by Tom Sharpe
‘They teach you things,’ said Baby.
‘Like what? Having apoplectic fits?’ said Hutchmeyer, who had finally got his bearings on The Idiot.
‘Epileptic. A sign of genius. Like Mohammed had them.’
‘So now I’ve got an encyclopedia for a wife,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘and with Arabs. What are you going to do? Turn this house into a literary Mecca or something?’ And leaving Baby with the germ of this idea he had flown hurriedly to Tokyo and the physical pleasures of a woman who couldn’t speak English let alone read it. He came back to find Baby had been into Dostoevsky and out the other side. She was devouring books with as little discrimination as her bears were now devouring blueberry patches. She hit Ayn Rand with as much fervour as Tolstoy, swept amazingly through Dos Passos, lathered in Lawrence, saunaed in Strindberg and then birched herself with Céline. The list was endless and Hutchmeyer found himself married to a biblionut. To make matters worse Baby got into authors. Hutchmeyer loathed authors. They talked about their books and Hutchmeyer, under threat from Baby, found himself forced to be relatively polite and apparently interested. Even Baby found them disappointing, but since the presence of even one novelist in the house sent Hutchmeyer’s blood pressure soaring she was generous in her invitations and continued to live in hopes of finding one who lived in the flesh up to his words on paper. And with Peter Piper and Pause O Men for the Virgin she felt sure that here at last was a man and his book without discrepancy. She lay on the waterbed and savoured her expectations. It was such a romantic novel. In a significant sort of way. And different.
Hutchmeyer came through from the bathroom wearing a quite unnecessary truss.
‘That thing suits you,’ said Baby studying the contraption dispassionately. ‘You should wear it more often. It gives you dignity.’
Hutchmeyer glared at her.
‘No, I mean it,’ Baby continued. ‘Like it gives you a supportive role.’
‘With you to support I need it,’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘Well, if you’ve got a hernia you should have it operated on.’
‘Seeing what they’ve done with you I don’t need no operations,’ Hutchmeyer said. He glanced at Pause and went through to his room.
‘You still like that book?’ he called out presently.
‘First good book you’ve published in years,’ said Baby. ‘It’s beautiful. An idyll.’
‘A what?’
‘An idyll. You want me to tell you what an idyll is?’
‘No,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘I can guess.’ He climbed into bed and thought about it. An idyll? Well if she said an idyll, an idyll was what it would be to a million other women. Baby was infallible. Still, an idyll?
9
There was nothing idyllic about the scene that greeted Piper when the ship berthed in New York. Even the fabulous view of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty, which Sonia had promised would send him, didn’t. A heavy mist hung over the river and the great buildings only emerged from it as they moved slowly past the Battery and inched into the berth. By that time Piper’s attention had been drawn from the view of Manhattan to a large number of people with visibly different backgrounds and opinions who were gathered on the roadway outside the Customs shed.
‘Boy, Hutch has really done you proud,’ said Sonia as they went down the gangway. There were shouts from the street and a glimpse of banners, some of which said ambiguously, ‘Welcome To Gay City’, and others even more ominously, ‘Go Home, Peipmann’.
‘Who on earth is Peipmann?’ Piper asked.
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Sonia.
‘Peipmann?’ said the Customs Officer, not bothering to open their bags. ‘I wouldn’t know. There’s a million hags and fags out there waiting for him. Some are for teaching him and others for worse. Have a nice trip.’
Sonia bustled Piper away with their luggage through a barrier to where MacMordie was waiting with a crowd of reporters. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Piper,’ he said. ‘Now if you’ll just step this way.’
Piper stepped this way and was immediately surrounded by cameramen and reporters who shouted incomprehensible questions.
‘Just say “No comment”,’ shouted MacMordie as Piper tried to explain that he had never been to Russia. ‘That way nobody gets the wrong idea.’
‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ said Sonia. ‘Who the hell told these goons he was in the KGB?’
MacMordie grinned with complicity and the swarm with Piper at its centre moved out into the entrance hall. A squad of cops fought their way through the newsmen and escorted Piper into an elevator. Sonia and MacMordie went down the stairs.
‘What in the name of hell gives?’ asked Sonia.
‘Mr Hutchmeyer’s orders,’ said MacMordie. ‘A riot he asks for, a riot he gets.’
‘But you didn’t have to say that about him being a hit man for Idi Amin,’ said Sonia bitterly. ‘Jesus wept!’
At street level it was clear that MacMordie had said a great many other things about Piper, all of them conflicting. A contingent of Survivors of Siberia surged round the entrance chanting, ‘Solzhenitsyn Yes. Piperovsky No.’ Behind them a band of Arabs for Palestine, acting on the assumption that Piper was an Israeli Minister travelling incognito on an arms-buying mission, battled with Zionists whom MacMordie had alerted to the arrival of Piparfat of the Black September Movement. Farther back a small group of older Jews carried banners denouncing Peipmann but were heavily outnumbered by squads of Irishmen whose information was that O’Piper was a leading member of the IRA.
‘Cops are all Irish,’ MacMordie explained to Sonia. ‘Best to have them on our side.’
‘And which goddam side is that?’ said Sonia, but at that moment the elevator doors opened and an ashen-faced Piper was bustled into public view by his police escort. As the crowd outside surged forward the reporters continued their indefatigable quest for the truth.
‘Mr Piper, would you mind just telling us who and what the hell you are?’ one of them shouted above the din. But Piper was speechless. His eyes started out of his head and his face was grey.
‘Is it true that you personally shot …?’
‘Can we take it that your government isn’t negotiating the purchase of Minutemen rockets?’
‘How many people are still in mental …’
‘I know one who soon will be if you don’t do something fast,’ said Sonia thrusting MacMordie forward. MacMordie launched himself into a fray.
‘Mr Piper has nothing to say,’ he yelled gratuitously before being hurled to one side by a cop who had just been hit by a bottle of Seven-Up thrown by an Anti-Apartheid protester for whom Van Piper was a White South African racist. Sonia Futtle shoved past him.
‘Mr Piper is a famous British novelist,’ she bawled, but the time had passed for such unequivocal statements. More missiles rained against the wall of the building, banners disintegrated and were used as weapons, and Piper was dragged back into the hall.
‘I haven’t shot anyone,’ he squawked. ‘I’ve never been to Poland.’ But no one heard him. There was a crackle of walkie-talkies and an urgent plea for police reinforcements. Outside the Survivors of Siberia had succumbed to the Gay Liberationists who were fighting for their own. A number of middle-aged dragsters broke through the police cordon and swooped on Piper.
‘No, I’m nothing of the kind,’ he yelled as they tried to rescue him from the cops. ‘I’m simply a normal …’ Sonia grabbed a pole which had once held a sign saying ‘Golden Oldies Love You’, and fended off the falsies of one of Piper’s captors.
‘Oh no he’s not,’ she shrieked, ‘he’s mine!’ and dewigged another. Then flailing about her she drove the Gay Liberationists out of the lobby. Behind her Piper and the cops cowered while MacMordie shouted encouragement. In the medley outside Arabs for Palestine and Zionists for Israel momentarily united and completed the demolition of Gay Liberation before joining battle again. By that time Sonia had dragged Piper into the elevator. MacMordie jo
ined them and pressed the button. For the next twenty minutes they went up and down while the struggle for Piparfat, O’Piper and Peipmann raged on outside.
‘You’ve really screwed things up now,’ Sonia told MacMordie. ‘It takes me all my time to get the poor guy over here and you have to arrange Custer’s Last Stand for a welcome.’
In the corner the poor guy was sitting on the floor. MacMordie ignored him. ‘The product needed exposure and it’s sure getting it. This will hit prime time TV. I wouldn’t wonder there aren’t news flashes going out now.’
‘Great,’ said Sonia, ‘and what have you got laid on for us next? The Hindenburg disaster?’
‘So this is going to hit the headlines …’ MacMordie began, but there was a low moan from the corner. Something had already hit Piper. His hand was bleeding. Sonia knelt beside him.
‘What happened, honey?’ she asked. Piper pointed wanly at a frisbee on which were painted the words Gulag Go. The frisbee was edged with razor blades. Sonia turned on MacMordie.
‘I suppose that was your idea too,’ she yelled. ‘Frisbees with razor blades. You could guillotine someone with a thing like that.’
‘Me? I didn’t have a thing—’ MacMordie began, but Sonia had stopped the elevator.
‘Ambulance! Ambulance,’ she shouted, but it was an hour before the police managed to get Piper out of the building. By that time Hutchmeyer’s instructions had been carried out. So had a large number of protesters who had been rushed to hospital. The streets were littered with broken glass, smashed banners and tear-gas canisters. As Piper was helped into the ambulance his eyes were streaming tears. He sat nursing his injured hand and the conviction that he had come to a madhouse.
‘What did I do wrong?’ he asked Sonia pathetically.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘You were great, just great,’ said MacMordie appreciatively and studied Piper’s wound. ‘Pity there’s not more blood.’
‘What more do you want?’ snarled Sonia. ‘Two pounds of flesh? Haven’t you got enough already?’
‘Blood,’ said MacMordie. ‘Colour TV you can tell the difference from ketchup. This has got to be authentic.’ He turned to the nurse. ‘You got any whole blood?’
‘Whole blood? For a scratch like that you want whole blood?’ she said.
‘Listen,’ said MacMordie, ‘this guy’s a haemophiliac. You going to let him bleed to death?’
‘I am not a haemophiliac,’ protested Piper but the siren drowned his voice.
‘He needs a transfusion,’ shouted MacMordie. ‘Give me that blood.’
‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ screamed Sonia as MacMordie grappled with the nurse. ‘Hasn’t he been through enough without you wanting to give him a blood transfusion?’
‘I don’t want a transfusion,’ squeaked Piper frantically. ‘I don’t need one.’
‘Yeah, but the TV cameras do,’ said MacMordie. ‘In Technicolor.’
‘I will not give the patient …’ said the nurse, but MacMordie had grabbed the bottle and was wrestling with the cap.
‘You don’t even know his blood group,’ the nurse yelled as the cap came off.
‘No need to,’ said MacMordie and emptied most of the bottle over Piper’s head.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ bawled Sonia. Piper had passed out.
‘Okay, so we resuscitate him,’ said MacMordie. ‘This is going to make Kildare look like nothing,’ and he clamped the oxygen mask over Piper’s face. By the time Piper was lifted out of the ambulance on a stretcher he looked like death itself. Under the mask and the blood his face had turned purple. In the excitement nobody had thought to turn the oxygen on.
‘Is he still alive?’ asked a reporter who had followed the ambulance.
‘Who knows?’ said MacMordie enthusiastically. Piper was carried into Casualty while a bloodstained Sonia tried to calm the nurse who was having hysterics.
‘It was too terrible. Never in my whole life have I known such a thing and in my ambulance too,’ she screamed at the TV cameras and reporters before being led away after her patient. As the crimson stretcher with Piper’s body was lifted on to a trolley and wheeled away, MacMordie wiped his hands with satisfaction. Around him the TV cameras buzzed. The product had got exposure. Mr Hutchmeyer would be pleased.
*
Mr Hutchmeyer was. He watched the riot on TV with evident satisfaction and all the fervour of a fight enthusiast.
‘That’s my boy,’ he yelled as a young Zionist flattened an innocent Japanese passenger off the ship with a placard saying ‘Remember Lod’. A cop tried to intervene and was promptly felled by something in drag. The picture joggled violently as the cameraman was hit from behind. When it finally steadied it was focused on an elderly woman lying bleeding on the ground.
‘Great,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘MacMordie’s done a great job. That boy’s got a real talent for action.’
‘That’s what you think,’ said Baby, who knew better.
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ said Hutchmeyer, momentarily diverted. Baby shrugged.
‘I just don’t like violence is all.’
‘Violence? So life is violent. Competitive. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.’
Baby studied the screen. ‘There’s two more cookies just crumbled now,’ she said.
‘Human nature,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘I didn’t invent human nature.’
‘Just exploit it.’
‘Make a living.’
‘Make a killing if you ask me,’ said Baby. ‘That woman’s not going to make it.’
‘Shit,’ said Hutchmeyer.
‘Took the word out of my mouth,’ said Baby. Hutchmeyer concentrated on the screen and tried to ignore Baby. A police posse with Piper came out of Customs.
‘That’s him,’ said Hutchmeyer. ‘The motherfucker looks like he’s pissing himself.’
Baby looked and sighed. The haunted Piper was just as she had hoped, young, pale, sensitive and intensely vulnerable. Like Keats at Waterloo she thought.
‘Who’s the fatso with MacMordie?’ she asked as Sonia kneed a Ukrainian who had just spat on her dress.
‘That’s my girl,’ shouted Hutchmeyer enthusiastically. Baby looked at him incredulously.
‘You’ve got to be joking. One bounce with that female Russian shotput and you’d bust your truss.’
‘Never mind my goddam truss,’ said Hutchmeyer, ‘I’m just telling you that that baby there is the greatest little saleswoman in the world.’
‘Great she may be,’ said Baby, ‘little she ain’t. That Muscovite doubled up with lover’s balls knows that. What’s her name?’
‘Sonia Futtle,’ said Hutchmeyer dreamily.
‘I could have guessed,’ said Baby, ‘she’s just futtled an Irishman now. He’ll never ride again.’
‘Jesus,’ said Hutchmeyer and retreated to his study to avoid the disillusionment of Baby’s commentary. He put a call through to the New York office for a computer forecast on predicted sales of Pause O Men for the Virgin in the light of this great new publicity. Then he got through to Production and ordered another half million copies. Finally a call to Hollywood and a demand for another five per cent in TV serial takings. And all the time his mind was busy with wanton thoughts of Sonia Futtle and some natural way of killing what remained of Miss Penobscot 1935 so that he wouldn’t have to part with twenty million dollars to get a divorce. Maybe MacMordie could come up with something. Like fucking her to death. That would be natural. And this Piper guy had a hard-on for old women. Could be there was something there.
*
In the emergency theatre at the Roosevelt Hospital doctors and surgeons struggled to save Piper’s life. The fact that appearances led them to suppose he had bled to death from a head wound while his symptoms were those of suffocation made their task more complicated than it might otherwise have been. The hysterical nurse was no help at all.
‘He said he was a bleeder,’ she told the chief surgeon who
could see that already. ‘He said he had to have a transfusion. I didn’t want to do it and he said he didn’t want one and she told him not to and he got at the blood bank and then he passed out and then they put him on resuscitation and—’
‘Put her on sedation,’ shouted the surgeon as the nurse was dragged out still screaming. On the operating table Piper was bald. In a desperate attempt to find the site of the wound his hair had been clipped.
‘So where the fuck’s the haemorrhage?’ said the surgeon, shining a light down Piper’s left ear in the hope of finding some source for this terrible loss of blood. By the time Piper revived they were none the wiser. The scratch on his hand had been cleansed and covered with a Band-Aid and through a needle in his right wrist he was getting the transfusion he had dreaded. Finally they cut off the supply and Piper got off the table.
‘You’ve had a lucky escape,’ said the surgeon. ‘I don’t know what you’re suffering from but you want to take it easy for a while. Maybe the Mayo could come up with an answer. We sure as hell can’t.’
Piper wobbled out into the corridor bald as a coot. Sonia burst into tears.
‘Oh my God, what have they done to you, my darling?’ she wailed. MacMordie studied Piper’s bald head thoughtfully.
‘That doesn’t look so good,’ he said finally, and went into the theatre. ‘We’ve got ourselves a problem,’ he told the surgeon.
‘No need to tell me. Diagnostically I wouldn’t know.’
‘Yeah,’ said MacMordie, ‘it’s like that. Now what he needs is bandages round his head. I mean he’s famous and there’s all those TV guys out there and he’s going to come out looking like Kojak and he’s an author. That isn’t going to improve his image.’
‘His image is your problem,’ said the surgeon, ‘mine just happens to be his illness.’
‘You cut his hair all off,’ said MacMordie. ‘Now how about a whole heap of bandages? Like right across his face and all. This guy needs his anonymity till his hair grows back.’
