A while later he was really fucking her. Fucking her in the way that men do when they have lost all sensation, when their cocks have been battering away for so long that they've abandoned conscience and created a battle zone of frightening ignorance from which no intelligence is available. When at last they came it was with a thin-lipped finality, as if they were a put-upon company secretary winding up a pointless board meeting.
Yet afterwards, when they lay, she face down, he with his big leg pinioning her buttocks, they both thought: This could be love.
Steve Souvanis stood awkwardly by the reception desk at Brown's Hotel. He knew he looked conspicuous and down-at-heel in his cheap suiting. He was sweating in the heat and his belly was distended, uncomfortable. Outside, through the swing doors, he could see the winking hazard lights of his car. It was impossible to find a meter in this part of town — if a traffic warden or a rogue clamping crew came along he was screwed. He tried not to look too flustered, too ill at ease. He was feigning interest in some flyers for Barries’, the posh King's Road menswear boutique, that had been deposited on the reception desk.
‘Yes?’ The concierge took him for a cabby.
‘I've come to see one of your guests.’
‘Yes?’
‘A Mr Northcliffe.’
‘And you are?’
‘Mr Souvanis.’
‘Ah yes, Mr Souvanis, I have a message from Mr Northcliffe for you. He's at Davidoff's. Do you know where that is?’
‘Yes, I know.’ Souvanis broke away and headed to the door. The concierge called after him, ‘Left along Piccadilly and then right by the Ritz.’ It was insulting, a calculated snub, implying that Steve was pretending or something.
He left the car, a large estate, in the underground car-park on the Piccadilly side of Berkeley Square. He was so preoccupied that he didn't even notice the red-and-yellow tape stretched everywhere and the signs reading ‘Crime Scene Keep Out’. Back up at ground level he ploughed along the pavements, perspiring and fulminating. It was so sunny, the glare bit right into him. In the heat and haze the architecture of London looked Byzantine, immemorial. His eyes were drawn upwards to the pinnacled and domed tops of the buildings. He turned right past the Ritz and saw Davidoff the cigar merchant's across the road.
The shop was lilac-carpeted and humming cool. The smell of tobacco was as muted as expensive perfume. Steve Souvanis knew he was conspicuous once again, poor and oikish. The sales assistant was a duplicate of the concierge at Brown's.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have a Mr Northcliffe with you?’
‘Yes, he's in the humidor room. Can I tell him who's calling?’ Souvanis told him and he glided off.
‘Who's calling, who's calling’ — Souvanis was incredulous. ‘Christ! How ridiculous. It's not as if he's staying here, he hasn't rented out the humidor room — ’
‘Sir?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘This way.’ The sales assistant directed Souvanis to the corner of the room, where there was a large glassed-in cabinet. ‘You'll pardon the formality, sir,’ he said. ‘Mr Northcliffe has rented the humidor room for the day and he's very particular about his privacy.’
The glass door swung open and with it came a pungent tropical blast of strongly vegetative tobacco smell. The Fat Controller was sitting on a large reproduction-Empire armchair. He was surrounded by cigars and cheroots, shelf upon shelf of open boxes. The cigars were of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the automatic clips of small-calibre Brazilian cheroots, through the bandoliers of Honduran panatellas, to the big ones, the bazookas and groud-to-air missiles of Cuban full coronas, each one housed in its aluminium launcher.
In his hand The Fat Controller held an Upmann number one the size of a baby's arm. He was dressed formally, like an old-fashioned British civil servant, in black-and-white needle-striped trousers and a black frock coat. The Windsor collar made his immense head appear, more than ever, like a football placed for kick-off. On the floor next to his chair there was a top hat.
‘Is that you, Souvanis? Come in, man! Don't hover like that, you're letting all the goodness escape.’ The door swung shut and the two of them were left alone together, in close damp proximity. The Fat Controller immediately grabbed a fold of Souvanis's belly, quickly and adroitly, the way that any other man might snatch up a poker card. ‘Getting a little tubby, aren't we,’ he snarled. ‘Have you heard me talking to you?’
‘Ow! Yes.’
‘Good. Talking to you through your fat — that's the ticket, eh? Splendid, splendid. And have you tendered for the D.F. & L. job?’
‘Yes, I have. Please let go.’
The Fat Controller released him and fell to examining his cigar. ‘Big, isn't it?’ he said at length.
‘Yes, it is rather — look, what's this all about, sir?’
‘Don't call me “sir”, Souvanis, you're not at school now. We're colleagues. You can call me “Master” if it makes you feel more comfortable.’
He put the Upmann back in its box and pulled a small cardboard packet of Toscanelli cheroots from the watch pocket of his waistcoat. He stuck one in his mouth. It was dwarfed by the smooth expanse of his face, rendered as tiny as a toothpick.
‘Match me, Sidney,’ said The Fat Controller.
‘But, Master,’ said Souvanis without quite knowing why he dared, ‘I thought connoisseurs always lit their own cigars.’
‘Harumph! Well, I suppose strictly speaking that is true. However, it's a mistake to assume that sensual experiences are merely enjoyable; they can have wider importance, a political significance even. In this case you are not simply lighting my cigar, you are paying homage. Now do it, match me!’ He did so. The Fat Controller inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out hard, strafing the room. He watched it billow about the discreet strip lights set into the top of the cigar shelves. Watched it critically, rapt, as if in the throes of some profound aesthetic rumination.
‘I'll tell you what this is all about, Souvanis,’ he resumed. ‘It's about a man's soul, a man's moral faculties, a man's inbuilt reason, his intuition, his sensibility and his self-esteem. In short, it's about his fate.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘No, you don't see, Souvanis, and you never will. For twenty years now I have cultivated this man, pruned and shaped him, submitted him to a kind of metaphysical topiary. Now it is time to take stock, to, as it were, tie up some loose ends.’
‘So how has D.F. & L. got anything to do with this? What's with this “Yum-Yum” and these standing booths —?’
‘Booby! You know I cannot abide a booby. It's not for you to speculate on my methods, my little playlets, my masques and contrivances and conceits. You are nothing but a familiar, a fat little cat.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘I have need of you, Souvanis, to be my bag man, my button. So, you had better get that brother-in-law of yours in to run Dyeline. I'll be needing you for the next few days. And now’ — he stood up — ‘I've booked a table at the Gay Hussar — let's eat.’
Souvanis didn't really want to eat at the Gay Hussar. The very thought of all that paprika made him feel dyspeptic. He tried framing a statement of the form: ‘Actually, I'm not really that hungry, why don't I have a cheese sandwich somewhere and join you later?’ but looking at The Fat Controller gnashing his black fang of a cigar, Souvanis thought better of it.
At the end of that week, when Ian went for his next DST session, Dr Gyggle found him much changed. The marketing man had a sloppy grin on his face and he was lying sensuously on the examination couch in the little cubicle as Gyggle swept in, hypo in hand.
‘Well, lan, you look very comfortable.’