The Hunger (14 page)

The night goes well. It was the most profitable White Lingerie Night The Club has ever run. The following morning I walk into The Office. I do not lean on the door. I am not sweating. I spend a
few minutes running through the numbers with Mark. The Boss calls me into his office. I’ve prepared a schedule of parties for him running until the summer.

—I’ve put two parties for the concierges, four parties for the bankers, a Poker Night and maybe we could introduce some new themed nights like this one.

I’ve prepared a flyer for a party I’ve called
Heels and Wheels
, showing a couple of topless Wraps spread all over a Porsche 911.

—I thought we could go to Porsche or Ferrari and get them to park a car outside The Club and inside we can theme it like the sexiest car showroom in the world. I might even talk to McLaren
and see if we can get a Formula 1 car in The Club.

—What other parties can we hold?

—How about a
Dinners for Sinners
party and we can get Marco in to do the food? There’s loads, but what I want to do is hammer the Diamond Card Holders. We’ve got maybe
four thousand of them on the database and we don’t work them like we should. They’ve got the card because they spend the money. They buy the Cristal champagne, they get a dozen girls in
for sit-downs, so I’ve thought about a special club just for Big Spenders. I’ve called it the
Secret Society
. It’s a step on from the
Jet Set
. They pay maybe ten
large each to join and we hold parties for them in The Club but also in villas in Cannes, Palma or the Algarve. We’ll fly the girls out and maybe twenty society members will pay an extra ten
grand each for the weekend.

The Boss is looking at me as if he’s meeting me for the first time.

The Fifth Day

The next day The Boss calls in before he flies to Ibiza. He puts a contract in front of me.

—Stay sober and I’ll double your money. Drink and I’ll halve it.

I sign it. Five days and my life is already changing. What will it be like after seven?

It feels too good to be sober. I have started doing two hours instead of one every day in the gym. I’m bench-pressing over a hundred kilograms and doing over three hundred press-ups. I run
at least five miles a day and there are even days when I don’t have sex. I’m shocked by my own thoughts. When I was running across the Heath before going into work, this is what came
into my head:

I must read some books on psychology.

I’ll pay Bruno the money I owe him this afternoon. I’ll throw in a bottle of champagne as a thank you.

Who would I really be if I never drank again?

I want to give Suzie a grand. She’s struggling with her rent. I don’t want the money back.

The sun feels good on my back.

I feel happy.

Ecstatic.

I love The Boss.

I owe him more than he ever knows.

Who would I really be if I never drank again?

I must call my Mum and go round to build her that rock pool.

I never knew being sober was this easy.

I’ll keep going to the meetings even though I don’t really need them anymore.

I’ve lost the taste for alcohol.

I’d rather have coffee than cocaine.

The Secret Society is a brilliant idea.

Esurio’s right. People like John make heavy weather of staying dry.

I can be sober and happy.

I meet Suzie. After we fuck I give her the rent money. She hugs me and says:

—One day I’ll marry you, Lincoln. It might be five or ten years from now but I will.

I am thirty-eight. She’s nineteen. Her mother kicked her out of the house when she was a teenager and she went to live in a caravan on the south coast. She says:

—I just want a family. With you.

We fuck again.

I go to a meeting in the evening. During a break I say to John:

—Two days to go.

He looks at me. Like he is meeting me for the first time. And the last.

When I leave the meeting, I’m walking along Shaftesbury Avenue when I think:

—After the seven days are up I’ll keep going to the meetings. It’ll just be occasional. Maybe once or twice a month. I don’t need them but Tales of Misery and Despair are
good for my soul.

I catch my reflection in the glass of the Curzon Cinema and adjust my handkerchief.

In the afternoon before the meeting I went to dig the rock pool at my Mum’s house. I was relentless. The early spring sunshine was beating down on me and I pounded the
earth for maybe two or three hours without stopping. As I was beating the ground I smiled at how, even now, without a drop of alcohol or a grain of gear in my body, I still couldn’t stop. It
took me three hours. Mum said:

—Thank you, darling. That’s lovely.

Then:

—You’re a good lad, Lincoln. Underneath it all, you’re a very good lad.

But underneath what? And how far does she have to dig to find a seam of decency?

We never had any money when I was growing up, and after Dad died things got even worse. So I used to go to school and boast about how rich we were, how we could afford anything we wanted. My Mum
said:

—It’s no use lying all the time. It doesn’t change anything. She was wrong. It changed everything. I learned that if my world was breaking apart, I had the power to put it back
together again in any way I wanted. This is how the process works:

And there was another reason I didn’t have to lie. We were, in fact, rich in ways I couldn’t see, as my gaze was lost in the search for the money we never had. Here’s the
evidence I missed as I struggled to solve
The Mystery of the Missing Money
:

But when you’re a wounded detective and you can’t stop trying to solve
The Mystery of the Missing Money
, you can’t see the truth because you’re too busy laying
down one false trail after another and following them all as fast as you can, in the hope that one day you can find a reason to stop running.

The Sixth Day

Being sober feels like a drug.

I’m in a meeting and, as I look around the room, I feel sorry for the people who have been coming to these meetings for years, so at the end of the meeting I stand up and say:

—I want to thank everyone here and those who aren’t here today for helping me stop drinking. I couldn’t have done it without you.

I feel a bit of a toady because the truth is I know I could have done it without them but this is the New, Nicer Lincoln. I like him and so do they. I tell them that Esurio has a special party
organised for me on The Seventh Day, so I won’t be at tomorrow’s meeting but, before I sit down again, I add:

—You’ve helped me rediscover my True Self. Thank you. I don’t know where that came from, but when I’m walking along Wardour Street after the meeting Esurio is chuckling
at my shoulder.

—Ah, your True Self. That was a bit grand, don’t you think?

—Maybe, but it’s true.

He is swinging his cane as he walks. He’s brighter than I’ve seen him for some time. He sneers at me:

—What, Lincoln, is Truth?

—Don’t get all clever with me. I’m just saying, being sober feels like being me.

—Oh, dear, you really are in a muddle.

—What do you mean?

—If there is such a thing as a True Self, I imagine yours to be . . . mud-coloured

—Mud-coloured?

—Let me put it another way. How can you be sure that the man walking along this street with me right now, taking in the lights and ladies at a safe distance, is the real you? Are you not a
murkier man than that, Lincoln?

—Less murky than I was.

—I see. So when did this great change take place?

—I don’t know. It just happened on the Fifth Day.

—I grant you that a change has taken place in you, but how can you be sure that this change isn’t taking you
away
from your True Self, as you like to call him?

I wipe the back of my right hand across my lips. I can hear Esurio laughing. When I turn to smack him, he is nowhere to be seen.

After the meeting, I’m pleased with myself. I think:

—Quite an achievement. At least now I can get on with my life.

I crease my brow.

—But which life am I going to get on with?

I don’t like that question, so I ignore it, although I can’t shift it completely out of my head. Danielle comes into my mind. She was a Wrap who worked in Soho. She started as a
dancer and ended up as a Paid-For. Then she fell in love with a punter. They were married within three months and before the wedding all she could talk about was what she would be wearing, how her
little nieces were going to be bridesmaids and how she wanted a ‘chocolate box’ wedding. The Big Day was her wall, too thick and tall for her to see past it, so she got married. The
beatings started on her honeymoon and within a month she was back in Soho. Three weeks later she was dead. As I leave the meeting, I think:

—This is my Big Day. I made it.

When I come out of the meeting, I find myself standing outside The Office. I can’t remember walking there. One minute I’m in the meeting. The next I’m outside The Office. I can
see the boys at the back, laughing. A few Wraps are hanging around, waiting for some coke and taking cock as payment. Esurio puts his hand on my shoulder.

—Go in, Lincoln. You haven’t been in for quite a while, have you?

I walk towards Oxford Street. I feel Doubt. Not about anything in particular, just a gnawing, mud-coloured Doubt twisting in my gut. Seven Days? Is it enough? Does the Geek with Glasses really
know what he’s talking about?

On the night of The Sixth Day I go to bed early and dream of snorting some gear off a Wrap’s back. As my head touches her skin, her spine, in the form of a snake, breaks out of her body
and twists around my throat. I wake up gasping for breath. Then I’m in The Office and I order a vodka tonic. I’m alone at the table when Mario brings it to me. He serves it to me as if
he’s been expecting me for some time. He seems pleased I’m back. I look at it forever. I can feel the smell rising up into my nostrils and circulating through my body. I inhale deeply
and hold my breath. Then I let go. I dare not touch the glass. I know if I touch it I will be lost. I need a drink. I need
this
drink. NOW. I sit there for maybe half an hour then something
pulls me out of my seat and within seconds I’m running through Soho. I’m laughing. People stare at me then lower their heads. They think I’m insane. They’re right. I’m
mad with happiness. I passed the test. I sat there and I didn’t drink. I am Immortal. Powerful Beyond Measure. I wake up sweating and smiling. My chest hurts. I ignore it and wipe my hand
across my lips.

The Seventh Day

I begin the Seventh Day with a trip to the best Thai massage parlour on Brewer Street. A stunning Asian Wrap bends me like a doll before giving me the happiest of happy endings.
When she’s done I wonder if I should stop thinking of young women as Wraps. They can be Girls. Simple, beautiful Girls. I walk out of the massage parlour and Esurio is standing on the
opposite side of the road. He’s smiling.

—It’s the Seventh Day, Lincoln, and I want you to see just how much your life has changed. Tonight you will have as many young ladies as you wish without a drop of alcohol passing
your lips. I feel you are ready to start a new life where you have more control over your impulses, where you can indulge one pleasure without being overrun by another. Let’s meet in the
Townhouse on Dean Street and take it from there. Bravo, Lincoln, bravo!

I smile back at him, proud of how far I’ve come in such a short time. I spend the rest of the day getting myself ready. I go for a facial in Mayfair and, when I get back to the flat, I
take a couple of hours removing surplus body hair before going to the gym.

In the evening I am not hungry. I get a sandwich from Starbucks and on my way back I think of how my life has changed over the last Seven Days. A week ago there was me and the drink and the
drugs and we were all heading in the same direction. Then I took a small step on a different path and now we are worlds apart. I guess it’s what happens when parallel lives go their separate
ways. That is the Truth. My Truth. How difficult can that be to grasp?

Midnight on The Seventh Day

I’m sitting by the bar in the Townhouse.

I’m drinking a glass of water.