Carnivore

by Jonathan Lyon

  ‘I’m looking for a business card,’ I said, rifling through the spikes, foils, and toiletries of Dawn’s handbag. ‘It belongs to a man named Nikolas And – he’s an art director. And we’re going to pay him a visit.’

  I needed to make Kimber play a game – and so work him back up into that vulnerable, unbalanced state of mind which obsessed over family and ritual – and which might make him take me to Francis.

  He did not reply, perhaps still too amazed by the ploy that had caused this exit – and so I spoke on.

  ‘I was introduced to him by Lars Vasari,’ I said. ‘She’s a film maker. And as a joke she described me to him as her new muse. But I want to make her joke a reality. So we need to persuade this journalist to put me on the front cover of his magazine and to interview me – about my starring role in Lars’ film – and about my status more generally as one of London’s most exciting up and coming talents.’

  I found the card stuck to the underside of a packet of make-up removal wipes.

  ‘And why do you need me to help you with this, my dear?’ Kimber asked at last, muffled by the helmet – shaken, amused.

  ‘It will be fun. It’s a game. I want to be your son – and you should want the best for your son. You should want London covered with my face. In return I’ll do as I said – I’ll help you elude the police and rebuild your empire. Think of this as a father-son bonding exercise. You’re used to delegating tasks to employees from the top – so this will make for a pleasant change – a return to the basics.’

  ‘If you think this is the basics, then you have gravely misunderstood my line of work. This scheme is nonsensical.’

  In my dazed euphoria, his voice had a colour – a metallic red – and as I gazed through the window, it skipped over the passing buildings like a candle’s shadow. I could hear the fascination in it – and suddenly I realised – he truly believed I had killed Dawn, and because of this, he admired me.

  And not only admired, but loved, perhaps – as if, somehow, in this violent psychology, he believed too much in bodies to love something dead – and so the love he felt for Dawn had been diverted to me. And so, even as he feared me, despised me, desired me – somewhere deeper down, he also loved me.

  And so I had to bombard him with words – with motivations and jokes and excuses and promises – to keep him talking – until something struck him hard enough and he started fully playing along – and then his conflicting emotions might begin to overtake him.

  ‘All the best seduction is nonsensical,’ I said. ‘And what I want from this journalist does have a foundation in reality – I’m already in Vasari’s film. And she’s already taken a cover-worthy photograph of me – which couldn’t have happened without you, since my eye was bruised shut by men you commissioned to attack me. Currently, I’m just a cameo in a single scene – and this photograph was my consolation prize. But I wish to be in more scenes. And in order to be in more scenes, I need to have a higher profile. And so we must build upon the reality that we have to create a better one. Maybe I could have worked my way onto his cover through networking and sex and luck and hard work – but intimidation is so much faster.’

  Kimber laughed at a low pitch. ‘You are trying to charm me, Leander. I am not stupid. But maybe it’s working. And, say it is – where will this intimidation take place?’

  ‘I’m about find out,’ I said, typing the contact number on the card into my snitch phone.

  ‘I must insist on speakerphone.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nikolas’ phone rang unanswered. But I felt safe inside heroin’s intense contentedness, so wasn’t able to worry.

  ‘Plots as grand as yours should not rely on chance,’ Kimber gloated. ‘You could have rung ahead.’

  ‘Plots are for the witless,’ I said. ‘I improvise. And we are ringing ahead. Perhaps he is afraid of unknown numbers, perhaps his music is playing too loudly. I will ring again.’

  Nikolas answered on the third ring. I smiled smugly at Kimber’s mirrored visor – he nodded his head towards me in acknowledgement and then returned his face to the road.

  ‘Hi, Nikolas, this is Leander – we met at the Lars Vasari exhibition?’

  ‘Leander! Of course, no, no, of course! Enchanted to hear from you. What an enchanting evening. You were so helpful in getting Lars to open up for me – really so helpful. And I’m going to be quoting you, if I may, on what you said about castles of zeros.’

  ‘Ah that’s kind of you. I don’t remember what I said but I’m sure it was wrong. Anyway I wanted to ask – what are you doing right now? I was thinking I could provide some more perspectives on Lars’ work for you.’

  ‘Certainly, please, certainly. I’m at home – I’m free this very minute. Provide away. And you should tell me more about yourself as well – the new muse of Ms Vasari might merit a sidebar. Perhaps a photograph.’

  ‘I can come to your house if you want,’ I said. ‘I was filming with her yesterday – and we were speaking about you, actually – and I found your card again today, so I thought I’d call you.’

  ‘Well…’ he said, flustered by my forwardness. ‘We can… we can just talk on the phone, if you’d prefer. There’s no need to go out of your way.’

  ‘Oh no – it has to be face to face if we’re going to be spilling secrets. And I love invading people’s homes,’ I laughed. ‘Lars wants me to be her spy to find out more about you. And I’m very nosey so I’m happy to oblige. Give me your postcode and I’ll just come round for tea. I’m in Brixton at the moment and I have to go to a drinks later, so I can’t grace you with my presence for long.’

  ‘I – er,’ he stammered. ‘Well, yeah, sure. I should be honoured. It’s just me here – I live in Camberwell, but… but I’m doing a bit of decoration, so it’s not really hospitable to guests… Th-there’s a café around the corner that’s —’

  ‘I love homes in transitional states,’ I said. ‘And I’m practically on your doorstep! Camberwell is five minutes away. What’s the address?’

  ‘12 Genevier Road, I’m the upstairs flat – A – flat A – it’s. I mean – this is, I don’t really… I’m —’

  ‘Spontaneity is good for your health,’ I said. ‘And Lars wants me to catch you unprepared – so consider this part of the interview process.’

  I hung up.

  ‘I knew he’d live alone,’ I said, typing his address into the satnav. ‘He has the busy timidity of someone who’s repressed their sexuality too long. He swapped a sex life for middlebrow graphic design. You can always tell.’

  ‘This is a venomous side of you,’ Kimber said approvingly. ‘He was going to give you what you wanted anyway.’

  ‘A sidebar is not a front cover,’ I said. ‘And a front cover will only happen by force.’

  ‘Your mother said you were talented but lazy – and yet here you are being… energetic.’

  ‘You inspired me,’ I said, putting the snitch phone back into Dawn’s handbag and taking out her smartphone. ‘We’re good for each other. Look.’

  I opened the photograph Iris had taken of me and held it for him to admire. The car idled in a queue, waiting to turn right. He lifted his visor to look at the phone screen more carefully.

  ‘Do you understand now why this has to go on the cover?’ I asked. ‘It’s a photo of you more than me. This is your handiwork! My bruises were made by you – your violence would be broadcast across the city. This is your invisible power made visible.’

  ‘This is… sensational,’ he said slowly. ‘This should be every magazine cover. My dear, I am not agnostic. I agree, I agree.’

  He had regained control of his act. His over-politeness had its old confidence beneath it – and its old threat. The dissonance between who he’d been to me on meth and who he was now was decreasing – and for the first time, I could see those states as two extremes of the same man – like he’d found his way back onto the line between them. My period of advantage was over – he had adjusted to me, and now we we
re playing as equals again. But at least he was playing. The cars in front began to move – he lowered his visor and drove on.

  ‘I thought you’d like my photo,’ I said. ‘It’s a family portrait, really, if we include the whip wounds made by Dawn. And I gave you each a head wound in return. Me and the marks of my parents. I’m going to email it to Nikolas. And then all that needs to happen is for him to agree with us. This is where I hope to learn from you. I’m a novice to the art of intimidation. I want to be your understudy.’

  ‘I don’t have the patience for that anymore,’ he said. ‘I want to see you again as you were in that picture. I don’t want anyone between us.’

  His speech had quickened, but it was not unstable. By acknowledging his desire for me, he weakened its power over him – I had not expected this. My body’s meanings were no longer frightening. And his voice was no longer a metallic red – it had instead the aftertaste of a blown-out candle, tannic, melting back towards the scent of sandalwood oil.

  ‘But I need to learn,’ I protested. ‘I want you to teach me how to be invisible.’

  ‘I can start now,’ he said with a hushed intensity, rolling his neck beneath the helmet as if in preparation for exercise. ‘The best invisibility is its opposite, naturally – the well-dressed well-spoken gentleman. I was not born with this accent. In fact, I was born outside Europe. I designed myself to become unquestionable. I now represent the class that the police were founded to protect. The best invisibility is to be a highly-visible authority figure. Some occasions call for a fluorescent jacket and a hardhat, and some for a high-street suit and a clipboard – low kinds of authority, but still effective. Though I don’t stoop to those. And as you know already – another technique is to seem to be the victim, beaten and weaker and weeping. But the most cunning disguise is to look like you’ve already been caught – handcuffed and escorted away by a stooge, only noticed as absent long after the raid is done. The worst mistake is to try to be inconspicuous – that always attracts the trained eye. You must simply be very visibly somebody who cannot be you – that’s how to stay invisible. Become impossible. Men like me saturate the establishment, and they crowd the houses of Commons and Lords – but they get away with it, as men with poorer accents and darker skin do not.’

  ‘So you changed your voice and bleached your skin? And now you can be even more invisible – if we go to Nikolas And. This photo will be seen by millions of people – your presence will be hidden in plain sight on my body. And I will become more invisible too – because a cover model cannot be a criminal. It will be the ultimate disguise – think of how useful I will be to you when I’m publicly known, and thus above suspicion...’

  The satnav announced our destination as 400 feet away.

  ‘Maybe – but this helmet is a different kind of invisibility,’ he continued, more enthused by his own expertise than by the theory behind it. ‘This helmet serves a different function. It conceals me from road cameras, but also it’s an obvious invisibility – the kind that creates fear. Mr And cannot know what I am and that shall keep him afraid.’

  ‘But how exactly do we… make him do what we want?’ I asked.

  He parked across a single yellow line and withdrew the car key, but paused with it held in mid-air as he considered. ‘What exactly do you want him to say? What shall this interview be about if you have done nothing?’

  ‘That’s for him to invent,’ I said. ‘Most of the people in his magazine have done nothing. What do I believe? Our era has the worst fashion in the history of civilisation, because for the last fifty years we’ve been putting words on clothes. Words are fucking ugly. Take words off clothes! That can be my platform. No brand names no band names no slogans no logos. He can give me whatever quotes he wants. He just needs to be enthusiastic. Take words off clothes!’

  We left the car. The opiates still nulled my nerves, but their anxiolytic effect was lessening – paranoia was breaking through. Kimber’s energy had become manic again. The polarity between us had switched. To find Francis, I had to continue – but our game had new rules. I was walking upside down now, no longer leading, but being led.

  ‘Intimidation has two parts,’ Kimber said, guiding me towards number 12 with a hand on each of my shoulders. ‘The first part is proving we can cause pain, and the second part is promising that the pain can last forever. The most elegant intimidations combine the proof with the promise.’

  We passed through a gate of peeling grey paint, towards the grey front door. The puddles smiled at me with a blank London smile that had seen too much but pretended to see nothing. I rang the upper of two bells. Kimber’s breath on my neck reminded my skin of his handcuffs.

  I tried to seem more assured. ‘You mean like the best tragedies combine anagnorisis with peripeteia?’

  ‘If you say so. But my preferred promise of pain is a video recording, as you know. We must film Nikolas engaged in an act that he does not want the world to see – and then we shall have power over him forever.’

  ‘How will that also be proof?’ I asked.

  ‘Hello – come upstairs!’ a nervous voice called through the intercom.

  The door buzzed open. Kimber increased his grip on my shoulders and pushed me through an inner door, onto a carpeted staircase. The air smelled of beeswax, or shoe polish – and other conditioning foams. At the top of the stairs stood Mr Nikolas And – in bottle-green corduroys, a navy smock, and navy socks, all flecked with paint.

  ‘You’ve come with a surprise,’ Nikolas said, trying to smile.

  Kimber shut the inner door behind us and steered me upstairs. Nikolas stepped backwards into a room with sheets on the floor. His face faltered, unsure how long he should maintain politeness before conceding to fear.

  ‘I am the publicist of this eligible bachelor,’ Kimber said through his helmet, labouring every syllable with a gleefully incongruous civility.

  He pushed me after Nikolas into the room, which was bare but for a cluster of decorating tools – a tub of gardenia paint, a can of paint thinner, a roller, and a tray. A siren began inside my skin.

  Kimber took his out his gun – and with it, motioned Nikolas towards the corner. The taste of malt vinegar returned instantly to my gums – and at the memory of the gun’s last shot, and of the grease on its silencer, a dull elation grew in my thighs. Kimber picked up the can of paint thinner.

  ‘For the proof that we can cause pain if he doesn’t oblige, it is best to have a test subject,’ Kimber said, fully now the master of ceremonies. ‘At our last meeting, that test subject was a policewoman – I proved my ability to cause pain, or even death, and so you obeyed me. This time, my dear, you shall be the test subject. You shall be the proof, and you shall be the promise – our power shall come from a film of Mr Nikolas here inflicting himself upon you.’

  My mind wiped itself silent. Before I could move, Kimber uncapped the fist-wide can and forced it over my nose – denting the rim into my chin. If I leant away the toxic thinner would spill into my mouth. My body’s confidence dissolved.

  ‘Breathe in,’ he said paternally, nearly with pity.

  I tried to shake my head away – but he shoved me into the wall so I couldn’t tip it back, and twisted the rusted tin around my lips and the bridge of my nose until I screamed – and gasped in.

  Instantly the vapour filled my throat, suffocating and enlivening, biting into my teeth, licking my tongue with the taste of alcohol and vinyl – a terror of gas, lifting me away from density. Kimber pressed the pistol into my forehead until the eyes reflecting back in his visor were unrecognisable as my own – they had the plaintive too-late fear of a gambler losing his last bet. I closed them and inhaled again – the dominating reek of iron now crowding through my nose for my brain and dropping to my lungs as thick as milk. My vision twisted towards sound – my heartbeat multiplying in a scale, ascending and descending faster than I could hear, loudening my stomach somehow into paralysis, overruling vomit – binding me to the stench, as my thoughts u
nbound.

  ‘As you said yourself – it’s dull when there’s only one agent of confusion,’ Kimber said joyfully – twisting the gun further into my forehead until its capillaries screamed and I screamed too, inhaling fuller – ‘Did you believe we could work together? I can improvise better than you! You knew the risks of hiring this hand, my dear, you knew the risks.’

  The tin seemed to be drooping as I breathed into it – its metal stretching towards the floor, like I was inflating it – causing the room beyond it to become disjointed too. The light was panicking. The floor broke up into blocks bouncing between gaps with no colour. Then, the walls spiralled upwards into coils taller than the house – and the sky rushed in.

  Still Kimber kept the toxic tin to my mouth and still I breathed in, hyperventilating – outside the enharmonic scale now, almost like an oboe, repeating in triplets a motif that ended with a fourth – as another oboe joined a sixth above it. Weaving in and out of my own breath, the oboes played – speeding under the entrance of a timpani, detuned or mis-tuned, beating into my head – and swelling, until it burst open and its matter unrolled into the pipes of an organ. My head was a fugue of fumes – and what remained of my mouth giggled at the silly melody. It was like a fairground ride’s or a dancing monkey’s and I wished to dance with it.

  But instead I was folded in half – Kimber kneed me in the gut, releasing my mouth from the can – and kicked me towards the bucket of paint. I vomited a tea of bergamot and caraway – my eyes cones of vodka, each limb dislocated. He picked my head up separately and held it above the surface of the gloss. My mind was camouflaging itself from itself, blending upwards with what used to be the ceiling.

  ‘This will be your fate, Nikolas, if you do not do as we wish,’ Kimber said, his voice now purely vinegar.

  And he plunged my head into the bucket of paint. I smelt and saw inwardly – behind my face was a flare – like a will-o’-the-wisp caught in a goblet – and as I heaved, the goblet grew into a gleaming basin. Gradually, inwardly, I was nearing a negative pillar, a void – and within it was a photograph. But as I stretched, retching, it electrified – and flung me faster forwards – into the picture, of Francis and me, holding each other so closely that our skin blanched, between two mirrors, expressionless, our eyes the cameras. I wished to twist to meet his cheek with my lips, but I couldn’t move – we were reduced to two dimensions, in black and white, tending fast towards just one – a pair of hypnagogic dots that could only kiss by disappearing. And so we kissed – and it went white —