High society

by Ben Elton

  ‘Eventually my people managed to drag me back to me dressing room, but I still hadn’t pulled and, like I say, coke and E just give me the horn like I don’t know what. It doesn’t strike everyone that way, but at the end of the day that’s how it is for me. It’s all about metabolism or whatever. I was gagging for it, I can tell you, shouting, ‘I need a bird! Get me a bird!’ but we were trapped in my dressing room with hacks six deep outside.

  ‘Well, you won’t believe this, but it’s true, I swear it’s fookin’ true. One of the A and R blokes has his girlfriend with him and he says that I can shag her if I like! I’m not lying!

  ‘He sort of grinned knowingly and said, ‘Corkie’s happy to do her duty by the record company.’ Corkie, that was her name. She’s stood there, all blond hair and jewels in her belly button and her boyfriend is offering her up for my delectation like a fookin’ canape. Is it any wonder that I’m all screwed up in me ‘ead? ‘Well, that was it. I do have some fookin’ sense of decorum, you know. I had a jug of vodka and orange in me ‘and and I just whacked the bastard round the head with it. Crack! Bosh. Thank you very much and goodnight. It didn’t break properly, as it goes, just at the handle, in fact, but it made a hell of a clunk and he went down like the sad immoral pimping bastard that he was.

  ‘Want to know what the other A and R people said?’

  The assembled recoverers most certainly did. This was one story worth missing work for.

  They said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. We can sort this out…‘ Not to him, mind, not to the bloke laid out on the floor in a puddle of vodka and orange, but to me: ‘We’ll get him out and get him a doctor. It was an accident. It’s OK, it’ll be OK.’ That was what they said. I’d just assaulted their colleague but it’s me that they’re worrying about. It’s me they’re trying to protect. And why wouldn’t they? I’ve got a twenty-seven-arena tour plus six stadiums, six stadiums, starting in a fortnight and there was no way I was going to make those dates if I was remanded without bail for GBH.’

  HOUSE OF COMMONS TERRACE

  Surely, Barry, you’re not suggesting that the person who threatened your wife was a police officer?’ Peter Paget put the drinks down on the table. He had decided on a large gin and tonic, while as usual the Commander drank only water.

  ‘Yes, I think it was. I’ve been expecting some form of retaliation and it’s beginning.’

  ‘But why? We’re trying to make the police’s life easier, free up their time, let them get on with their proper job.’

  ‘Peter, please don’t be so naive. We both know that there are plenty of bent coppers around. Bent coppers get paid in bent money and most of the bent money in this country is generated by the drugs trade and associated industries.’

  ‘But phoning up and making threats — ’

  ‘I don’t know it was a policeman. I merely suspect it was. But quite frankly it could be anyone. There are literally tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of people in London alone, violent people; who’ll be ruined if we manage to get even a few drugs legalized, from the thugs at the school gates to the mega coke importer sitting on his yacht at Cannes. The fact that I received the threats even though you are by far the more prominent one in our little crusade makes me think that they have a specific agenda.’

  ‘Police corruption?’

  ‘Exactly. The caller mentioned corruption specifically, and there’s no doubt that the effect of the failure of drug policy on the police morale is a powerful part of our argument. I want to show that the law is actually a corrupting influence on the force. Officers are helpless to enforce it and some end up breaking it instead. We’re rocking a lot of boats here.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s absolutely bloody obvious that we aren’t going to get what we want anyway. They’ll never legalize drugs in this country. Just look at the editorials; they’re calling me a crack pusher and you PC Pothead.’

  ‘The fact that you’ve even managed to get the issue discussed is bad enough for these people. We’re pissing into their tent, Peter.’

  The MP smiled ruefully. ‘I should’ve gone for fox hunting.’

  ‘Look, it was probably a hoax, and even if it wasn’t it was directed at me, not you. I’m just saying you should be careful, that’s all. Think about your life a bit, take stock. Is there anything that makes you personally vulnerable?’

  ‘Of course there isn’t.’

  Across the table Samantha toyed with a glass of Chardonnay, thrilled to be attending such an important meeting.

  THE GROUCHO CLUB, SOHO

  For some members of the Groucho the great bore about the gentlemen’s toilet is the number of other members who insist on using it for the purpose of urination.

  Milton perched his large backside on the edge of the basin. ‘You know what they should have done? Instead of putting in a bloody snooker room and that crappy little upstairs bar they should have put in an extra bog just for coke-sniffing. I mean it’s bloody outrageous, isn’t it? We have to sneak into a toilet to get our jollies like we’re bloody criminals. What’s more we come in here to sniff. I mean, under normal circumstances you wouldn’t walk into a bloody toilet with the specific intention of taking a series of ruddy great sniffs, would you? But that’s what we’re forced to do. The one bloody activity that cannot be indulged in without deep inhalation and it has to take place in the bloody bog! It’s disgusting and bloody unhygienic. Particularly this bog, which is heated and ventilated like the black hole of Calcutta and full of pissed-up, over-fed, fat, flabby-arsed flatulents like me. It’s a bloody disgrace. Everybody knows that a percentage of the members of this club who use the toilet use it to snort coke. We pay our fees, don’t we? We should have our own bog! They wouldn’t even have to plumb it in, better not to, in fact, so that the farters wouldn’t use it…’

  Milton’s companion, a showbiz manager who specialized in providing quite famous comedians to appear on blokey game shows, had chopped out a line of cocaine on the cistern. Milton lowered his big red nose towards it, and the folds of his sweaty neck bulged over his collar as he did so. He inhaled greedily.

  ‘There we go…beautiful…aaaaaaaahhhh. Ooh! Yes! Oh yes. Very nice indeed. Brings tears to your eyes. Very, very nice indeed, thank you. Bloody should be, the price we’re paying for it. Still, got to have the best tonight, I think. I’m onto something. Got a tip-off on the news desk, anonymous unfortunately, but I think it’s genuine. Well, we shall see, shan’t we? Peter Paget’s daughter has been taking ecstasy. Yes, of course Paget the drug nutter, the bloke who wants to legalize everything. Not surprised he wants to legalize everything if his own daughter’s a bloody space cadet, eh? Unbelievable. The double standards of these politicians is just gobsmacking! Remember the Home Secretary’s son! Not to mention Prince sodding Harry. Mind you, at least HRH looked suitably horrified. This Paget bloke’s just a hypocrite. Talk about corrupt. Trying to change the law of the bloody land just to keep his kid out of trouble. I mean, if that isn’t an abuse of his position as an MP I don’t know what is. Well, that’s how we’ll spin it, anyway. We’ll show these poxy politicians and their stuck-up little celebrity kids that nobody is above the law in this country and the British press will hound down any overprivileged little shit who thinks otherwise. I’m going to set one of my Rottweilers onto that Paget girl, you see if I don’t. Aaaaahhhhh! Very nice. Very, very nice indeed. Chop us out another, will you? I’m going to have a slash.’

  ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL, SOHO

  Tommy had paused briefly to get another cup of tea. Some of his audience seized the opportunity to make calls on their mobiles to inform colleagues that they would be late for work.

  ‘Well, after they’d got the unconscious A and R man out of my dressing room (saying he’d slipped over while helping me with me yoga), I shagged his bird anyway, and it was top. She was as coked up as me and mad for it, so I gave her an E (not her first of the night, I reckon, by the way she were stroking all the furniture and everything) and gave her a right seeing-to. I do lov
e a dirty girl with ideas of her own. It was the first time I’ve touched a dressing room fruit basket in years. The fruit in those things is always shite, like in hotels. It looks great and tastes of fook all. But I do recommend eating it off an E’d-up naked bird. It looks even better and who gives a fook what it tastes like?’

  A COUNCIL FLAT, LAMBETH

  Francois looked up at Jessie and smiled as the brown melted slowly in the dirty spoon. ‘OK, Jessie, I got a present for you. Make you feel good, real good. You like to feel good? Sure, everybody wanna feel good and this is the best stuff, baby. No bullshit, this is pure…What do you think it is, little girl? It’s heroin, that’s for sure, golden brown, like in the song. A little silver twist of magic to make the world OK. I just gotta warm it up a little, make it smooth and easy, like honey, OK? Don’t worry, baby, I just give you a little taste, gotta brand new needle, too, see, straight outa the plastic wrapping. You ain’t gonna get no Aids or hepatitis or nothing offa this. I told you, I’m looking. after you now. You’re my little girl. For sure are you lucky you met me.’

  The skin on Jessie’s unblemished arm was so white it almost glowed. So white it was translucent. Francois had no trouble finding one of the veins that ran pale blue beneath their gossamer cloak.

  A FEMALE DETENTION CENTRE, BANGKOK

  Please. Yow have to get me out. I’m desperate. I’ll doy if they put me back in there.’

  The girl from Birmingham who had been so excited to be buying cheap CDs in Bangkok wore a blue smock. Her hair was pulled back and gathered with an elastic band and her canvas shoes had no laces. The man sitting opposite her was the first English person she had spoken to in ages.

  ‘Sonia, it’s taken us two weeks to even get access to you. You have to understand that there is no possibility of our getting you out at present.’

  ‘But…but…‘ Sonia stared in shock and bewilderment. ‘I…want…to…go…howm.’

  ‘Sonia, we only have an hour to talk. Pull yourself together and talk to us.’

  The girl had fallen from her chair and was now writhing and weeping at the consular official’s feet. She thrashed her bare, bruised legs about like the helpless trapped animal that she was.

  ‘Sonia, please, get up! Pull yourself together. If you scream like that they’ll certainly suspend our visit. Stop screaming, Sonia, calm down, please try to calm down…Stop it, Sonia! Stop hitting your face…If you hurt yourself they won’t let us see you any more…There, sit on the chair, Sonia, stop hitting yourself!…That’s better, OK now, breathe slowly. Focus on the moment. Here, wipe your eyes…Good…good…well done.’

  A COUNCIL FLAT, LAMBETH

  Jessie! Come on, Jessie! You been out long enough. I didn’t give you no big hit. Come on, baby, we got things to do…’

  Slowly the ebony eyes opened. Dark ebony and blood red.

  ‘OK, good. You hear me now? Sit up, little girl, get up offa that couch. I got stuff to say. OK, so we got some nice clothes here. Little skirt, booby tubey, all nice stuff, the best, make you look beautiful like I promised. First you gotta take off all that shit you wearing now. What you want jumpers and jeans and that stupid coat for? Make you look like a fucking tramp, girl, ‘stead of a sexy baby which is what you gotta be. Come on, take all that stuff off now…’

  Jessie was slowly coming to her senses. Was he asking her to strip off in front of him?

  ‘Sure, in front of me, of course in front of me, that’s for sure. What? You shy? That’s a laugh, come on, baby, ain’t no shy girls round here, ‘cos they pretty soon starve to death, OK? So get those fucking filthy rags off and let me see what I got here! You hear me, bitch! I wanna see how clean you are. You don’t wanna take your clothes off? Who cares what you want, girl, you think I’m interested in what you want?’

  She pulled her big coat closer about her. Trying to remember where she was. Who she was.

  ‘OK, baby, I’m gonna tell you this right now and I’m only gonna tell it once. If you’re a good girl and do like I say I’m gonna give you another little tae right now. Sure, baby, more honey in your arm and you can have it any time you want. But if you keep sniffling and moaning and standing in that corner crying like some little kid who don’t know the score, then I’m gonna have to mess you up good, you hear? I’m gonna whack you till your own mother wouldn’t recognize you…’

  The skinny girl with no home began to cry. It would make no difference whether her mother recognized her or not. Her mother had betrayed her. In fact, she had no mother.

  ‘OK, bitch, you makin’ me do this! There!’ It took very little effort to knock her off her feet.

  ‘Now, you listening to me, right? Get up off the floor, I don’t want no blood on my floor, you dirty bitch! You want I should punch you again? You gonna get up and take your clothes off, or do I tear them offa you then cut you up good?’

  Jessie raised herself to her feet and undressed.

  That’s better…That’s nice. Very nice. Cute, that’s for sure. OK, Jessie…Now you letting me see what you got I reckon you’re a sweet-looking baby and that’s lucky for you, Jessie, because I’m telling you now that food don’t come for free around here, no way, and shelter gotta be rented, oh yeah, that’s for sure too, baby. What’s more that arm candy you liked so much is gotta get paid for too and that costs plenty. In fact you already owe me for what you had, you gotta give me money for the hit you been on…’

  One of Jessie’s arms stretched across her naked breasts, the other reached down below her waist. It had been into this arm that Francois had made his puncture mark; a congealed trickle of blood lay dark upon the whiteness. Jessie’s eyes widened in fear…Surely that had been a gift?

  ‘What, you thought that good golden smack was free} You think I can afford to give it away? You dumb or something? You give me some money right now or you don’t get these nice new clothes I bought you, which incidentally you gotta pay for too. Hey, baby, if you got no money then you’re in big trouble, real big trouble…It ain’t me, little girl, but some of the guys I work with. I’m scared for you, real scared. They really bad people, especially when selfish ungrateful little Scottish bitches think they get to eat, sleep and get high for free while Francois pays!’

  Jessie could not wipe away the tears without further revealing her nakedness and so they just rolled down her cheeks and fell.

  ‘Listen, baby, I’ll tell you what. We can sort this out, OK? It can be cool. You don’t have to get cut up none if you don’t want to. If you don’t got no money then all you gotta do is go to work, OK? Like I said, that’s one cute little body you got there. Lotta guys like skinny, scared, fucked-up little girls. They gonna pay a lotta money for a piece of what you got. In fact, you know what? Since you owe me for that last jack I put in your veins, I can be your first client, baby. Oh yeah, you come over here right now.’

  NEW SCOTLAND YARD

  It was the first time that Commander Leman had been in the office of London’s Chief Constable, the most senior policeman in the country. This was the pinnacle, the highest point to which a police officer might aspire, and the most Olympian height from which to be crapped on.

  Commander Leman had not been offered a chair.

  ‘I don’t like publicity hunters, Leman.’ The Chief Constable had not even greeted him, nor had he deigned to look up from the papers on which he was working. He barked his comments directly at the set of annotated minutes that lay before him.

  ‘I believe that a policeman, whatever his rank, is no more than a part of a team. Of course he must show initiative and think independently within the force, but from the outside he should be entirely anonymous. Particularly to the media. My father used to say that a gentleman’s name should appear in the newspapers only thrice in his lifetime. When he is born, when he is married and when he dies.’

  ‘I agree, sir.’

  ‘Do you? Do you indeed? Then how is it, I wonder, that half the nation seems to know your name, Commander? How is it that I have received fifty press in
quiries on the subject of no one but yourself this morning alone?’

  ‘I’ve been investigating corruption in the Drug Squad, sir.’

  ‘You have been washing the Met’s dirty linen in public, Commander.’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve named no names and I’ve made no specific allegations and won’t do so until I have proof, something which I’m aware I may never get. All I have done is state the self-evident fact that a small minority of police officers have been corrupted by the enormous profits to be made in the drug trade.

  ‘You say you have no proof. How can anything be self-evident without proof?’

  ‘I have no proof that an invisible force anchors me to the ground, sir. Nonetheless I consider the existence of gravity self evident or else I’d float away.’ Leman knew that it was madness to offer up such cheek, but he had never in his life been able to stomach those in authority using their position to be pompous.

  ‘You are blackening the name of the Metropolitan Police. What is more, you are giving your personal opinions on matters of politics to anyone who will listen.’

  ‘I’m responding to the inquiries of my constituency MP on a subject of national urgency. How should I reply other than with the truth?’

  ‘Your opinions are not necessarily the truth, Commander.’

  ‘Do you deny that there is corruption within the Drug Squad, sir?’

  The Chief Constable did not reply. He fixed his gaze as if absorbed by some matter or other in the minutes that lay before him.

  Leman pursued his advantage. ‘Sir! The current situation is insane. The police must speak out on the subject. If we don’t, who will? We’re on the front line. If the government decided tomorrow to declare war on the whole world I’m sure that professional soldiers would feel it within their right to speak up on the utter impracticality of the policy. Well, we are being asked to pursue the whole population, and I consider this to be no less ridiculous. Britain is an outlaw society! A criminal nation! Every country is.’