Humor (7 page)

On a darkening winter evening I sought cover from the rain in a pub on either Fleet Street or High Holborn. I can’t remember which. It had been raining incessantly, and I was wet, which was my own fault. I had left my umbrella at home and didn’t want to buy a new one. I had spent the day walking around the back streets, unclear about what it was that I was looking for. I stood transfixed outside St John’s Gate watching an aeroplane scratching the underside of the shredded clouds. Later, I came upon a dead market; a few hooded figures picking at the skeletons of the stalls, torn polythene struggling to escape with the wind as the rain pasted it to the tarmac. And I stood for some time at Ludgate Circus, staring at the yellow lines drawn as diamonds on the road, hypnotised by the endless passage of black tyres hissing through the rain across them. By this time the scant grey light that had accompanied me on my perambulations was fading, and I was extremely wet. I don’t recall which direction I took but, as I say, I ducked into a pub somewhere nearby.

The place was quiet; a warren of rooms, it seemed to me. I peeled my raincoat from myself and eased off my soaked hat. I found a small table next to a gas fire that sputtered warmly below the red ‘appliance condemned’ sticker, and took out my notebook. I was partway through
what was becoming an interminable project that was frustrating me further with every turn that it took. I didn’t know if any of these turns were the right ones, or if I was wasting my time.

My soaked clothes began to gently steam by the gas fire in the pub, though I felt cold, chilled deep to my core. I held a biro over my open notebook as I tried to make something useful of the small events of the day. The old walls of the building muffled the traffic’s roar, and my thoughts seemed likewise faded. The yellow light from the tasselled shade reflected against the frosted glass in the window. It was a black night outside. The fire continued to wheeze and choke. I looked down at my notebook.
‘There will be no Quiet. There will be no Peace.’
My pen was poised above the final full stop. I frowned, unable to remember writing the words. For the first time I gazed around the room. When I had come in I’d thought the small room was empty, but now I saw that a man was sitting at another table, his back to me. He was wearing a cheap-looking chalk-striped suit, with scuffed black patent-leather shoes. Leaning against the wall next to him was an umbrella, water pooling darkly where the ferrule rested on the floor. His greying hair was slicked back from a balding head, and the lines on his face continued round the back of his neck. He was wearing glasses. I realised I was staring, and looked away. Sighing, I closed my notebook and tucked my biro back in my pocket. I wondered if it was still pouring outside. I gazed around the room, seeing wood panelling and a few Victorian fox-hunting prints. The man at the other table had opened a briefcase that he had in front of
him on the table. From it he pulled a sheaf of A4 papers, which had what looked like monochrome photocopied passport photographs on them, about nine to a page. There were about four or five lines of what I guessed were details about each person printed under each photo. He shuffled quickly through the papers, as if to count them, then started to look methodically at each. His pen paused a few times over certain of the pictures on each page, but he evidently decided not to mark any of them. The light glinted in the portion of his glasses that I could see, and suddenly I had the uncomfortable feeling that he could see my reflection in them, and that he had noticed that I was looking at him. But he made no sign that he had. He continued to slowly leaf through his papers. Nevertheless, I looked away.

But I couldn’t stare at the ceiling for ever, and I had no interest in the fox-hunting prints. I found my eye was drawn back to that shabby man in that small, yellow-lit room. He had begun to spend longer on each page, bending towards the photocopied images, carefully reading whatever it was that was written beneath them. I had finished my drink, and gathered my wet things, about to leave, when I glanced once more at the man. He was closely studying an image on one of his papers. I now felt coldly certain that he had been aware of my scrutiny, and at that moment he turned his lined face towards me, studied me for a moment, nodded slowly and slightly, and mirthlessly smiled. He turned back before circling a photograph with his red pen.

I rushed past his icy presence, bolted from the room, along the passage and out into the cold rain of either High
Holborn or Fleet Street. But not before I had recognised the face in the photograph, and read, unmistakably, my own name beneath it.

So one day I began collecting: I urinated into a large jar. I masturbated and scooped my ejaculate into a second jar. I took a knife from the drawer and made an incision on the end of my finger and squeezed the blood in thin trickles and fat drops into a third jar. I sat down with a fourth jar on my lap, and thought of sad things. Then I wept into the jar. I repeated these actions every evening, each fluid into its appointed jar. After a month, I emptied the contents of the jars into small saucepans, which I heated carefully until I had evaporated the liquid. When the pans had cooled, I scraped the residue, with the aid of a funnel, into separate salt cellars. I then tasted each of my personal salts, judging which would go best with what food.

My experiment was a resounding success. The salts seemed to impart a subtle intensity to spicy dishes, and a freshness and zest to even the most homely soup. And so my restaurant began to attract many more patrons as increasing numbers of adulatory reviews appeared in some of the Sunday supplements.

Obviously, I had to continue to produce the salts that had made my culinary creations such overnight successes. My establishment was now being patronised by celebrities as well as politicians and the merely rich.

My difficulty lay chiefly with eliciting sadness on demand.
On some nights I would sit in my chair, the fourth jar on my lap, and start laughing with joy at the success of my restaurant. I would have to force myself to envisage a starving child or departing lover. I knew that there was boundless, ceaseless suffering on this earth, but I found it more and more difficult to identify with it myself, while the prestige of my restaurant grew higher, and with it my bank balance.

I found that the most efficacious manner of forcing tears from my eyes was to think of love; loves lost, love’s tragedies and love’s hopelessness. And so it was that I began to have trouble with the second jar. Latterly, my attempts at masturbation were rather more difficult, as my erotic thoughts staggered and tumbled into the despair I needed for the fourth jar. Not infrequently, I found it impossible to distinguish between sorrow and love.

After five months, I caught myself ejaculating into my lap, upon which rested the jar meant for tears. I began to find sorrow arousing, and could not cry without getting an erection. Conversely, I could not find a woman attractive without starting to weep.

I worried about my salts, for my supplies were running low. Moreover, the quality of the salt from the first jar was beginning to decline, as I attempted to find solace in alcoholic abandon. I would drink deeply; and laugh, and cry. But my urine suffered. It became thin and pale, copious but worthless. The salt I extracted was tasteless.

The reputation of my restaurant would keep its fortunes buoyant for a while, but I knew that sooner rather than later the decline in the quality of the seasonings would be noted. I sank lower into despair. I could not run
the terrible risk of sharing my secret with anyone else. I had only one reliable source of salt – that which filled the third jar. The third jar never ran out. The menu had to reflect this, and there was a preponderance of rich, red, meaty dishes, lavishly enhanced with the salt of my blood, trickled – or sometimes drunkenly spurted, gushed – from my fingers, thumbs, wrists or arms every evening. But I was weakening.

My drinking was becoming uncontrollable, I would involuntarily orgasm during the news, and burst into tears at the most inopportune moments. The constant bloodletting was making me anaemic.

I resolved to return to the formula that had won my eaterie so many plaudits. Determinedly, I researched the most emotionally draining novels, the most haunting poems. I ejaculated again and again into the second jar. I drank pure fruit juice and mineral water and produced once again the golden, viscous urine that filled the first jar. I wept uncontrollably, for three-quarters of an hour, with a pornographic magazine propped in front of me. And I took the sharpest knife and drew one widening red line across my wrist.

The banquet was a success.

I’ve got this job now, and there’s a great deal of travelling involved. I’m based in London, but most of the work is out in the suburbs. I don’t get home really, except at weekends. I was staying with friends to start with, to save money, but the manager said, oh get a grip for fuck’s sake. What you doing, kipping on fucking sofas? Fucking state of you. Suit all rumpled to fuck and smelling of dog. Stay in a fucking B&B why don’t you. Charge it. It’s expenses, ain’t it? Fuck sake.

Then he shrugs at me, turns around and goes back into his office. I don’t mind sleeping on sofas, but maybe he’s right about the smell of pets. It can’t be good for business. So I start booking into bed-and-breakfast places, and some of them, well, really I’d rather be on the sofa smelling of dog. But still, I’m not going to argue.

Then I have a truly horrible day. I’m on my way out to somewhere near Romford and I witness a traffic accident and the man who gets hit, well, you can tell he’s dead, straight away. It’s a terrible scene. He never stood a chance. I drive on, but my hands are trembling, and I pull over after a while, and sit there until I feel a bit better.

Two days later and I’m north of Bromley, sitting in the car having a sandwich when an elderly woman keels over outside the McDonald’s opposite. I get out and cross over
the road to help but, to my horror, she’s dead. There’s nothing I can do. I call 999 and wait for the emergency services. When they arrive they don’t seem all that bothered, and they put the old lady in the ambulance. I give the policeman a statement and then he just nods and tells me to be on my way. He says that someone will be in touch.

Of course, it’s a coincidence, but the next day there’s another fatality when my job takes me down to Epsom. It happens again over in Romford, and again three days later up near Waltham Abbey. I start getting really bothered after another two, and over the weekend I can’t sleep properly because I can’t help worrying that I’m somehow cursed. I mean, obviously, people die all the time, but still.

On Monday night I’m staying in a B&B up in Hendon. I’m chatting to the landlady, and she tells me, in a confidential whisper, that there’s only one other guest there, staying in one of the upstairs rooms, and he’s really ill. The landlady is worried sick about him. To be honest, it seems that she’s more concerned about him dying in her guesthouse than anything else, but I’m actually prickling with anxiety, thinking, oh no, not again, please.

I go to bed, and when I come down for breakfast in the morning the first thing I do is ask the landlady, so, erm, that chap upstairs, is he, um, OK?

The landlady says that he’s fine – well, not fine, as such, but not dead. I’m really relieved, and I say goodbye after I’ve paid up and head out of the door.

I’m just unlocking my car when I realise I’ve forgotten my bag, so I pop back to pick it up. I’m in the hallway, just
about to leave for the second time when I hear this voice from up the stairs saying, help.

It’s the ill guest, and the landlady’s nowhere to be seen, so I run up the stairs and knock gently on his door saying, are you OK?

No, he says, so I go in to see what he wants. He says that he’s dying, and he wants to hold my hand while he goes. I take his chilly hand and hold it and look despairingly at the door, thinking, this is the last fucking straw.

Always sunny where we live, in old thatched cottages, extensively refurbished, by the pond. Ducks quacking, birds singing, a shiny low-slung German car crunching on the gravel.

Sunlight always on our backs, always blue skies, never rain. A bounding labrador on Sunday walks, no mental illness.

Always sunny, glowing round our hair like haloes. Stress is so yesterday, disappointment so passé.

Always he =
charm
+
smiles
, she =
tilts head to him
: they laugh. Always active in leisure pursuits and work.

We always cook the latest fashions, we always wear sturdy-but-stylish. Our taste is impeccable, our skins flawless [he =
slightly rugged
, her =
english rose w/ attitude
].

Always sunny where we live, in loft conversions, architect-designed, in an up-and-coming area, mobiles cheeping, emails incoming.

My wife?

Works in outsourcing, you must meet her.

My suit? Thank you.

Really? I was talking to them only last week, haven’t you heard?

Cappuccinos, meetings.

Here’s my car, my wide car, with the marque, the shine,
the model that tells you my approximate income bracket.

Always sunny.

I am effective –
brutally effective
– in meetings.

Money makes money, money meets money, money greets money, in atriums, lifts and restaurants.

I get shown the wine label.

I know what I’m talking about.

I finish with a coffee and a smile.

Always take the money always run.

Always sunny where we live.

No silences in our conversations

[
modern life where everything is possible
].