I was shaking my head. ‘You have to let the girl go, Craig. Okay, she’s a great pal and all that, but-’
‘I’ve let her go!’ Craig protested. ‘She’s at Oxford. She’s loving it; she hardly comes home any more, she’s got more friends than she knows what to do with. For all I know she’s already had more sexual partners than I’ve had in my fucking life. Ken, believe me, I’m pleased for her about all this and I don’t want to smother her in affection or anything. But she’ll always be a best friend.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. But you have to be a bit funny about the sex thing.’
‘Ken, I had umpteen years to prepare myself for the fact my child would have an independent sexual existence. Credit me with some forethought. And some… understanding. We’ve talked about this stuff, Ken; the three of us. Nikki takes precautions. We didn’t raise her to be an idiot.’ He prodded me on the knee with one finger. ‘Anyway. That’s all beside the point. The point being that I’m being truthful in telling you I’m not going to tell you something, I’m not-’
‘All right already!’ I said. ‘Distinction taken.’ And conversational direction subtly changed, you lying hypocritical dissembling louse, I told myself.
‘Anyway, it’s not just stuff like that,’ I said, wanting to move swiftly on and away from all this lying and relationship stuff. ‘Or stuff like using a parsec as a unit of time like they did in the original Star Wars and didn’t even take it out in the new edition. It’s the whole way movies, Hollywood movies, are put together. I’ve been thinking about this; imagine if paintings were produced the way Hollywood films are.’
Craig sighed, and I suspected he suspected there was a proto-rant coming up, which was true.
‘The Mona Lisa as we know it would be just the first draft; in the second she’d be blond, in the third smiling happily and showing some cleavage, by the fourth there’d be her and her equally attractive and feisty sisters and the landscape behind would be a jolly seaside scene; the fifth draft would get rid of her and keep the sisters, lose the seaside for a misty mountain and make the girls both red-headed and a bit more, like, ethnic looking, and by the sixth or seventh the mountain would be replaced by a dark and mysterious jungle and there’d just be the one girl again, but she’d be a dusky maiden wearing a low-cut wrap and with a smouldering, alluring look and an exotic bloom in her long black tresses… Bingo – La Giaconda would look like something you were embarrassed your elderly uncle bought in Woolworths in the early seventies and never had the wit to get rid of in subsequent redecorations.’
‘So what?’ Craig asked. ‘If films were all made the way paintings are every one would look like an Andy Warhol movie.’ He gave a sort of stage shiver. ‘Which, whatever it does for you, surely scares the hell out of me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Anyway. I’d better get ready.’ He stood up.
‘You’ve nearly an hour,’ I said.
‘Yeah, but I need a shower and everything.’ He headed for the door. ‘Help yourself to stuff, okay?’
‘Thanks,’ I said. I tipped my head to one side in a way that I knew looked cute – and hard to resist – when Ceel did it. ‘Who is she, Craig? Anyone I know?’
‘Not telling you.’
‘It is somebody I know. It’s not Emma, is it?’
He just laughed.
‘So it’s somebody new?’
‘Ken, this isn’t any of your business.’
‘Yeah, I know. But it is somebody new, isn’t it?’
‘Could be,’ he said, the (in retrospect) bastard, with a small smile.
‘Is she our age? Younger? Older? Children? How’d you meet?’
He shook his head as he opened the door. ‘You’re like a fucking journalist yourself, so you are.’
‘Hope she’s worth it!’ I called as he left the living-room and headed upstairs.
I will freely confess that what I helped myself to while he was out – after a lonesome J and a bottle of Rioja – were the 1471 and last-number redial functions on his phone, but all I got was fucking Pronto Pizza.
Come on, now; I could have started rifling through his itemised telephone bill or something. The 1471/last-number thing was small beer… even if I did feel just the tiniest bit of guilt at abusing my host and Official Best Friend (Scottish)’s trust.
Like he was going to care; he still hadn’t reappeared next morning when I left for work.
‘Ms Boysert is working from home today.’
‘Fine. Can you give me her home number?’
‘I’m sorry. She doesn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘Not really work, then, is it?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Look, can I have her home number or not?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Nott. May I take a message?’
‘Yes; tell her she’s a bitch.’
‘I see. Do you really want me to pass that on, Mr Nott? I shall if you insist, but…’
‘Ah, forget it.’
Noon on the Friday of the week Celia was due back in town came and went, but there was no package and no phone call. I’d never felt so crushed at knowing I would have to wait longer to see her. I started to wish I’d done something a bit sad during one of our earlier afternoons, and asked her for a pair of her knickers or something. At least then I’d have something. I wondered if there was some Internet newsgroup or some website that would steer me to the old magazines and catalogues she’d appeared in as a model. There probably were, of course (I had long since hit the realisation, which comes to most users sometime, that there was almost nothing you could imagine that was not on the Internet, somewhere), but almost as soon as I thought of this I decided that, on second and third thoughts, I really didn’t want to know.
Craig spent the weekend away with his mystery woman. Ed was away, Emma was engaged all the time, Amy I’d given up on and Phil was busy decorating. I watched a lot of DVDs.
‘Ken! What’s your side of the story? Are you really claiming that none of it happened?’
‘Ken! Ken! Did you send those death threats to yourself?’
‘Would you say Lawson Brierley got what he deserved, Ken?’
‘Ken, is it true them def frets were from someone wif a Muslim accent?’
‘Ken, is this all about publicity? Is it true the show’s being cancelled?’
‘Ken! Straight to the point, straight to the point; we’ll pay you for an exclusive. And you get approval. Pictures too!’
‘Ken, is it true you punched and kicked two security guards and a girl production assistant as well?’
‘Ken; they might get you for contempt of court; any thoughts?’
‘Kenneth, would you say your actions last Monday and your position since constitute more of a context-challenging, metagenristic art work rather than a simple act of political media violence?’
‘Oy! Ken; didya biff the cant or not?’
‘Hi, chaps! Chapesses! Fine morning, isn’t it?’
(That was me.)
‘Ken. Is your stance on this anything to do with your renowned antipathy towards Israel? Could you be said to be over-compensating?’
‘Ken! Come on, Ken. You’re one of us. Play ball for fuck’s sake. Answer a fucking question, can’t you? You know what’ll happen if you don’t. Did you thump this bloke or not?’
‘Ken; is it true you have a conviction for assault already? In Scotland.’
‘Mr Nott, you’ve frequently criticised politicians for refusing to answer straight questions from the media; don’t you feel in any way or sense hypocritical here?’
‘Love to answer all your questions, really would; just flippin well dying to, as a matter of fact, and you can quote me on that. But I can’t. Ain’t life a pain sometimes?’
(That would be me again.)
‘Ken! Ken! Ere, Ken! Over ere! Come on, mate; give us a smoile.’
‘Na, mate,’ I said. ‘That’s not my best side.’