Czytaj książkę: «Vulgar Things»

MAYBE SOMEONE IS WONDERING JUST WHAT I’M DOING HERE
an office

Look at them both sitting at their desks, feigning important business. What do they think they’re doing with their lives? What are they hoping to achieve, acting the way they do, alienating everyone else in the office? I’ve asked myself many, many times: What am I doing here? I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’ve more or less chosen the wrong path in life. Not that I have any idea what the correct path might be. I look at what my life, until now, has amounted to: a boring job, a failed marriage, a small flat I can barely afford, and each working day the same agonising prospect of these two loathsome cretins, sitting at their desks, constantly talking to one another. It sickens me. To be honest, I don’t think I have the strength for it any more.

lunch hour

Jessica, the younger of the two and my line manager, had taken me to one side in the company kitchen earlier that week. Her words had been rattling around my head ever since, delivered, as they were, in her usual pseudo-flirtatious manner: ‘What’s wrong with you these days? Have you been having trouble at home again?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Have you been having trouble at home, you poor dear? I know things didn’t work out for you last year … your marriage … I’m genuinely worried for you. Is that why you’ve been letting things slip here?’

‘Slip?’

‘Your journals, some haven’t met cover month, when you said they would. Editors have been complaining, plus those suppliers’ invoices haven’t been sent that I asked you to send last week.’

‘Oh, those … I’ll send them today …’

‘Are your journals even on schedule?’

‘Yes, of course they are. I might not have hit cover month on a couple, but everything else I publish is published on schedule, on time and to budget, you know that.’

‘Jon, you know … I only ask you this because I actually care … It’s just that, things are slipping, people’s confidence in you has started to drop … We’re thinking of taking some journals from your list …’

‘What!?’

‘Just a couple … Maybe IBD and VVA … Nothing’s concrete yet, just to ease the pressure you must be feeling, you know … It’ll help ease your schedule … and if, you know, if there are problems outside here, this should ease the stress levels, too …’

‘Jessica, there are no problems outside here … and I’m not stressed …’

‘Well, you sound stressed …’

‘You’ve just told me you’re taking journals away from me, depleting my list … of course I’m going to sound concerned …’

‘Jon, I know you can pull through all this, it’s just a phase … a bad patch. I know you can get through this.’

‘Jessica … there’s no …’

‘Oh, I didn’t say … You’re still on for my engagement drinkies this weekend, yes? Blacks of course …’

‘…’

My time is up. Publishing is nothing to me. To be honest, I don’t even remember how I fell into this profession in the first place. I’m a good editor, I think, but the job bores me to tears. It must have been some kind of accident, some heinous sleight of hand – something that happened when I was looking the other way.

I’ve had a sense something has been wrong for some time. Jane, Jessica’s boss and the head of production, has been in a strange mood for a number of days, singing loudly and quite inappropriately to Jessica across the office, annoying the editorial team to her immediate right, who suffer on a daily basis at the hands of this bizarre office friendship, which I and a few others have always thought unprofessional at the best of times and verging on surreal the rest. Today, each time I look up from my proofs Jane is staring at me, and then I’ll notice her glance over to Jessica when she thinks I’m not looking, who in turn pulls some sort of face back at her, as if to say: ‘I know, I know, I’ll sort him out.’ I try to ignore this behaviour as best I can, but it’s no good. I bury my head in the proofs I’m working on, hoping this phase will pass – but it doesn’t.

As usual I go for my lunch alone. I sit on a bench in St James’s Park across the way from the ICA in some sort of stupor. I don’t think, or look at much in particular. I can sense people all around me, office workers and tourists going about their business. Everything in front of me – people, birds in trees, dogs and squirrels in the park, cars and cyclists on the Mall – I can’t reach, whatever it is that is happening, because I’m stuck in it. I feel helpless. There’s nothing I can do – and the way I’m feeling, even if there were I probably wouldn’t bother to do it. This sense of helplessness stays with me all through my lunch hour, like a bad smell.

I walk back into the office and immediately notice Jessica staring at me. I ignore her and walk over to my desk to check my emails. There are thirty-seven unopened emails in my inbox, all of them from this morning. I sit there looking at them, pretending to be busy. I can feel Jessica’s eyes on the side of my face, my cheeks reddening. I try my best to ignore what is happening. Then, just as I let out an exasperated ‘What!?’ in Jessica’s direction, I notice the email from Jane. It had been sent exactly one minute after I had left for lunch, as I was walking out of the building. I don’t bother reading all of it. I know immediately what it is.

everything looks as it should

I knock on the door to Meeting Room 4 as requested. Jane is sitting at the table. She doesn’t smile. I sit opposite her.

‘Jon, there’ve been some serious complaints made by editors … about your productivity and capability … The editors of IBD, for example, they didn’t see the final set of proofs before issue 5 went to press … and …’

‘It’s okay, I know.’

‘We just don’t think it’s working, Jon.’

‘Really.’

‘Jessica thinks you’re unsuitable for this role, she’s been keeping me posted for the past few weeks … She feels …’

‘Jane, I’m not interested in how Jessica feels … Just give me the letter.’

I walk out of the office without clearing my desk. At the door I look back – everything looks just as it should: people are at their desks, oblivious, heads down correcting proofs, or up staring at their monitors, working. Only one thing looks out of place: Jessica’s empty desk. She hasn’t even bothered waiting until I’ve left the building before scurrying over to her pal in Meeting Room 4. I exhale and walk out of the door.

into a room

I walk into Soho. I need a drink and something to eat. I take a seat in Spuntino’s on Rupert Street and order a bottle of red wine and some truffled egg toast. Two portions for myself. I immediately feel calmer, but it doesn’t last all that long. Two men sit down beside me and ruin my thoughts. They are loud. Media types. They work in the film industry and want everyone to know. I can’t hear myself think, so I just sip my wine and listen to them instead, staring down at my food.

‘When are they shooting?’

‘June.’

‘Where?’

‘Dunno. Somewhere near Kingsland Road. They’ve found some old buildings.’

‘Who’s shooting?’

‘Stevens.’

‘From United Agents?’

‘Yes. He’s shooting that before he heads out to LA for the location meetings on Rob’s project.’

‘Really.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Never really liked his stuff …’

‘Really?’

‘He holds back. Tries to fuck the lens. In fucking love with the lens. Spends too much time finding the right shot and then when he’s found it he spends too much time wanking all over it. He should just fucking shoot … He’s not an artist, say, like Dom is; now Dom’s a true artist, he finds the right shot without thinking, bam, bam, bam …’

‘Bish bash bosh …’

‘Ha, yeah, right … but seriously, he doesn’t fuck about. His art just happens; do you know what I mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And then there’s all the fucking gak …’

‘Yeah, that.’

‘He puts too much up his nose, thinks it’s the fucking eighties … He can’t see for gak sometimes … I saw him last week. He was with some office temp from his production company, giving it the large with her; she’s all wide-eyed around him like he’s some fucking god. He’s got his fat married hands all over her skinny arse. Fucking sad to witness … He bought me drinks, though, so what can you say? I don’t care if it was just to impress the slag, I’ll fucking drink them. I spent the afternoon in the French with him, before he fucked off to the Groucho with her. He told me about the shoot, he told everyone about it … Everyone in Soho knows how much his fucking budget is …’

‘Really.’

‘Just go and fucking shoot, that’s what I say, stop fucking talking about it and go and fucking shoot the fucker.’

‘Yeah.’

The two men continue in this manner for the rest of their meal, fiddling with their phones all the while. I listen to every word and finish my food. It’s a cyclical, looped conversation: a spiral of ‘shoots’, ‘budgets’, ‘gak’ and ‘locations’. It’s pointless and completely fascinating. Just as they are leaving, I look up at the taller of the two, intent on gaining eye contact.

‘What’s the name of the film?’

He looks at me quizzically when I ask him this, and then looks at his colleague as if to say: ‘Why don’t these people just leave us the fuck alone?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The film you were just talking about … What’s it called?’

‘It’s an ad, not a film … for Nike.’

I don’t know why I ask him this. I feel compelled to ask. I’m not remotely interested in what it is they do for a living. I just feel they need to know I’ve been listening. I’d tuned into their frequency by accident. I can re-tune, should I wish, to something far more interesting. They walk out of the door, heading up through the alleyway that leads to Old Compton Street, both still embroiled in the same conversation. I watch them until they vanish out of view. I even lean forward on my stool to see if I can catch a final glimpse, but it’s no good, they’ve gone. I finish the rest of my wine, settle the bill, and walk out onto the street.

I head in the same direction: out through the alleyway, past the clip joints and porn shops, and out onto Old Compton Street. I am buzzing, distinctly aware of each and every person sweeping around me, each sight and sound on the busy Soho streets. I’m not really sure where I’m going, or why. It doesn’t matter. I bathe in the dislocation from my usual routine, allowing the nowness of my predicament to cover me. I trust it completely. So I follow it without thought or question.

petty dramas

Rather predictably I find myself in another bar, the Montagu Pike, a horrible, cavernous wreck of a place stuffed with chrome furniture and blatherskites. I sit upstairs on the balcony, looking down at the swathes of daytime drinkers. It feels good up here, drinking beer after beer, looking down on them. It feels like I belong on some separate level, something higher: a plateau designed only for people like me – whatever I am. Sometimes I catch people looking up at me between sips and conversation, flashes of face and eye, vacant features pointing upwards, like you see in old religious paintings. I feel like the icon, the subject of their gaze. It’s a good feeling, no matter how fleeting and inconsequential. So I stay here all afternoon, until the streets of Soho darken – drinking, watching, being watched.

As I am about to leave I strike up a conversation with a member of the bar staff as she wipes down the tables around me. She is young and looks bored. I feel a bit sorry for her, stuck in such an awful pub at this hour.

‘Not long to go, eh?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Not long until closing …’

‘Oh, yeah, closing …’

‘You must hate it here?’

‘It’s okay …’

‘People like me bothering you all the time; it must bore you to tears?’

‘Not really.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘I like being around people … What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Why are you here? I’ve been watching you all day sitting up here, looking down on everyone, drinking cheap beer; surely it’s you that’s bored?’

‘I was sacked from my job today …’

‘Really? What do … did you do?’

‘I was a production editor, at a small academic publisher. They sacked me because I wasn’t … productive enough.’

‘Silly billy.’

‘Yeah. I guess I am.’

‘Maybe this is the start of something new? … a new adventure for you.’

‘Another petty drama? … I doubt it.’

She continues to wipe down the tables, long after our conversation has run its rudimentary course. I like her. She seems to bounce from table to table, the same bored look on her face. I want to be just like her, I want to look and feel just like her. But I know this isn’t the case – should a mirror be at hand, I’d see a look of abject terror on my face. A deep fixed terror. I stumble up from my chair and walk somewhat clumsily back down the stairs towards the front door. I feel the cold night air as I step onto Charing Cross Road. I have two options: a) go home to my poky flat, or b) carry on drinking. It doesn’t take much thought to go with the latter.

some sort of theatre

I stumble into the Griffin on Clerkenwell Road. What I can only describe as some kind of miasma, a fug of sorts, has blurred my vision, in fact my perception. I feel behind-time, having no idea at this moment what time it is or what I am really doing. I stand at the end of the bar, near the stage, sipping a whiskey, watching a girl dance around a pole. She is no more than twenty years of age, bored, filled with contempt for the assorted men salivating over her in the room. She is wonderful. I didn’t expect to think like this about her, having never ventured into a strip club before. I expected to hate everything and everyone in here, but something else has happened: some form of rapture.

I am soon interrupted by a small lady, maybe in her thirties, dressed in nothing but a red thong, heels and a latex tube around her chest. It looks crude. I suppose that’s the point. She thrusts a pint pot towards me.

‘Quids in … I’m on next, darling.’

She doesn’t really look at me when she says this. I don’t mind, it all feels right somehow. I rummage through my pockets and drop a pound coin into her pot.

‘Come and see me for a private dance later.’

She walks away, swinging her hips, towards a group of men dressed in expensive-looking suits. Married men out for a drink after work. Probably lawyers and solicitors with too much spare change in their pockets, their wives and children tucked up in bed at home. But who am I to judge? They huddle around her, cracking jokes – crude gags – with a familiarity that suggests to me they’re regulars. I decide that I might as well see her later on for a private dance, even though I don’t really like the look of her.

I wait for her at the other end of the bar, near the curtain into the private room. She takes her time getting from the stage and over to where I’m standing. While watching her dance I’d been listening to a conversation between two of the bouncers standing just inside the door. Big, hefty men, who look like they enjoy the constant threat of violence that comes with their job.

‘Listen, I don’t care how much money I owe him. He’s not coming through that door. And if he does, the cunt’s going straight back out through it …’

‘He’s going to be angry with you …’

‘Fuck him.’

‘He could bring trouble …’

‘Fuck him.’

‘Real trouble … gun trouble.’

‘Let him, I’ll fucking eat him alive …’

‘You’ve got to calm down …’

‘Fuck him.’

‘Just calm down. We’ve got a job to do.’

‘I don’t care. It’s his own fault … the fucking lag. Flashing his fucking cash. If he’s so fucking flash and he gives me his money when I want it, then he brings it on himself …’

‘Just pay the man his money back …’

‘Fuck him.’

As she walks through the bar a thought comes to me: this primordial scene is fuelled by absence: wives, children, work, daily lives. It’s a detachment, an easy step aside from the general order of things. It makes perfect sense to me. I smile to myself and order another whiskey from the short, stocky barmaid.

Before I know it the dancer is standing next to me. She acts like I don’t really exist, looking back up to the stage.

‘Will you dance for me?’

‘Of course, darling.’

‘How much?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Good.’

‘Come with me.’

I follow her through the curtains into a room that I immediately find disappointing. It isn’t ‘private’ for a start: various dancers are dotted about on low platforms, dancing for other men. She leads me to an empty platform in the corner of the room.

‘You can put your drink on there … sit down. What’s your name?’

‘Jon … What’s yours?’

‘Paris.’

She dances for me, taking off what little she is wearing. Having never experienced such a thing before, I enjoy it, at first. Then something terrible begins to happen: her skin starts to peel away, quickly, revealing her red, blood-sodden muscle and sinew – decaying, bubbling and oozing stuff. It feels like I’m watching speeded-up footage of a rotting corpse, the flesh putrefying, turning to liquid, finally foul gas. I try to rub my eyes to shift the terror from them, hoping it’s just the drink fooling me, but it’s no good, the more I try to shift these rotten images the more intense they become. Her flesh falls from her bones, like slow-cooked shanks, onto my lap, my shoes, smearing down my shins, collecting in a purplish, stinking gloop by my feet. I want to be sick. I want to run away, to run out of the bar, but I can’t move. I want to scream at anyone who’ll listen: ‘She’s dead! She’s dead!’ But I can’t make the words in my mouth. The whole room seems to collapse in on me, I whirl within it, spinning.

‘Hey … hey … what’s wrong? Are you okay?’

I look up at her. She’s standing over me, her performance over, trying to feign a smile, but clearly worried.

‘Are you drunk?’

‘No … no … I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here … I’m not supposed to be here … that’s all … I really shouldn’t be here …’

‘Fifteen pounds, then …’

‘No … no … I can’t pay. If I pay then it’s real … I’ll just go … I’ll just get out of here and go home.’

‘You’ve got to pay …’

‘No …’

She signals to someone near the curtain who I hadn’t noticed was there when we walked in. Other dancers have stopped now and people are looking over at me. She puts her thong and stockings back on, nearly tripping up as she steps back away from me, just as the hefty bouncer I was listening to moments before walks over to us.

‘He refuses to pay.’

‘Really.’

It happens quickly. I am on my back, chair legs interrupting my vision. He stands over me and demands my wallet. I give it to him. He passes the fifteen pounds to the girl and then throws the wallet back at me. Something hits me in the ribs and the air disappears from my lungs. I am gasping for breath. Suddenly I’m being dragged across the stinking carpet; I can feel it burn my knuckles. The door swings open. Cold air. I swallow it. I can see blackness and orange, headlamps and paving stones. The whiff of petrol fumes. I come to my senses on the pavement; I scramble to my feet, clutching my wallet. He’s standing by the door, looking down at me.

‘Now, fuck off!’

I walk away. My ribs hurt, but it’s manageable. The traffic beside me is waiting at a red light at the junction of Rosebery Avenue. I can sense passengers on buses looking at me. I continue to walk, in a strange myopia; just the pavement ahead to lead me away from what has just happened.