‘But they’s ice cream!’
‘Ice cream, hot dogs: same difference.’
The hot-dog man stood fixed, with his dishcloth, his spatula.
‘Look, you don’t want your face on that grill, do you, you don’t want this trolley down on you and them onions in your hair. And a squirt of ketchup up one ear. And a squirt of mustard up the fucking other.’
‘I got youths, man.’
‘Yeah well we’ve all got them. Sorry and that. But I’ll be back in a bit and if you’re still here it’ll happen.’
Mal strode on, past St Mark’s Church, to St George’s Avenue.
He rang the bell and waited. Just as the door opened he heard a fierce shout from the street: ‘Oi!’ He looked round, looked back again; then he shifted his feet, raised his outturned hands to shoulder height, and bowed his head. A passerby might have thought that Mal was hoping to settle an argument — hoping to find common ground — between husband and wife. Either that, or he was just trying to keep them apart.
‘The punishment never fit the crime. It hasn’t sat well with me, that. The punishment never fit the crime. Ah, lovely,’ said Mal, accepting the mug of tea he’d apologetically asked for. The two of them were in the kitchen at the flat, round the table, Mal with his coat still on and a cigarette in his fist. ‘He’s told me: “Smash his fucking jawbone for him. See how he likes that. I want him eating through a straw for a spell. See then if he ‘ll say my fucking name.” The way he was going on, I thought you’d shopped him — I thought you’d tried a citizen’s arrest. And all you did was put his name in a — in a story. Are you all right, mate?’
‘Yeah, mate …’
Xan stood over the table. He could feel the violence hormones still squirrelling around in him: voluptuous killers of pain and reality. He had seen the stranger approach his house; and then he had recognised him. Xan came up the steps and into the street, ready for absolutely anything … Mal had a way, as he talked, of compressing his lips and raising his eyebrows and tipping his head, now to the left, now to the right: on the one hand this, on the one hand that. Xan now watched him with clogged calm, almost lovelike, and a sense of getting nearer to something. He said,
‘I didn’t even do that.’
‘No. Come on. There it is in black and white.’ He held up the magazine he’d brought with him. ‘In Punch. And in the book and all. Joseph Andrews.’
Xan Meo was not a literary writer, but he had, in ‘Lucozade’, allowed himself an unwonted flourish. The story told of a middle-aged bodyguard who, at some earlier period in his career, had plied his trade on the American entertainment circuit. ‘He had spent a year in Las Vegas, working for Joseph Andrews,’ it said. And ‘Lucozade’ later mentioned that Joseph Andrews had retired to Los Angeles. And that was all.
‘I didn’t really mean Joseph Andrews,’ said Xan, trying to explain. ‘I meant Tom Jones.’
‘Tom Jones?’
‘The singer. You know: “It’s Not Unusual”. I meant Tom Jones.’
‘… Well that’s fucking unusual. Why didn’t you say Tom Jones?’
‘It’s just uh, it’s just a kind of joke. Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews: they’re both novels by Henry Fielding … You can’t say Tom Jones.’
‘… Well you can’t fucking say Joseph Andrews neither! Either. Jesus.’ Mal, evidently appalled by such frivolity, took a moment to collect himself. Then he frowned and murmured, ‘“It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone.” ‘Mal frowned deeper, adding: ‘“Each day I touch the green, green grass of home” … I see the film Tom Jones when I was fourteen. It was me first X. I thought: here we go. Non-stop orgies and swearing. But it was just a load of pubs, and birds with their — with it all pushed up up here.’
Xan waited. It had been made clear at the outset that there were things Mal could tell him and things Mal couldn’t.
‘He’s not called that now, Joseph Andrews. And he’s sensitive about it. As well he might be.’ Mal was now looking round about himself. ‘You’ve paid, haven’t you mate? You’ve paid. And the punishment never fit the crime. Tell you what. How about this: doing Snort.’
‘Doing snort?’
‘Doing Snort. The bloke who gave you two on the back of the head. I’ll do him.’
Wait, thought Xan: I may need the practice. You weren’t supposed to ask questions, but he said, ‘I’ve got a feeling he isn’t finished with me. Andrews.’
‘A feeling? Well I hope you’re wrong. But you have given him the right flaming hump, my friend. A very unpleasant man, Joseph Andrews. My father worked for him for thirty years till he got himself crippled by the oppo — the Plutarco Brothers. Me dad’s a pitiful sight when he goes to Jo. Dragging one leg, his arm still twisted over, and his neck all bent to one side. And Jo’s gone, “All right, the Plutarcos took a bit of a liberty with you. We’ll have a whip.” Give him sixty quid — and a kick in the arse as he limped from the room.’ Again, the sway of the head, the arch of the eyebrow. ‘All I can think of is it might go back to Mick Meo. I heard they was never on the best of terms. How’s your health?’
‘I’m all right physically. But not what I was.’
‘And uh, at home?’
‘I’m on probation.’
‘Well you … you stick with it. Because that’s the most important thing. You don’t need me to tell you. At our age, boy, you’re a joke without your wife. Your kids and that.’
Xan sat up and said suddenly, ‘I’ve got to meet this girl in this hotel.’
‘Ah. Right.’
Mal was a while getting to his feet. Face to face, with a strictly pragmatic air, he said, ‘Then you know the possible consequences.’
6. Size zero—1
Come and see me, she’d told him (inter alia), in my fat hotel. And Xan was now feeling the pull of a very heavy planet. The crystal moons, the mirrorballs, the space-squandering distances, the golden dome above the circling staircase — a brochure vivante for Atlantes. And down below, the marble streets of hairdressers, masseurs, of manicure and pedicure, of perfume and jewellery and haute couture. None of this was aimed at the mind, now was it? You felt it — the high pressure to live deliciously. And that was before you got to the food and the wine, the soft towels, the fresh white sheets.
He asked at the desk and was directed to a rank of telephones — telephones that might have been used by the courtiers of Louis Quatorze. ‘Karla?’ he said. ‘It’s me.’
‘I have a suite with a wet bar,’ she said. ‘Ride up.’
‘No — as we said. Ride down, if you would.’
‘What, wearing this? … only kidding. I’ll be one minute.’
She was longer than that. As he took up position by the fountain, some distance from the bronze traps of the elevators, and as he survived each new half-carload of assorted maquillage, Xan had time to imagine her, upstairs, slipping or stepping out of one thing and slipping or stepping into another. Of course, he had been perfunctorily ‘hoping’ that she would be unattractive. But by now he couldn’t be certain whether the way she looked, let alone the way she dressed, would make any difference. Tilda Quant was not attractive (she must have stood back in simple dismay when all the gifts were being handed out); and Xan found her very attractive indeed. And earlier still that morning he had found himself gazing entranced at the underslept Aztec obstinacy of Imaculada …