The Information Junkie (6 page)

Buddies, I'm telling you how it is; I'm telling you how it was, as we sped home and the sun bleached the car.

And then he talked in that big-balled way. He said:

'Charlie, get yourself laid. Never mind about that Cybernurse. Get your bloody leg over, spread some mustard.'

'Belinda...?' I said timorously.

'Got an idea about Belinda,' he said. 'Leave her on the back burner.'

'Leave Belinda on...? '

'Yeah. Put the dish on a low light.'

'PENSIVE PROGRAMMER PUTS BEAUTIFUL BLONDE ON BACK BURNER.'

Babies, I'm gonna tell you how it is. That's all I can do. How it was. So I was going home. Martin, an actor, was driving me and there were some friends there he wanted me to meet. The Cybernurse wasn't real but Belinda was. Martin was definitely real which left only Ffion. And Ffion I remembered was the Fierychick, the one who torched the sheets, the one with the fire in her thighs. The one who, when she did the letter V with her legs, set the bed alight and sparked the meadow ablaze. She'd got under my skin. Some of her data had strayed into my program. A little of her information had leached into my database. Her amber had...

I knew what I was going to face. I knew.
I knew.
I KNEW. Because I was beginning to remember Martin from the old days. I knew that when I walked through that door she was going to be there. But there was more to it than that. Wasn't there? Because Martin's always been a fixer. He's always been able to set up tricks, pull stunts. I'd open the door and see George Orwell standing there, with a sour smile on his face. Or would it be Anthony Burgess? Or would they all be there? Burgess, Priest, B.S.J.; Hardy, Dickens, Sterne; V. Woolf, L. Woolf, the Big Bad Wolf; Little Red Riding Hood, Big Red Riding Hood; any size Riding Hood.

Martin said: 'Are you sure you had the full job in there?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'They cleansed all my data.'

He said, 'Sounds like they've done just half the job: they've only given you a datascrub, a datascrape.'

There was a pause while I considered. Then Martin turned, smiled generously in that thick-lipped way he had, and said:

'Do you think they're beginning to see through me?'

'I think they already have.'

'You mean,' he said, 'that I'm a fictive device?'

'Yes.'

'So you'll have to jettison me?'

I nodded.

'Okay. Let's wait for the next lay-by.'

'Martin, I think you've misunderstood.' His face blanched. 'You must leave whilst we're moving.'

'You're joking,' he said.

'No, I'm not.' I paused a moment. 'But not yet...' I continued. 'Not so near the end of a chapter.'

7

Got to tell you, babes, that it is possible. Especially in an Oldsmobile. Here's how you do it:

'So, Martin, open the door, edge yourself from the seat, keep your foot on the gas and your hands on the wheel.'

I start to move sideways and take over the wheel so all Martin has to do is retain pressure on the accelerator. I say:

'Now I'll place my foot on the pedal and, when I tell you, move yours off.'

So Martin is now hanging on to the open door, ready to jump. I say:

'I'm going to slow down now.' I ease off the juice. 'Right,' I say: 'Jump!' And he jumps.

Do I hear him shout, 'Good luck!'? Or is another driver swearing at me?

So, buddies, now I'm driving.

Okay. Who's waiting for me at home?

After negotiating the M25 I start to get into the thick of London traffic and my block of flats comes into view. I pull up, park the car. For a moment I pause because I realise I have Martin's Americamobile. How can that be? However, I dismiss that temporarily and approach the communal entrance, noting there the terracotta anti-skid surface and making a mental note to obtain a tub of it to spread in my underpants.

But I don't have a key. What am I going to do? The doors are protected by an entryphone. I know: I'll ring the bell:

'Hi, Charlie,' says Ffion. 'Is that you?'

'Yeah.'

'Are your contacts clean?'

'Yeah.'

'Coming up for a one?'

'Mm?'

'Fancy a slow burn?'

'Yeah.'

Knew she was going to light my touch-paper.

The front door buzzed, I entered and took the lift for speed. I walked along the corridor. She was waiting for me at the end, door open, extending one of her thin, red-downed, freckly arms. I noted again the perfect nails as she waved me in.

 I blinked before going through the door and there they were. A few turned. A tall man with badly-cut dark hair, a thin moustache and deeply-lined cheeks caught my eye. He seemed unsure but as I approached he warmed a little. After I'd introduced myself he said:

'Was it beastly? Was it horrid?'

I said I preferred not to talk about it now, but we shook hands and looked at each other for a long moment; his eyes twinkled. I said,

'But I know you.'

He said, 'Call me George. Have you met Tom?'

I turned and there was Hardy as large as life—well, larger; he shook my hand in a polite Victorian manner. There was a pause before he said,

'Have you met the upstarts?'

I looked round and in the corner sat a smallish man with a scowl on his face. Thomas said,

'That's Martin Amis.'

I said, 'Who kicked
his
balls?'

For a moment Thomas registered shock. I said,

'It's okay. You're allowed to say that now.' He looked unsure. I went on: 'Thomas, if
Jude
or
Tess
were published today they'd be considered very tame.'

I looked around. Martin Amis continued to glower. He glanced my way for a moment, looked me up and down perfunctorily before turning back to a man who kept slipping in and out of focus. I overheard part of their conversation. Martin was saying:

'...but, Chris, you're doing the splits across two genres—or, at least, one genre and the mainstream... But because of the system you end up inhabiting neither...'

There was a familiar smell in my flat; I noted both George and Martin smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Were they sharing the same tobacco? Had Martin offered George his pouch, or vice versa?

In another corner I saw a tall man in a black suit behaving furtively. He approached me:

'Charles, how do you see the relationship between junk and creative activity?'

Both Tom and George swung round. I held up the hand of peace to my interlocutor, turned to George and Tom and said,

'Don't worry...'

They then both looked at the tall half-bald man on his way back to the corner before returning to their conversation. Meanwhile Martin and Chris were talking very animatedly. Martin was saying:

'...but don't you think you're
asking
for it...?'

Chris just smiled.

Over in another corner, another huddle. A smallish lady came up to me:

'Hello, I'm Barbara. Are you any good at sorting type?'

'I've done a little but most of us use PCs now. All major printers work from electronic files.'

Barbara cocked her head: 'P's and C's...? Don't you mean P's and Q's?'

'No—personal computers. What I type is what appears on the page.'

 She searched my eyes and for a moment there was a glimpse of understanding, almost as if she could see into the future, but she quickly dismissed the thought by saying, 'Leonard needs a hand.' Her attempt to introduce me to him failed because he, poised over some papers, didn't want to be disturbed. Barbara directed me to boxes of type over which stooped a tall too-thin lady who turned round. Both Barbara and she had ink on their fingers. I wanted to say,
Virginia, do you realise what you've started?
I wanted to say,
Long after you'd walked into the Ouse, long after the twentieth century was closed, you're still there, still being read.
I also wanted to mention the modish arguments pro and contra
Bloomsbury
, I wanted to tell her about the snobbery and elitism on both sides. But I couldn't. I did none of these things because somehow she was living in her own time. Instead I said,

'I'll come back to help you later.'

'Come on, Barbara Chickabiddyensis,' said Virginia.

I returned to the centre of the room and looked around at all the groups talking to each other: George had slipped off to the side, smoking a cigarette on his own. Martin, looking very
very
serious was now speaking with Saul Bellow. Norman Mailer was sitting down by the window typing. In another corner—how many corners did this room have?—Dickens was making notes. Then a well-spoken, well-dressed man, with a full head of dark hair—despite his age—took his place in the centre of the floor, clapped his hands and said rather adenoidally:

'May I have your attention for a moment, please...?' It was Melvyn. All conversation stopped. 'Ladies and gentlemen—the buffet is served.'

Norman Mailer, still typing with one hand, turned round looking for the food, shouting:

'Save me some of those egg dumplings.'

Virginia said, 'Oh, I don't think I could eat anything.'

Leonard sighed.

Barbara said, 'Shall I get you
something
, dear?'

Virginia put a finger to her lips and directed her eyes at Leonard's back.

George Orwell said: 'I'm bloody famished.'

Thomas Hardy said, 'I hope there's something decent to drink.'

The tall man who'd offered me drugs said, 'Hey, what do you think they've put in the cake?' and giggled like a schoolboy. I turned my back on him.

Martin was talking again to Christopher Priest saying,

'Yeah, since they fixed me up in the States I can eat properly.' He smiled and lit up the dark corner for a moment, and as his lips parted he disclosed a set of perfect teeth. I didn't have time to count whether he had twenty-eight or the full thirty-two.

Christopher said, '
How
much
did
they cost you?'

'Twenty-K.'

'Sterling...?'

'Dollars.'

At the mention of this George spun round and mouthed,
How much?

Martin called across: 'George, your namesake in
Coming up for Air
is stimulated into action by the thought of his new false teeth, and he only—what was it, fifty?—'

'Forty-five—'

'—and he a mere forty-five. He needn't have bothered. He should have flown to the States and had the originals capped, had bridgework, implants...'

George turned to me and said,

'What does that chap
do
?'

Norman Mailer had now left the typewriter and was in the kitchen piling high his paper plate and saying to himself: 'Da-da, da-da, da-da; da-da, da-da, da-da; got to remember, got to remember...'

I rather timorously approached Martin and Chris:

'Excuse me, I'm Charlie.'

'Martin Amis,' said Martin, not proffering his hand.

I said, 'Someone's been using your name.'

He said, 'I know these impostors. They think all they have to do is drop the name of an established person to give their work an importance or a respectability.'

'No,' I said. 'He drove me home.' Martin gave me the look of someone who didn't suffer wise men gladly. 'It was an American car,' I persisted, 'with a left-hand drive. But in the end he had to leave—he just jumped out while we were moving...'

'...whil
st
...'

'Oh, of course.'

'Will you excuse me?' he said rather tiredly, turning his back on me to continue his conversation with Christopher Priest. Chris mouthed,
I'll catch you later.

Orwell had a very healthy appetite and he and Thomas were still conversing. Hardy was saying:

'But why did you
want
to pretend?'

'I returned from Burma with a sense of guilt about my mistreatment of the natives. Instead of being an oppressor I wanted to get down amongst the oppressed. Expiation, I suppose.'

'Did it work?'

'Partly.'

'But,' said Thomas, 'you'd done some amateur tramping. Hadn't you?'

George, who had turned a little pale as he stood over the kitchen table, called over:

'Eileen!'

Eileen was talking to another woman:

'Excuse me a moment, Sonia.'

Eileen came over. 'What is it, Eric?'

He said, 'I don't feel well again.'

'Do you want to sit down?'

Saul Bellow was picking at a few small pieces of food.

'Saul,' said Gore Vidal. 'Is any of this kosher?'

Bellow shrugged. 'I don't know. But in the absence of pretzel sticks...'

Gore's eyes twinkled as he gave a magisterial smile.

Norman Mailer had already finished his plate and was starting another. So I went up to the MC and said,

'Hi, Melvyn.'

'Hello, Charlie.'

'Quite some party you've organised.'

He said, 'I'm having difficulty with your surname.'

'Most people do. It's Smith hyphen Jones hyphen Brown.'

'So, what do people call you?'

'Charlie—!'

We laughed.

'But,' I said, 'how did you manage to get all these people together?'

Then Barbara Bagenal said, 'Don't worry, dear,' to Virginia. 'I'll sort out the fonts. Why don't you lie down?'

Melvyn said, 'Charlie, there's someone I'd like you to meet,' and took me over to yet another corner to a man who looked shy and awkward. 'Charlie, this is Jeremy. Jeremy, Charlie.'

We shook hands. Melvyn said, 'Jeremy, Charlie's just had an interesting experience,' then slipped into the background.

I said, 'Oh, I've just come from that place which some people call home...'

Jeremy tilted his head in an erudite way and gave a polite, inquiring smile.

'...and this guy called Martin drove me home but jumped out of the car while—no,
whilst
—we were moving. It was an American car.'

'Charlie, what is it you
do?
'

'I
live
here—this is my gaff—but I've got to be honest with you, Jeremy, I hate socialising. I feel awkward.'

'Me too, but there is a minimum you must do. On the other hand, William won't do any. That's one of the privileges of success—you don't
have
to.'