Seán Gallagher was born in Whitby, North Yorkshire
and educated in South Africa. Wasted some years in ad industry in London, writing print
and tv campaigns, then more consulting to charities, devising strategies, communication,
fundraising, running problem-solving workshops.
In between, ran UK's first dedicated environmental publishing house, bringing out The
Limits to Growth, finding authors, editing manuscripts and writing book intros. Got
down to preferred short story form (interests, the metaphysical; and subversive use of humour
to stand things on their head, unleash a little chaos into Certainty)
only recently.
|
On a half-landing
to the basement glass- and china department of discreetly splendid Fortnum & Mason’s,
Piccadilly, London, through a small elliptical window set in the public telephone booth,
Jack D’Arcy, a youthful forty-two, keen-featured, hair dark, wildish, sits tense as a
long-bow at a small shelf, dictating. He wears a once-proud navy mohair suit; about his
neck, a pair of Walkman cans. Wagner’s Götterdämerung, Der Fliegender Hollander, Beethoven’s
Ninth, and Aretha Franklin tapes crowd the shelf. Richard Wagner hangs from a nail D’Arcy’s
driven into the wall.
As shoppers pass on polished stairs, there’s a rap at the
window by a would-be user, whom D’Arcy ignores:
‘When you’re troubled in spirit, comma, need help through
those dark nights of the soul, comma, just raise your eyes to your nine-inch wall-hyphen-mounted
crucifix with cold-hyphen-cast Day-hyphen-Glo Jesus, comma, radiating calm from a simulated
hardwood cross, stop.’ And in an unctuous American accent: ‘Meditate on your wisdom in purchasing
this superb religious aid for only twelve pounds ninety, stop. Aren’t you glad you found peace
through cap R Religious cap N Novelties, cap L Limited, query? Don’t you pray others will too,
query?’
Rapper raps. D’Arcy continues: ‘Big Noddy type, Luna. M’client
Eric Antichrist doesn’t read well. Drop by m’command bunker, around one? Lunch on me at The
Magic Flute, Soho’s finest champers bar. Two belts of their house fizz fires up your aura for
the afternoon. Oh, and the beginning of the world may be nigh! I finally finished m’novel and
fired it at a publisher, praying they can read. Could be my passport out of hell.’
He listens to friend Luna Schwartz, then: ‘For years, I’ve tried
Failure ... It doesn’t work! But how to give it up? How escape advertising’s sycophantic
Yes-Man’s Land, where they’ll push cancer for a client smile and few quid extra? “The Coming Man”,
my poor late father called me. Thought I had a literary career in prospect, because I got drunk
one night with Liam O’Flaherty in the grill room of the Dolphin Hotel, Dublin. Insane optimism
of the Irish! Instead, I languish in phone boxes, writing copy for brand-loser clients. When can
I shout, “With one bound, Jack is free!” and hurl my paper suits at Oxfam?’
| "A practised D’Arcy clears his ‘office’ as he speaks,
whipping down Wagner, sweeping his hedgerow life into a large, tired briefcase. Some charities breed
self-righteousness. Banging on about a Cause is ideal cover for those who can’t face the mirror. Bit
like me, in fact." |
He listens. ‘Title? “You Can’t Get There From Here”. About a
writer, trapped inside the book he’s written. Only, it’s not himself in there at all. Wasted
his best years, knowing where he was aiming, but on the wrong damned train--substituted for
the one he was meant to catch. He’s finally admitting that substitutes for the Real are what
we mostly settle for. Is he too late? The theme unfolds: “The thief of time is at our heels.
If we hurry, we might reach--”’ He’s interrupted. ‘ Sure-fire failure? Well, my stories
do lose something in the telling ...Inspiration? A slag of a second-hand Muse I found through
Exchange & Mart.’
Rapper raps, as D’Arcy finally turns, holds up his weekly
travel pass, shouting at her through the glass: ‘MI5--under cover! Many lives! Try Menswear!,’
resuming: ‘Don’t give up a smart West End billet? The dross I write crucifies me. Months squatting
in phone booths, since m’last agency, Anus, f-french & Anus, showed me the window. And my clients
keep being put through to Ladies’ Underwear.’
He hangs up, slots Wagner’s Dutch Flyer, and gives himself to
the overwhelming music, and to a favourite fantasy.
* * *
Exterior, the Groucho
Club, Soho. D’Arcy is a literary star,
a Tom Wolf in his pomp, serenaded by film folk. In Gucci black leathers he emerges, with two
US megabucks, silk-suited, heavy shades, gross Havanas in slack mouths. A flunkey holds his
Ducati superbike, as he calls back: ‘Have Harvey call my people about film rights! It’s gotta
be Max von Sydow for the Margaret Thatcher role. We’ll starve him for a month--get more
vicious charm into his performance.’
He dons a gleaming mediaeval plumed helmet, pulls on chain-mail
gauntlets, mounts and kick-starts his beast, as groupies Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, and
Joanna Cholmondeley jostle. D’Arcy nods to La Cholmondeley, who jumps on the pillion, locking
arms about him, as he calls above the engine-song, ‘Where for lunch, Joanna? River Café? Nobu?
Old Scarsdale, Edwardes Square?’
‘Jack, let’s burn rubber down the East End. I could murder a
vegetarian vindaloo in Brick La… ‘ as he interrupts censoriously.
‘Joanna, this’ll be the fifth curry I’ve put inside you in two days.
Your stomach must be cast iron.’ They turn, the Ducati’s blood-thrilling growl dissolving to
Wagner’s towering Dutchman in full flight on the on-board stereo system.
* * *
At the window, a face.
D’Arcy starts, kills Wagner, jumps to
open the door to Luna Schwartz. Late thirties, she’s chic in expensive black trousers suit.
Disdainful, she hands him his copy file, eyes averted, in silent disapproval which he ignores.
‘Luna, love the suit!’
‘Coutured by Oxfam. Hampstead branch, second-hand designer-wear:
Jil Sander, this number. Jil would be ill if she knew. I’m a regular round there.’
‘You’re an Oxfam fatale!’
‘Why deny it? Now, get the T-shirt! Our wind-up worked a treat,’
opening her jacket to reveal the logo: KILL THE CHIMERA! and an image of the fire-breathing beast:
lion head, goat body, serpent tail.
He’s admiring. ‘Kill the Chimera! The mythical old frightener!
Part lion, part goat, part serpent: pure nightmare. How’d they react at that little outfit, “Four
Legs Better Than Two”, where your brain finds little work?’
‘Where charidee folk come to die,’ adds Luna.
A practised D’Arcy clears his ‘office’ as he speaks, whipping
down Wagner, sweeping his hedgerow life into a large, tired briefcase. ‘Some charities breed
self-righteousness. Banging on about a Cause is ideal cover for those who can’t face the mirror.
Bit like me, in fact.’
‘One old Committee duck--Lady Frottwell-Mindje--was horrified.
Said she’s very fond of the chimera, and isn’t it endangered? Wanted to know how many are left
in the wild.’
D’Arcy pauses. ‘Frottwell-Mindje, say you? The Hampshire tribe,
or the minor Dorset branch, Mindje-Merkin?’
‘Maybe she’s one of the French Mindje Touts...’
Eyes narrowed, a prosecuting barrister, he grasps his lapels,
pompously, ‘I suspect Frottwell-Mindje is not the lady in question’s real name, m’lud! That
tribe returned to maker years ago, as m’lud may recall. Blood thoroughly corked.’
She shrugs. ‘I was protecting her identity.’
‘How many chimeras out there, asks “Frottwell-Mindje?” As
many as there are idiots scared witless by imagination! Inventing Fear--all societies do it.
Keeps people terrified, of shadows, of ideas, above all, of Change.’
‘What do you fear, Jack?’
‘Getting caught on The Yellow-Brick Treadmill. And being
bitten by dogma. Hardens yer arteries. Causes slow spiritual death.’
‘Me, poltroons in the wasp media, presuming to speak for all Jews.
Maybe we all look alike to them.’
‘Dogma again! Dogma’s a fundamentalist beating a holed bucket,
bellowing “Hear God’s Word!” It’s no fun being a fundamentalist. Worshiping--fearing--a grotesque
made in your own image. Allergic to humour as vampires to garlic, so to Truth.’ He shuts the door
and they climb past maddening aromas of the chocolatier’s art. ‘Nobody matches Fortnum’s crystallised
ginger, and they do a quite wonderful chocolate-covered ant; but those seductions hold me no longer!
Time to quit m’bunker and move on.’
* * *
On the pavement, he’s
dismayed to find parked hard against Fortnum’s
politely sumptuous windows Luna’s Robin Reliant, painted end to end half scarlet, half black.
Passers-by edge away. Under the wiper, a hand-written note. From the three-wheeler’s stereo,
Sinatra roars his invitation to ‘Come fly with me, come fly, let’s fly away, let’s fly, let’s fly,
let’s fly down to A-capulco Bay ...’ as Luna jumps into her seat, and kills Sinatra.
‘I left Sinatra minding Robin. Piccadilly traffic’s no place for
a car.’ Sensing dismay she adds, ‘I’m torn between Ferrari red and Batmobile black. Retrieve
my note to the meter-Nazi? “Shame to waste!” is our family motto.’
He reads: ‘Mother of 6, with AIDS. Do not approach!’
‘Oy! I meant to use my “Doctor on Mercy Call”. More yer
West End.’
Squeezing in beside her, he attempts to sink out of sight.
‘Smart thinking! Wish I’d worn disguise, though. Like a false head.’
* * *
In The Magic Flute,
they occupy a table in a booth, in a row opposite the bar. He looks down the carriage-like
row and sighs: ‘I call this “The Train to Nowhere“. A metaphor for my life. You dream your
way around the world over a bottle in a booth. When you leave, you’re still sitting in the
station; the nervous tic of Time louder, the Old Reaper’s foul breath closer. And yer
future--shunted in a siding beyond Hope-Le-Swamp.’
‘Everyone needs a future to fall back on. Me, qualifying
as a domestic gas-fitter. Don’t ask! And you, Jack, what would you really want, if you
had the energy, the will, to bother?’
' Insight instead of hindsight, understanding rather
than over-cooked imagination. And a daily game of silly buggers, standing things on their
head, unleashing quiet chaos into adamantine Certainty. “Little Fortress Real World”: the
mass of habits, assumptions, clapped-out beliefs we catch like viruses, believing they’re
our own; that they’re us. As we wake, we reassemble our trite word-prison, like some
Aztec priest, fumbling with his pre-dawn rituals, making the sun get up.
Sometimes, over a bottle of Montrachet ’78, intuition whispers
we’re dithering players in a farce, that runs and runs precisely because we talk it up: “Man
is in disguise, covered by his tongue!” But how to escape? The Great Farce! Theme m’novel
fumbles with. It’s our idiotic, indoctrinated selves we gotta give the slip!’
‘Patronise me with an instance.’
‘Take the Christmas I was given a Meccano set, at six. A full
set, you assume. Pictures on the lid of bridges, towers, planes I couldn’t build.
Thing was second-hand, part missing! Consequence? Cosmically inept. Can’t fix a fuse,
face anything pack-flat, or hammer in a screw straight. I might’a been contender!
Yer new Leonardo da Vinci. Or Bomber Harris.’
‘I had you down as a wannabe ascetic. Man of the spirit.
A flake. Not the Dresden Carpet Bomber.’
‘RAF wartime hero! And Harris only gave the orders ...
Luckily, I was born with Outsider’s Disease. Helps you detach from events. Sharpens
insight. Keeps yer philosophy fluid. It’s circumstances that determine cases. Most
beliefs should be written in water to accommodate Change.’
‘Moses might be miffed at your new Commandment.’
‘Moses was in a wilderness, out of Croxley White. Yer man
was forced to work in stone. Had to keep it basic, and down to ten. Incidentally, how
goes Mister Schwartz’s exodus? Lawyers’ hands still in your entrails?’
‘Promised land’s in sight! Still tied to my three, though.
Bribing them to school. Slaving over a microwave. Spooked by that glazed look they wear.
Sometimes I wonder if they’re really mine.’
‘You happen to know if you were present at the births?
That can be a clue. What compelling nonsense did you put to your old man to leave?
Surely he’d miss your tinned chicken soup!‘
‘Convinced him separation might bring us together. He
wasn’t keen. Till my master stroke. I offered to keep the kids. Look!’ She flashes
her wristwatch, an apparent Rolex. ‘Gave me a nice little fake Rolex to remember the
good times.’
‘Why fake? Don’t they rate the real thing?’
‘In our family, a good fake is the real thing ... But
how’s your own complex love life, Jack?’
‘Jack ... is ... down. Sophie dumped me for an older man,
and less carnal knowledge. I do miss ... miss her ... her town flat madly. There are
things Time can’t heal.’
‘Why heal pain and forfeit sympathy! Besides, you’re a
true solo artist. Shimmying about town, disturbing no shard of glass as you pass. Light
of foot, free and feckless of heart.’ And in sudden doubt, ‘Or so I thought, so I thought!
Where are you holed up now?’
‘Apnoeasia-on-Thames, with m’poor old widowed mother, and
bonkers sister. Since divorce, she’s unleashed a career in interior design. Pure Revengist
School! Her colour schemes actually kill. We’re made-over daily. I ascend to my cot an
austere Shaker, thinking pure, minimalist thoughts. Well, mainly erotic. Next morning I
come down to find I’m a ‘thirties fop in a Noël Coward flop, eating m’free-range porridge
off Art Deco seconds. Of course, we can’t talk.’
‘I’ve a few friends I can recommend your sister’s work to.
Well, not friends.’ Then in irritation, ‘Why can’t you two fight! It’s cathartic for
families to want to kill each other!’
‘Confrontation! I’ll avoid that when I come to it. That
aside, I’ve taken a career decision. To swallow my loathing of mobile phones, and buy one.
I hear they’re quite a bit smaller now than a lump of the Berlin Wall.’
She’s aghast. ‘You, sink to a mobile? Have you no code,
sir! ... Maybe I’ll get one too, then.’
‘Circumstances alter cases. I gotta expand. Somewhere
roomier than Fortnum’s phone box. Chic it may be, but too tight in the crotch for the
fantasy life I lead. Before Fortnum’s, Harrods. Wearing full morning fig, claw-hammer
coat and fake medals, to get past Fayed’s dress-code enforcers on the door. Thought
they’d fingered me one morning, with m’plastic VC and Bar.’
‘Maybe you’ll have space to take me on. With “full
share-option and pension rights”, you said.’
D’Arcy is puzzled. ‘What are “share options”? What’s
“pension”?’
‘Never you mind!’ retorts Luna, after an indecisive
pause.
His fantasy has wings. ‘So, no longer shamed working
out of phone booths. Free to scribble here at The Flute. Ritz Polo Bar. Poets’ Corner,
up the Abbey could be inspirational. British Library Reading Room: that word-dump must
inspire yer writer of panty-liner copy. Think! I can dictate from some of London’s
smartest lavatories, not to inflict m’pearls on others.’
Cultivate your Off switch! Mobiles don’t sound their
best in libraries, or fighting Schubert, up Wigmore Hall. Nor down the Cenotaph,
with the Queen.’
‘I’m doing a PhD in Using a Mobile. Oxford ...
Circus University.’ Smirking: ‘New, but tops Government Excellence League in
Telephone Studies. Later, I’ve a client meeting with Merlin’s. Small, doomed ad
agency, run by three late stars.’
‘Why’re you drawn to them? Mind, I’m not sure I
want to know.’
‘Because they’re civilised, and past all tedious
ambition--the “getting and spending that knackers all our powers”. Their concern
is to have fun, and get by. There’s Cedric Slaughter, senior partner. One-time
Oxford Fellow--he can’t recall which college. Toby Fairfax, ginned-out Old Etonian.
Annoyed at surviving his GP’s prognosis he’d fall off his perch by Easter. And Tinker
Bell, creative director. Tinker gave the world such campaigns as “Quick nurse, the
screens!” A cure for explosive-diarrhoea. Diarrhoea once killed more than AIDS,
only brown ribbons aren’t chic. And the award-winning “Triple-X: The underpants
you’d love to be found dead in!” Three adland greats, disadvantaged by drink.’
Luna contemplates him. ‘You board sinking ships.
What’re you trying to salvage with this Merlin’s crew?’
‘Chasing business. A small account, in the gift
of a Cap’n de Vere Fairweather, proprietor and editor, Next World News. A
spiritualist weekly being shafted by Psychic Times. Cap’n needs a low-rent
agency to claw back readers and advertisers.
Merlin’s asked for help presenting a balanced team
at today’s meeting ... Actually, they wanted me for my minor talent for staying
sober.’
‘How’d your friends get chosen for this awesome
task?'
‘Joanna Cholmondeley! Seems the Cap’n fancies
her with a deep and throbbing passion. He’s confiding in a black-cab driver,
by chance a Friend of Merlin’s. “Blind ‘arry Pew”, Toby Fairfax calls him,
after the verminous pirate Blind Pew in “Treasure Island”. ‘arry runs the
partners to meetings about town, and to catch last trains to--wherever
they claim to live.’
‘Merlin’s retain a blind cabbie?’
‘A small retainer, yes. For any prospect he picks
up, often the worse for wear, and hauls in for drinks. The Cap’n’s telling
‘arry what he’s got for Joanna; and how he’s fallen behind Psychic Times
among Friends of the Late Crowd...'
‘Captain de Vere Fairweather? That’s more Police
Gazette than Debrett’s or Who’s Who. You sure he’s not on the run?’
‘You’re too hard on poor losers, struggling to get by.
‘arry knew Merlin’s Toby F is a friend of La Cholmondeley. Offered to fix for the
Cap’n to meet her over drinks at the agency.’
Distracted, Luna shakes her wrist, listens to her
bogus Rolex. ‘Merde! I should have rung British Gas. Don’t ask!’ She hurries to
the phone, in a corner of the bar.
The instrument is graffiti-haloed, with declarations
forthright and coy: Fuck the Hallé Orchestra!--Mickey Mouse is a--(illegible), and
I was Offa’s Dyke.
She slots her coin, dials: ‘British Gas? Customer
Disservice? You missing a domestic fitter? Ginger hair? No eyebrows? Slight
tremor? I’ve got him! Locked in my kitchen, since eight this morn… Yes! This
is Mrs Schwartz, flat three, Chutzpah Heights, Highgate ... Well, you call the
Flying Squad! I’ll call the Fraud Squad! Five times in two weeks you send your
morons with the wrong sodding part for my boiler.
You get Ginger back when I get fitter number six,
with the right part ... Yes, I guarantee his safety, if you meet my ransom demand.’
Her voice deepens: ‘You know what you have to do!’
Hanging up, she whips out her lipstick, writes: ‘British
Gas stinks’, rejoining D’Arcy, as stylish young Nigerian Harriet St Thomas passes their
booth. ‘Jack! It’s Harriet. Tinker’s steady hand, Merlin’s.’
‘Of course! Harriet, meet Luna. Luna Schwartz.
Harriet’s a top-gun art director; and former Snow White. Redefined the role for
a generation at her prep school Christmas panto. It traumatised West Somerset.
Let’s get you a flute of this spunky elixir.’ He signals the waiter, as Harriet
nods at Luna’s T-shirt.
‘Love the T-Shirt! Missed the film.’
A young white-aproned waiter sets down three flutes
with a flourish. ‘There you go, mates! Three Daniel Le Brun Brut. New Zealand’s
finest. The trusty leg-opener. Enjoy!’
D’Arcy, now a wine-bore, peers over imaginary
half-glasses. ‘I suspect Jancis Robinson might – I put it no stronger than
might--have found a more ... adroit phrase. “Leg-opener” tells us little about “nose”,
“palate”, or that seductive quality, “length of finish”.’
Luna swirls her glass, sniffs, sips appreciatively.
‘”Length of finish“, I’m definitely getting ... between my big toes. “Nose”, too.’
Turning to Harriet, ‘So what’s a nice girl like you doing in Advertising? Jack says
it’s lower than rat-catching.'
‘... And it always finds its own,’ interrupts D’Arcy.
Take Thatcher. One day kicking in the door at Number 10, misquoting Francis of Assisi,
clutching her hangman’s noose.’ He mimics her coo in her doorstep interview: ‘Where there
is harmony, let me bring self-righteousness, smallness, and spite.’
‘I know: “Our Lady of the Rope”,’ sighs a well-rehearsed
Luna.
‘Then they sling her out – and Advertising’s got her!
Next, she’s flogging fags to the Third World. Wants the death penalty for non-smoking.’
Harriet resumes to Luna: ‘Why am I in Advertising?
I had this weird desire to eat. Snow White is no longer on the Civil List with the
Royal drones, trousering a stonking State handout. At least Merlin’s is serious
about Fun.’
‘Fun!,’ echoes D’Arcy. ‘I’m a life member of the club.
Not part of the real world, though. They’ll punish you for being serious about Fun,
not Money.’
‘I’ll watch it, Jack! Incidentally, I hear you’re
at our five o’clock presentation? We’re counting on you to do your stuff.’ And to
Luna: ‘What troubles Jack is he’s good at what he loathes. Firing up clients’
imaginations, their greed. Inventing USPs – Unique Selling Propositions.’
‘You mean, like those self-righteous British-is-Best
mantras: World’s finest justice system ... Fairest nation ... Best television ... That
bombastic crap we really lead the word in?’
‘Yup. A USP is whatever you can get away claiming for
your client’s product, without being thrown in the slammer.’ To D’Arcy: ‘Bad news,
Jack. Joanna turned Toby down over flashing for Cap’n Hook. But they’ve something
planned. Fingers crossed it works.’
‘He’d probably settle for a pair of her French-lace
La Perlas.’
‘Unfortunately, we need the biz, since loosing British
Water,’ she adds to Luna,
| "He shuts off the phone, cramming it into his pocket.
‘Thunder! I’ve joined the barbarians.’ Raising his eyes to the gilded crucifix above the altar,
he offers a silent prayer: ‘Lord. If Thou art about, in some incomprehensible form, forgive
Thy servant! ... Thou didn’st want double-glazing, did’st Thou..?" |
‘Cedric and Tinker left the campaign they were on their way
to present to the client in a cab. Not Blind ‘arry’s. He’d sell it back. Strategy
document. Budgets. Press, poster, tv ads, the lot. Two months’ work. Well, two weeks’.
All lost! They grabbed some passing girl, had her ring BW on her mobile, saying they’d
been in a road accident and couldn’t make it. She got carried away, claimed Cedric was
dead and Tinker badly mangled. Now we can’t think how to resurrect them.’
As they leave, D’Arcy proposes to Luna a night of riot.
‘What say we tear the arse out of the night? Some recherché Greek taverna. Stick our
heads in a bucket of chilled Samos. Hurl plates. When did you last strut your stuff
with a hot novelist to-be?’
She’s impressed. ‘A night of bouzouki and tepid food
with Beau Nosh. Why resist! If I can bribe a niece to ride shotgun on my three. Where
can I reach you if corruption works?’
‘I’ve quit m’Fortnum’s bunker – they’re probably fumigating
as we speak. To return reality’s icy stare for a moment, with my client list I could
soon find myself not only officeless, but laying me off.’
‘For shame! A real adman would be out there hustling
for business, calling black white, wrong, right. Not arsing about while the roof falls
in. Be inspired! Think Billy Wilder’s line to Jack Lemon in The Apartment: Be a
mensch, Jack!’
‘I have my false pride! My bogus stoicism! After
Merlin’s, I’ll shimmy back to the Flute. Call you from the lavatory on m’new cell
phone.’
* * *
On impulse he
drops in at St Jude’s, Soho, pausing to scan the board in the porch advising mass
times, benedictions, confessions; and a hand-written note: ‘Beggars will be prosecuted’.
Inside the Italianate sanctuary he slips into a pew, battered briefcase beside him,
and gazes towards the main altar. ‘What the blazes am I doing here?’ he silently
asks.
‘Repenting a life ill spent, wretched boy!’ comes
the barked response from an image hovering mandala-like above the tabernacle. It’s
D’Arcy’s old headmaster, Father Slattery SJ, in black soutan. ‘Forever daydreaming
of indecencies, fidgeting at the rear in Chapel! Always first out after Maass!’
‘Thunder! Black Jack Slattery SJ! M’old headmaster.
Pride of the Jesuits. Scourge of my youth. Never guilty of a thoughtless act of
humility. Get thee behind me, Slatters!’
Father Slattery ignores the interruption: ‘You’re
making a hash, D’Arcy! After promise so unaccountably bestowed. The sacred tenets
of your religion are nothing...'
‘I’ll tell you the truth of it, Slatters: Religion,
the real McCoy, is whatever brings me to enlightenment. Five ripe cherries in a row
on the celestial fruit machine. That dazzling white light dancing behind the frontal
lobes, obliterating all dogma. Anything else is--Disneyland!’
A new voice intones close by in nasal, Scottish pseudo-plain
chant: ‘Major Tom to Grrahnd Contrrol ... A-a-a-rrmeyn. Grrahnd Control to Major
Tom ... A-a-a-rrymen ... Gi’ Major Tom the prrice o’ a drrink, Jim-mey ...’
D’Arcy starts up to see a verminous-bearded beggar,
McEwan’s can in hand, the other waving in a dual gesture of benediction, and twitching
impatience. He reaches into his pocket, thrust a 50p piece in Verminous’s hand, outraged,
‘Take this and piss off out of here before you’re struck dead!’ Then silently: ‘Thunder!
You drop in on the Old Redeemer to tune up your chakras, get your brain in alpha rhythm
for an afternoon’s survival work, and get dunned...'
A phone trills, a sound not immediately identified, as
he peers about at this further violation; only as the other few worshippers turn angrily,
grasping that it comes from his own briefcase.
Feverishly he undoes the straps, bringing the instrument
cautiously to his ear, listening in disbelief. ‘Who? What? No! I am not in the market
for double-glazing!’ And as the caller hangs in, looks about at the soaring stained glass.
‘I don’t give a toss if you are in my area! These windows are a triumph of nineteenth
century devotional inspiration.‘ As the other persists: ‘Rip ‘em out and fit double-glaz??
You triple-glazed philistine! But wait! Wait! On second thought, do give St Paul’s
Cathedral a ring. They feel the cold badly and could be ready to talk.'
He shuts off the phone, cramming it into his pocket.
‘Thunder! I’ve joined the barbarians.’ Raising his eyes to the gilded crucifix above
the altar, he offers a silent prayer: ‘Lord. If Thou art about, in some incomprehensible
form, forgive Thy servant! ... Thou didn’st want double-glazing, did’st Thou..?’
* * *
The partners’
room, Merlin’s, above Regent Street. Four desks, the three partners’ devoid of signs
of work; Harriet’s with drawing board, and Anglepoise lamp, lit; two old sofas, the
de rigueur agency drinks fridge. On the walls, framed ad campaigns. A brick-red
Cedric Slaughter, serpentine Toby Fairfax, tousled Tinker Bell, and Tinker’s assistant
Harriet St Thomas are present, with D’Arcy, from his bruising at St Jude’s.
Toby, in expensive, defeated pin-stripe, patent-leather
hair, cigarette holder elegantly clamped in stained teeth, busies himself at the fridge.
They await Fairweather.
Perched on the fridge, a garish parrot watchfully eyes
Toby. Suddenly the bird addresses him in the husky, creamy voice of Joanna Cholmondeley.
‘Just a tad, sweetie! Up for read-throughs tomorrow – Squaaawk!’
Delighted, Toby turns to D’Arcy. ‘What d’you say to that,
Jack! Joanna wouldn’t play, but loaned us her Amazonian macaw, “Sting”. After some
rain-forest savage. Values its life as her own. Her voice to a T. Fairweather will
adore it!’
To general laughter, Sting hops and flutters, excited
by the attention, and opening its wings self-importantly, favours them with a spot
of Keats:
‘Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific--and all his men...'
Sting is interrupted by Cedric, raising his glass to the
bird, continuing the quotation with a drunk’s careful delivery:
‘...Look’d at each other with wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien.’
Sting eyes Cedric beadily, addressing him admiringly:
‘You’re a pretty woman!’
A darkening Regent Street sends up a trumpet flourish
from a passing football rabble. Tinker crosses to the window, ‘That’ll be Gilhooley,
landlord, The Rat and Plague, calling me down for the Happy Hour. Sod will have to
start without...'
Cedric cuts solemnly across him: ‘Gentlemen! Harriet!
I fear Miss Cholmondeley’s ... feathered Keats ... has won us this dubious little piece
of business.’ He sighs, waves his glass in resignation. ‘Encore, Toby. Easy on the
ice. It don’t agree.’
A rap, and Blind ‘arry Pew is at the door, repellent
in ugly shades, green badge of his profession pinned to distended lovat sweater.
Gripping Pew’s arm, de Vere Fairweather, a raffish cove, clinging to his seventies
like a distressed rock-climber, in cape, black fedora, and yellow kid gloves, which
he hands to Blind ‘arry, unaware they’ve just arrived together.
‘arry mangles an egregious introduction: ‘Gennlemen!
This ‘ere’s Cap’n de Vere Fairwevvah! Gaffer, Nex’ Wewld Wozzname!’
Cedric rises unsteadily. ‘Captain! Slaughter. Welcome
to Merlin’s. Introduce our team. Tinker Toby, er--Bell, yes--St Harriet--Jack
D’Ar--I think we can promise you--your fine paper--But first--' Turning to Toby, ‘For
heaven’s sake, Toby, do pour the Captain a Merlin’s measure...'
Fairweather interrupts, glancing about. ‘That Voice!
Caught it outside the door--We’ve much in common, y’know. The sub-continent. Indyaa.
Indyaa was before your time. I was in the, er- Cavalry, was it? She--her mother--was
a Ghurkha. Delighted she--' Then turning unsteadily--‘Where’ve you got her, Slaughter?’
Fairfax-The-Smooth senses danger, moves in in languid
Etonian manner. ‘A stiffener, m’deah Captain! After your ghastly journey. From
darkest Holborn, what? Fully two miles, I’m told!’
The Cap’n peers about, puzzled, ignoring Toby. ‘Where
is the dear lady? Certain I heard that sweet--'
Toby wings it: ‘Slight problem, d’you see. Daahling Joanna.
Devastated to miss. But ... New York! New York! Rushed to Heathrow. Strapped down in
Concorde as we speak. Ever thoughtful, sends her close companion in her stead, Sting.’
And in a heartfelt aside, hisses at the bird, ‘Speak, ducky!’
Sting: ‘Hello, daahlings! Got a fag pour moi?’
Fairweather turns, enchanted, as the excited creature
hops suddenly onto Harriet’s desk lamp, bites the loop of flex, fries itself, plunging
the room into darkness and chaos.
A confused medley of voices. Cedric’s plaintive ‘What
the devil’s in my drink! I’m blinded!’
Fairweather, in fuddled apprehension, ‘Is she ... dead?’
Toby, apprehensive, ‘Slip orf abroad –'
Tinker, darkly, ‘Alert Gilhooley, I’m coming –'
Harriet, shocked, ‘Crispy parrot to go!’
D’Arcy, in Old Testament voice, ‘Thunder! Let there be Light
Entertainment, And there Was ...’
* * *
D’Arcy sits over coffee
at the bar, the Magic Flute. It’s early evening, the room virtually deserted. Forgetting
his words about mobile-phone bores, he speaks to Luna on his.
‘... Keats is kicking himself he wasn’t there!’ He listens,
‘Yes! The Cap’n gave Merlin’s his business on the spot ... Marketing strategy? Maybe
position Fairweather as the new Nostradamus. Write in riddles predicting stock market moves,
disasters. Compete with the FT ... Course it’s balls! It’s Advertising. More important,
are you on for a spot of riot tonight? ... What? You’re going for a curry with a British
Gas fitter?’
Suddenly, he’s aware of a glamorous fortyish woman, earnest
behind large tortoise-shell glasses, along the bar, clutching a London guide book. Dr
Katherine Hart is excited, as she introduces herself.
‘Excuse my interrupting, but aren’t you Tom Stoppard? One
of my favourite English writers? Or is it--oh my Gaard--you’re the Poet Laureate, Ted
Hughes! Oh forgive me! I’m Dr Katherine Hart.’
D’Arcy is amused, feigns reaching into his pocket. ‘Doctor!
Let me give you m’current symptom list. I have it updated every week.’
‘Oh! Not medical. My doctorate’s in philosophy. My subject,
the meaning of history.’ Waspishly, ‘We see what historians apparently can’t.’ I’m researching
at your British Library. Influences of the Black Death on mediaeval concepts of the Hereafter.’
‘Mediaeval heaven? Surely then as now: being free to leave
whatever hell you find yourself in, given right effort. Stoppard, you took me for? That
Czech pistol’s pushing sixty. Nor, I admit, am I Ted Hughes. Jack D’Arcy. Not yet drawn
to national laureate-hood.’
‘Forgive me! I’m a stranger. From Berkeley, University of
California. But my intuition is correct? You are in the arts?’
‘We’re on nodding-off terms. I wave weakly as they pass, full
of their little tintinnabulations. Yes. A little scribbling. Mystical limericks. Begging
letters. Occasional graffiti. First shot at a novel, even now in philistine publishers’
hands.'
He notes her puzzlement. ‘Publishing in this country, as yours,
is now run by marketing louts and accountants. True, some do sit a little test before taking
over. Three hundred words on “What I did in my holidays”. That kind of challenge. More
important, may I buy you a drink?’ He signals the waiter, indicating two flutes of the house
fizz, and notes the guide she’s clutching. ‘Pretty decent range of troughs in London today.’
The waiter sets down their drinks with his breezy flourish, ‘There
you go, sports! Daniel le Brun, the Brute. NZ’s finest! The trusty leg—‘
‘Good man, Bruce!’ D’Arcy interrupts the leg-opener mantra, as
Dr Hart looks puzzled at his brusqueness.
Raising her glass: ‘Cheers! And please call me Katherine.’
‘Me, D’Arcy, Jack. Not Tom, Ted, nor Beryl Bainbridge.’
She smiles at her earlier solecism. ‘I’m far from home, and
about to be incredibly forward. Are you by chance free this evening? I’d welcome a dinner
companion, someone who knows London as you surely do.'
‘Could be a problem. Americans. Seem to need to get their feet
under the table by six-thirty. Often collide with home-town patrons being helped out after lunch.
Some restaurants run nursery sittings for your countrymen.’
‘Oh, I’m a late bird. May I take it you accept? I’m--I’m on
expenses. UCA are quite generous with assistant professors. I’d be delighted if you’d be
my--oh my Gaard! Have I threatened your concept of manhood?’
He shakes his head in vigorous denial. ‘Virile Irish blood,
we D’Arcys. Health Service turn cartwheels when we donate a drop ... D’you fancy Italian?
Orso’s in Covent Garden can be fun. Or Santa Lucia, Knightsbridge. One of Diana’s haunts.
Peasant owners. Minor royalty now. Much like the other lot. Can’t fault the pasta,
though.’
‘I’m in your hands. ... Jack, do you know ... Her?’
‘Know Diana? That I do not! I’m one of three people in
London not claiming friendship with that poor woman. I believe there are several more
of us in the provinces ... Now, where are you holed up for your London sabbatical?’
‘Bloomsbury. I’ve taken an apartment near the Library.
From an ad in your London Review of Books. Its back pages are a readers’ bazaar.
Apartments, out-of-print books, -'
‘Lonely-heart transplants. Old Poetry Chairs. “Chair of
Poetry for sale, Sketchley’s University. Present incumbent must sell”. That class
of trade.’
‘I never heard of – where, Sketchley’s University?’
‘Thatcher government brainwave. Upgraded every polytechnic
to university status. Then every third branch of Sketchley’s, one of our leading dry-cleaner
chains. Our new little drum Major carries on Thatcher’s great work.’
‘I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me how it works?’
‘Well, take your slacks. Your strides. Crying out for
the stain remover. Most cleaners see them as a challenge: how far can they go, chewing
‘em to shreds, claiming it must have been your own moth? Not your university-cum-cleaners,
Sketchley! When you collect, they chuck in a BA. Toss ‘em your soup-stiffened DJ,
and voilà! you’re a full-frontal MA, Master of any Arts you fancy--ready to knife
fellow academics in the back as tradition and ethics demand.’
‘Jack, I’m bemused, and getting hungry.’
D’Arcy fumbles for his mobile. ‘Let me book a table at
Orso’s, Covent Garden,’ as he’s pre-empted by the trill of an incoming call. He listens.
‘Dammit man, I have no windows!’ Then in afterthought, lowers his voice confidentially.
‘But from what I hear, it’s worth giving Westminster Abbey a tinkle. Demand the Dean!
He’s just back from Benidorm. Don’t take No for an answer. Imagine the difference
your faux Swiss-chalet design with white pvc surround would make there!’
He rings for a table. ‘Orso’s? Table for two? Eight-thirty?
Away from Actors’ Corner. Good! Name’s D’Arcy.’
‘Why away from the actors? Actors can be so sweet ...’
‘Actors can be virtually anything – given a script, and
iron-fisted director. Orso’s is plumb in the middle of theatre’s dickey heartland: a hotbed
of thespians unleashed! Get too close--unaccompanied actors, sans script or direction, no
idea of who they’re playing or how to play it--things can turn waspish ... Besides, it’s
near your flat. I’ll take you home, Katherine.’
She raises her glass to him. ‘I’m looking forward--could
we have another glass of this lovely wine, Jack?’
‘Encore, Bruce!’
Not fooled by his nonsense, her irony is tinged with
sadness, as she angles a sly glance. ‘So, Jack, what’s your survival strategy whilst
your accountant-publishers learn to read your novel? What did you say it’s titled:
“No Through Road”?’
He gazes through his glass, extemporising. ‘Fifteen
temporary years in Advertising. The froth, the scum on society’s daydream. “Eat this
Cox’s apple, and live forever!” I present irresistible futures to disturbed minds.
People without ideas fall on yours like wolves. You could say, by day, I’m a used-Karma
salesman. A jobbing Prophet. And in self defence, a Schadenfreudian. Remember,
it’s temporary.’
‘We could say, you’re only a temporary snake-oil salesman.
A snake-oil salesman with a cure for others’ loneliness ...’
* * *
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