Altar Ego (15 page)

When Julian rose to deliver the case for releasing the CDs to their owners – Rottweiler Records – he rocked on his feet, moving gently up and down in a graceful mesmerizing way. His hands were open, palms up, then, when making a particular point, palms inwards, fingers steepled. I hadn’t seen him in court for so long I’d forgotten about these sure-footed intellectual arabesques. For two hours or more, he secreted verbal pearls around grains of fact. He spoke of Zachary as the authentic voice for the generation of disillusioned black teenagers looking for guidance in the face of the imminent urban apocalypse of the American ghettos.

He flattered the magistrates’ intelligence. ‘You,’ he addressed them, ‘are no doubt part of the generation that discovered in their youth the attraction of forbidden fruit. James Joyce, Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence. Surely you’ve bequeathed to your children an equivalent curiosity?’

He conjured experts – a young, black, female BBC disc jockey to explain the harmless pleasures of rap
concerts
. Then, not to deprive the music of social significance, he called an earnest music critic from the
Guardian
who described rap as Street Journalism.

Julian brandished half a dozen adult magazines he’d purchased from the top shelf of the local newsagent. ‘Magazines like these are freely available right here next to the Court. This pornography is designed to arouse lust. Zachary Burne’s CD arouses fear, concern and distaste, certainly. But it does not arouse lust. It is often bitterly sarcastic and rude and will strike our ears as crude. So yes, the music may damage your ears, but not your mind. I’d like to put a stop to this music too, not by censorship, but by a social-welfare programme that gives the poor and oppressed a stake in our society.’

His master stroke, he admitted later, was to persuade the magistrates that the law of evidence did not permit them to read the transcript of the lyrics compiled with such care by the Obscenity Squad; instead they had to listen to the ‘best evidence’ – the music. The prosecution then made the mistake of playing the CD on a cheap portable player that had its modulation inexpertly turned to ‘bass’. We all sat solemnly for fifty minutes while strange Afro-American gobbledegook was emitted from the witness box. There seemed to be only one audible lyric along the lines of ‘Life Sucks, I Wanna Die’, which, when repeated the customary three thousand times to a lolloping beast of a beat, was a sentiment soon shared
by
the entire courtroom. It was not so much music as a grunge noise edifice, filtered through a drain.

‘Like the adolescent pimple, the unruly pop song is best left alone – though the temptation to pick it, causing it to fester and spread, may be overwhelming. But this noise is not “obscene” in law because it cannot conceivably deprave and corrupt.’ Julian coaxed the Justices that they had no alternative but to acquit.

We hadn’t even made it to the canteen for the obligatory cup of stewed tea when the three lay magistrates returned to reject Scotland Yard’s invitation to destroy Zack’s CD, adding their own coded version of ‘Fuck the Cops’ by awarding £2,000 in legal costs against them.

Outside the court, I tried to order Zack to call his Rottweiler to heel, but he and Julian had disappeared into the waiting arms of the paparazzi. I was madly May Day-ing with hand gestures when, with the speed of a ten-ton lorry, the bodyguard scooped me up and bundled me into the back seat of Rotty’s pick-em-up truck. As he lumbered back to Zachary’s side, the limo screeched away with both back doors flapping in a mockery of Prince Charles’s ears.

‘What the hell …’

‘Victory lunch. The Ivy. Jest sent a message to the others to join us. Hungry?’ I looked at Rotterman on the seat beside me. His mossy-looking tongue lolled lasciviously out of the left corner of his mouth. He was
coiled
, cobra-like, ready to strike. ‘I ain’t had no pussy for near on two months.’

‘What?’ I wedged myself up against the opposite door. ‘Couldn’t you afford it?’ Steering the Olympic swimming pool of a car around the corners of Covent Garden was proving aerodynamically impossible. Every swerve sent me hurtling closer to him.

‘Yer not gettin’ any of this, are ya?’ he grunted. ‘I’m lookin’ for a burrow for my purple-headed womb-ferret.’ He lurched towards me and I was engulfed in a fug of bourboned breath.

‘The thing is, Mr Rotterman, seeing you naked would almost certainly turn me into a lesbian.’

Rotterman’s lips contracted like an irritated anus. Then light dawned in his eyes. ‘Oh, don’ tell me. Yer got the curse?’

‘Yeah.
You
.’ And a certain indiscreet Toyboy. How could Zachary have been so bloody stupid? He’d promised not to soil my reputation. Soil? Jesus. You could start plans for commercial agriculture in my reputation. You could feed the goddamn Third World. ‘Don’t you think I might be tempted to tell Zack about this? … And don’t you think he may be tempted to use your testicles as maracas?’

‘Naw. ’Cause then I’d be tempted to tell Julian that Zack’s been shaftin’ yer with his love-slug. His cranny-hunter, his donkey-kong … So, babe, whattaya say?’ he demanded, a smirk in his hooded, jaundiced eyes. ‘Yer place or mine?’

* * *

Dining with your lover and your betrothed is not a good idea. It’s about as good an idea as, say, playing leapfrog with a rhinoceros. When Julian arrived twenty agonizing minutes later, a quick quizzical glance in my direction indicated he’d detected my discomfiture … Perhaps the ten-inch sweat moustache I’d sprouted had given it away. I was in too deep. Deeper than the
Titanic
. How did men carry this affair thing off?
Cosmopolitan
reckoned that seventy-five per cent of men have affairs. So what did
they
know that
I
didn’t? I’d just have to think like a bloke. Lie. Laugh. Not panic.

‘Let’s go,’ I gasped, panic-stricken, the minute Julian sat down.

‘What?’ he joshed, buoyed up by victory. ‘Haven’t I sung for my supper?’

As he and Rotterman consulted the wine list, Zachary attempted to talk to me. I ignored him. There were just no words to describe my feelings about the guy without recourse to slang terms for faeces.
How could I ever have had sex with a man who had so little respect for my fiancé?

When the waiter appeared with Julian’s first course, Rotterman applauded the choice. ‘Always a good sign in a man, ain’t it?’ he winked for my benefit.

‘Ah, yes. The aphrodisiac powers of the oysters,’ Julian laughed.

‘Naw. Means he likes goin’ down on his chick.’

Julian choked. I patted his back and passed him some water.

Rotterman ostentatiously pronged an oyster on a fork tine and inserted it lewdly between his lips.

‘You know the oyster only dies when it’s halfway down your throat,’ I said coldly to my tormentor.

As I rhythmically soothed Julian’s back with my hands, Zack’s eyes burned; his breath slowed. Scowling darkly, he summoned the waiter and immediately changed his main-course order to a bed of rock oysters. A double bed.

Oh this was good. This was as good as it gets. No wonder Anna Karenina topped herself on the railway tracks of St Petersburg. Emma Bovary suicided as well. Tess of the D’Urbervilles got herself hung also, come to think of it. What a bunch of role models. I mopped at my Hercule Poirot of sweat moustaches. You could get this one waxed. What a day. It was like having root-canal work – only not as relaxing.

‘The case went well,’ I blurted, ‘didn’t it?’

‘Justice ain’t no more than a verdict delivered in
your
favour,’ Zack sulked moodily.

‘Where’ja dig up those “experts”. Whiniest little fucks I ever saw,’ Rotty scoffed, ungratefully.

‘Yeah. An’ what was all that “crude and rude”, squeezed zit shit?’ Zack demanded, chastising Julian with his butter knife.

I bridled. ‘The reason you won today was more to
do
with Julian’s advocacy skills than your innocence, Mr Burne.’

‘Yeah?’ Zack brooded, pouting. ‘Seems to me lawyers jest make a livin’ outta lying.’

Suddenly I saw my lover through Julian’s eyes – a jumped-up punk with a two-grunt vocabulary. A central-casting loser. Like a piece of coral removed from the tantalizing sea, he had lost all of his exotic allure and wondrous colour. Despite his cast-iron biceps, bedroom eyes and exquisite profile that went all the way down, suddenly Zachary Phoenix Burne possessed all the charm of a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In the middle of my bleak ruminations, Rotty, still hell-bent on proving that Jurassic Park is no mere celluloid fantasy, leant towards me. ‘FCK – the only thing missing is you,’ he whispered, hoarsely.

I checked to make sure that Zack and Julian were still discussing the case. ‘Um … which part of the word “No” don’t you understand?’ I hissed.

‘The part that says if yer don’t let me stab yer whiskers, I may need to squeal to yer Learned Friend.’

The Ivy is the watering hole of London’s artistic élite. The deals, the meals, the chattering, the flattering … it’s an excellent restaurant in which to exceed the feed limit, because you can lose weight whilst doing so. The search for celebrities requires a lot of energetic head swivelling. Peering around the Power Tables in the oak-panelled dining room this late Tuesday
lunchtime
, the famous patrons (so called because they are patronizing to anybody who
isn’t
famous) seemed overwhelmingly underawed by our presence. Until, that is, I upended Julian’s oysters into Rotterman’s lap; toppling him backwards off his chair. In slow motion he cascaded on to the next table, sending their gourmet food into orbit, finally coming to land, spreadeagled as a bloated starfish, on the floor at the feet of Joan Collins. Suddenly it was Swivel City. Patrons would be in neck braces with whiplash for weeks.

Julian then did the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever done for me. He rose quietly to his feet and steered me by the elbow towards the door, only pausing to say matter-of-factly to the maître d’ – ‘Just put him on the bill.’

‘Paul Revere has a lot to answer for,’ Julian said calmly, once I was outside and moving, dazed and discombobulated, up the street. ‘If Paul Revere had known one Edward Rotterman, he wouldn’t have warned his ancestors of anything, I’m telling you.’

I took hold of him and kissed him full on his luscious lips.

‘Let’s get married.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s get married.’

‘When?’

‘Now. All the paperwork’s done. Let’s just do it. For better or worse …’

‘How much worse?’ a pleasantly stunned Julian asked. ‘I mean, are you going to start flossing your teeth in bed?’

The Registry Office in Rosebery Avenue gave my kind of service. Everyone who’s no one was there – just two witnesses roped in off the street. No relatives. No garters. No flower girls. And the gay marriage celebrant said ‘but no tongues’ when he advised Julian that he could ‘now kiss the bride’.

And while my darling did just that, long and lingeringly, I added a silent vow to the service – a vow more important than loving and honouring and till death us do parting …
And for God’s sake, lead us not into toyboy temptation
.

15
The Mourning After The Knot Before

IN THE MIDST
of life … we are in marriage. It took a while for me to register that I actually was a Mrs. It took the entire honeymoon in fact. Well, it wasn’t a honeymoon exactly. We called it our honeymoon, but really it was just the annual summer holiday with Vivian and Simon in a Tuscan villa.

What poor old Tuscany has done to deserve this summer influx of BBC producers, knighted playwrights and gin-and-tonic swilling advertising executives, remains a mystery. The pool at our villa looked like
Baywatch
gone wrong. It was the Brit version, complete with weedy white legs, wobbly thighs, lumpy bits and beer bellies – all boiled red in the sun, like the exotic salamis I’d seen hanging in Siena’s markets.

Besides playing ‘Spot the Italian’ and screaming in agony from regularly scalping ourselves on the low
beams
, my main pastime was trying not to think about Zack.

I tried not to think of him when taking a daily constitutional to the local castle and back. ‘So life affirming, Italy, don’t you think?’ Vivian pontificated, as we staggered along the dusty road, the olive trees flinching in the July heat.

‘Yes,’ I lied. To me, the Italian countryside reeks of death. At night all you can hear are the blood-curdling sound of things being killed. Wild pigs killing owls; owls killing rabbits; the housekeeper killing mice … In the morning we were always finding bones, picked clean. The whole area resounded to the sound of our next meal being butchered.

I tried not to think of him when we played anagram games after supper. ‘Clitoris is almost an anagram of solicitor,’ I exclaimed triumphantly, as we sipped our vintage San Gimignano.

‘You’ve got clitoris on the brain,’ Simon complained.

‘Oh, so
that’s
where it is!’ Julian joked.

I tried not to think of him as I lay in bed waiting for Julian to stop working. (He had some hangings to delay in Belize, a country where justice comes with strings attached.)

‘I have a really interesting question to put to you,’ I said groggily when he rolled into bed around three. ‘Is There Sex After Marriage? … I know Tuscany’s having a drought. Are you complying with another kind of hosepipe ban?’

I tried not to think of him when a few minutes later Julian yawned halfway through my striptease. ‘You yawned!’

‘I did not!’

‘You did. Your mouth just went like this …’ I imitated a doughnut.

‘I’m sorry, Becky, but I’m exhausted.’ He began some perfunctory foreplay.

‘Jesus, Julian. I’m so sick of you working. Put it off. At least until after the honeymoon.’

‘Put it off?! The only thing about to be suspended indefinitely are those poor men. By the neck. I’ve finished the first written submission. That’s why they need me. I get there faster than anyone else …’

‘This is true of many things you do, Julian,’ I said a few disappointed moments later – but he was already asleep.