by Will Self
Herman was abandoned and he was deranged. His eyes were vacant, his blue-black cheeks flecked with white foam. The host having departed the proceedings prematurely, it was left for his guests to essay the many different and pleasing combinations that occurred to them. Which they did – indeed they did – until that busy old fool the unruly sun arose, and Cinderella’s carriage turned into… a Jaguar.
Just as Herman was picked up, so was he dropped off at the end of Meard Street in the crap gloaming that was his natural lighting. Wotton sat at the wheel of the car, his sharp profile etched against glass, awful rheum at the corners of his saturnine mouth. He turned to Herman. ‘Since Dorian appears to have taken on the role of your patron, I think it only civil to reward you handsomely for an evening of such enchanted theatricals.’ From his waistcoat pocket Wotton withdrew a drug wrap that was fatter than it was broad.
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Herman took it and quit the car. Before shutting the door he leant down to say ‘Fuck off’ to Wotton – in the most robotic and unfeeling voice the older man had ever heard.
After Herman had gone, dragging his sore, stinging legs off up the alley, Wotton sat for a few minutes, savouring the desperation. Then he flicked the car into drive.
Back at Ginger’s upended room, the tenant had been driven away, leaving behind his static car seat. The remains of last night’s supper – Tuinal and Special Brew – were scattered on the festering mulch like strange fruit. Herman crouched down unsteadily on this jungly floor. As he got out his works and cooked up a fix, an observer would have been acutely aware of the harsh noises floating up through the open window – traffic, sirens, shouting – and the harsh light in the trashed room. Wotton had tipped him with a big mound of beige heroin, and Herman was intent on taking it all. He didn’t even bother to mix citric acid – or even vinegar – with the gear, so it wouldn’t dissolve properly, and he siphoned it out of the cruddy spoon without troubling to filter it.
When he rolled up his sleeve to take the fix in the main line, his whole attitude was one of broken despair. An observer would’ve noted at this point the glimmer of tears on his cheeks and realised that he was intent on suicide. But what could any observer have done? It was too late already, surely? If Herman wasn’t to die that day, he was to die another not long thence. It would be folly, wouldn’t it, for a hypothetical onlooker to blame himself for this inevitable – and not even premature – demise. Wouldn’t it?
The mammoth syringe-load was rammed home and Herman pitched forward into his final abyss. The blood rushed and thudded in his inner ear, like the electronic beat of a synthesised drum machine. Herman’s death – was it a peculiar form of tocsin? Instead of London calling – was this something calling it?
At home, in Chelsea, Wotton was already ensconced, such was the insane alacrity of his driving. He was in the drawing room, morning fruit juice in hand, staring up at the jiggling man. In the mid-distance a power tool was drilling holes so as to attach the world more securely to the present. ‘Death,’ Wotton mused aloud, ‘is first and foremost a career move.’
Beached on a futon, on the far side of the river, lay Dorian in all his loveliness. Could he hear the thudding blood in Soho? Certainly his face twitched in time with its awful rushing rhythm. If only it would stop – but it wouldn’t; instead it woke him up. He rose, with the pained recognition of last night’s fun smeared over his handsome chops. He stalked into the main room: the blinds were wide open, the detritus of druggery and buggery spread across the carpet brightly illumined. What a night! His guests had departed without remembering to turn the nine monitors off. Yes, there they were, so many cathode Narcissi, all prancing and pirouetting in time with the gross thumping of his hangover. He moved towards the screens, and the banging against his temples rose to a crescendo, as if some soul burglar were attempting to escape. Then Dorian saw it: the faces on the screen had all changed – and for the worse. An exaggerated moue twisted his formerly flawless mouth. A distortion of a perfect symmetry such as his was far worse than a harelip on an ordinary face. He grimaced and drew closer – surely there must be some grease or fluid on the screens? But no. Closer and closer he drew, until all he could see were lines of dots leading into the future. His temples rang like a bell as his conscience clapped at their insides.
Dorian’s face. Wotton’s face. Herman’s face. Dorian’s face. Wotton’s face. Herman’s face. Eyes wide open. Eyes wide open. Eyes wide open. The reels came to rest. Vomit on Herman’s chin. Vomit on Herman’s chin. Vomit on Herman’s chin. Three of anything paid generously – in the coin of Misfortune.
PART TWO
Transmission
6
Rear up and pull away from Herman’s dead face, because, hey, that’s what everyone does. They rear up and pull away from the faces of the dead. They reel back – and in so doing they cast away the years. Recency is its own reward – and so much better than the Regency. Only a very few of the dead are vouchsafed the ability to reach a wraith-like hand from beyond and tap somebody they have known on the shoulder. Some warm body who’s hurrying up a crowded street, in the full light of day, on his way to an important encounter with an old friend.
Ten long years. A camera stealing the several souls of the city, capturing perhaps an image every hour, what could it tell us about the passage of time? Only that this or that building has been replaced by another without our even noticing. Best not to meddle. Never mind. Days and nights strobe past, the traffic is a river of light and time is a tidal bore.
In Charlotte Street ten long years had passed. The newspaper headlines held aloft by hands at café tables shrieked ‘Civil War in Yugoslavia!’, and ‘Body Count of Milwaukee Murderer Reaches 18!’.
Among the countless heaving bodies of the crowd, there was one hurrying figure that forced itself out of the mass, as a card is forced by a sharper. It was Basil Hallward. He was ten years older, it was true, and he looked thin and wan – not at all well generally – but it was also evident that he was straight: scrubbed in appearance – with his grey, single-breasted suit, white shirt and leather shoes – and clean from drugs as well. His eyes were clear and direct behind rimless spectacles, and he strode along with lively purpose, as if health and vigour could be achieved by bad acting alone.
Baz made his entrance to the 1990s marching between an honour guard of gays – if that doesn’t sound too absurd. Here, in Fitzrovia, close to both the hospital complex and the burgeoning gay village, there was a preponderance of homosexual men. They sported greased head hair, pencil-line facial hair, earrings and white vests, the better to show off their easy-to-wipe skin tones. Some were gaunt-jawed and slope-shouldered, others were pumped up and overly active.
Turning the corner into Goodge Street, Baz came face to face with a policeman and a security goon. The latter had come in kit form, complete with snap-on dark glasses and a plastic pigtail connecting his red ear to his blue collar. They were staunching a small flow of pedestrians, while in the roadway another cop arrested some traffic.
—Would you mind waiting for a moment please, sir?
—Is there anything the matter, officer? Baz was amused by the cop’s courteous manner; it wasn’t what he was used to.
—Nothing to worry about, sir, just be a few more seconds ’til they’re clear. The goon’s ear squawked and he barked at his two colleagues in an American accent, OK, let’s roll it up now gentlemen!
The cop in the street directed the traffic to pull over to the kerb. There was a short siren yelp and two motorcycle outriders came from the direction of the Middlesex Hospital travelling surprisingly fast. They were followed first by a Lincoln Towncar bearing the Stars and Stripes, and then by a customised Daimler with the royal crest poised on its roof as if it were a petrified floral tribute.
The other bystanders craned to look through the tinted glass of the cars. In the first sat Barbara Bush, who, in common with every First Lady since Jackie Kennedy, closely resembled a male-to-female transsexual. In her case, rubicund f
eatures and a white smoke cloud of hair suggested she would be more comfortable on the front step of some Appalachian log cabin, corncob pipe in puckered mouth, whiskey jar to hand. In the Daimler, the pale profile of the Princess of Bulimia sluiced through the street. There was a chorus of ‘Ooh’s and ‘Ah’s in their wake, but Baz wasn’t paying any attention. He powered on through the loosening cordon in the direction of the hospital. There he strode across the forecourt, which was empty save for a knot of medical staff enjoying a post-royal-visit cigarette.
Inside, Baz paused to enquire where Broderip Ward was, then followed these directions along corridors, through hallways, up staircases, past all the usual traffic of a workaday hospital: patients on trolleys, patients in wheelchairs, posters advertising diseases, auxiliary staff, uneasy civilians. Everywhere he went was spick and span and therapeutically colour-coded. The interior designers had been summoned when the Royal Fag Hag began to take an interest in the gay plague and came to open the Broderip. Yet just inches away from where Baz strode were ventilation ducts choking on infective fluff and stagnant puddles of mop wipe, each with its own malarial vector. But he wasn’t to know, old Basil, zooming forward with his missionary zeal.
On the fifth floor he skated across the polished floor to a blond-wood desk beside a plate-glass window, where a blond nurse with wooden features sat smouldering with anger. Like so many of the nursing staff on Broderip he would soon be burnt out altogether. He fixed Baz with an appraising eye; if called upon to, he could’ve given his T-cell count to within ±10. Do you know where you’re going? he asked.
—I’m looking for a Mr Wotton.
—Henry’s got his wife with him at the moment. Is he expecting you?
—I called this morning and said I’d be coming.
—Oh, you’re Baz Hallward… It seemed as if the nurse was going to add to this, but he didn’t.
—That’s right.
—Yes, he’s definitely expecting you – in fact, he’s looking forward to seeing you, said you’d be an antidote to our royal visitor –
—I’m sorry?
—Princess Di, she was here a few minutes ago – didn’t you see the kerfuffle on your way in? It’s a pity she had to bring that warmonger’s wife with her.
The nurse – whose name was Gavin – might have been about to add to this as well, but at that moment Batface appeared by the nursing station in a gyrating tangle of plastic bag, handbag and car keys. As if only ten minutes had passed, she was in the same purposeless dither as ever. She looked older, certainly, but none the worse for wear. In fact, her rather more matronly habit – a well-cut scarlet two-piece, dark tights and serious pearls – acted as a visual sedative, making her daffy delirium much easier for onlookers to bear. Um yes, Gavin, sorry to bother you…
—Yes, Lady Wotton?
—Quite discomfited by Diana Spencer – not that we know her, excepting en passant, but still, not ex-pec-ting her. No, not at all. Wanted to curtsy, but Henry’s so against such deference. Calls curtsying ‘waterless peeing’ – vulgar but apt. Anyway… Henry says it’s quite all right with you people if he discharges himself tomorrow…
—That’s OK.
—I’ll pick him up after lunch, seminar in the morning, have to bring Phoebe, Nanny’s got the dentist… It’s of no interest to you, Gavin, of course… but Henry insists on a little smackerel from F-Fortnum’s for supper, his friend Bluejay will bring it by – at around nine?
—Now Lady Wotton, you know we don’t like Henry’s friend Bluejay on the ward – for obvious reasons…
—Oh, absolutely, I quite understand, he can be rather silly. I’m not keen on him at home, either, but Henry is most insistent, says he’ll discharge himself before the ward round if Bluejay can’t call by. Asked me to ask you most especially…
—As far as I’m concerned this will be entirely for your sake – not Henry’s. Do you understand me, Lady Wotton?
—Oh, ab-so-lutely, Gavin, f-fully comprehended. Most grateful, many thanks, must go now… meter… Batface was about to depart but then she noticed Baz. Is it Basil Hallward?
—It is. He went forward to her and their cheeks collided drily.
—It must be five years since I’ve seen you.
—I’d say more like ten.
—Henry told me you were coming; he’s very much looking forward to it – he only wants to see his old friends now he’s got this b-b-bug… He told me you’d given up on the art world, taken another direction, quite changed your life…
—That’s right, Batface. I’m hoping I can help change Henry’s as well.
—Oh, too late for that I should imagine, ha ha, still… She whinnied nervously, sensing she’d said too much, then cantered on. You’ll be in London for a while, won’t you? Have you somewhere to stay?
—I’m all right.
—Oh, well, but you’ll dine with us… tomorrow? And most days… Henry will want that, I know. He’s just the same as ever – anyone he wants with him he wants with him all the time.
—I should like that, Batface.
—Good good, settled then, tomorrow. Bye Basil, bye Gavin, must dash.
And she was gone, although to describe her egress as dashing would have been a mistake – she clunked off on court shoes, pigeon-toed, arms akimbo. The two men exchanged looks, each warning the other not to mock.
—So, Baz, Henry’s free now. He’s in Room 6, and you’d better go and see him before bloody Bluejay turns up.
There were small cuboid rooms ranged along the mind-numbingly magnolia corridor, and divided from it by waist-to-ceiling windows with embedded wire graticules. Here and there a carpeted ledge supported a desiccated magazine rack or a succulent pot plant. The atmosphere was one Baz had come to expect; he’d been in many similar places. But what he’d never come to accept were the jerkily animate versions of Munch’s The Scream that thronged the corridor.
Of course, this was a sight that many others never even bothered to admit; and which those who did managed to banish entirely, from the arrogant vantage of having read newspaper articles about effective combination therapy. If such stick-figure vistas existed anywhere any more – they thought – it was in Kinshasa or Kigali or some other sub-Saharan K-hole.
But in the Broderip Ward on that day in 1991, there were whole squadrons of young men with Bomber Command moustaches who had been targeted with the incendiary disease. Their radiator-grille ribcages and concentration-camp eyes telegraphed the dispatch that this was less a place for the mending of civilian injuries and quotidian wounds than a casualty station near the front line with Death. And if further confirmation were needed, it came in the form of the ongoing triage that accompanied these men. They clumped along on Scholl’s and Birkenstocks (natural footwear hardly alleviating their neuropathy), pulling their drips with them on wheeled stands. Their faces were studded with Kaposi’s sarcoma, and every third eye was patched. Some had the obscene, flesh-coloured, plastic plugs of Hickman lines clearly visible in their gaunt cleavages. Baz was compelled to slow down in order to negotiate these walking wounded, so, having had a lovely canter along Charlotte Street, he now entered Room 6 as if hobbled by the disease.
To find the same amazing squalor that was always associated with Henry Wotton. The familiar rankness infiltrated Baz’s nostrils, an acrid braiding of cigarette smoke, alcohol fumes and stale sweat. But this was underlain by hospital disinfectant, just as the overflowing ashtrays and stained glasses sat upon a hospital bed, a Formica-topped locker and a tray table rather than the mismatched pieces of furniture in the Chelsea house.
Still, there was a half-full bottle of Champagne and two red-wine empties; there were crumpled newspapers and cracked-spine books aplenty; and a silk scarf had been draped over an Anglepoise lamp, which was bent back so that it suffused boudoir light at the ceiling. Someone had also imported a trouser press, and draped over this were items of Wottonesque apparel: the Crombie, a suit jacket, a silk tie, a linen shirt with bloodied cuffs, and so forth. Without
, on a tiny ledge snowed under by bird-shit, a pigeon stood on fungal feet coo-coughing in the eternal gloom of a light-well. In the top corner of the boxy room a television was wedged. It was on, the volume turned right down, and a female newsreader was whimpering about the collapse of the Soviet Union. In vases of coloured glass, expensive cut flowers were silently screaming as they smellily expired. Their demise served only to make the sickroom still more sickly.
Wotton himself was supine on the bed, Ray-Bans clamped across his eyes like the mask of a cartoon bandit. Perversely, Baz felt a reawakening of his thraldom, as, contemplating the waxy features, he was reassured to see that not only was Wotton not looking too bad, he was even looking better than Baz himself. ‘Henry?’ Even now he felt uneasy with the first name, as if he were employing slang with some dowager duchess.
Wotton undulated on the mattress and his dry tongue slitted open his thin mouth. ‘Ah, Baz,’ he croaked. ‘Like the poor, the pretentious are always with us. You never say goodbye, you only say au revoir and retire for a while to recoup your feigned seriousness.’ He undulated some more. ‘How are you, old friend?’ Baz found even this degree of warmth chilling – Wotton was ill, after all.
‘I’m not so bad. I keep moving –’
‘You’ll forgive me,’ Wotton’s voice rustled on the ferny floor of his throat, ‘if I neither strive to be upright, nor attempt a vis-à-vis – my mollusca, you see… they proliferate laterally. Recently they’ve been frozen out, but my teats, you see, they’re so hospitable, soon the mollusca will come clustering back… I must be lactating this bloody virus.’
Baz removed a ball of shirts and cardboard kidney-dishes from a chair and seated himself. ‘How’s your sight, Henry?’
‘My inner vision is clearer than ever, my dear Basil, it’s just the external correlate that’s becoming a little difficult to corral. The old cytomegalovirus has a way of gifting me the most Vaseline-smeared view of the world. A nice irony, really – now it obscures my peep-holes I can’t smear it on anyone else’s holes, hmm? Still, this affliction has at least saved me this very day from a worse one.’
