Men from Boys

by John Harvey

  ‘You could be right, sir. I must enquire next time I visit my mother. Perhaps you could give me their names. And were there any other contestants?’

  ‘Nominees,’ corrected Ansell. ‘It wasn’t a game show. Yes, two more, but they are both women.’

  ‘And that puts them out of the running, does it, sir?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think it does, in most cases anyway. Though I say it myself, I get on rather well with women, which is perhaps another reason why some men might feel threatened enough to play a stupid practical joke. Can I go back to my room now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sure they’ll be finished up there now. We’ll need a formal statement at some point . . .’

  ‘But later, please, commander,’ said Molly. ‘Mr Ansell has a press conference in a few minutes. Boy, can you make it? In the circs, I don’t think they’ll mind hanging around a little while.’

  ‘If they do mind, they can sod off,’ said Boy, finishing his coffee and rising.

  As he went through the door, Molly shouted after him, ‘And remember. Not the houndstooth!’

  She’d definitely have to go.

  The press conference went very well. All the papers were represented, even the grotties. WRITER WINS MAN BOOKER was a yawn to most tabloids, but PRIZEWINNNER IN BOMB SCARE was worth a couple of paras. The revelation that in fact there wasn’t any bomb rather took the gilt off the gingerbread, but Boy’s relaxed, self-deprecating narrative plus his undeniably striking profile gave them the chance to present him as a uniquely British hero of a type not very common in these Americanised days.

  He played up the image, interrupting some tabloid chick to protest that he was here to talk about his book, not about something as trivial as a threat to his life.

  ‘Okay.’ The hack yawned. ‘So where did you get the idea for The Accelerant from?’

  He winced for the benefit of the broadsheets, then gave his usual bland answer and saw her eyes glaze. The truth would have woken her up. He imagined telling it.

  ‘It was this old varsity chum of mine, Piers, actually. He was a med student and with his help, we were into all kinds of shit back in those days. But most of it was targeted on keeping you going, whether it was doing exams or disco dancing till you dropped. As far as seduction juice went, I never really got much beyond slipping in an extra finger of gin with the old orange. I ran into Piers again a year or so back. Consultant at one of the big teaching hospitals. Like old friends often do on meeting, we quickly regressed to our early relationship, and one night after a few jars, he told me about this stuff he sometimes used just to help things along a bit, as he put it. When I realised what he was talking about, I was shocked. More than shocked. Horrified. When he saw this, he justified himself by asking what was the difference between getting a girl legless so you could screw her and slipping her a few drops of some harmless drug which left her without a hangover and next to no memory of what had taken place? I said the difference was about ten years in clink, and quite right too. He got quite heated, assuring me he never used it except when convinced the girl was as eager as he was.

  ‘“You know how they can be,” he said. “Positively gagging for it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to keep you waiting till you’ve gone through all the usual run-up rituals. Now, I don’t mind that normally, but sometimes you just don’t have the time. That’s when an accelerant comes in useful. That’s how I look on it, you see. Just an accelerant.”

  ‘And that’s where I got the idea from. I’d been planning this political novel whose theme was the old one of ends justifying means and the consequent corruption. What I needed to make it fresh and immediate was an in-your-face analogy which would provide the page-turning dynamic to draw in the mass market. And here it was. My theme and my title. The Accelerant. I used it. It worked. And that’s why I’m here, answering your stupid questions, with the Booker prize in my pocket.’

  One day he might talk to them like that. One day when his bank balance was bigger than his life expectancy. But not yet.

  So he gave them the usual line and when the bomb threat questions started up again, he reverted to modest hero mode with only token resistance.

  ‘You knocked ’em in the aisle,’ said Molly afterwards. ‘Hold back on the personal details with The Times. They’ve got an exclusive on the literary career, but I think we can do a hot deal with one of the tabs for the childhood trauma stuff. You did have childhood trauma, didn’t you, Boy.’

  ‘By the bucket load,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I’ll bring him up to you soon as he arrives. By the way, you should find a few hundred books in your room waiting to be signed. Why don’t you make a start on them?’

  Signing books was a pain even though he’d reduced his official signature to a single undulating scrawl. And it was worse when you didn’t have a skivvy at hand to open the volumes at the title page and stack them to one side as they were done. But it was a necessary evil and he set to with a will, determined to get as many as possible out of the way.

  As many as possible turned out to be five.

  When he opened the sixth, he found the title page had already been written on.

  Still with us, Boy? Not to worry. Just another couple of signatures, then you won’t have to worry about signing any more. Ever.

  He looked at the tower of books and was tempted to kick it over. But why risk losing your leg for a gesture?

  He left the room and went in search of a telephone.

  Commander Hewlitt arrived just as the bomb people gave the all clear. They seemed pretty phlegmatic but the commander sounded definitely pissed off. ‘False alarms like this tying up large numbers of highly trained personnel are a serious offence, sir. Up to seven years’ imprisonment.’

  ‘Is that all? I’d cut his balls off, whoever’s responsible,’ said Boy.

  ‘Yes, sir. Now a few more questions, then a formal statement . . .’

  Once more Molly protested that the pressure on her client’s time was too intense to allow diversion, but this time Hewlitt was adamant.

  When Molly continued arguing, Boy snapped, ‘For God’s sake, cancel the Times guy. Cancel the Jap lunch too. In fact, cancel everything. God knows what other little surprises this joker has got ready for me. If he’s for real, I don’t want to be about. And if it’s just a pathetic game, soon the sympathy will start running out and I’ll just look a laughing stock, which is probably what he wants anyway.’

  ‘So what will you do, sir?’ asked Hewlitt.

  ‘I’ll go home to Brighton and get on with my work, Commander, in the hope that you will get on with yours and catch the idiot behind these pranks.’

  ‘Probably a good idea, sir,’ said Hewlitt. ‘But if we could just have that statement first . . .’

  Two hours later Ansell climbed out of the elegant Mercedes his publishers had provided, said a curt thank you to the driver and went into his flat. Four years ago, when he bought it, the price had seemed exorbitant even though he’d picked it up at the bottom of a slump. Sea here was like sky in London, you paid through the nose for the privilege of viewing what God had provided free. Now it was worth possibly double the money. Before Booker, he’d played with the notion that if he won, he might sell up and use some of his new earning power to buy something in town. But to get what he had in Brighton in any reasonably central location was going to cost an arm and a leg, and after today’s experience, he was no longer sure he wanted to be so near the rotten heart of things, particularly if arms and legs were literally what he might have to pay.

  He glanced at his answer machine, which formed the base of a four-foot-high resin copy of Michelangelo’s David with a telephone as a cache sexe. Some slight adjustment to the face made the personal resemblance even stronger, but the phone made it a joke instead of a vanity.

  Some adjustment had been necessary to the crotch too, but that was for the lucky ones to find out.

  The answer machine registered lots of messages, which was only to be expected
.. Everybody loves a winner, he told himself with that cynicism only winners can afford. But it would be nice to relax with a large G and T and let this torrent of praise wash away the day’s less pleasant memories.

  First things first, though, especially in matters of relaxation. He headed to the bathroom. When the bullets start flying, keep a tight ass, was a piece of veterans’ lore he recalled reading somewhere. Perhaps Mailer in The Naked and the Dead. Or Kate Adie anywhere. He seemed to have been keeping a tight ass all day. No smart alec reporter was going to be able to remark slyly that Boy Ansell reacted to threats against him by spending an unconscionable time on the loo. But now it was time to let go.

  It was worth waiting for, till on the sixth sheet of toilet paper he found the message.

  What a lucky Boy it is, then! One sheet the less and what worlds away. By such delicate chains do our lives hang.

  He read it again. Unnecessarily. He’d got the message first time. This was an exercise in humiliation. He was meant to go scuttling off to summon the bomb squad once more, this time to work over an unflushed lavatory.

  He looked up at the old-fashioned high-level tank from which a thin golden chain ran down to a metal ball, enamelled to look like planet earth (another of his jokes).

  ‘Sod you!’ he said.

  And not giving himself time to reflect, he stood up, took the world in his hand, and pulled.

  Water rushed and bubbled, the pan emptied. He stood there defiantly till the roar of the tank refilling died to a trickle then a drip. Finally, silence.

  ‘Sod you,’ he said again, this time in triumph.

  He went back into his living room. The phone rang.

  He sat down, unhooking the receiver from the Boy David’s crotch.

  ‘Ansell.’

  ‘Boy, it’s Molly. Just checking you got home safely.’

  He thought of telling her about the latest incident, decided the absurdity outweighed the heroics, and said, ‘No problem.’

  ‘Oh good. I’m sorry it turned into such a trying day for you when you should have been simply enjoying your astounding triumph.’

  His famous ear for nuance had always been able to spot a put-down at twenty paces. ‘Astounding?’ he said. ‘To whom?’

  ‘To you, I mean. Not to me, of course. But I can’t believe that you in your heart of hearts really expected it. Did you?’

  ‘Well, yes, in a way, I always hoped – look, what are you trying to say? That I didn’t deserve it?’

  He heard her laugh. ‘I’m happy to debate expected with you, Boy. But I’m sure neither of us has any delusions about deserved.’

  He opened his mouth, closed it again. He had misheard, he thought. Or was misinterpreting what he’d heard. Don’t rush in with a hasty response. Keep control. Don’t lose your head. Wasn’t that one of the things he was famous for in his writing?

  He said, ‘You know me, Molly. No vanity. I never went around saying I thought I ought to win the Booker, but now that I have done, I’m certainly not about to quarrel with the verdict of such a distinguished panel of experts.’

  ‘Experts?’ She laughed again. ‘If your claim to fame rests on being chosen by that bunch of self-regarding prancers, better forget it, darling.’

  What had got into her? Not him, perhaps that was the trouble. Or could it be that, pissed off at having to cancel all that carefully organised publicity stuff today, she’d dived into a bottle and was now letting her resentment show? Whatever, it gave him the perfect cue for cutting the cord. And without the expense of a good dinner.

  He said mildly, ‘If you think so poorly of my books, perhaps it would be better for us both if you no longer had the disagreeable task of trying to sell them.’

  See if that shocked her into sobriety.

  It didn’t.

  ‘Oh, come on, Boy,’ she said long-sufferingly. ‘What I think about your books is neither here nor there. But surely even you won’t grudge me a share of your success, after all the hard work I’ve put in.’

  ‘All the hard work . . .?’ he echoed in genuine puzzlement. ‘You mean selling them to publishers who were gagging for them? Or ferrying me around to media events which, incidentally, is a task perhaps better left to my publisher’s PR professionals who know how to treat a star.’

  That set her laughing again. God, she must be really rat-arsed!

  ‘Jesus, Boy, haven’t you caught on yet that when you’ve got a tour coming up, the girls in the publicity department start going sick in droves? Given a choice between you and King Kong, they’d all be packing their jungle kit. That’s why I took over myself, to preserve the peace. So I reckon that the time I spend on that, plus the work I’ve had to put in on your scripts, makes earning my ten per cent the hardest graft I’ve ever done.’

  ‘On my scripts? My editor never has to do a thing with them. He says they’re among the cleanest scripts he’s ever seen. And I’ve heard you say so yourself.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s for Big Ears and Noddy out there, Boy, that’s for the image. Come on, surely it must occur to you to wonder sometimes how your four hundred pages of waffly rambling turn into two fifty of crisp prose? With the spelling correct and the punctuation in the right place? Or perhaps you never read the finished product? Probably wise.’

  Suspicions were swirling in his mind like storm clouds, but he wasn’t ready yet to admit the tempest blast while he still had some shred of vanity to shelter behind. ‘I don’t get you. You said . . . you seemed to be saying that you expected me to win last night. That must mean . . .’

  ‘It means that I’d called in more favours than you’d find at a gypsy’s wedding, not to mention rattling a whole catacomb of skeletons in judges’ cupboards. But that won’t keep me awake nights, that’s par for the course in the glitzy world of awards. What really bothers me, Boy, is one of the judges said to me afterwards, you needn’t have bothered with all the pressure, darling, we all actually thought it was by far the best book. You see what this means? I’ve created a monster and no one else seems able to spot the stitching!’

  Now the tempest broke.

  ‘You bitch!’ yelled Boy. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? These stupid jokes. It was you, trying to humiliate me.’

  ‘Well done, Boy. I wondered how long that famous eye for detail and ear for nuance were going to take to get you there. Yes, indeed. And I actually got to the hotel early enough to see you sprinting down the corridor in your jim-jams. A writer we can rely on to keep his head . . . yes, even if it means running around half naked in public! God, you looked terrified!’

  ‘Not so terrified I didn’t pull the loo chain just now,’ he snarled, defensive despite himself.

  ‘Well done. On the other hand, sometimes a bit of real humiliating fear’s not a bad thing, you know. Being brave kills more people than terror, I’d say. Though terror can leave permanent scars on the vulnerable and sensitive.’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to leave any scars on me,’ he said. The famous control was back. For all he knew she was getting all this down on tape. He mustn’t lose his head. ‘You’re the only one who’s going to suffer damage here. We’re finished, Molly. And by the time my lawyers are through, I doubt if you’ll see a penny of my future earnings. I can’t imagine what you thought you were playing at. Such silly pranks. A woman of your age!’

  ‘What’s my age got to do with it?’

  ‘I understand strange changes often take place with the menopause. I advise you to see a doctor. Or a psychologist. There’s been some good work done on sexual frustration, they tell me.’

  ‘Frustration . . .? You mean I’m not getting enough generally? Or not getting enough of you?’

  ‘You said it,’ he replied equably. ‘And it’s too late now. I’m not in the therapy business.’

  ‘Oh Boy, Boy.’ She sighed. ‘That sharp eye, that keen ear, and you never caught on during our years together that I’m gay? And here’s me thinking it must be that which was protecting me. But now I think about it, you’d
probably have regarded it as a challenge, wouldn’t you? Get me up to your flat, bucketfuls of boyish charm, rather less of cheap bubbly, then an irresistible offer to let me find out what I’d been missing. You like a challenge, don’t you? Toni must have seemed a challenge.’

  ‘Toni?’ He laughed triumphantly. ‘Is that what this is really about? Young Toni? Now I begin to see things clearly. You found out. It wasn’t me you were jealous of, it was her! Grooming her as a little bit on the side, were you? And then you found out she preferred the real thing. So you sacked her and thought you’d play your stupid pranks on me. And I used to think you were a sophisticated woman. I hope you had the decency to give her a good reference. I certainly would! Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s safe,’ said Molly calmly. ‘Recovering. It’s going to take a long time, they say. Oh, I warned her that you’d probably have a go at her some time, told her to take no notice and eventually your vanity would make you give up on the grounds that if you hadn’t tried anything, you couldn’t have been rejected. I never dreamt you’d sink so low, Boy. What did you spike her drink with? Rohypnol, like the guy in your lousy book? Write about what you know, isn’t that the advice they dish out on creative writing courses?’

  Boy was genuinely horrified. Who the hell did this ancient dyke think she was, taking the moral high line with him? What did she know about good old-fashioned straight sex between a man and a woman? He could look back over a long line of willing and enthusiastic partners, most of whom came back for more, hence his initial revulsion at Piers’s confession. Okay, he’d repressed his true feelings in the interests of research but that was the price an artist sometimes had to pay. Practical experience was important and eventually he’d got a sample of the stuff from Piers who, like his victims, was in no position to resist. First of all he tried it out on himself. Result, irresistible drowsiness and when he recovered, a memory gap whose edges were as fuzzy as candy floss. Next had been a woman he was in an intermittent sleeping arrangement with. When she woke up, she’d been apologetic, putting her retreat from full consciousness down to not counting the vodka martinis. After that, he’d only used it a couple of times, certainly not more than three or four, and always in the kind of situation described by Piers where it was merely accelerating the inevitable.