Number 11

by Jonathan Coe

  *

  The venue for this year’s presentation was the new Library of Birmingham, which fronted on to Centenary Square in the very heart of the city. Its striking, monumental design by the Dutch architects Mecanoo proclaimed an unapologetic postmodernism, evident especially in its glittering façade, which was festooned with thousands of golden curlicues. Completed at an eye-watering cost to Birmingham City Council of some £187 million, the library had been heralded throughout the land as proof that Britain had not yet quite sunk into a state of illiteracy and philistinism, and was lauded effusively by prominent writers and other public figures, who remained unconcerned (or unaware) that the city – like most others in the country – was at the same time overseeing the closure of many smaller, less prestigious local libraries. (In fact it would soon transpire that the library itself had been far too expensive a project, and little more than a year after it opened, the City Council would announce that it needed to save £1.3 million per year on running costs, and that it had no option but to slash its opening hours and make about half of its staff redundant.) The Winshaw Prize committee felt, for all sorts of reasons, that no more appropriate venue could be found for this year’s award ceremony.

  Although not designed for large-scale public functions, the library proved readily adaptable for the occasion. The entire ground floor was put to use, and sixty tables were brought in to accommodate the 720 lucky invitees. The police, the security services and Special Branch all had a substantial presence: this year’s guest list, after all, included Richard Dawkins, Tracey Emin, Michel Houellebecq and glamour-model-turned-singer Danielle Perry, so no one could afford to take any chances.

  Security was tight, too, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which stood opposite the library, and where most of the guests were booked to stay the night. And it was on the sixteenth floor of this hotel, in a king-size double room which commanded a fine view over the tower blocks and arterial roads of Birmingham city centre, that a painful scene was being played out, just one hour before the prize dinner was due to commence. Lucinda and Nathan were having their first argument.

  ‘I am so sorry about this,’ Nathan was saying.

  ‘It’s so unlike you,’ Lucinda replied, ‘to engineer this situation. To put me in such an uncomfortable position.’

  ‘I accept full responsibility. It’s my own fault. I should have made it clear to DCI Capes that we needed separate rooms. He assumed, because you were my guest, that we would be sharing.’

  ‘And now you say the hotel is completely booked up?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Well, this is most … distressing. I can think of no other word.’

  ‘Lucinda, we can get through this, if you will just be brave. Look how large the bed is …’

  She turned to him, horrified. ‘You’re not suggesting that we share it?’

  ‘Or look at this sofa. Easily big enough for a man my size to have a comfortable night’s sleep.’

  She looked at it appraisingly, and for the first time seemed to be mollified. ‘It’s true. It does look quite substantial. And it’s at least two yards from the end of the bed.’

  ‘And I’ve brought my sleeping mask with me. I won’t see a thing.’

  ‘Do you mean that, Nathan? Can I trust you?’

  She gazed at him in anxious appeal, and once again he felt that a lifetime spent contemplating the depth and blueness of her eyes would be a lifetime well spent.

  ‘Of course, Lucinda. Of course.’

  For a moment she looked so relieved and grateful that he thought that he might be gifted a hug. But this was wildly over-optimistic. She merely nodded her approval and said: ‘All right, then.’

  ‘And now,’ he said, doing his best to conceal his disappointment, ‘I’m needed over at the library, so I must change into my tux, if I can use the bathroom first.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She stood aside to let him pass, and, within a few minutes, Nathan had changed into his dinner suit and was on his way to rendezvous with DCI Capes at the library entrance.

  *

  ‘For God’s sake where are the fucking menus?’ said Sir Peter Eaves, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes now and nobody has a fucking clue what we’re going to be eating.’

  Helke Winshaw glanced across at him sharply. Her cousin irritated her. Come to that, he was barely her cousin: second cousin by marriage, or something like that. She was annoyed that they had been put at the same table just because of this distant relationship. He was always complaining. Complaining and, therefore, drawing attention to himself, which in her view was a strategic error when you belonged to this particular family. As for his drip of a daughter … well, it looked like they were going to have to sit next to each other all evening, and that was going to make this dreary occasion even more dreary. They had nothing in common. Nothing at all.

  In fairness to Josephine, there were not many people in the world who would find Helke Winshaw an easy dining companion. She regarded her words, like everything else she possessed, as valuable commodities which were not simply to be spilled out in order to lubricate the gears of social discourse. On top of which, as Chief Executive Officer of Winshaw Clearance plc, she had a keen (though scarcely inflated) sense of her own importance. She had founded the company herself, twenty years ago, in memory of her husband Mark, who had died in the same massacre that had claimed the lives of Roderick Winshaw and Hilary, Josephine’s mother. Mark had made a fortune from selling weapons. As a result of his efforts, many parts of the world were now contaminated with unexploded ordnance (or Explosive Remnants of War). It was seen as touching – if somewhat ironic – that after he died, his widow should set up an organization devoted to clearing former conflict zones of the lethal detritus which Mark’s activities had left behind. However, she had not done it for humanitarian reasons. It made perfect business sense to assume that, if there was money to be made from facilitating wars, there was money to be made from clearing up after them as well. Helke understood all too well that ERW clearance was a ruthlessly competitive business just like any other, and she approached it in that spirit. She fought aggressively to secure long-term contracts in major war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, since this was where the big money was to be made. At the same time, she kept a keen eye on smaller, independent NGOs which specialized in ERW clearance, since these outfits were often run by young and idealistic people who would energetically seek out less obvious territories which were also in need of decontamination: once a smaller company had found one of these areas and commenced operations there, Winshaw Clearance would then pile in like a juggernaut, put them out of action and hoover up the rest of the business themselves. Now, after two decades of expansion, acquisition and asset-stripping, they were established as the undisputed world leaders in their field, with an annual turnover in the tens of millions. And Helke Winshaw continued to sit discreetly at the helm.

  ‘Have a bit of patience,’ she said to her cousin. ‘What does it matter? It’s only food.’

  ‘Rude bitch,’ Sir Peter said, leaning in close to Josephine, and whispering in her ear, ‘Looks like you’ve drawn the short straw tonight. Try to ignore her.’ He noticed that his daughter’s eyes seemed troubled. She was staring across at the adjacent table. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘See that man over there? The fat one with the piggy eyes.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s that comedian who slagged me off on his show.’

  ‘Really?’ her father said. ‘Right. Later on, I’ll have a word with him.’ There was a grim
note of menace to these last five words, which bled into his next muttered question, a repeat of: ‘Where are these fucking menus?’ Looking around, he caught the eye of a waitress with the name ‘Selena’ on her name tag, and beckoned her over to make his feelings known.

  *

  Lucinda left it until literally the last minute to make her appearance at table number 11. She arrived at 7.29 precisely. For Nathan, however, who had been sitting there in a state of heightened alertness for a quarter of an hour or more, scanning the room for signs of villainy, it was worth the wait. For a moment, all thoughts of detective work flew out of his head. As for any attempt to conceal his feelings, this was in vain. His jaw slackened and he let out a clearly audible gasp. Lucinda was wearing a plain black cocktail dress and she looked – there was no other word for it – ravishing.

  She had arms. She had real, human, female, bare arms, complete with elbows and wrists, suspended from a pair of lovely pale bare shoulders. She had legs, complete with calves, shins, and knees deliciously sheathed in black nylon. She had a figure: a gorgeous, womanly figure at which none of her other clothes had even hinted before. He had already known that he was in love with her: but that love was instantly magnified and intensified a million-fold, and supplemented by a surging, overwhelming wave of desire which made him feel so weak that when he rose totteringly to his feet to give her a peck on the cheek, he was sure that his legs were going to give way.

  ‘Nathan,’ she said, and unless he was imagining it, her voice was not quite as prim as usual; there was something almost coquettish in it, as though she was fully aware of the effect her appearance must be having on him, and was quietly relishing it.

  ‘Lucinda,’ he replied. ‘You look … amazing.’ He prolonged the kiss for as long as he dared, relishing the cushiony softness of her cheek, and breathing in the scent of her tantalizing perfume, the fragrance of jasmine with a hint of rose petal.

  ‘Please,’ he said, drawing back her chair and sighing with admiration as she sank gracefully into it. She brushed back a rogue strand of hair and smiled shyly at the famous TV chat show host sitting next to her on the left, and at Ryan Quirky, sitting across from her on the other side of the circular table. She didn’t recognize either of them. Nathan took his place beside her on the right, and poured her a glass of sparkling water.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I don’t seem to have a menu.’

  ‘None of us have menus,’ said Nathan. ‘I believe our hosts have got a little surprise planned for us, in that respect. And we should find out what it is in –’ he glanced at his watch ‘– roughly ten seconds.’

  Sure enough, ten seconds later, a remarkable thing happened.

  From the centre of each table, a circular section was removed, like a little trap door, by hands at first invisible; and through each resulting aperture a man’s head appeared. Sixty different men’s heads, at sixty different tables. The rest of their bodies remained beneath the tables, hidden from view. A ripple of surprise and admiration went around the room.

  At table number 11, the head was crowned by a mop of red hair. The head swivelled around slowly through 360 degrees, and each of the twelve guests found themselves being stared at in turn by a pair of piercing green eyes framed by large, owl-like horn-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘Good evening,’ said the head. ‘My name is Dorian, and I will be your talking menu tonight. I will be here all evening, to tell you about the food, and to answer any food-related questions. I’m afraid I cannot talk to you about any other subject. Nor, sadly, am I allowed to eat or drink any of the delicious items with which you are about to be presented. Don’t feel too sorry for me, please, I am being well paid for my work tonight, and I will be taking home a generous doggy bag. And so, without further ado, allow me to introduce the first item on tonight’s succulent smorgasbord. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare your palates for a selection of our chef’s amazing amuse-bouches!’

  Right on cue, a team of waiters and waitresses glided towards the table. The plates laid down in front of the eager diners contained three small, exquisitely crafted items of uncertain provenance. Dorian proceeded to explain.

  ‘First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you have a cured-beet and Scottish salmon Napoleon with Bibb lettuce, topped with Beluga caviar and marinated in a cumquat distillation. We think you will find it both acerbic and whimsical. Next to that, you will find a cold potato-truffle soup with a hot, butter-poached Yukon Gold potato, parmesan, black truffle, and sea salt of a notorious astringency, especially garnered from the seas around the famous Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. And last but not least, throw yourselves upon a periwig of Kumamoto oysters, served with a green apple mignonette dusted with coriander and a fennel-cilantro salad with ponzu dressing.’

  Wondering if the food itself could possibly live up to the sensory expectation aroused by these descriptions, the guests sat with their forks poised over their plates, their mouths filling with juices.

  ‘Any questions, before we start?’

  ‘Erm … what exactly,’ said the chat show host, ‘is ponzu dressing?’

  ‘Ponzu, sir,’ said Dorian, ‘is a citrus-based brown sauce from Japan. Not at all uncommon, I’m sure you’ve had it many times before. The word literally means “vinegar punch”.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I have another question,’ said Ryan Quirky. ‘Some oysters are known for their aphrodisiac qualities. Is this true of Kumamoto oysters?’

  ‘Sir,’ answered Dorian, ‘it is especially true of this variety.’

  And with that, they began to eat. But Nathan noticed that Lucinda left her oysters on the side of her plate.

  *

  Between the main course and the dessert, Josephine slipped outside, ostensibly to have a cigarette but in reality because she could not stand making conversation with Helke for a moment longer. It was cold in Centenary Square, and her breath steamed in the air as she fumbled in her handbag, first for her packet of cigarettes and then, at greater length, for her lighter, which she seemed to have mislaid.

  ‘Oh, fuck it!’ she said out loud.

  ‘Do you want a light?’ someone said, stepping out of the shadows.

  It was Selena, the waitress, who was also having a quick smoke.

  ‘Oh. Thank you. That’s very kind,’ said Josephine, too flustered and annoyed to feel particularly grateful.

  ‘No problem.’ She offered Josephine the end of her own cigarette. ‘Nippy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, that’s what you get for trekking up to the frozen North, I suppose.’

  Selena smiled, but said nothing to this.

  ‘Enjoying the show in there?’

  ‘I suppose they’ve made an effort. The talking menus are original, at least.’

  ‘It’s given an evening’s work to a lot of out-of-work actors, that’s for sure.’

  Josephine had no wish to get into conversation with this person. This whole evening, which she had thought would be merely tedious, was turning into a nightmare. She looked around her at the unfamiliar cityscape, the steady flow of evening traffic stopping and starting at the lights on Broad Street, the groups of cheaply dressed, rather threatening (she thought) teenagers wandering backwards and forwards past the library, and cursed the organizers for dragging her up here. Birmingham! What were they thinking? OK, so it was a fancy building all right, but still, that didn’t justify forcing her to spend a night in this dismal hell-hole. She would definitely have a word with the steering committee about it at breakfast tomorrow.

  ‘Queueing up to work here tonight, people were,’ Selena continued. ‘I was luc
ky to be chosen.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Josephine, not listening.

  ‘My girlfriend applied, too. But they didn’t want her.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Shame, ’cos she was hoping, with all these art people here, she might have met someone useful, you know?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You write for the papers, don’t you?’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘One of the girls in the kitchen. I never read the papers these days, to be honest. Too depressing.’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t write about art, so if you want any favours you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘Sure. Whatever.’ Selena fell silent, but not for long. ‘She’s really talented, though.’