The Hunger (13 page)

We stop outside the Soho Theatre on Dean Street.

—And that you don’t
want
to know, Lincoln, shows how just one meeting has weakened you. I fear if you continue going I will not recognise you, my own brother, my twin, and we
will become strangers to each other.

—Please leave me alone. Please.

—I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lincoln. What kind of friend would I be if I let you hurt yourself in this way? Life is to be lived and they will have you cowering in a corner in
no time at all. What kind of man do you want to be? One whom the ladies adore, who sweeps all before him, who rises above his own excesses and lives a life free from fear, or a little mouse afraid
of his own shadow?

Esurio furrows his brow, lowers his head, brings his hands under his chin and squeaks.

—And the worse thing they will do is make you believe that you are ordinary when you, Lincoln, are a man apart from the rest. You can drink more, snort more, sniff more, run more, exercise
more and pleasure more ladies than any man in Soho, and while doing all this you can still not only hold down a job but earn the right to be the highest-paid Sales Director of a gentlemen’s
club in London. So tell me, exactly how are you powerless? What are you doing wrong? What faults do you have to admit to? Face the truth, Lincoln, Alcoholics Anonymous is not for you. It may serve
a purpose but for you it can only do harm, great harm. It will make you look back at what you have lost in life, make your strengths into weaknesses, your courage into wrongdoing. It will make you
give up on yourself when you are at the peak of your powers and it will take away from you all that you value most in life and everything that brings you happiness. Stop it now. NOW!

I turn into Old Compton Street, open the door to my flat and slam it in his face. I’m asleep as soon as I hit my bed. My sleep is fitful and I am drunk in my dreams.

The Fourth Day

Recovery is strange because I never thought I was lost and I have no idea what kind of man will appear from the wreckage, assuming I can get to him before the seven days are
up.

Esurio says:

—Lost? Far from it, Lincoln. You are absolutely in touch with your essence but I’m so concerned that you’re in danger of forgetting who you are and what makes you happy. I fear
you’ve already forgotten your one, true friend.

Being sober is like peeling away a thick layer of skin. It doesn’t fall away all at once. Bits of it break off here and there and, as they do, I notice things. This morning I was running
along the Embankment and my head was clear. I thought about new ways to leverage relationships with the concierges to bring more punters into The Club. I thought about doing a
Jet Set
in the
South of France and I called my Mum to tell her I would come round to build her a small rock pool in the back garden. She said:

—That’s lovely, darling.

Then:

—Are you all right?

That’s the thing about clarity in drunks. It shocks people. They get used to your hazy, virtual life, then you mess up their world with a shocking display of sobriety. Some people want you
to stay clean. Most can’t take it and fear they might get contaminated. These are the people who touch me all over, looking for the skin we used to share and, when they can’t find it,
they think:

—He’s lost his skin! Does that mean I will lose mine too? But I don’t
want
to lose it. I’m not ready to lose it, and I don’t want to be around him until he
grows it back.

When I go into The Office, the boys are split. After a week of drinking water and chamomile tea, Maynard and I are having lunch at our usual table near the bar. He says:

—You’re doing well. I’m really pleased for you.

The others treat me like a freak. Terry says:

—So, you’re not drinking anything?

—No. Not unless you count tea and water as a drink.

—I fucking don’t. Surely you can have one?

—I don’t want one.

—Not even one for old times’ sake?

—One is never one. One might as well be a hundred and one.

—You sound like a psychology textbook.

—I just don’t want a drink.

Steve joins in:

—Does that mean you’ve stopped shagging as well?

—Of course not.

—Thank fuck for that. At least a little bit of the Old Lincoln is still with us.

The Old Lincoln

But which bit? Here’s what I notice when I’m fucking Wraps while sober:

Because I like having a clear head, I decide to stick with the New Lincoln, so I say to Steve:

—Yeah, the Old Lincoln’s still with us. He’s just nicer.

I decide to keep going to the meetings. They tell me the best way to do it is to go for ninety meetings in ninety days. I wonder how many I can get to in the ninety hours I
have left to change my life. I’m indifferent to what happens in the meetings. When I’m there I drift in and out. No one intrudes and no one touches me, which is great. I sometimes speak
to people at meetings. They tell me stories. I don’t like these conversations. I want to get away. I want a drink and a line. I look at my watch often, counting the minutes away. Some of the
people in the group don’t speak. Others fill the time with Tales of Misery and Despair. I find these Tales reassuring. They are like fairy tales that teach me that my life at its worst
doesn’t seem too bad by comparison:
Once upon a time there was a man who lived all his life on the streets. His wife left him. His kids disowned him. So he drank and drank and drank until
he couldn’t drink anymore and that’s when he slashed his wrists with a broken beer bottle. When he was discharged from hospital he went back on the streets and drank all night and cried
all day. Lincoln, on the other hand, was having a Great Time banging all the Wraps in Soho and snorting coke off their arses . . .

By the end of the second meeting I’m pretty sure I don’t have a drink problem and if I do it’s as mild as a common cold, while the rest of the poor fuckers in the meeting have
a serious dose of the plague. However, I am changing my life, so I will stick to Abstinence until the end of the week and I’m surprised at how good I feel. After one of the meetings, I share
a bottle of water on the top floor of Soho House with John, who has been in recovery for two years
.
I never liked Soho House. Too full of pissed-up actors. We sit on a couple of battered
leather chairs. The place is heaving. Someone bumps into me as I walk across the creaking floorboards. Someone else touches my glass before I can pick it up off the bar. I want to kill them both
but the feeling passes.
It passes
.
Without any broken bones or bleeding noses
. I like John. He is in his mid-forties, dressed in jeans and a casual brown jacket. I admire his
indifference to how he looks. He used to work as an A&R man at a big record label before he lost his job for turning up pissed to work once too often. I say:

—I thought being pissed was part of your employment contract in that industry.

—It is. But what you mustn’t do is be so pissed you forget your place.

I don’t ask what happened. I don’t need to. When he cleaned himself up, he began working at an art gallery.

—I don’t really enjoy it. Looking all day at conceptual crap that could have been done by failed art college students.

—Why work there then?

—Because it takes absolutely nothing out of me. Nothing.

—Don’t you want to be more challenged?

—That’s the last thing I want. I need every ounce of energy I have to keep me dry, so having a job that takes nothing out of me is just what I need.

—What happens when you get bored?

—It happens all the time and I love being bored at work. Gives me time to think, prepare for a meeting if I’m leading it. I don’t know, just lots of space, lots and lots of
space, that’s what I need.

—Surely you can’t go on forever like this? There has to come a time when you want more.

—Forever? Most days I can’t look forward twenty-four hours. Recovery isn’t something I can bolt on to my life. It
is
my life. It has to be. If I had cancer or motor
neurone disease or I was paralysed from a stroke, I would put everything I have into my recovery. Drinking like I do is a terminal illness. If I forget that I’m fucked. So what more do I need
in my life than getting through another day without killing myself?

I leave Soho House just after ten to go to The Club. As I walk down Old Compton Street I can smell aniseed. I turn and Esurio is walking with me:

—Well, he was a barrel of laughs, wasn’t he, Lincoln?

—Give it a fucking rest.

—I’m not trying to be difficult but sometimes I feel compelled to speak truthfully.

—Truthfully?

—Yes, truthfully. If there’s one thing you can rely on me for, it’s honesty, and I have to say the more of these people I see, the more I’m certain they’re not good
for you, Lincoln, not good for you at all.

—These people?

—These . . . Believers . . . Evangelists . . . the Devoutly Wretched.

—Give them a break. They’re just struggling.

—And so, may I remind you, was every martyr who ever walked the face of the earth before leaving it in a blaze of stupidity.

—What are you talking about?

—Life is for living, Lincoln, not for dying, and these new friends of yours may be walking and breathing but they are dead. They died the day they gave over their lives to one small,
sneaky, dirty little word.

—And what word is that then?

—NO. The worst word ever created.

He keeps on at me until we get to The Club but I stop listening to him. When I leave him, he is standing in the drizzle outside The Club going on about the Truth. Inside there’s not many
punters. They tend to turn up from about midnight onwards. Two guys in front of me walk into The Club. They’re pounced on by Wraps. It’s White Lingerie Night, and they disappear into a
snowstorm of barely covered tits and pussy. I don’t like it, it’s too much, so when the guys are trapped in a booth with a couple of Russian Wraps, I let a few of the girls know what I
think:

—Always give the guys time. If you keep doing that they’ll all fuck off and then you won’t earn anything.

They ignore me. I don’t like being ignored. I need a drink. The Boss is sitting on his throne in his restaurant. He calls me over.

—I’m proud of you, Lincoln.

—What for?

—Giving up the booze.

—Thanks.

I forget I need a drink. The Boss matters to me. There’s not a lot of people that do, but he’s one of them. He gets up and puts his arm around my shoulder. He’s wearing a
turquoise suit with
Ziggy Stardust
written down the outside of one trouser leg. The glitter in his hair and on his clothes glistens in the roller-ball lights. All the Wraps look at him. He
ignores them. He leans into my ear:

—Don’t let this go. It’s the right thing for you to be doing. I never want to see you hammered in here again. Who’s coming tonight?

—I’ve got more bankers than usual and a lot of punters, sorry,
Gentlemen
, coming from the hotels. I’ve been sending three girls out every day to get at the
concierges.

Sometimes I hope I’m right. Usually I’m too pissed to care whether I’m right. Tonight I know I’m right. That’s what being sober does for me. Instead of thinking
I’m the best Sales Director in the universe, I know I’m the best Sales Director in Soho because I’m sober. The Boss’s mantra bounces around my head:

—Keep it real, Lincoln, keep it real.

Rik and his gang turn up at about one in the morning. I haven’t seen him since he was banging a Wrap in my bed. He offers to buy me a drink. I tell him I’m not drinking. I think he
doesn’t hear me because he offers again. I tell him I’m not drinking. He
can’t
hear me, so he buys me a drink anyway. I sit him at one of the best tables downstairs, right
in front of the stage, and order two bottles of house champagne on my account. I sit with him for a few minutes. He pours me three glasses. I don’t drink any of them. When I get up to leave
they’re still standing in a row on the table. He
can’t
see them. He asks me if I enjoyed them, tells me he’s glad I’m drinking again and gets back to the Wraps.