You asked me for a story; I've given it to you. Now, you're going to want the whole thing wrapped up. So, you're going to want a rapid wrap up. Aren't you? Sudden death... Here goes:
Looking back I can see three personae: the Charlie who wrote software; Charlie the character in Cybernurse; then there was another. Who was that other?
Anyway, here I now lie full of tubes; I've got my screen, keyboard and mouse in front of me: all my inputs and outputs taken care of. No, there's no Cybernurse, Cyberdoc or CyberMed; there's no salvation through Cyberdoll, Ffion or Belinda. Guess it's down to me, then. Figure one day I'll find the courage to remove all these tubes, all these inputs and outputs. What'll happen to the screen, then? Will it fill with zigzags or go blank? But I have this idea: that once all the tubes are out, and the PC goes dead, I'll still be alive...or life will begin, or start to begin. Real life.
Wow, buddies! Real life... Now, I wonder what that's like?
16
He stood at the doorway in his mack, like a short Graham Greene; behind him Ffion, the gangster's moll.
Hi, Charlie.'
It was Boxing Day and everyone had gone for a walk after lunch—roast pork, potatoes, medley of vegetables—and there he was as large as life, and as small as reality, in his waterproof—his dinky little coat.
Ffion remained silent.
I said, 'That's a nasty gash on your face.'
'The M25 is unforgiving,' he said, unmoved.
It was Martin, the chameleon, whom I knew of old: this guy could change his identity—his heft, thrust and twang; and adopt several aliases within the same paragraph. For a moment I recalled a short story (written in the first person and present tense) in which a man is executed by a firing squad. Present tense? First person? Begs the question, eh? But there stood little Martin—Little Martin—in his mack, like a character from Greeneland. Would he pull a revolver, insert a bullet, spin the chamber and give me first go? No. Instead, he said,
'Time for a chat, Charlie?'
I invited him in, offered them both a seat but they chose to stand. He said:
'Charlie, did you know you carried the look of a loser?'
'So, you're a winner—are you—and the one behind this all along?'
He nodded tiredly. It was beginning to make sense. I said, 'Yeah, I'd often felt the push of an arm on mine...a light touch.'
'Trying to guide you, Charlie.'
'But I crapped it?'
He didn't even bother to nod. Ffion said:
'You've been reading too many books, Charlie.'
From his pocket he produced the gun:
'It's curtains for you, Charlie.'
'Bit of a cliché—?'
'—Crematorium curtains.'
I thought he was joking, that this was part of the scheme. Ffion stood by impassively. Bringing the gun close to my face, so that the barrel was out of focus, he said,
'How's that feel, Charlie?'
'I don't like it.'
'You're not meant to,' he said. 'When I pull this, that's it—drapes for Charlie.'
'But not of the proscenium arch, rather of bodies flambés...?'
I heard the bang, closed my eyes. I was still standing, hadn't fallen. My fingertips tingled but I was sure I hadn't been shot.
'Open your eyes, Charlie.'
I did. He withdrew the gun and, indicating the end of the barrel, revealed the projecting tip of a biro. Using the gun-pen he wrote on a pad of paper, produced from his other pocket, and held it before me. The biro is mightier than the gun.
I laughed: 'Surely you can do better than that.' Embarrassed, I discovered that I was wet; both front and back. I said: 'This isn't funny, Martin.'
'It isn't meant to be.' He smiled. 'The purpose is to reveal your deficiencies—you're trite, predictable and weak.' I said:
'Oh, yeah. I know all about you: Pete Posh, perched over the pouch of the urinal, a Greaseburger in one hand, a Posafone in the other, thought, How can I shake the drops off my prong and spark a lungscorcher—with both hands full—? Then anthrax came to mind: Debbie Anthrax. Pete was excited! Armpit-burningly electrified!!'
'Only one of us can do that, mate. 'He left a silence. 'Charlie, the ability to write is a gift; to write well a privilege.'
Suddenly scared, I tried to laugh: 'Ha! No argument.'
'Who do you think you are?' He paused. 'Your talent—for what it's worth—is a small one.'
'Oh, yeah, and you're my nemesis...?'
Ffion continued to observe without passion. My underpants were soaking. I was beginning to get scared. I said,
'You're the other, aren't you?' He barely nodded; I took that as a yes. Of course, of course. Ffion continued to watch. I said to Martin, 'You're the one who's been influencing me all the time, aren't you? Pointing me here, nudging me there.' I considered for a moment. 'Why did you jump out of the car?'
'Thought it'd help you, Charlie. Cut the ties.'
'So, I wasn't controlling you. You were controlling me from the start.'
He blinked assent, then sniffed: 'Phew! You're not too delicate with your dooh-doohs, are you?'
Ffion looked at me. 'Filled your pants, Charlie? Wet your knickers?'
I didn't like the way this was turning out. Martin said,
'You've tons of enthusiasm, but you lack the ice.'
'Ice...?'
'Yeah. That splinter in the heart.'
'Splinter...?'
He nodded: 'The killer instinct.'
'But I'm not a boxer.'
Although the toy gun was lying on the table, I felt there was a weapon at my temple. Desperately, I said:
'You're taller than I remember. In fact every time I see you, you're one inch higher.'
'Nonsense.' He said: 'Charlie, you have the pallor of bellybutton fluff. Deeply tragic. No, there's a change in your aspect—you have the complexion of a mortuary technician, the hue of a corpse.'
'Aw, but Martin, think of the way we used to laugh when we went out drinking and chucked up our curries.'
I was hoping that Belinda and her parents would be back soon, to break up this showdown and put Martin where he belonged—in that place which some people call home. I looked at my watch; noticing this, Ffion said,
'No. They won't be back.'
That schemer had really poisoned her mind!
'So,' I said, 'here I stand, accused of unoriginality.'
'You've been deluded for too long, Charlie.'
I kept thinking of that story of the man being shot. I'd already humiliated myself by releasing bodily fluids. Did Martin have a real gun? Would it come from an inside pocket? Or would he go back to his car for a heavy tool? Worse: would Ffion inject me? I tried again to make him laugh:
'Hey, Martin, remember when you posed topless for Good Guy, bottomless for Bad Guy and full-frontal for Chunk? When you wrote articles for Spiv, drew pictures for Ersatz...?'
I felt ashamed as well as frightened. Was this all I was going to leave behind—a dead body and soiled underwear?
When he produced the real gun there was no surprise. I smelt gun oil and felt its slabbiness in his hand. Something almost imperceptible passed across his eyes. The barrel pointed downwards. Was he going to direct it at me, himself or Ffion?
'Charlie, you always knew the ending would be difficult.'
I fought hard to choke a childlike voice but it couldn't be suppressed: 'Please, don't. I'll never do it again—honest,' and for a moment I was a young boy; but I knew there was no way out.
'I told you, Charlie, it would all become clear in the end...at the end.'
'I never expected this.'
'You once told me, Charlie, you felt like an actor condemned to play a character from an early Martin Amis novel. Well, this is the final page.'
The gun begins to rise, I close my eyes, expecting the worst. I hear a bang. Ripples, flares of heat; tingling round my mouth. I know this is the big one. Small waves of heat; a fringe of ice at my lips and an odd excitement near my heart. I
can't control a twitching in my... As my knees crumple, Martin whispers,
'By the way, Charlie—' a smile twists his mouth—'Ffion's real.'
We're linked: killer and victim, murderer and...
All dark now. But I'm still aware. Finally, the voice:
'You always knew.'
Black.
CROSSWORD SOLUTION
(see chapter 12)
In and off? Strange...Welsh girl wasn't vague! (FFION)
Fool with affection around start of game. That's poisonous (FOXGLOVE)
Confuse two singles with unmarried man. Put a lid on it and shake the medicine (DIGITALIS)
Enter temperance group with trembling hand. It's the information (DATA)
Part of cat flat on mat. That's odd but is it fiction? (FACT)
Make unusual coin fit slot machine for novel (FICTION)
Cup of Darjeeling? Not the truth: I felt a right one but am still someone's darling (CHARLIE)
And bile, oddly enough, gives blonde beauty (BELINDA)
Rome, New York has Mr Strange in a spin but he won't get bogged down here! (ROMNEY MARSH)
Odd home, say, for RNR man? Possibly not: this is flat land (ROMNEY MARSH)
Take off a sword, means strange behaviour. Less singular makes this sound charming, but it's lethal! (MEADOW SAFFRON)
Food fear was NM, oddly, not GM: an unmodified pasture plant that delivers poison (MEADOW SAFFRON)
Us, Vita—scorch us! Drop the initial heat then cultivate to give food colour and flavour (CROCUS SATIVUS)
Yellow alkaloid, red dye or red herring? Remove initial atropine from red colorant, add a toxic twist to give meadow killer's essence (COLCHICINE)
PART FOUR
Collusions of a Crimson Fish
We are all in flight from the real reality.
—John Fowles,
'The French Lieutenant's Woman'
*
He who laughs last didn't get the joke.
—Popular saying
17
Hi, buddies—I'm back! You didn't really think that MA (and 'Black') could stop me, did you? Metaphors, chummies, metaphors. (And, after all, what's a meta for? To put you off the scent, of course. Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a metafiction? No—Browning didn't say that, did he? Okay, try this: Ah, but a novel's reach should exceed its grasp, or what's a metaphor?) Hang on, me hearties (oh, yes—it's an ocean we're riding...), loosen your clothing, sit well back in your seat, for safety and comfort, 'cos we're going for a RIDE.
We (that is, you—the gently amused—and me or I [take your pick—I always get confused between me, myself and I, and any other selves which happen to be hanging about at the time. Don't you? Let me know. So, we:]) left each other at my gaff with Little Martin pulling a gun on me. Good job it wasn't a car tool otherwise I'd be badly discomposed. Decomposed...? Yeah, decomposed probably is the nearer because that last scene with quick-on-the-draw Martin Six-Pack was a gift. (All I had to do was hold an HB above a pad of A4 and it wrote itself—is that a definition of talent...?) It came to me in Squire's award-winning fish & chop (oops! I mean chip) restaurant in Churston Ferrers, near Paignton in Devon. Yes, that was late March 2000, and the sun had already set. It's now May (just) 2001 and Charlie says he wants another ride. You too? Fabuloso!
Now, I thought it pretty mean of Ffion to side with Martin to try to kill me. Still, begs a few questions, doesn't it? Videlicet, since I invented them surely I have control? Scrub it, forget what you thought, banish all your preconceived notions, gentles: anything could happen. They're autonomous. And what a pair they make. (No, no. They don't make pairs; they are a pair. [They is a pair...? A pair is they...? A pair they are...? Yes: a pair they are—a right pair.])
Yeah, I've been speaking quite a lot with Charlie lately. He's got a stack of adventures to impart, a pile of life to lay on you, a heap of stuff to tell. Dead...who, Charlie? No, mates, dead doesn't come into it; dead comes nowhere near. The clue was in the text. I kept mentioning that short story written in the first person, and the present tense, about a man shot to death by a firing squad. Told you it begged a few questions. Right, so can you accept that the story (i.e. my story, this story, our story—for you are implicated) is continuous, without offending any susceptibilities or scruples you may have about traditional storytelling? You can? You're smarter than you look. Walk this way:
So, when I pick myself up off the floor, I am confused. I must have blacked out. Thus: I had a white-out on Christmas Day and a blackout on Boxing Day. (Must pop along to the doc, again. Hope it's not diabetes. Can't be having that can we?) I stand up and look around. There's no sign of Martin or Ffion. I examine my body: no holes, no wounds, no blood, but...oh, buddies, it shames me to tell you: I'd disgraced myself. Yep, front and rear: soaked and filled my pants. (Lot of good that tub of anti-skid coating did, nicht wahr?) What illness can it be that makes you foul yourself then pass out? Not winning the lottery? Coming home to find yourself burgled? Ad hoc panic? Tsetse fever? Existential dread...? What causes it? Drop me a line if you know. Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
I remind myself that Belinda, Alan and Yeliena are out for their walk. So I strip off, drop my undies into a John Lewis plastic carrier bag and pop them into the trash can. (Trash can says so much more than dustbin, don't you think? [But there's dust to come. Trust me, I know these things. There's an ending, too. But you'd guessed that—it's part of the deal]). Then I shower. I've got quite a lot to tell the doc, haven't I? What—you thought the doc had written himself out? Don't believe it: the NHS rewards poorly—he needs the extra cash for appearing in this. Don't be so literalistic, or so credulous. (What's that—? Mm? How credulous do I want you to be? At least fifty per cent less, chummies—and don't be too smart.) I can almost see (the) doc groaning when I enter his consulting room. (Oh, you again.) I wonder if my computer file is annotated: HUMOUR THIS ONE, PAIN IN THE ARSE or THIS ONE'S INCURABLY BONKERS...? (Why not 'uncurably' because we do have 'uncured'?) [I've just checked it, buddies. COD gives INCURABLE, INCURABLY and UNCURED; Chambers gives those three plus UNCURABLE (Shakesp). So, partners, what's good enough for Willy (the Bard), is good enough for me. (A random thought: Is good enough really good enough?)]
However, back to Boxing Day. When everyone returns from the walk they look around. As Alan and Yeliena busy themselves with the television set, Belinda says:
'What's that smell, Charlie?'
I give an exaggerated sniff. 'I can't smell a thing.'
She gives me a look which says, Dropped your guts?
Smiling, I adore her.
'You are,' she says, 'like a character in a Graham Greene
novel.'
'Me...? Who?'
'Monsieur Fowlair.'
'Eh?'
'Monsieur F-O-U-L-A-I-R.'
I shoot her a quizzical one.
'The Quiet American—remember?'
(Ah, so Belinda's into wordplay, too. Brill! 'Cos it's only one stage from wordplay to foreplay. Wow, buddies! Knew I was in for a treat—where my main Christmas present was coming from.) Anyway, once coats are off and the two oldsters have settled down to snooze in front of the box, Belinda holds a piece of paper in front of me.
'What's this...?'
The biro is mightier than the gun.
I shrug.
'Looks like something written with your left hand.'
'Drunken thought?' I say dismissively.
'And no X or O?' Her eyes flick upwards then back down to me. She mouths, I'll deal with you upstairs. So, since her parents are snoozing, up the stairs we pop...Christmas to celebrate; but, as we climb the stairs, but...but...but...but...
...but, buddies, I've been away a long time. Well over a year. (Can't stand the phrase in excess of, can you?) Thought I'd never get back to you, but here I am as large as life and as small as reality: my full five foot [should it be feet...? I was at school with a lad whose surname was Foots. His nickname...? Yeah: Feet!] five—and a half
.
How's it been hanging while I've been away? Phew, a lot's been happening to me, wait till I tell you. Older? Yeah. Wiser? Yeah—lashings of that. Now, listen: Belinda took me upstarts (oops! I mean upstairs—can any psychologist tell me what my slips mean?) by the hand, we stripped each other off and celebrated Christmas.
So, we're back downstairs having a late afternoon tea on Boxing Day. Alan's fulfilled all his culinary responsibilities and is relaxing. Yeliena's made the mince pies, the pastry produced to a traditional Siberian peasant recipe. Buddies—it was black! They were plumbiferous, know what I mean? Mince pies? More like Stalin [Not his birth name: Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili became Stalin. Stalin is Russian for steel. (The Dzhugashvili Purges...? I don't really think so.) It's a bit like 'Heil Schicklgruber!' More comic than menacing. Hitler's father, Alois, was a bastard—literally—so originally took his mother's name: Schicklgruber. Five years later she (Maria Anna) married Johann Hiedler who was presumed to be the father of Alois—although this was never established beyond doubt, and the opportunity was not taken to legitimise the boy. When Maria died Hiedler disappeared, to reappear thirty years later, now spelling his name Hitler, and to swear paternity of Alois. So Alois legally took the surname Hitler in his thirty-ninth year—twelve years before the birth of Adolf. Thus a dictator was guaranteed a credible name.] pies. Stalin stodge; Stalinist stodge. Stalinist purgatives? No, these were Stalinist binders. Bad news, buddies. However, we eat them, to avoid offending her, but thankful that this time she's not brought the samovar.
Anyway, at the moment I'm walking by the Ouse, just outside Lewes, East Sussex. It's May the 12th—a beautiful sunny day, and we're recovering from one of the wettest (in fact, the wettest) autumns recorded. Lewes was particularly badly hit: shops and houses flooded, but things are getting back to normal. In the distance above the line of trees is what looks like a floating cigar tube.[An airliner on its way to Gatwick, I assume, and the angle of view renders the wings invisible. The sky is impossibly blue. Fresh—as if issued....]
The Information Junkie Page 9
