my status.

And Ray said, “Sod this Alden, stop sucking your thumb and let us hear it—if you want us to?”

Touché, Alden, I thought. You asked for that. But he'd already signaled to Lam: out of the sound system came a new configuration of the hum which had sent me to sleep: presumably what Alden had managed to wring out of today's session. It was in a lower range and the heartbeats were more variable. I felt sleepy. I put my head on the sofa arm.

“She go sleep,” Lam observed. “Very good. Languor delicious.”

“I told you so,” said Alden. “This is marketable.”

Ray said, “Yes, if you want a soporific, but I thought you were after an aphrodisiac.”

“I reckon it's that as well,” said Alden.

“What's the point if you sleep through your own excitement?” asked Ray.

The next thing I remember is waking with my nose pushed deep into the faded blue cord-cloth of the sofa and, as before, banging away from behind, the end of the penis right up in me as far as it would go, to the edge of where pleasure almost becomes pain, and it's clearly noticeable that the orifice is designed for functions other than sex. I was slightly on my side, Lam had one of my legs hooked over the back of the sofa with one clammy hand on my ankle to enhance Alden's comfortable access, and the pounding was as rhythmical and insistent as was consistent with Alden's courting technique. I moved to get more air and protect my nose but Lam had my hair round his other fist and pushed my head back down; but not before I had a glimpse of Ray at his easel—and Ray had a brush in his hand and was actually painting.

I had no idea how long I had been sleeping: for all I knew Ray had taken Alden's advice and shagged me already, to the instant dissolution of his artist's block, and now it was Alden's turn. But I thought probably not. Ray seemed too intent on his canvas, and rather stiff-jawed and disapproving of what was happening on the sofa. Can one come in one's sleep? I imagined I had. There seemed no desperate need in me to reach orgasm, as if the initial one was some way behind, and my body was gathering up its resources for the next burst of interest—when without warning Alden simply stopped, withdrew, and wailed, “It's still no good. I can't!” He sounded petulant and spoiled, and it occurred
to me that his emotional development had stopped with the explosion. Hasan, at a nominal sixteen, conducted himself with more dignity than Alden.

Lam let my hair go, after a quite unnecessary final tug, and lifted Alden, who was twice his bulk and twice his weight, effortlessly, and put him back in his chair—Lam was spindly, but he was strong.

I restored myself to my proper state—like a computer being restored to a previous date and time, the better to bypass any current problems—and went to the bathroom to wash, as much to save Alden's face as anything, for there was nothing to wash away. By the time I returned Lam was dabbing Alden's brow and hands with a cloth and Ray, standing over them, was remonstrating.

“I don't want you doing this sort of thing in my studio.” Ray's voice rose with indignation. “It is not a sex den. You have ruined the atmosphere, just scuppered it.”

“Sorry, mate,” said Alden, “I created the atmosphere. And were you not painting? Can that be a brush in your hand—of course not! Just a trick of the light.”

“I painted for five minutes,” said Ray. “It's outrageous. I do not want to be part of your sexual activities. Getting your pound of fucking flesh, first from her, then from me.”

“Why don't you get yours then?”

And so on. It was like my twin sisters, Alison and Katharine, when they occasionally had a spat.

“No one asked you to join in. Perhaps that's your problem?” said Alden.

Ray danced about with rage.

“And that poor girl, she was asleep.”

“What about me?” demanded Alden. “What do you think it's like for me? To be dependent on Lam, to have to be lifted onto a bed, a position arranged for me?”

“Bring out the violins,” mocked Ray. “Do what you want on your own bed but leave my sofa alone.” It was a real row.

“She slept, I fucked, what's the matter with that?”

“The matter,” said Ray, “is that you're a fucking cripple. All you can ever get is someone who's sick in the head or else sorry for you like Joanie. You can't do without your special effects. Spiked chocolates and a bloody hum farting away all the time.”

“If you'd just have a proper shag,” said Alden, “you'd stop being so neurotic.”

“I'm the neurotic one?” said Ray. “You haven't had a proper shag since the day you had your legs blown up.”

“You haven't had a proper shag since the day you were born,” said Alden—his voice had lost its weight: he actually sounded lame—“Mr. Premature Ejaculation…” They believed in hard truths, these two.

“Ninety-three,” said Lam, suddenly talkative. “Ninety-three. Love under will. Compassion: vice of kings.” And then, warningly, “She listen. Girl think too hard, pretend not.”

But they were too incensed now to take much notice of Lam, or me.

“Better not to come at all,” jeered Alden, “than to come too soon.”

“You don't know the half of it,” said Ray. “One false brushstroke and the whole web shatters. I am never going to paint again!” And at that he flung the paint brush into the electric fire, where the handle flared and melted, wrinkling, accompanied by a ferocious metallic smell. I think it must have been made of old fashioned bakelite. Lam leapt to retrieve it.

“No fire,” he said. “No fire.” And I may have imagined it but it seemed to me Lam simply took the burning bakélite and smothered the flames with his hands. They were damp enough, God knows, to douse most fires.

“Can someone get me a taxi?” I asked.

They turned and stared at me.

“She not go yet,” Lam said. “She not finished. Ray shag. Ray paint.”

“You must be joking,” I said.

Ray, his gesture made, seemed to be rethinking.

“Joanie,” said Ray, contemplatively, “Lam's on the Seventh Path. He has a fine intuition. He's come all the way from Tibet to Southgate for the course. He's halfway to being a master.”

“Lam's a freak,” I said. “I am sure he's very useful about the house but he's a weird freak. Now get me a taxi. Joanie cross.”

“Joanie,” said Alden, “sit down and relax. Look into
Ray's eyes. Now we've found you, we don't want to let you go.”

Well, I didn't want to be let go, either, frankly. I liked it up here in the attic. It was a friendly place, and Alden and Ray were already feeling like family. They quarreled, they made up, they struggled with problems to do with their creativity and sexuality, and it was just great to have a home-cooked meal for once, instead of microwave in the flat or the staff canteen at the Olivier. Which reminded me I really had to get home some time and see my own family. But they were so dull.