She had been half listening to me, and now snapped her head back in the direction of her escort. ‘It’s someone from work, Roger,’ she explained, casually indicating me with a wave as if pointing out a statue or a type of tree.
‘We’re going to be late, love.’ The accent was refined, upper-middle-class. He threw a look that almost acknowledged me but not quite, then slipped his arm through hers and towed her away.
‘It was nice to see you again, Michael,’ she managed before disappearing around the corner in a cloud of Poison.
If I had wanted to prove that I could manage my own affairs, it wasn’t a promising start. It took a distinct lack of sophistication not to recognize the signs she had given out. Most people can tell when someone doesn’t want to talk to them. I walked on into Covent Garden, determined to steer clear of the Opera House, and ate alone in a noisy American burger restaurant.
I had never felt at such a loose end. Why is it that when you’re lonely everyone else seems to be hugging and kissing? I wanted to sit with a girl, just to sit and talk and look at her, but the ones I met at the clubs didn’t seem interested, and I knew no others. After the meal I found myself in a pub called the Lamb and Flag, where I decided to sit with a pint of stout.
Several hours later I was still there, thinking but mostly drinking.
The barman called time and the darts team packed up. I morosely hugged my Guinness, determined to be the last to leave.
Outside, a drizzling mist had settled in for the night. It was one of those British summers that you could only tell had arrived because the rain was getting warmer. I stood in the alleyway planning my next move.
It’s an odd alley. If you don’t look to the modern roadway showing at the gap between the buildings, you could still be in the nineteenth century.
I thought I heard the sound of a whinnying horse. At first I assumed mounted police were about, checking that people behaved themselves as the pubs closed. Then I saw the stallion, a magnificent creature with a crimped mane and a coat of polished ebony, walking up the middle of the alley as carefully as if stepping over crockery. Spanky was perched high on the animal’s withers, dressed in black leather jodhpurs and a crimson cutaway coat with gold buttons. He dismounted as he reached me and cracked his stick across the rump of the horse, so that it glanced back at him with a wild eye before noisily cantering off toward the end of the deserted street.
‘That’s a dead end,’ I said stupidly. ‘He won’t be able to get out.’
Spanky sighed and scratched the tip of his nose with his stick. ‘The horse doesn’t exist, Martyn. Do I have to keep explaining?’
‘I’m trying to make sense of the things I see.’
‘First mistake. You’re misreading my visual signals. It’s a language, like any other. It’s just that I know how to change the meaning of the words.’ He clapped me on the shoulder and we began to walk. I realized I was glad to see him. ‘I could give you a long, boring scientific explanation, but it’s easier if you think of what I do as a form of spiritual hypnosis. You have to learn where to draw the line; I’m real, the horse wasn’t.’
‘But you were riding it.’
‘That’s what I made you believe. You must try not to be so linear. I’ll tell you all about myself one day, but I thought you’d be more interested in why I’m here now.’
‘I am.’
‘My other case isn’t working out. In fact, we’ve reached a decision to part company. I made her forget that she’d ever met me. I thought it best.’
‘A woman? How did you pick her?’
‘Oh, she sort of picked me really. Melanie Palmer. With a name like that you’d think she’d be a sensible type, wouldn’t you? But not at all. She was too neurotic for my taste, too complex. I prefer the simple ones.’
I wondered if I should be offended.
‘It means I’m free for a while, so we might as well sort out your problems.’
‘You make it sound like a freelance assignment.’
‘It is rather. When do you want to start?’
I looked over at this horseless rider, dressed like an Edwardian country gentleman, exhaling pale clouds into the mist. I decided I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. ‘Why not right now?’ I asked.
“Why not indeed?’ he replied with a grin. ‘Very well, then. Here commenceth the first lesson.’
Chapter 7
Sartorientation
‘I hope you won’t think me too shallow if I say that clothes help to make the man. Perhaps we could start by getting your togs sorted out. If I can find you the right look, then we can start on the inner self.’
‘What’s wrong with my clothes?’ I asked, indignant.
Spanky made a face. ‘Frankly, I’ve seen better dressed wounds.’
‘But I like what I’m wearing.’
‘You’re too casual. No one will ever take you seriously dressed like that.’
We had taken a cab to Knightsbridge and were now standing half-way along a deserted Sloane Street, in an elegant parade of menswear shops where the bidding on jackets began above four hundred pounds. The shining storefronts gave the street a glacial quality, as though it was constructed from luminescent sheets of ice. It had turned midnight, and everyone around here kept strict business hours.
‘Things have changed since your day,’ I pointed out. ‘People are less formal. Nobody wears starched collars anymore. There are no valets to iron them.’
‘I’m not entirely ignorant of present-day sartorial modes, Martyn.’ Spanky strolled up to one of the elegant Italian shops and pressed his hands against the chromium locks on one side of the door, breathing on the glass and speckling it with spines of frost.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Deactivating the alarm system. Security arrangements have become rather more sophisticated lately. Just as well I learned this.’ There was a steel click, and a hiss of air. Spanky pressed the door back with the flat of his hand and bade me enter first, but I couldn’t. Anyone could get what they wanted by breaking the law, and this was stealing.
‘It’s not, Martyn. I just want you to look at the clothes. We won’t take anything, I promise.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Not so much as a single hanger. Come on.’
The first thing I noticed upon entry was the smell that always lingered in smart clothing stores, carpet cleaner overpowered by aftershave. Black and white tiles swirled in psychedelic spirals around brushed-chrome torsos. A pair of androgynous mannequins wore matching suits of orange crepe, as if they had been preserved in amber from a distant century.
‘Androgyny is always fashionable,’ said Spanky, ‘because only the young can be seen as androgynes, and youth remains fashionable for its possibilities.’
I couldn’t get used to him reading my thoughts. It was very disconcerting. As we walked through the sparsely arranged racks, Spanky indicated suits and jackets on either side by raising his hands and allowing a sallow light to glow from them on to the clothes.
‘Choose what you like. I need to gauge your personal taste.’
Slowly my fear of being discovered here faded. I could see the security beams flashing red in the corners of the ceiling, but they seemed to have been rendered inoperative. I held up a pair of green jeans, a plain white shirt and a floral tie. Spanky was sitting beside the till on top of the counter, cleaning his nails. He looked up at my choice and grimaced horribly.
‘Put them back.’
It made sense to take the advice of a man who looked like a million dollars, so I did as I was told.
‘Now go to the end rack and put on the grey Versace jacket with a pair of plain black trousers. Take one of those belts over there. Forget about ties, for God’s sake. Try this instead.’ He threw me a dark roll-neck sweater.
‘I’d never wear something like this,’ I complained. ‘It’s too fancy. A leopard can’t change his spots.’
‘You’re not a leopard, and I’ll take care of your spot
s later.’
I’ve always felt uncomfortable trying on clothes, especially with someone watching. It seems too frivolous an occupation, almost an immoral way of passing the time when there are more important things to be done. Having said that, I was starting to enjoy myself.
‘If you have some pressing engagement I don’t know about, Martyn, please feel free to attend to it.’ Spanky waved magnanimously at the door.
‘Will you stop reading my bloody mind?’ I whispered angrily, one leg in a pair of tapered Jasper Conran slacks. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. ‘I’d rather wear jeans than these things.’
‘All in good time. Jeans have their place, but it’s common to wear them all the time. There doesn’t seem to be much class in the present era.’
‘We’re abandoning the class system,’ I said, ‘and about time too.’
‘So you’re happy with these gormless people walking about in multi-coloured nylon overalls, are you?’
‘Shellsuits. No.’
‘Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.’ He hopped down from the counter and appraised my appearance. ‘Not bad. At least you’re not fat. I hate working with obese people. Melanie was overweight. All in all, I’m glad my offer of help fell through.’ He took a boiled sweet from a large glass jar on the counter and unwrapped it. ‘The jacket looks good. We need to get you some black boots. Put everything back and let’s go next door.’
I began replacing the jacket on its hanger. ‘So what happens now?’ I asked.
He rolled the boiled sweet to one side of his mouth. ‘You tired yet?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Then we’ll go over to Harvey Nichols’ menswear department. Might as well get the rest of your wardrobe sorted out tonight.’ He sucked on the sweet, studying me oddly.
‘What?’
‘You don’t seem very pleased about this, Martyn.’
I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I’m not very good at shopping for clothes.’
‘You will be after I’ve finished with you. I’m trying to find you an image. A set of visual signals. If you were a woman and I told you we were about to empty out Harvey Nichols you’d be in the throes of a violent multiple orgasm by now. The sexual allure of purchasable fashion is something few females can refuse.’
He raised his hands and the soft blue light faded from them. We were in darkness once more as we quietly let ourselves out of the shop. There was a muted click and a whir as the security system re-armed itself.
In the basement of the department store on the opposite side of the street, my self-appointed style guru tried several jackets on for himself. It was when he slipped off his sweater that I saw the ‘horns’ Zack had talked about—a row of tiny needle-sharp spines down his back that seemed to have grown out from his vertebrae. They were pink at the base and bone-white at the tips, like the protective spikes of a sea urchin. They didn’t look out of place at all. Rather, it made me wonder why nobody else had them, in the same way that it wouldn’t really be odd for us to have tails. ‘How come they don’t stick through your shirt?’ I asked, fascinated.
‘I make them lie flat,’ he said, slipping his arm behind his back and brushing them down with the backs of his fingers. ‘See?’
He chose a charcoal grey Armani suit for himself, lifting the arms and studying the lining carefully before returning it to the rack. I found the flashing security cameras disconcerting, and pointed them out.
‘Don’t worry about those,’ he said airily, ‘I’ve blanked the tapes with magnetic interference. Tell me, what do you use on your face?’
‘My face? Soap.’
‘No astringent, moisturizer, aftershave?’
‘I used to have a litre bottle of Brut Splash-On, but we used it to unblock the bathroom sink.’
He drew breath through his teeth. ‘Martyn, I find it hard to believe that you’re really such a philistine about personal appearance. Grooming is important for acceptance into contemporary society. We live in a time of surfaces.’
I gave in. ‘Okay,’ I agreed, ‘find me a surface.’
An hour later we had finished, and left the store as quietly and easily as we had slipped in. The clothes had all been returned to their racks. We were departing empty-handed. Spanky told me we were done for the evening, and that I might as well get some sleep while he set about reproducing the clothes accurately.
‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Hold still.’ He extended the fingers of his right hand and ran them lightly over my head. I felt a tickle of static electricity around my ears and over the back of my neck.
‘Now shake yourself.’
Scratchy strands of trimmed hair fell down my collar and drifted from my shoulders.
‘That’s more like it. You look almost as human as I do.’
‘Neat trick. What happens now?’ I stepped into the road and raised my hand to a passing black cab.
‘Meet me outside Sloane Square tube station at eleven tomorrow morning. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, or who you’re meeting. You mustn’t talk about me to others. Did I mention that before?’
‘Why?’ I asked guiltily. ‘What would happen if I did?’
‘There are too many people out there looking for a second chance. I don’t want to tell them they can’t have it.’ He smiled and stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘You’d better go. If the cabbie thinks you’re crazy he won’t want to take you.’ I looked across at the driver, and he was staring at me oddly.
‘He can’t see me,’ Spanky explained. ‘No one else can see me. Only you. So it looks to him like you’re talking to yourself.’
‘But—the night we met, there were some girls in the club, they turned around when you passed them.’
‘They sensed something. Some people can. But it’s a very rare person who will actually make me appear to them, like you did, Martyn. Most people can only see me if I choose to let them, and I don’t do that very often.’
He waved his hand and sauntered off, whistling something I half recognized. By the time I had closed the cab door and turned around in my seat, he had vanished among the etiolated mannequins of the deserted stores.
Chapter 8
Brunchiology
I awoke a little after 9.00 a.m. with a terrible headache.
Sunlight was bouncing in through my bedroom window, searing into shards that reflected from every surface. My limbs ached. My head was pounding. I felt as if I had been partying all night, and I was just starting to think that perhaps I hadn’t broken into a department store a few hours ago when I saw the blue boxes neatly stacked at the end of the bed. On the top one was a white square of card reading:
Wear contents of top box today.
I want you to make an impression.
Regards, S.
I shaved and showered, then donned the designer clothes Spanky had duplicated, no doubt with the help of elves, overnight. There were toiletries in the box, Molton Brown moisturizer, Clinique scruffing lotion, Oxy-10 spot healer, Ralph Lauren aftershave, Australian hair gel, everything labelled with instructions for usage. Obviously, Spanky assumed that I was completely incapable of making myself presentable.
Thirty minutes later I studied the alien figure in the mirror, clad in a red wool Gaultier jacket, black sweater and trousers. My hair was shaped in the kind of smart style I had seen in magazines. I looked good. Better than good. This was a side of me I had never imagined existed, and I had to admit that it felt terrific. My appearance suddenly carried authority. I was closing my bedroom door behind me when Zack emerged from the bathroom, scratching beneath his ratty old robe.
‘Holy shit!’ He looked me up and down, stupefied. ‘It’s Giorgio fucking Armani!’
‘Jean-Paul Gaultier, actually. Out of my way, pleb.’
‘You look like a total breadhead. What happened, did your parents die and leave you money?’ He sniffed the air and grimaced. ‘Christ, it smells like a tart’s parlour in here.’
‘It makes a change from the spicy tang of your soc
ks. Is Debbie with you? I want her to see me.’
‘Nah, she’s still pissed off at me. I assume you’re going out.’
‘You assume correctly.’
‘Does this posh speech come with the outfit or something? I mean, is this a new image? You’re trying to impress a girlie, aren’t you?’
I left him trying to puzzle it out, standing in the hallway with his mouth hanging open. I wondered if he would make the connection with Spanky. It would probably never occur to him that a spiritual being could behave in such a material fashion. It was a cool, beautiful Saturday morning. Spanky was waiting for me at the top of the Sloane Square escalator. He was dressed in a virtual mirror-image of my clothes, but his jacket was a chill midnight blue. He nodded approvingly at my appearance.
‘Be honest, Martyn. Could you tell that jacket from the real thing?’
‘Not at all. You even got the labels right.’
‘Thank God. I had a team of blinded acolytes slaving over the stitching all night.’ I must have looked worried because he patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Just kidding.’ We left the tube station and entered the lower end of the King’s Road.
‘That’s got the outer image off to a decent start. Now we’re free to concentrate on your behaviour. Later we’ll tackle your physical wellbeing, get you off the junk food and into a gym. Workouts three times a week. Today, we’ll have brunch together. But first, you need a book.’ He gestured to W.H. Smith’s. ‘Go in there and buy a Penguin Classic. Preferably something Bloomsbury and twenties. Virginia Woolf would be good.’
‘But why—’
‘Just go and do it.’
I picked up a copy of Jacob’s Room and paid for it. When I emerged, Spanky unwrapped it and threw away the bag, handing me back the volume. I was aware of containing my movements as people passed us on the pavement. If Spanky was invisible to others, I would have to be careful about reacting to him in public.
Spanky Page 6
