The Information Junkie (10 page)

Enter temperance group with trembling hand. It's the information (4)

Part of cat flat on mat. That's odd but is it fiction? (4)

Make unusual coin fit slot machine for novel (7)

Cup of Darjeeling? Not the truth: I felt a right one but am still someone's darling (7)

And bile, oddly enough, gives blonde beauty (7)

Rome, New York has Mr Strange in a spin but he won't get bogged down here! (6,5)

Odd home, say, for RNR man? Possibly not: this is flat land (6,5)

Take off a sword, means strange behaviour. Less singular makes this sound charming, but it's lethal! (6,7)

Food fear was NM, oddly, not GM: an unmodified pasture plant that delivers poison (6,7)

Us, Vita—scorch us! Drop the initial heat then cultivate to give food colour and flavour (6,7)

Yellow alkaloid, red dye or red herring? Remove initial atropine from red colorant, add a toxic twist to give meadow killer's essence (10)

*

'And finally,' she said, '
Part of cat flat on mat. That's odd but is it fiction?
'

'How many letters?'

'Four.'

'Is it
FACT
?'

'It fits.'

She showed me the whole grid which she had completed in pencil and was now inking in. Why? To win a book token. Problem solving in itself was not sufficient: she required a tangible reward. She looked up suddenly:

'Time to go, Charlie?'

'I guess.'

'Last cup of coffee?'

'Okay.'

Neither of us enjoyed the drink. We'd spent too long together and had become too familiar. She broke the moment:

'On your bike, Charlie...?'

Yes. Why hadn't I
driven
? I was
off
driving at the moment. Ah... So, now, back to Belinda? Well, I'm going back
home
. I looked round her house which had a feeling of impermanence. Would she be all right? Yes.

At the door I kissed her cheek; she kissed nothing next to mine. I tucked my trousers into my socks. She laughed, revealing again those perfectly-formed teeth. I attempted a quick count but couldn't. (Nines are very rare...) She said:

'I hope things turn out the way you want them to.'

'So do I.' Pause. 'Are you sure
you'll
be all right?'

'Don't patronise me, Charlie. We were enfranchised last century!'

I rode off but didn't look back. I could see her waving but didn't turn round. I cycled back to Camber where I received my deposit in return for the bike. While I was there I walked along the beach before catching the bus into Rye which felt very much like reality and where I bought my ticket to London. As I sat on the railway platform the early afternoon sun shed peacefulness. I thought about my meeting with Ffion, wondered what I was going to say to Belinda, felt I really should go to see the doc because I wasn't feeling well. But what could I say to him...? Hey, I went looking for somebody who... But somebody who
what
?

I swapped trains at Ashford and was whisked to London. Okay, babes, you know about my meeting with the doc, but I haven't told you yet about my reunion with Belinda.

But, of course buddies, Belinda's on the back burner, isn't she? So, I've got Belinda on the back burner, the doc on the distant gas, Martin on the rear ring. I mean, how many positions does this hob have??? There's barely any room left to cook, is there?

Hang on a minute, chaps and chapesses. Hold it one mo, buddies. We must get this right: Bel, the doc and Mart are all on the back of the stove; Ffion's in Romney Marsh, Cybernurse doesn't exist. That leaves me, and I'm telling the story. But it got a bit sombre again, didn't it? All to do with wretched Romney Marsh and Ffion. I wanted life to be simple, predictable and comfortable; but it's jagged, edgy, spiky and...CONFUSING. Isn't it? Do you sometimes find that, buddies? That life is so, so C–O–N–F–U–S–I–N–G.

Don't want to be sombre, babes. Don't want to be grim. Want to lift it, want to be high. Perhaps you want me to say that when I got home Belinda said:

'Want to fool around, big boy?'

And so:

I went to kiss her but nearly missed her; at first I fumbled, I practically stumbled, before she tumbled. We played hunt the thimble: I found a pimple; she said, 'Help me, I've found Anoushka Hemple.' I caught hold of a hemp plant, made some manila envelopes; she took hold of the egg plant, made some vanilla ice cream. And we coasted along quite nicely. Then we primed it and timed it, found a bell and chimed it; we hubbled and bubbled without any trouble despite her contortions and my legs bent double. Yes, we continued to pump it and then on to hump it, I played a queen and she went and trumped it. So, we humped and we pumped—did the hop, step and jump—till we'd drained right down to the very last sump.

Finally, striving and straining—feeling glad of the training—outside it was raining, and my pump was draining—undulating and raving—huffing and puffing—puffing and panting—both of us ranting—we blew the house down.

By this time it was Christmas and we'd all passed the litmus test except Alan—Belinda's father—who was in the outside loo. What's the matter with that guy?

He always looks forward to Christmas, can't wait for it. But on the day itself, when faced with the printout which Belinda has produced for him, he goes to pieces, throws a tizzy—just walks out! To the OUTSIDE loo,
my
loo (—
ig
loo, in January). Sits there for
half an hour
. You wouldn't think he'd been an air traffic controller. Thank goodness he's retired. Jesus! Can you imagine an emergency with him in charge? You'd brown your Y-fronts, wouldn't you? Air traffic
controller
??? Belinda adores him, she goes:

'Isn't he
delicious
?' [My italics.] 'Charlie, isn't Daddy
delicious?'

All I'm trying to do, babes, is tell a story. But I find from time to time that I get
confused
. I wanted to tell the tale as straightforward narrative but keep getting sidetracked. Okay, so let me try once more to set out how it is:

My name's Charlie and I'm married to Belinda. I write software for a living, she used to be a P.A. There's also another Charlie who is a character in
Cybernurse
which may or may not turn out, one day, to be a computer game. There's Ffion who's a sort of middle-aged fantasy and Cybernurse who's an adolescent fantasy. Martin exists as a colleague although I got a bit confused about him at one point. So, there we have it...Ffion doesn't exist, Martin does although there was also a fictional Martin who jumped out of a car whilst... But you
can't
DO that, can you...?
That's not REAL.

So, does that help you?

But let me tell you: sometimes I get confused because I feel when I (that is me—the proper Charlie, the real Charlie, the right Charlie) am telling you the story, the fictive Charlie takes over. So, we BOTH seem to be telling you the story. Now, that's odd isn't it??? Confusing too. Then there's a further confusion because I think there's a third—someone other: a narrator who is distinctly neither of the Charlies. Now the fictive Charlie calls himself
I
, the real Charlie—viz. me—calls himself
I
, the narrator calls himself
I
. So, there are three
I's.

Aye!
aye
!! AYE!!!

No wonder we're all confused. And I, that is the
real
Charlie, keep trying to bring all these loose strands together to achieve a conclusion but they, that is the fictitious people, keep thinking otherwise. Now, you would have thought that
I
would have had control over it all, wouldn't you? Then there's the other guy, the narrator, he can't seem to control it either. Or is he a
she
...? What's happening here? So, the fictitious Charlie's giving you one strand, the real Charlie's giving you another, the narrator's trying to do something else (quite what, I don't know). This cannot make sense, can it?

13

14A

Hello, everybody. Charlie's not well. The doctor's put him to bed with an injection—I always thought that was just a cinematic cliché —and written a prescription for some tablets. I went to check on him ten minutes later and he'd dissolved into a babylike sleep. I adored him and kissed his head. So, I'm trying to type quietly. Says that Charlie's been overdoing it, should take a long break. I've tried to persuade him to retire—we could certainly afford it, but I think his job represents masculinity. I'll see what I can do. Doctor's also signed him off work for four weeks.

When he came back from Romney Marsh he looked very confused, uncertain...and didn't want to talk about it. I'll draw it out of him: doctor says I should encourage him to talk, but he seems to have lost his sense of humour. He's even off his wordplay:

I love wordplay, foreplay, afterplay. I adore the Christmas play.

Don't you love him...?

He, and Martin, always participate in the Christmas play at the Mad Hatter's Theatre Group. I must persuade Charlie to sever ties with Martin.
He's
become
so
vulgar.

Anyway, I just wanted to bring you up to date on what's been happening. 'Bye for now.

*

Charlie's still rather withdrawn but he's now handed in his notice; I had the delight of typing that up. So, he's officially retired and I'm trying to arrange to have his pensions paid. Paperwork...!

A strange thing happened, though: he used to be so eager to get to the mail first thing in the morning but now he isn't bothered:

'Oh,
you
open it.'

There's been nothing special.

Doctor says the withdrawal is all part of it and I should encourage him to talk.

* * *

Charlie's feeling a lot better, now off the medication. We've been for a Mediterranean cruise, visited the Grand Canyon and holidayed in Portugal: all in six months!!!

He's his old self again, says he should have given up work ages ago, didn't realise what a diminishing effect it was having on him. He's also dumped Martin and says he'll never write software again.

He's now painting—oils and watercolours—and is totally absorbed. Loves doing autumnal scenes and finding all the shades of yellow, brown, red...

*

He's still not bothered about the post. The
urgency
has gone. I don't mind dealing with it.

*

Now it all makes sense. Now I'm beginning to understand. He's in the shower at the moment and I've just opened a letter addressed to him. Looks like handmade paper and written in what Daddy would call a cultured hand.

From some witch—I mean bitch—called Ffion.
Absurd
bloody name!!!

Probably some bony little tart with big tits and flexible legs!!!

Charlie—!
Charlie—!!
CHARLIE—!!!

14B

So, the first thing he says is—

'Can we sort out your name?'

—because he's looking down at the lead page inside a manila folder.

'My name?'

'Yes...your surname.'

'That's easy: my father's family name was Smith, my mother's maiden name was Jones and when they married they hyphenated their names. My wife's single name was Brown so when
we
got married we hyphenated
our
names as well. So, I'm Charlie Smith-Jones-Brown.'

He gave me such a
dour
look and then flicked through the pages of the file in a perfunctory manner, did one of those professional stops about page seven: looked up at me then looked down again —you know the type—let the pages fall back, sat back in his chair, gave me the full open-body posture and said:

'So, Mr Smith-Jones-Brown, what do you make of all this?'

(Bastard!)

'My wife thinks I've been overdoing things a bit so my doctor suggested I come to see you to try to sort things out.'

He didn't respond, just carried on listening, you know. Eventually he had to say:

'Do
you
think you've been overdoing it?'

'Yes: I'm sure I've been thinking too much.'

'And what have you been thinking about?'

I said: 'I got a bit confused. I wrote an outline for a video game in which the main character is also called Charlie but it's quite clear to me that that was a fantasy. However, when I created the second character—a redhead—she became real. And one of my friends—ex-friend, actually—suggested that this is typical mid-life crisis behaviour: you find yourself attracted to a younger girl and can't get her out of your mind.'

Bastard still said nothing, but eventually:

'So, how do things stand now?'

'Well, I'm sitting here in this National Heath Service room on a hard chair speaking with you. I'm Charlie Smith-Jones-Brown, and I'm real; my wife Belinda is real, and I made up some characters for a computer game, just a few ideas I put together—one of them was called Cybernurse, the other Ffion.'

There followed another of his horrible pauses: I didn't know what else to say. He flicked through the pages again as if trying to find a particular paragraph:

'Ah, yes,' he said, 'you went to Romney Marsh.'

'Yeah...'

'Why?'

'To find Ffion.'

'Yet you've told me she was a fantasy.'

'I was confused, I just had to get away.'

'So,' he said, 'we've got this one Charlie who doesn't exist, the Cybernurse who doesn't exist, Ffion who doesn't exist...and didn't you also have difficulty in a relationship with somebody called Martin...?'

'Is that in there too?'

'Oh, yes,' he said triumphantly. 'It's all in here.'

He was the guardian of information; it made him powerful: he rippled through the pages—
Oh, yes: it's all in here
—as if ten sheets of A4 held a clue to, or the secret of, my personality. Perhaps it did...